Healing Curator: Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

See that? Its a good picture. It means your group has made the first hurdle into the raiding world. You've downed Curator. The Curator is the 3rd non-optional boss in Karazhan, he drops your first Tier 4 gear token (gloves) and his fight is an interesting one.

When AC hit him the first time, we were just doing our typical "Oooh lookie a new boss -ZOMG GACK" looksie. Which means we tried it once, tried it again semi seriously, and then ran out of raiding time. But the first serious time we went after him, it took a few tries to get the whole thing down right.

It's not really hard. Healing wise, we have one person on the tanks (we have both tanks on him, one tanking, the OT taking the Hateful Bolts) and the other healer spot healing the raid. What makes Curator so weird is the DPS isn't hitting him at first. Instead they're killing his little Arcane Flare adds. Each add costs 10% of Curator's total mana. WoWWiki has the Strat of nifty-ness, here's how it feels healing it.

The Strat:

Honestly, if you're healing the tanks, then your job is easy peasy. Your MT will need a Frisbee in the first minute or so, and your OT only really needs a Renew/GHeal after s/he gets nailed with that Hateful Bolt (it's an Arcane blast for about 5K Arcane Dmg, so that OT will be sporting some Arcane Resist gear to mitigate it), but after the first intial aggro gain, send your Frisbee to the DPS. They'll need it more than the tank. Your tank is going to need your GHeal/Renew lurvin's too, so don't forget that.

If you're assigned to heal the DPS, do as above with the Frisbee for the initial aggro gain boost, but after words, you'll be doing a lot of Renews (Renew... Renew!!!) DPS is going to be killing those Arcane Flares, and they do annoying little AoE arcane mini ... well, flares. They aggro randomly, which means you might get targeted. Power Word Shield helps cut the bite. You'll definitely have time to toss a GHeal on someone getting too much Flare love.

On the second to last Flare, we announce the next flare is X's, so make sure you keep an eye X DPS'r, since they'll be the only one hitting the Flare, and usually said Flare runs over to try and kill your Flare Killer.

Right.

While X DPS'r is doing that, everyone else LAYS IN to Curator. See, when Curator runs out of mana, he goes into an Evocation stage, where he stops attacking, turns big and blue, and takes 3x's as much damage. Yea, so this is why no one's on him during the Flares. If I'm on tank duty, I usually start wanding and cheer at my 700 wand dmg. If I'm on DPS, I'll make sure X is up while they cry that the damage meter is going to be stacked against them this fight.

Then Curator has full mana and it's lather rinse repeat until Curator reachs 15% health. Then he enrages, hits a little hard, still Hateful bolts, but no more Arcane Flares. A group just starting out will probably reach 3 to 4 Evocations on Curator. Then after you get a little more experience and gear, 2 Evo's is the usual thing to see.


THINGS TO NOTE:

This is a semi mana intensive fight, so make sure you have your pots. The tank healer may have some time to cuddle with the 5SR, but the DPS healer probably won't, especially if you have a lot of melee DPS in the group.

However, during an Evocation, your Shadow Fiend will sparkle. Use him as a little Priestly Innervate. Because remember, he's doing 3x's as much damage, and that means 3 times as much mana back. It's very win/win.

Otherwise, have fun with the fight! It'll be fun to watch all your melee running around, rogues trying to get behind something that doesn't have a face... OO

Oh and Loot to look forward too: The Tier 4 Gloves Handwraps of the Incarnate

Not a super huge upgrade over the ones from Attumen: Gloves of Saintly Blessings, but I mean, they are Tier 4... and they are really pretty (about the only thing I find pretty from Tier 4, other than the shoulders *gacks at the helm*)

PS:

Tier 6 looks EVIL! I <3 it. ^.^

Healing Prince: I'm Super! Thanks for Asking!

Good Morning folks and welcome to another installment of Healing Karazhan!

Today is time for the total whore, Prince Malchezaar! I'm really not going to bother with a strat to this guy... well, ok, I lie, but this fight has a huge, mega, retarded LUCK factor to it.

I don't care if you have the DPS of GOD, unless you're a GM who just /kill mobs, you're probably going to wipe your first time on this SoB.

