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Ready Check: Preparing your raid for 4.2
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Greetings once again folks. Raiding at this point in Cataclysm is hitting a bit of a lag. While there still aren't tons and tons of guilds that have cleared all of the heroic content, guilds have been working on the initial raids for quite some time now. Completed or not, players are starting to get ready for something new. Lucky for all of us, Blizzard does provide. Soon, and hopefully not in the Blizzard sense of the word, patch 4.2 will be hitting live servers. The patch will bring with it the epic Firelands raid where players will once again be able to face off against Ragnaros the Fire Lord. This time, however, it won't merely be a weakened version that was summoned too soon. No, now we'll be marching right into the plane of fire itself to confront the burning master on his own throne. The raid promises to be both challenging and entertaining. Is your raid ready to take the heat?
Ready Check: Catacysm raid changes a tier later
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. When Cataclysm was being developed, Blizzard announced a lot of changes that they would be making to the raiding scene. Specifically, 10- and 25-man raids would now essentially be considered one and the same. They would share the same lockout, reward the same loot, and generally be considered as equal. The community, in their grand resistance to change, called foul on many of these changes. Certainly, WotLK created an embitterment towards 10-man raiding as being "easier" or a "lower class" of raiding that simply wasn't on the same scope as 25-man raiding. In their defense, they had every right to think this because that is exactly how Blizzard had made raids at the time. Now that we've been through a whole tier of raiding under these changes, and as we move onto the next tier, it is time to reflect back on all of the arguments that sprouted and see how realistic they really were.
Raid Rx: Auditing the healing team
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 Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. As we get into the next tier coming with patch 4.2, the time has come for healers to take a hard look at themselves and each other. This is a great time for healing leaders to examine the strengths and weaknesses of their healing group and see what needs to be shored up. Some of the questions to ask yourselves have been inspired by a discussion I participated in. They were excellent questions, and I wanted to expand on them and share my thoughts because I know there are other healers who are undoubtedly thinking the same thing about themselves and others.
Raid Rx: Preparing for Firelands
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Now that we sort of have a release date for patch 4.2, the time has come to review everything healers should be aware of in anticipation. The gear "floor" is going to reset. This means you'll now purchase tier 11 items with justice points, so you'll have a chance to step into the new raids without having such a large gear deficiency. The valor vendor now has some new swag available for purchase. Your existing valor emblems will convert to justice points, so you may want to consider planning your item purchases around it (at least, if you still need to). Still worried about the gear gap? Don't worry, as the Avengers of Hyjal have some new faction items you can buy to help in your efforts against Ragnaros and his minions. Certain items that are picked up from the vendor or from raid trash can be upgraded to heroic item levels. At the end of the post, I'm going to list my thoughts on healing in tier 11, and I'd like to hear what you've thought of it.
Ready Check: How to deal with multiple wipes
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Are you willing to spend a night wiping on new content? It's a fairly common question seen on applications to raiding guides these days and has been for the longest time now. Wiping is a part of learning content. Everyone wipes -- everyone. There's simply no way that you can hope to avoid it. Anyone who wants to join any raiding guide at any level of progression is going to have to accept the fact that they are going to spend a good deal of time tanking the floor. Despite how common it is and despite how much we have all come to accept that it is going to happen, people really don't like wiping. It isn't fun, after all. Wiping means that you've failed, and people hate to fail. Still, this is a truth that we must all learn to accept and all learn to deal with. Are you willing to spend a night wiping on new content? Can you really deal with it? How do you deal with it?
Ready Check: Is your raid group socially compatible?
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Those people who know me would probably say I'm a rather agreeable person. Perhaps not always entirely nice, but if you ask me to do something or for help, then chances are I'll say yes. However, should you demand that I do any task, then you're better off talking to the wall, and you'll be lucky if I so much as recognize you exist. This makes being a part of a raiding team interesting. Raid leaders often do make demands of their raiders, and usually that's just considered to be how it is. On the other hand, there are raid leaders out there who do nothing but ask, and they do so ever so nicely. They're effective, yet these leaders can sometimes be viewed as soft, weak, unable to actually control the raid. Every raid is composed of several different personalities; every raid is led in a different way. How, then, to know what to do as a raider? How do you know the best way to handle your team as a raid leader? It's all a big, jumbled mess.
Raid Rx: Adapting to healer deaths without combat resurrection
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Just a quick heads up for healers: If you haven't visited Plus Heal in a while, do check it out, as it has undergone a facelift. If you've registered there in the past, you'll need to re-register, because user information was not able to be transferred. On to this week's post. This is a classic case study for healing leaders and handling player deaths -- healer deaths, to be specific. In this case, I goofed up big time. We were tackling the heroic version of Atramedes. There are two ways that this encounter can be done: Option 1: Move everyone together as a single unit. Option 2: Split the raid in half and assault Atramedes on both sides. We went for the second option. I split the healers up, four in one direction and three in the other. Somehow I ended up with three priests on one side and a mix of shaman, druids and paladins on the other. I wasn't thinking properly; for Leap of Faith reasons, I wanted at least two priests on that one side. So what else happened?
