Paladins, Protectors of the Light

September 1st, 2009

I didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s an interesting contrast to go from the once Horde-only class to the once Alliance-only class—the Paladin. A lot of people will roll a class because that’s what their friends play; I tend to be just the opposite. I like to play the class less rolled, the underrepresented role, so I’m in as little direct competition as possible. That’s why it was surprising for me to find myself with a level 80 Paladin when our guild runs with 7 on regular basis in 25mans.

Originally I leveled up my paladin to help a out a friend leveling a Disc Priest; he got tired of questing and wanted something to heal XD so I met him at level 40 and we ran around together until 73 or so. Then through the course of my working full time and his ability to play at work, he some how managed to hit 80 with my lowly pally still stuck at 73. I kind of became disheartened and put some time into my level 39 twink rogue, but inevitably, my pally did hit 80.

I had her specced Ret for leveling because it made more sense to kill stuff as DPS >.> but I also had a generally unused dual Prot spec. Once I hit 80 I tried to collect as many tanking pieces as I could to test out a Heroic UK run which ended up in disaster. Among many tips I can give for fledgling tanks (I’ll probably file that away for a later post) is to NOT bring two well geared Ret Pallies for you maiden tanking voyage—it will only end in tears!

Anyways, without further ado, Paladins, Protectors of the Light.

Blessed Buffing

As far as I know, Paladins have always had the “blessing” mechanic, it just wasn’t always as pretty as it is today (even though many would use other words to describe it now…). The current buffs available to any paladin regardless of spec are Blessing of Might, Wisdom, and Kings. Blessing of Kings is a buff entirely unique to Paladins that, after much movement throughout the various trees, is trainable at level 20.

Wisdom is similar to the Shaman Mana Spring totem, providing a Mana per 5 seconds buff. Because these two buffs don’t stack, the order of overwriting goes as follows: Mana Spring (91 mp5) < Blessing of Wisdom (92 mp5) < Mana Spring with Restorative Totems (109.2 mp5) < Improved Blessing of Wisdom (110.4 mp5). I think I have observed the Improved Mana Spring Totem actually overwrite an Improved Wisdom due to rounding and possibly some RNG, but the preceding is the calculated priority.

Might is similar to the Warrior’s Battle Shout in that it provides the group with an Attack Power buff. Again, these two buffs don’t stack anymore so the overwriting priority goes: Battle Shout (548 AP) < Blessing of Might (550 AP) < Battle Shout with Commanding Presence (685 AP) < Improved Blessing of Might (687.5 AP). These figures come from Wowhead.com, despite the fact that I was under the impression Battle Shout overwrote Might, it appears the opposite is true.

Other Things All Paladins Can Offer

Paladins also provide the raid group with auras that assist with minor things. Their auras include Devotion, Retribution, Concentration, Crusader, Fire Resistance, Shadow Resistance and Frost Resistance. Paladin auras do not stack with each other, and the resistance auras don’t stack with the Shaman resistance totems.

Aside from those, Paladins also have an array of spells to offer the group. Their Hand of Protection (originally Blessing of Protection) shields a player making them immune to physical damage, while still being able to cast or move around, as well as removing and physical debuffs, such as Impale. Hand of Freedom removes movement debuffs such as slows and roots and makes the target immune to them for the duration of the spell. Lay on Hands is also a long cool down spell that heals the target for the caster’s maximum health.

Paladins also have a spell called Divine Intervention that allows them to sacrifice themselves (without taking durability damage) in order to make a group member completely immune to everything and removing them from combat for the duration of the spell; this is one of the many “wipe” recovery techniques available.

Cleanse, Turn Evil, Holy Wrath, Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Salvation (the new “Blessing of Salvation” o.O), Judgments of Light and Wisdom, and Hammer of Justice are many more in a long list of skills (and I’ve probably overlooked a few at that…) a paladin can bring to a group. There’s no doubt that a Paladin, no matter what the spec, will make an excellent addition to any group composition, given that they know what they have to offer and can manage to stay out of the fire :P

Holy Paladins

Holy Pallies, aside from their icon single target heal spamming, have a few things they can provide a group as well. For starters, their talented Improved Blessing of Wisdom is the highest calculated form of mana regen with which a group can be buffed. Beacon of Light, the 51-point Holy talent allows a Paladin to essentially heal twice as much for their mana, keeping two targets up at the same time.

The 11-point talent, Aura Mastery, allows a Holy Pally to grant their group immunity to Silence and Interrupt effects for 10 seconds via their Concentration Aura. I haven’t healed as a Paladin yet, so I’m not too sure how effective or valuable this talent might be or how many even use it, but it certainly seems like it would have its use.

I’d also like to point out (being a Shaman) that Concentration Aura DOES stack with the Eye of the Storm Shaman talent, letting an Elemental Shaman suffer no spell push back (still doesn’t apply to interrupts though).

Retribution Paladins

These are the DPS breed, and aside from generally providing good melee dps, they bring the coveted Improved Blessing of Might (doesn’t stack with Battle Shout). Going down the tree, Ret Pallies also have the ability to talent into Vindication which temporarily reduces the target’s attack power by 46 (*makes a mental note to respec Paladin to DROP this talent* >.>).

Heart of the Crusader allows Paladins to provide a +3% crit chance debuff to an enemy, but this does not stack with the Elemental Shaman Totem of Wrath or the Assassination Rogue’s Master Poisoner. Sanctified Retribution increases the damage all group members effected by the Paladin’s aura by 3% (I’m pretty sure this doesn’t stack with itself).

Repentance is the Ret Pally CC ability that incapacitates a target for a minute unless damaged, similar to sheeping, but not as easily maintained. Judgments of the Wise is probably one of the most efficient replenishment abilities as far as upkeep versus dps. Swift Retribution gives a +3% haste buff through the Paladin’s Aura and the combination of Art of War plus Sheath of Light allows a Ret Pally to insta-cast a Flash of Light on someone applying a HoT on crit.

