Category Archives: Game Info

Game Info

Vial of the Sunwell

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As I just mentioned, I picked up the [Vial of the Sunwell] last night in Heroic Magister’s Terrace, and I’ve been trying to assess its value.

A brief attack of theorycrafting (hello, Excel spreadsheets) later, and here’s what we’ve got:

Assumptions

  • Healer is a paladin
  • Healer uses approximately 75% Flash of Lights and 25% Holy Lights
  • Healer is chain-casting
  • Trinket is used every time the cooldown is up

Results

  • On raw numbers, given the assumptions above, Vial of the Sunwell is worth 15 mp5 and approximately 55 +heal.
  • Apart from raw numbers, this trinket has some particular strengths:
    • Triggering the “Use:” effect doesn’t activate the global cooldown, meaning it stacks nicely on top of your regular healing rotation, and can either be macroed into your regular healing macro, or be used when you need burst healing to supplement your heals without eating a GCD.
    • Unlike many trinket effects you can ‘charge it up’ ahead of time; the Holy Energy buff (which represents the collected energy, and stacks to 20) has no duration. This means that you can charge it up with 20 rank 1 heals before a fight starts.
    • Edit: As Matticus just pointed out to me in chat, the effect of the trinket isn’t suppressed by silences, so it’s great for use on fights with silence effects and big damage, like Gruul and Nalorakk.
    • Note that the effect can crit, for 3000 healing.

Variations

  • The figures aren’t wildly different for paladins with different casting rotations. Chaincasting 100% Holy Light lands somewhere around 47 +heal; chaincasting 100% Flash of Light equates to around 58 +heal.
  • Keeping the same casting rotation, and instead assuming you’re only casting 75% of the time instead of chain-casting, the value of the trinket rises to an equivalent of around 72 +heal.
  • It is important to note that this trinket doesn’t magically do more for you just because you’re casting less often. These numbers are equivalents to give you an idea of the end effect of the trinket, compared with other alternatives you might equip.
Game Info

A new tabard!

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As some of you may have worked out already, I’m something of a tabardaholic.

Cue the latest addition to my collection!

Keepers of Time Tabard

The Keepers of Time Tabard has existed in the game files for a while; in an undocumented patch addition, it was implemented in patch 2.4. It’s available from Alurmi, the KoT Quartermaster, at Exalted reputation for 80 silver.

It’s probably a sign that I play too much: I could remember Alurmi’s name without having to refer to WoWhead.

(Still quiet around these parts, because I’m busy working my ass off for Shattered Sun Exalted rep – my server just hit phase 3 (with a world first) and is making steady progress, so I want to be sure I have the rep to get the title when Phase 4 starts.)

Game Info, Media

Magister’s Terrace: the Kael’thas Fight

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I’m racing to hit Exalted with Shattered Sun before my server gets to Phase 4, so I can get the title – I’m on track, being a third of the way through Honoured with SSO while Proudmoore’s somewhere between 25% and 30% through Phase 2.

This means I’m keen to spend a lot of time in Magister’s Terrace, and I’ve developed a few tips to maximise the likelihood of success. Since some others might find it useful, here are some handy strat tips and a video!

Magister’s Terrace: Boss 4, Kael’thas (Normal Mode)

Kael’thas is a caster boss, and the fight revolves around fire- and arcane-oriented attacks. You can read up on him in detail WoWWiki (and he’s basically a trimmed-down version of his 25-man self), but here’s a quick summary of how I explain the fight to groups I run with:

Phase 1

This is a basic tank-and-spank with a couple of things to watch out for.

