I hope I don’t regret this

Downloading as we speak. I suspect I just paid 49.99USD to forsake my freedom.

But I miss Rykga.

/nerves

WoW… Oh hei! I still play that!

You know you’ve fallen out of the loop when you come across lists of Holy Paladin bloggers… and your name is nowhere to be found. Which is fair enough – I haven’t written anything substantial since that guide from two patches ago, which I never even polished up. It’s just. That. Time. Goes by. So fast. SO FAST. Didn’t I write that last guide post YESTERDAY? OMG.

But have no fear! Newcomer bloggers Paladiner and Lucy have got you covered, especially when it comes to Heroic Mode info. Super busy Getsu also finds the time to post some Holy Paladin thoughts as well (I complain that I can’t update because I’m busy, but he’s like 200 times busier than me and still finds time for Holy Pally philosophy /shame).

And if Heroic raiding and patch notes aren’t your thing, the awesome Megacode is still going strong with his regular podcasts on Normal modes, basics and other must-knows. He’s also done some fantastic interviews with high profile players. (Speaking of Megacode’s podcasts, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say it yet, but I wasn’t told not to say anything and I’m super super excited so I’m going to say it anyway: he has another round table coming up! I can’t wait! I think we should do like a holy paladin cafe once a month, where a bunch of us grab mics, a bunch more get into the chat channel and we just pally talk. No prep, no editing. Just glorious, glorious pally talk. Would anyone else be interested in that?)

So we’re digesting 5.3 sideways, 5.4 is on the horizon (already? WTF) yet all I want to talk about are Bioware games and nerd conventions. That’s just how I am. But still, I will not be left out during these kinda-difficult-but-we’ve-been-through-worse Holy Paladin times.

5.3 and The Great Mastery and T14 4-pc Nerf of 2013

Of Tier Gear 14 and 15

Unlike most, I made the switch from T14 4pc to T15 as soon as I had enough T15 to get a 2pc. The reasoning was that my T14 gear came from a mix of LFR and Normal mode while my T15 was nice and shiny Normal and Heroic stamped.

I experimented by switching back and forth, and once I got used to both, I could get roughly equal numbers. T14, for me, was all about the EF blanketing, while T15 lets me go crazy with Holy Radiance. (Holy Radiancing – something I know many of my fellows are ticked off about. But what can you do? Perhaps it’s just our overachieving tanks, but it seems like the only T15 fight where we need any kind of tank healing assignments is Heroic Mags and MAYBE SOMETIMES Heroic Council. For everything else, there’s Holy Radiance.) As I shifted toward T15 and got deeper in heroic content, I found that my old T14 set just didn’t have the mana regen necessary for today’s modern boss fights. So off to the vendor we went.

Paladiner suggests skipping the T15 4pc. His experience with specific fights doesn’t reflect my own, probably because he runs with a different healer team makeup, and, more likely, he does 10s while I do 25s. But! As stubborn as I am about keeping my shiny 4pc, I do agree that the extra stat bonus from an upgrade from normal-mode T15 piece to a heroic (or better, a Heroic THUNDERFORGED!) non-T15 piece would probably give your healing more oomph than a boost to Beacon.

There are some exceptions – my copally and I cross-beacon on Heroic Mags and we each get a lot of healing out of it. A lot. While we don’t seem to get the same kind of Beacon numbers on Heroic Council, I suspect that when we switch to direct healing Frostbite targets, our Beacons (again, cross-beaconing) have made other healers lives much easier. Otherwise, it seems the other fights in Throne are more raid damage typed, where extra Mastery and extra Spirit to support shiny Holy Radiances would go further than a boost to Beacon.

That said, I creepy stalked some of the highest HPS pallies in the US, and the vast majority (but not all!) were using T15 4pc. Note, though, their healing situations might not reflect that of the average raid. Plus they might swap gear around between fights.

And, what else? Oh yes, Mastery nerfs. Ouch.

Mastery Nerfs and healing styles

I checked my logs after the nerf and I half expected to find myself booted from my guild. It hurt my healing that bad. My copally was healing just fine, though, so I think the numbers may have had more to do with me than with the nerf. I tried harder the next week, and while I couldn’t get to where I was before the nerf, I did manage to not be rock bottom of the meters on every fight.

A couple of pallies asked me if they should change their stat priorities given the changes to Mastery. I don’t do much experimenting with things that extreme – but if anyone wants to give it a try, I’d be happy to look at the results.

I went to World of Logs again and went through a dozen of the highest ranking paladins (for 25 Heroic, mind you) and Mastery was a unanimous priority.

Another unanimous trait was the healing style of Holy Shock/Holy Radiance to generate Holy Power, followed by Eternal Flame blanketing. I swear most of them don’t even have Light of Dawn in their spell book.

(I try to heal like that, but apparently I fail pretty hard. In a fight 90 seconds shorter, Envy’s Finella gets more than twice the Holy Radiances and EFs out than I can!)

A strategy they use and that I hadn’t come across in discussions, is to take Holy Avenger (remember Holy Avenger, the level 75 talent?) and use it on CD. Combine with Divine Favor and Avenging Wrath for extra sexiness.

