bubblespec

a fond goodbye

2012-01-14T23:01:00.003-06:00

I suppose if I said that I didn't like goodbyes, that'd be... well, absurd. I mean, who actually likes to say goodbye?

My time in Four Lights is over. We weren't able to put together a full 25-man raid in almost a month (though to be fair, 2 weeks of that were Christmas). While some were awfully quick to cry "Star Wars!" as the reason, to be honest, most of the converts were playing both. We showed up to raid.

Applications dried up months ago. Why join a 25-man guild that raids 3 nights a week when you can join a 10-man guild that raids less and has more bosses down? Why do 25s when a 10-man group can do faster pulls, better wipe recovery, and the same rewards?

As of last week, Four Lights is officially going to a 10-man team. That was my cue to step out. I've never enjoyed 10-mans on my paladin, for one, and I knew my quitting WoW was on the horizon. It happened back in September. This was not a quickly made decision. And it was definitely not easy.

This is my last bubblespec post, the last time I get to call myself Enlynn. I canceled my World of Warcraft account. They asked for my reasons; I told them the game had changed too much. That wasn't near enough information to really tell them how I felt and why I knew it was time for me to move on, but you've been a part of my WoW life long enough to have a good idea why.

So let me say thanks.

Thank you, guildies: Four Lights was a blast. I was a guild officer for a year, pretty much for Cataclysm. I loved the leadership. The members made FL a fun guild to raid with.

Thank you, World of Warcraft: WoW gave me a lot of good times. And while the developers are taking the game in a direction that I don't wish to go, I have to applaud them for taking risks and being willing to reinvent the way we play over and over. The perception of MMOs outside the community is changing for the better, thanks to the massive popularity and accessibility of WoW. Many of the successes in WoW paved the way for future MMOs. This is a good thing, even if it's no longer my thing.

Most importantly... Thank you, readers: Sharing my WoW journey has rewarded me in ways I couldn't have imagined when I started out this humble little blog back in 2009. Your comments inspired me to keep going, encouraged me, gave me advice, and made me laugh. You connected me to a fantastic community. I'm honored to have been a part of it. I'll miss you.

See you around,
Barb

on being terrible

2012-01-04T16:43:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was my first night playing WoW and my first night raiding in more than two weeks. Can I say painful? Too much Star Wars, perhaps, but at the same time not-raiding makes me rusty.

1. I took off my weapon and shield to take pictures of my latest transmog (two posts down). Well, I kinda forgot to put them back on before the raid. After the first couple of bosses, one of my healers whispered me and asked if that was a glitch or if I really didn't have a weapon and shield?

2. I searched through my inventory and put on the gear that looked right. Except, I put on the gear-to-transmog instead of the transmogged gear. Two fights later, said healer whispers me, are you sure you're wearing the right gear yet?

No, I'm not sure of anything!

3. The Sorcerer speed boost in SW beats the pants off of the paladin speed boost. I kept popping Divine Protection and was disappointed at how far I didn't go.

4. With my shiny new graphics card, WoW looks much better and my FPS is even higher. Perhaps SW will get that sorted out, but right now, WoW wins in the performance-on-average-computers contest. Hands down.

5. I keep telling myself I'm going to stop talking about SW on my WoW blog but the amount of Star Wars chatter in mumble is kinda scary. On one hand, it's fun because I know what's up. On the other, we've never derailed mumble like that for any other game. Again, I don't think this is here nor there for the future of WoW. But I do think this is a bad sign for bigger guilds. And it can't be good for those who don't care about Star Wars, to hear nearly half the guild making jokes that exclude them.

6. I was pretty bad overall. It's like I forgot how to heal. I let judgments fall off and I don't think I hit a special cooldown all night long. Wait. I did use Divine Plea because I was so bad at managing my mana that I was going OOM when I really shouldn't.

7. Ultraxion continues to be the bane of my guild. Even with going to 5 healers we didn't have the DPS last night to down him. It makes me want to rage.

8. Saddith for President.

bloggy stuff for not-raiding times

2011-12-30T09:31:00.003-06:00

Our WoW raiding break extends till next week. And good thing, too, because I broke my gaming computer trying to upgrade!

Ahem. Don't let Enlynn near the hardware. I'm hoping that my wonderful guildies can help me troubleshoot.

In case you haven't noticed my lack of enthusiasm for raiding, my lack of posting, my... er. Lack in general. I'm not quitting WoW. I would like to see Deathwing die and we've got a couple more fights to learn yet. I will see my guild through to that as long as we can make it happen.

But I have to be honest with you. I don't know what things look like for me past that. And I don't want to go quietly and just let this blog fall to dust. I love this community. It's hard to even think about saying goodbye. I remember some of the wonderful WoW bloggers who have already closed their doors. I almost cried when Larisa shut down PPI. My blogroll and RSS feed are full of WoW bloggers who haven't updated since February or March.

I've gotten so many readers who leave awesome comments. Judging by my stats, I've had quite a few lurkers who've never said a word (please don't think I'm asking you to de-lurk. I feel guilty when bloggers ask for it, fiddle around with a comment before I delete it and don't de-lurk. So you're in good company). I have enjoyed this blog. It taught me a lot about myself, about gaming community, about the game. I hope you found it useful. I hope you found it funny once in a while.

And if for some reason you can't get enough of me (and you are interested in a Star Wars blog), you can find me writing at pealsheals.wordpress.com. Still talking about healing. :)

In the meantime, I'm not disappearing just yet. Here's hoping for some good raiding in the new year!

a holiday lull

2011-12-27T13:59:00.004-06:00

I have been avoiding this post for a while now.

For one, it's been a quiet December. With the release of the DW tier, I was at first disappointed with how "easy" the first few bosses were but after considering Blessing of King's take on normal tuning, I dare say Rohan is right. We've gotten to 5 bosses down (6 on 10). It was really nice not to be stuck on the first boss for weeks. Having only one fight to work on isn't enough to sustain us and it just plain sucks.

But the last couple of weeks, we've had trouble filling raids. Last week was expected, with holiday parties and obligations. My planned "10 batches of cookies in 30 hours" took more like 80, so our calling the raids was a relief. I ran right back to the kitchen and haven't played much at all.

I think the question in a lot of people's minds is "Will Star Wars kill WoW?" and on one hand, WoW is not dying. I don't think it is, I don't think WoW is going away.

On the other... I do think SWTOR will kill some guilds. 25s have been in a precarious position all year. You know it's bad when the premiere hardmode guilds on your server are recruiting in trade and cancelling raids. Seems to me like 10-mans are the way to go, and in MoP 25s will finally die the big death. Players who prefer the larger format will have to choose to stay or try a new game. Like Star Wars.

But... Not because SWTOR is super-great or shiny or everything that WoW isn't. None of that. Remember when I qq'd that a Crab Stole My Kill? I haven't gotten my joy back in playing WoW since then. I've still raided, but something is missing. I wonder how many others like me are feeling the same way.

The only thing I've gotten excited about is transmog. For some reason I love collecting late Classic and BC green-quality plate. Can I just say one thing? I make plate look good.

good things in threes

2011-11-10T23:05:00.004-06:00

1. HM Lord Rhyolith is DEAD. DEAD!

2. I got Exalted with our Rhyo kill.

3. A guildie got his legendary tonight.

(I got my helm the other night so I actually look like I'm raiding in Firelands now.)

Safe to say that's a pretty great night in raiding.

that time of the year/expac/tier again...

2011-10-28T21:35:00.006-05:00

It took several weeks of AH-camping... my mog set is mostly complete.

I need a better weapon, but otherwise I'm pretty happy.

In other news... Meh. I'm glad we got an apology but cynical-enlynn thinks it sounds forced.

My guild is stuck on Rhyolith 25H. A bad kind of stuck, in which I feel like we have hit a wall and haven't figured out how to knock it down. Well, I have a few ideas of who to knock down but that isn't very nice of me. :)

In some ways I wish 4.3 would hurry itself up. And yet I don't want it to because I am really not ready to "rush" through that tier of content just to have 5.0 thrust on us before we're ready.

(I may or may not be a little bitter about the mid-tier nerfs for Firelands).

But there are good things. For instance, our healing team.

They aren't good. They're great. We're doing lean, mean teams for farm content. 4-healing Baleroc is fun as all-get out (we have 3 shadow priests, too, which is pretty neat) and our team is flexible enough to make that happen. I love that. We've gotten into a solid enough groove in the tier that we don't talk too much about who's going to do what, we just do it.

We've been recruiting healers for a while. The last two or three apps have been paladins who can only heal. I hate to be a paladin-snob (okay, okay, I love being a paladin-snob but I realize how much of a pain it is for all you non-paladins), but to be gentle, it's hard to impress me. And we have enough healer-only healers that any newcomers to the group have got to have a DPS set.

I just find it kinda funny. This time last year we couldn't find a second paladin healer to save our lives. Now we have two regular ones plus they make up the majority of the applications? I can't win.

It is that time of the tier, again.

It is that time of the year, again, too. NaNoWriMo. My master plan to get Luxinterior to do some guest posts may or may not get you some humor during the month of November. Just don't life grip him, it never ends well.

reluctant transmog

2011-10-09T10:59:00.003-05:00

So... Blizzard has this brilliant, brilliant strategy. Since they know they aren't offering us enough new content this expansion, they tried to offer us a huge time-sink comparable to raiding that would set both raiders and non-raiders a-tizzy with excitement.

This time-sink recycles old content and encourages nostalgia runs.
It potentially demands re-running ad nauseum old content and nostalgia runs.
It puts enough restrictions that players will have to spend more time deciding what they want, then more time going and getting what they decided on.

Oh, transmog, you genius you.

I wasn't going to participate. How dare I accept transmog instead of a whole tier of raiding? How dare Blizzard think they can promise me more bosses for Cataclysm and only deliver us 7 for T12, then nerf the hell out of that and put this new shiny not-raiding thing before me? Huh? Huh!

And yet... I've been looking around for stuff I might like to be for my transmog set. Pally tier gear doesn't do it for me (though if I could replicate my ICC set I would, but I wore cloth and mail then). So I've been shopping on the Auction House. I found a set of greens from BC I think I really like. No pictures yet, I need a belt.

It all started when we were doing Ulduar (because we only had 22 people show up for a raid, and we had to do something). Lots of purple drops. This mace dropped off of somebody. I thought, hey, that's kinda neat. The loot officer said, take it, what else are we gonna do with it.

Granted, I love having my spellpower axe, but I'm also aware that next tier I'll probably be stuck with a mace. Again.

Since then I've been camping the AH looking for neat gear. And we're not able to use this feature yet! How ridiculous is this?

Team Heal

2011-10-01T12:00:00.004-05:00

So... apparently I was linked from joystiq last week which made for a whole lot of comments (which I appreciate! Very good conversations there) and almost 800 pageviews (which is by far a new record for my humble little blog). It did, however, paralyze me with the "what to post next" fear.

I love my healing team. And since I hadn't praised them lately I wrote up a quick "I don't deserve you but thanks for kicking ass anyways" post.

The occassion? Ragnaros. Though Laghelm was a letdown, Ragnaros is still pretty crazy even in his nerfed shame. We spent several nights on him, got him down yesterday. We're 7/7 and looking towards hardmodes!

There! Are! Four! Lights!

One of our tanks made this banner for me and our co-GM.

Saddith for President!

a crab stole my kill

2011-09-21T16:31:00.004-05:00

Monday Night is progression night. Actually, so is Thursday. But this is a story about Monday night progression, two nights ago specifically, in which a 25 guild has put in many, many attempts on Majordomo Staghelm.

Or, as Lux affectionately named him, Majordomo Laghelm.

Now, Laghelm gave us fits. I'll admit, I was a part of the problem as I tried and failed getting healer cooldowns in some sort of order. I'm not as good at calling out things in voice chat as I'd like to think I am. I wavered between too many too early and trying to save too many too long. I was inconsistent and jumbled up timing. But anyways. We finally got the hang of it last week.

Our best attempt on Monday night was 140k, less than 1%. It was so to-the-wire that someone missed their seed and it was over just like that. A shaman even popped in the vain hopes that dots would kill the boss in the 1-1/2 seconds he borrowed to extended the encounter. But no, it was not to be, and that was our last attempt for the night.

So... well, likely you see where this is going. Enter some nerfs. We kill the first four bosses with absolutely no problems. Alysrazor is so much of a joke now that during the second tornado phase I tried to run into a tornado and I still didn't take any damage.

We one-shot Majordomo. And I couldn't even bring myself to congratulate the healers on a job well-done. Normally I bug the RL to give us EP for good first or early kills but I could only joke about it.

I didn't roll on the healing trinket, either. I wasn't sure that I wanted it (the mana regen ones win out in theory-crafting though I feel so far removed from that this tier I don't know), and on top of that, I couldn't bring myself to be excited about loot. Why bother? We totally didn't earn that.

I've been deflated.

And the worst part is, we'll be going after Ragnaros tonight but I can't get excited. At all. Because if it's anything like the nerfed Domo and Alys, then I'll never even know how that fight is supposed to feel.

So yeah. We'll be onto heroic modes soon enough, which is nice because that's what we were before Cataclysm came and made 25s hard to fill. But then, HMs are getting nerfed too. I can't say I'll feel like I've earned anything from here on out.

I wonder about the future of raiding. I understand that this mid-tier nerfing is likely a test run of Looking For Raid, but if we can look forward to more mid-tier nerfs, then there's a lot less motivation. If you can't stay cutting edge, there's no sense in trying in the beginning. Why just make some half-assed attempts in the first few months, waiting out until you can get your loot on a platter? How am I going to analyze our new healers if there's no trying fights, and does it really matter since we can probably 4-heal anything now?

Oh, cynical Enlynn is cynical. Pardon me. I assure you, the angst in the first half of the post was earned. This isn't the end of me raiding or playing WoW...

But for the first time ever, I just don't care. That, I think, is a very bad sign. I was disappointed by Cata only being three tiers and this tier only having 7 bosses. I'm not ready for Deathwing to be in the next patch. I'm not ready to think about leveling up and learning yet another paradigm.

And I'm certainly not ready for loot on a platter when our progression was actually going just fine, thank you very much.

nerfed content is nerfed

2011-09-01T14:46:00.004-05:00

I'm glad I at least got the first three bosses down before they nerfed them so I could learn them and all. But it was pretty noticeable, having said bosses on wary-farm (in theory we can one-shot, but will we have 25 tonight without calling in someone's brother or aunt?) to suddenly they feel so easy, I have to remind myself they weren't like this a few weeks ago.

Also, less time on stuff we've done is more time on stuff we haven't. Last night was allll progression and it feels pretty good to be doing a bit better each fight.

I am trying something different this week, too. Before I've relied on Holy Light spam because I had lost so much spirit to go full-on mastery. But after a few upgrades my spirit is back to where it was so I have really pushed the "how much mana can I make this fight" game to spam more Divine Light. And holy cow, bigger bubbles, especially since said upgrades bring me to a 27% bubble. I've been bugging the other healadin in my raid to see her stats and it turns out for direct heal casts, we're not that far apart for cast time, though her crit is considerably higher.

But with mastery smoothing out spikey tank damage, I appreciate a crit but I find I don't wish for them as much (unlike before where the tank's health dropped and I prayed for a crit so he wouldn't die). So I have sacrificed some stats, but seriously... Bubbles were 24% of my healing. And my overheal is less than when I started fiddling with this spec (though to be fair, I've stacked the deck in my favor since I do the healing assignments. I put two and three healers on one tank and solo-heal the other for Alys).

Dangit, this was not supposted to be a mastery post! Nerfed content is nerfed. We have apps. We have recruits. We're still recruiting (shamans, that means you!) We're raiding. Life is good.

my beef with infusion

2011-08-24T13:47:00.005-05:00

Mmmm infused beef. Delicious, eh?

I'm going to rant about Infusion of Light, but first I'm going to ramble about Serendipity.

Different talents are different. Different trees are different. Different classes are different. But... I didn't realize how much I disliked IoL until I played my priest enough to fall in love with Serendipity.

What I love about Serendipity

Procs by casting Binding Heal or Flash Heal. Combined with Surge of Light (great talent synergy!), I generally find opportunity to use Serendipity procs at least a few times a fight. And I have choices: I can either use it on a Greater Heal or a Prayer of Healing. And if that wasn't choice enough, I can either spend 1 stack or wait and cast at 2 stacks!

But it gets better. Priest healing spells are so diverse that I can hold my Serendipity charges, casting a ton of other heals: Prayer of Mending, Circle of Healing, Renew, Heal, Sanctuary, PW: Shield, etc. I can save my Serendipity stacks if I know a big thing is coming up: a pulse AoE where I'll need to heal the raid, or a big tank heal for a tank swap or timed ability.

Why Infusion Sucks, In Comparison

Infusion procs by Holy Shock crit so it's a chance instead of a guaranteed proc. I'm cool with that. An Infusion procced with a non crit, every 6 seconds would be ridiculously overpowered. So how it procs isn't a problem IMHO.

The problem is how we spend it. See that list of stuff up there, stuff I can do as a priest while saving my Serendipity stack for something I know is coming up? Here's the list for what paladins can do that heals that won't eat my IoL buff: Holy Radiance. Oh, I might be able to spend Holy Power, if I have three stacks.

So, we have one--maybe two--spell choice(s) we may or may not even want to use before our IoL proc gets eaten up by our next cast. There's no choice here. I cast Holy Shock (and half the time I'm already casting my next heal before my UI even registers I've gotten IoL), my next heal is short. Whether or not I need it that fast. Whether or not I want to use it right away, it gets spent. The only way I can save it is to stop casting, which I think we can all agree is a terrible idea.

Did I mention that a holy priest, after choosing to hold her Serendipity proc a few seconds, can also choose to use it on either a group heal or a single-target heal? Paladins get... a single target heal.

I don't think I have the answers. I'm not suggesting that IoL should be more limited in how we can spend the proc because that would just make the spell clunky. And Serendipity is arguably a minor part of priest healing, while Infusion of Light is a major component of paladin healing (though I could argue that it's only major because paladin spells are so limited).

Managing daybreak procs and Infusion is also a bit clunky. Using Daybreak to Holy Shock back-to-back can waste an Infusion proc if you double-crit. But critting Shock > hasted Divine Heal (.7-.8 seconds at our gear level) > Holy Shock is awkward to time. I can't chain cast it near as fast as I should. It breaks my casting rhythm (though I realize how personal and small of a complaint this is. My big beef is the no-choice-to-spend-or-hold argument above).

But that's why I don't like Infusion of Light. There's no choice in using it. It happens, then it gets spent almost immediately. It's a passive RNG-based HPS boost. I can't hold it to save a tank, I can't rely on it to proc when I really really want it to. And even if it does proc at a good time there was no Enlynn-saving-the-tank. It was a lucky proc, is all. Unlike Serendipity where a well-placed hasted GH could actually be smart play.

this digital age

2011-08-12T11:03:00.000-05:00

One of my guild masters is vehemently against e-readers.

Die, Kindleworm, Die!

I know the issue of e-readers has polarized both reading and publishing communities, but what did this poor little creature ever do to you?

Happy Friday!

I wish I were something else

2011-08-09T10:41:00.003-05:00

Class envy happens quite a bit.

I'm actually quite happy to be a paladin right now. And yes, I am sober. Though I do wish we had a couple more AoE healing options (or rather, that Holy Radiance was a choice instead of a fire-and-forget, perhaps?), we're in a good place. I still miss having a raid-wide bubble (Divine Guardian), and I sure as hell miss Divine Intervention.

It makes me wonder, though, if I had less experience on my other characters if I would feel the same way.

Because I feel like I field a whole lot of "I'm not this" complaints lately. A druid vows that he's rolling a paladin because he's tired of tank healing with hots (tank-healing assignments are by player, not by class, my usual tank healers are AFK to RL lately). A shaman complains that he doesn't have group heals if people aren't stacked up (hello, ALL healing classes suffer from this). If only I had this spell. If only this spell did this effect instead of this. If only my iconic signature healing spell was actually as good as everyone says it is.

I know the truth: it's all close enough. Vixsin has a great write-up for the bench and the top 1% guilds and class balance therein, but I think it's safe to say that for the rest of the world, class balance is "close enough."

When I hear class complaints (from regular mode players), I always get the sense that it's the grass being greener on the other side than any real technical problems. And I'm biased, I know, having experience with all four healers makes me feel pretty confident I could be an asset to my raid no matter which I brought. (Isn't Enlynn so arrogant?!)

I think it's that time of the expansion, though. We hit brick walls on bosses, a key player we got used to having steps out for real-life issues and the void hurts. But instead of saying we miss the person, we say we miss his class mechanics. Sorry, I'm not buying. We miss the player who know to pop a cooldown at the right time. Him being a paladin, a shaman, a priest, not so much the issue. (Though the one night we raided with no priests was a bit weird. Fast forward two weeks and we have 6. Huh?)

And in retrospect, we made it through the summer only having to cancel a couple of raids. I think a few months ago the tones of a lot of my posts were on the verge of grim. We didn't know if we were filling the next raid, but somehow we pulled through. We've even had a waitlist for the past couple of weeks, and been able to let some players take the night off because they needed it without it being too painful for us. So things are looking up, even though we're still stuck on Beth. We got so close.

I hate fights like Beth'tilac not because of Phase 2 (which I'm doing better on, admittedly) because for Phase 1 I am stuck up on top so I have no sense for what the ground phase looks like. We had some (I hate to place blame here, but I saw some healers pull miracles out of their asses so...) DPS who would rather make excuses for why the adds don't go down than to just make the adds go down. But anyways. We're almost there.

