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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 Dragon Soul tips to make your DPSers love you
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. With the 15% nerf to Dragon Soul slated for Tuesday and Mists of Pandaria's beta test here already, Cataclysm is winding down. Many guilds are on autopilot in Dragon Soul, simply clearing the place each week for another shot at an elusive trinket or item. You can buy the heroic Dragon Soul title or mount on most realms without too much trouble. With a few months of the same eight bosses ahead of us, it's easy to understand why everyone is focused on what's coming next. I am always looking for ways to optimize my guild's raids. If there's a way that I can shave a few seconds off a boss encounter, I'll take it. There are plenty of areas in Dragon Soul where a clever holy paladin can help move things along. I currently run with a secondary holy talent build that includes Denounce specifically for the purpose of speeding up our runs. If you're still learning Dragon Soul or working on a new heroic encounter, these tips probably won't apply to you.
Two Bosses Enter: Queen Azshara vs. Hagara Stormbinder
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, bosses, leaders, and powerful figures of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. Archbishop Benedictus, just get out. Leave. I just checked the votes, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Murozond, the corrupted and tainted aspect of time and leader of the Infinite Dragonflight, utterly stomped Benedictus by over 2,100 votes. Was it because Benedictus was so unpopular or because of an emerging crowd favorite in Murozond? Only time will tell. This week's matchup features the final raid boss of this season, Hagara Stormbinder, going head-to-head against the Well of Eternity's Queen Azshara. This matchup seems like it will prove to be very interesting, as each encounters' mechanics are so robust and varied. Hagara's environmental attacks and movement will be a big factor when paired against Azshara's adds and puppermaster abilities. The ultimate decision, however, is up to you. Who wins this week's battle on Two Bosses Enter? %Poll-73573%
Shifting Perspectives: A feral druid guide to the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! I was tired. I'd traveled to the End of Time, participated in one of the biggest moments in the history of Azeroth, and helped the spiritual leader of the Horde kill the spiritual leader of the Alliance (who, admittedly, had tried to kill us first). I'd never felt much of a calling to the Dream, but a few hundred years of meditation sounded great right about now. Peering over the scales of my drake (I'd have flown myself, but they insisted), I gestured to the large dragon in flight beside me. "You know, you dragons are always causing trouble," I shouted as the frigid wind of Northrend whipped by. "Can't you just drop me off at the nearest forest and call it a day?" Nethestrasz chuckled. Through some queer trick of the dragons' magic, they were fully understandable, even in dragon form. "If a forest existed that would be spared from Deathwing's flames, I might join you," he replied. Unfortunately, any further reply was drowned out by a sudden, loud cracking noise as the earth split asunder before us, revealing a gigantic earth elemental. "Well, looks like it's time to be troublesome," I thought. Wordlessly, I nodded to Nethestrasz, and our army turned as one and dove for the surface. This week and next, I'll be covering everything you need to know to DPS your way through the new Dragon Soul raid encounter. I'll provide a quick capsule strategy for those attempting the fight in the Raid Finder, then describe the changes to the fight for normal and heroic modes.
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.
Lichborne: Siege of Wyrmrest Raid Finder advice for the death knight
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. Once you've finished the new patch 4.3 dungeons and gained a bit of loot from them, you may ask yourself: What's next? One of the most obvious answers is the Raid Finder tool. You'll get better loot and faster valor point gain, as well as some starting experience in the raid game if you ever get the desire or chance to join an organized raiding group. Still, the idea of heading into a raid (even a simple one) can be a little daunting, so today I'd like to help allay your fears by giving you a quick look at the first of the Raid Finder scenarios, the Siege of Wyrmrest. Before we get into the boss strategies, though, there are a few things you should get down. Make sure your gear's good enough. If you can, get it gemmed (with strength gems) and enchanted. While you can head into Raid Finder as low as ilevel 372, don't be afraid to pick up an extra piece of gear or two from the heroic dungeons. A good weapon upgrade, for example, will do wonders for your DPS. If you can afford them, consider grabbing some consumables. A Flask of Steelskin and some Lavascale Minestrone for tanks or a Flask of Titanic Strength and some Beer-Basted Crocolisk for DPS will put your performance at the next level, and for a good group, you'll only need one flask to face the whole dungeon. Morchok's easy enough that sometimes I save the flask until we engage the second boss, just to make sure it stretches. Follow your raid leader. A raid is only as good as its raid leader and its members' abilities to follow their raid leaders' instructions, even in Raid Finder. Use these boss strategies, but defer to your raid leader where you can. They don't always know what they're doing, but in Raid Finder, sometimes that doesn't matter; either way, the more everyone works together, the easier things become. Don't Panic and don't get uptight. This is a pickup group, so things will go wrong and people will randomly drop between groups. Just stay loose, have fun, and be prepared to wait a bit for replacements in between each boss. Griping just makes it less fun for everyone.
