I've already written a post (if not several) here about Holy Paladin Loot in Ulduar. And Pallymar compiled an Ulduar Best-in-Slot Guide too with additional discussion on the items.
If these guides are quick easy reference guides, you could always ask the question: but why this guy is saying that item is better ? If I hope you'll give us enough credit to believe in our choices, sometimes you will have to make your own choices and I would like to give you tips for that.
It happens that Sailan at Banana Shoulders just posted the perfect post for that:
Choosing Your Attributes. You can read there a very detailed and well written discussion about the merit of each stat for a holy paladin, spell power vs. spell crit, you'll find all of that there. And I definitely agree with Sailan who, once again, deliver us a very good piece of work.
I'll be off for the weekend, so I wish you all a very good weekend, and see you on Monday for a new post.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Ulduar Holy Paladin loot update *04/28*
Ulduar cleaning by the top guilds is giving us more loot, we should not be far from the complete loot table for Ulduar, but for Algalon that will require a bit more time.
As always, the Full Ulduar Holy Paladin Loot List will be updated, I'll post a new clean one once Ulduar loot is complete.
Until then, new loot is here, most of the items are from hard modes:
Cable of the Metrognome (Plate Waist - Spell haste MP5) - Mimiron 10-Man *new 04/28*
Faceguard of the Eyeless Horror (Plate Head - Spell crit MP5) - Yogg-Saron 10-Man *new 04/28*
Pendant of the Shallow Grave (Neck - Spell crit haste) - Thorim 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Sif's Remembrance (Trinket - Spell power, mana regen) - Thorim 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Shawl of Haunted Memories (Cloak - Spell crit + spirit) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man *new 04/28*
Sanity's Bond (Ring - Spell haste MP5) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man *new 04/28*
Gauntlets of the Thunder God (Plate Hands - Spell crit haste) - Thorim 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Sapphire Amulet of Renewal (Neck - Spell haste + spirit) - Iron Council 25-Man hard *new 04/28*
Fire Orchid Signet (Ring - Spell haste MP5) - Freya 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Conductive Seal (Ring - Spell haste + spirit) - Mimiron 25-Man hard *new 04/28*
Show of Faith (Trinket - Spell power, mana regen) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man hard *new 04/28* (basically a good upgrade of Sif's Remembrance)
Aesuga, Hand of the Ardent Champion (1H Mace - Spell crit haste) - General Vezax 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Signet of Soft Lament (Ring - Spell crit + spirit) - Yogg-Saron 10-Man *new 04/28*
and finally
Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings, for those who don't know yet, it is the legendary weapon of Ulduar that you forge by using 40 shards.
As always, the Full Ulduar Holy Paladin Loot List will be updated, I'll post a new clean one once Ulduar loot is complete.
Until then, new loot is here, most of the items are from hard modes:
Cable of the Metrognome (Plate Waist - Spell haste MP5) - Mimiron 10-Man *new 04/28*
Faceguard of the Eyeless Horror (Plate Head - Spell crit MP5) - Yogg-Saron 10-Man *new 04/28*
Pendant of the Shallow Grave (Neck - Spell crit haste) - Thorim 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Sif's Remembrance (Trinket - Spell power, mana regen) - Thorim 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Shawl of Haunted Memories (Cloak - Spell crit + spirit) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man *new 04/28*
Sanity's Bond (Ring - Spell haste MP5) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man *new 04/28*
Gauntlets of the Thunder God (Plate Hands - Spell crit haste) - Thorim 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Sapphire Amulet of Renewal (Neck - Spell haste + spirit) - Iron Council 25-Man hard *new 04/28*
Fire Orchid Signet (Ring - Spell haste MP5) - Freya 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Conductive Seal (Ring - Spell haste + spirit) - Mimiron 25-Man hard *new 04/28*
Show of Faith (Trinket - Spell power, mana regen) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man hard *new 04/28* (basically a good upgrade of Sif's Remembrance)
Aesuga, Hand of the Ardent Champion (1H Mace - Spell crit haste) - General Vezax 10-Man hard *new 04/28*
Signet of Soft Lament (Ring - Spell crit + spirit) - Yogg-Saron 10-Man *new 04/28*
and finally
Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings, for those who don't know yet, it is the legendary weapon of Ulduar that you forge by using 40 shards.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Ulduar Paladin Healing Tips (update)
Pallymar took the time to write an answer to my previous healing post on his blog, you can read the complete version on Pallymar's Take.
I'm going to discuss here the three previous points I mentioned and try to answer Pallymar with a little more Ulduar experience for myself.
