Putting the fun back in the divine calling

This is just a quick update, but I encourage all of you to check out MMO-Champion for a preview of the class changes which may or may not be in the next patch.

Go.  Read.  Formulate your own opinions.  I’ll make another post in a day or so detailing why the Priest changes are so tantalizing, and why they may in fact make healing on one fun again.

Holy Roller – Priests vs. Shaman and Lunar New Year Achievements

In a recent discussion with my guild master, his take on the design correction of Circle of Healing when compared to Chain Heal was that Shaman were built around aoe healing, whereas Priests were originally more single target. In WotLK, they’ve supposedly toned down the absolute necessity for immense raid healing. While it is true that there are only a few raiding instances where quick AoE heals are a necessity, I stand by my original hypothetical response of “If you need to fill a healing spot, why not bring the class with the spammable AoE?”

I’ll end my QQing there for the moment. On a side note, I have tried a PvE holy build post 3.0.8. I healed the Arachnid and Military Quarters with a standard 14/57 build, and I’ll confess that the CD on CoH does not by any means break the spec. My healing was about as effective as before, but if you’ve played a CoH priest before the patch you can really feel the 6 seconds now. I’ll cross my fingers that they reduce the CD by just a little, as it feels less rewarding healing and waiting for that spell to become available again.

I picked up a Spirit-World Glass over the weekend, and I need to make a macro to ensure that I use it, as I’m terrible with on-use trinkets. Until I find something better, this is what I’ve hacked together:

#Showtooltip
/cast Inner Focus
/use Spirit-World Glass

The idea is that if you’re playing as Holy, you’ll be casting Inner Focus anyways when you want to stay outside of the five second rule for maximum mana regen, and since IF doesn’t put you back inside 5SR, you can get the most out of the 20 second spirit bonus from the trinket.

The Lunar Festival has begun, I encourage everyone to complete these achievements if they want the Violet Proto-Drake. The majority of these achievements involve a lot of leg work, so if you want cords for each elder you will need to visit, I recommend looking it up on a database site like wowhead. Some general advice:

• You do not need to have the tag on Omen to complete the quest. Simply running into his body will give you the buff you need. You do not need to turn in the quest with the buff on, as long as you get the buff the quest should complete.
• You may speak to and gather coins from elders while you are in a raid group.
• When attempting to get the Elders of the Alliance/Horde achievement, try to do it during off-peak hours for your server. If your schedule is negotiable, going right after a server restart will increase your chances of getting in and out of the city without incident.
• Gundrak is the only dungeon that you need to run on HEROIC in order to speak to the elder. Trust me, I learned this one the hard way.

Raid resets are almost here this week.

/cheer

Entomological Study

If you prefer not to keep up with official forum QQing, just know that there WAS a bug with Misery that significantly increased shadow priest DPS after patch 3.0.8 which has now since been hotfixed.  The bug was substantial enough that when I tested it on Tuesday with ~1750 base spell power on my shadow set, I was doing around 3k dps for most 25 man Naxx bosses.

Theoretically, they’ve corrected the Mindflay mechanic at least to properly space out all three ticks, so Shadow Priests should see a slight boost, as long as they don’t continue to clip spells.  I haven’t seen substantial reports on whether or not the “random resists,” even when hit capped, are still occurring.

I’m strongly considering staying shadow with Regard for the time being and grinding out the remaining 8 levels on my Resto Shaman.  It is still my firm belief that Resto Shaman bring more to the table in a raid environment than other “raid healing” specs, both in terms of healing output and versatility via totems (unless they get nerfed).  This isn’t to say that they’re required to make a raid composition good, just that they’re more appealing choices when faced with filling healer slots.

