Cataclysm Changes Announced!!

The initial Cataclysm changes for priests has now been announced. Some we were expecting, others may come as a shock, and some to be frank I don’t really understand the explanation of their addition/removal. Lets see what Cataclysm will bring for Priests.

Heal: I hadn’t really considered the addition/revival of another direct healing spell, but im certainly not going to knock it. This will offer us with a third viable direct healing spell and should fit in nicely between the Flash Heal (1.5s) and Greater Heal (2.5s).

Prayer of Spirit / Divine Spirit removed: With all the recent info on stat mechanics etc… it was inevitable that these would be removed. Essentially spirit will become a bread and butter stat in Cataclysm Healing and having it as an additional buff is unnecessary.

Radiance: I suspect the balancing for this talent may be ongoing for some time, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it reformed as a proc with an internal cooldown. Essentially every direct heal will cause an additional HoT. To little and its not worth having, to much and its overpowered… let the nerfs begin!

Power Word Barrier: This has been on the cards for some time and again how the mechanics and balancing of this spell are worked will be interesting. Personally I still think this will get pulled from the final release, although full credit to the devs if they can work a way of balancing this in grp/raid situations… It’s a lovely concept, but the practicality of introducing it and balancing it are daunting.

Leap of Faith: Firstly, misleading talent name! When you get over the name and read the content, its quite an interesting addition to the priests arsenal. I can certainly see the benefit of having such a spell although not necessarily the need. I think introducing something like this may say more about the sort of content we can expect in the next expansion. PvP whores are going to love this though, but again working the mechanics so that it is not abused is going to be interesting.

I’ve read a few bloggers this morning hesitant of this talent, and for the record I don’t disagree with them one bit. It is clear that this will be a useful utility, but it should not nullify the requirement for raid awareness. My primary function is to keep the raid alive, and whilst recovering dps from the fire may be included in this remit I am not there personal nanny. If you have agro on a mob I will save you, but if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time you will die! FACT!

Inner Will: This will give us a speed increase and reduces the cast of instant-cast spells by 10%. Down side, its either Inner Fire or Inner Will. Assuming they put something in the tree talents to upgrade this I would be quite interested in its situational functionality, although I suspect that 9 times out of 10 I will continue to use Inner Fire.

Chakra Effect: Ok, so they need to sort out a name, Matt has used Holy Form, which is as good as any, so I’ll go with that. Essentially upon casting 3 consecutive types of healing spells, i.e. AOE, Direct, HoT, you will go into a holy state, which will vary depending on the heal consecutively cast. This could work as a boost to haste, increased ticks on HoT’s, or maybe expanding your AOE to the whole raid… who knows, but im positively wetting myself at the prospect of this talent!

Other:

Other things to consider are the changes to mana pools, consumption and replenishement… The FSR is being removed, rightfully, replenishement talents are being worked and the word from blizz is that healing is going to be more fun, which basically means decision making is again paramount to the success of a raid!

Blizz has also coined the idea of lesser/Greater shields for disc(o) priests, i.e. you will have an uber shield which you will cast on the tanks and a lesser shield to bubble the grp/raid damage. Nice idea, could be a real mana drain though, and considering the above not sure what usage this will get.

There are a number of changes to shadow aswell, and whilst I will pass comment on some of these in a later post, I will generally leave this for the experts to mull over.

To conclude, there are some really interesting ideas coming out of this initial cataclysm preview, and I cant wait to get my teeth into some of them. One things for sure, Cataclysm will provide a new (fun) challenge for priests everywhere.

~Cav~

Dear Blizz.....

Why oh why wont you let me trade my badges up rather than just down. Im not stupid, I know one for one is not logical, but please let me trade by surplus badges upwards, even at 10:1 so I can get some bloody use out of them…

With the new tier system, whereby you must get badges to get your tier gear It is exceedingly difficult to “catch up” when you cant raid every week and really just want to get your tier set already!

Presently I am 1/5 on my tier10 and only have 23 badges towards my next piece. Given the current badge set up its going to take me another month to get my leg piece, let alone worrying about other tier gear!

Pretty please Blizz, will you help me,

Yours grudgingly

~Cav~

Why we are drawn back into the wow universe!

