Another raid week, another new boss. This time it is a brand new type of raid boss, a PVP zerg. If you ever ran Magister's Terrace in BC, you should be familiar with this style of fight. However, this is the first time anything like this has appeared in a raid instance.
It appears this fight relies somewhat on luck of the draw. Some of the NPCs you have to fight are just downright nasty, while others are merely annoying. You will face a group of the opposing faction. It will be a random combination of classes and they will use all of their PVP abilities. This includes everything, like CCs, interrupts, totems, etc. They also are way faster than any humans in reacting to things. For example, if you totem stomp the shaman just instantly throws down another one. PVP rules all apply for CCs and diminishing returns, so it is very difficult to keep them under control for any length of time. Also, they will even dispel each other. Similar to real PVP, the plate DPS classes are disgusting. The warrior and ret pally both deal insane damage and if those two decide to kill a clothie, there is almost nothing you can do about it.
The general strategy is going to be to CC the healers and kill the DPS, or to CC the DPS and kill the healers. We tried both ways for a while and seemed to have more success killing the healers. We decided the best course of action was to kill the resto druid first, as he kept getting off his instant HoTs before we could apply CC. We then burned him down while trying to keep the other healers under control. I was purging him when I could, especially when the resto shaman gave him an earth shield. We worked our way through the healers and then started on DPS.
To help control the DPS we assigned a few teams to certain ones. We actually found our prot warrior MT could control one pretty well by himself. Taunt works, but as soon as the debuff wears off they will lose aggro. We had him and another of our warriors spec prot and put vigilance on each other. They then would taunt one of the dangerous melee DPS and get it away from everyone. They would then rotate between taunts and stuns on their target to keep them as under control as possible. So taunt a few times until they went immune, then shockwave, concussion blow, charge, and then back to taunts. This controlled 2 of the melee DPS and was a huge help. On one of the other dangerous DPS we had a tag team of a DK and a resto druid. They would rotate between death grip/chains of ice/taunts and cyclones to control another.
The overall key to this fight is control. It is not easy and required alot of coordination amoung a couple of people. I think the more we do it, the better we will get at working together in this more Arena style. It was a very satisfying kill and frankly I had a lot of fun doing it. Was nice that it was not just a faceroll too. How you handle the fight will depend on what combination you draw and what your raid makeup is. This fight required me to use all of my tools, rather than just standing still and chain healing. I was constantly watching my aggro indicator to know if I needed to ES myself and run. I was using Wind Shear whenever I saw the Warlock start to Hellfire to stop him. I was hexing, purging, and even throwing out frost shocks or an earth bind when I saw something chasing a clothie. You need to be on your toes and able to react to a dynamic situation to succeed.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Back to the healing side of the fence I go...
Yes, I believe I am once again throwing my hat into the ring as more of a full-time resto. I leveled this shaman when my old raid guild was starting in TK back in Burning Crusade. All of those trash pulls were just a metric ton of raid-wide AOE damage, and back in those days resto shamans were the solution. Unfortunatly, on the alliance side on my server you would find a Unicorn before a Resto Shaman. So I decided to slowly phase out my Warlock and take on the role of the lone bringer of the pewpewlazorheals. I joined Symbiosis after Critical Mass fell apart and stayed resto all through TK, SSC, Hyjal, and BT. I always felt I was making a huge impact on our raids with the raw healing I brought to the table.
Then along comes WotLK. Looking through all the new talents and spells, I was worried. Where are the Chain Heal toys? We get nothing?! I soldiered on and healed through our first clears in Naxx, but I was never satisfied. CH was in a sorry state and had fallen behind all the other pretty instant smart targeting AOE heals that priests and druids were tossing around. Meanwhile I am standing still, slowly ramping up a cast only to have it be sniped by someone else. Eventually, I all but abandoned CH in favor of Riptides and LHW to snipe what I could. Once it became clear how easy Naxx was and how I felt my healing was no longer making an impact to the raid, I volunteered to swap to Elemental. I quickly climbed to the top of our damage charts and felt like I was making more of a difference again. But that was not to last.
Going into Ulduar I immediatly felt behind. I kept getting gear upgrades, but my DPS was not really climbing like everyone else. Yes, I still was pulling over 5k, which in Naxx was top of the charts, but now everyone else was as well. In fact, as Ulduar was farmed and more people geared up, they continued to pass me. I pride myself on keeping my tight rotation and using all of my cooldowns and movement time as efficiently as possible...so what was wrong? It mainly comes down to the fact that Blizzard decided we would be the only DPS spec without a talent that gear scales. What I mean is, we have nothing that converts one stat (Int, Spi, etc..) into DPS unlike everyone else. So as we get gear upgrades, we are only getting a very minor spellpower boost. Everyone else gets the spellpower boost, AND the stat conversion boost. Also, our self-buffs (Flametongue weapon, ToW) do not scale at all either. So in the end this means we hit our peak very early in Naxx gear, and pretty much stagnate. Everyone else continues to improve.
