Many of you have probably been reading the patch notes (and other information) for a while now regarding the changes to druids.
Some things from the patch that caught my eye:
Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.
Coupled with some other changes to our talents, I see they are trying to make mastery a little more than a tank healing talent. I know I have been throwing on pieces that have more mastery on them, and if you look at the Valor Vendor, our gear is rife with it.
Making mastery work well takes some practice for me. I make the mistake of throwing rejuv on targets NOT affected by WG or not throwing WG down before Tranquility is up, etc. This will become easier once the fights have been done more (only a couple bosses are on farm for us, and we have been moving between 25 and 10s during the week).
Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost is now 20% of base mana.
Sad, but this was needed. You don't want to rejuv spam but at the same time, the change to Nature's Bounty would be moot if the cost was too high.
The instant Rejuvenation heal from Gift of the Earthmother should no longer gain bonus healing from haste too soon, and should now correctly benefit from Symbiosis
Somehow I overlooked this piece of information a few weeks ago. I had dropped to 1 point in GotEM to tweak with things, but if it will work with Mastery then perhaps adding back a point may be worth it.
Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.
This makes me want to take the glyph again. With my current progression, I am still not convinced I would get much use out of it. I mainly heal for 25's, and with our two holy priests, shaman and other resto druid, most folks don't stay at that critical level for very long. Perhaps later on in progression, this may make more sense. For 10s, I could see this getting more use as their are less people to draw from and tighter mana restrictions.
Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
With talents, this will last 31 seconds. There are quite a few people upset by this but I think it will pass.
Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion’s Gift is chosen.
If you didn't already have Malfurion's Gift before, this probably affects you a great deal.
Also note:
Mandala of Stirring Patterns now increases Intellect instead of mastery rating.
This sounds great. However, reports on PTR suggest that is is not procing off hots or dots which puts this at a really low priority for me. I know that I saved up tokens to get this but after reading the findings, I will be spending my tokens on stuff for tanking.
The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.
War Stomp-ing in Bear makes me sqeee! Getting myself to remember I can do that will take getting use to. Hell, some days I forget I can use a pot or healthstone in bear since I haven't actively tanked since early Burning Crusade. At least we will be closer toward Warriors and their shockwave.
What this means for my spec
I thought I had my spec set up nicely so I wouldn't have to worry about changing anything after the patch, but Efflo seems weak even in 25s. GotEM will be stronger, in theory anyway.
This is what I will probably be taking later today. I keep Nature's Cure because I still run a fair number of Heroics for the guild and I don't over gear the content so much that I want to just heal through it all. In addition, if you heal BH without Nature's Cure, you are asking for trouble.
I will drop Efflo. After a couple weeks worth of parses, I find it doesn't seem to be as effective as I wish it could be. And, as most of us know, being linked to Living Seed is just terrible. Even with Nature's Bounty and such, Living Seed still did pitiful healing. For the love of leafy things, unlink the two talents please!
Given that Healing Rain and Sanctuary are already in use for our raids, I find the green circle is not as needed. Our other tree will probably keep it, so it won't disappear from our raids entirely.
Interestingly, I find that it actually hinders me. Knowing that swiftmending will throw down a circle which may or may not be correctly placed means that I hold back quite a bit. Removing that from the equation will probably mean an increased usage of Swiftmend. And, one of our tanks thanked me when I told him I won't have green circles. I do admit that green circles with other nasty green stuff can be confusing for some to interpret (silly tanks).
There's also a ton of changes to ferals (why did you nerf bear threat?) and moonkin which are met with interesting responses on the forums.
Enjoy patch day!
Showing posts with label Resto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resto. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8
Tuesday, January 25
Was I crazy to drop Furor?
Some time ago, after the rumors of a reduced Rejuv cost was in the works, I was taking a look at my talents and decided that I really wanted to try Genesis. The problem was, how the heck was I going to be able to pull that off? I was irked at Efflo and thought the answer was to drop that to grab more points into Balance.
Then I came across Leiyan's blog which explored that very same idea in a way.
Since I wasn't quite ready to drop Efflo because I needed to see how it performed in 25s, I decided I wanted to have my cake and eat it too...
Thus, this is the spec I am playing around with. I dropped my two points of Furor, dropped GotEM to 1 point, kept Living Seed and Efflo and put two points into Genesis.
Now, I understand the argument for keeping Furor. A boost to that mana pool means lasting longer not only because you have more of a resource to build from, but it means your revitalize ticks for more. I am not saying it is a bad talent at all.
For myself, I went from 111k mana self buffed to 110k mana roughly. This seemed an acceptable tradeoff to get all my hots to work better.
What I didn't do is take Blessing of the Grove. Despite Rejuv being my most casted spell, I needed to keep points in Efflo for that all important parser testing. I will say that the parser did show an improvement on Rejuv (and other hots) I can't be entirely sure if it was the new Valor boots I got, usage of mastery, the talent change, or all of the above. Keeping an eye on it.
Another thing to note is what my roles are. One week I was tank healing with some raid thrown in, another week I was raid healing with some tank healing when those healers were busy (like running from oozes). This effects spell usage to a point, though to be honest Rejuv is up there regardless of whatever role I am in.
As a slightly off topic, I'd like more Priest, Shaman and Pally blogs! If you know of some really awesome ones I would love to know (Lifeingroup5 for example is a Shammy one I hadn't seen until last week).
Then I came across Leiyan's blog which explored that very same idea in a way.