Ive done the whole coming out of retirement thing a couple of times now, and ive usually blamed it on new expansions etc and wanting to see what all the fuss is about, but recently I’ve been reconsidering my views and reasoning behind returning to wow.

I wont bore you all with the details, but suffice to say the last couple of months have been some of the hardest of my life and in that time I felt cancelling my subscription was a sensible move. I’d like to say id spent this time away from wow wisely, but in truth if I was not sleeping or working, I was sat staring at blank television screen or pretending to be interested in a book, but in reality ive not really been interested in anything, and have been relatively disconnected from the world.

Yesterday I decided that I would resub, only for a month at first to see if I was really interested or whether it was just something else to pass the time. Upon logging onto wow I still felt pretty empty. I know there haven’t been any real changes to wow in my absence and so there wasn’t really anything exciting to do. After an hour or so I went on a random run with a couple of guys from the guild, and it was then that everything sparked for me.

Last night was the first time in a couple of months that I actually felt connected to anything or anyone. Speaking to these people that I have known for so long, even though I may never have met, or ever meet them, really made me feel, well, secure. I was in an environment that I understood and felt comfortable with, and although I don’t envisage playing every night, or every week, its so reassuring that even ingame friendships can provide you with this reassurance.

So in answer to my initial question, why do you come back?

For me, I now realise, whether it be consciously or not, I return to wow for the community that plays it with such passion and camaraderie, and makes you feel welcome no matter how long you have been away….

I have played a lot of games in my time, but the community spirit within wow is still one of the greatest I have come across, and long may it continue.

~Cav~

Where are we now?

Its been almost 3 months since I last posted, but given my track record with this blog you shouldn’t be too surprised at that. I don’t do farewell posts, simply because they would contribute to over 50% of my post count.

Anyway, I just thought it was about time I did a bit of an update of where we are since May.

So as you may remember the situation was that Ulduar had just landed and it was causing major problems for our guild. We’ve never been a "large" guild and our lack of numbers was halting our raid progression. A number, I estimate around 3 of our regular raiders left the guild for pastures new, and this rocked the guild. There was a snowball effect, which resulted in around 8-10 members moving on.

It took until the end of June for everything to really sink in and get back to "normal" In the meantime, I, along with another long standing member of the guild were promoted to officers and went about the task of rebuilding the guild.

We are now at a point where we are progressing through Ulduar nicely on 10man, and have started doing joint 25man runs with a guild in a similar position to ours. Whilst these are going sloooowwwwllly, we are progressing and learning each others personalities and abilities along the way.

But the most important, and in fact noticeable thing over the last 3 months is the spirit! Since June everyone has been amazing. I think we are now at a place where we have again, a like-minded set of people who have similar goals in wow. There is no doubting that we all want to progress and see new content, but we’re doing it at our pace. Those that don’t raid are not being talked about (which has happened in the past) and everyone is left to get on with there own thing. In fact the guild is pretty self sufficient now, so much so that I don’t really do anything in my role as officer!

Where do we go from here?

Who knows! The current bug where XT is stuck in hard-mode has really affected our plans for this week. The aim was to extended the raid lock-out and clear ulduar over the next two weeks, with a view to starting the new content the following week.

I would still really like to clear ulduar, but we need to consider what the rest of the guild would like, although tbh there are still a number of people in the guild that would like to raid, but cant get their gear levels up to the required levels, mainly because we don’t run naxx anymore.

So there we are. Valerius is fighting fit, and long may they continue. If I was a betting man, I wouldn’t bet against Valerius getting back on the 25man radar before Christmas!!!

~Cav~

The 3 P's

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Most of my wow time consists of completing dailies and raiding, that’s essentially all I have the time or patience for at the moment. However this weekend I took the opportunity to do a few heroics for some rep and shards.

What I came to realise is that ive become a really lazy healer, whether its because you have that extra support in raids, or just because mana isn’t generally an issue when raiding, but I found heroics, whilst not earth shatteringly impossible, sufficiently challenging.

With Misty getting closer to 80 Im going to make it a target of mine that we do more heroics together, which will also give me the opportunity to stay sharp, either with healing hands or the dps stick “pew pew”.

What doesnt kill you, can only make you stronger

This was put best by our new/current GM. Essentially we have shaken the tree and some stuff has fallen out.

