The Treasure Of The Midnight Isles
6 days ago
Showing posts with label Missing The Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Missing The Point. Show all posts
Over the past week or so, I've been focusing my in-game energy on achievements. Loremaster, in particular, has been my goal, with a few straggling achievements I hadn't captured before on the way.
As someone who is a bit of a completionist, and also faintly bored with activities in Northrend at the moment, I rather adore achievements. In addition, one of my major goals before the release of Cataclysm was to finish off my Loremaster achievement, since I expect some of these quests will disappear, and this is a good way to make sure I get to see much of the lore and many of the zones before any incoming changes.
On the way, I'm finding new things I want to collect, in addition to experiencing content in a new way. I always hated old world dungeons, mostly because I always wound up lost. Now, however, having run Scholomance 18 bajillion times and Stratholme 16 million, I'm finally getting the hang of them. I even have a rough idea of how to get around Dire Maul. I'm getting lots of great blogging fodder, let me tell you.
For instance: Have you met Azuregos?
Now, I don't really mean to be a jerk, but when I spotted the member of the blue dragonflight wandering around Azshara (with his spirit form following closely behind), I thought to myself that he must be pretty bored and out of shape. And then I thought of the hateful Oculus and Malygos-Mc-Jerkface, both wretched relics of the blue dragonflight, and I decided right then and there that I was gonna pwn this noob.
Well. Let's just say that the noob was pwned, but the pwned noob was not a member of any dragonflight. Hmph.
After the walk of shame back to my corpse and my following resurrection, I noticed a strange debuff. Something along the lines of Mark of Frost. "Whatever," thought I, "I learned my lesson."
Apparently i didn't, though, because not long after returning to my body, I heard the sounds of another battle with Azuregos from a party of strangers. Wanting to lend my aid in any way possible, I ventured forth towards the dragon.... and immediately froze in place.
Hilarious consequences ensued.
Yeah. That's me in the middle. Frozen solid in the middle of the air.
He's not really very conversational once battle begins, for the record. (And before anyone asks, yes, this is my raiding UI - I was too lazy to set it up properly for non-raiding stuffs)
The party beating the crap out of Azuregos did not really find my situation all that sympathetic. In fact, they were kinda jerks. Oh, also, they thought I was male which really irritated me. Also, please note my waning health. Also, please ignore my annoying guildmate who keeps beating me to the awesome achievements.
The party of strangers defeated Azuregos after a few minutes, and seconds later my debuff faded, releasing me from my icy prison. As it turns out, the group was not in a party, as the individual who first struck the dragon taunted them by the fact that he got to take all the EPIC LOOTZ. I congratulated him on his many new level 60 epics, assuring him they would be very useful at level 80. The best part was when he starting jumping up and down in glee, insisting that Shadowmourne had dropped, apparently assuming that since no one else could see the loot, we would all be devastated and jealous of his treasure. I found that particularly hilarious, and after quickly dispatching a wandering elite giant nearby (so that I could feel better about myself), I left the remains to the dragon-killing strangers who were bickering about hunter loot.
When I joked about how fundamentally useless most of the loot was to a level 80, the warrior who had won all the loot asked angrily "Well then why the hell were you bothering to try and kill him, hunh?"
And this struck me as pretty sad. We talk a lot about loot, and gearscore, and I give lots of advice, and get just as excited as the next person when I great upgrade drops... but it's never really been about loot for me. Sometimes it's fun to collect things (I'm currently expanding my dwarf's wardrobe with fun old world sets), but if the only joy you get out of killing a dragon is from the treasure that remains after his death, you are entirely missing the point of why people spend so much time playing this game.
As someone who is a bit of a completionist, and also faintly bored with activities in Northrend at the moment, I rather adore achievements. In addition, one of my major goals before the release of Cataclysm was to finish off my Loremaster achievement, since I expect some of these quests will disappear, and this is a good way to make sure I get to see much of the lore and many of the zones before any incoming changes.
On the way, I'm finding new things I want to collect, in addition to experiencing content in a new way. I always hated old world dungeons, mostly because I always wound up lost. Now, however, having run Scholomance 18 bajillion times and Stratholme 16 million, I'm finally getting the hang of them. I even have a rough idea of how to get around Dire Maul. I'm getting lots of great blogging fodder, let me tell you.
For instance: Have you met Azuregos?
Now, I don't really mean to be a jerk, but when I spotted the member of the blue dragonflight wandering around Azshara (with his spirit form following closely behind), I thought to myself that he must be pretty bored and out of shape. And then I thought of the hateful Oculus and Malygos-Mc-Jerkface, both wretched relics of the blue dragonflight, and I decided right then and there that I was gonna pwn this noob.
