- What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Amathalanea, Paladin. Holy, Prot, Ret.
- What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) Almost always raiding, fairly evenly split between 10 mans and 25 mans.
- What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Flash of Light. It hits moderately hard, is hasted down to the GCD, and gets a 100% bonus from +healing. Mix in the synergy with Sacred Shield, and you've got a decent baseline heal going.
- What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? The smart-alek answer would be Lay on Hands, simply because of the long CD - though I do use it when running flags in WSG. Of the base set of heals, I'd say Holy Light. With the changes to mana regen, HL seems to just punch holes in my mana bar for a lot of overhealing. This isn't to say it can't be used, but the days of mindlessly spamming HL are long gone. Using HL requires a mix of JoW melee to keep things even.
- What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? Unless something happens way outside my control, the tank and I are going to live. Paladins can deliver a high throughput indefinitely with FoL spam, and can really punch up the massive healing when we have to. Using a combination of Cooldowns and smart output, Paladins can really pour out the big heals for an extened period of time.
- What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? Lack of a true AoE heal, even if it isn't a smart one. Dpeneding on the damage coming out, it will take me 5 GCD to hit an entire party - or slightly longer if HL bombs are required. Unfortunately the HL splash is largely wasted in many fights, and you get a lot of overhealing.
- In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Double healing tanks. BoL on one, watch the other - and keep an eye on the raid. I can't stand healers that get tunnel vision. Having an assignment is fine and dandy, but I do a lot of PvP healing or 10/5 mans. In those instances you can't just focus on one person. Also when a player dies while a healer is standing right next to them not doing anything...that's unacceptable.
- What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? I've only ever really healed with a shaman and a paladin - though I did play with a druid for a while. I'm really in love with my paladin, and even though I have several 80 alts, and many lowbies, I just enjoy the versitility of the paladin.
- What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? I guess I'd say my shaman, but that's only because I'm kind of bored with him - not because I think shamans are bad healers.
- What is your worst habit as a healer? Trying to be Superman. If I'm paired with healers I don't know I have a tendency to start picking up their healing 'slack' if I percieve any. I don't care about the healing meters, but I alwasy hate seeing someone die when I have an instant or some other save available.
- What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? I hate to copy an answer, but it really is that person who calls for healing, or lets me know they've died. My UI is geared for maximum input of information. Between DBM, Grid, and my headus up healing - I can see pretty much everything going on.
- Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Sure. I wouldn't necessarially want to do 25 ToGC with just Paladins, but I wouldn't want to do it with just Priests either. Each class has strengths and weaknesses - it's just a matter of your personal playstyle. I have 2 lifesaveing CDs for my targets (HoP and LoH), plus various other hands, cleanses, and some really big heals. Plus I bring JoW or JoL to the table, and some sizeable buffs.
- What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? Everyone alive and I have some mana left? It's a win. While I'll check effective healing vs overhealing, I raid with a Disc Priest. Our healing styles are very complementary, so it's just knowing that I pumped out what I could and I wasn't carried. Analyzing a raid with World of Logs helps as well. I don't really relay on recount, except to make sure that nothing dumb happened. I'm more inclied to use the Grim Reaper feature than the meter feature.
- What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? That we're Overpowered because of our high throughput. Yes, I can pump out 15k heals for a long time, but I'm not doing much more than that. We're not great mobile healers, but I can still heal Hodir without getting 2 stacks of the debuff on me.
- What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? You can't just spam one button. Finding the balance between FoL and HL, using HS and SS to boost FoL heals, and working with your other pallies, not against them.
- If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)? High overhealing from JoL procs, a high crit rate, and a high focus (in a 25) as I'm usually on just a pair or three targets.
- Haste or Crit and why? Int. It gives me Crit, mp5 via DP/Replen, SP, and mana. Between Crit and Haste I'll take Crit for the mana return and big heals. My FoL is already nearing the soft haste cap, so it's not as crucuil to get any more haste.
- What healing class do you feel you understand least? Resto Druids or Priests. I understand their basic spells, but that's like me saying I understand the basic curses of a Warlock. I know what they use, but not the best rotations or ideal matchups (synergizing Pennance with FH for example).
- What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? Grid (without clique) for my raid frames, though I can do what I need with just the stock UI. I have some pally mod for tracking SS and BoL, but I use that more for tanking as I have Grid setup to show the same info. My macros are just my "OH NOVOS" buttons linking my crit CD with HS/FoL, and Divine Shield/Divine Sacrifice in one macro.
- Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? Int > Crit > SP > Haste > Mp5. Even though Illumination was nerfed, Int still has the biggest bang for the buck.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Healing Questionairre
This little gem has been floating around the blogsphere the last few days, so I thought I'd chip in with my meager knowledge and opinions. Here's to Jessabelle at Miss Medicina for starting this chain of events. Who knows - maybe Monger will pick it up and add his Priestiness to it.
The Monger Metal Update
I think I must be in a guild full of writers. Fully 25%* of our total members are now active WoW bloggers. There might be more, but they're keeping quiet for now.
