Joe Perez
Articles by Joe Perez
Totem Talk: All about Healing Tide Totem
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. This week, we're going to talk a whole lot about Healing Tide Totem. Why are we going to spend that time discussing this resto shaman healing talent? Well, because like with everything else lately, there is a hot debate springing up about it. This has to do, of course, with the upcoming patch 5.4 that is currently being tested on the PTR. Again the information we have on this is subject to change, but we can still talk about it until things go live. Since the start of the expansion, there has been a love hate relationship with HTT. The debate started day one with if this talent was mandatory for restoration shaman and how much of our healing truly relied on it. After just a little bit into the expansion's first tier of raid content, the debate intensified and has been going on ever since.
Totem Talk: Restoration predictions and set bonuses for tier 16
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Recently we've been focusing a lot on the here and now, which is always good, but this week I thought it would be time to take a look at what's coming up. The PTR is alive with the sounds of music... or at least the thrashing and ravings of the soon to be defeated Garrosh. Patch 5.4 is starting to take shape with a the world receiving more changes for one particular area. There are some very interesting changes right now for restoration shaman on the PTR, and they lead us to a point of speculation on what the next tier of raiding will bring for us. These are changes to glyphs and new set bonuses for tier 16 gear that may be portents for the future of shaman healing. As always this is information gained from the PTR and is subject to change prior to going live.
Totem Talk: The Spirit of Restoration
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how No matter what expansion, and regardless of the level of content you're doing, one of the things that comes up regularly as a topic of discussion is Spirit. A stat that took over for MP5 as the hot regen item, and rose to even more prominence and popularity among healers with the announcement of fixed mana pools. It is something that has a presence you will always feel and will never be able to escape. This isn't a bad thing mind you, but it sparks conversations and discussion about how much Spirit you need. What is the right amount? How much is too much? Is there such a thing as too much? Is it worth it at the expense of other stats? I know that many of the fine folks I talk to have had plenty to say on the topic recently, which lead me to today's post.
Totem Talk: Restoration and the Throne of Thunder, Part 4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how Turtles and Hyrdas have a special place in the sewers of the Isle of Thunder. Their existence does sort of answer the question about what happens when turtles and snakes find their ways into the refuse of an empire full of magic and chemical experimentation. I mean, I know that was a burning question for me before this raid tier started. But now that you've stomped shells and knocked out a few one eyed monsters tentacle things, I'm sure you think you've done it all. Well, there's more to do still. As you dive deeper into the sewers looking for a way back into the main castle, there is still a great number of horrors that await you. Well, rather, they're waiting for you so that they can try to eat you whole. The good news at least is that they mark the midpoint on the way to the final encounter with the Thunder King himself. This will not be a comprehensive boss guide, instead this will be a quick run down on things that you, as a resto shaman, should be aware of or tips to help make your healing of the encounter easier.
Totem Talk: Restoration and the Throne of Thunder, Part 3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. With the Zandalari on the run, you've now moved on to trying to break into the inner reaches of the Thunder King himself. Well, rather, you would if he didn't blow up the bridge you were on and all of your flying mounts happened to go mysteriously missing. Instead, you get to play the part of Jack Burton while you crawl your way through the forgotten depths of the island to face your very own David Lo Pan. Seriously though, the next leg of the journey through Throne of Thunder will have you playing adventurer under ground facing many of the things that go bump in the night. This is where all the failed experiments and the creatures long forgotten have taken up residence over the many years since their master and creator first ruled the land.
Totem Talk: Resto shaman wish list
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Last time we spoke about the recent changes to shaman healing. We received a nice little buff in a hot patch to our Healing Rain, Chain Heal and Earthliving. The 20% increase was a quality of life improvement that did actually go a decent ways towards improving our overall healing. While I enjoy pretty much any buff we get, I still can't help but sometimes just sit down and take a look at where we are in regards to other healers. Basically, I like to sit down and pose the question to other restoration shaman and myself. What is the one thing that you would like to see shaman healers get? What is it that you wish you could do as a shaman healer that you can't currently do? It's a great exercise in creative thinking, or even just taking a look at your own class, and can lead to some very interesting conversations and ideas when shared with other healers like I enjoy on Twitter.
