Updates Before Pandaria
Hi, my name is Moonstarria and I’m sorry I haven’t written in 3 and a half months. It’s been a long summer, which is now over, and a long expansion. My raid groups have had exoduses and reconfiguration and quite a lot of fluxus. I’ve gone from heroic progression to wondering if we will kill Spine on regular tonight with 3 healers. I’ve questioned the LFR system and the monotonous nature of regular, stack and heal Dragon Soul. But finally, in the last month, my raid group has come together again. We have a few old people, and a few new people. We shockingly found some diamonds in the rough on my tiny server, and finally, finally….I am 8/8 Heroic in Dragon Soul.
And I won the mount on the first kill.
And account-wide mounts and titles are awesome.
OMG It Works! ….Diablo 3 Impressions
So, I’m late as always and I do apologize for being absent for a few months but things have been going on that I’m not going to talk about at the moment. But anyways, Diablo 3 has arrived.
OMG It Works….
I didn’t play at first because I had pretty much accepted that it wasn’t going to work on my computer. I play on a Mac that’s a few years old, along with an outdated (and un-updatable) video card, as well as limited memory and RAM. But after a few days of seeing people on Real ID in D3, jealousy set in & I decided to try and get it to install.
This was not without issue, I had to put in a few tickets because after downloading the installer, the installer would occur an “unexpected error” and just quit. I finally found a solution on the forums (turning off my Filevault) and it installed. Well, 2 hours later it installed.
So, I had the game loaded and logged in for the first time. Shamefully, since I didn’t think I was going to be able to play it, I hadn’t done much research on D3, even though I had played D2 a little back in the day. So, when I got to the character screen I picked the class that I didn’t find scary looking, which was the wizard.
I finally started playing and moving was a challenge to say the least. I think I was halfway through the second act before I found out that if I clicked and held my mouse button down I would move in a fluid motion, rather than click to move, click to move, click to move. It also took me several days to discover that in your game options you can set it so that you can have multiple abilities from the same category of spells on your bar.
A week and half later, my wizard is 54 and about halfway through Act 2 on Hell Mode. I did find that going with someone else is a lot easier than just running with my sometimes useless Templar. Unfortunately when I run with someone else I am way more likely to lag. I call it “running at my own pace,” since that’s what it looks like to me. I also feel that trying to do Hell Mode without another real life person may be impossible, at least for a wizard. I’m not saying I’m a rockstar at D3, but kiting every set of mobs all the way to the entrance of the dungeon at times can be annoying. Plus, when you do that your “Templar Tank” just runs with you instead of tanking or dpsing, leaving only my faithful little Hydra to keep the mobs at bay.
I’ve also tried a few other classes. My monk is halfway through Act 2 and I have a Witch Hunter at the very end of Act 1, both on regular mode.
That said, here are my lists of…
Things I Like About Diablo 3…
- It’s a new game, with new lore, new cinematics, new areas and more quests and achievements for me to obsess over and spend too much time on.
- Sometimes its nice to just kill and smash shit.
- I really do love the cinematics, the animation really makes the game.
- New classes to learn with new abilities for each.
- When you die and run back and the mobs were half dead, they are still have dead when you run back.
- It’s possible to play in complete solitaire mode (at least on normal and nightmare mode), without the distractions of trade, guild, lfr or the random dungeon finder.
What I don’t Like About Diablo 3…
- The interface….Although I’ve gotten used to it, I still want to go at least go backwards and strife with my keyboard. I guess I just don’t understand why I can’t do both. In the end I will always steer with my mouse when I can, but I think I should be able to do some movements with my keyboard.
And, again I’ve gotten used to it, I really want to be able to change my camera angle. Also, I have a few friends (especially wow “clicker” types) who are having a lot more difficulty with the interface, almost to the point where they don’t want to play. - You can only use 6 abilities…I know that is part of the challenge of the game, choosing the right “build” for you character, even changing it from situation to situation. But I feel very limited. I can’t survive without Diamond Skin or Teleport on the Wizard, and my Hydra is also practically required, so I only have 3 other buttons to assign. And whenever I try to change my “build” I feel like it makes things worse and I go back to what I was running with before.
- If you DC, it resets your game… I discovered this the hard way. I actually quit the game to reset it because I started lagging, so I figured, I’ll just restart it… Unfortunately I had cleared about 3/4s of my dungeon, and well, when I came back in, the map was cleared out and I was back at the beginning.
- I lag in groups… Not sure if this just a Mac thing or my old video card etc. It comes and goes, its worse in certain areas (I curse you Oasis), and fine in others. It definitely is the death of me at times. (And I do have Peer to Peer and my background downloader turned off).
