League Analysis: Summoner Clairvoyance

Summoner spell removal isn't anything new. Season(s) ago, other summoner spells existed within the game until they were removed, with Surge as the most recent with the Season 3 changes. More recently, the summoner Revive was slated for removal when Season 4 came along. The result of this was an uproar stating that it reduced creative play, so while it may have been removed for a time a few months before, it is back with a new icon to boot. However, given some recent changes, I find there may be a problem with another summoner that is barely ever used. As the title may suggest, I am referring to Clairvoyance.

The current icon for Clarivoyance, as found on the wiki.

The Problem(s)

It's strange that Clairvoyance hasn't particularly seen a lot of use. I remember back in the days of Season 2 when supports ran it very frequently for on-demand vision. Given the recent changes in Season 4 where vision is a little more difficult to come by in the beginning (because of tank masteries for support, for instance), Clairvoyance could've had a niche for usage, though it would've fallen off later when supports got their Sightstones and the population of Stealth Wards on the map reach an all-time high. However, there are some other recent changes that hold Clarivoyance back from being a useful summoner besides ones that have existed for a while (i.e. combat summoners enhance combat potential and are thus more desirable).

• Eleisa's Miracle reduced the cooldown of Clairvoyance, but was removed. While this was probably the right move anyways, it is effectively a nerf to Clairvoyance.
• All masteries that improved summoner spells were removed. The bonus effect for Clairvoyance greatly increased its usefulness in Season 3 by giving vision on champions revealed by the effect for a time.
• However, it is worth pointing out all summoner spells effectively got "nerfed" by this change.
• The Scrying Orb trinket is a limited version of the Clarivoyance summoner spell, which makes it an alternative to the summoner spell. Furthermore, as if to add insult to injury, the Scrying Orb and its upgrades grant vision of champions revealed by the effect for a time.

Solution(s)

With all these issues, Clarivoyance seems to be an old, out of date summoner in need of some change. There are a couple of ways to handle the problems, in my opinion.

• Firstly, Clarivoyance could be removed and the power of the Scrying Orb could be increased, such as by giving it dramatic range increases with subsequent upgrades and/or increasing the duration of the vision granted.
• Alternatively, Scrying Orb could be removed and Clairvoyance could grant vision of enemy champions for a time by default, giving the summoner spell some future potential.

Hopefully, some change is on the horizon. To be honest I don't know why Clairvoyance wasn't considered for removal given the Season 4 changes and the apparent need to try to remove Revive.

WoW Analysis: Priest's Prayer of Healing

One thing I usually try to stay away from when writing articles, despite enjoying the discussions that arise, are classes and class balance. This has especially been the case with WoW Analysis since there are usually general issues about that can be addressed. However, this short article will cover a class-related issue that has bothered me for a while mostly because while I feel there is a significant design flaw, the change I want is potentially controversial.

As the article's title suggests, I am speaking of the Priest's Prayer of Healing spell. In its current incarnation, the spell heals a single 5-man group, which means the Priest's party, half of a 10-man raid, or a a fifth of a 25-man raid. In addition, out of the targets that meet the previous criteria, they must also be within 30 yards of the initial target to receive healing. This design makes Prayer of Healing the only group healing spell that isn't a smart heal. However, while the potential solution is simple (change the healed allies from the target's group to heal based on the most damaged allies instead, excluding or including the target), with the existence of Spirit Shell, this may not be a desired change for Discipline Priests.

With that in mind, the best solution I can think of is a toggle that allows a Priest to choose between a party-heal Prayer of Healing and a smart-heal Prayer of Healing.

World of Warcraft: Quick Tips for Ordos

The Timeless Isle is a dangerous place featuring 5.4's world bosses, which serve as an excellent source of loot for almost all walks of players. This means that strategies and tips devised for the Celestials and Ordos have been done to death. However, time and time again I have noticed a few secrets and tricks remain almost unknown, while other times, basic advice is ignored. Therefore, I'm writing this brief article so I can have something to link to so I don't have to type things like "stop moving Ordos" every time I join a raid.

