Yesterday was my first night playing WoW and my first night raiding in more than two weeks. Can I say painful? Too much Star Wars, perhaps, but at the same time not-raiding makes me rusty.
1. I took off my weapon and shield to take pictures of my latest transmog (two posts down). Well, I kinda forgot to put them back on before the raid. After the first couple of bosses, one of my healers whispered me and asked if that was a glitch or if I really didn't have a weapon and shield?
2. I searched through my inventory and put on the gear that looked right. Except, I put on the gear-to-transmog instead of the transmogged gear. Two fights later, said healer whispers me, are you sure you're wearing the right gear yet?
No, I'm not sure of anything!
3. The Sorcerer speed boost in SW beats the pants off of the paladin speed boost. I kept popping Divine Protection and was disappointed at how far I didn't go.
4. With my shiny new graphics card, WoW looks much better and my FPS is even higher. Perhaps SW will get that sorted out, but right now, WoW wins in the performance-on-average-computers contest. Hands down.
5. I keep telling myself I'm going to stop talking about SW on my WoW blog but the amount of Star Wars chatter in mumble is kinda scary. On one hand, it's fun because I know what's up. On the other, we've never derailed mumble like that for any other game. Again, I don't think this is here nor there for the future of WoW. But I do think this is a bad sign for bigger guilds. And it can't be good for those who don't care about Star Wars, to hear nearly half the guild making jokes that exclude them.
6. I was pretty bad overall. It's like I forgot how to heal. I let judgments fall off and I don't think I hit a special cooldown all night long. Wait. I did use Divine Plea because I was so bad at managing my mana that I was going OOM when I really shouldn't.
7. Ultraxion continues to be the bane of my guild. Even with going to 5 healers we didn't have the DPS last night to down him. It makes me want to rage.
8. Saddith for President.
Showing posts with label qq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label qq. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Sunday, October 9, 2011
reluctant transmog
So... Blizzard has this brilliant, brilliant strategy. Since they know they aren't offering us enough new content this expansion, they tried to offer us a huge time-sink comparable to raiding that would set both raiders and non-raiders a-tizzy with excitement.
This time-sink recycles old content and encourages nostalgia runs.
It potentially demands re-running ad nauseum old content and nostalgia runs.
It puts enough restrictions that players will have to spend more time deciding what they want, then more time going and getting what they decided on.
Oh, transmog, you genius you.
I wasn't going to participate. How dare I accept transmog instead of a whole tier of raiding? How dare Blizzard think they can promise me more bosses for Cataclysm and only deliver us 7 for T12, then nerf the hell out of that and put this new shiny not-raiding thing before me? Huh? Huh!
And yet... I've been looking around for stuff I might like to be for my transmog set. Pally tier gear doesn't do it for me (though if I could replicate my ICC set I would, but I wore cloth and mail then). So I've been shopping on the Auction House. I found a set of greens from BC I think I really like. No pictures yet, I need a belt.
It all started when we were doing Ulduar (because we only had 22 people show up for a raid, and we had to do something). Lots of purple drops. This mace dropped off of somebody. I thought, hey, that's kinda neat. The loot officer said, take it, what else are we gonna do with it.
Granted, I love having my spellpower axe, but I'm also aware that next tier I'll probably be stuck with a mace. Again.
Since then I've been camping the AH looking for neat gear. And we're not able to use this feature yet! How ridiculous is this?
This time-sink recycles old content and encourages nostalgia runs.
It potentially demands re-running ad nauseum old content and nostalgia runs.
It puts enough restrictions that players will have to spend more time deciding what they want, then more time going and getting what they decided on.
Oh, transmog, you genius you.
I wasn't going to participate. How dare I accept transmog instead of a whole tier of raiding? How dare Blizzard think they can promise me more bosses for Cataclysm and only deliver us 7 for T12, then nerf the hell out of that and put this new shiny not-raiding thing before me? Huh? Huh!
And yet... I've been looking around for stuff I might like to be for my transmog set. Pally tier gear doesn't do it for me (though if I could replicate my ICC set I would, but I wore cloth and mail then). So I've been shopping on the Auction House. I found a set of greens from BC I think I really like. No pictures yet, I need a belt.
It all started when we were doing Ulduar (because we only had 22 people show up for a raid, and we had to do something). Lots of purple drops. This mace dropped off of somebody. I thought, hey, that's kinda neat. The loot officer said, take it, what else are we gonna do with it.
Granted, I love having my spellpower axe, but I'm also aware that next tier I'll probably be stuck with a mace. Again.
Since then I've been camping the AH looking for neat gear. And we're not able to use this feature yet! How ridiculous is this?
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
a crab stole my kill
Monday Night is progression night. Actually, so is Thursday. But this is a story about Monday night progression, two nights ago specifically, in which a 25 guild has put in many, many attempts on Majordomo Staghelm.
Or, as Lux affectionately named him, Majordomo Laghelm.
Now, Laghelm gave us fits. I'll admit, I was a part of the problem as I tried and failed getting healer cooldowns in some sort of order. I'm not as good at calling out things in voice chat as I'd like to think I am. I wavered between too many too early and trying to save too many too long. I was inconsistent and jumbled up timing. But anyways. We finally got the hang of it last week.