Simple and brilliant. For 18 seconds, you can get a lot of badass Eternal Flames out. Then you have 72 to 102 seconds to generate EFs the old fashion way.

I’m going to try this tonight.

As for meter rankings for the pros since the nerf, it seems that those pallies who were topping the meters before are now only slightly behind their Disc Priest buddies. Their healing environment is kinda different than the average raider (they have less healers, which spreads damage differently, and their healing aims more for numbers than functionality and bare survival), but the rest of us still have no excuse.

5.4, Flex Raiding, Minor Changes and Beyond

The Holy Paladin of the Future

I was happy to find no trace of those Eternal Flame nerfs everyone’s been panicking about. (Those aren’t hidden somewhere, are they? I’m scared!)

Our class changes are pretty minor. Paladiner’s wringed as much analysis out of our set bonuses as possible. Dedralie at Healiocentric has some discussion on our general changes on her blog as well.

If you want a TL;DR of our predicted changes, here it is: some wording on talents and some tiny number adjustments on Hand of Purity. At the time, I doubt anything will actually be noticeable in game. (Other than, obviously, T16 gear.)

And Flex Raiding!

Flex Raiding

Why is everyone so upset about Flex Raiding?

I think my guildy had the best reaction to the announcement: “Will I be getting an achievement for Flex Raiding?”

I can see how a third lockout would be annoying to guilds in the upper-but-not-raiding-24-hours-a-day bracket. Even so, it only takes a couple of weeks for these guilds before everyone has everything they need from pre-normal raid lockouts, weeks where most of us are chained to our computers anyway. And adding a third lockout would probably reduce the number of weeks it takes to get saturated with pre-normal gear.

Personally, I’m super happy about this. I doubt, however, I’ll use it much. For me, I think, Flex raiding is coming too late. For the longest time, I wished there were some way I could help my off server friends with current tier fights without having to built a raiding alt. I also wished there was a way we could have scaling fights, so we didn’t spent more time looking for pugs than actually playing. By now, though, most of my off servers friends have scattered. I’ve lost touch with too many of them and don’t feel comfortable sending a “hey, wanna Flex Raid with me?“. But still, I’m happy the opportunity will be there, should I get the call.

It might also be a way for me to connect with my own guild. During regular raids, I still freeze up whenever someone talks to me (and with my fluttery attention span, it’s very hard for me to concentrate on the raid and chat to guildies at the same time). I tried running LFR with them, but it’s not the same with a bunch of a strangers in our group. So even though I’ve been in the guild for months and am quite happy (the raids are efficient, fair and entertaining, what more could I ask for?), I’m not as engaged as I usually am. Flex raiding would perfect for drunken, no stress guild fun.

What else is coming up in 5.4? Virtual realms?

Virtual Realms or Are we really just looking for an excuse to overreact?

I play on Tichondrius, which, I think, has become the most populated realm after last week’s character service discount. Why everyone wants to move to a server where there are up to 40 minute queues in the evening and where you have to get up at 5 am to do dailies if you don’t want to spend more time getting ganked than playing the game, I have no idea. But long story short, I don’t think I’ll be affected by virtual realms.

As for everyone else, it sounds like virtual realms will help somewhat with the challenges of playing on a low pop server, namely guild recruiting and finding fun things to do with strangers on offnights. Perhaps I’m missing something huge, but I can’t see where the problem is.

There! A WoW post at last!

I think that sums my recent thoughts on the game.

I do still play, I assure you. Cadenza is now 7/13H in 25s. Thankfully, Throne of Thunder calls for waaaay less twitchy movement than, um, that other dungeon who’s name I apparently blocked from my memory. I still die enough to worry about getting kicked. Every time I see an in-game mail from my GM I get all “oh noes!“. (It’s usually just a shipment of raid food, though. Why he does this, I’m not sure. I wonder if his food Auction House alt has a name similar to Rykga and I’m getting them by accident. Or perhaps it’s a quiet hint that I need more spirit. But, you know, I won’t turn down free raid food.)

The mic port on my desktop blew so now I can’t talk on Vent or Skype or Mumble. Not sure if there’s a way to fix that without having to change my whole motherboard. (While I did build this computer with my own two hands, I’m still pretty clueless about how everything fits together.) I’m quite sad about it but not enough yet to dare rip my tower apart. The laptop still works, anyway.

And, um, I’m really trying to find things to write about here. It feels like when I write to my mom: “Dear Mom, I am still alive. I work a lot. Sometimes I go hiking but not very often because it rains all the time. We got snow last week too. I went to the SPCA this morning and walked a dog. I made soup in my slow cooker overnight and it tasted funny. Do you know what I am doing wrong? My computer is being buggy again. You should try Granville Island Brewery’s Summer Mingler pack. It’s quite delicious. That’s all I can think of. Love, Jenn.”

Alright, time to shut off the computer so my eyes don’t hurt for raid. Talk to you all again in like a month!

