Desperate Prayer

July 21st, 2011

Miss Medicina’s Healing Questionnaire

2 Comments, Healing, Priest, Ramble, by Aliena.

Oiy, why not. The original questionnaire plus info can be found here!

  • What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
    Aliena, Disc/Holy Priest since Tier 4.
  • What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

    • 25-man hard mode raiding. Since Cata, I don’t run 10-mans anymore.

  • What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

    • Circle of Healing, probably. It’s gone through many changes and was fun in each of its states, but always very useful. As for disc, PW:S. Preventing damage is always fun.

  • What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

    • Holy Nova! I don’t actually remember a time (in raiding) where Holy Nova was useful.

  • What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

    • Holy’s decent at raid healing, though not overwhelmingly so. Reliance on PoH favors stationary fights. Disc’s niche is obviously prevention healing; very much a unique role.

  • What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

    • Disc: Mana limitation – shield spam over prolonged periods of time doesn’t work (anymore) and even tank healing with Greater Heal as the primary spell drains mana quickly. As for Holy, the lack of a good raid cooldown. Divine Hymn doesn’t hold a candle to any other cd and Guardian Spirit – while amazing – is a tank cooldown and doesn’t much help with raid cd rotations when trying to do heroic content just after release with sub-par gear.

  • In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

    • We don’t really do assignments. If I’m holy, I raid heal (though still watching the tanks) and if I’m disc, I’m generally stuck healing either the tanks or a secondary group of people that takes high damage spikes (such as the people exploding spiders on heroic Bethy).

  • What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

    • Priest. It’s my baby, I spose. I do also have an 85 druid alt and a shaman alt that’s close to level cap, but priest healing is the most enjoyable to me.

  • What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

    • None, really. They all have their charms – except I wouldn’t have any idea about paladin, never played the class past level 10. Tank healing has never been particularly intriguing to me.

  • What is your worst habit as a healer?


    • Uh… I don’t really know. When fights are on farm I try to manipulate meters to make it less boring, I guess that counts? Oh and sometimes I afk trash. Like right now.

  • What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

    • People standing in crap on the ground, or repeatedly making the same mistakes. Can’t say it’s much of an issue though, in my raiding environment everyone is used to some people taking longer than others to grasp mechanics. In 5-man pugs, it bugs me a lot more.

  • Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

    • Holy could use some love, particularly in the raid cooldown department. Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope could use significant buffs to be on par with most other classes (Shamans aren’t that much better off). Disc, imho, is fine – more useful for some fights than others and definitely better in one-tank encounters rather than 2-tank ones, but with strong cooldowns and damage prevention they’re a sure pick for any raid team.

  • What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

    • WoL, though HPS is only so much of an indicator. WoL shows spell breakdown, active time, healing targets, overhealing, perfomance relative to other raiders of the same class and spec… etc. Generally, when I don’t die, my raid doesn’t die and the numbers and breakdown checks out, it’s a good day.

  • What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

    • There seems to be a notion that Holy is a weak spec right now; and while that’s true to an extent, it won’t really make a difference to people that don’t do the hard mode progression thing. Normal content doesn’t require you to min/max like, say, Paragon would. Heck, my raid progression doesn’t require me to min/max like Paragon would, and we’re in the US top 30 currently. That said, when doing hard mode progression, Disc is a significantly more useful spec and I haven’t gotten to do any progression as Holy this tier.

  • What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

    • Mana conservation and when to use which tool in the toolbox. There are appropriate uses for Flash Heal and other mana-intense spells, but those uses aren’t when you’re a brandnew 85 healing your way through instances.

  • If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

    • Lots of PoH, CoH and PoM. Oh, and Sanctuary on certain fights these days. Or, in disc terms, lots of shields, PoH, Divine Aegis and Penance.

  • Haste or Crit or Mastery and why?

    • I keep a balance, since I’m often ask to switch roles. I favor haste and mastery before crit. If I was consistently tank-healing as disc, I’d also keep a strong number of crit, though.

  • What healing class do you feel you understand least?

