The Terminator - 2025
5 hours ago
My secret admirer is awesome. She/He sent me a mail in game that included candles, pinot Noir, and some heart candies. Someone must have known what a sweetheart-candy addict I am!
I know that everyone guessed it long ago, but the wow-blogger love of my weekend was Syrana... which was definitely an easy pick for me, since I've adored her for quite a long time. Never fall for a lock, my healer friends. They will simply Corrupt your heart, and shard your soul. Oh and apparently Sideshow got to her before I did.
Alas, I'm a Dwarf, and therefore about as subtle and stealthy as.... well, a Dwarf. Funny how that works. My allusions to snow-love, my drunken hiccups... it was all pretty obvious right from the first comment I believe. See, when I fall for someone, I feel no shame or shyness. I'm very much the HI GUESS WHAT I LOVE YOU LETS MAKE BABIES kind of gal, to be honest. Read into that what you will.
Have you been following the blogger secret admirers on twitter as we tried to figure out everyone's love interest? I think I even accused Deyndor of being a girl, what with the whole swooning over dark chocolate thing. Much like Brigwyn, he's male. Whoops.
Speaking of twitter, I changed my twitter name to MissMedicina, and elimeny is locked up, soon to be purged, and reserved for my friends and family who really do not appreciate me spamming their twitter accounts with WoW information. If you've been following Elimeny, please make sure to change it to MissMedicina.
I also swapped from my beloved Alice-got-a-gun avatar to this lovely Nurse. The picture was found on DeviantArt, and created by affekt.
Posts may be skimpy this week, because I have some family issues that resulted in a new addition to our household who needs to get registered for school and all kinds of fun stuff. But instead of hanging out here, wondering where I've run off to, head on over to The Physician's Log, and check out all the lovey dovey bloggers who participated in the Secret Admirer exchange. I'll still be on twitter too... so come join in on the fun (I'm looking at you Tam)! Maybe I'll even serenade y'all with a little Meatloaf...
I know that everyone guessed it long ago, but the wow-blogger love of my weekend was Syrana... which was definitely an easy pick for me, since I've adored her for quite a long time. Never fall for a lock, my healer friends. They will simply Corrupt your heart, and shard your soul. Oh and apparently Sideshow got to her before I did.
Alas, I'm a Dwarf, and therefore about as subtle and stealthy as.... well, a Dwarf. Funny how that works. My allusions to snow-love, my drunken hiccups... it was all pretty obvious right from the first comment I believe. See, when I fall for someone, I feel no shame or shyness. I'm very much the HI GUESS WHAT I LOVE YOU LETS MAKE BABIES kind of gal, to be honest. Read into that what you will.
Have you been following the blogger secret admirers on twitter as we tried to figure out everyone's love interest? I think I even accused Deyndor of being a girl, what with the whole swooning over dark chocolate thing. Much like Brigwyn, he's male. Whoops.
Speaking of twitter, I changed my twitter name to MissMedicina, and elimeny is locked up, soon to be purged, and reserved for my friends and family who really do not appreciate me spamming their twitter accounts with WoW information. If you've been following Elimeny, please make sure to change it to MissMedicina.
I also swapped from my beloved Alice-got-a-gun avatar to this lovely Nurse. The picture was found on DeviantArt, and created by affekt.
Posts may be skimpy this week, because I have some family issues that resulted in a new addition to our household who needs to get registered for school and all kinds of fun stuff. But instead of hanging out here, wondering where I've run off to, head on over to The Physician's Log, and check out all the lovey dovey bloggers who participated in the Secret Admirer exchange. I'll still be on twitter too... so come join in on the fun (I'm looking at you Tam)! Maybe I'll even serenade y'all with a little Meatloaf...
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I normally shy away from things like shared topics and Blog Azeroth events. I don't really know why. But I recently discovered Physician's Log via Bossy Pally, and I'm so in love with her website, that when she put out a call for people to get involved in this Secret Admirer's event on Twitter, I couldn't resist.
So now I must go forth and be subtle in anonymous comments in someone else's blog. I'm not sure I know how to do "subtle"... I'm a dwarf. There's nothing stealthy or subtle about a dwarf. Dwarf rogues? Oxymoron. Anyway, I digress.
Supposedly my secret admirer is supposed to comment on this post. So keep an eye on the comments if you want to watch the fun! I feel rather like a princess waiting on a throne, gazing out the window awaiting my secret prince to come tell me... okay I took that way too far. Ending this post right now. /awkward
So now I must go forth and be subtle in anonymous comments in someone else's blog. I'm not sure I know how to do "subtle"... I'm a dwarf. There's nothing stealthy or subtle about a dwarf. Dwarf rogues? Oxymoron. Anyway, I digress.
Supposedly my secret admirer is supposed to comment on this post. So keep an eye on the comments if you want to watch the fun! I feel rather like a princess waiting on a throne, gazing out the window awaiting my secret prince to come tell me... okay I took that way too far. Ending this post right now. /awkward
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During my interview on the Twisted Nether Blogcast (which I'm sure all of you have listened to by now... right?!), Brigwyn asked a question that has plagued healers for 80 levels.
Should healers heal pets?
You'll find people with opinions on both sides of the spectrum. Of course, I'm assuming the hunter in question is neither a jerk, nor a "classic huntard" who allows his pet to pull everything. One of my best friends is a Beast Mastery hunter and runs ICC with us, so I'm quite used to running with good hunters.
A few weeks after I switched from Holy to Disc, another hunter I run with a lot pouted at me and asked why I no longer healed his pet. I was rather confused, since I had never really gone out of my way to heal people's pets. He told me that before, his pet always survived through all the fights. I sat down and thought about this for awhile, and finally figured out why he had noticed the difference - Holy Priests have Circle of Healing which is a smart heal, and therefore WILL heal pets. Disc Priests focus more on using Penance and Power Word: Shield. Neither of these will heal or protect a pet unless the healer makes a concerted effort to do so.
AoE Smart Heals
So let's take a look at some AoE Smart Heals that will heal pets without a concerted effort made on the healer's part:
Divine Hymn is on a very long cooldown, so I wouldn't expect for pets to get healed from that very often. But essentially, if pets are among those with the lowest amount of health and greatest need for healing, they will be one of the targets chosen for healing by the smart heal.
Group Heals
So what about the not-so-smart group heals? These are heals that will heal all members in a particular group within a certain range.
Avoidance
Okay so we've talked about the passive ways in which a healer can heal pets. The next question is, how much healing do hunters' pets really need? In reality, as long as the hunter is doing their job and keeping their pet from being aggressive when not needed, and making sure the pet is attacking the right target... not much!
In patch 3.3, Blizz buffed the passive ability known as Avoidance. There is both a Hunter version and a Warlock version. Priests may have noted that even our Shadowfiends were given a similar ability to increase their survivability. In fact, the only class that didn't get a similar passive ability for their pet was the Death Knight, who needs to spec into Night of the Dead in order to get the same thing.
The stock UI and even most unit frame add-ons do not make it particularly easy to heal pets. If you use Healbot, you can set it up to show pets, and I have X-Perl configured to show them as well, but standard formats are not always amenable to pet-healing.
Raid versus Dungeon
However, due to the way AoE and group heals work, coupled with the changes to Avoidance, in a raid, healers should rarely, if ever, find it necessary to directly heal pets. Single target healers (Paladins, and to a lesser degree, Disc Priests) are least able to do much healing to pets. In a raid, this usually doesn't matter anyway, as they will likely be focusing on the tank. But, if your raid healer is a Disc Priest in charge of shield-spamming, or an extra Pally, keep this in mind.
The problem comes in 5 man dungeons. Depending on the type of healer the 5 man has, and the amount of AoE healing they do, pets may get little, if any, indirect healing at all. The first priority to keeping a pet alive is for the hunter to take care in how they manage their pet. Pets will nearly always be the lowest priority target for the healer.
Why did my hunter friend notice that his pet was no longer getting heals from me once I switched to Discipline? In 5 mans, I rarely need to use any group heals, because I focus more on bubbling everyone - except that I never remember to bubble pets. The unit frame for pets is much smaller and easier to overlook. Usually Prayer of Mending will hit them enough to keep them up... but sometimes it's not enough.
Should Healers Even Care?
Maybe not. Maybe it isn't our responsibility, since hunters do have the ability to heal their pets, as do warlocks. Pets and minions certainly are very rarely a priority.
However, the purpose of a healer is to help keep others alive long enough to perform their role properly. Particularly for Demonology Warlocks and Beast Mastery Hunters, pets make up a significant portion of their DPS. Losing their pet or minion renders them very impotent damage wise, and can make or break a fight if it's a DPS check.
In the end, after examining the passive avoidance ability, and the effects of AoE and group heals, I don't think it's necessary for healers to specifically make an effort to heal pets, except in certain fights (for instance, our hunter's pet is a significant portion of our physical DPS on the adds for the Lady Deathwhisper fight, so I do keep an eye out on her pet).
But as a healer, if you have some extra mana, and an extra GCD to throw around, consider putting a bubble on the kitty. Your hunters will love you. And who wouldn't want the love of someone like Pike or Brigwyn? Except those 'locks...
Should healers heal pets?
You'll find people with opinions on both sides of the spectrum. Of course, I'm assuming the hunter in question is neither a jerk, nor a "classic huntard" who allows his pet to pull everything. One of my best friends is a Beast Mastery hunter and runs ICC with us, so I'm quite used to running with good hunters.
A few weeks after I switched from Holy to Disc, another hunter I run with a lot pouted at me and asked why I no longer healed his pet. I was rather confused, since I had never really gone out of my way to heal people's pets. He told me that before, his pet always survived through all the fights. I sat down and thought about this for awhile, and finally figured out why he had noticed the difference - Holy Priests have Circle of Healing which is a smart heal, and therefore WILL heal pets. Disc Priests focus more on using Penance and Power Word: Shield. Neither of these will heal or protect a pet unless the healer makes a concerted effort to do so.
AoE Smart Heals
So let's take a look at some AoE Smart Heals that will heal pets without a concerted effort made on the healer's part:
- Circle of Healing (Holy Priest)
- Divine Hymn (all Priests)
- Prayer of Mending (all Priests)
- Wild Growth (Resto Druid)
- Chain Heal - (Resto Shaman) - this is a little wonky, depending on who it's cast on first - note the tooltip.
- Holy Light (Holy Paladin) - note that this will only happen if glyphed for the splash effect. This is not actually a "smart heal" as it seems to randomly select 5 targets within range to benefit with the splash heal effect.
Divine Hymn is on a very long cooldown, so I wouldn't expect for pets to get healed from that very often. But essentially, if pets are among those with the lowest amount of health and greatest need for healing, they will be one of the targets chosen for healing by the smart heal.
Group Heals
So what about the not-so-smart group heals? These are heals that will heal all members in a particular group within a certain range.
- Prayer of Healing - Priest
- Holy Nova - Priest
- Tranquility - Druid
- Healing Stream Totem - Shaman
Avoidance
Okay so we've talked about the passive ways in which a healer can heal pets. The next question is, how much healing do hunters' pets really need? In reality, as long as the hunter is doing their job and keeping their pet from being aggressive when not needed, and making sure the pet is attacking the right target... not much!
In patch 3.3, Blizz buffed the passive ability known as Avoidance. There is both a Hunter version and a Warlock version. Priests may have noted that even our Shadowfiends were given a similar ability to increase their survivability. In fact, the only class that didn't get a similar passive ability for their pet was the Death Knight, who needs to spec into Night of the Dead in order to get the same thing.
The stock UI and even most unit frame add-ons do not make it particularly easy to heal pets. If you use Healbot, you can set it up to show pets, and I have X-Perl configured to show them as well, but standard formats are not always amenable to pet-healing.
