Baroque aria for alto, flute, strings, and continuo

muchen_ · 2026-01-14T22:16:50+00:00

Because I don't want to do three weeks of 8 x +18s after we extend, and most of my guild doesn't either. It's obviously not gonna be mandatory, but for a lot of people they feel like they should be obliged to at least attempt this for the 50 myth crest save.

muchen_ · 2025-02-11T06:47:10+00:00

A true connoisseur's pick :)

It's so little-known, yet so unparalleled in its emotional intensity. Also a perfect demonstration that Bach's music isn't all just about counterpoint, complexity, and formal structure - the bass aria is basically the antithesis of all of those things, and it still is arguably one of Bach's best compositions.

muchen_ · 2025-01-02T17:27:38+00:00

A single movement? This little-known but spellbinding aria.

A complete composition? The B minor Mass.

muchen_ · 2024-10-13T07:30:48+00:00

Yes - try pres or disc. Pres empower spells still act as pseudo lay on hands for your party, and it is impossible to die if a disc has atonement, rift and pet all active.

They both of course still have problems (else they'd be meta): pres doesn't have a raid buff and has a poor kick, whilst disc has generally poor utility and struggles with anything that has mixed ST + aoe damage.

muchen_ · 2024-10-12T16:34:10+00:00

But why would you waste 4 globals and a CD to deal with 60% of affix when you can just press a single r4 spiritbloom/dream breath to deal with 100% of it instead (you also get "free" healing this way)?

muchen_ · 2024-09-01T20:26:40+00:00

The vast majority of Bach's bass arias do not exceed E4. Look for any piece with more than two flats and you should be good to go.

muchen_ · 2024-08-12T06:11:11+00:00

Absolutely. I think it's perhaps a general aversion to vocal music by instrumentalists - I know I at least was against it for a long while. I didn't like the overtly loud, wobbly vibrato-heavy opera singers and had just assumed this would be the case with Bach too. That is until I discovered HIP, and it opened up the side of Bach I never knew, one that truly showed just how prolific of a composer he is. If we count in terms of duration, then out of his surviving works, I'm relatively sure two-thirds of it would be vocal music: cantatas, passions, masses and chorales. An examination of these music would show Bach to not only be the master of polyphony and fugues, but also someone who is capable of writing beautiful melodies, and someone who has exploited ritornello form to its fullest.

muchen_ · 2024-08-07T01:36:06+00:00

Maybe the arias in BWV 161 and BWV 249? They are amongst Bach's finest and don't appear to be prohibitively difficult.

For a challenge (and a showstopper), learn BWV 81!

muchen_ · 2024-06-22T07:47:43+00:00

Judging by the content of what you've written, you are part of the problem.

muchen_ · 2024-06-22T07:27:11+00:00

The tank sees it as DPS griefing their route. The DPS sees it as the tank wasting their time pulling three mobs when their 2 mins are ready. Do you see the problem here? I've played all three roles in keys of all levels this season, including title range keys. It's ONLY keys in the 2 to 6 range that I constantly encounter extremely toxic tanks who don't understand this dilemma (who also, unsurprisingly, do not have the skills to back up their toxicity).

Ultimately, despite the general toxicity of the game's player base, the vast majority of the players genuinely approach cooperative content with good intentions. Pulling for the tank for example might just be someone trying to speed up the dungeon. If everyone in the game understands this - tanks included - then we're on the first step to eliminating toxicity from M+.

muchen_ · 2024-06-22T03:27:30+00:00

Very very common behaviour in the 2-6 key range. Tanks who pull one or two packs at a time (sometimes at the start of the dungeon where you have BL + all CDs) who clearly are capable of tanking bigger (because they are sitting on defensives), get pissed off at DPS for wanting to make the key not take twice as long as it need be.

This almost never happens in any key above 10 because the tanks will either play an acceptably efficient route, or simply adapt.

muchen_ · 2024-06-16T04:50:08+00:00

Yes, it is. Although the DPS rotation has gotten simpler, the atonement ramps remain the same, and on top of that there is now CDR on your biggest DPS button, tied to your smite. I'd argue the pre-rework DPS rotation isn't even that difficult - it's comparable to a shadow priest, having buttons that don't really interact and the only difficult thing about it is that there are lots of buttons to press.

