Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
General news and opinion about WoW.
So, I went to Undercity to see the new skin for Lady Sylvannas:
While boarding the Zepplin to head back to Northrend, this little convo took place:
I blurred the name, because I didn’t think to ask them if I could use this….. I’ll put it up, edited back in if you let me know that it’s okay.
Totally made my day.
If you’re in beta, feel free to say hello! It’s always nice to meet someone that finds value in what we write here.
Luv,
Wyn
So you’ve heard about the new Achievements in Wrath. They’re designed to help other players recognize you and your accomplishments. Many Achievements are easy to achieve such as winning a PvP match or doing 1000 quests in your time.
But a closer look at some of the other Achievements offered just make me cringe in what’s necessary to be able to accomplish them.
Here is what my Achievements look like so far. I didn’t actually level to 80, but I did max out all of my non-crafting and gathering professions. I didn’t actually do 2000 quests either if you look at the updated statistics below.
The bar at the top shows how many Achievements you have. When you start playing Wrath from your 70 toon, expect to have around 20% of them complete. Actually, I might be wrong in this regard. Anyway, we’ll see when it goes live. I’m not sure how many Achievements most players will have.
I believe the number to the side of the Achievement name is the amount of points it’s worth. I’m not suite sure what those points will be used for.
Now, let’s find out more about our ridiculous and non-essential goals that we will do anyway for the sake of completion!
Ah the City Defender. You’re out late at night patrolling the streets of whatever Capital City you call your home. Usually, there aren’t that many assaults or sieges on capital cities unless you’re on a major PvP server. Not only that, but you have to physically land the killing blow? Or does it refer to just honorable kills? I have no idea. Any Horde want to ride into Stormwind on beta so I can take you out?
It’s re-DONK-ulous I tell you.
I shoot them on sight. You know of my reaction to Murlocs. Critters are no less the same way. D.H.E.T.A. will hate me for it. But it’s the only way I can increase my place on the damage meters!
If the Achievement title doesn’t make you cringe slightly, then the cost to pick up one of these bad boys will. All you have to do is drop 1200G and you’ll get yourself 10 Achievement points. If you didn’t need bag space before, you won’t need it now.
Well Read
Wow. Just wow. This is the scavenger hunt to end all scavenger hunts. The only book I really ever read was out in Scarlet Monastary about the crusades and all that against the Undead Scourge.
Seriously, just look at all the reading you have to do. If you do plan on going for this, I salute you.
I’m Holy. The only weapon skills I can max out are Staves, Maces, Wands, and Knives. I guess Unarmed can be thrown in there, too. Now if I can just find me a mob that won’t die yet won’t hit hard enough to kill me.
Actually, this one isn’t so bad. You just need to make sure you’re standing in the right spot so you can sort of clip through the platform. The trick is to break the other team’s will so that they do spawn on the platform and stop trying to fight back so they can get out of there.
Yes, we’ve all pull this off once. Some of the luckier ones managed to do it twice. But now that it’s in the game and winning by a margin of 10 actually matters, I bet it’s going to be one that not many players will be able to pull off easily.
Again, the problem is going to depend on the rest of your team. 500 resources is one hell of a handicap.This means pre made groups will have to sort of “throw the game” at the start before going full tilt later on.
No way. It takes 5 minutes to full capture a tower. By going straight down to Drek or Van and the time it takes to navigate the path and dodge Horde or Alliance forces, the timer will almost be over. If anyone has a serious thought or plan to do this, let’s hear it. The only way I can think of is to go straight to the General with both Warmasters up unless you can capture towers within 60 seconds. But even, that’s still a lot of time.
I’ve been able to accomplish this one myself with no problem. If you’re a Shaman, Chain Lightning as often as you can. If you’re a Priest, stay Holy and spam the heck out of everyone around you. Just make sure you hide and park yourself in a not-so-obvious spot.
Now that we’ve gone through some of the teeth grinding Achievements that can be done, I turn the hat over to you. What other nigh-impossible Achievements can you come up with? You’re free to use any aspect of Classic, TBC, or Wrath. What about Class specific Achievements? Is there any challenges that Priests or other individual healers can engage in?
I took Wyn on a guided tour of Northrend. You might not recognize this, but we’re on a giant turtle.
Quote of the night?
“No Matt, you’re not flagged for PvP. Honest.”
What do you do when you are asked to do something that goes against your beliefs?
How do you behave when you principles become compromised?
When your friends become enemies and your enemies become friends, who can you turn to and who can you trust?
Never in the history of Dwarven-kind did we ever have reason to aid our enemies. When Dwarven children were growing up, their parents would paint them the horrors of the various monsters and beasts around the world. As a Priest, I was taught to go after them and defend my country and my right to live as a Dwarf.
We did whatever it took to safeguard our borders. From the mountains of Redridge to the Marshes of Dustwallow I went. Our objective to wipe the evil fish off the face of the planet. Every Murloc, slain. Every hovel, leveled. Any trace of Murloc, annihilated.
