The first thing to mention, is that this content is currently being tested. Information might change over the next few days (possibly weeks). We’ll do our best to keep the guides updated with the most recent hotfixes, but for now they seem to be nearly completed, except for the numbers, which need to be tweaked a bit to make them fit the desired difficulty level.

1. High Priest Venoxis.

A fight with a lot of visual and shiny effects. However rather easy to execute properly, unlike other bosses here. As you pull him, poison will begin to draw lines across the room you will be fighting, drawing a random maze shape. Of course, if you stand on the poison you will receive a lot of damage and most likely die in no time.

One of his main abilities is called Whisper of Hesis. A channeled Poison Spit that  should be interrupted to minimize the damage your group takes.

Venoxis will also cast a link in between 2 players. And this link deals damage proportional to the distance between the two of them. The closer the players are, the more damage they will take, and the one way to get rid of this ability is to move far enough so that the link breaks.

Due to the nature of the fight, and because of the maze limiting your positions, your ranged DPS should spread out initially to deal with the poison link as soon as you can.

Once the boss hits 75% health, he will transform into a snake and gain new abilities. First of all, he will often put slime underneath him, so your tank should be ready to move him, so that the melee DPS can continue to attack. He will also cast Breath of Hesis, which is a 2 second cast breath that deals a lot of damage. Your tank should be able to avoid this ability by moving behind the boss as you see the cast begin.

Eventually, he will cast Bloodvenom and go to the top of the platform. He will then cast random poison beams that chase players around the maze. If you have a beam targeting you, do your best to run away without touching the walls of the maze, otherwise you might die. Simply avoid these beams until the boss gets exhausted.

Right after this ability is over, the boss will get stunned in the middle of the room and become exhausted, taking 100% more damage for a few seconds. Make sure you save your big DPS cooldowns for this moment. After that, the fight will repeat itself until you defeat him.

2. Bloodlord Mandokir.

This is a pretty straight forward fight. The main idea of this boss remains unchanged from the original fight. Every time a player dies during this encounter, Bloodlord Mandokir will level up, increasing the damage he deals by 20%. He will begin the fight mounted on his raptor, and every so often he will randomly charge at any group member and cast decapitate, which effectively 1 shots the player. Once you die, a chained ghost will resurrect you, and give you a stacking buff that increases damage and healing you do by 25%, also increasing damage you take by 10%. However, there is a limited number of ghosts on the arena, so you have to kill Mandokir before it is too late.

Bloodlord Mandokir will also command his raptor to charge and destroy one of the ghosts. If you don’t feel comfortable with your DPS to beat him in time, you will have to swap targets and kill the raptor before he does any harm. And be prepared to fight the raptor once again, as he will be resurrected many times throughout the fight.

Finally, Bloodlord Mandokir will also cast Devastating Slam, a 2 sec channeled ability that makes him leap into the air and deal a lot of damage in one particular direction. This spell has a really obvious animation in a frontal cone around the direction the boss faces, and you should move away from it as soon as you can. Also be aware of a life drain that will be casted randomly. This ability drains 50% of the targets current health every 2 seconds, and heals Bloodlord Mandokir for 50% of the damage dealt. However just like Anub’arak on Trial of the Coliseum, this ability has a limit, which is 2500 damage dealt per tick. So you should only heal the affected target slightly, making sure they remain above 2500 health, to minimize the healing requirements, as well as the amount of HP the boss heals.

At 20%, he will go into a frenzy, increasing his damage, and the frequency at which he decapitates people, giving the fight a soft enrage. Make sure you save DPS, tanking and healing cooldowns for this phase.

3. High Priestess Kilnara.

The Panther boss, and perhaps the toughest one on this dungeon. This fight revolves around your ability to keep things under control while pushing your group’s capabilities to the max.

The boss herself is rather simple and does not deal a lot of physical damage. She has a few abilities you can interrupt to minimize damage, and some kind of frontal cone attack that should be avoided. But the main focus of this fight lies within the adds.

All around the room you will see groups of panthers sleeping in packs of 4. Just like the trash before the boss, the panthers randomly leap on targets and leave a very nasty bleed debuff on them. Dealing with 4 panthers at a time can be a nuisance if your group is not geared enough.

The trick is to simply pull the panthers in small groups, be it 2 at a time, or 4 at a time, depending on your gear and skill, and deal with them before touching the boss. If you are having problems just pull the panthers a bit slower, give your healer time to catch up, as there is no rush here.

Once the boss reaches 50%, she will shift into her panther form. Any unkilled panther adds will wake up and attack your group at this point, which is why you must make sure all the panthers are dead. The boss will gain a haste debuff, and increase tank damage considerably, as well as leap on your group members leaving a bleed debuff.

Overall, the fight is not too difficult as long as you keep things under control and bring the pace of the fight to an adequate one for your group.

4. Zanzil.

One of the easier fights if you know what you’re doing. Zanzil has only 2 main abilities that remain active during the whole fight.
One of them is an interruptible cast that deals about 40k damage. Do your best to interrupt it as it will greatly minimize the amount of damage going on.
The other ability is a trail of blue fire that goes in one random direction. Simply move the boss away from this, if you’re a DPS or a healer, don’t stand on top of it.

