We're working on Alakir.
A part of me wants to be embarrassed that we haven't completed on 25, what many, many guilds on our server have completed on 10.
However, we've called a whole bunch of raids due to attendance. And I don't say that QQ-like because it's just a fact. Sure, we've done alternate things like Ulduar runs and nostalgia achievement runs to keep ourselves busy, and we've done BoT and BWD with like 22 and 23 people.
Instead of calling it this week, we've gone and tried Alakir with 23. In some ways, it's great that we can do that. It seems pretty unlikely that a 10-man guild could 9-man a progression fight. But with enough heavy hitter DPS in a 25, it's kind of possible.
I say kind of because we haven't gotten it yet. Though, we are getting closer. It's certainly not going to take us as long to get Alakir as it took to get down Nef. With 4.2 on the way, it's pressure. We really want to have the tier completed before it's time for the next one.
It's a hard spot to be in, knowing we were 9/12 25 HM in Icecrown... and we haven't touched a heroic mode yet this tier. Maybe Firelands will be better for us. It will be, if we can actually get into the content every night we're scheduled to.
It's unfortunate because I do love 25-man raiding. There is, I believe, only two guilds that use the larger format on our server (regularly). It's hard to be #2. Why join a 25-man guild that may or may not do a full clear this week when you can join a 10 that can? I mean, we have great personality! But in terms of time invested versus rewards, I feel like the players of WoW have spoken and 10-mans are the future, with a handful of elite 25s, maybe 1 or 2 on the larger servers.
Oh, and I should weigh in a totally-opiniony opinion that has absolutely no basis in math or fact on our new 4.2 mastery. Still not a stat I want. But hey. The nerfs we take in mana cost will make up for it, right?
Snark aside, it's not a bad time to be a paladin. Tank healing is sweet now that I've found a groove. With more crit than I had a few months ago, it's gotten crazy with IoL procs. And more crit for holy shock in the next patch? Yes, please!
I'm pretty excited about Holy Light doing full transfer, as well. I had resorted into a bad habit of using Divine Light more than was probably necessary to make sure that my Beacon target was getting enough of a heal. Though, on some fights I'm getting a ton of use on Tower of Radiance. Big heal on tank + 1 holy power? I'm okay with that, especially to build up holy power for the next boss ability.
With the cooldown reduction on Holy Radiance in 4.2, I'll be a bit more free to use it more often. One of my biggest complaints with that spell was how much it was just a one-answer button to specific abilities. I'm not sure that using it more will be the answer, but having the option to is a start.
Because I think that's the root of all holy paladin QQ everywhere. No options = no fun.
And, um, Speed of Light gives a run speed bonus to Divine Protection? Oh, oh, yes! That'll be fun. I love Body and Soul for for the run speed on my priest, and always feel like my boost is wasted on my paladin. After all, if I want to heal the most, I'll already be parked for maximum efficiency. So that's really nice, because it feels like a terrible and bad thing to use Holy Radiance for the speed boost alone (at least in combat!)
Showing posts with label Conclave of the Four Winds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conclave of the Four Winds. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
did blizzard really get healadins right?
After looking over some logs this week, I realized something. Every encounter heals different.
For some fights, Beacon is awesome because it does so much healing.
For others, Beacon is awesome because it helps generate more holy power to use LoD over the raid.
For some, I'm mostly a tank healer with some powerful raid cooldowns.
For others, I'm a raid healer with a powerful hot on the tank.
In some fights, our mastery blows. Others, it ends up being a bit more healing.
In some fights, I'm afraid to use Divine Plea. In others, there's a 'safe' phase to use it on cooldown.
In some fights, I'm twitching for Radiance to go off cooldown so I can use it again. In others, I save it for specific abilities.
Sure, Divine Light is still my go-to single target heal, but Holy Light sees some use if I'm trying to conserve mana. I never cast FoL, but that doesn't mean I'm doing it right.
There's only a couple of things that never change. Judging a lot, Beacon on someone, Holy Shock on cooldown. Everything else depends on the encounter.
Maybe it looks different in 10 mans, but this has been my experience so far in 25's. How do you feel about your paladin? Are your encounters dynamic?
The PastSource: Ghostcrawler, post 40
The BC and LK design of the Holy paladin was basically to use one or two spells and get a lot of use out of them. This is sort of like the mage dps design, where there aren't a lot of sources of damage, but there are a lot of other factors (cooldowns, procs etc.) that make how you use those spells more interesting. So rather than the paladin having 5 different heals, they pretty much used Flash of Light or Holy Light (depending a little on what gear stats and encounters looked like at the time) but with other spells to boost those heals, such as Beacon of Light and Divine Favor, and then all the paladin support abilities, like the Hands.
For some fights, Beacon is awesome because it does so much healing.
For others, Beacon is awesome because it helps generate more holy power to use LoD over the raid.
For some, I'm mostly a tank healer with some powerful raid cooldowns.
