Alright my reader, let's think way way back to before Firelands, and before the Zandalaris. Think T10. No not ilvl 372, think early early Cata when a lot of us were mainly in a mix of 346s and 359s if any. Ok, got it?
Now at this time, we were both probably just running heroics and getting our points and whatnot. What was the "good" DPS doing?
Think.
Early early on I remember seeing a Shadow Priest doing 11k and thought "Wow, so amazing", everyone else was at around 9 or 10k as their non-raiding gear numbers restricted their maximum output. Ok, so 9 or 10 was good so let's say 7-8k dps is acceptable in regular heroics.
Alright, now that we've gotten that straightened out, please use the above analysis to confirm when someone SUCKS.
We do not want to see "Wrath DPS", it makes us as the tanks or healers shudder at the endlessly long fights due to 5k dps. In a Zandalari, please ensure you are able to pull at LEAST 10k. Please. And in the new Dragon Soul dungeons, please at least 18k.
Please note for a majority of players there was absolutely no access to gear above 359, nowadays we have a spattering of 365s and easily accessible 378s. Ay, there's the rub.
Though we all know gear does not equal skill. Gear is just an illusion of progression for some. Take my hunter for example, after he had mastered his class, my skill progression remained pretty much static save for the progressive knowledge of current fights. Gear essentially bumps up my raw numbers based on the total amount of numbers I am able to push out give the constraints of the numbers my gear is able to push out.
The sad thing is, some people think that receiving an upgrade somehow move them closer to their theoretical maximum than the static increase in throughput. Say you see a BM hunter who never uses Kill Command *shudder*, and all you do is hear them complain about not being geared enough, and even when they are they perform subpar. NO piece of gear is going to somehow magically "make" them push Kill Command more, or at all. Ever. Let's break this down into simpler terms.
What Gear Does For You:
-Increases your theoretical throughput. Assuming you are able to maximize every single number at every single moment.
-Increases your stats. Increases your static output.
-Increases your armour.
-May make you look better or worse.
What Gear Does Not Do For You:
-Magically teach you spell/ability priorities.
-Help you stay out of fire.
-Cure your tunnel vision.
See the difference? One may argue that with a massive increase in health/spellpower that the risks of standing in fire could be deterred. But now you're just being a BAD. Why stand in the flames in the first place and char the beautiful gear that you so lusted after? Also, there's something called Expansions that let us immensely out-HP/Damage content.
I'm not saying we shouldn't "want" gear, I am just saying that if you have no idea what you are doing, it probably won't help you and you shouldn't get too hung up about upgrades and perhaps work on learning encounters, learning your buttons, and staying out of shit.
Truny on Gear
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Adventures of the Forsaken Toon
I wonder if anyone else has this Toon Deleting Syndrom that I suffer of. Let me tell you a story. A story of my 10th character slot and all of its inhabitants.
Mt 10th character slot was not always the last one on my list of adventurers. Oh no, this was back when I was in the process of making my seventh character, a fresh Shaman named in the memory of my quitted-WoW friend. I had great plans for this shaman, as she trained in herbalism and became my main inscriptionist for over a year. I learned how to low-level heal (which means I didn't learn anything) by placing Earth Shield on the tank and running off to read a book, watch TV or play another video game, and that got me giddy as it was pretty much queue for a dungeon for free exp. That got boring REALLY fast and I took up training with the Elemental aspects of shamanism. Chain lightning is by far one of my favourite spells of all time in the game. Lava Blast, Fulimination, it was all very raw and primal. This poor shaman levelled all the way up to level 65, even having endured a lot of outlands quests but ended up sitting idle as Cataclysm had just hit, and my high priority toons needed tending to.
Half a year passed and I had focused my attention to characters #8, 9, and 10 more than my Shaman. This would have been my Paladin (84), Priest (85), and Warrior (66). This was when I decided I wanted another hunter to level up with my RAF friend. My shaman died that day, only to be reborn later in this story.
