Tag Archives: raiding

Game Info

Best In Slot Holy Paladin Gear List, v.1

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This post refers to gear that drops in 25-man raids. If you’re looking for a list of gear to get ready for raiding, you might be more interested in my Pre-Raid Holy Paladin Gear List instead.

This post aims to provide a nice ‘wishlist’ of holy pally gear to aim for. Let me say up front that if you think I’m wrong about a piece of gear, that’s fine; I know that balancing spellpower, crit, haste and intellect is a personal juggling act and nobody knows your playstyle better than you do.

A couple of points to note:

a) In my opinion, ideal paladin gear has intellect, crit, haste (within reason; excess haste is useless) and spellpower, and doesn’t waste item budget on less valuable stats like spirit or mp5. This obviously affects the selection of items I consider ‘best in slot’.

b) I won’t be recommending anything lower than mail armor, and even then I won’t be recommending a lot of that. The debate about holy paladins wearing cloth and leather rages on, but for my part: I’m a plate elitist, and I make no bones about recommending plate to other paladins.

So, on with the show.

Head

  1. Faceguard of the Succumbed, from Thaddius (and occasionally Gluth).
  2. Valorous Redemption Headpiece, from Kel’Thuzad. (T7 helm)

Faceguard of the Succumbed is the clear winner here, as it features a meta socket. The T7 helm has the meta socket, but unfortunately trades off the Faceguard’s 61 haste for an unappealing 20 mp5. The Helm of Diminished Pride from Maexxna/Gluth has huge crit and spellpower, but no meta socket and no haste, wasting its itemisation budget on mp5 instead.

Neck

  1. Life-Binder’s Locket, from the quest to kill Malygos in Heroic mode.
  2. Cosmic Lights, from Sapphiron.

Despite the mp5, the quest reward necks are excellent. Until you kill 25-man Malygos, however, the drop from Sapphiron is a very strong alternative.

Shoulder

  1. Valorous Redemption Spaulders, from Loatheb or Gluth or purchased with 60 Emblems of Valor. (T7 shoulders)
  2. Elevated Lair Pauldrons, from Malygos.
  3. Epaulets of the Grieving Servant, from Faerlina (and occasionally Gluth).

The Valorous Redemption Spaulders are marginally better than the other shoulders, partly because they’ve got a socket which makes them more flexible, and partly because they contribute towards getting the T7 set bonuses. The Elevated Lair Pauldrons are better than the Epaulets, as an iLevel 226 item, but they waste stats on mp5. They are an upgrade on spellpower compared with the other shoulders, but at this gearing level stacking spellpower is less valuable than stacking int, crit or haste.

Cloak

  1. Pennant Cloak, from Sartharion with 2 or 3 drakes up.
  2. Shroud of Luminosity, from Grobbulus, Gothik, Heigan and Maexxna.

The Pennant Cloak is far and away the strongest cloak for holy paladins currently in-game, and it’s likely to be hotly contested by other casters as well. In comparison, the Shroud is very accessible, and still a very good piece of kit.

Chest

  1. Chestplate of the Great Aspects, from Sartharion.
  2. Valorous Redemption Tunic, from Gluth. (T7 chest)

The Chestplate of the Great Aspects is ahead on every useful stat except Intellect. The T7 chest does have two sockets to the Chestplate’s one, adding greater flexibility, but it just doesn’t hold up.

Bracers

  1. Bands of Mutual Respect, from Instructor Razuvious (and occasionally Gluth).
  2. Bracers of Liberation, from Grobbulus (and occasionally Gluth).

The Bands, despite being mail, are significantly better than the next-best Bracers, largely thanks to their gem slot. The Abetment Bracers from Gothik/Gluth also have a socket, but they waste itemization budget on mp5 so are generally inferior to both bracers listed here.

Gloves

  1. Valorous Redemption Gloves, from Sartharion. (T7 gloves)
  2. Rescinding Grips, from Anub’Rekhan (and occasionally Gluth)

The T7 gloves are best in slot here; they beat the Rescinding Grips partly thanks to the gem slot that makes them more flexible, and partly due to their contribution towards the set bonuses. The Rescinding Grips are good alternatives until you get the Tier token, though.

Belt

  1. Waistguard of Divine Grace, from Patchwerk (and occasionally Gluth).
  2. Girdle of Recuperation, from Razuvious (and occasionally Gluth).

These two items are all but identical, with interchangeable crit and haste ratings. Pick the one featuring the stat you’re stacking.

Legs

  1. Valorous Redemption Greaves, from Thaddius or Gluth, or bought with 75 Emblems of Valor. (T7 legs)
  2. Leggings of Voracious Shadows, from Gluth.

Again, the T7 legs are best in slot; they have marginally more of all the appealing stats, better socket colors, and they’re part of the Tier set. What’s not to love? And best of all, you can buy them with Emblems if the RNG hates you.