Though, if you aren't paying attention to who has died and who has casted Brez, and you have no idea when the phase change is coming, you perhaps are not the best candidate to demand who brezes who. Just sayin'. Let someone who's actually using raid frames and situational awareness take care of that, hmm? Or maybe a RAID LEADER?

Oh, and our ranks are strictly attendance based, so when you take a demotion it is absolutely, positively, 100% NOT PERSONAL. Making it personal and threatening to quit gets you nowhere.

/rant off

We could still stand to recruit a few more people, but I think that's standard fare in a 25-raid, there's always a bit more room. We're raiding this week, and that's great. And if the worst problems I have to deal with this week are "I wish my class had this", then that's not a bad place to be at all. :)

Tower of Radiance

2011-08-02T12:12:00.002-05:00

I'm running two specs now, a Tower of Radiance spec and an Eternal Glory spec. The difference between them is fairly minor. My "main spec" for OMFG-TANK-DAMAGE fights has Eternal Glory. I spec out of Tower of Radiance because I put Beacon of Light on the off-tank and spam Holy Light on the main tank like it's 1999.

For fights like Beth'tilac, I wanted ToR because BoL doesn't transfer between levels. I figure if I have to Bacon the tank I'm healing anyways, may as well generate some extra holy power? And I wanted to have Pursuit of Justice, because, well, I like being fast. Perhaps it's not entirely optimal, but for the fights where I'm using BoL for Holy Power, I figure I may as well not bother with Eternal Glory. In theory, I'll be using Light of Dawn a whole lot. (My glyphs reflect these choices, too, one for each spec).

I don't know what I would do, if I only had one spec to choose to be a healadin. I feel tugged in two directions, with mastery demanding one play style and haste another. Each has it's own build and strengths and weaknesses, and every encounter seems to demand something different.

We got Beth to 1% last night but ran out of time to go in for that one last attempt. I feel pretty darn useless in Phase 2, but I think that has more to do with my being a paladin than being a mastery-stacking paladin. Hit Holy Radiance on cooldown, spam the raid. Those bubbles get absorbed, at least, but without haste my direct heals are painfully slow.

I guess, even with haste, my direct heals are still painfully slow. =P

TL;DR: Paladins need a third spec so healadins can have 2 healing specs AND an offspec. Because not everyone is crazy enough to do holy/holy like me.

I looked at Magmaw funny

2011-07-25T10:18:00.001-05:00

A foray into 10 HM...

Now that we're doing t12, my guild put together a 10-raid for HM Blackwing Descent. Perhaps regular modes have been nerfed all to hell (and they have, they have) but HMs are still--wait for it--hard.

The group was really cobbled together with the folks who happened to be on on Saturday. So it was my absolute favorite healing composition (two holy paladins + anything else) (sarcasm alert!), but we made it work. Only kinda, though, since we didn't get any bosses down. But I had expected as much, since we hadn't touched a single Hardmode yet this expansion and none of us had really researched the fights yet.

But even so, it gave me a chance to see my mastery gear working in a 10-group. At first, I went in my hybrid gear (17% mastery, 1000+ haste, more crit) and used my Tower of Radiance spec, but after a couple of wipes I switched to my "main" set and to my non-ToR spec.

A couple of reasons why: In a raid with the haste buff, the difference between 970 haste and 1200 or so haste is... not noticeable. Perhaps you get an extra Holy Radiance tick (a handy chart would be neat, but I digress), but the cast time on direct heals is the same either way. And in 10-raids, Holy Radiance isn't quite the I-Win button it is in 25's.

My "off spec" gear is lower i-level. I ran into this problem before, in Icecrown Citadel, trying to keep up a FoL set (haste to soft cap, stack spellpower) with random pieces of gear. Except, I never had a full offset so some of my pieces were still gemmed for intellect. So it wasn't a true specialist set, it was entirely cobbled together, and the real kicker: lower average i-level. I lost so much to put that gear on. I ended up using it Saurfang while we were progressing and that's about it. Once it felt on farm, I didn't bother.

I feel much the same way with my "haste and spirit" set now. I lose 4-pc t11 bonus, several thousand intellect, and 7% bubblage for... a couple hundred haste, an extra % or so crit, and... wait for it... all those i-level drops actually give me less spirit. Because this all off-set gear, old gear, lower i-level. All my new stuff is part of my mastery set.

A part of this is that it isn't a true offset. I still have too many pieces that are reforged for mastery, so instead of being a second specialist set, it still favors mastery while not favoring it enough.

And I do believe that I would be saying the opposite, if I had cobbled together a mastery offset, if I had half-assed it and coming up with 15% bubblage instead of 24%, I would not be the mastery cheerleader that I am right now.

A part of me dies every time I cheerlead for mastery. But the point is: your best gear will probably give you the best results. And why this is news for me, well, I haven't had my coffee yet.

Is there a point to all this? I really thought I had one but now that I'm here, I don't. I was able to "compete" with the other healers in my mastery gear, though we had to do healing assignments to work around me and I do not like being in that position. We had the other healadin beacon the tank, focus the raid, while I beaconed the adds tank and focused on the main tank. Sometimes I was a bit overwhelmed by the damage, but for the most part I wasn't. I never thought "whew, glad I got all this mastery" or anything.

I'm going to have to do some research for next weekend. I'm really not motivated to reforge my gear for one run on the weekend just to switch it back for the week, but we'll see what happens.

still upset about crusader aura, take two

2011-07-23T10:04:00.000-05:00

I don't often miss game mechanics, at least not on a regular basis. Sure, sometimes I whine about not having Divine Intervention anymore, but honestly it's an artifact of paladin past and I've accepted that.

But I just can't get over not having Aura Mastery work with Crusader Aura anymore. I miss it every time I log in.

A lot of times, I use it just to hear the sound it makes, but I get sad, too, because Aura Mastery has two sound components: the shing of AM and the rahw of Crusader Aura. It only makes the shing now.

QQ

bacon flavored playstyle

2011-07-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

Bacon, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

There's a few approaches you can use to using Beacon of Light in PVE encounters, and your favored approach will likely affect your gut instinct for stat priorities. (This is a mastery post, believe it or not).

The method I've used for most of T11 is to assign myself a tank (ah, the joys of being heal lead, I'm known for giving myself the heaviest tank-healing duty), and Beacon my assignment.

Beaconing Your Tank

For fights like Magmaw, Atramedes, the second half of Halfus, Double Dragons, and Chogall, you've probably already done this. With Beacon on your main assignment, you're free to spam the raid with heals. In 4.2, we can use Holy Light as often as it can cover tank damage (which on one-tank fights can happen, if you've got other paladins using their Beacon the same way and full-rolling hots and shields from other healers).

I like giving my tank my Bacon. It ensures my tank will always be getting a heal (not just the 1/2 direct heal, but tiny heals from PotI and JotP as long as I'm staying active, but on the occassion I do need to land a big heal on the tank, I get Holy Power, which allows me to do even more raid healing with LoD, which transfers a good-sized heal to my tank. More raid healing and solid tank healing. It's win.

This setup favors haste>spirit/crit and employs all spells, potentially favoring Divine Light and Light of Dawn. A paladin has less reason to use Word of Glory unless she's really trying to be mana efficient (crossing her fingers for a HP refund with each WoG use). Casting Divine Light on your tank procs more HP and allows you to spray lots and lots of LoD over the raid, to the point of planning out holy power for big attacks and timers, and regenerating it quickly by spamming the tank with Infusion procs.

This setup makes mastery look like a chump stat. With the changes in 4.2, mastery is better (our bubbles are a little more likely to last long enough over the raid to be absorbed), however, the scatter shot raid-healing approach means a lot of those bubbles can get wasted (phase changes or timed AoE pulses longer than 15 seconds). This approach means we're healing reactively, while mastery really shines with proactive healing.

That's a drawback if you're trying to avoid mastery. We "pay" for it in terms of class balance so for fights we're not able to utilize our bubbles, we're running without one of the tools in our already limited toolkit.

This strategy is solid for fights with moderate tank damage and moderate raid damage, and allows you to switch between direct heal-bombing your tank and raid healing on the fly.

Beaconing Someone Else's Tank

I think a lot of paladins still use this approach (the other two healadins do this unless we agree otherwise). For fights that feature two tanks and limited raid damage, this is a solid way to keep up two targets.

The drawback is, you put your tank in danger when you help heal the raid, because while you aren't healing them, they aren't getting any of your heals. With this setup, WoG shines a teensy bit more than LoD, if a healadin wants to keep constant heals on her tank. (And fights that encourage this type of Bacon may not have raid damage to heal).

Mastery is an amazing stat for this playstyle. I am not yet comfortable with the stat weights for this setup but I have heard other paladins gear for a 1.9 second HL/DL (mine is 2.0 with 790 haste) and enough critical strike rating to keep up solid uptime on Conviction (at 15% crit I kept up 97%). What a healadin gives up in raid-healing flexibility she becomes a beast tank-healer. Constant bubbles on cheap heals. It's ridiculous.

Holy Light takes precedence over Divine Light, since this style is proactive healing, building up bubbles whether the tank needs a heal or not. That means you can get away with less spirit. That means--you guessed it--room for more mastery. Truly a specialist build.

This strategy is awesome for fights with insane tank damage. Your healing team will love you for your mastery and your ability to keep a constant stream of heals and bubbles on the main tank. However, you may feel like the last kid chosen to play at recess for AoE damage fights. For progression-minded raiding groups (and aggressive raid healers who don't care), that may not be a drawback.

Talent Builds

I've had two holy specs for a while now. My off-spec was last tuned for Alakir (Pursuit of Justice, go go!) but I've been contemplating redoing that build to fully utilize a mastery playstyle. I think Tower of Radiance is wasted on a full-on mastery build. That's not to say I would scoff at a paladin who had it, but for players like me who prefer to keep two variants of their main spec instead of a true offspec, I think there's room to play around.

I'm writing this post a bit ahead of its post date so I'm going to go with this build here (31/5/5), and hopefully I'll let you know how I feel about it. I'm not really happy about 1/2 Blessed Life but it was the best I could do without taking the DPS talents in the Holy tree.

I'm further thinking that if I'm going this route of having one specialized tank-healing build and a raid-healing build, I could take out Eternal Glory in my raid-healing build and try Pursuit of Justice instead. In theory, I'd be casting far more LoDs than WoGs, and the extra movement to help position myself for Holy Radiance would be helpful. But I'll keep you posted. I haven't decided yet. :)

et tu, enlynn?: mastery build

2011-07-14T09:11:00.007-05:00

I imagine you've already seen some hullabulloo about the changes in 4.2 to mastery. Buffs, yes. Changes, yes. But enough changes to warrant a dramatic playstyle and gearing change for Firelands?

Maybe.

I read the Holy Paladin: Mastery thread over on the Blizzard forums and thought to myself that going Zaroua's route was probably a great idea for 25 HM raiders. But, I'm not a HM raider, not yet. We're shooting to get normal modes down for Firelands but it didn't happen in T11 and quite frankly we had enough on our metaphorical guild plate without them. So I did think, when I read through this, that it didn't apply to me.

Then I saw that Rohan had joined the Mastery Club. Again, HM raider.

And then Adgamorix threw in his vote and I realized something: tank deaths on Shannox were wiping us. Back-to-back Arcing Slashes and melee attacks in .12 seconds were dealing 120k and 95k damage faster than my UI could display it. And if this build is supposedly very good for crazy ass spikey tank damage like this, then why wasn't I at least willing to give it a try?

I spent some justice points and got 4 pc set bonus (not so much for the bonus, but the two pieces with mastery were the best deal for the JP I had). I reforged and regemmed (all my Reckless became Artful), and picked up the pieces of gear with Mastery from the Firelands Rep Guys (vote: pathetic or not pathetic that I don't even know the faction I'm grinding for right now?).

I cobbled together a 23% bubble with hardly any effort. Previously, I had 77 mastery (so basically a 12% bubble).

And so after almost 50 attempts at Shannox over the last few weeks, we went in last night and killed him the second time. Our RL takes full credit for the first wipe, but the second pull was beautiful, pitch-perfect, and the loot flowed.

My meters were borked. According to Skada, my bubbles were... 44k. Which is actually the bubble I had on the MT when we pulled (which is crazy). I was disheartened, but I had several healers whisper me saying they felt the difference, that whatever I had done was a good thing.

Fortunately, WoL has the story. But I'm going to drag this out and first talk about my healing before, since I think that's important. Here's a picture of last night, a very-close Shannox attempt. My assignment is the same for both: Luxinterior, Shannox tank. He, I believe, made some minor to his gear over the weekend but I'm fairly certain the only change between last night and tonight was me.

Before, my haste-stacking paladin self:

Lots of Word of Glory, and lots of Divine Light spammed on my Beacon target (Lux) to generate Holy Power. Holy Radiance popped just about every Magma Burst, and I made a point to be inside the raid when it happened to maximize my AoE healing.

And now, with Mastery:

I made radical changes to my healing style. Beacon of Light jumped to my highest healing done because I set it on the other tank and basically forgot it for the fight. But check out my bubbling- a solid fifth of my healing done.

But did you catch the overheal on my direct heals? Oi.

A thought on Holy Radiance: Because my goal for this fight was to spam Holy Light on the tank the entire fight whether or not he needed it, I spent less time positioning myself to help with AoE. The numbers here are deceiving, because not only did I get less in-range ticks with this change and those ticks healed for less, but I was off by myself or sometimes just in the melee. I used Holy Radiance 10 times for both samples, but the data can't be compared because I behaved differently.

I might have lost a tick with the haste I lost, but I didn't lose any intellect so in theory each tick would have healed the same if I had played the same.

What didn't change

Judging on cooldown, plea and trinkets early and often, hitting AoE heal button every XX seconds in response to AoE pulses. Tank healing like it's going out of style.

I healed for a bit less overall with a mastery build, however, my ranking within my raid didn't change. The healing done page looked fairly similar for both in terms of what other healers were doing.

What did change

Everything else! Who I healed and what spells I used. I went from favoring Divine Light to being afraid of it. I lost several hundred spirit to make this change, pigeon-holing me into favoring Holy Light and using DL and Flash of Light for oh-shit moments (even that oh-shit moment that I used an instant-cast FoL while running ended up being 100% overheal because others beat me to it). Beacon became a fire-and-forget buff on the other side of the raid instead of an active tool to help me raid heal and generate Holy Power while keeping my assignment up.

(BTW, raise your hand if you forgot Infusion procs insta-cast FoLs again! Cause I sure did till last night).

Beacon probably deserves its own post since I find I'm using mine differently than other paladins in the raid. But before I derail entirely, I had to mention the Beacon change because it did change how I healed the tank. When Beacon isn't on my assignment, I am restricted. With a mastery build, I am further restricted to healing my target. Raid healing with this setup doesn't heal my target, and those raid bubbles aren't likely to get absorbed in a fight like Shannox. Also, time spent not healing the tank is time not spent building up bubbles. So this build really, really pigeon-holes a paladin into one thing and one thing only: spamming Holy Light on the tank whether or not he needs it.

Pardon me. I could have sworn I just heard a skeleton screaming "Bone Storm!" from across a chamber of ice.

TLDR:

This build is effective for crazy tank damage fights. I can not deny it. For 25 raiders and both 10 and 25 HM raiders, I can see why stacking mastery would be a benefit to the raid for specific fights.

However, (and of course there's a however), a paladin really ought to take a long look at her playing habits and raiding roster. There are a lot of situations where a mastery build would be a great idea, but I also believe there will be a lot of situations where a haste-spirit build would be stronger.

After Shannox, we went and did a few attempts on our next boss target, Lord Ryolith, and holy cow had we not gotten Shannox down I would have felt useless for Ryolith. Heavy raid damage fights are not not friendly to the mastery build. (However, after comparing myself to the other holy paladin in my raid, I could have tried a lot harder so the verdict is most certainly not out yet for how best a mastery build paladin can use her abilities in this kind of fight. I'll post more once I figure it out.)

Should you go mastery? If and only if you play with a regular group of folks so you can be a designated main tank healer and work with the rest of your raid to help you get the most effectiveness out of this playstyle. I'm not so sure that 10 regular modes require a stacking setup, either, my experiences with 10s isn't near as great as 25s, but I just don't see the tank damage as crazy enough to warrant it. 10's, to me, seem to encourage staying general (ie, flexible) instead of going specialized, and with 10 mans that loss of spirit to focus on mastery is going to hurt.

But in 25s (even regular), volunteering to be that paladin might not be such a bad idea, especially if your group is solid enough that it's just assumed you're going to be one of the main tank healers. Does your 25-raid need 2? I have no idea. I'm not going to recommend that the other healadins in my raid make the switch.

Why?

If my snark earlier was not obvious enough, spamming a heal on a person whether they need it or not... is not FUN. I have squirmy feelings about casting with no regards to overheal. I half-wonder if we're going to see nerfs since the mastery build encourages spam-casting that goes against design intent.

Did I mention it's not fun? Sure, it felt real good to get the boss down but being a Holy-Light-Metronome (too bad paladins can't be Gnomes, har har!) will get real old, real fast. I mean, I'll do it, I like getting bosses down just like any other gal, but I lost a lot of flexibility to gain tank healing stability. Especially since I got feedback from the other healers saying it made their jobs less stressful. For me, sticking with a mastery build will be taking one for the team.

And a HM raider will have different experiences, since they will have a lot less overheal.

TLDR, for real this time

If you're struggling with keeping up tank damage that, by the logs, looks impossible to heal, going with a mastery build might be the ticket to downing those bosses.

But I would say, if you don't heal with a steady raid group, if your raid roster is constantly changing and your focus within the raid is different every night, then a more balanced approach might be better. And if you value your flexibility within your raid group, then you probably will not enjoy this specialist build.

23-manning progression

2011-06-15T15:59:00.003-05:00

We're working on Alakir.

A part of me wants to be embarrassed that we haven't completed on 25, what many, many guilds on our server have completed on 10.

However, we've called a whole bunch of raids due to attendance. And I don't say that QQ-like because it's just a fact. Sure, we've done alternate things like Ulduar runs and nostalgia achievement runs to keep ourselves busy, and we've done BoT and BWD with like 22 and 23 people.

Instead of calling it this week, we've gone and tried Alakir with 23. In some ways, it's great that we can do that. It seems pretty unlikely that a 10-man guild could 9-man a progression fight. But with enough heavy hitter DPS in a 25, it's kind of possible.

I say kind of because we haven't gotten it yet. Though, we are getting closer. It's certainly not going to take us as long to get Alakir as it took to get down Nef. With 4.2 on the way, it's pressure. We really want to have the tier completed before it's time for the next one.

It's a hard spot to be in, knowing we were 9/12 25 HM in Icecrown... and we haven't touched a heroic mode yet this tier. Maybe Firelands will be better for us. It will be, if we can actually get into the content every night we're scheduled to.

It's unfortunate because I do love 25-man raiding. There is, I believe, only two guilds that use the larger format on our server (regularly). It's hard to be #2. Why join a 25-man guild that may or may not do a full clear this week when you can join a 10 that can? I mean, we have great personality! But in terms of time invested versus rewards, I feel like the players of WoW have spoken and 10-mans are the future, with a handful of elite 25s, maybe 1 or 2 on the larger servers.

Oh, and I should weigh in a totally-opiniony opinion that has absolutely no basis in math or fact on our new 4.2 mastery. Still not a stat I want. But hey. The nerfs we take in mana cost will make up for it, right?

Snark aside, it's not a bad time to be a paladin. Tank healing is sweet now that I've found a groove. With more crit than I had a few months ago, it's gotten crazy with IoL procs. And more crit for holy shock in the next patch? Yes, please!

I'm pretty excited about Holy Light doing full transfer, as well. I had resorted into a bad habit of using Divine Light more than was probably necessary to make sure that my Beacon target was getting enough of a heal. Though, on some fights I'm getting a ton of use on Tower of Radiance. Big heal on tank + 1 holy power? I'm okay with that, especially to build up holy power for the next boss ability.

With the cooldown reduction on Holy Radiance in 4.2, I'll be a bit more free to use it more often. One of my biggest complaints with that spell was how much it was just a one-answer button to specific abilities. I'm not sure that using it more will be the answer, but having the option to is a start.

Because I think that's the root of all holy paladin QQ everywhere. No options = no fun.

And, um, Speed of Light gives a run speed bonus to Divine Protection? Oh, oh, yes! That'll be fun. I love Body and Soul for for the run speed on my priest, and always feel like my boost is wasted on my paladin. After all, if I want to heal the most, I'll already be parked for maximum efficiency. So that's really nice, because it feels like a terrible and bad thing to use Holy Radiance for the speed boost alone (at least in combat!)

from silence, an update

2011-06-08T12:01:00.003-05:00

Happy Hump Day Everyone!

Bloggy Stuff

No news is good news, right? Okay, that's a terrible excuse for disappearing off the planet for a few weeks. My blog nagged at me, whispered to me to come back, but then I told myself I didn't have anything to write about, and with all the social media stuff I've been reading I felt like I didn't have anything to offer the community and Oh-dear-god I just talk about myself and how I'm frustrated with holy paladins alllll the time. (I'm not. It just sounds like it).

I have a knack for making things harder than they are.

