It’s been a long time coming. I’ve heard about these big, bad 25 man raids in BC for some time. I’ve hoped to get there some day, and it’s difficult with the playtime I have available. Well, my druid is nearly as well equipped as he can be, short of a drop or two in Kara and the new badge loot in 2.4. It was finally time for me to start participating in SSC raids and beyond.

Saturday night was actually my second trip to the instance. 2 weeks ago I went along and got to experience Lurker for the first time. That nasty old spout must have gotten me 4 times, but we did take him down. Now fast forward to last night.

This time I was there from the beginning. We started by clearing our way to Hydross. As far as trash goes, there are large groups of hard hitting mobs, but they really don’t see all that difficult. As long as people are staying on CC an the healers are doing their jobs, it’s fairly straightforward. Also, as a healer, it’s nothing more than whack a mole, yet again. I swear my grid layout is going to burned onto my retinas at some point. I’ll find myself walking around in real life wondering who the tanks are.

Anyhow, we get to Hydross and the explanation ensues. Hydross is an interesting fight, what with the two different aspects and the tank dragging. Still, for a healer it’s more of the same. The only question is whether I’m responsible for a tank, the raid or whatnot.

I’m going to step back from SSC in particular here to talk about healing. You’ve heard me mention before how playing a healer is kind of like whack a mole, and this is especially true for a druid healer. I have no useful CC, and I have no real utility to add to a raid. I’m there for one thing only: healing. Does it get boring? Sure, in a manner of speaking. There are times you kind of get on autopilot and lose sight of the fight in general.

However, there are also many whiteknuckle moments where you wonder if you’re going to land that big heal in time. Those times when you wonder if you should burn Nature’s Swiftness. Those times when you have to stay on healing while locating a downed raid member to battle rez. Healing IS fun, and it can be very exciting. The only issue is that, when you get down to it, it’s the same thing over and over again. I suppose you could argue it’s the same for every class, though, just in different ways.

So anyways, back to that unstable guy. We wipe the first two tries. In one instance, a couple of healers went down to the adds that spawn occasionally. In the second wipe, one of the DPSers got overzealous, and the tank couldn’t get Hydross back quick enough.

The third try, though, was pretty cake. We didn’t even come close to the 10 minute soft time limit, either. He dropped the [Idol of the Crescent Goddess] and I grabbed it. I didn’t necessarily want it, but nobody else did and I was at the bottom of the SK list anyhow.

We moved onto Lurker, and it took us a few tries again. I believe it took us four to take him down. We still have quite a few people that are new to these fights, myself included, and we had quite a few deaths due to that nasty old spout. (Thankfully, yours truly learned his lesson last time and was in the water in PLENTY of time and didn’t get spouted once!) We did take him down eventually, and that was it for the raid. We had a 3 hour time limit and reached it just after taking down Lurker.

So, there’s the summary. What do I think?

Honestly, I’m a bit underwhelmed. It’s fun learning new boss fights, and I do like the way the two I have seen are set up. Afterwards I took the time to look through the loot tables a bit. For those first two boss fights, there is literally nothing I want. The real problem, then, is that I can really only raid once a week. That means there is a good chance that those will be the same two bosses I see most of the time.

Hmmpph.

Am I better off farming badges in Kara?

Maybe, with the new uber loot on it’s way once the vendor opens up, farming badges in heroics and Kara is a better short term proposition for me than raiding in SSC.

Long-term, however, I do realize that the only way for me to REALLY progress is to stick with the raiding. It’s just that the thought of devoting my one raid night a week to something that doesn’t have a lot of payoff early is a little problematic. There is a pair of bracers that drop, whose name escapes me, but they don’t seem like much of an upgrade at all over my [Windhawk Bracers], especially if you factor in the set bonus I’m getting for 8 MP5.

