Lord Illidan Stormrage Vanquished!

Raiding 6 comments.

After mentioning in “Single-Target Priestly Healing in ‘Echoes of Doom’” some of the troubles that the we’d had last week while fighting against the Illidari Council, the Drunken Badgers returned to the Black Temple this evening with amazing results.  Not only were we able to defeat the Council, we took the opportunity to go head to head with The Betrayer and emerged victorious!  Despite the recent nerfs that have plagued mobs since Patch 3.0.2. and the fact that we’re significantly behind other trend-setting guilds, we’re extremely pleased to have managed to scratch Illidan from our list.

Though I’ve been raiding with the Badgers for about a year now, I’ve only been a member for perhaps a third of that time.  I joined with them shortly after they organized raids for Gruul’s Lair, originally on my kal’dorei and more recently on the perky priestess.  Our performance has been nothing less than stellar: within a handful of month we’d managed to place Gruul on farm status, enter Serpentshrine Cavern, slay Lady Vashj, battle Kael’thas, and clear Hyjal Summit.  I’m extremely proud that I’m a member of my guild and look forward to our future success in the Sunwell and beyond when we take on the forces of the Scourge in Wrath of the Lich King.

Even more surprising, however, has been our casual stance towards raiding.  While we don’t consider ourselves casual raiders, we do maintain a rather casual raiding schedule.  Beyond extranneous raids such as Zul’Aman and the occasional Karazhan badge run, we raid just one evening a night for five hours.  Guilds that have been raiding simultaneously with us — or even longer — have failed to make as much progress as we have even given a more rigorous raiding schedule.  To me, that indicates that we have some damned fine players in our raid and that our leadership has been extremely effective.

Of course, we Badgers do have our quirks.

Regarding the actual raid itself, I was quite impressed with my performance this evening.  Despite the lack of a raid-wide heal like Chain Heal or Circle of Healing, I was third overall on the healing meters.  This is in addition to all of the additional benefits of the Discipline tree, such as damage mitigation and absorption as well as buffs to spell damage.  I would have expected my standings on the meter to be much lower due to the decreased healing power of the tree.  Coupled with what I feel is an exceedingly low overheal value given my tendency to heal regardless of health missing in order to acquire both a full stack of Grace and Divine Aegis, I’m pretty proud of myself and how I’ve handled the transition from Holy-Discipline hybrid to full Discipline.

The spell of the evening was clearly Penance, which comprised of nearly 30% of my effective healing.  This is definitely a good thing since I think it’s the spell in my arsenal that has the highest Health Per Mana ratio.  I’m still trying to decide if Flash Heal is the way to go — contrary to pre-Patch 2.0.3 downranking of other spells — or if I should be using it less.  I was also extremely shocked to see that I somehow managed to get a Greater Heal this evening that hit for 14,925; with Divine Aegis, that meant that my target was instantly encased in a bubble that would have absorbed nearly 5,000 points worth of damage!

Furthermore, I clearly excelled in situations where single-target healing was needed while those fights that involved extensive splash damage I tended to falter.  And falter a lot.  In particular, I think that I’ll need to try to see if my healing assignments can be changed in future weeks.  There were a number of fights where I was assigned to raid heal which seemed rather silly.¹  With the lack of a raid-wide heal, I was forced to heal each raid member individually while the individuals tanking were not benefiting from my damage reduction buffs.

I think that I still need further practice with my build in order to be even more effective!  In particular, I’m having to reconsider how I gear myself and what spells are most beneficial.

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We Interrupt This Evening’s Presentation

Raiding 10 comments.

I had a post ready for tonight, but then something happened that was infinitely more important.

The Eye of Divinity.  I have it.  My epic quest — an ordeal that has persisted for almost four years now — will soon come to its natural conclusion.  Benediction shall be mine!

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Pimpin’ the UI: “Echoes of Doom” Edition

General, Raiding 6 comments.

Like many people, Patch 3.0.2 introduced a number of changes to my user interface.  Rather than completely overhaul everything, I instead chose to modify my existing UI, replacing those addons that no longer functioned with similar and updated ones.  The results are as follows:

