News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

Flash Concentration and How to Use It

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Going into Shadowlands, it seemed universally agreed upon that the Harmonius Apparatus was going to be the top throughput legendary for Holy Priests. Who doesn’t want Holy Word spells getting further cooldown reduction and indirectly feeding Holy Word: Salvation, right?

It wasn’t when I started trying to heal in mythic dungeons that I felt I was struggling more than most compared to Shamans and Druids (as usual). I considered Flash Concentration (or FC), though I was skeptical about it at first until I received a few recommendations about it. After a few dungeons and select raid bosses, I am now a believer.

Flash Concentration is a great pick among Holy Priest legendaries. It slots in either your wrist or neck slot. I selected the wrist slot for mine so I could apply a +15 Intellect enchant to it.

Each time you cast Flash Heal, Has its casting time reduced by 0.2 sec and healing increased by 3%, stacking up to 5 times.

For some reason, when I read that, I interpreted that it would apply only to your next Heal. That’s not what happens though. The FC buff lasts for 15 seconds. For that window, your Heal cast time is 1 second less which puts it as the same cast time as a Flash Heal and increases the healing throughput of it. You can squeeze off about 9 consecutive casts of Heal before having to hit Flash Heal to refresh it. Last week’s Fortified affixes included Grievous which was a struggle to heal through but having FC completely trivialized it.

Usage in dungeons

My talent setup

There is wiggle room. Shining Force gets the nod over Censure during a week like Necrotic where the slow and knockback can help your tanks shake off their stacks. I personally like Censure in most cases (largely because I’m not great in my Shining Force usage).

Depending on your dungeon layouts, Benediction is often the better move because you don’t need to fret about accidentally pulling an unintentional mob pack with Divine Star or Halo.

With the last row, you can make a case for Light of the Naaru or Apotheosis. I prefer Apotheosis just because of the on-demand reset for Holy Words in case something accidentally happens. This is my pug dungeon insurance. If I’m running with my guild or other players that I know consistently, I’ll convert over to Light of the Naaru instead.

Tip: Keep Mind Soothe handy. I’ve found it to be great when trying to get around certain packs.

Usage in raids

My talent setup

This is a slightly different setup for FC in raids. Enlightenment is now a necessity due to the increased time spent on the encounter. Cosmic Ripple gets you some increased passive healing. Censure or Shining Force is dependent on the encounter. Surge of Light continues to be valuable here to help maintain your FC stacks (otherwise I would just have Prayer Circle active). Halo is the main selection but there is merit to Benediction for certain encounters (like Huntsman and not breaking crowd control).

By default, I’ll keep Harmonius Apparatus equipped. For progression, I’ve got my awesome X’anshi, Return of Archbishop Benedictus pants! We’ll talk about that later though.

There are a few bosses in Castle Nathria where FC shines. If you’re working on progressing through Huntsman Altimor, I recommend using it. During Bargast, if your tank isn’t at full, a fully empowered Heal can help restore the Rip Soul spirits to full health quite quickly. It can top up your 3 players that have been hit with a Sinseeker.

On Mythic, it becomes even more crucial as there are more Rip Soul spirits that spawn off the Sinseeker targets. Whatever Holy Word: Sanctuary doesn’t catch, Flash Heal and Heal will finish off.

If you really want to have some fun, put this on when you’re about to start Sun King’s Salvation. Grab a healing orb, hit Kael with a Guardian Spirit, and start bombing away with Flash Heal and Heal. You will phase him into the Shade in no time.

WeakAuras

I recommend using this Weak Aura to track FC. It doesn’t take up a lot of space and it comes with audio cues for time remaining on FC before it needs a Flash Heal refresh. Mine is positioned above my frames. You can see a Surge of Light weak aura right next to it (Thanks, Kyu!).

