Month: December 2011

Updates

Kurn / / apotheosis, dragon soul, healers, raiding, ramblings

Hey folks! I hope the holidays are treating everyone well and that people are enjoying whatever it is they’re doing at the moment, whether that’s in-game or out. :)

As for myself, as some of you on Twitter or in my guilds may be aware, my 93 year-old grandmother fell last week and broke her hip. She’s been in the hospital since then and has come through her surgery quite well. That said, she’s still quite elderly and she has a lot of work ahead of her in terms of recovery and rehabilitation. Thank you to everyone who’s tweeted me with their support. Your positive thoughts, good vibes and prayers are greatly appreciated and I ask that you continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers. <3

So that’s primarily why I’ve been quiet of late, although there’s also the whole “holiday” thing. It hasn’t been the best holiday for me and the family, but we’ve managed to find pockets of joy here and there.

I have a LOT to say about Dragon Soul, paladins, raiding, LFR, elitism, VPs and the like… but I’m not sure when I’ll have the opportunity to write about it all.

In short:

– Apotheosis is 8/8 and we’ll be pushing H Morchok on the 3rd of January (and we’re recruiting, apply now!)
– I’ve done LFR a few times and have had mixed experiences with it, but overall, it seems to be an easy way to get at least 250 VP, if not 500.
– If a holy paladin gets the green buff on Ultraxion, HOLY CRAP, it is AWESOME, haha! (I normally get blue with Apotheosis, but got given green in Choice last week and I blew up the meters, which was hilarious.)
– I also want to do an in-depth examination of Holy Radiance at some point, but basically, it can be very, very useful. It still doesn’t mean that we are “raid healers” though. We can help on the raid significantly, but we’re still very well used as tank healers. If you have 3 resto druids, 1 holy paladin, 1 disc priest and 1 holy priest, you and the disc are likely best served on the tanks with the others on the raid. Do not forget that while Holy Radiance is all shiny, your group comp might be best served with you on the tank. And that is okay. It really depends on your assignment and your group.
– Ultraxion healing: I recommend resto druids/holy priests on red, resto shaman/holy paladins on green, disc priests/holy paladins on blue. Basically, your strongest raid healers on red, then people who will mostly proc green’s buff on green (Sanc, Wild Growth, Healing Rain don’t proc it, so Chain Heal and Holy Radiance go go go) and tank healers on blue. Seems to work nicely.

Anyhow, that’s all from me for now. Short post and it’s still about 500 words. I am incapable of writing less, it would seem!

Best wishes to you all and have a happy (and safe) new year. :)

Of LFR and Shields and Offhands

Kurn / / apotheosis, dragon soul, gear, T13

So, lots of news to do with us and our gear of late! I apologize for not being on the cutting edge of news, but hey, research papers and final exams and lack of sleep all take their tolls. ;)

Anyhow, let’s talk a bit about this little tidbit that affects Looking For Raid gear ONLY: “Some items were recently reclassified.” That means that several items were tagged so that only those classes can use them.

  • Timepiece of the Bronze Flight – Paladin, Shaman
  • Ledger of Revolting Rituals – Druid, Priest

What’s this? Paladins can no longer roll need on the Ledger? But isn’t the Ledger BETTER than the shield?

It was.

They have hotfixed the Timepiece of the Bronze Flight to add a red socket with a 10 int socket bonus. It is now 20 intellect stronger than the Ledger. (Unfortunately, no tooltips seem to have picked up on this fix.)

Without the hotfix to the shield, the reclassification of the Ledger to Druid and Priest ONLY would have been ridiculous — but again, those tags are only for Looking For Raid. If you’re raiding normal Dragon Soul (or heroic Dragon Soul, for that matter) then those classifications don’t exist.

However, given the change to the shield, there’s absolutely no point in us snagging the Ledger at all unless we’ve been SERIOUSLY screwed over by drops of the shield.

I have to say I’m kind of glad about this change. The last time I seriously used an offhand instead of a shield was probably in vanilla WoW when I was using Arlokk’s Hoodoo Stick, which was awesome if only because it looked like I was dual-wielding, hee! (And now I’m sad I won’t pick up the Ledger because now I can’t transmogrify the Ledger INTO Arlokk’s Hoodoo Stick!) But yes, as I was saying, I’m glad about the change overall. Paladins and shaman are supposed to use shields. Period. I’m not sure why that is, but seeing a paladin or a shaman using an offhand when a shield is more appropriate for them makes me sad.

I mean, no one BUT a holy paladin or a resto/ele shaman is going to want to pick up a shield with spellpower intellect on it. But potentially more than just a druid or a priest would want an intellect off-hand, particularly if it doesn’t have spirit on it. Intellect shields are made for us and the intellect-loving shaman. That’s clearly Blizzard’s vision for us and, despite my bitching (which I do a lot) I find myself reluctant to stray from that particular vision. A lot of the time, Blizzard’s vision will be in opposition with what is seen as being “optimal”. In the case of the Ledger vs. Timepiece, I was willing to just keep using my heroic Beth’tilac shield until everyone in my raid who wanted the Ledger had gotten it, and then I would have expressed interest in the Ledger. (And then would have transmogrified it.)