Besides these 2 abilities, Zanzil will randomly cast one out of 3 abilities. Each ability will have 1 color associated, and you will be able to see the color on your raid warnings. Depending on what happens, you will have to drink the cauldrons located within the room, so that you can deal with the mechanics accordingly. Not taking the appropriate cauldron, or taking the wrong one can easily get you killed in no time.
Resurrection Elixir: This is the blue colored ability. It will resurrect a Zanzili Berserker to attack random enemies. Your group will have to drink the blue cauldron, and kill the berserker as soon as they can, before the next ability happens. 1 random group member will be focused by the berserker, and they will have to kite it, as they hit really hard and might even 1 shot non tanks.

Zanzil’s Graveyard Gas: This is the green colored ability. It will flood the room with toxic gas that deals 10% of the player’s health every second, and it can be really hectic to heal if you are not prepared. However if you drink the green cauldron, you will reduce nature damage taken by 90%, so you end up taking only 1% of your max health damage per second, which is really easy to heal. The trick is to react quick!

Zanzil’s Zombie Resurrection Elixir: This is the red colored ability. It will resurrect a group of zombies to attack your group. You will have to drink from the red cauldron to increase your AoE capabilities and be able to deal with the zombies as quickly as possible. However remember that this can also bring a lot of friendly fire in your group. Once the zombies are dead, dispel yourself to minimize the damage on both yourself and the group.

The fight is a repetition of these 3 abilities on any random order, combined with the first 2. Just be ready to drink the appropiate cauldron in time, and you’ll kill this boss in no time.

5. Jin’do the Godbreaker.

This is a 2 phased fight, and the first half is rather simple. His main ability during phase one is a dead zone, which is an anti magic shield type of effect, that reduces magical damage taken by targets in the zone by 90%. Phase one boils to dragging the boss and your group inside and outside of this zone at the appropriate time, as he will randomly cast a buff on himself called Shadows of Hakkar, that will cause him to deal around 130k additional lightning damage to the target and 10 nearby allies on every successful hit. If you are not standing inside the dead zone as this happens, you will most certainly get 1 shotted, so make sure to react quick enough!

Once the Jin’do reaches 50%, phase 2 will begin, and you will be teleported into the spirit realm. In here Jin’do will be behind Hakkar, casting Shadow Spike very often, these are blue fireballs that must be avoided, very much like the ones on the Halfus encounter, done by the proto behemoth. He will also summon a lot of spirits, and these must be picked up by your tanks immediately, and AoE’d down by your group before they get out of control, until the fight ends.

Inside the spirit realm you will see Hakkar trapped by 4 chains, and your goal is to release him in order to kill Jin’do. However the only way to release him is to get assistance from the spirits of the trolls you killed on your way there.

Pull the giant troll spirits and start DPSing them down once again. Your group will have to stack on top of the chains, along with the troll. As the troll’s smash is the only thing that can break the chains. Just remember that once the smash happens, there will be a ground effect that deals additional damage, and increases damage taken by 50%. Take advantage of this to DPS and kill down the chain, but don’t stand on top of it, or you might die!

Continue to pull the troll spirits and kill all 4 chains, as you avoid the shadow spikes, and kill the spirits that keep spawning. Once you manage to release Hakkar, he will kill Jin’do and the encounter will end.

Overall the second phase can get very chaotic. Just keep things under control, and take your time. Make sure the spirits are killed in time, and deal with the big trolls breaking the chains when you are ready for it, not before.

The whole instance has a really unique design, and some really interesting mechanics. Overall it will be an adequate challenge to the majority of the population, and it contains some really attractive gear to help you focus with raid progression.

Just to finish with this guide, we did not cover the Cache of Madness, which is the 4 optional & random bosses that can be spawned if you have a minimum of 450 archaeology skill. However these did not seem to pose a difficult challenge compared to the others. We will post a new guide about these soon!

I was scared at first when the best guilds in the worlds had problems dealing with several encounters, and I suppose I was right to be. This first tier is in my opinion one of the hardest so far in the game, by a huge margin. Harder than anything on WotLK, except perhaps Ulduar at the time. Most of the fights are ruthless, in the sense that a single mistake can easily cause your raid to wipe. The tuning of most encounters is really tight. Keeping a really tense atmosphere on most of these fights.

There also seems to be a huge discrepancy in between the difficulty levels on every encounter, specifically entry level bosses. For example Halfus is really easy after the nerf, but when compared with Conclave or Magmaw, or Omnitron it is almost a joke. This can be confusing when choosing a progression path if you’re about to start doing heroic content…

Halfus Wyrmbreaker.

This is the easiest heroic, by a huge margin. The fight boils down to keeping your tanks alive and avoiding the fire on the ground. I’m not gonna discuss the pre-nerf encounter, but I think they may have over-nerfed this one, it really is a joke now, and it drops some really awesome loot as well.

Nothing much to say for this fight. If you’re having problems perhaps you should take a look at the fire damage your raid takes, as well as some tanking optimization, meaning cooldown usage, drake assignments, and taunt rotations. Once you kill 2 drakes you pretty much got the kill in the bag.

Chimaeron.

I really like this encounter a lot. The tuning is really unforgiving, and your healers cannot miss a single GCD or somebody might die. This fight can really change depending on your RNG, making it easier or harder, but regardless it can always be done. I believe on our 2nd kill we had 4 feuds in a row right after the first, yet we still got it.

