Archive for May, 2012
Diablo, WoW, and Expansion Blues
Calestria, Demon Hunter fighter for New Tristram was born(created) May 15 2012 at 0001 hrs. Since then she’s been battling error 37 and the evil minions from Hell. Slowly but surely she’ll confront Diablo and earn the completion achievement. All RP aside I’m having a blast playing Diablo 3 and am so happy I rolled a Demon Hunter. Its so different from the Holy Paladin I play in World of Warcraft. Instead of concerning myself with the health and well being of 24 other players, I get to just worry about my own hide. Well maybe also my Templar companion aka “He who is a couple cards short of a full deck”. Standing back and firing away with my dual crossbows while casting my defensive spells is really loads of fun. So so long ago I played Diablo 1 so I’m very familiar with the Dungeon Crawler style of game. Being busy with job, family, and other games I missed out on Diablo 2, so when it was announced that May 15th was the release date for D3, I knew that this was the break I needed from WoW. Now I didn’t just quit my favorite mmo for years to come but Diablo has put my typical grind and farmfest of alts on hiatus. Tues-Thurs are still my Raid nights but my Ret/PvP Paladin alt will have to sit at level 75 for the time being, until I get my fill of Diablo. Because I live a pretty busy life I can’t dedicate a lot of playtime hours to D3 so Ive been leveling and going through the ACTS at a slow pace, which is alright for me. I’m really trying to get into the storyline and experience all areas of this incredible world at my own pace. I’m currently sitting at level 25 near the end of ACT 2. I’d have to say level 1-20 was pretty easy. Stand there and shoot at things while my Templar companion ran around hitting them with his mace and shield. Now past 20 sitting at level 25, things aren’t that simple, even in Normal Mode. I actually have to move around while repositioning myself in safe areas and trying to grab life orbs just to stay alive. I’m also having to change my weapon and magic attacks depending on the mobs and/or bosses. Fun Times I say! So the plan is to try and get through every class on Normal mode before WoW’s next expansion Mists of Pandaria is released. As far as doing D3 in Nightmare and Inferno mode, lets just say its not a priority at this time.
Calestria: Demon Hunter
I so wanted to try something completely new and different from what I was used to in WoW, healing, so ranged DPS seemed like a really good choice. Liking the intro Blizzard did for the Demon Hunter class at Blizzcon 2010, I decided to give it a shot. So far I’m not disappointed I chose this class for my first run through. Using my Templar companion as sort of a Tank, and Spider pet as a melee DPS, I can stand back and shoot my arrows from a safe distance using my Duel Crossbows. When things get tight I have a few offensive and defensive skills to use in order to get myself out of sticky situations. Thank heavens for the automatic saves we get in game for I am taking full advantage of my self rez’s at last check point saved 🙂 Now I know that some people have chosen to use the Templar as a healer but because of all the gripes and complaints I saw on Twitter I decided to put him in a more expendable position and rely on my own set of skills to keep myself alive. As long as I have some potions at hand, position myself strategically, and get to life orbs when possible, I do ok most of the time. If things get really ugly I “run for dear life” and keep firing away. Most importantly I upgrade the gear to me and my Templar companion whenever possible.
(Hatred)Attack Skills :
Entangling Shot- Entangling Shot is a Primary Demon Hunter skill unlocked at Level 3. It is a spear-like projectile that binds the target, and nearby targets, in chains which slow their speed. I like to use this on the 6-8 mobs that are attempting to kill me. Coupled with Cull the Weak(Damage against slowed enemies increased by 15%, Passive Skill) I can take out quite a few mobs before they get close to me.
Rapid Fire– Rapid Fire is a Secondary Demon Hunter skill unlocked at Level 5. It unleashes projectiles in rapid succession at enemies, dealing increased damage. These are the big guns I pull out to help take down some of the big guys. Its a rapid fire machine gun type attack that can eat through your Hatred so be careful. With Steady Aim(As long as there are no enemies within 10 yards, all damage is increased by 20%) this pumps out a ton of damage and kill shots.