Boots

  1. Poignant Sabatons, from Noth the Plaguebringer (and occasionally Gluth).

Really, there’s no competition for these at all, and they’re BoE so you can look for them on your AH.

Rings

  1. Signet of Manifested Pain, from Kel’Thuzad.
  2. Seized Beauty, from Anub’Rekhan, Patchwerk, Faerlina, Noth and Razuvious.
  3. Band of Channeled Magic, bought with 25 Emblems of Valor.
  4. Titanium Spellshock Ring, crafted by Jewelcrafters.

The Signet from Kel’thuzad is literally the only 25-man ring with all the stats you want and none of the ones you don’t; Seized Beauty is next-best, although the mp5 instead of Haste is something of a waste. The other two rings are reasonable substitutes, although I wouldn’t spend emblems on the purchased ring if you have regular access to Kel’Thuzad.

Trinkets

  1. Illustration of the Dragon Soul, from Sartharion.
  2. Soul of the Dead, from Sapphiron.
  3. Forethought Talisman, from Maexxna, Heigan, Gothik, and Grobbulus.
  4. Darkmoon Card: Greatness, from the Darkmoon Nobles Deck.
  5. Je’Tze’s Bell, BoE world drop.
  6. Embrace of the Spider, from 10-man Maexxna and Gluth.

Trinket selection is a tricky business, as they all have different effects. To be honest, this is one area where I haven’t done enough research to feel comfortable saying that X is better than Y. Input welcome, and I’ll update the post with more guidelines.

Speaking personally, I’m after Illustration of the Dragon Soul and Soul of the Dead.

Weapon

  1. The Turning Tide, from Kel’Thuzad.
  2. Hammer of the Astral Plane, from 10-man Kel’Thuzad.
  3. Life and Death, from Gothik and Gluth.

The Turning Tide is an amazingly good holy paladin weapon; unfortunately, it’s also amazingly good for mages and warlocks, and you’ll have to beat them off with a stick. In the meantime, the other two weapons are both solid all-rounders with a healthy amount of each desirable attribute.

Shield

  1. Voice of Reason, from Kel’Thuzad.
  2. Aegis of Damnation, from 10-man Maexxna and Gluth.

Obviously, Voice of Reason is the stand-out winner here.

Libram

  1. Libram of Renewal, bought with 15 Emblems of Heroism.
  2. Libram of Tolerance, from Patchwerk and Gluth.

Libram use tends to be very situational, but the 10-man Libram of Renewal is a more generally useful choice than the 25-man, except in rare situations where you need high throughput more than mana conservation.

The T7 Set Bonus
I’m assuming here that you’re going to want the four-piece Tier 7 set bonus from your Redemption Regalia, since Holy Light is such an integral part of how we heal in WotLK.

The Tier 7 pieces are already best in slot for shoulders, gloves and legs, which means you have to use either the helm or the chest to get your socket bonus. Looking at what you’re giving up (and for comparison’s sake I’ll assume in all cases you’re socketing items with +16 Int yellow gems).

It’s your choice as to which sacrifice you prefer to make.

Game Info

Holy Paladin Raiding Consumables, WotLK Version

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As with previous guides, two things to note:

  1. I’m recommending consumables that give you a good balance of stats, where feasible. If you’re very well-geared in one area and need to boost a specific stat, you can make your own choices.
  2. My recommendations are specific for holy paladins. If you’re a priest, all those +Spirit consumables I wrote off are great for you. If you’re a protection paladin trying to heal, anything with spell crit is relatively useless and you’re looking for all the mp5 you can get. Et cetera.

In addition, this guide is for consumables buffing your primary function: healing. Occasionally you might need to use consumables to increase your stamina, resistances or other stats; however, they’re outside the scope of this guide.

Potions

Potions are a lot less useful in WotLK than in TBC, thanks to the new mechanic whereby you can only take one potion per combat, regardless of cooldown. Still, they shouldn’t be dismissed. Your options:

Mana & Health Restoration
These are all affected by alchemist-only Alchemist Stone trinkets, increasing their mana/health restoration effects by 40%, unless otherwise mentioned.

Runic Mana Potion. This stacks to 5; combine 20 of them with a Mana Injector Kit to create Runic Mana Injectors, which are exactly the same as the potions except they stack to 20. You should always carry at least some mana potions, for OOM moments.

Runic Healing Potion and its Injector equivalent, Runic Healing Injector. If your mana regen isn’t reliant on potions – and it shouldn’t be, in WotLK – then these are often a more useful tool for low health “oh crap!” moments. You should always take at least some to a raid with you.

Powerful Rejuvenation Potions can be a useful option, but you’re likely to find they don’t restore enough of either health or mana to be worth using. These may not be affected by an Alchemist’s Stone. (Anyone know?)

