Festergut is finally dead

A day I never thought would come, came last night. Nine weeks to kill that guy, and in my excitement I forgot to take a screen shot unfortunately. The first and second attempts were our typical attempts, with the first getting him down to 39% and our second attempt only getting to 59%. Both attempts ended abruptly because people died. The third attempt though, got him down to 880k at the enrage timer with two people dieing at the beginning of the fight. We ended up replacing one Melee with another and on our fourth attempt we killed him either right before or right after his enrage timer. All I know is with like 2 seconds left I popped bubble and kept on DPSing. I don't think he actually enraged but there was some disagreement about that. I didn't bother checking my logs as I was too busy whispering friends that we'd finally killed the guy.

I still think it's going to be difficult for us to repeat the kill, but now that I have my Acidic Blood off him I really don't care if I see him again for a while. Monday is our next raid night and we'll be moving onto Rotface.

Blizzcast #13 is up

Check it out. All the latest news on Starcraft II, WoW, and Diablo

Balance updates in 3.3.3

What a coincidence! I was just thinking exactly the same thing.

There is a lot of rumbling that Starfall is not a good choice in order to up balance's burst PvP damage. To a point, that crowd is correct. Starfall is not directly burst damage in the sense that Lava Burst or Conflagrate are, but it is one of the few burst capabilities that a balance druid holds.

I am learning first hand how little burst damage Balance has in PVP. I've been switching out to Balance this past week in PVP and upgrading my suit to include Relentless and Wrathful pieces. I just do not have to the BOOM that Locks and Shaman do.

Take Shaman for instance. Flameshock, followed up immediately by a lava burst and then probably a chain lightning. Lava burst on a flameshocked individual hits really hard and whats more can be cone again in about six seconds. Comparatively if I just put up my IIS, then immediately follow up with Starfires it doesn't have anywhere near the impact on a per hit basis. However I can deliver multiple starfires on the target. The issue isn't that I probably get more DPS out of the engagement if we're all standing still and I'm unmolested. The issue is that almost never happens and my burst has very little burst to it. I cause no fear on the battlefield but paint a pretty big target for every rogue and caster out there. To make the situation worse, given Blizzard's decision to stick with the Eclipse mechanism I'm not sure how they actually increase PVP burst without giving too much of a DPS increase in PVE. It's a conundrum that I don't think will be solved tomorrow but one I certainly hope they devote more time to.

If anything buffing Starfall is a PVE buff -- especially on trash fights or on boss fights with adds. For that I am thankful and will take the buff gladly.

I give up

I've been commenting lately about the comparison between Druid and Paladin healing. And most recently about Paladin PVP healing. Either I am just dysfunctional, or I simply don't get it, but I can not for the life of me be as good at healing in PVP as a Paladin as I can with my Druid. And so I am throwing in the towel. I love Holy Paladin healing in PVE, but in the Battleground system of PVP it's just too simple to lock down.

And so, I give up. Henceforth I will only BG heal on my Resto Druid, and will instead only DPS as ret or Prot on my Paladin.

Paladin PVP Healing

I've been to Arena Junkies and SKGaming, so I know there are very high level Holy Paladins rocking it in PVP. I just am not one of them. Throughout the weekend I jumped back and forth between my Resto Druid and my Holy Paladin and healed various battlegrounds. Admittedly battlegrounds are much more free form than are arenas, but the act of healing is the same in either case. I understand that there could potentially be more people beating on you in a battleground than would be in an arena, but one good Rogue can just ruin my day on my Holy Paladin. He can't -- or at least I haven't found one that can -- on my Resto Druid. Holy healing is fantastic if you're left alone because your bomb heals can quickly replenish someone who is nearly dead. And you can intersperse FoL heals amongst a group, keeping yourself healed with your beacon if need be.

But when you are not left alone, and when your being beat on by two or more people it really becomes an issue. I hate having to stop to heal, and with only one instant cast healing spell that has a six second cool down, you end up having to do that quite a bit. PVP is a exercise in mobility, and being immobile like that not only attracts more attention, but makes it easier for them to kill you. It also makes it harder to heal your team mates as they themselves move. In Warsong Gulch its a pain to heal them as they move back across the field as the act becomes akin to heal, then hop. Heal, then hop. Except in this case it's heal then run ahead a few seconds, then heal again. Too much can and does happen in those precious seconds when you have to move. Of course, if the group stops and is somewhat static for a bit that isn't the case, but in my experience I more often see the moving blob, than the immobile one.

