A Glimpse in the Mind of a Priest

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In 10 seconds, anything can go wrong. In upper level raiding, there’s a certain element of micro management that needs to be done. We tried Kael again today and we still could not polish him off. Our best attempt was at 57% in Phase 4. It’s like your trying to get a good solid grip on running water. You can feel it through your fingers but it continues to slip away elusive to your grasp.

Here’s a scenario of a crazy, paranoid, overanalyzing Dwarf Priest in overdrive on a Kael fight during Phase 3:

00:00

Thought process

Tank at full health. Weapon swing coming in half a second. A quick glance at the Heads-up display reveals a Fear happening in 3. Thaladred’s gazing at a Priest adjacent to me and is heading to my direction (Gaze means he’s going to walk towards a player and hit him hard).

Actions

Activate a shield on my healing assignment, and start moving north away from the incoming mob.

00:03

Thought Process

I currently represent half the healing on my tanking assignment as the other Priest is busy evading Thal. Big heals are a must as is the fear ward.

Actions

Fear Ward, Renew, Prayer of Mending.

00:09

Thought Process

Gaze is off my partner and is now on a hunter next to me who just went flying through the air and is sitting at 45%. A quick glance at my assignment with 80% health shows my partner has him targeted with a heal on the way about to land in 0.7 seconds.

Actions

Hunter’s not going to be able to sustain another hit. Target him, Shield, Renew, switch back to healing assignment.

00:14

Thought Process

“FEARED!”

I recognize that voice. It’s my Priest partner. There’s a tremor totem on the ground from the shaman in our group and it pulsed 2 seconds ago. Not enough time. Hunter should be fine and in the clear. I’m going to be on my own for the next several seconds on my assignment.

Actions

Prayer of Mending. Better hope the WoW gods are listening and that it is able to mitigate more damage then the tank is taking. Tank’s health returns up to 60%. Activate Divine Illumination. Additional 25% chance to crit is better than 10%.

00:18

Thought Process

Blue rings shimmer around my assignment. It looks familiar, what the hell does it mean? Too late, I think to myself. It’s a Remote Toy. That equals stun. Stun equals lack of ability to take defensive measures by my healing assignment. Which also means not good. He’s down to 35%. Adrenaline’s already coursing through the system. The coffee I had earlier in the day is all but exhausted. He needs a big time crit heal now.

Actions

Slam max rank Greater Heal now.

00:19

Thought Process

XPerl shows my colleague starting to cast a heal not a moment after I did. Wait a minute…

…He’s casting a Greater Heal, too.
…There’s only 2 of us healing him.
…Which means he has less then 2 seconds to live based on weapon swing timers from the boss…

Action

Do the simplest action to cancel a heal which is move. At the same time, blow a PW: Shield and pray it can withstand a hit. Oh no, Thal’s arm is up, and that means-

00:20

“MAN DOWN”

Thought Process

Oh crap. You failed the team. One simple miscalculation. One wrong heal at the wrong time. Sanguinar is now free and goes forth rampaging the raid.

Game over.

Priests are so easy to play. There are so many options to choose from. It’s easy to scrutinize one’s play in hindsight. But when you’re in the moment, the difference between raid success and failure can hinge on a something so insignificant as using the right heal at the right time.

Over 5 options to choose from and I picked the wrong one. Kael could have died tonight. This is going to haunt me for a long time.

It’s quite possibly one of the worse feelings anyone can experience in the world. It’s not being told what you did wrong by someone else. It’s knowing what you did wrong and knowing that it could have been prevented.

I should have rolled a Hunter.

Discipline Priests Part 2: What You Said

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Several weeks ago, I asked for reader input about Discipline Priests and their role in end game raiding and PvP action. Here’s a piece of what others had to say about the subject:

Megan:

From the healing aspect in PVP, Disc Priest is the art of healing without healing. If I dispel spam on a target, that’s X less DPS he’s not going to pump out as usual when stripped of buffs. When I Fear->chain Mana Burn a target, an empty bar saves me thousands of damage I would otherwise have to heal through. If I’m sticking to mostly instants like Dispel/Shield/Renew, I also then get alot more mobility, which means kiting, and if I’m kiting, that’s X DPS that someone else isn’t recieving (and I don’t have to heal).

Thuenderman:

I am the healing officer in my guild which is just at the point of clearing Kara every week. After 2.3 I switched to Disc and have yet to go back. I can heal any heroic as well as Kara with my current build. I love the added utility PI and PS add.

I will say that I would think this build wouldn’t work without a healthy +healing. Mine is around 1725 self buffed without consumables. Disc healing focuses less on spirit than holy does and more on pure +healing (no improved death or spiritual guidance) and gear (the whitemend set boosts healing by your int not spirit).

Elyxaar:

I found disc to be great for leveling. IIRC my first 5 talent points went into 2/2 Healing Focus & 3/3 Imp Renew, then disc all the way up to Pain Suppression (Reflective Shield rather than Force of Will), then back to holy up to Searing Light & Imp Healing. Now I’m pretty much cookie-cutter 23/38/0 I miss the solo-survivability I used to have, but then again I don’t tend to solo as much as when I was levelling up.

PriestOfOne:

I think the DISC build is like jack of all trade, master of none. I can see the point of not bring a DISC build to a RAID only if the tank is a weak point in the RAID. I had tough time healing tank when they are not properly geared or not the proper build. In a way, you would not want to bring a fury or arm build warrior to a RAID.

By switching to DISC+HOLY, I have upped my holy damage quite a bit. I have upped the holy damage by 15% + 10% to 35% of my Spirit. Compared to Shadow DPS, I dont think it is that far behind espeically if I get Power Infusion.

