Change is Scary

Kurn / / apotheosis, healers, raiding, ramblings

When I first started raiding, all those years ago, I was a hunter. I quickly became a sort of assistant raid leader to our guild master at the time, back in Fated Heroes. I have fond memories of telling people to /assist me as I burned down the adds on Venoxis, one at a time and getting through three of the four sheep (haha, 4 mages in a 20m! It was glorious!) and then not being able to find the fourth sheep to break…

Believe it or not, my BROTHER was one of our first healing leads, on his druid Fog. This eventually became the one and only Cryptkikr, an extraordinary holy priest. We spent a good deal of time in Molten Core and Crypt was our healing lead throughout it. I picked up bits and pieces of it since I was required to heal through at least some of the fights on many of our raid nights. The idea of a healer custom channel was, to me, GENIUS. So that’s where I learned about assignments and while cross-healing if your target is stable is fine, respecting your assignments is still the important part. To this day, one of my favourite times was healing through Thekal in the original ZG. I’d killed Thekal a handful of times as Kurn, but the raid needed a healer, so I went in on Madrana and HOLY CRAP, what a freaking rush. In truth, that may have been when I first really felt like I was making a difference in a raid as a healer.

In early Burning Crusade, I wasn’t with Fated Heroes and Apotheosis had yet to be born, so my experience with healing in a raid situation at that point was Karazhan and dual-healing Kara with another holy paladin. I had responsibility for one tank and group, the other paladin (the raid leader) would handle the other tank and the other group. We ostensibly had a priest who was supposed to be healing with us, but she was shadow most of the time (MANA BATTERIES YAY) or, oddly, AFK. (2-healing Moroes with two paladins and careful use of Turn Undead was fantastic, by the way.)

When Apotheosis first formed, Cryptkikr was our natural choice as healing lead. And since I was the most geared of pretty much anyone (with my one piece of T4, the gloves, and several off-set pieces), I decided I wouldn’t DPS. I decided to heal.

So Crypt gave out assignments and such, although I filled in now and again, especially when we were on separate Karazhan teams, but he was key for Maulgar and Gruul and Magtheridon assignments. Meanwhile, since I’d always been the research-type person, I handled strats and general raid leading duties, with Majik also being fairly vocal, and then after raids, Daey and I would sit there and go through logs for an hour after every single raid.

It was as we were getting through SSC that we felt a need for more DPS, so Crypt went shadow. We needed bodies and had pulled in several people from my first guild in BC, including a couple of healers. So Crypt went shadow and I took on the healing assignments. Crypt eventually stopped playing due to RL issues and, well, I kept doing healing.

I loved my healers. I really did. There was Furormalic, Massimo, Kazir, Noon, Opus, Ribs, Space, Q, Lokdog, Legs and, of course, Euphie. We had a great time together in Burning Crusade and I loved being in charge of the healers, even when I wanted to kill them on Bloodboil for cross-healing when they shouldn’t have done so. :)

I maintained both raid leading and healer leading through the start of Wrath, but things went poorly in terms of attendance and so we couldn’t progress, then couldn’t recruit and we stopped raiding. I went to Bronzebeard, to a guild called Resurgence, after we’d stopped officially raiding in Apotheosis. Within two months or so, guess what? That’s right, promoted to healing lead.

I left them after being there for about six months. They were having trouble forming raids, the raid leader having gquit (apparently because of me and my arguments with him — to which I say, dude, if you’re going to call for a second set of cooldowns on 4m Ignis, you’d better make damn sure we HAVE 2 sets of cooldowns to use, jackass), so I went to Proudmoore and raided with my Real-Life Friend the Resto Druid. I was there from mid-September until late May/early June and somewhere in February/March… I was asked to take over healing for my RL Friend the Resto Druid who was going through some personal stuff and couldn’t raid for a good month or so.

I left that guild shortly after my RLFtRD returned and moved on to Choice where I was happy as a clam. I didn’t have any responsibilities except to heal. It was great. Of course, I helped out with some strats and such, because I had already gone 11/12 HM on Proudmoore and the guild was 7/11 HM when I joined, so I happily gave them any input I could — which I’m sure annoyed some of the officers, but the whole walking-the-fine-line between helpful and annoying as shit is a story for another time.

4.0 dropped. I headed back to Eldre’Thalas, to resume being a raid leader for the first time since early Wrath, and to be a healing lead again, for the first time in months.

When we started raiding on January 4th, 2011, our healing roster looked like this:

3 Holy Paladins: Myself, Walks and Apple.
4 Healing Priests: Kaleri, Oestrus, Numinal and Legs.
2 Resto Druids: Hestiah and Kaleina.
1 Resto Shaman: Dar.

(Yes, we overrecruited.)

Apple and Legs pulled themselves from the starting roster due to lack of time to get their ducks in a row to be “raid ready” by the extended deadline I’d given them. We removed Kaleina from our starting roster on January 25th due to a variety of things, including sporadic attendance. So our 10 healers dropped to 7 healers — good thing we overrecruited.

Having said that, we now have 8 healers on the roster, one in his trial, and though there’s only three of us left from a year ago (me, Walks and Kaleri), we’ve gained Sara, Kit, Featherwind and, of course, Jasyla. Plus Baylie, our new resto shammy who’s in his trial with us.

I love my healers. Sara and Kal share a brain sometimes (and, for whatever reason, poop comments/jokes are quite popular with them). Walks wanted to be a raid healing paladin in Cataclysm and so he has become phenomenal at it (unlike my sorry self), while sneaking in the most terribly awful puns you could ever imagine. Kit and her Spirit Link Totem have SAVED THE DAY on more than one occasion. Feather is always up for a challenge and is another one of us strange people with two max-level healing toons of the same class and spec. Baylie is still making his mark, but I’m looking forward to seeing more from him. And Jasyla, well, Jasyla is awesomeness in druidic form.

