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General news and opinion about WoW.

For the Resto Shaman: Settling the Crit vs Haste Discussion

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sham-crit-haste

This is a guest post from Lodur, a Resto Shaman who set up an experiment to determine what is better: Haste or Crit. The experiment consisted of two relatively equally geared Resto Shamans with slight variances in haste and crit thrown into a full clear Heroic Naxxramas.

Round 1

Lodur from Zul’jin here again. Today I’d like to talk a little bit on the topic of Crit versus Haste. This has been a hotly debated topic among the shaman community since patch 3.0 dropped on us giving us all kinds of goodies. Specs have been proposed and gear has been compared using every measuring stick imaginable. The arguments are all over the Internet, and you can find them on all sorts of forums and websites. Right now though I’d like to take a look at some key points for each camp that have recently been brought up in my guild’s Shaman Class forums.

Pro Crit:

  • Bigger heals = less heals needed

  • Allows for increased rate in procs in key talents such as Improved Water Shield,and Ancestral Awakening.

  • Takes full advantage of the fix to Earth Shield which now has a crit change equal to the caster and not the recipient of the shield

  • Allows for Increased performance of preventative healing

  • Allows for greater single target healing efficiency

Pro Haste:

  • Allows for lower casting time for Chain Heal which is a shamans most efficient heal (5.23 heal per mana)

  • Allows for a greater number of spell casts which will allow key talents such as, Ancestral Awakening, Tidal Waves, and Healing Way to proc more often on more targets

  • Allows for Increased performance in "twitch" or reactive healing

  • Allows for greater group healing efficiency, while giving the passive regen of a Glyphed Water Shield time to restore mana. 

  • Allows for quicker application of Earth Living Weapon so as to proc to more targets

To further understand these points we can look at the talents and abilities so you can begin to see where each is coming from.

Talents / abilities Described:

  • Ancestral Awakening: When you critically heal with your Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave or Riptide you summon an Ancestral spirit to aid you, instantly healing the lowest percentage health friendly party or raid target within 40 yards for 30% of the amount healed. This may not seem like much but this adds up over time. It normally clocks in at around 1% of your total healing output.

  • Improved Water Shield: You have a 100% chance to instantly consume a Water Shield Orb when you gain a critical effect from your Healing Wave or Riptide spells, and a 60% chance when you gain a critical effect from your Lesser Healing Wave spell. This is helpful with mana regen especially if your find your MP5 or raid replenishment lacking.

  • Healing Way:Your Healing Wave spells have a 100% chance to increase the effect of subsequent Healing Wave spells on that target by 18% for 15 sec. This turns your 15,000 Healing Wave crit into something that creeps up to around 20,000 and with the change to the talent applying the full bonus on once cast of Healing Wave, it has found it’s way into many rotation.

  • Earthliving:Imbue the Shaman’s weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by 150 and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additional 652 over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes. 20% meaning 1 out of every 5 heals will land a hot on a target. Using a Glyphed Chain Heal means 4 targets per heal. A 652 HoT doesn’t seem like much but it adds up over time. 

Practical Application:

Someone once said me to "Lodur, I hear what you’re saying but I need to see the numbers." So after a lengthy discussion with another shaman in our guild we decided to give it a go. I would continue to stack haste (Hello, My name’s Lodur, and I’m a haste junkie) and they (I wont use their name simply because I don’t exactly have their permission to post their toon details on the interwebs and I’m respectful like that) would stack crit and change spec and see what numbers we got.

All numbers are without totems or self buffs, and not including Earthliving Weapon. These also do not take into account trinkets like Egg of Mortal Essence . Both of us were present for all four wings of Naxx and we were both tasked with Raid / OT healing at the same time in order to keep things as consistent as possible.

(And before anyone says quality of player or anything silly like that it should be noted that me and Shaman 2 are consistently within a stones throw of eachother every raid and both have been doing this for a long time!)

