By Fire Be Purged!

I very vividly remember my first encounters with Ragnaros, down in the fiery depths of Molten Core, where he held my Stormrage legs hostage.  I remember farming weeks for fire resist gear and potions.  The fire elementals in Arathi Highlands.  The BRD runs for the items from that secret stash in the vault required for your fire resist arcanum.  I remember “practicing” jumping out of the lava in Rag’s lair, finding that one teensy spot in which you could hop out safely after being knocked back.

Why this random trip down memory lane?  Well, with 4.2 landing today it seemed fitting to recall my time previously spent with the great fire lord, as it would seem I will soon become reacquainted with him.

For the first time since Firelands was announced, I’m looking forward to it.

When Firelands was originally announced I was looking at what we had left standing in T11, and stressing over what we would be able to complete before the patch launched.  I spent hours scheduling, stressing, strategizing and hoping that we’d be able to move into Firelands with a predominant focus on the new T12 content.  Each night that we floundered on Heroic Council the likelihood of that happening dwindled a little more, and I stressed incessantly over it.

But then last Thursday, it happened.  Somehow we pulled it all together and finally got Council down.  And in all honesty a huge weight was lifted.  I felt it immediately.  In my attitude, in my outlook, in my perspective on the coming of the new content.  I was, all things told, relieved.

We aren’t quite finished with T11 yet.  As a guild we haven’t had to the time to nail down the Conclave or Cho’gall achievements for the meta.  We have one or two people missing a random achievement here or there that we will have to go back and finish up.  We will have to take a night (yes…a full night) and go back to get those who missed our first council kill their kill.  After we’ve all recovered and finished the therapy from the trauma of our first kill, that is.  But none of it feels…pressing.  They are all things that we will get done ASAP so we can check it off our list and put it behind us – but there is no pressure.  And that is, frankly, a relief. 

We ended T11 with a bang, securing a second Sinestra kill, and that seemed an appropriate note to finish on.  I was emotional as I thanked my guild for hanging in there through this tier and congratulating them on a job well done.  I am so incredibly proud of everything we’ve done and each challenge we’ve overcome.

I finally have time to breathe

We finished our raid a bit early last night, and I realized that I have time to breathe.  Sure, there is new content, but I will be surprised if the first encounters that we see are anywhere near as stressful or as challenging as what we just conquered.  And it will be a welcome change of pace.  At least for a week or two, anyhow.

I’ve been reviewing the new content.  Working on strategy.  But I once again feel calm and relaxed, not frenzied and harried, as if I have 100 things to do and there isn’t enough time in the day to finish the half of them.  And I realize that this patch had probably come at just the right time.  Well, not exactly.  I would have appreciated it not dropping on a holiday weekend – but whatever.  We have our 25s scheduled – but anticipate at least one day, if not two, of needing to drop back to a 10 (FOR SCIENCE!) as we have people spending time with family and friends over the holiday.  Hopefully they will return to us with all of their fingers in tact!

In a bit of a moment of weakness, I gave in an announced our first Dragonwrath recipient at the end of the raid last night (we historically wait until we step into the instance to make the big announcement).  I think we made a good decision.  While I am certain there is some level of disappointment for those who weren’t selected first, I think everyone would agree that it went to a good candidate – even if it wasn’t them.

In looking back at T11 – I am glad it is largely in my rearview mirror.  I won’t mind being a tourist as we go in now and again to finish the last few things, but I’m quite glad to know that it will be getting more distant.  Time will tell what memories grow from this tier, and I can only hope the good ones are at least equal to the bad.

Resto Changes in 4.2?

I talked about some of the resto changes that we can expect with 4.2 back as they became relevant on the PTR, but I haven’t had the time – or frankly the energy – to sit down and put them together in a nice package for everyone.  I do regret this a bit, but the resto community is so fortunate to have so many wonderful resources that I know you will be covered while I regain my footing and sanity!

In fact, you can visit any of the following wonderful resources if you would like to refresh yourself on the changes you will be presented with upon logging in tonight:

• Keeva’s Update on Restodruid.info.
• Jasyla’s notes on what to expect with 4.2.
• Jarre’s Updates to his healing guide.
• Derwent’s thoughts on the 4.2 changes and what to expect.

 The Cliff’s notes version of what is changing is the following:

• Our mastery is being upgraded and is now called Harmony.  It will now be an overall boost to your healing, via a buff placed on you each time you cast a direct heal.  You will want to cast a direct heal once every 10 seconds to keep it active.  Only heals cast while you have the harmony buff will be affected by harmony.  As a side note, I will make a power aura for this tonight and will share what I’m using tomorrow.
• Our stat priorities will be changing as a result of the mastery change and the crit change.  Where they will fall is still somewhat debatable – just know that mastery is no longer terrible for us.  Reaching the 2005 haste breakpoint is still a priority (and made easier with the new tier of gear) – but after that everything is all shook up.  There is some talk that mastery and crit will both eclipse spirit after a certain point, so keep your eyes on the theory crafters as they battle it out.
• Innervate has changed, and it is now pretty much a waste of an innervate to innervate anyone other than yourself as any other target will only receive 5% (10% if glyphed) of your mana.  The value of the glyph of innervate has plummeted and I have replaced it with the Glyph of Healing Touch (which I did while working on Sinestra for Calen healing).

Will you continue you video guides?

Yes!  I had a lot of fun doing them and it is my intention to continue to create them. 

I tried to get good footage of our Cho’gall kill this week, but after having not seen him for roughly three weeks while we were pushing Sinestra and Council, we were a little, uh, rusty and I just don’t think the video is a good representation of the encounter.  I might be wrong on this as we didn’t fall apart until the very end – so I’ll make a decision on this after watching the video through.  I do not know if we will have another Cho’gall kill or not, it depends on if we opt to continue killing Sinestra.  If we do, and I feel it’s relevant, I’ll put it together and post it up.

I also tried to get footage of Sinestra last night.  Up until the last 5% or so we executed the kill almost flawlessly.  But at the very end  of the fight there was a snap decision and we had an unfortunate LoH on our whelp tank and he couldn’t bubble his stacks off.  While he was panicking about this I got munched by the last wave of whelps, and in all the chaos we had a healer not realize he had a cutter until it was too late.  We pulled through by the skin of our teeth…barely!  (Those are the most exciting kills, right?!?!).  But again, I don’t feel it’s representative of how the kill should go, so I will try to get more footage of it should we go back and kill her again.

However, with Firelands here, I have more fights to look at!  The only question that I have for folks is if you’d like both normal and heroic mode guides, or just heroic mode?  I don’t want to flood people with information that they don’t want or use precious time on things people may not find useful!

What are you most looking forward to in patch 4.2?

I know the thing that I’m least looking forward to is new dailys.  But I feel very positive today, so I’m not going to rant and rave about it…at least not today! 😉  I think I’m looking forward to the new content and the new pets.  Unless I dreamed it, I believe archeology digs got the change where you will no longer get digs for races that you’ve fully discovered – so I am (loathingly) looking forward to trying for my crawling claw again.

I guess a fair statement would be to say that I’m looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead.  I think that is a broad enough brush to cover everything!  What are you looking forward to?