Karazhan: The Opera House; The Big Bad Wolf

Because I’ve been so busy lately this post lacks the usual explanation of the trash leading up to the boss. I’m Sorry. Never fear I intend to explain those pulls next week when I detail the Romulo and Julianne fight.

The Opera House is the last area of Karazhan that you will reach via the front door. The Opera House is unique in that the boss fight is a random selection from one of three fights, Romulo and Julianne, Wizard of Oz, and The Big Bad Wolf. Adding to the fun is the fact that you don’t know which fight you’ll be doing until it is too late to fully explain the strategy.
For the first installment of The Opera House sub series we’ll look at the simplest fight strategy wise, The Big Bad Wolf. Big Bad Wolf is a single Mob Tank and spank with one twist, periodically he will turn one member of the raid into Little Red Riding Hood. Reducing their armor to zero and making them as cute as a damn button. He will then chase that player around trying to hit them if he catches them he will kill them into two hits.

Abilities:

The Wolf only has three abilities two of which should have very little impact on the raid.

• Little Red Riding Hood: Cast on a random player other than top threat, this debuff turns the victim into Little Red Riding Hood, reduces your armor to zero, increases your run speed and makes you the sole object of the BBWs desire. In order to live you must run around the room right against the wall.
  Do Not Cut Corners if your track is shorter the Wolf Catches up. In order to give yourself a snowballs chance in hell of getting a way it is important to position the boss and tank Upstage Left (bottom right corner) and everyone else Upstage Right (bottom left).
  

Zul’Aman, what’s the point?

Tuesday nights are my guilds “off” nights. As is the case with most Raiding Guilds the off nights become 10 man and heroic nights. On Tuesday nights after spending most of the evening hanging out with my wife and our pets I usually sign-on and try to run something for badges.

I was running Karazhan religiously because there were still a few gear upgrades available to me and I like it. Last night I strayed and healed for the regular Tuesday night ZA group who had lost their usual druid healer to WoW burnout.

I’ve been underwhelmed with ZA since it released for a three reasons-

1. Loot Table- There aren’t any real gear upgrades for Resto Druids. At release there were a few decent upgrades but with the changes to mana regeneration in 2.4 I’m no longer stacking MP5 and the ZA gear is riddled with MP5 and Spell Haste neither of which are priorities of mine.
2. Badges- Badge Count per Hour has aways been better in a Kara run. Before the announcement of 2.4 this wasn’t a priority for me as I’d already bought all the badge gear I wanted for Restoration and was buying gear for off-spec use. Now that 2.4 is here I find myself itching to pull in at least 20 badges per week. With only one night available Kara was an easy choice for this.

GG Instance Server

Resurrection raids four nights a week (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday) so last night was a raid night. On the docket was our first go at Mount Hyjal. Checking over at be.imba most of the guild is geared for the first boss or two and we’ve been looking for some sort of pick me up so mixing things up seems like a good idea.

Zoning in to an instance for the first time is one of my favorite parts of this game, so I was pretty stoked to be in MH. Our first attempt of the initial event went very well. We made it through to the seventh of the eight waves before our healing broke down and we wiped. 7 out of 8 on a first attempt without having read the strats is very good and we know we’ll get it next time.

Combat Tree 16/0/45

With the addition of the Shattered Sun Dailies I find myself wanting for a little more fire power while soloing. Previously I was sporting a full Restoration 0/0/61 build, as the second Tree in the raid I often found myself with the weird healing assignments, the ones that are not conducive to all out HoT healing, so the buff to my Healing Touch and Tranquility were actually doing me some good.

Recently the guilds lead (golden boy perfect attendance) resto druid has been busy with real life stuff and a broken computer so I have had the pleasure of being the “geared” Tree and as such have spent more of my time in a LB, LB, LB, LB, etc. cast sequence. I figure that since I’m HoTing all the time may as well spread some points over on to the Balance Tab.

In the Restoration Tab I took all the Talents that would

1. Increase the effectiveness of my Three Heal over Time Spells (Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, & Regrowth)
2. Increase my Over all Healing Spell Effectiveness
3. Add functionality to HoT healing
4. Preserve my Emergency Button

45 points in Restoration leaves me with 16 Points in hand. Looking at the Balance Talents I wanted to take talents that would make soloing a bit easier in my +Damage Gear and would in some way benefit my raiding.

In the first Tier I took Starlight Wrath because I don’t like the idea of spending 5 points on an ability I can only use once per fight.

By grabbing control of Nature in the second Tier I essentially give myself the same out, and I can reapply if Roots should break early. Seeing as I shortened the cast time of Wrath and Starfire Focused Starlight was an obvious choice.

Lifebloomer Updated for 2.4

Yesterday I realized just how much I miss when I go away for a few days. While I was in Baltimore Mirari AKA Stephen Schmitt released an update for Lifebloomer. Since the he new version has some new features that I find very helpful I figure it is time for a revitalized write-up. .

Lifebloomer 1.5 Released

Lifebloomer the most helpful Restoration Druid Specific Add-on I have found, has been updated for 2.4.

Lifebloomer is helpful for monitoring and rolling stacks of Lifebloom on your Tanks. With bars to show the duration of the three Druid Heal Over Time (HOT) Spells and an indicator for Global Cool Down (GCD), this add-on is my primary method of healing during Multi-Tank fights.

Those of you familiar with Lifebloom will find the addition of Healing and Damage indicators on each Unit Frame. A simple color coded number shows you at a glance which of your tanks are still taking damage and how much they are taking, the numbers indicate damage to the target with and the colors show whether or not the target has aggro. Yellow numbers mean the target has aggro and blue show that the target is aggro free. During four tank trash pulls it is hard to tell if a tank is still taking damage (your heals can be so l33t) and you don’t generally have time to watch four targets that closely. With the addition of the damage/aggro indicator you can suspend unnecessary healing or add more HoTs or throw a Direct Heal if your HoTs are not keeping up.