Goodbye to Johnny Train Set?

Cataclysm Raid Progression changes (source):

• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
• Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel
• For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

I'm not sure if a larger number of drops will be enough incentive to do 25-man raids.   

Dealing with Johnny Train Set for 16 hours a week has never been a fun part of raiding.  It's been more of a necessary evil to fill out the 25-man roster.  In most raids a 25-man team will include Johnnies who are brought along only because raid leaders need to fill out the roster.  A lot of raid leaders would not include these players given a solid replacement.

Not to mention the job required to schedule 25 players and deal with players that don't show up consistently, are tardy, just leave without notice, etc.  I believe a lot of the "no show" problem is directly related to the current pace of raiding.  We all love to play the video games, but when it becomes more like a job then fun,  there's a tendency to blow it off every once in a while.  A new slower progression requiring less hours per week should lower the "burn out" rate of Raider rank.

If the pace is a lot slower, I imagine their will be an explosion of ALT raiding.  

10 man heroic BQL or why you need to trust your healers...

I am almost sure I've written about this topic before, but it's important enough to write about again.  


Last week my 10-man team lacked Replenishment. On our first heroic BQL attempt my mana got low, even with a mana potion and casting Plea and Trinkets on cool down.  We had three healers, a restoration Druid, a discipline Priest, and Big Healer(me).  Being a Holy Light spammer, I was tossing out big heals on the raid liberally on anyone that didn't have a full health bar.  This attempt failed when a Pact'ed pair didn't close in fast enough. 

Attempt #2.  My plan is to only use Holy Light when another healer has Pact or Swarming and during the Air phase.  I would Aura Mastery Shadow during the first Air phase, pop wings and blow out heals to everyone.   The second Air Phase would get Aura Mastery and Divine Sacrifice and of course Holy Light spam. 

This plan requires that I trust the other healers in my team to be healing too.  On most fights, I don't run out of mana, so I don't really worry about over healing and it all goes to the tank via Beacon anyway.  My Flash of Light heals range from 7k to 10k, which is between 1/4 and 1/3 of a typical raiders health.  I have 2 other healers backing me up so that should be enough.  Of course if anyone looks like they are going down fast, a big heal will be coming.

This plan worked great, the raid stayed up, vampires all hit their marks, and the Queen died just as she was going into the second air phase (maybe Divine Sac during 1st air phase next time).  I was spamming my 1 second Flash like a Hyper healing machine.  My effective heals were lower then on the first attempt but people didn't die and I was never too low on mana to cast a big heal.  Trying to top the meters and playing smart are not the same thing. 

Party? What Party? Cataclysm ends wow Parties. Or Divine Sacrifice nerf not in the Spirit

Tranquility will always be raid wide, just because the concept of a "group" within the raid is kind of a strange one. What does that group refer to in the game? It's not distance for example. We'd like to do this with every spell. (Source)

Divine Sacrifice was changed in Patch 3.3 to be "party only" to the dismay of many raids who now had to shuffle paladins around to groups that needed the extra protection.

I imagine in the new party-less world of Cataclysm, we could get something, like 

• 30% of all damage taken by the 5 lowest health raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin...

which could fit well into the new Healing Hands model of paladins radiating heals and protection to players around them.  

If the goal is to make Holy Paladins be better raid healers, then I think it makes sense for them to more like Discipline Priests then Holy Priests.  A Holy Paladin should be a damage shielder, redirecting damage from the raid into some mechanic that sheds the damage.  Currently the mechanic is Divine Sanctuary, but The Bubble is too powerful to be on a lower cool down.  Some sort of Divine Aegis that absorbs redirected damage but has to be managed carefully by the paladin.

Two Blessing is One too many? -- or "one dude would prefer the opposite"?

The Cataclysm preview provides details on a new buffing system for paladins.  At first glance, it looks great, based on the current complex coordination required.  There still a problem with the new system, more on that after a summary of the new system.  Directly from the preview:

Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.

