Sarth +1 drake and New arenas

I must say Sarth plus 1 drake is one of the toughest and most fun things in the game for me right now. While frustrating at times, I am glad to see something that is giving us a challenge.

I personally cannot decide what drake I would prefer up. The one with the adds has the less trouble... we just have to get the drake down before he spawns a second set of adds. One set and we can keep the OT up... two sets and we wipe. With the drake that has the portal keeper... the damage is insane, it gets very clumped up with flame walls, red circles, adds and two large dragons breathing bad things.

Yet I find more enjoyment wiping on this encounter than I do from one shotting Malygos or something like that. This reminds me of the days when my guild used to work on 40 man Ragnoros. That took over 40 wipes to learn thta encounter.

On to arenas.

The new arena system seems a little funny, but I am not completely against it yet. It seems you can lose less or more points than you win. This hidden rating takes into account your skill, gear, and old rankings. While this has a great potential it will take a while to iron everyone out.

My games with Ellevis have been overall improving, although we have issues with rogues/healer teams. Poisions tend to be the bane of our existance. We even seem to have mage/rogue teams figured out... at least the bad ones. I think we will get our rating up to some deadly gear (set gear) in a week or so depending on how much time we have to give it.

Patch day

Well there goes circle of healing. I actually dislike holy, mostly because I never find myself out of the 5sr. I tend to like keeping people topped off rather than waiting to land the big heal... and that is what holy is all about.

My greater heal when holy spec lands for about 10-11K and crits for 15-17K. This is 1/3 or 1/2 of my main tanks health. I tend to freak out when I see my MT's health that low and I end up wasting mana. So in the end this nerf to CoH is actually good for me. It almost solidifies my spec as PvE disc or PvP Disc. I might run holy here and there just for a change... but it is highly doubtful.

That being said patch day also brough with it some new pvp gear which is exciting to me. As a disc priest it has never been easy to gear up for +hit. Missing mass dispels and clutch fears has always been a pet peeve of mine so I told myself once I can survive a little my next goal was to get +hit. with the new trinket My resil is at 1007. Sweet I will consider that survivable. Now the other awesome part comes with the new boots and helm. Instead of taking the +haste boots and helm I snagged the +hit ones and I now have 100 +hit! I was super stoked to be able to get that and still keep the resil and stam up.

PvP should be a little better in my little priest world with the nerfs out there against the other DPS classes.

Finally I have come to a happy conclusion about arenas and the way PVE is now tying into them. Due to how easy it is to get PVE gear the arenas are being governed by the people with 25 man raid weapons and gear. Thus I am facing warriors and mages and rogues with the best weapons out there in terms of DPS. Even the deadly weapons and gear are a downgrade in DPS for them now... so in terms of survivability I am already seeing the worst of it. While I am not happy with 9K crits from multiple classes I can say I am happy to realize that even when the really good arena teams get their weapons... I still think I have a chance against them, considering theya re losing some burst.

Well I am off to show 7th graders the sun and hopefully not burn anyones eye out.

Resilience at the moment

I was a little disturbed about a post today by Ghostcrawler:

"Second, when nobody has resilience gear, it allows for a strategy where you can just burst players down in a couple of GCDs. Since the attacks never take much damage, resilience isn't highly valued. What will happen is that once some players start to get resilience, everyone will have to. Once the healer (to use an example) can't be destryoed in a couple of GCDs, the attackers are in a very weak position from the rest of the healer's team. It's an arms race in essence. Once one person putson their survival gear, everyone has to."

I am currently pushing 800+ resil and 22K hp (with my stam buff) and still getting run through in a matter of seconds with a well organized burst team. So the question is... will 400 resilience be enough to get me through the burst. I honestly do not think so. Now granted I am talking about disc priests... who are at the moment the worst healer in arenas past 2v2. I can still hold a little ground in 2v2 at the moment. but 3v3 and 5v5 it is insta gib.

At the moment rogues are getting a lot of attention with the burst they have, but the real class right now that needs attention in pvp... mages. the rogue can burst quicking, but is limited by how many outs they have. mages... have more snares, pets, pets with snares and cc, and now stuns while dishing out 4K non crit and 7.9k crits on me with 800res. Throw in a counterspell while casting after the 15K shatter combo and i cannot cast for 8 seconds while stuck in a nova (for the 10th time). The real power of the rogue is the other player on the team. once the rogue is focused it is gg... but with the mage needing to be focused and controlled, the rogue becomes a huge secondary burst.

so to finish i will point out that in no way shape or form will another 400 resilience help the burst against my disc priest at the moment. the real problem in pvp are the roots, snares silences and stuns. i couldnt tell you the last time i remember getting a single cast heal off. that is what i miss about pvp right now. being able to use the skills my class has without being stun, or spell locked out for 15 seconds.

Where it gets thrown down.

This blog has been created for a few reason.

1. I need a place to vent.
2. I need something to do at work.
3. Arenas make me a sad panda.

More to follow.