I had great fun levelling with my RAF friend and his hunter with my newly made Undead hunter. We blasted to level 60 really fast and once we hit Outlands, it would have been very obvious to distinguish which person was the jaded WoW player and which was the new player. I sat around in Hellfire Peninsula for several weeks, refusing to quest through Outlands again and eventually I deleted this hunter when my RAF friend had already hit 85. I believe I then created another low level Shaman only to have him deleted very soon.
Soon I created an Alliance hunter, as I think the Sabre mounts are epic cool but then ended up deleting it as I had wanted to see the Goblin starting zone. I levelled this new Goblin hunter to his mid-40s, yes by physically questing and doing dungeons the old fashioned way. I even had him "adopt" one of my old original raptor pets to help him out. Pretty soon Firelands and the Molten Front came out and again, the high priority toons got the much desired gaming attention and this poor Goblin, Torby, sat idle. You see, one reason for this second hunter was that I thought I needed more stable space for "normal" pets on my main hunter, and this second one would go hunt some high level rares one day via "adoption". I guess after several weeks of Firelands I realized I only really stick to the four or so pets and this second hunter had no value anymore.
Deleted.
Guess what I had created to take up this spot? His name was Torby. No guesses? Yes! A shaman! He did not last long. He was a Goblin and he quested hard to get off the Isle of Kezan and the moment he landed at the shores of Orgrimmar....a complete standstill. There's something about the entirety of Durotar that makes me not want to quest in it. If it isn't the dusty deserty feel, then it's probably the fact that all my "original" toons grew up there (yes even my Undead Warlock) and seeing the world changed and streamlined didn't feel right. (Azshara's supposed to be a desolate wasteland with no one in it, not a questing zone!)
Now we're up to the current day, and in this fabled character slot sits my second druid. Ever since I became more active in Wrath and raided ICC I had been curious about dabbling in le art du Boom Chicken. Though this was back when questing was still tedious and I had witnessed at end-game that most Moonkins we've seen weren't as competitive as other DPS. Perhaps I just hadn't seen a very very good one, but that was a good enough reason to not delete my existing toons. Remember this would have been when my first shaman occupied this spot and was a pro-inscriptionist.
If you remember one of my old posts (you must be very old), I did have about TEN minutes of experience as a boomkin from when my druid Turny the Restless Tree was growing up. He would have been in his 40s and how he even got up there I have no idea, I must have levelled him as Feral or levelled him as Resto and purely healed dungeons. I'll have to look back at some OLD posts to find out. But anyhoo, my ten minutes of Boomkinness ended when I realized I would have to root and kite every mob that I tried to fight and that just wasn't my cup of tea.
So anyways, the reason for a second druid wasn't purely a spur of the moment decision. Druids are awesome! That and I wanted another ranged DPS and the only other one out there besides an Ele Shaman would be a Moonkin. Shadow priesting is interesting and all but I don't find it any fun just standing there refreshing dots and shooting face beams.
Torby the Druid. I sent him off over to the other side of the world to level up, to flesh out the new storyline of Sylvanas vs the Worgen and everything is running smoothly...for now. We shall see, perhaps I shall report back, or not.
Torby the Druid
Mt 10th character slot was not always the last one on my list of adventurers. Oh no, this was back when I was in the process of making my seventh character, a fresh Shaman named in the memory of my quitted-WoW friend. I had great plans for this shaman, as she trained in herbalism and became my main inscriptionist for over a year. I learned how to low-level heal (which means I didn't learn anything) by placing Earth Shield on the tank and running off to read a book, watch TV or play another video game, and that got me giddy as it was pretty much queue for a dungeon for free exp. That got boring REALLY fast and I took up training with the Elemental aspects of shamanism. Chain lightning is by far one of my favourite spells of all time in the game. Lava Blast, Fulimination, it was all very raw and primal. This poor shaman levelled all the way up to level 65, even having endured a lot of outlands quests but ended up sitting idle as Cataclysm had just hit, and my high priority toons needed tending to.
Half a year passed and I had focused my attention to characters #8, 9, and 10 more than my Shaman. This would have been my Paladin (84), Priest (85), and Warrior (66). This was when I decided I wanted another hunter to level up with my RAF friend. My shaman died that day, only to be reborn later in this story.
