[Inspirational] I'll Carry You

....as long as you're trying.

-If you have crappy gear, don't be embarrassed. So you haven't gotten lucky on loot rolls, maybe you'll get lucky this run.

-If you can only put out 1.5k DPS, you won't hear me complain, I have enough DPS for all of us, it's cool.

-If your tank gear kinda sucks, that's cool, we're in heroics so you can get better gear, I'll make sure not to be so front-loaded for ya.

-If you're struggling keeping us all healed. I won't complain if you send that much-needed heal to the tank and I die. I won't bemoan repair costs, I won't call you trash. It happens.

-If you don't know the boss fights, I'm happy to explain, just ask. And I give good explanations too, completely without any snarkyness.

-If you're slow to get stuff figured out, I'll be patient with you. We were all new once.

-If you get lost in the maze that some of these instances are, I will happily come and get you, and lead you back to the rest of the group. No thanks needed, but always appreciated.

-If you need that item to make your toon better, don't feel bad clicking that need button.

However

-If you're going to bad-mouth random people in the group for simple things, GTFO.

-If you're doing to whine that you didn't get a particular drop, GTFO.

-If you're going to spam recount after every pull to flatter your ego, GTFO.

-If you're not really going to try and just spam FoK every pull or something, GTFO.

-If you're just going to be a miserable person to play with, GTFO.

Otherwise, I'm more than happy to carry you.

----

I found this on the Bluetracker, and decided to share it with all of you that have mains that do carrying, or alts that need to be carried.

[Discipline Priests] Minimum Requirements per Teir Content

Since there's a few of you out there, I thought i would share this. Now remember, the stats I'm listing below are an approximation of what you need to have to be effective in that tier's content.

Heroics

1200 spellpower

200mp5 in five second rule

500 spirit

800 intellect

12% crit

Tier 7

1400 spellpower

230mp5 in five second rule

600 spirit

900 int

14% crit

Tier 8

2000 spellpower

320 mp5 in five second rule

700 spirit

1150 int

20% crit

15% haste

Tier 9

2200 spellpower

350 mp5 in five second rule

800 spirit

1200 int

25% crit

15% haste

Tier 10

2600 spellpower

350 mp5 in five second rule

900 spirit

1300 int

28% crit

15% haste

[Shadow Priests] Haste

A guild mate asked me a question about haste. Now most information I've been able to glean via Google and other reputable sources (Elitist Jerks and shadowpriest.com) tend to have very little information on haste for Shadow Priests.

The original question he wanted was the coefficient for haste to DPS. Unfortunately, that information is nowhere to be found meaning that we have to run tests for figuring this out. 

I'm showing that most priests are stacking haste well into the mid 800s (Source here) though there seems to be a large amount of crying by the Shadow Priest community as a whole about how they did not get Shadow Word: Pain to be effected by haste as well.

Though most are not overly concerned about SW:P, but more about their overall DPS, and how reliant their rotations are on being exact to output the optimum DPS required for the current raiding environment we have today.

Right now, I'm even seeing people saying that whether or not one goes for haste over crit or vice versa is dependent on play style. 

I suppose that could potentially be true with any class, because as a discipline priest I tend to stray away more from stacking MP5 or Spirit, and more towards INT giving me more crit and a huge mana pool, while others are stacking MP5 for fear of running OOM.

Really, there's no right amount of haste currently that reflects a mechanic imposed cap, so I would say that you're probably best off with having your haste as high as it could be without sacrificing any other important stats.

[General]My Appologies

My appologies to those that follow me via Facebook. I installed the feed early this morning only to have it spam my page.

[General] Impressions of Patch 3.3, Icecrown Citadel, and the LFG tool.

So this week brought us a whole new world of things to do within the World of Warcraft, patch 3.3 dropped Tuesday morning, with very few issues.

Patch 3.3 brought us the release of Icecrown Citadel, three new instances, teir 10, and the new and improved Looking for Group tool. 

We started off Tuesday with some connectivity issues, and some instance related issues, but other than that the launch of 3.3 was pretty damn smooth.

I was able to get in one random heroic with Kittydoom before the servers went on the blink, and was able to get the rest of them done the next day.

I'm very impressed with the new LFG (Looking for Group) tool, not only does it pair you with other members that have similar gear, but it gives you the opportunity to play with others in your battlegroup. I've run into a few runs where I've encountered terrible players but I suppose that comes with the territory, mostly my tanks have been solid, and so have my healers, though depending on what toon I'm playing (since I currently play 3 different active and geared toons at this point), I've run into issues where either we've gotten a tank that isn't doing good, or a healer is not as strong as they could be, but I've also run into issues where we've had inconsiderate DPS.

The new dungeons are worlds apart from what we've currently experienced with the initial instances that were put into Wrath of the Lich King, the fights actually require some strategy, they're not just a stand there and nuke the boss while the tank holds aggro, they require that you stop DPS or Healing during certain parts of the fight, they require movement or even CC. They require that you used skills that you may not have had to use previously, whether it be decursing, cleansing or even dropping a totem or aura that you've never used in a dungeon previously. 

The Halls of Reflection seem to be the instance that seems to cause the greatest issue in most of the parties I've been in since the release of the new patch. As a tank the entire fight isn't bad, as long as you're not a druid or a warrior. The initial part of the instance is similar in design to Violet Hold but more contained, you have 4 waves of mobs, followed by a fairly simple boss, and then 4 more waves followed by another boss. This fight requires that you have cleansers and decursers, as well as a solid kill order. I've done the dungeon a few times with much pain as a healer, as a DPS it's not half bad if the healer and the tank is solid. De-cursing is no issue on the paladin, as I can do it while waiting for cool-downs to refresh, and at that point I'm more interested in the party surviving than topping DPS meters. The second phase can be a bit tricky as it is very DPS dependent, because not only are you moving but you have a set time frame in which to kill the mobs that the Lich King is summoning, but you're being chased by him at the same time.

DPS in this dungeon does need to closely watch their aggro as the mobs are fairly spread out, as well as providing their own form of CC, and aoe based attacks, and some can hit for upwards of 22k on cloth.