So what should I do with my one raid night? I’ve been organizing Kara myself, and the 23 badges or whatever in 5 hours or so is pretty nice (This is still a “new” Kara group, so I expect if we can stick with it we can trim that time to clear significantly). There are drops there for my Druid still as well, like the T4 helm.

Then again, don’t I want to some day see Hyjal and Black Temple, and actually be able to contribute? With Wrath not all that far away, do I really care? I suppose, at this point, I still enjoy Kara more, as I like the smaller group setting where I feel more “important.” I should also add that I’ve still only done Kara about 6 times now. Decisions, decisions…

There has been much discussion over the past couple of days about the newest five man instance, Magisters’ Terrace. I shared my initial thoughts about the instance yesterday, and I was not alone. A lot of folks in the blogging world took the time to share their experiences as well.

Big Bear Butt Blogger, Asleep at the WoW, and Ferocious Bite are just a few of the bloggers to have thoughts about the new instance. It’s also not hard to find approximately 1.2 billion posts on the subject over on the official WoW forums. Everybody’s talking about it, so what are they saying?

Well, my take is that the overall reaction is positive. I think most everyone can agree that it’s a very pretty instance with great music. For the most part, people agree that it is also quite challenging, even on normal mode. The reaction loot-wise is that there is some good stuff in there, but perhaps not great. I would suggest that the loot in normal mode is better than any other five man out there overall, and the heroic loot is perhaps slightly better as well.

There is some divergence here, however, and I thought we’d take a look at that. It seems that overall the instance can be a bit of a “gear check.” Even in normal mode, you can’t take a freshly minted 70 in mostly green quest rewards and expect to succeed, as you can in other instances. This is even more true in the exceedingly difficult heroic version of the dungeon. I haven’t personally been in the heroic as of yet, but from what I understand it is VERY challenging, on par with or more difficult than the other “tough” heroic instances, like Arcatraz.

People also differ in how hard they judge the instance to be. I personally started a thread on the official forums asking if Magisters’ Terrace was now the most difficult 5-man in the game. A lot of people agreed with my assessment, that it is the most difficult 5-man, but a few people did not.

I noticed something interesting about the posters who claimed the instance wasn’t all that difficult. When looking at their respective armory pages, most of them were sporting Tier 5 gear and beyond. Well, in all honesty, I would HOPE that someone in tier 5 gear wouldn’t have too much trouble with those encounters. If you’re working on or have downed the real Kael’Thas, I would hope you could handle his watered-down twin brother!

But of course, as is the case with most topics on the official forums, you have a large swath of board trolls who like to brag about their accomplishments incessantly. I’m used to it.

As a player in mostly Kara gear, I found the instance to be a nicely tuned challenge. It’s tough, but I think it’s doable. I also believe it will actually help me progress as a player, as some of the trash pulls and boss fights required more “advanced” strategy. Frankly, this is the kind of thing I was hoping to see with ZA. A nice difficulty progression from Karazhan. As it turned out, ZA is too tough for most Kara geared guilds, and doesn’t act as the bridge to 25 man content we maybe hoped for.

Overall, I think Magisters’ Terrace is just the kind of instance to keep guilds that are stuck in limbo somewhere between Kara and SSC occupied until Wrath hits. It is challenging, but I wouldn’t say frustratingly so. It might take some time to get all the fights down, but at least you only need to drum up 5 people to try it. I think it’s a find addition to the available 5-man instances, and goes to show that Blizzard doesn’t necessarily need to create bloated, ultra-difficult 25-man raids to please a lot of players. Some of us out here are awfully happy to have our new 5-man to master, Magisters’ Terrace.

I logged on around 10:30 last night. I just wanted to mess around with the new dailies and run around the new zone a little bit. Well, after a few minutes someone decided to put together a group for Magister’s Terrace. It’s way late for me already, but I figured what the hell. I can go short on sleep to see the new instance.

