So whats with these Tier Bonuses?

Blizzard have decided that the Tier 8 bonus has been too powerful and so has hit it with the nerf hammer, reducing the initial instant heal by 50%. Lame!

In their defense though, it was pretty powerful. Looking at combat logs on fights where the % of my healing from Rejuvenation was 50%, At least 10 of that healing was coming from the Tier 8 bonus. Obviously this scaled with raid vs tank healing, and fights where you would pre-hot vs. fights where you heal as damage was taken.

And this change is making the Tier 9 4 set bonus a lot more desirable. Which is more then I can say of the pathetic 2 set bonus they gave us.

[2] Your Nourish gains an addition 5% chance to crit.

While I personally will not be breaking my tier 8 4 piece bonus for the 2 piece one, I am sure it would benefit when tank healing, alongside the new and improved empowered touch talent and our current nourish glyph. As Nourish generally isn’t up there on my healing, I find this talent rubbish comparing it to our tier 8 (Swiftmend healing increased by 10%) Which I burn every time it’s off CD.

So back to the Tier 9, 4 set bonus.

[4] Your Rejuvenation now gains the chance to crit

Comparing it to the changed T8 4 set bonus, I believe this can be a really great or really crappy bonus.

On the positives, a crit = bigger better heal, period. Sure it may be overhealing but on the other end, it may not.

Druids will always be known as fantastic raid healers so it makes sense for us to get another raid-skill bonus. Thankyou blizz.

Natures grace will be going crazy when raid healing. With upwards of 5 rej’s ticking about your raid, even

with a low crit it’s going to be proccing a lot of the time. (If it does....... can anyone confirm this?)

In the negative corner, A lot (most) of rejevenation is overhealing, which druids now suffer from. A bigger heal is just going to be a bigger overheal.

Breaking the Tier 8 set bonus will delete one of our only instant heals (the other being your NS+HT combo you have on your macro bar). However small it was, It was always rewarding to Clink, heal, Click, heal. Instead of Click, Wait, Tick!

A Trees best friend is haste, as it reduces the GCD on all our spells and the cast time of the few castables we have. Both these bonuses benifit from crit, which we don't hold onto. Do we really want to stack crit for these?

In my perfect world Druid HoT's would always be able to crit. This is something Blizzard has never given us so the fact that they have made it a set bonus is kind of like giving us a toy that we have to give back. Why carn't we always have the toy? I may dream about this in another post sometime :)

I would be grabbing all the yummy Tier 9 stuff you can, as the stats will make the upgrade worth it in the end. But don't be so hasty to put it all on at once. Check the bonuses you are losing/gaining and match that up with your healing assignment. Tank healers don't need a instant Rej and raid healers probably won't like the Nourish crit.

Spex <3

Opps! Out of Gold Again

Most people will experience this at some point. With Ulduar Hardmodes, and Trial of the Grand Crusader, lots of wipes means lots of gold spent, and all that new gear you're getting needs enchants and gems, not to mention the flasks, buff food and potions you need to last you through each evening. So with all that excitement going on about us, It is fair enough that we are all feeling abit burnt out in our pockets.

So I just wanted to kindly remind afew friends of the easier ways to make money.

Dailies - I know, they are horrible, get boring fast and require you to travel to stupid places. But they all give 10-20 gold each, and can help you with your Professions, Reputation and unlock some other miscellaneous cute stuff such as pets and mounts. The idea is to find something you want besides the cash. For example I really want that cute Kulak fishing pole, and that ridiculous looking chef hat. The money I get from the dailies, to me, is just a hidden bonus from my main agenda. (fashion, by the sounds of things).

Farming - Another gross idea. Mining, Herbing and Fishing are again boring. I try and jazz things up by running with a friend. Hop on vent and chat, or grab a hot/cold tasty drink and put on some good music. Try and use it as a relaxing way to end the night with your guildies, instead of a boring grind session. You may come to enjoy that time of day (Could you be so lucky?)

Farming side note: I personally find that Outland and Azeroth materials tend to sell for more then Northrend ones, as more people farm NR ones, and people wanting to powerlevel professions don't mind paying a little extra for oldschool mats.

