Posts with tag healer

Ghostcrawler took to the official forums to address the lack of spirit cloth gear that some players have experienced in the Mists of Pandaria beta dungeons currently available for testing. Spirit gear for pure healers is necessary to retain mana regeneration levels and output as content increases in difficulty. With a lack of spirit gear, some healers found their jobs more difficult. Ghostcrawler confirmed that the level-up dungeons found throughout the 85 to 90 content cannot be over-challenging due to the nature of their place in the progression.

The meat of the answer is that as you approach endgame content at level 90, more gear appears with endgame stats on it -- dodge, parry, and block for tanks, spirit for healers, and so on. When that gear becomes important is when the stats start appearing. Until then, pop some reforge, check reputation vendors and other sources of level-up gear for spirit stuff, and mish-mash together a set of decent healer gear. (Or, at the end of the day, you're just really unlucky with drops.)

Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter.

World of Warcraft has me spoiled in regards to MMO user interfaces. While I don't like bringing up other games in my columns, it is almost necessary at times when talking about the overarching themes of the genre, something I am passionate about. Take, for instance, the original Bioware stance on DPS meters ("there will be none") and the subsequent reversal of such a plan -- I would have preferred gun-stickage.

Competition drives innovation in our marketplace, and other MMOs have been stepping up their games in recent years in regard to almost every aspect of the MMO experience. Yet WoW's UI is still leaps and bounds more customizable, flexible, and vibrant than a majority of the AAA titles on the shelf. What the heck is going wrong with the MMO industry and the UI? The Old Republic had to patch in basic UI features. RIFT, while capable in and of itself with UI customization, still suffers from constraints. The original EverQuest made you look at a book to regenerate mana faster. I realize it's not the same world as WoW, but it's still a part of the package.

... which brings me to today's interface and topic. Saintstryfe may have not intended this submission to spur the topic that it did, but I don't care. Saintstryfe, you're riding the Reader UI train now, and this train's conductor doesn't slow for no. One. No one. Except myself. I'm the conductor. Other games reveal aspects of World of Warcraft that otherwise would be left unnoticed due to repetition and routine -- a foil, if you will, to the idiosyncracies of World of Wacraft ... and maybe insight into how to fix them.

Now, this is a forum post that I think merits a little more attention. We all know that developers weren't happy with the spamfest that healing often was in Wrath of the Lich King and that they looked to make it a far more cerebral activity in Cataclysm. Now that we're approaching the end of the expansion, Practical, one of the Blizzard forum MVPs, recently started a thread examining how healing turned out and what can be improved. Most of the people in the thread generally agree that healing started out pretty fun in tier 11 but declined afterwards. Reasons given range from boring boss mechanics to fights with random elements that made healers feel useless when they couldn't control or prevent player deaths.

Practical observes that a lot of the later problems with healing in Cataclysm might actually be the result of a surfeit of raid fights that required constant stacking, and the inevitable effect they had on certain healing spells' being too powerful. Having recently looked at healer numbers in Dragon Soul, I'd also venture that AoE healing spells that aren't numbers-restricted (for example, Circle of Healing versus Holy Radiance) on top of that raid stacking are making healer balance look worse than it actually is.

So what are your thoughts, healers? How did healing work out for you this expansion, and are you looking forward to the Cataclysm changes? And are the problems we're seeing really the result of healer mechanics or raid design?

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Bad PUG stories used to be a perennial feature on this site, and I've been missing them lately -- good PUG stories too, I suppose, but the bad stuff is always more fun to talk about, mostly because you get to share a sense of outrage with fellow reasonable players. Spill, folks: What's happened to you in 5-mans lately?

I'll start. I usually tank heroics but decided to heal recently (that was my first mistake), and I landed a group of guildies from another realm in a Well of Eternity PUG. Now, the average Cataclysm heroic isn't all that tough to heal these days as long as you're sensibly geared, but it didn't take me long to realize that this group was blowing through an unusually large percentage of my mana pool. They stood in front of the Dreadlord Defenders' Carrion Swarm, couldn't find an interrupt button with two hands and a guide dog, and seemed to DPS at an unusually slow rate even with the crit buff given by Illidan's Shadow Walk.

It was around the time I noticed most of the group sitting in Peroth'arn's Fel Flames that it occurred to me that either this was the most legitimately incompetent group I've ever had the misfortune of encountering, or they were doing it on purpose. But because they never quite managed to get themselves or myself killed, I let it slide. I left at the end with 50 gold and a Forest Emerald from my Satchel, wishing for a Dungeon Finder system sufficiently advanced to recognize that some groups are definitely worth, say, a pony.

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This is it. This is the final encounter of the expansion. Everything you've ever worked for and fought through has led to this point. This is the moment you get to help rid the world of Deathwing. First, we need to ground this oversized lizard. Immediately after the conclusion of the gunship (part two), you'll be parachuting onto Deathwing's back. We'll go over the different obstacles and what you and your healers need to do to get over the proverbial raid hump. (To the raiders who do 10-mans, you'll have to adjust the numbers a bit. I'm not as well versed on 10s, so you'll have to bear with me as I draw up assistance for the 25-man version.)

To attack the Spine of Deathwing, we need to peel off those metal plates on Deathwing's back so that we can really weaken him further. Our healing goal here is to ensure that our tanks live. Apparently, Deathwing has all sorts of little defenses that he'll use to try to shake us off; there are several threats on this fight that healers need to be aware of. You're on an extremely narrow field of battle here, so movement's going to be really limited.

What did you expect, though? You're fighting on the back of a former dragon aspect.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

As the fifth boss of Dragon Soul, Ultraxion is the gateway boss to pursuing Deathwing and stopping the second cataclysm. While Thrall and the dragon aspects are busy with the Dragon Soul itself, we're tasked with defending Wyrmrest Temple from Ultraxion's assaults. Simple, right?

