I am the floater; the one who says "Sure thing" when a spot needs to be filled. The implications of this was felt right off the start before last night's raid.
Not the first night! sigh
A healer for Team Martin had lost power for several hours and we didn't expect to see her online in time. I mentally though I had prepared for myself to be filling her spot, then panicked. I had no food, no flasks, no mana pots. My bags were filled with tanky stuff. Twenty minutes before raid time, I am scrambling to get my crap together... and just before we zone in poor snowed-in healer logged in. Yay!
Tonight, we are out other healers for Team Charlie, which means more shuffling. At least this time I will have my consumables prepared, but now the task is to get caught up on what fight and strats the other team was working on. Thankfully, my finance was a tank for Charlie so I was able to at least understand what progress they had made.
All of this opens my eyes to the big picture. While we run these 10s in preparation for 25s, my job is to be aware and prepared for anything and possibly fit myself into a team that had worked on something for a night already without screwing up their flow.
As things move further down the road, we will be shuffling everyone around in order to keep things fair, which means at some point our fights will be reexplained to more people than just myself.
Balancing act
I have points to spend, but I am at a loss of how to spend them. My job as the tank is hopefully a short one because it means we can move to 25s. But, when we get to 25s I want to be on par with the rest of our healers. I currently am at a loss for how to walk this tight rope. I can just hear my raid leader saying to not stress about it, we are still early into raiding, but I am a planner. I need to have something scribbled out as a framework. I think it helps that the RL is also doing the bouncing thing like I am (dps to tank and back).
Words of wisdom?
For those who are also playing dual roles actively, I say "Wow, you are a crazy person". I also say, stay on your toes and be patient and flexible. Communicate to your officers about what they expect of you. If you are an officer, like I am, refer to crazy statement and hang on for the ride.
Showing posts with label Gear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gear. Show all posts
Thursday, January 13
Thursday, December 16
Why I think the paper doll is a tease
Remember the days when we didn't have gear score or that little paper doll telling us what our average iLevel was? Remember pouring over guides and loot lists to see what numbers we should be hitting, like Spell power and Crit/Haste? Far too often, I see people fall into the trap of "Well, my ilevel says I can get into a heroic, so it must be true." I did the same thing and started to wonder if there was a flaw in the system.
Is there a flaw?
Yes and no.
Yes, because people are by passing requirements by just having gear in their bags that are higher level. Then, it's no wonder there are cries of heroics being too hard or that it's punishment for healers.
No, because the system is just crunching numbers. It is not designed to tell you if your spec is appropriate or that you are wearing enough gear to be viable. It's just a number. An average number, at that. It is not supposed to replace human thought and comprehension.
So, my recommendation is this: treat the score as it is- an average of all the crap in your inventory. Then, remove it from your focus.
If you are having a difficult time adjusting to the dungeons, heroic or normal does not matter, take some time to really look at the quality of gear that you have. Is your gear 333 or higher blues or are you plugging along at 312 greens? Are you wearing stuff with hit on it as a resto? Have to checked to see what reputation rewards are out there for you? Heck, even quest rewards can be substantially better than a drop.
Perhaps we need to go back to some basics. Work on those 85 dungeons, grab the 333 gear, rep grind some. If you have access to them, find some gems and enchants (which, depending on your guild and cash flow, may be difficult to do. I'm still using a Wrath meta gem because JC sucks to level).
Of course, this does not factor in what actually happens while in the group (usual stuff like teamwork and strat basics), or even you personally are capable of. But I can tell you that my first heroic in the minimum required gear still left me feeling like I had no right to be there. I was in greens and low blues, with a few pieces to get just above the random mark. I told myself that I wasn't going back to a heroic until I made some changes.
Your experiences may differ but I firmly believe that the number does not tell the whole story and that it is up to the player to fill in the blanks.
Is there a flaw?
Yes and no.
Yes, because people are by passing requirements by just having gear in their bags that are higher level. Then, it's no wonder there are cries of heroics being too hard or that it's punishment for healers.
No, because the system is just crunching numbers. It is not designed to tell you if your spec is appropriate or that you are wearing enough gear to be viable. It's just a number. An average number, at that. It is not supposed to replace human thought and comprehension.
So, my recommendation is this: treat the score as it is- an average of all the crap in your inventory. Then, remove it from your focus.
If you are having a difficult time adjusting to the dungeons, heroic or normal does not matter, take some time to really look at the quality of gear that you have. Is your gear 333 or higher blues or are you plugging along at 312 greens? Are you wearing stuff with hit on it as a resto? Have to checked to see what reputation rewards are out there for you? Heck, even quest rewards can be substantially better than a drop.
Perhaps we need to go back to some basics. Work on those 85 dungeons, grab the 333 gear, rep grind some. If you have access to them, find some gems and enchants (which, depending on your guild and cash flow, may be difficult to do. I'm still using a Wrath meta gem because JC sucks to level).
Of course, this does not factor in what actually happens while in the group (usual stuff like teamwork and strat basics), or even you personally are capable of. But I can tell you that my first heroic in the minimum required gear still left me feeling like I had no right to be there. I was in greens and low blues, with a few pieces to get just above the random mark. I told myself that I wasn't going back to a heroic until I made some changes.
Your experiences may differ but I firmly believe that the number does not tell the whole story and that it is up to the player to fill in the blanks.
Tuesday, December 14
Fun and some tears in the new instances
Learning how to do these new instances with leveling gear is certainly a trial and an eye opener.
I mean, I knew things were going to be different in Cata and I am doing my best to adjust. First realization that something needed to change was in Vortex Pinnacle. I am going to reiterate some things Kae mentions that I learned the hard way.
Malfurion's Gift
This has been a lifesaver on mana. Roll Lifebloom on the tank and use the Clearcasts to bring up the dps. I am not doing heroics yet, but so far this strategy is working well for normals.
Moonglow
This may be difficult to spec for, forcing you to sacrifice resto talents to go this deep into balance. If you can manage it, great. However, if you follow EJ's post like I did, you may have to give up good 5 man talents like NS and Blessing of the Grove. It's one of those "your mileage may vary" situations, I think. I miss NS for saving tanks and may readjust my spec again when I am ready for heroics.
Less mobility
I am not the running around healer like I used to be. I use Nourish A LOT more on the tank now and while I am learning these fights, it can be rough to prioritize my healing. More than once, I have had to sacrifice a dps in order to save the tank (almost always due to overagro). In addition, I started to get a zen mentality for trash while I was adjusting to the mana changes. If folks were above 50 percent, I wasn't going to fret. All of this is with the mind set that Heroics are going to be different altogether, but whatever I can do to keep me sane while I learn everything all over again is what I have to do.
Being humbled
Couple of my friends pugged Vortex and had a level 81 priest healer. She rocked it and had hardly any trouble at all, on the heels (oh my, no pun intended) of my miserable showing of the same zone earlier that day. I felt dejected and at the same time scrambled to figure out what I was doing wrong. Halls of Origination also made me feel like a crap healer until we utilized proper CC. All in all, Wrath made me feel like a goddess among healers and Cata has knocked me off my pillar. It is a team effort now, so don't be afraid to ask for CC or the tank to adjust how he/she pulls.
Of course, I am harder on myself than others are to me. More than once I heard myself described as an awesome healer. I love you, too, guildies.
Gear choices and measurement
GuildOx has updated gear. I used the Resto Template and adjusted the weights on Haste, Int and Spirit along with other stats. Make use of the armory feature so you can see where your gear stacks up with the items suggested.
Wowheroes and BeImba are still being updated for Cata.
Gearscore always was and will be a spawn of evil. I hope you aren't using it.
I mean, I knew things were going to be different in Cata and I am doing my best to adjust. First realization that something needed to change was in Vortex Pinnacle. I am going to reiterate some things Kae mentions that I learned the hard way.
Malfurion's Gift
This has been a lifesaver on mana. Roll Lifebloom on the tank and use the Clearcasts to bring up the dps. I am not doing heroics yet, but so far this strategy is working well for normals.
Moonglow
This may be difficult to spec for, forcing you to sacrifice resto talents to go this deep into balance. If you can manage it, great. However, if you follow EJ's post like I did, you may have to give up good 5 man talents like NS and Blessing of the Grove. It's one of those "your mileage may vary" situations, I think. I miss NS for saving tanks and may readjust my spec again when I am ready for heroics.
Less mobility
I am not the running around healer like I used to be. I use Nourish A LOT more on the tank now and while I am learning these fights, it can be rough to prioritize my healing. More than once, I have had to sacrifice a dps in order to save the tank (almost always due to overagro). In addition, I started to get a zen mentality for trash while I was adjusting to the mana changes. If folks were above 50 percent, I wasn't going to fret. All of this is with the mind set that Heroics are going to be different altogether, but whatever I can do to keep me sane while I learn everything all over again is what I have to do.
Being humbled
Couple of my friends pugged Vortex and had a level 81 priest healer. She rocked it and had hardly any trouble at all, on the heels (oh my, no pun intended) of my miserable showing of the same zone earlier that day. I felt dejected and at the same time scrambled to figure out what I was doing wrong. Halls of Origination also made me feel like a crap healer until we utilized proper CC. All in all, Wrath made me feel like a goddess among healers and Cata has knocked me off my pillar. It is a team effort now, so don't be afraid to ask for CC or the tank to adjust how he/she pulls.
Of course, I am harder on myself than others are to me. More than once I heard myself described as an awesome healer. I love you, too, guildies.
Gear choices and measurement
GuildOx has updated gear. I used the Resto Template and adjusted the weights on Haste, Int and Spirit along with other stats. Make use of the armory feature so you can see where your gear stacks up with the items suggested.
Wowheroes and BeImba are still being updated for Cata.
Gearscore always was and will be a spawn of evil. I hope you aren't using it.
Thursday, September 30
Sexy wings, Cynical Brit, and a survival guide.
News has been trickling in that the release of Cata will be December instead of November. For some, this is great news because they have more time to purge their banks, level those alts and complete those achievements. For others, it means another two months of stalling in ICC.
As a reminder of the expansion blues, one of our members last night made a telling comment.
