Healing through Coren Direbrew

Finally on Sunday Kam managed to get into a group to go do the new Brewfest boss in the Blackrock Depths bar. The group consisted of a Warrior tank with a Mage, Rogue and Warlock for DPS. Kam had the quest to save brewfest and after insulting Coren Direbrew, the fight started.


Initially Coren starts with 3 non elite friends, he summons more throughout the fight who appear in mole machines which will do a knock back if you are standing on the spot; cancelling a heal. He also does a whirlwind attack which hits people in melee range. He then summons a barmaid at 66% and 33% health, who sometimes throw kegs into the inventory of random players; if the kegs aren't drunk then the player is stunned for 5 seconds. The barmaids will also CC a player for 6 seconds!


I knew none of this, so was quite unprepared for the chaos that followed as the DPS tried to keep the adds down, kill the barmaids and kill off Coren. However I spend most of my time watching the Grid UI anyway. Things I learnt:

• The whirlwind does a load of damage. At several points, the rogue would lose around 75% of his health from a whirlwind, requiring an emergency heal. From what I've read, this is avoidable, so please avoid!
  
• There is a lot of group damage. This required pretty much back-to-back chain heals, putting a serious strain on Kam's mana.
  
• Mana Pot and Mana Tide early. Due to the heavy casting of spells, Kam needed loads of mana and so I had to use a mana potion very early so a second one would be available toward the end of the fight. Mana tide totem was also needed.
  
• Keep an eye on Water Shield. Again the mole machines or dark iron adds would sometimes get a hit or two on Kam - resulting in Water Shield charges being used. I had to keep a close eye on Water Shield as it kept on disappearing.
  
• Use Mana Spring Totem. I tried one fight using Healing Stream Totem. It did not go well; mana usage is high as everyone is taking damage and Healing Stream just can't keep up. I stuck with Mana Spring after that and things went a lot better.
  

The results of this little foray into BRD were a nice Beer maiden, a tasty Melee DPS trinket for off-spec, plus the healing trinket which I had hoped to get. The Brewfest Kodo also dropped, but Kam lost the roll. There is always another day though. The fight itself was pretty neat and it was really good to see the inside of Blackrock Depths again after so much time.