First week of raiding in 5.0.4

Man, that raiding thing is a different animal.

I was churning out huge freaking numbers in dungeon all last week and then in raid, my output just plummeted, for any number of reasons. It has me pretty bummed out about my own performance, because nobody is a bigger critic of my numbers than me. I'm in competition with myself, and I have a certain expectation of what I want to see. When I fail to meet those expectations, the disappointment drives me figure out how I can fix the situation and perform better.

The reasons I came up with are the following:

1. My laptop just couldn't keep up with the add-ons and the 25-mode graphics. The first night was more or less a wash due to this - I couldn't just turn off all my add-ons as I had very specific bars setup and was trapped. Trying to run about and stay alive and keep DPS up at less than 10 FPS wasn't pretty. The second night was better, once I pared the add-ons down to, er, DBM, SUF, Hearkitty, FCFS helper and the loot system add-on, ran Fullscreen after turning all the bells and whistles down. But I do need to figure something out to keep 20 - 30 FPS going with graphics running at a decent level with the add-ons I want. If you have any suggestions or can offer any help in this area, please let me know. I'm running on a Laptop which makes it a bit more complicated.
2. I ran with Holy Avenger the first night as it's a net DPS gain but goddamn, it was so hard to find places where I could sit still for a long enough time to get good use of it for burst. Not to mention, I kept getting locked trying to get it to line up with Avenging Wrath. Argh. The second night I switched to Divine Purpose and that felt significantly better. I'm going to test with the dummy and if I can get the same damage out of both, I'll run consistently with DP instead.
3. This is probably a minor factor, but I didn't Reforge anything as I wasn't sure where our stat priorities lay. Next week, I'll throw everything I have into Haste because there were long stretches where I had nothing to press and got antsy and thanks to Sanctity of Battle, Haste helps with nearly every one of our HP builders. This should help out a bit. I was dismissing the Haste thing through the end of Cata as being irrelevant for Retribution, but I suppose I'll eat my words and my haste.

Those factors aside, my DPS was pretty dismal and I really need to work to elevate it.

Speaking of dismal DPS, last night my old guild was looking to go do some mix of normal  and heroic DS so I hopped onto my Warlock that I hadn't played in a while, let alone prepared post patch. I stuck with Affliction as it seemed the least changed on beta, and quickly assembled a UI and read up the rotation while we zoned in. It took me most of the night to realize some basic things like, oh, I don't know:

• Don't let Agony drop off, clip it to keep the 10 stacks ticking!
• Drain Soul returns Shards at any point for Haunt!
• A Soul Burned Soul Swap puts all 3 DoTs on the target immediately!
• I should be using Grimoire of Sacrifice every time, even though Grimoire of Supremacy is more flashy!
• Burning Rush actually needs to be canceled!

My performance was even worse there. At least I got 3 items of gear, including the Madness staff and I bought another 2 with Justice points so my iLevel jumped up to 389. Yay? Yay.

I'm hoping that by fiddling with my UI and cleaning up my WTF/Interface folders, I can squeeze some more performance out of my laptop for next week. And

Mists of Pandaria pre-raid Retribution DPS gear

As the expansion gets closer, I'm swimming in one of my favorite things to do - running filter after filter on WoWHead to generate interesting lists of gear I might want, and while the Raid gear is the best stuff that I'm drooling over, it'll take me some time to collect it all, and besides, I need other gear just to get started raiding. So I thought I'd make a list of potential stuff I want, where to get it, how to get it, etc.

Show me the shinies!

This list should apply to any Strength using class. It just shows the PvE gear, I didn't include any of the PvP stuff, as, well, I'm not a fan of using PvP gear in PvE, and it's easy to build those lists anyway.

There we go. Good? Good.

Okay, maybe not, here is the full list as an open Google Doc (just copy it to your Google Drive or to a local spreadsheet if you want to modify it), and here are the different lists at WoWHead:

• Justice
• Quests
• Crafted
• Valor

The WoWHead filters aren't complicated enough to let me do complex And/Or query-strings, though I imagine that would probably churn for a while on the server.