Multishot- Multishot is an Archery Demon Hunter skill unlocked at Level 22. The Demon Hunter shoots a fan of arrows or bolts. When demons or monsters get too close I’ll fire off a Multishot round then try to reposition myself in a safe spot. Deals around 165% weapon damage. Perfect for those up close and personal moments 🙂
(Discipline)Defense Skills:
Companion- The Demon Hunter summons a pet raven that attacks enemies every few seconds. With only one Rune I can Summon a spider instead of a raven. The spiders attacks also slows the movement of targets by 50% for 6 – 8 seconds. Another way of slowing all the monsters that want to kill me.
Sentry- The Demon Hunter drops an automated turret that immediately begins firing at nearby enemies as a % of the Demon Hunter’s weapon damage. This turret attack is incredible for defending me against multiple packs of monsters. So far I have been trying to drop this in front of me at entry ways ripping the enemy to shreds as they enter the bottle neck.
Shadow Power- Draw in the power of the shadows, gaining 20% of all damage done as Life for 3 seconds. As long as I have enough Discipline I try and keep this up when being attacked by large groups. Really helps to keep my health up when taking unavoidable damage.
Basically this has been my main strategy and tactic thus far in ACT 2. Whether it works for the last 2 ACTS, we’ll see, however I don’t mind changing things up from time to time. Makes the game that much more fun.
World of Warcraft
My guild is still plugging away at Dragon Soul Heroic 25. We’re 4/8 Heroic modes soon to be 5/8 contending with Heroic Zon’ozz. All the way up through Heroic 3/8 we were plugging away at a nice casual pace but about six to seven weeks ago we hit the old burnout phase where we weren’t getting full 25 signups and our progression started to slow down. Got even worse after Diablo 3 came out(Imagine That 🙂 ). Our hardworking GM who is determined to continue as a 25 person raid team had to go out and recruit more DPS to fill the spots. Problem is, this late into the expansion, most geared applicants want a guild that is 8/8 Heroics. So we’ve had to grab some DPS that were slightly under geared and never stepped into Heroic DS. There is nothing wrong with this for they’ve turned out to be great raiders and fun people to play with, its just that our progression has slowed down when certainly we could have been 8/8 by now. Oh yes, that wasn’t a type error, we are usually Healer heavy and low on the DPS signups which is why I’ve spec’d into Retribution as my off spec instead of duel Holy. So slowly but surely Knights of Tranquility will plug away at Heroics and I have no doubt whatsoever that we’ll be 8/8 Heroic 25 before MoP goes live 🙂 Just to throw this out there but if any decent raiders, specifically ranged DPS who are looking for a 25 person raid team of nice and focused people to complete Dragon Soul Heroics with, come checkout our website at http://kotguild.shivtr.com/
Expansion Blues
Just like it was near the end of Wrath of the Lich King expansion a lot of people are getting tired of the same old thing and feeling burned out. This is expected and as mentioned above can test the skills of a GM and/or recruitment officer. Like most I’m feeling those expansion blues. Several things that at least work for me are: 1) Level a new alt (perhaps opposite faction side) 2) Finish leveling my secondary professions like cooking and fishing 3) Work on a few achievements pertaining to Quests, Pets, and World Exploration 4) PvP(Healing in here is a blast). This has always kept me busy until the next expansion and I understand what works for me isn’t always what works for others, I’m just throwing out a few suggestions. If in game ideas don’t workout for you perhaps try a new game all together in your free time like : 1) Diablo 3(AWESOME) 2) SWtOR (at least leveling is fun I hear) 3) TERA (new mmo I’ve heard great things about). Even though I’m slightly burned out on Cataclysm the one thing that has kept me in game are the friends I have in guild and our Raid nights. I am still enjoying the comaraderie and teamwork it takes to take down bosses. We have such a unique melting pot of folks who like to have fun but take their raiding serious so it constantly keeps you on your toes and for that I will always continue to signup 🙂
Like always, thank you for taking the time to read and please leave comments if you’d like or get ahold of me on Twitter or email. Thanks,
Megacode 🙂
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Holy Pally Beta Part 2
I finally got to jump back into the Beta and take a look and see what’s going on with things like Glyphs, and the revamped Spellbook. Like before, I tested a few things out on characters and test dummies but haven’t yet experimented with healing in Beta Dungeons. While my guild continues to finish off Heroic Dragon Soul I won’t be able to really commit to healing any of the new and/or old dungeons introduced thus far in Beta.
