PvE Healing

Why Raiding With PvP Gear Is a Bad Idea

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Matticus,
First off, I want to commend you on the very nice extensive blog you run, a lot of great resources and discussion. I have an issue and am seeking some general advice and maybe to stir up some discussion. I am currently in Iraq right now BUT i get about 3-4 hours of playtime with acceptable latency. I have a 70 Druid that I just recently (1.5 weeks) re-specced to healing due to feral frustration and a noticable lack of heals on my server. Right off the bat I hooked up with some friends (2 mages+1 hunter) and have been doing BG’s to get honor and marks in order to attain some of the PvP epics.

I’ve been doing some research via blogs to find out some easily attainable gear to help my healing and survivabilty in PVP and eventually to start up some daily instancing. I thoroughly enjoy healing and I’m going to stick with it but I can’t make the decision to PVP or PVE as my main concentration.

Right now, i am trying to do a little of both and i dont see it going anywhere fast. What im looking for is to be able to PVP/Arena grind and get myself in good shape to be a full time raid healer once i get back to the U.S. where i will have ample time to dedicate to raiding. My overall question is: Am I wrong to assume that PVP gear (since it’s mostly a solo endeavor aside from arenas), is probably the best route to achieving pre-Kara quality gear? And are there any other resources out there that might be able to lend some guidance to an undecided healer? I know my question is most likely un-answerable and is mostly self chosen, but I’m just looking for suggestions, thoughts, or guidance.

Thank you,
Jordon

P.S. Whats up with all of the ?‘s instead of “‘s

Wow, I had no idea my blog was being read overseas. I salute you, sir, even though I’m from Canada. Thank you for the kind word =)!

Now, let’s get to business.

I know there are a lot of players who recommend supplementing raiding gear with some PvP Gear to help increase their survivability. Either that, or they’re unable get access to any kind of raiding gear because the population on a server is ridiculously low.

I definitely think DPS classes benefit with a mix of several PvP pieces. As a Priest, I have even added the [item]Veteran Mooncloth Bracers[/item] to my Priest raiding gear list as suggested by you readers (You know who you are).

As a healer, would I recommend going all out for arena gear just to be able to start raiding in Karazhan?

No, I would not.

Remember that PvE gear is tailored differently than PvP gear. Even though the healing or spelldamage increase may seem similar, the difference lies entirely in stat distribution.

PvP gear has a ton of stamina allowing you to withstand and deal serious firepower within a limited amount of time.

PvE gear has added longevity and endurance so you can deal firepower over a longer amount.

It’s like comparing an A-10 to a Spectre gunship. The A-10 comes in, drops its payload, and speeds off. The Spectre just flies circles above an area protecting it’s assignments.

It’s all about endurance.

If you want to raid, stat collecting raiding gear. PvP gear isn’t going to help you much at all because it lacks important stats like mana regeneration. Five minutes into a boss fight and you’ll be OOM (after innervates and potions).

What I can recommend is this: Start arenaing and get a few points under your belt. Keep doing this for several weeks. Meanwhile, if you don’t have a good set of bracers, hook yourself up with a Vindicator’s Kodohide Bracers.When you feel ready for Kara, start running the lower level of it a few times to help gradually build up your pieces. If you’re having trouble getting Maiden’s Shard of the Virtuous, put the Arena Points to good use and grab the [item]Merciless Gladiiator’s Salvation[/item] (S2 heaing mace). That should take you anywhere between 4 – 8 weeks.

How will you know if you’re good enough? Refer to my Minimum Kara Requirements for classes. Alternately, I’m sure Phaelia, Karthis, and Big Bear Butt can help you get in the right direction as they’re both Druids and far more familiar with what you’ll need. Well, the latter two are feral. But I like to randomly link to bloggers anyway.

P.S. The ?’s occur due to a CSS oversight on my part. Will be fixed when my new layout goes live. Hopefully it will be up before Christmas. Basically, what happens is WordPress interprets my apostrophes and quotes in a weird fashion.

