What's That Build!? - It's Build 18179 - WoW: WoD Alpha Changes - Mana Changes Galore

We got a new build this week in the Alpha client and there was a ton of new changes. The biggest news were the mana changes for all of the healing classe.

Healing Class Changes

Restoration Druid

You may remember, in the first datamined information from the WoD Alpha there was a buff to pretty much every healing spell in the game that reduced it's base mana costs by about 2% on each spell. I thought that was kind of low for how much they said they wanted to change healing and it seems I was write. There was another string of buffs to healing spells that reduced mana costs again for pretty much all classes. Big spells for classes like Rejuvenation and Healing touch got big buffs while others got smaller buffs again. Below is the full list for Druids.

• Healing Touch cost reduced by 7% base mana.
• Rejuvenation cost reduced by 6.5% base mana.
• Cenarion Ward cost reduced by 5.7% base mana.
• Lifebloom cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Regrowth cost reduced by 15% base mana.
• Swiftmend cost reduced by 5% base mana.
• Tranquility cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Wild Growth cost reduced by 1.5% base mana.
• Wild Mushroom cost reduced by 3% base mana.
• Wild Muchroom: Bloom cost reduced by 4% base mana.

Glyph of Travel was changed. Before, it would give you increased 60% mount speed but you couldn't cast it in combat. Although there weren't a lot of instances that were outside that you could even use Travel Form during a raid encounter, there were enough that this glyph would never be used by raiders outside of dailies or questing. However, it's been changed so that if you cast Travel Form while in combat you don't get the glyph affect. So this minor glyph is definitely getting much more appealing.

Holy Paladin

• Flash of Light cost reduced by 15% base mana.
• Word of Glory got a buff, increasing its healing to 104% of spellpower, up from 73%. This change also applied for Eternal Flame.
• Execution Sentence, Holy Prism and Light's Hammer have all gotten nerfed by quite a bit (50-75%) in terms of healing output.
• Divine Plea now regains 7% maximum mana, a 2.5% increase.'
• Holy Light (the original Divine Light) cost reduced by 7% base mana.
• Holy Radiance cost reduced by 5% base mana.
• Holy Shock cost reduced by 5.5% base mana.

Holy and Disc Priests

• Flash Heal cost reduced by 2.8% base mana.
• Heal cost reduced by 1.5% base mana.
• Power Word: Shield cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Prayer of Mending cost reduced by 0.4% base mana.
• Saving Grace (Level 100 Talent Choice) cost reduced by 5.5% base mana.
• Prayer of Healing cost reduced by 0.5% base mana.
• Binding Heal cost reduced by 1.1% base mana.

      Discipline

• Holy Nova cost reduced by 0.1% base mana.
• Penance now regains mana if used to damage enemies and it no longer procs Atonement. Each tick replenishes 1.1% mana, down from 1.5%.

      Holy

• Chakra: Sanctuary has changed so that each heal casts now reduced the Circle of Healing spell by 0.5 seconds instead of a passive 2 seconds off of Circle of Healing.
• Chakra: Serenity now causes single target heals to refresh renew on that target.
• Circle of Healing cost reduced by 0.3% base mana.
• Divine Hymn cost reduced 0.6% base mana.
• Lightwell cost reduced 0.5% base mana.
• Renew cost reduced 1% base mana.

Restoration Shaman

• Chain Heal cost reduced by 2% base mana.
• Healing Rain cost reduced by 27% base mana.
• Healing Stream Totem cost reduced by 1% base mana.
• Healing Surge cost reduced by 14% base mana.
• Unleash Elements cost reduced by 5% base mana.
• Earth Shield cost reduced by 8.5% base mana.
• Healing Tide Totem cost reduced by 0.5% base mana.
• Healing Wave cost reduced by 7% base mana.
• Resurgence now gives back 812 mana after casting critical spells up from 347 mana.
• Riptide cost reduced by 5.5% base mana.
• Tidal Waves now increase the critical strike chance of Healing Surge by 70%.
• Shamans also received the same Travel Form glyph for Ghost Wolf form along with the new change.

Mistweaver Monks

• Expel Harm cost reduced by 2.2% base mana.
• Spinning Crane Kick cost reduced by 0.7% base mana.
• Surging Mist got a nerf about about 130% of spell power.
• Enveloping Mist got a buff of about 220% of Spell power.
• Life Cacoon cost reduced by 1.6% base mana.
• Renewing Mist cost reduced by 0.7% base mana.
• Revival cost increased by 0.7% of base mana.
• Soothing Mist got a buff of about 300% (double it's current healing) of spell power.

What's That Build!? - It's Build 18155! - First Datamined Look at Warlords of Draenor

The Warlords of Draenor Alpha has officially begun and lots of stuff is being data mined from the very first build of Warlords of Draenor. We already went over the Patch Notes for 6.0 so we will be ignoring the Patch Notes and making some inferences based on items that have been datamined.

Professions

Alchemy

We saw all of the new herbs listed. We have Frostweed, Fireweed, Gorgrond Flytrap, Starflower, Nagrand Arrowbloom and Talador Orchid. There was also an Uncommon level plant called Chameleon Lotus which can look like the other plants when in the wild. There was also something called Essence of the Shapers which can be made from 5 of any plant (similar to Milling) and creates one of 7 Essence which derive from that type of plant.

We also have a new item called the Alchemist Cauldron. Alchemist Cauldrons are made from 10 Essences, which from from 50 Herbs and 10 Blackrock Ore. These Cauldrons will hold Metamorphic Crystals and Alchemical Catalysts which are used to make potions and Flasks. The tooltip implies that there is a chance for it to backfire and produce nothing.

The Alchemist Trinket is ilvl 620 while the crafted blues are around 637. Alchemist Trinkets are generally Normal Dungeon ilvl so we can guess that Heroic Dungeon loot will probably be around 637.

We have our potions in the game as well. Nothing really groundbreaking here except this time around Potions are made from fish or meat instead of from herbs. Herbs will still be required to make potions since you need an Alchemical Catalyst which comes from the Cauldrons.

Flasks have changed quite a bit for this expansion. There are two of each flask type, one normal and one Greater. The normal flasks are a component to the Greater Draenor Flasks. It should be noted as well that Flasks only give Secondary Stats now and not Primary Flasks. Druids will be going for either Spirit or Mastery Flasks more than likely. Each flask takes 5 of an herb, an Alchemical Catalyst and a Metamorphic Crystal which come from the Alchemist Cauldrons. Greater Flasks are made from the lesser flask, an Alchemical Catalyst, a Metamorphic Crystal and an Embodiment of X (which is named after whatever Secondary Stat you're trying to make). No one seems to know yet what exactly the Embodiment are or how you get them.

Archaeology

We're getting three new archaeology types this time around. Ogre, Shadowmoon Clan and Warsong Clan were named in Relics. We don't have any new items coming out of Archaeology just yet and we may not get any at all if they choose to go down the same route that they did in MoP.

Blacksmithing

We got a long list of items that came with Blacksmithing. There seems to be three sets of armor one Rare (blue) quality which ilvl 637 and two Epic (Purple) quality items which are ilvl 650 and 672. There only seems to be a few of each individual item with a lot of duplicates. We can assume from this that when these items are crafted that they will have a random secondary stat.

Cooking

Cooking seems to be going back to it's roots and thank God for that! A lot of us would agree that the raid food in MoP got a little bit too crazy with what it was asking for. So far, each piece of food seems to be giving 28 of a Primary Stat of 125 of a Secondary Stat. Most of the single food only takes one of a piece of meat or fish with no extras needed. There's two types of feasts; one of Blood which gives you Primary Stat or of Water which gives you a secondary stat. There's no mention of what it takes to make them yet though. Most of the tooltips seem to be broken however because most of the food is for Agility only at this point. I'm hoping that the Intellect food will be a fish because I would much rather fish than farm mobs for food!