So I opened the new Spellbook and took note of a few adjustments, additions, and changes to our spell repertoire.
BEACON of LIGHT: As mentioned before its pretty much the same spell however 15% transfer of Holy Radiance has been added and it now has a 3 sec cooldown, up from instant cast. There will be a glyph to make it instant cast but quite honestly, I didn’t notice that much of a change or concern with the cooldown.
BLESSING of KINGS: Same spell however Magical Resistance has been removed as well as the 1 hour timer.
BLESSING of MIGHT: Completely changed so that it places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing mastery by 3500. No longer has 1 hour timer.
DENOUNCE: Casts down the enemy with a bolt of Holy Light, causing 15,582 Holy damage and preventing the target from causing critical effects for the next 4 sec. Looks like this is a combination of Holy Wrath and Denounce Talent for MoP. Played around with it on target dummies. Cool looking affect.
Denounce
DEVOTION AURA: Inspire all party and raid members within 40 yards, granting them immunity to silence and interrupt effects and reducing all magic damage taken by 20%. 3 min cooldown and lasts 6 seconds. This is sort of a combination of current Blessing of Kings, Resistance Aura, and used to replace Aura Mastery.
DIVINE PROTECTION: Reduces magical damage taken by 40% for 10 sec. Changed it so that Magical damage is the priority and if you want physical damage protection then use Glyph of Divine Protection.
DIVINE SHIELD: Unchanged however used with Glyph of Righteous Retreat (During Divine Shield, you can invoke your Hearthstone 50% faster) can add a little spice to leveling on a pvp realm. 🙂
HAND SPELLS: These haven’t changed thus far in Beta. Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Protection, Hand of Salvation, and Hand of Freedom.
GUARDIAN of ANCIENT KINGS: Will heal the target of your next 5 single-target heals, and nearby friendly targets for 10% of the amount healed. Every time the Guardian heals, it increases your haste by 10%. 5 min cooldown and lasts 30 seconds. No longer doubles the single target heal but gives a haste buff for 30 seconds.
SEAL of INSIGHT: Fills you with Holy Light, improving healing spells by 5% and giving melee attacks a chance to heal you for (0.15 * AP.15 * holy spell power) and restore 4% of base mana. Our healing Seal remains un-nerfed however they added that 5% increase to healing spells.
HOLY INSIGHT(Passive Ability): Increases the effectiveness of your healing by 25%(Replaces our current Holy “Walk in the Light“). Increases your mana pool by 400%(Since Intellect wont affect the size of our mana pool we need some way of increasing its size). Allows 50% of your mana regeneration from Spirit to continue while in combat(Replaces Judgements of the Pure, & Meditation). Increases your chance to hit with Holy Shock, Judgment, and Denounce by 15%(Replaces Enlightened Judgements).
INFUSION of LIGHT(Passive Ability): Your Holy Shock critical effects reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light, Divine Light, or Holy Radiance by 1.50 sec. Removed Flash of Light from heals affected.
MASTERY-ILLUMINATED HEALING: Got a bump up from 12% to 15%.
TOWER of RADIANCE: Same as 3 points into ToR but Holy Radiance was removed.
Unfortunately as of this Beta build our current Divine Favor healing cooldown has been removed from our toolbox.
I changed a few talent points around to try out some different abilities and two really struck me as ones I’m sure I’ll be switching out from time to time.
