Vroom vroom kitty kitty with a pretty flag! Zippy zippy over da hills, it makes da horde so mad! Shifty shifty vroom vroom, Free action pots for me! Don'try to chase cuz I'm too fast, Faster than can see! ...oh no I stepped on a flower :'(
Vroom vroom kitty kitty Streamers trail behind! Pretty pretty spark-a-ly, that priest is in my mind! Sneaky sneaky turn-about, they're all com-ing for me! Protect the red and kill the blue streamer that you see! ...yay I capped! /bear dance
Yes, I really sang this. In vent, on a couple occasions. Grinding honor with the Marshals group in the original realm-only BGs lead to quite a bit of insanity :) I made up additional lyrics on the fly as we played in Warsong Gulch, but I can't remember all of them, and these were honestly the best ones. Click the link to download an mp3 version, if you're zany enough to want to hear it!
EDIT:
I pieced another verse of my old flag-carrying song together from memory... it's one I hadn't previously written down, but I remembered parts of it because of the green whelp armor. That armor was awesome, pity they nerfed it to only work on targets below 51!
Vroom vroom kitty kitty With my set bo-nus! Speedy speedy fifteen percent, Too fast n' make you miss! But if I ever do get hit, To sleepy sleep you go! This pretty green whelp armor here Isn't just for show! ...hehe, yay leatherworking.
Keeva wrote a very good post today about the black sheep talents, and in her introduction, she explains:
The point is that things are always changing; a talent that might have been considered useless 6 months ago might suddenly become super amazing after a patch, or extremely helpful for hard modes. Don't become too set in your opinion on what's terrible and what's good.. because changes to talents (or to gameplay and fights themselves, or the introduction of new content) may find it very hard to accept that you need to dust those spells and abilities off.
But as raiders - especially hard mode raiders - you should also be careful not to dismiss something as terrible; it might actually be awful for most fights, but incredibly powerful on one particular hard mode. You may think, as a min-max hardcore raider, that the widely-accepted cookie cutter builds are the best you can get - but you never know when something once labelled a waste of points will turn out to be valuable.
Keep an open mind, basically.
This is such very good advice to everyone, all classes, all players, in and out of game. Things are always changing, and no one is perfect: we all must be willing and able to adapt to the changes brought on by patches, raid/party makeups, boss mechanics, gear levels, and just life itself. Be adaptable, and don't let yourself fall into the "comfort" of thinking you've got it all figured out and are perfect.
A little story...
I raided briefly with my feral druid in an Alliance guild last fall while waiting for WotLK to be released. I had already healed through BT and Hyjal in a progression guild that spring so I knew the instances very well, but only from a healer's perspective. On the trash leading to Supremis, I forgot about the cone attacks and had faced the mobs towards the raid. Another druid whispered me tentatively, "Sorry... but could you try to face those away from the raid?"
"Oh, sure!" I replied. "Sorry about that."
"No offense," he said. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but that cone attack hurts."
I was a bit confused at his defensiveness, but laughed. "lol... I'm always open for advice. How else would I learn?"
He seemed relieved at this. "Some tanks don't like being given advice... I didn't want to step on your toes."
I was honestly shocked that he would have experienced or been worried about such a thing. Why would someone get upset at being given advice to turn a trash mob to face it away from the raid so that it wouldn't be able to breath fire on the dps and healers? Who would be so arrogant as to be offended by such advice? "Don't worry about that for me," I finally replied as we moved on to another trash pull. "I'm always open to advice. I can't become a better druid if I don't listen! :)"
It was a reminder that some people simply are that arrogant. I've met them, and was boggled by them. There are people who hate to think that they could be wrong or in any way imperfect and fallible. They don't like that there are other possibilities, or circumstances where something they had previously dismissed will actually be useful. They can be so arrogant that they see things in extremes, and refuse to consider that something they've decided to be right is, in fact, wrong, or just too narrow-minded.