Protection Paladins

The first icon buff that a Prot Pally can provide a group with is Blessing of Sanctuary. Up until the previous patch, this spell just provided the reduced damage buff, but Blizzard got tired of seeing Tanks opt for Kings over Sanc, so they buffed Sanctuary to give a +10% Stamina effect (doesn’t stack with Kings).

Divine Sacrifice is a talent that I picked up on my Paladin that I kind of have to play around with a little. The key to using this ability is to have either Divine Shield or Divine Protection up before using it, that way you just keep absorbing damage for the whole duration of the spell because the bubble absorbs it all.

You have to be careful though because when healers suddenly see the whole raid taking damage, and you suddenly start taking on 40% of that damage, you tend to go splat >.>’ Also, using Divine Shield is generally not a good idea when tanking mobs <.<’ I tend to use it on fights like Loken in Halls of Lightning when he does his big explosion. He stands there and casts, so I put up Divine Shield and Sacrifice to take some of the party damage, then taunt (because I’ve lost aggro by this point) and remove Divine Shield and finish out the fight. It’s kind of weird, I know, but it works for me.

Avenger Shield is also a useful tool, not only for the pull, but also for during combat as a silencing ability. I’ve used it on Kel’Thuzad and Iron Concil as a ranged interrupt, so with the combination of Hammer of Justice, Prot Pallies have two different interrupts in their arsenal.

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*blinks*

August 25th, 2009

I guess I should have expected something this to happen. I really apologize for going so long without a post; I got rather caught up with several things that seemed to suck up all my time. Yes yes a lot if it was WoW—I knew I was going back to school so I wanted to get in as much time as I could before I had to be responsible again. So far I’m doing pretty well. I got on to raid last night, then logged off and read some for my Operating Systems class :) It also just occurred to me that today is maintainance, as I haven’t even tried to log in yet. *falls over from patting back too hard*

Anyways, to catch anyone up who cares, I finished my Texas trip and came back home, started making some preparations for the fall like lining up scholarships and filling out my FAFSA (DEATH TO FAFSA D:<). I’ve got my part time web development job set up as well, so I should be making some extra cash while I schools mahself. While I expect to leave much of my available time during the day for homework and the part time position, I should be able to arrange some time for teh blog *blows dust off the sidebars* I will first be picking up my class guide that I left off at Shamans because I don’t want people thinking I’m that vain about my class >.>’

In WoW News…

In case anyone didn’t go to Blizzcon or read MMO-Champion lately, Blizzard has announced the next expansion—Cataclysm. Apparently Deathwing (o_O’) is back and has torn Azeroth asunder. The premise of this expac is that they’re planning on redesigning the Vanilla zones post-Cataclysmic style and allowing the much sought after old world flying capability. Class/Race combinations are being updated, along with the addition of two new races: Goblins (H) and Worgen (A). It sounds nice and all, but I still don’t know how I feel about it.

Currently on Argent Dawn the instance server issue is it’s worst. Starting about 5pm server you have trouble getting into level 80 heroics ( i.e. it takes 30+ minutes of portal grinding to get in), which is absolutely ridiculous. Apparently after 5 you have to either raid, PVP, or run around aimlessly if you want to play World of Warcraft. What if you want to do non-heroics? Or old world content? Lol….

I made two level 60 characters for an experiment on our realm called Years Behind. A handful of individuals started this guild to see if there was any interest in raiding at 60 legit by turning off exp gain. The maiden voyage was three weeks ago when we had a ZG raid lined up for a Saturday. We had 15 60s show up to enter the instance and 20 level 60s in the guild at the time. Unfortunately after several members of the raid spent 3 hours (yes… hours) trying to get into the stupid instance, they called it. We tried again the next saturday only to have the same result. It was extremely disheartening.

Then one night a friend and I were trying to get into Onyxia’s Lair at 1am. We spent an hour without getting in. In the middle of the night… That’s when I first read the post on MMO-Champion and it really infuriated me. Blizzard is announcing that they’re basically planning on removing ALL the old content and making it level 80/85+ content. So not only will the content we made characters especially for be going away, but we can’t even run it right now because of the stupid instance servers.

Honestly I’m to the point that if they release the next major content patch before the servers are fixed I might stop playing. It’s frustrating me that much. Why should I pay money every month if I only get to do end-game raiding? I’m sure some people don’t have a problem with that, but I like playing more of the game than that. That doesn’t even mention all the people who have recently started playing the game who can’t get into ANY of the instances to level. That’s a humongous chunk of experience, gear, and lore that they’re all missing out on. It’s really frustrating, and I’m almost fed up with it.

On the Brighter Side of News…

I got my priest to 80 this past weekend as the product of some mysterious leveling obsession I found. Probably has something to do with the fact that I got her epic and cold weather flying >.> As soon I leveled and went to go train spells, another guildmate of mine who had also just hit 80 asked if I wanted to come heal naxx with him. Heh we tried to two heal it at first and that was a disaster XD Then we brought in a tree from the guild and all was well. I actually went shadow for most of it. I went in with blues and greens and came out in all epics but 2… not bad for a night’s work <.<’

[Edit]
Come to find out I had level 60 and 70 rank healing spells on my bar because I always ended up training in my Shadow Spec so the Holy Spec bars didn’t get updated >.>’ Priest healing is much easier now XD
[/Edit]

My ultimate goal for this character is to get her looking like the image to the left—full T6 with the Etherium Life Staff off Solarian. I basically leveled this character to be able to wear T6. OCD? Maybe, but then again if I were, it would have to be CDO to be in alphabetical order o.o

I also swtiched Audrae from Spellcloth to Mooncloth tailoring because I figured Moonshroud would probably help me out the most right now, and I don’t even use my spellcloth CD anymore. I got my warlock up to 68 for Alchemy Transmute Mastery and started xmuting epic gems with her <3 I will probably work on leveling her up to 80 next, but I won’t push too much for a while. My priority for the next week or so is making sure I have my classes taken care of and my schooling in order :)

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Shamans, the Ancestral Guides

July 24th, 2009

For those that don’t know, the shaman class was only available to the horde in Vanilla WoW (as paladins were only available to the alliance). With the release of Burning Crusade, alliance gained the Draenei who could be shamans (supposedly they picked up the trade from the Orcs o.O). As Burning Crusade went on, I always felt surrounded by other shaman and just about anything but unique, but somehow I always managed to find a niche in groups.

