News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

[VIDEO] A Preview of Cataclysm Raid Healing

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Cataclysm raid healing (Watch in a larger resolution if possible)

No post for today but I figured there were a number of healers out there who really wanted to see what raid healing would be like in the expansion. Here’s a video which includes the first two bosses from Bastion of Twilight on 10 man. I narrated the entire video (and if you’re tired of my voice, by all means, feel free to mute the audio) explaining what was going on and what I was doing.

I also learned how to do slow motion action which I’ve put to great effect towards the end. Don’t miss out on Life Grip in action!

Twitter followers get to watch my videos first (along with those who can find the elusive World of Matticus facebook fan page). I usually use them as guinea pigs a litmus test to see whether or not I should publish a video here.

Lastly, the official guild announcement regarding the rated BG team. 

Special Delivery: Roundup Of The Week’s Best WoW Leading, Healing and Guild Posts

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Now that my shiny new Saturday WoM feature has been going a couple of weeks it’s not the exciting new toy it was when I first unpacked it with you guys. You know how it works. So I’m not going to spend half a day explaining how I’m going to link you to the best leading, healing or guild posts from the blogosphere, or that it’s because that’s what I do over on my own site, MMO Melting Pot. Nope, this week I’m going to jump straight into that list.

If you’re cynical and knew I was out ‘til late last night (all right, who am I kidding – early this morning) you might say that I’m not my usual rambly self because most of Saturday’s vanished after a particularly good, tipsifying and long fireworks party. So I don’t have much time spare today. That’s if you’re cynical, ‘cos it can’t be true at all. We all know what happens when boomkins get tipsy, and we can’t have hedges catching on fire from uncontrolled lazering all the time.

So, without further ado or headache induced madness, here’s the best on topics close to your heart, straight from the WoW blogosphere this week.

  • About Vortex: The Structure of a 10-man – an excellent post by Kae at Dreambound about how her 10 man guild is set up. She goes through everything from structure, to policies, to roster, loot systems and more, explaining the thought behind each and how they work out in practice. If you’re starting a 10 man guild or in one that needs a shake-up I couldn’t recommend Kae’s post more as the place to start getting some ideas.
  • I have three posts titled “what’s a casual raiding guild?” – After some abortive attempts Klepsacovic has posted some of his thoughts on defining casual guilds, over at Troll Racials Are Overpowered. He looks at what casual guilds need, just like any other guild, and why they can fail. The post’s short but sweet and it might give you pause for thought to consider how you view casual guilds.
  • Conducting Guild Meetings – Blacksen talks about why regular guild meetings are so very important to a raiding guild, and how to conduct them. He also lets us know what pitfalls to watch out for and how useful long term timescales are when planning in meetings, before going on to look at the same concepts for officer-specific meetings. His thoughts on “groupthink” relating to officers are particularly interesting.
  • Do You Know I Feel This Way? – Analogue over at Looking For More has let us into her deepest and darkest secrets about being a healer. She says early on that she’s going to make some sweeping generalizations in her post and she does, but look beyond those and it’s a thoughtful read for any healer out there. She’s looking at how she feels about healing in general, and her apprehensions going into Cataclysm – are you feeling the same as Analogue?
  • Beta Healing Counterpoint: Fun and Efficiency – last week I featured Vixsin of LifeinGroup5 talking about the new healing in Cataclysm being a good thing. Well, this week, she’s got a follow up, and she’s looking at just how needing to be more efficient healers will balance with our fun-factor. What is “being efficient” going to mean for us, and how does it apply to something as varied as healing? How does it play out in a team-based environment, when we’re all trying to show just how efficient we can be individually? Vixsin’s got thoughts on all of these things.
  • Dual Resto Specs? – Rank 4 Healing Touch is looking at the possibility of having to go dual specced resto to get the most flexibility out of the tree. He’s worried that some resto talents will underperform in some situations, but there seems to be so many to pick up. He seems to be looking for other opinions on how necessary two resto specs might be come Cataclysm, so drop by and let him know your thoughts – this might be quite a salient point come Cataclysm.
  • Why Every Healer Should Care About And Track Shields – this is just one in a series of brief posts Zelmaru’s done on tracking healing-related information, and how to do so using Grid. You can find the rest of the posts on Murloc Parliament in their own special ‘addons –> grid’ category – she’s covered a lot of angles from HoTs to Prayer of Mending. Might be something useful for you there.

So that’s it for this week. I hope you find something interesting there – certainly a good spread of topics to choose from this week.

What do you think – have any of these in particular caught your eye, or are you hoping to see more of a specific topic?

