Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
Matticus Kreeoni wrote a list post disguised as a non-list post about the traits of WoW Officers. Those of you unfamiliar with him and his work, he’s another blogging Guild leader. I randomly stumbled across him one day on Twitter. I was intrigued and started following him.
Now if it were me, I would’ve titled it something like “7 Universal Traits of WoW Officersâ€Â. Number + Catchy line = Eyebrow raising interest.
A good post by a good blogger! We could use more GM blogs around.
Matticus has no comment at this time. But, I felt that the readers should be aware of this thread. It was tried before in the summer but they removed the cooldown. They’re thinking about bringing it back again (note the dates).
We’ve tried to keep up with all of the several threads that spawned as a result of my last comments. People have made some really good points.
Based on feedback from this forum, elsewhere and our own brainstorming, what we are thinking about right now is something like a 6 sec cooldown for Circle of Healing and Wild Growth.We’re less concerned about Chain Heal, in part because it’s not instant, prevents movement, falls off with multiple targets, and is the spell that shamans are supposed to be hitting, while priests and druids have many other spells.
At 6 seconds, you would still want to use CoH/WG in the right situations (though hopefully not *every* time they are up), but you’d also want to use other spells during the cooldown. To be fair, a lot of priests and druids are asking to push other buttons. 🙂
This sounds like a potentially scary change because it has a lot of ramifications — one of the reasons we are mentioning it so early is to get feedback. We don’t want Resto shammies to push other healers out of raids. We would change some of the encounters knowing that CoH spam was no longer possible.
And
Yeah, we did. We thought it would feel like a big nerf and changed our minds. But seeing the state of healing at 80 makes us think it might be the right call again. When AE healing is so prominent, it also makes specs without great AE heals (Holy paladins and Disc priests) feel useless.
Assume that we would lower Wild Growth by the same proportion as Circle of Healing. The exact numbers aren’t as important to this discussion as the concept that you can’t hit the button whenever you want.
Reactions?
This is a guest post written by Galadria.
Hello Matt’s Readers! For those of you who remember me, I’m back playing WoW and writing my blog again. For those of you who don’t, I’m Galadria and I write Galadria’s Corner (yes I renamed it… again) formerly The Light and The Dark formerly The Holy Light. I’ve got raiding experience on 2 level 70 Priests, one Holy and one Shadow, and I’m now rolling new toons on a new server, another Priest and now a Warlock (they’re both 40ish at the moment). Without further ado, here’s my thoughts on Professions in Wrath!
Professions have taken a slightly different flavor in WotLK. Each has its own unique benefits, even the gathering professions. It seems to me that Blizz decided to balance not only classes, but professions. Tailoring was so incredibly OP for casters that I felt I didn’t have a choice but to learn Tailoring or be horribly gimped in raid. With each profession having something special, the selection of your professions requires a little more thought (especially if you’re leveling new toons like I am!). The information included is from the Beta and WoWHead’s WotLK site. Since WotLK isn’t live yet this data isn’t set in stone there are likely to be a few changes. When the expansion goes live I’ll let you know what changed and how (over at my blog, or course, so add me to your reader if you haven’t already! /shameless plug off). With the disclaimers out of the way, here we go!
Alchemy
The Bottom Line: Alchemy can be a great profession for anyone. The double duration will save you money and I think the Alchemy stone will be very valuable with the potion changes (my gut is telling me that this is going to be one of the more powerful profession benefits available, but nothing is set in stone yet). It can also be a money maker if you can get your hands on some of the rare or discovered recipes. If you are going to be an Alchemist I highly recommend Herbalism to go with it so you don’t have to purchase Herbs.
Blacksmithing
The Bottom Line: I can’t recommend Blacksmithing for any caster since we can’t use the majority of the crafted products.
Enchanting
The Bottom Line: I think we’ll find Enchanting to be less tedious to level and make money off of than it used to be with the introduction of scrolls. A friend told me that she was actually able to make a little money selling the enchanted scrolls that she made while leveling Enchanting. While it’s a pain to level, Enchanting requires no gathering profession and therefore pairs well with Tailoring or any gathering profession for money making. To me the ring enchants aren’t enough to make me level the profession, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good option for any caster (as it has always been!)
Engineering
The Bottom Line: I’m not sure Engineering is a great choice for a caster… but I don’t think it’s a bad one either. The Repair Bot brings a lot of utility to raid and there’s no denying the mounts are really cool. If Engineering is your thing I can’t knock you for it.