The transition to phase 3 is something that might take some time to master, as it depends on your DPS output when you’re close to 20%. If your group is not nearly at full HP when you go through, no matter how awesome your DPS is, you will die. Disc Shields are awesome here, and all your group should be ready to use whatever tools they can to increase their survival as they begin to tank.

As a tank, I loved tanking feuds while we figured everything out. Cooldowns have to be used perfectly in order to survive. You must be topped off before the first melee hit, have at least 60% reduction for the double attacks, and also have some sort of raid cooldown to reduce the raid damage. This encounters requires a lot of synergy and team work. You need more than just heals to survive it, I love it.

Atramedes.

Awareness 101. This encounter is just that. Moving out of bad stuff, and doing it perfectly. We just had our kill last night, and it was all about dodging the bad stuff. Sonar pulse? Move out! Sonar Breath? Kite it! More sonar stuff on p2? Move again! Fire on the ground? Don’t stand on it!

The design is fairly simple, and the whole encounter is just a survival exercise. Constantly avoid the bad stuff and the kill is really easy. However 1 single mistake can kill you 30 seconds later, as getting additional sound at the wrong time is simply bad.

I did not attempt this fight pre-nerf, but from what I read it was… impossible to do without bugging it out. However I’m happy with the current difficulty level, and I think this is a decent challenge for your average guild.

Maloriak.

Being a feral tank, assigned to adds… I can tell you this is a nightmare. Not because the role is hard, but because the class is the worse (by a huge difference) on that specific role. But putting aside my issues, I think this fight is perfectly tuned. You need awesome synergy, cooldown usage and good awareness to stand out of the black stuff. On paper the fight does not seem hard, but execution requires practice, specially on 25 man version, as the tuning is slightly harder than the 10 man counterpart.

Overall this encounter is also a decent challenge, slightly harder than all the others I’ve mentioned before. One can only imagine what”s left to come, specially with encounters such as Twilight Ascendants, Cho’gall, Nefarian or Al’akir.

I believe blizzard has done a good job so far on this tier. But I’m still curious on what their approach will be for the next one, if they’ll keep up what they’ve done so far, or if they will finally please the masses and bring back easy modes. My biggest advice for any guild out there who really wants to progress through heroics: Recruit. Nothing helps more than a healthy roster. You need variety of raid compositions for all the encounters, and it also increases competition to bring out the best out of your group.

I’ll do another post once I experience some of the other heroic encounters, until then, have fun with t11!

1. Survivability.

a) Timers: Always keep an eye on timers. Make sure you are ahead of whatever is going to happen so you can react quick and adapt to improve your raid’s performance. Is Valiona about to cast Black Out? Keep an eye on the timer! If you are the target and react instantly, you can even prevent your raid group from stacking by using a cooldown. There is always something you can improve on by merely being ahead of the timers.

b) Positioning: Are you standing on the right spot? More often than not being on the wrong spot will make you more vulnerable to unnecessary damage. By standing on the wrong spot you also increase the damage your group takes. Always try to have a plan of your current position, as well as where you will need to move next based on the timers!

c) Mechanics: It sounds pretty basic. But once you further analyze boss mechanics, there is always a very unique way to deal with them in order to increase your survival. Be on the lookout and keep the first two points in mind.

d) Class Cooldowns: More often than not people die, even when they stand on the right place, react properly, because they didn’t use a survival cooldown. Pretty much every single class on the game has something that greatly increases their survival. Druids can Barkskin, rogues can Feint and Cloak of Shadows, mages can Iceblock, the list goes on, yet we still see people die to crackles on Nefarian, or any other number of deaths that could have easily been avoided by using 1 button. Recommendation? Bind that very specific cooldown of yours and never forget about it! Watch the timers, your position and boss mechanics and don’t hesitate to use that button if you ever feel you’re about to die.

e) External Assistance: Raiding is all about teamwork. And if you ever do a mistake, or get in a situation where you just can’t do on your own, you should not hesitate to ask other raiders for help. Be vocal about it! There are a large number of things people can do to keep you alive, but they unless you let them know, nothing is going to happen. I really can’t stress this enough, be vocal and communicate with your raid! Eventually this will further develop synergy among your team to greater levels.

2. Utility.

a) Observe: As previously mentioned, raiding is all about team work. And most classes have something that can very easily improve your raids performance. Always be in the lookout for situations where you can help other people! This doesn’t apply to just healers. Keep an eye on your raid frames! Are your healers nearly out of mana? Perhaps you should innervate if you can, or heal yourself if you can. There’s so many things you can do to help your raid, always be in the lookout!

b) Gimmick Encounters: Every so often there’s a specific fight where your class stands above others due to a specific mechanic. Make sure you are ready to exploit this as much as you can! Sometimes this might mean doing lower DPS at the expense of some awesome utility. Other times it might mean doing double the DPS every else does.

