With all content completed, it gives us the opportunity to reflect on not just the Tier but also Cataclysm as a whole. What worked well? What didn’t? What was your favorite?

High Level Post-Mortem

Overall I really enjoyed Dragon Soul– I might be an outlier with my enjoyment of Dragon Soul, but I am trying to look at it exclusively from a Heroic 25-man perspective. A number of the fights had some really interesting mechanics that we hadn’t  seen quite this way before and were enjoyable. (Strategic Barrel Rolls, Ball Bouncing, Strategic Ooze Killing, NPC buffs to manage, etc). I liked it! Perhaps the most dynamic (as a result, my favorite) was Yor’sahj. YJ’s wave of Oozes was random… one pull was never the same as the next and forced you to become a dynamic raider.

Dragon Soul itself wasn’t all peaches and cream and sunshine. With Dragon Soul, also came LFR. I do think Looking For Raid was damaging to raid groups, and was counter to what they wanted to accomplish by introducing it. Set bonuses being the biggest culprit of this folly. You had raid groups, particularly HM Progression Raid groups, feeling ‘obligated’ to run LFR to get those 4-piece bonuses for their tanks and DPS. (Perfectly illustrated by the drama of the LFR Exploits early in the Tier). Having people raid content out of obligation is a dangerous line to dance on.

Perhaps the most damage LFR introduced was apathy. “Its just LFR!” is something you heard in nearly every LFR group you queued into. (I will admit, my Alts loved LFR and the loot pinata it became…) However, the fact that LFR had no ‘Failure Mechanic’ is something I hope Blizzard corrects in the next tier of content. You should not be able to simply ignore Ultraxion’s  Hour of Twilight every time it was cast, or the ability to ignore Shrapnel on Madness. It fosters poor play– and in turn created this “gimme loot” and “its just LFR” mentality.

LFR should have been the introduction to raiding. LFR should have been the content to whet the appetites of those who might not have raided in the past. LFR should have been the tool to expose more people to my favorite aspect of the game:  learning dynamic encounters and raiding! Lengthening the cast time on the previously mentioned abilities (even more) to give people more time to click that button is a potential solution.

I think that, for those “who LFR is for” (whatever that means!)– they would agree. LFR isn’t meant to be something you have to pour hours and hours of attempts in. It is meant for the more casual approach to raiding and should be tuned as such…  however having it tuned down so much that core mechanics can be ignored is likely something that should be addressed. The player-base will ultimately improve as a result.

Immersion

I will admit, I entered this final tier not caring who Deathwing was. Yeah, he made Stormwind’s front gates crumble, and the structures between the Mage Quarter and the Docks are in cinders… but I didn’t care. I only chased him down at the launch of 4.0 to get my Achievement Points for being killed by him– Guild chat being spammed by “Deathwing is in Hyjal! Get to the zone if you need the Achievement!”. (Ironically, this was unnecessary as you got the achievement if you died to him during one of his encounters in DS). Blizzard, in my eyes, really fell short at making us feel engaged with Deathwing early on in 4.0. They should have made us want to kill him. Want to right the wrongs. Want to reset the balance with the other Dragon Aspects…

I thought that…

until I actually encountered the Aspects in Dragon Soul… Ysera, Kalecgos, Alexstraza, and Nozdormu really saved the story. The last 5 bosses of Dragon Soul you really got to see the Aspects and if you had your sound turned on, you could really hear them stressing the importance of our success. I could feel them pushing us along. They were there will us… not just as some NPC tangentially associated with the fight, but crucial to it.

With the prelude to going into the Eye of Eternity and engaging Hagara, you had great dialogue between Thrall and Kalecgos trying to figure out a way to harness the Dragon Soul. With Ultraxion you had each of the Aspects granting you a portion of their power to save you from this ultimate darkness. (Not to mention, it incorporated a very interesting strategy component that each raid team and healer make-up had to handle for this fight– what healer is to get which buff?) Moving all the way through some great cutscenes and into the final encounter: The Madness of Deathwing.

While, some people dislike the voice actors hired for the Aspects. I think they each did a great job really rallying you to the defence of Azeroth. You could hear (and feel) the importance– the urgency in their voices.

“Deathwing is conjuring the final Cataclysm; even the Emerald Dream trembles! If we are to stop this, we must attack him—- TOGETHER!!!”

“Hurry Heroes, in mere moments Deathwing’s Cataclysm will complete what he’s begun and end the world! Join me in the attack– NOW!”

“I will cleanse whatever corruption I can My fire will not harm you!… NO! Such power! Deathwing’s summoning of the final cataclysm will destroy all of Azeroth. Quickly we must interrupt him!”

“Together we can’t fail!”

“Press the attack, Heroes!”

“Avenge the fallen! Continue the fight!!”

“Attack him now!!! We must stop the final Cataclysm!”

If you have not seen the Method vs Dragon Soul – The Movie, I urge you to watch it. For the Aspect dialogue I am referring to, watch from this time stamp. (Starts with the Hagara Prelude)

 Looking forward…

I hope we see more encounters with NPC involvement. It really does drive the encounters forward, and makes you feel like you are part of the story and not like you are simply going into a dungeon, killing bads, and getting loots. We’ve seen allusions to this in the past with the Watchers on Yogg-Saron, Maiev Shadowsong and her traps when you battled Illidan in Black Temple, and even less-so with Jaina’s vapid “All I ever wanted to do was study!” in the Battle of Mount Hyjal back in Burning Crusade.

Give us more NPCs that interact with us during the fights. NPCs that contribute to the fight. NPCs that make us feel like we are making a difference!

What did you think about Dragon Soul, LFR, and the immersion of the tier?

