Wednesday, March 31, 2010

25 mans!... and lag!

So my guild and a few others decided to do this "cooperation" thing, and we went to do icc 25. The only remaining person from my old guild went with me, and we whispered as it went on. He got a delicious staff, despite being the low roller. He was the ONLY person in the raid that claimed he was rolling on offspec beforehand (he is shadow, but he healed today). It's nice cause he didn't have the option of rolling on anything all of ICC 10 (NOTHING caster dropped)

I, on the other hand got the exact opposite deal. There was only one agi item, (a ring! so you know everyone wanted it) and I had lowest roll. Otherwise no chance to roll on anything. No mail even dropped. It's okay because we got a TON of frosts (6+5 for the frost giant raid weekly) so I can afford another tier piece when I feel like it. It's actually a difficult decision now, and I think I'm going to go with the chest piece because the legs can drop in VoA. Mostly I'm enjoying the greatness of being able to rocket through ICC whenever I want. I hope in 25 man the token drops and I can get me a delicious 25 man version of the gear. I will be tons happy then.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

psych!

>_>

I got recruited by a guild that knows what they're freaking doing. Although it consist of some of the most vocal and annoying people on my realm, progress with mild irritances > banging my head against a wall and being happy.

It's not so much that I don't like my guild or anything, it's just its finally a chance for me to do what I originally specced to do. I was recruited based on my performance as a DPS. I was recruited based on my Enhancement. Heres the best part, I was recruited because they WANTED MY BUFF.

Holy christ on a stick. When the rogue got to morrowgar and said "I love that we have an enhancement shaman here" I just smiled ear to ear. People that know how valuable I am, is amazing.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

I'm bailing on my server.

I don't like not having progression. However I'm not going to transfer with money or anything. I just up and started a Hunter on a different realm. Right now it's pretty fun like it always is. Hunters have been a class that appealed to me without me being able to get into them. I like the customization of having select pets, and man I can't wait to join a 25 or 10 man group that I can weigh my pet benefits for the good of the group. Wolf? fuck no, I'm bringing a wasp!... or a worm...

Also does it seem weird to anyone that worms are exotic? Really? worms? is seeing a creature burrow from the soil that strange to these guys?

Anyways I'm starting survival, although I don't know if I'm going to stay that way. Mostly I'm doing it cause I'm a leatherworker, and I'm the guy that whenever they see passive effects all I see is "delicious talent points, use them here". So improved tracking was nice for me.

Blizzard seems to hate that about myself. I love passive talents. I'm that guy that played Naix in DotA because managing anything more than clicking was painful. Then again I love sub rogues, and its useless talents, scattered all around the tree.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

I hate arcane mages

At some point, somewhere blizzard decided to make classes more dynamic. For instance, though I never played back in burning crusade, enhancement shaman was very much a strength based dps, with as far as I can tell, no access to wolves, no maelstrom weapon, and shields that costed mana. Basically they were a "hit storm strike" class.

Blizzard has done a fantastic job of keeping most classes dynamic, having a FCFS system, or a fairly length rotation (unholy and blood DK's tend to be rotational, but since the cool downs come at different times it really feels FCFS)

This has not happend with arcane mages. I've said I loathe elemental as a valid dpsing spec. It's essentially "spam 1, dont let 2 drop too long, and hit 3 when it comes up"

Arcane mages are worse. "hit 1 four times. hit 2. repeat"

I hope arcane gets nerfed into the ground. There is no reason to be proud of your "fantastic deeps" if you're not even struggling to do the said rotation. "But what if I have to stop casting!" oh no! what if everyone else does? Either this, or it needs to be reworked heavily.

I like how DK's function. I like how enhancement functions. I've toyed with destruction and affliction, and they're VERY hard for me to get used to which is unbelievably great. Most caster classes are very lucky, in that for the most part their rotation is unfettered by positioning but man, I can't get used to that. On my affliction lock I end up standing about 10 feet from a monsters face, just because I'm so very used to melee.

My problem is still not with casters as they have their own issues over melee, its with simple rotations. Arcane is the newest of my hatred.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Is everyone on my server miserable or am I awesome?

No seriously! Enhancement is not a particularly strong spec, granted it's one of the few classes that scales from pretty much every buff in the game, except divine spirit I believe.

