Talador
A welcome return to form after Gorgorond. This was a solid zone with some interesting quests and lore. It was very nice to see the contrast between WoD and TBC here. I'm up to level 98 now.
Heh, about a year ago I asked what happened to the Alliance paladins? It seemed to me that the Alliance story had lost a lot of its identity when the major paladins dropped out of sight during Wrath. This expansion we got a new Alliance paladin in Yrel, and the story picks back up. Coincidence? I think not.
Leveling Dungeons
I've done the first three leveling dungeons as Holy. They're okay. Short, quick dungeons with reasonably interesting bosses.
However, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that--as a healer--I strongly dislike active mitigation. My job is to keep the tank up, and active mitigation makes healing a weaker (lower-skill) tank a much harder job than it really should be. All three tanks seemed very squishy to me, and I had to chain cooldowns constantly to keep them up.
You could tell it was playstyle, because after a wipe the tank suddenly becomes much easier to heal. Why they didn't play like that in the first place, or why they are chain-pulling like crazy, I don't know. It's incredibly annoying to see a tank's health falling rapidly and to know it's because the tank is playing improperly rather than anything I'm doing.
Honestly, I think Blizz is cruising for a Cataclysm-style unhappiness effect, at least from the healer perspective. The environment doesn't have the one-shots of Cataclysm, but I think healing will turn out to be unreasonably hard for random groups, and will need to be buffed. How they're going to do that without damaging the balance of pre-made groups will be interesting.
Tarren Mill vs Southshore
This is a temporary battleground for the 10th Anniversary. I've played it twice, and I think it's a lot of fun. It's very simple, just a straightforward zerg between the two towns. No unique mechanics to learn, which is very refreshing. I've won once, and lost once. The loss was very close, about 5 points.
The first time I played as Retribution, because I didn't realize you can't switch specs inside the battleground. Melee is at a bit of a disadvantage in these types of zergs, but I tried to pick off stragglers and run in, do some damage and throw a stun, and run and back out. The second time I healed.
I really like the catch-up mechanic. You start as a Private when you respawn, and every 10 kills you rank up and get a tiny buff to damage and healing. However, killing high ranked players nets you more points. The team in the lead usually has more higher-ranked players. This makes it easier for the team behind to catch up to them. It's an elegant, natural system. It's also a very nice nod to the old PvP ranks from Vanilla.
Hi Rohan, I completely agree about the levelling dungeons. Tanks who are used to outclassing Pandaren dungeons have gotten into a rush mentality. Round up as much trash as you can, pull them all to the boss and AoE everything down. No need to defend yourself, just burst everything down.
ReplyDeleteThe draenor levelling dungeons teach everyone a sharp lesson: we're not in Pandaria any more. Once the lesson is learnt, it stands in good stead for the level 100 normal and heroic dungeons, which are tough and cannot be zerged, either (yet). But the levelling dungeons is where people get schooled in the new reality.
I'm still catching up after 3 years and you've just made me aware of something that explains my first healing impressions in WoD. I usually play dps nowadays but I used to heal and that slagmines run I did came with some crushing blows on the MT I had no idea how to handle. Active mitigation eh....that's when we wish we could just go back to at least compensating for a poor tank via great healing. I'm not sure I like having to rely on lfr tanks in such a manner, especially if blame is till gonna be attributed to the healer anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo am with ya, let's get tanks to worry about their def caps and leave it at that.....