Dragon Soul: Post-Mortem and Immersion is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The general gist of what we need to keep in mind with Zero-Sum Mana is: Unless you hit 100% mana at any point of the fight your cooldown usage should generally be as soon as possible.Try to think of your mana pool in terms of the whole length of the fight, not just as the number that shows on your character pane. Ask yourself, “how much mana is available to me cumulatively throughout the fight?”.  Using your restorative cooldowns will increase your fight-duration mana pool… not just your current total available mana.

As Priests we have 2 Types of Mana Cooldowns: Potions and Non-Potions.  Potions, of course, are the easiest to understand- you can use ONE Mythical Mana Potion or Potion of Concentration per encounter (assuming you don’t die and are battle rezzed).

Non-Potions are a bit more complicated:
- Hymn of Hope (HoH)
- Mana Tide Totem (MTT)
- Shadowfiend
- Arcane Torrent (Blood Elf racial)
- Innervate (if you are being fed one, and is dramatically different if from a Resto/Boom/Feral)

Rule #1 – Know Your Cooldown Durations
All of these non-potion abilities have a cooldown and can be used multiple times in an encounter. So the question is when do I use these abilities to get the most out of them? You first need find out how long you expect the fight to be. If you have done the fight before, you should have a rough idea of how long the fight is for your raid team. Alternatively, you can look on World of Logs and see what the average time for “Fight Duration”. (Here is a link to WoL’s Spine of Deathwing and you’ll see the Median and Average duration for Kills and Wipes). You know now, that an average Heroic 25-man kill is 725 seconds, which is a good starting point to know how many Shadowfiends, Torrents, etc you can get off during that time.  The sooner you use the ability the sooner it comes back off cooldown.

I hate watching a video and seeing something short, like Arcane Torrent, sitting off cooldown for more than a few seconds. Or a shadowfiend sitting there for 2-3 minutes into a fight. If they were used when available, they’d be nearly off cooldown already!

Rule #2- Know How Much Mana You Gain
You need to know how much each of these abilities will grant you (even if its roughly). Abilities like MTT can vary based on spirit levels of the shaman, your int levels (Remember the spirit regen formula takes that into account), and if you are out of range of the Totem. Hymn of Hope is complex as it can increase your mana pool, and you are never guaranteed to be given a single tick from HoH. Abilities like Arcane Torrent and Shadowfiend are predictable, and you should know what amounts of mana you’ll be getting back. For example: Shadowfiend will, under normal circumstances, provide you with 30% of your mana pool back. (inclusive of temporary int bonuses from enchants or procs) Additionally, Shadowfiends provide additional melee swings (and thus more mana restoration) when under the benefits of Heroism/Bloodlust.

Rule #3 – Never Waste Restoration
Now that you know how much mana you get back from these cooldowns. You don’t want to use one and then have part of it go to waste! You do not want to use Shadowfiend if you will cap out at 100% mana as any extra melee swings after 100% are wasted. (Same for Replenishment ticks, or even Rapture restoration) Me? I tend to use my Fiend as soon as I hit 65%-70% mana as to ensure I don’t hit 100% mana and waste a 3% restoration swing. As soon as you know that your restorative ability will not be wasted- use it.  (see rule #1)

I personally CRINGE when I watch videos with someone sitting at 50% mana and they have both Fiend and Torrent off CD. USE IT! Its not going to waste! Use it!

Rule #4 – Timing Around Other Raider’s CDs
If you know your Shaman is about to place down Mana Tide, and you are sitting at 70% mana, you might want to hold off on Shadowfiend until after MTT goes out and you can use fiend at a later time. (or perhaps you could have used it earlier in the fight?)  Keeping an eye on when MTT is coming off CD from your neighboorhood Shaman is important – there is a DBM plug in that works for this as well as ORA3. If you have multiple priests in your raid, you might want to stagger (or stack,depending on the fight) Hymn of Hope. Most fights in DS you’ll be lucky to get 2 off… coordinating with your fellow Priests is important.

 Rule #5 – Timing Around Fight Mechanics
You do not want to be caught with your pants down using a cooldown that puts you out of commission for a few seconds. (ie. Hymn of Hope, Concenration Potions) This was the context in which my RL brought up “Zero Sum” in the raid.  You do not want to use Concentration Potions towards a latter part of a fight since it puts you out of commission potentially during a high healing period. Those mana potions should have been used earlier, provided you would not have hit 100% mana. Remember…. the only two points in time that your mana levels are important are at 0% and 100%; anywhere in between there your mana is a resource that is available to you to use.

Of course, certain fight mechanics will have you waiting to use certain cooldowns (ie. Yor’sahj and his Blue Slime) to work within the mechanics of the fight. Play smart!

Common Misconceptions
-But Derevka, I was holding onto my Shadowfiend/Torrent/Potion so I could get mana back when I really needed it! — No, no, no! Again, remember how Zero Sum works. So long as you have more than 0% and less than 100% mana your restoration shouldn’t be squandered.  Use it…

-I didn’t need the mana back, I’m ending the fight with surplus mana! Again, no. You could be trading off that extra mana for high HPS/low efficiency heals. (Maybe PWS spam a bit more? Or stack Serendipity via Flash Heal?) Alternatively you could reforge away from spirit for more throughput. Getting off multiple Shadowfiends also can assist your raid by increasing Raid-DPS. (perhaps on a difficult Burning Tendon DPS check?). Or perhaps get off multiple Hymn of Hopes to assist your fellow healers mana levels (or arcane mages).

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that your mana pool is dynamic. Remember to view your available mana dynamically: view it as Fight-Duration mana… not just a static “How much do I have right now?”. Be forward thinking and predictive. Zero-Sum!!