He has 33/50 shards for his legendary. When it was pointed out that he didn't have much more to go, he replied something similar to I'd rather see new content than finish the sword.
Ouch.
Yay Tree Bark Jacket!
I have been trying to keep up on the talent changes and new abilities in the mean time. I kind of feel lost, much like I did when WOTLK was arriving. Of course, Keeva is going to save the day with a guide to 4.0.
As confusing and scary as it may seem, it is important to pay attention to the writing on the wall and begin to adjust your play style. For myself, I know I use rejuv like it's bottomless, but in a raid I use all my spells just some more than others depending on the encounter (For example, nourish was my top spell last night on Dreamwalker but not so on Sindi). I know there are some druids who just Rejuv and WG. Others never really thought about when to roll LB and when to let it pop. With Blizz leveling the field once again between all types of healers, it is also crucial for us to be mindful of where we can excel and make the best use of our tools. If there is one thing that stands out with being a player of a druid is that we are flexible and quick to adapt. Hmm... game imitating life or the other way around?
Tier 11
Despite being in favor of changing our tree form model opposed to making it a cooldown, I do care about what the armor looks like. It could be that I spent months and many hours getting my first set which gave me a dead bird on my head. Then antlers and horns and more dead animals.
But, check this out!
Oh Blizz, I know this is just to help appease me and my anger over losing a permanent form. I have to admit, you had me at the wings. In your face wings. With sexy feathers floating down. Still a dead bird on my head, but the animation is HOT. What I don't quite get is three different colors. I see silvery green, brown, and dark blue sets. Everything is subject to change so I will keep an eye out for it, because I am obsessive like that.
Finally, if you follow MMO champion at all, you may have noticed Cynical Brit and his Cata videos. I am a new fan and highly encourage you to check his Youtube channel here. I respect those who want to remain spoiler free. I initially watched his Worgen vids largely because I knew I wasn't going to have time to make one right off the bat- not when I have a goblin to make! And a new troll! If you don't watch any of them, watch the Heroic Wipe video :)
As a reminder of the expansion blues, one of our members last night made a telling comment.
He has 33/50 shards for his legendary. When it was pointed out that he didn't have much more to go, he replied something similar to I'd rather see new content than finish the sword.
Ouch.
Yay Tree Bark Jacket!
I have been trying to keep up on the talent changes and new abilities in the mean time. I kind of feel lost, much like I did when WOTLK was arriving. Of course, Keeva is going to save the day with a guide to 4.0.
As confusing and scary as it may seem, it is important to pay attention to the writing on the wall and begin to adjust your play style. For myself, I know I use rejuv like it's bottomless, but in a raid I use all my spells just some more than others depending on the encounter (For example, nourish was my top spell last night on Dreamwalker but not so on Sindi). I know there are some druids who just Rejuv and WG. Others never really thought about when to roll LB and when to let it pop. With Blizz leveling the field once again between all types of healers, it is also crucial for us to be mindful of where we can excel and make the best use of our tools. If there is one thing that stands out with being a player of a druid is that we are flexible and quick to adapt. Hmm... game imitating life or the other way around?
Tier 11
Despite being in favor of changing our tree form model opposed to making it a cooldown, I do care about what the armor looks like. It could be that I spent months and many hours getting my first set which gave me a dead bird on my head. Then antlers and horns and more dead animals.
But, check this out!
Oh Blizz, I know this is just to help appease me and my anger over losing a permanent form. I have to admit, you had me at the wings. In your face wings. With sexy feathers floating down. Still a dead bird on my head, but the animation is HOT. What I don't quite get is three different colors. I see silvery green, brown, and dark blue sets. Everything is subject to change so I will keep an eye out for it, because I am obsessive like that.
Finally, if you follow MMO champion at all, you may have noticed Cynical Brit and his Cata videos. I am a new fan and highly encourage you to check his Youtube channel here. I respect those who want to remain spoiler free. I initially watched his Worgen vids largely because I knew I wasn't going to have time to make one right off the bat- not when I have a goblin to make! And a new troll! If you don't watch any of them, watch the Heroic Wipe video :)
Saturday, January 30
Debuffs and uberness
GridStatusetcetc
So I finally broke down and got GridStatusDebuffs this week out of curiosity. I recall having it in Ulduar but it tracked way more things than was worth having (like Hodir effects).
However, it is wonderful in ICC. Another healer asked me if there was anything I could think of to turn off for this and to be honest I couldn't think of anything. Maybe the debuff from the Dark Nuclei on the Princes fight, but it hasn't annoyed me yet.
I would recommend it, especially if you weren't sure about it before.
What the heck do I want to get?
I have been sitting on a fair number of frost emblems recently and every time I go to the vendor, I can't figure out what to get. I use Lootrank and Rawr, but I get stymied looking at my options. I think I looked long and hard at the Purified Lunar Dust, which as I understand is getting a boost soon. I believe this will bump it above Sliver of Pure Ice in both MP5 and Spell Power, which is good news for those who don't have Solace of the Fallen or Arthor's Abacus. In light of this information, I believe I will buy this, as I am a trinket hound.
After stealing the Spindle from the rest of the raid the other night, my haste is now stupidly higher than it was last week which means I can finally start looking at new things. Perhaps, even the tier gear. Crusade aside, I am not seeing the upgrades as fast as I would like, and I am patiently holding out for the Abacus. Why? I get a little narrowly focused when I see an item that calls to me. As a raid healer, I see large potential for it, but I digress.
Going through the list, my choices are rather limited in certain areas like neck and bracers but I do see some potential in other areas. I guess it's another round of gear comparing for me.
I will tree punch you in the face!
Actually, my ranting and subsequent boozing during a raid has lessened quite a bit lately. A large part of that has to do with the fact that I am kept so busy I don't have time to watch what other people are doing. The healing assignments generally go like this:
Priest 1 heal xxx, Pally 1 heal xxx Pally 2 heal xxx... Kir run around like mad and heal everyone.
Yes, we do have another druid healer but some fights call for all three tanks to be active, which means he also gets the fun of single target healing, while I do my best to keep the raid alive. Thankfully, the other healers are rescuers like myself and sometimes toss a heal to someone nearby if there's time, but it often falls on my shoulders. I am not complaining though, I do get enjoyment out of it (Princes is my favorite fight so far). There is a sort of thrill running from one end of the room to the other while avoiding all the bad things. I find myself thinking outloud "White swirly thing, avoid. Crap, New Year's Ball will drop soon, better moonfire it on the way to the melee..." and so forth. It is a thrill for me and I am glad to get the assignment each time.
Alright then, I think I have put off homework long enough. Well, maybe one more look at Lootrank...
So I finally broke down and got GridStatusDebuffs this week out of curiosity. I recall having it in Ulduar but it tracked way more things than was worth having (like Hodir effects).
However, it is wonderful in ICC. Another healer asked me if there was anything I could think of to turn off for this and to be honest I couldn't think of anything. Maybe the debuff from the Dark Nuclei on the Princes fight, but it hasn't annoyed me yet.
I would recommend it, especially if you weren't sure about it before.
What the heck do I want to get?
I have been sitting on a fair number of frost emblems recently and every time I go to the vendor, I can't figure out what to get. I use Lootrank and Rawr, but I get stymied looking at my options. I think I looked long and hard at the Purified Lunar Dust, which as I understand is getting a boost soon. I believe this will bump it above Sliver of Pure Ice in both MP5 and Spell Power, which is good news for those who don't have Solace of the Fallen or Arthor's Abacus. In light of this information, I believe I will buy this, as I am a trinket hound.
After stealing the Spindle from the rest of the raid the other night, my haste is now stupidly higher than it was last week which means I can finally start looking at new things. Perhaps, even the tier gear. Crusade aside, I am not seeing the upgrades as fast as I would like, and I am patiently holding out for the Abacus. Why? I get a little narrowly focused when I see an item that calls to me. As a raid healer, I see large potential for it, but I digress.
Going through the list, my choices are rather limited in certain areas like neck and bracers but I do see some potential in other areas. I guess it's another round of gear comparing for me.
I will tree punch you in the face!
Actually, my ranting and subsequent boozing during a raid has lessened quite a bit lately. A large part of that has to do with the fact that I am kept so busy I don't have time to watch what other people are doing. The healing assignments generally go like this:
Priest 1 heal xxx, Pally 1 heal xxx Pally 2 heal xxx... Kir run around like mad and heal everyone.
Yes, we do have another druid healer but some fights call for all three tanks to be active, which means he also gets the fun of single target healing, while I do my best to keep the raid alive. Thankfully, the other healers are rescuers like myself and sometimes toss a heal to someone nearby if there's time, but it often falls on my shoulders. I am not complaining though, I do get enjoyment out of it (Princes is my favorite fight so far). There is a sort of thrill running from one end of the room to the other while avoiding all the bad things. I find myself thinking outloud "White swirly thing, avoid. Crap, New Year's Ball will drop soon, better moonfire it on the way to the melee..." and so forth. It is a thrill for me and I am glad to get the assignment each time.
Alright then, I think I have put off homework long enough. Well, maybe one more look at Lootrank...
Tuesday, January 19
I want to tweak my spec
Disclaimer: Rambling Inc!
After spending a good number of weeks with the CF spec, I miss some things from my lovely old spec. The problem is, I am afraid to make any changes.
We have just one consistent member of each of these classes: Boomkin, Elem Shaman, and Retadin. Because at any time one of these members could take the night off, I am concerned that if I drop CF I will regret it.
My haste is ridiculous right now at 843. I was happily cruising along at 730-750 then I got a string of upgrades that happen to have haste on them. The consolation I have with this number is A) If my haste suppliers start to drop like flies, I won't be hurting that badly and B) any crit upgrades that drop I will be more likely to grab as I will have a buffer of haste rating.
I am still on my crusade against tier gear, so that gear won't be considered. I am saving my badges for some of the vendor gear, but I need to revisit my wishlist and see if there are any changes to make.
