Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Epix... I has some

I haven't had a ton of time to log in because I've had visitors, but I have been able to do a bunch of crafting. I'm getting pretty close to my original pre-Naxx goal. Which is funny, because I've already been there and cleared the Arachnid Quarter. Anyway, time for another gear review. Now that I've got my wowhead script set up, I'll itemize here for easier reading instead of the weird combined setup I used last time:

*edit* You know what? I don't like the way this new list works. I'll make another gear post later today with the new format. Sorry about that.

Now that I'm Imba certified for Naxx, I am also going to start getting my resilience set upgraded. My merciless/brutal getup is still pretty good, but it won't be for long. I haven't started doing any serious bgs or arenas because I've been so focused on my PvE gear. Once I have everything maxed pre-raid, then it's all dependent on how much raiding we do, so I don't have to worry about it anymore. I'll have to keep up with my Frostweave Cloth purchases and start with the crafted resilience set. It's a Stam/Intel/Crit set so I should be able to set it up with a solid discipline spec. I'm gonna have fun setting up for PvP. It's also time to be reviewing my bars, they're not ideal right now. Maybe I need to buckle down and set up a custom UI. That's just so much work though. We'll see

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Arachnophobia... nah, we got it

We started Naxxramus this weekend and despite my misgivings about our gear level we did great. We started late and had some trouble getting a full group, which is not unusual. What was unusual was we were having trouble filling a dps spot. Had two tanks, two and a half healers, and all but one dps. After two mages came in and dropped out, Bob came online with his DK, which worked out real well. Jr was running the raid, since the guild rule is pretty much you want it you lead it, and that worked out really well too, except that he has a bad habit of interrupting people. Some of that's just a function of the headphones, but when I specifically try and talk to the other healer, butting into the middle of it will just delay things more.

We started out with the Plague Quarter. That did not go so well. We were having real problems with those two gargoyles guarding the doorway. We tried everything we could think of, even running me and Jag the offtank all the way to one side and the rest of the raid all the way to the other to try to mitigate damage. I had no problems keeping Jag up, but it still didn't seem to help. So after a few wipes we decided to try a different wing. There was a lively discussion of which wing the internet said was the easiest. I'm of the belief that "easy" and "hard" are relative to what your strengths and weaknesses are, not what the internet says, so I was getting a little antsy about the whole thing. Finally, they settled on the Arachnid Quarter.

I have to say, the Arachnid Quarter went really well for us. It went well to the point that I don't really remember if or how many times we wiped from start to finish of that wing. We wiped a few times on Widow, it just took a while to get the timing on killing the adds down. I was really impressed with the tanking abilities of the DK. I was able to stick to him like glue and didn't have any trouble keeping him healed up while the rest of the raid was alive. I even had time to keep PoM and Renew up on the tank as well. I really like that I can shield the DK whenever I feel like it. Of course, he was a good tank too who was adaptable to whatever strategy we wanted to try, which made it that much easier.

All the loot was taken and used, that was good too. I'd much rather see that than d/e fodder. It took us a good 2 hours to clear that wing, and there was some talk about trying to do another one, but some people had to go so we called it while we were ahead.

It was so nice to have two strong healers and an off healer for this raid. Since War's a drood he took over the main tank heals, I took the off tank and AOE, and Tran did Flash of Light top ups and dispels as needed. The hardest part for me, having done mostly 5 man heroics, was sticking to my own job. I'm so used to doing ALL the healing and dispelling, it was difficult not to go nuts healing everyone. There was a couple times I just had to take a deep breath and say "trust them, it's OK". Everything worked out great.

Monday, December 22, 2008

I'm OOM

Zully's mana regen is looking pretty good, but my personal mana is running low. I healed until my brain fizzled out. I'm sure I spent at least 8 hours, probably close to 10 healing this weekend. Naxx alone was 4+ hours long.

Hesp was laughing at me and saying that's like a second job. She is so right. Too bad I don't get paid for it, heh. I'll do a separate post on Naxx in a little bit.