At the moment valerius is struggling as a guild, the spirit and core of the guild remains, but we are leaking raiders each day. This was a result of the increasing frequency of cancelled raids, which as frustrated and upset people.

Firstly, I do not blame those people that have left, nor those in the guild that simply don’t raid. We are not a “hardcore” guild and I believe that individuals are free to play the game in whichever way suits them.

It is important for the guild that people who are not happy and not achieving personal goals, should reflect upon their role in the guild. If they do not see the guild progressing at the same speed they want, it is better they leave than resent those they have come to call friends.

I am a true believer that sometimes it is necessary to take a step back in order to take two forward, and that is certainly true here. For whatever reason valerius has hit a wall, but it is only (imo) temporary and we will break through that wall.

A solid raid group does not come easily and we have been fortunate that many of those that raid with valarius have been doing so for a number of years. It is reasonable that with recruitment drive comes inconsistency.

For valerius, now is a time to regroup, and rebuild, make new friends and understand our strengths and weaknesses as a collective. With time we will becoming a force again and I strongly believe we will come out of this a bigger, stronger, and happier guild than before.

commenting problems

It has just been brought to my attention by Tobold that embedded comments do not seem to be working... Ive tested a number of work arounds, but for some reason it just doesnt want to work.

For now i have revereted back to the pop-up comments page, so please feel free to comment as you see fit.

p.s. i am going to continue to delude myself that the problem with blogger is why i have not received a comment in over a month!

~Cav~

What do you call a raid without a healing coordinator?

……Funny!

Since wrath we have always had two healers with an outstanding commitment to knowing a fight inside out and the pressures each encounter puts on the healers. However one of those people has now quit wow, and who knows if or when he may return. That leaves one! Despite the fact he has fantastic raid attendance, sometimes people just cant make a raid, and last night, he couldn’t.

So, where did this leave us? Right up shit creek tbh.. we had 7 healers all asking the same question…. What do we do? Ive only really been in Ulduar once, and so im not an expert on the encounters, and so in the end we all chipped in, trying to work out the best assignments for each of the healers. Leading a raid, group, or healers is never an easy task, and one I don’t really welcome, but I think im going to take it upon myself to be more aware of the encounters, what happens, where damage spikes occur etc… with a view to fill in the void if ever required again. Its also important that you know what each of your team excels at, be it group healing or MT/OT. For further information on leadership, i refer you to Lodur.

Has anyone else had experience in leading a raid? How did you find it? If you don’t, what would you do to change the way healing is assigned in your guild?

Burn Out!

Those two little words. They are familiar to almost every wow player and due to the nature of the game will always exist. Today I wanted to talk a little about burn out, but for once, not my own personal feeling, but the overwhelming trend in the wow community at the moment.

Whether it be a guildy, or just another toon on the server, burn out affects us all, its that feeling of boredom or exhaustion grips us like a deathknight, and normally follows a long and meaningful grind of something, be it rep, pets, mounts or similar. For most wow players it means a break of some form from the game, sometimes a day or week, in others a month or two, and for some they simply never return.

I’ve suffered this burnout many times, and as you can see from some of my longer blog breaks I always come back with a new found energy and enthusiasm for the game.

At the moment though, burn out seems to be more prominent than ever in wow. Within our guild it seems to be affecting raiding more than anything, but I notice all over the blogsphere that people are taking a step back from wow! But why?

In many cases personal lives are more important and I completely accept that, changes in circumstances or family loss can affect your outlook on life and your priorities, but what about every one else that’s absent at the moment. Personally I think it’s a lot to do with the expansion, whether it be burnout from the grind, or the lack, absence, or disappointment of end game raiding.

The cynic in me says that people aren’t playing at the moment because end game has gotten to difficult for them, and that they’re waiting until Ulduar is nerfed or their guild has it on farm.

What ever the reasons may be, burnout is affecting players everywhere and is becoming an ever more worrying trend within wow.

I guess the reason for this post is more to do with my personal views than I had intended, whilst we don’t appear to have specific burnout issues in the guild we are struggling to put together a 25man raid each week, and the last 3 raid nights have been cancelled because of this. Its fair to say the last week was full of bank holidays across Europe which did not help our cause, but there is a more worrying picture emerging, and unless things change, we may be forced to postpone 25 man raiding indefinitely.

