So I sat down to do this on Tuesday and realized I had a lot of other stuff to attend to, not the least of which was the Montreal Canadiens/Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game. GO HABS GO.
Ahem.
Anyways, here are 10 keywords that sent people to my site over the last few weeks that weren’t terribly well addressed in my blog. (You wouldn’t believe how many people google things like Toravon, still!)
1) shared lockouts kurn wow
Hah, cool, someone out there wants to know what I think of the shared lockouts in Cataclysm. I already addressed this, but as a recap:
– I LOVE the fact that 10s and 25s will be on the same lockout. LOVE it. No more overextending myself or feeling guilty for NOT overextending myself!
– I am apprehensive about the gear being the same regardless of raid size.
– I am downright terrified that any other incentive to run 25s will just not be enough and that people will flock to 10s just because they are less of a logistical nightmare.
– I will probably quit playing, period, if I can’t run 25s.
2) leet holy paladin healing techniques
Okay, that one made me laugh. First, I recommend my Holy How-To posts. Second, I recommend just overall awareness of your class abilities and researching fights to figure out in which fights they might be useful and, more importantly, at which points WITHIN the fights those abilities might be useful. Third, make sure you keep your buffs/debuffs up. A good holy paladin puts Sacred Shield on their tank and keeps the hot running. A GREAT holy paladin makes sure everything is always refreshed, including their judgement debuff if there’s no one else sharing that judgement, which means judging every 20 seconds. Of course, doing it when you can spare the GCD is the key, or else your targets are going to go splat.
3) best way to down dreamwalker
Well, technically, you don’t want to kill her. You want to heal her. ;) The key to the fight is not dropping your stacks of Emerald Vigor or, on heroic, Twisted Nightmares. Keep taking each portal, stack those stacks up and spam the living crap out of the boss.
4) “vengeful shade” addon
Don’t know of one. If you do, please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me. Stupid Vengeful Shades. Why do they have to be so damn vengeful?!
5) /cancelaura power word shield threat tanks
This one confuses me. If you’re doing /cancelaura, it means you have the aura on you. So if you’re doing “/cancelaura power word: shield”, you’re getting rid of your shield.
There is only one time where I can foresee this being something you would ever WANT to do and that’s if you’re a protection paladin with points in Spiritual Attunement and your healer is a disc priest and you’re not getting mana back from being healed through damage being taken.
None of that has to do with threat, exactly, except that if you’re a prot pally, your threat depends on your mana in that it’s costly to keep throwing down Consecration.
If you have a disc priest shielding you in a dungeon (which is the only place it should matter — you should be taking enough damage to get mana back from shields in raid content) then just ask them not to shield you unless it’s an emergency, because you get mana back from being healed, not shielded.
All other tanks have no excuse to ever not want Power Word: Shield on them. It doesn’t affect rage mechanics, people. It used to. But not for a long time, now. Patch 3.0.2, to be precise.
6) 2 druids 3 mark of fallen champion
Ouch. I mean really, OUCH. I guess I would have to recommend bringing three healers for this, leaving one healer (a druid) on the raid until the last instant before the third mark comes out. Better still, bring a paladin and 2 other healers and that way, one of the druids can be on the raid full time.
7) best food for discipline priest
Since Borrowed Time and a moonkin aura/swift ret aura plus a Wrath of Air totem make the haste “cap” for disc priests really easy to hit, so they get a 1s GCD, the best food is either +46 spellpower (available in a Fish Feast or a variety of other foods) or +40 crit. +40 crit is over a full percent of crit, so it shouldn’t be looked down upon, particularly if you’re actually healing single targets as part of a tank healing team, because you DO want to proc Divine Aegis as often as you can. If, on the other hand, your primary responsibility in the raid is to cast Power Word: Shield, you’ll want +46 spellpower, since every bit of spellpower strengthens your shields, due to Borrowed Time.
8) best in slot pants for holy pally
I totally don’t even want to TALK about our stupid pants.
