Brewmaster Impressions, Healers at Mercy, and Controversial Sponsors

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*sneeze*

Ugh, my bad.

It’s all these allergies.

PAX East is in full swing right now. I wish I could’ve gone but I’ll definitely be attending PAX Prime (Seattle). Enjoy the long weekend (If you have one)!

On Power Infusion

Also, would you consider removing the mana cost for power infusion? Most of the newer priest talents (save the top tier talents) like void shift, etc. use cooldowns rather than mana. 

Power Infusion probably doesn’t need a cost. I’ll discuss it with the team.

P.S. I should add that we completed a big audit of heals (for all classes) recently, and concluded that the mana costs were reasonable for the most part but that the heals were much too small for the Mists health pools. We buffed all of the heals quite a bit. We want mana to be less painful than it was at the start of Cataclysm, but we want it to matter more than it did at the end of Cataclysm. We want the slope of the line to be less steep — your higher throughput and regen in later patches will still make heals more efficient overall, just less so than they became in Dragon Soul. The static mana pool helps a lot with that.

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First Impressions of the Brewmaster

Sunnier’s a bear tank who’s experimenting as a different kind of bear tank (a Panda Brewmaster). Check out her feedback and thoughts of the upcoming tank class.

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Healers are at the Mercy of Everyone Else

New to healing? Grumpy Elf offers some pointers when it comes to the psychological aspect of the role and how to handle the inevitable flak that you’ll receive in the role. You are going to get blamed and you can help neutralize hostile reactions on your reactions.

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Adult Entertainment Sponsorship Possibly Splits Fighting Game Community

E-sports could definitely benefit from the influx of major sponsors. But would partnering with adult entertainment companies be appropriate? On the one hand, sponsors are great because they can help with financing of events and such. On the other hand, … is it a smart image or public relations move to make that kind of partnership?

New Priest Talent: Feathers from Heaven

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Feathers from Heaven talent in action

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGj14si3RQ

Feathers from Heaven replaces the previous Levitate talent that we had at level 30.

Feathers From Heaven
40 yd range

Place Heavenly Feathers at the target location. Each Heavenly Feather causes a single nearby friendly target to gain 60% movement speed for 4 sec.  Only 3 Feathers can be placed at one time.  Accumulates an additional charge once every 10 sec.

I place a feather on the ground. If a player runs near it, they get a temporary speed boost. Unlike Alysrazor, they don’t need to click it. They just need to be within range of it. You can not cast it around objects (line of sight issues). You can cast it while moving. So if you need to get somewhere really fast, just drop them in rapid succession to get you or a friendly player from point A to point B fast.

Since you’re limited to only 3 charges, you can’t use a whole stack of them one after the other. It takes time for it to recharge.

Here’s a direct link to check out the video.

Wha’cha think? Is this talent going to appeal to you? If it were live now, which bosses would you use it on?

How Spirit Shell Works

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During dungeons when Spirit Shell is fully absorbed, it is only healing for 1. Do you know if this is a bug or if they intend it to not heal the target when fully absorbed?

– Rave31211

Received a few comments and questions from people wondering about the use of Spirit Shell so I’ll do my best to clear it up some.

When Spirit Shell is on a player, it places a shield on them. After 8 seconds, the shield wears off. That player is healed for 80% of the absorb amount remaining.

If the shield gets completely absorbed, the player gets healed for a whopping 1 health point (I guess it rounds up). There’s a few problems with it right now:

  • It can’t crit
  • It’s a really long cast time for a low benefit
  • You can’t see the benefits in your raid frames
  • Doesn’t add Grace (Thanks FtenEQ)

Derevka has added his own thoughts on Spirit Shell and created a forum thread in the beta forums expressing feedback. I don’t expect this to be the final version.

Running Out of Mana? Here’s One Reason

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My Google reader is set to examine various search terms allowing me to keep a pulse on what’s going out there with Priests. One search result that popped up on my reader involved a holy priest. Their problem was that they kept running out of mana. No matter what they did, they had a really hard time sustaining the necessary healing required for that instance.

Out of habit, I looked up their priest on armory.

Problem solved.

No enchants, no gems, or other augments.

It almost feels like really new players take for granted the power that augments provide their characters. Do you think Blizzard balances instances around the fact that your character should have enchants and such? Maybe the harder 4.3 ones, but not the entry level heroics.

Back to the story, it turns out I wasn’t the only one who spotted the lack of character investment. When others pointed it out, the player commented by saying they didn’t have the money to afford it.

At least they have an answer to the first problem.

New players, if you want to start hitting up the harder stuff, start investing. Even if you can’t afford a Power Torrent, you can probably snag a Heartsong. Can’t do 20 stats? Settle for 15. Don’t need 65 mastery when cheaper 50 haste options exist. No sense socketing an epic red gem on a blue quality item when a gren quality red gem will do the trick for now.

Even if they’re not the best improvements money can buy, at least they’re still an improvement.

 

Sketch notes for Discipline, Saying No, and Creating Compelling Content

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Saturday’s the day where I link  material that I’ve found interesting, informative, or thought provoking. You’ll find them gathered from a variety of topics. They’re centered around World of Warcraft, blogging, or gaming.

Lots of social commentary going on this week in WoW which is cool. Civil discussion is always welcome as long as it’s done with tact and respect. I get asked about why I don’t include stuff like that here. To set the record straight, that’s not what this blog is for. You read this blog to help improve yourself. You come here to read about Priest and raid stuff.You read Lodur’s totems and healing stuff. Other bloggers can do a better job with social commentary and I would never be able to do it justice.

Many WoW blogs I’ve seen started with topics relating to the game.

  • Helping players get better via rotations, gear guides, etc.
  • Strategies for handling certain gaming aspects.
  • Profession advice and tips.
  • Working the economy.
  • Inspiring RP (which I am envious of and can never do).
Where has that gone?

This week on the Herald:

  • Sketch Notes: How to Heal as a Discipline Priest
  • Learning to say: “No, thank you.”
  • A Fool-Proof Formula for Easily Creating Compelling Content
  • Getting Started with Livestreaming
  • Hard Truth on the Sheer Difficulty of Making an Impact
  • Added Priest and Paladin information in the Mists changes page

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Sketch notes: How to Heal as a Discipline Priest

Subscribe to this guy. If not for the posts, then at least for the sketch notes. Waiting for the one for Holy. Flowcharts and diagrams are excellent.

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Learning to say: “No, thank you.”

As much as I’d like to say yes, lately I’ve had to say no more often. It’s not that I don’t want to, but many of my duties and projects keep me quite busy. The plus side to saying no is that when you dosay yes, your time becomes much more appreciated and valued.

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A Fool-Proof Formula for Easily Creating Compelling Content

Having difficulty putting your thoughts into words? Copyblogger has a formula and system that helps you get started with a routine. Cut down on the 1500 word rambles. Keep it to something succinct and straight to the point.

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Getting Started with Livestreaming

Looking to get started with livestreaming your gaming? I wrote up a quick guide to it here on WoW Insider. Right now, the guide’s meant for PC as I haven’t been able to properlyfigure out the most efficient way with Macs.

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Hard Truth on the Sheer Difficulty of Making an Impact

“Being very good at anything involves being somewhat addicted.”

Truth.