Other than these few things, the instances are a refreshing change from what we've been seeing with previous patches under the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

I had an opportunity to venture into Icecrown Citadel 10 this past Wednesday, our guild was able to down Lord Marrowgar in team 1, but team 2 ran into some issues as healer balance was not at our optimum. I had the opportunity to go in to heal and DPS for this boss. 

I'm enjoying the challenges that Icecrown has provided so far up to this point. Not only are we dealing with phase transitions, but we're dealing with ground damage akin to the Illidan fight of Black Temple, and immobilizing spikes, and a whirlwind phase. Lots of movement and quick thinking, as well as CC needed on trash pulls again.

Oh trash pulls! How I've missed you!

The last thing I wanted to really touch on was the new and improved LFG tool. It's amazing! I love it! Not only am I able to find a similarly geared group, but I have the flexibility to run with my friends. The daily heroic is a thing of the past, and now we have a daily random, which could be anything! Today's daily random was ToC 10 for the paladin, Forge of Souls for the priest, and for the druid was Halls of Lightning. So it breaks up the monotony of farming badges, and brings new people and new personalities into the same dull runs. 

[Video]Icecrown Preview

Vodka released an amazing video of Icecrown Citadel. I'm sharing it here today because like Ciderhelm from Tankspot.com's video of Glory of the Raider, this one is equally well done.

BE FOREWARNED BEFORE WATCHING THAT THIS VIDEO DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR ICECROWN CITADEL!

[Reminiscing] Do you remember the good old days when......

I was in a Trial of the Champion this morning with a good friend of mine, and a few other random old-school raiders, and we got into the discussion of what was challenging, and then went from there to reminiscing when the game was actually kinda hard.

Trial of the Crusader is not hard. It's a bit of a range and positioning nightmare, but there's no real strategy to it. Most bosses can be zerged down with a group of heavy hitters. There's no positioning required except that you stay behind bosses, get out of fire etc.

I look back at the Gurtog Bloodboil fight in Black Temple, I remember running in and out of the pools of water when you had Bloodboil. I remember spell stealing buffs off of Reliquary of Souls, I remember needing special gear for High King Maulgar, tanks needing nature resist gear for SSC, and warlocks tanking Leotheras the Blind.

What happened to the days where the game required a little more work than sitting there mashing buttons? Where it could take Blizzard over a year to release content because no one had cleared the existing content yet, where healers actually had to balance mana regen and spellpower?

What about raids, 15 man and 40 man raids are a thing of the past, and with it the guilds that kept a decent number of players, and that unguilded people were hunting for the perfect guild to help them feed their need for raiding. Now we see such a large population of players being unguilded, and still rocking awesome gear, and wearing the titles that would've been previously reserved for people in organized raiding guilds.

I miss the epic quest chains for things like weapons, or titles. I remember working so hard on getting "Champion of the Naaru" and even working toward "Hand of A'dal" (I did not get Hand of A'dal since my guild wasn't that far ahead in progression at the time). I remember my first trip into Tempest Keep, and learning to dodge orbs on Lootreaver.

What happened to those days when downing a boss left a sense of accomplishment throughout the raid?

[Paladin] 969 Tanking Rotation Explained

Taken From: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/58793-prot-paladin-969-explanation.html
----------------------------------------

Why we use 969?

Paladin tanking moves are all instant-cast, on the GCD, and have cooldowns. Most of our abilities are pure threat moves, Holy Shield is excellent mitigation, we want close to 100% uptime (it also provides decent threat). Judgement is one of our weaker threat moves, but also applies a variety of debuffs on the mob and also procs our tanking libram (the BV one is the only tanking libram at the moment).

We have more moves than we can actually use - under most boss-tanking circumstances, every single GCD will be used. The 969 rotation can be mathematically proven to be the best possible TPS rotation - Psiven has done this in his monumental TPS sticky. What follows is a very brief summary of his findings. Credit his.

Although I talk about "best" and "worst" moves in this section, our worst (HotR-single-target) still does 75% of the DPS/TPS of our best move (ShoR), so it isn't worth losing half a second to dead time to switch from worst move to best move. Given that a half-second delay in order to go from worst to best isn't viable, ANY tanking rotation with dead-time in it is automatically a non-optimal rotation.

Dead-time = mathematically non-optimal TPS rotation. Any suggestion of "I use a weird rotation and just take a 0.5 second break every so often" cannot be as much TPS as 969.

The GCD is 1.5 seconds, and is checked client side. so Internet lag/ping is a non-issue (within reason - past about 500ms everything goes to hell). Human reaction time doesn't change the results either.

We have two moves that are on 6 second GCDs, which is 4 GCDs - HotR & ShoR. Both moves are very good - ShoR in particular is our best DPS move. HotR is a weak single target, but amazing for 2+. So that's half our GCDs gone. So we have half our GCDs left.

We have three moves on 8-10 seconds CDs - roughly 6 GCDs: Consecrate, Judgement & Holy Shield. We want HS to have 100% uptime, but it has 10-sec duration and 8 sec CD, and 9 seconds = 6 GCDs, so we us HS every 6 GCDs.

So we're using some things every 4 GCDs and some every 6 GCDs. Which lines up in 12 GCDs - our rotation is 18 seconds long. Once we get HotR, ShoR & HS in, we end up with just enough GCDs left over to get consecrate and judgement in every 6 GCDs as well.

The base CD of Judgement is 10 seconds - that's more than 6 GCDs - so we have to talent it to 9 seconds. But we've already shown that dead-time reduces our TPS under all circumstances, so there isn't any point dropping it to 8 seconds, because 8 isn't divisible by 1.5. We have a GCD at 7.5 seconds - but we can't judge then, too early. And we don't want dead-time, so we use something else and now we get to judge at 9 seconds. Thus: 1/2 Imp Judge.

Once Judge is in, we're down to one GCD free every 6 GCDs. We insert consecrate, with 8 sec CD, we get to 8/9 uptime - about 89%.

Psiven did a whole pile of analysis trying various different options using 8 second Judge/Consecrate, and there was no solution that provided higher DPS than judging/consecrate on 9 sec CD.