Potion of Nightmares lasts for six seconds, and (unlike the old Dreamless Sleep potions) can’t be cleansed off you accidentally by a clueless raider trying to be helpful. It restores 5400 health and mana in three ticks; if you can’t get all three ticks you’re better off using a Runic potion instead. You can move to interrupt the effect if you desperately need to heal, but that will waste a tick or two.

Crazy Alchemist’s Potion is currently a random effect between buffs or health/mana restoration; in Patch 3.0.8 (going live today) it’s being changed to always restore health & mana, with random side-effects. These are Alchemist-only, and are currently not affected by the Alchemist’s Stone trinkets.

Other Potions
These share the same one-per-combat limitation as health & mana potions, but are a very good alternative if you’re not relying on Mana potions for regen purposes.

Potion of Speed – a great throughput potion for those ‘clutch heal’ moments, where you have to crank out a lot of healing very, very fast.

Potion of Wild Magic – similarly, good for boosting throughput at a critical moment.

Your choice between the potions is best made with reference to your own gear – for instance, if you’re already high on Haste, you might be better choosing the Wild Magic potion. However, whichever you prefer, everyone should carry a stack of one of these for emergency healing moments. (Unless you’re cruising through farm content that’s trivial for you, in which case you’re probably not using full consumables anyway.)

Flasks and Elixirs

You can use either one flask, or two elixirs (one battle elixir and one guardian elixir). Generally, two elixirs is more effective than one flask, but a flask lasts through death where an elixir doesn’t, making them economical for progression raiding.

If you’re an alchemist, you’ll get increased effect and/or duration from the Mixology effect when you’re using flasks or elixirs you can make yourself.

Flasks

Two choices here: the Flask of the Frost Wyrm for throughput, or the Flask of Pure Mojo for mana longevity. As a general rule, throughput is probably more important, but if you’re having troubles with going OOM consider switching to the Pure Mojo flask.

Edit: Two commenters have reminded me of the Flask of Distilled Wisdom, which is a pre-TBC-level recipe. If you still have access to the mats, this flask can be a better regen option than the Pure Mojo flask – if you have the right raid composition. Based on the maths outlined in this post, Distilled Wisdom beats Pure Mojo if you have access to a resto shaman and better than 72% Replenishment uptime. If you don’t have a resto shaman, or can’t rely on getting reliable Replenishment, the Flask of Pure Mojo is still better for regen purposes (although Distilled Wisdom also adds spellpower and crit chance).

Battle Elixirs

Your options:

Your choice is really up to you, depending on your balance of stats and what you need to boost. As a rule of thumb, I would recommend using the Spellpower Elixir while you’re still gearing up; once you’re reasonably well-geared, use the Haste or Crit elixirs instead, as they still boost your throughput and also enable you to respond faster when things go wrong.

Guardian Elixirs

Your choices:

Looking purely at the regen effects of Intellect, the principles outlined in this post tell us that: if you have a resto shaman in your raid and at least 50% Replenishment uptime, 45 Intellect is better than 24 mp5. The more access to Replenishment you have (more shadow priests, survival hunters and retribution paladins), the greater the relative value of Intellect. With 90% Replenishment uptime, the Intellect is worth just under 28 mp5 – plus it boosts your spellpower and crit chance to boot.

If you have no resto shammy, and none of the Replenishment specs in your raid, 45 Intellect is worth about 16 mp5. Under those conditions, you’re probably better off with the mp5 elixir; otherwise, choose the Intellect elixir.

Buff Foods

Now this is where you’re spoilt for choice.

There are four types of food buffs that might be of interest to you: Spellpower, Haste, Crit or mp5. Each food buff comes in greater and lesser versions; the stats of the greater version are higher, but making these foods requires doing the cooking dailies for the recipes, and ingredients that only come from the cooking dailies (or for a premium on the auction house). For each buff type and size, there’s one food from fishing and one from land-based mobs.

All of these food buffs are comparable, and you’re best off choosing a food buff that balances your stats. Speaking personally, I use the 12 mp5 food as a cheap stam buff food for trash and easy bosses, and the 40 Haste or 40 Crit buff food on boss fights as appropriate.

