Gruul's Lair - 25 man raid Healing Assignments

Gruul’s Lair.
There are a total of 7 trash pulls in the entirety of Gruul’s Lair (2 before Maulgar and 5 before Gruul) and in each one, it’s the only time I find myself using my GHeal sparingly: Otherwise it’s Frisbee and Renew, since there’s one to two tanks, and as long as everyone groups up on the Lair Brutes, no one else should be taking damage.

Need about five tanks (sometimes six). The MT tanks Maulgar, a Moonkin druid tanks Kiggler, a mage tanks Krosh, a rogue/furry warrior/spare tank tanks Blind Eye and one to two tanks for Olm. U need 6 to 7 healers for this dungeon, though you can do it with five if you have pally tanks that aren't tanking on Gruul, they tossed on healing gear.

Usually, a pally healer gets assigned the Mage tank on Krosh, for those fast heals. Kiggler has this nasty tendency to polymorph anyone near him, so if you have a resto druid, kiss their leaves and send them over with the druid moonkin tank to Kiggler. Olm is just a gigantic PITFA. One tank can try to tank him, but make sure they’re prepared to run around a lot. He Skillcoils a lot. If he gets away from the tank, he usually will Skillcoil healers (usually ones on the other tanks) and then things can get bad. We used to have just one “tank” on him, but since then have adopted a two tank strat. The healer on these tanks can be any type really. Olm hurts, but he’s not the ZOMG SPIKE type. He’s just annoying.

Maulgar’s tank, usually your best geared one, needs two healers on him. Two priests, a pally/priest is our usual assignment for the Maulgar tank, because the High King has two whammy attacks. Your MT can easily be two shotted if you don’t heal through the Arcing Strikes Maulgar inflicts.

Blindeye? Please. He’s a push over. The rogue/furry warrior/whoever who’s tanking him is going to feel like they’re bathing in Blind eye’s massaging “wrath”. Blindeye dies first because he’s the priest (/sniffle) of the gang, and he’s got so many people interupting his spells, he hardly gets a chance to do anything before he dies. If you’re just starting in Gruuls, you can put a healer on the Blindeye tank, but as soon as Blindeye kisses dirt, move them to one of the other tanks. It will be needed.

Now that that’s done, you have five more trash pulls before Gruul. Repeat above.

Ah, Gruul. Once you can get a rhythm going for this place, Gruul’s is easily done in about 35 to 45 mins. The Gruul fight is a gear check for most guilds starting their 25 man raiding days. His “soft” enrage timer is that every 45 seconds or so, he grows bigger, which causes him to hit harder. There’s only three tanks needed, and make sure melee knows those three tanks need to stay at the top of the aggro list, or else you’re gonna start having dead melee. See, Gruul’s normal hits aren’t so bad, but every once in a while he does a Hurtful Strike to the second person on his aggro list. This strike HURTS. Tanks can take it, rogues usually get one shotted by it.
If you thought melee was the only ones who had it hard, guess again. Ranged has to watch out for Cave Ins, which also hurt more the bigger Gruul gets. They’re annoying but livable through, since you’ll see the CAVE IN happen and have about two seconds to just RUN out of the area it’s affecting (which is small).

He also has an AoE silence, which stinks when it hits at the wrong time, so make sure you have a Tree keeping HoTs up on those three tanks. It may save your raid in case of a unlucky silence.

Then there’s the fun part: Grasp of the Gronn Lord and Shatter!

Basically every 45 seconds or so, Gruul pounds the ground (Ground Slam) and everyone in the raid goes FLYING (no joke, watch the vid.) You and your raid buddies have about 5 seconds to get the F away from each other or else when you freeze and Gruul Shatter’s you, you’re going to kill anyone who’s either on top of you or the five buddies who happen to be within 15(?) yards of you. Deadly Boss Mods has a nice little screen that tells you who’s close so that u can try and minimize this damage, and a Power Word Shield and a Frisbee on yourself also can help in case you’re a tad to close to someone.

