Zywrath

Welcome to the forums! When you have a chance, could you post an armory link to your pally? Also, do you have any logs that we can dig through for some light night-time reading? Thanks! Zy

Welcome to the forums. Zy

Welcome to the forums. How do you like the Holy Paladin play style compared to the Resto Druid you played in Wrath? Cheers, Zy

Welcome to the forums! Zy

I know I am late to the party but, Wowzers! Super fun original app.

Welcome to the forums Mizkuu. I second Hip's request for an armory link and a WoL parse. How did you like healing DS on your pally? Thanks, Zy

Howdi Daidrick. Welcome to the forums. How do you like playing a Holy Pally vs. your Rogue?

Welcome Omni! Look forward to seeing you around guild chat.

Haha. Thanks guys. My transfer is in progress, have my WTF file copied, so should be ready to go in a few minutes. Looking forward to meeting you all soon. Zywrath

I have read and understand the policies. I agree to conduct myself in accordance with these policies. Zywrath

@Ashin: Thanks for being open about where you are in your process. I respect the fact that you have another druid in trial phase, and that a spot for a 2nd is uncertain. At this point in time, I have not put any applications out to other guilds, since I really liked what I read in your recruitment thread. I get a good vibe about how you run things, and it sounds like something I would like to be a part of. If it takes another week or so for you to make a decision, that won't give me any grief. I will be out of town this weekend visiting family. I should be back on Monday, and could schedule a chat in Mumble to evaluate personality and fit a little more (fully understanding that there are no guarantees, and another candidate in play). I prefer not to use RealID, but my battle tag from D3 is Zywrath#1642. I have found the battle tag system works on the WoW platform now, but you might have to input the friend request on D3. I just prefer to keep my real life name out of the game if possible. One other point I'll throw out there for you to think about. I do have a raidable Holy Paladin and Resto Shaman on Mal'Ganis (where all my alts and gold still sit). I would prefer to raid on my druid, but I would be willing to bring another healer over to the server and alternate between whichever character would best suit each fight. I would rate my proficiency as Druid > Shaman > Paladin, but I can still pull pretty good throughput with proper cooldown management on each of them. They are lesser geared, since I don't have a progression home for them. They are: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/malganis/Gramppz/simple (pally) and http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/malganis/Shamz%C3%BD/simple (shaman... please don't laugh at my dps trinket... it's still better than anything else I have!) I will check the forums periodically on the weekend. Also, you can email me at the address I have registered with for the forums. Thanks for your consideration. Zywrath

@Ashin: ok here are some of my thoughts on Druids (Resto in particular) and Mists of Pandaria: I think Wild Charge will be cool. It will allow me to jump to an ally. So kind of like a priest grip, but in my own control. Cenarion Ward is an interesting new tool for us. Not sure yet if I’ll use it regularly, but it may be a neat way to compound the HoT’s on a tank, knowing that it will only kick in if the tank takes damage. That said, I do like Nature’s Swiftness, and may default to that instead. Having that as a 1 minute cooldown will be amazing. I like the fact that Blizzard is integrating all the different forms that Druids can be, and allowing a bit more crossover regardless of your spec. I’ve always wanted to be able to pull out a Typhoon or some Treants while in resto. Now it’s possible! This may not be feasible for raiding, of course. But it’s fun to see that flexibility in our class design being introduced. Mass Entanglement is cool. A more valuable AoE CC tool. Might be better for PvP, but who knows. It will be fun to experiment with. It is more likely that I’ll use Incarnation than Force of Nature, of course. I think it is interesting that I’ll have Incarnation to give me the Tree of Life cooldown, but that I can also shapeshift into tree form freely (Glyph of The Treant). The level 90 talent choices are all so cool! I can’t wait to test them out. I actually think there may be some value in changing spec choices from time to time, instead of just having a carbon copy build for an entire expansion. This will be a fun addition to gameplay in my opinion. Ironbark is a neat addition, giving me more choices to reduce dmg on someone other than myself. That would be helpful on Impale’s for Heroic Madness…. I think the thing I am most excited about is the Wild Mushroom being adapted for a resto spec! Being able to plant up to three mushrooms, then causing them to “bloom” and heal ALL allies within 12 yards. This has the potential for MASSIVE AoE heals, even rivalling the OP Pally Holy Radiance! Look Out! I love the new Lifebloom glyph, allowing me to apply Lifebloom to a new target, and they receive the same number of stacks as my previous target. And Glyph of the Stag?? Should provide some entertainment! All in all, I believe that Resto Druids will be a valuable healer in Mists, and I am eagerly looking forward to the release.

