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Showing posts with label Raiding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raiding. Show all posts

Monday, 13 October 2014

Loot Council: The Exhumed Solution


Loot is the single biggest headache involved with raiding. The past few weeks it has been something I have been focused on heavily as I prepare to move my guild, Exhumed of Shadowsong EU, into Mythic raiding. We decided a while back to move to Loot Council but hadn't considered the nuts and bolts of how to do this.

We looked at addons and they really don't add any benefit to the process. therefore I have looked around and come up with a system that I feel will work, be easily managed and simple to explain. One thing that I had to accept was that nothing can avoid disagreements over gear.

I have also set up the Loot Council to have an odd number of members to avoid a deadlock on a piece of gear. The aim is for loot to be distributed as fairly as possible. I have asked that our raid team do not contest our decisions in the raid and this will mean that we won't be changing our decisions. I have asked that anyone who feels we made an error to discuss it AFTER the raid.

The only situation whereby a person will have to pass loot to a different person is if the loot Council decide that "person A" should win an item but the Master Looter hands the item to "person B". The correction will be announced by the Master Looter and we then expect that the item be handed immediately to the correct winner by the incorrect winner. This will mean that we have had to ask that people do not gem/enchant/transmog an item for 15 minutes as this may make the item soulbound.

How to express interest

Bidding for items will be done in raid chat, to ensure that nothing is missed, raid chat should be kept clear while bidding is in progress. To make sure the raid is not slowed down during this process each item will be open for 15 seconds after the item to bid on is linked during this time you should do 1 of 3 things in /ra:
  • Say MAIN link your equipped item – If the item is a significant upgrade for you in your current spec and role. If this is a piece of Tier and it will activate a set bonus add 2pce or 4 piece to your "bid"
  • Say OFF (no item link) – If the item is a minor upgrade or you’d like it for an off spec.
  • Say nothing – If you have zero interest at all in the item.
After the 15 second countdown, there will be a "Bids closed" statement. Interest expressed well after this point will not be considered into account (unless there was no one interested at all during the countdown). The council will then write the name of the person they feel should be awarded the item in a private channel and the master looter will then announce a winner. Bidding on the next item will then commence.

This does of course rely on the bidder being honest when linking their equipped item, this will be policed and anyone found cheating the system will be dealt with very harshly.

Who will be on the Loot Council?

The Loot Council will consist of 5 people. These will be 3 officers and 2 of the raid team (decided by a /roll each raid). The raid leader will always be on the council. They each have their own individual personality and are 5 different players. Each council member has 1 vote used to decide who receives an item if there are multiple players interested in an item. ALL loot council members will vote on ALL items, even if a member of the loot council is interested in an item.

6 Influential factors

Current rank and position: Players not holding a raider rank will not get loot assigned to them if a player holding a raider rank has bid MAIN. This is to prevent people from joining, getting a few pieces of loot, and then leaving. It is basically a form of DKP. It forces people to have a vested interest in the guild and raiding regularly to receive gear. This may be overlooked based on performance, attendance, or the amount of loot already received during that raid.

Attendance: Raid attendance is extremely important. If players aren’t here to raid, they’re not going to be able to contribute. Remember that loot drops will be awarded in order to be as effective as possible. This means there is a higher chance that a player who attends 80% of raids will get an item over a player who only attends 50%. This doesn't mean that a person with lower attendance will never get loot, just that persons with higher attendance but equal gear level will get loot earlier.

Effectiveness: Is it effective for the guild as a whole? Will the raider be able to utilize it and ensure that it does not become useless? We want to ensure that items aren’t going to be wasted by being awarded to alts or off specs unless there is no main interest. A guardian/boomkin Druid looking to obtain a spirit item aren’t going to get it if they’re in raids to only to tank or DPS. It doesn't maximize the effectiveness of the item if it is not being used.

Current items: A player still wearing gear from the last tier or from a raid difficulty lower than that being run is going to have a higher chance of being awarded an item. Keep in mind that this will not always be the case. In certain situations, while the item in question may be a larger upgrade for a newer player, it could be awarded to a veteran player who has been in there for weeks or months on end trying to get the item.

