I spent a lot less time in beta today than I did on Friday night into the wee (and then large) hours of Saturday.
After dealing with that pesky “real-life” thing, I came back to beta and decided to try out that whole “guild” thing. ;)
Apotheosis was born on Lost Isles (US/PVE) this afternoon, with much thanks to four (no longer nine) random people who were kind enough to sign my charter.
I’m not actively recruiting random people, but I did tweet about it. Before I knew it, the awesomesauce Kody from WorldOfRaids (aka, the super awesome person from Curse who extended me a beta invite) was whispering me.
Thus, Kody and I embarked upon a journey, the likes of which have probably never quite been seen before and may never be seen again. At least, I kind of hope this journey won’t be seen again.
Guilds are totally broken in beta. Which is okay. It’s beta. It’s supposed to be broken. I get it.
But, among the issues:
– Guild masters have no permissions, thus their ability to do things (officer chat, invite, etc) is severely limited.
– Promotions (and probably demotions) aren’t saved.
– New ranks don’t work properly.
I’ve got a low-level Worgen as GM of Apotheosis at the moment and this is the result of a bug that meant Kurn couldn’t speak or read guild chat.
The only way to promote Kurn and Madrana was to make each of them GM in turn and then hand it back, since this action, by default, places a GM who gives GM to someone else in the spot right below the GM in the guild ranks.
Kody was extremely patient with me as I hopped over around all three toons and gave him GM and asked him to ginvite me and give me GM back and such.
On the plus side, Apotheosis has Fast Track! I’m not randomly inviting the world at large, but if you read this little old blog and have an Alliance toon on Lost Isles, let me know, either in-game at Kurnmogh or Madrana (or Kurnbank) or via twitter, and I’d be happy to extend you an invite.
Okay, so that was the guild excitement. On to instances…
I’m a much better healer than I am tank. I tried tanking some of Throne of the Tides tonight and we failed hard core. We had virtually no crowd control and I’m unfamiliar enough with tanking as it is.
I enjoy the Consecration, although I still hit it way too often because I feel like it’s part of my rotation. ;)
I’ve gotten adept at using all kinds of cooldowns. Divine Protection has received a bit of a facelift. It’s no longer 50% damage reduction, it’s only 20%, but it’s on a one-minute (one!!) cooldown AND, possibly the best part, it doesn’t cause Forbearance any longer. No, actually, the best part is that this is available by training at level 30!
Anyways, my tanking efforts were, shall we say, less than awesome. I’d like to run a dungeon on Kurn tonight and actually make use of crowd control.
Healing Throne of the Tides tonight, a separate group, went a bit better. We wiped about 7 or 8 times but downed three of the four bosses. The last boss, Ozumat, is brutal. There are just SO many mobs and SO much damage! He may even still be bugged which I read as being impossible to kill.
So how is healing?
Well, I posted in the comments on my previous post, but here are some cast times:
Flash of Light: 1.14s cast
Holy Light: 2.06s cast
Divine Light: 1.68s cast
With 1026 haste and JotP:
Flash of Light: 1.05s
Holy Light: 1.89s
Divine Light: 1.54
With 1026 haste and Speed of Light (3/3):
Flash of Light: 0.879s
Holy Light: 1.58
Divine Light: 1.29
With 1026 haste and JotP AND Speed of Light:
Flash of Light: 0.806s
Holy Light: 1.45s
Divine Light: 1.18s
I feel like I’m super busy ALL of the time. I’m constantly trying to keep up with HUGE incoming damage on the tanks and crazy environmental damage on the group. Tip: if the ground turns green or purple/black, MOVE. If the ground around you has pretty blue swirls all around you, MOVE.
That said, I’m getting better at noticing the debuffs that I can cleanse. Did you know you can now Cleanse someone even if there’s nothing to be removed? Yeah, and it costs like 600 mana each time.
Again, mana is not an issue for me. It’s the timing, it’s the GCDs, it’s “WHY AM I NOT HEALING ENOUGH?!”.
To that end, I’ve gotten rid of Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (because SoW no longer exists) and plugged in Glyph of Holy Shock. I use it a lot.
I also swapped in, and people will laugh at me for this, the Libram of Veracity. I may even waste Emblems of Frost on the Libram of Blinding Light. Ridiculous as it sounds, I am definitely using Holy Shock enough to justify that. (Thanks, Kaboomski, for reminding me I have other libram options.)
I don’t think there’s a new libram (or any new relics, but I could be wrong) as of yet, but I’m interested to see in which direction they want to nudge us.
I think that’s about all I wanted to say. Don’t forget to check out my ever-growing collection of screenshots from beta!
I need to get an invite at some point.
Lol I’m still 80. :D
In the intro, I think you meant to say “the whole “guild” thing.”
Although, being in a guild with The Who would be badass.
Also, dumb question: What the hell is that on your action bars, above Exorcism? Is that… Tower of the Mouldering Corpse?
