Monday, April 26, 2010

Val'anyr - a year in the making

By the time this post publishes (It'll be on delayed publish), I should be the proud owner of a Val'anyr - more than a year since I started the grind. First, I have to say thanks to Burdell (our raid organizer) and the officers of for putting this together and making it a priority. It's not something I asked for, and it's certainly not something I would have pushed - but it will be nice to have finally closed the door on this.

Is it still worth it though?

Back when the Val'anyr was first announced, there was a lot of debate about it - from the proc effect to the (lower) stat values. It certainly falls behind in the stat value now, when compared to loot off say ToGC Anub, or H 25m Lich King. I think that's appropriate though, as it is two full tiers behind in content. I will say though, that other than the Spell Power, it isn't really that far behind the other weapons. Compared to my LK mace, I'm losing a total of 80 SP, 6 INT, a few crit, and swapping mp5 (LK) for Haste (Val).

Plus, there's the proc.

Now, I don't know how the proc will really stand up in H ICC content, but I'm fairly sure I won't be missing the other stats. 150 SP certainly won't break my HL spam (since there's a lot of overheal anyway), and I can see the shields being a nice perk in our 10m raiding. Much like the absorbtion of Sacred Shield, even absorbing 1500 points off an attack is still something - and 1500 I don't have to heal back.

The fact that it puts the shield on your Beaconed target is just pure gravy.

There was a thread on our forums where someone was debating the validity of the Val'anyr, when compared to weapons like Trauma or the LK weapons. After seeing Trauma in action on our resto shaman, I can definitely see the value of having that weapon in the hands of a shaman or druid, but for pure tank healing - I think it falls short (amazing for healing raid members though).

The other advantage to having a weapon like this, is that I won't be competing against the warlocks/mages for the LK caster sword. I won't be taking a mace away from the priests, shamans, or druids - and it's not like I'm eligible for staves.

What I don't like

Val'anyr, like so many other items/trinkets, is a proc based weapon, meaning there's a 'chance' it will go off on every heal/HOT tick. I've also found that it can proc when casting Sacred Shield and Beacon of Light. The issue with this is you can't count on the proc to be up when you really need it. Proc in the first 15 seconds of Festergut? Nice, but the tank isn't really in trouble. Proc after three inhales? That would be priceless.

Of course, I don't like 'on use' trinkets either. I always wind up saving them until it's so far along that I never use them. Kind of like my Lay on Hands, though I'm getting better at that.

Wrap up

In the end, I don't think having the mace will make a world of difference, except psychologically. It's nice to have, and seeing the bubbles pop up is amazing. I'm glad I had the opportunity to get it, even if it was late in the game, and I'm sure it will be something I use for a long while. At least until it gets the Thunderfury nerf treatment.

6 comments:

  1. Congrats on your Val'anyr. I was hoping they would continue to buff it as the new tiers of content came out (even though I dont have one).

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  2. Thanks Jasyla - though I knew they wouldn't buff it. That's been their stance throughout the game, as they want the legendaries to eventually fade away. I'm still pretty darned happy with it though.

    One side effect though - if you get the bubble on someone who already has a priest shield - it looks like the eye of C'thun.

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  3. Congratulations. We're at 20/30 shards with one of our healers and keep meaning to get it done. We hit Ulduar a few weeks ago and cleared 7 or 8 bosses for 0 shards >:(

    Based on the proc rate, how viable to you think the mace will be in lv85 content? Yeah, it'll be down on stats but heals and health pools will be very large.

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  4. @Joe - the proc is pretty consistent (I'll have some numbers after tonight and tomorrow), but who knows what it will be like in Cata.

    Assuming it doesn't get nerfed down like the TF, I would assume that it would be good, but not great. The reason I say this is that the shield is based on all healing done to that target. So when it procs, even if I'm just pumping FoLs into the tank, I can switch to HL to beef up the shield.

    Of course the shield is only 8 sec, so if you aren't expecting a big spike, it's not really worth it. I can get away with it though, because of the mana regen that we have going on now.

    It's really very difficult to speculate when we have no idea what the heals will look like, mana, etc. Until it was nerfed 3 or 4 times, TF was still viable well into BC (they had to make TClap castable in Def stance to change it) simply from the attack speed proc. The shields on Val'anyr are no different.

    If you ask me to take a stand and state an opinion - then yes, barring some nerfing I think the mace will still be viable, at least in the early raid tiers. After that, probably not.

    It's just too early to say though. I hate making blind guesses without numbers to back them up.

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  5. Grats! I'm sooo jealous of you!!

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  6. Thanks all. The numbers last night were amazing. Initial thoughts will go up today - and yes, even at a year old - it's still amazing.

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