Herbalism
The Bottom Line: As far as gathering professions go, Herbalism is my favorite and the 2 crafting professions Herbalism benefits are both useful to a caster. If you need a profession to make money for you Herbalism can be a good choice, especially since there are now 2 crafting professions that benefit from it and therefore more demand. Also, Lifeblood has saved my tail more than once!!
Inscription
The Bottom Line: I can tell you from personal experience that the Scroll of Recall is HIGHLY useful, but it’s not a raid benefit. The shoulder enchants are much better than the reputation versions and don’t require a rep grind on top of it. I’m leveling Inscription on my Priest and really liking it! If you are going to have Inscription for a profession I recommend Herbalism to go with it so you will have easy access to the raw materials for Milling.
Jewelcrafting
The Bottom Line: Jewelcrafting can be a money maker if you can get the high-end patterns, though it is very expensive to level (second only to Blacksmithing). If you are going to have this as a profession I would recommend Mining to go with it so you have easy access to the ore for Prospecting.
Leatherworking
The Bottom Line: Leatherworking is like Blacksmithing, I can’t recommend it for a caster
Mining
The Bottom Line: If you are a Jewelcrafter, Mining is a good choice for your second profession. Also not a bad idea to accompany Engineering. I also know several people that have paired it with Enchanting to make money
Skinning
The Bottom Line: If you need money Mining or Herbalism will make you a lot more money and Leatherworking just doesn’t benefit us. However, if you are going to have 2 gathering professions for leveling or on an alt skinning pairs well with the others since you can’t track herbs and mineral nodes at the same time.
Tailoring
The Bottom Line: It appears that Tailoring won’t be practically necessary for clothies this time around. Yay! I have never really liked Tailoring, the only reason I had it was to get the gear. That said, Tailoring is nice because it requires no gathering profession and can be easy to level while you level your toon since you are always picking up cloth. Bags can be a money maker on some servers (my experience is that it will be more profitable on low-pop servers).
There you have it! You can look at the BOP benefits of each and see which suits your playstyle best. I think we’ll see a lot more variety in professions this time around. I’m really looking forward to seeing where the expansion takes us.
Er, did I say G String? I meant bow string.
Here’s a few choices screenshots leading up to and including the kill.
At this point, we’re down to 3 healers. Cheever just ate a real big Armageddon. Stupyd just died (Angel wings on the right). Luwin and Sthirteen are still alive. Both of whom are severely taxed and drained.
Thankfully, Lang (our MT) is still in good shape. Our Ret Paladin is still alive. We have enough momentum from our remaining players to carry over and finish him off. We started him today at 3:30 PM PST. We spent all night on him. It stretched on until around 8:50 PM. It was to be our last attempt regardless of what would happen. It always seems that on milestone bosses, it boils down to the last attempt.
I wonder why that is. I guess it’s desperation kicking in.
Here we are just a bare millisecond after we tip him over. The game registers the kill, my UI says he is still alive with 0.3k health remaining. The achievement system just kicks in.
I really want to take the rest of the week off. I doubt I’ll get that chance. My Guild leader was absent today. I entered the raid instance as raid leader. Clearly that must’ve affected the loot table.
Recount shows the DPS of the current fight. I didn’t set it to show overall. Caim was on orb duty as was Rackham. Big props to the two of them for handling the the Shields so well. Benchwarmer tank Hassai stepped in today and did a phenomenal job on acquiring and holding the Sinister Reflections.
We’d gotten to the point where we would bring Kil’Jaeden down consistently to phase 5.
Then down to below 20%.
Then down below 10%.
Then below 5%.
Until we finally punted him back him back into the ground where he belonged.
Burning Crusade complete. 02/11/08.
By the way, if you notice, you’ll see that we only have one mage. We could definitely use another one heading into Wrath.
Sadly, the realm forum thread I created has already been trolled. Why do people hate me so much? 🙁
Matt’s Note: Technically not WoW related. Just a post about my futile attempts at fixing a bad situation. Might have some. But not entirely. Mark as read and move on if you like. Could be fairly lengthy.
Logic and reason. Decision making of any sort should consist of those key elements. We had a pretty bad raid last night. We got shut out by Felmyst. It was a bad game for most players throughout the night, myself included. That’s not what I’m here for, however. There was an incident that occurred post raid. I don’t know the specifics or the details. No other officers were online. I was grabbing a meal and trying to downshift myself from the ubertense zone I was in that raiders frequently experience. My friend alerted me that something was happening in Guild chat. I logged on quickly to take a look. I discovered a non-raider status Guildie had departed.