  • Kael hits like a kitten, and can be tanked by off-spec people in tank gear. I’ve done it as holy spec in tank gear myself.
  • If you don’t have anyone in melee range, he just casts spells. He can be tanked by a ranged DPSer with high threat, if they have enough stam – a mage with part or all of a Krosh tanking set is a good example. This seems gimmicky, but can be useful – for instance, having a hybrid tank in healing gear to help keep the party up in phase 2. However, this can be problematic, because:
  • Periodically throughout Phase 1, Kael will summon a phoenix (heralded by him saying “Vengeance… burns!”). This phoenix will aggro onto a party member and fly slowly towards them, with a pulsing fire AoE as it goes; when it dies, it explodes with AoE Fire damage. The phoenix should be kited while all ranged DPSers burn it down fast; everyone needs to stay out of melee range of it.
  • When the phoenix dies it leaves an egg. If not killed fast enough, it will spawn a new phoenix. All DPS should burn down the egg as soon as it appears.
  • (If you have a ranged DPSer tanking Kael, you may not have enough spare DPS to get the phoenix and egg down quick enough.)
  • Kael will periodically cast a flamestrike with a very showy graphical effect. Move out of its area, because it burnsssss, precious.

Phase 2

At 50% health, Kael’thas enters Phase 2. Here are the salient points:

  • He stops casting and drops all agro; he no longer attacks anyone directly for the rest of the fight.
  • Tanks are completely useless here. Pally and druid tanks should heal if needed, otherwise DPS. Warrior tanks should do what DPS they can.
  • Kael will cast a Gravity Lapse that “turns off” gravity in his room. Players can move freely in three dimensions; it’s just like swimming, but at normal movement speed.
  • Gravity Lapse does 300+ damage every second to everyone in the party. Ouch. This is very hard for a paladin to solo-heal, and not easy for a shammy either. This is why hybrid tanks need to help heal: one barkskinned Tranquility from a bear tank, for instance, will make the difference between wipe and win.
  • While Gravity Lapse is up, there are also three large Arcane Orbs that move around the room in three dimensions. They do huge arcane damage if they get into melee range of a player, so everyone needs to keep mobile constantly, panning the camera around to watch for incoming orbs. This is essential.
  • Periodically Kael will drop the Gravity Lapse (and orbs) and stand there, stunned, while regenerating energy. He does nothing during this period, and reportedly takes extra damage at the same time, so you should absolutely go to town here. If he’s not dead by the time he’s done regenerating, he’ll start the Gravity Lapse again, repeat until he’s dead or you are.

Summary

  • Phase 1: The “tank” (whether melee or ranged) keeps agro, burn down the phoenix as soon as it appears, burn down the egg as soon as the phoenix dies, keep out of the flamestrikes, don’t let Kael go to Phase 2 with a phoenix or egg still up.
  • Phase 2: Keep as mobile as possible, stay out of range of the Arcane Orbs at all costs, healers need to AoE heal (or spam like mad), let loose during his regen period.

Video

Here’s a video version of the above strategy – a bear tank, a pally healer, two mages and a rogue, all in Tier 4-5 gear. I don’t actually have a video of any of our wins, but the strategy remains the same.

You can also check this video out directly on iMeem for a bigger, better-quality video. Enjoy!

Game Info

The Alchemist’s Stone

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Healing trinkets can often be difficult to analyse, because they offer stats and effects that you don’t typically find on other items. MK of A Dwarf Priest said it best: “you should carry multiple trinkets and select based on your needs for the given encounter.”. That’s an excellent post analysing healing trinkets, incidentally, and I recommend it for all healers. Of course, if you’re a pally or shaman, a lot of the numerical rankings won’t apply as we get zero benefit out of Spirit, but the overall listing and analysis is excellent.

So, let’s take a look at the numbers on one much-misunderstood trinket: the Alchemist’s Stone.

Alchemist’s Stone
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+15 Strength
+15 Agility
+15 Stamina
+15 Intellect
+15 Spirit
Requires Alchemy (350)
Equip: Increases the effect that healing and mana potions have on the wearer by 40%. This effect does not stack.

