Ok, this is the last I'm going to post about the Flash vs Light controversy. Standing by my lonesome last night with zero buffs, the difference between Flash (with [Libram of Light], +83 healing to Flash) and Light (with [Libram of Absolute Truth], +27 mana or [Libram of Mending], 22mp5 for 10 sec per cast) is 411 hp/cast. Now, if I didn't care about mana, I could use [Libram of the Lightbringer], +87 healing to Lights, but that only reduces the difference to 407 hp/cast.
So using the example from the previous post, by rotating in rank 4 Lights to keep Light's Grace going, you're going to heal 48.9k hp less than if you had used all Flashes. Now, for perspective, the total healing for an evening of raiding can be in the range of 1,500k hp. Or in other words, you could have healed the MT back to full health about 2.3 times. This isn't a staggering amount, but it is something.
That Libram of Mending, available for 20 blue heroic hats from the centrally located Shatt wind chime, is pretty shiny. I honestly hadn't looked at it much before today, mostly because it says "Light" in the description. That book is much better than the Libram of Absolute Crap, since it gives 44 mana back over 27. If you are doing fine on the healing but running low on mana most fights (while using full consumables), this might be the ranged slot filler for you.
Going back to my example in the previous post, this puppy would net you about 5k mana over the course of an evening just from keeping Light's Grace up. That's an extra pot or two. Not bad. :)
Ultimately, though, I'll just keep doing my Flash thing until I hit something where I need a significant number or consistently timed big heals. I could see this useful on a fight like Chromaggus where you know exactly when heavy burst damage is about to hit. Sadly, we not longer farm him.
Last night the bracers I need dropped for the 2nd time ever off of Winterchill. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the raid and they are now gracing the healing set of a ret paladin. A total paladin ring dropped, too, with crit and +healing. I'm not saying I would have taken it, but by still not being in the raid, I didn't even have the option of turning my nose up at it. /sigh
On the subject of loot... I help with the majority of the recruting our guild does. I manage the recruitment posts, put the applications up, and at least sit in on the majority of interviews. One common pledge from applicants comes up time and time again: "I just want to let you know that I raid because I want to see content. It's not about the loots." This is where I check to make sure I'm not keyed up, and then laugh for like 30 sec. Why? Because it's a bold-faced lie that no one in the vent channel believes for a second. You may not be a loot whore and always pass items to people for bigger upgrades, but raiding it most certainly about the gear.
It has to be about the gear or your group will never progress. Do you think Illidan's going to give you a grand tour of BT because you claim to not want the T6 chest? Just be sure you have the T5 or equivalent on before you ask him, ok?
For me, the instant gratification part of raiding is the loot. Yes, downing bosses makes me feel great, but that's a long-term objective. In order to do that, you have to kill many other bosses over and over before your group is ready. Loot is something you can be excited about for every boss, no matter how many times you've fought him. But then again, I'm also the person that loves opening chests, prospecting ore, getting lock boxes opened, and waiting with baited breath to see what a boss has forked over just for the surprise of it. And then I madly rush to try everything on.
1 year ago
5 comments:
Loot whore IMO.
PS - I missed your mad heals last night. Just wasn't the same without you in the raid. I think the mages were griping too because the healers weren't saving them when they pulled aggro on multiple mobs with AoE. L2notpullaggro I'd say, but then again I don't play a mage and thus don't understand their deeply arcane ways.
Have you played around much with the Libram of Mending yet? I've seen that lying around, and have the badges to go buy one, if I wanted. Is 22MP5 really that useful, and would you recommend it for Karazhan raiding over a libram that adds healing to FoL and HL? Or is it six in one, half dozen the other?
And as someone who was watched Maiden drop everything but her healing mace, and watched Chess drop everything but the healing shield, I feel your pain, Val. Statistics is a cruel mistress.
I take exception with that Retribution paladin. I tend to take a different bent on off-spec armor than most. For the longest time I've passed on armor that either fails to increase my survivability or gives no useful stat buffs. Most people I run with would rather see an off-spec armor piece go to a group member than shard it, but I'd rather get the shard. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the armor ends up sitting in my bank forever, just taking up space. I forget about it in a week, and - surprise, surprise - since I never wake up in the morning and think to myself "you should give Protection a shot," it continues to collect dust.
Well la-dee-freakin'-da.
If it's an upgrade for him, that's great. If he's just taking it because "maybe I could heal sometime," he needs to take a long walk off a short pier.
@Jim: I think the issue last night was me and C were both on standby while Z (who DC's every 5 min for MH) was in. Had I known that C was also sitting out, I would have demanded a raid spot.
C, X, and I tend to be the most aggressive healers in the raid, with B probably coming up close behind. C is also the only CoH priest, so that's a ton of healing not present.
Mages and warlocks tend to tank a bunch of stuff and the aggro jumps around between them. I'm not sure how they're supposed to not end up with at least one on them, though. There's just so many mobs.
X also complained to me that wipe protection wasn't being managed and there was some running back involved. :(
@Chris: I don't own the Libram of Mending because I have a 0.9% chance of casting Light. :P
For Kara, you may want to consider it unless you always run with a priest buddy (healing or shadow). But first you need to figure out what's limiting you. If it's healing, then you should be using Lightbringer. The way you can tell is if you're struggling to keep people alive with Flash the majority of the time.
But if you're blowing all your mana on Flashes, then you might want to look into Mending. Also check your total mana pool. You need enough of a base pool to give you time to regen. Also give a looksee to your average overhealing. Compare it to how you know you play. Proactive healing means you're going to OH, but it's required. But if you're just not cancelling spells when you know they're not needed, you're loosing mana for no reason.
Between all that stuff, there's a balance that works for you. :D
P.S. Keep in mind that librams tend to be locked in for a fight unless you want to wait on a bunch of global cooldowns. And then you're pretty much defeating the purpose of rolling flashes.
P.P.S. I don't mind at all that the ret got the bracers. The only thing that pains me is I would use them more, had I only been in the raid. Shards are basically worthless compared to the number of good enchants that use them. We have loads in the bank that just sit there. I'd much rather see people pick up gear. And we have had the ret step up and heal for certain bosses when some of our healers were MIA, too, even in BT.
We had to run back after our first Archimonde wipe, which sucked. The warlocks weren't to blame though, as both of them (we only had 2 locks) had used their soulstones on the previous boss Azgalor on people who were Doomed. They're supposed to do that, and where we dropped the ball was not having a DI set-up. We had two shaman, but both of their ankhs were down, possibly also from the aforementioned Azgalor fight.
Concerning the healers, I think you forget one more that I'd classify as aggresive, and that's H. In any case, it was a very good healer team since all of our healers are good. I agree it wasn't the best healer team we can possibly field, but perhaps people are a bit spoiled.
We want our raiders to pick up off-set gear, if nobody wants it for DKP. It's advantageous for our shadow priests, ret paladin, elemental shaman, enhancement shaman, and feral druids to have good healing sets just in case we are short on healers one night and need them to re-spec. Likewise, our healers and tanks pick-up unwanted DPS gear for free. It gives us more options if we have a bad raid comp, and also we don't need the void crystals.
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