• Bartender4 — This addon allows me to rearrange my bars at whim, including which are visible, what their sizes are, how many rows and columns I want, and even if they disappear during combat.
• Buffalo — I stumbled across this addon via Eye for an Eye in “New Hotness.”  These new buff and debuffs bars are wonderful, especially since I was having difficulty interacting with the default ones displayed with X-Perl.  It’s very customizable, which appealed to me a lot.
• Clique — I’d heard a lot about this addon and I’m starting to like it.  I’ve effectively reduced the number of bars visible in my user interface by binding a number of abilities and talents.  It’s especially helpful in reducing the amount of movement associated with clicking as a healer.
• eePanels2 — This is easily my favorite skinning addon.  It allows you to create customizable panels that can be skinned with different designs.  This allowed the grey decorated bar along the bottom of my screen, which looks much more visually appealing than the black bars you often see in images and movies.
• flagRSP2 — flagRSP2 is a roleplaying addon maintained by a fellow Feathermooner.  Players are able to describe their characters’ appearance and set a roleplaying status that indicates both experience and whether or not they’re looking to roleplay with others.  You can also display custom titles and even other names, which is very appealing to some roleplayers.
• FuBar 3.5 — I learned of FuBar from BigRedKitty over a year ago and I’ve been enarmored with it since.  FuBar generates easily skinned bars that can display all sorts of information by downloading further addons.  I currently use ExperienceFu, FactionsFu, DurabilityFu, FriendsFu, GuildFu, MoneyFu, BagsFu, Micro MenuFu, ClockFu, and AmmoFu on my hunter.
• Hat Trick — I downloaded this addon strictly for aesthetic purposes.  It generates a check box on your character screen that allows you to select if the character’s cloak and helm are visible.  While I claim that I like this addon for roleplaying purposes, I really just didn’t like seeing either most of the time regardless!
• ScrollingCombatText — As the name implies, this generates scrolling combat text including healing done and received, damage done and received, buffs received, and more.  I’m leaning towards downloading Parrot as an alternative in the near future due to many people’s recommendations.
• simpleMinimap — simpleMinimap is an addon that modifies the minimap within World of Warcraft.  This allowed me to have a circular minimap as opposed to the normally rectangular one in addition to deciding what information I want displayed on it.  In particular, I love that it displays coordinates.
• X-Perl UnitFrames — For nearly three years I stubbornly clung to an outdated version of CT Raid Assist for my raid frames while using Perl Class to display my group.  However, Patch 3.0.2 destroyed that addon and I was stuck seeking new raid frames.  I don’t like any of the alternatives and X-Perl is set up in a way that mimics my old CTRA.  The only thing I can’t get to work is having the buffs I want — Power Word: Fortitude, Divine Spirit, Shadow Protection, Power Word: Shield, Renew, and Soulstone — appear on the raid frames.  I’ve been told that this feature doesn’t seem to be working currently and I’m crossing my fingers that it’ll be changed.

Not downloaded as of yet are raid appropriate addons such as Deadly Boss Mods and Omen Threat Meter.  While I can typically get away with not having these as a healer, the latter has become a bit more important since I elected to respec as Discipline.  Knowing which damage class is nearing the tanks on the threat meter would help me determine to whom to apply a Pain Suppression.  Either way, I’ll have both up and running in time for Friday’s night raid.

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Single-Target Priestly Healing in “Echoes of Doom”

Priest, Raiding 9 comments.

Friday night the fine people of the Drunken Badgers decided it was time to return to Black Temple and get our progression on.  In prior weeks, we managed to get to get up to Teron Gorefiend, but had never progressed beyond that point.  As many other people have noted, Patch 3.0.2 changed everything.  We trounced Teron Gorefiend.  We ganked Gurtogg Bloodboil.  We mauled Mother Shahraz.  We ran into a little bit of problems with the Council of the Illidari, but it was still impressive for a raid full of people who had never even seen the fights, much less participated in them.

While I might lament how our sense of accomplishment has been minimized by the nerfs applied in “Echoes of Doom,” it really wasn’t that that made the evening so unenjoyable.  It was more how ineffective I was as a healer.

As I’ve noted many times before, I’m a Spirit-obsessed priestaphiliac.  While many other healing priests gleefully opted to learn the forty-one point talent Circle of Healing, I clung tenaciously to my Improved Divine Spirit, lavishly sharing my Spirit bounty with friends, party members, and fellow raiders alike.   It meant that I not only brought my healing prowess to a raid but also some added utility that the other Holy priests were unable to do.  Despite lacking a group heal that was capable of being used on the raid, I was often near the top of the healing meters or even the top healer.  It ascertained that I was in fact a viable and contributing member of the raid.

Patch 3.0.2 has changed all that — especially in regards to Circle of Healing, which now heals the five people within range who have the lowest health.  I decided to stick with a variation of my 23/38/0 build that allowed me to remain mana efficient with decent heals while retaining my beloved Improved Divine Spirit; the two other Holy priests in our raid went a full sixty-one points into the Holy tree.  The disparity between our performance was so ridiculously enormous that I found myself disappointed by the changes.  Between two Circle of Healing priests and a Restoration shaman with Chain Heal, single-target healers such as people with my build or Holy paladins just couldn’t contribute in the raid.  By the time we managed to get a single heal off, some three so-called brain heals had managed to top off everyone who needed a heal.

