I have been really pondering as of late what the Devs at Blizzard could do to fix the monk class in 5.2, and the more I go over it, the more I feel like many issues could be handled through the addition of a couple healing centered glyphs. (This would be good too, because currently, the mistweaver monk glyphs are not very interesting or helpful) So below I am making a list of the glyphs I think should be added to the game in 5.2 to help compensate for the overly harsh nerf.
1. Glyph of Spreading Mists - This would be a glyph that would let our renewing mists again hit three extra targets instead of two, but with the tradeoff of a weaker renweing mist hot, and a weaker uplift. What percent to decrease renewing mist and uplift would need to be determined by Blizzard, as they have the numbers and I do not. In essence, this would let you choose to have fewer hots out, that hit harder and can be uplifted for greater output, or you could have more hots, that are weaker and can't be uplifted for greater output. Thus, the healing output would remain the same, but they way you choose to put out that healing would be a player choice.
2. Glyph of Mana Sphere - this glyph would cause the chance for crit to give extra mana tea stacks, to instead have your mastery bubbles, when used, have a chance to give extra tea stacks. Obviously Blizzard would have to tune it, but this would then allow for more of a debate between whether to use crit or mastery, and that preference could change from fight to fight, depending on how effective mastery is on the fight.
3. Glyph of Spinning Mana Tea Kick - This glyph would cause you to consume 2 mana tea stacks everytime you cast spinning crane kick (without starting the cd for Mana Tea use), but would only give 2/3 of the normal mana back. (or whatever amount would be needed so that it would tune properly). This would make use of spinning crane kick a little less painful, because you would get some mana back, and still be able to use mana tea right afterwards since the cd wasn't used.
4. Glyph of Rushing Jade Wind - This glyph would reduce the mana cost of spinning crane kick while Rushing Jade Wind is active, but reduce its healing by x% (whatever would make it tuned properly). This would allow spinning crane kick to again be a viable stacked aoe healing option, but not make the choice of rushing jade wind mandatory, as Xuen is still a great talent to choose.
5. Glyph of Uplifting Renewal - Every time you cast uplift, it will increase the duration of every renewing mist by two ticks, but cause uplift to heal for 20% less (or whatever number will cause the healing to balance.
I feel each of these glyphs would allow our current healing abilities to have more utility and let us choose the glyph that best fits a fight rather then choosing glyphs that have little or no efftect on how we approach a boss. Do you have any ideas for good glyphs to help fix the Mistweaver healing class? Add them in the comments.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Alternatives to dailies...
Almost every time I have seen a blue post on the topic of why players hate dailies, the response is almost always, "What would you suggest we do instead of dailies?" So this post intends to bring up some possible answers to that question, as well as to invite you, the reader to share your ideas as well.
First off, I will start by saying I am in the camp of people who hate dailies. I know many people like them, but I do not. My addictive nature causes me to view them as mandatory jobs rather then a fun option on how to play my game. As such, I would love to see options introduced to replace dailies, preferably solutions that require less Dev time to create then dailies. I refuse to believe that dailies are the best model. I think they are just the easiest and most likely model to keep players logging in everyday and not unsubbing.
So now for the list of possible other options:
1. Dynamic World Boss with no grouping requirements - This one may be wishful thinking as I don't know what the programming constraints would be on such a boss, but I would love to see world bosses that don't require you to enter a raid group to fight. These bosses would split damage amongst all players in front of them, so that multiple tanks could soak the damage. They would have a stacking debuff everytime a player tags them (tagging doesn't make them turn grey, just makes you part of the fight) that would increase the damage they do, and if the rival faction wants to help you kill them, it is allowed. Lastly, on PVP servers, rival faction could also choose to attack you instead of helping on the boss. These bosses could be in lots of different areas, and offer loot equivalent to heroic dungeon gear. (This would act as an in world equivalent to gear other then running heroic dungeons)
2. In world timed scenarios - Instead of making scenarios instanced, make bigger scale scenarios that are in world and occur at specific times. Kinda like a bigger version of the cata launch event where every hour, a scenario starts somewhere in the game world. The more people who join the scenario, the more AI opponents that are added to the event. These events could include attacking a city (theramore maybe...), defending a city (Undercity), attacking on the plains of battle (arathi highlands), Wiping out demons armies (Badlands), infiltrating a strategic battle point. These scenarios would be like pve versions of Wintergrasp or Baradin Hold. And by having one available every hour (maybe every 15 minutes over an expansion or two, as more of these are added in), means that every time you log in, you are only a short wait away from another event.
3. In world battlegrounds - bring back pvp battles that take place in world. Use the wintergrasp technology to balance out differing numbers of players and like the previous idea, have four different ones that cycle every hour so that there is an in world battelground every hour, but you can only do the same one once every four hours since they cycle.
4. Races - Create race courses in various real world places, let contestants pay gold to enter the race, and then the winner of the race gets a gold payout, or loot item. These races have strict movement rules, such as: Only mounts, only class speed boosts, just regular running, flying using your mount through obstacles, etc. Players can stand outside the track and watch the races (much like brawler's guild) as well as betting on who they think will win (an in game oddsmaker to make bets with). These races like previous other ideas, happen at specific plannable timetables, and must be pre-registered atleast half an hour before the event to participate.
5. Once a day (at random times), capitol attack or defense - Each capitol will be attacked by npc's once per day, and players can join their sides npcs as they attack or defend the city. Successful repulsion of the invading forces results in a loot bag, much like scenarios. If you are apart of the attacking city and succeed in taking out the capitals leader, you get a loot bag. Attacking campaigns will be announced to offensive players throughout the world one hour before the attack happens. Defending campaigns will be announced to players on the defending team, five minutes before the attack happens. These will be sceduled to take place at peak times of play, so that in a given night, you have five chances to participate, depending on which capitol is attacked. This will be an active pvp event, so while it is happening, low level players will need to hide in the city till it is over or leave the city (get the woman and children out of the city anyone). There could even be a low level quest allowing low level players to assist in evacuating the city.
6. Non - expansion and patch based dailies - I know, not the best idea, but if you are gonna have dailies they need to still be viable after a new patch. So let them keep rewarding items that are applicable to the current tier. For example, TOC dailies granting lesser charms and valor.
I will give some thought and see if I can come up with anymore ideas, but this is my list up to this point. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments. Hopefully, somebody from Blizzard will see this and decide to implement something other then dailies to keep us busy in game every day.
First off, I will start by saying I am in the camp of people who hate dailies. I know many people like them, but I do not. My addictive nature causes me to view them as mandatory jobs rather then a fun option on how to play my game. As such, I would love to see options introduced to replace dailies, preferably solutions that require less Dev time to create then dailies. I refuse to believe that dailies are the best model. I think they are just the easiest and most likely model to keep players logging in everyday and not unsubbing.
So now for the list of possible other options:
1. Dynamic World Boss with no grouping requirements - This one may be wishful thinking as I don't know what the programming constraints would be on such a boss, but I would love to see world bosses that don't require you to enter a raid group to fight. These bosses would split damage amongst all players in front of them, so that multiple tanks could soak the damage. They would have a stacking debuff everytime a player tags them (tagging doesn't make them turn grey, just makes you part of the fight) that would increase the damage they do, and if the rival faction wants to help you kill them, it is allowed. Lastly, on PVP servers, rival faction could also choose to attack you instead of helping on the boss. These bosses could be in lots of different areas, and offer loot equivalent to heroic dungeon gear. (This would act as an in world equivalent to gear other then running heroic dungeons)
2. In world timed scenarios - Instead of making scenarios instanced, make bigger scale scenarios that are in world and occur at specific times. Kinda like a bigger version of the cata launch event where every hour, a scenario starts somewhere in the game world. The more people who join the scenario, the more AI opponents that are added to the event. These events could include attacking a city (theramore maybe...), defending a city (Undercity), attacking on the plains of battle (arathi highlands), Wiping out demons armies (Badlands), infiltrating a strategic battle point. These scenarios would be like pve versions of Wintergrasp or Baradin Hold. And by having one available every hour (maybe every 15 minutes over an expansion or two, as more of these are added in), means that every time you log in, you are only a short wait away from another event.
3. In world battlegrounds - bring back pvp battles that take place in world. Use the wintergrasp technology to balance out differing numbers of players and like the previous idea, have four different ones that cycle every hour so that there is an in world battelground every hour, but you can only do the same one once every four hours since they cycle.
4. Races - Create race courses in various real world places, let contestants pay gold to enter the race, and then the winner of the race gets a gold payout, or loot item. These races have strict movement rules, such as: Only mounts, only class speed boosts, just regular running, flying using your mount through obstacles, etc. Players can stand outside the track and watch the races (much like brawler's guild) as well as betting on who they think will win (an in game oddsmaker to make bets with). These races like previous other ideas, happen at specific plannable timetables, and must be pre-registered atleast half an hour before the event to participate.
5. Once a day (at random times), capitol attack or defense - Each capitol will be attacked by npc's once per day, and players can join their sides npcs as they attack or defend the city. Successful repulsion of the invading forces results in a loot bag, much like scenarios. If you are apart of the attacking city and succeed in taking out the capitals leader, you get a loot bag. Attacking campaigns will be announced to offensive players throughout the world one hour before the attack happens. Defending campaigns will be announced to players on the defending team, five minutes before the attack happens. These will be sceduled to take place at peak times of play, so that in a given night, you have five chances to participate, depending on which capitol is attacked. This will be an active pvp event, so while it is happening, low level players will need to hide in the city till it is over or leave the city (get the woman and children out of the city anyone). There could even be a low level quest allowing low level players to assist in evacuating the city.
6. Non - expansion and patch based dailies - I know, not the best idea, but if you are gonna have dailies they need to still be viable after a new patch. So let them keep rewarding items that are applicable to the current tier. For example, TOC dailies granting lesser charms and valor.
I will give some thought and see if I can come up with anymore ideas, but this is my list up to this point. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments. Hopefully, somebody from Blizzard will see this and decide to implement something other then dailies to keep us busy in game every day.
Monday, December 17, 2012
The problem when things are broken...
This weekend, I was in game, finishing my dailies on Saturday, as well as capping out on valor. I was super excited because this is the earliest in the week I have ever capped out my valor. I started for the first time Since Mists of Pandaria dropped, to think about what alt I would like to play the rest of the week. Once I valor capped, I logged off, so that my wife could use the computer. While she was doing the stuff she needed to, I finally decided to level my priest from 85-90 (or atleast start this weekend), mainly because he can disenchant, and I could use the mats.
When my wife finished, she shut the computer down and went back to taking care of our baby. When I turned the computer back on to get going with my priest, the computer turned on, but the monitor stayed in sleep mode. Thinking maybe a connection was loose, I checked all the
connections. Nothing there. Then I thought maybe the monitor was dead so I hooked it up to my tv (only other monitor I had to test the connection). Nothing there. Then I searched online, and got either no information, or so much information that who knows what to do with it. Nothing there. About this time, I gave up, determined to look for a fix on Sunday.
I still have a couple aces up my sleeve, but it is looking more and more unlikely that I will be able to get my computer running again. Also, money is tight, so it is going to be a while before I can afford a new one, and so now I sit, playing the waiting game, and feeling guilty, because this will likely affect my guild's progress negatively (not because I am irreplaceable, but because my replacement is seriously undergeared).
With all the extra time I now had in the weekend, I started thinking about my Monk, and how much I would miss playing him. (My wife was secretly happy...a break from the raiding schedule) Then I thought of the gambit of emotions I went through post 5.1. More then a few times I referred to my class as broken, both in this blog and with people I talked to about it. And to a certain degree, he is, but he is still playable, and my performance didn't drop so much as to necessitate replacing me. I just gotta try harder, and be a little better.
Hopefully I can get my computer running, even if not well, because I can deal with broken, as long as it is functionable...
P.S. If I can't get my computer fixed, then this blog might be taking a little vacation until I can get a new one.
When my wife finished, she shut the computer down and went back to taking care of our baby. When I turned the computer back on to get going with my priest, the computer turned on, but the monitor stayed in sleep mode. Thinking maybe a connection was loose, I checked all the
connections. Nothing there. Then I thought maybe the monitor was dead so I hooked it up to my tv (only other monitor I had to test the connection). Nothing there. Then I searched online, and got either no information, or so much information that who knows what to do with it. Nothing there. About this time, I gave up, determined to look for a fix on Sunday.
I still have a couple aces up my sleeve, but it is looking more and more unlikely that I will be able to get my computer running again. Also, money is tight, so it is going to be a while before I can afford a new one, and so now I sit, playing the waiting game, and feeling guilty, because this will likely affect my guild's progress negatively (not because I am irreplaceable, but because my replacement is seriously undergeared).
With all the extra time I now had in the weekend, I started thinking about my Monk, and how much I would miss playing him. (My wife was secretly happy...a break from the raiding schedule) Then I thought of the gambit of emotions I went through post 5.1. More then a few times I referred to my class as broken, both in this blog and with people I talked to about it. And to a certain degree, he is, but he is still playable, and my performance didn't drop so much as to necessitate replacing me. I just gotta try harder, and be a little better.
Hopefully I can get my computer running, even if not well, because I can deal with broken, as long as it is functionable...
P.S. If I can't get my computer fixed, then this blog might be taking a little vacation until I can get a new one.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Why I am grateful for Blizzard (Thanks Shy at Wow)
I was pretty bored today, and didn't have any new blogs to read, so I started going through the archives of some of my favorite blogs, specifically to see how their blogs started and eveolved over time. It was actually quite an enjoyable experience. Then I came across a post that made me stop, and come back to my blog to add a new post. I must apologize to Shy at Wow for stealing her idea, but I felt like my response was too much to be a comment on hers, and was also important enough to be seen rather then buried in the comment section of a blog written years earlier. Her blog post focused on the reason she loved Blizzard, and that is what I intend to do to. (One of the comments thanked Blizzard because if they hadn't made this game, they would not have made some of the really good friends they have made in game...I was just kinda touched by that one, and it is true...so it will be one of my reasons too)
1. For only making GREAT games.
I have been playing Blizzard games clear back to Warcraft I, and I have loved every one. They all became the "picture of excellence" in that genre. I appreciate that they never rush out a crap game to make quick money, but instead wait until it is good enough to be the best game around of that genre. They kind of remind me of Pixar with their movies, or disney during the Little Mermaid to Lion King span. It is refreshing to see a company that puts making a great game above making money, and ironically enough, they have proven making a great game results in more money anyways, so thank you.