My raiding experience has allowed me to glean much knowledge of how shamans can participate in fights in distinct ways to make encounters more successful. So here goes the first chapter of my series—Shamans, the Ancestral Guides.

General Shaman Buffs

Even now in Wrath after Blizzard has done so much consolidating of classes, there’s still some unique mechanics that Shamans bring to groups. For one thing, all Draenei provide a 1% hit buff to their party (it is not raid-wide), a very powerful group buff for every class. Shamans also provide Heroism/Bloodlust which has yet to be matched by any class. Purge is a spell that allows you to offensively remove magic effects from enemies and works similarly to Dispel Magic, Tranquilizing Shot, and Spellsteal.

Earth Shock and Wind Shock are currently spells that interrupt spell casting, but can only be done at a 20 yard range. In Patch 3.2 Earth Shock is being changed to function similarly to Thunderclap and Wind Shock is being renamed Wind Shear, but having the same effect.

Totems are widely considered the outstanding mechanic to the shaman class. Every shaman has the ability to absorb most single target spells (for some reason this doesn’t work on Kel’Thuzad when people accidentally pull aggro during Mind Control…). Shamans also have a various damaging totems to drop that by a precious few seconds of distraction after aggro dumps. Tremor Totem is also invaluable in fights with fear mechanics.

Mana Spring totem provides the same buff as the regular Blessing of Wisdom Paladin buff, except the buff provides 1 extra MP5 so the totem doesn’t overwrite the buff. In most cases, if you can afford to, Blessing of Wisdom is generally a more reliable way of achieving the MP5. Healing Stream, however, stacks and can’t be overwritten, so if you have a shaman or paladin providing either of the previous buffs, have the rest drop Healing Stream.

Shamans also have resistance totems that provide 130 resistance to Frost Damage (fire totem), Nature Damage (wind totem), and Fire Damage (water totem). These will stack with Gift of the Wild, but do not stack with Paladin Auras or Aspect of the Wild.

Elemental

Of course I have the most experience and knowledge of this spec, so I figured I would start out strong :) Elemental Shamans are caster genre dps, and, aside from the generic shaman buffs, provide 2 talented buffs. The first is Totem of Wrath. Before patch 3.0 it provided 3% spell crit and hit to party members; after 3.0 it provided 3% crit and 280 spell power to the raid. I was rather frustrated at first because it meant that I had lost another 3% hit rating and had to regem accordingly *grumble*

However 280 spell power is still a significant buff that no other class can provide, and the 3% crit rating is always nice. However, the crit buff or debuff on the boss from Totem of Wrath does not stack with the Ret Pally talent Heart of the Crusader or the Assasination Rogue talent Master Poisoner. There’s currently a glitch where when those buffs are applied to the boss, the Totem of Wrath aura gets cancelled and does not get reapplied; this is somewhat bothersome, especially if the rogue or paladin dies.

The other buff that Elemental Shamans provide is the talent Elemental Oath. Even with 0% crit rating, a shaman can maintain 100% uptime of this buff through Flame Shock + Lava Burst. However, this buff does not stack with the Balance Druid Moonkin Aura.

Elemental Shamans also have a knockback spell that can be beneficial when used at appropriate times, like knocking mobs away from healers and back towards the tanks, but please be careful when using it >.> Thunderstorm CAN stack with other knockback spells such as Typhoon and Blast Wave, so be careful not to knock mobs way too far away into other packs <.<’

Enhancement

Enhance Shamans are melee genre dps. I haven’t exactly messed around with the Enhance tree other than to dual wield Arlokk’s and Thekal’s Grasp for Halloween last year >.>’ but I have a pretty good idea what they do. The normal Strength of Earth totem buffs the raid with 155 Strength and Agility, but doesn’t stack with the Death Knight’s Horn of Winter; however, if the shaman puts points into Enhancing Totems, their Strength of Earth will override the Death Knight buff.

Another buff that Enhance Shamans provide is the Improved Windfury Totem, giving the raid 20% melee haste; however, this doesn’t stack with the Frost Death Knight talent Improved Icy Talons. I wish I knew more to say about Enhancement… but perhaps I will glean some more information from people and add it in later ^_^’

[later] Thanks to a tip from Rakhman, it was pointed out that Enhancement Shamans also provide a 10% damage buff to the melee via Unleashed Rage; however this does not stack with Trueshot Aura or Abomination’s Might. Thanks for the info :)

Restoration

The first thing that Resto Shamans, the healing spec, bring to a raid group is Improved Mana Spring Totem and Mana Tide. Improved Mana Spring Totem overrides even the Improved Blessing of Wisdom buff from Holy Paladins, and Mana Tide Totem is like a mini Innervate; although I haven’t verified this, I believe that Mana Tide and Innervate stack.

Resto Shamans can also spec into Cleanse Spirit which allows them to decurse alongside Druids and Mages. Decursing was incredibly important for Naxxaramas with the Noth and Sapphiron fights, but doesn’t seem to be all that crucial in Ulduar until you get to Yogg-saron phase 2, so some Resto Shamans don’t even pick up this talent if the group composition allows it.

