I finally managed to attend a raid (Molten Core) and try out my new spec. All in all, it wasn't much different than my previous spec, save that I hit Crusader Strike whenever I remembered about it.
It's pretty hard to tell if you are actually doing more damage, or if Sanctified Crusader helped. I think it helped, as mobs seemed to die faster, but that may also have been because we are gearing up, or the new specs. I did get a 1K Crusader Strike crit in healing gear, so that's good enough for me.
I really wish I had a meter running for the last few raids, though. I find it hard to actually tell how my damage is changing in raids, mostly because I'm usually paying more attention to the raid's health than to my character. Actually quantifying the change would have been a good idea.
Spiritual Attunement is awesome. I was not running out of mana at all. I even switched to healing with Holy Light for most (non-ranged) fights, and I didn't really have issues with mana.
Actually, healing was kind of weird in this raid. Perhaps it was the HoTs stacking, but health bars seemed to change in a different fashion than normal. Normally, they fall and increase in visible chunks, and in this raid they seemed to be a lot more stable. For example, a rogue would drop to 75% and I'd Flash of Light her, expecting another priest to drop a Flash Heal or something. However, the Flash Heal never really came, but her health would not drop further, maybe even increase a few percentage points, but not a great deal for the rest of the fight.
I think the priests and druids were using HoTs more heavily, resulting in a different rate-of-change for health bars than I am used to. It was oddly disconcerting. I switched to mainly casting Holy Light every so often, with longer intervals between casts. It seemed like a good strategy, especially with the mana provided from Spiritual Attunement.
The lack of decursive was amusing. I'm out of practice, but it's not too bad, especially since I use sRaidFrames, which dims people who are out of range to you. The one thing we need to work on is tunnel vision. For example, on the Sulfuron Harbinger fight, we were concentrating so much on keeping the tanks cleansed that I think a couple of priests died from DoTs. But so far it doesn't seem that bad.
I am thinking about trying a click-cast mod, and binding Cleanse to my right mouse buttons so I just have to right-click the correct frame. Of course, most mods seem to be in a state of flux at the moment, so I may have to wait a few days.
Hopefully, I'll be able to give this spec a whirl in Blackwing Lair sometime soon. I should also find a decent damage meter so I can actually quantify performance.
Clique is the name of the mod that will allow you to bind spells to your mouse buttons.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is another method that may work for you, a macro:
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Cleanse
All you need to do is hover your cursor over someone's name or portrait, and hit the macro button. You won't lose your current target. This macro will work with Flash of Light and Holy Light as well, just replace Cleanse with the new spell name. This method works best if you only have a 2 button mouse, or your buttons are already assigned for other things.
This has nothing to do with your recent blog entry. You've written a great deal about paladins and their rolls in the game and I haven't quite had time to finish reading all of it but I wanted to ask what you thought paladins working with other paladins in raids. I have not taken part in any raids myself as my character is only level 40 and my guild small. I have done a number of 5 man instances with all paladin groups though and I've found them to be a lot more fun than a diverse groups.
ReplyDeleteThe paladin aura's overlap and lots of blessing can be placed on each player, as well as nice combos of judgments on the enemies. One paladin will typically be designated primary healer, and one primary tank, while another will usually volunteer to be the "scout" the other two fill in as needed. Each paladin will typically be given certain judgment and blessing responsibilities.
Though this may work when running through the SM I imagine it would break down in endgame raiding as the limited number of useful auras, blessings and judgments will make 10 paladins somewhat superfluous. Even so I would love to hear your thoughts on the idea.
All-paladin groups are definitely possible for 5 or 10-mans. However, these encounters don't really depend on having specific classes in the group.
ReplyDeleteAs you go to raid encounters, there's more and more elements of a fight which are geared to specific classes. That's not to say a 40-paladin raid couldn't kill most bosses eventually. The only fight I would see having real trouble with is one which had a very power Curse, which we couldn't dispel.
Also, timed fights may also be a problem, though paladins may be able to put out the required raid-wide damage if all of them did damage at the same time as they healed.
Of course, the biggest problem would be loot. You'd either be disenchanting everything, or everybody fighting over a single drop.
So, an all-paladin group might be a fun experience once in a while, but it's not something I would really seek out.