Archive
I gets mounted….
Riding a large lizard is fun! 
Firelands Nerfs…yes I know it has been talked to death.
Wow…
Nerfs, now this is not going to be about normal nerfs you can read about that all over the place.
But Shadow Rising is now 7/7 big mean old fire dude is “dead” onto Heroics!
Now even the Firelands Heroics have gotten about a 15% nerf, even nerfed they are a decent enough challenge still, because Normal Firelands is a zzzzzzzzz fest. (exception being rag). If you are not handling mechanics prepare to have a large repair bill!
1st Heroic tried – Shannon errrr Shannox
A few things Repgrind mentioned a few. The damage he deals is quite a bit more, but nothing that couldn’t be healed.
The issues that arose was the handling of the stacks. Each hit that rageface deals increases his damage by quite a bit, this is a the new to the heroic version of the fight. Like in normal, tanks still have to deal with jagged tear.
Borrowing an idea from Khizzara we had the raid line up much like they did and had the raid move as a whole when needed. It took 9 wipes, killed on the 10th pull, but each for the most part was improvement.
It really just took getting used to resetting stacks and having the raid move. Also important is the “rageface” kiters be on their toes. Also one thing to note, if your riplimb tank needs a breather, burn Riplimb down, by the time your raid may want to he will be at 50% around 2mil HP from 4 mil. It will allow your healers 30 seconds of not having to worry about that tank too much and 30 seconds that your tank can even help hitting Shannox lol. Having only one tank to worry about resetting jagged tear can help out a lot. Also for 30 seconds or so all the traps can be used on Rageface.
SR rules! Awesome job on Shannon. Too bad he dropped bad loot!
Then we went and facerolled Beth’tilac, Alyzrazor. We did put a few shots on heroic Rhyolith just to see how it is. To be honest it is not that bad, he is next.
But for tonight on the agenda is Heroic Baleroc and Majordomo.
Differences between normal and heroic – watch out as you can pass tormented onto other players. 2nd he can also cast countdown on 2 random people, if they do not come within 4 yds of one another – boom goes the raid. What sucks about this is the 2 people chosen and one of them has the tormented debuff and/or are soaking a crystal. Also of note, he has increased HP and still the very short 6 min enrage timer. Appears with 7 DPS – each DPS will need to average about 22.5K DPS + 6K from the tank (thanks adoe for the maths!) Looks like fun, according to Adoe….
Majordomo – I think we will try the no flame scythes and all cats strat. This will entail on all DPS avoiding as much damage as they can to keep concentration high. It seems easy on paper but having to deal with the flame orbs will be the main issue. People will need to not stack directly close/on the orb so if they have to leave from getting a leap, the fire is not on the orb, so someone can still get close and soak it.
Even nerfed, heroics can still provide some challenge, probably not as much as prenerf, but for now I will take them over the “lootship” normal firelands fights (minus rag 
)
SWTOR….
OMG has a bubble….for the jedi sage….disc priest in space with lightsabers…..
The link above is for a talent calculator we all know and love. Sure things may change prior to shipping, but its cool to play around with the talents. Looking around in the Jedi Sage as a healer. there are talents here and there that look a lot like wow talents. One for example reminds me of Furor and Moonglow of the resto druid trees. There is also a disc like talent to allow for faster casting of….BUBBLES! Also a straight up more healing and dmg talent and a increase in the amt of dmg said bubble takes. Lots of AoE and HoT….so a healer with bubbles, HoTs, and AoEs…sounds likea priest
Ok I am set for SWTOR.
4.3 discussion
1.) Are nerfs good for the maintenance and happiness of the overall population in WoW?
Business Slice: Of course it is! Getting the majority of the people to see the content Blizzard has worked on makes perfect business sense. Which will net a company more money? 6-7 million customers or 2-3 “hardcore” players, of course the more casual base will make Blizzard money in the long haul. Without profit Blizzard cannot make improvement/develop more games. It’s all about the benjamins! MONEY MONEY MONEY!
Red Slice: RAWR! REDSLICE SMASH! WTF! WHY ARE THEY NERFING IT MAKES NO SENSE, 4.3 is not even out, or has any concrete information etc. Why are they caving into the whiners and baddies? Why even make a game and make it so easy? With the nerfs it may even make the most casual of player go…why am I playing a game this easy? This makes Hello Kitty Online seem more difficult. 4.2 have been out only for a few months, it only has 7 bosses, why make it so laughable that it can now be cleared by a new group in a week or 2 at most? /smash! WTH are they passing out epix 2 every1?