Enchanting

There are three ingredients for Enchanting currently. Draenic Dust, Blackfire Essence and Rune Shards; the epic shards are not in the game yet. Currently there are Enchants in the game for Necks, Rings, Cloaks and Weapons with two different qualities. There are Breath of X which are Common quality enchants and Gift of X which are Rare quality Enchants. All of the Weapon Enchants do the same thing and cannot be added to weapons over ilvl 600 (which is lower than the max level blues) so we can assume their either broken or we haven't seen all of the enchants yet. There are definitely tons more enchants per slot with about 12-15 enchants per slot with only 4 slots able to be enchanted as of right now.

Looking at two of the Enchants side by side, Enchant Ring - Breath of Spirit gives 75 Spirit while Enchant Ring - Gift of Spirit gives 100 Spirit. Both seem to cost 20 Draenic Dust which seems a bit odd not only with the amount but the fact that they both cost the same amount. Either the Gift of Spirit Enchant is more difficult to come by in terms of the recipe or the tool tips just aren't finalized yet.

Fishing

Fishing is getting some new mechanics in terms of bait. You can use bate that is useful per zone in order to get the fish you're looking for. This might imply that there won't be any pools and you will use the bait to increase your chance to get fish while fishing in the open water. Not sure on that yet because you wouldn't really need the bait if you're fishing in a pool.

There seems to be several different types of the same fish. The regular fish are named such while there are "Enormous" sizes of the fish that can be caught with more skill in fishing while "Small" versions of the fish will be caught with less skill in fishing. The meat that comes from fish is also listed in the Fishing section so maybe now Fishing will include the gutting/preparing of fish and catching Enormous fish will give you more meat for your potions or food. Unsure of this however, but it could be pretty cool!

Leatherworking

Leatherworking and Herbalism will be playing nice this expansion. We have Native Beast Hide which is the Leather of the expansion but we also have Stitched Starglazed Leather and Starglazed Leather which is Leather treated with Starflower (an herb) to create items.

Mining

We have True Iron Ore and Blackrock Ore this time around. True Iron Ore is common ore while Blackrock Ore is uncommon quality.

Battle Pets

Carpnado is a new ability that hurls a tornado of fish at the enemy. This is an obvious reference the terrible direct to DvD movie Sharknado which I am ashamed to admit that I saw.

Some new pets include Lil Leftovers (I really wanna see a screenshot of that!), Tiny Iron Star, Carrotus Maximus (probably a Vermin), Weebomination (possibly a tiny Abomination like Patchwerk or Stitches), Mechanical Toucan (a bird which doesn't look mechanical at all), Mechanical Tallstrider and Echo of Murmur.

Factions

We have 7 new Factions listed but it wasn't specifically stated if these factions have reputation tied to them. We have Frostfire Ogres, Red Phantoms, Shadowmoon Orcs, The Pale, Adherents of Arakk, Arakkoa Outcasts, Palemoon Orcs, Shadow Council and Draenei, Draenor.

Healing Class Changes

Restoration Druids

All druids are getting Survival Instincts which reduces damage taken by 70% for 12 seconds. We are getting this very heavy cooldown to make up for all of the cooldowns we're losing from Symbiosis which are getting removed.

Mistweaver Monk

Focus and Harmony - Haste Effects lower the GCD of your spells and abilities.
Detonate Chi - Instantly detonate all of your Healing Spheres, causing each of them to heal a nearby ally within 12 yards for 50% of the affect. Some people might remember back at Blizzcon when the Mistweaver talents were originally announced that this was one of them. However, they've changed the talents significantly since then and Detonate Chi is becoming a stagnant ability.

Special Mention - Mages

Mages are getting Amplify Magic which increases all healing received by 20% for 6 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown.

The Weekly Innervate - World of Warcraft - Patch 6.0 - Druid, Class and Healing Changes Oh My!

The Pre-Expansion Patch Notes have been released and man is there a lot to go through here. This patch is the patch that will be released before the expansion actually drops and includes most of the changes we are going to see. We're going to go over the changes that are most important to Druids and Healing as a whole in this overview.

New Row of Talents Unlocked At Level 100

Pretty obvious that we were going to get another talent to choose from with the new expansion. Things have changed with the new talent row this time around; the choice of talents now change depending on what specialization you are in. These changes do not occur in any of the old talents.

• Moment of Clarity - Omen of Clarity now lasts 5 seconds instead of 1 cast.
• Germination - You can now cast 2 Rejuvenations on a single target.
• Rampant Growth - You Swiftmend consumes Rejuvenation or Regrowth but has no cooldown.

Assuming that healing is going to be the same as it was in Cataclysm and Pandaria in the beginning where all healers are mana hungry until we get some decent gear then Moments of Clarity is going to be the talent we initially pick up as it gives us the Legendary Gem as a passive ability. After that phase is over however, it isn't yet known which of the two abilities will be stronger in terms of throughput. Two Rejuvenations on a target or a non-cooldown Swiftmend. With Efflorescence no longer being tied to Swiftmend I'd like to think that two Rejuvenations will be stronger but they are nerfing HoTs and Instant Cast heals in Draenor so it isn't yet clear.

New Feature: Warlords of Draenor Perks

Blizzard is adding a new feature called Leveling Perks which means every level you gain from 91 to 99 you will receive a random passive perk. Since you will be leveling in a DPS specialization (more than likely) you won't get to see these perks until you hit max level. Here are the healing pertinent ones for Restoration:

• Increases Healing Touch by 20%
• Increases Rejuvenation duration by 3 seconds. This will give Rejuvenation an additional tick.
• Rebirth no longer has a cast time.
• Increases Regrowths periodic healing by 30%
• Ironbark now grants increased healing from your period spells by 20% on the target.
• Living Seed healing increased by 20% of your Critical Heals.
• Healing Touch is increased by 20% on target of your Lifebloom.

Some pretty good perks in there. The instant Rebirth is going to be pretty awesome since this now makes ours unanimously the most powerful combined with the fact we're one of the few that can resurrect someone at full health. Also like the Ironbark perk and the extra tick on Rejuvenation as well.

Garrisons Available

Although Garrisons are in the 6.0 Patch Notes we can assume that since the Garrisons are in Draenor they won't be available until the game launches. However, it seems as though Garrisons are going to be unlocked through an "epic" Quest line. Not exactly sure how I feel about that because if I have to do this quest line for all of my alternate character I will be super demotivated to do it on more than one character unless it's like the farms in Halfhill where I get something out of it that's super important (ie Goldun Lotus) to my main character progression.

Statistic Squish

The long awaited item squish is occurring. Obviously this is going to be put in before the release of the expansion so that people can get used to it. This will also lay to rest the doubts of those we aren't paying attention about whether or not we can still solo older raid bosses with the squish. Obviously, you can, but people will still ask because they're dumb. I'm looking forward to the squish because I'm sick of all of the numbers.

Player Health and Resilience Changes

Basically what happened is that with the gigantic health pools in PvP and Warlocks still one shotting people anyway they wanted to change it so that people didn't take huge chunks of damage at a time in PvP but not changing anything for PvE. So they doubled players Health Pools after the Stat Squish and increased the damage that PvE mobs do. So Players don't chunk as hard without changing how hard PvE mobs hit. 

Now, Base Resilience has been removed but Battle Fatigue has been removed as well. This means that the healing reduction is completely gone from PvP which makes me a very happy tree. They've also increased the amount of healing effectiveness by 50% and decreased Healing Critical Hits to 150% of the normal heal in PvP from 200%.

Healing Changes

What was happening before is that Blizzard was pretty much forced to make all damage hard hitting and bursty because healers could heal 1/3rd or more of a health bar the more gear that they received. If someone wasn't at full health then there was always the worry that they could suddenly die. They wanted to make it so that players could spend time not at 100% without making the healers have anxiety attacks over their raid mates suddenly dropping dead. So they are making it so heals are a little less effective but they stay more consistant throughout the expansion. So the healing that we are doing at the end of the first tier won't change much from the amount of healing that we're doing at the end of the expansion because they're going to increase player health and healing output pretty identically.