So, it's down to spec. I miss living seed and doubt the usefulness of replenish. This was a hard choice to make in the beginning of 3.3 because I knew the dps was going to be hard pressed and wanted to do my part in keeping our guild strong. Then I saw the raid damage going around and wonder if I should revisit this line of thinking. The only classes I see getting the most out of it is our DKs and with some discussion, I am told that they wouldn't miss it that much.
Looking at the top druids on my server provide little in the way of guidance. One dropped Living Seed, Replenish, and a point into Nature's Bounty for Empowered Touch and Tranquil Spirit. Another one dropped Tranquil Spirit for Living Seed. Oh, and that many of them aren't even resto as a main spec (with higher "gearscores" /sob You are right Anti, it is an evil word).
This is probably a time when cookie-cutter would be nice right now. As it is, we druids are so free to do what we wish with our specs that even someone who's been at this a long time is having to think hard about choices. I can't even imagine what it's like for a newbie.
Think replenish has to go. It's spotty right now, I think, just looking at the data from the last few raids. Some folks get hit it, some folks don't. What to replace those points? Well, I still too scared to drop CF...
Empowered Touch: for two points I can get a boost to my nourish which I am seeing some potential for usage (Festergut sticks out most in my mind). WG+Nourish or Rejuv+Nourish are some examples.
Tranquil Spirit: I don't see anyone with full points in this anymore, but perhaps an extra point may offset any mana issues.
Living Seed: I am embarrassed to admit that I use regrowth probably far too often. My crit is also very freaking low with all the haste stacking but maybe I can see some mileage out of this talent.
Think I am going with Living Seed. I am not "tank" healing enough to warrant buffing Nourish, despite the above mentioned combos. See how it goes for a week or so before reconsidering adjustments.
How about you? Dropped CF yet, and if so, what did you pick back up?
After spending a good number of weeks with the CF spec, I miss some things from my lovely old spec. The problem is, I am afraid to make any changes.
We have just one consistent member of each of these classes: Boomkin, Elem Shaman, and Retadin. Because at any time one of these members could take the night off, I am concerned that if I drop CF I will regret it.
My haste is ridiculous right now at 843. I was happily cruising along at 730-750 then I got a string of upgrades that happen to have haste on them. The consolation I have with this number is A) If my haste suppliers start to drop like flies, I won't be hurting that badly and B) any crit upgrades that drop I will be more likely to grab as I will have a buffer of haste rating.
I am still on my crusade against tier gear, so that gear won't be considered. I am saving my badges for some of the vendor gear, but I need to revisit my wishlist and see if there are any changes to make.
So, it's down to spec. I miss living seed and doubt the usefulness of replenish. This was a hard choice to make in the beginning of 3.3 because I knew the dps was going to be hard pressed and wanted to do my part in keeping our guild strong. Then I saw the raid damage going around and wonder if I should revisit this line of thinking. The only classes I see getting the most out of it is our DKs and with some discussion, I am told that they wouldn't miss it that much.
Looking at the top druids on my server provide little in the way of guidance. One dropped Living Seed, Replenish, and a point into Nature's Bounty for Empowered Touch and Tranquil Spirit. Another one dropped Tranquil Spirit for Living Seed. Oh, and that many of them aren't even resto as a main spec (with higher "gearscores" /sob You are right Anti, it is an evil word).
This is probably a time when cookie-cutter would be nice right now. As it is, we druids are so free to do what we wish with our specs that even someone who's been at this a long time is having to think hard about choices. I can't even imagine what it's like for a newbie.
Think replenish has to go. It's spotty right now, I think, just looking at the data from the last few raids. Some folks get hit it, some folks don't. What to replace those points? Well, I still too scared to drop CF...
Empowered Touch: for two points I can get a boost to my nourish which I am seeing some potential for usage (Festergut sticks out most in my mind). WG+Nourish or Rejuv+Nourish are some examples.
Tranquil Spirit: I don't see anyone with full points in this anymore, but perhaps an extra point may offset any mana issues.
Living Seed: I am embarrassed to admit that I use regrowth probably far too often. My crit is also very freaking low with all the haste stacking but maybe I can see some mileage out of this talent.
Think I am going with Living Seed. I am not "tank" healing enough to warrant buffing Nourish, despite the above mentioned combos. See how it goes for a week or so before reconsidering adjustments.
How about you? Dropped CF yet, and if so, what did you pick back up?
Tuesday, December 15
Ephemeral Snowflake
Many of you already know about this little trinket and may even be farming HoR for it.
Sure, it got nerfed but it's still very handy as far as mana goes. Reports say that Spark of Hope is still better over the long run, but I found the Snowflake to reap better rewards. In addition, I am not the best math person so I like seeing hard numbers.
Replenished is different from Replenishment. It is the proc from the trinket.
That is from our little Ulduar 10 man clear for Yogg+1. I didn't need the innervate, it was a miscast after battle rezing someone.
Given that the aoe damage on ICC can be intensive as we are learning the fights, I am going to stick with this puppy for a while. At some point, if I am still having mana issues I may switch to Purified Lunar Dust because of the spell power. However, Althor's Abacus seems to be a clear winner as far as output, even if half it if gets overhealed. It's on my wish list anyway.
Long story short, even with the internal cooldown the Snowflake is still a good trinket, especially for those who never got their Spark. Good luck.
Sure, it got nerfed but it's still very handy as far as mana goes. Reports say that Spark of Hope is still better over the long run, but I found the Snowflake to reap better rewards. In addition, I am not the best math person so I like seeing hard numbers.
Replenished is different from Replenishment. It is the proc from the trinket.
That is from our little Ulduar 10 man clear for Yogg+1. I didn't need the innervate, it was a miscast after battle rezing someone.
Given that the aoe damage on ICC can be intensive as we are learning the fights, I am going to stick with this puppy for a while. At some point, if I am still having mana issues I may switch to Purified Lunar Dust because of the spell power. However, Althor's Abacus seems to be a clear winner as far as output, even if half it if gets overhealed. It's on my wish list anyway.
Long story short, even with the internal cooldown the Snowflake is still a good trinket, especially for those who never got their Spark. Good luck.
Pugging, Raiding, Running like a mad cow
Pugging
So myself and many others are finding the LFG tool to be very handy. There are hiccups, like punks who feel they screwed up enough on their server that they need to spread the love... but they are few and far between. I started queing this weekend as a dps to give me a change of pace... and found that pace was slooow. Makes sense: less healers than dps means if I qued as the healer role I would fill it much faster than if I was competing with every other dps out there.
Something to note: my server has thing about scrub dps. I am sure it's not just my server, but we regularly scan gear and check the dps meter to see if people are pulling their weight. I have found that sometimes the stuff is dead too soon or the fight is favored toward some classes than others (ie, melee suck on WW stuff and boomkin suck at constant moving). Basically I won't vote to kick someone unless they constantly afk or pull jack ass moves.
The one thing I did notice about the tool is remember to watch your altitude. I used the "teleport out of dungeon" feature, only to find myself falling in Dragonblight and managed to shapeshift inches off the ground. Talk about panic. "Oh crap oh crap! Switch! Switch!"
Rejuvenation
I found it difficult to find information on exactly how the new rejuv works and in conjunction with the glyph. It was bugging me for days why I had a 12 sec rejuv even with the talents.
Here is what I have noticed so far:
Without any glyphs or talents- 15 secs
Without the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation but with Nature's Splendor- 18 secs
With Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation and Nature's Splendor- 12 secs
I don't know if that's intended, but it seems the glyph overrides the talent. Because of this, I am now packing several copies of Rapid Rejuv, Nourish, Rejuv and Regrowth Glyphs. Possibly a little overkill, but I like to cover my bases. All reports were right in that the Rapid Rejuv glyph may not be the ideal for all situations.
A note about Regrowth: it will suck your mana if you rely on it too heavily. Ideally, Nourish is your best option. I have copies because our guild bank needed cleaning out and I am packrat.
My computer sucks
Still testing out things in a raid setting. I raid with such abysmally low frame rates that it's amazing I get anything done. Seriously, I can't wait until next month. I will have enough money to get a whole new computer then, but in the meantime I am working the gimp.
So myself and many others are finding the LFG tool to be very handy. There are hiccups, like punks who feel they screwed up enough on their server that they need to spread the love... but they are few and far between. I started queing this weekend as a dps to give me a change of pace... and found that pace was slooow. Makes sense: less healers than dps means if I qued as the healer role I would fill it much faster than if I was competing with every other dps out there.
Something to note: my server has thing about scrub dps. I am sure it's not just my server, but we regularly scan gear and check the dps meter to see if people are pulling their weight. I have found that sometimes the stuff is dead too soon or the fight is favored toward some classes than others (ie, melee suck on WW stuff and boomkin suck at constant moving). Basically I won't vote to kick someone unless they constantly afk or pull jack ass moves.
The one thing I did notice about the tool is remember to watch your altitude. I used the "teleport out of dungeon" feature, only to find myself falling in Dragonblight and managed to shapeshift inches off the ground. Talk about panic. "Oh crap oh crap! Switch! Switch!"
Rejuvenation
I found it difficult to find information on exactly how the new rejuv works and in conjunction with the glyph. It was bugging me for days why I had a 12 sec rejuv even with the talents.
Here is what I have noticed so far:
Without any glyphs or talents- 15 secs
Without the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation but with Nature's Splendor- 18 secs
With Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation and Nature's Splendor- 12 secs
I don't know if that's intended, but it seems the glyph overrides the talent. Because of this, I am now packing several copies of Rapid Rejuv, Nourish, Rejuv and Regrowth Glyphs. Possibly a little overkill, but I like to cover my bases. All reports were right in that the Rapid Rejuv glyph may not be the ideal for all situations.
A note about Regrowth: it will suck your mana if you rely on it too heavily. Ideally, Nourish is your best option. I have copies because our guild bank needed cleaning out and I am packrat.
My computer sucks
Still testing out things in a raid setting. I raid with such abysmally low frame rates that it's amazing I get anything done. Seriously, I can't wait until next month. I will have enough money to get a whole new computer then, but in the meantime I am working the gimp.
Monday, December 7
Are we there yet?