Slice: It would make more sense to have a balance of the two. They really should take a good look at what is over tuned and also what maybe under tuned and fix as appropriate. No real reason as well to nerf Heroic modes, those should remain as the pinnacle of raiding. Only the best of the best should be able to tackle those. Give the general player base the normal modes, and the heroics to the “hardcore”. Give them each a playground to play in. A flat nerf to the content in general is silly – make the players get a gradual buff (like in Icecrown Citadel) this allows for some mistakes to be made, but does not trivialize the content totally, this in coordination with appropriate hotfixes of mechanics that are under tuned and over tuned.
However by nerfing stuff by this degree so far from the 4.3 patch…I hope it does not cause a backlash that they will nerf 4.3 so quickly cause, “it’s too hard!”
2.)Should I cancel my sub and wait for DW/4.3?
Business Slice: No! Give me your money errr to Blizzard. You need your WoW crack no?
Red Slice: Yeah that will teach them to nerf stuff that doesn’t need it! “/grumbles” Freakin casuals!
Slice: Each individual should decide if they wish to play right now or wait. Use your brain and make your own decision.
3.)Transmogrify?
Business Slice: $$$ more ways to keep people attached to an older game! Good idea to pull at people’s heartstrings.
Red Slice: Old content? LOL…why go back there? It’s not relavent. Why waste time on old raid when you can raid current content or cap VP? Old cheevs? Only ones that matter are ones that are current and give you mounts that are current!
Slice: Yay for clothes! Barbie time?
4.) Catgirls?
All: HELL YEAH!
Firelands update and thoughts on progression/training
OK as of this right now SR is now/still 6/7. Last night was our 1st real night of putting attempts on Ragnaros. Our other attempts were half-hearted attempts when we had maybe an hour left in raid time.
Last night was a full night of Ragnaros. I admit although we did not down the boss, I had a blast, the fight is a dynamic one and keeps you on your toes.
I would put the difficulty curve below that of Alysrazor – the stupid firebird is too dependant on a couple of things.
1.) You need a DPS or 2 who know how to fly in a 3rd environment well and DPS well.
2.) Tanks need max dps while still surviving and dancing around flame worms.
3.) Knowing how to dance, errr dodge fire tornados.
Ragnaros on the other hand…is really avoiding bad that you can and pew pew/heal heal. His mechanics are such you are not relying so on 2 roles. Everyone in this fight contributes to this fight to win.
We made it into the 2nd transition phase and through quite a few times. So I am glad we are able to blow past the first few phases quite easily.
phase 1
Tanks and melee closest to Rag. heal tanks easy easy.
What makes this phase is annoying is there is quite a few sources of unavoidable damage. I.E the silly knockback- make sure people spread out 6yds the best they can. Also when trigerring the trap make sure people are high on health. The damage is quite severe from it. Casters will want to be out of melee range of Rag, cause he has a knockback, which will also cause spell lockout.
1st transition phase
Done right there is very little damage done to the raid. Assign your raid memebers as approp to handle the 8 sons of flame. Most slows will NOT work – ice trap etc etc. One thing a feral druid friend told me was the slow from bear mangle does work. However, get used to the speed they move, but in reality they really have low health on 10 man, so sneezing on them will slow them down.
They move faster the more health they have. So slow down ones you can and kill more immediate threats 1st and go back to other ones who are not an immediate threat. Myself (a disc priest) found that even a Holy Fire and a Smite on one would slow it down quite a bit and allowed me to swap to another one and smite that one.
Phase 2
Again more avoiding bad and learning a pattern, we did have some rough patches here and there, but we got thru it quite easily. Things to watch for searing seeds, run to your assigned stack up point about 3 seconds before they spawn, the farther you are from them the less damage you take then they pop. Watch out for adds that spawn AoE them down. Watch for tire on the ground. It hurts! Again also watch the Hammer time smash. This phase lasts till he gets to 40%
Transition phase 2
Same thing he will drop the hammer and 8 sons of flame, handle like them like you would in the 1st one. He will however add 2 new things to this. He will summon 2 Scions of Flame (2 million HP on 10 man) Your tanks will want to pick them up ASAP and do what they do as normal in the transition phase.
Second the Scions have no real special attacks, except they will cast a spell which will target a random raid memeber. This spell causes the targeted raid memeber to leave a flame of trail behind them. Keep them healed. The target member till want to run to the edge to avoid leaving fire in the middle. Because any Son or Scion that runs thru the flame is healed for quite a bit.
Another change about this phase is you will want to keep 1 son of flame alive for a bit at 50% health, as he will be uber slow. This will allow the raid time to damage the Scions of Flame as much as possible. Cause in p3 right at the beginning would be the best time it would appear to pop lust/warp/hero.
Can’t say much about p3 as barely got into it. Our best attempt was about 38% ish. But he is going to go down soon!
Training or Progression?
Makes a very good point…progression or training? Do you always have the individual you are used to doing it…on it all the time? Or do you devote some time to let someone else learn just in case? I know for some fights we have gotten some people used to a different duty, and I am glad we did. But makes me wonder what would happen if our mage cannot make it for a Alice-razor kill? Our Aff lock is aquainted with it, but I am not sure aff lock would be best up there.
