Leafie’s to-do list

I’m going to improve my gear a bit since raid drops seem to be thin on the ground for me so far. Some of these items are best in slot or close to it given what I have access to, so I can’t go wrong.

Buy Firescar Sash from the raid rep vendor & get it gemmed up. (buckle, +int gem, +int/spirit gem)

Buy Soothing Brimstone Circle with valor.

Buy Firemind Pendant with valor.

Get Ethereal Footfalls crafted. (8 Pristine Hide, 40 Volatile Fire, 40 Volatile Water, 4 Living Ember, 3 Chaos Orbs)

Consider respeccing Leafie to 10/0/31, a no-Furor build. Am deeply unsure about this. I’m not having mana troubles right now but I fear developing them as a result of this shift. I’m already trying a “reforge to Mastery instead of Haste” scheme right now. I am reluctant to change too many variables at a time.

I think I just talked myself out of respeccing.

Treeeeeeenkets! Squawk!

Fleetfoot’s bags were looking a little full and I was wondering why. Then I noticed that she’s carrying 11 trinkets. Oh. I took inventory.

Tanking:
Symbiotic Worm
Mirror of Broken Images
Darkmoon Card: Earthquake
Porcelain Crab
Leaden Despair
Throngus’s Finger
Tia’s Grace
Impetuous Query

DPS:
Heart of Solace
Mark of Khardros
Right Eye of Rajh

I have a hard time getting rid of trinkets. Leafie still has all her Wrath-era raiding trinkets. Do you know how long it took her to get heroic abacus? There’s no way she’s selling it. Yeah. Her bags are full too.

Tanking trinkets

Some notes to self on pre-raid tanking trinkets, because I was wondering what my paladin tank should chase.

If you’re an alchemist, you have the Stone, of course.

The Valor trinket is under budget; don’t waste the badges. The Darkmoon card is meh: the on-use is not worth considering, so the trinket must be evaluated on the basis of the passive dodge.

The three to go for are the Mirror, the Crab, and Throngus’s Finger. Impetuous Query is pretty awesome for an ilvl 333 trinket. It might help to have a stamina trinket around for specific fights, in which case Leaden Despair is the one to chase. DKs probably have a different opinion about which ones are the best.

The same, only for the common plated tank.

Since I am looking at gearing up three (3) plate tanks over the next year, I thought it might help to optimize that flow a bit. Cataclysm rep items my plate tanks might possibly be interested in..

The filter was more difficult to construct for tanks, because you’d need a (dodge or parry or expertise) subcondition amongst all the required conditions. The best list I could come up with includes plate DPS items, but at least they’re ranked down by the warrior tank stat weighting. In the end I found the complete list on Wowhead more usable.

Desirable items:

Neck at honored with Hyjal.
Cloak at exalted with Hyjal.
Legs at honored with Earthen Ring.
Head enchant at revered with Earthen Ring.
Ring at revered from Therazane.
Ring at revered with Ramkahen.
Bracers at exalted with Ramkahen.
Hat at revered with your Twilight Highlands faction.
Boots at exalted with Twilight Highlands.
Mirror of Broken Images is a situationally useful trinket from Tol Barad.

Harrumph, plate tanks get three epics at exalted, in comparison with the tree’s one epic. In fact, they can get decently geared through the rep system. Grousing aside, what patterns emerge? Revered is easy to get with Hyjal, but the tabard grind pays off faster with Earthen Ring. Twilight Highlands is obviously also desirable.

Possibly optimal flow:
Run Hyjal.
Run Deepholm.
Run Uldum sans the Harrison Jones questline.
Run Twilight Highlands. Ding 85 somewhere in there.
Tabard Earthen Ring to revered.
Tabard Hyjal to exalted.
Tabard Ramkahen for another month to exalted.
Meanwhile, grind Twilight Highlands dailies & Therazane dailies.
Do Tol Barad once the load lightens when you hit exalted on one of the above, probably optional unless you’re raiding. Or want a mount.

Cataclysm reputation items, Wowhead filters, and you!