This has been confirmed (again) in compelling and accurate detail by Theck. Go read his sticky.

How to do 969

Okay, so all our GCDs are full in theory, how do you actually execute 969?

Short version: Watch this Youtube Video:



Long version follows:

Well, we know our cycle is 18 seconds / 12 GCDs long, and taht 4 GCD abilities use half and 6 GCD abilities use half. These abilities are referred to by the CD lenght - 6 seconds and 9 seconds.

We want no dead-time, and we know we're using every single GCD. So what order to use abilities?

If you work it out, you discover that the only way to avoid "GCD collision" (two abilites coming off CD at the same time) is to swap back and forth between the 6 sec and 9 sec abilities. If you start with 6699, you shortly hit a point where either two abilities come off CD at the same time or no abilities are avaliable at all. It's the latter one that stuffs you - you just had a whole GCD of dead time.

So you have to go "969" (or 696). Short-Long-Short-Long. If you do that, you will always have an ability to use every GCD, and will be able to use each ability immediately when it comes off GCD.

The exact order doesn't matter - you can tune it to suit your personal preferences or the boss/trash mechanics. Just make sure you start with short-long-short-long and after that you're locked into 969 - just hit each ability as it comes off CD.

You can macro it to two buttons if you want - you have a "short" button and a "long" button, and your tanking rotation becaomes 1212121212. There are pros and cons - I don't do it, I prefer the flexibility of order, and the ability to totally control when I use Consecrate.

[LOL] Gnometry

Starting fresh in Azeroth, it made me ponder,
that beyond the mountains, in Coldridge yonder,
through the Deeprun, and straight to Goldshire,
an adventure started, the Gnomish fate no longer dire.

Questing for hours, time quickly flew,
soon a Gnomish master, powered by caffeinated brew,
that day so memorable in all it's glory,
a Gnome forever, and that is my story!

[Raiding] Faction Champions Aggro Theory

Taken from: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f218/58570-faction-champs-aggro.html
-----------------------------
Apparently this was taken from the raid leader of Forlorn Legacy

General Concepts

The first important point to understand about Faction Champions is that nothing is random, as much as it may seem so upon first learning the fight. Every action the mobs take is governed by very specific rules, all of which may be controlled to your favor by understanding the priority system behind their AI.

The most important principle to understand is that all the Faction Champions are governed by threat. It is often said that they have no threat table, but this is a myth. You can even see their threat table on omen when you target one of the mobs.

How is this testable?

Look at omen while targeting a Faction Champion. Observe the fact that threat drop abilities such as Feign Death or Fade work as normal on Faction Champions, even on Heroic Difficulty. Observe the fact that taunt effects function as normal on Normal Difficulty, indicating that threat rules exist and can be manipulated using the normal tools, even if they function according to unusual rules.

The cause of the misunderstanding that Faction Champions have no threat is the fact that their threat is not the result of damage taken or healing sensed. It is calculated by different rules than any other encounter in the game.

Those are the rules.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Melee DPS Champions

Melee DPS Faction Champions calculate their threat based on an additive combination of 3 factors. Each of the three appear to share equal priority for determining target, and the threat list constantly updates. These factors are ARMOR, PROXIMITY and HEALTH DEFICIT.

AROMOR

Armor is the first factor of targeting priority and refers to the exact armor value displayed on your character tab. The lower the absolute value of armor on a potential target, the higher the threat.
LOWER ARMOR = HIGHER THREAT.

How is this testable?

Have two warlocks stand exactly on top of each other. Have them both activate the spell Fel Armor. Warlocks are one of the highest priority targets in general for Melee when all other factors are equal because they have one of the lowest relative armor values. At some point, one of the melee will be almost guaranteed to target and attempt to attack one of the warlocks wearing Fel Armor. When that happens, have the warlock who was targeted activate Demon Armor, which grants greatly increased additional armor value. Unless outside factors interfere, the melee DPS Faction Champion should always immediately switch targets to the other lock standing in the same spot as the first one, due to the armor value.

How does this knowledge help me?

Depending on the class, the understanding of Armor Value's contribution to the aggro calculation can be exploited in various ways. One of the most universal is the ability to have your more valuable raid members pre-pot an Indestructible Potion right before entering combat, granting them an additional 2500 armor and thus a much lower threat signature. Similarly, a player who finds themselves vulnerable and unable to escape a melee DPS attacking them may re-actively use an Indestructible Potion to help them drop threat.

Tanks attempting to pick up a target or hold it may wish to put on DPS gear or remove their shield. Players with access to some form of Armor increasing effect such as Inner Fire should pay particular attention to keeping it active at full strength unless they wish to deliberately cause Faction Champions to attack them. Another example is a druid shape-shifting into a higher armor form if focused, such as a feral druid shifting from cat to bear. Warlocks are the class most frequently focus-fired by melee DPS Faction Champions, and their primary threat-signature tool, Demon Armor, was mentioned in the example above.


PROXIMITY

The second piece to the melee DPS Faction Champion threat calculation is proximity; the distance from the Faction Champion to the player. The shorter the distance, the higher the threat.

CLOSER PROXIMITY = HIGHER THREAT

How is this Testable?

Have a deathknight Death Grip a melee DPS Faction Champion far away from everyone else in the raid. Then Stun or otherwise CC that Faction Champion. Have any player stand right next to the CC'd Faction Champion, and have everyone else move far, far away. Unless significant outside factors interfere, the Faction Champions will always attempt to attack the player right next to them. For testing purposes, use a class with fairly low relative armor to ensure that the armor and health deficit threat signature of someone else does not override the testing player's proximity threat signature.

How Does this Knowledge help me?

It doesn't really, since the proper way of handling this knowledge is intuitive already. Melee DPS Faction Champions can attack you from melee range, and thus it is natural to want to move away from them if they are attacking you. This applies to melee DPS attacking the faction champion too though. It is good practice for a melee DPS who is targeted by a Faction Champion to run away from the Faction Champion and cause it to target switch or to be ineffective at causing any damage until someone else's proximity threat signature overrides theirs and they begin attempting to attack someone else. Reducing as much damage taken by the raid as possible is a primary focus of the entire raid, as the less damage that goes out, the more the healers can focus on dispelling, which results in a far more stable control over the encounter. It is also advisable to keep various forms of snares and movement inhibiting debuffs on melee DPS Faction Champions as often as possible.