How I’m healing in MoP – Holy Pally 4eva: Links and Ressources

So. Many. Words.

When I started on this project back in November, I set out to do a quick FAQ/Pally 101. I discovered pretty fast that there’s no way to do justice to paladin healing which a simple model like that. 11 817 words later (counting this post), I’m finally wrapping up with links to the resources I consulted and thank yous to everyone who helped with this project.

Alright, so either you’ve read every word in this series (HAHAHAHA) and you’re begging for more, more, more pally chat. (Shoot me an email, I’m always looking for fellow pallies to share my never-ending enthusiasm with!) Or oppositely, you found my verboseness overwhelming (or you hate my writing style) and you’re looking for something more…concise.

You’re in luck!

There is plenty of Holy Pally reading material out there for all tastes and levels of nerdiness.

Other Holy Paladin Guides

MMO-Champion’s [MOP] Holy Paladin Guide 5.0: Crafted by the most excellent Getsu (Kerfax on the MMO-Champion forums) with input from the folks at MMO-Champion, this guide manages to be both comprehensive and brief. It was huge source of inspiration to me and I used it quite a bit to double check my facts and ideas. You can also find Getsu’s guide on his blog.

Icy Vein’s Holy Paladin Healing Guide (WoW MoP 5.1): I’ve only skimmed through this guide, but it seems rather accurate and very complete. Build with the intelligent page layout that we’ve come to love and expect from Icy Veins.

Taillias’ [Holy] Moar Light – 5.1 PvE healing guide: I came across this official forums guide as I was researching this post. I read a few excerpts and it seems solid.

Pardeux Raids’ Holy Paladin Class Guide: Pardeux’ guide has probably the most fun layout I’ve ever encountered. It was written either right before the expansion or very early on in the expansion so some of the wording might seem weird now, but it’s still very accurate work from a highly experienced holy paladin and raider.

Athlios’ Holy Paladin Guide: While I question its accuracy (Haste over Mastery in PvE with no explanation?), Athlios’ guide over at WoWHead is short, sweet and easy to navigate for quick references.

Shorter Articles Referenced for this Series

5.0 & You: Talents, Glyphs and Playstyle Changes at 85, by Kurn at Kurn’s Corner
Holy Paladin Talents part 1 and part 2, by Rohan at Blessing of Kings
How to Holy Paladin in Patch 5.0 including my first ever flowchart!, by Gina at Healbot
BREAKING NEWS: Holy Avenger and Holy Paladins (and its update), by Kurn at Kurn’s Corner
How to not fail at healing T14 Heroics, by Gina at Healbot
On Mana and the Glyph of Illumination at Level 85, by JoeEgo at Leveling Holy
Eternal Flame Blanketing, by Rohan at Blessing of Kings
Eternal Flame Blanketing, by Getsu at Getsu’s Sanctuary
Why I love ❤ Hand of Purity, by Gina at Healbot

Active Holy Paladin Blogs

Getsu’s Sanctuary: If you want a holy paladin guide, a fight-specific guide, reflections on patch changes, or even some insightful non-WoW musing, Getsu’s your blogger.
Healbot: For a long time, Gina spoke of paladin healing in a 10s setting. It appears she’s now jumped ship to heal 25s, like, well, all of us holy pally bloggers. I’m positive, however, that her writing will continue to be excellent with all the enthusiasm and energy we expect when reading her blog.
Healing Spec: If you prefer to listen to your bloggers over reading them, you’re in luck! Megacode produces fantastic regular short podcasts on paladin healing. He’s also very active and friendly on Twitter so make sure you fin him there too!
Blessing of Kings: Rohan only occasionally speaks on the topic of holy paladins, but everything he writes is interesting, so if you haven’t added him to your reader yet, you should get on that.
Healing Mains: Elunamakata isn’t exactly a paladin, but she does write on topics of interest to all healers, including paladins. Definitely worth adding to your reader.
Orcish Army Knife: While he doesn’t write about paladins specifically, Rades’s posts have had a delicious holy pally flavour to them lately. And anything Rades writes is pure gold, so you should add him to your reader regardless.
High Latency Life: Once a mage, Rivs is now a holy paladin. And not just a PvE holy paladin like the rest of us, no, he’s one of the rare bloggers to venture into the mysterious realm of PvP. While he doesn’t write theory posts, he has a unique writing style and chooses topics that provide a nice break from the raiding-raiding-raiding posts we see everywhere. (Warning, NSFW!)

Occasionally Updated Holy Paladin Blogs

Leveling Holy: JoeEgo doesn’t update often, but when he does, it’s guaranteed to be informative and relevant. Add him to your reader so you don’t miss out.
Pardeux Raids: Pardeux hasn’t updated for about 2 months, but his series (on raid management, on healing technique among others) are still very relevant. Keep an eye on him for when he returns with his next series of posts. And if you stray off the blog and onto the rest of the site, you’ll find a wealth of information on classes, boss strats, videos and more.
fullspectrumholypally: I only discovered this blog as I was researching this very post, which is a shame as Bouchbagette has written a number of pieces that would have been useful to me for past posts. He (I think)’s been very quiet lately, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that he’ll return with some new juicy numbers.
Kurn’s Corner: Kurn, who dominated the holy paladin blogging scene during Cata, has unfortunately left us for the scary Outside World, but does stop by once in awhile to say “hi“.
Dwarven Battle Medic: Fannon is another holy paladin blogger who spends most of his time in the Outside World, but I’m not ready to give up on his blog yet. (Also, I get to babysit his daughter sometimes!)
Holy Shock: Ruthra updates in splurts, and from what I can tell, he’s still running as a holy paladin.

