The Treasure Of The Midnight Isles
6 days ago
Showing posts with label Cataclysm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cataclysm. Show all posts
NB: If you are avoiding spoilers, you can still read - I put a warning before any possible Cataclysm spoilers.
In ICC right now, I am, for the most part, the tank healer. I've always enjoyed tank healing as a Disc Priest. In ten man, this is a great setup, and on the rare occasions that I do run in 25 mans anymore, I am usually a shield spammer - which bores me to no end. I'm also very bored during the first Phase of the Lich King fight for that very same reason (but honestly, when you've done Phase one 19 billion times, I think everyone is bored at that point!).
One of the things Disc Priests were promised for Cataclysm was an increase in our ability to be solid tank healers. Will we be able to compete with the Holy Pally? Perhaps - it is still far too early to determine that for sure, but to me, one of the biggest reasons Holy Pallies are often better choices as tank healers has to do with their Beacon of Light, and the way boss fights were designed in Wrath.
Tank Healing in Wrath
Instead of the Main Tank/Off Tank setup in which the off tank rounds up adds and handles them while the MT focuses on the boss, we've had "tank swap fights". Every so often the tanks will have to swap due to some debuff given by the boss to the current tank. Sometimes (such as in the Toravon fight) this causes one tank to continue taking damage until the debuff wears off. Pallies are great for fights like this, because there isn't a single target to heal - these are actually dual target healing assignments, with one target needing more dynamic healing focus, and the other being safe with large "splash" heals from Beacon of Light. (more like giant tsunamis than splashes, but whatever)
As far as pure healing output, that is more of a numbers and throughput issue, one that can possibly be addressed in talents. Can Disc priests rise to the occasion with talent changes?
While our Power Word: Shield is great for shield-spamming, I've always felt it was a bit lackluster for tank healing. In end-game raiding, even the most powerful shields will often be blown away after just a few hits on the tank, and we are limited in our mitigation abilities by Weakened Soul. The main benefit from bubbling the tank comes not in the few hits that our bubble can mitigate before we can bubble again, but from the bonus healing we can do on them while they have Weakened Soul. We put a bubble on the tank, the tank has Weakened Soul, our heals have an increased chance to crit, and we therefore have a better chance of getting Divine Aegis procs on them, in addition to the stacking throughput bonus of Grace. The real mitigation comes from Divine Aegis. (Like all the math I used to back that statement up?)
Tank Healing in Cataclysm (talent spoilers)
Power Word: Shield will become more powerful and more useful in Cataclysm tank healing, because we will be able to cast it on the tanks more often. Here's a look at how the talents will change tank healing.
I'm really enjoying the talent changes for Disc Priests for tank healing. What is particularly interesting about Strength of Soul is that it will give us a lot more power and flexibility in managing Weakened Soul. If you are specced into Improved Power Word: Shield, or have a lot of mastery rating (and therefore stronger bubbles), it is possible you can let that Weakened Soul sit there longer, as your bubbles will last longer. Instead of casting Heal, you can focus more on using your other healing abilities. Perhaps you can even start Smiting the boss and just getting some Atonement splashes on the tank and melee (the weeping of healers all over the internet is hurting my ears after that statement).
You can tailor your healing style even more to the encounter. For instance, in Phase 1 of the Lich King, he seems to be only tickling our tank, but once we get into Phase 2, he pulls out his mighty Soul Reaper. My tank healing rotation will change depending on the encounter, and indeed, even on the specific phase of the encounter where needed.
In ICC right now, I am, for the most part, the tank healer. I've always enjoyed tank healing as a Disc Priest. In ten man, this is a great setup, and on the rare occasions that I do run in 25 mans anymore, I am usually a shield spammer - which bores me to no end. I'm also very bored during the first Phase of the Lich King fight for that very same reason (but honestly, when you've done Phase one 19 billion times, I think everyone is bored at that point!).
One of the things Disc Priests were promised for Cataclysm was an increase in our ability to be solid tank healers. Will we be able to compete with the Holy Pally? Perhaps - it is still far too early to determine that for sure, but to me, one of the biggest reasons Holy Pallies are often better choices as tank healers has to do with their Beacon of Light, and the way boss fights were designed in Wrath.
Tank Healing in Wrath
Instead of the Main Tank/Off Tank setup in which the off tank rounds up adds and handles them while the MT focuses on the boss, we've had "tank swap fights". Every so often the tanks will have to swap due to some debuff given by the boss to the current tank. Sometimes (such as in the Toravon fight) this causes one tank to continue taking damage until the debuff wears off. Pallies are great for fights like this, because there isn't a single target to heal - these are actually dual target healing assignments, with one target needing more dynamic healing focus, and the other being safe with large "splash" heals from Beacon of Light. (more like giant tsunamis than splashes, but whatever)
As far as pure healing output, that is more of a numbers and throughput issue, one that can possibly be addressed in talents. Can Disc priests rise to the occasion with talent changes?
While our Power Word: Shield is great for shield-spamming, I've always felt it was a bit lackluster for tank healing. In end-game raiding, even the most powerful shields will often be blown away after just a few hits on the tank, and we are limited in our mitigation abilities by Weakened Soul. The main benefit from bubbling the tank comes not in the few hits that our bubble can mitigate before we can bubble again, but from the bonus healing we can do on them while they have Weakened Soul. We put a bubble on the tank, the tank has Weakened Soul, our heals have an increased chance to crit, and we therefore have a better chance of getting Divine Aegis procs on them, in addition to the stacking throughput bonus of Grace. The real mitigation comes from Divine Aegis. (Like all the math I used to back that statement up?)
Tank Healing in Cataclysm (talent spoilers)
Power Word: Shield will become more powerful and more useful in Cataclysm tank healing, because we will be able to cast it on the tanks more often. Here's a look at how the talents will change tank healing.
- Divine Aegis will be the same in and of itself - crits will proc more mitigation. The change comes from Renewed Hope.
- Renewed Hope will still give us an increased change to crit on the bubbled target - but instead of a 4% increase, we will have a 10% increase. Therefore, we will be critting more, and proccing more Divine Aegis mitigation.
- Strength of Soul - This is the talent that will allow us to bubble the tank more often. Depending on your haste, you will be able to bubble the tank, and cast Heal on them until Weakened Soul falls off, and then Bubble them again, and continue forth. This means that Heal becomes a solid tank healing spell, so what follows are the talents that will affect Heal. Obviously, this is the most simplistic way to do it, since you will want to cast more than just Heal, but it gets the point across.
- Grace procs from Heal, steadily increasing the throughput of your Heal spell.
- Divine Fury in the Holy tree decreases the casting time of your Heal.
- Empowered Healing in the Holy tree increases the healing power of your... uhm, Heal. (wtb better spell name)
- Improved Healing in the Holy tree decreases the mana cost of your Heal.
- And of course, don't forget Inspiration.
I'm really enjoying the talent changes for Disc Priests for tank healing. What is particularly interesting about Strength of Soul is that it will give us a lot more power and flexibility in managing Weakened Soul. If you are specced into Improved Power Word: Shield, or have a lot of mastery rating (and therefore stronger bubbles), it is possible you can let that Weakened Soul sit there longer, as your bubbles will last longer. Instead of casting Heal, you can focus more on using your other healing abilities. Perhaps you can even start Smiting the boss and just getting some Atonement splashes on the tank and melee (the weeping of healers all over the internet is hurting my ears after that statement).
You can tailor your healing style even more to the encounter. For instance, in Phase 1 of the Lich King, he seems to be only tickling our tank, but once we get into Phase 2, he pulls out his mighty Soul Reaper. My tank healing rotation will change depending on the encounter, and indeed, even on the specific phase of the encounter where needed.
Note regarding spoilers: Now that I am in the beta, I will make every effort to preface any spoiler posts with the customary [Cataclysm] tag in the title. If that tag is not in the title, there should be no spoilers - I may mention something about Cataclysm, but nothing specific that would be a spoiler (i.e. I may something like "I am enjoying playing a goblin" but no further details.)
There is a very annoying bug/glitch/intentional issue that renders me unable to copy my Priest over to the Beta. I have tried about ten times now, and I'm beyond frustrated. I've had no luck with creating a premade either, so no new testing on Disc Priests yet, per the many requests I got.
I have tested out a Worgen Warlock, a Goblin Priest, a Dwarf Shaman, and a Tauren Priest. The Warlock is now level 14, the Goblin is only 4 (due to a quest glitch that renders all the goblins unable to leave the starting zone), the Shaman is level 7, and the Priest about level 6. But I am devestated that I cannot currently play my 80 Dwarf Priest.
However, in preparation for that glorious day when I will be able to play a high level priest again, let's talk about talents, and you can help me figure out how to spec!
One of the major complaints I have about the direction in which talent points are being taken is the removal of creativity in spec choices. In raiding, there are generally optimal specs, with very little wiggle room, and that will still apply. However, for leveling, the new talent point system has effectively taken a lot of creativity out of the equation. My lolsmite leveling method will probably be nowhere near viable as a 1-40 leveling spec anymore, due to the changes in talents.