We all fall prey to narrow-mindedness in varying degrees. How can we not? It's impossible to consider ALL of the alternatives without experiencing the possibilities for ourselves or, at least, being alerted to them. However, we can do our best to think for ourselves and keep an open mind regarding our choices, our playstyles, our specs... beyond that, our lives. In our interactions with others, we need to remember that life does change, and that things are rarely in straight black-and-white. We need to remember that not all circumstances are the same.
Avoid being too arrogant, and remember that your own experiences are just that: your experiences. What works in one situation may not work in another as factors change. Life, as well as this very dynamic game that we play, are always changing and have too many factors for us to ignore the grey areas and maybes. Be ready to learn from the experiences of others and be open to change, because no matter what, there's always something new to learn.
If we can't adapt to a situation, we'll wipe... or at least make things much harder for ourselves and everyone around us.
This achievement is earned by leaving each of the 3 Elder elemental bosses still alive when you engage Freya. Each of them grants her an additional power that makes the Freya fight much more difficult. You must still face 6 waves of the three types of add spawns, and there's still a major sigh of relief once you reach the end of the add spawns, but overall this fight is far more difficult and intensive for your whole raid.
Video:
Our MT and our warlock each frapsed it so you have choices on perspective: the prot pallie's video can be downloaded from filefront, while our warlock's is embedded below from YouTube (and may or may not be muted :( ).
Raid Makeup: On our kill, we used:
Prot Pally
Resto Druid
Holy Pally (with Aura Mastery)
Holy Priest
Fury Warr
Ret Pally
Feral Druid
Frost DK
Surv Hunter
Destro Warlock
New Abilities
These are the powers Freya has gained over normal mode.
Freya: +60% magical damage, +75% physical damage
Adds: +60% magical damage, +50% physical damage
Unstable Energy: don't go sunbathing here. These sunbeams are big and bright and can be easily moved out of, so make sure to watch out for them around all the raid's own AoE.
Ground Tremor: raid-wide AoE that will also interrupt any spell being cast. It will eat a chunk of every player's health and spell-lock anyone too slow to cancel their casts as it goes off.
Strengthened Iron Roots: these roots make druids jealous. They will root the target in place and do massive damage; they must be destroyed by DPS to free the player. Targeting macros can be made with "Strengthened Iron Roots," and "Iron Roots" can be added as a watchable debuff on your raid frames.
These powers will be used randomly and regularly throughout the entire fight.
P1: Adds
The spawn order of the packs is semi-random, just like Freya easy-mode. The first 3 spawns will be each of the 3 packs in any order, and the second 3 spawns will be a second wave of each of the 3 packs in any order. Thus, you will always see each type of spawn twice, and can usually guess which the third and sixth waves will be by process of elimination.
Ancient Conservator: Mushrooms: All DPS should halt immediately and move to the safety of nearby mushrooms; melee should follow the tank, and healers should do their best to run to a mushroom within range of the tank's chosen mushroom. Avoid clustering too many people at one mushroom, as it will doom you to more damage if any of those players are hit with Nature's Fury or Unstable Energy. The raid leader can, at the start of this spawn, call out "Mushrooms!" as a reminder to healers who may be otherwise busily Gridlocked on their raid frames (it is a very healing-intensive fight!). As with normal mode, being out of range of the mushrooms or an Eonar's Gift will prevent the player from being able to attack or cast spells.
Wait until the MT is comfortably in place at her mushroom before beginning dps. A hunter can quickly misdirect the conservator to the MT upon its spawn, but both the tank and the hunter will still need to find a mushroom in order to really establish threat. Freya can easily wipe out a DPS who begins too quickly and gets aggro.