Holy (and Multi-Spec) Paladin Message Boards

MMO-Champion Paladin Forum: This was probably my number one reference for writing this series. Lots of great conversations going on over there. Worth hanging out at, even if all you do is read.
Elitist Jerks Holy Paladin Thread: Not as active as it used to be, but on the bright side, it’s easier than ever to keep up with the thread. What little holy paladin theorycrafting is happening can be found within.
Wowhead Paladin Forum: Not the most active of paladin forums, but it’s there if you want to share your thoughts with Wowhead members.
Plus Heal Paladin Forums: Deceptively quiet. While there’s little chitchat going on, there are very friendly members who watch the forum like hawks. If you post a question, you’re very likely to receive a solid answer.
Official Paladin Forums: It’s the official forums! Very lively, with some good conversations going on.
Official Healing Forums: Less paladin centric, but the perfect place to hang out if you want to get into Holy Paladins vs everyone else discussions.

Biiiig Hugs and Thank yous

To Talarian, Trading Post, Ngita, Fearana, ithilyn, Boranos, Joe Ego, Rades, Sol, Saif, Megacode, Viktory, Rohan, cebrafin, grimmtooth, Shy, Malva, repgrind and Ace;

Thank you so much all of you for taking the time to read and comment on the Holy Pally 4 eva series (and/or the Garalon post). Whether it was to report a mistake, offer an alternative view or just say a “hi, I read this!“, your help, advice and support has been invaluable.

Huge thanks as well to everyone who retweeted me, who posted links on their guild forums or Facebook or who shared my blog on their own corners of the internet. You kept me motivated and excited while writing all these words about paladins.

Haters can say what they want about WoW players and the WoW community, but, me, I am constantly amazed at how much support and positivity go around in our circles.

And with that, cheers to WoW’s Holy Paladins, and may we never run out of internet dragons to slay (or heal)!

How I’m healing in MoP – Holy Pally 4eva: Healing with Beacon

That’s right! The end of this series is in sight and it’s time to talk about, you know, real healing spells!

As I see it, there are three components to paladin healing:

1- Beacon of Light Usage
2- Holy Power building and sinking
3- Cooldown Management

Since this is healing technique post #1, we’re going talk about Beacon.

The official description is rather clear. You put a buff, Beacon of Light, on a player of your strategic choosing, and the healing you do on other players transfers to your Beacon target.

The amount transferred varies based on spell used. So if Beacon is on Mary and you cast a Holy Light on Jack for 300 (numbers used in this post do not reflect actual in game averages), Mary would also receive a 300 heal. But if your Holy Radiance hits 5 people for 300, then Mary would be healed for 5 X (15% of 300) = 225.

You can move your Beacon of Light to different players during a fight, if you feel that’s the best strategy. If you plan on doing that often, consider Glyph of Beacon of Light to remove the global cooldown, making Beacon swapping faster.

Note as well the 60(!!!) yard radius on Beacon. Meaning Beacon can heal a player who’d be out of range by normal standards (40 yards), as long as they are within 60 yards of the person you’re direct healing.

Add Beacon to your frames

You’ll want to track your Beacon.

Since the Beacon buff doesn’t expire – the only ways to get rid of it is for the target to die, for the target to remove it (why would they want to do that?) and for you to cast it on a different target, Beacon tracking isn’t as crucial as it once was. However, since you, the player, are a human being, you sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes your target dies and you don’t put their Beacon back on. Sometimes your mouse slips a little and you cast Beacon on the wrong person. Sometimes you think you’re moving your Beacon to a new target but the cast doesn’t go off. Sometimes YOU EVEN FORGET TO CAST BEACON AT ALL! Tracking your Beacon is the fastest way to catch signs of your humanity and hide them before anyone else notices.

You’ll want to track the Beacons of other paladins in the raid.

“But I run 10 man/don’t raid!” you say. You also look at me with that “I know you’re heavily biased toward 25 man raiding” eye. Yes, I do intend to be the last 25 man holy paladin standing. But! Even if you don’t typically run with other holy paladins, you still might run LFR, you might do some Battlegrounds, you might pug a raid.

Knowing what the other holy paladins are doing helps a lot with making strategic decisions as well as predicting where the fight is going. It only takes a second to set up your frames to track other Beacons and you’ll almost certainly discover that you enjoy spying on your fellows.

Choosing a Beacon Target

I wrote about Beacon strategies awhile back. The post is rather outdated, but you might find some ideas for creative Beacon use, if you’re into that sort of thing.

