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Oestrus’ Comprehensive Holy Priest Guide – Version 4.3

The Stories of O 27 Jan 2012, 11:06 pm CET

Welcome to my comprehensive holy priest guide for patch 4.3. All of the information contained within this post is current, as of the most recent tier of content, which includes the recently released Dragon Soul instance.

Please keep in mind that anything I talk about here or that I suggest are things that have worked for me or other priests that I communicate with and that they may not necessarily work for you. What matters more than anything else is being able to admit that something is not working for you. If you are doing something that is a bit outside the box and you are genuinely seeing results with it – meaning that your mana bar is not always running on empty, you are keeping up the people you are assigned to heal, etc. then by all means keep doing what you are doing.

But if you are stalling on progression fights, you cannot keep people alive like you should be able to, and you never seem to have enough mana to make it through the most basic encounters, you may want to accept that what you are doing is not working and that it may be time for you to try something else. Do not be afraid to have that conversation with yourself or with others. You cannot fix something if you will not admit that the problem is even happening in the first place.

With that in mind, let’s get started!

Table of Contents:

I. STATS II. STAT PRIORITIES III. REFORGING IV. HEALING SPELLS V. BUFFS VI. OTHER ABILITIES VII. CHAKRA VIII. TALENTS IX. MASTERY X. HOW TO TANK HEAL XI. HOW TO RAID HEAL XII. GLYPHS XIII. ENCHANTS XIV. GEMS XV. CONSUMABLES

I. STATS

Intellect

Increases your Spell Power by 1.
Increases your spell Critical Strike chance by .001541.
Increases your mana pool by 15.

Note: The first 18 Intellect will not increase the size of your mana pool and the first 10 Intellect will not grant you any Spell Power.

Spirit

1 point of Spirit gives 0.00836*SQRT(Int) MP5.
Spirit is going to be essential for regen, because of Meditation and Holy Concentration.

Haste

128.06 Haste is equal to 1% at level 85.
With enough Haste, you can reduce the cast time of your spells, the time in between ticks of channeled spells, and make some of your HoTs tick faster (which can lead to extra ticks).

Mastery - 179.28 Mastery is equal to 1% at level 85. - Echo of Light: Direct heals that you cast on someone will heal them for an additional 16% over 6 seconds. Each additional point of Mastery that you have will increase the size of this heal by an extra 1.25%. This HoT will tick 6 times, or once per second, and is not affected by your Critical Strike or Haste rating.

Critical Strike - 179.28 Critical Strike is equal to 1% at level 85. - As of patch 4.2., critical heals now heal for 200% of their normal amount, up from 150%.

II. STAT PRIORITIES

The stat priorities that I would suggest you use can be quite different, depending on at where you are at as a holy priest. If you are someone who has just turned 85 or who hasn’t been 85 for that long, I would suggest the following priority:

Intellect > Spirit > Spell Power > Haste (to 12.50%) > Mastery > Critical Strike

As you start to run the high end Normal dungeons and break into Heroics, it’s going to be very important for you to manage your mana pool properly. Especially if you plan on gearing up through the Dungeon Finder. Make sure that you have Spirit on every piece of gear possible. If it doesn’t have Spirit on it, reforge into it. Even though most of the Heroic 5 mans have been nerfed, you may not be able to count on that to see you through.

At the very least, you want to make sure that you are at the first Haste breakpoint, which is at 12.50%. This will give you an extra tick from Renew and Divine Hymn. You will not have enough Haste on your gear to even come close to reducing your Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing down to a 2 second cast, much less aim for the second Haste breakpoint of 37.50%. Because of this, I would suggest taking any excess Haste you have past the first breakpoint and converting it into Mastery or gear for Mastery once you reach that point.

The other reason I suggest not going for Haste as you are just starting out as is because Haste is considered to be a “negative regen” stat, meaning that it helps you cast spells faster, which usually leads to casting more, and that leads to spending more mana. As you are in the process of gearing up and getting more experience on your priest, mana is going to be a limited resource for you. You are going to need to get the hang of “triage healing,” which is where you heal people for only as much as they need and not just to top them off. With triage healing, you may have to get more comfortable seeing your tank at 90% or lower and the DPS may sit at 75% or even 50% while you are learning the ropes of being a holy priest and how to spend your mana wisely. As you can see, stacking Haste and triage healing do not go hand in hand.

The only reason Critical Strike would be important to you is for Inspiration and you should have enough Critical Strike on your gear already or through Intellect where you do not need to go out of your way to gear for it. In fact, Critical Strike rating is usually the first secondary stat that you will reforge into something else, if you have the choice. We will talk more about reforging a bit later in this post.

If you are raiding at the current level of progression or just slightly behind it, meaning you’re raiding Firelands or Dragon Soul, your stat priority should look a little something like this:

Intellect < Spirit < Spell Power < Haste (to 19%) < Mastery < Critical Strike

At first glance, it looks like your priority may be the same as a holy priest who is just starting out, but there are a few changes. Even though you can do without the excessive amounts of Spirit that a novice priest might need to get by, I still suggest that you take gear with Spirit on it over pieces that do not. Spirit makes a great secondary stat that you can reforge into another stat that you might need, without having to give up other stats that are useful to you on an existing piece of gear. With that said, the Spirit that you have now should already be on your gear. You should not be reforging into Spirit, enchanting for it, or anything else like that.

The second Haste breakpoint of 37.50% is still going to be just out of your reach, although certain procs from weapons or trinkets can certainly help you get there. However, you should be able to obtain enough Haste, through your gear, reforging, etc. where you can reduce the cast time of your Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Healing spells to 2 seconds. As you will probably spend most of your time as a holy priest healing the raid, having a 2 second Prayer of Healing can make a huge difference in your throughput and reaction time to incoming damage. You can expect to reach this point once you have about 19% Haste, fully buffed. You will probably need to gem for Haste, enchant for it, and put points into Darkness to get here, but it is well worth it.

After that, because you probably will not be able to reach the next actual Haste breakpoint on your own, I would recommend prioritizing Mastery next. One could argue that by gearing for Critical Strike over Mastery that your spells will heal for more, which in turn will leave a more powerful HoT on a target from Echo of Light. However, Critical Strike rating is not a consistent throughput stat. You could just as easily gear for Mastery, which means that your HoT will always heal for a set percentage of the original heal, rather than relying on Critical Strike to possibly make it heal for more.

III. REFORGING

If an item has Spirit and Haste on it:

reforge the Haste into Mastery, if you are just starting out.
reforge the Spirit into Mastery, if you are not.

If an item has Spirit and Mastery on it:

reforge the Mastery into Haste, if you are looking to go past the first Haste breakpoint.
reforge nothing, if you are not.

If an item has Spirit and Critical Strike on it:

reforge the Critical Strike into Haste or Mastery, depending on your preference.

If an item has Haste and Critical Strike on it:

reforge the Critical Strike into Spirit, if you need the regen.
reforge the Critical Strike into Mastery, if you do not.

If an item has Haste and Mastery on it:

reforge either of the stats into Spirit, if you need the regen.
reforge nothing if you do not.

If an item has Mastery and Critical Strike:

reforge the Critical Strike into Spirit, if you need the regen.
reforge the Critical Strike into Haste, if you do not.

IV. HEALING SPELLS

Holy priests have a large arsenal of spells from which to choose from. It is important to know which spell is the right one to use for any given situation.

Power Word: Shield

Instant cast spell, which surrounds the ally and absorbs damage.
Does not actually provide any healing, unless you glyph for it.
This spell is typically not used by holy priests, unless they are trying to grant someone the speed boost that goes along with Body and Soul.

Binding Heal

A 1.5 second cast spell, which heals yourself and the target of your heal.
Generates a low amount of threat.
This spell will leave a HoT from Echo of Light on each person healed.
If you have Renew on yourself and someone else, and you use Binding Heal while in Chakra: Serenity, it will refresh the duration of the Renew on both characters.
This spell is twice as likely to trigger a proc from Surge of Light than other spells included in this talent. You can read more about this here.
Can be expensive if used repeatedly and should be used wisely.

Circle of Healing

An instant cast spell which heals the 5 most injured players or pets around the target.
You can heal up to 6 people with this spell, if you glyph for it, but this comes with an increased mana cost.
Should not be used too often in 5 mans, unless you need to heal on the run.
This is a core spell for a raid healing holy priest and is frequently used on cooldown.

Desperate Prayer

An instant cast self heal, which costs no mana and comes with a 2 minute cooldown.
Should be used in emergency situations where you need a fast, efficient heal.
The healing provided by this is affected by Echo of Light.

Divine Hymn

A channeled spell that heals the 5 party or raid members with the lowest health within 40 yards every 2 seconds for 8 seconds and increases the healing done to them by 10% for 8 seconds.
Divine Hymn determines who the most damaged party or raid members are prior to each tick going out and then heals them. This means that the same 5 people may not receive all of the healing from Divine Hymn, as each heal will always go to the raid member who is most in need of healing.
Normally caps at 20 heals, but this can be increased to 25 heals by reaching the first Haste breakpoint of 12.50% Haste.
This spell should only be used in situations where the group or raid is taking heavy amounts of damage that you feel you may not be able to react to in any other way. It also works well when used with other people’s cooldowns, as it will increase all of the healing done to those healed by Divine Hymn, in addition to the healing provided by Divine Hymn.

Flash Heal

A 1.5 second cast direct healing spell which is meant to be used as a fast, emergency heal.
Can be expensive and should not be spammed.
Use immediately after Holy Word: Serenity for a quick way to get someone back up to full health.

Greater Heal

A 3 second cast spell which provides a large amount of healing to a single target.
Greater Heal is best used in conjunction with Serendipity, due to how expensive it is and how long it takes to cast.
Can be used by itself, but should only be used in emergency situations. It is not meant to be a spell that you spam, or cast repeatedly.

Heal

A 3 second cast spell which provides a modest amount of healing to a single target.
This spell is very mana efficient and is best used during periods of moderate and predictable damage.
Heal may not provide enough healing to top someone off after a large damage spike. Use Flash Heal or Greater Heal, instead.

Lightwell

A unique type of heal that creates an object which people can click on to receive a short burst of periodic healing.
Lightwell lasts for 3 minutes and typically comes with 10 charges, or you can glyph for it and have it come with 15. Each charge gives an ally the Lightwell Renew effect, which heals them for a certain amount over 6 seconds, or three ticks of healing total.
If a person using the Lightwell takes damage equal to 30% of their health, it will cancel the Lightwell Renew effect.
The healing provided by Lightwell is not passive. A player must actively mouse over the Lightwell and click on it in order to begin receiving healing from it.
The healing provided by Lightwell Renew does not trigger Echo of Light and is not affected by your Critical Strike rating.
With enough Haste rating, it is possible to get a fourth tick out of a charge from Lightwell. Raid buffs, such as Moonkin Aura, Wrath of Air Totem, or Mind Quickening, and talents like Darkness will not have any effect on this, as they increase your Haste and not your Haste rating. This is widely considered to be a bug that has not yet been addressed by the developers. Because it is unclear how much actual Haste you need to reach this point (my research has shown anywhere between 1700 – 3600 Haste does the trick) it is not something you should go out of your way to achieve. However, if you are already gearing for Haste, it may be possible to reach this point, with the help of trinkets or weapons that come with sizable Haste procs (like Seal of the Seven Signs or Ti’tahk, Steps of Time).
Lightwell lasts for 3 minutes, until all of the charges are consumed, or until you move too far from away it and it despawns.