Let’s look at what some numbers produce, looking at builds and stats first. All gear is at the item level of i200 and i213. This is without totems, weapon buffs, food or raid buffs. Both shamans used the same Glyphs for the run. Glyph of Chain heal, Glyph of Water Mastery, Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave and Glyph of Water Shield

The Stats

  Lodur Shaman 2
Spec Spec here (Excludes Improved Water Shield in favor of Healing Way) Spec here (Inclusion of Thundering Strikes over Enhancing Totems )
Intellect 1010 983
Haste 419 (14%) 262 (8%)
Crit 19% 31%
Spellpower 1952 1936

As you can see the stats are fairly close, differing mainly in their haste and crit rating. So lets take a look and see what the end result of the run was number wise.

The Results

  Lodur Shaman 2
Total Healing 5328335 5089956
Water Shield 60813 64400
Earthliving 444686 311665
Ancestral Awakening 75251 67245
Average Crit 24% 34%
Overhealing 40% 40%

Wow. Pretty close there! Now that’s overall for the entire raid night. So as everything averages out at the end they wind up being pretty similar. We can break this down a bit further and look at some of the individual fights to look for strenghts and weaknesses for each. Lets pull out two boss kills here.

Maxxena:

Lodur: Total Healing Done: 68,068
Shaman 2: Total Healing Done: 123,953

Damn, got almost doubled on that fight! The strong single target heals allowed for Shaman 2 to top off tanks and webbed people in one gulp causing my quicker heals to move on over into overhealing.

Heigan the Unclean:

Lodur: Total Healing Done: 222,257
Shaman 2: Total Healing Done: 109,780

Haste won that round! The faster group heals and lesser healing waves allowed for me to top people off quicker while diseases were cleansed.

The trade off between bosses carries on from there with Crit winning on Loatheb and Haste winning on Patchwerk. The two have fights where they will always shine slightly brighter then the other, but overall they perform to roughly the same output.

The Conclusion

It is, in the opinion of this shaman, so close that the difference really boils down to playstyle.

Both ways work! If you have a preference roll with it. Gearing for both is very easy. There’s haste on just about everything and what mail spell power pieces don’t have haste normally have a ton of crit (yes I know it can be argued that its elemental gear but it still works for healing all the same).

There will always be fights that are slightly tougher for your then if you had more haste rather then a ton of crit, but thats true about everything in the game. The synergy between the two is also noticeable. Fights where a hastened Healing Wave can keep Healing Way up so that the crit spec can land a huge, huge heal will always be there.

Well that’s it for round one of haste vs crit. Round 2 will be after 3.1 drops and Ulduar is available. Until next time, happy healing.

Image courtesy of Aurik

Heroic Sartharion 3D Conquered

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matts-drake

It is done. Approximately 24 hours since the experience and epiphany I had last night, it all paid off.

Sarth and his 3 drakes are down.

Twilight Drake

A big thank you goes to everyone in the guild. Without their efforts of them, the assistance of the Plus Heal Community, and the various bloggers who’ve written about their experiences, this post would not be here right now.

The handling of the Drake was flattering. The officers and an overwhelming majority of the guild felt that I should have gotten the first one.

Needless to say, I double checked to make sure.

The last thing I want on my hands is a riot because the GM gets awarded the first Drake. I’m not one for mounts. Even though I made a Flying Carpet, I still ride on my purple Gryphon. But I guess the Gryphon will get rested for a while.

Subsequent mount drops will be handled with interested members rolling instead of the loot master doing a raid roll. This gives players a measure of control and it allows players who don’t care about the mount to opt out of rolling for the ones that do.

My hands were shaking once we got that Shadron down. It was the first time we hit that plateau and after that, it just felt like smooth sailing from there.