I did Ignis 10, Council of Iron 10 and XT-002 25 this weekend, they are strongly different fights in term of healing. I think that one very interesting thing in Ulduar is that you have to be very adaptable, and change your healing startegy with each boss.
On the use of the Beacon of Light
Previous to Ulduar, I've already used it on the MT, or OT, depending on who I was assigned to heal and depending on the raid damage. If I expected to raid heal from time to time, it was on my main target (MT or OT). If raid damage was low enough to not need me, I'll put it on the MT or OT that was not my main target, to help its assigned healer.
The tip I got from the two guides I mentioned in my previous post was saying to use the Beacon on yourself, I found that change worth mentioning, as it was a strong change of style from pre-Ulduar. Pallymar disagreed with that tip, advocating a more classical use of the beacon (in the line of the ones I just talked about). I should say that, from my experience before Ulduar, that was really the thing to do ... now ...
In all my 3 boss fights (10 and 25 Man) I tried to use Beacon of Light differently, tried to see it's effectiveness, and how were other healers going. After several tries, I find putting it on you the most effective use, even though it'll make it generate about 60-80% overhealing ... (hopefully you are taking much less damade than the tank you are assigned to).
That defense of this strange and hps ineffective use could sound very weird to you, I don't doubt that. Please try it in Ulduar and tell me what you think of it. I'll illustrate why I think it's a good idea in a lot of fights with a few examples:
Ignis, if you ever end in the slag pot, you can continue to heal the MT without problem, and survive the pot, as you'll get a lot of heals on yourself with the beacon.
Iron Counsil, during most of this fight, raid damage is relatively low, and you won't have to think about it as a paladin, besides keeping your tank or off-tank up will be a challenge, burst damage in this three bosses encounter is extremely high, and triple chains of Holy Light are sometimes required. You should never untarget your tank, and having the beacon on yourself allows you to not bother about healing yourself, always be full life, and not die stupidly to an aoe burst (wether it is an arcane buble explosion or a green patch of death).
XT-002, this can depend on your assignment and your raid strategy, but once again, using the Beacon on yourself will guaranty that you're always full life, which prevents you from dying on unlucky damage procs, I have seen too many healers dying because they were mid-life when hit by a Light Bomb for example. An exception to that could be Tympanic Tantrum, if you need to raid heal (that depends on your raid) using the beacon on your assigned tank (probably the MT) could allow you to raid heal and keep him up at the same time. Though, take care, this is not Naxramass and if you happen to overheal on raid healing (overhealing is not duplicated by the beacon) that could mean his death, as XT-002 damage is not to be taken lightly.
To sum-up, it all depends on the fight, and I think that:
if your life is safe (considering the amount of raid damage in Ulduar that means that your raid healers are on their top),
if you can have a good target for your beacon, like healing two tanks at the same time,
then don't use the beacon on yourself.
In all other situations, use it for your own good, that will ensure two things:
you'll stay alive in most situations, which means you'll maintain the heals on your tank (a dead healer heals not much),
you'll keep your tank on target, which means faster reaction when these deadly damage bursts happen.
Sacred Shield is your MT friend
Pallymar agrees with that statement. Considering Sacred Shield efficiency has not changed, and it scales very good with your spell power, keep it up at all times.
What should you do with this weapon in your hand ?
Judgement of Wisdom should be up on the raid boss at all time, with the mana regen nerfs (spirit, blessing of wisdom/mana tide totem) it is a clear statement. The only reason for it to not be up is that you're ponly having one paladin in the raid and Judgement of Light is prefered for that encounter.
So hitting the boss a few times with your weapon will give you a few mana procs, for free as you'll swing between your casts, without any sort of slow down on your casting.
Pallymar disagrees with that statement, saying that it is mostly worthless, and should not be necessary.
With a bit more raid experience, I would not say it is wortless. I was having real issues with mana on the Iron Council, keeping the off-tank (tanking the 2 "small" dwarves while the raid kills Ironbreaker) by myself. But if you need these mana procs, that probably means, as Pallymar says, that you or your raid is not up to the task.
I will add to that point that going up to melee can also be very dangerous, there are a lot of point blanck aoe damage, and the time you need to run to melee and run back to healing position can be too much as we mostly can't heal while moving.
To conclude on that, if you feel like you have the time, and don't really need to heal for a little, hit your Divine Plea and go melee for a little. As Pallymar mentioned XT-002 Tympanic Tantrum is a good example of such moments. But whenever you are not sure of the situation, stay far from aoe damage and don't take any risk for so little mana regen.
