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An Interview with Vodka’s Holy Paladin, Adam
For those of you that have played World of Warcraft for a while or are tuned into the Raiding community know of or have heard of the Hardcore Progression Raiding Guild Vodka. They have been one of the top progression raid teams since Vanilla and continue to stay strong through Cataclysm. Part of their core raid team is Adam, Vodka’s main Holy Paladin. At Blizzcon 2011, Vodka was there in full force for the Live Raid between them and Blood Legion. I was lucky enough to meet and chat with members from Vodka including Adam.
Myself being a Holy Paladin, it was quite the honor to meet Adam and talk a little Holy Pally shop with him. Since then I’ve been in contact with Adam exchanging ideas and picking his brain on information regarding raid content and strategy. This finally led to an idea I wanted to do for a post on my blog. Why not do an interview with Adam and write it as a blogpost. I mentioned the idea to Adam and he agreed to do it. So we met up on Mumble and talked away for two hours.
Megacode: Most players of World of Warcraft have been playing games for sometime. How long have you been gaming and what games were most impressionable to you?
Adam: I have been gaming for a long time since I was little. Having a father who was into technology and three brothers, gaming was part of our life. Growing up we were into sports so during our downtime we were playing on our Sega Genesis. Earlier on I spent a lot of time on Mario Cart, Perfect Dark, and the James Bond game “Goldeneye”. It was here where I really took a liking to the whole group co-op gaming style.
Megacode: So can we assume that World of Warcraft wasn’t your first MMO game?
Adam: While attending college I played around like most with games like Halo and/or Call of Duty, but found that I was more into the PC MMO genre like Ultima Online and Everquest where I would group up with my brothers.
Megacode: How long have you been playing WoW?
Adam: “Chuckles”…Well a long time I suppose. I was in Beta and kept playing when it continued live so like 7 and a half years now.
Megacode: Was Paladin your first class to play when WoW went live and how long have you been Holy?
Adam: I started with a Hunter then eventually moved over to playing a Warrior. I then created two alt characters, a Paladin and Mage. It was around Blackwing Lair Raid when I decided to make my Holy Paladin my main so I’ve been playing on him for about 6 years now. Long enough to have been through all their changes.
Megacode: What made you decide to heal as a Holy Paladin?
Adam: Once Blackwing Lair came out healers were in big demand and I really liked the way Paladin plate wearers looked so I decided this was the class I wanted to heal with. I liked the flow of their big heals up front in your face and the whole Holy Light wearing plate really was cool to me. I also liked how they could throw out some DPS melee style if need be. I looked at the priest but they were more about AoE magic heals and not big single target heals which was more my style. To this day I find healing as a Holy Paladin fun, challenging and not boring.
Megacode: Do you like where the Holy spec is today as compared to before?
Adam: At first we had just a few heals to use, but then in Wrath of the Lich King we were given Beacon of Light and Sacred Shield which gave our spec more tools to use for healing. Blizzard tends to take things away for an expansion then to give them back at a later one (Sacred Shield). I actually preferred the 30 second Holy Radiance as compared to the castable one now, but I know Blizzard is just trying to balance everyone out for raid healing. Even though I preferred the days when we were just casting big heals and being used mainly as tank healers, I’ve adjusted well to our new style and feel we’re in a good place today.
Megacode: What would you have different with this class if Ghostcrawler gave you one wish?
Adam: “Chuckles”….Well lets see, I’d have to say that I’m happy where we are right now moving into Mists of Pandaria. A few years back I had this conversation with GC about changes to Divine Plea, and now in MoP with a glyph, it will be instant mana regen. Also Sacred Shield is getting a comeback. I’d also like to see Gnome Paladins, “Laugh Out Loud!”
Megacode: Will your Holy Paladin be making a return in Mists of Pandaria and if not, what class and spec will you be then?