And godspeed, Jordon.

Guest Post: Why Do You Play WoW?

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Matticus’ Note: I posted a small, but brief plea yesterday for help with my blog. Leiandra has helped me answer my plea. My exams conclude on the 15th of December, therefore my personal posts will be drastically reduced while I’m busy raiding cramming for my finals. But I don’t want to leave my readers hanging. I’m looking for some guest posters to help me for the next week or so. If you have your own WoW blog, chances are I’ve read it or ran into it. This is a great opportunity for you to expand your viewership and receive exposure. Your posts (if I like them) will appear here and on Curse. Simply drop me an email (look right) and we can work something out. I spend 2 – 4 hours a day blogging and I cannot sustain that kind of effort for the time being. Anyways, here’s Leiandra!

With Matticus being busy with finals, I volunteered to help him out with a post or two so that he could hopefully pass his classes :). Just a few, quick comment about me for those that don’t read my blog: My mage’s name is Leiandra, and I am a Guild Master for a raiding guild on the Bronzebeard – US server. I’ve been in guild leadership since I first starting playing MMO’s (only with the release of EQ2), and have been playing Wow for about 2.5 years now. I’ve been the GM of Primogeniture for about 2 months now, but have been part of the final decision making process for much, much longer.

The latest inspiration for this post comes from a recent person that I have been recruiting. Most of the Bronzebeard raiding guilds tend to start around 5 or 6pm server time. Our raid times start at 8:30, so we get a lot of people that want to join because of work shifts or just general night owls (vampires as one of my Raid Leaders calls them). This recent recruit registered for an account on our forums, but never filled out an app. He then contacted me in game to find our more about our guild. His work schedule had changed and he wouldn’t be able to raid with his current guild, hence the conversation he had with me. He sounded like he was interested, but told me he had to think about it. A few days later, he told me that he just wasn’t being fair to us, because he would only raid with us until his work schedule changed. I thanked him for his honesty, and we put each other on our friends’ lists in case we ever needed anything.

A few nights back, I needed another member for a 5-man run. He was online, and I asked him if he wanted to come. After a fairly successful run in which he did a great job, I was curious if he still maintained his loyalty to his guild. He told me that it was really only one raid leader that he was still loyal to, and that person was actually okay with him leaving. He filled out an application on our forums, and then again, decided that he wanted to stay with his guild.

Some people might consider this frequent changing of one’s mind quite annoying, but I completely understood. Sometimes people move on from the game. Sometimes people change guilds. The only thing that’s constant is that each guild will change. I think the successful guilds generally roll with those punches, adapt, and move on. But when is it right for you, the individual player, to move on?

To answer that question, it takes some deep introspection on the part of each individual. Questions like “Why do I play WoW?” should be addressed. What is most important to you? Is it important to be with friends? Is progression your big thing? Are you just in a guild that nobody is online when you are? Sometimes there’s drama or fights… that can happen to. Do you just want to play solo for awhile? How much are you going to regret leaving your guild, if at all?

When I first starting playing Wow, I did so to play with my best friend and his brother. The three of us started a guild because we were tired of random guild invites. The guild grew as RL friends and relatives joined us or transferred servers. We were never huge, but at our height, right before the expansion, we were getting in to Zul’Gurub. A lot of us also PUG’ed and participated in other guild raids in almost all of the dungeons (I think Naxx was the only one not on our lists). With the expansion, and me being a night owl, a few of us decided that we’d break off into a more structured raiding guild and have more than just one guild run per week. It was a difficult decision to leave my guild of friends. I knew a few of them would come with me, and hoped others would follow. We had all been together for so long that I knew I’d still talk to them often, and hopefully group with them regularly as well. Well, the grouping thing hasn’t happened as much as I had originally planned, but I still talk to most of them nightly. My priorities, at the time of our new guild, were based around progression and seeing new content. I have a whole list of new, online friends, and I enjoy being in the guild I am.

