Descent into Shadow

Though it will be less epic than I would like, this post is about the shadow spec.  Which I have never been particularly interested in until I came upon a new guild which seemed perfect.  Except they did not need a holy priest. They needed a shadow priest.

So here we are ladies and gents.  My descent into the abyss.  My fall to the dark side.

But seriously, I am enjoying it a lot.  I leveled as disc and had every intention of only playing disc.  But at this point I am playing holy and shadow more often these days.  But enough chit-chat.

Shadow is similar to affliction warlock which I have played to some acclaim.  So I am comfortable with watching dot timers.  Everyone knows shadow priests get a big chunk of their damage from dots so you keep VT, SWP and DP up at all times.  Even to the point where you clip mind flay to keep it as close to 100% up time as possible.

But what I did not know was that mind flay is quite the trickster to get used to.  Not only do I have to watch for the ticks but I have to make sure if I am going to clip it I do so right AFTER a tick not before.  Hence getting maximum time from both spells.  It is pretty fun balancing this aspect of dps and watching boss timers and fire etc.

Shadow Tips I have learned:

• VT is extremely powerful and is worth clipping for. 
• DP also
• SWP is the weakest dot, but it buffs mind flay so keeping that up is paramount (albeit extremely easy)
• If you have to move, refresh dots and get a tick or two of mind flay if possible.
• Know when to Divine Hymn.  While your primary goal is of course to dps, if a healer dies and the boss is at 5% a Hymn could save the day.

Hah I found this picture and I enjoyed it, hopefully you will too :)

Cataclysm Talent Changes

On the same day Blizzard jumped the shark (I think I am using that phrase correctly, but who the hell knows) on the RealID business, they also announced a much better idea. Cutting the fat from all the talent trees and bringing them back to pre-Burning Crusade style with 31 point talents being the deepest one can spec.

Personally I love this idea. Love love love.  The trees were just starting to get so big and honestly, most of the choices were not choices at all.  So it just felt like blah blah of course I'm getting that +10% healing and -cast time on the spells I use.  The idea to pick a specialty and be locked into it is intriguing.  Some people think this is strange and not a good idea.

I disagree.  I think it makes the talents more exciting.  Especially a lower levels when it is pretty boring and it seems like you have one button to spam.  Makes new players feel more powerful right away which is great. Unfortunately the only info we have is that the talents are changing, but not how exactly.  We dont have any inkling on what they will look like besides the size.  So I will post another big article once they post.

Until then, sleep those sweet dreams of things to come.

PS: Of course they shut down the RealID forum changes. We all saw that coming. the almost 50k post thread made it pretty clear none wanted this change.

Obligatory "RealID is a bad idea" post

Blah blah personal information blah blah.  You know the drill.  Real ID on the forums is a terrible idea.  There are many other ways to make it un-anonymous.  Ask Facebook's little brother twitter.  Instead of giving First and Last name on forum posts, just require a handle to each account.  You can never change this and when you post it is always under this handle.  Problem solved, no private information divulged.  How hard was that Blizzard? Apparently Activision has a hand (or two hands) in this decision so the word is that most Blizzard employees are not happy about it.

The lull in the posts defending it by blues could mean a few things.  It could mean they are reconsidering the idea due to the outcry of the community (41k posts and counting) or they are just giving us a big middle finger.

Personally I never post on the forums anyway.  Its just as bad as any forum out there for information. Here is something really good on the 2100 page long thread about it, not sure who wrote this but it was quoted and Im not digging for the author:

Bobby Kotick spins in his chair "Welcome Young gamer, I have been expecting you. you no longer need those" 

Kotick gestures and the bindings over your keyboard fall off. 

Kotick says "game developers.. leave us." 

The developers leave the room. 

Kotick says "I am looking forward to completing the game testing, in time you will call me... game MASTER" 

You say "you're gravely mistaken, I won't be converted to facebook the way you turned my guild." 

Kotick says "Oh no my young gamer you will find it is YOU who are mistaken... about a great many things.." 

Ghostcrawler deeply says "His cata beta key" 

Ghostcrawler hands the beta key to Kotick. 