Spellpower:
46 Spellpower & 40 Stamina: Firecracker Salmon, Tender Shoveltusk Steak, Fish Feast
35 Spellpower & 40 Stamina: Smoked Salmon, Shoveltusk Steak, Great Feast

Haste Rating:
40 Haste Rating & 40 Stamina: Imperial Manta Steak, Very Burnt Worg
30 Haste Rating & 40 Stamina: Baked Manta Ray, Roasted Worg, Shoveltusk Soup (available only as a quest reward),

Crit Rating:
40 Crit Rating & 40 Stamina: Spicy Blue Nettlefish, Spiced Wyrm Burger
30 Crit Rating & 30 Stamina: Poached Nettlefish, Wyrm Delight, Succulent Orca Stew (available only as a quest reward),

mp5:
16 mp5 & 40 Stamina: Spicy Fried Herring, Mighty Rhino Dogs
12 mp5 & 40 Stamina: Pickled Fangtooth, Rhino Dogs

Other Foods

These aren’t buff food, but worth mentioning anyway: if you’re going to be fishing for the raw materials for the above buff foods, you may find it useful to stock up on the fish used to make Grilled Bonescale, Sauteed Goby, or Smoked Rockfin. All three foods give the same amount of mana and health as the Conjured Mana Strudel from mage tables, and it can be handy to carry a stack of the cooked fish as an alternative for when you don’t have a mage on hand for free strudel. (Particularly useful for 10-man raid groups who may not have regular access to a mage.)

Playstyle

PvE Is Not Easy

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If you peruse large WoW communities – the official forums, the big gaming websites, trade channel (*shudder*) – you’ll see a common thread: ever-so-terribly leet players telling us that PvE content is easy, that if you fail on X encounter you’re terribad, that anyone with half a brain could faceroll through this stuff, et cetera.

Well, they’re wrong.

I’m not talking about the current level of raiding content – that is, indeed, pitched at a less challenging level than most, if not all, of TBC content. (Which is not to say it’s trivial – it’s certainly not, especially for inexperienced raiders.)

No, I’m talking about the blithe statements, usually made either by hardcore raiders, hardcore PvPers or disparaging ex-WoW-players, that all raiding is easy, that you can’t help but win if you don’t suck.

One of the popular measures for ‘not being bad’ is managing spatial awareness and 3D movement. Well, you know what? Those tests of spatial awareness and movement (Frogger boss, I’m looking at you) probably are trivial if you have the reflexes of a 20-year-old, or you grew up playing FPSes, console games and arcade games.

Hi, I’m thirty-three, and I avoided combat games like the plague. I never owned a console growing up, I spent very little time in arcades, and the first time I had access to a computer capable of running games more advanced than NetHack was in my second year of University. Granted, I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time playing games since then, but they’ve largely been RPGs and strategy/simulation games because I’m not a particularly aggressive or competitive person. (Please note that ‘not competitive’ and ‘not performance-oriented’ are not synonymous.)

Frankly, I’m sick of the attitude that treats WoW like another twitch-based FPS game, and that rates these skills above everything else. If you’re going to ignore the fact that my tanking is good, my DPS is fine, or that I just saved your ass with a split-second heal, just to mock me for dying on Frogger? Kindly shut up.

(True confession: sometimes, just sometimes, I turn with my keyboard. Gasp! Yes, it’s true! Guess what? It’s never gotten me killed, and it’s never caused a wipe.)

Edit: Based on some of the comments, I should probably clarify: this is not ‘Confession of a Terribad Raider’ time, because I don’t think I am. I certainly could do better, particularly on movement issues, but I do okay. (For the record, I’ve only ever died on Frogger twice – once in a 40-man because I’d never seen it before and no-one explained it, and recently in a 10-man, purely due to lag. I’ve never failed the Thaddius jump, I’ve never been beaten by the Ledge Boss or the Pipe Boss, and I haven’t been hit by a lava wave on Sartharion since the first time I did the fight. I did, however, once fall off a ledge in Karazhan for absolutely no reason at all, which caused a lot of hilarity.)

What this post actually was intended to be – and this probably didn’t come across clearly, since I was writing it at 7am after a night of zero sleep – was expressing my frustration at the elitists who’ve been practising these skills for half their lives, who do not ever stop to think that not everyone has the same training they do.

Playstyle

Five Things I Love About 3.0.2

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In no particular order:

Raid boss nerfs.
I know it’s disappointing for raid groups who were just about to beat Boss X on pre-nerf difficulty, and I sympathise, but: overall, I think this is a nice dose of fun for the people who get to see a few bosses they otherwise would have missed, and it’s a nice chance to just goof around and not take things terribly seriously. Raiding should not be srs bzns all the time, after all.

New talents.
For the first time in three years, I specced Retribution for a couple of days, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back to my Holy comfort zone right quick mind you (to heal an AQ40 pug I should have known was doomed, really), but after years of struggling and making do with shockadin, to play Sailan and actually do real DPS was great fun. Ret has plenty of nerfs incoming, so it won’t last, but it was fun while it did.

The Scourge Invasion world event.
There are a lot of negative things you could say about the enforced PvP aspect of the zombie plague, and Lume said them very eloquently; I’m not going to talk about it now because this is a positive post, darnit.