Adam: Thats what we’ve been discussing in Vodka because Mistweaver Monk is really looking good. Unless we get more players switching to the monk healing spec, I’m 80% sure I’ll be transitioning into that role. Shouldn’t be too difficult since my alt is a Restoration Shaman and the Mistweaver Monk spec feels like a Paladin/Shaman hybrid mix. So far I like what I’ve tested out. Holy Paladins were in high demand come Cataclysm and I feel Mistweaver Monks will be the same in MoP. We shall see.
Megacode: What motivated you to start progression raiding and for how long now?
Adam: Most of my time playing WoW has been competitive pvp and casual raiding with close friends. At the end of the Wrath expansion I decided I wanted to up my game and compete in world first pve. Having been part of Vodka’s season 1 pvp team I was no stranger to them, so when Vodka needed a Holy Paladin for Cataclysm raiding they asked me to switch servers and join their ranks as their core Holy Paladin. You hear of other players having to ladder their way up guilds into a top progression team but in my case it was luck that they needed a Holy Paladin and knowing current members of Vodka from pvp so they knew my play style. Being rank #1 in pvp every season definitely helped with my transition into top tier pve. At first it was somewhat hectic but I grew into it very fast.
Megacode: What is the typical schedule for you when you’re in progression mode and how does it affect real life(family, friends, work)?
Adam: During the first week of progression we all take a week off from our daily activities to hit the content hard. We start clearing content and only take small breaks here and there when people need it. After the first week, because people have to go back to school or work, we start raiding around 2 or 3 pm est. Now because we spend a lot of time in Beta and PTR the content isn’t new to us thus allowing us to get back into sort of a normal schedule come second week. Most of us are only getting like 3 to 4 hours of sleep and it’s something you have to get used to for the weeks to come if your trying for world first. Lucky for me since I was in college, the 3-4 hrs/night sleep schedule was something I was already used to. After progression we take about a 3 week break to relax and take care of personal stuff, then we return for one night a week of raiding until next tier.
Megacode: Now besides World First, what are you looking forward to in Mist of Pandaria?
Adam: I really enjoy new expansions so when one is announced, I really look forward to its release. I get excited for the freshness that comes with a new expansion, new places to explore, new dungeons to level, and new blues to replace our Heroic Tier 4-Piece…Laughs. Because I am into watching Anime and have an interest and understanding of Asian culture, the whole Asian theme for MoP is something I’m glad they incorporated with this expansion. What I am looking forward to most is Mistweaver Monk. I’ve been able to level one up to 89 and so far I really like playing this class and spec. People have had doubts about this expansion and with Pandas, saying Blizzard is not taking this expansion serious. The last thing Blizzard would do is get complaisant and have people jump ship to another game. I have no doubts that this will be a really great and fun expansion. With this expansion I’m also looking to get back into competitive pvp with my Paladin and Monk and work on obtaining all the mounts and achievements that come with it. Not to sure if I’ll be too involved with the whole pet battles game. Perhaps that will be something in my down time. Most of MoP looks really good and well worth the wait.
Megacode: How did the most recent charity event with Vodka vs Method come about and will there be more?
Adam: It came about shortly after Blizzcon. We had such a fun time at Blizzcon’s 2011 LIVE RAID we felt that this would be fun to do and for a good cause. We met up with renowned gamer Athene who helped us set up the whole event on own3d.tv. Since there aren’t a whole lot of pve competitive Live shows out there, we decided to try and make something happen. It took a lot of time and preparation behind the scenes but once it got started it was a lot of fun. Initially it was supposed to be Vodka, Method and Paragon competing against one another but Paragon had to drop out due to time restraints. We felt that it was time to get the pve side of the game more exposure and since this expansion has been out for a while now, something new and exciting that is pve based would be a good thing for many to enjoy. If possible we’d love to do more like it.
Megacode: What is your all time favorite expansion and raid?
Adam: I really enjoyed the Burning Crusade expansion from its storyline to its difficulty of raids. It was here where I first started doing Arena’s and was ranked #1 in 5v5. All time favorite raid for me was Black Temple.
Megacode: Which raid in Cataclysm is your favorite?