@xmolder It could also be a guild with the Doctor Who cast. That would rock. XD
Kurn, your adventures are both enlightening and amusing, and reading about them has been enjoyable as always. :)
I always wanted to start a guild called EXTERMINATE.
Rilgon – yay, invited. :) And don’t feel bad, poor Madrana is still 80.
xmolder – fixed, smartass. ;) And it LOOKS like it, right? In reality, I do believe that’s a quest item.
Apple – alas, not The Who or the Doctor Who cast. Just me, myself and I. And Kody, Fluffy, Rilgon and Entropia thus far, I think. :) Glad you’re enjoying my adventures! Thank for the linkage. :)
xmolder – dare I ask why?
Let us know how you like the switch to your new Libram. I still have Libram of Blinding Light in my bank, might pick that up again when Cataclysm hits or I get a beta invite. I thought it might come in handy, that’s why I asked.
Another few questions though.
– How is leveling on your paladin? What spec do you level in? Do you feel squishy, or does it take too long to kill something?
– Now that Judgement of Wisdom is gone, I suppose you judge Light?
– I couldn’t really see from the movie you uploaded earlier, but how do the numbers of the different heals compare? From small to big?
I think that’s it for now. I’ll spam some more questions when I think of them. Hope you don’t mind too much.
And, wow.. I really expected cast times of Holy Light to be lower. Ouch, kinda.
I am absolutely LOVING the developer placeholders, btw. Oh noes! :-P
Unrelated: GAH! How did you get so much gold!? I still struggle to keep above 1k.
It’s a Doctor Who reference.
I’m being an “armchair general” here, but from the spell costs you listed, I have the distinct feeling that paladins are going to be gearing heavy haste/crit, possibly gemming for throughput only. Getting Holy Light to be as fast and hard-hitting as possible really seems to be the way to go, especially if you’re using Holy Shock as much as you say. If you have to use Plea as little as you say, then it’s as if the expansion is moving us -away- from thinking about mana. LOL
A small part of me wishes I were in beta, but I think I’d rather wait it out and play it at release. XD Not that I wouldn’t love to be in your guild! <3
Kaboomski – I have no idea if the swap to the Libram of Veracity made a big difference or not. I don’t think I noticed when it procced, which is probably pointing to it being kind of blah. I’m going to log the next instance I do. Preliminary testing shows that WoL parses work, although obviously there are no boss splits.
– I’ve poked around a little bit on Madrana in Hyjal, but really haven’t done much in the way of questing. I’ve tried instances mostly. I’m thinking I’ll take my prot spec and spec ret or something if instances still suck and go questing in Hyjal. Thus far, levelling holy feels just a little longer than it did previously. Actually, it might be a bit faster than in vanilla, but it feels slower than killing mobs as holy in Wrath. I don’t feel squishy at all.
– It’s just called “Judgement”, but I guess that yes, I’m judging light. :)
– Looking at my video (prior to processing):
Light of Dawn hits for ~4.2k per person.
Holy Light for around 9.6k (although I have Divinity and I was casting on myself).
Divine Light for 12.6k.
Flash of Light for 8.5k.
Holy Shock for 13.5k (crit — this thing crits ALL THE TIME).
Word of Glory for 12.5k (crit).
Holy Light will crit for around 14k or so? Divine Light gives me around 18-20k, depending. Flash of Light probably crits for around 10-11k.
EDIT EDIT EDIT: Holy Light is HITTING for 6k and CRITTING for 9k. Something is definitely amiss…
I don’t mind the questions, btw, it’s good to know what people are curious about.
I’m not convinced that the HL cast time is the right one. I find myself gravitating to Divine Light a lot just because it’s faster and because I have a stupid amount of mana.
The placeholders are always fun. :)
The 13k or so gold I have on Madrana comes from:
3k seed money from my last server (where all my other toons are) + selling a Belt of the Lonely Noble + selling a crapton of cut Cardinal Rubies + selling a LOT of Flasks of the Frostwyrm.
It’s not that much, I’m hoping to earn another 7k or so on live before Cataclysm so I can transfer with 20k or whatever that limit is.
xmolder – ah, gotcha. While I do know of the good doctor, I’m afraid the only British TV show that ever really captured my attention was Red Dwarf. :)
Codi – By all means, armchair general away! My concern with the spell costs are that the higher-ranked spells, or, rather, the spell cost at 85 will be significantly higher. 263 mana just seems ridiculously low, particularly as high-end water is going to restore 72,000 mana over 30 seconds. That would indicate that we’ll probably be pushing over 100k mana at the end of the expansion. 19200 is what we get from water/strudel right now. Raid buffed, I have 45499 mana. 19200 is 42% or so of that.
If 72000 mana is 42% of a number, that number is in the 170,000 ballpark.
