You Did WHAT?!?

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After a while, you may play your class for so long that you may think you know all the tricks there are to know. Use SW: Death to bounce Prayer of Mending? yawn. Use Inner Focus before a mana-free spell to get the crit benefit to TWO spells? Yeah, Blizzard figured that one out, too. Fixed in 2.3 . For me especially, it can feel like I know everything there is to know about Holy Priests. But even after leveling two of them, the class still manages to surprise me. Here are a few of my favorite odd-ball ideas. Feel free to share your own!

Unusual uses for spells:

Mind Vision:
Can’t find someone that needs a heal and is out-of-range in a spread-out venue like Mt. Hyjal? Mind vision them really fast to find them, and you can run over and patch them up.

MV also works great when someone is lost running back through the instance. This way you can give them first-hand directions!

If you can MV a Rogue in a PvP situation before they stealth, you’ll be able to see them. Personally, I just like to throw Pain on them and keep them from stealthing in the first place, but that only works if they’ve burned Cloak.

Got an opposing faction flag-carrier hiding somewhere in the BG? Check their name at the top of your screen, target them manually, and Mind Vision away. Suddenly, they’re not so sneaky anymore.

Wonder if it’s worth getting an epic flyer? (It is.) MV a buddy while they’re riding theirs. Zoom!

Holy Nova:
Priests either hate this talent (Matt) or love it (Me) – but once you get used to pain-pulling 6 or 7 mobs and Nova-ing them down, it’s hard to do without it.

Don’t have an AoE DPS in Magister’s Terrace? Shield, Renew, and ProM yourself, and let someone pull the Mana Wyrms to you before the 2nd boss. You can Nova the whole room in two pulls. (remind your group that it won’t cause any threat, so they should just sit tight and let you handle it.)

Rank 1 Nova is WIN for finding stealthies before they’re ready. When I re-rolled from my Human to my Troll, I missed Perception at first: now I know better!

Okay, so the output isn’t that great, but Nova HEALS and DAMAGES with NO THREAT. If you’re pulling aggro, but about to die, and you have to run (i.e. you can’t binding heal, which is low-threat) pop a couple Novas. It’ll burn some serious mana, but it’ll get you a bit of health back, too, without getting you skewered. And anything burns less mana than DYING.

PW:Fortitude:
Everyone has someone same-faction that they can’t stand. (or is that just me?) If you ever have the opportunity, this can be really fun:
When your good buddy is about to jump off a high ledge (high, but not deadly. Think Scryer Tier or the Zepplin tower in UC) throw them a Fort right after they leap. Since fall damage is a % of total health, increasing their health pool causes them to take MORE damage when they hit the ground. Max-rank Fort is usually enough to make them go splat, just don’t forget to Levitate down yourself!

Mind-control
Most of us know that you can MC someone from the opposing faction, and buff them with anything insta-cast. This means a Fort, S.Prot, Renew, or PW:Shield. You can also let your buddies buff them. Did you know you can toss them a leather ball?

You may know this already, but in many instances, you can MC the mobs, and BUFF your own party. Try it with the Physicians in the Mechannar.

Shadow Fiend
The little guy takes a lot of crap for only lasting 15 seconds. If you find you’ve pulled more than you can handle (even with Nova!), DON’T DPS one of the targets – just set your fiend on him, and watch the little guy tank. He doesn’t generate a lot of threat, so be careful, but he might just buy you enough time to get yourself healed up.

If you have a Pally that’s open to it, get him to throw a might on your Fiend. He gets a lot of mileage (and you get a lot of mana!) out of buffs. Those scrolls of strength or agility you may randomly get and vendor? keep ’em. He likes those, too.

Fade:
Fade is pretty misunderstood mechanically. It’s not a threat-dump, it simply reduces your threat on the aggro table by 1,500 for 15 seconds. Anything you do in those 15 seconds adds threat normally, (be nice if it was threat-free, wouldn’t it? HEY BLIZZARD!!!) and at the end of the time, the 1,500 you lost comes right back. What you might not know is that if you fade and don’t do anything else…. the mobs won’t pay attention to you again until you DO something, even after the 15 sec are up. If you’re running for your life on a boss reset, pop a holy nova or two to get a little no-threat healing in, and then Fade. THEN DON’T DO ANYTHING UNTIL YOU’RE SAFE. It won’t save you the repair bill every time, but it works often enough to be worth trying.