Raid versus Dungeon
However, due to the way AoE and group heals work, coupled with the changes to Avoidance, in a raid, healers should rarely, if ever, find it necessary to directly heal pets. Single target healers (Paladins, and to a lesser degree, Disc Priests) are least able to do much healing to pets. In a raid, this usually doesn't matter anyway, as they will likely be focusing on the tank. But, if your raid healer is a Disc Priest in charge of shield-spamming, or an extra Pally, keep this in mind.
The problem comes in 5 man dungeons. Depending on the type of healer the 5 man has, and the amount of AoE healing they do, pets may get little, if any, indirect healing at all. The first priority to keeping a pet alive is for the hunter to take care in how they manage their pet. Pets will nearly always be the lowest priority target for the healer.
Why did my hunter friend notice that his pet was no longer getting heals from me once I switched to Discipline? In 5 mans, I rarely need to use any group heals, because I focus more on bubbling everyone - except that I never remember to bubble pets. The unit frame for pets is much smaller and easier to overlook. Usually Prayer of Mending will hit them enough to keep them up... but sometimes it's not enough.
Should Healers Even Care?
Maybe not. Maybe it isn't our responsibility, since hunters do have the ability to heal their pets, as do warlocks. Pets and minions certainly are very rarely a priority.
However, the purpose of a healer is to help keep others alive long enough to perform their role properly. Particularly for Demonology Warlocks and Beast Mastery Hunters, pets make up a significant portion of their DPS. Losing their pet or minion renders them very impotent damage wise, and can make or break a fight if it's a DPS check.
In the end, after examining the passive avoidance ability, and the effects of AoE and group heals, I don't think it's necessary for healers to specifically make an effort to heal pets, except in certain fights (for instance, our hunter's pet is a significant portion of our physical DPS on the adds for the Lady Deathwhisper fight, so I do keep an eye out on her pet).
But as a healer, if you have some extra mana, and an extra GCD to throw around, consider putting a bubble on the kitty. Your hunters will love you. And who wouldn't want the love of someone like Pike or Brigwyn? Except those 'locks...
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Pssst... If you weren't able to make it to the Live Blogcast last Friday at Twisted Nether, the episode has been posted! It's not quite the same as being in the chatroom with the rest of us, but go ahead and give it a listen. I'm very proud of my ability to cover up the accent... although a bit embarassed by how much I was giggling.
I want to send out a personal thank you to Fimlys and Nibuca who made me feel very welcome... and to all my friends and guildies who showed up and filled the chatroom until it was almost bursting! It was an awesome way to spend a Friday night.
I want to send out a personal thank you to Fimlys and Nibuca who made me feel very welcome... and to all my friends and guildies who showed up and filled the chatroom until it was almost bursting! It was an awesome way to spend a Friday night.
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It was a dank and chilly night in the Dalaran sewers I call home. I was feeling bored and melancholy and singing my Divine Hymn of Meatloafness around all the folks duelling when I was struck by a particularly interesting Holy Pally who was fighting others.
Dueling as a Holy Pally? Hunh.
If you've never participated in a Heal-Off, all you have to do is randomly start healing some healer in a capital until you run out of mana. Eventually you might even have 2 or 3 or 10 other healers join in on a circle jerk of green numbers. I've always enjoyed these, but it never occurred to me to actually try and duel another healer and see who could stay alive longer.
So when I saw this Holy Pally, I thought to myself "Hey, Faction Champs have taught me a few useful PvP tricks. Plus, I happen to have a Pally, and I know some of their abilities... this might be fun. Disc is supposed to be good at PvP, so it would be nice practice as well." So I invited the Pally in question to duel me.
30 minutes later, we were both at full health, and STILL fighting.
It was a Bubble-Up-a-Thon. He'd bubble, I'd Mass Dispel. I'd DoT him up, he'd Cleanse. I screamed at him, he Judged me. I Penanced, he'd Holy Shock. I tried to Mana Burn him over and over to no avail... he tried to melee me but my bubble absorbed it all. Hell I even tried to Net him a few times, but I just couldn't put out the damage needed to take him out while he was rooted.
Finally I just stood still and let him take me out because frankly, this was completely exhausting. So next I told him to stay Holy and I would go Shadow and try to take him out. 3 minutes later, he won.
I bow down before your superior PvP abilities random Dalaran Sewer Holy Pally Dude. But I still contend that 30 minute duel was a DRAW.
Dueling as a Holy Pally? Hunh.
If you've never participated in a Heal-Off, all you have to do is randomly start healing some healer in a capital until you run out of mana. Eventually you might even have 2 or 3 or 10 other healers join in on a circle jerk of green numbers. I've always enjoyed these, but it never occurred to me to actually try and duel another healer and see who could stay alive longer.
So when I saw this Holy Pally, I thought to myself "Hey, Faction Champs have taught me a few useful PvP tricks. Plus, I happen to have a Pally, and I know some of their abilities... this might be fun. Disc is supposed to be good at PvP, so it would be nice practice as well." So I invited the Pally in question to duel me.
30 minutes later, we were both at full health, and STILL fighting.
It was a Bubble-Up-a-Thon. He'd bubble, I'd Mass Dispel. I'd DoT him up, he'd Cleanse. I screamed at him, he Judged me. I Penanced, he'd Holy Shock. I tried to Mana Burn him over and over to no avail... he tried to melee me but my bubble absorbed it all. Hell I even tried to Net him a few times, but I just couldn't put out the damage needed to take him out while he was rooted.
Finally I just stood still and let him take me out because frankly, this was completely exhausting. So next I told him to stay Holy and I would go Shadow and try to take him out. 3 minutes later, he won.
I bow down before your superior PvP abilities random Dalaran Sewer Holy Pally Dude. But I still contend that 30 minute duel was a DRAW.
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I'm feeling more practical and less philosophical today, so I thought I'd take the time to write up a list of various website resources that I love and share them with you fine folks.
Crafting
Raiding Progress
There are two sites in particular that are popular amongst people who want to check out the quality of another's gear, gems, enchants, etc.
Miscellaneous
If you have any other suggestions for websites that are particularly useful for raiders, levelers, PvPers, achievement hunters, role players, etc, shoot me a link in a comment and I'll take a look at it and see if I think it might be particularly helpful for my readers.
Crafting
- Crafter's Tome has long been one of my favorite resources for lists of all the different recipes for each profession, along with the mats required, where to get the recipe, drop rate, and lots of different filtering methods. Kaliope and I appear to share a love for crafting in WoW and in other games, and she has definitely put forth a lot of effort into designing and maintaining this site. The only problem I ever see is that she is meticulous about confirming the presence of patterns and recipes, so when new patterns arise from a patch or similar, it may be some time before she updates the list. However, if she gets a Beta key for Cataclysm like she did with WotLK, you can be sure to see the Beta patterns up (tagged separately of course) for your perusal.
- FreeWithMats: The purpose of this website is to show you a list of all the people on your server who have a particular pattern or recipe available - assuming, of course, they have updated the site with their own information. Back in BC, this website was full of loads of people who had all the patterns - looking for a rare glove enchant that only dropped in AQ? This website was the place to check if anyone on your server had that pattern. Unfortunately, when Wrath came out, they redesigned the site - losing all the people who had previously been listed. In reality, this was probably a good thing, as many players had likely stopped playing since posting their info. The problem is that people don't know about this amazing resource, and so very few folks are listed (I'm the only one on my server) which greatly reduces the efficacy of the database. I use it anyway as a handy check list of what patterns/recipes I have, and which ones I still need.
Raiding Progress
There are two sites in particular that are popular amongst people who want to check out the quality of another's gear, gems, enchants, etc.
- My preference is wow-heroes. I like this particular site because it has a very easy to read interface. A quick scan of the progression bar let's me know how my gear is for relevant content. It also shows me a person's off spec, and makes it easy to see their professions, their health and mana, their guild, and which spec is most likely their main spec. It's easy to scan over raid statistics and achievements, what type of gems people are using, if everything is enchanted with the best enchant for their class/spec, where they got their gear, the iLvl, etc. It also makes it easy to find upgrades. WoW-Heroes is a raid leader's dream - esecially if you lead a lot of PuGs. This goes way beyond gearscore.
- Be Imba is another site that many favor over wow-heroes, but I seem to have a lot of technical difficulties with it and find it a lot less organized with a less informative interface. However, Be Imba will pick up if someone is not meeting their caps (i.e. hit cap) which wow-heroes does not point out.
- Raider101 - This is a wiki intended to provide something akin to "cheatsheets" for those who are looking for the basics of raiding for their class. One of the problems with a wiki is that it is often outdated, and therefore there are plenty of classes and topics that need to be updated. I'm currently working on the Disc and the Holy pages, but I'm slow when it comes to all the linking needed. When I'm finished with the update for the wiki, I'll make sure everyone knows.
Miscellaneous
- WoW Gem Finder is the best tool for gem shopping. By using a series of filters, you can determine what gems you need to pick up at the AH - you can separate them by color or stat or quality, among other attributes. The only issue I currently have with this tool is that it needs a filter to separate WotLK gems from BC gems.
- WoW Collect is my go-to resource when I'm achievement hunting, and trying to figure out what pets, mounts, or tabards I have or need to get for the next achievement. One of the things I love most about this site is the ability to create a very simple checklist of what you have. I like checklists. They're like mini-spreadsheets.
- Alchemist's Apprentice Cheat Sheet. Remember the days before ToC dailies, when you were out in Zul'drak, grinding out your Argent Crusade rep? Well, in case you ever decide to torture yourself in similar fashion again, this was my favorite URL for weeks.
If you have any other suggestions for websites that are particularly useful for raiders, levelers, PvPers, achievement hunters, role players, etc, shoot me a link in a comment and I'll take a look at it and see if I think it might be particularly helpful for my readers.
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I had a comment yesterday that bemoaned my switch to Disc priesting, and yesterday Shintar asked "What is it with all the discipline priests?"
It's a legitimate question. Why have so many priests gone the way of the Disco, and abandoned their Holy roots? Now keep in mind, I haven't completely abandoned Holy. I still feel that at my core, I'm a Holy Priest, and I'm just checking out this Disc thing for a little while. Or a few months. Or something. Yes, I'm in denial.
I hated healing heroics as Holy, and the frost badge rewards mean that I really do need to run heroics. But it's insanely boring. No one is taking any damage, so there's nothing for me to heal. As Discipline I can at least try to tell myself that I'm preventing people from taking damage. There's also the joy of pugging with a Pally tank, and telling myself not to bubble him/her just for a little added challenge. Heroics were a good excuse to start trying out a Disc spec, and to get the hang of it. Heroics are great for trying out new talents.
But, I'm sort of getting off track. The question remains - why are so many Holy priests making the Disc switch?
Feeling the Blizz Love
I have this theory that Blizz regulates class/spec populations via a series of buffs and nerfs. No one was playing Disc, so they reworked the talent tree for Wrath IIRC. And still, Disc Priests were faced with the annoyance of Recount obsessed Raid Leaders telling them their healing sucked. So Blizz came along and designed fights like the third phase of Anub'arak in ToC and Deathbringer Saurfang in ICC. Suddenly, Raid Leaders were hearing all about how awesome Disc Priests were for these fights... and they were FUN as a Disc Priest. You got to feel special and super-powerful.
It's always nice and warm when you're in that snuggly spot of Blizz-favored.
But the tide may be turning. Others have noted how prevalent Disc Priests are these days, and too many people picked up on the fact that a Discipline Priest in your raid made Saurfang trivial. So easy for the average raider doing ICC content, that you could get away with low DPS, sloppy add control, and slow tank swaps. Disc Priests were no longer just mitigating damage - they were mitigating fail. Many were able to solo heal the entire encounter. Deathbringer Saurfang is the final boss in the first wing in ICC, and he was intended to be HARD. He was intended to be a DPS check. But, with a Disc Priest in the party, he was essentially a joke.
Now, for some of us, he was still hard. He was still rough for my group. But he is SUPPOSED to be hard. You are SUPPOSED to wipe on him repeatedly.
