healing
Latest
Raid Rx: Blackwing Descent healing playbook
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. No, this isn't the playbook that will help you secure your dreams and fantasies. This playbook is designed to act as a quick reference guide for normal mode bosses on 25-man. It can be nerve-wracking to organize six to eight healers in a 25-player setting. Sometimes you forget things. Sometimes you're not sure which player or which class is optimal for a given role. If you don't know where to start, then start here. (Note: The playbook assumes that the raid group has a basic understanding of encounter abilities and assorted phases.)
Enter at Your Own Rift: Zero-sum game
Ever since I started following RIFT, I've been entranced by the wide-open -- but not limitless -- class system. After all, the virtual world and everything populating it is only half the game; the other half resides in the avatar that sticks with you while you explore it all. Many MMOs have interesting ways of letting you build and grow your character, but sooner or later they come to a point where there's little more to be done other than incrementally increasing your stats by gaining better gear. Not so with RIFT, as even a level 50 can drop a few coins to shape a completely new build from scratch. No longer are we bound to a rigidly defined creation; we are free to experiment, tinker, and try out these roles to our hearts' content. With RIFT's soul system, there are a few ground rules that everyone learns early in the game. You can have up to three souls in your archetype active at any one time; you can only spend as many points in a build as you have in levels (such as 10 points at level 10); and you'll end up with 66 points at level 50, which means that you'll at least dabble in a second soul tree with every build. And while you can certainly spread soul points across all three trees, today I wanted to look at the benefits of a zero-point soul, the "third wheel," if you will, of builds.
Raid Rx: Raid healing horror stories that taught us a thing or two
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. A new PTR build went online a few days ago. We're getting closer and closer to a release. Two weeks, perhaps? End of March? Ides of March even? Who knows? The Spirit Link totem has officially been added on the PTR. I've never heard Joe Perez squawk with so much glee before after using it in Zul'Aman. If you want to read more details on the totem, go read up on Joe's post about it. Other than a shortened cooldown on Tranquility for resto druids, still nothing on the defensive front. Chakra for priests now lasts a really long time! In fact, it lasts so long that the effect won't go away until it is canceled. I liked the whole Chakra volleying mechanic. It was an interesting way to add additional thought for holy priests. The last big change I want to note is the pushback protection that druids and priests are getting. Divine Hymn, Hymn of Hope, and Tranquility now have 100% pushback protection from damage. For those that didn't know, a pushback effect is caused when you take damage. When you cast a spell, it might take a little longer than normal because you've been hit by an enemy. This causes the casting bar to move back slightly. This week, I want to share some healing stories. Some will make you laugh; some will make you cry; and some will simply make you plant your face in your palm.
Spiritual Guidance: Healing Chimaeron and Atramedes as a priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and decorative cross stitching (who knew he was so crafty?). Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. This week on Spiritual Guidance, we'll be returning to Blackwing Descent where, after meeting sudden and untimely deaths at the bottom of an elevator shaft, we can respawn and face our next two healing challenges: Chimaeron and Atramedes. You may recall that not long ago, we examined two other bosses in Blackwing Descent, Magmaw and the Omnotron Defense System. If you can handle those two, these bosses are just a tiny step up in difficulty and should be no match for your priestly prowess.
Raid Rx: Heroic Halfus healing case study
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and Matticast, the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast. If there ever was an encounter in which Atonement-specced priests really stood out, this would be it. Aside from that, Halfus on heroic mode is a great test for healing leaders and raid leaders on the art of syncing defensive cooldowns. Objective: Can your healing team help the raid survive the first minute of the encounter? Once you get past that first minute, the hardest part is over, and your raid will get there. In this post, I'll show you a textbook case of cooldown planning from start to finish. On the the matter of cooldowns, it looks like shaman will be getting their own fairly soon. Spirit Link Totem: Reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such tha teach player end sup with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3 minute cooldown. For restoration druids, Malfurion's Gift appears to reduce Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes. The actual effect of Tranquility has not changed. If I were to guess, I'd say it would get modified further for reduced incoming damage while the spell is being channeled. No confirmation yet either way. So how does one survive Halfus in the 25-player raid?