For others, I'm a raid healer with a powerful hot on the tank.
In some fights, our mastery blows. Others, it ends up being a bit more healing.
In some fights, I'm afraid to use Divine Plea. In others, there's a 'safe' phase to use it on cooldown.
In some fights, I'm twitching for Radiance to go off cooldown so I can use it again. In others, I save it for specific abilities.
Sure, Divine Light is still my go-to single target heal, but Holy Light sees some use if I'm trying to conserve mana. I never cast FoL, but that doesn't mean I'm doing it right.
There's only a couple of things that never change. Judging a lot, Beacon on someone, Holy Shock on cooldown. Everything else depends on the encounter.
Maybe it looks different in 10 mans, but this has been my experience so far in 25's. How do you feel about your paladin? Are your encounters dynamic?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
feeling illuminated?
I've been avoiding mastery (Illuminated Healing) on my gear for a while. Skada was estimating my mastery at less than 5% of a boost to my healing, as opposed to the extremely visible boosts that critical strike and haste offer. I figured, without the math, that with only our direct heals causing the bubble, and with the duration being short enough that not every bubble gets absorbed, it's going to be a pathetic amount of healing.
And at first glance it is, because Beacon of Light, Protector of the Innocent, and Holy Radiance don't cause bubbles, and those account for a brickload of my healing.
First, the log: WoL report for Four Lights Conclave Kill
Second, some rough math. I added together all my direct heals, including overheal. We're including on this list: Flash of Light, Holy Light, Divine Light, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn, and Lay on Hands (though I didn't cast any FoL). That's total effective direct healing of 1,302,129 and total direct raw healing of 1,451,189.
Third, my mastery. Like I said, I've been avoiding mastery when possible. According to my armory, I am currently carrying 8.89 mastery rating (8 base, .89 from gear). Each point of mastery rating adds 1.25% to each bubble. 10 base +(.89*1.25)=11.1125. So, each direct heal should in theory proc a bubble of 11.1125%.
In Theory
Total raw direct healing of 1,451,189 should proc 161,227 in bubbles.
In Practice
According to WoL, I had potential absorbs of 161,000 (listed to the far right as Overhealing). So my napkin math and WoL haven't disagreed too much there. Below, I am using 161,000.
However, in practice, I only had 105,818 absorbs via Illuminated Healing, or 65.73% of total potential bubbles. 55,182 (34.27% of every bubble) went to waste. Instead of enjoying 11.1125% absorbs, it's practically closer to 7.3%. Which isn't actually as bad as I had imagined it before, though still nothing to cheer about. WoL ranks Illuminated Healing as 3.9% of my healing because a good half of my heals don't proc it.
Tank Healing And Mastery
If what I've done above isn't convoluted enough, I decided to take a look at absorbs on just the tanks. After all, if Mastery helps us be better tank healers, then it's still a good stat. However, to do the modeling, I had to take a look at all holy paladin heals on each tank, all effective absorbs on the tank, each paladin's mastery, and extrapolate potential absorbs (the things I do for WoW...)
However, what I found is that (and here's a shocker) since most of our direct heals our going to the tanks, most of our wasted bubbles are on the tanks (68% effective, compared to almost 66% overall).
In summary, I am going to keep my eye on my mastery in other encounters, but crit, spirit, and haste are going to offer me far more healing than Mastery (can and) will.
And at first glance it is, because Beacon of Light, Protector of the Innocent, and Holy Radiance don't cause bubbles, and those account for a brickload of my healing.
First, the log: WoL report for Four Lights Conclave Kill
Second, some rough math. I added together all my direct heals, including overheal. We're including on this list: Flash of Light, Holy Light, Divine Light, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn, and Lay on Hands (though I didn't cast any FoL). That's total effective direct healing of 1,302,129 and total direct raw healing of 1,451,189.
Third, my mastery. Like I said, I've been avoiding mastery when possible. According to my armory, I am currently carrying 8.89 mastery rating (8 base, .89 from gear). Each point of mastery rating adds 1.25% to each bubble. 10 base +(.89*1.25)=11.1125. So, each direct heal should in theory proc a bubble of 11.1125%.
In TheoryTotal raw direct healing of 1,451,189 should proc 161,227 in bubbles.
In Practice
According to WoL, I had potential absorbs of 161,000 (listed to the far right as Overhealing). So my napkin math and WoL haven't disagreed too much there. Below, I am using 161,000.
However, in practice, I only had 105,818 absorbs via Illuminated Healing, or 65.73% of total potential bubbles. 55,182 (34.27% of every bubble) went to waste. Instead of enjoying 11.1125% absorbs, it's practically closer to 7.3%. Which isn't actually as bad as I had imagined it before, though still nothing to cheer about. WoL ranks Illuminated Healing as 3.9% of my healing because a good half of my heals don't proc it.