This is very much an all-rounder trinket. From a healadin perspective, though:

  • +15 Str and +15 Agi are irrelevant.
  • +15 Stam is nice for survivability but doesn’t affect our efficacy.
  • +15 Spi is only relevant if you’re getting innervated, which is pretty unlikely.
  • +15 Int is useful. It provides +150 mana, and equates to 0.21% spell crit (or the equivalent of 4-5 Spell Crit Rating) and +5.8 spelldamage and healing.
  • +40% output on healing and mana potions.
    • As far as I know, this works on any health/mana potion that shares a cooldown with healing and mana potions – so it works on Healing and Mana potions of all strengths, Bottled Nethergon Energy, Mad Alchemist’s Potions, and all those other lovely potions. (See this post for a summary.)
    • Looking at a Super Mana Potion (or instance-specific equivalent), their range of mana return increases, with this trinket, to 2520 – 4200 mana. This is an average return of 3360 mana per potion, or an equivalent of 140 mp5 if you’re chain-potting (compared to equivalent 100 mp5 for chain-potting without this trinket).
  • Therefore: this trinket is worth: 15 Int (approx 4.5 Spell Crit rating, 5.8 Healing, and 150 mana), and up to 40 mp5 if you’re chain-potting.

Note that the mana return from trinkets like this scales down sharply on fights where you’re not taking a potion on every cooldown. Also note that, like mana return on spell crit, it’s not true mp5 – true mp5 mana regen is passive, and valuable because it returns mana without you having to cast or drink a potion. I tend to work things out in terms of mp5 because it provides an easy mechanic for comparing two items – but if you do that, you must remember that an mp5 equivalent is only equivalent as long as you’re meeting the conditions – chain-potioning for this trinket, chain-casting for spell crit, etc.

Upshot: Minor benefits to healing, spell crit and mana pool. Up to 40 mp5 depending on frequency of potion use.
Use: Fights where you’ll want to chain-chug mana potions.

And now let’s take a look at the upgraded version! The recipe for this trinket will be available in patch 2.4, from the Shattered Sun Offensive quartermaster at Exalted reputation.

Redeemer’s Alchemist’s Stone
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Alchemy (350)
Equip: Increases healing done by up to 119 and damage done by up to 40 for all magical spells and effects.
Equip: Increases the effect that healing and mana potions have on the wearer by 40%. This effect does not stack.

So, this variant loseWeight Exercises the +15 to all stats, in exchange for a big +heal boost that makes this trinket worth it regardless of your potion use – this is on par with Tier 6 trinkets. As a bonus, it retains the same potion boost as the previous version.

Upshot: +119 healing, up to +40 mp5 depending on potion use.
Use: Anywhere, particularly healing-intensive situations where you’ll be throwing big heals and relying on mana potions rather than mp5. Great for progression fights.

Game Info

That's one in the kidneys for the Jewelcrafters…

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News just in; MMO-Champion reports that the price of all the factional recipes in 2.4 has increased significantly.

In most cases, it’s not a huge issue; it’s a matter of one or two patterns for most people going from, say, 2g to 15g. Huge jump, yeah, but not a big problem.

Jewelcrafters, on the other hand, get the shiv. All those epic patterns we have to load up on, now available from Shaani the Jewelcrafting vendor at various levels of Shattered Sun reputation? From 57g for the lot to 1900 gold. I am something akin to speechless.

As BBB would say, “lolwut?”

Game Info

The 2.4 Shopping List

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There’s a lot of new stuff coming in 2.4, some of which is so good I’m going to want to acquire it on patch day, or as soon as it becomes available (in the case of stuff requiring Shattered Sun faction, or access to the new badge vendor). So, here’s my shopping list:

  1. Jewelcrafting: [Figurine – Seaspray Albatross]. Requires 8 Eternium Bar, 2 Seaspray Emerald, 8 Primal Mana. (Got ’em all except the Emeralds.)
  2. Alchemy: [Redeemer’s Alchemist’s Stone]. Requires Alchemist’s Stone, 6 Primal Life, 2 Nether Vortex. (Got ’em all except 1 Vortex.)
  3. [Waistguard of Reparation]. Requires 75 Badges of Justice. (Got them.)
  4. [Greaves of Pacification]. Requires 100 Badges of Justice. (Got 53 of them.)
  5. [Ecclesiastical Cuirass]. Requires 100 Badges of Justice.
  6. [Anveena’s Touch]. Requires 60 Badges of Justice. (This is an awesome item, actually, and I should probably move it higher up the wishlist.)
  7. [Gavel of Naaru Blessings]. Requires 150 Badges of Justice. (A solid upgrade, but so expensive, so it can wait. Also, the S2 [Merciless Gladiator’s Salvation] just looks so much better!)

