I'm a bit late to announce this, seeing as how we accomplished the feat on Monday night, but the Summer of Sindragosa has officially come to an end for my raiding team.


Summer is tough on all raid teams really, and we struggled as much as, if not moreso, than any other typical raiding team. As a reminder, we only raid one night a week, and only for two hours. Monday night the stars aligned so that all three of our healers were there, and everyone in the raid was now familiar with the fight. We normally two heal content, and only use our Third Healer to help us learn new fights, or when the mechanics of the fight specifically call for a third healer (i.e. Dreamwalker). Our successful strategy included our ever-flexible Shaman of Awesomeness in his healing spec, DPSing during the first phase, and healing during the second (with every innervate and Power Infusion reserved for him for his mana reserves).

The Summer and the Roster

To give you some context on how brutal summer issues can be to a raid, let's look at some numbers. When you only raid 2 hours a week, attendance issues are severely magnified, however, due to the fact that we only raid 2 hours a week, it is generally less common that we even have issues in the first place. But even we struggled with the summer blues.

• June 7th: Our first attempt on Sindragosa.
• Total number of attempts before first kill: 31
• Total number of nights we attempted Sindragosa: 5 (total amount of time spent on her is probably around 8-9 hours)
• 7 Attempts at 20% buff.
• 8 Attempts at 25% buff.
• 16 Attempts at 30% buff.

I wanted to differentiate between levels of the buff, because other guilds might have needed 40 hours or 100 attempts to take down Sindy, but made all those attempts with a much smaller buff or none at all, and I feel it would be wrong of me not to recognize that difference.

Now, to look at roster changes. We had two nights of working on Sindy before we began having roster problems, and had a role switch, most specifically of one of our tanks. While this did not have a negative impact on the fight itself, as the new tank is incredibly good, it did cause a lot of slowdown, as we felt that our new tank, who was normally a DPS, had never tanked in ICC, should get a chance to tank through the entire raid up to and including Sindragosa, so we reset. And then we had two weeks of having to sub some people, and getting new people up to speed on the fight and everything that goes along with that.

The Power of the Versatile Third Healer

So let's talk about the healing makeup. Of the five separate nights we worked on Sindragosa, 2 of those nights were with only two healers (however, on one of those nights we had a shadow priest, and that helped). This was not intentional, and certainly not what we wanted, but our SuperShaman went away for a couple of weeks to do summer things and he is completely irreplacable as it turns out.

• night 1 (7 attempts): 3 healers. Shaman, Druid, Priest.
• night 2 (8 attempts): 2 healers. Druid & Priest. (Shaman on DPS)
• night 3 (2 attempts): 2 healers. Druid & Priest. (Shaman out of town)
• night 4 (7 attempts): 2 healers. Druid & Priest, but Shadow Priest present (Shaman out of town)
• night 5 (7 attempts): alternating attempts with both 2 healers and 3, Druid, Priest, and Shaman. Our final kill had our shaman DPSing during the first phase, and healing during the second.

That means that out of 31 attempts, 19 were with only 2 healers, 8 were with 3 healers, and the 4 most successful (and finally leading to our kill) attempts had our third healer DPSing during the first phase, and healing during the second. You know what this calls for? PIE.



Okay well, I think I've gotten carried away with my entire meta-analysis of our Sindy attempts. There were a lot of factors contributing to our final kill that Fulguralis discussed in more detail. He's great at talking strats, and I'm much better at talking stats, if you will, so I tip my hat (which is the same one he wears) to his discussion of it.

I hate it when our Third Healer is gone, but I hope we are never guilty of taking his flexibility for granted. It's one thing to be willing to switch specs for different fights, but quite another thing to ask someone to switch roles so drastically during the fight itself. "Stay in your healing spec, but do damage that will be inefficient and kill your mana and is completely out of your comfort zone!" I mean, really, who asks for that kind of thing?

Me, actually. And it totally worked. Damn that kid is awesome.

I leave you with the required screenshot of a situation in which I hope to spend much less time indulging now that Sindy has died.

I know. You don't come here for math. My maths, they are bad. BUT! The other way to look at this, is if even my mathtarded self can figure this out, you can too! Hurrah!

I figured the best way to settle the socket bonus debate was to simply math it out. So, I turned to BobTurkey for the source numbers (because that is definitely waaay beyond my capabilities) since I trust him, and figure his weight values are pretty good.