There are two things I love about the Scourge Invasion, 3.0.2 style:

  • The old content of 1.12 – the necrotic crystals, the killing masses of zombies and skeletons and ghosts, the fighting for mob tags and the mad accumulation of necrotic runes – is just fun. Speaking as a paladin, smashing the undead is kind of my raison d’être, y’know?
  • Lore and Storyline. While the effects of the zombie invasion are frustrating, it’s engrossing to see history repeating – this is what happened to Andorhal, Stratholme and other human towns. The quests surrounding the event give a glimpse of history, and at the same time they lead into the storyline of Wrath of the Lich King, foreshadowing what is to come.

Achievements.
I’m sure no-one’s surprised that I think these are great fun. I do have a couple of quibbles about the system – mainly that there’s not enough distinction between meaningless achievements (like using a toothpick) and achievements that require some effort (like reading every book on the ‘Well Read‘ list, which requires a couple of instance runs to finish). However, I love the system and I love its rewards – I’ve already scored myself the Ambassador, Diplomat, and Guardian of Cenarius titles, and Stinker the Skunk pet.

Now There’s A Name I’ve Not Heard Since…
The guild is livelier than I’ve seen it since we stopped official raids; the people who were still playing a night or two a week are on all the time, and people who’d cancelled accounts or drifted away are back to check out 3.0.2 and get ready for Wrath. Although we’re not doing anything in particular that needs numbers, a more lively and dynamic guild is always a good thing, and it’s reaffirmed my belief that we’re going to have a good solid raid group come WotLK – we’re pretty close to raiding strength already, despite having lost enough of our old raiding team to drama, RL obligations and differing priorities to put an end to our 25-man raids a few months ago.

Playstyle

Bear Mounts – Awesome at Any Price?

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I started thinking about this after seeing yet another “WTS ZA Bear Run, 10K. PST!” in Trade channel tonight, and the resultant discussion of “I’d never buy one!” “Good for you!” “That’s such a ripoff!” “n00bs!” “Chuck Norris!” “Murlocs!” (It is Trade channel, after all.)

Zul’Aman bear mounts from the timed chests are, as most people know, no longer available once Wrath goes live, because they were intended to be a reward for completing a non-trivial challenge and doing the run at 80 will be far from challenging. Bear junkies will be able to get polar bear mounts from another source, but the Zul’Aman bear will remain a reward for those who got them at 70.

So, that’s got me thinking. My guild is doing Zul’Aman, but not all the time, and we haven’t conquered the timers yet – but we’re not far off. Do I want a bear mount? Yep. Do I want one enough to pay for it? ….I’m not sure.

How about you?

[poll=8]

Game Info

Holy Paladin Raiding Consumables – Revised

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This is a revision and update of this post, incorporating some items I’d overlooked the first time around (and with thanks to commenters who reminded me about some of them). Thus, I present: the Revised Guide to Holy Paladin Consumables.

Two things to note:

  1. I’m recommending consumables that give you a good balance of stats, where feasible. If you’re very well-geared in one area and need to boost a specific stat, you can make your own choices.
  2. My recommendations are specific for holy paladins. If you’re a priest, all those +Spirit consumables I wrote off are great for you. If you’re a protection paladin trying to heal, anything with spell crit is relatively useless and you’re looking for all the mp5 you can get. Et cetera.

Elixirs: Battle Elixirs

Adept’s Elixir – the increase to spelldamage is irrelevant, but this elixir gives a boost to both throughput and mana restoration. For holy paladins, this one’s a show-stopper.

Elixir of Healing Power – this one’s a good alternative for situations where you just need healing oomph, and nuts to the regen. In other situations, it’s inferior to Adept’s Elixir, but better than nothing.

Elixirs: Guardian Elixirs

Elixir of Major Mageblood – the standout choice for paladins, who tend to suffer over passive in-combat regen.

Mageblood Potion – it may be a pre-TBC recipe using Azerothian mats, but this is surprisingly effective as an emergency replacement for Elixirs of Major Mageblood.

Elixir of Draenic Wisdom – inferior to Mageblood elixirs, as paladins derive no benefit from Spirit, but 30 Int is still nothing to sneer at.

Flasks

Flask of Mighty Restoration – again, the standout choice for paladins. Shattrath Flask of Mighty Restoration is a good alternative if you have the relevant rep to buy it (Exalted with Cenarion Expedition, Sha’tar, and Scryer/Aldor) and you’re raiding the appropriate zones.

Flask of Distilled Wisdom – again, inferior to the regen-boosting Restoration flask, but an acceptable alternative for the all-around boost to healing, mana pool and spell crit.

Unstable Flask of the Elder for Gruul’s Lair raids; this is superior for paladins to the Unstable Flask of the Physician, although that’s certainly better than nothing.

Weapon Oils

Brilliant Mana Oil – arguably the best choice, with a balance of mp5 and +heal. Unfortunately it’s an old-world recipe (requiring Zandalar faction). Brilliant Wizard Oil is a good alternative for paladins seeking crit rather than mp5, also requiring Zandalar faction to learn.