**Disclaimer: There are some minor spoilers below. I won’t get into full on strategy, but if you want to go into MagT completely green without knowledge of any bosses, quit reading now.**

My very first impression? VERY NICE! I loved the art direction in this place right away. I should add that I play Alliance, so I’m not as used to that architectural style as some of you horde players might be. The colors are rich, the layout is interesting, and it’s straightforward. The music is also excellent, on par with the music from Kara, which I think is some of the best in the game. Here’s a shot from the very first hallway.

The mobs are pretty normal to begin with. Just your garden variety blood elves. They have a few painful and irritating abilities, though, and I’m not even sure who had them or what exactly they did. One was some kind of glaive that seemed to stun me for a few seconds. (Never good if you’re a healer!) Another was a silence (Again, no good for healers!). Those abilities popped up again and again throughout the instance, and by the end I HATED Glaive and Silence!

The first boss, Selin Fireheart, was pretty straightforward. We wiped the first try, though not due to difficulty. There is a door that appears when the boss is triggered, and myself and a mage were trapped behind it. Doh! Anyhow, once we got a REAL try in, he was easy. He is a lot like Kalithresh in Steamvaults, only with Crystals in lieu of tanks. If he starts sucking on a crystal, destroy the crystal or else. Other than that he was pretty easy. As far as drops, he dropped some blue mail +attack power thing, [Bracers of the Forest Stalker]. Nobody in the group could use it. Oh well.

Selin Fireheart before:

Selin Fireheart after:

On to the second boss. If you’ve ever done Curator in Kara, you’ll find him familiar. He’s in a room filled with flying mana worm dudes, like a LOT of flying mana worm dudes. The boss himself is like a steroid enhanced version one of those Arcane elemental guys that hung out in the Curator’s room. He played somewhat like the Curator as well, with some flares and the like. He was easy enough to down on the first try.

And, wonder of wonders, I got a drop! I don’t know if what I got will replace [Boots of the Incorrupt], but [Boots of Resuscitation] would be real nice boots for a druid not already in Kara purples. I’m still debating whether I can live with some of the stats I’d lose, because they do have two gem slots. I could easily slot a stamina gem or something else to make up the stats. We’ll see. Anyhow…

Around this point in the instance there is a crystal you click to enjoy a little cutscene. It was a VERY nice touch. From what I could tell, it looked like a preview of the 25 man Raid in the new zone. Little things like this are the reason I have played this game for so long, with no signs of stopping. Let’s face it, Blizzard is STILL on its game! I loved it!

Onward we go. The third boss is in a nice, big open aroboretum type area with fountains. Very nicely designed room, just as the rest of the instance is. The third boss is a lot like Moroes, in that you have a boss and four random adds of different classes. We got some kind of Paladin, a rogue, and I don’t know what else. We spanked her pretty well on the first try, as we cleared the room so the Lock in our group could CC two of them with Banish and Fear. One sheep from the mage, and the fight was pretty easy. I could see it being tough if you didn’t have appropriate CC. Here is a shot of the third boss, Priestess Delrissa.

What did she drop? She dropped a pair of blue spellcaster shoulders, [Duskhallow Mantle]. From what I’ve seen of the loot so far, it’s some fairly nice pre raiding blue stuff. If you’re clearing Kara on a regular basis, maybe not so much.

Here is where it got ugly. I’ll be honest, we didn’t finish. Next on the list, and the last boss was Kael’Thas Sunstrider.

I won’t mince any words here. Kael’Thas is one TOUGH cookie. He beat us like red-headed stepchildren, repeatedly. He’s simply a very tough fight with a lot of different elements you have to get right to succeed. We had a few specific problems with this fight.

• It was VERY late – Everyone was a little tired by the time we got here, it was close to 2 am
• There is flat out a LOT of damage being thrown around to multiple group members – as a Druid I struggle in that kind of situation
• In the second phase, everyone takes a lot of damage on a constant basis…something like 300 or more damage per second, on EVERYONE (again, tough for a Druid)

So sadly, our run ended in failure. We wiped on him five different times, for a different reason each time. I didn’t realize until it was too late that what I had to do was try to get Rejuv on EVERYONE before the second phase, and keep refreshing it along with tossing lifeblooms. Oh well. I did get to see most everything there, and got a decent drop to boot. (Pun intended.) I look forward to trying Kael again soon.