3. Output:

a) Maximize: You want to do all the previously stated roles while maximizing your output as much as you possibly can. More often than not this means analyzing your position, encounter mechanics, being ahead of the timers, and so much more. Being in the right position as a ranged DPS means you won’t have to move as much when the next phase begins, thus increasing your uptime.

b) DPS the right target: High numbers don’t mean you are a good raider. A lot of encounters require target switching, and this will reduce your numbers a lot. Being quick to swap targets and making sure you do as much as you can will increase your overall raid DPS in the long run. Otherwise you can end up being the lonely top DPSer by a lot, but your raid DPS will end up being a lot less, simply because the adds were alive a lot longer and the uptime the rest of the raid had on the boss was a lot less.

c) Button Mashing: WoW is a game about pressing buttons. The more buttons you press, the better your output will be! Be careful however, this doesn’t mean to blindly mash your keyboard. Of course you’ll need to follow your class rotation. But the more often you hit an ability, the better. For example a raider that waits for an ability to be cast to begin doing the next, will have their latency give them on average a 0.2 seconds loss everytime you cast an ability. This means that if you cast 100 abilities on any given fight, you will lose (0.2 seconds * 100 abilities) 20 seconds. Thats a lot of time doing nothing, which is why you want to spam as hard as you can without breaking your keyboard or fingers! There’s a really good guide on youtube by Kripparian on how to maximize your DPS, make sure to check that out!

d) Don’t go out of your way to help other people: Despite everything I said here, you should never go out of your way to help others. One thing is working as a team and increasing performance, another is carrying other raiders so hard that you do practically nothing else. Of course there are times when you should completely ignore this advice, but these are very unique situations.

Remember to balance things out! Maximizing your performance does not mean being a beast on the DPS meter. It means being a solid DPSer while working as a team. What makes a good player is the ability to become a beast on the DPS meters while also doing the very best you can to help the raid out.

Helmet: Tsanga’s Helm Bastion of Twilight Trash Drop
Weapon: Malevolence Halfus Wyrmbreaker
Shoulders: Poison Protocol Spaulders Omnitron Defense Mechanism
Hands: Double Attack Handguards*** Chimaeron
Chest: Sark of the Unwatched Atramedes
Relic: Relic of Golganneth Valor Points
Belt: Wind Stalker belt of the Windstorm Conclave of the Winds
Legs: Stormrider’s Legguards Valor Points
Wrist: Parasitic Bands Magmaw
Feet: Storm Rider’s Boots Halfys Wyrmbreaker
Cape: Cloak of Biting Chill Maloriak
Rings: Mistral Circle of the Windstorm Conclave of the Winds
Lightning Conductor Band Omnitron Defense Mechanism
Trinkets: Symbiotic Worm Magmaw
Vial of Stolen Memories/a> Valiona and Theralion
Neck: Necklace of Strife Valiona and Theralion

Note: For random enchants, windstorm is your best combination (crit & mastery).

Myth #1: “MOONFIRE (Sunfire?) SPAM LOL!!”

This joke has been floating around World of Warcraft since before Burning Crusade was released. However, recently I’ve seen post after post asking whether or not this could be a viable option for a PvE moonkin rotation. The rotation essentially is sitting in Solar Eclipse and spamming Sunfire while continuously refreshing Insect Swarm when necessary. This could very well seem like a viable option when looking at moonkin talents such as Lunar Shower (which requires constant movement) and considering the mana problems that people seem to be experiencing at level 85. Stacking mastery is also a suggestion when looking at this rotation as it depends on staying solely in Solar Eclipse, and Starsurge would be neglected for this same reason.

My opinion on the matter:

While this may have been super fun to play around with near the end of Wrath, actually using it in a PvE raid setting in Cataclysm is just plain silly. If you plan on using this rotation, do not be surprised when you see yourself doing only about 60-70% of the damage that you could be doing while standing still and using the normal single target rotation. The blaring problem I personally see is the neglect of Starsurge, which is a huge part of our dps rotation. For those of you not familiar with moonkin mechanics, Starsurge generates 15 Lunar or Solar energy, which will eventually push you out of Solar Eclipse. If you leave Solar Eclipse, you would then have to spend at least 45 seconds building up 300 extra solar energy in order to reach Solar Eclipse again. Sitting on Starsurge and ignoring Shooting Star procs due to the fear of leaving Solar Eclipse causes you to lose a good bit of your dps. Go ahead and spam in Solar Eclipse when you must move in an encounter (as this is how it’s meant to be used). However, don’t use this rotation when given the opportunity to stand still, as this rotation pales in comparison to the single target rotation on most boss fights.

Though this rotation may come up short for single target dps, it shines in an AoE setting. Tab dotting while sitting in Solar Eclipse does fantastic dps when used along with Hurricane and Wild Mushrooms. So lets sum this misconception up. Will spamming in Solar Eclipse out dps our single target rotation on certain fights? Sure, I’m not going to say this will never happen, however instances where this will actually occur are very VERY rare, so don’t count on it.

Myth #2: You should avoid mastery at all costs!

Now that we’re in the midst of the new expansion, everyone should have a basic knowledge on mastery and what it does for their individual specs. So therefore, this will not be a list on what mastery does for every single spec of every single class. For those non-moonkin out there, I will elaborate what mastery does for us. Mastery gives moonkins Total Eclipse, which increases the bonus damage from eclipse by 12%, and each point of mastery increases that bonus by another 1.5%. Now, most moonkins are under the impression that mastery should be avoided at all costs because it’s the lowest stat on our priority list (which looks like this incase any of you were wondering: Hit (1742:17%) > Intellect > Spell Power > Haste > Crit >/= Mastery).