Hello again everyone! I will try to address all the questions thus far with this post. @Ashin: I have really been enjoying 25 mans with Exordium. I’ll admit that I did prefer 10 mans for my previous guild for Firelands. But once I got over the initial shock of so many bodies, and my raid frames taking up more screen space, I realized that there was more to heal, which is much more fun and challenging. I also like the fact that it is easier to have more than just 2 healing classes involved on the fights, so you can take full advantage of each healer’s unique skills/cooldowns, etc. I have had to turn my graphics settings down a little bit (I used to run with everything on full for 10 mans), but not to the point where it affects gameplay. I will address your question about my thoughts on Resto Druids and Mists in a separate post. @ Hip: your question about Brownprobe is a good one, and I can appreciate where you are coming from with it. Brown is one of the members who was invited to leave Exordium. The offer was not a package deal. As such, I do not have a space to go where he is going. I have come to terms with the fact that Brown and I will not be raiding together for MoP. My goal is to find a home for MoP and beyond. I don’t like jumping around from server to server every few months. It is, quite frankly, a hassle that I could do without. When I left Mal’Ganis, I did so out of necessity. My guild had fallen apart and ceased raiding. I did not have enough progression experience to meet the aggressive standards of the top guilds on Mal’Ganis, so I took to the WoW forums, and eventually found a home with C&E on Sen’Jin. I learned a lot from them, and I feel that they helped me to raise my game a couple levels. But we stalled out as a guild, the officers quit the game, and a few players left for Star Wars. Big Crits was just a temporary place to make sure I got a full clear in every week while I figured out what to do next. Exordium was a lucky break for me, since they gave me a chance despite my track record being only 1/8 hard mode. While I hated jumping around from guild to guild, the most rewarding experience was definitely raiding with Exordium in the first month or so. I was forced to raise my game even more. I learned a lot from their healing core, and was blown away by how much more their DPS could do. It opened my eyes to a whole new level of elite WoW Raiding. This filled me with a desire to do whatever it might take to earn my place among them. I had high hopes for Exordium, thinking it would be my home well into MoP and beyond. Unfortunately, circumstances beyond my control caused the group to fracture and the raid team to fall apart. Now that I’ve tasted the possibilities of raiding with an elite guild, I wish to find a similarly skilled group – but one that isn’t throwing in the towel and tired of raiding while waiting for MoP to arrive. I want to join a raid team and guild where I can make friends and be part of a community. I want to share in the excitement as we anticipate the upcoming release of content. And I want to do all of this before MoP comes out, so that I can build some rapport and friendships before MoP’s release, so that I have friends that I can enjoy the grind of racing to level 90 with. Long-winded way of saying: I’m not a fickle server-hopper who leaves guilds at the first smell of drama. I am loyal, and have always stayed with a guild through thick and thin, until the guild or raid team disbands. If I find a home with SoH, I plan to put down my Tree Form roots, and hunker down for the long haul. @Darlantan: Thanks for your comments. I am always open to feedback and constructive criticism. If there are ways that I can improve my performance, or knowledge of a resto druid in general, I am eager to hear them. I love resto druids: that is the class and spec that I get the most enjoyment from playing. I never want to reach a plateau where I stop learning, or looking for ways to improve. I will greedily accept anything you or your guildmates can share to step up my game. I do very much enjoy Spine. It is a very fun fight to heal. The most intense experience for me was on my 2nd week with Exordium, with the nerf at 10%. We 5 healed it just to see how hard it would be. I almost had a heart attack, but we pulled it off. @Stegosaurus: I’d have to go with Giganotosaurus. (insert that’s what she said joke here…” I’m not a huge fan of in-game fishing, but I have been working on getting all the achievements for the Salty title… I’ve never been good at PvP, mainly because I’ve never played with friends. I’d be game to work on that (especially since raiding until MoP won’t take a gruelling schedule!). @Kantankerous: Paper and Plastic! Why should anyone have to chose? Whole wheat with cheese. Briefs Dog I’m married, so I know allllll about celibate. What?

Hi guys. I will put together responses to all of your comments later tonight. There are some great questions and I wish to do them all justice. Have a great evening. Zywrath.

