So I was thinking about what kinds of buffs we could use during a raid.

A few obvious:
Food
Flask / elixirs
Weapon buffs
Scrolls

Weapon buffs:
The use of a weighstone to increase AP and other things... Don't know how that was pre WotLK but since we can use things on weapons like mongoose that was definitely in the picture.
However for level 80 there are no more of such things. Maybe later, but not atm.

Scrolls.
Previously the use of scrolls was based on pure luck. Find/Fish them and you could use them.
Now with inscription it is just a matter of a few herbs some paper and you have the scrolls you want.

Some scrolls have absolutely no use in raid whatever:
Int (if you have a mage it is worthless)
Stam (Priest)
Spi (Priest, most likely and then again we are feral so no real big bonus from this).
Protection (Druid MotW gives more armor) and that is something we have always on us.

There are 2 other kinds of scrolls.
Agility and strength.
Now my question is; is there any buff that is more powerful then a scroll of agility VIII and one that is more powerful scroll of strength VIII?
Will Blessing of Kings cancel the buff you have from the scroll?
Will the use of a strength potion remove the buff?

If not, then a stack of 20 scrolls of each kinds is a serious thing to have. The extra strength is nice in catform, the agility is very nice in bearform.

Agiliy and Strength scrolls are both cancelled out by Horn of Winter (DK skill) or Strength of Earth totem (Shaman) - both count as the same buff. Spirit is also covered by Fel Intelligence, if you've got a warlock using it. Spirit are likely to be the useful ones of the 6 available due to most priests being holy and most warlocks not using a fel hunter.
All scrolls stack with BoK and MotW as far as I know.

Scrolls are particularly useful in 10 mans however, as you are not guaranteed to have every buff covered.

Temporary weapon enchants (sharpening stones etc) do not seem to work on level 71+ weapons.

I'm pretty sure "consumable" style buffs are down to:
- Flask/elixirs
- Food
however the "food" category can be expanded somewhat, as there are a number of different buffs that can be obtained through normal cooking recipes and the token-bought recipes (such as [Firecracker Salmon]) so there is quite a bit of variation that can be provided depending on what role you're fulfilling / what gear you're currently using.

Ok Then scrolls are useless. Damned one great potential as inscriptor down the drain.

Anyway indeed scrolls can be used in 10-man, 5 man instances. However I am currently raiding in one of the best guilds on my server and we oneshotted ever naxx boss in 10 man raid in my first time there. Only wiped due to pulling 4 groups of mobs (that was a bit too much).
By the time new and more difficult 10 man instances will be out our gear will be even better thus making the use of scrolls in 10 man not worth much to me.

As to the use of food, I have the blackfin angelfishing mastered. Currently have one stack of each. 2 Kinds of food. One gives 40 agi and 40 sta (tanking) and the other gives 40 str and 40 sta (dpssing).
It is indeed a very wise thing to at least do the daily cooking quest every day.

Tip on that: get an alt to lvl ??? cooking (enough to be able to do the daily) and let him do the cooking quest too. You don't need much levels, just a mage or a warlock to get you to Dalaran. Most of the cooking dailies can be done completely within dalaran itself and others require some meat you can get from your main character. That gives you at least 1 dalaran cooking award. With that award you then can buy some spices that won't bind to any character, mail them to your main and you will be able to cook LOTS of the better kind of food every day.

I was able to apply an [Plans: Adamantite Weightstone] to my [Staff of the Plague Beast] the few times I tried before my supply dried up. I'm not sure if it actually applied the stats, will check that when I find some more.

As far as I know the temporary weapon enchants were phased out of usability on post-70 items.

Sharpening Stones, Mana Oils gone in Wrath - WoW Insider was unfortunately all I could find about it in a few minutes of googling.

As far as flasks and food is concerned, Feasts and Fish Feasts rule the raids until you get to seriously hard content at which point you want to min/max. Flask of Stoneblood is great for tanks, but as of right now I'm sitting on 35-40k hp and think the old Chromatic Wonder is a better way to go atm.

