Category Archives: Raiding

Healing Throne of Thunder – Halls of Flesh-Shaping

Posted on May 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

Here are some tips for healing the third section of Throne of Thunder as a Resto Druid, including the best time to use cooldowns and which talents and symbiosis targets are optimal for each fight.

First, a few general tips:

Feline Swiftness is the level 15 talent that I recommend on most fights.
Nature’s Swiftness is the level 30 talent I recommend for any fight. Remember the cooldown is only 1 minute. It makes your next heal instant, 50% bigger and mana-free, so use it often.
The major glyphs I usually recommend are: Glyph of Wild Growth, Glyph of Lifebloom and Glyph of Regrowth.
For the good of the raid, using Symb on a tank is a good bet in most cases (a Paladin or Warrior would be my last choice since, really, who wants Cleanse or Intimidating Roar on a boss fight?) If you use this on a DK or a Monk, be sure to use IBF or Fortifying Brew during the encounter.
Carry lots of Tome of the Clear Mind. Which talents are strongest can change from fight to fight. It you want to maximize your healing potential, you will be changing talents often.

Durumu

Durumu tests everyone’s ability to stay out of the bad. The first phase is fairly simple to execute with minimal raid damage and only a few bad things to avoid. The second phase is tougher as the raid needs to learn how to handle 3 different coloured beams that split damage between anyone standing in them. The raid needs to be split between the three different beams while looking for Crimson Fogs to uncover and kill and avoiding uncovering Azure Fogs. The fights also features a somewhat evil maze running phase.

Here are the major damaging abilities to be aware of:

Durumu

The tank will be taking damage from Hard Stare, which applies two debuffs. Serious Wounds reduces healing taken by 10% per stack, requiring tank swaps (or a Pally tank who can clear all these stacks often). Arterial Cut is a DoT that will stay on the tank until they are healed to full.
Lingering Gaze will launch a shadowbolt at random players which will leave a small void zone on the ground. Damage from this is minimal as long as people don’t stand in the void zones.
Life drain will target a random player and channel a damaging spell on them for 15 seconds. The damage increases over time and the player is stunned during the channel. This needs to be intercepted by other players before the damage gets too high. The target will need some heavy healing.
Durumu also casts Force of Will, but people just need to get out of it (or die) you can’t heal them through it.

Light Spectrum

Three beams will spawn on random players. Each beam will do significant damage, split among the players inside it. In addition each beam applies a stacking debuff, increasing damage taken by that beam so damage will increase as the phase goes on.
The tanks will continue to be hit by Hard Stare through this phase.

Maze

During the maze, there are three sources of damage to worry about. Eye Sores are the dark purple patterns on the floor, which do very heavy damage per second to anyone standing in them. Mind Daggers do moderate, constant damage to random players. Lingering Gaze needs to be avoided as much as possible, though the void zones will likely be in the maze path at least some of the time.
If you get hit by the Disintegration Beam, you die.

The damage in this fight comes in waves. Light Spectrum and the Maze can be quite healing intensive, while the phases in between give you a bit of a break.

As always, keep up full HoTs on the active tank. During the first phase, the only other thing to heal really is the minor damage people take when targeted by Lingering Gaze. During Light Spectrum, the damage gets more intense. Use WG on cooldown, use Mushrooms when you can, and try to keep Efflorescence down. in spots where people will stay for more than a few seconds (like on people in the blue beam who will not be moving, or under people in the red beam when it is stopped on a Crimson Fog).

The maze has a lot of damage going out. I try to keep Efflorescence down in melee as they will stay in it for longer. Use WG on cooldown, don’t be stingy with Rejuvs.

Talents

Level 60 - Incarnation for sure. It’s amazing for the maze.

Level 90 - I like Heart of the Wild for this fight. There is almost no damage going out at the start, so you can take time to do some damage.

Symbiosis

I use Symbiosis on a Shaman so I can use Spiritwalker’s Grace before I cast Tranq.

Cooldowns

Wild Mushroom – I set up Mushrooms where the Blue beam will be positioned (my raid has set spots for each beam to go and the Blue one doesn’t move). They can be bloomed during each Light Spectrum phase.

Tranquility - Use during Light Spectrum (closer to the end of the phase). If you can, use Spiritwalker’s Grace first so you can move while casting.

Incarnation - Use during the maze. Take full advantage of being able to have multiple LBs up and cast Regrowth while running.

Ironbark - Use on the active tank when their Serious Wounds debuff is getting high (4-5 stacks). You could also use this on Life Drain targets.

HotW - Use at the start of the fight when there is very little damage going out.

Stampeding Roar – Use during the maze to help people get away from the beam faster and negate the slowing effect from running though Lingering Gaze.

Primordius

I don’t have a lot of interesting tips for this fight. My raid has been doing it the easy (read: mega boring) way for a long time. This method involves not killing any oozes and turning the fight into a tank & spank. The boss stays in the middle of the room and the raid spreads out around him.

Here are the major damaging abilities to be aware of:

The tank will be taking damage from Primordial Strike and Malformed Blood, which is a stacking DoT. Swaps will be needed.

As oozes reach Primordius, he will evolve and gain new abilities. He will have up to two of these at a time.

