Need to Improve My Healing

I'm not really sure what happened, but my healing in raids has suddenly become abysmal. Last raid tier, I could regularly parse about 80% of similar item level. Tonight, I managed 12%. 12%! That's like basically not healing at all! My other guild healers are carrying me at this point.

(It's not totally bad. We killed Sire Denathrius on Normal, and killed Shriekwing on Heroic for the first time.)

I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong this tier. As far as I can tell from the guides and theorycraft, the Paladin healing style this expansion is similar to last tier. Holy Shock, Crusader Strike, keep Glimmer up, etc. Maybe Holy Power and Word of Glory are throwing me off rhythm. Maybe I'm trying to use Word of Glory too much instead of relying on Holy Shock.

I know I'm losing a bit from not being Kyrian, but not this much. Still though, maybe I should change. Though one problem with changing is that I'm currently wearing three pieces of covenant armor, and I don't have replacements.

Gaming Log - January 13

A mage in my guild wanted to start Torghast Twisting Corridors, so I ran Layer 1 with him. I went as Protection paladin and he was a Frost Mage.

It went pretty well, though no absolutely crazy combinations of powers for me. Just steady build up of all the paladin powers and tank health. I did take the power that doesn't allow you to move backwards, which was kind of weird. I usually mouse-move, so it wasn't a huge deal.

I did die once, on the last boss at 1%. I think I had stopped paying attention, and then took his special directly instead of avoiding it. Luckily the mage was able to finish him off.

Twisting Corridors is pretty long. That run took us almost two hours. Though to be fair, we probably could have pulled more aggressively and done multiple groups at a time. I am glad Twisting Corridors is thoroughly optional, though.

Gaming Log - January 12

Raid night again. This time we got the first 9 bosses down, and even had time for 2 pulls on Sire Denathrius. We have some new people who need to learn the fight though, so it will probably take another few pulls on Thursday.

I did change up my build slightly. I switched from Holy Prism to Judgment of Light, and from Sanctified Wrath to Awakening. I'm not sure it really changed much though. I need to find or make a Weak Aura to ensure that I cast Holy Shock on cooldown, and not delay it a GCD or so.

I'm also considering switching Covenants to Bastion. I don't really want to, because I like Night Fae. But the Bastion paladin ability, Divine Toll, is extremely strong. The Night Fae Blessings of the Season are fun, but not very powerful and also a bit clunky to use.

It was also Vault day. I got a i213 ring, courtesy of that crazy Plaguefall run yesterday. I guess that made it worth it in the end.

Mythic Keystone Monday

Monday night, so everyone in guild was doing a few Mythic Keystones to round out tomorrows Vault. I healed a Mists of Tirna Scithes +4, then dps'd a Halls of Atonement +6. Finally I tanked a Plaguefall +7.

Or perhaps "attempted" to tank Plaguefall would be a better description of that run. The first two groups were timed, but that Plaguefall had 40+ deaths. Part of it was that it was unfamiliar to some people in the group, part was my noob tanking, and part was that it was Plaguefall. Quaking and Sanguine made it even harder, as there's not a lot of space and many mechanics encourage you to stay close.

Another problem was that I had forgotten I had got [Dreamer's Mending] last week some time, and had decided to try it in my tank set. Our most experienced guild tank had warned me against it, but it was an item level upgrade, and I thought it could be helpful. 

He was right, and I was completely wrong. 

All through the first half of the dungeon I kept wondering why I was getting stunned. Was this some special tank mechanic I never heard about? I realized what was causing it at the second boss, but you can't change gear in a Mythic Keystone. So we just struggled through it.

I vendored the trinket the moment I left the dungeon.

Profession Dailies

Profession dailies in Shadowlands really should reward the zone-specific material. That at least would make them worthwhile. Instead they just give the baseline material which is present in very zone, and thus very easy to pick up through your general playtime.

If you visit all four zones equally to do quests, you might end up with 4 stacks of baseline, and a stack each of the zone-specific material.