If I have 170,000 raid-buffed at the end of Cataclysm and Holy Light still costs in the range of 263 mana, I will… I don’t know what I’ll do. I wouldn’t put it entirely past Blizzard to be that weird, so I don’t want to say I’ll eat a hat or something. :P But you get my point. :)
Out of curiosity, Kurn, you were in previous betas, right? Did you happen to take notes of things like mana costs for spells? Could it just be that, this early on, they don’t want to see how long until people go OOM, but rather how powerful the spells are in current and upcoming gear?
Unless they’re dropping things like Innervate or Divine Plea, or shooting for 15+ minute raid fights… I don’t see the mana cost staying so low.
Rereading that comment, it sounded a little snarky in my head. Not my intent!
xmolder – I was in the WotLK beta. It definitely had spell costs that made more sense than this. And I was in pretty early on.
I have a hunch that a lot of things need a lot of retuning. I’m still not convinced Holy Light is supposed to be a 3s cast.
No snarkiness taken. :)
So, I was wondering…
– Spell ranks are supposed to be gone. Any idea how the mana cost of HL could be affected, or how spells scale with level? Or isn’t that implemented yet?
It seems likely that, if mana will indeed scale the way you theorize, mana cost for Holy Light will at least be around 4 times as high, at around 983 mana. Not accounting for new Librams, would this still justify use of Libram of Renewal? I’m guessing not. My guess is that throughput is going to be more important, which would mean Librams like Blinding Light are better. Holy Shock and Holy Light are supposed to be our go-to spells anyway.
One thing I remembered while writing this comment is that food is supposed to restore more relative health and mana, so 42% might not be accurate at all.
I’ll pester you some more when I have more questions ;-)
Wait, guilds only take 4 signatures to make, not 9?
BADASS.
Kaboomski – You know what, I think Holy Light is bugged. Not sure how things scale with level yet, either.
Not sure about Librams, like I said, I want to see what pops up.
I hope 42% isn’t all that accurate. ;)
Rilgon – the text at the guild vendor still says 9, I think it is, but there was only space for 4 and I was able to turn it in with four.
Okay, just throwing this out here.
What if… you would do ICC in beta? Would it be at all possible? Very hard? Easier? I realize that the beta isn’t a finished product by far, of course. Just playing with the thought here.
Of course, I’m primarily interested from a Holy paladin point of view, but if you have an idea on the perspective of other roles, please provide some insight into that as well.
Sorry again if I’m asking too much – I think I really need my own beta key before I stop asking questions.
What kind of hits are the tanks taking in dungeons? And have you seen a tank that has more of the new gear on that WotLK stuff? If so, what kind of a health pool do they have? There was a video on MMO Champion a few weeks ago with a hunter taking 23-25K AOE hits and it didn’t look like it put much of dent in his health pool.
My eyes glazed over at the thought of a 170K mana pool. Just… damn… That’s over 4 times the mana I have now fully raid buffed…
Kaboomski – I have zero intention of wiping in a pug in ICC on live, much less on beta. :)
I would imagine that it’s probably harder. All the techniques that I’ve learned for it pretty much aren’t applicable any longer. Plus, it’s a pain in the ass to watch debuffs in the new raid frames, although I’m getting better. WTB Grid and Clique, PST.
Don’t apologize for asking, though. :)
Tobeume – BIG HITS. I don’t know if they’re all avoidable or whatever, though. I managed to log a little bit at one point…
[00:34:51.380] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4577
[00:34:52.427] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4753
[00:34:53.439] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4753
[00:34:54.424] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4753
[00:34:55.440] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4753
[00:34:56.428] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4753
[00:34:57.493] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 4929
[00:34:58.507] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 5105
[00:34:59.421] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 5105
[00:35:00.432] Naz’jar Invader Lacerate Naomix 5105
This is what Lacerate does:
Lacerate
Melee Range
Cuts deep into the target, dealing 250 damage per second for 20 sec. Stacks up to 30 times.
THAT HURTS LIKE A SOMEBITCH. haha. I couldn’t keep up with it.
Kurn, may I ask what you use to get the WoWHead tooltips on your blog? Call me a noob, but I don’t know how to get that working on my WordPress blog. It might not work at all, because I use their free hosting. I could host on my own server though, if needed.
Kaboomski – http://www.wowhead.com/tooltips
OMG wow… Over 44K damage in less than 10 seconds. No healer would be able to keep up with that! Two of those hits would destroy one of my Priest’s bubbles and there would still be more damage coming… And those numbers are on a normal instance – no telling what heroic would be like… I honestly can’t wait! It’s been a long time since I was challenged in a 5 man…
Tobeume – in fairness, that was a ton of stacks on the tank. I’ve gotten good at BOPping my tanks and then casting Hand of Freedom on them so that it clears the debuff, gives the mobs just enough time to turn around and look at the melee before they can attack the tank again. WTB tanks with more avoidance, PST.
Or, you know, groups that USE CROWD CONTROL. Gah.