I hate luck fights.

This is a one tank job. So if your OT is prot s/he may want to bring his DPS gear to help out. You don't want anyone taking aggro from the tank in this fight. This too will cause a wipe. This fight also is prejudice against melee DPS. Not sure why, I mean Prince must love to take it from behind (srsly, watch him patrol, he prances... it's funny XD)

Anyway! Ok, here's the skinny on his abilites:

Enfeeblement/Shadow Nova - This is something that's going to give you a panic attack the first few times it happens. This randomly hits 4 to 5 people in your raid (never your tank UNLESS someone grabs aggro, in which case, insta wipe) This reduces peoples Health to 1 HP. Healing has NO EFFECT on them. Really stinky. A few seconds after he enfeebles he casts a Shadow Nova ability, which if any melee were in the way, get nailed and die since they were at 1 HP. Also why if your tank get Enfeebled, once he grabs aggro back, you can't heal him, and he gets nailed since he only had 1 HP. The bonus to this is after the Shadow Nova
, anyone with the Enfeeblement is healed to full, regardless of what their HP was before hand. So that's a tiny, itsy bitsy bonus. Also, he only does Enfeeblement during phases 1 and 2.

Shadow Word Pain - It's dispel-able, and for the first two phases, he only casts it on the tank. In third phase, he'll start casting it randomly, which is a pain, but with a Prayer of Shadow Prot up, its tics on your raid aren't ZOMG life threatening.

Infernals - Here's the luck factor folks. Others would call it the "DPS Race" meter, but you could have 2 shitty infernal drops wipe the raid right off the bat. Basically, periodically (not sure the timing, but I know it's consistent because Fio's DeadlyBossMods broadcasts a timer) Prince calls down an Infernal to randomly drop anywhere on the map. It has no aggro table, so where it drops and lands, it will start an AoE Hellfire that tics for about 1.5K on my clothie butt. Many a times we've had an infernal land on top of the ranged DPS's head or on top of the tanks and wiped us in a reposition. If someone is in range of an infernal while they're Enfeebled, consider them done.


AC's had 4 successful Prince deaths - 1 Tank, 2 Healers, 7 DPS. This was our group make up. One of the DPS has always been at least 1 boomkin, probably 2. We could only get him to like 1% when we had 2 prot warriors (1 in DPS gear) in that make up, then we get killed by the crazy infernals dropping like rain. Give it time, and we'll probably get him dead with both tanks in there.

Anyway, that was the the annoying bits, here's what your holy keister shall be occupying your frontal lobes with.

The Strat:

OK, your job here really is to just keep the tank up. Both you and your other healer will be concentrating on your Meat Sheild with gusto. Prince hits for a decent amount in his 1st Phase, but honestly, Frisbee, Renew and the periodic Dispel of Shadow Word Pain, and nothing to panic about. When ever your melee DPS gets enfeebled, just toss a Renew on them AFTER the Nova. It'll take care of the 3Kish Shadow Nova. Also, that Shadow Nova has a 30yd range. Sound familiar? Yea. Your dispel only works within 30 yds. I usually stick to the maxium edge of my healing range on the tank, and then when the SWP gets tossed on him, schooch up, Dispel, schooch back. Otherwise you get hit for 3K in the Shadow Nova and get knocked back a fair amount. Not fun.
Position is key really for this fight to work. Our tank is always tanking Prince in the opposite corner from the door (as shown, sorta, in the picture). As such, he can only see Prince's lovely loin cloth and not much else on his screen. We have 1 person watching out and calling out Infernal drops, while all the ranged DPS/Healers cluster near the door. This gives us as much Leeway as plausible for Infernal drops and repositioning if we need to.