Although the presence of a Disc Priest greatly reduces the difficulty of Anub'arak, it really only affects one phase - it does not trivialize the entire encounter. The same cannot be said for Deathbringer Saurfang. So the buff to Saurfang, which effectively stops Disc Priests from being so powerful in this fight, was not a surprise to me - nor am I really *that* disappointed. I am glad I got a chance to take down Saurfang before the buff, however, as it was a very fun encounter, and it felt good to feel so important and powerful. But too many Holy Priests felt they were required to switch to Disc just for the sake of this fight, and too many other healing classes were potentially left out in order to bring in a Disc Priest. The fight is now much more balanced, imo.
In short, we are coming off of the peak of the Golden Era for Disc Priests. Or maybe we will stay peaked a bit longer - I don't know for sure, but Saurfang pre-buff was definitely a high point in the Disco world.
Is Discipline Healing More Challenging?
I cannot make this post without asking that question, even though it really grates on me to demand that answer from myself. I hate the idea of one spec or class being considered more challenging than another. It leads to people calling one spec a faceroll choice over another being the "hardcore" option. I feel I have something of a responsibility to my readers too... if I say Disc is more challenging, and Holy is less so, I fear it's going to ripple across the blogosphere as though it were The Divine Truth. I think people just listen to me because I have Dwarf boobs.
I've mentioned before the difference between reflexive and rotational healing. Holy Priests and Disc Priests are a great example of this difference. Both have reactionary aspects, and both have rotational - but Holy stands more on the reflexive side, whereas Disc Priests have talents that lend more strength to weaving their spells. If you have slow reflexes, Holy will provide more of a challenge. If you struggle with planning your heals and weaving them, Discipline priesting may be more difficult. I struggle with tying my shoes properly, so everything is a challenge for me.
However, the primary reason why I think Disc Priesting can provide a bigger challenge is due to the nature of preventative damage. In order to prevent damage from occuring without completely going out of mana... you have to know when that damage will occur. And that means you have to know the fights.
I want to draw your attention to a recent post made at Resto Shaman Flow by a new blogger who shows a lot of potential - and won me over by comparing Disc Priests and Resto Shammies. Wugan said it best when he said "The most glaring issue is that mitigation only works if you can successfully predict the incoming damage."
Raise your hand if you play Farmville or type messages on Twitter while your Raid Leader is explaining the fights. Don't worry, you don't have to confess. I see within your secret heart... and I know. I know because I'm guilty of it myself. You don't generally have to know the intricacies of each individual fight to know that most of the stuff that's on the floor is stuff you need to get out of. Don't stand in front of the boss, or you'll get cleaved or slapped, or vomitted upon, that sort of thing. The basic rules of raid fights can be generally applied to all fights, and the details themselves don't really matter when all you really need to do is heal people AFTER they've taken damage. Don't tell the DPSers, but many healers are just incredibly ADD.
Normally, I wouldn't know the fights. I'd be picking daisies out in Icecrown while someone else explains to others what they need to do, and I just assume I need to play whack-a-mole. But now that I'm leading the cavalry, now that I'm supposed to come up with the strategies, now that I'm the one sending out emails to everyone about how the fights work, I have to know the ins and outs of these fights.
Performing well as a Discipline Priest requires you to know the fights. Yes, you can perform better as a Holy Priest if you know the fights, but it's not nearly as essential to your healing abilities as it is for a Disc Priest. You can prevent the damage you personally take by knowing when events will happen, and you can alert your raid members of course, but there is very little you can do spell-wise to prevent these folks from taking damage. A really good Holy Priest will know when OOOOOBLIVION is going to happen, and will be sure to build up their Serendipity stacks before hand so that they can cast a lightning fast Prayer of Healing that lands right after Oblivion (Shockwave) hits - same for Decimate, and other similar abilities. Weaving your spells to maximize Prayer of Healing or Greater Heal casts is the mark of a superior Holy Priest.
For a Disc Priest, it is required in order to do even a mediocre job.
Thus, we have this prevalent attitude that Disc Priests are harder than Holy Priests - because it requires a bit more foresight and knowledge about the encounters to perform well. And of course, if it's harder to play, it's obviously superior, amirite? Or maybe it's just more fun.
But I contest this. Because last week, happily dual specced Disc/Holy, I tried to heal Marrowgar for the first time in my Holy spec - and it was a complete mess. We wiped FOUR times on a boss that should be a one-shot every week. I take full responsibility for it. Even putting aside the issues I was having with remembering my macros and clicks, the fact remains that seeing all those green bars go down was terrifying. My reflexes are rusty from so many weeks as a Disc Priest. I was on tenderhooks waiting for the damage to occur so that I could DO something about it, and then completely incapable of reacting to it quickly enough. It's not that you don't have to react quickly as a Disc Priest, it's just you don't depend on quick reactions nearly as much as a Holy Priest does.
The Disc Priest must plan - the Holy Priest must react. Both are difficult skills that require practice and talent. It's a lot easier to fail as a Disc Priest than it is as a Holy Priest - however, the flip side of that is that it is a lot more difficult to be a truly excellent Holy Priest than it is to be an excellent Disc Priest. In order to be a superior Holy Priest, you must master both the art of quick reaction and the skill of heal-weaving. Even if you do react quickly as a Disc Priest, it won't be as effective as it is for a Holy Priest - a 40% reduction in damage taken is vastly different than a free death.
The Nature of Mitigation
Either way, it's also quite easy for Disc Priests to top the effective healing charts (despite what Recount addicts may initially perceive), because of the nature of damage mitigation. Since a Disc Priest prevents the damage from even happening, there is nothing for the other healers to heal. The other healers don't ever see the green bars go down, so why would they cast a heal when there's no damage? This is, of course, an extreme example, but the point stands even though in reality it's just that there's a lot less damage going around, and therefore a necessity for less heals.
Even advanced combat log parsers don't seem to take bubble "overheals" into account due to the mechanics of the combat log mitigation reporting. They only record the portion of bubbles that were absorbed - not how much the original bubble was that was cast. In other words, if I cast Power Word: Shield on someone, and none of it is absorbed, and the whole bubble goes to waste (as well as the mana I spent on it), I know of no combat log parser that will pick up on that (correct me if I'm wrong please). So Disc Priests appear especially efficient and powerful.
This Post Brought to You by TLDR Tuesday: Because What the Hell Else Are You Going to Do?
It's a legitimate question. Why have so many priests gone the way of the Disco, and abandoned their Holy roots? Now keep in mind, I haven't completely abandoned Holy. I still feel that at my core, I'm a Holy Priest, and I'm just checking out this Disc thing for a little while. Or a few months. Or something. Yes, I'm in denial.
I hated healing heroics as Holy, and the frost badge rewards mean that I really do need to run heroics. But it's insanely boring. No one is taking any damage, so there's nothing for me to heal. As Discipline I can at least try to tell myself that I'm preventing people from taking damage. There's also the joy of pugging with a Pally tank, and telling myself not to bubble him/her just for a little added challenge. Heroics were a good excuse to start trying out a Disc spec, and to get the hang of it. Heroics are great for trying out new talents.
But, I'm sort of getting off track. The question remains - why are so many Holy priests making the Disc switch?
Feeling the Blizz Love
I have this theory that Blizz regulates class/spec populations via a series of buffs and nerfs. No one was playing Disc, so they reworked the talent tree for Wrath IIRC. And still, Disc Priests were faced with the annoyance of Recount obsessed Raid Leaders telling them their healing sucked. So Blizz came along and designed fights like the third phase of Anub'arak in ToC and Deathbringer Saurfang in ICC. Suddenly, Raid Leaders were hearing all about how awesome Disc Priests were for these fights... and they were FUN as a Disc Priest. You got to feel special and super-powerful.
It's always nice and warm when you're in that snuggly spot of Blizz-favored.
But the tide may be turning. Others have noted how prevalent Disc Priests are these days, and too many people picked up on the fact that a Discipline Priest in your raid made Saurfang trivial. So easy for the average raider doing ICC content, that you could get away with low DPS, sloppy add control, and slow tank swaps. Disc Priests were no longer just mitigating damage - they were mitigating fail. Many were able to solo heal the entire encounter. Deathbringer Saurfang is the final boss in the first wing in ICC, and he was intended to be HARD. He was intended to be a DPS check. But, with a Disc Priest in the party, he was essentially a joke.
Now, for some of us, he was still hard. He was still rough for my group. But he is SUPPOSED to be hard. You are SUPPOSED to wipe on him repeatedly.
Although the presence of a Disc Priest greatly reduces the difficulty of Anub'arak, it really only affects one phase - it does not trivialize the entire encounter. The same cannot be said for Deathbringer Saurfang. So the buff to Saurfang, which effectively stops Disc Priests from being so powerful in this fight, was not a surprise to me - nor am I really *that* disappointed. I am glad I got a chance to take down Saurfang before the buff, however, as it was a very fun encounter, and it felt good to feel so important and powerful. But too many Holy Priests felt they were required to switch to Disc just for the sake of this fight, and too many other healing classes were potentially left out in order to bring in a Disc Priest. The fight is now much more balanced, imo.
In short, we are coming off of the peak of the Golden Era for Disc Priests. Or maybe we will stay peaked a bit longer - I don't know for sure, but Saurfang pre-buff was definitely a high point in the Disco world.
Is Discipline Healing More Challenging?
I cannot make this post without asking that question, even though it really grates on me to demand that answer from myself. I hate the idea of one spec or class being considered more challenging than another. It leads to people calling one spec a faceroll choice over another being the "hardcore" option. I feel I have something of a responsibility to my readers too... if I say Disc is more challenging, and Holy is less so, I fear it's going to ripple across the blogosphere as though it were The Divine Truth. I think people just listen to me because I have Dwarf boobs.
I've mentioned before the difference between reflexive and rotational healing. Holy Priests and Disc Priests are a great example of this difference. Both have reactionary aspects, and both have rotational - but Holy stands more on the reflexive side, whereas Disc Priests have talents that lend more strength to weaving their spells. If you have slow reflexes, Holy will provide more of a challenge. If you struggle with planning your heals and weaving them, Discipline priesting may be more difficult. I struggle with tying my shoes properly, so everything is a challenge for me.
However, the primary reason why I think Disc Priesting can provide a bigger challenge is due to the nature of preventative damage. In order to prevent damage from occuring without completely going out of mana... you have to know when that damage will occur. And that means you have to know the fights.
I want to draw your attention to a recent post made at Resto Shaman Flow by a new blogger who shows a lot of potential - and won me over by comparing Disc Priests and Resto Shammies. Wugan said it best when he said "The most glaring issue is that mitigation only works if you can successfully predict the incoming damage."
Raise your hand if you play Farmville or type messages on Twitter while your Raid Leader is explaining the fights. Don't worry, you don't have to confess. I see within your secret heart... and I know. I know because I'm guilty of it myself. You don't generally have to know the intricacies of each individual fight to know that most of the stuff that's on the floor is stuff you need to get out of. Don't stand in front of the boss, or you'll get cleaved or slapped, or vomitted upon, that sort of thing. The basic rules of raid fights can be generally applied to all fights, and the details themselves don't really matter when all you really need to do is heal people AFTER they've taken damage. Don't tell the DPSers, but many healers are just incredibly ADD.
Normally, I wouldn't know the fights. I'd be picking daisies out in Icecrown while someone else explains to others what they need to do, and I just assume I need to play whack-a-mole. But now that I'm leading the cavalry, now that I'm supposed to come up with the strategies, now that I'm the one sending out emails to everyone about how the fights work, I have to know the ins and outs of these fights.