If a Maldraxxus mining daily gave 20 oxxein instead of 20 laestrite, they would be much more enticing, while not really being overpowered. It would also tie the daily to the zone more strongly, which I think would be good.

I think this would be a small tweak which would improve profession world quests significantly.

Gaming Log - January 9

I did the latest chapter of the Night Fae story on my paladin. This time it was all about Bwonsamdi, and trying to retcon Vol'jin's decision to make Sylvanas the Warchief at the beginning of Legion. As far as retcons go, It was pretty good. Having Muzahela be corrupt allows Bwonsamdi to be the hero (well, as much as Bwonsamdi can be). Since Bwonsamdi is extremely popular, this works out well.

One interesting mechanical note is that if you've be gaining renown every week, this week you complete the covenant armor set, and are able to upgrade all the pieces to be better than regular Mythic gear. That seems like a pretty good curve for more casual players who do not group.

On my priest, I got some more renown and did another chapter of the Maldraxxus story. Maldraxxus is very focused on the current Shadowlands situation, with quests involving first Bastion and now Revendreth. It's quite different from the Night Fae who are focused on finishing up existing Azeroth stories like Tyrande. I think I'm now one chapter away from being caught up. I might actually be able to catch up if I finish the 1000 anima quest. Not really sure that's going to happen.

Mechanically, I've been putting all my priest's anima into upgrading the covenant armor. It's worked out pretty well, with most pieces being around i177.

Also, I did the second layer of Torghast as a priest. I underestimated all the Psychic Scream powers. I was avoiding taking them because using Psychic Scream on trash just meant that they ran away and came back with friends. But it turns out that the final boss can be feared! So those are boss fight powers. 

I still think that the majority of priest powers don't flow very well. Many of them seem way too niche. Part of the problem might be that very few of the powers are spec-specific, and most seem to be class-specific or more general instead. For a class where a specialization like Shadow is very different from the others, this causes issues.

More Thoughts on Torghast

Today a couple of guildmates and I did Layer 8 of Torghast Skoldus Halls. Then, not knowing what we were getting into, we tried Layer 1 of Twisting Corridors. 18 floors is a lot of Torghast!

It was pretty fun, though. By the 18th floor I was doing almost 100k dps as Retribution. A buffed Wings, multiple charges of Hammer of Wrath, HoW extending Wings, HoW boosting Templar's Verdict, Forbearance buffing damage. It was pretty crazy.

It's interesting to look at how the community views Torghast versus what I think was Blizzard's original design intention. I think Blizzard wanted to make challenging solo content. The original complaint about Torghast was that the bosses were too difficult. That you'd spend a hour clearing to the boss, and then get nuked.

Blizzard responded by making the lower floors of Torghast more difficult. I believe this meant that Blizzard saw the difficulty of the end bosses as correct, and increased the difficulty of the lower floors to ramp up more smoothly to the end boss. That's the correct response for content which is meant to be a challenge. If someone is not yet ready, they should wash out earlier.

However, the community sees Torghast as a "Rextroy simulator". Rextroy is a content creator who finds crazy combinations of abilities, then makes a video one-shotting everyone in PvP, and Blizzard issues a hotfix.

Torghast is that for a normal player. They get crazy combinations of abilities and get to go hog-wild, while not really affecting anything of real importance. There's no gear, just Soul Ash, which is fairly easy to get. It's PvE, so you aren't even destroying other players. You can even do it in groups, so classes with less powerful combinations can still come along. Of course, it would be better for Blizzard to give them some interesting options too.

As a result, the players do not really want Torghast to be a true challenge. It's not really compatible with their Rextroy simulator.

To their credit, Blizzard backtracked quickly on their original goal, and made Torghast more in-line with what the community thinks it is. I imagine that when they expand on it in future patches, the emphasize will be put on new quirky and unusual combinations of abilities.

I don't think I'll ever do a huge amount of Torghast. But I think that doing one or two Layers a week is a fun change of pace, and is a great addition in Shadowlands.

Normal Castle Nathria Complete!