2. Starcraft open play maps
Many an hour was spent in college playing rpg games built using the starcraft engine. I still remember the epic William Wallace battle, played out with starcraft troops, as well as the well designed Matrix game, also played out with Starcraft troops. It was such an simple concept letting users make their own maps, and yet, that is the brilliance of Blizzard, using player input to make their games better.
3. Diablo II (enough said)
Diablo II is still my favorite game I ever played, and the cinematics in it still give me chills. The story was the first game I ever played that had a story that made me emotionally connected to a game (I know, I am a nerd) but it was just a great game on every level, and every so often, I still go back and dabble in it a bit.
4. Patience
Sometimes it is frustrating when there is a problem with a blizzard game and it seems to take them forever to fix it, but referring back to number one, they don't rush to fix problems and potentially break the game worse (with only a few exceptions). They instead endure the constant abuse from the trolls, and fix it in their own time and in the right way. I am grateful they are patient and choose to fix things right, instead of quick.
5. Friends
I am not social by my very nature (I am an aspergers adult and so making friends is not the easiest thing to me. I am very grateful that they created a way for me to do my favorite thing, play video games, and make it easy to make friends while I am at it. I have some close friends who are my friends because of this game, but will continue to be my friends even when this game ends.
6. Saving me money
I used to buy atleast one, somtimes two console games a month, prewow. Since I started playing WOW three years ago, I have bought three console games total. So, while $15 a month may seem like a lot, the way I devour games, it has saved me hundreds of dollars.
Blizzard is a model of how companies should be run, gaming or otherwise. It is not coincedence that their games are always the best, and thanks to them, gaming as a whole has improved. For every wow killer out there, there has been a game that was great, not because of what they did, but because of what they learned from WOW. Without WOW, the current MMO genre of games would not be nearly as good as they are.
THANK YOU BLIZZARD!!!!
A Loyal Customer!
1. For only making GREAT games.
I have been playing Blizzard games clear back to Warcraft I, and I have loved every one. They all became the "picture of excellence" in that genre. I appreciate that they never rush out a crap game to make quick money, but instead wait until it is good enough to be the best game around of that genre. They kind of remind me of Pixar with their movies, or disney during the Little Mermaid to Lion King span. It is refreshing to see a company that puts making a great game above making money, and ironically enough, they have proven making a great game results in more money anyways, so thank you.
2. Starcraft open play maps
Many an hour was spent in college playing rpg games built using the starcraft engine. I still remember the epic William Wallace battle, played out with starcraft troops, as well as the well designed Matrix game, also played out with Starcraft troops. It was such an simple concept letting users make their own maps, and yet, that is the brilliance of Blizzard, using player input to make their games better.
3. Diablo II (enough said)
Diablo II is still my favorite game I ever played, and the cinematics in it still give me chills. The story was the first game I ever played that had a story that made me emotionally connected to a game (I know, I am a nerd) but it was just a great game on every level, and every so often, I still go back and dabble in it a bit.
4. Patience
Sometimes it is frustrating when there is a problem with a blizzard game and it seems to take them forever to fix it, but referring back to number one, they don't rush to fix problems and potentially break the game worse (with only a few exceptions). They instead endure the constant abuse from the trolls, and fix it in their own time and in the right way. I am grateful they are patient and choose to fix things right, instead of quick.
5. Friends
I am not social by my very nature (I am an aspergers adult and so making friends is not the easiest thing to me. I am very grateful that they created a way for me to do my favorite thing, play video games, and make it easy to make friends while I am at it. I have some close friends who are my friends because of this game, but will continue to be my friends even when this game ends.
6. Saving me money
I used to buy atleast one, somtimes two console games a month, prewow. Since I started playing WOW three years ago, I have bought three console games total. So, while $15 a month may seem like a lot, the way I devour games, it has saved me hundreds of dollars.
Blizzard is a model of how companies should be run, gaming or otherwise. It is not coincedence that their games are always the best, and thanks to them, gaming as a whole has improved. For every wow killer out there, there has been a game that was great, not because of what they did, but because of what they learned from WOW. Without WOW, the current MMO genre of games would not be nearly as good as they are.
THANK YOU BLIZZARD!!!!
A Loyal Customer!
A pleasant turn of events...Good Dailies!
With patch 5.1, came lots of new content to keep World of Warcraft players busy, but I have to be honest...every time I read "new dailies" in the patch notes, I would cringe, knowing that I would again feel forced (not actually forced...but my competitive spirit basically means I am forced) to do more dailies. They sounded like a decent story for dailies, but I gotta be honest, I have yet to have a set of dailies I enjoyed doing. The closest was the firelands dailies, due to the good story, but even those got old real quick.
I feel like the shieldwall dailies are the best Blizzard has ever done, and for a very different reason then most would expect. It has nothing to do with the actual quests...THEY SUCK as much as the others. It instead has to do with an adjustment they made to the story telling process that has evolved from firelands dailies to golden lotus dailies, to now shieldwall dailies. So what is this change that make maddeningly repetitive quests actually fun...it is more frequent story tie-ins that are not told through the daily quests themselves.
If you are like me, when you do dailies, it is all about how to finish the objectives as quickly as possible. As a result, I never pay attention to the stories in the actual dailiy quests. In the golden lotus quests, the only story I got was the quest chain you did inbetween each level of rep. These were great quest chains, but seeing a new story every week or two, makes the story feel disconnected and confusing.
With the shield wall quests, they have these quest chains multiple times inbetween each level of rep. As a result, I have a fun quest chain every 2-3 days. These quest chains keep me coming back day by day because I want to see the next piece of the story. They occur frequently enough that I don't lose interest, and they let me interact with key players in the World of Warcraft world, so I feel like the true hero I should be.
Shieldwall is the first set of dailies I enjoyed doing on a daily basis, but it wasn't because the quests are fun, it is because the cool story quest I got two days ago, is fresh in my mind, and driving me to get to the next one. This is good story development and good daily development.
Don't get me wrong, I wish they would create quests that are more fun, and less punishing if there happens to be lots of people around you doing the same quests, but if they can continue the trend towards dailies that reward you with a new storyline quest every 2-3 days, then I will drastically change my opinion on dailies. If every rep I was grinding pre 5.1 had used this same model, I still would have hated having to do that many dailies, but I would have enjoyed doing them a lot more.
So here is to Blizzard learning from this model and continuing on with it. Maybe after a few more patches of these kind of dailies, I will look at the patch notes, see "new dailies" and give a silent cheer instead of a groan at what is to come.
I feel like the shieldwall dailies are the best Blizzard has ever done, and for a very different reason then most would expect. It has nothing to do with the actual quests...THEY SUCK as much as the others. It instead has to do with an adjustment they made to the story telling process that has evolved from firelands dailies to golden lotus dailies, to now shieldwall dailies. So what is this change that make maddeningly repetitive quests actually fun...it is more frequent story tie-ins that are not told through the daily quests themselves.
If you are like me, when you do dailies, it is all about how to finish the objectives as quickly as possible. As a result, I never pay attention to the stories in the actual dailiy quests. In the golden lotus quests, the only story I got was the quest chain you did inbetween each level of rep. These were great quest chains, but seeing a new story every week or two, makes the story feel disconnected and confusing.
With the shield wall quests, they have these quest chains multiple times inbetween each level of rep. As a result, I have a fun quest chain every 2-3 days. These quest chains keep me coming back day by day because I want to see the next piece of the story. They occur frequently enough that I don't lose interest, and they let me interact with key players in the World of Warcraft world, so I feel like the true hero I should be.
Shieldwall is the first set of dailies I enjoyed doing on a daily basis, but it wasn't because the quests are fun, it is because the cool story quest I got two days ago, is fresh in my mind, and driving me to get to the next one. This is good story development and good daily development.
Don't get me wrong, I wish they would create quests that are more fun, and less punishing if there happens to be lots of people around you doing the same quests, but if they can continue the trend towards dailies that reward you with a new storyline quest every 2-3 days, then I will drastically change my opinion on dailies. If every rep I was grinding pre 5.1 had used this same model, I still would have hated having to do that many dailies, but I would have enjoyed doing them a lot more.
So here is to Blizzard learning from this model and continuing on with it. Maybe after a few more patches of these kind of dailies, I will look at the patch notes, see "new dailies" and give a silent cheer instead of a groan at what is to come.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Wrathion Quest Line
This last weekend, I finally got my +500 intellect wrathion gem (I know, pretty sad it took so long, but I did lose a month at the beginning of the expansion to work towards it). I still wish I had a +500 spirit gem option as I would totally use that and then gladly pay 10k gold when I finally have enough spirit on gear to not need spirit anymore (I love you 5.1 mana hotfix), but with that said, 500 intellect is still really nice, and I am glad I have it.
Getting that gem made me think it would be fun to do a post on my feelings for the whole Wrathion questline to date, so here goes...
First off, I know that for many of the wow player base, Wrathion is not well liked. But for me, I think his character is awesome. I love that I don't know whether he is good or evil. The badlands quests while leveling that detail his orgin story are still in my opinion, the best quests in whole game. (if you haven't done them, go to badlands, and do all the quests there, you won't regret it...I hope) Also, he just seems to brim with amazing power. I was really jealous of rogues in Dragon Soul, because I wanted to do that quest. I would watch videos about it, and it just looked like one of the coolest questlines ever made, especially for a legendary.
That was why I was so excited when I heard he would have a legendary questline for all players in MOP. Finally, I could get a chance to interact with the character that is quickly becoming one of my favorites in all of World of Warcraft. I think World of Warcraft's biggest problem was that they were running out of Warcraft 3 story lines to use for their current story, and by showing they can create new heros and lore, like Wrathion, they have shown that they can move forward.
Many people complain about the gating of the quests. True, collecting sigils and gathering 6000 VP takes a lot of time, but again, this is a legendary quest, so I don't mind. In fact, they could make it longer, and I would be fine with it, because I am just happy I get to be apart of it. The story and cinematics have been really fun, and I feel like I am making a connection with Wrathion, which is critical to story building, whether they choose to make him a hero or villian. (I think of the Drakuru storyline in Wrath, another great quest chain, where you come to care for the character, thus making his betrayal that much harder to handle, and making his death that much more vindicating). I imagine the same will happen with Wrathion. Either he will be a friend I fight with in many epic battles, or he will be the friend who I live long enough to see become my enemy. Either way, I am invested, personally, because I am developing a relationship with him in this quest.
There is still a lot to come, and who knows where the story will go from here, but I must say, one of the things I am most excited about each time I log, is building a bit more progress towards the wrathion questline.
The Wrathion questline is DAILY QUESTING DONE RIGHT. If dailies were more like his questline, I wouldn't mind doing them so much, because I would want to get on each day and see what will come next. Also, if you can't get on for a couple days, you are not way behind, because you can still catch up before the end of the week. (A side note on dailies, you could fix it by letting players pool quests from one day to another if you can't get on that day...just saying...also true for dungeons when you could get the daily bonus seven times a week, still think it is dumb they got rid of that)
So overall rundown, I think Wrathion is one of the best things they have done for the game in this expansion, and while it does have some negative issues, it is still just downright cool. I am so glad it is in the game, and can't wait until I unlock the next phase of the questchain.
P.S. And for all the haters who say it is bad because it takes too long...don't forget...this is a legendary questline. If you don't want the legendary, then don't worry about doing it. I would much rather have it take a long time and be legendary, then be quick, but lame.
Getting that gem made me think it would be fun to do a post on my feelings for the whole Wrathion questline to date, so here goes...
First off, I know that for many of the wow player base, Wrathion is not well liked. But for me, I think his character is awesome. I love that I don't know whether he is good or evil. The badlands quests while leveling that detail his orgin story are still in my opinion, the best quests in whole game. (if you haven't done them, go to badlands, and do all the quests there, you won't regret it...I hope) Also, he just seems to brim with amazing power. I was really jealous of rogues in Dragon Soul, because I wanted to do that quest. I would watch videos about it, and it just looked like one of the coolest questlines ever made, especially for a legendary.
That was why I was so excited when I heard he would have a legendary questline for all players in MOP. Finally, I could get a chance to interact with the character that is quickly becoming one of my favorites in all of World of Warcraft. I think World of Warcraft's biggest problem was that they were running out of Warcraft 3 story lines to use for their current story, and by showing they can create new heros and lore, like Wrathion, they have shown that they can move forward.
Many people complain about the gating of the quests. True, collecting sigils and gathering 6000 VP takes a lot of time, but again, this is a legendary quest, so I don't mind. In fact, they could make it longer, and I would be fine with it, because I am just happy I get to be apart of it. The story and cinematics have been really fun, and I feel like I am making a connection with Wrathion, which is critical to story building, whether they choose to make him a hero or villian. (I think of the Drakuru storyline in Wrath, another great quest chain, where you come to care for the character, thus making his betrayal that much harder to handle, and making his death that much more vindicating). I imagine the same will happen with Wrathion. Either he will be a friend I fight with in many epic battles, or he will be the friend who I live long enough to see become my enemy. Either way, I am invested, personally, because I am developing a relationship with him in this quest.
There is still a lot to come, and who knows where the story will go from here, but I must say, one of the things I am most excited about each time I log, is building a bit more progress towards the wrathion questline.
The Wrathion questline is DAILY QUESTING DONE RIGHT. If dailies were more like his questline, I wouldn't mind doing them so much, because I would want to get on each day and see what will come next. Also, if you can't get on for a couple days, you are not way behind, because you can still catch up before the end of the week. (A side note on dailies, you could fix it by letting players pool quests from one day to another if you can't get on that day...just saying...also true for dungeons when you could get the daily bonus seven times a week, still think it is dumb they got rid of that)
So overall rundown, I think Wrathion is one of the best things they have done for the game in this expansion, and while it does have some negative issues, it is still just downright cool. I am so glad it is in the game, and can't wait until I unlock the next phase of the questchain.
P.S. And for all the haters who say it is bad because it takes too long...don't forget...this is a legendary questline. If you don't want the legendary, then don't worry about doing it. I would much rather have it take a long time and be legendary, then be quick, but lame.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Garalon - Monk Healing Guide
This is by no means a comprehensive description of the fight, explaining all the mechanics (you will need to go to a site like icy veins for that). Nor is it a description of the best way to heal it, as I am not sure if my way is they best way. What I can tell you, is this is how I healed it in my 25 man guild that got it down, and I was the number two heals in the group, only behind a better geared holy priest. (This is post 5.1 nerf and hotfix mana nerf)
Garalon has the same mechanics the whole fight, so once you get it down, the fight becomes very manageable. The challenge is not in performing many mechanics at different times, but instead perfecting a few mechanics so you can do them over and over without error. As such, once you get it figured out, it is just a matter of doing the same thing over and over.