However it's not a top preforming spec. It's the better than elemental, but everything is. I don't actually know exactly where we stand but I'd assume out of 23 dps specs, I'd say enhancement is around 13-15th best or something. So while I am in generally middle of the line gear, and I'm doing the second best in terms of damage.

I'm sure I'm doing my share of skilled damage. I know my class inside and out (although I just realized I should gem expertise instead of enchanting it, how fun is it to realize that? Yay math.) I know my rotation, I know my gear, I know what classes benefit most from me. Could it be everyone lags? Are people just sandbagging and expecting to be carried? I honestly don't understand it.

At least VoA pug was completed. Success. 25 people with 2 more frost emblems.

DK tank is starting to fall into welled oiled machine territory. If I get an over-geared healer, it's not even worrisome. However I have really fun stories, consisting of forgetting minor details, or luck based pulls where crazy things happened (getting punched down stairs, floating slowly woo)

Ran naxx because I picked up an older weekly. Started with 5 people and it did not work. I had 34 stacks from the add before I finally kicked the bucket. picked up another 2 guildies, and bam completed with no ill consequence. I don't think I'll ever be a very good tank, but hey

melting faces is cool.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Gear + Effort = More effort

Well blizzard finally decided to toss the RNG in my face. I had to tank FoS. And not just regular old FoS, oh no. heroic!

This is how it went down.

We all pop in. Shaman healer goes "I'm not healing a DK and drops" Prompt vote-kick. Confidence in me looks very high. I state "yeah if you're lazy it's not good to heal me, i can get you killed." Breaks the ice, everyones in a pretty decent mood. Had an overgeared warrior, a death knight and a hunter with me. Generally when I say "overgeared" i mean "to the teeth" Rocking 264 gear all over generally. How he managed not to pull off of me every pull is nothing short of miraculous, and awesome huntering.

Our replacement healer was a paladin, who, not only didn't bring anything to drink, but seemed to ignore the fact that he may have had to do something. Generally I don't pay too much attention to my health (or rather I'm trying not to as much) but when healer bob decides "I'm too good to have to heal" people die. He left at the first wipe, which was really nothing more than him not healing. Not more than one flash heal occurred, and I'll give you a hint, casters did not kill me. my love, anti-magic zone prevailed greatly against casters, so I died to simple "being beat in the face" damage

We finally replaced him with a tree, unsure of his healing. Sweet, new healer, new tank, we're a winning combination!

But in all honesty, he did a fantastic job.

Devourer was a story all his own though. I kited him out of his little puke puddles, and such thankfully. (kiting is so hard to remember to do. positioning is so easy, but after I'm comfortable its so weird moving things) It was all pretty smooth until laser beam time. our healer and overgeared warrior get caught in beam of awful. Oh no healths are dropping. Phantom blast is coming! anti magic zone! phew! Another! anti magic shield. Phew! another! oh crap, eat the damage, DEATH STRIKE DEATH STRIKE! eat more damage! and his limb corpse falls over. Check my health, 1300. I cry a little bit.

Tanking is freaking scary. I hope i don't get shoved into H PoS anytime soon, let alone H HoR

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Oh hey there silithus. I see you have a prisoner.

Imagine if you will a game where you have to go to the ends of the earth to get materials to create armor that will not benefit you at all in order to shred it from this cosmic plane so you could use the base materials to become more proficient at enchanting pants to let you hit someone with a stick a wee bit harder.

Welcome to blacksmithing and enchanting at skill levels 270.

I've been fiddling around silithus for the past few days, as jaxx was our weekly, and lets face it, no one on this realm is doing it. I've delighted in the time off to properly level my trade skills on this budding DK because I want delicious stamina any way I can get it (well in theory I want lots of dodge, to artificially inflate my bone shield uptime, but thats another story entirely)

You know what, I've lost all interest in this post. Silithus does that.

Well I want to make a BM hunter too, so I can tame a silithid and bite someones face off, but thats another matter entirely.

Monday, March 15, 2010

DK dings 80. Adventures!

So my DK hit 80. I've been mostly having a field day with her. She's undergeared enough where things are dangerous, and she doesn't have enhancements "spirit wolves of might as well be invincible for the next 45 seconds". I can't heal myself whenever I want, so I can't piss off healers for no reason, not that I ever do, but the OPTION to is closed, so that's sad.

