I Can Remember When All This Were Nowt But Pixels!

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane.  Cast your minds back a year to when Burning Crusade had just been released and we’d just levelled our way up to 70 and were starting our 5 man dungeon runs.  And let’s not forget that we had to do 5 man dungeons to even get access to heroics since you needed Revered reputation with the associated faction to even unlock Heroic mode.  Blackheart the Inciter in the Shadow Labyrinth was a nightmare boss for most with his mass mind-control ability.  The entire Shattered Halls instance was universally despised by every healer who was forced to run it over and over again to grind the necessary Honour Hold reputation for the healing head enchant.  The ironic part was that in order to unlock Heroic mode for the other Hellfire Citadel instances you needed the same reputation level that gave you the head enchant anyway.

Time for Fun! NOT!

Let’s talk about those heroic instances while we’re on the subject.  They were hard.  Our first heroic group posted an after-action report in our guild forum after running Heroic Steamvaults.  Some of the trash was harder than normal mode bosses.  These were guys wearing full level 70 dungeon blue sets, very experienced raiders.

Let’s talk about Karazhan.  Remember that every single person in a Karazahn raid had to work their way through the attunement process to get the key back then, and there was no-one in Tier 6 gear to hold their hands while they did it.  Karazhan itself was another brick wall difficulty curve.  There were still guilds working on Kara as progression content when Wrath of the Lich King went live.  Gruul’s Lair?  We poked our noses in there once shortly after doing a few Kara raids and the tanks were getting two-shotted by the trash.  It scared us away from Gruul and Magtheridon so badly we probably lost two months of raid progression due to being over-cautious in gearing up from Kara before we went back!

And then there were the attunement requirements for Serpentshrine Cavern and The Eye that meant you had to keep running the same heroics/instances over and over to get people the necessary access to the 25 man raid content the rest of your guild was doing.  At least Gruul and Magtheridon were relatively quick to do at that stage, but if you were in Mount Hyjal and Black Temple and recruited another non-attuned raider you had to do entire clears of Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep before your new raiders could even get their feet in the doors of Hyjal or Black Temple.  Let’s also not forget that Vashj (to a lesser extent) and Kael’thas were rock hard raid bosses! I lost count of the number of guilds who broke apart under the strain of trying to get Kael’thas Sunstrider down.  There was a very good reason that even after the various nerfs and attunement removals you’d see people recruiting with messages along the lines of “Recruiting for xxx raiding guild, we’re 4/5 SSC and 3/4 TK, first 3 in BT and MH down”.

All of which brings us to today.  And people are complaining that Naxxramas is too easy?  We have very short memories!  Let’s just put all of this into perspective, shall we?

Following the various nerfs to raid content that Blizzard implemented, as well as the seriously good badge loot that would see guilds who never progressed past Kara decked out in Black Temple-equivalent gear, we were pretty much prepared for anything, despite what Illidan would have you believe.  Then there was the great pre-expansion nerf that would see raids gathering up and AoE’ing down trash that would previously have two-shotted any tank foolish enough to not go for mass mitigation tactics rather than balls-out threat generation.  Brutallus was being dropped with half of his enrage timer left.  People were gearing up way in excess of their progression or (and let’s be honest with ourselves here) skill levels, but it didn’t really matter because with the gear they were wearing and the various content nerfs, you could get away with zerging just about anything.

So now we’re in Wrath of the Lich King and we’ve a large percentage of the player base wearing gear that they’re never going to replace until after they hit the late level 70s at least.  You hit those early Northrend dungeons and you just blitz through them.  Marking targets for crown control?  That’s for pussies!  Gather them up and AoE them down!  Now you’ve hit level 80 and you don’t bother with normal mode anymore, it’s straight into Heroics to pick up some level 80 epic loot!  I know many players who have never seen the Occulus, Halls of Lightning or Utgarde Pinnacle except in Heroic mode.  And to a large extent, in my experience at least, you can still get away with the same tactics.  No need to gear up from running normal mode level 80 instances, get straight into heroics and zerg your way through!

What’s next?  Naxxramas! This place is being PuGged a month after the expansion went live.  I can remember the trash packs in level 60 Naxxramas .  They were absolutely brutal.  If you tried to AoE them down you’d be one very dead player in extremely short order.  But in level 80 Naxxramas, with the changes to tank threat generation it’s a different matter entirely.  In fact the only thing that holds me back on trash in Naxx now is the size of my mana pool.