Performing well as a Discipline Priest requires you to know the fights. Yes, you can perform better as a Holy Priest if you know the fights, but it's not nearly as essential to your healing abilities as it is for a Disc Priest. You can prevent the damage you personally take by knowing when events will happen, and you can alert your raid members of course, but there is very little you can do spell-wise to prevent these folks from taking damage. A really good Holy Priest will know when OOOOOBLIVION is going to happen, and will be sure to build up their Serendipity stacks before hand so that they can cast a lightning fast Prayer of Healing that lands right after Oblivion (Shockwave) hits - same for Decimate, and other similar abilities. Weaving your spells to maximize Prayer of Healing or Greater Heal casts is the mark of a superior Holy Priest.
For a Disc Priest, it is required in order to do even a mediocre job.
Thus, we have this prevalent attitude that Disc Priests are harder than Holy Priests - because it requires a bit more foresight and knowledge about the encounters to perform well. And of course, if it's harder to play, it's obviously superior, amirite? Or maybe it's just more fun.
But I contest this. Because last week, happily dual specced Disc/Holy, I tried to heal Marrowgar for the first time in my Holy spec - and it was a complete mess. We wiped FOUR times on a boss that should be a one-shot every week. I take full responsibility for it. Even putting aside the issues I was having with remembering my macros and clicks, the fact remains that seeing all those green bars go down was terrifying. My reflexes are rusty from so many weeks as a Disc Priest. I was on tenderhooks waiting for the damage to occur so that I could DO something about it, and then completely incapable of reacting to it quickly enough. It's not that you don't have to react quickly as a Disc Priest, it's just you don't depend on quick reactions nearly as much as a Holy Priest does.
The Disc Priest must plan - the Holy Priest must react. Both are difficult skills that require practice and talent. It's a lot easier to fail as a Disc Priest than it is as a Holy Priest - however, the flip side of that is that it is a lot more difficult to be a truly excellent Holy Priest than it is to be an excellent Disc Priest. In order to be a superior Holy Priest, you must master both the art of quick reaction and the skill of heal-weaving. Even if you do react quickly as a Disc Priest, it won't be as effective as it is for a Holy Priest - a 40% reduction in damage taken is vastly different than a free death.
The Nature of Mitigation
Either way, it's also quite easy for Disc Priests to top the effective healing charts (despite what Recount addicts may initially perceive), because of the nature of damage mitigation. Since a Disc Priest prevents the damage from even happening, there is nothing for the other healers to heal. The other healers don't ever see the green bars go down, so why would they cast a heal when there's no damage? This is, of course, an extreme example, but the point stands even though in reality it's just that there's a lot less damage going around, and therefore a necessity for less heals.
Even advanced combat log parsers don't seem to take bubble "overheals" into account due to the mechanics of the combat log mitigation reporting. They only record the portion of bubbles that were absorbed - not how much the original bubble was that was cast. In other words, if I cast Power Word: Shield on someone, and none of it is absorbed, and the whole bubble goes to waste (as well as the mana I spent on it), I know of no combat log parser that will pick up on that (correct me if I'm wrong please). So Disc Priests appear especially efficient and powerful.
This Post Brought to You by TLDR Tuesday: Because What the Hell Else Are You Going to Do?
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I had heard rumors of the change, but was unable to personally confirm it until our sloppy attempts on Deathbringer Saurfang last night... but please note there has been a pretty significant change that Disc Priests need to recognize.
Daelo actually announced this almost a week ago but I somehow missed it, so here's the Blue Quote:
I feel kinda ashamed I didn't catch the blue note on it earlier. Sorry that I missed that guys. I feel I have failed you miserably.
I'll go pay my Penance now. Ha ha. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?
Daelo actually announced this almost a week ago but I somehow missed it, so here's the Blue Quote:
Absorbs such as Power Word: Shield no longer prevent Blood Power from being gained when damage is dealt by Saurfang. Casting Power Word: Shield is not a bad thing to do as the ability will absorb the damage dealt. This was an intentional 3.3.2 change. We also removed the ability to knockback the Blood Beasts off the platform and the removed of Blood Power gain from Mark of the Fallen Champion damage. We unfortunately missed getting these changes into the patch notes.
I feel kinda ashamed I didn't catch the blue note on it earlier. Sorry that I missed that guys. I feel I have failed you miserably.
I'll go pay my Penance now. Ha ha. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?
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Saunder actually started this up nearly a month ago, and it has been sitting in a text document entitled "DO THIS JBIZZLE" on my desktop this whole time.
I've also been a bit hesitant to bring up the Circle of Healers topic again, because while it was awesome, it was also slightly overwhelming in terms of the number of responses! I actually STILL get responses from people, along with emails asking to be included on the responders page. For those of you who are listed on the page, you probably have noticed you still get quite a bit of traffic from it, especially if you were one of the first to respond.
The original iteration of the Circle of Healers healing survey was intended to make you think about how you heal, and to encourage you to learn about other healing classes, and how THEY heal - and then spread the word, and get to know your fellow healing bloggers. The aftermath was that dozens of healing bloggers added one another to their feedreaders, and we all got to know each other a bit better - but did we learn anything about our healing abilities?
Saunder wants to know, and asked me to personally look back on my responses and consider a handful of questions, to which I've added a few of my own. I invite the rest of you who originally responded to ponder these questions as well, and ask yourself: How much have you learned about healing since you replied to the survey?
The New Questions:
1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthiness.
It's interesting to look back on my responses from 3 months ago, because I have completely changed specs and raiding format. Therefore, it makes me laugh to think that at one point in time, Circle of Healing was my favorite spell. PSHAW. PENANCE FTW. I find myself shaking my head patronizingly at the holy version of myself. I was intimidated by the concept of Disc at the time... and now I completely love it.
2. Has your class's healing improved in the area you identified as its weakest?
My original answer to the "What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?" question was "Lack of instant burst healing... I'm thinking Penance or even Holy Shock. I wish we had a single target instant burst heal, even if it were on a long cooldown. Something like desperate prayer, but for someone other than ourselves."
Of course, now that I have changed my priority to Disc healing, I *do* have Penance. But aside from that, one of the many tips and tricks I learned from adding so many other healers to my Circle, and by getting more involved on the Priest WoW forums as well as the PlusHeal forums, is that I learned that in order to generate a lot more single target burst healing, a lot of Holy Priests use the Guardian Spirit trick. They pick up the Glyph of Guardian Spirit, which effectively gives your Guardian Spirit a one minute cooldown unless things go badly, and provides a 40% boost to the healing received by a target for 10 seconds.
It's still not exactly what I was looking for, but it's a start. To be fair, I don't think I will ever see the kind of single target burst healing spell to which I was referring for Holy Priests, and maybe that's okay from a balance perspective. Disc Priests have the single target burst healing spell that far surpasses any other (Penance), and Holy Priests have the AoE burst healing spell that is better than any other (Circle of Healing). In this way, Blizzard has managed to balance the two healing Priest specs against one another - when you pick your spec, you make your choice there.
3. Have you changed your "least favoured class to heal with"?
When I originally wrote this question, there was a lot of confusion about what I meant, since I worded it poorly. I had intended to ask what healing partner you prefer. My original answer to most favorite class to heal with, as a Holy Priest, was a Disc priest (which makes me cringe from a 10 man raid organizer standpoint, by the way). Now that I'm Disc myself, I frown when I see another Disc priest in the raid. It just doesn't work well in a ten man to have two Disc Priests (though in a 25 man it's perfectly fine - just takes more communication) due to the fact that Weakened Soul does not stack.
On the rare occasions that I do run Holy, I like the combination of a Holy Priest and a Holy Paladin now. The Pally can focus on the MT and OT, I can use my Renew liberally and take care of the rest of the raid.
Originally, I listed my least favorite class to heal beside as a Resto Druid - which is pretty funny now.
I absolutely love the combination of a Disc Priest and a Resto Druid. These two healers work in a fundamentally different way than the other healing classes, but partnered together, they can cover all the weaknesses of their individual classes. I can prevent a target from taking more damage and give the Druid's HoTs a chance to heal the target up. I can handle the tanks, with a spare bubble thrown around the raid, and the Druid works best peppering the raid with HoTs and rolling a few on the tanks to help me out. It's a great combination.
4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?
I did - and I put together some word documents separating the responses by class, but that's about as far as I got in terms of analyzing the responses. I learned quite a bit about how other classes work - knowledge I still use to this very day when organizing raids!
5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?
Absolutely. I learned what other healers of my own class perceive as strengths. I learned tips and tricks for how to play my class better. I also learned that all classes have the ability to do well at single-target healing, but not all classes are as strong on multi-target healing. I learned the difference between Raid Healing and AoE Healing. I learned that plenty of Disc Priests are raid healers.
6. What tools/resources or information do you think you would need to improve as a healer and how could that help the community at large?
Saunder mentioned that he would like to get more feedback on his healing from other Holy Paladins, but the opportunity rarely presents itself. This is very true - when you are widely regarded as a single target healer, then you don't often get to raid with other healers of the same class/spec. Even in a 25 man, I rarely heal next to another Disc Priest against whom I can compare myself. It's not that I'm trying to compete with others - it's simply that I want to do the best job I possibly can. I'd love to put my numbers next to someone like Paolo on a 10 man ICC run, and get a feel for what kind of Weakened Soul uptime I have compared to him.
In regards to the larger community, the same problem that I saw three months ago still stands - a severe shortage of Resto Shaman blogs. Of course, since the Circle of Healers survey, I discovered Vixsin at Life in Group 5 and he has proven to be a wonderful resource to whom I recommend all resto shammies I meet. But I still do not see very many Resto Shammies period - and even less who have the skill and the ability to inform others on their class.
7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?
I listed my worst healer habit as using AoE heals when there were only one or two people needing heals. Obviously, as a Disc Priest, I no longer have this problem nearly as often - however, I have finally come to terms with the fact that using an instant AoE heal like Circle of Healing to heal only one or two people is incredibly common, and not necessarily a bad thing. Since Holy Priests lack that single target burst healing spell, it makes sense to use the AoE version liberally.
8. What did you list as your favorite healing spell and your least used healing spell for your class? Are these answers still true? If they have changed, what caused the change (i.e. patch fix, different healing environment, etc)?
I had to include this question along with Saunder's original six, because I think listing our most and least used spells helped many of us identify the weaknesses of our healing. When I run Holy, Circle of Healing *should* be my most used spell, and that was my original answer, and that was perfectly acceptable. However, I also identified that I never used Divine Hymn - and that was bad news. Of course, mathematically, with such a long cooldown, that spell will get used rarely - but I never used it.
However, I'm happy to report that ever since I took the time to note this problem in my survey response and set out to rectify it, my Meatloaf Hymn macro gets used nearly every boss fight - whether I'm Holy OR Disc. I can't even tell you how many wipes this spell has saved. Ever since I created my macro, I've never died during the third phase of the Black Knight fight in ToC5 - and that phase was always a challenge for healers.
Now that I'm Disc, I need to address the issue of not using Power Infusion and Inner Focus every cooldown. Paolo pointed this out to me in a 25 man ToC to which he invited me, and I have been working to rectify that ever since. So, who knows... maybe soon you will see a fun macro post about Power Infusion that is intended to encourage me to use it every cooldown! After all... it worked last time!
~~~
Since I despise memes, I'm not going to tag anyone specifically for this - but I do encourage all of you who originally responded to go back and reread your answers and ask yourself if the survey helped you improve as a healer at all. That was the original intention - so if you feel that it was an aid in any way, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to take these questions written by Saunder to which I have added my own, and repost them with your own responses.
I've also been a bit hesitant to bring up the Circle of Healers topic again, because while it was awesome, it was also slightly overwhelming in terms of the number of responses! I actually STILL get responses from people, along with emails asking to be included on the responders page. For those of you who are listed on the page, you probably have noticed you still get quite a bit of traffic from it, especially if you were one of the first to respond.
The original iteration of the Circle of Healers healing survey was intended to make you think about how you heal, and to encourage you to learn about other healing classes, and how THEY heal - and then spread the word, and get to know your fellow healing bloggers. The aftermath was that dozens of healing bloggers added one another to their feedreaders, and we all got to know each other a bit better - but did we learn anything about our healing abilities?