Now, as for who’s healing who… depends on your healing make up. The pallies and the druids can usually take good care of the tanks, though Priests should toss a Frisbee to help the melee out in case they get caught in a Cave In. Three to four healers on the tanks is good, any one left over, just have them heal the raid. Keeping the tanks up is important, but keeping DPS alive is VERY important. Dead DPS means your tank gets one shotted because Gruul’s reached Growth 13. The longer the fight, the more likely people will die too fast for you to save. Cave ins will tick for too hard or you’ll run out of tanks.

In Game Guild Info.

Please visit the in game guild information tab for links to our Web Blog, Guild Portal, Rank Information, Ventrilo Dial In, etc.

Some Arena Tips

(My ratings certainly don’t make me an expert, but these are some tips I found through numerous forums)

Put on as many buffs as possible to minimize witch buffs get dispelled – even bogus buffs

Never start by DPSing a Warrior or Feral Druid. Minimize their rage gain as much as possible

Slow and Focused DPS on Pally until after bubble. Then explode with all you got

Pick out the softest DPS target the other team has and unload

Use LOS to your advantage

A Priest who sees 3 targets clumped will AOE Fear and cause chaos. Do not stack up in the middle of the Arena right out in the open. That's not stacking, that's being fish in a barrel. Keep a distance equal to your healers heal range. This will minimize aoe affects and multiple cc affects from melee classes, and if your healer is getting ganked, it will help you to see it quicker

TBC has been out for almost 1 year, and that there has been 2 Season's + 1 month's time of gear with STA and Resilience out there. Grand Marshal/High Warlord, Gladiator, Merciless, Vengeful and Marshal/General, Veteran, Vindicator. The excuse of not having a good base level of HP and Resilience (see Season 1 for Honor) to contribute actively in Arena or BG is.. well.. starting to be just an excuse.

If you can, Banish a Mage Water Elemental when combat starts. This will prevent a ton of their burst potential by denying another Nova effect.

Get a Mage to Ice Shield as soon as possible. Burn their cool downs early in the fight.

Warlock – Burn them down fast with focused DPS. Ignore everything else and just DPS. This should out DPS any healers heals. If possible, cc the healer, or have a hunter slow their heal affects. Regardless, get the Lock out of the fight fast.

Remember, ignore Warriors and Feral Druids until the end. Throw some cc if you can spare, but otherwise just keep concentrating on other targets.

Get everyone to focus fire on the same target and try to burst him down when one of your druids cyclones the opponents main healer (paladins can't bubble out of cyclone, this is very important). Picking this target is difficult and depends on who you have in your group.

Have Mass Dispel available as a bound key and use it on a pally when he bubbles; it's the only thing that can dispel a pally bubble

Have your regular Dispel available on your bound key and use it a LOT. Use it to remove DoTs, use it to remove the opponent's buffs

A shadowfiend can do a fair bit of damage (and return mana as well) so make sure to send it off to say a caster

If you have Silence, use it... esp helpful to stop a mage from front-loading

Unless something is gonna be sheeped (if you have a mage in your group), dot EVERYTHING. You don't have front-loaded DPS so you won't contribute as much if you just focus fire on one.
Keep your own shield up as you can.

Learn to understand the other classes. If you see a big red pet, you can't fear it away, for example

Zul'Aman Boss Guide

FYI – Druids, remember, this is an outside instance. Root will be a very effective crowd control action.

Important note for anyone at the start of the instance: don't click on the gong until your raid is buffed and ready. It takes several people to channel, and will spawn two elite trolls and a pair of AOE packs when you do.

Nalorakk the Bear
Troll form mangles and charges; bear form bleeds and silences. You need two tanks, one for each form. Taunt off each other when he shifts and have both stay in front to mitigate his brutal swipe. Everyone else: spread out, keep yourself and the tanks alive, and dps like you mean it. This is an endurance tank-and-spank, just a hair less difficult than Prince Malchezaar, and the easiest fight in the instance.