So now I am back where I no longer feel like I am making a huge impact on the raid. I am just another of the "good DPS" that we have. I feel I am about as good of an ele shaman as possible, but that is not enough to make me stand out from the crowd. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say I must top the meters at all times. But my unique buff is no longer unique and is passed by the Warlock version. So in the end, I just contribute nothing more than solid DPS to the group. I want to do more.
This brings me all the way back around to resto. I had healed the new 10-man and some heroics, but had yet to really spend a full night healing again to get a good handle on my performance. Well this week I got the opportunity to heal all of Ulduar so far, and I once again felt the thrill of making a difference. Chain Heal is back to being an amazing spell, and I felt I was making a large impact with the amount of healing throughput I could deliver. I spoke to the other officers and indicated that I would be declaring resto as my main spec once again. I look forward to seeing some of the ToC hard modes and hopefully helping us get through. I will still of course build my ele set when I can, but I think gear will be much slower to get with the unified tokens. In the past it was easy once my token group all had main spec of a certain item, I could nab it cheap. Now, everyone will have to get every slot filled before I will have a shot at an offset item.
Then along comes WotLK. Looking through all the new talents and spells, I was worried. Where are the Chain Heal toys? We get nothing?! I soldiered on and healed through our first clears in Naxx, but I was never satisfied. CH was in a sorry state and had fallen behind all the other pretty instant smart targeting AOE heals that priests and druids were tossing around. Meanwhile I am standing still, slowly ramping up a cast only to have it be sniped by someone else. Eventually, I all but abandoned CH in favor of Riptides and LHW to snipe what I could. Once it became clear how easy Naxx was and how I felt my healing was no longer making an impact to the raid, I volunteered to swap to Elemental. I quickly climbed to the top of our damage charts and felt like I was making more of a difference again. But that was not to last.
Going into Ulduar I immediatly felt behind. I kept getting gear upgrades, but my DPS was not really climbing like everyone else. Yes, I still was pulling over 5k, which in Naxx was top of the charts, but now everyone else was as well. In fact, as Ulduar was farmed and more people geared up, they continued to pass me. I pride myself on keeping my tight rotation and using all of my cooldowns and movement time as efficiently as possible...so what was wrong? It mainly comes down to the fact that Blizzard decided we would be the only DPS spec without a talent that gear scales. What I mean is, we have nothing that converts one stat (Int, Spi, etc..) into DPS unlike everyone else. So as we get gear upgrades, we are only getting a very minor spellpower boost. Everyone else gets the spellpower boost, AND the stat conversion boost. Also, our self-buffs (Flametongue weapon, ToW) do not scale at all either. So in the end this means we hit our peak very early in Naxx gear, and pretty much stagnate. Everyone else continues to improve.
So now I am back where I no longer feel like I am making a huge impact on the raid. I am just another of the "good DPS" that we have. I feel I am about as good of an ele shaman as possible, but that is not enough to make me stand out from the crowd. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say I must top the meters at all times. But my unique buff is no longer unique and is passed by the Warlock version. So in the end, I just contribute nothing more than solid DPS to the group. I want to do more.
This brings me all the way back around to resto. I had healed the new 10-man and some heroics, but had yet to really spend a full night healing again to get a good handle on my performance. Well this week I got the opportunity to heal all of Ulduar so far, and I once again felt the thrill of making a difference. Chain Heal is back to being an amazing spell, and I felt I was making a large impact with the amount of healing throughput I could deliver. I spoke to the other officers and indicated that I would be declaring resto as my main spec once again. I look forward to seeing some of the ToC hard modes and hopefully helping us get through. I will still of course build my ele set when I can, but I think gear will be much slower to get with the unified tokens. In the past it was easy once my token group all had main spec of a certain item, I could nab it cheap. Now, everyone will have to get every slot filled before I will have a shot at an offset item.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
3.2 - First impressions
So 3.2 hit the servers last night, and I eagerly logged in to check out the situation. I immediatly was assulted by LUA errors all over the screen. Ah, how I love mods on patch day. After updating a few, disabling some, and using weird work arounds I had a mostly functional interface. Rather than just list the patch notes, I'm going to just provide an overall impression. I was able to run 2 heroics as a healer, the new 10 man as a healer, and the 25 man as a DPS.