Part of the problem might be that I didn't focus enough on haste. I gemmed for Resil/MP5, but I could swap those out for Haste/MP5 or Haste/SP. My FoL heals are about 1.4 seconds now, and my HL heals are 2.2 seconds. But with a change in gems I could get much closer to my PVE cast times than I am now. That would certainly help with the interrupt situation and allow me greater healing throughput when I am standing still. I might try Haste/SP and see how it goes throughout the rest of the week.

Bioware posts SWTOR fankit

Actually I'm surprised that hadn't done this prior, but now it's out there. Pretty standard stuff, but worth the download if you want the art for your site.

Patch 3.3.3

The full patch 3.3.3 notes are now up. There are the typical class changes, along with a few other things. But the biggest change, other than the PVP quest/honor changes is the announcements regarding the LFG system.

Dungeon Finder

• The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes.
  
• The Random Dungeon cooldown is no longer displayed as a debuff. Instead, players will see the cooldown time remaining displayed in the Dungeon Finder window when Random Dungeon or Random Heroic Dungeon is selected from the pull-down.
  
• If a player in your party has the Deserter debuff, or is on cooldown from the Random Dungeon option, his or her character name will be displayed in the Dungeon Finder window listed as "On Cooldown," preventing the group from queuing.
  
• Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role.
  
• Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked.
  
• When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons.
  
• World Event bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. Players must use the Dungeon Finder to access these bosses.
  
• Parties randomly created via the Dungeon Finder will always be arranged in the party interface from top to bottom in the following order: tank, healer, damage, damage, damage.
  
• If a random party is created via the Dungeon Finder and a player cannot roll Need on an item, a reason will now be provided.

No more having to wait in order to kick players, but the biggest change in my opinion is that if you drop a group you will now be penalized with a 30-minute lock out instead of the current 15-minute penalty. Apparently people are still dropping group, and Blizzard is all set to punish them for doing it.

So lets talk about that a little bit. Why do people drop group? First and foremost people drop groups when dungeons pop they don't want to run. The two I hear most about are Occulus and the Culling of Stratholme. I don't mind Occulus, but I really detest CoS. Luckily

Culling of Stratholme

• Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.

That might clear up the problem with people want to drop group for that instance, but regardless of what is done with Occulus no one can make people who play inattentively play any better ina three dimensional space. Nor can you make people understand the necessity of organization on the final boss. People quite rightly load into these dungeons (or others they don't like) and simply leave right then and there. After all, they're playing for themselves and not others.

The second reason people drop group, myself included, is when they load in and see either the tank or the healer horribly undergeared. I've commented in the past on this subject. Undergeared DPS is one thing, but critical elements of the party like the tank and the healer are quite another. I've dropped group when I see tanks load in that are still wearing heirloom items. I kid you not. At this stage in my characters lives I am not that much interested in the social side of dungeons and groups. I'm on a mission and just want to get in, get my badges, and get out. I find I have very little tolerance for anything that might cause wipes or significant delays. And quite honestly I'm not all that happy that Blizzard, knowing these two points, is taking the line that people need to be forced to group together.

Blizzard, you provide the tools to us and leave the rest of it to us to work out.

Blizzard announces big Battleground changes

Well, not to the individual BGs themselves, but rather to the daily quest system and how much honor you get from them.

We have several changes planned for Battlegrounds in the next minor content patch and would like to share them with you now. This patch will be available for public testing and we encourage you to participate, queue up and provide some feedback on these changes.

• Firstly, say goodbye to Battleground Marks of Honor. We feel this currency system is a bit outdated and are getting rid of it. Any items which require these marks as currency will have their costs adjusted appropriately to remove this requirement. The quest NPCs will still be available to award players Honor for turning in leftover marks, but this is only to help players clear this expired currency.
  
  
• Next, the Battleground holiday weekend will now be denoted as "Call to Arms" in the Battleground tab and Calendar. If you prefer a specific Battleground over all others, look for those words next to its name to determine whether or not you'll receive bonus Honor. The bonus awards for Call to Arms Battlegrounds have been adjusted.
  
