Ramblings
Guesting on Twisted Nether Blogcast
Just wanted to give a heads up that I’ll be guesting on the Twisted Nether Blogcast come this Sunday night at 8pm pst. I am really excited to throw the old Mic and Headphones on and chat away with hosts Hydra and Fimlys. Come join us at http://www.twistednether.net/live/
Megacode 🙂
TwistedLive
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 )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
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Healing Spec 