Zero-Sum Mana is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The purpose of this guide is to provide insight to the Healer Perspective and point out specific points of strategy that healers will want to keep in mind while battling Heroic Hagara. This guide assumes you already have at least an understanding of the basic boss mechanics and abilities– consider this the “Healer Addendum” to a standard Boss Guide.

Good luck!!

Healer’s Addendum – Healing Hagara the Stormbinder (Heroic) is a post from: Tales of a Priest

Every Dragon Soul fight has substantial raid damage — especially the  Heroics. This means we’ll need to be putting out a good deal of raid healing, but it also means we need to do what we can to stay alive as long as we possibly can to heal through that damage.

Both Holy and Discipline offer some great spec choices as far as survivability talents. Keeping that in mind, lets take a look at these options– some of which are often overlooked simply because we ‘forget about them’ as well as the fact that they do not provide any direct throughput. One could argue that these talents DO provide indirect-throughput as they either keep you alive longer, or mitigate damage on yourself — in turn, this enables you to continue to heal the other members of your raid.

Holy

Desperate Prayer – (Available to Discipline and Holy Priests) This spell comes in handy for those “Oh shit” moments. 30% of your total HP (capable of critically healing) with a 2 minute CD. This spell is handy for those situations where you know a surge of damage is about to hit, and you immediately need to get your health back up. (For example: Morchock’s Stomp ability, or perhaps your HP is low and you’re about to be targeted by Hagara’s Frost Tomb? )

Bessed Resilience –  (Available to Holy Priests only) With points into this talent you gain15%/30% bonus healing done on yourself for 10 seconds after being hit by non periodic damage for 10% (or more) of your total health. So many of these fights you’ll have the buff uptime for a good chunk of the fight. This is a fairly decent option for Holy Priests to help keep themselves alive during periods of high damage, as it makes all heals on you that much more potent.

Discipline

Inner Sanctum – (Available to Discipline and Holy Priests). With points spec’d into this ability, we can gain 2/4/6% static spell damage mitigation when we have Inner Fire active. Since all the unavoidable damage we take is magic damage, Inner Sanctum can be a huge lifesaver, particularly since some of the damage we take is deemed “periodic” and doesn’t trigger Blessed Resilience or Focused Will.

Focused Will – (Available to Discipline Priests only) This talent provides you with 5%/10% mitigation of all damage after you suffer non-periodic damage equal (or greater to) 10% of your health, and it stacks 2 times for 8 seconds. This means you can have up to 20% damage mitigation when it is fully stacked… that is a huge amount of mitigation.

Choices

Of course you have to make choices to gain some of these talents. With the exception of Holy Priests who seek out Blessed Resilience, who arguably have no better options to pick out, these choices could be difficult. For me, as a Disc priest first on the chopping block was Mental Agility– keep in mind as Disc losing points in MA, directly affects the net cost of your PWS and thusly the “cost” for Rapture. Certain priests may also want to consider dropping Inspiration for survivability. Depending on raid make up (Another Priest? Shaman?), Healing Assignments (are you not casting Inspiration eligible heals often?), and role you simply might not be applying the buff often enough to merit those 2 talent points.

It is important to understand the differences in each of these survivability talents, and what each bring to the table as they are notably different from each other … and some do not work on certain Dragon Soul encounters. Blessed Resilience and Focused Will do not proc on periodic damage… this works extremely well for soaking Hagara’s Ice Lance, as well as proccing during her lightning storm. Unfortunately, Ultraxion’s damage is considered periodic (for whatever reason) and does not proc BR/FW.

It ultimately boils down to survivability and how necessary it becomes for your raid.  The need for survivability talents is inversely related to your raid’s skill level and its familiarity with the encounter. The more your raid improves on a given encounter, and the more your raid gears up, the less necessary these talents become.  In progression raiding, the longer you survive, the longer your raid and tanks survive. Each one of us has to decide where that tipping point is, and when we start valuing one over the other.

How many first kills did you stumble across the finish line with the boss picking off the raid one by one by one… leaving only a bubble’d paladin alive as he fell over? (or a Dispersed Shadow Priest!) These talents can help you extend that survivability and should be strongly considered on certain fights in Dragon Soul… particularly a number of the Heroic Encounters.

Survivability and Progression Raiding is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The trick is to leverage Archangel to your advantage and not just use it haphazardly. Fully stacked, Archangel provides you with an additional 15% throughput for 18 seconds with a mere 30 second cooldown.  Despite it having a short cooldown, making it readily available throughout most of the fight, the best way for a Disc Priest to use Archangel is to know when the raid/tank damage is going to increase and demand for more throughput.

I know, I know… I sound like a broken record regarding this point. But the single best thing you can do to improve your healing is to KNOW THE FIGHT. Know the damage patterns. Know when a bosses ability is going to hit. Know when your raid needs you to pull out all the stops and find a miracle.

You’ll want to be sure you are using the Glyph of Divine Accuracy and Glyph of Smite in your Atonement builds. You will also want to be certain you are using the Burning Shadowspirit Meta Gem (See my earlier post regarding Meta Gems in 4.3) And yes, you will want to value Crit more in 4.3 and Dragon Soul. I don’t want to re-create the wheel and derail this post regarding Disc Stat Weights in 4.3- but generally for raid healing, and how much we have devalued PW: Shield (generally only used for emergencies and Rapture), you’ll generally want to value Haste > Crit > Mastery.

You will also need a method of tracking your stacks, duration on Archangel, as well as when those spells are available/off cooldown. I use my Power Auras — available here. I also prefer mouseover and assist macro’s to be certain I am smiting appropriate targets.

I need to point out the fact that Atonement Healing allows for Atonement Disc Priests to contribute to Raid DPS. With so many of these fights as rough DPS checks (yes, you HM Ultraxion), any added Raid DPS will be a welcomed addition.