Raiding Stuff

In recent news, we got Nef on 25 down last week. That was a really hard one for the guild. We've had some attendance problems of late--hasn't everyone?--but things are okay for now. We lost two of our tanks while learning Nef. Not from Nef, of course. Just while. So we had quite a few re-learning nights.

Can I say right now that I love tanks who love mitigation?

No, really. It's absolutely amazing the difference between correct gemming and reforging and not-so-correct. And worse, why it does it reflect on the healer when I can't keep up a tank who is still living like it's Icecrown?

Guild Stuff

A funny story, back from an old guild.

Several times while I was the healing officer of another guild, the GM called together a meeting of officers and asked if we thought we had room for another officer. All three times, I shot it down. We had enough, in my overly humble opinion, and I also had a few people whispering me telling me that they wanted the position. So when the GM asked, I thought I knew who he had in mind.

And quite frankly, if you take 40 minute AFKs to change desks because you raid at work, at least once a week, you should not be vying for a raid leadership position. Hell, you shouldn't even be upset when we bench you.

Also, if you've spent the last two days bitching about two-thirds of the guild and how you wish they weren't in the guild and you'd love to kick them. You're not getting my vote either.

So, a week or so after we left that guild, the GM decides to whisper me and tell me that all those times he was trying to get another officer into leadership, he was trying to get Luxinterior. But each time the officers shot him down so hard he never got a chance to name the name.

Fortunately, my boyfriend wasn't upset that I voted against him three separate times.

Fast forward. Our tanking officer in my current guild takes off for some real life stuff, and we go back and forth on whether we even need a tanking officer (the tanks we had at the time were real low-maintenance). So then, I voted, no, no tanking officer.

Then we lost our other low-maintenance tank, leaving only Lux, a guy who quit the game for four months and suddenly showed up wanting to tank, and a new guy who had only done 10s.

I felt a bit awkward changing my opinion, and even more awkward voting for my boyfriend, but everyone laughed about it because he was the natural choice. I was all "Well, he's doing the work so he's got the burden of leadership without the benefits..." and the GM was all "Geez, Enlynn, it took you long enough".

So, make that four times I voted no. But the fifth stuck, and Four Lights now has the Lux-and-Enlynn tanking/healing leadership team!

It's handy in a lot of ways. We talk about things before we put 'em in vent and raid chat, and I feel less like an idiot when I have to ask the same question for the third time in one night. Lux already knows I'm a little dense sometimes. :)

Writing Stuff

I'm well on my way to meeting my goal for writing this year, having completed my second book a few days ago. I'm floored about Camp Nanowrimo starting this July. I had an idea I was saving for November NaNo, but I also wanted to write it in the summer to fully appreciate the oppressive dog days of August in the midwest for the story. So that'll be neat.

The other project, that actually has something to do with WoW, is a story about a gamer girl and her raiding guild. I've had this idea rolling around in my head for a year, and I was afraid until now but it's time to stop being afraid and RAR! Gonna do it.

Reading Stuff

Like books about druids? I meant to plug Hounded by Kevin Hearne a few weeks ago when I read it AND FELL IN LOVE. An Iron Age druid living in modern day Arizona? Oh, yes! I heartily recommend this book.

furry friends

2011-05-05T11:22:00.003-05:00

An unexpected change happened to the game with 4.1. I don't even remember reading about it, but pets no longer disappear when we log out or die.

Er, they do sometimes, but for the most part companion pets persist.

Which means, naturally, that we see a lot more pets in the raid. I'm changing my pets around, deciding which one I feel like for the night, or even for the fight (I like summoning my macaw when we get to the ship in Deadmines).

I've noticed that a lot of other people are doing the same. It's added a new flavor to the game, since pets are fun and seeing what other pets people have and choose is interesting. I /dance with a moonkin hatchling, cheer when someone's XT stomps a train, and click on the Wolpertinger until it makes the cooing noises.

I like it! Have your remembered to love your furry friends lately?

still in the dark: mastery buffs not enough

2011-04-29T09:02:00.005-05:00

I promised myself I'm not going to let this go too long, so not much theorycrafting. Also, there may be QQ ahead.

Magmaw WoL for 4-27. Magmaw WoL for 4-19.

I went from 36% "overheal" on mastery to 38. Old mastery was 3-4% of my healing, now it's 6%.

I mean, it's a buff so I shouldn't complain. But here's what I think happened:

Tank healing for paladins hasn't changed. Most of our shields get overwritten before the absorb can happen. My tank absorbs for 4-19 and 4-27 are a bit different from playstyle change (more raw heals done spamming the tank on 4-27 because our other tank healer fell into the lava).

However, the mastery buffs did affect LoD absorbs. My absorbs on the raid on 4-19 were all overheal in the 50-75% range. Those numbers last night went down, or rather, the amount absorbed went up (overheal in the 30-70% range, with more bubbles being entirely absorbed).

So we're a little bit better at raid healing. A little. I don't know about you, but my raid assignments are still like they were in Wrath: pallies on tanks, the rest on raids. Sure, I pop Holy Radiance (which doesn't proc mastery) every minute when the boss does his raidwide-pulse-damage like a good healadin, but let's be honest here:

Why in the hell would I assign myself to the raid when we have shamans, druids, and priests? So I can use half-powered Light of Dawns once every 14 seconds?

QQ. I know my raw healing is often comparable to what other healers do, but I still think healadins are broken.

One spell on a 40 second cooldown does not fix "it".

The way the encounters are designed, we're tank healers who pop a raid-cooldown, then continue spamming tanks. There's really no spell selection, and if we're not clumped up...

And with the damage model in Cataclysm, we can't even tank heal by ourselves. I mean, I know that no 1 healer can, but still. I can, in theory, stop raid healing, and the raid healers would just have less overheal.

I main-changed in the second tier of Wrath, and later called it a mistake because of all the time it wastes. Switching to priest isn't an option (though a girl can dream) because we have so many priests in our raid. Right now, we could use a shaman, but our alt run already has so many shamans that gearing her up would be difficult. Oh, yeah, and she's 72. So when I talk about thinking about not being a paladin anymore, I do mean to say I've been giving this a lot of thought over a long time. Can you believe that 4.0 was six months ago? Holy paladins are still the punchline.

We already have one holy paladin in the raid. I feel at this point having 1 less paladin and 1 more anything would be better than having 2 healadins. Especially since our shaman hangs around the 50% attendance mark.

How is 4.1 treating you? How do you feel about your healadin and her contributions to the raid?

noblegarden egg hunt!

2011-04-23T22:39:00.004-05:00

I'm so excited for the blog egg hunt tomorrow!

I've hidden an egg around bubblespec, somewhere. Good luck, and I'll see you over at Kamalia et Alia's blog!

proto drake goodness

2011-04-21T23:19:00.004-05:00

Proto-drakes are my favorite mount. And I have to say, the Ironbound is elegant.

binge drinker

2011-04-15T15:07:00.000-05:00

Blog Azeroth Shared Title: Weird Gaming Habits

I have a confession. I'm a binge drinker.

Okay, IRL I can't hold liquor to save my life, but in WoW, it's different.

I like carrying several kinds of alcohol in Enlynn's bags. Sometimes I go quite a while without drinking them (the good thing about booze, it doesn't really expire), but then I'll go through a stack in one night, starting every pull that night with the screen fuzzy.

Hmm.... That makes Enlynn a binge drinker.

Weird. I'm to finish off that stack of Rhapsody Malt I just happened to have in my bags, to celebrate.

one hand isn't enough

2011-04-08T06:03:00.000-05:00

Fact: Priests, Shamans and Druids get staffs, along with an assortment of 1-handed weapons they can use with off hands.

Fact: Paladins of the Self-Righteous variety (*cough* Holy *cough*) only get to choose between a handful of 1-handed weapons.

Totally My Opinion: Blizzard should implement 2-handed caster maces. Paladins would get another option, maces are totally sweet, it makes sense for Shamans, Druids, and Paladins to have a gigantic mace, and, seriously, I have to admit: I would love to not have a shield for just one tier.

We'd get to cross our fingers on weapon drops for more than one boss.

We'd look TOTALLY SWEET. RAR!

With 3 classes and 5 specs being able to use 2-handed maces, adding it to the loot table wouldn't clutter things up so badly.

Did I mention it would give us more options for loot?

Yes, gigantic caster maces would be amazing.

more shards for you: spellpower plate

2011-04-06T09:32:00.004-05:00

News! Discussion! Opinions!

Let's talk about spellpower plate. Or rather, let's talk about what Ghostcrawler said about spellpower plate.

How do you feel about holy paladins being the only spec in the game with gear devoted to it?

I'm okay with it. No, really. The alternatives are far worse, clunky if you will.

We could wear mail. True, but we could also wear tutus and prance around with wands. Can you imagine a flipping PALADIN hopping around with a wand and ballerina slippers? I'll pass, thanks.

We could wear strength plate using conversions of melee stats. Then we'd heal AND be able to throw it down like a melee. Sure, we could be redesigned like cleric in DnD who got the best of all worlds: healing, armor, and power. And then ret and holy alike would have to ride the nerf-coaster while they got us 'balanced'. And by balanced, I mean, not #1 in PvP.

Pass. I'd rather not deal with the rogue tears.

Another problem with the strength plate idea is the gear competition. Right now, things are slated a little in favor of holy paladins. We gear up pretty quickly. Yet, lumping us in with the strength-plate crowd isn't an answer to the loot distribution problem. Warriors, Death Knights, and Paladins are popular classes. Melee DPS is a popular role. At least in my raid, the competition is still pretty fierce for strength plate.

It's anecdotal, but I noticed last night that I'm one of the weakest-geared healers in my raid.

Spellpower plate gets sharded in droves, it's true! But regular raid groups are sharding lots of stuff off the first few bosses. We're sharding the spellpower legs off of Halfus not because spellpower plate shouldn't be in the game, but because we've been sharding every. single. drop. from Halfus for weeks now.

(Three BoEs dropped last night before Chogall trash, 2 agility trinkets and the healer staff. No one seems to be complaining about all the extras of these we don't need...)

The other huge problem I see with a strength-plate conversion is how differently things are itemized across strength classes. Different classes want different things, and that's a good thing. But if holy paladins had a conversion, it would be tricky as hell to figure out what we wanted. (Other than to avoid expertise like the plague if it was converted to mastery!). And then Rohan over at Blessing of Kings brings up an very good point: if we have a conversion for plate, what about non-plate stuff? Do we roll jewelry like healers, or like plate dps? We'd be Ninja Raiders!

I've heard the argument that spellpower plate is wasteful . Okay, IRL I'm all for being green and reusing bags and wearing clothes till the zippers rust and turning the heat down and not wasting gas.

But this is not real. Pixels can not be wasted. We do not need to remove spellpower plate to 'conserve' gear. Waste is not a bad thing in a video game, in fact, it's good. It ensures that the content has repeat value.

I mean, if we're going to remove spellpower plate to make sure that the loot distribution is "more fair", the next step, obviously, is that the game should check the raid composition and only drop things that those classes can use. No druids or rogues in the raid? Guaranteed no leather!

Oh, wait. We still might have repeat drops. Instead, we should have the game not only spec-check, but gear-check. If all the clothies have a 359 helm, no helm would drop off that boss. That way, each boss kill guarantees only useful and necessary things that we need.

So then we need to kill each boss exactly three times before the whole raid is decked out. Then we have no reason to come back, except to push through to the bosses we haven't done three times yet. And what happens when said raid already has everything off that boss already? Does he just drop nothing?

Wait, I know! Every boss will drop tokens, which can be turned into.... anything! You get a token, take it to the npc, then you choose what slot you want it to fit into. Then you choose what secondary stats you want. Every boss is guaranteed loot, and it's exactly what you want... every time!

Does that actually sound fun?

If you're raiding every week, you've probably sharded a whole bunch of gear, and only a tiny amount of that was spellpower plate. Waste and RNG in drops are an important part of raiding. We notice the spellpower plate because it sticks out more obviously, but every week we 'waste' a whole lot of gear.

And again, not a bad thing. We need incentives to keep raiding the fights we've already learned. Large loot tables help keep things interesting.

I agree that spellpower plate is a bit clunky, but the alternatives are more broken than it stands currently.

for the horde, take two

2011-04-03T19:41:00.000-05:00

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: What's your favorite race?

When I think about it too long, I start to remember just how much I love the Horde.

If I was able to make my paladin a member of the Forsaken, I would permanently Horde.

What characters, those undead! How can you not love Galertruby?

Their gravely voices! Embrayce the shadoh. Victory for Sylvanas.

I really miss my priest being undead. Or rather, I miss my undead priest. I left her logged out in Howling Ford, having picked up the first quest.

And how can priests be undead but not paladins? The undead paladins in Icecrown cast Unholy Light and Judgements of the Wicked. Why don't I get to do that?!

I know it's a pipe dream, but if Blizzard ever allowed Forsaken Paladins, I would totally do the transfer.

always late to the party

2011-04-03T18:24:00.003-05:00

Well, I am two days too late, but I finally read the April Fools Day joke from Blizzard, linked here by MMO-Champion:

Paladin

Judgement has been removed from the game.
Judgment (new ability) unleashes the energy of a Seal for Holy damage.
All talents and glyphs which referred to Judgement now correctly affect Judgment.
The sound of most Retribution abilities has been redesigned to produce a more audible clunk when used. The rotation should now feel clunkier overall.
Paladins are now required to tithe 10% of their gold income to their church.
Paladin chat and whispers now appear with sparkles.
Some paladin abilities did not contain the words Sanctity, Divine, or Justice. This has been corrected.
The duration and cooldown of Divine Shield have been changed to 15 seconds.
Divine Shield no longer causes Forbearance.

The judgment thing is AWESOME.

Also, more sparkles!

persistence pays off: chogall

2011-03-31T09:45:00.004-05:00

Chogall is dead!

How many lights are there? Huh? Huh?!

This expansion has been tricky. We suffered from a lot of the same problems that most other 25 man guilds did, getting spots filled.

And as frustrating as it is to bring in a member who doesn't raid to be our 25th for a progression fight, I still appreciate the above-and-beyond that many of our raiders put in to get the job done.

I'm damn proud of the healing team. We have come a long way.

25 man raiding isn't dead. Dying slowly? Perhaps. But not dead. We've gotten a handful of awesome recruits and applications are still trickling in. And our next goal is to down Nef.

i'm still upset about crusader aura

2011-03-28T19:43:00.002-05:00

This is a QQ post.

In the past, I've ranted about changes for Holy Paladins, but for the most part I've rolled with the nerfs.

Especially the Cata nerfs. I've been pretty positive. The spell costs? No big deal. The Conviction Nerf > Hotfix + Nerf > Nerf = I didn't notice.

But this crusader aura thing?

I have been bummed out since I read about it.

Aura Mastery is a unique ability. Only a Holy Paladin can have this talent.

AM in conjunction with CA was a beautiful thing that made Enlynn unique, and a fun ability to use while farming.

Farming as holy is not faster than with ret. If one must kill things to get to the node, tank and dps spec paladins will win out in faster kill speeds. I still have to blow cooldowns to kill more than a couple things and not run OOM.

I liked having CA for travel during raids. Being the fastest player in the raid had it's advantages, we can start summoning sooner. Especially in Cataclysm, where you can end up hitting three places in one night.

I'm going to miss it.

the enrage timer

2011-03-22T15:46:00.003-05:00

My guild is working on Cho'gall.

On our last attempt (for we are the masters of the Last Attempt), we lasted long enough to wipe to the enrage timer.

I celebrate the enrage timer like a small victory. We kept everyone up. The tanks did what they needed to do. The healers did what they needed to do.

Now we just get our DPS to switch to adds a tiny bit faster and we get the loot!

The next time you hit an enrage timer, thank your healers.

the bestest profession

2011-03-20T11:09:00.003-05:00

Blog Azeroth asks: What is the best profession?

It's Jewelcrafting.

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to describe why I feel that way, aren't I?

JEWELCRAFTING:

It gives you BLING.

It gives you SHINY GEMS to put in your exciting new upgrades.

It gives you a SWEET META to put in your helm.

It allows you to prospect all that nasty, lumpy ore into MORE SHINY GEMS that are far prettier.

And, most importantly...

It puts a rainbow in your bag!

How can you not smile every time you see this multi-colored display of wealth, prosperity, and stat bonuses?

Whiny Post Day: Confused Questgivers

2011-03-17T10:32:00.005-05:00

Look, I understand that hosting your own television show makes you a busy man, Mr. Robby Flay.

But... First. If a girl loves pie, why are you making her pancakes?

Not the same thing!

And if it takes 8 pumpkins to make a pie, why do you only accept 6... for pancakes?

Even 6 pumpkins is a helluva lot for ONE pie. Or are we still talking about these pancakes?

Huh?! I have a right to dailies that make sense.

This reminds me of that episode where he put soy sauce in his Pad Thai and everyone made fun of him. Seriously, SOY SAUCE in your PAD THAI!?! No wonder you think pies and pancakes are 'close enough'.

This post inspired by the original Whiner, Klepsakovic.
Also see Shintar's Whiny Post!

this time, tiers ago

2011-03-17T00:09:00.003-05:00

I just killed Chogall this week with a 10-man group.

And then, I remember... Naxxramas. The bosses in Naxx, how do they compare with the bosses of T11?

How does Chogall compare to Kel'Thuzad?

I think Chogall is more difficult. In a way, it's hard for me to guesstimate because of how late I started raiding in Wrath, having only been level 65 when the expansion hit. I learned KT when lots of other people were already doing the fight.

With Chogall, I had to learn it with the group. But, there are some nasty things that Chogall makes us do. Worshipping, both my 25 and 10 man groups had trouble with this. I admit, I'm not very good at interrupting because I normally don't need to in a raid setting.

The new Power Bar for fights like Atramedes and Chogall are an interesting new concept. In a way, it's not new, except that I have a feeling we'll be seeing this mechanic in various forms throughout the expansion.

But how does Chimaeron compare with, say, Loatheb? From the healer standpoint, they were both gimmick fights. Stand around twitching for folks about to die, spam heal once every XX seconds. Massacre is like a strange inverted healing buff. I didn't mind Loatheb, but Chimearon feels too gimmicky for me. I hardly ever use Flash of Light. I feel like Chimearon's sole reason for existence is that I have to use it this tier.

And lastly, remember dear old Sapphiron? I'm glad that so far, in Cataclysm, there have not been many dot-auras. I don't miss them, especially now that we aren't set up for them. Yet, in Atramedes, there's a very cleverly disguised dot-aura. Instead of ticking every second, it ticks once every few seconds (Modulation). Players with low sound take a little, players with high sound take a lot. I actually like this fight. If executed properly, it's pretty easy and there's still a lot going on.

We raided ICC for fun, and to get the LK down (a guildie just got his legendary, we'd only needed one more kill to get the neat quest items). It was a bit strange to be back in ICC, I kept trying to play like it was still 3.3. I really hate to QQ about how much better the old days were, but, I don't recommend letting yourself forget that Beacon only transfers half.

status quo

2011-03-10T20:47:00.004-06:00

My boyfriend has the sneaking suspicion that I'm bored with WoW.

I've just been quiet, is all. On the blog, on our guild forums, at the dinner table (nerd alert! you know you're in too deep when you're discussing guild politics at the Thai restaurant!). I'm not bored, there just hasn't been anything new to talk about.

It's just been a whole lot of status quo lately. We're recruiting, we're doing bosses, we're doing alright. Not fantastic, not terrible, just alright.

I don't think it's a bad thing.

We did cancel raids this week due to lack of signups. But our GM put out the word that we're recruiting, we did get a couple of bites, we are looking better for the future (some of our normally quite-regular folks needed to step out this week, putting a spotlight on how thin our ranks had gotten.) We're up to 9/12 N, working on Chogall. Last week we went with one less healer than usual for most of our farm kills. That was neat, and I like being the one to speak up in Mumble to remind the guild: Only you can prevent your death.

A couple of weeks ago we started a 10-man alt run in which I fell in love with holy priest. All those silly things I said about me and my bad paladin self raid-healing before? I'm sorry. I was so full of it, and I had no idea. Holy priests are RIDICULOUS WITH OPTIONS and I have such a blast on her.

I'm doing a 10 this week on my paladin since our normal raids were canceled. It's just not as fun. Holy Radiance kinda blows in the smaller group. The difference in mana is insane.

Oh, and not having heroism... not fun.

It's probably too soon for me to make broad sweeping generalizations but if I were solely focused on 10 man raiding I would be a priest this expansion. Holy has so much flexibility. I can't get used to the disparities in mana costs, either. Paladin heals are more expensive because of holy power and the expectation we'll judge on cooldown. I didn't realize how chained I was to making sure I was casting shock and judgement on cooldown.

For priests, yes, you wanna be casting Prayer of Mending on cooldown but you won't go OMFG OOM in 30 seconds if you don't. And the recent changes to chakra mean you can set and forget it. I like that idea.

Kurn has a post going where we can talk about how much we absolutely love paladin mastery (sarcasm mine).

Anyways, just a smattering of random things. No news is good news, right?

sharing my toys

2011-02-17T12:54:00.004-06:00

Super quick n' snarky post responding to news, is all.

Hurray for shaman buffs! Any buffs to healers is a buff to the team!

And who in the world could have guessed they would revert the LoD nerf?! I am afraid to even mention it, thinking that one day I'm going to log in and it will be un-reverted. Also afraid of subsequent whack-a-mole nerfs, since obviously they still feel we're too good in some way.

The PotI nerf hurts for Chimereaon. I felt so fail last night since I couldn't even keep my group up. They really should keep it the same healing but only make it cost 2 talent points. It's pretty useless as is.

