A second look at Blessed Life

A few weeks ago I changed my raid spec to look something like this. I went to 1/2 in Last Word, 1/2 in Eternal Glory as well. I'd read that Eternal Glory was suffering from an ICD of 8-15 sec, so I figured the points could be put to better use elsewhere. I'd read mixed reports about the HP generation from Blessed Life, and wanted to give it a shot. I kept Sacred Cleansing and Aura Mastery, because I run 10m only, and sometimes your cleanse is the only cleanse. Aura Mastery is just too powerful to skip, as it can really help reduce raid damage.

To the cloud!

Sorry - I really hate those commercials too. Don't these idiots realize that saying "to the cloud" is just like saying "to the internet"? Anyway...

Looking over several logs, I'm seeing a big swing in how BL is performing. Here's my HP generation for a couple of different fights - Cho'gall, Nef, Chimaeron, and Atramedes.

Cho'gall
HS - 38, ToR - 6, EG - 1, WoG - 6, BL - 0

Chimaeron
HS - 21, ToR - 1, EG - 3, WoG - 7, BL - 7

Atramedes
HS - 41, ToR - 2, EG - 3, WoG - 17, BL - 12

Nef
HS - 55, ToR - 6, EG - 5, WoG - 8, BL - 22

ToR + BWD (-Nef), + TB
HS - 273, ToR - 22, EG - 24, WoG - 92, BL - 41

Well what the heck? Now obviously these are four very different fights, and the last one is the totals from all boss kills in a raid night. Once again, the numbers just aren't looking very promising. There's quite a bit that I can garner from these numbers, so let's start at the top.

Holy Shock
Where to start with this one. Obviously I'm not using HS on CD, the numbers just don't add up, especially when you factor in Daybreak procs. So there's one place I can pick up some free HP. Of course the healing situation may be calling for something different, so it's just something to work on, not something to really dwell on.

ToR
Could this talent possibly provide me less than it is now? Obviously I'm not putting a lot of FoL or DL on my Beacon target, instead leaning on HL to do most of the heavy lifting. It's tough to say if this is good or bad since we're killing bosses. Given the way Monger and I work together though, I'm going to say this talent just isn't putting out. I might see more in heroics when I'll be focused more on the tank and less on assisting with the raid.

EG
Talk about hit or miss. Having 1/2 in EG cuts the percentage down to 15, but still. This may warrant a point if I decided to cut points in ToR or BL.

BL
Yeah - the point of this entire post. 41 HP generated in 10(?) boss kills? Cho'gall gave no HP, and even Atramedes only gave 12. Nef topped the charts at 22, but I'm sure a lot of those were from P2 when he's pelting the raid with shadowflame (why doesn't my Ony cloak work still?). I'm sorry, but ladies and gentlemen, that dog just ain't gonna hunt.

Let's assume for a moment that those 41 HP were used for 14 (I'm giving one extra HP for the sake of math) full point WoGs (even LoDs that hit six people). My WoG is critting for about 28k, so that's about 392k in healing that I got for 'free'. Not bad, except it's spread out over 10 bosses, so I'm now averaging about 39k in 'free' heals per boss. Conversely, in those same boss kills I judged 141 times, healing myself for about 151k. 2/2 in EJ bumps that up to 300k in free healing - though only for myself (and 1/2 to my BoL).

So is it worth it to have those points in BL? What about ToR? As I mentioned to someone on Kurn's blog the other day, it's not a question of "Are those points worth it", but one of "where else will you spend them". Is an extra point in EG or LW worth it? Maybe for H-Chimaeron. If all those HP came from P2 on Nef though, I'd be a fool to lose those points for that fight, just because healing in that phase is already tight.

Conclusion

At this point I guess those points are still discretionary. I don't need to judge from Texas, so that's not worth the points. I may spend a lot of money switching back and forth between BL and WoG talents - or take them from ToR. In the end, I'm going to put this decision in the same boat as the Heartsong vs Power Torrent debate - it's just too close to call. It's really a question of how you raid, healing assignments, and raid size/comp. The numbers aren't so overwhelmingly awesome that you think "I must have!", but they aren't so bad that you immediately dismiss them either.

Cooldowns - when should I use them?

If you've read my last few posts, you already know I'm bad at using my CDs. I hoarde those babies like they are solid gold, and that if I hang onto them long enough, the perfect moment will occur when I can use them and shine like the Golden Throne itself. Of course what generally happens is either a) they don't get used and we die, or b) they don't get used and we just muscle through it.

Either way, it's a bad thing.

So, over the last few weeks I've been really scouring the logs to try and improve the use of my CDs. I look for inconsistencies and places where the healing was really heavy, and did I use a CD there? While this is all well and good, I need to develop a better habit of when to use my CDs in the moment - not after the fact.

Listening to DBM

While DBM doesn't yell 'now would be a good time to pop wings', it does warn you of in incoming event. After you've done the fight a few times, you'll figure out which of these are AoE warnings, and which are just informative for someone else. This can give you an idea of when it might be a good idea to hit something, and if you can afford to use Divine Plea.

What CDs are you talking about?

Really, I'm talking about all our CoolDowns - offensive and defensive.

Avenging Wrath - Our golden wings, these babies give us a 20% increased healing/damage bonus for 20 seconds. Talented down to 2 minutes, they can really provide that extra oomph you need to get through a phase change.

Divine Favor - On a slightly longer 3 min CD, this gives us 20% haste and 20% crit for 20 sec (glyphed to 30). A powerful CD, this also can grant an extra tick from Holy Radience. Personally I don't glyph for this, but if you use LoD over WoG, it may be worth having.

Hand of Sacrifice - Talented down to 1.5 min, lasting 12 sec, it transfers 30% of the damage taken by one target to you. With the healing recieved by PoTI, you shouldn't run into a issue with insta-gibbing yourself. I like to cast this on the pull, and whenever I know a large damage spike is coming out.

Lay on Hands - Immensely powerful, talented and glyphed down to a 7min CD (it was an hour in aVanilla), it will heal any party member back to full, and (if glyphed) give you 10% of your max mana back. I've often used it just for the mana return, but it's definately a better safe than sorry cast.

Guardian of Ancient Kings - 5min CD, this big boy will heal your target for the ammount you heal, plus everyone within 10yds gets 10% of that healing - for 5 heals. I'm torn on this CD, on the one hand it's some good free healing - on the other, it seems like a really long CD for only 5 casts.

Hand of Protection - Another 5min CD, makes a single player immune to physical damage for 10 sec. Situational, but great for saving an overeager warlock from imminent death.

Hand of Salvation - 2min CD, this reduces a players threat by 2% per second for 10 sec. This is a permenant threat reduction, not just a quick patch. You can glyph it to give the 20% reduction instantly, but the threat will return when the buff fades. YMMV with this one.

Divine Plea - While this is getting buffed in the next patch to 12% over 9 sec (18% glyphed), it currently returns 10% (15% glyphed) of your max mana over 15 seconds, but comes with a 50% healing debuff penalty. You can cancel the effects with a /cancelaura macro, so you can at least get a few ticks of it. With the healing debuff though, you may find that you spend more mana trying to keep up than you actually get from it.

Divine Shield - The infamous pally bubble, it's down to 8sec (goodbye bubble hearth) but it does prevent all magical and physical damage. It's got a 5min CD though, so use it wisely.

Divine Protection - Talented down to 40sec, this reduces all damage by 20% for 10sec. I've taken to glyphing this, which changes it to 40% magical damage reduction and 0% physical reduction. With the ammount of magic damage flying around in the raids, this has proved to be quite benificial.

Aura Mastery - Doubles the effects of any aura for six seconds. While the duration requires some good timing on your part, doubling the effects of your resistance aura can really reduce the damage your raid is taking. It's on a 2 min CD, so use it liberally.

Wow - what a list

Wow - that is a long list of CDs that we have at our disposal. From throughput to damage reduction, and a host of utilities, our toolbox is pretty full. With all those options, it's tough to know when exactly to cast them. While maximizing them is certainly everyone's goal, the first step is to actually cast them. With that in mind, take the voting mantra from Louisianna and change it up a little.