Equal distribution: Loot will be distributed as equally as possible to the appropriate classes that need them (at least, we’ll attempt to). It is unlikely for players to receive more than one item from a boss. But it is entirely possible for players to receive multiple items in one run. We cannot control what items a boss drops. The last thing we want to do is shard a piece.

Set bonuses: If you have an odd number of set pieces (like 1 or 3 set pieces), we want nothing more than to help activate them.

Self improvement and teamwork

The main tanks in the guild are able to talk amongst themselves and figure out who needs upgrades over the other first. They do this purely through communication and cooperation by figuring out their weaknesses and identifying the items that benefit them the most. When tank items drop, they are able to compromise.
I encourage other players to do the same with the other classes or other players wearing similar armor types. As an example, I try to work with the other healers to see who can benefit more.
During our 10 man days many of the loot drops were handled in this informal way and hopefully that spirit will continue with the new larger raid size, everyone takes turns in passing and are aware who can benefit items the most. It’s the times where there is no informal agreement where the Loot Council will step in and make a decision rather than let the RNG of /roll decide.

That is the approach we are taking in Exhumed, if you have any comments regarding this I'd love to hear from you either via comments below, email to evlyxx at evlyxx.co.uk or alternatively in game evlyxx@shadowsong.eu.

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Sunday, 5 October 2014

The Change to Loot Council


I'm back, well I never went away to be honest just a whole lot of real life, preparing for Warlords and if I'm truly honest whole lot of writers block caused by generally feeling run down due to the real world stuff. I haven't stopped playing WoW though and have been really busy working towards a very big goal which I hope to cover soon so i won't spoil that just now (yes, I know I'm teasing you all).

Anyway the biggest thing that is stressing me in game is the matter of loot in our soon to be Mythic raids, Exhumed has been a 10 man raid guild all the while I have been there, this has meant loot has been a simple affair as we have a fixed squad of 15 people and use /roll. Sure it isn't perfect but 9 times out of 10 the RNG gods didn't punish people to much as the chances of rolling against the someone for loot more than 2 times was almost nil and only our 2 enhancement shaman were rolling against each other for the same stuff as our hunter didn't want mastery and they didn't want crit, sure healers competed with our boomkin on some gear and I even competed with the mage and lock on an item or two but mostly it sorted itself out (unless you count the Prismatic Prison of Pride trinket which has dropped only 3 times for us on normal or heroic and our druid is still using a flex version despite having 33 kills (7x normal and 26x HC) and rolling on it each time too while I've got the normal version in my 43 kills (20x normal and 23x HC) and yes I roll each week as well and have all 5.4). Anyway I digress, the point is loot was drama free and fast to deal with.

As we move to Mythic, we end up staring down the loot drama boss, RNG can play a huge part the options were all admin heavy and time consuming out of game and nobody wanted to do it and I wasn't getting burdened by that on top of everything else I do for the guild, I simply don't have the time.

A few months back we polled the guild to see what they wanted from raiding in Warlords and one question we asked was which loot system they wanted, the majority chose Loot Council, but even that doesn't come with admin problems. The biggest one is the time it takes to do in raids, I'm assuming that Mythic will give us 5 loot items per boss kill and I'm assuming that each item will take a minimum of 2 minutes to deal with, that's 10 minutes per boss! With there being 17 bosses in the first tier of Warlords raiding that's 3 hours per week just spent on dishing out loot and our raiding schedule is 2 nights of 3 hour raids which makes that 3 hours 50% of our raid schedule spent handing out loot. 

I've looked at addons to help, they're either broken (not working cross-realm even for connected realms) or just don't add up to a time saving as they don't handle the loot council decision making process at all. This means I'm stuck looking at ways to make the process efficient. I've tried researching Loot Council and all I can find is what loot council is and how much better or worse it is than DKP, EPGP, /roll or Suicide Kings. One of the better articles I found, on World of Matticus, is a bit old but still relevant and I've used this as the base for the overview of how I see Loot Council working for Exhumed (I won't go into too much detail of the differences as it is still a discussion for our officers).