Prayer of Healing

A 2.5 second cast heal, which heals the friendly target and their party members who are within range of them.
It has a healing radius of 30 yards, but has a cast range of 40 yards. This means that the person you want to target with Prayer of Healing must be within 40 yards of you and that the people in their party need to be within 30 yards of them to receive the healing from this spell.
Glyph of Prayer Healing enhances the throughput from this spell, by healing all affected targets for an additional 20% of the initial heal over 6 seconds.
This spell is best used in situations where at least 3 people in a party require healing. Circle of Healing should be used first, followed by Prayer of Healing, when in a raid setting. In a 5 man dungeon, Prayer of Healing should be used over Circle of Healing, unless you have to heal the party while moving.

Prayer of Mending

An instant cast spell, which puts a reactive buff on the target that heals them when they take any damage and then moves or bounces to another party or raid member within 20 yards.
Comes with a maximum of 5 charges, which are not consumed by environmental damage (i.e. falling or fatigue) or spells that reduce the caster’s hit points (like Life Tap). However, spells which cause damage to the caster, like Hellfire or Shadow Word: Death will cause Prayer of Mending to jump to someone else.
The heal from Prayer of Mending can crit and is affected by Echo of Light.
Tanks make the best targets for Prayer of Mending, as they are the ones who are most likely to take damage and to keep the buff active. It is best used at the start of a pull, but Prayer of Mending does not stack, and so it is possible to cancel out a Prayer of Mending already on the target with one that is recently cast. This can cause some strife between the healing priests in your raid, if you run with more than one, so be sure to coordinate this type of thing with them, or simply wait until theirs has been consumed before you cast yours.
Any threat that is generated by Prayer of Mending is considered to be generated by the healing priest, not by the recipient of the heal.
Prayer of Mending should be used on cooldown, whenever possible.

Renew

A HoT spell, which provides a set amount of healing over 12 seconds.
Renew normally provides one tick of healing every three seconds, to give a total of four ticks. With 12.50% Haste, you can receive a fifth tick of healing from Renew and a sixth tick at the next Haste breakpoint, which is at 37.50%.
The ticks of healing from Renew will not trigger Echo of Light, but the direct healing component of Divine Touch will. Heals provided by Renew also have a chance to crit.
Renew should be kept on the tank at all times, either by re-applying it or refreshing it with the use of direct heals while in Chakra: Serenity.
This spell is best used as a spot heal, for situations where there may not be enough people taking damage to warrant the use of Circle of Healing or Prayer of Healing. It is not meant to be used on a large number of people, like holy priests used to do in previous expansions.

V. BUFFS

There are a number of buffs available to priests that you may want to make sure are cast on people either prior to the pull or immediately upon resurrection.

Fear Ward

An instant cast spell which makes the target immune to a single Fear effect.
This effect lasts for 3 minutes and Fear Ward comes with a 3 minute cooldown.
The buff is consumed, even if the target is already immune to fear (like through Berserker Rage).
Can be used prior to a pull that you know is going to lead to a target being feared or immediately before a spell is cast which will lead to that outcome.

Inner Fire/Inner Will

Free, instant cast self buffs.
Only one may remain active at a time and you should always have one on you at all times.
Inner Will is primarily for priests who are just starting out and who may not have the mana efficiency required for Inner Fire just yet. Once you feel that you have a handle on your mana pool, Inner Fire is going to be the buff of choice.
It is possible to “dance” between buffs, as needed. For example, if you need a movement speed increase, you can swap from Inner Fire to Inner Will and then revert back once you do not need that advantage anymore. Or you can go from Inner Fire to Inner Will if you are running low on mana and feel that the buff could help your mana conservation.

Levitate

A utility based spell that allows the target to levitate, reducing the speed of falling and allowing them to walk on water, or other liquid surfaces.
Levitate cannot be cast on targets who are mounted and any damage received will break the effect.
Can only be cast on people in your raid group or party.
Normally requires a reagent to cast, but Glyph of Levitate removes the need for this.
While it does not have many practical purposes in a PVE environment, Levitate can be used to avoid the Quake ability from the Crystalspawn Giants in the Stonecore instance.

Power Word: Fortitude

A party or raid buff that provides a certain amount of Stamina to the group for 1 hour.
This buff should be kept up all times and refreshed promptly, if a target dies and is brought back to life.
Does not stack with Blood Pact, Commanding Shout, or Qiraji Fortitude.

Shadow Protection

A party or raid buff that provides a certain amount of shadow resistance to the group for 1 hour.
This buff is only required for fights that involve shadow damage, as it significantly boosts your resistance to shadow spells only.
Does not stack with Resistance Aura.

VI. OTHER ABILITIES

Dispel Magic

A spell that can remove magical debuffs from yourself or your allies and that can remove buffs from enemy targets.

Mass Dispel

A spell that will attempt to remove 1 harmful debuff from any friendly targets or 1 buff from any enemy targets within a 15 yard radius.
Can affect a maximum of 10 friendly or 10 enemy targets.
Mass Dispel can remove magical effects that Dispel Magic cannot, such as Banish, Divine Shield, or Ice Block.
Targets those closest to the center of the green targeting circle and then moves outward.

Shackle Undead

A form of crowd control that works on Undead enemies and makes them unable to move or attack.

Cure Disease

Removes one disease from a friendly target.

Chakra

Please see the Chakra section of this guide for more information on this ability.

Guardian Spirit

An instant cast ability that causes a target to receive 60% more healing for 10 seconds. If a player dies while under the effects of Guardian Spirit, the Spirit will sacrifice itself to heal them for 50% of their maximum health.
Guardian Spirit is not affected by the global cooldown and the heal from it is able to crit.
The most Guardian Spirit can heal for is 200% of the maximum health of the caster, not the target.
The component of Guardian Spirit that increases healing received only lasts as long as the target survives. If the target dies and is brought back to life by Guardian Spirit, they no longer have that part of the buff on them, even if there was still enough time left on the buff for them to benefit from it.
This spell is most often used on tanks and can either be used at your discretion or can be requested in advance.

Hymn of Hope

A channeled spell that restores 2% mana to up to 3 nearby party or raid members with the lowest amount of mana for 8 seconds and increases their total maximum mana by 15% for 8 seconds.
Should be used in situations where you or others around you are low on mana and need help getting some of it back. For the best effect, use abilities that give you mana back, based on your maximum mana while the buff from Hymn of Hope is active (i.e. Arcane Torrent, Shadowfiend).
Priests now have 100% spell pushback while channeling this spell and will not be interrupted or lose channeling time because of incoming damage. However, you can still be stunned or interrupted and be forced to stop channeling because of this.

Leap of Faith

Also known as “Life Grip,” and pulls a party or raid member to your location.
Can be used to help with kiting situations or to help pull an ally out of something bad they are standing in.

Resurrection

Brings a dead player back to life. Cannot be used in combat.

Fade

Used to temporarily reduce the amount of aggro that you have or that you generate while in groups.
Should be used wisely and not spammed repeatedly throughout an encounter.

Psychic Scream

A form of crowd control that causes up to 5 nearby enemy targets to run away in fear.
Psychic Scream is not a reliable form of crowd control and should be used wisely in instances, especially in places where enemy targets are tightly grouped together. If you find that you have aggro, it is best to run towards the tank, so they can pull the enemies off of you. Using this spell to make them run away in fear only makes it harder for the tank to pick up threat on those targets again.

Shadowfiend

Summons a pet that temporarily fights for you and whose attacks help you regenerate mana when they land.
Each successful strike from a shadowfiend returns 3% of your maximum mana, so it is best to use it when you are under the effect of something that will increase the size of your mana pool (i.e. Power Torrent, a trinket like Fiery Quintessence).
Should be used on targets that are not near death, as the shadowfiend may not find another target right away if its current target dies and it may stand there and do nothing.
Can return more mana if used while Bloodlust or Heroism is active.
It was widely suggested at one point to use shadowfiend with Hymn of Hope to get the most mana back. While this strategy does indeed work, it can also be a challenge to time both abilities just right and to make sure that each ability sees its full duration (i.e. the shadowfiend does not die early or stops attacking or you get interrupted while channeling Hymn of Hope).

VII. CHAKRA

Introduced in Cataclysm, Chakra is a core ability for any holy priest, whether they are doing dailies by themselves or in a group and providing much needed healing. Chakra can be confusing and even overwhelming to some priests, but can become easy to use and adapt to with a little patience.

To place yourself in a Chakra state, simply cast Chakra and then cast one of eight spells immediately after that. Whichever spell you choose to cast next will determine which Chakra state that you enter.

Casting Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Binding Heal after casting Chakra will put you into Chakra: Serenity, which is our tank or single target healing stance. While in this particular Chakra, your direct healing spells have a 10% increased chance to crit and they will refresh the duration of a Renew that is already present on the target.

Casting Prayer of Mending or Prayer of Healing after casting Chakra will put you into Chakra: Sanctuary, which is our AOE or raid healing stance. This Chakra increases the healing done by your AOE healing spells and Renew by 15% and reduces the cooldown of Circle of Healing by 2 seconds.

You can also choose to enter a third state, called Chakra: Chastise, by casting Smite or Mind Spike after casting Chakra. This state increases your total damage done with holy and shadow spells by 15%.

In order to get the most out of your Chakra states, you want to place a talent point into a nearby talent in the holy tree called Revelations, which will convert your Holy Word: Chastise spell into another ability, depending on which Chakra state that you are in at the time.

Being in Chakra: Serenity will give you access to a spell called Holy Word: Serenity, which provides an instant cast direct heal on a target and increases your chance to critically heal that player by 25% for 8 seconds. Comes with a 15 second cooldown.

Holy Word: Sanctuary will become available to you once you activate Chakra: Sanctuary and lets you create a zone of healing light on the ground which heals anyone standing inside of it every 2 seconds for 18 seconds. It used to provide diminished returns, if more than 6 people were standing inside of it, but this was recently removed. Comes with a 40 second cooldown.

Chakra: Chastise is the only Chakra state which does not change Holy Word: Chastise into something else. The spell remains exactly the same as it is when you are not in a Chakra state.

Chakra comes with a 30 second cooldown, so if you enter the wrong Chakra state by mistake, you will have to wait at least 30 seconds to change into the correct stance. However, once you enter a Chakra state, you can remain in it, indefinitely. In the past, you had to maintain your Chakra state by casting certain spells (the ones that you would use to enter a Chakra state, to begin with), but that was removed a short time after Cataclysm launched.

For more information on Chakra, please see my Guide to the Chakra Sutra.

VIII. TALENTS

The most popular talent builds for a holy priest do not leave much in the way of versatility or options, mostly because we have very few filler talents to speak of. All of our talent points go towards things that we need in order to do our jobs well, and so we rarely have additional points to play with or to put into less useful things.

The two most common builds tend to revolve around your stat priority or which secondary stats you decide you want to gear for. Some talents are optional, while others are quite mandatory. Here are some builds that I would suggest for you to choose from, depending on your current situation.

For the holy priest who has just turned 85 or is gearing up through 5 mans:

This spec makes a great starter build for an up and coming holy priest, with an emphasis on talents that will help you manage your mana and that will help enhance the basic spells that you will be relying on in a 5 man setting.