Healer chat has been filled with pudding and wine discussions, poop jokes, a ton of laughter and massive amounts of RSA announces.

Through the last year, it hasn’t always been easy for me to raid lead while being the healing lead as well. On countless occasions, I’ll have forgotten cooldown rotations and be in mid-fight and go “uh… crap… okay, so I’ll get AM first, Walks gets AM second, Kal third with PWB” and so on. Sometimes, I’ve actually forgotten to give out healing assignments at all. >.>

I came into the expansion thinking “I AM GOING TO DO HEALING REVIEWS EVERY MONTH OR TWO”. And I’ve done them twice, total, in the last year. (And will be doing them again this week.)

Overall, I feel that the healers have really deserved better from me in the last year. I’ve always thought “hey, I can do (some healer-related thing) tomorrow or next week,” but tomorrow or next week never seemed to come.

When my grandmother broke her hip in late December (she’s in a rehabilitation center now to build up her muscles and such, so she’s doing quite well — thank you for all your concern, tweets, emails and positive thoughts!!), I suddenly had 2-4 fewer hours in any given day, due to going to the hospital to see her, staying anywhere between 1-3 hours and then coming back home. This utter lack of time, plus the start of my winter semester, plus the fact that one of my officers with whom I’ve played WoW with for six years, on and off, is stepping down as an officer and a raider… this meant something had to give if I wanted to continue to play WoW with any kind of seriousness.

So I approached some people in the guild about becoming officers. One was Serrath, whose name you’ve certainly seen in the comments on this very blog, who I asked to take over Loot Master duties. The other was Jasyla, because it’s clear to me that it’s time for me to hand over the healing lead reins to ensure that the healers get the attention they deserve.

I’ll remain a healer — despite the fact we’ve had trouble recruiting hunters, I know that no one wants me to inflict my poor DPS skills on the raid on Kurn — but will hand off the healing lead hat to Jasyla and I’ll concern myself primarily with raid stuff.

In a way, it’s going back to my roots. This is where I started, after all, right? Barking out commands and orders in Zul’Gurub on Venoxis? It’s something I’ve done for the last year, so it’s not new to me, either.

But at the same time… my healers are my peeps. Don’t get me wrong, I really like my guildies overall, but over the years, dating back to BC at least, it was always the healing team that made things awesome for me. Cryptkikr, Euphie, Furormalic, even Noonshade and Opus back in the day (despite the nastiness that happened in the start of Wrath, I still think fondly of the BC days with them), all of which gave way to the people in Resurgence, like Kaleri (and Kaleina, who was healing on her priest as Carmentes back then) and, shockingly, Euphie (again!) and Fadorable. That gave way to my RL Friend the Resto Druid and a couple of the other healers over on Proudmoore. And eventually, my move to Choice gave me the opportunity to get to know Fugara (the GM) and meet Walks and heal alongside some very talented healers in Wrath. Even today in Choice, I love chatting with Fug and Azrulian and Lovin, while getting to focus on JUST healing the fights, which is still glorious.

So I am very reluctant to place them in someone else’s hands, but at least I know they’ll be well-cared for. Apart from anything else, I know Jasyla knows how to read the logs, so I know she’s not going to bench people for low healing output. ;)

This change has been in the making for about a month and that’s still not enough time for me to accept that for the first time in years, as long as I’ve been an officer-type person in the guild, I am NOT going to be doing healing assignments on a regular basis. I know it’ll be a benefit to the raid group as a whole to have someone else dedicated to that and no longer will I have to sit down and do assignments AFTER I’ve explained to everyone where to stand, etc, etc. No longer will I forget cooldowns or forget assignments altogether. It’s a good thing. It’s a good change.

Change is scary, though, and I really have to wonder how it’s going to feel to me, personally, next week when Jasyla does the healing assignments solo. (This week is a transition week for both Toga and Serrath as loot masters and me and Jasyla as healing leads.)

At least I’m still going to heal on my paladin and will still be in healer chat and will still get to hang out in the best Apotheosis raid channel. And I know my healers will get the attention they really deserve. <3

Something New

Kurn / / apotheosis, raiding, ramblings, T13

It’s rare, in this game, that I get to achieve something new that I have never before experienced. Getting a new boss down is “new”, but I’ve killed dozens of raid bosses for the first time.

Until Thursday, January 19th, I had never, ever had a server-first kill.

I’ve had a couple of server-first achievements, but I had never had a server-first kill.

I knew we had a good chance of downing Heroic Hagara on 25-man on Thursday. We’d gotten her to 7%ish (9% when the wipe was called) on Tuesday. It was really just a matter of time and I knew that we didn’t have Echelon (a 10-man Horde guild that has been at the top of Eldre’Thalas progression for years) to compete with any longer, as they packed it in after getting Heroic Morchok down. Similarly, Epic Again, another long-time ET guild that led progression, transferred to Stormrage, so we wouldn’t have them as a measuring stick on Eldre’Thalas any longer. I knew the other guilds on the server who had downed Heroic Morchok were 10-man guilds and I knew that 10-man guilds typically go for Zon’ozz or Yor’sahj first, while 25-man guilds have had more success with Hagara second. So I knew we had a good chance.

Knowing we had a good chance at a genuine server-first boss kill is different than actually achieving it.

I may not like what’s coming up for the game. I may not like what the current state of the game is. But on Thursday night, I finally got a server-first boss kill. Not an Alliance-first. Not a 25-man first. Not an achievement first. A real, honest-to-God, genuine, true server-first kill of a raid boss.