Cast early, and cast often (as opposed to vote early, and vote often). A cooldown unused is a cooldown wasted. While there's obviously no good reason to cast HoP on your hunter (unless you just like killing their DPS), you may save yourself some mana by putting it out early. Every bit of damage we can prevent is one more cast that you don't have to make. Same with having bigger/faster casts.

So, even if you're casting them at imperfect times, you're better off (generally) using a CD than not. As you get used to casting them all the time, evetually you'll start to 'feel' for those right moments to use them.

Pouring over the logs - where I can improve

I like using World of Logs reporting to analyze a fight and do a post-game analysis. So we're all working off the same info, here's a link to our most current log - WoL.

Now, looking at just the pure e-peen screen, I could head off to the corner and stroke myself into giddyness. 7622 HPS - more than 1500 over the next healer. Over 50 million more healing than our Druid as well. Hang on, I'm going to make the O face now. I'll let it slide that I was 15% higher in Overhealing. Cause I'm AWESOME (obviously).

Of course, this screen doesn't mean diddly. It's the overall healing done on the night, and is about as useful a tool as a rock for a hammer. Sure, it tells me something, but nothing really useful. Even looking at the overall healing done for a boss kill doesn't tell me anything beyond pure output. Great for epeen, useless for improving play.

My first real stop

One of the first places I stop when I'm looking for information is the individual Buffs Gained screen. This is generally where I can find the most information that will help me become a better healer, and boy does this log show how bad I really am.

First, I thought my mana management was fine. I never had to call for an innervate, I thought I was using my mana CDs appropriately, etc. Well, the log doesn't lie. Let's look at what really happened on the kill fight.

Innervate - This happened not once, but twice - restoring a total of 42,146 mana.
Judging - 18 judgements - and a total of 74,483 mana returned. This means 63,234 from the judgements and 11,249 from melee swings. In a six minute fight, with an eight second cooldown - This is unacceptable. In the words of the Emporor to Lorgar - Son, I am dissapoint. Judging on CD I should be getting 7 off per minute. That would return 158,000 mana in 6 minutes. At the very least I should be getting off one every 15 seconds. This is an area to work on.
Detonate Mana - This is the buff that shows up in WoL when you use Tyrande's Favorite Doll. I hit it three times, which is perfect for a 6 min fght. Well done.
Arcane Torrent - I hit this twice, probably because I was staggering it with the Doll. I could have eeked out another one for an extra 6k mana.
Divine Plea - I only used this once, because the 50% healing debuff scares me. There are probably more opportunities to use this, especially with a /cancelaura macro.

So in total, my self return of mana can use some improvements. Judge a little more, and that will really help. If I could have gotten six extra judgements in, plus another torrent, that would be 26,876 mana extra - equivalent to an innervate.

Self Buffs and CDs

This is an area where I am a giant pile of fail. I have three healing boost CDs, Lay on Hands, and two damage reducing CDs. Guess how many I used? If you guessed zero, you'd be right. Avenging Wrath? Zero. Divine Favor? Nope. Hand of Sacrifice or Aura Mastery? Again - no. I didn't even use Lay on Hands, even if it was only for the mana return.

In short, this shows me where I have a mASSive area for self improvement, and things I can really work on for future raids. If this log was included in a Holy Paladin app, these are the first things I'd zero in on.

Other things to zero in on

First, Tower of Radiance. This three point talent resulted in me getting a whopping 4 Holy Power in the six minute fight. Four. Now, maybe I'm leaning on Holy Light too much for the work. Maybe I'm leaning on BoL to do too much of my healing. Out of 14 Divine Lights, and 12 Flash of Lights - only 4 of those were on my beaconed target (the only tank in this instance).

Now, maybe I'm leaning on Holy Light too much, that is certainly possible. I had 55 Holy Lights, and 47 Holy Shocks. My Holy Lights were spread fairly even around the raid, so were my Holy Shocks - but only 17 Word of Glory? A 6 minute fight should give me closer to 60 Holy Shocks - and that's assuming I don't get any Daybreak procs. 60 Holy Shocks is 20 Words of Glory, and again, that assumes no Eternal Glory procs. Since WoL tells me I got 18 Daybreak procs - 47 Holy Shocks just isn't enough. Since I'm only showing 6 Holy Power from Eternal Glory, I guess that wasn't too bad.

The last dig

Finally, I can look at some of the other buffs and procs to see just how effective they are.

Giant Wave - from my Darkmoon card, this had a 99% uptime. That's a bonus of 400 spirit for the entire fight.

Heartsong - My weapon enchant, this was up for 59% of the time, with 16 procs. This means I had a bonus of 200 Spirit for 4 minutes of a 6:23 encounter. That's certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially given the cost.

Conviction - 96% uptime. This means I have enough crit to keep the buff up, and don't need to worry about stacking more - I can focus on Spirt and Haste instead.

Infusion of Light - only 12 procs out of 47 Holy Shocks. Maybe I do need more crit after all.

Healing by spell % - So even though it looked like my numbers were way off above, my overall healing breakdown looked like this.
Holy Light - 55 casts, 14% overall, 12% OH
Divine Light - 14 casts, 10.5% overall, 11% OH
Holy Shock - 47 casts, 9.7% overall, 8.1% OH
Flash of Light - 12 casts, 6.8% overall, 0% OH
WoG - 17 casts, 5.1% overall, 8.5% OH

Holy Radiance - 6 casts, 9.5% overall, 36% OH (ouch)
Light of Dawn - Tough to call, WoL counts each person hit as a cast - so 28 people hit overall, for 3.5% of the healing and 17% OH

Conclusion

My spell selection is fine. I need to work on using my CDs a lot more, judge a little more, and use Holy Shock a touch more. This week CD usage will definitely be my focus, and this gives me some clear goals to work on. After all, it's tough to know if you're getting better, if the only guide you have to go by is "did we win?".

In short, I'm bad, and I should feel bad too.

This tells me I'm casting a wide mix of spells, not using FoL on the wrong person, and probably have a fairly solid healing rotation and grasp of what heal to use when.

Controlling your own destiny

RNG - she is a fickle woman isn't she? I'm probably about to shoot myself in the foot here, but I've had pretty decent odds with this lady. From getting both my Thunderfury bindings in under a month back in Vanilla, to winning a roll on the Val'anyr, to snagging a certain favorite doll - my luck has always been fairly good.

There are times however when you can't really depend on luck, and when you can really put forth the energy to control your own destiny (so to speak). About a week or two ago, I took a gander at Kurn's BIS (pre-raid) list. Most of the items were pretty self explanatory, but two distinct items stood out in my mind.

The first was an old friend that I remembered from Wrath, though he'd grown up some and gotten some beef on his shoulders. I'm talking about the latest healing Darkmoon card here - the Darkmoon Card: Tsunami. Packing 321 INT and a stacking Spirit buff (up to 400 SPI), this is the ultimate pre-raid trinket as far as I can tell. No on use to worry about, and lots of what we love.

The second item was the little doll - Tyrande's Favorite Doll. With the same 321 INT buff, as well as a on use mana return (up to 4200/2min), this looked like another serious contender in the pre-raid setup. While there can be lots of arguments made that 4200 mana every 2 min isn't a whole lot, it really starts to look good when I stack it with Arcane Torrent.

When I last logged out, I had about 91,000 mana. 6% of that is 5460, about the equivalent of 1.5 returns from judging, though this will scale with maximum mana instead of remaining static. The point though, is that when I combine Arcane Torrent with the Doll, I get 9600 mana back - more than I would get back with an unglyphed Divine Plea. And without the 50% healing debuff as well. These returns are also instant, which means I'm not waiting on DP to tick, and I will be able to use them multiple times per encounter. Mmmm.

