I was skimming over some of my old posts and realized how out of date the information in them is, even though it was written within the expansion that's about to end. Part of it is due to changes during the expansion, part of it is due to my growth and experience as a player, and part of it is due to changes in the itemization of gear. At the least, my spec has changed a bit because of changes to Mangle and I have a different opinion about a few spec choices than I did before, even if I haven't yet spent the gold to change them, but since the blog is not simultaneously both clairvoyant and auto-updating, well, this info hasn't made it into written word yet.
On a completely unrelated note, a clairvoyant, auto-updating blog would be simultaneously awesome and horrendous. It would certainly cut down on writing time, but some thoughts should never be let out of the cage.
But, with the imminent Cataclysm, I think I'm going to wait until then to completely rework any guides. It seems kind of pointless, so the only *current* info I'll still be putting up has to do with raiding until Cata comes and I get the chance to play with the new toys.
I hope my guides, even though out of date, will still serve some use to folks. As such they'll be kept up but marked to indicate that they've passed their expiration date.
While I think reworking them would be great, I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to write out that type of guide, especially with five levels to gain before I have access to everything.
With all that said, there are a LOT of changes coming, and I felt it would be a good time to build everything from the base up. I think it will be good for both new players and old to reexamine what we know about how to play a Druid. In accordance with this goal, I'll be stepping through key abilities new and old to talk about what they do, how they work, how they're useful to us, and what do we need to consider about WHEN to use them. Since it's getting one of the biggest overhauls, I'll start with Maul and move on from there.
At the moment, I plan on focusing on Feral abilities. Resto doesn't seem to be getting quite as big an overhaul as Feral, and I don't expect to have any practical experience with it any time soon, so I think I'm going to hold off on that for now.
Of course I'll also discuss talent trees and all the choices therein, but those I don't feel like touching until the info is final.
Lastly, it is my sincere hope to find some time before Cataclysm drops to work on the style of the page. Blogger's template works, it gets the job done, but... it's so bland and basic. Thus I intend to find the time to work out some changes. That's kinda low on the totem pole right now though, so don't hold your breath.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
On Babies and Crying
Days like today are what I expected when I first learned I would be a father. The upside is that they've happened FAR less often than I expected, and I'm so very glad for that.
The suckiest thing I've had to deal with so far about having a baby is that when there's something wrong they can't tell you what it is, because they only have about four or five responses to stimuli, and really only varying degrees of one response to negative stimuli.
When they're happy they'll smile and laugh and play with things. When they're content they'll be calm and look around and observe things. When they're tired they'll rub their eyes.
But when they cry, sometimes there's not much you can do to figure out what's wrong, because they cry whenever anything is wrong, and my baby is no different.
When she's too tired and fighting sleep, she cries. When she's hungry, she cries. When she's constipated or gassy, she cries. When she gets her foot caught in the rails of her crib, she cries. When she has a headache, she cries. When she has an ear infection, she cries. When she has a fever, she cries. When her gums or teeth hurt because she's teething, she cries.
Sure, some of those we can usually figure out - we can check her temperature, we know when she's being fed an how much, we can watch her on the monitor and see that she's in the middle of her crib. But at her age, since she's started teething, it's kind of a roll of the dice trying to figure out what is causing her to fuss if we've ruled out the obvious.
Getting back to today... I had about 3-4 hours of sleep last night. The largest uninterrupted period was around two to two and a half hours. She woke up and fussed and fussed for about an hour until we got her settled enough to go back to sleep, then she slept for that two-ish hours and woke up again and refused to go back to sleep without laying on Mom or Dad's chest to prop her up a little bit.
All because of a little ear infection.
So I'm at work for the afternoon, but I'm only tackling easy stuff because I can barely concentrate enough to do anything worthwhile. This post is about the most coherent thing I can muster.
Thankfully, she usually sleeps through the night and this is only the second time she's been sick. I can count on one hand the number of times since she turned 6 weeks old she's not slept through the night. But that doesn't help me feel any better today.
To all the parents out there who love and care for their children, I salute you for your effort and hope that the days like today has been for me are few and far between for you...