- The solitary nature of the game at times…. As much of a perk as I find this it is also a downside. I like the random dungeon finder in Wow and although many of the people in it are not so great, they at least make the game interesting. I also miss having a guild (unless I have somehow missed this feature in D3). And I’m very particular about the people I have on Real ID, so adding more people from Wow so I can see them in D3 is unnerving. I know there is the “public feature” of the game, but as previously stated, I lag in groups and the one time I did the Public Game, I was just running to catch up the whole time.
- The biased nature of some of the fights…It is ridiculously easy to do some fights on certain classes and ridiculously hard to do them on others. I don’t appreciate being picked up and stunned in fire on a ranged class, spamming my health pot for 5 seconds and dying, whereas a melee class can just eat it. On the flip side, end game is supposedly way easier as a ranged class than melee. I wish Blizzard would do something to equal this out. But I’m still waiting for them to nerf Paladins in Wow.
- There are no healers….I know that’s the nature of the game, but I am a healer at heart and other than some weak heals from a Monk, some similar abilities, and the red balls of life, there are no players exclusively devoted to keeping you alive.
- I wish the NPCs were more useful. I usually run with the Templar for his heals and theoretic tanking, but as I said before, when I kite or even when I teleport away he often just runs besides me. And if I’m shooting things off screen, aka a safe distance, there’s Templar, just twiddling his thumbs next to me, throwing out one liners, like “dude, go, tank…or at least fight!”
- *********Spoiler Alert**********…Now that I know how things turn out, I feel bad for Leah whenever I see her. I know its just a game, but still feel bad (I don’t want to say anymore in case you don’t know).
- Not Sure What End Game’s Supposed To Be...I may just be nubbing this out, but is there an End Game? Other than Inferno Level. I know that there’s a PvP/Arena aspect that they haven’t yet released, but is there ever going to be any kind of raiding or it just not intended to be that kind of game?
I know my list of what I don’t like is longer than my list of likes, but I really do like the game. It’s very addicting. It’s a nice change of pace from Wow but I can’t see it ever replacing Wow, even with the randomly generating maps, it will eventually get too repetitive to do every day. One thing is for sure though, Wow is a ghost town these days, especially since SO many people got D3 for free with the Annual Pass (like me). My raid last week only had 5 show up (and we generally have at least 9 these days). But, eventually, things will go back to normal, especially once Panda comes out.
Tips for Starting on a New Server
I recently hit 85 with my 8th character. And although this isn’t too amazing into and of itself, it was the first max level toon that I leveled on a different server.
When you get to a certain point in your wow life, you may feel like its time to play on a different server. Maybe you’d like to try a different faction, or a PvP server vs PvE. Maybe you’ve reached your max of toons on your “home” server (like me). Maybe you have a friend on a different server and want to start a toon over there to hang out with them. Or, maybe you’re just sick of the raiding, PvE, PvP or drama etc. on your home server and you don’t want to pay to transfer a toon just yet, just try somewhere new.
Whatever the reason, “starting over” can be very hard. For starters, you have no BoAs, so it takes longer to level and you won’t be quite as “unstoppable” while leveling or PvPing as you’ve become accustomed to. Also, you have no army of alts with professions to twink yourself out, either at level 15 or level 85. And to further that, depending on your circumstances, you may be lacking a supportive guild or friends to help you out. And, you’re broke and starting from scratch.
Whereas I can’t help you get BoAs (at least til Blizz lets us send them cross server), I can offer a few tips to make your life a little easier.
- Take the Ninja Guild Invite… When you start on a new server and yuo are guildless and alone, you will start to get what I call “ninja guild invites,” or blind invites by people who rarely bother talking to you first. As soon as a level 25 (or at least level 20) guild invites you, take it. Utilize those guild perks. The extra XP and increased mounted speed alone are worth it. That said, most of the guilds that do the ninja invites are very large leveling guilds and mostly invite people to milk your quest money contributions. Also, if you’re offline for a few weeks (because you get bored and go back to your home server or whatever), they will often kick you. So if you want to /gquit for any reason, don’t feel guilty for doing so.
- Grab a Tabard….One of the first things I do when I start a new character is mail them some gold and some bags. On a new server you won’t have either, especially at first. So, grab a tabard from your faction Quartermaster (Stormwind, Origimar etc.), equip it, and if you’re doing any dungeons in the dungeon finder, you’ll have enough rep to get a 16 slot bag from the Quartermaster soon enough. You also may find they sell a couple pieces of worthwhile gear for you class. You can only get one bag per Quartermaster, so once you get the rep you need, switch to another tabard (E.g. Stormwind then Ironforge).
- Pick Up 2 Gathering Professions… First of all, you get XP now for picking herbs and mining. But not only are mining, herbing & skinning virtually free to level, they are great money makers on the AH. Especially once you get to the 100+ skill level markers. True, the other perks to the professions (extra stam, crit or a haste/heal spell) aren’t great for end game raiding, but you don’t have to keep these professions forever! This is just to help you start your new empire.