So I could try and explain what I did, but spreadsheets are way cooler. Please note, these numbers are for a Discipline Priest - the numbers for a Holy Priest are different, and you should go clicky the link to BobTurkey's Theorycrafting House of Pain to figure it out (also, he does not call it House of Pain - that is merely a reference to my brain hurting).

This is what my current gem setup looks like. As you can see, Spellpower was my priority. Whenever a socket bonus required a blue socket, I used a nasty, dirty, death knight birthing Purified Dreadstone. Whenever a socket bonus required a yellow socket, I used either a Reckless Ametrine or a Potent Ametrine, depending on what boss I had just wiped on and current prices on the AH.

As a side note, if you're wondering why I choose Spirit over Mp5, the answer is simple. Both are blue gems - however, Spirit scales with Blessing of Kings, whereas Mp5 does not. In addition, though Mp5 and Spirit are roughly equal in value to a Disc Priest, Spirit is far better for a Holy Priest, and I would like to be able to use the same gear when I run Holy.

All in all, it's not bad. The total item value number thingie is approximately 454. I have no idea how BobTurkey got his numbers, because everything he wrote about that translated into "BWUH??!" in my head. Since I primarily heal the MT in ICC, I might argue that Haste has a slightly higher value to me, but I can in no way quantify that, so I don't even want to open that can of worms.

Okay, now you've seen teh maths about my current gem setup. What if I ignored all socket bonuses, and simply put a Runed Cardinal Ruby in every socket? Please note that you still need to make sure to fulfill your meta gem requirement. Since I am using Ember Skyflare Diamond, I don't even worry about it, but if you use something different (and many do), that is something you should consider.

Here is the magic spreadsheet I generated. If you want to try this method, please note that you need to check your socket bonus requirements. Unfortunately, NONE of my current gear had a socket bonus that could be satisfied purely by Red Cardinal Rubies. That is why in the (Bonus) row, every calculation is zero.

See that super yellow and red number (that hopefully matches my website)? That number cries "HAHA UR RONG NOOB" and taunts me with its additional 6 points.

The differences between these two gem setups come down to this: Ignoring socket bonuses gains me 34 spellpower, at the expense of 30 crit, 20 haste, and 20 spirit.

Unfortunately, BobTurkey has not yet provided weight numbers that quantify the amount of hair I will rip out and gold I will spend and expletives I will shriek trying to change my gems YET AGAIN. If I were a min-maxer, I would probably care more. If you are a min-maxer, maybe you DO care, so there you have it.

Does that mean that all Spellpower gems is the best solution? Not necessarily. I'm sure someone much smarter than me can come up with a formula that will tell you the best gems to pick, based on your current soft caps and raid buffs and all that jazz (I believe it's called RAWR), but now you're just being picky. I threw together an alternative gem selection that would be better than both of the previous, just to give you an example.


So here you go. If I assume that BobTurkey's numbers are ideal, the gemming for crit, spellpower, and spirit is still superior to gemming solely for spellpower. The magic number 468.594 tells me so.

It's actually a pretty simple spreadsheet to throw together if you feel so inclined, but this is the part where I give you the disclaimer.

I have the utmost faith in BobTurkey's theorycrafting abilities - but nothing changes the fact that this is theorycrafting. It assumes certain variables. If you're raiding without Replenishment for whatever reason; If you are primarily raid healing and not MT healing, and find yourself nearly always under the influence of Borrowed Time; If you don't raid and stick to 5 mans; If you raid with 24 Druids - all of these factors can change the value of these numbers for you.

If I think about all that too much, my head esplodes so I just... don't. Contrary to popular belief, I like numbers even if I am not as capable as BobTurkey and Codi in figuring out what the best numbers are. But I am also the kind of person who critiques others' research and statistics as a hobby, so I am all about encouraging people to read the numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism and realistic consideration. Dont drink and theorycraft!

ETA: One time, I made a post on the forums that some other priest disliked, so in order to pwn me hardcore, I guess he checked me out on armory in an effort to find something glaringly wrong and nooby. In the end he pointed fingers and lawled at my gem selection. At first I was insulted, and then after thinking about it, I was rather flattered. Aww, that's so cute. You couldn't find anything to criticize me for, so instead, you turned to the default criticism that you can use against anyone: YOU GEM LIKE A NOOB.

The fact is, there are several different "gemming philosophies" (though I suspect I'm one of the few people who would call it that). What people have a tendency to forget is that these gems are very small amounts. They are nice additions that you don't want to skip, but at the same time, choosing a Reckless Ametrine over a Potent Ametrine doesn't actually make that big of a difference.