Cata raiding recap…(yes boring title is boring)
Because 4.3 Transmogrify will be awesome like bacon!
I am still happy and surprised 2 new bosses down this week and a good look at the intial phases of Ragnaros.
What I find even more amusing a lot of our kills (be it T11 or T12) our kills seems to come in double – same day or lockout!
Make me smile and think we come back in an things click and boom, dead bosses and loot!
Looking back at the beginning of T11 versus T12, the entry point was a lot tougher on raids imo. 349 versus 359+. I believe skill > gear but gear allows for a greater margin of error and enhances skill.
Also many healers had to adjust to no longer being able to spam their bread and butter spells. (PW:S, Druidy stuff, Chain Heal, Holy Light/FoL)
Thirdly, lets face it, WoTLK raids were a little more forgiving on a mistake made. Oh wait you hit an opposite color orb in the Twin Valkyrs, oh wait you wont die. Oh wait you didn’t move from a slime from Toxictron – dead….
At this point Firelands > BWD, BoT, ToT4W
Shannox – It is much more then a normal tank and spank fight. Sure you tank Shannox, but one had to use his mechanics to kill him and drop your tanks debuffs. Plus killing huntards is fun, but seeing him drop the same crap over and over again is quite annoying.
Beth’ tilac – Overall, this fight is kinda zzzzz. Where it stands out from other fights in this tier and tier 11 is you have to trust your topside team. You see their health bars drop and you cannot do a thing about it. Other then that the bottom team – its a normal control the summoned add fight. p2 is a tank and spank….zzzzzz.
Lord Rhyolith – aka the big fat jerk (hmm, kinda like Kerick ) – the fight is different as to you have to guide him to active volcanos to reduce his armor while fighting off waves of adds. BTW HATE THIS FIGHT.
Alysrazor – as much as I complain about this fight, this fight has a lot going for it. I admit it, I love execution style fights, where you have to perform to win. The flying idea is nifty, the dodging of tornadoes is win as well.
Baleroc – I like healing fights…./epeen.
Majordomo Staghelm – I admit I am kind of disappointed with this fight. We learned it very quickly and tweaked and killed him. I was expecting more of a fight from the boss right before ragnaros. Although, his shapechanging to the raids config is quite unique and interesting. Different mechanics to deal with.
Ragnaros – OMG, fun so far! Dmg everywhere, add to kill or die! /swoon!
Another execute or die fight! YAY!!!! (yes, I am a bit of a sadist )
But more importantly…..4.3 APPEARENCE TAB!!!! Time to dress up and step out on the town!!!! This is the one way for Blizz to get me to go back to old content….older tier sets here I go! (Man i wish i did not d/e my T9 and T10 sets…sigh, or some of the weapons)
30k checkup….does Holy (priest) need a tune up?
Well? What do you think?
I was once a Holy Priest for part of Wrath and at the beginning of Cata, but once again a bubble priest again.
I will admit though, Holy is what I leveled as with my priest and I still get the itch to pick it up back again.
However, what prevents me from doing is too me, Holy seems lacking.
1.) spirit – no spirit gear in firelands. t12 only for holy priests. Spirit is the main way holy priests get man back. Sure there are potions and hymn of hope and shadow fiend, but other then that there is no other way the priest by themselves to regen mana. They do not have rapture, revitalize, judgements etc.
2.) Because of their jack of all trades nature – they take the brunt of the I am not specialized enough tag. Sure they can tank heal in a pinch or raid heal well. They still do not seem to do as well as their more specialized counterparts. They dip into the pool but never fully dive in. When you take a Holy Pally as a tank healer and a resto druid as a raid healer, why would you take a Holy Priest? Why not take a Disco and mitigate some of the dmg instead. Or take a shaman for Bloodlust, Sprit Link totem, and Manatide totem.
3.) No real “oh shit” button. Guardian Spirit is nice, but not when you compare it to Tranq, PW:B, or Spirit Link Totem. Lightwell is a extra healing tool, not a “save” imo.
I think Holy Priests, need something to help with mana, sure then burst HPS high real fast, but then have no gas in the tank left. They need some kind of mechanic like Rapture etc to help them out. To be honest, AA/atonement makes more sense to me to be in the holy tree, while Body and soul and Inspiration should be in the disc tree.
Ok to be fair to our holy brethren – issues with Disc.
1.) We are great at mitigating dmg, but playing catch up REAL fast can be an issue sometimes.
2.) We are mitigators, so why is our mastery not tied to a majority of our heals? Why not have a shield with a cast time that mitigates less then PW:S? Or perhaps every time PoM jumps it adds a shield much like PoH does? Or just change the Disc priest mastery to the Holy pally mastery and give holy pallys something that make sense.