Saunder wants to know, and asked me to personally look back on my responses and consider a handful of questions, to which I've added a few of my own. I invite the rest of you who originally responded to ponder these questions as well, and ask yourself: How much have you learned about healing since you replied to the survey?
The New Questions:
1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthiness.
It's interesting to look back on my responses from 3 months ago, because I have completely changed specs and raiding format. Therefore, it makes me laugh to think that at one point in time, Circle of Healing was my favorite spell. PSHAW. PENANCE FTW. I find myself shaking my head patronizingly at the holy version of myself. I was intimidated by the concept of Disc at the time... and now I completely love it.
2. Has your class's healing improved in the area you identified as its weakest?
My original answer to the "What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?" question was "Lack of instant burst healing... I'm thinking Penance or even Holy Shock. I wish we had a single target instant burst heal, even if it were on a long cooldown. Something like desperate prayer, but for someone other than ourselves."
Of course, now that I have changed my priority to Disc healing, I *do* have Penance. But aside from that, one of the many tips and tricks I learned from adding so many other healers to my Circle, and by getting more involved on the Priest WoW forums as well as the PlusHeal forums, is that I learned that in order to generate a lot more single target burst healing, a lot of Holy Priests use the Guardian Spirit trick. They pick up the Glyph of Guardian Spirit, which effectively gives your Guardian Spirit a one minute cooldown unless things go badly, and provides a 40% boost to the healing received by a target for 10 seconds.
It's still not exactly what I was looking for, but it's a start. To be fair, I don't think I will ever see the kind of single target burst healing spell to which I was referring for Holy Priests, and maybe that's okay from a balance perspective. Disc Priests have the single target burst healing spell that far surpasses any other (Penance), and Holy Priests have the AoE burst healing spell that is better than any other (Circle of Healing). In this way, Blizzard has managed to balance the two healing Priest specs against one another - when you pick your spec, you make your choice there.
3. Have you changed your "least favoured class to heal with"?
When I originally wrote this question, there was a lot of confusion about what I meant, since I worded it poorly. I had intended to ask what healing partner you prefer. My original answer to most favorite class to heal with, as a Holy Priest, was a Disc priest (which makes me cringe from a 10 man raid organizer standpoint, by the way). Now that I'm Disc myself, I frown when I see another Disc priest in the raid. It just doesn't work well in a ten man to have two Disc Priests (though in a 25 man it's perfectly fine - just takes more communication) due to the fact that Weakened Soul does not stack.
On the rare occasions that I do run Holy, I like the combination of a Holy Priest and a Holy Paladin now. The Pally can focus on the MT and OT, I can use my Renew liberally and take care of the rest of the raid.
Originally, I listed my least favorite class to heal beside as a Resto Druid - which is pretty funny now.
I absolutely love the combination of a Disc Priest and a Resto Druid. These two healers work in a fundamentally different way than the other healing classes, but partnered together, they can cover all the weaknesses of their individual classes. I can prevent a target from taking more damage and give the Druid's HoTs a chance to heal the target up. I can handle the tanks, with a spare bubble thrown around the raid, and the Druid works best peppering the raid with HoTs and rolling a few on the tanks to help me out. It's a great combination.
4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?
I did - and I put together some word documents separating the responses by class, but that's about as far as I got in terms of analyzing the responses. I learned quite a bit about how other classes work - knowledge I still use to this very day when organizing raids!
5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?
Absolutely. I learned what other healers of my own class perceive as strengths. I learned tips and tricks for how to play my class better. I also learned that all classes have the ability to do well at single-target healing, but not all classes are as strong on multi-target healing. I learned the difference between Raid Healing and AoE Healing. I learned that plenty of Disc Priests are raid healers.
6. What tools/resources or information do you think you would need to improve as a healer and how could that help the community at large?
Saunder mentioned that he would like to get more feedback on his healing from other Holy Paladins, but the opportunity rarely presents itself. This is very true - when you are widely regarded as a single target healer, then you don't often get to raid with other healers of the same class/spec. Even in a 25 man, I rarely heal next to another Disc Priest against whom I can compare myself. It's not that I'm trying to compete with others - it's simply that I want to do the best job I possibly can. I'd love to put my numbers next to someone like Paolo on a 10 man ICC run, and get a feel for what kind of Weakened Soul uptime I have compared to him.
In regards to the larger community, the same problem that I saw three months ago still stands - a severe shortage of Resto Shaman blogs. Of course, since the Circle of Healers survey, I discovered Vixsin at Life in Group 5 and he has proven to be a wonderful resource to whom I recommend all resto shammies I meet. But I still do not see very many Resto Shammies period - and even less who have the skill and the ability to inform others on their class.
7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?
I listed my worst healer habit as using AoE heals when there were only one or two people needing heals. Obviously, as a Disc Priest, I no longer have this problem nearly as often - however, I have finally come to terms with the fact that using an instant AoE heal like Circle of Healing to heal only one or two people is incredibly common, and not necessarily a bad thing. Since Holy Priests lack that single target burst healing spell, it makes sense to use the AoE version liberally.
8. What did you list as your favorite healing spell and your least used healing spell for your class? Are these answers still true? If they have changed, what caused the change (i.e. patch fix, different healing environment, etc)?
I had to include this question along with Saunder's original six, because I think listing our most and least used spells helped many of us identify the weaknesses of our healing. When I run Holy, Circle of Healing *should* be my most used spell, and that was my original answer, and that was perfectly acceptable. However, I also identified that I never used Divine Hymn - and that was bad news. Of course, mathematically, with such a long cooldown, that spell will get used rarely - but I never used it.
However, I'm happy to report that ever since I took the time to note this problem in my survey response and set out to rectify it, my Meatloaf Hymn macro gets used nearly every boss fight - whether I'm Holy OR Disc. I can't even tell you how many wipes this spell has saved. Ever since I created my macro, I've never died during the third phase of the Black Knight fight in ToC5 - and that phase was always a challenge for healers.
Now that I'm Disc, I need to address the issue of not using Power Infusion and Inner Focus every cooldown. Paolo pointed this out to me in a 25 man ToC to which he invited me, and I have been working to rectify that ever since. So, who knows... maybe soon you will see a fun macro post about Power Infusion that is intended to encourage me to use it every cooldown! After all... it worked last time!
~~~
Since I despise memes, I'm not going to tag anyone specifically for this - but I do encourage all of you who originally responded to go back and reread your answers and ask yourself if the survey helped you improve as a healer at all. That was the original intention - so if you feel that it was an aid in any way, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to take these questions written by Saunder to which I have added my own, and repost them with your own responses.
So remember a week ago, when I mentioned that I was excited about an upcoming event?
That event is Friday night, and I hope you'll join me! I'll be Live on the Twisted Nether Blogcast, Priesting it up with Fimlys and Nibuca.
I'm actually quite nervous about this, but I already have a solution to my concern, and it is a four letter word.
BEER.
So come join me in the chat room tomorrow night at 8pm PST (11 pm my time - plenty of time for beer!) to hear what happens when you combine a splash of alcohol, a lot of priest, and someone who is very self conscious about their southern accent. I'm taking bets on how well I manage to hide the accent while Under the Influence of Fuubaar and Fulguralis.
You could just wait for the episode to hit iTunes, but seriously, where's the fun in that? Don't you want to BE THERE WITH ME?
That event is Friday night, and I hope you'll join me! I'll be Live on the Twisted Nether Blogcast, Priesting it up with Fimlys and Nibuca.
I'm actually quite nervous about this, but I already have a solution to my concern, and it is a four letter word.
BEER.
So come join me in the chat room tomorrow night at 8pm PST (11 pm my time - plenty of time for beer!) to hear what happens when you combine a splash of alcohol, a lot of priest, and someone who is very self conscious about their southern accent. I'm taking bets on how well I manage to hide the accent while Under the Influence of Fuubaar and Fulguralis.
You could just wait for the episode to hit iTunes, but seriously, where's the fun in that? Don't you want to BE THERE WITH ME?
The Know Your Blues Series
Do you enjoy the role playing aspects of World of Warcraft? Have you always wanted an Epic Mug of your very own? Then perhaps you are already familiar with today's featured Blue Poster: Vaneras.
I can't deny that I am a bit biased in favor of Vaneras as one of the best Blue posters (technically he is an Online Community Representative, unlike Nethaera and others, who are Community Managers). After all, his icon is the classic Dwarf Hunter, with his faithful polar bear pet at his side. We Americans don't see too much of the Danish Vaneras over on our forums, as he usually spends his time on the EU forums. That having been said, whenever I see a post by Vaneras, I immediately want to read it. He strikes me as the heartily laughing, jolly sort, with his epic mug always full of ale, and happy to help posters with their questions.
Vaneras continues to be an engaging presence on the EU forums, asking questions intended to inspire fun community discussions, posting polls, community news, and requesting feedback within the forum threads in creative and fun ways. When asking players for feedback regarding the last arena season, he decided the poetic approach was best.
Some players rank high,
some players rank low,
the arena season's soon over,
and here we ponder – how did it go?
(Did you picture him bellowing forth those words in Larisa's Inn with fabulous bravado, swinging around a large mug of ale? Because I did!)
He doesn't stand back in the shadows, quietly moderating, banning, deleting threads like many other moderators may do. He joins in on discussions he enjoys and provides his own answers. Blues usually have to take care which threads they post in, because their posts are tracked – anytime a blue responds to a thread, it will inevitably receive a large amount of traffic.
Therefore, when Vaneras posts in a thread, he often does it intentionally to highlight it and bring more people into the fun discussion – even if he only posts a smiley face. Sometimes he states it in his post, and other times he is a bit more subtle when encouraging others to join in on the discussion by simply providing his own answers (which still gives the post the precious Blue Tag). This increases the feeling of community amongst forum goers – and it is something at which he truly excels.
When Blizzard has what they perceive as an important "announcement" to make to players, you will usually find this in a separate post, created by a Blue. Vaneras, however, is known to make such informative announcements within an already existing thread. It's very subtle, but doing it this way is actually better – Vaneras' response has effectively suggested that the OP has asked a great question – and asked it in a constructive way that encourages discussion and feedback. Posts like this make players feel that they are being listened to, and inspires them to make more posts that are thoughtful and positive, instead of the constant whining and complaining.
He often joins in on threads that have questions he thinks could provide particularly interesting feedback. By doing this, he marks the post as a "Blue" and encourages many players who normally do not read through all the material on the forums (such as myself) to join in on the thread discussion. Of all the blue posters I've been watching over the past month, Vaneras seems to do this best. When he posts in a thread (most likely to give it more visibility with a blue tag) he also joins in on the discussions.
One of my favorite things to see among blue posters is playful rivalry and joking between them. It makes the blue text seem a little more human when we can pick up on aspects of their personality, and their sense of humor. Too often it seems that blue posts are canned responses that have obviously been thoroughly nitpicked to be sure that everything stated can be defended in the face of inevitable criticism. Therefore, players love to see folks like Vaneras pop into a thread to cheerfully join in on player discussions, and bring in some of their fellow blues.
I always enjoy the exchanges between Vaneras and Ancilorn – if you do too, here are two separate examples: "How social are you in Worldof Warcraft?" and "Topics probably not worth bringing up" to which Vaneras occasionally redirects posters! Ancilorn, however, seems to feel that Vaneras warrants nerfing.
He invites and encourages players to arrange fun and engaging community encounters in game, giving them suggestions on how to do it to improve their gameplay. As I've been watching and bookmarking so many of his forum responses, I have to say that I'm always interested in the threads in which he posts. He is helpful to players far beyond simple game mechanics – any time his interest in piqued, you are bound to find a Vaneras response. He takes time to look up resources for players, even if they are not forum-based resources. I mean, how can you see a post like that and not think "Wow, what a genuinely nice dude?"