Playing AH - Eternals cheap? Buy them all, wait afew days and then put them back up. Alternatively, make a character on your other factions side, and compare prices. Crusader and Runed orbs prices seem to vary the most on my server, so check both factions and see if you can make a profit. Just be aware of the neutral AH costs when transferring them over, and the costs of putting them up in your own AH.

Professions - Remember the 3k it cost you to level up engineering from 1-450? Why are you not making back the money? JCer's cut popular gems and sell them. Tailors make bags, Netherweave are best. Eternal Belt Buckles sell well, and if you have Inscription and Enchanting, you will find alot of people will pay alot for enchants that they can buy out on the AH, to save having to mess about with finding an enchanter, working out a tip, etc. Also Darkmoon cards sell well, either individually, or as a deck.

Profession side note: Always burn your Cooldowns. Tailors, make your specialized cloth. Alchemists, transmute your gems into the epic ones, etc. Most cooldowns will attract a nice wad of cash from the AH.

Farm Oldschool Raids - Some old bosses still give a nice amount of gold. get a friend and go beat up Onyxia (50g) or get a party and go kill magtheridon (500g). You can sell the loot for additional funds and get afew achievements along the way.

Heroics – The drops sell nicely, or DE into decent mats for your next enchant, the emblems you can use to buy orbs and gems to sell on the AH and you can get a small amount of gold and cloth from the trash and bosses.

Get Loremaster – Those quests get you some nice money and all the loot can be vendored, auctioned or, disenchanted etc. Start in Northrend and work your way backwards, so you can open up all your dailies and do them alongside your questing. You will need A LOT of time for this.

Till next time

Spex <3

Who do you battlerez?

Hypothetically, from a 25 man raid point of view. You are in Trial of the Crusader and one of those Giganto worm things has taken out a Mage, Hunter, Priest and Pally. You have checked your Rebirth and it is not on cooldown. But this is where it gets a bit daunting. Is it a wipe? Should you save your battlerez? Who should you get up? ARGH!

A druids rebirth is one very powerful spell that should be used frequently and sparingly. At the same time. But who should we use it on? I have unconsciously made a checklist which I usually go through every time a raid member hits the floor.

Are they Tanking anything?

Are they Healing?

Do they have a specific job? (Picking up Mimiron’s core, Activating Razors turrets etc)

Are they a druid with an available Rebirth?

Is it a wipe?

This means that when a Tank, Healer or Druid dies, I usually will get them up quick smart. This is a good thing. It also means that when my fellow Rogues, Hunters, Ret Paladins etc die, I will most likely pretend they don’t exist. And I don’t even mean to do it! I don’t have a grudge against Mages, I just won’t Battle Rez one unless I’m told to by a raid leader/guild officer.

Anyone else got a checklist of who deserves my rebirth?

And Oh here are some tips which I should do also….

Communicate – If you are Rebirthing someone, Say who you are battlerezzing so the healers can get ready to top them up and the Rebirthee can get ready to take the rez. If your raid does not know your voice, state who you are. “Spex, battle rezzing John”. Maybe I should make a /rw macro for my vent-shy moments…….

Are you the Rebirthee? – Don’t accept the resurrection during XT’s temper tantrum, during Hodirs frozen blows etc. When you do accept it, eat your health cookie or bandage yourself, to get abit of health back, and be sure to get all your self-buffs up before you get back to pew pewing.

Care for your Rebirthee – Let them know if it’s unsafe to rebirth. You might have just been targeted by General V’s Shadow Crash and moved after you finished casting, but it’s not going to be very welcoming for your raid member if you neglect to tell him this. Once they are up, give them your innervate if they can benefit from it, and you can do without it, give them a Mark of the Wild and Thorns if they are a tank.

Use Natures Swiftness – Especially if they are a tank. The longer the tank is down for, the more likely it’s going to be a wipe, so use this alongside Rebirth to get them up FAST.

Rebirth saves you from Walking! - Did you just die on a boss like General Vezax, which takes FOREVER to walk to? (I am lazy) Waste this baby on a class that can resurrect if you didn’t get any DI’s up. They can hit resurrect when the boss resets (providing you rebirthed them from a safe place). Definitely not the best way to spend it.

Spex <3