Akil'zon the Eagle
Clearing his trash is half the battle: keep moving like in the Shattered Halls gauntlet, use CC on the elites, and have a pally AOE tank the birds if you've got one. Once engaged, spread out and watch your storm timer. Have everyone group up 5 seconds before it hits, then spread out again once it's over. You can kill the eagles (DOTs and seed are nice for this), but don't shift too much of your dps to it. Stay away from anyone with static disruption: don't let them run into the middle of the group even during a storm. It has a very short range, so they can probably keep alive and not kill anyone.

Lessons in going after Akil'zon (ty to big bear butt)

First, the path to reach Akil'zon is very short. If you are first entering Zul'Aman, and are standing at the steps leading down after having just opened the gong door, then the way to Akil'zon is to your left, a little bit forward, and then hook a sharp left.

The party should assemble there quickly, and look up the path, for at it's top stands a sentry. Assemble and prepare, for once you get within aggro range of the sentry he will run off, yelling an alarm to the other mobs and starting the event.

The path to Akil'zon from this point is VERY short. You have exactly 4 mobs of guards to kill as you fight your way up a ramp, a warrior and a caster. At the very top of this ramp, at the foot of some stairs, is a single enemy named, Amani'shi Tempest. Once you have killed these enemies, Akil'zon rests on a platform at the top of the stairs, waiting for you.

Sounds simple, right? Well, really, it is. However, the gauntlet (running up the ramp while fighting the 4 mobs), as it's called, presents some challenges that are quite fun.

The first challenge is knowing that, once the sentry is triggered, the 'event' starts. From the moment the sentry cries the alarm, at measured intervals waves of birds will fly DOWN the ramp to swarm you. The birds are weak, perfect Affliction 'Lock AOE fodder. Also, periodically two fighter types will spawn at the BOTTOM of the ramp to take your casters from behind. They are stronger than the birds, but go down fast to good DPS. These extra adds will continue to spawn until you begin to engage the Tempest. The very second you engage Tempest, the adds stop spawning.

The challenge in fighting the gauntlet is to push your way through to engage the Tempest as fast as possible, while maintaining focus through the chaos of swarms of birds and attacks from behind. Try to have both tanks up front. The main to engage the warrior, the off-tank to engage the caster. Work fast to burn down the caster. As soon as the caster is down, shift to the warrior... but the off-tank's main role is keeping an eye on the bottom of the ramp, ready to run down and intercept the two fighter adds before your healers die.

As the birds come down, you can use a Warlock AOE to blast them to bits... otherwise, you can just ignore the birds as an entertaining sideshow.

So the paired team would be locked up, caster burned down, warrior burned down too until fighter adds charged up from the bottom of the ramp. At that time, all focus shifts to wiping out fighter adds while main tank just kept his target locked up. Once the fighter adds are gone again, the warrior was finished and the next guard team was engaged.

After 4 sets of guards, the Tempest is right there, and attacking him stops the constant stream of adds... If you've pushed that far, and you had at least half your group survive, then even if it was a sloppy run you've probably got it taken care of. Congratulations... you have survived the gauntlet and can take 2 minutes to rez and rebuff before taking on the Eagle Avatar, Akil'zon.

Now, a few words of warning... once you engage Akil'zon, a mystic barrier forms at the top of the stairs, sealing off the platform. If you have slow players on the first charge up to the platform, some of those players may find themselves on the other side of the barrier, standing on the top steps unable to help... but still able to be targeted by Akil'zons Electrical Storm, pretty much ensuring a wipe. When you decide to engage, everyone must hustle their ass onto the platform. No fighting from the stairs.

Next, the entire gauntlet, all four teams and the Tempest, respawns VERY quickly... and if they respawn when you are fighting Akil'zon, they will all charge up the stairs, run through the mystic barrier, and engage you. The respawn rate, is believed to be about 25 minutes. So do not go AFK after completing the gauntlet. Just don't do it.

Akil'zon deals Nature damage. Having the correct potions, and the Hunter Nature Resistance on, is probably a good idea. Everyone but the tank needs to spread out at least 13+ yards from the tank AND EACH OTHER to keep from getting more than one person blasted by Static Disruption at a time. That means that you need a plan for how you are going to arrange your healers in a circle around the boss, so everyone has someone that can heal them, and reach the tank. So think of it as a similar positioning challenge like the Maiden of Virtue, without the warm up time to have everyone gently nudged into place. You need the plan fixed AHEAD of time, and the players all need to comprehend their place before you start.