Now, at 66%, Prince ramps it up a notch and heads into Phase 2. During this phase, he summons two axes, still casts Enfeeble/Shadow Nova and SWP, but now, he's Sundering the Tank, and Cleaving any forward DPS. ZOMG HARD HITS! This is going to be a very intensive healing phase. Prince could well 3 shot your tank if you and your other healer isn't on the ball. Toss your Frisbee for that 1.5K oomph, but make sure you're casting your GHeals here. And not like it should be a huge issue, but watch your aggro. Mine's never really shot beyond the tank or anything here, but it will shoot up and gets kinda nervy (damn Omen and it's flashy red %'s XD)

This will probably be your most mana intensive phase since you will not get a chance to cuddle with 5SR. Its ok, you have a Fiend, and pot as soon as you can fit it in. Did I mention? He's still tossing Infernals, so hopefully you won't have one drop on you or the Tank during this phase. This is the biggest wipe risk factor here because you can't really afford to run around since your tank is going to need that 2.5 GHeal STAT and you need to be standing in one spot to do that. You get a bit of a reprive when he's casting that Shadow Nova, but it's not much. Def the suckiest part of the fight (other than the Infernals).

At 33% Prince stops hitting like a nuke and goes back to Phase 1 damage, but those axes of his have a life of their own and start hitting others in the party. Here's where the awesome that is being a priest REALLY shines. If someone's getting hit with the axes, make sure your tank is ok FIRST. The axes don't hit that hard (unless that craptastic Amplify Damage has been cast, then well, they might hit a little harder) so you can make sure your tank is not in PANIC NEED HEALZ and toss a renew on the axes target. If they're taking a bit more damage than that, toss your tank a heal, then toss them either a FHeal or a GHeal (use your judgment on how much time you can leave your tank a lone, and also say something to your other healer so they know you're focus is shifting to heal X party memeber). No matter what, you always want to have 1 healer on the tank at all times. Are there a few people down on health because the axes/SWP/whatever has decided to crap on them? If they're in your party /cheer Prayer of Healing! (Make sure before you start you're in a group with mostly Ranged, your melee DPS are too far away for your PoH, but if you're a Circle of Healing Priest, well, then they'll get a smidgen of AoE healin' lurv too I guess XD)

Also, during phase 3, Prince starts casting SWP on anyone who strikes his fancy. So that can get a little hectic. BTW! If the Axes start attacking you, Fade actually helps deter them for a moment or so (at least it has for me). But if they're getting really annoying, bubble to stop the casting interuption they're causing you. Trust me, they won't stay on you or a single target for too long. Its great when they aggro on something in ranged, then you Fade, and they decide the rogue waaaaaaaaaay back at Prince was much more tasty. (The rogue has Quick Recovery right? ;D, they'll be fine.)

By the way, those Infernals? Still dropping. In fact, in this phase, they're on double time, so you gotta be STUPID quick in killing him or else you're going to get a 1% surprise infernal on your head, and that Blue Diamond WitchWand, while pretty swank, does not kill 5K HPs (Prince at 1% T.T)

As long as you pot early and often in this battle, you should be good to go on mana.

Now that he's dead, /cheer and Celebrate your T4 Helm token (or don't in my case, since it has yet to drop /shacks fist.) Honestly, at this point, I'm waiting till all my tanks/druids have their head tokens before I nab mine. My Whitemend set is still doing me some good. What you should be pining for is Light's Justice. It's a very, very, very (did I mention Very!) nice healing mace. And I wants one. O.O My Gavel is great. But Light's Justice is a huge freakin' upgrade. Though I will say, if you've got the Nightstaff of the Everliving off Nightbane, I, personally, will let my pallys/shammy's get it first. We can equip staves without getting a gimp (Pally's can't equip staves, Shammy's don't get their swank shields XD.)


And that's it folks! Opera coming soon! ^.^

Healing Night Bane: ZOMG Dragon!

Heyo! Welcome to another installment of Healing Kara! Yea, I know, I'm missing Prince, Opera, Curator, etc, BUT! Nightbane is a dragon. He's a f*cking dragon! I lurv dragons, every since I was | | big! In order to get to this boss, you need to finish this quest line, Medhiv's Journal. That quest requires things like killing the Shade of Aran, then doing Heroic Settheck (ANZU IS MINE!) and Heroic Shattered Halls ( /shiver).

Ok, enough with the foreplay (though, yet again, check out Wowwiki for a good over view of the strat ^.^).