Totem Talk: Restoration life post healing buff
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Shaman healing always seems tenuous whenever the second tier of raiding hits in an expansion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we suck by any stretch of the imagination, but any tier that has a lot of movement mechanics and a lot less stationary heals we generally have to work that much harder. Now, things have definitely gotten easier over the years for us, but they could always get better right? So that was when Greg Street, otherwise known as your friendly neighborhood Ghostcrawler and lead systems designer for Blizzard Entertainment, made a tweet that had restoration shaman around the globe cheering, despite them being perhaps a bit confused as to where this came from. So what lead up to this buff? What impact has it had on our healing in the Throne of Thunder? Has it improved our quality of healing life since the hot fix went live?
Throne of Thunder easter egg
Finding easter eggs in video games is always fun, and Blizzard Entertainment has always had some very good ones. This year it would seem though they took the Noble Garden Festival to quite the literal extreme. If you find yourself in the Throne of Thunder, specifically in the lair of Ji-Kun, you will find that all of the eggs surrounding the hatching eggs have been replaced with Noble Garden counterparts in all their bright and vibrant colors. I personally never pegged the Mogu as ones to celebrate the holiday, but maybe, just maybe we've misjudged them a little bit. Little things like this that are always fun to find, and it's amusing how many little details can sneak their way in to what some folks consider the normal routine of their daily wow life. Whether it is noble garden eggs in a raid zone, or Winter Veil Lights in dungeons, little touches like this are welcome surprises. Makes me wonder if anything else has been altered, even slightly, in Pandaria for our Noble Garden festivities. Are there other little changes like this for this year?
Totem Talk: Restoration and the Throne of Thunder, Part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. By now I'm sure you're already knee deep into the patch, working through new and exciting dailies, taking on Dinomancers hunting down itty-bitty Toenibblers and Footslashers. There's also this whole new raid thing that people are talking about, the Throne of Thunder, that you may or may not have stepped foot in yet. By the time you're reading this, the Looking For Raid version of Throne of Thunder will just become available, and will grant you access to the first three bosses of the zone. If you haven't been able to get in a normal raid, I would highly recommend queuing up and giving it a shot. Whether you are already a seasoned vet heading back into ToT, or just queuing for the LFR for the first time, I can tell you that for me, this raid zone is amazing fun. It combines some of my favorite aspects of raids like Ulduar and Karazhan, with modern raid building ideas. The story is awesome if you're into that type of thing, and the bosses are more about the mechanics than anything else. That said, resto shaman do have a few things we can do to help make these bosses go down that much quicker and easier for our raid group.
Totem Talk: Resto Gear in Throne of Thunder
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Today, we are one step closer to the release of new content in patch 5.2 and a brand new tier of content to entertain ourselves with. We'll have everything from a loot grabbing scenario, new profession crafted gear, and a new raid to play with complete with new bosses and loot rewards. I mean, we play the game to have fun, sure, but part of that fun is definitely the rewards we obtain. The period of time when a new tier is in testing on the PTR, it can sometimes be a bit of a tease since early items tend to be based off of data mined items. Add to that the fact that since it's a PTR, things can change. I think though, that we're close enough to a release that we can safely start taking a bit of a look at the gear that you can expect to see in the next tier. This is not a best in slot list, nor a gearing guide for 5.2, this is simply a list of what will be available to us when the patch goes live. Also bear in mind that even though we are close to release on the patch, stats, drop locations and other variables may change between now and then.