Kotick says "ahh yes, a gamer's weapon. Much like your guildies, by now you must know your guildies can never leave wow, so will it be with you" 

You say "You're wrong, soon my charecter will be gone and your game with me" 

Kotick laughs "Perhaps you're referrin to the emminent attack on our servers from our outraged fans? Yesss... I assure you, our servers are quite safe from their pitiful attempts" 

You speak "Your overconfidence is your weakness" 

Kotick turns "Your faith in blizzard is yours" 

Ghostcrawler deeply says "You should join facebook, it is pointless to resist.. my friend" 

Kotick says "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. You're friends over there posting on the forums are walking into a trap. As is anyone else who uses it. It was I who allowed the community to find out about the facebook integration early. It is quite safe from your... pitiful attempts to hack into it. An entire legion of the world's best hackerz would be needed to get in. Oh, i'm afraid the servers will be quite operational when the game goes live..." Kotick leans back and smiles. 

Everyone in the room looks over at the beta tester's playing the game. 

Kotick states "come boy, see for yourself. from here you will witness the final destruction of WoW, and the end of your insignificant guild" 

You look down at the beta key beside him. 

Kotick states "Oh you want this don't you?" 

Kotick carresses the beta key. 

He says "The envy is swelling in you now, take your beta key. Use it. That computer is unused. warn your guildies in game, give in to your anger. With each passing moment you become more my servant." 

You say "no..." 

Kotick leans forward "It is unavoidable. You, like your guildies... are now mine." 

He says "as you can see my young gamer, your guildies names are now mine. now witness the full hacking ability of this fully developed and operational battle.net system. Troll at will gamers!" 

One gamer stands up at a booth "This forums using my real name... the credit scam is operational!" 

Another gamer stands up at an adjacent booth "All gamer's prepare to cancel wow accounts!" 

Gamer 1 says "You may not get another chance to tell them what you think, this may be your only shot. We gotta give it more time" 

Gamer 2 yells "We have no choice! Blizzard cannot repel trolling of this magnitude!" 


Kotick looks back and chuckles before saying "Your game is lost. and your guildies info is now open. There is no escaping from facebook my young gamer. The WoW will die, and your guildies will leave." 

Kotick closes his eyes and uses the force. "Goood I can feel your anger. That pc is still unused, take the beta key. Plug it in and you're journey to battle-net will be complete." 

You look away, look back and snag the key only to find Ghostcrawler is now occupying the pc. 

Kotick laughs as you throw Ghostcrawler off the keyboard. 

He says "gooooooood let the desire to play flow through you." 

Ghostcrawler stands and calmly states "Nin-tendo Wii has taught you well." 

You say "Your thoughts betray you ghostcralwer, i feel the desire to save WoW, the conflict. 

Ghostcrawler says "there is no conflict" 

You respond "You couldn't bring yourself to ban me from the forums before and I don't think you will now" 

He says "You underestimate the power of the facebook deal, If you will not join then you will be banned!" 

He bans your pc but you manage to hide in another booth watching another tester play. 

He looks around the room to no avail before saying "You cannot hide forever gamer. Give yourself over to the battlenet, it is the only way to join your friends. Yes... your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong, especially for... sister... yesss you have a sisster that has facebook. Soooo you have a twin sister that uses facebook? Your feelings have now betrayed her too. Nin-tendo Wii was right to hide her from me. Now it's failure to entertain is complete. If you will not turn to the battlenet, then perhaps she will." 

You scream "NOOO!" before jumping up to fight Ghostcrawler for the last Pc beta spot. During the fight you manage to break his pc. 

Ghostcrawler moans "arrrggbh" 

Kotick chuckles "Gooood. Your desire to play has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny. Take his place as head developer at my side." 

You throw away the beta key and state "Never! I'll never turn from WoW! You failed your kotickness. I am a wow player, like my guildies before me." 

Kotick coldly looks at you and states... "So be it... gamer, if you will not be turned.. you will be destroyed!" Muzyka attacks and leaves you crippled from the tracing of IP on the the permaban. 

He says "young fool... only now at the end do you understand the power of the battlenet" He attacks again. "Your feeble WoW expansions are no match for the power of Activision. You will pay the price for your lack of vision. and now my young gamer... you will die" 

You writhe in pain "Ghostcrawlerrr pleeeease don't let him ruin wow!" You writhe in agony. 