We killed the last two bosses in Normal Castle Nathria tonight!

Stone Generals

The Stone Generals took us about 3 pulls. Surprisingly quick, compared to Sludgefist. Not a particularly clean kill, I think we stunned the tanks and one of them died. So our other tank had to tank both for the last few percent.

Sire Denathrius

This was a pretty cool fight. We struggled a lot on the first phase, until we healers settled on a healing CD rotation and managed to stabilize it. We had 3 healers rotate CDs on the adds, and a druids use Tranquility after each Pride attack.

The second and third phases were much easier in comparison. Our only problem was that four or five of our hunters were Beastmaster, and their pets couldn't reach the ranged adds. We did cut it close, actually getting a second Heroism in, and Denathrius had shattered all four corners so we killed him while standing on the bad zones.

All in all, it was a pretty good raid. I'm looking forward to starting Heroic eventually. Maybe as soon as next week, if we manage to clear quickly enough.

Consols in Eve Online

Wilhelm at The Ancient Gaming Noob mentions that the Imperium (Goons, etc) have started issuing war bonds in Eve Online:

Then there was the fact that the Imperium began issuing war bonds to support the fight.  This has been viewed by PAPI as a sign of weakness, a last desperate attempt to stay in the fight, a sign that we were on the brink.  But it raised more than a trillion ISK in the first hours of issue, so it will sustain us for a bit.  One billion ISK will buy you one bond with a return rate of 10% per year, with payments due on the first of the month.  That one bond will earn you about 8.4 million ISK every time the first rolls around.

Spreadsheets in Space comes full circle!

These types of perpetual bonds are traditionally called Consols, famously issued by the British government from the 1700s to the early 1900s. An important financial mainstay of the Regency genre.

What's interesting to me is that the Imperium issued bonds at 10%, which is quite high. The British issued consols at 3-4%. Is the extra premium because it's a game? I confess I would have offered it at 6%, just to make the math easier (0.5% payment each month).

Also, if bondholders stop playing, then it's free money for the Imperium.

Of course, Eve being Eve, there's a reasonably large possibility that this is all a scam and the Imperium will default a year or two down the line.

I wonder if the Imperium will allow people to trade these bonds. Put it on the blockchain, Goons!

Normal Sludgefist Down

Today was our first raid of the new year. We still have quite a few people, with around 25 in the raid.

We went through the first seven bosses on Normal fairly easily, now that the majority of people understand the fights. Then we started attempts on Sludgefist. We had gotten to him last Tuesday, but really only pulled him twice.

This time he took us several tries, but we got closer and closer on each try until we finally downed him at the end of the night.

It's an interesting fight because there are a couple of instant-kill mechanics that interact. Two people are chained together, and if they move too far apart, they die. But there's also falling rocks where you have to move or die. The fight--on Normal at least--is really about how many people you lose to those mechanics.

My problem as a healer is that I'm usually chained to a melee dps when the crash happens and huge raid damage happens. I forget that the melee wants to run in for the damage window, and just start healing. Then the melee runs too far from me and we both die. I just need to remember to run in before starting to heal.

Still a pretty interesting fight. Looking forward to the next boss, which we haven't seen yet.

Gaming Log - January 4

I'm pretty much just playing Shadowlands these days.

World of Warcraft

I healed a Sanguine Depths +2 in a guild group. Our tank was a new guild member, a friend of another guildmate. This was his first Mythic Keystone, but he was a really good tank. Pulled cleanly and steadily. We wiped once on the easy third boss somehow, but otherwise the run was really smooth. We finished with a good 8 minutes on the timer, even with that wipe.

I've been working on my Shadow Priest on the side. She joined the Maldraxxi covenant, which is actually pretty neat. Lots of interesting NPCs, aside from Draka. It's been interesting doing the catch-up. A lot of the daily callings give Renown, so you speed through fairly quickly. Meanwhile the covenant gear (with upgrading) is quite good for keeping yourself geared while playing solo.