If nothing else, I’m glad to have gotten it before packing it in, whenever that might be, and I’m especially pleased and proud to have done it before any damn nerfs.

Thank you, Apotheosis, for kicking some ass tonight. I am extremely proud and humbled by your perseverence, tenacity, skill and your senses of humour.

A Sigh of Resignation

Kurn / / apotheosis, dragon soul, facepalm, icecrown citadel, raiding, ramblings, T11, T12, T13

When the expansion was announced at BlizzCon, I wasn’t thrilled. My reaction was something along the lines of: Mists of Pandaria? We’re going to have PANDAS running around? SERIOUSLY?

I decided I could probably deal with that, despite not being thrilled with pandas, to the point where I now no longer say “sad panda”, but rather “sad moose”. However, that, combined with the changing talent trees and abilities and such left me doubtful that I would really enjoy very much at all in Mists of Pandaria.

Still, I said, I would wait to see if things were as bad as I thought they would be, by checking out the Beta. I signed up for the annual pass so I’d get guaranteed Mists of Pandaria Beta access and a free digital copy of Diablo III. People who have noted my overall unhappiness with the announced details of the expansion have asked me if I plan to continue playing.

To them, I have said “right now, the plan is to keep playing and keep raiding, unless something significant changes or Beta is terrible.”

So I have basically told people that my viewpoint was that everything would continue barring huge changes/proof that said changes are terrible in Beta.

And then, on Wednesday evening, Blizzard announced incoming nerfs to Dragon Soul, both normal and heroic.

I sighed. And then I resigned myself to the fact that, unless the Mists of Pandaria Beta absolutely blows my mind in terms of PVE play (especially raiding), this is my last expansion of World of Warcraft where I will be anything more than a casual player.

Let me be very clear — I am dedicated to my guild and our raid group. I will continue to raid, continue to lead the guild, up to when Mists of Pandaria is released. But after that? I’m really not so sure what’s going to happen. Until release, I’ll stick around and continue to be a source of holy paladin knowledge, will still do a podcast with Majik, will still lead Apotheosis and will still raid with Choice on my off-nights. Beyond that, well, I’m not thinking I want to be a part of the upcoming expansion, which is a shift from just twelve hours ago. Earlier today, my thinking was optimistic: “Hey, unless things in Beta really suck, I’ll probably keep playing.” Now, it’s more pessimistic: “Hey, unless things in Beta are really AWESOME, I’m probably going to quit.”

The reason is the ongoing nerfing of current content.

For those of you who are brave, the complete rant is below, but that’s the short answer.

Continue reading “A Sigh of Resignation”

Co-operation vs. Competition

Kurn / / facepalm, healers, healing, ramblings

Anyone who’s healed with me, particularly with me as their healing lead, knows that I do not put a huge emphasis on numbers while healing. I don’t care who’s topping the healing meters, I don’t care who’s at the bottom. I take those numbers in stride and I don’t sweat it, so long as people are not dying due to lack of healing.

This is because I care more about defeating the encounter as a team than topping the meters. I don’t even have Recount or Skada up most of the time because I don’t want to focus on numbers. If I have it up, it is almost certainly as a quick diagnostic tool for after the pull, so I can see if people were respecting their assignments.

Please bear in mind that I’m not saying it’s not important to do your best on an encounter, but it’s not doing your best, for example, to allow Gushing Wound to stay on the tank during Alysrazor, just so you’ll have more healing to do. That’s padding the numbers and artificially inflating them at the risk of killing your tank.

At this point in the expansion, after having raided for several months with my own healing team in Apotheosis (up to a year in some cases), I just flat-out don’t care which of us tops the meters or which of us (that would be me) is occasionally outhealed by our DK tank. (Actually, that was all of us on Baleroc, sometimes…!)

My healing roster in Apotheosis currently consists of: 2 holy paladins, 2 resto druids, 1 disc priest, 1 holy priest and 2 resto shaman (one is in his trial). But I don’t look at them and say “oh, holy priest, huge buffs, God, I hate Sara for having a more powerful healing cooldown!!” Nor do I look over at Walks and curse at him for grasping holy paladin raid healing better than myself. Nor do I gripe about Kal and her amazing bubbles on the tanks when my “bubbles” are pathetic and miniscule, even with a hefty amount of mastery. (Okay, I gripe a little, but screw mastery anyway.)

I don’t get upset when Kit saves the day with a well-timed Spirit Link Totem. I don’t get angry when Jasyla or Featherwind manage to squeeze in another Tranquility for an extra few hundred thousand healing. I don’t begrudge any of my healers their successes, because when they succeed, my whole team succeeds.

On December 6th, the Holy Paladin 4pc set bonus was nerfed in a hotfix. No longer would our 4pc set increase healing done by Holy Radiance by 20%, it would now only increase it by 5%.

In the PTR notes for 4.3.2, the change is mentioned because the tooltip will now read 5% instead of the incorrect-since-December-6th 20%.

I noticed a few tweets and such about the nerf, from people who had not read the hotfixes (or perhaps they had and it just didn’t register as anything interesting at the time), basically cheering that holy paladins were being nerfed and they thought that holy paladins were being nerfed from the level they’re at now.

My question here is why?

Why on earth would you be glad to see your teammates be nerfed?

When resto druids got a 20% nerf to WG’s healing and a glyph change that is ridiculous, I didn’t cheer, I didn’t express my sheer joy. I was upset on their behalf. When holy priests complained of not having a really viable raid cooldown during 4.0-4.2, I was right there with them, saying yes, it would make so much sense for holy priests to have a real raid cooldown that matters! When they got their Divine Hymn buffs, I was thrilled!