We’ve gotten sloppy.  We’ve forgotten how to mark targets for crowd control and seperate out the most dangerous mobs for special treatment.  And we’ve forgotten how to do it because for the most part we don’t need to.  There are no “most dangerous” mobs.  Trash that would one-shot anyone who got too close previously and had to be kited now gets tanked.  Raid content in Wrath of the Lich King is just one big loot pinata, we smack it as hard as we can and wait to see what loot drops out.

So people are zerging their way through 10 man Naxxramas, getting bored with it within two weeks, then zerging their way through 25 man Naxxramas and finding it not much harder than the 10 man versions.  We’re all having some serious fun, but there’s a little voice in the back of our heads that’s wondering where the challenge is.   And after a month in Naxx when you’re clearing the place on heroic mode in a night and half and wondering what to do with the rest of your raid nights, that little voice is getting louder and louder.  I’ve heard it said that the solution to this is to do the same raids but with one hand tied behind your back, for the achievements.  For example, doing the whole of Naxxramas with 8 or less in your raid.  Now call me a bluff old traditionalist, but if I’m going to do a 10 man raid with 8 people I want slightly more reason to do it than another 10 lousy achievement points.  Better loot?  Sure.  Another 10 meaningless epeen points?  No thanks.  So where IS the challenge in Wrath raiding content?

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and go well with ketchup.

One word: Malygos.

This guy is badass.  He’s a proper raid boss in every sense of the word.  He’s not a brick wall-learning curve like M’uru was.  He’s not as remorselessly unforgiving of the slightest error as the Eredar Twins were, but he’s a Boss fight like the way we remember them, make no mistake of that.  You will not drop this guy on heroic mode the same night you first meet him.  You probably won’t drop him in 10 man mode the first night you meet him either.  You cannot zerg him.  He hits like an armoured train.  He will put pressure on your healers.  He will make your dps wake up as they struggle to beat his enrage timer and do the correct dps in the right place to the right target at the right time.  Your tank will worry about his survival again.  He’s not impossible, far from it.  He’s just a straightforward badass raid boss like the ones we used to know and love who requires a raid who can identify their arse from their elbow and he absolutely in no terms is going to go down to a PuG zerg.  He’s the kind of boss most of us have forgotten how to do.

How refreshing!  More like this please… oh wait.  That’s it??  Yep, I’m afraid he’s the end of current raid content in Wrath.  I’m hoping that he marks a change of pace in raid design however.  It’s likely that Blizzard designed the intial Wrath content as a big “Sorry for Burning Crusade being so hard” Christmas present.  Here are some loot pinatas for you to batter while we prep the serious stuff for a future patch, go ahead and have a laugh and gear up for the good stuff to come later.

I hope so.  I mean, I like chocolate and candy as much as the next person, but too much can leave you feeling a little sick before long.  Bring on Ulduar please!

Changes

Well I finally managed to get some toons onto the EU Public Test Realm, and while I realise this is all subject to change, I’m cautiously optimistic.  Allow me to explain.

We’ve been farming Brutallus in Sunwell Plateau for some time now.  I say “farming” him rather than saying he’s “on farm” since he’s anything but an easy fight.  When I came back to the game we’d downed him maybe twice, and I arrived back in the raid wearing Tier 5 gear.  It goes without saying that I was seriously undergeared for Sunwell, the other mages all had their 4 piece Tier 6 bonus, I didn’t even have a single piece and only had one BT-level ring that compared to their gear.  Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to get close to their gear level and within a  month I was sporting 4 pieces of my own Tier 6 with the gaps made up from badge loot and Zul’Aman gear.

But I still struggled to match their dps.  Well to cut a long story short, despite conflicting advice on the Elitist Jerks forums about the relative value of spell haste, I’m convinced that haste is the way to go.  The other mages had massive amounts of haste and lower hit and crit rating than me, and once I re-gemmed for haste I finally managed to get 1950 dps on Brtuallus.  Not as good as some, but enough to justifiy my raid spot.  It’s obviously not as simple as that alone, the group you’re in makes a HUGE difference to a mage, but this post isn’t about me improving dps on one fight, it’s about the new talent changes in the upcoming patch.

On the Test Realms last week, unbuffed, ungrouped and with sub-optimal enchants (+40 dmg rather than Soulfrost) I managed 2050 dps as a Frost Mage on Doctor Boom.  Compare that to a fully raid-buffed Fire Mage with the best group setup and all consumables getting 1950 dps. 

Impressed with the new Frost Talents yet?  I was. 