- Utilize the Auction House… All those herbs, skins, ore & bars you’ve collected, it’s time to cash in on the AH. The more money you have, the easier playing on a new server becomes. Also, sell all of your BoE greens that you’re not equipping, as well as white items, like boar & crawler meat. Even just getting a little bit more than you would get from the standard vendor is worth it. 3 gold is hell of a lot more than 20 silver, especially when you’re broke at level 15. To further increase your sales, download Auctionator or a similar addon to help you out.
- If you picked this server to play with a friend, borrow gold from them and offer to pay them back on your home server… If they also started a toon on a your “home server” to play with you, this is beneficial to you both.
- Sell Guild Signatures… I know this contradicts my first tip, but if you haven’t found a guild yet, this is a great way to make some quick cash when you first start out. If you’re already “guilded, you can always start another alt and just jog your level 1 Human or Troll into Stormwind or Orgimar.
- Quest… Not everyone likes to do it, but questing is still a great way to get gold, moderate gear and a ton of XP.
- Don’t PvP… As a general rule, PvP is a horrible way to make gold. And with the exception of Call to Arms and Alterac Valley, not a great source of XP. If you don’t care about gold or XP, and want to rape some horde anyway, go for it. Also, since you’re BoA-less, you may want to check your at-level honor vendors. The Warsong Gulch vendor, for example, sell epic level bracers at level 30 for about 50 honor. (The alliance vendor is in Southeast Ashenvale in Silverwing Grove.)
Hopefully these tips are helpful and you have a great time playing on your new server!
Heroic Ultraxion is Dead
This past week my raiding group became 2/8 heroic in Dragon Soul, killing Heroic Ultraxion. I wish I could give some tips, but even though it took us many attempts, its pretty straightforward.
Straightforward in Theory….
Assuming you know the fight on regular…in Heroic 3 people get Fading Light instead of 2, which also seems to happen more often. And the major difference is that 2 people have to stay in for Hour of Twilight, instead of just a tank. How you handle this really depends on your raid makeup and what cooldowns you have available. Oh, and you get a debuff when you take Hour of Twilight, so the same people can’t stay out twice in a row.
Our “kill group” was made up of 2 tanks (bear & prot pally), 6 dps (shadow priest, warlock, enhance shammy, hunter, fire mage and a feral druid (myself)), and 2 healers (disc priest and holy paladin). Our various mitagation cds were dispersion, deterrence, iceblock and cauterize, survival instincts, the holy pally’s bubble, and various tank cds. We set up an order of two people per Hour of Twilight ahead of time and stuck to it. The warlock, enhance shammy and disc priest never stayed out. The fight was actually very simple in theory once you get your order down. We originally tried 3 healing it, with the disc priest smiting most of the fight, me healing, and the holy pally spamming exorcism for a while, but we just didn’t have enough dps, even with the 10% nerf. So we switched to 2 heals.
The major problems we had were people missing their button for fading light or getting confused when it was “their turn” to stay out for Hour of Twilight, particularly when we got deeper into the fight for the first times. Oh, and by the way, the cast time for Hour of Twilight is A LOT faster on heroic than regular and also the countdown timer for the Fading Light debuff seemed to vary. Sometimes it was as short as 3 seconds, sometimes 5 and sometimes as high as 8. If you have an updated version of DBM, the “DBM lady” will speak and give you a countdown for Fading Light (and Hour of Twilight), but I still always looked at my actual debuff to know when to hit my button (and the actual castbar for Hour of Twilight, setting focus to the boss helps with this too). Though, you don’t get a 5 sec cooldown after you hit you’re “button” on heroic. I guess they decided that was too hard and too much RNG.
I think I Need a New Computer…
My own personal struggles with this fight, (other than going back and forth from heals to dps, which is annoying) were based on lag. In LFR, which is 25man, for whatever reason, I lag really bad on this fight on my druid, regardless of whether I’m heals or dps. It doesn’t happen on my other toons, or not nearly as much, but on my druid, with my regular amount of addons on, my frame rate starts to crash at 50% on Ultrax, and pretty much hits zero at 30% (thank god you can’t die from Hour of Twilight in LFR).
On 10man regular, my lag is okay, until the fight hits about 10%, but the fight is so on farm on regular that even if I died it wouldn’t really matter. On heroic, however, every little bit counts. Every amount of dps, and forsuredly every time you have to hit that damn button. And I quickly realized on the attempts where we got deeper into the fight, that it was going to be an issue. Through some experimenting, I had to turn off almost every addon off, including Vuhdu, which made me cry a little inside.