Ranged DPS: You will be responsible for almost every Eonar's Gift tree that spawns during this add wave, so be sure to keep an eye out for them. You should also be dpsing any Strengthened Iron Roots that are cast during this phase, as the melee will have limited mobility in assisting this. Remember to stop casting when Ground Tremor goes off. Keep a constant eye on the growth of your mushroom and any new mushrooms growing nearby, as you will need to hop from mushroom to mushroom as they grow and die. If you get Nature's Fury on you, the most important thing is to run away from any players you may be hitting with it! Being in range to DPS the conservator is of less importance than making sure you aren't hurting the other players nearby, so if there are no free mushrooms, just run out in the clear spaces without them, as long as you are in range of healers. Also bear in mind that if a healer gets Nature's Fury while you're sharing a mushroom with them, it would be better if you moved away and left the healer to the mushroom by themselves, because silenced healers result in dead tanks.
Melee DPS: As you will have limited mobility, you will be mostly focused upon the Conservator as you share a mushroom with the MT. It is of utmost importance that if you get Nature's Fury on you, or if the tank gets Nature's Fury, that you run away. You can sit out where there are no mushrooms if you have the lightening on you, as long as you are still in range of the healers. Otherwise, if there are any Strengthened Iron Roots or Eonar's Gifts spawning in range of your melee attacks while you are under cover of a mushroom (or Eonar's Gift), take them out quickly then return to dpsing the Conservator.
Healers: HoTs on the MT will help a lot as you and the other healers find yourselves a safe mushroom. If at all possible, select a mushroom that is within range of the tank but not being shared by other players, to reduce the impacts of a sudden Nature's Fury. If you get Nature's Fury on you and have no other mushrooms to run to, use your judgement based on the number of other healers sharing your mushroom: if it's just dps, tell them to go away and leave the mushroom to you :) The important thing is to keep healers and the tank alive and unsilenced, so healers have priority on mushrooms! Keep a constant eye on the growth of your mushroom and any new mushrooms growing nearby, as you will need to hop from mushroom to mushroom while the dps works down the conservator.
The Trio:
This pack can instantly wipe out a player who is caught near them as they spawn. There is no real difference here from the normal-mode, except that they deal far more damage than before, so all players must be especially aware of staying out of range of the Snaplasher (once it is rooted), and interrupts should be on the Stormlasher. Our lock died on the kill because of doing a flying-tackle-hug into the Snaplasher ;) He's not gonna live that one down for a while. <3
Detonating Lashers:
This is the group that gave my guild the most trouble.
When they spawn, the entire raid should move in on Freya, circling the area in a small ring with the lashers in the middle. The ring should be about the size of the typical AoE attack, so that all AoE can readily hit the lashers evenly. You don't want to be too close together, or the sun beams will make short work of your group. The raid leader can call out when a sun beam forms, so that DPS can note it and move away from it, rather than mistake it for friendly AoE.
Once the Lashers are AoE'd down to around 20% HP, DPS needs to STOP and the group needs to spread out. At this point, there should be a cooldown timer up on your boss mods regarding the next Ground Tremor: wait for it to cast, and then wait for the healers to catch up on raid heals. Only then should your DPS be allowed to continue: they then pick a single target of their own and dps it down. When the Ground Tremor cooldown is up, all DPS should STOP again and wait for the healers' "all clear" signal before continueing again.
It is your own DPS that can wipe the raid on this pack.
Ranged DPS: will be in charge of killing any Eonar's Gifts that spawn away from the group during this pack, while melee can easily take care of any Strengthened Iron Roots. Stop all AoE when the lashers reach about 20%, then spread out so that you don't take all of the detonations when the lashers begin to die. Wait for ground tremor to be safely out of the way and for the raid to be moderately healed up before beginning single-target dps on a lasher of your own choosing. If at any time you hear a stop/hold on DPS, then STOP.
Melee DPS: you will likely be in charge of killing any Strengthened Iron Roots that spawn in the group during this add wave. Stop all AoE when the lashers reach about 20%, then spread out so that you don't take all of the detonations when the lashers begin to die. Wait for ground tremor to be safely out of the way and healed up before beginning single-target dps on a lasher of your own choosing. If at any time you hear a stop/hold on DPS, then STOP. If you have a taunt/death grip, you can use it to pull a near-death lasher away from a healer or other squishy before it explodes. Avoid clustering too closely with other melee while killing lashers.