Ventral sacs does constant, low levels of damage to the whole raid for as long as it is active.
Gas Bladder splits a large amount of damage between anyone within 25 yards of Primordius.
Acidic Spines do heavy damage to random players which spalshes to anyone within 5 yards.
Pathogen Glands puts a DoT on a random player which deals heavy damage over 10 seconds. They will need focused healing.
Erupting Pustules does very heavy damage to people every 10 seconds. This damage splashes to anyone within 2.5 yards. This is the worst ability of the bunch and can easily wipe out people if they are too close together.

Keep up full HoTs on the active tank. Erupting Pustules are the only really damaging ability during the fight. Otherwise the fight is very dull.

Talents

Level 60 - Incarnation or SotF are both fine.

Level 90 - Heart of the Wild.

Symbiosis

I use Symbiosis on a tank, usually a Monk or DK so I have an extra cooldown to use.

Cooldowns

Wild Mushroom – Mushrooms are really buggy on this fight. When I place them in the circle in the middle of the room they have a tendency to disappear. Because of this, I set them up outside that circle and try to get them in range of a few ranged/healers.

Tranquility - Erupting Pustules and Acidic Spines are the most damaging abilities, so use Tranq while one of those mutations is active.

Ironbark - Use on the active tank when their Malformed Blood debuff is getting high (8-9 stacks). You could also use this on Pathogen Glands targets.

HotW - Use at the start of the fight when there is very little damage going out.

Dark Animus

This fight features a ton of adds that need to be controlled and killed in the correct way and it can be quite chaotic.

Here are the major damaging abilities to be aware of:

Golems

During the first part of the fight, everyone will be tanking an Anima Golem. They do hit fairly hard, but have a very slow swing timer, so keeping everyone healed up is not difficult. The danger comes from Acceleration Link – if 2 Golems get too close together their damage goes up an incredible amount and they’ll make short work of any non-tank. So don’t let them get close together.
Your tanks will soon have Massive Anima Golems to contend with. These do more melee damage plus cast Explosive Slam in front of them.
Matter Swap is the biggest nuisance in this fight. This is a dispellable debuff that lasts 12 seconds. When the debuff wears off or is dispelled, the affected player has their position swapped with that of the raid member who is farthest away from them at the time. Damage equal to the affected player’s maximum health is split between the two players, with the portion of damage that the other player takes increasing the longer the debuff remains on the affected player. To deal with this, people with the debuff should be topped off then dispelled when there is 6-8 seconds left on the debuff.

Dark Animus

When the Dark Animus activates, he starts syphoning off energy from any golems still active in the room. He also gains new abilities based on how much anima he has.

Touch of the Animus is a debuff on a random raid member, which deals a moderate amount of Fire damage every 5 seconds for the rest of the fight.
Anima Ring creates a ring of spheres around his current target (the tank), which closes in on the target. Coming in contact with a sphere consumes it, applying a stack of a debuff that increases damage taken from melee attacks by 50% for 15 seconds. My raid has melee step in and soak a sphere so the tank can get out unharmed.
Anima Font causes one of the players debuffed by Touch of the Animus to also deal damage to allies in a small area around them.
Interrupting Jolt deals a large amount of raid-wide Nature damage, and it interrupts the spellcasting of any players (also silencing them for 8.5 seconds) who are in the middle of a cast at the time. In my raid, he’s always dead before he gains this ability.
If he reaches 100 Energy he casts Full Power, which will quickly wipe the raid.

In phase 1 raid damage is low. WG and a few Rejuvs is more than enough to keep up anyone in range. As the Massive Golems activate, keep HoTs on whichever tank is in range. Your focus should be on topping up those with the Matter Swap debuff and dispelling at the correct time (6-8 stacks).

Once Dark Animus is active you will have both him (it?) to worry about, plus one of your tanks will still be tanking a Massive Anima Golem. The Golem tank will be taking more damage due to the debuff from Explosive Slam, so swaps (or clever kiting) may be required. I keep LB up on the Golem tank and focus raid healing on those with Matter Swap or Touch of the Animus. If people are doing their jobs right (not standing in Anima Font or in front of Massive Golems) there’s not actually that much to heal aside from tank damage and Matter Swap.

Talents

Level 60 - Incarnation or SotF are both fine. I lean towards Incarnation so I can keep LBs on both tanks for some of the fight.

Level 90 - Heart of the Wild so you can do some damage to your Anima Golem.

Symbiosis

I use Symbiosis on a tank, usually a Monk or DK so I have an extra cooldown to use.

Cooldowns

Wild Mushroom – Mushrooms aren’t great on this fight. I set them up around myself and others close to me before the pull in case I need a quick heal while tanking the golem.

Tranquility - I use this as an emergency heal while Dark Animus is active. There’s no specific time when many people in the raid are taking heavy damage, so I use it reactively after people take unnecessary damage or a particularly nasty set of Matter Swaps.

Incarnation – Use at some point during phase 2.

Ironbark - Use on the Massive Golem tank. Alternatively you can use it on someone with Matter Swap who doesn’t have many of their own cooldowns.

HotW - Use at the start of the fight to put out some decent damage on your Golem.

Happy healing!