I still lagged pretty bad during the last 10%, but with the total not being able to Shred on Ultrax ever anyway, and having my 2 piece bonus (which lets Ferocious Bite extend my rip) my rotation is pretty simple for feral. (Spam mangle, Rip occasionally, use FB as my finisher, and when I used Tiger’s Fury I used my 4 Piece bonus free Ravage to keep Savage Roar up). So, my main concern was my button and OMG please don’t miss a Fading Light or HoT. Of course, that said, about my dps rotation, I had to turn recount off, so I have no idea how I did. But my gear is considerably worse than the “pure dpsers” in my raid group anyway.
Healing….
Since we ultimately 2 healed it and I was dpsing, I can’t give much insight into this. I know they had the disc priest take red and the pally took the other 2 crystals, though I heard most groups have the holy pally take red and blue and the 2nd healer takes green. Though the green crystal is pretty worthless to most healers except shaman. I know the tank the feral tank used his 4 piece bonus as a raid cooldown liberally and the prot pally’s Divine Guardian was also always on CD.
Having not being able to run recount, I can’t tell you about the healing or dps meters. I can’t tell you what numbers we did to make this fight possible. I think you need an average of 212k dps to be able to beat the enrage, including tank dps and whatever smiting you may be doing, but don’t quote me on that. And this is Tuesday as I write this (we killed him last Thursday), and I don’t know if the fight got nerfed another 5% today or not. I do know however that when we were 2 healing, the disc priest was not in his smite spec.
Next time….
I’m not sure which fight we’re supposed to do next. We had a few attempts on both Hagara and Yor’shaj, so it’ll likely be one of those two. I see Hagara as more doable only because our attempts on Yor’shaj were pretty brutal and not every one in group seems to do their homework on heroics.
Trying Not to Go a Full Month Without a Post
Stares at blank page…..
I honestly don’t know how I go as long as I do without writing. Sometimes its because of lack of inspiration to write, or motivation, or really big need to rant. Even though I do usually have some reason or another to rant. Attendance has been plaguing my raid group once again and I wonder why “changes in raid groups” is such an overused tag on my blog. After finally getting Deathwing down, we didn’t attempt any heroics for 2 weeks because the immediate week after his fall, someone was missing. Probably two or three someones. Though an easy re-clear and a two shot on an end boss is always uplifting.
The second week after Deathwing’s demise, we killed Heroic Morchok without too much trouble. It was basically a two shot (since I’m not counting that first pull where a couple people ran in the wrong direction and we wiped right after the split), with our first real attempt getting him to 10% and the 2nd attempt was his death. We then just cleared the rest of the instance because most of the group hadn’t watched any videos on any other heroics.
The third week, again we had attendance issues. We had two pugs, one who was replacing our raid leader, and then wiped on Heroic Morchok for over an hour (I don’t even know why he was so hard, but no one was even trying to grasp the concept of the soaks) before switching him to reg and clearing the whole place for the rest of the night.
This week, our first night we had everyone! We one shot Heroic Morchok. We then worked on Yor’shaj for an hour or so. I can’t even say we made any progress. It was just a heal-y mess of debuffs, damage, adds and death. We then worked on Heroic Hagara for the rest of the night (about 45 minutes). We seemed to make a little progress on that and it seemed way more doable than Yor’shaj. So it was then decided that we would stop for the night and work on him some more the next night, and try Ultraxion.
The next night the raid leader doesn’t show up. Sigh. So we just canceled. I blame Star Wars.
It’s just frustrating because when everyone shows and actually wants to raid, my group is really really good. But this lack of dedication is incredibly irritating.
Deathwing has Finally Fallen
This past Sunday night, on the infamous last pull of the night, through a week or two (or possibly a month or two) of attendence issues, role and member changes, and other unnecessary drama Deathwing has finally fallen.
CHEERS!
Regrouping, Restructuring and the Mana Dance
So this past week or so of raiding was a nice surprise. After a busy, afk-filled holiday season and what seemed like a resto druid post-patch apocalypse at times, not to mention some restructuring, my raid group was all there. We cut back our raiding from 5 nights a week (ugh, who even thought of that) to 3 nights a week (thank fkn god!!). I think this is great for a lot of reasons. (1) Way Less Burnout, especially since we’re stuck with Dragon Soul till Kung Fu Panda (yes, I said it) comes out. (2) Some of us just don’t have time for 5 nights a week, myself included & (3) I think people will take it more seriously since each night will really count. Plus some people will have more time to play Star Wars. (Which I totally would be if it ran on Macs.)
We also had some restructuring. We lost 2 people (see Burnout), but the two that replaced them are great and we even have a rogue now for the legendary quest. And with this new group’s first week, we took down the first 5 on the first night, got the boat down the next night with a few pulls the Spine before ending early. We then killed Spine on the 3rd night, leaving almost 2 full hours for the Uber Villain of Cataclysm himself, Deathwing.