SELFLESS HEALER: Your successful Judgments reduce the cast time and mana cost of your next Flash of Light by 35% per stack and improves its effectiveness by 35% per stack when used to heal others. Stacks up to 3 times. I really liked this one. With 3 stacks my FoL went from 33k to a 70k heal and crit’d for 135k. Didn’t even hurt my mana. If spec’d into this talent while using the Flash of Light Glyph, put out some nice single target heals. With this talent you’ll more than likely want to cast your Judgments when off cooldown like we did pre 4.3.
ETERNAL FLAME: Consumes up to 3 Holy Power to place a protective Holy flame on a friendly target, which heals them for 1548 per charge of Holy Power every 3 sec for 30 sec. When tested on a subject it put out a HoT which healed from 10k-21k. I got about 12 tics over 30 seconds. At first I saw myself picking the Sacred Shield talent however after playing with EF, I may be using this healing spell from time to time. Basically gives us a third free Holy Power heal in addition to Word of Glory and Light of Dawn.
I looked at a few glyphs that were accessible in game and pertained to what I’d use as a Holy Paladin. Also incase you didn’t know, Prime glyphs were removed so now we just have Major Glyphs(Major changer to game play) and Minor Glyphs(Cosmetic/fun changes to game play).
MAJOR GLYPHS
GLYPH of ASCETIC CRUSADER: Reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike and Judgment by 100%. I could see using this with Glyph of Battle Healer and/or Glyph of Flash of Light.
GLYPH of BATTLE HEALER: Using melee attacks while using Seal of Insight heals a nearby injured friendly target, excluding the Paladin, within 30 yards for 10 percent of damage dealt. I really can’t wait to experiment with this glyph however it isn’t accessible yet. Being able to become a Shockadin and dps and heal like Priests, count me in 🙂
GLYPH of FLASH of LIGHT: When you Flash of Light a target, it increases your next heal done to that target within 7 sec by 10%. Used with Selfless Healer talent, I would follow up with a 50k-100k Divine Light Heal.
GLYPH of BLESSED LIFE: While Seal of Insight is active, you have a 50% chance to gain a charge of Holy Power whenever you take direct damage or are affected by a Stun, Fear or Immobilize effect. Like the Cataclysm talent I see using this glyph based on the type of damage we’ll be taking and mechanics of fight.
GLYPH of DIVINE PLEA: Divine Plea now has a 5 sec cast time, but you receive 12% of your total mana instantly and your healing is not reduced. The 5 sec cast time wasn’t all that bad and to receive your mana instantly with no reduction to healing seems like a must have until we get better geared.
GLYPH of DIVINE PROTECTION:Reduces the magical damage reduction of your Divine Protection to 20% but adds 20% physical damage reduction. Fight specific.
GLYPH of DIVINITY: Increases the cooldown of your Lay on Hands by 2 min(10-12 min) but causes it to give you 10% of your maximum mana. While learning new fights and getting better gear for mana regen I’ll plan to have this one glyphed.
GLYPH of ILLUMINATION: Your Holy Shock criticals grant 1% mana return, but Holy Insight returns 10% less mana. I’ll let the theorycrafters figure this one out.
GLYPH of LIGHT OF DAWN: Light of Dawn affects 2 fewer targets, but heals each target for 25% more. Best used for Dungeons and 10 man Raids.
GLYPH OF PROTECTOR of the INNOCENT: When you use Word of Glory to heal another target, it also heals you for 20% of the amount. Could see this beneficial for fights with mechanics like Heroic Yor’sahjs Deep Corruption and healing in arenas and battlegrounds.
MINOR GLYPHS
FIRE from the HEAVENS: Your Judgment and Hammer of Wrath criticals call down fire from the sky. Found it to be nothing really special.
WINGED VENGEANCE: Your Avenging Wrath depicts 4 wings. I like and plan to glyph this one.