To learn about priestly things, but only the healing parts (Monger doesn't do shadow) - head over to http://savethelightwell.blogspot.com - there's also a healthy dose of metal review - as Monger is a pretty big headbanger.
Monger is quite possibly the best priest I've every grouped with. One of the best things about him is his total willingness to try anything. He was a guy who was two manning Scholo - back before BWL was even available. He's also saved my tanking bacon more than once.
*Our guild only has 12 members, so it's not like we're fielding a team to compete with the Times.
To learn about priestly things, but only the healing parts (Monger doesn't do shadow) - head over to http://savethelightwell.blogspot.com - there's also a healthy dose of metal review - as Monger is a pretty big headbanger.
Monger is quite possibly the best priest I've every grouped with. One of the best things about him is his total willingness to try anything. He was a guy who was two manning Scholo - back before BWL was even available. He's also saved my tanking bacon more than once.
*Our guild only has 12 members, so it's not like we're fielding a team to compete with the Times.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
I must be playing another game
I think I am playing a different game than some of my fellow Paladins. While it doesn't seem to take much to get the Paladin community up in arms, this latest round of 'nerfs' seems to have really pushed the community over the edge. Personally, I don't know what form the changes will hold when 3.3 goes live - but right now let's really look at Lay on Hands and Sacred Shield.
Sacred Shield
A level 80 ability that lasts for 6/9/12 sec, procs after damage is taken, and can only proc once every six seconds. It's key feature now is the additon of a HoT whenever a Flash of Light is cast on the target. This HoT is applied, even if the shield itself hasn't procced yet. The spell was changed in 3.1, removing the ability to cast multiple shileds on the party/raid - but it is still usefull.
Now, in its current itteration, an untalented Sacred Shield will last for 30 seconds, abosorbing 500 + .75SP points of damage - up to once every six seconds - if the target is taking damage. In most tanking or PvP situations, the target is always taking damage, so the shield is regularly consumed. This provides a moderate ammount of absorbtion, and can help with sustained damage. It doesn't really help with spike, as you must be damaged first to activate the shield.
Now I'm not the math genuis that Womb's GF is, but I ran some base numbers and came up with the following numbers.
Unbuffed I have 861 Spellpower when tanking. This means that my Sacred Shield (since I have 2/2 in DG) will absorb 1.2(500 + .75(861)) - or 1374 damage every six seconds. Now in a full raid environment where I'm running with Blessing of Sanctuary, Imp SoE totem, maybe even some Str food - my SP might go up to say...by 200 points at most.
To put it into perspective, in our ToGC(10) last night against Anub'arak my SS absorbed a total of 24,299 points of damage. Compare this to the 21,819 I got from LotP, 34,167 from LoH, and 220,883 from JoL....and Sacred Shield just doesn't seem to be that big a deal. Now granted this fight lasted about 4:30, and Anub is buried part of the time.
So let's look at some other fights.
Twin Valks ToGC(10) - 13,616 (2:37)
Jarraxas ToC(10) - 9,895 (2:08)
Now let's suppose I was a healing Paladin - and I was rocking something closer to say, 2500 SP. In my 51/20/0 spec, my SS would now absorb 1.2(500+.75(2500)) or 2850 every six seconds - roughly double what I'm pulling down as Prot, even though I have three times the spell power. This is of course what made the 4pc T8 so hot in my book, as it lowered the proc time to 4 sec (from 6).
Why Paladins are in arms
On the latest PTR they stated that they are changing SS so it procs once every 30 sec - unless you spec deep into the Holy tree, down to Infusion of Light - just one step away from the 51 point talent. Prot pallies are upset because it's a chunk of mitigation gone. Ret pallies are upset because it's PvP survivability gone.
Wombcrusher - our resident retadin - is packing a whopping 1,298 SP, making his SS in PvP absorb...wait for it...1,768 damage in PvP. Ooohhhh. Don't forget it can be purged and spellstolen folks.
Why the change is happening
Now GC didn't call me to confirm, but I'm willing to bet a fair ammount of anything that this change is aimed specifically at two people. The first, you love to hate them, the HealProtadin! That's right - the folks who still spec deep into the prot tree to Arena and PvP. These folks are still packing a ton of SP, and their shields - while not game breaking - can tip the balance.
The second group of folks is one I'm guilty of supporting myself - though I think they are a far secondary concern - and that's the Arcane Mage. Using Incanter's Absorbtion in heavy raid damage fights, can boost my Arcane Mage's SP by 15% of the amount absorbed - for 10 sec (with a six second proc on the SS). That's no small boost, especially on Anub P3 where raid damage is high, the tank is getting overhealed anyway, and you need as much DPS as possible.
Conclusion
I don't know if this change will go live or not - and it doesn't really matter. If it does I'll keep tossing SS up on our mage, and I'll just replace it with every other Judgement to keep it proccing. For Holy, nothing will change, and Ret will lose just a little more in the PvP setting. I don't think the change is game breaking by any stretch of the imagination - and I'm sure there's those who can come up with more interesting uses than I have.
TO THE GROUND!