The way you choose your gems will differ depending no gear level, what you are currently healing through, and whether or not you are pushing up against the hardest content available. If you are trying to conquer hard modes, you will likely have to do some min-maxing. Otherwise? It doesn't really matter, as long as you pick stats relevant to your class and spec for gemming (i.e. no strength for priests, no hit for healers).

Why am I adding this? Because I don't want you to think I am suggesting everyone should put together a spreadsheet and try to figure out the "ideal" gem selection based on stat values. My point in this little experiment was merely to show that it is completely legitimate to gem for socket bonuses - and you can even use math to back it up if you like.

Look! I'm going to do this all scientific like! Maybe if my thesis advisor runs across this, she will be proud instead of holding her head in her hands.

INTRODUCTION

Awhile back, Matticus did a little test in an effort to determine which bubble absorbs damage first, Power Word: Shield, or Divine Aegis. If I understand his methodology correctly, he essentially cast Power Word: Shield on himself as well as Divine Aegis, committed suicide by way of Molten Colossus, and examined his Combat Log to see which faded first. He tried this in various combos, proccing Divine Aegis first, and also using Power Word: Shield first. His conclusion was a "first come, first served" method. In other words, the bubble first cast/procced will be the first absorption used.

There was a comment on his post that suggested this might be inaccurate due to the way the combat log functions. I'm not really an expert on computery things, but I tend to agree with the commenter - when multiple effects occur at the same time (such as all your buffs fading when you die), the combat log has to have some order in which to list them that do not necessarily make any contextual sense. I.E. I'm not sure if this really determined which absorption works first, because everything drops off at the same time when you die, and is listed in a somewhat non-sensical way on the Combat Log. You can see this yourself if you ever note that your Combat Log may say you gained Spirit Tap before listing that you have slain a mob.

So I tried to test it too. I'm not as cool as Matt though, I didn't use Molten Colossi... I used various mobs around Icecrown while I did some dailies.

METHODOLOGY

I tested this by running around screaming wildly at mobs, standing around stoicly as they beat on me, helping them along with Shadow Word: Death, and tracking the results. Anytime Divine Aegis dissipated by timing out instead of by being fully absorbed, I threw out that result.

As a side note, self buffed, Shadow Word: Death is usually enough to make a Penance-procced Divine Aegis dissolve.

RESULTS

Both test versions were performed multiple times.

Test 1:

• Power Word: Shield first
• Divine Aegis second
• beat myself up (a la house elf)
• Divine Aegis dissolves via absorption
  
• Much much later, Power Word: Shield disappears

Test 2:

• Divine Aegis first
• Power Word: Shield second
• beat myself up (a la house elf)
• Divine Aegis dissolves via absorption (not by timing out)
• Much much later, Power Word: Shield disappears

CONCLUSIONS

Based on my not-really-very-scientific-either tests, it appears that in every scenario, Divine Aegis is used first for absorption.

However, I don't have any super fancy awesome addons that tell me how much absorption is left on each shield, so the alternative conclusion is that whatever bubble you have with the least amount of absorption value left is the one used first.

Ideally, this would be the best way for the absorption priority to work - the bubble with the least amount of absorption left gets used up first, thereby preventing it from being wasted.

DISCUSSION

The main reason I suspect this is NOT the case is due to the inability to cast a new Power Word: Shield on someone that is "less powerful" than the one they are currently wearing, even if the current remaining absorption value is lower. This is in response to a question I posted yesterday - if you've ever received the "a stronger spell is currently in effect" error message when trying to bubble someone, you have run into this scenario. When you cast your first bubble on them, your spellpower was higher via a proc, or buff, or something like that, and therefore your bubble bigger. When you go to cast another bubble on them before the current one has expired, but after weakened soul has fallen off, you are unable to do so because now your spellpower (and therefore your bubble) is lower. It doesn't matter if there is only 10 hit points worth of absorption left on your target - it uses the original value of the bubble to determine priority.

The system is not currently "smart" enough to recognize this, most likely because it doesn't do a very good job of tracking the remaining absorption value on a shield. Therefore, "whatever bubble you have with the least amount of absorption value left" is most likely NOT the first one used, because I don't think the system recognizes that.

Feel free to leave me your thoughts, criticisms, suggestions, and results of any tests you perform yourself in the comments. I may try this again with some better addons to validate the potential alternative conclusion. It's a bit tricky, because you have to be very careful with the timing.

You know, just a thought regarding my post yesterday on Divine Hymn, I also think that if you are Holy or Disc, your shadowfiend should be renamed Muse.

WELL IF WE CAN'T HAVE A BARD CLASS... Just sayin'.