I was wondering what I had done wrong: I knew I was supposed to grind up my reputations and then upgrade to Purplez(tm) to be Ready For Raiding. But then I got there and discovered that the only purple I could buy was Belt of the Untamed from the Twilight Highlands faction. And I already had Lightning Lash, thanks to a generous guildmate, so it was sort of pointless. I felt let down. Also, I realized I’d been wearing the wrong tabard. My path through had been awesome for my kitty set, though.

Let’s think about this properly and set up a nice Wowhead item filter to do all the work for us. Here are all the faction items of interest to a resto druid. Not a huge list.

From this list we deduce the following optimal reputation path for a caster druid:

• Complete the Mount Hyjal quests to reach revered with Hyjal.
• Run Vashj’ir until you get access to the Earthen Ring rep vendor. Buy tabard. Flee zone.
• Complete Deepholm to unlock the Therazane dailies & earn Earthen Ring rep.
• Commence grinding Therazane dailies.
• Run Twilight Highlands until you have access to the faction dailies. Commence grinding.
• Once at 85, put on the Earthen Ring tabard and wear it until you’re revered. Do not on any account attempt to finish Vashj’ir questing unless heavily medicated.
• Once at 85, head to Tol Barad and grind dailies. Do not spend any of your commendations on rep. If you didn’t get Soul Releaser from any of your HOOboy runs, you can buy a weapon at revered. But don’t. Save your commendations for the Mandala of Stirring Patterns at exalted. In patch 4.0.6 this will be changed to proc int instead of mastery, thus making it useful to a resto druid.
• Once you’re revered with the Earthen Ring, swap to your Twilight Highlands faction tabard. Wear that until exalted.
• You’re probably done with Therazane now, but if not, wear that next.
• Don’t bother with Ramkahen until you’re done gearing and feel the need for a camel.

At that point you should fill out your set with justice badger items from this list.

There! Now you have learned from my mistakes. Now excuse me, I’m off to go invent the Cataclysm raiding drink for my guild. Last tier’s drink was the Icy Winds of Northrend (featuring vanilla vodka). This tier’s drink is going to be the Sonic Bomb, I’m pretty sure.

Trinkets and egg shells.

Leafie has two trinkets now. She is unsatisfied with her trinkets, but I think that is the natural state of a WOW player, from tank to caster to healer. There’s always That Dream Trinket that never drops or it dropped and the roll was won by the warlock who disappeared from the guild the very next week. Leafie got her second trinket in last night’s random run of Stonecore heroic, which was the sort of run best described as “a character-building experience”. The final boss dropped her healing trinket and of course everybody rolled need on it. “Everybody” included the shadow priest and the elemental shaman who’d died to Every Single Manner of Taking Damage Possible in an Instance, from every boss ability on each boss in each wipe, to mobs he face-pulled, to the falling stalagtites on the ramp. But the RNG god was just for once and Leafie won, and hooray! Tear of Blood and its pile of intellect are now hers.

This trinket replaced normal Blood of Isiset, which is unfortunately weak for resto druids. First, it’s loaded with mastery, which resto druids avoid or reforge away when they’re forced to have it. Second, it doesn’t proc from hot ticks, and hot ticks are still what a druid is all about. Tear of Blood, in contrast, has useful intellect, procs useful spirit, and procs from hot tick criticals. This is good if you are a drood.

Leafie’s second trinket is one she’s had for a little while, since her first Grim Batol run. I wanted to mention it here because I think it’s a surprisingly good trinket at this point in the Cataclysm gearing curve, but it requires a little bit of setup to use. I’m talking about Corrupted Egg Shell.

This trinket pops a fragile damage-absorption shield on your target. While the shield holds, you get 475 mp5. When the shield breaks or times out 30 seconds later, you get 5700 mana. The theorycrafters of Wowhead calculate this to be an effective 356.25 mp5 in the best case and 237.5 mp5 in the worst. Obviously this is a useful mana-restore trinket, and just as obviously you want to keep it ticking for all 30 seconds if you can, to get the maximal mana per five. Therefore you do not use it on a tank, who’ll get hit in the face instantly and shatter the egg shell. You use it on somebody sensible, who stays out of fire and avoids as much damage as possible consistently. Know anybody in your raids like that? Why, yes! It’s you!