Superior Mana Oil – inferior to the Brilliant Mana Oil, but much more readily available. Superior Wizard Oil is also a good option; although the tooltip says “spell damage”, it does apply to healing as well.

Foods

Blackened Sporefish – for mana regen and survivability. The mp5 boost is small enough, though, that this is on-par with:

Golden Fishsticks – which has a really good healing buff. The Spirit is useless for paladins, but 44 +Heal alone is nothing to sneeze at.

Skullfish Soup – slightly weaker for most healadins than the other two buff foods, as it gives less than 1% crit which is weaker than 44 Heal or 8 mp5 unless you’re really into crit-stacking. Still better than nothing, though!

Any stamina food, such as Feltail Delight (which is the one I use most often). The spirit does little for a paladin, but an extra 300 health is always welcome, and 20 Stamina foods are common enough that you should keep this up pretty much all the time unless you need one of the better food buffs for a boss fight.

Potions

I won’t list them all, as one of my earliest blog posts was a guide to mana and healing potion types; however, these are the ones I specifically recommend:

Super Mana Potion, or the stacks-to-20 version, the Mana Potion Injector. Your basic mana potion; you will, at times, drink these like water. You can replace these with any of the alternatives I list in the linked post, of course. And if you’re raiding somewhere specific, don’t forget zone-specific potions like Bottled Nethergon Energy or Blue Ogre Brew as very cheap alternatives.

Super Healing Potion and the Healing Potion Injector. You don’t need to take nearly as many of these to a raid, but you should always have at least some on you for emergencies.

What about Super Rejuvenation Potions, or the Alchemist-only equivalent Mad Alchemist’s Potions? Carry one stack, but don’t use them unless you gotta. Remember that healing received will top up your mana via spiritual attunement, so if you’re healing yourself with a pot, that’s a lost opportunity for mana regen.

Obviously, don’t stint yourself on healing (self-heals, pots and healthstones) at the expense of other healers’ mana pools, but if there’s ambient healing available (Leader of the Pack, Vampiric Embrace, etc) and you’re not likely to take a big spike of damage you’re better off taking advantage of those to restore your health, and taking an ordinary mana potion instead.

Scrolls

These aren’t essential, as they don’t stack with player buffs, but they are handy for situations where rebuffing is unlikely (for instance, after receiving a battle-rez) or where you’re missing a particular buffing class from a raid (not uncommon in 10-mans). You can safely ignore Strength and Spirit scrolls, but scrolls of Intellect are always good for a boost to your mana pool. Scrolls of Stamina, Protection, and Agility can also be useful if you’re expecting to get hit.

Other Items
Note that these all share a cooldown.

Demonic Rune – it’s only a small amount of mana restoration, but it’s enough for 5-8 Flash Heals (and causes you damage, thereby giving you the opportunity to regain mana via Spiritual Attunement). Demonic Runes drop from satyr demons in Azeroth (for instance, in Felwood and Azshara); Dark Runes are a BoE equivalent you can get from Scholo or the AH.

Charged Crystal Focus – available from the AH in their uncharged state, or farmed from mobs around the Ogri’la daily quest hub. Excellent for when you don’t have a healthstone handy; even if you buy it from the AH it’s likely to be cheaper than a repair bill.

Nightmare Seeds are gathered by Herbalists from Nightmare Vine nodes, but can be used by anyone. They’re on a separate 3-minute cooldown, and they’re useful for those moments where you need a health buffer to accommodate a damage spike without dying. Useful if the fight involves spiky raid damage (such as Naj’entus in Black Temple).

There are some profession-specific extras, as well: Fel Blossoms are good for herbalists, as a damage shield isn’t affected by healing reductions (from mortal-strike-y effects); Dense Stone Statues for Jewelcrafters heal you for 1250 healing across 25 ticks, but it counts as healing rather than ‘health restore’, so it does give you a small amount of mana back as well.

Personally?
I carry: 20 Healing Potion Injectors, 20 Mana Potion Injectors, 10 Mad Alchemist’s Potions, 1 stack of each type of elixir, 1 stack of Mighty Restoration flasks, 10 charges of Brilliant Mana Oil, 1 stack of Blackened Sporefish and 1 stack of Stamina food, 2 stacks of Dense Stone Statues and 1 stack of Charged Crystal Foci. Oh, and a stack of Intellect V scrolls.

Playstyle

Things That Make You Go Hmm…

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Occasionally, people will do and say the darndest things. Things, in fact, that make you go “Hmmm” – or, more likely, things that make you go “WTF were they thinking?!” Here’s one I remember.