So I have decided to try something dangerous and scary.... Jessabelle has respecced to Discipline. /cower

Despite the fact that I've written about healing as Disc, and that I understand it in "theory", I actually have had very few opportunities to raid as Disc. We've just always had far too many Pallies to justify it. Now I have an opportunity to take advantage of it, and I'm pumped... and nervous! Granted, my gear is directed more towards a Holy priest than a Disc priest (way more spirit and regen than a Disc priest should ever need), but I think it will be okay for the content I'm currently raiding. Besides, until I get into the swing of fanatic bubbling, I'll need some of that extra regen as a crutch, particularly in 10 mans.

Scariest thing of all... I skipped Divine Fury. My goal is to try and MT heal without using Greater Heal. We'll see how that goes... surely there are other Disc Priests who don't need to use Greater Heal? I'm now debating on whether or not this was a good move. I guess I’ll find out tonight when I get to see my Disc spec in action. Or rather, myself, in Disc spec, in action. I’m not raiding tonight, but I do have plans to hit up heroic 5 man ToC with some guildies – which is a pretty decent challenge for something easy to throw together to try out the spec.

Regardless, expect more posts in the coming days/weeks regarding an adjustment from Holy to Disc, and possibly back again.

The Habit-Healer’s Crutch

As someone who heals by habit and reflex more than anything else, the scariest part of changing specs for me is readjusting my habits. The biggest issue? My keybinds (I use Clique, for reference). When I (try to) heal on my Pally, I organize my keybinds so that they are as similar to my Priest binds as possible. Obviously, the spells are different – but some of the concepts are the same.


The above are how I currently have my keybinds set for each healer/spec/whatever. There are a couple of things you might notice.

• Left Click – My short heal.
  

• Right Click – My big heal.
  

• Middle Click – An instant cast heal. As holy priest, it has a little bit of burst healing with Empowered Renew, as holy pally, it is an instant burst heal. Thematically, it’s a bit different for Disc Priests, but my fingers know this is renew, so I don’t want to change it.
  

• Alt Right Click – My panic button combo. It’s a combo I never “accidentally” hit, so low risk of my blowing the cooldown on accident. However, no matter what healer I’m on, my fingers know that this is the combo to use when someone important is about to die.
  

• Shift Right Click – Shield of some sort. Damage Mitigation combo. Not as fitting for my Pally, but strangely enough, I think once I get myself into the habit of using this key combo more while running Disc, I’ll start remembering to use it more on my Pally as well, and work it into my rotation.
  

• Control Middle Click – Just ignore the Hands thrown in for the Pally right now, as I’m still sorting those out. But this is a problem for my Priest. I use this button all the time, obsessively, on my Holy Priest. Thus, I am a bit worried about putting Power Infusion here for my Disc Priest, because there is a very high risk I will accidentally cast it when I don’t want to. It’s likely I will move this into the combo used for Levitate or Fear Ward.

My point in showcasing my key combos like this is to give you an idea of how someone who is a habit-based healer tries to minimize potential mistakes when switching between healers. If I don’t know where a spell is in my key-combos, it can have disastrous effects as I scan my spell bars for the spell or try to open my spellbook to find it, etc. If my key-combos have vast differences in the kind of spells to which they are bound among my different healers, I will constantly be screwing up and getting confused. The key to my ability to heal well in a raid is my trigger finger response, which comes from training my fingers via pure habit.

My next step will be to organize my toolbars with my other abilities so that they are similar across healers, particularly with mana regen abilities.

So, for those of you who have multiple healers... how do you differentiate your spells in the heat of the action? Do you ever mix up spells from one healer to another?

So, the healing survey is still growing. In case you thought I just posted the questions, and let people go to town on their own blogs, I thought I would make a little post to let you know what I'm doing with mah baby.

Though I stated repeatedly that I would only include people on the list if they left me a comment... well, I'm a little too OCD to actually follow through on that. While it definitely HELPS if people leave a comment, I have been expending a lot of effort in tracking down any responses I can find to it, and linking to them. Obviously, if the responses are on a guild forum, this isn't something I can easily do - especially since about 2/3 of the guild forums that link to Circle of Healers are in a foreign language (why doesn't anyone post in Latin? Oh that's right, because I wasted 7 years of my life learning it!).