  
  • Winning a Call to Arms Battleground for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
    
  • Additional Call to Arms Battleground victories after the first win for a player that day will award them with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
    
  • Losing a Call to Arms Battleground will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
  
  
• To bring the rate at which players obtain PvP rewards with Honor more in-line with the rate at which players obtain PvE rewards via the Dungeon Finder, we'll also be increasing the amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill by 100%. In light of this, the amount of experience provided from an Honorable Kill, and the amount of Honor awarded for completing the Wintergrasp weekly quests, have been reduced by 50%.
  
  It's important to note one thing about these 50% decreases. All Honor awarded for completing objectives in Battlegrounds and Wintergrasp is actually based on an Honorable Kill conversion rate. So if you destroy a tower in Alterac Valley for example, the Honor you're awarded is actually based on a flat number of Honorable Kills. Since Honorable Kills will now award 100% more Honor, completing such objectives will also award more Honor. This is why experience gains based on completing Battleground objectives and Honor awarded from the Wintergrasp quests are being decreased by 50%.
  
  
• Now that we hopefully have your attention, we're pleased to announce the implementation of the Random Battleground system! This system will work virtually the same as the Random Dungeon option in the Dungeon Finder. Players can queue with a group of up to five players for a Random Battleground in the Battleground tab. As with the Random Dungeon option, the Battleground chosen will not be revealed until players zone into the Battleground for which they are selected. The bonus rewards for this system are identical to the updated Call to Arms bonuses.
  
  
  • Winning a Battleground using the Random Battleground option for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
    
  • Winning additional Battlegrounds using the Random Battleground option after the first random win will award players with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
    
  • Losing a Battleground using the Random Battleground option will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
    
  • When using the Random Battleground option, players will not receive additional rewards if the Battleground chosen is under the effects of the Call to Arms bonuses. In other words, the bonuses do not stack. In addition, if a player has been rewarded 30 Honorable Kills worth of bonus Honor currency from either the Random Battleground system, or the Call to Arms Battleground, he or she will be rewarded 15 Honorable Kills worth of bonus Honor currency that day for each additional victory. This applies whether the Random Battleground system is used, or the Call to Arms Battleground is chosen specifically, as a player cannot be rewarded the full amount of bonus Honor more than once per day.

All of these features and changes will be available in the next minor patch which should be hitting the public test realms in the near future. Please help us out by testing this system and providing your feedback so we can make some fine-tuning adjustments before the patch's release.

I'm not entirely sure I see the reason behind removing the marks. No one uses them now except for the turn in quest, but beyond that I'm surprised they actually devoted developmental time to do all this when there are so many other things I can think of that are in greater need of attention. So anyway, marks are going bye bye.

I can always use more honor per unit of time, but I have to wonder what this will do to the honor requirement for pieces in the future. Will it inflate it, or not? We'll simply have to see when the time comes, but I do know I am not at all happy about the 50% reduction in the honor gained from the weekly quests in Wintergrasp. They'd already been nerfed from daily quests to weekly quests several months ago, and I'd be hard pressed to see how you could make up 1500 honor from each quest.

Despite that one misgiving, I'm taking all this to be a positive change. I like the idea of the BG queue system being revamped, but would like it even more if it were integrated with the LFG and LFR so that I could queue for whatever I wanted like I used to be able to do.

Comparing healing Paladins to Healing Druids PT 3

Back in January (and) I had been discussing the differences in healing capabilities of my two main characters – my Paladin and my Druid. And at the time I had said I preferred my Paladin for raid healing and my Druid for PVP healing.

I enjoy both styles of healing very much, though I'm leaning toward the Holy Paladin as my preferred Raid healer and my Resto Druid as my preferred PVP healer. If you are new to healing either would be a terrific choice to start out as.

But after getting some additional opportunities to raid heal on my Druid where I concentrated to a greater extent on just keeping HOTs up on as many people as I could, keeping Regrowth and Rejuv up on the tanks, and throwing Wild Growth out whenever it was up, I may have to change my mind about that. In those instances – like in a 10-man run – where you only have one or perhaps two other healers, the greater heal over time and AOE healing abilities of the Druid class really come to the fore. I topped out at over 5.1k HPS on Koralon and Emalon in VOA-10 yesterday for example. Admittedly those fights offer a lot of AOE damage and for the most part, everyone is in groups during both of those fights. But the other healer was a Resto Shaman, so I would have thought he’d have been closer to me healing wise, yet he was only getting up to around 2.5-2.7k HPS on both of those fights. I’ve healed those fights on my Paladin and topped out around 4-4.3k HPS.