They're also changing our healing spells a bit. The cheap spells such as Heal and Holy Light are being completely removed. This means Nourish is going. Which I don't mind because I don't think I've used Nourish at all since iLevel 463. Also, the fast expensive spells (Regrowth) and the long cast medium cost spells (Healing Touch) are now going to heal for the same amount. So your Healing Touch is going to cost half as much as your Regrowth but heal for the same amount. This makes it so you choosing your spells is going to be based on how much mana and time before death you have. This seems like a really odd change at first but I like the consolidation of abilities. I never really liked having Flash Heal, Heal and Greater Heal all on my Priest. It also feels nice not to think about having to do two Regrowth to do as much healing as a Healing Touch but doing the same amount in terms of time spent casting (2 Regrowths can be cast during a Healing Touch cast).

Racial Traits

With the removal of so many secondary stats such as Hit, Expertise, Dodge and Parry there needed to be a rebalancing of racial traits.

• Night Elf - 2% Increased Movement Speed and Dodge Rate
                    1% Haste Rating at Night, 1% Critical Strike Rating During the Day
• Troll - Berserking Now Increases Haste by 15%
             Increases EXP earned from killing beasts by 20%
• Tauren - Increases Critical Strike rating by 2%
                 Increases Stamina scaling with Character Level

First off, what on Azeroth is up with that Night Elf change? I mean, most people are going to be raiding at night so the 1% Haste will kind of be the raid racial but it just seems so freaking weird. None of the racials are very interesting for Restoration Druids other than the Stamina increase for Tauren to help with staying alive for the first few weeks of progression. I'll be sticking with the Troll for the ease of leveling and then I might change to Tauren but that will be based entirely on the new character models and which one I like better.

Abilities Being Removed

We already talked about Nourish getting removed along with all of the other cheap filler heals. Other Restoration spells getting the axe include Innervate and Symbiosis. I'm really disappointed to see Innervate go because... well I named my character and pretty much all of my other MMO Characters after this spell. When it was revealed in the WoW beta so many years ago I knew that it was something I wanted stuck to me forever. So to see it be taken away is actually really sad for me. Symbiosis being removed doesn't really make me sad at all. It was nothing but a huge mess that was a nightmare for balancing and players alike. For Restoration we only ever put it on two classes to either give Shadow Priests Tranquility or Shamans so we could run and Tranquility.

Crowd Control Changes

Lots of Diminishing Returns and Crowd Controls are being removed or changed. For Druids, Cyclone can now be removed from Immunities such as Divine Shield and dispelled from Mass Dispell. Also, Cyclone cannot be made into an instant cast spell from Nature's Swiftness. Some other good changes are that long duration fears are being reduced to calculate run back time and pet CCs such as Sucubus Sleep is being removed.

Instant Cast Heal Changes

A lot of former Instant Cast spells for healers are now getting cast times. Paladins are getting hit the hardest with this, most of the instant Holy Power consuming abilities are now getting a 1.5 second cast time. With so many instant cast abilities in the Druid Healing arsenal you would think we would get hit hard but Wild Growth is the only one getting a cast time. The cast time is equivalent to a Regrowth so it won't put a big hit on the timings.

Vengeance Changes

Vengeance was a weird ability that always seemed to get changed with each patch. It's getting removed now. It's getting replaced with Resolve which now increases self healing and absorbs from the Tank based on their Stamina and Health pool. This will be good for healers and survivability but will be for us who like to hog healing meters when the tanks start beating us.

Druid Class Changes

• Survival Instrincts is given to all specializations and has been changed to be a 70% damage reduction with a 2 minute cooldown for Restoration. This was given to us because we are going to lose a lot of survivability cooldowns when they take away Symbiosis. I feel like this is a ridiculous cooldown to give us (I mean 70% is A LOT) and I expect it to get nerfed.
• Tranquility is being simplified. It now heals all targets within range every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. No more HoT application like it does now. The healing output hasn't been changed with this.
• Swift Rejuvenation is being removed. So Rejuvenations cooldown is 1 second which is going to seem like an eternity when this goes in after it being 0.5 seconds for so long. They removed this because Rejuvenation blanketing was too strong and was really the only option for Restoration Druids.
• Efflorescence is now attached to Wild Mushroom by default, the glyph is being removed. I'm glad Blizzard is making this change since it was obvious that permanent Efflorescence was really good and instead of nerfing it or taking it away they just decided to give it to us without making us waste a Glyph spot for it.

Lots of information after a bit of a drought. As always, since these are Alpha Patch notes, everything is subject to change anytime after 04/04/2014 when these Patch Notes were released. Interesting changes for Restoration Druids and I'm sure there are more to come! It's good to be back!

Project Innervate Special - Star Wars: TOR - Patch 2.4 Release and It's Problems

Welcome to a Project Innervate special for SWTOR's new patch! Two weeks ago we had Patch 5.4 drop for World of Warcraft so it shouldn't be any surprise that SWTOR now has a new content patch of it's own right on their heels. However, with the bad press it has received I doubt this will be a boost of moral to SWTOR players.

Launch Night Issues

Last night my Twitter absolutely blew up over SWTOR and it wasn't anything good. Last month, with the new launch of Patch 5.4 for World of Warcraft I resubbed after letting my sub drop for a few weeks due to lack of things to do and my Gamer ADD being set on SWTOR. I wasn't able to pay for both SWTOR and WoW at the time so I had to let my SWTOR subscription lapse. I hate SWTOR Free to Play model so much I lose all motivation to play unless I'm subscribed because the game is so gutted and unnecessary all it does is make me angry.

Last night, every SWTOR fan was warning people to not attempt to Patch or Log In until tomorrow morning when maintenance was complete. If you were unlucky enough to try before word spread or are casual and don't follow news about SWTOR then your client corrupted and you had to re-download to client. This is pretty bad since SWTOR is about 20 gigs (or more) now and having to download everything over again would make anyone want to not bother, especially if they are free to play players or subscribers considering leaving anyway.

Patch Notes... Kind of?

New Planet - Oricon: Oricon (which is technically a moon, not a planet) is very prominent in the Dark Side of the Force (for currently unknown reasons) and is where the Dread Masters have run too. This planet, like other planets, will have a mini story line for players to go through as well as house the new instances and dailies.

4v4 Arenas: No one can deny that SWTOR PvP has been in a pretty bad place since they had a near 10 month period where they had no content patches at all. This patch not only removes the 8v8 Ranked Warzones that have been in Pre-Season for a year and a half but it introduces 4v4 Ranked Arena. Players will be able to queue up solo or in a group and come against groups who have a similar composition to them (so if you have a healer, the group you face will be more likely to also have a healer). Ontop of this, there is a new of gear for PvP called Conqueror and the Ranked gear is called Obroan. You must first grind out the Conqueror Gear before you can buy the Obroan Ranked version because it is a component of the currency.

Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor Changes: There is none. That's right. 0. Not even any bug fixes. This gives the illusion that they may have finally balanced healing/ranged dps Jedi but those who actually play them know that that's not the case at all. Oh well, maybe next time.

Treek Has Companion Quests: I was super irked when I bought Treek on my main 55, raised her affection to 10,000 through gifts just to learn she didn't have any quests apart from her introduction. If I had known this I would have just put her on my Jedi Knight I was having trouble leveling due to constantly dying because Bioware thought it would be good to make a pure tank/dps class to get their healing companion at level 36. Apparently, this was just a bug with any characters made prior to Patch 2.3, the patch she was introduced in. All toons now have her conversations unlock. (Republic side videos coming soon here!)

Two New Operations (Maybe Soon?): So needless to say EA/Bioware done goofed on this one. Apparently, there is a breaking bug with the final boss of Dread Palace where one of the council bosses in the fight doesn't recieve a buff during a phase transition making the encounter unkillable. This means that there will not be a completion to World/Realm first kills (if SWTOR still even has a competitive raiding scene left) until the team can fix it. How on Earth did this make this past testing...?