So this post is really aimed at people that are running a loot council already as I'd love to hear from you about how you deal with the bidding and decision making process without spending too much time per item, particularly from 25 man raid teams.
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Friday, 1 August 2014

Thok Cooldown Rotation

Thok positioning (courtesy of FlaskUp)
Its been a while folks, but never fear I am still here! Or maybe that should be a reason to be fearful? Anyway, been doing some HC progression and needing to buff up the knowledge on Thok, Man the coordination there is intense, so I've been researching a bit deeper and the raid cooldown usage is indeed the key. 

This is NOT  JUST HEALERS, everyone who can assist should assist and so we don't all splurge our CDs at the start we need an action plan. Because the team make up varies week to week I have put together the action plan below which states roles not classes. Some weeks we'll have extra CDs to use, in which case people not specifically assigned should use theirs at a point that isn't mentioned, prefarably near the end.

The rotation below is for the 1st and 3rd Cry in the Darkness phases. The 2nd of these phases will see the raid have no raid wide cooldowns available, kill the bats and last as long as we naturally can with an aim of hitting 7-10 Screeches.
  • Screech #06 – DPS 1 Raid Cooldown
  • Screech #09 – DPS 3 Raid Cooldown (if available)
  • Screech #11 – Healer 1 with a Blessing of Protection so no interupts
  • Screech #14 – Healer 2 with Blessing of Protection  so no interupts
  • Screech #17 – DPS 2 Raid Cooldown
  • Screech #19 – Devotion Aura
  • Screech #22 – Healer 3 Cooldowns and players personal Cooldowns.
  • Screech #24 – DPS 4 Raid Cooldown (if available)
  • Screech #27 – Stack up!
RAID COOLDOWNS
  • DeathKnight: Anti-magic zone talent (spellid:51052) 75% spell damage reduction, 10 seconds with a 2 metre range.
  • Druid: Tranquility (spellid:740) channeled, 8 seconds with a 8 metre range.
  • Monk: Zen meditation (spellid:115176) redirects 5 harmful spells, 8 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Monk: Avert harm brewmaster(spellid:115213) 20% all damage redirected, 6 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Monk: Revival mistweaver (spellid:115310) (instant/3 metre range).
  • Paladin: Devotion aura (spellid:31821 20% magic damage reduction, 6 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Priest: Divine Hymn (spellid:64843) channeled, 8 seconds with a 3 metre range. - HOLY ONLY
  • Priest: Lightwell (spellid:724) 15 charges or 3m/3 metre range. - HOLY ONLY
  • Priest: Power Word: Barrier (spellid:62618) 25% damage reduction, 10 seconds with a 3 metre range. - DISC ONLY
  • Priest: Spirit Shell discipline (spellid:109964) absorption shields, 15 seconds with a 1 metre range. - DISC ONLY
  • Priest: Vampiric Embrace shadow (spellid:15286) 10s-glyphed or 15s-unglyphed/3 metre range. - SHADOW ONLY
  • Rogue: Smoke Bomb (spellid:76577) 20% damage reduction 5-7 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Shaman: Healing Tide Totem (spellid:108280) 11 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Shaman: Ancestral Guidance talent (spellid:108281)  Level 75 Talent TAKE IT!
  • Shaman: Spirit Link totem restoration (spellid:98008) 10% all damage reduction, 6 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Warrior: Demoralizing banner (spellid:114203) -10% damage dealt by all enemies, 15 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Warrior: Rallying cry (spellid:97462) temporary 20% increased health, 10 seconds with a 3 metre range.
  • Warrior: Mass spell reflection talent (spellid:114028) reflects 1 spell, 5 seconds with a 1 metre range.

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Thursday, 26 June 2014

Malkorok Sucks Balls?

Just a quick post on my latest kill, Heroic Malkorok. Horrible fight, really bad for discipline healing too just because of the way it works, all heals are converted to a shield (just like normal) and that means the person who needs healing most isn't the person with the lowest HP but the person with the weakest shield.

That mechanic works great for all healing classes except for atonement healing as that targets the person at lowest HP, if that is your tank disc priest is happy priest as you can smite and heal just as before. If that person is a ranged DPS it sucks as all atonement healing could be hitting someone who has a full shield than your atonement is converted into over healing and you've got a sad disc priest.