My first week as Horde
I've been playing World of Warcraft for a very long time. Since it was closed beta, in fact. Back when the game was still brand new, I mean right when the servers first opened up, I played for team red. I was a Horde shaman, and proud to be so. My first shaman was not named Lodur, in fact it was what I thought at the time was the ever clever name of Rum. I played with one of my buddies who named his warrior Coke. We played with a bunch of coworkers and friends from college until partway through Classic WoW when they either got promoted at work, graduated or stopped playing. Some of our group though decided to move to another server and see how things were going on the Alliance side of things. Off to Zul'jin we went, and with moving servers and factions in a time before server transfers or faction swaps were around, came a new toon. Abigail, the night elf hunter was born. She's traveled servers, and been race changed multiple times since she was born. I finished Classic WoW on her raiding with friends all the way through the original Naxxramas. I still gave a lot of love to Rum though, and even found time to run him through Ahn'Qiraj 40. When Burning Crusade released, though, Rum fell to the wayside as Lodur was born over with my Alliance family. I hadn't returned to horde except for a brief tour with the Choose My Adventure here on the site, that was until this past week when I server and faction changed my long time hunter over to play Horde side again with friends.
Totem Talk: Finishing out tier 14 on your resto shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. I've been getting a lot of email, and pings on twitter, about finishing out tier 14 raiding. While patch 5.2 is coming and the new tier with it, a lot of folks are still working on finishing out tier 14, be it normal or heroic. It's a fair point, the patch is still at least a few weeks away, so focus on the current one while it is still relevant. That doesn't mean though that you can't prepare a little bit for the future while handling the here and now. Getting through the content that is current will net you decent gear and experience that will be valuable going into the next tier of content, especially if you are getting some time in on heroic bosses of tier 14.
Totem Talk: Restoration tier 15 set bonus update on the Patch 5.2 PTR
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Patch 5.2 is still a very hot topic right now, and with very good reason. The content that we're gearing up to enjoy is quite extensive. Whether you love dailies and are looking forward to expanding your catalog of places to grind, new pets to tame on your hunter, battle pets that are coming soon or the epic raiding with fights like Lei Shen. Reputation changes and new legendary meta gems are also on the list of changes that are incoming. It is a big patch, for sure, and with all that new content comes near constant testing and tweaking of all the features to make sure they work as intended; and with that testing, changes are made and classes undergo changes whether to their gear or their abilities during this time.
Totem Talk: Restoration tier 15 set bonuses and patch 5.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Last time, we looked to the past twelve months, and the journey we took over the last year. As exciting as the past can be, and no matter what we can learn from it, the future is always so much more exciting. That's not to say that Mists of Pandaria hasn't been exciting so far, but content patch 5.2 is shaping up to be very interesting. With the upcoming patch, one of the things that's been talked about is the new tier 15 set bonuses. Compared to the tier 14 set bonuses for most classes, what we've been seeing so far have been far and away better by leaps and bounds. Rather, that seems to be the general consensus around the internet at least. All of the information is based on what has been revealed on the latest PTR build, and is subject to potential changes before making it to live server.
Totem Talk: 2012 for restoration shaman
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. I like to do these at the end or beginning of every year. I always find it interesting to take a step back and look at how the events of the year unfolded. Every year is exciting, there is always announcements, class changes and new things to learn. It seems like it was no time before that we were talking about all the exciting changes that were ahead for us in then upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion. All the anticipation leading up the release of MoP and everything that has change and adjusted in the months following the release have been equally exciting. As the expansion rolls on we continue to speculate to what the future may hold.
Totem Talk: Resto fun in the Terrace of Endless Spring
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. The raid structure for the current tier has proven to be quite interesting. It is very reminiscent of tier 11 raids. I have gone on record many times saying how much I loved that setup, having multiple zones to go to which added variety and decreased my burnout by quite a bit. Tier 14 mimics that setup in, what is my opinion, the best ways. It offers not only a variety of locations but also a variety of mechanics to test any raid. Terrace of Endless Spring, the last of this tier's set of raids, is one of my favorites in a long time. I love the look of the zone, the lore of the zone and most of all I love healing the zone. Why do I like it so much? It has, in what is my opinion, some of the most shaman healer friendly fights we've had in a while. This is not a healing guide for ToES, that will come later, but rather just my impressions on the zone as a whole through the eyes of a restoration shaman.