Sacred Shield
A level 80 ability that lasts for 6/9/12 sec, procs after damage is taken, and can only proc once every six seconds. It's key feature now is the additon of a HoT whenever a Flash of Light is cast on the target. This HoT is applied, even if the shield itself hasn't procced yet. The spell was changed in 3.1, removing the ability to cast multiple shileds on the party/raid - but it is still usefull.
Now, in its current itteration, an untalented Sacred Shield will last for 30 seconds, abosorbing 500 + .75SP points of damage - up to once every six seconds - if the target is taking damage. In most tanking or PvP situations, the target is always taking damage, so the shield is regularly consumed. This provides a moderate ammount of absorbtion, and can help with sustained damage. It doesn't really help with spike, as you must be damaged first to activate the shield.
Now I'm not the math genuis that Womb's GF is, but I ran some base numbers and came up with the following numbers.
Unbuffed I have 861 Spellpower when tanking. This means that my Sacred Shield (since I have 2/2 in DG) will absorb 1.2(500 + .75(861)) - or 1374 damage every six seconds. Now in a full raid environment where I'm running with Blessing of Sanctuary, Imp SoE totem, maybe even some Str food - my SP might go up to say...by 200 points at most.
To put it into perspective, in our ToGC(10) last night against Anub'arak my SS absorbed a total of 24,299 points of damage. Compare this to the 21,819 I got from LotP, 34,167 from LoH, and 220,883 from JoL....and Sacred Shield just doesn't seem to be that big a deal. Now granted this fight lasted about 4:30, and Anub is buried part of the time.
So let's look at some other fights.
Twin Valks ToGC(10) - 13,616 (2:37)
Jarraxas ToC(10) - 9,895 (2:08)
Now let's suppose I was a healing Paladin - and I was rocking something closer to say, 2500 SP. In my 51/20/0 spec, my SS would now absorb 1.2(500+.75(2500)) or 2850 every six seconds - roughly double what I'm pulling down as Prot, even though I have three times the spell power. This is of course what made the 4pc T8 so hot in my book, as it lowered the proc time to 4 sec (from 6).
Why Paladins are in arms
On the latest PTR they stated that they are changing SS so it procs once every 30 sec - unless you spec deep into the Holy tree, down to Infusion of Light - just one step away from the 51 point talent. Prot pallies are upset because it's a chunk of mitigation gone. Ret pallies are upset because it's PvP survivability gone.
Wombcrusher - our resident retadin - is packing a whopping 1,298 SP, making his SS in PvP absorb...wait for it...1,768 damage in PvP. Ooohhhh. Don't forget it can be purged and spellstolen folks.
Why the change is happening
Now GC didn't call me to confirm, but I'm willing to bet a fair ammount of anything that this change is aimed specifically at two people. The first, you love to hate them, the HealProtadin! That's right - the folks who still spec deep into the prot tree to Arena and PvP. These folks are still packing a ton of SP, and their shields - while not game breaking - can tip the balance.
The second group of folks is one I'm guilty of supporting myself - though I think they are a far secondary concern - and that's the Arcane Mage. Using Incanter's Absorbtion in heavy raid damage fights, can boost my Arcane Mage's SP by 15% of the amount absorbed - for 10 sec (with a six second proc on the SS). That's no small boost, especially on Anub P3 where raid damage is high, the tank is getting overhealed anyway, and you need as much DPS as possible.
Conclusion
I don't know if this change will go live or not - and it doesn't really matter. If it does I'll keep tossing SS up on our mage, and I'll just replace it with every other Judgement to keep it proccing. For Holy, nothing will change, and Ret will lose just a little more in the PvP setting. I don't think the change is game breaking by any stretch of the imagination - and I'm sure there's those who can come up with more interesting uses than I have.
TO THE GROUND!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The lost art of CC - and what it really means
So this post is in part response to a post over at 2FPS regarding this post from the developer Twitter session.
Q: Crowd control is all but dead in raids. Is that something you plan on bringing back?
A: Like say… with the Faction Champions encounter in ToC? ;]
Now many folks around the blogsphere might disagree with that comment, and in part - I suppose - they may be right. I think they are forgetting the fundamental concept of CC though.
Quite simply CC is keeping person A from accomplishing B by doing C. Weather this is through chain sheeping, off-tanking, kiting, or interrupting - it's all CC. Now you can argue the semantics of this all you want - but the long and the short of it stays the same. Keep the Bad Person from doing the Bad Touch on the Good Guys.
Vanilla WoW
Vanilla WoW had quite a few encounters designed around CC - especially boss fights in MC. From off tanking adds, to keeping Domo's minions controlled, there was plenty of CC to go around. BWL had its fair share as well, with the kiting of elves, tanking of goblins, and stunning of draconids. I'm not quite sure how much CC was in in Naxx or AQ40, but I do remember using a lot of sheep in ZG (and maybe AQ20).
Even the five mans had their fair share of CC opportunities, especially when you consider that UBRS was a 15 man raid, and Scholo/Strat were 10 man runs. The instances were huge, and time consuming - and good CC could save the day and prevent lengthy run backs. Pulls were carefully calculated - and a missed sap could spell disaster.
