Nerf Incoming: Discipline and Saurfang

As some of you may be aware, Icecrown Citadel (henceforth ICC, as it's called on Windrunner) has been out for a while, and I haven't posted about it yet. The reason is real life reared its head, and blogging got pushed aside to make room for studying for exams, spending time with family and Assassin's Creed II.

To recap, the guild roared into ICC10 (yes, 10, I'm in a 10man guild now, we pug some 25s, but rarely make up more than 3/5 of one) towards the end of the first week, all of us having had a crack at it in a pug or two and failing miserably, and cleared through the gunship battle in a couple hours. We wiped for another few hours on Saurfang, and called it a night. I and one of our tanks poured over the World of Logs data, (which, by the way, is amazingly useful for debugging new raids) and designed a new strategy with which we came back and two-shot Saurfang the next night, and our kill was so perfect that Saurfang died without getting to cast Mark of the Fallen Champion at all. At first, we just assumed a few things: we're pro, the stars aligned, World of Logs is distilled awesome, we're pro, etc. Now, however, I know why it worked so well.

Disco is OP for that fight.

Quick crash course on the Saurfang fight (spoiler warning? Not sure anyone but me likes to go in blind, but w/e): Saurfang starts with zero Energy. Whenever he hits anyone with anything, he gets +1 Energy. Each Energy makes him hit 1% harder. When he gets to 100 Energy, a random raidmember gets horribly raped, and his Energy resets to zero. His AoE and pets all need to be managed so that he gains as little energy as possible.

Why is Disco OP, and why do I see a nerf incoming?

Fully absorbed hits (most notably DoT ticks and pet melee swings) don't trigger an Energy gain. This means that simply by having a Disco priest healing your raid, Saurfang is deprived of 2-5 Energy from every Boiling Blood cast, and you can cover the add-control team's fuck-ups.

Side note: Yes, the Boiling Blood tooltip says it hits for 5k per tick, which would lead one to believe that you can only absorb one, maybe two ticks, but it's physical damage. After armor, talents, and Renewed Hope, it's more like 1.5-2k on plate DPS, 3k on everyone else.

So, enjoy it while you can, my priestly bretheren. Get yourselves into failing topguild runs, save the day, make off with the loot, and get asked to come back next time, all because of some slight healing class imbalance.

(But don't worry, we're boned for that green dragon encounter that's coming up in a few weeks.)

How it Works:

This.

(P.S. You may notice the previous post, a crappily formatted list of some of the raid buffs. It's mostly for my own use, but I'll clean it up... eventually.)

On Leadership - Raid stacking

So, there you are, on the n-th wipe of the night. You've read the strats, you keep wiping because you were so close last time. And yet, every try, DPS is just a little weak and you hit the enrage. Or during a particularly large damage spike a tank drops. Or you get two Mistresses. So what can you do?

Call it for the night and come back with proper raid stacking. By planning your buffs, you can give your raid that extra edge in the DPS or Tank/Heal that you would otherwise need to wait a couple weeks of gear farming for.

So, what is raid stacking? Raid stacking is the practice of carefully choosing which classes/specs you have in your raid to maximize the power of the raid itself. For example, you may want a Shaman for Bloodlust in nearly every raid, but a Rogue's Expose Armor is rather useless in a 10-man raid with 8 casters and a Warrior tank.

Below, I'll list all the buffs, by category:

Physical DPS

+178 Strength and Agility

Improved Strength of Earth Totem (Earth) - Most Shamans (Aura)

(155) Horn of Winter - All Death Knights (Buff)

(155) Strength of Earth Totem (Earth) - All Shamans (Aura)

+687 Attack Power

Improved Battle Shout - Most Warriors (Buff)

Improved Blessing of Might - Most Paladins (Buff)

(550) Blessing of Might - All Paladins (Buff)

(548) Battle Shout - All Warriors (Buff)

+10% Attack Power

Trueshot Aura - Marksman Hunters (Aura)

Abomination's Might - Blood Death Knights (Proc)

Unleashed Rage - Enhancement Shamans (Proc)

+30% Haste for 40 sec

Bloodlust - All Shamans (Spell)

+3% Damage Done

Sanctified Retribution - Retribution Paladins (Aura)

Arcane Empowerment - Arcane Mages (Proc)

Ferocious Inspiration - Beast Mastery Hunters (Proc)

+3% Haste

Swift Retribution - Retribution Paladins (Aura)

Improved Moonkin Form - Balance Druids (Aura)

+5% Physical Crit

Leader of the Pack - Feral Druids (Aura)

Rampage - Fury Warriors (Proc)

+20% Melee Haste

Improved Windfury Totem (Air) - Enhancement Shamans (Aura)

Improved Icy Talons - Frost Death Knights (Proc)