I'll try to put more healing advices here when I'll have more Ulduar experience and perhaps some boss healing guides. Thanks to Pallymar for adding some good insight to my previous post.
I'm going to discuss here the three previous points I mentioned and try to answer Pallymar with a little more Ulduar experience for myself.
I did Ignis 10, Council of Iron 10 and XT-002 25 this weekend, they are strongly different fights in term of healing. I think that one very interesting thing in Ulduar is that you have to be very adaptable, and change your healing startegy with each boss.
On the use of the Beacon of Light
Beacon of Light: The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all targets within a 40 yard radius. Any heals you cast on those targets will also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed. Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts 1 min.Simply said this skill duplicates all your heals to a specific target on which you have put your beacon.
Previous to Ulduar, I've already used it on the MT, or OT, depending on who I was assigned to heal and depending on the raid damage. If I expected to raid heal from time to time, it was on my main target (MT or OT). If raid damage was low enough to not need me, I'll put it on the MT or OT that was not my main target, to help its assigned healer.
The tip I got from the two guides I mentioned in my previous post was saying to use the Beacon on yourself, I found that change worth mentioning, as it was a strong change of style from pre-Ulduar. Pallymar disagreed with that tip, advocating a more classical use of the beacon (in the line of the ones I just talked about). I should say that, from my experience before Ulduar, that was really the thing to do ... now ...
In all my 3 boss fights (10 and 25 Man) I tried to use Beacon of Light differently, tried to see it's effectiveness, and how were other healers going. After several tries, I find putting it on you the most effective use, even though it'll make it generate about 60-80% overhealing ... (hopefully you are taking much less damade than the tank you are assigned to).
That defense of this strange and hps ineffective use could sound very weird to you, I don't doubt that. Please try it in Ulduar and tell me what you think of it. I'll illustrate why I think it's a good idea in a lot of fights with a few examples:
Ignis, if you ever end in the slag pot, you can continue to heal the MT without problem, and survive the pot, as you'll get a lot of heals on yourself with the beacon.
Iron Counsil, during most of this fight, raid damage is relatively low, and you won't have to think about it as a paladin, besides keeping your tank or off-tank up will be a challenge, burst damage in this three bosses encounter is extremely high, and triple chains of Holy Light are sometimes required. You should never untarget your tank, and having the beacon on yourself allows you to not bother about healing yourself, always be full life, and not die stupidly to an aoe burst (wether it is an arcane buble explosion or a green patch of death).
XT-002, this can depend on your assignment and your raid strategy, but once again, using the Beacon on yourself will guaranty that you're always full life, which prevents you from dying on unlucky damage procs, I have seen too many healers dying because they were mid-life when hit by a Light Bomb for example. An exception to that could be Tympanic Tantrum, if you need to raid heal (that depends on your raid) using the beacon on your assigned tank (probably the MT) could allow you to raid heal and keep him up at the same time. Though, take care, this is not Naxramass and if you happen to overheal on raid healing (overhealing is not duplicated by the beacon) that could mean his death, as XT-002 damage is not to be taken lightly.
To sum-up, it all depends on the fight, and I think that:
if your life is safe (considering the amount of raid damage in Ulduar that means that your raid healers are on their top),
if you can have a good target for your beacon, like healing two tanks at the same time,
then don't use the beacon on yourself.
In all other situations, use it for your own good, that will ensure two things:
you'll stay alive in most situations, which means you'll maintain the heals on your tank (a dead healer heals not much),
you'll keep your tank on target, which means faster reaction when these deadly damage bursts happen.
Sacred Shield is your MT friend
Sacred Shield: Each time the target takes damage they gain a Sacred Shield, absorbing 500 damage and increasing the paladin's chance to critically hit with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 sec. They cannot gain this effect more than once every 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec. This spell cannot be on more than one target at any one time.This spell was strongly nerfed in 3.1 with the addition of the last sentence. The reason was that "it was too strong" on a raid mitigation point of view. In fact, that was our real raid healign ability. So is it still worth it ? Oh yes, it is ! Keep it up at all times on your assigned target, or perhaps the MT if your target is not receiving constant damage (which would be a surprising assignment for a paladin).
Pallymar agrees with that statement. Considering Sacred Shield efficiency has not changed, and it scales very good with your spell power, keep it up at all times.
What should you do with this weapon in your hand ?
Judgement of Wisdom should be up on the raid boss at all time, with the mana regen nerfs (spirit, blessing of wisdom/mana tide totem) it is a clear statement. The only reason for it to not be up is that you're ponly having one paladin in the raid and Judgement of Light is prefered for that encounter.