The Burning Crusade
Enter BC - the king of CC intensive expansions. Every dungeon, from Ramparts to The Arcatraz, had a slew of CC heavy encounters. Paladin tanking rose to unprecedented heights as they were able to ignore CC requirements due to their impressive AoE tanking abilities. Entering Shadow Labs or the Shattered Halls without the necessary CC was a sure recipe for disaster - to say nothing of heroic instances.
Heroic dungeons were instances to be feared. You didn't enter them without a crack team, and I'm fairly certain I cleared Kara before I finally mastered every instance on heroic mode. Magister's Terrace was the prime example of thise, and cries of "LF Mage H MGT" were all too common on my server. Shamans were completely shunned for their lack of any CC (LOL @ Earthbind Totem), and warlocks were suddenly scrambling to rediscover their seduce macros.
Raids were no different, from using traps and shackles on the way to Attunemen, controlling Morose's friends, or keeping the random Opera encounter under control - groups were tested to keep the adds out of the hair of the healers and DPS. Mages became tanks in Gruul's lair, and more CC was needed than you can shake a stick at in SSC and TKE. Missing a single CC on Keal'Thas trash would generally wipe the raid, and LOS pulls were the order of the day.
This trend continued all the way through the Sunwell, where trash became so tough that you had to stack Bloodlust just to get through it.
And then, it happened. Kil'jaeden was defeated, order was restored, and Maiev's desire for revenge was finally sated.
Then we heard the call to fight the Lich King.
Wrath of the Lich King
Here the story of CC changes. Every tank had an AoE threat generating ability, as well as an AoE taunt. Death Knights could pull with a Death and Decay dropped right on their mobs, druids had 360 degree swipe, and even the warrior's Thunder Clap was buffed (though still not unlimited!). The need for CC was tossed out the window, and level 70s straight from Outlands could compete in the instances.
Volley and Fan of Knives were so powerful that hunters and rogues passed mages in AoE DPS. Gear fell from the heavens, and crafted epics were the standard for all entry into Naxxarammas. Naxx continued the AoE extravaganza, with few mobs that were controllable beyond a shackle - or maybe an ice trap. This trend would carry on into the Eye of Eternity (just a boss), the Obsidion Sanctum, and the Vault of Archavon. High DPS was stressed, and no CC was to be found.
Unlike BC, Heroic dungeons were mocked for thier simplicity. CC was again ignored in favor of AoE tanking everything - substituiting high DPS and strong healing for any type of strategy or tactic. Speed runs were seen much sooner than in BC, and high DPS was given a stronger value than party utility.
Ulduar introduced some CC back into the raiding light, with several dangerous packs in the instance. While overgeared groups can blow through them now, at their release they were admirable foes that had to be carefully controlled. XT's trash was at one time considered tougher than XT himself. Vezacks trash broke more than one raid group's spirit, and can still be devestating to overgeared groups if not handled correctly. Even some off the boss fights requried CC - though it was generally in the form of an off tank.
When the Trial of the Crusader came out, there was a cheer (at least in our camp) at the announcement of zero trash. Five bosses, no trash, easy peasy right? Well, maybe not. While most bosses are some variant of a tank and spank, the Faction Champions fight is the pinnacle of CC fights in my opion.
Now don't get me wrong - I hate PvP in my PvE as much as the next guy - but this fight has it all. The need for snap healing, quick thinking, and rapid adjustments to a situation. With PvP style cleansing and diminishing returns, you can no longer simply sit on a target to remove them from the fight. Instead you have to coordinate different types of CC, make decisions on when it's smarter to CC or to DPS, and use a set of skills that may have been extremely rusty in many raiders.
Weather you're the prot warrior locking down a healer, a warlock chain fearing different mobs, or a hunter who is kiting out melee DPS - all of these are forms of CC that take a whole different level of awareness than simply chain sheeping or trapping a target.
What the 'opposition' says
Many will claim that these fights, from FC to Ulduar trash, do not constitute real CC. They lament the need for CC in heroics and five mans, and clamor to bring back the dungeons of old.
To them I say - you have missed the point.
This is not your father's Warcraft
While I'm sure that this phrase will be lost on many, the point of it is that Wrath is not Vanilla WoW, or BC. These games, while sharing the same parent title of World of Warcraft, are different games entirely. Someone who left the game in 1.1 would be hard pressed to recognize the classes for what they are today. Mechanics have changed, skills have changed, and player abilities have changed.
Epics are available for everyone, and the days of grinding Baron Strat for your Tier 0 legs are gone. For better or worse (and this decision is entirely up to you), the game has changed - and I think for the better.
Once you embrace the change to the definition of Crowd Control, and accept that your abillity to occupy a single target indefinately is no longer needed, I think you'll get along much better in WoW. Look for the CC challenges that you can find on your own. Explore ranged tanking, or rogue tanking - find your challenges within the game.
Because sheeping something for an entire fight is just a pain in the arse.
Q: Crowd control is all but dead in raids. Is that something you plan on bringing back?