Sure disc isn't a one trick pony, but if you gear for that one trick, and which disc priest doesn't? You are left high and dry spamming prayer of healing, Power Word: Shield on tanks and puddle soakers and hoping your DPS are smart enough to pull big numbers before your mana pool gets depleted because you've reforged and geared away from spirit.

Anyway, my kill I felt like a spare part because my numbers sucked, big time sucked. I've done more research into why and it seems I did only one thing wrong I used smite instead of prayer of healing.

I'll know this week to sort the groups so I have a tank in each group and can then spam Prayer of Healing on the two tanks. Simple fix, should provide better output but engaging gameplay? Hardly it is almost as bad as the PW:S spam from ICC. But hey, if it gets us to Spoils I'll be a happy disc priest, and if I replace my normal mode Sullen Fury with the HC one, I'll weep tears of joy.

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Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Assessing the Performance of Your Discipline Priest


Recently I've been concerned about my own performance. So much so that I have begun to wonder if my aging fingers and brain are simlpy not up to the demands of HC raiding in Mists of Pandaria. The reason is that I have been getting my backside handed to me by a rookie druid healer who has slightly worse gear than myself. All the podcasts I listen too that mention healing by druids always say that the druid simply cannot compete with the disc priest's imba shield. My experience however, was not backing this up.

I started to do some digging around and could find no real concrete evidence to confirm or deny either belief was the right one. While this didn't please me it gave me some hope. I therefore decided to look around and find out performance enhancing threads around on various forums and blogs regarding the healing output of disc priests to see if I could apply the diagnosis to my own play.

Overall what I discovered was encouraging as it showed that while I wasn't perfect I was far from the mark and, if I'm brutally honest, told me what I should have known just by looking at my combat logs.

The list of a what a perfect combat log should contain is here:
  • Six casts of  Penance per minute either damage or healing depending on the fight;
  • Six casts of Holy Fire/Solace per minute;
  • Six casts of Prayer of Mending per minute;
  • Five PW:Shields per minute to ensure Rapture procs on cooldown;
  • Using the level 90 talent spell on cooldown (4x Divine Star, 2x Cascade or 1x Halo);
  • Three casts of Prayer of Healing, ideally used with Spirit Shell)
  • Two casts of Archangel per minute;
  • Inner Focus used at least once per minute (again used with Spirit Shell);
  • Spirit Shell used at least once per minute (to allow for effective timing);
Over a minute that means your casting 34 spells if you ONLY stick to the above list (I'm assuming you have Divine Star). In my 570ilevel healing gear, have a 1.4 second GCD which means in total I can cast a maximum of 43 spells per minute not allowing for spells like Prayer of Healing and Penance that range between 1.6 and 2.1 seconds and Penance (between  depending on Borrowed Time.

Lets assume the worst and say I never utilise Borrowed Time and not forget that Inner Focus and Spirit Shell are OFF the GCD:
  • Six Penances = 6 x 1.9 seconds = 11.4 seconds;
  • Six Holy Fires = 6 x 1.4 seconds = 8.4 seconds;
  • Six x Prayer of Mending = 6 x 1.4 seconds = 8.4 seconds;
  • Five PW: Shields = 5 x 1.4 seconds = 7.0 seconds;
  • Four x Divine Star = 4 x 1.4 seconds = 5.6 seconds;
  • Three x Prayer of Healing = 3 x 2.1 seconds = 6.3 seconds;

This means my must cast spells consume 47.1 of the available 60 seconds which means I have 12.9 seconds left of my minute which is enough for 9 Smite's or 6 Prayer of Healing's and 0.3 seconds of downtime in my imaginary minute.

Because of the number of instant casts and the fact that I use Glyph of Penance means movement will have minimal impact on the number of spells cast.