Glyph of Winged Vengeance
Glyph of Winged Vengeance
GLYPH of CONTEMPLATION: Allows you a moment of peace as you kneel in quiet contemplation to ponder the nature of the Light. AFK, RP fun glyph I’ll more than likely save this glyph for those “First Kill” screenshots.
Glyph of Contemplation
So as you can see that while not much was taken from our toolbox, we’ve gained some new talents, abilities, and glyphs that are just gonna expand our ability to heal successfully regardless of what role or job is thrown at us. I really like what I’ve seen so far from our healing toolbox. Because of the way the new talent system is allowing us to switch our talents around at a moments notice, its gonna make this game that much more interesting. I can mix and match my talents and glyphs around depending on the fight to help benefit the team, going from an AoE raider healer(talent-Holy Avenger,glyph-LoD for 10mans, and Daybreak) to a hardened tank healer(talents-Sacred Shield & Selfless Healer, glyph-Flash of Light). I’m also really curious to try out the (dps and heal) style of healing using the glyph of Battle Healer. Blizzards intention was to end the must have cookie cutter talent build and so far it feels like they’ve succeeded.
I really enjoyed playing around and looking at all the new stuff so far in Beta. Keep in mind that this is Beta, so some of these talents and glyphs won’t make it into MoP Live. As we move closer to the launch date I’ll continue to experiment in Beta and write about it. Also at some point I’ll get in and heal a few Dungeons. I hope this post came in handy and like always, please leave feedback or send me an email. Thanks 🙂
Megacode
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Holy Pally Beta Pt #1
So I finally got the time to go into the Beta Realm and boy was it a Lagfest. Did it on my 13″ MacBook with 1-2 fps at certain times but I’m committed to getting something out to you. So I got some downtime at work and decided to go in and check a few things out. I am planning on going in and breaking up my posts into parts. I only plan on finding out what there is in regard to what’s new or changed as a Holy Paladin and playing around with it and sharing what I’ve learned with you. As far as checking out the Panda class/Monk spec, that will have to wait until the expansion goes live. Like the Worgen, I really want to get the full enjoyment for the first time as I level him/her 1-90 without any issues or bugs and knowing they’re mine to keep 🙂
Now the first thing I did was check out the Healing Spells we currently use. As of right now there are no major changes to them with the exception that they produce bigger heals. I went over to the test dummy section in Stormwind and practiced on the dummies and a few actual characters. Keep in mind I did this non buffed and in current Dragon Soul raid gear so results will vary, especially when it goes live and we start replacing Cataclysm gear with MoP upgrades so the heals will then get bigger.
Flash of Light: Still our very fast heal that uses a lot of mana. It was putting out 30k heals when I tested it.
Holy Light: Slower heal that put out around 22k of healing. (No update on Wowhead)
Divine Light: Slower heal that put out around 42k heals
Holy Shock: Instant cast heal with a 6 sec cooldown. It healed for 32K so like I said, bigger heals.
Holy Radiance: This had a change to the 10 yard splash heal. It now disperses 50% of the initial heal to players within 10 yards and no longer has a 3 sec “HoT”. I used this on some grouped players. Initial HR heal was for 10k on targeted player. It splashed onto six other players hitting five with 5k and one with a 10k crit.
Beacon of Light: Pretty much the same spell but with a few minor changes. It now transfers 15% of Holy Radiance and says all other healing spells (except Holy Light 100%) transfer 50%. I wonder if that will include our Level 90 healing spell Lights Hammer ?
Word of Glory: Instant heal that consumes Holy Power. With 3 Holy Power I healed for 33k.
Light of Dawn: Instant cast spell which consumes Holy Power. Now instead of healing as a cone in front of you, it emanates a wave around you (much like a priests Circle of Healing) healing up to six injured members. I was healing for around 14k. The new visual affect is pretty cool.
Light of Dawn Beta
So thats it for the Healing Spells I played around with. Next I went ahead and looked at the new talents system. I will briefly mention the ones I liked. This is subjective to my liking and style of healing so don’t take it as the have to have talent. The new talent system is set up so that all grouped talents have similarities but its up to you which one suits your fancy for the particular fight.
