Cataclysm

[Fabricated]

I actually kinda like chakra on my 76 priest, but I don't know how well it works at 85. In leveling dungeons I can keep a group up pretty much just by rolling renews on the tank and whoever gets hurt, and throwing prayer of mending on the tank every time it goes off CD.

[Merusk]

Lightwell is still a waste of fucking time outside of a guild though, and even in a guild getting people to actually use the damn thing was like nailing jelly to the ceiling.

Things that should be red-flashing-beacons about your spell sucking:  You can't code your mobs to use it properly, either, so you radically alter it for them.  "Well NPC's won't know how to click it..."   Gee... and you can control THEIR intelligence.

They should give PCs the NPC lightwell and chuck the existing design in a pit.

[Ironwood]

With disc, Shield and Prayer of Healing will throw enough absorbtion to stop almost anything on 5mans.  All you need beyond that is the occasional renew, which will stack with your PoH and Shield healings (which you glyphed, right ?)

It's really EZmode and you only use penance when the tank takes on too much or you're doing speed runs or summat.

That's my experience anyways.

[caladein]

They should give PCs the NPC lightwell and chuck the existing design in a pit.

That would just make it like every other targeted AOE heal.  The nice thing about Lightwell is that you can take an unimportant GCD, even one before the fight, to cause healing at a later time.

And anyway, Jade Serpent Statue will be using the same mechanic.

[Zetor]

Ever since BC (may even have been vanilla) I've used my lightwell whenever I could. It's pretty awesome as a GCD/mana-free self-heal if nothing else -- 10 desperate prayers in HOT form in a can, what's not to like? Sometimes other party members use it too, bonus.

There was a time in early wotlk where it made you unkillable in world pvp as well (you could use it while stunned/etc, it didn't interrupt your casts, and it wasn't killable back then). Flashback to random_arcane_mage_01 trying to gank me and dying to sw:p and manaburn damage 6 minutes later 

[Dren]

With disc, Shield and Prayer of Healing will throw enough absorbtion to stop almost anything on 5mans.  All you need beyond that is the occasional renew, which will stack with your PoH and Shield healings (which you glyphed, right ?)

It's really EZmode and you only use penance when the tank takes on too much or you're doing speed runs or summat.

That's my experience anyways.

Me too.  Penance is crap  for damage and healing.  I eventually took it well off my bar.  I vaguely remember it being pretty OP when they launched it and then quickly nerfed it to worthlessness.

[Lt.Dan]

Penance does also provide 10% damage reduction, so can be useful in some cases

[FieryBalrog]

WoW subs still 10.2 million.

[caladein]

Penance does also provide 10% damage reduction, so can be useful in some cases

And it's still the easiest way to get Grace stacks up.  It's not a mainline spell at cap at current regen levels by any means, but it's still useful.

And it's getting a glyph that lets you move while casting it in MoP, which will be pretty nice at times.

[caladein]

They should give PCs the NPC lightwell and chuck the existing design in a pit.

That would just make it like every other targeted AOE heal.  The nice thing about Lightwell is that you can take an unimportant GCD, even one before the fight, to cause healing at a later time.

And anyway, Jade Serpent Statue will be using the same mechanic.

Double-posting and quoting myself, YEAH!

Everyone wins as there's a new glyph in the new beta build for Lightwell, Glyph of Lightspring:

Transforms your Lightwell into a Lightspring.

Lightspring
Creates a Holy Lightspring.  Every 5 sec the Lightspring will attempt to heal party and raid members lower than 50% health for 5735 over 6 sec.  Attacks done to the target equal to 30% of your total health will cancel the effect. Lightspring lasts for 3 min or until 15 heals are expended.

[luckton]

Jesus, I thought they were trying to get away from 'required' glyphs  .  Just bake that shit into the ability already.  People hate clicking doodads in the middle of combat.

[FieryBalrog]

I always feel bad for those priests I run into in LFR who set up elaborate macros instructing people to click on the lightwell for heals and even chiding them for clicking on it when they're at full health.

And then I'm still the only one using it properly.

[caladein]

There's a reason my sig on EJ for over a year has been "Lightwell owns even more because there's more charges for you if other people don't use it as much!"

[luckton]

After a bit of a hiatus, and a few casual weeks of gearing up in the HoT dungeons, my DK went DPSing into a full LFR run of DS (both parts).

Walked away with class gloves and legs for my tank set, and DPS generic shoulders + DPS trinket + 1-hand STR sword from DW for the DPS set.

I am a happy camper right now 

[Merusk]

I'm convinced they cheat on the rolls early on for the less-geared. 

Then again I'm also convinced that Hagra doesn't drop hunter shoulders.   7 Weeks now and not once.

[luckton]

Well at least in MoP the chances of success may improve.  You know, with the whole "In Soviet WoW, game loots you!" mentality they're taking. 

[caladein]

10-man loot is pretty rough this raid.  I went 26 combined Normal Madness/Heroic Zon'ozz kills before a 400+ item level ranged weapon dropped.  Still have plenty of MIA trinkets too.