What I discovered in my spell list was too many Smite's not enough Holy Fire's, Penances, PW: Shields and possibly a bigger crime of not enough Spirit Shell. So now I know where I need to focus my attention and as long as I am getting close to the 39 spells per minute below I'll be happy that even if I am getting out healed, I'm doing the what is needed of me.
  • 9x Smite;
  • 6x Penances;
  • 6x Holy Fires:
  • 6x x Prayer of Mending;
  • 5x PW: Shields;
  • 4x Divine Star:
  • 3x Prayer of Healing;
If you've found this post useful or even if you think it is all wrong, I'd love to hear from you either by leaving a comment below or sending an email to evlyxx at evlyxx dot com.

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Friday, 2 May 2014

Raiding Survey


I would like to thank all 26 people who replied. The mix was good as I had all 13 of the HC raid team respond (I did /slap them though) and 13 other people respond. This means that the results are a really good indication of what you guys want both now and in Warlords. The information gathered will allow us to make decisions that fit your life and game goals. I have put as much of the information into pictures to keep the waffle down. I have also broken the responses into 3 groups:
  • Overall: This is everybody that replied;
  • HC Raiders: This is everyone in the Wednesday/Thursday raid team;
  • Non HC Raiders: This is everyone except the HC Raiders;
Also during this post please note that the terms I use are the Warlords of Draenor terms for the raid difficulty:
  • Normal: what we currently know as Flex and raid on a Sunday;
  • Heroic: what we currently know as Normal and raid on a Monday;
  • Mythic: what we currently know as Heroic and raid on a Wednesday/Thursday;

Overall

Almost 2/3 of the people want to do Mythic raiding in Warlords and only 2 people want to tackle raids only on the easiest mode (LFR doesn't count).

The people who want to raid Mythic difficulty also prefer group loot over personal (LFR style) loot and the majority of people would like to use the Loot Council method of loot distribution.

One of the questions I asked was, "Would you be prepared to be an assistant raid leader, this will need time spent in and out of game?" looking back this was a badly phrased question as what I was after was people who could help manage a Mythic raid team if we decide to run that content in Warlords. The reason for needing this assistance is that managing a squad of 15 raiders is hard work and one that my co-raid leader and myself  have done this expansion and while my co-raid leader has been a great help I have carried the bulk of the "invisible" work that needs to get done to get the show on the road.

A Mythic raid team will need 30 people for us to get a raid team out every night, this is a big task and also means that we have to put a loot distribution system in place as /roll really doesn't work in a large team. Therefore, the kind of roles that we will need filled are:
  • Raid Leaders;
  • Class/Role Leaders;
  • Loot Masters;
  • Strategy Planners;
  • Statisticians;
  • Recruiters;
and that is what I meant by "assistant raid leader". 7 people responded with at least a "maybe" and that includes 2 of Exhumed's raid leaders and myself. I will be speaking with the other 4 over the next week or so.

Here we see that most people want to raid only 2 days per week, none of you want to raid only 1 day but a few folks would raid 3 or 4 days per week.

The most popular days are our current raid days with Sunday and Monday the most poular. Only a few people liked the thought of raiding on a Saturday (afternoon or night) and a few liked the idea of a Sunday afternoon raid).

With regard to our start and finish times 69% said they could start at 8pm (server) while 54% could raid until 1am (server).

HC Raiders

Looking now only at our HC Raid team. The vast majority want to raid Mythic. One person that doesn't want to move to Mythic because of the 20 man raid size and the other would raid Mythic but preferred Heroic difficulty.

The majority prefer Loot Council, and the "n/a" figures also include people that had no preference.

In addistion to my co-raid leader and myself, 3 people said they would maybe like to help run the raids. As stated previously, I will speak with these people soon™.

Most people like our 2 day raid schedule...

...and our Wednesday and Thursday schedule...

Almost half the team could start at 8pm and almost 2/3rds could raid until 1pm.

Non HC Raiders

While not as numerous as the HC Raider group,almost half of our more casual players would actually like to do Mythic raiding in Warlords.

Of those wanting Mythic raiding, over half would prefer Loot Council. The 46% "n/a" shown below either didn't want to raid Mythic or had no preference.

In addition to the normal team's raid leader, 1 other person said they would like to assist in the management of the raid team.

Most people want to raid 2 days per week...

...and for Sunday and Monday to be those days...