Overall, I give the instance an A+ on first impression. It is quite challenging, and could be the most difficult five man in the game now. There are some tricky pulls and some tricky bosses, and it really keeps you on your toes in a good way. I shudder to think of trying this in heroic, but at the same time really look forward to it.

I’ve been back to focusing on my alts in recent weeks. I’m still running Karazhan with my resto Druid, but frankly there isn’t much left there for me other than badges. I have started getting involved in SSC runs as well, but I’m not sure if I’d just rather run Kara every week. That’s another topic, though.

I have a nice stable of alts at a decent level I could work on. I have a 42 Rogue, 40 Warrior, 43 Priest and a 41 Shaman. I also have a handful of alts in the 20 range. Recently I’ve been concentrating on the priest, as I wanted to see what all the fuss was about regarding shadowform. (Again, another topic, but I do indeed see what all the fuss was about. Only the hunter was close to the power of a shadow priest at 40!)

So now I realize it’s time to get serious. I want to focus on at least one of those characters, or possibly a different one altogether, and get them to 70 by the release of WotLK. Looking at what I have, I can really only eliminate the rogue. I like the damage output, but I don’t like the constant misses inherent in dual wield until I can get some +hit. I can conceivably eliminate the Shaman, who is enhance, for the same reason.

That leaves me with the Warrior, Shadow Priest, or something else entirely. So what is it I want?

• A class that has some flexibility. I want to be able to fill more than one role if possible.
• A class that’s fairly easy to level.
• A class I will enjoy playing the whole way

Quickly, I realized something. What I really want, that would fulfill all of my needs, is another Feral Druid. I leveled Pummra as a Feral all the way, and played him as a Feral spec for a good 3 or 4 months before switching over to Resto. I love playing the Resto Druid now, but I do miss the flexibility of the Feral spec. After all, what other class can act as either a tank or DPS equally well with the EXACT SAME SPEC? Not a one. Sure, you need two sets of gear, but it’s a heck of a lot easier than respeccing any time you want to switch roles.

Yeah, yeah. I hear you right now. “Why don’t you just respec your Druid when you feel the need?” Because it’s so darn expensive. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that epic mount, but I certainly will not if I have to spend 50g once a week or more. If it were 10g to respec, it would be a different story. Especially since I still have all my old tanking and DPS gear, some of it good!

So what about the benefits of me leveling another druid? There are many!

• I already know how to play a druid, and play one well
• Druids are great levelers once they get cat form
• I know what gear to shoot for, I know what tradeskills play well with druids
• I already have a lot of experience not only with druid, but with the feral spec
• There are a lot of things I just love about the class, perhaps its flexibility most of all
• I could level a new tradeskill to max (Alchemy?)
• How much better could my blog be if I could become a top Resto AND Feral Druid?

So what are your thoughts? Is it a waste of time for me to level another? Do any of you play multiple versions of the same class?

By now we all have a good idea of some of the fantastic badge gear that will be available in 2.4. Along with the fantastic stats on these pieces is a frightening price tag. (I won’t argue that they are over priced, this is truly great gear and worth every badge IMO.) For a casual player, though, that’s an awful lot of badges. 150 badges can take a LONG LONG time if you only have a few hours or so a week to play. The good thing is, that just like the 5000g riding skill, with time it is doable for anyone.

With that in mind, though, you better spend those badges wisely if you can’t farm 50+ per week like some more hardcore players. So, what should you spend them on? Well, I won’t pretend to know all the classes, but I thought I’d take a look at a few and suggest what I would personally spend my badges on first. Yes, I understand a lot of decisions will be based on players’ individual gear situations, so take these with a grain of salt.