In other news, Danny is going to do 2s with me once she hits 80, we'll probably start after the holidays. Tess is up to 80 now, I'll be dragging him to every heroic possible. I made back about 600g doing Icecrown quests, and spent about 350 of that buying 2 more Moonshroud and a whole mess of Frostweave. I made my Aurora Boots before the raid and got them chanted up with Spirit. My spirit is a little off ratio with my intellect, but it should be OK once I get a socket put into my new belt. It's good to have a pocket warrior or two.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

I'm Broke!

Well, my quest for Moonshroud is over whether I like it or not. I'm down to about 150 gold spread across all my toons right now. Well, maybe a little more than that, I haven't actually robbed the lowbies of their meager funds yet. However, I did manage to get my tailoring up to 415 with that last expensive push for cloth, so I can make my own Moonshroud every 4 days now. I better go dig up some Fire and Shadow to make the other two types of cloth to sell, because at this rate I won't even be able to repair.

The other good news is I still have plenty of quests to do to make some funds. I'm about halfway through the chain to get Sons of Hodir rep in Storm Peaks, and probably about halfway through the quests in Icecrown. I picked up the Flesh Giant Shoulders yesterday and put the Scryer enchant on it even though they'll probably get replaced pretty quick. Tran was linking some blues from the Heroic Utgarde Keep run he was doing last night and I was turning quite green with envy for the Drood he was running with.

Also, ironically WoW insider had a post about the healer shortage today, and the comments section has loads of people with the exact same issues as me. I'm not alone in being overworked and "underpaid".

The Healer Shortage and How to Fix It

Best Comment Ever:
"Healing is like tetris.
Dps is like mortal combat."

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

HealMeHealMeHealMe

There's two sides of being a priest that are challenging in WoW. The first is healing, which is the act of keeping yourself and your group alive to kill monsters or other players. The other is being a Healer, which is not getting a moment's peace because your group wants to stay alive to kill monsters or other players.

I made the mistake of logging on "just to check my auctions" when I should have been going to bed last night. I didn't even get halfway through posting the guild auctions on Rosy before I got a whisper from Tran asking if I could come heal Heroic Violet Hold. See my previous post about not healing any more heroics until I have better gear. But, as I've said before I'm a total pushover, so I rationalized that it was a timed instance so it wouldn't be so bad to do that and then go to bed, right? If we wiped I'd just say bye bye and take off. Ha.

So our usual team of Zon, Px, Tran and me went. Bob filled in the other dps spot with his DK. I was all kinds of wound up last night, so my teamspeak conversation went something like this:

Me: Bob, you're pulling too much aggro
Bob: Heal me Heal me

Me: Zon, you're out of Line of Sight
Zon: Heal me Heal me (implied, Zon is pretty good about not asking for heals)

Me: Px, get out of the fire
Px: Heal me Heal me

Me: (shields Tran)
Tran: Don't heal me!

What I really wanted to say, and probably did a few times, was "I'm on it!" What do you DPS types think I'm doing over here? Picking my nose? Reading a book? Having a thoughtful conversation with my cat? Come on now.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Nerd Rage

I got mad this weekend. REAL mad. Break my headphones spiking them on the floor mad (this will be remedied at Best Buy after work today). I think it's been so long since I had a new max level character as my main I forgot that Heroics are hard. Let me repeat that. Heroics are hard. Difficult. Frustrating. I think I need to find something soft to put on my desk to chuck so I don't break stuff I need again.

I tried to do 3 heroics this weekend. Zul'Drak we didn't even get the first boss. Violet Hold, we tried it 3 times. Wiped on the second boss twice and the last boss the third time. Got through all the bosses except the last one in the Nexus.

Thinking back on it, maybe I shouldn't have been so mad. We did pretty well considering. But I wasn't really as upset about not being able to finish as I was that I wasn't able to heal as well as I thought I should be. I wasn't sure if it was spec, I am using that Grace and Spirit build I talked about last post. Oh yeah, next time I feel like respeccing, Grace is gonna go. It's annoying. Basically, it's just a weird HoT that needs to be refreshed every 4 seconds, which kills the 5 second rule. I guess I didn't realize how second nature the 5 second rule has become to me until I started worrying about the timing of my heals. I think I'd rather have the extra 4% to all heals from 2 more points in Spiritual Healing. It fits my style better. The rest of it seems pretty good, my normal GH hits for around 6500 and my crits are hitting for 10k+. Tanks are running around 22k right now, so that seems decent. Maybe a little on the low side, but pretty good for a hybrid. I do miss reflective shield for questing though.

