Patch 3.3 – Updates!
Posted by thideras | Filed under General Information
While waiting for Patch 3.3 to be applied to the server, I updated the website. You will notice that the Restoration Guide has been updated. Along with that page, I heavily modified the Exodus Videos page to give more of a progress feel rather than a “day by day” log. The page is much shorter and easier to read. Check out both while waiting!
Another change on the website is that registration and commenting is enabled! Feel free to sign up and leave comments or questions on articles.
I know a lot of other websites have splattered Patch 3.3′s face all over their website, I will just pull the Restoration Druid specific ones and discuss what they mean.
- Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
- Rejuvenation: The base duration on all ranks of this spell is now 15 seconds.
- Rejuvenation: Druids will no longer get a more powerful spell error message when attempting to overwrite a Rejuvenation they cast.
- Tranquility: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.
- Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the base global cooldown of Lifebloom by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effects.
- Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation: This glyph allows for the druid’s haste to reduce the time between the periodic healing effects of Rejuvenation.
Rebirth gets its cooldown cut in half, which is not something that I was looking forward to. This allows raids to use Rebirth more haphazardly instead of using it strategically. Raid members won’t feel as pressured to stay alive or pay attention as they now have extra cushion when it comes to dying. I like the Rebirth mechanic, but I don’t like that they are trivializing the cooldown. With our current raid make-up, we can see upwards of 5 total Rebirths per fight. In my opinion, that is way too much. While discussing this with another player, they suggested halving the cooldown because guilds are waiting for the cooldown to finish. I know that when we were going into Hard Mode Anub’arak with 50 attempts remaining, we would wait for Rebirth to come off cooldown if there was less than 10 minutes. I can agree, but I really believe that people are going to be less careful when it comes to staying alive once they are aware of the changes.
Another major change is Gift of the Earthmother. Instead of removing 20% of the GCD’s time, it gives 10% flat haste to all spells. In some places, it is a nerf (Rejuvenation) and others is a buff (Nourish, Remove Curse, etc). I’m happy to see that change as it will force us to stack substantially more haste (856 without CF) and reduce the GCD of all our spells. I was able to test this update in a raid environment. Even after switching some gems around to get 581 haste and still far below the haste cap, I didn’t feel slow. There was also a fight where I had to remove curses. I no longer had to time my [Remove Curse] with incoming damage or outgoing heals since the GCD is substantially faster on all spells. Overall, I’m very happy to see this change after getting to feel around with it.
The most interesting change is the new glyph. I see it more as a tradeoff and glad they gave us the option of using the glyph. This allows us to tweak our healing for the fight at hand. With the Glyph, we will have more throughput on a single target, but we won’t be able to have Rejuvenation up on as many targets. Some fights (such as Twin Val’kyr), I’d rather have Rejuvenation on more targets and healing for less. On other fights (such as Mimiron), having that many Rejuvenations out is a waste of a spell as they get healed up quickly. Basically, don’t expect to find this useful on every fight.
UPDATED – Dec 9 9:44am – I updated my post with new information since we were able to raid
Hard Mode Anub’Arak Strategy
Posted by thideras | Filed under General Information
With [A Tribute to Insanity] completed, I am now free to post our strategy and assist others.
I will try to provide numbers for both tanking and healing, but I have limited experience tanking wise as I was only tanking Anub’Arak for the first fifty or so attempts we did. Most of my experience comes with healing, and as such, a lot of the information will be centered on this topic.
Druid specific tips:
I use a very specialized talent build for this fight. It favors Healing Touch greatly. I do use the [Glyph of Healing Touch] as it greatly reduces the speed of the spell. Why do I use such a strange, not commonly used build? I need my target to live. I have 3 seconds to get my target above 6000 health. I’ve tried using Nourish with my normal build and it hits for around the same amount as Healing Touch, but it is slower, almost 2x slower. With that talent build, glyph and 541 haste, my initial cast of Healing Touch is 0.67 seconds (Nourish is ~1.2). Please see Phase 3 for a visual breakdown of Penetrating Cold.
Restoration Druid talent build
Terms:
Back of the room – Where you enter the area to fight Anub’Arak
Front of the room – Where Anub’Arak is standing before you start the fight
Left/right of the room – This assumes you are at the back of the room facing the front of the room
From a simplicity standpoint, the fight can be broke up into 3 phases.