HEALTH DEFICIT

The third and final component of a player's threat signature for a melee DPS Faction Champion is their health deficit. This is defined in terms of the absolute value of hp that player is below their maximum hp. This is the factor which causes the seemingly random "insta-gibs" where multiple Faction Champions all target the same player at once and deliver a devastating combination of attacks. This generally occurs when someone takes a DoT tick or a low armor value player is clipped by an AOE effect like Bladestorm. It gives the illusion of intelligence by causing them to attempt to target whoever is weakest in your raid.

HIGHER HEALTH DEFICIT (more damage taken) = HIGHER THREAT

How is this Testable?

Have a Deathknight Death Grip a melee DPS Faction Champion far away from the rest of the raid. Then stun it or otherwise CC it. Have two warlocks or roughly equal armor value stand directly on top of the CC'd Faction Champion. Have one of them Life Tap to half health or lower to creat a great enough health deficit threat signature between the two warlocks. When the Faction Champion comes out of CC, unless outside factors interfere it will always attempt to attack the warlock at lower health due to the health deficit from Life Tapping.

How does this knowledge help me?

The biggest application of this aspect of the threat signature is focusing a large amount of attention to defensively dispelling DoT and Debuff effects from your raid. The better your raid's dispelling, the more controllable the fight will be because there will be no random health deficits all over the place causing unpredictable target switching to occur. DoTs tick for hard enough to be a significant danger to raid members by setting them up for an insta-gib situation where their health deficit threat signature causes multiple Faction Faction Champions to all switch targets to them at once. The other aspect of this knowledge that can be exploited is that if you are a tank attempting to control a mob, and you can get a melee DPS Faction Champion far enough away from the rest of the raid taht you have a proximity threat signature advantage to compensate for your lower armor value threat signature, if the Faction Champion starts attacking you it will tend to remain attacking you because it will be constantly causing a health deficit on you unless outside factors interfere.

Another application of this applies to warlocks, who should be encouraged not to Life Tap unless positioned a significant distance away from dangerous Faction Champions or receiving immediate healing.

SUMMARY

ARMOR VALUE + PROXIMITY + HEALTH DEFICIT = THREAT SIGNATURE

Note: The Rules for melee DPS Faction Champions all also apply to the Hunter and both the Hunter pet and the Warlock pet. Both pets are subject to taunt even in Heroic Difficulty.

Ranged DPS Faction Champions

Ranged DPS Faction Champions function on very similar lines to melee DPS Faction Champions, with one difference. Instead of Armor Value being part of their threat calculation, they instead compare Resistance to their school of magic.

RESISTANCE + PROXIMITY + HEALTH DEFICIT = THREAT

RESISTANCE

This aspect of the threat calculation is much less noticable than the armor value part for Melee DPS, since resistance levesl tend to be the same for everyone in the raid due to raid wide buffs like Mark of the Wild, Auras, and Totems. Some classes have abilities which grant them higher resistance to magic than normal, and will thus tend to not be targetd by the caster Faction Champions, but in general casters will simply deliver killing blow insta-gibs to raid members already being attacked by Melee Faction Champions as health deficit is the primary determining faction in their targeting.

How is this Testable?

Stun or Otherwise CC a caster Faction Champion. Quickly move the entire raid to the complete opposite side of the room so that they will be out of range of that Faction Champion's attacks. Have two players, one buffed with Mark of the Wild, one without Mark of the Wild stand directly on top of the CC'd Faction Champion. When the Faction Champion comes out of CC, unless outside factors interfere, they should always attack the player without mark of the wild.

How does this knowledge help me?

If you have players which you find are vulnerable to being focused down by casters, have them use a Flask of Lesser REsistance (+50 to all resists), which should help significantly to prevent caster Faction Champions from targeting them unless they have a significant proximity and health deficit threat signature.

Healers

Healers heal based on a very recognizable principle. They place priority on their healing targets based on the lowest absolute HP among friendly targets. What this means is that out of all Faction Champions with a health deficit, no matter how big, the one with the lowest numerical amount of health will be selected as the target of their healing. This is why it is relatively easy to burn down high health targets at first, but when they reach lower health all enemy healers will pour massive amounts of healing into the target and it will be much more difficult to finish off.

How is this testable?

Have one player spend the entire fight DPSing the hunter or warlock pet. Since pets have much lower absolute health than any of the actual Faction Champions, as long as the one player is constantly doing damage to the pet the healers will focus their primary attention on spamming the pet with healing and HoTs. An enhancement shaman is ideal for this as they can purge off the HoTs. Observe the healing received meters following the engagement.

How does this knowledge help me?

Save your CC diminishing returns on enemy healers for when your kill target is reaching lower levels of health, and then chain them in sequence to solidify a kill. As in the method of testing, assign one player, or alternatively all your raid's pets, to constantly DPS the enemy pets. Be sure not to kill them. All heals directed at these pets your interrupters can simply let go through, and save their shocks and kicks for any heals directed at non-pets. This allows you to do a much more effective job at eliminating haling onto your kill target.

LOWER ABSOLUTE HEALTH = HIGHER HEALING PRIORITY

So to sum up (ALL THREE SECTIONS):

Clothies use armor spells/skills/pots, stay max range.
Druids shift to bear/barkskin when targetted etc
Tanks drop some armor and only get healed to 50%
Keep NPC pets low so healers focus heal them
+ a bunch of other stuff that will make this fight cake.

[Gearing] How important are your enchants??

For some of us we refuse to put on a piece of gear before it's enchanted, some of us don't care, wear the gear anyway and then get it enchanted, and then there's others that either don't know about enchanting, or just don't care.

I've been a gearing leader in several guilds and have actually brought some players back from being benched permanently, or even from being kicked for lack of performance. I've seen people go from doing less than 3k DPS to doing 8k or 9k DPS.