Anyway, it was after the failed heroic on Sunday night that I declared (over TeamSpeak) that I would not be doing any more heroics till I had better gear, and proceeded to break my headset. The next morning when Zon came on we did an 80 level heroic, Halls of Lightning. He didn't get the sword he wanted, but I picked up Volkhan's Hood and Raiments of the Titans, both of which were pretty significant upgrades. I put a +12 int gem and a +8 mp5 chant on the robe.

I'm up to 6 pieces of Moonshroud. I'm a little surprised that I've been able to get so much. So far I've paid between 200-350 per piece, which for 4 days worth of play time seems reasonable. I'm resisting the urge to buy up the cloth regardless of price. There's one guy that seems to be trying to set a high price, but I'm hoping if I hold out and only buy it when it's below 350 bid or buyout things won't get ridiculous. Only 2 points of tailoring till I can start making it myself! Looks like I'll have all the Moonshroud I need by the time I reach the tailoring level needed to make all this stuff.

My enchanting is up to 431, which means I got to buy some of the really cool recipes from the Dalaran, namely the top level Attack Power enchants. I've got all the warriors and hunters drooling over the Massacre enchant, but it requires 6 Abyss Crystals. So they're just going to have to wait. Or find some magic source of level 80 epics. I also made my Runed Titanium Rod. Don't need it yet, but I want to be prepared.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Yet another Spec post...

Reading is dangerous. I've been soaking up the priest blogs like a sponge for the last few days. Based on the way our guild has gone in the past, I'm going to be doing a lot more heroics than raids. At least I hope so. The idea of trying to run Naxx with only 2 healers makes me queasy.

This means AoE healing is not nearly as important as it is in a raid environment. Circle of Healing is basically wasted on a 5 man group. Plus, it's going to be nerfed via a 6 second cooldown in the next patch anyway. Based on my leveling experience and the stuff I've been reading about deep Discipline healing, it seems like it can be a very strong healing spec, especially for tank healing, which is essentially all a 5 man heroic is.

Spirit and Grace

Basically, I miss out on Borrowed Time and Penance, but I still get the neat damage mitigation of Grace and haste from Enlightment. It has the spirit boosts of Spiritual Guidance and Spirit of Redemption, and gets a good chunk of overall increased healing power from Spiritual Healing.

If I go as far down into holy to get Empowered Healing, I miss out on the really powerful single target abilities, basically turning it into a 3.0 Improved Divine Spirit build, which is pretty pointless IMO.

The main adjustments I can see making to this and still keeping it as a hybrid build would be to swap the three points in Spiritual Healing with three points in Divine Aegis. I decided not to start out that way though because even though Divine Aegis is cool, it relies on crit. Part of the point my hybrid build is NOT to stack intellect like a pally, but to preserve the Spirit focus of a traditional healing priest build.

I could also take the points out of Grace and use them for additional Spiritual Healing, but I really want to see how it holds up as a healing talent. Overall I think it's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. 2 points in grace gets up to 6% extra healing done and 3% damage mitigation, depending on how hard you're healing the target. Spiritual Healing gets a straight 4% extra healing every cast.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Moonshroud... I think they make it from pure gold

So now that I'm 80 and my questing is mostly done, I'm looking ahead to my heroic and crafted gear. Heroic stuff is just the luck of the drop, and also depends on me getting more that 5 minutes online at a time. The crafted gear I should theoretically be able to make at my own pace... right?

Well I found out recently that not only do I have to be 425 tailoring to get my Moonshroud specialty, I'm about 15 points short of that, but the cooldown for the cloth is... FOUR DAYS. Are you kidding me? The Moonshroud Robe alone takes eight pieces of cloth, the Moonshroud Gloves are 4 pieces, and the Aurora Slippers take one piece. So if I were to try and make all three items myself, assuming I remember to make the two pieces of cloth exactly every four days, it would take me 26 DAYS to make the set. Um, how does NO strike you Blizzard?