The Strat:

Ok, he's a dragon. So Draenei and Dwarf priests have a leg up in that they can fear ward the tank. Other wise, your tank must do some creative stance dancing that is beyond this priest (care to elaborate Brig? XD) because he does fear. Our group make up for this fight has been 1 tank, 3 healers, 6 DPS (with at least one being a mage). Nightbane has two phases, on the ground and in the air. His air phases come at ever 1/4 of his health (so at 75%, 50% and 25%).

Trust me, you'll want the three healers for this fight. If you have two pallys with you, great, the tank will definately be topped off, but having you there is great for when Nightbane really wackes him. And he will. Nightbane hits HARD. Really gorram hard. Celli and I were goofing around right after I got the urn, and he and I summoned him (fully expecting to die) and ZOMG, he hits hard! Having the third healer for this group is a godsend, because you'll get more time with the 5SR (and everyone will love you for it, trust me).

Now, while on the ground, Nightbane should only be hitting the tank. Melee has instructions to slice and dice his armpits, while the ranged DPS and healers should be at their max distances on either side. This is to avoid cleaves (which will 1 shot you, clothie, it did to me -.-), tail swipes and breath weapon of doom. More than likely you're going to be out of range of some of your raiders, so in case they take any damage, it's ok, there's going to be a healer with them. You just concentrate on the tank while the dragons on the ground.

Prayer of Mending? Check. Renew? Double check. GHeals? Of course, but not necessary every second. Your Frisbee is taking care of bad hits by giving your tank some healing back, the renew is nice insurance when you or your other healers need to run out of a Charred Earth (nasty AoE on the ground that does damage to you, but you can just move sideways to get out of it). Those Fears are annoying, but they're on a long timer, so you'll have plenty of time to re-Ward your tank after a fear. You can even spare a few seconds to toss them a heal first, since they were going with no heals for all of 3 seconds, and then re-Ward.


Now, once Nightbane launches himself into the air at 75/50/25%, things get a little interesting. Firstly, Power Word Shield yourself. Trust me, you'll want this. Nightbane is going to target someone random and start a Rain of Bones. Its a bunch of skeletons that start attacking people, watch your mage and heal him/her, since they're going to be taking care of downing most of them ASAP. Nightbane is also going to target the healer with the highest healing aggro and start fireblasting them.

That's right, the highest healing aggro. I suggest that as soon as Rain of Bones starts, you Fade. If you have a holy pally in your group, they can start flash healing themself, and since the fireballs Nightbane tosses count as a physical attack, the Pally, with boatloads of armor, takes less damage, and takes the heat off your back. As a clothie, the bolts were hitting me for around 3K, every couple of seconds. It wasn't fun. The pally can handle it, and I imagine a shammy can too. But we've had a pally in our group for him, and it worked like a charm.

Also, make sure people are grouped up in the center of that platform. If anyone gets more than 40 yds away from Night bane, he gets cranky and starts hucking random fireballs all over the joint. To prevent this, everyone stay close and play nice with the big angry skeletal dragon.

Nightbane only stays in the air for about 45 seconds, then he'll land, whether you've finished off the skeletons or not. If you have a hunter in your group, make sure he has a Misdirection up to bring aggro back to the tank. Nightbane's landing is an aggro wipe, and usually our poor mage has bit it since he just annihilated the skeletons. Luckily, we have many druids with us, so a battle rez is readily available. AC is like the druid mecca, it's funny.

Anywho! After Nightbane lands, it's lather, rinse, repeat. Just toss your Frisbee to the tank, slap a renew on and wait until the next air phaze. Its the transition from Air to land phaze that's the toughest, but once you get that down, you're on your way to Nightbane pwnage.
Also, a note on Mana. You will go through tons. This fight is long, so if you have Mp5 gear, abuse it. I'm lucky in that I have a pocket Boomkin who loves to innervate me if we think I need it. For Nightbane, I do, but only about 4 to 5 mins into the fight. If you use your Fiend early, I guarantee, your first few wackes at Nightbane, you'll get to summon your fiend twice for the fight (both times I've fought and won against him, the fight took about 11 mins). I go through about 4 pots in this fight too. So bring many, especially if it's your first try. You will use them.