SW:D
This one is pretty well-known, but bears repeating: a well-timed SW:D can break you out of some types of CC (like Polymorph). Make sure you cast it right as they’re finishing up their cast – the backlash damage will knock you out of sheep!


Racial: Hex of Weakness (Troll)
Okay, so reducing damage dealt by 35 is pretty worthless. But reducing healing taken by 20% is pretty win. ANY boss that gets healed should have this thrown on them. Because it’s a curse, I especially like to toss it on arena teams with a Paladin or Priest healer. Just another reason Troll Priests are more than a pretty face.

Levitate
Sure, Shamans can walk on water, but we don’t even get our toes wet. You can fish, summon your flying mount, eat or drink, and do just about anything but jump this way. Very handy when wanting to fish deep water or farm Primal Waters uninterrupted.

Everyone Needs More Wyn in Their Life

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Surely by now you’ll have realized that the world has expanded. I made an offer to Wynthea weeks ago that she literally could not refuse. World of Matticus will now officially have two Priest bloggers for your consumption. I didn’t introduce her at first because I figured it’d be better if she did it. I’ve enjoyed the posts she’s written thus far and I hope you guys have as well.

Why is she here?

I’ve updated the About page and included her illustrious history there, but I’ll post a brief excerpt here on what the story is and how (she thinks) we met:

Matticus and I met via this very blog, and began collaborating almost immediately. Matt pointed out that with so many ideas and a passion for the class, I may as well have my own blog. I countered that between editing his posts and raiding, I didn’t have time for all the set-up and nurturing a new blog requires. Once he realized that he could trick me into giving him a day off without taking a break from providing content, he invited me to begin my career as Deputy-Matticus.

(What really happened is that she kept bugging me on GTalk about all the errors in spelling and grammar I was making to the point where I just handed her the keys to my blog and told her to run wild. Yes, I’m that easy.)

If you’ve followed me from the beginning, you’ll know that I have never done any sort of post regarding formulas, spreadsheets, mathematics, graphs, or any of that stuff. Reason?

I don’t do math stuff. I’m not very good at it. I’ve read math stuff from other bloggers and I lose them after the second sentence. But I know there are a lot of players that are interested in the hard evidence and the logic to support certain priest theories and I firmly believe that she can provide the information better than anyone else (after consultations at least).

In other words, she does the actual math and theorycrafting. I translate it and “sell” it so that the rest of the us can understand it.

What else do I get out of all this?

A precious day off.
Someone that can proofread all this stuff.
Cookies.

What’s Different

We’re different on so many levels that I believe we’d actually complement each other effectively on the perspectives that we’d bring.


 

What’s Similar

On the other hand, we’re not so different to the point where I think we’d alienate each other.

We’re both CoH (pronounced coe) Priests
We’re at similar levels of progression
We both like pandas
We are both committed to improving our gameplay

Who is the better Priest?

I’m sure this is a question that people are dying to know. Unfortunately, there is no possible way to prove who is better than the other. We play on different servers in different factions. We both claim that we’re better than the other so I guess we’ll never know who the better Priest really is.

Edit: I forgot to mention. All emails sent on the contact page utilizing the form will be sent to her in addition to myself.

Breaking the 2000 Heals Per Second Barrier

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2000hps

The time: 2230
The place: Tempest Keep
The objective: Infiltrate, search and destroy the Voidreaver prototype
The crew: Fallen Heroes lead joint operation

I had finished an excursion into Botanic in the hopes of procuring me a Bangle. Boy did that not work out. Shortly after I finished, I received a tell from a mission commander in Fallen Heroes.

Apparently, one of their heroes had… fallen.

Since I happened to be in the area, I agreed to lend what assistance I could. I entered the area and the entire complex was picked clean. All the Elven guards were dead or no where to be seen. Halfway in and a glance upwards showed that the team inside had a giant roast turkey for dinner at some point.

In any case, we’ve cleared out the room in Voidreaver and a new strategy was devised. I didn’t know what was up but when I heard ranged won’t have to move I straightened my back and listened.