Priest Nerfs

This is not a post that I have been looking forward to making.  Let me just highlight the Priest nerfs out with the latest patch for those who have not been checking religiously:

Circle of Healing – 6 second cooldown added

Glyph of Spirit of Redemption – Changed from 20% chance on each heal to extend your time in spirit form by 4 seconds to a static 6 second bonus

Glyph of Dispel – Heal bonus upon successful dispel reduced from 6% to 3%

Let’s get the glyphs out of the way.  The dispel glyph was certainly a very nice bonus, and arguably this reduction has a greater impact on Shadow Priest versatility than anything else.  There’s still a little bonus there at 3%, and this is supposedly in line with what the devs say they intended.

I’ll be honest, I never tested the Spirit of Redemption glyph in-game as it goes against my “try not to die a lot” policy.  On paper, I’m sure we can all see how the old mechanic of this glyph could lead to situations where the priest is allowed consequence free heals for much longer than intended.  I haven’t heard a lot of outcry about this change, which leads me to believe that it wasn’t a highly favored glyph to begin with.

Now let’s address the most controversial change.  A lot of people agree that in its old form, CoH was too powerful.  A lot of people also argue that the 6 second CD on the spell was not the right way to go about rectifying this problem.  Blizzard has already communicated in the past why other commonly suggested solutions to the spell would not work (ex., diminishing returns, extended cast time), but the 6 second CD is supposedly the only way to get people to stop spamming the spell.  This is particularly upsetting to Holy Priests everyone, because if groups want raid heals in the brave new world of 3.0.8, why would you take a priest over a resto shaman chain heal?

Ignore the famous statement from Ghostcrawler “Bring the player, not the class.”  This is meant more as a general pve encounter balancing rule of thumb, not an across the board class comparison.  Assume equal skill levels for a Holy Priest and a Resto Shaman: objectively, who would you want?  Honestly, as a Priest right now, I’m going to say Resto Shaman.

Compare a Disc Priest in PvE to other healing classes as well.  The bottom line is that there just isn’t much need to take more than one of them in any large raid.  This is due to the mechanics of how a Disc Priest does their job (more mitigation, single target heals), and the weakened soul debuff.  Since they’re less effective the more there are, why not just substitute another strong single target healing class, such as a paladin, who does not have to negotiate shields and debuffs?  You could make one spec into imp divine spirit, but that talent does not stack with shaman raid buffs.  And if you just want a Disc Priest in a 25 man for the +80 spirit anyways, you don’t need more than one.

I’ve kind of jumped all over the board here, but my point is whether speccing PvE Disc or Holy, are you really bringing anything to the table that another healing class doesn’t already do better?  There is a common expression that Priests are jacks of all trades, masters of none; that their greatest strength lies in versatility.  In the end, I suppose you might be ok with that if you rolled a priest with those initial expectations in mind.   But it’s been disappointing over the years to see priests continually bumped from their king of the mountain position again and again.

I have some difficult decisions to make in the next few weeks.  Should I stick it out as Holy, switch to Disc, or surrender completely and invest more time into my Resto Shaman?  Personally, my predictions are that Shaman will continue to be the preferred healing class, and that preference will only continue to trend upwards.  At the very least it doesn’t hurt to get to 80 then weigh your options.

Patch Day

It looks like patch day is upon us. Rather than dwell on its Priest-nerf laden content just yet, I thought I’d highlight something fun in the notes.

A new pet collecting achievement has been added for 75 mini pets, and the reward is a baby fawn pet. For those wondering how on earth you wrangle that many pets, I’ll direct you to warcraftpets.com. By their count, there are 110 pets currently available, however that includes special promotional pets and one time event pets. While there’s speculation that a 100 pet achievement is coming down the road, the numbers don’t exist for this yet unless you’ve bought every collector’s edition, won every contest, and attended every special convention. Expect to see more vanity pets added into the game throughout this year.

Addendum to Proto-Drakes

Galadria was kind enough to point out some corrections about Proto-Drakes in the comments on the post from the 14th.  I’m still a bit skeptical about the Violet Proto-Drake as the only 310% flying mounts Blizzard has offered up in the past have been top prestige, and Wowwiki and Wowhead have conflicting data on the mount’s speed.  If true however, the violet would be the most “casual” way to get a 310% flyer.