I think the biggest difference really comes down to mana efficiency though. In heroics both of my healers are geared well enough where I hardly have any mana issues. With my Paladin judging I never go below 95% mana in heroics and generally have zero issues healing anything that is thrown at the group. Likewise with my Druid I usually just keep the tank Rejuv’ed and throw Wild Growth up to cover the group. Occasionally I might have to throw a Rejuv on someone else, but even keeping Rejuvs up on everyone in the group and keeping Wild Growth up on the group as well doesn’t run me into many mana issues. However I do notice a difference. Whereas I can almost heal with total impunity to mana usage on my Paladin, I do have to exercise greater discipline on my Druid. I definitely notice whether there is mana regen coming from the group or not. In those groups where there is mana regen I will only occasionally have to use my Innervate, but in those groups where there isn’t mana regen I’ll have to use Innervate on those fights that cause a lot of group damage and require me to keep heals on everyone.

It’s a fairly stark difference in that I pay almost no attention to MP5 on my Paladin, gemming almost entirely for either SP, or SP/Haste. Whereas on my Druid every red slot is a SP gem, and every blue slot is a SP/Spirit gem. I pay great attention to my mana regen stats like Spirit and MP5 and I’ve compared what I have with other good Druid healers. I’m very comparable, so I know the difference isn’t a case of me gemming incorrectly. I haven’t run myself out of mana either in heroics or in raids, however I could definitely run out of mana in a raid if I did not pay close attention to my mana usage and use my Innervate whenever it was up. While I love healing on my Paladin, I think that’s simply an issue that Blizzard really does need to look at to a greater extent. Especially if you look at mana efficiency across all healers. In my raids it’s always the Priests that seem to run out of mana first, or come very close to it. When running as Moonkin in my raids I’m forever having to give my Innervates to our Priests. Now I’ve never healed as a Priest, however I’ve raided with enough over the years to see they definitely have mana efficiency issues, so I know it’s not just my imagination when I speak about it comparatively between the Paladin and Druid. In the greater scheme of things, healing capabilities across all the healing classes are somewhat the same, but mana efficiency is not.

Everything being the same with that I’m not so certain I prefer Holy Paladin healing in raid settings over Resto Druid healing any more. However I definitely still do prefer Druid healing for PVP. Mobility is everything in PVP, notwithstanding the 12-second total immunity a Paladin’s bubble gives them. I’ve found it’s just too easy to lock down a Paladin in PVP. Even locked down for a matter of seconds, HOTs ticking on my Druid have saved me so many times that it’s simply too great to ignore. Coming with an ability to get out of most roots/snares, and the speed advantages of travel form make a Resto Druid a dangerous healer in PVP.

Mana efficiency is even more of a problem in PVP than it is in PVE, as your gear does not generally favor regen stats or survivability stats. However, once you get into what I would call good healing gear, and by gemming with Resil/Spirit gems, you can get to very acceptable mana regeneration though you will still have to use innervate regularly as well. My PVP healing set is all Furious/Relentless, with three pieces or Wrathful at the moment. Though my weapon is a PVE staff. As with PVE healing, I have to pay no attention what so ever to my mana efficiency on my Paladin, so the only differentiation comes down to mobility in my mind.

We’ll call it a draw for PVE healing, but for PVP I’m all about Druid healing.

No Olympic event in WoW?

Two years ago the Summer Olympics was greeted in WoW by a mini-event which had you run PVP Battlegrounds in order to earn an Olympic tabard and a special in-game pet (Chinese dragon). I made the mistake of only running do that on my Warlock whom I now don't play, and didn't do it on my Druid and my Paladin, whom I do play and do achievements with. So I was looking forward to the Winter Olympics for the past two years in order to get the Olympic pet. I wasn't expecting the Chinese dragon of course, but rather something a little more Canadian -- a Moose!

Blizzard, for whatever reason, didn't start an Olympic event with the games yesterday. Nor did it start this morning at midnight, so it appears Blizzard is sitting out the Olympics this year and I find that very disappointing. Why create an event for the Summer Olympics and not the Winter Olympics? Some are speculating on the forums that it was simply because the Summer Olympics were held in China and Blizzard was simply ingratiating themselves with China.

Whatever the case it certainly looks badly that no event was launched with the start of the Winter Olympics yesterday and I find that very disappointing.