Now about the control

Over the last week I dropped about 33,000 gold, and a whole lot of time, to farm these two babies up. Yes, I farmed the AH. While I didn't have any control of the posting of the Darkmoon cards, or the RNG that Blizzard would assign to my archeology, they were things that I could work on without needing a group/raid to do. I didn't have to worry about losing a roll to someone in a PUG, or if someone in the raid might benifit from these items more.

Like enchants and gems, these kinds of itmes are things that you can work on as an individual to set yourself up for raiding. All it takes is time (and/or a lot of gold), and a little bit of RNG luck.

Many thanks to Kurn for posting that list, otherwise these two gems might have escaped my notice.

Omnitron Deactivated - Crib Notes

In our second foray into Blackrock we managed to take out the Omnitron Defense system. For those unfamilliar with this fight it is a standard council fight, where you will be confronting four different 'mini' bosses throughout the fight. The bosses all share a single health pool, and each has their own special abillities.

BigWigs was working for this encounter, though I used DBM for Magmaw. YMMV as they say.

If you want a complete walkthrough, go check out tankspot or bosskillers. Here's the Crib Sheet version, with an emphasis for healers. We used a Holy Paladin, Resto-Shaman, and Druid for this fight. It's more about control and staying alive than raw DPS output.

Shared 'lookout' abilities

Each 'Tron' will have an ability that focuses a single party member, an AoE, and a shield that they put up to force a target change. Your tanks will have to hold off a few seconds during a target switch, otherwise they'll kill themselves. This will reduce the amount of self healing they can perform, so keep a weather eye out.

Magmatron

AoE - Standard fire - shoots all across the room, no range. We used Aura Mastery and and Divine Gaurdian to help soften this.

Single Target - At least once per 'active' time, Magmatron will announce that he is "Aquireing Target x". This person will need to get clear of the raid (A big, giant, MASSIVE red beam will be on them before the fire starts) and will need to have dedicated healing or use some CDs to get through this focus fire.

Electron (guess what power he uses?)

AoE - Similar to Freya, one player will get a static field placed on them (Lightning Conductor). Stay away from this player and there's nothing to worry about. They don't take damage, just those that they get near.

Single Target - Technically this could be an AoE, since it's a chain lightning, but as long as you're more than 8yds apart, this will only hit one person.

Arcanatron (you'll never get this one - come on, guess!)

AoE - Power Genorator. This is similar to the Iron Council, a pool will appear on the ground that you need to move the boss out of ASAP. Standing in the pool provides a huge chunk of mana return, as well as significantly increasing the DPS of your ranged. Use at your own risk, depending on which other Tron is up at the moment.

Single Target - The only interruptable ability, this will do a ton of damage (about 60k) to one player, it should be interuupted whenever possible. It is worth the DPS loss to have someone sit on this, even when this Tron is shielded (just don't DPS while waiting to interrupt).

Toxitron

AoE - Chemical Bomb gets shot at a random raid member, and it makes a big cloud on the ground. Drag the Tron into this to get a big damage boost - don't stand in it.

Single Target - Poison Protocol will target 3 members (in 10m, unsure about 25m) with small adds that will explode on contact killing their target, and leaving a nasty pile of goo on the ground. We put all DPS on them, since they can target anyone (including the tank on the other Tron), and they seem to have an affinity for healers.

The fight in a nutshell

Pull the active Tron. After approx 60 sec, the 2nd tank will pick up the new Tron, and DPS switches. Handle any AoE nonsense, and repeat until dead.

Tips

• If you get Toxitron first, have the raid stack up together near him - until the first cloud comes out. This will let you position him in the cloud early, and is a great time for an early Bloodlust. Remember to spread out to avoid the little slimes though.
• Arcanatron and Electron pose an interesting challenge. You'll want to stay spread out to minimize damage from the Chain Lightning, but still get the mana regen and ranged DPS boost from the Arcane pool. Choose wisely.
• The fight is long, so pace yourself.
• Don't hit a shielded add. If someone happens to hit Toxitron's shield, you can dispell the poison.

Good luck and have fun with him. Hopefully I'll have a new Crib Sheet for something other than Magmaw later this week.

Addons and you - picking the right path

A few months ago I had a problem with my truck that took some diagnosing. I couldn't figure out exactly what was going on, but I lost the power-steering. It wasn't a belt, the pump, or fluid - something just wasn't working right. While I was troubleshooting it, I wound up losing the power-brakes as well. Again, not a problem with the lines or the master cylinder.

While I was troubleshooting all this, I still had to get to work, so I just drove it like it was. I grew up learning to drive an old farm truck that didn't have power steering or brakes, so it was kind of just like going home again. I had to anticipate turns and stops a little more for sure, and I certainly couldn't turn by just palming the wheel any more. I felt like this made me a better driver though, so I've kept with it like this.

I mean, let's face it. Power steering and power brakes really just make you lazy. You don't have to react as quickly, because the vehicle will do part of the work for you. This is even worse if you use the anti-collision/proximity warning devices that you find on some SUVs and minivans. Same thing can be said for the blind-spot mirrors I added onto my truck. If I can't merge in traffic without hitting someone with my trailer, I probably shouldn't be driving.

As a way to help other drivers around me, I've also disabled my blinkers and brake lights on my truck. Part of being a heads up driver is paying attention to what everyone around you is doing, and to anticipate their next move by watching their body language, your surroundings, and what their vehicle is doing. I guarantee when you don't use brake lights and turn signals, folks follow that two second rule and stay the heck out of your blind spot.

Of course I don't see everyone around me following this type of driving thought process, but maybe by being out there, I can influence others to follow my lead. When I get a ticket, I just chalk it up to me being a better driver than others, and this is the cross I have to bear in order to show others what they're missing.

Sound idiotic?

It really kind of is. While it's true I don't need any of those things to be a good driver, and folks probably would pay more attention if suddenly there were no brake lights or turn signals, they do make life easier and safer for others. While you can't draw a direct corrolation (simply because there's that added "law" factor) between this story and the one Codi told here, I think the abstract point should be pretty clear.

Tam and Chass over at Righteous Orbs already had their own spin on this type of nonsense, but I think it bears further investigation here. I certainly don't begrudge Codi her choice in running addon free - after all, play the way that makes you happy. Just don't expect me to be happy when your play-style impacts mine.

Are addons cheating?

First, let's knock this silly theory right out of the discussion. Addons are available for one reason, and one reason only - Blizzard intentionally opened up the gaming interface to allow them. They have specifically stated (on more than one occasion) that they WANT people to be using and writing addons. Anyone who has played the game for more than a few major patch cycles has seen addon after addon rolled into the base UI.

Remember Wardrobe-AI and the other gear swapping mods we used to have? Notice those pretty map shading areas in your quest log now? How about something as simple as a boss emote?

All of these things have been rolled into the base design of WoW. While you can certainly argue that they aren't as good as an independent addon, obviously someone at Blizzard recognized that these features were in such high demand that they should be part of the standard game package. Blizzard also recognizes that their tools aren't as good in all areas, which is why they opened up more of the code for threat - allowing tools like Omen to work more accurately. Guessed absorbs in Skada and Recount don't work just because they're well designed, they work because Blizzard recognized that their combat log wasn't getting it done - and that the need was out there.

They play the game for you

If this was true, every guild on the planet would have cleared H-ICC 25m in a PUG by now. Even AVR (which was broken by Blizzard) couldn't make your toon move out of the "Giant Big" in time. DBM can't fire your cooldown when you're about to eat an Soul Reaper, and Vuhdo/Grid can't cleanse your targets for you.

All these addons do is give you the information you need, in a way that you can most easily process it.

Let's go back to my truck examples above. Look at the dash/steering of a car that is 15 or 20 years old. What do you see? On the steering wheel you'll probably see a button for the horn, and that's about it. On the column you'll have your wipers, turn signals, cruise control, and maybe your hazard lights. Your dash has your environmental controls, your radio, and your various dials and warning lights.