I've gotten into out and out arguments with people about enchants. What they don't realize is that it increases your chances of getting into groups and potentially being recruited into a guild.

Having the correct enchants also can be the thin line between a raid wiping or downing a boss. It gives your gear that little bit of oomph that it wouldn't have by itself.

[Feral Druid] Annoyances

Okay, so this is rant time. I religiously run Onyxia 10, 25, ToC 10 and 25 faithfully every week. I've only seen a feral weapon drop once in the month's I've been running these instances. I'm still rocking Journey's End off of KT 25.

I've looked at the ToC 5 Heroic polearm and have seen that it's a downgrade from the staff I'm currently using, and I'm starting to get frustrated. It seems that not only am I rolling against Warriors, DKs, Hunters, and Shamans, but it seems that tanking weapons are dropping more than anything else.

I raid on several toons, and they've had successful runs where they've been able to get up to date weapons. Though for the priest I've been hard pressed to change out Rapture, and the same goes for the paladin with his Storm Rune Edge.

The druid just seems the hardest to get a weapon for..... /sigh.

[Raiding Priests] How Many Disc Priests?

This evening after doing Wintergrasp on my Druid, I hopped onto my priest to do Vault. Now, I've been playing my priest for just over 2 years now, predominantly Holy, but recently I made the jump into discipline healing.

A few weeks ago in an Ulduar 10 achievement run a second priest was brought into the raid to assist with healing. The priest was discipline, and I noticed while meter watching (yes, I meter watch mainly to get a general idea of my performance, and to reaffirm that I am doing my job. A throwback to some abuse I sustained at the hands of an overzealous holy paladin.) I noticed that my effective healing and my effective absorbs had gone down drastically from fight to fight.

While thinking about it later on, I had noticed that my usual targets (namely tanks, and some DPS) were bubbled anytime I went to apply bubbles. This nerfed my overall absorbs.

I didn't really question it at that time, but figured that only one discipline priest would be effective in any raid environment.

Tonight really confirmed that for me. I headed into Vault. We had three healers, which usually is sufficiently overkill for Vault 10. The healer balance was off, causing extreme amounts of fail. There just wasn't any viable long range group healing.

After that raid fell apart, I did a little digging, because I had just been runninjg off a theory that you could really only have one disc priest in a raid. I found that you could have more than one, but you need to organize the healing to a point that it would only be good in a fight similar to Hard Mode Anub'arak. (Source)

[LOL] I'm Too Pally

Taken from *Healing Way*

It’s been a hard night of wiping.
The raid leader is griping.
  The main tank threw a fit,
  Three DPS just gquit,
And the healers spent the entire night sniping.

Both Paladins died in a fire.
My cat chewed through my mouse wire.
  The Warlock went on a binge
  Watching the TV show Fringe.
And the Rogue called the Druid a liar.

Adds ran around uncontrolled.
A ready check never was polled.
  Then, after 32 tries,
  Through all the wailing and cries,
Archavon finally got rolled.

Healing Way can be found by clicking >HERE<

Ramble Time

Just a quick ramble, I know it's been a while since I actually posted anything of any significant value on here.

Lots of changes have happened over the last few weeks including finding a new home, and new friends within the realm, taken a step back from serious raiding, trying to recover achievements that I've fallen seriously behind on, and of course posting to this blog.

I've had some interesting experiences to say the least, having touched upon Trial of the Grand Crusader 25, and Trial of the Grand Crusader 10.

I've changed my druid over from tanking to feral dps, adjusted her gear, learned feral rotations, gemming and such, and changed my priest over to Discipline from Holy.

I will never go to shadow, so don't ask. And Resto Druiding? Nope, not gonna happen.

I suppose it's about time to redo my gear analysis on Kitty. I'll probably touch on that in a later entry when things are quieter, and I may throw in one on the druid (the Druid isn't as well geared as Kitty is).

Update on the Insane

A quick update on Insane in the Membrane

Current Faction Position:

BLOODSAIL BUCCANEERS 205/12000 HONORED (COMPLETE)

DARKMOON FAIRE 3675/6000 FRIENDLY

RAVENHOLDT 129/1000 EXALTED (COMPLETE)

SHEND'RALAR 2000/21000 REVERED

BOOTY BAY 2432/3000 NEUTRAL

EVERLOOK 2095/3000 NEUTRAL

GADGETZAN 2645/6000 FRIENDLY

RATCHET 1761/21000 REVERED

ITEMS NEEDED:

RAVENHOLDT: 0 HEAVY JUNK BOXES (COMPLETE)

SHEND'RALAR: 38 LIBRAMS

DARKMOON FAIRE: 1413 DECKS

EVERLOOK: 15,962 PIRATES

GADGETZAN: 14,542 PIRATES

BOOTY BAY: 15,828 PIRATES

RATCHET: 7696 PIRATES

Update on Insane in the membrane

A quick update on Insane in the Membrane

Current Faction Position:

BLOODSAIL BUCCANEERS 205/12000 HONORED (COMPLETE)

DARKMOON FAIRE 3650/6000 FRIENDLY

RAVENHOLDT 129/1000 EXALTED (COMPLETE)

SHEND'RALAR 11000/12000 HONORED

BOOTY BAY 1592/3000 NEUTRAL

EVERLOOK 1255/3000 NEUTRAL

GADGETZAN 1665/6000 FRIENDLY

RATCHET 9115/12000 HONORED

ITEMS NEEDED:

RAVENHOLDT: 0 HEAVY JUNK BOXES (COMPLETE)

SHEND'RALAR: 44 LIBRAMS

DARKMOON FAIRE: 1414 DECKS

EVERLOOK: 16,298 PIRATES

GADGETZAN: 14,934 PIRATES

BOOTY BAY: 16,164 PIRATES

RATCHET: 8032 PIRATES

Insane in the Membrane Update

A quick update on Insane in the Membrane

Current Faction Position:

BLOODSAIL BUCCANEERS 205/12000 HONORED (COMPLETE)

DARKMOON FAIRE 3650/6000 FRIENDLY

RAVENHOLDT 20754/21000 REVERED

SHEND'RALAR 8500/12000 HONORED

BOOTY BAY 1845/3000UNFRIENDLY

EVERLOOK 1508/3000 UNFRIENDLY

GADGETZAN 995/3000 NEUTRAL

RATCHET 9115/12000 HONORED

ITEMS NEEDED:

RAVENHOLDT: 20 HEAVY JUNK BOXES

SHEND'RALAR: 49 LIBRAMS

DARKMOON FAIRE: 1414 DECKS

EVERLOOK: 17,589 PIRATES

GADGETZAN: 16,594 PIRATES

BOOTY BAY: 17,474 PIRATES

RATCHET: 9938 PIRATES

Fun with Fraps, a few hundred Zepplins and the huge open area in Ironforge!