So my basic goal is to spend all my money buying moonshroud on the auction house. It really sucks too, because I need to buy stuff for enchanting too, but it's only a matter of time before the moonshroud cloth is priced even higher than it is now. I think I've planned ahead a little more than some. I fully expect to see it at 500g+ at some point in the future, but so far I've gotten 2 pieces for around 400g. i have a bid in on another piece for 325g, I'll probably lose it, but whatever.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Another Build Post

High Spirit Healing

Arena Shield Healer

I'm locked out... again.

I got through that final push to 80 at about 4:30 yesterday afternoon in the middle of The Old Kingdom. When I popped into group with Mal we had a full group ready to go for some instances, so we ended up doing three. I wasn't sure when the last time he'd done PvE was so we started out easy with the Nexus, and I ended up picking up Tome of the Lore Keepers, so I got more than just XP. We tore through that in about 45 minutes.

Then, after I came back from lunch, we did Violet Hold. That was a TON of fun. It's kind of like Black Morass, but with less running around. We wiped on the second boss the first time we tried it, and apparently you have to start all over when you wipe. The second try we ALMOST wiped on the second boss again (we got the consortium dude both times). I was the last one standing, and all of a sudden I hear Bob on TS yelling something along the lines of "Hit him! Hit him! He's almost dead HIT HIM!" So I target the boss (the focus was on me) and he's got less than 1k health left. I had enough mana to hit my SW:D and BAM! He died. I managed to rez another rezzer, and we got enough health up to carry on with the next set of trash. In the process, Mal decided it would be faster to run back and managed to get himself locked out, so we ended up 4 manning the last boss.

Finally, we ran both sub-80 instances in Azjol-Nerub. I was telling everyone to be careful not to get stuck on the ramp on the last boss when... the tank went running in and engaged the boss. While I was still on the ramp. Guess what happened? LOL. They got him down anyway, so it was alright. Apparently it was the night of the 4 man boss fight. Old Kingdom was uneventful, except that I dinged. So overall, it was a good PvE day.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Woo!

Well, I did it. I hit the big 80. Yay! Heroics here I come! Leveling is nice and all, but it will be good to be back into a max level routine, and not have to camp out at the inn all the time.

I ran 3 instances with Mal and friends today. He swears he's not coming back next weekend, but we'll see. If he doesn't, well, today was a good sendoff. More details tomorrow.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Crusader!

Well, now that I know what path I want to take to get my blues, I've delved into Icecrown. I was thinking of just doing all the low level areas until 80 then get the gold in the higher areas but...

Well, I have some RP tendencies on occasion and I get a good amount of glee from doing a good plotline. What better way to level to 80 than to bolster the forces of the Argent Crusade to fight against the Lich King! Woot!

(And lots of nice blues for heroic running too, as per yesterday's post. Can't forget about the loot)

Monday, December 1, 2008

Quit buggin me, almost level 78

I was babysitting the fax machine at work today and I caught myself thinking about arenas. Not just a passing thought wondering when the season will start, but hardcore consideration of what I'm going to do.

Stop laughing. I know I said I wasn't going to do arenas again.

With Mal being essentially gone, definitely not doing arenas, I need to find a new 2s partner. I just know that 5s is going to be a headache just like it was last season, so I really want to have my own team with agreed upon rules and times. Also, I think I want to try and find a partner outside of the guild. I'm sure running with Krom, Bob, or Zon would be fun, but one thing that was really nice was being able to log off TS and get away for a little bit. When arenas were done, they were done. No need to carry it over into the rest of my game.

I'd really like to get another rogue, but I think a hunter or ret pally would be fine too. I'll probably see if Danny has a friend I could start with, or wants to do them with me. I dunno if her schedule will work with mine, but we could try it. I've got a rogue and a mage on my buddy list that might be open to it as well, or might know someone. We'll see.

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