    • Pallies, since I’ve never played one. Evaluating paladin guild applications is the bane of my existence.

  • What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

    • Grid, Power Auras, ForteXorcist, Quartz, Dominos (+keybinds), BigWigs

  • Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

    • I strive to have as much intellect as possible. Other than that, I keep a healthy balance favoring haste and mastery.

    July 19th, 2011

    Baleroc Healing for priests

    5 Comments, Uncategorized, by Aliena.

    I’ve seen many threads on this subject lately, and there seems to be some confusion. For one, we all know by now that there are no Holy Priest logs for heroic Baleroc. Why? Simple; Disc is about 1000x better on Baleroc than Holy for two reasons: PW:S and Divine Aegis. Both of these scale with the Vital Flame buff, which means Disc has the ability to prevent the tanks from taking incredibly large chunks of damage. Preventing a 200k hit obviously beats healing it back up afterwards.

    I recommend picking up Strength of Soul for this fight, as well as the Penance glyph.

    When healing tanks, make sure to keep PW:S up whenever you can and supplement with Greater Heal and Penance. Flash Heal when absolutely necessary (ill-timed Decimation Blade, perhaps). When healing Torment targets, figure out whether you’re assigned to healing someone that takes the full amount of stacks (~25) or two people that share a crystal. If it’s the former, you’re in business for Vital Spark stacking. If it’s the latter, you’ll still get stacks, but probably only about half as many as you would otherwise.

    For healing a 12/13 stack target, I find Greater Heal > PW:S > Greater Heal > Penance > Flash Heals to be the best way to keep someone up. Depending on your healing team and support though, you might be able to start out with Heal to conserve mana.

    For healing a 25 stack target, you’ll likely have another healer or raid cooldowns as backup. Again, something along the lines of Greater Heal > PW:S > Greater Heal > Penance > Flash Heals > PW:S is a good idea. Penance will give you stacks of Vital Spark for each tick of it your target takes, but only one per tick no matter how many stacks of Torment they have. All other direct will give you increasing stacks of Vital Spark when their Torment stacks increase (this includes PW:S if glyphed).

    It is not uncommon to hit at least 80 stacks of Vital Spark after one crystal phase, provided you get to heal a 25-stack target.

    When healing the tanks, watch out for the Blade timer, and make sure to have the tank tanking the specific blade at full health when it hits. If it’s Decimation Blade, try to make sure to have a PW:S up on the tank and preferably some Divine Aegis buffer as well. He’ll take huge hits and will need to be healed up quickly. Two Decimation hits in a row can prove deadly if heal timing is off.

    Good luck!

    July 7th, 2011

    Sanctuary Stealth Buff?!?!

    5 Comments, Healing, Priest, Ramble, by Aliena.

    Hard to believe, but it appears that everyone’s “favorite” spell has indeed received an update that makes it borderline great. The penalty for more than 6 targets sharing Sanctuary seems to have been removed, and it consistently ticks for 800+ on everyone within the Sanctuary. Oh, and of course it’s affected by the 200% crit too. Preliminary numbers, this an example from our longest heroic Bethy attempt (click for full size):

    Is this intentional, or a bug that randomly made its way into the code? We’ll see! I certainly hope it’s here to stay, though. It’d solve the throughput issue AND make Sanctuary worth casting, at least in stationary fights (Bethy, Staghelm and to an extent Rhyolith).

    July 3rd, 2011

    Current State of Holy Priests

    21 Comments, Priest, Raid, Ramble, by Aliena.

    -blah blah blah updated for clarification and several things I was vague on since I didn’t put enough effort into the post to withstand forum nerdrage dissection-

    As a disclaimer, I’ve played a holy priest since Tier 4, back when disc was a useless spec as far as PVE was concerned. In any guild I’ve ever been in, I always excelled at healing. When I joined Void back in Ulduar – which was a step above any other guild I’ve ever been in – I performed on par with other healers; sometimes a little ahead and sometimes a little behind depending on fight and patch. In other words, I know what I’m doing and I’m used to holding my own at the fairly hardcore level of progression that I do. But lately, this hasn’t held up. My favorite spec, holy, hasn’t been cutting it since roughly 4.1. I still greatly enjoy playing it and I always will, but it has some issues of which some will probably be addressed over time. Others probably won’t, but such is life!