Raid Rx: An unofficial look at patch 4.1 healing changes and trinkets
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and Matticast, the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast. Information on the 4.1 patch has started slowly filtering through. Can you say nostalgia? I remember Zul'Gurub being one of my first raid instances. I was just a young dwarf priest then. My beard was still in the first stage of infancy. I remember trying to finish out the Zul'Gurub gear sets. While nothing is finalized just yet, there is an interesting ability being added that'll be of benefit to healing corps of all sizes. From who? Arms warriors! Rallying Cry *New* (Level 83) temporarily grants you and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost; 3-min, cooldown, instant. I don't know enough about melee DPS to determine whether or not an arms warrior is going to be attractive in raids or not with all those buffs, but I sure love seeing more defensive-minded cooldowns being spread out. No information as of yet on potential cooldowns for druids and shamans. You crazy and creative readers had much to say about it last week, so props to you guys. Although none of us will ever get to do much in terms of design, it is rather fun to try armchair game design once in a while. Some of the preliminary data out there shows slight changes inbound for healers.
Raid Rx: What druid and shaman cooldowns would you like to see?
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast, Matticast. No beating around the bush today. There were some upcoming healer changes that were announced earlier in the week. I can tell you as of right now, I'm worried about the Power Word: Shield change -- not because I think discipline priests will remain overpowered, but because holy might go the route. I'll explain that later on in the post. The main focus of today's post is defensive cooldowns for shaman and druids. I'm sure a number of players don't believe there's a need for the two classes to get defensive cooldowns, but in order to compete for utility, I think druids and shaman would benefit greatly from having those spells available. The argument here is that since the four healers are approximately the same across the board (from a throughput perspective), the edge might be given to paladins and priests because of the additional cooldowns they have to offer. Shaman and druids might end up being even more attractive in 10-player raids.
Upcoming healer changes
Neth has just announced some healer changes that will be rolling out in a hotfix soon (likely later today; stay tuned here, and we'll post when the new list of hotfixes is released). The two big things to come out of this are: Power Word: Shield cost is going up by 33%. This nerfs disc priests. Shaman's Purification now increases healing effectiveness by 25%, up from 10%. The full statements are as follows: Nethaera Since the release of patch 4.0.6, we've been keeping an eye on healers and how they are performing and are currently in the process of making some additional adjustments. Priests The cost of Power Word: Shield is being increased by 33%. While we wanted Discipline priests to be able to utilize this spell more often and with better results, we also did not want it to be the main spell (and often the only spell) used while in groups. We don't find this to be a particularly compelling playstyle and have found that it encourages players to avoid using other spells such as Penance. We believe that using a shield in a tight moment is totally appropriate, but we don't want it to be incredibly efficient to do so with more frequency than that. We realize that by making Power Word: Shield slightly more expensive for Discipline priests to cast that it might cause Holy priests to avoid using it. To that end, we are adding mana savings into the Body and Soul talent. The tooltip will not reflect this change until a future patch, however. Ideally, Holy priests should not notice much of a change to the Power Word: Shield costs. Shaman We are also applying a hotfix for Purification for the Restoration shaman passive from 10% to 25%. We think that shaman healing per second is not as competitive with other healers and while we hoped to bring down Holy priest and Holy paladins (in particular) in 4.0.6, which we did, shaman still appear to be behind. In this case, it is simply easier to buff Restoration shaman rather than nerf everyone else or rebalance the encounters. In Addition - Restoration Druids and Restoration Shaman We agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn't the kind of thing we can address via a hotix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch. As always, we appreciate your continued constructive feedback and will do our best to keep you informed of ongoing developments. source And finally, Nethaera says on the ETA of the changes: Nethaera We anticipate having these in relatively soon (possibly as soon as sometime today). We'll do our best to let you know once they're in and we'll be updating the notes on the Hotfix thread as well. source
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Defenders
So last week, my column went live on the same day that Paragon Studios assuaged pretty much every concern my article raised. I should be annoyed, I suppose -- these columns do not spring Athena-like from my forehead, after all -- but considering what the producer's letter means for City of Heroes, I can't be anything but happy. It shows that the problems that I can think of are getting brought up and addressed by the development team as well, and that means that there's a security buffer in place so that things never get bad. And that segue leads us naturally into the next archetype up for discussion: Defenders. Probably the hardest archetype to cleanly fit to any pre-existing heroes, Defenders are still a vital part of the game and a lot of fun to play besides. They're the logical counterpart to the Tanker side of the equation. Whether you're new to City of Heroes as a whole or just new to the very idea of playing a Defender, click on past the break to take a look inside the most party-oriented archetype in the game (barring Kheldians, I suppose).