(16%) Windfury Totem (Air) - All Shamans (Aura)

+52 Stats, 1050 Armor, 76 Resistances

Mark of the Wild - All Druids (Buff)

(37, 750, 54) Drums of the Wild - 450 Leatherworking (Buff)

+10% Stats

Blessing of Kings - All Paladins (Buff)

(8%) Drums of Forgotten Kings - 450 Leatherworking (Buff)

Caster DPS

+30% Haste for 40 sec
Bloodlust - All Shamans (Spell)

+3% Damage Done
Sanctified Retribution - Retribution Paladins (Aura)
Arcane Empowerment - Arcane Mages (Proc)
Ferocious Inspiration - Beast Mastery Hunters (Proc)

+3% Haste
Swift Retribution - Retribution Paladins (Aura)
Improved Moonkin Form - Balance Druids (Aura)

+5% Spell Crit

Moonkin Form - Balance Druids (Aura)

Elemental Oath - Elemental Shamans (Proc)

+5% Spell Haste

Wrath of Air Totem (Air) - All Shamans (Aura)

Demonic Pact - Demonology Warlocks (Proc)

+280 Spell Power

Totem of Wrath (Fire) - Elemental Shamans (Aura)

(165) Improved Flametongue Totem (Fire) - Most Shamans (Aura)

(144) Flametongue Totem (Fire) - All Shamans (Aura)

+80 Spirit

Divine Spirit - All Priests (Buff)

(70) Improved Fel Intellegence - Affliction Warlocks (Felhunter Aura)

(64) Fel Intellegence - All Warlocks (Felhunter Aura)

+52 Stats, 1050 Armor, 76 Resistances
Mark of the Wild - All Druids (Buff)
(37, 750, 54) Drums of the Wild - 450 Leatherworking (Buff)

+10% Stats
Blessing of Kings - All Paladins (Buff)
(8%) Drums of Forgotten Kings - 450 Leatherworking (Buff)

Survival (Healing / Tank Mitigation, other than listed above)

-15% Physical Damage Taken

Inspiration - Healing Priests (Proc)

Ancestral Healing - Healing Shamans (Proc)

-3% Damage Taken

Blessing of Sanctuary - Tank Paladins (Buff)

(One-target) Grace - Discipline Priests (Proc)

(One-target, reduced threat) Vigilance - Tank Warriors (Buff)

+6% Healing Received

Tree of Life - Healing Druids (Aura)

Improved Devotion Aura - Tank Paladins (Aura)

+2818 Health

Improved Commanding Shout - Most Warriors (Buff)

(2547) Commanding Shout - All Warriors (Buff)

(1729) Improved Blood Pact - Most Warlocks (Imp Aura)

(1330) Blood Pact - All Warlocks (Imp Aura)

+214 Stamina

Improved Power Word: Fortitude - Most Priests (Buff)

(165) Power Word: Fortitude - All Priests (Buff)

(165) Runescroll of Fortitude - 440 Inscription (Buff)

+1807 Armor

Improved Devotion Aura - Tank Paladins (Aura)

(1205) Devotion Aura - All Paladins (Aura)

Battle Resurrection

Rebirth - Druids not Tanking Right Now (Spell)

Additional Healing

(Party-Only, 5% of DPS) Improved Vampiric Embrace - Shadow Priests (Aura)

(Party-Only, about 100 HPS) Healing Stream Totem (Water) - All Shamans with Spellpower (Aura)

+240 Healing Spellpower

(Dangerous on fights with many magical attacks) Amplify Magic - All Mages (Buff)

Reduced Magic Damage Taken

(Useful on fights with many small ticks of magic damage) Dampen Magic- All Mages (Buff)

+130 Fire Resistance

Fire Resistance Aura - All Paladins (Aura)

Fire Resistance Totem (Water) - All Shamans (Aura)

(63) Fire Shield - All Warlocks (Imp Buff)

+130 Frost Resistance

Frost Resistance Aura - All Paladins (Aura)

Arcane Resistance

None (Use Mark of the Wild for +76)

+130 Nature Resistance

Nature Resistance Totem (Air) - All Shamans (Aura)

Aspect of the Wild - All Hunters (Aura)

+130 Shadow Resistance

Shadow Protection - All Priests (Buff)

Shadow Resistance Aura - All Paladins (Aura)

On Leadership - The series begins

Us tanks and healers often end up needing to lead groups. In the new cross-realm PuGs, this job is almost exclusively the tank's, regardless of who actually has the party leader tag. In raids, I find that the leader is often a tank or healer, and I attribute this to tanks and healers often being the sort of person with the initiative to form a guild or PuG raid. Because of this, and because I find myself needing to plan raids in my current guild, I am going to begin writing a series of posts about proper raid leading.