Total time spent: ~8 hours on just 3 Drakes alone
Time of death: 7:04 PM PST, January 28

  • Worked on the pull
  • Worked on the Drake positioning
  • Worked on Whelp and Elemental tanking (We used a Death Knight)
  • Worked on healing the ad tanks and the Drake tanks
  • Worked on surviving Fissures and Firewalls
  • Worked on timing Main Tank “saves” (Pain Suppression, Barksin + Survival Instincts combo, and Guardian Spirit)

Extra things

These points may be minor, but they might help you. We increased the healing from 6 to 7. This gave us 2 Paladins. The fight took slightly longer, but it paid off.

Now what these Paladins did was they spent 17 points into Protection to pick up Divine Guardian.

The moment I used my Pain Suppression on the first breath, I’d pick one Paladin and tell them to bubble. Since a majority of the raid members are standing together, this helps mitigate raid damage during that period. On the second save, the Druid tank on Sarth popped his Barksin and Survival Instincts to outlive that breath hit. At this point, if it goes off, I alert the Holy Priest to get into position because his Guardian Spirit is up next.

Reader Rivendael brought up a great comment that I wanted to reiterate:

Hi Matt, I’m surprised that you have to watch the animations at all :)

It’s very responsible of you, considering that most healers need to/are very used to watching mainly health bars, but in the end, I’d say that the job of watching for breath cooldowns should in fact fall on the tank.

As my guild’s druid tank on Sarth (we’ve downed 3D), even before the fight, I establish player orders for the cooldowns we’re using. When Vesp lands, I call for the first cd-user to “prep” (usually all my healing pallies and priests). When I see the breath animation, I call for the prepped player to use his cd. Then I call for the next player to prepare. And so forth.

My healers just need to macro their cd to me and be in range, that’s all, and I take the burden off them so they can -visually- focus on their heals, while dodging lava walls and void zones. As the one player facing Sarth’s bigass head all the time, it’s the least I can do. Since your Sarth tank obviously has a mic, why not suggest that he do the same?

The answer to that is we both do it. The Sarth tank and I are able to watch for his head. As a healer, I like to use IceHUD so that I can see the health bar of my target, the health bar of myself, and the action that’s going around. This goes hand in hand with my heads up technique of healing.

The “double affirmative” from the Sarth tank and myself strengthens our judgment. It’s better to have two pairs of eyes on it if possible. It helps confirm that it is the right time to use a save when two players are saying the same thing. While there’s nothing wrong with allowing Sarth’s tank to call out when to use the save, I prefer keeping my head up instead of relying on reflexes to hit the tank.

Either we’re both right or we’re both wrong.

I do have a video from a DPS perspective. Just need to find a suitable host. Any ideas of a Youtube or Filefront alternatives?

Also: Ner’Zhul is ridiculously PvE competitive. We’re in the top 20 of guilds that have successfully killed Sarth 3D.

10 Seconds with Sartharion 3 Drakes

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I’m the type of player that likes to relentlessly playback previous events (or wipes) in my head. I try to see if there’s anything I can do better from my perspective or anything I should have done differently. Here’s a 10 second mentally recalled highlight reel moment of a time that happened all too often.

We run a 6 healer setup and I’m the only one on the Sarth tank.

0:00

Vent call: Firewall, move!

*Casts Shield, Renew, and dives narrowly avoiding a wall*

0:02

Vent call: Vesperon landing!

*Casts Penance*

0:04

Sarth tank: I have the debuff!

*Casts Flash Heal*

0:06

*Casts another Flash Heal*

0:08

His attack animation stopped and he’s raising his head.

WAIT! HIS HEAD IS RAIS-!

0:10

Sarth tank: I’m down!

Reflections

Thankfully, that was just earlier on in the night. After I settled in more and got into the groove, I was able to get my timing down perfectly. The problem with me was that I ended up being off in my timing.

The timing was off enough to get our tank 1 shot.

But I managed to fix it. I figured that I was zoomed in too close on my character that I had to adjust my camera more to keep my sights on Sarth. That took up precious time and added increased risk.