Now look on a modern car, especially one that isn't a stripped down model. Environmental controls? On the wheel. Radio controls? On the wheel. Hazzard lights? Big button on the dash. Depending on the model you might even have a computer readout to tell you your tire pressure, radiator coolant levels, and how far you can expect to get on your current fuel level.

Do these things make you a better or a worse driver? It's hard to say really, because we have so many other things that can influance our driving. The thought behind them though, is that the more time you spend with your hands on the wheel and watching the road, the less time you'll spend fiddling with the radio and running into someone.

Of course if you're watching the in dash DVD player or playing Bejeweled while raiding - you're pretty much doomed to failure regardless.

My point

In the end, the addons and tools that are available are just that - tools. They can help you do your job better, and let you focus on more than one thing at a time. Just like a carpenter who uses power tools and a nail gun can build a great house (or a bad one), so too can the Amish guy who cuts everything by hand and drives every nail. Neither one is necessarily right or wrong, it's just a different style.

It's certainly smart to keep your skills honed to the point where you can perform without addons, but it's not the end of the world. I've had to heal with the standard frames before, and while I can do it, it's not much fun. Sure, it's important for me to know that someone has a curse or effect on them (like Mortal Strike) that I can't cleanse - just so I know they might need extra attention - but it's not something that should detract from what I'm doing.

It's also smart to check your addons before a raid starts. You know that on Tuesdays there is a greater than even money chance that something has been broken - especially when you download a new patch. Most addon developers have their respective tools updated within a few hours on patch day. Sometimes there's several releases in the span of a single day. It's your responsibility to keep up with that though.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put the fuses back in my truck.

Time for a Grid revamp

Grid has been my mainstay raid frame addon since, well since I first started healing on a little baby shaman. I like the clean nature of it, and that it's pretty customizable and easy view. I don't have a problem with little indicator lights to show me things like agro, curses, bubbles, etc., but I do have one thing I'd like to change.

The size

I have not seen another Grid setup that looks like mine. Part of this may be that I have some bastardized German version leftover from the time I let Unbearabull take me on a UI ride (I really did like that UI though). So when you die now, it just says TOT, and something different for FD (I just notice that the box isn't grayed out). Ghost is still ghost though, so go figure.

My biggest challenge will be cleaning every scrap of Grid out of my UI folders. It was a mess when I realm transferred, and as I mentioned in my Carbonite post - my UI is in need of an overhaul. While it may be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (with Cataclysm sure to break and change everything), I figure that this is the best time to start playing with a new UI. The worst I have to fear is screwing up in a PUG raid (I do a GDKP to pay the bills for my alts), and given that most GDKPs don't go more than 8/12 - I can do those in my sleep.

The alternatives

I'm really not keen on Vuhdo, though I did give it a spin for a while when we first started working on LK. I like using mouse-over macros, not clique(esque) type setups, which Vuhdo seemed to use right out of the box. Sometimes I just want to target someone, and the last time I used click style macros I wiped the raid on the Four Horseman (Sorry Hanora).

Healbot got a bad name from way back when, and I've never really looked at it seriously. Part of my reasoning is I use Grid as my healing/raid frame package - I don't have separate frames out for anything else. I used to do this when I was raid leading in BC, but I've found that I can get all the info I need from Grid.

The rest of the UI

I'll be putting my whole UI up for others to look at, and I'm busy scouring the blogs for UIs to steal from. At this point anything is on the table, though I have gotten used to having things like a HUD, scrolling combat text, and my Razer. I definately need to move my map though. Trying to keep an eye on it while farming, leveling, and watching for Alliance is getting a bit much.

Almost too many options

As a Holy Paladin, I'm used to working with the limited, albiet powerful, toolbox available. Yes, we have more "I just saved your life" buttons than any other healer, and our raw HPS is at the top of the healing charts. Tanking with a Paladin behind you means that you don't worry until you're sitting at 50% HP - where as a Druid healer will have you concerned (unless you see HoTs ticking). Sure, they can pull Swiftmend/Nourish/Living Seed out - but the Healadin is going to keep you bathed in Holy Light until you start to glow.

Even though our healing toolkit is technically limited to three (five if you count SS and BOL) spells, we have several CDs to help ourselves out. Mana conservation, 100% crit, damage reduction, and Aura Mastery - just to name the talented ones. These are a lot of situational cooldowns to manage, but you can start to tell the average Paladins from the great ones, just by looking at CD usage.

Now the Priest

Holy bouncing heals Batman! At 65 I've got more heals than I know what to do with, and I'm not even sure that I'm prioritizing them right. I've got my PW:S, Penance, Flash Heal, Renew, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, Holy Nova, and Circle of Healing. As a Disc Priest I obviously tend to lean towards PW:S and Pennance, though I've noticed that I use a lot of Renew and Flash Heal as well. Greater Heal is second only to Prayer of Healing for least cast spells - even Holy Nova ranks higher simply because it's an instant cast.

My typical instance involves me keeping shields on the tank (and the over eager DPS who pull agro), and using renew as a buffer between shields. Penance and Flash Heal fill in the rest. If there's a dire AoE heal need, I use Holy Nova if I think they'll die before PoH goes off. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain that given the cost of the GCD, even putting a shield out to proc Borrowed Time isn't a smarter move. 1.5 sec GCD > 25% haste on a 3 second cast.

Once I pick up PoM that will go into my instant heal rotation. I need to read up on how it works though, as I'm not 100% up on the mechanics.

Back to the point

My point here, is that as a Disc Priest (Holy is just as bad I'm sure) I've got a veritable ton of heals to choose from. Fast vs. slow, AoE vs Single, HoT vs Direct. So many choices. I think this really adds to the power of the priest, but I can see why so many priests can't get a full grip on their class. As a Paladin, every target is a nail - you just choose which hammer to hit it with. With a full box of tools, I'm loving the choices. Finding the right heal for the job adds something to the class for sure.

Of course, for a new player this might be overwhelming. One of my office mates is trying out a new priest, and I'll see what she has to say about it later this week.

Losing a tank in 1.5 sec - a Beacon of Light story

Yesterday Chase posted a fairly vanilla writeup on Beacon of Light (BoL) best practices, which is probably fairly useful to his target audience - brand new Holy Paladins. He covers the basics of putting BoL on the tank, or yourself, or switching for things like Bonestorm - but he forgot one little caveat that goes with Beacon of Light. Unfortunately, it's a big one.

Haste vs. Damage

As a Holy Paladin I'm constantly slamming as much haste onto my paper doll as I can - to the point where I even passed up a 277 upgrade the other day because I'd lose 80 haste in the process. My Holy Lights are pushing 1.2 seconds, and I'm dangerously close to being over 1000 haste. Between my own CDs and a pocket innervate - I can destroy any content without fear of mana or my target dying. I guarantee that unless my tank gets one shot, there's nothing out there that will take them down. There just isn't a boss that can out damage my Holy Light spam (again, short of one shots) - providing all I have to do is stand in one place and heal one target.

Unfortunately, I have more to worry about than just a single tank. I generally am covering at least both tanks, and providing backup healing for the raid. I'm keeping an eye on environmental damage, Valk's, flying ooze balls, etc. This means I have to occasionally move or shift my healing, which means my perfect stream of 24k HL bombs gets interrupted. It also means that I occasionally have to rely on some of my other tools to get me through the night.

Enter the Beacon

BoL was a great addition to our healing arsenal, and I can't count all the ways that I revel in its deliciousness and awesomeness. Healing the party/raid while having BoL on myself (and just ignoring environmental damage). Laughing in PvP while keeping everyone alive (until that shaman/priest show up and purge/dispell it off me). Mocking healers who struggle to keep two tanks alive on Blood Queen.

Until that is, this happens.

Awesome McAwesomsacue tank has died.

WTF? How on Earth did that happen? No special abilities were used, I had BoL on them - I mean, there's no reason why they should have just gotten turned into a plate pancake. My heals can't miss (although I have done things like BoP the tank by accident), he's well within the 60yd range of well - everyone, and the person I was healing is alive! How is this even remotely possible?