Phase 1:
This phase is when Anub’Arak is above ground and Nerubian Burrowers spawn. When you enter the area, he will be at the back of the room, standing in a golden circle. There are also a total of six (6) frozen orbs floating around the room. Leave these until Phase 2. We tanked him directly on the edge of the circle itself; facing away from the door. Anub’Arak was hitting me for 14,000 damage every ~2 seconds, I had around 68% armor reduction. Once Anub’Arak is placed correctly, you want a Death Knight to pulled down one of the floating orbs and kill it; this will create a large area of [Permafrost]. It slows any mobs that walk across it (except Anub’Arak), but more importantly, it prevents the Nerubian Burrowers from burrowing. Shortly after Anub’Arak is placed correctly and a floating orb is broken, the Burrowers will spawn. There will be a total of four (4) adds that come out, two from each side of the room. We had a Warrior with an extremely high block value pick up all four adds. He runs out to grab two near him and has hunters and rogues misdirect the other two to him. After he grabs the two adds, he runs back to the ice. The reason we use a block set for this fight is that the adds hit every 0.25 seconds (quarter of a second) each. I don’t know the specifics on the gear the warrior used and I’m unfamiliar with the class, all I know is that it had a high block value. Once the adds are in place, everyone should AOE the adds to get them down as fast as possible. Obviously classes without AOE would be exempt and continue attacking Anub’Arak directly. As you can see in the video, we have two tank healers; a Holy Paladin and a Discipline Priest. They can keep the tanks up by themselves, so the other healers can AOE. This fight is simple for a Restoration Druid, just AOE the adds as they come in and assist with healing if necessary. At about 15 seconds left until Anub’Arak burrows, the tank will want to kite him away from the Permafrost that was initially brought out; you don’t want to ever hit this ice during Phase 2. When he burrows, be becomes un-targetable and immune to all damage.
Phase 2:
This phase starts when Anub’Arak goes below the ground. He will do so regardless if he is standing on Permafrost or not, it does not affect him. Most likely, adds will still be up at the beginning of this phase, kill them quickly but remember that you have a chance to be targeted. Anub’Arak will immediately “target” someone, denoted by the large arrow above their head, and will start chasing them. At that same time, we have ranged in the “back” of the room that shoot down a single floating orb. The first person that is chased will run to the Permafrost but will not run over it. Instead, we have a Paladin that will use [Blessing of Protection] on the targeted raid member when Anub’Arak gets to them. From the receiving standpoint, it can be unnerving as the first hit usually gets through; if you die, the Paladin is at fault.
After Anub’Arak passes the raid members, gather up on the left side of the room, slightly behind the Permafrost. Most of the adds will come towards this group, AOE/kill them.
There is an anomaly that can occur here, and it sometimes messes us up. He can target the same raid member twice. This means that the person that just received the BoP can not get it again because of the debuff, which is why anyone who was just targeted needs to start running towards the next Permafrost in case it happens. If someone is targeted twice (or possibly a third time), they will need to break the next Permafrost immediately. Also, if someone is targeted twice, you will need to use 3 floating orbs for that phase.
Once the first person receives their BoP, the next floating orb is broken at the front right of the room. The next person that is targeted will need to move to the next Permafrost, doing exactly what was done the first time. You will need to roll Paladins for this phase as it does have a cooldown.
During all of phase 2, Swarm Scarabs will come out from the left and right side of the room. They don’t hit hard, but they apply a debuff called Acid-Drenched Mandibles that ticks for 1800 damage every 3 seconds. It can stack extremely high (I’ve personally had 22 stack in 10 man HM, 26k a tick) and you don’t want more than one or two stacks. Make sure to let healers know who has stacks and how many. Once you hit Phase 3, a single tick with a single stack can kill you. They also have an ability called Determination that heals them to full and gives them a speed boost as well as immunity to stuns/snares. Hunters can Tranquilizing Shot it off them as it is considered a frenzy effect.
Once the second Permafrost is broken, he will target the last raid member and you should have 15 seconds or less until Phase 1. Do not break a floating orb for this member. Either have them use a speed boost (Dash, rocket boots, etc) or use another BoP. If the tank is not targeted last, have them stand in front of the Permafrost that is never broken, Anub’Arak does not do an aggro wipe when phases change.
Phase 3:
Ok, now it is time for the fun part; it is extremely intense and stressful for healers, so please be patient while they learn this phase. This phase is reached when Anub’Arak hits 30% health. Immediately upon entering this phase, he casts Leeching Swarm. This ability is not resistible and spells that make you immune will not help. Once Leeching Swarm is cast, it persists until either the raid wipes or until Anub’Arak dies. The swarm will remove 30% health per second from every raid member or 250 health, which ever is greater. Please note that the health removed heals Anub’Arak. There will be massive damage until it stats to level out and everyone reaches low health. The swarm is able to be partially resisted, and thus, I used [Lesser Flask of Resistance] when I was tanking Anub’Arak; it helped mitigate the massive incoming damage from being at full health.
To help visualize and quantify how many seconds you have for someone to die, I created a spreadsheet when we first started this fight. You can download it here, make sure that you either have Excel or Open Office to read it.