My opinion on the matter:

Is mastery the worst caster stat for moonkins? Sure. Should you avoid all gear that has mastery on it? NO! Blizzard seems insistent on shoving mastery down everyone’s throat this expansion, whether it is good for your class or not. There is no way that you can feasibly avoid gear that has mastery on it, and if you are passing up gear solely because of this, then you are hurting yourself greatly. While mastery is our worst stat by far, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a dps loss. Mastery is still going to improve your dps anyway you look at it, even if it is just marginally. So when you’re pew pewing raid bosses down and that pretty caster leather piece drops that has mastery on it, don’t pass it up if you’re wearing a piece of gear with a lower ilevel. My rule of thumb is basically this: If the piece has a higher ilevel, then that generally means it has more intellect on it (which translates to dps increase). Just because that blue quality heroic gear has haste on it, doesn’t mean you should totally ignore the purple staring you in the face with mastery. Blizzard lovingly put reforging in this game for a reason, and that unwanted mastery can easily be converted into that haste you’re so fixated on. To sum things up, knowing the moonkin stat priority list is a WONDERFUL piece of knowledge to have, however, don’t be so fixated on it that you ignore upgrades that will improve your dps. A rigid moonkin is a bad moonkin.

I will write on more myths and misconceptions as I encounter them, so make sure to stay up to date with our blog! Feel free to discuss your opinions on these topics in the comment box below, or give me a few new myths to write about in the next installment.

Before we get to the gear list, I thought I should mention the stat caps at level 85 (since a few of them greatly affect your gear choices). The hit cap for Moonkins casters is being raised from 446 to the thrilling cap of 1742 (17%), so your main pre-raid goal is going to be hitting that number. Hitting this goal is fairly simple, especially since one point of spirit now equals 1 point of hit due to talents. So, we can essentially treat them as the same.

As far as reforging goes, you’ll want to convert crit/mastery into spirit (if you want better mana regen) or hit until you reach the hit cap. If you are over the hit cap, go ahead and convert some of your hit/spirit into haste. Additionally, if an item lacks haste, it would be a good idea to convert some of the mastery/crit on the item into haste.

TLDR Version: Our stat priority looks something along the lines of this and gear/reforge appropriately:

Hit (1742:17%) > Intellect > Spell Power > Haste > Crit >/= Mastery

Now to bring you to my last point. Because leather specialization has been implemented into the game, your gear choices should consist of nothing but leather. This means that you should not be caught wearing any cloth armor and stops clothies from crying about your gear choices. For those of you living under a rock: Leather Specialization increases your intellect by 5% while wearing only leather armor.

Helm:

Cluster of Stars (Justice Points: 2,200)

Neck:

Quicksilver Amulet (Karsh Steelbender, Heroic Blackrock Caverns)

Tauntka’s Necklace (High Prophet Barim, Lost City of Tol’vir)

Shoulders:

Mantle of Bestilled Winds (Altarius, Heroic Vortex Pinnacle)

Back:

Solar Wind Cloak (Rajh, Heroic Halls of Origination)

Cloak of Ancient Wisdom

Chest:

Robes of Forgetfulness (Justice Points: 2,200)

Vest of the Curious Visitor (Glubtok, Heroic Deadmines)

Waist:

Belt of the Untamed (Wildhammer Clan, Exalted)

Thatch Eave Vines (Justice Points: 1,650)

Bracers:

Armbands of Change (Corla, Heroic Blackrock Caverns)

Gloves:

Aessina-Blessed Gloves (Revered, Hyjal Reputation)

Deep Delving Gloves (Slabhide, Heroic Stonecore)

Legs:

Leggings of Clutching Roots (The Earthen Ring, Revered)

Feet:

Decapod Slippers (Mindbender Ghur’sha, Heroic Throne of the Tides)

Tarvus’s Poison-Scarred Boots (Rare spawn: Tarvus the Vile in Twilight Highlands)

Rings:

Rose Quartz Band (Slabhide, Heroic Stonecore)

Band of Rays (Rajh, Heroic Halls of Origination)

Abandoned Dark Iron Ring

Ring of the Great Whale (Zone drop, Heroic Throne of the Tides

Trinkets:

Witching Hourglass (Ascendent Lord Obsidius, Heroic Blackrock Caverns)

Anhuur’s Hymnal (Temple Guardian Anhur, Heroic Halls of Origination)

Gale of Shadows (Erudax, Heroic Grim Batol)

Relic:

Captured Lightning (Asaad, Heroic Vortex Pinnacle)

Book of the Well Sung Song (Vanessa VanCleef, Heroic Deadmines)

Weapon:

Cerith Spire Staff (Commander Ulthok, Heroic Throne of the Tides)

Biting Wind (Grand Vizier Ertan, The Vortex Pinnacle)

Offhand:

Apple-Bent Bough (Justice Points: 950)

I did not add the leather working patterns into this list due to the rather high cost of making these items at the beginning of this expansion. I’m sure the price of mats will drop as the expansion goes on, however, you may be getting epics by then. As I said earlier, remember that hitting the hit cap is the most important gear issue that you should be focusing on in the beginning. You can’t do dps if you can’t hit the raid boss, and reforging all of your gear to spi/hit may be the only way to accomplish that. Keep in mind that hit gems are now listed under blue gems, so a viable possibility is to gem all hit gems (which will activate your Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond) and reforge the rest of your gear to haste, once you’ve reached the hit cap.