~Cav~

================================================================

wow that was a poorly constructed post, I completely lost track of what I wanted to say, but hopefully I got across a few points:

a) there’s an increasing number of players suffering from burnout
b) this is having an effect on my and in fact everyone’s ability to raid

The Nerf Stick: Friend or Foe?

Whilst I was writing my thoughts down on the 10 vs 25man argument I noted a post pop up in my reader from wow insider! Before I even read on I knew what they’re about to say!

That’s right, yet another nerf (hotfix) for Ulduar. Through reading some of the changes it appears on the face of things that Ulduar is getting easier and easier by the day. Of course until these changes actually go Live im just speculating on their impact, however I will be expecting a much easier ride in Ulduar once they have hit the servers.

Maybe im overreacting in my opposition to these “fixes” and maybe the encounters are currently “not as blizzard had intended” but I just wish they’d stop making everything easier. Instead of kills feeling like an achievement, they’re going to be meaningless urple farming once again!

On the bright side we will still have the “hard” mode to compete with, until of course they’re “fixed” aswell!

Ive made my feeling on Ulduar perfectly plain for all to see, but what do you think? Is Ulduar to hard, Is it a Guild breaker, or is it merely to much effort for people to put in?

The List

Practically anyone that knows me will tell you im lazy, flaky and crap at planning things out, and they’d all be wrong, I plan things plenty, I just don’t write anything down. Again, that’s probably not completely accurate, in fact every night with out fail I go home with at least two post-it-notes attached to my wallet. The information on these varies from "cook dinner" to titles of potential blog posts, but the one thing they all have in common is that they get lost. Before they hide from me though I usually get a chance to cross 1 or 2 of the jobs up, but needless to say, I completely forget the other 10,000 things I want/need/should be doing.

So, ive decided to come up with a list. A list of things that I still want to obtain or achieve in wow. This doesn’t including raiding as that’s just part of the working week, but instead smaller things that I can work on/through at my own pace.

Anyway, enough rambling, here we go!

• White polar bear!
• Complete all icecrown quests
• Exalted with with argent crusade
• Exalted with knights of ebon blade
• Exalted with timbermaw
• Investigate the argent tournament
• Try out the new fishing dailies
• Obtain 100 cooking tokens (you know what they’re for :P)
• Level Tayend to 80 (warrior)
• Level Masahashi to 80 (hunter)
• Level my Mage and Warlock to 80 (this may take a while as they are 13 and 35 respectively)
• Solo some BC instances
• Exalted with netherwing
• Exalted with skyguard
• Obtain 100 mounts
• Obtain 75 companions
• Complete some fishing achievements

That’s quite a comprehensive list of things id like to do over the coming months, however obviously completing the Wrath goals is my first priority and the rest will follow as and when I have a spare 5 years!

Seeing as at the moment I have only been logging in an hour before raids, which is just enough time to do 2 or 3 dailies, this list could take some time to complete. I’ll keep you posted on my progress

~Cav~

Well it was St.Georges Day

So yea it was St Georges day yesterday and what better way to celebrate the patron saint of England then to slay a dragon in his name, and you know what, that’s exactly what we did.

It was another long and hard night in Ulduar last nigh, although to be fair the time did seem to fly by. Flame Leviathan was fairly straight forward. For last nights attempt we still had some new-commers and so played it safe and took down all the towers, however next week I think we are going to leave one up!

Onwards to Razorscale we went. Having spent the best part of a raid night on him last week we were fairly confident with our strategy for this fight. Although we wiped 3 or 4 times it was far more promising than previous attempts, and we were consistently getting him down to 20%.

Finally we wiped ourselves down, got back up and had another go. This time we were successful, and in the process I actually managed to pocket [Shackles of the Odalisque]

There was more action to report from Ulduar last night, but I think I’ll leave it at that for now!

~Cav~

A week ago

So it’s a week after returning to wow, and how do I feel? Well suffice to say at the moment I think everything is going pretty well. I have managed to slot back into the raid calendar quite nicely and whilst im not logging in on a daily basis, im still managing to integrate into the social side of the guild.