The optimal health for non-tanks is 1000 health. That seems low, but you want to minimize the healing done to Anub’Arak as it will speed up the kill and reduce chances of deaths. The goal is to have 300 hps to each raid member, this will keep them around 1000 health. The raid healers do not heal the raid unless that member has Penetrating Cold. You will use passive healing to keep the raid up. Shaman’s Healing Stream Totem when properly specced/glyphed, can keep a group up by itself. Shadow Priest’s Vampiric Embrace combined with a Shaman that does not have a specced/glyphed Healing Stream Totem can keep a group up together. Have a Paladin keep Judgement of Light on Anub’arak and the melee will literally heal themselves through it. With all that combined, that means the raid healers can solely focus on healing Penetrating Colds.
Penetrating Cold does 6000 damage every 3 seconds for 18 seconds (6 ticks). The spell can be partially and full resisted; you can also use abilities like Iceblock or Cloak of Shadows to remove the debuff. We also used Since the raid members should be at 1000 health, they can not take a single tick without dying. Here is the biggest issue the healers have. We have 3 seconds to get 5 people above 6000 health. We have the raid DPS to sacrifice two DPS for two healers, giving us a total of 7 healers. Two tank healers, 5 raid healers. There are quite a few obstacles in ensuring that every last person lives through each Penetrating Cold.
The main addon you want is either Deus Vox, DBM or Penetrator. Any addon that will give consistent marks to all people that have Penetrating Cold will work. I would suggest that multiple people have the same addon installed, but only one person (that doesn’t have a history of disconnecting) should have it actually marking. You can do this by demoting anyone else so that there is no chance of marks getting mixed up or switching. The version of Penetrator that is out there will NOT work, do not use it. We had to heavily modify the addon so that it doesn’t fail to mark, like it had been doing for us a few times. I do not, at this time, have a copy of the addon. Of the 5 marks going out, you want to assign a healer to each one. For example, I’ve been the orange circle on every attempt. This makes it extremely easy to locate my mark instead of worrying about remembering which icon I need to look for.
Healer specific addons are more common. All healers run Grid and most likely Clique. There are reasons that we require Grid; there are no other addons that can displays debuffs like it does. It also allows us to have consistency. I don’t need to learn Vuhdo or Healbot and worry about getting them configured. Two addons are essential, GridStatusRaidIcons and GridStatusRaidDebuff. Regarding the raid icons, you don’t want to download the addon from Curse, with the version they have, the marks are 70% transparent, making them difficult to see. We have a modified version that you can download from me and the raid debuff addon can be had from Curse:
GridStatusRaidIcons
GridStatusRaidDebuff
I set up both of these addons to use the Center Icon (Frame<Center Icon). The raid icons have a priority of 99 and the raid debuffs have a priority of 98. There are two reasons why I do this, first, if a raid mark does not go out (it happens) and that person still has the debuff, the healers know that person needs heals. The other is so that the raid icons do not get overwritten by any other Grid addons, ensuring that is is always visible. With these addons combined, Penetrating Cold will always be seen and deaths will be minimized.
To take Grid another step further, I made my raid icons more visible. I didn’t modify any addons or use anything special, all I did was disable coloring. If you watch the video, you will see that my Grid looks completely black. If you look closer, you will see their health is visible, just difficult to see. I can’t distinguish between classes since I don’t need to for this fight. I disabled “Use class color” for current health, missing health and player name. With the dark background, you can see how prominent the raid markings are and it improves my reaction time.
Click here to download the video of our kill
Click here to see the EHFS combat log of our kill
Click here to see the World of Logs combat log of our kill
As always, feel free to ask me questions in game or on the forums; I’m always happy to help out.
Thideras
Exodus
US – Shadow Council
Tribute to Insanity 25 Man – Completed!
Posted by thideras | Filed under General Information
The strategy is now posted, click here to view it!
On Wednesday, an elite group of members from the group “Exodus” (US – Shadow Council) have killed Anub’Arak Heroic 25 with 50 attempts remaining; being the first on the server to get the achievement [A Tribute to Insanity]. It takes extraordinary skill, dedication and teamwork to do what we did and not many can claim they have done this. The Anub’Arak kill takes absolute perfection and doing so is extremely hard. For the past three to four weeks, we’ve had our Insanity kill pulled from under our feet. With a combination of random disconnects, server issues or just RNG, it has been a frustrating and long road for all of us. Congratulations to Exodus!
As I’ve said in the past, I’m honored to be part of this group and I know there is more to come.
With all of the achievements (except Tribute to Immortality) completed in ToC, I will be posting our strategy here shortly; it will take me some time to write it up. Feel free to ask any questions, most of the guild would be happy to answer them for you; myself especially. In the meantime, please enjoy the video:
Tribute to Insanity – Exodus Kill
If you have issues playing the video, please ensure that you have the DivX codec installed. If you are unsure or you do not, click here to download a codec pack including DivX. If you download the file, select “Option 7: Lots of Stuff” during the install. Once installed, you should be able to view the video.
The strategy is now posted, click here to view it!