So hitting the boss a few times with your weapon will give you a few mana procs, for free as you'll swing between your casts, without any sort of slow down on your casting.
Pallymar disagrees with that statement, saying that it is mostly worthless, and should not be necessary.
With a bit more raid experience, I would not say it is wortless. I was having real issues with mana on the Iron Council, keeping the off-tank (tanking the 2 "small" dwarves while the raid kills Ironbreaker) by myself. But if you need these mana procs, that probably means, as Pallymar says, that you or your raid is not up to the task.
I will add to that point that going up to melee can also be very dangerous, there are a lot of point blanck aoe damage, and the time you need to run to melee and run back to healing position can be too much as we mostly can't heal while moving.
To conclude on that, if you feel like you have the time, and don't really need to heal for a little, hit your Divine Plea and go melee for a little. As Pallymar mentioned XT-002 Tympanic Tantrum is a good example of such moments. But whenever you are not sure of the situation, stay far from aoe damage and don't take any risk for so little mana regen.
I'll try to put more healing advices here when I'll have more Ulduar experience and perhaps some boss healing guides. Thanks to Pallymar for adding some good insight to my previous post.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Ulduar paladin healing guides
And back to the blog after a few days out of town and far from the game. How are you all doing in Ulduar ? Having fun, I hope.
I've not raided this week so I won't give my own view of Ulduar, but I've read two really good healing guides and I'm inviting you to read them too:
As for paladins, well, aoe damage and mobile healing isn't our forte, as you know. So expect to be "reduced" to tank healing again.
Now a few first basic advices, that you can find examples of in the guides I've linked.
Especially in 10-Man, use Beacon of Light on yourself to stay alive.That point could be the strongest change from "Nax style" healing. As being non mobile healers, we have to stand in the fire sometimes to toss that heal, and we're confronted to the choice of moving & surviving, or staying & dying. And in such cases, the first choice which is the obvious one, can mean the death of the character we are assigned to heal. That's were the bacon will save you and your assignement. Aoe damage and mobility in Nax were much less an issue, you will feel they are in Ulduar.
Keep up that Sacred Shield. Mitigation is the new deus of healing. Spikes are very common and very strong in Ulduar, Razorscale blue fire patches and fireballs will probably be the first ones you encouter. Disc priests obviously have the edge on mitigation and shielding, but even if it has been strongly nerfed, keep your Sacred Shield up on the player in danger of spikes (if you ues a fireball "tank" on Razorscale it will be him for example).
My last advice, try to hit that boss a few times with your mace/sword/stick to get some mana back. With judgement of wisdom on it, you should be able to get some good mana regen even if with only a few hits during the whole fight. Most bosses have phases in Ulduar, and some of them are less healing intensive and will give you the opportunity to do that. Learn your bosses and try to find the right times to get these mana regen hits.
I've not raided this week so I won't give my own view of Ulduar, but I've read two really good healing guides and I'm inviting you to read them too:
Healing Guide to Ulduar, on the Munch LandBoth are 25-Man (aka heroic) views about healing, but they are still good pointers about Ulduar, for both 25-Man and 10-Man.
Paladin Healing in Heroic Hulduar, on World of Matticus
As for paladins, well, aoe damage and mobile healing isn't our forte, as you know. So expect to be "reduced" to tank healing again.
Now a few first basic advices, that you can find examples of in the guides I've linked.
Especially in 10-Man, use Beacon of Light on yourself to stay alive.That point could be the strongest change from "Nax style" healing. As being non mobile healers, we have to stand in the fire sometimes to toss that heal, and we're confronted to the choice of moving & surviving, or staying & dying. And in such cases, the first choice which is the obvious one, can mean the death of the character we are assigned to heal. That's were the bacon will save you and your assignement. Aoe damage and mobility in Nax were much less an issue, you will feel they are in Ulduar.
Keep up that Sacred Shield. Mitigation is the new deus of healing. Spikes are very common and very strong in Ulduar, Razorscale blue fire patches and fireballs will probably be the first ones you encouter. Disc priests obviously have the edge on mitigation and shielding, but even if it has been strongly nerfed, keep your Sacred Shield up on the player in danger of spikes (if you ues a fireball "tank" on Razorscale it will be him for example).
My last advice, try to hit that boss a few times with your mace/sword/stick to get some mana back. With judgement of wisdom on it, you should be able to get some good mana regen even if with only a few hits during the whole fight. Most bosses have phases in Ulduar, and some of them are less healing intensive and will give you the opportunity to do that. Learn your bosses and try to find the right times to get these mana regen hits.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sometimes real life catches up ...