Our path was clear and merciless from the day our training ended.
I should’ve known priorities had changed. Quel’Danas offered the first clue. Freeing Murlocs from the clutches of Naga magic? Why not wipe them both out and be done with it? I was confused at first. I thought there was more to this. Like a faithful and obedient Dwarf, I followed my orders to the letter.
Upon reaching the shores of Northrend, I was tasked to assist yet another group of Murlocs. I had trouble reconciling this with beliefs that have been grounded into me since I had gotten my first whisker at 6 months.
Murlocs. We are helping Murlocs fight other Murlocs. I have gone from mindlessly bringing whole Murloc villages to the ground to risking my life to rescue Murloc Tadpoles (children) from captivity. I infiltrated a cave under the guise as one of their own and led a small strike force deep into the heart of enemy territory. Silencing the guards were easy. Extracting the Murlocs held hostage were a bit more of a challenge.
For the first time in my career – nay, my life – I fought back to back with a Murloc covering my flank and I his. My Apostle more than held its own effortlessly cleaving the tainted Murlocs in half (after some practice from being rusty at least). In the end, the operation was ultimately a success with zero casualties.
However, going on these joint missions have left a sour taste in my mouth. I wish to be rid of them as quick as possible. I would much rather be supervising Gnomes. I now question my ethics. To whom do I owe my allegiance? The Dwarven banner or to myself?
This is the difficulty that I must wrestle with internally.
Now I have a vague idea how Americans thought when they first executed joint missions with the Russians.
Image courtesy of deboer
A blue post has yielded valuable information that will change the way we heal:
This is not a bug.
In the latest WotLK beta push, we made a large change to the mana cost of spells.
All player spells now cost a percentage of base mana rather than a fixed cost. Base mana is a special value determined by the player’s level and class, regardless of any effects or items that increase intellect. It is the size of a player’s mana pool if the player has zero intellect.
This change was made primarily to prevent downranking, as it’s a technique that was never quite intended. Rather than continue to find ways to penalize players for casting low-rank spells, we decided to essentially make doing so obsolete. If rank 5 and rank 6 of a spell cost the same amount of mana, but rank 6 does more damage/healing, then there is no reason to consider casting rank 5.
So, each spell line (eg. Frostbolt, Shadowbolt, Greater Heal, Rejuvenation, etc.) has a fixed percentage of base mana that it costs for most of its ranks. That means each time a player gains a level the cost will go up some. The percentages were picked to attempt to keep the costs relatively similar to what they are currently in World of Warcraft. For most spells, that percentage will drop some when the player receives their highest-rank spell in existing Burning Crusade content. This was done to better fit the existing cost curve, and to keep the mana cost for level 70 players as close as possible to existing costs. Level 70 characters will see most of their maximum rank spells change in cost slightly up or down, but not by significant amounts.
We anticipate there being some balance concerns due to this change, and our development staff will be ready to implement new spells, abilities, or talents to resolve those issues as the testing process continues.
Zarhym
In the past, downranking our heals served primarily as a way for Priests to maintain mana as much as possible. Why spend almost 500 mana to cast a Flash Heal when a rank 2 Greater Heal that costs 210 mana does the same? Okay, sure, I stretched the cost slightly, but not by much. But I trust you get the idea.
Between downranking, chain-potting, trinkets, talents, spells, and other abilities, getting mana back was like tapping into the oil sands in Alberta for gas. There’d be enough to fuel one person for a long time.
Your max rank spell now costs more than a down ranked spell. My max rank Greater Heal cost me ~750 mana and all of my downrank spells cost ~860. The big question going into the expansion right now is how mana regeneration will function in raids. Chain potting has been nerfed big time with that debuff (although the debuff itself no longer appears, I’ve heard scattered reports that the debuff itself is present. It just doesn’t show up on the buff bar. Downranking now removes another form for casters and healers to conserve mana.
So what’s left?
Trinkets, talents and abilities are simple no brainers. Gear is going to be jaw droppingly and fist pumpingly awesome. I’m anticipating about 110 spirit and 150 intellect on level 80 epic items. That will help increase our ability to regenerate mana yes. To counteract this effect, our spell prices will also increase once we’re at level 80.
I suspect raid compositions and raid specs will shift slightly from a DPS optimization build towards raid mana endurance. An example would be bringing classes that can help restore mana (Shamans, Druids, Shadow Priests, etc).
The last thing now is to ensure that the encounters in the game are at a bar high enough to present a challenge and low enough that it can be reached by the dedicated and the few (at least early on before it understandably becomes nerfed).
We are now at the mercy of Blizzard.
Halfway through level 71. My new job is keeping me busy on the weekdays. I cannot blog, raid, beta, and work at the same time! Need to max out time management skill to 300!