Morchock -
On both Heroic and Normal modes you can use the downtime between Stomps and crystal  spawns to stack Evangelism. You can pop Archangel to burst heal after Stomp or when your tanks have high stacks of Crush Armor. On Heroic, this added throughput is exceptionally important to top your half of the raid off during those Stomp/Crystal combinations that are very close to each other.  Additionally, you can easily stack 5 stacks if you can stay within range during Black Blood of the Earth. (not to mention: assist in DPS)

Zon’ozz -
Archangel is a pivotal part of a Disc Priests toolbox on this fight, and even more-so when you are healing Heroic Zon’ozz.  Since the damage going out during Phase 1 is fairly easy to heal through, it also provides you ample time to Smite and use Archangel at least once, and also time to re-stack and prepare for Phase 2.  When you enter Phase 2 (Black Phase) you’ll want to pop Archangel for that added 15% to your POH output. On Heroic difficulty, the damage output is even more substantial since there are additional adds your raid needs to burn down. Big, bursty, and sustainable output is critical during this phase… work it! A Disc priest running AA should be able to easily maintain themselves plus a group– solo. Liberal use of POH and POM, using PWS only for dire situations on a single target (or Rapture) should be more than adequate.

Lest we forget, Zon’ozz also has a +damage modifier making Smite hit harder and subsequently heal for more.

Yor’sahj-
This fight is probably one of the more dynamic healing fights and has notable changes when going from Normal to Heroic. Firstly, on Normal and Heroic, you (usually) can easily stack Evangelism by assisting DPS on the slimes. This allows you to help push the slime down sooner (and consequently get DPS back on YJ quicker), but you also gain your stacks. Using Archangel on phases that have increased damage (Black, Yellow, Red combinations) are the obvious answers.

One commonly forgotten part of Archangel is the fact that you gain 5% of your mana when you activate AA.  Generally speaking we do not use AA to be a “mana restoration” talent. On Yor’sahj, however, we can. This can be critical to use after the Mana Void drains all your mana… Gaining back that 5% can often mean the difference between having the mana to put down PW: Barrier or Divine Hymn. Prepare for it.

On Heroic, most strategies result in many rounds of slimes having the Purple/Healing debuff up. In situations like this you want to be extra careful to not have Holy Fire ticks running on YJ when the debuff goes up. This can quickly (and deadly!) stack Deep Corruption on a single target and then blow up on the raid. You also may want to have AA running on phases where you have to heal through Green Damage and have the Purple Healing Debuff, making your selective heals more potent. The key to healing with the debuff up, is to make each heal matter… and that added 15% does just that.

Hagara the Stormbinder -
With predictable damage spikes from either Focused Attacks, Ice Lance’s debuff, or to heal through her AOEs during her two immunity phases; the timing for AA is fairly obvious  (That is, if your raid selects to heal through her AOEs on both Lightning and Frost Phases; it is possible to heal through the 15% HP DoT albeit challenging.) You should be able to weave those Smites in fairly easily not to mention assist on DPS when she’s debuffed after her shields break… mmm +damage modifiers!!

Ultraxion -
This fight Archangel and Atonement are a bit tricky. At the very least you should be able to weave in Holy Fire on cooldown and use the added 15% Healing from Archangel when needed… Especially towards the end, and on Heroic when you have 5 people soaking and need fast (and big) heals after you return from the alternate realm. (not to mention, first kills you’ll need to squeak out as much hidden DPS as you possibly can)

Additionally on Heroic, you will likely be HF/Smite spamming at least until the Red Buff goes out. You’ll need the added Raid DPS.

Warmaster Blackhorn (aka Gunship) -
Large void zones to pre-DA and clean up after. Shout. On Heroic the amount of damage that Twilight Onslaught and Twilight Barrage deal is substantial so being ready to use AA and burst heal (and pre-DA Onslaught damage will be critical). Once Warmaster Blackhorn lands, he’ll start to ramp up damage as he gains more and more Vengeance. You’ll want to be certain you have Archangel running (and possibly chaining cooldowns) as much as possible sub 20%.

Spine of Deathwing-
This fight has an interesting ebb and flow of damage. You have plenty of time to stack Evangelism on the adds, and then pop and burst AOE heal when the Amalgamations gain Superheated. Further, you can Holy Fire/Smite the Tendons to assist with DPS as well as heal up the straggling HP on melee who will be within range of the Tendon. Also, if your raid does run into trouble with the Searing Blood debuff, healing off the debuff with 15% boosted heals can help clean up the raid.

Spine can be tricky to maintain your Evangelism stacks, especially if your raid’s DPS gets too far ahead of the Bloods and the Amalgamations aren’t at 9 stacks yet. (you don’t want to be the one who accidentally killed the Amalgamation early because you wanted to keep Evangelism!) Be prepared to maintain your stacks by smiting less-than-optimal targets. (or better yet, assist in breaking the stuns on the Tendrils!)

Madness of Deathwing-
Obviously since this is the longest fight of the Tier, you will be able to use Archangel a number of times throughout the encounter. When you first land on each platform, damage will be light. You can easily assist in DPS by stacking your Evangelism stacks; which is something you’ll want to do anyway. I usually pop AA multiple times per platform, being certain I have AA running when Blistering Heat is being applied by the Blistering Tentacles.

You will most definitely want to time Archangel in the final phase as well. As the fight concludes, your healers will be gasping for mana and the Corrupted Blood damage will be ramping up on your raid. Raid Cooldowns, and Archangel will be your best friend in these final seconds. Find time to weave in a couple of Holy Fire’s or Smites, in preparation for this final push.

The key with Archangel and Atonement Healing is to know the fight’s damage patterns. If you need to consume your stacks for added throughput, be sure you do so at a meaningful time. Don’t just mindless spam Smite, know when you need to switch to direct (and targeted) heals.  Sometimes that means you need to FIND a time to Smite to ensure that your stacks will be available to be consumed when needed.  Be precise. Be deliberate.

