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Improve yourself Healer.

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

Here are some links for healers to help work on improving yourself as a part of your heal team. It's more than just green bars.

 

From Bellwether at 4 Haelz, a post all about knowing more than just your job at healing.

From Mimetir at World of Matticus, about healing and raid leading.  This is good for all healers to read because raid leading is about seeing the whole fight and making snap decisions.

From Derevka at Tales of a Priest, a post for healing tips for DPS, but it's definitely something healers should remember too, particularity the communication part.

From Krovost at Know as Kro about the "Art of Healing". Know yourself and your enemy.

From Zorash at Healing Council, about Anticipating Damage. I know I linked this one already but it good enough for repeating.

From Reversion at Looking For More, about Tanking 101: Situational Awareness, okay this one is aimed at new tanks but I found the article very educational for a healer, actually his whole series about Tanking 101 is very educational, go read it all.

 

On meters for healers:

An introduction for World of Logs from the healing side by Vixsyn of Life in Group 5.

A defense of healing meters to the anti-meter people for healers by Matron of LoDBlog.

 

And finally ten reasons NOT to heal from Mimetir at World of Matticus.


Raid changes in Cataclysm

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

I wasn't planning on writing up one on this because it seems like it's been hashed to death. But then I read this post by Cassandri at Hots & Dots.  I couldn't agree more, it's pretty much exactly how I feel about the subject. Both 25mans and 10mans are hard in their own way and Blizzards designing instances to be either one is a really awful idea from a mechanics stand point. I whole heartily support the part about having multiple raids of different sizes that are unique places in of themselves. I long for a more expanded version of BC raiding: at least 2 10man raids and 2 25man raids per tier. Options for everyone; and not feeling like I want lynch the Blizzard designers after seeing ToC for the fourth time in a week.

 

I've read alot of posts from multiple view points: people getting upset at the changes, people getting upset that people are getting upset, and people feeling like they are being told their way of raiding is crap whether is be 10mans or 25mans. To all these people I'd like to point out that your enjoyment in raiding is personal. This enjoyment is based on what you value and the goals you want to achieve. If you're really enjoying raiding as a part of your game experience it's because you've found a group that is organized to support and validate your goals. So its probably because people are examining whether their personal goals are going to be able to be satisfied by the new raiding structure and that worries them. Worried people lead to angry people and some are rather vocal about it.

 

In relation to the above point I'm specifically worried about losing 25man raiding guilds. It does seem likely that some 25man teams will collapse under the new pressure. And why that worries me in specific is that those people whose goals and values align better with a 25man raid will have a harder time finding a place to call home. I already have been looking around our server the past few months with concern because the number of 25man raiding guilds are diminishing. This means that it will be harder and harder for people to find the perfect fit for them. And no I disagree with Tamarid when he says "but ultimately if something “dies” because a viable alternative is offered, then that thing was meant to die." That statement is applicable to evolution not designed systems. In designed systems things die because they are neglected in favor of something else, or actively killed like the 40man raids of old.

 

Below is a long list of posts I've read on this:

Cold Comfort on the raid lockouts and on the emblem changes.

Restokin thoughts and then a suggestion - WARNING Highly cute picture!

Dreambound first thoughts, about  balancing two raid sizes, and a breakdown of raiding for a strict 10man guild for those of us that don't know what it's like, very educational.

So Much Wow, So Little Time.

Totemz.

You Yank it, You Tank it.

Twisted Faith.

Big Bear Butt.

The Pink Pigtail Inn.

World of Matticus.

Borsked.

Forever a Noob.

Kurn's Corner.

Honor's Code.

Daughter of Ravenholdt Manor.

Moar HPS!

Flow.

Priest with a Cause.

Flash of Moonfire.

Tales of a Priest.

Tree Bark Jacket.

The Fluid Druid.

The View Through The Branches.

Revive & Rejuvenate.

Blueberry Totem.

The 'mental Shaman.

Spinksville.

Graylo part 1 and part 1.5 (says there will be a part 2, will edit it in when I see it.) EDIT: here's part 2.

Looking For More.

Cannot be Tamed on the announced changes and the changes Jasyla wants.

Jaded Alt.

Tree of Life about the changes and reactions to some comments about the changes.

Falling Leaves and Wings.

Light's Fury.

Primal Precision.

Pew Pew Lasers!