Part of is getting pumped for ICC, especially now that my vacation is coming up. Then a strange thing happened: I said to my boyfriend that I was worried the patch was coming this week. I didn't feel ready, in gear or in energy to tackle a new place. As an officer, a new place means new loot distribution and new headaches on our schedule. I haven't gone over all the gear and plotted my wish list. All in all, I am not ready for the new dungeon and I won't be until finals are over.
Ok, I am just one person, and that is why we have an officer team. There goes one worry.
My boyfriend says I shouldn't be worried about the gear. I am not in the top gear, but I am certainly not hurting. And it won't be hard to put together a wish list.
And really, I don't need any more stresses placed upon me than I already have.
With vacation coming soon, I can log back in the game now to do some fishing for mats. I also spent a ton on pets recently with no real time to gain the cash back and I can start gaining my "learning new fights" fund.
Nothing new, as I have been part of new additions to the game for several years now but the panic never really gets any better.
Ok, I am just one person, and that is why we have an officer team. There goes one worry.
My boyfriend says I shouldn't be worried about the gear. I am not in the top gear, but I am certainly not hurting. And it won't be hard to put together a wish list.
And really, I don't need any more stresses placed upon me than I already have.
With vacation coming soon, I can log back in the game now to do some fishing for mats. I also spent a ton on pets recently with no real time to gain the cash back and I can start gaining my "learning new fights" fund.
Nothing new, as I have been part of new additions to the game for several years now but the panic never really gets any better.
Wednesday, December 2
Preping for the new instance
I've said this before, but it seems to warrant mentioning again... I am tired of chasing the tier gear. I stopped during Ulduar sometime and never looked back.
From a healing standpoint, I was not thrilled with the crit on the set gear, regardless of how cool the bonuses were. For me, I am a raid healer first, and a tank healer second. Even during 10 man hardmodes, I tried to strike a decent balance between the two.
So before the haste change was announced, I stayed around 500 haste. I had dropped some talents in order to get the Empowered Touch. Overall, worked well.
After coming back from academically induced WoW hibernation, I realized that I would need something like 700 to 800 haste. Yikes, right?
On my server, the top druids are sporting 200 to 300 haste. I imagine they may have some tough choices to make for the Citadel. Dropping the t9 would be one of them. Picking up Celestial Focus is another.
In this, I blame blizzard, to a point. Favoring Crit on our gear over haste, then changing GotEM seems a little harsh. It seems to be the pattern that with each new set bonus, they tweak slightly how they would like to see us heal. GC has been quoted to suggest that blizzard thought Rejuv was too powerful and haste was a little overdone (huge paraphrasing).
Right now, I am way over the haste number I should for the content we are doing, and I haven't even grabbed CF yet. I have a crappy computer, so the haste is great if I didn't have the fps I have. Hopefully, that will change next month.
Most likely, I will be dropping a couple points I have in tranquil spirit and Revitalize in order to pick up CF. We don't have a bunch of elemental shaman or moonkin (read: we have one of each), so I can't rely on those buffs too much and need the boost CF provides.
Overall, I just feel a little bad for the crit druids who have to make radical changes in order to keep up.
From a healing standpoint, I was not thrilled with the crit on the set gear, regardless of how cool the bonuses were. For me, I am a raid healer first, and a tank healer second. Even during 10 man hardmodes, I tried to strike a decent balance between the two.
So before the haste change was announced, I stayed around 500 haste. I had dropped some talents in order to get the Empowered Touch. Overall, worked well.
After coming back from academically induced WoW hibernation, I realized that I would need something like 700 to 800 haste. Yikes, right?
On my server, the top druids are sporting 200 to 300 haste. I imagine they may have some tough choices to make for the Citadel. Dropping the t9 would be one of them. Picking up Celestial Focus is another.
In this, I blame blizzard, to a point. Favoring Crit on our gear over haste, then changing GotEM seems a little harsh. It seems to be the pattern that with each new set bonus, they tweak slightly how they would like to see us heal. GC has been quoted to suggest that blizzard thought Rejuv was too powerful and haste was a little overdone (huge paraphrasing).
Right now, I am way over the haste number I should for the content we are doing, and I haven't even grabbed CF yet. I have a crappy computer, so the haste is great if I didn't have the fps I have. Hopefully, that will change next month.
Most likely, I will be dropping a couple points I have in tranquil spirit and Revitalize in order to pick up CF. We don't have a bunch of elemental shaman or moonkin (read: we have one of each), so I can't rely on those buffs too much and need the boost CF provides.
Overall, I just feel a little bad for the crit druids who have to make radical changes in order to keep up.
Wednesday, August 5
Does Gear determine who is a good player anymore?
Is the game too easy mode?
Some how I had forgotten that Emblems of Triumph were the new tokens to get until I did the heroic daily to finish off my Proof of Demise achievement. Then I was like "Sweet, I wonder how many it will take to get a new helm?" A lot. As in, some heroic dailies won't quite get me there. I will still have to raid, and that is totally fine with me.
But it got me thinking, after looking at the rash of applications we got recently, that just looking for purples don't cover our needs anymore. VoA, emblems, the new dungeon offering item level gear similar to Naxx means that folks who are up and coming now are getting geared faster.
This is great news for our newly invited folks. We take the approach of Low Maintenance, meaning as long as you keep your head down and do what needs to be done, we are willing to over look some lack luster dps and carry you. With the changes to how gear is acquired, we expect to see those guys start to catch up in some areas.
Double Edged Sword
One thing about some other MMO's is once the population is out of your level bracket, it becomes difficult to get anything done. Without a guild or some friends, it is like pulling teeth to even get a group going. WoW is not immune to this problem, but they tackle it with Recruit a Friend. The normal on my server at least is running noobies through dungeons they have no real right to be in. Quests are easier, traveling is easier, acquiring gear is all much easier than when I first started playing. This is not saying a whole lot since it was pretty easy compared to my EQ days of leveling off rats for a week.
Many players don't even set foot in dungeons at the lower levels. Some of it is because of the community and some of it because it's slower and the gear that is there will just be out leveled in a few days. Many folks don't see a dungeon until they hit 80. I don't know how many VoA's I've seen with people in greens. Some who have done dungeons are hitting VoA in T4 or T5, which boggles my mind.
This leads to a severe lack of understanding of the game and one's role in it. I recall a blue poster (and I believe it was GC) who said that players are getting smarter. Really? Which players was he referring to, because as I see it, the general population is not. It does not help that Blizz rehashes some mechanics, but I see more and more people choosing to ignore their surroundings or even take a moment to think critically about an encounter. It is a pet peeve of mine to hear over vent "OW, what killed me?" Sigh. Do me a favor and look through your logs or recount before spewing that. Even the question "What happened?" is starting to annoy me. But I will stop there before I start to digress.
Many PuG leaders are stepping up and trying to tackle this problem. Setting requirements like "If you are not pulling 2 or 3k dps by the time we get to the boss, you will be booted." Then folks QQ. But is is a start, even if it's a rather blanket requirement. If you can pull those numbers in your greens, then props to you. I met a druid who did as much healing as I in blues which made me step up my game. It was healthy competition.
Instant Gratification
I had opened trade channel to get some pug time in (yes, on my server, trade is the LFG channel), and after the patch I had to shut it down. The amount of lame ass questions was large. So many people didn't either look at the patch notes or research any of the information that has been out for a month. Why bother when you just ask in open channels what you need to do. Hell, don't know how to update your addons? Ask the channel (true story).
Playing in Aion Beta did make me miss WoWhead. After running around for 20 mins looking for a quest item, my boyfriend said "I bet it will be right under our noses" and sure enough, after asking, we realized we walked right past it. Some things in various games are pretty vague, and for that some help is appreciated and given out willingly. Simple things are not.
Taking the good with the bad
The many minor improvements the game has made since launch I wouldn't ask to be taken away (Remember when we didn't have marks and people had assist macros? How did we kill anything?). With the game being as old as it is, and some servers just as old (mine is one of the early ones) you need something in place in order to allow the new folks or rerollers a way to catch up to their friends. But the downside to that is the dumbing down of the game on many levels which I feel is a slippery slope.
Some how I had forgotten that Emblems of Triumph were the new tokens to get until I did the heroic daily to finish off my Proof of Demise achievement. Then I was like "Sweet, I wonder how many it will take to get a new helm?" A lot. As in, some heroic dailies won't quite get me there. I will still have to raid, and that is totally fine with me.
But it got me thinking, after looking at the rash of applications we got recently, that just looking for purples don't cover our needs anymore. VoA, emblems, the new dungeon offering item level gear similar to Naxx means that folks who are up and coming now are getting geared faster.
This is great news for our newly invited folks. We take the approach of Low Maintenance, meaning as long as you keep your head down and do what needs to be done, we are willing to over look some lack luster dps and carry you. With the changes to how gear is acquired, we expect to see those guys start to catch up in some areas.
Double Edged Sword
One thing about some other MMO's is once the population is out of your level bracket, it becomes difficult to get anything done. Without a guild or some friends, it is like pulling teeth to even get a group going. WoW is not immune to this problem, but they tackle it with Recruit a Friend. The normal on my server at least is running noobies through dungeons they have no real right to be in. Quests are easier, traveling is easier, acquiring gear is all much easier than when I first started playing. This is not saying a whole lot since it was pretty easy compared to my EQ days of leveling off rats for a week.
Many players don't even set foot in dungeons at the lower levels. Some of it is because of the community and some of it because it's slower and the gear that is there will just be out leveled in a few days. Many folks don't see a dungeon until they hit 80. I don't know how many VoA's I've seen with people in greens. Some who have done dungeons are hitting VoA in T4 or T5, which boggles my mind.
This leads to a severe lack of understanding of the game and one's role in it. I recall a blue poster (and I believe it was GC) who said that players are getting smarter. Really? Which players was he referring to, because as I see it, the general population is not. It does not help that Blizz rehashes some mechanics, but I see more and more people choosing to ignore their surroundings or even take a moment to think critically about an encounter. It is a pet peeve of mine to hear over vent "OW, what killed me?" Sigh. Do me a favor and look through your logs or recount before spewing that. Even the question "What happened?" is starting to annoy me. But I will stop there before I start to digress.