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Posted in Druid, Glyphs, Healing, Raiding, Strategy, Talents & Spells, Throne of Thunder

Tagged durumu, primordius

Progress vs. Gear

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 20 Comments

How much raid time should be dedicated to farming for gear from bosses you’ve already killed and how much should be dedicated to learning and defeating new encounters?

I’m sure that’s a question that has plagued many raid and guild leaders. I’m also sure the answer depends on the type of guild. Blood Legion’s not going to clear through an instance multiple times on normal when they could be working on a new kill. Likewise, a more ‘casual’ guild is going to want, and maybe even need, that extra gear before they progress further in a lot of cases.

My guild falls somewhere in the middle of those two examples. We finished Tier 14 at 8/16H.

In Tier 14 we cleared all normal modes before doing any heroic modes. We did kill Heroic Stone Guard only a couple days after defeating Sha of Fear, but we never took a detour from normal mode content in HoF, for example, to work on MSV heroics. When I asked our raiders for feedback at the end of the tier, one of the most common responses I got was that we had spent too much time farming for gear and not enough time pushing progression. Noted.

In Tier 15 we’re currently sitting at 1/13H. This tier is a bit different than last. While Tier 14 consisted of 3 smaller raids, Tier 15 is one big raid. In Tier 14 if we wanted more time to work on a new hard mode in Heart of Fear we could skip one of the other raids for the week. We can’t do that in Throne of Thunder. With only 9 hours of raiding each week, we need to make some harder decisions about how we’ll be spending our raid time. At this point, it would take us about 1.5 raid nights (raids are 3 hours each) to fully clear on normal. I think we will get more efficient at that, but that’s where we’re at right now. Plus, repeating heroic kills will generally take a bit longer, so we want to give a bit of a time buffer so we can be sure to get all the way through Lei Shen.That only leaves us 3 hours (we can maybe push this to 4) to work on new things. That’s really not a lot of time.

Since so many people had said they wanted to spend more time on progression this tier, the officers tried to make good on that. The week after our first Lei Shen kill we spent half a raid on Heroic Jin’rokh, then went through the rest of the raid on normal to ensure we got a repeat kill of Lei Shen. My idea of just working on H. Jin’rokh until he was dead, even if that meant not full clearing that week, was outvoted. In hindsight, probably a good thing. The next reset we decided that we would keep our raid lockout for 2 weeks so we could spend a good 3-4 raids on progression fights, before wrapping up normal modes at the end of the following week. I thought this was the best idea. Everyone in the raid had a Lei Shen kill and everyone in the raid wanted to progress through this tier faster (I thought).

Apparently not. It seems, to some people, that farming for gear is more important than progress at this point. The officers got a number of complaints about how we were ‘wasting’ our raid lockout.

I think I have a pretty good idea about the capabilities of our raid. Yes, gear always helps, but having the best possible gear is not a requirement for getting down heroic bosses, especially the early ones. If we were failing dps checks, then definitely, we need more gear. But that’s almost never been our problem. More gear doesn’t make people not stand in Rockfall or hit their Crystal Shield at the right time. Practice does. (Also, if I’m going to upgrade my gear, I’d rather upgrade it to heroic gear).

You can’t please all the people all the time. But I try to. At this point I don’t know if anyone, besides the officers, liked the idea of extending the lockout. Because really, no one sends feedback when they’re happy about something, only when they have something to complain about.

So that brings us back to the original question. How do you split your raid time so your raiders get gear, but you can still make progress at a good pace? Where’s that magic point where doing farm content every week is no longer necessary? Do you wait for everyone to have their 4-set before you start extending lockouts or skipping normal mode kills? Until everyone has weapons? Until Lei Shen gives me that trinket I want?

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Posted in Gear, Guilds, Raiding, Rant

Tagged gear, progress

Evaluating Discipline Priests with World of Logs

Posted on March 20, 2013 | 12 Comments

The second part of my updated Guide to Evaluating Healers with World of Logs focuses on Discipline Priests. Thank you to the awesome Derevka of Tales of a Priest, who reviewed the post and shared some of his Priestly knowledge with me.

(This post may be easier to read, with less squishy pictures, over on the guide page).

Here are specific things to look for when analyzing discipline priest logs. It’s best to look at specific kills or attempts in order to get meaningful numbers.

Healing Done

Discipline priests are the masters of mitigation. They are great tank healers but are also capable of putting out a huge amount of absorbs on the raid through Spirit Shell, DA and PW:S. Disc Priests have a wide variety of spells and cooldowns to manage.

Healing by Spell

Spell selection – Is the priest using the appropriate spells?

Priests have: Heal, Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Penance, Atonement, Power Word: Shield, Spirit Shell, Prayer of Healing, Prayer of Mending, Renew, Divine Aegis (passive effect), and one of Cascade, Halo or Divine Star (Tier 6 talents).

Top Spells

With few exceptions, Spirit Shell and Divine Aegis should be a Disc Priest’s top heals. Spirit Shell is extremely powerful when used correctly. Atonement and Power Word: Shield should be up there as well. On fights with lots of raid damage, the Tier 6 talent (usually Cascade) should also provide a lot of healing.