Darkness and Divine Fury are important, as your spells are going to feel like they take a long time to cast, and every little bit of Haste helps. You also want to try and start gearing towards that first Haste breakpoint of 12.50, so you can get an extra tick of Renew and Divine Hymn. Speaking of Divine Hymn, I only placed 1 talent point into Heavenly Voice, as you should not be using Divine Hymn too much in a 5 man dungeon. Most of your talent points in this build will go towards enhancing your single target heals, like Heal, Flash Heal, and Greater Heal.

For the raiding holy priest, who is choosing to gear for Haste over Mastery:

This build is not much different than the previous starter build, with a few noticeable differences. Surge of Light has been removed, as you will most likely not be using most of the spells that would proc this talent in a raid enough where you would really benefit from having it. A second talent point has been placed into Heavenly Voice, as Divine Hymn is a very powerful cooldown and will be used frequently. One point was placed in Rapid Renewal, as Renew will start seeing more use as a spot heal once your gear improves and you should always be keeping Renew on the tank.

For the raiding holy priest, who is choosing to gear for Mastery over Haste:

This build is a more refined version of the previous two and focuses more on survivability and raw throughput, with less emphasis on Haste. Darkness is out, which leaves 3 additional talent points to put elsewhere. I would recommend placing these points into Inner Sanctum, as Blessed Resilience only helps you if you are the focus of an attack. Any damage caused by general raid damage or things like that will not proc this talent for you anymore. The 6% reduction in spell damage will benefit you in situations like those and especially if you find yourself breaking into Heroic modes, where the incoming raid damage can be quite intense.

IX. MASTERY

Our Mastery is called Echo of Light and it allows each direct heal that you cast on someone to heal them for an additional 16% over 6 seconds. Each additional point of Mastery that you have will increase the size of this heal by an extra 1.25%. The heal over time portion of Echo of Light ticks 6 times, or once per second. This healing is not affected by your Critical Strike or Haste rating.

“How does Echo of Light work?”

Any time that you cast one of the above mentioned heals or healing effects on someone, Echo of Light will leave behind a heal over time effect on them for 16% of how much that ability healed them for. For example:

Obscene’s Flash Heal heals Obscene for 16471 Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 454 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 455 health from Obscene’s Echo of Light

Admittedly, that doesn’t sound like a lot. Where Echo of Light really shines is with abilities that heal more than one person, like Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing. Having numerous people receive an additional heal over time on them after you heal them is pretty nice and makes a difference on fights with heavy AOE damage. People standing in the effects of Holy Word: Sanctuary will also receive heals from Echo of Light and it will refresh itself as the person stands inside of it and for as long as the healing zone is generating heals.

Obscene’s Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Obscene for 680 Obscene gains 19 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene’s Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Obscene for 674 Obscene gains 19 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene’s Echo of Light is refreshed on Obscene Obscene gains 28 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene’s Holy Word: Sanctuary heals Obscene for 621 Obscene gains 28 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene’s Echo of Light is refreshed on Obscene

This brings up a very good point and the next thing I will talk about.

“How does Echo of Light refresh itself?”

At first glance, it is easy to think that the heal over time placed by Echo of Light from a larger heal will be clipped by one from a smaller heal and then the overall effectiveness will be reduced. I used to think this way, too. Luckily, Echo of Light works in such a way where the overall HPS does not change because of this and will still provide a consistent amount of healing. Let’s say that I cast Greater Heal on myself and then Heal shortly after it.

Obscene’s Greater Heal heals Obscene for 21408 Obscene gains Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 592 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 592 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene’s Heal heals Obscene for 8026 Obscene’s Echo of Light is refreshed on Obscene Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 518 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light Obscene gains 517 Health from Obscene’s Echo of Light

You may notice that the ticks from Echo of Light which came after Heal are healing for less than those that came after Greater Heal. You may also notice that refreshing Echo of Light before it was finished ticking down caused a 7th tick of Echo of Light to take place the next time around. As stated earlier, Echo of Light typically only provides 6 ticks. What does it all mean? It means that you did not actually heal for any less because you refreshed Echo of Light with a smaller heal. Let me show you how.

If you total up all of the Echo of Light ticks that took place in the previous example, you would come up with 4803. This is roughly the sum of 16% of the amount of your Greater Heal (3425) plus 16% of the amount of your Heal (1284) or what each would have normally healed for had the heal not been clipped. You can see that you have not actually lost any healing. You probably gained some, depending on how much Mastery rating you have. Mine is currently at 13.25 for the purpose of these examples.

The game took the amount of healing done by Echo of Light from the first heal (21408 x 16%), subtracted the healing that was already done (592 + 591) and then adds the healing that would take place by Echo of Light from the next spell (8026 x 16%). Then it divides that amount by 7, which give you 7 ticks of Echo of Light.

3425 – 1183 = 2242 + 1284 = 3526/7

When you add it all up, you will see that your Echo of Light was not affected negatively and you have not lost any healing by casting a smaller heal over a larger one.

(Excerpts taken from my original post, called “Understanding Echo of Light.”)

X. HOW TO TANK HEAL

For the rare occasions that you will be tank healing, you will want to make sure you are in Chakra: Serenity before you do anything else. Tank healing while holy tends to follow more of a rotation, so here are the steps I would suggest to follow when doing so.

Step #1: Cast Prayer of Mending on the tank and refresh on cooldown.

Step #2: Cast Renew.

Step #3: Spam Heal, as it is extremely mana efficient and keeps Renew and Echo of Light rolling on the tank, along with Inspiration.

Step #4: Use Holy Word: Serenity if the tank suddenly gets low. Follow it up with a fast heal, like Flash Heal. Use another Flash Heal if the previous one was not enough and then Greater Heal, if you require even more healing.

Step #5: Repeat, as necessary.

Flash Heal will give you one stack of Serendipity each time that you use it, so make sure you try to stabilize the tank with Flash Heal before you go straight to using Greater Heal. Trying to cast Greater Heal without any stacks of Serendipity present will be more expensive and it will take longer to cast.

Use Renew as a spot heal for individuals who may need healing in your party or Prayer of Healing if at least 3 people in the party require healing. If you take damage, use Binding Heal on the tank or someone else. Try not to use Circle of Healing too much in a 5m setting, unless you find that you need to heal while moving.

XI. HOW TO RAID HEAL

Chakra: Sanctuary will be your Chakra of choice, for when you are asked to heal the raid, which will be more often than not. Make sure you are in this stance before you begin tossing out heals. There is not a set rotation for raid healing, but there are some things to bear in mind.

Rule #1: Start off the pull by casting Prayer of Mending, preferably on the tank. It is possible to cast it on other targets during an encounter, depending on how much raid damage is going out. As stated in the tank healing section, you should be using Prayer of Mending on cooldown.

Rule #2: If at least 3 people in the raid, who are not in the same party are taking damage, use Circle of Healing.

If at least 3 people in the raid, who are in the same party have taken damage, use Prayer of Healing. Always use Circle of Healing first, then try to heal any groups back up to full with Prayer of Healing.

Rule #3: Always drop a Lightwell. Make sure you have a macro to announce that you have cast a Lightwell and be sure to vocalize where the Lightwell is in Vent or Mumble, if you can. If you notice that people are not clicking your Lightwell, ask people if dropping it in a better place may help. The most common reason that people do not click it is because they either cannot see it or they cannot reach it. Try to meet them halfway on this.

Contrary to popular opinion, it may not always be best to drop a Lightwell at the start of the pull. Some fights like Yor’sahj or Ultraxion have raid wide damage that takes a while to get going. Make sure you are dropping your Lightwell during times where it will get the most use.

Rule #4: Use Holy Word: Sanctuary carefully. Be sure to use this spell only during times where people are guranteed to be grouped up and standing still long enough to benefit from the healing that it puts out. For instance, you do not want to drop it when everyone is running around the platform on Hagara. But you will want to drop it throughout most of the Ultraxion fight, as you are standing in one place for the majority of the encounter.

Another piece of advice I would give you about Holy Word: Sanctuary is to give it time for it to do its thing. The healing that comes from this spell does not come quickly, but it does build up over time to eventually put out some nice numbers. It does not make any sense to drop a Sanctuary zone and then immediately override your own heals by spamming Circle of Healing or Prayer of Healing. There are situations where the outgoing raid damage is so intense that you will be casting frantically, in order to keep up. But more often than not it does not hurt to cast Holy Word: Sanctuary and then keep an eye on the healing that it is slowly dishing out, filling in gaps when needed.

Rule #5: Do not spam Renew. Renew makes a great spot heal for individuals who are taking damage and in situations where your group healing spells may be overkill. Renew is great to keep rolling on a tank, if you can afford to do so. But please do not use Renew en masse to keep your raid up through incoming damage. You have other spells that can handle this better and without causing you to run out of mana so quickly.

XII. GLYPHS

Prime

The first thing I would like to suggest, regarding glyphs, is that you always keep a stack of Dust of Disappearance on you. There are some fights where some glyphs may shine more than others and it helps to tailor your glyph choices to meet your needs. While there are a number of glyphs available for holy priests, there are only a select few that are worth even considering. Here are some of the top choices that you may want to pick up for yourself.

[Glyph of Power Word: Shield] This glyph can be useful when you are first starting out, as the heal that comes from putting a shield on someone is considered a direct heal, for the purpose of refreshing Renew while in Chakra: Serenity.

[Glyph of Lightwell] This is a vital glyph that gives your Lightwell 5 extra charges for people to use. The only downside to this glyph is that like most things concerning Lightwell, its usefulness is dependent on the people in your raid or party actually using it. If your group tends to ignore the Lightwell, this glyph may not be the best for you.

[Glyph of Renew] This glyph can be useful, depending on how often you use Renew and how much of your healing on the tank from Renew goes straight to overhealing.

[Glyph of Prayer of Healing] An essential glyph, which leaves a HoT on targets healed by Prayer of Healing for 20% of the initial heal. Shines in a 5 man setting, but shines even more in raids.

[Glyph of Guardian Spirit] This glyph used to be much more powerful in the previous expansion, but still has some use in recent times. If you are about to heal an encounter where Guardian Spirit is really relied upon or you are expected to use it at specific times, this glyph may be a good choice for you. If you are using Guardian Spirit on more of a “free for all” basis, I would consider a different glyph.

Major

[Glyph of Desperation] This glyph is considered to be more of a PVP glyph, but I have found uses for it in a PVE setting. You can use it while entombed on Hagara and also while wrapped up in a tentacle on Spine of Deathwing. While it is not overwhelmingly useful, there are situations where this glyph can come in handy for you. Feel free to experiment and see what other fights you could get some use out of this one on.

[Glyph of Circle of Healing] The recent change to this glyph, which increased its mana cost by 20% means that it could be less useful to you in a 10m setting, where Prayer of Healing tends to be used more and often times for less mana. I would consider this an essential glyph for a 25 man raider, but more of a toss up for someone who is raiding in a 10 man group.

[Glyph of Prayer of Mending] Another glyph that is mandatory, this glyph causes the first heal provided by Prayer of Mending to heal for an additional 60%. This should be more of an incentive for you to keep Prayer of Mending bouncing at all times and the healing from this glyph can make a nice showing on the meters, too.