Where have you been?

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post I'm still playing the game, just got caught up with the guild, with raiding, and with working on one of my huge reputation grinds, and an achievment called Insane in the Membrane

Current Faction Position:

BLOODSAIL BUCCANEERS 205/12000 HONORED (COMPLETE)

DARKMOON FAIRE 3650/6000 FRIENDLY

RAVENHOLDT 17904/21000 REVERED

SHEND'RALAR 5500/12000 HONORED

BOOTY BAY 1958/3000 HOSTILE

EVERLOOK 1680/3000 HOSTILE

GADGETZAN 1168/3000 UNFRIENDLY

RATCHET 3520/12000 HONORED

ITEMS NEEDED:

RAVENHOLDT: 225 HEAVY JUNK BOXES

SHEND'RALAR: 55 LIBRAMS

DARKMOON FAIRE: 1414 DECKS

STEAMWHEEDLE CARTEL: 18,545 PIRATES

First Impressions of the PTR

This week has been pretty exciting both on the live server and the PTR. 

My guild on Draenor-us is progressing along nicely, and still having fun while at it. Gear is all in order, and consumables are also in order. Group 2 for our 10 man groups downed Mimiron last night.

Though that is not what this post is about. This post is about the PTR.

Several people from both Dark Evolution of Draenor US, and Several guilds on Azuremyst US have banded together and made a guild over on Broxigar.

I suppose that my first impression would be flying into the Argent Tournament Grounds and going "oh my god" upon seeing the completed coliseum. I did make a quick stop on my priest to check out the new Crusaders Quests at the argent tournament, since my druid never actually did those quests, and the pre-made toons weren't automatically given max faction with the 4 alliance cities, and the Silver Covenant.

I've had a taste of several different types of toons including two of my own. I acquired a pre-made Paladin, and a pre-made Druid. I wanted the extra druid aside from my own which I copied over form Azuremyst, along with my Priest from Draenor. 

The Paladin is rather fascinating, I've never been able to level one myself, but was able to figure out most of the skills needed to play both Retribution and Protection. I feel that the Paladin still needs adjustments, a friend of mine was playing a holy paladin spamming heals and his mana was going up instead of down. The mana regen issue is a little skewed with them.

I've played around with a boomkin druid as well, the boomkin is cooler than I thought. If you've browsed my blog previously I had posted Thuradin's video from Youtube. Druids are a really good class regardless of the form.

I took some time this afternoon to try out the new Battleground. Sadly, as cool as the BG seems, the PTR was probably not the best place for me to try it. Though I did have fun ripping horde apart, I never really got past the base.

Raid Efficiency - Revisited

I decided to revisit the topic of Raid Efficiency the other day when my raid-leader commented on how long it takes us to go from full wipe to next pull. I remember timing one of my last guilds in Tempest Keep and being shocked at how long it took us to go from raid being formed to Loot Reaver, it was almost an hour, I was shocked.

I figured it was time to revisit Raid Efficiency.

1) Buffs and Dying on Trash:

• On trash you're not going to need any more than your own self-buffs. It's trash.
• If you die, release and run back, in Ulduar this is made extremely easy by teleporters scattered throughout the instance, if you're running back, this gives us the ability to pull faster, which in return means more time for bosses.

2) Pre-Raid Preparation:

• Most raiding guilds have off days, if your time is limited you'll need to use these days wisely, take time out to farm the mats for your flasks, and food, do some dailies so you have repair money. Even as a holy priest dailies are extremely easy in Wrath of the Lich King, and if you choose them right they only take 30 mins to get 100G or more. 

• Dailies: One of my huge pet peeves is people getting raid invites and then dropping raid to finish their dailies, this goes with my point above of using your time wisely. As soon as you get your raid invite you should be making sure you are completely repaired and have the necessary reagents as outlined by your guild, and then heading directly to the raid instance.

• Cigarette, Snack, Drink and Bio: This should be done prior to the raid, you should not hold up the raid simply because you need to get a drink, go to the store, bio, smoke or whatever. If your raid pulls at 5pm server, then you should be at your keys, drink in hand and whatnot ready to buff and pull.

3. Ventrilo

• I know how much everyone likes to talk and socialise, and I'm just as guilty as the next man. But during raid vent should be clear except for the necessary people: Tanks, healers and the raid leader. As we have all seen/heard that if a healer goes down, or gets caught in some type of void or hand or flaming sporran of hellfire it's extremely important that other healers and tanks know that a healer is currently incapacitated. 

• DPS - your role is extremely important, but we don't need to know that you died. We already know this as healers, and the tanks only really focus on keeping the aggro of the boss so said boss doesn't eat us all alive. Unless you have a special job, like rooting constructs, or kiting mobs, we don't need to hear your voice.

• Calling out for healing - this is extremely taboo, do not do it because we're already on it. By the time you call out, heal me heal me we're already half way there, and it makes us not want to heal you EVER.

4. Wipes

• If a soulstone/DI/ankh or whatever is used, there is an optimal resurrection order that should be followed. Rezzers, Mana users, Tanks. This order if followed means that the raid can get back on its feet much faster.
• Once everyone is up and in the area, then buff. Not only does this save time, but it also saves reagents.

5. Loot

• Most bosses are fairly close together so the master looter can loot to you even if you're not in the immediate room, so everyone except the master looter should move to the next pull immediately after a boss (barring first kill screenshots). 

These are a few suggestions in speeding up raid time and being able to down more bosses.