Shift + Left Click Puts the Name of Something in the CTN Search Box: Speaks for itself. Quality of life change that is important and work mentioning.

New Dailies and Reputation: This is the Oricon planet reputation. You MUST complete the planets story line before you can unlock the dailies for the grind. Reputation rewards include two adaptive armor sets (both look pretty awful for Republic), a pet that looks like a roided up rakghoul, a mount that's got to be close to be reskinned in every color and Black/Red Dye.

Good content patch, little irritated that the raid doesn't work but I'm sure I'll be over it once they fix it. However, there is something that I am really pissed off about that will be out later tonight that will be linked here once it is finished.

The Weekly Innervate - World of Warcraft: Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar - How Your Leaves Have Changed (Restoration Druid Changes)

Welcome back to an article about Restoration Druids (we haven't seen one of these in a while!). And for good reason as we haven't really seen any new content in quite a while. But Blizzard is about to change that with a super mega awesomely huge content patch that has a little something for everyone! It personally has made me resub to the game (as I generally do once new content comes out) with a lot of excitement! So here's how this is going to work; I am going to first go over the general changes to the game that will effect the general player base from an old hardcore raider/casual players point of view. Then we'll dig into the Restoration Druid specific changes. Then, in a separate article later on this week (probably between Friday-Sunday) I will cover the Resto Druid T16 best in slot gear list. So let's get started!

Siege of Orgimmar (Raid Instance) and Raid Release Schedule

The Siege of Orgrimmar is definitely the crowning jewel of the patch as raids usually are. This new raid instance will contain fourteen new boss encounters (one of the largest instances we've seen in multiple expansions) on four different difficulties. Twenty-eight bosses for guilds to work on (if guilds work to kill everything on Heroic Mode) gives Blizzard plenty of time before they'll have to release the next expansion, which for the record I am slating for May/June 2014. I haven't completed any of the content myself so I cannot specifically comment on the difficulty of the encounters themselves but new content is never something I will turn away.

As with every tier of content since the inception of the Raid Finder (and even before that with ICC) the different wings will be separated and will be released gradually across several weeks. This time around they chose a model that is quite generous with their time in between wings for the Raid Finder/Flex Raid difficulties.

• Looking For Raid - The first wing will be available on September 17th, a week after the patch has released. Wing two will be released the week after and then wing three and four will have to wait two weeks finally ending on October 22nd, over a month after the first wings release.
• Flex Raid - The first wing will be available September 10th, the day of the patch release. Wing two will be released the week after and the final two wings will be released in two week intervals with the final wing opening on October 15th. 

I honestly can't think of why they would space the content out so much and release Flex and LFR difficulty wings on different dates since the two don't care a difficulty and I'm not even sure the same players would be participating in both. If I can get into a Flex Raid I probably won't do LFR as well in the same week as I have no need to burn myself out on the content so fast so having them be separate just seems like an extended forced gated system that isn't necessary.

Flexible Raid Difficulty

Flexible Raid Difficulty is the fourth raid level difficulty being introduced to World of Warcraft. It is an easier difficulty, harder than LFR but easier than Normal mode and is designed for players who are more casual and aren't able to keep to a strict schedule. The biggest thing about this difficulty is not about how easy or difficult it is, however, it is big because of how the raid is set up. You can have anywhere between 10 and 25 people inside of this raid difficulty so you do not have to have exactly 25 people to do a raid, the raid instance itself will scale based on how many people you have inside of the instance. I honestly kind of wish they had made it so that it would have lowered as low as 7 players because it is sometimes difficult to get 10 friends on at the same time but we assume that this difficulty will be easily puggable as it is easier than Normal Modes.

Arena Team Changes

Arenas are seeing a big change this patch. The Arena team is essentially completely disappating and Arena Rating is going to be unique to the person who is playing. Previously, you had to join and unjoin (or put everyone) a team if you were pugging or playing with multiple friends based on who was on at the team. Then there would be a team MMR and a team Arena Rating that everyone would share as long as they had played some games with the team. So if you were doing 2v2s with a friend, logged off and he started playing with a PuG and lost a bunch of games you would be screwed because you shared the same rating. Now the rating is attached to the account so you can play with as many or as few different players as you want and your Arena Rating will only be reflected on you. The match making system will take all of the participants ratings and average them together to determine the type of teams you will playing against.

Proving Grounds

Proving Grounds is a new feature that a lot of players have been asking for for a long time now that leveling has become such an easy feat. Proving Grounds is a solo instance, similar to how some Scenarios are, that will give you tasks based on the role you wish to practice. It will put you into a party as if you were in a party with other players (so your unit frames will retain for healers) and groups of mobs will spawn in waves. There is a soulwell, reforger and drink vendor inside. The challenge was pretty similar for how real encounters would be with raid damage, effects on the ground that needed to be moved from (and DPS NPCs who didnt move out right away for added realism) and even dispelling. This gives players who want to try out a new role such as tanking or healing that they haven't done a lot of at max level a chance to see if they can stack up against what they would face in a PvE environment with other players. It also gives pure DPS classes the chance to try out new specs or new reforging to compare their numbers against something a little better than a training dummy. There are four different modes, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Endless and there is currently no ranking system or public scoreboard but there is a Score presented at the end of the Proving Grounds that you can compare to other players. This will be a good way for high end players or bloggers to present a score on how they do in a Proving Grounds so others can see if they are getting close to where they might want to be in terms of their specific role.

Legendary Quest Finale

The Legendary Quest line that most of us have been working on since the beginning of the expansion will finally come to a close during Patch 5.4. The quest involves Wrathion instructing you to go to the newly uncovered island called Timeless Isle and kill the Four Celestial world bosses. After this occurs, he will ask you to collect 5,000 coins by searching chests and completing quests along the Isle. 5,000 sounds like a lot but if you're lucky with chest spawns it can take as little as 10 minutes to get all of the coins you need. A few more quests later and you've completed your Legendary cloak which now includes an amazing spell effect when the ability procs.

General Game Changes

There aren't a lot of general class changes that will be affecting everyone this patch however, the changes that are going into affect are important as tanks are getting some love.

• Taunts - All taunt abilities now generate 200% threat on that target while the Taunt is active. This gives tanks not only a jump on threat but it also makes it so their abilities do twice as much threat than anyone else. This will make tank swapping with certain classes a tiny bit easier in raid encounters when tank swapping is crucial to survival. This will also help tanks who have trouble pulling things back in dungeons when an overly geared Warlock decides to pop all of his cooldowns on a trash pack to boost his numbers.
• Vengeance - Vengeance is getting quite a few changes this patch. Vengeance has been something that since it's implementation has been changed over and over and can't seem to be gotten right by the developers. First off, tank specializationed specced players will now generate 40% more threat (because apparently the 300% increase they got a while ago just wasn't enough). Vengeance now grants 1.5% attach power equal to the amount of damage taken, this was a .3% nerf. Vengeance from Critical Hits have been reduced by 50%. Honestly, not sure how this would even be possible as from what I understood tanks now automatically couldn't be critically hit by being a tank spec. There are also diminishing returns on pulls that have multiple targets such as multi-boss encounters and trash packs.
• Knockback Diminishing Returns - Knock backs now have diminishing returns, within their own catagory, once you have been knocked back you are then immune to being knocked back again for 10 seconds. This is a PvP change that will help with players who were lucky enough to not get knocked off of Lumbermill to not be able to be knocked off again.

Druids

Now for the best part of the patch, the Druid changes! And we've gotten quite a few of them!