Since I wasn't quite ready to drop Efflo because I needed to see how it performed in 25s, I decided I wanted to have my cake and eat it too...
Thus, this is the spec I am playing around with. I dropped my two points of Furor, dropped GotEM to 1 point, kept Living Seed and Efflo and put two points into Genesis.
Now, I understand the argument for keeping Furor. A boost to that mana pool means lasting longer not only because you have more of a resource to build from, but it means your revitalize ticks for more. I am not saying it is a bad talent at all.
For myself, I went from 111k mana self buffed to 110k mana roughly. This seemed an acceptable tradeoff to get all my hots to work better.
What I didn't do is take Blessing of the Grove. Despite Rejuv being my most casted spell, I needed to keep points in Efflo for that all important parser testing. I will say that the parser did show an improvement on Rejuv (and other hots) I can't be entirely sure if it was the new Valor boots I got, usage of mastery, the talent change, or all of the above. Keeping an eye on it.
Another thing to note is what my roles are. One week I was tank healing with some raid thrown in, another week I was raid healing with some tank healing when those healers were busy (like running from oozes). This effects spell usage to a point, though to be honest Rejuv is up there regardless of whatever role I am in.
As a slightly off topic, I'd like more Priest, Shaman and Pally blogs! If you know of some really awesome ones I would love to know (Lifeingroup5 for example is a Shammy one I hadn't seen until last week).
Tuesday, January 18
Breaking bad habits
If there is one habit I need to stop doing is overhealing. Especially when it comes to rejuvenation.
I did this all the time in Wrath, just rejuv rejuv opps they have one already! Oh well, just keep at it.
But now, man, overhealing rejuv is just a waste and something I am slowing retraining myself to NOT do. And I admit, it's difficult.
Then I started to take a hard look at other things I could be doing differently.
What I could fix
Stop swiftmending the person who is out in the middle of nowhere unless you really need that instant heal (tanks not included). Lonely green circles makes kittens cry.
Stop refreashing rejuv mindlessly.
Watch for times when it's ok to let LB bloom. Stop switching LB targets before the bloom.
It's ok to use Tree form. It won't kill me or anyone else if used properly.
I don't need to chase the dps who ran so far away. Do remind them to stay in enough range to not kill the raid while avoiding bad things.
Mind over Spells
This leads to something I hear from healers which is "Get your mind retuned." Things like understanding when it's ok to panic that folks are at 50 percent and when it's ok to just ride the wave.
The synergy that Cata has instilled for healers causes much more critical thinking. This is where I start to feel bad for Shaman. Their spells seemed to be rather gimped as it is, but imagine going for a couple of years just doing chain heal? The argument could be made for the rest of the healers, but after looking at the various Shaman mechanics, I just feel pity for them. I would say they are the prime example of the huge shift the game has made.
So now that I have exposed my flaws for the world, I can get back into the business of holding my breath for Rejuv+WG spam again. Hopefully, I will have learned how to heal smarter by the time the patch comes.
I did this all the time in Wrath, just rejuv rejuv opps they have one already! Oh well, just keep at it.
But now, man, overhealing rejuv is just a waste and something I am slowing retraining myself to NOT do. And I admit, it's difficult.
Then I started to take a hard look at other things I could be doing differently.
What I could fix
Stop swiftmending the person who is out in the middle of nowhere unless you really need that instant heal (tanks not included). Lonely green circles makes kittens cry.
Stop refreashing rejuv mindlessly.
Watch for times when it's ok to let LB bloom. Stop switching LB targets before the bloom.
It's ok to use Tree form. It won't kill me or anyone else if used properly.
I don't need to chase the dps who ran so far away. Do remind them to stay in enough range to not kill the raid while avoiding bad things.
Mind over Spells
This leads to something I hear from healers which is "Get your mind retuned." Things like understanding when it's ok to panic that folks are at 50 percent and when it's ok to just ride the wave.
The synergy that Cata has instilled for healers causes much more critical thinking. This is where I start to feel bad for Shaman. Their spells seemed to be rather gimped as it is, but imagine going for a couple of years just doing chain heal? The argument could be made for the rest of the healers, but after looking at the various Shaman mechanics, I just feel pity for them. I would say they are the prime example of the huge shift the game has made.
So now that I have exposed my flaws for the world, I can get back into the business of holding my breath for Rejuv+WG spam again. Hopefully, I will have learned how to heal smarter by the time the patch comes.
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.
Wednesday, October 13
4 hours of sleep.
Let me first off say that I normally go to bed at 9:00 pm. Last night I went to bed at 2:00 am (ish). Largely this is due to our friend who came over for dinner with the knowledge that the patch wasn't going to be done until 5 o'clock anyway. Seeing no point of rushing to log in we decided: bitching about the patch over a lovely meal > bitching about the patch while dealing with the whole server at once.
Then I promptly went online and the next thing I know, it's past midnight.
I didn't sleep in and figured I would take a nap later today. So, as I write this, I've had about 4 hours of sleep. You'd think it was expansion day or something!
Addon Pain
As with every major patch of this scale, your add ons will suck.
Of course, I totally forgot to fix a major one before doing some heroics and was not happy!
If you can't find the latest Grid you can download it here. It is Ace3 dependent which you can download here.
(Last night the other places like Curse and WoWinterface were not up to date. This probably has changed since this morning)
The new raid UI works very similarly to Grid and is found in the interface options. I sadly am so used to a third party raid window that the only way I would move away from Grid is to get Vuhdo.