… and enjoy looking sexy in screenshots with wings!

Discipline & Archangel in Dragon Soul is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The Burning Crusade came and so did our introduction to the Tier Token System. It was simple.  A token type would drop, of either Vanquisher, Conqueror, or Protector and each token type had 3 classes that were a associated with it–easy! Nice and even distribution. This method simply made loot systems easier to manage. Can you imagine doing a loot council with 25 people all interested in a single Chest Token?  BC also introduced us to the Badge/Point system. This system allowed raiders to purchase raid quality gear for a number of item slots–Tier Gear was not available in this manner.

Then we had Wrath of the Lich King, where we moved from Badges/Points not buying Tier Gear to becoming a huge part of gear progression.  Additionally, WOTLK included the introduction of Death Knights. DK added an interesting complication to Tier distribution as we no longer had 3 classes per Tier Token, since we had one Token with 4 classes associated with it. This caused a change in the RNG aspect of loot drops because one of the tokens was meant for 4 classes and affected the weighted average of the drop rate.

Fast Forward to 4.3. The Tier System is getting turned on its head… again. The ONLY way to get Tier 13 gear will be through raid boss drops – no Valor Point Tier purchases. Further, in a statement that Bashiok posted, we learned that the VP drop rate was being throttled to 100 per raid boss kill. This means, for purposes of Tier Gear progression, the only way to upgrade Tier 12 to Tier 13 is to hope for good RNG from the Token Gods. Additionally, off-set VP gear would be more difficult to save up for as the VP accumulation rate is being slowed. Bashiok stated that the purpose of this  VP change was to put greater emphasis on killing a boss to get the gear, not just saving your points.

This “new” method of acquiring Tier Gear is anything but new…we’ve seen it before, as discussed, in The Burning Crusade. This method will likely slow down progression and artificially gate content by throttling how fast raids can gear up.

A number of people in the WOW community had a knee jerk reaction regarding the VP change: “Big Deal! I’m a raider! I’ll be getting my token drops and VP gear isn’t even good!” You even saw some people go so far as suggesting the VP gear was “welfare” and “scrub loot”.

I believe that these statements are exceptionally short sighted and really off-base. Arguably, VP gear is important to everybody; especially to the hardcores. “Hardcore raiders”  use every strategy possible to min/max their character. Compounding this is the fact that there are a lot more options available from the Valor Point vendors this go around… not just rings and the occasional trinket.

Why is the VP gear important? I make these suggestions because these VP items, coupled with Tier Token RNG, really affect how gear progression will work in 4.3.  Depending on the importance of set bonuses, the increased stats from these VP items, boss strategy and mechanics, they could be superior– especially if you have all 5 Tier items from T12, and have the flexibility to pivot and  maintain your set bonus while still upgrading offset items via the VP upgrades. (Protip: if you can get all 5, do it… just for this reason alone)

Lets pretend your raid has been having a Conqueror Token drought… this means Priests, Paladins, and Warlocks likely have not been able to upgrade much of their T12 Gear to T13 Gear yet. Keeping that in mind, and progressing through content, you’ll eventually reach a boss that has a critical healing or DPS check (ie. Ultraxion). Doing this in lower Item Level gear, while possible, could be easier with the pure stat increases from the new Valor Items. These items are iLvl 397, which is on par with Heroic Ragnaros loot — nothing to scoff at.

Personally, I dislike the current Token System based solely on the method of distribution.  In theory, they should be equally distributed via RNG, but that is drastically dependent on your raid composition.  Throughout T12, my raid was typically represented by over half of our raiding core residing on the Conqueror token. This can provide a artificial gear gate when high demand tokens don’t drop. Is the simple answer to this problem to have one universal token? Perhaps… but that isn’t the point of this article.

Play smartly. Plan your upgrades. Make a loot list. Evaluate your loot options through the Valor Point vendors. You’ll need to figure out which items will be your biggest upgrades, while trying to not not affect your set bonuses… THEN move to items that require either a Tier Upgrade or a Pivot from 5/5 T12. Obviously, if you are raiding, you might be upgrading non-tier items through boss drops as well— but this is nothing new, its the gear progression we’ve always known.

Gearing in 4.3 – Valor Points and the Token System is a post from: Tales of a Priest

At the moment, you really have a “all or nothing” for sounds. Yes there is some minor mixing capabilities in game for Music, Ambient, and Sound Effects, however if you are in a fight where you are grouped up you’ll hear a lot of spell effects, Power Aura notifications, your iTunes/Pandora playlist, as well as Vent/Mumble calls, there is a good chance your boss mod announces will be drowned out.

I recently have been using a in-game modification, Muted Sounds, that mutes combat sounds, enabling me to easily hear vent, boss mods sounds, and boss emotes. Before you say “Emotes are so RP!” The emotes are often very valuable, and key alerts to boss abilities… in fact, I didn’t truly appreciate how helpful those boss emotes were until I installed this Mod/Pack; many of the emotes provide really good predictive notice. (Not to mention the potential impact to ‘quality of gaming life’ to gamers who might have visual or hearing impairments) 

I use these boss cues as well as spell alert sounds (off cooldown) to be another source of information that lets me respond to the game and boss mechanics— Muted Sounds simply filters out the unnecessary sounds and leaves me with the important ones.

This pack has already been updated for the 4.3 PTR, and I raided on the PTR with it installed. Give it a spin!

(Special thanks to Alas for getting me the mixer screenshot on the fly)

Flash Heal articles are a short, quick, and easy to understand posts. Flash Heal posts are meant to be less involved and detailed than a full article you are used to seeing here at Tales. Flash Heal posts are posts post that will give you some form of tip, trick, or gem of insight on anything from a spell to a boss mechanic. Got a suggestion for a Flash Heal post? Send us an email!