Most of the Non HC Raiders want to start at 8pm but over half don't want to finish later than midnight.

What Does It All Mean?

In brief:
  • We raid on days that the guild members want to raid on;
  • Most people prefer to raid 2 nights a week;
  • The Non HC Raiders would like raids to start at 8pm;
  • The HC Raiders generally like their 9pm to midnight raid times;
  • Most people want to raid Mythic;
  • A few people may be able to help assist in the running of raids;
Over the next few weeks, the Exhumed officers will be using this information to decide our Warlords schedule and that may possibly include changes to the way we are raiding for the rest of this expansion as we make the transition between the 2 expansions.

If you'd like to part of Exhumed, on Shadowsong EU, please check us out at http://www.exhumed-guild.co.uk/  and if you like what you see, register and apply to join.


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Sunday, 23 February 2014

Siege of Orgrimmar: Disco Style Pt4

Tips:
Instead of the Sunday Screenshot, today I present you with the final installment of my Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar (for previous parts see: Pt1, Pt2 and Pt3).

Siegecrafter Blackfuse

This fight I hate, nothing really seems to shine on the fight. Even Spirit Shell is quite weak because people have a tendency to be spread too far apart. That said, the best time to use it is just before the Automated Shredder uses Overload.

For the level 90 talent run with Halo or Cascade they both reach those spread far from you. I prefer Halo, for those times you get bombs.

I use Void Tendrils exclusively when raiding because Psyfiend and Dominate Mind are totally useless and this fight is one of the rare times the level 15 talents are useful because you can root the mines.

Paragons of the Klaxxi

This fight is pretty unremarkable in terms of talents and glyphs as it presents my raid team with very little challenge.

This allows me to spend all the fight healing via Atonement or casting Prayer of Healing on the mêlée group to load them up with Spirit Shell.

Twist of Fate is a must because of the constantly dying bosses and/or adds. As for the level 90 talents I choose Divine Star for mêlée heavy raid compositions and Halo when we're not.

Garrosh Hellscream

Because of the number of adds being killed I run with Twist of Fate it really pays off on the last phase of the fight as when you need the bigger heals and extra DPS you're golden. Because of the neat stack of ranged, my level 90 talent of choice is Divine Star because of the positioning we use I get high damage and high healing output from it.

During the 1st phase damage is light. and the DPS is better used killing Garrosh and the adds, wasting a DPS on the Siege Engineer hurts the raid so I am responsible for killing him.

I can keep the tanks in range for healing while waiting for him to spawn and can shield myself when the opposing Iron Star hits the wall. As I stack crit, if I'm lucky Penance and Holy Fire will kill it and a Smite covers the time when I'm unlucky.

During the intermission phases use Atonement as the damage is negligable until Garrosh and keep Prayer of Mending up, PW: Shield up and  use Divine Star on CD. If you'[re lucky he won't cast Annihlate on you and you can stop and cast heals, Prayer of Healing is best.

In phase 2, I group up with the rest of the ranged and continue to use Atonement and focus on the desecrated weapon or the main kill target if the weapon is down. When mind controls come in help DPS them down, if your raid is lacking interrupts use fear to interrupt if you glyph it. During the Whirling Corruptions, Spirit Shell on both mêlée and ranged groups if he gets empowered Whirling Corruption pick up your add and kill it.

When he enters phase 3 it is really show time. It shouldn't need saying but don't neglect Prayer of Mending and PW: Shield everyone you can, you should have the mana to do this but the phase shouldn't last long if you don't.
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Friday, 7 February 2014

Siege of Orgrimmar: Disco Style Pt3

Tips:
It has been a few months since we hit the streets of Orgrimmar and it is a bit overdue but here is my Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar (for previous parts see: Pt1 and Pt2 ).

Malkorok

Halo is awesome here, use it on cooldown and I find alternating my position between the middle and the outer edge provides the best throughput due to it healing for more the further you are from the heal target and if it crits I can easily get 1.5m per cast.

Spirit Shell before the pull and halo on the pull. Spirit Shell again before Blood Rage and use Power Word: Barrier when all are stacked up for Blood Rage.