• Bear Form now increases Stamina contribution from cloth and leather items by 40%. This is a big change for both tanks and PvP Resto Druids. We're essentially receiving a 20% increase to our health pools.
• Innervate now restores mana based on the Druid's Spirit. This is a buff to Restoration Druids and a nerf to Balance Druids. Before, Innervate would restore a flat 10% of your mana and since everyone's mana pool was normalized with Mists of Pandaria it would only restore around 30,000 mana. With the new changes, it restores mana based on 50% of your Spirit amount per second for 10 seconds. Most Resto Druids have anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 spirit depending on gear level. which means your Innervate will now restore anywhere between 50,000 to 75,000 mana. This is nearly a 200% buff on Innervate for Restoration Druids.
• Wild Mushroom has gone through a huge change. Now, Wild Mushroom only casts one Mushroom and on the targets location so it no longer has to be pointed and placed on the ground. Instead of a GCD for Wild Mushroom Cast and 9 second cooldown for Wild Mushroom: Bloom they now both share a 3 second cooldown period making the time it takes to use it by nearly 1/4th. This is a significant buff and may finally make us Druids use it.
• Genesis is a new spell all Restoration Druids level 88 or above recieve. Genesis targets all party/raid members within 60 yards and if they are affected Rejuvenation it will tick and heal at a 400% increased rate and costs the same amount of mana as Rejuvenation (8,700 mana at max level). This will be a great burst heal for fights where you must quickly blanket the group in hots and will increase our healing output during large AoE damage encounters.
• Living Seed can now stack, up to 50% of the Druid's maximum health, and will no longer be triggered if the target is at full health. Another buff as anything that prevents unnecessary overhealing is always great, especially for a HoT class that has a lot of built in over-healing.
• Swiftmend's AoE effect is now called Efflorescence. By far the most important change in Patch 5.4. I have no idea why on Earth they ever changed this in the first place. In all honesty, this will just make it easier to see in logs the difference between the healing of Swiftmend and the healing of Efflorescence.
• Dream of Cenarius for Restoration Druids now causes Wrath to deal 20% more damage (for a total for 30% since there was a separate 10% damage buff) and the damage will heal a nearby ally for 100% of the damage done. Wrath's mana was increased by 50% (now 5,300 which is still less than the cost of one Rejuv) so I'm not exactly sure how useful this will actually be. It eventually gives us Priest Attunement capabilities and could be useful on fights that have low damage burn phases.
• Heart of the Wild now gives 25% increased healing during it's duration when activated along side it's other abilities for Restoration Druids only. The increased healing ability will be a reason to pick this talent up for fights where you need an extra cooldown.
• Nature's Swiftness has been removed as a talent and is now an ability that can be learned by Resto and Balance Druids at level 30. This is essentially reverting the ability back to the way it was before the new talent system was introduced. No other changes to the ability itself have been made. NS has been replaced with Ysera's Gift.
• Ysera's Gift is a level 30 talent that heals either the Druid or a nearby ally (if the Druid is at full HP) for 5% of the Druids maximum health. Depending on your health (mine is 450k at 525 ilevel) this will heal for 27,000 or so every 5 seconds. This will have the highest healing output of the three talents due to the 30 second cooldown on Cenarion Ward.
• Nature's Vigil now grants a healing increase by 12% (from 10%) and also heals another ally for 25% of the direct heal's worth ontop of the 25% damage done to an enemy. With the new changes to Heart of the Wild and Dream of Cenarius I still think this spell is still lacking since the DPS is minimal at best.
• Soul of the Forest now causes the Druid to gain 100% Haste on their next spell after casting Swiftmend. Still not a very useful spell in my eyes while comparing it to the other options we have.
• Glyph of Efflorescence is a new glyph that puts Efflorescence on Wild Mushroom and increases Swiftmend's healing by 20%. This essensially makes your Efflorescence permanent as the Efflo effect will remain as long as you don't bloom the Mushroom. Essentially, you can set down the mushroom in melee range, have a permanent AoE Heal and when a large burst of damage comes, bloom the Mushroom for a burst of healing and then replace the Efflorescense in 3 seconds. From what I've seen, this has boosted Resto Druid healing by quite a large amount and will not be surprised if this gets nerfed soon.
• Glyph of One with Nature is a new minor glyph that randomly teleports you to a random spot in the world with no cooldown and a 2.6 second cooldown. I haven't been able to confirm/deny if this works inside of instances like dungeons and raids but if it does we just got a buffed Bubble-Hearth and it sounds like it could be incredibly useful getting out of dungeon/LFR wipes without a repair bill.

Miscellaneous Game Changes

The first eight bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar have a chance to drop Sigils of Power, Sigils of Wisdom, Secrets of the Emperor and Titan Runestones. This gives you 8 additional chances a week to get a piece of whatever phase of the legendary cloak you are on!

Loot drop chances from both bosses and bonus rolls have increased on LFR difficulty (Normal Mode has received the bonus roll loot buff only). Throne of Thunder bosses have all received a 20% health and damage debuff.

Base Resilience now reduces damage taken from players by 72% (a 7% increase). Not sure that this honestly needed a buff, I'm of a firm belief that players without any PvP gear should be at a disadvantage until they get some gear or else there's no real point in even having PvP gear at all.

All in all, a lot of really good content changes for WoW. I'm really excited for the new raid instance (the Druid tier looks pretty AWESOME) as well as all of the new Resto Druid buffs that we have recieved. You thought that we were powerful AoE healers now, just wait and see what we bring to the table now... I think we're finally going to dethrone the Priests from their number 1 healing status.

The Weekly Innervate - World of Warcraft - Patch 5.0.4 Pre-Mists of Pandaria - Resto Druid Changes

Restoration Druids in my eyes didn't change a whole lot in this patch which I am really greatful for because nothing is less fun then perfecting a class for three years and then being told to relearn them again (in my opinion)! But the few changes that we did encounter were definitely for the better.

Mana Changes

On the Druid Forums before the patch went live I read that a lot of Druids were planning on regemming completely into Spirit now that Intellect no longer increases our mana pools and strictly increases our heals only. But once I got into the game and started healing some 5 man's I still had no mana problems. Now, to be fair I'm in Heroic Dragon Soul gear and we won't know how we'll be in Heroic Blues but it still seems that Druids are the best class when it comes to mana regen. I feel the way mana regen will work is at lower item levels we're going to want to gem spirit in our blue glear. But when we graduate to raid epics we will switch back to Intellect gems. Innervate will be the envy of the healing community once again especially since they buffed the amount of mana it gives you!

Tank Healing Cooldowns!

Tank healing cooldowns and the fact that we finally have them is amazing! Ironbark reduces incoming damage by 20% and Cenarian's Ward is a shield that heals on damage (similar to Earth Shield for Shamans). Before we had no tank cooldowns and not much of personal protection cooldowns at all and now we at least have SOMETHING to give to the raid other than awesome AoE heals and the fact that you're a tree with an awesome dance!

Healing Cooldowns

We now currently have three healing cooldowns to use at a raid level in Mists of Pandaria. We kept Tranquility, which is still universally known as the best healing cooldown in the game, and we have Incarnation: Tree of Life (our old Tree of Life cooldown) or Force of Nature depending on which is found to actually heal more. And we will pick up Nature's Vigil at level 90 which increases our healing by 20% for 30 seconds and 25% of our healing is down as AoE damage. That gives us a total of 3 healing cooldowns, 2 of which increase all of our healing by 20% with no restrictions on healing abilities that it affects.
And most importantly...

We Can Be Trees Again!

Obviously, we are the best healers in the game specifically because of this fact. If you pick up the minor glyph Glyph of Treant it gives you the Treant Shapeshift ability. Our caster forms still hold our 4% healing increase (that is invisible) so this is a cosmetic change only. But having trees in your raid just makes your raid 10x cooler for every tree you have!