[Glyph of Fade] This glyph can be useful when first starting out, especially if you are running with tanks who have just hit level 85 and are finding their footing, too. There should not be too many situations where you would need this glyph in a raid setting. If you do, this may mean you need to have a conversation with your tanks to try and understand where the problem lies.

Minor

[Glyph of Fortitude] This glyph can help save you a bit of mana when you are buffing the raid before the pull or if you have to buff someone who has just received a battle res.

[Glyph of Shadow Protection] This glyph makes it so that you do not have to re-apply the Shadow Protection buff as often. Mind you, there are not many situations where you need it for more than 30 minutes at a time, but this glyph is there if you do find yourself in that type of predicament.

[Glyph of Levitate] More of a vanity glyph or something fun to have on you. Levitate has never been an essential spell, but not having to carry reagents around is always a good thing.

[Glyph of Shadowfiend] Some priests feel that this glyph has declined in usefulness, as Shadowfiend now takes 90% less AOE damage. I still think it is better to be safe than sorry and the added insurance does not hurt. This glyph may not be as useful as it once was, but I think it still has a place in one of your glyph slots.

XIII. ENCHANTS

Head

Arcanum of Hyjal+60 Intellect and 35 Critical Strike Rating Guardians of Hyjal – Revered

Shoulders

Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone+30 Intellect and 20 Haste Rating Therazane – Honored

Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone+50 Intellect and 25 Haste Rating Therazane – Revered

Felfire Inscription+130 Intellect and 25 Haste Rating Inscription

Cloak

Enchant Cloak – Intellect
+30 Intellect Enchanting

Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect
+50 Intellect Enchanting

Darkglow Embroidery (Rank 2)Chance to increase your Spirit by 580 for 15 seconds when you cast a spell Tailoring

Lightweave Embroidery (Rank 2)Chance to increase your Intellect by 580 for 15 seconds when you cast a spell. Tailoring

Chest

Enchant Chest – Mighty Stats
+15 to all stats Enchanting

Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
+20 to all stats Enchanting

Bracers

Draconic Embossment – Intellect
+130 Intellect Leatherworking

Enchant Bracer – Speed
+50 Haste Enchanting

Enchant Bracer – Greater Speed
+65 Haste Enchanting

Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect
+50 Intellect Enchanting

Gloves

Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery
+65 Mastery Enchanting

Enchant Gloves – Haste
+50 Haste Enchanting

Legs

Ghostly Spellthread
+55 Intellect and 45 Spirit Tailoring

Powerful Ghostly Spellthread+95 Intellect and 55 Spirit Tailoring

Sanctified Spellthread (Rank 2)+95 Intellect and 55 Spirit Tailoring

Boots

Enchant Boots – Haste
+50 Haste Enchanting

Enchant Boots – Lavawalker+35 Mastery and Minor Movement Speed Enchanting

Enchant Boots – Mastery
+50 Mastery Enchanting

Weapons

Enchant Weapon – HeartsongChance to increase Spirit by 200 for 15 seconds when healing or dealing damage with spells Enchanting

Enchant Weapon – Power TorrentChance to increase Intellect for 500 for 12 seconds when dealing damage or healing with spells Enchanting

Which should you choose?

If you’re interested solely in regen, choose Heartsong. If you’re interested in less regen with some throughput on the side, choose Power Torrent.

For more information on both of these enchants, please view my original Heartsong v. Power Torrent post.

Off-hands

Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect+40 Intellect Enchanting

XIV. GEMS

If you are looking to fill a red socket: - Brilliant Inferno Ruby: +40 Intellect (rare) - Brilliant Queen’s Garnet: +50 Intellect (epic)

If you are looking to fill a yellow socket: - Artful Ember Topaz: + 20 Intellect and 20 Mastery (rare) - Artful Lava Coral: +25 Intellect and 25 Mastery (epic)

Reckless Ember Topaz: +20 Intellect and 20 Haste (rare)
Reckless Lava Coral: +25 Intellect and 25 Haste (epic)

If you are looking to fill a a blue socket: - Purified Demonseye: +20 Intellect and 20 Spirit (rare) - Purified Shadow Spinel: +25 Intellect and 25 Spirit (epic)

Meta gems: - Ember Shadowspirit Diamond: +54 Intellect and 2% Maximum Mana (requires at least 2 yellow gems) - Burning Shadowspirit Diamond: +54 Intellect and 3% Increased Critical Effect (requires at least 3 red gems)

XV. CONSUMABLES

Flasks: - Flask of Flowing Water: Increases Spirit by 300 for 1 hour - Flask of the Draconic Mind: Increases Intellect by 300 for 1 hour

Food: - Delicious Sagefish Tail: Increases Spirit and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour - Severed Sagefish Head: Increases Intellect and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour - Basilisk Liverdog: Increases Haste and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour - Lavascale Minestrone: Increases Mastery and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour

Seafood Magnifique: Increases Intellect and Stamina by 90 for 1 hour

Potions: - Mythical Mana Potion: Restores 9250 to 10,750 mana. 1 minute cooldown. - Potion of Concentration: Restores 22,000 over 10 seconds, but requires you to stand still and channel to gain the full effect. - Volcanic Potion: Increases Intellect by 1200 for 25 seconds. Great for situations where mana is not an issue, but additional throughput is.

An Update and a Word for Posterity

Tales of a Priest 27 Jan 2012, 8:28 pm CET

Its been a couple of weeks since my last post, and that is by no means a sign of anything regarding ToaP… I simply have been busy with a number of things both in and out of game. I’ll keep my personal and professional life out of the blog, however I will make a post regarding the amazing folks of <Edge> on the US-Garona server…

On the coattails of Edge’s 5-year anniversary, Edge officially retired as a 25-Man Raiding Guild.

Edge slew Heroic Ultraxion, and capstoned an amazing run with 3 years of being top 100 US and 2 years of being in the Top 50 US. I would be remiss not to personally thank all those in Edge, past and present, for an amazing place to call home on Garona. The officers have done an amazing job, and welcomed me into their midst as an unknown Priest and made my way to officer myself a few of months ago.

Meloree, our Main Tank, Raid Leader, and really backbone of the guild should be commended on his stalwart loyalty and drive to push the guild to do what he knew we could. Mel is more than just a great RL, he also is a great friend. Thank you, sir… you should be proud of what you’ve helped Edge do.

While I am sad to see <Edge> retire after an amazing 5 years of raiding, I am glad that I was lucky to make some great friends there… thank goodness for Real ID!

But wait… there’s more.

This post does more than memorialize Edge, it also highlights a new chapter in my raiding life. As of Wednesday, I am officially an Applicant with Something Wicked on the US-Whisperwind server. I am excited at this new opprtunity, the folks there so far seem like a great group. I am really excited to get the chance to raid with some existing friends I’ve met through the WoW Blogging/Twitter Community as well as a former guildmate from my first-ever Raiding Guild.

My first raid was last night, and things seem to be off to a good start. I’m learning how the other healers heal, how the tanks take damage, and how the guild formulates strats. We made quick work of Heroic Ultraxion and fast repeat kill of Heroic Blackhorn… and now onto Heroic Spine. I welcome the challenges of working with a new team during my trial, figuring out how to gel in the healing core as a unit, and hopefully move onto Pandaria as a strong healing core.

Here we go!

An Update and a Word for Posterity is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The People of RaidFinder

Too Many Annas 27 Jan 2012, 4:09 pm CET

Having done a few RaidFinder groups, I’m starting to notice patterns. Sadly, they’re not really GOOD patterns. For whatever reason, the players who show up, do their jobs, get loot and go on their merry way don’t seem to stick out in LFR. On the other hand, the ones that DO stick out tend to be… memorable.

And so I present to you, the people of Raid Finder:

Guys I’m SO baked – drunk, high, stoned, exhausted, or otherwise generally mentally incapacitated. Probably still trying to main tank too.
Walking Taunt Button – taunts everything off the tank. Even if they’re not the main tank. Sometimes even if they’re just DPS. Probably has “taunt” macro’d to every other button.
Hypercompetitive DPS – often meter spamming. Sometimes abrasive to other DPS. Possibly Tarquin.
DPS Farmers (whatever that means)
Bad Directions – no matter how you do it, it’s wrong. His way is better. Shouts directions repeatedly in /yell or /RA, but isn’t the raid leader. Annoying if ignored, wipe-creating if only half the raid is paying attention.
Not Paying Attention – Wait, we got loot? Which boss are we at now? Where are you guys going?
I Have An Interrupt Macro, would you like to see it? – I use it every time I interrupt this trash mob! And the boss!
Get Loot + Go - rolls on something, wins, drops group. Sometimes doesn’t even win loot.
Worst Name Contest - so far the list includes Tittenkits, ElusiveTacos, ShavedTaters and SpasticColon

I’m SURE you guys can come up with some more…

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you*** The People of RaidFinder

There’s No Place Like Home

Too Many Annas 27 Jan 2012, 2:25 pm CET

I was reading a post the other day from Ask a Jedi, about how his characters in other games had places that felt like “home”, where in Star Wars they kind of didn’t.

It’s a good post, and an interesting one in terms of game design.

In WoW, each race has its own “flavor” for the first 10 levels (especially now that Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles are complete). You really have a very specific feel and lore that helps set up who your character is. You’re level 1, and you feel like it. There’s even a quest that welcomes your character into the “fold” of your class, sent as a note from the trainer. This adds a lot to the feeling of “home”, as does the fact that each race has a city (or a chunk of a city) as their main base and political capitol.

Star Wars has chosen to have the entry points be synchronized by class, and have two classes share each starting zone. I’ve only played through Tython at this point (twice…), but the lore and the quest text are set up so that you’re already an accomplished force user when you begin. It’s not so much a feeling of learning something new as it is furthering a profession you’re already an accepted part of. The smuggler intro text also fits this mold.

Plus, since Star Wars isn’t about the various races, but simply about being part of the Republic or part of the Empire, there’s only one major “city hub” per faction. It’s not seen as critical in the progress of the game whether your character is a Mirialan or a Zabrak or a Human. You’re part of the Empire/Republic, and that’s where your major story-based allegiances lie.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t do your own thing. I ended up creating a backstory for Aely that tells me about who she was before she began Jedi training, and well before she ended up on Tython. I needed her to feel like she had a “home” – and to some extent not being able to have that home be in the game is a little sad. Even though “loss of homeland” is a big part of her core character in both games, it was easier when she can still go to the ruins of Lordaeron than it is when she’s just from some now-wrecked outer-planet moon somewhere.

I’m inherently looking for that feeling of “belonging” on Ana’leth and Annata as well, especially since Annata is a very neutral minded smuggler type, who isn’t extremely pro-Republic. Having her be part of the Coruscant Trade Company will hopefully help. Maybe that’s one of the benefits of RP guilds in Star Wars – they offer a place to call “home”, even if it’s just a cantina somewhere or a particular ship. For me, there’s always places in the game that feel like they’re “mine” or part of my characters after awhile, and I’ve not yet felt that in Star Wars.

I’ve also seen some arguments (in a similar vein) that Warcraft has the feeling that the whole planet, the whole world is -thisclose- to falling apart. Everywhere you turn, there’s wars and disaster and marauding giant bugs and zombies and who knows what else. Usually the comparison is that the Star Wars Galaxy is HUGE, and you only fight on very small portions of it, which implies that the other parts of the galaxy are relatively stable, and that average people live average lives doing whatever it is they do.

