5021

I wish I could do this with archeology but to get Tol’Vir dig sites I’m mostly arching in Kalimdor. And especially in the north part of that continent I’m constantly running into invisible ceilings due to the massive Z axis differences between the mini zones, especially when flying from Wintergrasp or Mount Hyjal to somewhere south. This means I have to babysit the flying more than I would like.

5022

Red Whelp one hit kill in wetlands (obviously pre Cata) … -randomly smacks whelp …loots- Oooh shiney
Green whelp .farmed for a week, made a alt … killed the dream whelps at level (they aren’t in swamp anymore) yay green whelp
Randomly killing blues one day to help other half get scales (pre wrath) , other loots… yoinked
Another one drops , he sold that one
I have never seen a black whelp drop.

This all said, I am avoiding wow currently.

5023

I have two turtles. I’ve never actually set out to get one. Granted, I have Salty on two characters and four derby wins, so I’ve done plenty of fishing to randomly get the turtles.

I actually find the turtles disappointing. IMO, when you’re underwater, they should be like 280 flying mounts, but are basically too slow to be considered useful in any way. Due to the difficulty in getting them, I guess Blizzard wanted to keep them as a vanity mount and not give them any super-useful functionality.

Case in point: there’s a rare 359 sword you can get from Archaeology, so people are beating their brains out trying to get it, in turn making people hate the profession. If it was just a vanity weapon, there’d be far fewer frustrated archaeologists.

5024

Currently playing a holy paladin, which I managed to get to 85, quite a feat as I hate post-old world leveling. Except the Cata zones themselves were all excellent.

Now doing the run-regular-dungeons for getting into heroics thing. It’s fun, but sometimes kind of rough, even in regulars, mana-wise. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, but I’m at item level 330 with 80k mana and usually after every pull I have to stop everyone to refill. Of course, I have to account for the DK’s that pull everything possible to themselves while in the group as DPS. And the fail hunters that ‘accidentally’ shoot at bosses because they’re bored waiting the six seconds it takes my mana to refill.

It is kind of nice, after years of playing a mage, to be somewhat in demand as a healer. And I’m not too bad at it either. I’m worried about what heroics will be like, but only one way to find out. I’m refusing to even try one until I’m at ilvl 333 though. And gemmed and enchanted so +Int is coming out my eyes.

Now I read that mana costs for paladin basic heals is going -up- in the next patch. WTF why? I don’t see that many holy pallies with much more mana than I have atm. Well just because I don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. But I still don’t see the sense of increasing the cost of my heals when I already have issues with mana.

5025

You might be doing something wrong, but it’s more likely that you’re merely experiencing the joy of a max-level healer before he gets good gear. I absolutely refused to heal on my shaman or druid until they got some heroic gear: it was just too painful. But after you get better gear (and also as you get a better feel for how to use your cheaper heals best) it gets much easier, and a lot more fun.

Now I read that mana costs for paladin basic heals is going -up- in the next patch. WTF why? I don’t see that many holy pallies with much more mana than I have atm. Well just because I don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. But I still don’t see the sense of increasing the cost of my heals when I already have issues with mana.

Mana regen is more important than the size of your mana pool. (Although a larger pool helps regen, of course.) My shaman’s pool isn’t all that much larger than when she first hit 85, but she has a hell of a lot more spirit & crit, plus the archaeology trinket, so I almost never have mana problems.

5026

There really isn’t much by the way of healing plate to pick and choose from. I’ve been reforging spirit as much as I can but it’s not that great.

My guild assures me I am good at healing so there’s that. I suppose I could grind Arch but then I would be considered crazy. :)

5027

I feel your pain, I’ve played a resto druid and holy paladin. The holy paladin is more difficult in 5-mans, particularly the more melee you have in the group since the dungeons feature all kinds of AE damage.

Things I did/do to make things more tolerable, forgive me if you are already doing all of this, but it wasn’t obvious to me right away what a waste of time Holy Light on the tank is.

  1. Forget about casting Holy Light on the tank. Cast Divine Light on the tank, but only when none of it will be overheal. This means letting the tank dip down 30k health or so before casting. With the bigger health pools, you’re not going to get burned by this. This also gives the tank a bigger absorb shield.

The primary benefit of this strategy is that you’re going to be generating a lot of holy power (assuming you beacon the tank). You can then use Word of Glory (and more rarely Light of Dawn) for healing other people who have taken damage.

  1. Since you won’t have to spam Holy Light non-stop, this gives you a chance to judge light which is a good mana return mechanic. Make a macro that will judge your target’s target and hit it every 9 seconds.

  2. Light of Dawn is pretty much worthless most of the time. The opportunity cost in positioning in trying to make it an efficient heal means you are forfeiting GCDs that can be spend judging light or doing something else more productive. There are a few exceptions where your party members help out and position themselves near you.

  3. Holy Radiance is way too expensive most of the time.

  4. Holy Shock on cooldown, but I assume you know that.

  5. With casting Divine Light on the tank and Holy Shocking on cooldown, you have a fair amount of Holy Power. It’s not mandatory according to Elitistjerks.com, but I think 2/2 Eternal Glory is worthwhile, giving you even more Holy power.