I didn't include the Heroic Dungeon gear as that gear will come on its own pace and is subject to RNG, but there is no doubt about this gear - you can get every item here with some effort. I know those crafted chest and hand pieces are calling my name, as are the quest rewards. That's some easy picking right there.

But where are my weapons?

The best I could do was this list.

Unfortunately,  it looks like we're stuck with Heroic dungeons to grind out the weapon - thankfully there are quite a few options. In case one has the absolute worst luck with drops, there is a craftable sword with the same iLevel as the Heroic Dungeon gear and it looks fairly cheap to make, but that depending on how common Spirit of Harmony winds up being (remember it's, ugh, BoP.)

And for Retribution, I'm still not sure what our stat priority is going to be - either Mastery or Haste - but we can split the difference and settle on this kind-of badass looking mace: Mograine's Immaculate Might as being best for us pre-raid.

I'm no brawny plate-wearer (or Dude, Where's My Dress?)!

Just click the lists on WoWHead above, toggle the strength field to Agility, Intellect or Spirit, the armor type to your chosen type, and either remove or filter the Dodge/Parry into something you'd rather avoid (like Spirit, for instance) you can easily build more lists.

Just keep in mind the filters are all on an AND conditional - the OR conditionals are finicky at best, and only useful with two parameters.

Easy! Right? Erm.

Well, what's next?

I'm not going to make any BiS lists or anything till our stat balancing gets finalized, but maybe I'll give that a poke. I've been thinking about actually getting into some serious theorycrafting and building my own Retribution DPS simulator but that involves a lot of development time... but maybe.

It seems like a fun project, and as I'm getting back into C++ again, maybe I could use the project as an excuse to learn the new 2012 IDE...

Can I be a Warlock, please?

Wow, this has been a gap of nearly 3 weeks since I posted - long time since I've taken such a break.

There really isn't much to write about with my in-game activities, unfortunately, and while I'd like to wax philosophical on some other topics of the game, the muse fails to stir. Still, here I am today, after a few... extremely frustrating weeks of game. Not much raiding to talk about, a lot of mumbling on my part, and playing of alts and doing really repetitive boring stuff just to have a reason to log in. I've been seriously tempted just to uninstall WoW and wait till patch 5.0 to install it again, so I don't even get tempted into logging in just to sit in Dalaran staring at Trade with a mixture of horror and fascination.

But, log in I did, and do, and last night I dusted off my sweet, lovely Warlock lady for a bit of LFG action. First, as a good little diligent player, I sat on the Dummy for a bit just to remember my rotation, I spread some DoTs around and so forth, and when the dungeon started, I saw I was in the company of some full DS geared people (my poor Warlock is mostly in normal-FL gear). Afraid of a poor showing, I sat up straight and prepared to do my best.

Throughout the dungeon, I found myself competing pretty aggressively. I was Soul-Swapping full piles of DoTs like my life depended on it, I was keeping every bursty button on cool-down, every time I could boost my numbers, I did, and when a pile of mobs gathered, I gleefully breathed Shadowflame, spammed seeds of Corruption. I won't deny the cackled that left me as the screen exploded with huge, bright yellow numbers everywhere.

At the end of the dungeon, we were all within 1% of each other in overall DPS and damage done, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. It made me wonder about how much fun I have playing my DPS specs lately, as I don't tank very much anymore even on Innana and Retribution has become my most progressed set, so I've developed a very DPSey mindset. And of course, in a given raid, ranged DPS almost always seems to outperform Melee, or should be, and playing Affliction would give me a great deal of utility in terms of what I can offer the table.

While raiding in Cataclysm offers me absolutely no inspiration anymore, I do kind-of want to raid on my Warlock, if I could find a late Friday night group for some cross-server action or something. It would let me make up my mind about how much I really enjoy flinging spells all over the place. I have to say, having tried Affliction on Beta, it feels a bit more frantic. Malefic Grip seriously messes with DoT refresh timers and Haunt replacing Shadow Bolt from Nightfall procs constantly breaking the normal flow of the rotation while constantly being aware of Drain-twisting for when a bursty part is about to come up or during Execute phase, all makes for some pretty tense casting. There are a lot of things to track and Affliction was never the most straightforward of specs. But I think it's a very rewarding spec to play, there is almost no other spec in the game that feels as in touch with its in-character description as Affliction.