I had great fun levelling with my RAF friend and his hunter with my newly made Undead hunter. We blasted to level 60 really fast and once we hit Outlands, it would have been very obvious to distinguish which person was the jaded WoW player and which was the new player. I sat around in Hellfire Peninsula for several weeks, refusing to quest through Outlands again and eventually I deleted this hunter when my RAF friend had already hit 85. I believe I then created another low level Shaman only to have him deleted very soon.
Soon I created an Alliance hunter, as I think the Sabre mounts are epic cool but then ended up deleting it as I had wanted to see the Goblin starting zone. I levelled this new Goblin hunter to his mid-40s, yes by physically questing and doing dungeons the old fashioned way. I even had him "adopt" one of my old original raptor pets to help him out. Pretty soon Firelands and the Molten Front came out and again, the high priority toons got the much desired gaming attention and this poor Goblin, Torby, sat idle. You see, one reason for this second hunter was that I thought I needed more stable space for "normal" pets on my main hunter, and this second one would go hunt some high level rares one day via "adoption". I guess after several weeks of Firelands I realized I only really stick to the four or so pets and this second hunter had no value anymore.
Deleted.
Guess what I had created to take up this spot? His name was Torby. No guesses? Yes! A shaman! He did not last long. He was a Goblin and he quested hard to get off the Isle of Kezan and the moment he landed at the shores of Orgrimmar....a complete standstill. There's something about the entirety of Durotar that makes me not want to quest in it. If it isn't the dusty deserty feel, then it's probably the fact that all my "original" toons grew up there (yes even my Undead Warlock) and seeing the world changed and streamlined didn't feel right. (Azshara's supposed to be a desolate wasteland with no one in it, not a questing zone!)
Now we're up to the current day, and in this fabled character slot sits my second druid. Ever since I became more active in Wrath and raided ICC I had been curious about dabbling in le art du Boom Chicken. Though this was back when questing was still tedious and I had witnessed at end-game that most Moonkins we've seen weren't as competitive as other DPS. Perhaps I just hadn't seen a very very good one, but that was a good enough reason to not delete my existing toons. Remember this would have been when my first shaman occupied this spot and was a pro-inscriptionist.
If you remember one of my old posts (you must be very old), I did have about TEN minutes of experience as a boomkin from when my druid Turny the Restless Tree was growing up. He would have been in his 40s and how he even got up there I have no idea, I must have levelled him as Feral or levelled him as Resto and purely healed dungeons. I'll have to look back at some OLD posts to find out. But anyhoo, my ten minutes of Boomkinness ended when I realized I would have to root and kite every mob that I tried to fight and that just wasn't my cup of tea.
So anyways, the reason for a second druid wasn't purely a spur of the moment decision. Druids are awesome! That and I wanted another ranged DPS and the only other one out there besides an Ele Shaman would be a Moonkin. Shadow priesting is interesting and all but I don't find it any fun just standing there refreshing dots and shooting face beams.
Torby the Druid. I sent him off over to the other side of the world to level up, to flesh out the new storyline of Sylvanas vs the Worgen and everything is running smoothly...for now. We shall see, perhaps I shall report back, or not.
Torby the Druid
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Great Wait: The 359-378 Gear Gap
Let's take a look at our current general route to gearing up a freshly dinged level 85.
1. You buy then 359 shoes with leftover JP from another toon.
2. You craft or buy some random 359s and 353s.
3. Run heroics or dungeons until you are high enough for 353s, accumulating your T11 and 353s.
4. You do the Save Thrall quest for your 365 cape.
5. You hope this ALT has done the Hyjal quests, and try to step into Firelands to at least get the first 365 item.
6. Perhaps donate to them a 378 bracer.
This seems pretty general right? I pretty much did this on my Priest, and it wasn't as tedious as it sounds since I had a lot of fun mucking about Holy spec and also practising my Shadow spec in case it was ever needed. Also, the added benefit of now knowing 6/7 of the Firelands fight to the point of boredom has allowed my priest to heal and receive many upgrades while being obnoxious and loud with her Lightwell macros.