Where Is My Mind?

Perhaps one of the least well known Priest spells to date is Mind Control.  Its obscurity is understandable, as it gets pulled out from the Priest’s bag of tricks less frequently than other choice tools.  However since Naxx’s resurrection and retooling in WotLK, Priests of every spec are being called on to exercise this rarely used skill more and more.

How does Mind Control Work?

To put it simply, the spell is a 3 second cast on a humanoid target with a 20 yard range.  Once cast, the player takes control of the target for up to 1 minute.
Whether or not the spell succeeds on the first cast is determined by the target’s level compared to the caster, and the caster’s chance to hit.  Untalented at level 80, a caster will need 6% hit to cap for a level 82 mob and 17% to cap for a level 73 mob.  All end game raid bosses are considered level 83, but since you can’t MC a boss, this is a moot point.

While the spell is in effect, there is a very real possibility of the target breaking free earlier than the 1 minute period suggested on the tooltip.  A resistance check continues to tick which calculates your hit rating and the target’s resistance levels.    There is currently no definitive data available on how often this check occurs, but it is generally thought to be between every 3-6 seconds.

When mind controlling, you will lose control of your target if you run them too far away from your character’s body.  MC target distance factors into the spell’s steady resistance check, so the general consensus is that there is a soft cap on the range at 20 yards.  Moving the target farther away than this increases the likelihood that the spell will break, and there is also a hard cap of 30 yards where the spell will break no matter what.

Use in Northrend

In WotLK, Mind Control most commonly comes up when talking about Razuvious and occasionally Faerlina in 25 man Naxx.  The most common problems people have with these encounters are early MC breaks.  As stated above, the usual culprits are range or low hit rating.  If your priests have a minimum of 158 hit rating with no talents and are not running mobs out of range, then in theory you should be fine.  If those conditions are met but you are still having issues, then there may be a bug related to this spell or specific encounter.  A lot of forum posts regarding this subject cite possible reasons for this phenomenon; the most common are listed below:

• Death Knights specced into Frost Aura are causing the MCs to fail resist checks early.
• Shadow resist buffs on the casting priest are bugged to share with the MC target, causing resist checks to fail early.
• Shaman tremor totems are causing the MC to cancel early.

These issues are all speculative, and the only blue response from blizzard regarding any of them is an acknowledgement of the DK/frost aura problem from back in beta testing.  It’s been difficult to gather any definitive metrics on MC problems with Razuvious specifically, since it appears to be a common occurrence to have terrible luck with breaks one night, only to return the next day and have no problems whatsoever.   Part of these anecdotes may simply be the result of Priests inexperienced with Mind Control looking for a scapegoat, varying levels of hit rating, undocumented bugs, or a confluence of several of these events.

PvE concerns aside let’s not forget that it’s also fun to MC players off the summoning stone platform outside Naxx, so if you find yourself getting frustrated with this specific problem, you can always relieve a little tension when zoning back in.

For further reading, please visit the following links:

Elitist Jerks General Priest Thread – Discussion on Razivious breaks, pgs. 6-16

Galadria’s Corner – Review of MC spell

Misery – A shadow priest blog

Plus Heals – Discussion on MC hit cap

Dwarf Priest – A review of Priest CC spells

A Drake for Every Occasion

As a follow up to yesterday’s post on Proto-Drakes I thought I’d just remind everyone that there are several recolors of the netherdrake mount model available in WotLK. I’ll talk about 3 of the easiest ones to get if you’ve always dreamed of riding around on the back of a benevolent dragon. If dragons aren’t your thing, check out Wowwiki.com for a comprehensive list of available mounts.

The easiest to collect of the new netherdrake model mounts are:

Red Drake – Bought from the Wyrmrest quartermaster at exalted reputation. Expect to pay 2000 gold for the privilege of this noble creature. Reputation grinds are easier in WotLK, make sure you buy the faction tabard for Wyrmrest and equip it when running level 80 and heroic dungeons. There is also a daily quest for rep gain at the temple in Dragonblight and in Coldarra.