Character Name: Zywrath Realm: Eredar Race, Class & Spec: Troll, Druid, Resto Armory Link: http://us.battle.net.../Zywrath/simple Professions: Engineering: I like the Synapse Springs benefit because I have control over when to use it. As such, I can time it with my Power Torrent proc’s and Innervate to maximize the mana return, or I can line it up to specific phases of a fight to assist throughput as required. While those are two primary reasons for using Synapse Springs, I still try to time it so that I get the maximum number of uses possible in a fight as well. I also like the Rocket Belt and Parachute Cloak, which can come in quite handy. Alchemy: I get a benefit from Mixology increasing the effectiveness of my flask, and having the alch trinket allows me to increase the duration of flasks as well. I also like to be able to craft cauldrons if needed for the raid. I am currently a Potions Master. Age: 30 Male/Female: Male Location: Edmonton Alberta Canada I have Vent and Mumble and a working mic. I don’t have feedback or other audio related problems with my mic/mumble setup. I am able to communicate as needed during boss encounters, but I do not clutter vent with unnecessary chatter during raids. If accepted, when is the earliest you can start raiding with us? I could start immediately. Availability (Tues to Thur 9pm EST to 12 am) am available for all these raid times. I have a strong track record of loyalty, punctuality, and enthusiasm. Previous guilds & why you left: Blue Team – Mal’ganis. This was my first raid guild ever. I left because we had trouble consistently filling a 10m raid roster. The Unruly – Mal’Ganis. This is the guild that I killed the LK with, and did the Glory of the Icecrown Raider with. I left because the guild did not survive the Cataclysm, and was unable to put together a full raid roster. Requisite – Mal’Ganis. I started this guild a couple friends. We stopped raiding in this guild 2 weeks before Firelands because we lost 2 key raiders to a more progressed guild and were unable to secure replacements in time for the beginning of Firelands. Census & Excise – Sen’jin. We ceased to raid as a guild in February 2012 because we had difficulty keeping a full 10m roster each week. We often only had 3hours a week to raid because of attendance concerns. Big Crits – Sen’Jin.I joined Big Crits, but only raided in their 25man alternative raid. This is a casual raid, not a progression raid. I joined them because I wanted to have a place to raid while I figured out what to do next after the Census & Excise guild stopped raiding. I left Big Crits after two weeks when my friend Brownprobe (who co-founded Requisite with me on Mal'ganis) invited me to join his guild Exordium on Eredar. Exordium – Eredar: The GM quit a month ago. We kept raiding, but the strain of leadership change has splintered the membership. A few really key members (i.e. the new GM and the Raid Leader) were offered positions in another raid team for MoP. As a result, we will not likely continue raiding. I just want to be a part of a solid, talented raid team that is excited for all the new content coming with MoP, and is committed to delivering competitive progression results early in the new expansion. Tell us a little about your class and spec. Specifically, how do you gear? How do you gem? What is your rotation/priority on a given fight? Disclaimer: I wrote this for the benefit of teaching some other friends how I approach resto druids. I do not intend to come across as preachy or a know-it-all. I just include it here to show what work I have put into researching my class. There are a few nuances to Resto Druids that I focus on for rotation, gearing, spec, and general play mechanics. First, for gear, I aim to be as close to 2005 haste as possible. This is my optimal haste-breakpoint at which I get an additional tick of Wild Growth and Efflorescence. I will reforge, swap enchants, and/or gems (artful vs. reckless) to get as close to this number as possible, without sacrificing Int. (eg. I’d prefer not to use the 65 haste to bracers over the 50 int enchant). After I have my haste settled, I reforge all my Haste/Spirit/Crit to Mastery. This is because of what my Mastery does for my overall healing mechanics. The Harmony buff is triggered whenever I cast a direct healing spell, such as Nourish, Regrowth, Healing Touch, or Swiftmend. Harmony then lasts 10 seconds, and increases the power of all my HoT spells by a substantial margin, which scales with my Mastery rating. Second, I focus on the up-time of a couple key heals/buffs. First, as already mentioned, Harmony is essential to my competitiveness as a healer. As such, I need to aim for 100% uptime of this buff. I use a Power Aura to identify when this is active, and to count down to expiry so that I know when I need to cue up a new direct heal to refresh it. If things are getting a little hectic and I have Harmony expiring and a Wild Growth coming off cool-down, I would first kick myself for screwing up the timing, then I would make sure to refresh Harmony before refreshing Wild Growth. I would rather delay my next Wild Growth by 1 GCD and