But, we can not raid all the time, and some of us do not raid at all. How *else* to "improve" our characters except to grind a MONTH of Fireland dailies? This seems quite painful does it not? Seeing that we had already grinded these quests on our mains for a month several months back. As of now, amongst my five raid-able characters, only my main Hunter has completed the Firelands dailies. Truny and Turny are sitting at around 30 tokens for the first phase (haven't recruited anyone yet), and the other toons haven't even quested far enough into Hyjal. There's ALWAYS the grind-your-980-Valor-Points a week thingamajig, but we all know how fun that is. Perhaps when the change to have ALL dungeons reward 140 VP we will find a cure to our Zandalari nightmares. (Seriously, GTFO if you're doing less than 10K)
Then again, perhaps I just have too many toons.
1. You buy then 359 shoes with leftover JP from another toon.
2. You craft or buy some random 359s and 353s.
3. Run heroics or dungeons until you are high enough for 353s, accumulating your T11 and 353s.
4. You do the Save Thrall quest for your 365 cape.
5. You hope this ALT has done the Hyjal quests, and try to step into Firelands to at least get the first 365 item.
6. Perhaps donate to them a 378 bracer.
This seems pretty general right? I pretty much did this on my Priest, and it wasn't as tedious as it sounds since I had a lot of fun mucking about Holy spec and also practising my Shadow spec in case it was ever needed. Also, the added benefit of now knowing 6/7 of the Firelands fight to the point of boredom has allowed my priest to heal and receive many upgrades while being obnoxious and loud with her Lightwell macros.
But, we can not raid all the time, and some of us do not raid at all. How *else* to "improve" our characters except to grind a MONTH of Fireland dailies? This seems quite painful does it not? Seeing that we had already grinded these quests on our mains for a month several months back. As of now, amongst my five raid-able characters, only my main Hunter has completed the Firelands dailies. Truny and Turny are sitting at around 30 tokens for the first phase (haven't recruited anyone yet), and the other toons haven't even quested far enough into Hyjal. There's ALWAYS the grind-your-980-Valor-Points a week thingamajig, but we all know how fun that is. Perhaps when the change to have ALL dungeons reward 140 VP we will find a cure to our Zandalari nightmares. (Seriously, GTFO if you're doing less than 10K)
Then again, perhaps I just have too many toons.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Be Stingy on Mana
Whenever I try out a new healing spec, my first instinct is to try to figure out what my "mana neutral" button presses are. At low levels this is troublesome since our toolkit is under-developed, and most of the time at low levels, mana is pretty much infinite, allowing healers to pew pew while being bored out of their socks.
Let's take a look at Paladins. Yes, I have a level 84 paladin, which I have levelled through tanking AND healing. I switched into a healing spec after getting bored of tanking Utgarde Keep for the seven hundreth time and I never looked back.
My first step was to stick to the basic rule of Cataclysm healing: Mana Conservation. How could I heal the tank and everyone else efficiently, and also retain as much mana as possible. Obviously, spamming the "easy" flash heal wasn't the trick. We have a beacon, which reproduces 100% of Holy Light, and 50% of all other heals. So put that up, and use Holy Light on all the things. We also have a quick instant heal that builds up holy power for the Healing Laser, and a single target big heal. Obviously then, those are used depending on the situation, whether or not you want to build up points to heal a potential incoming aoe damage, or large health spikes.
Though this is just basic stuff you can derive from reading the talent trees. Putting it all into practise is another thing. You'll need to get a feel for the speeds and strength of your various heals, predict incoming damage on the tank as well as DPS, so you can use a Holy Light on one of the silly melee taking damage.
An excellent reason for the dungeon finder is that sometimes...some PUGS just...don't know what they are doing. Ever. I take this as a golden opportunity to test out my "Oh Shit" healing capabilities. Everyone is taking damage, multiple mobs are being pulled. My first question is still: "How can I 'oh shit' heal while being as mana efficient as possible?". Usually this is when Flash of Light comes into play, but when damage smooths out, I switch back to Holy Lightning the silly melee DPS who caused the trouble to begin with.