But Evangelism fascinates me.
At first sight, Evangelism strikes me as a leveling or PvP talent, and nothing more. It's not something I would want to choose for raiding. This talent turns Discipline into a viable solo-leveling spec. Currently, Disc is best for not taking damage while leveling, but not so much for dishing out damage, compared to Holy or Shadow (Holy is good up until level 40-45, IMO, where Shadow then becomes superior due to Shadowform).
But Evangelism puts the power back into damage dealing for Disc, which means it makes it easier to solo mobs while leveling.
The only reason, as far as I'm concerned, that Evangelism becomes a potential necessity for raiding is due to the followup talent: Archangel. Now, you can build a solid Disc spec in Cataclysm without taking Evangelism and Archangel, and then the issue of the Disc healer needing to damage in order to heal better no longer is relevant.
However, the question I intend to explore is which is superior for a solid healer: an Archangel spec, or a non-Archangel spec. What talents must be sacrificed in order to pick up Archangel, and is it worth it?
What do you guys think? What sort of talent builds would you like me to test? Head on over to the Wowhead Cataclysm talent calculator, and create some builds for me to try (once I actually have a priest that can use them on beta *weep*). Link the builds for me in the comments, and I will try to test some of the best ones and give you my thoughts.
Here is an example of a non-damaging spec that I've built.
Aaaand here is an example of an Archangel spec.
Think I should tweak those? Strength of Soul is one of those talents that I definitely need to test, because with that component of rotation building in addition to an Evangelism based rotation, I'm not sure how much time would be left for actually reacting to incoming damage.
There is a very annoying bug/glitch/intentional issue that renders me unable to copy my Priest over to the Beta. I have tried about ten times now, and I'm beyond frustrated. I've had no luck with creating a premade either, so no new testing on Disc Priests yet, per the many requests I got.
I have tested out a Worgen Warlock, a Goblin Priest, a Dwarf Shaman, and a Tauren Priest. The Warlock is now level 14, the Goblin is only 4 (due to a quest glitch that renders all the goblins unable to leave the starting zone), the Shaman is level 7, and the Priest about level 6. But I am devestated that I cannot currently play my 80 Dwarf Priest.
However, in preparation for that glorious day when I will be able to play a high level priest again, let's talk about talents, and you can help me figure out how to spec!
One of the major complaints I have about the direction in which talent points are being taken is the removal of creativity in spec choices. In raiding, there are generally optimal specs, with very little wiggle room, and that will still apply. However, for leveling, the new talent point system has effectively taken a lot of creativity out of the equation. My lolsmite leveling method will probably be nowhere near viable as a 1-40 leveling spec anymore, due to the changes in talents.
But Evangelism fascinates me.
At first sight, Evangelism strikes me as a leveling or PvP talent, and nothing more. It's not something I would want to choose for raiding. This talent turns Discipline into a viable solo-leveling spec. Currently, Disc is best for not taking damage while leveling, but not so much for dishing out damage, compared to Holy or Shadow (Holy is good up until level 40-45, IMO, where Shadow then becomes superior due to Shadowform).
But Evangelism puts the power back into damage dealing for Disc, which means it makes it easier to solo mobs while leveling.
The only reason, as far as I'm concerned, that Evangelism becomes a potential necessity for raiding is due to the followup talent: Archangel. Now, you can build a solid Disc spec in Cataclysm without taking Evangelism and Archangel, and then the issue of the Disc healer needing to damage in order to heal better no longer is relevant.
However, the question I intend to explore is which is superior for a solid healer: an Archangel spec, or a non-Archangel spec. What talents must be sacrificed in order to pick up Archangel, and is it worth it?
What do you guys think? What sort of talent builds would you like me to test? Head on over to the Wowhead Cataclysm talent calculator, and create some builds for me to try (once I actually have a priest that can use them on beta *weep*). Link the builds for me in the comments, and I will try to test some of the best ones and give you my thoughts.
Here is an example of a non-damaging spec that I've built.
Aaaand here is an example of an Archangel spec.
Think I should tweak those? Strength of Soul is one of those talents that I definitely need to test, because with that component of rotation building in addition to an Evangelism based rotation, I'm not sure how much time would be left for actually reacting to incoming damage.
Ahh, twitter.
Yesterday I entered a contest via twitter for a beta key... and Light Above and Below - I WON!
So, now I have a beta key, but I'm waiting for battle.net to update with the info so I can start the long and arduous process. But I'm already planning ahead.
Derevka from Tales of a Priest has been an awesome resource for beta news, and I'd like to provide good information as well! So I'm asking you, readers:
What do you want me to explore in Cataclysm?
What questions do you have? What is it you want to know? Do you want to hear about the new classes? Are you interested in how leveling will be in the Old World? Want to know what things have changed? Want to know how the mana and health pool changes will affect priest healing? There are lots of bloggers who are in the beta and testing things out - is there a specific issue or question that you've had that no one has answered or tested for you?
Your wish is my command. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE, FOLKS.
Yesterday I entered a contest via twitter for a beta key... and Light Above and Below - I WON!
So, now I have a beta key, but I'm waiting for battle.net to update with the info so I can start the long and arduous process. But I'm already planning ahead.
Derevka from Tales of a Priest has been an awesome resource for beta news, and I'd like to provide good information as well! So I'm asking you, readers:
What do you want me to explore in Cataclysm?
What questions do you have? What is it you want to know? Do you want to hear about the new classes? Are you interested in how leveling will be in the Old World? Want to know what things have changed? Want to know how the mana and health pool changes will affect priest healing? There are lots of bloggers who are in the beta and testing things out - is there a specific issue or question that you've had that no one has answered or tested for you?
Your wish is my command. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE, FOLKS.
Aaaaand.... the talented stuff.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Most of this is actually old news, since Blizz used Priests as an example earlier when trying to explain how mastery would work.
For Discipline:
For Holy:
Blizz is really pushing the HoT mechanic for Holy Priests. I've noticed this more and more throughout Wrath. Druids are no longer the sole provider for good strong HoTs, but they are still the best. To be honest, as someone who enjoys running around with lots of Druids, I'm not very keen on it. There's such a thing as too many HoTs, as far as I'm concerned.
For Shadow:
- We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing.
- We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs.
- We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts.
- Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
- We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.
- Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities -- something we're trying to avoid in Cataclysm -- we will need to replace several of the tree's talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike's cast time.
- Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Most of this is actually old news, since Blizz used Priests as an example earlier when trying to explain how mastery would work.
For Discipline:
- Healing (this will increase your healing power)
- Meditation (this will increase your mana regen)
- Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.
For Holy:
- Healing (this will increase your healing power)
- Meditation (this will increase your mana regen)
- Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.
Blizz is really pushing the HoT mechanic for Holy Priests. I've noticed this more and more throughout Wrath. Druids are no longer the sole provider for good strong HoTs, but they are still the best. To be honest, as someone who enjoys running around with lots of Druids, I'm not very keen on it. There's such a thing as too many HoTs, as far as I'm concerned.
For Shadow:
- Spell Damage (This will increase your spell damage... duh)
- Spell Crit (This will increase your spell crit... duh - but... why crit instead of haste? hmm)
- Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.
Now let's talk about those changed mechanics...
"All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately." This has been a long time coming, and Blizz has done a LOT of testing to see how they can make this work in a balanced way. I can understand why; giving over time abilities the benefits from haste and crit is a huge change, and it's a dynamic one. One of the big changes with this change is this portion: they "will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks". It's better to have this be something that is implemented with brand new content than try to add it in a patch with current gear levels, because it completely changes the value of haste and crit for those that use over-time components. If the duration of the effect is shortened by haste, it can drastically change rotations based on gear levels.
Oh man. The theorycrafters are going to have a FIELD DAY with this change. How much haste will i need for each individual extra tick of heal or damage? GO.
"We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health. " Okay. Uhm, thanks for the info? That was... helpful.
Making Priests viable tank healers. Well, I would argue, quite stubbornly mind you, that Discipline priests are perfectly viable tank healers, thankyouverymuch. Having said that, I know what they mean. I put a bubble on the tank, and it's gone in one hit, and I can't put another shield on them for 15 seconds or so. Most of my mitigation actually comes from Divine Aegis. I would love a more expensive, bigger shield for tank healing. Greater Heal *should* be the tank healing weapon of choice. That's how I've tried to treat it - much to my own detriment. Just because something *should* work a certain way, doesn't mean that it does. Thing is, all I really need is a big shield on the tank that could reduce incoming damage while I'm casting my big heal.
No More Divine Spirit. This makes me sad, but with the changes coming to how spirit works, it was inevitable. One of the things I really liked about this spell is that it added an extra component to the beautiful synergy between priests and druids. Now I weep. Druids won't want me around anymore. YOU ONLY LIKED ME FOR MY SPIRIT.