Our best attempt on Monday night was 140k, less than 1%. It was so to-the-wire that someone missed their seed and it was over just like that. A shaman even popped in the vain hopes that dots would kill the boss in the 1-1/2 seconds he borrowed to extended the encounter. But no, it was not to be, and that was our last attempt for the night.
So... well, likely you see where this is going. Enter some nerfs. We kill the first four bosses with absolutely no problems. Alysrazor is so much of a joke now that during the second tornado phase I tried to run into a tornado and I still didn't take any damage.
We one-shot Majordomo. And I couldn't even bring myself to congratulate the healers on a job well-done. Normally I bug the RL to give us EP for good first or early kills but I could only joke about it.
I didn't roll on the healing trinket, either. I wasn't sure that I wanted it (the mana regen ones win out in theory-crafting though I feel so far removed from that this tier I don't know), and on top of that, I couldn't bring myself to be excited about loot. Why bother? We totally didn't earn that.
I've been deflated.
And the worst part is, we'll be going after Ragnaros tonight but I can't get excited. At all. Because if it's anything like the nerfed Domo and Alys, then I'll never even know how that fight is supposed to feel.
So yeah. We'll be onto heroic modes soon enough, which is nice because that's what we were before Cataclysm came and made 25s hard to fill. But then, HMs are getting nerfed too. I can't say I'll feel like I've earned anything from here on out.
I wonder about the future of raiding. I understand that this mid-tier nerfing is likely a test run of Looking For Raid, but if we can look forward to more mid-tier nerfs, then there's a lot less motivation. If you can't stay cutting edge, there's no sense in trying in the beginning. Why just make some half-assed attempts in the first few months, waiting out until you can get your loot on a platter? How am I going to analyze our new healers if there's no trying fights, and does it really matter since we can probably 4-heal anything now?
Oh, cynical Enlynn is cynical. Pardon me. I assure you, the angst in the first half of the post was earned. This isn't the end of me raiding or playing WoW...
But for the first time ever, I just don't care. That, I think, is a very bad sign. I was disappointed by Cata only being three tiers and this tier only having 7 bosses. I'm not ready for Deathwing to be in the next patch. I'm not ready to think about leveling up and learning yet another paradigm.
And I'm certainly not ready for loot on a platter when our progression was actually going just fine, thank you very much.
Or, as Lux affectionately named him, Majordomo Laghelm.
Now, Laghelm gave us fits. I'll admit, I was a part of the problem as I tried and failed getting healer cooldowns in some sort of order. I'm not as good at calling out things in voice chat as I'd like to think I am. I wavered between too many too early and trying to save too many too long. I was inconsistent and jumbled up timing. But anyways. We finally got the hang of it last week.
Our best attempt on Monday night was 140k, less than 1%. It was so to-the-wire that someone missed their seed and it was over just like that. A shaman even popped in the vain hopes that dots would kill the boss in the 1-1/2 seconds he borrowed to extended the encounter. But no, it was not to be, and that was our last attempt for the night.
So... well, likely you see where this is going. Enter some nerfs. We kill the first four bosses with absolutely no problems. Alysrazor is so much of a joke now that during the second tornado phase I tried to run into a tornado and I still didn't take any damage.
We one-shot Majordomo. And I couldn't even bring myself to congratulate the healers on a job well-done. Normally I bug the RL to give us EP for good first or early kills but I could only joke about it.
I didn't roll on the healing trinket, either. I wasn't sure that I wanted it (the mana regen ones win out in theory-crafting though I feel so far removed from that this tier I don't know), and on top of that, I couldn't bring myself to be excited about loot. Why bother? We totally didn't earn that.
I've been deflated.
And the worst part is, we'll be going after Ragnaros tonight but I can't get excited. At all. Because if it's anything like the nerfed Domo and Alys, then I'll never even know how that fight is supposed to feel.
So yeah. We'll be onto heroic modes soon enough, which is nice because that's what we were before Cataclysm came and made 25s hard to fill. But then, HMs are getting nerfed too. I can't say I'll feel like I've earned anything from here on out.
I wonder about the future of raiding. I understand that this mid-tier nerfing is likely a test run of Looking For Raid, but if we can look forward to more mid-tier nerfs, then there's a lot less motivation. If you can't stay cutting edge, there's no sense in trying in the beginning. Why just make some half-assed attempts in the first few months, waiting out until you can get your loot on a platter? How am I going to analyze our new healers if there's no trying fights, and does it really matter since we can probably 4-heal anything now?
Oh, cynical Enlynn is cynical. Pardon me. I assure you, the angst in the first half of the post was earned. This isn't the end of me raiding or playing WoW...
But for the first time ever, I just don't care. That, I think, is a very bad sign. I was disappointed by Cata only being three tiers and this tier only having 7 bosses. I'm not ready for Deathwing to be in the next patch. I'm not ready to think about leveling up and learning yet another paradigm.
And I'm certainly not ready for loot on a platter when our progression was actually going just fine, thank you very much.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
I wish I were something else
Class envy happens quite a bit.
I'm actually quite happy to be a paladin right now. And yes, I am sober. Though I do wish we had a couple more AoE healing options (or rather, that Holy Radiance was a choice instead of a fire-and-forget, perhaps?), we're in a good place. I still miss having a raid-wide bubble (Divine Guardian), and I sure as hell miss Divine Intervention.
It makes me wonder, though, if I had less experience on my other characters if I would feel the same way.