I’ve also had a chance to compare with a Holy Priest. I think the DISC+HOLY has slight edge when it comes to mana. If I dps, Holy will have better mana management but if I heal, I will have a slight edge due to the reductions in the DISC tree offers.

You’ll have to excuse me for the next several days or so. I’ve hit a bit of a blogging slump. The idea well is running rather dry at the moment. Not to mention I still need to set up a functional blogroll. I’ve effectively cleaned it out and such. The problem is getting it to display in a manner that I’m satisfied with. I have a perfectionist problem, sadly :(.

I Blog Azeroth. Will You?

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Blog Azeroth logo

All credits go to Phaelia for this one! There’s a new community being formed for WoW Bloggers and would be WoW Bloggers. It’s called Blog Azeroth. Now this is not an exclusive community or anything on those lines. This is an open forum for WoW Bloggers to exchange ideas and share problems. Even if you don’t have a blog, I encourage you to sign up and lurk. It’s a great way to interact with your favourite bloggers. Here’s a brief blockquote like thing that I have gracefully swiped from the introductory post:

Blog Azeroth was created to facilitate the exchange of information and foster community among Warcraft blog authors. While we all appreciate and thrive upon building our own separate communities of readers and — in some cases, members of the class upon which we have focused — we are all part of the same community. Many of us struggle with the same problems, be it the cumbersome migration from one blog platform to another, knowing what stats are the most helpful, or gold spammers trying to take advantage of a publicly available platform. By sharing what we’ve each learned individually, we increase our collective knowledgebase. And all without having to hunt down an e-mail address or post a comment in an attempt to contact each other!

You will find assistance on all sorts of topics. One of the prevailing questions is “Blogger or WordPress?” (WORDPRESS). But as of yet, no one’s really raised that issue on Blog Azeroth. Go, be the first and expect a wide variety of input.

Topics could potentially include but are not limited to:

  • Design
  • Writing
  • Blogging
  • Technical help
  • Troubleshooting
  • Hosting Options
  • Plugins and features help
  • Ideas and writing topics
  • What drinks Bloggers like

So really, there is no limitation at all.

I’m specifically appealing to you. Yes, you the guy sitting in that chair debating whether or not to start a blog because you are not sure what it takes and you don’t know who to ask.

Well now you do.

Bloggers: How to Deal with Gold Sellers

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I’m not going to name any names or companies here. It would seem that gold farmers have taken an unorthodox tactic to commenting on popular WoW blogs in order to attract potential customers. World of Matticus has been hit by them several times in the past week and I’m usually diligent about it.

I do not want to call them out.
I do not want to name their companies.
I do not want to link to their “blogs”.
I do not want to give them any kind of publicity or attention whatsoever.

I’ve taken a marketing class or 2 and I understand how these guys operate. Blizzard crackdowns and the increased countermeasures that they have given to their players have helped stifle the economy. The thing to understand most is that they don’t care whether the feedback or reaction around them is positive or negative. The point is that they are getting attention in the first place.

If you really want to do something about it, then delete the comment. Don’t blog about it and don’t talk about it (Totally hypocritical, I know, but it still needs to be said). The less exposure they receive then they less they can exploit.

For the Reader

Think carefully before clicking on any link left in the comments. Read it and scrutinize the URL. Remember there has been a recent sting of accounts being broken into (particularly to BRK’s crew). It might be a gold seller today but it could be an account hacker tomorrow.

Raid Juggling

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In hockey, there is a term called line juggling. Typically, when a team has difficulty scoring and getting momentum going the coach will start juggling his forwards together in the chance that they will click, find chemistry, and score.

On Sunday, Carnage has been able to consistently transition from Phase 3 to phase 4 while losing no more than 1 player. We were able to get Kael down to approximately 70%. Earlier in the night, one of our Paladins had to leave due to personal problems. Instead of 4 Paladins, we ran 3 Paladins and replaced him with a Resto Druid.

Tonight we’re diving back into Kael. The confidence is there. In fact, all of our future signup raids have changed from SSC/TK to Mount Hyjal/Black Temple.

But here’s what puzzles me.

Apparently, we’re dropping our Resto Druid and bringing our 4th Paladin back into the lineup. Both of these players are trial members so there’s no issue of seniority here. Now I also know it’s not my place to question the wisdom of the raid leaders. My job is to make sure our players in the raid have the health required to do the job they need to do. I’m not the one deciding who gets benched for the rest of the period or who gets coupled with who out there.

But Sunday was the furthest we’ve ever gotten on Kael. Why change what has arguably had the most success? Not only that, but our last two attempts that night were so spot on that we got him down to that 70% range (+/- 10%) consecutively.

How does that old adage go again? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it?

I’m not going to openly question the decision of the GM’s in this one. It’s out of my hands anyway. They have more to handle on their plate without me asking why we’re changing the lineup. I just found it surprising. I don’t know enough about Paladins in a 25 man situation. I don’t know what kind of advantage we would capitalize by bringing a 4th Paladin (Kings, Salv, Might/Wis, Light?).

But for all you young GM’s out there, if you have a set group of players that have been able to deliver success then I say stick with that group. Ride their momentum. Players are on a hot streak for only so long.

On the other side of the spectrum, if your raid continues to have troubles on a raid boss that you should not be having problems on, then start raid juggling. Get your prot pally to respec Holy and your Warrior to respec prot. Start changing things up. Move your healers around, put your tank healers on the raid, your raid healers on the tank. Something is not working and you’ve given it 9 tries. It’s unlikely it’s going to work on the 10th. Bite the bullet, start juggling.