First off, you need to know how to do pheremones, in case you are asked to do it. (hopefully you won't as it makes it difficult to heal. The better your heal team is, the higher you can build stacks and the less likely you will need to do pheremones). Pheremones is a stacking debuff that increases the damage you take for a certain period of time. (I think it was 2 minutes) The more stacks you build, the more damage the raid takes as well, so every so often, you need to drop the stacks back to zero, and you do this by giving pheremones to another player. You do this by having that player come stand on you, then it will transfer. Once it transfers, you need to get away from that player immediately, so have separate directions set aside in advance for each player to run.
The reason for separating so quickly is that everytime a pheremone transfers players, Garalon does a massive aoe hit to the whole raid, and stuns all players for a few seconds. If you don't immediately separate, it will cause the pheremones to go back to you, causing a second crush, and since your stacks are still high, you would need to immediately transfer again, causing a third crush, and likely a wipe.
In addition, when you have pheromones, you periodically drop puddles of goo on the ground, so you need to stay out of those and kite outside the room so as to leave room in the middle for your raid to move. Pheromones is THE toughest part of the fight, if you get that figured out, you are close to a kill.
Now on to how to heal it as a monk. Start by placing a statue near the middle of the room. This will allow you to reach more players then with other placements, and will make it so you dont have to keep re-casting it every 30 seconds. When the pull occurs, use xuen right off the bat, and on cd. You may need to cast crackling jade lightening for a few seconds to make sure he attacks his target. Then, immediately cast life cocoon on a tank, and recast it on one of the tanks on cd after that. Then, immediately cast renewing mist and continue to cast it on cd. Whenever you have 6 renewing mists hots rolling and thunder focus tea up, use thunder focus tea, and then uplift to reset the stacks, and allow you to get 12 renewing mists rolling on the raid. Then just uplift to spend your extra chi. Make sure to glyph mana tea and use it on cd or you will oom very fast. If you have done all these things and still have open time, cast soothing mist on whoever is in range and is lowest health. If someone is almost dead, use surging mist while you cast soothing mists, but only if nothing else is available. Lastly, use Revival on the first crush, and then the very first crush after the cd resets throughout the rest of the fight. (Or save it for especially bad crushes, which will be more likely to save a wipe, but reduce your output overall due to a lack of getting an extra revival in...how good your healing team is will be a key player in which approach you take)
A few tips to finish off with. Do not EVER go in the purple circle under Garalon. Do not EVER go in the yellow goo left on the floor by pheromones, and do not EVER go in front of the boss where the tanks are. All three of these will cause you to die, and in some cases, cause the raid to wipe. If things get ugly, use your personal cooldowns to help with the damage, because if you are dead, you can't heal.
Do all these things repeatedly with perfection, along with your 24 other raid members, and you will get a kill.
Garalon has the same mechanics the whole fight, so once you get it down, the fight becomes very manageable. The challenge is not in performing many mechanics at different times, but instead perfecting a few mechanics so you can do them over and over without error. As such, once you get it figured out, it is just a matter of doing the same thing over and over.
First off, you need to know how to do pheremones, in case you are asked to do it. (hopefully you won't as it makes it difficult to heal. The better your heal team is, the higher you can build stacks and the less likely you will need to do pheremones). Pheremones is a stacking debuff that increases the damage you take for a certain period of time. (I think it was 2 minutes) The more stacks you build, the more damage the raid takes as well, so every so often, you need to drop the stacks back to zero, and you do this by giving pheremones to another player. You do this by having that player come stand on you, then it will transfer. Once it transfers, you need to get away from that player immediately, so have separate directions set aside in advance for each player to run.
The reason for separating so quickly is that everytime a pheremone transfers players, Garalon does a massive aoe hit to the whole raid, and stuns all players for a few seconds. If you don't immediately separate, it will cause the pheremones to go back to you, causing a second crush, and since your stacks are still high, you would need to immediately transfer again, causing a third crush, and likely a wipe.
In addition, when you have pheromones, you periodically drop puddles of goo on the ground, so you need to stay out of those and kite outside the room so as to leave room in the middle for your raid to move. Pheromones is THE toughest part of the fight, if you get that figured out, you are close to a kill.
Now on to how to heal it as a monk. Start by placing a statue near the middle of the room. This will allow you to reach more players then with other placements, and will make it so you dont have to keep re-casting it every 30 seconds. When the pull occurs, use xuen right off the bat, and on cd. You may need to cast crackling jade lightening for a few seconds to make sure he attacks his target. Then, immediately cast life cocoon on a tank, and recast it on one of the tanks on cd after that. Then, immediately cast renewing mist and continue to cast it on cd. Whenever you have 6 renewing mists hots rolling and thunder focus tea up, use thunder focus tea, and then uplift to reset the stacks, and allow you to get 12 renewing mists rolling on the raid. Then just uplift to spend your extra chi. Make sure to glyph mana tea and use it on cd or you will oom very fast. If you have done all these things and still have open time, cast soothing mist on whoever is in range and is lowest health. If someone is almost dead, use surging mist while you cast soothing mists, but only if nothing else is available. Lastly, use Revival on the first crush, and then the very first crush after the cd resets throughout the rest of the fight. (Or save it for especially bad crushes, which will be more likely to save a wipe, but reduce your output overall due to a lack of getting an extra revival in...how good your healing team is will be a key player in which approach you take)
A few tips to finish off with. Do not EVER go in the purple circle under Garalon. Do not EVER go in the yellow goo left on the floor by pheromones, and do not EVER go in front of the boss where the tanks are. All three of these will cause you to die, and in some cases, cause the raid to wipe. If things get ugly, use your personal cooldowns to help with the damage, because if you are dead, you can't heal.
Do all these things repeatedly with perfection, along with your 24 other raid members, and you will get a kill.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Post 5.1 Mistweaver Monk Healing Guide
(This is by no means meants to be an expert guide...I am not yet in heroic raiding for this tier, but since information on monk healingis not easy to come by, I thought I would list my insights based on my own research and my own raiding experience as a Mistweaver Monk)
This post is specifically meant to address the changes in healing for the mistweaver after the 5.1 nerf and the subsequent 5.1 hotfix that so drastically affected this spec.
I will start with the new stat priorities:
This post is specifically meant to address the changes in healing for the mistweaver after the 5.1 nerf and the subsequent 5.1 hotfix that so drastically affected this spec.
I will start with the new stat priorities:
Spirit -> Int -> Haste to 3148 -> Crit -> Mastery -> Haste above 3148
Mastery may look like a nice stat for output, and it is, but with the mana increases from the hotfix, crit is needed as much as possible, along with as much spirit as possible to not run out of mana mid fight. If you are early in gearing, and mana is an issue, you might even want to consider pushing crit before haste to 3148, but if you choose this route, switch back to haste to 3148 as quickly as possible.
Tank Healing
Tank healing will be your strongest role post 5.1. Mistweavers can aoe heal, and can do it quite well, but our aoe is so expensive, and as such it is better to let the classes that have less mana constraints on their aoe focus on the aoe healing. The one notable exception to this is garalon and elegon, as these fights are built with monk aoe healing in mind.
If you are tanking, always start by placing your statue within 20 yards of either the other tank, your melee group, of if the range is grouped up, the ranged. I personally like to put it near the other tank so it can best benefit the other tank.
One tank healing
If your assignment is to keep one tank alive, and not worry about the other, then this is what you should do. Cast renewing mist on the tank. Then cast Zen sphere on the tank. Then cast soothing mist until you have 3 chi, at which point you will cast enveloping mists on the tank. (Soothing Mist is used instead of jab, because during soothing mist channeling, both enveloping mists and surging mists are instant cast heals) Cast this even if the tank doesn't need it, because you need the chi spent to create mana tea stacks for mana. If the tank drops below 50% and you don't have an enveloping mist available, cast surging mists. Surging mist will give you a chi for each cast, and thus will let you cast enveloping mists sooner. Refresh renewing mists and zen sphere whenver they fall off. (Cast your mana tea stacks whenever damage is low, or if you have it glyphed, on cd) Use Life Cocoon when there will be a predictable damage spike on your tank, or if he is below 20%.
NEVER HARD CAST ENVELOPING MIST OR SURGING MIST!
Dual tank healing
Sometimes you may be asked to try to keep two tank up at the same time. This is very doable with a Mistweaver. The only difference is that you don't cast zen sphere, and instead use the chi you would have used for that to roll a second enveloping mist on the second tank. Dual tank healing requires a lot more switching of soothing mists target between tanks.
Aoe Spread Healing
There are two options for aoe spread healing, but for both, it is best if you are in melee range. Both options start with you rolling renewing mists on the raid on cooldown and then jabbing for chi. Whenever there will be a big aoe damage spike coming in the next 10-15 seconds, cast thunder focus tea, and then uplift in order to reset the 6 stacks of renewing mist to their original duration. Then, you can either use uplift or chi burst to spend the chi you gain with renewing mists. If melee is stacked, and their is a path of ranged leading to the melee, then stand at the back of the ranged, and then cast chi burst on the boss, it will run through the ranged, healing them, and then through the melee as it hits the boss. This results in extremely high healing output. If the melee are not stacked, or there is no clear path of ranged to shoot it through, use uplift instead. If your renewing mists targets are close to full health, then chi burst is the better option, even if there is not a good group to shoot it through (melee will almost always be in a stacked group around boss, giving you a group to shoot it through). Regardless of which you use, during any mechanic where the bulk of the raid goes below 70%, you should use revival as an instant cast health pick up. (below 50% is even better, but if you wait for the raid to get this low, you run the risk of a raid member dying before you cast it, and the benefit is only slightly greater)
Aoe Stacked Healing
Your best option here is spinning crane kick, but unfortunately, since the hotfix, this is now too expensive to do more then 2 or 3 times in a row. so inbetween, use chi burst on yourself (if stacked away from the boss) or on the boss (if group is stacked on the boss). It is helpful to roll renewing mist as well, but it is now always easy to squeeze this in, if the damage is high. If the bulk of the group goes under 70%, use revival to pop people back up. You can also cast renewing mist 10-15 seconds before stacking and use uplift in between spinning crane kicks, but if you choose this approach, you need to set it up 10-20 seconds in advance. You can also cast Zen sphere on a target in the stack, and then cast it to burst the hot for an aoe heal, but the 4 chi cost to use it seems too high for me when so many other options are available.
Level 30 Talent
If one tank healing, take Zen sphere and cast it on the tank. If aoe healing, take chi burst. If you want something easy to use that will not require much thought, use chi wave, but be aware that this is only a hps gain if you are using the other two abilities the wrong way. Proper use of chi burst and zen sphere accomplish more then chi wave.
Level 90 Talent
People like to debate this one, but there is really no debate, especially after the hotfix change that made spinning crane kick to expensive to use a lot. Pick Xuen. He does a lot of damage, and does incredible amounts of eminence healing. In virtually all cases (there are some wierd situations that are otherwise) you will get more raw healing output from Xuen. If you are doing heroic raiding, there may be times to use the others, but otherwise Xuen is best. Some argue chi torpedo is good because it is free and can be cast often, but using chi torpedo will prevent you from having roll available for movement, which is not a good thing, so I still choose Xuen.
Jab vs. Soothing Mist
Jab is now more expensive then it used to be, but still produces more chi then soothing mist will. So, if your gear is good enough, jab for chi, if not, then soothing mist may be your better option. If you choose to jab for chi, it is critical you have good jade statue placement.
Eminence Healing
Eminence healing will never produce the same output as outright healing, but can be beneficial at certain times. Fights like elegon, where dps gets a buff, are great for eminence healing. It is also great in low damage phases. The most traditional way is to be in melee range, jab for chi, cast tiger palm once every 20 seconds to keep the buff up, and then use blackout kick as your chi spender that will also create a buff that can stack twice. By keeping both buffs up, you can push around 25-30k heals in decent gear. Also, you should be using Xuen on cd while eminence healing. Make sure you spend your mana tea on cooldown as eminence healing is very mana intensive.
There is also another way to eminence heal that requires little effort and can produce higher healing numbers, but it is very inefficient on mana, and will cause you to go oom before the fight is over. (I use this in lfr when I am too lazy to actually heal...and I still often get 40-50k heals) You start by placing your statue near the melee group, and then from ranged cast crackling jade lightening. When you get 4 chi, cut off your lightening cast and cast two chi bursts. Make sure you are behind all the range when you cast chi burst and that the melee group is between you and the boss. Once chi is spent, go back to crackling jad lightening. Use Xuen on cd, and make sure to spend your mana tea stacks on cd, because this will drain your mana fast. If chi burst placement is optimal, you can put up some very good healing numbers using this style. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS STYLE IN REGULAR RAIDS, your raid leader might take your spot away if you do.
Gems, Enchants, and Buffs
Previous to 5.1 we had some wiggle room with these, but post 5.1, spirit is king. If you can'get spirit, get crit, and if you can't get that, get int. Mastery and haste should only be taken if there are not other options. I am not going to go into a big list on these as there are plenty of sites you can go to to get optimal gems, buffs, and enchants.
If money is not an issue, or time to farm the mats is not an issue, steamed crab is the food of choice, not feasts...even if your raid does drop feasts before each boss.
In a later post, I will give some tips on specific bosses to maximize output, but that is a post for another day.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The importance of communication
If you read my posts the last two days, you know I am pretty disheartened. But then last night, while on mmo-champion, I saw a one sentance summary of something ghostcrawler said in an interview. It said that he felt the monk class needed more work the all the others, and that specifically, the mistweaver was proving to be very hard to balance.
This by no means makes the recent nerf storm better, but it does something that I think is more important. It helps with the mental approach monks take to healing. Knowing that Blizzard is having a hard time (and as such likely overreacting in their efforts) allows me to be fairly confident that they are aware of the problem and actively working on it. I don't mind changes, as long as they are moving towards a better solution. Monks needed a lot of work, so I think they truly are trying to move to a better solution that is easier to balance then the current model. Reality is, I prefer changes, even nerfs, if it leads to a better gameplay solution.
So, while I am sure I will be very frustrated again tonight as we take on heroic stone guards, it now goes back to a post I made a couple days back on why I am not stressed about the daily issue. They are fixing it, and it will take time, but like I said in that post, Blizzard never fixes things overnight, but they almost always fix things within 2-4 months. So even if I have to wait until 5.2 to get the fix, it is nice to know it is coming.
I can deal with some bad, if I know it will get better, and in this case, I now believe it will get better. My last post on the nerf, I explained that the worst part was not the nerf, but the lack of communication as to why. Now that they have (albeit in a one line confession), I find I can go back to monk healing a little less discouraged, and a lot more hopeful.
