Matticus

Matticus is the founder of World of Matticus, a World of Warcraft blog.

Your beta and healing questions answered

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Last friday, I asked if you had any questions about the beta. Here’s what I received (rehashed somewhat).

On reforging

I have a piece of gear that had 60 haste rating, 60 spirit and 60 critical strike rating. Can I knock of 20 haste and 20 spirit for the combined equivalent to hit rating?

Nope. You can only convert one kind of stat into a different stat that the current gear does not have. In the case above, you can convert some of the haste rating into something like hit or spirit. Only one stat reforging can actually take place. You can’t split 20 haste into 20 mastery and 20 spirit into 20 hit rating. Once you’ve reforged an item, you can revert it back to its original form and then reforge it again.

On leveling

Where should I level first?

I’d suggest Vash’jir just to ensure you gain access to underwater breathing and underwater mounts. It really won’t matter though. The introductory zone you select should take you through 81 and you should be finished them around 82.

When a healer hits 85, about how much mana should they have?

I have almost 60000 right now with gear all over the place. I’d say at least 70000, but I wouldn’t be surprised to have 80000 with quest blues.

On raiding

How fast do you expect people to down first raid in Cataclysm after release?

I’m thinking the world first guilds will take down all the normal content.

On healing overall

From a healing command perspective, are we heading back to the days of organizational healing during vanilla?

Personally, I don’t think it will get to that point. During Blackwing Lair, I had to assign priests to stop healing for 2 minutes while someone went in and covered for them. I don’t foresee that quite happening in this expansion. Simply because waiting to regenerate mana for a minute or two just isn’t fun at all. One way to approach it is to compartmentalize your healers. Have 1 healer responsible for either each group or each area that happens to have players. I think healing assignments will need to be laid out and micromanaged.

Do we really have to DPS to heal?

No, not exactly. Those DPS talents in the healing trees are only there for times when you outgear content. I do not believe they are necessary for us to do our job as healers. As in, its not required for us to toss a few Lightning Bolts or Smites to get mana back to heal more. I can’t remember who calculated it, but something like 109000 mana was needed for priests before they broke even on Smites This figure is off actually. Disregard, but the point still remains.

Should we be concerned that present beta healing has been pushed into the current PTR patch?

No. A least, not yet. There is still plenty of time. My guess is that they haven’t finished doing the numbers yet. There’s no point in having one set of numbers for 80s on the beta and another set of numbers for 80s on the PTR. May as well keep them about the same but get some extra information from the PTR and larger sample sizes.

Just how badly does mana management affect healing assignment sensibilities?

That’s a tough question for me to answer. The line between tank healing and raid healing is getting quite blurry. Even those paladins might be able to sustain a large numbers of players. You’ll want the players who have no difficult issues when it comes to mana management to stay on tanks. That is, they’re aware of their cooldowns and are willing to ask for the cooldowns of others. If the tanks can be kept alive long enough, enough DPS players should be able to take it down.

Are mana cooldown nerfs really bad?

Assuming the stats of mana when we hit 85 are true, we should see a negligible different when it comes to mana return. 3% Hymn of Hope at 85 with 80000 ish mana vs a 5% Hymn of Hope at 80 with 30000 mana.

On druids

Is our current mana inefficiency a result of poor gear? How do we compare in terms of mana efficiency to other healers that fill a similar healing niche?

It could be a gear problem, but it might not be.

Are there not enough resto druids in beta or are the developers simply not reacting?

Remember that Blizzard doesn’t always respond or address everything. If it were my class under fire, I’d be happy if they were ignoring the forums in favour of figuring out a solution.

Why bring a druid healer?

Innervate and Mark of the Wild of course! After seeing first hand how soft druid healing was getting to, I was inclined to agree with the sentiment that something isn’t quite right with yet.

Whats up with the Druid mastery?

For more information about that, you may wish to refer to Lissanna’s post.

[Thanks Lissanna]

On shamans

Is the day of chain heal spamming over?

Yes. Days of chain casting chain heal are over, at least in 5 mans. It is at best a situational heal. This is largely due to the mana consumption. In a raid, it could change. But for now, not so much.

Does healing rain stack?

Yes.

[Thanks Lodur]

On paladins

What is going to happen to the idea of a flash of light paladin vs a holy light bombing paladin?

In my opinion, gone. We have to use a lot more skills. If anything, Flash of Light will be the one we don’t see a lot of. It’s very much an emergency heal.