Second, this seems to be one of those fights where you only need one tank. Taunt does not work, so it's another Attumen straight-DPS for threat generation fight.

Finally, he does an attack called Electrical Storm. And this is a 'close up on the person picked NOW' kind of fight. He picks one guy out at random, and hits him with a purple lightning bolt that throws him up in the air. A black spot/shadow will form on the ground beneath him. Anyone NOT standing in the black circle/shadow gets slammed for nature damage over time that will build up/multiply and cause serious 'you dead, sucka' wipage.

Mark the main tank with a star... and watch the Deadly Boss Mods timer. As soon as Electrical Storm is up, everyone run in to collapse on the star, so when he chooses someone at random, everyone is already close to being in the right place. And if the person chosen isn't on the tank, then the starred tank shuffles over and everyone follows. Works well.

Rinse and Repeat, and you’ll have the victory.

Halazzi the Lynx
Phase 1 strategy is simple: stack your two tanks on top of each other to split his ~12k saber lashes. Hunters can tranq his frenzy in this phase. At 75% he'll turn into a shaman and summon a lynx spirit. Keep out of range of his earthshock and chain lightning totems if you're ranged, and cleanse the flame shocks. DPS priority is totems, then lynx. Once you kill the lynx he'll go back to phase 1; he splits again at 50% and 25%. After you've killed the spirit a third time, he'll enrage and start dropping more totems.
Jan'alai the Dragonhawk
He's the Aran of Zul'Aman: he'll teleport the entire raid to him, then scatter fire bombs on the ground. Ten seconds later the bombs will burst, so you must find a safe spot to stand in. Every minute or so two hatchers will come out to hatch some eggs on the platforms. Have 2-3 AOErs, a tank, and a dedicated healer kill one hatcher, let the other hatch five or six eggs, then kill him too and AOE the dragonhawks down before another teleport hits. At around 30% Jan'alai will hatch all the remaining eggs himself. Other notes: he does an AOE fire cone at a random target, and has a soft enrage before his 10-minute berserk timer.
Hex Lord Malacrass
He spawns with a random four adds with their own abilities each time (like Moroes), so your kill order will vary. Killing two and leaving the rest CC'd is a common strat. He dots and does a power drain (a nasty channeled AoE) increases his damage output by 10% and lowers the raid by 1%. The damage increases will stack on him through the fight. Power drain has a spell pushback, and its shadow damage is apparently rangeable at 30 yards. Lastly, he does a recurring soul drain which lets him steal class abilities from a random raid member and keep them until the next drain, so be on your toes and react accordingly to totems/traps/heals/fears/MCs/etc.
Zul'jin
The final boss takes on the aspects of all four animal spirits in turn at 20% intervals, wiping threat between each phase. In phase 1 he whirlwinds and casts a debuff on a random raid member that will keep ticking until that player's healed to full. At the start of phase 2 he'll paralyze everyone with a debuff that stuns and damages after five seconds; dispell this off your MT and some healers. Phase 3 brings damaging tornadoes to avoid and a ~1250 lightning bolt hit each time a caster finishes a spell (heals too!), so melee must step it up (aggro's irrelevant in this phase). In the 4th phase he'll fixate on random targets to melee before returning to your MT, and will do a whirlwind with a Leotheras-like debuff (but weaker). Have your tank intervene if possible, and spam-heal fixated targets. Phase 5 is the last and requires you to avoid increasing numbers of void zone-like pillars of fire while he hits you with a stacking + fire damage debuff. Keep people topped off and burn him down.

Side Notes
Sacrifice Timer:
Once you talk to Harrison Jones and start the event, you'll get a 20-minute sacrifice timer. Kill the bear boss within the timer, and you receive a chest containing an additional Badge of Justice and another piece of loot. Each kill within a timer gives you bonus time to get to the next boss plus whatever time you had remaining. The timers and bonus loot chests only exist for the four animal bosses, and if you go over the time limit on one boss, that's it for that raid ID.