Because I feel like I field a whole lot of "I'm not this" complaints lately. A druid vows that he's rolling a paladin because he's tired of tank healing with hots (tank-healing assignments are by player, not by class, my usual tank healers are AFK to RL lately). A shaman complains that he doesn't have group heals if people aren't stacked up (hello, ALL healing classes suffer from this). If only I had this spell. If only this spell did this effect instead of this. If only my iconic signature healing spell was actually as good as everyone says it is.
I know the truth: it's all close enough. Vixsin has a great write-up for the bench and the top 1% guilds and class balance therein, but I think it's safe to say that for the rest of the world, class balance is "close enough."
When I hear class complaints (from regular mode players), I always get the sense that it's the grass being greener on the other side than any real technical problems. And I'm biased, I know, having experience with all four healers makes me feel pretty confident I could be an asset to my raid no matter which I brought. (Isn't Enlynn so arrogant?!)
I think it's that time of the expansion, though. We hit brick walls on bosses, a key player we got used to having steps out for real-life issues and the void hurts. But instead of saying we miss the person, we say we miss his class mechanics. Sorry, I'm not buying. We miss the player who know to pop a cooldown at the right time. Him being a paladin, a shaman, a priest, not so much the issue. (Though the one night we raided with no priests was a bit weird. Fast forward two weeks and we have 6. Huh?)
And in retrospect, we made it through the summer only having to cancel a couple of raids. I think a few months ago the tones of a lot of my posts were on the verge of grim. We didn't know if we were filling the next raid, but somehow we pulled through. We've even had a waitlist for the past couple of weeks, and been able to let some players take the night off because they needed it without it being too painful for us. So things are looking up, even though we're still stuck on Beth. We got so close.
I hate fights like Beth'tilac not because of Phase 2 (which I'm doing better on, admittedly) because for Phase 1 I am stuck up on top so I have no sense for what the ground phase looks like. We had some (I hate to place blame here, but I saw some healers pull miracles out of their asses so...) DPS who would rather make excuses for why the adds don't go down than to just make the adds go down. But anyways. We're almost there.
Though, if you aren't paying attention to who has died and who has casted Brez, and you have no idea when the phase change is coming, you perhaps are not the best candidate to demand who brezes who. Just sayin'. Let someone who's actually using raid frames and situational awareness take care of that, hmm? Or maybe a RAID LEADER?
Oh, and our ranks are strictly attendance based, so when you take a demotion it is absolutely, positively, 100% NOT PERSONAL. Making it personal and threatening to quit gets you nowhere.
/rant off
We could still stand to recruit a few more people, but I think that's standard fare in a 25-raid, there's always a bit more room. We're raiding this week, and that's great. And if the worst problems I have to deal with this week are "I wish my class had this", then that's not a bad place to be at all. :)
I'm actually quite happy to be a paladin right now. And yes, I am sober. Though I do wish we had a couple more AoE healing options (or rather, that Holy Radiance was a choice instead of a fire-and-forget, perhaps?), we're in a good place. I still miss having a raid-wide bubble (Divine Guardian), and I sure as hell miss Divine Intervention.
It makes me wonder, though, if I had less experience on my other characters if I would feel the same way.
Because I feel like I field a whole lot of "I'm not this" complaints lately. A druid vows that he's rolling a paladin because he's tired of tank healing with hots (tank-healing assignments are by player, not by class, my usual tank healers are AFK to RL lately). A shaman complains that he doesn't have group heals if people aren't stacked up (hello, ALL healing classes suffer from this). If only I had this spell. If only this spell did this effect instead of this. If only my iconic signature healing spell was actually as good as everyone says it is.
I know the truth: it's all close enough. Vixsin has a great write-up for the bench and the top 1% guilds and class balance therein, but I think it's safe to say that for the rest of the world, class balance is "close enough."
When I hear class complaints (from regular mode players), I always get the sense that it's the grass being greener on the other side than any real technical problems. And I'm biased, I know, having experience with all four healers makes me feel pretty confident I could be an asset to my raid no matter which I brought. (Isn't Enlynn so arrogant?!)
I think it's that time of the expansion, though. We hit brick walls on bosses, a key player we got used to having steps out for real-life issues and the void hurts. But instead of saying we miss the person, we say we miss his class mechanics. Sorry, I'm not buying. We miss the player who know to pop a cooldown at the right time. Him being a paladin, a shaman, a priest, not so much the issue. (Though the one night we raided with no priests was a bit weird. Fast forward two weeks and we have 6. Huh?)
And in retrospect, we made it through the summer only having to cancel a couple of raids. I think a few months ago the tones of a lot of my posts were on the verge of grim. We didn't know if we were filling the next raid, but somehow we pulled through. We've even had a waitlist for the past couple of weeks, and been able to let some players take the night off because they needed it without it being too painful for us. So things are looking up, even though we're still stuck on Beth. We got so close.
I hate fights like Beth'tilac not because of Phase 2 (which I'm doing better on, admittedly) because for Phase 1 I am stuck up on top so I have no sense for what the ground phase looks like. We had some (I hate to place blame here, but I saw some healers pull miracles out of their asses so...) DPS who would rather make excuses for why the adds don't go down than to just make the adds go down. But anyways. We're almost there.
Though, if you aren't paying attention to who has died and who has casted Brez, and you have no idea when the phase change is coming, you perhaps are not the best candidate to demand who brezes who. Just sayin'. Let someone who's actually using raid frames and situational awareness take care of that, hmm? Or maybe a RAID LEADER?