A: Like say… with the Faction Champions encounter in ToC? ;]
Now many folks around the blogsphere might disagree with that comment, and in part - I suppose - they may be right. I think they are forgetting the fundamental concept of CC though.
Quite simply CC is keeping person A from accomplishing B by doing C. Weather this is through chain sheeping, off-tanking, kiting, or interrupting - it's all CC. Now you can argue the semantics of this all you want - but the long and the short of it stays the same. Keep the Bad Person from doing the Bad Touch on the Good Guys.
Vanilla WoW
Vanilla WoW had quite a few encounters designed around CC - especially boss fights in MC. From off tanking adds, to keeping Domo's minions controlled, there was plenty of CC to go around. BWL had its fair share as well, with the kiting of elves, tanking of goblins, and stunning of draconids. I'm not quite sure how much CC was in in Naxx or AQ40, but I do remember using a lot of sheep in ZG (and maybe AQ20).
Even the five mans had their fair share of CC opportunities, especially when you consider that UBRS was a 15 man raid, and Scholo/Strat were 10 man runs. The instances were huge, and time consuming - and good CC could save the day and prevent lengthy run backs. Pulls were carefully calculated - and a missed sap could spell disaster.
The Burning Crusade
Enter BC - the king of CC intensive expansions. Every dungeon, from Ramparts to The Arcatraz, had a slew of CC heavy encounters. Paladin tanking rose to unprecedented heights as they were able to ignore CC requirements due to their impressive AoE tanking abilities. Entering Shadow Labs or the Shattered Halls without the necessary CC was a sure recipe for disaster - to say nothing of heroic instances.
Heroic dungeons were instances to be feared. You didn't enter them without a crack team, and I'm fairly certain I cleared Kara before I finally mastered every instance on heroic mode. Magister's Terrace was the prime example of thise, and cries of "LF Mage H MGT" were all too common on my server. Shamans were completely shunned for their lack of any CC (LOL @ Earthbind Totem), and warlocks were suddenly scrambling to rediscover their seduce macros.
Raids were no different, from using traps and shackles on the way to Attunemen, controlling Morose's friends, or keeping the random Opera encounter under control - groups were tested to keep the adds out of the hair of the healers and DPS. Mages became tanks in Gruul's lair, and more CC was needed than you can shake a stick at in SSC and TKE. Missing a single CC on Keal'Thas trash would generally wipe the raid, and LOS pulls were the order of the day.
This trend continued all the way through the Sunwell, where trash became so tough that you had to stack Bloodlust just to get through it.
And then, it happened. Kil'jaeden was defeated, order was restored, and Maiev's desire for revenge was finally sated.
Then we heard the call to fight the Lich King.
Wrath of the Lich King
Here the story of CC changes. Every tank had an AoE threat generating ability, as well as an AoE taunt. Death Knights could pull with a Death and Decay dropped right on their mobs, druids had 360 degree swipe, and even the warrior's Thunder Clap was buffed (though still not unlimited!). The need for CC was tossed out the window, and level 70s straight from Outlands could compete in the instances.
Volley and Fan of Knives were so powerful that hunters and rogues passed mages in AoE DPS. Gear fell from the heavens, and crafted epics were the standard for all entry into Naxxarammas. Naxx continued the AoE extravaganza, with few mobs that were controllable beyond a shackle - or maybe an ice trap. This trend would carry on into the Eye of Eternity (just a boss), the Obsidion Sanctum, and the Vault of Archavon. High DPS was stressed, and no CC was to be found.
Unlike BC, Heroic dungeons were mocked for thier simplicity. CC was again ignored in favor of AoE tanking everything - substituiting high DPS and strong healing for any type of strategy or tactic. Speed runs were seen much sooner than in BC, and high DPS was given a stronger value than party utility.
Ulduar introduced some CC back into the raiding light, with several dangerous packs in the instance. While overgeared groups can blow through them now, at their release they were admirable foes that had to be carefully controlled. XT's trash was at one time considered tougher than XT himself. Vezacks trash broke more than one raid group's spirit, and can still be devestating to overgeared groups if not handled correctly. Even some off the boss fights requried CC - though it was generally in the form of an off tank.
When the Trial of the Crusader came out, there was a cheer (at least in our camp) at the announcement of zero trash. Five bosses, no trash, easy peasy right? Well, maybe not. While most bosses are some variant of a tank and spank, the Faction Champions fight is the pinnacle of CC fights in my opion.
Now don't get me wrong - I hate PvP in my PvE as much as the next guy - but this fight has it all. The need for snap healing, quick thinking, and rapid adjustments to a situation. With PvP style cleansing and diminishing returns, you can no longer simply sit on a target to remove them from the fight. Instead you have to coordinate different types of CC, make decisions on when it's smarter to CC or to DPS, and use a set of skills that may have been extremely rusty in many raiders.
Weather you're the prot warrior locking down a healer, a warlock chain fearing different mobs, or a hunter who is kiting out melee DPS - all of these are forms of CC that take a whole different level of awareness than simply chain sheeping or trapping a target.
What the 'opposition' says
Many will claim that these fights, from FC to Ulduar trash, do not constitute real CC. They lament the need for CC in heroics and five mans, and clamor to bring back the dungeons of old.