    Issues:
    1.) Lack of proper raid cooldown/utility. Druids have Tranquility and Battle Res, Shamans have Spirit Link and Bloodlust, Discs have Barrier, PS and PI; Holy Paladins have Aura Mastery and several other abilities that are essential for hard mode progression. In comparison, we have Divine Hymn (and Guardian Spirit which is a solid talent, but not the reason you bring a priest to a raid. In fact, Barrier is a reason to make you switch to Disc). While Divine Hymn is mana efficient, its healing output is on par with regular AoE healing and requires you to be stationary. It’s still useful of course, but it pales in comparison. Not to mention its cooldown – at this point in the game and with current class balance – is far too long.

    Divine Hymn used to be on par with Tranquility, I’m at a loss as to why it suddenly no longer deserves to be.

    2.) Mana regeneration. Shadowfiend is a bad mechanism. While since this patch, it seems to be slightly more reliable, there have been countless instances where it would plainly refuse to attack the target, even with a manual “nudge” on the attack button. When you’re staring down raid frames and at the same time minding your environment, the last thing you want to worry about is a non-functional pet that you rely on for mana regen. In comparison, Mana Tide and Innervate are much better mechanics (and yes, I am very thankful that Mana Tide is indeed raid-wide).

    Hymn of Hope is useful only when you’re completely out of mana, since otherwise you risk not even benefiting from the 8-second channel that renders you unable to do any healing for its duration. Again, a very clunky mechanic that could certainly do without its channel.

    As for Holy Concentration as I apparently have “forgotten” – every healing class has mana regeneration talents. Holy Conc is neither worse nor better than others, but its reliance on spirit could actually be a slight disadvantage this tier since 391 spirit gear is not as easily available to us as it is to other healers.

    3.) Scaling. For as long as I’ve been healing, holy priests have always scaled badly with gear. When we start out fresh in a new expansion, we tend to be ahead of the pack – but once the other classes (druids in particular) acquire some gear, we start falling behind in meters. Not to mention that when we start out ahead of the pack, we typically get a nerf about half a tier or a tier into the expansion, which later out turns out to be overcompensating. Prime example was the PoH nerf this xpac – it simply wasn’t necessary.

    Edit: I’m currently looking for proof of what exactly I mean online, but coefficients from previous expansions are extremely elusive on the internet. As a rough example in the meantime, take Renew in late Wrath vs. Rejuvenation.

    4.) Lack of a niche. Disc has prevention healing, Druids excel at raid healing/hots, Shamans are excellent burst healers (single target cooldowns, Spirit Link for raid patching), Paladins are the #1 tank healers and Holy Priests are… a little of everything, but we don’t perform any of these niches as well as the other classes do. It’d be nice to have our own niche for once, instead of being mediocre at everything. Holy is quite possibly the worst class/spec combination of them all for Shannox, Baleroc and possibly some others. Shannox and Baleroc require heavy single- and dual-target healing, which Holy just doesn’t bring to the table. Yes, we can change chakra to Serenity and do it, but we’ll always lag behind.

    Again, that’s not to say it’s hard to heal either of these fights; it’s to say that we don’t do it as well.

    5.) Unnecessary/weak abilities. Sanctuary, Holy Nova, Heal and to an extent Lightwell all figure into this. I’d much rather see those removed from the class and have our existing, useful healing abilities buffed. Lightwell has its moments during progression times (if you’ve trained your guild to use it by yelling at them every raid), but as soon as fights are on farm, no one will ever bother clicking it except perhaps the priest that cast it. And why would they? They’ll get healed up anyway, it’s not like they’re in danger of dying most times, so they have no reason to divert their attention from DPS to click a Lightwell. That’s always been its problem and even though the range increase and the healing is great on Lightwell, getting people to click it remains an issue that we have little influence on.