Adam: I would have to say Tier 11. New bosses with a lot of new mechanics, plus we hit Heroic Modes wearing some blue gear which really had us pushing the envelope.
Megacode: Which boss in Dragon Soul was the most challenging for Vodka?
Adam: For Tier 13 the most difficult due to mechanics was Spine of Deathwing. There was so much stuff going on and one tiny little mistake would cause him to roll, wiping the raid. I think our first kill on it was like 15 min long. We had a lot of lag issues on this fight because of all the bloods on the ground. Healing pre-nerf was very challenging because of the dps checks. Because of this, healers were usually last to get any upgrades to gear so healing Spine was very challenging.
Megacode: Which boss in Cataclysm do you feel was most difficult and challenging for Vodka?
Adam: Definitely Ragnaros due to all the phases and dps checks. Over all it was an awesome well rounded fight. We had no clue that there was a last phase after meteors until we read the Dungeon Journal. We pushed him really hard through the meteor phase expecting a kill, then all of a sudden he was healed back up and standing for round 2. Very well done fight.
Megacode: What type of mechanic would you like to see in an upcoming raid?
Adam: Lets see, so many options. As crazy as it might sound, if they could weave some of the mechanics from Diablo 3 into WoW that might make for an interesting fight if it’s possible. A blend between the Diablo and Ragnaros fights, would be a challenge I’d be up for.
Megacode: What would be the route that a new raider would need to take in order to get into a top progression raid team?
Adam: Right now I would suggest working your way up the ladder and getting some experience. Right now that’s what Vodka is really looking for in our applicants. If your good enough you’ll be perfectly fine. You just need to make sure your real life schedule is in place for progression. It’s not entirely different from any other raid team except your playing with like minded people who want to be world first and are generally really good players.
Megacode: Are you playing Diablo 3 and how do you like it so far?
Adam: I sure am. I anticipated it coming out so I took a few days off so that I could enjoy some serous play time. I am really familiar with the Diablo games from playing through 1 and 2 so I don’t mind the grind of a Dungeon Crawler. The graphics update and new class characters makes it really fun. I find it very relaxing to hang out with other guild members while playing in co-op mode. What’s even better about co-op is that I can even enjoy it with two of my brothers.
Megacode: Which class did you choose to play?
Adam: First, my co-op team and I decided to configure the best group composition to level to 60 fast. I went with the Witch Doctor because it had Heroism and other good spells which I felt would contribute to us getting to 60 quickest. We got through Inferno Mode and killed Diablo the first week. Feeling that the Witch Doctor was underwhelming I switched to playing with a Wizard. Compared to Witch Doctor, I feel there’s so much more I can do as a Wizard so for now I’m content with playing one.
Megacode: Was there a race to World First Diablo 3 Inferno Mode kill? If so were you and Vodka competing?
Adam: There was a race with a few players including Athene and Kripparion whom are well renowned gamers. One of my guild members was part of Kripparion’s team but as far as my group, we were only trying to get the Inferno Diablo kill as fast as possible. Method got the World First co-op kill but it was actually a Wizard who took on the first Inferno Diablo kill, and surprisingly he did it solo. Personally I felt that the bosses in Inferno Mode were under tuned. There were some Rare Elite Mob packs that had enrage timers that were very difficult at times to take down. It would have been better if they were flip flopped giving the bosses the enrage timers and in doing so, I think the game would have gone longer before anyone got a World First kill.
Megacode: Who is your favorite Super Hero?
Adam: Not sure if anyone would guess this but Wolverine. I grew up reading the comics and he sort of grew on me.
Megacode: With the new Avengers movie out, who is your favorite Avenger?
Adam: I would definitely say Iron Man. Iron Man 1 and 2 were really great movies leading up to The Avengers. I liked the way he tinkered and engineered with things. The Engineer side of me really appreciates his character and the super hero powers he obtains from technology.