So that night I finally had a night of real attempts on Deathwing on regular difficulty (vs. Looking For Retards). And we got him to 8%.
And then last night after the reset, we cleared 7/8, with time for a few more attempts on DW and got him to 7%.
But, even more importantly, DW gave me the medium to test out my new spec and reforging. And finally, my hps was looking sexy again. I was strongly beating the Holy Radiance spammer (though I did make sure I popped Tranquility on the first platform while I had my healing buff). And the Shaman in his healing offspec and his health increase talent for suredly helped the overhealing on my Rejuv Spam. I still have to work my ass off, but it was nice to own the meters again, because the Post 4.3 Resto Druid depression was really starting to get to me.
The Mana Dance
Since Deathwing is such a long & intensive fight, the key to my throughput seems to be playing the mana dance. How much can I spam heals without going oom? With my new spec, I only have 1 point in Moonglow (gasp) and 1 point in Furor. I also reforged out of a lot of spirit and into mastery or haste depending on the piece. And with the nerf to Wild Growth’s burst AoE healing, I spam the oomage threat Rejuv like crazy now, and a whole hell of a lot more Regrowth than I ever used to as well. I rely heavily on my Innervator2 addon, and I try my hardest to only innervate during a Power Torrent proc or a Hymn of Hope. I’m also still using two mana regen trinkets (the Darkmoon Card and Jaws of Defeat, which I have macroed into my tree form but I also will pop Jaws without tree.) If I could get the trinket off of Spine it would be a nice upgrade to the Darkmoon Card, but alas, maybe next week. I also pop tree early and often to get the most out its mana savings as well as its cooldown usage.
So, my first real night Healing Deathwing I had a mana tide totem from the shaman. And that seemed to work really well. Last night, our disc priest was back and the shammy was dpsing, Which means we have a potential 4 Hymn of Hopes (since we also have a shadow priest), but Hymning can sticky at times because it needs to be channeled and it can be difficult to find the “best time.” And yeah, I don’t know if I’m gonna have enough mana for the end.
And I do know that it’s progression and an end boss and its supposed to be hard and playing the “mana dance” is gonna be part of it. And also with progression comes more mistakes as we learn, so we heal more because of the mistakes and we also heal more just in case, to prepare for those mistakes. But still…
So amidst my mini-freakout of mana concerns, I was considering respeccing (again), for at least just Deathwing and finding another point to put back into Moonglow. And my only 2 choices are Blessing of the Grove (which I think is better than it used to be because I spam so much Rejuv now) or Nature’s Bounty, but I really like my extra crit on my Regrowth that I’m also spamming like a fiend at times, and the shorter Nourish cast comes in handy too when I’m spamming all that Rejuv.
My solution? (Err, potential solution, I’ll let you know how it goes). I got the tier helm token last night, which is one of the only 2 pieces of tier with haste on it. And my previous headpiece was my off set piece from Beth in Firelands, so I upgraded that immediately (I even used an epic red). And for the mana regen only, I sacrificed my 4 piece tier 12 bonus {(4) Set: Your Swiftmend also heals an injured target within 15 yards for the same amount.}, and upgraded my 391 tier 12 pants to the 397 tier 13 to get the 2 piece Tier 13 bonus. So now I have dual 2 piece mana regen bonuses {Tier 12: Your periodic healing from Lifebloom has a 40% chance to restore 1% of your base mana each time it heals a target.; Tier 13: After using Innervate, the mana cost of your healing spells is reduced by 25% for 15 sec.}. In theory, the 25% less mana cost on spells after innervate is better than the added 2% to the Moonglow talent. Hopefully anyway. I will miss my “Firebloom” proc though.
And what about the 4 Piece Tier 13? Well, I can’t get that until I get the chest token (the other piece of tier with haste on it). And hopefully, by then, the bigger mana pool that I’ll have from gear upgrades will make up for the loss of the 2 piece T-12 mana bonus and the risky throughput spec that I’ve got going on. And maybe I’ll have that trinket of Spine.
So, here’s hoping.
4.3 Thoughts and Beyond
I feel as if I start every post with, I’m sorry its been so long since I posted. I’ve been so busy with real life, and the holidays and work. And I have started posts, I just haven’t actually published any.
I wrote this really long rant about the Patch while I was at work about a week after it hit, intending to type it out later, and then when I re-read it, I decided it was too ranty. Almost a month later, I can’t even say I feel any different. So, I may still publish it.
Truth is, this last patch has me really bummed.
There may have been a few other circumstances involved though, which now actually seem to have (maybe) resolved themselves. And tonight’s raid went really well for the first time in a long time.
