“I’m not going to lie, it can be brutal at times. If you want to succeed in high Mythic+, be prepared to fight through it and be patient with yourself and others.”

VitaminP: Today we have Edelweiss, a Restoration Druid 🍁 who is currently one of the top healers in North America. Hi Edelweiss! Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. Where are you from and how long have you been playing WoW?

Edelweiss: Hi, thanks for having me. My name is Katie and I am 27 years old. I currently live in Kentucky. World of Warcraft has been a part of my life since 2012. I started playing at the very end of Cataclysm when talent trees were still a thing. I took a break from the game very briefly in Mists of Pandaria, but I had always only played the game on a casual level. Legion was the first expansion where I really wanted to progress more into any type of competitive scene.



VitaminP: We know that you competed in the 2018 Mythic Dungeon Invitational (MDI) and are curious about your backstory. How did you get into the high Mythic+ scene in Legion and what brought your team together?

Edelweiss: It was definitely a struggle. In Legion, I came from a low-end guild and had no experience with high keys when I first started running. The stress of trying to get into Mythic+ when you’re new can definitely be hard and takes a lot of patience as you’re trying to raise your RaiderIO score in order to get into better and better groups, but it’s really hard to build strats in a PUG when there’s no team synergy or consistency.

It all kind of started for me when I met Dylemma. Dylemma was new to the Mythic+ community at the time and he found my BattleTag on my RaiderIO page when he was looking for people to play with. I recognized his name immediately from an almost all-mage speed kill log back in Hellfire Citadel that I thought was really cool. I knew he was a reputable player, so we started playing together and that’s where the team began.

Glickz joined us shortly after as a DPS, but he has recently swapped into the tanking role for us this expansion. Watching him improve weekly and pick up almost every relevant tank class and play each at a high level has been amazing. I was skeptical at first because Glickz is such a top-notch DPS multi-classer, but he has proven how great of an overall player he is in his transition to tank. He will just continue to improve and provide the stability we need in that role going forward.

We found Undaddy a few months ago when we did a key with him and his guildie, Revofevi. We were happy to find him, since our group had been looking for a solid rogue who wasn’t already committed to another group. As for our 3rd DPS, we are still looking for a steady player to officially fill out our team roster.




VitaminP: Your MDI team Dark Slashers went through a last-minute roster change less than two weeks before Regionals in the 2018 MDI, yet you guys managed to take third place in North America. What was one of your biggest highlights of that tournament?

Edelweiss: One of the biggest highlights in the tournament was our crazy Neltharion’s Lair pull that we nailed. We had just replaced our team’s original tank with a Blood Death Knight named Revofevi during practice for MDI Regionals, so we were still new to working with each other. Revofevi was set on doing a very difficult trash pull up to the second boss in Neltharion’s Lair, but we struggled to do it consistently as a group. We told him that we needed to have at least a 90% success rate on that pull during practice in order to manage it in the actual MDI without wiping, so about a week before Regionals, he spent hours one day practicing by himself. The following day, he logged on for practice and told us he could execute his part almost every time, so we went for it in the MDI during a +22 Neltharion’s Lair (Grievous, Volcanic, Fortified) against Team Omegasniped. We managed to pull it off and won that map, which felt really rewarding.



VitaminP: What are some of the things you want people to know about Resto Druids in Mythic+?

Edelweiss: Resto Druids are great because there are a couple viable builds you can run in keys. If you don't prefer one playstyle, you can mix it up. Even if you look at some of the top North American Resto Druids for comparison, neither Jaamaw, Jdotb, or myself run an identical build to one another. Cenarion Ward, Incarnation: Tree of Life, and Germination can be swapped around based on the affixes and player comfort, but my go-to build is Abundance, Wild Charge, Feral Affinity, Typhoon, Cultivation, Spring Blossoms, and Photosynthesis. The only dungeon I can think of where you're almost required to run a specific talent is Temple of Sethraliss on a high Tyrannical key. Cultivation and Spring Blossoms offer far better sustained and passive healing that you need in order to push through Galvazzt without running out of mana. Druids also have a lot to offer in the ways of utility: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, and Typhoon are all great ways to separate mobs. You can also use Hibernate (on Beasts and Dragonkins) and Typhoon to interrupt abilities if you're down an interrupt or CC, or just looking to save one for a specific ability coming up.




