In my previous post, I suggested two specs: Holy and Disc. I have found that while I particularly enjoy Discipline more, the number of fights that I am able to use it is notably low. This is mainly due to the fact that Ulduar has a lot of AOE damage and a quick snap or two of a Glyphed Circle of Healing really is a life saver.

What really surprised me was how good Prayer of Healing actually turned out to be in Ulduar. In my previous post I indicated that I was expecting ProH to be much more powerful than it was in the past. Being able to cast a serendipitous ProH and then target specific groups really can make a major difference to raid healing.

Here you see a WWS screenshot from a Kologarn kill. The total effective healing done by Prayer of Healing was a large amount of my total healing done. Admittedly, other priests in my guild have been able to pull off bigger numbers using ProH more often than I. I simply need to train myself to look to that spell more often than COH.

A lot of the fights in Ulduar have massive raidwide damage, which need to be controlled by smart healing. I have found that Discipline, while able to spam PW: Shield, is vastly inferior to deep Holy in many boss encounters due to the shear amount of raid damage. This, of course, also is dependant on the number of Shaman, Wild Growth Druids, and COH priests you may already be running with. If your healing team can cover the raid damage without COH/ProH, then having a Disc priest focus on the MT is likely the best option.

Matticus wrote up a post that shows his two options for Discipline spec – one for aoe healing flexibility. (I can only assume he intends to use Borrowed Time for the haste on a ProH. Part of his argument is that Disc and Holy itemize differently. While that is true, I’ve found that my gear mixes well, though mainly due to the fact that I tend to run my Holy Spec crit heavy for Holy Concentration procs, which translates well to Aegis Procs as Disc.

Then there is Divine Hymn. I have to admit, I freaking love this bad boy! First you need to understand that while it is a channeled spell, it heals 3 people every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. That means 12 ticks, and every 2 second’s it reapplies the tick– smartly! Seeing this spell heal for 8500 average heal and 14,500 on crits is a a raid saver. Kologarn’s Shockwave and you’re an AOE healer down? Pop this and see the equivalent of Greater Heals fly everywhere. The 10 minute CD is worth it.

At the end of the day, Ulduar has major raidwide damage from nearly every boss. This requires fast, and intelligent choices in your spells. Deciding to tackle those as Disc or as Holy is ultimately up to you. Me? I tend to lean towards Holy for a vast majority of the boss encounters, and Disc for a special few.

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Healing, Prayers, & Ulduar is a post from: Tales of a Priest

Today, I want to focus on XT-002 Deconstructor. Deconstructor is a very fun fight. Aside from the rather funny voice the boss has, it can be quite the challenging fight. You are up against an enrage, as well as massive AOE damage. I want to discuss the strat that seemed to work best for my guild.

To start, you need to understand his abilities, and the phases of the fight. He essentially has two phases a tank and spank phase, and an add phase.

Phase 1- Tank and Spank
This phase is mainly tank and spank with some important abilities.

Light Bomb – If you get this debuff you will start to glow (very obviously) white and will do damage to anyone within ~10 yards of you as well as yourself. Turn your /range monitor on, and you’ll be fine, but healers need to keep an eye on the targets of this debuff and nearby raid members. Melee should run out of the melee group if you run too many melee and they can’t be spread out. (he has a HUGE hit box).

Gravity Bomb – Looks like the shadowbolt that Illidan casts, and when you have the debuff, it kind of looks like Vampiric Embrace. If you get this debuff, GTFO! “You are the bomb!”. You’ll eventually explode and pull people into you if you are too close. The range seems close to 20 yards, not “nearby” like the tooltip suggests.

Tympanic Tantrum – The real biatch of the fight. 120% of your HP as damage over 12 seconds. Keep your Prayer of Mending on cooldown, and if your groups are set up use COH/ProH. I found that Divine Hymn worked wonders here. Remember, it has a 10 min cooldown, so Hymn it up if you can. DPS should be ready to use Healthstones and Potions. He’ll do this about every 60 seconds and shout, “No no no no NO!”.