Kotick says "and now young gamer, you will die!" Attacks with the finishin touches on the IP ban. 

You writhe and scream "GHOSTCRAWLER PLEEAASSE YOUR A GAMER YOU KNOW THIS IS WRONG STOP THIS AHHHHH" 

Ghostcrawler looks back and forth before picking up Kotick and throwing him into the WoW cata forums. Faintly, you both can hear Kotick screaming as he is harrassed to death. 

Ghostcrawler weakly falls over and feebily says "Gamer, tell your fellow gamers.. blizzard was saved" 

You respond "But Ghostcrawler, you'll be fired and banned?" 

He responds "Nothing can stop that now.. Just for once, let me be one of the gamers.. on my own terms..." 

You nod and stand up. 

He says "Now go... my gamer... leave me." 

You say "No Ghostcrawler you're coming with me I'll not leave you to be fired I've got to save you. 

He smiles "You already have, you were right about me. You already have. Tell your sister not to use battlenet.." 

A party is held in the gaming world for hours as music and celebration is infinite as blizzard is saved from the might of the evil empire. 

/que star wars end music.

Gearing/Gemming/Enchanting for PvE

Gearing and gemming for healing in PvE is not very complicated for a priest.

Holy

Gearing as Holy is pretty straight forward.  All the gear you will get will have Intellect and Stamina and Spellpower as base.  The variable stats are spirit, critical strike rating and haste rating.  All three of these stats are valuable to the Holy priest in the following ways:

Spirit

• Provides spellpower through Spiritual Guidance
• Provides mana regeneration through Meditation 

Critical Strike Rating (Crit)

• Provides extra free healing via critical heals (for 50% more healing)
• Provides mana regeneration through Holy Concentration.  This procs and lasts 8 seconds, providing 50% more mana regeneration based on spirit.  This has a cap on usefulness because you only need to crit every 8 seconds to be valuable

Haste Rating (Haste)

• Provides faster global cooldown (gcd) for more instant spells
• Provides faster casting for Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing and Greater Heal

While all three stats are very useful, some are more useful than others depending on your current gear, the encounter and your raid makeup.  On the current content, I do not have mana issues.  Typically between Hymn of Hope and Shadowfeind my mana is not a problem.  I run with about 450 mp5, 17% crit and 20-25% haste (about 700 to 800 rating) completely un-buffed as Holy.

Spirit and crit both provide mana regeneration and throughput, whereas haste is a throughput stat.  That being said, haste is THE throughput stat.  More GCDs means more renews, quicker response to damage and a much easier time dealing with incoming damage.  Haste is easy to quantify on paper, but in practice, it is much more useful than it seems.  It gives you breathing room to do things like Hymn of Hope or re-position yourself because you know when you do get back to healing you can toss heals out that much faster.

Gearing is pretty simple for a Holy Priest:  Gem for spellpower in red slots and use hybrid gems for the other slots.  Spirit/SP in blue slots and Intellect/SP in yellow slots.  Depending on your current gear, you may be better off using full Intellect in yellow slots, but I would always advocate using hybrid gems.  They give better returns on spellpower (12 spellpower in a hybrid gem and 23 in a red gem) and if the socket bonus is anything, even 4 spirit or 4 haste, that is just icing because spellpower, spirit, intellect, haste and crit are all pretty even on usefulness.  I always gem for socket bonuses.

Enchanting is pretty boring, use all the spellpower enchants and for helm/shoulders its pretty much up to you which one you want to use (sp/crit or sp/mp5).  We run 3 healers in 10 mans so usually I err on the side of mp5 because I would rather be able to spam the whole fight than have a small chance to crit.

Discipline

My Disc parts are never going to be that exciting because I am raiding mostly Holy these days.  Also Disc is very similar in many ways so most of the options are the same.  The only thing I would change is that spirit is not as useful for disc.  I would use those int/stam/sp/crit/haste pieces over the spirit pieces for Disc.  Since I play both, I mix and match since it doesnt matter that much for Holy, but it does matter for Disc. 