Well. Let's just say that the noob was pwned, but the pwned noob was not a member of any dragonflight. Hmph.
After the walk of shame back to my corpse and my following resurrection, I noticed a strange debuff. Something along the lines of Mark of Frost. "Whatever," thought I, "I learned my lesson."
Apparently i didn't, though, because not long after returning to my body, I heard the sounds of another battle with Azuregos from a party of strangers. Wanting to lend my aid in any way possible, I ventured forth towards the dragon.... and immediately froze in place.
Hilarious consequences ensued.
Yeah. That's me in the middle. Frozen solid in the middle of the air.
He's not really very conversational once battle begins, for the record. (And before anyone asks, yes, this is my raiding UI - I was too lazy to set it up properly for non-raiding stuffs)
The party beating the crap out of Azuregos did not really find my situation all that sympathetic. In fact, they were kinda jerks. Oh, also, they thought I was male which really irritated me. Also, please note my waning health. Also, please ignore my annoying guildmate who keeps beating me to the awesome achievements.
The party of strangers defeated Azuregos after a few minutes, and seconds later my debuff faded, releasing me from my icy prison. As it turns out, the group was not in a party, as the individual who first struck the dragon taunted them by the fact that he got to take all the EPIC LOOTZ. I congratulated him on his many new level 60 epics, assuring him they would be very useful at level 80. The best part was when he starting jumping up and down in glee, insisting that Shadowmourne had dropped, apparently assuming that since no one else could see the loot, we would all be devastated and jealous of his treasure. I found that particularly hilarious, and after quickly dispatching a wandering elite giant nearby (so that I could feel better about myself), I left the remains to the dragon-killing strangers who were bickering about hunter loot.
When I joked about how fundamentally useless most of the loot was to a level 80, the warrior who had won all the loot asked angrily "Well then why the hell were you bothering to try and kill him, hunh?"
And this struck me as pretty sad. We talk a lot about loot, and gearscore, and I give lots of advice, and get just as excited as the next person when I great upgrade drops... but it's never really been about loot for me. Sometimes it's fun to collect things (I'm currently expanding my dwarf's wardrobe with fun old world sets), but if the only joy you get out of killing a dragon is from the treasure that remains after his death, you are entirely missing the point of why people spend so much time playing this game.
I was flying around Wintergrasp last night, farming a few eternals and trying half heartedly to get into a 25 man VoA group. Every now and then I'd remind those in /1 that I was a healer, lfg. There was a Death Knight following the same strategy, and I noted that both of us were in the LFG channel as well. This carried on for nearly an hour, as it appeared that no one wanted to make the effort to actually assemble the 25 man group, although there were plenty of people who wanted to run it.
Finally, I suppose the DK decided he would step forth, and he invited me to a group. Within 5 minutes he had a full 25 people heading into VoA. As we were clearing trash, we were having a conversation about dual boxing, and one of the other priests mentioned that it wasn't that hard to do: after all, Holy Priests only needed to use 2 spells to heal anyway.
Now, I'm not trying to be one of those people with nose in the air, claiming that MY class is extraordinairly difficult to play (I have a much more difficult time on my Pally, despite silly claims that Pallies are two-heal spammers), and if you find it so simple, you're obviously just doing it wrong. But... really? You feel Holy Priests ought to only use two spells?
"Wow. That's amazing. When I'm running holy, I'm using about 7 or 8 different spells," I comment. Another healer in the group seems to feel similarly, and mentions specific spells to figure out if this Obviously Superior Because I Only Need Two Spells To Heal Priest uses them. Renew? "Utterly useless, by the time it finishes healing the target, someone else has already healed them up." And so forth. This is the sort of thing I call Missing The Point. Miss Priesty Pants does not seem to understand the purpose of a HoT, I suppose. All you healing Druids, haven't you heard? You're utterly useless! That's why no one wants a Druid in their raid, after all, right?
I decided to just let it go. If she finds herself to be performing just fine with only two heals, well... more power to her. I don't really care how you heal, as long as you get your job done - and you don't give others crap for how they choose to get the very same job done. So go ahead and Flash Heal + Circle of Healing away. In a pugged VoA run it really doesn't matter much anyway.
But she really started to annoy me later.
After we finished off Koralon and began to make our way to Emalon, the same Priest made a comment in party chat (group 5, all healers!) along the lines of "Ugh, how pathetic. Our raid leader's dps is only 1500 lol". So I returned with "Well, this isn't exactly ToGC25." "Yeah but I mean, cmon. 1500? Really? The raid leader?" This is, of course, coming from the very same priest who insisted that her class only needs to use 2 spells to heal in a raid.