Cataclysm Concerns

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

I'm concerned about all this blue talk we hear about mechanic changes: specifically bringing back triaging to healing and CC to instances.

And I'm not the only one.

 

As both Karmakin amd Shintar point out that both the healing style and the approach to instances are very different right now. Green bars must remain full not only because of the "Where's the heals?" people but because in a lot of places, especially working on content that is appropriate for your gear level, there are things that will two shot players that get no healing. And CC: I can remember it being called for in our very first WoLK instance when no one in the group had ever been in there before and not once since then discounting gimmick fights like Champions. How did we get to this point? Well the blues have no place to look other than themselves. They were the ones that changed the designs to instances and AOE tanking to make both of these play styles required for this instance. They have even made it so going back to old Vanilla or BC content can be done with AOE tanking.

 

So now we have a generation of WoW players that grew up only AOEing stuff down and expecting to be at full health all the time. Even players that grew up in Vanilla or BC have grown accustomed to the way things are now. If, and this is a big IF, the game in Cataclysm is changed the way the blues have promised us there will be a vast learning curve that some players will not be able to master. And that seems to go against the desire the blues have to show most of the populace the grandeurs they create.



Paladin edition of the class previews

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

Hope these help:

Killing 'em Slowly.

Honor's Code.

Light's Fury.

Moar HPS!

I Like Bubbles.

Healing Council.

 

For some reason I didn't see anything from Wow.com on this, though I  may have missed it.


Druid edition of class preview reactions

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

So I read a lot of druid blogs, mostly of the resto variety. Also for some reason their seem to be a lot more resto blogs out there then feral and moonkin combined. This'll be broken down by mechanics versus  flavor (ie the Tree of Life change) and at the end I'll give a full write up of my thoughts both on the mechanics for Trees and the ToL change, feel free to skip it if you're just into the info.

 

Mechanics (a few of these, okay most of them, will have discussion about the flavor of the Tree of Life change in addition to going over the mechanics):

 

Big Bear Butt goes into both feral discussion and the ToL change.

Flash of Moonfire has a post about the general stuff and the mastery bonuses.

Gray Matter goes over the solely moonkin stuff.

Restokin goes over general and deep resto thoughts.

Dreambound goes over it point by point.

Restoration Druid gives a full Resto analysis.

Cannot be Tamed gives another Resto analysis.

Edit: adding the Wow.com links: balance, feral and resto.

 

Flavor, or mostly flavor:

Nerf this Druid.

Revive & Rejuvenate.

Flash of Moonfire.

Tree Bark Jacket: one, two, and a suggestion.

Cannot be Tamed.

Orcish Army Knife.

Big Bear Butt also has a suggestion.

Falling Leaves and Wings first reaction and a more thought through one.

Tree of Life first thoughts and then thoughts about the QQ.

Funny cartoon from Murloc Parliament.

Rolling Hots: A View from the Trees.

Kurn's Corner.

 

My thoughts:

On the mechanics side, I'm cautiously optimistic about the whole change of healing to a  more triage type. As ever, Beta isn't even out yet so all we know is what the Blues choose to tell us. I've always like the choosing process of healing, and since GC has emphasied triaging as the way healing is going to be, it could be alot of fun. And what's not to like about HoTs (and DoTs) critting and being affected by haste correctly. Both the Resto mastery and Efflorescence have the potential to be very interesting. While I understand fully the Blues reasoning behind not giving Resto's any more spells, it is just a bit disappointing .

 

And now for the QQ: the Tree of Life going to a cooldown rather than a shapeshifted form. I hate it.

 

A bit of background: I identify as a Tree, not as a Restoration Druid, a Tree of Life. I raised my character as a healer with a little DPS thrown in to compliment my husbands feral druid. However it wasn't until my first raid on my druid, Karazhan, that I actually specced Tree of Life. It was that run that made me realise that this was something I was very, very good at. I had found my WoW niche, and a big part of that is being a Tree.