I really appreciated the opportunity to chat for a long time with Adam, and to get a better understanding of what it’s like to be in a top tier Hardcore Progression Raid Team. Just from the interview, I can see now what type of commitment and dedication it takes tier to tier when going for world first boss kills. Also, getting Adam’s input and take on Holy Paladin healing past and present was fun to listen to. I really look forward to seeing what Adam and Vodka do in future expansions from world first PvE to number one rankings in PvP.
Adam can be found at:
Twitch TV-www.twitch.tv/adamzee Watch his kill videos.
Vodka Guild- http://www.vodka-guild.net/ Reach him on the forums here.
I hope you all enjoyed this interview post as much as I loved doing it. I do plan on doing more from time to time. If you have any questions please leave comments or send me a message through Twitter or Email. Thanks,
Megacode 🙂
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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 )Holy Paladin Power Auras
I’ve had several people ask for my Power Auras that I make use of on my Holy Paladin so here they are. Great thing with Power Auras is that you can import them(copy/paste) and customize them so they work for you.
AURA MASTERY: Version:4.23; b:0.1686; g:0.1255; icon:Spell_Holy_AuraMastery; buffname:aura mastery; x:-26; bufftype:15; texture:92; mine:true; size:0.64; y:34; texmode:2
DIVINE PLEA: Version:4.23; b:0.1059; g:0.5373; icon:Spell_Holy_Aspiration; buffname:divine plea; r:0.098; x:2; bufftype:15; texture:25; mine:true; size:0.23; y:55; texmode:2
DIVINE PROTECTION: Version:4.23; b:0.1059; g:0.9569; icon:spell_holy_divineprotection; buffname:Divine Protection; x:26; bufftype:15; texture:89; mine:true; size:0.64; y:34; texmode:2
AVENGING WRATH: Version:4.23; InvertAuraBelow:2; icon:Spell_Holy_AvengineWrath; buffname:Avenging Wrath; x:-125; bufftype:15; texture:188; owntex:true; mine:true; size:0.15; y:-3; texmode:2
DIVINE SHIELD: Version:4.23; b:0.9882; g:0.9569; icon:spell_holy_divineshield; buffname:Divine Shield; bufftype:15; texture:54; alpha:0.32; mine:true; size:1.17; y:-55; texmode:2
DIVINE FAVOR: Version:4.23; icon:Spell_Holy_DivineIllumination; buffname:divine favor; x:125; bufftype:15; texture:14; owntex:true; mine:true; size:0.15; y:-3; texmode:2
LAY on HANDS: Version:4.23; icon:Spell_Holy_LayOnHands; buffname:lay on hands; x:-125; bufftype:15; texture:14; owntex:true; mine:true; size:0.15; y:-153; texmode:2
HAND of SACRIFICE: Version:4.23; b:0.1412; g:0.1412; icon:Spell_Holy_SealOfSacrifice; buffname:hand of sacrifice; bufftype:15; texture:66; mine:true; size:1.53; y:-66; texmode:2
GUARDIAN of ANCIENT KINGS: Version:4.23; icon:Spell_Holy_Heroism; buffname:guardian of ancient kings; x:125; bufftype:15; owntex:true; mine:true; size:0.15; y:-153; texmode:2
HOLY POWER 3: Version:4.23; thresholdinvert:true; icon:spell_holy_lightsgrace; bufftype:10; texture:113; alpha:0.51; PowerType:9; threshold:3; size:0.48; y:-86
JUDGEMENTS of the PURE PROC: Version:4.23; icon:Ability_Paladin_JudgementofthePure; buffname:Judgements of the Pure; x:230; owntex:true; mine:true; size:0.17; y:35; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:64; timer.x:233
FORBEARANCE DEBUFF: Version:4.23; icon:Spell_Holy_RemoveCurse; buffname:Forbearance; x:277; bufftype:2; owntex:true; mine:true; size:0.17; y:33; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:64; timer.x:278
POWER TORRENT: Version:4.23; icon:Ability_Paladin_SacredCleansing; buffname:Power Torrent; texture:6; alpha:0.31; sound:10; soundend:25; size:0.75; texmode:2
If your in need of some other styles and choices go over to My Pally Heals or Joe Ego for other Holy Paladin Power Aura choices. Hope this helps and if you know of other sites to import good Holy Paladin Power Auras, please leave some feedback. Thanks as always,
Megacode
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Peripherals & Add-ons a Healers Best Friend
Over the years I’ve learned to make my gameplay much easier by using game add-on mods like VuhDo, Power Auras, and Big Wigs. However I can’t forget to mention what computer peripherals have done for my style of game play, especially when it comes to what I enjoy best, healing in Raids. Can we do the job without add ons or peripherals? Well of course we can but using them sure makes our job easier and loads of fun.