When resto shaman got Spirit Link Totem, I was really pleased for them, same with when resto druids got the reduced CD on Tranquility. And in the early days of T11, I got spoiled rotten by having not one, but two Power Word: Barriers at my disposal, thanks to Kal and Num.

My question here is… why does the success of my class make people feel so angry that they then feel HAPPY when my class gets nerfed?

This isn’t a new thing, not at all, but I feel as though the inter-class arguments have gotten worse in recent times. I feel as though many players just no longer care about the team aspect of the game and are only out to make sure that they’re topping the meters.

Can you top meters while being a good team player? Sure. Does that happen often? No. Generally, in my six years of playing, if a healer was concerned about topping the healing meters, that healer would not follow their assignment and their assigned people would die. That’s why I don’t care about the meters. If I top them, great. If I don’t, well, did my target or targets live? If so, good. If not, then we have a problem.

I feel strongly that the WoW community has become too fractured and divisive. Tanks argue that other tanks are OP, pure DPS argue about hybrids being too competitive and healers… healers lose sight of the fact that we’re all on the same team and that, ultimately, we all want the raid to live and bosses to die.

I heal as a holy paladin because I like the class, overall. I can’t imagine relying on hots, I am bad with the large priest toolkit and the idea of chain heal is still pretty foreign to me, despite the fact I’ve done some ICC 10/25 on my shaman (and several dungeon runs/heroic dungeons since).

I won’t reroll a healing class because a certain class is OP and I won’t shelve my paladin if we’re completely ineffective. I play the class because I enjoy my capabilities within that class. (Although I miss Divine Intervention. A lot.)

So it boggles my mind when I see other healers, good healers, rejoice at a nerf to a class they feel is overpowered. It makes me disappointed in them and the community at large. It makes me wonder what happened to team spirit and being happy and pleased about the successes of your team members. When did it all become about the self?

I feel, more and more, as though my team-first attitude is endangered. I feel as though 25-mans are endangered. I feel as though the game, somewhere, changed forever and the community it’s built up since that change is filled with “gogogo” people who are obsessed with their own personal performance.

Again, I will reiterate that there is nothing wrong with maximizing your own performance, so long as the team comes first. But I have to question if other people even understand what a team is anymore. Sadly, I think a lot of people view their fellow healers as competition and not as teammates.

I celebrate the successes of my team. You, almost certainly, cannot solo-heal raids. You do it with a partner or two or five or six. I ask that you show them some respect, no matter how badly you may be outhealed or no matter how badly you outheal them. For better or for worse, they are your teammates, even in LFR, and if you don’t show respect to your fellow healers, those poor people in the trenches with you as you struggle to keep that death knight or warrior alive, then how on earth can you be a team player?

We’re all on the same team, with the same goal. Let’s remember that the next time a series of nerfs or buffs come down, shall we?

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!

4.3 and Holy Paladins

Kurn / / 4.3, healing, paladins, T13

There are quite a few changes for holy paladins as of patch 4.3. Some are nerfs, some are buffs, but either way, part of how we heal is going to change significantly.

According to MMO-Champion, patch 4.3 is dropping this week, as in tomorrow, November 29th, 2011.

Here are all the paladin changes that holy pallies will care about.

HOLY RADIANCE

  • Holy Radiance now has a 3.0-second cast time, no cooldown, and requires a player target. That target is imbued with Holy Radiance, which heals them and all group members within 10 yards instantly, and continues to heal them by a smaller amount every 1 second for 3 seconds.
  • Illuminated Healing (mastery) now also applies to Holy Radiance.

This means that Holy Radiance is now a spell with a target and a cast time, like just about every other spell we have. The healing from Holy Radiance will no longer emanate from us, but rather from the people we heal with the spell. Time to find a keybind or mousebind for Holy Radiance! (I’m still trying to figure that one out!) And our mastery will now also apply to targets healed with Holy Radiance.

As a result, several spells now include or exclude Holy Radiance in their effects:

So instead of a 3s base, it’s 2.5s base, just like Divine Light and Holy Light.

  • Infusion of Light now applies its cast time reduction from Holy Shock critical effects to Holy Radiance, in addition to its current effects.

Sweet, Infusion of Light procs will give us a super-fast cast of Holy Radiance.

  • Speed of Light no longer triggers from Holy Radiance and no longer lowers the Holy Radiance cooldown. Speed of Light now only triggers from Divine Protection.

This only makes sense. Holy Radiance no longer HAS a cooldown, so nothing should lower its non-existant cooldown. And we can’t constantly be casting Holy Radiance in order to get a speed buff. That would be silly. Unfortunately, this is technically a nerf, because now we only have one speed boost.

  • Paragon of Virtue now lowers the cooldown of Divine Protection by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20 seconds.

But they buffed that, so we can now use Divine Protection every 30 seconds, which is pretty sweet.

  • Tower of Radiance, in addition to its current effects, now also causes Holy Radiance to always generate 1 charge of Holy Power at all times.

So this is a neat change that actually sort of gives us an “AOE rotation”. Cast three Holy Radiance on any target or targets (not just your beacon target!) and you’ll have three Holy Power. Cast Light of Dawn. Rinse and repeat. While no one is going to confuse us for resto druids or holy priests in 4.3, this does make us a little more viable as raid healers.

LIGHT OF DAWN

Yay for a buff! This means that everyone’s Light of Dawn will automatically try to hit 6 people. And if you’re in a 10-man raid group, there’s a change for you, too:

  • Glyph of Light of Dawn now lowers the number of targets to 4, instead of increasing targets to 6, but increases healing by 25%.

