Posted On Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 By Jay
I’m normally not one to rant. This is my first rant about loot and will be the last. Without further ado:
I wouldn’t have minded had we had Naxx on farm. I wouldn’t have minded had the upgrade been a side-grade for the cloth rollers. I wouldn’t have minded had there been a small discussion of the events in question or the loot distribution that normally occurs when a class rolls on lower armor tier loot. The fact remains that we don’t have Naxx on farm. The upgrade was not a side-grade for the cloth involved. And there was no discussion. The druid won and within a couple seconds the loot was given.
So who was the culprit? A druid rolled on a piece of cloth gear. In fact a very good piece of cloth gear for many of our raiders. Not the best by far, but at least in the top 10 for most classes involved. On said piece of loot, Boots of Forlorn Wishes , every cloth wearer in the raid rolled on it, save our three geared priest, myself inclus. And a druid won it. A fucking boomkin no less.
There was an immediate morale drop. Many on both Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, January 23rd, 2009 By Jay
As promised, I’ve returned to discuss the topic no one shall ever mention! There are new game mechanics on the horizon for priests and healers in general. I know there are many ideas out there. I’ve been stewing over some interesting proactive spells to add to the priest arcenal. I was recently inspired by a simple, yet loaded question over at World of Matticus. The question revolved around perceived hindrances or help hands from added bonus effects while healing. Hearing that Blizzard is currently working on a large scale healing review, I’d like to brain storm a little bit.
For titles and reference sake, I like the term prayer when naming new priest mechanics. Hold on! Prayers exist currently in the priest healing paradigm. That’s right! Prayer of Healing was our first prayer which healed every member in the group for a relatively large amount. Not, correct me if I’m wrong, Prayer of Healing was a newer mechanic to what is now known as Vanilla Wow.
Fast forward to BC, with the introduction of Prayer of Mending. Awesome spell. It acts as a buff, Upon the target taking damage, the buff will jump to a closer target and reduce its counter by Continue Reading
Posted On Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 By Jay
Generally when a spell is nerfed, the community goes up in arms. I’ve purposely avoided the healing forums and generally most priest discussions on the topic of the 6 second cooldown on CoH. Safely I can say it didn’t make that much of a difference.
As I’ve stated before, priests are all about utility. Not utility like levitate on any raid member, although its sweet. Utility in that we have a variety of spells to accomplish almost every task. For instance, last night our priest healers experimented with holy nova, prayer of healing, coh rotation, every possible combination we could think of. In the end, a shaman held the top spot for raid healing with 2 priest not far behind. Not much has changed.
Loatheb was a lot of fun, although granted that encounter isn’t bound by a cool down. Priest healing didn’t really suffer on Maxxeanenawheahhowever you spell it. We cleared OS, Vault, plague and spider wings. Tomorrow my reactions with the full clear, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be going disc!
Posted On Thursday, January 15th, 2009 By Jay
First, I made it through crunch.
Second, I hit 80 on my priest.
Third, I’ve raided as both discipline (very enjoyable) and holy (powerful but boring).
Fourth, I got my Valorous Shoulders. They’re hawt!
There are several topics that I’d like to discuss. 1 I’ll actually discuss, 1 I’ll mention and 1 that deserves its own post. The topic deserving its own post is a discussion on existing and possible future priest healing mechanics. As a note, I REALLY like the way discipline plays and I would like to see some major mechanical breakdown of the CoH tree… oops, I meant holy tree.
I’m going to mention the addition of the 6 second CoH cooldown and discuss briefly my feelings on it. I feel if a player rolled a priest to mash 1 button 50% of the time then they should have rolled either a paladin or shaman for healing. The largest distinguisher between the priest class and other healing classes is the sheer volume of tools available to you.
Flash heal, quick cast
Greater heal, long cast
Power word: Shield, instant
Power word: Fort, buff
Shadow Protection, buff
Renew, instant
Prayer of Healing, long cast, multiple targets
Prayer of Mending, instant, multiple targets
Hymn, mana regen, channeled
Fear Ward, instant buff
and the list continues
As Continue Reading
Posted On Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 By Jay
First and foremost, I’ve been taking my time to get to 80. The raid content will still be there. I may not participate in the guild first, but I’ll get there.
I’ve really been enjoying the slow trek. The quest hubs are in small digestible chunks, roughly about 30 minutes to complete an area and move on. The lore is interesting, although I care nothing for the tuskarr, they happen to be a means to an end.
What I am enjoying is the new equipment, instancing and class balance. I’m spec’d holy with 11 points to shadow for mind flay and 2 points into meditation from disc. It rocks! This is the first time since Warhammer Online that I’ve been able to effectively level as a healing class. And man is it awesome!
Instancing is by far the creme de la creme in WotLK. The encounters are well done and will prep the majority of players for 10 mans. Following that, I hope the 10 mans train the player to accomplish the 25 mans. Hopefully, we’ll see raiding be a larger part of the average players play schedule than last expansion. If raiding becomes the norm instead of 5 mans, many studies in Continue Reading