Pulling out the death log, I see something horrifying. While the tank was sitting at around 60% for two seconds, there's a 1.75 sec gap between heals landing. This can't be possible, I'm mashing the HL key like my life depends on it, and my cast time is sitting near 1.2 seconds. My Judgement was still up, BoL was up, hell even Sacred Shield was up. This death was unpossible! Now I'm left standing here trying to explain how I just let a tank die on H-LK (or worse, trash) when I'm supposed to be Hasty McHasterson the great Pally healer. Guess that Val'anyr isn't really getting it done eh?

The hidden killer

In reality, what just killed my tank was the inherent lag that takes place in a BoL heal. As best as I can figure (from parsing logs and checking EJ), is that the heal actually has to register on your target before the system will pass the heal on to your BoL target. From a programming point this makes perfect sense, but it does get a little aggravating when you watch your BoL target get folded because the heal didn't get there in time. This means that all the haste we're stacking, will still result in your HL taking about 2 seconds to land every single time.

If this isn't a selling point for more haste on your gear, I don't know what is. Every single cast you put out will take about .5 sec longer to hit your BoL target. That's about the difference between having a judgment up or not - something we definitely strive for.

Avoiding this gib

There's a couple of ways to get around this little bit of lag accidentally interrupting your perfect string of awesomenss, and thereby avoiding the ire of your party/raid.

Know the encounter

This should go without saying, but you need to know the encounter. While a lot of this will come with experience, you should never be surprised when something happens during a fight. Let's face it, 95% of the encounters we face are so scripted that we have a wide variety of mods and addons to run timers for us. You know when that first Mark is going out, you know when Defile is coming, and you KNOW that Soul Reaper is about to hit your tank for Texa$.

Know your tanks

Right behind knowing the encounter, because in a PuG knowing the encounter is more realistic, is knowing the tanks that you're working with. Start cataloging their survivability. Are they taking a lot of damage on trash? Did you find yourself reaching for additional CDs on the first boss? Keep a mental log and use past experiences to prepare you for the upcoming encounter. While the odds of every PUG tank you heal using ORA2 or some other addon that will let you know when they've used their defensive cooldowns, you should be on the lookout for it if you can.

Heal the BoL target

That's right - there's nothing that says you can't switch to the BoL target when you need to. While it's certainly not ideal, neither is losing the target to an internal lag mechanic that you can't fix. This is something I'll do during H-LK. Even though I have BoL on the LK tank, unless someone is in immediate danger of dying, I'll heal the LK tank directly during a Soul Reaper. We had enough problems on this fight when we were working on it. This was a situation I could control, and I wasn't going to pass it up (obviously if Infest is running rampant, I don't have this option).

Change your BoL target

This comes with experience, and knowing where your heals need to go. After losing the Shambling Horror tank to BoL lag a few times, I swapped BoL to the LK tank and healed the Horror tank instead. Problem solved - except for when he'd eat a 70k+ shockwave. Sry:(

This also comes into play on fights like H-Sindragosa. During Phase 1 I'll keep the tank beaconed in case I need to touch the raid, but I generally just heal the tank directly (see the point above). During Pase 2 I put BoL on myself and just heal the tanks for all I'm worth. I rely on HL splash to cover the raid when I have to drop my stacks, but this method lets me build up 10+ stacks of the mystic buffet (though that does make me pucker up).

Communicate with your other healers and the tanks

I put this last, but it's really one of the most important aspects. Working with your tanks and other healers for coverage in heavy damage situations, or to coordinate cooldowns, can mean the difference between a spectacular wipe (where it just says LOLOLOLOL@U in the damage log) and that clutch downing. Rarely is the weight of the entire raid on your shoulders, though it often feels that way.

Conclusion

BoL is an amazing tool, and one of the most powerful spells in our arsenal. No other healer can provide the sheer throughput that we can using HL/BoL on multiple targets, though druids can rack up some impressive HoT stacks. BoL isn't a cure all though, you can't simply slap BoL on your MT and then forget about them. Part of improving as a player is looking at all the little things that have taken place in a raid in finding ways to counter them. Recognizing that your BoL target will be slightly behind in healing received means you may have to keep healing, even if their damage intake is low.

Oh, and stack on more haste.

A baby Priest - Look at all these tools

In my efforts to get a full grasp on on the healing classes in the game, I started (another) priest to try and level up to 80. I'm not trying to master each of the classes, but I just want to get a better feel for how they work. Even though I haven't healed on my shaman in a year, I still feel that I have a base idea of how they work. The druid and preist have been my last two - and my druid is sitting at 72 gathering rested XP.

So many heals

The first thing that amazes me about the priest is the sheer number of heals available even at level 24. Shields, Holy Nova, Renew, Lesser Heal, Heal, Flash Heal - and I know there are more still to come. In contrast with the Holy Paladin, this is a rather large kit to work with. I can see the instant appeal to playing a priest, as I have a decent stash of offensive spells for levling, and lots of different buttons to push for healing.

While I know not all of these heals are exactly useful (Lesser Heal is already off the bar), and some are extremely situational (Holy Nova?), there's still a large variety to work with. I still don't have the mana regen abilities that come from deep in the trees, but as long as I can get a drink every now and again that isn't an issue. Using a shield to cover until a heal can land is still new - I keep reaching for my Holy Shock instead.

Spirit Tap is delicious

While not as useful in dungeon healing situations, Spirit Tap definately reduces the downtime I've encountered while leveling. It's not as reliable as say, JoW or SoW, but it's better than nothing. I've managed to snipe a few runners in dungeons to help me through the insane chain/group pulls that I seem to get. At least there's no JoL to keep up the 'gogogogo' crowd that I decide to let die.

Leveling

I'm leveling through the LFD tool now that I'm past 15. I do a smattering of quests here and there, but for the most part I'm content to just sit back and heal some PUG through a random. I've gotten to the point where Party Chat is just hidden. I hit my "I need a drink" macro when I get low, and I take the break even if the party keeps running. I haven't had a bear tank toss me an innervate yet, maybe this is just something I did while leveling. I figured the 3 seconds to shift and innervate the healer was better time spent than waiting for them to drink.

Questing is a bit of a challenge, but only because I pass the quests up as I gain levels in the LFD. Generally as long as I don't pull too many, I can slug through a pull using PW:S, DoTs, and my wand. Upgrading to a new wand every few levels is definately helping - and I really wish there was an heirloom wand. I'm also about to move out of the Horde controlled zones and into the contested areas. We'll see how the ganking/PvPing goes once I'm out of the safe zones. I'm not going to keep my Pally/mage around "just in case", I figure I'll take my lumps for a while.

Conclusion

The priest is surprisingly more fun than the druid, though I did like the shapeshifting and instant flight form. I suppose overall gameplay is better on the druid, but lowbie healing edges out to the priest. The paladin is still my favorite though, so no worries there. Now I'm just waiting on levitate and PoM. I want to hear the zings as it whips around the party. Oh, and Pennance - my real reason for leveling a priest.

Spell Power plate in Cataclysm

I saw this comment by GC earlier, and it got me thinking about gear and design philosophy.

Source

That was the initial intent, but some Shadow priests thought that felt unfair
that they had to have two separate gear sets to swap from damage to healing
compared to the druid and shaman, and we thought they had a point. As such it
will be slightly easier to gear up as a Shadow priest since they have more gear
options. Call it a perk, but probably not as powerful a one as Holy paladins
having their very own gear.

Pardon me? Now this was in response to a question regarding spriests getting gear with Spirit on it for their hit, when the original plan was for them to use Warlock/Mage gear.

Now, I know we're still in Alpha, but this kind of thing just frustrates me. If I understand the design philosphy properly, we should see the following gear sharing/breakdown in Cataclysm. This is of course assuming that the design of defense gear to go the way of the Dodo.