You are laying curses and afflictions and banes on your enemies and devouring them from the inside out. There is no question of what an Affliction Warlock does. Merricat is a twisted, dark woman with a warped mind and I sometimes feels that she thinks she doesn't control her actions anymore, that she has stepped too far into the Nether and when she came back, she wasn't completely herself anymore.

Through all this, Affliction remains the least flashy of the 3 specs. Demonology has some incredibly cool moves, and Destruction has always been about the fire and brimstone, but Affliction is the quiet art of killing by looking at you and suddenly that belly-ache turns into blood pouring out of your ears. So I guess I'm okay with it.

By contrast, Retribution has become almost elegantly simple. We build Holy Power from absolutely everything. Judgment? HP. Crusader Strike? HP. Exorcism?! HP. Have too much HP? Have some extra storage. Inquisition is all buffed? Just spam those endless streaks of Templar's Verdicts. But at the same time, because we're hitting Verdict so much more, it had to scale down in terms of the damage it does, and that is a serious bummer. It doesn't feel like we're building up this massive blow, it feel more like a lot of medium-sized blows whittling down the enemy rather than bringing an overwhelming righteous force down.

So, how do you choose? I'm hoping we have a "Well, what the hell class and spec ARE we playing next expansion?" conversation soon, and we'll go from there. But, knowing what our armor-class breakout is like (3 each of plate, cloth and leather) I suspect I'll be back to tanking and my brief affair with my Warlock will be a memory, we'll glance at each other occasionally in Stormwind, steal brief smoldering looks, wonder what-ifs, exchange unfortunate smiles, shrug at each other, hoping that the time between patches brings us together again, and then we'll both return to our jobs.

I bring the fire and fury of heaven!

So. Having about equivalent damage done and DPS on the meters as a Rogue and Shadow Priest, both wielding Legendary weapons, is kind of awesome.

I've really grown to love playing a damage role recently, and it feels a lot more visceral in terms of having a direct impact on the encounters. You can see that when you're given a task, there's a real, active process you can apply to it and whittle down the enemy - especially when you're assigned a particular target like working down the Mana Bubble on Heroic Yor'sahj, a specific tentacle on Heroic Zon'ozz or the pylons on Heroic Haggara.

It took me a while, but I've gotten over the whole, "I need to save my cool-downs for Heroism." The fact is some of my cool-downs are very short, and even the long ones will get used twice in most fights (though Morchok died in ~3 minutes this week just as he cast the second pool, which was hilarious).

So, if I hit Guardian, buff Inquisition with 3 HP, hit Wrath and Zealotry, right at the pull, over a 6.5 minute long fight, I will get to use Guardian twice, Wrath and Zealotry 3 times, twice along with the Guardian buff if I wait just a bit for the 3rd use. That is awesome, and it really makes an impact on damage throughput. Having trinkets that buff me either through stacks from swings or from an ICD rather than on-use is also great because that's one (or two) less things to worry about (though I tend to just use those with a macro on Crusader Strike anyway).

Both our tanks are quite good at threat output (Death Knight and Warrior) so I give a two second count before exploding into a gibbering rabid animal, and I've never come close to pulling off of them. Even if that was an issue, that's what we have Hand of Salvation for, and the few seconds of decreased threat will give tanks the time to build up Vengeance and get their lead and after the first 10 seconds, threat is just not an issue anyway. We'll see how that holds up in Pandaria.

Now that I've gotten used to Retribution, the play-style has gotten rather simple. Keep Inquisition up, build up to 3 HP and spend it on Templar's Verdict. Hit Wrath and Inquisition more or less on cool-down except if Guardian is within a minute or so of coming up. With 4 piece Tier-13, we build Holy Power through Judgments so fast, those Templar's Verdicts just keep going out.