Am I the only one who read:

We agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn’t the kind of thing we can address via a hotfix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch.

and heard: 'We're going to nerf paladins!'?

Really, I hope that druids and shamans get some more cooldowns to play with, I really do, special abilities are fun to use and offer more depth in play. But the cynic in me is bracing up for some bad news for the holy folks instead of good news for resto...

(I did try to warn you that this was a snarky post ><)

i'm a crit monster

2011-02-08T09:53:00.004-06:00

Here's a crit I did of myself for our second Atramedes kill. I actually wrote this up last week but since we didn't raid last night I haven't had much new to talk about.

Well, like every other 25 man raiding guild on the internet, we are recruiting. We need healers who can make it at least 3 (of 4) nights a week. Why choose FL over all the others in the world? There! Are! Four! Lights!

Check out this Star Trek Cookie Jar.

I am starting healer evaluations this week so I did this one as an example (though I promised that good things would show up on other evals, since this was my own I didn't feel the need to pat myself on the back or anything). And even then it was weird addressing myself as you. But hey.

Survivability
Died early in the fight to too much sound. Yeah, someone dragged something bad through the raid and it wasn't technically "your fault", but you could have tried harder to avoid it. In a personal responsibility fight such as this one, everyone is accountable for their own actions and that does mean that CYA is your first and utmost priority.

Damage Taken
#7 on damage taken. Other than the incident mentioned above, you're taking comparable damage to the other raid members. Specific to Atramedes, you gained 80 sound from air phase bombs and and 35 sound from discs. There's definite room for improvement, there.

Buff Uptime
I look for 100% uptime on buffs like Beacon of Light, Judgements of the Pure, and Auras. Save the moments while you were dead, you had that, though you probably could have judged and started healing sooner after taking the brez. You have 90-some % active time, so you're staying busy when you're alive.

Cooldown Management
For the first half of the fight, it looks like you ignored your cooldowns. The air phase is a great time to use Divine Plea, from the looks of the Damage Taken log above, so instead of two uses, you potentially had time for four. The JC Owl trinket has no drawback to using, and can be used on cooldown. I would recommend trying to push for five uses on a fight this long.

For Aura Mastery, Divine Favor, Avenging Wrath, and Ho-Sac: The same thing as above. Ho-Sac is pretty situational since there's no gib-protection, but Avenging Wrath and Aura Mastery on a 2 minute cooldown. That's at least 4 if not 5 uses on a fight like this, and with times of predictable, raid-wide AoE damage, there are opportunities to use these more often.

For the banana man (Guardian of Ancient Kings), well, you haven't used this in a week now. Please look for opportunities to summon your helper. It may not be a ton of healing, but it's cheap healing. I don't see a LoH for this fight either, which is 10% mana as well as a big heal on the tank. That's something you've dedicated glyph spots so that it's available for every attempt.

Spell Selection
Divine Light is a great tank healing spell. With 21% overheal, you could probably weave in a few other types of heals to save some mana when a DL isn't entirely necessary, but there were no tank deaths and you didn't run OOM. I see a few more places where you could really help out with raid healing using Holy Radiance. Mathematically, you can run higher than 50% overheal on Radiance and it is still a "cheap" spell.
For Holy Shock, for a fight as long as this one, you had the potential to cast 81 times. In actual, you cast 50 shocks, which means you lost out on upwards of 30 holy power. You generated 69 holy power in the fight, so this is a non-trivial amount you're missing out on. Your LoDs have fairly low overheal, so not only is it a free heal, it's an effective one. LoD also transfers to the Beacon tank so it's a very safe heal to use while still keeping your tank in mind.

Mana Usage
You judged approximately once every 28 seconds, or 36 times. For a fight this long, you had a potential of 61 judges. While I don't see any other holy paladins in WoL judging on cooldown, I do see them averaging closer to 4 a minute, instead of 2 a minute. I think 4/minute is a good target.
Your holy lights are averaging 50% overheal. If there isn't much damage to heal, I would look to judge or use holy shock instead (see below, assignment survivability).

Encounter Awareness
This is a hard thing to evaluate objectively. In the wipes for this fight we had last night, you did a lot better at flexing your encounter knowledge. This kill is the "worst" snapshot for your sound gain and survivability, but this just reinforces the importance of being consistent and persistent.

Communication
There are times when you are unable to heal the tank, or you died, or silenced, and you didn't call it out over mumble. There are times you did. But there are more times you didn't. When we don't communicate with each other, players often assume the worst when things go south. If we are communicating, we as a team have an opportunity to salvage a wipe, and our fellow raiders are less likely to be frustrated when they understand what's happening to us.

Please remember to sign up for raids!

Assignment survivability
Your assignment ("the tank") didn't die in hardly any of the Atramedes attempts, but you could have pushed Beacon of Light a bit harder since there were three healers assigned to the tank and spot healed the raid more. In a one-tank fight, BoL is often more healing done a healadin's direct heals. Almost half of your Divine Light casts went straight to the tank which generated holy power, but had you casted more shocks and spread those DLs through the raid, you could have ended up with the same holy power and more healing done on the raid through Beacon transfer.

Summary
Focus on managing your cooldowns, using them earlier in the fight. Squeeze in judgements and holy shocks whenever you can, again, earlier and therefore more often. Be more willing to talk in mumble when something is going to keep you from your assignment.

(Now that I've terrified my healing team...)

talkin to myself (my level 1 self!)

2011-01-25T16:48:00.000-06:00

Hi Level 1-Enlynn!

Your name isn't Enlynn yet. It won't be for a long time, but don't be afraid. You've done MMO's before, you know what you're getting into in terms of time invested, commitment, and what-have-you. Don't worry that you aren't really a shaman; you're not. You'll come into your bad healadin self after about 200 levels of other things. And that's alright.

Just about everyone out there says "Don't level as holy/disc/resto!" and they ARE SO RIGHT. But you're going to do it anyways, because you are too stubborn.

But really. If you're not having fun doing something, then don't do it. It's a game, for cryin' out loud, and you don't have to do do every single thing out there just because it's out there. That goes for every abandoned character on all those random servers. You had fun, it wasn't a waste of time.

And for the love of Elune, stop killing shit you don't need for a quest. No such thing as posterity's sake in a video game. l2train!

If you ever gripe that gold is hard to come by, I swear I'll come back in a gnomish time machine and slap you silly.

You'll think you're awesome when you're level 45. And you will be SO WRONG. It's okay, I'll be here when you figure it out. Someday you'll be in a real raiding guild and have a neat mount and all that stuff. No hurry, my dear. No hurry.

(Inspired by Rants of a Priest, Muradinn's Musings, and Dwarven Battle Medic. Join in, this is fun!)

freedomization

2011-01-25T11:45:00.000-06:00

Freedom ain't free, but it's cheap...

Hand of Freedom. It has a short cooldown, dispels a multitude of effects, and--most importantly: costs almost half as much as cleansing. So whenever I can use HoF instead of Cleanse, I will.

It's the paladin way, after all. Why cast a normal ole spell when I can blow a cooldown? Getting rid of the effect just isn't enough when you can make your target IMMUNE for a few seconds and put swirly purple under his feet! (Granted, not too many effects need the following immunity, but still...)

So here is my work-in-progress list for Catclysm Things-That-Can-Be-Freedomized. There's a special page for this list on my side bar, and it will (hopefully) grow as we get new bosses to fight and new debuffs to cleanse.

I am happy, as always, to add to the list because there are things I haven't encountered or tried yet. So feel free to add to the list in the comments below or by sending me a note at enlynn ---- at ----- hotmail ---- dot ----- com.

Note: I had all these awesome ideas for posts and Bossy Pally beat me to a blogroll post with her awesome list, and Janyaa created this great Aura Mastery list. Enjoy!

FIVE MANS

Stonecore

Blackrock Caverns
A few here you would think could be cleansed by Freedom, but don't. Boo: Shackles, Shadow Prison, and Statis Strike. With names like these, HoF should totally work!

Vortex Pinnacle
stacking poison debuff used by Empyrean Assassins (rogue elemental trash).
Asaad does an ability every 15 or so seconds called Static Cling (you can also jump at the end of Static's cast, but we can safely assume that HoF will still come in handy).

Grim Batol
Twlight Drakes do an ability called Hooked Net that does not show up as dispellable, but your melee will love it if you free them.
Erudax does an ability called Binding Shadows. Sadly, HoF does not remove the debuff (though it will let you move, the ticking damage debuff must be removed via traditional means. Better yet, this can be avoided!)

Halls of Origination

Earthrager Ptah
Dustbone Tormentor, Trash before the Sand-Marrowgar boss does Curse of Exhaustion. Freedom!

Ammunae
The Lifewarden Nymphs before this boss do an effect called Entangling Shot.
Ammunae himself does a debuff called Wither. Your DPS friends will love you if you remove this buff sooner rather than later (this fight is long enough as it is!)

Setesh
The Void Seekers before this boss can do Anti-Magic Prison makes the target immune to receiving heals. Hand of Freedom works, though it doesn't show up as a magic debuff to be dispelled.

RAIDS - TIER 11

CONCLAVE

Conclave of the Four Winds. I was disappointed when I tried using HoF for frost trap. No debuffing for us, here, at least on the Frost platform.

Alakir. (Info incoming, my raid group has yet to make any serious attempts on this boss).

BASTION OF TWILIGHT

Magmaw. No debuffs here that I'm aware of.

did blizzard really get healadins right?

2011-01-21T14:57:00.006-06:00

After looking over some logs this week, I realized something. Every encounter heals different.

The Past

The BC and LK design of the Holy paladin was basically to use one or two spells and get a lot of use out of them. This is sort of like the mage dps design, where there aren't a lot of sources of damage, but there are a lot of other factors (cooldowns, procs etc.) that make how you use those spells more interesting. So rather than the paladin having 5 different heals, they pretty much used Flash of Light or Holy Light (depending a little on what gear stats and encounters looked like at the time) but with other spells to boost those heals, such as Beacon of Light and Divine Favor, and then all the paladin support abilities, like the Hands.

Source: Ghostcrawler, post 40

For some fights, Beacon is awesome because it does so much healing.
For others, Beacon is awesome because it helps generate more holy power to use LoD over the raid.
For some, I'm mostly a tank healer with some powerful raid cooldowns.
For others, I'm a raid healer with a powerful hot on the tank.

In some fights, our mastery blows. Others, it ends up being a bit more healing.
In some fights, I'm afraid to use Divine Plea. In others, there's a 'safe' phase to use it on cooldown.
In some fights, I'm twitching for Radiance to go off cooldown so I can use it again. In others, I save it for specific abilities.

Sure, Divine Light is still my go-to single target heal, but Holy Light sees some use if I'm trying to conserve mana. I never cast FoL, but that doesn't mean I'm doing it right.

There's only a couple of things that never change. Judging a lot, Beacon on someone, Holy Shock on cooldown. Everything else depends on the encounter.

Maybe it looks different in 10 mans, but this has been my experience so far in 25's. How do you feel about your paladin? Are your encounters dynamic?

fun with graphs: maloriak

2011-01-20T10:17:00.006-06:00

It's been a pretty great raid week, so far. We have five bosses down. Omni gave us quite a bit of trouble the second time (we got him on Monday and again last night), but these things happen.

If you're having trouble with slimes on Toxi, you can encourage your raiders not to use aggro dumps. Abilities like Hand of Protection, Ice Block, and Feign Death do 'work', but then the slimes will target someone else and they won't get the icon or the raid warning. Chaos!

Then we went and one-shot Maloriak, which was awesome. I decided to take a look at my performance for this guy, since it was kind of messy I figured there would be room for me to improve. I had some fun with my photo program, where I aligned my buffs cast with my healing done and the raid's damage taken.

Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon has a great write-up for how to use WoL to track your buffs cast. It's a pre 4.0.1, but her directions for navigating logs are still spot-on.

Granted, these alignments aren't perfect but I think they are still close enough to give me a sense for how I was responding to the encounter.

First and most important, this is some weak healadin cooldown management. Could have gotten one more trinket pop, three or four more Ho-Sacs, two more Aura Masteries, and I don't see any HoPs or Salvs (though hops and salvs are situational).

What is this? Why did Beacon fall off for that long? How embarrassing.

I have been saving Avenging Wrath and Divine Favor for specific periods of heavy damage with Holy Radiance. I don't think this is bad, per se, but I could have squeezed out another 2 uses of AW and still had it available for those times I used it for burst raid healing.

Since I ended the fight with more than 20k mana (I think it was more like 40% mana but I don't remember for sure now), I am not too concerned that I did not Divine Plea much. Once 4.0.6 hits, this ability will be a little more usable... but then in an encounter like this one without a lull period, better to judge more and reserve mana than endanger my tank. I had thought these two uses came at a time when my assigned tank had less 3 or 6 adds and we had just recovered from a red phase, although according to the graph I timed the first plea very poorly, the raid was taking quite a bit of damage.

It's not listed above but I judged 34 times, or approximately once every 14 seconds. Not bad at all. I could push it if I needed to. I didn't include that graph, but I'm judging fairly consistently throughout the fight (though I could have judged sooner in the fight to get JotP going).

Our first death was a healer who had Consuming Flames. I could have helped prevent this by focusing him.

I potentially could have used Radiance more than I did, but I did manage to hit it during the four major raid damage spikes of the fight (the fifth spike was tank damage from the burn phase, and my healing spike was LoH from the looks of it).

A quick note on mastery: My mastery absorbs are a bit higher (less nonabsorbs) and make up more of my healing than the last time I wrote about it. I believe this is because my tank was assigned to adds, so the damage was coming in more often in smaller chunks. For bosses that do big hits on a long swing timer, our mastery will (in theory) shine less.

So there it is. I've certainly progressed from standing in Pillars of Fail, there's always room for growth. Hope you enjoyed my performance analysis!

the couple that plays together...

2011-01-14T11:44:00.000-06:00

Brief infodump: Lux and I have pretty much been playing games together for a long time. WoW is no exception. We've done most major things together, and our guild is used to achievements popping in twos (and I have to admit, I found it hilarious when we got Two Humps). We even got our level 80 achievement on the same kill in HoS, became Explorers in a bike built for two, and, of course, got just about every raid achievement we've ever earned--together.

Cataclysmic Leveling

So, the new questlines from 80-85 are mildly a pain from a duo-perspective. With heavy phasing and excessive breadcrumbs, we had to be in constant communication. More than once, one of us would take a quest and the quest-giver would disappear or we'd get thrown into a plane and land half-way around the zone. Do you have this quest? Did you get credit for that? You're not on my map anymore, where did you go?

It's not unplayable, by any means, but I think it would be difficult for two players who just wanted to quest together for a session or two to do so. If they weren't on the EXACT SAME LEG of the zone, they wouldn't be able to see each other, let alone get the same quests. Their best bet would be a new zone altogether, or to avoid questing and just queue (oh but which dungeon- do you have this one discovered?)

Lux and I were already used to quest monogamy so it wasn't a big deal for us, though it's annoying to take a quest and have him disappear because I reached a different phase.

Epic... all by myself

For fun, we made some goblins to see the new starting areas. I made (yet another) priest and he made (another) warrior. I was not prepared for how difficult it would be to force lowbie leveling into a team experience.

First, the phasing. I don't think I would have noticed it at all had it not been how many times I looked over at his screen and saw something entirely different. If I were by myself, the phasing would have been seamless and the storyline was really neat. But the starting area for goblins is more like a single player game than an MMO. As such, we spent a lot of time basically doing the same thing in the same place but not at all doing the same thing or in the same place.

Second, the weird way we got credit for things. Some quests functioned like normal, where we only had to slay 10 rats. But there were a lot of quests that, in the rest of Azeroth, we would normally be able to get credit for things together and it just didn't happen that way. We each had to cajole our own party-goers, run down looters, break into the bank, and yes, we did have to blow up the mansion twice in succession (though we each only saw it once).

Some of those I can understand, but some just seemed buggy as all get-out. Really? I need to pull the lever, too? We need to free double the captives? We need to kill this guy again to prove he's dead?

(Granted, it makes more sense that a quest mob would only drop his head once. But then if were were following logic here, why couldn't we just bring his head back together?)

And to make matters worse, it wasn't all the quests that worked that "didn't work", some did work they way they normally do. The ones that didn't were just often enough to keep us in a constant state of confusion. Did you get that? Yeah, I got the combobulator. No, did you get credit for the Goblin Zombie? No... Wait, yeah I did. Er, no. I still need 5. Is that what you need?

Wait, huh? What combobulator?

Our lowbies are level 21 now and even into Azshara we were still dealing with the confusion. (As an aside, I really do think that Blizzard did a fantastic job with new leveling. Both my shaman and priest got abilities in a timely manner, I enjoy the popup at level that tells me what I can train next. Getting a core ability at 10 is really neat, and the talent trees are more fun to level in).

But really, the new questing paradigm at low levels has been more like each of us playing our own game in the same room than us playing together. Really, Blizzard, you want us to escort the same caravan... again? Not fun.

feeling illuminated?

2011-01-11T10:22:00.015-06:00

I've been avoiding mastery (Illuminated Healing) on my gear for a while. Skada was estimating my mastery at less than 5% of a boost to my healing, as opposed to the extremely visible boosts that critical strike and haste offer. I figured, without the math, that with only our direct heals causing the bubble, and with the duration being short enough that not every bubble gets absorbed, it's going to be a pathetic amount of healing.

And at first glance it is, because Beacon of Light, Protector of the Innocent, and Holy Radiance don't cause bubbles, and those account for a brickload of my healing.

First, the log: WoL report for Four Lights Conclave Kill

Second, some rough math. I added together all my direct heals, including overheal. We're including on this list: Flash of Light, Holy Light, Divine Light, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn, and Lay on Hands (though I didn't cast any FoL). That's total effective direct healing of 1,302,129 and total direct raw healing of 1,451,189.

Third, my mastery. Like I said, I've been avoiding mastery when possible. According to my armory, I am currently carrying 8.89 mastery rating (8 base, .89 from gear). Each point of mastery rating adds 1.25% to each bubble. 10 base +(.89*1.25)=11.1125. So, each direct heal should in theory proc a bubble of 11.1125%.

In Theory

Total raw direct healing of 1,451,189 should proc 161,227 in bubbles.

In Practice

According to WoL, I had potential absorbs of 161,000 (listed to the far right as Overhealing). So my napkin math and WoL haven't disagreed too much there. Below, I am using 161,000.

However, in practice, I only had 105,818 absorbs via Illuminated Healing, or 65.73% of total potential bubbles. 55,182 (34.27% of every bubble) went to waste. Instead of enjoying 11.1125% absorbs, it's practically closer to 7.3%. Which isn't actually as bad as I had imagined it before, though still nothing to cheer about. WoL ranks Illuminated Healing as 3.9% of my healing because a good half of my heals don't proc it.

Tank Healing And Mastery

If what I've done above isn't convoluted enough, I decided to take a look at absorbs on just the tanks. After all, if Mastery helps us be better tank healers, then it's still a good stat. However, to do the modeling, I had to take a look at all holy paladin heals on each tank, all effective absorbs on the tank, each paladin's mastery, and extrapolate potential absorbs (the things I do for WoW...)

However, what I found is that (and here's a shocker) since most of our direct heals our going to the tanks, most of our wasted bubbles are on the tanks (68% effective, compared to almost 66% overall).

In summary, I am going to keep my eye on my mastery in other encounters, but crit, spirit, and haste are going to offer me far more healing than Mastery (can and) will.

status: total flux

2011-01-09T12:31:00.002-06:00

This is a turbulent time. The changes made to 10 and 25 man raids, shared lockouts, and equalized gear have forced changes upon guilds and raiders alike. The announcements of 25 guilds going to 10s has rippled throughout trade chat and the blogosphere. I see displaced raiders looking for new homes, as well as new waves of players who are going to raid for the first time.

The first tier of an expansion can be difficult for guilds. Players on the roster are either finding they didn't have time to level and just aren't ready to raid yet, or perhaps the changes to their class/game were just too much and now they have no desire to play. There are also lots and lots of new guilds recently formed. With 10-man raids gaining new viability, there are room for more guilds, but that also means that lots are recruiting right now.

If you're looking for a home, or if you're looking for fresh meat, I imagine you're not alone.

Bonus for the Guild:

Getting players geared up to raid right now is easy. Most BiS gear is from heroics, rep, and crafted. A player need not set foot in a raid just yet to perform at an acceptable level. At worst, they are a few weeks behind your best-geared folks. At best, they may even have a boss kill you haven't gotten yet.

Bonus for the Player:

It's a good time to be a healer. (Then again, isn't it always?)

Even if you aren't a healer, it's still easy to put together an impressive gear set. You don't have to raid to get geared up, you don't have to dump thousands of gold into epic gems, and you don't need an impressive list of current tier boss-kill achievements. Cataclysm is a clean slate for raiders who want to get started now, and a guild will be more focused on your recent activity (how you've jumped into five mans and learned your new class mechanics) more so than how you did SWP years and years ago.

Do you have a point, Enlynn?

Not really, but I do have a word of caution. If you're looking for a new home, one of the biggest flags on a guild application is this deceptively simple question: Why did you leave your guild?

