BETA: Be All My Sins Remember’d – Friends with the Unlikeliest of Enemies

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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.

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BETA: The Dawning of the Death of Downranking

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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

Old and busted

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.

The new hotness

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
  • Abilities
  • Gear
  • Tuned encounters

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!

Mass Resurrection? More Like Mass OP!

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Mass Resurrection: Wow. Now Paladins have more of a reason to DI Priests, AMIRITE?

Cost: 76% of base mana
Range: 50 yards
Cast time: 1.5 seconds

That’s redonkulous! I have a big time feeling the cast time will get nerfed. But maybe not. Time to download the beta build and check it out!

Also coming up tomorrow morning, my thoughts on downranking and its effect on Priests (did I use the right “it’s”? Goddamnit this happens every time).

Edit: Forgot to add, thanks Breana!

Edit: Fixed. When in doubt, if you could say “it is” use the contraction “it’s” to mark the removed space and letter i. If it’s not two words, you don’t need the apostrophe. Thanks to everyone who caught it before I could pull it up at work. Luv, Wyn

The Search Continues…

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spotlight
Image courtesy of hberends

Matt and I want to thank you for the overwhelming response we have received so far to our call for submissions – they have impressed us in terms of quantity as well as quality. We really shouldn’t have been surprised, considering the existing quality and participation we see from the community around this blog every day, but we were a little caught off guard by the enthusiasm!

We have decided to leave the casting-call open for a week. All submissions must be entered by midnight, Pacific Daylight Time on August 20th.

Again, the subject is a 500 or so word article on your thoughts about WotLK. Please use the contact form to send in your post (That way it is sent to both of us.)

The prize is a spot on the World of Matticus staff – an unpaid, glamorous job characterized by fraternization with the coolest bloggers in Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend.

Thanks in advance, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Luv,
Matt & Wyn

Primal Mooncloth – Do You Need to Upgrade?

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lecture 
Have we been teaching wrong? Image courtesy of gozdeo

There’s a gearing question I get asked more frequently than any other. I also see it all over the Priest-related interweb. It goes something like this:

My Priest just started running Kara/Heroics, and I have the Primal Mooncloth Set. I’m dying a lot. When can I/ should I break PMC bonus so I can get more stamina?

The answer is invariably along these lines:

PMC has no Stam and makes it hard to stay alive. As soon as you have 2 of the 3 slots replaced, go ahead and break it. Shopping List: Robes of Heavenly Purpose or Gown of Spiritual Wonder, Light-Mantle of the Incarnate or Mantle of the Avatar, and Belt of the Long Road or Cord of Braided Troll Hair.

This always kind of bothers me a little bit, probably because I’m a crotchety oldster who was working my way through T5 content before the 2.3 badge rewards and ZA were introduced. Back in MY day, the only pieces that would add stamina to your stats without gimping your +healing and regen abominably were your Tier tokens. Which, with the infamous Warrior-Priest-Druid combo, in most raiding guilds, went to tanks first. And especially since Druid tank itemization meant they needed the T4 set bonus, preferably from their chest, Priests were pretty much out of luck. (I’ll spare you a very compelling QQ-anecdote about the injustices visited on my Priests specifically when it came to Tier-gear. Just know that it was very tragic, compelling, and you should pity me. Thank you.)

Basically, Primal Mooncloth meant you could keep your raid alive, and whether or not YOU stayed alive was your own business – weren’t you the healer??

As a result, many, many healy-Priests (myself and Matt included), worked their way into T6-level content with dramatically less stamina than recommended. For me, especially given the pressure-cooker of being the first and only female in my hardcore raiding guild, it meant I had to learn to stay alive. This is the origin of the “Oh s***!” macro, and why my UI is painstakingly designed to keep my field of vision clear.

My point is, I’ve done the content that the Priests asking about Primal Mooncloth have done – and I stayed alive. So I know it’s possible. So it bothers me to blame the prolific Priest-mortality rate on the gear and nothing else. If I wasn’t positive that people would feel attacked, accused, and offended, here’s what my response would be:

“Primal Mooncloth is perfectly adequate for the content you’re running. Rather than worrying about what gear to exchange to boost your stamina, let’s treat what I think is the real problem. Tell me about your raids: What’s killing you? Loose mobs, or AoE damage?”

And working from there, I’d like to go through a trouble-shooting dialogue. If loose mobs are running around and slaying healers, either your Tanks need to work on tanking, your CC needs to work on CC’ing, your DPS needs to work on not breaking CC, or YOU need to work on heal-timing. These are all very important skills, and, often, healer-deaths are simply symptomatic of underperforming raiders.

If AoE damage is killing you, then you simply need to learn how to keep yourself healed.

  • Do you have PW:S and Inner Fire up at all times?
  • Are you using profession-related bonuses appropriately? (Fel Blossom, Nightmare seed, Bandages – yes really)
  • What kind of consumables do you bring? (Stam + Spirit food, Super/Major Rejuv potions)
  • Are you using the right cooldowns? (Healthstones, trinkets)

And the biggest one:

  • Are you fully playing your Priest? Priests are unique in the sheer variety of tools in our healbox. Binding Heal, Renew, CoH, ProH, Fade, and ProM (and Desperate Prayer, if you have it), will ALL keep you alive. In fact, they are designed to keep you alive. Priests can and should be able to heal themselves without ever neglecting their duty to the rest of the raid.

It’s not that good Priests never die – Spirit of Redemption points out that Blizz KNOWS we’re going to die. It’s that the best Priests know that gear is not the major limiting factor in your performance. And as much as I advocate using the best gear available to you, it should be to augment your skill as a player, not to replace it.

Notice: I hesitated to post this entry, for the same reason that I hesitate to reveal my real answer to the pertinent gear-question. I realize that my opinion will hurt some feelings, and it is not my intention to imply that people looking to break PMC with any of the numerous options in the post 2.4 game are bad players.  It is my intention to imply that perhaps, as a community committed to improving our gameplay, our first instinct shouldn’t be to swap gear, but rather to ascertain how we can out-perform our pixilated limitations. If, after determining the REAL cause of death, we find a certain stat to be lacking, then we can recommend gear to augment that stat.

Luv,
Wyn