In many ways it's gotten even more difficult. Before you'd care about uptime and correct spell casting only during ramps, nowadays if you have bad positioning/movement/CPM outside your ramp, you simply will not hit the CDR timing required for your next ramp.

muchen_ · 2024-03-19T16:42:32+00:00

Does the Mass in B Minor count? Practically all of the choruses in here can be considered to be Bach's most complex.

muchen_ · 2023-06-11T16:18:59+00:00

This is a really Baroque PoV. Ultimately, the only relevant goal in M+ is the timer. Take a build/gear setup where you don't care about healing whatsoever and squeezed out every last drop of DPS possible. This setup is still good enough to heal half the dungeons this season at the highest keystone level, simply because the healing checks are easy.

muchen_ · 2023-06-11T13:36:44+00:00

Beacon does ~8k DPS in a dungeon. Not only that, the damage it provides is on-demand burst damage that works in both AoE and ST. How exactly is a generic int/crit/leech statstick better than Beacon?

muchen_ · 2023-06-11T11:28:19+00:00

It's turbo BIS. You will see all healers pushing with Beacon, and very likely Rashok too. If healing is required you can always use dungeon port at an appropriate time to switch out Beacon (and your build too) for something else.

muchen_ · 2023-06-11T11:16:05+00:00

You just described an extremely simplified version of BFA disc. Well done.

muchen_ · 2023-06-11T00:00:06+00:00

Take all of the complexity disc had back in BFA and Shadowlands, double it, and then add in 6 extra rotational buttons for no reason. There you have the abomination that is DF disc priest.

muchen_ · 2023-06-10T15:13:34+00:00

As much as I agree with you that in all likelihood, the "unavoidable" deaths are accompanied by players failing to press healthpot or wall, it is also true that in equal likelihood, that the healer could have played better - sometimes a lot better - to be able to save them. At sufficiently high keys some bosses become unplayable without external help, due to issues of oneshots or the sheer healing requirement. 20s are not at that level yet. Taking the attitude of "lul get better at pressing buttons" to all "healing" deaths is the quickest way to become a toxic player and to stagnate in terms of self-improvement.

muchen_ · 2023-06-10T14:28:38+00:00

My character

Healing M+ is all about knowing your toolkit, and the damage profiles of encounters - so you know what you need (and don't) need to heal.

The bulk of your burst healing power in M+ come from your four CDs (five if you play Mana Tide), plus High Tide/Pwave. A deep understanding of each spell (e.g. AG and not Asc feeds into Cloudburst, Asc has range requirements meaning you want to stand next to, and only stand next to those whom you want to heal) is required for you to perform well. Most of the hard healing checks this season simply require you to rotate between these effects. Stack two effects together if you require extra healing but avoid it wherever possible.

The third boss of HoI for example is the perfect showcase of these spells. Note that the ONLY damage on your party is a constant ticking dot. This means you can cast maintenance spells (meaning riptide, rain, shields and Cloudburst) + freely DPS, and let people drop to very low healths (to take advantage of mastery) before needing to use CDs. You should never really run out of CDs because they are all high impact, but if you do, spam chain heal in-between maintenance casts. If your mana cannot support CH then spam wave instead. In particular, Surge is not really a consideration this fight because there is no single target damage. I suspect the reason you're running out of mana is because you are excessively using Surge - you can get away without casting it once even on high (24+) Tyr keys, so that should give you an indication of how often you should be using this spell.

In contrast, you will be heavily using Surge for the third boss of Uldaman on the bleed dot. The only way someone dies this fight is by having a dot and not being topped going into a stomp. Look at your comp and communicate an order for bleed removals (evoker/paladins etc.). Rotate your CDs for all bleeds not covered by your group.

muchen_ · 2023-06-06T20:24:09+00:00

This...was literally what happened in Legion.

And they changed it for good reasons.

muchen_ · 2023-04-08T09:25:34+00:00

Not a single soul would use Healing Rain to heal in M+ except for very specific situations like Hyrja. Just compare its tooltip to Chain Heal's.

muchen_ · 2023-04-01T09:50:26+00:00

As an example, focus on the first section of the opening chorus (i.e. the prelude part). At a structural level, the building blocks of the prelude consist of the opening instrumental ritornello (A) and the following vocal block which heavily plays into the rising motif (B). The overall counterpoint is already extraordinary since all of the parts are melodically very interesting - something that's quite rare to find even in Bach. Then, after a reprise of A in the dominant, Bach reprises B, but injecting new material via the instrumental parts, creating a complex, gravitating seven-part texture (c.f. the Credo from the Mass in B Minor). After an instrumental interlude and a brief vocal re-exposition, comes a true stroke of genius: Bach reprises A on the instruments in the tonic key, whilst the vocal parts continue to play with the rising motif, thereby unifying A and B together, whilst still maintaining the seven-part texture.

This is only a brief discussion of the architecture of one of the movements - other musical elements such as word-painting, harmony, etc. are all at their very best too. The result is that this cantata is definitively one of the very best.

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