DragonSoul
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Raid Rx: Yor'sahj healing on hard mode
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. Did you manage to knock out heroic mode Hagara? Wondering where to go next? The summoner of ooze, Yor'sahj should be next on your list. Perhaps the biggest change in heroic is the extra ooze that spawns that your raid needs to deal with. This means Yor'sahj has more abilities with which to assault your raid. This encounter doesn't exactly have a set script, since Yor'sahj cycles through different slime combinations. For healing setups, I strongly advise bringing in no more than six healers. Healers will want to configure their UIs so that they can view Deep Corruption debuffs on their raid frames. All in all, Yor'sahj hinges heavily on the ability of your raid to react to the different combinations.
The Light and How to Swing It: The Fall of Deathwing, ret edition, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions! This is it, guys and girls. This is the moment we have all been training for while hitting that poor target dummy in Orgrimmar, because only repeatedly bashing a plank of wood will truly prepare you to square off against a dragon as epic as the big DW. So pick up your weapon, your bag of tricks, and your handful of cooldowns -- it's time to kill Deathwing the Destroyer. Spine of Deathwing I remember when there was wild speculation on what the Deathwing fight in Dragon Soul would actually look like. The devs announced that we would jump on him for part of the fight, and my strange brain secretly hoped that we would start at his tail and work our way up, maybe chopping off his legs and wings into a giant container of dry rub so the Titans could come on down and throw it on a massive barbecue. Honestly, we should have done that with Onyxia so she couldn't be resurrected 14 times!
The Light and How to Swing It: The Fall of Deathwing, ret edition part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions! Well, here we are, the first two of the final four bosses of the expansion. That is, we think Deathwing is the final boss of the expansion -- it is still unclear whether Blizzard will pull another We're not done with the next expansion yet! raid on us like it did in Wrath with Ruby Sanctum. Regardless, we have a raid that needs a conclusion and a guide to go along with it, so let's get started! Please note that this guide, like many others I have written, is for the normal version of each encounter. Some mechanics, like Fading Light and Twilight Sappers, either work differently or have been removed on the Raid Finder difficulty. Ultraxion I really wish I had more to say about this fight, but Blizzard isn't having it. Simply put, Ultraxion is this raid's Patchwerk with the addition of a button. Yes, you really do just stand in one place, run your rotation train on him, and hit a button when the situation calls for it. I honestly wish there were more to this fight, but there it is.
Lichborne: The top death knight DPS gear of patch 4.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. I will be honest: I am still not impressed with our tier 13 set. The whole bone motif just isn't working for me. The set bonuses are also a little iffy for me, what with half of them being sort of OK and half sort of lackluster. It all leaves a bit of a lukewarm feeling. That said, I'm not too disappointed with the final tier of Cataclysm, because we have definitely received some pretty nice surprises from the itemization team. Every tier should have those one or two items that make you stop and look again, items that, more than their superior stats, have a look or feel that just makes you feel warm and fuzzy and makes you want to get it no matter what the cost. We'll look at some of those items from the Dragon Soul raid today, starting with everyone's favorite sword that summons horrible visions from the depths of the earth, Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps.
Spiritual Guidance: Top healing trinkets for priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. There were five potential healer trinkets added in patch 4.3, some of which have their pluses and their minuses. If you're a holy or a disc priest and you're not quite sure what trinket you should be taking this tier, let me help you narrow it down. I'll give you a hint, though -- they're the trinkets that everyone else will try to kill you for. Watch your back! Windward Heart As far as healing throughput goes, this is currently the best trinket in the game. Many healers are reporting its doing up to 5% of their healing in a fight, and since the heal is a smart heal that will target the most injured member of your party, you know it's never going to overheal anyone. The internal cooldown is 20 seconds, meaning you'll see the proc going off constantly as long as you keep healing. There is some debate on whether holy or disc will benefit from this trinket more, since holy priests are typically healing more targets and thus more likely to get a critical heal, while disc priests are known to have more crit because of talents like Renewed Hope. First off, it doesn't really matter who benefits from the trinket more, because it's best in slot for both specs. Second, who it benefits more has to do with your raid role, not your spec. It's true that a holy priest is more than likely going to be acting as a raid healer, but disc priests will occasionally fill that role too, just like holy priests may occasionally tank heal. Because raid roles change from fight to fight, I would encourage you to not be that jerk who tries to make a case for it by waving his spec around.