I started by buying a few tank pieces until it let me queue as a DPS. I do love that blizzard doesn't care if your gear actually functions well. Dungeon popped and my frost DPS journey began.

Loading screen. Oculus. Oh boy. Two drop right off. Healer says "Neither of you are geared enough for this place" and drops too. Tank and I chuckle about peoples attitudes. We get 3 more. The two dps have never been here, the healer is "undergeared" like us. Ragtag, my style. Tank cleans up garbage while I give a brief summery of how the dragons work. No big problems. It's an incredibly slow run mostly due to the seemingly random nature of how they designed the place. I tried to make the most direct route so people don't get lost. Pretty much works except on occasion where we all dismounted while a dragon was eating our faces, and wiped us.
Long story short, another wipe at Eregos mostly having to due with 2 newbies, but we tried it again and preformed beautifully. (Ps: I was ruby dragon. So easy.)

I mostly kept queuing as DPS and continually getting the "you're not geared enough" spiel over and over. I don't think I ever did less damage than the tank in any run and on a few WONDERFUL occasions i out-preformed geared guy reliably throughout the instance. Why this is fantastic is because I'm literally in worse gear than blizzard approves of. I'm not enchanted almost at all (I managed to get sons of hodir rep completely done since I had a stack of about 300 relics in my bank so I had pretty awful weapons I could actually runeforge). But sure ret pali guy. 4000 gs and 1.5k dps is necessary to participate. Lord forbid I go in with 2400gs and 1.5k dps! Oh wait...

I did eventually pick up enough from heroics to tank (although I'd really love a 2h weapon, so I could runeforge some defense and get some flexibility). I got a few glyphs and ran a few regulars with an encore performance of the oculus incident down to the "you're not geared enough" comment. Yes, not geared enough for regular oculus, when I'm rocking 540 defense. Ok jack.

Playing as an unholy tank feels very satisfying. I've played each tank briefly at mid levels just to get a feel for it. Warrior is frantic and versatile. Paladin is solid and autopilot. Bear is swipe and maul. Unholy feels very niche-y, which it is, but it's a good niche. I feel like a tank, instead of "that guy with more health than everyone" Preventing possible wipes by tossing up anti-magic zone is AMAZING. I really wish I had more talent points though, I can't seem to go for what I want.

This is what I'm rocking currently. Although it's only from experience in regular instances, my necrosis does literally nothing, clocking in at a typical 0.3% of my overall damage. Sure its only 1 talent point but I'm considerably constrained in other ways. I want points in dirge,unholy blight and virulence. Potentially I could shed points from necrosis, black ice, and 2 handed weapon mastery, but I'd never get to max desolation, and that's a full 1% dps increase I'd be missing. I tried the glyph of scourges strike but I really didn't like the uneven diseases, and diseases off my main target falling off (tabbing could work, but the more stuff there is, the more annoying it becomes). I do need to learn to refresh disease around the 3 second mark though. Refreshing before the last tick is a pretty huge dps loss when you consider how often you might do it.

Anyone have a internal dot ticker so I could determine when would be the best time to pestilence for a refresh?

Anyways, I wish bone shield lasted longer, it was off the GCD and didn't cost an unholy. Cmon blizzard add a talent called "improved bone shield" which increases the internal cool down by 1 seconds at 5 talent points! PvPers aren't going to like that huge investment, and tanks will eat faces for it.

Still, I consider AMZ so tree defining. Role defining. Wish it was on a SLIGHTLY shorter cool down, it doesn't exactly prevent a ton of damage. Feels good to soak up an entire blizzard with it, or just generally pretend as if a spell didn't occur. Man, I'd kill for a glyph for AMZ that lowered the cool down, or raised the damage it could take. I don't think a duration increase would do tanks any good; the 10 second window is pretty much perfect.

Ah well. Experiments!

Friday, March 12, 2010

I got to dps!

I got to DPS!

I also decided on the war token from the emblem vendor and remembered I could pick up my "revered" ring from ashen verdict!

Today was a good day for dpsing.

But most importantly, I GOT TO DPS.

And I did fantastic. Jaraxxus interrupter. Snobold getter offer? Hex the whatever the hell I want because hex is awesome. I can pretty much do no wrong when I dps, especially when I'm easily the most versatile of them. Fire resistance? No problem. 20% melee haste. My pleasure. Persistant snare aura during faction champs? I'm there.

