How to decide who's getting Val'anyr
by Allison Robert 
Apr 12th 2009 at 6:00PM
It's not exactly the world's most comfortable question for a guild leader, but I like how Derevka lays the issue out so matter-of-factly, and then goes on to address an interesting point concerning Val'anyr's proc. Your ideal candidate is a good healer with great attendance who plans on hanging around for a while, but then there's the question -- which class gets the most use out of the proc?
Between Derevka's commentary and a few notes from the Wowhead thread, it does seem as if Paladins and Discipline Priests are the classes/specs most suited to Val'anyr's shield proc. This is somewhat disappointing for me as a Druid, but then, nothing about the mace is set in stone until 3.1 actually goes live. How is your guild deciding how to assign this much sought-after piece?
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Classes
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Jason Apr 12th 2009 6:10PM
Why does it say "Unique (30)" if you need 40 of them?
Boris Apr 14th 2009 1:17AM
So that it can not be assembled on the PTR.
AyaJulia Apr 12th 2009 6:14PM
This was to keep anyone on the PTR from assembling the final mace.
Either the unique number or the required number will be changed on live so that assembling the mace is possible.
Tridus Apr 12th 2009 6:14PM
Looks like an old screenshot. Current Wowhead info says it requires 30 to build it.
Kassu Apr 12th 2009 6:15PM
You need 30 fragments that tooltip is old.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=855
Endy Apr 12th 2009 6:11PM
Our coalition will allow all the healers in our raid group to /roll the day we start Ulduar, the healer with the highest roll will get all 40 fragments for a fixed dkp price which is paid when he / she has all the fragments. After the person who had the highest roll gets the mace the one who had the second highest roll will get the next one and so on.
Oh and btw, not all melee legendary items where simple drops, remember the massive grind for Thunderfury and Hand of Rag? :P
forrely Apr 12th 2009 6:20PM
I would let your healers roll again after the first person gets the mace, I can imagine it would be very very despressing to the healer that rolls lowest to know that he/she will have to wait for a couple hundred shards to drop before they even have a chance to start collecting
Freedomfighter Apr 12th 2009 6:26PM
I would have them pay the DKP upfront. Otherwise they can get more gear than what would be fair. Because they are maintaining their same DKP levels they win the same amount of loot as everyone else AND the mace.
Kinka Apr 12th 2009 7:57PM
If you have them pay the DKP up front, you run the risk of screwing them out of gear forever...
I doubt it will work this way, but what if, hypothetically, another shard never drops? Suddenly you charged 5000DKP for something the person never even gets to complete, none the less use.
There's a lot of annoying gray area with this.
Faar Apr 13th 2009 8:29AM
Why even bother with DKP? It's a system that favors individuals, instead of favoring the raid as a whole (which is what it should do, seeing as raiding is a team effort).
Assuming all things being equal, anyone who attends a raid should have equal chance of rolling on loot for their spec, seeing as they helped down the boss.
If everything is not equal, the loot should go to the poorest equipped member, not to the one with the most stupid DKP.
Minra Apr 12th 2009 6:14PM
No, I will not give it to you, you're welcome. And congrats on first :P
Blue Apr 12th 2009 6:16PM
thats a good idea about hopw to distribute shards... however, i dont think rolling should be the way to decide who gets it first, you should look at the top 3 people in attendance and healing, then have them roll on who gets it first imo
Verit Apr 12th 2009 6:49PM
Top healing doesn't always mean good healer. Its actually really hard to rate a healer I think - even if you took overhealing into account.
I would base who gets the shards off of attendance record myself. Someone with 100% attendance definitely deserves over someone with 50-75%.
Charlie Apr 12th 2009 10:53PM
Agreed. If someone isn't there, it's kinda pointless.
I know I would love it, but it deserves to go to the people who have put in the most time/effort.
Which pretty much narrows it down to three people, our GM (a preist), one of our officers (pally), or our druid.
Due to the proc, and since our priest is holy, i'm voting for the officer, or our gm.
My biggest question, does the shield proc work w/ rapture? If so its definatley best for a Disc Priest.
Angus Apr 13th 2009 8:37AM
Top 3 in healing means the Disc priest is likely losing it to a holy priest with the same amount of HPS if the disc priest was holy.
My wife outputs similar numbers to our holy priest when she's holy and less than half that when disc. Funny thing is, she can keep me up in patchwerk pretty much solo when disc, but the holy priest has no chance.
Meters are a dumb way of judging healing and should be ignored by those that understand how disc works.
Tridus Apr 12th 2009 6:17PM
Vanilla legendaries were assembled (Thunderfury, Sulfuras, and Atiesh). BC legendaries were just drops. They went back to the assembly method for Val'anyr.
We're actually going through this right now in my guild. The plan is to vote on it, though there's a debate on if it should be open to the entire raid to vote, or just the eligible healers to pick a winner. Either way, it's not being handled by DKP like a normal item, because they want to avoid people skipping on other upgrades to get into a DKP hoarding race for a legendary.
micahks Apr 13th 2009 11:50AM
" It does seem as if Paladins and Discipline Priests are the classes/specs most suited to Val'anyr's shield proc." Quote from original text
Since all healers are getting their mana regeneration nerfed, the cost of lifebloom is being increased, and other changes in druid healing druids are going to be forced to use responsive healing such as nourish and healing touch. This will offset the current trend where all druid healers do is keep hots rolling since they will be oom very quickly otherwise, thus druids would benifit just as much proc wise from the mace. I understand that priests have much larger heals, and so it might be benificial to allow them first grab in a system that is strictly based on who will benifit most, but nourish and healing touch are equal to the size of all the other classes heals. It seems that more thought will have to go into this before a system is devised that is fair for all healers. I would suggest only allowing those that have been with your guild for awhile and attended raids reguarly to get first grabs. The roll method mentioned would work fine just have those that qualify /roll, and high roller gets first grabs after they have theirs /roll again.
Karilyn Apr 12th 2009 6:18PM
I'm mildly confused as to why it's better for Paladins and Discipline Priests.
The proc is off of heals right? So why would you give it to the classes that use shields? I doubt the shield proc is enhanced by talents.
So naturally, I'd think you'd want to give it to a class with a large amount of healing throughput.
Freedomfighter Apr 12th 2009 6:26PM
I agree with you about the disc priest part. Shields don't have much effective healing and thus are lowering the usefulness of the proc.
The argument that is being made is that the proc is most useful for tank healers, as they are most likely to consume the effects of the shield during its 15 second duration. This is why the OP is suggesting disc priests should use it as they are tank healers. Of course this makes significantly more sense for a paladin than a disc priest.
Kyane Apr 12th 2009 6:38PM
I'm not sure I agree with Disc Priests. As it's based on healing throughput, you'd want it on the healers that are dropping BIG heals, usually a paladin or a holy priest. Disc is more about mitigation than big heals, so I'm confused as to why a Disc Priest would be favored at all.