I realized this morning that I miss Lifebloomer. I have dot timer but it's not the same as having things in one clean window. If someone knows of a replacement, I would love to know.
Had to update x-perl in order to get that eclipse bar to show on my screen.
WoWInterface posted a list of their updated add ons but there are still some issues.
Ahh remember Vanilla? I do and am amazed at how dependant on mods I have become. For perspective, I am reminded of Dark Legacy Comics. I'm a good healer!
Alts
Ciras enjoyed her new Barrier goodie but I haven't had the time or chance to really flesh out the new stuff like Archangel. Figure the time will eventually come but she is low on the priority list.
Helaina, my lock, however is semi raiding with some other alts from the guild and so I really worked on her late last night. I am disappointed with my Affliction numbers and begrudgingly went to Destro. On the test dummy, it pulled higher numbers for sure. Just when affliction looked like it was holding it's own, things go back down again for them. We shall see; I've been affliction for four years (even when it sucked, I refused to balk) and watching dots is like watching hots for me.
Could very well be gear since she is rather new to 80 and still has some blues (I know!)
Please be kind to your tanks (or Faceroll vs Finesse)
I know it will be hard to keep all those crits and new toys at bay, but if you want to keep tanks around for Cata, for the love of Elune please remember they will have a learning curve. Lum was struggling to keep his threat up and hold all the mobs like he used to in a five man. In his words regarding our up and coming raid tonight "Dps are going to die. Lots." I really don't want to have the dps feel like the healers are just going to save them when they pull agro. Even though we probably can and will, that is not the point and never has been. Wrath has made a lot of things one big faceroll and I would like to see a bit more finesse.
Hmm, getting tired. Maybe it's nap time now?
Then I promptly went online and the next thing I know, it's past midnight.
I didn't sleep in and figured I would take a nap later today. So, as I write this, I've had about 4 hours of sleep. You'd think it was expansion day or something!
Addon Pain
As with every major patch of this scale, your add ons will suck.
Of course, I totally forgot to fix a major one before doing some heroics and was not happy!
If you can't find the latest Grid you can download it here. It is Ace3 dependent which you can download here.
(Last night the other places like Curse and WoWinterface were not up to date. This probably has changed since this morning)
The new raid UI works very similarly to Grid and is found in the interface options. I sadly am so used to a third party raid window that the only way I would move away from Grid is to get Vuhdo.
I realized this morning that I miss Lifebloomer. I have dot timer but it's not the same as having things in one clean window. If someone knows of a replacement, I would love to know.
Had to update x-perl in order to get that eclipse bar to show on my screen.
WoWInterface posted a list of their updated add ons but there are still some issues.
Ahh remember Vanilla? I do and am amazed at how dependant on mods I have become. For perspective, I am reminded of Dark Legacy Comics. I'm a good healer!
Alts
Ciras enjoyed her new Barrier goodie but I haven't had the time or chance to really flesh out the new stuff like Archangel. Figure the time will eventually come but she is low on the priority list.
Helaina, my lock, however is semi raiding with some other alts from the guild and so I really worked on her late last night. I am disappointed with my Affliction numbers and begrudgingly went to Destro. On the test dummy, it pulled higher numbers for sure. Just when affliction looked like it was holding it's own, things go back down again for them. We shall see; I've been affliction for four years (even when it sucked, I refused to balk) and watching dots is like watching hots for me.
Could very well be gear since she is rather new to 80 and still has some blues (I know!)
Please be kind to your tanks (or Faceroll vs Finesse)
I know it will be hard to keep all those crits and new toys at bay, but if you want to keep tanks around for Cata, for the love of Elune please remember they will have a learning curve. Lum was struggling to keep his threat up and hold all the mobs like he used to in a five man. In his words regarding our up and coming raid tonight "Dps are going to die. Lots." I really don't want to have the dps feel like the healers are just going to save them when they pull agro. Even though we probably can and will, that is not the point and never has been. Wrath has made a lot of things one big faceroll and I would like to see a bit more finesse.
Hmm, getting tired. Maybe it's nap time now?
Saturday, April 10
/Facepalm pt 1
It was unveiled recently the druid changes for Cata and there are certainly mixed reactions within the community.
For the restos, a few things were announced. Some weren't wholly unexpected and some where a little "meh".
Tree Form
Let's just get this one out of the way. A few months ago, Blizz said they regretted having their players not show off their armor designs and hide behind forms. The rational behind making tree form a cooldown instead of a shapeshift was not only designer ego (imo) but also to give restos offensive capabilities like all the other healers. I disagree with this line of thinking. Maybe because of the pvp aspect it is cumbersome, but for a pve player I do not find it all that bad, especially since they made slight changes to the overall mechanic already.
So let's take a look at what is actually stated:
"Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time."
Every time this topic comes up, I think back to the Shadow Priest. Now, I don't wish to screw the SPs over; Blizz has been doing (enter sarcasm here) a good enough job fiddling with the class already . What strikes me is the line of reasoning applied to druids is not conversely applied to the SP. Is it not "unfair" to the Shadow Priest to not be able to dps and help heal like an Elemental Shaman? Or is the Moonkin form trumping that altogether?
Regrowth and an interactive mechanic
"Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth."
Hmm, so they wish to bring back regrowth into a larger prominence? Some of us knew that a forced use of regrowth was happening, but without more information, it is hard to see what exactly this mechanic may do. It is a HoT? Is it an PBAOE thing? Actually, now that I think about it, I think it would be awesome to have a PBAOE mechanic into our hots. Shamans get a Heal Rain spell so having something that is a tight, small radius hot that acts differently than WG would be neat and be great into the Tank Healing or Melee Healing role.