I love half guild runs. We get to take the non-retard portion of our guild, and the non-retard portion of another guild, and be AWESOME, and pretty much one shot every boss attempt the second I arrive on the scene. (which makes it all the more awesome I was there, because they were wiping beforehand.)

I suggest everyone let their offspecers take a day off, by doing a half guild run. Only really works for 10 man guilds, where you can either do 5/5 or 12/13s but trust me, the "A-game" folk will really make it shine. When given the chance to FINALLY preform their main spec, they will never disappoint

PS: there might have been some dps. you know, just in case you didn't know.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

I'm blending in and becoming a unique snowflake!

I've taken it upon myself to make a frost/unholy DK! gasp. One side tanks, the other side dpses.

Now the typical arrangement would be unholy dps, frost tank, and you would be right, but clever titles imply that you should know better!

I'm frost DPS, and unholy tank. Frost DPS reminds me of a pure distilled version of enhancement DPS. Icy touch/plague strike are my shocks, obliterate is storm strike, and blood strike is lava lash, and hey killing machine reminds me a lot of this talent called maelstrom weapons. I dual wield, I provide the 20% melee bonus, I give 155 agi/str. I've stated before I hated DKs (or if I haven't I'm sure its leaked into my rantings) and that is precisely the reason why, because they COPIED my class.

Now I'm all for classes being similar as long as they're intrinsically different, but the similarities are just too close here, so it tends to bother me. On the other hand, it's like a second class I can play, and get away with DPSing, and still provide all the buffs I'm used to providing.

However the tanking thing I haven't started yet. I wasted the money, and put full talent investment into a "tanking" spec for unholy (which basically consist of points into boneshield/AMS+AMZ plus the default 5/8/5 build all good dks use.) I need to make a lot of startattack macros and bind runestrike to everything (is there ever a reason to not do this?) Just a few levels and I can start the rep grind for starter gear.

I'm hoping I can encourage a little diversity in the guild (currently, I'm the only shaman. We have tons of dks and not so curiously none of them are frost DPS or unholy tanks) It's getting tiring to see the most cookie cutter stuff I can possibly see. The only chance I'm seeing of "unique" is a mage trying to be arcane, not liking it, since they leveled frost, and being frost. I can deal with it, but jesus, it's like no one else even tries other specs. FOTM club, this group is. Weird thing, is that everyones stuck like 4 patches ago, with destruction running rampant, blood is everywhere!

And I mean the specs.

Anyone else a fan of these "not as common specs?"


Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Give 70% effort!

I've been very unenthusiastic about my role in raids. I just heal all the time. I'm growing tired of it. I'm leveling a DK, so that maybe, I'll have a shot at what I want to do. ( i won't! but I can dream)

When I'm playing my character, and I'm not playing for myself, but for the group, thats fine. However if others aren't putting forth the effort to maximize their efforts, why should I?

I pointed out to my guild that in order to kill festergut (or was it rotgut? who cares!) we'd essentially have to be doing 5k dps each, without accounting for the tanks, without accounting for movement. A few people asked if I was serious, and I said I absolutely was. I guess it wasn't enough of a wake up call though. Effectively all I've done, is made our best geared member, more concerned about her dps because shes a clicker (pst: best geared doesn't mean best dps by ANY stretch of the imagination) and thats pretty much it. Everyone else seems content to do sub 3k on training dummies in full t9.

At the very least my co-healer is falling into his groove, and is finally starting to even out my healing numbers.

I think I should transfer.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Old Healer Survey

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Wouldn't you like to know? Resto, with a mix of enh for pve and ele for pvp.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

10 man raids and 5 man heriocs.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Riptide. I like the water. I also like that it's pretty much my only mobile spell.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Lesser Healing Wave. tends to not heal enough, and tidal waves has healing wave be about same length.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Flexiblity. Druids are raid healers. Disc is single target. Holy is raid. Pally's are tank healers. Us shammys? We can do whatever we want.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Mobility. We have none of it. If you want healing on the move call someone else.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