How to sell Hagara Pick Pockets to rogues
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! There's a fairly simple way to make gold without professions: Sell summons to a pick-pocketable Hagara to rogues looking to get their legendary quest starter daggers, Vengeance and Fear. These are the most accessible rogue weapons, because aside from picking the pocket of the fourth boss in a raid instance, the quest can be easily completed with a 10k gold and a minimum amount of help. These daggers are the best entry-level options for rogues who PvP or PvE, available as soon as they hit 85 and are capable of completing the quest. If players are raiders, they'll probably get it for free just by being in a raid that gets to Hagara; however, if all they do is PvP or casual PvE through the Raid and Dungeon Finders, they won't be able to get the first leg of the quest finished. Within a few weeks, most rogues who want to start the quest will have started it. Until then, I've heard of non-raiding rogues paying as much as 25k for the opportunity to pick Hagara's pockets.
Totem Talk: Healing Hagara the Stormbinder and Ultraxion
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 is, by now, well under way, and now that you're done playing with slimes, it's time to move forward. Your next opponent is Hagara the Stormbinder, a shaman who has fallen under the sway of the aspect of death and now works toward the destruction of the world. Luckily for you, she's an enhancement shaman, so she's pretty easy to deal with. The major theme for this boss is movement. Every major ability that Hagara has boils down to your moving in the correct manner in order to avoid what would be absolutely lethal damage. Moving and healing has never really been a shaman's strong point, but if you use your abilities wisely, you'll have her down in no time. (For full details of the encounters or full raid strategies, please read Ready Check for WoW Insider's boss guides.)
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.)
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing for Dragon Soul's Hagara and Ultraxion
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. Picking up where we left off the other week, today's Spiritual Guidance will cover the fourth and fifth bosses in Dragon Soul. The first up is Hagara the Stormbinder. Before we jump right in please make sure you're familiar with the basic mechanics and strategy of the fight; I will be examining the fight specifically from a healing priest's point of view. For Hagara, I recommend getting acquainted with the fight through the video guide at LearnToRaid.com or the written guide at Icy Veins. Healing priests of either spec should be mindful that Hagara's ice phase is probably going to be where players are at the greatest risk of death. Fortunately, Leap of Faith is the perfect way to intervene, provided you remember a few things. The obvious one first is that you should make sure you're well ahead of the Ice Wave before you use it. It's easy to get caught up in the wave yourself if you try to stop and cast, and the extra second required to orient yourself properly for a life grip could be a second too long if you're not careful. Next, take care to ensure you're not pulling your ally into an equally treacherous spot when you use Leap of Faith. Pulling someone away from the Ice Wave just so they can be hit by an Icicle is cleary counterproductive (although somewhat comical, depending on who you're saving).