God, I’m so all over the place. I’m not sure if I want to write about my feelings about the resto druid’s healing and this patch, or the state of my raid. My group has been 6/7 for over 3 weeks now, and me personally, have only been involved in 3 Deathwing pulls (the end of the night kind of thing). And then the next night we go do Firelands? To finish someone’s legendary who, now having the legendary, is probably gonna quit wow (convenient). (grumbles) Right after the raid leader quits wow, (which is actually a REALLY good thing, because I’ve been strongly considering switching servers because of him). Too much drama for a fairly small guild, and I think there is way more “behind the scenes” drama that I’m not even aware of. Because I missed SO many raid nights on account of work the few weeks before the holidays.
But anyway, tonight we raided with our new raid configuration and things went pretty well. We one shot the first four (which sadly, is really good for us as of late), and then killed Ultra after a couple pulls with one Uber Undergeared tank and our 3rd healer in an off spec. We then pulled the boat a couple times and called it.
(Oh, and the Red Crystal is so much less depressing. Unlike the epic fail for druid HPS on the other two)
But it was really nice to not be yelled at. I even caused one of the Ultraxion wipes when I was trying to B-Rez the off spec healer and didn’t hit my button. And I still wasn’t yelled at, like *cough* someone else would’ve been. (Which would’ve just made me screw up again in some other way).
So, I know that this post is all over the place, but my druid healing has really had me bummed and depressed. Tonight our raid configuration changed, which really helped my HPS because our HR spammer (holy pally) was tanking and our disc priest is out for awhile due to Real Life, so sniping my HoTs was kept to a minimum. But I’ve also tried to make some changes to her to help her out.
For one, I finally got her to the 2005 breakpoint. I know that probably sounds like resto druid blasphemy, but I usually get DI, so technically, I only needed about 1600 for my extra tick of Wild Growth, but who know what’s going on with the afk warlock in our group (see legendary drama). Also, it definitely helps my HPS in Looking For Raid, because the chances of me getting DI in there are slim to none.
Also, I respecced her. I had a thought that maybe Blessing of the Grove was a better talent now since I have so much dependence on Rejuv now. I only took one point in it because I didn’t want to drop points elsewhere, as I find the extra crit from Nature’s Bounty very useful. Plus, I’ve also been spamming a lot more Regrowth this patch. I also made sure I filled out Genesis. I did drop 2 points in Moonglow (which I’m kind of concerned about, but I guess I’ll find out whenever I have real attempts on Deathwing), and I think I also dropped Living Seed, which I think I only had one point in anyway.
Current Talents:
So her HPS is looking a lot better. And tonight I got the Red Crystal, so instead of wanting to curl into a corner and cry because of my HPS, I hit 40k, which was really, really nice. I’ve even hit 20k again on fights with no healy buffs, which is really nice to know that that is even still possible.
And also, since I’ve been working and raiding on a limited basis, I haven’t really many upgrades, or much luck with drops. I’ve only acquired my VP cloak and relic, the haste & spirit dagger and a belt. I’m sure the spellpower boost from the 378 mace I was using to the Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony, is nice.
I just hope that when I start healing with the OP Paladin and Disc Priest again that my HPS stays competitive. (And they let me keep the Red Crystal because Ultra is SOOO depressing as a druid with any other color)
4.3 Thoughts, for Resto Druids and Otherwise
There’s so much to write about and not enough time….. 4.3 finally hit yesterday, and of course, all I want to do is play Wow. So, I started writing. I’ve written this in segments, so my opinions may sound a little disjointed at times.
New Tier Means New Gear:
Gear Lists for Resto:
There’s a lovely one on Cannot Be Tamed.
As well as one on WTSHeals.
Gear Lists for Feral:
I found one at The Dragon Slayer’s Ease.
New Raid, Dragon Soul:
So, its now time for the final major patch of this expansion, and the final raid instance with our evil nemesis Deathwing waiting at the end.
There’s 8 bosses, 4 of which, after 2 nights of raiding I’ve already killed. We one shot the first boss (Morchok), did have some trouble on the second boss (Warlord Zon’ozz), but then on our second night, changed our strat and killed him on the 2nd attempt of the night. We then killed the 3rd boss (Yor’sahj), on maybe the 3rd attempt, and moved on to Hagura. He did take about 6 attempts to kill, but yeah, not too difficult. The 5th boss, Ultraxion, we pulled twice at the end of the night, and I’m sure we’ll kill him tomorrow (one of healer’s Heroic Will Button’s was missing because of UI issues). Do I feel accomplished to have killed that many so fast? Sure. But, after having some hard raiding troubles in the previous 2 tiers, (I know I was in a different raid group then), I’m kind of disappointed. (For real though, we killed them so fast I don’t even know the bosses names, I had to look them up for this post).
I know one of the things that helped us was most of us having done the bosses on super easy mode raid finder, so learning the basic mechanics of Hagura is way easier than on hard progression, but still. I guess I’m disappointed because this raid is supposed to keep us satisfied for a year and I just don’t see how it’s supposed to do that.