• Avoidance Plate - This should be plate gear with high Dodge/Parry/Block ratings, which should be unattractive to the DPS. Shared by DKs, Paladins, and Warriors.
• DPS Plate - The oppostie of the above. High hit, AP, Crit, etc. Used by the same classes, just their DPS bretheren.
• SP Leather - Boomkins and Resto druids.
• DPS Leather - I'm guessing this will be used by both types of Feral druids, as well as Rogues.
• Caster Mail - Resto and Ele Shamans.
• DPS Mail - Hunters and Enhancement Shamans
• Non Hit Cloth - Now looks to be the domain of Priests alone. Will have Spirit on it to make it unattractive to the Locks and Mages.
• Hit/Non Spirit Cloth - Locks and Mages will keep up the age old fued by fighting over their gear.
• Spell Power Plate - Holy Paladins.

/Boggle

Are you kidding me? Really? Every healer class except the Paladin will be able to swap specs and roll directly into a DPS role with this setup. Now, there might not be enough +hit from Sprit or what have you, and I'm sure that it won't be an instant top healer to top DPS type of switch without a gear change of some sort.

To be fair, the Paladin talent trees are still hidden, and I'm not in the Alpha. For all I know there could be something in the works for this. If they put some type of talent in that would convert Plate DPS gear/stats to Holy gear/stats, you would fix one problem and cause another. Even though they don't always want the same base stats (ArPen, Haste, Crit - what have you), you still have three classes competing for Plate gear right now. Adding Holy Paladins to that mix just puts more demand on that gear, though that can be adjusted with drop rates I suppose.

Unfortunately, having SP plate in the loot tables just frustrates everyone. Either the Healadin, because the drop rate is low, or everyone else because there's only one or two healadins in the raid. It's kind of a lose lose right now, and it will be interesting to see if Blizzard can come up with a good fix.

Here's hoping.

Leveling a druid - the anti-Paladin

Forget Death Knights, I'm fairly convinced at this point that Druids are the true anti-Paladin. Now, as a disclaimer, I haven't gotten ye olde cow to 80 yet. It's also been a long time since I leveled my Paladin - but here's what I've seen so far.

Healing

Forget the difference in gear, as a Paladin you're always casting. AoE damage? Have fun catching up. Tank getting hit a ton? Keep spamming that FoL. You've got one on the move heal (once you can talent it), otherwise you're a freaking rock holding back the tide of damage. This is where the real heal face is born, grimacing as you will that HL to go off.

As a Druid, once my HoTs are out, all I can do is sit back and pray that Lifebloom 'blooms' before the tank dies. I love the diversity in spells available to me, and having a 6 sec CD AoE heal is a god send from a Paladin mind. I have to sit back and realize that yes - the tank is taking damage, but it's ticking back on him quickly from my four HoTs. Of course I don't know if I'm doing it right or not, I just toss up the HoTs and watch the party unfold.

At least I can run around with my arms in the air screaming when I get agro.

Tanking

9/6/9 - the Paladin tanking mantra. There's a set rotation, and you deviate from it at your own risk. You're watching the raid for Hand usage (Protection, Salv, etc), and you've got two short CD taunts at your disposal.

As a bear I spam swipe. Now that I have mangle I might hit that, and in a high rage scenario I switch to my swipe/maul macro. /yawn. One taunt, plus FFF, and an AoE taunt with a long CD. Sure, I've got some nice CDs to use, but instead of my B-elf dancing self, I'm staring at a brown butt. At least I've got a charge.

DPS

I picked up ret again on my Pally, as I dork around looking for the right thing to do between now and Cataclysm. Since it's basically a 'hit the button when it lights up' spec, it's fairly straight forward. Granted, I'm no master of it yet, but I'm at least not embarrassing myself.

Kitty DPS though, hello timers. Now while leveling, it's pretty basic. Opener, bleed, combo point, finisher. I understand that at the end game however, it's pretty complicated. Keep up your roar, your bleeds, don't run out of combo points or energy, and stay behind the boss for your 'backstab'. It seems a lot more complicated than "Divine Storm for Justice".

Conclusion

I think this is one of the things that makes WoW so great. I can accomplish the same things, in an entirely different play style, depending on what I like. I can also understand the druid's lack of care regarding models. It's the same tree/bear that I've seen for thirty levels. Who cares what the armor looks like?

Once I get to 80 it'll be time to herd the priest through the LFD, finally rounding out my stable of healers. I may hold off on the priest until I can make a Goblin though. We'll have to see if I get a chance to play with them in Beta or not.

Enchanting your gear - mp5 vs. Crit

Recently I've seen a few Paladins swapping out their helm and shoulder enchants, switching from Crit to mp5. This has grown legs to the point where some applications specifically request that you make the switch as part of the application process, while others just question your choice - maybe to see if you can defend it.

This of course is the stance I took when I was recently questioned about my choice between the following item pairings.

Arcanum of Burning Mysteries - +30 SP, +20 Crit
Greater Inscription of the Storm - +24SP, +15 Crit

vs.

Arcanum of Blissful Mending - +30 SP, +10 mp5
Greater Inscription of the Crag - +24 SP, +8 mp5

Now the SP bonus in each pair is the same, so we'll discard that for now (plus this is a mp5 vs. Crit debate). First, some history.

The great Illumination nerf

Back when Paladins were men, and Arthas was pure, Illumination was an amazing stat. Providing a full 100% mana return on crit, this ability was soon nerfed down to 60% in early Wrath. The powers that be noticed that not only were Paladins not running out of mana, we weren't even having to use Divine Plea. Heck, back in BC I remember watching Reaganomics GAIN mana - while going full bore.

When Illumination was nerfed to 60%, we still didn't notice a discernible impact, so it was further nerfed to 30%. Divine Plea was nerfed to include a 50% healing debuff, and Spiritual Attunement was removed from our kits entirely. Hey, don't blame me that standing in the fire was a valid mana regeneration tool. Even with this, Paladins still have incredible mana regeneration - and a big part of our staying power (even with Blizzard pushing mp5 on us) is from our Illumination returns.

Now for the math

Now, I've covered this before, but here's the basic breakdown for Holy Light - the only spell I'm going to focus on here, as that's our biggest mana hog. Holy Light has a casting cost of 29% of our base mana, which works out to be 1274 mana. Now if you're running the Libram of Renewal, you can take 113 mana right off the top, almost a full 10%. Next, if you're running the Glyph of Seal of Wisdom, you can take another 5% off (maybe it's 5% and then minus 113 - but the numbers are close enough) bringing you down to about 1097 mana per cast. Even with my raid buffed mana pool of 44k+, that can chew a hole in your blue bar in a hurry.

At that cost, our 18 mp5 from above would have to tick for almost five minutes, just to return enough mana for a single cast. Now we're obviously getting mana back from other sources in a raid setting, but we can't always count on those. We also have more mp5 on our gear, and that pushes our total mp5 up some - but the net result from that mp5 remains the same. Five minutes - you get one additional cast. Not many fights last that long.

Our 35 Crit rating equates to approx. .75% crit. Over the course of that same five minute fight, it takes only three of our Holy Lights to crit (that wouldn't have without that extra rating) to generate the mana return of 18 mp5. With a 1.2 second cast time, heck - even if you're only averaging 20 casts per minute (yeah - that's low) you're still bound to pick up three 'extra' crits in that 100 cast time frame.

But the math is wrong!

And you're absoloutely right. If I had no additional crit, and had to choose between running at just .75 crit OR 18 mp5, that mp5 might look a whole lot more attractive. I mean, if every time I push the heal button I have less than a 1% chance to crit, I'm going to be a lot more selective with my casting - and since RNG is Random it's entirely possible to go five minutes without a single crit - even with 50% crit rating.

I have yet to see this happen though (although I have seen some serious dry spells). Looking over a recent WoL though, I had about 2500 healing spells cast (I run about 1:1 HL for FoL over the whole night) and my crit rating was right around 56% - probably a little higher than my actual raid buffed rating - but not by much. This tells me that over time - that rating actually works out. Go figure - Random is Random - but over a long enough period of time, it all comes together.