My priorities are aligned with where my toons are and the guild they are in. Sure, there are ups and downs. It’s not like I always get my way, even as GM, but I’m happy where I’m at. Are you? Is it time to move on? Is there something better on the horizon, but maybe you’re just too scared to make the change? Or are you exactly where you want to be with the people you want to be there with? I hope most of you can answer “yes” to that last question. It’s just a game. Have fun. Be happy.

So did you like what you read? Then head on over to Leiandra’s blog. While you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe to Leiandra’s RSS.

Leaving? But You Just Got Here!

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I have often wondered what drives people to do the things that they do. At about 10 PM, I saw someone advertise that they were looking for a healer to help fill out Kara. Nightbane and above were the only bosses left. I opted to join. I had nothing really going on and I was tired of reading. I brought in Saphfira to collect some badges along the way. We wiped three times against Nightbane and then cleared to Curator taking him down in the process.

Here’s where things got eyebrow raising.

One of the mages had to leave.
Then a druid just left the group and hearthed.
Subsequently, we lost a Priest due to a family emergency.
A rogue had to raid in 20 minutes.

WHAT THE HELL!?

I think we did pretty well for the most part. We wiped on Nightbane, people stayed. We killed Curator, people left. When you join a raid, there’s a level of expectancy that is involved. It’s expected that your next 2 or so hours will be free from any other activities or interruptions. Your Guild expects that. Pickup players expect that. What the heck’s the point of joining a Karazhan raid when you have to raid 30 minutes later? These people are on my blacklist and I’m sure they looked bad to everyone else. At least we cleared Prince. Then I checked the clock and it was 130 AM. I fell asleep.

But I didn’t leave my group hanging. I told them beforehand that I could guarantee awakeness until 130 AM. After that, all bets were off. I’m not as young as I used to be. I can’t stay up until 4 AM anymore.

Exam on Thursday and on Saturday. Reduced blogload this week. WTB guest posters.

Choosing the Right Meta Gem

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I’ve touched on gems briefly in my Priest gear list. What I failed to address at the time was what meta gems to use when you had an item that could use it.

What are Meta Gems?

Meta gems are like your standard blue, red, or yellow gems but with one very significant exception: They are fairly rare to obtain. These gems are special because they bestow a special effect or passive ability to the head piece that it is socketed in.

Light-Collar of the Incarnate

Mouse over that link for a moment and you’ll see a helm that has a meta socket and a blue socket which activates the healing bonus. Most head pieces don’t have meta gems. But for healing helms with a meta gem, there’s a few options.

What gems should I use?

3 Choices:

Mystical Skyfire Diamond

  • Abilities: 15% chance on spellcast – next spell 50% casting time
  • Requires more Blue gems than Yellow gems

Insightful Earthstorm Diamond

  • Abilities: +12 Intellect, Chance to restore mana on spellcast
  • Requires at least 2 Red gems, 2 Blue gems, 2 Yellow gems

Bracing Earthstorm Diamond

  • Abilities: +26 Healing Spells, 2% Reduced Threat
  • Requires more red then blue gems

I can tell you right off the bat that I would knock off Bracing Earthstorm Diamond from the list of considerations. The abilities are attractive. But the requirements are too difficult to meet as Priests. The requirements are a little more reasonable now. The 26 healing is nice. I’d consider using it if you’re having some issues with lack of healing. I’ve never really had much of a problem. You’re going to be socketing Nightseyes more than anything else anyway.

You’re better off weighing the other two choices.

In a nutshell, it’s either going to be faster spellcasting or mana regen over time. In a raid setting, Priests will be spending mana like crazy. It would help to have other ways of replenishing your mana, so that’s the argument for the Insightful Earthstorm. I don’t know how often I’ve preached mana regen. If you close your eyes and click a post of mine at random, you’ll probably find some mention of it. The requirements aren’t insanely hard or ridiculous to meet either. 2 reds, blues, and yellows are easy to slot up with. The trick is to find the right combination of gear which will have the necessary slots available.