Earth Shield is one of the more peculiar healing mechanics in the game, allowing a Resto Shaman to place an orbital mass to heal the tank. Aside from multiple Earth Shields not stacking on the same target, I’m not aware of any other spell that can interfere with the shield. Ancestral Healing is a talent that buffs the Shaman’s target with extra armor when their spell crits, but this does not stack with the Holy Priest talent Inspiration.

The Wrap-up

I’m sure there’s something that I’ve missed, but I think that gives a pretty good idea of what Shamans have to offer. Whether you play a shaman or are putting a group together, be sure to keep in mind all the things Shamans have to offer. Also remember that since 3.0 most totems are raidwide so bringing more than one of each type of shaman will cause you to run out of totems to drop. It’s the idea that over-synergizing your group causes you to have unutilized buffs that could be replaced with pure dps (with the exception of having two resto shamans).

Heads up! Next post should be about Paladins; I have a little knowledge under my belt, but I will have to do some research.

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A New Agenda

July 20th, 2009

It’s funny—when I first started this blog, I was so anxious for the next day to come so I could post something new. I had to force myself to wait and not actually make more than one post a day :P Lately I’ve found myself quite caught up with things, travel, friends, etc. I feel so bad for neglecting my child lol. BUT! I have a new plan that should at least fix things for a few days >.>’

I plan to make a post each day for the next several days regarding the unique things that each class can bring to a group. For a lot of classes, like mages and warriors, I probably won’t be as all-encompassing as I will be for shamans and pallies because I haven’t been fortunate enough to delve into all the classes yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what each class is capable. I’m also pretty good at researching things, so I’ll have some good exercises to get my brain in shape for the Fall Semester.

So bear with me and stay tuned. I’m still visiting with family and whatnot, but hopefully I’ll be able to break away a little bit here and there :) Heads up, I’ll be starting out with shamans in hopes that I can stay motivated.

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TGIF! I think… *checks calendar*

July 17th, 2009

So I was supposed to up and out the door about 4 hours ago getting new tires on my truck and making my way towards Southern Texas, but something about the soothing sound of morning rain kept convincing me to hit the snooze button >.> Somehow or another I managed to roll out of bed and make my way about gathering my belongings in preparation to travel. I figured it would be at least nice to leave an update post for the people that like having something to read :)

Tier 9

*grumpy grumpy grumpy* I’m still not impressed with the T9 sets >.> I have a right mind to set up a mod to automatically equip my T6 set whenever I’m in town just because the models of the new gear are so visually upsetting. I guess upsetting isn’t the most accurate term, perhaps more like indistinguishable or unimpressive. However, the bonuses for Elemental are probably the best set bonuses yet for this expansion.

From what I can tell, shamans in general are pumped about what 3.2 is going to bring as far as the totem bars and set bonuses. I certainly see the new totem UI being a DPS increase as that’s 3 GCDs fewer I’ll have to worry about in long fights or fights that move around a lot. Also, the 2-piece bonus that increases Flame Shock’s DoT duration means an extra lightning bolt every 30 seconds or so. Considering crit rating and whatnot in a boss fight, that’s 64k more damage roughly (for me), so I’m pumped about it.

Sorry there’s not much more >.>” Perhaps I’ll find something interesting or witty and amend it later today…

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Something Light

July 16th, 2009

Today I’m going to talk a little bit about healing. So far Blizzard has established four main healing classes in the game—Paladins, Priests, Shamans and Druids. Each class has a special tree with talents that benefit their healing abilities. Up until patch 3.0, each healing class had a unique niche when it came to groups. While I’m far from being an expert at any of these classes, I have managed to dabble a little with each type of healing and would like to share my thoughts on them.

Restoration Shamans

Resto Shamans were a big item at the end of BC because of Heroism/Bloodlust and Chain Heal. Many raid groups would bring 4 or 5 of them to just Chain Heal groups through BT, Hyjal and Sunwell. It was true what they said—Chain Heal was broken. At 70 a crit Chain Heal could heal for up to 7k (or more, I never really observed meters or reports); that’s an incredible amount of healing for a spell that will wind up hitting two more targets.

Due to Chain Heal’s long cast time, many Resto Shamans would stack haste to become more precise in their healing, especially when it came to fights that required a lot of moving. Every now and then when raid damage was low, you could toss a Lesser Healing Wave or two. In general I’m of the opinion that Healing Wave is an ineffective means of healing except in certain circumstances, but it’s always possible that future content may provide a use for it.

In BC Resto Shamans were intensive raid healers, mainly focusing on the melee by Chain Healing off the tank. However, in Wrath a lot of the focus has been spread to other abilities like Lesser Healing Wave and the new 51-point talent, Riptide. Riptide + Chain Heal makes a very good combo, and perhaps when I have the time to mess with it, I will tweak the mechanics to make them more efficient for myself :)

Holy Paladins

Holy Paladins have always had the niche of single target healing. Given a single target for healing, a Holy Pally of comparable gear will not only out heal you, but will keep healing long after your mana pool as run out if they know what they’re doing. In BC Holy Pallies had three spells—Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock (yeah yeah and Lay on Hands, but that doesn’t really count >.>). They were strictly tank healers and had some base difficulty healing multiple targets.

However with the release of 3.0, Holy Pallies got a new skill called Beacon of Light, which allowed them to designate a secondary target for their heals, essentially allowing them to seriously heal two targets at once. As of now the player with the Beacon of Light buff does not get any benefit from overhealing done on nearby players, but that’s supposed to change in 3.2, giving paladins a significant buff in healing mechanics.

