So….

I did pretty much nothing WoW-wise today. I logged in for a few minutes for some crafting, but my first of the guides is coming soon. RL hit tonight and I was out and about, so I figured everyone could enjoy a quick filler for tonight.

oh. and @arrens: “dingly-danglies”. THAT IS ALL GOOD SIR. THAT IS ALL.

YAY!

Wheeee

And that was all I got done due to twitter shenanigans. #iblamesyrana. and arrens.

Healing: A Meme

Since I was tagged by EtherJammer, I present, Healing: A Meme.

• What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Tartshapdbox , Undead Priest, Dual Spec’d Disc and Disc
• What is your primary group healing environment? Well I have the most experience in 25 man raids, though I really prefer 10 mans. It has been a little while since I’ve healed anything though, darn hiatus!
• What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? PEW PEW LAZRS. I love Penance, and it’s shiny, bubbling ticks. <3
• What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? Greater Heal. That baby’s not even on my bars any more. Too much mana/heals and waaaaay too long of a cast time IMO.
• What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? I feel that disc is kind of the jack of all trades when it comes to healing. (except maybe where HoTs are concerned, Renew is a little lackluster) Need a big heal quickly? Penance. Need to give the raid heals a hand with predictable damage? Apply bubbles liberally, flash heal as needed. Not on tank heals (first: WHY NOT?!) but OMG THE TANK IS GOING TO DIE? Pain Suppression. Need to spam heals a little quicker and still conserve mana? Power Infusion to the rescue!
• What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? Well, the lack of AoE healing for Disc has always been problematic at best. Before I could get away with the Holy Nova glyph actually making that pretty powerful especially in 5-mans (hello Loken I’m talking to you) but now it’s back to being meh again. I also find the lack of a GOOD HoT rather disturbing.
• In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Personally, I prefer to be a tank healer, even though the added Penance CD makes it more challenging.
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? Why a Holy Priest most likely. But Dueg’s awesomeness helps that out. Otherwise I’m not too picky. I’ve healed with a Shaman and a Tree and a Paladin before and all are enjoyable, though being Disc and healing hardmodes with a healadin is… interesting to say the least.
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? I like to think I’m an equal opportunity healer
• What is your worst habit as a healer? Getting tunnel vision. I’ve been known to stand in The Bad for longer than is necessary simply because of my whack-a-mole healing.
• What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? Blame the Healer is probably my biggest pet peeve, though it may be tied with the OMG I’m Dying Let Me Run AWAY From The Healer (getting out of LoS applies to this.)
• Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? I feel like Disc is probably a little weak compared to some but I think that has more to do with Blizzard’s combat log not showing absorptions correctly than anything.
• What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? I use Recount with Guessed Absorbs, and World of Logs.
• What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? DiscPvPLAWL. It bugs me to no end.
• What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? Getting used to seeing yourself on the bottom of the healing meters, especially if your raid leaders don’t really understand the concept of a disc priest. Disc is a spec you kind of have to love to play because you do wind up defending yourself a lot. Especially if you are pugging.
• If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)? Low healing output is the most noticeable pattern.
• Haste or Crit and why? I feel this is really a matter of personal preference. I prefer Crit, but that’s because I’m mainly focused on absorbing as much damage as I can, and for me, Divine Aegis is a big part of that.
• What healing class do you feel you understand least? Druids. I have one of everything else, but Druid healing escapes me.
• What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? I am a VuhDo fan.
• Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? I tend to stack Int, Spellpower, Crit and then Haste. Int because I loves me my mana, and the gains are better from Replenishment, and ShadowFiend (or Bob as he is more commonly known to me <3)

Yay Meme done! And boy was it rather odd, since I haven’t healed in a while, I was having to think back for a few of those there. I don’t think there’s really anyone left to tag for this who hasn’t already done it except maybe Duegles, but I’m not sure when he’d have time to do it. So if you haven’t done it yet, consider yourself tagged!

Project: Space Goat

And now the moment that everyone has been waiting for!

What is PROJECT SPACE GOAT?