Haste and Crits
"All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form."
This, I like a lot. Not much more to say about this except yay for the kitties! I expect though this will not be a huge amount of love for the Cats as Blizzard has a tendency to want to keep Cats in the middle of the pack (pun not intended) as far as dps meters. I expect this haste to be balanced out by something else later.
New Spells?
Nope.
"Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation."
We do have a lot of tools in our tool boxes and am happy there won't be something new to add. However, they do need to keep the class fresh or we will start to get bored. I am curious about the wording used, though.
Tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom reminds me of BC days and rolling. What I think actually makes greater tank healing is the use of managed hots with Nourish.
Spot healing a group with regrowth and nourish. Now I am starting to get a complex and think maybe I am doing things wrong. Spot healing a group for me means a combination of WG along with something else, depending on the type of damage and the situation. It is strange to me that Wild Growth isn't really mentioned at all. Maybe I am reading too much into things.
Top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuv. Again, interesting wording choice here. Rejuv is very powerful right now. Depending on the Glyph and gear etc, Rejuv can be a great blanket for consistent damage or solid fast hot for heated encounters. If I wanted to top off a lightly wounded target, I would use Nourish or WG, not Rejuv because of wasted ticks. Again, I am beginning to think I am doing things all wrong now if this is how they see the roles of our spells.
And lastly, Dispels
"Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse"
Of of the things Abolish Poison had going for it was its ability to be sustained. This seems rather vital in a pvp situation as hunters and rogues can apply a variety of poisons in quick sucession.
Cure poison is just one poison "counter" and yet costs the amount of mana as the Abolish version. In addition, it is not a cure over time so for encounters similar to Naxx, you will not be able to cast and leave it which would normally free you to do other things.
So, more spamming, more mana drain. Color me excited... no.
Adding dispel magic is interesting. The dispel changes actually require its own post, so refraining from addition comments for now.
Finally, a message to Blizzard, with many thanks to Keeva
For the restos, a few things were announced. Some weren't wholly unexpected and some where a little "meh".
Tree Form
Let's just get this one out of the way. A few months ago, Blizz said they regretted having their players not show off their armor designs and hide behind forms. The rational behind making tree form a cooldown instead of a shapeshift was not only designer ego (imo) but also to give restos offensive capabilities like all the other healers. I disagree with this line of thinking. Maybe because of the pvp aspect it is cumbersome, but for a pve player I do not find it all that bad, especially since they made slight changes to the overall mechanic already.
So let's take a look at what is actually stated:
"Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time."
Every time this topic comes up, I think back to the Shadow Priest. Now, I don't wish to screw the SPs over; Blizz has been doing (enter sarcasm here) a good enough job fiddling with the class already . What strikes me is the line of reasoning applied to druids is not conversely applied to the SP. Is it not "unfair" to the Shadow Priest to not be able to dps and help heal like an Elemental Shaman? Or is the Moonkin form trumping that altogether?
Regrowth and an interactive mechanic
"Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth."
Hmm, so they wish to bring back regrowth into a larger prominence? Some of us knew that a forced use of regrowth was happening, but without more information, it is hard to see what exactly this mechanic may do. It is a HoT? Is it an PBAOE thing? Actually, now that I think about it, I think it would be awesome to have a PBAOE mechanic into our hots. Shamans get a Heal Rain spell so having something that is a tight, small radius hot that acts differently than WG would be neat and be great into the Tank Healing or Melee Healing role.
Haste and Crits
"All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form."
This, I like a lot. Not much more to say about this except yay for the kitties! I expect though this will not be a huge amount of love for the Cats as Blizzard has a tendency to want to keep Cats in the middle of the pack (pun not intended) as far as dps meters. I expect this haste to be balanced out by something else later.
New Spells?
Nope.
"Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation."
We do have a lot of tools in our tool boxes and am happy there won't be something new to add. However, they do need to keep the class fresh or we will start to get bored. I am curious about the wording used, though.
Tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom reminds me of BC days and rolling. What I think actually makes greater tank healing is the use of managed hots with Nourish.
Spot healing a group with regrowth and nourish. Now I am starting to get a complex and think maybe I am doing things wrong. Spot healing a group for me means a combination of WG along with something else, depending on the type of damage and the situation. It is strange to me that Wild Growth isn't really mentioned at all. Maybe I am reading too much into things.
Top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuv. Again, interesting wording choice here. Rejuv is very powerful right now. Depending on the Glyph and gear etc, Rejuv can be a great blanket for consistent damage or solid fast hot for heated encounters. If I wanted to top off a lightly wounded target, I would use Nourish or WG, not Rejuv because of wasted ticks. Again, I am beginning to think I am doing things all wrong now if this is how they see the roles of our spells.
And lastly, Dispels
"Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse"
Of of the things Abolish Poison had going for it was its ability to be sustained. This seems rather vital in a pvp situation as hunters and rogues can apply a variety of poisons in quick sucession.
Cure poison is just one poison "counter" and yet costs the amount of mana as the Abolish version. In addition, it is not a cure over time so for encounters similar to Naxx, you will not be able to cast and leave it which would normally free you to do other things.
So, more spamming, more mana drain. Color me excited... no.
Adding dispel magic is interesting. The dispel changes actually require its own post, so refraining from addition comments for now.
Finally, a message to Blizzard, with many thanks to Keeva
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
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.