Llyra over at Healing Way finally posted her own response to the questions, and noted at the end of the survey that she suspected there were lots of foreign translations as well. This is absolutely true. I have linked to two foreign translations on the list (Finnish and French), but if there are other translations, I am still in the process of tracking them down. (I also just noticed that the French Proprieter over at wowfrostmage has linked to several French responses for me... merci beaucoup! ::did i spell that right?::)

There is also an interesting little IP that has been going through all the responses from a nice little place in California called Irvine. Read into that what you will.

So what do I intend to DO with all these responses? After all, didn't I promise to "analyze teh dataz"?

This has proven to be a lot more difficult and tedious than I originally hoped (also, when I posted it, I had no idea it would get to be so big), but rest assured, I AM trying to assemble all the information. In a spreadsheet. Nomnomnom <3 spreadsheets. Sans the foreign language versions, sadly. :(

After Bobturkey returned from vacation and made his response (which I had been gleefully waiting for, since I knew his responses would be very interesting), I finally began assembling the answers. I have not even finished with Holy Priests yet, it is just that time consuming. Lest you think that everyone and their great grandchildren has completed the survey by now, I still have a handful of people respond every day - and it's gone outside of the WoW blogging sphere, and into Livejournal, and even a blogger from a newspaper - which confused me a bit, but I'm just gonna go with it.

How have I been tracking responses?

• Through comments directly left on my blog.
• Through direct emails (to those of you who have emailed me, I did not respond via email, but I am including them)
• Through traffic coming from the blogs who posted the responses and linked back to my page
• When someone is tagged, I've been monitoring their blog to see if and when they respond.
• Through comments left on other people's responses on their own blogs

And so on and so forth. As you can see, I've been keeping myself pretty busy trying to keep track of all the responses! Only about half of the survey responses are directly linked on my Circle of Healers page, because a lot of the responses had no way I could link to them. In addition, there were likely quite a few responses made from people in the days immediately following the WoW Insider link that did not leave comments for me - Sadly, I'm afraid I may not be able to find those responses unless those folks generate traffic back to my site, because the WoW.com traffic flooded my logs!

In essence, I have no idea when I will be able to post the results. I will continue working on it, and posting about any significant progress, but it may be awhile. Truth be told, however, diffusing all the survey responses down to something that can be mathematically analyzed will strip a lot of the awesomeness from the responses. For instance, here are some gems from Tamarind at Righteous Orbs's responses that wouldn't show up in the charts and graphs that will result from the survey, and definitely deserve notice:

"It’s the good kind of pressure, like a slightly over-weight cat purring on your chest."
regarding Divine Hymn:
"Also it’s just got a rubbish name. This is a fucking battle, no time for singing!"
regarding MT healing:
"It’s not even proper whack-a-mole, it’s simply a direct transfer of the contents of your blue bar into their diminishing green bar, like you’re some kind of perpetual human health funnel. "

I mean, c'mon. Beat that. THIS IS NO TIME FOR BLOODY SINGING

I had a wonderful WoW-filled weekend, and the weekend alone gave me enough content to write about for the next week. However, I shall start with a few randomly awesome things.

1. I can haz moar achievements? I've listed some of my new ones from the weekend on the left. I'm not proud or anything. *puffs chest*

2. My favorite new awful joke from the trade channel: "I was going to tell you a joke about pizza, but it was too cheezy!!!" I assure you, my friends. The more it makes you groan in despair, the more this dwarf over here is bouncing up and down, guffawing in pure delight. Dear trade channel, you are teh awesome.

3. People like me should not be allowed to collect things. I think Blizzard is going to have some serious lawsuits on their hands once I end up in the loony bin. My OCD is just overwhelming me. Mounts, Pets, and Tabards oh my! If you are trying to collect any of the above, whether it be for achievements or anything else, there are a couple of really good websites. For an all-inclusive list and description of mounts, WarcraftMounts is really good. If you like having pets and haven't been to WarcraftPets, you need to get with it, snap snap! And finally, another website I discovered this weekend that is much simpler, but more effective in some ways, is WoWCollect - it shows a basic list of all the mounts, pets, and tabards, with checkboxes so you can figure out what you need for different achievements. I spent the greater part of yesterday afternoon assembling a pretty sweet spreadsheet with mount info. I'm going to add pet and tabard info, methinks, and pretty it up before I post it here. You know you want it.

4. Looks like me and Whitey will be spending less time in the 'Rend, and more time in the Outlands, grinding up rep with factions I ignored before, because I readily admit to being an achievement whore. I never got around to getting my Netherwing mount in BC, mainly because I couldn't be bothered to get a group together for the opening quest, Zuluhad the Whacked. It will likely be even more of a pain to get a group now, but I want me those 6 mounts.