Raid Rx: No healing assignments?!
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast, Matticast. "I don't believe in healing assignments." Oof! Whenever I see those words, I wince as if though I've been punched in the gut. I still have difficulty believing how any group of healers can get to a telepathic level of healing without spending copious amounts of time playing with each other. Stuff like that takes time. How can anyone "know" who the other players are healing? I can't make an accurate assumption based on their class. I might be able to make an educated guess that the discipline priest is on the tank and the resto shaman is on the raid. But unless healer roles are spelled out by one of the leaders or by the healers themselves, it's adding an unnecessary burden. I like joining pickup raids on my shaman. I get to observe and see what mistakes are being made or what strategies are used. Healing is one aspect I pay close attention to in order to glean any possible insight.
Raid Rx: Delivering and receiving healer feedback
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast, Matticast. You ever get called out for being bad? I'm sure you have at some point. It might have been in a pickup group within the dungeon finder. Maybe it was in an organized raid with random players. Or perhaps it was by members of your own guild? It could happen at any level. You could be a lowbie working your way through The Deadmines alongside a bunch of players leveling alts. It really destroys your pride. You start reeking of self-doubt. People start whispering and talking about you when you're not around. "Why is that player so bad? He's terrible at this game. We need to find a replacement immediately." Something along those lines sound familiar? I daresay every healer has experienced the receiving end of words like that before. I know the immediate reaction is to lash back right away. As much as we healers like to wish it were true, we are not always right, and there are times where the reason the group isn't "getting there" is because of us. I think one of the hardest aspects about the game to learn is swallowing your own pride and really taking stock of your own abilities from an objective standpoint.
Raid Rx: 4 more healing lessons
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast, Matticast. First, I wanted to add that there was some awesome discussion going on in the last Raid Rx post I wrote. I wanted to just stress that the purpose of the post was to help illustrate the various challenges that healers faced. It wasn't meant as a "hate on healers" type of post. Tanks and DPS players could help alleviate some of the strain and the pressure placed on the healers just by keeping a few things in mind. At the same time, the healer perspective is often different then the other two roles. That's why I wanted to open up a dialogue to see what we could do to help each other get better and the gaming experience much more enjoyable. I figured that if we all tried to present our different perspectives, then maybe heroics and raids would go easier for everyone. It is rather surprising the different things you learn if you take a moment and just listen to what other people have to say. As a guild leader, a player, and a writer, I've learned to keep my mouth shut and hear or read what others have to say about stuff. It is a difficult skill to pick up. You know, the next time I need to take time off from writing a Raid Rx column, maybe I'll get a tank or that Christian Belt fellow to fill in. In a continuation from last week's post, I wanted to raise a few points.