You ever have those moments when you wish that you'd been a bit ballisier, and said what you really want to say? Like...
"Well then you should kick him out. Oh wait. You can't. Because you weren't the one who took the time and made the effort to put together this run - he did. He sat around for an hour waiting for someone to do it, no one did it, so because he wanted to do VoA badly enough, most likely in order to improve his gear, experience, and therefore DPS, HE was the one who assembled the raid. He hasn't been bossing anyone around, or insulting anyone, or kicking anyone. All he's done is assembled enough people and taken on the PitA task of distributing the loot properly and fairly. In case you hadn't noticed, his weak DPS does not seem to have caused any problems for us. So, if you feel that any pugged raid assembled by someone with obviously inferior damage output is unworthy of your presence, don't let the door kick you on the way out."
But, I'm somewhat ashamed to say, I did not come forth and defend the DK raid leader. I went with the philosophy that arguing 7x4 is 28 against someone who insists it's 27 would instead make me the idiot.
Instead I did the following things:
Finally, I suppose the DK decided he would step forth, and he invited me to a group. Within 5 minutes he had a full 25 people heading into VoA. As we were clearing trash, we were having a conversation about dual boxing, and one of the other priests mentioned that it wasn't that hard to do: after all, Holy Priests only needed to use 2 spells to heal anyway.
Now, I'm not trying to be one of those people with nose in the air, claiming that MY class is extraordinairly difficult to play (I have a much more difficult time on my Pally, despite silly claims that Pallies are two-heal spammers), and if you find it so simple, you're obviously just doing it wrong. But... really? You feel Holy Priests ought to only use two spells?
"Wow. That's amazing. When I'm running holy, I'm using about 7 or 8 different spells," I comment. Another healer in the group seems to feel similarly, and mentions specific spells to figure out if this Obviously Superior Because I Only Need Two Spells To Heal Priest uses them. Renew? "Utterly useless, by the time it finishes healing the target, someone else has already healed them up." And so forth. This is the sort of thing I call Missing The Point. Miss Priesty Pants does not seem to understand the purpose of a HoT, I suppose. All you healing Druids, haven't you heard? You're utterly useless! That's why no one wants a Druid in their raid, after all, right?
I decided to just let it go. If she finds herself to be performing just fine with only two heals, well... more power to her. I don't really care how you heal, as long as you get your job done - and you don't give others crap for how they choose to get the very same job done. So go ahead and Flash Heal + Circle of Healing away. In a pugged VoA run it really doesn't matter much anyway.
But she really started to annoy me later.
After we finished off Koralon and began to make our way to Emalon, the same Priest made a comment in party chat (group 5, all healers!) along the lines of "Ugh, how pathetic. Our raid leader's dps is only 1500 lol". So I returned with "Well, this isn't exactly ToGC25." "Yeah but I mean, cmon. 1500? Really? The raid leader?" This is, of course, coming from the very same priest who insisted that her class only needs to use 2 spells to heal in a raid.
You ever have those moments when you wish that you'd been a bit ballisier, and said what you really want to say? Like...
"Well then you should kick him out. Oh wait. You can't. Because you weren't the one who took the time and made the effort to put together this run - he did. He sat around for an hour waiting for someone to do it, no one did it, so because he wanted to do VoA badly enough, most likely in order to improve his gear, experience, and therefore DPS, HE was the one who assembled the raid. He hasn't been bossing anyone around, or insulting anyone, or kicking anyone. All he's done is assembled enough people and taken on the PitA task of distributing the loot properly and fairly. In case you hadn't noticed, his weak DPS does not seem to have caused any problems for us. So, if you feel that any pugged raid assembled by someone with obviously inferior damage output is unworthy of your presence, don't let the door kick you on the way out."
But, I'm somewhat ashamed to say, I did not come forth and defend the DK raid leader. I went with the philosophy that arguing 7x4 is 28 against someone who insists it's 27 would instead make me the idiot.
Instead I did the following things:
- Laughed rudely when afore mentioned priest spent most of the Emalon fight struggling to stay alive (I guess Binding Heal is not one of those 2 spells a Holy Priest needs?)
- Sent a tell to the DK after we finished the raid, thanking him for organizing the group for the rest of us lazy bums, and to feel free to send me a tell if he ever needs a healer for something
- Wrote up a post on my blog in pure passive-aggressive fashion.
