[WoW] 3.1 - Ulduar

[regret]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

Which is the least brain dead healer to play? Priest of Paladin?

Priest is probably more interesting, but spamming the fuck out of the main tank on my paladin and knowing he cannot possibly die unless I go oom is pretty fun in its own right.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Having played both, I can honestly say it's a horse apiece. Paladin feels more tolerable though.

[darksensei]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

Which is the least brain dead healer to play? Priest of Paladin?

I've run a paladin and priest at level 80, and it has to be priest hands down. Paladins can do it all, but Priests have a little bit more complexity that makes them more fun. Just ask yourself would you rather use selective judgment with beacon and holy shock or choose which spell for which situation.

[brekk]

Priest is fun. Go Holy or Disc for two different good styles of healing. Or go Shadow and rock dmg meters while doing crazy AE dmg

[Zest]

Prayer of Healing is the new Chain Heal. With the way Ulduar fights are, AE damage either hits no one because they avoid it, or everyone because you can't. Prayer of Healing is your all purpose problem solver.

Go Priest.

[Deathwing]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Mmmhmm. For all that complaining about how a DK makes a better main tank there is no mention of the fact that a Druid destroys the rest as an offtank since they can basically shift and top DPS meters anytime they don't have to stand in front of a mob.

NOW THERE IS THOUGH!

You're ultimately right, but I think for the wrong reason. Full cat spec and full bear spec are far enough apart now a feral tanking an add in full cat gear and spec *might* be a liability. Plus there's only a few fights where you don't need max required tanks actually tanking all the time(Kologarn, Crazy Cat Lady, Freya, and Mimiron). Half of them are "in front" fights.

Why ferals excel in the swingman role is because agility is a great stat for both forms AND their set gear covers both forms. I'm actually a bit disappointed they made armor pen as good as they did. So both specs gear up much faster than any other tank.

And while yes, feral dps with a hysteria bitch is a sight to behold, there are a lot of fights in Ulduar that are non-ideal(or I'm doing it wrong!). I'll trash anyone on XT or Iron Council, but any fight that involves lots of target changing and/or killing lots of adds will favor frost and unholy DKs a lot more. And there are a lot of those fights along with any "in front" ones. BTW, this last paragraph is heavily influenced by my own U25 raids.

BTW, if you have a feral topping raid dps charts, he's either using FBN, or he's the 2nd coming of christ. Either way, thank him, it's not a fun spec to get used to.

EDIT: Damnit, read back a few more pages and noticed most of this was already covered, sorry. Yes, your feral can do appreciable dps with a hybrid spec and gear(KoTJ and PI are probably the most important to pick up, mangle makes a decent shred substitute). Definitely won't be topping any meters though. If you take full tank gear(minus weapon and ranged) and glyphs with a hybrid spec, a full geared, glyphed and specced cat will still do around 30% more damage. I'm not saying it's nothing, definitely an advantage to have a backup tank in the wings if your healers are that suspect, but don't act like they'll be topping meters. Just think of it as payment for your innervate and brez possibly being tied up later in the fight.

Vinen: why don't you like FBN? Why is facemauler better?

[mek]

I'm playing holy paladin now, and the spec is stupid. Use holy shock / flash heal to snipe heals on trivial fights, switch to spamming holy light on hard content. The only challenge is to decide when to move (because paladins can't heal while walking), when to Divine Plea (but you can always cancel this), and who to beacon (the only interesting question).

Priest is about 10x more complex. (Though maybe not with that new PoH, lulz.)

[Northerner]

Originally Posted by Deathwing

stuff

Our feral (dual dps spec, one is tankish but not a tank spec by any means) does pretty well. The offspec is enough to tank anything in dps gear apparentlly from 10% down or whatever. A semi-tank is a nice thing to have and a bear beats the shit out of a dpswar last-standing any day.

He is top or vanishingly close dps on any fight and miles ahead on some. We do run melee heavy of course but that's only smart right now. He also fights it out with our ret on effective healing for melee, which we intelligently push hrd. ILotP is not bad hey? I wouldn't put it up with JoL but I'm pretty sure it beats Amp Magic.

[Nirgon]

Pardon me for "tub girling" the previous dungeon tier/achievements, but I think Ulduar is a sign of the design team really taking alot into perspective in terms of class balance and raid composition. I'm really impressed atm at how fast they are reacting to changing hard modes and normal modes. Many are complaining they are only gear or dps checks, but I see them more as dungeon content mastery. I'd include in there also: gearing raid member offsets for dual spec and their knowledge of said offspecs (3 healers and 1 tank hodir, rest going dps if you really wanna get crazy). Hell, I'm glad everything was cleared on normal mode in little time. I'm especially happy they started hard and tweaked down in many cases and as a resulted bonus, in my opinion, scared off many casuals from lagging up the zone while the elitists were able to get their clears.

My only real gripe is the mimiron phase 4 bottom piece covering up the rocket void zone effect requiring a baby spice. Also, I'm quite interested in what's impedeing the Algalon kills and hoping its not just because of it being a gear check (or some stupid sarth breath mechanic!).

[Nirgon]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Which hard mode encouter is a protadin tank insufficient for? Mostly they seem to be execution fights not your tank is getting knocked into another dimension fights. I don't see a paladin tank being unable to survive steelbreakers falcon punches.

We in fact use a protadin tank for this, self clense while being spam healed is kinda nice. We felt like globals mattered.

Edit: 1 more bitch and queef. Was really close to finishing the 10man achieves, just got a late jump in the raid game. I don't see why they couldn't keep the old drake skins in at a 280% speed with the "must have a lower/average ilvl" deal in place for them. Really wanted a plagued :P.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Nirgon

My only real gripe is the mimiron phase 4 bottom piece covering up the rocket void zone effect requiring a baby spice. Also, I'm quite interested in what's impedeing the Algalon kills and hoping its not just because of being a gear check (or some stupid sarth breath mechanic!).

If you tank at max range, a big part of the ground targetting effect will be visible, so it's not really that hard. I'm more annoyed at the shitty hitbox/movement when you try to strafe around him or position him in the middle of the room for mines, he keeps trying to flank you so he moves in the shittiest position on any occasion.

[Agraza]

Shitty positioning is true of 100% of WoW content. It's the only constant issue I've had with basic combat in WoW. In EQ a mob moved exactly where I wanted him to...for a half second before the mass of melee shoved it around. In WoW it takes me backsteps, strafes, twists and turns to get a mob where I want him after one miniscule adjustment had made him rotate 90 degrees around me.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Deathwing

You're ultimately right, but I think for the wrong reason. Full cat spec and full bear spec are far enough apart now a feral tanking an add in full cat gear and spec *might* be a liability. Plus there's only a few fights where you don't need max required tanks actually tanking all the time(Kologarn, Crazy Cat Lady, Freya, and Mimiron).

IC - Eventually falls down to one mob, ideal to have a former tank putting out as much dps as possitlbe.
Yogg-Saran - No tanks for P2 ideal to have a former tank go downstairs and rape.
Thorim - P1 tank can DPS in phase 2.

It's a decent advantage on half the bosses in the zone.

[Nirgon]

How about that shit with Grobbulus and cat lady constantly repositioning themselves despite you not moving. Irksome.

[Nirgon]

Originally Posted by Pyros

I'm more annoyed at

Someone (I think they gotta be targeted too) failing to a rocket during spin up and him going apeshit and wiping the whole raid :P.