I’d really like to make myself an [Amulet of Flowing Life] and [Ring of Flowing Life] as well, but the patterns drop in Sunwell Plateau, so they’re going to cost a bomb.

So, that’s what I’m prepping for on patch day. What’s your shopping list?

Game Info

Holy Paladins: Choosing Your Professions

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So, trying to work out what professions to level with your Holy paladin? Here’s a quick rundown of professions that are useful, focusing on endgame play. You’ll note that unlike some classes, healadins have no “obvious” choices – if you’re a clothie, you’re crazy not to take tailoring, for instance, but there’s no similar gimme for pallies. So let’s take a look:

(I’ll be focusing on crafting rewards that require a specific profession. Anything BoE or usable by anyone can be acquired elsewhere: from alts, guildmates or the Auction House.)

Herb Gathering, Mining and Skinning
These are “wasted” on a main. I believe you’re far better off taking two ‘production’ professions on your main, where you’re likely to have access to more BoP recipes and rep gains (for factional recipes). Keep the gathering professions on an alt or buy your mats from the AH. (Caveat: there is one advantage of gathering on a main – an epic mount.)

Alchemy
Alchemy offers two alchemist-only rewards:

  • [Mad Alchemist’s Potion] is a nice Alchemist-only variant of the [Super Rejuvenation Potion], with cheaper mats and free random buff effects to boot. However, it’s not essential – most healadins are going to be sucking back [Super Mana Potion]s, which offer a greater mana return. All the Mad Alchemist’s Potion really gives you is a discount on mats.
  • [Alchemist’s Stone] is a nice little trinket that’s worth using for fights where you’re chain-chugging mana pots. (Watch for an upcoming post talking about the Alchemist’s Stone in more depth.) Definitely worth using for some fights, but not all – probably not a reason to take the profession by itself, but a definite attraction. Upgradeable in 2.4 to a trinket with the same potion-boosting effect and +115 heal on it, which is very solid, but no details on the source of the pattern. (Update:according to MMO-Champion, the pattern for the trinket update is at Shattered Sun Exalted.)

Verdict: not a bad profession for supplying your own consumables, but not compelling.

Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing is not worth it, in my opinion. There are a few Blacksmith-specific items, but not enough to be worth taking the whole profession:

  • The Khorium Ward is a decent blue BoE spelldamage plate set for the shockadin crowd; the items themselves don’t require Blacksmithing to equip, but the 3-piece set bonus (+55 Healing) does.
  • [Dawnsteel Shoulders] are BoP shoulders; the pattern drops in Black Temple. They’re a spellhaste alternative to Tier 6 shoulders – very tasty, but not really relevant to a healadin until you’re well into endgame content.
  • [Sunblessed Breastplate] is a BoP chest; the plans drop in Sunwell Plateau. Same situation as the shoulders – a great item, but you’re really not going to be picking a profession at or before 70 based on one or two items from Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau.

Verdict: it might be worth levelling once you’re already in BT or Sunwell Plateau, but until then, don’t bother.

Enchanting
There’s only one enchanter-only type of enchant: rings.

Verdict: +40 healing is a pretty nice boost from a single profession. Enchanting has tradtionally been the realm of clothies, but it’s actually not a bad healadin choice simply for the ring enchants.