He makes a concerted effort at times to be sure the players understand and recognize that while the blue posters may not always be able to provide an answer to every inquiry, and while they may not be able to post on every thread they might like to, they are listening – and they are taking player concerns into great consideration.
And remember folks, Vaneras asks that "If you can't post your concerns without also adding insults or abuse, then we prefer that you do not post at all!"
Well said, Vaneras. I raise my epic mug to you in salute!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Want to send some feedback to Blizzard regarding your experience with a CM? Love 'em or hate 'em (despite what Eyonix may assume), the email addy is here: wowcmfeedback@blizzard.com
RMT - Real Money Trading.
Love it or hate it, it has arrived in the World of Warcraft, amidst shouts of horror, disgust, and joy.
What it means for you as a player (AKA a customer), is that you can purchase game-based amenities with real world dollars. Traditionally you purchased things in-game with in-game currency. If you wanted to trade some of your cold hard real world cash for in-game fun (aside from purchasing the game and paying a subscription), you would have to go do some shady business with a mysteriously falling-from-the-sky-dead-spelling-out-a-URL gold seller.
There are plenty of games out on the market that are technically F2P - meaning free to play. No cost for the game, no subscription fee. However, the game is massively improved upon by purchasing additions with real world money (think Evony... or don't. It makes me cringe - which is why I won't even link to it).
Where do you draw the line? When is a little RMT... too much RMT?
Everyone's talking about it... but I haven't. In fact, I've kept my mouth completely shut about it, because sometimes I'm simply not sure how I feel about it - other times I feel very strongly, but don't feel like getting flamed.
This is mainly due to the fact that I have a very solid rule about games and money. I pay for the game itself, and will not pay for anything else. I had to bend this rule for WoW, which is one of the main reasons I waited for years before I started playing it - that's how seriously I take my rule. I finally broke down and paid for the actual WoW game AND the subscription, and I figure that's enough. I draw the line at purchasing anything else, which is why I have never, and most likely will never, change servers. The only other exception I made to this rule was when I purchased a Lil' KT for my fiance for Christmas... and I debated over doing that for weeks. I decided that since I wanted to buy him something anyway, I would make the exception - the money was going to be spent regardless.
When it comes to F2P games, I absolutely do not purchase any extra amenities... it's against my rule. I am not, however, opposed to these F2P games charging for the real meat of the game. They put in the effort and time and money investing in their product, and therefore it makes sense they they find a source of compensation for that. I am, at heart, a capitalist. I take issue with Evony for other reasons I won't go into here, but I think most F2P games are great in principle, and have nothing against them.
So then, let's bring this back to WoW. There have always been ways to pay for in-game services, but they weren't necessarily sponsored or legal in Blizzard ToS terms. I know several people who sold characters via ebay, and the gold-sellers need no explanation. The only semi-sponsored in-game items you could "purchase" with real world money up until the pets were available via the Trading Card Game. It wasn't easy to get a mount TCG card though... and if you wanted one, you more than likely how to shell out quite a bit of money on ebay to buy one.
For as long as I can remember, you were permitted to change your character to another server, provided you pay a fee.
Later, a new service was added where you could change the name of you character, as well as the sex (for a fee).
Then you could change your faction (for a fee).
And then the whole world exploded, because Blizzard started selling very nice in game pets for 10 dollars each. To soften this blow, until the end of this past December, half of the money you paid for your Pandaren Monk pet would be donated to a worthy charity. Call me a cynic, but what a great PR move. I said screw that and donated 20 dollars directly to a charity myself. That having been said, my only real beef with this item was that it counted towards your plenty of pets achievement.
And now for the next tier... Bornakk has announced that Blizzard will hopefully soon be offering a new "premium-based service" that will allow people to access the Auction House via their mobile device... for a fee.
To be honest, I don't really know how I feel about this yet. I don't know what all Auction House abilities players will have via mobile device. I don't know yet what they will do to prevent scams and gold farmers from making great use of this. And I love my iPhone, and I don't know how much the app will cost. I also don't know what will be available for free (hurrah!!) and what will be "premium based" (boo) but if I had to hazard a guess, I would agree with Matticus' theories. So, will it be a one time charge? An additional cost to your subscription? Does it even matter?
I do know that Blizz has stated in the past that while they are breaching the realm of RMT, they have limitations - they want to implement RMT "in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience". They do not want a player who pays more money to gain advantage over one who pays the basic game+subsciption fee.
I've already stated that I'm a capitalist. I believe that RMT is hitting the gaming world by storm, and Blizzard wants to stay competitive by branching out into different money making approaches. I'm not necessarily opposed to this addition.
But I do have a question: Who decides what is the marker of the "gameplay experience"?
Is gameplay only competitive raiding?
Is gameplay all about making gold?
Is gameplay the pursuit of more achievements?
Is gameplay the pwning of opposite factions in PvP?
Is gameplay all about having your ideal RP toon?
Because paying to purchase pets affects achievements. Paying to switch servers affects competitive raiding. Paying to change name and sex affects RP. And paying for premium out of game AH service affects gold most of all, but every other facet of the game indirectly.
Blizzard built a rich alternate universe in which there is some aspect of the game that could entertain most everyone. I hate PvP, but I have nothing against those that enjoy it. I don't RP, but I don't make fun of those who choose to do so. Gevlon is the king of gold-making, and it is obviously something in which he finds pleasure and entertainment. It's not my thing, but it's also not my 15 bucks a month - if someone wants to sit around all day and take screenshots of me dancing naked with Power Infusion, who am I to tell them that it's dumb? It's not my money, it's theirs, and as long as it does not negatively affect the aspects of the game that I enjoy, I really don't care.
Therefore, when you say that on principle you want to implement paid services "in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience", then you are asking for trouble. Don't kid yourself. It all affects gameplay. When you suggest that it doesn't, it is an insult to the people who enjoy one aspect of gameplay over another.
But I have a bit more faith in Blizzard. I also know enough about their forum announcements to recognize how they usually prefer to tell us about something when it is already implemented - not long before hand. When they announce something like this, I interpret it as their desire to receive feedback on it before implementation. Like it or not, folks, AH access outside of the game is coming. The details, however... the nitty gritty... perhaps that is not completely determined yet. Perhaps they have yet to decide for sure what will be free, and what will be a "premium-based service".
I'm going to take the Coco-line here and say this much: Don't become a cynic. Whether or not forum trolls want to recognize it, Blizzard does listen to their customers. They do not always directly respond to each individual, but they are reading what the masses say. The proof lies in my Blizzard IP-traced hits from my post about why Oculus is a failure. They are listening, my friends. Business is business, but it is in the best interest of their product and their bottom line to listen to the players and find the optimal way to make money (i.e. retaining customers) which also requires a reasonable attempt to keep their players happy. It doesn't mean you're gonna get a pony - but it does mean that they want your feedback. The trick is to provide it in a constructive way.
Despite my reservations and my personal rules, I'm not sure how I feel about the RMT trend in WoW. I do want to hear your thoughts.
But I think Blizzard wants to hear them even more. Onward to ye forums! This doesn't mean I encourage you to go out and get nasty and banned from the forums - but tell Blizz what you think. Are you as excited as Matticus about this? Are you on the fence like me? Are you completely against it like many others most assuredly will be? Do you think it represents a slightly frightening trend? Tell Blizz, but do it in a constructive way - and then link your forum post in the comments!
ETA: The Green Armadillo has posted a very interesting... uhm... post... about the AH services on the horizon. I invite you all to go read it! He touches on many of the same things about which I've wondered here. Except, you know, less TLDRish.
Love it or hate it, it has arrived in the World of Warcraft, amidst shouts of horror, disgust, and joy.
What it means for you as a player (AKA a customer), is that you can purchase game-based amenities with real world dollars. Traditionally you purchased things in-game with in-game currency. If you wanted to trade some of your cold hard real world cash for in-game fun (aside from purchasing the game and paying a subscription), you would have to go do some shady business with a mysteriously falling-from-the-sky-dead-spelling-out-a-URL gold seller.
There are plenty of games out on the market that are technically F2P - meaning free to play. No cost for the game, no subscription fee. However, the game is massively improved upon by purchasing additions with real world money (think Evony... or don't. It makes me cringe - which is why I won't even link to it).
Where do you draw the line? When is a little RMT... too much RMT?
Everyone's talking about it... but I haven't. In fact, I've kept my mouth completely shut about it, because sometimes I'm simply not sure how I feel about it - other times I feel very strongly, but don't feel like getting flamed.
This is mainly due to the fact that I have a very solid rule about games and money. I pay for the game itself, and will not pay for anything else. I had to bend this rule for WoW, which is one of the main reasons I waited for years before I started playing it - that's how seriously I take my rule. I finally broke down and paid for the actual WoW game AND the subscription, and I figure that's enough. I draw the line at purchasing anything else, which is why I have never, and most likely will never, change servers. The only other exception I made to this rule was when I purchased a Lil' KT for my fiance for Christmas... and I debated over doing that for weeks. I decided that since I wanted to buy him something anyway, I would make the exception - the money was going to be spent regardless.
When it comes to F2P games, I absolutely do not purchase any extra amenities... it's against my rule. I am not, however, opposed to these F2P games charging for the real meat of the game. They put in the effort and time and money investing in their product, and therefore it makes sense they they find a source of compensation for that. I am, at heart, a capitalist. I take issue with Evony for other reasons I won't go into here, but I think most F2P games are great in principle, and have nothing against them.
So then, let's bring this back to WoW. There have always been ways to pay for in-game services, but they weren't necessarily sponsored or legal in Blizzard ToS terms. I know several people who sold characters via ebay, and the gold-sellers need no explanation. The only semi-sponsored in-game items you could "purchase" with real world money up until the pets were available via the Trading Card Game. It wasn't easy to get a mount TCG card though... and if you wanted one, you more than likely how to shell out quite a bit of money on ebay to buy one.
For as long as I can remember, you were permitted to change your character to another server, provided you pay a fee.
Later, a new service was added where you could change the name of you character, as well as the sex (for a fee).
Then you could change your faction (for a fee).
And then the whole world exploded, because Blizzard started selling very nice in game pets for 10 dollars each. To soften this blow, until the end of this past December, half of the money you paid for your Pandaren Monk pet would be donated to a worthy charity. Call me a cynic, but what a great PR move. I said screw that and donated 20 dollars directly to a charity myself. That having been said, my only real beef with this item was that it counted towards your plenty of pets achievement.
And now for the next tier... Bornakk has announced that Blizzard will hopefully soon be offering a new "premium-based service" that will allow people to access the Auction House via their mobile device... for a fee.
To be honest, I don't really know how I feel about this yet. I don't know what all Auction House abilities players will have via mobile device. I don't know yet what they will do to prevent scams and gold farmers from making great use of this. And I love my iPhone, and I don't know how much the app will cost. I also don't know what will be available for free (hurrah!!) and what will be "premium based" (boo) but if I had to hazard a guess, I would agree with Matticus' theories. So, will it be a one time charge? An additional cost to your subscription? Does it even matter?
I do know that Blizz has stated in the past that while they are breaching the realm of RMT, they have limitations - they want to implement RMT "in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience". They do not want a player who pays more money to gain advantage over one who pays the basic game+subsciption fee.
I've already stated that I'm a capitalist. I believe that RMT is hitting the gaming world by storm, and Blizzard wants to stay competitive by branching out into different money making approaches. I'm not necessarily opposed to this addition.
But I do have a question: Who decides what is the marker of the "gameplay experience"?
Is gameplay only competitive raiding?
Is gameplay all about making gold?
Is gameplay the pursuit of more achievements?
Is gameplay the pwning of opposite factions in PvP?
Is gameplay all about having your ideal RP toon?
Because paying to purchase pets affects achievements. Paying to switch servers affects competitive raiding. Paying to change name and sex affects RP. And paying for premium out of game AH service affects gold most of all, but every other facet of the game indirectly.