I got home Monday morning, and I knew I had to sleep and recharge my batteries. I took a “nap” around 3 pm, but there was a lot of noise going over my house and I only slept 2 hours. I woke up around 5, and the wait began…

I already had everything planned out, simply play non stop until I got the achievement or someone else did. I had a bunch of apples and coffee ready to be served (apples keep you awake even better than caffeine, and carbs energize more than junkfood, so you can actually stay awake without any problems whatsoever, no energy drinks required!)

After killing time playing Starcraft 2 with some friends, around 12 pm I just couldn’t wait anymore, but we still had 2 more hours til launch. Most of the guild just killed time in vent waiting for the time. I went to icecrown to get my 25 dailies done and ready to be turned in later on!

2:01 am. It was finally time! I logged off, and of course the login servers had some issues, but it was just a few minutes. Eventually I got online and saw an experience bar, the race was on…. or was it?

Imagine my surprise when I turned 2 dailies and got no experience. I thought they hotfixed dailies XP, so I dropped 5 quests really quick to get space on my log and went straight into stormwind – moonglade – hyjal. But nothing was giving experience! I guess blizzard forgot to turn XP on or something. Those were 20 agonizing minutes… the masses were already crowding hyjal, and I had to get away from the pack if I wanted to get a lead over any competition. That first hour is what marks the difference. Sharing a quest hub with a thousand players is just…. frustrating.

Luckily for me I was fast enough and got away from the pack after the first 6 quests or so. I was not reading any quests at all, just watching the map indicators and charging like a blind man. I still had level 80 with ICC heroic gear, so stuff died incredibly quick. I could pull about 5-6 mobs at once and just aoe them down in a few seconds.

About 1:30h later I hit level 81, and was still questing in Hyjal. I identified my competition quick enough, there was a druid grinding instances with some friends, and a couple others questing on my same places. I felt the adrenaline kick in once again, and I got away from them quick enough.

3 hours 20 minutes into the expansion I was already level 82. At this point I was considering competing for realm first overall, but 2 other players had a giant lead over me, and I decided to focus on beating the druids instead and not let them get to me. I bailed on Hyjal right after hitting 82 and went straight into Deepholm. Bailing on zones right after I ended the levels was probably what made me win the race, since my closest competitor chose to stay and finish every zone, so his experience gain was lower compared to mine.

I ended up stonecore around 9 am in the morning the next day. Probably the toughest part of the race for me, simply because the zone was boring as hell, and I never got to do any of the fun quest lines. I wasnt really sleepy, ever. Just bored and anxious. But thankfully that was over!

I bailed on deepholm when I had only 64 out of like 130 quests done. Now it was time for Uldum, perhaps my favorite zone. I used all of the cutscenes to eat some apples and coffee, as well as bio breaks. Every second counted, so I made sure not to afk at all and maximize my time doing something every second I was online. I enjoyed all of the quest lines in here, and I got a 6 xp bar lead over my closest competitor by the time he hit 83.

Everytime he gained a level I just got more motivated and the lead over him kept growing. I did lie to him a few times when he asked how much XP I had (and I’m sorry for that if you read this, but I had to xD). However my main goal for Uldum was to level up before noon. I planned to level in about 14 hours total, and anything above that was just not acceptable on my head. Luckily for me I hit 84 at 11:52 am in the morning. It was just the final race now!

At this point it was just 3 of us at level 84. I kept receiving whispers from a lot of random players cheering for me, or just flaming. Some others were flying around Twilight Highlands asking which was going to be the first. All of these random whispers just encouraged me to play faster and make an overall better use of my questing time. Needless to say, questing in twilight highlands wasnt like Hyjal. I could barely take on 2 mobs at a time, and I had to heal myself after almost every pull. I was doing about half the damage I did back at 80, and receiving twice as much…

Like 2 hours into the zone, 3 other guildies hit 84, and we grouped up with a warrior to do the ring of blood event, which was going to be a big boost. It was rather simple and we had no problems of course. It made me giggle that after completing the quest everybody left the group and went back to questing asap!

Just a few minutes after that, Asgeroth obtained Realm First 85 player and warlock. With Gugizimo (the warrior) becoming the realm first warrior about 20-30 minutes later on. My closest competitor was also level 84, and I had some friends checking on him constantly so I could be aware of how he was progressing.

Later on Twilight Highlands I had a terrible phasing bug with a major quest, and I had to drop and re-do it around 30 minutes. I thought I would lose the race at this point, since the lead I had over the other druid would most certainly be gone by now. I checked forums, fansites, bug reports, asked people on vent, and had no luck. However after like 13 attempts or so, the quest finally worked and I got back into the race! I needed only 4 bars and a half, and I had no information at all on the other druid.

I played faster than ever those last 30 minutes, and my effort ended up paying: I became the realm first level 85 druid after 14 hours and 13 minutes of playtime. I had only slept 2 hours on the past 2 days and a half, and somehow I still wasnt sleepy! Who says you need energy drinks when you have apples?!