The suckiest thing I've had to deal with so far about having a baby is that when there's something wrong they can't tell you what it is, because they only have about four or five responses to stimuli, and really only varying degrees of one response to negative stimuli.
When they're happy they'll smile and laugh and play with things. When they're content they'll be calm and look around and observe things. When they're tired they'll rub their eyes.
But when they cry, sometimes there's not much you can do to figure out what's wrong, because they cry whenever anything is wrong, and my baby is no different.
When she's too tired and fighting sleep, she cries. When she's hungry, she cries. When she's constipated or gassy, she cries. When she gets her foot caught in the rails of her crib, she cries. When she has a headache, she cries. When she has an ear infection, she cries. When she has a fever, she cries. When her gums or teeth hurt because she's teething, she cries.
Sure, some of those we can usually figure out - we can check her temperature, we know when she's being fed an how much, we can watch her on the monitor and see that she's in the middle of her crib. But at her age, since she's started teething, it's kind of a roll of the dice trying to figure out what is causing her to fuss if we've ruled out the obvious.
Getting back to today... I had about 3-4 hours of sleep last night. The largest uninterrupted period was around two to two and a half hours. She woke up and fussed and fussed for about an hour until we got her settled enough to go back to sleep, then she slept for that two-ish hours and woke up again and refused to go back to sleep without laying on Mom or Dad's chest to prop her up a little bit.
All because of a little ear infection.
So I'm at work for the afternoon, but I'm only tackling easy stuff because I can barely concentrate enough to do anything worthwhile. This post is about the most coherent thing I can muster.
Thankfully, she usually sleeps through the night and this is only the second time she's been sick. I can count on one hand the number of times since she turned 6 weeks old she's not slept through the night. But that doesn't help me feel any better today.
To all the parents out there who love and care for their children, I salute you for your effort and hope that the days like today has been for me are few and far between for you...
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Lich King
... Also known as Prince Arthas Menethil.
Our first attempts came this week, and our progress was up and down, to say the least. The good news is that we got through the first phase and transition, and got to see the defiles and val'kyr a few times. The bad news is that we did not continually progress, and of our ~10 attempts the 4th or 5th was our best attempt.
The only oddity in our strategy was that I stayed in my bear spec and gear, to be able to have a 3rd tank available for certain parts of the fight. Most notably, it allows us to have 2 tanks available to handle raging spirits during the transition back to fighting the Lich King, allowing our MT to focus solely on getting back to the right spot with Arthas rather than having to worry about a Raging Spirit at the same time.
Although I'm not 100% certain it's necessary and I suspect we will not use that angle when we make our successful run, I do think it is extremely helpful while we are learning the fight, because it slightly increases our success rate in that transition. The downside is that it cripples my DPS during the portions that I'm trying to cat form, with me beating out only the tanks at that point.
We had a LOT of trouble, the times we got to see defiles and Val'kyr, with both proper handling of defiles AND DPS getting the Val'kyr down. Unfortunately we only got to see that a time or two. We had some odd wipes in the first phase and during transition and although we were getting better again at the end we had lost our momentum and then ran out of time.
We are resetting next week, to allow, especially for our less-well-geared members, a chance at some more gear and a heaping load of badges, as well as getting us 8 more Sanctification tokens.
I should probably write something other than our raid updates eh?
What can I say it's a convenient topic.
Our first attempts came this week, and our progress was up and down, to say the least. The good news is that we got through the first phase and transition, and got to see the defiles and val'kyr a few times. The bad news is that we did not continually progress, and of our ~10 attempts the 4th or 5th was our best attempt.
The only oddity in our strategy was that I stayed in my bear spec and gear, to be able to have a 3rd tank available for certain parts of the fight. Most notably, it allows us to have 2 tanks available to handle raging spirits during the transition back to fighting the Lich King, allowing our MT to focus solely on getting back to the right spot with Arthas rather than having to worry about a Raging Spirit at the same time.