Shadow Priest Torghast powers are quite boring. The Paladin powers are also basic, but they build on each other and boost your basic rotation so it feels quite good. Shadow Priest powers meanwhile, don't seem to flow well. I find myself taking the general boosts more.

Shadowlands Max Level Content Strategy

Blizzard is pursuing a new strategy for max level content in Shadowlands. I think it's working quite well, so I'd like to take a look at what I believe the strategy is.

The main strategy consists of:

1. Multiple areas of content
2. Low, front-loaded weekly caps
3. Separate currencies for each area

 Let's take Torghast as an example. You get the bulk of the reward by running each of two open wings. The main reward is Soul Ash for legendaries, and Torghast is the major source. The bulk of Soul Ash comes from the lower levels, making it less necessary to run the highest level. Last week, I ran a Layer 8 and a Layer 4 (helping a guildmate who is still climbing). That's good enough.

The same pattern is there with the Maw. It's the only source of Stygia and Venari reputation. But the bulk of the reward is the two or three weekly quests. You can do the dailies and rares if you want, but the reward is much lower. Then there is also a soft/hard cap in the Jailer's Eye.

This even extends to story. Blizzard has been steadily releasing a chapter each week.

I think this is a pretty solid system. You bounce around the various activities trying to do the major items. The caps are very low, which allows you to spend minimal time in the areas you don't like. Having separate currencies for each area means that players can't just spam the most efficient content.

The biggest change is that Blizzard simply had to ignore all the players who complain about "gating", about being unable to spend more time to earn more power. Shadowlands has the strongest gating in WoW's history, and I think the majority of players seem to be happy with that.

We'll have to see if this strategy is good enough for the expansion's lifetime, but so far it seems quite good, and will probably be the model going forward.

Tanking Mythic Keystones

We have fair number of people in guild who are online these days. Our raids have regularly had 25 people or more. However, there's only two raid tanks. So on non-raid nights, we've been scrounging for tanks to run Mythics and Mythic Keystones. I've volunteered to tank some of the lower keys.

It's quite a change from last expansion. In Battle for Azeroth, I barely touched Mythic Keystone dungeons, even to heal.

I think the scarcity of loot has made a lot more people willing to run regular Mythics for gear and then lower Keystones, rather than jumping right into the deep end. I've been running +2 to +5 keys, pretty much with guildmates only. 

I've been using my healing armor--with healing Legendary!--and a couple of Ret/Prot trinkets, along with a Str sword. I've also just been using the simplest all-left-side Protection Paladin build and just trying to keep Shield of the Righteous up as much as possible.

I've healed for our raid tanks in Mythics, and they're pretty hardcore people who know skips and which packs you can pull together. Tanking was a little intimidating after watching them.

What I've found is that steady pulling of one pack at a time works pretty well. In Keystones especially, you need to kill a certain amount of non-boss enemies, so just clearing to them normally and avoiding fancy skips is good enough.

In my experience, wipes are what cause you to fail the timer, both from the time lost due to deaths and the run back and set up again. Pulling multiple packs, well, if you survive you gain some time, but if you wipe you lose a lot of time. One pack at a time, with minimal time in-between, seems good enough for now.

One tip is that some consumables, weapon oils and the lesser Desolate chest armor, are really cheap and last through death. So it's worthwhile just using those casually.

Tanking Mythic Keystones has been fun, and an interesting experience. I doubt I'd want to do it for randoms, but it's been enjoyable with guildmates.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I was on a decent posting pace until December hit. I did start a new job, so that probably didn't help. But still, I would like to do better this year.

Otherwise, everything seems to be going okay. My guild only raided on Tuesday these last couple of weeks, but we are now 7/10 in Normal Nathria. I think we'll make more rapid progress once we start our regular schedule next week.

In any case, I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and are prepared for a fresh new year of gaming!

Castle Nathria

Castle Nathria is the first raid in Shadowlands. It's Revendreth, so classic Victorian Gothic with gargoyles and vampires.