No more five second rule. As far as I'm concerned, 5sr has been essentially obsolete at end game since patch 3.1. This isn't really news either. I never really liked the 5sr so I'm not mourning the death of it. It was kinda cool back when Holy Concentration gave you free procs, and you could dance around a bit with Inner Focus in and out of the 5sr.
So... what about Spirit Tap? I'm anxious to see how this will change (if at all). I know that end-game healing priests don't use this amazing talent, but it's integral for leveling.
"All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately." This has been a long time coming, and Blizz has done a LOT of testing to see how they can make this work in a balanced way. I can understand why; giving over time abilities the benefits from haste and crit is a huge change, and it's a dynamic one. One of the big changes with this change is this portion: they "will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks". It's better to have this be something that is implemented with brand new content than try to add it in a patch with current gear levels, because it completely changes the value of haste and crit for those that use over-time components. If the duration of the effect is shortened by haste, it can drastically change rotations based on gear levels.
Oh man. The theorycrafters are going to have a FIELD DAY with this change. How much haste will i need for each individual extra tick of heal or damage? GO.
"We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health. " Okay. Uhm, thanks for the info? That was... helpful.
Making Priests viable tank healers. Well, I would argue, quite stubbornly mind you, that Discipline priests are perfectly viable tank healers, thankyouverymuch. Having said that, I know what they mean. I put a bubble on the tank, and it's gone in one hit, and I can't put another shield on them for 15 seconds or so. Most of my mitigation actually comes from Divine Aegis. I would love a more expensive, bigger shield for tank healing. Greater Heal *should* be the tank healing weapon of choice. That's how I've tried to treat it - much to my own detriment. Just because something *should* work a certain way, doesn't mean that it does. Thing is, all I really need is a big shield on the tank that could reduce incoming damage while I'm casting my big heal.
No More Divine Spirit. This makes me sad, but with the changes coming to how spirit works, it was inevitable. One of the things I really liked about this spell is that it added an extra component to the beautiful synergy between priests and druids. Now I weep. Druids won't want me around anymore. YOU ONLY LIKED ME FOR MY SPIRIT.
No more five second rule. As far as I'm concerned, 5sr has been essentially obsolete at end game since patch 3.1. This isn't really news either. I never really liked the 5sr so I'm not mourning the death of it. It was kinda cool back when Holy Concentration gave you free procs, and you could dance around a bit with Inner Focus in and out of the 5sr.
So... what about Spirit Tap? I'm anxious to see how this will change (if at all). I know that end-game healing priests don't use this amazing talent, but it's integral for leveling.
Oh yeah. I'm weighing in on the Cataclysm Class Preview Changes as well. Because I have to, duh!
If you are what I would call a "purist", and do not want to be spoiled by any upcoming changes, look no further! I respect your choice, but I'm not always good at giving warnings, so don't hold it against me >.<
There's a lot of information coming, and so I'm going to split this up into multiple posts. I mean, let's face it - news is dry right now. We have to stretch out everything we can!
Heal. (The simplest, most basic name for the most basic and fundamental spell that any healer can have. Look at that, a spell named for exactly what it does. Can you imagine if you had two spells: Heal and Hurt? Anyway.)
You know what annoys me beyond all rational explanation? Waste. Wasted spells. Spells you learn at low levels that are replaced but never removed. Lesser Heal anyone? Heal? Especially when you have talents that affect those spells. I mean, why not just call them "Flash Heal" and "Greater Heal" at lower levels? The mechanics are the same.
So why do these two spells exist right now anyway? Pre-wrath, lots of healers used downranked spells to give their heals significant granularity. This was essentially removed from the game when Blizz increased the mana cost of lower ranked spells. Lesser Heal and Heal were occasionally used for added granularity back in the day - but since the mana cost changes, they were especially useless. Since mana is effectively a non-issue at high gear levels, and since we have significant gear inflation and saturation, most people just spam their quickest, most powerful spells, with little regard for mana cost.
The idea is to bring back that granularity to healing. Priests are arguably the most granular healers as it stands - we have a massive arsenal of healing spells. That's what makes playing a priest especially fun and interesting for me. Lots of decision making when it comes to spells. So, I'm very excited about having that extra level of granularity that was taken away from us with the changes to mana costs for downranked spells. I started raiding right before that change, for the record - I never used downranked spells. I hated it, and managed to heal well without using downranked spells, but I was also not participating in any real progression raiding.
If Blizz can pull this off effectively and bring back the granularity and decision making that has gone out the window in recent patches (and as a fangirl, I have faith that they can), then I think they are heading in the right direction.
Mind Spike. (im in ur hed hertin ur neuronz! STABSTABPOKE)
I actually have a hard time judging this spell without understanding exactly what the debuff it causes does. First and foremost though, "spell school lockout" has been a significant problem for shadow priests. I haven't forgotten you viscious Brittle Revenants - back when you guys were actually cool, dammit. Reducing the mana cost of Shadowform is great and all but... yeah. A frost spell is a great idea.
Now, back to that debuff. I think that in order for this to work effectively (meaning that this is a spammable spell used in situations where time needed for the buildup for your regular rotation is not available), that debuff needs to be short. Short enough that in order to get any real use out of it, you really will have to spam Mind Spike. And in that case, that's not really that fun anyway, is it?
But then again, in a battleground the other day I was confused about how I got even 1 killing blow... apparently I mistargeted and accidentally Penanced someone to death. As you can see, damage is not really my forte...
Inner Will (vs. Inner Fire)
This has been a long time coming. There won't be charges on the new version of Inner Fire. Why did we have a spell that was an armor boost with charges anyway? Because if it didn't have charges, it would require no decision making whatsoever. It would have just been a flat spellpower/armor boost (also, keep in mind that the spellpower buff was a Wrath addition, and Inner Fire doesn't give spellpower until your level 70s). Taking those charges out and implementing an alternative turns it into a self buff with a decision tagged on to it - much like Mages and Warlocks already have.
I love this idea. Need more throughput? Inner Fire. Need more mana? Inner Will. Lots of adds with physical damage? Inner Fire. Lots of movement? Inner Will. Making the gear switch between a damage spec and a healing spec? Use your buff to help you make the transition (for instance, my damage set may have more spellpower than mana regen - I would turn on my Inner Will to help fill the mana regen gaps until I pick up a few new pieces).
Leap of Faith. (HEROES! TO ME! /Jaina)
The description of this includes the following: "Intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time."
Now wait just one second... Players already have this amazing ability to get out of spot focused damage. It's called legs.
Yanking someone closer to you because they have aggro? Not a great idea. In most cases this will not make them lose aggro - it will just bring the mob closer to you, potentially pulling aggro on to yourself.
Yeah, I can see the PvP argument.
But I find this spell fascinating. So now I'm just randomly brainstorming on non-PvP specific uses for it.
A 30 yard range isn't enough to justify pulling the target in to put them in healing range, since 30 yard is generally within healing range. I can also see this as another indirect form of crowd control. Send one of the melee over to a spellcasting add, have them get aggro, and then yank that member over to you and the group. Seems kinda like a weird way to handle it though, especially if you could just silence the mob or something.
Maybe it's intended to just be situationally useful. Assuming you can use this on people who are rooted in some form, then yes, I likes it a lot. I'm thinking of our recent ventures on Putricide, with people getting rooted in slime puddles. They can't move out of the crap on the ground - for once people have an excuse! Instead of spam healing them, I can pull them to me. Now I'm going to start looking for scenarios in which I can use this spell!
If you are what I would call a "purist", and do not want to be spoiled by any upcoming changes, look no further! I respect your choice, but I'm not always good at giving warnings, so don't hold it against me >.<
There's a lot of information coming, and so I'm going to split this up into multiple posts. I mean, let's face it - news is dry right now. We have to stretch out everything we can!
Heal. (The simplest, most basic name for the most basic and fundamental spell that any healer can have. Look at that, a spell named for exactly what it does. Can you imagine if you had two spells: Heal and Hurt? Anyway.)
You know what annoys me beyond all rational explanation? Waste. Wasted spells. Spells you learn at low levels that are replaced but never removed. Lesser Heal anyone? Heal? Especially when you have talents that affect those spells. I mean, why not just call them "Flash Heal" and "Greater Heal" at lower levels? The mechanics are the same.
So why do these two spells exist right now anyway? Pre-wrath, lots of healers used downranked spells to give their heals significant granularity. This was essentially removed from the game when Blizz increased the mana cost of lower ranked spells. Lesser Heal and Heal were occasionally used for added granularity back in the day - but since the mana cost changes, they were especially useless. Since mana is effectively a non-issue at high gear levels, and since we have significant gear inflation and saturation, most people just spam their quickest, most powerful spells, with little regard for mana cost.
The idea is to bring back that granularity to healing. Priests are arguably the most granular healers as it stands - we have a massive arsenal of healing spells. That's what makes playing a priest especially fun and interesting for me. Lots of decision making when it comes to spells. So, I'm very excited about having that extra level of granularity that was taken away from us with the changes to mana costs for downranked spells. I started raiding right before that change, for the record - I never used downranked spells. I hated it, and managed to heal well without using downranked spells, but I was also not participating in any real progression raiding.