Although I'm not 100% certain it's necessary and I suspect we will not use that angle when we make our successful run, I do think it is extremely helpful while we are learning the fight, because it slightly increases our success rate in that transition. The downside is that it cripples my DPS during the portions that I'm trying to cat form, with me beating out only the tanks at that point.
We had a LOT of trouble, the times we got to see defiles and Val'kyr, with both proper handling of defiles AND DPS getting the Val'kyr down. Unfortunately we only got to see that a time or two. We had some odd wipes in the first phase and during transition and although we were getting better again at the end we had lost our momentum and then ran out of time.
We are resetting next week, to allow, especially for our less-well-geared members, a chance at some more gear and a heaping load of badges, as well as getting us 8 more Sanctification tokens.
I should probably write something other than our raid updates eh?
What can I say it's a convenient topic.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Internet Dragons
EA is killing those internet dragons!
It took us most of the night and 4 wipes (a couple to frustrating lack-of-movement mistakes), but we had good DPS all around and killed Sindragosa dead with time to spare on the last run.
We tanked her turned to the right as you face from the door out to her ledge. Run to the stairs when she pulls you in, run to the stairs when she starts her air phase. The five marked players spread out along the bottom step just far enough not to take too much damage from the ice tombs coming down. DPS the tombs at the proper speed so that they come down just after the last ice bomb from her. Stop DPS after 4 or 5 stacks of Chilled to the Bone and let it fall off. Wash, rinse, repeat. Move to Phase 2.
That part we had pretty well down, except for one frustrating oops during the ice tombs that entombed nearly half the raid.
We struggled mostly, on 3 of our 4 wipes, with not losing players during the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2. But once we figured it out we were fine. Start by the back leg. Person with mark move to the front and get ice blocked, THEN everybody follow. Get behind, drop Mystic Buffet and DPS the tomb, then back on Sindy near the front leg. Marked player run to the back leg and get tombed. Everybody except half the melee DPS (we only had 5, so it was easy) run to the tomb, drop stacks, and kill the tomb. Player with mark run to the front, get tombed, and everybody except the OTHER half the melee DPS do the tomb thing again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Even on the winning run we had a couple of mistakes - one of our ice tombs ended up behind her tail and left for dead, and we'd lost enough folks by the end that our marked players were just instructed to get the heck away from everybody else before getting tombed, and left in the tombs to die. But in the end it was another victory for EA, another step to finishing ICC before the Cataclysm reshapes WoW.
On to other news...
Although I don't heal at the moment I've kept up with tree-like Druid news. I hate the current implementation in beta of Tree of Life, but I don't think I'm alone in that. What I actually wanted to mention was about the Restoration Mastery.
In it's original incarnation, the Restoration Mastery provided extra healing to your HoT spells if they had lower HP *when the HoT was cast*. This caused quite a stir in the resto community, as well it should have - it's exquisitely terribad. When the proverbial fecal matter hits the proverbial air movement device, the last thing we want to be casting on a player is a HoT. It may be more mana efficient over the length of its application, but it doesn't get the player healed NOW, which is what is needed at that time. Combine that with Blizzard's push to get us to stop blanketing with HoTs and you have a recipe for disaster.
On a side note, it actually wouldn't have been an awful Mastery if they had allowed it to recalculate for each tick. I think that would have encouraged thoughtful proactive pre-hotting without giving too much benefit to raid blanketing... but I digress.
The Mastery now provides additional healing to our spells cast on players who already have a HoT ticking on them. This is most beneficial, IMO, to give us some more oomph as tank healers, as the tanks will *always* have HoTs ticking on them. It also happens to discourage clipping, which I'll explain in a minute. What it really allows is for the better healers to cast a Rejuv or other HoT on a target we expect to take damage, then when the damage hits and we need that extra oomph the HoT is already there to boost our heals. I like it.
About the clipping thing? Yeah, so if you are healing the tank, and you cast a Rejuv to boost the rest of your heals, and then you start a Lifebloom stack, it becomes important not to clip the Rejuv, since you'll only refresh the original, not recognize that there are already HoTs ticking. This is true on the rest of the raid, but not quite as important as on the tank. Once it falls off, you can reapply and get the boost because the Lifebloom is ticking... Which, when you refresh, will still be getting its bonuses.