• Firstly, for all those who don't like running all over around the Timeless Isle to reach the Ordon Sanctuary and don't mind taking a durability hit, instead use your travel method of choice to reach the point shown above that is behind the Ordon Sanctuary. While in the Time-Lost Waters zone, you can use a flying mount to fly high into the air and skydive into Ordon Sanctuary (you still need a legendary cloak on your account). If you have any method to reduce or negate falling damage, it is highly advised (especially slowfall if you want to glide onto the platform where Ordos resides). Be careful about aggroing the boss!
• It is worth noting that if you die from trying this trick, releasing puts you in the graveyard near the Ordon Sanctuary. You can then opt to run back to your corpse and skip all the annoying trash mobs! No more Kilnmasters in the raid group.
• This shortcut helps a lot for those groups that pull the boss without summoning the entire group. It can mean the difference between getting the tag for loot and having to find another group.
• Secondly, Ordos uses an ability called Burning Soul. This ability essentially turns the target into a Baron Geddon style Living Bomb, blowing up the target and anyone nearby. However, the knockup effect can be completely by standing under the braziers on either side of Ordos (refer to the first picture). 
• Try to get on the far side of the brazier (depends on where Ordos is tanked) so you don't blow up a bunch of your raid.
• Finally, and most importantly, DO NOT MOVE ORDOS. This is incredibly important for the reasons listed below Edit: As of Patch 6.0.2 Ordos's Pool of Fire does a lot more damage overall. It's now a good idea to move the boss.
• While Pool of Fire is supposed to deal 50,000 Fire damage per second, it instead does less than a third of that damage, making it incredibly negligible for healers to heal through, thus rendering the need to move Ordos moot. The effect doesn't stack either (or from what I recall), though it may cause some major frame drops (though having Pools of Fire all over the platform probably doesn't help much).
• On that note, it is worth mentioning healers generally favor healing a stacked raid as opposed to a spread raid. Moving Ordos means the healers have to move all their ground aoe heals and so on.
• Ordos's Magma Crush ability splits damage between enemies in range of the ability. However, if Ordos is moved, the ability may only hit the tank or a few melee, instantly resulting in a lot of death.

Hopefully this will be of help to someone. I'm going to enjoy linking this every Tuesday.

League Analysis: Ruby Sightstone

Since I was but a lowly underleveled summoner, I've dabbled in the concept of supporting occasionally. While I found myself in other roles (top, jungle, mid) because I found them more enjoyable, they eventually got boring or certain champions or tactics worked less effectively in ranked. When struggling to climb through Plat 1, I switched my primary role twice: from top to mid, then from mid to support. The second switch paid off, allowing me to barely reach Diamond before the season's end.

This is only part of the story behind my move to playing the support role more. For instance, I didn't feel miserable playing support in Season 3 because of the inclusion of items like the Sightstone, allowing me to get some time to play with some ranked teams for a time. Season 4 brought changes that readjusted support income through item (and mastery) changes, motivating me to try out support even more. However, given all the Season 4 changes that came that seemed to favor the support role, the Ruby Sightstone was left behind. Why is it almost never built now given the fact it was core in Season 3? Read on...

The Issue

The first issue with Ruby Sightstone is that the passive mechanics of the item are a relic from Season 3. It has a capacity of 5 wards, which is 1 more than the Sightstone, but the notable perk of the Season 3 Ruby Sightstone was it allowed the placement of 3 wards over the Sightstone's 2 at any given time. With the Season 4 changes to vision, the 2 ward limit on Sightstone was lifted, thus essentially making a Ruby Sightstone purchase result in a 1 ward capacity increase, which isn't that useful.

Since the passive effect isn't as useful anymore, it's also worth pointing out that for a measly 600 gold, it's not worth upgrading from the Sightstone for a slight boost to the passive, as mentioned before, and 180 additional health. Furthermore, the slot efficiency of Ruby Sightstone is terrible (effectively an item that gives 360 health and about the same amount of vision control as a Sightstone), making other items far more desirable to purchase first.

The Solution

Ruby Sightstone could be a more effective purchase if its passive had more power. While I don't necessarily agree with allowing Ruby Sightstone to increase the hard cap on wards that a player can place because that would place the burden of warding back on the support when the Season 4 changes want to depart from that mentality. Instead, significantly increase the ward capacity of Ruby Sightstone so the player using it can gain a great advantage in vision wars by stalling out the usage of stealth-ward revealing tools and reducing how often the player has to recall to refill on wards. If I had to give a number on the ward capacity Ruby Sightstone should have, 7 or 8 seems like a good choice.

Increasing the stats is a nice additional option. The boost doesn't have to be so significant that the Ruby Sightstone suddenly becomes as good as another fully-upgraded item, but increasing the total price of the item to around 2000 gold and making the item grant 500 Health makes Ruby Sightstone a fairly decent upgrade without obsoleting other health items.