I don’t think this is entirely a fair comparison, because a farmer wanting you to get rid of the wolves that are stealing his sheep is not the same level of conflict as is, say, a zombie invasion, and having the farmer there in the first place is world-expanding. Presumably the farmer is there being a farmer, and just picks up the outside help dealing with wolves when he needs it.

Plus, in Star Wars, you don’t get to SEE the other places in the world. The peaceful areas are only implied. Aside from cantinas, there’s not a lot of open world that’s available for RP. Admittedly some of that may be because I’ve just dug myself out of Coruscant, which was NOT my favorite place, but the zones so far in Star Wars feel very focused – there’s not a lot of sprawl with pretty vistas to admire. Not much stopping to smell the roses, if you will.

The two comparisons seem, in my mind, related.

They’re both about the level at which the game sucks you in on a character level – not by creating a pressing and demanding storyline, but by making your character truly feel like they’re an inherent part of the world. That they belong – not that they’re important (those are different things).

Having your character feel like they have a place in the game to call home adds to that feeling of belonging. So does experiencing both the big conflicts and the small ones that create depth in a world.

What sorts of worldbuilding helps your character feel like he or she belongs or has a home? Does it matter to you at all?

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you*** There’s No Place Like Home

Poll: Guild Site Hosting

World of Matticus 27 Jan 2012, 12:45 am CET

Hey team, can you do me a favor? I want to conduct a poll about your guild website. I’m curious about what your guild is using and why. My interest is both personal and professional (Disclaimer: I’m with Enjin).

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Note: If you can’t see the poll because you’re on a reader, try this link

In addition to voting on the poll, could you drop a comment answering the following questions for me?

What influenced your guild to use that hosting service?
What one site feature are you most thankful for?
What’s the URL to your site?

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

Thanks for reading a post from World of Matticus! Check out the Matticast, the official companion podcast!

Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 3

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon 26 Jan 2012, 7:51 am CET

Part 3, otherwise known as The Neurotic Pally and the Evil Windows. If you want to get caught up on the earlier parts, the beginning of the story is here and the middle of the story is here.

Software; or How I discovered that I prefer Hard Things

I’m out of pictures, so I’m going to recycle the “Computer is complete and running” photo.

Pretend you haven't seen this before.

Last post we ended with me powering up my computer for the first time, after a smooth hardware assembly process. I’m the queen of hard.

What you want to do as you power up your computer for the first time is access your BIOS. To access your BIOS, you hit “delete” shortly after you turn the computer on.

I give it a try.

I hit “delete”.

Nothing happens and my computer stalls, trying to find an operating system.

I restart my computer.

I hit “delete”.

Nothing happens and my computer stalls, trying to find an operating system.

I restart my computer.

I hit “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete”.

Nothing happens and my computer stalls, trying to find an operating system.

I’m freaking out here. Panicking, crying, threatening to throw my computer through the wall. I turn to Twitter and 5-6 people scramble to find a solution to my problem.

They link me tech support thread after tech support thread. They share their own computer building problems history. They do everything they can to lend me some insight into what’s going wrong.

It took about an hour of ripping my hair out (hey, I promised hair-pulling drama!) to find the solution. In the end, I found it on my own. Not because I was smart, but rather because of the opposite. No one else thought of the solution because they overestimated me.

Curious?

As I was browsing through a tech support thread (that I pulled up on my own), I came across this: “I’ve tried everything,” the poster wrote, “delete, F12, even escape…“

Escape.

DAMMIT.

ALL THIS TIME I WAS PRESSING ESCAPE INSTEAD OF DELETE.

I blame it on the long day (or if you want some encouragement: if someone who confuses “delete” with “escape” can build a computer, you can build a computer too. If you don’t get the joke, you forgot to read part 1).

More Problems with Going Soft

The next step is installing Windows. I set my BIOS to boot from CD, I pull out my Pirated copy of Windows, plop it in the CD drive, restart my computer. And nothing happens.

Off to Twitter I go.

Fannon gives me a call. “When using a Pirated copy, you need to make an ISO image you can boot from. Copy it onto a DVD and use that as your boot disk.”

I own no blank DVD. It’s 8:45pm. Walmart closes at 9pm. I can totally do this.

I get home with my blank DVDs (after getting pulled over by a cop… he must have sensed I was about to engage in illegal computer activity). I do the disk copying. It doesn’t work. Fannon calls again. After a 50$ conversation (I have a pay-as-you-go phone. Long distance calls are about 6$ a minute), we come to the conclusion that illegal software isn’t for me and that I should go out and buy Real Windows.

Walmart opens again at 9 am. I’m there, ready to purchase my Real Windows.

I plop Real Windows in the CD drive and it all works brilliantly. I’m overjoyed.

Until Windows couldn’t find my hard drive.

Stupid Windows. My hard drive is RIGHT THERE. You know, like, right under my CD/DVD drive. How can you miss it?

I try to fix it on my own. First, I look in the Windows manual.

Have you ever looked in the Windows manual? One would THINK that most of it would be about “How to install Windows“. And it would include a section on “How to install Windows when Windows doesn’t want to be installed“. And it might also have a section about “What to do when Windows is about to cause you to throw your brand new computer out the Window, then rip off all your clothes and run out onto the street screaming.“

But noooooooooo. The Windows manual is all about “Windows is wonderful and lovely. Look at all these happy families sitting together, looking at Windows 7 and its heartwarming new features.”

It’s frustrating that there are so little options when it comes to operating systems. Rich non-gamers can use Mac systems. Programming geeks can use Linux. And for the rest of us, there’s Windows. Windows, which kind of does what it wants, when it wants.

It was someone on Twitter (I can’t remember who for the life of me, which I’m hugely apologetic for because I probably owe them my life) who found the answer for me. I had to do this “part disk” command to make a partition on my hard drive. Now, WHY that’s not in the Windows manual or on the Windows website, I have no stupid idea. But, yeah, “part disk”.

After that, Windows booted up just fine.

No, wait, I lie. Windows found my hard drive, but refused to do anything with my hard drive. I solemnly make my way to the closet and close my hand around the hammer hilt. Thankfully, at that moment, Vosskah calls me on Skype.

Vosskah: Take a deep breath, it’s ok, lets go through it together. Me: *sob* Ok. Vosskah: Let start over from the beginning so I know exactly what you’re doing at each step. I don’t want you to feel like I’m underestimating your- Me: You realize you’re talking to someone who mistook “escape” for “delete” right? Vosskah: … It, um, happens, now lets take it from the beginning.

Obviously, AS SOON AS I’M ON THE PHONE WITH SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP, Windows works just fine. It installs itself, I can use my computer, I download SWTOR (yay!) and I redo my WOW UI.

Don’t Worry, The Soft ~~Tails~~ Tales Go On

I bet you thought I was home free, you did you did you did!

I did too. Until I turned my computer off for the first time. Ok, no, that’s not true. It turned off just fine. Turning it ON again…

Apparently Windows lost my hard drive again. Desperately wanted to boot from the Windows CD. No matter what I did to my BIOS, it wanted its CD like a baby wants its mommy. Yet, when I gave it what it wanted, it tried to install Windows again.

Install Windows again, AFTER I spend 2 days downloading SWTOR and getting WoW ready?

I think not.

As usual, I turn to Twitter. “Very weird,” the experts tell me.

Some suggest disconnecting my CD/DVD drive, other recommend fiddling with my harddrive connection.

My dad was a computer geek and computer destroyer. After watching him wreck several machines in attempts to “fix them”, I learned that the solution rarely involves disrupting sleeping wires. Deep in my soul, I knew my CD/DVD drive AND my hard drive were fine. Google led me to believe that it was a partition priority problem. However, I did not know what partition priority was, or how to fix it. My thoughts returned to the hammer in the closet.

Before I could destroy my property, it was time for work. I turned off my computer again, and marched out the door.

The End

When I came home from work that day, I tried turning my computer on again. And Windows loaded normally. As if it hadn’t taunted me to destroy it earlier.

I then realized that my computer was male. Because when an inanimate object gives you grief and seems to do what it wants, when it wants, it is a sign. A sign that said object is of the opposing gender.

I don’t usually name things, but I’m thinking of “Joel”. It’s a guy, so it needs a guy name. My latest infatuation is JL – Jaime Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire (most of the crushes I’ve had in my life have been on fictional characters. Fake people are so much more alluring than real ones). JL sounds a little like Joel. So Joel it is. Even if my internet connection thinks the computer is named Eloise, after my WoW mage.

Epilogue

I never got my computer bug free. It still refuses to load sometimes.

But, you know, when it happens, Joel and I sit down and have a talk about our feelings. Usually, all he’s asking for is to be turned off, to be allowed a minute to prepare himself to be turned on again. And I’m ok with that. Our relationship. It isn’t perfect, but it works. I listen to him, and in return he lets me run WoW and SWTOR with the settings on ultra.

I’d say our relationship is pretty healthy, would you not?

Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 3

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon 26 Jan 2012, 7:51 am CET

Part 3, otherwise known as The Neurotic Pally and the Evil Windows. If you want to get caught up on the earlier parts, the beginning of the story is here and the middle of the story is here.

Software; or How I discovered that I prefer Hard Things

I’m out of pictures, so I’m going to recycle the “Computer is complete and running” photo.

Pretend you haven't seen this before.

Last post we ended with me powering up my computer for the first time, after a smooth hardware assembly process. I’m the queen of hard.

What you want to do as you power up your computer for the first time is access your BIOS. To access your BIOS, you hit “delete” shortly after you turn the computer on.

I give it a try.

I hit “delete”.

Nothing happens and my computer stalls, trying to find an operating system.

I restart my computer.

I hit “delete”.

Nothing happens and my computer stalls, trying to find an operating system.

I restart my computer.

I hit “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete” “delete”.

Nothing happens and my computer stalls, trying to find an operating system.

I’m freaking out here. Panicking, crying, threatening to throw my computer through the wall. I turn to Twitter and 5-6 people scramble to find a solution to my problem.

They link me tech support thread after tech support thread. They share their own computer building problems history. They do everything they can to lend me some insight into what’s going wrong.

Curious?

As I was browsing through a tech support thread (that I pulled up on my own), I came across this: “I’ve tried everything,” the poster wrote, “delete, F12, even escape…“

Escape.

DAMMIT.

ALL THIS TIME I WAS PRESSING ESCAPE INSTEAD OF DELETE.

More Problems with Going Soft

The next step is installing Windows. I set my BIOS to boot from CD, I pull out my Pirated copy of Windows, plop it in the CD drive, restart my computer. And nothing happens.

Off to Twitter I go.

Fannon gives me a call. “When using a Pirated copy, you need to make an ISO image you can boot from. Copy it onto a DVD and use that as your boot disk.”

I own no blank DVD. It’s 8:45pm. Walmart closes at 9pm. I can totally do this.

Walmart opens again at 9 am. I’m there, ready to purchase my Real Windows.

I plop Real Windows in the CD drive and it all works brilliantly. I’m overjoyed.

Until Windows couldn’t find my hard drive.

Stupid Windows. My hard drive is RIGHT THERE. You know, like, right under my CD/DVD drive. How can you miss it?

I try to fix it on my own. First, I look in the Windows manual.