Spells that may show not show up in the logs much – or at all – include:

Flash Heal: For lesser geared healers, Flash Heal should be used in emergencies only since it is extremely inefficient. For healers who are overgeared and/or have access to a lot of mana cooldowns, it may show up more frequently.
Renew: This spell is very weak for Disc Priests. It may be rolled on a tank or cast on the move, but overall it should not make up a significant portion of healing done.
Heal: Though Heal is very efficient, it does relatively little healing. Priests may not use it in favour bigger, more expensive heals.

Notes on specific spells:

Power Word: Shield

Power Word: Shield should be kept up on the tank(s), or cast on anyone else taking very heavy raid damage. PW:S should be cast often – at least every 12 seconds for the Rapture proc, but usually more often than that. You want to see fairly low overhealing on this.

Penance
Penance is a fairly cheap heal that hits 3 times in rapid succession. It is an excellent way to get a 3-stack of Grace up on a target, and is also great for Atonement heals. This should be used close to on cooldown (cooldown is 9 seconds). Priests should be using Penance more for Atonement healing than direct healing.

Power Word: Solace

On most fights, you want to see that Priests have taken (and are using) Power Word: Solace as their Tier 3 talent. It provides a free, instant, smart heal so is great in terms of both HPS and HPM. It has a 10-second cooldown and should be used often.

The only reason for a Disc Priest to not take PW:Solace is if the extra damage from Mindbender is really needed.

Atonement

Atonement in the healing by spell tab

Atonement healing in the damage by spell tab

There are three spells Priests can cast offensively that cause Atonement healing: Penance, Smite and Holy Fire (or Power Word: Solace, depending on talent choices). To see how these spells are being used, check the damage by spell tab. Penance is the most efficient, powerful heal and should appear at the top of damage done, followed by Smite, then Holy Fire/PW:Solace.

Cascade
Cascade will be a Disc Priests tier 6 talent of choice in most situations. It’s a smart heal that heals 15 people and has only a 25 second cooldown. You should see this used often and providing a fair amount of healing on any fight where the raid is taking significant damage.

Prayer of Mending
Priests should be casting this on cooldown so it should provide a fair bit of their healing. With the 2T15 bonus, PoM should account for even more.

Void Shift

This is a newer cooldown for Priests that allows them to switch their health with the health of their target. It’s not something that will be used on cooldown or anything, but it you should see it used at least a few times over the course of a raid. Check the amount healed (it should be high per cast) to see if the Priest is faster with VS than your Pallies are with LoH. There is a slight delay in the health exchange after this has been cast.

Buffs Cast

This screen will tell you how often a priest is using their cooldowns, along with the uptime on key abilities.

Prayer of Mending – PoM should be cast on cooldown and be up as much as possible. 80%+ uptime is a good target for most fights. However, if the fight has people constantly taking damage (like Tortos) it will likely run out of charges before the cooldown is up again and the uptime will be lower (probably around 60%.)

Grace – With Disc Priests’ focus on Atonement healing, Grace is a bit of an outdated mechanic. If the Priest is strictly assigned to tank healing, you want to see Grace up on that target all the time. However, since Discs are such powerful raid healers, Grace uptime is likely to be low and not something to worry too much about. Grace should have a higher uptime in 10s than 25s.

Archangel – Archangel consumes stacks of Evangelism, giving 5% increased healing per stack. It has a 30 second cooldown and lasts 18 seconds, so the maximum uptime is 60%, though it won’t be up this often in practice. You want to see the Priest using Archangel often throughout the fight, and only when they are at 5 stacks of Evangelism.

To see how Evangelism and Archangel are being lined up, click the # beside both. Hovering over the Evangelism bars will show how many stacks it was at. You want to see 5 stacks before the Archangel bar lights up.

Inner Focus – Inner Focus makes your next spell cost less mana and a guaranteed crit. It has a 45 second cooldown and should be used often. A good practice is to use Inner Focus before a PoH while Spirit Shell is active.

Clicking the # next to Inner Focus and Spirit Shell will show you if these things are being lined up, as they are in the example above.

Inner Sanctum / Inner Will – One of these should be up all the time. However, if the Priest casts one of these before the fight begins and never switches it, it won’t show up here.

Hymn of Hope – Hymn of Hope restores mana to the raid and should be used on every fight. It has an 8 minute cooldown. You should see 12 ticks to indicate that it was channelled for the full duration.

Pain Suppression – Pain Suppression has a three-minute cooldown. Its use will often be prescribed by the raid leader. You should see PS used 1-3 times on most fights, depending on length.

Power Infusion (optional talent) – Power Infusion reduces casting time and the cost of spells. It has a 2 minute cooldown. It should be used often. Pairing it with Spirit Shell can make a very powerful combo.

Trinkets – If the priest has any on-use trinkets, or racials like Arcane Torrent they should be used as much as possible. Compare the cooldown to the amount of times used.

Other things to look for

There are a few important things that won’t show up under Healing Done or Buffs Cast, and you’ll have to look for them using the Expression Editor.

Power Word: Barrier

To find out how often PW:B is used, you need to use the Expression Editor. Go to Dashboard > Expression Editor and add in the following (replace the sourceName with the name of the priest):

sourceName = "Priest" and (Spell = "Power Word: Barrier")

This will show you how many times PW:B was cast. If you want more details, such as how many people were affected by the Barrier, just use (Spell = “Power Word: Barrier”) as the query.