Tank Healing And Mastery If what I've done above isn't convoluted enough, I decided to take a look at absorbs on just the tanks. After all, if Mastery helps us be better tank healers, then it's still a good stat. However, to do the modeling, I had to take a look at all holy paladin heals on each tank, all effective absorbs on the tank, each paladin's mastery, and extrapolate potential absorbs (the things I do for WoW...)
However, what I found is that (and here's a shocker) since most of our direct heals our going to the tanks, most of our wasted bubbles are on the tanks (68% effective, compared to almost 66% overall).
In summary, I am going to keep my eye on my mastery in other encounters, but crit, spirit, and haste are going to offer me far more healing than Mastery (can and) will.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
pillar of fail
First raids this week. We're squeaking by on healers, running with 6 when we'd like 7, and two of those are dps who offered to heal just so we could raid. Three cheers for flexible hybrids!
Adgamorix over at Divine Plea has a fine write-up on his own raiding experiences and how he'd like to improve.
Myself, my logs are here: Conclave - my damage taken over 2-1/2 hours of wipes
and here: in which Enlynn takes 58 ticks of Pillar of Flame over 19 attempts
Alright. I'm still feeling pretty clunky. I haven't keybound Radiance but I think I need to. Perhaps I need a macro for Bursty or Two +Radiance, as well. I am wasting valuable time trying to get to the button when I decide it's time.
Though I think I'm doing okay with my other spells. LoD is ridiculous in a good way. A lightwell disappeared from getting full clicks last night! Though with only 9 Healthstone uses over 19 attempts... Well. There's room for everyone to improve. We're raiding again for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Everyone is learning. New encounters, new mechanics, new spells, new talents, new rotations.
And to be fair, on 25 man it's a lot harder to see ground effects like Pillar of Flame when there are 16 players stacked over 3 healing effects. I did learn something valuable: boss encounter addons work much better if you have them enabled.
I am using DBM now simply because I can't get DXE to work. I miss DXE and if anyone has a link to one that works for the new encounters, it would be MUCH appreciated.
EDIT: I should have mentioned that there are "two" pillars of flame. The first will spawn the adds, which is the one-that-must-be-avoided, and another (larger area) which does fire damage. If you are using an addon that tracks and announces fails, it will announce it for those who take damage (even if they don't spawn the adds). So while I am shaming myself for 58 ticks of avoidable damage, I didn't necessarily spawn adds 58 times. If you're trouble-shooting for your raid, keep that in mind. I'd only call it a fail if the adds are spawned.
UPDATE: Adgamorix suggested we move more ranged to melee range and on 1-12-11 we got him down following his good advice. We put our hunters and a lock (who had specced to be an AoE monster) on the outside and this worked out a lot better than having everyone try to dodge the pillar. It also kept all our healers in range of tank at all times, and I asked the healers to each focus on one of the ranged staying out so they got the extra heals as needed (that may have been overkill, but boss kills are boss kills). So, this definitely works!
Adgamorix over at Divine Plea has a fine write-up on his own raiding experiences and how he'd like to improve.
Myself, my logs are here: Conclave - my damage taken over 2-1/2 hours of wipes
and here: in which Enlynn takes 58 ticks of Pillar of Flame over 19 attempts
Alright. I'm still feeling pretty clunky. I haven't keybound Radiance but I think I need to. Perhaps I need a macro for Bursty or Two +Radiance, as well. I am wasting valuable time trying to get to the button when I decide it's time.
Though I think I'm doing okay with my other spells. LoD is ridiculous in a good way. A lightwell disappeared from getting full clicks last night! Though with only 9 Healthstone uses over 19 attempts... Well. There's room for everyone to improve. We're raiding again for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Everyone is learning. New encounters, new mechanics, new spells, new talents, new rotations.
And to be fair, on 25 man it's a lot harder to see ground effects like Pillar of Flame when there are 16 players stacked over 3 healing effects. I did learn something valuable: boss encounter addons work much better if you have them enabled.
I am using DBM now simply because I can't get DXE to work. I miss DXE and if anyone has a link to one that works for the new encounters, it would be MUCH appreciated.
EDIT: I should have mentioned that there are "two" pillars of flame. The first will spawn the adds, which is the one-that-must-be-avoided, and another (larger area) which does fire damage. If you are using an addon that tracks and announces fails, it will announce it for those who take damage (even if they don't spawn the adds). So while I am shaming myself for 58 ticks of avoidable damage, I didn't necessarily spawn adds 58 times. If you're trouble-shooting for your raid, keep that in mind. I'd only call it a fail if the adds are spawned.
UPDATE: Adgamorix suggested we move more ranged to melee range and on 1-12-11 we got him down following his good advice. We put our hunters and a lock (who had specced to be an AoE monster) on the outside and this worked out a lot better than having everyone try to dodge the pillar. It also kept all our healers in range of tank at all times, and I asked the healers to each focus on one of the ranged staying out so they got the extra heals as needed (that may have been overkill, but boss kills are boss kills). So, this definitely works!
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