New Raid Finder:
This is interesting, but probably too easy. I was in a group last night on my shaman that one shot at four bosses. This shouldn’t be possible no matter how easy mode they are (and 25man is so much easier than 10man btw.). But, I think this tool will be fabulous for alts. I just hope that the super fast q-times for dps stick around, and that the fights don’t become significantly more difficult when people are q-ing on their uber geared mains anymore, and people are q-ing on their alts in PvP gear to get their gear score up.
I think I just contradicted myself a few times there. I want things to be harder, but not too easy, but not run with “baddies” is all, yeah that’s what I want.
I do find that the 50k I pulled on my shaman on the 2nd boss a bit suspicious.
3 New Dungeons:
I like these new dungeons. I think they’re a good length, not too long like the Zandalari’s can be. (I know they have now shorted the trolls, too.) As heals, some of the AoE damage seemed a little extreme, and I’m kind of scared to heal one on my priest, but I’m sure that once people get some more gear and learn the mechanics better it’ll be fine. (And sadly, the inevitable nerfs from Blizzard.)
Void Storage:
OMG, OMG, OMG…..this is the whole reason I wanted this patch. I now have some bank space on my druid, and soon my other toons. I am a little irritated that you can’t put “unique” items in, such as holiday outfits, which was one of the things I was really looking forward to putting away in storage (but for some reason I can’t delete them either….).
Transmorg:
I’m sure there will be a point that I’ll get excited about this as I know many people are, but I’m just kind of meh about. I’m disappointed that I can’t make my shaman’s weapons look the same, as one is a mace and the other is an ax. I will however, be switching out that super ugly belt my priest has been stuck wearing (since I never got her the reputation one from the Avenger’s of Hyjal), whenever I get around to investigating her changes.
Class Changes:
Druids:
- Wrath has a new spell effect.
- Hurricane has a new updated visual effect.
- Swipe (Cat) has been reduced to 340% weapon damage, down from 415%.
- Bear Form now provides an armor bonus of 120% at all levels, up from 65% for characters below level 40, making it easier for lower level druids to tank dungeons.
- Bear Form now provides a Stamina bonus of 20%, up from 10%.
- Talent Specializations
- Balance
- Celestial Focus now also reduces Cyclone spell pushback.
- Restoration
- Wild Growth healing has been reduced by 20%.
- Nature’s Focus now also reduces Cyclone and Entangling Roots spell pushback.
- Balance
- Glyphs
- Glyph of Shred has been renamed Glyph of Bloodletting, and now also causes Mangle (Cat) to extend the duration of Rip, in addition to its existing Shred functionality.
- Glyph of Wild Growth now also increases the cooldown on Wild Growth by
This is really a whole post in itself, but I’m not even sure about the class changes. The druid nerf makes me sad. (20% less to Wild Growth). The nerf to the Glyph of WG (it now also increases the cooldown by 2 seconds), has me slightly confused and for sure idly bummed. I had planned on switching it out for something else, but didn’t during the raid last night, and honestly, I didn’t really notice the extra 2 seconds on the cd. But the jury is still out for me on that. My hps seems lower though. No real proof on that, just a feeling.
One thing I wonder is if the whole “get your extra tick of wild growth with haste” thing is as worth it as it was before, now that Wild Growth has been nerfed. Does mastery trump haste now? I’ll have to do some perusing around the internet to figure that out. Of course, in a perfect world, I have spell haste and DI, so for me to get to the extra tick of Wild Growth is just short of 1600, so this might not even affect me. Sadly, I pretty much always get DI, it’s the 5% Spell Haste that is hit or miss in my raid. And if I don’t have 5% Haste and have DI, the break point is 2292, which seems crazy high to me, and a loss to a lot of potential mastery.
The new Wrath spell effect is different. I have not actually casted Hurricane on her yet lol.
The cat Swipe nerf makes me sad, but it was probably needed. The change to the Glyph of Shred will be nice to PvP (if you take that Glyph, I think there may be better PvP options), as well as for certain fights in PvE where you can’t Shred due to boss mechanics.
Shaman:
- Flametongue Weapon no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.
- Lightning Bolt has a new spell effect.
- Wind Shear’s base cooldown has been adjusted to 15 seconds, up from 6 seconds.
- Talent Specializations
- Elemental
- Call of Flame no longer causes Fire Nova to extend the duration of Flame Shock.
- Earthquake damage has been increased by roughly 75%.
- Elemental Fury now removes the cooldown from Chain Lightning.
- Reverberation now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 5/10 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second.
- Shamanism now increases the spell power benefit to Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, and Chain Lightning by 36%, up from 32%.
- Fire Elemental now benefits from 55% of its master’s spell power, up from 50%
- Enhancement
- Improved Lava Lash now causes Lava Lash to spread a Flame Shock debuff from the target to up to 4 nearby targets. This excludes crowd-controlled targets and those who already have a Flame Shock debuff from the shaman.