Shadowfiend
This restores mana to the priest and does some damage too. Shadowfiend has a 3 minute cooldown. Paste in the following query (replace the sourceName with the name of the Priest):

sourceName = "Priest" and (Spell = "Shadowfiend")

If the Priest has specced into Mindbender, it has only a 1 minute cooldown. Paste in the following query (replace the sourceName with the name of the Priest):

sourceName = "Priest" and (Spell = "Shadowfiend")

No matter which ability the Priest has, you should see it used first within about a minute of the start of the fight and then again whenever it’s off cooldown.

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Posted in Guides, Healing, Priest, Raiding, Talents & Spells, World of Logs

Tagged archangel, atonement, cascade, cooldowns, inner focus, Penance, power word: solace

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Posted on February 25, 2013 | 6 Comments

Last night, Apotheosis killed Will of the Emperor on 25-man Heroic mode. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult fight we had encountered this tier. Hell, it was probably the most difficult fight we had ever encountered as a guild. I know it may just seem that way since it’s fresh in my memory, but I’m pretty sure it was tougher to execute than Heroic Spine or Blackhorn by the time we got to them, and nothing from T11 or 12 that we tackled (we didn’t really work on H. Ragnaros) sticks out as being this hard.

It took us more than 100 attempts over 7 raid nights to get this boss down. We changed strats often. Kill Rages 8 at a time, kill every pack, now back to 8. The strategy that finally worked for us was to kill packs of 4 or 8 during the first round then CC and kill all 12 at a time in between each add break period.

Heroic Will is a complex fight that requires a ton of organization. We need a CC order any time we’re controlling Rages. We need 4 tanks (2 on bosses and 2 on Strengths). We need slows assigned to Courages. Every dps needs a primary target (Rages? Courages? Strengths? Bosses?), then they need a secondary target when theirs isn’t up or is being CC’d. We need assigned Spark soakers. Hunters can soak every pack of Rage Sparks, the Strength tanks can soak their Sparks, a Rogue and Moonkin can soak the Courage Sparks – oh but wait, the Moonkin’s won’t be up for the middle one, he’ll need externals or a backup soaker. Then we need extra backups to Soak in case anything gets missed. The only part of this fight that did not require an inordinate amount of organization was the healing, for which I am grateful.

On top of the organization, execution needs to be pretty close to perfect. Lose focus for one second and stand too close to a Spark – you’re dead. Dance with the boss and mistime the swings – you’re dead. Stand next to a pack of Rages who are rooted – you’re dead. Pop your cooldown a second too late or early while soaking Sparks – you’re dead. Strength gets away from its tank and does a smash – a few people are likely dead. A second late on your Ring of Frost or Gorefiend’s Grasp on the Rages – they go everywhere and soon everyone is dead.

The thing about this fight I didn’t like was that it really required some degree of class stacking. When I asked people for tips when we were going into this fight, having a couple DKs for Gorefiend’s Grasp to control the Rages was always mentioned. Problem – we have one DK on our roster. I’m really not a fan of bringing alts into raids. I don’t think we should have to, and I don’t think it’s fair to anyone. However, after nights of failed attempts, I finally gave in and we had one of our Monk healers switch to his DK (whom he had raided on throughout Cata). We still had a ways to go after this, but controlling Rages got much better. Killing the Rages and soaking the Sparks is 100x easier when each pack can be gripped into one spot – which is something that couldn’t be done with only one DK. The fight also requires a lot of Spark soakers. Hunters are optimal since they have a 100% deflection every minute. Shadow Priests are good too, though their cooldown is longer. Rogues can soak well. Feral Druids and Monks are good for soaking single Sparks. Through Symbiosis, Resto and Balance Druids can soak as well. Apoth has 2 Hunters, 1 Shadow Priest, 1 Rogue, 1 Feral, 1 Resto Druid, 1 Balance Druid. One night, both of our Hunters were unable to raid. Result? We were unable to even attempt to do Will. We probably could have worked out a complex rotation of Rage Spark soakers but it would have left us no backups and no room for error. I really wasn’t a fan of the roster restrictions this fight put on us.

This fight really wore on people. Spending whole raid nights where our attempts didn’t progress past the 4-minute mark because of a couple mistakes got frustrating quickly. The fight was exhausting and tired people make more mistakes. There was one point when I even considered whether to not we were capable of succeeding on this fight as a guild. Had we met our skill cap? When Bashiok said 5.2 was going to be released on February 26th I thought about how absolutely soul-crushing it would be for guild morale if we spent all this time on this fight and didn’t get a kill.

Thankfully, we had not reached our skill cap, and it felt pretty damn amazing to finally see those bastards go down and see the Cutting-Edge raid achievement pop up on my screen. I’m really proud of my guild for their persistence – fighting through a non-optimal roster, adapting to strategy changes until we found one that worked for us, not losing focus after a heartbreaking 800k wipe.