Raid Rx: 7 pet peeves of healers
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding and guild management podcast Matticast. Healers, you get to take the week off from reading Raid Rx. Instead, I'm going to encourage you to send this link to DPS players or tanks you know. As a healer, there are these little things that really annoy us. Now granted, they are little. They don't bother us healers all that much individually -- hey, we have to wear our big healer pants sometimes. Now the problem occurs when these little things all add up. That's when we have a problem, because then it makes our life that much more difficult. If our life becomes more difficult, dungeon runs become brutal. It's in the best interests of everyone to just slow it down. Curious about the title image? Consider it a subtle reminder to get to work cracking on those Therazane deals and representing.
Raid Rx: Patch 4.0.6 healing thoughts
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and the new healing, raiding and guild management podcast Matticast. Even though I wasn't responsible for it, its nice to believe that my little story in last weeks column might have influenced the Mana Tide change. What is the change, you ask? Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide. It won't be an overpowered mana reset ability anymore. I have to admit, I do miss having that synchronizing aspect that all the healers share. Having a shaman give a 3-second warning that he is going to drop a Mana Tide cued the rest of the healers to activate their spirit trinkets. I thought that was a neat little interaction. I wouldn't mind seeing more of it somehow later on -- little ways that help promote (but not so much require) healing coordination would be a cool addition. I'm just not sure what other ways methods can be explored. On the bright side, I don't need to figure out which players have the lowest mana regeneration in order to stack them into the healing group. But hey, enough about resto shaman already! Some additional healing changes (both nerfs and buffs) will be coming soon. No idea if any of this stuff is going to stick. Tell me what you think.
Raid Rx: Handling healer mana in raids
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. Nothing brings a healer down more than realizing that he screwed up. It gets worse when the healing lead is the one who messes up such a simple oversight. I'm really beating myself up over this, because it was such an easy fix. In fact, it should be the first thing that should be checked before entering encounters. I'm going to share the conversation I had here with my fellow columnist Joe Perez. I hoped that confessing to him might help alleviate the despair. (It didn't.) Matt: Hey Joe, can we talk for a sec? I think I goofed yesterday. Joe: Again? What did you do this time, son? Matt: ... I uh, forgot to put the resto shaman in the healer group. Joe: <10 seconds of silence> ... You know how bad that is, right? Matt: Yeah. Realized it after the fact. I'm surprised the WoW Insider editors haven't fired me yet for making such a rookie mistake. Joe: I think you need a re-education. Take a seat. By the way, my guild scored the Critter Kill Squad achievement finally. Next step? Crittergeddon. Personally, I've found mana management in 25-player raids to be far more forgiving in comparison to 10-man raids. Would you agree with that? I'm basing this on my own experience, but it does make sense. With more raid slots, it means there is a higher likelihood that additional players can be brought in for mana cooldowns.
Raid Rx: 2010, a healing retrospective
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. Another year, eh guys? I imagine some of you have since drifted away from healing (or from the game entirely). At the same time, I hope I picked up a few more regular readers. Healing is one of the essential arts in the game. Although I am somewhat biased toward priests, that does not mean I do not appreciate the strengths the other healing classes bring to the table. In any case, this year was a big year for healers. Healing received a large overhaul. There were some new (well, new-old) concepts introduced. And of course, what's another expansion without new toys and spells? Critter killing update: Once the guild found out that the pet could only be obtained with a reputation of exalted with the guild, production just dropped. We're at about 31,000 now. So much for getting that done by 2011! I doubt I'll be able to garner enough time or players to form a quick raid group for critter slaughtering. You know who has two thumbs and is a sad panda? This guy. Also, this screenshot is a testament to perseverance. That protection paladin up there? He's been kiting that whale shark around the zone for a good 30 minutes. Did he end up getting it?