Oh, and our ranks are strictly attendance based, so when you take a demotion it is absolutely, positively, 100% NOT PERSONAL. Making it personal and threatening to quit gets you nowhere.
/rant off
We could still stand to recruit a few more people, but I think that's standard fare in a 25-raid, there's always a bit more room. We're raiding this week, and that's great. And if the worst problems I have to deal with this week are "I wish my class had this", then that's not a bad place to be at all. :)
Saturday, July 23, 2011
still upset about crusader aura, take two
I don't often miss game mechanics, at least not on a regular basis. Sure, sometimes I whine about not having Divine Intervention anymore, but honestly it's an artifact of paladin past and I've accepted that.
But I just can't get over not having Aura Mastery work with Crusader Aura anymore. I miss it every time I log in.
A lot of times, I use it just to hear the sound it makes, but I get sad, too, because Aura Mastery has two sound components: the shing of AM and the rahw of Crusader Aura. It only makes the shing now.
QQ
But I just can't get over not having Aura Mastery work with Crusader Aura anymore. I miss it every time I log in.
A lot of times, I use it just to hear the sound it makes, but I get sad, too, because Aura Mastery has two sound components: the shing of AM and the rahw of Crusader Aura. It only makes the shing now.
Monday, March 28, 2011
i'm still upset about crusader aura
This is a QQ post.
In the past, I've ranted about changes for Holy Paladins, but for the most part I've rolled with the nerfs.
Especially the Cata nerfs. I've been pretty positive. The spell costs? No big deal. The Conviction Nerf > Hotfix + Nerf > Nerf = I didn't notice.
But this crusader aura thing?
I have been bummed out since I read about it.
Aura Mastery is a unique ability. Only a Holy Paladin can have this talent.
AM in conjunction with CA was a beautiful thing that made Enlynn unique, and a fun ability to use while farming.
Farming as holy is not faster than with ret. If one must kill things to get to the node, tank and dps spec paladins will win out in faster kill speeds. I still have to blow cooldowns to kill more than a couple things and not run OOM.
I liked having CA for travel during raids. Being the fastest player in the raid had it's advantages, we can start summoning sooner. Especially in Cataclysm, where you can end up hitting three places in one night.
I'm going to miss it.
In the past, I've ranted about changes for Holy Paladins, but for the most part I've rolled with the nerfs.
Especially the Cata nerfs. I've been pretty positive. The spell costs? No big deal. The Conviction Nerf > Hotfix + Nerf > Nerf = I didn't notice.
But this crusader aura thing?
I have been bummed out since I read about it.
Aura Mastery is a unique ability. Only a Holy Paladin can have this talent.
AM in conjunction with CA was a beautiful thing that made Enlynn unique, and a fun ability to use while farming.
Farming as holy is not faster than with ret. If one must kill things to get to the node, tank and dps spec paladins will win out in faster kill speeds. I still have to blow cooldowns to kill more than a couple things and not run OOM.
I liked having CA for travel during raids. Being the fastest player in the raid had it's advantages, we can start summoning sooner. Especially in Cataclysm, where you can end up hitting three places in one night.
I'm going to miss it.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
sharing my toys
Super quick n' snarky post responding to news, is all.
Hurray for shaman buffs! Any buffs to healers is a buff to the team!
And who in the world could have guessed they would revert the LoD nerf?! I am afraid to even mention it, thinking that one day I'm going to log in and it will be un-reverted. Also afraid of subsequent whack-a-mole nerfs, since obviously they still feel we're too good in some way.
The PotI nerf hurts for Chimereaon. I felt so fail last night since I couldn't even keep my group up. They really should keep it the same healing but only make it cost 2 talent points. It's pretty useless as is.
Am I the only one who read:
Really, I hope that druids and shamans get some more cooldowns to play with, I really do, special abilities are fun to use and offer more depth in play. But the cynic in me is bracing up for some bad news for the holy folks instead of good news for resto...
(I did try to warn you that this was a snarky post ><)
Hurray for shaman buffs! Any buffs to healers is a buff to the team!
And who in the world could have guessed they would revert the LoD nerf?! I am afraid to even mention it, thinking that one day I'm going to log in and it will be un-reverted. Also afraid of subsequent whack-a-mole nerfs, since obviously they still feel we're too good in some way.
The PotI nerf hurts for Chimereaon. I felt so fail last night since I couldn't even keep my group up. They really should keep it the same healing but only make it cost 2 talent points. It's pretty useless as is.
Am I the only one who read:
We agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn’t the kind of thing we can address via a hotfix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch.and heard: 'We're going to nerf paladins!'?
Really, I hope that druids and shamans get some more cooldowns to play with, I really do, special abilities are fun to use and offer more depth in play. But the cynic in me is bracing up for some bad news for the holy folks instead of good news for resto...
(I did try to warn you that this was a snarky post ><)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
week 2 of 4.0
Well, we survived the first week of patch 4.0.1, congratulations!
Last week I didn't get much raiding done because Tuesday was canceled, Wednesday we called early (too many people DCing every time they zoned), so we maybe got 3 good hours of raiding. Holy Paladin is... interesting. I jumped into it knowing I had a lot to learn, trying my darnedest to ramp up holy power and get as many Word of Glorys as humanly (spacegoatly?) possible.