I have quite a few goals still left to achieve in wow, but im not in any urgent rush to accomplish them. If I have half a day to play one weekend then I will, but im not devoting anywhere near as much time as I once was, and for the most part im not sat wishing I was playing wow, which in itself is quite refreshing.

I didn’t mention at the time, but Sunday’s raid itself wasn’t all that successful. In fact we just couldn’t take down Raz? No matter how hard we tried. It wasn’t through lack of trying though, and im pretty confident that we have nailed down a sound strategy. However 3 hours of rinse and repeat wiping is very tiring, and may well have had an affect on Monday nights raid sign-ups. Come kick-off we only had 22 raid members, which just wasn’t going to cut it for Ulduar, so instead another wipefest occurred in VoA when up against Emalon.

So with it being a Thursday today the obligatory raid is scheduled and numbers permitting we will have another crack at Ulduar, and maybe even kill some stuff!

I would be interested to hear from people on there raid make up though. How many healers are you taking to Ulduar in these early days and are you finding DPS more of an issue than healing?

Fail

Originally this post was going to be very positive for me, I was going to comment on my personal feeling of success since the February re-launch of the blog!, but then on reviewing my initial goal I realised that I haven’t really achieved anything.

I vowed that this time around I would do things properly, and I would aim to be a more vocal presence in the blogsphere and make sure I was up to date on all the latest news. I vowed I would post once a week (minimum) to keep myself writing… failed there to!

So what is there to be proud about? Well, I did a redesign of the blog, which was very satisfying on different levels, and prompted me to set some other cogs in motion, such as hooking up to sitemeter.

The latter upgrade was introduced both in order to inflate my ego, but more importantly to give me a better idea of where my readers were coming from and how. Site referral is a funny old tool, and it gives me a good indication about what people are searching for when they find me….

In terms of ego inflation I hadn’t really set targets in terms of site visit numbers, but I was excited to learn today that I am creeping ever nearer towards 1000 visits, which I find almost mind blowing. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t seem like a lot, but to little old me, it’s a massive number, that I hadn’t even really imagined in my wildest dreams.

All this aside, im still not satisfied! I haven’t kept to my original targets for this year and that’s something im going to work on over the coming weeks, along with my articles which aren’t quite as thought provoking as I had hoped! Maybe bloging is going to turn out to be one of those things that you can never be 100% satisfied with, but we’ll see.

~Cav~

When the Going Gets Tough

I for one have been supremely satisfied with the new raid content that has landed with 3.1. Since wrath launched all those months ago everyone within the warcraft community has been waiting for some new, exciting, and most importantly, challenging raid content, and that is most certainly what we have received.

For those people that are bemoaning the content as over-buffed, pull your thumbs out of your arse and do some fricking work!

Before this patch was launched, we were blessed (if you want to call it that) with some real cake walk content, which has had a significant effect on how we now approach raiding, and not for the better.

We (collectively) have become arrogant, lazy and impatient, and rather than becoming excited by every kill, we criticise every wipe.

I recall a time not so long ago, where every kill was an achievement, a badge of honor you could wear proudly amongst you piers, and its about time those times returned.

For the record, by guild have only managed to clear the first encounter in Ulduar thus far, but we are not down heartened and we are not calling for the content to be nerfed! We are calling for a time where you gave 110% on every encounter, wasted every pot and every cooldown you had to ensure the raid success.

Warcraft is not all about easy kills and new gear! For some it is the excitement of seeing new content and knowing that they worked hard to achieve new goals! This is why I still play, it might also be why I came back, but the exhilaration of succeeding in an new encounter for the first time outweighs any ingame cost to you or your guild!

So next time your raid wipes, don’t be disheartend! Release, Rez, and try Again! And when you succeed! Celebrate!!! That first kill only comes around once!!

~Cav~

A month is a long time in wow

I made this very same comment in yesterdays post, but it wasn’t until last night that I fully understood its meaning.

Having logged on to wow last night I came to realise that whilst some things always remain the same in wow, as in real life, trends, economies and allegiance’s all change.

There was unfamiliarity about wow last night, about dalaran, about the people I have come to call friends. I’ll grant you it was a raid night and people were busy, but it seemed quiet, It did not feel like a living, breathing MMO, but a stale, dark, RPG.