3.) Swap some of the talents between Holy and Disc that make sense. Some of the disc talents make sense in holy and vice versa.
But 1st and foremost – help our Holy brethren and to a lesser extent our resto shaman brothers and sisters.
Random screenshots :)
AHing SR Style.
CoH v2.0……with moar bubbles. :P
Sigh…evil murlocs and fat human pallys…I usually dont fill out stuff like this but since….Repgrind and Zel tagged me, I am obliged to do so.
1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Liyhe – Disc Priest
2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
10 main raids, although I did raid 25 man raids for a while with Choice of Skywall – check em out!
in 10 – our Holy Pally is on the tanks, Drood on raid, and i will assist both. (I like support!)
3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
I have to pick one…..hmmmm….then I would say the awesome Power Word: Shield. Our good old workhorse. Sure it has been through a lot of changes, but nothing makes me feel better then having some protection in place. (grin)
4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Heal….it is just so clunky….sure I will use it at time when there is low damage, but when you look up the definition of bad…Heal is standing right next to it.
5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
DAMAGE MITIGATION!!!!! From negating hits to reducing incoming damage, nothing beats Discipline.
6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Biggest weakness – Disc has none, we are the monarchs of the healing world…well…ok…not really. One thing that bugs me is if crap hits the fan…Disc does not have the best tools to heal lots of AoE damage super fast etc. So if you are caught with your pants down or the raid is just being silly by playing in bad…you are gonna get your bubbles popped.
8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
All other healers. We all rock!
Druids – are nice cause their HoTs also help to lessen the blows to health bars. Tranquilitty is nice when crap hits the fan as well.
Paladin – mostly because then I don’t have to tank heal But seriously, Aura Mastery is awesome and who doesn’t like Pally buffs. And they haz fake bubbles!
Holy Priests – our poor misguided brothers and sisters. *note convert to disc now!* However, Holy does bring a lot to the table. Strong AoE’s, Divine Spirit, and FAIL ANGEL! ALSO THE LOLWELL…I actually miss it.
Resto Shaman – Mana Tide Totem – how I love thee!!! Spirit Link is also quite nice. Furthernmore, the resto shaman mastery is nice in conjunction with a bubble, pop a bubble on a target with damage and see the shaman’s heal make all that hurt fly away. BUT most important – BLOODLUST!!!!!
But from my fav to least fav if I had to choose – druid, paladin, shaman, Holy flavored priests!
For 10′s my fav comp so far is Disc priest, resto druid, holy pally.
9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
None – all healers are awesome. But Disc is best!
10. What is your worst habit as a healer?
Meter topping…sigh….yes I know tis not good. Bubble spam…although it was boring…topping meters is fun!
But in Cata I am content to be 2nd. Cheating Zarm – freakin cow druids.
11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
Hmmm…people watching movies while raiding Also um….nothing really. All the healers I have healed with are awesome and don’t need any handholding.
12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Generally I do. The cost of Power Word: Bubble is a bit high imo, but prior to changing it, I admit the low cost of it prior was bad as well. Some middle ground plox!
13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
World of Logs. Use it, love it, learn how to read it. Recount to an extent as well to see how DPS/HPS/deaths in a quick look.
14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That we can bubble and walk away, or disc is no longer viable.
15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
Being a Priest in general, as we do have a lot of tools to use in a fight/situations.
Direct heals – Penance, Heal, flash heal, greater heal.
AoE – Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending (to an estent), divine hymn, holy nova
Misc – Hymn of Hope, shadow fiemd, pain suppression, PW:Awesome errrr barrier, PW:Win errr shield.
Others – smite, holy fire, shackle undead, psychic scream, mind control
etc etc as you can see priests have a LOT to use. Knowing what to use when is important. It’s doubly more difficuly for our Holy flavored brethren as they are a jack of all trades sort of healer.
16. If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
Mitigation, mitigation and more mitigation from PW:S, Divine Aegis etc.
17. Haste or Crit and why?
Haste to an extent and i guess crit. I like a balance of all three, 3rd being Mastery. MMMM stronger bubbles.
18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Resto Shaman – i cannot level a shaman past 20…..they are odd to me.
19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
VuhDo FOR THE WIN!
I also have a lot of mouseover macros for certain spells, I use a mixture of mouseover and the clicking functionality of VuhDo.
I like things to be neat and orderly so MSBT for combat text is nice. DBM is also nice to avoiding stuffs. Also having a multibutton gaming mouse also helps out a lot.
tagging whom hmmm…
Fellow Priesty – Sephrenia Guild mum
and a former druid turned cult of disc follower Lyssi Fail lock
and thirdly….for someone who doesn’t like to heal apparently…but levels a LOT of healers lately. Zarigar!!!! Cow Pally, Druid, Undead Priest, Troll Shaman
