With MoP nearing quickly, it's time to prepare for T14 raiding. Aside from leveling and learning boss fights, this means your toons needs to be raid-ready by the time the rest of your guild is. I have assembled a set of gear that will allow you to reach the 6652 Haste breakpoint for the 9th ticks of WG/Efflo, and to acquire this gear you won't have to set foot in a raid. Some players have expressed concern that reaching this breakpoint necessitates sacrificing too much spirit. Maybe it's true some players will need every single point of Spirit available, but missing out on a few gems' worth of Spirit should be well worth the lost regen. The extra WG/Efflo breakpoint is so powerful that it would be worth using your mana more cautiously if it means you get the Haste you need. Here's what this pre-raid set looks like, assembled with the WoWHead Profiler.

Most of this gear may be acquired from running level 90 dungeons. Some of these items might be quite expensive because they are crafted. As of right now, the profiler does not allow the use of MoP gems, and keep in mind our relics and head enchants are gone! Once reforged, you should be looking at something alone the lines of this.

Do notice: the weapon and necklace require exalted with the Klaxxi, and the necklace requires Valor Points, both requirements which should be manageable by raid time once Mogu'shan Vaults is opened. There are alternatives for both slots of gear, but you might need to shift you enchants and gems around to make the Haste breakpoint. You should also be able to work around buying the crafted chest item, as well. Unfortunately, purchasing the crafted gloves and the Darkmoon Card are probably unavoidable until you're able to get some real raiding gear.

MoP Talent Trees

Guys, let's be honest. I think Blizz did a fantastic job with the new talent trees – at least ours. They've been trying to eliminate cookie cutter talent trees, and guess what? They've done it. It took them getting rid of most talents that had measurable HPS gains. But they did it. We have choices. When I look at each tier, multiple mechanics come to mind that each talent can counter, and quite frankly, I'm excited.

I was extremely disappointed when I saw an EJ poster already shared his attempt at the "best talent tree." Don't get me wrong: I understand the motivation. It’s been grinded into our minds that serious raiders need the best talents. But now we can change single talents between fights with the use of a single Dust of Disappearance/Tome of the Clear Mind. Many talents are versatile for adjusting to lots of different mechanics, so maybe a single fight will have a "best" talent tree. In general, each talent should have use for multiple bosses per tier. This poster chose Incarnation as the "best" talent in Tier 4. How can you do that? Just thinking about DS, I would certainly choose Soul of the Forest for at least half of the fights (Morchok, Ultraxion, Blackhorn,and Madness). Granted the new MoP raids have less raid stacking, it seems close-minded to assign a “best talent tree” – I would even consider it impossible. We no longer have reason to design a perfect talent tree because there is not a perfect talent tree.

I don't intend to be rude – not at all. I simply find myself flabbergasted that we finally have real choices for our talents, and players are trying to break the talents down into "best" talents. Sure, some might be used more often than others, but does frequency of choice constitute “the best?” I should hope not. There aren't many instances in which I would choose Displacer Beast in Tier 1, but it would certainly be useful for a fight like Zon'ozz when you might need to get away from the group rather quickly (ODS, Maloriak, Ascendant Council, Majordomo are other fights that come to mind). Many players are quickly dismissing Displacer Beast as our worst talent in Tier 1. I agree it will be the least used talent, but it will certainly serve great assistance for some fights. The problem is clear: players must stop thinking big picture when selecting talents.

In the past, we had to consider big picture when choosing our talents. The talents we chose typically needed to last the duration of the night, or at least until a 5-minute break. It’s time to change our mode of thinking. When you try to choose talents, don’t think big picture. You should now approach your talent tree with a specific fight in mind and consider what combination of talents will best allow you to counter that particular encounter. It's imperative that you plan on changing glyphs regularly through the raid night.

Some of these talents are completely new, and we haven't had to put them to use yet. I encourage full creativity. In fact, I'd like to issue a personal challenge. Look at each talent and think of every fight from Cataclysm that has a mechanic for which a given talent would be useful. I bet you can come up with 3-7 different mechanics (maybe even more) that each talent can counter.

Resto Druid 5.0.4 Guide

The release of Mists of Pandaria nears quickly. Now is the time to catch up class changes and prepare yourself for the new adventures ahead. Check out my guide that has all you need to Resto Druid properly in the new content. It will be updated frequently as players share from their own knowledge, testing, and experiences.

One thing I've noticed right away is the need for additional spirit. My raiding mana pool dropped from 163k down to 100k so I've already reforged from 1996 Spirit up to 3083 Spirit—the difference is about as wonderful as you might expect, increasing my mana regeneration by 50%. Because Spirit is now essentially our sole source of mana regeneration, potions are actually much more effective. Drinking a Potion of Concentration now restores 22% of my mana, whereas previously it only restored 13.5% of my mana.

Do keep in mind, if you had Haste on your Relic and your overall Haste was barely above the 2005 breakpoint, you will no longer be receiving that extra tick of WG/Efflo because your Relic is now gone.

My Name Is Fumsy

I just finished writing the Resto guide for MMO-Champion. It took more work than expected – probably all that damn BB Code. I first started this blog during the Firelands patch, but a brief break from the game soon followed, and needless to say this blog was quickly forgotten. I've since cleared everything out and changed the design to start anew.

My name is Fumsy. I began playing, and raiding soon thereafter, on my warlock in Burning Crusade. My guild desperately needed a tank in ICC so I used my druid to fill the void. When we found a reliable tank I was finally able to switch to Resto in T11, and I've been healing ever since!

The purposes of this blog will serve to stay updated and active with class changes as Blizz pushes them out, as well as to document my heroic raiding progression with Full Spectrum. It's a special guild full of wonderful players. Over 2 nights, we raid 7 hours per week so showing up ready to fill my role as part of the team is vital. Hopefully, through this blog, I can develop my thoughts and seek further insight as to how I can be the best healer I can be. I do intend to make some brief video guides to match, at least in part, the guide I wrote for MMO-C, and I plan to video document our progression (the good nights and the bad) as we work towards 16/16H in MoP.

I'm thrilled for the new content and the class changes!