Does the Holy paladin mastery apply to over healing?

Yes.

Is Holy Power something that should be saved up to a max charge then used or just used when there are points active? Or is it purely a case by case.

The primary holy use for Holy Power is our mana-free heal, Word of Glory, which is instant.

Is light of dawn frustrating to use when players aren’t standing in the same areas?

Its fun to use but there are two issues with it:

  1. Seems to hit for nothing especially with the current health pools.
  2. It doesn’t heal the paladin caster at all.

What’s the new Divine Plea like?

Its a fairly big hit. Heals get halved for 50% for 15 seconds. The ability can only be used every 2 minutes. Its as if there’s no reason to even use Divine Plea unless you’re absolutely, 100% desperate. Divine Plea is okay now when we’re talking 20k Holy Light bombs and crits. But since its dropping in potency and is our go to heal, its been a bit of a struggle. Hopefully itemization would fix that.

[Thanks Kurn]

On priests

Does Life Grip work on targets at different altitudes? Can you grip people while moving or jumping?

Yes, so long as you have line of sight on a target. I was able to snag Lissanna around from the air. Even managed to pull the druid from underwater onto a boat! I know a number of priests appear to be a unfazed by it, but I know I’ll personally use it on players who are capping graveyards in Alterac Valley when we don’t want them to. I tried falling off a cliff so I could drag Lissanna with me but it didn’t work.

How effective is Power Word: Barrier?

Its okay. The strength of it seems to buckle fairly quick. I’ll put up a barrier just before an AoE phase of some fight with all players under the dome. Then it disappears a few seconds later. At level 85, it eats up something like 13000 mana. I wish there was some type of scaling effect where the damage prevented was proportional to the players standing within up to a certain point. I suppose that wouldn’t really work as well.

Ask a beta healer

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Hey everyone, hope your friday hasn’t been as eventful as mine. Electrical problems have been plaguing the train systems here. Some areas are single track only. Ended up being late for my chemistry class (but thats okay, it was a refresher on scientific notation, moles and balancing and oh my god its been 6 years since I’ve seen this stuff).

I hit 85 over the past week on beta and if you’re curious, I wrote about my experience and thoughts on healing so far. You can see Lodur’s done the same here as well.

So for a rainy friday post, I wanted to open the floor to you guys. Feel free to ask any questions about the beta or healing or instances below. Come monday, I’ll try to round them all up into an answers post. I admit, I’m not as well versed in the state of paladins or druids so far. Hopefully I can tap into the wisdom of both Kurn and Lissanna (I think I ran into her in Twilight Highlands as I was leveling, but I can’t be sure). Of course, I’ll try to harass Lodur as well if there are any Shamanistic shenanigans I should know about.

Anyway, whatever your healing class and whatever your questions, I’ll see if I can answer to them. If I can’t, I’ll find someone who might know.

Have a good weekend!

POLL: Are you switching mains for Cataclysm?

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This is a great time for players to ask themselves if they want a chance of pace for Cataclysm. Last year, I wrote a 3 step process to switching mains. It’s still valid.

So my questions to you today:

  • Are you switching mains?
  • To what and why?

As a GM, I’ve the enviable pleasure of combing through the guildies who have expressed interest in main switching. I’ll write a behind the scenes post on that later (when I actually come up with a plan). I’ll do my best to see if I can accommodate it, but I know deep down that I may not be able to approve anyone. There are too many factors to consider. Have they demonstrated their aptitude for playing that class? Do I have someone covering their existing role when they do switch out? I don’t have the authority to tell people what they can or cannot do. In the end, I have to decide whats the appropriate number of classes or roles required for a raid. Obviously, I’m not going to be able to green like 7 players who want to do nothing more than tank. There just wouldn’t be enough jobs to go around. Everything needs to be examined on a case by case basis.

What about for the rest of you GM or officers? How does your guild plan to handle main switching?

Post edited for further clarity

Are you switching mains when Cataclysm is released?

  • Nope! Staying the same! (54%, 246 Votes)
  • Yes, same role but different main! (21%, 94 Votes)
  • Yes, to a DPS role (11%, 52 Votes)
  • Yes, to a healing role (9%, 40 Votes)
  • Yes, to a tanking role (5%, 21 Votes)

Total Voters: 453

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My Vision of Tier 11 Priest Armor

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Oh yeah, I’m sure you know who this guy is. His name is Altair from Assassin’s Creed. Cataclysm isn’t even close yet and already I’m day dreaming about my tier gear. Anyway, this idea came from leveling throughout Uldum. I was inspired by the deserts and the Egyptian themes.