Make a macro like this one:

#showtooltip
/use [@player] 13
/cast Lifeblood

This macro casts the trinket on yourself without making you change targets. Use 13 if you’ve got it in the top trinket slot and 14 for the bottom one. For “Lifeblood”, feel free to substitute your own favorite 2-minute cooldown that you always want popped during combat. Stick this macro on a button, press it, have a reminder mod poke you to press it again 2 minutes later, stay out of bad stuff just like you always do because you are the one feeling the pain of healing up afterward, and collect some precious mana.

Note that you can cast this on somebody else and get the mana for yourself. But do you trust those other people? With your mana? Really?

You can go with this; you can go with that.

Percentage of my healing, on a typical raid night, from the resto druid T10 4-piece bonus: 5.4%.
Percentage of my healing from Trauma procs: 5.3%.
My overhealing: over 70% both ways.
Amount that gear choices really matter at this level of play: Very little.

If we were struggling in ICC25 heroics I might start getting tweaky. But since it’s looking like getting past normal Sindragosa in any given ICC25 raid lockout is going to be a crapshoot from here until Cata hits, I’m not going to fash myself about it. Upgrades would be nice if I can get them. I’m just not going to stress.

Yes, the pre-expansion malaise has set in, even for me.

Walk without rhythm and it won’t attract the worm.

Woot! I have a new stick to hit things with.

Heroic Saurfang finally dropped the Mag’hari Chieftain’s Staff last night, so I now have a weapon with enough haste on it that I can wear full T10.25 and my heroic Boots of Unnatural Growth. I would prefer the heroic Frozen Seed boots, but I haven’t seen them yet.

But hey! I get to try out the T10 4-piece bonus at last! Spent the usual fortune enchanting the staff. I suppose tonight I’ll see if it’s worth swapping from Trauma at all. I might wear the lower-level higher-haste gear in the 25s with Trauma and swap to the staff set in 10s. Depends on what the logs look like.

I have a pile of new cat gear that needs gemming and enchanting as well. At least Angmark’s enchanting is finally up high enough that she can do Massacre. She’ll need to max out before she can do the Greater Spellpower to staff enchant I need so often.

The raid swept through ICC10 leaving heroic mode on until we hit Putricide. The newcomers to the fight were having a hard time understanding how the plague worked and how we were handling it. We had a lot of accidental infection happening as melee just wandered through the ranged group at will. Well, maybe next time. Today’s a fresh lockout.

I wonder how long it’ll take at level 85 before I’m willing to set foot in ICC again.

Gear frustration.

I’m fighting off a bit of gear frustration. The only upgrades Leafie has won in the last few weeks have been tokens for tier pieces she can’t equip because of haste concerns. I could solve my haste problems with the T10 set if I swap out my weapon for the LK-10 staff drop, Halion. But Trauma was 7% of my healing on our LK 25 attempt last night; there’s no way I’m giving that up. But mostly the potential upgrades for me haven’t been dropping, and when they do, other people win them.

Sigh. I’m not actually much of a gear hound, really. I don’t like stressing out over loot or deep-ending over it. But I think I need to for a little while. I need to drive myself to get upgrades for my weaker pieces.

I am wearing four ilvl 251 pieces still. Here they are and here are the upgrades I’m hoping for.

Trinket: Sliver of Pure Ice
Possible upgrades include the heroic version and the ultra-desirable Althor’s Abacus. I’ve seen the abacus drop exactly once. The Glowing Twilight Scale, which comes from Halion-25, is less desirable for a raid-healing druid. I would equip it only situationally. If we ever see that drop, I’d want it going to a paladin or a shaman healer instead of me.

Feet: Boots of the Frozen Seed
Ive been wearing these since possibly last December. It’s ridiculous, but I understand why when I consider the upgrade path. Only the heroic version is leather + has at least as much haste as these boots. Given that I need the haste on non-tier slots rather desperately, I just have to hope we do LDW-10 on heroic again some time soon.

Wrist: Wrists of Septic Shock
Possible upgrades include the heroic version and the Phaseshifter’s Bracers from Halion-25. Festergut-10 heroic is at least a fight we might put on farm status.