I dont know about the weapon buffs being phased out properly. I can still apply Adamantite Weightstones to my Naxx 25 staff. It still shows up on the Char sheet (as a +12 damage and the appropriate amount of crit). Now I didnt do any in depth tests to see if it actually worked, but it certainly shows up.

All of the oils require some level less than 60 and the stones require level 60. That's my only guess as to the logic behind why some weapon temp enchants work, and some do not.

I'm still using [Kreeg's Stout Beatdown] as a staple buff and it stacks with any/all buffs still, including scroll of spirit(if/when no priest avail with spr)

Wondering if I'm crazy using [Flask of Chromatic Wonder] over [Flask of Stoneblood] for general tanking purposes.

Logged in tanking gear atm:
average ilvl 195
unbuffed bear 33khp
29k armour
unbuffed 35.18% dodge

shoulders E'd/G'd for dps atm, wearing two polar pieces E'd/G'd for max stamina (Sartharion +drakes tank) which are still better for gen-purpose tanking than the other stuff I've gotten.

My reasoning being that I have plenty enough health to see me through most anything, switch to 45+khp (buffed) stamina set for Patch OT and Sarth MT, but my dodge just bites - hence the Chromatic Wonder? Seems to me the [Flask of Stoneblood] is just a drop in the bucket.

Without looking at the exact numbers (from memory a correctly specced bear with Kings gets about 16 health per stam) I believe the Stoneblood flask equates to roughly 40 stamina.

If you take the 18 agi and 18 stamina alone (assuming for general tanking the other stats arent important), thats still only an effective trade off of 22 stamina for 18 agility, a trade off which many decently geared bears would be making by gemming for 16 agi over 24 stamina already.

it's a bit of a shame that 650hp flask doesnt scale with anything, and a very marginal "upgrade" from the 500 hp / 10 defense flask at level 70, where other flasks like the attack power and spell power flasks increased by about 50% from level 70 to level 80 versions.

The other obvious (but potentially expensive option if you wipe a few times) is to use elixirs instead: an agility elixir paired with defense or armor.

The weightstone is currently bugged. Sharpening stones error out on items iLvl 175 and above ("Target is too high level."). Weightstones, on the other hand, work on up to iLvl 200 items at least. Likely an oversight and will be fixed in the future.

<edited>

Scrolls in 3.0.8 will not be overwritten by other buffs other then scrolls.
Unlike I initially thought this does not necessarily mean they can stack, just that they can coexist. So if you only part of the fight have a buff that has more agility then a scroll the scroll is useful for the parts where you do not have those buffs.

Weightstones seem to be fixed - I was unable to apply an [Plans: Adamantite Weightstone] to my [Gloves of Journey's End] last night. "Target is too high level."

does the weightstone add to your FAP? I've always assumed they were useless for druids.

Also, anybody know the official blue justification for weightstones working with ilvl 187+ weapons, but not sharpening stones or oils?

Seems odd to me.

The weightstone did work for druids, and added to their weapon damage - which was a direct boost to their base damage, and was even better than AP. In 3.0.8 weighstones properly were made to not work with ilvl 187 weapons.

[Greater Rune of Warding]

This still works @ 80. It's not going to save your life, but it could make the healers life a little easier if you gear isn't the best.

There are a number of at least marginally useful items that use the same timer as health stones, which may still be situationally useful to at least an extent, especially in longer fights where Mana may become an issue or raid damage is common. They fall into 3 categories: Mana stones, health stones, and Mana/Health stones. Note that this guide was written from a balance/resto point of view, and feral druids will likely find the health boosting items more useful and the mana items less so, although that is obviously situational.