The Light and How to Swing It: Retribution and the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions! Now that everyone has seen plenty of Dragon Soul, I think it's perfect time for a raid guide! In all seriousness, I've always enjoyed looking up other strat ideas and little tidbits of useful information on things that I had already been doing, and there are still plenty of people out there who are either just starting Dragon Soul due to holiday schedules or something similar, so there we go! This week we will take a look at the first four bosses of Dragon Soul: Morchok, Warlord Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping, and Hagara the Stormbinder. Morchok He looks intimidating, but really he's just one big rocky pushover. For the majority of the fight, all you need to focus on is avoiding AoE damage and hitting the boss. In terms of positioning, most strats call for the DPS and healers to stack up at max melee range so that Morchok can focus his extra Stomp damage on your tanks and not you. Therefore, when you see Crusader Strike light up, don't go any further in.
Totem Talk: 2011 for restoration shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how. Hard to believe that another year has come and gone, isn't it? It seems like only yesterday we were waiting in line for the Cataclysm to drop. Now we're at the end of the expansion, complete with the last raid tier and a battle for the survival of Azeroth against the aspect of death himself. But the new year has come, and it's a perfect time to look back on a rather full year of activity while we eagerly await the release of Mists of Pandaria. Tier 11: A slice of heaven The release of Cataclysm was something that was eagerly anticipated by a rather large number of players -- new talent trees, new spells and abilities, and a ton of new content. After making our way through the various dungeons and heroics, we set foot into the first tier of raid content for the expansion only to find out that we were pretty awesome. Using our new tools and tricks, we were able to destroy and outclass a lot of fights. Heroic Chimaeron was a perfect example of a fight in which restoration shaman just destroyed the competition and were heroes of a higher healing caliber. Tier 11 gave us a lot of opportunity to make use of our brand new mastery, Deep Healing, and not just use it but let it shine. Many of the boss fights had mechanics that would bring a large number of the raid members' health down to very low totals, allowing our Healing Rain and Earthliving Weapon proc to explode onto the scene. Magmaw, Chimaeron, and Halfus all had a ton of damage to heal through and really let us pour on the healing juice.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing the Madness of Deathwing and heroic Dragon Soul
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. This is it -- the last priest healing boss guide of the expansion! (After this, it's pandas or bust, baby!) Are you excited? You should be, because the last boss fight of Cataclysm is a loot piñata that's actually easier than the second to last fight a lot of fun! Hopefully, you all remember the drill from last week ... You want to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of this fight before progressing further into this guide. LearnToRaid.com has a nice video guide for Madness of Deathwing, and Icy Veins has an excellent written guide. Priests of either spec should know that cooldown management is the key to succeeding in this encounter as a priest. The encounter as a whole is not particularly difficult, but using your regen cooldowns at the right time will pave the way for you to hold onto just enough mana from start to finish. I recommend using your first Shadowfiend after the Mutated Corruption dies on the first platform, and your first Hymn of Hope just after jumping over to the second platform. Your second Shadowfiend should be used as soon as it becomes available, which will allow you to pair your third Shadowfiend and second Hymn of Hope together (just like we used to always do it in Wrath -- cast Shadowfiend, then immediately follow it up with Hymn of Hope). From there, use everything on cooldown, and you should be sitting pretty for mana the whole fight.
The Light and How to Swing It: Tanking Hagara and Ultraxion
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense. Three down, five to go. Or, four, if that's how you prefer to count it. The difficulty is starting to ramp up at this point, and you'll soon find that it's all uphill from here. Hagara will test the awareness and mobility of your raid team, and Ultraxion will provide the first major gear check for the raid. Both will set you up for the pursuit of Deathwing and the closing out of the raid. Hagara Before I get too far ahead of myself, let's start with the next boss on our hit parade: Hagara. This is a very straightforward fight for you. There's some deadly burst that can be avoided with fancy footwork and an add you'll need to pick up, making the most exciting components of tanking the fight. Thankfully, to break up the monotony, there's some calisthenics to keep the blood flowing and the raid moving. You'll want to start by tanking Hagara off to the side, somewhere between the middle and the edge of that large, central circle of the platform. The reason for this is when an ice phase begins and Ice Waves goes out, you don't want to be standing in the center where she spawns them. If she's off to the side, she has to run to the center and then unleash the ice. So don't get you and all your melee DPS killed! (Only the DPSers' dying is acceptable.)