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(What a boring title. Seriously, I tried to think of something clever, but I'm fresh out of clever this morning, so you'll have to settle for "thorough")
In my post regarding gems for priests, I tried to make it clear what your best choices are for each color slot. Essentially, if you want a red gem, your only real choice is spellpower, whereas if you want a blue gem, you can get spirit or Mp5. These are simplifications - each color is connected to certain stats, and you choose which of the stats you want from that color in various combos.
I bring this up because I don't think people truly recognize that Blizzard has designed much of the gear in a similar way - stats compete with one another for the same slot. I see a lot of questions in forums over which stat to prioritize, when in reality, you rarely have a choice over the appearane of a stat. If you are trying to prioritize one stat over another, you will probably have to be more focused on the ratio of the stat distribution
There was a discussion over on the plusheal forums regarding stat choice that left me vaguely frustrated and inspired me to post an explanation on this topic. I see too many people Missing The Point, so I'm going to give a very basic rundown of how stats on gear are distributed:
So, let's talk about these two crafted items. The other two epic crafted tailoring items whose patterns come from ToC are Royal Moonshroud Bracers and Royal Moonshroud Robe. As a tailor myself, I can tell you right off the bat that on my server at least, the demand for Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers are much much higher than the Royal Moonshroud counterparts. Why? Because Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers break that stat distribution rule.
Merlin's Robe has both critical strike rating AND haste - two stats that normally compete with one another for a slot on gear, and therefore rarely appear together on the same item. To balance this out, it has neither spirit nor Mp5. The same thing for Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers.
Off the top of my head, I cannot list for you other items that have both haste and crit, but that does not mean I am suggesting they do not exist. On the contrary, there are a handful of items that break the stat distribution rule of thumb. And because of that, they have always been in pretty high demand. What makes Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers especially enticing is that from what I can see on the cloth drops from ToC, none of the other items available at this item level break that stat rule EXCEPT for these two crafted items. (if you know of any others, please point them out to me!)
So, two major points to take away from this long-winded post.
In my post regarding gems for priests, I tried to make it clear what your best choices are for each color slot. Essentially, if you want a red gem, your only real choice is spellpower, whereas if you want a blue gem, you can get spirit or Mp5. These are simplifications - each color is connected to certain stats, and you choose which of the stats you want from that color in various combos.
I bring this up because I don't think people truly recognize that Blizzard has designed much of the gear in a similar way - stats compete with one another for the same slot. I see a lot of questions in forums over which stat to prioritize, when in reality, you rarely have a choice over the appearane of a stat. If you are trying to prioritize one stat over another, you will probably have to be more focused on the ratio of the stat distribution
There was a discussion over on the plusheal forums regarding stat choice that left me vaguely frustrated and inspired me to post an explanation on this topic. I see too many people Missing The Point, so I'm going to give a very basic rundown of how stats on gear are distributed:
- Item Level is an indicator of the summation of stat value. Each item is given a certain "budget". If you are comparing two iLvl 213 items, they will have the same budget, though their stat distribution may be different. One item may have more spellpower, while the other may have more intellect. In other words, the amount of the stat may vary, and therefore the proportion of the item's budget spent on that stat may vary between items of the same item level. The same stat is on both items, just in different amounts.
- In general, all relevant caster gear will have Stamina, Intellect, and Spellpower on it. What WILL vary is the budget allotted to each of those stats in proportion to one another - i.e. the budget ratio.
- In addition to these "ratio" comparisons, certain stats "compete" with one another for even appearing on an item.
- Examples include: Spirit vs. Mp5 and Haste vs. Crit. What this means is that if you see spirit on an item, it is unlikely the item will also have Mp5. If you see an item has Haste, it will probably not have Crit.
- This is the general pattern - here are the items that drop from ToC25 regular to give you an idea. Type in "cloth" in the "search within results" box to simplify it, and if you look through these items, you will see that the rules listed above apply.
- There ARE, however, some notable exceptions. I present for your pleasure Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers and Merlin's Robe.
So, let's talk about these two crafted items. The other two epic crafted tailoring items whose patterns come from ToC are Royal Moonshroud Bracers and Royal Moonshroud Robe. As a tailor myself, I can tell you right off the bat that on my server at least, the demand for Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers are much much higher than the Royal Moonshroud counterparts. Why? Because Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers break that stat distribution rule.
Merlin's Robe has both critical strike rating AND haste - two stats that normally compete with one another for a slot on gear, and therefore rarely appear together on the same item. To balance this out, it has neither spirit nor Mp5. The same thing for Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers.