I managed to solve it by maxing out my camera distance so that no matter where I ran, I’d still be able to keep an eye on his head.

FYI

I use his head as an indicator for when he’s about to breathe. When he tilts back, that’s the time to use the Pain Suppression.

What’s killing us

We lose 1 or 2 people to void zones in the beginning or to a Firewall. There is a bit of inconsistency. Some attempts, the raid group is able to blast through the first drake with no problem. In other cases, people are just getting sloppy or we have bad lag luck (like a player dying to a void even though they’re 15 yards away from it).

The second problem occurs when the third drake lands. Players are killing themselves. Going to see if that can be fixed by having Paladins “tactically bubble” at certain times to lessen the overall raid damage with that Shield talent thingy.

As for me, the 10 attempts where the raid lived long enough for Vesperon to touch down, I was able to squeeze off Pain Suppression fast enough for 7 of them.

That’s a 70% save percentage.

Not good enough Matt. Not good enough.

The No Asshole Rule: Constructing a Civilized Guild

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This is one of the tougher pieces I’ve written. I had to wrestle with my internal conscience about how to properly word it. I couldn’t think of anything else better than asshole. I’ll probably end up turning away a few readers as a result, but this is something that has to be written.

Every time we play WoW, we interact with various people. We interact with people in partys. We interact with players in trade chat or out in the world. And there is no place we interact more then in our own guild. Whether you care to admit it or not, most guilds have an asshole. I’m not talking about the jerk who likes to get on his fat mount and block the quest turn in guy. Or the jackass who likes to hop up and down on your fishing bobber.

No, the assholes I’m talking about represent a type of cancer in your guild. You might be aware of it but most of you might not be.

This post is intended to be a wakeup call.

Several years ago when I was just a sophomore Priest, I went into a raid instance called Blackwing Lair. Throughout those weeks, I battle hard through every aspect of the zone. I pulled off the suppression room, mopped the floor with Vaelastrasz, Broodlord, and Firemaw. Spent hours practicing and then defeating Chromaggus until I came upon Nefarian before he fell.

A piece of Transcendence dropped and I was in line for it next. It was awarded to me and the elated feeling that players received after killing a boss and getting upgrades swept over me. Then another healer in the group sent me a whisper.

“Grats on the robe. Nice to be in a guild that awards loot to undeserving players.”

The feelings of joy vanished in an instant. I went from feeling the best to feeling like complete crap.

The Two Tests

Dr. Robert Sutton came up with two tests to determine when a person is acting like an asshole.

  1. After talking to the alleged asshole, does the ““target” feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled by the person? In particular, does the target feel worse about him- or herself?
  2. Does the alleged asshole aim his crap at people who are less powerful rather than those who are more powerful?

While some assholes are fully capable of doing damage publicly through guild chat, forums or ventrilo in front of your guild, there are some who are able to do their dirty work in private and are much tougher to catch.

12 Common Everyday Actions that Assholes Use

I’ll bold the ones that I believe are possibly relevant to you and your guild. This list is right out of Sutton’s book as well.

  1. Personal insults
  2. Invading one’s personal territory
  3. Uninvited physical contact
  4. Threats and intimidation, both verbal and nonverbal
  5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems
  6. Withering e-mail flames
  7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
  8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals
  9. Rude interruptions
  10. Two-faced attacks
  11. Dirty looks
  12. Treating people as if they’re invisible

All of us have acted like assholes at one point or another. Some days we lose our cool. It happens. We just have to do a better job of trying to control. I’ve lost my temper before and I’ve said things that I regretted immediately.

But the certified guild asshole? He has a level of persistence around him. He has a history of the consistently results in one person after another feeling like crap. They feel humiliated. Disrespected. De-energized. Constricted. Suffocated. In the end, they just feel really bad about how they are.

In short, the certified asshole gets the title because they are always treating people like crap around them.