If you’re Holy, I can’t recommend using Flash Concentration enough for dungeons and pushing keys. I doubt it’ll make us crazy competitive at the high level but it’ll be more than enough to help get us through some of the affixes coming out. The cast sequencing does take a bit of time to get used to. I admit, I’ve let my fair share of FC stacks drop and really unfortunate times.

Don’t Ask your Guild about Shadowlands

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(No story spoilers)

I missed writing. But between raiding, orchestra practice, and the esports job, something had to give and it was blogging. Though with the current states of affairs going on in the world right now, I find myself with a little more time than usual. Dusted off the site and applied some paint to give it some more life. I’m going to need to dive deeper into the rest of the archives though to see if anything broke.

How about you? How’ve you all been? Take care of yourselves (and each other) out there.

Shadowlands

If you’re like any other guild and you ask them their thoughts on Shadowlands, I guarantee you the consensus you’re going to receive is that it is literally going to be the worst WoW expansion ever. Some of the reasons include:

  • Covenants are going to make everything so imbalanced.
  • Literally every class is going to be overpowered.
  • There is clearly no testing going on.
  • There is a mission table (still).
  • Rogues exist (still).

I’m telling you, Shadowlands is going to be the best expansion (for Holy Priests)! As I was huffing around beta, I jumped into a dungeon queue. Bless that 2 minute healing queue which is both a blessing and a curse. If you ever want to feel pressure, it’s setting up your keybinds via the default system UI, dragging spells out of your spellbook, and configuring talents whilst keeping your party alive.

Everyone’s been all over Discipline in this expansion and Holy Priests are like that forgotten lip balm you have tucked in your drawer somewhere. Prayer of Mending is instant cast. Casting Circle of Healing can reduce the cast time of your next Prayer of Healing (via talent Prayer Circle). The resurrect cloak from Legion has returned in some fashion. Power Word: Shield can be spammed again across the party. I can access Power Infusion (take a number, stand in line)! I am quite delighted with where the class is at right now. Are we going to be throughput monsters in Shadowlands? That’ll most likely be a hard no. Holy was always designed to be above average to good at everything but I know we’ll never excel at one thing.

There is no way I can contain my giddyness. There is going to be a boss somewhere that involves some kind of soak mechanic or else the raid is going to wipe. Obviously, it’s going to go to some Ice Blocking Mage or a Bubbling Paladin first. But there will come a time when the raid leader will say, “Matticus, we’re out of options. You know what to do.” and I will gladly take a dive in the name of progression!

Seriously though, it does seem like my guild has a giant, dark cloud looming over them. I wish I could snap them out of it but I don’t know how. My worry is that they’ll be so demoralized to the point where they want to quit the game. Then what am I going to do? I’d have to go look for another guild to raid with again :(. I understand how seemingly inflexible covenants can be but to Blizzard’s credit, they’ve actually come out and said they’re prepared to allow for ease of use for switching if the system is deemed unsalvageable. I can’t remember the last time the dev team openly saying something like that about a new system they’re shipping with an expansion. So in a way, the acknowledgement is a step in some direction.

Other news

  • We cleared Mythic N’zoth (316 pulls).
  • Reached Platinum 1 in Valorant.
  • My vibrato technique continues to be non-existent.
  • I haven’t cut my hair since January.

12 Hours and 20 Minutes from 100 to 110

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That’s the time it took for me to level from 100 to 110 on beta. I can do better than that.

Anyway, related to the Legion leveling dilemma of pure quests versus incorporating dungeons, I did a straight run yesterday from 100 to 110 on my Priest. Here’s the times and rough paths:

10:38 AM: Timer starts at Dalaran, selected Stormheim
12:06 PM: 101
13:12: 102, unlocked both artifact weapons for Holy and Disc, moved to Azsuna (which flows nicely with Enchanting and Tailoring profession quests)
14:40: 103
15:58: 104, moved to Val’Sharah, and restock up on Legion level food and water
17:10: 105, back to the Class Hall to start some player XP work orders (2 hours)
18:10: 106, moved to Highmountain
19:13: 107, back to the Class Hall to redeem and start another set of player XP work orders
20:39: 108
21:45: 109, back to Class Hall to advance class mission scenario
23:01: 110

All of that took around 12 hours and 20 minutes. Ended up dying 4 times overall. Embarassingly enough, my first death was during the initial Shadow Artifact weapon quest. Oops.