Engineering
Engineering is full of engineer-specific and crafter-only stuff, and a lot of it is fun and useful; I’m not going to cover all of that here. Looking at healadin-relevant options:

  • [Justicebringer 2000 Specs] – better than Tier 5, worse than Tier 6, these are a huge item for a healadin pally pre-Black Temple. They require a reasonable amount of farming, but nothing particularly hard-to-get. Very hard to go past.
  • [Justicebringer 3000 Specs] – the upgraded version, coming with patch 2.4. Even better than the previous helm, but the pattern doesn’t drop until Sunwell Plateau, so it’s not really a justification for decision-making. (Though the pattern may be BoE; if so, hello AH!)

Verdict: A very strong single item, plus a whole bunch of useful fun stuff. Definitely a solid choice.

Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting has a few choices in the early-70 period, although its advantages drop off later:

  • [Kailee’s Rose] is a great healing gem, although you can only equip one at a time; it’s superior even to the BoE epic equivalent (Teardrop Crimson Spinel).
  • [Talasite Owl] is a good healer trinket for those who want mana regen. (Including the “use” effect, it’s roughly the equivalent of 29 mp5.)
  • The upgraded version, [Seaspray Albatross], has more costly mats but is significantly better – with a shorter cooldown, it’s 43 mp5 to the Owl’s 29. (I’ll definitely be making one as soon as I hit Revered with Shattered Sun, from whence cometh the pattern.)
  • [Amulet of Flowing Life] is a nice spell haste healing neckpiece, coming in Patch 2.4. The mats are reasonably accessible, but the pattern doesn’t drop until Sunwell Plateau. (However, it may be a BoE pattern; if so, you can AH it regardless of where you’re raiding.)

Verdict: No single big-ticket winner like Engineering or Enchanting, but a lot of moderate-sized advantages that add up.

Leatherworking
Leatherworking’s only really of interest if you’re prepared to downgrade to mail or leather armor in a number of key slots. Some paladins do, some don’t. I’ll only look at mail here, since if you’re going lower than mail you may as well roll a druid or priest.

  • There’s a lot of nice spell DPS mail that would suit a shockadin nicely; I’m not going to link it all here, but it’s definitely a good option for someone making a serious go of shockadin.
  • [Living Earth Shoulders], some very nice healing mail shoulders. The pattern is a BoE drop from trash in Black Temple. However, they’re not significantly better than the plate equivalents from Blacksmithing, so if you’re taking a profession solely for this, you may as well go the Blacksmithing route and not sacrifice survivability for it.

Verdict: not worth it, unless you’re more interested in being a shockadin (which is not particularly viable against bosses thanks to a lack of spell hit and a huge lack of mana return).

Tailoring
I’m not going to advocate this; there are some very good tailor-only healing pieces (such as the Primal Mooncloth set), but the loss of survivability is just too great for my liking. Those who want to do this know the items they’re aiming for anyway.

The Verdict

Winners:
Enchanting: one significant advantage and the utility value of self-enchanting and disenchanting. Definitely worth considering.
Engineering: one awesome item and a bunch of fun toys. A clear winner.
Jewelcrafting: one good trinket, one decent gem, and general crafting utility value. A viable option.

Maybes:
Alchemy: nice for the trinket, but it’s not compelling.
Blacksmithing: probably not worth it, given that the good BoP healadin items are deep into raiding territory, at which point you have other options.

Losers:
Leatherworking: No unique advantage compared with Blacksmithing.
Tailoring: it’s cloth. C’mon, roll a priest.

By the numbers, I would say the pure best choices for a healadin would be Engineering plus either Jewelcrafting or Enchanting. Enchanting maintains its value throughout the endgame, while Engineering and Jewelcrafting wax and wane in utility depending on the level of other gear you have access to.

Speaking personally, I have Jewelcrafting and Alchemy – the Alchemy is just a legacy of the pre-TBC era, when my guild was very short on alchemists. I’m unlikely to change things at this late date (although I rather wish I’d made this analysis six months ago), but come Wrath of the Lich King, I’ll be investigating all the professions for their suitability.