Healers: call out for DPS to stop if any players are near death. This add pack is the easiest to wipe to, and wipes are by your raids' own hands and claws. The Ground Tremors just complicate things all the more. Move out of sunbeams, call out if you have roots on you, and move away from the pack when the lashers reach about 20% health and the dps starts single-targeting them. HoT up as many people as possible.
Holy Pallies: akin to Vezax hardmode, you may want to pop Divine Shield and then use Divine Sacrifice on the raid (holy pallies may want to thus pick up Divine Guardian in their spec for this fight). If there are multiple pallies available to do this, then one can use their sac on the first lasher pack, and then the second on the next lasher pack. Also, if your raid is having particular difficulty with this add pack, you can spec into Aura Mastery to add a click-use buff for your FR aura.
Resto Druids: Keep rejuvs and WG rolling as much as possible, and use swiftmend/NS+HT to quickly pop someone up who is close to death. Keep regrowth and a lifebloom or two running on the MT, as they will still be tanking Freya.
P2: Just Keep Killin'
Grats, you're almost out of the woods now! Just like in easy mode, most of the trouble stops once the 6th wave of adds has been defeated. Kite Freya to move the raid out of the exploding cabbages, stay out of the sun beams of unstable energy, free those caught in the strengthened iron roots, and stop casting when ground tremor is about to cast. Compared to juggling all of this when there were adds up, this is a victory lap.
At about 1%, Freya is once again knocked to her senses, and she will gift you with extra goodies for not killing her Elder buddies.
"I'm just going to keep kiting, kiting, oh hey a tree.... SWEET, I FOUND A TREASURE CHEST UNDER THE TREE!!!! Were we fighting something?... meh"
To compliment the previous moonkin +hit breakdown, I wanted to record the cat druid +hit cap and the hit needed to ensure that bear form growls will not miss.
The hit a feral druid wants to aim for is 8% +hit, or 263 (262.32) hit rating at level 80.
You can probably get away with 262 hit rating, which is 7.99% hit. There is a very very very small chance that you will miss (1 in 10,000 attacks). If your gear collection leaves you at 262, don't sweat finding that 1 hit rating too much.
You may notice that this is the same hit rating a moonkin aims for, though the percent is different. Melee and Magical hit ratings require different amounts to achieve 1% hit at level 80: it takes 26.23 hit rating to achieve 1% spell hit, while it will take 32.79 hit rating to achieve 1% physical hit.
Weapon Skill? Not having a maxxed weapon skill will reduce any player's chance to hit, requiring them to have more +hit rating in order to make up for their lack of skill. Feral druids are unique in that they do not have to worry about their weapon skill for their +hit, however.
Your weapon skill does not matter in feral forms.
Druids in feral forms (cat or bear) are automatically considered to have maximum weapon skill with their claws and fangs, being as they are parts of their bodies rather than an external tool. Your skill with your currently equipped weapon does not matter, because your equipped weapon is only there to provide you stats/procs, and is not the part of you that is actually dealing damage.
Hit per Mob Level
Level 80 mobs: 5% miss chance. This is 164 hit rating (163.95).
Level 81 mobs: 5.2% miss chance. This is 171 hit rating (170.508).
Level 82 mobs: 5.4% miss chance. This is 178 hit rating (177.066).
Level 83 mobs: 8% miss chance. This is 263 hit rating (262.32).
Feral druids have no talents that will increase their hit rating, so they must rely purely on their gear to reach their hit cap.
Draenei buddies! If you raid with a draenei, then you can reduce your required +hit rating by 32.79 for physical attacks.
The hit cap for a feral druid with Draenei buddies is 7% +hit, or 230 (229.53) hit rating at level 80.