Many PuG leaders are stepping up and trying to tackle this problem. Setting requirements like "If you are not pulling 2 or 3k dps by the time we get to the boss, you will be booted." Then folks QQ. But is is a start, even if it's a rather blanket requirement. If you can pull those numbers in your greens, then props to you. I met a druid who did as much healing as I in blues which made me step up my game. It was healthy competition.
Instant Gratification
I had opened trade channel to get some pug time in (yes, on my server, trade is the LFG channel), and after the patch I had to shut it down. The amount of lame ass questions was large. So many people didn't either look at the patch notes or research any of the information that has been out for a month. Why bother when you just ask in open channels what you need to do. Hell, don't know how to update your addons? Ask the channel (true story).
Playing in Aion Beta did make me miss WoWhead. After running around for 20 mins looking for a quest item, my boyfriend said "I bet it will be right under our noses" and sure enough, after asking, we realized we walked right past it. Some things in various games are pretty vague, and for that some help is appreciated and given out willingly. Simple things are not.
Taking the good with the bad
The many minor improvements the game has made since launch I wouldn't ask to be taken away (Remember when we didn't have marks and people had assist macros? How did we kill anything?). With the game being as old as it is, and some servers just as old (mine is one of the early ones) you need something in place in order to allow the new folks or rerollers a way to catch up to their friends. But the downside to that is the dumbing down of the game on many levels which I feel is a slippery slope.
Wednesday, July 15
Whew, so busy!
I know, I know, no one wants to hear what bosses I've downed or anything like that. But seriously, the last couple days of raiding have been insane and wonderful. 5 raiding firsts all back to back. Gotta love that!
Mimiron and Thorim have been our roadblocks the last couple weeks. I wrote earlier about the near meltdown Thorim gave us, and since then we set him aside to focus more on Mim.
Mimiron: our plan was to divide the raid into thirds for phase 1. I was in charge of the right side (as you are facing the big red button). It's a simple plan really. Couple hots on the napalmed folks and move to the MT when the plasma blast hits. Sometimes, if the timing was fine, I would Nourish the napalmed target a couple times to top them off, but Mim generally liked to Napalm right before the plasma blast, so there really isn't a lot of time to switch targets. Our tank is beefy (45k hit points and he isn't even a bear) but lose your concentration and he could go down like a rock quickly.
Phase 2 each side had an group healer and during the machine gun-like attacks, the sides clumped up and we let the healers do their thing.
During phase 3 and 4 myself and a priest were in charge of the range tank, while also tossing aoe heals on various groups of folks to keep them up. All that went smoothly, though things got a little nerve wracking when almost all the melee bit it in phase 4.
We all must have been in a zone because when the fight was over, several of us were like "Wow, did we win?" We were pushing it on getting all three sections down at the same time, so close that we thought we missed it.
Needless to say, on the heals of our Mimiron kill we moved to Thorim and smoked him, too. First time on either and we did them back to back. Whew!
Thorim is rough, I don't care who you are. We came in after a couple week break on him, which also meant upgrades and it nice to finally smoke him. We honestly didn't think we would get that far so quickly and the raid leaders forgot to mention a couple things to the raid: Chain lightning hurts so don't blow up your friends and move away from the little lightning... um... railroad tracks. I called them skittles over vent, which I don't think helped folks move out of the way very well.
They kinda look like skittles
I will also say this... Talenn kicked ASS on Thorim. I don't normally call people out by name, but I was really impressed with how far our fearless leader has come when it involves raid healing (normally he tank heals). Just an amazing job in the arena. So much so, that I had to check the stat reports to just see what he was doing that I was not doing. (Note: more WG and Rejuvs) Great Job!
Next up... our Tuesday 10 man hard mode run. Our little group has been slowly working our way through the towers for FL and some other progression type stuff for a while now, and this week we resolved to hunker down and actually get some good hard modes done.
I wish I had some words of wisdom for healing through Heartbreaker. I spent a good portion of it pacing back and forth between the same 20 yard area in order keep hots on everyone. Rejuv, Lifebloom and Wildgrowth were my friends while the two paladins kept the tank up. Yes, we ran it with three healers and I will admit I cussed a lot as folks were running away- for good reasons- out of my range.
Hodir- we have gotten close on him before (like, 30 secs off the speed timer mark) and last night we tried it once again. I was slated to dps for the fight, but asking two paladins to duo heal it was a little much so we asked one of them to switch to his hunter and I moved back to healing.
Nothing new from my end, rejuv, lifeblooms on everyone. After five or so tries, things weren't looking any better and it was getting late. We called for a Last Try, no holds barred and kill him regardless of the timer.
Then... BAM... without even paying attention to it, we downed him! The cache had a beautifulIcecore Staff, and I was holding my breath while the SP and the Elem Shaman sat on the roll window deciding on taking it or not. Silly dps... sexy staves are for druids :)
(Ed: skittles photo from Flickr by Special
Mimiron and Thorim have been our roadblocks the last couple weeks. I wrote earlier about the near meltdown Thorim gave us, and since then we set him aside to focus more on Mim.
Mimiron: our plan was to divide the raid into thirds for phase 1. I was in charge of the right side (as you are facing the big red button). It's a simple plan really. Couple hots on the napalmed folks and move to the MT when the plasma blast hits. Sometimes, if the timing was fine, I would Nourish the napalmed target a couple times to top them off, but Mim generally liked to Napalm right before the plasma blast, so there really isn't a lot of time to switch targets. Our tank is beefy (45k hit points and he isn't even a bear) but lose your concentration and he could go down like a rock quickly.
Phase 2 each side had an group healer and during the machine gun-like attacks, the sides clumped up and we let the healers do their thing.
During phase 3 and 4 myself and a priest were in charge of the range tank, while also tossing aoe heals on various groups of folks to keep them up. All that went smoothly, though things got a little nerve wracking when almost all the melee bit it in phase 4.
We all must have been in a zone because when the fight was over, several of us were like "Wow, did we win?" We were pushing it on getting all three sections down at the same time, so close that we thought we missed it.
Needless to say, on the heals of our Mimiron kill we moved to Thorim and smoked him, too. First time on either and we did them back to back. Whew!
Thorim is rough, I don't care who you are. We came in after a couple week break on him, which also meant upgrades and it nice to finally smoke him. We honestly didn't think we would get that far so quickly and the raid leaders forgot to mention a couple things to the raid: Chain lightning hurts so don't blow up your friends and move away from the little lightning... um... railroad tracks. I called them skittles over vent, which I don't think helped folks move out of the way very well.
They kinda look like skittlesI will also say this... Talenn kicked ASS on Thorim. I don't normally call people out by name, but I was really impressed with how far our fearless leader has come when it involves raid healing (normally he tank heals). Just an amazing job in the arena. So much so, that I had to check the stat reports to just see what he was doing that I was not doing. (Note: more WG and Rejuvs) Great Job!
Next up... our Tuesday 10 man hard mode run. Our little group has been slowly working our way through the towers for FL and some other progression type stuff for a while now, and this week we resolved to hunker down and actually get some good hard modes done.
I wish I had some words of wisdom for healing through Heartbreaker. I spent a good portion of it pacing back and forth between the same 20 yard area in order keep hots on everyone. Rejuv, Lifebloom and Wildgrowth were my friends while the two paladins kept the tank up. Yes, we ran it with three healers and I will admit I cussed a lot as folks were running away- for good reasons- out of my range.
Hodir- we have gotten close on him before (like, 30 secs off the speed timer mark) and last night we tried it once again. I was slated to dps for the fight, but asking two paladins to duo heal it was a little much so we asked one of them to switch to his hunter and I moved back to healing.
Nothing new from my end, rejuv, lifeblooms on everyone. After five or so tries, things weren't looking any better and it was getting late. We called for a Last Try, no holds barred and kill him regardless of the timer.
Then... BAM... without even paying attention to it, we downed him! The cache had a beautifulIcecore Staff, and I was holding my breath while the SP and the Elem Shaman sat on the roll window deciding on taking it or not. Silly dps... sexy staves are for druids :)
(Ed: skittles photo from Flickr by Special
Wednesday, July 8
Is it time to clean my bank?
Hi, I'm Kir and I have an addiction.
I open my bank every day and stare at the bags full of stuff. Often, I have no clue if it's worth keeping. "Oh it has agility! Oh it has crit!" It's leather and kinda feral looking but I have no idea if I should wear it. I keep picking up more gear and dumping into the bank.
I don't have a clue because I stopped being feral about a year ago but I can't let go. My second spec is Boomkin. I carry it in my inventory. But I can't seem to shake this feeling like I would need my subpar feral set at any moment. Problem is I haven't looked into feral in ages. The new Lich King feral druid baffles me. No defense? Is straight AP better than going for stats?
I marvel at the prospect of so much space if only I got rid of the feral gear. I know it blows. Some pieces are good but frankly they came from instances. It's not like I can't just get them back again. The rest are hold overs from BC.
We don't need ferals, hell we don't need melee dps period. When I switch to boomkin on some fights, folks cheer at my crit and spell damage modifiers.
So, with a heavy heart, I went through most of my gear and sold it to the vendor. I kept the various pvp gear I picked up from VoA and some cherished items. Badge of Tenacity, oh you beautiful thing :)
Some of the stuff I did keep had some memories attached to them. That Badge? I got it for 40 gold off a guildy before he was booted from the guild. He was a dick. I enjoyed getting for discount. It took me through some rough times in BC as well.
I kept my Pocket Watch. Weeks and weeks in Kara tanking my ass off to finally get that. Along the way I bonded with some new and old friends back then who are with me in my current guild today.
Berserker's Call Again, a reminder of the hard work our little group put in to finally clear ZA.
/cry
Kitty pew pew and Bear RAWWWR... I will miss you.
The 200g will be put into a donation in your name. The Upgraded Kirin Tor Ring Instead of Feral Gear Foundation.