Actually, I take that back. I do want to talk about them. At great length. While ranting.
Our options for pants are HORRIBLE. Our T10 251/264 pants are awful. Even the 277s are pretty crappy. Seriously, here’s the comparison:
http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=50866;51168;51271
Holy Light spamming paladins (which is the vast majority of us) should be looking for the following stats, in order:
Intellect, Haste, MP5, Crit, Spellpower
There is 0, check that, 0 haste on any of those pants. There is a mediocre amount of MP5 on any of them but the 277s. There is a huge amount of crit on these pants that I desperately wish could be converted to haste. And a truly ridiculous amount of spellpower! What gives?! This is our TIER?!
Assume we do not have access to any 277 legs.
http://www.wowhead.com/items=4?filter=qu=4;sl=7;ty=3:4;minle=251;cr=23:103:21;crs=1:1:3;crv=0:0:0
There are precisely 8 options item level 251 or over that we can consider. There’s 10, but you can’t be Horde AND Alliance, so you lose out on the mail and plate legs out of TOGC due to being on one faction or another.
Right now, I’ve got ilvl 258 Legplates of Failing Light. 116 intellect, 92 haste, 3 sockets. Pretty hot, right? Right. So hot that only two other items even come close to them.
The crafted Lightning-Infused Leggings offer 123 intellect (+7 from the Failing Light pants), 100 haste (+8 haste) and three sockets as well. The trouble is, you need to find a leatherworker who’s revered with the Ashen Verdict for these mail pants and then the mats include 8 Primordial Saronite. If you have nothing left to spend emblems of frost on, this is really easy to get, particularly if you’re raiding, but if you’re saving your emblems, the saronite alone can cost upwards of 1000g each.
Is 7 intellect and 8 haste really worth 8k+ gold?
Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.
The plate version? Even worse. The Puresteel Legplates also cost 8 saronite and aren’t even a haste upgrade from the Legplates of Failing Light as both items have 92 haste. 8k+ gold for 7 intellect, basically? No thanks!
The other real option is the heroic Corrupted Silverplate Leggings. 123 intellect (+7), 99 haste (+7) and three sockets. It’s an upgrade and it’s one that doesn’t cost eight thousand plus gold. The trouble here is that it requires killing heroic Marrowgar. On 10-man. Which means I’m never going to get these.
There’s another option, also a 10-man heroic drop, this time off Putricide. The Rippling Flesh Kilt gives the same amount of intellect (123) and 96 haste. Basically, if you’re running 10-man heroic ICC, the Marrowgar pants are easier to get by virtue of being an easier fight, but if you get Putricide down, go for these pants if you haven’t gotten the Corrupted Silverplate Leggings on heroic.
If you don’t have ilvl 258 pants like I do, the 251 versions of the Corrupted Silverplate Leggings and Rippling Flesh Kilt are nice enough, but if you’re really looking seriously at those, consider getting the mail legs crafted. They’re just a better upgrade overall.
I’m eventually going to have to bite the bullet and get either my ilvl 277 pants or the heroic Leggings of Dying Candles, both of which will actually only be a net gain of +3 intellect for me and hope that all my other 277 gear’s haste will compensate for the worst tier pants I’ve seen since T4. I value the Leggings of Dying Candles over the tier due to the extra socket and the increased MP5 versus the tier, by the way.
Whew.
9) boa libram for holy light
There is no Bind on Account (heirloom) libram, period. The best libram for Holy Light using paladins is the ilvl 200 Libram of Renewal, available for 15 emblems of heroism.
10) chestplate of septic stitches how should i gem
Honestly? It’s not a great breastplate. Let’s look at it.
There’s no haste. Three sockets is great for 3x+20 intellect, but… eh. The Lightsworn Tunic or, better yet, the Chestguard of Siphoned Elements off of Blood Queen Lana’thel in ICC 10 is a much better choice.