If Blizz can pull this off effectively and bring back the granularity and decision making that has gone out the window in recent patches (and as a fangirl, I have faith that they can), then I think they are heading in the right direction.
Mind Spike. (im in ur hed hertin ur neuronz! STABSTABPOKE)
I actually have a hard time judging this spell without understanding exactly what the debuff it causes does. First and foremost though, "spell school lockout" has been a significant problem for shadow priests. I haven't forgotten you viscious Brittle Revenants - back when you guys were actually cool, dammit. Reducing the mana cost of Shadowform is great and all but... yeah. A frost spell is a great idea.
Now, back to that debuff. I think that in order for this to work effectively (meaning that this is a spammable spell used in situations where time needed for the buildup for your regular rotation is not available), that debuff needs to be short. Short enough that in order to get any real use out of it, you really will have to spam Mind Spike. And in that case, that's not really that fun anyway, is it?
But then again, in a battleground the other day I was confused about how I got even 1 killing blow... apparently I mistargeted and accidentally Penanced someone to death. As you can see, damage is not really my forte...
Inner Will (vs. Inner Fire)
This has been a long time coming. There won't be charges on the new version of Inner Fire. Why did we have a spell that was an armor boost with charges anyway? Because if it didn't have charges, it would require no decision making whatsoever. It would have just been a flat spellpower/armor boost (also, keep in mind that the spellpower buff was a Wrath addition, and Inner Fire doesn't give spellpower until your level 70s). Taking those charges out and implementing an alternative turns it into a self buff with a decision tagged on to it - much like Mages and Warlocks already have.
I love this idea. Need more throughput? Inner Fire. Need more mana? Inner Will. Lots of adds with physical damage? Inner Fire. Lots of movement? Inner Will. Making the gear switch between a damage spec and a healing spec? Use your buff to help you make the transition (for instance, my damage set may have more spellpower than mana regen - I would turn on my Inner Will to help fill the mana regen gaps until I pick up a few new pieces).
Leap of Faith. (HEROES! TO ME! /Jaina)
The description of this includes the following: "Intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time."
Now wait just one second... Players already have this amazing ability to get out of spot focused damage. It's called legs.
Yanking someone closer to you because they have aggro? Not a great idea. In most cases this will not make them lose aggro - it will just bring the mob closer to you, potentially pulling aggro on to yourself.
Yeah, I can see the PvP argument.
But I find this spell fascinating. So now I'm just randomly brainstorming on non-PvP specific uses for it.
A 30 yard range isn't enough to justify pulling the target in to put them in healing range, since 30 yard is generally within healing range. I can also see this as another indirect form of crowd control. Send one of the melee over to a spellcasting add, have them get aggro, and then yank that member over to you and the group. Seems kinda like a weird way to handle it though, especially if you could just silence the mob or something.
Maybe it's intended to just be situationally useful. Assuming you can use this on people who are rooted in some form, then yes, I likes it a lot. I'm thinking of our recent ventures on Putricide, with people getting rooted in slime puddles. They can't move out of the crap on the ground - for once people have an excuse! Instead of spam healing them, I can pull them to me. Now I'm going to start looking for scenarios in which I can use this spell!
If you cannot access the full text of the incoming stat changes for Cataclysm that was posted on the forums today, mosey on over to BigBearButt where he has kindly provided the full text of the announcement.
(If you can't access it from work, add http://thebigbearbutt.com/ to your feedreader)
(If you can't access it from work, add http://thebigbearbutt.com/ to your feedreader)
Alright, alright, so maybe I have a teeny tiny obsession with debating crit and haste. But can you blame me? You usually have to choose one at the expense of another, so I'm always curious and fascinated by what people choose for their healers and why. I've gone from crit obsessed to haste obsessed to somewhere in-between and back again, never able to be completely decisive about it. I dislike crit on principle, but.... Surge of Light is all shiny and I am drawn in like Bella to a shirtless sparkly sunlit Edward. *sparkle!!*
Therefore, I've been poring through all my favorite resto druid blogs reading about thoughts on the upcoming changes in 3.3 for druids in regards to haste. I warn you ahead of time that I am by no means an expert on Druids, and I'm almost positive that my Druid readers are going to have to set me right on a lot of my thoughts... but that is exactly the sort of feedback I'm hoping to get!
ETA: If you are looking for some interesting blog posts that resto druids have been posting lately on the topic, I recommend some Rolling Hots, Dreambound, some tricksy maths from Forrestump, and Restokin has some really helpful PTR testing - for the record, the way I understand it, Haste will both decrease the time between ticks on HoTs, AS WELL AS the total time the HoT ticks - therefore, with the Rapid Rejuvenation Glyph, you will not be getting MORE ticks to your HoTs, just faster ones. If this is wrong, please correct me!
Haste vs Crit for Druids
One of the things that has always confused me is the lack of viability for Haste and Crit for Druids. Before anyone rips me apart for saying that (be gentle, I'm not a druid myself!), I don't mean that these stats are useless for Druids, but merely that they seem to be a lot less useful for Druids than they are for other healing classes. As a Holy Priest, I can completely justify stacking either one sky high, though if I were to crunch the numbers, I may come up with good reasons to put a soft cap on either one. Since a lot of Druid heals are quickie casts, if not instant, then Haste really only seemed to matter up until GCD cap. And, since HoTs can't crit (unless you've got the T9 4piece set bonus, of course), Crit seemed kinda blah as well.
Ever since the changes to Shadowform for Priests, allowing DoTs to crit while in Shadowform, I've been wondering why HoTs can't crit while in Tree form. I see Druids on the whole, more than any other healing class, stack spellpower at the expense of haste and crit, because for other healers, those two latter stats seem stronger (I'm somewhat guessing here, I'll have to ask Codi over at MoarHPS to come over and beat me over the head with her calculator in order to have any maths to back any of this theorizing up). I'm sure some balancing would be necessary if HoTs were allowed to crit, but at the same time, that would mean Druids would stack more crit than they currently do, which would inevitably mean less spellpower as well.
Broadening the Niche? Should HoTs come closer to burst healing?
Another thing that intrigues me is that it seems as though the developers don't know how to get Druids to use crit and haste, and they are trying different things, and using different tools to test it - but with the same spell, Rejuvenation. First they try tinkering with a set bonus to see if Druids would be too OP with critting HoTs, and now it looks like they will try something similar with a glyph in 3.3.
I'm not impressed with the glyph, myself. I can see why many think it's very exciting, but to me, it's a bit similar in theory to Glyph of Renew - which I've always found stupid. If I wanted more healing in a shorter period of time, i.e. more burst... why wouldn't I just cast Flash Heal? The faster HoTs tick, the less time they are buffering... I'm not sure if that really IS a great thing.
Between the T9 set bonus for Druids, and the upcoming Glyph addition, I suspect that Blizz still hasn't figured out for sure how they want to handle some of the stat streamlining they are bringing in in Cataclysm. It feels like they are using the posterkids for HoTs as a way to test out how different stats might work with HoTs. I don't think this is a bad thing, for the record - I just found it interesting enough to bring it up. I suspect that if the changes work well for Druids, without breaking class balance, we may see all HoTs and DoTs for all classes being affected by both crit and haste in Cataclysm - or at least, with certain talents.
I'm still not sure if I like that or not... by speeding up the effect of HoTs and DoTs, it just brings them closer to being burst healing or burst damage in the first place, and eventually (taken to the extreme), it may completely degrade and diminish the niche, power, and value of *-over time effects.
BUT - Perhaps I'm just thinking about it too much. What say you?
Therefore, I've been poring through all my favorite resto druid blogs reading about thoughts on the upcoming changes in 3.3 for druids in regards to haste. I warn you ahead of time that I am by no means an expert on Druids, and I'm almost positive that my Druid readers are going to have to set me right on a lot of my thoughts... but that is exactly the sort of feedback I'm hoping to get!
ETA: If you are looking for some interesting blog posts that resto druids have been posting lately on the topic, I recommend some Rolling Hots, Dreambound, some tricksy maths from Forrestump, and Restokin has some really helpful PTR testing - for the record, the way I understand it, Haste will both decrease the time between ticks on HoTs, AS WELL AS the total time the HoT ticks - therefore, with the Rapid Rejuvenation Glyph, you will not be getting MORE ticks to your HoTs, just faster ones. If this is wrong, please correct me!
Haste vs Crit for Druids
One of the things that has always confused me is the lack of viability for Haste and Crit for Druids. Before anyone rips me apart for saying that (be gentle, I'm not a druid myself!), I don't mean that these stats are useless for Druids, but merely that they seem to be a lot less useful for Druids than they are for other healing classes. As a Holy Priest, I can completely justify stacking either one sky high, though if I were to crunch the numbers, I may come up with good reasons to put a soft cap on either one. Since a lot of Druid heals are quickie casts, if not instant, then Haste really only seemed to matter up until GCD cap. And, since HoTs can't crit (unless you've got the T9 4piece set bonus, of course), Crit seemed kinda blah as well.