All is fair in Love and Warcraft

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update here, not for lack of things to say. I've had a few ideas of what I wanted to say but haven't really had the time or the energy to really update anything.

I guess the first thing I want to touch on in guild management. I have several toons across a couple of servers. I've been in every type of guild imaginable from hardcore raiding to social guilds. Up until recently I had an excellent balance of guild types. On one server I had a social guild I was in, and then on another server I have a semi-hardcore raiding guild that I belong to. 

With everything that has happened over the last couple of weeks, I'm beginning to think that the raiding guilds have more cohesiveness than the social guilds do. 

I see less drama, and less real life issues in raiding guilds, there aren't verbal attacks on people in raiding guilds, well, there is and there isn't. Usually the verbal attacks are because people aren't following the raid leader's instructions. 

I'm finding that in social guilds it's the opposite, they seem to ooze drama and bullshit. Recently I was in a social guild on one of the other servers that I play on, I have since left that guild, unfortunately with very hurt feelings. The whole scenario was that there was an attack on my person that was not asked for nor was warranted, and even though I walked away from the argument, it was brought up again and again resulting in my temper flaring, and eventually a yelling match ensued. Things were said that were less than appropriate, and name calling ensued. Unfortunately, there was someone in the guild that I care very much for, and now I'm being punished by that person for my indescretions. Though that is not what this post is about. 

This post is pretty much about how far is too far. 

There are people in the World of Warcraft that come from different walks of life, they have different personality types. Some people take criticism well, and other's need a more softer approach. 

I unfortunately am the latter. 

When I play any toon, I do research, preparing a toon to be heroic or raid ready takes months and months of planning, and the planning can be ongoing. When I build gear sets, I go after gear that is going to provide the best route to reaching the necessary caps (whether it be hit, expertise, defense or whatnot). Unfortunately it sometimes seems as if I'm doing nothing, until you turn your head and look and I'm almost geared out. 

Some people do not understand how I play this game, and some others do. My guild on Draenor-US understands that I play a very mathematic game, and have basically given me the title of statistician. Nothing ever gets past me, tanks say they're not getting heals, I call them out on it, someone says they didn't get heals, I pull up the timeslice of their death.

This is how I play the game. I will not change that for anyone. I play based on the mathematics of the game and I play analytically.

Some people don't like this because it comes across as slow and tedious. I can agree with it being slow, and tedious, but I'm not going to take a piece of gear to play with when someone could necessarily use it more than I could. 

Anyways, I'm rambling here. 

The whole situation in the social guild was this....apparently someone wasn't pleased with the fact that I was aiming for hit/expertise cap...which had nothing to do with tanking, and apparently had gotten the idea into their head that I cannot DPS for the life of me, which is completely incorrect. My death knight, who currently is in half DPS gear and half defense gear (tanking) pushes a tidy 1700 DPS, this 1700 DPS is with credit to my close friend Ceridwynn of Azuremyst-US. If it wasn't for her, I would still be farming ore, and begging in trade chat for titansteel cooldowns, and leatherworkers. Or still grinding not only my mining, but my blacksmithing, and basically tanking regular dungeons for lowbies.

There were accusations that I was doing nothing, which is untrue. I had people in guild asking me to tank on another character, which I was doing willingly, and pushing myself to the point of exhaustion, I would log out at the end of the day so exhausted from tanking instance upon instance and literally pass out in my chair. I do agree that I was doing nothing on the toon I was supposed to be playing, but on the other hand, I was helping guildies get the necessary gear that would help them perform better. In otherwords, I was putting the guild before myself. I helped another guildie open up hundreds of dailies, so that he would have access to funds aside from crafting. 

But then, I suppose that this is how the cookie crumbles, and gives me a sharp reminder that sometimes not all is fair in the World of Warcraft, and that to the jerks go the spoils.

The Guild Bank

This morning I was sitting in trade chat watching accusations fly by, and a thought came to mind over what was discussed.

There were people in trade accusing another person of stealing something from a guild bank. These people were threatening to report him to Blizzard Entertainment.

Have we ever thought of where the line stands between Blizzard Entertainment and Guild Leaders and their Justicars?

Usually disputes within guilds are handled by the guild themselves not by the game masters.

The biggest dispute that I have been enountering is that someone is invited into a guild, the guild bank is left open, and they then proceed to remove items from the guild bank (whether it be a green or an epic or mats or whatnot. They then are either kicked or leave the guild with the same mats in their hands.

Then they are berated in trade chat and are threatened with reporting to Blizzard because they removed an item from an obviously open guild bank.

What people don't realise is that Warcraft is a social game. Blizzard is technically there to solve coding issues, or misaloccated loot or to fix bugs. They are not there to mediate our own internal guild issues.

An Easy solution to the Guild Bank "Ninja" is this: Lock down your guild bank, only allow withdrawls by the Guild Leader and the Justicars (Officers). Or, in my raiding guild on Draenor (US), you need to be a full member to be able to access the guild bank,, and then that is even limited to 1 or 2 stacks a day, and only from certain tabs.

Protecting your guild bank is easy, you just need to take the time to do it, and for the love of god, don't air your dirty laundry in Trade Chat!

Glory of the Raider

Tell me, that this is not the most amazing piece of cinematography the world of warcraft has seen. 

For quite some time we have relied on Ciderhelm's concise and straightforward boss explanations, and then to see this piece of mastery, literally made my jaw hit the floor. Watch the video above....you'll see what I mean.

The Druid

Raid Efficiency

Raiding: We've all done it at once point in our World of Warcraft careers. We've had raids that take 3-4 days to do a full clear on an instance, and we've done full clears in just a couple of hours.

I suppose my biggest complaint about raiding is inefficiency. We've all been guilty of it, whether it would be waiting to be resurrected instead of running back, or asking for buffs while pulling trash, all of these things waste time. 

I timed a guild run several months ago, and discovered that from raid formation to first boss pull was a little over 3 hours. During that 3 hours we could've cleared at least 2-3 bosses, but we were stopping after almost every pull just to rebuff people.