Boss Locations: World of Raids has a map of the instance with all the ZA bosses here.

Instance Reset: Zul'Aman should reset every three days on the same schedule as Zul'Gurub and AQ20. If you start a ZA on patch Tuesday, your raid ID will last until early Friday morning.

ZA Quests: Talk to Budd Nedreck in Hatchet Hills, where you can also find the ZA flight point, repair dude, and reagent vendor. He'll give you a quest to retrieve a map from Nalorakk, which will give you a free 20-slot bag and open up two more quests.

Loot: here.

Guild Vault in Patch 2.3

If you’ve read any WoW news site or been on the forums, you’re probably aware that patch 2.3 is scheduled to be released on November 13th.

First, the facts:
There are 6 tabs that can be purchased by a Guild Leader. They have a progressive cost, just like the extra bank slots do. The cost are 1g, 10g, 100g, 1000g, 2500g, and 5000g. Each slot can hold 98 non-soulbound items. Each tab has its own permissions of who can see it, take items out of it, and how many items/stacks can be taken out based on rank.

Each tab can also be named and an icon associated with it (default is the red question mark). Each tab also has its own log of which items are deposited and withdrawn and by whom. The money of the vault is its own separate permission group. Again, based on rank, you can specify how much gold a player can take out per day. There is also a log identical to that of the item tabs, so you can see where the money is going.

Related to this, when each guildie goes to repair their armor, there is now an option to repair your armor with funds from the Guild Vault. When I last tested this, that money would appear on the log, but I believe it would go against the cap for that rank.

Keeping the coffers full:
ITEMS Enchanting Materials, Tradeskill Materials (Primals), Rep Items (Don’t need that Aldor rep anymore? Send those Marks to the Guild Vault), Semi-rare non-BoP recipe or pattern (Send it over), Potions, Elixirs, Flasks, Food (For Pets), Food (From Cooking/Fishing), Apexis Shards that you don’t know what to do with can be converted into the Unstable Flasks for Gruul’s Lair, and then put in the Guild Vault. Plus… almost everyone can use health and mana pots, so this is a good place to share them as well. The Vault keeps listings of who contributes and takes.

GOLD:
When SF guildies run together thru instances and/or quests, the SF Vault will pay for your repair bills. This is the only time you may choose Vault money to pay for repair bills.

Obviously, this is an honor type system and a possibility exists that somebody might take advantage of this. The GM will get log listings and if abuse is apparent, the funds will be asked for in return. Obviously, if the guildie refuses, the guildie will be booted; an unfortunate event, but necessary for the sanctity of all.

The GM will fund initial amounts, then he’ll figure out how to keep the gold flowing. A guild vote may be forthcoming…:))