    (I had Serenity in this list for its rare usage in 25-mans, but thinking about it more, it might well be very useful in 10-man raids. I haven’t raided 10s since the start of Cataclysm, so let me know how much usage you get out of Serenity! It certainly has a very good HPM rate as far as single target spells go, at roughly 10. I recently tried a Holy Spec on heroic Shannox for tank healing and while Disc would’ve been more effective by a long shot, Serenity made it viable. In any case, Serenity has been removed.)

    6.) Lack of class adjustments. For some inconceivable reason, we go through LONG patches of the game without any kind of adjustment. I’ve been waiting patiently since the release of Cataclysm for any kind of change, buff or at least input as it pertains to my class, but the most I’ve found was a statement by Bashiok claiming that Holy is fine. His opinion of Sanctuary: “Personally, I’ll throw it out in specific situations that allow me to go make a sandwich while it does its thing, yes.”

    Oiy? The 40k healing I get out of Sanctuary are nowhere near enough to go make a sandwich in just about any situation, unless you count the 8 seconds afterwards needed to cast Hymn of Hope. Of course, that’s exaggerated, but I am fairly baffled by how Sanctuary (and holy priests in general) have been proclaimed to be well-tuned and fine all expansion long. Perhaps that was true when 4.0 hit, but then along came the PoH nerf along with buffs to all other healing specs.

    To elaborate; yes, we’ve had some adjustments this expansion, but other than upping Holy Conc from 20%->30% they were minor adjustments (Chakra worked fine the way it was, but now it is more convenient to use, for instance). In 4.2, this is what we got!

    Not that it’s a bad change, it’s just not a big deal.

    7.) Lack of Spirit Gear in T12. This has been chewed through over and over by the community. The response by people with a rather narrow vision is: “But you can get spirit gear through crafting/vendors/etc!” Yes, that’s true for 378 gear, but what about heroics? Unless you plan on not acquiring any heroic loot, you’re basically confined to your tier set. 5 tokens is a LOT, especially if you share a token set with tank classes – they tend to have priority. While yes, this is workable, it’ll take us considerably longer to get to the same gear level as other healing classes will. Going for non-spirit pieces here and there is a good idea too, but you’ll be head-butting with shadow priests, warlocks and mages for it. This just simply should not be an issue, and it isn’t for any other class/armor proficiency.

    Conclusion:
    Several things could work, such as…
    - taking out the seemingly useless spells instead of trying to make them work for multiple expansions without good results, and instead giving slight buffs to more useful spells such as PoH, CoH or PoM
    - bringing Divine Hymn up to par or instead creating a Divine Hymn/Hymn of Hope hybrid spell. Even just removing the channel on both; or creating a new raid cooldown featuring either physical or magical damage reduction would give us something to work with.
    - giving us a real niche such as raid healing instead of trying to give us a bit of everything
    - improving Sanctuary and Serenity or getting rid of them entirely and buffing something else

    How do you think the class could be improved?

    July 1st, 2011

    Firelands – First Impressions

    3 Comments, Raid, Ramble, by Aliena.

    It’s common knowledge that all normal mode encounters in Firelands have been cleared on the date of release. My guild cleared the instance in approximately 9 raiding hours without any PTR testing whatsoever, and so did many others.

    Video guides, forums and kill videos are being spammed with people complaining that this tier is “too easy” and that raiders will have nothing to do for the next few months. I can’t help but wonder about these complaints. Thinking back to Ulduar (the tier were hard modes were first properly implemented) and every instance released thereafter, the normal modes have always been cleared in the first week of release.

    Heck, back at the release of Ulduar I was in a different guild – much less progressed than Void – and even we managed to knock out every normal mode boss but Yogg in the first week of release. And Ulduar, in terms of game design, was one of the best; if not the best raid instance Blizzard has ever released. Normal modes were challenging enough, but the implementation of hard modes was fantastic and no one can argue that Firefighter 25 was an incredibly exciting and challenging encounter.

    Yet, every tier since, people complain when normal encounters are cleared in the first week of release even though it has happened every single time. Lich King was the only exception to this rule; many guilds struggled to get him down quickly – but keep in mind that Lich King was the end boss to the last tier of the expansion. Firelands is an interim tier and while we’re still “stuck” with it for several months, it really isn’t like we’re out of content after a week.