Kings and Might can just be raid wide. There should be no need to target individuals. We're trying to make sure there isn't a circumstance where one dude would prefer the opposite buff to everyone else.

The need to coordinate with add-ons such as Pally Power is no longer required.  

The problem with this new system is when you have only a single Paladin and raiders who want different buffs.  This can easily happen in 5 and 10 man groups.

FeralPause whispers, "can I get a 10 minute might instead of kings, please..."

So now I need to remember to rebuff FeralPause with might every 10 minutes?  That does not sound fun.  I will probably still want a version of Pally Power just to manage who does and doesn't want to the global buff.

How are the developers going to avoid the "one dude would prefer" circumstance while providing two different Paladin buffs?  

I can think of two different solutions.

1. Combine Kings / Might / Wisdom into a single blessing called "Kings"
2. Allow more then one blessing from a paladin, so they can do both Kings and Wisdom.  Like a Priest that does both Fortitude and Spirit...

Selling mounts is nothing new... or get your underoos unbunched.

The spectral tiger mount isn't very common, but it can be purchased with real money.   A friend of mine ordered several boxes of the WOW Trading Card Game in order to get this mount.  The only difference is that Blizzard didn't get his money directly, but they definitely got paid.

The upcoming Starcraft II collectors edition will have a Warcraft non-combat pet included.

Pets and Mounts have been provide as part of the Blizzcon ticket price.

If anything it's more honest when blizzard provides access to these "paid" vanity items directly instead of through some sort of marketing gimmick.

Blizzard Store has a good day...

Cataclysm Paladin Preview or stuff to activate on every COOL DOWN!

(Apparently clarifications have been posted already, will get to those after the raid!)

The early class previews are almost always wrong, in the sense that what actually gets into the expansion resembles it only slightly.  The early class previews for Wrath had us thinking casters would be constantly worrying about mana.  So, that said, here's my take on the Cataclysm Paladin Preview. 

If healing was the same in Cataclysm as is in Wrath then it would get boring.  The expansion would just be a bunch of new content which will play exactly like the content in Wrath.  A new expansion should change up our play style, force us to learn new ways to be excellent players. 

• Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1.
• Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins

Holy Paladins can Crusader Strike and Retribution Paladins can Holy Shock.  The world has truly been turned upside down. 

• Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

This sounds a lot like the description of Beacon when it was first "previewed."  Proposed macro text, "Come close Brothers, so I can touch you with my Healing Hands!"  Seriously, based on the lack of any more information then raids will no longer be constantly topped off, ACTIVATE ON EVERY COOL DOWN.  I expect this to be a lot different once they actually start to implement and test it.

• Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. ... For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. ... 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).

It's a smart bomb HOT.  Does it only heal one target, or does it constantly switch to whichever target is the lowest?  Too many questions to have any opinion on how this works, so I say, ACTIVATE ON EVERY COOL DOWN.  

• We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target. The intention is that the paladin can use it on their main healing target.  That said, we would like to improve the Holy paladin toolbox and niche so that they don’t feel quite like the obvious choice for tank healing while perceived as a weak group healer. 

The intention is for healers to be making smart decisions instead of just making sure they get something off every GCD.  It makes sense to remove the need to refresh the SS every couple of minutes since that is a pretty mindless behavior.  

Making SS last 30 minutes on a tank is reinforcing the tank healing niche.  They want to improve the toolbox, but not really saying how that will happen.

• We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. 

Surprise! Just like all the healer previews (except Druids) the three heal model has been presented.  A fast expensive heal, an efficient heal, and a slow big heal.   I have to admit that I rarely concern myself with overlapping other healers while healing the raid.  The idea that target selection and heal selection will be more critical is going to be a challenge.

• Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.

The Beacon is what enabled raid healing in the first place.  This seems to reinforce the tank healer niche which they are trying to fix.  The question will be, does the tank need a big heal, if not then Flash the raid, if so heal the tank.  That puts them squarely in the Tank Healer raid spot.

• Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.

Critical heals will heal for more.  So it's basically a critical heal bonus talent.  Sounds pretty underwhelming to me.