Monday (23 Nov) - Idol of Flaring Growth

Monday (23 Nov) - Idol of Flaring Growth

Early, early Monday morning Happy was just getting settled in at the Auction House when Wild interrupted him. A Wintergrasp battle was about to start and Wild wanted in on it. For the second time in his long life, Wild joined a pvp battle. It was another great battle. Wild fought as a moonkin and helped cull out the allie defenders on the outer wall. Once the big siege engines could be built, Wild raced to a nearby armory, requisitioned a vehicle, and motored toward the fortress with two other vehicles. Wild picked up a gunner for the big cannon that rested atop the tank, and along with the two other vehicles we Boomed out long range explosive shot, clearing the way. There was a fierce foot soldier battle going on at the outer wall. Wild had a good gunner, who took out one of the enemy cannons on the wall as Wild maneuvered the big vehicle to the wall itself and began ramming it over and over. One of the siege vehicles had already been destroyed by the allie defenders, but Wild and the other vehicle driver kept hammering away. Both vehicles were taking damage, but we broke through to the courtyard on the other side of the wall. The two tanks plowed into the midst of the defenders inside, and a flood of horde on foot followed, trying to protect the tanks. Halfway across the courtyard the second tank blew apart, leaving only Wild's vehicle still intact but down to under 50%. The battle raged all around Wild, but Wild reached the inner wall and began ramming away. With the siege engine at 10% Wild broke through the inner wall to the central courtyard. The allies had been holding horde pvpers at bay at the front entrance, which had not yet been breached. But Wild's breach allowed the horde in from the side and once we were in the allies couldn't stop us. Wild's tank was destroyed, but that only gave Wild the chance to toss his AoEs around on foot. The horde won.

Shortly after the battle a VoA 25 started to form up, and Wild immediately asked to join in. The invite in chat was a bit misleading, as it asked for "an OT healer and a tank," which made it sound like the raid was almost full. Nope, there were only ten in the raid when Wild joined. There was another player in chat asking for VoA 25 players that was actually for this same raid. A little trickery going on, but maybe that helped get healers and tanks to sign up quickly. It certainly snagged Wild.

It was still early in the morning, so it took a little while to get a full raid together. Some of those invited to the raid Wild was a little leary of, having heard some not so nice things about them. Well, the worst thing that could happen is we fail, or some loot gets ninjaed. Wild wanted the two triumph emblems that a Koralon kill would give him. Nothing else mattered.

The raid leader had obviously done this many times. We had five healers, and one healer was placed into each of the five groups. Healers were responsible for keeping their own group alive and for helping with tank healing. There were two tanks, placed in groups one and two. Of the three druid healers and two priest healers, the raid leader opted to put what was clearly the top geared healer in the raid (I know because Wild always looks up the gear for every druid healer he works with) to group one for main tank healing. Wild got the nod for group two and off tank healing.

We worked through the trash mobs with no problem. At Koralon there was very little discussion. The raid leader made sure everyone knew who the two tanks were, made sure all the healers knew their duties, and made one raid check to make sure no one had gone afk and that everyone was buffed.

We engaged. Wild focused his healing on his group, with most of his attention on the off tank. Wild also dropped Hots on the main tank. Wild could tell from his display that the other druids were likewise tossing Hots on the off tank. So the druid healers at least knew what they were doing. Five raiders died during the fight, none in either group one or two, and Koralon went down. Wild had his triumph emblems.

Wild also had a chance at [Runetotem's Gloves of Triumph], the ilevel 245 T9 gloves, but was competing with two other druid healers and did not win the roll. It was the first T9 set piece Wild had had a chance for, and it wetted Wild's whistle for more. Wild hopes to get into a VoA 25 each week. This raid took the time to kill both of the other bosses in VoA, Emalon and Archavon, with the raid leader doing a good job of keeping the raid together after Koralon went down.

With 26 triumph emblems in his sweating cow mittens, Wild headed for the triumph emblem vendor in Dalaran. There Wild spent 25 of those emblems on [Idol of Flaring Growth], the top druid healing idol currently in game.

Wild's current idol reduces the mana cost of the rejuv spell, a very nice idol that Wild has had for a long time. Without it Wild's rejuv mana cost will go up, and Wild will to watch that. The new idol doesn't help that, but what it does do is amazing. The new idol does affect rejuv, but in a different way. Every time Wild casts rejuv, there is a 70% chance to proc nine seconds of +234 spell power (that is a ton of spell power). The 70% proc rate can be triggered every three seconds, and when you do the math, steady use of rejuv during a fight results in having that extra +234 spell power nearly 95% of the time. Wild has always wondered if the difference in Wild's healing numbers compared with other druids came significantly from Wild not having that idol. For example, in the VoA raid Wild knew he was clearly out geared by one of the druids, but the other druid had stats very similar to Wild's, but he had the Flaring Growth idol. Here is how the numbers stacked up:

#1: ace druid: 4128 hps (wow!) and 33.2% of the healing
#2: 2nd druid: 2361 hps/18.1% with Flaring Growth
#3: Wild: 2246 hps/14.8% without Flaring Growth

The two priests came in 4th and 5th. Now, since Wild was tank healing and the 2nd druid was raid healing, that would account for some of the difference in healing even without the idol, but I do think the idol was still a strong factor. Looking at the ace druid, Wild could only drool at what he could do with a full set of T9 gear, which is what this guy had.

Philly got in some considerable level grinding time. She did quests all over Hellfire Peninsula and started in on quests in Zangarmarsh next door as well. The quests were very familiar, since both Wild and then JB had also done them. Philly did crack a smile at the quest series regarding the wife who's husband has a dalliance with another woman. The "other woman" was turned into, literally, a rat at the end. The wronged wife, Carinda, gifts a very nice ring at the end of the quest chain. Philly remembered how much Wild wanted that ring, and how infatuated he became with Carinda while carrying out her bidding. For Philly, though, the ring was nice and an upgrade, but she really didn't get what Wild had seen in the vindictive Carinda.

Philly DINGED through level 62 and all the way to level 63, passing level 62 Melasahnd and making her the third highest level in the Wild family behind Wild and JB. That is, if the black sheep of the family, Naithipe, is excluded. Philly also improved her Jewelcrafting skill to 270, but that is likely to slow down as getting the mats for skill ups are tougher to get.

There were rolling restarts on all servers on Monday, and the Tuesday maintenance, while quick, resulted in broken servers and trouble getting logged on. I still think patch 3.3 is some weeks away yet, but the tinkering on the live servers is in full swing and the lag in Wintergrasp and Dalaran is only going to get worse.