But noooooooooo. The Windows manual is all about “Windows is wonderful and lovely. Look at all these happy families sitting together, looking at Windows 7 and its heartwarming new features.”

After that, Windows booted up just fine.

Obviously, AS SOON AS I’M ON THE PHONE WITH SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP, Windows works just fine. It installs itself, I can use my computer, I download SWTOR (yay!) and I redo my WOW UI.

Don’t Worry, The Soft ~~Tails~~ Tales Go On

I bet you thought I was home free, you did you did you did!

I did too. Until I turned my computer off for the first time. Ok, no, that’s not true. It turned off just fine. Turning it ON again…

Install Windows again, AFTER I spend 2 days downloading SWTOR and getting WoW ready?

I think not.

As usual, I turn to Twitter. “Very weird,” the experts tell me.

Some suggest disconnecting my CD/DVD drive, other recommend fiddling with my harddrive connection.

Before I could destroy my property, it was time for work. I turned off my computer again, and marched out the door.

The End

When I came home from work that day, I tried turning my computer on again. And Windows loaded normally. As if it hadn’t taunted me to destroy it earlier.

Epilogue

I never got my computer bug free. It still refuses to load sometimes.

I’d say our relationship is pretty healthy, would you not?

Heroic Morchok Down: Where Next?

World of Matticus 25 Jan 2012, 10:00 pm CET

Managed to score Heroic Morchok on Tuesday. Ended up using 6 healers. Another classic 22% wipe, then a 16% wipe, then a 13% followed by an 8% then a kill. Actually, the numbers aren’t precise. But that’s what it seemed like anyway.

How to Land 3 Healing Spells in Under 2 Seconds

It seems impossible, doesn’t it?

Note that I didn’t quite say I would cast 3 spells only that I would land them. You have to be precise when it comes to timing and you need to be ready to pounce on the next spell the moment the other one is finished.

We were working on heroic Morchok for a total of 6 – 8 hours (over 4 weeks, with raid hours lost due to a healer shortage). Our longest attempt was just under 6 minutes. Most of the wipes occurred between 2 – 3 minutes. The trickiest part for me was maintaining tank health right after a stomp. A common occurrence I noticed is that after Kohcrom stomped, he would attack the tank around 2 seconds later. If I timed it right, I could land a Flash Heal and a quick Holy Word: Serenity. But sometimes that wasn’t enough. I needed another way because those two spells just weren’t consistent enough. Sometimes the tank lived, sometimes he died. I wanted a better (and consistent) way in keeping that tank alive.

It all revolved around the Stomp.

After a few wipes, I realized the consistency of his melee swing following the stomp. I didn’t want to focus exclusively on the tank to the detriment of the group. But at the same time, if the tank dropped it was game over.

Timers from DBM gave me a 5 second count down on approximately when the stomp would land.

I ended up watching the animation of the stomp. The moment the foot start rising up, I’d target the tank and hit Prayer of Healing ensuring it would land just after Stomp connected with the group. This gave me time for a quick Flash Heal (Or Binding Heal) followed up with Serenity (or a Circle of Healing if the tank was sufficiently high enough.

Credits to

Lodur for ~~gemming all strength~~ reforging to Mastery giving him the ability to really stabilize players and allowing me to spike them back up.

The DPS warriors on my side who picked up on the fact that when I frantically called their name, it meant I wanted a Rallying Cry (and giving us that buffer after a fumbled heal).

Logan of the LeetSauced podcast (and soon-to-be host of the Matticast) for remaining calm, collected and patient after enduring hours of frustrating incidents beyond his control.

Tanks with 4 piece bonuses. Seriously. More bonuses like this in the future.

Old Spice. I smelled awesome that raid.

Now what?

What’s the next hard mode boss that you went to after Morchok (25 man as I understand 10 man has different priorities)?

Hagara?

Ping pong guy?

Ooze boss?

Seems like we’re going to take a hard look at Hagara. Pointers?

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

Thanks for reading a post from World of Matticus! Check out the Matticast, the official companion podcast!

Mists of Pandaria Needs More Ulduar

World of Matticus 25 Jan 2012, 2:30 am CET

I miss Ulduar. I have a suspicion that it ranks up there as the raider’s choice raid instance of all time. From the pacing, to the art, the difficulty and so forth, it has a fond place in the hearts of most Wrath raiders.

But what exactly about Ulduar made it so enticing? How can Blizzard recreate that feeling of wonder and accomplishment in future raid instances?

Atmosphere

The one that did it for me the most was that it wasn’t a typical dungeon like atmosphere. It wasn’t dark or dreary. It wasn’t like Black Temple, Icecrown Citadel or Blackwing Descent. It’s not the standard dark and dank dungeon. It was way brighter and had more variety with the different rooms. Granted, you had to siege your way in but once you were inside, it felt like you were in a type of shrine. Ice cavern on one side, lush tropics on another side, and it had a tram.

Every raid instance needs a tram.

In Mists, I’m hoping to see more encounters in outdoor instances. Less inside a dark cave or the side of a mountain. Maybe more in a dojo or up the side of a physical mountain (Mount Hyjal anyone?).

Limited time

Sadly this raid instance didn’t have the shelf life that other raid instances had. It felt really short because it came out in the spring. Right as summer rolled around, Trial of the Crusader came out and the players heading back into Ulduar stopped because that gear and challenge incentive wasn’t there anymore. Maybe the reason the instance is remembered so fondly is that most players didn’t have time to get sick of the place yet.

Amount of bosses

Ulduar had 14 bosses (1 of them was Algalon). I think there’s a sweet spot somewhere if you’re looking at number of bosses in a tier and amount of time allocated to clearing that tier. Ulduar’s time frame was effectively 4 months with 13 bosses (and this excludes the hard mode variations). The other tier that ranks in my favourites list was tier 5 which had 10 bosses (6 in Serpentshrine Cavern and 4 in Tempest Keep). Firelands was the only one for tier 12 (effectively 7 bosses plus hard modes and a Baradin Hold boss).

I liked the model which had more than one raid instance per tier. Tier 5 and tier 11 are good examples of this. You had a good amount of bosses that were spread out over multiple instances allowing raid groups to pick and choose where to start from each week. Instead of jamming them all into instance, having them spread out gave the feeling of not burning out as quickly.

2 – 3 instances of 3 – 5 bosses sprinkled throughout seem to be the most ideal and I hope they’ll revisit that consistently in Mists.

Catch phrase

Every raid instance needs a catch phrase.

IN THE MOUNTAINS!

… Right?

Conditional hard modes

Activated hard modes of each boss had to be triggered manually by doing specific encounter things. This was first made popular in Obsidian Sanctum against Sartharion where the amount of drakes killed affected the difficulty level of the boss. Flame Leviathan was affected by the amount of towers that were killed. Deconstructor’s was triggered by whether or not your raid group DPS was high enough to destroy the heart. Nowadays all your raid leaders need to do is toggle a switch.

Actually, now that I think about it, there were scalable hard modes. Iron Council could be engaged multiple ways depending on the order. Freya was just nuts.

My finest moment?

Orbituary on 25 man. You’d be hard pressed to find another encounter so demanding in terms of coordination required. When successfully pulled off, it was one of the greatest highs experienced because you were taking on an encounter where most players weren’t using their actual class abilities (other than the boarding team). Each catapult launcher had to coordinate navigation, sprints, fuel reloading and maintaining DPS. Those on the bikes had to make sure they were in position to retrieve launched players, drop oil slicks and so forth. Can’t remember what the siege ones did other than interrupts and trying to shoot fuel.

Though I suspect if Ulduar had been out for another month or two, we would all have been annoyed with it.

Maybe Pandaria will have a similar installation hidden on the island.

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

Thanks for reading a post from World of Matticus! Check out the Matticast, the official companion podcast!

Inevitable Betrayal

I Like Bubbles 24 Jan 2012, 8:07 pm CET

My priest is now solidly geared, with more pieces of tier than my main (probably because I keep giving away tokens to guildies for their 4 piece….). I am still working on Lyrandre because her DPS shoulders and chest still have to go, but the bulk of my alt-obsession has refocused on my druid.

Poor Aedeminar. She was rolled in vanilla and never got anywhere, really. I can conquor my hatred of questing by tackling the LFD though! …yeah. We all know what my leveling LFD life is like, don’t we?

There is a REASON she is tank and resto specced. It’s because when she hit Wrath content and Utgarde vomited up all the Tanks Who Were Not Tanks, I said AAAAAAAH FUCKING CUMGUZZLING WHORES and started tanking.

Well, I hit that point again the other day, after healing a couple of really special cookies. So I queued as tank and got Halls of Stone.

Auuugh, but okay. I was pulling cautiously because, come on, it has been a LONG TIME since I have tanked on Mina–at least a year. Shit CHANGED, yo, and I have hardly any idea what I’m doing. At some point, however, I observed that someone was running ahead, grabbing additional mobs, and dragging them back to me.

Hey! Hey, mother fucker, that’s rude! I don’t know if I’m prepared for that shit! Of course the obvious answer is to LET THE IDIOT DIE, but wait. Wait.

When I saw who was doing it, I was shocked. IT WAS THE HEALER. THE MOTHER FUCKING PRIEST HEALER.

WHY DO YOU BETRAY ME SO, HEALER? ARE WE NOT KINDRED? DO WE NOT KNOW HOW FUCKING ANNOYING IT IS WHEN SOMEONE DOES THAT BECAUSE THE TANK CAN MISS SOME AND THEN THEY ARE BEATING ON YOU AND OH GOD WHY.

WHY. I CAN’T EVEN LET YOU DIE OUT OF REVENGE, FUUUCK.

And then I saw him using mind sear on single targets and I was just like dear lord, there is just no winning this.

Brain Heals

Too Many Annas 24 Jan 2012, 3:11 pm CET

I redid my gems. I re-reforged. I redid my keybinds. I set up clique and totem timers.

And then we went to Firelands.

My first foray as a healer wasn’t horrible though, once I remembered I had Healing Rain (which is probably the biggest change to how I’m used to playing a shaman healer). In fact, I even started to get the rhythm of the various fights once we were halfway through.

Of course, we were half overgeared for it, which didn’t hurt, but I didn’t wipe the raid. (/relief) Unfortunately the two people we were intending to gear up didn’t get a single upgrade. Also Rhyolith kept bugging on us, which was frustrating. But I’ve officially healed a raid now.

This seems to have made me officially a “real healer” again, because as soon as I got to Stormwind, I got a whisper:

would u like 2 heal for bwd?

/sigh.

Thursday we’re going to do some LFR fun, since we’ve still got two characters that aren’t ready for Dragon Soul, but all in all I’m feeling more like I’ll at least be competent with the heal buttons again.

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you*** Brain Heals

Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 2

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon 24 Jan 2012, 8:36 am CET

This is part 2. If you want to read part 1 (and gawk over what I put in my computer case), you have to go over here. It looks like there will be a part 3 too, because computer building is so epic that the chronicles of it need to be turned into a trilogy.

When I left off last time, my computer parts had just come, and I gently laid them out under my Christmas tree for picture taking. Results of picture taking are in the last post, so I’ll move onto the next step.

To keep you visual types interested, here's a picture with bonus blue light and wires.