Ever since the changes to Shadowform for Priests, allowing DoTs to crit while in Shadowform, I've been wondering why HoTs can't crit while in Tree form. I see Druids on the whole, more than any other healing class, stack spellpower at the expense of haste and crit, because for other healers, those two latter stats seem stronger (I'm somewhat guessing here, I'll have to ask Codi over at MoarHPS to come over and beat me over the head with her calculator in order to have any maths to back any of this theorizing up). I'm sure some balancing would be necessary if HoTs were allowed to crit, but at the same time, that would mean Druids would stack more crit than they currently do, which would inevitably mean less spellpower as well.
Broadening the Niche? Should HoTs come closer to burst healing?
Another thing that intrigues me is that it seems as though the developers don't know how to get Druids to use crit and haste, and they are trying different things, and using different tools to test it - but with the same spell, Rejuvenation. First they try tinkering with a set bonus to see if Druids would be too OP with critting HoTs, and now it looks like they will try something similar with a glyph in 3.3.
I'm not impressed with the glyph, myself. I can see why many think it's very exciting, but to me, it's a bit similar in theory to Glyph of Renew - which I've always found stupid. If I wanted more healing in a shorter period of time, i.e. more burst... why wouldn't I just cast Flash Heal? The faster HoTs tick, the less time they are buffering... I'm not sure if that really IS a great thing.
Between the T9 set bonus for Druids, and the upcoming Glyph addition, I suspect that Blizz still hasn't figured out for sure how they want to handle some of the stat streamlining they are bringing in in Cataclysm. It feels like they are using the posterkids for HoTs as a way to test out how different stats might work with HoTs. I don't think this is a bad thing, for the record - I just found it interesting enough to bring it up. I suspect that if the changes work well for Druids, without breaking class balance, we may see all HoTs and DoTs for all classes being affected by both crit and haste in Cataclysm - or at least, with certain talents.
I'm still not sure if I like that or not... by speeding up the effect of HoTs and DoTs, it just brings them closer to being burst healing or burst damage in the first place, and eventually (taken to the extreme), it may completely degrade and diminish the niche, power, and value of *-over time effects.
BUT - Perhaps I'm just thinking about it too much. What say you?
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A post over at Healing Way , and a response from twenty-five boxes (one of my new favorite blogs!) got me thinking. If one of the Developer goals for Cataclysm is to make healing more fun, what can they do to make this happen?
First off, it takes a certain type of personality to truly *enjoy* healing. You don't usually get the e-peen rewards as a healer that many dps can get, so if that is the source of your fun and your pride, healing is likely not for you. However, healing is also one of those strange roles where, if everyone is doing their job properly, healing can suddenly become very boring. Sometimes I get so bored I furtively try to nudge that little gnome mage next to me into the NooBSauce, just so I have something to do. No really - when I'm dropping F-bombs left and right in my basement, I'm actually having *fun*.
That having been said, I can think of a few things that would improve the overall healing experience in WoW.
Change the stupid UI
More than any other role out there, healers have to use all kinds of add-ons to do their job to the best of their ability. Though there are macros you can use to tweak the UI without getting an add-on, the fundamental basic way to heal in WoW is to target the person you want to heal, and then cast a spell on them. It just takes too damn long. We need a way to have Clique like effects without putting in an add-on or trying to figure out how to write a macro (my most complex macro is /e pulls out her Snark-o-Meter.)
Situational Awareness
We rarely get to actually SEE the fights. No, I do not have a solution to these UI problems. That's why you're paid the big bucks and have iphones and yachts. I'm looking at you, Ghostcrawler! My biggest hope is that Cataclysm will bring with it some solid UI changes that will benefit healers, and actually allow us to stop glaring at healing bars every now and then!
NPC Healing
Sometimes, when running CoS, I like to heal Arthas. Of course, I don't need to, but it offers up a new challenge for me. I always liked the escort quests where I could just keep the NPC healed up (as few as those are, since the NPCs rarely do any real damage). I'd kinda like to see this in raids too. Wouldn't it be neat if instead of needing to stand near the NPCs in the Hodir fight to get the benefit, you could send some heals their way, and they buff you in gratitude?
Fight Mechanics
So far, one of my favorite fight mechanics is the Incinerate Flesh ability of Jaraxxus in ten man TOC. I'd love to see more of these kinds of challenges that require us to take a step away from the tank and use our healing abilities to essentially dispel something.
Less Priest, Moar Cleric
One of the things I'm enjoying most about 4th edition D&D with my friends is this entire other world of healing. I spend less time healing as a Cleric in 4e, and more time finding ways to keep others from taking damage. All my abilities are still based on hitting the foe though. It reminds me a lot of some of the Pally abilities... between all their many hands (which I have yet to figure out), and then different judgements, they may not be doing a lot of damage, but in addition to the healing they do, they also have other bonus abilities to help out their allies. I suppose Resto Shammies are similar, with their totems. Priests don't have much other than bubbles, and Power Infusion if you're disc - until you move over to the Shadow side, which is truly intriguing. No matter what spec of Priest you are, there are ways to do some healing. Druids have Innervate, but that's actually more helpful to other healers more than anything else. I'd like to see healers brought not only for their ability to heal, but for some of the other abilities they can provide. I realize this is not an easy thing for Blizz to do, however, as then we get back into the era of raiding in which you feel required to bring certain classes.
~~~~~
I see this happen a lot, and I'm quite guilty of it myself, but we all also need to get out of the mindset that the only thing that matters is raiding. The problem with being a healer is that it is very raiding focused, or perhaps group pvp focused. Despite all my insisting that Holy DPS is a very effective leveling build, after level 40 it is difficult to compete with Shadow. With the exception of a few things such as Glyph of Smite, Blizz seems to have little interest in giving healing specs viability for leveling or questing - I will say, however, that the Holy Healers have it better than the Nature Healers. Penance and Holy Shock both do damage OR healing, and Surge of Light for Holy priests allows for benefit to dps or healing.
There are some things that I don't *want* to see change, however. The healing community, unlike the tanking or DPSing community, has a much warmer and closer bond - mainly because it is stupid for us to try and compete with one another. Sure, some people still do it, but those of us who "get it" usually just roll our eyes at them. When I hear about "heal sniping", I roll my eyes. The REAL healers are usually trying to work TOGETHER to keep everyone alive. If I see that the pally is running low on mana, I immediately start throwing some heals on the tank to help out the pally healer, and the group as a whole.
I would hate to see that change. I don't want to compete with other healers; I want us to all help one another be better healers.
And have world peace and stuff. Awww let's all have a group hug!
First off, it takes a certain type of personality to truly *enjoy* healing. You don't usually get the e-peen rewards as a healer that many dps can get, so if that is the source of your fun and your pride, healing is likely not for you. However, healing is also one of those strange roles where, if everyone is doing their job properly, healing can suddenly become very boring. Sometimes I get so bored I furtively try to nudge that little gnome mage next to me into the NooBSauce, just so I have something to do. No really - when I'm dropping F-bombs left and right in my basement, I'm actually having *fun*.
That having been said, I can think of a few things that would improve the overall healing experience in WoW.
Change the stupid UI
More than any other role out there, healers have to use all kinds of add-ons to do their job to the best of their ability. Though there are macros you can use to tweak the UI without getting an add-on, the fundamental basic way to heal in WoW is to target the person you want to heal, and then cast a spell on them. It just takes too damn long. We need a way to have Clique like effects without putting in an add-on or trying to figure out how to write a macro (my most complex macro is /e pulls out her Snark-o-Meter.)
Situational Awareness
We rarely get to actually SEE the fights. No, I do not have a solution to these UI problems. That's why you're paid the big bucks and have iphones and yachts. I'm looking at you, Ghostcrawler! My biggest hope is that Cataclysm will bring with it some solid UI changes that will benefit healers, and actually allow us to stop glaring at healing bars every now and then!
NPC Healing
Sometimes, when running CoS, I like to heal Arthas. Of course, I don't need to, but it offers up a new challenge for me. I always liked the escort quests where I could just keep the NPC healed up (as few as those are, since the NPCs rarely do any real damage). I'd kinda like to see this in raids too. Wouldn't it be neat if instead of needing to stand near the NPCs in the Hodir fight to get the benefit, you could send some heals their way, and they buff you in gratitude?
Fight Mechanics
So far, one of my favorite fight mechanics is the Incinerate Flesh ability of Jaraxxus in ten man TOC. I'd love to see more of these kinds of challenges that require us to take a step away from the tank and use our healing abilities to essentially dispel something.