For all you new healers out there, well first of all you won't be at this blog but...well here's a tip. Take a look at ALL your possible healing spells, and look at the mana cost of each of them. We are programmed to be a society of instant gratification seekers, hence Regrowth, Flash Heal, Flash of Light, Flash Flush(Whatever Shamans Use). Those are quick and strong, but EXPENSIVE.
Going OOM is not heroic. Going OOM, and when I say OOM it means your Mana is below 60% for no reason at all, means you probably didn't need such quick heals. Think about it. Though possibly at the very very end phases of boss fights, I tend to go balls to the walls in heals for the hell of it just cause I know I can drink up right afterwards.
(After creating, deleting, and recreating my various Shaman toons, I made a brand new Goblin one, and this time I won't delete it!)
Let's take a look at Paladins. Yes, I have a level 84 paladin, which I have levelled through tanking AND healing. I switched into a healing spec after getting bored of tanking Utgarde Keep for the seven hundreth time and I never looked back.
My first step was to stick to the basic rule of Cataclysm healing: Mana Conservation. How could I heal the tank and everyone else efficiently, and also retain as much mana as possible. Obviously, spamming the "easy" flash heal wasn't the trick. We have a beacon, which reproduces 100% of Holy Light, and 50% of all other heals. So put that up, and use Holy Light on all the things. We also have a quick instant heal that builds up holy power for the Healing Laser, and a single target big heal. Obviously then, those are used depending on the situation, whether or not you want to build up points to heal a potential incoming aoe damage, or large health spikes.
Though this is just basic stuff you can derive from reading the talent trees. Putting it all into practise is another thing. You'll need to get a feel for the speeds and strength of your various heals, predict incoming damage on the tank as well as DPS, so you can use a Holy Light on one of the silly melee taking damage.
An excellent reason for the dungeon finder is that sometimes...some PUGS just...don't know what they are doing. Ever. I take this as a golden opportunity to test out my "Oh Shit" healing capabilities. Everyone is taking damage, multiple mobs are being pulled. My first question is still: "How can I 'oh shit' heal while being as mana efficient as possible?". Usually this is when Flash of Light comes into play, but when damage smooths out, I switch back to Holy Lightning the silly melee DPS who caused the trouble to begin with.
For all you new healers out there, well first of all you won't be at this blog but...well here's a tip. Take a look at ALL your possible healing spells, and look at the mana cost of each of them. We are programmed to be a society of instant gratification seekers, hence Regrowth, Flash Heal, Flash of Light, Flash Flush(Whatever Shamans Use). Those are quick and strong, but EXPENSIVE.
Going OOM is not heroic. Going OOM, and when I say OOM it means your Mana is below 60% for no reason at all, means you probably didn't need such quick heals. Think about it. Though possibly at the very very end phases of boss fights, I tend to go balls to the walls in heals for the hell of it just cause I know I can drink up right afterwards.
(After creating, deleting, and recreating my various Shaman toons, I made a brand new Goblin one, and this time I won't delete it!)
November Updates
Hello my dear one reader, how are you? It's been a very long time since I felt the need to update this dusty old blog. Again I would like to thank you for sticking around. I know that I never take enough time or effort to edit my words to make them fluent and beautiful like so many other artists err bloggers out there, nor do these words ever have much substance.
Anyhow, what have I been up to you ask? Essentially, not much. Uh oh I feel one of those ugly lists that Truny loves so much approaching:
Turby: Turby is currently having "fun" trying to "achieve" the collection of 150 companion pets for the very awesome Celestial Dragon companion. He is currently at 142, and let me tell you it's no fun farming for world drops. He was also very lucky enough to win a shoulder token off of Momo Staghelm, giving him a very nice 4 piece bonus of free shots and kill commands. Turby also became a ranked player on some fights (As Beast Master), given not a lot of people play Beast Master he's somewhere in the mid hundreds. Not bad. (Actually it seems that if I play well as BM in any fight except Alysrazor I'll get ranked....)