refresh the Harmony first, than cast a non-Harmony-buffed Wild Growth. I also have to focus on keeping maximum up-time on my Lifebloom at 3 stacks. This is a nice heal that just keeps on going all fight long. I can refresh it with Nourish, Healing Touch, or Regrowth, which heals the tank (or lifebloomed target) while refreshing the HoT. As such, it is a very efficient heal based on Mana and GCD’s. I also need to focus on casting my Wild Growth on cooldown. This is a powerful “smart” heal that targets 6 players on one GCD and an instant cast. Finally, I focus on using my Swiftmend on cooldown, primarily because it proc’s Efflorescence, which is a powerful “smart” AoE heal. I also have to choose my target wisely. If I pick the hunter way out away from the group, I’ll miss out on the smart healing HoT from Efflorescence. I try to choose the tank, or a melee, or someone I know is grouped up with several other players to get the maximum impact from this awesome spell. Another priority for choosing a target for swiftmend that I watch for is Resto Shamans, since they have Spark of Life, which increases healing taken. If I can time my Swiftmend to go on a Resto Shaman who is in a good position for the Efflorescence to reach 3 players, then the additional healing taken should increase the strength of the Efflorescence ticks. As I mentioned later on in the WoL posts, my Lifebloom and Wild Growth uptime needs some work and I am putting effort into improving this. Third, I need to focus on how best to optimize the value of my main cooldowns, Tree of Life, and Tranquility. Tranquility is a huge channelled smart heal that helps to top off the raid during intense raid-wide dmg phases. It is on a 3 minute cooldown, so on longer fights, it is possible to use 3 or more times if timed correctly. I try to squeeze as many uses of this in a given fight as possible, while making sure it is still being used at a time that is beneficial to the raid, and not just padding the meters. I also try to make sure that I use it to complement the rest of the healing and damage reduction raid cooldowns to suit the fight mechanics. As for Tree of Life, also on a 3 minute cooldown, I have the option to use this as either a throughput cooldown, or a mana conservation cooldown. For the throughput approach, I make sure to keep Wild Growth on Cooldown, keep Lifebloom rolling, keep Harmony active, and Swiftmend on CD, and then spam as much rejuv as possible in between. If I need to conserve mana with this cooldown, I instead blanket the raid with as many Lifeblooms as possible, in order to proc Clearcasting as often as possible, and use the Clearcasting to get free instant regrowths. I should mention that during the rest of the fight (when not in ToL) I still make sure to use every Clearcasting proc I get for a free Regrowth or Healing Touch, depending on what is most beneficial at the time. In Heroic Progression fights, I find so far that the throughput style of use for ToL is more beneficial than the mana conservation style. However, I just wanted to mention that I am aware of both styles of play, and would adjust based on the needs for any given fight. Fourth, it is important for me to maximize any mana regen that I can. I have Innervate as my primary tool. I try to use this early on in the fight, so that I can get the maximum number of uses as possible. However, I also try to time it with my Power Torrent proc and a Synapse Springs. This increases the amount of mana I get back each time. I have a power aura for my Power Torrent so that it is clear when I should be using the Innervate and Synapse Springs. There are some instances where the timing of Innervate, PT, and SS do not align perfectly, and as such, I try to use my best judgement of when to leave a cooldown unused for a short period of time to combine them, vs. when to just use them as soon as they are available. However, I do my best to get as many to line up as possible. I know that some people say, “oh well Power Torrent proc’s at the start of the fight, and I shouldn’t blow my mana cooldown (Innervate/Divine Plea etc.) right away, I should wait until 30 or 40 seconds into the fight, when I have actually consumed some mana and need the regen.” What I do to eliminate that problem is to be pre-casting my 3 stacks of Lifebloom before the pull, and then keep refreshing with nourish until we pull. This way, I usually get a PT proc 20 seconds before the pull, which means it is up again about 20 – 30 seconds into the fight, when I can then use my Innervate and SS to get an early, yet optimal, mana regen. Fifth, I will discuss a couple points on my talent choices. I recently switched some points out of Genesis for Furor. The larger mana pool from Furor gives me more mana to work with, but it also increases the amount of mana I get back from each Innervate. Also, this also gives me the ability to shift to Cat Form and use Stampeding Roar to help provide a movement buff to fellow raiders. I also recently dropped the Nature’s Cure talent, since in 25 man, it seems like the other healing classes already have the magic dispels covered. However, if asked to, I would