lørdag den 15. juni 2013

Getting back into raiding, and a personal view on healing (in)equality.



Getting back into raiding, and a personal view on healing equality.


I’ve started to have some time again, and what better way to spend it than on playing World of Warcraft and raiding? After going inactive/casual in Envy I transferred my shaman back to “The Great Danes” on Auchindoun (This was the place which I left in order to join Ensidia and thereafter Envy) and was helping/being a burden whenever I had time to play and they was in a need of an extra healer (who had no clue on any boss abilities).
This was quite refreshing in comparison with numerous alt runs (I still play my alts, but it is when I choose to and not because we need 3-4 raids for maximizing gear) and late night PTR testing so we know the bosses abilities and so forth. Now, usually I like to prepare myself very well for an encounter, but since I was rarely playing I haven’t bothered doing so up until now, and it did remind me a little of the “old days” where you had to “learn by doing”. Like on Dumuruu I managed to get kicked of the platform on my first try, and I was laughing and enjoying myself just like my fellow raiders, who had been there numerous times and was used to the mechanics.  To put in other terms: After a 4-5 months break I had jolly good fun while raiding! 

However, due to my gear is vastly inferior to my fellow raiders, and because I am a slacker and therefore still sits in ToES, HoF HM gear I am in no way geared to progress with them on Lei Shen. So currently my raiding is limited to clearing up till Lei Shen and spending my coins (Oh, what a surprise gold yet again) and trying to leech some loot. 

Sadly, this has also revealed to me how badly resto shamans perform currently, and not only because I lack quite a lot of gear, but simply because of how the different classes work currently and how we get the shaft every freaking time (Okay, this is mainly being the point after the “Big CD Buff Patch” where Druids, Monks (WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BUFF REVIVIAL YOU MONGOLOIDS?) and Holy Priests throughput CDs received a major buff. 

Let us start at the CD department where shamans was quite strong, and some would say reigned supreme, but after 5.3 that is no longer the case. I do see the logic and accept that Hymn and Tranq got buffed since they were healing for too little, and they got a penalty which is “channeling”, however, buffing an already potent class like Monk, I do simply not understand the logic. Revival is now hitting 2,5-3+mil healing  with one press and afterwards you can go back to Uplift spam, it is just idiotic and not very well thought of. I assume the logic with not buffing Healing Tide Totem was it was just a cast and we could stand and dish out healing while the totem was healing, and I do understand that and accept it to some degree, but because MW monks gets buffed which is basically the same (I would argue stronger), I mean – C’mon ! 

Another issue which has been with us since MoP Beta where it was pointed out numerous times on forums is our freaking mastery. The mastery worked “okayish” in Cataclysm due to the way encounters worked and in regards to HP levels, but now it is a complete joke.
 There is currently 2 very big issues with the mastery
      1)      Absorbs is far too strong since it effectively grants you more EHP, and while that is great it does also reduce the capability of HoT classes such as shaman / druid,  but I would argue that we suffer more than the druid class simply because of our mastery. When 20% of the dmg. Is absorbed our mastery doesn’t really end up kicking in and is a “meh” stat.
      2)     The real elephant in the room is that no other class has a mastery which devaluates itself. Let me explain: Every time you heal a person who has taken damage you end up healing for less and less simply because the mastery’s value is declining. Now this might not sound as a big of a deal, but why are we having a mastery which is devaluating itself, and is suffering quite badly under absorbs (which seems to fill more and more in the game). Sure, it can work on some encounters such as Imperial Vizier “Left” Zor’Lok”  http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/8004/o9kn.jpg






Furthermore, the tools which the shaman has at its disposal is also not sufficient for the way raiding has evolved. Sure, HR, HST and HTT heals for a lot, but HR is usually 60-80% OH (So much lost potential because it is never fully utilized) and the two others is smart heals, and they work I will not argue with that. On the other hand the old signature spell “Chain Heal” is becoming the biggest issue with shamans. One issue is the jump range and another is that it just isn’t healing for enough compared to e.g. Hymn, but also that if it only manages to jump 3 times you would likely have been better off by casting a Healing Surge.
I rarely use sources as e.g . raidbot (since quite a lot of the data is skewed due to meterwhoring, but I think it gives a quite clear picture of how “well-designed and balanced” the different healing classes perform currently.
http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/#0000000000000000000000000000111111

I do not play to be #1 on the meter, I play to kill the bosses, however, if my class is unable to perform at somewhat equal terms it becomes an issue. Not because I will get benched because you can work your way around a lot of things if you got a decent healing core / alts, but simply because how freaking hard can it be to somewhat equalize 6 classes within 10% of one another. I do not encourage every class to be alike because that would ruin the games diversity, but currently it is just mindboggling how badly balanced it is, but also how ill-equipped the shamans toolkit is for this tier. This is mainly tied to Absorbs, HR and the “usefulness” of Chain Heal (REDESIGN OR GIVE US SOME NEW SPELL).

fredag den 29. marts 2013

Sha of Fear HC and inactivity.



Sha of Fear HC and inactivity.

Before t14 was completed I had decided to take a break from raiding, and I made irl commitments after progress was finished.
I killed Sha of Fear with Envy, and it was sadly not the ranking that we had hoped for, but with our rooster it was what we were capable of. After the initial kill I have only been playing whenever it was needed for either CDs or tank healing (Yes, I was primarily tank healing on Sha HC).

I was pretty burnt out after this progress, so I haven't had the interest in keeping up the blog, nor playing on PTR for "Throne of Thunder" as well as I have only recently been playing it a bit (mainly LFR as well as helping my old guild during vacation). Nonetheless, I am fairly sure that when my commitments end in late May that I will return to playing and blogging. However, I seriously doubt that I will be playing hardcore, not that it haven't been fun and interesting, but I don't want to commit that much time. Furthermore, it is also way more relaxing to sit with irl friends and talk trash while wiping on retarded stuff.

Oh yeah, shamans have been buffed -Horray, now they just need to realize that our mastery is outdated and only worked with Cataclysm HP pools / HPs.