I haven’t actually had the chance to practice Holy Pally healing yet, but I have been forging a set for it; I certianly want to try my hand at it some day.

Restoration Druids

Ah, the tree—an interesting new healing mechanic that came with Burning Crusade and the Tree of Life 41-point talent in the Druid Restoration tree (no pun intended). A rather bizarre addition to the animal shape-shifting abilities of the class, Tree Form increases the druid’s healing based on their Spirit and also increases the healing group members receive. In terms of group composition, trees offer some really handy healing buffs that I don’t normally hear people consider when forming a group (this could just be because everyone has a resto druid already <.<).

Trees are the kings (and queens if you will) of HoTs, healing over time, with their main arsenal of spells including Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Lifebloom (BC). Essentially that means you cast a spell and it heals for a small amount every couple of seconds over a period of time instead of straight heals. This mechanic often makes resto druids some of the most efficient healers, but it’s not guaranteed. The idea behind it is that as your spells heal for smaller amounts on a regular basis, you’re more likely to fill the gaps in damage and straight healing, but it’s not always a perfect process.

When the patches for Wrath were released along with the new 51-point talents, resto druids were given a new multi-target HoT spell called Wild Growth which hits up to 5 targets (6 with the glyph) within 10 yards. They were also given a new single target straight healing spell called Nourish which gains more effectiveness when you already have HoTs on the target. Blizzard has given them a little more functionality, but HoTs are still a druid’s core healing spells.

I have a level 80 druid myself who is primarily specced resto. I loved healing with her in BC, but unfortunately she’s fallen into the shadows of alt-hood with Wrath. I think there’s been an overwhelming amount of trees involved in my social circle lately, making her less unique; not to mention there’s so many other good trees out there that I think I’m somewhat afraid of being shown up <.<’ I should break out my tree more often though :)

Holy Priests

Priests have often been listed as the champions of the healing class, probably due to the fact that two of their class trees are dedicated to healing. Priests have probably more healing spells than any other class including Renew, Prayer of Healing, Greater Heal, Prayer of Mending, Power Word: Shield, etc. , though a few of them are kind of pointless. Let me explain:

Flash Heal Rank 3 Lesser Heal Rank 3
1.5 sec cast 2.5 sec cast
20% base mana 36% base mana
heals for 327 to 393 heals for 135 to 157
Heal Rank 4 Greater Heal Rank 4
3 sec cast 3 sec cast
36% base mana 36% base mana
heals for 712 to 804 heals for 1798 to 2006

So if someone could explain that to me sometime… that would be great because I can’t for the life of me figure out why these spells (Lesser Healer and Heal) are in the game at all… Anyways, with that nonsense out of the way… Priests have a great number of healing spells in their arsenal. Because of that, priests never really had a niche in a group, but rather could fill any gap if needed.

I have found leveling up my own priest that Holy is really nice for group healing with spells like Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing (take note that PoH is supposed to be nerfed next patch). Not entirely sure what Prayer of Mending does overall because it’s one of those heals that does it’s own thing, but I see from meters that it does a significant amount of work for a “set it and forget it” spell.

Discipline is a tree I’m much less familiar with, but my understanding is that it was at one time an amazing hybrid spec that allowed you to either dps or heal (similar to the druid feral tree allowing you to tank or dps). From my understanding the Disc tree buffs your bubble a lot, reducing the cool down and increasing the amount of damage it takes before it… pops >.>’ Pennance has done a lot to make the Discipline tree completely viable in raids, and made disc priests excellent single target healers as well.

I look forward to getting my priest to 80 and working out the different trees—it’s definitely a class that has a lot of depth to it.

Healing as an Attitude

I definitely thing most people have an affinity towards a certain role in WoW. In general there’s tanking, healing and dps, but even inside of those categories, certain people will perform better at one niche than another. I know plenty of people that only play tanks, or only play healers, or only play dps; I also know people that have 2 or 3 level 80 characters, but they span all three roles.

Some of the best healers I know put their hearts into their classes, most of whom have alts that are healers as well. One good friend of mine once said they really wanted to have one of each healing class, partly to better understand how each class works, but to have a better knowledge of healing altogether. I’ve somehow managed to get a few different healing-capable classes myself, and I have to say that healing is definitely an art form. I highly admire those that can do it on a professional level.

I discovered in my pondering around the time Wrath came out that the mace is the only weapon useable by all 4 healing classes. Paladins can’t use daggers or staves, but they’re the only ones who can use swords. That leaves maces as the only spell power weapon common to Paladins, Shamans, Priests and Druids—that was the main reason people guessed so early on that Val’anyr would be a legendary healing weapon.

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The Online Melting Pot

July 13th, 2009

For those that don’t remember their History lessons from grade school, the United States was often referred to as “The Great Melting Pot” because of all the different types of cultures that were united on common ground. As a result, our culture is extremely diverse and ever-changing.

Today I set off on my two-week tour of Texas to visit all the family (so any form of consistency my blog did or did not have will almost certainly have some inconsistency).  As I drove back to my home state, I began to think of my past, present and future. I have no idea where I will end up geographically speaking, but I know that The South will always have a presence in my past, should I find myself making a life elsewhere.

All that pondering got me thinking about culture variations and what it might mean for me and my family someday, and then I began to think about the effect it has on WoW.

The Guild Effect

Some guilds are comprised of local individuals that all play WoW together. Some guilds are built from people who only know each other through WoW. Either way, unless you’re pretty restrictive about recruiting people for your guild, you will find yourself in the midst of some players from all around the world.