Phase 2 – Adds
This phase will occur every 25%. He will emote “Oh, so tired. I’ll rest for just a moment. ” and at that point his heart will expose itself. Everyone, including healers, should DPS the heart (don’t kill it unless you want Hard Mode). Damage done to the heart will convert multiplicatively as damage done to Deconstructor when you head back to Phase 1. Additionally, during this phase the Scrap Heaps will spawn a series of adds: XM-024 Pummellers, XS-013 Scrapbots, and XE-321 Boombots. The Pummellers should be tanked towards the rear by a Misdirected-tank and an assigned healer should keep up this tank. We didn’t kill the Pummellers and just had the tank control them.

After Deconstructor’s brief rest, he will return to Phase 1, and the heart will become untargetable. Once this happens, we had the DPS shift from doing Heart Damage, and then move to taking out the Bomb and Scrapbot Adds. You do not want them reaching him as they will do damage to the MT (Bombs) and heal the boss (Scrapbots). The bombs will blow up, and do damage to both Player and NPC alike, so if you can, you can use these to help with adds. Healers during this part need to be ready to keep up the MT as well as heal the Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb damage.

Shortly after the adds are taken out, be ready for another AOE Tantrum.

Rinse an repeat.

I highly recommend setting up your healers around the room, as illustrated and tank the boss near the stairs. An example is shown below.

This will allow for adequate coverage during Tantrum as well as healing the Light and Gravity Bombs, and healer range on the Pummeller Tank. The Deconstructor’s damage is slow, but pretty heavy hitting. Be ready for bigger heals if your tank gets debuffed by Light or Gravity Bomb.

General Notes -

1. Set up an arc around the room to adequately cover the people running away with the debuffs and to heal the tantrum damage.
2. Healers should also be DPSing the heart during the heart phase.
3. Holy Priests should be able to chain a COH at the start, ProHx2, OR if they have it off the 10 min CD, use Divine Hymn (which ROCKS) as Disc I was getting 11k crits. (heals 3 people every 2 seconds, for 8 seconds and is a SMART heal every tick – to heal up to 12 people/ticks within 40 yards)
4. If you DPS the 25% marks fast enough you can avoid Tantrum. Tantrum is supposed to be every 60 seconds. However too quickly, and you’ll have multiple waves of robot adds at once.
5. On tantrum DPS needs to be ready to use a HS or a pot.
6. Groups should be spread out accordingly, to maximize group heals. (Tranquility, ProH)

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XT-002 Deconstructor Healing Tips is a post from: Tales of a Priest

With 3.1 officially released, tonight will be a big night for many End-Game Raiding Guilds who are aching for new content.

Download it!
Find a mirror if you haven’t already pre-downloaded it using the Blizzard downloader.
Wowwiki has a great list of mirrors located here.

Update Your Essential Mods
Notice how I said essential… your non-essential mods you likely can live without on release day, and you can configure the updated (if applicable) versions later in the week. (That is, of course, assuming your guild is on a fast push into Ulduar).

• Not a TON of mods were broken, but if you use the Curse Updater be sure to update your mods to get the most recent version.
• Note that WoWMatrix will no longer be supported, so get the WoWInterface or Curse Updater!! Details on news is available here.
• DBM may need to be installed separately if they don’t release a 3.1 version. (I have the Beta/PTR version installed)
• No Stock UI has a great post about Mods for 3.1

Specs, Glyphs, and Gems
Your Talent Points are going to be refunded and Dual Spec’s will be available. Be ready to

• Research your specs and be ready with a RAID VIABLE spec.
• Priests I highly reccommend reading my post about 3.1 specs here.
• Certain specs will need to change glphys. I know I am stacking a bit more Int than I did in the past to harness mana restoration, and try to offset the Spirit Regen nerf.
• New Glyphs will be available, befriend your guild Scribes! (WTB – Glyph of Penance pst!)

Read Strats
Many guilds will be pushing hard in 3.1, I highly recommend reading www. ulduar.com (Stratfu’s site)

Raid leaders and guilds should read the bosses after Flame Leviathan as you will need to choose who you want to go after next!

GET READY TO RUUUUMBLE!
- Create your iTunes playlist
- Bring focus
- Consumables
- Sign up for the weeks raids
- Bring patience to raids, learning new encounters can be frustrating.

GOOD LUCK! And enjoy Ulduar!

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3.1 Specs – What Are You Doing?
My Musings On Val’anyr
Val’anyr: Loot Assignment Woes
PTR Trinkets, Trinkets, and More Trinkets!!

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Derevka’s Survival Guide to 3.1 Release Day is a post from: Tales of a Priest