  6. You can hand of sacrifice the tank every other pull, this will give you a lot of breathing room.

You will still have to drink a lot compared to a druid, but stress levels about low mana might be a little bit better.

5028

Don’t forget Holy Radiance is good for speeding up movement when you and the group are slowed.

5029

Man, there’s turtles everywhere, as I managed to catch one earlier tonight as well. I don’t know if the odds of catching them have gone up, or if it’s just more people doing fishing lately as part of the initial expansion rush.

5030

I pretty much solved my mana problems with my spirit reforge frenzy. I still have enough haste that I’m not gimped.

And Hiredgoons pretty much just told everyone how to play a holy pally, it reads almost exactly like how I operate. Kudos.

I do tend to use Holy Radiance when there are more melee DPS in a group than there needs to be.

My regen is such now that I ran 2 or 3 regulars tonight and had no issues, besides the hunters that fell into a chasm, or rogues that walk into blasts of 80k fire breaths.

Not quite ready for that heroic step, going to grind out some rep first and pick up a couple of new pieces and then I think I’ll be just fine.

And I will Holy Light spam my buddy that tanks…he’s highly geared though and rarely actually needs a real heal. When he holds a group of mobs and no one fails at pulling something off of him, I will just Holy Light him out of boredom.

Thanks for the tips guys. Everything is good to go. Haven’t had this much fun in WoW for years. I’m way more popular now than when I played a mage. Heh.

5031

Chimaeron Heroic makes me rage so hard as a Balance Druid.

Remember when I ranted about the complexity of the Balance rotation? Yeah, well, now add in RNG hit-reduction poison bolts, movement, and the need to Tranquility / Brez / innervate every attempt.

RAAAAAAGE.

We’ve wiped on H-Chim longer than we did on Nef…

5032

Its not fun for me anymore. It wouldn’t be so bad if at least 50% of the heroics were of the LK style and design because then it wouldnt be so much of a waste of time.

5033

You have to realize that better gear will not save most of the fails that happen in heroic pugs. It will only reduce your need to drink (which a good group would let you do anyway), and that is nice, but I started healing heroics at an effective 325 ilevel (with no enchants), and now at 344 + gems + enchants, I experience the same fuckups and the same frustrating wipes due to sheer stupidity, incompetence and impatience.

5034

A lot of people are fishing for the volatile waters. It’s a bit faster and more rewarding than killing the elementals for them.

5035

So when Elitist Jerks doesn’t have the answers I seek, where do I turn? I need to figure out what gems I want on my bear, and also whether my inclination to prize dps gear over str-boosting tank gear is correct.

5036

The answer is on EJ. Unfortunately it boils down to: Use Rawr to calculate based on your gear.

5037

Agreed. Once your tank can survive the unavoidable crap and the healer can keep from falling behind on same, it’s just a matter of not screwing up the avoidable crap.

Which is non-trivial on a lot of fights, so there’s that, but still.

5038

Did two random heroics tonight, well, with guildies, but we only wiped twice and it had nothing to do with my mana. Got some excellent upgrades, up to 332 item level, and it turns out I’m a pretty good holy pally.

Way more fun now than I had in BC and LK playing a mage. Except I kinda miss the ports, but hey.

Having a good time again, that’ll probably last until the guild decides it’s time to start raiding. That’s usually when the fun goes away.

5039

I just did Heroic Deadmines for the first time and it really solidified my status as an amateur player. While I was mostly carried through, one fight we wiped multiple times (not all my fault)… but over those wipes I realized it takes me at least three times in a row doing the same fight to really understand the mechanics. I’m not good at being given a quick description and then trying to decipher what’s going on, on the fly. Plus my DPS was pitiful.

It’d been a week (maybe two) since I’d played my main in somewhat difficult group, but that’s just an excuse at this point. I shouldn’t have to be on every night practicing my class in hard content in order to maintain my skill, especially if the break is as brief as a week or two. I’m going to stick to alts for now but I think I have one or two characters left in me before I drop WoW again. I doubt I’ll be back for the next expansion, it really was the Cataclysm and the changes to the old world that brought me back and the new (80-85) stuff isn’t nearly as impressive as Northrend is to me.

TLDR vesrion: There’s just no helping some of us baddies. : /

5040

With EJ, you may have to dig around and read through threads. I’d also go to maintankadin forums and see whats being said there on bears.

My inclination is agil over str EXCEPT when said “tanking” item is well itemized that losing the benefits of agil to str (just gives AP) isn’t worth it. Last I saw the current thought is the epic Hyjal rep cloak (turtle whatever) is a better over a cloak with agil due to the dodge and mastery on the cloak already.

For 5-mans I’d favor threat/dps stats (crit/hit/expertise) over mastery/dodge but not by much. Worry about it once you hit 150k HP or so unbuffed. For raids, my experience so far is stam, stam, stam, and more stam with a side of spam for gems.