(Maybe in a few months I will tackle my trinket problem)
I open my bank every day and stare at the bags full of stuff. Often, I have no clue if it's worth keeping. "Oh it has agility! Oh it has crit!" It's leather and kinda feral looking but I have no idea if I should wear it. I keep picking up more gear and dumping into the bank.
I don't have a clue because I stopped being feral about a year ago but I can't let go. My second spec is Boomkin. I carry it in my inventory. But I can't seem to shake this feeling like I would need my subpar feral set at any moment. Problem is I haven't looked into feral in ages. The new Lich King feral druid baffles me. No defense? Is straight AP better than going for stats?
I marvel at the prospect of so much space if only I got rid of the feral gear. I know it blows. Some pieces are good but frankly they came from instances. It's not like I can't just get them back again. The rest are hold overs from BC.
We don't need ferals, hell we don't need melee dps period. When I switch to boomkin on some fights, folks cheer at my crit and spell damage modifiers.
So, with a heavy heart, I went through most of my gear and sold it to the vendor. I kept the various pvp gear I picked up from VoA and some cherished items. Badge of Tenacity, oh you beautiful thing :)
Some of the stuff I did keep had some memories attached to them. That Badge? I got it for 40 gold off a guildy before he was booted from the guild. He was a dick. I enjoyed getting for discount. It took me through some rough times in BC as well.
I kept my Pocket Watch. Weeks and weeks in Kara tanking my ass off to finally get that. Along the way I bonded with some new and old friends back then who are with me in my current guild today.
Berserker's Call Again, a reminder of the hard work our little group put in to finally clear ZA.
/cry
Kitty pew pew and Bear RAWWWR... I will miss you.
The 200g will be put into a donation in your name. The Upgraded Kirin Tor Ring Instead of Feral Gear Foundation.
(Maybe in a few months I will tackle my trinket problem)
Friday, July 3
You'd think vacation means I'd get stuff done
I work just a few hours a week, and school is out, so much of my time is spent online now.
I should be doing my dailies. I mean, there are Champion Seals to get, two more baby crocs to find, and more JC tokens to stock up on.
What am I doing instead?
Making Circles.
DM
Croc Circle, get it?
I am working on my rep. I just need a few more before I get the Exalted title so I have been working on Steamwheedle and ZG. Only, I get twitchy and can only do them for short periods before I move on to something else.
Don't inspect me
My brother found me in the bank the other day. He was baffled that I wasn't wearing two pieces of t8 gear.
Instead of ranting and raving, I just instead mentioned that our rng has been favoring the Paladin, Priest, Warlock crowd and my hat is about the same as the t8 so no need to get it. I am not a huge fan of pugs so I haven't been doing VoA (not to mention we make a guild run each week on 25 man).
I probably have no real excuse for not wearing it, but I have reach some Zen-like acceptance that I may or may not get all the pieces. Besides, Spark of Hope is all I am really after lately, especially since another healer has it /shake fist.
So, back to ZG I go and maybe I can snag some more idols and coins.
I should be doing my dailies. I mean, there are Champion Seals to get, two more baby crocs to find, and more JC tokens to stock up on.
What am I doing instead?
Making Circles.
DM
Croc Circle, get it?
I am working on my rep. I just need a few more before I get the Exalted title so I have been working on Steamwheedle and ZG. Only, I get twitchy and can only do them for short periods before I move on to something else.
Don't inspect me
My brother found me in the bank the other day. He was baffled that I wasn't wearing two pieces of t8 gear.
Instead of ranting and raving, I just instead mentioned that our rng has been favoring the Paladin, Priest, Warlock crowd and my hat is about the same as the t8 so no need to get it. I am not a huge fan of pugs so I haven't been doing VoA (not to mention we make a guild run each week on 25 man).
I probably have no real excuse for not wearing it, but I have reach some Zen-like acceptance that I may or may not get all the pieces. Besides, Spark of Hope is all I am really after lately, especially since another healer has it /shake fist.
So, back to ZG I go and maybe I can snag some more idols and coins.
Thursday, June 25
T8 or T9 second look
Rolling Hots Broke down the math and the implications between t8 and t9 sets. Very smart cookie. Basically, Blizz is finding ways to nerf our regen through our gear.
I did find it odd that the socket bonuses for each piece of T9 was more spell power and the bonuses for the pieces are crit based. After reading what we potentially could be losing in the mana regen department, I am now all but given up on the Tier Game.
Yes. I want to take my ball and go home.
In BC, the feral druid set bonus was essential for getting max dps on a raid. For T9, having moonfire dot crits, plus more crit on starfire locks in the Lunar rotation for dps and is seriously worth looking at.
Crits on Rejuv? While I squealed like a little girl on her birthday at the Resto T9 bonus, after reading the stat changes I am not so sure I want to be on board with that. Of course, I am a WoW player and I want the set bonus but I do my job very well right now and I don't regularly run with 2 pieces of T8.
I am another step closer to saying screw it on T8 and try for T9, but now armed with more caution on my stats. My brother is already an Mp5 whore for his resto off set, and while I snickered before, I will be hanging on to my mana regen pieces more tightly now.
**************************************************************
Slightly different direction, one of our DPS switched mains to a Holy Pally. This means we have 8 healers now in our rotation and last night I raided Boomkin again. Largely this was due to the THREE (omg) mages that came plus two holy pallies all craving crit. For the sake of boosting raid dps, it was suggested to me to go dps for the night.
Afterward, I panicked. I asked in Officer Vent if I needed to pay attention to my dps set a little more. Typical replies "Play what you want to play" but I actually find healing easier than dps right now. I don't have rotations as a healer (generally; Hodir is an exception), and I am very comfortable with my role as a healer. My dps set is mainly Ulduar 10 man with some 25 man Naxx stuff, so it lags behind many other full time dpsers. Do I care? Certainly. I like to know I am pulling my weight. Thus, I panicked because my dps set needs lots of love in order to make me feel good with it.
Then, the realization hit me. While we have 8 healers in our rotation, sometimes 9, not all of them can play every night. Healer burnout is still a real threat as we push into harder content, on top of real life and its snags. So, my role as a healer will not be going away just because another healer is on the raids. What this does mean is I will have to carefully on work my dps little more.
I did find it odd that the socket bonuses for each piece of T9 was more spell power and the bonuses for the pieces are crit based. After reading what we potentially could be losing in the mana regen department, I am now all but given up on the Tier Game.
Yes. I want to take my ball and go home.
In BC, the feral druid set bonus was essential for getting max dps on a raid. For T9, having moonfire dot crits, plus more crit on starfire locks in the Lunar rotation for dps and is seriously worth looking at.
Crits on Rejuv? While I squealed like a little girl on her birthday at the Resto T9 bonus, after reading the stat changes I am not so sure I want to be on board with that. Of course, I am a WoW player and I want the set bonus but I do my job very well right now and I don't regularly run with 2 pieces of T8.
I am another step closer to saying screw it on T8 and try for T9, but now armed with more caution on my stats. My brother is already an Mp5 whore for his resto off set, and while I snickered before, I will be hanging on to my mana regen pieces more tightly now.
**************************************************************
Slightly different direction, one of our DPS switched mains to a Holy Pally. This means we have 8 healers now in our rotation and last night I raided Boomkin again. Largely this was due to the THREE (omg) mages that came plus two holy pallies all craving crit. For the sake of boosting raid dps, it was suggested to me to go dps for the night.
Afterward, I panicked. I asked in Officer Vent if I needed to pay attention to my dps set a little more. Typical replies "Play what you want to play" but I actually find healing easier than dps right now. I don't have rotations as a healer (generally; Hodir is an exception), and I am very comfortable with my role as a healer. My dps set is mainly Ulduar 10 man with some 25 man Naxx stuff, so it lags behind many other full time dpsers. Do I care? Certainly. I like to know I am pulling my weight. Thus, I panicked because my dps set needs lots of love in order to make me feel good with it.
Then, the realization hit me. While we have 8 healers in our rotation, sometimes 9, not all of them can play every night. Healer burnout is still a real threat as we push into harder content, on top of real life and its snags. So, my role as a healer will not be going away just because another healer is on the raids. What this does mean is I will have to carefully on work my dps little more.
Wednesday, June 24
T8 or T9?
It's still early and who knows when the new instances will come out, but there is a large part of me that wants to say "screw it." Really. Why bother working towards the T8 when T9 is around the corner so soon?
There are many druids that already have their full 4pc set with the happy bonuses. I am not one of them. The EPGP list is full of Deathknights, Druids, Mages, and Rogues. And I, being different, decided to go the route of steady consistant upgrades verses saving my points for the tier pieces. Do I regret it? No. However, I know I probably sound a little bitter about the whole thing and maybe I am, a little.
Before Ulduar came out, I waited until the last moment to grab my last T7 for the 4pc bonus, knowing that it would be super helpful while we learn the fights. Now that we are more settled, I have embraced the role of raid healer, and thus, my healing style had to change rather quickly.
I have two pieces of t8 which I swap out for occasionally for things like hard modes or whenever I know I will be using swiftmend regularly.
I think the biggest problem for me is I don't even want some of the items. My helm from 2D Sarth is almost exactly the same as the T8 helm, down the stats. I just don't see the need to spend emblems or points on an item that is nearly the same.
I'd love to get shoulders as I am wearing some 10 man cloth ones and the same goes for gloves, but that's still only three pieces (I broke down and bought the chest). For these items, skipping t8 and waiting for t9 makes more sense for me.
Or hell, skip going after the bonuses and just mix and match gear like I have currently been doing.
There are many druids that already have their full 4pc set with the happy bonuses. I am not one of them. The EPGP list is full of Deathknights, Druids, Mages, and Rogues. And I, being different, decided to go the route of steady consistant upgrades verses saving my points for the tier pieces. Do I regret it? No. However, I know I probably sound a little bitter about the whole thing and maybe I am, a little.
Before Ulduar came out, I waited until the last moment to grab my last T7 for the 4pc bonus, knowing that it would be super helpful while we learn the fights. Now that we are more settled, I have embraced the role of raid healer, and thus, my healing style had to change rather quickly.
I have two pieces of t8 which I swap out for occasionally for things like hard modes or whenever I know I will be using swiftmend regularly.