For me specifically? Put me in the tanks group, let healing stream do whatever it wants, and put me on chain spam duty.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I personally like disc best. Their bubbles interact nicely with shaman. See bubble spam tends to stop damage, and shaman are particularly good at fixing "oh crap" moments. It gives a nice few moments to triage properly.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Probably Holy Paladins. Sure they can handle the tanks all by their lonesome, but that leaves me with 7 other people I have to take care of. I can do it, but I don't like it. If I can three heal, I'm at my happiest.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Knowing when to use my cool downs. Nature's swiftness tends to be very no-brainer for me, but tidal force is far more complicated to know when to use. The only encounter I've gotton used to it, is during marrowgar. I tend to burn NS pretty quickly there, so TF acts as my second "I"M FALLING BEHIND ON HEALING" cool down.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Ranged that spread out, in an encounter that requires no spreading out. Way to gimp my performance for no reason whatsoever.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Personally I think we're sort of unfair. Other classes are pretty pigeonholed into their roles. Shaman can be a little too flexible on pretty much stationary fights.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

I briefly glance at recount to see what % of healing I've done. If I've done about 40-50% in a two healer encounter I'm good. Mostly I just want to see if I'm being carried or I'm carrying. or (heaven forbid) my partner(s) are doing their job.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

I feel like people there is a very "you are an AOE healer" mentality. If I was to list where I thought classes were in terms of a "Tank to Raid" ratio, Druids are 15:85, Pallys are 85:15, Holy Preists are 25:75, Disc is 60:40, and we're floating around 35:65 I'm not saying we're fantastic at tank healing, but given a 3 healer scenario I think we do best in a "floating" position, where we take care of damage that the "raid" and the "tank" healer cannot do themselves.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

That given our flexibility, gemming and glyph for us, is pretty much arbitrary. Not that there isn't a good way to do it, it's just that it's meant to mesh with your play style. Need more mp5? Gem for it. Want haste and sp? Gem for that instead. Do you have reflexes like an old dog? Go ahead and gem for the 3% +crit heals meta. They'll actually do just fine.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Healing Wave > Riptide > Earth shield > Chain Heal > Healing stream. Fairly low overhealing. Maybe 20% I'll probably be clocking in at about 3500 HPS. My activity will probably be fairly low. I'm pretty twitch-healer oriented. I don't think about where damage comes from, I just heal it, unless it's super obvious (oh look sally's standing in the death and decay. Time to heal!)

Haste or Crit and why?

I prefer haste just because of the nature of style. I react to damage as it happens so I need higher amounts of haste to compensate. I'm very lax about haste/crit gear though. I'm pretty sure mine is pretty balanced, if not actually crit heavy.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Paladins. I've played preists enough to get the gist of how they function. Druids I'm a little fuzzy on, but nothing is terribly complicated about stacking hots, in specific ways to get healing accomplished. Paladins I understand have 3 heals, but its the support structure proping it up I don't understand. Talent trees are generally pretty clear on what something does, but the holy tree is oddly devoid of that information. I don't know what sacred shield does. I don't know how divine plea works. Or what hands can be used on who. Stuff like that. It easy enough to get "flash of light, holy light, holy shock" but the rest is when it goes to hell.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Chain heal is bound to 3. Healing Wave is bound to 4. If I hold shift and push either of those buttons, I have natures swiftness bound to it. Shift3 for CH; Shift4 for HW. Shift+E happens to be trinket+tidal force.

I'm learning how to use grid. Mostly I'm using it in the same way I used xperl. As a means to track where my earth shield and riptide are, and who has aggro. Aggro is clearer on grid, but ES and riptide were easier to track on xperl. I wish squares had more corners, ya know? :P I just want to know every heal on a person if at all possible.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I balance the crap out of my stats. It's taken literally having my guild carve out 2 +20 haste gems for me, before I even changed my sp/haste gems out.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Logic

People love to min-max things. They love the ability to quantify how much something is worth. I, for one, am okay with cookie cutter.

I hate, however, when someone tries to tell me whats the best usage of "wiggle room" i have outside of my cookie cutter builds.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZ0xxZx0ezIeoxkrIRt:ZcMm This is the most cookie cutter "base" of the resto shaman. I even included minor glyphs for your viewing pleasure.

Now, heres the thing. I intentionally left the glyphs open. Other classes tend to have what I like to call "BiS glyphs" That are without a doubt better than anything else the class offers. Some of them aren't even hard decisions (shadow priest! fire mages!) Resto shamans have what I call the play style oriented glyphs slots available.