I won't have much time for wow this week. Having a very important interview for what I hope will be my future work, I need to prepare for it and I'm taking some time off the game.
I hope you'll have have much fun in Ulduar, until I'm back (probably at the end of the week) have fun with these posts that were given to me on my US guild forum. And try to apply them during these weeks, I can assure you that your GM and raid leader(s) will be thankful :P
10 ways to make your GM love you
10 ways to make your raid leader love you
See you soon,
Dreaming
I hope you'll have have much fun in Ulduar, until I'm back (probably at the end of the week) have fun with these posts that were given to me on my US guild forum. And try to apply them during these weeks, I can assure you that your GM and raid leader(s) will be thankful :P
10 ways to make your GM love you
10 ways to make your raid leader love you
See you soon,
Dreaming
Friday, April 17, 2009
Ulduar paladin loot update *04/17*
So Ulduar is live, and Guilds have started cleaning it on 10 and 25-Man. As expected new loot appears and I'm going to try to keep the Full Ulduar Holy Paladin Loot List updated. For me there is only one clear change to best in slot list, Thorim 25-Man hard mode shield which is just perfect for paladins.
New loot today :
Wisdom's Hold (Shield - Spell crit haste) - Thorim 25-Man hard *new 04/17*
Shawl of Haunted Memories (Cloak - Spell crit spirit) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man *new 04/17*
Shawl of the Caretaker (Cloak - Spell haste MP5) - 10-Man *new 04/17*
Unfaltering Armguards (Plate Bracers - Spell haste MP5) - Kologran 25-Man *new 04/17*
Legplates of Flourishing Resolve (Plate Legs - Spell crit MP5) - Freya 10-Man *new 04/17*
Pendant of Endless Despair (Neck - Spell crit MP5) - General Vezax 10-Man *new 04/17*
Good loot time to you all :P
New loot today :
Wisdom's Hold (Shield - Spell crit haste) - Thorim 25-Man hard *new 04/17*
Shawl of Haunted Memories (Cloak - Spell crit spirit) - Yogg-Saron 25-Man *new 04/17*
Shawl of the Caretaker (Cloak - Spell haste MP5) - 10-Man *new 04/17*
Unfaltering Armguards (Plate Bracers - Spell haste MP5) - Kologran 25-Man *new 04/17*
Legplates of Flourishing Resolve (Plate Legs - Spell crit MP5) - Freya 10-Man *new 04/17*
Pendant of Endless Despair (Neck - Spell crit MP5) - General Vezax 10-Man *new 04/17*
Good loot time to you all :P
Ulduar, you thought it was going to be easy ?
It is not ! :)
Or at least not for the second 10-Man raid of my guild. We have decided to start Ulduar on 10-Man, because we wanted to keep us some fun in the 25-Man version for later (though we are going to do it once a week as a guild party).
So we made 2 raids of 10 people, one better geared, one less geared, knowing the second group (that I lead) will be a little slower.
Results of that ? Both groups downed the Flame Leviathan first night in about 1 hour, once we figured the vehicles, and all that. I posted about that yesterday.
Both groups (with one or two out of guild because we were a little light in numbers last night) went back there to try the 3 bosses after the Leviathan. None of them fell :P
Ignis is very very hard, extremely random, the trash before him is the hardest I've seen since Kael trash (I've not raided BT or SW before nerf and after it wasn't the same).
The trash repop is short (45mn I think) which means relatively few attemps on Ignis before it repops, and it's so hard that we really don't want to clean it twice in a night.
The randomness of the flame tornadoes, and the sheer amount of damage they do added to the push-back than can send you in another one resulting in an instant death, is just enough for me to tell that 3 packs with 2 tornadoes launchers is not something I want to do twice in a night :P
Razorscale is more manageable, we only did 3 tries on him, as we spent so much time going to Ignis, figuring it's trash and then trying on him. I think we mostly got set for the dragon, but now people in the raid need to pay more attention to the blue flames of death that pop on the ground. The amount of damage in this fight can be very high, and (once again) healers have to keep up everyone topped at all times because someone can just endure nearly 20K damage in 3s (double fireball and blue flame pop).
It is a much less random fight than Ignis, and I'd advise you to go on Razorscale before the Furnace Master. But I can't say I like this "healer challenge" which consist in creating damage spikes so high that you need to mash your heals (while moving yay ... happy paladin) to keep everyone topped.