Less Priest, Moar Cleric
One of the things I'm enjoying most about 4th edition D&D with my friends is this entire other world of healing. I spend less time healing as a Cleric in 4e, and more time finding ways to keep others from taking damage. All my abilities are still based on hitting the foe though. It reminds me a lot of some of the Pally abilities... between all their many hands (which I have yet to figure out), and then different judgements, they may not be doing a lot of damage, but in addition to the healing they do, they also have other bonus abilities to help out their allies. I suppose Resto Shammies are similar, with their totems. Priests don't have much other than bubbles, and Power Infusion if you're disc - until you move over to the Shadow side, which is truly intriguing. No matter what spec of Priest you are, there are ways to do some healing. Druids have Innervate, but that's actually more helpful to other healers more than anything else. I'd like to see healers brought not only for their ability to heal, but for some of the other abilities they can provide. I realize this is not an easy thing for Blizz to do, however, as then we get back into the era of raiding in which you feel required to bring certain classes.
~~~~~
I see this happen a lot, and I'm quite guilty of it myself, but we all also need to get out of the mindset that the only thing that matters is raiding. The problem with being a healer is that it is very raiding focused, or perhaps group pvp focused. Despite all my insisting that Holy DPS is a very effective leveling build, after level 40 it is difficult to compete with Shadow. With the exception of a few things such as Glyph of Smite, Blizz seems to have little interest in giving healing specs viability for leveling or questing - I will say, however, that the Holy Healers have it better than the Nature Healers. Penance and Holy Shock both do damage OR healing, and Surge of Light for Holy priests allows for benefit to dps or healing.
There are some things that I don't *want* to see change, however. The healing community, unlike the tanking or DPSing community, has a much warmer and closer bond - mainly because it is stupid for us to try and compete with one another. Sure, some people still do it, but those of us who "get it" usually just roll our eyes at them. When I hear about "heal sniping", I roll my eyes. The REAL healers are usually trying to work TOGETHER to keep everyone alive. If I see that the pally is running low on mana, I immediately start throwing some heals on the tank to help out the pally healer, and the group as a whole.
I would hate to see that change. I don't want to compete with other healers; I want us to all help one another be better healers.
And have world peace and stuff. Awww let's all have a group hug!
One of the reasons I wanted to start working on my Loremaster achievement was to spend more time out in the Old World before everything got turned upside down. When you are running around desperately seeking every quest possible, you also notice things you never bothered to before. And you pick up on some new things.If you're Alliance, you may or may not have noticed a new arrival in Darnassus. His name is Archmage Mordent Evenshade of The Highborne. Actually, if you go near the city portals in Dalaran, there is a Highborne Nelf there offering a short quest that leads you to the Archmage (which counts for loremaster of Kalimdor! Wahoo!). Stick around and listen to the entire conversation the Archmage has with a Sentinel. It's not especially enlightening, but if you're wondering how on Azeroth Blizzard intends to justify Night Elf Mages, this appears to be the start of that lore revolution.
If you're Horde, head on over to Thunder Bluff, and stand in the giant tent over on Elder Ride, and listen to the discussion about Mu'Sha between Aponi Brightmane and Tahu Sagewind. A crisis of faith is on the horizon, potentially opening up new avenues of Light for the Tauren. Priests and Paladins incoming!
Blizzard has mentioned in the past that they don't want players to think they just threw in a bunch of new classes with no lore behind them, and I imagine these are some of their attempts to give a sense of foreshadowing for Cataclysm. The truth is, they are at the point now where story-line-wise, they HAVE to add some new lore is we want to see any new content. Okay, fair enough, I can accept that.It's a great time to be working on Loremaster - new sources of lore popping up all over the place! I'm keeping my eyes and ears out for any other new NPCs.
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With Cataclysm will come a whole new old world. While I think the changes will be good, and pump a lot of fresh content into the world many of us abandoned years ago, it will be sad to say our goodbyes to the old world we know and love.
Will WoW players in years to come know what ye ol' folks are talking about when we wistfully complain about the trek down the length of Darkshore? The reason it was called The Barrens? The drastic change in scenery between the Horde and Alliance areas of Ashenvale? The hours spent grinding for wyrmling pets and elite dragon kills in Azshara?
The only way to remember is to never allow yourself to forget. The best way to not forget is to take pictures of it now while it still exists. There is a really fantastic group of pictures growing on Flickr as people try to store up screenshots of the world we will be leaving behind when the Cataclysm breaks. Check it out and consider adding your own touch!
Will WoW players in years to come know what ye ol' folks are talking about when we wistfully complain about the trek down the length of Darkshore? The reason it was called The Barrens? The drastic change in scenery between the Horde and Alliance areas of Ashenvale? The hours spent grinding for wyrmling pets and elite dragon kills in Azshara?
The only way to remember is to never allow yourself to forget. The best way to not forget is to take pictures of it now while it still exists. There is a really fantastic group of pictures growing on Flickr as people try to store up screenshots of the world we will be leaving behind when the Cataclysm breaks. Check it out and consider adding your own touch!
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Okay I spent an hour trying to write up a post about finding a balance between haste and crit. It didn’t work for me. My every effort at theorycrafting ended with LOLWUT. Here, I’ll cop out and give you the skinny from ElitistJerks about stats for priests:
Holy: “Rough goals for the start of Ulduar.25 are to have 2800 spellpower, 26-28% crit, and 12% haste, along with ~ 500 Mp5 I5SR fully raid-buffed”
Disc: “Rough goals for the start of Ulduar.25 are to have 2500 spellpower, 35% crit, and 8% haste, along with ~ 500 Mp5 I5SR fully raid-buffed.”
Look at all that work I did. Now that THAT’S done, let’s talk about something really fun. Let’s go beyond the stat streamlining Blizz will be bringing us in Cataclysm and talk a bit about Path of the Titans… and I’m gonna get all fun and creative.
Path of the Titans Brainstorming
The long and the short is this – Blizzard will be redesigning talent trees to be more “fun”, i.e. focusing on bringing you fun spells like Guardian Spirit and Pain Suppression. Path of the Titans will work with the new secondary profession, Archaeology, and will be how you get all those little bonuses, like +3% damage, +5% crit, etc etc etc,
I want to see the crit vs haste debate take a whole new meaning with this change to talent trees. Whether it be via Path of the Titans or the talent tree, I want to see two different paths for healers of all classes. One path for haste, one for crit. Maybe you can choose to balance between the two, or maybe you would pick one over the other.
For instance, for the Poker Player Priest, we have the crit path. Do you like high risk, high reward situations? Then stack crit, and with this chosen direction, you get special bonuses based on crit. Are you more of a Conservative Caster, and prefer predictable, steady bonuses and improvements to your casting style? Stack haste, and take the haste path.
Not so long ago for Priests, Serendipity was completely different, and actually gave you a percentage of mana back when you overhealed. Overhealing is a problem for every healer, though less so for Druids. However, even if your heal isn’t marked as overheal, if you spend your mana, and the heal you cast, or the hot, gives less healing than was intended, it’s a problem. I think this is a great opportunity for some interesting procs.
The Poker Player Priest versus the Conservative Caster
Let’s say you’re a Poker Player Priest (stacking crit), and your heal crits, and ov
erheals your target. I’d love to see some fun procs based on this – whether it be a return of some mana (only on overheals that are crits), or perhaps a short term boost to your crit rating. Or, if you overheal due to a crit, the target gets a damage absorbing shield that absorbs the amount for which they were overhealed. Everytime you crit, you could get a stacking buff that will increase your crit rating by a small amount, up to, say, 5 stacks. Or everytime you crit you have a chance to proc some regen mechanic, like with Holy Concentration. For raid buffs, maybe everytime you crit you could proc a raid buff for a few seconds that would increase crit rating by 5%.
For the Conservative Caster (stacking haste), we could have a serendipity like effect with a smaller boost each stack, but more stacks. So, 5 casts of Flash Heal could give you an instant Greater Heal, or maybe just a very speedy Greater Heal. An overheal could either return some of your mana to you, or give you a small haste boost to your next cast. There could be some ability or proc called “Just in the Nick of Time”, and if you get a heal off on someone who is at less than 5% health, that target gets a double heal, or a HoT effect, a shield effect, a decrease in threat, or maybe all heals on that target are boosted by a certain percentage. For raid buffs, everytime you peel off a Greater Heal of a Prayer of Healing, the entire raid could receive a 10% haste buff.
I use holy priests as an example here, but the same theory could apply for all healers, and really all casters. I really hope that Blizzard gets creative with the new talent trees and Path of the Titans, because I see room for lots of fun stuff in the direction they are heading. I am also pleading for a resolution to the crit vs haste debate.
Holy: “Rough goals for the start of Ulduar.25 are to have 2800 spellpower, 26-28% crit, and 12% haste, along with ~ 500 Mp5 I5SR fully raid-buffed”
Disc: “Rough goals for the start of Ulduar.25 are to have 2500 spellpower, 35% crit, and 8% haste, along with ~ 500 Mp5 I5SR fully raid-buffed.”
Look at all that work I did. Now that THAT’S done, let’s talk about something really fun. Let’s go beyond the stat streamlining Blizz will be bringing us in Cataclysm and talk a bit about Path of the Titans… and I’m gonna get all fun and creative.