In this patch Druids definitely came out ahead and I feel are one of the strongest healers once again. We didn't lose any healing cooldowns and only became stronger. AoE fights with all of our healing increases, our slowing capabilities with Typhoon and Ursol's Vortex for add phases that need stopping and the ability to do DPS while not sacrificing healing with Nature's Vigil will make us pretty handy on add phase fights.
On Thursday (hopefully) I will be covering Holy Paladins in the PvP scene since that is what my Holy Paladin majors herself in. The Disc Priest will happen next Tuesday and Shaman will wrap up the series next Thursday! That's the plan anyway and hopefully that doesn't change at all.

The Weekly Innervate - World of Warcraft - Resto Druid Changes for Mists of Pandaria

(PLEASE NOTE: This was written BEFORE Mists of Pandaria was released, some (if not all) of the information in this article is outdated.)

There are a lot of things to come out of the 5 month long beta that pertain to Restoration Druids in particular and if you haven't been keeping up with every single beta build there are a few things that you may have missed. Luckily for you, I have scanned through all of the beta builds that have been released since the beta began and have compiled everything from pre-raid gear to the recipe of raid grub you're going to want to pick up.

Experience Needed to Reach Level 90
85-86 – 15.5 Million EXP
86-87 – 18 Million EXP
87-88 – 22.6Million EXP
88-89 – 27.3 Million EXP
89-90 – 32.8 Million EXP

This was recently changed in the beta. All experience from 85-90 was increased by about 55%. People were noticing that you were outleveling zones before you were finished and could go through 3 zones and reach level 90 without stepping foot in an instance. Blizzard increased the numbers so that you would gain one level for every zone that you were in. This goes along with their lore-centric leveling expectations. This made it so that every zone would have to be completed to gain the maximum experience. 116 million experience is needed total and people are saying it will take 24-36 hours of /played time to reach level 90 however people expected this out of Cataclysm and level 85's were seen in the first 9 hours.

New Talent System
Please note that these are the choices that I believe are correct for talents for a raiding Restoration Druid. We may find out that other talents may provide a bigger thorough put.

• Level 15: Feline Swiftness -15% Movement Speed Increase - This is a passive speed increase that you receive no matter what form you're in. I believe that this will be more important than teleportation every 15 seconds.
• Level 30: Cenarion Ward - Protects a target, if they take damage they are healed for 11,500 damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. 30 Second cooldown. - 34,000 healing every 30 seconds, 68,000 Healing every minute is a good chunk and having a tank heal is beneficial. Still a little peaved that they put so many heals in the same level. Nature's Swiftness got a reduced cooldown to 1 minute which may turn out to be better than the shield but Druids have been looking for a tank cooldown for so long that I think it's worth it to pick up a new spell and try it out.
• Level 45: Typhoon - One of several levels of talents that have no healing gain what-so-ever. So I believe that the conal knockback is the way to go. Although you should never have to use it in a raid environment it may be hand to have a knockback to get adds away from you while you're healing. Druids are cursed to have the highest healing aggro with no way of getting rid of it. It hasn't happened in a while but having a bad tank who can't keep adds off of a healer is entirely possible.
• Level 60: Incarnation - Tree of Life cooldown. Exactly the one that we have now, 15% healing increase, 120% armor; enhances Lifebloom, Wild Growth and Regrowth. Anything that gives us a flat healing increase is a good pick for us. When it doesn't have an ability restriction it helps us dish out as much healing as possible especially when paired with Heroism, Bloodlust or Time Warp.
• Level 75: Ursol's Vortex - Puts a vortex on the ground, reduces movement speed, pulls enemies that try to level back in the first time they attempt to leave. Same as with Typhoon, there aren't any healing talents in this tree and it seems to be centered entirely around tanks. And again, it can be used to slowing down adds in raids or escaping run away adds.
• Level 90: Nature's Vigil - 20% Healing Increase for all spells, when you use a single target heal some of that healing is done as AoE damage around the target. Another great healing cooldown, great to be used for heavy add phases in raids or Heroism phases.

Glyphs

• Major: Glyph of Blooming -Increases Bloom Heal of Lifebloom by 50%. Reduces duration by 5 seconds. Duration no longer refreshed by healing spells. I was never a big fan of being Lifebloom being refreshed. I hated having to choose between healing someone with Lifebloom who was low and having to wait for the bloom or waiting the time for it to produce a big heal and losing the target because you didn't want to refresh the duration.
• Major: Glyph of Healing Touch - Healing Touch now reduces Swiftmend's cooldown by 1 second. This glyph used to reduce the cooldown of Nature's Swiftness but it has changed. You may want to switch out this glyph for Glyph of Rebirth when you get your Tier 14 4 set where Swiftmend's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds.
• Major: Glyph of Wild Growth -Wild Growth affects 1 additional target but cooldown is increased by 2 seconds. Even though the CD is increased the 1 additional target warrants a bigger healing output.
• Major: Glyph of Rebirth -Players that are battle resurrected now resurrect with 100% health. It sucks that we have to choose between this glyph and healing output. Battle rezzing a tank with 100% health was always something that only we could do as druids. But it may not be worth it if our healing output is increased.
• Minor: Glyph of The Orca -Your aquatic form now turns you into a killer whale. No more ugly weird sea monster thing!
• Minor: Glyph of the Stag - Allows your travel form to be rideable to other players. Your travel form is now a stag permanently (white or grey depending on faction).
• Minor: Glyph of Treant -Perma-tree form back! Your caster form still gives you your passive healing bonus so being in this form doesn't cost you anything. It gives Resto Druids the choice to have their permanent tree forms back again.

Minor glyphs are now entirely cosmetic so you choose any one that you want without having to choose between healing output and cosmetics. Glyph of Treant will be the very first thing that I pick up in 5.0. I was very upset when they removed perma tree form from the game in Cataclysm and I can only laugh at the people who said that Blizzard would never put it back in the game. There are other glyphs you can pick up if these aren't your style but these are the ones I will be getting.

Ability Changes

• Ironbark – Tank cooldown, reduces all damage taken by 20%, Lasts 12 seconds, 2 Minute Cooldown, Castable on anyone. Barkskin is still the same but they share a cooldown. This is a tank cooldown that druids have been begging for for a long time.
  
• Swiftmend – Now an AoEish heal. Will now heal 3 other people within 8 yards of the target healed. Efflorescence has been removed and has been merged with Swiftmend.
  
• Wild Muschroom: Bloom – Heals all allies within 8 yards for 4-5k. 10 second cooldown. 5 Mushrooms allowed at a time and casting the mushrooms now has no mana cost. Not a very effective AoE heal when we have so many.
  
• Healing Touch – 2.5 Cast Time, Down from 3 Seconds.
  
• Innervate - Now grants 10% mana regeneration, up from 5%. Our mana cooldowns was always so good and getting a buff to it is nothing short of amazing.
  
• Mark of the Wild - Now grants Intellect instead of Stamina. No longer grants increased magical resistances. Intellect instead of Stamina is great for us as Resto Druids. MotW now gives us a larger healing output.
  
• Remove Corruption - Now has an 8 sec cooldown and removes all Magic, Curse and Poison effects. I'm not so sure about the 8 second cooldown. This affect is across all of the healers which means that Blizzard can no longer insert raid mechanics that involve multiple debuffs that need dispelling or debuffs that need to be dispelled in quick secession. 
  
• Symbiosis - Creates a symbiotic link which grants the Druid one ability belonging to the target's class, varying by the Druid's specialization. In exchange, grants the target one Druid ability based on their class and combat role. Lasts 1 hour and persists through death. Cannot be cast on other Druids. Effect cancelled if Druid and target become too far apart. 4% of base mana, 6 sec cast, 30 yd range. Resto Druids generally gain some kind of defense cooldown like Ice Block from mages.
  
• Lifebloom - Now the duration is refreshed each time you cast Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth on the target. This can be glyphed away.
  
• Nourish - Now has a 2.5 sec cast time, down from 3 sec.
  
• Regrowth - Now also has a 60% increased chance for a critical effect and its duration automatically refreshes to 6 sec each time it heals targets at or below 50% health.
  