It's hard, though, because even busting my ass I feel like I'm just not as useful as those priests and druids. Granted, druids didn't get drastic changes, but I giggle every time I proc replenishment. Hots are neat! Yesterday, I went into a 25 man run with my priest and I HAD SUCH A BLAST WITH CHAKRA. You mean they have a spell that changes depending on what chakra state you go into?! HOLY WORD CHASTISE IS AMAZING OMFG.
Muradin muses about holy paladins in 4.0 in her post "4.0 Healing is a Joke and Paladins are the Punchline." She pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about paladins right now.
Ghostcrawler talks about the present and future of holy paladins here. The long and short of it is, paladins are balanced at 85, not 80, and the spell we get in a couple of levels will make it all better (oh and the MS on Divine Plea is staying. Dfrnt classes r dfrnt!). I don't agree. I have a hard time swallowing that one spell will make the difference. Not when priests and druids have an entire arsenal of cool things. I'm not wishing for nerfs on either of them (I still play them after all), but you could take away one single spell from either of them and it wouldn't change the playstyle too much. Sure, it would suck to not have Prayer of Mending, but I don't think it would "break" priests. Right now, I feel like pallies are broken. The addition of one spell can not--and should not--fix that.
I don't mean for this to be QQ. I can envision the future, where mana is constrained. My paladin does have a lot more mana efficiency than my priest- I ran dangerously close to OOM yesterday on my priest several times, but on my pally I was able to heal heroic Saurfang using all Flash of Light and still couldn't put a dent on my mana pool. I'm not saying mana won't be a consideration for holy paladins, but having two cheap heals and a second resource could end up being more powerful than it is now. Currently, WoG is nice but not necessary. If it becomes necessary (and I think it will), that does change things.
But I just can't compare the fun I had playing my priest to the awkwardness I felt on my paladin. AND SERIOUSLY WHY IN THE HELL DOES DIVINE PLEA STILL HALVE MY HEALING?!?!?!?!
Sorry, I'm done now.
In the next few weeks, I may not be posting very often. Every year I do an excessive amount of cookie baking, and there's about 8 weeks left until Christmas, which means I'm already behind compared to last year. Yeeps. With Cata coming out in about 6 weeks, I'll need to have most of my baking done to start leveling. So, I'll be playing less, and at this point in the expansion I can't think of too many (pressing) blog topics anyways. Things may be quiet around here, but I'll be back to talk about my experiences in Cataclysm. And of course, I'll be passing along links from my favorite paladin bloggers!
Last week I didn't get much raiding done because Tuesday was canceled, Wednesday we called early (too many people DCing every time they zoned), so we maybe got 3 good hours of raiding. Holy Paladin is... interesting. I jumped into it knowing I had a lot to learn, trying my darnedest to ramp up holy power and get as many Word of Glorys as humanly (spacegoatly?) possible.
It's hard, though, because even busting my ass I feel like I'm just not as useful as those priests and druids. Granted, druids didn't get drastic changes, but I giggle every time I proc replenishment. Hots are neat! Yesterday, I went into a 25 man run with my priest and I HAD SUCH A BLAST WITH CHAKRA. You mean they have a spell that changes depending on what chakra state you go into?! HOLY WORD CHASTISE IS AMAZING OMFG.
Muradin muses about holy paladins in 4.0 in her post "4.0 Healing is a Joke and Paladins are the Punchline." She pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about paladins right now.
Ghostcrawler talks about the present and future of holy paladins here. The long and short of it is, paladins are balanced at 85, not 80, and the spell we get in a couple of levels will make it all better (oh and the MS on Divine Plea is staying. Dfrnt classes r dfrnt!). I don't agree. I have a hard time swallowing that one spell will make the difference. Not when priests and druids have an entire arsenal of cool things. I'm not wishing for nerfs on either of them (I still play them after all), but you could take away one single spell from either of them and it wouldn't change the playstyle too much. Sure, it would suck to not have Prayer of Mending, but I don't think it would "break" priests. Right now, I feel like pallies are broken. The addition of one spell can not--and should not--fix that.
I don't mean for this to be QQ. I can envision the future, where mana is constrained. My paladin does have a lot more mana efficiency than my priest- I ran dangerously close to OOM yesterday on my priest several times, but on my pally I was able to heal heroic Saurfang using all Flash of Light and still couldn't put a dent on my mana pool. I'm not saying mana won't be a consideration for holy paladins, but having two cheap heals and a second resource could end up being more powerful than it is now. Currently, WoG is nice but not necessary. If it becomes necessary (and I think it will), that does change things.
But I just can't compare the fun I had playing my priest to the awkwardness I felt on my paladin. AND SERIOUSLY WHY IN THE HELL DOES DIVINE PLEA STILL HALVE MY HEALING?!?!?!?!
Sorry, I'm done now.
In the next few weeks, I may not be posting very often. Every year I do an excessive amount of cookie baking, and there's about 8 weeks left until Christmas, which means I'm already behind compared to last year. Yeeps. With Cata coming out in about 6 weeks, I'll need to have most of my baking done to start leveling. So, I'll be playing less, and at this point in the expansion I can't think of too many (pressing) blog topics anyways. Things may be quiet around here, but I'll be back to talk about my experiences in Cataclysm. And of course, I'll be passing along links from my favorite paladin bloggers!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Rant Incoming - Wow.com
Here's the buzz: The Noisy Rogue, Cranky Healer, and Kurn all have some opinions on the recent choice for the new Holy Pally writer on Wow.com. After reading their complaints, I took a look at the article and was disappointed myself.