If your job as Disc is to spam shields (If, Hah), then spellpower is the most useful stat.  Haste is also good, but with Borrowed Time, haste becomes much less useful.  It is still good for having fast GCDs but you arent casting many heals as disc, mostly Penance, shield, renew and ProM.  That being said, disc is probably going to gem all spellpower unless there is a significant spellpower bonus (6 or more) and it is a yellow slot and not a blue slot (since Disc is not spirit friendly).  Disc is very intellect friendly via Mental Strength so Luminous and Runed gems are your friend.  Save your one Blue socket for a high spellpower bonus.  If your job is to help tank heal and raid heal you may end up using a lot of Flash Heals.  In this case, you can use full Intellect gems which not only give you mp5 but also scale better due to Blessing of Kings + Mental Strength but also through Replenishment.

Again, enchanting all spellpower is most useful.  The reason spellpower is so useful is because shields cannot crit (spare the Glyph heal but that is usually only 2-3k) and are not affected by haste outside casting more shields.  Spirit is still useful because of Meditation, but that is the only use without Spiritual Guidance.

In summary, gearing for Disc/Holy in PvE is not very complicated.  For Holy stick with socket bonuses and mix and match crit/haste/spirit on gear depending on what the fights require.  For Disc, try to stick with SP for gemming and mix and match gear.  Crit and Haste may not be AS useful for disc, but they are MORE useful than spirit typically since used shields are free thanks to Rapture and even GIVE you mana if you have enough intellect.

Speccing in Wotlk

While I am about to write this, you and I both know that these talents are going to change in Cataclysm. However,  for the next 6 months-ish this information is still valid.

For priests the two healing specs are Holy and Discipline.  While my initial foray into healing was 100% Discipline, I have recently gotten on the Holy train and ridden that straight to Funky Town.  Funky in a good way.

My Holy spec:

 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZsEzcb0qihGhuAo:0Nf

The best thing about Holy is that while this spec works, this is not the only spec with which you can heal effectively.  Some priests swear by Serendipity specs.  Personally, I use so few Flash Heals and even fewer Prayer of Healing's (PoH) and Greater Heals (GH) that its basically 3 points down the toilet.  I would rather get Blessed Resilience or Test of Faith with the 3 points spent in Serendipity.  Both of these give passive healing benefits and are not something I have to keep track of like Serendipity.

Any talent that makes me better at what I am already doing is great in my book.  And what I do with this spec is basically use a rotation something like: Prayer of Mending->Circle of Healing->Renew->Flash Heal via Surge of Light.  I only run 10 man raids so we always have a holy paladin spamming the tanks.  Typically I keep a Renew on both tanks (or only one if only one tank takes damage at a time); then use the rotation above for raid healing.  There are a few caveats that make this rotation a little more complicated.

The first is that while ProM (As Prayer of Mending will be referred to from now on) is great healing per mana (HpM), if there is still one active and the raid is taking damage it is not mana efficient to just toss another one out and overwrite the previous. I keep track  of where my ProM is with Grid.  I am not a grid genius, so do not ask me any complicated questions :).  I will have a short grid discussion at the end.

The second is that one has to be careful using CoH (Circle).  While it is VERY mana efficient to use it on 6 people (or 5 without the glyph), you have to be careful on whom you are casting it.  For instance, on Festergut, you should never toss it on one of the ranged people, but you should ALWAYS cast it on the melee.

The third is that yes, this is a renew spam spec.  Empowered Renew + Glyph of Renew lead to some very hard-healing renews.  In ICC with the 25% buff, they can hit for 4500 at times.  Renew is typically 40%+ of my healing on raid damage fights.

The fourth and I believe final note I want to make on this spec is that Body and Soul is quite possibly the most interesting talent in the Holy tree.  As a holy priest in a 10 man guild, I do not have to worry about Weakened Soul being up, so I watch the raid for people who need some help moving. Just a few uses for BaS

• On Sindragosa for instance, I can save one person who is slow moving from the Blistering Cold.  
• On Dreamwalker I can save someone who is running from the exploding Zombie.  
• On Deathwhisper I can save someone who has a ghost chasing them.  

The list goes on and on.  I can understand not taking in a 25 man build because a disc priest is probably shield spamming, but in a 10 man raid, you absolutely need this talent.  It is too fun and too useful.