I haven't seen nearly as detailed information about Feral Masteries, but I really like the fact that (at least at the moment) shifting forms allows us to shift our masteries. We still can't shift gear, but it should help with those fights were we want/need to be able to do both roles...
As for Arthas... you better bring it, buddy. Go big or go home. EA's coming for you.
It took us most of the night and 4 wipes (a couple to frustrating lack-of-movement mistakes), but we had good DPS all around and killed Sindragosa dead with time to spare on the last run.
We tanked her turned to the right as you face from the door out to her ledge. Run to the stairs when she pulls you in, run to the stairs when she starts her air phase. The five marked players spread out along the bottom step just far enough not to take too much damage from the ice tombs coming down. DPS the tombs at the proper speed so that they come down just after the last ice bomb from her. Stop DPS after 4 or 5 stacks of Chilled to the Bone and let it fall off. Wash, rinse, repeat. Move to Phase 2.
That part we had pretty well down, except for one frustrating oops during the ice tombs that entombed nearly half the raid.
We struggled mostly, on 3 of our 4 wipes, with not losing players during the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2. But once we figured it out we were fine. Start by the back leg. Person with mark move to the front and get ice blocked, THEN everybody follow. Get behind, drop Mystic Buffet and DPS the tomb, then back on Sindy near the front leg. Marked player run to the back leg and get tombed. Everybody except half the melee DPS (we only had 5, so it was easy) run to the tomb, drop stacks, and kill the tomb. Player with mark run to the front, get tombed, and everybody except the OTHER half the melee DPS do the tomb thing again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Even on the winning run we had a couple of mistakes - one of our ice tombs ended up behind her tail and left for dead, and we'd lost enough folks by the end that our marked players were just instructed to get the heck away from everybody else before getting tombed, and left in the tombs to die. But in the end it was another victory for EA, another step to finishing ICC before the Cataclysm reshapes WoW.
On to other news...
Although I don't heal at the moment I've kept up with tree-like Druid news. I hate the current implementation in beta of Tree of Life, but I don't think I'm alone in that. What I actually wanted to mention was about the Restoration Mastery.
In it's original incarnation, the Restoration Mastery provided extra healing to your HoT spells if they had lower HP *when the HoT was cast*. This caused quite a stir in the resto community, as well it should have - it's exquisitely terribad. When the proverbial fecal matter hits the proverbial air movement device, the last thing we want to be casting on a player is a HoT. It may be more mana efficient over the length of its application, but it doesn't get the player healed NOW, which is what is needed at that time. Combine that with Blizzard's push to get us to stop blanketing with HoTs and you have a recipe for disaster.
On a side note, it actually wouldn't have been an awful Mastery if they had allowed it to recalculate for each tick. I think that would have encouraged thoughtful proactive pre-hotting without giving too much benefit to raid blanketing... but I digress.
The Mastery now provides additional healing to our spells cast on players who already have a HoT ticking on them. This is most beneficial, IMO, to give us some more oomph as tank healers, as the tanks will *always* have HoTs ticking on them. It also happens to discourage clipping, which I'll explain in a minute. What it really allows is for the better healers to cast a Rejuv or other HoT on a target we expect to take damage, then when the damage hits and we need that extra oomph the HoT is already there to boost our heals. I like it.
About the clipping thing? Yeah, so if you are healing the tank, and you cast a Rejuv to boost the rest of your heals, and then you start a Lifebloom stack, it becomes important not to clip the Rejuv, since you'll only refresh the original, not recognize that there are already HoTs ticking. This is true on the rest of the raid, but not quite as important as on the tank. Once it falls off, you can reapply and get the boost because the Lifebloom is ticking... Which, when you refresh, will still be getting its bonuses.
I haven't seen nearly as detailed information about Feral Masteries, but I really like the fact that (at least at the moment) shifting forms allows us to shift our masteries. We still can't shift gear, but it should help with those fights were we want/need to be able to do both roles...
As for Arthas... you better bring it, buddy. Go big or go home. EA's coming for you.
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