What does the priesty have to look forward to after this fight? Well, if you're one for staves, and Prince hasn't coughed up Light's Justice yet, than the Nightstaff of the Everliving is a pretty swank healer staff. Nightbane also drops the Emberspur Talisman, an Ok healing necklace. (Personally, I think the Necklace of Eternal Hope is better. It has some needed stats and it only costs 25 heroic badges.)


Well, that's about it folks, tune in later for Prince Malkazaar: I'm Super! Thanks for Asking!

Terestian Illhoof : Feral Druids Wetdream

It's been a week or two, but this fight was an interesting one. Illhoof is an optional boss in Karazhan. He's behind the "Conspicuous Bookcase" right outside the Shade of Aran's room, and, really, unless you have a warlock in your party, just skip him.
(Your ferals will probably whimper though, since they really want Terestrian's Stranglestaff.)

Here's the group layout we had to take him down, and I'll tell ya, healing during this mofo .... ZOMG. We had our tanks (Prot Warrior and Feral), a DCoE Shammy and myself healing, and our DPS was 2 Boomkin, 1 Rogue, 1 Kitty, and 2 Locks.

Illhoof isn't alone by the way. He's got a little imp pet that he keeps around, and needs to be tanked. The bonus to the little guy is, if you kill him, Illhoof suffers from a "Broken Pact" debuff, and is taking 20% more dmg for 30secs. The suck thing is, his little buddy comes running back from the Void once the 30 secs is up. Little shithead won't stay DEAD! -.- Illhoof also likes to portal in cubic butt tons of mini imps, and while they're easier to kill, there's so many! They can put a Debuff on you that's non dispel-able that makes you take tons more dmg from fire spells too. And as always WoW Wiki has an awesome break down of his fight.


The Strat:

You need to split your healing job practically 4 ways in this fight. First, the lock(s) will be "tanking" all the little bitches. If you only have one lock, well, all the power to him/her. This is a tough job. The lock is going to be tossing a Seed of Corruption up on Illhoof, and then doing their cute little lock AoE to kill the buggers.

You have 4 different heals going on. You have your lock(s), your MT, your OT, and then the Sacrifice (more on that in a sec).

Assign one healer to your MT/OT and the other to the lock. Who ever has lock duty should also take care of the Sacrifice. The MT/OT are really not taking the brunt of the damage in this fight. Illhoof doesn't hit that hard and his little guy is laughable. You can leave a renew on the OT and forget about him. Healing your usual suspects in this fight is a cake walk compared to the rest.

If you get Lock/Sacrifice duty, you're in for a much more intense experience. Once the little imp invasion starts, your lock is going to need your tender lovin' heals. Btw, that Fel Armor? /molest
It increasing the amount of healing you do to them, so that makes things slightly nicer. Tossing a PWS on them is not a frownable act in my opinion too, if they're cutting it close.

Now, to the Sacrifice. I don't care if you're .1 second from finishing that heal on your other target, STOP whatever you're doing and start with a FHeal on the Sacrificed victim. It took us 4 tries to kill Illhoof because the first two times, I didn't stop my healing ASAP to start healing the Sacrifice. Here's what happens: Illhoof nabs one of your raid, and puts them in the oggy circle in the middle, killing 1.5K HP per second. This drain also heals him of stupid amounts of HP, so not only do you need to keep that person alive to get rid of what he just healed, your raid needs to be prepared to take down the chains holding the sacrifice. Because those chains can be killed, and your friend free'd to pwn some more Illhoof face.

Did I mention Tab Targeting the Demon Chains holding your raidmate is retardedly impossible because of all the farking imps? Yea, so make sure your DPS has a macro that targets those chains AS SOON as they're up.


This fight is VERY mana intensive, on all sides. You will have little to no time for your loveable 5SR. I know, it'll be mad that you didn't call, and probably pissed that you prank call it a few times in the fight, but those times are few and far between. Even with two locks, bring lots of mana pots to this fight. Your fiend will do best on Illhoof, but if you don't have time to click him, don't worry, just tab target something and let your cutie eat an imp or two (spam the Pet Attack button if it's eating imps, you don't want him sitting with a thumb up his butt when you need MANA damn it!)