Season 3 Arena Armor - :((

Season 3 Armor Penetration Compliments to Resto4life

For those who aren't aware, the Season 3 armor sets for melee classes and specs will include Armor Penetration rating. Armor Penetration is a stat that allows the attacker to ignore that amount of their target's armor. This stat is ostensibly being added to Season 3 armor to prevent PvE Tier 6 armor (which includes Armor Penetration) from being superior to PvP Season 3 armor. At this news, cloth-wearing casters were outraged, declaiming this addition to give an unfair advantage to melee players. Kalgan responded:
The Priest and Warlock season 2 armor sets already have +910 bonus armor on them. As of season 3, the Mage set will also have the +910 armor (all the armor pen on season 3 melee gear adds up to less than 910).
So basically, as long as Warriors, Rogues, Priests, Mages, and Warlocks all have their ducks in a row and are wearing suitable Season 3 armor, there should be little net difference. But what does this mean for Druids who are not included in those classes listed as receiving additional item budgeting toward armor?
If a Priest has her cloth armor buffed up to the level of Leather, she essentially becomes a Priest in Druid's armor with the additional survivability tools (Blessed Resilience, Inner Fire, Power Word: Shield, Psychic Scream) intended to compensate for having to wear the "squishiest" armor type. The Priest is then better able to stand toe-to-toe against melee attackers for longer than the Druid. All other things being equal — which they are not based upon the bracket in which you compete — why would someone then choose a Restoration Druid over a Holy Priest?
Here is a breakdown of the Season 2 cloth sets vs. the sets for Rogues and Restoration Druids:
Restoration Druid = 1964
Rogue = 1740 (???)
Priest = 1847
Mage = 1837
Warlock = 1837
In full PvP gear, Resto Druids have slightly higher armor than Warlocks and Priests, before any buffs are considered. Once Season 3 comes out, cloth sets will have close to the armor of the Resto Druid set and more armor than the Rogue set. Now add another 2k armor to Priests (Inner Fire), 645 armor to Mages (Frost Armor), and +26% healing to Warlocks (Fel Armor). Rogues and Druids (the only 2 leather wearers) will have the lowest armor in the game by a significant margin. What are they making these robes out of, Kevlar?
What is the point of distinctions among armor types if the armor values are the same? Leather is supposed to have more armor than cloth. Assuming Druids do not receive a similar stat allocation for additional armor (unlikely due to the nature of Bear Form), this change will only further emphasize the Druid's need to kite and retreat to the safety (and inability to heal) of Bear Form. If the purpose of this change is to ensure that PvP armor is a better choice than PvE armor for melee players, then the armor bonuses must be applied to leather armor, as well. Otherwise the end result will be nothing more than a buff to melee against leather wearers.
While this change also hurts mail and plate wearers, the DPS boost will be much greater against lower armor targets due to the mechanics of damage mitigation. To be fair, however, +910 armor should probably be added to their gear, as well.
Druids aren't the only ones with reason to be upset. Rogues have it even worse than we do. Read what Valenna has to say about it.

Guild Chat Now Active

Voice Chat Instructions (Link below)

Pre-set Chat Channels

Sfchitchat
Our general guild chat box. It is not password protected, so all are welcome.

Sfarena
Pesce uses this for arena battles. This is a password protected chat box.

Sfquestchat
Used to seek others doing similar quests and instances. No password.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/voicechat.html

ZUL'AMAN

Thank you for your votes - I appreciate your opinions, but I overruled the vote regardless. SF has diversified…

For current and future 70’s who join/stay with the Special Forces, know that Zul’Aman, the up coming raid instance for epic gear, is coming and it is a perfect instance for Druids, Shammy's, & Pally's. We can basically forego Kara and get epics that are even better.

Here are some facts: (Compliments of Fiordhraoi - Balance of Power Blog) Zul'Aman. For those that don't know, this is a 10-man dungeon in the Blood Elf starting area.

Here's the official Blizzard word on it:

Zul'Aman will be a 10-person raid zone.
Zul'Aman will be on a quicker reset than 7 days (some might call this "casual").
Zul'Aman will be MORE difficult than Karazhan and drop better loot (some might call this hardcore).
Zul'Aman will feature 6 bosses and it's our goal that you can kill them all in one night -- perhaps 2-3 hour clear times (some might call this casual).
Zul'Aman will not have a key requirement. Nor will it have an attunement quest (some might call this casual).
Zul'Aman will have a VERY challenging timed quest for those who choose to participate in it. This *will be* hardcore and will be very rewarding.
Players do not have to engage in the timed run (very similar to the Baron run in Stratholme).
We're tuning the first boss in Zul'Aman to require less raid coordination than some other raid bosses. He will still hit very hard so you'll need to be geared properly but it won't take 30 minutes to explain the fight. It will be a simple yet challenging fight. The other boss fights get more complex and challenging from there. If players want a basis of comparison, imagine the tuning of ZA started around Nightbane/Prince difficulty and ramped up from there.
Yes, you can totally skip Karazhan if you're a unique guild who doesn't have time to key up for it.

Other Zul’Aman Considerations:
1) Gear! A full moonkin set has been confirmed, and there are rumors of Elemental Shaman & Prot. Paladin gear.
2) All loot in Zul'Aman is said to be on par with Tier 5. Very nice.3) Zul'Aman = Outdoors. That means Roots.

