oneHoTnelf

Well, with wrath out, there are a whole bunch of new dungeons; and that means a whole bunch of new loot tables. I’ve run a few of the new instances now, mostly on heroic (I did normal Utgarde Keep, Nexus, Azjol-Nerub, and Violet Hold too, while I was leveling). It’s nice to hit 80 already geared for heroics, but then I was pushing 1300 SP before wrath even hit, and we can’t all be sunwell-geared before we hit 80.

I never moved my BC pre-heroic gear guide onto this blog; it sat on the guild forums. I always thought about shifting it over, but never did. There’s not much point now, but what there is a point for is a guide to gearing an 80 druid for raids and heroics. I’m doing it in a few parts, because there are just so many options out there; it all started with my rep reward guide.

So here it is; what drops where, healer-style. I’ll pop the recommended level range in brackets, so you know when to hit it up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wrath of the Lich King is in full swing, and all of the serious WoW players have it installed by now. We got an early start on some of the features with patch 3.0.2, and we hit the ground running. My guild’s already cleared 10-man Naxx, and we’re hoping to clear 25-man this coming week. Level 80 heroics are already old-hat; the epics are flowing, and people have leveled their professions to 450. Dissent’s MT is already sporting a couple of pieces of T7 warrior gear.

People who even mention running the old instances are laughed at: I’ve watched many a flame session directed at some poor sap trying to get a ZA group together. Seriously, that’s nearly as bad as running UBRS! Plus, we all know you’re just after the achievement now that out-leveling and outgearing the place is so easy. What else is there to gain, but an empty achievement accessible to anyone who can get a bunch of level 80s together?

Hang on, people. ZA was fun! I remember reading previews of Zul’Aman, and I remember it being praised for its atmosphere, its storyline, its… General FUNness. So why shouldn’t people go back and run it?

Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t really been posting much lately, and there is one core reason for that, I guess. All of my WoW time has been spent leveling towards 80. That means no new healing tips, because I haven’t been healing. No insights into dungeons (because I’ve hardly done any) or raids (because I haven’t done any at all!)

So what HAVE I been doing?

Going boomkin, for a start. I highly recommend throwing at least a few points into balance while you level. I’ve left myself only about 20 points into resto, and I’ve stacked most of the core balance talents. Especially with the change to spell power, you will put out some really good damage, as well as having better survivability in moonkin form.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hopefully, you’ve all bumped into WoW addons at some stage or other. They allow outside developers to write extra features into the WoW interface, and there are some REALLY neat ones out there.

So, how do you get these addons? The easiest way is to install an addon manager. Addon managers generally install addons for you, check for updates regularly, and so on. My current favourite is called WowMatrix: It’s quick, easy to install, and FAR more up-to-date than most addon managers I’ve used in the past. It has a neat “Get More AddOns” tab that’s easy to use and automatically handles installations for you.

So, once you’ve worked out how to get addons, which ones do you want? There are SO many out there.

Read the rest of this entry »

I ignored macros for a long time. They were too complicated; they were too inconvenient to set up; they were for pros, and I was a noob.

Of course, one day I realised I wasn’t a noob anymore. But hey: I’m a healer. What do I need to “/target Demon Chains” (or just “/tar demo”) for anyway? It’s not like I have to quickly switch targets urgently. So I wasn’t a noob, but I don’t think I was really pro either. It was still too much trouble; still too hard.

Read the rest of this entry »