Otherwise, enjoy the fight guys! It's crazy fun and you have the Cincture of Will/Mender's Heart Ring to secretly lust for while your Ferals cry that the staff is a no show ;)

Sex = Good Start to Day

Got your attention? Good.

Today friends, we take a look at my favorite spell since 68.

Prayer of Mending, also know as the "Frisbee" (Thank you Ego).

Let me start off by saying I actually didn't start using the Frisbee right away.
It was new, it was weird, and I was still a nooblet using Flash Heal, so I couldn't appreciate the awesome power that is the Frisbee.

Let's take a look at the tool tip:

Places a spell on the target that heals them for 800 the next time they take damage. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump.

See that? Raid member. Yummy.

A few cool, nifty things about the Frisbee:

- It's low mana cost with high healing return value
- Nice way to manage AOE dmg on melee
- Whoever is healed by the Frisbee, gets the aggro. That's right, you gain no healing aggro.
- It can last up to 2.5 mins, bonus!

Cons:
-You have no control where it goes

I think 4 : 1 is a good ratio, don't you?

But after running many a 70 instance and the occasional Heroic, I can say that the Frisbee is an essential spell to have.

You're first spell every time should be to toss that Frisbee to the tank, right before he pulls. The first hit he takes, oh look, it's gone AND he's got healing aggro. Not you, the tank. A nice little aggro boost. It's great that you can help get the mobs pissed off at your meat shield and not your squishi self.

Most likely, after your tank has gotten his 1st hit, the Frisbee will either jump to a random person, OR, it jumps to the next person with the lesser % health. This can be a bonus or an annoyance. If your 'Lock is killing them selves for mana again, and you have no other melee up in the mobs face, the Frisbee likes to give said Lock some love. But Lock's sucking the life out of themselves for mana doesn't proc it's healing ability, so blarg.

This is why having something like MendWatch or Natur EnemyCastBar is essential. You need to know where the Frisbee went. If it's just sitting there chillin' out on the ranged caster who's doing good and NOT getting any aggro, then you'll want to recast it on the tank to give him/her some more aggro/healin' love.

Oh and nifty trick I saw a Shadow Priest do once: If you have Frisbee and Fade's up, toss a quick Shadow Word: DEATH onto the mob. The Frisbee will heal you of that, and if you have a good tank, then you're little DPS heal shouldn't cause too much of a tiff.

EDIT: Thank you Malva, it's good to know that the Fribee does not in fact stack when you have two holys playing with the group.

A note on how much it heals: The tip says base of 800. At a +healing of around 1700, my Frisbee smacks some one for a little over 1600. That's at most 8000 Healing for 390 mana... YES PLEASE! Math people, you do the math on this one.

And that my friends, is the Frisbee. Learn it. Love it. Have fun with it.

But most of all... PLAY IT!

Oh and just because I thought it was funny, the frisbee in the picture above come from here...



This guy has ALIEN NIPPLES! ZOMG!

Bear Tank Smash!

I know, silly, random, but I just felt like squeeing:

Thursday night Sashara got to tank UnderBog.

Very successfully I might add.

No one died until the very very end, at all three Druids and the Shammy died after boss death. Shammy self rez, life is good. XD

It was cool, fun, and nice to be in charge for once ^.^

And I even held aggro against Fiordhraoi. ZOMG. The DCoE brought her Shammy to heal, and then there was two other guildies who were Sasha's level. It rocked.

I don't know if it's a rare thing, but after being run through so many instances repeatedly with Cay, I'm thinking making the transition from healing to tanking isn't going to be as hard as others make it out to be.

For example:

A couple of months ago we had a good prot warrior tank burn out for a bit in guild. He went off to another server to play with some IRL friends, and he leveled a pally there. He became healbot in later levels, and actually enjoyed it. Which was cool, I heart my little healing butt as well. When he decided to come back to AC and play his warrior again... he lost his touch. He was so used to being in the back, waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen.
Another tank of ours mentioned to me, this is why most tanks have DPS alts, so that they don't lose that edge. But I don't know. I don't think being a healer makes you reactive by nature.
There is some forethought and planning you do as a healer, and while some of the stuff you do is "OH SH!T SPIKE DMG!" healing, most of it is preventative of major mana spending in the future.