In a raiding guild it should be expected that you are fully prepared and ready to buff up as soon as raid invites go out, which means as soon as you receive that invite you should be on your way to the instance. Your flasks, reagents, food and potions should all be prepared and in your bag prior to this point. You should be fully repaired and at 100% before you head to the instance. 

I realise that people playing this game do work, and may log in just as raid invites go out, which means that you should be doing your restocking and repairing the night before, so that if you're only able to log in just as raid invites go out, you're ready to go and just need to get at the instance.

Touching a bit on buffs, during trash pulls all you really need is your own self-buffs. It's trash, WoW Webstats doesn't really record trash pulls, so really, as long as you can get the trash down, there's no reason for full buffs. If you die during trash, release, run back, and as you're running back, self buff and get back into the fray.

If you follow these few simple ideas, you'll see more bosses go down in an evening.

Gearing Review - Kittydoom of Draenor

As Kittydoom's gearing comes to a standstill while awaiting the release of Ulduar and the next content patch from Blizzard, I'm starting to take a look at her gear. With her current gear, where can I improve her gear to get the most out of my current raiding experience.

My first stop was at Warcrafter to see where I stood in relation to other priests on my server.

As you can see I'm not in the top 10 by any means, which means by that there are some pieces that I should be going after, some enchants that I should be updating, and possibly some regemming that needs to be done.

I popped over to Imba to look at my itemization, at first glance I do know that my helm and shoulder enchants need to be upgraded from TBC versions to Wrath Versions, at this point in time I'm still grinding the faction with Sons of Hodir for the shoulder enchant, but there is no reason why I cannot go and get the Arcanum of Blissful Mending from Wyrmrest Accord, and since Kittydoom is low on gold I can work towards the Greater Inscription of the Crag and make some decent gold doing it to feed my fund for consumables.

My Chest Piece currently has Enchant Chest - Restore Mana Prime on it, there are three recommended enchants that I could replace this old school enchant with. Enchant Chest - Greater Mana Restoration, Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats, or Enchant Chest - Exceptional Mana.

Looking at each of the recommended enchants, I need to look at a few different things with the enchants, now personally I like mana regen, I HATE running out of mana, I HATE having to pop shadowfiend, or Hymn of Hope.

Currently I'm sitting on 17,398 Mana, I really don't need 250 more mana (this is unbuffed). So I'm not even going to look at Exceptional Mana, I think with my MP5 being a little lower than I would like out of 5 second rule, the Greater Mana Restoration enchant would be the best fit.

There's really not much at this point that I can change for enchants on Kittydoom, so I'm going to touch on her gear itemization at this point.

Kittydoom's Helm is the Visage Liquification Goggles crafted through Engineering and gemmed with a Bracing Earth Siege Diamond (meta) and a Luminous Monarch Topaz (9 Spellpower, 8 Intellect). So Currently I could go with the best helm in the game which is the Cowl of Innocent Delight which drops off of Loatheb in Naxxramas heroic, giving me 108 stamina, 77 Intellect, 58 spirit, and then on equip increasing my spell power by 118 and giving me 20 mana per 5.

The Thunderstorm Amulet could be replaced by any number of neck pieces, the best upgrade being Chains of Adoration out of Naxxramas, giving me  2 int, 16mp5, 32 haste, and 2 spell power.

Kittydoom's shoulders won't be replaced until Ulduar comes out or at least teir 8 unless I would like to wear PvP shoulders, though I would lose spirit with them, and I don't see PvP gear as being a viable option in a PvE environment.

The chest piece comes with several options. Digested Silken Robes from Maexxna in Naxxramas 25, giving me by 9 int, 8 stam, 8 armor, 77 crit, and 33 spell power. Though I could potentially lose my 4 piece teir bonus.

The potential upgrades for Kitty's belt would be the Belt of False Dignity, giving me 9 int, 6 stam, 55 spi, 4 armor, 43 crit, and 20 spellpower.

Leggings: Distorted Limbs, giving me 44 int, 38 stam, 72 spi, 62 armor, 58 haste, and 57 spellpower. 

I'm beginning to see a pattern here, the majority of my upgrades are coming from Eye of Eternity Heroic. So as I go along I'll look for the last few upgrades out of Heroic Naxxramas, so if I can get a chance to get into EoE 25, I'm definitely going to jump on that.

Raiding User Interface - A Ramble

Since I started playing a raiding holy priest I’ve tried every type of User Interface known to man, I’ve gone bare bones, I’ve gone elaborate. My current user-interface as seen below is one of the most elaborate ones I’ve seen (acquired from Muqq of Magtheridon over on the Nihilium website).

The sad thing about my current user interface is that there really isn’t any place for me to put healbot, which is currently floating on my screen, and that carbonite quest, which is the questing software I’m using while I work on loremaster is also floating loose as well.

I haven’t really had the drive to actually design a UI for myself personally, I suppose due to patience levels and the insane amout of playing that I have been doing as of late, I just have not felt the urge to sit down and configure cast bars, healbot (which is currently not working the way I would like it to be working), I have attempted Clique to heal and several other healing mods, I’ve also healed the old school way and haven’t been extremely happy with anything.

One of the features I am liking in Healbot is the ability to blacklist people, it does make for making a few fights in Naxxramas easier (ie. patchwerk), or as the old adage goes, don’t ever piss off your healer.

I know that I have been running into a few issues with my current user interface, and one of them is that I need a UI that is going to cover all of the toons that I play, whether or not it is a death knight, holy priest, hunter, mage, shaman, druid. I need that adaptability and this one does seem to provide that. Though, I’m still not particularily happy with the floating UI components.

The floating UI components do cause a few issues, if I don’t lock Healbot to my screen I end up shoving it across the screen on particularily aggressive fights, carbonite in it’s current placement just tends to get in my way, as well as make an already cluttered screen even more so.

There are also parts of my current UI that are bugging. By moving the minimap to it’s current position, I am no longer able to track achievments. The achievment placeholder is bound to the minimap, also quest givers/receivers that are on flight paths I have to disable the UI to turnin/gather the next quest.

I suppose over the next few weeks, I’ll start looking into getting a little better put together User Interface that best fits my needs, but at this point, this covers everything I need adequately.