25 mans will completely disagree and override you. Chain heal is awesome, they say.
10 man logic will always tell you, no, you hate chain heal. Stop trying to use it, cause there simply is a good time to.

actually my logic will tell you that. I do most of the healing in any attempt now anyways, and it's exactly what I mean. I've glyphed Riptide, Healing Stream, and Healing Wave. I actually intend to get rid of riptide as well, and probably go for water mastery or earth shield.

Here's the thing. I don't notice riptide's extra duration doing anything. If I cast it on the tank, I'll probably be overriding it again anyways. If I cast it on a dps, they'll be at full for most of the ticks. All it allows me is a launching point for chain heal, and I can assure you I rarely have that luxury. I am primarily a tank healer. As I've said before, I do most of the healing on a given attempt.

Let me illustrate a picture of our recent ICC raid.
We have me; Resto shammy. Then Holy paly, tree druid, Prot paly, bear druid, DK, Rogue, Warlock, Hunter, and wild card A. (actually dk should be wild card B, but its always a dk. ALWAYS)

during trash I healed far less than tree and paly. I was still trying to figure out grid, and had it set up as my baby druid. Therefore I had it set to track rejuv, life bloom, and regrowth. I cannot tell you how comfortable I was healing that day. I saw rejuvs on everyone. I never had to wonder "hey, does this person need help?" Never. I pretty much sat there and riptide'd when I got bored, and CH if someone was getting low. I was my most comfortable ever during ICC.

During marrowgar this changed quickly. I'm the raid leader so this is how the group was set up. Ranged away. Melee inside hitbox. Everyone on spike duty (because we're not 25 man, we don't have the fun of "LET THE RANGED GET IT") Tree on raid. Paly on tanks. I'll mop up your mistakes.

Boy did I ever mop. We never got marrow below 50%. I however manged to pull of 70% of the healing, which means my healers are either terrible, or I'm the most cruel heal sniper in the world.

This is literally what I have to deal with. Me essentially single healing any encounter with a gimped healer at best. I had a lovely 60/40 on ony, probably the messiest attempt ever (all ranged but 1 died before phase 2 started. That one ranged got ony down on his own, then proceeded to fall over with my healer partner, It was then a one heal, one dps, two tank affair with me dying MOMENTS before the kill, woo!)

So I have to shift. I originally had glyphs, CH, LHW and Riptide. I did this because I had a great shammy partner, and we 2healed pretty much everything together. It's not so much now. I'm not the "sort of raid heals" guy I used to be, and I can't depend on anyone to keep me alive either, LEAST of all myself. I get to choose who goes where, what groups are around, so I shove tanks and those void zone abusers in my group and hopefully let healing stream take care of them as it can.

Anyways, back to the talents. Elemental weapons are so worth it!....?

That's DISGUSTING. I would rather put enhancing totems, guardian totems, I'd say I might even go with healing focus over them. everyone takes improves shields anyways, I don't even know why anyone wouldn't, but hey, my ex-co healer didn't and she glyphed water mastery too. I don't argue with results. I just hate that people are willing to quantify the wiggle room. They don't much change throughput, and don't effect mana regen, so I've never understood the love for 60ish sp. I like enhancing totems. 23 extra str/agi is nice. 20 sp is also nice. Having it applied RAID WIDE makes it amazing. Plus it lets me override horn of winter, which is always a plus.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Blue posts and the world debates.

Theres a lot of concern for the state of stats for tanks, and healers and changes that will come cataclysm.

I think many people are freaking out about nothing. The gear simplification means there is LESS of a chance to have gear that doesn't match up to what you want. Resto and Ele will want the same pieces, since they'll actually want the same stats. No longer will look at gear with a distaste in your mouth going "ew mp5", you'll be thinking "sweet more hit!"

I'm pretty positive after the clunkiness of the few seconds of having less than ideal gear, questing, and getting better optimized gear. We'll all be screaming to the blizzard gods, thanks for the gear simplification.

Runeforging worries me however. That's spreadsheets waiting to happen. Mastery however excites me. Maybe I'll be able to get a rogue with a delicious high energy regen rate, thats individual abilities don't do much damage.

Mostly I'm just excited about the simplifications. Every change makes sense to me, and I see the reasons for them.