I think the biggest problem for me is I don't even want some of the items. My helm from 2D Sarth is almost exactly the same as the T8 helm, down the stats. I just don't see the need to spend emblems or points on an item that is nearly the same.
I'd love to get shoulders as I am wearing some 10 man cloth ones and the same goes for gloves, but that's still only three pieces (I broke down and bought the chest). For these items, skipping t8 and waiting for t9 makes more sense for me.
Or hell, skip going after the bonuses and just mix and match gear like I have currently been doing.
Monday, May 25
Fear and Loathing
Fear: Deciding to let go of T7 in favor of other gear choices, and tweaking a talent spec in order to optimize other raiders.
I decided to drop t7 all together. OK, maybe I kept the shoulders because my spirit was a little too low for my taste, but otherwise I am sporting my new Ulduar upgrades. Much to my pleasure, I got Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed last night, which when the blogsphere said Phaelia was getting a peice of gear named in her honor I knew I was going to have it. It's not optimally the best thing I should be wearing at this point, not to mention it was BoE and easily gone in the guild bank... but hell I took it for sentimental reasons.
Again, rawr says my choices lately blow, which reiterates my idea that these gear calculators are guides really. Sometimes, I have to just go with my gut on some things. Having nearly as many hps as our melee dps makes me feel good on those fights that having me taking extra damage (which in Ulduar seems like every fight). I will say that I spent a good several minutes going over my gear and regemming or tweaking until my stats were at a comfortable level. In order to keep my haste and spirit at those levels, I had to take a gem I never thought I'd use- 8 spirit, 8 haste. As much as it pains me to drop some int gems, I needed to make sure my global cooldown could keep up with my personal reaction time. In addition, we have discovered that between me and our other druid, I am better suited for raid healing and therefore need have speed to make sure all my targets have the hots flowing.
Currently, based on gear item levels, I am the third top druid on the server. The other two are sporting 3 peices of t8.5 and I can accept that their guild is a bit more progressed than I am. Competitive? Sure I am, but at the same time I also don't want to sacrifice too much of my own personal goals.
So what did I tweak? I took Revitalize over the weekend in order to test it on our next progression run. It was actually a friend of mine sending me a tell before my next DM Rep Run saying something along the lines of "Hey I could be getting 200 more dps if you specd this." OK, it wasn't quite like that, but he did challenge my perceptions on the talent. The good folks at Dreambound had a nice write up on the math taking Wild Growth into account. After doing some reading, talking with my friend (who also crunches numbers and in general trolls info sites) I decided to give this talent a shot. See, I had it before but thought it sucked hard, regardless of the amount of rejuv I was tossing. Lately, though, with my new full time role as raid healer I had to bite the bullet and say that perhaps there was some value to tweaking my talents. Add in my recent addition of the Wild Growth glyph, and I started seeing some possibilities. It still is pretty marginal as a mana regen talent. However, we run with more DKs and Hunters than any other class. Without rehashing the math already done before, I will say our Deathknights got a nice boost last night. Hodir, especially, was fun as I got lucky and was given our two top DKs as my heal targets. Maybe I should tell my friend to give me the 35 gold for the respec cost, since it pushed him to nearly 9k dps on Hodir with a 560 runic power gain. mmm...
Loathing: Um, the prospect of tackling Thorim and Mimiron in the comming weeks. Shudder.
Have a safe Memorial Day. My brother will be BBQing while I tell him how I obliterated one of his healers in VoA. (What's the point of being a big sister if I can't call bragging rights?)
I decided to drop t7 all together. OK, maybe I kept the shoulders because my spirit was a little too low for my taste, but otherwise I am sporting my new Ulduar upgrades. Much to my pleasure, I got Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed last night, which when the blogsphere said Phaelia was getting a peice of gear named in her honor I knew I was going to have it. It's not optimally the best thing I should be wearing at this point, not to mention it was BoE and easily gone in the guild bank... but hell I took it for sentimental reasons.
Again, rawr says my choices lately blow, which reiterates my idea that these gear calculators are guides really. Sometimes, I have to just go with my gut on some things. Having nearly as many hps as our melee dps makes me feel good on those fights that having me taking extra damage (which in Ulduar seems like every fight). I will say that I spent a good several minutes going over my gear and regemming or tweaking until my stats were at a comfortable level. In order to keep my haste and spirit at those levels, I had to take a gem I never thought I'd use- 8 spirit, 8 haste. As much as it pains me to drop some int gems, I needed to make sure my global cooldown could keep up with my personal reaction time. In addition, we have discovered that between me and our other druid, I am better suited for raid healing and therefore need have speed to make sure all my targets have the hots flowing.
Currently, based on gear item levels, I am the third top druid on the server. The other two are sporting 3 peices of t8.5 and I can accept that their guild is a bit more progressed than I am. Competitive? Sure I am, but at the same time I also don't want to sacrifice too much of my own personal goals.
So what did I tweak? I took Revitalize over the weekend in order to test it on our next progression run. It was actually a friend of mine sending me a tell before my next DM Rep Run saying something along the lines of "Hey I could be getting 200 more dps if you specd this." OK, it wasn't quite like that, but he did challenge my perceptions on the talent. The good folks at Dreambound had a nice write up on the math taking Wild Growth into account. After doing some reading, talking with my friend (who also crunches numbers and in general trolls info sites) I decided to give this talent a shot. See, I had it before but thought it sucked hard, regardless of the amount of rejuv I was tossing. Lately, though, with my new full time role as raid healer I had to bite the bullet and say that perhaps there was some value to tweaking my talents. Add in my recent addition of the Wild Growth glyph, and I started seeing some possibilities. It still is pretty marginal as a mana regen talent. However, we run with more DKs and Hunters than any other class. Without rehashing the math already done before, I will say our Deathknights got a nice boost last night. Hodir, especially, was fun as I got lucky and was given our two top DKs as my heal targets. Maybe I should tell my friend to give me the 35 gold for the respec cost, since it pushed him to nearly 9k dps on Hodir with a 560 runic power gain. mmm...
Loathing: Um, the prospect of tackling Thorim and Mimiron in the comming weeks. Shudder.
Have a safe Memorial Day. My brother will be BBQing while I tell him how I obliterated one of his healers in VoA. (What's the point of being a big sister if I can't call bragging rights?)
Wednesday, May 20
Set bonuses, patches, nerfs
Sometimes having a set bonus on the gear can be a crutch. So much is dependant on having two or all four peices of a certain gear that once you finally get them you are loathed to break up the set.
The druid t7 bonus is a boost to Nourish. This has been amazing for things like MT healing or any other targets that need quick direct heals, but I also know there are druids out there that aren't using the full set anymore.
So when the Mantle of the Preserver dropped from 10 man Ulduar last night and I saw it had more spellpower/crit than my T7, I was torn. Do I break up my set or do I take the shoulders (I was the only one who wanted them). Sure enough, I decided to break the set. It sucked and that's when I thought "I'm going to have to break the set anyway for the t8, might as well start picking up what I think will work."
Rawr says I made the wrong choice, ratings busters says they are close, and I'm waiting for some test runs to see how it actually will play out.
I suppose this wouldn't be so difficult if my role was a bit more defined. I have now proven that I can raid heal and tank heal, which leads me to tough choices about my gear.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Patch notes:
# Innervate: This ability has been redesigned to grant 450% of the casting Druid's base mana pool to the target over 20 seconds.
# Improved Moonkin Form: Now grants 10/20/30% of spirit as spell power.
For some reason I thought this went live already, but officially now it has. This is an important change to innervate, as I have already commented on, and maybe now I can drop the glyph to grab the Wild Growth Glyph.
Not sure how I feel about the boomkin change. I don't have a lot of spirit on my gear but maybe upper end, full time nukers will see some boost to their dps.
Ulduar was nerfed again on several different difficulty levels. I find it interesting that the World First XT hard mode kill happened after the nerfs went in... Oh silly Blizzard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
With those many changes, our 10 man last night was the smoothest run to date, with us clearing to Hodir in two hours. After banging our heads against the 25 man version and with the nerfs, I swear 10 man seemed like a much more relaxed adventure. I look forward to more progression.
There are rumblings of just doing 10 man all the time and saying screw it to the 25 man version. I'd rather not, but I understand the temptation. It's like herding sheep sometimes to get all 25 people to do what is needed, the healing is stressful, and the dps have to carry other dps.
All we have to do is look back to our Kara days and remind ourselves why focusing on 10 man raids is teh suck. Heck, even the cluster that was two ZAs. The drama was insane and cycling in folks to make sure there wasn't an A team and B team mentality forced some to quit and others to just merely want to fall off a cliff. We have 15 or so core raiders, which would either leave folks on the sidelines, or vie for attention from the raid leaders. In addition, getting the healers situated is also a pain.
In addition, unless we do 10 man hard modes, the item levels and significance of the upgrades is marginal between 10 and 25 man versions. Sometimes the itemization is a little different, but I hear more and more folks saying they are waiting for large upgrades and not small ones, which 10 man doesn't provide for us at this point.
I've already spent points on a staff and ring, dropping me below the other healers when it comes time for the T8 to drop. Others are still sporting player made items and are hogging their points for a shot at a certain item (this I can get behind, as they got screwed on RNG in Naxx and are seeing Ulduar as a chance for a very important upgrade).
I have no problems spending my points. I know t8 will drop for me eventually, and I'd rather have steady increases to performance than rely on one large one. In addition, the Ulduar drops have more HP than naxx versions (at least the items that I picked up) which in turn means more survivability. Can't do jack when you are dead.
It is all a personal choice, and I can't begrudge folks on their decisions.
The druid t7 bonus is a boost to Nourish. This has been amazing for things like MT healing or any other targets that need quick direct heals, but I also know there are druids out there that aren't using the full set anymore.
So when the Mantle of the Preserver dropped from 10 man Ulduar last night and I saw it had more spellpower/crit than my T7, I was torn. Do I break up my set or do I take the shoulders (I was the only one who wanted them). Sure enough, I decided to break the set. It sucked and that's when I thought "I'm going to have to break the set anyway for the t8, might as well start picking up what I think will work."