From what I gathered from witnesses and the like, the player was bitter. He wanted to use gold from the guild bank to repair his gear. A guild that he joined allowed him to do that while our guild did not offer the right here. As such, he labelled us a “newb” guild. One of our active raiders took offense and a verbal sparring ensued.
I’m now left with a raider who is questioning her desire to play this game. The player who left felt that him and his brother weren’t getting the recognition they deserved. For whatever reason, he decided to start openly challenging players to duels for 500G. I quickly took him up on the offer. I’m a PvE specced Priest with near full T6. He’s an S3 geared Warlock.
It was no contest. But I had no intention of winning. Clearly the player was aggravated and the only option I could think of was for him to take his frustrations out on me instead of the other raiders. It took all of my power to prevent myself from yelling. I thought perhaps I could try and defuse him without involving anyone else.
Why weren’t we giving his brother the respect he deserved?
We do. His brother’s the chief MA and a ranking DPS player in the Guild. Apparently by respect he meant why don’t we fund his repairs. I calmly explained to him that it’s not just him. No one in the guild is allowed to use gold for repairs because we can’t sustain that sort of income. We don’t sell epics or instances or anything like that. It’s the guild’s policy. Take it or leave it.
My brother’s way better and more important than anyone else!
Yes, your brother is a key asset to the guild. But he is no less important than the other 24 players. Without our resident Warlock tank, Illidan would have stoned us. Without our healers, we wouldn’t survive.
Why don’t I get a raiding spot?
You didn’t apply. Everyone goes through the application process, no ifs, ands or buts. I went through it myself. If you want to get promoted to a raider status, you put in an app on the forum. I don’t care if you’re his brother. Everyone goes through the same thing.
I tried to be as logical and reasonable as I could. Personally, I didn’t care if he left. He’s not a raider or a sub. If he wants to leave, I wish him all the best. He said his brother was going to leave with him. I said that’s up to his brother to decide. I won’t try to stop him from leaving. But, his services will be missed.
You see, my personal take on WoW is that players should do whatever it is that makes them happy. If it means leaving the guild and parting company, I’ll be disappointed but understanding. No one is under any obligation to stay in this guild. There are no player contracts to be honored or enforced. I will do my best to work with players and their needs to come to an acceptable consensus. I can’t do more than that. I might end up losing two players over this as well. Wrath is almost here. I can’t wait.
My trial period as an officer is coming up fast. I doubt I’ll remain in this position any longer after this. I’m not suited nor cut out to handle these situations on top of my other responsibilities. It’s not often players are a part of a stable organization that has been around since the server opened. The stability here makes it extremely attractive for me.
* I’ve been extremely on edge recently. This doesn’t help.
* Missed Sunday’s WoW Insider post. It’s at home on my desktop. It’ll be up later today. Sorry Mike, Dan, Liz. I’m not exactly the most punctual.
* Car broke down this morning. Dad helped me jump start it. Weak battery. Friend wanted a hockey chest pad back when he gave it to me 6 years ago. Had no idea where it was. Found it though. Don’t ever lend things to people that you want back. If I knew he did want it back, I would’ve never taken it off his hands. He wants it for a Halloween costume. The guy is large and in his Mid 20s. The chest pad is junior sized.
* Punching concrete is bad.
* Posting is going to slow down a lot over the next week or 2. I have a paper, presentation and assorted midterms to deal with. I’m also going to suspend myself from WI writing for the same time period. I need my weekends free.
* Essay will be on the Columbine shooting. Have to explain it with 2 Crim related theories. Pick one or the other, compare/contrast, and explain. Have to give policy implications. 8 pages. Can’t use first person.
* A lot of people visit the Plusheal forums then leave after a few times. I want to hook them back. I’m thinking about starting a Newsletter. Send out a combination of a few healing tips, topic highlights and posts from various healing bloggers. Anna says I’m trying to do too much. She’s right. It’s in the idea stage at the moment.
* I want to expand the world. I have an awesome Resto druid on staff right now. Would love to partner up with a Resto Shaman and a Paladin blogger.
Ambition.
I have it.
Last thought. When I was standing there on the side of the road on a side street with the hood of the car up, cars and people were going by me.
Not a single person stopped or asked if everything was okay.
Think about that.