swap on talent out of Blessing of the Grove and into Nature’s Cure. If needed, I also will make changes to my spec based on specific fights. However, for DS and the current level of the nerf, I do not see much benefit to altering my spec on a fight to fight basis. I have moved away from Perseverance, since survivability isn’t really an issue anymore. I hope this section has done a reasonable job of outlining the main set of priorities that I manage when making my decisions healing in raid. However, I would be happy to discuss all of this in more detail over vent in order to clarify anything that might have been lost in translation or left out by oversight. Please post a screen shot of your UI. http://profile.image...s/user/zywrath/ Raiding Add-Ons. I use Omen to monitor threat, Healbot, Recount to review after deaths (mine or the boss’) to identify areas for improvement, Bartender, DBM for raid warnings and timers. Power Auras. Please include any WWS or WMO logs you might have. http://www.worldoflo.../?s=7845&e=8661 This is from my most recent raid with Exordium. Name an Encounter where you excel and give reasons as to why your class would excel more then other classes on that specific encounter, or why you personally do better than other players on that fight, this can also include fights from WOTLK. Please include more than one example. This is just from a previous application I filled out (for Exordium). It is somewhat out of date given the 25% nerf. One example where Resto Druids are strong is on Ultraxion with the Red Crystal. Our Efflorescence double dips with the 100% buff, and that can be extremely strong. Granted, we are not as strong as a Holy Paladin with the Blue Crystal’s mana and haste buff for spamming Holy Radiance. Nonetheless, we can pull some strong numbers on this fight. Another reason why we can be strong on this fight is that the damage comes in consistent waves, which suits a Raid HoT blanketing approach. If we balance the number of healers appropriately, a Resto Druid can bring a lot of balance to the raid dmg with his HoT’s (Rejuv, Wild Growth, and Efflorescence), without huge overhealing. However, if we run with more healers than needed, for safety sake, then the Resto Druid will not be as strong of an addition, since our HoT’s will likely do a lot of overhealing. Another encounter where we are valuable is on Spine. The Searing Plasma debuff can get overwhelming at times, especially when there is also large waves of dmg hitting the entire raid. I find that having a Resto Druid blanket the Searing Plasma targets with Rejuv, and throwing in Swiftmends on them, we can help to remove the Searing Plasma targets more rapidly and with less overheals. This also depends on having healing assignments for the other healers who are using my direct heals. If everyone has different group priorities, then it is less likely that we would pair up and both be bombing a big heal at the same time, one of which might be wasted once the Searing Plasma comes off. Our Tranquility cooldown is also very helpful on this fight to balance out overall raid damage while the other healers can single target the remaining Searing Plasma targets. Madness is also a fight where Resto Druids can be very strong. Our Efflorescence is very useful when the raid is more loosely stacked, since it has a wide radius and only heals 3 nearby targets, compared to healing rain which heals everyone inside the radius, and thus needs a larger amount of players stacked to make it efficient. This is also a long fight, so it is possible to squeeze out 3 or more Tranquilities and ToL cooldowns. If timed properly, we can pump out solid heals in a very efficient manner. Another example is Blood Queen in ICC. The damage on Heroic for that fight is a steady wave that favors rolling HoT’s and helps to minimize overhealing for Resto Druids. I loved this fight. Every player has room for improvements, even the best players, give us an area where you personally can improve, and possible steps you have taken to improve in this area. Also, can we expect you to improve on a week to week basis on every encounter we do? I believe that I need to improve (increase) my Wild Growth and Lifebloom uptimes. This will help me increase my throughput and improve my efficiency on a GCD and mana basis. I am using Power Auras to give me different visual cues to train myself to memorize the rhythm required to do this naturally. In Closing...I found your posts on the forums very enlightening. It sounds like you have a strong leadership team, and good guild/raid management policies. It sounds very "grown up." I would welcome the opportunity to join your community, and hopefully add my own flavor to your team. I am very excited for the new content coming with MoP (especially for healing mushrooms!!). I am not a gear-whore, and believe that if you raid long enough with the same guild, you'll have all your gear needs met in good timing. And finally, I firmly believe in earning my own way. If you are interested to discuss my application further, you can reach me at the email address I used to register for the forums. Regards, Zywrath