Speed of Light: Increases your movement speed by 70% for 8 sec. I like having this option at my disposal when its off the 1 min cooldown. Ready to use when a bump in speed might save my hide. This came in handy for Ragnaros and Morchok. I’m also happy to see it separated from our Divine Protection and now won’t feel like it’s a waste of one buff over another buff. However we will lose 3% spell haste but I’m sure it all gets worked out.
Speed of Light Beta
Fist of Justice: Stuns the target for 6 seconds. 30 sec cooldown. (Replaces Hammer of Justice). What can I say, I actually used HofJ. Came in real handy on those fire elementals on the Ragnaros fight and on the Val’kyr in Lich King fight.
Fist of Justice Beta
Sacred Shield:Protects the target with a shield of Holy Light for 30 sec, which increases the critical chance of your Flash of Light on the target by 30%. The shield also absorbs 5879+0.52*holy spell power damage when the target takes damage, but no more than once every 6 sec. I am really glad to see this coming back in a modified way. In WotLK we had SS which was used on tanks to help mitigate damage but was removed from our arsenal in Cataclysm. I anticipate throwing this onto a tank whom I know is going to be getting hit with heavy damage soon. As of this Beta build, no cooldown 🙂 Can’t see that going live.
Sacred Shield Beta
Hand of Purity: Places a hand on the friendly target reducing the damage of harmful periodic effects by 70% for 6 seconds. 1 minute cooldown. If you’ve read my prior posts then you know that I’m a big user of Paladin Hands. Damage mitigation is a big part of our arsenal and to have another one added makes me really happy.
Hand of Purity
Ok, picture this. Raid boss is about to hit the tank with Big Damage. Throw a Sacred Shield and Hand of Purity on the tank. Serious damage mitigation there. If need be follow it up with another Sacred Shield and Hand of Sacrifice (since HofP is on a 1 min cooldown). Feels almost overpowered too me. I’m sure SS will be getting its own cooldown.
Holy Avenger: Abilities that generate Holy Power will generate 3 charges of Holy Power for the next 15 sec. 2 minute cooldown. I tested this out on some players and it put out some nice “AoE” heals. I was able to spam Holy Radiance, 3HP Light of Dawn, HR, LofD, HR, LofD. Thats right, three of each which was over a 15 second period. Thats a ton of raid healing if you ask me. Looks to me like Blizzard isn’t putting our Raid healing capabilities on the old chopping block 🙂 If your tank healing, pop Holy Avenger and with Tower of Radiance use a Divine Light, 3HP Word of Glory, DL, WoG, DL, WoG…..for 15 seconds during times of heavy tank damage.
Holy Avenger
Lights Hammer: Hurl a Light-infused hammer into the ground where it will blast a 10 yard area with Arcing Light for 16 seconds. “Arcing Light” deals 5,125 Holy damage to enemies within the area and 5,125 healing to allies within the area every 2 seconds. Because I’m not level 90, I wasn’t able to play around with this talent, however, I think it will be a spell that I will get to know very intimately 🙂 This spell would have been very useful for certain fights in Dragon Soul where we are grouped up and taking damage from adds (Heroic Yor’sahj).
Lights Hammer
Before I end this post I wanted to mention two Holy Paladin specific abilities that we get in MoP.
Boundless Conviction: You may store an additional 2 Holy Power beyond the maximum of 3. No ability ever consumes more than 3 Holy Power. This is a passive ability we always have. I tested this out and it’s definitely a nice ability to have. Our bar still shows 3 holy power max but you can accumulate 2 more beyond it. If you end up using a Word of Glory or Light of Dawn you still have 2 holy power left. Means we’ll be getting more use out of our WoG/LoD healing spells.