For me personally, Heroic Will was full of ups and downs. At first I was excited about the amount of utility I could offer the raid. Aside from knockbacks, and options for CC, HotW could let me help on dps during breaks, I could Symbiosis a hunter and Deterrence would let me help soak Sparks. But there was a problem. I was bad at soaking Sparks. No, I wasn’t just bad – I was fucking terrible. I’d use Deterrence too early and it would wear off before I hit the last Spark. Over our first two raid nights this happened a lot. Way too much. In my eagerness to help, I was only succeeding in killing myself half the time. I felt awful and like a complete and total failure. Hearing our raid leader sigh and say “Please rez Jasyla” so many times was terrible. Thankfully, I got better. Actually, that’s probably not the truth of it. The thing that made the biggest difference was that our controlled killing of Rages got much better. They died closer together, Sparks spawned closer together, Hunters were able to get them all without the need for backups. By our latter attempts I only occasionally had to soak 1 stray Spark on its own, and that I could handle.

If I can put aside my Spark shame for a moment, I’m pretty happy with how I did on our actual kill. (However, if you’re watching our kill video, ignore the part where I need a rez). I felt really useful. My healing was good. I never stopped moving as I bounced between our two Strength tanks, healing them up when they soaked a Spark. I was able to do a couple million damage with HotW during one of the break periods (in between running between the Strength tanks). I picked up Mass Entanglement and helped to control the first set of Rages after each break, affording our Mages some more dps time on the boss before they had to start CC’ing. I used Ursol’s Vortex to help CC later on. I even soaked a stray Spark (on purpose, without it killing me).

It was certainly a rough ride, but I’m so happy we managed to complete this really challenging fight. I feel more confident and more excited about entering T15 with Heroic Will under our belts.

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Posted in Achievements, Boss Fights, Observations, Raiding

Tagged apotheosis, deterrence, fail, kill, sparks, will of the emperor

Who Are You? (who who who who)

Posted on February 13, 2013 | 29 Comments

I spend a lot of time writing about my guild, my raid, my Druid, my healing habits on this blog. Now, I want to hear more about you! I want to know who is reading and what you’d like to see more of.

I went a bit poll-crazy here (that’s what she said), so please indulge me and let me know more about you and your guild.

Now tell me what you want (what you really, really want).

Thanks everyone! Feel free to tell me more in the comments.

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Posted in Guilds, Raiding

Tagged guilds, poll, Raiding

Timing is Everything

Posted on February 11, 2013 | 12 Comments

Today we got the news that patch 5.2 will be dropping in the last week of February. Usually, I’m not too critical of decisions made by Blizzard. In fact, I usually am on the verge of being a Blizzard apologist. This game has kept me interested and entertained for 7 years, there’s not much else I can say that about. But I have to say, sometimes their timing just sucks.

I think Tier 15 being released after less than 5 months is too soon. Much too soon. I would like some more time to work on T14 heroics, I feel like my raid can progress more before we run into a brick wall and are itching for the new tier to come out. And I don’t think we’re alone.

WoWProgress has tracked the progress of ~39,000 guilds. Of those, 29.5% have completed all normal modes and 1% have completed all heroic modes. This isn’t a lot. I think many guilds out there would benefit from a little more time in the current tier.

I had this exchange on Twitter once I learned about 5.2′s release date:

Releasing a new raid tier every 5 months is an admirable goal, but all raid tiers are not created equal. The quantity and quality of the content available need to be taken into consideration when deciding when to push out the next tier.

Let’s take Tiers 8 & 9 as an example. They were current content for roughly the same amount of time, but they shouldn’t have been. Ulduar was a beautifully designed, lore-rich raid instance with great boss fights and clever ways of accessing heroic modes. TotC was a single room with no trash mobs and only 5 unique fights. Three and a half months in Ulduar did not feel nearly long enough. Four months in TotC was enough to make me never want to step foot in that raid again.

Having only 5 months in the particular case of Tier 14 is problematic for three main reasons:

The tier is HUGE! 16 normal + 16 heroic encounters is a lot of bosses to work through, the most bosses we’ve ever had at one time. Five months isn’t enough.
Aside from the raids, players have had a ton of content to work on since the launch of Mists – gearing, rep grinds, dailies, lesser charms, dungeons, scenarios, challenge modes, new BGs, arenas, brawler’s guild, pet battles. Of course I can’t speak for everyone, but I feel like it’s only recently that I’ve had time to take a breath and spend more time doing non-raid related things or working on alts. There’s still a lot I’d like to do before jumping into the gear/valor grind to prepare myself for a new tier of content.
It means we’re going to be subjected to front-loaded raid content for the 3rd expansion in a row.

There has been a very obvious pattern for the release of raid content over the last 3 expansions:

The first tier of the expansion features a large number of unique raid bosses, spread out through multiple raid instances.
The middle tier(s) feature less raid bosses in less raid instances and are current for a shorter amount of time.
The last tier is a single raid instance and is current for a very long time before the next expansion is released.

Unless some major changes in priorities and allocation of resources has taken place in Mists, I’m anticipating these trends will continue and we’ll again be in the final tier for much longer than anybody wants to be.