Ultraxion is an incredibly simple fight for tanks and damage dealers. In fact, it's already being called the Patchwerk-fight of this tier. Aside from a few extra button presses, non-healers are simply tasked with bringing Ultraxion down as quickly as possible. Healers, on the other hand, play a very special role in this fight. We're fighting against rapidly increasing AoE damage to the raid, and the aspects themselves step in to help us accomplish our task. Ultraxion is the healer-centric fight of this tier, like Baleroc and Chimaeron before him.

Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter.

This week is a big submission week for Reader UI of the Week, meaning I need you fine folks to send me a new crop of interfaces to discuss. BlizzCon is coming very, very soon, and that means I have to get some columns in the bank, so to speak, for when I'm away having an awesome time with you guys and gals at the convention. So submit your UI to Reader UI of the Week. You know you want to. Send submissions, explanations, and screenshots to readerui@wowinsider.com.

As for today's submission, Absinth is a priest is a clear goal: make a healing user interface that gets rid of the clutter, put most of healer arsenal on VuhDo, and keep the screen free. Overall, I think the style and configuration works, but some players may be reluctant to give over so much power to a healing addon. That fact does make you wonder about the power disparity between healing addons and the default user interface, though ...

Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter.

Greetings, Reader UI of the Week fans. Everyone seems to have some sort of food poisoning or stomach problems this week, and I have no idea what is up with that. We have a national stomach epidemic here in the United States. Here's something that won't upset your delicate bodily balance; Jack's smooth and slick user interface setup, centered around grouping, dungeons, and questing.

While I am a raider at heart, my recent obsession has been with players and nonraiding UIs. Not that I think that there is anything wrong with a raiding UI, but as someone who primarily lives in raiding content, it is interesting to look and see what 5-man-focused UIs are built around. With the coming of the Raid Finder in patch 4.3 as an introductory raiding system, more and more players are going to have to adapt their 5-man UI setups to a raiding environment if they want to succeed in taking down the big bosses of the raiding world. Jack's UI is a competent setup that can make the change and stands up on its own two legs.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, or catch me weekly on the Matticast.

If you've ever played a DPS class, you're familiar with working with stats with caps. You have to worry about hit and expertise caps, and there have even been haste and crit caps, too. While playing the min-max game with these stats can be entertaining, healers rarely have to worry about stat caps. Our primary stats, intellect and spirit, don't have any caps to speak of. We do have a few haste breakpoints where we get bonus Holy Radiance ticks, but haste and mastery don't have any hard caps that we can reach. We can pick up any healing stat without worrying about having too much of any given stat.

Instead of dealing with stat caps, healers deal with spell caps. DPS classes have an optimal system or rotation that they follow, but healers have several spell options they can choose from. Each spell has its own limitations, and knowing when to use what spell is a key part of playing a healer successfully. Holy paladins are especially familiar with these issues, as our spells tend to be in flux nearly even patch. Learning how to work around each spell's strengths and weaknesses will ensure that you always use the right tool for the job.

Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com.

Tuesday is here, and you know what that means: We are one week away from a WoW Insider Show special live show extravaganza! You heard me right, folks: Next Tuesday, May 31, Mike Sacco, Matthew Rossi, and myself will hit the live stream for a full show dedicated to all things WoW. Plus, we're doing the show during downtime, starting at 11 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Pacific, so you won't be busy and can totally listen. We'll be giving away prizes, too. That rules!

Anyway, we've got other business to attend to right now. Reader UI of the Week gets a good number of submissions from both Europe and the United States, but there is a really fun factor in seeing non-English UIs. The localization process is awesome and incredibly intriguing to me, and I love seeing what different UI elements are labeled as and how UI issues are dealt with. Imagine my utter disappointment when German native Viday changed his entire interface to English so it would be more understandable.

Story of my life.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we contemplate the possibility of writing a future article on predictions that came true, because goddamn, we're amazing.

One of these days I really ought to write an edition of Shifting that's nothing but a smug-a-thon on how much I've been able to get right. That this necessitates ignoring the 95% that I get wrong is somewhat troublesome if you're one of those people who gets hung up on the ephemeral phenomenon sometimes known as "accuracy," but a good writer never lets the truth stand between herself and a great story.

On this occasion, I am pleased to say -- to a legion of people who could reasonably have expected an upcoming change anyway -- I told you so.

Booyeah!

Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com.

Welcome, friends, to another exciting week here at Reader UI of the Week. I am your ever-vigilant host, Mathew McCurley. Before we begin, I wanted to remind everyone about the submission process for sending your Reader UI to be thrust into the spotlight for all readers to see. First, send images, not videos. I appreciate you taking the time to put together a video showing how your UI works, but for the purposes of the column, I do need some screenshots to go along with it. Second, "here's my UI, I hope you like it" is great, but it cannot be the only content you send along. We need more! What do you like about your UI? What was your design goal? Do you have any pieces of the UI that you just can't live without? You don't have to write a novel, I swear.

Other than that, submissions are easy! Big screenshots, please, and your WoW character's name is suitable. If I cannot tell what gender you are from the screenshots or your name, a gender-identifying pronoun will be provided for you at random. Submit your UI to readerui@wowinsider.com!

The new Tree of Life form went live on last night's beta build, and I've shot a short video to show you what it looks like in action. As mentioned previously, the Tree currently shares the male orc skeleton and animations, so you won't see anything too unfamiliar here, but the new form is just beautiful. If anything, it's kind of depressing that it's now a cooldown.

The new forms are colored by race, and here's the breakdown:

• Night elves get the purple form.
• Tauren get the brown and green form.
• Worgen get the dark brown form.
• Trolls get the light brown form.