So that’s a nice little boost, too, and will be less wasteful. Light of Dawn may actually be worthwhile in 10-mans!

BEACON TRANSFERS

  • Beacon of Light is triggered by Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light and Light of Dawn at 50% transference and Holy Light at 100% transference. It does not transfer Holy Radiance, Protector of the Innocent or other sources of healing.

That’s right, you can drop to 2/3 of Protector of the Innocent if you, like me, hate the talent, but felt badly about not sending the maximum amount of tiny heals to your Beacon target. Note that you should still have 1/2 Enlightened Judgements to ensure you hit the 8% melee hit cap to make sure your judgements are always hitting (to maintain Judgements of the Pure), but the small bits of healing from that also will not transfer, so if you were at 2/2 Enlightened Judgements for that reason, you can drop a point there quite safely.

Yes, this is technically a nerf, but I know that I’m actually not going to cringe when I go looking through a parse now, trying to line up all the itty, bitty Beacon of Light heals with whatever the holy paladin in question was doing at the time.

SEALS AND JUDGING

  • Seal of Insight, when Judged, no longer returns 15% base mana to the paladin. Judging Seal of Insight still causes damage, and melee attacks will still restore 4% of base mana.
  • In addition to providing haste, the effect from Judgements of the Pure now increases mana regeneration from Spirit by 10/20/30% for 60 seconds.

These two changes, quite simply, mean that we are no longer judging once every 8 seconds in order to regain 15% of our base mana. We will only need to judge once per minute to keep Judgements of the Pure active, not only for the increased haste, but for increased mana regeneration. Spirit is our friend!

And, well, that’s about it, to be honest. So really, just a change to Holy Radiance and talents that were affecting the old version/should affect the new version. A change to Light of Dawn and its glyph. A change to Seal of Insight and Judgements of the Pure. And a change to what heals transfer through Beacon.

SO WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO DIFFERENTLY?

Make sure you remember to bind the new Holy Radiance to something. You might want to add the Holy Radiance effect to your raid frames (tip: it’s called Holy Radiance!) so you can see how much of the raid is being affected by it. If you’re in a 10m group, you probably want to glyph Light of Dawn. And remember, no need to judge every 8 seconds. And you only have one sprint! But it’s usable every 30 seconds.

Don’t forget to check out my T13 (normal) loot list, too!

Good luck to you, whether you’re heading right for Dragon Soul or into one of the new dungeons!

Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator/Info

Kurn / / 4.3, apotheosis, mists of pandaria, podcast

I’m unable to leap on this topic with much fervor due to my schedule and upcoming deadlines for school. I’ll definitely find the time to discuss my thoughts about paladins and, obviously, holy paladins in particular, but until that time, please check out Gryphonheart’s post over at The Lion Guard.

(And don’t forget to listen to the 1-year anniversary episode of Blessing of Frost!)

Also, a quick public service announcement:

Apotheosis of Eldre’Thalas is  6/7 HM guild that REALLY wants a second hunter for 4.3 content. Also, a ret paladin would be keen. Apply now!

Kurn's 4.3 Holy Paladin Gear List

Kurn / / 4.3, gear, paladins, raiding, T13

(Edited on December 15th, 2011 — hotfixes aplenty affecting the 4pc bonus, Heart of the Unliving and Timepiece of the Bronze Flight!)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, patch 4.3 is expected to drop in about a week (estimated November 29th), so it’s time for another one of those silly gear posts. Bear in mind that this is my opinion only and I will be prioritizing secondary stats in the following manner (keeping in mind that Intellect is always our primary stat):

Spirit > Haste > Crit > Mastery

Why am I prioritizing as I am? Due to incoming changes to Judgements of the Pure, our regen will be much more reliant on spirit, so I’ll look to have spirit on each piece possible. Haste, while it will drop slightly in priority due to the changes to Holy Radiance, will still be useful in getting more casts out. Crit will still be somewhat lacklustre. Mastery will get a bump up because it will now apply to targets on whom you cast Holy Radiance (and presumably those healed by the AOE effect), but my personal playstyle is not that of a raid healer, so I’m going to continue to focus on Spirit/Haste-heavy gear.

Note that I will focus primarily on the 397 ilvl gear from normal Dragon Soul, but in many cases, the 384 (Looking For Raid) version will work just as well.

As to the 2pc and 4pc set bonuses for Tier 13… Well, I’ll have a bunch of different potential gearsets in this post, I guess. I like the 2pc (although I feel it’s a little underpowered) and while I like the 4pc, I’m not sure how much use I’m personally going to get from it.

For reference:

2pc Tier 13 set bonus: After using Divine Favor, the mana cost of your healing spells is reduced by 25% for 15 sec.
4pc Tier 13 set bonus: Increases the healing done by your Holy Radiance spell by 20%. 5%. (This was hotfixed!)

It’s also important to note that ALL TIER will be dropping from raids, including lower ilvl (384) versions of the tier from the Looking for Raid difficulty, so no tier will be available with Valor Points. As well, Alizabal, the new Baradin Hold boss, seems to be dropping tier gloves and tier legs as both previous Baradin Hold bosses have done.

Tier 13/ilvl 397

HEAD

Two real options here, the tier helm and the vendor helm. That’s right, helms will be available for Valor Points at the vendor.

Glowing Wings of Hope: 2200 Valor Points from the VP vendor. This will take a bit longer than you would expect to earn. While the weekly cap is being raised to 1000 Valor Points, you’ll only earn 100 VP per raid boss kill (regardless of 10 or 25-man format). There are probably better pieces to pick up from the VP vendor first, so you might be waiting even longer than just collecting the 2200 VP (which is a minimum of two weeks and a bit). That said, the secondaries on this (spirit and crit) aren’t bad.