All in all it was certainly something different to compete for something like this. I have never really played such a long gaming marathon in my life, even less compete for an achievement such as this one. But it is something I will most certainly try again on the next expansion, also I would like to thank all of the people who stood on vent chatting. You guys helped a ton, questing, answering dumb questions, keeping me awake, and boosting morale!

If you guys enjoyed this blog post, please let me know! I could start blogging on my progress on cataclysm so far, both as a player and as a guild.

The first thing you need to consider when making gear choices is your own professions. Are you an engineer? a leatherworker? a blacksmith? a jewelcrafter? Can you afford to buy the materials to get the crafted gear? The second thing is to prioritize reputation gains. Several factions offer specific epic items and a wide variety of enchants. You should focus on the ones that give you the stuff you need, for this blog post I will focus on tanking gear and enchants.

This list does not reflect a perfect BiS selection. This expansion blizzard is offering a lot of choices within the initial gear. All of these have the same main stats (agility and stamina), and the only thing that changes in between choices is the combat ratings, which should be your main focus. As a tank you will want to focus on mastery and critical strike rating above other status. Hit and Expertise is not as important as it used to be, and haste is simply the worse secondary stat you could find on gear.

When reforging your gear, you should focus on dodge > mastery > critical strike rating => expertise > hit rating > haste.
Expertise actually provides more critical strike rating than crit itself does (but only at low expertise levels). However if your expertise is nearing the dodge soft cap, then crit will become more valuable. Regardless, the difference in between the two is really small.

Keep in mind that with stamina normalization, and the increased benefit from agility for bears, DPS gear is most of the times our best choice for tanking, simply because agility provides us with more threat, dodge and critical strike rating, much better than dodge itself and a minor stamina gain. This is not true for every single slot however, some cases a tanking piece might be slightly better.

***Epic item

Helmet:
Agile Bio-Optic Killshades*** Engineering only.
Helm of Numberless Shadows Heroic Stonecore.
Mask of Vines Justice Points.

Weapon:
Elementium Poleaxe Crafted Blacksmithing.
Seliza’s Spear Heroic Lost City of the Tol’vir.
Darkling Staff Heroic Stonecore.
Spear of Trailing Shadows Exalted with Baradin’s Warden.

Shoulders:
Embrace of the Night Justice Points.
Caridean Epaulettes Heroic Throne of the Tides.
Thieving Spaulders Heroic Shadowfang Keep.

Hands:
Stormbolt Gloves*** Exalted with the Wildhammer Clan.
Gloves of Haze Heroic Vortex Pinnacle.
Sticky Fingers Justice Points.

Chest:
Assassin’s Chestplate*** Crafted Leatherworking (Hit Rating).
ADefias Brotherhood Vest Heroic Deadmines.
Tunic of Sinking Envy Justice Points.
Vest of Misshapen Hides Heroic Grim Batol.

Relic:
Relic of Arathor Heroic Shadowfang Keep.
Sandshift Relic Heroic Blackrock Caverns.
Silver Inlaid Leaf Inscription Crafted.

Belt:
Belt of Nefarious Whispers*** Crafted Leatherworking (Hit Rating).
Quicksand Belt Revered with Ramkahen.
Red Beam Cord Heroic Halls of Origination.
Sash of Musing Justice Poiots.

Legs:
Leggings of the Burrowing Mole Justice Points.
Beauty’s Chew Toy Heroic Blackrock Caverns.

Wrist:
Double Dealing Bracers Heroic Shadowfang Keep.
Poison Fang Bracers Heroic Halls of Origination.

Feet:
Crafty’s Gaiters Heroic Lost City of the Tol’vir.
VanCleef’s Boots Heroic Deadmines.
Boots of the Predator Heroic Shadowfang Keep.

Cape:
Wrap of the Great Turtle*** Guardians of Hyjal Exalted.
Softwind Cape Revered with Earthen Ring.
Twitching ShadowsHeroic Blackrock Caverbs
Kaleki Cloak Heroic Lost City of the Tol’vir.
Cape of the Brotherhood Heroic Deadmines.

Rings:
Signet of the Elder Council*** Exalted with the Earthen Ring.
Elementium Destroyer Crafted by Jewelcrafters.
Skullcracker Ring Heroic Blackrock Caverns.
Terrath’s Signet of Balance Revered with Therazane.

Trinkets:
Lifebound Alchemist Stone*** Alchemist Only.
Mirror of Broken Images*** Exalted with Baradin’s Warden.
Unsolvable Riddle*** Exalted with Baradin’s Warden.
Figurine – Earthen Guardian Jewelcrafting Only.
Left eye of Rahj Heroic Halls of Origination.
Heart of Thunder Heroic Vortex Pinnacle.
Porcelain Crab Heroic Throne of the Tides .
Leaden Despair Heroic Stonecore.

Neck:
Mouth of the Earth Heroic Halls of Origination.
Acorn of the Daughter Tree Revered with Guardians of Hyjal.
Entwined Elementium Choker Crafted by Jewelcrafters.
Amulet of Dull Dreaming Justice Points.
Pendant of the Lightless Grotto Heroic Stonecore.

The story behind this place is one of the best in the entire game. And after over 5 years of expectation, we will finally be able to enter this magnificent dungeon and experience first hand the atrocities that deathwing and the twilight cultists have been doing with the red dragonflight.