1- Beacon the Tank (or, your Assigned Tank): If you’re just getting started and are running 5 mans, Beacon the tank. In Mists, I believe the only time I Beacon a non-tank in a 5 man is if the tank dies and I decide to save the group. In a raid setting, Beaconing the tank, or the tank you’re assigned to heal, has been my strategy of choice this expansion. It allows for the most freedom, letting you choose between direct healing your Beacon target (which builds Holy Power as we’ll see next post), or healing around and letting those heals transfer through Beacon.

2- Beacon the other Tank: In a fight calling for 2 simultaneous tanks, you can either use strategy #1, or choose to Beacon the tank you’re not assigned to, and spam heal your tank. This is more mana consuming and doesn’t let you help out the raid healers as much, but in a fight that is high on tank damage and low on raid damage, this strategy makes it easy to keep both tanks alive if you don’t trust the person healing the other tank (and might help you climb the meters a little bit, if you’re into that). If you’re healing with another paladin, this choice allows for cross-beaconing (each paladin is assigned a tank, and gives Beacon to the other pally’s tank)

3- Switch from Tank to Tank: I’d only seriously use this strategy on fights where tanks alternate. Assisted by Glyph of Beacon of Light, plop Beacon on whichever tank is currently taking the most damage.

4- Beacon on Someone Else: I can only think of three occasions where I’d use this in Mists so far – healing kiters on Garalon, healing in Gara’jal’s spirit world (thank you Repgrind!) and extreme raid healing. Extreme raid healing was described to me by Cebrafin on my glyph post and involves Beaconing a player before casting Divine Light or Flash of Light on them to build Holy Power. While I’ve never come across this strategy (and I read A LOT of healing logs), and you would rarely use big heals when raid healing, this strategy could be used if you do need a big heal on a non-tank, or as a fun distraction in LFR or during a boring fight.

Next post: That Holy Power you keep hearing about.

Chibi Rykga says hi! (Thank you Rades for the link!)

Till next time!

Looking for me? Or really looking for Holy Paladin MoP info?

You may think that I have run off to the mountains to do shitty stunts like, I dunno, a 22km hike in the pouring rain and spending the next 48 hours trying to get my body temperature back up. And then go climb another mountain 2 days later.

And take horseback riding lessons for 2 hours. And jump headfirst into Bikram Yoga again.

You may be right.

(My poor knee is so mad at me right now. It confined me to my living room, where the lack of physical exertion is slow causing me to lose my mind. If it doesn’t hurry up and heal, I suspect the search and rescue party will find me in my apartment all rabid and drooling like a crazed caged animal.)

It’s all because of things like this:

I mean, really, how can you resist that?

But! I haven’t been totally absent.

Summer Podcast Funsies!

While Oestrus and I wrapped up the Double O Podcast, you can still hear my delicious (and by delicious, I mean, squeaky and off-key) voice at a few places.

I guested on the 5 WoW Things podcast back in June.

It was a blast. I remember how nervous I got before podcasts a few years ago. I still get nervous, but instead of the old “OMG I AM GOING TO DIE FROM NERVES“, I get a feeling of “OMG I CANNOT CONTAIN THIS EXCITEMENT!” Now, while I was probably the pottiest mouth to ever get through pharmacy school, compared to most of the world, I am an extremely polite, mild mannered lady. Which makes me sound a little weird on rowdier podcasts. But I love it. When I manage to throw off the shackles of a lifetime of high pressure, I have so much fun. BGO and Jan wasted no time with the unshackling and I think the end result was pretty good. And by pretty good, I mean most excellent.

Then O and I were guests on the Grand Old Podcast in July.

I am thrilled with Sayomara’s executive decision to put my name first in the title. I don’t get to have my name first in titles very often, so I just had to point it out.

For those of you who frequently scold me for not talking enough when O and I record together, I think you will be happy with my performance. Sayomara was an absolutely brilliant host, asking all the right questions to bring out the differences in O’s and my personalities and spark some heated discussions. A lot of the topics that came up stayed in my head for days, and will probably find themselves into blog posts, should I ever come down from the mountains long enough to write regularly again. It made for a fantastic and enjoyable (in my not-so-humble opinion) show, and if you’re curious at all as to what an in-depth confrontation between an extrovert (Oestrus) blogger and an introvert (myself) blogger sounds like, you will be most satisfied.

And the future in all this?

The game is not over, not over at all!

This Saturday, Megacode is hosting a holy paladin roundtable with the most excellent paladins Kurn, JoeEgo and Chase Christian.

Your humble servant will also be there (which means I’ve got about less than 2 days to finish studying for MoP! I’ve been working hard, though, so I think I’ll do ok!) so she can be reminded how wonderful it feels to talk about paladins again. I don’t think we’ll be recording live, but I’ll be sure to post a link once the show is available.

Because many have asked (it blows my mind that anyone cares, but I am definitely flattered), I will be raiding in MoP and I will be playing my holy paladin.