Mana stones are the best known and most useful:

[Book of Stars] an offhand ( which allows it to be swapped in and out, albeit at the cost of a gcd or two) that grants 315-385 mana on use and has a 2 minute timer. It has the advantage of being reusable, but you have to switch out a useful offhand to use it, so it is the sort of thing you only are likely to use when you are completely OOM.

[Dark Rune] While this was nerfed along with the [Demonic Rune], it still is worth using in some cases (although once you use it the rest of your mana/health stone items are locked out for 15 minutes), since it restores ~1200 mana (albeit at the cost of some health), which works out to 100mp5 for a 1 minute fight or 20 mp5.

[Demonic Rune] This item is identical to the [Dark Rune] except for the fact that it is BOP and farmed in Felwood, which has several other farmable consumables on this list.

[Luminous Bluetail] Restores ~520 mana on a 2 minute cooldown. A nice item, but sadly it is very rare now.

[Condensed Mana Powder] Farmable off low level mobs in Ghostlands, this mana stone gives 100 mana and has a 3 minute cooldown, making it one of the less impressive options.

[Crystalized Mana Residue] Restores 60 mana on a 3 minute timer. It is farmed off of some low level mobs in eversong woods and is *rumored* to possibly restore 60 ENERGY to a druid in cat form, which would make it extremely useful to ferals, if so.

[Pure Energy] 300 mana on an alleged 3 second timer. Unfortuntely, this one is a quest reward, so it's good for a boost in one boss fight ever and is then gone.

Health/Mana Stones




[Lily Root] Created hourly by the [Lei of Lilies], this 2 minute cooldown item restores ~ 600 life and mana. The necklace is relatively cheap, and infinitely reusable. The big downside is that you only get one lily per hour from it.

[Night Dragon's Breath] Restores about 425 health and mana. It is one of the more easily farmed items, which makes it, not *quite* the best item on the list, but probably the one that will get the most use, especially since it can be farmed at the same time as [Demonic Rune] and the inferior but still somewhat useful [Whipper Root Tuber].

[Razorlash Root] 600 mana and health on a 2 minute cooldown makes this very competative as consumables go. It's over time rather than instant, but the biggest downside is that it only drops off one elite mob in an instance, so it is probably impractical to farm.

[Tea with Sugar]This item restores around 1400 health and mana on a 2 minute cooldown. Unfortunately, it is a quest reward, so you only get three.. ever.

Health Stones

[Charged Crystal Focus]Obtained in ogri'la (the uncharged version is able to be bought/traded), this is a healthstone repalcement form the BC era. It is absolutely the strongest of the health stone replacements, in that it gives a respectable 2000hp, making it useful as a "second" health stone or a replacement for those times when there is not a warlock in he party.

[Crystal Restore]Obtained in ungoro crater via a repeatable quest. The healing is a 30 second HOT totaling a little over 600, making is fairly unimpressive given the difficulty of actively farming it (better items can be farmed more quickly). That said, The crystals can sometimes be found cheaply on the AH, and if you can get a large stack of them ( yellow and green I beleive), it may be worthwhile for a non-jewelcrafter.

[Dense Stone Statue] The strongest of the healing statues, the Dense stone statue heals 1200 hp on a 2 minute cooldown. This item has 2 main downsides ( the stone to make it is fairly common and cheap to buy, so I don't consider that a major issue). Firstly, it restores the 1200 health over a period of almost 30 seconds. Secondly, it is jewelcrafter only.

[Royal Guide of Escape Routes] The health version of the [Book of Stars], this offhand grants ~300 health on a 5 minute cooldown, making it very unimpressive to say the least.

[Solid Stone Statue] The little brother of [Dense Stone Statue] it heals significantly less, but the mats to make it are even cheaper and more plentyful. it is about on par with [Crystal Restore]

[Whipper Root Tuber] obtained in felwood, it heals ~800hp on a 2 minute cooldown. These alogn with the generally superior [Night Dragon's Breath]can be farmed in felwood at the same time as [Demonic Rune]s.