Flash Heal: Healing and Sound is a post from: Tales of a Priest

In this post, lets go over each of the seven bosses in Firelands (Normal and Heroic) and recap some of the mechanics and how our toolkit worked well (or not) for the fight. Knowing our weaknesses and strengths will be critical in knowing how to approach Dragon Soul in 4.3. Firelands was a very tricky tier for us priests, but ultimately we fared very well.

Tier Mechanic & Toolkit Recap

Strengths:
- A lot of this tier incorporated grouping up, which allowed for ease of use with our PW: Barriers, HW: Sanctuaries, and POH Range.
- Divine Aegis buffed by 30% with the introduction of 100% Critical Heal bonuses.
- Gear itemization had both Haste and Mastery “tracks”.
- Multiple fights with +damage modifiers which lend well to Atonement healing.

Weaknesses:
- Non-Tier spirit gear was hard to come by and favored Disc over Holy due to its heavier reliance on spirit for regen. (Holy Concentration)
- Holy’s primary regen stat providing 0 throughput (Spirit) while Disc’s stat (int) scales exceptionally well causing Holy throughput to lag behind.
- Divine Hymn’s mana cost to output being outweighed by pure POH spam.

Boss Recap

Shannox
Overall this was a fairly easy encounter on both normal and heroic. For the most part, pretty straight forward – tanks taking predictable damage that increases depending on how certain mechanics of the fight are handled, periodic AOE damage, and random burst damage on select raid members. This fight was a great opportunity for Disc and Holy to shine. Holy did well due to its ability to burst heal the AOE damage (not to mention increased mobility via COH), and Disc did well both as a Raid healer (Clutch Power Word: Shield on the Face Rage targets) and as a tank healer. (Our first HM Kill (1st night available) we wound up using both Pain Suppression and PW:Barrier as tank cooldowns. )

Beth’tilac
This fight was one of our first tests in this tier. You had to be able to (downstairs) quickly heal your soak targets, stabilize your raid when the acid rain was falling, all while maintaining a healthy level of mana for the burn phase. We lucked out given that an early Shadowfiend meant that it would be up again during the Phase 2 burn phase. Phase 2 worked well to our advantage since grouping up kept everyone in range of Prayer of Healing, HW: Sanctuary, Hymns, Barrier and COH. This allowed priests to push through the damage as she pulsed it out to the entire raid. With a solid group up strategy, you could reliably use Prayer of Healing

Lord Rhyolith
Atonement worked exceptionally well on this fight, especially if you were tasked to heal the Spark Tank. Since the Sparks took increased amounts of damage the longer they stayed alive, your Smite:Healing ratios stayed in step and allowed for you to keep mana levels healthy during the burn phase. Rhyo had several changes to him through the tier, the most substantial being his knock-up when he stomped being removed; this dramatically affected his difficulty since it didnt interrupt casting and allowed burn-phase positioning to be much more forgiving. Rhyo was a bit of a pain week to week as he was littered with bugs the first several weeks, managing sharp turns was a learning curve (and buggy); but after a couple of repeat HM kills he became one of the easier farm bosses for us.  Holy Priests did well given the AOE nature of the damage in much of the fight, as well as the ability to use COH on the move when running from Lava Lines. Disc, as previously mentioned,were exceptionally great Spark Tank healers and grouping up to PW: Barrier Phase 2 Stomps was very helpful.

Alysrazor
The mantra for this fight is DON’T STAND IN THE FIRE! Between the Brushfires and the Worms breathing fire and the Flame Tornados there is a lot of fire to dodge on this fight. Luckily, as a healer you should have been prioritized to have at least one feather on this fight, enabling you to be able to cast while moving. The amount of damage going out on this fight should be minimal on non-tanks (provided people are avoiding fire and interrupting Feiroblast), but substantial on the tanks. As a priest being able to alternate using your cooldown (PS/GS) and the tank’s cooldown with the Hatchling’s Tantrum was an important part of managing this fight. If you were Archangel spec’d timing your wings with Tantrum was another tool at your disposal. Since damaging her when she crashes restored mana, being inefficient in the first phase was doable, and more than a few times I used Strength of Soul/Flash Heal/PWS spam to protect the tanks. With the ability to cast while moving during the Tornado phase, you could use Divine Hymn while dodging to top of those who might be low (or bad at Tornado-Frogger). When Alysrazor recharges and starts doing her AOE, Barrier and HW: Sanctuary should be used. I really enjoyed this fight as a priest and felt that our toolkit was built to excel here.

Baleroc, the Gatekeeper
A Disc priests dream. There is a reason that all the top parses on this fight are done by disc priests: Strength of Soul and Power Word: Shield. Both on Normal and Heroic modes, this fight was built for Discipline. Most strategies relied heavily on 2 (on 25 man)Disc Priests stacking their Spark buffs, and then utilizing PW:S (a 0 overheal spell) and Strength of Soul (via regular Heal spam) to protect the tank from the massive amounts of damage Baleroc could deal. From a design standpoint it really was an interesting fight. At it’s core the fight was meant to have Baleroc’s damage ramp up as the fight went along, but included a mechanic for healers to increase their output to stay in step. On Heroic this fight was one of the more difficult fights of the tier. (especially pre-nerf given his swing timer and buff/debuff timers on the healers). The reason why I like this fight so much (aside from BIG NUMBERS) is that the fight is exceptionally dynamic (on Heroic). Throughout the fight the Countdown mechanic could dramatically affect the next 60 seconds of the fight– either by Tormenting your next soak target, or Tormenting a Healer. This forced guilds to adapt on the fly and manage these changes very quickly. If guilds failed to do so, Torment could spread quickly through the raid, a shard soaker could be missed, or too many healers could have had their output reduced and the fight would be over. Adapt and survive.