My Disc spec:

 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIoffRtcxtc:bAd

Unfortunately, Disc is not as exciting to spec as Holy because there are very few unnecessary talents.  I see some priests get Improved Flash Heal instead of Improved Renew which is definitely a good trade off.  Like I said I am not the tank healer in 10 mans; so as Disc I rarely flash heal.

My rotation depends greatly on the fight, but I am almost always Disc for LK and Holy for the rest.  Basically you keep ProM on cooldown just like Holy, but instead of renewing you put shields on the raid members taking damage.  Since you have no CoH, you can throw renews when people are still taking damage through a shield and have Weakened Soul.

Usually I save Penance for someone who has <50% health then follow it with a flash heal if needed.  Otherwise its shield+prom+renew on the raid for great justice.

For Priest specs that is pretty much all I can think of.  If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know.

As for Grid, I keep a few different buffs/debuffs active on Grid.  I do not have a screenshot so here is a MS Paint picture of what my raid frames look like:

I know I know, my paint skills are the stuff of legend!

Now that you are done making fun of this I will explain what it shows:

•  "Holy" is the first 4 letters of the person's name.
• The red box is a placeholder for the boss's signature debuff.  e.g. Threat debuff on Deathwhisper
• The black circle of the shield indicator
• The green squiggly is the renew indicator
• The brown star on the top left is ProM indicator
• The yellow and brown block below the shield is the Weakened Soul indicator
• The blue bar at the bottom is the mana/rage/energy bar
• The -7.5k is the amount of damage that needs to be healed.  
• What isnt shown is the white background is white because I am a priest.  The area where the 7.5k is located is actually black back ground and white text showing the amount of damage (white for everyone not just priests).

This shows the information I need to make informed decisions about who to heal, what heal to use and what buffs I already have rolling.

Next post: A short primer on Gearing/gemming/enchanting

Future Updates

I have decided to change the blog up a bit.  Typically I have mixed blog posts on three topics:  General interest, like the most recent post, updates about every day activity in my life, and World of Warcraft musings.

What I realized thanks to an article I read is that while all three of these are interesting to me personally, there is most likely not anyone else who is interested in all three outside of me, myself and I.  Also I have Facebook for life updates and general knowledge musings right?

So effective immediately, I will only be posting about WoW-related topics.  More specifically, I will be posting about Priest pve and pvp strategies for the current raid tier.  I will include talents, healer rotations/priorities, gearing and strategies for encounters.

Not only will this give more focus to the blog, but hopefully it will end up being better because honing in on one topic leads to better articles I believe.  The first post I think I will do an overview of priest healing (I will touch on DPS a bit but I am not really going to worry so much about that now) gear, specs and future changes.

Why don't we like Soccer in America?

The FIFA World Cup is a huge deal.  Wikipedia says worldwide the sport of soccer brings in $400B every year.  Despite this, the sport is still not widely accepted in the US.  I hear about the games happening, but I could not care less about the results.  But for most of the world, this is the biggest sporting event of the year unless its a Summer Olympics year.

But why don't we like soccer?  Its a very physically demanding sport, as demanding and competitive as our football or baseball or basketball.  Even with that, it still has not become a mainstream sport in the US.  I understand why sports like fencing (which is my favorite sport of course) and cricket are not popular in the US.  Those two probably are not the best examples, because cricket is a lot like baseball from what I understand.  But Fencing is a understandably side-lined due to its archaic nature and even internationally it is not a big sport.

So what other reasons are there to dislike soccer?  I assumed the term soccer originated here since everywhere else calls it football and we already have a football.  It actually started in England as an abbreviation for "association."  But I digress.  It may seem like a strange reason, but I think it has to do with the number of goals earned per time spent.  Look at hockey.  It is another sport which is present in the US, but is not what I would call a mainstream sport.  Both sports are very similar in many respects.  There is a goalie and teams move back and forth between the goals attempting to score points.  Both typically have small scores.

This, I think is the root cause of why Americans are not excited by soccer.  I have no scientific evidence, but perhaps we do not like hockey or soccer as much as football, baseball or basketball because of the number of scores the teams of each sport score.  Sometimes baseball and football are low-scoring, but you will NEVER see a 21 to 10 score in a soccer game.  This is not terribly uncommon in baseball.  Football sometimes has low scores also, but again, scoring 50 points in football is not uncommon.