Friday, August 7
New Eclipse and other things.
Solar, Lunar, Both?
Just when I thought I had the whole spam wrath till Solar proc thing figured out, a surprising thing happened to me in VoA last night: I got to see how the new Eclipse mechanic worked.
Wow. It's odd, feels weird, but kind of nice all at the same time. Not sure how I want to handle it though in the next raid I dps for, however. I just recently changed my spec to drop some points in Meditation, but realized it was too easy to burn through my mana while maintaining the Solar-Lunar cycle consistently. I will say that once I figured out what was going on, my dps did see an improvement but time will tell as more experimentation goes through. The new change to innervate may help on some fights, and of course, I still have a healthy supply of mana pots.
Empowered Touch
On the healing side of things, I have not changed my spec to take advantage of the new Empowered Touch. This is largely because of my raid role and, frankly, I haven't healed in a raid yet. Our guild took a week off of regular raiding while folks were dealing with the patch and the 10 man we did play around with, I was boomy. In a five man situation, I could see it being very effective, as Nourish is my second most effective spell in ToC.
I am just not quite ready to give up GotEM or Revitalize yet. I may move some points away from Gift into Empowered Touch, but again, I need to see things in a real raid setting.
OMGZ! I HAF OVERHEALZ?!
I recently read on Restokin that our HoT overhealing are now being shown in the combat logs, which means people will finally see how much our hots are NOT doing. I for one will not change how I play and really, any druid worth their salt shouldn't either. As a raid healer, I use hots very preemptively. I toss them on before I big aoe, I toss them on in between waves, etc. Rejuv is going even though I know my target will be snap up by the disc priest or pally because it will still be there when they have moved on.
To change how we heal just to look good on the numbers would be a mistake. HoTs have always been the buffer between direct heals, and just because they now have a numerical, definitive value attached to the overhealing, doesn't mean we should hold back.
However, I read that someone suggested that this overhealing will cause agro. This makes me scratch my head and ask "It does?" And honestly, I do not know. I play a Disc priest and a Resto druid, and while I never looked for it before, I didn't notice anything regarding this mechanic. Perhaps on the next raid it might show up. But, I have my doubts about this claim or else our Pally healers would have been snapping up agro left and right.
I look forward to us coming back from our raid break to test these things out.
Just when I thought I had the whole spam wrath till Solar proc thing figured out, a surprising thing happened to me in VoA last night: I got to see how the new Eclipse mechanic worked.
Wow. It's odd, feels weird, but kind of nice all at the same time. Not sure how I want to handle it though in the next raid I dps for, however. I just recently changed my spec to drop some points in Meditation, but realized it was too easy to burn through my mana while maintaining the Solar-Lunar cycle consistently. I will say that once I figured out what was going on, my dps did see an improvement but time will tell as more experimentation goes through. The new change to innervate may help on some fights, and of course, I still have a healthy supply of mana pots.
Empowered Touch
On the healing side of things, I have not changed my spec to take advantage of the new Empowered Touch. This is largely because of my raid role and, frankly, I haven't healed in a raid yet. Our guild took a week off of regular raiding while folks were dealing with the patch and the 10 man we did play around with, I was boomy. In a five man situation, I could see it being very effective, as Nourish is my second most effective spell in ToC.
I am just not quite ready to give up GotEM or Revitalize yet. I may move some points away from Gift into Empowered Touch, but again, I need to see things in a real raid setting.
OMGZ! I HAF OVERHEALZ?!
I recently read on Restokin that our HoT overhealing are now being shown in the combat logs, which means people will finally see how much our hots are NOT doing. I for one will not change how I play and really, any druid worth their salt shouldn't either. As a raid healer, I use hots very preemptively. I toss them on before I big aoe, I toss them on in between waves, etc. Rejuv is going even though I know my target will be snap up by the disc priest or pally because it will still be there when they have moved on.
To change how we heal just to look good on the numbers would be a mistake. HoTs have always been the buffer between direct heals, and just because they now have a numerical, definitive value attached to the overhealing, doesn't mean we should hold back.
However, I read that someone suggested that this overhealing will cause agro. This makes me scratch my head and ask "It does?" And honestly, I do not know. I play a Disc priest and a Resto druid, and while I never looked for it before, I didn't notice anything regarding this mechanic. Perhaps on the next raid it might show up. But, I have my doubts about this claim or else our Pally healers would have been snapping up agro left and right.
I look forward to us coming back from our raid break to test these things out.
Friday, July 17
Friday Musings
I wanted to post about my rants on shapeshifting and the comments from GC. Then I wanted to post on my rants regarding raiding and the current outlook. Every time I wanted to go off on tirade, I started to feel like everyone else who is also griping.
I still may rant. I have a lot of things on my mind, but I haven't managed to put them into words and sentences that make sense, yet.
Instead, I will mention that I reglyphed for Glyph of Rejuvenation.
I have been staunchly opposed of this Glyph. Compared to some other healing Glyphs, it falls below optimal. But I am learning to be more open minded and try to new things lately.
However, I decided to give a try for our hard mode 10 man run, and I have to say it got some good mileage. For Heartbreaker, it was 2.3 percent of my healing-- with two other healers no less-- and 2.7 percent of my healing on our Hodir speed run.
Sadly, it starts to drop off during 25 man raids, accounting for barely 1 percent of my healing. A little more during Thorim.
I don't have 4pc T8, and I may or may not see 4pc T9 down the road where it might come in handy. I will say that as a raid healer, with between 40 and 60 percent of my healing comes from Rejuvenation, I don't quite feel the glyph is wasted. I just think it needs a little more love.