Off the top of my head, I cannot list for you other items that have both haste and crit, but that does not mean I am suggesting they do not exist. On the contrary, there are a handful of items that break the stat distribution rule of thumb. And because of that, they have always been in pretty high demand. What makes Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers especially enticing is that from what I can see on the cloth drops from ToC, none of the other items available at this item level break that stat rule EXCEPT for these two crafted items. (if you know of any others, please point them out to me!)
So, two major points to take away from this long-winded post.
- If you are trying to prioritize one stat over another, how you do this depends on the stat. For instance, if you want more haste, you will usually be choosing haste over crit. However, if you are trying to pick up more Intellect over spirit, it doesn't exactly work that way - Intellect will be on all items, whereas spirit competes with Mp5. This kind of fine tuning is better done through gems.
- If you want to say "screw you mana regen! I'm disc! I'VE GOT BUBBLES, gimme more haste/crit", you need to specifically seek out items that have both haste and crit on them, because they are exceptions to the rule, and not incredibly common. At current max gear level, your best (and possibly only) options are the two crafted items, Merlin's Robe and the Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers.
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As the only class that has two talent trees devoted to healing, it is inevitable that some priests who try to understand both healing trees will confuse things along the way.
It’s no secret that it can be very tricky to switch from one healing spec to the other. You’d think it would be fairly simple and straightforward; After all, most of the spells are the same for both specs. Binding Heal, Flash Heal, Prayer of Mending… these are all spells that should get quite a bit of usage no matter which spec you choose as a Priest.
However, the different synergies between talents for each tree means that the healing style is completely different for a Disc Priest as opposed to that of a Holy Priest. Or rather, it SHOULD be in order to use your talents in the best way.
While I’m sure there are some Disc Priests who respec to Holy and don’t adjust their healing styles properly, it seems to be a much bigger issue for those going in the opposite direction.
There are three distinguishing features of the Disc Priest who is still healing like a Holy:
All of these features tie into the same basic concepts. Holy Priests are bursty healers who can top charts and focus on green-bar-go-up abilities. Disc priests are mitigators, and until healing meters accurately reflect that ability, they will likely continue to be at the bottom of the healing meter.
It’s no secret that it can be very tricky to switch from one healing spec to the other. You’d think it would be fairly simple and straightforward; After all, most of the spells are the same for both specs. Binding Heal, Flash Heal, Prayer of Mending… these are all spells that should get quite a bit of usage no matter which spec you choose as a Priest.
However, the different synergies between talents for each tree means that the healing style is completely different for a Disc Priest as opposed to that of a Holy Priest. Or rather, it SHOULD be in order to use your talents in the best way.
While I’m sure there are some Disc Priests who respec to Holy and don’t adjust their healing styles properly, it seems to be a much bigger issue for those going in the opposite direction.
There are three distinguishing features of the Disc Priest who is still healing like a Holy:
- Rarely Casts Power Word: Shield – It’s not that Holy Priests don’t ever use bubbles, it’s just that in a raiding environment they aren’t really that useful, and they are expensive. We only have one gimmicky talent that ties in with Power Word: Shield. This is undoubtedly one of the more difficult things to become accustomed to when you switch from Holy to Disc, so expect there to be some learning curve for new Disc Priests as they figure out a good bubble balance. In a raiding environment, at the very least, a Disc priest should be bubbling often enough to maintain Renewed Hope on the whole raid.
- Tries to be a Burst Healer – Holy Priests are designed to do burst healing and too many respec to Disc just to get the awesome Penance, and still heal exactly the same - nothing says healing burst like Penance! Of course, this can work – particularly if the group outgears the instance. I told a story not long ago of a Disc Priest who did exactly this. However, if you are trying to be a burst healer as a Disc Priest, it is highly likely you are not taking full advantage of your abilities and strengths. Power Word: Shield and Penance are the two staple spells of the Disc Priest – and both need to be used.
- Proudly tops the Healing Meter – There are reasons a Disc Priest could be at the top of the healing meter that are completely legitimate. In general, however, there's a good reason why Disc Priests usually show up at the bottom. If you have a Disc Priest who is proudly spamming the healing meters and bragging about how they are at the top of the healing meter, then it is quite likely they are officially Missing The Point. When I'm specced Disc, if I'm at the top of the meter, I'm asking the other healers what's wrong.
All of these features tie into the same basic concepts. Holy Priests are bursty healers who can top charts and focus on green-bar-go-up abilities. Disc priests are mitigators, and until healing meters accurately reflect that ability, they will likely continue to be at the bottom of the healing meter.
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