Early tips on Cataclysim 5-mans

I haven't had time to write up anything about Cataclysm experiences, but a number of other bloggers are squeezing in some posts.

Lissanna has an awesome picture of a "fail tree". I'm feeling like a fail tree lately, when Arthus seemed easier to heal than a 5-man! She's has a large number of good tips. Just to quote one:

Start relying on Nourish & Healing Touch: People want to avoid these because they are slow. However, did you see how big everyone’s health pools got? The increasing of Health Pool size means that these two spells are how you will keep your tank alive in 5-mans (and raids!).

Kirstimah suggests using Clearcast strategically:

Malfurion's Gift. This has been a lifesaver on mana. Roll Lifebloom on the tank and use the Clearcasts to bring up the dps. I am not doing heroics yet, but so far this strategy is working well for normals.

This plays in well with the larger health pool: stop twitch reacting, rely on your dpsers health pools to keep them alive for a while, and heal them at the opportune moment. I hope healing stays like this for a while. I'm sure mana will be plentiful in a tier or two, but having to think strategically adds some fun to it.

Finally, Qieth has some quips for moonkin raiders. I chuckled at this:

Healing is.. OH MY GOD!
One thing I did notice is the apparant change of play for the healers. We are no longer seeing ourselves getting spammed up whenever we lose 1% health. Healers are much more conservative with their mana, and even then, they are struggling to keep everybody alive.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one.

Hang on to those quest rewards while leveling

Ohken is at level 83 now, and I've grabbed I think three quest rewards at this point. Tier 10 gear is simply good enough that I haven't needed to replace it. Plus, disenchant materials sold very well over the last week. Why not hang onto the tier 10 and make a bunch of money while at it?

I'll tell you why. The dungeon finder tool uses average ilvl to decide if you are geared enough for a dungeon, but it doesn't take into account whether the gear is green, blue, or purple! I've reached the point, now, where I can't queue for randoms.

I've learned a couple of things, though, about how ilvl is computed. If you go to the dungeon finder and select "specific Cataclysm dungeons", you can mouse over the individual dungeons and see what the game considers to be your current ilvl. Here are two interesting things about that computation:

1. It includes everything in your bags. When I get an item, it goes up. When I disenchant an item, it goes back down.
   
2. It doesn't correct for duplicates. I had two waist items, and then I disenchanted one of them, and my level went back down.
   

The good news is that the ilvl requirements are rather mild. However, I wish I'd hung onto more quest greens now. I'll definitely do so on my later characters.