It almost makes me consider picking up Selfless Healer as it wouldn't be hard to setup a macro to throw a heal on the tank on a press just to keep that extra 3% damage done buff rolling. But it probably isn't worth the trouble. Very rarely do I use Holy Power to self heal except maybe on Zon'ozz and Haggara.

Warlocks are looking like so much fun on Beta that's all I play when I log in, but I should spend some time running some dungeons as Retribution just to get used to it and see what's changing. It doesn't seem like Retribution has a lot of changes but the 2 extra HP buffer and the new Talents might make a difference and I'm curious to see how weaving those into the game will change the rotation.

My off-sepc is still Holy and I'm running dungeons and LFR now and again to keep that in shape, as our 3rd healer slot was filled by an actual healer and not a pretender to the throne like me, so I can focus hard on keeping my number up.

At first, I was intimidated by the two legendary-wielding DPS in the raid - one of whom frequently lands on the WoL top 100 rankings for Shadow Priests on certain fights - would I embarrass myself in front of them? But their numbers have become my benchmarks instead.

It's not like I'll be ranking anytime soon, but hey, I'm going to play like I'm about to!

The Woes of a Hybrid

Maybe not woes so much as indecisiveness.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've gone ahead and removed my Tanking spec to slide into a healing spec and geared myself up reasonably quickly. We have lacked a solid third healer for some time, and this way I can fulfill the raid needs and learn a new spec at the same time. But it has led to other difficulties.

Last night was a good example of this as we finally killed Heroic Zon'ozz while I was healing and it felt damn good to be helping the raid overcome this fight that has held us back for some time.


The boss had close to 5 million health left when enrage hit, but we just kept pushing, as people were dying one by one, and my ineffectual heals did little to help the massive output of damage, I just bubbled, judged, and began to exorcism spam, hoping the dots would do the trick, and they did. There were only 2 or 3 of us left alive but the beast was dead and I released a breath I didn't realize I was holding.


But then, I stared at the heroic bracers that dropped, and wondering, do I bid and loose my spot on the Suicide Kings list? Do I wait for some Retribution gear to drop? Should I be passing all tank gear so the two dedicated tanks can get some gear?


I didn't know what to do. Being the only paladin meant the plate would go to me anyway, but it wasn't fair to everyone else in the raid for me to just gear up without sacrificing my spot - so which is it? What's my main spec?


So began my journey of self-discovery.

At this point, the only fights among the first 6 bosses that we 3-heal are going to be Zon'ozz and Warlord. Last night, we got Heroic Haggara down to ~40% with 2 healers and I think we'll kill her tonight with 2-healers once we clean up Lightning phase and we already 2-heal Morchok, Yor'sahj and Ultraxion.

Spine and Madness will need 3 heals, but that's some time away for us. In the mean time, I'm Retribution for 4 out of 6 heroic bosses that we're working on or killing right now, and I *think* that should be my main spec. If you count the two Deathwing fights, I'll be healing for half the bosses in the raid. Fine. So it doesn't matter, really, which spec I gear up first, I'll need the gear on both. I just need to pick one.



Except.

While my DPS is respectable, it isn't close to what one of the two tanks does as Frost. Her DPS is frequently up there with the Legendary wielding Shadow Priest and Rogue, and it feels more productive for her to be DPSing than me. And I enjoy tanking so much and she enjoys DPS (we refer to DPSing as "being a rock-star" in my raid for some reason) so much, we would both be happier doing the other job.


But.

There are many fights where a Blood Tank is just vastly superior to shield tanks. Yor'sahj, Zon'ozz and Hagara all benefit greatly from Blood Shields and Anti-magic Shells, making the fight much, much easier to heal. So much so that I feel like while I *could* tank those fights with glyphs and trinkets, it would just be easier to have her tank it and keep our progression on a faster pace.

So it seems like my decision is more or less made for me here, I *have* to go DPS for the 4 fights we 2 heal and I'll switch to heals for the other 2 fights. Which means, Retribution is my main-spec and Holy is my off-spec, and I'm sure I'll be geared up for the 2 Deathwing fights by the time we get there just based on off-spec bids.