To them I say - you have missed the point.
This is not your father's Warcraft
While I'm sure that this phrase will be lost on many, the point of it is that Wrath is not Vanilla WoW, or BC. These games, while sharing the same parent title of World of Warcraft, are different games entirely. Someone who left the game in 1.1 would be hard pressed to recognize the classes for what they are today. Mechanics have changed, skills have changed, and player abilities have changed.
Epics are available for everyone, and the days of grinding Baron Strat for your Tier 0 legs are gone. For better or worse (and this decision is entirely up to you), the game has changed - and I think for the better.
Once you embrace the change to the definition of Crowd Control, and accept that your abillity to occupy a single target indefinately is no longer needed, I think you'll get along much better in WoW. Look for the CC challenges that you can find on your own. Explore ranged tanking, or rogue tanking - find your challenges within the game.
Because sheeping something for an entire fight is just a pain in the arse.
Monday, October 26, 2009
What's in a UI?
First - um - oops? It seems there is some key combination that auto posts my blog - hence the no word post with a title of "what"....
Poll a hundred different players, and I bet you'll come up with at least 50 unique UIs, and 100 different layouts. Sure - there may be the occasional player running around with a stock UI, but mods are so commonplace today that I find it hard to imagine you'll find two.
Over the years my UI has changed many times - from a complete overload of information, to a minimalist approach. Since I regularly switch from tanking to healing - with the occasional bout of DPS dropped in, I need a UI that is flexible. As a raid leader I need as much information as possible about what's going on, and as a complete data nerd....well - that's recount for you.
What I run
My UI is still getting tweaked, but I run some fairly standard mods - and then some that are slightly different. I still have too much redundant information going on, but I've been playing with IceHUD and PowerAuras to show me what I need.
- Recount - standard for most DPS (although the Wombcrusher doesn't run one), I use mine mostly for the Grim Reaper function. I need to see why folks are dying, and what we can do to fix it.
- Grid - I've used several different raid frame layouts, but Grid is the one that I keep coming back to. It lets me customize my information (like a green aura around the box of someone who has BoL on them), and keeps it nice and compact. It also works well with all three of my specs.
- Omen - Having in game threat metering is nice, but this allows me to quickly slap a Hand of Salvation on someone (including myself) as needed.
- Carbonite - I don't generally enable this while raiding - but for PvP and questing, it's the way to go.
- Pally Power - There was a suggestion for a different mod last week that I'm going to try out, but PallyPower has been tried and true for a long time now.
- Class Timer - shows me every Sacred Shield, BoL, and SS HoT on the raid. I use it more to track my own SS and BoL - but it also lets me find the person who keeps overwriting my SS instead of putting it on another tank. This addon also drops a big icon in the middle of your screen as it falls off - so you know to refresh it. This is next on my list to play with for showing DP timers.
- Bartender - Great for setting up custom bars and buttons.
- BindPad - probably the single greatest addon for keybindings. It remembers your key binds to spells, not button locations - so you can keep things off your bars and still have them cast (not shown in the UI).
- Rating Buster - great for finding out if that upgrade is really and upgrade.
- Talented - I just got this one and it's working out very well. It lets me save my talent trees, so when I'm resepccing for the 4th time that day I can quickly assign the template I want. It will import talent trees from Wowhead, the armory, or anyone you inspect. It takes a second to inspect someone, but it's worth it (not shown in the UI).
- LightHeaded - downloads all the quest information from WoWHead. I turn this off for raiding, but it's invaluable when questing - especially since we faction swapped and I still don't know where anything is.
- DBM - I honestly can't remember if I'm running BigWigs or DBM these days. It's a coin toss as to which one is "better" every week - so I just stick with one and roll with it.
- BigBrother - this lets me check for buffs, who broke CC, who used MD/ToT, flasks, etc. It's really helpfull when I drop it in our PUG 25s and they can see everyone in Parabola is flasked and well fed, and 1/2 their guild isn't.
- MK SCBT - My damage out is on the left of my HUD, damage in (parries/blocks/heals) is on the left, with special abillities showing at the top.
Obviously I run a lot of addons you don't really need. Here though is my list of addons from required to nice to have.
Required
None. Zero. Nada. You don't "NEED" any addons to play sucessfully, the addons just make your life a whole lot easier. Blizzard has many warnings built in now, their own threat meter, and custom timers.
Suggested
- Some type of boss mod - Blizzard's default is ok, but not perfect.
- Raid frames - even if it's just pulling out the standard Blizzard ones (which works much better than it did in Vanilla).
- Omen/threat meter - This is for seeing what everyone's threat is - not just if you're going to lose it in the next second.
- Death meter - great for figuring out why someone died.
- Buff checker
- Keybinds
- Inventory management
- Quest assistance
In short, you need to have a UI that is comfortable for you - and that gives you the information you need, when you need it. The biggest drawback to a custom UI? Big patches will break it into a thousand little pieces.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Dangerously Delicious
Fear not - this isn't a post about some boring fishing daily - instead it's a post about a great game on The Price is Right......Plinko.