That said, for all the joking my raid made about getting double daggers from our first Heroic Madness kill, we actually got one useful drop from it which was nice.

[Simond]

Method guild makes the Dragon Soul raid look epic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0LbsX7_zyI

[caladein]

Just poking around at random points on that video, I liked the dead Priest on Zon'ozz.  I hope they never get rid of that ability.

Also, I so do not miss 25-mans...

[Rendakor]

Did they ever confirm if/when we're getting more character slots? I kinda want to go back and futz around on a new alt but I don't have any free character slots and it feels silly rolling on a different server.

[Simond]

An extra one (per server) in MoP but no increase in the total character cap.

[Rendakor]

Only one per server? Sigh.

[Khaldun]

So I put my assassination rogue aside after doing Cata at its launch. I geared up to Heroics, saw that Heroics were going to be impossible to PUG and that they were going to tilt my guild even more to the hardcore/catasses in it, and I'd either have to join them or be one of the folks who assed around with them occasionally but was otherwise just doing dailies and shit and watching them go through the content. So I said enough of that--I hardcored my way through vanilla and TBC and I'm so bored by WoW and MMOGs in general that I'm not doing it again. Ever.

So now my daughter is playing quite a bit and wants me to show her all the level 60s-70s instances, just because she likes seeing content. Fine. Plus her toons need money and it's easy to get on an 85. I'm trying to decide if it's worth actually queueing for anything or if I'll just be a useless terribad who stands in the fire all the time. I did all the Cata instances at launch, including some on Heroic, I think I remember most of them. Is there any instanced content since then that's worth doing that isn't ball-busting in its gear requirements and shit you have to do just right? I'm doing the Firelands dailies and the ZG questline up to the 5-man that takes you into ZG, and redid some of the zone quests since I switched faction.

[Merusk]

If you can get geared-up to the level of doing them the Dragonsoul 5-mans aren't ball-busters, are short and are quite fun.  Getting geared enough to queue for them is fairly simple if you do the Thrall quests.  It only took me a few of the awful heroics to have enough JP to buy  the Tier 12 gear that put me over the item level to be able to queue on my Ressurection-scorll shaman.  They've also been significantly nerfed and enough folks are overgeared and running them out of boredom witht he DS heroics that, while still long, they aren't wipefests anymore.

The problem is there's only 3 of the DS instances so you're running them forever.

[Ironwood]

But then you're into LFRetard and that's quite good for items and gold with pretty much no downside except grouping with, well, retards that will roll on stuff that's rightfully YOURS, Goddammit.

[luckton]

But then you're into LFRetard and that's quite good for items and gold with pretty much no downside except grouping with, well, retards that will roll on stuff that's rightfully YOURS, Goddammit.

Getting fixed in MoP, and couldn't get here soon enough.

And I also agree with the HoT heroics: Lie, cheat, steal...do whatever you have to do to inflate your ilvl up to being able to get into them.  Once you do, the quest chain that routes through the three of them alone will make you a solid whatever-class-you-are.  Or at least have a huge impact on your gear and performance.  Most of those rewards were pre-raid BiS items for my Holy Priest.

[Rokal]

And I also agree with the HoT heroics: Lie, cheat, steal...do whatever you have to do to inflate your ilvl up to being able to get into them.  Once you do, the quest chain that routes through the three of them alone will make you a solid whatever-class-you-are.  Or at least have a huge impact on your gear and performance.  Most of those rewards were pre-raid BiS items for my Holy Priest.

If you happen to max a faction rep or two while leveling (Hyjal rep is pretty much a given), buy any item they offer that is a higher ilvl than what you current have in that slot. Playing a rogue? Buy the 359 int ring anyway. It's an easy/cheap way to boost your ilvl and, as long as you have the items in your inventory (or bank?) they'll still count towards your total ilvl even if you aren't using them.

[Ironwood]

Trinkets are the bitch and, frankly, you should spend those fucking points on the 259 versions if you have to.

Fucking 316 trinket dragging you down all your fucking life.

What is it they're fixing in MoP about the raids ?

[luckton]

Trinkets are the bitch and, frankly, you should spend those fucking points on the 259 versions if you have to.

Fucking 316 trinket dragging you down all your fucking life.

What is it they're fixing in MoP about the raids ?

Soviet WoW.  Raid boss will loot you when it dies, meaning it does a /roll for each raid member.  If it hits the right number, you get a piece of loot for your class and active spec.

Here, found the detailed info: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3954511/Coffee_with_the_Devs_%E2%80%94_Mists_of_Pandaria_Looting_Explained_-27_03_2012

[caladein]

I don't see how that's actually better aside from the psychological aspect of no longer "losing" an item to another player.  (Which if that matters to you, you're unequivocally "part of the problem".) It's not going to appreciably reduce the number of useless drops as it's a 25-man and every item in the drop table should have someone who could potentially get it.