I had effectively become superfluous.

I think what disappoints me most is not that I wasn’t beneficial to the raid, but how I felt that our priests were being pigeonholed into using a single spell for most of the instance.  While I’ve jokingly made derisive comments in the past regarding healers that only spam Circle of Healing¹, it seems like this is the only spell of use for the Holy priest.  And this saddens me because I love healing as a priest so much because I have so many spells within my arsenal, ranging from single-target healing, group healing, a preemptive heal, a spell that prevents damage, and more.  I was proud that I had a variety of spells at my disposal and knew which ones to use at the right time for the most effective and beneficial results.

Honestly, I chose to heal as a priest because pre-expansion I had grown tired of casting only one or two spells on both my Holy paladin and Restoration shaman.

While intellectually I realize that these talents are intended for upwards to level 80 instances and that I will be acquiring ten more talent points within the upcoming months, it still pains me that for the remaining weeks until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion a single target Holy healing priest who chooses to pick up the Improved Divine Spirit buff will be unable to contribute effectively or efficiently in a raid.  And I refuse to pick up a single talent so that I can mindlessly spam that heal and feel like I’m contributing.  So, rather than mope or decry how Blizzard has ruined me personally², I decided to take an entirely different approach.

Perky priestess Csilla Kovács — who has become my priestly pride and joy, standing well above my bevvy of other priests³ — has forsaken her Holy ways and gone Discipline!  And I’m loving it!

I’ve long wanted to try raiding as a Discipline priest, but had chosen not to because I was typically relied on heavily by my raid leaders to bring unadulterated healing power.  However, Discipline has found further utility in raids due to a number of changes made to the tree and the new talents that have appeared there since “Echoes of Doom.”  I’ve chosen a 59/2/0 Discipline build that lets me pick the talents that I think would make an effective single-target healer while bringing a lot of utility to the raid.  This build will morph into a 59/12/0 Discipline build once Csilla reaches the new level cap.

There are a couple of things of note with my new build.  The current lack of Holy Specialization means that my critical effect chance with Holy spells is pretty low at the moment, especially for what seems like a very crit-heavy tree.  By not having Divine Fury, the vast majority of my heals are currently ponderous and slow, but that is easily rectified with both Borrowed Time and the vast amount of Haste that I’ve collected on other pieces in the past.  In fact, I was amazed when Borrowed Time and a proc on the Scarab of the Infinite Cycle⁴ allowed me to cast a Greater Heal in under 1.5 seconds.  With Divine Fury, I could very well be casting Greater Heals in under a second!

The build focuses on single target healing prowess with added utility, especially with Power Infusion and Pain Suppression.  The goal isn’t to get the large heals of the Holy tree⁵, but rather reduce the amount of healing that is required.  This is accomplished by making heavy use of Power Word: Shield and talents such as Divine Aegis and Grace.  The build also has a very different emphasis for gearing.  In the past I would select gear, gems, and enchants that increased both my Bonus Healing and my Spirit; instead, I’ll be stacking for Bonus Healing, Intellect, and Haste — a combination of stats that will supposedly be very common in Wrath of the Lich King where much of the gear appears to be Haste-heavy.  The lack of Spiritual Guidance and the changes done to Improved Divine Spirit that grant a flat increase to Spell Power as oppposed to a number based on a percentage of the player’s Spirit stat means that Spirit is significantly less important to me now.

At the moment, I’m trying to decide if it would be best to select gems with the Critical Strike Rating such as the Potent Pyrestone or Intellect like the Luminous Pyrestone.  While five Critical Strike Rating is near 0.23% crit, five Intellect is both a little over 0.06% crit and 75 mana.  Though I will have less mana regen due to the reduction of Spirit on my gear, Rapture seems to be very effective in keeping my mana pool mostly full.  Furthermore, as a human Discipline priest I have both The Human Spirit⁶ and Enlightenment, both of which are likely to increase my Spirit so that I still have some semblence of Spirit-based mana regeneration.  As a result, I’m not sure if I really need to increase my mana pool further.