Ready Check: Who pays for raiding supplies?
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Raiding is a lot of work, and it can actually end up being fairly costly. Players often underestimate the overall cost of raiding; between food, flasks, and repairs, it does add up. Beyond that, each new piece of gear that you gain from raiding adds in additional costs through enchants and gems. Further still, some players have to re-spec frequently despite the existence of dual spec, and switching glyphs multiple times every raid can rack up a nice price tag, too. With such a high cost placed on raiding, who is ultimately responsible for all of it? Early in WoW, the answer was easy. Each player was individually responsible for having his or her own materials. Wrath created a new issue with the introduction of feasts, where a single item could provide for an entire raid group. Now, Cataclysm offers another raid-wide consumable via cauldrons. As these items become available, who is left footing the bill?
Raid Rx: How to combine Spirit Link Totem and Power Word: Barrier
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. I envy shaman. A latest look at the front page of World of Logs shows that the new shaman totem of awesomeness (Spirit Link Totem) has a rather intriguing property to it. We've had it for a while now, ever since patch 4.1, and this totem is the new shaman defensive mechanic. Anyone standing within 10 yards of it reduces incoming damage by 10%. Cool. What else? Every second, the health of all the players standing within it also gets redistributed. The interesting part is that the health can be increased to count as healing. However, that sword swings both ways. It'll also adjust health downward, which counts as damage. Even better? This damage can be both resisted and mitigated.
Raid Rx: How to prioritize combat resurrections
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Before I get into anything today, I've been getting a few emails from people all asking various forms of this question: "How can I convince my guild leader that I should get Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest?" Look, as much as I love legendary weapons, that's not a healer weapon. It's coming with patch 4.2. Don't even think about making a play for it. Its benefits are maximized for your guild as a whole if it gets awarded to a DPS player. Even then, if you're not sure if there's anyone in the guild who does deserve it, you still have a few months before it can even be completed, anyway, due to all the stuff that's required for construction. Scott Andrews wrote a brilliant piece for leaders who are deciding who gets Dragonwrath. Even though I joked about it a little bit in the comments, it's not for Smite priests, either. Dragonwrath is not a healer weapon. Do not give your guild leader a headache by trying to insist it is. As much as I'd like to spend the entire column copying and pasting the previous statement, I can't. We've got death knights who can bring up dead players now -- and not just in ghoul form. It's time to sort things out: What's the priority order?
Ready Check: On damage meters
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. The smell of fresh territory. I have to say, despite being the most hated writer on the WoW Insider staff, there's nothing like writing under a new heading, no matter whether it be temporary or more permanent. While I love my other projects on the site, there's something ... thrilling when you get to write about a new topic. It's like buying a new car or getting a new apartment. You just love the thrill of new. In his goodbye but not farewell post, Mr. Gray listed five lessons that he had learned during his time writing Ready Check. For any who read my other works, you probably guess that I agree with his statements for the large part. There is one point that he made that struck a controversial chord with some of our readers: meters. People love their meters; people hate their meters. Many of us would love to play in a game where such things didn't exist, while the same number would probably make them required. What's a player to do?
Ready Check: 5 lessons learned from our readers
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. It feels like time has flown by me. I suppose that's the way things go when you're having fun. I've been writing Ready Check for two years; I started when we were all staring in awe at the magnificent architecture of Ulduar. Since then, my time in this column has been fun, a struggle, elating, and depressing. It is now, however, simply time to move on. I'm still raiding, and clearly I'm not leaving WoW Insider. But after two years, it's time to have someone else grab the steering wheel and help out the raids of Azeroth. Tyler Caraway will be laying down his DOT-laden wisdom in these hallowed halls, and I truly do believe he's going to do a great job. If you do a half-decent job of writing, you'll find yourself learning from your readers. I think it's a requisite for this job ... Are you listening to what people are saying? In the time I've been at the helm of Ready Check, I've certainly learned from you folks. I will now share those lessons as my parting "thank you" to the people who've made it worthwhile.
Raid Rx: Healing changes and Firelands thoughts
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Here's one of the larger healing changes coming up in patch 4.2. It'll affect all healers for sure, since it affects the critical strike of heals. We first learned Blizzard was contemplating this change several weeks ago in a Dev Watercooler post. All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%). source I'll go over my thoughts about the proposed healing changes for patch 4.2. I also had the opportunity to try out some of the new raid encounters on the PTR in Firelands. Think you're ready for the upcoming healing challenge?
Ready Check: When you disagree with your raid leader
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. A good friend and colleague, Mr. Matt "The Matticus" Low, recently recieved the following question: "I consistently disagree with my [raid leader] on raid decisions and I know I can do a better job. What do I do?" Matt's a man of few words. He's like a healing cowboy from the old (Canadian) West, riding into town on the horse of common sense. Hearts break at his passing, and bad guys (of poor logic) fall at his feet. His response was simple, borrowing the words of ancient wisdom from Lao-tzu: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What he meant by that, of course, is that if you can't agree with your raid leader on anything and you think you can do a better job, then you should go do that job: Start your own raid. While Matt summed it up pretty easily, it's like I said -- he's a man of few words. I'm a tad more verbose.