Now XT-002, we only did one try to finish the raid night, just for fun. He's really not that hard, he doesn't hit too hard, as long as you're not too close from your raid when you get the white/black light damage is manageable.
Now there is its hearthquake ... and that is a baaaaaad thing. Full raid damage that can't be avoided, it's a pain to heal, really. I guess aoe healing is the key here, so we'll need to figure some movement to allow for that during the quakes.
It should be better than Ignis though.
So all in all, a much harder instance than Nax. Some things are a lot of fun, but as a "stationary single target healer" I can already feal that I'm going to suffer in Ulduar. A lot of raid damage, a lot of movement, cast interuptions (Ignis) ... no that is not a holy paladin heaven for sure.
I hope you'll all have fun in Ulduar and not suffer to much from the servers. Numerous raids last night including both of ours had several mass dc, and ensuing wipes ... that is not the best part of a raid, as you can guess.
Or at least not for the second 10-Man raid of my guild. We have decided to start Ulduar on 10-Man, because we wanted to keep us some fun in the 25-Man version for later (though we are going to do it once a week as a guild party).
So we made 2 raids of 10 people, one better geared, one less geared, knowing the second group (that I lead) will be a little slower.
Results of that ? Both groups downed the Flame Leviathan first night in about 1 hour, once we figured the vehicles, and all that. I posted about that yesterday.
Both groups (with one or two out of guild because we were a little light in numbers last night) went back there to try the 3 bosses after the Leviathan. None of them fell :P
Ignis is very very hard, extremely random, the trash before him is the hardest I've seen since Kael trash (I've not raided BT or SW before nerf and after it wasn't the same).
The trash repop is short (45mn I think) which means relatively few attemps on Ignis before it repops, and it's so hard that we really don't want to clean it twice in a night.
The randomness of the flame tornadoes, and the sheer amount of damage they do added to the push-back than can send you in another one resulting in an instant death, is just enough for me to tell that 3 packs with 2 tornadoes launchers is not something I want to do twice in a night :P
Razorscale is more manageable, we only did 3 tries on him, as we spent so much time going to Ignis, figuring it's trash and then trying on him. I think we mostly got set for the dragon, but now people in the raid need to pay more attention to the blue flames of death that pop on the ground. The amount of damage in this fight can be very high, and (once again) healers have to keep up everyone topped at all times because someone can just endure nearly 20K damage in 3s (double fireball and blue flame pop).
It is a much less random fight than Ignis, and I'd advise you to go on Razorscale before the Furnace Master. But I can't say I like this "healer challenge" which consist in creating damage spikes so high that you need to mash your heals (while moving yay ... happy paladin) to keep everyone topped.
Now XT-002, we only did one try to finish the raid night, just for fun. He's really not that hard, he doesn't hit too hard, as long as you're not too close from your raid when you get the white/black light damage is manageable.
Now there is its hearthquake ... and that is a baaaaaad thing. Full raid damage that can't be avoided, it's a pain to heal, really. I guess aoe healing is the key here, so we'll need to figure some movement to allow for that during the quakes.
It should be better than Ignis though.
So all in all, a much harder instance than Nax. Some things are a lot of fun, but as a "stationary single target healer" I can already feal that I'm going to suffer in Ulduar. A lot of raid damage, a lot of movement, cast interuptions (Ignis) ... no that is not a holy paladin heaven for sure.
I hope you'll all have fun in Ulduar and not suffer to much from the servers. Numerous raids last night including both of ours had several mass dc, and ensuing wipes ... that is not the best part of a raid, as you can guess.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Ulduar is up, Servers are not ...
... not up to the task.
Yes, it's been a long time you didn't have a rant post on this blog. Today will be one ...
Yesterday was patch day in EU. Ok, I know, we all know too well the catchy "Patch Day, No Play !" But don't tell me you were not eager for Ulduar and didn't want to try it right away, from the number of people having answered the poll (to the right of this very site), and even if few have, a large majority of raiders want to raid Ulduar.
Patch time was extended in EU, it is usually until 11am, it was announced to last until 3pm. As said on WoW Insider, we all expected it was to include in the EU patch release the maintenance that already was added to the US real during the night ...
So my guild had a small team-speak meeting in the evening and we made two 10-Man groups and went to Ulduar. Our idea was to keep it to 10-Man at first, have fun with that size, and then go to 25-Man hoping for new challenges. Why do we do that ? Because we hope to keep the content interesting a little longer like that. Ulduar is big, but it's only one instance, and once we'll have finished it we all already dear the long wait for the next raid instance.
Anyway.