    Heroic modes are usually a whole different ballpark and while I do expect the top tier guilds to clear multiple heroic modes next week, the field will greatly separate. Top tier guilds will forge ahead, guilds like mine can aspire to clear at least a few heroic modes, casual-hardcores will perhaps clear one and the vast majority of raiders will still be working on normal modes.

    Also, do keep in mind that the previous tier was extremely long and tedious for most raiders; even many of the top tier guilds disbanded over the hours they had to put in to clear the given content. Up until about a month or two ago, my guild was still putting in 5-day raid weeks and we had the highest turnover of raiders that we’ve had since I joined back in Ulduar. After a tier like that and in the midst of summer where people want to spend time outside and enjoy their free time, a short tier like Firelands is appreciated to ward off more burn-out.

    People that complained about the lack of content last tier were almost exclusively people that didn’t want to challenge themselves on the later heroic encounters. People that complain about content being too easy are almost exclusively people that have not cleared all current content or will not venture far into heroic modes. Funny, that. But, onto things that really matter.

    Encounter design: I personally think that while short, Firelands is a great tier as far as encounter innovation is concerned. While there might be some tuning issues as far as the difficulty of certain encounters such as Rhyolith are concerned, the mechanics are actually very refreshing. Beth’tilac’s web mechanism is plain fun and visually stunning. Rhyolith’s “driving” is comical and well-designed. Alysrazor’s feather and flying mechanics aren’t brandnew, but certainly well-implemented. I look forward to seeing how smart DPS can maximize their output by manipulating the haste and crit buffs. Staghelm’s form-shifting is completely dependent on your raid’s actions and in all honesty, probably the encounter I most enjoyed in this instance. Ragnaros is all about execution, but his last phase is genuinely fun. Kiting gigantic flaming meteors that get knocked back has a certain charm.

    On the whole, while Firelands is no Ulduar in terms of game mechanics and clever integration of heroic modes, it is definitely well-designed and fun to execute. A far step above ToC and even ICC, for instance.

    Graphics: Encounters such as Beth’tilac and Ragnaros are visually very well-designed. The obvious problem of going with a fire-based instance is that the theme is confining and basically everything has been done before, so you won’t find terribly many new elements. Thankfully, they did not go with an interior dungeon such as ICC, Naxx and ToC this time. Designing Firelands in open space is its saving grace, and despite the repetitive fire theme, it is still visually appealing in many ways.

    Had Blizzard gone with a less restrictive theme, it could’ve turned out even better. Again, Ulduar is a shining example of a wide array of design options, ranging from Hodir’s icy cavern to Freya’s spring meadow and even Mimiron’s engineering gauntlet. Let’s not forget Algalon’s universe-themed room, either. Of course, lore plays a big part in the theme selection, which is unfortunate.

    I’d place Firelands somewhere above Black Temple, but below SSC and Sunwell in terms of graphical appeal.

    Normal mode difficulty: Encounters such as Alysrazor, Ragnaros and Staghelm are in my opinion very well-tuned for the average WoW player. On the other hand, Beth’tilac and Rhyolith could do with a slight buff. Beth’tilac’s phase 2 is currently very undertuned in terms of raid damage as you can basically ignore P1 and DPS her down from 100% in P2; and Rhyolith’s movement speed is so slow that steering him is trivial. None of the other aspects of that encounter are particularly challenging or hard to figure out, either. Baleroc I’m not quite sure about – he requires good raid organization in terms of assignments for healers and DPS, but once you nail that he’s trivial as well. Shannox’s only difficulty is that currently you do not get a bright flashing notice when you stand in a trap and players are prone to not watching their feet at times.. but for the first boss in the instance, he’s well-tuned enough.

    Conclusion: So far, I am pretty happy with the instance. For an interim tier with a narrow theme it actually did much better than I expected: It is short, yet innovative and visually appealing enough to be considered fun. Thumbs up, so far.