I download all my add ons from Curse.com. They have thousands of them for World of Warcraft. I personally use about 10 since I’ve never been one to completely change my screen by cluttering it all up with mods. However I would like to mention 4 that I find very useful for raiding and dungeons.
VuhDo: I just recently wrote a post on using the VuhDo healing UI mod. It’s a must have for me when healing raids. Find that post here.
Power Auras: This add-on allows for visual cues of buffs, debuffs, cooldowns, etc. I absolutely love this add-on for setting up visual cues of all my cooldowns around my character. Lets admit it, at times we can get a little tunnel visioned and having auras close to my character indicating when certain buffs or proc’s are off cooldown really comes in handy. Most of the auras that I have set up are for my healing buffs, damage mitigation spells and a few talent proc’s. However, you can just about make an aura for anything(trinkets,debuffs) that has a cooldown. If you would like a list of my own personal auras for my Holy Paladin just send me an email and I will send them to you.
Power Auras
OmniCC: OmniCC is an addon that adds text to items, spells and abilities that are on cooldown to indicate when they will be ready to use. In other words, it turns all the standard analogue cooldowns into digital ones. I love this as a digital cue timer for when my potions and buffs(in addition to Power Auras) are off cooldown.
OmniCC
Big Wigs: This is a boss encounter add-on that is designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific raid encounter. Any serious and not so serious player should have a boss encounter add-on before participating in a raid. Will make yours and your teammates experience in the raid much more pleasurable 🙂 If you’re looking for a boss encounter add-on for 5 mans, you might want to check out Little Wigs.
BigWigs in Action
BigWigs Encounter Screen
I’ve always been a gadget guy so when I was first introduced to the Razer products website, I knew I was in big trouble. I can’t even begin to tell you how much of a difference their products have been to my game play. The two I use are the Razer Naga and the Razer Nostromo.
Razer Nostromo: This is a gaming keypad that has 16 fully programmable Hyperesponse keys, 8 keymaps that you can switch between on the fly, and an 8-way directional thumb pad all integrated into one dedicated gaming keypad. For the longest time I was controlling my movement and certain abilities/spells with my left hand using my keyboard. While that worked just fine, because there were so many keys around my hand, I found myself looking down at the keyboard to make sure I hit the correct button. Now with the Nostromo, I can control all movement and spell/abilities on the fly without delay all in the palm of my left hand and never have to look down. With 8 keymaps at my disposal, I have full control of all 4 of my healers. Like all things new, you have to give yourself time to get comfortable with it to build that muscle memory.
Razer Nostromo Keypad
Razer Naga: This is a 17 button gaming mouse. It replicates all my in game buttons onto the mouse for some serious streamlined game play. At first I have to admit, it felt kind of bulky and trying to press the buttons on the side felt awkward. I knew that this mouse in addition to mouseover macro’s would really improve my gameplay as a healer so I really worked hard in getting used to the feel of the mouse so that I’d build back that muscle memory. Two years later I have absolutely no regrets and can’t imagine playing without one. I sort of guaranteed that by buying two 🙂
Razer Naga Gaming Mouse
So if you’re feeling like your not playing to your full potential try using one of these add ons or even better, add a new gadget to your gaming family and check out some cool peripherals from Razer or any other online gamer gear website. If you have any questions or suggestions on good add ons or peripherals you want to share, please feel free to leave a comment, email me or send me a Tweet on Twitter. Have fun and good luck out there.