Raid Rx: Healing the Spine and Madness of Deathwing
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. This is it. This is the final encounter of the expansion. Everything you've ever worked for and fought through has led to this point. This is the moment you get to help rid the world of Deathwing. First, we need to ground this oversized lizard. Immediately after the conclusion of the gunship (part two), you'll be parachuting onto Deathwing's back. We'll go over the different obstacles and what you and your healers need to do to get over the proverbial raid hump. (To the raiders who do 10-mans, you'll have to adjust the numbers a bit. I'm not as well versed on 10s, so you'll have to bear with me as I draw up assistance for the 25-man version.) To attack the Spine of Deathwing, we need to peel off those metal plates on Deathwing's back so that we can really weaken him further. Our healing goal here is to ensure that our tanks live. Apparently, Deathwing has all sorts of little defenses that he'll use to try to shake us off; there are several threats on this fight that healers need to be aware of. You're on an extremely narrow field of battle here, so movement's going to be really limited. What did you expect, though? You're fighting on the back of a former dragon aspect.
DragonSoul eyes early 2012 release, reveals Bard class
Free-to-play MMO betas often drag out for months on end. Not so with DragonSoul's testing phase, which began in early December and is scheduled to culminate in an official launch at "the beginning of 2012." Neonga AG says that launch day will also herald the arrival of a new class -- the Bard -- as well as more pets and mounts to go along with the 300 already in the beta build. The Bard is a support class that "prefers fighting in the second row," according to Neonga, and it offers an alternative playstyle that meshes well with the Warrior, Assassin, Mage, and Hunter classes. DragonSoul is a PvP-focused fantasy MMO, and you can sign up for the open beta (and download the free client) at the game's official website. [Source: Neonga AG press release]
Totem Talk: How to heal Yor'sahj in the Siege of Wyrmrest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how. The Siege of Wyrmrest temple has begun, and with Morchok and Zon'ozz down, it's time to begin stepping it up a notch. Dragon Soul offers so many fights that are just absolutely fun for restoration shaman. Yor'sahj the Unsleeping is a great example of a great healer workout. His mechanics are simple from a DPS and tanking aspect, but for healers, you will constantly have to be prepared to adapt to different slime combinations. Make no mistake, knowing your blobs is key to success. Every raid team will have a different way of handling the oozes and setting priorities on which to burn. As a healer, though, you'll have to learn what each blob is capable of and the effect that the certain combinations of globules will have. Each wave of oozes summoned by the boss will have three oozes on normal and Raid Finder difficulty, and your raid will have the option of killing one of the oozes each wave. (For full details of the encounters or full raid strategies, please read Ready Check for WoW Insider's boss guides.)
Totem Talk: How to heal Morchok and Zon'ozz in the Siege of Wyrmrest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how. Dragon Soul is full of fire, black goo, explosions, dragons, and an odd shaman that have gone off the deep end and sided with some Old Golds. To be honest, it's an impressive raid zone in both scale of story -- and it's one for sure that most restoration shaman should fall in love with. (For full details of the encounters or full raid strategies, please read Ready Check for WoW Insider's boss guides.) Morchok is an elemental baddie straight from the pits of Deepholm, the most powerful elemental still under the control of Deathwing. He'll be your first roadblock on the highway to defeating the aspect of death -- and honestly, he's a fight designed with the restoration shaman in mind. Morchok's bark is much bigger than his bite when you're a restoration shaman. So what makes him such a good boss for a resto shaman healer? Well, the mechanics of the fight first and foremost lend themselves very well to your raid staying grouped up. This plays well the vast majority of our AoE healing spells.
Raid Rx: How to heal Yor'sahj and Hagara
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. Ready for a trip back into the Eye of Eternity? Oh, don't worry, you'll get your chance to reminisce. This week, we're going to look at the next two bosses within the Dragon Soul raid instance. Some movement will be required -- hope you have your running shoes equipped. Last thing you want happen is to complain to your raid leader that your feet are in pain. Yor'sahj is one of the bosses that some raid groups may have some difficulty with. I know that green and red slimes up can be the hardest combination to deal with. We'll go over how to handle those. ... Could always ask Greatfather Winter for a hand! I'm sure he'd be happy to help with some brand new raid loot.