I’m hiding my helm if we’re getting a turban though. Do you know how long I wore my Spellweaver’s Turban for back during Vanilla? Too long! What do you want your tier 11 to look like?

Raid Leading Smoothly Like Barney Ross

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This is a guest post by Blacksen of Blacksen’s End. Don’t forget to check out his blog!

I just saw The Expendables a couple of nights ago, and while not a particularly fantastic movie, there were a few good moments. The movie basically revolves around a team (called “the Expendables”) who undertake a mission to free an Island from a tyrannical General and the American investment puppeteers ordering him around.

The team consists of 4-5 skilled assassins (if you can call them that), all taking orders from Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone’s character). While watching, I noticed that the movie was kind of like a World of Warcraft raid. The Expendables fought wave after wave of terrible soldiers (Sylvester Stallone ironically calls them “trash”). At points, they were just throwing out grenades and AoE’ing the trash down. Eventually, they would run into one of the Americans (which we could call a “boss”), and there would be a big battle around them. Throughout the movie, I noticed that Barney Ross had a lot of characteristics that matched my own raid leadership style. Even towards the end, Sylvester Stallone made a terrible “your mom” joke.

What other qualities that Barney had that would make him a good WoW raid leader?

Draw the line and stick to it. Without giving anything away, there are numerous instances in which Barney clearly draws a line. At the start of the movie, he draws the line for one of his team members. He essentially says “this is how much I’m going to tolerate,” and when that team member does cross the line, there are some real consequences.

A lot of World of Warcraft raider leaders don’t know how to do this (and I admit, I sometimes fail at enforcement). You must clearly identify the point in which someone isn’t adequate. Is it 8k DPS? 10k? 2 Malleable Goos? 5 Deathwhisperer ghosts? And when one of these does get crossed, you should be prepared to actually enforce the proposed consequences. If you tell everyone “we’ll be swapping you out the second time you get hit by Halion’s cutters,” then you should actually swap people out at the second time they get hit by cutters.

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Keep your cool. Even amidst hundreds of bullets flying his way every second, Barney is still able to stay calm and make good decisions. He doesn’t get too angry, stressed, or upset, despite being in a very difficult situation. Being able to make decisions when things are very challenging and stressful is a critical part to effective raid leadership. Barney could have started to freak out and make rash decisions. Instead, he chose to stay cool, think things through, and make good calls.

Know how and when to change plans. Sometimes, things just aren’t working. For Barney, crap seemed to hit the fan all the time. Whether he’s just riding in a car with his friends and getting ambushed, or he’s trying to set up remote mines in the villa, things just never seem to go right. For both Barney and his second-in-command, it was critical to deviate from the plan and adapt to the situation. For raid leaders, there are several points in which you might also need to do this. If you don’t have a raid composition that’s going to complete a fight, it might be worth not trying (heroic Lich King without a disc priest, for example). There’s really not much of a point in attempting heroic Halion with 5 healers, so you might need to change plans.

If you’re trying a certain strategy and it just isn’t working, try something else. Heroic Halion was a good example for us: I was stubborn for a while and insisted that Halion be tanked at the wall while upstairs. We eventually found that it just wasn’t working, so we tried the “run through” strategy that we use now.

Stallone probably would have been more willing to change plans much earlier, as it was pretty obvious things weren’t going right.

Delegate to key players. For some raid leaders, it can be really tempting to try to micro-manage everything that’s going on. After all, most of us trust ourselves more than anyone else. By trying to control everything, you feel like there’s less room for other people to make an error in judgment. Usually, this mentality leads to poorer decisions and a more stressed raid leader. Barney clearly would have known that if he were a raid leader. Throughout the movie, he knows when there are times to delegate tasks for the rest of his crew. Sometimes, you just can’t do everything alone. More importantly, he knows which members would succeed better in certain areas.

At one point, the “short” team member was given a job in which his small stature would help him. By identifying the advantageous qualities of your key players, you can delegate them tasks in which they will truly shine.

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Recruit a completely badass team. I’ve said it a hundred times, and I’ll say it again: the key to a successful progression guild is effective recruitment.

Barney would have died within the first 5 minutes of the movie without the support of his team. For raid leaders, this is also the case. Recruit badass players – you’ll need their support in order to free an Island from a tyrant… erm, I mean free Azeroth from Deathwing.