The Giant, Electric 3-D Puzzle

Like I said a bunch of times, putting together computer parts is the easiest part of the process. Short story short, it goes like this:

1- Plop in the PSU (I think that stands for Power Supply Unit. It’s the box with wires) 2- Use a screwdriver. 3- Put the CPU (that’s Central Processing Unit) on the motherboard. 4- Use a screwdriver. 5- Plug the CPU fan into the motherboard where it says “CPU FAN PLUG HERE!!!!!” 6- Stick the RAM sticks in the RAM holes. 7- Put the motherboard in the case. 8- Use a screwdriver. 9- Spend 10 minutes trying to figure out what an “extension card” is. 10- By process of elimination, decide that an “extension card” is your graphics card. 11- Stick the graphics card in the graphics card hole. 12- Use a screwdriver. 13- Plug the green wires into the green holes. 14- Plug the black wires into the black holes. 15- Plug the red wires into the red holes. 16- Wonder how colour blind people plug in their computer wires. 17- Plug the PSU wires in the holes marked “PSU WIRES HERE!!!”

I got to screw a lot of things and that made me happy.

After all that, you put the sides of your case on, turn on the power supply, plug the computer cord into the wall, press the “on” button and pray.

See? Easysauce!

Whenever I got stuck, I’d ask on Twitter. Twitter is a wonderful resource because it’s full of people who know a lot about computers. But beware, like any kind of passionate person, they may give you more than what you ask for:

Me: Does the green wires go in green hole 1 or green hole 2? Knowledgeable person: The green wires are essential components to front panel functioning and there are several sorts of green wires. Each will be connected to a different socket and will wrap around the motherboard in a predetermined fashion. Certain green wires will merge with yellow wires to ensure proper airflow within the case. The colour of the green wire was inspired by- Me: GREEN HOLE 1 OR GREEN HOLE 2?

(I used a completely nonsensical example here because I really appreciate those who went out of their way to explain things to me. I just found it very humourous how I was receiving very complex and complete answers while I was being impatient as heck.)

You can also encounter the less, um, helpful types:

Me: *reads case manual* Me: *scratches head* Me: *reads motherboard manual* Me: *sighs* Me: *tries google* Me: *frustration* Me: *reads case manual again* Me: *tears* Me: *reads motherboard manual again* Me: *verge of nervous breakdown* Me: *gives up* Me: Do I plug the green wire in hole 1 or hole 2? Less helpful Twitter type: Did you look in the manual?

But for the most part, it was smooth, and whatever questions I had, I received answers to quickly.

Then there is the hands thing. A few friends warned me about how static ruins your parts and sometimes you don’t even know you’re staticky.

Not wanting to zap my parts, I made sure I touched a lot of metallic objects and I stopped myself whenever I caught my feet rubbing against the floor. I didn’t have an anti-static mat, so I used the anti-static bags my parts came in. I took all the precautions I could….only to catch myself frequently touching things I shouldn’t. If it looks fragile and easily broken, you can be sure I got my grimy fingers all over it.

But luckily and thankfully, when I hit that “on” button, the clouds parted, the angels smiled on me and everything powered up.

And that ends the easy part! Stay tuned for part 3, where you’ll all become acquainted with the Neurotic Pally and the Evil Windows.

Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 2

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon 24 Jan 2012, 8:36 am CET

To keep you visual types interested, here's a picture with bonus blue light and wires.

The Giant, Electric 3-D Puzzle

Like I said a bunch of times, putting together computer parts is the easiest part of the process. Short story short, it goes like this:

I got to screw a lot of things and that made me happy.

After all that, you put the sides of your case on, turn on the power supply, plug the computer cord into the wall, press the “on” button and pray.

See? Easysauce!

You can also encounter the less, um, helpful types:

But for the most part, it was smooth, and whatever questions I had, I received answers to quickly.

Then there is the hands thing. A few friends warned me about how static ruins your parts and sometimes you don’t even know you’re staticky.

But luckily and thankfully, when I hit that “on” button, the clouds parted, the angels smiled on me and everything powered up.

And that ends the easy part! Stay tuned for part 3, where you’ll all become acquainted with the Neurotic Pally and the Evil Windows.

Nerfs and Listening to the Hardcore

Blessing of Kings 24 Jan 2012, 6:47 am CET

Kurn wrote a good post about the upcoming Dragon Soul nerfs. She is unhappy with the nerfs. I am on the opposite side of the issue. However, I want to address two specific points in her post.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I like a challenge. I loved attunement quests, no matter how crappy they were to do (doing Jailbreak twice in a single night for Majik because he was a dumbass and died? Not fun.). I loved working out strats for encounters in Burning Crusade raids, which, at the time, were incredibly punishing (Vashj, Kael, Bloodboil all come to mind off the top of my head). We were nowhere near server first, we were over a year behind in most cases. But we persevered and worked through it. The only nerfs we took advantage of were attunement removals (except the BT one, because we needed the necks for shadow resistance) and the 3.0 nerfs because, dangit, we weren’t ready to stop raiding yet. (Still, we were 4/5 Hyjal and 5/9 BT when 3.0 dropped.) By and large, Vashj was pretty similar an encounter when we downed her (on June 2nd, 2008) as when SSC opened up in 2007. There had been no 20% zone-wide nerf. No stacking 30% player buff. Nothing of the sort.

There was a measure of pride there. I still wear my Hand of A’dal title because of what it took for us to kill Vashj and Kael and finish the Vials of Eternity quest.

I remember Lady Vashj too. What I remember about Lady Vashj was that she broke the guild I was in. We went 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC, but we broke on Vashj. Maybe she was beyond us, maybe we should have improved, maybe we should have practiced more or been better players. Really hard bosses break guilds. Vashj, Kael'thalas, Vaelastraz, Ragnaros. These bosses are known as guild-killers. Broken guilds are not good for the game, in my view. Guilds that get stuck on a hard boss, with no respite in sight, die. These nerfs keep guilds from getting stuck. Small, steady nerfs keep people moving forward, keep them from being completely stuck forever. To me, the choice seems to be between guild-killer bosses, or nerfing. I choose nerfing.

I’ve long felt that Blizzard is ignoring its population of older players. I have been playing WoW since October of 2005. This doesn’t grant me any in-game advantage, and that’s okay, but those things that I “grew up” with, like attunements, like keys, like epic class quests, like epic instances without the novelty of a “heroic” mode… those are the things that kept me interested in the game. Those are the things that helped grow the game to 11 million players. Precious few of those mechanics and concepts remain. Is it any wonder why people are quitting? Is it any wonder why I now believe this to be my final expansion? The game is unrecognizable. The playerbase is maddeningly lazy and unwilling to put forth the effort that so many of us old-timers did and their laziness is affecting us.

Honestly, when has listening to older players ever helped Blizzard?

Blizzard listened to us at the start of Cataclysm. "Wrath was too easy," we said. "Make heroics hard like in TBC!" "Bring back crowd control!" "Make raiding hard again!"

Blizzard listened to us, and were rewarded with a significant drop in subscriptions. It's obvious from their subsequent actions that their internal numbers were telling them that the drop in the subscribers was coming from the people would found endgame too hard.

Consider the idea that ignoring the older players is the right thing to do. That they are merely a vocal minority. In my view, all the evidence points to that conclusion.

I am obviously not the type of player they want playing their game. And that’s what’s so very shocking to me. I am a good player. I am a community asset. I am a guild leader, a raid leader, a healing lead. I write a blog dedicated to the game that has had hundreds of thousands of visitors and pageviews since December 31st, 2009 (and more before then, but I don’t have any data before 12/31/09). I co-host and produce a podcast dedicated to the game.

Kurn loved the original Cataclysm heroics. So did I. We both wrote multiple blog posts extolling the experience. Many, many other bloggers out there did the same.

And what was the result of the best efforts of these "community assets"? Two million lost subscriptions.

Our set is not as important as we think we are. We are loud, but occupy a small, tightly bound niche. There is no reason that Blizzard should give our concerns any extra weight. If anything, the evidence is proving that our concerns should be given less weight.

When it Comes to Guild Apps, Pick Two

World of Matticus 24 Jan 2012, 1:35 am CET

Historically speaking, most of the players I’ve picked up in the past had two out of the three attributes. Rare is the player who manages to possess all three. Recruiting seems to be at an all time low according to a few GMs I’ve spoken to (10 man and 25 man, Horde and Alliance). It’s as if the majority of players just want to see the content, regardless of what difficulty level it is (meaning the path of least resistance gets selected the most or the LFR tool). It seems like the applicants I see seem to exhibit 2 out of the 3 traits.

Skilled

Manages to bring the pain (or the healing). We’re talking on a consistent basis. I often find myself wondering about the players who (over a 2 month period) go from the bottom to the top back to the bottom again.

Of course, no one wants the player who has a really hard time hitting that Hour of Twilight button and ends up burning all 3 Battle Res skills allotted. The ability to pick up what the rules and requirements for each encounter is a big plus (as is the ability to do it fast).

High attendance

Willingness to reschedule most events in their lives around raiding is an advantage. I’m not that much of a tyrant though.

Wedding? Sure.

Exam? Yeah, you better go study for it.

House on fire? Go.

But if you’re missing out on a raid to catch the series finale of American Idol, I can tell you’re just not into it. Or if a new game came out and you’re signing out of raid when I can see on Steam that you’re clearly playing Skyrim. That tells me where your priorities are and it’s clearly not with WoW.

Drama free

Perhaps drama free might not be the best choice of words to use. When I mean drama free, I’m not referring to guild splitting dramatic incidents. I’m talking about the little things that can get under people’s skins eventually leading to guild splitting incidents.

How difficult does a person need to be?

There’s been times I’ve tried to compromise on issues to reach the best approach for everyone involved. In other cases, a single course of action was settled upon because that’s what the leaders wanted to do, period. I really hate working with players who argue for the simple sake of arguing. I can tell you it takes away my efforts and focus on the next item I want to resolve. Pick your battles carefully. Otherwise the GM might exercise their right to throw you out because you keep causing problems and end up being more of a liability instead of an asset.

Now going back to the original question, if you were restricted to two selections, which two would you pick?

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

Thanks for reading a post from World of Matticus! Check out the Matticast, the official companion podcast!

When the writing gets tough…

Too Many Annas 23 Jan 2012, 2:59 pm CET

I don’t have a witty ending to that statement. But it would probably be something like “… the writer gets a beer.”

Anyway, what happens when you want to be writing, but the ideas won’t come? When you have a character that needs attention but no ficlets to write?

Sometimes things just need to incubate a little longer. Wait a bit and see what happens. Sometimes, however, even with waiting, you have the desire to write and no concrete direction to take your writing.

I suffer from this a lot. It’s why I don’t write novels – I don’t really do well with big ideas. I get fragments and then can’t plot them into something coherent. To tell the truth, I can’t plot my way out of a brown paper sack. (This is a reason I often write fic with friends. I’m good at execution, but not always great with the ideas. This way I can pick their brains. I’m like a plot zombie.)

There are a few cures for assorted brain block that I like.

Brainstorming is good – and I like using something like Tami’s method of mind mapping. She explains it really well, but basically when you sit down and you think you have no ideas, just start writing things down. Tami does this in a notebook, I usually do it in a word document. I type faster than I write, and as pro-handwriting as I am, it just works better for me to be thinking in text instead of trying to scribble things out fast enough. In the end, I get something like a long list of items, many with bullet points.