This by no means makes the recent nerf storm better, but it does something that I think is more important. It helps with the mental approach monks take to healing. Knowing that Blizzard is having a hard time (and as such likely overreacting in their efforts) allows me to be fairly confident that they are aware of the problem and actively working on it. I don't mind changes, as long as they are moving towards a better solution. Monks needed a lot of work, so I think they truly are trying to move to a better solution that is easier to balance then the current model. Reality is, I prefer changes, even nerfs, if it leads to a better gameplay solution.
So, while I am sure I will be very frustrated again tonight as we take on heroic stone guards, it now goes back to a post I made a couple days back on why I am not stressed about the daily issue. They are fixing it, and it will take time, but like I said in that post, Blizzard never fixes things overnight, but they almost always fix things within 2-4 months. So even if I have to wait until 5.2 to get the fix, it is nice to know it is coming.
I can deal with some bad, if I know it will get better, and in this case, I now believe it will get better. My last post on the nerf, I explained that the worst part was not the nerf, but the lack of communication as to why. Now that they have (albeit in a one line confession), I find I can go back to monk healing a little less discouraged, and a lot more hopeful.
LFR solutions
A major problem for lfr cropped up right around the time the Garalon fight became available in LFR. The fight was not tuned properly and as such, became a wipe fest. People, getting sick of wiping to Garalon and wanting to get the loot from the other two bosses, started clicking no whenever the queue was not a fresh queue. Even after they fixed the Garalon issues, the problem persisited. Blizzard feels this is a bad situation because it makes it a lot less likely that you will get a fresh run, as well as holding players hostage who are in the current run on the last boss, because they can't fill their group.
To fix this, Blizzard implemented a change that makes it where you can't see what boss the group is on, and then a blue poster in a very cheeky tone, said we should not be upset because the extra valor makes it worth doing their way. This is not true, and the totally wrong way to handle this problem.
The solution is very easy. We currently have 16 raid bosses. That is a lot of raiding to hit every boss, and every possible loot configuration, but once you have done a boss once, there is no point in doing a fight all over again. Instead of rewarding valor at the end of the run, valor should be rewarded on a 20 vp per boss basis. That way, doing lfr three times would get you 960 valor, basically capping you. This would give people like me, who hate dailies, a way to cap vaor by doing what I enjoy. In addition, give 2 lesser charms per boss, so that in that same three runs, I can get 96 charms, 6 more then I need for my elder charms. My well geared healer helping lfr's go on (as well as other well geared players) would help lesser geared players get the boss down, and would also make it so that I would not care if I started on the last boss, because I still get the reward.
This would give incentive to do lfr even when you have already done a boss, and for the full run, you can offer the same goody bag that are offered to tanks in lfr. That as well, would act as an incentive to keep people in for the last boss. It wouldn't solve every problem, but I think it is way better then not telling me what boss the raid is on so I will be forced to either take a queue debuff or do a boss I don't need or want to do.
To fix this, Blizzard implemented a change that makes it where you can't see what boss the group is on, and then a blue poster in a very cheeky tone, said we should not be upset because the extra valor makes it worth doing their way. This is not true, and the totally wrong way to handle this problem.
The solution is very easy. We currently have 16 raid bosses. That is a lot of raiding to hit every boss, and every possible loot configuration, but once you have done a boss once, there is no point in doing a fight all over again. Instead of rewarding valor at the end of the run, valor should be rewarded on a 20 vp per boss basis. That way, doing lfr three times would get you 960 valor, basically capping you. This would give people like me, who hate dailies, a way to cap vaor by doing what I enjoy. In addition, give 2 lesser charms per boss, so that in that same three runs, I can get 96 charms, 6 more then I need for my elder charms. My well geared healer helping lfr's go on (as well as other well geared players) would help lesser geared players get the boss down, and would also make it so that I would not care if I started on the last boss, because I still get the reward.
This would give incentive to do lfr even when you have already done a boss, and for the full run, you can offer the same goody bag that are offered to tanks in lfr. That as well, would act as an incentive to keep people in for the last boss. It wouldn't solve every problem, but I think it is way better then not telling me what boss the raid is on so I will be forced to either take a queue debuff or do a boss I don't need or want to do.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The importance of Raiding
I was introduced to the world of raiding in World of Warcraft right at the beginning of TOC. It was so foreign to me, and so different from anything I had done before. Trying to heal the first boss in TOC with my pally was a complete nightmare, because I had no idea what was killing me as I healed. Turns out I was standing in bad stuff. I had not yet discovered recount, and I wondered if anybody ever actually killed bosses, because my experience in Pugs had been nothing but wipes. I was bad...really bad...and I had no clue how to get better.
While in a heroic dungeon, I had a player blast me for being a bad healer. He proceeded to spend the whole dungeon explaining every little thing I was doing wrong (his main was a holy pally), and then said I should do some research before trying to heal another dungeon. I asked him what he meant by research and he told me to go to elitist jerks, a website that would help me get better.
I have always been the curious sort, so I went to elitist jerks and was so confused that I just gave up. I couldn't find any information on pally healing, let alone anything on pallies. After a couple more weeks of TOC wiping and so so dungeon runs, I finally decided to try elitist jerks again. I clicked on every link I could find, and after about 45 minutes of clicking, I finally got to the page on pally healing. (I am really embaressed to admit that now)
I was in love immediately. The post on pally healing answered every question I had about the class. It taught me the best way to go about healing. It taught me how each stat effected my healing, and in rare cases, even explained "how" to heal certain fights. So I took my new knowledge and went into a dungeon. It was ugly at first, but quickly got better. Then I got into a pug raid and we managed to down the first boss in TOC. The next week, (around this time I discovered recount) I got into a guild pug run. They were two heals short, so I jumped in. Not only did we down the first boss, but we got all but Anu'barak down. The raid leader was patient, explained everything, and I found that by doing what he said, bosses got down, and I won two pieces that night. It was one of the coolest feelings I have ever felt.
I realized then I needed to get into a guild, so with a few more weeks of running with that guild when I could, they gave me an invite. About this time, ICC had dropped. I was hooked to ICC raiding instantly. I would pug a 10 man every week, and then raid with the guild for 25's. It was the most fun I had ever had in a game. At one point, my wife joined me, and having her raid with me was even better. That didn't last long, as eventually she got burnt out. With each week, I got better. I started using more addons, and started perfecting my class. My guild got to the Blood Queen before our progression halted. We just couldn't coordinate enough to get her down.
So I started looking for better 10 man pugs, and after a while I found a dedicated pug that happened at the same time every week, and frequently worked on heroic content. The heroic content was really hard for me at first, but I got better with each week, and eventually I realized my current guild was holding me back. I will always be grateful to them, because they took a kid that knew nothing about raiding and helped him develop into a heroic raider, but I wanted to kill the Lich King and knew that would never happen with my current guild.
My bro stumbled upon a new guild forming at the end of ICC. It actually wasn't a new guild, it was an old guild reforming, and they needed good players. Eventually they gave me a trial run and I earned a spot. We quickly worked through all the bosses but LK, and as we worked week by week on LK, we also started doing heroic bosses. My gear got better and better, until finally one week before the cata talent system patch dropped, we downed the LK. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. What is more, it was only the fourth week of raiding since the guild had reformed.
I lost my job around that time, so I couldn't buy the cata expac right away, and by the time I could, I was way behind in progression for my guild. I quickly played catch up, but they were already deep in the T11 content, getting close to heroics, competing with the top guild on the server. I did catch up evetually, but my first raid in, my computer couldn't hack 25 player raiding anymore, so I sat again.
Eventually I switched to disc, and joined a casual 10 man guild, and raided with them through T11 and early T12. I very quickly became the guild leader as I knew the fights better then anyone in the guild. It was a great time and a frustrating time all at once. The guild had five really good players, and five pretty bad players. I use to strategize how to overcome the weaknesses of the others to down content. My heals were often 40% of the whole group, using 3 healers, but I didn't mind, because it was fun. I remember on Al'Akir sending the five bad players to the top for the last phase, so that when they dropped the cloud, it didnt matter where they did, because it wouldn't affect the five good players on the bottom. They all died quick, but we managed to five man the last phase doing it right. It was a horrible strategy but for our guild, it worked.
Eventually the hunger for progression got too much of me though. My old heroic guild, which had become the number one guild on the server had a huge fight blowout, just about a month after absorbing the best horde guild on the server. (they convinced the whole guild to faction change) So they were no longer an option. I joined a different guild, and switched to my druid.
It was a great time for raiding, we finished all the regular firelands content and got 4/7 on heroic. Druids were OP back then so I was the number one healer on every fight. Even when Dragon Soul dropped and druids got nerfed, I still found myself number one on most fights. We downed Heroic madness in content, the first time I ever killed a heroic end boss in tier. Ironically, I was more excited about the LK kill on reg.
I had to take a month off at the start of MOP because my wife had a baby, but while I was off, I was leveling my monk. When I finally got back in, it didn't take me long to re-earn my raid spot, and within a couple weeks, I was topping the charts again, despite having worse gear then many of the other healers. Which leads me to now, when in a one week span, they took my class from being overpowered to broken. That quickly...one week.
Raiding has been a part of my life for so long, and I love it. It helps me get through the week as on raid days, I just keep telling myself, just get through today, and then you can raid. It is my stress reliever (for anyone who has raided heroics, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but its true), and it is my break from reality. For two nights a week, I can be an epic hero killing mighty Dargons (Guild inside joke) instead of a regular guy struggling to get by. Raiding is my calm in the middle of the storm.
And I can't feel good raiding if I know I am holding th guild back. I never have any in game gold, because if I have gold and there is a piece that will improve my performance, I buy it, because I don't want to ever feel like the guild is carrying me. I haven't felt like I have been carried in a raid since those early days in TOC. Atleast, not until last night. Last night I felt like my spot on the guild team wasn't justified. I am seriously considering finishing leveling my pally, because monks are just in that bad a spot now. Sure, I can put up decent numbers, but I can't sustain it, and in the burst aoe phases, I am worthless, because all my aoe heals will burn my mana out before the phase is over, leaving me with no mana for the rest of the fight.
I really hope Blizzard hotfixes their change back. Make it 15%, or even revert back to the original 5.1 changes, I don't care. What I do care about is raiding. It is very important in my life, and having my value in raiding reduced to nothing in the space of a week is extremely frustrating and not good game balancing. You wanna nerf my output, go for it. You want to make my mana a little more expensive, go for it. But when I have 11k+ spirit, and the rest reforged to crit, it is insanely stupid that I can't heal for half a fight for fear of not having the mana to heal at the execute phase.
I know Mistweavers were too OP, but you fixed it in patch 5.1. The hotfix was not needed and was detrimental to the class, and not a good change. And the worst part...no explanation why. A phnatom one line nerf in the hotfix update that broke a class, and nobody even has the guts to try to defend the change to the player base. I have dealt with many nerfs over the years, but this is the worst I have ever seen and leaves me very frustrated as I worry I might lose something very important to me as a result...raiding.
(This history of my raiding is a brief synopsis. It doesn't include my time as a kitty druid, a ret paladin, or an elemental shaman, but for purposes of not going too long, I oversimplified some of my explanation)
While in a heroic dungeon, I had a player blast me for being a bad healer. He proceeded to spend the whole dungeon explaining every little thing I was doing wrong (his main was a holy pally), and then said I should do some research before trying to heal another dungeon. I asked him what he meant by research and he told me to go to elitist jerks, a website that would help me get better.
I have always been the curious sort, so I went to elitist jerks and was so confused that I just gave up. I couldn't find any information on pally healing, let alone anything on pallies. After a couple more weeks of TOC wiping and so so dungeon runs, I finally decided to try elitist jerks again. I clicked on every link I could find, and after about 45 minutes of clicking, I finally got to the page on pally healing. (I am really embaressed to admit that now)
I was in love immediately. The post on pally healing answered every question I had about the class. It taught me the best way to go about healing. It taught me how each stat effected my healing, and in rare cases, even explained "how" to heal certain fights. So I took my new knowledge and went into a dungeon. It was ugly at first, but quickly got better. Then I got into a pug raid and we managed to down the first boss in TOC. The next week, (around this time I discovered recount) I got into a guild pug run. They were two heals short, so I jumped in. Not only did we down the first boss, but we got all but Anu'barak down. The raid leader was patient, explained everything, and I found that by doing what he said, bosses got down, and I won two pieces that night. It was one of the coolest feelings I have ever felt.
I realized then I needed to get into a guild, so with a few more weeks of running with that guild when I could, they gave me an invite. About this time, ICC had dropped. I was hooked to ICC raiding instantly. I would pug a 10 man every week, and then raid with the guild for 25's. It was the most fun I had ever had in a game. At one point, my wife joined me, and having her raid with me was even better. That didn't last long, as eventually she got burnt out. With each week, I got better. I started using more addons, and started perfecting my class. My guild got to the Blood Queen before our progression halted. We just couldn't coordinate enough to get her down.
So I started looking for better 10 man pugs, and after a while I found a dedicated pug that happened at the same time every week, and frequently worked on heroic content. The heroic content was really hard for me at first, but I got better with each week, and eventually I realized my current guild was holding me back. I will always be grateful to them, because they took a kid that knew nothing about raiding and helped him develop into a heroic raider, but I wanted to kill the Lich King and knew that would never happen with my current guild.
My bro stumbled upon a new guild forming at the end of ICC. It actually wasn't a new guild, it was an old guild reforming, and they needed good players. Eventually they gave me a trial run and I earned a spot. We quickly worked through all the bosses but LK, and as we worked week by week on LK, we also started doing heroic bosses. My gear got better and better, until finally one week before the cata talent system patch dropped, we downed the LK. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. What is more, it was only the fourth week of raiding since the guild had reformed.
I lost my job around that time, so I couldn't buy the cata expac right away, and by the time I could, I was way behind in progression for my guild. I quickly played catch up, but they were already deep in the T11 content, getting close to heroics, competing with the top guild on the server. I did catch up evetually, but my first raid in, my computer couldn't hack 25 player raiding anymore, so I sat again.
Eventually I switched to disc, and joined a casual 10 man guild, and raided with them through T11 and early T12. I very quickly became the guild leader as I knew the fights better then anyone in the guild. It was a great time and a frustrating time all at once. The guild had five really good players, and five pretty bad players. I use to strategize how to overcome the weaknesses of the others to down content. My heals were often 40% of the whole group, using 3 healers, but I didn't mind, because it was fun. I remember on Al'Akir sending the five bad players to the top for the last phase, so that when they dropped the cloud, it didnt matter where they did, because it wouldn't affect the five good players on the bottom. They all died quick, but we managed to five man the last phase doing it right. It was a horrible strategy but for our guild, it worked.