Path of the Titans Brainstorming
The long and the short is this – Blizzard will be redesigning talent trees to be more “fun”, i.e. focusing on bringing you fun spells like Guardian Spirit and Pain Suppression. Path of the Titans will work with the new secondary profession, Archaeology, and will be how you get all those little bonuses, like +3% damage, +5% crit, etc etc etc,
I want to see the crit vs haste debate take a whole new meaning with this change to talent trees. Whether it be via Path of the Titans or the talent tree, I want to see two different paths for healers of all classes. One path for haste, one for crit. Maybe you can choose to balance between the two, or maybe you would pick one over the other.
For instance, for the Poker Player Priest, we have the crit path. Do you like high risk, high reward situations? Then stack crit, and with this chosen direction, you get special bonuses based on crit. Are you more of a Conservative Caster, and prefer predictable, steady bonuses and improvements to your casting style? Stack haste, and take the haste path.
Not so long ago for Priests, Serendipity was completely different, and actually gave you a percentage of mana back when you overhealed. Overhealing is a problem for every healer, though less so for Druids. However, even if your heal isn’t marked as overheal, if you spend your mana, and the heal you cast, or the hot, gives less healing than was intended, it’s a problem. I think this is a great opportunity for some interesting procs.
The Poker Player Priest versus the Conservative Caster
Let’s say you’re a Poker Player Priest (stacking crit), and your heal crits, and ov
erheals your target. I’d love to see some fun procs based on this – whether it be a return of some mana (only on overheals that are crits), or perhaps a short term boost to your crit rating. Or, if you overheal due to a crit, the target gets a damage absorbing shield that absorbs the amount for which they were overhealed. Everytime you crit, you could get a stacking buff that will increase your crit rating by a small amount, up to, say, 5 stacks. Or everytime you crit you have a chance to proc some regen mechanic, like with Holy Concentration. For raid buffs, maybe everytime you crit you could proc a raid buff for a few seconds that would increase crit rating by 5%.
For the Conservative Caster (stacking haste), we could have a serendipity like effect with a smaller boost each stack, but more stacks. So, 5 casts of Flash Heal could give you an instant Greater Heal, or maybe just a very speedy Greater Heal. An overheal could either return some of your mana to you, or give you a small haste boost to your next cast. There could be some ability or proc called “Just in the Nick of Time”, and if you get a heal off on someone who is at less than 5% health, that target gets a double heal, or a HoT effect, a shield effect, a decrease in threat, or maybe all heals on that target are boosted by a certain percentage. For raid buffs, everytime you peel off a Greater Heal of a Prayer of Healing, the entire raid could receive a 10% haste buff.I use holy priests as an example here, but the same theory could apply for all healers, and really all casters. I really hope that Blizzard gets creative with the new talent trees and Path of the Titans, because I see room for lots of fun stuff in the direction they are heading. I am also pleading for a resolution to the crit vs haste debate.
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Firstly, the boys over at the Save or Die Radio podcast have asked me to start writing a blog for them about what it's like being a total and complete n00b at table top gaming. I only just recently started spending one night a week RPing with them, and so far the comedy of errors (what, me? make errors? psh) has led to lots of great material. Check them out, and I promise you won't be disappointed! (I totally didn't ask permission before using this image either, I like to live on the edge.)Blizzcon is over, thank God. For ease of review over Blizzcon panels, I have provided a list of the panels and events, along with links to the websites I used to get my information about them. All the websites are so disorganized, and it grates on my type Aness.
Friday:
- Opening Ceremony: WoW Insider
- World of Warcraft Preview Panel: WoW Insider, MMO-Champion, Cataclysm
- World of Warcraft Art: WoW Insider, MMO-Champion
- World of Warcraft Classes Items and Professions I: WoW Insider, MMO-Champion, WoW Forum
- Costume, Song, and Dance Contests: WoW Insider
- WoW Open Q&A: MMO-Champion, WoW Insider
- WoW Game Systems: WoW Insider, MMO-Champion
- WoW Dungeons & Raids: WoW Insider, MMO-Champion
- World of Warcraft Classes Items and Professions II: WoW Insider (MMOChamp and Forums combined both sessions, see previous links)
- WoW Live Raid: In which Hogger pwns Premonition
- Closing Ceremony
Okay so in case you don't feel like searching through WoW.com front page (slacker) here is a copy and paste about what is known so far regarding the incoming stat changes for the new expansion Cataclysm.
This is one of those changes about which I'm totally on the fence. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense. We have these basic stats, and really, everything else should be derived from the stats. Wow is based on D&D, and that's essentially how D&D works. Attack Power has always been based on Agility or Strength depending on class anyway, so there was really no need for excess AP stats. I never understood Armor Penetration (in my defense, I'm more the caster type dammit, don't call me a noob!). The Block Value eradication, and change of Block makes more sense to me too. I am cheering about Spirit becoming the main point of mana regen again (although a little irritated that they just nerfed spirit by buffing mp5, when they are making such a change in the expansion... but then again, let's all remember that despite all the excitement, Cataclysm is still a long way off). The fact that Hunters needed mana was stupid, I really like the idea of it going to focus, theres more similarity with their pets. I think it's pretty clever how haste is changing - I always thought it should be that way instead. Intellect should be the basis for more caster abilities, such as spellpower.
Now, another incoming addition for Professions is the ability to "Reforge", which will be specificly based on your profession. I.e., Tailors can reforge cloth items, Blacksmiths plate, etc. Reforging is the ability to readjust some of the stats on an item. For instance, if a cloth piece drops with 50 Spirit and 40 Stamina, I can reforge it to make it have 10 Intellect, 40 Spirit, and 40 Stamina. No word yet on the limitations regarding amount, however, you will not be able to add to a stat that is already on the item (So while I can add 10 Intellect, I cannot take 10 points from stamina to make 60 Spirit.)
Okay, now that i've covered those basics, here are the problems I foresee. In TBC, there was so much variety and specific stats on items, that it was not uncommon for an item to drop that was no good for anyone. Then they combined melee and spell haste into simply haste, and same for crit and +healing/+damage into spellpower. This simplification really changed the way gear dropped in raids - there was a lot more competition for each item. I don't think that's a bad thing... it's painful to disenchant some really nice items.
But now it's going even further. Without knowing what limitations they are going to put on reforging, I could pick up any cloth item (after all, armor class is still important) and remove stats on it to add stats that are important to me. So, in the extreme, all that really seems to matter is what armor class it is, and what slot? This is frighteningly generic to me. There have already been a lot of complaints in Wrath about how generic items seem to be (at least the artwork... how many different versions/colors of that damn Moonshroud Robe has my priest worn anyway?) It's too soon to tell for sure, or to get too worked up over it though. I'm working off of a very small amount of details at this point, but so far I am a little concerned.
All this information is derived from the first "Class, Items, and Professions" panel yesterday. There is a second one at 2:30 PST today, and I am waiting with baited breath for that one. I have a lot of ranting I want to do about Path of the Titans as well, but I'm hoping there will be more clarification at tonight's panel, so I'll hold off on my comments for that. The classes discussed yesterday were Hunter, Priest, Shaman, and Warrior. There weren't a whole lot of details, and it was pretty disappointing. I think the most exciting news so far class-wise was for hunters.
- Attack Power on gear is gone. Instead, some classes will get 2 AP from each point of Agi (Rogues, Hunters, Shamans, Druids), and other classes (presumably Warriors, Paladins, and Death Knights) will get 2 AP per point of Strength. Side effect: no more plate wearers stealing your gear
- Spell Power is gone. It comes from Int now.
- MP5 is gone. Spirit is the mana regen stat, and all classes that need it will get some form of Meditation. (Hunters, never fear - you don't use mana any more. More on this in a separate post.)
- Armor Penetration is gone. That one was just confusing.
- Defense is gone. Tanks are now defense-capped from talents, like Druid tanks.
- Haste now increases your rate of resource regeneration (
mana, energy, rage, runes, focus). - Block Value is gone, but blocks now mitigate a percentage of damage.
- Stamina is going to be more equal across different armor types - no more "plate HP envy."
This is one of those changes about which I'm totally on the fence. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense. We have these basic stats, and really, everything else should be derived from the stats. Wow is based on D&D, and that's essentially how D&D works. Attack Power has always been based on Agility or Strength depending on class anyway, so there was really no need for excess AP stats. I never understood Armor Penetration (in my defense, I'm more the caster type dammit, don't call me a noob!). The Block Value eradication, and change of Block makes more sense to me too. I am cheering about Spirit becoming the main point of mana regen again (although a little irritated that they just nerfed spirit by buffing mp5, when they are making such a change in the expansion... but then again, let's all remember that despite all the excitement, Cataclysm is still a long way off). The fact that Hunters needed mana was stupid, I really like the idea of it going to focus, theres more similarity with their pets. I think it's pretty clever how haste is changing - I always thought it should be that way instead. Intellect should be the basis for more caster abilities, such as spellpower.