Quantify the Fail

Blanket statements like "they suck" or "raiding this tier was too easy" sound just as bad for the applicant as they do for their current guild. Try to come up with something objective, it doesn't even have to be major. Instead of "they waste too much time", try instead: on this WoL report, we made 6 progression attempts in 3 hours, which isn't enough for me. Instead of "they don't kick the baddies", say: players are allowed to raid with pvp talents and resilience gear, or even: in this WoL report, we hit the enrage timer five times while the same three players consistently get killed by the same mechanic for a fight we have been working on for six weeks.

If you caught that I said "we" instead of "they", well, it looks professional on a player when they can identify that they belonged to the group even while the group failed. In my extremely humble opinion.

And do you think I'm making up the "this tier was a joke"? I wish I were. And unless you can say with certainty that the guild you're applying to had absolutely no problems with said tier, you could be bringing up painful memories of a raid that was NOT easy for reasons that had nothing to do with the fight mechanics. No matter how simple an encounter is to execute, we will remember its difficulty by the emotions we felt while learning it. Things like guild drama, recruitment problems, even RL strain make stronger impressions on past raiding experiences than how tight the enrage timer is.

If you have never raided and want to get started now, I have a word of encouragement. Jump in, and put yourself out there. This is a new game for everyone. Players with lots of raid experiences will, indeed, pick up on new mechanics pretty quickly, but everyone is still learning. What you've done with your character in the past month counts for a lot, and it's a good idea to use that as a selling point.

pillar of fail

2011-01-06T11:05:00.006-06:00

First raids this week. We're squeaking by on healers, running with 6 when we'd like 7, and two of those are dps who offered to heal just so we could raid. Three cheers for flexible hybrids!

Adgamorix over at Divine Plea has a fine write-up on his own raiding experiences and how he'd like to improve.

Myself, my logs are here: Conclave - my damage taken over 2-1/2 hours of wipes
and here: in which Enlynn takes 58 ticks of Pillar of Flame over 19 attempts

Alright. I'm still feeling pretty clunky. I haven't keybound Radiance but I think I need to. Perhaps I need a macro for Bursty or Two +Radiance, as well. I am wasting valuable time trying to get to the button when I decide it's time.

Though I think I'm doing okay with my other spells. LoD is ridiculous in a good way. A lightwell disappeared from getting full clicks last night! Though with only 9 Healthstone uses over 19 attempts... Well. There's room for everyone to improve. We're raiding again for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Everyone is learning. New encounters, new mechanics, new spells, new talents, new rotations.

And to be fair, on 25 man it's a lot harder to see ground effects like Pillar of Flame when there are 16 players stacked over 3 healing effects. I did learn something valuable: boss encounter addons work much better if you have them enabled.

I am using DBM now simply because I can't get DXE to work. I miss DXE and if anyone has a link to one that works for the new encounters, it would be MUCH appreciated.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that there are "two" pillars of flame. The first will spawn the adds, which is the one-that-must-be-avoided, and another (larger area) which does fire damage. If you are using an addon that tracks and announces fails, it will announce it for those who take damage (even if they don't spawn the adds). So while I am shaming myself for 58 ticks of avoidable damage, I didn't necessarily spawn adds 58 times. If you're trouble-shooting for your raid, keep that in mind. I'd only call it a fail if the adds are spawned.

UPDATE: Adgamorix suggested we move more ranged to melee range and on 1-12-11 we got him down following his good advice. We put our hunters and a lock (who had specced to be an AoE monster) on the outside and this worked out a lot better than having everyone try to dodge the pillar. It also kept all our healers in range of tank at all times, and I asked the healers to each focus on one of the ranged staying out so they got the extra heals as needed (that may have been overkill, but boss kills are boss kills). So, this definitely works!

holy power and procs

2010-12-27T10:40:00.006-06:00

Holy Power and Latency

Something I've noticed is that there's a tiny bit of latency involved with Holy Power. Using Holy Shock (on anyone or thing) tends to be a pretty instant bump in my Holy Power bar, but gaining Holy Power through Tower of Radiance takes a little bit longer.

Blizzard has stated it's working as intended, I believe (though I can't seem to find the link). I imagine it's got the same Beacon lag we're already used to working with- the client has to check to make sure the heal lands before it awards the Power.

It used to frustrate me - I want my HP and I want it now!- but after getting used to it, this lag can work in your favor as well. If you've already got two holy power and Holy Shock is on cooldown, you can cast two DL or FoL, immediately spend the 3 HP you have built up, and you'll still have 1 left from the second direct heal (or 3 from an Eternal Glory proc).

However, Holy Shock will not work this way. If you have 3 HP and Shock, then spend your HP, that extra one is "lost".

A side note: Protector of the Innocent can proc Conviction, which is neat because pretty much every heal you cast has a chance to keep up Conviction the whole fight, and will likely get it rolling sooner.

AUGH, FIVE THINGS JUST PROCCED NOW WHAT?!

Between Daybreak, Holy Power, Eternal Glory, and Infusion of Light, we've got a lot to watch out for. I have been looking for a one-size-fits-all answer to how to handle all of these things but the more I play the more I realize that it really does come down to the encounter, the people you play with, and what is happening around you. Which means that Blizzard may have done a fantastic job with "the right spell for the job" after all. No complaints here. :)

Anyways. Here are some general guidelines I try to follow to "boost my HPS" but there will be a lot of times in five mans where it's really not about HPS at all but being aware. So here's my priority (which goes out the window when I need to move):

Holy Power x3 gets spent ASAP
Eternal Glory gets spent ASAP (as soon as I see if it procced or not, so usually I will have one direct heal cast in between Holy Power expenditures)
Infusion of Light
Daybreak

Daybreaks when you need to move are a god-send. However, I have found myself casting those two Shocks in a row and getting two crits (wasting one Infusion). Okay, so it doesn't happen too often but often enough that I'm trying to program myself, when ideal, to Shock > Divine Light the tank (if he needs it), Shock for my Daybreak proc.

I'm sitting at almost 19% critical strike rating, which I believe is over 20% raid buffed (though in this brave new Shattered world I am still a bit shaky on what buffs are available) and gives me a 30% chance to crit with Holy Shock. That gives me an almost 10% chance that both of those Shocks will crit. So as our crit-from-gear goes up, it will become more important to put a Divine Light in between Shocks. A fast Divine Light is a ton of healing.

And again, if I have to move, I use all my instant-cast tricks up as I'm moving and there's definitely nothing wrong with that. Daybeak may be "lowest" on my proc priority but that doesn't mean it's the weakest because it's not, and I use it right away if I have less than three holy power.

Looking Ahead

And I haven't gotten into raiding yet, which may change everything I've ever learned about Holy Paladins. We start next week! My guild is just beginning to spec-check our raiders. I am hoping for a couple more upgrades before I make any declarations that I'm "ready".

Now that other raiders are getting into the raids, I've been grateful to look at WoL parses for some of the first kills to get more of an idea of what we will see. I'm hoping that my post for next week will be me tearing apart my own performance (though I hate making promises because stuff happens. But that's my plan.)

How are you managing your procs?

random tuesday thoughts: wednesday edition

2010-12-22T09:24:00.008-06:00

There's maintenance this morning so now it feels like a Tuesday even if my clock's computer saying it's Wednesday.

I want to experience more of the game before I blog about it because everything I do ends up teaching me something. A lot of my initial thoughts have been changed, though some have been reinforced.

We went into our first raid (Halfus in BoT) last weekend, and I was hoping to go back in there one more time but with Christmas this weekend it's likely to be another full week and a half before we do it again.

I gotta say, though. I was feeling pretty good about myself before we went in there. Most of my gear is heroic blue and I am a few upgrades away from BiS. I didn't go in expecting us to kill a boss or anything, but I certainly didn't expect to feel so... powerless. Humbled. Unable.

The tank damage for Halfus Wyrmbreaker is insane. That's the only word for it. 50k hits, and that was on 10 man.

(Though that leads me to another discussion point entirely: is one raid format going to be harder than the other? I'm running on the assumption that tank damage will be even higher in 25, but that's purely speculation on my part until I can look at WoL.)

I mean, I know that damage taken by both the raid and tanks will be affected by the dragons/whelps we get. And maybe we didn't get that part of the fight down, but even when we had it, I only barely 'had' it. I felt like I couldn't solo-heal the tank. And maybe that's part of the design, but the other tank healer was having problems as well. Are we supposed to bring three healers and have all of them focused on the tanks?

It's possible that when we go back in, our tanks will have a couple more upgrades (though only a couple. Our tanks are in GREAT shape to raid). And to be fair, I have a couple of things now that I didn't have before: a helm with a meta, two crafted epics, and the plan to get two more from rep before January 4th and at least one new shiny from valor points. (Thanks, random daily!)

With the upgrades we've both gotten the "easier" heroics have gotten a lot faster. Two days ago we went into Lost City for the first time, only we thought we'd already done it. So we didn't talk about fight strategies or even know what we were getting into, and it wasn't until the second-to-last boss that I realized this was new stuff. The achievement confirmed it. Yesterday, we got it for the random again, didn't bother with CC, Lux chain-pulled and I drank once.

To be fair, it was a guild run.

I keep hearing that pallies are OMG overpowered but I really feel that no matter what healer I had, I would have been able to keep up with him. I'm getting away with mostly HL spam, which any healer should be able to sustain.

And I'm also using Divine Plea between pulls and my JC spirit trinket on cooldown. Other abilities like the banana man, HoP, HoSac, and DS are all seeing liberal use as well. So it's not like I'm playing poorly. Or maybe I am because in a good group the healer's job is pretty easy and how can I trouble-shoot myself in a group that never goes south?

(I'd promise to pug more, but even my pugs have been awesome. Most often we've been placed with three other DPS from the same guild on another server, and they are just as prepared to play as we are. And believe me, I'm not complaining that I can't find any PuGs from hell. I am not, I swear!)

Sometimes I wonder if I am holding my blue bar too tightly, afraid to use anything other than Holy Light/Shock. I use WoG far more than LoD (in five mans, there often aren't enough people clumped together to make good use of LoD), and I only pop Radiance as a response to whole-party damage auras specific to a few boss fights (like the first boss in SFK, the sunbeam boss in lost city, the control room boss in HoO, etc.) I am loathe to use AoE heals in too many circumstances. On a 30 second cooldown, I don't want to use it before the boss's mechanics, and using it more than twice a fight means I'll run out of mana.

So I definitely wonder if I'm not having mana problems because I refuse to let myself spend, but I'm still learning. Our raid date is January 4th. In some ways, that feels like a long time, though it will be here before I know it.

I'm hoping to get into a 10 man or two in the meantime (something more than Baradin Hold. I don't really feel like that counts since on the first try we hit the enrage timer). But anyways. I'm devouring any and all posts that bloggers make about raiding the new content. If you've been writing, I appreciate it!

heroics are the hard mode of five mans

2010-12-17T11:51:00.010-06:00

Preparation to raid in more ways than one...

There's a slight disconnect between the difficulty of the normal version and the heroic version for instances like Stonecore. In the vein of Icecrown Citadel, the heroic fights are ramped up difficulty with extra boss health, more raid and tank damage, and added fight mechanics. The fire on the ground will not be ignored. Neither will those adds, or the spikes. These fights must be executed the way our Blizzard Overlords intended, or there will be no justice points or loot.

And if you haven't gotten the memo, our blue bar is pretty flimsy. We are absolutely unable to heal through stupid; we lack both the brute force and the energy to do so.

It's been near impossible to train myself, but really, those dps do not need to be at full. Everyone just needs to stay alive. With the massive stamina boosts on gear, a 35% full health bar is painful to look at, but enough health for a DPS to survive if someone else is getting hammered or focused. I haven't seen many unavoidable damage types, so these encounters place emphasis on personal survivability and situational awareness.

Situational awareness and You

The less I stare at health bars, the better this whole Cataclysmic healing thing gets. The graphics for what's happening are everywhere, and with two second cast times on my bread-and-butter spells I can start casting and spend almost two full seconds watching the fight. I feel less like I am playing my own mini-game of whack-a-mole while everyone else is playing World of Warcraft than I used to. For now, we're all playing the same game: surviving the encounter.

It's true that the graphics have always been that way, but it has affected my decision-making in new content as though I were raiding. A lot of the attacks that are going to hurt the DPS are visible in the field before they ever tick on the health bars (tank damage, not so much, but properly-geared tanks are lasting so much longer without a heal. It's refreshing).

It's important, at these lower gear levels, to use all the tools available. Cooldowns are godly. I use HoSac quite often now. LoH is amazing if glyphed - 10% mana when the tank needs a huge heal. Divine Favor can potentially burn a lot of mana, but it's great to recover. Freakishly, I've been using it as a mana-saver, when the damage ramps up to still get away with casting Holy Light. Your mileage may vary.

(I'm a bit underwhelmed by our giant glowing angel, but I'm still finding uses for him.)

It's inferior from a time-management standpoint to cast Word of Glory with only one stack of Holy Power, and yet I find myself using it as an emergency on the move so I can use the self-healing of Protector of the Innocent. I haven't decided yet if this is a bad habit or a worthwhile use of time I couldn't be healing otherwise. I know some holy paladin theorycrafters are down on PotI, but I'm finding it well-designed for the encounters and I'm grateful to have it.

(I originally said it was mathematically inferior to cast a 1 HP WoG, but ithilyn corrected me. See comments below for some clarification.)

What are you experiences in the new heroics?

queue queue moar: finding BRC for the first time

2010-12-12T12:45:00.020-06:00

One of the newer features of LFD is that for the new instances, we have to discover them. Let's start with Blackrock Caverns, since that's the least-intuitive to get to. It's in Blackrock Mountain, so there are two ways to get there.

The first is a Mole Machine in Hyjal. If you're doing the quests there, you'll find a gnome (not a goblin: Shintar corrected my failing memory, it's a gnome), Finkle Einhorn, that says "This can only mean one thing..." and there will be a mole machine right next to him. I went back to take pictures, and he was phased out since I'd already done the quests. But he should be there (unless I'm clearly mistaken, which is possible), so if you could please pretend that the douchebag with the giant drake is actually just covering the NPCs, I'd appreciate it.

Goblin here:

Mole Machine here:

When you zone in, you'll be on top of this platform here:

You'll want to go up and out, not down and out:

Keep going up:

And up the chain (you can mount up here):

Take a right after you've crossed the lava:

There will be a hallway to the right after this archway, next to the Summoning Stone.

At this pile of junk in the hallway, take another right:

The portal is in sight!

When you get close enough to the purple portal, you should discover BRC.

If you're just flying in from the Eastern Kingdoms from the regular Blackrock Mountain entrance, you'll want to follow the chain that's held by this dwarf (the one with the flailing hand).

Don't worry, this is by far the most confusing instance to get to. The others can reasonably be reached with a map location.

healers and helms pre-raid

2010-12-12T10:31:00.000-06:00

There are plenty of pre-raid gear lists floating around for healers of all stripes, but since I put together this list for my guild I figured I'd share it with you. There are a bunch of helms available, but if you're looking to raid, I hope you'll consider a helm with a meta. The bonuses from the meta gems are just huge, especially at these starting gear levels.

I've only seen one head enchant, available from Hyjal revered. The standard healing meta gem from Wrath does not have a Cata equivalent, so our needs will be changing. I've seen three options that are PVE-centric. Kurn's got a meta gem list here, but I cherry-picked these three from the list as the one that will probably win for PVE.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=52296
http://www.wowhead.com/item=52297
http://www.wowhead.com/item=52292

Paladin

Paladin BiS has a list here, but I only see two options with a meta. Got 2,200 justice points? Otherwise be prepared to spend lots of time in Heroic SFK. http://bis.vilepickle.com/slot-head.php

Shaman

Resto Shaman Flow put together a pre-raid loot list. There are 3 (4 if you're an engineer) options with meta sockets. http://www.restoshamanflow.com/2010/11/19/resto-shaman-cataclysm-pre-raid-loot-list/

Druid

Lissana at Restokin has a boomkin/resto pre-raid gear list here. All three helms have metas. http://www.restokin.com/caster-druid-85-pre-raid-gear/

Priest

World of Matticus has a Quick Priest Gear list. Three helms with metas. http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2010/12/05/priest-quick-gear-guide-for-holy-and-discipline-at-85/

Cataslys-meme

2010-12-09T09:07:00.005-06:00

Janyaa started this with a blog post over at Muradin's Musings. Here we go:

1. Disk or Download? DL

2. Did you experience any difficulties? IE: Login servers crashing, late delivery, etc? I had to wait a whole 12 minutes on the login server to let me in at 2:00! I want my money back!!

3. What are you doing first? IE: Speed leveling to 85, rolling a new race, completely avoiding the new content, etc? Almost 83, with a smidgeon of mining to support my crafting habit. Hey, it's just a habit. I can quit any time I want!

4. Mt. Hyjal or Vash'jir? I got Coming Down the Mountain AND a frickin' seahorse!

5. Worgen or Goblin? Paladin?

6. Questing, dungeons or both? Both!

7. What was the first piece of gear you replaced and with what? Yeah, about that...

8. Did you take any time off from work or school? I wish I could have.

9. Will you be keeping the same spec and main, or changing to a different toon? I am resistant to change.

10. What's been your favorite aspect of Cataclysm so far? It's not Icecrown.

are you 85 yet?

2010-12-08T09:06:00.006-06:00

I'm kidding.

There are a handful of folks who are already max level, but I am not one of them. I just hit 82 last night and saw that I the XP needed to level went up quite a bit. Three people in my guild got the achievement, and I've seen a handful of bloggers put up their obligatory "I'm 85!" post.

I put up my first poll in the sidebar. Are you leveling as a healer?

Since my paladin is a team character with Mayhem (who, after a Worgen change, is now officially known as Luxinterior), I decided to keep (both) my holy spec(s). Considering how busy the quest hubs are right now, it hasn't mattered too much. It's been more important for me to tag mobs than it is to mow them down (which Lux does with efficiency anyways). Turns out all those hours camping HNMs in FFXI with keyboard spam weren't wasted after all!

As a side note, I was surprised at how many players don't understand how tagging in WoW works. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. Yet, I was.

Post derailed! If you wouldn't mind taking the poll, I'd appreciate it. If you have nifty experiences to share while leveling your healer, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

the real shattering

2010-12-06T15:58:00.003-06:00

If you thought Azeroth being rent in two was painful and full of burnination, I have news for you. My guild is going through a shattering of its own. Months ago our healing officer announced that Wrath was his last WoW. His final raid was last week.

Which means. Ahem. They had to promote someone... Or something. So, "enlynn is an officer", take two!

I'm excited, I really am. I mentioned last week I had missed being healing lead. I enjoy it, even at its worst. You'd think being a leader when you're wiping all night is harder, but it's actually easier (for me at least) to keep plugging away and stay positive when I can hold myself to my ideal leader-like self. I say leader-like because, let's be honest, most healing teams really do take care of themselves once cooldowns, dispels, and buffs are coordinated. So I get all the perks of officery-ness without having to purge the grays from the g-bank or deal with the website. Sounds like win to me.

I look forward to blogging from an officer's perspective. And I really look forward to pushing Hard Modes in Cataclysm and writing about that. We finished up this expansion (and raided until the very last week, which should be an achievement in and of itself) 9/12 HM ICC 25, #2 on our server (yeah, yeah, Malf is marked for new players. Doesn't change my Lady D/Dreamwalker kills!).

I'm excited for Cataclysm because I've never hit the ground running with an expansion in an MMO like this before. When Wrath came out, Mayhem and I were still leveling up on this server/faction. I don't even think we purchased Wrath right away, we didn't need it until we were 68 and it was time to leave the Outlands. It's funny to think about how much has changed in the last two years.

It all changes tomorrow. Farewell, Lich King, The frozen wastelands of Northrend are soon to be wastelands again!

a year, already?

2010-12-01T10:05:00.003-06:00

Wow. It's really been a year of blogging?

A Year In Review...

I had no idea what I was doing when I started. I still don't, not really, but it's been fun. I made my first post the week after I started raiding with my first twenty-five man raiding guild. After a few months of membership, the healing lead quit the game and I was promoted to officer. I'm sure that the other officers regretted that decision ever since, because I went from being quiet to having an opinion about everything.

The guild ended up being more casual than Mayhem and I were looking for. We stuck it out as long as we did because the healing team really kept me going. The healer channel is definitely the coolest place in the game!

Back in September, we joined another guild that does hard modes. One thing I haven't enjoyed is being the low man on the totem pole, but we knew what we were getting into. It's the way of things for raiding guilds. It's been weird to go from officer to nobody, especially now that 4.0.1 has changed everything so I feel less like a healing expert than I used to. Not that I WAS an expert, mind you, just that I feel like even less of one now. I doubt anyone has forgotten that my second week in the guild I used DIVINE FRICKIN' INTERVENTION on the tank and wiped the raid.

Oh, and another stupid yet funny thing I did. I noticed that the Innkeeper lady in Stormwind has Sparkling Oasis Water for sale. I saw that, yet it never occurred to me that "requires level 80" meant "USE THIS NOW ENLYNN!". Anyways, just FYI.

A few interesting stats about bubblespec...

My top four (most visited) posts are:
quick thoughts on holy pallies
Healbot, Unashamed
yet another paladin preview post
Guest Post: Use Your Brrain

I've created 89 posts, but probably only half of those actually had any information in them. I've am thrilled to receive 79 comments!

Looking ahead...

I'm definitely gonna keep pestering Mayhem for some more guest posts, have no fear. With Cataclysm only a week away (it's Blizzard's way of congratulating me on a year of blogging!), there will be plenty to post about. I've been tightening up the tags/labels to make older posts easier to navigate, and updated my blogroll because there are some bloggers I enjoy reading who hadn't made it to my page.