It's also a complaint to Red Robin. I went there for lunch and on the menu of Deliciousness I saw neither Amathalanea, nor the Wombcrusher listed. For those that don't know, Amathalanea is the name I chose when I switched to being a delicious blood elf, and Wombcrusher is the Paladin who taught me all I know about Paladining - except for Prot. That guy doesn't know balls about tanking. His net experience with tanking anything consists of a few pulls in Karazhan pre-usher nerf. He'd blow his wings and run in praying for heals while he blew everything had to get agro. It was effective though, and let us single tank the rest of the instance.
Anyway - on to the point of this post.
This weekend was the AV holiday, and I needed a few new pieces of Furious gear to go with my season or two behind set. Hey, I'm a PvE machine - get off my back. Anyway, there we are - two diminutive female Belfadins - racing for Stonehearth Bunker. A quick run through, and we've now increased our chances of winning by at least 2%.
Here's the fun part.
Even though we're not identical any more (damn having five different sets of gear!), Womb and I both were running identical Ret specs, with Engineering. This is where Plinko comes in.
Take a standard tower - IB, TP, etc - add two retadins Divine Storming for greatness, a pair of wings, and......Nitro Boosts. That's right. For a few terrifying seconds we'd bounce around the inside of the tower spinning in circles and SoC cleaving for justice. A few rounds of that, and the Allies generally just give up on our tower and head for softer ground.
I'd heal, but I'm much too busy being delicious.
It's also a complaint to Red Robin. I went there for lunch and on the menu of Deliciousness I saw neither Amathalanea, nor the Wombcrusher listed. For those that don't know, Amathalanea is the name I chose when I switched to being a delicious blood elf, and Wombcrusher is the Paladin who taught me all I know about Paladining - except for Prot. That guy doesn't know balls about tanking. His net experience with tanking anything consists of a few pulls in Karazhan pre-usher nerf. He'd blow his wings and run in praying for heals while he blew everything had to get agro. It was effective though, and let us single tank the rest of the instance.
Anyway - on to the point of this post.
This weekend was the AV holiday, and I needed a few new pieces of Furious gear to go with my season or two behind set. Hey, I'm a PvE machine - get off my back. Anyway, there we are - two diminutive female Belfadins - racing for Stonehearth Bunker. A quick run through, and we've now increased our chances of winning by at least 2%.
Here's the fun part.
Even though we're not identical any more (damn having five different sets of gear!), Womb and I both were running identical Ret specs, with Engineering. This is where Plinko comes in.
Take a standard tower - IB, TP, etc - add two retadins Divine Storming for greatness, a pair of wings, and......Nitro Boosts. That's right. For a few terrifying seconds we'd bounce around the inside of the tower spinning in circles and SoC cleaving for justice. A few rounds of that, and the Allies generally just give up on our tower and head for softer ground.
I'd heal, but I'm much too busy being delicious.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Boss design and buffing
Since the early days of MC, high end progression guilds have been pushing the limit on what buffs they can bring to any given raid encounter. From world buffs to rare foods - the amount of preparation that would go into a single raid night (for those that were serious) was enormous. When I was tanking Broodlord in BWL I had to pull all the stops just to break into the 10k+ range - and we were not even close to being ready for Patchwerk.
Whipper root tubers, boar's lungs, flasks, potions, and elixirs - add all this to the Ony and ZG buffs - and you were maybe ready to push the cutting edge content. Heck, we needed most of this to push year old content.
In the early days of BC, none of this had really changed. You would still run a full elixir/flask rotation, and - and this is really the most important - you'd have to stack your groups. Spriests were placed as needed, shamans were stuck in appropriate groups to max out Bloodlust and totems. Certain classes were excluded/brought simply based on synergy of buffs.
This had a greater impact than just what was required farming wise, or group wise, to raid. It set the requirements that bosses be designed assuming you had all these buffs. This is one of the reasons why the elixir/flask system changed in BC, and why we started seeing a homogoniztion of buffs going into Wrath. By limiting the effective stacking of buffs, bosses could be tuned down slightly - with the hopes that we wouldn't need 5 shaman in every raid.
Enter the Lich King
When Wrath hit, raid compostion became decididly easier to configure. Buffs were shared across multiple classes, replenishment was given to three different classes (now 5), and we were left with very few class specific buffs. Designers could realistically expect that any 10 man group would have a spell hit debuff, some type of AP buff, replenishment, etc. Ghostcrawler has said more than once that they expect every raid (not every 5 man) to have the replenishment buff available. I think this may actually be one of the small reasons behind buffing Frost mage DPS - as who plays frost in a raid?
Up until 3.2, the only buffs that were class exclusive (that really mattered) were Blessing of Kings, Mark of the Wild, Prayer of Fortitude, and Bloodlust. Some sort of cross class buff (i.e. Fel Hunter gave Int and Spirit) were available for every other major buff. In 3.2, Blizzard added in consumables that gave a slightly less powerful version of this buff - meaning you are no longer required to have a druid just for MotW. Granted these buffs aren't 'as' strong - but they are a baseline.