I want to play my class optimally (or as close as I can while still enjoying what I’m doing) but when “the vision” of the class is in opposition to “optimal play”, it discourages me overall.

So good for Blizzard for fixing the Timepiece. I’m really glad I get to rock a shield again this tier. That’s just how it should be.

(Now, having said that, anyone have any recommendations for a shield to transmogify to that matches Lightforge?)

There was also a hotfix to the Heart of Unliving: It got 323 intellect to go with the stacking 88 spirit bonus.

And there was a hotfix to our 4pc bonus — now increases healing done by Holy Radiance by 5%, down from 20%. So… yeah, that’s a nerf.

As such, I updated my Gear List post with a few strikeouts and new notes.

In other news, Apotheosis is seeking a HUNTER and a RESTORATION SHAMAN! We’re 7/8 with a 7.8% wipe on Madness and, well, we’re generally awesome, so apply now. :)

Of Dragon Soul and Podcasts

Kurn / / 4.3, apotheosis, dragon soul, podcast, raiding, ramblings

I have holy paladin stuff in my head, but I don’t have a lot of time today, so that’ll have to wait until tomorrow or something, but as a player and specifically as a raider in World of Warcraft, I have a couple of things to say about Dragon Soul.

Apotheosis walked into Dragon Soul on Tuesday and 1-shot Morchok, 1-shot Yor’sahj and 2-shot Hagara. We had a bit of trouble with the bouncing ball on Zon’ozz, but we still cleared half of the raid instance in a single night. And here’s a hot tip: I honestly was the least-prepared for Hagara that I had been on a boss since Omnotron and hadn’t put any Hagara strats up prior to the raid.

Choice walked into Dragon Soul on Wednesday and 1-shot Morchok, 2-shot Yor’sahj and had a great attempt on Hagara. Zon’ozz also caused a bit of trouble, but nothing too bad.

With absolutely no disrespect to either my guild or the team of people I raid with in Choice on the baby pally, that’s crazy. This is the last raid before Mists of Pandaria. We’re not even in Alpha on Mists, apparently. From the point in time when Beta opens for a WoW expansion, there’s typically about 6 months until release. If I’m remembering correctly, there’s 1-2 months of Alpha before Beta.

So if we’re pre-Alpha, there’s no less than about 7 months, possibly 8, before the release of Mists of Pandaria.

What does any of that have to do with the fact that my guild is 4/8 in Dragon Soul?

It means that, unless Ultraxion, Blackhorn and the Deathwing encounters are SUPREMELY difficult (which they don’t really appear to be, from most accounts), we’ll clear the instance shortly, in the first 1-2 weeks of its release.

And then it’s on to heroic modes.

For something like 7-8 months.

Are you kidding me?

As long-time readers know, I was NOT a fan of the Firelands nerfs. At all. But, as I grew to accept the changes to the instance, I recognized that maybe this was a test for the Looking for Raid difficulty level. I thought “Hey, maybe normals in Dragon Soul will be the same as normals originally were in Firelands and the nerfed variety will be the baseline for LFR!”

With 4/8 under my belt and 3/8 on another pretty identical toon, I have to say that I believe I was wrong. Nerfed normal Firelands is the baseline for normal Dragon Soul and LFR is, from what I’ve heard, even easier.

So this is going to have to last us through until Mists of Pandaria?

I’m sure heroics will be different, but it’s looking as though we’re in for a repeat of Icecrown Citadel — almost a year of being in the same instance, barring a Ruby Sanctum-like instance and even then, that barely counts as a raid instance, because everyone kept spending most of their time on ICC.

I don’t like where this is going. I’m not sure where it’s going, to be honest, but if it’s heading in the direction I think it is (beating our heads against the same heroic bosses for 6+ months, losing people to boredom, etc) then I’m not looking forward to this. And if this is where they’re taking raiding in Mists of Pandaria…

Well, I guess we’ll see.

In happier news, I’m going to be on the Twisted Nether Blogcast this Saturday! There will be a livestream of the podcast and such and all the fun starts at 11pm ET (8pm PT) on Saturday, December 3rd! Tune in and give it a listen!

And of course, there’s still Blessing of Frost for your (usually!) weekly fix of me and Majik yelling at each other and trying to start trends on Twitter, like #sadmoose, #sadmooseftw and, sadly, #kurngoingret. In particularly, Episode 42 is a great one to listen to. So much laughter! It was our anniversary episode (1 year of doing a podcast!) and we had a great time.

Anyhow. More holy paladin thoughts soon, but I hope to see some friendly faces in the Twisted Nether chat on Saturday night!