Rant #2. Divine Illumination was awesome before 2t10. This is not the first time I've heard a paladin suggest they would only use this ability this way, but the paladins who take this attitude fail. Divine Illumination is good - ridiculously good - and to see it suggested that this ability is useful only with certain gear AND when linked to another ability is limiting and shows a lack of understanding both encounters and paladin healing.
A paladin who is afraid to Plea without cooldowns is a paladin I'm afraid to raid with.
Please bear with me a moment. Divine Plea's MS effect isn't nearly as terrifying as some paladins make it out to be. There are definitely times it shouldn't be used, but there are more times that Divine Plea can be used safely than many paladins give credit for. If a paladin starts thinking of mana regen as a micro-game within the encounter, the best use of DP is early and often. If you're concerned with regaining the most mana in a fight, you should not ever link cooldowns because that is less mana overall than using them seperately.
Divine Illumination. I'm annoyed that the author cares more about the healing boost from this ability than the mana savings of casts during Illumination. Forget the healing boost - for 15 seconds you get really cheap Holy Lights. The best use of Divine Illumination is when you expect to spam as hard and as fast as possible - when you need throughput. 2T10, if you have it, is icing on your spam flavored cake. Heroism is an awesome time to use this ability, but also spam-intense parts of an encounter (Festergut Ph3, Anub Ph3, Marrowgar Ph1, Deathwhisper Ph2, just a few examples). With my level of haste, I can get in 11 Holy Lights each time I'm Illuminated. Without knowing the exact numbers of savings, that's at least 5,500 mana saved every three minutes. If you do like the author says and wait to use this ability till 50% mana, you're only going to get in one Illumination in a given fight. Again, the key is to use it early so you can at least twice a fight.
Avenging Wrath. While on the surface this might seem like it's not a bad idea to pair Plea with Wrath (I've seen it often enough), the idea I presented above is that you don't need to. And if you don't need to use them together, there's a another use for Wrath as well. Spamming Flash of Light. Flash of Light with a 20% oomph (especially when you can spam a tank taking damage with Sacred Shield up for lots of crits) is often just enough a bonus to make Flash worthwhile for twenty seconds. And if there's a moment where you're afraid it won't be enough, it's okay to throw in a Holy Light every few casts (it will be a hefty Light, as well). With the gobs of mp5 available from raid buffs and trinkets, each Flash cast as a HL-specced paladin actually nets you mana (once you have a 30k+ mana pool).
I also disagree with standing on top of the tank for any encounter. If you're concerned about SoW procs, the best place to be is behind the boss. We lack hit rating and expertise to not be dodged and parried, but standing behind the boss will alleviate more of those misses.
I agree that positioning is vital as a holy paladin. We always want to make sure we are moving as little as possible and able to stand and chain-cast as much as can be squeezed out of the encounter. However, in my experiences, there are no encounters that require mass-spamming and movement at the same time. If I have to move from the Slime Spray on Rotface, I don't stress, because Rotface isn't actually hitting the main tank while he's casting the spray. Understanding these encounters and being in the right place before the spam is necessary and using those moment-phases to our advantage is the best way to downplay the weakness of Holy Paladins (limited mobility).
Also there's one cooldown that never gets any mention that's important. Divine Favor. Guaranteed crit Holy Light with mana back? Yes, please! Divine Favor is off the GCD meaning you can macro it to a Holy Light and you will never see any delay. How does this escape the discussion for cooldowns to help keep a tank alive?
I will give this guy credit for one idea. He suggested that when the boss fight is almost done, you start popping any mitigation cooldowns you have left just to make sure the last 10% is smooth. There's merit to that idea... although if you follow his logic, they will still be on cooldown because he blew them all at once! ;D
We can also use Divine Plea during medium damage phases by tying it with a healing boost cooldown like Avenging Wrath or Divine Illumination (with 2pc Tier 10, of course).Incoming Rant #1. Linking abilities with different cooldowns limits how many times you can use them throughout the fight. You will get less uses of each of them when they must be paired together than when they are used individually as appropriate.
Rant #2. Divine Illumination was awesome before 2t10. This is not the first time I've heard a paladin suggest they would only use this ability this way, but the paladins who take this attitude fail. Divine Illumination is good - ridiculously good - and to see it suggested that this ability is useful only with certain gear AND when linked to another ability is limiting and shows a lack of understanding both encounters and paladin healing.
A paladin who is afraid to Plea without cooldowns is a paladin I'm afraid to raid with.
Please bear with me a moment. Divine Plea's MS effect isn't nearly as terrifying as some paladins make it out to be. There are definitely times it shouldn't be used, but there are more times that Divine Plea can be used safely than many paladins give credit for. If a paladin starts thinking of mana regen as a micro-game within the encounter, the best use of DP is early and often. If you're concerned with regaining the most mana in a fight, you should not ever link cooldowns because that is less mana overall than using them seperately.