Totem Talk: Healing Gara'jal and Spirit Kings
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Mogu'shan Vaults starts out with a bang. By bang, however, I mean that the first two fights are all about execution to get past then successfully. Your raid group will have to work in concert in order to make it to the next set of bosses. The third and fourth boss of Vaults doesn't shy away from the execution standpoint, and it is safe to say that while there are certainly some DPS and healing thresholds you need to meet, that the entire zone really is about execution. Gara'jal the Spirit Binder and The Spirit Kings are fun fights, that have a lot going on in them. Whether it is multiple planes of existence or multiple long dead kings, you can be sure that there is enough going on to keep you on your toes and keep you busy.
Desperately seeking Mr. Bigglesworth
Patch 5.1 is an exciting time, whether you're continuing on your questing for Wrathion in search of a legendary or you're just really jazzed about having more dailies to do. It also introduced the ability to go into old raid instances without actually having to be in a raid, making them much more accessible for solo players. For some of us though, it is an opportunity to continue on with a never ending hunt. The hunt for rare and special battle pets! Laugh if you will, but patch 5.1 introduces 12 new rare pets that are spread throughout classic raids from the yester-years of World of Warcraft. It gives players incentive to revisit those raid instances, and rewards them with some pretty cool looking pets. It also rewards those with the motivation to farm the content with the achievement Raiding With Leashes. If the achievement wasn't enough, as an added bonus for collecting all 12 new rare pets, you get the pet Mr. Bigglesworth, who may in fact be the most sought after mini pet since he was introduced as the trusted companion of Kel'Thuzad back when Naxxramas made it's first appearance. So, with 12 new rare pet drops from 12 classic raid bosses, how hard can obtaining these magnificent prizes solo be?
QueueSpy, an addon to solve those LFR queue pop blues
UPDATE: Bashiok has clarified to us that this addon was running off of inaccurate information and did not work properly. More importanly, the popup's lack of progress information was intentional. More info here. We've been getting reports that some people are not able to see how many bosses have been cleared when their Looking For Raid queue finally pops. There have been some posts popping up on the official forums, but there has not been an official blue post yet as to whether this is indeed a bug, or an intended change with the recent 5.1 patch. At this time, we believe that it is a bug as we've also been receiving reports that some players are able to see how many bosses are already killed on their queue pops. With that in mind, some players have put their noses to the grindstone and written an addon to help you find out how many of those bosses are defeated if you find yourself with the queue pop bug. It's a quick fix, and it works quite well as a solution to a potentially annoying bug. The addon outputs the boss total to your chat window instead of putting it back into your queue screen, which is actually a really nice work around. The addon is lightweight, and until we hear official word whether or not this is a bug or a feature, this seems to be the way to go. If you find yourself in burning need to know exactly how many bosses are waiting for you in your LFR queue, then you can download this addon over at Curse or WoWInterface. It's quick and easy to install, and requires zero configuration. A special thanks to Stoppableforce for whipping up this addon quickly for everyone to use. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Totem Talk: Restoration support totems and haste for restoration
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Another exciting week has come and gone, with a new set of raid instances, new looking for raid and the promise of even more content to come. I don't know about you, but it feels like I barely have enough time to look at it all, let alone do it all! There has been a lot of focus lately on our healing tool-kits, individual spell usage and our stats. We're definitely not without our problems, but instead of focusing on all the bad, I figured it would be good to focus on some of the diversity that we can bring to groups. Even though I'm disappointed about our totems becoming more like cooldowns and less like constant companions, I can still appreciate the new totems that have been added to our repertoire. Even though we're healers, it doesn't mean we can't have some extra utility, and that's always been a key feature of our class.