Very detailed write up on the proving grounds
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Cheiee | Date: Wednesday, 14 May 2014, 15:07 | Message # 1 |
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| Quote Healers who spent their time in Mists of Pandaria searching for that ever-elusive “triage” need not look any further than the newly-introduced Proving Grounds to get their frenzied healing fix. Set in the Temple of the White Tiger, in Kun Lai Summit, the Proving Grounds solo scenario teams up healers with a group of NPCs to battle with waves of enemies equipped a variety of healer-targeted abilities. To cap off the Bronze, Silver and Gold achievements, which you’ll need to complete in advance of putting this guide to good use, is the “Endless” trial, which is exactly what it sounds like—endless waves of mobs that get better at killing you with every wave. If you and your NPC team manage to polish off 30 rounds of baddies, a new title, <the Proven Healer> will be yours, along with … this NEW CAR!!! Okay no, not really, this isn’t “The Price Is Right”. Sorry. ANYWHO, to help lay the groundwork for Triage, The In-Game Experience, I put together some tips for you adventurous Resto Shaman out there, about builds, glyphs, best practices, and the waves themselves. Hopefully you find it useful as you set about to prove that your raid team is easily replaced by a series of AI-driven processes, who are actually coded to stand in fire. (hehe) So enjoy! And if you have any specific questions that I haven’t addressed in the various sections of the post, hit me up in the comments, and I’ll do my best to help out. For PG Endless, your focus is going to be entirely on getting the most amount of single-target healing on your group for the least amount of cost. Playing conservatively is going to be necessary because there will be some waves where you will not be able to avoid spending ½ - ¾ of your mana pool on that pull alone. So, your build is going to be the most mana conservative one out there: - Tier 15: Stone Bulwark Totem. 1 GCD for a crapton of absorb healing. Also useful for getting a Bleed to fall off immediately.
- Tier 30: Completely open. I didn’t find any of these talents to be all that particularly useful. (Earthgrab will, unfortunately, not stop mobs from burrowing).
- Tier 45: Call of the Elements. Remember: mana conservation is the name of the game. More HST’s and SBT’s = better.
- Tier 60: Ancestral Swiftness, for the 1-minute instant-cast OR Echo of the Elements, because, free healing. (I went with AS on my first one, because I knew there would be a couple times where the tank would get beat down, and with no tank CD, Restos are a little bit at a loss).
- Tier 75: Rushing Streams. There’s no contest here.
- Tier 90: Unleashed Fury. Although I did use Primal Elementalist for one of my PG Endless run-throughs, using UF was actually much easier on my mana because it meant that I could power out an HS when a tank was getting trucked (read: Conqueror waves) or use UE+HW for a powerful but mana-conservative heal.
In terms of stats, I went with a high Spirit/Crit build, with a little more Mastery than I usually favor. I dropped as much Haste as I could, knowing that the speed of my heals wouldn’t be an issue. Read the rest of the guide here thanks to life in group 5
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Cheiee | Date: Wednesday, 14 May 2014, 15:08 | Message # 2 |
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| Quote Keeping with the triage healing theme, your glyphs are likely going to be focused on getting more healing for less mana: - Glyph of Healing Wave. Yes, seriously. HW is a great mana-conservative heal and with this glyph, you don’t have to worry about healing yourself.
- (Unglyph) Glyph of Riptide. There’s no need to blanket the group in RT’s and you won’t have the mana for it anyways.
- Glyph of Chaining. Yes, still serious. Because you’re not going to be able to interrupt every AOE ability, having a group heal is going to be hugely beneficial. Your mage may creep towards melee as your rounds continue (mine actually stood in melee on a couple pulls), but the hunter remained steadfastedly at ranged the entire time, so standing in between the 2 groups will assure you get all injured targets taken care of, quickly and easily.
- Glyph of Totemic Recall. If you want to ease the mana burden on yourself, get comfortable with using this Glyph to recall your Healing Stream Totem before its 15-sec timer expires. You get a substantial amount of mana back for your efforts and get HST’s insanely powerful throughput (esp. given Rushing Streams) for free. In fact, one macro will do it all for you:
- /castsequence reset=16 Healing Stream Totem, Totemic Recall
Your first use of the macro will drop HST, and your second use (within a 16-second window) will recall the totem. After 16-seconds, the macro will reset back to HST, which will display on your bars in grey (like any CD that is actually on CD) until it is able to be used again. I’ve been using this for pretty much the entire expansion and can’t emphasize how beneficial the mana is when you’re really strapped for it.
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Speth | Date: Wednesday, 14 May 2014, 19:52 | Message # 3 |
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| didn't realise there was that much to it - haven't really tried proving grounds that much
has anyone else?
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Cheiee | Date: Thursday, 15 May 2014, 09:13 | Message # 4 |
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| I have all three basic medals, Bronze-Silver-Gold.
They were pretty tough to get and took many attempts. For Healers, you can't drink between waves, managing mana is a nightmare. I've tried Endless and so far haven't been able to get past wave 5. I recently read that tier piece bonus' legendary meta gem and legendary cloak procs don't work. It's advisable to take other gear into the challenge with normal gems. Spirit is key for Healers here, re-forge and gem with that in mind.
Here is a nice write up for Disc Priests
I've also tried Bronze on my Warrior Tank and passed first try. It seems that the Healing one is very class dependent, some classes really struggle and others have no issue. I don't know if it's the same for Tank and DPS challenge but I had no problem with the Tank one and I am not a good Tank, so if anyone wants a few more achievs get them now before WoD drops.
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Cheiee | Date: Thursday, 15 May 2014, 12:26 | Message # 5 |
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| Restorative amber - sold by the Klaxxi's - requires Honoured.
Not sure if it is the same as potions with regards to combat. Apparently they are must have items in challenge modes and the Proving Grounds.
Nice macro for them:
Quote I find this item very useful. Quick Healing/Mana restoring inside instances between fights.
I made a Macro for it that allows you to quickly cancel this item once you've used it, much easier than right clicking on the buff. Hold Shift to Cancel the item if you use this Macro. Code #showtooltip Restorative Amber /cancelaura Restorative Amber /stopmacro [mod:shift] /use Restorative Amber
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Speth | Date: Thursday, 15 May 2014, 12:42 | Message # 6 |
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| ahh nice - pretty much solo version of challenge modes then, with gear scaled down
will have to give it a shot - and it's going to be required before you can queue for heroics in WoD I think i read
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