I like to wait until a phase where I'm casting quite a bit and my mana is lower (less than 50%), and I'll use Divine Illumination and Divine Plea together. I end up with the 25% mana from Divine Plea, and since I was casting pretty often, Divine Illumination saved me 50% on each cast.Divine Plea. The best use, in my humble opinion, is early and often. Don't wait to Plea until you realize you're at half. You've missed out on a lot of mana. When I Plea, I cast as few Holy Lights as I can get away with and still keep my tank comfortably alive. When used properly, you'll still have the throughput needed (in fact, you might just have no overheal instead of the 50% overheal you had before you Plead). Why would you use Plea when you know you need to spam? If you need to spam, you need the throughput! Use Plea when you don't need the throughput.
Divine Illumination. I'm annoyed that the author cares more about the healing boost from this ability than the mana savings of casts during Illumination. Forget the healing boost - for 15 seconds you get really cheap Holy Lights. The best use of Divine Illumination is when you expect to spam as hard and as fast as possible - when you need throughput. 2T10, if you have it, is icing on your spam flavored cake. Heroism is an awesome time to use this ability, but also spam-intense parts of an encounter (Festergut Ph3, Anub Ph3, Marrowgar Ph1, Deathwhisper Ph2, just a few examples). With my level of haste, I can get in 11 Holy Lights each time I'm Illuminated. Without knowing the exact numbers of savings, that's at least 5,500 mana saved every three minutes. If you do like the author says and wait to use this ability till 50% mana, you're only going to get in one Illumination in a given fight. Again, the key is to use it early so you can at least twice a fight.
Avenging Wrath. While on the surface this might seem like it's not a bad idea to pair Plea with Wrath (I've seen it often enough), the idea I presented above is that you don't need to. And if you don't need to use them together, there's a another use for Wrath as well. Spamming Flash of Light. Flash of Light with a 20% oomph (especially when you can spam a tank taking damage with Sacred Shield up for lots of crits) is often just enough a bonus to make Flash worthwhile for twenty seconds. And if there's a moment where you're afraid it won't be enough, it's okay to throw in a Holy Light every few casts (it will be a hefty Light, as well). With the gobs of mp5 available from raid buffs and trinkets, each Flash cast as a HL-specced paladin actually nets you mana (once you have a 30k+ mana pool).
Abuse your cooldowns as often as possible, and leave no stone unturned when it comes to optimizing your mana and healing management.While I agree with the premise of the statement I would like to nitpick at his use of "abuse" (which means to use wrongly or improperly). There are very few ways to abuse an ability in game. Abilities that are powerful often have cooldowns on them to limit their use, and we are not abusing by using them on cooldown, we are using them properly. I present to you my raiding philosophy: if an ability has a cooldown of 2 minutes, Blizzard is balancing the encounter assuming you are using that ability every 2 minutes. While for tanking saving cooldowns for emergencies might be nice, as healers, our mana regen abilities should be used as close to on cooldown as possible. That isn't abuse, that's 'working as intendedTM'.
However, on fights like Festergut, Saurfang, or General Vezax, you can safely stand on top of either tank, safe from all the explosions and acid splashes that threaten the ranged groups.I would not ever recommend standing next to Saurfang for any healer. I've seen groups try it and it doesn't work because the Blood Beasts will invariably beeline towards the healer in range and cause more marks and damage than it's worth. This fight is not at all intense on mana; it's not a throughput fight, it's a focused-target healing fight. This is a fight that showcases the speed of Flash of Light and power of absorbs from Sacred Shield - mana squeezes are not necessary. Also, being further at range can help you support your DPS getting down those beasts - your ability to stun out in the field is valuable.
I also disagree with standing on top of the tank for any encounter. If you're concerned about SoW procs, the best place to be is behind the boss. We lack hit rating and expertise to not be dodged and parried, but standing behind the boss will alleviate more of those misses.
I agree that positioning is vital as a holy paladin. We always want to make sure we are moving as little as possible and able to stand and chain-cast as much as can be squeezed out of the encounter. However, in my experiences, there are no encounters that require mass-spamming and movement at the same time. If I have to move from the Slime Spray on Rotface, I don't stress, because Rotface isn't actually hitting the main tank while he's casting the spray. Understanding these encounters and being in the right place before the spam is necessary and using those moment-phases to our advantage is the best way to downplay the weakness of Holy Paladins (limited mobility).
You could open with HoSac for 12 seconds, followed by DiSac for 10 seconds, ending with improved LoH for an additional 15 seconds, and you've just created a ~40 second window of tank survivability.What encounter demands 40 seconds of this kind of tank survivability? I know the author is talking about Festergut, but I submit to you, dear reader, that there are better uses these abilities individually than chaining them. (see above, Rant #1, where linking abilities with different cooldowns limits how many times you can use them). For Festergut Ph3, it takes more than one person throwing out cooldowns to keep the tank alive. Chaining your abilities during the first Ph3 will make none available to you during the second. Instead, it would be far better to use one or two abilities during the first inhale (alternating them as you see tanks using their own), keeping a third handy for the next (I would save improved LoH because of the amount it can heal for in a pinch, and because you'll only get to use it once a fight anyways). For a fight like Festergut, it's important to remember that Ph3 is a team effort. It takes proper cooldown management from the tank and ALL the healers to make it work.
Also there's one cooldown that never gets any mention that's important. Divine Favor. Guaranteed crit Holy Light with mana back? Yes, please! Divine Favor is off the GCD meaning you can macro it to a Holy Light and you will never see any delay. How does this escape the discussion for cooldowns to help keep a tank alive?