Taunts and Growling? Abilities such as taunt and growl are considered spells, rather than physical attacks, so +hit with these abilities follows the spell-hit calculations rather than physical hit. Spell-hit and physical hit are all derived from the same "hit rating" found on gear. Assuming you are hit-capped for melee at 8%, you will have about 263 hit rating on your gear already. This same amount of hit rating equals 10% spell-hit for calculating your miss chance for spells. The cap for bosses at level 80 (a level 83 mob) is 17%, so you will have another 7% chance to miss the boss with your bearform growl.
The Glyph of Growl increases your chance to hit with growl by 8%, which more than makes up for the hit rating over the melee cap. This does mean that you can be below the melee hit cap while still having enough hit that your growl will not miss!
With the Glyph of Growl, you will only need 236.07 hit rating on your gear to ensure that growl will not miss.
If you have a draenei in your party, this lowers further to 209.84 hit rating. Keep in mind that the draenei are providing you with a percentage 1% hit, which is only 26.23 spell-hit rating when calculating your +hit with growl.
Hey, what about this Armor Pen thing I keep hearing about?
Sometimes I have guildies ask me about my guild note: "Go for the eyes, Boo!"
I suppose I can now just point them to this post :)
Meet Boo.
Boo is the most powerful druid in the game. Boo has been a class leader in a 40-man raiding guild. Boo has been challenged to duels from across the faction boundary. Boo has defeated numerous bosses, and served as a mentor to several druids, including Kae, for years.
Firstly, Boo is a miniature giant space hamster, companion of the berserking ranger Minsc, who served as a comic relief character in Baldur's Gate. Boo was a running joke throughout the games of the Baldur's Gate series, and present to provide "wisdom and moral support to Minsc." Minsc and Boo were my favorite characters in Baldur's Gate, so it was only a matter of time before the joke entered my WoW play.
The story of Boo as a druid goes back to my first days of raiding. I had picked up a Brown Prairie Dog off of the cross-faction AH, and loved the little critter; it quickly became my favorite pet. First, I made a simple emote macro that was:
/e tells her Brown Prairie Dog to attack %T. Go for the eyes, Boo!
Other players of the Baldur's Gate series loved it, and Boo became something of a celebrity within the guild. As Boo became a popular running joke, some of course wished to bully him and thus make themselves feel superior to his popularity or some such a thing (ahhh social dancing!), and they would attempt to emote attacks at him, etc.
This is where WoW-Boo diverged from Bioware-Boo.
In defending Boo against these crazy attacks, a story was woven that Boo was no ordinary prairie dog (nor even an ordinary miniature giant space hamster!). Boo became a powerful druid, one of few to have discovered the legendary Tunnel Form (which prompted some giggles on its own >_> ). Boo grew in power to finally becoming an Arch-Druid 10-20 levels beyond the in-game character level cap, and he usually looked down on the pitiful attacks with mild humor until the raid was distracted by needing to kill a boss.
Over time, he even became known to the horde that I PvPed against, and one even came to Ironforge under pretense of seeking to challenge Boo to a duel (the azgalor.org forums were amusing).
Boo: Druid Class Leader
During a switch in officers, it was Boo who became the new druid class leader... I just had to be bumped up to officer as well so that I could serve as his translator. Seriously. It's the only way I agreed to becoming an officer! The other druids were very supportive of Boo, and most perpetuated the joke.
Boo even made it into the holiday picture, which had an honorable mention in Blizzard's art contest for that year. Thus, Boo has even been on the front page of the WoW website :) The originally submitted version had no names, but I will share the named version here:
Haxx?
Boo preferred to stay in his small form for several reasons. For one, he was far too high level to really think much of the content, and just hung out with us for humor. For two, in the larger raids, he had to hide so that Blizzard would not think we were hacking the game by having a 41st person in our raids, and thus he could not contribute unfairly beyond being moral support. Oh, and what moral support he was! To paraphrase from memory,
Kae tells her Brown Prairie Dog to attack Nefarian. Go for the eyes, Boo! [Guild]: GO BOO! [Kae]: [Boo]: SQUEAK! [Kae]: Boo says Nef's a pansy.