Headguard of Radiant Glory: This is the tier helm and the token for it drops off the sixth boss in the Dragon Soul raid, Warmaster Blackhorn. Why yes, that IS 280 mastery on it. My vote is for the non-tier helm! But let’s see what we can cobble together, shall we?

NECK

Again, two options here, one from the raid instance and one from the vendors.

Threadlinked Chain: 1250 Valor Points on this baby, which is still at least a week and a bit before you can afford this. Again, I’m not sure if this should be our priority for Valor Points, but we’ll see where we stand after going through all the loot. Plus, it’s got spirit, which is great, but it has crit, so it’s not what I would consider the best combination of stats.

Petrified Fungal Heart: Beautiful! Spirit and geez, would you look at that haste? Insane. The best news here is that this drops from the first boss in Dragon Soul, Morchok. This is definitely Kurn’s Choice ™, due to ease of acquisition and the pretty, pretty stats.

SHOULDERS

Uh. Absolutely no choices here. Go tier or go home.

Mantle of Radiant Glory: The good news? These are fantastic shoulders. 2 red sockets, 20 intellect socket bonus, lots of haste. Even better, the token for these aren’t off the second to last boss, like they were in Firelands or on an end-boss, like they were on Cho’gall in Bastion of Twilight. They’re off the fourth boss, Hagara the Stormbinder.

CLOAK

Again, no choices here as there is not one single cloak that drops in Dragon Soul.

Woundlicker Cover: Well, at least it’s a great cloak. Red socket, intellect bonus, spirit and haste, all for the bargain-basement price of 1250 Valor Points! This is looking as though it might be our number one VP purchase.

CHEST

Back to options! It’s nice to have a choice in gear.

Shining Carapace of Glory: All red sockets, all of the time, it appears. I’m not complaining. This chestpiece is available from the Valor Point vendor for 2200 VP and is possibly more easily available than the tier chest. Still, the crit makes me more inclined to put something else (like the cloak!) ahead of this on my potential shopping list.

Breastplate of Radiant Glory: YES PLEASE. Seriously, we have been blessed with some amazing chestpieces this expansion, but this is SERIOUSLY an amazing one. 3 sockets (including a yellow, so we can slot in a Reckless gem in there for one of our two yellow meta gem requirements) and plenty of haste. Even if you don’t like haste much as a secondary, the third socket makes this the winner, hands down. This drops off Ultraxion, the fifth boss in Dragon Soul.

WRISTS

I feel as though I’ve stumbled into an alternate universe because we have not one, not two, but three choices this tier. Is this really the same game that gave us just one 359 option for bracers?

Flashing Bracers of Warmth: Selling for a mere 1250 Valor Points at the vendor, these bracers are the easiest of the three to acquire. They also lack a socket and have mastery on them as a secondary. Still, not a terrible choice if your only other options are 378 bracers or if you’re doing that whole “mastery-stacking” thing.

Heartblood Wristplates: Pardon me as I attempt not to drool. Red socket, spirit, haste? Awesome. They drop off the third boss in Dragon Soul, Yor’sahj the Unsleeping, so they may not be terribly difficult to acquire.

Soul Redeemer Bracers: … okay, I’m drooling. These are crafted. The recipe for them is likely to be a drop from Dragon Soul. The materials for these actually aren’t too bad: 4 Truegold, 30 Volatile Life, 2 newly-unbound Chaos Orbs and, okay, well, the 4 Essences of Destruction will be the sticking point. These will likely be dropping in Dragon Soul the same way Living Embers did. Bear in mind that there are no heroic versions of this, so for the next ilvl tier, the drops from Yor’sahj will be better. But these are still amazing until you clear Dragon Soul and move into heroic modes.

HANDS

Two choices here with the gloves, one from the vendors, the other our tier.

Gleaming Grips of Mending: 1650 Valor Points for these. There’s a red socket, which is nice, but there’s that pesky mastery stat again. Still, if you don’t get lucky with your tier token, these are perfectly viable and adequate.

Gloves of Radiant Glory: The token for these drops off Warlord Zon’ozz, the second boss in Dragon Soul. A blue socket and crit as a secondary. Meh.

Honestly, this choice really depends on how much you hate mastery and how often Conqueror tokens drop off Yor’sahj. Either are fine, but the tier will obviously help with 2/4pc bonuses.

However, if you get through the Spine of Deathwing encounter, you get a shot at ilvl 403 loot and the only piece of ilvl 403 armor we might be interested in here are the gloves.

Gauntlets of the Golden Thorn: Very pretty. Two sockets, which is more than the other options, and plenty of spirit and haste. These get my vote.

WAIST

Again, I feel as though I’m in an alternate dimension. Coming out of a tier with just one belt option, in Tier 13, we’ll have… three?

Blinding Girdle of Truth: 1650 Valor Points will get you this belt from the VP vendor. Two sockets are always tempting, but then there’s all that mastery. Not a bad choice, but with two other choices, this is not my top option.

Dragonfracture Belt: Wow, this is an amazing belt. This belt is like the devs are saying “Hey, holy paladins? Yeah, we’re sorry about that one crappy belt option in T12. Enjoy!!” It drops off Ultraxion, the fifth boss in Dragon Soul. This is definitely my first pick.

Girdle of Soulful Mending: Now this is a curious item. It doesn’t seem to drop off any boss, nor is there a recipe for it. It’s also Bind on Equip. Could this be a trash drop in Dragon Soul? Assuming it’s actually in the game, I think we have to assume it is. As such, this is your easiest way to upgrade to a 397 belt, although it likely won’t be cheap. And while it has 20 intellect more (at base) than the other two belts, it only has one socket. Even without epic gems (which are being introduced in 4.3, but are supposed to be quite rare), this is still going to be a loss of intellect compared to the other two options.