Frequently when I do this, I sit down with no ideas and turn around and have five or ten. Poof! Like magic. Not all those ideas will turn into fic, but that doesn’t matter. The point is to get them written down.

If I’m feeling particularly stuck on how to start, I usually do something like freewriting (sometimes I do this after I brainstorm a bit, to give me a direction).

Freewriting is especially useful if I have a character who is being shy about showing up. I just start typing, regardless of where it might be in the overall story or whether it’s “good” or not, and see what happens. The two posts that are upcoming from Annata got started this way. I’m not the best writer when it comes to roguish things and close combat – I am inherently un-sneaky. Sneaky things intimidate me as a writer. Writing these ficlets, I decided that if I needed sneaky, I’d just let Annata do it. So I just started writing. Both times the initial trepidation wore off once the actual character got into her stride, and I’m pleased with the final turnout. *

More than anything else, I talk with other writers. Sometimes just getting ideas out in conversation is enough to spark a whole series of ficlets. (I try to make sure I’m available for idea-bouncing as well, since it’s only fair to return the favor.)

All of these methods work for blogging, or any kind of writing really. The idea is to get around your inner editor, who rejects ideas before you get a chance to explore them. Letting your brain wander through your fingers is therapeutic, in a way, since it bypasses the critical response that so frequently kills writerly motivation. For me, they get the most use in getting me started on writing ficlets.

What are your tricks for the “getting started” part of writing? How do you break through whatever brain blocks you have to get things written, be they blog post, ficlet, or novel?

*The Heads I Win ficlets will be posted here later this week. I’m still working on the last bit, and how it fits into the greater guild story.

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you*** When the writing gets tough…

Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 1

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon 20 Jan 2012, 7:39 pm CET

This is part 1. Part 2 (with bonus hair pulling drama) will follow when I feel like it.
As I’ve been going on and on and on and on about on Twitter, I built a computer. All by myself!

My overall observation: “The statement ‘building a computer, OMG aren’t I awesome’ is somewhat misleading. The building part is by far the easiest and fastest step of the process. Building is a joke compared to the challenges represented by getting the parts from the shop to your small, isolated town and installing Windows.“

I went through life, living each day, never considering building my own computer. My dad used to like to put computer parts together. A lot of my guy friends (many of them actually having JOBS that had to do with computers) used to build their computers. And their machines USUALLY turned out to be poorly functioning, virus-loaded bundles of junk. If these people who read computer magazines and who know what the letters CPU stand for aren’t very good at it, what the heck would I do with two boxes of computer parts?

Well. I made a discovery. I discovered that you can totally build a computer if you don’t know anything about computers. In fact, I highly recommend that you build your own computer BECAUSE you don’t know anything about computers.

I learned a lot from my experience. Words that made no sense to me (I knew a “motherboard” was something you had to get changed after smoke comes out of your laptop, but otherwise I didn’t have a clue) suddenly became part of my vocabulary. I even had a REAL conversation with a guildy the other day about graphic cards and their power supply requirements. Where I ACTIVELY PARTICIPATED! Hey, if I can talk about the Geforce GTX 500s series and voltages, so can you.

Oh, and by the way, I’m very annoyed by the fact that most of the savy and helpful people had to say things like “Ah yes, I built a computer for my girlfriend/wive/sister/female cat”. No one, not one person, said anything along the lines of “I built a computer for my boyfriend/husband/brother/male cat” Technology is power, fellow ladies. Take power into your own hands and stop letting penises control the technology in your household. I did it and you can too.

The Workbench

This is where we drool over the goodies I got to work with.

Here’s what we’ve got:

Intel Core™ i5-2500K Processor, 3.30GHz w/ 6MB Cache (Processor, 230$) Zalman Z9 Plus Case w/ Fan Controller (Case, 60$) Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 w/ DDR3 2133, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, CrossFireX / SLI (Motherboard, 135$) Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9 Quad Channel Kit (4 x 4GB), Cerulean Blue (RAM, 90$) Seagate 1TB Barracuda SATA III w/ 64MB Cache (Hard drive, 160$) LG Super-Multi 22x DVD Writer, SATA, OEM, Black (CD/DVD drive, 22$) Cooler Master Silent Pro M 850W Modular Power Supply (Power supply, 150$) eVGA GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI (Graphics card, 510$) Asus VW224T 23inch (Monitor, 212$) Windows 7 (Operating system, 220$) Basic Microsoft Keyboard and Mouse kit (Keyboard – I couldn’t find one without a mouse – 30$)

Typically you’re supposed to go with a budget, but I tend to be more of the “best I can get with less” type. And I had no idea what computers cost. In the end, I spent a little under 2000$, including a monitor, Windows 7 and keyboard. I looked at premade gaming computers with similar parts, and they seemed to be within the 3000-5000$ bracket. So not only did I learn a lot from my adventure, I got more out of my money too.

How I learned to never order stuff online before Christmas

Picking out parts was pretty straightforward. I’m lucky enough to have a friend who knows what all those gibberish numbers and letters mean (GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 w/ DDR3 2133, really?) so for about 10 hours (in 3 sessions) we scrolled through my options together, part by part, talking about each piece.

If you can, I highly suggest getting one of those smarts friends, especially one who knows when to explain and when to wait for questions. And who ultimately leaves the final choice up to you. (I know, I know, those friends are a hard to find. That’s why I hang onto mine fiercely!)

On December 15th, I submitted my order. Memory Express, a relatively local computer store that came highly recommended by local friends, delivers for free, so I went with them. There was also the option of picking up the parts at the store, but I live 3 hours away from the city and figured delivery would be faster.

10 days before Christmas… Yes, sometimes I am really that stupid. (Which bring me back to this post’s theme: if a person stupid enough to order online 10 days before Christmas can build a computer, you can build a computer too.)

- On December 17, UPS had my package. - On December 19, UPS took my package from Calgary (starting point) to Edmonton (the city nearest me). - Delivery scheduled on December 22. Yay!

- On December 22, there was a message saying UPS was looking for my address. I double checked the address I gave Memory Express. It’s my address. No phone number for UPS, so I let them sort it out. - December 26, still no change. I call Memory Express. UPS is closed for the holiday, but they promise to look into it. - By December 27 the websales customer service staff at Memory Express recognizes my voice. - On December 30th, I’m finally in touch with UPS. The address thing should be sorted out, but they won’t deliver until the New Year. I have some time off so I ask if I can pick it up in Edmonton. They say sure and point me to Purolator who will be handling the final delivery. - December 30th in the evening, I get to Edmonton. Purolator gives me one box, my computer case. Tell me they’ve lost the other box.

That’s right, they lost a 1400$ box of computer parts that I drove a total of 6 hours to pick up.

- During the first two weeks of January, UPS calls me 3 times. Each time they ask for my address. - On January 12, I receive my box of computer parts.

And that’s why I’m only level 16 in SWTOR.

If you’d like to hear more of this absolutely riveting tale, hang tight and part 2 will be delivered you to in 3-7 business day (read: in a month).

Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 1

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon 20 Jan 2012, 7:39 pm CET

This is part 1. Part 2 (with bonus hair pulling drama) will follow when I feel like it.
As I’ve been going on and on and on and on about on Twitter, I built a computer. All by myself!

The Workbench

This is where we drool over the goodies I got to work with.

Here’s what we’ve got:

How I learned to never order stuff online before Christmas

- On December 17, UPS had my package. - On December 19, UPS took my package from Calgary (starting point) to Edmonton (the city nearest me). - Delivery scheduled on December 22. Yay!

That’s right, they lost a 1400$ box of computer parts that I drove a total of 6 hours to pick up.

- During the first two weeks of January, UPS calls me 3 times. Each time they ask for my address. - On January 12, I receive my box of computer parts.

And that’s why I’m only level 16 in SWTOR.

If you’d like to hear more of this absolutely riveting tale, hang tight and part 2 will be delivered you to in 3-7 business day (read: in a month).

Form of Healer – ACTIVATE!

Too Many Annas 20 Jan 2012, 6:04 pm CET

So my as yet nameless raid* is going through another reset cycle. We’ve lost a few people, are raiding on a new night, etc.

One of the people we lost was our paladin healer.

As such, since I like my raid and want to keep raiding, I offered to swap Annorah over to healing (and Yva will be swapping to paladin healing).

To put this into context, the last time I healed anything other than myself while questing, I was running LFD at the end of Wrath with my priest. Which means it’s been more than two years since I healed, closer to FOUR years since I healed as a Shaman (though I may have healed a Naxx run or two, I don’t remember…)

My healer instincts are, hopefully, still around, but I’m pretty sure the skill is gone. Thankfully, shaman healing doesn’t seem too terribly different than it’s been in the past, especially for raid healing, so I’m hoping that transition goes well. (Also, what would we do without EJ? Their resto shaman thread has a “Help! I’m elemental and need to fill in for our missing healer in 5 minutes!” section that was a total lifesaver toward getting me started.)

Also thankfully, my gear is pretty balanced with +Spirit on it (since elemental shamans convert spirit into hit), so other than picking up my 2 piece Tier 12, which I should be able to do with little difficulty running heroics, I’m not in bad shape gear wise. This is primarily why I didn’t switch to Aely – as much as it would mean only one character having to switch, Paladin healing is both a) more difficult and b) would require a /complete/ gear up. Aely’s got about 348 ilevel ret gear, and that’s it.

I feel a little sheepish that I’ve gotten so out of practice, to be honest, but mentally I really needed a break from healing. So now I have until next Thursday to figure out how to push buttons again.

Just keybind everything to chain heal and roll my face on the keyboard, right?

*When TRI splits down into 10 mans, we’re no longer just Totally Raids, Inc. We’re TRI *something*. The Saturday 10 man is TRI Hangover (since they raid in the morning and are, occasionally, hungover). Our raid now runs Thursday evenings – at the same time as the third TRI 10 man raid. Both Thursday raids are working on Ultraxion, which is kind of cool. Anyway, we don’t have a name yet. Because we’re bads and haven’t thought of one.

***Thanks for reading this post from Too Many Annas. May the Loot-Fu be with you*** Form of Healer – ACTIVATE!

Admit It: You Get High From Being Clutch

World of Matticus 20 Jan 2012, 3:00 pm CET

Ever wonder what it’s like to feel “high” in this game?

This is one of those methods.

I’d wager that Holy Priests get a bigger kick out of it then the other healers. Unlike the other clutch healing abilities, Guardian Spirit has two key effects: It offers both increased healing received on the target and the ability to grant a second chance in case the target dies.

Usually, when Holy Priests burn Guardian Spirit, it’s meant for the extra healing because of some massive amount of incoming damage.

But if tank health, your global cooldown, your lag and your reflexes all line up, then you just made a great save. The rest of the raid might not be aware of your efforts. But who cares? Deep down inside, you are the one that made that save and salvaged a possible kill from a definitive wipe.

It’s one of the best feelings in the World of Warcraft. I’ve never been able to score that feeling of satisfaction playing other healers. Sadly, whenever you do pull off the save, it ends up being a wipe. Seems rare whenever such a tank save results in a kill.

In any case, a new year means new responsibilities for people. Players have new priorities in their lives (or other games). My guild’s looking for 2 healers. I’m not picky on any classes. Yes, we’ll even consider Priests even though we have 3 right now. I would genuinely like the services of a Holy Paladin and a Resto Druid.

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

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