Oddly enough, the longest part should have ended up being the 100 to 101 area between unlocking class artifact weapons and moving Dalaran over. I suspect this might even take longer on live.

Speaking of artifact weapons, I lost some major time on the Discipline one because I screwed up the encounter with the Fire boss. Didn’t make the connection that Mind Control was supposed to be used (and I’m surprised that spell didn’t get pruned). That’s why ultimately level 102 took way longer than needed.

High Mountain is actually a tricky zone. It can be optimized more and there were a few Hearthstone tricks I didn’t properly do. Not to mention, the main quest area is on top of a freakin’ mountain with lifts. What is it with Tauren and living on top of giant mountains and using elevators anyway?

I literally completed all of the zone storylines in all of the major areas. I think there was one (or maybe two) of those free form quest areas that I missed out on in Azsuna that I’m going to have to incorporate in my live run. But at 49% into 109, I ran out of zone quests. Thankfully, I still had class quests I could accomplish and a few profession ones remaining.

I did end up having Auto Turn In installed but forgot to install an autovendor addon for trash drops. Ended up having to manually sell items on my mammoth during the dialog based cut scenes (which can’t be skipped). Incidentally enough, those are great times to re-buff yourself with food buffs.

Zoopercat has a post on Ask Mr Robot with some additional detail on Artifact Power and the quests. Since I’m raiding as Holy and levelling as Shadow, my run did not incorporate the use of activating Artifact Power or buffing weapons. I went straight to 110 with a naked Artifact weapon. Between Zooper’s post and my experience, you’re better off investing the AP right away even if you plan to raid as a different spec. You don’t lose that much time or progression and between some of the dailies and other wards, you will catch up quickly on the 2nd weapon anyway.

Last piece of advice, fruit platters are awesome for maintaining energy and alertness. I hate blueberries though.

We are Legion

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My name is Legion: For we are many.

Couldn’t help but think back to that Mass Effect 2 quote. Where do I start here? A quick guild update is in order. Archimonde on normal is now cleared. On the heroic front, we bypassed Iskar and gunned straight to Socrethar and Xhul knocking both of them out this week and placing the guild at 8/13 heroic. Unfortunately, I lost a Resto Druid last week and our resident Mistweaver Monk has gone missing in action. Our auxiliary and off-spec healers have done an admirable job filling in the for them. It’s only going to get harder for them and I didn’t bring them on board to heal full time despite their insistence that they’re willing to do whatever’s needed. I brought them in to deal copious amounts of damage and we’ve invested the damage gear into their characters. Resto Druids continue to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for my guild, it seems.

Okay, let’s talk about Legion.

That was much more information than I expected from a non-BlizzCon presentation. I assume this means that Diablo 3 is going to headline BlizzCon this year.

The classes

Demon hunters. Straight up 2 specs: Damage and tank.

I’m mentally grimacing because it’s another tank class and another melee class. Is there any point to bring in rogues now (other than Smoke Bomb?). Yeah, too early to tell since there wasn’t much in the way of class information. From the few highlights and abilities, they certainly appear to be a fun and high-mobility class especially with their double jumps. Can’t imagine significant raid combat bonuses though other than being able to traverse slightly larger than normal void zones.

Conditions for raiding as a Demon Hunter

  • Player must make a generous donation to the guild bank
  • Player must find someone to replace their role (if they’re not melee)
  • Player’s Demon Hunter performance must exceed their previous role

If those conditions are met, their request to go Demon Hunter will be considered.