Rykga’s been getting a break over the summer, but within the next few weeks, she’ll be attending training camp for MoP. And by training camp, I mean the Beta, and hopefully some Dragon Soul runs in 5.0.

My interest in WoW had indeed wavered a lot in the spring and I’ve been really enjoying the past few months of indulging in single player games. It’s not WoW’s fault. I’m not a nerdrager, never have been, never will be. It was really a combination of the exhaustion following several years of booking 2 to 5 nights a week off to raids and my real life suddenly becoming extremely enjoyable.

After my guild killed Madness on Heroic and started to talk about expansion plans, I knew I was coming back. But my decision wasn’t based on WoW, but rather on having found a guild I adored. I felt like there was so much more I could experience with these guys and gals and I couldn’t just waste this opportunity.

I think that is good news, but the even better news is that, lately, I’ve been finding myself missing my guildies and raids (most of us have been on hiatus for a couple of weeks). I downloaded the Beta (which took almost a week, stupid thing) and logged in. To my greatest surprise, deep inside me somewhere (gut nerve endings are so vague, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact location of these feelings) I felt some excitement.

I started reading about MoP. I’ve got a few of my own MoP posts in the early drafting stages.

Good times, I think, are on the horizon.

“But…I don’t want to wait for new posts, where can I read about MoP and holy paladins NAO?“

Elitis Jerks has been oddly quiet about holy paladins, but Plus Heal has a few discussions going.

Ruthra and Megacode have been writing about the Beta for some time. The Crimson Hammer has an interesting post on the interaction of Druid Symbiosis and Paladins.

And if you’re looking for a must-read with some solid stats information, JoeEgo did an excellent writeup on mana and mana regen in MoP.

I’ve been doing my best to keep an eye out for relevant holy pally information for MoP, but I probably miss quite a bit (you silly, shy bloggers and your fear of self promotion!), so feel free to point me where I haven’t looked and I’ll gladly update this post.

Guest Post: Raid Size ~ Two Months On

Editor’s note: Naithin from Fun in Games was kind enough to write a guest post for me, and on a very current topic at that! (Someone’s got to write about current topics ‘cos the light knows I sure don’t.) It’s a fantastic post and he sets the bar high for when I finish my post for him. Enjoy!

How do you feel about Blizzard’s decision to, for all intents and purposes, merge 10 and 25 man raids? Is it different to how you thought you’d feel about it when you first heard?

When I first heard of the plans to make 10 and 25m share a lockout my response was immediate dismay. I liked doing both. I did 25-man ‘serious’ raiding with Surreality, and 10-man ‘funsies’ raiding with a bunch of friends scattered across a few guilds on the server.

It was our way to relax and unwind and how dare blizzard take it away!

I read further, and found out they also intended to give equal loot to 10 and 25 man raids. I didn’t particularly have any problem with this; it was about time so far as I was concerned. I mean, I only got into 25m raiding in the first place because you couldn’t finish gearing in 10s alone and I was tired of fail pugging 25s . . . Oh.

Oh.

Sure, I can write this as one continuous thought now but to think it actually occurred to me with such clarity would be to assume a degree of cleverness and self-awareness that, in reality, I didn’t possess. I’d done a pretty good job of tricking myself into believing 25-man raiding was what I wanted and the most fun and that it was the ‘real’ version of raiding.

Where that idea comes from I really don’t know. I’d seen first hand that in many cases the 10m content was legitimately more difficult and less forgiving of error than 25m, but nonetheless, it was how I and many others felt.

In actual fact, reaching the epiphany at the end of that thought process took me at least a month as I alternated between being pleased with how they’d handled the loot distribution between the raid sizes and mad at the loss of choice of doing both 10 and 25m if I wanted to.

The provided reasoning was sound, I could admit, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. The provided reasoning for multi-variable calculus problems are also often sound, and I certainly don’t like those.

In any case, eventually I did come to the end of that thought process, and realised that for me, 10m content was where it was at. This is pretty much in direct contrast with both Ophelie of- well; here, and Larisa over at The Pink Pigtail Inn, who strongly believe it is 25m or go home.

Keeping Your Head Above Water in 4.0.1

Update Oct 19, 2010 – Looks like Blizzard gave in to our begging and gave us a boost. Pretty much everything here still holds true, although the “our output suuuuucks” jokes loose somewhat of their meaning. Because we’re still very much single target healers and mastery still isn’t recorded (I know a few people have found a trick to make Recount show mastery, but I tried it and all it did was crash Recount), we’re still low on the meters, but at least now our spells are smacking for amounts that seem reasonable.

Healing meters in 4.0.1:

Don’t be shocked. It sucks, but that’s the way it is. Keep in mind that the absorbs done by our Mastery, Illuminated Healing aren’t recorded by either Recount or World of Logs, so we aren’t doing quite as badly as we think.

After fooling around in-game, talking to other paladins (<3 Kurn, Anolaana and the paladin formally known as the hunter Grindin) and reading Elitist Jerks, blogs, Plus Heal and even the official forums (most of it is QQ, but there are a few early guides posted), I’ve compiled my notes for Holy, version 4.0.1.