So this sport of soccer, while competitive, rough and exciting, is not widely accepted in our country.  The point I am making is that Americans are more likely to enjoy sports where scoring is often and expected. We expect instant and continual gratification. Also, baseball, football and basketball all go into overtime when there is a tie.  In soccer, you can tie and the game can be declared a draw.  I do not know all the rules for soccer, but I understand there can be a situation where a tie is broken, but it does not have to happen.  The rules I read say "a tie may end the game or an overtime may occur."  In baseball, games definitely can go on 10 extra innings if necessary to break that tie.

My hypothesis is that soccer cannot become a widely accepted American sport because we perceive it as not exciting due to the lack of goals.  Personally, watching hockey or soccer is like watching paint dry.  Back and forth back and forth almost goals but rarely a score.  I have never watched a soccer game, but I am trying to figure out why.  Ive seen baseball, football, tennis, hockey, fencing, volleyball, cricket, etc etc. We need this immediate gratification and ongoing scoring to be excited.  Sports are not about the competition or the game to us.  No matter how much we love the game of football, would you be stoked about a football game if a tie just ended the game?  Overtime is more exciting than the actual game!  We are about winning and losing and scoring big points.  What do you think?

A whole new world...

A new fantastic point of view! Noone to tell us no, or where OK OK OK. Just kidding. I am mostly writing about recent wow news today.  Hopefully enough interesting things will happen that I wont have to mention WoW too much in the future.

But seriously I found a guild to raid with on World of Warcraft. We only do 10 man content on main raid nights (though I imagine others run pug 25s). They are a laid back bunch of guys who have been playing together for a while. They invited me to their 10 man run last week and we did really really well. We made it to 9/12 heroic 10 man ICC in the first two nights and cleared Lich King, earning me "the Kingslayer" title on my second toon.

For about 3 months previous to this I had been raiding 25 mans with an old guild Exhumed, back on Argent Dawn. Schedule conflicts and my general lack of interest in 25 mans and Mage cut that short unfortunately. Good luck to them though, they are a good group. With the cataclysm changes to raiding only months away (wishful thinking eh), I really wanted to get into a group that I can grow with in the next expansion.

With that, as my new banner suggests: I am playing a new toon. By new I mean a character which until now I havent raided a whole lot with. I did a little Ulduar hard modes about a year ago, but after that this was my main pvp character earning rival in season 6 with very little experience (about 2150 in 2v2 after about a month after hitting 80) and even worse gear.

So right now I am plugging away at that ICC10 Frostwyrm. Very excited at the possibility of raiding with a solid group of 10 people.

Onto RL news: The house is going well. Jackie, I and her grandparents painted the living room. Its half green and half yellow. Not unlike a nice plate of peas and corn (good old dad taught me this delicious combo). They are not bright vibrant colors, but more mellow which I think is good for this room. This color scheme I believe will be emulated throughout the household. The bathrooms were already painted yellow and the guest-room green.

Work is going well. I wont get into too much of what I do (its confidential). But I help people with their problems. Its actually pretty rewarding (albeit sometimes mundane) when I can genuinely put someone's mind at ease with my expertise and knowledge. The worst part is when I know there is nothing I can do to help and the person on the other end just thinks I am the worst person in the world. I wish I could tell them:"It really gives me no satisfaction to be telling you this" but my psychology background and general knowledge tells me that would only fire them up more.

In other news: BP is still struggling with this Gulf of Mexico oil spill. I fear it will be one of the most devastating environmental catastrophes the world will ever see. Hopefully BP will turn this thing around and prevent it from happening again.

I try to watch the happening around the world at CNN, and it really keeps you informed on how BAD the weather is. Last year seemed like a HUGE year for earthquakes, but maybe its just because I didnt hear about the year before? That is actually exactly the case. This USGS table shows that there were more high rated earthquakes, but FAR less overall.

Thats all for now, thanks for reading. The word of the day is: parsimonious.

Updating

I almost forgot I had this blog! I recently purchased a house so my time has been mostly focussed on work, house, jackie and Wow. In that order? Maybe. So what I am thinking is I want to start posting again. Will follow up with more in the coming weeks. I will update the banner and perhaps attempt some intelligent posting. Who knows!