    If progression on heroic Baleroc takes very long I might kill myself though.

    June 28th, 2011

    The Spirit Is A Lie

    10 Comments, Uncategorized, by Aliena.

    It looks like it’s official – there’s no spirit gear on any of the new Firelands cloth gear. Is it an oversight? Intention? Until we get clarification from devs, here’s what to do. Either:

    a) spec disc, don’t ever look back
    b) try to acquire all T12 set pieces as soon as you can; perhaps explain the situation to your guild officers although I wouldn’t expect them to give you priority
    c) reforge/gem spirit into all the non-spirit gear you acquire
    d) whine or rage like a slobbering ogre on the official foru- oh wait, last time that achieved anything was.. oh right, never. That said, this is something that requires a blue response at some point, so well-placed questioning without the whining is a good idea.

    Are we completely screwed? Nope, there are definite ways to make this work. Are we slightly disadvantaged compared to other healers’ itemization? Yep, I like my regen.

    June 28th, 2011

    Holy Priest Spells That Just Don’t Cut It

    17 Comments, Healing, Priest, Raid, Ramble, by Aliena.

    As a disclaimer to this post, it is not meant to imply that classes are imbalanced. We’ve always known that holy scales badly and that druids scale incredibly well, but that is a topic for another day. I imagine almost every class has these “doodad”-spells that more or less rot in the spellbook because they’re either too expensive to use, too slow, too weak or a mix of all three. So, without further ado, let’s have a look at the top 3 spells of every holy priests’ toilet bowl!

    3.) Heal
    Even fully talented and at 15% haste self-buffed, Heal takes 2.2 seconds to cast and nets less than 9000 healing done, even in Serenity chakra. This spell stops being useful somewhere between normal mode dungeons and Baradin Hold. Sure, it’s very cheap to cast, but to be at all useful in the fast-paced environment of raiding, Heal is in need of a significant buff.

    2.) Holy Nova
    Holy Nova is another one of those spells that has barely ever seen use in 6 years of WoW; at least outside of downranking it to uncover rogues at BG flags. Even then, chances were they’d get a sap off before the pathetic range on Holy Nova would do you any good. I digress, though – Holy Nova’s HPM lands at 6.30, slightly better than Sanctuary, but only effective within 10 yards of yourself and only on up to 5 targets. In basically every single situation ever, you’re much better off casting Prayer of Healing. Unless you’re a goblin and find some kinda appeal in running around as midget bomb, exploding in sparkles and yelling “PEW PEW PEW” until some rogue somewhere gets annoyed by you and rewards you with a trip to the graveyard. I mean, I guess there’s that.

    1.) Power Word: Sanctuary
    Of course, at the top, you find Sanctuary. I’m mostly annoyed by this cause it’s so pretty that it just seems like it SHOULD BE GOOD. Evil devs are evil. Obnoxiously expensive to cast, Sanctuary provides little benefit besides the pretty ground graphic. Roughly 9000 mana will net you at most 50000 healing done per cast, and that’s if you manage to actually have people standing in it for the full duration. That leaves it at 5.4 HPM (healing per mana) with only Flash Heal and PW:S having worse ratios. Sanctuary is mildly useful when both of these things occur together at any given time:
    - You have a lot of mana to waste
    - You have at least 6 or so people in your raid that are going to be stationary and taking consistent damage for 18 seconds

    If you don’t fulfill these requirements in a fight, spare yourself the heartache of watching your mana bar disappear. The devs insist that Sanctuary is fine and doesn’t need to be buffed because they don’t want it to resemble Healing Rain. Eventually, I anticipate that Sanctuary will get its buff and end up resembling Healing Rain like so many other things that were “never going to get changed”, but in the meantime, it’s scarcely worth keeping keybound.