Now, I totally agree that Disc is a favored on this fight… however, Holy isn’t worthless. Our first kill had a Holy Priest in raid. Guardian Spirit, (unlike PS) works against Decimation Blades, as such using that can help keep your tank alive through D.Blades. It is important to state that our first kill’s Holy Priest ranked 2nd in the world— not that he isn’t a good player, but the population of Holy Priests on that fight is very small on that fight.

Majordomo Staghelm
This fight is arguably the most different when transitioning Normal to Heroic of all the fights in this tier. With the introduction of Concentration it dramatically affected most strategies– particularly ones that involved soaking Scorpion Form cleaves. As a priest you could use Concentration 2 different ways… 1. Since the healers were buffed, and nearly all the non-tank damage was avoidable, many strategies ran this fight with as little as 3 healers. 2. Any fight with a +damage modifier is a fight that Atonement Priests love. In this example, Atonement heals double dipped. (+damage to Smite and then +healing to Atonement… win/win!). Additionally, with a Disc priest in the raid, you could Power Infuse 100% concentration targets and let them blow up Staghelm.

Ragnaros
I have mixed emotions about this fight. After downing him on Heroic mode, looking back at the number of pulls we did both pre and post-nerf; you have to ask yourself “Was he overtuned?”. Consider this, 4.3 is literally just around the corner and as of 10/31/11 only 87 guilds have killed HM Rag on 25-Man in the US. Regardless if you think he is overtuned or not, HM Rag is one of the most difficult bosses we have ever faced in the game– and as masochistic as this sounds; I really enjoyed him. Healers really had a difficult time on this fight especially considering the fact that guilds were pretty much forced to run 3-5 healers. Disc Priests struggled as raid healers on this fight given the spread out nature of the fight, the RNG aspect of burst damage during Son’s phases  as well as the lulls in damage that provided time to top off your raid, making most Divine Aegis shields useless. Disc tank healing, however, was very beneficial. It allowed for high uptime of Inspiration on the tanks, as well as additional Tank Cooldowns for several times during the fight. Not to mention the importance of timing Power Infusions on key players to push past critical checkpoints in the phase transitions -  yeah, 1 meteor! Holy, on the other hand, did much better as a raid healer on this fight. Higher healing mobility allowed for quick COH snaps during Seed Kiting runs, as well as the opportune HW: Sanctuary to assist in topping the raid off after a Seed explosion.

4.3 and Beyond

As far as expectations in 4.3; the throughput issues that Holy had throughout T12 seem to be addressed with the improvement of Divine Hymn via the new talent, Heavenly Voice and with the improvements (and bug fixes FIXES) to the Holy Word spells. With my time on the PTR in dungeons, these 2 changes have notably increased Holy’s output. Until we get more PTR Raid Testing time (and see it in a 25 man raid), we need to just ‘hurry up and wait’ to see how much this increase will augment Holy’s toolkit— I, for one, am very hopeful that these changes will provide some much needed throughput in a 25 man setting.

Disc in 4.3 won’t see much change at all. Disc will continue to be a very versatile healer– both as a Raid Healer and a potent Tank Healer. The trick for Disc Tank Healing is to continue to educate Healing Leads and Guild Management the importance, viability, and arguable need for a Disc Tank Healer in 25 Man Raids. So many guilds still favor Paladins, which I attribute to tier after tier and patch after patch where pallies are the only ‘real’ tank healing option. (In fact, our first HM Ragnaros kill had zero Holy Paladins).

I would be completely remiss not to acknowledge one of the biggest follies from T12: the number of healers that were required from fight to fight. This was a huge error in Blizzards court. With fights ranging from 7 to 3 healers in a 25 man setting, it made creating your roster a literal nightmare. 4.3 better damn well have a more consistent healing requirement. I urge folks to take a gander at Beru’s post on this issue, as frankly, she hit the nail on the head and I couldn’t have said it better.

How are you all handling the current content and what do you expect in 4.3? What has this tier taught you? What have you learned to become a better healer?

I am, however, going to end this post with a personal favor to ask of everyone. With Tales now re-opened, help me get the word out: let your fellow priests and healers know that I’m back!

Priest Healing Firelands is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The Shaman cooldown seems to be a  raid-wide “reset”; with a minor (10%) damage mitigation while the reset occurs- I do like this design and set up. (even though I think I’m going to go “WTF just happened?!” the first time I see my Grid adjust when it is used). I’m glad to see that Spirit Link has made its way back into the game since it has been something that Blue has been trying to work in since the TBC beta; and now its a very unique ability.

Onto the druids… There has been a good deal of speculation if the Tranqulity change (via Malfurion’s Gift) is the cooldown change. (Some of which is favorable of the change, others being less so…). I’m not sure if Tranq needed this strong of a buff… especially in light of how much more powerful it is when compared to Divine Hymn.

Druids have been very vocal about wanting a cooldown. There is no denying that a Druid’s toolbox is fairly sparce when it comes to what buffs and benefits they bring to the table…  (why they don’t have an Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude talent of sorts is beyond me!) While, yes, Druids have always been the raw healing throughput machines they’ve always been, and some have tried to argue that Nature’s Swiftness is an external CD of sorts (sorta, but not really), healer homogenization is a theme this expansion and balancing around that needs to occur.

Is just adding a tank cooldown the best solution? Is just a band-aid of “make Barkskin castable for resto druids” the answer? I’d much rather see a CD that is unique to Resto Druids, and leverages their existing strengths over a clone of Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression. How do you take something that is very quintessential Druid, and make it powerful enough (but not too OP) to be a viable cooldown? Is Blizzard trying to do that with Tranquility? Maybe… I am assuming Blue is struggling trying to find the appropriate balance. Some of the druids in the community, inclusive of  someone I respect, (Lissana) feel that a damage reducing ability is a possible solution.