The background: pre-TBC, we used a DKP system for raiding, and we introduced a proviso that if you disappeared your DKP pool was ‘suppressed’ and unavailable for purchases until you’d been back for a few weeks (although you still earnt DKP for attendance in the meantime). When we introduced this post, we said upfront ‘if this rule has been applied to you and you don’t think it should have been, please talk with an officer to straighten it out’.

This, however, wasn’t good enough for one of our warlocks – who had disappeared for about two months, saying he wasn’t going to raid until The Burning Crusade came out. When we introduced this rule, his response was…

…no, wait for it, this is brilliant…

…to DE all his epics, and delete his character in a fit of pique.

Boy, that sure showed us! We really learnt our lesson! It’s not like it cost him far more than it cost us, not at all.

…

No, we’ve never been able to work out what he thought this would achieve, either. It induces hilarity to this day, though.

(Note that this was before paid name changes or server transfers. His character was, indeed, gone.)

Game Info

Holy Paladin Raiding Consumables

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Update: This post has been revised and updated here.

This one’s going around the blogosphere lately, so here’s my quick guide to raiding consumables for holy paladins. (Bellwether covered the same issue for resto druids, and Big Bear Butt for feral tanks; I’m sure there will be more coming soon.)

Two things to note:

  1. I’m recommending consumables that give you a good balance of stats, where feasible. If you’re very well-geared in one area and need to boost a specific stat, you can make your own choices.
  2. My recommendations are specific for holy paladins. If you’re a priest, all those +Spirit consumables I wrote off are great for you. If you’re a protection paladin trying to heal, anything with spell crit is relatively useless and you’re looking for all the mp5 you can get. Et cetera.

Elixirs: Battle Elixirs

Adept’s Elixir – the increase to spelldamage is irrelevant, but this elixir gives a boost to both throughput and mana restoration. For holy paladins, this one’s a show-stopper.

Elixir of Healing Power – this one’s a good alternative for situations where you just need healing oomph, and nuts to the regen. In other situations, it’s inferior to Adept’s Elixir, but better than nothing.

Elixirs: Guardian Elixirs

Elixir of Major Mageblood – the standout choice for paladins, who tend to suffer over passive in-combat regen.

Mageblood Potion – it may be a pre-TBC recipe using Azerothian mats, but this is surprisingly effective as an emergency replacement for Elixirs of Major Mageblood.

Elixir of Draenic Wisdom – inferior to Mageblood elixirs, as paladins derive no benefit from Spirit, but 30 Int is still nothing to sneer at.

Flasks

Flask of Mighty Restoration – again, the standout choice for paladins. Shattrath Flask of Mighty Restoration is a good alternative if you have the relevant rep to buy it (Exalted with Cenarion Expedition, Sha’tar, and Scryer/Aldor) and you’re raiding the appropriate zones.

Flask of Distilled Wisdom – again, inferior to the regen-boosting Restoration flask, but an acceptable alternative for the all-around boost to healing, mana pool and spell crit.

Unstable Flask of the Elder for Gruul’s Lair raids; this is superior for paladins to the Unstable Flask of the Physician, although that’s certainly better than nothing.

Weapon Oils

Brilliant Mana Oil – arguably the best choice, with a balance of mp5 and +heal. Unfortunately it’s an old-world recipe (requiring Zandalar faction).

Superior Mana Oil – inferior to the Brilliant Mana Oil, but much more readily available. Superior Wizard Oil is also a good option; although the tooltip says “spell damage”, it does apply to healing as well.

Foods

Blackened Sporefish – for mana regen and survivability. The mp5 boost is small enough, though, that this is on-par with:

Golden Fishsticks – which has a really good healing buff. The Spirit is useless for paladins, but 44 +Heal alone is nothing to sneeze at.

Any stamina food, such as Feltail Delight (which is the one I use most often). The spirit does little for a paladin, but an extra 300 health is always welcome, and 20 Stamina foods are common enough that you should keep this up pretty much all the time unless you need one of the better food buffs for a boss fight.

Potions

I won’t list them all, as one of my earliest blog posts was a guide to mana and healing potion types; however, these are the ones I specifically recommend:

Super Mana Potion, or the stacks-to-20 version, the Mana Potion Injector. Your basic mana potion; you will, at times, drink these like water. You can replace these with any of the alternatives I list in the linked post, of course.

Super Healing Potion and the Healing Potion Injector. You don’t need to take nearly as many of these to a raid, but you should always have at least some on you.

What about Super Rejuvenation Potions, or the Alchemist-only equivalent Mad Alchemist’s Potions? Carry 1 stack, but don’t use them unless you gotta. Remember that healing received will top up your mana via spiritual attunement, so if you’re healing yourself with a pot, that’s a lost opportunity for mana regen.

Obviously, don’t stint yourself on healing (self-heals, pots and healthstones) at the expense of other healers’ mana pools, but if there’s ambient healing available (Leader of the Pack, Vampiric Embrace, etc) and you’re not likely to take a big spike of damage you’re better off taking advantage of those to restore your health, and taking an ordinary mana potion instead.