    Arguable “SS” – Sanctuary Situations:
    Maloriak’s red phase
    Chimaeron’s Feud
    Omnotron’s Shadow Infusion
    Magmaw’s Spit (only on melee or right after add/parasites have gone out on ranged)
    Nefarian’s Crackles
    Halfus’ Roar (melee)
    V&T (Theralion’s ground phase, on melee)
    Cho’gall’s Shadow Pulse (while stacked up)
    Nezir’s ultimate
    Al’Akir P2 (when stacks get high)

    All of these will be a slight pad to the meters assuming you have enough mana to waste on casting Sanctuary. Always be aware of your mana cooldowns – if you run oom mid-fight, you neither benefit your raid nor do you hax the meters.

    That about sums up the three worst healing spells for holy priests at present. Which spells do YOU find irritating to see in your spellbook?

    June 26th, 2011

    Interpreting Healing Logs

    5 Comments, Guides, Healing, by Aliena.

    Lately, the forums have been full of people linking random WOL fights and asking why people of the same class end up with different numbers than they do, how to improve their numbers, how to be as omfgbbq awesome as xxx1337h34l3rxxx is, how to help their guild mate improve his numbers, how to evaluate an application… you name it. No doubt, others will chime in claiming that as long as no one died (or the boss did, at least), healing logs won’t matter.

    Both of these extremes aren’t healthy when judging healing logs. Healing isn’t as cut and dry as DPS logs, where you look at the number, raid size and at the length of the fight and have a pretty good idea of how good the person in question performs.

    To judge a healing log, you have to look at the following factors:

  • Number of Healers present & relative performance
  • Length of Fight
  • Spell Breakdown
  • Performance compared to people of the same class in raid
  • Assignment
  • Gear level
  • Deaths/Overall Raid Awareness
  • Raid Size (10/25)

    • Any of these factors can greatly affect how your numbers are going to look. If you compare a guild kill using 7 healers to another guild’s kill that uses only 5, the numbers of every single healer of the 7-healer guild are going to be lower than the ones of the 5-healer guild. In fact, people attempting to set records on WOL will almost always attempt to run with the least amount of healers that they can.

    If Guild A’s boss kill lasts only 5 minutes, and Guild B takes 9 minutes to kill the same boss, chances are that Guild A’s healers will have a much easier time keeping up their mana supply for those 5 minutes, and hence will be able to be more lenient with mana usage and pull better numbers.

    Spell Breakdown is the one that will really tell you a lot about the healer in question. The record-setting healers (if not paladins) will almost certainly be raid healing fairly exclusively, and they’ll have a good system worked out to get the most HPS for their mana. If trying to improve your own performance, always have a look at spell breakdown and evaluate whether what they’re doing is a possibility for you, with the gear and assignments you typically have. If evaluating an app, always look at their spell breakdown and see how it compares to good members currently in your guild. If in doubt, consult someone of the same class and spec to help you make the decision. Always, always keep in mind their assignment (provided they had one) when comparing spell breakdown.

    Always look at the healer setup is used in the log you look at. Two disc priests in a raid might hinder each other, for instance. If two healers of the same class and spec are present, compare their performance (always keeping in mind assignment).

    Gear level will to an extent determine how long the healer in question is able to keep up his mana. Lesser-geared healers that gear for spirit will generally pull lower numbers than other healers, but should be able to sustain their mana over the length of a fight. Lesser-geared healers that gear for throughput might run into mana issues in longer fights, forcing them to use slower, less potent spells while they wait on a mana cooldown.

    If evaluating an app, always look for their raid awareness. WoL makes it very easy to figure out when, how and why someone died on any given fight. Always ask them to elaborate on their mishaps so you get a good picture of what happened. More than likely, you don’t want to recruit someone that dies on every boss in BWD.

    Raid size will greatly affect overall numbers for a number of reasons: For one, 2-3 healers are used in 10-mans rather than 4-7 in 25-mans. Secondly, a lot less damage goes out so overall numbers should be slightly lower than in 25-mans. Thirdly, there are more likely to be strict assignments that the healer in question needs to conform to, whereas 25-man healers might have more leeway. Fourthly, less raid buffs may be available in 10-mans, resulting in lower HPS. Lastly, fights might be a lot shorter or longer depending on quality of the raid.