A chance to tick an extra 1k healing boost isn't game breaking nor all that lifesaving. However, it is a passive boost that I don't have to worry about attached to a spell I will be casting already.
Like many druids, we like passive things. We have enough stuff going on that having to do extra is just time (and GBD) consuming, so I kind of think of this glyph like a trinket. Not spectactualar for output, but in a small way helpful.
Do I keep it? Maybe. I might have a friend scribe a few Nourish and Rejuv glyphs for those times when I want to switch back and forth. Or I might get perpetually lazy and just keep it. All depends on if I keep my raid healing role or not.
What I would like to see changed... increase Crit chance on Rejuv, in light of the possible T9 bonus and the new idol. It could be small, like 5 percent. That would never happen, but I like to dream.
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 18
Blue speaks, I drop my jaw.
There are so many things in the PTR patch notes that all I will do is link the MMO champ site, instead of copying the whole thing here.
There is a lot of things going on that don't make sense to me, some things that look great and the rest, well, are the rest. Of course, all is subject to change and so these changes warrant further watching in the weeks to come.
Of note:
I'm scared of the idea that innervate needs to be casted more often, considering they are changing the mana regen on Replenishment. This says to me they are planing some real mana sucking encounters in the months to come.
With the changes to Empowered Touch, a possible Nourish/MT healing spec could look like this which drops GoEM in favor of Nature's Grace and Empowered Touch. Very interesting. I'm sure some resto's out there will be excited but since I've been rocking it on raid heals, I will not be moving my precious points yet. In addition, it seems rather odd to implement this when the T8 focuses on Rejuv based ablities, but would be nice for T7 and who knows what T9 has.
Lastly, I suppose Blizz didn't like the 20k crits on lifebloom. Shame. It's not like it procd Living Seed or anything and usually was overheal. /shake fist.
Kinda ok. The rest of the changes make me feel like Shamans are still under appreciated by blizz. Interesting way to deal with the Shaman's mana regen issues, but perhaps changing the mechanic of Elemental Focus to proc off Damaging and Healing spells. Cuz, you know, it reduces mana cost of both. Sadly, though, the trees are bloated a bit anyway and finding a way for a resto to fit it in seems damn near impossible. However, since Druids and Priests are able to Clearcast, I don't see why shaman can't either. At least the silly little orbs of water don't pop anymore.
Yet another overhaul for DK's with a talent refund to boot. I'd QQ about having to respec my alt every time I play her, but I don't think my DK friends would find it funny.
This seems too good to be true. The poor guy has been sitting in the jungle for several years, watching the allies ride by on their Saber Mounts wishing his boss would give the go ahead to offer the Horde their own special time sink. Of course, I am willing to help the guy out but I fear with all the other things getting pushed to live by Blizz that I won't have time to spend for this. Sad, really.
Faster? Really? Was it that slow to begin with? Sure, I'm cool with it being a blue hat now and I am happy blizz is realizing it needed to have a special ability to go with it, but I would have liked to have seen maybe a chance to proc extra food or something. We spend all that time on the daily, the least they could do is reward us with having to use less mats on our final products. Blizz obviously needs to watch the Food Network more often.
Maybe I will finally finish the Achievements that go with these.
Why do I get the feeling they are going to add the 100 pet achievement? I have over 80 at this point, and I don't even have the special TCG, Blizzcon, or Collector's Edition pets.
So much of this hurts my head and confuses me. I don't understand why they continue to have us purchase items with these emblems, then reduce the ways to get the emblems, make the achievements Feats of Strength, but add a new achievement that rewards you for Collecting combos of said emblems.
OK, back to work before my head assplodes.
There is a lot of things going on that don't make sense to me, some things that look great and the rest, well, are the rest. Of course, all is subject to change and so these changes warrant further watching in the weeks to come.
Of note:
Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased to 150%.
Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.
Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.
Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright
Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.
Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.
Talents
* Balance
o Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.
o Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30 second. cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.
o Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.
* Restoration
o Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.
o Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by an additional 35/70%.
I'm scared of the idea that innervate needs to be casted more often, considering they are changing the mana regen on Replenishment. This says to me they are planing some real mana sucking encounters in the months to come.
With the changes to Empowered Touch, a possible Nourish/MT healing spec could look like this which drops GoEM in favor of Nature's Grace and Empowered Touch. Very interesting. I'm sure some resto's out there will be excited but since I've been rocking it on raid heals, I will not be moving my precious points yet. In addition, it seems rather odd to implement this when the T8 focuses on Rejuv based ablities, but would be nice for T7 and who knows what T9 has.
Lastly, I suppose Blizz didn't like the 20k crits on lifebloom. Shame. It's not like it procd Living Seed or anything and usually was overheal. /shake fist.
Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%
Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.
Kinda ok. The rest of the changes make me feel like Shamans are still under appreciated by blizz. Interesting way to deal with the Shaman's mana regen issues, but perhaps changing the mechanic of Elemental Focus to proc off Damaging and Healing spells. Cuz, you know, it reduces mana cost of both. Sadly, though, the trees are bloated a bit anyway and finding a way for a resto to fit it in seems damn near impossible. However, since Druids and Priests are able to Clearcast, I don't see why shaman can't either. At least the silly little orbs of water don't pop anymore.
Yet another overhaul for DK's with a talent refund to boot. I'd QQ about having to respec my alt every time I play her, but I don't think my DK friends would find it funny.