Oh, and Penance is a simply amazing spell!  I was using this both in grouping with people and on the battlefield and it’s just an incredibly versatile spell.  If I chose to use a Power Word: Shield prior to casting Penance, I was able to quickly top off a player or strike my enemies.  It’s the priestly version of the paladin spell Holy Shock, but so much more fun!  Plus each hit of the channeled spell has the opportunity to give a Grace buff, which means that in two seconds a Dicipline priest could both reduce the damage taken by his target by 3% while increasing the healing she does by 6%.  Some basic theorycrafting shows that this spell may have both a higher Health Per Mana and Health Per Second than the staple priestly healing spell Greater Heal.

Discipline truly is love.

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Weekend Musings

General, Raiding 6 comments.

Been a long hectic weekend, involving more raids than any sane woman should attempt, the completion of a number of pre-patch objectives, and dragging a sickly ferret to the vet for an impromptu and frantic checkup.¹

The Last Mention of Bear Mount Runs — Promise!

Saturday was our last ever pre-Wrath of the Lich King preparation patch Zul’Aman bear mount run.  Despite a very clean and professional start, we ran into a couple of problems that made our objective — to finally get Drunken Badger guildmate and fellow blogger Jezrael of DPS: We Deliver — a little difficult.  Fortunately, despite a warlock who may have just taken it upon himself to make this final effort a little hair-raising, miss Jez managed to get her bear mount.  The screaming on Vent was nothing short of hilarious!

While this picture doesn’t depict all of us that have since acquired Amani War Bears, it does show the nine that had been with us from the very beginning and were present for Saturday’s efforts.

Afterward, we were milling around in Zul’Aman, tryng to find something to do in the forty-five minutes that remained before our final stab at completing the Trial of the Naaru: Magtheridon quest needed to acquire the Champion of the Naaru title.  Someone² thought that it would be a brilliant idea to meet up in Ironforge and join many of the other people who often loaf around there in their epics and nifty mounts.  We all agreed and made our way to the dwarven city.

We strode through Ironforge on our mounts, trailing over bridges³, making circles, and generally looking pretty silly in a mix of roleplaying outfits and a few barely-there attire.  It was a remarkable amount of fun and we were all laughing on Vent as we preened and posed for the paltry masses.

During the course of our escapades, we got various reactions from the denizens of Ironforge.  Some laughed and joined us by summoning their own bear mounts.  More than one of us were approached by people who inquired if our guild was recruiting.⁴  And more than a few commented on our personal lives and how we had no lives.

Objective complete!

You can read more about our antics in Jezrael’s post, “I can haz bear!” — including a movie called The Great Bear Preen of ‘08 made by one of our guild members, Chiaroscuro!

There’s a Reason Why I Don’t Lead Raids

I’m your lady if you want someone in the background smoothing over little flareups and organizing things.  I’ll plan, I’ll speak, I’ll describe fights⁵, and I’ll come prepared for anything and everything that people may have forgotten.  But lead a raid?  Psh!

Unfortunately, I ended up being raid leader for an impromptu and very messy Magtheridon’s Lair run.  As mentioned earlier, many Badgers recently completed the prerequisites for the Champion of the Naaru title and we were eager to slay the pit lord in the name of the Naaru.  Poor planning on my part, lots of miscommunication, and more than a few jeers from a very drunken Drunken Badger led to a number of gory wipes.  Fortunately, the naysayers left and we were able to bring in a number of fellow guild members in that final attempt to down Magtheridon.

While I’ll most likely never ever wear the title on my perky priestess, it’s a good feeling to know that I managed to accomplishment my pre-patch objective!

Oh, and hugs?  They’re a brilliant way to acquire people for raids.  At least that’s how I managed to snag people for many of the slots in our impromptu raid!

Sometimes a Little Kindness Goes a Long Way

During our horribly messy yet somehow successful raid, I stumbled into a young mageling who was recruited during our attempts.  This sweet woman was kind enough to repeatedly buff people with Arcane Brilliance over and over following every attempt when none of the other mages in the raid seemed prone to do so.  She also fortunately won a Chestguard of the Fallen Hero, allowing her to obtain her first piece of Tier 4.  I found out afterward that she was so happy that she started crying.

When this mage whispered me following our Magtheridon Run to ask for my advice in gemming her new Vestments of the Aldor, I stopped her; she had planned on using some sub-par gems on her lovely new robes, which wouldn’t stand!  So I snagged two gems using my badge collection, got them shaped, and then presented them to the now-even-happier mage.  She was so pleased that she promptly threw on her robes and strut around Darnassus like the wonderful and fearsome mage that she was.

And, when that didn’t seem like enough, I managed to get a Heroic Magisters’ Terrace group together for her, where she managed to snag a number of notable upgrades to her dungeon blues.

My Guildmates are Strange

Want proof?

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