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Stompalina hit 80 about a week ago now, nearly a month after a majority of my guild. The late start on raiding has required a bit of planning and preparation on my part to ready me for jumping right into raiding. Here are a few points that have helped me obtain my goals this week:

Gear Check
In my quest to research gear I came across a wonderful listing of pre-raid gear posted by our friends at Elitist Jerks. And, knowing what an organized freak I am, I reworked the listing into one that can be sorted by instance/boss/etc – here. The listing is a great resource for scoping out instances with gear upgrades, along with important quest rewards and gear obtained by collecting Emblems of Heroism – all of which are helpful in preparing for raiding.

Game Face
Another important piece of the raiding puzzle left to be reconfigured and prepared is my raiding UI (user interface). As with most add-ons, WOTLK totally put the shut down on compatibility for my pretty raiding UI. Since release I have been slowly resetting my raiding UI with new add-ons that are wrath-compatible, and keeping them current is now very easy-breezy with the Curse Client.

Setting up your UI for raiding is important, not just to look pretty, but to maximize your on-screen real estate. As a healer, it is easy to get bogged down in looking at bars going up and down. Unfortunately, that is only half the battle of being a good healer. The other half is being aware of your surroundings and being about to react quickly. To further maximize view perspective, there is a simple macro that adds additional camera area between you and your character. It is a must for any raider!

/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",30)

Skirmish Raiding
PVP raiding is an excellent way to get back into the swing of raid healing. Once you get used to the fact that you are destined to die (a lot), you can use the raid to set up your raid frames, as well as use and test your key bindings and clique combinations for both offensive and defensive spells. Additionally, PVP is an opportunity to work on personal-defensive reaction times (barkskin, war stomp, etc). Keeping yourself alive with quick reaction time is just as importing as shiny green numbers.

Secondary Skillz
As lame as most people think it is, cooking and fishing are a vital part of the game. And, to fully be prepared for raiding, most people are required to provide self-buffs including food. Unless you have a crutch buddy who is willing to cook for you every couple of days, it is almost absolutely necessary to level cooking to provide your buff food. The new cooking dailies are quick and nearly painless to get done on a frequent basis. The best part about the new cooking quests is that you are able to select the newly obtainable recipe that benefits you the most from the get-go by using your Dalaran Cooking Awards.

All in all, I have put about a week now into gearing up via craftables and drops, and I entered Heroic Naxxramas tonight with my guild. It was nearly painless, and I was able to contribute with much needed healing. From here, I still have a bit of catching up to do, but being prepared and dedicated lends itself to being able to post the numbers needed to be a successful raiding guild in Wrath.

With the Death Knight on the back burner for the time being, I am hitting Howling Fjord hard and heavy. The questing is so very well planned in the Wrath of the Lich King, and the stories are amazing. The zones have many sub-zones this time around with quest-hubs with chains anywhere from 5-20 quests deep. And, with the linear chains lead to each of the various sub-zones. All are very well thought out in efforts to avoid overcrowding in various areas.

So, with these amazing stories comes little lessons in lore and happenstance along the way. Today’s adventure in northern Howling Fjord lead me to Gjalerbron, where after slaying Queen Angerboda for the quest The Slumbering King, the Lich King yells:

which equates to the fact that I will see Ymiron again. And now, having done the quest line leading up to that moment, I understand why he is angry. But, I have to do some reaserch on why he is so sleepy.

Winding down the zone I was able to get into a party for Utgarde Keep, one of the two instances within Howing Fjord. The story about the Keep’s existence, and how it relates to the zone is very evident. And, much to my amazement, the first boss was the good ol’ Death Knight teacher-guy from back in Eastern Plaguelands – none other than Prince Keleseth. Knowing that he is a hard and fast member of the scourage, which I am working to exterminate throughout Northrend, I was happy to take part in kicking his ass.

Overall, Utgarde Keep was a great first WOTLK dungeon experience. The story lines were great, and the imagery and interaction was amazing.

While the Death Knight class comes with first aid pre-leveled to 270, no other professions are trained or leveled. So, anyone serious about investing time and effort into the class has to also spend quite a bit of time playing catch-up with both primary and secondary professions.

I found a handy guide on El’s Extreme Anglin’ that details steps to level fishing and cooking simultaneously. I have still had to invest quite a bit of time running all over creation, and I tend to space out and start doing other things rather than fishing, but it has been more productive than past power-profession-leveling experiences.

And, when it comes to leveling herbalism or mining, having Gatherer is a major help. It tracks the nodes and adds a mini-map display for noted locations. Additionally, I just learned of MapWoW.com today – which has captured the same node information and displays it utilizing the same type of googlemaps technology. Either or both is helpful in searching for an locating the often rare node.

Whatever profession you are leveling, don’t be afraid of doing some research and following guides that are available all over the web. No matter what you are leveling, there are thousands of people that have leveled that profession before you. Why not learn from there experience and make yours faster and more enjoyable.