Do you realize that you spend 15 bucks a month to play WoW? Where does it say you have to spend those 15 bucks playing alongside assholes who do nothing but treat you like garbage everytime you’re on? You deserve a lot better than that. There have even been studies that have shown that interacting with assholes often can lead to physical health problems like anxiety, fatigue, anger and depression.

An asshole can have a serious negative effect in your guild because they suck the life and energy out of people through smaller and seemingly insignificant act as opposed to one or two flareups. Consider the officer who reminds a healer that “he sucks” at healing every chance he gets. Or continues to belittle them with questions like “Why are you so bad?” It’s annoying and its utterly stupid.

The human brain perceives negative interactions in a bigger way than positive interactions. Sutton states that negativity can have an effect that’s five times more powerful than a positive statement. It takes a lot of support from positive people to help counteract the energy drained by one asshole.

The No Asshole Rule

If only it were unnecessary for guilds to not need the no asshole rule. Its quite simple.

It is entirely possible to have a productive and constructive guild without resorting to destructive methods.

Set clear expectations and standards of your players. How they should act and how they should conduct themselves. The moment any one of them pushes the line or crosses it, you have to take action. If they treat people like dirt in a pickup group or master loot themselves a trinket in a run they organize, there is no place for such behavior.

You don’t have to be an asshole to get the message across to someone. It can be done critically and it can be done firmly. More importantly, it can be done in a civil fashion.

Enforce the rule or don’t have it at all

You know what’s worse then having an asshole in the guild? Not doing anything about it when the rules specifically state that such assholeish behavior isn’t allowed.

It ends up being nothing more then a paper tiger.

Why do guilds put up with it?

There’s a belief in that having negative outbursts are character flaws that become tolerated if people are talented, intelligent and harder to replace. Talent can justify guilds looting items to these douchebags and we end up sending this message:

If you’re really good at what you do, you can get away with being a really big asshole. Actually this isnt just limited to guilds as it applies anywhere you go, really. Whether its at work or at school, the philosophy appears to be the same.

If you display words about treating people with respect but allow or even encourage the opposite behavior, it becomes useless. You end up being seen as a hypocrite and as a cynic. Players will lose faith in you and in the guild itself. Assholes multiply. When players see a person acting like one and is left unchecked, they’ll give in to their own inner rage and start doing the same thing.

Either enforce the rule or don’t implement it at all.

Life is too short for you to work and play among assholes.

 

I do want to encourage you to pick up this book if you’re into management or leadership. Heck, even if you’re just looking for a good book to read. Maybe you’re a teacher or you work in an office. There’s a chapter on how to deal and cope with assholes. It’s called the The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t by Dr. Robert Sutton.

Welcome to the Year of the Tauren

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Lunar_festival_2

The Lunar Festival is well under way in Azeroth. But you might be wondering which animal this year belongs to.

Well my friends, I proclaim this the Year of the Tauren (or Ox)

Great! What’s that mean?

Characters created during the Year of the Tauren tend to evolve into strong leaders. The Tauren is a symbol of reward through perseverance and hard work. Such characters are dependant and level headed. They are able to endure through many wipes knowing full well that is what it takes to achieve their goal. Taurens do not complain. They are calm and collected under pressure.

When coming up with strategy, Taurens tend to work best when they are at peace. Every thought and every action is methodical and systematic often revolving around logic. They are often quiet. But when they speak, everyone listens.

The Tauren does not like to borrow gold because they abhor being in debt. They don’t like obtaining lots of epic mounts or other such status symbols. They prefer the security and stability of being in a guild.

Taurens are honest people. They do not like undercutting or being competitively nasty. When it comes to loot, they are not driven by the prospect of singular or material gain.

When interacting with Taurens, don’t forget that they are social when there is nothing for them to worry about or if they feel unthreatened. Taurens care and love all of their friends but if they become annoyed, they will whip out the Totem of Whupass in anger.

Image courtesy of Cadistra