Albino Drake – A White drake rewarded for completing the achievement Leading the Calvary (collect 50 mounts). Not impossible, but it will take a little work grinding factions and gold to get this one. If you get discouraged, just remember that the requirements used to be 75 mounts.

Bronze Drake – Drops from the Infinite Corruptor in heroic Culling of Stratholme. This boss is only available in heroic difficulty, and will despawn 25 minutes after you start the event. If you’ve been playing the game for awhile, think shorter Baron run. The mount is a 100% drop, however there is only one drop per kill. Personally, it took me 3 successful runs before I won the mount.

Some tips on beating the timer:

• Don’t loot any of the trash. You may be able to get away with an occasional click or two while you’re waiting for your teammates to catch up, but don’t go out of your way. Trust me, there are no fat loots on those zombies, and losing the drake isn’t worth picking up that Shimmering Scale Scepter of the Whale.
• Bring a class with replenishment. This is going to be a Survival Hunter, Retribution Paladin, or a Shadow Priest. The less down time you have to spend drinking, the better.
• The more dps you can get the better. I’d hope that it goes without saying; the more dps you have, the faster the run is going to go. On the smoothest run I’ve done so far, all three dps players were averaging about 2k. Note that this is not a minimum requirement benchmark.
• Determine the loot rules prior to porting to Tanaris. You certainly don’t want to waste valuable time bickering over blues off bosses, and more importantly, when the time comes you don’t want to be the only one who hit greed on the bronze drake, when everyone else hit need. Likewise, you don’t want to be the guy who hit need if everyone else greeded. Personally, an “All Need” rule on the drake is preferable, as it eliminates accidental clicks.
• Don’t stress the non-elites. As a priest, one holy nova is enough to knock them down. Substitute that with any other class aoe, and this is really a non-issue.
• Make sure you talk to Arthas after the second boss is killed. Arthas will come running up to the Town Hall and stop just outside it. In order to advance him again, make sure you click on him and activate his dialogue option. I’ve wasted a lot of time with groups just staring at him once he gets to the door. Conversely, I would recommend leaving him behind after you kill the third boss. In the alley leading up to the Infinite Corruptor, there is a gauntlet full of undead and I’ve found that Arthas tends to either develop a superman complex and pull too many elites to you, or turn into a weight around your neck. If you leave him behind you can set your own pace, however you will also have to clear back through the alley and fight respawns again in order to reach him if you want to finish the run with Mal’ganis.

Some loose time benchmarks: You should be fighting the first boss at 20 min, and you should be at the Alley with at least 5-6 min left. Anecdotally, I’ll tell you that from a healing perspective it will be easy to tell if your group has what it takes or not. If the tank is dipping 50-60% in hp on elite trash, you likely won’t be able to keep up with the amount of incoming damage at the pace you’ll need. If your mana pool is fine, and the tank isn’t having a problem, but you’re way off that first time benchmark (ex, you kill the first boss with 17 min left), you likely don’t have the dps to make the time limit. Finally, if you’re the healer, and you feel that your healing output or regen isn’t high enough, then you might want to think about tabling this goal and coming back to it when you’re more prepared. I’m reluctant to give any healers any meter comparisons for output, as that is going to be different for each group, so again I’ll just cite some anecdotal experience as a holy priest. On a good run, you should only need to drink after boss fights, so for a timed run about 3-4 times.

I hope that helps everyone, good luck finding the mount that’s right for you! I will be looking at the mind control spell soon, as it is an often overlooked priest ability that has become needed for several WotLK encounters. Expect that in the next few days

Proto-Drakes, Oh My!

Gryphons and Wyverns:  who needs them, right?  Some players are perfectly content to settle with the default giant mystical flying mounts provided in game, but for those of you wishing to darken the skies with additional flair, you’ve no doubt spotted the massive proto-drakes by now.