Anyways, the long and short of it is: Thanks for reading.

Zen'kiki, the druid

2010-11-28T01:29:00.007-06:00

It starts out innocently enough. Escort a young druid in training, Zen'kiki, and help him kill some of the diseased wildlife.

Zen'kiki tries his best to help. He really does. However, he pounces the wrong way when he uses cat form.

Moonkin form doesn't work out so well for him. He spams Moonfire on himself.

He didn't think to switch into bear form and take aggro until after the hawk was dead. But I do appreciate his fine efforts!

Definitely enjoyed the new Western Plaguelands quests. This one is fun.

pilgrim's bounty!

2010-11-22T19:25:00.003-06:00

Just a friendly reminder: Pilgrim's Bounty is the best time of the year to level your cooking!

wow_ladies Levelling Cooking 1-300 during Pilgrim's Bounty

Pilgrim's Bounty Guide - Miss Mediocre

Easy and you end up with a sweet outfit. :)

save the words

2010-11-19T10:59:00.002-06:00

Savethewords.org

I found this lovely word and thought, "Hey! That's kinda appropriate." And while I didn't feel I could adopt the word, I chose:

Guest Post: Use Your Brrain

2010-11-12T19:08:00.006-06:00

Happy Friday! Here's another guest post by Madammayhem!

Wrath of the Lich King brought me from casual player to raider extraordinaire. On the verge of the Cataclysm, these are the most important lessons I can offer.

I can't take all the credit, though. I've learned so much from personal experience, yet so little compared to the knowledge I've garnered from those around me. Take what lessons you can from those who share your World, be they embittered veteran or plucky tyro. Here's a chronological account of what I learned from one prodigious hunter. Lets call him Brrain.

Week Two, 25 ICC:

Brrain: “This is Brrain. I need a heal.”

Healer: “Get out of the slime.”

Brrain: “Who's speaking? Who is that?”

Lesson #1 – Clarity. Be concise and precise. In the example, Brrain introduces himself and declares his need. All pertinent information is realized in his statement. It's important to note that this is Brrain's second week in the guild and his first raid with us.

Week Five, 25 ICC:

Leader: “Everyone switch targets. Everyone, please. I still see some people on the ooze. Hunters...”

Raider: “BRRAIN! GET OFF THE BOSS!”

Brrain: “This is Brrain. Who's talking right now?”

Lesson #2 – Tenacity. Focus on your goal. A single-minded pursuit can only achieve results. Many may try to impede you but if you stay on target, you will certainly prevail.

Week Nine, 25 ICC:

Brrain: “This is Brrain. Does anyone know how to train dogs?”

Tank 1: “Take the boss.”

Tank 2: “Got em.”

Brrain: “Anyone? Rescue...?”

Leader: “Beasts are coming up. Stop aoe.”

Brrain: “Guard dogs...?”

Leader: “Let's focus here people...”

Week Ten, 25, ICC:

Brrain: “Raidleader, this is Brrain. I'm gunna be late. I'm um... I'm bleeding. I got bit...”

Lesson #3 – Know your limits!

Week 14, 25 ICC:

Healer: “I don't know if I'm gunna be able to make it tonight. I feel a migraine coming on.”

Brrain: “If you just take a spoon... or your thumb... and put it in your mouth. There's a spot in your mouth... a pressure point. You can press on it and it... well, it won't make the headache go away, but it'll subside. (pause) This is Brrain.”

Healer: “I just don't think that's going to work.”

Leader: “That's fine, hon. I hope you feel better.”

Lesson #4 – Connect. Wow is a social game, after all. A little understanding goes a long way.

Week 16, 25 ICC:

Brrain: “Raidleader, this is Brrain. I'm missing Arcane Empowerment.”

Leader: “No one gives you Arcane Empowerment. It's an aura. If a person providing the aura is in raid, you get the buff.”

Brrain: “This is Brrain. Everyone else has Arcane Empowerment and I don't. I need someone to give me Arcane Empowerment.”

Leader: “Hmm... so you don't. Well, I don't know why it's happening but it looks like you're getting the same buff from the ret pally. He's talented for it. It's the same buff. It just doesn't show up on your bar. Don't worry—you have it.”

Brrain: “This is Brrain. I still need Arcane Empowerment.”

Week 21, 25 ICC:

Brrain: “Raidleader, this is Brrain. I'm still missing Arcane Empowerment.”

Raider: “Brrain, you have it! EVERYONE HAS IT! You can't not have it!”

Brrain: “This is Brrain. Who was that just speaking?”

Chorus of Raiders: “Brrain, you have the buff.”

Leader: “Brrain, the buff is provi... no... just no. Brrain, I hate to do this but we go over this every week, three nights a week. Please, don't ask again.”

Week 22, 25 ICC:

Brrain: “Raidleader, this is Brrain. I... I uh... (/sigh)... I need Arcane Empowerment.”

Lesson #5 – Caution. Know when to advance slowly. Some situations require finesse.

Week 25, 25 ICC:

Brrain: “This is Brrain. Who just said that?”

Raider: “Nevermind, Brrain. It's a wipe now. You have to stay out of the slime and switch targets when we tell you.”

Brrain: “Raidleader, this is Brrain. How do you turn someone up in vent?”

Leader: “Go to miscellaneous... ”

Brrain: “Raidleader this is Brrain. I can't see the names in vent.”

Leader: “... and then you click volume...”

Raider: “OH MY GOD!”

Brrain: “This is Brrain and I can hear you just fine now.”

Lesson #6 – Be prompt, or don't procrastinate. Remove obstacles to your success as they arise. Handle problems while they're manageable.

Guest Post

2010-11-05T19:30:00.006-05:00

I have a neat surprise this evening. Since I've been pounding away at NaNoWriMo (20k, somehow or another), Mayhem is doing a guest post!

Wrath of the Lich King brought me from casual player to raider extraordinaire. On the verge of the Cataclysm, these are the most important lessons I can offer.

This may seem obvious, but don't name your character something you don't wish to be called. Also, take into consideration your name will likely be abbreviated.

I named my warrior Madammayhem. What a sweet name! Madammayhem, Consort of Chaos! Dame of Destruction! According to wowarmory, nine copycats agree. I am so completely awesome.

The reality of the situation:

Everyone calls me Madam. If you're not aware, “madam” isn't really a super cool thing to be called as a guy. Especially when they snicker afterward.

In my defense, I had no intention of raiding.

Since I did end up raiding, I tried to not let on that it bugged me. Sometimes when they called me, “Hey, Madam...,” I'd respond in the lowest voice I could muster, “Yes, sir?” I'd like to think it made them more uncomfortable than it made me, but maybe the joke just got old.

Regardless, I plan on getting a race change in Cata, so I think the accompanying name change will remedy the situation. Here are some of the ideas I'm considering; look for me on Pansyric, Sissypher, or Homogenous. What could go wrong?

At least I'm never confused for a forest.

I started playing late in BC and while everyone else was raiding, I was mucking through Slave Pens. I think I ran h SP every day. I loooooved Slave Pens. I'm a freedom fighter at heart and Naturalist Bite was always appreciative. Besides, Kara seemed so daunting. There were somewhat well defined entry requirements and even when I met them, everyone already had their single obligatory enhancement shaman. At some point, my then roommate convinced me to level a toon on her server. I begrudgingly left Slave Pens and rolled a warrior of the Alliance.

Then Wrath came out.

I approached Naxx in much the same way as I had Kara – I mean, cautiously. No, I didn't run more Slave Pens, but a lot of new heroics were involved. I got in too late.

Once I started raiding, though, I loved it. Each new major content patch found me delving into raids a little sooner until I jumped right in to ICC. Developers had made raids more accessible, a trend they intend to continue in Cataclysm.

Now I'm in the #2 Ally guild on my server after turning down an invitation from numero uno. I'm eagerly awaiting the race to 85. I can't wait to plunge head first into the new raids.

The Lich King is out of wrath, and I still have a full Rage bar. Bring on Deathwing!

quick thoughts on holy paladins #3

2010-11-03T21:35:00.003-05:00

Hand of Sacrifice

+

Protector of the Innocent

=

There are a lot more opportunities to use this spell than there were before.

Have you been getting more mileage of out HoSac?

quick thought #2

2010-10-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

glyph of light of dawn

i don't generally like trade-off glyphs. at first i was not impressed, but it's situationally useful. as in, when the boss as a raid-wide damage ability on a 20 second cooldown, it's pretty freakin' useful. Like, Infest on this LK kill. I have to say, I'll celebrate this victory: Protector of the Innocent is less than 10% of my healing!

brez is back!

2010-10-27T22:05:00.001-05:00

MMO-Champion has the 4.0.1 beta

Ok. So... druids got the battle rez back down to 10 minutes, give me divine intervention back!!

Also, shamans didn't get any love.

Buffs for paladins. Still doesn't change the fact that I'm a Holy Shock slave. Also, with the change to LoH and Beacon we're left with no choices for major glyphs. Hopefully something good will happen with Glyph of Divinity.

one of the games i play

2010-10-26T12:24:00.005-05:00

Muradin's Musings has a great post today about being an adult trying to survive the real world with the WoW gaming stigma. I got several paragraphs into my response before I realized it was probably a bit much enthusiasm for a comment. So how do you deal with nerd stigma?

If I am going to talk about my hobbies or how I spend my free time, I make sure the less-nerdy ones get first treatment. I read. I bake. I write. I love fantasy. (Oh, and I play some video games.)

I hide my shame by lumping WoW in as "one of the games I play." People make assumptions, thinking I'm talking about the Wii or the Playstation, and I let them. And if they press me to talk about games, I talk about doing Yoga on the Wii Fit, or playing Mario Kart, or... you know. Anything but World of Warcraft.

And why should I be so ashamed? The average American household has a television on for 6 hours and 47 minutes every day. HowstuffWorks suggests that MMORPG players spend a lot less time watching television and about 20 hours a week logged in. Why is vegging out on the couch for hours on end better than raiding?

I have a coworker who spends about as much time playing facebook games as I do playing WoW. For some bizarre reason, it's acceptable for her to talk about needing to check to see how her pumpkins in Farmville are doing, but I can't wonder aloud if my gems sold yet. (Don't get me started on how much time people spend on facebook and twitter!)

Janyaa questions if hiding our passion for MMORPGs is reinforcing the negative stigma. I personally don't see any good coming from telling my boss or my dad I play WoW. Blizzard tried to get me to connect Enlynn to facebook, but I still think it's way too soon.

Check out this post by MMO Fallout on game stigma.

There is hope, though. A writer I follow, Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story, did a guest post for Grinding to Valhalla where she talks (with no shame!) about being a gamer and relating it to her career. I was delighted to read her article and find out that a successful professional I respect plays the same games I do! I think the gamers in creative industries will, slowly, open the doors for the rest of the world. Yes, writers are expected to be quirky, but I'll take all the positive MMO press I can get!

I think there will be a day, someday, where MMORPGs get the same treatment as television, Mafia Wars, and even the time-sink we call social media. I would love to come out of the (gaming) closet, but I'm not ready to yet, nor do I think the world is ready to embrace us.

Oh yeah, and cheers to women gamers over 30! I never want to lose my sense of play!

So, how do you handle you handle the nerd stigma?

in before its too late

2010-10-26T10:17:00.011-05:00

So I totally should have mentioned WEEKS AGO that I got my rusted protodrake! My new guild had a group going every week to Ulduar 10 that actually had room for us so we helped them get a few of the bosses that Mayhem and I already had (considering it was our first week in the guild, I was SOOO glad we already knew firefighter), and then spent a few weeks on Yogg.

I'm not usually the super-lucky type, but we got our 310 mounts three hours before the server went down for patch 4.0.1.

We of course, went on to do Algalon. Screens below. I was blown away by how pretty that fight was, since I'd never seen it. I'm enjoying the Starcaller title, it's still (kinda) rare on our server.

I am so frickin' fast now!

how to make friends on the internet

2010-10-22T09:25:00.005-05:00

1. create blog account. copy paste EVERYTHING from real tree druids like Keeva and just about every other resto blogger you've ever read. Including their guides, their diagrams, their art, and their BIOS. That's right, their bios.

2. when you're asked to take it down (a hint, in the real world the cease-and-desist e-mails will not be near as nice because, get this, what you just did in #1 is illegal, and they will be from lawyers), post snippets of private e-mails and bash the writer for (gasp!) wanting their stuff to be credited to them.

3. claim it doesn't matter because it's all just words that have been said already. funny, because that goes 'round in the publishing industry, too, but that wouldn't stop them from suing you if you took credit for Stephanie Meyer's or J.K.Rowling's work. Wait, you mean young boy must be a hero and vampire falls in love have been done before but they get copyright of their work? Holy crap, this must be new.

4. be obnoxiously snide in your own blog about how big bad Keeva is trying to ruin your blog. be even more obnoxiously snide to your posters and argue with them. yes, here's what i've been missing, folks! the key to an AWESOME POPULAR blog is to BE CONDESCENDING AND RUDE TO MY READERS!

I'm creating a new category for this bitch, called ARE YOU SO BAD YOU HAVE TO CHEAT AT WORLD OF WARCRAFT?. Yes. I love this idea already.

TreebarkJacket - the story

I am not linking the bitch because it doesn't need any more publicity. If you're google-savvy, I'm sure you can find it, but I encourage you instead to ignore the new internet troll and visit the links that Keeva posts to the original content that was stolen. I have a feeling the new blogger is going to disappear into obscurity soon enough. Our little internet blogosphere is small. I might be a little fish, but you don't mess with one of the big players without backlash. What a horrid, pathetic way to introduce yourself to our world, by making enemies with one of the sweetest trees you'd ever meet.

quick thoughts on holy pallies

2010-10-19T22:57:00.005-05:00

just a couple of observations i made in raid tonight...

1. they are changing Speed of Light, but until they do, if you proc Infusion of Light:
cast Divine Light and use the Speed of Light proc
THEN cast Holy Light and use the Infusion of Light proc

2. don't heal your holy paladin friends.
seriously. we don't need it. we're our own frickin' lightwell.

3. Eternal Glory is ridiculous.
three times on heroic princes tonight, i got 3 Word of Glory's from the same holy power.
ridiculous!

4. Holy Shock must absitively, posolutely be used on cooldown.
i made a training wheel icon - gigantic so i can't miss it.
moar holy power. /yes

(we're still not rockin' those meters, but i feel like i actually sorta earned my spot tonight.)

week 2 of 4.0

2010-10-19T09:05:00.001-05:00

Well, we survived the first week of patch 4.0.1, congratulations!

Last week I didn't get much raiding done because Tuesday was canceled, Wednesday we called early (too many people DCing every time they zoned), so we maybe got 3 good hours of raiding. Holy Paladin is... interesting. I jumped into it knowing I had a lot to learn, trying my darnedest to ramp up holy power and get as many Word of Glorys as humanly (spacegoatly?) possible.

It's hard, though, because even busting my ass I feel like I'm just not as useful as those priests and druids. Granted, druids didn't get drastic changes, but I giggle every time I proc replenishment. Hots are neat! Yesterday, I went into a 25 man run with my priest and I HAD SUCH A BLAST WITH CHAKRA. You mean they have a spell that changes depending on what chakra state you go into?! HOLY WORD CHASTISE IS AMAZING OMFG.

Muradin muses about holy paladins in 4.0 in her post "4.0 Healing is a Joke and Paladins are the Punchline." She pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about paladins right now.

Ghostcrawler talks about the present and future of holy paladins here. The long and short of it is, paladins are balanced at 85, not 80, and the spell we get in a couple of levels will make it all better (oh and the MS on Divine Plea is staying. Dfrnt classes r dfrnt!). I don't agree. I have a hard time swallowing that one spell will make the difference. Not when priests and druids have an entire arsenal of cool things. I'm not wishing for nerfs on either of them (I still play them after all), but you could take away one single spell from either of them and it wouldn't change the playstyle too much. Sure, it would suck to not have Prayer of Mending, but I don't think it would "break" priests. Right now, I feel like pallies are broken. The addition of one spell can not--and should not--fix that.

I don't mean for this to be QQ. I can envision the future, where mana is constrained. My paladin does have a lot more mana efficiency than my priest- I ran dangerously close to OOM yesterday on my priest several times, but on my pally I was able to heal heroic Saurfang using all Flash of Light and still couldn't put a dent on my mana pool. I'm not saying mana won't be a consideration for holy paladins, but having two cheap heals and a second resource could end up being more powerful than it is now. Currently, WoG is nice but not necessary. If it becomes necessary (and I think it will), that does change things.

But I just can't compare the fun I had playing my priest to the awkwardness I felt on my paladin. AND SERIOUSLY WHY IN THE HELL DOES DIVINE PLEA STILL HALVE MY HEALING?!?!?!?!

Sorry, I'm done now.

In the next few weeks, I may not be posting very often. Every year I do an excessive amount of cookie baking, and there's about 8 weeks left until Christmas, which means I'm already behind compared to last year. Yeeps. With Cata coming out in about 6 weeks, I'll need to have most of my baking done to start leveling. So, I'll be playing less, and at this point in the expansion I can't think of too many (pressing) blog topics anyways. Things may be quiet around here, but I'll be back to talk about my experiences in Cataclysm. And of course, I'll be passing along links from my favorite paladin bloggers!

ratshag's got it right

2010-10-13T15:54:00.001-05:00

Needs More Rage: 'Scuse Me While I Heal This Guy

patch day thought

2010-10-12T16:12:00.003-05:00

First it was twelve, which I thought was a lofty goal. Now we're at 18...

Why didn't Blizzard just call it a 24 hour maintenance?

four point oh healer linkfest

2010-10-11T09:47:00.005-05:00

Ready or not, we're getting an extended maintenance tomorrow, Tarinae has the links and some information about the background downloader.

Priest - Discipline
I just discovered Type H for Heals and oh it is amazing! Check out Malevica's Discipline 4.0.1 Guide here.
Bob Turkey discusses talents here.
Avalonna has a guide for 4.0 here, and today Derevka from Tales of a Priest posted a Survival Guide for both Specs here.

Priest - Holy
Jinxed Thoughts on the Holy tree
Derevka from Tales of a Priest

Druid
Restokin's Guide
Keeva's Quick and Dirty Guide to living in 4.0
Rank 4 Healing Touch - ICC25 HMs in 4.0.1

Shaman
Vixsin just posted her Resto Shaman Guide here!
Resto Shaman Flow speculates on 4.0

Paladin
Blessing of Kings - Holy Paladin Spec
Best In Slot's consideration of holy stats in 4.0
Kurn's What You Need to Know in 4.0.1
The Light and How to Swing it - Cataclysm Heroics in 4.0

Other Stuff (the sky is falling!)
New Blizzard Party Frames - Type H For Heals
Healing in Cataclysm Part 1 - Bandage Spec
Healing in Cataclysm Part 2 - Bandage Spec
Gem Conversion - Revive and Rejuvenate
Currency in 4.0 - WoW Blue Post
Clique for 4.0.1
Healbot for 4.0.1
'Twas the Night Before Glyph-Mas

It's possible that most of our addons will be broken, but it looks like most of our popular addons have beta versions in the works to be ready for 4.0.1. Those project authors have been hard at work before it goes live. Also, if there are great links I've missed, please let me know so I can add them.

I wasn't an avid blog reader when Wrath came out. I was still new, and my biggest source of information online was the official WoW forums (I know...). Anyways, it's been amazing to me that each PTR build has been dissected and posted. We've seen videos, guides, speculations, anything you can dream of for a game that isn't even released for another two months!

random mistakes and patchiness

2010-10-07T18:27:00.005-05:00

Last week was a pretty bad week for raiding. Anything that could have gone wrong, did. DC's? Check. Computer problems? Awesome! Silly mistakes made by players who otherwise know whats up? Please, sir, can I have some more?

Yeah. We were struggling on Halion from silly things, we finally got him down to like 2% this was going to be it, we had this, and...

Divin e Intervention.

On. The. Tank.

There are a ton of things I have done to wipe the raid in the past, and until last week, I could proudly say that DI was not one of them. Sure, I've had Beacon drop. I've cast FoL when I totally had the mana to HL. I've hit DP right at tank-takes-a-beating-phase. I've eaten goos, and I've even killed myself falling from the dream (or was it a nightmare?). But last week I DI'd the tank and wiped the raid. I guess there's a first time for everything.

(Ironic, too, that soon™ enough this won't even be a spell in my book. I almost made it!)

On a more positive note, we got Lady D on Heroic down yesterday, and I was able to complete Saurfang H too (the guild had it, I just hadn't gotten it with them). So we have three left! Although if 4.0 drops as soon as next week, that does throw a wrench into our progression plans. I'm trying not to be scared about the new paladin healing. I replaced my cloth chest with a plate one (my first piece of heroic gear on my main!), so I have two more pieces of mail then I'm wearing all plate.

Speaking of preparing for 4.0, Tarinae has some recommendations for in game currency if there's any BOA gear you've been thinking about picking up (do it soon!). Anything else you've been doing to prepare for the patch?

do your orcs fit in a rage?

2010-10-05T23:23:00.001-05:00

Supernatural Collective Nouns

A caucas of shamans
A coventry of warlocks
A lawn of gnomes! Tee-hee!

i am not a forest

2010-09-26T18:24:00.001-05:00

Hi, new raiding people. I'm working very hard to learn all your names, what you do, and how to work with you.