 

In addition to that the whole cooldown part is very vague and makes for more nervousness. Since most healer trinkets are either a random spell power boost or mana return, if the CD is like that it'll be very upsetting. However it could be interesting, for instance a Tank saving CD would be nice, or something new entirely. But since they didn't go into any details about the CD, we're left to wonder and that makes the feeling upset of change worse. Also all the reasons that were given for the change feel hollow to me: not adding anything to Resto like cat and bear do for feral; unfair to Resto druids to be locked out of utility spells unlike other healers; getting to see the "cool" armor in at least one form. One, I've only like one full set of druid tier (tier 8 if you're wondering) and the helm of tier 4; most of the others I either am neutral about or actively loath (tier 10 I'm looking at you). So I definately don't care about seeing my armor, and I especially think that's stupid when raiding no one is looking at their toon and thinking "Damn, I look good while killing this boss." The whole locking out of utility spells is annoying because what they really mean there is DPS spells. That highly annoys me, I don't DPS on purpose, Thank you! And if we are going to be micromanaging our mana in Cataclysm why in hell would I ever cast a DPS spell. The whole tree form not adding anything special to the game play like bear and cat do is also hollow since that applies to both Moonkin and Shadowpriests too.

 

Yes as alot of people have pointed out at this point the Tree part of being Resto is mostly just comestic but it still matters.  The mechanics of healing for Resto druids probably isn't going to change much, mostly it'll just be making sure you pick the right spells for the job. But a bit of the heart and soul of being a Druid Tree will go out of the game for me.


Cataclysm class previews reactions part 2

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

Lumping Warriors, Rogues, Mages, and Hunters together. Also I don't read many DK blogs so I don't have any reactions. Druids deserve their own post, mostly since I'm a druid and a Tree at that (you can probably already tell I've got definate feelings on those changes).

 

Warriors:

From Achtung Panzercow.

From Spinksville.

Wow.com

 

Rogues:

Daughter of Ravenholdt Manor.

Forever a Noob one and two.

Wow.com

 

Mages:

Critical QQ.

Pink Pigtail Inn.

Wow.com

 

Hunters (most of the hunter blogs I followed have closed shop recently):

The Hunters Mark.

Shock and Paw.

Wow.com

 

DK Wow.com

 

 

 

 

 


Tree solidarity

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

Cataclysm preview reactions part 1

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

I believe this will be only the first part since it'll be a few more days (or plus one week for paladins) for more stuff to come out.

 

Rage reactions:

General with a warrior flavor from.

For the bears.

 

Dispels:

One Tree point of view.

Resto shaman point of view.

Priest point of view.

 

Class review Shaman:

Resto review number 1 from Healing Council.

Resto review number 2 from Flow.

Resto review number 3 from Life in group 5.

Elemental review from Planet of Hats.

Wow.com: Elemental, enchance, resto.

A jealous tree.

 

Class review 'Locks:

From Destructive Reach.

From Killing 'em Slowly.

Wow.com review.

 

Class review Priests:

Shadow review number 1 from Twisted Faith.

Shadow review number 2 from Misery.

Healing priest review number 1 from World of Matticus.

Healing priest review number 2 from Herding Cats.

Healing priest review number 3 from I like Bubbles with much sarcasm.

Healing priest QQ from Tamarind.

 


Guild Styles

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

I was reading this post about a more casual style guild.  It made me realize a few things some of which are summarized nicely in this post about Stopwatch guilds

I've been in the first style guild before and that guild almost made it so I never discovered how much fun raiding can be. If you're first experiences of 25 man raiding is in a guild where people show up whenever the frick they feel like it (or people taking unexplained breaks with no care for anyone else) and you happen to be a list making, on time, worrying about everything being in the right place and doing the right thing type person, this'll drive you mad. Even if you're not that exact personality type, I believe that everyone is bit happier in a place where order is more common than disorder. I'm grateful to be in a guild like this and that I get to help make order to make this game more enjoyable to play the way we like it.


Healing links

Posted by: Jadesea in Jade's Finds

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Jadesea

Some general healing links that can apply to all types of healers:

 

Great post about anticipating damage. It's from the point of view of a resto shaman but there's more in it that other healers can use like about how education can help you be better healer.

 

A good run down for healers with mana problems. It's broken down into very helpful sections on general stuff and specific for each class.

 

An analysis of which healers make the best use of Trauma.

 

For the priests:

A shield calculator for disc priests.

An overview of the body and soul spec.

 

For the shaman:

An in depth look at the talent Tidal Force.

 

For the paladins:

A look into the 4 set bonus for tier 10.

 

For the trees:

A warning about the bug in the 4 set bonus for tier 10, yes it's that annoying, and Blizz has said the ever helpful "We're looking into, it may be fixed in a future patch." Lovely.

Also a look into how the 4 set bonus works for 10 mans versus 25 mans.

 

 


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