• Harmony: now grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 20 sec. They've doubled the amount of time that Harmony is active, which means that Harmony can be up 100% of the time by Swiftmend alone.
  

Pre-Raid Gear

• Head: Hood of Viridian Residus
  
  • Vizier Jin'bak - Siege of Niezao Temple

• Neck: Necklace of Disorientation 
  
  • Sha of Violence - Shado-Pan Monastery
• Shoulders: Incarnadine Scarlet Spaulders
  
  • Commander Durand - Scarlet Monastery
• Back:  Pressed Flower Cloak
  
  • The August Celestials - Honored - 1250 Justice Points
• Chest: Vestment of the Ascendant Tribe
  
  • The August Celestials - Honored -2250 Justice Points
• Wrist: Star Summoner Bracers
  
  • Gu Cloudstrike - Shado-Pan Monastery
• Gloves: Rattling Gloves
  
  • Rattlegore - Scholomance
• Belt: Hurricane Belt
  
  • Kuai the Brute - Mogu'shan Palace
• Legs: Darkbinder Leggings
  
  • Taran Zhu - Scarlet Monastery
• Boots: Airstream Treads
  
  • Striker Ga'dok - Gate of the Setting Sun
• Ring 1: Viscous Ring
  
  • Commander Ri'mok - Gate of the Setting Sun
• Ring 2: Sorcerer-King's Seal
  
  • Shado-Pan - Honored - 1250 Justice Points
• Trinket 1: Empty Fruit Barrel
  
  • Ook-Ook - Stormstout Brewary
• Trinket 2: Vial of Ichorous Blood
  
  • General Pa'valak - Siege of Niuzao Temple
• Main Hand Weapon: Carapace Breaker
  
  • Raigonn - Gate of the Setting Sun
• Off-hand: Inscribed Red Fan
  
  • Inscription

At the end of the day you will have 2660 Haste total from all of the items seen above. Haste rating has changed for druids due to Efflorescence no longer being in our arsenal of heals. The new haste break point we want to go for is 3034. You'll recieve an additional 80 from your enchantments. Reforge your Helm and Shoulders, both have critical strike rating which is entirely useless to us so it's the easiest to get rid of. You'll have some left over but having a little extra haste is still better than critical strike rating.
I picked these two trinkets for a reason. Most of the time you would rather go for 2 Intellect trinkets but in MoP Intellect only gives you healing output and no longer increases your mana pool. Which means it will benefit you more to have one Intellect trinket and one Spirit trinket at the beginning of the expansion when you need as much regen as possible to keep up people who are freshly geared.
Gems

• Ember Primal Diamond
• Brilliant Primordial Ruby

Usually an orange gem would be on this list but the tooltips for meta gems don't show any requirements for 2 orange gems. If this is changed on launch be sure to use 2 orange gems which will give you 320 haste and not require any reforging but at the moment you do.
Enchantments

• Shoulders: Inscription of the Crane Wing
• Cloak: Superior Intellect
• Chest: Glorious Stats
• Bracers: Super Intellect
• Gloves: Superior Mastery
• Boots: Pandaren's Step
• Weapon: Jade Spirit
• Off-hand: Major Intellect

Mostly Intellect this time around. Movement speed increase is good for us this time around with a Mastery increase. The weapon enchant is extremely interesting, 1,650 Intellect and if it procs while your mana is low you get some mana regen. You receive both Power Torrent and Heartsong in one enchant this expansion.
Miscellaneous Finds

• Flask of the Warm Sun - This is our flask of the expansion. You can go for the Spirit flask in the early goings of the expansion if you're having mana problems. Intellect no longer increases your mana pool in MoP. You have around a flat 300,000 mana once you hit level 90 but Intellect now only affects healing output so it doesn't hurt AS MUCH to go for a little extra spirit. You only need 1 type of herb this time around but you do need a Golden Lotus which is very rare and can be bought from a vendor by giving up your "Volatile Life" of this expansion.
• Master Mana Potion - No Concentration Potions this time around but you will get about 10% of your mana pool back from this new Mana potion.
• Mogu Fish Stew - Please note that this recipe makes 5 Mogu Fish Stews. So don't be alarmed if like me you thought you'd need 100 Fish/100 Crocolisks for just 1 stack.
• Wisdom of the Four Winds - This is our Pandaria flying. Costs 2,500 gold at level 90. You can't fly in Pandaria before level 90 so be ready to quest on foot.

And that is that for everything you will need to know for your Resto Druid when MoP drops. Everything from Gear to the types of Herbs and Fish you're going to want to stockpile come raid time. I have the list of raid gear all ready to go and that will be released the Tuesday morning the first raid is set to be released! I hope you guys are as excited as I am and I cannot wait to level my druid to 90!

The Weekly Innervate - World of Warcraft - Patch 4.3 Resto Druid Best In Slot Gear List

Hello fellow shapeshifters! Patch 4.3 is coming out within the next few weeks which means we have a whole new batch of gear coming out as well. This guide will be for the raiding Restoration Druids. The guide will be made as if you are full Item Level 378 and will need no gear from Random Heroics or the Random Raid Finder.

Helm Upgrades

• Deep Earth Helm - If you have a Tier 12 Helm you're going to want to replace it with another piece of tier. This helm has a lot of Haste and will be your best in slot.
• Source: Warmaster Blackhorn, Dragon Soul
• Helmet of Perpetual Rebirth - If you didn't pick up a Tier 12 Helm then this is a perfectly acceptable side grade until you can get your hands on a Tier 13 token. This has Mastery instead of Haste so you will want to replace it with your Tier 13 Helm as soon as possible but since they drop from the second to last boss in the instance it may be awhile.
• Source: 2200 Valor Points

Necklace Upgrades

• Petrified Fungal Heart - This will be the one necklace you will want to go for. It has Spirit and Haste and will be your best in slot. The Valor Point necklace has Spirit and Critical Strike making it almost entirely useless and a waste of Valor Points. Morchok is also the first boss in the new raid so it will be easy to get your hands on one.
• Source: Morchok, Dragon Soul

Shoulder Upgrades

• Deep Earth Mantle - This is an easy pick because it's the only one. There are no shoulders available for Valor Points and only Leather Agility shoulders drop from a Raid Boss. This doesn't make much sense and there may be a trash drop somewhere but as of yet your Tier 13 Shoulders are your only bet. Spirit and Mastery don't make them perfect itemization but what can you do?
• Source: Hagara the Stormbinder

Cloak Upgrades

• Woundlicker Cover - This is another easy pick because once again it is your only choice. No cloaks drop from raid bosses this time around so you will have to cough up Valor Points to get your back upgrade. It is Spirit and Haste so it will be your Best In Slot.
• Source: 1650 Valor Points

Chest Upgrades

• Deep Earth Robes - This Tier 13 piece has Spirit and Haste will be your best in slot. The Valor Point chest piece will be worthless to you because it once again has Critical Strike. This chest piece also has three sockets, two of which being red and the last being yellow with a socket bonus of +30 Intellect you will want to get your chest piece as soon as possible.
• Source: Ultraxion

Bracer Upgrades

• Mycosyth Wristguards - Another item where this will be the only one you will want to go for. The Valor Point Bracers have Crit again while these bracers that drop off the first boss in the instance have Mastery.
• Source: Morchok

Glove Upgrades

• Fungus-Born Gloves - Will be your best in slot item over the Tier Gloves. The Tier 13 Gloves have Mastery and a Blue Gem Socket while the Valor Point gloves have Haste and a Red Gem Socket. If you're going for min/maxing and are close to your next Haste break point then these will be your choice.
• Source: 1650 Valor Points
• Deep Earth Handwraps - If you're way over your haste break point and don't have your 4-piece set bonus then picking these up may be a better choice for you. Once you get your Helm/Shoulders/Chest/Pants you may want to swap the tier hands out for the VP gloves instead.
• Source: Warlord Zon'ozz