Ghostcrawler reveals upcoming class changes in Cataclysm
Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted the blog post I think most of us have been waiting for ever since Cataclysm went live. It features a summary of where the dev team sees the PvE and PvP games at this point, including some analysis of various classes and specs, and some planned changes for those specs that are underperforming and overperforming. In PvE, Ghostcrawler mentions that Blizzard is mostly happy with the tank classes and notes that while healers do have it a bit hard, this is intentional. Heroics are meant to be a challenge. As for DPS, he offered that some classes, such as arcane mages and marksman and beast mastery hunters, are too low in their damage, while others, such as shadow priests and fire and frost mages, are being watched closely before final judgment is made on their numbers. In PvP, Ghostcrawler says Blizzard is satisfied with the decreased emphasis on healing prevention and burst damage. Crowd control and dispel mechanics, especially offensive dispels, may see some PvP nerfs, and priests will specifically be getting some PvP buffs. Stats also got some mention. A lot of stats are being neglected by some classes, and the dev team wants to fix this. Mastery will be either buffed or completely revamped for many specs, such as unholy death knights and retribution paladins. Haste may be made to scale with more attacks, such as Lacerate, Slam, and Steady Shot, in order to make the stat more desirable to certain specs. Check after the break for the complete text of Ghostcrawler's post, including a list of specifically planned (but not finalized) class changes for future patches.
Raid Rx: Are you prepared to raid?
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. Happy holidays, everyone! I'm sure many of you are taking the time with heroics or reputation grinds to get yourself at a level needed to raid. I've managed to take down Halfus Wyrmbreaker on 25 and Conclave of the Four Winds on 10. In some cases, I raided a little underprepared. I didn't have the good flasks from this expansion, so I figured I'd burn the older ones. Oh, and I've got another great pickup story to share -- you can stop me if you've heard it. It's about the player who refused to enchant or gem his blue gear. Also, I'm 50% of the way there to the [Critter Kill Squad] achievement.
Raid Rx: Reality check for heroic healing
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. Granted, this is supposed to be a raiding column. But you know, since it is a new expansion, we need to work our way up the progression ladder. What comes before raids? Heroics, of course! Before I dive into the serious business that is heroic healing, I figured I'd open up with a screenshot of me slaughtering a bunch of penguins. That's how I take out my anger and frustration when I feel helpless in certain groups or compositions. It is also a fun method in obtaining the [Critter Kill Squad] achievement. I once mentioned to Allison Robert that it would be fun to compile an Overachiever guide to critter slaughtering and that if she didn't want to do it, I would graciously volunteer critter-killing advice and areas where they can be taken down en masse. Suffice to say, I could feel that e-glare of hers coming straight through my monitor when she replied with nothing more than a "...". But we're not here to talk about killing critters today. Oh no, today we get to face the reality check that is heroic healing. Are you ready for it? I don't mean just gear-wise. I mean do you have the mental fortitude to endure the stress of healing in today's mechanics? Here's what you need to find success in your runs.
Breakfast Topic: Healers, are you anxious about Cataclysm content?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. I'm a healer. Just a healer. My guildmates have two characters, three, four or more. I've got an addon that does nothing but tell me who someone is when they sign in so I don't have to tax myself connecting one druid to another paladin. Me, I've just got a priest with a full set of healing gear and a solid set of DPS gear, if the need arises. Like many other healers out there, I've gone through heroics and raids; even ICC doesn't pose all that much of a challenge anymore. When you know what's coming and when, it's just a matter of hitting your marks. Now the whole world is changing for all of us. The banal, practiced and frankly monotonous task of keeping guildmates and PUGs alive is going to go the way of the dodo, for at least a good long while. Challenge will be in the air again, and maintaining resources will be an issue for the first time in memory since my guild first cleared Iron Council. For some of us, and I imagine this includes myself, this is going to be quite a shock. Unless we're in heroic or hard mode raiding content, we've been able to put tape over our mana bars. Now the tape's coming off, and I'm about to be pressured into a triage mentality I don't remember ever having to maintain. Either someone was topped off or dead. Only two possibilities, only two states. I'm very much looking forward to the pressure to maintain an even shade of gray, to keep everyone between those two absolutes. I'd love to know how the rest of the healers are feeling about the cataclysmic shift in technique that is about to be gifted to us. %Poll-56811%