The first raid night was pretty rough. All of us were really undergeared, and we were going in more for fun than anything else. We got the first boss in Normal, Shriekwing after a couple of attempts. Then we wiped on Huntsman for the rest of the night.

The next raid night we killed Huntsman, put a couple of pulls in on Hungering Destroyer, then wandered off to find Sun King (it was merely a setback!) and wiped on him for a bit.

This week we were a lot more prepared. We actually had a lot of people show up, a full raid of 30 people, with possibly a couple people on the sidelines. We might have to split into two raids to accommodate everyone who wants to raid. The best thing about having so many raiders is that there are lots of people doing stuff on off-nights. Before we might only have one guild five-man running, but lately it's more like three or four. I've been able to avoid pickup groups almost entirely!

In any case, we killed Shriekwing and Huntsman again. We then got Hungering Destroyer and Artificer Xy'Mox down. Hungering Destroyer is pretty simple once everyone understands the fight and knows when they need to run out. 

Artificer is a more complicated fight, especially the third phase. There's a sword which pulls everyone to the center of the room and then blows up. You have to drop a portal at the sword, and another at the edge of the room. Then you have to time it right so that you go through the center portal to the edge just before the explosion. Too early, and you get sucked back into the explosion radius. Too late, and you just get blown up. I kind of think that in Normal at least, going through the portal should make you immune to the pull. Though maybe that would be too easy.

In any case, Castle Nathria is a really good raid so far, with very interesting fights.

Torghast

Torghast is an interesting experience, especially as I've been playing Hades lately.

Torghast consists of multiple wings, each wing with multiple layers, and each layer with 6 floors. Two wings are open each week. You unlock layers by completing the previous layer (though once you've unlocked, say, Layer 3, you can access Layer 3 on any wing). Torghast's main reward is Soul Ash, which you need to craft Legendary equipment.

Each run of Torghast involves you going through the six floors in a layer. The layout of each floor is more or less random, with a vendor on the 3rd floor and a boss on the 6th floor. You have to beat the boss to complete the run and get the reward. As you progress you get random "anima powers" which boost or alter your abilities, or give you buffs. Most of the time, you get to select a power from up to 3 choices.

Torghast scales from solo to a group of five players. I've done runs solo, in a duo, and in a group of five. Elites and bosses have stacking buff which increases their damage, so there is a DPS check which you have to meet. So you have to balance anima powers between offense and defense.

It's pretty interesting because different builds can focus you on different powers. But so far, the boons don't do anything too drastic. You still play your basic rotation.

I recommend always choosing anima powers which will help you with the end boss. In my experience, the end boss is the most difficult part of a run. The closest I've come to failing was a run where I took too much defensive powers, and had real trouble meeting the damage check.

Another tip is, that at least when you are solo, it's possible to pull carefully and only get a small number of enemies at a time. For example, if two elites appear to be sparring, you can pull one of the elites without getting the other.

There's one wing where an assassin spawns when you are out of combat. I kept a mawrat in combat with me most of the time, and that stopped the assassin from spawning. Blizzard did nerf the assassins later in the week, though, so it might be easier to kill them.

Torghast is a pretty fun experience, and Blizzard has done a nice job of allowing you to farm or progress. If you just want to farm, you only have to do two layers each week to get the maximum rewards. The anima powers allow you to construct weird, broken, or amusing combinations, without breaking the rest of the game.

Night Fae Covenant, The Maw

Night Fae Covenant

In the end, I turned my back on Holy Paladin theorycraft and joined the Night Fae Covenant. The abilities are mediocre, but the covenant itself is really enjoyable. 

The initial quests were amazing! The Fae put on a play explaining the events of the last two expansions, complete with audience reactions. It was hilarious! If you've played through the last two expansions, especially if you're a steady player, you have to take a character through this Covenant.

Otherwise it's pretty much been steadily unlocking facets of the covenant. I like the new adventure table. It's much more of a real game with strategy. I think it's based off "auto-chess", which is a genre I really haven't looked into.

The Maw

The Maw is okay. There are a couple of weekly quests, a couple of daily quests, and some rares and bosses. Not being able to mount is unusual, but you get used to it pretty fast.