And your point is?

That's it in a nutshell. Unfortunately your crit rate is subject to the RNG, and mp5 is a static number. You can always count on that 18 mp5 to be there, no matter what you're doing. I personally choose to believe that I'm going to pick up an extra crit every 1.76 min (or 3 every 5 minutes) to compensate for the loss of static mp5. Especially when the time that I need that extra mans is RIGHT NOW when I'm doing my darndest to break my #2 key. I don't need that extra Holy Light 5 minutes from now, I need a whole mess of them between now and then.

Obviously having a good mix of stats is important, but if it's Crit vs. mp5 - I'll take my crit.

Besides, who doesn't love seeing giant green numbers on their screen?

The power of WoL - finding your own mistakes

So we saved Valithria on H 25m last night. We brought in a tenacity pet to make use of the HL glyph splash heals, and it probably would have worked really well.

Unfortunately, I made a massive - nay gigantic - mistake. One that I will probably have to deal with for an eternity. This mistake is inline with the time Rage was calling out the bomb targets on Baron Gheddon, and then blew up the raid because he was yelling at someone. Or when I pulled the Twin Valks in Holy gear (while tanking).

I could probably have hidden this mistake from everyone except the most experienced of WoL readers, or at least another Holy Paladin who's used to reading the logs. I could tuck this mistake aside, pretend it never happened, and then go along my merry way. I will instead however, use this as a teaching moment - to show that even though I don't hesitate to call someone out for not using a flask/food/etc, that I'm also not afraid to admit my own screwups.

What I did wrong

Right before we started I switched to my PvP Holy spec, because I wanted Imp Con aura for the healers and I had the Glyph of Seal of Light in that build. I swapped out Librams for the 232 +SP to HL, and proceeded to heal the dragon's face off.

We had a tenacity pet parked near the dragon, so my HL splash would benifit from the 40% +healing provided by Blood of the Rhino (unfortunately that all doesn't transfer via BoL). I was keeping my Judgements up, and BoL and Sacred Shield on Valithria. The only problem I was noticing was that things seemed, slow.

I swapped a flask for my Int/Haste elixir combo, ate haste food instead of fish feasts, and still things weren't feeling right. Then on the fourth attempt it finally registered. I didn't have my Power Aura showing up for Light's Grace. I was getting 5 or 6 fewer casts per cycle (maybe more) than if I'd been setup properly.

That's right - by switching builds I gimped myself out of Light's Grace and the Holy Light glyph - the whole reason for having the bloody tenacity pet in the first place. It was a complete bonehead move, and one that won't be repeated. Because I checked the logs and called myself on it.

Looking at the logs

Looking at the WoL this morning I noticed I didn't have any Glyph healing on Valithria. I'd already expected that, but it wasn't cemented in until I saw it. I could probably do the math and figure out how much healing I would have gotten in addition to what was done - but I know it's just going to be "a lot". Enough so that we probably wouldn't have wiped the attempt before at 93%.

Conslusion

Everyone screws up - Even Rage (though he'd never admit it - btw you ate 18 goos on Tuesday night buddy) - and sometimes it takes someone calling you out to bring it to your attention. Sometimes it's not that obvious though, and a deep look at what you're doing (an After Action Review) can often lead to simple things you can do for large gains.

Use the tools out there. If your guild isn't running a WoL, run one yourself. It's worth it.

The death of my FoL build

Well, I finally did it. After the good times we had, I decided to let my FoL spec go. It was a lot of fun, and I still think it's a viable spec in some situations. (Un)Fortunately we're working on 4/12 H ICC25 and 9/12 H ICC10 - and it just can't keep up. Especially when we're pulling healers out to DPS. The raw throughput of Holy Light is just pushing past what I could dump out with FoLs.

Haste is a factor

I'm also at a point now where I'm pushing the 1.2 second Holy Light barrier. With gear and a Manta Ray, I'm at 832 haste when the fight starts. Even though my mp5 (and possibly crit) are a little lower than I'd like, I can still pump out the HL for a good while. It also doesn't hurt that I can usually count on one or two innervates throughout the fight. While I can certainly manage my mana without them, it prevents me from juggling the Divine Plea debuff. Using the 2pc T10 and Avenging Wrath cooldowns certainly help, but it's still not 100%.

Of course there are times when I have to call for an innervate because I've gotten tunnel visioned - but that's something I can fix. More mp5 can't hurt, and I've got some pieces I can start swapping out now that I'm over the base 680 haste cap.

The real reason

The real reason that the FoL build died though, was that I just can't afford to be without the buffs that 51/20/0 provides - and that spec doesn't provide enough crit (imo) to make a FoL build viable. Losing out on Imp Devo aura (in 10s) hurts as well, and DS/DG is still an amazing talent. Unfortunately, there's just not the HPS I need, and there's no point in having a 2nd Holy build for FOL, if I'm never going to be able to use it.

So it's time to spec Holy PvP and annoy people.

Upcoming changes - Cataclysm style

So we've all seen the upcoming 'proposed' changes to the cleansing mechanic, and nobody can deny that this is clearly meant to help balance PvP. The ability for every healer to defensively dispel magic also tells me we're probably going to see some bosses with polymorph and other CC abiliities in the future.

I don't really care what class can dispel what, though I guess some shamans are up in arms about the potential loss of cleansing disease and poisons, but I'm more interested in the way they are going about it. Specifically for Paladins.

Fixing the PvP problem

One of the big issues for Paladins, specifically in PvP, is our ability to be effective healers in any tree (with the right setup, of course). From Sheathadins in early Wrath, to ProtHeals dominating General Vezack, these strange healing specs have been popping up like the proverbial mole. Blizzard is obviously working to make healing something you have to spec Holy for to be effective. I imagine we're going to see something similar for all the classes.

Now don't get me wrong. I loved having the ability to cleanse while tanking, it was something that set the Paladin apart from the other tanks (besides the lack of a closer move). We could be fully defensive, tanking the world, and still help ease the healer's load (especially if you had a priest healing in AN/OK). Fortunately, as of the current postings, the ability to cleanse disease/poison isn't being restricted to the Holy tree - just magics.

So what does it mean?

First, I think you're definitely going to see a shift in Cata arena tactics. While this is designed to ensure that you can't stack dispellers without gimping your team's DPS, it means that keeping the CC off your healer is going to be that much tougher. It also means that there could be issues with fights like say, Sethhik Halls, where your healer runs the risk of being crowd controlled by the boss.

Say it ain't so. Difficult encounters again? I can definitely see more of the "miss this mechanic and you die" type fights in Cata - something I felt was really missing in Wrath. But I digress.

I don't want to get all Chicken Little, and really I think the changes are great. I'll miss the ability in my other specs for sure, but it isn't the end of the world. This doesn't break a class, it just brings it in line with everything else. When you have healers who have less than 21 points in their designated healing tree, something is broken.

Heroic kills, Drake chase, and a missing buff

First, Bladfist-US somehow missed the memo that it was time to make our numbers bigger - and instead of raiding with a 10% buff, we still had the 5%. Rumor has it that the 10% was active, until our sever was reset to fix an issue with the AH and WG. No official response from Blizzard, and it doesn't really matter, but it was noticed that we didn't have it.

We killed her anyway

Even with the 5% buff, we're now 9/12H in ICC, after one shotting the Blood Queen last night. The fight didn't feel any more difficult than on normal. Blood Princes were actually more difficult. Heck, we had more issues trying to get the Full House achievement. Speaking of that, it seems that we had an Adherant or something change at the 5% mark - so we wound up killing her without getting the achievement. There may have been some cussing on vent.

Heroic Festergut is the same fight, with just a little shuffling to avoid the green slimes. It took me a few shots to recognize the warning splash on the ground, but once we had it figured out the fight was very straight forward. We had to use a few more cooldowns on the tanks, and use them a little earlier, but overall it's not very different.

Heroic Rotface is again, the same fight with just some foot shuffling. We did it exactly the same way we did him on normal mode.