Blizzard built a rich alternate universe in which there is some aspect of the game that could entertain most everyone. I hate PvP, but I have nothing against those that enjoy it. I don't RP, but I don't make fun of those who choose to do so. Gevlon is the king of gold-making, and it is obviously something in which he finds pleasure and entertainment. It's not my thing, but it's also not my 15 bucks a month - if someone wants to sit around all day and take screenshots of me dancing naked with Power Infusion, who am I to tell them that it's dumb? It's not my money, it's theirs, and as long as it does not negatively affect the aspects of the game that I enjoy, I really don't care.
Therefore, when you say that on principle you want to implement paid services "in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience", then you are asking for trouble. Don't kid yourself. It all affects gameplay. When you suggest that it doesn't, it is an insult to the people who enjoy one aspect of gameplay over another.
But I have a bit more faith in Blizzard. I also know enough about their forum announcements to recognize how they usually prefer to tell us about something when it is already implemented - not long before hand. When they announce something like this, I interpret it as their desire to receive feedback on it before implementation. Like it or not, folks, AH access outside of the game is coming. The details, however... the nitty gritty... perhaps that is not completely determined yet. Perhaps they have yet to decide for sure what will be free, and what will be a "premium-based service".
I'm going to take the Coco-line here and say this much: Don't become a cynic. Whether or not forum trolls want to recognize it, Blizzard does listen to their customers. They do not always directly respond to each individual, but they are reading what the masses say. The proof lies in my Blizzard IP-traced hits from my post about why Oculus is a failure. They are listening, my friends. Business is business, but it is in the best interest of their product and their bottom line to listen to the players and find the optimal way to make money (i.e. retaining customers) which also requires a reasonable attempt to keep their players happy. It doesn't mean you're gonna get a pony - but it does mean that they want your feedback. The trick is to provide it in a constructive way.
Despite my reservations and my personal rules, I'm not sure how I feel about the RMT trend in WoW. I do want to hear your thoughts.
But I think Blizzard wants to hear them even more. Onward to ye forums! This doesn't mean I encourage you to go out and get nasty and banned from the forums - but tell Blizz what you think. Are you as excited as Matticus about this? Are you on the fence like me? Are you completely against it like many others most assuredly will be? Do you think it represents a slightly frightening trend? Tell Blizz, but do it in a constructive way - and then link your forum post in the comments!
ETA: The Green Armadillo has posted a very interesting... uhm... post... about the AH services on the horizon. I invite you all to go read it! He touches on many of the same things about which I've wondered here. Except, you know, less TLDRish.
So I just took down Toravon (the new VoA loot/badge pinata) on ten man, and it was very simple. If you haven't seen the new boss yet, here are a couple of pointers before you pug...
Here's the Overview from WoWhead...
Tank Damage:
So in short?
Expect puggers to ditch the group after Toravon has been killed, though you might want to try asking before any bosses that people stay.
Loots?
According to Bornakk, Toravon will not be dropping all the tier items, just gloves and legs, as well as the PvP boots and belt. Oh, and don't forget them Frost Emblems!
Here's the Overview from WoWhead...
Toravon, much like the other bosses here, is mostly a DPS race while managing to kill his adds.
Occasionally Toravon will apply a stacking debuff to the tank which deals damage over time and also snares him. You will want to have a second tank to switch off with back and forth to deal with the debuff.
Every so often a tiny ring will appear on the floor, you must move away as adds will spawn that deal AoE frost damage. These adds must also be killed as quickly as possible.
Each wave of adds that spawns Toravon will cast Whiteout which will apply a stacking debuff that increases frost damage to the player by 25%. This acts as a soft enrage timer much like Koralon the Flame Watcher's stacking damage buff.
Tank Damage:
- There is a tank swap here, so keep an eye on whomever Toravon is currently targetting. He applies a stacking DoT debuff called Frostbite, so HoTs and shields (Rapture nomnom) are great.
- Once Toravon swaps tanks, the other tank will continue to take damage from Frostbite. Keep the non-tanker HoTted so that he or she doesn't die off while the other tank is doing their job!
- You can get frozen to the ground via Freezing Ground. This is a magic effect, and supposedly can be dispelled, but I was unable to dispel magic on it. Try mass dispel. You really don't want to be stuck to the ground because...
- Every so often Toravon will summon "adds" which are actually Frozen Orbs that do a lot of AoE damage. All ranged need to stop anything they are doing, even if they are midcast on the boss, and take the Frozen Orbs out. You can see where they will spawn due to small white rings on the floor - this is why you don't want to be frozen in place when they spawn - you want to GTFO asap.
- Every so often, everyone will take damage from Whiteout. This acts as a soft enrage timer, and also means that Frost Resist is king here.
So in short?
- Two tank fight, swap on five stacks, but both tanks will need constant healing.
- Frost Resist aura or Totem.
- DPS needs to prioritize burning down adds.
- Move away from adds, and dispel people out of Freezing Ground so that they too can move.
- AoE heals after Whiteout and when adds are up. (Shield spamming is good here too!)
Expect puggers to ditch the group after Toravon has been killed, though you might want to try asking before any bosses that people stay.
Loots?
According to Bornakk, Toravon will not be dropping all the tier items, just gloves and legs, as well as the PvP boots and belt. Oh, and don't forget them Frost Emblems!
Obligatory and traditional "patch notes post" for those of you stuck at work blocked from the normal sources of this lovely info.
World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
Dungeons & Raids
PvP
Druids
Shamans
Warlocks
Warriors
User Interface
Items
Technical Support
World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://w
The latest patch notes can always be found at http://w
Dungeons & Raids
- Icecrown Citadel
- Frostwing Halls, the final stronghold of the Scourge and their Lich King, has been added.
- Halls of Stone
- Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.
- The Forge of Souls
- The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
- The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.
- The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
- The Nexus
- Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.
- The Old Kingdom
- Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn’Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
- Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
- Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.
- Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn’Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
- Pit of Saron
- Players can now zone back into the instance if they are dead while encounters with Krick and Ick or Forgemaster Garfrost are in progress.
- Utgarde Pinnacle
- Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
- Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.
- Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
- Vault of Archavon
- Toravon, the latest boss to join the Vault’s giants and masters of the elements, is now accepting challengers in 10- and 25-player formats.
- The Violet Hold
- The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.
PvP
- All healing abilities (including items such as potions) will be decreased in effectiveness by 10% when in Battlegrounds, Arenas, or Wintergrasp.
- Arenas
- Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!
Druids
- Talents
- Balance
- Earth and Moon: This talent now increases the druid’s spell damage by 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.
- Balance
Shamans
- Talents
- Elemental Combat
- Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.
- Elemental Combat
Warlocks
- Talents
- Affliction
- Shadow Embrace: This effect can now stack up to 3 times, up from 2. However, the periodic healing reduction effect has been reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10% per application.
- Demonology
- Demonic Pact: The damage bonus granted the warlock by this talent has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%. The buff granted to a raid or party by this talent remains unchanged.
- Destruction
- Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell’s total damage, up from 20%.
- Empowered Imp: The pet bonus damage provided by this talent has been increased to 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%.
- Improved Shadow Bolt: Damage done by Shadow Bolt increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell’s total damage, up from 20%.
- Affliction
Warriors
- Talents
- Protection
- Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
- Devastate: This ability now deals 120% of weapon damage, up from 100% of weapon damage.
- Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
- Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.
- Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
- Protection
User Interface
- The party leader is now referred to as Guide in chat when a group is formed via the Dungeon Finder.
- Fixed a bug where players with Raid Assist capabilities were unable to perform a Ready Check.
- Fixed a bug where the first couple of tutorials were not displaying upon logging into the game.
Items
- New strength-based melee DPS rings are now available from representatives of the Ashen Verdict.
- Tier-9 Sets: The Aspirant vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds have worked out a deal with merchants in Dalaran so that all item level 232 set pieces will now be available on armor vendors in the city. Set pieces which require trophies will still be available for purchase only from vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds.
- Tier-10 Balance Druid 4-Piece Bonus: Fixed a bug to allow for this bonus to properly trigger.
- Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Set Bonus: Redesigned. Successful Lava Burst casts now increase the duration of Flame Shock on the target by 6 seconds.
- Tier-10 Tank Sets: The gloves and chest pieces for warrior, death knight, and paladin tanks have had their stats adjusted slightly to provide additional armor value.
- Tier-10 Warlock 4-Piece Bonus: This bonus should now correctly be applied to the warlock’s pet.
Technical Support
- The cvar ‘processAffini
tyMask’ controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask "3".
aakrghaiergfau rfahwebrfhbgfr ahdbvabhg reg
Yes.
Now, on to other things.
First off, I keep trying to update the Raider101 site for Holy Priest and ESPECIALLY Disc Priests because it is so out of date and wrongwrongwrong that it makes my eyes bleed, but after spending two hours trying to fix it, and typing ahref tags and copying links over and over and over I finally fell half dead on my keyboard and gave up.
The same thing happened the last time I tried to fix the Holy Priest guide, come to think of it. Hmm. ADD?
Last night was our usual Sunday night Ulduar run, but as each week progresses, it gets messier and messier to try and organize. It started as an alt run, and we did things like OS and VoA and Naxx, just before ICC came out, and then started beating on Ulduar. Then with ICC came the Badge of Triumph goodness, and suddenly everyone wanted to run on their mains. Okay, that should be fine... except that we were now missing integral components of a raid. No, I'm not talking about Replenishment. I'm talking about things like... well, healers. I'm no Snottydin. Now we have new people who want to join, others who may or may not bother to respond at all to the invite, people who want to make their alts their mains, etc. Everyone has absolutely every right to play whatever toon they want to play, of course. But I also have a right to say that I no longer want to be in charge or organizing it. It is definitely NOT fun for me anymore, and instead I spend more time fighting with people about it, or crying over people being pissed off at me for it.
The others who try to organize this Sunday night fiasco-raid are just as frustrated with it as I am, so we're all taking some time off from planning and arranging that. Maybe someone else will step up and take over the organization of it.
In other, happier news, another member of our raiding repertoire has started blogging. We're becoming like a regular Brotherhood of Oblivion over here in the Lothar Swingers Club & Affiliates. Havoca has only written her first post, but keep an eye on that sassy mage. She's got an attitude but don't let it fool you. She gave me my Mag'hari staff, so she is forever on my suck-up-list.
Yes.
Now, on to other things.
First off, I keep trying to update the Raider101 site for Holy Priest and ESPECIALLY Disc Priests because it is so out of date and wrongwrongwrong that it makes my eyes bleed, but after spending two hours trying to fix it, and typing ahref tags and copying links over and over and over I finally fell half dead on my keyboard and gave up.
The same thing happened the last time I tried to fix the Holy Priest guide, come to think of it. Hmm. ADD?
Last night was our usual Sunday night Ulduar run, but as each week progresses, it gets messier and messier to try and organize. It started as an alt run, and we did things like OS and VoA and Naxx, just before ICC came out, and then started beating on Ulduar. Then with ICC came the Badge of Triumph goodness, and suddenly everyone wanted to run on their mains. Okay, that should be fine... except that we were now missing integral components of a raid. No, I'm not talking about Replenishment. I'm talking about things like... well, healers. I'm no Snottydin. Now we have new people who want to join, others who may or may not bother to respond at all to the invite, people who want to make their alts their mains, etc. Everyone has absolutely every right to play whatever toon they want to play, of course. But I also have a right to say that I no longer want to be in charge or organizing it. It is definitely NOT fun for me anymore, and instead I spend more time fighting with people about it, or crying over people being pissed off at me for it.
The others who try to organize this Sunday night fiasco-raid are just as frustrated with it as I am, so we're all taking some time off from planning and arranging that. Maybe someone else will step up and take over the organization of it.