Now, another incoming addition for Professions is the ability to "Reforge", which will be specificly based on your profession. I.e., Tailors can reforge cloth items, Blacksmiths plate, etc. Reforging is the ability to readjust some of the stats on an item. For instance, if a cloth piece drops with 50 Spirit and 40 Stamina, I can reforge it to make it have 10 Intellect, 40 Spirit, and 40 Stamina. No word yet on the limitations regarding amount, however, you will not be able to add to a stat that is already on the item (So while I can add 10 Intellect, I cannot take 10 points from stamina to make 60 Spirit.)
Okay, now that i've covered those basics, here are the problems I foresee. In TBC, there was so much variety and specific stats on items, that it was not uncommon for an item to drop that was no good for anyone. Then they combined melee and spell haste into simply haste, and same for crit and +healing/+damage into spellpower. This simplification really changed the way gear dropped in raids - there was a lot more competition for each item. I don't think that's a bad thing... it's painful to disenchant some really nice items.
But now it's going even further. Without knowing what limitations they are going to put on reforging, I could pick up any cloth item (after all, armor class is still important) and remove stats on it to add stats that are important to me. So, in the extreme, all that really seems to matter is what armor class it is, and what slot? This is frighteningly generic to me. There have already been a lot of complaints in Wrath about how generic items seem to be (at least the artwork... how many different versions/colors of that damn Moonshroud Robe has my priest worn anyway?) It's too soon to tell for sure, or to get too worked up over it though. I'm working off of a very small amount of details at this point, but so far I am a little concerned.
All this information is derived from the first "Class, Items, and Professions" panel yesterday. There is a second one at 2:30 PST today, and I am waiting with baited breath for that one. I have a lot of ranting I want to do about Path of the Titans as well, but I'm hoping there will be more clarification at tonight's panel, so I'll hold off on my comments for that. The classes discussed yesterday were Hunter, Priest, Shaman, and Warrior. There weren't a whole lot of details, and it was pretty disappointing. I think the most exciting news so far class-wise was for hunters.
Ugh, not feeling super great today. I think all the pinching and prodding of my body yesterday rearranged some organs. But fear not, I took down the Bitch Sales Lady boss and won two emblems. Why no I will not try on that ridiculously overpriced dress with the impractical long train for a third time, and I am DONE prancing about like a show pony. OH SNAP
Anyway. I don't normally post on weekends, but this weekend is special. If you haven't been paying attention (LAWL), the best sites, IMO to check out are wow.com and, of course, the official Cataclysm website.
I am not going to relist all the new crap covered, since it's pointless and you can just go to the website. But I AM wondering if there are a lot of people eating crow over the details about Cataclysm. There was a lot of rage and talk about irresponsible journalism with MMO-Champion and WoW Insider leaked the news about Cataclysm, and a lot of people saying that the news was untrustworthy because of that.
I was skeptical about a lot of the information, but I think it was more because I didn't *want* it to be true. The perfectionist inside me is weeping about night elf mages. Also, I'm skeptical about most things, but I will say that I personally have a LOT of confidence in Wow Insider. That's where I go to get my news, and they never disappoint. There is a reason why I rely on them for incoming patch info. They always source things pretty well.
A week and a half ago Matticus made a post about responsible journalism, and I think that post really helped convince me that Wow Insider wasn't doing anything particularly wrong. I was still skeptical, but soothed quite a bit. Now, I don't know much about MMO Champion, I don't like their interface, so I don't read them, heh. And then, a few days ago, Dueg pointed out something that for some reason I hadn't even considered - it was quite possible that Blizzard purposely leaked the information, to get people hyped about Blizzcon (even moreso at least). And I truly believe that's exactly what happened.
Although I guess it's pretty safe for me to weigh in after the whole controversy is resolved, eh?
I wonder if the next time Blizz decides to leak things, they will do it in a different way... because at this point, I'm convinced that is exactly what they did. I feel bad that Wow Insider bore quite a bit of criticism over the whole ordeal, but I suppose that is the nature of the beast. I hope that regardless of that fact, it generated a lot of hits on their website and made them some money. This is American, money fixes, like, everything. Just ask Ross Perot yo.
Now that I've covered that, I'm going to set out by explaining some of my thoughts on the announcements made at Blizzcon so far. There are definitely a lot of really cool changes incoming. Overall though, I'm more than a little concerned. People, enjoy the way Azeroth looks now, because it is confirmed that when the expansion comes out, you will never see it look that way again. Cataclysm is a perfect name.
I have a very conservative personality. I'm not talking about politics, though this aspect of my personality is reflected in many of my political beliefs. It's not that I don't like change... it's just that I get really nervous about sudden, drastic (you may say CATACLYSMIC) change. So even though I know the expansion is still quite a ways off (even though I'm sure there will be kids in trade chat insisting it will land within 6 months), I'm still trying to prepare myself for what I know will be a difficult transition for me. I mean seriously, I still clutch to the days of waiting until level 40 for a mount.
So yes. I'm already feeling nostalgic for "Old Azeroth". But I also recognize that people have been begging Blizz for the ability to fly around the old world ever since TBC came out. The response has always been that they want to focus their development efforts on moving forward, not going backward. It seems, however, that they did listen to us. I mean let's face it, so much time and effort was put into the old world, it's ridiculous how little time we spend there after level 60. So as much as I'm sad about leaving Old Azeroth in the dust, I am happy that they finally have decided to turn their attention back to the Old World. I am really interested to see just how much phasing will take place, and how it will be administered. I'm also glad they will be improving the UI so that you can tell when someone is in another phase.
Also, Worgen look way cooler than any wedding dresses I tried on yesterday FYI. I can't wait to see what the females will look like!
Expect lots of long posts from me coming in as I weigh in on Blizzcon announcements. I still have a LOT left to say (is anyone surprised?).
Anyway. I don't normally post on weekends, but this weekend is special. If you haven't been paying attention (LAWL), the best sites, IMO to check out are wow.com and, of course, the official Cataclysm website.
I am not going to relist all the new crap covered, since it's pointless and you can just go to the website. But I AM wondering if there are a lot of people eating crow over the details about Cataclysm. There was a lot of rage and talk about irresponsible journalism with MMO-Champion and WoW Insider leaked the news about Cataclysm, and a lot of people saying that the news was untrustworthy because of that.
I was skeptical about a lot of the information, but I think it was more because I didn't *want* it to be true. The perfectionist inside me is weeping about night elf mages. Also, I'm skeptical about most things, but I will say that I personally have a LOT of confidence in Wow Insider. That's where I go to get my news, and they never disappoint. There is a reason why I rely on them for incoming patch info. They always source things pretty well.
A week and a half ago Matticus made a post about responsible journalism, and I think that post really helped convince me that Wow Insider wasn't doing anything particularly wrong. I was still skeptical, but soothed quite a bit. Now, I don't know much about MMO Champion, I don't like their interface, so I don't read them, heh. And then, a few days ago, Dueg pointed out something that for some reason I hadn't even considered - it was quite possible that Blizzard purposely leaked the information, to get people hyped about Blizzcon (even moreso at least). And I truly believe that's exactly what happened.
Although I guess it's pretty safe for me to weigh in after the whole controversy is resolved, eh?
I wonder if the next time Blizz decides to leak things, they will do it in a different way... because at this point, I'm convinced that is exactly what they did. I feel bad that Wow Insider bore quite a bit of criticism over the whole ordeal, but I suppose that is the nature of the beast. I hope that regardless of that fact, it generated a lot of hits on their website and made them some money. This is American, money fixes, like, everything. Just ask Ross Perot yo.
Now that I've covered that, I'm going to set out by explaining some of my thoughts on the announcements made at Blizzcon so far. There are definitely a lot of really cool changes incoming. Overall though, I'm more than a little concerned. People, enjoy the way Azeroth looks now, because it is confirmed that when the expansion comes out, you will never see it look that way again. Cataclysm is a perfect name.
I have a very conservative personality. I'm not talking about politics, though this aspect of my personality is reflected in many of my political beliefs. It's not that I don't like change... it's just that I get really nervous about sudden, drastic (you may say CATACLYSMIC) change. So even though I know the expansion is still quite a ways off (even though I'm sure there will be kids in trade chat insisting it will land within 6 months), I'm still trying to prepare myself for what I know will be a difficult transition for me. I mean seriously, I still clutch to the days of waiting until level 40 for a mount.
So yes. I'm already feeling nostalgic for "Old Azeroth". But I also recognize that people have been begging Blizz for the ability to fly around the old world ever since TBC came out. The response has always been that they want to focus their development efforts on moving forward, not going backward. It seems, however, that they did listen to us. I mean let's face it, so much time and effort was put into the old world, it's ridiculous how little time we spend there after level 60. So as much as I'm sad about leaving Old Azeroth in the dust, I am happy that they finally have decided to turn their attention back to the Old World. I am really interested to see just how much phasing will take place, and how it will be administered. I'm also glad they will be improving the UI so that you can tell when someone is in another phase.
Also, Worgen look way cooler than any wedding dresses I tried on yesterday FYI. I can't wait to see what the females will look like!
Expect lots of long posts from me coming in as I weigh in on Blizzcon announcements. I still have a LOT left to say (is anyone surprised?).