Megacode 🙂
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 6 so far )Vuhdo UI Walkthrough
Every healer has their own style to healing. Part of that style is their screen real estate and where they put things like health/mana bars, character/target profile, map, and party/raid frames UI. Up until about 3 months ago I was a big fan and user of Healbot unit frames for healing. It is pretty much a plug and play type of add-on. I spent around two-half years healing with it until about 3 months ago when I was introduced to VuhDo.
Vuhdo is an add-on that is used to replace the default Blizzard UI in World of Warcraft. Its main purpose is to simplify and streamline the UI for healers in the game. What really drew me to Vuhdo was the customization you could do with it, and how simple it is to set up. It also has a very clean user interface layout that is appealing to the eye. It offers more customization than Healbot and less complexity than Grid. Vuhdo will require some time spent setting things up, unlike Healbot which is pretty much ready to go out of the box. This post is not meant to be an in-depth instruction on Vuhdo but more of a brief walkthrough so you can get up and running to heal.
General Tab, General Panel
So if you open up Vuhdo and click on the General Tab, then click General Panel, you will get this screen. Here I left everything alone but checked off Empty Buttons so that when party/raid members left group, there UI bar would disappear and not take up space. You can also enable lock panels here to prevent them from moving during mid fight.
General Tab, Scanners Panel
In this panel I de-selected Scan and Direction since I didn’t want an arrow indicating which direction the out of range player(s) were. I selected Parse for combat log reasons(raiding). In order for VuhDo to recognize when players are out of range of my spells, I selected By Spell and added in one of my spells for configuration reasons.
General Tab, Threat/Incoming Panel
In this panel I checked off Own and Others to show incoming heals. In a later tab setting you can setup a specific color for incoming heals. This is really nice, so as not to waste heals on someone receiving a heal, allowing you then to heal another player in need. My incoming heals show up as blue, so as to contrast the green health bar.
In this panel I really only made changes to the first three by choosing from the drop down window. First one I set up to show aggro indication by highlighting outside edge area with a red box when someone has aggro threat. Second one I setup to indicate who I’ve mouseover’d by highlighting inside edge with white box. I setup the third indicator to place the role icon(Tank, DPS, Heals) in the upper left hand corner of a persons bar. As you can see, there are plenty of indicators to use with multiple choices located in drop down window.
General Tab, Clusters Panel
Everything in this panel I left as default except checking Radial, Target and Raid (for Holy Radiance). This panel sets up the way your multi target heals show up and affect your UI. Just hover over the selections for a brief description when deciding which ones to use. Pretty much self explanatory.
General Tab, Bouquets Panel
This panel allows you to set up special indicators on your bar. For example, I have an indicator showing up on the bottom right hand corner, for any HoTs cast on that person. Some Bouquets are pre made and others you can design on your own. You can get very customized when setting these up. I have another one indicating which Hand spells are on that person. It can be a lot of fun designing your own!!
Spell Tab, Mouse Panel
Here is where you can set up which spells you want on your mouse, attaching certain spells to certain buttons.
Spells Tab, Smart Cast Panel
Only thing special here is that when resurrecting, all I have to do is mouseover the dead person, left click and voila. You can set up other Smart Casts for buffs, cleanse and battle rez.
The Spells Tab does have Panels which allow you to set up macro’s and key binds, however since I do most of that in game, I leave those areas alone.
Debuffs Tab, Standard Panel
The Debuffs Tab allows you to configure monitoring of debuffs on your UI. In the Standard Panel, you have options to set up certain monitoring rules.
Debuff Tab, Custom Panel
In the Custom Panel you can modify how you view debuffs and add options like stacks and timers. A list of debuffs for monitoring can be found within the drop down menu or you can add them on your own.
Panels Tab, General Panel
In the Panels Tab, you really get to customize the look of Vuhdo. General Panel allows you to organize the bars, who you want up top vs bottom, and other customizations which allow you to set up the bars just how you want them.