Raid Finder vs. Normals: The Siege of Wyrmrest Temple
Previously, we've made explaining Raid Finder fights easier by showing you how to tackle the Raid Finder mode bosses of Dragon Soul in 5 seconds with our handy guides. You guys responded positively to those descriptions, so we're going to take it a little further. If you're a Raid Finder player who's gearing up to hit the normal mode version of Dragon Soul, here's how each encounter differs and what you need to look out for. The Raid Finder calls the first four bosses of the Dragon Soul encounter "The Siege of Wyrmrest Temple," accessible as the first wing of the raid. In normal mode, there is no distinction between the two wings, as the whole place is just one instance. For the sake of understanding and what most people in Raid Finder are accustomed to, we'll split our explanation into two wings as well. Before we begin, here are a few general points to make about the jump from Raid Finder to normal difficulty. There will be more damage. Everything hits harder in normal and heroic mode Dragon Soul. Everything. Every ability will require more healing, and every player will be required to mitigate as much damage as they can to make the healers' jobs easier. There will be more healing. With more damage comes more healing. Healers will need to know what cooldowns they have and where they are best used. Tank cooldowns are good for periods of high tank damage. Raid cooldowns are good for periods of high raid damage. Your raid leader will most likely be in charge of letting you know what cooldowns to use where, so listen closely.
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.
Encrypted Text: A savvy rogue's guide to starting Dragon Soul via the Raid Finder
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. The introduction of the Raid Finder is one of the biggest features in patch 4.3, and so far it has been everything that we could ask for and more. The queues have been quick, the bosses are tuned just right for the demographic, and the rewards are potent enough to keep the system running. Anyone with decent gear can queue up for a raid, gaining valuable experience and gear. I think the new system is perfect for allowing new raiders to get their feet wet, preparing them for what lies ahead. Even as a pure DPS class, the Raid Finder queues haven't been too bad for rogues. Between my own experience and the word on the street (not Greg), queue times are between 15 and 30 minutes, and groups are mostly competent. To a class that's historically had problems finding a spot in a raid group, the Raid Finder looks like our new best friend. The only bummer is that we can't start or progress in our legendary quest line in the Raid Finder. In order to maximize our random group's chance for success, we need to be prepared to do our best.
Dragon Soul: Siege of Wyrmrest raid bosses explained in 5 seconds
You've no doubt already braved the Raid Finder, Blizzard's new system for getting players into raiding with a new lower difficulty on Dragon Soul. Players from all walks of WoW life will now be able to participate in the epic raid encounter to take down Deathwing once and for all. Even with the new lower raid difficulty, it's good to go in with some knowledge. Reading your Dungeon Journal is a good start, but here are some quick tips on the first four bosses in the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple wing of the Dragon Soul raid. Here are some quick facts to remember about the Raid Finder: No lockouts. Participating in the Raid Finder will not lock you out from doing the raid on 10- or 25-man with your guild or group. You only get to roll on loot once per boss per week. You can fight bosses multiple times but are only eligible for loot on the first kill. 250 valor points for completing the raid wing. Two tanks, six healers, 17 DPSers are needed for a Raid Finder raid. You can queue up in Raid Finder with your Real ID friends across servers.
Patch 4.3 PTR: Raid testing schedule for Oct. 17-18
Blizzard's Daelo has just announced that several patch 4.3 Dragon Soul raid bosses are coming open for testing on the PTR. The bosses are coming fast and furious; hopefully this signifies a near-future release date for WoW's final raid content patch. The first boss (Warlord Zon'ozz) will be available very shortly, so start rounding up guildies for a test run! PTR Raid Testing Schedule - Oct 17/18 Today and tomorrow we're going to try and test the remaining bosses in Dragon Soul on 10 player difficulty. Oct 17 14:30 PDT - Warlord Zon'ozz (10 Player) 16:30 PDT - Hagara (10 Player) Oct 18 10:15 PDT – Ultraxion (10 Player) 11:45 PDT – Warmaster Blackhorn (10 Player) 14:30 PDT – Spine of Deathwing (10 Player) 16:30 PDT – Madness of Deathwing (10 Player) There will be additional testing scheduled in the upcoming weeks including 25 player and Heroic difficulties, both in the morning and afternoon. There will not be any testing during Blizzcon. As always, the scheduling for PTR testing will be VERY fluid. Tests can be announced, canceled, or rescheduled at a moment's notice depending on build and server status, outstanding bugs, etc. I will try to give as much advance notice about tests, but that is not always possible. Also note that these encounters are all works in progress. source Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