Speaking of classes, Icy Veins with their fantastic interview out this morning, confirmed that Survival Hunters will be switching to a melee class. There was speculation since their artifact shows them wielding a spear instead of a traditional bow or a gun.

Great.

More melee.

I’m glad that hunters get more of a diversity among their 3 specs. But the GM in me is visibly annoyed at this, because this means yet more melee. More players that’ll get struck by cleaves or other close range boss attacks and so forth. Conquest has traditionally been a melee heavy raid and we’re trying to move away from that so we get a little more wiggle room. This doesn’t help us much. Unless Survival Hunters are clearly superior or offer an irresistable utility that’s needed, I don’t plan on actively snagging any for the roster. Could change though.

But ugh, another healer or a ranged class would’ve been nice.

Artifacts

Hey look at that, no weapon drops for this expansion. Once we receive our class weapon, we get to grow with it as we adventure onward. Paladins get to utilize Ashbringer, Death Knights get Frostmourne, Hunters get a random bow and a spear, and what about us Priests?

We have no idea yet. Blast. There’s some speculation that it would be Benediction or Anathema, and I confess, I thought similarly. After further thought, I realized it wouldn’t make sense. Veteran Priests already have those. While they’re certainly iconic Priest weapons, I can’t fathom from a lore or gameplay sense that they’d be “rebooted” and awarded to us.

Gathering the shards of Benediction somewhere in Stormwind Cathedral? Why not use the one that’s just sitting in my void storage?

Now, I were a betting man (which I am), I’d put my gold on Fearbreaker. Anduin is going to pass his iconic mace to us, the “leader” of the Priest class order as his prince duties tie him up elsewhere.

Speaking of Anduin, anyone else amazed at how much he’s aged?

Or maybe they just conjure up a new staff from out of no where and apply some lore magic to it. Maybe it was one of Alonsus Faol’s old staves that was buried with him in his grave somewhere that we need to retrieve.

Class Orders

It’s being billed as similar to garrisons but on a much smaller scale. Instead of raising an army, we’re building a smaller strike team. They should’ve sold it as the class version of the Avengers or something. Actually, if they gave our followers here a talent tree like the Diablo 3 followers, I’d be greatly interested. I suspect it’s a much more developed version of the level 3 Barracks where we can activate select followers to escort and assist us around the world.

Going to be odd though to be the leader of the class order when there’s going to be other priests in the same area with the same title.

Good thing we’re not paladins and watching everyone around us with Judgment gear.

More stuff coming down the pipeline, to be sure. Can’t wait for beta!

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The Podcast and the Hearthstone Stream

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We won’t be transferring servers after all. After a two-week process, I’ve come to terms with the leadership of another guild on our server and finalized an arrangement for a guild merger. This will be the third one for the guild and it’s infused fresh life into everyone. I’ll have more details about that later in the week with some behind the scenes stuff, thought processes, and all the various factors.

Merging guilds is another topic of discussing in an upcoming show of the Guildmaster’s Podcast, which will be set to debut on March 24. Wil and I have been recording our shows two weeks in advance. The third episode on low negativity and morale was released yesterday. Having that nice buffer in advance helps cushion for any unexpected events that can affect scheduling. So give us a listen!

Speaking of extra projects, in a bid to expand the streaming arsenal of Blizzard Watch, I’ll be on deck Friday nights to stream some Hearthstone game play! My first session went live last Friday and you can watch the recorded stream here. Watch that game with the warrior as it’s a doozy. No one can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like I can!

Raid progression-wise, we’re now back in front of Blackhand. There’s been some internal discussion on the merits of targeting Blackhand versus returning to Highmaul and knocking out some of the mythic bosses there instead. It wouldn’t be something we do regularly, but it’d be nice having those kills under our belt. Plus the difficulty of Brackenspore and Tectus on Mythic has been likened to the difficulty of Blackhand on Heroic (Really?).

Have a terrific week!

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