That said, if you’re asking how to gem it, you probably already have it. The answer is almost always “all intellect”, unless you’re a paladin who stacks spellpower and casts mostly Flash of Light. If that’s the case, that is a GREAT chest for a FoL spammer. Gem it with all +23 spellpower if you’re a FoL machine or if it’s for your Dreamwalker set. :)
I’m just going to keep my Lighting-Infused and give a big ‘ole “screw you!” to the 277s. The 16 INT and 24 SP gives nowhere -near- enough to compensate for the loss of 100 haste. I’ve never understood the fascination with ilevels anyway. If gear is just flat out better despite being lower ilevel, then why take the crappily itemized piece? :P
I think the problem, Codi, is that people hear “higher ilevel” and think “higher stat budget.” Now, to anyone who really wants to optimize their character (min-max, twink, whatever other term you may want to use) will read the stats, compare the low-end and high-end damage, weapon speed, socket bonuses, ICD of a proc. But someone with only a cursory knowledge of what works best for what class (will/might) think “oh, it’s leather, it has agility, it’s obviously feral/rogue gear.” That’s fair. And if it’s a higher ilevel, it’s safe to assume that there will be more agility, more stam, and likely more AP/crit/whatever else those kids care about nowadays. It takes a lot of the thinking out of the game for them, which is fine for some players, and they’ll learn to either adapt to their choice, or realize that they could have gone with a different piece and done better.
On the other hand, I think that Blizzard may be giving us items that aren’t perfect to MAKE us adapt. I mean, they already made it so you can skip from heroic gear to T9 in what, a day? Lightning-Infused Leggings are fantastic, but if you can’t afford to make them, what if you HAVE to use something with less-than-ideal stats? Will you just wait until you can afford them, or will you make do with what drops in the instance?
I applaud your conviction if you’re still reading this, I’m tired from work and probably sound stupid. Er, more stupid than usual.
Codi – It’s certainly tempting to go craft those pants, or even stick with my current ones.
But what I did was build up a new character at chardev.org, using the following:
T10 277 helm, heroic Holiday’s Grace, T10 277 shoulders, heroic Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape, heroic Rot Resistant BP, heroic Crypt Keeper’s bracers, heroic Unclean Surgical Gloves, heroic Belt of the Blood Nova, my current Earthsoul Boots, heroic Marrowgar’s Frigid Eye, the exalted AV ring, heroic Bulwark of Smoldering Steel and heroic Bloodsurge, Kel’Thuzad’s Blade of Agony. (Plus my current heroic Solace of the Defeated and Talisman of Resurgence.)
You’ll notice I neglected to put on any pants. ;)
The stats from the above-mentioned gear give me 963 haste. In my current gear, I have 936 haste. Plus, I always eat haste food. So “just” upgrading the other slots gives me a significant amount more haste. Granted, it’ll take a long while to collect most of them, so maybe I will craft the legs in the interim, but I think that then adding in heroic Leggings of Dying Candles would be a nice boost to all my other stats. The upgrades from 264 – 277 aren’t all that immense by themselves, but put together, it’s a pretty decent set.
Would I be happier if the the larger ilvl budget that X talks about above actually had haste? Bet your bippy I would. But then I should consider if I really need close to 1100 haste with my food buff, given that I have easy access to Moonkin Aura/Swift Ret Aura and Wrath of Air totem. I already have a 1.2-1.3s Holy Light with Light’s Grace up and would have to do something akin to math to figure out if I can drop that substantially with another 100 haste or so. If it can drop to 1.1 with JOTP and Light’s Grace and raid buffs, then yes, to me, that’s completely worth it.
If it remains at 1.2 or 1.19 or something, I might just choose to buff my other stats.
X – The same thing happened with me and my shoulders. I spent DKP on some plate 264 shoulders in ICC that would have been DEed otherwise and used them while I saved up Emblems of Frost to give me my 251 helm and shoulders for the 2pc bonus. I then “downgraded” from 264 to 251 until I could upgrade the 251 tier to 264 with a token.