If you’re not in an entirely local guild, you might be surprised at the different regions represented on your roster. Making a guild map can really open your eyes to where people are geographically (no stalker business now…). I learned that we have a significant number of individuals from Canada, as well as one or two in the Philippines o.o

It’s natural for guilds to wind up generally occupying just two to three time zones because people will want to be on playing at peak log-in times for their guild. Of course, though, there’s always the one or two odd individuals that will play whenever it suits them :P

Raid times are generally what effects the distribution of your members geographically. Certain raid times will benefit certain time zones based on your general work/school schedule, so people will often migrate to groups that raid at times lining up with their personal free time.

The Role Culture Plays

Blizzard had certianly acknowledged the worldwide acclaim of World of Warcraft by developing realm groupings based on country. So far we have US, European, Korean, Chinese and Taiwan, and I think I’ve heard news of Russian servers in the works (feel free to fill in on any zones I’ve overlooked, I’m afraid I haven’t done my homework on this =X).

Aside from geographical targeting and languages associated with each region of servers, there’s a few game play differences. For instance, on Chinese servers the Forsaken race has a different model than it does on other servers due to cultural beliefs regarding corpses and the revealing of bones.

Blizzard does all kinds of region-specific marketing. I think most people know about the World of Warcraft commercials, in different languages, along with the numerous knock-offs. There’s also the various holidays through out the year such as the Lunar Festival and Brewfest that are modeled after actual cultural celebrations.

It’s quite obvious that Blizzard is aware of the people playing their game. I think it’s really interesting to see how the different cultures influence the game both socially as well as developmentally.

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Change (previously “Under New Management”)

July 9th, 2009

Well I was completely blown away last night at my raid. Once we got everyone in vent, my guild leader announced that she and her husband, the raid leader, would be stepping down from their positions. I have a pretty good idea why they have decided to make this move, but I think their reasons are best left as personal.

I’ve had a lot of tears and laughter with both of these individuals. While I didn’t always agree with them, and at many times was very angry at them both, it would be ignorant to let their contributions to the guild and raid group go unnoticed. I feel like my friend made an excellent Guild Leader, but I think the strain and stress of dealing with people’s problems (very many have been my own) have probably weighed heavily on her in this latest expansion. I can’t think of an individual of value that wasn’t fond of Ahi. I’m sure everyone will remember our former leader with gladness, and she will certainly leave a legacy behind her.

Her husband, the Raid Leader, seemed to do a decent job at not letting things get to him, almost to a fault. Yes, he did a good job making sure his gear was gemmed and enchanted—did a good job preparing himself for raids, but I think his lack of people skills was his Achilles’s Heel. He has this tendency to bear everything on his shoulders that he could, and while this may be a noble gesture, his attempts at being the martyr ended up causing some problems in the end.

I think perhaps at some point he forgot that the raid had other people in it heh. A lot of us were generally bright and intelligent people with varying perspectives of insight to contribute to the group. It wasn’t always about who had the best ideas or finding ways to make Bez look bad; a raid group succeeds together just as much as they fail together. We all put in our monthly fee (fees for some >.>’), we all put in our time each week, and we all want to see things go well.

It always seemed like the harder things got, the bleaker situations seemed, the more Bez would try to do things himself. I always had a tendency to take this as an offense instead of a gesture of good will. That has probably been one of the largest dividing issues for me, and I truly regret that.

A History (I think it’s supposed to be “An History”…)

I’ve been friends with the Guild leader since I started college, but we really got to know each other well during the Summer of 2007 when he husband, at the time fiance, was back home in Virginia. We spent about every other day eating dinner with each other, going shopping on the weekends, and spending vacation days just hanging out together. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was probably one of the most amazing experiences of my life, to have someone include me that much in their own life.

When her fiance came back in the fall, they started spending more time together again and I got to see her less and less; part of this really was my fault as I had let myself get completely caught up in Rangarok Online, trying to salvage a dying server. In October I went on a business trip for work and made the decision to quit Ragnarok cold turkey. It worked—I haven’t played since that day.

Well I started trying to spend more time with my friend at that point, and I noticed more and more that almost every time I went over, they were playing WoW. After about 3 months of this, after about 2 years of being asked to play wow by the two of them, even after swearing I’d never allow myself to get addicted to WoW (because I was pretty sure it would happen if I started), I downloaded a trial copy of the game and created a human warlock. And so it began…

Over the course of the game I felt like like the two people that asked me to come play with them so much were the people that played with me the least. While, at the time, I didn’t understand what a big deal raiding was for them, I still was very sad that I was always seemed to be doing everything alone (with the exception of some amazing dungeon zergs with a certain hunter and shaman). I figured it would be better in the Outlands because they wouldn’t have to leave their continent XD but it still didn’t get much better; I felt like I had to guilt them into running a dungeon with me :(

So, while my frustration and pain might have come out of misunderstanding and overreacting somewhat, I still think I was justified in my disappointment. It was hard to swallow that I had gone from what seemed like the biggest part of someone’s life to being one person in a sea of online people with which she played. I felt neglected and abandoned, and began wondering why I ever started playing this game.

Fast forward several months, several heartaches (many caused by me), our guild has grown from the people I saw in real life plus a few to over 50 active members. The group was teeming with life and diversity, and I felt like I finally had people who were able to distinguish me from the large group of people—for the first time it seemed like people were willing to pick me up out of the crowd every now and then, so I began to build a relationship with the guild again. It was then that I realized how much the guild meant.

The Moral of the Story

While a lot of this seems like girl drama and /weaksauce, I think a lot this goes on in WoW between friends and in friends and family groups. I’ve learned several lessons through the entire ordeal—some are lessons I’m not a big fan of, but in the end I found some peace with most of the things that bothered me. In the beginning I didn’t realize what a priority my friend had in tending to the entire guild, even as small as it was at the start.