Shoulder: Shoulderpads of the Searing Kiss
I have the T10 shoulders but can’t wear them because of the haste problem. The Shoulders of Frost-Tipped Thorns from BP-25 would be nice. I believe I haven’t seen them drop, or I’d probably be wearing them now.

Off-hand: Shadow Silk Spindle
A lovely off-hand, but the Sundial of Eternal Dusk has enough haste on it to solve my Trauma-tic haste problems all by itself. I keep hoping to see it on Sindragosa’s body, every week.

What I need now is an off-hand.

Last night, Trauma dropped in our half-pug ICC25. It was going to be our last boss for the night, and I hadn’t won anything yet, and I was unsure, but I rolled. And won it.

I’ve been carrying Mag’hari Chieftan’s Staff for months now, possibly since my very first Saurfang 10 kill. It’s perfectly itemized for resto druids: haste, spellpower, and spirit. Trauma is, well, not so well-itemized. And what’s more, it’s a one-hander. I need something to hold in the other hand. I need to theorycraft! Well, as much as I can ever bear to in a game I play as a break from mental gymnastics.

Patch 3.3 added exactly three off-hands to the game. Well, five if you count heroic variants, which I will not do just yet. They are:

Shriveled Heart - HOR heroic
Shadow Silk Spindle - BloodPrinces-25
Sundial of Eternal Dusk - Sindragosa-25

I’ve had the Shriveled Heart sitting in my bank for months just in case I needed a good off-hand. The other two are effectively unavailable to me now in these days of half-pugging ICC25. (It was a triumph to down Rotface last night. We couldn’t get Festergut because, well, see below.) So! How much am I giving up to use Trauma?

Except it’s closer than that: the staff enchant gives 81 spellpower, and the regular weapon enchant 63. I have two Purified gems in my staff for 24 SP, 20 spirit, and the 7 SP socket bonus. (Uh, wow, those socket bonuses are lame.) So net is +109 SP and -156 spirit. And of course the sucker punch of the haste loss.

Huge loss in stats, despite the item level boost. Huge loss in the all-devouring spec-ruining haste. Sigh. I’d have to respec, because there’s no way I’m coming up with 90-ish haste from regemming what isn’t already haste gem slots.

I also have the Chalice of Benedictus sitting in my bank. Might be worth it. I know, I know, comedy hit rating!

But is that proc worth it?

Short answer: yes. Especially on aura-damage fights. So I’ll carry this plus the talbuk-head staff, and swap for fights like Fester and Sindragosa.

Gear wishlist

90-ish haste to make up. Sigh. I need to dump my tier 10 pieces for items that will get me more haste. I’ll reconsider if I can manage to win a token. Ever.

Leather of Stitched Scourge Parts - Fester25, legs
Leggings of Unrelenting Blood - Saurfang10, legs
Shoulders of Frost-Tipped Thorns - BP25, shoulders
Blessed Cenarion Boots - crafted, feet
Professor’s Bloodied Smock - BoE ICC25 drop, waist
Althor’s Abacus - Gunship25, trinket
Frozen Bonespike - Marrowgar25, weapon

The shoulders are the only item on that list that might not be within my reach just now.

Here I winge

We had six healers in the raid, and two of them were effectively useless. One of them was the resto druid I beat on the Trauma roll, and good god, the thought of this weapon going into his hands burned me. The guy doomed us on Festergut by never being able to run a single spore to the correct spot. He never stood where he was told. And when he was standing underneath the tanks, he ran his spore out into the middle of nowhere to innoculate nobody. Even on Rotface, he screwed up until somebody yelled at him by name on Vent and swore at him until he ran the right way. (Our raid Vent almost never features swearing during actual fights. It’s dead calm.) Resto druids never have an excuse for standing in Rotface’s slime sprays. Guess who did?

I’m glad he didn’t win the roll.

He pestered me for half an hour about it afterward, whining about my gear score. I assume my gear score is some arbitrarily high number these days, whee. Then he started offering to buy it. Seriously uncool.

One of the pugged holy pallies and the other resto druid were great. The pair of them plus our GM plus me kept everybody healed. Hooray the 15% buff! Buffering raids from the consequences of idiocy since the day before yesterday! And yes, it was the weirdest healer group ever: three holy pallies and three resto druids.