Tank cooldowns need to be very carefully balanced. Adding another class with access to a cooldown is going to force a devalue of the other CDs. Balance will be needed, otherwise you could easily see a raid (moreso on 25s than 10s) with the ability to have extremely high uptime of tank CDs. Between the tank’s trinkets, personal CDs (Last Stand, Shield Wall, Divine Guardian, Survival Instincts, IBF…), existing external CDs, and then adding another set of external tank CDs, it could very well cause an issue for encounter and raid balancing.

The standard/base CD for most of these are 2 or 3 minutes… would adding another via a Druid CD be cause enough to nerf them all due to concerns of balance? The two easiest solutions could be:

1. Increase the CD to a longer period, to something like 5 minutes.
2. Cause a debuff on the target making them immune to future CDs for X  seconds.

Neither of these options seem great; but there is a valid potential for CDs being rebalanced as a result of increasing the number available. (Think of it almost like currency inflation.)

Yes, this is much more of a concern and area of abuse for 25 Man raiding… it doesn’t answer the problems that some 10 Man raids have: no external CDs. What if your raid has no external raid CDs? Giving druids an external CD will really open up the flexibility to 10 Man raids and prevent 25 Man guilds (though I think its foolish for a RL to do this) to only bring classes with external CDs.

Druids are, and always will be, strong raw healers. Is giving them Tranquility on a much shorter CD the exchange for not having an external CD? Perhaps. But it doesn’t answer the concerns the Druid community has had regarding equality and viability in every raid environment. Hamlet over at EJ did a very well thought post discussing this concern.

What does everyone else think? How would you suggest balancing these cooldowns? Do these cooldowns need balancing? Why? Why not?

I’m not sure how this one will pan out– and I am sure we’re going to see many more patch notes before 4.1 goes live answering a lot of the questions the healing community has. Frankly, if the devs leave everyone thinking the grass is greener on the other side, they may have balanced it right.

…maybe.

Are More Tank Cooldowns the Solution? is a post from: Tales of a Priest

There are some great and very strategic uses for Leap of Faith:

• Kiting during Atramedes
• Kiting Constructs in Phase 3 Nefarian
• Burning Cinders targets after their explosion in Heroic Nefarian’s Phase 2
• PVP Flag Carriers

These examples are often planned and expected uses of Leap of Faith. My guild, on Heroic Atramedes, has planned and specific positions and rotations for using Leap of Faith during the air/kite phase. Since everyone understands that Leap of Faith is part of the strategy, it is known that they will be used.. it is those other uses that can be very difficult and awkward.

Using Leap of Faith on someone is a jarring experience. It can leave the target with a “WTFOMGWHATJUSTHAPPENEDAMILAGGINGOUT?!” reaction- which can either hurt DPS or disorient them during an important phase of a fight. I feel it is prudent to either use a macro, announcing AddOn, or a Ventrilo call to alert the target that they have been Gripped. This will enable them to react appropriately and understand what happened.

More importantly, Leap of Faith is not the most subtle of spells. When it is used, your raid will see a golden/white line across the screen and a player with wings flying through the air— not very surreptitious. As such, it draws attention to itself– now if Grip is part of the raid strategy, no big deal– but if it isn’t part of the strategy and you are using it to save someone from their own mistake, are there implications from doing that? Are you, in a way, saying “You screwed up; and I am saving you from your own mistake!”? In a sense, yes– but in reality you aren’t you are merely preventing damage from occurring, which is ultimately your biggest job.

• Forgot to move out of Valiona’s breath? Grip them to safety.
• Did they clip a Squal Line and get picked up during Al’akir? Grip them to safety.
• Did they run clear across the room on Heroic Omnotron with Lightning Conductor when Nef has hit them with Shadow Infusion? Grip them into the group.
• Are they about to be hit by a Phase 3 Heroic: Maloriak Orb? Grip them to safety.

The biggest thing people who happen to be Gripped need to keep in mind is that it is not about you making a mistake. It is purely the priest attempting to do their job: keeping people alive. When we use Leap of Faith on a target, does it have implications? I know I sometimes feel guilty when I use it on a player(especially if it is a fellow Priest), since I do not want them to think that they were playing poorly, or that I didn’t trust them to move out of the way– that isn’t the case at all. It all boils back down to itbeing about the overall success of the raid. I sometimes will whisper the person I gripped just letting them know why I did it: “Sorry about that Grip… only was trying to mitigate the damage, hope it didn’t screw up your rotation!” — 9 times out of 10 it usually is greeted with a “Nah, it was good.” or a “Thanks, nice Grip!”.

Don’t get me wrong— there are times when using Leap of Faith is purely a “OH MY GOD STOP SUCKING! YOINK!!!” These situations Lifegip is purely a save their ass spell; just don’t forget to use it as a learning opportunity for the person who messed up. (I do not exclude myself from this– we all screw up! It is just a matter of whether or not you learned from the mistake.)

Now, this doesn’t mean/nor give priests free license to grip every. single. time. possible. A fair amount of raiding is to trust your raidmates to do their job, and to do it correctly. Using Lifegrip at every possibly opportunity is not only a waste of mana, but also a surefire way to irritate your guildmates that might be learning a new encounter or are aware of what is going on but are saving a class ability to move them instead. (Blink, Intercept, etc…) A bosskill isn’t one by a single player, it is a team effort: trust your friends, and they’ll trust you.

Have you run into strange implications when you use Leap of Faith? How have you gotten over these?

Leap of Faith is a post from: Tales of a Priest