Well P:SG is my return to WoW. For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter I’ve been slowly getting back into the swing of things WoW wise. I decided to try something completely new. (Don’t worry I’ll still be kicking around on my main with Holy Dueg and bringing you raiding details once Icecrown drops since I won’t do ToC.. it’s against everything I hold dear ) Since I can’t be completely without friends in game, I’m playing on Feathermoon-US with Arrens, Jez, Bubbles, Anea and a few others. This means that I am *gasp* ALLIANCE. Which means, yes, I have made another space goat!  And yes, it’s another priest. Crazy I know, I’ve been told.

Wow, all that babbling and I still haven’t gotten to the point. I must still be in NaNoWriMo mode Project Space Goat is going to be my adventures in leveling my priest all over again with out all the sweet hookups. No heirloom gear, no super expensive twink gear, none of that. I took 1 money handout from Arrens, but I’ve taken tailoring and enchanting again, so I’ll be crafting all my own gear and enchanting it. It will also be part leveling guide, part money making adventures, part OMG This Is What Happens When A Noob RPs, and part ohnoes I’m alliance WTF. I leveled my priest in Vanilla WoW and she was a twink for a good bit of her early life (ok, most of her life) so I’m curious to see if leveling tailoring and enchanting still sucks, and if I die nearly as much, and just how much XP do you get in BGs? I hope you all enjoy it, and if there is anything in particular you want to see me do, just leave a comment and I will do it! Whether it’s leveling in the worst zone for Alliance (which I have no idea what that is.. desolace? ashenvale? idk…) or as my good friend suggested, Space Goat Coast to Coast, A Fishing Extravaganza!

I hope everyone is looking forward to this as much as I am!

Coming Soon!

Dun Dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNN

Full details to launch tomorrow! Stay tuned! *

 

*This filler post brought to you by NaNoWriMo madness! And the fact that I’m in a mad rush to get some things done personally, and don’t have to ton of time today.

NaBloPoMo and Fresh Starts

Hello again lovelies. It is that time again, NaBloPoMo! I figured what better time to get back into the swing of things on PW:Bubble than now right? 30 days of new content, you should all feel so special. I only hope that you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed blogging. I’m considering this a fresh start and I’ve got lots and lots in store for everyone and a new project in the works. I’m working out the details on Project SG (though some of you *cough* @_anea) know what it is already. So be on the look out for some site redesigns, blogroll updating, Project: SG, and all sorts of shenanigans, I’m reinstalling WoW on my computer as we speak, so pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable. Mind the cobwebs though, I’ll have them cleaned up soon enough.

pst

In case you don’t follow me on twitter, I started playing again. I’m still not playing as much, but I’m not ready to hang up the blogger hat just yet, so posts will be incoming!

Plus twitter shennanigans are just TOO fun. (@arrens / @ilikebubbles search term war I’m lookin at you!)

Well, I did it.

In case you didn’t realize from the lack of posts here, I’ve not really been playing WoW much lately. My account was up today, and I didn’t renew it. I’ve spent almost 5 years playing this game, but I think I’m done. I don’t know if it’s forever or a semi-permanant deal. I don’t agree with the way that Blizzard is handling things at the moment, and if the rumors on MMO are true, then I definitely don’t like the plans for the next expansion. I’ll still be around for sure, and I may still log in now and again (and Dueg, if we get the raiding thing set up just let me know. I’ll pay my account for that!) but for the moment logging in to my priest and doing the cooking dailies and the fishing dailies doesn’t justify the money.

So who knows? Maybe I’ll play again in a month or 2 (or even a few weeks) but for right now I need a break and having the account active will only make the boredom with the game that much more noticeable. But until then, I will still be around on twitter.

For the Horde!

/salute /thank

In honor of the news…

In case you haven’t heard yet….

*A.N: MAAAAAN. I posted this last night and WP ate it :’(. oh well. LEFT SIDE MANY WHELPS!

oh, blizzard.

Thank you for sapping my will to play for a multitude of reasons. Here are my main reasons why I’m no longer excited for 3.2, or the new raid, or about your direction for priests. (my thoughts/comments in green, Blizzard Devs in blue of course) All Blizzard quotes can be found from the Q & A unless otherwise stated.