Guild Diversification to Casual (Hardcore) Raiding

The vote ended with keeping SF an all druid guild. However, I decided to still open it to all other classes within the WOW world. Why? Because it will be better for the guild in the long term, but more specifically, because we need more active members playing on a consistent basis. There are over 120 druids in the Special Forces, but only a handful play regularly, and this in itself is degrading the level of effectiveness toward end game accomplishment. What good is a guild if only a small fraction plays? In my opinion, not very good.

So, I realize that this decision will drive some of our members away, but it will also bring in fresh members with complimentary skills, and help the Special Forces to become a destination for players seeking casual fun with some hardcore on the side.

I thank you for your understanding.

Casual with a little Hardcore Raiding on the side:

So you have clawed your way to level 70, ran a few dungeons, and you are now in possession of your Karazhan key. You have been looking forward to raiding, and although you have heard that some people literally devote their entire life to it, you are comfortable in a guild that deems itself a "casual raiding guild". Raiding is not mandatory, but people do have fun with it.

That is all well & good until you realize that even if you play on a casual schedule, you have to be a little bit hardcore if you are going to ever experience anything more than the first few bosses in Karazhan.

If you are serious about wanting to clear Karazhan, and eventually progress into the 25 man raids, then you are going to have to start working to better your raiding toon(s). Perhaps you have a few alts at lower levels - be prepared to set them aside for a while - if you want to raid well, but have limited play time, then you really cannot afford to divide your attention too much.

While quest greens and early instance blues are sufficient for many of the early encounters in Karazhan, you are going to have to do quite a few more instances to improve your gear if you plan on making a significant impact on the Curator and beyond. Heroics will help immensely, as will some PVP rewards.

Simply put: if you want to win - if you want to experience all the content that Burning Crusade has to offer before it becomes obsolete - then you have to prepare yourself. If you cannot - or will not - prepare, then you will not help your raid group nearly as much as you could, and everyone will suffer for it.

I'm not suggesting that you neglect their family, jettison real life commitments/hobbies, and immerse yourself in this game..... I am, however, stating that simply gaining level 70 and getting Kara keyed is not good enough.

So, if you want to be a skilled casual raider and help your guild progress through the game's content, here is what I suggest:

Learn how to play your class/spec to its potential. There are plenty of forums and blogs out there for you to read, as well as many wonderful and skilled people in your guild (and beyond) who would gladly discuss how to run your class more effectively.

Think about a run (raid/instance) after it ends, and try to identify things that you and your group could have done better. Use add-ons like Recount and sites like WoW Web Stats to help in your analysis. Post strategies you attempted and reasons for failures (and successes) on your guild's forum. Hold a five minute post-mortem with the raid on Ventrillo after the run. Whatever. A raid doesn't end when you stop killing things.

Research your gear, and run instances to fill in holes. WoW Loot Lists breaks down instance loot by class, so this type of research is a snap. Know what you need and how to get it - this will help you optimize your play time. (Important if you're a casual.) Remember: if you're decked out primarily in greens, you're hurting your raid. Do something about it.

Run heroic dungeons. Heroics are difficult, and force you to be aware of a lot of things at once. Hone your skills with four other guildies, and practice for raids. Healers can learn how to deal with the increased damage that they will see in raids. Tanks will have to learn how to deal with multiple heavy hitters. CC'ers will be tested to the max. DPS will have to maximize their output to prevent long battles from getting out of hand. And guess what - the loot rocks.

If you want to seep further into the game, and experience as much of the content as possible, then you have to be prepared to work towards it. Even a casual guild, if well managed and filled with dedicated players, can raid with the big boys. They may not get any world-first kills, and they will certainly be months behind the curve, but there is nothing stopping casual players from kicking ass with the best of them whenever their schedule allows.

(Casual overview compliments of Teeth & Claws)

New Guild Blog

This is our new Guild Blog. Visit often for information and upcoming events. For those still interested in our old blog, the address is still active - www.sfdruids.blogspot.com

Have Fun.