The ravasaur trainer Mor'vek has returned to Un'Goro and will offer to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a mount... if they can survive the creature's deadly poison.
This seems too good to be true. The poor guy has been sitting in the jungle for several years, watching the allies ride by on their Saber Mounts wishing his boss would give the go ahead to offer the Horde their own special time sink. Of course, I am willing to help the guy out but I fear with all the other things getting pushed to live by Blizz that I won't have time to spend for this. Sad, really.
Chef's Hat is now superior quality and allows the chef to cook faster
Faster? Really? Was it that slow to begin with? Sure, I'm cool with it being a blue hat now and I am happy blizz is realizing it needed to have a special ability to go with it, but I would have liked to have seen maybe a chance to proc extra food or something. We spend all that time on the daily, the least they could do is reward us with having to use less mats on our final products. Blizz obviously needs to watch the Food Network more often.
Toughness (Rank 6) provides more staminaI snicker at this. I already have more Hit points than some of our melee dps, and while the Enhance shaman is looking forward to having more health, I can't wait to for his reaction when he sees that I am still more beefy than he is.
# The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity
* Vehicles (drakes) used in these instances now scale with item level.
Maybe I will finally finish the Achievements that go with these.
Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.
Why do I get the feeling they are going to add the 100 pet achievement? I have over 80 at this point, and I don't even have the special TCG, Blizzcon, or Collector's Edition pets.
# Emblem System Changes
* Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
* Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
* The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
* The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
* New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.
So much of this hurts my head and confuses me. I don't understand why they continue to have us purchase items with these emblems, then reduce the ways to get the emblems, make the achievements Feats of Strength, but add a new achievement that rewards you for Collecting combos of said emblems.
OK, back to work before my head assplodes.
Friday, May 1
Changes, Tweaks and Fixes
Which is which? I guess it all depends on your perspective.
The changes to innervate are interesting and so far, I think they aren't horrible.
Innervate: now Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 450% of the casting Druid's base mana pool over 20 sec secs
Druid base mana pool... 3496 which should be approx 786 mana per 1 second to the target.
Not bad, but not great either until you consider that it is a flat rate now and not a Spirit based rate. This is great news for the Pallys and Mages. However, even with the glyph, I am not at a stage where I can toss it around to whichever raider is begging for it at the moment.
Honestly, the shaman totem seems to out perform our ability and makes me think that for now it will be a self casting way of getting mana returns, like a priest's shadowfiend.
Tons of changes to Ulduar which have been a godsend. I am all for making things a challenge, but when I am busting my ass on the first couple boss on 10 man, something is not right.
Post changes, we have made it further in on the 10 mans and I look foward to tackling things in a real 25 man raid. I now worry that with the t8 within sight that I will be so used to my 4p t7 bonus, I wont want to give it up. Oh well, will see it goes once I actually start getting the upgrades.
Oh, and one last thing... Finally got my Fawn!! She is the cutest little thing and makes me smile. Up to 77 pets now and dread the day they add a 100 pet achievement.
The changes to innervate are interesting and so far, I think they aren't horrible.
Innervate: now Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 450% of the casting Druid's base mana pool over 20 sec secs
Druid base mana pool... 3496 which should be approx 786 mana per 1 second to the target.
Not bad, but not great either until you consider that it is a flat rate now and not a Spirit based rate. This is great news for the Pallys and Mages. However, even with the glyph, I am not at a stage where I can toss it around to whichever raider is begging for it at the moment.
Honestly, the shaman totem seems to out perform our ability and makes me think that for now it will be a self casting way of getting mana returns, like a priest's shadowfiend.
Tons of changes to Ulduar which have been a godsend. I am all for making things a challenge, but when I am busting my ass on the first couple boss on 10 man, something is not right.
Post changes, we have made it further in on the 10 mans and I look foward to tackling things in a real 25 man raid. I now worry that with the t8 within sight that I will be so used to my 4p t7 bonus, I wont want to give it up. Oh well, will see it goes once I actually start getting the upgrades.
Oh, and one last thing... Finally got my Fawn!! She is the cutest little thing and makes me smile. Up to 77 pets now and dread the day they add a 100 pet achievement.
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.
--------------------------------
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.
Saturday, April 18
Nourish
Granted my experience in Uldar is very, very limited, but I have to say something about the new style of healing.
My old playstyle was Hots, more hots, regrowth (or rejuv as needed) folks in the raid. It worked well for me.
A couple things with this patch I already enjoy:
The new Living Seed. Before, if you crit, the seed would only amount to the actual healing done, no overheal. Typcially, it would amount to 3 percent of my healing, MAYBE 5 percent on fights like Sartharion or Malygos.
Now, it did 10 percent of my healing with myself being part of the Main Tank healing crew. This is a huge increase to healing. What was the change? The seed counts overhealing. Average seed healing was around 2.5k with a max of over 5k. More testing needs to be done, but I am already very happy with this development.
The changes to Nourish. Well, the spell itself didn't really change, but adding it to the crit talent which already benefited Regrowth is rather nice. I don't have the glyph yet, and perhaps I won't for a while. (It's glyphed, and its even better than good)
Again, MT Healing, I saw a 46 percent crit rate on Nourish which is substantial. It's not nearly as imbalanced as the 75 percent crit rate old Regrowth had, but I don't mind. My playstyle was already suited for this new change, I am just changing one direct spell for another.