Panels Tab, Text Panel
In the Text Panel, just like it says, you can customize the text to just how you like it. Make the name in class colors, have only so many digits in the name, keep it centered,font size and type, its all here. You can also customize the hit points. I prefer hit points missing, so as to help me in determining the right spell to cast.
Panel Tab, HoT Icons Panel
In this panel you can set up the location of all your indicators and bouquets. Vuhdo gives you several options to choose from. You can even decide whether or not you want to use the in game icon or generic icon from Vuhdo.
Panels Tab, HoT Bars Panel
This is a customization that allows you to create bars (thickness can be adjusted) across the health bar for anything that has a timer(Heals,Buffs). As the timer runs down, the bar gets shorter from right to left. As you can see from the picture above, I have set up two, one for my Beacon of Light and another for any HoTs rolling on a person.
Colors Tab, States Panel
This Panel located in the Colors Tab allows me to customize the color of certain dubuffs that my Cleanse spell removes. Keep in mind this is class dependent, but very simple to set up, with the check of a box.
Colors Tab, Modes Panel
The Modes Panel lets you do a couple things. First, I set up my UI bars to change color depending on the persons health status. As you can see, green is good and red means close to death. Second, like I mentioned earlier, I like to show incoming heals. It is here where you can setup what color you wish to have your incoming heals show up as. I have mine coming in as blue so as to contrast with the other states. Incoming heals will show up in the background of the health status.
Some of the other panels in the Colors Tab allow you to modify color settings of class, mana, raid icons, etc…
Move Tab
The Move Tab at first glance can look pretty intimidating but honestly, I didn’t have to do much tweaking here. This is where you can make adjustments to the layout of your healing UI for 5mans, 10mans, and 25mans and it pretty much comes raid ready. The only thing I added was a couple bars for pets. If you click the test button you get to see what everything looks like from a layout perspective
Raid Frames
Here is an example of what my health bars look like. I can see which buffs, cooldowns, and HoTs I have on that person as well as a few other indicators. Its all up to you what you want showing.
For me Vuhdo really helped in organizing and keeping track of Buffs and Cooldowns which then made my job as healer less stressful. Finding that Healing UI that works best for you whether it be Healbot,Grid, or Vuhdo is very important to every healer thus allowing you to do your job to the best of your ability.
I hope that this basic walkthrough was helpful to someone trying to set it up or perhaps convince a few to give it a try. For a more in-depth walkthrough of Vuhdo go here.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Helping Hands
Holy Paladins, like I’ve said before are considered utility healers. We have so much within our repertoire, that we can almost do it all from single target heals to small hots. What also really differentiates us are our Hands spells. Previous to 3.0.2 patch, they were called Blessings. Today the only blessing spells that remain are Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings. The rest have pretty much become Hand (Spell). Unlike Blessings which are considered raid buffs, Hands are used more for damage mitigation. The available hands in use today by Holy Paladins are:
Hand of Freedom: Grants immunity to movement impairing effects for 6 seconds. This came in handy when used on self while healing on the Nezir platform while inflicted with Ice Patch in Throne of the Four Winds Raid.
Hand of Freedom
Hand of Protection: A party or raid member is protected from physical attacks for 10 seconds. I really try and save this for ranged dps who are close to death from physical attacks. Ranged dps can still continue to attack while melee dps won’t be able to attack for 10 seconds while Hand is on them. In rare occasions you might find a need to use on tank but make sure you and the tank have communicated this to prevent ugly consequences. If need be, throw a Hand of Freedom on them to remove the spell. Also, keep in mind that using HoP places Forbearance on you(Paladin).
Hand of Protection
Hand of Sacrifice: Whoever you cast this on, 30% of the damage they take gets transferred to you. Most of the time I save this for tanks who have exhausted their cool downs and are expecting some big damage soon. Just be prepared to use a Divine Protection or Divine Shield incase you bit off more than you can chew.