Eventually the hunger for progression got too much of me though. My old heroic guild, which had become the number one guild on the server had a huge fight blowout, just about a month after absorbing the best horde guild on the server. (they convinced the whole guild to faction change) So they were no longer an option. I joined a different guild, and switched to my druid.
It was a great time for raiding, we finished all the regular firelands content and got 4/7 on heroic. Druids were OP back then so I was the number one healer on every fight. Even when Dragon Soul dropped and druids got nerfed, I still found myself number one on most fights. We downed Heroic madness in content, the first time I ever killed a heroic end boss in tier. Ironically, I was more excited about the LK kill on reg.
I had to take a month off at the start of MOP because my wife had a baby, but while I was off, I was leveling my monk. When I finally got back in, it didn't take me long to re-earn my raid spot, and within a couple weeks, I was topping the charts again, despite having worse gear then many of the other healers. Which leads me to now, when in a one week span, they took my class from being overpowered to broken. That quickly...one week.
Raiding has been a part of my life for so long, and I love it. It helps me get through the week as on raid days, I just keep telling myself, just get through today, and then you can raid. It is my stress reliever (for anyone who has raided heroics, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but its true), and it is my break from reality. For two nights a week, I can be an epic hero killing mighty Dargons (Guild inside joke) instead of a regular guy struggling to get by. Raiding is my calm in the middle of the storm.
And I can't feel good raiding if I know I am holding th guild back. I never have any in game gold, because if I have gold and there is a piece that will improve my performance, I buy it, because I don't want to ever feel like the guild is carrying me. I haven't felt like I have been carried in a raid since those early days in TOC. Atleast, not until last night. Last night I felt like my spot on the guild team wasn't justified. I am seriously considering finishing leveling my pally, because monks are just in that bad a spot now. Sure, I can put up decent numbers, but I can't sustain it, and in the burst aoe phases, I am worthless, because all my aoe heals will burn my mana out before the phase is over, leaving me with no mana for the rest of the fight.
I really hope Blizzard hotfixes their change back. Make it 15%, or even revert back to the original 5.1 changes, I don't care. What I do care about is raiding. It is very important in my life, and having my value in raiding reduced to nothing in the space of a week is extremely frustrating and not good game balancing. You wanna nerf my output, go for it. You want to make my mana a little more expensive, go for it. But when I have 11k+ spirit, and the rest reforged to crit, it is insanely stupid that I can't heal for half a fight for fear of not having the mana to heal at the execute phase.
I know Mistweavers were too OP, but you fixed it in patch 5.1. The hotfix was not needed and was detrimental to the class, and not a good change. And the worst part...no explanation why. A phnatom one line nerf in the hotfix update that broke a class, and nobody even has the guts to try to defend the change to the player base. I have dealt with many nerfs over the years, but this is the worst I have ever seen and leaves me very frustrated as I worry I might lose something very important to me as a result...raiding.
(This history of my raiding is a brief synopsis. It doesn't include my time as a kitty druid, a ret paladin, or an elemental shaman, but for purposes of not going too long, I oversimplified some of my explanation)
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Nerfbat and Hopelessness...
I finally got my first raid night post the 30% mana cost increase hotfix. Deep down, I knew it was going to be bad, I just didn't realize how bad. I wrote a post earlier about why the great 5.1 nerf to mistweavers was not so bad, and that we were still viable. Now, my opinion has changed.
The current healing model involves a 3 heal system: a cheap long cast heal (mana nuetral), a fast short cast heal (Very expensive), and a powerful long cast heal (expensive). The idea was that you use the mana neutral heal in low damage situations and save the other two when damage is crazy. The idea was you could spam your cheap heal forever and never go OOM, and that as long as you didn't spam your expensive heals too much, you could even use those without going OOM.
With the recent mana increase for mistweavers, we are in a bad place. Jabbing for chi will make you go OOM very quickly. Soothing Mist (our mana neutral spell) for chi will make you go OOM very quickly. Using surging mist is a death trap to your mana, and even enveloping mists, which uses chi, is too expensive because the mana you spend to generate that chi is insane. AOE much, well renewing mists and uplift is marginal at best in 25 man now, and very expensive, and if you try to spinning crane kick, you will OOM faster than you can finish the cast. I am exaggerating a bit, but tonight was the first time I have felt helpless as a healer since my pally in ICC after the cata talent changes hit, and back then, everybody agreed we were broken but Blizzard was ok with it, because they were balanced around level 85 abilities and stats.
I feel broken right now. All the synergy in the spells is gone. I find myself looking for gimmicks to get healing without spending mana, because if I do, I go OOM 25% into the fight. One fight I had only 50% uptime on healing (maybe a slight exaggeration), because if I didn't I had no mana for the heal intense execute phase.
The only hope is mana tea crit bonuses, and yet with 11,000+ mana and everything else reforged to crit, I still went OOM way to soon, USING THE CHEAP HEALS. And the mana tea bonus is so random due to crit, that even when the crit gods blessed me with mana, it was so unpredictable that I couldn't depend on it from one pull to another.
I had to think on my feet and adjust the whole time, something I don't mind doing sometimes, but when you do it all the time, it wears you out, and causes you to be more prone to mistakes, which is not a good thing on Garalon.
I really wish Blizzard would at least give us mistweavers a blue post to help us understand their mindset and where we are headed, because right now I feel broken and pointless. I don't want my raid leader to replace me, but if it were me, I would. Help me understand why, and then maybe I can start healing. Until that time, I am stuck in the corner, quivering with fear, worried that if I try to save my friends, I will have no mana to save myself.
The current healing model involves a 3 heal system: a cheap long cast heal (mana nuetral), a fast short cast heal (Very expensive), and a powerful long cast heal (expensive). The idea was that you use the mana neutral heal in low damage situations and save the other two when damage is crazy. The idea was you could spam your cheap heal forever and never go OOM, and that as long as you didn't spam your expensive heals too much, you could even use those without going OOM.
With the recent mana increase for mistweavers, we are in a bad place. Jabbing for chi will make you go OOM very quickly. Soothing Mist (our mana neutral spell) for chi will make you go OOM very quickly. Using surging mist is a death trap to your mana, and even enveloping mists, which uses chi, is too expensive because the mana you spend to generate that chi is insane. AOE much, well renewing mists and uplift is marginal at best in 25 man now, and very expensive, and if you try to spinning crane kick, you will OOM faster than you can finish the cast. I am exaggerating a bit, but tonight was the first time I have felt helpless as a healer since my pally in ICC after the cata talent changes hit, and back then, everybody agreed we were broken but Blizzard was ok with it, because they were balanced around level 85 abilities and stats.
I feel broken right now. All the synergy in the spells is gone. I find myself looking for gimmicks to get healing without spending mana, because if I do, I go OOM 25% into the fight. One fight I had only 50% uptime on healing (maybe a slight exaggeration), because if I didn't I had no mana for the heal intense execute phase.
The only hope is mana tea crit bonuses, and yet with 11,000+ mana and everything else reforged to crit, I still went OOM way to soon, USING THE CHEAP HEALS. And the mana tea bonus is so random due to crit, that even when the crit gods blessed me with mana, it was so unpredictable that I couldn't depend on it from one pull to another.
I had to think on my feet and adjust the whole time, something I don't mind doing sometimes, but when you do it all the time, it wears you out, and causes you to be more prone to mistakes, which is not a good thing on Garalon.
I really wish Blizzard would at least give us mistweavers a blue post to help us understand their mindset and where we are headed, because right now I feel broken and pointless. I don't want my raid leader to replace me, but if it were me, I would. Help me understand why, and then maybe I can start healing. Until that time, I am stuck in the corner, quivering with fear, worried that if I try to save my friends, I will have no mana to save myself.
Why dailies don't bother me as much as they should
First off, let me make my opinion on dailies perfectly clear...I hate them! They are a waste of time, and outside of the first time you do them, not fun. The only time I don't mind repeating a quest is when I am doing it on an alt, and that is usually months apart from the last time I did it. Doing the same quests everyday is not fun...it is boring. I do acknowledge that that is my point of view though, so for those who love dailies, they should be in the game. I prefer running dungeons and scenarios instead.
This goes to the crux of the current debate over dailies. People who love dailies are thrilled that they no longer have to run dungeons or raid for gear. That is a good thing. But the people who liked running dungeons and raids don not like that some aspects of gearing are only viable through dailies.
I did a dungeon last night to cap valor. It sucked! I was the only one with raid gear, and 3 of the other 4 in my group were cheating the ilvl system to get in. I didn't mind ilvl cheaters before, because there was always one or two other well geared players to mask that weakness in gear. The problem is that people like me, who used to carry ilvl cheaters through dungeons, no longer do dungeons, because dailies are the more efficient and powerful option for gearing. As such, even if I chose to not do dailies and forgoe the elder charms, my favorite way of playing is no fun anymore, so I wouldn't do that either.
Thus the problem. And I gotta be honest, there have only been a few times I have seen the forums get this angry. Some posters are outright mean in their denunciation of the other sides opinion. It is bad for the player base, and bad for blizzard. My solution...give lesser charms for all content - heroic dungeons, scenarios, dailies, pet battles, and raiding...(yes, raiding, you get 5 lesser for each boss you defeat). That way, you get charms for every playstyle. Also, have a quartermaster for every playstyle that sells vp gear. A heroic dungeon QM, a scenario QM, a pet battle QM, and a daily QM. You can even make it really hard to unlock those QM's as long as their is one for all playstyles.
I think this solution would solve the problem, but even if you disagree, it doesn't matter. I personally don't care that Blizzard is not fixing the daily problem. They are making some minor adjustments, but it doesn't matter that they are ignoring the problem, and people should not be rage quiting over it. If you want to stop playing, stop...that will get the message across to blizzard (that is what happened in cata), but if you choose not to, just keep playing.
The reason I don't care if Blizzard fixes this problem is that I know they will...eventually. The biggest problem with cata was the lack of content. I often got frustrated because I thought Blizzard wasn't listening, but they were, they just chose to fix the problem in the next expansion rather then wasting resources to fix it now. They are again choosing not to fix it now. They could fix it nowand it would be better for two to three months, and then we would never do those dailies again...which will happen when 5.2 drops. All that wasted dev time for a 2-3 month fix. Instead, they are building the next expansion and making sure dailies are not the only way to get gear in that expansion.
I am sure they are ignoring the problem, knowing it will only be a problem a little while longer, like they did in cata, but they are not completely ignoring it. As the forums rage, they are taking notes. Mark my word, the next expansion will be different. They made a calculated choice to make dailies important so that the whole player base would think they were content (which didn't happen in cata...firelands dailies anyone) but they are learning from that, and will not make that mistake again...especially if enough people quit over it.
The biggest problem with wow is that people want immediate fixes to problems. If my class is broken, I want it fixed now, I don't want to have to wait until the next patch. That is what most people say. If the current gear model is flawed, I want it fixed now, not in the next expansion. If there is too little content, I want more now, not in the next patch. If there is too much content, I want some of it trivialized now, not in the next expansion. MOP was a huge step in the right direction for the play as you want model...Blizzard just forgot that by making dailies more important they were also hurting that model. Blizzard never fixes a problem overnight, but they usually do within a couple months of it cropping up.
So, as a result, dailies don't bother me as much as they should, because I know I will endure this a short time, like I did the ridiculously hard heroics at the start of cata (not for me, but for all the ilvl cheaters I was carrying through it), and in the end, it will be better. Patience is a virtue, and one that the wow player base would do well to learn.
This goes to the crux of the current debate over dailies. People who love dailies are thrilled that they no longer have to run dungeons or raid for gear. That is a good thing. But the people who liked running dungeons and raids don not like that some aspects of gearing are only viable through dailies.
I did a dungeon last night to cap valor. It sucked! I was the only one with raid gear, and 3 of the other 4 in my group were cheating the ilvl system to get in. I didn't mind ilvl cheaters before, because there was always one or two other well geared players to mask that weakness in gear. The problem is that people like me, who used to carry ilvl cheaters through dungeons, no longer do dungeons, because dailies are the more efficient and powerful option for gearing. As such, even if I chose to not do dailies and forgoe the elder charms, my favorite way of playing is no fun anymore, so I wouldn't do that either.
Thus the problem. And I gotta be honest, there have only been a few times I have seen the forums get this angry. Some posters are outright mean in their denunciation of the other sides opinion. It is bad for the player base, and bad for blizzard. My solution...give lesser charms for all content - heroic dungeons, scenarios, dailies, pet battles, and raiding...(yes, raiding, you get 5 lesser for each boss you defeat). That way, you get charms for every playstyle. Also, have a quartermaster for every playstyle that sells vp gear. A heroic dungeon QM, a scenario QM, a pet battle QM, and a daily QM. You can even make it really hard to unlock those QM's as long as their is one for all playstyles.
I think this solution would solve the problem, but even if you disagree, it doesn't matter. I personally don't care that Blizzard is not fixing the daily problem. They are making some minor adjustments, but it doesn't matter that they are ignoring the problem, and people should not be rage quiting over it. If you want to stop playing, stop...that will get the message across to blizzard (that is what happened in cata), but if you choose not to, just keep playing.
The reason I don't care if Blizzard fixes this problem is that I know they will...eventually. The biggest problem with cata was the lack of content. I often got frustrated because I thought Blizzard wasn't listening, but they were, they just chose to fix the problem in the next expansion rather then wasting resources to fix it now. They are again choosing not to fix it now. They could fix it nowand it would be better for two to three months, and then we would never do those dailies again...which will happen when 5.2 drops. All that wasted dev time for a 2-3 month fix. Instead, they are building the next expansion and making sure dailies are not the only way to get gear in that expansion.
I am sure they are ignoring the problem, knowing it will only be a problem a little while longer, like they did in cata, but they are not completely ignoring it. As the forums rage, they are taking notes. Mark my word, the next expansion will be different. They made a calculated choice to make dailies important so that the whole player base would think they were content (which didn't happen in cata...firelands dailies anyone) but they are learning from that, and will not make that mistake again...especially if enough people quit over it.