Belt Upgrades

• Girdle of the Grotesque - Will probably be your best in slot if you get your hands on all you other items on this list. There is a lot of Haste to go around and even though this belt has Mastery instead it has two Red Gem Sockets not including the third Gem Socket you'll gain when adding your Belt Buckle. It also has a +20 Intellect Socket Bonus making this belt give you extra Intellect over it's Valor Point counterpart.
• Source: Hagara the Stormbinder
• Belt of Universal Curing - If you need some more Haste then this will be where you go for. 20 more Intellect than the other belt may not seem like a lot but having more Haste than is necessary is actually bad for your healing because it is just wasted stats. Being dramatically over a haste break point without hitting the next break point makes all that extra Haste useless because it isn't really doing anything to help your HoTs. So if you can't reach your next Haste break point by reforging/gemming with this item just go with the Raid Boss drop.
• Source: 1650 Valor Points

Leg Upgrades

• Deep Earth Legwraps - Will be your final Tier 13 item. Once again there is no choice here unless you want to switch out the Boomkin Tier legs for the Haste and Mastery instead of Spirit and Mastery for the extra Haste if you need it. However, you will more than likely just go for your tier legs of your spec because of the glove choice.
• Source: Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

Boot Upgrades

• Boots of Fungoid Growth - Blizzard has an obsession with putting Critical Strike Rating on Intellect Spirit Leather this upcoming tier. However, we have been saved by the Valor Point boots. And Hazzah they are BoE. Which means if you have Alts in two weeks you can buy yourself a pair of boots that will be your best in slot until Heroic Raid drops. IE: You don't have to waste time spending the VP on your main to get these raid upgrades when you can run Random Heroics on an 85 Alt and get two pieces of gear in the same week.
• Source: 1650 Valor Points

Ring Upgrades

• Band of Reconstruction - This will be your first of two rings. This is also Valor Point bought. This has Mastery and a Yellow Gem Socket with +10 Intellect.
• Source: 1250 Valor Points
• Signet of Suturing - This will be your Best in Slot ring and the Dungeon Journal has all rings listed as possible drops from every boss in the instance (apart from Deathwing himself). I don't know if this is just some coding error or if you will have six chances every week to have you ring drop off of any of the raid bosses.
• Source: Warmaster Blackhorn, Ultraxion, Hagara the Stormbinder, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping, Morchok, Warlord Zon'ozz

Trinket Upgrades

• Reflection of the Light - This is your first of a couple of possible choices. This Trinket gives you +458 Spirit making it the "Healing Trinket" but it has an On Use ability givving you 2,290 Spell Power every 1 Minute and 30 Seconds. I'm not a huge fan of On Use procs because I find myself always forgetting to use it on cooldown.
• Source: 1650 Valor Points
• Bottled Wishes - May be the one you wish to go for instead. It gives you +458 Haste which makes it amazing if you're a bit of a ways off from your Haste Break Point. It's On Use is the same the previous trinket 2,290 Spell Power so if you feel you don't need the extra Spirit and would rather get more Haste this is the better trinket for you.
• Source: 1650 Valor Points
• Heart of Unliving - This Trinket seems extremely lack luster. It gives you no secondary stats and gives you a stacking Spirit proc every time you heal for 10 seconds giving you a total of 880 Spirit.
• Source: Spine of Deathwing
• Seal of the Seven Signs - +458 Intellect with a 2904 Haste proc possibility whenever you heal. Again, the Proc is pretty useless for Resto Druids because you need to have your Haste Rating at specific points and anything above or below makes it useless. Almsot 3,000 more Haste will bring you to your next two or three Haste break points but only for 20 seconds every minute or two.
• Source: Warlord Zon'ozz
• Windward Heart - This is going to be the trinket you go for. +458 Intellect and Critical Heals have a chance to heal a nearby alli for 21,352. It is Dragon Souls upgrade to Eye of Blazing Power from Alyzrasor. Every healer in your raid will be going for this trinket. This is another one of those trinkets that says it drops off of every boss aside from Deathwing and this seems like an extremely powerful trinket to drop off of every boss in the instance.
• Source: Warmaster Blackhorn, Ultraxion, Hagara the Stormbinder, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping, Morchok, Warlord Zon'ozz
• In summation, you're probably going to want to go for Windward Heard and Seal of the Seven Signs. Intellect is always your best stat above all else and with all of the Haste you're getting on your gear you won't really need any Haste trinkets. But if you find you still do you might want to switch out the Seal for Bottled Wishes or Reflection of Light and Reforging half of the Spirit for the Haste based on how far you are from you Haste break point.

Weapon Upgrades

Two-Handed Weapons

You generally don't want to go for staffs over the One-Hander and Off-Hand Combo because it is just generally better for healers and staves are for the caster DPS. But there is only one Off-Hand and a staff upgrade may drop before your main-hand AND off-hand drop so don't be afraid to pick one up if you feel it's going to be a while.

• Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time - This weapon doesn't have Spirit but it does have an interesting proc. It gives you 1,928 Haste and gives up to 3 allies around you 386 Haste. This gives you a Support-y vibe and if it drops you might want to pick it up if you're having very unlucky drops but it by far shouldn't be your first pick.
• Source: Madness of Deathwing
• Visage of the Destroyer - This is you healing staff. Spirit with Mastery and Spell Power. This drops a little earlier in the instance and if it's taking you a little while to get to kill Deathwing you might want to pick it up for the time being. However, this time around you really want to go for your Main Hand/Off Hand Combo.
• Source: Warmaster Blackhorn
• Main-Hand Weapons

• Maw of the Dragonlord - This Main Handed Mace has no Spirit on it but it has an extremely interesting proc. Healing Spells have a chance to cause "Cleansing Fire" which heals ALL nearby friendly targets in front of you for 6600. This weapon will be extremely beneficial for stacking fights and depending on the internal cooldown timer this will do extremely well in your raid healing. However, you get no Spirit and no secondary stats besides spell power so you will be getting this for the proc only and if you need stats this wont be the weapon for you.
• Source: Madness of Deathwing
• Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony - Main Hand Dagger with Spirit and Haste. If you would rather have the extra stats this will be the weapon you will want to go for. My plans might be to pick up the Scalpel first and still go for the Maw when we get to Deathwing and switch out my weapon based on the fight. If we're spread apart or there isn't a lot of raid damage I would stick with the Scalpel but if we're clumped like Ultra then I will switch out for the Maw.
• Source: Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

Off-Hand Weapon

• Ledger of Revolting Rituals - This is the only off-hand that drops in the instance. Which means it's the one you will be going for! Spirit and Haste makes it amazing for you as well.
• Source: Ultraxion

Relic Upgrade

• Lightning Spirit in a Bottle - Your only choice once again. No bosses drop Relics and you'll have to cough up Valor Points. Interestingly enough they have the same Item Icons on the PTR as they did for the Tier 12 ones. The Lightning Spirit in a Bottle looks like a feather. O.o
• Source: 700 Valor Points

There is a lot of great gear coming out of Tier 13. It seems that Blizzard is finally turning away from the Leather Spirit Mastery gear they were pushing in Tier 11 and are going back to the Leather Spirit Haste that all Druids really love. There is a nice balance of the really important items like Trinkets and Weapons and Tier off of only bosses while your not so important items like Rings and Cloaks being bought with Valor Points. 

They are also going back to the Vanilla and Burning Crusade gear designs with three Gem sockets in your Chest pieces and Legs as well as two sockets in Belts and sockets in your Rings. As well you can't buy your Tier with Valor points anymore so if you're wearing Tier it means that you're raiding and you are set apart. And don't worry, the Raid Finder tier has a nice indicator like Heroic tier does so everyone knows you killed the bosses for real.

I wish all my Druid brothers and sisters luck with their future raid drops and may you be the fastest geared of all your guildies!

Tune in next week as the PvP Season comes to a close and I go over the changes we will see and my questions for the future of the World (of Warcraft).

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