At this point, there is very little agreed upon and most of the Big Thinkers are keeping their eyes on Cataclysm, so any arguing, criticizing, complaining and commiserating is totally welcome.

Spec and Seal

More challenging but probably more efficient: 31/2/3
If you don’t want to give up your old healing style: 31/3/2

For the last two minor glyphs, take your pick. With the exception of Lay on Hands, our minor glyphs are really stupid.

Seal of Insight is the seal you’ll keep up.

Gemming and Stats

Keep your Brilliant Cardinal Rubies for now (+20 Intellect). Can’t go wrong with the more mana, spell power and crit they provide.

Meta gem-wise, I’m having trouble giving up my Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, but Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond is good too.

Enchants are:
Head – Arcanum of Blissful Mending or Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
Shoulders – Greater Inscription of the Crag or Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle
Back – Greater Speed or Wisdom
Chest – Powerful Stats or Greater Mana Restoration (now gives 20 spirit)
Legs – Brilliant Spellthread
Wrists –Superior Spellpower or Exceptional Intellect or Major Spirit
Hands – Exceptional Spellpower
Feet – Tuskarr’s Vitality or Greater Spirit or Icewalker
Rings – Greater Spellpower
Weapon – Mighty Spellpower or Exceptional Spirit or Major Intellect

*Be sure to wear all plate gear (no more of that stinky mail) now, as Plate Specialization now gives us a 5% Intellect boost.

As for other stats beyond Intellect:

Spirit: Often listed as 2nd important stat after Int. Depends on your gear and playstyle. Reports vary from “my mana bar is stuck at 100%” to “I was OOM a few seconds into the first pull”. Personally, I go through my whole mana bar during an ICC 25 HM fight, but I’m not struggling, even after reforging my spirit to mastery. Adjust your spirit according to your mileage. Err on the side of caution: as long there is mana, there can be life.

Haste: Unknown. Soft cap (global cooldown reduced to 1 second) is reported to be 1019 (thanks Auracen) when raid buffed and Judgments of the Pure is up. Opinions vary on whether to bother reaching the soft cap, staying at the soft cap or going beyond. If you’re keeping an old fashion playstyle (big heal spamming) pump up the haste. Otherwise, you’ll be using a lot of instants with a few long casts (Holy Light and Divine Light) thrown in, so my recommendation is keep your haste, but don’t gem or reforge to it either.

Crit:Yes. With the exception of Divine Light (which is expensive and slow), all our heals are pathetic. Crit amplifies healing, triggers Conviction and makes for more Mastery absorbs. A Holy Shock crit triggers Infusion of Light. Embrace crit.

Mastery: Probably good. To my knowledge, the absorbs from Illuminated Healing (IH) aren’t tracked anywhere so I don’t know how it looks in practice. However, IH does trigger after every heal (except Protector of the Innocent, thanks Jeffo), which is good. The duration is too short to be used for raid healing, but on a tank or in PvP, it offers a free mini-heal in the form of an absorb between heals.

Buff, Proc and Cooldown Tracking

Buffs: Set your raid frames to track Beacon of Light and Illuminated Healing.

Procs: Have a notification for Infusion of Light. If you don’t like the default Holy Power tracker, consider finding an addon to notify you when you reach 3 stracks. Some paladins are also tracking Speed of Light, but since it procs every time you use Holy Shock, it seems a bit silly.

Cooldowns: Holy Shock. Keep an eye on Avenging Wrath, Divine Favor, Aura Mastery and Divine Plea as well.

Addons

Holy Trinity: Tracks cooldowns and Holy Power. Not the overly useful for holy pallies, but awesome if you’re polyspectual.

Ristretto Power: Tracks Holy Power stacks.

clcInfo:Seems to keep track of anything you want. Not usable straight out of the box, unfortunately.

Pally Power: Not as essential as it was… Good if you like the buff timer and Righteous Fury reminder.

Playstyle

See Dreaming’s blog, A Touch of Arcane, for a quick explanation of the Tower of Radiance build.

The idea of a rotation as a paladin healer disturbs me, but the way to wring the most out of our miserable state is this:

1- Any time you have 3 stacks of Holy Power, use Word of Glory.
2- Any time you do not have 3 stacks of Holy Power and Holy Shock is available, Holy Shock.
3- After every Holy Shock, can Divine Light, unless you’re in situation #1 or #2.
4- If Infusion of Light procs, cast Divine Light followed by Holy Light, unless you’re in situation #1 or #2.
5- When waiting for Holy Shock cooldowns and building Holy Power stacks, cast Divine Light.
6- If mana is an issue, swap Divine Light for Holy Light.
7- If time is of the essence, swap Divine Light for Flash of Light. (This shouldn’t happen often.)
8- Avenging Wrath can be used every time it comes off cooldown.

Basically, your rotation looks like HS->HS (if Daybreak prevented the CD)-> DL->HL/DL (depending on mana or Infusion of Light proc)->DL->HS->WoG->WoG (if you’re specced into Eternal Glory and it procs).