Totem Bar:
I still have not seen the default version, as I use dominos for my action bars. I had 3 bars that I could place a set of 4 totems in. I configured my "default" totems to assume I had my normal raid buffs. I then made my second set the same but with a tremor in it for fights with fears. My final set I assumed I would be providing missing buffs in a 5-man situation. It is very easy to adjust these on the fly just by dragging a new totem to the slot, so I will be switching as needed depending on the group. It is very nice to be able to plop down a group of 4 in one GCD, and dropping my totems no longer felt like a chore.
Healing Changes:
Healing felt a bit different. First, the mp5 buffs seemed to make our mana go further. During the 10-man I kept thinking I should mana-tide soon but when I would look at my mana it was far higher that I thought it would be. I think the improved water shield no longer consuming charges probably helped as well, because in the past if healing got intense my sheild would fall off and I would not notice or have time to renew it on occasion.
I did not like the new LHW proc from Tidal Waves. I have gotten so used to perma-hasted LHW casts that it felt like I would healing in mud or something. Those casts feel LONG to me now. I was still using my old style of Riptide with LHW, but I was unsure now if that is the best way to go for tank healing. I imagine on raid heals where people are spread out you would still do that, but on a tank HW might now be back on top since it is only .2 slower because it still gets the haste proc. I will have to look into it a bit and do some more testing.
The new CH is awesome! Just the jump distance alone was a huge buff. I was far less hesitant to cast it. I even would throw it at the tank if I saw melee needed any healing as well. No longer was I constantly getting single heals, and it was reliably jumping to anyone else in the general area. I would really like to see Mimiron P2 as a healer now just to see the raw throughput I could generate with it.
New raid:
Only the first boss is available this week. I have to say.....disappointing. We went into 10-man an hour before our real raid so our GM and myself could get a look at it so we would be able to formulate our startegy. We did not expect to kill it, but just to start figuring it out. Needless to say, when all of them were dead at our feet on our second attempt, I was a little shocked. It was almost Naxx level difficulty. Hell, we probably could have 1 shot it if I had explained how to posion cleanse with the fire debuff before it was too late. I hope the second boss is a bit of a step up in difficulty. Of course we went in with the full 25-man and easily killed it as well.
Totem Bar:
I still have not seen the default version, as I use dominos for my action bars. I had 3 bars that I could place a set of 4 totems in. I configured my "default" totems to assume I had my normal raid buffs. I then made my second set the same but with a tremor in it for fights with fears. My final set I assumed I would be providing missing buffs in a 5-man situation. It is very easy to adjust these on the fly just by dragging a new totem to the slot, so I will be switching as needed depending on the group. It is very nice to be able to plop down a group of 4 in one GCD, and dropping my totems no longer felt like a chore.
Healing Changes:
Healing felt a bit different. First, the mp5 buffs seemed to make our mana go further. During the 10-man I kept thinking I should mana-tide soon but when I would look at my mana it was far higher that I thought it would be. I think the improved water shield no longer consuming charges probably helped as well, because in the past if healing got intense my sheild would fall off and I would not notice or have time to renew it on occasion.
I did not like the new LHW proc from Tidal Waves. I have gotten so used to perma-hasted LHW casts that it felt like I would healing in mud or something. Those casts feel LONG to me now. I was still using my old style of Riptide with LHW, but I was unsure now if that is the best way to go for tank healing. I imagine on raid heals where people are spread out you would still do that, but on a tank HW might now be back on top since it is only .2 slower because it still gets the haste proc. I will have to look into it a bit and do some more testing.
The new CH is awesome! Just the jump distance alone was a huge buff. I was far less hesitant to cast it. I even would throw it at the tank if I saw melee needed any healing as well. No longer was I constantly getting single heals, and it was reliably jumping to anyone else in the general area. I would really like to see Mimiron P2 as a healer now just to see the raw throughput I could generate with it.
New raid:
Only the first boss is available this week. I have to say.....disappointing. We went into 10-man an hour before our real raid so our GM and myself could get a look at it so we would be able to formulate our startegy. We did not expect to kill it, but just to start figuring it out. Needless to say, when all of them were dead at our feet on our second attempt, I was a little shocked. It was almost Naxx level difficulty. Hell, we probably could have 1 shot it if I had explained how to posion cleanse with the fire debuff before it was too late. I hope the second boss is a bit of a step up in difficulty. Of course we went in with the full 25-man and easily killed it as well.
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