When thinking about the ideal amount of time to spend in one raid tier before the next is introduced, we really need to consider how many encounters are in that tier. Let’s take a look at the amount of time each tier lasted and compare the length of time to the number of encounters available:

Tier 7 (5 months, 18 encounters – 3.6 encounters/month)
Tier 8 (3.5 months, 23 encounters 6.6 encounters/month)
Tier 9 (4 months, 11 encounters – 2.75 encounters/month)
Tier 10 (1 year, 26 encounters – 2.2 encounters/month)
Tier 11 (6.5 months, 25 encounters – 3.8 encounters/month)
Tier 12 (5 months, 14 encounters – 2.8 encounters/month)
Tier 13 (10 months, 16 encounters – 1.6 encounters/month)
Tier 14 (4.75 months, 32 encounters – 6.7 encounters/month)

*I’m counting heroic versions of bosses as their own encounters, and have not included world bosses or the bosses in VoA/TB*

I think that everyone can agree that 1 year in ICC and 10 months in Dragon Soul was way too long. By comparison, Tiers 8 and 14 were current for far too short a time. I think a good ratio for boss fights to months spent in a tier is around 4:1, though it also depends on difficulty. The raid tiers that are around this ratio (Tiers 7 and 11) are the ones that made me feel neither rushed, nor like I was sitting around waiting for new content for an inordinate amount of time.

Raid tier release timing could be much better. Just because PTR testing is complete, doesn’t mean you need to release the next raid content patch immediately. You can hold something back. Slow down the release of the first couple tiers (but keep working on the next!) so we don’t have to spend a year in the last one. Just imagine how much more enjoyable raiding in Wrath could have been if the release schedule had been just a little bit different. Spending 6 months in Naxx, 6 months in Ulduar and only 9 months in ICC certainly would have made my raid time in Wrath more fulfilling and resulted in much less burnout at the end.

Putting an end to Tier 14 so soon is a bad idea.

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Posted in Guilds, Observations, Raiding, Update

Tagged 5.2, Bashiok, raids, tier 14

Evaluating Holy Paladins with World of Logs

Posted on February 6, 2013 | 2 Comments

The second part of my updated Guide to Evaluating Healers with World of Logs focuses on Holy Paladins. Thank you to Jacii, one of Apotheosis’s amazing Pally healers for reviewing and contributing to the post.

(This post may be easier to read, with less squishy pictures, over on the guide page).

Here are specific things to look for when analyzing holy paladin logs. It’s best to look at specific kills or attempts in order to get meaningful numbers.

Healing Done

Paladins are great tank healers and are also very strong at healing the raid when they are grouped close together. They have a number of utility spells and cooldowns to juggle. Holy Paladins should be evaluating not just on their output but also how well they make use of their abilities.

Healing by Spell

There are a number of things to look for on this screen, including:

Spell selection – Is the paladin using all their available spells?

Paladins have: Divine Light, Holy Light, Beacon of Light, Holy Shock, Holy Radiance, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn, Lay on Hands, and passive healing from their Mastery – Illuminated Healing. They also have either Eternal Flame or Sacred Shield (level 45 talents) and one of Holy Prism, Light’s Hammer or Execution Sentence (level 90 talents). Healing from all of these spells should be seen on most fights. The only spell that is not typically used much is Flash of Light due to it’s poor mana efficiency (though it can be excellent on fights where mana doesn’t matter so much).

Top spells – A paladin’s top spells will vary based on the fight and their assignment, though Illuminated Healing will generally be at or near the top on any fight, along with Eternal Flame if the Pally has taken it. For fights that are heaviest on tank damage Beacon should be doing a lot of the healing. When the raid is grouped up, Holy Radiance will often be one of the top heals even if the paladin is assigned to tank heal.

Overhealing – Overhealing is dependent on spell. Spells like Beacon of Light and Holy Radiance will generally have high overheal, which cannot be avoided so it is not a useful metric to look at. However targeted, single target spells such as Divine Light and Holy Shock should be low on overheal.

Notes on specific spells:

Divine Light vs. Holy Light
Two slow, direct healing spells. Divine Light costs 3x the mana and heals for 3x as much and gives Holy Power if cast on the Beacon target. The amount these spells are used will depend on the fight and damage taken. Check the amount of overheal on these two spells. If the overhealing on Divine Light is too high (nearing or over 40%), the paladin may be wasting mana and should be relying more on Holy Light. Paladin have so many other spells to use, and group heals that transfer through Beacon that you may not see a lot of use of either of these spells.

Holy Shock

Holy Shock should be used on cooldown to maximize Holy Power gains. Though it won’t be on top in terms of healing done, it should be near the top in terms of number of times it is cast. It has a 6 second cooldown, or 4 seconds with 4T14. Compare the number of direct heals to the maximum number of times it can be cast.

Holy Radiance and Daybreak
Daybreak is a buff that you get every time you cast Holy Radiance. The buff will make your next Holy Shock cast within 6 seconds duplicate into a second heal that will heal all targets within 10 yards of the initial Holy Shock target. If Holy Radiance healing is high, but Daybreak doesn’t make up at least a few % of total healing, the Paladin is likely not using Holy shock appropriately.

Word of Glory (or Eternal Flame) and Light of Dawn

These are the spells that use up Holy Power. Word of Glory/Eternal Flame should be used more often when tank healing or people are spread out, while Light of Dawn becomes more useful as people are grouped up, or damage is more bursty. One of these spells (or a combination of them) should make up a significant portion (20%+) of total healing. If they don’t, the Paladin may not be using their Holy Power optimally.