It took me about 8 months to realize that my goals, my desires, my plans just weren’t as important to her as the overall goals, desires, and plans of the guild or even of her husband. While I still don’t think I agree with the earlier of the two, I can still respect it. I gave my friend a lot of grief about this during the first 6 months of my playing because it never made sense to me, but I think I understand better now. I’ll always want to be a significant part of her life, but I’ve learned that it’s not going to be the same as it was that one summer.

In the Future

I will certainly say that it’s always intimidating to me for people to put down the game for any period of time. I understand what a committment the game takes, let alone holding a leadership position of a guild or raid. I think my friends realized that and have made the responsible decision to dedicate more of their time to their lives. Like I say when anyone makes that decision, I highly admire them.

I honestly think that things will work out the best for everyone now. I wish my friends and my guild the best of luck in the coming months as we all begin new chapters of our lives.

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Teamwork

July 7th, 2009

Raiding is probably one of the biggest things that keeps people playing WoW; it’s also one of the biggest things that make people quit playing WoW. It’s such an amazing paradox about group contribution that can either be the most amazing thing in a game, or the bane of your daily existance. Sometimes people make sacrifices in order to raid with certain groups because it means seeing more content or getting better gear. Sometimes people just play casually so that they can enjoy the content they have with their friends.

In any case, raiding is still a collaborative activity. It takes the effort of all 10, 25, or 40 raid members in order to get things accomplished. Some groups designated as “hard core” will require their members to have potions, flasks, certain enchants, certain professions, and many other things to attend raids in order to better optimize the group for success. Other groups consider themselves casual raiders and settle for easier content in order to take the burden off their raid members.

However, the one thing you should never do is try to be a casual raider in end-game content. If you are going to choose to spend multiple nights of your week in an end-game dungeon, you better be giving it your all. If you are not giving your all, then you are allowing yourself to be carried, and therefore no long contributing to the group as much as you should. I really don’t care how you define “casual,” but allowing yourself to be carried by a group of people that are working hard on content is a big disrespect to them, and I would think respect plays a much larger role in casual or social raid groups.

I’m trying very hard to make this post informative and expressive without ranting too much, so bear with me. One of the big controversies that has flared up lately with my group is the use of flasks. Barely anyone uses flasks in my group anymore and they all wonder why we keep wiping to Kologarn, Hodir, Thorim, and Freya. My guild has probably made all of 4 attempts on Mimiron since 3.1 came out. We seem to be slipping into a very lax mentailty, and I am of the opinion that that kind of attitude belongs back in Naxxaramas where things are easy.

Attitude is Everything

I have always been of the opinion that the word “casual” in casual raiding only had to do with the amount of times a week you go to raids. Sure it usually means there’s less yelling and fussing, but there’s still standards to be upheld if you’re seeking new content. Casual raiding doesn’t mean you just roll into an instance and try to roll around on the content in hopes that you kill some bosses. It takes effort, it takes contribution, it takes sacrifice.

Now for some people, sacrifice means passing on certain pieces of loot so that others can get better upgrades that will benefit the raid more. For some it means shelling out extra gold to get a special potion or enchant. The idea behind all this is that you let people know you actually want to be at the raid. If you ever get the idea in your head that you can demand to be in the raid, or even worse, that the raid can’t be successful without you, then you should probably take a second to step back and check yourself. Having an attitude like that will usually just cause problems and drama.

The Real Difference

Like I said, the use of flasks is a rather touchy subject in my group right now. A new acquaintance of mine, someone I have found to be rather intelligent, pointed out that the benefit you get from using a flask is better than any loot upgrade you could possibly get (unless you’re raiding in all blues and then… I just don’t know what to say). For example, the difference in stats between the Tier 7 Resto Shaman Shoulders and the Amice of the Stoic Watch is 12 spell power and 3 MP5. EVERY Resto Shaman would make this upgrade because it is indeed an upgrade. Many Elemental Shamans are making the jump from their Tier 7 to these shoulders because of the stats.

Now let’s take a look at what these differences are in comparison to flasks. The Flask of the Frost Wyrm provides 125 spell power; that’s ten times the spell power as the shoulder upgrade. Now if MP5 is your thing as a healer, a Flask of Pure Mojo provides you with 38 MP5; that’s thirteen times the benefit you get from the shoulder upgrade. So my question becomes this—if you don’t feel like a flask has any benefit to you in raiding content, why then do you even care about the gear? The benefit you get from upgrading a piece of gear will NEVER compensate for the benefit you get from a single flask.

So, my new friend pointed out that people who proclaim using flasks is pointless obviously don’t see the need to upgrade their gear either and shouldn’t be allowed to get upgrades that drop (either that or they are just ignorant of how everything works in perspective).

As for me… (rant inc!)

[It has been brought to my attention that the remainder of this post was too explicit and harsh for a public blog. It's true that words are like a fired gun and can never be taken back, but, even though this may seem like a futile attempt, I think it's appropriate to remove the content. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact me.]

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Preoccupied…

July 6th, 2009

Heh so I’m not exactly good at staying on top of this blogging business ^_^’ I guess some days I can’t wait to make a post and other days I just want to play wow, but I’m ok with that. I’ve been working on a lot the past couple of days, not to mention the many different runs I get pulled into. My recent prize is the unveiling of my tailoring squad—Xeraes with Ebonweave, Audrae with Spellweave, and Allandrae with Moonshroud. I’ve also been busy at work trying to reach a number of my summer goals, including daily runs of Sethekk Halls and Jewelcrafting quests.

I’ve been pining away for my gloves off Freya hard mode 10 man for several weeks now, somewhat frustrated that the one week I miss my 10man they get hard mode AND the gloves drop QQ I hate to be “that guy” that needs “that one thing” off the hard boss that no one else wants to kill, but at the same time, I still think I deserve the gloves seeing as I asked to do Freya hard mode every single week and was always told “no.” Well hopefully next weekend will be my time for good fortune.