What this means for raiders
For the hardcore, this won't matter one single bit, but for the casual raider who thought this was a boon - it's really not.
Blizzard can now design every single boss with the following assumptions.
As of this writing, the only buffs which is now limited to a single class (raid wide buff that is) is Bloodlust/Heroism. Rumor has it that another class may be getting this buff - but it's unconfirmed right now.
So why bother?
This begs the question, why bother with putting the buffs in the game? If Blizzard makes the buffs relitively baseline, then what is the point of even making them available at all? Every boss will hit just a touch harder, since they assume that the above buffs will be on the tank (approx. 1561 HP from buffs alone, not counting baseline stam), and that the DPS and healers will have the increased throughput.
Now obviously the hardcore guilds will have the buffed versions of these spells, and they'll be sure to have Bloodlust - but they'll also be going after the hard mode bosses. These baselines will be included in all boss designs from the start. Fortunately, they are all supplemental buffs (outsided of flasks and well fed), designed to help with situations where a specific class is not available.
In short, it will make the content more accessable, but it means that there will be an added onus of responsibility on the casual raider to ensure that these consumable buffs are available in their raid.
I hesitate to guess what Cataclysm will hold in store for us in the way of raid buffs and personal comsumables. Following the line of homoginization, we may very well see the world change to a buff free zone - where each class merely brings their DPS/Tank/Heal abilities.
Then again, it will be WoW 2.0 - we could be in for a world of change.
Whipper root tubers, boar's lungs, flasks, potions, and elixirs - add all this to the Ony and ZG buffs - and you were maybe ready to push the cutting edge content. Heck, we needed most of this to push year old content.
In the early days of BC, none of this had really changed. You would still run a full elixir/flask rotation, and - and this is really the most important - you'd have to stack your groups. Spriests were placed as needed, shamans were stuck in appropriate groups to max out Bloodlust and totems. Certain classes were excluded/brought simply based on synergy of buffs.
This had a greater impact than just what was required farming wise, or group wise, to raid. It set the requirements that bosses be designed assuming you had all these buffs. This is one of the reasons why the elixir/flask system changed in BC, and why we started seeing a homogoniztion of buffs going into Wrath. By limiting the effective stacking of buffs, bosses could be tuned down slightly - with the hopes that we wouldn't need 5 shaman in every raid.
Enter the Lich King
When Wrath hit, raid compostion became decididly easier to configure. Buffs were shared across multiple classes, replenishment was given to three different classes (now 5), and we were left with very few class specific buffs. Designers could realistically expect that any 10 man group would have a spell hit debuff, some type of AP buff, replenishment, etc. Ghostcrawler has said more than once that they expect every raid (not every 5 man) to have the replenishment buff available. I think this may actually be one of the small reasons behind buffing Frost mage DPS - as who plays frost in a raid?
Up until 3.2, the only buffs that were class exclusive (that really mattered) were Blessing of Kings, Mark of the Wild, Prayer of Fortitude, and Bloodlust. Some sort of cross class buff (i.e. Fel Hunter gave Int and Spirit) were available for every other major buff. In 3.2, Blizzard added in consumables that gave a slightly less powerful version of this buff - meaning you are no longer required to have a druid just for MotW. Granted these buffs aren't 'as' strong - but they are a baseline.
What this means for raiders
For the hardcore, this won't matter one single bit, but for the casual raider who thought this was a boon - it's really not.
Blizzard can now design every single boss with the following assumptions.
- Your tanks will be flasked with stoneblood since only one flask is required.
- Everyone will have +8% to stats from Drums of the Forgotten Kings
- +37 stats, 750 armor, and +54 to all resistances from Drums of the Wild
- +165 Sta from Runescroll of Fortitude
- +80 AP, +46 SP, +40 Sta from Fish Feast
- Replenishment
- Mojo/Wyrm/Wrath flasks for your DPS
As of this writing, the only buffs which is now limited to a single class (raid wide buff that is) is Bloodlust/Heroism. Rumor has it that another class may be getting this buff - but it's unconfirmed right now.
So why bother?
This begs the question, why bother with putting the buffs in the game? If Blizzard makes the buffs relitively baseline, then what is the point of even making them available at all? Every boss will hit just a touch harder, since they assume that the above buffs will be on the tank (approx. 1561 HP from buffs alone, not counting baseline stam), and that the DPS and healers will have the increased throughput.
Now obviously the hardcore guilds will have the buffed versions of these spells, and they'll be sure to have Bloodlust - but they'll also be going after the hard mode bosses. These baselines will be included in all boss designs from the start. Fortunately, they are all supplemental buffs (outsided of flasks and well fed), designed to help with situations where a specific class is not available.
In short, it will make the content more accessable, but it means that there will be an added onus of responsibility on the casual raider to ensure that these consumable buffs are available in their raid.
I hesitate to guess what Cataclysm will hold in store for us in the way of raid buffs and personal comsumables. Following the line of homoginization, we may very well see the world change to a buff free zone - where each class merely brings their DPS/Tank/Heal abilities.
Then again, it will be WoW 2.0 - we could be in for a world of change.
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