Scrolls

These aren’t essential, as they don’t stack with player buffs, but they are handy for situations where rebuffing is unlikely (for instance, after receiving a battle-rez) or where you’re missing a particular buffing class from a raid (not uncommon in 10-mans). You can safely ignore Strength and Spirit scrolls, but scrolls of Intellect are always good for a boost to your mana pool. Scrolls of Stamina, Protection, and Agility can also be useful if you’re expecting to get hit.

Other Items
Note that these all share a cooldown.

Demonic Rune – it’s only a small amount of mana restoration, but it’s enough for 5-8 Flash Heals (and causes you damage, thereby giving you the opportunity to regain mana via Spiritual Attunement).

Charged Crystal Focus – available from the AH in their uncharged state, or farmed from mobs around the Ogri’la daily quest hub. Excellent for when you don’t have a healthstone handy.

There are some profession-specific extras, as well: Fel Blossoms are good for herbalists, as a damage shield isn’t affected by healing reductions (from mortal-strike-y effects); Dense Stone Statues for Jewelcrafters heal you for 1250 healing across 25 ticks, but it counts as healing rather than ‘health restore’, so it does give you a small amount of mana back as well.

Personally?
I carry: 20 Healing Potion Injectors, 20 Mana Potion Injectors, 10 Mad Alchemist’s Potions, 1 stack of each type of elixir, 1 stack of Mighty Restoration flasks, 10 charges of Brilliant Mana Oil, 1 stack of Blackened Sporefish and 1 stack of Stamina food, 2 stacks of Dense Stone Statues and 1 stack of Charged Crystal Foci. Oh, and a stack of Intellect V scrolls.

Edited to add in Superior Wizard Oil; thanks Valyre for the reminder!

Wishlist

2008: New Year's Resolutions

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Leafshine of Lust for Flower has posted New Year’s Resolutions for 2008, and it seems like the thing to do, so: herewith, my goals and hopes for WoW 08.

  1. Get as far as possible in endgame raiding. ’07 was a slow-paced year for my guild, raiding-wise; in ’08, I’m hoping we can see and succeed in a lot more content. Within reason, mind you, as we’re not a hardcore guild and have no desire to be – but there’s a lot of stuff out there that I’m really looking forward to. (And some that makes me wince to think about. Serpentshrine Cavern, I’m looking at you.)
  2. Experience the Wrath of the Lich King beta. I was lucky enough to be in the open beta for The Burning Crusade, and I loved it. It was a very different atmosphere from normal live servers; there was a real community cameraderie and spirit, and I made some good friends there. And I loved having the chance to see some stuff really fresh, and contribute to the community: I wrote a Jewelcrafting levelling guide that garnered thanks and appreciation for months, and it’s really nice to have a chance to make a difference like that.
  3. Get my shammy to 70. I’ve got two 70s already, my pally main and my mage farmer, but I’m really enjoying the elemental playstyle, and I’d enjoy questing on her (and some non-raid casual instancing, and perhaps PvP).
  4. Hit the ground running when WotLK comes out. I kind of missed the boat on TBC: I was there for the midnight release, but I didn’t make the most of the month-ish immediately thereafter. I was burnt out on guild drama (we’d had some nasty stuff go down at the end of ’06); I was burnt out on levelling (my mage hit 60 on the day of TBC’s release after a lot of straining on my part); and I was fairly unwell to boot, so I was very unfocused. So I missed out on a lot of my guild’s original push through the TBC content, and constantly felt as though I was floundering behind. When WotLK hits, I intend for things to be very different.
  5. Farm up a lot of cash. I hate being skint in WoW, and I always am. Altaholism is an expensive condition, and a total lack of patience with farming compounds the problem.
  6. Get to Exalted with the League of Arathor (Arathi Basin faction) and the Silverwing Sentinels (Warsong Gulch faction). Apart from the Draenei-only tabard, I have every single tabard the Alliance has ever had access to – apart from the AB and WSG tabards. This must be rectified.
  7. Get to Exalted with the Winterspring Frostsaber trainers. I don’t desperately want the Frostsaber mount, but it is nice, and it’s another faction to work on that I’ve never tried out before. With the improved rep rewards (250 rep per hand-in, instead of 75) it’ll be doable, instead of soul-destroying.
  8. Keep up this blog. I can be a bit sporadic about posting, sometimes, but I do have a lot to talk about. Heck, I have an index card with a nice long list of things I want to talk about here.

So, those are my resolutions: most are applicable to pre-WotLK WoW, because I don’t really know what’s specifically in store come WotLK. If I get all these done before WotLK, I’ll post a revised list for post-expansion goals. :)

What are yours?