Priest Q & A

The Shadow Priest Edition

in Wrath of the Lich King we increased its damage-dealing potential to make it near that of a primary damage-per-second (dps) caster — such as a mage — while also retaining some of its unique utility which made it cool during The Burning Crusade. (Um, comparing Spriests to Mages in terms of DPS? Granted I don’t play Spriests THAT often unless I’m messing around on my friends toon for research purposes/feedback for her on rotations or gear/weapon options;  I have never seen someone prefer an Spriest for a DPS race fight over a mage or a lock. Most of the time if we need to fill a raid spot and we need caster dps it’s always “see if we can get a mage. or a lock.” not “hey you know what? We should get an spriest!” Unless it’s for 25 Razuvious.)

Are the developers happy with the functionality of Dispersion and is it considered to be an adequately valuable final talent in the Shadow tree?

I think the key word here is “final” talent. Players have developed an expectation that the 51-point talent should be the best one in the tree; and for damage-dealing trees that means it’s expected these final talents do more damage than anything else the player has. (Is it just me or hasn’t blizzard stated before that they want the 51 point talent to be good? Look at the other trees/classes and if their 51-point talents are used often. Penance, Guardian Spirit, Explosive Shot, Chimera Shot, Big Red, Arcane Barrage, Bacon, Divine Storm, Wolves, Riptide, Chaos Bolt, Meta, well you get the point. So how come Spriests shouldn’t be upset about not having a GOOD 51 point talent?)

Would you consider removing the cast time for Mind Blast to make it a more desirable direct-damage spell given that it already has a cooldown?

Obviously if the spell was no cooldown, no cast time then Shadow priests would not ever cast anything else (Um, this would be the case IF THAT WAS WHAT WAS ASKED. The question was would instant cast be possible with the CD IN PLACE. In PvP this is a very risky spell as it gives a big opportunity to expose spriests to school lockouts, crippling them damage wise.)

As for the Mind Flay range (which I think should be extended. It seems odd to have a main source of DPS be such a short range when all the other casters are waaaay in the back dps-ing) SW:D (ok the changes GC brought up would be nice, no backfire in execute range or backfire is not affected by raid buffs would make it more useful in raids without insta-deathing yourself) I didn’t have much hope, and to be honest I don’t think most people were expecting anything great from GC on those.

The Healing Holy Edition:

Furthermore, the priest has strong heal-over-time spells (HoTs), direct heals, and area-of-effect (AoE) heals. (Um, HoTs PLURAL?! Since when? And strong? Not exactly a word I would use to describe Renew. Semi-worthless, maybe. Strong not so much.)

I don’t think many players look at Greater Heal as being too expensive from a mana-per-healing standpoint. They often aren’t in danger of running out of mana. (Dude, GC, what priests are you running around with? Mana is an issue with me and a certain priest I raid with. I use HoH, pots and Shadowbuddy as often as I can and still am occasionally scraping the bottom of the barrel by the end of some fights. And Gheal just sucks. And from reading your spriest stuff your logic is: Talent taken by most = must be good! therefore one would assume spell NEVER USED BY ANYONE = Spell not good. But no! Your logic is: Spell not used by anyone = Spell is fantastic player needs to L2P. /boggle GC, /boggle. btw, I challenge anyone to dispell -> Gheal on an IC Hardmode Fusion Punch and see if your tank is still standing when GHeal lands then tell me it’s effective.)

with the exception of Flash of Light, which is mana-efficient but heals for a very small amount. So my favorite healadin can hit a 10k+ FoL, and I crit 6k FH, but their mana efficient FoL heals for a very small amount while my mana suck FH heals for too much in addition to being slower than their FoL? o.O