Both groups entered Ulduar around 9:30pm (GMT+1). Both groups downed the Flame Leviathan pretty quickly, with the "mandatory" achievement to not have used the trick to stun it ... when you don't know the switch is destroyed by the air missiles, there is no chance you activate it :P
The fight is fun, really easy, but we did it in normal, 10-Man, without any tower destroyed, so in its most easy incarnation. Let's hope it'll be a little more interesting in the other modes. But all in all I4m not that interested into a vehicle fight, so I don't care.
Now, we arrived at the crossing and the choice for Ignis/Razorscale/Deconstructor. It's strange how little trash there is in this part of the instance ... not that I'm fond of trash, but there is 0 trash to Razorscale or XT-002 ... it feels empty. I hope there will be more inside Ulduar itself.
We went for Ignis, because it was looking like there could be some fun trash, and we pulled the flame giants at the entrance. Ok, let say these babies hit hard, and have a bad aoe stun/silence. We were surprised, we wiped. And then things got ugly ...
Two of our members were out of the instance. One had to go visit the angel, his corpse being too close to the giants, one had a dc and relogged in ... Dalaran. And in front of the instance were ... 200 people waiting to go in, because the raid instance server was full (I'll post a picture tomorrow of the crowd at the raid entrance, but it looks like the picture on this WoW Insider article) ... yes the raid instance server was full ! We didn't have any message, as when you can't go into an instance since Blizzard patch about that. But the behavior was exactly the same, loading screen, waiting for 2mn without the loading bar moving, returning in front of the raid instance entrance.
Nice ! Happy !
We made two tries on Razorscale with only 8 people, one dps warrior respecing to tank on the fly, and only 2 healers ... first one wasn't too bad, we nearly got him to 50%, second one wasn't as good, I got flame bombed 3 times in a row (for more than 7K each) and died after 30s of fight.
Half an hour later, still impossible to enter Ulduar ... we stopped there.
So not even 2 hours of raid, simply because the servers were not up to the task. There were no lag, oh no ... simply because Blizzard decided to limit the number of raid instances on their servers ... and so limit the number of people who could play the game, as simple as that.
Add to that the instability and numerous people crashing out of Ulduar (we were lucky we only had that happen 4 times and the 3 first were able to come back). Looks like this is a problem everywhere, as reported here.
I'm saying servers stability and size is going to be what I'll rant about for the next weeks ... and lag has already been an issue in WotLK for months, thank you Blizzard but limiting the number of players to solve lag is not going to make happy customers.
Yes, it's been a long time you didn't have a rant post on this blog. Today will be one ...
Yesterday was patch day in EU. Ok, I know, we all know too well the catchy "Patch Day, No Play !" But don't tell me you were not eager for Ulduar and didn't want to try it right away, from the number of people having answered the poll (to the right of this very site), and even if few have, a large majority of raiders want to raid Ulduar.
Patch time was extended in EU, it is usually until 11am, it was announced to last until 3pm. As said on WoW Insider, we all expected it was to include in the EU patch release the maintenance that already was added to the US real during the night ...
So my guild had a small team-speak meeting in the evening and we made two 10-Man groups and went to Ulduar. Our idea was to keep it to 10-Man at first, have fun with that size, and then go to 25-Man hoping for new challenges. Why do we do that ? Because we hope to keep the content interesting a little longer like that. Ulduar is big, but it's only one instance, and once we'll have finished it we all already dear the long wait for the next raid instance.
Anyway.
Both groups entered Ulduar around 9:30pm (GMT+1). Both groups downed the Flame Leviathan pretty quickly, with the "mandatory" achievement to not have used the trick to stun it ... when you don't know the switch is destroyed by the air missiles, there is no chance you activate it :P
The fight is fun, really easy, but we did it in normal, 10-Man, without any tower destroyed, so in its most easy incarnation. Let's hope it'll be a little more interesting in the other modes. But all in all I4m not that interested into a vehicle fight, so I don't care.
Now, we arrived at the crossing and the choice for Ignis/Razorscale/Deconstructor. It's strange how little trash there is in this part of the instance ... not that I'm fond of trash, but there is 0 trash to Razorscale or XT-002 ... it feels empty. I hope there will be more inside Ulduar itself.
We went for Ignis, because it was looking like there could be some fun trash, and we pulled the flame giants at the entrance. Ok, let say these babies hit hard, and have a bad aoe stun/silence. We were surprised, we wiped. And then things got ugly ...