Honestly, if you can’t get Ultraxion down with regularity or if you can’t cough up the VP for the belt, the BOE will do in a pinch, but the only thing it has going for it is that it’s relatively easy to get (trash runs, at the Auction House, etc).

LEGS

Just two options here. One is our tier legs and the other is another crafted item.

Greaves of Radiant Glory: Our tier legs, whose token drops from Yor’sahj the Unsleeping, the third boss in Dragon Soul. 3 sockets are great, but that mastery. Why mastery? Alas. T11 pants were crap, T13 pants aren’t great, IMHO.

Pyrium Legplates of Purified Evil: The only other choice apart from tier are these crafted legs. While they are awesome, there will almost certainly not be a heroic version of these, which makes me a sad moose. (#sadmoose!) These call for 8 Truegold, 40 Volatile Life, 4 newly-unbound Chaos Orbs and 8 Essences of Destruction.

FEET

Some interesting options here.

Pillarfoot Greaves: Dropping from Morchok, the first boss of Dragon Soul, are these boots. Two sockets, plenty of spirit… and crit isn’t terrible. These are likely going to be fairly easy to pick up.

Silver Sabatons of Fury: These are AWESOME. And they’re available from the vendors for 1650 Valot Points. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Valor Point boots are Bind on Equip again, like they were for Tier 11!

Best thing to do here is farm up the VP on another character in the first week and a bit and buy them for your main raiding character. Or, save up ~15k or thereabouts and buy your boots off the Auction House in Week 2 of 4.3. The important thing here is that you not spend your main raiding character’s VP on these boots, as awesome as they are. You have other things to save for.

WEAPONS/SHIELDS

A couple of options here, though none as awesome as the Eye of Purification (as in, they’re all boring maces).

Vagaries of Time: Dropping off Morchok, the first boss of Dragon Soul, this is a snazzy mace. Good itemization, though no spirit means that those nasty shadow priests, moonkins and elemental shaman will also be after it. Definitely worth picking up.

That is, until…

Maw of the Dragonlord: Definitely a healing mace, based on the Equip. I wonder if it looks like Light of Dawn… Anyhow, Vixsin of Life in Group 5 recently tweeted: “Healers, start cozying up to your loot council, because Maw of the Dragonlord is doing 10-20% of my healing on PTR.” Of course, this drops at the end of the Madness of Deathwing encounter, so only if you’re clearing Dragon Soul can you expect to see this.

As to shields… well, there’s one healing shield, but there’s also an off-hand that might be worth checking out.

Timepiece of the Bronze Flight: The only healing shield you’ll find. It’s fine and all, but there’s no socket. It drops off Warmaster Blackthorn, the sixth boss of Dragon Soul. This has been hotfixed to add a red socket with a 10 int socket bonus. This is almost certainly what we’d like to pick up.

Ledger of Revolting Rituals: Now this is where it gets got a bit interesting. Dropping off Ultraxion, the 5th boss in Dragon Soul, this off-hand has a socket. Dropping an ordinary Brilliant Inferno Ruby (+40 intellect) into it will give it 20 more intellect than the shield (the version without the socket) and if it’s an epic brilliant cut, that’ll be 30 more intellect than the shield. Is 30 intellect better than 15 haste and 8 spirit? Hell yes.

The thing is, holy paladins and resto shaman and elemental shaman are the only ones who would want that shield, versus any priest, moonkin, resto druid, ele/resto shaman or holy paladin who is using a 1H/OH-or-shield combination. If you’ve got very little competition, go for the Ledger. If you have competition, go with the shield, at least until the off-hand is being disenchanted and such.

Right, so in LFR (and bear in mind that this list is for NORMAL raiding, not LFR!), the shield has been “tagged” for paladins and shaman while the ledger has been “tagged” for priests, druids, etc. That means that a paladin cannot “need” on the Ledger. But it’s okay, because the shield was hotfixed to add a red socket along with a 10 int bonus, so the shield comes out ahead of the Ledger any way you look at it now.

RINGS

Signet of Suturing: This is a ring that drops off of multiple bosses with a shared loot table, much like our awesome spellpower axe, the Eye of Purification, did in Firelands. It is awesome. End of story.

Band of Reconstruction: 1250 Valor Points for a decent ring. It’s got spirit, but also has mastery. The yellow socket and its weak bonus isn’t great either. Not a priority for our shopping list.

Ring of the Riven: No spirit on this, but some haste and mastery, which is a combination we don’t see a lot. It drops off Hagara the Stormbinder, the fourth boss in Dragon Soul.

I’ll probably aim for Signet of Suturing and then whichever I can reasonably get first, the Band or the Ring. Bear in mind that casters will want the Ring of the Riven as well, though.

TRINKETS

Reflection of the Light: The healer Valor Point trinket, available for 1650 VP. Spirit is good. The on-use is good for bursty moments, but remember that it’s not like the Fiery Quintessence, which gave us Intellect. This is pure spellpower.

Bottled Wishes: The “caster” Valor Point trinket, this can be yours for 1650 VP. Again, this may not be as useful given the changes to Holy Radiance and such, but if your heals are feeling sluggish, this might be useful. Also, the on-use spellpower effect can be helpful for some burst throughput.

— Thanks to Oestrus for pointing out that I’d missed the VP trinkets entirely. Whoopsiedoodle. And speaking of the VP trinkets, since neither one of them has intellect, I would recommend picking only one of them and keeping another, intellect-heavy trinket on you. I would probably aim for the Seal of the Seven Signs (see below) and Reflection of the Light, to be honest, but I reserve the right to change my mind.