Aside from raiding and the mass leveling of alts, I have spent a significant and concentrated amount of time recently working on a new and interesting task my friend, Maxximuss, told me about. Anyone who’s played a hunter seriously (lol huntars r srs bsns) knows that every now and then there’s glitches in the game that allow you to get a cool and unusual pet. In the past there’s been the Spectral Wolves, Oozes, and Amani War Bears tameable in certain instances that are now retired; however, Blizzard allowed hunters who had seized the opportunity to tame these anomalies to keep them as pets. Another such event was discovered recently in which you could tame a wolf quest mob at JUST the right time to have your new companion in the form of a worgen. Yes, you heard me right, and after many hours of toiling, griefing and frustration, I was able to get my hunter one of these fine specimen this morning around 5am (and subsequently was able to sneak my rent in before a late fee was applied >.>’). So here he is in all his glory:

Professional Tactics

About a month ago I went to a semi-pug 25-man Naxx group with a friend of mine in hopes of grabbing the Torch of Holy Fire. Now this friend of mine, Nahuel, otherwise fondly referred to as Nylara, has been playing her shaman for Wrath for the sake of the buffs. Now, I’m pretty competitive when it comes to my shaman, so of course I was doing everything possible to perform to the best of my ability. I managed to come in on top of the meters for the bosses we killed (Thaddius, Sapph, and KT), and my friend, who admittedly had several more pieces of Ulduar gear than me was trying to figure out what exactly was the difference that made me do so much more damage. She had more spell power, more haste, a little less crit, but somehow I was able to squeak out more damage.

So I began to think about it—I thought about all the little things I do to get more numbers on the meters. Now, I’m not talking about retarded stuff like casting at mobs before they’re tanking or AoEing adds that don’t need to be AoEd; things like that generally make you look like a noob and people begin to disregard you. I have a personal rule that if a multi-target spell contributes to more than 20% of your damage, I consider that cheating; if that kind of spell contributes to more than 50% of your damage… then you’re doing something wrong (in context of current progression raiding of course).

One of the first things I do on all my characters is a critical utilization of my space bar. Jumping was something I was completely overwhelmed with when I first started playing wow. I loved the fact that you could jump. It soon became a normal part of my travel and general character interaction. I will often start running in a certain direction, jump, and activate my autorun mid-air so my character doesn’t stop moving; this sequence is second nature to me anymore. Jumping is a great mechanic because it’s a temporary directional movement of your character that you don’t have to directly control. Instead of actually running all the way out of a ground effect, all you have to do is time your strafe and jump combination, and after a split second, your attention is freed up again to focus on dps or other environmental hazards. This may sound incredibly funny, but I think people underestimate the power of the spacebar o.o

Now, more specifically to Elemental Combat… One thing I figured out after several talent changes (that I think finally stopped with 3.1) is that Flame and Frost Shock are now on 4 second cooldown, while Earth Shock is on a 6 second cooldown. As such, it’s more advantageous to cast Flame and Frost Shock because you can cast them more often. On trash pulls with multiple mobs, I will often use a combination of Chain Lightning and throwing Flame Shock up on as many mobs as possible, while tossing out Lava Bursts and Lightning Bolts in between. This will net you a significant amount of DoT damage while the mobs are being pew-pewed down :)

Another thing I noticed a long time ago and a mechanic that takes some maneuvering, is spell propagation delay. Each spell has a cast time and a length of time before it inflicts damage on a mob. Lightning Bolt has a 2 second cast time and then has to travel through the air to the mob; as such, you are actually capable of casting two lightning bolts before the mob even aggros. This is great for when you’re leveling or farming, but it really hurts in raids because it takes a significant amount of time before you deliver any damage to a mob. Other combinations include Shocks which are instant cast with no propagation, Smite which has a cast time but no propagation, and a Shadow Bolt after Shadow Trance which has no cast time but still had to travel to the mob. Chain Lightning has a 1.5 second cast but deals damage immediately at the end of that cast time, so it’s a great spell to use when a mob has low health to try and squeeze some extra damage in; Shocks are also great for this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a Lightning Bolt or Lava Burst begin traveling to a mob and it end up dying before the spell lands—so much wasted damage QQ

Some other things that I use to improve my raiding proficiency are my mods, mainly xPerl. I use xPerl for my character frame, target, target of target, pet and focus frames. I have the casting bar turned on as well as the latency indicator. This allows me to see the point in time where I can begin casting my next spell and the server will accept it because of the latency, in a sense, allowing me to begin casting my next spell before the current one is complete. Now, sometimes this can cause you to clip your spells, end up casting them to early and getting an error message, so I actually press my hotkey as soon as I’ve just cast a spell and release the key when I’m ready to cast again (I’m really sorry if this doesn’t make sense o_O’).

I also love the way xPerl places your character’s buffs right under the portrait instead of leaving them in the upper right hand corner of the screen; I like having having all my information in a central location on my screen. I’ve tried several different unit frames mods and I always come back to xPerl because it delivers what I need. I also tried using EventHorizon, but it really threw off my casting mojo.

One mod that I’m a big fan of is Power Auras. This is a mod that allows you to develop on-screen visual queues for certain events like buffs or debuffs. I have several set up including a giant orange symbol for when Flametongue is not on my weapon, a giant red skull and cross bones for when Righteous Fury isn’t up, as well as purple icons when one of my warlock’s instant Shadow Bolt procs is up. This mod is useful for every class and alerts you to your buffs and debuffs without your having to stare at them all the time. While it may not seem very life changing, never underestimate the ability to direct your attention to other things and still make the most of your class :)

There’s a couple other things that I remember having thought about, but I can’t remember what they were at this time. It might have something to do with being sorely sleep deprived, so I’ll be sure to jot them down if I remember them and include them in a future post :o

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