The biggest problem with wow is that people want immediate fixes to problems. If my class is broken, I want it fixed now, I don't want to have to wait until the next patch. That is what most people say. If the current gear model is flawed, I want it fixed now, not in the next expansion. If there is too little content, I want more now, not in the next patch. If there is too much content, I want some of it trivialized now, not in the next expansion. MOP was a huge step in the right direction for the play as you want model...Blizzard just forgot that by making dailies more important they were also hurting that model. Blizzard never fixes a problem overnight, but they usually do within a couple months of it cropping up.
So, as a result, dailies don't bother me as much as they should, because I know I will endure this a short time, like I did the ridiculously hard heroics at the start of cata (not for me, but for all the ilvl cheaters I was carrying through it), and in the end, it will be better. Patience is a virtue, and one that the wow player base would do well to learn.
A step in the right direction
I have been mulling over doing a post on how much time it takes to cap valor for the last couple days, and just hadn't gotten around to writing it. My main concern was that I used to be able to cap just by raiding, which I always do, and so that left all my other time to do what I wanted. Last night, I had to squeeze in about four hours more play then I usually do on a given day just to cap. Needless to say, I was not happy.
Then I saw that on the new hotfix update, they changed the valor per boss from 25 to 40. A very minor change and yet for each boss I kill that is 3 fewer dailies I need to do, or for every three bosses, one less scenario. It doesn't solve the problem completely, as I don't have time to raid competitively and do all the single player stuff you need to do to stay competitive raiding wise, but it will help, and it is a step in the right direction.
So, I now give something that I think Blizzard rarely hears from its players. Way to go! You are going the right direction, and I hope you keep it up.
P.S. For my mistweaver tank healing friends...they also did a hotfix making the life cocoon shield twice as strong, meaning the 30% hot buff will last twice as long. This is a good change.
Then I saw that on the new hotfix update, they changed the valor per boss from 25 to 40. A very minor change and yet for each boss I kill that is 3 fewer dailies I need to do, or for every three bosses, one less scenario. It doesn't solve the problem completely, as I don't have time to raid competitively and do all the single player stuff you need to do to stay competitive raiding wise, but it will help, and it is a step in the right direction.
So, I now give something that I think Blizzard rarely hears from its players. Way to go! You are going the right direction, and I hope you keep it up.
P.S. For my mistweaver tank healing friends...they also did a hotfix making the life cocoon shield twice as strong, meaning the 30% hot buff will last twice as long. This is a good change.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Hotfix nerf, and why Blizzard is getting it wrong
If you read my previous posts on the 5.1 nerf, you know I expected it to be really bad and was surprised when it wasn't so bad after all. I even tried to defend Blizzard's motivations, but with the 30% increased mana cost to spiritweavers that just hit in a hotfix, my feeling are changing.
My problem is not with all the changes as a whole, but instead with two changes. The first is the increased mana (now at 40% more expensive with latest hotfix). I understand that monks were able to spam their spells rarely worrying about mana (Last time I worried about mana was when I was raiding in mostly blues when I first came back). I also understand that a mana cost increase was needed, and if this was all it is, I would be fine, but they did something else as well, and that is what the real problem is.
Because they made mana too expensive, they compensated by making crit have a chance to double the number of mana tea stacks you get. In my previous post, I said this was a great change, as it made crit the king stat and allowed it to regen and heal, which is good for monks. The problem is that they obviously made our regen too good with that change (otherwise why the additional 30%), so why not revert that change. Mastery and crit were very close before if you were in 25 man raiding or intelligent 10 man raiding, but now, they are not because our regen is dependent on more spirit (you can only get so much) and stacking crit in additon to spirit.
Here is my question. Why couldn't blizzard leave out the crit change and let mastery and crit still be competitive. Raise the mana cost but by less then 40% so I still have the chance to pick the stats that best suits my style, rather then being forced to pick crit because if I don't I will oom in a fight too early, despite having good regen. I haven't tested this in a real raid, so maybe my feeling will be different wednesday, but in the lfr's I did, I had to be very careful how I cast or I would oom way too early in the fight. Here's hoping blizz can get this right somehow.
My problem is not with all the changes as a whole, but instead with two changes. The first is the increased mana (now at 40% more expensive with latest hotfix). I understand that monks were able to spam their spells rarely worrying about mana (Last time I worried about mana was when I was raiding in mostly blues when I first came back). I also understand that a mana cost increase was needed, and if this was all it is, I would be fine, but they did something else as well, and that is what the real problem is.
Because they made mana too expensive, they compensated by making crit have a chance to double the number of mana tea stacks you get. In my previous post, I said this was a great change, as it made crit the king stat and allowed it to regen and heal, which is good for monks. The problem is that they obviously made our regen too good with that change (otherwise why the additional 30%), so why not revert that change. Mastery and crit were very close before if you were in 25 man raiding or intelligent 10 man raiding, but now, they are not because our regen is dependent on more spirit (you can only get so much) and stacking crit in additon to spirit.
Here is my question. Why couldn't blizzard leave out the crit change and let mastery and crit still be competitive. Raise the mana cost but by less then 40% so I still have the chance to pick the stats that best suits my style, rather then being forced to pick crit because if I don't I will oom in a fight too early, despite having good regen. I haven't tested this in a real raid, so maybe my feeling will be different wednesday, but in the lfr's I did, I had to be very careful how I cast or I would oom way too early in the fight. Here's hoping blizz can get this right somehow.
Friday, November 30, 2012
A secret for leveling Monks
I was reading a blog talking about the enlightenment xp buff monks get when they level, and the person talking about it missed something very important about that buff that I assumed everyone knew, and now I am beginning to think maybe they don't.
First off, the way I discovered it. I used to port and get the enlightenment buff whenever my current one ran out, but this was sometimes an annoyance, because if the buff dropped off mid dungeon, then I lost all the extra xp you would get from turning in the quests at the end of the dungeon. So, on the day I was doing Zul'Furak and all its many quests, mid dungeon, I asked my group if they would mind if I quickly reset my buff so as not to waste the quest xp. I did the zen pilgrimage, beat the monk trainer for the quest, and when I went to turn in the quest, I had 2 minutes left on my buff. I thought to myself that it is dumb to waste the 2 minutes, but that if I waited, I was wasting all the xp from kills my group was making in Zul'Furak, so I took the buff and went back to the dungeon.
Now, I knew you could stack the buff before this, but the renewing here had been at the end of a two hour buff already. After turning the quest in, my buff bar showed 2 hours. I thought maybe it was showing that because the system didn't have a way to show one hour and 2 minutes, but 3 minutes later, it still showed two hours. As I finished that dungeon and two others during that two hour span, I realized a cool trick.
DON'T IMMEDIATELY STACK THE BUFF TO 2 HOURS! Wait until the hour buff drops under 5 minutes, then turn in the quest, and you will get an additional 2 hours, allowing you to get three hours worth of buff out of two quest turn ins. As I rarely play more then three hours in a day, and I was leveling so quickly with this trick that I could easily level 10 levels in a day or two, I found that from the mid 30's all the way to 65, I was never without the buff. It wasn't until the end of bc that the tricks benefit finally started slowing down. It still worked but there was more non buff time inbetween buffs.
This really does speed up leveling, so if you are leveling a monk...might be something to consider...unless of course you prefer leveling slower, in which case I would imagine you didn't use the enlightenment buff at all.
First off, the way I discovered it. I used to port and get the enlightenment buff whenever my current one ran out, but this was sometimes an annoyance, because if the buff dropped off mid dungeon, then I lost all the extra xp you would get from turning in the quests at the end of the dungeon. So, on the day I was doing Zul'Furak and all its many quests, mid dungeon, I asked my group if they would mind if I quickly reset my buff so as not to waste the quest xp. I did the zen pilgrimage, beat the monk trainer for the quest, and when I went to turn in the quest, I had 2 minutes left on my buff. I thought to myself that it is dumb to waste the 2 minutes, but that if I waited, I was wasting all the xp from kills my group was making in Zul'Furak, so I took the buff and went back to the dungeon.
Now, I knew you could stack the buff before this, but the renewing here had been at the end of a two hour buff already. After turning the quest in, my buff bar showed 2 hours. I thought maybe it was showing that because the system didn't have a way to show one hour and 2 minutes, but 3 minutes later, it still showed two hours. As I finished that dungeon and two others during that two hour span, I realized a cool trick.
DON'T IMMEDIATELY STACK THE BUFF TO 2 HOURS! Wait until the hour buff drops under 5 minutes, then turn in the quest, and you will get an additional 2 hours, allowing you to get three hours worth of buff out of two quest turn ins. As I rarely play more then three hours in a day, and I was leveling so quickly with this trick that I could easily level 10 levels in a day or two, I found that from the mid 30's all the way to 65, I was never without the buff. It wasn't until the end of bc that the tricks benefit finally started slowing down. It still worked but there was more non buff time inbetween buffs.
This really does speed up leveling, so if you are leveling a monk...might be something to consider...unless of course you prefer leveling slower, in which case I would imagine you didn't use the enlightenment buff at all.
Patch 5.1 Monk Nerf Follow Up
Last night I went into my second raid night after the patch 5.1 nerfs, and I learned some more that might be worth mentioning in regards to the nerf. We downed the Bladelord in Heart of Fear, and got a lot of work on Garalon. On the bladelord, despite fistweaving most pulls (which is good heals but should not be competing with other classes all out healing), the 20% burn phase, and how good it is for spinning crane kick, allowed me to be in the top two or three every pull. Our last pull, (the one we downed it on) I tank healed as our tank kept dying due to taking too high of stacks. That pull, I was much more in line with my usual output.
Bladelord is a great fight for Mistweavers, despite the nerf, because there just isn't a lot of aoe damage, and when there is, the raid is almost always stacked, and so spinning crane kick is better. I still used renewing mist on cd, but it was a lot more overheal then normal, which makes its nerf much less noticeable. I also used xuen instead of rushing jade wind, because even though rushing jade wind likely would have given more heal numbers (but not by much), xuen gave a big dps boost that helped us get a bit more time to work with at the end before the enrage. (I know that the damage is minimal compared to a all out dps, but even 20k dps while healing is better then nothing)
After we got done with bladelord, we moved on to Garalon, which was the best fight by far on LFR for the mistweaver. The only one even close was Elegon, and yet with the increased damage involved in garalon, monk heals were insane on that fight. This is the fight that I think the nerf most hurt us on. I consistently was in the 70-80k heals per second area on every pull last night, and that was with renewing mist only going to two targets instead of three. Renewing Mist was about a 1/3 of my healing, with uplift accounting for about 20%. So that means half that 80k was due to the spells affected by the nerf. So if 40k was due to nerfed spells and adding another spread hot would result in 33% more healing, then I would likely have gotten 10-12k more healing pre- nerf. That would have put me at 80-90k. Our top healer was doing around 90k per pull, and he has about 7 ilvl better then me, so you can see that had the nerf not happened I would have been tying his output with significantly less ilvl. That would be AWESOME, but also not very fair to him, so as you can see, as much as the nerf sucks, it was needed to bring healing back in line with other healers.
Despite all that though, the rest of our healing team was struggling to keep up 50k heals. I don't mean to critique them too hard. That fight with all its spreading is best aoe healed by a monk, a holy priest, or a druid. We did not have a druid, and the other classes were a pally, two shaman and a disc priest. So it is understandable they would be lower then me and the holy priest, but if you were one of those classes, struggling to maintain 50k (side note, I do think they could have been higher, just trying to not be too critical and understand the mechanics), and then seeing a poorly geared monk (I am not really poorly geared, just a good 5 to 10 ilvls behind the others...got a late start) killing your heals and competing with the holy priest who is the best healer in the guild, I think I would be annoyed too and complain they need to be nerfed.
So again, while the nerf sucks on fights like elegon and garalon, it was needed. And the best part is that, on fights like bladelord, it hardly affects us at all.
Just an update for those who care. We progressively got Garalon lower and lower throughout the night, until we got him down to 9% on our last pull when he enraged, so with a little better pheremone management and little more dps, we will get him, hopefully this sunday (even though I won't be there, have prior commitments).
P.S. Just a side note, and I need to do more research before I officially announce it. Xuen was really acting wierd on the garalon fight, not wanting to attack anything, so I switched to chi tornado (I think that is what it is called), so I could heal while moving into position. Might not be the best way to handle that fight, but I just couldn't seem to get xuen to be his usual epic self.
Bladelord is a great fight for Mistweavers, despite the nerf, because there just isn't a lot of aoe damage, and when there is, the raid is almost always stacked, and so spinning crane kick is better. I still used renewing mist on cd, but it was a lot more overheal then normal, which makes its nerf much less noticeable. I also used xuen instead of rushing jade wind, because even though rushing jade wind likely would have given more heal numbers (but not by much), xuen gave a big dps boost that helped us get a bit more time to work with at the end before the enrage. (I know that the damage is minimal compared to a all out dps, but even 20k dps while healing is better then nothing)
After we got done with bladelord, we moved on to Garalon, which was the best fight by far on LFR for the mistweaver. The only one even close was Elegon, and yet with the increased damage involved in garalon, monk heals were insane on that fight. This is the fight that I think the nerf most hurt us on. I consistently was in the 70-80k heals per second area on every pull last night, and that was with renewing mist only going to two targets instead of three. Renewing Mist was about a 1/3 of my healing, with uplift accounting for about 20%. So that means half that 80k was due to the spells affected by the nerf. So if 40k was due to nerfed spells and adding another spread hot would result in 33% more healing, then I would likely have gotten 10-12k more healing pre- nerf. That would have put me at 80-90k. Our top healer was doing around 90k per pull, and he has about 7 ilvl better then me, so you can see that had the nerf not happened I would have been tying his output with significantly less ilvl. That would be AWESOME, but also not very fair to him, so as you can see, as much as the nerf sucks, it was needed to bring healing back in line with other healers.
Despite all that though, the rest of our healing team was struggling to keep up 50k heals. I don't mean to critique them too hard. That fight with all its spreading is best aoe healed by a monk, a holy priest, or a druid. We did not have a druid, and the other classes were a pally, two shaman and a disc priest. So it is understandable they would be lower then me and the holy priest, but if you were one of those classes, struggling to maintain 50k (side note, I do think they could have been higher, just trying to not be too critical and understand the mechanics), and then seeing a poorly geared monk (I am not really poorly geared, just a good 5 to 10 ilvls behind the others...got a late start) killing your heals and competing with the holy priest who is the best healer in the guild, I think I would be annoyed too and complain they need to be nerfed.
So again, while the nerf sucks on fights like elegon and garalon, it was needed. And the best part is that, on fights like bladelord, it hardly affects us at all.
Just an update for those who care. We progressively got Garalon lower and lower throughout the night, until we got him down to 9% on our last pull when he enraged, so with a little better pheremone management and little more dps, we will get him, hopefully this sunday (even though I won't be there, have prior commitments).