Seal of the Seven Signs: Preeeetty. Shiiiiny. While it sucks that the haste boost is a proc and not an on-use like the Shard of Woe, this is still pretty decent, if only because of the huge amount of intellect. Plus, that’s a LOT of haste when it does proc. It probably has a 45s internal cooldown or something, so that can still be 4-6 procs (and thus, 80-120s) of hasted goodness during a ~5 minute fight. It drops from Warlord Zon’ozz, the second boss in Dragon Soul.

Windward Heart: Another item on that shared loot table, like the Signet of Suturing, this is interesting because, according to the comments on Wowhead, it’s got a ~25s internal cooldown.

Heart of Unliving: Another ilvl 403 item, this is from the Spine of Deathwing, the 7th fight in the Dragon Soul. On the one hand, this adds 880 spirit to you, which is monstrous, especially given the Judgements of the Pure changes. On the other, there’s absolutely no stats on this. It really depends how you’re doing with mana, to be honest. This was hotfixed to add 323 intellect to it, so while that’s a lot less than any other similar ilvl trinket, you still gte that monstrously insane amount of spirit. It would allow you to drop spirit on some other gear, like the Ring of the Riven, so that’s something to keep in mind.

RELICS

Well, technically, we have two choices, both available from the vendors for 700 Valor Points.

Lightning Spirit in a Bottle: The “healer” relic, this has spirit… and mastery.

Mindbender Lens: The “caster” relic, this has haste and crit, but no spirit.

Which you choose is really up to you and your playstyle and what other gear you have and how your mana regen is doing. Since neither are perfectly itemized, this may drop down the priority list when looking at Valor Point purchases.

VALOR POINT PRIORITY LIST

All right, here’s what I think your priority should be when spending your Valor Points. I am not including Silver Sabatons of Fury. These should be your FIRST Valor Point purchase, but use an alt or gold to get these!

1) Woundlicker Cover – 1250 VP for this awesome cloak.
2) Glowing Wings of Hope – 2200 VP for this helm. Given that the tier helm drops off the 6th boss and is “meh”, pick this helm up when you can.
3) Reflection of the Light OR Bottled Wishes – 1650 for either trinket. Again, just pick one of them and go intellect-heavy for the other, I’d say.
4) Your relic – 700 VP for either the “healer” or “caster” relic.
5) Gleaming Grips of Mending – 1650 VP for your gloves, IF you can’t get your tier gloves from Warlord Zon’ozz. Will be replaced by the gloves from the Spine of Deathwing, though.
6) Blinding Girdle of Truth – 1650 VP for your belt, IF you can’t get the one from Ultraxion, the fifth boss in Dragon Soul.
7) Shining Carapace of Glory – 2200 VP for a chest, IF and ONLY if you cannot, for the life of you, get your tier chest. Because as soon as you do get your tier chest, vendor this sucker.
8) Flashing Bracers of Warmth – 1250 VP for these bracers, IF you can’t get the crafted ones or the ones from Yor’sahj, the third boss in Dragon Soul.

Honestly, you shouldn’t really need to buy 5-8. You should be able to pick up the raid drops, even if it’s just the LFR versions (which are ilvl 384 instead of 397). If you manage to cap your Valor Points at 1000 per week and just buy the first four items (and use an alt or gold to get your boots), you’ll be mostly done with Valor Point collection after five weeks (and an additional 800 VP), barring terrible drops or terrible luck.

2PC, 4PC OR WHAT?

Well, here’s what I’m aiming for:

VP helm
Tier shoulders (obviously)
Tier chest (fantastic)
Gauntlets of the Golden Thorn (Spine of Deathwing drop)
Crafted legs

I will likely pick up, as I am able, the tier legs and tier gloves so that I can play with the 4pc bonus. But I don’t tend to raid heal, so the boost to Holy Radiance will likely be lost on me. (Plus, a 5% bonus to HR is a lot more underwhelming than the original 20% HR bonus. Really, the only time I’d be likely to use 4pc is on Ultraxion, but that’s because I mostly tank heal and occasionally raid heal on that one fight.)

If you go with the 4pc, I would recommend the helm and the legs and still go with the Gauntlets of the Golden Thorn because they are the prettiest pretty off-set things you’ll find this tier, so if you have to pick one item to be an off-set piece, it should be the gloves (particularly as there will be a heroic version of the gloves, but no heroic version of the crafted legs!).

OVERVIEW BY BOSS

And here’s what you might like to see drop from the various bosses.

Morchok: Vagaries of Time (mace), Petrified Fungal Heart (neck)

Warlord Zon’ozz: Seal of the Seven Signs (trinket), potentially tier glove token for Gloves of Radiant Glory

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping: Heartblood Wristplates (bracers), potentially tier leg token for Greaves of Radiant Glory

Hagara the Stormbinder: Ring of the Riven (ring), definitely tier shoulder token for Mantle of Radiant Glory

Ultraxion: Dragonfracture Belt (belt), definitely tier chest token for Breastplate of Radiant Glory (chest), potentially Ledger of Revolting Rituals (off-hand — not a shield!)

Warmaster Blackthorn: Potentially Timepiece of the Bronze Flight (shield)

Spine of Deathwing: Definitely Gauntlets of the Golden Thorn (hands), potentially Heart of Unliving (trinket)

Madness of Deathwing: Definitely Maw of the Dragonlord (mace)

Shared Loot Table: Signet of Suturing (ring), Windward Heart (trinket)

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

And that’s all I’ve got for you, folks. I do hope this is somewhat helpful for you as you enter Dragon Soul and start seeing all that lovely loot drop!