Power Word: Shield also gets a lot of use here and is especially good for puddle soakers and Penance is very good for fast restoration of the shield to anyone with a red or missing shield.

Atonement is almost worthless on the fight and should only be used when everyone has a green shield and Spirit Shell is on cooldown. Because I run at low spirit levels, I have mana issues on this fight and therefore will use Hymn of Hope early and hope to get a second one in if needed (which usually doesn't happen as my raid has some good DPS.

Talent wise I run with Divine Insight because I am using Power Word: Shield a lot. For the level 90 talent, as I mentioned at the start Halo is the best choice.

Spoils of Pandaria

As with all adds based fights, Twist of Fate is a very good because of Atonement and therefore you should spend most (if not all) of the fight smiting your enemies!

I also love Halo because adds and allies are often spread around the room especially as it will be boosted by Twist of Fate.

Other useful tips are to use Spirit Shell when Massive Mogu appear and to use Power Word: Shield when people get Set to Blow especially if you have Body and Soul.

Thok the Bloodthirsty

As Halo was your awesome level 90 talent on Makorok, Divine Star is the goto option on Thok as the raid is all stacked up often and as long as you stand back from the group it will hit all of the raid twice which not only heals them all for massive amounts AND puts a big fat juicy Divine Aegis on them too!

As an added bonus, if you get spell locked, you can still use Divine Star

Eventually you will get to the point where you can only cast instant spells and at that point as a Disco priest that means spamming Power Word: Shield like it was ICC all over again!

Save your Spirit Shell for when your paladin uses Devotion Aura and use Inner Focus just as it fades as you are immune to silence for 5 seconds when using it, this will give you a full 11 seconds of immunity to interrupt/silence and will allow you to get the maximum out of Spirit Shell when your raid needs it most.
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Sunday, 19 January 2014

Siege of Orgrimmar: Disco Style Pt2

Tips:
It has been a few months since we hit the streets of Orgrimmar and it is a bit overdue but here is part 2 of my Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar (see here for Pt1).

Galakras:
I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the number of adds to smite means a lot of time in the buff zone and Halo because the raid tends to be spread out and as well as healing your raid it will hot the adds and any friendly NPCs that have taken damage which helps pad out the meters and make other healers cry ;p

 My team sends everyone up the first tower to clear it real fast but if your team doesn't as a priest you should be assigned to tower healing as a single mass dispel will cover everyone who goes up on the first tower (slap your raid leader if he refuses to send a priest up) and levitate will help negate the fall damage on the way down (and save your butt if you're foolish enough to get knocked off!.

On the pull use Spirit Shell to mitigate the raid wide damage from the first set of adds that come down the hill.

I also like to use Leap of Faith as when the Demo is incoming I move to the top of the left hill near the tower door, allowing me to heal the raid, smite the demo and save the tank the long rungiving him more of a head start on threat as we move up the tower before the DPS.

The damage after Galakras has landed rises quickly and you'll need as many cooldowns as you can through out. If you use Spirit Shell first, you may get a second one out near the end of the fight.

Iron Juggernaut:
I tend to run with Divine Insight as there are no adds here and I use shields a lot on this fight especially on the bomb soaker. I also run with Halo as my raid often gets spread all over the battlefield on this fight. If your raid is a bit more disciplined Cascade is the best option.

Just before Siege Mode getting out a Spirit Shell gives awesome reults other than that it is a simple Smite/Atonement fight.

Dark Shaman:
My guild uses the 3 tank strategy on this one so my set up depends if I am assigned to the main group (who tank Hadromm and the wolves up the alley to the Drag) or the Kadris 3 man group in the main area infron of Gromash Hold. Regardless of which group I'm in I spend most of the fight using Atonement and as we're hugged up I use Divine Star and as I don't spam PW: Shield I use Power Infusion

If I'm in the 3 man Kadris group in the main arena I run with Halo as things are a lot more spread out and it is good for wiping out the Foul Slime and Divine Insight as I tend to spam PW: Shield a bit more on the 3 of us. Also I switch out my Glyph of Holy Fire for the Glyph of Binding Heal as there are times when it can get a bit hairy.