This dungeon will be very challenging initially, as some of the bosses do have heavy gear requirements, specially the first one as far as tanking goes. We advise that you run easier heroics first before seriously attempting this one.

1. General Umbriss.

This guy is very tough to heal. One of his main abilities is called Blitz, which is a 3 second cast in which he will charge at a random group member out of melee range. If the player does not move away from it when targeted, he will hit anyone on that particular place for a considerable amount of damage, and knock them away, if not killing them. The mechanic is fairly simple: Just move away to the side as he targets you with it.

He also casts ground siege, which is a 4 second stun that deals 35k damage on a random member within melee range. Be aware of this ability as a stunned tank may very easily die. Simply move away as you see him cast this ability.

Your main tank will often get hit by a bleeding wounds debuff, which deals damage over time until he reaches at least 90% health. Whenever this happens your healer must be ready to top the tank right away before the damage spikes out of control.

Finally, General Umbriss will often summon 4 Malignant Troggs. These should be killed quick, otherwise the tank damage will get out of control. However if you kill any of these troggs near the boss, he will gain a damage increasing buff, which will very quickly get out of control. So it is advised that you pull the troggs away from the tank before you kill them.

At 30% the boss will enrage, increasing his damage and attack speed. At this point everybody should burst him down as quickly as possible before your tank dies. Damage here can very easily get out of control, combined with the buff the boss gets should you kill a trogg near him. Continue to avoid Blitz and Ground Siege and you will get your kill.

2. Forgemaster Throngus.

This boss consists of 3 main phases. However at all times he will do a Mighty Stomp, which creates a cave in. Simply move away from the falling rocks, kiting the boss away from them. He also has an impaling slam, he will grab a random group member and deal some damage on them. This must be simply healed through.

After a few seconds he will randomly pick a weapon, triggering one of the random 3 phases.

If he picks a sword, your tank and healer should use defensive cooldowns. Only your tank will get hit by the boss at this phase, so don’t let him drop. There will be a magic DoT on your tank that will rapidly stack, so make sure you keep him up at all costs.

If he picks a mace, he will deal 300% more damage, but move 70% slower. This means the damage on the tank is unhealable, and you should start kiting right away. Throngus will leave a trail of fire behind him on this phase, so you should avoid it as you kite.

If he picks a shield, all the damage he takes on his front will be reduced by 99%. This means your group should stack right on his back. However his shield will breath for some heavy fire damage, so you will need to constantly rotate away from the shield and into his back so that you can continue DPSing.

3. Drahga Shadowburner.

To successfully kill this boss, you will need good coordination and snares. The first and most dangerous ability is the invocation of flame, in which a fire elemental will be summoned. This elemental will pick a random target and run towards him. Your group will need to snare and kill the elemental before it reaches its target, as it will one shot him, and deal severe AoE damage on the rest of your group. This ability is casted consistently throughout the fight.

Once you down Drahga to 30% health, he will mount his dragon Valiona, and begin phase 2. At this point the invocation of flame will continue to happen, and the tank damage will increase substantially as well. Drahga will continue to cast shadowbolt on random group members, increasing the damage slightly.

Valiona should be tanked in the middle of the room, as she will cast Devouring Flames, which is a channeled breath with a very wide effect that deals 50k damage per second, reduced by proximity. As soon as you see the cast begin, you should move to a safe zone.

Valiona will also cast a Shredding Swipe on the tank, which will open a rift to the twilight realm. Anyone who stands on this rift will be snared and take a lot of damage. It is very important that you avoid this rift as you move away from the devouring flames.

Once you get Valiona down to 10% health, she will flee, leaving Drahga to die.

4. Erudax.

Erudax is a very tough boss, and you will need a lot of coordination between your group members to get him down. For starters, he will cast an Enfeebling Blow on your tank, which will knock him back away from your group, so you should try to tank him near a wall.

He will very often cast Binding Shadows, a 6 second debuff that deals damage over time and roots the target in place. This debuff can also hit nearby targets, so you should be spread out at all times, and be prepared to dispel it quickly.

One of his main abilities is called Shadow Gale, which will appear anywhere on the room. After a few seconds shadow gale will start dealing a lot of damage, and the only way to avoid it is by standing right on the eye of the storm, so be prepared to move quickly into the safe zone.

Right after the Shadow Gale, Erudax will summon two Faceless Corruptors. These will run towards each side of the room and start hatching the dragon eggs. Once the eggs are hatched, whelps will spawn, fly up in the air and greatly increase the damage your group takes, giving the boss a soft enrage as there’s only so much your healer can do to keep your party alive.

Your DPS will need to split up and kill 1 Faceless Corruptor each before they hatch any eggs. The corruptors can and should be snared, however they will also cast a heal upon themselves, so you will need somebody to be prepared and interrupt the cast.

Erudax will also cast a Shield of Nightmares on one of the two Corruptors, which makes them deal 20k damage to nearby targets whenever they get hit. Your ranged DPS should be focusing on the corruptor that gets this buff, to avoid extra damage.

A few seconds after the faceless corruptors die, Erudax will once again cast shadow gale, and the fight at this point will repeat itself. Simply remember to spread out at all times so that the binding shadows hits only 1 target. And be prepared to snare and interrupt the corruptors so that no eggs are hatched.