Raid Rx: Analyzing tier 12 healing set bonuses
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Good news, everyone! Patch 4.2 information is heating up! I've already fired up my PTR client, and I'll be eagerly testing any new encounters. Some of the new information that has been released includes the new tier bonuses, which I'm sure you're burning with desire to know more about. I'll see if I can help stoke the flames of your anticipation. I suspect we'll have some players returning to see if new content is going to rekindle their interest in the game. Too many fire puns? Okay, let's just blaze on through and look at healing tier bonuses.
Raid Rx: Pick the best moments for Rallying Cry
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. 4.1's out! I've been busy killing trolls in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub, grabbing healing loot for my alts. I wasn't able to get a chance to explore the new healing synergies with all the new healer abilities and Rallying Cry. Warriors have that new ability which temporarily grants 20% maximum health to members in your party or raid for 10 seconds before the health fades away. Like it or not, warriors are now a part of the arsenal that healing leaders have. Also, a nifty trick includes combining both Rallying Cry and Last Stand that leads to mega-health for your tank. Doing this requires two warriors. From what I can see, Rallying Cry needs to be used first, before Last Stand, to maximize benefits. Get your tanking warrior to use Enraged Regeneration, and that'll just about outheal anything most healers can do. Get used to adding Rallying Cry to your skills. Warriors, please remind your leaders that you have it available. Now, on what fights would your warriors be doing their whole yelling thing? I've got several in mind.
Ready Check: Dealing with a failing second raid group
We recently received this mail from a reader, who's struggling to keep his raid group afloat. Let's get right into it. We'll leave the reader anonymous. I'm writing to you as an officer in a guild and a raid leader for one of two groups in said guild. Originally, our group struggled for numbers, mostly filled by alts from the other group. Then, we entered a golden age of progress, gaining several members who regularly attended. Then, we lost several to another guild. Then several more ceased regularly attending. Alts became less reliable. Several new recruits joined, and never show up for raids. Yet every new recruit, we check availability, everyone's availability for 2/3 raid nights ... I'm flabbergasted, and frustrated, with a hodgepodge group every night of non-ideal compositions born of necessity, less than ideal members not properly geared and less than committed to raiding, because we have no choice. We're not picking and choosing between members, we're taking whoever is available, which is usually just barely 10.
Raid Rx: Healing loot from Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub in patch 4.1
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. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. Looking to bridge the gap between heroic dungeons and raids? The new item drops from the updated Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub ought to help with that! Obviously, these items aren't meant to be the best items in this tier, but if you want to reach for the gear ceiling in preparation for patch 4.2, you'd best have an idea of what the trolls are keeping away from you. For me, the big ticket items are things like rings, wands, off hands, bracers and select weapons. I know the places look the same, but other than looks, the encounters have been updated. I'm psyched to tackle trolls again. It has been a while since we had trolls to sink our weapons in. After the jump, we'll examine all the items available.
Ready Check: Soothe the savaged nerves
Some time between Naxxramas and Blackwing Descent, raid fights got a little more complicated. We left behind the careful Heigan dance, in which you simply avoided fire, in favor of the Omnotron Defense System, which has a dozen bells and whistles, lasers flying about, and fire you avoid as well as fire you do stand in. For better or for worse, modern raids have a lot going on. It's like standing in the middle of a laser light show programmed by a hyperactive teenager fueled solely by adrenaline, Mountain Dew, and giddy excitement about the new season of Doctor Who. With all this happening, it can be easy for a raider to get rattled. Especially following wipe after wipe, pressure builds up as the raider tries to overcome the challenge. That pressure, coupled with all the crazy spell effects and raw confusion, simply leaves the raider frazzled, stressed, and at the end of his rope. While it's probably not the most glorious task, it falls on the raid leader to help folks stay focused and calm. Let's talk about how to handle the frazzled raider.
Ready Check: Get ready for raiding changes in patch 4.1
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Signs are pointing to the release of patch 4.1 soon. While there's a lot going on in the first content patch of Cataclysm, there are no new raids. The reason for that is that general progression hasn't sufficiently conquered contemporary content; it's still a little too soon for a whole new raid tier. But as with most things in the delicate ecosystem of WoW, you can't make many changes without those changes impacting other arenas of gameplay. There aren't new raids, but there are more than enough changes in patch 4.1 that raiding will be affected. The biggest impact on raiding probably comes from valor point changes. If you're like me, you probably have trouble logging in every single day to accrue valor points. As of patch 4.1, you'll be able to run your daily random dungeons in batches. You can manage your play time without being forced to do a dungeon every day, as if it were some household chore. This is a huge benefit to raids, since many raid members will now be able to pick up their full allowance of weekly valor points. More points translates into more gear, which will also translate into more progression. This is a change I've been hoping to see since Wrath, and I'm incredibly thankful to Blizzard for making random dungeon life more manageable.