My name doesn't have funny characters. It's pretty much pronounced the way it sounds.

It's not Elwood.

It's not Elwynn.

I'm not a forest. I'm not even a tree! Er, wait... Perhaps I've just been confused a very, very long time...

10s, 25s, or banana?

2010-09-24T11:05:00.002-05:00

Over at WorldofMatticus.com, there's a poll going for who's planning to do 10s or 25s come Cata. The verdict is in: lots of players want 10 man raids, and many players are calling this the death of 25s. In game, there's almost a venom that comes out with this discussion, as if there's a horde of players who have secretly hated 25 man raids and can't wait for them to writhe in a horribly-fiery-painful death.

However, there are a few advantages of 25s that I haven't seen discussed too much. I'm glad that there are a lot of players excited about the change to lockouts (it means that Blizzard made the right choice, and that lots of players are doing 25s when they don't want to). But I don't believe that 25 man raids will die, especially not by fire. There are advantages that larger guilds have in terms of logistics.

1. Maintaining extras in a 25 man roster is easier than 10 man. All raiding guilds want to have at least a couple of extra damage dealers and healers hanging out in the wings. So the guild over-stocks itself, knowing that every raid night, a couple of folks won't make it, and a couple will be benched. It's expected that in a healthy 25 man guild, there's a wait list (perhaps not over this past summer or fall, but, you know). In this case, you have anywhere from 7 to 14% (3 or 4 of 29) of your raid group sitting out each week. Ideally. Odds are, in a 25 setting, it would be less because the larger the group, the more likely there's a meeting/school event/birthday that keeps a raider away.

In a 10 man group, ideally, you still want to overstock but the line between too few and too many is less clear. Suddenly 12-25% (3 of 13) of your raid force is going to be sitting on a given night, if everyone showed (which grows more likely with a smaller group). If your main tank doesn't show, it could spell a cancellation. In a 25 man raiding guild, there's more likely to be someone who can switch specs for the night or be brought in.

2. 10 mans rely a lot more on 100% raider attendance. How many 25 man raids have you done in the past few months, shy a damage dealer or two? Or, even with the most borked raid comp you could think of? I can think of plenty times we've gone and done the easy bosses with 20. Hell, we've progressed with 24.

Try that in 10 man? There's achievements for that, but I doubt it's a healthy thing to try to do new bosses that way, and not consistently. Especially if healer mana is as constrained as predicted, doing a fight shy one raider on 10 man is a risky endeavor that will punish the healers the most. Culling a damage dealer prolongs the fight, dropping a healer could push remaining healers too much.

3. 10 man raids will be tuned for the same gear level and be harder. For the first two tiers of content in Wrath, I never did 25s, and I found 10s to be pretty hard at gear level. I think the strict 10 man progression raiders would agree, too, if you don't outgear the instance, 10s aren't exactly faceroll now. I never did ICC 10 without severely overgearing it. Period. I came in with 245 gear, when it was tuned for 232 gear. That's a big difference in spell power, luxury stats like haste and crit, and blue bar. That's extra gem slots, too! I'll admit, I have no idea what 10 man progression in Icecrown should have felt like, because I was already geared with 25 man ToC gear.

If 10s are being tuned without the lower gear requirement, a lot of players might find 10s harder than anticipated, especially since each player is 10% of the equation, as opposed 4% in a 25.

4. 10 man and 25 man often have different loot systems. I'm a huge fan of EPGP. I think it's pretty darn fair (I'm biased, as a player with 100% attendance who only takes what she needs). Since I do 25s and that's where my "best" upgrades come from, I could care less when I lose a /roll in a 10.

I suppose this statement relies soundly on a few assumptions. Most 10 man runs I've ever seen do a /roll, often limited what you can main spec per wing/per boss. I haven't heard of many 10 man guilds that have a formal loot system, and I have a hard time picturing how something like EPGP or DKP would work. I don't have any experience with loot council, but any system that favors attendance over a /roll is going to put the players is going to put the casual folks recruited to be available when you're short at a severe disadvantage.

ESPECIALLY if there's less loot per boss on 10. That could get nasty. In a 25 man, a casual member just helping out for the night still might walk away with some upgrades despite an attendance system (more drops per boss, the sooner stuff gets sharded/goes to offspec). In a 10 man, it seems less likely, especially if the 10 man is designed to "gear players up" more slowly than 25 mans, then more of your players are still waiting on specific upgrades. The regular raiders would be hurt by a /roll, but the casual would have no incentive to join if they have to pass to the regular raider.

Less loot in 10s also exacerbates the recruitment issue. Less gear going to offspecs could limit your raid's flexibility. It's been easy in Wrath to maintain a viable offspec (how many druids and paladins do you know that have three sets of gear?), because with the dailies, badges from two lockouts AND two/three weeklies, and drops from two lockouts, the gear is out there. In Cata, we'll only get one lockout, and we'll be capped on how many PVE points we can get in a week.

If 10 mans are designed to take more time to gear up, that further delays the drops going to off spec, limiting how many folks are going to be able to switch as needed. Players who value their flexibility may have incentive to do 25 man raids. I imagine that even 10 man raiders will be able to keep offsets, but they might have to mix and match some lower tier gear to do it.

While it's true that healers and casters maybe be able to use a lot of their main gear for their offspec, that doesn't help tanks, paladins, or enhancement shamans. Their offsets will be built from scratch.

5. 25 man raids, in Cata, can shift down to smaller raid sizes on short nights, while 10 man groups can not shift up. A low attendance night won't cancel the larger raid, assuming there's enough tanks and healers, as they can at least do a fight or two at the 10 man size.

6. Problem players and cliques can claim more authority in a 10 man raiding group. Lots of players like 10 mans for the intimacy (I do, too). I have accepted that in a 25 man environment, there will be at least a couple of absolute dicks. If I choose to progress in only 10 mans, I wouldn't put up with even one. I'd want to genuinely like and respect everyone in my 10 man group, while it's expected that in a larger group that just won't happen. Personalities meshing in smaller groups is more pivotal for group success than in larger raids.

Smaller groups can potentially be polarized by issues and personalities. Just like the difference in feel between a small business and a corporation, the comfort and intimacy can become a liability if not carefully handled. In that respect, 25 man guilds can promote emotional distance and professionality, which some players look for in their raiding environment.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to suggest that 25 man raids are less likely to get emotional or have drama explosions, because that's not true at all! What I am trying to say is that it rocks the world of a 10 man guild when 10% or 20% of your raiding force ragequits. That's the potential to call the raid for the night, which is quite a bit of power in the hands of one individual. In a 25 man raiding guild, the individual holds less power and therefore can't emotionally blackmail the group. Granted, these aren't the players you want in your raid anyways, but calling a raid early for a night or not raiding at all is dangerous for guild morale. I've always felt there was a higher potential for fallout in a 10 man group over the 25. It's more intimidating to risk pissing off 24 people than 9.

6. 10 man healers will (likely) be less specialized. This is quite a bit of speculation on my part, but I predict that Blizzard's motto for healers of using the whole toolkit will come out much more in 10 man raids than in 25's. In larger groups, there is more room for specialization, while in small groups there is a need for versatility. Healers who want to specialize could very well be happier in 25 man raiding group, especially healers who expect to be doing the same job all the time. That isn't to say that tank healers will never cast raid heals or vice versa, but I predict that I want to define myself as a tank healer, I'll need to stick to 25 man raids to do it. In a larger group, it's easier to specialize and expect to fulfill that role. A lot of healers will love the versatility of healing in 10 man raids (I like playing my priest and druid more in 10s than 25s) but some will still prefer to specialize.

7. Managing a 10 man really isn't that much "easier" than managing a 25, it's a busy job no matter the group size. I've done both, and obviously YMMV, but personally I've found being an officer in 25 to be simpler even if the volume of tells is always worse. With a larger team of officers, my role was clearly delineated and there was almost always another officer online to confirm policy or ask for support. Going back to the small business analogy, a 10 man officer is going to juggle more hats. The 25 man officer is going to take care of the assignments given to them, and deflect other matters to the correct officer. Established roles make for less stress and less stepping on toes.

If I were offered a leadership position again, I'd rather take it in a 25 man guild than a 10. The argument that no one will want to manage 25s falls flat for me. It's a lot of work and emotional investment to manage a guild, no matter its size.

TL;DR: If Blizzard stays true to their design mission of play the raid lockout you WANT to play, I believe 10 man raids will be a lot more prevalent, but I don't think it's the death knell for 25 man groups. There will still be incentives to do the larger raiding groups, and I think there will be enough players who genuinely want to do 25 mans to do them.

I have yet to see what raiding will be like in Cataclysm, but I have a good feeling I'll be playing with the folks I want to raid with, whatever lockout that ends up being. I voted "banana".

LICH KING UPDATE: I KILLED 25 LK LAST NIGHT, and completed 7 hardmodes this week! (My guild is up to 8 hardmodes, but my internet sucks so I had to step out for Saurfang, which really bummed me out.) BUTBUT shiny new mace and I just broke 43,000 mana!

Tanking Pet Peeves: The FNG

2010-09-23T14:00:00.000-05:00

Today's Contained Rant: The FNG Tank.

Perhaps he's been a DPS for most of the expansion, but decided it was time for him to hop into his protection off-spec and go at it. Or maybe he's a newer player to the guild, again, main spec dps or healer, who's doing some temporary tanking. Or maybe she thinks she's doing the raid a favor. Hey, cool, sometimes we need those less-than-full-time tanks to be ready. I do appreciate the efforts that people take to keep us raiding.

That being said, there's a huge difference between being a new tank and being that guy. It's attitude. I find myself having lots of patience for folks learning new roles, but I think we can all agree: no one wants the FNG. You know, the guy who is new but doesn't think he has anything to learn.

1. I really am glad you're doing your best to pick up the adds, but please don't EVER use Righteous Defense on the main tank. The Lich King is not a ping-pong ball, and it tends to freak out everyone in the raid. Yeah, and please don't, when you're asked by the raid leader not to EVER DO IT AGAIN, respond in vent with an attitude that clearly says you're waiting for it to come off cooldown to use it (again).

2. It's great that you're learning your class, but please don't assume that the other tanks have an equivalent to each of your abilities. Oh, and please don't assume it was the tanking that wiped us suddenly. It's not okay for you to get in vent in a 25-man raid and ask the tank "why don't you just use your AOE taunt on the player who has the adds?". That's because warriors, druids, and death knights don't have anything quite like Righteous Defense. And really, we didn't wipe from a tanking issue so please clear vent so we can trouble-shoot what DID wipe us.

3. Thanks for your flexibility, but we don't suddenly need you to to tank all the time. No, really, we've been doing this boss for almost a year now with these two tanks who are BOTH HERE RIGHT NOW IN TANK SPEC, why are you whispering the raid leader about this?

setting new sails

2010-09-19T18:47:00.000-05:00

'Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Have ye joined in the fun?

For me blatherins today, I've got a bit of secret, 'twill change me an' Mayhem's lives. Fer a long time, I been a bit unhappy in the ship we sailed in, how we took care of our crew, an' how we charted the waters. It be hard, it be!, to serve as first mate when yer captain and you want different shores and treasures! 'Twere it not for the love I had for the crew, I'd not've stayed so long.

So t'day we got a hard day before us, breakin' the news to the crew and handin' back me hat. We got a new ship waitin' to set sail, an' the monsters they seek be fearsome indeed! We're headin' into some harrd modes, ahoy!

I'm quiverin' in me boots, that me sword will be sharp 'nough and me hand steady. Will I be paladin enough for these new sailors, or will they make me walk the plank?

is WotLK over yet?

2010-09-18T16:36:00.000-05:00

Not for me :)

Since we've been wrapping up the last handful of achievements for Glory of the Hero, Mayhem joked with me: we'll be finishing Wrath the same way we started, doing violet hold every day...

Up to 73 H-VH runs now, but I'm okay with that. He needed A Void Dance, then I won't ever be going back. Well, till my next 70+ character. It'll happen. Maybe this time it won't be a healer!

Yeah, right. My shaman is 36 and specced resto. It's a lot of fun.

Whether I realized it or not, the Lich King might have been my last big goal of this expansion. Considering I've always enjoyed the social dynamic of 10's more than 25's, getting my KS title, then helping my guild get it a week later, was pretty satisfying.

I want to clear 100k gold, but, I'm so close that earning another 5k over eight weeks isn't anything. There's no reason for this goal, especially since if I had just not gone so crazy with BOE gear every tier I'd easily have 300,000 gold. (Wow, I should really be embarrassed about that). This is a good reason NOT to power-level enchanting, tailoring, leatherworking, and alchemy. In Cataclysm, I swear I'm gonna slow down...

Glory of the Hero. I have three our four left, I just need to do them. Mayhem got his drake last night, hurray! Seriously, I just need to buckle down and do them.

Some hard mode ICC10 fights. Last night we went and got down LDW, Fester, and we almost got Rot and dangit if we just had time for one more attempt we would have had it. (Oh, lootship, too, but, duh.) It was a lot of fun, and this might be the raid I'm most looking forward to in the coming weeks. I

So, how about you? Is it game over yet, or do you still have things to knock off your list before the expansion?

Also, since bloggers are also writers, I found this hilarious:

nerd girls: xkcd.com

2010-09-16T12:21:00.000-05:00

xkcd.com

tank healers and vent

2010-09-14T11:49:00.002-05:00

There's a school of thought I've run into more than once that healers don't have to be as aware of timers as DPS and tanks because they should be staring at bars. I have to say, perhaps my perspective is unique as I've only really been raiding in 25 man content for less than a year now, and I have since learned how to communicate in vent.

I know, it sounds so simple--just push the button and talk, right?--but there are lots of ways to communicate well and many more ways to communicate poorly. I remember trying to help my man RL 10 man raids, and complaining to him about all the things that people weren't doing, as they weren't doing them, yet I would refuse to just open my vent channel and say "please switch to the kobolds ASAP" or "remember to move the fire away from the raid" or "phase transition, get ready to run". I was, and still am, afraid of being the Bitch.

I'd like to think I've gotten better. It took getting to know the group I played with, and learning that sometimes I really do need to impart information right now. I call out timers. I remind the raid that stuff on the ground is coming up or to get ready for the big fear. I announce my status: I say "Enlynn's valked, big heals on the tank" or "Enlynn's dropping stacks, big heals on the tank" or "Enlynn's silenced, big heals on the tank" (recurring theme here, yes?).

I struggled with calling out my status for a long time. I don't wish to be perceived as self-important, but tank healing and tanking are the most communication-sensitive parts of the game. It's a natural thing to coordinate tank-swaps, adds, debuff management, and anything else that endangers the tanks. It's the first check of the game, keeping the tanks alive to soak the beating. Healers and damage dealers come second.

(I'm not suggesting that tanks and healers and damage dealers are more or less valuable in a group. Tanks are a single point of failure in an encounter, we won't get to the enrage timer if the tanks can't stay alive to see it).

Part of tank healing is not hps or gear or skill, it's reliability. It's not very exciting that our peers are talking about hypothetical damage per second, set bonuses, and pew pew, while I'm maximizing... my reliability factor. How many times have I been incapacitated by an encounter mechanic and thought I didn't need to call it out on vent, only to have the tank go splat because, get this, no one knew to help me heal.

How many wipes could I have prevented if I just pushed the button and said "big heals on the tank"?

There's another huge upside to learning to communicate with the team. My silence means that all is going well. If I want the raid healers to trust me to heal the tank, I really do want to call it out when I can't, otherwise we have three raid healers twitching tank heals because they can't trust me to ask for help when I need it. If they trust me, they can focus on what they need to do, knowing that if I get unchained magic, frost beaconed, or sucked into the sword, I'll ask them to heal the tank.

In a pug, it's even more important. Assuming that the raid leader is paying attention can be a dangerous mistake. I joined a pug LK10 last week, and I unabashedly called out each time I needed help. It covers my ass. If I'm asking for heals on the tank and the tank dies, I did the best I could do and I am not the only one to blame. If I ask for heals on the tank and the tank lives, I've saved us from a wipe. Was it actually necessary? It's hard to say, if they other healers were good they saw it on their raid frames that I was valked or in the dream or in the sword, and were adjusting before I called it out. But again, that's making some pretty serious assumptions.

I'm not an expert on when to call out and when not to. I'm sure that I've called out the most unnecessary things, while keeping my mouth shut when I shouldn't have. Most of the time, it wouldn't wipe the raid if I didn't (or would it?). It's not a chance I want to take. I'll call it out just in case.

I'm sure half the raid thinks "ugh I wish she would just shut up sometimes", but they can deal. I'm not trying to be self-important, I'm trying to give us the best shot we have of boss kills and shiny lootz. Given the choice, I'm sure they'd prefer that I'm calling out my status than calling them out. How many times do you have to be mind controlled before you learn to bite, hmm? (Whoops, the Bitch came out after all!)

What do you call out in your raids? Do you help announce timers, remind players to focus an add, or speak out when you are locked down by a raid mechanic? Do you appreciate it when your tanks and healers are proactive in vent, or does that healadin drive you crazy?

lol @ dude on fire

2010-09-10T00:24:00.001-05:00

stupid things i didn't know

2010-09-07T09:12:00.001-05:00

Randomness here today.

1. I used to think it was great because early in Wrath I taught myself to fly from Dalaran anywhere from Northrend. Well, normal people with their functional computers can see Dalaran from miles away. This is only a skill when you have all your settings turned down (honestly, it's not even then).

2. I had some serious totem envy in Gnomergon when I saw that someone else's fire totems looked way sweeter than mine. I pondered this for runs and runs--was he specced for this?--and then it hit me. Each race of Shaman has it's own totem. Mine only look like fence posts because I play a cow. I've been on the Alliance side for so long I got used to their only being two types of shaman (big shoulders or not).

3. The Lich King is dead! And I was able to christen my shiny new computer by one-shotting him the very first day I had it with a well-constructed PUG. (Perhaps not a stupid thing I didn't know, but still news.) And no, I didn't release when we all died. I did DPS the hell out of him after we got rezzed, though. Gogo 3k judgements!

4. Paladin heals have graphics. I used to love Holy Shock when it made the recipient shudder as they got the heal, like Prayer of Mending or maybe that I was just trying to knock over the dps. Turns out there's golden light there, too.

5. Today is Tuesday. I woke up this morning thinking it was Monday, and wondered why in the world I couldn't fill up the Auction House before I went to work... Happy Tuesday, everyone!

wtb screen space

2010-08-31T15:53:00.001-05:00

I've procrastinated making some UI changes I knew I needed to make for some time. I have never posted a screenshot of my UI because, it's not impressive but it's also downright embarrassing. I could blame my small screen, but that's only the half of it. My UI looked like my desk: cluttered, redundant, and a bit dusty.

So I spent a couple of hours today reworking how my UI helps me play. Because in the end, a pretty UI is nice but it has to have the things I need to be a healadin. This time around, my focus was getting more crap off my screen.

Saving Space Through Addons

Bartender or Dominos are fantastic addons to "buy" screen space. It takes a bit of configuring to get it going, but potentially offers much more free screen space. They get rid of the extra junk (spacing, padding, and decorations) around the standard UI, and allow you to move your bars wherever you want. You can shrink 'em, but most importantly, you can shove 'em wherever you like. You can also hide bars that you don't need in combat. My hearthstone, professions, and self-only oh-shit buttons are keybound and invisible.

You may notice that I have no addon mini-map buttons. They are all disabled, because of how few I actually need when I'm in combat. Most addons have menu or config options that can be accessed with slash-commands.

/al - Atlas Loot
/sg - Surgeon General
/radur - Who's Tanking Frames
/dxe config - Deus Vox Encounters

Healbot and Grid both have drag-tags that you can remove. I set up HB so that the options open up with the right-click of the dead space outside of the bars (I also set it up so that there is no padding or spacing between bars, another space saver).

I used to use Pitbull for raid frames as well as Healbot, but it's redundant (and bogs down an older computer). If your screen is tiny, it's an important question to ask: do I need the same information/spells taking up space twice?

I used to have a bar devoted to blessings, but I've been using Pally Power long enough that I couldn't justify that space on my screen. I have them bound (a bit awkwardly, but that's alright, they are for out of combat) in healbot, as well. That was three places to cast one thing.

Saving Space Through Macros

Macros that can save you bar space. Abilities you always use together, for instance, will only take up one spot on your action bar instead of two or three if they are macro'd (trinkets, too!). Cast sequence macros can help you buff, i.e., a priest can click the same macro button four times and buff fort>spirit>shadow>inner fire. A macro like this would be handy for after-rezzing. A paladin macro might have Seal>Divine Plea>Kings.

Macros can also be set up with modifiers, allowing one button to do different things. A blessing macro could do kings, wisdom, or might, determined by modifier. I have three buttons dedicated to judgments (one is keybound, the others are next to it so that I can switch depending on our raid composition), but if I cared I could set it up so that shift or control judged differently. I may give this a try, but I prefer just to set the right judgment to the non-modified keybind before the pull. In combat, I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. However, if your raid has a pretty darn consistent group and you almost always judge light or wisdom, setting up a modifier for the other wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Mouseover macros can also cast a spell determined by whether the target is friendly or hostile. My priest saves bar space by having a dps spell and a healing spell tied to the same button - smite and flash heal, holy fire and greater heal, and shadow word: pain and renew. While I (rarely) use the DPS portions of the macros, they are helpful and a time-saver when you do need to nuke. (I haven't PVP'd in a while, but there's the obvious application).