I will give this guy credit for one idea. He suggested that when the boss fight is almost done, you start popping any mitigation cooldowns you have left just to make sure the last 10% is smooth. There's merit to that idea... although if you follow his logic, they will still be on cooldown because he blew them all at once! ;D
Friday, February 12, 2010
QQ: My Mana Pool Is Too Big!
My mana pool is too big...
...to receive Replenishment in a 25 man raid with only one replenisher. Lately, that's all we had. I am probably the only person in the raid who cares. It means that only 10 people (with the lowest mana) receive this buff-that-gives-you-lots-of-mana when the replenisher his that special button in his rotation. It means that five to ten of us are left unbuffed each time.
It's like need before greed. Obviously, it makes sense to do it this way. A buff that gives you mana, if "smart", should definitely assign it by need, naturally, the people with the least mana need it the most.
However, the disparity of mana pools does impede those who focus on having larger pools to work with. Retribution and protection paladins have a mana pool of approximately 7,000. Hunters in ICC gear are sporting 16,000 to 17,000 mana. Caster DPS in our raids have anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000, and only a couple of us healers clear 30,000 (our mages all focus on Intellect and have 30,000 to 33,000).
That means that the smaller your mana pool, the more guaranteed your getting Replenishment, even if you get less mana per tick than someone with a larger mana pool. A hunter with 99% mana (15,999 of 16,000) will get the buff before me, unless I have spent 61% of my mana pool just to so that the server will consider me a candidate for the buff. I have to exhaust my resources considerably just to be eligible for Replenishment in this scenario.
My mana pool is by far the largest, after all, I'm an intellect-stacking holy-light spamming holy paladin. Part of the reason that Intellect is so great for us is because of all the mana regen that is based on max mana. Replenishment is a lot of mana for us. I've been vocal that I consider Replenishment overpowered because when I have it, things are often trivialized. When I don't, I am in danger of going OOM with out thoughtful cooldown management.
Oh, QQ, healers have to manage cooldowns just like everyone else.
Life without replenishment sucks. Ok, yeah, most content is trivial and it doesn't matter and QQ MOAR you don't need Replenishment, Enlynn. *sigh* Except, when it's not trivial. For Festergut and Rotface (progression for our guild), I end those fights with less than a thousand mana. Healing without replenishment sucks. It's stressful because Blizzard designed the encounters around having Replenishment. A holy paladin in ICC gear can expect 33,650 mana from Replenishment in a seven minute fight. That's 29 Holy Lights I get extra just by having a replenisher in the raid. OR, if I don't have replenishment, that's 29 Holy Lights I don't get to cast.
Obviously, the best course of action for me would be to convince our mages that they are not getting their fair share of Replenishment (and that it's hurting their DPS), and they should demand MOAR RESTOPLENISHMENT for our raid group.
My mana pool is too big! QQ
...to receive Replenishment in a 25 man raid with only one replenisher. Lately, that's all we had. I am probably the only person in the raid who cares. It means that only 10 people (with the lowest mana) receive this buff-that-gives-you-lots-of-mana when the replenisher his that special button in his rotation. It means that five to ten of us are left unbuffed each time.
It's like need before greed. Obviously, it makes sense to do it this way. A buff that gives you mana, if "smart", should definitely assign it by need, naturally, the people with the least mana need it the most.
However, the disparity of mana pools does impede those who focus on having larger pools to work with. Retribution and protection paladins have a mana pool of approximately 7,000. Hunters in ICC gear are sporting 16,000 to 17,000 mana. Caster DPS in our raids have anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000, and only a couple of us healers clear 30,000 (our mages all focus on Intellect and have 30,000 to 33,000).
That means that the smaller your mana pool, the more guaranteed your getting Replenishment, even if you get less mana per tick than someone with a larger mana pool. A hunter with 99% mana (15,999 of 16,000) will get the buff before me, unless I have spent 61% of my mana pool just to so that the server will consider me a candidate for the buff. I have to exhaust my resources considerably just to be eligible for Replenishment in this scenario.
My mana pool is by far the largest, after all, I'm an intellect-stacking holy-light spamming holy paladin. Part of the reason that Intellect is so great for us is because of all the mana regen that is based on max mana. Replenishment is a lot of mana for us. I've been vocal that I consider Replenishment overpowered because when I have it, things are often trivialized. When I don't, I am in danger of going OOM with out thoughtful cooldown management.
Oh, QQ, healers have to manage cooldowns just like everyone else.
Life without replenishment sucks. Ok, yeah, most content is trivial and it doesn't matter and QQ MOAR you don't need Replenishment, Enlynn. *sigh* Except, when it's not trivial. For Festergut and Rotface (progression for our guild), I end those fights with less than a thousand mana. Healing without replenishment sucks. It's stressful because Blizzard designed the encounters around having Replenishment. A holy paladin in ICC gear can expect 33,650 mana from Replenishment in a seven minute fight. That's 29 Holy Lights I get extra just by having a replenisher in the raid. OR, if I don't have replenishment, that's 29 Holy Lights I don't get to cast.
Obviously, the best course of action for me would be to convince our mages that they are not getting their fair share of Replenishment (and that it's hurting their DPS), and they should demand MOAR RESTOPLENISHMENT for our raid group.
My mana pool is too big! QQ
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