General Nazgrim:
I spend most of the fight Atonement healing and there a re loads of adds so I take Twist of Fate as my level 75 talent as the uptime of the 15% healing buff is very high. 

Because the raid is spread out all over the room and the adds are also randomly placed I always opt for Halo and I position myself in the middle of the room so I never have to move too far to get the max range from most people. 

Also, I aim to be stacking Spirit Shell when the boss hits 65 rage so that when he hits 70 rage and casts War Song maximum damage is mitigated and if you can hit a Halo just after it hits your raid will be in great shape.
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Sunday, 12 January 2014

Siege of Orgrimmar: Disco Style Pt1

Tips:
It has been a few months since we hit the streets of Orgrimmar and it is a bit overdue but here is part 1 of my four part Discipline Priest's Guide to healing 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar.

Immerseus:
Surprisingly this is a lot more disc friendly than I and many others anticipated. Due to the size of the room we 3 heal this fight which also helps deal with the ever increasing number of friendly adds near the end of the fight.

I tend to run Twist of Fate here because the boss spends a lot of time at low HP and so does them friendly adds that need healing.healing adds and Halo because the room is huge and the adds start a fair distance away which means you can heal for around 200k and also hit the nasties for around that too.

During the boss phase simply atonement heal while avoid the Swirl and the Sha Puddles and build up Evangelism.

During the adds phase stand close to the boss and position yourself near a big stack of adds, early on this will most likely be many unfriendly adds and if you're lucky 3 friendly adds. When the adds become targetable unleash Inner Focus, Archangel and Halo. If you let a friendly one escape, you can void shift one per fight and also Leap of Faith one to you every 2-3 waves.

You can also assist with the DPS by using Void Tendrils and smiting if there are no more healing ones.

Fallen Protectors:
I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the number of adds to smite means a lot of time in the buff zone and Divine Star because my raid team tends to hug up.

Dispel bane and use mass dispel to clear a few of the raid. PW:Shield Garrote/Sha Sear/Inferno Strike victims and use Spirit Shell when Sun hits 70% and 37% and Power Word: Barrier inside her bubble and as you'll be spending a lot of time atonement healing, you should try to time your Archangel with the Desperate Measure phases of all three bosses as this is the most healing intensive time.

Norushen:
I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the number of adds to smite means a lot of time in the buff zone and Halo because it makes you super fast in clearing the phased realm out.

I always grab the first orb (along with one of our tanks) allowing me to clear my Corruption as it buffs not only our healing, but your DPS which in turn means Atonement heals for more!

As soon as you enter the phased realm hit halo. This will do a ton of healing to the 3 friendly NPCs as well as a fair chunk to the add. From there I simply smite my way to victory and unless I get the debuff, if the NPCs get the debuff I find my atonement keeps them up anyway and get out in 20-30 seconds.

Once out of the realm you should still kill the adds as these will stack up if you don't help the DPS clear them.As raid damage is high throughout the fight I use Spirit Shell on cooldown.

Sha of  Pride:
I tend to run  Twist of Fate because of the increased damage taken by the raid once the boss hits 30% and Divine Star because we're stacked up and if timed well can also hit the adds from Self Reflection.

Use Spirit Shell after the prison phase as this will reduce the swelling pride damage and also just before the Sha of Pride hits 30% so that when he casts Unleashed to kill Norushen much of the damage is mitigated.

I also like to switch out my Glyph of Holy Fire to Glyph of Purify as I don't need the range and I may potentially have to spend the whole fight dispelling!
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About the Author

By day I'm an IT Server analyst for a major telecoms compnay in the UK and I've been playing World of Warcraft since November 2005 when a pair of colleagues bullied me into playing! I have evolved into a raider (summer 2006), an auction house wheeler dealer (2007), a guild officer (2007), an altoholic (2008), a raid leader (2008), a Warcraft blogger (2010) and a PVPer (2012)

My main has, and always will be Evlyxx, a priest and I love to heal. I started as Holy in vanilla, dabbled with the shadow side during the middle part of Burning Crusade, before returning to Holy but I have been mostly Discipline since mid-Wrath.

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