The reason I return to wow is not because I have an abundance of spare time, in the same way I don’t write this blog just because there is nothing better to do. I play wow for the enjoyment it has given me, for the friends I have made, and the things I have, and still want to accomplish.

I have been secretly building up to last night for a week or so, planning my return to the game that has given me so many good memories, and maybe my expectations were to grand, maybe it was just a bad time to return with all that’s going on, maybe im looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore.

Im hoping to get involved in a raid this weekend, hoping that it will spark off that comradery that you only feel in the middle of battle. Maybe I’ll spend an hour or two before hand setting myself some real targets…. I do like achievements.

Anyway, the little posting I have done of late has all been quite dark and depressing, so, to the few people that may be reading this (and yes I know you’re still out there even if you’re embarrassed to admit it), here’s a few posts around the blogsphere to keep you occupied (and informed)….

Matts Guide to Healing Flame Leviathan
The Dueg’s First Impressions of Ulduar
What did Kestrel Think?

Keep up the good work guys

~Cav~

Baby Steps

So its that time of year where everything you know and trust is different, everything you rely upon is broken, and every server you visit crashes!

Yes ladies and gentleman it patch time!

Ive only been away for a month, but I soon remembered a month is along time in wow, things change, people change, allegiances change! This is even more evident on patch day, and im comfortable in admitting im feeling incredibly lost.

On a plus side having read my guild forums I was pleasantly surprised to find for one reason or another some old comrades have returned to wow… These are people I grew up with in wow and im really happy to have them back again! Shlub, Abrams… Welcome Back!!

So anyway, I prepared a check sheet in advance of logging on tonight, although typically I expect to get sidetracked my aims are:

* Update and test addons and UI
* Re'spec for healing (im not bothered with my dual spec right now)
* Check out the Argent Tournament thing
* Do some old dailies
* Test out new spec
* Inspect the new achievements and compile list of my forthcoming goals
* Inspect new gear and compile my Ulduar Wish list
* Check out profession changes
* DO some AH trading
* Relax and fish!

That’s actually a pretty hefty task so I’ll see how It goes

More a "cya" than a "Goodbye!"

I always considered myself to be a bit of a writer, always thought I had something to say and that it would be a worth while contribution to the throw into the ring. Having started this blog and reading a great number of stories across the blogsphere, I started to realise I didn’t have that much to say. What I thought were original theories and view points, were not!

On my third stab at the blog I gave it a real go. I redesigned the blog from the bottom up, to a point that I was really impressed and proud with what I had done, yet as impressive as it was to me, the content I was publishing remained stale, unoriginal and essentially pretty lame.

At the moment I am taking a (what I originally envisaged permanent) break from warcraft. I’ve never been very good with prioritising things, and over the last month or so I realised some of my personal actions had been misguided at best. I made promises to myself, but more importantly to the people I love, and I let them down.

Have I missed wow over the last month, have I missed blogging, or spending every waking moment reading someone elses blog? Surprisingly not.

While I sit here writing this, I do so with fond memories of the game, and the people that became friends, and I sigh. For my personality does not understand the word casual, only obsessive.

So, what does the future hold for warcraft and I? To that question I have no answer, I’d like to think I was mature enough to only play casually, but in my heart of hearts im just not sure that I am.

The new content around the corner will entice me, but for now im going to say my good bye’s and good luck’s and hope you all continue to enjoy the game we all love!

who said raiding was boring?

oh right, that was me wasnt it.

Well maybe i was a tad hastey in my comments on stale content.

Blue posts today confirm that after 3.1 goes live we wont be able to get the rewards from the “Glory of the Raider” and “Heroic: Glory of the Raider” achievements. This means that all and sundry will be trying to complete the meta achievements as soon as possible.... Its a shame to see them go, but like the amani war bear the rewards were indended to be obtained for completing something particularly difficult at that level.... After that they becoming less meaningful...

rest in peace plagued and black proto drakes!!!

The evolution of WoW

okay, so i was reading a popular UK computer magazine this afternoon and i came across an interesting link to a video about the world of warcraft sequal...

Im not sure if this is old news, but it certainly made me chuckle!

Enjoy.....