Oh, and there was a Boo 2. He was companion to a rogue in the guild, Sazoroth, and was known to wield a Maladath. There was some threat that Boo 2 was going to slice open Saz's smoke detector if he didn't change the batteries soon.
I don't include Boo in my serious character background developments, but he is a large part of my history as a player in this game.
What is Expertise? Expertise reduces your chance to be parried or dodged, and is mostly of importance to soloing or tanking druids. Capping out your expertise will prevent your mob from dodging or parrying your attacks: something that plain old "+hit" cannot counter. +Hit will only reduce your chance to miss; without expertise, there is still a chance that your attack will be dodged or parried, even when you are hit capped.
How much do I need? The Primal Precision talent grants 82 expertise rating, or 10 expertise. With this talent,
A feral tank needs 377.2 expertise rating (46 expertise + 10 expertise from talent) to reach the hard tanking cap for raid bosses (level 83), as they have a cap of 14% parry.
A cat or bear dps needs 131.2 expertise rating (16 expertise + 10 expertise from talents) to cap out against the 6.5% dodge rating of a raid boss at level 80. This is because they are attacking from behind the boss and thus they should not be parried, so they only need to get enough expertise to negate the dodge chance.
If a dps wishes to attack from the front of the boss, they will need the same amount of expertise as tanks do to prevent getting parried.
Only YOU can prevent Parry-Storms! "Parry Storms" occur whenever a boss or mob is parried repeatedly, as each time they are parried, their attack speed will increase. This results in faster attacks coming in at your tank. Generally, you want to avoid this, but I *have* seen circumstances where a group intentionally caused Parry Storms because the healers were bored and the tank needed rage/mana. :)
Operation: Parry Storm!
Expertise for Non-Bosses
For anything less than a raid boss (level 82 or less mobs), you will need no more than 98.4 expertise rating (12 expertise + 10 expertise from talents) for parry/dodge negation, if you have the primal precision talent.
Without the talent, you will need 180.4 expertise rating (22 expertise).
Another 3% is gained by having IFF or Misery (from shadow priests) up on the boss.
This leaves 10% hit to be made up for on your gear.
What about non-bosses?
A full chart of spell-hit compared to level difference can be found here at wowwiki. Long story short, though, for a PvE mob that is the same level as you, you need 4% spellhit to overcome the base miss chance, which is made up for by Balance of Power alone.
The following spellhit numbers assume base -hit chances. Any further affects that increase your chance to miss, such as Choking Cloud, are not included.
Level 80 mobs: you need no +hit gear or IFF/misery, unless there is a special -hit reduction being applied to you.
Level 81 mobs: 95% chance is 1% more than Balance of Power. You will need to use IFF/misery, or have about 27 hit rating available to make up for that 1%.
Level 82 mobs: 94% chance is 2% more than Balance of Power. You will need to use IFF/misery, or have about 53 hit rating available to make up for that 2%.
Level 83 mobs: 83% chance to hit; this is a large drop from the level 82 mobs. You will need a total of 17% spellhit, requiring Balance of Power, IFF or Misery, AND 10% spellhit on your gear, which is 263 (262.3) hit rating.
It is extremely unlikely that we will come up against anything above this level in the current PvE expansion. Any misses that occur when at the 17% "cap" will be due to external -hit effects.
Draenei party members!
They'll buff you with another +1% hit rating, reducing your hit rating requirements by around 27 (26.23 to be exact). Moonkin who raid with draenei will only need 9% additional hit rating over Balance of Power and IFF/Misery, which is about 237 (236.07) hit rating.
And PvP?
The base PvP hit chance for equal-level players is the same as for an equal-level mob: 96%. This is covered by our Balance of Power talent, so unless your opponents find a way to reduce your chance to hit with spells, you should be covered. If they do reduce it, you can use IFF to increase your hit by another 3%.
Resto
Balance
Feral