The problem is that in the current raid environment, speed is everything while mana isn’t nearly so scary. What I mean is that you are generally at a greater risk of failure through raid members dying than you are for healers going out of mana. The speed of Flash Heal just trumps other issues. …  Second, in a raid in which healers don’t coordinate well it’s easy for other healers to stomp on your big, slow heals. While you are casting, someone heals your target for you. I’m not saying these are bad players — in my experience it’s just the style of raid. Some players are really talkative and coordinated. “Big heal coming.” “I got Jimmy.” Or else everyone has their targets and won’t heal someone else unless something unpredictable happens. Other raids just heal anyone who is injured and don’t have a lot of assigned targets, except for probably the tanks. Again with us apparently being Mana Gods. Ok, we get the Holy Priests are good for raid heals, but what about SINGLE TARGET HEALS? Disc is penalized for raid healing with the mechanics of Grace, but we are being gimped for single target healing with the penance CD and there is no mention of the insta-gibbing of most tanks in ulduar to where GHeal just isn’t viable at all. And what we all need to L2P because we aren’t coordinating enough with other healers? I call BS. GHeal isn’t used because it is slow and speed is everything thanks to YOUR FIGHT MECHANICS and it’s way too big of a mana sink not because I’m not yelling “I got Jimmy!” on vent.  (oh, Dueg, I feel for you… that is so getting macro’d into one of my heals)

On Divine Hymn: It was balanced like Tranquility. We basically want these to be once-an-encounter spells. We have considered a mechanic that allows you to use the spell again in the case of a wipe, sort of the same way Bloodlust / Heroism works. Um, does anyone other than priests know wtf Divine Hymn is? And more importantly, do they care? It’s not like we are being brought to raids because we have Divine Hymn!

On Lightwell: The basic root of the problem is that most dps classes seem unwilling to have to take the time or spatial awareness to make use of the Lightwell, even if it provides great healing. No Shit, Sherlock! Most DPS will DIAF rather than move/bandage/anything else that might mess with their precious DPS. There are, however, some very good ideas on making Lightwell fun and non sucky on the forums.  (7 posts above the blue towards the bottom of the page by Meia of Bloodhoof)

On Absorption in the combat log: The change we made for 3.2 was to show how much damage was left on each absorption effect before and after the damage was done. This should allow third-party addons to figure out which absorb effect goes with which caster and properly credit them for it. The answer, I suspect they will find, is that shields actually prevent a lot of damage. We have seen priests prevent as much damage as they healed.  2 things. 1.) So, someone scripting a 3rd party addon can make it figure out what caster it gets credited to, but you guys can’t manage to figure out how to make it do that? Sounds to me like maybe Blizz should hire some of the addon writers. 2.) I highly doubt that I absorb as much as I heal since I’m usually focusing all my heals on 1 person and there is the Weakened Soul debuff so I can only absorb so much. If I was raid healing bubbling then I could see the Absorption rates being much higher. But we all know about Disc Priests and raid heals.

On Dispel and Abolish Disease being 1 spell: We think that pushes dispels too far into easy mode. But it’s not easy mode for Shaman and Paladins?

On Dispel missing on bosses: This is annoying and we don’t really want healers to have to worry about being hit-capped. Gee, tell us something we didn’t know? I don’t wanna worry about being hit capped either.

On Inner Fire having charges: At that point it just becomes a passive buff and we might as well just say that priests have the armor of a leather-wearer while wearing cloth. It works a little better for mages and warlocks who are at least making a decision about which armor spell to cast. WTF GC is all i’m saying here. So we get penalized because we only have 1 kind of armor boost instead of multiple like Mages and Locks?

Pretty much the Priest Q & A felt like GC telling priests that everything is fine, they are happy with priests and if we aren’t happy we need to L2Priest. And some of the blue responses on the Q & A Forums were harsh and basically made us seem like QQers who have no idea what we are talking about. Not cool. That combined with the Penance CD change (which was calculated on the forums as being a loss of about 160,000 healing over a 5 minute boss fight… but it’s no big deal according to devs. I’m still working on all the numbers myself though.)  the FUCKING JOUSTING (I guess there’s no new dailies for me. I hate jousting, and I refuse to do it, and I’m not going to take a month to get enough seals to be able to do MORE jousting dailies!) and the new raid not seeming very new (Yay I can fight bosses I’ve fought before only now they hit harder? No thanks. And I can see the same room in the 5 man regular, 5 man heroics, 10 man regular, 10 man hard, 25 man regular, 25 man hard? /whee)

All I can say is hopefully 3.3 drops soon, and I GOT JIMMY!!!

<3

Tart