Cap on Rebirth and Soulstone?

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Zarhym just dropped a bomb for us raiders. With Rebirth being restored to a 10 minute timer and Soulstone creation at 15 minutes, the devs have decided to add an additional limit.

You can only use 1 Rebirth or 1 Soulstone per attempt on 10 player raids and any 3 combinations for 25.

The design for combat resurrection effects has changed a good deal for Cataclysm, and we want to make sure players are clear on how spells like Rebirth and Create Soulstone now function. Rebirth has a 10-minute cooldown and Create Soulstone has a 15-minute cooldown. On raid boss encounters, you can only use one of these combat resurrection spells (so one Rebirth or one Soulstone) per attempt for 10-player raids. For 25-player raids you can use three forms of combat resurrection per raid boss attempt (so three of any combination of Rebirth and Soulstone). The count is incremented as soon as a player accepts a resurrection, so one can always choose not to accept if he or she wants someone else to get the resurrection instead. There is no equivalent of the Sated debuff (which tracks Bloodlust/Heroism usage), but you will get an error message if you try to resurrect too many players, and we might add tracking to our raid interface if there is demand for it. Outside of raid content, you can use as many battle resurrections as you have available.

Source

As a GM, I have a few issues with this. I understand the design intent behind it so that we’re not using 8 Druids in raids or anything. As it is, I feel that I’m burning through Rebirths more often then I like but I do enjoy having the safety net that they offer. Ultimately, we need to do better.

My question is what will happen with the Reincarnate from Shaman. I remember Divine Intervention was removed as a form of wipe prevention. I wonder if a Shaman will get exempted or it it will count. The limitation begins when a player accepts the resurrect not when it is cast upon them.

I’m hoping they’ll add a tracking interface to it. I had to use addons like RaidCooldowns to determine which Druids busted their Rebirths and who has theirs available. Ideally, the interface will tell me who used their Rebirth so I know who not to call on when I do need one. Speaking of hope, it seems a bit of a stretch, but I  hope our defensive cooldowns will not be limited in the same manner. Can you imagine only using a certain amount of Hymns or Pain Suppressions and Guardian Spirits per encounter? That would be a big problem.

We’re limited on second chances now if this gets final approval. We really need to pick and choose which players to select for a resurrect.

Special Delivery: Roundup Of The Best WoW Posts Of The Week

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Last week I started a mostly regular Saturday feature whereby I do My Thing for you guys here at WoM. No,that’s not putting on a light display shooting lazers from my eyes. Embarrassingly I’ve generally switched raiding mains as it is and am considering switching again (shh, don’t tell Matt), so lazers are much removed at present. But what I do do is gather the best posts from around the WoW blogosphere and deliver them straight to my readers at my website, MMO Melting Pot. And that’s what I’m doing on a Saturday: rounding up the best posts I’ve read during the week, with a focus on the posts about healing, leading or raiding so that they’re just the right cup of tea for WoM readers.

Things have been a little quieter in the blogosphere this week, particularly on the healer-chatter side of things. Y’see, the end of October hails, well, November. Many bloggers are focusing on preparing themselves – or their guilds – for Cataclysm. Some are blogging less because they’re focusing on the now traditional (inter)National Month of Novel Writing (NaNoWriMo). Some, well… what can I say. It’s Halloween. We’ll just have to send search parties out if they don’t come back after midnight tomorrow.

But all of that doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on in the blogosphere at all. Tumbleweed hasn’t come to town by any means. Some people may be battening down the hatches against the coming storm but a lot of them are still writing. Heck, some of them are even creating a whole new website. What do I mean? Let’s take a look at that – and more – as it’s all fairly exciting.