The idea

A group of hunters would run laps around Voidreaver while the rest of the group stayed directly underneath him.

All that’s necessary for me to do is spam CoH (pronounced Coe, like toe. None of this See Oh Aech business) and PRoH (pronounced Prow). Yes, I’m setting a precedent.

The execution

Oh it was glorious! That’s all I did the entire fight! I sat directly beneath him and did nothing but spam those two AoE spells the entire night. If the pounding timers are on the mark, I can time my prayer down to the split millisecond that it begins and it’s as if no one loses any health at all.

And after the dust settled and the smoke cleared, there were only 5 or so casualties. I got nothing but a Fel Reaver’s Piston for my effort. No one rolled on it and I wasn’t about to just leave empty handed. At least I have a void crystal now.

Obviously in order to sustain that kind of healing output, you’re going to need gas and lots of it. If you ain’t outta gas, you ain’t tryin’! Resto Shamans have good mileage there’s no doubt about that. I guess you could call them hybrids. But what does Tim Taylor need? More power! Therefore, I take pride in being the suburban SUV of healers everywhere with Druids as my mobile gas stations.

…

*ducks*

The World is Not Ready

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Do not let the others mislead you. This is not the case. The first rule of BA chat is whatever is said in BA chat stays in BA chat. And this is for good reason, I assure you.

Why?

Because the world isn’t ready. The public isn’t ready. What about the kids? They’re not ready! The discussion, the drama, the stories, the tales, the classified information, the pictures are shared in an isolated and contained environment. Should it be publicized, the chaos and damage that would ensue would reach proportions of an epic scale rivaled only by the Sundering itself! I have always considered BA Chat “Off the record” where anything could be said at any time for any reason. Now I’ll have to self censor what I say under fear that it could be used against me at any time without notice.

How many casualties have we suffered? How many eyes have been gouged? Oh the humanity!

How to Successfully Pick up a GM

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Image courtesy of dbking

Making the first move and first impression counts when you’re looking to join a Guild. Excellent Guildmasters (I prefer General Managers) have a way of cutting through the random crap that applicants throw at them. They’re able to translate what applicants say and interpret them in a more precise way. As my Guild’s first line of defense against “R-Tards”, I’ve seen my share of bad opening introductions from players that were interested. Here’s 10:

  1. You say: “I can maintain 100% attendance.” GM thinks: “Even if he does make 100% of the raids, he’ll probably afk for a good portion of them.”
  2. You say: “I am willing to listen and pay attention all the time.” GM thinks: “Good, because my guild is full of players who do whatever the heck it is that they want at will.”
  3. You say: “I’m not quite sure what level your Guild is at in terms of progression, but… ” GM thinks: “No homework or research done and you’re applying for our Guild blindly? If you can’t research Guilds then we can’t expect you to research boss strategies.”
  4. You say: “I can lead PvP battlegrounds and form a top notch arena team within the Guild.” GM thinks: “We’re a frackin’ progression guild, not a PvP guild! Besides, this Guild can’t handle more than 1 emo BG leader.”
  5. You say: “I’d like to see end game raiding and experience it.” GM thinks: “You willing to die for it?”
  6. You say: “I don’t think my gear is good enough, however…” GM thinks: “Nope, probably not.”
  7. You say: “There’s not much time left before the expansion comes out, so…” GM thinks: “We’re not a sightseeing operation.”
  8. You say: “I’m willing to sit on the bench for a while and stay as a trial if you’re full.” GM thinks: “Great, someone whose not even going to try and compete for a raid spot.”
  9. You say: “You’ve made these mods mandatory for use in the Guild, but I don’t think I need them because…” GM thinks: “You can’t even pass a simple test of just downloading and installing mods. How will I know you will do as I instruct during a raid?”
  10. You say: “The only way for me to get better as a player is to get better gear.” GM thinks: “A million dollars to anyone who invents a device that allows for strangulation across the internet

The best opening lines to make to a GM or their representative is to say something similar to:

Hi, my name is __________, I would like to raid as a __________ spec and I have experience up to this encounter in the game.

For a much better insight into the application and mental thought processes of GMs, I strongly advise you read Chick GM’s post about the very same subject in more detail.

Post inspired by Guy Kawasaki