Which leaves my Protection spec - the best geared of all my specs, the spec I've played non-stop for two expansions - in the dust.


It's an odd feeling but a good one to know that I can do this - that I can switch roles, and help the guild as necessary, be a hybrid class for real instead of just pretending to be a solo-spec class and tanking all the time. We started this expansion with 2 Paladin tanks. We're ending it with a Death Knight and a Warrior. Both of whom are extremely capable and are not holding us back in progression - in fact, it's my lack of experience as a healer that's holding us back right now, if anything. And I love a challenge.



It all feels odd. But good.

Changing How I PvP (Warlock Edition)

I threw in the towel.

After two seasons of beating my head against the 1600/1700 rating matches in 2s where I kept meeting up against counter teams, and a 1500 rating wall in 3s where the total lack of sustained offense and nearly complete lack of closers and control blocked me again, I realized Retribution Paladins are just not good in Arenas in the hands of a mediocre player like me.

I do see some Retribution paladins in the top 50/100 rated teams in my Battlegroup, so I'm sure that those guys are taking the class and making it work for them, but for me, I can't seem to able to convert the abilities I have into meaningful kills, and my support is piddling at best, with how quickly I run out of Mana if I try to go that route in 3s.

Retribution Paladins in PvP are designed so defensively that expecting them to work on burst seems to cause a deal of cognitive dissonance. So I sighed, and threw in the towel and gave up all hope of being able to Arenas successfully on my Paladin (I do fantastic in BGs) until such a time as I can get a good and firm understanding of my Holy spec and try Arenas in that venue. With so many instant heals, defensive abilities and support spell, they should be good - I just need a ton more practice in a million BGs first as Holy first. With no Holy gear right now, I'm just going to wait till next season to start gathering it as this late into this season, I'll finish gearing up just as the new stuff is released.

For the time being, I've come to realize how much fun I can have playing my Warlock in PvP.

The two classes are almost completely different in terms of how they play - Retribution Paladin is about lining up cool-downs and abilities to set up a burst kill while catching your enemy in a window with no defensive cool-downs. It's all about the setup.

Affliction Warlocks are all about control of the situation - full-fears, multi-target DoTing, a reliable ranged spell-lock on healers, and super-quick interrupts, escapes and absolutely amazing self-healing.

I've been doing 2s with a rogue, and the two of us are having a blast - we're scratching at about 1500 after a month of matches. We only do a set of 8 wins per week and our win ratio is hovering around the 65% mark which makes me happy. There are teams that are absolutely counters for us - Blood DKs are horrifically broken right now and we have a hard time against them, Warriors with healers can give us a hard time, but overall, we're able to hold our own against most teams.

A personal joy is how I face off against Mages now. On Innana, I used to groan whenever I saw a mage. Now, I just scoff, banish their Elemental, DoT up the Mage, Howl his pets, and Drain Life the hell out of him while big crit numbers pop over his head while they blink here and there fruitlessly, especially if there is no healer and I can sic my puppy on them for locks.

In general, though, if I can get about 5 seconds of free-casting, the amount of damage output Warlocks cash push against an entire team of 2s and even 3s is horrifically frightening. Health Stones, Healing Trinkets, Haunts, and Drain Life (not to mention latent healing returned from DoTs and Fel Armor) all add up to the point where sometimes I out-heal healers. We've even managed to win matches after ten minutes where we were both able to stay alive for extended periods against a healer/DPS comp until we finally converted a kill.

With a pair of Firelands daggers (one of them Heroic), my Rogue buddy is able to gank like nobody's business. I'm looking forward to doing Arenas with her next season when she'll have the legendary daggers.

Anyway. The comp is doing well for us, and I have come to realize that while there is a pang of regret that I'm having to move off my main to do something I enjoy (PvP), the fact that I'm having a ton more fun while doing it on my alt makes up for it.

It might even work for me to keep Merricat as my PvP alt permanently, and Innana as my main in all other ways. It lets me play her on a high-level without having a conflict with my raid group and I do dearly love my Warlock.

For once: Win/Win.