Note - every Heroic fight I've done, I've done in full HL gear and 51/20/0.

Thursday is heroic Sin, and Putricide if we can figure out how to deal with the plague debuff.

***Edit, because I fail at naming bosses correctly***

My new favorite fight

Intense healing encounters - these are the things that really make a healer's night. Up until last night, I though Heroic Saurfang was the pinnacle. Two healers, tight rotations, limited free GCDs. One missed CD or heal, and you're looking at a wipe.

Officially boring.

I'm fairly certain that Mongrr will agree with me on this, but straight up healing encounters are mind-numbingly boring. Regular Marrowgar? Snoozefest. Gunship? Not even worth mentioning. This is one of the reasons we try and two heal as much content as we possibly can. I know some healers don't like the stress of two healing, but that's where we get our game rush. Of course Mongrr was two manning Scholo with Aurora back when Tier 1 gear was the hottest gear on the market.

I live for the interesting fights that require me to dip into my full box of tools. Mana management, my full kit of Hands, shocks, Flash and Holy Lights - everything. The Lich King encounter is right up there with this, with an incredible amount of raid damage and tank spikes. We run three healers on this though, so help is generally available.

Enter the Dreamwalker

Last night we focused on Heroic Dreamwalker. On normal, I'm one of the portal jumpers, using Beacon of Light on Valithria and exploiting the bonus healing that you can get from the Glyph of Holy Light. This leads to some insane healing numbers, and allows us to blow through the encounter amazingly fast. Mongrr covers the raid healing, and never has any issues between bubble use and quick heals. Heroic mode is something else entirely.

During our first attempts, Mongrr was getting overrun with raid damage. The tanks were taking inordinate spike damage, and the raid damage was spikey as well. We made a switch to put him in the portals and to have me stand out healing the raid since my BoL could cover the tanks.

I was not prepared

I honestly wasn't ready for the sheer volume of damage that was being handed out to the tanks, especially when they had worms and such on them. The first few learning wipes were definitely due to me figuring out which mobs I needed to worry about, and which ones I could 'rest' on.

By our second night in, I was set. I went with my full INT gear setup, and used the 51/20/0 spec for DS/DG and Imp Devo. Given that the main issue before was tank damage, I elected to not use BoL on Valithria, but instead focus on keeping the raid alive and letting our portal jumpers do their job.

Let the chaos begin

I'm sure that there's still something we're missing on this fight, as far as avoidable damage is concerned. Sometimes I'd see an add explode and 1/2 the raid would drop to 10% health. Other times it'd go off and nobody's bar would move. Figuring that out would probably knock this down a notch in difficulty.

Regardless, by the end of the fight I didn't have a single CD left available. LoH? Gone. HoP? Used. HoS, HoF, DS/DG, cleanse - everything was going into the mix. After a 99% wipe (would that be a 1% wipe?) when we got close again I just focused on helping push her over the top. I probably should have just dropped BoL on her at the end, but instead I let our Panzerkin die while I helped with the last 2%. Sry:(

The only disappointing thing for me with the fight was that there weren't any fireworks, or even an achievement spam, for having killed her in heroic mode.

The post fight rush

More than any fight yet - this one had me scrambling the most. No, it's not the most difficult in terms of mechanics, tricks, or other little gimmicks. It's simply dig in and pump out the green numbers. This is definitely another fight where "alive" is what's needed - topped off is just a bonus.

Healing meters don't mean squat

Ladies and gentlemen - in what I am sure will not be the last time, I want to poke a big fat stick and finger at what is quite possibly the second biggest bane in the Holy Paladin's existence (other than being pigeonholed as tank healers).

Topping healing meters does not a good healer make.

Hell, topping DPS meters does not a good DPSer make (usually).

Meter topping nonsense

First off, unless you're in an epeen swinging PUG (where these kinds of things seem to matter), total healing doesn't mean squat - and neither does effective healing, or over healing - unless your raid is wiping. Look at me, I'm keeping up JoL and healing the raid! I'm high on the meters, I must be good!

Oh, what do you mean that I wasn't doing my job. I was topping the meters! Well, yes - one of my assigned targets was dead, but OBVIOUSLY that only happened because I was healing everyone else. After all, I topped the meters!

/facepalm

This is exactly the same mentality that DPS get into with fights that involve target switching. One of my least favorite mages, Decius from had this awesome tendency to top the DPS meters in any raid he was in. Of course a quick glance at recount/WoL shows that his damage to bone spikes/adds/snobolds was precisely zero. That's not doing your job, that's sacrificing your team for the sake of your personal epeen.

You simply cannot measure someone based upon a tool like recount, unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Saying that "topping the meters is the sign of a good healer" is ludicrous at best. Any fight that I want to top the meters on I'll simply run into the melee, beacon a tank, and spam HL on myself while rotating my CDs and DP for mana efficiency.

OK, so what does make a good healer?

Like I mentioned last week, you have to start with trust. Trust that your teammate will do their job, and focus on your responsibility. This is the first step in forming a cohesive healing team. Even in a PUG, you have to trust that the person assigned to heal target X is doing that job. If you spend 1/2 as much time watching what everyone else is doing, instead of concentrating on the things you're supposed to - you're going to drop the ball on something.

Realizing that not everything a healer does will show up on the healing meters is the next step towards becoming that good healer. Cleansing targets to prevent incoming damage, or to clear a polymorph, is just one of the many things you should be watching for. Instead of just mindlessly spamming your heal, look to see what other little things you can pick up. Maybe an interrupt here, or a quick Hand of Protection there.

My point is, you can't just focus on pure throughput numbers.

How do I evaluate a healer then?

This is a tough question, and I'll be the first to say that I don't rightly know.

Start by looking at who they're healing vs. who they're assigned to. Look at what spells they're casting, and compare it with their spec. Check glyphs, gems, and flasks. Look at cleansing and CD usage.

But most importantly,

TALK TO THEM

Hopefully you have a healing lead who is communicating with your healers. Find out if things feel out of control, or if they're bored because there are too many healers. Look at GrimReaper to find out how your raid members are dying, and see what can be done to adjust it (remember, you can't heal stupid).

Trusting your team - and making the heal face

We finally got Storming the Citadel-10[H] last night - when Saurfang fell over and caughed up a worthless tier token (shaman I think), and some other stuff I didn't care about. What I did care about was that he finally fell over, as we'd had several sub 10% wipes over two nights time.

Three of which I was directly responsible for.

One of the things that I've enjoyed the most about these heroic mode fights is the required communication and total teamwork required to pull the job off. Calling for non-tanks to use defensive cooldowns, or to heal themselves, coordinating saves, and timing heals - none of this can be taken for granted.

Here's a few examples of how I wiped the raid through a lack of communication - or trust.

1. Assigned to the players with the Mark - I stopped healing one to Holy Shock/FoL the tank, that I felt was about to die. I saved them, but my assigned target died. If I'd called for them to use a CD - that wipe wouldn't have happened (10%)



2. Let my Judgement haste buff fall off. If I'd called for a CD or assistance while I refreshed it - that 4% wipe wouldn't have happened (and yes, they died in the time it took to judge and cast).



3. Failed to notice someone getting a bloodboil while marked - 24k in 2.5 seconds. 6%.

Each of these was preventable, and we finally got everthing wired tight and managed to plant him. I did however, have to make the heal face at the end.

For those that are unfamiliar with the heal face (and really, how many of my readers don't tank OR heal?), this is the face you make when things are really going to the wire - like when Festergut has 3 stacks on him and your tanks are getting pounded. This is where wings fly, speed pots are used, and your finger is hovering over the "AMGTHETANKISGONNADIE" button (lay on hands, nature's swiftness - whatever).

I'm pretty sure I looked like this.

Conclusion

Heroic Saurfang is by far the most unforgiving thing I have healed - ever. I can't see how someone can heal this in a FoL build, there's just so much damage to the marked targets in P2. liberal use of CDs really helped.

I can't wait for the next one.