Arcane on the other hand, just seemed a bit “meh”.  In the same setup the best I could do was 1100dps.  Now I accept that you can’t expect to get the most from a new spec straight after visiting the trainer.  I also accept that it’s entirely possible I was using the wrong rotations or the wrong spell as my “filler” between Arcane Blasts (I was using Frostbolts).  Perhaps I should even have been using Arcane Barrage instead of Blast around my filler spells.  All of this may be true, but even so, 1k dps vs 2k dps seems like it can’t be explained by crappy rotations alone.  If there are any other Arcane Mages out there with a different experience, please feel free to point out what I’m doing wrong because I really, really want to like Arcane.

As for Fire, well I ran into a little problem testing Fire, in that I can’t get onto the PTR lately.  I did have a play around with Fire, but didn’t do any comprehensive testing.  Fire feels ok, but I’d like to do some dps tests to see exactly how it stacks up against Frost.

Meanwhile, The Mighty Jingles had a play around with Affliction.  I was just messing around, not doing any serious testing, but Affliction sure is complicated now!  It seems like you’re fighting your cooldowns rather than the mobs.  There are some nice talents in there, but some can be counterproductive, like your Shadowbolts resetting the timer on your Corruption, for example.  Sounds great on paper, but unless you time your Shadowbolts precisely you can end up resetting too early and losing DoT ticks.  It can actually lower your dps!  There’s just too much cooldown juggling going on there to be comfortable in my opinion.

Aluriel also popped over to the Test Realms and was immediately critted in the face by a wall of confusion.  Don’t get me wrong, the new Priest talents are lovely in my humble opinion, they’re not the issue.  Aluriel’s problem is that she doesn’t know what to wear!  Some of her healing gear seems like it would be better for dps, and some of her dps gear looks like it would be better for healing!  This is what I believe is referred to as “an embarrasment of riches”.  It’s quite a nice problem to have so I’m not complaining.  As far as the dreaded spell downranking nerf is concerned, Priests are better off than most in this department.  With the proper talents we can regain mana from overhealing, we can gain clearcasting at an increased rate and our Shadowfiends benefit immensely from the shared spellpower mechanic.  We can also, in a pinch, use the neglected max rank “Heal” rather than Greater Heal, which in Aluriel’s case, still heals for a reasonable 2k.  I’m pretty happy with the direction Priests are going, all in all.

After hearing good things about Protection Warriors I took the plunge and transferred Gorn over to the PTR too.  All of the rumours are true.  Protection is FUN!  In a mixture of Kara/Tier 4 epics and blue quest and reputation reward tanking gear, Gorn was storming through the Quel’danas dailies like a man possessed.  Shield Slams were critting for 2k,and they were critting regularly, as were Heroic Strikes and Devastates.  I’m not saying he’s anywhere near Calli’s dps, because he clearly isn’t, but grinding as a Protection spec warrior isn’t an exercise in having your teeth pulled anymore.  I’m predicting a happy, fun-filled future for tanks.  Oh, and Shockwave?  I want to marry it and have its babies.

Spell Downranking and Mana Cost Inflation

It seems there’s another beta build on the test servers and there’s a fairly massive change been slipped in. WoW Insider just reported that downranked spells now cost much more mana than maximum rank, sometimes more than 100 mana more than the highest rank.  How is this going to affect you?  Over to our panel of experts.  Calli, you first.

*yawn*  Oh sorry, you wanted a comment? Well I guess that on fights like Morogrim Tidewalker in Serpentshrine Cavern, Mages are going to have use max rank Frost Nova to root the murlocs in place and keep them away from the healers, assuming your raid uses that strategy and doesn’t have a tankadin or a Water Elemental to do it from a safe distance.  The increased damage is fairly trivial, so threat shouldn’t be an issue.  Can’t see anything to get excited about, personally.

Ow! Put the stick away!  Ok, ok..  pvp implications…  Well the days of spamming Rank 1 Arcane Explosion to flush Rogues and Kitties out of hiding are well and truly over.  Yes, the Rogues are rolling their faces all over their keyboards in utter glee at this one.  Rank 1 Frostbolt will probably still be used to get that initial snare off quickly but it’s probably going to be a lot more situational now, and the days of spamming Rank 1 Frostbolt to get that Winter’s Chill debuff up are probably long gone too.  Rank 1 Frost Nova in pvp is also dead and buried.  Speaking personally, I’m a raiding Fire Mage who’s already paid the pvp penance to get the trinket, so I have no need to either use downranked anything or pvp at all anymore.

Now on the other hand if I was a Frost Mage who did Arenas or Battlegrounds…  ouch.  Shinano, over to you.

Circle of LOL

So we’re in Sunwell Plateau and we get Kalecgos down without too much trouble. We’re a bit low on Decursers so it was hard work for Calli. The Trees had it even harder though, so I shouldn’t complain. Anyway, he dies, we don’t and the loot was so forgettable I can’t even remember what it was. Oh yeah, the raid leader got Fang of Kalecgos for the massive sum of 1 DKP since he was the only one who was interested.