Lay on Hands
The first thing to look for is whether Lay on Hands was used at all. In addition to providing a huge amount of healing, with Glyph of Divinity LoH also returns mana. Though it may not get used on every fight, it should be used on most fights. A lack of LoH over a raid night should set off warning bells.

Tier 3 Talents
Tier 3 gives Paladins a choice of 2 new healing spells (yes there are 3 options, but Selfless Healer is the wrong one).
Eternal Flame – This spell replaces Word of Glory, turning it into a 30 second heal over time. If the Pally has this talent, it should account for a lot of their healing, especially if they apply the HoT to as many raiders as possible. The HoTportion of Eternal Flame transfers to the Beacon at 50%.
Sacred Shield – This provides a shield (can only be on one person at a time) which absorbs damage every 6 seconds. If the Pally takes this talent, SS should be up on their primary target all the time.
You’ll also want to check the uptimes on these spells. (See next section)

Tier 6 Talents
Paladins get a choice of 3 new heals for their Tier 6 talent. These talents have very short cooldowns, and should be used often. Use can be delayed for predictable damage, or in combination with an output cooldown.

You should see healing from one of the following:
Stay of Execution (from the talent Execution Sentence) – Single target heal over time. 1 minute cooldown. This is a good choice on fights with very heavy tank damage. You can see the number of times this was cast on the Buffs Cast screen.
Holy Prism – Can be used as a single-target heal or a small area of effect heal. 20 second cooldown. This is the only option with a mana cost.
Arcing Light (from the talent Light’s Hammer) – An AoE ground heal that lasts 17.5 seconds. 1 minute cooldown. Light’s Hammer is a good choice on fights where the raid is grouped up and more AoE healing is needed. Light’s Hammer’s heals transfer to the Beacon target at a rate of 15%.

Buffs Cast

This screen will tell you how often a paladin is using their cooldowns, along with the uptime on key abilities.

Beacon of Light – Paladins’ signature ability. Should be up all the time. If it’s cast pre-pull and never put on a new target, Beacon will not show up here. Make sure Beacon healing is present in the Healing by Spell tab.

Eternal Flame – If specced into this, it should always be up. Look for 95%+ uptime.

Sacred Shield – If specced into this, it should always be up. There are two buffs that will show up for Sacred Shield. You want to look for spell ID 20925. Uptime should be 90%+.

Guardian of Ancient Kings – When activated, it will heal the target of your next 5 heals and everyone within 10 yards of them. 5 minute cooldown. Will generally only be used once per fight, but can be used more on long fights. This should be present on every boss fight. GoaK will show up as a pet on the Healing Done screen.

Avenging Wrath – Increases healing and damage by 20% for 20 seconds, 3 minute cooldown. This should be used often, generally 2-3 times per boss depending on the length of the fight.

Divine Favor – Increases haste and crit chance by 20% for 20 seconds, 3 minute cooldown. This should be used often, generally 2-3 times per boss depending on the length of the fight. Can be paired with AW for a super cooldown. Click the # next to each of these spells to see if they’re being used together or separately.

Holy Avenger (optional talent) – Makes Holy Power abilities do 30% more healing and generate more Holy Power for 18 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

Devotion Aura – Reduces magic damage by 20% and prevents silences and interrupts for 6 seconds. 3 minute cooldown. This should be seen on any fight with raid-wide magic damage. The chart will tell how many people were affected by it (which will include pets and things). Click the # next to the spell to see a when and how many times it was used.

Divine Protection – Reduces magic damage taken by 40%, 40 second cooldown. With the Glyph of Divine Protection, it will also reduce physical damage taken by 20%, and will reduce the magic reduction to 20% as well. This should be used often, whenever the Paladin is taking significant damage.

Divine Shield – Used in emergencies, it makes the Paladin invulnerable to damage. It won’t be used often, but if you find the paladin is often dying without ever using it, there is a problem. DS can be used with Hand of Sacrifice to prevent unfortunate deaths..

Hand of Sacrifice – This is great for times of heavy tank damage. Paladins should be making regular use of this. It has a 2-minute cooldown, but if specced into Clemency, the spell can be cast twice before incurring a cooldown.

Hand of Salvation/Protection/Freedom – These are situational spells. They probably won’t be used too often, but I see their proactive use as a sign of excellent raid awareness.

Hand of Purity (optional talent) - If the Pally is specced into it, you should see it used on fights with hard hitting DoTs (like bleeds or magic effects). It has a 30 second cooldown.

Trinkets – If the paladin has an on-use trinket equipped, check the cooldown on it and the amount of times used. They should be used the maximum amount possible.

Seal of Insight – Has a chance to give mana back on melee swings. Should have 100% uptime. This does not always show up under buffs. If it doesn’t, check the Power Gains table on the Buffs Cast screen. Since the paladin will not always have the opportunity to melee the boss, this may not be a big source of mana.

Divine Plea – Restores mana over 9 seconds at the cost of reduced healing, 2 minute cooldown. If glyphed, the spell has no healing penalty, but a 5 second cast time. This should be used often. If a paladin complains about running oom, but doesn’t use this close to on cooldown, there is a problem.

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Posted in Guides, Healing, Paladin, Raiding, Talents & Spells, World of Logs

Tagged cooldowns, eternal flame, Healing, holy shock, lay on hands, light of dawn, paladin, world of logs