Truny: Sadly I haven't touched my warlock in a long time, Demo just got too clunky for me, while the juggling of every single nuke and corruption and was interesting, it really isn't worth all the effort. She is currently in her Affliction spec, it is much more relaxed and fluid (well moreso than Demo), and perhaps she'll get to try it out in a proper raid. Probably not.
Turny: I really really miss my druid, like REALLY. The hots and utterly insane mobility make me feel right at home when healing on Turny. I was asked to heal our weekly FL on my druid, as we had priests a plenty that day and ...it just felt right. If only ToL form came back =(
Husbrus: Who the hell is Husbrus you ask? Uhh, well she is my priest, and officially my 2nd best "geared" toon after my hunter. How did this happen? Well, I've always had this priest in the background, doing the random Smite Healing, but that got boring and the fact that smiting had me targetting an enemy made my inner healer feel very uneasy, since if the tank takes damage I'd have to switch targets (oh no so much effort!). So I went Holy. Holy is interesting, it's kind of like being a resto druid but with tools up the hoo-ha! You get your pingping heal spell, an instant weak heal, TWO aoe heals, binding heal, free flash heals, your basic nourish (heal) and healing touch (greater heal), and this thing called Chakra which makes you shiny and pretty. I healed one of our previous FL on Husbrus and it was quite fun. I'm not sure why some guides mention only using flash heal or greater heals, wouldn't you run out of mana REALLY fast? I've trained myself to strictly use "Heal", the mana-neutral spell, just like Nourish (it bugs me when I see people only using Regrowth, same story). Then again, we've been in Firelands so many times it's pretty easy to predict when and what kind of damage is incoming where it's safe to conserve mana.
Now I have an idea for a more interesting post so goodbye!
Anyhow, what have I been up to you ask? Essentially, not much. Uh oh I feel one of those ugly lists that Truny loves so much approaching:
Turby: Turby is currently having "fun" trying to "achieve" the collection of 150 companion pets for the very awesome Celestial Dragon companion. He is currently at 142, and let me tell you it's no fun farming for world drops. He was also very lucky enough to win a shoulder token off of Momo Staghelm, giving him a very nice 4 piece bonus of free shots and kill commands. Turby also became a ranked player on some fights (As Beast Master), given not a lot of people play Beast Master he's somewhere in the mid hundreds. Not bad. (Actually it seems that if I play well as BM in any fight except Alysrazor I'll get ranked....)
Truny: Sadly I haven't touched my warlock in a long time, Demo just got too clunky for me, while the juggling of every single nuke and corruption and was interesting, it really isn't worth all the effort. She is currently in her Affliction spec, it is much more relaxed and fluid (well moreso than Demo), and perhaps she'll get to try it out in a proper raid. Probably not.
Turny: I really really miss my druid, like REALLY. The hots and utterly insane mobility make me feel right at home when healing on Turny. I was asked to heal our weekly FL on my druid, as we had priests a plenty that day and ...it just felt right. If only ToL form came back =(
Husbrus: Who the hell is Husbrus you ask? Uhh, well she is my priest, and officially my 2nd best "geared" toon after my hunter. How did this happen? Well, I've always had this priest in the background, doing the random Smite Healing, but that got boring and the fact that smiting had me targetting an enemy made my inner healer feel very uneasy, since if the tank takes damage I'd have to switch targets (oh no so much effort!). So I went Holy. Holy is interesting, it's kind of like being a resto druid but with tools up the hoo-ha! You get your pingping heal spell, an instant weak heal, TWO aoe heals, binding heal, free flash heals, your basic nourish (heal) and healing touch (greater heal), and this thing called Chakra which makes you shiny and pretty. I healed one of our previous FL on Husbrus and it was quite fun. I'm not sure why some guides mention only using flash heal or greater heals, wouldn't you run out of mana REALLY fast? I've trained myself to strictly use "Heal", the mana-neutral spell, just like Nourish (it bugs me when I see people only using Regrowth, same story). Then again, we've been in Firelands so many times it's pretty easy to predict when and what kind of damage is incoming where it's safe to conserve mana.
Now I have an idea for a more interesting post so goodbye!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)