But don’t discount faster casting entirely. Sometimes, having a fast heal can pay off. My Shaman has this meta gem equipped. I’ve gotten many timely procs of the ability when I thought my party would wipe. The requirements for this to activate are even easier. You just need 1 blue gem and no yellows and you are set. There’s going to be encounters where tanks are taking huge hits and you need that spell haste. Those heals have got to land or else your healing assignment is dead because you can’t keep up with it.

Bottom line

If you’re still unsure of which meta gem to choose, I would suggest picking up the spell cast gem first. Odds are, you may not have enough gear with the necessary sockets for effects to activate. Go with that for now then as your gear progresses, make the shift towards the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond (mana regen). You can’t heal without mana. Always remember that.

Sadly I’m still using the Headdress of the High Potentate which doesn’t even have any slots. I’m waiting for Vashj to surrender a token so I can finally replace it.

A Tuesday Story and Trash Blows

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I stumbled upon this touching story today. Everyone needs to go read it. Sometimes we all need a reminder to slow down just a little bit even in WoW.

Fate wrote a nice piece the other day about the hassles of trash mobs. One of his Guildies complained about them and Fate took it upon his hands to write about why trash is good and not bad. His main argument? Trash helps to build up the suspense and the pleasure when the boss in charge of them gets taken down. Otherwise, you’d be blowing through Karazhan, SSC, and TK within time frames of an hour.

Personally, I’d love to see more instances akin to Mag and Gruul (Ony style). We’re on a limited raiding schedule. Every wipe, every trash kill, every rebuff eats into the precious time we have. Our 25 mans are capped at exactly 11 hours of raiding per week. Let me first say that I’m proud of the Guild that I’m in and the discipline that they show during crunch time. We may fool around and crack jokes, but when we get down to business we do whatever it takes to get the job done. The clutch Al’ar kill is a testament to that (5 hours of sunday wiping, one more respawn kill, followed by an Al’ar first down). Sometimes, I just wish we had more time to do it.

Trash is nice to have sometimes. I do agree with Fate that it’s something to do in between bosses. Players need to have a little bit of a downtime. It’s not possible to ask 25 players to maintain a 110% focus and concentration. They would burn out too quickly. I know I can’t remain that tense for such a period of time.

But on the other hand, I don’t want to spend time to reclear trash repeatedly. Nothing kills momentum faster then getting a boss down to 10% and knowing you’re able to kill him only to get stopped by the Wall of Trash (0/*, Creature – Wall, Tap: Piss off target raid).

Ah M:TG. Sometimes I miss playing. But it’s either that or WoW.

Anyways, the trash respawns, you look at the time and you realize that your raid is over as people have to work or go to school on the east coast. Trash respawns just kills that level of energy and anticipation. With all the trash removed in SSC, we’d be able to one shot all the bosses and have time left over to do other things (Like Cartman says, now we can all enjoy the game)!

Fate’s point is excellent though. We DO need that trash. Where else are we going to get our Primal Nethers from? Or random BoE/BoP recipes?

Here’s a thought.

We’ve all sniggered at one point when our raid leader forgot to downgrade a raid instance from Heroic to Normal difficulty.

What if Blizzard implemented it and made Heroic raids? Give Raiders a choice in how they want to go through SSC. They can do it normally, or they can do it the Heroic way. Reduce trash by 80% but increase boss difficulty by 20%. Keep loot tables roughly the same and throw in some badges. Maybe the health of Hydross will increase a little bit so the raid needs to ice and poison dance for an extra minute. Think of it as an express raid. I’m not going to try and develop that concept any further. It would probably get defeated in a manner of minutes. But at least it’s something to think about. I sure as hell am not a game developer.

Sadly, I don’t get to go into Zul’Aman today. Our 25 schedules stay the same throughout. With the reset timer nearly twice as fast as Karazhan, it means we can do it any time we want. I’ll probably run through it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, snoozing through trash is the order of the day.