Alternatively, you can spam Divine Light/Holy Shock/Word of Glory on your assignment until you run out of mana. You’ll be far from your best, but it is possible to keep the tank up while fumbling with your spells.

Light of Dawn: If there’s a lot of AoE damage and people are closish together, have fun with it. (Also use when feeling the urge to admire new glowy sparkly spell effects -courtesy of @Alice_desu)

Beacon of Light: Keep on your assignment in most situations. To maximize the Holy Power you get, cast Divine Light and Holy Light on your beacon target. Depending on the fight, you may cast Holy Shock and Word of Glory on other targets, but remember that beacon has been seriously nerfed and under most circumstance, it’s not enough to keep a tank up.

Divine Favor: Haste and crit boosting cooldown, use on cooldown or during periods of heavy damage.

Divine Plea: Has been nerfed into the ground, sadly. Like before the patch, if you use it mid-combat try to pop a healing output boosting cooldown to take an edge off the 50% healing penalty.

Conclusion:

Now, if you do everything perfectly and don’t waste a single global cooldown, you should be able to beat the shadow priest on the healing meters. Most of the time ;D.

Don’t get me wrong, healing as a paladin in 4.0.1 is really fun. It’s fast paced, it’s interactive, it keeps you on your toes. Unfortunately, as things are now, our healing style isn’t compatible with healing meters, which is discouraging. Despite what some believe, we are still very capable of keeping a tank up. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Shut off Recount (enjoy the lag reduction from that), take the “Healing Done” page on World of Logs with a grain of salt and just focus on having a good time. From what I’m told, in a couple of weeks we’ll get some better changes when a certain Cataclysm becomes available at a gaming store near you.

If WoW were Reality TV…

I like reality TV. The great thing about it is that the “plots” are so simple and repetitive that you don’t have to watch the show regularly or attentively to know whats going on. Since sitting still and I aren’t friends, reality TV shows are pretty much the only things I ever watch. They make good background noise when I’m making supper or eating.

I realized that I watch them a biiiiit too much when I started seeing the potential for reality TV concepts in WoW.

WoW Survivor

Starts off with two guilds of, say, 13 or 14 people. They each have their guild website and forums where we can follow their adventures. Guildies are welcome to be as dramatic as possible and even post video blogs on their forums.

About two times a week, the guilds compete against each other in a task. In the early weeks, the task could be getting a 10 man raid together and getting as far as possible (note that the guilds have 13 or 14 people…drama flag!), later on it could be challenges requiring less people.

The guild who looses the challenge must vote to /gkick a member. As the guilds shrink in size, they eventually merge (and we all know how that usually goes over!). The challenges become individual, with only one person gaining immunity to the /gkick. This goes on until there is a single WoW Survivor.

GuildMeister’s Ultimate Guild Takeover

Naughty healers? Cranky mages? Disobedient warlocks? Failed raids? You don’t have to put with that crap!

GuildMeister uses her skills and experience to turn your unruly guildie into top notch (or at least very polite) players. She teaches your guild to be disciplined, productive and to work together as a team. By coaching your GM, officers and members in fields like raiding, recruitment, communication and organization, she’ll turn your failing guild into the most successful group of people on your server.

But change doesn’t happen without some level of resistance! Drama, name calling and other childish behavior almost invariably ensue. Will GuildMeister succeed in giving guilds their much needed makeover? Tune in to her frapps log to see!

Also, if you enjoy GuildMeister’s adventures, but sure to check out the Guild Whisperer, the Guild Super Nanny and ‘Til Drama Do Us Part.

180 Active Members and Counting

In these days of small, tight knit guilds, managing even 30 members can be a handful. Yet the Dugguild has 180 active, happy members. They do all sorts of things together: raid races, hogger raids, guild parties, guild meetups. Even though they’re bursting at the seams, they never stop recruiting!

Want to see how they handle their huge, huge, huge guild? Check them out on their guild blog! With 180 motivated members, it gets updated quite frequently.

What Not to Wear, Gear Edition

Every week, our two WoW fashion experts surprise spell power wearing rogues or cloth wearing death knights (like my death knight!) at the moment they least expect it! The fashion offenders are then shown screen shots of their poor judgement in front of all their guildmates and friends.

Our experts take our challenged players to WoWhead, Elitist Jerks and MMO Champions where they teach them a few gearing rules. The players are then given 50 000 gold and 500 badges for purchasing new gear and enchants. After players are left to fumble around for a few hours on their own at the Auction House and Badge Vendor, our experts show up to help them finish the task.

Once their shopping is complete, players are brought to the Rotation and Not-Standing-In-Crap-Specialists who give them some extra tips to get the most out of their play.

After a whole week with the team of experts, players finally return to their guilds where their friends are waiting to admire their progress at a big raid party!

***

See! I think WoW is a perfect place to exploit drama for a profit educate players using real people and a loose plot. Of course, instead of weekly hour long TV shows, WoW Reality TV would be done using the internet, via message board interactions, blogs, You Tube Videos or all of the above combined! It’s a recipe for success!