Rawr says I made the wrong choice, ratings busters says they are close, and I'm waiting for some test runs to see how it actually will play out.
I suppose this wouldn't be so difficult if my role was a bit more defined. I have now proven that I can raid heal and tank heal, which leads me to tough choices about my gear.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Patch notes:
# Innervate: This ability has been redesigned to grant 450% of the casting Druid's base mana pool to the target over 20 seconds.
# Improved Moonkin Form: Now grants 10/20/30% of spirit as spell power.
For some reason I thought this went live already, but officially now it has. This is an important change to innervate, as I have already commented on, and maybe now I can drop the glyph to grab the Wild Growth Glyph.
Not sure how I feel about the boomkin change. I don't have a lot of spirit on my gear but maybe upper end, full time nukers will see some boost to their dps.
Ulduar was nerfed again on several different difficulty levels. I find it interesting that the World First XT hard mode kill happened after the nerfs went in... Oh silly Blizzard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
With those many changes, our 10 man last night was the smoothest run to date, with us clearing to Hodir in two hours. After banging our heads against the 25 man version and with the nerfs, I swear 10 man seemed like a much more relaxed adventure. I look forward to more progression.
There are rumblings of just doing 10 man all the time and saying screw it to the 25 man version. I'd rather not, but I understand the temptation. It's like herding sheep sometimes to get all 25 people to do what is needed, the healing is stressful, and the dps have to carry other dps.
All we have to do is look back to our Kara days and remind ourselves why focusing on 10 man raids is teh suck. Heck, even the cluster that was two ZAs. The drama was insane and cycling in folks to make sure there wasn't an A team and B team mentality forced some to quit and others to just merely want to fall off a cliff. We have 15 or so core raiders, which would either leave folks on the sidelines, or vie for attention from the raid leaders. In addition, getting the healers situated is also a pain.
In addition, unless we do 10 man hard modes, the item levels and significance of the upgrades is marginal between 10 and 25 man versions. Sometimes the itemization is a little different, but I hear more and more folks saying they are waiting for large upgrades and not small ones, which 10 man doesn't provide for us at this point.
I've already spent points on a staff and ring, dropping me below the other healers when it comes time for the T8 to drop. Others are still sporting player made items and are hogging their points for a shot at a certain item (this I can get behind, as they got screwed on RNG in Naxx and are seeing Ulduar as a chance for a very important upgrade).
I have no problems spending my points. I know t8 will drop for me eventually, and I'd rather have steady increases to performance than rely on one large one. In addition, the Ulduar drops have more HP than naxx versions (at least the items that I picked up) which in turn means more survivability. Can't do jack when you are dead.
It is all a personal choice, and I can't begrudge folks on their decisions.
Thursday, May 14
Insomnia
Finally, we are feeling like we are making some progress in Ulduar. On 10 man, we killed Hodir which was awesome (I actually was in Moonkin form since we had extra healers) and for 25 man we tried Cat lady (Honestly, some of these names are hard for me to spell so they get nicknames).
Spent a ton of points on a new staff Rapture. Sure, a main hand and off hand are a better combo, but it had leaves and stuff... obviously a druid weapon. Sadly, all the haste I worked hard on got shot to hell, but I regemmed some haste gems.
We got our first pattern to drop- a blacksmithy one that went to our dps warrior. And my friend got two upgrades (a weapon which he can now stop bitching about, and a sigil)
All in all a good couple nights, with tonight on the way as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I have decided to stop being so grumpy at folks. Some of it had to do with a manipulation of vent (cryptic I know, but that's all I have to say), and a small chat with one of our healers. Turns out the healer is using the old click to target then heal method, which is what I used to do before the beauty of mods. This explains the low healing per second. Also explains why this person is better for single target or low impact raid healing. And the massive use of WG before it got nerfed. Basically, I understand a lot more what this person is up against as far as reaction times. I'm not so grumpy anymore.
Ugh, I lied. One small rant. If you get invited to the raid, start heading to the zone. If you have to afk, try to afk INSIDE the zone so that way when you are back, you are more ready to go than if you were dinking around in Dalaran. When you do get back, and the raid has started, don't say over vent with an incredulous voice "You guys already started?!" Yes, we started. It's 5:01 and the raids start at 5:00. Sometimes the raid is late, but not because we are waiting on you.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Off topic- I have a small case of insomnia. Actually, I got up this morning to deal with the cats and when I tried to go back to bed, had a small pain that nagged me to stay awake. Sucks more when we stayed up way too late and I have work today. Just when I'm trying to get more sleep lately, today it's about 6 hours.
Spent a ton of points on a new staff Rapture. Sure, a main hand and off hand are a better combo, but it had leaves and stuff... obviously a druid weapon. Sadly, all the haste I worked hard on got shot to hell, but I regemmed some haste gems.
We got our first pattern to drop- a blacksmithy one that went to our dps warrior. And my friend got two upgrades (a weapon which he can now stop bitching about, and a sigil)
All in all a good couple nights, with tonight on the way as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I have decided to stop being so grumpy at folks. Some of it had to do with a manipulation of vent (cryptic I know, but that's all I have to say), and a small chat with one of our healers. Turns out the healer is using the old click to target then heal method, which is what I used to do before the beauty of mods. This explains the low healing per second. Also explains why this person is better for single target or low impact raid healing. And the massive use of WG before it got nerfed. Basically, I understand a lot more what this person is up against as far as reaction times. I'm not so grumpy anymore.
Ugh, I lied. One small rant. If you get invited to the raid, start heading to the zone. If you have to afk, try to afk INSIDE the zone so that way when you are back, you are more ready to go than if you were dinking around in Dalaran. When you do get back, and the raid has started, don't say over vent with an incredulous voice "You guys already started?!" Yes, we started. It's 5:01 and the raids start at 5:00. Sometimes the raid is late, but not because we are waiting on you.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Off topic- I have a small case of insomnia. Actually, I got up this morning to deal with the cats and when I tried to go back to bed, had a small pain that nagged me to stay awake. Sucks more when we stayed up way too late and I have work today. Just when I'm trying to get more sleep lately, today it's about 6 hours.
Friday, April 24
Lifebloom and Mana
I will admit I discounted lifebloom during the PTR because of the heavy cost hit and all the cries of the sky falling made me overlook one key thing they did to Lifebloom.
It refunds mana upon bloom. This is significant since they reduced our OFSR regen. It accounted for 15 percent of my overall mana gain last night in our 10 man, and probably would have been more had I not figured it out halfway through the night.
I recently learned that Nourish is only affected by 1 stack of Lifebloom, so rolling it still doesn't work as well anymore, but keeping it going on a tank (or whomever your constant damage soaker is) and then tossing it around to say, folks who are going to be hit by a Gravity Bomb seems to work out nicely. And, if I let it drop on the tank for whatever reason (like when I need the burst heal) that's more mana gain, since the return is higher with more stacks.
It works out that if you throw on stack on a player, the difference in the cost ends up being cheaper than it was pre 3.1. That's with the 2p t7 bonus.
I haven't seen mana issues on 10 man too much. I think I used a couple pots and Innervated a couple times the whole night (both times were after a battle rez). Helped that I had the resto shaman in my group for the mana totem. 25 man, it's too hard to gauge yet though I imagine it will be a chore to keep the blue bar from going to zero the more we progress.
I am at a difficult spot now. I'd like to drop the mana restore meta gem in my helm in favor of the spell power/int one, but the gem also accounted for around 15 percent mana gain.
--------------------------------
With the new Nourish set up, I opted to add a little more haste in my gear and switched my trinkets. Before I was using the Spirit-World Glass and the Majestic Dragon Figuring, both of which added spirit boosts. These worked out well pre Uldar because of the high regen I had and the utility to toss (glyphed)Innervates to others while still getting a benefit.
After some mediocre testing in Dalaran with Embrace of the Spider (98 spellpower, chance to gain 505 haste) and The Egg of Mortal Essence (same stats) I can keep a constant flow of extra haste to boost Nourish. They also can proc at the same time (Hello 1356/41% haste)... Yum.
I may drop these later for the 100 spirit 48 reduction in spell cost trinket out of 10 man Uldar, but in the meantime, I am liking the set up I have.
It refunds mana upon bloom. This is significant since they reduced our OFSR regen. It accounted for 15 percent of my overall mana gain last night in our 10 man, and probably would have been more had I not figured it out halfway through the night.
I recently learned that Nourish is only affected by 1 stack of Lifebloom, so rolling it still doesn't work as well anymore, but keeping it going on a tank (or whomever your constant damage soaker is) and then tossing it around to say, folks who are going to be hit by a Gravity Bomb seems to work out nicely. And, if I let it drop on the tank for whatever reason (like when I need the burst heal) that's more mana gain, since the return is higher with more stacks.
It works out that if you throw on stack on a player, the difference in the cost ends up being cheaper than it was pre 3.1. That's with the 2p t7 bonus.
I haven't seen mana issues on 10 man too much. I think I used a couple pots and Innervated a couple times the whole night (both times were after a battle rez). Helped that I had the resto shaman in my group for the mana totem. 25 man, it's too hard to gauge yet though I imagine it will be a chore to keep the blue bar from going to zero the more we progress.
I am at a difficult spot now. I'd like to drop the mana restore meta gem in my helm in favor of the spell power/int one, but the gem also accounted for around 15 percent mana gain.
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With the new Nourish set up, I opted to add a little more haste in my gear and switched my trinkets. Before I was using the Spirit-World Glass and the Majestic Dragon Figuring, both of which added spirit boosts. These worked out well pre Uldar because of the high regen I had and the utility to toss (glyphed)Innervates to others while still getting a benefit.
After some mediocre testing in Dalaran with Embrace of the Spider (98 spellpower, chance to gain 505 haste) and The Egg of Mortal Essence (same stats) I can keep a constant flow of extra haste to boost Nourish. They also can proc at the same time (Hello 1356/41% haste)... Yum.
I may drop these later for the 100 spirit 48 reduction in spell cost trinket out of 10 man Uldar, but in the meantime, I am liking the set up I have.
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