- Improved Lava Lash no longer increases base Lava Lash damage by 15/30%. This increase has been rolled into the base Lava Lash skill.
- Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources.
- Maelstrom Weapon can now also proc from fully absorbed melee attacks.
- Unleashed Rage: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 10/20%, up from 5/10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 5/10%.
- Restoration
- Ancestral Healing now also causes the shaman’s heals to increase the target’s maximum health by 5/10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of the target’s maximum health, for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack if multiple Restoration shaman are present, and does not apply to heals from procs.
- Riptide’s periodic healing coefficient has been increased by 50%. The initial direct heal is unchanged.
- Elemental
So, last week or so, I finally got the Eye of Purification on my Enhance Shammy, and I tried to use it on one fight to see if the whole “caster weapon” thing was worth it, and my dps seemed to go down, so I switched back so we could kill the boss (we were on Ragnaros). Due to RL and work, I really hadn’t had a chance to mess around with it anymore, and now it doesn’t matter anyway because of the changes to Mental Quickness and Flametongue Weapon. It’s not that I didn’t know that was coming, I just needed to rant that out. 🙂
The nerf to Wind Shear bums me out. I hate it when PvP nerfs affect PvE. I know I can take talent points to make it all better, but I just don’t think I should have to. If I pick melee dps, I should get a 10 second interrupt. And if I DO have to spec into it, it should be in the melee talent tree. It’s really going to suck for lower level enhance shaman who can’t get into elemental tree. Of course, now that Improved Lava Lash is just rolled into the regular ability, low level shaman are going to destroy things faster than they did before.
The buff to Enhance AoE is nice. Flame shock is now like a Death Knight’s disease and spreads. It also makes for some really powerful Fire Novas.
The buff for melee dps to Might and similar buffs (Unleashed Rage), from 10% to 20% is really nice.
Priests:
- Divine Hymn now affects 5 targets, up from 3.
- Talent Specializations
- Discipline
- Atonement will now account for the target enemy’s combat reach when calculating proper range, enabling it to be used on large creatures such as Ragnaros and Ala’kir.
- Divine Aegis has a new spell effect.
- Holy
- Spirit of Redemption has been rebuilt to address a few functionality issues and make it more responsive. Spirit of Redemption otherwise remains unchanged.
- State of Mind has been redesigned and is now called Heavenly Voice. Heavenly Voice increases the healing done by Divine Hymn by 50/100%, and reduces the cooldown of Divine Hymn by 2.5/5 minutes.
- Guardian Spirit’s healing bonus has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.
- Holy Word: Serenity now has a cooldown of 10 seconds, down from 15 seconds.
- Discipline
- Glyphs
- Glyph of Circle of Healing now also increases the mana cost of Circle of Healing by 20%.
Well, Divine Hymn and Holy Priests seem to be getting a well needed buff. I haven’t played mine yet to confirm but I’m excited to at least have a 3 minute raid cooldown, especially for when I queue for the Raid Finder on her sometime in the next few days.
The nerf to the Circle of Healing Glyph is aggravating and I will probably drop the Glyph for something else.
I thought I remembered reading that the Holy Priest Healing circle got buffed or its mana cost reduced, but maybe that was just a dream (or didn’t make it from the PTR).
Paladins:
- Holy Radiance now has a 3.0-second cast time, no cooldown, and requires a player target. That target is imbued with Holy Radiance, which heals them and all group members within 10 yards instantly, and continues to heal them by a smaller amount every 1 second for 3 seconds.
- Seal of Insight, when Judged, no longer returns 15% base mana to the paladin. Judging Seal of Insight still causes damage, and melee attacks will still restore 4% of base mana.
- Holy:
- In addition to providing haste, the effect from Judgements of the Pure now increases mana regeneration from Spirit by 10/20/30% for 60 seconds.
- Light of Dawn now affects 6 targets (base effect), up from 5.
Holy Paladins I think deserved that nerf. They were way too hard to kill in PvP. And my fresh lvl85 Holy Pally had no mana issues which always seemed wrong.
That’s all my thoughts for now on 4.3. I had one more thing that I wanted to write about in the last week or so and that is the Jaws of Defeat, the healing trinket. But I guess that’ll have to wait.
Thanksgiving Wouldn’t Be Complete without a Ritual Sacrifice…
Happy Thanksgiving All!
Ritual sacrifice you say? Well, Heroic Baleroc finally fell last night after many nights of pain and frustration. And if I could eat the fiery ugly giant, I would. Well, not really, but with all that fire in Firelands I’d think he’d already be cooked!
Anyways, we’re 4/7 Heroic now, so woot. And Happy Turkey Day to all.
Moonstarria 