Hand of Sacrifice
End Cast Image of Hand of Sacrifice
Hand of Salvation: Reduces total threat by 2% every 1 second for 10 seconds to whomever you put this on. I use this most often when learning a new dungeon, for those dps who pull threat from tank. While learning the Heroic Hagara fight, I found myself using this on one or two dps.
Hand of Salvation
Just keep in mind these spells do have cool downs so keep an eye on their timers just incase you find yourself using them multiple times.
While I’m not in Beta I plan to continue posting short posts on Holy Paladin abilities/healing since its been awhile since anyone has. Just keep in mind some of these may not make it into live Mists of Pandaria. Hope this helps and thanks for reading and leaving any feedback.
Megacode
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Marriage and Compromise
“Love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage”. We’ve heard that theme song from the TV series “Married With Children” which aired in the late 80’s. Now what about “Gaming and Marriage”? Do they go together like an MMO and dial-up modem. I think not.
Gaming today has really come a long way from the Nintendo/Atari systems of the 80’s, Xbox/Playstation of the 90’s, to now the twenty-first century where computer gaming has become so popular. With the introduction of MMO’s and many console games played on computers through internet sites like Steam, gaming has become more of a hobby than a time dump and it’s not just kids who are playing. I personally know doctors, lawyers, and other successfully employed adults who instead of going outside to play golf or basketball, choose to go online and compete against internet bad guys, bullies, or as one of my favorite writers from WowInsider-Anne Stickney calls them, Internet Dragons.
Now why bring this all up you ask. A few days ago I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Double O Podcast. The hosts Oestrus and Ophelie were discussing with their guest Stubborn from the Sheep the Diamond blog, married couples who game together. They discussed some very interesting points, both good and bad about couples who game together. This really got me thinking about my situation of being married to a non gamer. When I say non gamer, I mean non gamer to the point to where the first time I got on Ventrillo to talk with my guild mates, she had this strange look on her face which said; ” Marc looking at a computer screen while talking to people he’s never met, through headsets. He has absolutely lost it”. Well, three and a half years later I’d have to say she’s adjusted just fine and accepted my gaming lifestyle, but like all relationships, it takes some work and compromise.
There are a few couples both dating and married who game together in the guild I’m part of, in World of Warcraft. Like most of them suggested I tried to get my wife into gaming. I even offered to level a character with her and show her the ropes. She wanted nothing to do with wow. I think she felt a little intimidated from watching me briefly as I raided. She assumed this was the only way wow is played. Her not being into the whole science fiction and/or fantasy genre, I even suggested we give Sims a shot, hoping I could take baby steps into transforming her into a future gamer. “No thanks, it’s not my thing” she said. She was exactly right, it’s not her thing and I can’t expect her to change for me, even though at times I can be jealous of the couples who do game together.
We both have our own hobbies, while I enjoy my time gaming she practices and plays competitive soccer in a women’s league. Even though we both have separate hobbies we still make time for one another and do things we both enjoy. That is the key to staying happily married while devoting considerable time to a game and community that I love and respect. As crazy as it might sound to some folks you have to lay down some ground rules. As you probably know by now my primary game of choice is World of Warcraft. In WoW I spend most of my time raiding. My guild raids 3 nights a week from 730-1030 pm pst. Because of my work schedule, we decided that 2 out of the 3 raid nights and a few hours here and there to do other wow in-game activities was fair. She gets a few nights a week for soccer practice and a game on Saturday. Sunday nights we sit down to a movie with the kids. Between all that, we take care of and deal with all the day-to-day family responsibilities.
Occasionally I will try to sneak in a little extra game time but I’ve found that I usually end up in hot water so I really try not to take advantage. Being able to play my games and enjoy my hobby really has helped with the day-to-day stress that we have. This makes me a much better person, father and husband. On the flip side, my wife needs a husband so its important to remember that and to not get all caught up with wanting to level 5 different alts, level cooking and fishing, and playing the AH.
So how do all the other gamers whose significant others, who don’t game, manage their gaming time and time spent together? I’d like to know. Thanks,
Megacode
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