Plus, I think having healed has helped me in my tanking strategies. Knowing where I'm going to get more/less damage from mobs is a bonus. Though I have to get used to not just staring at my threat meter. Freaking Boomkin...

And here ends today's random brain diarrhea.

W00+! 70! ... now what?

mars506 said...

Hi there. I just reached 70 recently on my priest, and was wondering what I should do next?

I'm completely in a daze as to which instances I should run to get rep for heroic keys, or even which keys I should be getting for which instances and which heroic instances drop good gear.

All help would be greatly appreciated. :)

Woot! 70! The new level of endgame! If you're thinking like Mars506 and not sure what to do next, you should ask yourself one simple question:

To melt face or not to melt face?

If you always planned on being a healer for endgame, this won't be that hard of a decision for you. But if you're liking the DPS that comes with being Shadow Spec, that is also a viable raid spec to stay at.

However, this is a blog about being a healer, so I'll just go with you having decided to make some love, not some pain. For how to specialize in the pain, I direct you to the DCoE's lovely blog of Shadow Priesty-ness.

On to the love!

For a good idea on where you should get good endgame healer gear Pre-Karazhan, I recommend WoW Loot. I've used this site to map out my gear needs since before I hit 70. They give a good run down on other priestly spec's as well, and have links to where you can get all the gear they show.

From experience, you should definitely run as much as you can to get your heroic keys, since there is a sweet healing off hand you can purchase with Heroic badges. But here are some highlights:

- Get Honor Hold/Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, Sha'tar, and Keepers of Time rep to Revered for your keys. At Revered, you will get access to a nice healing helm, the [Watcher's Cowl], from CE. Though while it's good stat wise... it's uglier than sin and doesn't match anything you would be wearing at the time. :P At Honor Hold, you can get a nice ring, [Ring of Convalescence], a very good healing ring. Then there's the [Lower City Prayerbook], a nice trinket from Lower City that you can get two of in case your dungeon runs aren't being kind. The Sha'tar and KoT don't really have anything at Revered other than keys, however, you are definitely going to want to get at least the Sha'tar to Exalted, for the [Gavel of Pure Light], and if you can get KoT to Exalted, the [Bindings of the Timewalker] are pretty sweet for bracers.

To get all this rep, you're going to need to run Shattered Halls (Honor Hold/Thrallmar), SteamVaults (CE), Shadow Labyrinth (LC), Black Morass/Old Hillsbrad (KoT) and Mechanar/Arcatraz/Botanica (Sha'tar). Botanica nets you the most out of rep for the Sha'tar, but also takes longer (about 1.5 hours to 2 hours). All of these are great dungeons to run in, because they have pretty good drops. Check WoW Loot for the best ones.

Now, something else to consider. If you're a tailor, and going healer, I strongly (read: gun to your head) suggest you go Primal Mooncloth. Not only can you make nifty 20 slot bags, but you get 2 Primal Mooncloths for the price of one, and the Primal Mooncloth set is a MUST HAVE as your core healing set. I will still be using this set well into Karazhan. That's how core they are.

Also, if you go Primal Mooncloth, when you get Warp Splinter in Botanica and Delilah the Doomsayer in Arcatraz to drop the Whitemend patterns, you'll crow with joy. The Whitemend set compliments the Primal Mooncloth set quite nicely. PMC takes up a chest/shoulder/belt slot, while the Whitemend is helm/pants. Very good combo. In fact, it is the combo of LOVE AND PEACE!

The only catch to the Whitemend patterns, you need a primal nether to craft them (as well as 5 primal mights and 10 Primal Mooncloth), so you'll need to get lucky with one of the last bosses in the lvl 70 instances. I've seen Murmur, the Mechanar guy and Warp Splinter in Bot all drop nethers in normal, so it is possible. But realize, if you get the Whitemend patterns... don't tell me. I will kneecap you. :P

So, I hope this answers your questions Mars506 ^.^

Time for me to go to work. XD

~Cay