Two of our members were out of the instance. One had to go visit the angel, his corpse being too close to the giants, one had a dc and relogged in ... Dalaran. And in front of the instance were ... 200 people waiting to go in, because the raid instance server was full (I'll post a picture tomorrow of the crowd at the raid entrance, but it looks like the picture on this WoW Insider article) ... yes the raid instance server was full ! We didn't have any message, as when you can't go into an instance since Blizzard patch about that. But the behavior was exactly the same, loading screen, waiting for 2mn without the loading bar moving, returning in front of the raid instance entrance.
Nice ! Happy !
We made two tries on Razorscale with only 8 people, one dps warrior respecing to tank on the fly, and only 2 healers ... first one wasn't too bad, we nearly got him to 50%, second one wasn't as good, I got flame bombed 3 times in a row (for more than 7K each) and died after 30s of fight.
Half an hour later, still impossible to enter Ulduar ... we stopped there.
So not even 2 hours of raid, simply because the servers were not up to the task. There were no lag, oh no ... simply because Blizzard decided to limit the number of raid instances on their servers ... and so limit the number of people who could play the game, as simple as that.
Add to that the instability and numerous people crashing out of Ulduar (we were lucky we only had that happen 4 times and the 3 first were able to come back). Looks like this is a problem everywhere, as reported here.
I'm saying servers stability and size is going to be what I'll rant about for the next weeks ... and lag has already been an issue in WotLK for months, thank you Blizzard but limiting the number of players to solve lag is not going to make happy customers.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Patch 3.1 is aliiiiive, it's aliiiive ! (take care, first bugs)
It's coming in Europe today (soon, soon). It's alive on the US servers already and the patch build is 9767 (Release). For those that remember the latest build on the PTR, discussed here on april 7, it was the version 9757. So not much was changed, we already knew that Yog-Saron and Algalon were part of the latest PTR build. We can amuse most bosses will be exactly as they were in this last build, so raiders, all information you could have found before up-to-date with build 9757 should be pretty accurate.
It seems a few bugs are still plagging Ulduar, list here on World of Raids. For those that are raiding/are going to raid Ulduar, take care to :
It seems a few bugs are still plagging Ulduar, list here on World of Raids. For those that are raiding/are going to raid Ulduar, take care to :
Siege Engines that use Steam Rush while on a ramp sometimes fall through the world.More info on Ignis & XT-002 on World of Raids too:
We currently have no fix for this, the workaround is simply to not cast Steam Rush on the ramps. The ability works fine in the Flame Leviathan fight and other flat ground.
The two trash pulls in front of XT-002 Deconstructor are linked.
We're working on a hotfix for this now.
Shattering an Iron Construct in the Ignis the Furnace Master encounter does not properly reduce the number of stacks of Strength of the Creator on Ignis.
We're also working on a hotfix for this now.
Both Ignis the Furnace Master, and the trash leading to XT-002 Deconstructor seem to be bugged. Ignis should still be killable, but you have to kill the Iron Constructs instead of turning them into Molten Constructs if you want to remove Strength of the Creator. XT-002's trash, on the other hand, is currently unkillable in all conventionally tested methods -- though apparently you can get lucky while fighting him as long as no bots spawn near the trash during the heart phases.Some US guilds have already passed Auriaya despite these bugs, so if you really want to rush Ulduar you should be able to. Personally I hope my guild will take its time and have fun. We're set with only this content for several months after all, and I'm not really eager to experience the not so fun period we just had with nothing to do on our hands.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Ulduar doors open, rejoice !
So Ulduar is finally here, we did wait, we did get bored, we nearly despaired, but it's here. So let's rejoice and hope we'll all have a great time in Ulduar.
Official announce by Zarhim, here.
Complete preview of patch 3.1 on MMO Champion, with Ulduar bosses guide, Argent Tournament, complete patch-notes, profession changes, and much more ...
I'm plugging directly the complete Ulduar guide, and the full instance maps. For all of us that are going to prepare for our first Ulduar raids. (all from MMO Champion, thanks Boubouille !)
Another great info from StratFU, the Ulduar interactive map. Though not alaways very clear about the "layers" of Ulduar, it shows the connections between the maps and which boss is where.
Official announce by Zarhim, here.
Complete preview of patch 3.1 on MMO Champion, with Ulduar bosses guide, Argent Tournament, complete patch-notes, profession changes, and much more ...
I'm plugging directly the complete Ulduar guide, and the full instance maps. For all of us that are going to prepare for our first Ulduar raids. (all from MMO Champion, thanks Boubouille !)
Another great info from StratFU, the Ulduar interactive map. Though not alaways very clear about the "layers" of Ulduar, it shows the connections between the maps and which boss is where.
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