I just learned something new! In clique and healbot, you can add macros directly into the interface. For Clique, you type your macro text directly into the window, and in Healbot, you create a macro (using the mouseover script) in Blizzard's macro menu, then import it.

Screenshots

I have a confession to make: when I was leveling my paladin, I had some serious druid-envy. When HB broke and I learned to use mouseover macros, I chose icons for druid heals instead of paladin heals. I never changed it, because it's kinda silly.

a man(bot)'s world

2010-08-27T18:51:00.001-05:00

Futurama

Thursdays 10pm / 9c

Fembot

www.comedycentral.com

Futurama New Episodes

Big Lake

A New Comedy from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay

Do you have any idea what it's like to be a fembot living in a manbot's manputer world?

I can't get blogger to like this embedded video, so here's the link: Fembot on Futurama

Rock Paper Tiger: A Gamer's Review

2010-08-23T14:50:00.000-05:00

Have you read Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann? I snagged it as an impulse borrow from the library after seeing it mentioned a handful of times on book blogs. I was surprised to find that Brackmann uses an MMO-style universe as part of the story.

Without spoiling it for you, here are a handful of things I liked about the world inside the book: The Sword of Ill Repute, or, the Game.

1. The protagonist plays to connect, not escape. Her friends have a specific virtual space to meet. She doesn't define herself as a gamer; she just happens to play a video game, and she's got quite a bit of life going on outside of the game. And her dirty dishes have nothing to do with gaming.

2. No nerd stigma. That's right, no socially awkward teenagers in sight. No geek jokes. No mention of grandmother's basements. No pwning or 1337 speak. No obsessive player who loses his family/job/house to the keyboard.

3. The protagonist identifies herself with her avatar. She also ponders the avatars of people she has met in real life, coming to a better understanding of them through the way they choose to express themselves in the Game. Granted, in WoW we don't have quite the amount of customization as in the Game, but I appreciate the suggestion that characters can be valid creative expressions.

4. The Game is Chinese, and as such, uses Chinese mythology. The lore is elegant and portrayed thoughtfully, creating a mini-world with depth and culture of its own.

5. Brackmann takes us into the Game without overwhelming non-players. While the protagonist doesn't do anything 'hardcore' like raiding, we are exposed to MMO staples - cool weapons, fearsome monsters, fun items, and adventure. No math or heavy theory. The Game is accessible.

There's room for disagreement that every mention of the Game was positive, and a couple of things that happened around the Game are already controversy in the industry. (And yes, there were a few events that would make for less-than-stellar game mechanics. I'm talking portrayal, not playability here). Still, I was pleased with the treatment. It's downright refreshing to read about an MMO sans nerd stigma.

Rock Paper Tiger is not a book about a MMORPGs. It's a book about international crime and war that features an MMO to connect the characters. As such, it finds a much different audience: readers, not gamers.

How about you - have you read the book? How do you feel about The Sword of Ill Repute as a portrayal of MMOs outside of the gaming industry (or other showings of MMOs in the mainstream)? I've never set up commenting rules or anything like that, but I do ask that we keep this page spoiler-free for those who might still have Rock Paper Tiger on their reading list.

Logs! Shamanigans!

2010-08-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

I found a neat website earlier today I wanted to share with you:

www.wowraidaudit.com

If you upload your WoL parses, it will, by fight, show you how many cooldowns a player could have used, and it will also show you handy uptime. There are a couple of things that are wonky, especially for healing. I've really been looking for a handy DPS analysis tool - I'm fairly comfortable using WoL to analyze healing, but for DPS I just don't even know what I'm looking at.

Here's my audit for our Putricide kill last week, with a few discrepancies and thoughts below:

Buffs/Debuffs has been the most valuable, however, it does take some encounter knowledge to understand whether all those 0's meant I failed or whether the cooldown just didn't apply. For instance, and if I am mistaken (please, for the love of Elune, let me know so I can improve) leave me a comment, Aura Mastery doesn't help much because the damage type is nature. Ok, so I didn't use Divine Favor at all. Thats kinda lame. However, I did maintain 99% uptime on JotP (I do love to judge), but I didn't use either of my self-only bubbles.

It also doesn't list sacred shield for me, however, according to the actual WoL parse this is built from, I had 47% uptime on Sacred Shield (turns out another paladin was overwriting mine, which while annoying, at least the tank was fully shielded).

I don't understand how it's suggesting I only should have used DP twice, when on a seven minute fight I could have used it seven times. Five uses isn't bad, considering two of those were at phase changes whether I needed it or not.

The Malleable Goo thing is interesting, considering I know that I myself never actually got hit by it, and that was splash damage (other players took 45-66k damage in Malleable Goo, but I digress!).

I found this far more handy for DPS, for a couple of reasons. A players active DPS time usually reflects their standing on the charts. Players with consistently above 90% are the same ones in the top five. Meanwhile, I saw DPS with active times as low as 60%. I won't link any examples because I don't feel comfortable publicly shaming anyone but myself, but if you want to see it for yourself, upload your guilds parses and see how it works for you.

Also, while I'm talking about logs, Ophelie did an awesome write-up about how to make WoL show you uptime for healing buffs. I had a couple of healers looking for distinct feedback for improvement and I couldn't think of anything to say until I saw this. You can plot uptime for buffs you ideally want up 100%, but it can also show you when in the fight a player is managing cooldowns. Handy indeed!

Shamanigans

It's no secret that I've wanted all four healers. Oddly enough, shaman was my first healing character I created, but I fizzled out leveling her when I researched a bit more and realized that priest was more my style (so then I made a paladin. Go figure!). I still had a level 49 shaman on a server I don't play on anymore, but I made another shaman, horde side, on Malfurion. It's been a blast, and I plan on leveling has as resto. I'm not in a hurry, and ideally thats why I want her eventually at max level, to understand the resto raiding shaman.

It's been a lot of fun to be back in Mulgore (I started playing horde, then switched to Ally upon insistence of a friend, who of course is long gone from the game now), although it hasn't been without its foibles. I went into a WSG with Mayhem's rogue and had some major disorientation. I also thought we were winning because the alliance had two flags. Oops!

Edit: I found this website on skeletonjack.com about DPS and WoL and while it's not technical, it's a good read. Enjoy!

Tanking Pet Peeves: The Accidental Out-Threat

2010-08-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

There is no "I" in tank team.

Actually, there might be a couple of pet peeves coming out today.

1. When your raid leaders go on vacation and someone else steps in to handle a run, please don't bitch at her for something that happened on that run weeks ago that she had nothing to do with.

2. Oops, I just out-threated you.

My biggest pet peeve from tanks is this. Fights that aren't tank-swaps, but they are still swapping because there's not enough team work. Sure, it's a farm boss and a tank swap isn't a wipe, but it's obvious there's one player who wants to be the star of the show even though we've told him that he's the third tank (when you have 24k hp unbuffed to tank ICC25, I feel the correct response is grateful humility, not taunting off the other tanks and calling it an accident).

I've been the super undergeared second/third tank before. It's hard to pick up aggro off someone who has three times the attack power and mitigation than you do (especially if you're still gemming for def cap). You have to do something snotty like taunt and pretend you didn't.

If it's not a tank swap, don't take the boss. If it IS a tank swap, no need to taunt before the swap time. There's a reason we agree on encounter specifics like "X stacks" or "X boss cooldown" to swap, and not "I'm bored and I want to see the boss swinging at me instead". And if we ask you to DPS, the correct response is "ok, let me switch" and not "ok but I'm going to stay in tank spec and gear in case something goes wrong".

No, you're not.

I'm sure there is such a thing as an accidental out-threat, but I don't believe it happens more than once. Certainly, not seven times in one fight.

Healers Who Don't Wanna

2010-08-05T18:46:00.001-05:00

Have you noticed a trend in healers who don't wanna?

I have, but I'm not sure that I qualify to talk about it. Most of my memories from the beginning of the expansion was focused primarily in 10's, where we had a semi-steady group where we would pug at least a warm body or two. We ended up in some pretty strange Naxxs - three holy paladin teams (never again!), hardly ever any heroism, retribution paladins ahoy.

The one thing I remember frustrating the snot out of me was a shortage of 'main spec' healers. We'd always end up finishing the group by inviting another dps and asking the priest/druid/paladin to switch (grumble, grumble) to their offspec. And more often than not, it would sour the rest of the evening because they couldn't just say "I'm here to dps. I don't have fun healing."

(Better yet - don't keep a holy/resto off spec!)

Rant completed, I haven't run into this in a while, but like I said: I do 25s with a raiding guild. A set roster and steady group decrease my chances of running into healers who don't wanna. We have enough (close to it) healers who prefer to heal. The dps who heal offspec riptide with the same vigor of lava burst.

So I'm curious. I've "noticed" that there are less now, but I'm not looking for them either. Lately, have you run into healers who don't wanna?

(Quick note: If you're a dps who enjoys healing and/or tanking too, I love you.)

Punch Real Life in the Face

2010-08-01T10:28:00.002-05:00

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&amp;amp;amp;amp;brand=v5%5E544x306&amp;amp;amp;amp;from=sp&amp;amp;amp;amp;vid=8cb424dc-cbdb-40be-90c5-8fb450462d2f" target="_new" title="Season 4 - Music Video - "&amp;amp;gt;Video: Season 4 - Music Video - "Game On"&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;

The Guild Season 4
Seriously. Go enjoy.

Healing Through It (Blood Queen and Sindragosas)

2010-07-30T14:57:00.001-05:00

I joke with healers that we're often responsible for healing through lots and lots of things. Except it's not a joke. Or... it only kinda is.

The Blood Wing - Know My Hunger

Princes didn't give us much heartache all things considered, even if we ignored them for months (and months) while we were kiting things around in the Plague Wing. Blood Queen, however, was another matter.

The Blood Queen almost destroyed our guild. The queen started fights, incited nerd rages, and got people kicked from our guild. She scared away raid applicants, created new vent and wipe-calling rules, and organized walk outs. For more than two months she's terrorized us (two minute cooldown), and even on the weeks we couldn't get to her, she was still lurking overhead, reminding us that if we do get down Putricide this week, we'll be bowing before her.

Everything gave us troubles. Bite-addon insanity, bloodbolt whirl death traps, red triangles of doom, (creative) passive-agressive use of shadow trails, and the bites. Oh, the bites! I lagged, my target ran away from me, I got feared, 2 FPS, I didn't know who I was supposed to bite, I thought I had another 30 seconds, I never got the whisper, wait do I got to the bitee or does he come to me?, but you told me to bite the MT, and the ever popular "So what do I do when I get bit, again?".

We did some crazy things. Folks switched offspecs. My holy priest dropped her shadow off in favor of Discipline, and wins the "excellence in a new spec for a progression boss" award. We had healers make minor changes to glyph and spec, we had DPS make major changes to their offspecs to be available to heal (and I really appreciate it, even if they made all those changes for just one night). We recruited, we brought alts, we declared new mains, and we made it happen. Hurray for 30%!

A First Peek Into the Frost Wing

The best way to celebrate a victory on a boss you've been working on for months is (obviously) to go bang your head on a brand-new one. And herein lies the good news. We didn't get Sindragosa down, but we owned the hell out of phase 1.

All the people who had done this fight on ten had spent time warning everyone in G chat (for months) about how hard Sindy is gonna be, how this is gonna take REAL coordination and if they think BQ/Put/Princes is hard 'just wait till you see the frost queen'...

Compared to the BQ, our Lady Dragon is not frenetic, at least from a "healing through it" perspective. BQ is a fast fight, Sindy is slow. Five of the six healers had already beaten Sindragosa on 10, so I was ridiculously optimistic about Sindragosa. I knew our hardest parts would be Blistering Cold and Ice Block placement. The stacks of debuffs were absolutely no problem. Even the Phase 1 ice blocks were well-handled (turns out that stuff we've seen before is easier to learn than altogether new mechanics...).

I thought I would be prepared (cleverly) and I coordinated with all the paladins to give specific players their Hand of Freedom cooldown for Blistering Cold. It was a great idea, in theory, except for I failed often enough at it in the first few attempts I had to use it for myself.

Blistering Cold was not a problem at all once we elected a hunter to Aspect of the Noob. It really works. The tank gets stunned but nothing a roll of hots couldn't fix while the less mobile healers are fleeing.

I'm sure we'll spent weeks on Phase 2, but I'm prepared for that. Suffer mortals, as your pathetic magic betrays you!

you might be a healadin...

2010-07-28T21:37:00.000-05:00

You might be a healadin if it takes more than two biscuits to get full mana.

(That's more than a minute of drinking.)

on loot whores

2010-07-25T18:33:00.003-05:00

When I was a child, I thought I was clever because of things I got away with. At some point I got older, and with some reflection (as well as observing young ones thinking they are getting away with things), I realize that the adults in charge of me probably knew what I was doing, for the most part.

I feel this way about raiders who try to manipulate loot systems. They may think they are being sneaky trying to justify a sidegrade into not paying for it, but the officers are watching. Just because no one calls it, doesn't being it wasn't noted, every time it happens, for weeks.

And if, by chance, that raider decides to start bragging about their exploits, that's when the party is over and the sidegrade option gets removed. If no one wants to pay, it gets melted.

Instead of saying that the raider has ruined it for everyone (it hasn't ruined the system for folks who only take what they truly need), I would just like to say this:

Are you so bad that you have to cheat at World of Warcraft?

Healbot, Unashamed

2010-07-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

I usually get smart remarks for using Healbot from some of the healers in my guild. I love Grid as much as the next enthusiast, but this weekend I switched my last character who used Grid (my priest) to Healbot.

Since I've been doing a 25ICC alt-run every week and switching between my druid and priest to round out the healing comp, I've noticed that my druid and paladin get several more frames per second than my priest. Considering at best I get 7 FPS in a 25-man, losing 5 means I am running at 2. That's not really what I consider playable.

I switched to back to Healbot, which is my Very First Healing Addon(tm). On my priest, it's a bit of nostalgia because I suddenly feel like I should be back in Slave Pens or Kara, twitching fearfully in my hybrid disc/holy spec and blues. It didn't take much time to get back into the swing of things, in fact, I was quite surprised how little I had to do to get healing. It was a most pleasant experience.

Why I'm not ashamed of my Healbot

1. Healbot doesn't hog. Of all the healing addons/raid frames, HB bogs my computer down the least. If you're having troubles, you'll probably want to experiment with several setups to find the best, but don't discount Healbot as it doesn't take much effort to run.

2. Healbot plays nicely. Healbot shows you incoming heals from other addons, assuming that healer has a mod, too.

3. Healbot submits to your creativity. I choose to leave my frames looking much like they did back in BC, but that doesn't mean yours have to look that bad! Healbot has updated quite a bit, with lots of options: what you can show, what you can hide, how big you want it, skins you can use, and what colors you can adjust.

4. Healbot knows. I never told it to track my Beacon or Sacred Shield or even Hand of Sacrifice, or count down over the icon when it's almost expired so I know I have 5-10 seconds to refresh. I never asked for tank cooldowns, lucky charms, or encounter specific debuffs, but I have them. Healbot understands my druid, too, showing all my hots and how long they have left.

This weekend I came into an exciting discovery. Healbot knows priests, too! It tracks Power Infusion, Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Inspiration, and Prayer of Mending. The Power Word: Shield indicator is two icons rolled into one - when there's a little plus sign on the corner of your bubble, that's the Weakened Soul still active on the target. When the shield is absorbed, Healbot shows the Weakened Soul debuff, and counts down when it's almost over. That is Improved Happiness for me, it's a way to plan out my bubbling and be ready for new shields on the folks who need them the most.

Other addons can do that too, but I didn't have to beg for it, because...

5. Healbot stands alone. When Healbot is updated (mine lets me know upon login, which is great because I often don't update unless something breaks), there's only one addon to download and I don't have to worry about one plugin causing problems with one another.

I think no matter what addon you use, it's important to understand how our UIs can either get in the way or facilitate healing. Addons can solve (or cause) problems by creative use of space on a small monitor, calling attention to things we might otherwise forget we have, or distract us from more important things in an encounter.

Last week in raiding, my paladin cast 3,601 direct heals. It would have been possible without an addon, I'm sure, but with the sheer amount of activity required by healers, I wouldn't find it fun without a helpful interface to press my buttons in. Whether it be standard UI or healing addon, we all use a healing interface to interact with the game world. Mine is Healbot.

31 is the new 51

2010-07-07T13:15:00.001-05:00

There's no reason to still be upset about RealID publishing your real name and your WoW habit to the world, on the forums and via addons. Look, here, it's shiny new Cataclysm information!! Just forget about what happened yesterday...

(I told Blizzard a minor played on my account, problem solved).

I'm actually a bit excited about this 31-point tree business. Not so sure if I like having to commit at level 10 (that's great for my alts, but when I was new to this game I had no idea what I was doing.), but the idea of talents being more buttons to push and changes to how our buttons work is so much better than "for the next five levels, enjoy your +1% bonus to something". This sounds refreshing and great and awesome (and all of that).

We still haven't seen paladin previews. Against my better judgment, I am hopeful that the information delay is because Blizzard is hard at work on holy paladins, purifying our talent trees and creating new fun ways for paladins to heal.

Even without the blinders of optimism on, I still see the talent point reduction as a positive thing for holy paladins, in fact, we're already in pretty good shape assuming they cut the right things. We only have a handful of "talents" worth taking, especially once the +healing, +crit, and +intellect are purged. I didn't mind these talents, but we've been warned for a while now that they are going to disappear.

The bread-and-butter talents from our current tree...

Illumination.

Holy Shock. In a world where spell selection is key, we might find a use for this spell. If anything, see "stuff to do while not healing" below under JotP.

Infusion of Light.

Divine Illumination. I'm a huge fan of extra buttons to push, especially mana-saving ones.

Judgements of the Pure and Enlightened Judgements. I think it's important that holy paladins have a compelling reason to judge, and need the extra range to judge while not in melee. If Blizzard is encouraging healers to do stuff other than heal, this is the place to start (that, and an instant cast exorcism-come on!)

Aura Mastery. Unique to paladins and full of flavor! My biggest complaint about this ability is how situational it is: overpowered when the damage/ability matches my aura, and useless when when it doesn't.

Beacon of Light. I'm sure we aren't getting its current incarnation, but this is still a neat talent.

Light's Grace. This talent is awesome.

Divine Favor. It's mandatory, I don't use it as often as I should, but since its off the global cooldown there's really no reason not to have it macro'd to something.

I count 10 different talents for a total of 24 talent points spent on meaningful things. The rest is "boring" by Cataclysm design goals, or PvP talents (I pvp on my priest, not my paladin, so my experience with paladins is "he bubbled dispel it now dispel it now"). I'm not opposed to this change. Holy wouldn't look half so bad with only 31 talents.

Misplaced Meditation

I almost didn't notice that the initial priest and druid cataclysm talent previews were lacking Meditation and Intensity, while blue posts indicated that shamans and paladins would be getting similar abilities. It left me confused, but with the revelation that the talent trees are going to be far smaller, I wonder if this is three points we won't have to spend. I didn't like the idea of all four healers just having the same mana-savings mechanic, especially since it seems that every caster (dps and healer alike) has talents to help manage the blue bar. Instead of straining our mana via global mechanics then allowing everyone to spend talents to increase it, it makes more sense just to balance mana pre-talents and have our talents do other, more active, things. Is it too late to pray for an in-combat, out-of-combat mana system?

And what about this whole "paladins will want spirit" thing... Oh Blizzard! So much new information, but so much information you have yet to give us!!

Down with the new RealID forums!

2010-07-06T23:43:00.000-05:00

That is all.

Mistakes I Will Not Be Making in Cataclysm

2010-07-02T13:22:00.000-05:00

#1. Too many dungeons. (Or, I declared a main three times this expansion which is also a terrible idea). Over WotLK, gathered most of my emblems through heroics. Each tier, I jumped back into five mans to farm those daily new emblems and dozens of old emblems I didn't need any more on my main, while my alts jumped into those heroics to farm the old emblems to get themselves caught up. For too much of the expansion, I was doing the same daily three different times. Never again.

At the start of the expansion, Mayhem and I did a lot of heroics. A lot. We put together groups to get specific drops. We had best-in-slot gear from heroics. I think the one mistake we made in all of this was that we spent way too much time "preparing to raid", without realizing that the best thing we could have done was just jumped into Naxx10 when we had badge and crafted.

69 Cyanigosas? That's too many dungeons!

That's not to say that doing heroics of some form won't be necessary or helpful; however, I will not be grinding like I did. I ended up each tier with unneeded badges on my main, because I pushed too hard at the beginning to get all that badge and crafted gear ASAP (and then I pass on raiding drops. I may have the highest PR in the guild, but nothing to spend it on). I will be more patient with gear in Cataclysm.

A part of this mistake is how much time I spent gearing up my alts to raid and then not raiding with them. My druid is all but retired now, after grinding her gear up to raidability she went into ICC10 and 25 a mere handful of times, totally disproportionate to the time I spent getting her ready for it. That is my fault, I won't make the mistake again.

That's not to say I won't be keeping up three characters in Cataclysm (I still ponder working on my shaman so I have all the healers, and I have a young mage I'm obsessed with). But I didn't play my mains in Wrath as well as I could have, and I'll spend more time playing and less time grinding to play. Since LFD has become a major part of the five-man experience, what heroics we do will be spent doing the instance instead of waiting around in town looking in trade for more dps. And when I'm done with a heroic, I'll be done. Find someone else to heal; 69 Violet Holds is too many.