Resto Druid

First, the class with which I am most familiar. Right now I am pretty well decked out in Kara and badge gear, and there are a few directions I could go. Should I invest in [Shroud of Nature's Harmony]? Well, I’m currently wearing the [Windhawk Hauberk] and this chest piece is a bit of an underwhelming upgrade over it. Sure, I could care less about the spell crit on the Windhawk, but the overall bump I would get stat-wise makes it tough for me to make the plunge. The [Grovewalker's Leggings], though, are looking real nice compared to my [Earthsoul Leggings]. They afford me a bigger stat jump, and will certainly push my +heal after gemming and spellthread as well. One last item that is intriguing is the [Gavel of Naaru Blessings]. Right now I have [Shard of the Virtuous], and this is a big bump in +heal and stamina, at the cost of a little MP5. I also HATE how the shard looks. If pressed, right now I think I’ll shoot for the Gavel over the leggings, at least to start. (If I weren’t a LW, and didn’t have the Windhawk, I think I’d go with the chest first.)

Feral Kitty Druid

This is a little tougher. Feral druids fill multiple roles, so a lot of it depends on which role you concentrate on. I think it’s almost a slam dunk for Kitty druids with [Staff of the Forest Lord]. Wow, what a DPS staff. It’s superior to [Terestian's Stranglestaff] and makes a perfect complement to [Earthwarden] for those times when you have to tank. There are also a number of nice armor upgrades to look at. [Tunic of the Dark Hour] and [Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer] are both very nice upgrades for most casual cats, unless of course you’re sporting T6, in which case you probably AREN’T a casual cat! I would personally probably start with the leggings, as they have 2 gem slots and a nice slot bonus. I couldn’t fault you for either choice. So what would I go with first? I would probably start with the staff, as I nearly always take care of weapon upgrades first.

Feral Bear Druid

For Bear druids, it’s tougher. [Handwraps of the Aggressor]? [Embrace of Everlasting Prowess]? I don’t know, I’m not the most experienced in this area, but neither seems like a huge upgrade to T5 or even T4 stuff, if you factor in set bonuses and gem slots. What kind of effect will haste have on a bear tank? I’m not real sure. Then there’s [Tameless Breeches]. The problem with these, and with many feral druid pieces, is a lack of hit rating. +Hit is very important to a bear tank.

There’s got to be something here. Ahhh, there it is. [Ring of the Stalwart Protector]. NOW a lot of Bears are drooling! Real nice combo of dodge, armor and stamina. Even better than [Violet Signet of the Great Protector], and makes an awesome 1-2 punch if you put the two together. I’d probably go with the ring first, as it seems most obvious to me. I’m a little unsure about the armor pieces.

Boomkins

Ok, I’ve never played the spec, I know very little. I’ll see if I can at least give you some stuff to look at. From what I can tell, there are two definite upgrades in the mix. [Fused Nethergon Band] and [Barbed Gloves of the Sage]. Both will help out a boomkin looking for some extra spell hit for bosses and such. The ring in particular seems like a very nice upgrade all around from presently available rings. The gloves might be more of a sidegrade with [Studious Wraps]. If you’re not yet hit capped, though, these gloves might be a nice upgrade. After all, what difference does crit rate make if you can’t hit? [Crystalwind Leggings] looks to be a nice pair of pants for the Boomkin in you. Good slot bonus, nice stats, all around a good looking pair of pants. There is also a new chest piece that seems to be built with the Boomkin in mind, but it seems they dropped the ball. [Embrace of Starlight] isn’t much of an upgrade over the presently available [Blessed Elunite Coverings]. There’s also a good chance you already have the latter.

Well, there you go druids. Hopefully that gives you a starting point for evaluating how you want to blow your cache of badges once the new stuff is available. I feel bad for Blizzard in their attempts to itemize for druids. We must be tough to please, since we can do so many different things!