In other, happier news, another member of our raiding repertoire has started blogging. We're becoming like a regular Brotherhood of Oblivion over here in the Lothar Swingers Club & Affiliates. Havoca has only written her first post, but keep an eye on that sassy mage. She's got an attitude but don't let it fool you. She gave me my Mag'hari staff, so she is forever on my suck-up-list.
After struggling with Saurfang for a couple of weeks, last night we extended our raid ID so that we could get some really solid attempts on him. One bad start (which totally doesn't count btw) and wipe, and then on the second try, we took him down.
With no marks.
/flex Disc muscles
And what did the lovely Deathbringer leave for us in his cache?
Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff.
However, despite how much I drooled all over this staff in my attempt to claim it, I was outrolled by our resident Arcane Mage. I pouted a little bit to myself, but I wasn't too upset. An upgrade for someone in the raid is an upgrade for the whole raid, and the haste and spirit are pretty yummy for Arcane Mages. You could probably even argue that an Arcane Mage will appreciate the Spirit more than a Disc Priest.
Although, maybe I was feeling a little bitter and passive aggressive, because not long after that I told all the meat in the room to hurry the hell up and get their butts up to Stinky.
A few minutes later, MissMagey whispers me and says she's going to hand the staff over to me, because it's not as much of an upgrade as she thought. For as much as I didn't get too upset that I lost the roll, I sure got excited that she was giving an item over to me that she won fair and square. So I ground the entire raid to a halt (ah, the power of being a raid leader) while she traded it to me.
After we put in 5 attempts on Festergut before calling it a night, I popped open Rawr and drooled some more over my fab-staff. After adjusting some filters, Rawr announced to me in no uncertain terms that I was wielding my personal BiS weapon. I imagine there may still be some superior main hand + off-hand combos, but I don't yet know how to work that out via Rawr. My glee is indescribable.
Do you believe in loot karma?
Last week a very nice weapon dropped from the ship fight for which all three healers rolled. The Famous Third Healer was not actually healing for this run since we were able to two heal everything, but it was still a solid upgrade for his DPS set. He had, however, already won something, so the roll really came down between me and my Druid fiance. The Druid rolled the highest but then hemmed and hawed. I couldn't care less - Saurfang was before us and I was plotting our attack.
"This would be a really nice upgrade for Third Healer... I mean, this weapon combined with that off-hand he won earlier would make this a great night for him, loot wise." Says Druid.
"Okay, sure whatever." Say I, whilst fish feasting and checking everyone's buffs.
"But if I pass, then it goes to you." my fiance notes.
"I don't really care. I pass too. Just give it to Third Healer." Hmm, crit food or spellpower food for this fight?
Now I'm just ignoring fiance, because seriously, he keeps talking, and I'm really trying to focus here on what's actually important... a super awesome fight for Disc priests. No, I'm not paying attention to raid chat... I'M STEELING MYSELF FOR STRONGER BUBBLES.
Then I get a tell from Fulguralis. "Uhm, what's the deal with that loot? Why is Third Healer getting it?" Then I read the screen. In guild chat, Third Healer is expressing his slight discomfort at Druid and I bypassing loot for him. Druid has announced in raid chat that the item is going to Third Healer. People seem confused that Druid is passing the item, and instead of it going to me, it's going to Third Healer.
I seriously need to learn to stop making vital decisions with the Druid sitting next to me IRL without communicating it to the other people in the raid.
Irritated, i hamfist my keyboard "OMG I PASS YES FINE JUST GIVE HIM THE DAMN ITEM AND LETS MOVE ON ALREADY YEESH"
Our Third Healer is not a man of many words, so when he does speak, everyone listens. And his excitement and pleasure is evident in guild chat, and I feel all warm and fuzzy for a moment, before telling him to just shut up about it, take his purples, and let's slaughter Saurfang. Seriously people! It's just loot!!
But when my Dwarven fingers caressed the fine wood carving of my new Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff, it didn't feel like just loot. Softly it whispered to me "Best in slot J-Bizzle! You've never had a best in slot in your entire raiding career...". BTW to all of you who want to tell me it's not BiS, just go away and let me have my dream.
I don't know if I would have appreciated Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff nearly as much if I had won the roll. Sometimes, the purple is a little shinier when someone else had it first - and then willingly and happily hands it over to you.
With no marks.
/flex Disc muscles
And what did the lovely Deathbringer leave for us in his cache?
Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff.
However, despite how much I drooled all over this staff in my attempt to claim it, I was outrolled by our resident Arcane Mage. I pouted a little bit to myself, but I wasn't too upset. An upgrade for someone in the raid is an upgrade for the whole raid, and the haste and spirit are pretty yummy for Arcane Mages. You could probably even argue that an Arcane Mage will appreciate the Spirit more than a Disc Priest.
Although, maybe I was feeling a little bitter and passive aggressive, because not long after that I told all the meat in the room to hurry the hell up and get their butts up to Stinky.
A few minutes later, MissMagey whispers me and says she's going to hand the staff over to me, because it's not as much of an upgrade as she thought. For as much as I didn't get too upset that I lost the roll, I sure got excited that she was giving an item over to me that she won fair and square. So I ground the entire raid to a halt (ah, the power of being a raid leader) while she traded it to me.
After we put in 5 attempts on Festergut before calling it a night, I popped open Rawr and drooled some more over my fab-staff. After adjusting some filters, Rawr announced to me in no uncertain terms that I was wielding my personal BiS weapon. I imagine there may still be some superior main hand + off-hand combos, but I don't yet know how to work that out via Rawr. My glee is indescribable.
Do you believe in loot karma?
Last week a very nice weapon dropped from the ship fight for which all three healers rolled. The Famous Third Healer was not actually healing for this run since we were able to two heal everything, but it was still a solid upgrade for his DPS set. He had, however, already won something, so the roll really came down between me and my Druid fiance. The Druid rolled the highest but then hemmed and hawed. I couldn't care less - Saurfang was before us and I was plotting our attack.
"This would be a really nice upgrade for Third Healer... I mean, this weapon combined with that off-hand he won earlier would make this a great night for him, loot wise." Says Druid.
"Okay, sure whatever." Say I, whilst fish feasting and checking everyone's buffs.
"But if I pass, then it goes to you." my fiance notes.
"I don't really care. I pass too. Just give it to Third Healer." Hmm, crit food or spellpower food for this fight?
Now I'm just ignoring fiance, because seriously, he keeps talking, and I'm really trying to focus here on what's actually important... a super awesome fight for Disc priests. No, I'm not paying attention to raid chat... I'M STEELING MYSELF FOR STRONGER BUBBLES.
Then I get a tell from Fulguralis. "Uhm, what's the deal with that loot? Why is Third Healer getting it?" Then I read the screen. In guild chat, Third Healer is expressing his slight discomfort at Druid and I bypassing loot for him. Druid has announced in raid chat that the item is going to Third Healer. People seem confused that Druid is passing the item, and instead of it going to me, it's going to Third Healer.
I seriously need to learn to stop making vital decisions with the Druid sitting next to me IRL without communicating it to the other people in the raid.
Irritated, i hamfist my keyboard "OMG I PASS YES FINE JUST GIVE HIM THE DAMN ITEM AND LETS MOVE ON ALREADY YEESH"
Our Third Healer is not a man of many words, so when he does speak, everyone listens. And his excitement and pleasure is evident in guild chat, and I feel all warm and fuzzy for a moment, before telling him to just shut up about it, take his purples, and let's slaughter Saurfang. Seriously people! It's just loot!!
But when my Dwarven fingers caressed the fine wood carving of my new Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff, it didn't feel like just loot. Softly it whispered to me "Best in slot J-Bizzle! You've never had a best in slot in your entire raiding career...". BTW to all of you who want to tell me it's not BiS, just go away and let me have my dream.
I don't know if I would have appreciated Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff nearly as much if I had won the roll. Sometimes, the purple is a little shinier when someone else had it first - and then willingly and happily hands it over to you.
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Seriously. I know you're out there.
Go apply for the WoW.com columnist position. I'm quite sure they get tons of apps for the other positions... but the fact that they are struggling to find a Resto Shammy columnist speaks volumes.
I vote Vixsin!
Go apply for the WoW.com columnist position. I'm quite sure they get tons of apps for the other positions... but the fact that they are struggling to find a Resto Shammy columnist speaks volumes.
I vote Vixsin!
Powered by ScribeFire.
This has nothing to do with WoW. This is all about English and how it has FAILED US.
And then how we Texans went about attempting to rectify matters.
I shall start by presenting you a basic grammatical... spreadsheet. Because even my grocery lists are in spreadsheet format.
Remember back in elementary school, where you learned the basics of first person, second person, third person? Oh sorry... well if you didn't go to school in THE VASTLY SUPERIOR TEXAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS maybe you didn't learn it until High School. Mah bad.
That is the basic conjugation English speakers have been using to direct their verbs. Do you see the problem? Now I shall present you with LATINOMGLOVE so you can see why Latin is superior.
Latin makes the difference between YOU SUCK and YOU (plural) SUCK plainly obvious. English, however, does not.
This is simply not acceptable. Therefore, we Texans got together in the cafeteria one day, and suggested a solution to this problem.
Now I can differentiate between YOU SUCK and YOU ALL SUCK. And then we have this wonderful thing called a "contraction", and YOU ALL transformed into YA'LL, which again, is perfectly acceptable in the English language, so suck it. Some people choose to say YOU GUYS instead which is somewhat okay, but potentially sexist, ya'll.
To take this even further, we have possession. For instance, YOUR (singular) DOG IS ANNOYING versus YOUR (plural) DOG IS ANNOYING. I mean, this is a very important distinction - and the English language lacks the capacity to address such a situation.
So then some of us super-smart Texans got together over steak and potatoes, and decided that this flaw in language needed to be corrected.
Therefore, I present the following word to you: YA'LL'S. That is a contraction for YOU ALL'S in case you weren't following along.
So, if you listen to the Twisted Nether Blogcast on February 5th, and hear some strange girl using words like YA'LL and YA'LL'S, just know that I am using these words because my English > Ya'll's English.
ETA: Uhm, except when it comes to apostrophes. I could go back and correct all my errors, but after the OCCULUS/OCULUS debacle, I have decided to just own my fail and go with it.
And then how we Texans went about attempting to rectify matters.
I shall start by presenting you a basic grammatical... spreadsheet. Because even my grocery lists are in spreadsheet format.
Remember back in elementary school, where you learned the basics of first person, second person, third person? Oh sorry... well if you didn't go to school in THE VASTLY SUPERIOR TEXAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS maybe you didn't learn it until High School. Mah bad.
That is the basic conjugation English speakers have been using to direct their verbs. Do you see the problem? Now I shall present you with LATINOMGLOVE so you can see why Latin is superior.
Latin makes the difference between YOU SUCK and YOU (plural) SUCK plainly obvious. English, however, does not.This is simply not acceptable. Therefore, we Texans got together in the cafeteria one day, and suggested a solution to this problem.
Now I can differentiate between YOU SUCK and YOU ALL SUCK. And then we have this wonderful thing called a "contraction", and YOU ALL transformed into YA'LL, which again, is perfectly acceptable in the English language, so suck it. Some people choose to say YOU GUYS instead which is somewhat okay, but potentially sexist, ya'll.To take this even further, we have possession. For instance, YOUR (singular) DOG IS ANNOYING versus YOUR (plural) DOG IS ANNOYING. I mean, this is a very important distinction - and the English language lacks the capacity to address such a situation.
So then some of us super-smart Texans got together over steak and potatoes, and decided that this flaw in language needed to be corrected.
Therefore, I present the following word to you: YA'LL'S. That is a contraction for YOU ALL'S in case you weren't following along.
So, if you listen to the Twisted Nether Blogcast on February 5th, and hear some strange girl using words like YA'LL and YA'LL'S, just know that I am using these words because my English > Ya'll's English.
ETA: Uhm, except when it comes to apostrophes. I could go back and correct all my errors, but after the OCCULUS/OCULUS debacle, I have decided to just own my fail and go with it.