I had to drop Nature's Grace for my resto build. They changed it to where Crits now provide a haste bonus for 3 seconds. That is just not a long enough time for me. I may pick it back up at a later date, but for now I placed those points into reduction in mana cost for Nourish.
Overall, even without the glyph, I am seeing a great improvement on my healing. Mana isn't an issue yet, but we are still learning the fights and it's hard to gauge mana consumption on wipes.
While I may have freaked out in the past about losing my OP regrowth, I am surprised at how easily I slipped into the Nourish direct healing style. A large part of that may be due to my lack of Lifebloom spamming prior, another part may be due to the fact that I already leaned toward building around Living Seed and Crits already.
My old playstyle was Hots, more hots, regrowth (or rejuv as needed) folks in the raid. It worked well for me.
A couple things with this patch I already enjoy:
The new Living Seed. Before, if you crit, the seed would only amount to the actual healing done, no overheal. Typcially, it would amount to 3 percent of my healing, MAYBE 5 percent on fights like Sartharion or Malygos.
Now, it did 10 percent of my healing with myself being part of the Main Tank healing crew. This is a huge increase to healing. What was the change? The seed counts overhealing. Average seed healing was around 2.5k with a max of over 5k. More testing needs to be done, but I am already very happy with this development.
The changes to Nourish. Well, the spell itself didn't really change, but adding it to the crit talent which already benefited Regrowth is rather nice. I don't have the glyph yet, and perhaps I won't for a while. (It's glyphed, and its even better than good)
Again, MT Healing, I saw a 46 percent crit rate on Nourish which is substantial. It's not nearly as imbalanced as the 75 percent crit rate old Regrowth had, but I don't mind. My playstyle was already suited for this new change, I am just changing one direct spell for another.
I had to drop Nature's Grace for my resto build. They changed it to where Crits now provide a haste bonus for 3 seconds. That is just not a long enough time for me. I may pick it back up at a later date, but for now I placed those points into reduction in mana cost for Nourish.
Overall, even without the glyph, I am seeing a great improvement on my healing. Mana isn't an issue yet, but we are still learning the fights and it's hard to gauge mana consumption on wipes.
While I may have freaked out in the past about losing my OP regrowth, I am surprised at how easily I slipped into the Nourish direct healing style. A large part of that may be due to my lack of Lifebloom spamming prior, another part may be due to the fact that I already leaned toward building around Living Seed and Crits already.
Friday, April 10
BLARG!
Blarg I say! Ok, I'm without having coffee first, but get some writing in before the weekend hit me. I have some other writing to do for class, and this will just distract me :)
Another Naxx cleared, and finally the Torch dropped. I'm just happy to see it again. No, I didn't get it because my EPGP was too low, but that's ok. One of our priests got it, and it was well deserved.
Naxx was both rough and smooth. We brought good folks both nights. First night, things were moving at such a good pace and we even made a good attempt at Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together. Thursday, though, was unusually difficult. Same crew, but lag and DCs plagued us. Thaddius with DCers just means pain, over and over. Even I had my turn at blowing folks up!
So, with that behind us, we are off to get some 10 man achievements done, like The Dedicated Few before Uldar comes out.
Oh, and the uber Moonkin idol didn't drop, but a guildie passed along this info:
We don't want piling up a bunch of emblems now to give a big advantage when a patch launches where someone buys a set of gear from the beginning.
Currently the only items I noticed added to the emblem of valor quartermaster are the relic items that were in Naxx. Examples: Sigil of Awareness, Idol of Awakening, Libram of Resurgence, Totem of Hex, etc. While it is technically "old" gear, the emblems of valor that drop in Ulduar10 will give you access to items that are of the appropriate level to help progress in that dungeon.
The emblems of conquest that drop from Ulduar25 have a new quartermaster and a new set of items that go with it that include necks, belts, gloves, and leg slot items.
I say anything can change because until the patch is live nothing is for sure, but at this point in time the only things we plan to add to the Emblem of Valor Quartermaster are the relic items out of Naxxramas.
With that info in mind, I think I will be spending more emblems toward supplementing my off set.
Another Naxx cleared, and finally the Torch dropped. I'm just happy to see it again. No, I didn't get it because my EPGP was too low, but that's ok. One of our priests got it, and it was well deserved.
Naxx was both rough and smooth. We brought good folks both nights. First night, things were moving at such a good pace and we even made a good attempt at Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together. Thursday, though, was unusually difficult. Same crew, but lag and DCs plagued us. Thaddius with DCers just means pain, over and over. Even I had my turn at blowing folks up!
So, with that behind us, we are off to get some 10 man achievements done, like The Dedicated Few before Uldar comes out.
Oh, and the uber Moonkin idol didn't drop, but a guildie passed along this info:
We don't want piling up a bunch of emblems now to give a big advantage when a patch launches where someone buys a set of gear from the beginning.
Currently the only items I noticed added to the emblem of valor quartermaster are the relic items that were in Naxx. Examples: Sigil of Awareness, Idol of Awakening, Libram of Resurgence, Totem of Hex, etc. While it is technically "old" gear, the emblems of valor that drop in Ulduar10 will give you access to items that are of the appropriate level to help progress in that dungeon.
The emblems of conquest that drop from Ulduar25 have a new quartermaster and a new set of items that go with it that include necks, belts, gloves, and leg slot items.
I say anything can change because until the patch is live nothing is for sure, but at this point in time the only things we plan to add to the Emblem of Valor Quartermaster are the relic items out of Naxxramas.
With that info in mind, I think I will be spending more emblems toward supplementing my off set.
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