On its face, it actually makes gearing less efficient as it removes Passes from the system.  All of those "I already have that", "I have something better", "That item sucks I wouldn't use it in a million years" add up to a non-trivial amount of items that go to people that (maybe) need it now and will just be sold/disenchanted in MoP.

[Ingmar]

It is a huge improvement for one main reason: stat distribution by spec/player. Right now they have to have just as much int plate on the loot tables as str plate, despite the vast amount of difference in number of players who use it. Same for caster leather and caster mail. Doing it this way means that everyone gears up at about the same rate and you don't have those 'goddammit healing plate again' when your one paladin is already completely geared up because 10% of the drops go to 3% of the population (or whatever).

[caladein]

It is a huge improvement for one main reason: stat distribution by spec/player. Right now they have to have just as much int plate on the loot tables as str plate, despite the vast amount of difference in number of players who use it. Same for caster leather and caster mail. Doing it this way means that everyone gears up at about the same rate and you don't have those 'goddammit healing plate again' when your one paladin is already completely geared up because 10% of the drops go to 3% of the population (or whatever).

I agree, but we're also losing the bias that exists in the drop tables right now to get it.  Not sure how statistically significant the differences recorded on LFR Spine for example are.  Also, the gain is only in gear distribution per spec/player in the raid, not versus the general population so tanks and healers are still going to get more gear than damage dealers.

I sort of dismissed the effect you brought up quickly when I was writing the first post, but I think it deserves some more thought.

[Ironwood]

Oh yeah.  I've read that one before Luckton and I'd forgotten.  I still approve on a rereading.  It's a much better system except for the fact that you're going to be cursing your OWN luck 90% of the time.

Also, for those who read well, you'll notice I said 259 item, rather than 359 item.  This was an error that I'd like to correct now, in case you follow my advice and gimp yourself enormously.  So, to recap, buy the 359 trinkets and not the 259 as that would just be really stupid.  The guy responsible for the error has been fired and is currently packing his 259 purple gear into a carboard box, because he's Outta Here.

Cave Johnston.  We're done here.

[luckton]

Also, the gain is only in gear distribution per spec/player in the raid, not versus the general population so tanks and healers are still going to get more gear than damage dealers.

If healers/tanks win their particular boss' roll, sure, I suppose.  The way it will work is that the boss will do a /roll for each player individually in the raid.  I don't have the specific numbers, but let's ballpark it at, say, a roll of 1-20 wins that player a piece a loot for their class/spec.  And that's only if a piece of loot for that player's class/spec is accessible on that particular boss' loot table (though they could address that in one of two ways: either have items that are on a shared table between all bosses in the raid like they've done with Dragon Soul, or just give the player a satchel of door prizes like gold, valor points, consumables, etc.).  If the roll is 21-100, sorry, better luck next time.

The bonus roll that one can achieve through rep grinding is a nice incentive too.  Essentially it's a Blood Bow-style reroll you can burn to force the game to give you another chance, just in case there actually was something on that particular boss that you really, really wanted.  Should the bonus roll not work either, then you're guaranteed to get that satchel of aforementioned door prizes.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to have the game taking control of the loot away like this, but it does address the social problems of certain players being idiots when it comes to these aspects.  Of course, in a perfect world, we wouldn't need LFR anyways because the players would be able to coordinate properly among strangers and get by with just 10 and 25 man raids  

Also, for those who read well, you'll notice I said 259 item, rather than 359 item.  This was an error that I'd like to correct now, in case you follow my advice and gimp yourself enormously.  So, to recap, buy the 359 trinkets and not the 259 as that would just be really stupid.  The guy responsible for the error has been fired and is currently packing his 259 purple gear into a carboard box, because he's Outta Here.

Huh, and I thought you were just doing the Lord Zod thing of "You peasants WILL use 259 items, for I have decreed it.  Fuck you for thinking otherwise."  

IMO, Justice/Valor points are better spent on some other things first before trinkets, since the HoT dungeons have some really nice ones to offer that can suit multiple purposes.  The Foul Gift of the Demon Lord, for example, is used for both the DPS and Healing specs of my Priest.  Priority one should be the Relic/Ranged slot, as that can only be BiS'ed through Justice/Valor.  And it's a cheap slot to fill too, although at this point it's somewhat moot since that slot is being axed in MoP (seriously, after copying my DK over to beta, both of my Tank and DPS relics were sitting in my bag inventory, devalued down to grey-name trash.  So sad )

Edits: Because apparently I type too fast for my remote LogMeIn connection to keep up  

[Merusk]

Yeah, I still have a bit of a sore point over the removal of loot slots in MoP.  I spent a lot of time hunting-down nice-looking 2h weapons for my hunter.   Now she runs around with no weapon displayed at all in beta because, despite saying it would be otherwise, ranged weaps aren't displaying when sheathed.  (Unless that's changed recently.. I've been pokemoning it up on a mage for travel purposes.)