P.S. Just a side note, and I need to do more research before I officially announce it. Xuen was really acting wierd on the garalon fight, not wanting to attack anything, so I switched to chi tornado (I think that is what it is called), so I could heal while moving into position. Might not be the best way to handle that fight, but I just couldn't seem to get xuen to be his usual epic self.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Mistweaver Tank Healing like a Pro
With all of the crazy parses being reported by monks and their aoe healing, it has seemed to me that most mistweaver sites talk about the potent power of monk aoe healing, which I agree, is quite staggering. The problem is that this often causes these same sites to ignore the quality of tank heals that a monk can bring to a raid. With the changes that came from 5.1, the ability of the mistweaver monk to put up incredible aoe numbers has been put more in line with other healers, making us no longer the stars of aoe healing. As a result, it may be time for mistweaver monks to consider a different option: Tank healing. (Don't get me wrong, they are still great aoe healers, but they are equally good tank healers, and I would argue, better tank healers than other classes)
Mistweaver monks have a very unique wasy on tank healing that is drastically different from any other class, and these differences are what make them the best tank healers in my opinion. In order to make this point though, we first need to look at how they tank heal, and the tools they have at their disposal. The following are a list of the tank healing abilities a monk has:
Soothing Mist - Your basic "heal" ability. It is cheap and is a channeling spell. Use this as your filler when not casting other heals.
Enveloping Mist - Your basic "flash heal" ability. It is a quick cast short but powerful hot. It should never should be hardcast though, because it is an instant cast if you are channeling soothing mists.
Surging Mist - Your basic "greater heal" ability. It is a long cast but powerful heal. It should never should be hardcast though, because it is an instant cast if you are channeling soothing mists.
Renewing Mist - Not a spell you would normally call a tank heal, but it is for two reasons. One, it is a hot, and a hot that heals, even if it is a smaller hot then enveloping mists, is still extra healing. It is also a long hot, so it is not hard to keep up. Secondly, Life cocoon increases the power of hots, so if you have this on the tank, it makes life cocoon stronger. (also, should be cast on cd so it is on all tanks and will give you some extra aoe heals too for free)
Zen Sphere - another hot, albeit a weak one. I personally prefer to spend 3 chi on enveloping mists instead of 2 on Zen sphere, but in certain circumstances (healing one tank instead of two, needing to heal tank and a stacked raid), Zen sphere has its benefits.
Life Cocoon - the only real tank cooldown we have, but it is a strong one. Not only does it shield your tank with a shield about 2.5 times as strong as power word:shield, but it also increases the effects of hots on that target while the shield lasts. I wish they would make the hot increase last the full duration of the cd instead of just when the shield is up, but despite this, life cocoon can buy you precious seconds to hit the tank with an instant cast surging mist.
Zen Meditation - A weak tank cd at best, and why I view life cocoon as the only real tank cd. This spell is better used for its 90% damage mitigation on you, but it will also redirect 5 single target attacks onto you, which could save you some tank healing in a high tank damage phase. Even then though, it is probably not best to use as a tank cooldown though, because it is a channel spell, and during the channel, you can't heal the tank.
Jade Statue - Should always be down in every fight. Serves two purposes. It redirects eminence heals to players near it, and when soothing mist is cast (which should be a lot when tank healing) it also casts soothing mist on a nearby damaged player (usually the other tank if your statue is by the other tank). The statue is in effect our beacon as it allows us to focus the tank, but have some of our heals also hit the other tank. by switching soothing mists between tanks, it is very feasible to have enveloping mists on both tanks, as well as soothing mists on both tanks.
Spells not included:
Uplift - powerful for aoe, but your chi is much better spent on enveloping mists if you are tank healing.
Jab - Because jab causes eminence heals, it will likely go to the tank but not guarenteed. It is a better chi generator, but it prevents you from being able to instant cast enveloping mists and surging mists.
I will now go over the rotation, which is not the only way, but will usually be the most effective way to heal tanks.
General Spell rotation - Make sure Jade statue is down, preferably by the tank you are not focusing. Cast renewing mist on the tank you are healing, and recast on the other tank when cooldown resets. Make sure renewing mist is always on your tanks (it is better to use thunder focus tea to reset the hots then to use surging mist, as unless the tank is about to die, surging mist will be wasted, and in that situation life cocoon is better to use anyways) Cast soothing mist to generate chi and heal both tanks. Pool chi (preferably with ascendency so you can have five instead of four) and cast enveloping mists on the tank (I cast this even when damage is low, just because it will quickly heal the tank if they do take high damage, and it spends chi to give you mana tea stacks. If you choose to only use enveloping mists when tank is taking high damage, you can cast zen sphere instead to spend chi for mana tea stacks) I prefer to use ascendency, because once you cast enveloping mists, if you had 5 chi, you have 2 left over which makes you only one chi away from another three. That last chi usually comes quick enough to have enveloping mists rolling on both tanks. If only one tank is taking damage, it is better to pool chi instead of doing a second enveloping mists. When the tank takes spike damage that brings him below 30%, cast enveloping mists if you have the chi, if not cast surging mist (generates chi) until you can cast enveloping mists. If enveloping mists is up, then surging mists will likely not be needed so it should be used only when you do not have the chi for an enveloping mist. If tank is below 20%, or if it is a pre-designated point called out by the raid leader, use life cocoon.
If you do what that very complicated paragraph above says, you should have no problem keeping the tank up, even in extreme damage phases. Mana can be an issue when tank healing, so make sure you spend chi as often as you can so you have plenty of mana tea stacks to regen with. Also, if that paragraph was too complicated, here is a simple flow chart.
Jade Statue by tank your not focusing -> renewing mists on both tanks, used on cd -> Soothing mist on the tank to build chi -> spend chi on enveloping mists in order to keep from capping chi -> surging mist if tank is below 30% and there is no chi for enveloping mist -> Life cocoon when tank is below 20% or when guild leader schedules its use.
Ok, I thought that would be simpler, guess its not. But seriously, if you do it right, the tank will never die, even if they are undergeared. That is how good monk tank healing is.
Lastly, I will explain why I think it is the best tank healing class in the game. When I was a pally healer in ICC (a phenonminal tank healer at the time), the one weakness in my class was that my spell cast was 1.2 seconds for Holy Light. This was short enough to be fine in most cases, but there was always the rare case of bad rng where the tank would be one shot just before the Holy Light hits. Mistweaver Monks don't have this problem as there best tank heal spell, surging mist, is instant cast with no cd. Meaning you can spam surging mist if needed with no chance of a death between casts. This will drain your mana really fast, and so can not be sustained very long, but it ensures that for short periods, as long as you are on the ball, the tank CAN'T die. No other healing class can consistently do that. With all other classes, you run the risk of your heal coming just a split second too late. Best of luck to you in keeping your tanks alive and your guild leaders happy.
P.S. Guild leading is hard (I know, I did it for a while), so anything you can do to keep them happy, you should do, so make sure their tanks never die, I promise it will make them happy.
Mistweaver monks have a very unique wasy on tank healing that is drastically different from any other class, and these differences are what make them the best tank healers in my opinion. In order to make this point though, we first need to look at how they tank heal, and the tools they have at their disposal. The following are a list of the tank healing abilities a monk has:
Soothing Mist - Your basic "heal" ability. It is cheap and is a channeling spell. Use this as your filler when not casting other heals.
Enveloping Mist - Your basic "flash heal" ability. It is a quick cast short but powerful hot. It should never should be hardcast though, because it is an instant cast if you are channeling soothing mists.
Surging Mist - Your basic "greater heal" ability. It is a long cast but powerful heal. It should never should be hardcast though, because it is an instant cast if you are channeling soothing mists.
Renewing Mist - Not a spell you would normally call a tank heal, but it is for two reasons. One, it is a hot, and a hot that heals, even if it is a smaller hot then enveloping mists, is still extra healing. It is also a long hot, so it is not hard to keep up. Secondly, Life cocoon increases the power of hots, so if you have this on the tank, it makes life cocoon stronger. (also, should be cast on cd so it is on all tanks and will give you some extra aoe heals too for free)
Zen Sphere - another hot, albeit a weak one. I personally prefer to spend 3 chi on enveloping mists instead of 2 on Zen sphere, but in certain circumstances (healing one tank instead of two, needing to heal tank and a stacked raid), Zen sphere has its benefits.
Life Cocoon - the only real tank cooldown we have, but it is a strong one. Not only does it shield your tank with a shield about 2.5 times as strong as power word:shield, but it also increases the effects of hots on that target while the shield lasts. I wish they would make the hot increase last the full duration of the cd instead of just when the shield is up, but despite this, life cocoon can buy you precious seconds to hit the tank with an instant cast surging mist.
Zen Meditation - A weak tank cd at best, and why I view life cocoon as the only real tank cd. This spell is better used for its 90% damage mitigation on you, but it will also redirect 5 single target attacks onto you, which could save you some tank healing in a high tank damage phase. Even then though, it is probably not best to use as a tank cooldown though, because it is a channel spell, and during the channel, you can't heal the tank.
Jade Statue - Should always be down in every fight. Serves two purposes. It redirects eminence heals to players near it, and when soothing mist is cast (which should be a lot when tank healing) it also casts soothing mist on a nearby damaged player (usually the other tank if your statue is by the other tank). The statue is in effect our beacon as it allows us to focus the tank, but have some of our heals also hit the other tank. by switching soothing mists between tanks, it is very feasible to have enveloping mists on both tanks, as well as soothing mists on both tanks.
Spells not included:
Uplift - powerful for aoe, but your chi is much better spent on enveloping mists if you are tank healing.
Jab - Because jab causes eminence heals, it will likely go to the tank but not guarenteed. It is a better chi generator, but it prevents you from being able to instant cast enveloping mists and surging mists.
I will now go over the rotation, which is not the only way, but will usually be the most effective way to heal tanks.
General Spell rotation - Make sure Jade statue is down, preferably by the tank you are not focusing. Cast renewing mist on the tank you are healing, and recast on the other tank when cooldown resets. Make sure renewing mist is always on your tanks (it is better to use thunder focus tea to reset the hots then to use surging mist, as unless the tank is about to die, surging mist will be wasted, and in that situation life cocoon is better to use anyways) Cast soothing mist to generate chi and heal both tanks. Pool chi (preferably with ascendency so you can have five instead of four) and cast enveloping mists on the tank (I cast this even when damage is low, just because it will quickly heal the tank if they do take high damage, and it spends chi to give you mana tea stacks. If you choose to only use enveloping mists when tank is taking high damage, you can cast zen sphere instead to spend chi for mana tea stacks) I prefer to use ascendency, because once you cast enveloping mists, if you had 5 chi, you have 2 left over which makes you only one chi away from another three. That last chi usually comes quick enough to have enveloping mists rolling on both tanks. If only one tank is taking damage, it is better to pool chi instead of doing a second enveloping mists. When the tank takes spike damage that brings him below 30%, cast enveloping mists if you have the chi, if not cast surging mist (generates chi) until you can cast enveloping mists. If enveloping mists is up, then surging mists will likely not be needed so it should be used only when you do not have the chi for an enveloping mist. If tank is below 20%, or if it is a pre-designated point called out by the raid leader, use life cocoon.
If you do what that very complicated paragraph above says, you should have no problem keeping the tank up, even in extreme damage phases. Mana can be an issue when tank healing, so make sure you spend chi as often as you can so you have plenty of mana tea stacks to regen with. Also, if that paragraph was too complicated, here is a simple flow chart.
Jade Statue by tank your not focusing -> renewing mists on both tanks, used on cd -> Soothing mist on the tank to build chi -> spend chi on enveloping mists in order to keep from capping chi -> surging mist if tank is below 30% and there is no chi for enveloping mist -> Life cocoon when tank is below 20% or when guild leader schedules its use.
Ok, I thought that would be simpler, guess its not. But seriously, if you do it right, the tank will never die, even if they are undergeared. That is how good monk tank healing is.
Lastly, I will explain why I think it is the best tank healing class in the game. When I was a pally healer in ICC (a phenonminal tank healer at the time), the one weakness in my class was that my spell cast was 1.2 seconds for Holy Light. This was short enough to be fine in most cases, but there was always the rare case of bad rng where the tank would be one shot just before the Holy Light hits. Mistweaver Monks don't have this problem as there best tank heal spell, surging mist, is instant cast with no cd. Meaning you can spam surging mist if needed with no chance of a death between casts. This will drain your mana really fast, and so can not be sustained very long, but it ensures that for short periods, as long as you are on the ball, the tank CAN'T die. No other healing class can consistently do that. With all other classes, you run the risk of your heal coming just a split second too late. Best of luck to you in keeping your tanks alive and your guild leaders happy.
P.S. Guild leading is hard (I know, I did it for a while), so anything you can do to keep them happy, you should do, so make sure their tanks never die, I promise it will make them happy.
The great Monk nerf of 5.1
When I saw the first set of patch notes for 5.1 that involved the mistweaver (my new main), I was really discouraged. I had just reached 90 and was gearing to be able to raid. I almost just quit gearing, deciding to play my pally as my main instead. It seemed like everything that made the monk good was getting nerfed hard core. After hyperventilating for a couple seconds, I decided to take the same approach as I did in Dragon Soul when druid heals were nerfed quite badly. Don't complain, and just make the best of a bad situation. (During Dragon Soul, despite being told that druids couldn't beat the other healing classes, I was consistently in the top 2 in heals for my guild) This change in viewpoint was freeing, and allowed me to not be as discouraged.
With 5.1 finally dropping, the time has come to analyze how bad the nerf was to Mistweaver healing. So first off, let's look at the complete list of changes as stated on the patch notes:
The mana cost increase had me very worried, but after being in a raid, it is not that bad, because half your spells use chi anyways, and the crit bonus makes up for the lost mana. (more on the crit effect later)
The tiger power change is most beneficial to windwalkers, but if you are a fistweaver (dps healing through eminence), this is also a nice quality of life change for that. If you range heal with the monk, this change will not affect you.
The Enveloping Mists nerf really made me mad when I first saw it, but when using it in a raid, I realized it was put in to counteract the haste buff, in order to make the amount of healing "feel" the same, which it does. (more on the haste change later)
Healing sphere went from being a lonely, never pushed button on my bar to now very important. In high aoe damage phases, it is still lackluster, but in low aoe damage phases, for tank healing, or pre-healing, it owns. With my current gear it does 35k regular and 70k as a crit. That means in 3 global cooldowns, you can get between 105k and 210k heals. That is a lot of healing for very little cost. Finding moments to drop them is well worth it now. Pre 5.1, there were just too many other options. Renewing Mists, Uplift, Expel Harm, Soothing Mists, just to name a few. You still want to do renewing mists on cool down, but healing sphere is now a great filler spell.