    When recruiting a 10-man player into a 25-man guild (or vice versa), always look at their raid awareness and spell breakdown as well as assignment to get a decent idea of how they perform. If you know of any competent raiding guild around your raid level that raids the opposite raid size, try to look up some of their logs to compare your applicant to.

    Logs are a great opportunity to learn more about your own class and improve your healing habits; and to get a better idea of who you’re trying to recruit. Don’t just look at the numbers, but try to figure out the differences between the logs you’re looking at. Only an in-depth analysis will give you the results you’re looking for!

    June 22nd, 2011

    Healing Specs / Spec-peening

    2 Comments, Healing, Specs, by Aliena.

    Players that care about their performance will inevitably learn to question their specs and compare them to the specs of other priests. Depending on the priest in question’s level of raiding experience, theorycrafting and confidence, he’ll either look to improve his own spec by checking what other priests more advanced than him do; or he’ll take a look and find reasons for why the priest he’s looking at is doing worse than him in some form or another.

    In rare cases, that’s the amiable desire to help someone else. In most cases, it’s spec-peening.

    Spec-peening has always been incredibly popular among the end-game crew of players. People that consider themselves seasoned and adept at playing their class will find reasons for why their spec is the BEST and most efficient thing to ever grace the world of Azeroth. There’s a problem with it though. Since the talent consolidation there are awfully little “worthless” talents and many effective ways to spend your talent points across the trees to best benefit your raid level and raiding environment.

    What do I mean by that? For instance, you’ll find that when you’re in a 10-man guild raiding normal modes as discipline, you might be required to do quite a chunk of tank healing. On the other hand, if you’re in a 25-man guild raiding hard modes as discipline, you’ll likely be required to do a lot of raid healing. In the first example, with less mana regeneration and your focus on tank healing, you’d be more likely to pick up talents such as Train of Thought or perhaps even Strength of Soul. On the other hand, raiding 25-man hard modes with your focus on raid healing, you’re more likely to skip these talents and choose ones that improve your mana efficiency or your ability to raid heal, like Veiled Shadows.

    The same goes for the holy tree. If you’re in a 10-man guild, you’re more likely to pick up talents such as Surge of Light or Veiled Shadows, while a 25-man hard mode raider might prefer the talents improving Holy Word: Sanctuary (especially to pad meters once he outgears the content he does). There are even arguments to be made for Blessed Resilience during progression stretches, though in most cases you’ll benefit more from other talents. Desperate Prayer > Blessed Resilience, for example.

    However, when you look for spec advice, make sure to keep in mind your role in your raiding environment and the classes you raid with. If you consistently raid with 2 resto shamans, you might have less need for Veiled Shadows or might even be able to afford to remove a point out of Mental Agility than someone that raids without resto shamans.

    When asking people for spec advice, they will barely ever look at your situation before making a recommendation; instead they will mentally substitute their own raiding environment and project it onto you, which might end up in bad advice.

    Ultimately, it’s always best to experiment with different builds and figure out which talents you benefit from and which ones you don’t. If you never use Desperate Prayer even though you’re specced into it, that’s a waste of a point. If you never use Holy Words (and you have a good reason not to use them, such as loss of HPS or lack of mana to use Sanctuary), drop Tome of Light. Some priests are even experimenting with dropping Revelations.

    Don’t let someone else dictate your spec and always do as much of your own research as possible. If you invest some time studying the different build options and general guidelines on staple talents, you’ll know best what build is right for you.

    June 22nd, 2011

    Power Auras Configuration

    2 Comments, Guides, Healing, Priest, Raid, by Aliena.

    I’ve been asked about this before, and while I don’t think I have a particularly striking layout, it helps me. It might help someone else? Anyhoo. Here’s my power auras setup. Copy/paste this into your “World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\Server\Character\SavedVariables\PowerAuras.lua” file.

    My Power Auras setup looks like this:

    It features alerts for Explosive Cinders, Dark Sludge, Wind Blast, Bloodlust and a few PVP alerts. It also notifies you when your CoH, PI, Shadowfiend, PoM, Lightwell and Holy Words are off CD and when you’re missing Inner Fire/Inner Will.

    Click here to see the complete lua code