I think, however, that Codi was saying that if you do have the option to use a better-quality, lower ilvl item, why would you consider using a higher ilvl item without the good stats on them? Like haste. There are no 277 mail or plate caster legs with haste. Drives me up the freaking wall. So logically, I should either keep my 258 pants which are AWESOME or upgrade to the 264 mail Lightning-Infused Leggings and stick there. Except that I looked at the other upgrades, etc, etc, see what I wrote to Codi above. ;)
Another reason I haven’t upgraded yet is because my hunter isn’t revered with the Ashen Verdict and can’t craft the damn pants yet. ;D
Right, but it was more of an attempt at pointing out the “fascination” with ilevel. Trust me, you (and a good majority of your readers, it seems) obviously know better. :P
This is a whole other rant, but…
People in-game tend to care about “gearscore”, which is probably the most ludicrous, stupid metric for judging someone’s ability that has ever reared its ugly face in WoW.
At the center of a player’s gearscore is the sum of the item levels of gear they are wearing.
Smart players, therefore, decry gearscore, because they know item level means nothing with regards to skill. They know it usually shows potential, and in certain cases it can show progression, but they know that it does not show skill.
The thing even some smart players forget, though, is that, for the most part, gear with higher ilvls is better than lower ilvl gear.
Example:
T9 258 > T9 245 > T9 232
T10 277 > T10 264 > T10 251
Why is that?
The higher an item’s ilvl, the more stats can be allocated to it. That’s why there’s ever-so-slightly more intellect, more spellpower, more stamina, etc, on stuff at higher ilvls than lower ones.
However, smart players also recognize that there’s a point where the ilvl does not make up for the lack of quality in other stats — like our holy paladin leg discussion.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that 277 gear, in general, IS better than 264 gear. The reason WHY it’s better is because there are more stats allocated the item. And I think that’s something a lot of smart players disregard because we can tend to think that if people care about the ilvl of an item, we’re trying to inflate gearscore.
I honestly would take ilvl 277 Leggings of Dying Candles over 264 Lightning-Infused Leggings *assuming I have all the other 277 heroic gear I want* that would make up for the lack of haste, because I know the leggings will increase my mp5 and my spellpower and even add some int.
Of course, getting every one of those upgrades I want means killing heroic Lich King and farming him for long enough to get me that sword over all the real casters in the raid. ;) So in an ideal situation, yes, I would get the 277s.
In the reality of the situation, I will probably get my hunter revered and craft the mail legs for myself.
Or hell, maybe I’ll just gem all spellpower and go FoL spec. ;D
But honestly, my rambling is all to say that we can’t forget that ilvl should matter, at least a little bit.
I’ve been saying that since WoW-Heroes started. Did I tell you that it said my WARLOCK should forsake her Band of the Invoker for an ASHEN BAND OF ENDLESS COURAGE?
I am all about drain-tanking, but that is ridiculous.
inb4 “but any class can use any ring, you should check something like your chest or something.”
I did. As there is no cloth gear (God I hope there’s no cloth gear) with things like AP or expertise, only caster gear shows up. Fine. But weapons still show things like Distant Land, or Shaft of Glacial Ice. They default to “usable by class X” filters, rather than the weight systems used by Wowhead. It makes me wonder if I should buy some BoE gear to get into those super-l33t Storming the Citadel PUGs, since nobody seems to do actual gear checks anymore.*
((Of course, this is for WH. GearScore [the addon] is equally ludicrous but I can’t cite wacky stories for that.))
* I had my level 60 Medallion of the Horde on throughout my Marrowgar and LDW kills, and somehow again on Saurfang. <_<
FUCK. Kurn, give me editing privileges, please.
“I’ve been saying that” refers to the bit about gearscore being ludicrous and metric, or whatever it was you said.
I’m going to sleep before I make even more useless, spammy comments on your pretty, pretty blog.