So, on to Brutallus. Oh boy. The Fat Bastard is still giving us grief. In short, we didn’t down him, and we went back last night and still didn’t down him. We were having problems with healing the tanks through the Stomps, but last night that was all fixed and things were looking very promising. But you know those nights when people just can’t get their act together? Doesn’t matter which instance you’re in, it can happen to anyone. I did a Heroic Ramparts once with a group that was all in T5+ gear and it just wasn’t working at all. Yeah, last night was one of those nights. People were jumping Burns to each other, I got the calls wrong on the Meteor Slashes so the tanks were taunting too early, all the good stuff. On the bright side the healing is fixed and we definitely have the dps to spare to get him down again, we just need to gel and I’m confident he’ll go down again on Sunday.

Anyway, enough about that, this is supposed to be a Priest post! So we leave after the raid and all go our seperate ways. I’m busy in Dustwallow Marsh on Askara, my shaman (level 40 now, woop!) and one of the guys starts asking for a healer for a Karazahn PuG. I’ve PuG’d Kara before and it’s generally been anything ranging from either Ok to great, so I offer my help, free badges are always good, after all. Aluriel, my Priest is currently shadow, but Shinano is Resto so I log and get summoned. It’s a two-healer raid, both of us Trees, and we have no Shaman or Paladin. I look at all the dps and start to get a very, very bad feeling about Ressurrections. Sure enough, it’s one of those raids. In the first 6 pulls Shinano dies through aggro 4 times. I’d joined the raid just after Curator, so it’s a long old run back when neither of the two Warlocks thought that farming some soul shards or using a Soulstone might be a good idea. I start to get that sinking feeling.

So in an effort to try to prop things up a little, and despite the fact that I could really use the badges more on Shinano, I offer to log Aluriel and respec to healer. Within minutes, I find myself standing in front of the Priest trainer wondering where to spend my talent points.

Aluriel has always been Discipline/Holy. I levelled her to 70 when Burning Crusade came out as a Healer. It worked out pretty well, she just made her xp by doing instances, a healer who could actually, you know.. heal… was always in demand funnily enough. The downside of levelling as an Improved Spirit Priest was of course, that I’d never experienced Circle of Healing.

Now I know what they all say, you don’t need Circle of Healing in Karazahn, although it’s practically essential for anything higher than Serpentshrine Cavern. Yeah, I know, it’s overkill for a Kara raid, but I was interested in seeing what the new spec was like, and being able to afford 5/5 Empowered Healing would make up for the loss in healing from Improved Divine Spirit.

So, newly specced and with some confusing new icons on my casting bar, I head back into Kara and we get ready to pull Shade of Aran. Well, I say we “get ready” but what actually happens is that before we’ve even buffed or assigned interrupts, one of the warlocks does an accidental ninja pull. All hell breaks loose and it’s at this point that I became a convert. I tell ya, Circle of Healing is 100% pure, unmitigated WIN! I’m not knocking the other healer, she did a damn fine job, bless her leafy little branches, but Circle of Healing just owned on that fight.

The rest of the run was one cock up after another, but we sort of muddled through until the first wipe on Netherspite when I started to get really frustrated. Top tip guys, if you’re doing Netherspite with two healers and you get hit by Netherbreath, don’t stand around waiting for a healer to come running to your raggedy ass, because it ain’t going to happen. We covered one side of the room each, and if you’re not in range for a heal when you land after the breath hits you, GET in range, because you’re not the only one who needs heals and I’m not interrupting my cast to run halfway across the room because you didn’t have the sense to save your own ass! Oh yeah, and standing in Void Circles? COME ON! Get with the programme!

Ok, good to get that off my chest. Anyway, after wipe #1 I did the stroppy healer thing and laid down the law. You know, the whole “I’m indispensable and you clowns better start to focus or I’ll stamp my feet and cry” thing that Priests are so famous for. And bugger me if it didn’t work! The Warlocks in the Blue Beam actually started using Drain Life to give themselves a chance of surviving instead of spamming Shadowlol bolts, the rotations went perfectly and the boss dropped dead before I even noticed. Literally. It was like that Ramparts run I described earlier, the group had the numbers on paper to make the run trivial, but the synergy just wasn’t there and it just needed a swift boot up the behind to get people focussing on their game again. As for Prince? Pfft, despite the bloody infernals landing on the tank’s head each and every time, we one-shotted him. It’s always nice when a plan comes together.

And Circle of Healing? I love you and I want to have your babies.