  • Brangwen: new site for MMO leaders – great news everyone! Brangwen of Non-Elitist Raiding Diary revealed that she and several others from all corners of the blogosphere have started up MMO Leader: a home on the internet for MMO leaders. If you’re in any kind of leadership role – officer, guild master, raid leader, class leader, you’re welcome to go on over there and join in their forums as much as you want to. They also have articles for your leadery-perusal. And yes, you can give writing your own articles for the front page a go, too. It’s fantastic that us leaders finally have a place to rally in.
  • Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Beta Healing – Vixsin at Life in Group 5 says that healing is going to change in Cataclysm: it’s not going to be anything like what we’re used to. She says we’re going to have to adapt, and gives 7 points of what’s going to change for us. That sounds like a taster, mind – from what she says, everything’s changing. But there is hope. Vix rounds off the post with an excellent call to healer-arms (granted that’s more likely to be sparkles of light) and reminds us that we can do this – it’s why we’re healers.
  • Beruthiel: How To Prepare Your Guild For Cataclysm – any expansion’s a shaky time for a guild, and Cataclysm even more so with its guild talents. So Beru’s survival guild is essential advice for any guild. Her guide is lean and gives you exactly what you need to know to get your guild rolling for Cata, from tips on what to say to members to when to do it, and how to keep morale up. If you’re a guild leader, you’ll likely get some ideas from her. if you’re a member of a sleepy guild, maybe wave it at your officers – you might inspire them to get moving!
  • A Priest’s Guide to Chakra Healing – this is for holy priests out there, fresh off the press from Derevka at Tales of a Priest. He’s going through the chakra mechanic, explaining its two different states and what you’ll be using them for. He also looks at how to change chakra states and gives helpful tips about how to track which spells you have available to you, when. A learning curve? Yes, Derevka says, but one that allows holy priesties huge flexibility.
  • Fresh Brew: Addons That Help You Inspect People, Run Guild Raffles And Set Fire To Things – our addon roundup this week might well be useful to you. There are a couple of guild related ones in it, such as one that allows guild officers to use the new in game flares more easily and another that’ll let you set up guild raffles for fun and giggles.

That be it for this week. I hope this lot keeps you entertained over your morning coffee. Or your evening meal, or brunch, wherever you happen to be. ‘Til next week – have fun, and don’t let the midnight horrors bite!

What do you think – have you got more to say about any of these articles, or even another article to contribute to the list?

Chakra: Renew is Gone

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Note: the tooltips in the quoted text boxes do not reflect the current changes to the abilities they describe.

Since 4.0.1 changes were even announced, I was overwhelmed with anticipation to try a Holy spec. Now, I’ve been Discipline since before Wrath of the Lich King dropped, and I’ve loved the entire playstyle (minus that “bubble spam” thing). When I saw the Chakra ability, as well as the corresponding Holy Word: Chastise states, I started to digitally salivate. I’ve always enjoyed classes that had a wealth of abilities to use (which is why I never rolled a Paladin — KIDDING!!). In the “lame duck session” before Cataclysm, I’ve been experimenting with the new playstyles and adapting to the new juicy mechanics that have been laid out for us. Chakra Heal has potential to be real potent. Chakra Prayer of Healing offers a beautiful and useful “stand in the good” zone, as well as an AoE Healing buff. Chakra Smite has been amazing for farming meat, mats, or anything else for which I need to “nuk da mobz”.

Chakra Renew has been a bit ambiguous to me. I understand that Renew is a very powerful tool in a certain-specced Holy toolbox, but its implementation into Chakra kind of baffled me. Now, I *like* to think I’m a pretty creative guy, but I just couldn’t really see the use or fun in it. Maybe it’s because I come from a Discipline playstyle, but I didn’t see a need to constantly spam renew beyond just blanketing my 10man raid. Well, we were given this nugget of info (thanks MMO-Champion):

  • Chakra no longer works with Renew. No longer costs mana. Sanctuary (Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending) now increases healing done by your AoE spells and Renew by 15%. (Old – Only increased AoE spells by 10%)

    • Effectively, they’ve killed Renew’s exclusivity with Chakra and teamed it up with Prayer of Healing, adding in Prayer of Mending, too. You’ll get more healing out of Renew, but remember that you have to activate it with Prayer of Healing or Mending. You cannot activate your steroid-juiced HoT by hitting that Renew key. Patience, grasshopper.

    Because of this change, our State of Mind talent has been altered:

  • State of Mind no longer affects Renew, affects Prayer of Mending instead.

    • Now, I use Prayer of Mending almost always on cooldown out of habit. Adding this into extending that Chakra state will benefit a lot of Priests out there. If the best play for a certain encounter is to keep that Chakra going, I’m not too big a fan of spamming one button to extend it. I think a change like this could also be implemented in our Heal Chakra or Smite Chakra. Only add one additional spell to extend it. Chakra Heal could also be extended by Greater Heal, a spell that we don’t really spam anyways. Chakra Smite could be lengthened by Holy Fire as well, since it’s impossible to spam it while it’s on cooldown. Here’s an image of the new tooltips (thanks, Matticus!):

    All in all, I’m pleased with the change. As it stands right now, I don’t use Renew Chakra as it is and didn’t see much use in the future. However, as would be my luck, I’ll step into that first Cataclysm raid encounter and think, “Man! I wish I had Chakra Renew back for this fight!” C’est la vie.

    Do you feel the alteration of Chakra and State of Mind are changes for the better or worse? Are you going to miss the Renew Chakra?