The Light and How to Swing It: Raid gear for ret paladins in Dragon Soul
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions! Before we begin talking about upgrades in Dragon Soul, we need to discuss the three separate tiers of raid gear available in patch 4.3. Thanks to the introduction of the Raid Finder, a lower tier of the same gear that drops from normal and heroic Dragon Soul is readily available to those who queue for it. This lower tier is of ilevel 384, the same level gear that drops from Ragnaros on normal difficulty. If you had done any heroic Firelands raiding and got some gear, you will find that the Raid Finder tier is seven ilevels behind that gear. For most pieces, you will want to upgrade as normal (from 378 to 384, for example). For tier gear, however, it appears that the new two-piece T13 set bonus overpowers the itemization difference between heroic T12 and Raid Finder gear, at least for now. If you're available to do additional testing, I'm sure the theorycrafters at the Elitist Jerks retribution thread would adore you for contributing. For the time being, I would pick up some lower-ilevel tier and test it out while still holding onto your heroic T12. Remember, four-piece T13 is our ultimate goal here, so don't skimp on those loot rolls.
Spiritual Guidance: Healing priest strategies for Dragon Soul's first 3 bosses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. This week, we'll be looking at how to heal on your priest through Morchok, Warlord Zon'ozz, and Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. If you haven't read one of my boss healing guides before, let me give you the same ol' disclaimer I always give ... This guide focuses on the specifics details of how to heal as a discipline or holy priest within a given encounter. It assumes you have a basic understanding of the fight, and it will not typically explain mechanics or general strategy. If you are unfamiliar with a fight, please review the links at the beginning of each boss subsection. I also think it's worth mentioning that these guides will seem a bit excessive to players experiencing these encounters exclusively through the Raid Finder.
DragonSoul enters open beta
We haven't heard much from Neonga AG regarding its upcoming Asian-themed MMO, DragonSoul, since the beginning of the month. Well, apparently the team has been hard at work, because the title entered open beta today. So if you want to experience the game's much-boasted political system, or if you just want to kill some mobs, make some friends, and do some quests, just head on over to the game's official site to get started. There won't be any character wipes between now and launch, so if you want a leg up on the competition, this is your chance. [Source: Neonga AG press release]
Spiritual Guidance: A shadow priest's first look into the Raid Finder
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen comes from out of the darkness to bask in your loving adoration and grant you one birthday wish ... Let's start off today's column with a question to you, the reader: How did you get your start raiding? Me, I got my start in the PUG raiding circuit of yore. Someone would spam trade chat with their need for one ranged DPS for whatever raid instance happened to be in fashion at the time. I'd whisper them, hoping to snag that elusive slot (and believe me, as a DPSer, that slot was very elusive). Generally, I had no idea what I was doing while in the raids. I knew not to stand in stuff and to target whatever had the skull over its head. I was a pretty lousy PUG raider. Let's face it -- we all were. PUG raids aren't known for their rates of success. Which is why I was intrigued when Blizzard announced its new Raid Finder system, coming in patch 4.3. Could Blizzard have found a way to make PUG raiding ... bearable?
DragonSoul pries a website and trailer out of its opponent's cold, dead hands
We're often asked here on Massively about what makes one start-up F2P MMO different from the others. What's the "hook," so to speak? Well, with DragonSoul the hook is easy to identify because the hook is dripping with blood and gore. It's a tad adult-oriented, let's just say. This PvP MMO with political underpinnings has reached two milestones today. Neonga AG has opened the official DragonSoul website and released the first trailer for the game (which features plenty of white blood splatter). There's plenty of information about the game that's posted on the site, including several (but not all) of the classes, screenshots, game systems, and community networking. There's even a place for you to register for the upcoming beta program. You can watch the SFW trailer after the jump and get a feel for what might make DragonSoul stand out from the crowd.
New F2P fantasy MMO DragonSoul announced
While many of you are no doubt playing a certain dragon-themed BioWare title that hit American shores today, the MMORPG world is being graced with a new dragon-centric title of its own in the form of Neonga AG's just-announced DragonSoul. DragonSoul is a free-to-play fantasy title sporting a political system that is "a main feature of the game" according to a Neonga press release. Players can choose to side with one of eight unique kingdoms, cast votes to determine a ruler, and take the field of battle in said ruler's name. DragonSoul isn't entirely about PvP, though, as the title also boasts various non-combat activities including "the cultivation of crops, the mining of resources, the upbringing of pets, and a versatile crafting and upgrade system." Interested players may register for the closed beta test at the game's official website and prepare for DragonSoul's open beta which is currently schedule for the second quarter of 2011.