The nerf to Chi Burst, Chi Wave and Zen Sphere is disappointing as it reduces our utilty. These spells are not always worth using on cd anymore. It used to be that you wanted to use them whenever you could. Now I only use them as a chi dump in order to keep my mana tea stacks as high as possible. (again to benefit from the crit change)
The change to soothing mist and Crackling Jade Lightning is probably my favorite change, because it makes range healing come more in line with melee healing. Pre 5.1, jabbing for chi was king and any good mistweaver was doing that. Post 5.1 jabbing for chi is still the fastest was to generate chi, but the efficiency of that chi development is now closer. This change makes it much less damaging to use soothing mist or crackling jade lightning as your filler spell.
Power strikes and Healing elixers are only minor changes, and since I didn't use them anyways, have little affect on my healing. If you are a full time fistweaver though, then the benefit of power strikes is worth considering. I still prefer the extra chi (5 chi instead of four) and the new 15% additional mana that ascendency gives, but an argument can be made for power strikes in that situation.
The enveloping mist change to level 16 is purely a quality of life change for early questing. If you leveled a monk pre 5.1, you found that in the early levels, all you could do was soothing mist (which was more then enough healing, but very boring). Getting enveloping mists earlier gives more buttons to push and makes leveling more fun.
The change to crit and mana tea charges is huge, because it has an affect on our stat distribution. Pre 5.1, I went with a mastery heavy build because in a 25 man raiding team, spheres rarely get wasted. I did this against most of the research I did, as most people said crit was slightly better. This change finally made me switch to a crit heavy build, and I gotta say, I have no intention to chnage back to mastery. The additional tea stacks, while not gamebreaking, are noticeble, and make your amount of needed spirit go down. Being able to convert some of the spirit reforging to crit allows a monk to keep the same regen, but also have the same random benefits of crit. I much prefer regen that can increase healing to regen that doesn't. Spirit is still the king stat, but with the crit change, you no longer need to stack it as high as you used to.
The renewing mist change is what really hurts us. On fights like Elegon, with high aoe damage, I could jab for chi, renewing mist on cd, thunder tea on cd, and then uplift in between and put up insane healing numbers. With a 15 ilvl gap between me and our best healers, I was still beating them consistently on that fight. This was great for my ego, but also an obvious overpowerment of the mechanic. In low to mid damage aoe fights, this will not hurt us all that much as some of the other changes will compensate for the loss in heals. The only place where this will hurt is in high aoe damage fights, and on those fight we will be more akin to other healers instead of being the "Gods" of aoe healing. I don't like this change, but I understand why they made it, and if you use healing sphere more, and better use of your tank heals, you can make up the lost heals quite easily. There will be more pressure on yout healing team for aoe heals though. In a 10 man team, this change has negligible affect, and is not much of a nerf at all.
The soothing mist mana change is very big. Without a statue, you could soothing mist all day and never run out, but with a statue out (as you always should have), the mana drain from soothing mist made jabbing for chi the better option. Now, soothing mist is a much more realistic chi generating alternative to jabbing for chi.
The haste change is also pretty big, because it changed our haste tick points. It used to be that a mistweaver should not stack any haste as they would get enough just from gear to get an extra tick of renewing mist and enveloping mist. Now, with very little stacking, you can get two extra ticks of each spell. (3140 is now the objective of haste) These extra ticks help compensate for the reduction in healing that renewing mists only going to two targets make.
So now the overall judging. It turns out that the great mistweaver monk nerf of 5.1 was actually not much of a nerf at all. Instead blizzard has forced monks to use more of their spells in a more triage fashion, which does fit their current model for healing. The importance of healing sphere has jumped and is worth using when you can fit it in, but don't neglect your normal rotation of spells to fit it in. A good monk will have plenty of chances to throw it in, so look for those oppurtunities. Renewing mist should still be cast on cd, but uplift's power has been greatly reduced. It should still be used in high aoe damage moments the way it was before, but in mid to low aoe damage situations, monks now have other spells worth casting instead. The new stat priority as I see it is: Spirit -> Int -> Haste to 3140 -> Crit -> Mastery -> Haste after 3140. This could change, especially as gear gets better, but currently I think it is your best bet. If you make the adjustments, there is no reason why a mistweaver monk can't continure to shine in a raid setting and still outheal the other classses. It is a lot harder then it used to be though, and at least in my opinion, that makes it more fun.
P.S. This is not related to the patch directly, but is worth mentioning. Mistweaver monks are incredible tank healers. I would argue the best class at tank healing, especially if you get the tier bonuses, so with the nerf to renewing mist and the inadvertant nerf to uplift because of it, it might be worth suggesting to your raid leader that he let you tank heal, and throw out some aoe heals while you are doing it. A mistweaver can put out aoe heal like numbers just tank healing if the tank damage is sufficient (which is the case on pretty much every progression fight). I plan to do my next post on how to best accomplish tank healing, and why it is a change worth making if your guild leader will allow it.
With 5.1 finally dropping, the time has come to analyze how bad the nerf was to Mistweaver healing. So first off, let's look at the complete list of changes as stated on the patch notes:
Monk
- All healing spells which cost mana have had their mana cost increased by 10%.
- The Tiger Power provided by Tiger Palm now reduces target armor by 30% with a single application and no longer stacks.
- The healing provided by Enveloping Mists has been reduced by 32%.
- The healing provided by the Healing Sphere base spell has been increased by 20%.
- The healing provided by Chi Burst and Chi Wave has been reduced by 25%.
- The healing provided when detonating Zen Sphere has been reduced by 25%.
- The chance to generate 1 Chi while channeling Soothing Mist and Crackling Jade Lightning has increased to 35%, up from 25%.
- The Power Strikes talent now grants the Power Strikes effect every 20 seconds, which causes the Monk's next attack to generate 1 additional Chi.
- The Healing Elixirs talent now grants the Healing Elixirs effect every 18 seconds, which causes the next Brew or Tea consumed to heal the Monk for 10% of maximum health.
- Mistweaver
- Enveloping Mist is now available at level 16, down from level 34.
- You now have a chance equal to your crit chance to generate double the amount of Mana Tea charges.
- Renewing Mists now travels to 2 additional targets (was 3 targets).
- The mana cost of Soothing Mists has been reduced by 33%.
- Haste for Mistweavers is now 50% more effective through Stance of the Wise Serpent.
The mana cost increase had me very worried, but after being in a raid, it is not that bad, because half your spells use chi anyways, and the crit bonus makes up for the lost mana. (more on the crit effect later)
The tiger power change is most beneficial to windwalkers, but if you are a fistweaver (dps healing through eminence), this is also a nice quality of life change for that. If you range heal with the monk, this change will not affect you.
The Enveloping Mists nerf really made me mad when I first saw it, but when using it in a raid, I realized it was put in to counteract the haste buff, in order to make the amount of healing "feel" the same, which it does. (more on the haste change later)
Healing sphere went from being a lonely, never pushed button on my bar to now very important. In high aoe damage phases, it is still lackluster, but in low aoe damage phases, for tank healing, or pre-healing, it owns. With my current gear it does 35k regular and 70k as a crit. That means in 3 global cooldowns, you can get between 105k and 210k heals. That is a lot of healing for very little cost. Finding moments to drop them is well worth it now. Pre 5.1, there were just too many other options. Renewing Mists, Uplift, Expel Harm, Soothing Mists, just to name a few. You still want to do renewing mists on cool down, but healing sphere is now a great filler spell.
The nerf to Chi Burst, Chi Wave and Zen Sphere is disappointing as it reduces our utilty. These spells are not always worth using on cd anymore. It used to be that you wanted to use them whenever you could. Now I only use them as a chi dump in order to keep my mana tea stacks as high as possible. (again to benefit from the crit change)
The change to soothing mist and Crackling Jade Lightning is probably my favorite change, because it makes range healing come more in line with melee healing. Pre 5.1, jabbing for chi was king and any good mistweaver was doing that. Post 5.1 jabbing for chi is still the fastest was to generate chi, but the efficiency of that chi development is now closer. This change makes it much less damaging to use soothing mist or crackling jade lightning as your filler spell.
Power strikes and Healing elixers are only minor changes, and since I didn't use them anyways, have little affect on my healing. If you are a full time fistweaver though, then the benefit of power strikes is worth considering. I still prefer the extra chi (5 chi instead of four) and the new 15% additional mana that ascendency gives, but an argument can be made for power strikes in that situation.
The enveloping mist change to level 16 is purely a quality of life change for early questing. If you leveled a monk pre 5.1, you found that in the early levels, all you could do was soothing mist (which was more then enough healing, but very boring). Getting enveloping mists earlier gives more buttons to push and makes leveling more fun.
The change to crit and mana tea charges is huge, because it has an affect on our stat distribution. Pre 5.1, I went with a mastery heavy build because in a 25 man raiding team, spheres rarely get wasted. I did this against most of the research I did, as most people said crit was slightly better. This change finally made me switch to a crit heavy build, and I gotta say, I have no intention to chnage back to mastery. The additional tea stacks, while not gamebreaking, are noticeble, and make your amount of needed spirit go down. Being able to convert some of the spirit reforging to crit allows a monk to keep the same regen, but also have the same random benefits of crit. I much prefer regen that can increase healing to regen that doesn't. Spirit is still the king stat, but with the crit change, you no longer need to stack it as high as you used to.
The renewing mist change is what really hurts us. On fights like Elegon, with high aoe damage, I could jab for chi, renewing mist on cd, thunder tea on cd, and then uplift in between and put up insane healing numbers. With a 15 ilvl gap between me and our best healers, I was still beating them consistently on that fight. This was great for my ego, but also an obvious overpowerment of the mechanic. In low to mid damage aoe fights, this will not hurt us all that much as some of the other changes will compensate for the loss in heals. The only place where this will hurt is in high aoe damage fights, and on those fight we will be more akin to other healers instead of being the "Gods" of aoe healing. I don't like this change, but I understand why they made it, and if you use healing sphere more, and better use of your tank heals, you can make up the lost heals quite easily. There will be more pressure on yout healing team for aoe heals though. In a 10 man team, this change has negligible affect, and is not much of a nerf at all.
The soothing mist mana change is very big. Without a statue, you could soothing mist all day and never run out, but with a statue out (as you always should have), the mana drain from soothing mist made jabbing for chi the better option. Now, soothing mist is a much more realistic chi generating alternative to jabbing for chi.
The haste change is also pretty big, because it changed our haste tick points. It used to be that a mistweaver should not stack any haste as they would get enough just from gear to get an extra tick of renewing mist and enveloping mist. Now, with very little stacking, you can get two extra ticks of each spell. (3140 is now the objective of haste) These extra ticks help compensate for the reduction in healing that renewing mists only going to two targets make.
So now the overall judging. It turns out that the great mistweaver monk nerf of 5.1 was actually not much of a nerf at all. Instead blizzard has forced monks to use more of their spells in a more triage fashion, which does fit their current model for healing. The importance of healing sphere has jumped and is worth using when you can fit it in, but don't neglect your normal rotation of spells to fit it in. A good monk will have plenty of chances to throw it in, so look for those oppurtunities. Renewing mist should still be cast on cd, but uplift's power has been greatly reduced. It should still be used in high aoe damage moments the way it was before, but in mid to low aoe damage situations, monks now have other spells worth casting instead. The new stat priority as I see it is: Spirit -> Int -> Haste to 3140 -> Crit -> Mastery -> Haste after 3140. This could change, especially as gear gets better, but currently I think it is your best bet. If you make the adjustments, there is no reason why a mistweaver monk can't continure to shine in a raid setting and still outheal the other classses. It is a lot harder then it used to be though, and at least in my opinion, that makes it more fun.
P.S. This is not related to the patch directly, but is worth mentioning. Mistweaver monks are incredible tank healers. I would argue the best class at tank healing, especially if you get the tier bonuses, so with the nerf to renewing mist and the inadvertant nerf to uplift because of it, it might be worth suggesting to your raid leader that he let you tank heal, and throw out some aoe heals while you are doing it. A mistweaver can put out aoe heal like numbers just tank healing if the tank damage is sufficient (which is the case on pretty much every progression fight). I plan to do my next post on how to best accomplish tank healing, and why it is a change worth making if your guild leader will allow it.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
My new main
I have been playing world of warcraft for about three years now. I have seen highs and lows in raiding, finally finishing a tier of raiding through heroic while it was current content for the first time in Dragon Soul. I have had many mains, including a paladin named Moradon (my first main), a druid by the name of behomet, a priest by the name of charam, and now, I add my new main Deroggen, a monk, to the ranks of the classes I have raided with seriously.
I got a late start to this expansion as I took a month break so I could help my wife take care of our new baby boy. He is our first, and he has changed my life drastically, including my priorities. I am not as hard core as I once was, but I still pride myself on being the best healer I can, and on never letting things like nerfs be used as an excuse for poor performance (with the exception of the great paladin nerf that was the patch before cataclysm dropped with all the talent changes. Trying to heal in ICC with the new paladin changes was flat out broken)
I am learning this new class the hard way, by trial and error, as well as by loads of research online. The data isn't as clear cut on monks right now, but it is getting clearer and I am starting to feel like I know him like I knew my previous mains.
This blog is about everything wow, with a specific emphasis on my monk, but I may occasionally dabble in posts about other classes. So I hope you come back, and enjoy it.
P.S. My first official post will be about the "great monk nerf of patch 5.1" and why it is not nearly as big a problem as many thought it would be...myself included.
I got a late start to this expansion as I took a month break so I could help my wife take care of our new baby boy. He is our first, and he has changed my life drastically, including my priorities. I am not as hard core as I once was, but I still pride myself on being the best healer I can, and on never letting things like nerfs be used as an excuse for poor performance (with the exception of the great paladin nerf that was the patch before cataclysm dropped with all the talent changes. Trying to heal in ICC with the new paladin changes was flat out broken)
I am learning this new class the hard way, by trial and error, as well as by loads of research online. The data isn't as clear cut on monks right now, but it is getting clearer and I am starting to feel like I know him like I knew my previous mains.
This blog is about everything wow, with a specific emphasis on my monk, but I may occasionally dabble in posts about other classes. So I hope you come back, and enjoy it.
P.S. My first official post will be about the "great monk nerf of patch 5.1" and why it is not nearly as big a problem as many thought it would be...myself included.
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