VitaminP: With the upcoming addition of a new Engineering battle res item, do you see Resto Druids falling behind Mistweaver Monks in terms of the healing meta for high Mythic+? If so, have you considered main swapping in the future?

Edelweiss: Possibly. I think Resto Druid can still provide the healing needed without any issue. Mistweaver Monk utility is very nice and the biggest thing with Monk is the 5% physical damage buff that group members gain, since that extra damage adds up significantly over 30-40 minutes depending on your group’s DPS composition. If the Engineering battle res has a 100% success rate like it does so far on the Public Test Realm, then I think Monk can probably outperform Druid. I think Druid has better overall group healing throughput right now, but Monk can pump too.

As far as utility, I think Monk has the slight advantage with Ring of Peace and the AoE stun from Leg Sweep. Plus, when you think about it, every top team right now runs a Rogue, so you stealth where you need to as a group without having to do a death skip with Druid stealth and mass resurrection. Prowl is nice in some scenarios but, for the most part, if you wipe in a high key, it is probably a dead key anyway. Because of that, I'm not sure how useful Prowl is when comparing the Mistweaver kit of an AoE stun, Ring of Peace, Paralysis (used for both CC and emergency interrupts) and the insane single-target healing. All the Monk utility could probably help recover a sloppy pull better than a Druid. My Monk is 374 item level and I've done some +15s and +16s on her that felt really smooth. On the BFA Beta, all I played was Mistweaver Monk for a few months, so I'm pretty comfortable with it if I need to switch in the future. Our plan for next season is for everyone in our group to have one alt competitively geared on par with our mains. Mine will be Monk, since I think it definitely outshines Druid in certain dungeons.

“With the addition of seasonal affixes in this expansion, we’re going to have to formulate new strategies around each new affix combination.”

VitaminP: What's your process for learning new dungeons and developing strategies? Have you put much thought into how the upcoming seasonal affix (Reaping) will affect your team's strategies?

Edelweiss: A lot of it is just trial and error. We can watch other groups and learn new strats from them, but sometimes you tweak pulls based on comp or group preference. The thing about this season is that you have to create new pulls almost weekly based on the affixes and Infested. Taking the time to look at Mythic Dungeon Tools with your group and decide what is worth pulling based on the Infested mobs, affixes, percentage needed, and mob health pools is important. With the addition of seasonal affixes in this expansion, we’re going to have to formulate new strategies around each new affix combination. Even though Blizzard hasn't provided us with any significant information regarding Reaping yet, it will definitely change how you pull the entire dungeon. For example, we know that there are two types of spirits, but do those spirits do different abilities? Does one have a larger health pool for mini bosses? Is it random? It’s a little hard to say how much Reaping will affect dungeon pulls without this kind of information. What we do know is that, instead of focusing on pulling around each Infested mob, teams will at least get to pull trash a little more freely.



VitaminP: Do you or any of your teammates stream? If not, do you have plans to stream content in the future?

Edelweiss: Undaddy streams the most regularly. Dylemma streamed often during Legion but has been streaming more sporadically so far in Battle for Azeroth. As for myself, I have streamed a few times under an unrecognizable name to a very small group of friends. I don't consider myself a “people person”, so I think it would be difficult for me to know when to engage (or not engage) with viewers while trying to focus on a dungeon. However, I've gotten enough requests that I often find myself re-considering streaming. Perhaps that is something for me to works towards in the coming months if I can, since my current computer can’t really handle it.

“I had to climb up the Mythic+ ladder myself and build a team through hard work and dedication.”

VitaminP: What advice can you offer to players trying to break into the high Mythic+ scene?

Edelweiss: I’m not going to lie, it can be brutal at times. If you want to succeed in high Mythic+, be prepared to fight through it and be patient with yourself and others. When I was just beginning, I was sometimes yelled at in pug keys. One time, someone even went onto their other monitor to rip apart my raid logs mid-key. No one taught me exactly what to do and what strategies to use. I had to climb up the Mythic+ ladder myself and build a team through hard work and dedication. If it’s something you want to do, don’t be discouraged. It’s tough and you have to put in a lot into it, but you’ll eventually be able to build enough of a network to where you can either form your own groups or find other people with less experience who you think have potential and help them learn. Add the players you have enjoyed pugging with to your Battle.net Friends List so you can run with them more and continue to expand your network.