BigRedKitty has already posted a summary of the in-game proto-drakes for WoW IGN here, but if you’re still deciding whether you want to attempt to obtain one of these creatures or not, I’d encourage you to test fly one using the Ice Crown daily Vile Like Fire!  If your heart has already been set to stalker levels of coveting, then let’s look at a break-down of the feasibility of each drake:

Blue Proto-Drake – You don’t need to do anything special to snag this beauty other than be able to defeat Skadi in Utgarde Pinnacle.  I’d try to keep your lust in check though, as this is going to be a rare random drop that even the most dedicated can only farm once a day.  If you like running heroics, then just run UP every once in awhile and consider it serendipitous if it drops.

Green Proto-Drake – Reputation Reward from the Oracles in Sholazar Basin.  It hatches from an egg you may buy at revered, however the egg is unique (read: you can only hold one at a time) and will only hatch after 7 days.  Even after it hatches, there is no guarantee that you will get the mount.  Out of 6 known items hatched, 4 are non-combat mini pets, so if you fancy some company on your travels it doesn’t hurt to carry an egg to hatch with you at all times.  Again, like the blue drake, I wouldn’t spend too much time pining away for this one.

Time lost Proto-Drake – As far as I know, this is a 100% drop from a rare elite spawn in Ice Crown with 18900 HP.  People are claiming that it’s solo-able by any class, the trick will be finding him.  For the dedicated player willing to devote a day or two to exclusively hunting this drake, this may be the option for you.

What’s black and red and plagued all over?  Achievement drakes!  Four drakes can be obtained as achievement rewards.  Here they are from most challenging to benign:

Black Proto-Drake – Rewarded after achieving the meta achievement Heroic Glory of the Raider.  This one is not for the casual gamer, as you not only must have a 25 man group capable of clearing Naxx, OS, ect, but they must also be willing to run for the achievements.  Those brazen enough to go for this drake will be additionally rewarded by the fact that this is the only Proto-Drake with a speed of 310% (the fastest mounts in the game).

Plagued Proto-Drake – Rewarded after achieving the meta achievement Glory of the Raider.  This is attainable if you have a 10 man raid willing to run for achievements.

Violet Proto-Drake – Rewarded after achieving the meta achievement What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been.  The achievements that make this meta up are relatively easy, the only problem is that it will take you roughly a year to earn it due to the seasonal quest schedule.

Red Proto-Drake – Rewarded after achieving the meta achievement Heroic Glory of the Hero.  This meta consists of a long list of heroic dungeon achievements.  It will probably be your best bet if you like to run instances with a consistent group, or want to find pugs daring enough to try for achievements. 

I must confess that I’m currently working on getting the red drake.  I’ll post some of my experiences with the achievements in the future.

Stay of Execution: 3.0.8 not this week

Hunters and Holy priests rejoice, as we get to go nerf-free for at least one more week.  Nothing is final until release, but I think we can all agree that it doesn’t look like blizzard will be making any last minute changes to Circle of Healing or Steady Shot.

Assuming those specific changes are locked in, let’s not concentrate on QQing (too much), but instead look at what this is going to do to the class landscape.  Hunters may wish to console each other in a more class appropriate community, as I just learned what Steady Shot was last month.  I will say however, that I’ve overheard BM spec hunters playing with the idea of switching to Survival post patch, either in protest or due to a possible unexpected buff to that tree’s dps.

Along those lines, I wonder how many priests plan on jumping ship to Shadow or Disc soon?  Shadow and Survival are fairly good safe havens for those unwilling to play through any disruptions in the status quo, due mostly to replenishment.  At the very least, these “nerfs” serve as catalysts to experiment with specs you may have overlooked until now.

I must confess a secret fascination with Disc, which at the very least warrants further investigation and study.  As for Holy, it remains to be seen what new niche die-hards find themselves in.  Will you shift two points into Healing Prayers and lean more on Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing, or simply spam more flash heals?