Daybreak: After casting Holy Radiance, your next Holy Shock will also heal other allies within 10 yards of the target for an amount equal to the original healing done, divided evenly among all targets. This has been completely revamped from its current state and I feel its been upgraded. I tested this out as well and I liked the results. I healed someone with HR(healed for 10k, transferring 5k to 6 allies) which proc’d Daybreak. I then followed up with a 21k HS which then splashed heals to the allies around the person I was healing. It was around 2.1k to each of the 6 characters I believe. Daybreak proc’s after every HR so unless there’s big raid damage going out, HR/HS seems like a good rotation for raid healing.
This will complete part 1 of my Beta Testing of the Holy Paladin Spec. Next I plan to look at our Major Cooldowns, Hand Spells, and changes to our Auras. Hope this gives you some idea of what changes are ahead for the Holy Paladins. If you have any questions or input please leave a comment or send me an email. Thanks as always,
Megacode
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Second Spec’ing It
I’m not sure how most of you play, but having a viable off speck has never been a strong point for me. For the longest time I went dual Holy Spec as a Paladin because of certain fight dynamics benefiting from certain talent point allocations (e.g.Blessed Life,Pursuit of Justice) and not being able to switch talents around at a moments notice. Having to fly back to our trainer to change a talent point or two wasn’t always convenient so I’ve always had two specs into Holy with each one being used for certain fights depending on what talents were needed for the mechanics in the fight.
Now because of the changes to the talents system in Mists of Pandaria, making them more of a personal choice and not a have to have talent, I’ve gone ahead and removed my second Holy Spec and started working on learning how to be a proficient Retribution Paladin. Also, it sounds like we won’t be having to go and visit our trainer every single time we want to make a change to our spec. It will instead be more of on the fly changing I believe, which will be handy for me if I want to change(personalize) a Holy talent or two for a certain fight. This in itself removes the need for two Holy Specs.
It’s definitely been a benefit for my guild me being able to jump into the dps role(now I’m not talking about my dps throughput you DPS Leets :-P). With the lull going on in Cataclysm, believe it or not, we’ve had a harder time filling our raid roster with dps than healers so I’ve been jumping in as dps to obviously help out, but also like the old saying goes, “Practice makes perfect”!! This has also helped out with my slight burnout. I am sort of an Alt junkie especially at the end of expansions but now I’m killing the boredom by jumping into Heroic Dungeons and LFR getting my Ret Spec geared up and I’m really having a blast.
We definitely take for granted our muscle memory when it comes to main spec vs off spec. When I’m healing there’s no hesitation or pause in the manner. It’s just pushing buttons and healing bars while staying out of the bad stuff. When I’m dps’ing in Ret spec there’s a slight pause making sure I use the right damage attack spell (Crusader Strike, Templars Verdict). On top of that I have to make sure my Inquisition is up all of the time. However, I get some nice cd’s like Zeolatry and Avenging Wrath to bash out some nice dps. On main boss fights I like to start out 2 against 1 with my old pal Guardian of Ancient Kings, aka “Angry Man” according to Kurn from Kurn’s Corner blog. He really needs to go to anger management class 🙂
I am having a blast and am getting better at building that muscle memory and getting my dps up there where it needs to be, however I can’t finish my rant without mentioning some add ons that absolutely make my job easier:
1) Power Auras– Visual auras to help with cool downs, proc’s, etc….
2) Retribution FCFS– Helps you manage cool down of attack spells and which ones to use first.
3) Omen Threat Meter– Indicates threat level of party members.
4) Recount– Graphical damage/healing meter with a whole lot more.
Hopefully when the MoP expansion is out I’ll feel like a more competent Retribution Paladin but it is my off speck and always will be, for this is the Healingspec blog. In the meantime I’m drowning out the lull with dps’ing in Dungeons, LFR, and the occasional Raid, and continuing to build my Alt army that will eventually take over the world.
I’d love to hear what the rest of you are doing during the Cata Lull and to those of you that are playing Ret Pally spec, let me know what cool add ons you use that really make a difference in your gameplay. As always thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment.
Doing it Ret Style
Megacode
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Healing Spec 