The daily cap mechanic is interesting. Every major thing you do in the Maw (bosses, quests) increases the Jailor's Eye on you and adds more and more annoying mechanics. Level 1 makes some wandering monsters hostile. Level 2 periodically bombards your location, forcing you to move. Level 3 has assassins appear when you fight new mobs. Level 4 has Mawsworn swoop down and pick you up. I think you have to kill them before they drop you to your death. Level 5 is an auto-kill I think. I try to stay below Level 3, as I find the assassins very annoying.

It's a really interesting way of doing a soft cap on your activities (with a hard cap at Level 5).

The Maw is okay, I guess. It's not particularly interesting, but the game encourages you to limit your time inside the Maw, meaning that it doesn't become overly tiresome. It's pretty comfortable moving it down the list of priorities, but slowly working on the story.

Ardenweald and Revendreth

This post contains spoilers for Ardenweald and Revendreth,

Ardenweald

I loved Ardenweald. I've always liked the fae in fiction, and I think Blizzard did a great job with their version. The NPCs are great and likeable. The Winter Queen is appropriately powerful and mysterious. The story itself is excellent, especially if you played through Legion.

The quests with Ysera were very well done. I especially liked that, when you replay her death, your character shows up to attack, labeled as 'Hero'. I made sure to breathe fire on my character.

I really enjoyed playing through Ardenweald. It was my favorite zone this expansion. I'm probably going to go Night Fae for my covenant.

Revendreth

Revendreth is Victorian Gothic, with an interesting spin on punishment and redemption. It had a lot of interesting concepts, especially the idea of "sinstones" acting like true names and giving power over a character. It was also interesting that all the Venthyr NPCs, even the friendly ones, were once terrible people. The main villain was also quite good.

I liked Revendreth a lot. I'd rank it the second-best zone. Whatever alt I play next will probably go with Revendreth as a covenant.

Bastion and Maldraxxus

This post contains spoilers for Bastion and Maldraxxus.

Bastion

I didn't like Bastion all that much. You'd think I would like it, it being the obvious paladin covenant. But really, they came across as more cult-like than anything, with the whole erasure of memories bit and everyone being transformed into a blue human.

There's also a curiously chill and low-energy vibe, which is odd. I actually liked the bad guys a lot more, except that they sided with the obviously evil big bad.

It's really annoying that all the paladin theorycrafters say that the Kyrian Covenant is far and away the best covenant, especially for Holy Paladins. I don't really want to join that Covenant.

Maldraxxus

Maldraxxus was more interesting. I liked the different Houses, especially the House of Plagues. Lady Vashj showing up as a major player was quite fun.

The only problem was that ending was quite disjointed. I think one of my addons may have forced-canceled an important cutscene, because suddenly people were talking about being betrayed as if everyone knew it had happened. I disabled all my addons after Maldraxxus just to be safe.

The side-quest with the library was also quite fun. I missed a book on the very bottom floor, and had to go all the way back down and up, evading all the traps again.

Shadowlands: Intro to the Maw

This post contains spoilers for the intro to Shadowlands.

The introductory sequence to Shadowlands involves you and the Ebon Blade going to the Maw to rescue Thrall, Jaina, Baine and Anduin. It's a pretty good questing sequence, with some nice moments for all the cast members. Especially Thrall's search for a weapon.

The Maw has some very weird bridges too, with rows of pop-up spikes running length-wise along the bridge. That architecture doesn't make a lot of sense, but the AI programmers did a nice job of having the NPCs line up behind you as you run down the channel, and then spreading out again once you're off the bridge.

In any case, you escape the Maw, while the NPCs cover your retreat and are captured again. I guess rescuing them is going to be the main task at max level.

The one concern I have about the Maw is that it isn't very visually appealing. In the intro it was all rocks and grey metal, all browns and grays. If that's the palette, it might grow old fast if we do repeatable content at max level. Argus had a similar problem (though with added green for fel).