Priestly Bubbles

Well…tomorrow is 2010. The end of 2009 was horrible so even though nothing is actually changing, I feel better that a new year is about to start. First I'll brush up on what happened this year. Then I'll let you in on my plans for this year. Warning: there is RL stuff in this blog. :)

2009
Spring Semester
RL:
In January I decided that I knew what I wanted to do.  I desperately wanted to be an anthropologist.  Here's the problem.  My parents will only pay for this crappy college that has no degree even close to anthropology.  It was decided that I would graduate with a General Studies degree and then work my way into a grad program for Anthropology.
Also in the Spring semester, I signed up for classes that I thought would be moderately easy.  Every single class I signed up for had a research paper.  Stressed, my asthma began to get worse.  I finished the semester with decent grades, not high enough for me...but decent.  I also fell in love with and dated off and on a priest with similar interests.
I dropped my computer while moving and had to buy a new HD.  In the process of this, the room I was staying in flooded.  By some miracle, none of my things were harmed.
WoW:
I also started getting into raiding.  At the end of Naxx, I was one of the best geared hunters on the server but I wasn't happy.  I had more fun on my draenei Discipline priest dressed in blues and ilvl 200 epics.  Before Ulduar, it was decided that I would switch to a priest full time in my Horde guild.  A few officers offered to help me level.
Nymarie was born in March of 09 and was 80 in less than a month.  On her first day of 80, she was in Ulduar with 6 epics (mostly crafted and BoE stuff from the gbank).

Summer Semesters
RL:
I went right into the summer semesters with a week's break.  I became more and more depressed with my degree plan and realized that I would be no better off with a degree in nothing.  I sluggishly finished the already paid for summer sessions.  I came to the conclusion that I would be a college dropout before the Fall semester and began to look for a job.
Sometime in July, a black runt of a kitten was born in a trash pile near Hwy 90.
WoW:
Towards the end of Ulduar, I was kicked from my guild because of a spat between officers that I somehow was the cause of.  Feeling that I was losing nothing because of the way I had been treated, I began my search for the perfect guild.  I applied to several, was whispered every day due to my lack of a guild tag and did a lot of research.  I found one that I liked and applied.  Elitist had only one holy priest and no disc priests.  I was happily accepted and almost immediately treated like family.  My first Yogg kill was with this guild and I began to feel at home.

August
RL:
My job searching began!  With this proclamation of WOOT! I began my job as an office coordinator at a hospice.
While pushing over a burn pile with a backhoe, my friend's dad found a little half-starved, dehydrated and overheated kitten. My friend sat with her in the air conditioning in his truck. With no strength other than the strength to loudly protest her situation, she glared at the large man holding her. Forcing her to swallow KMR and Nutrical, I nursed her back to health. Finding her facedown asleep in her bowl of mixed kitten food and milk was one of my happiest moments with her. She had the will to survive! She was named Little Nym and swiftly became my best friend.
WoW:
ToC came out and I started my blog.  I also started to read Paolo's.  My first post has been deleted and has been slowly going through quite a bit of construction.  My next post Twin Val'kyr and Hard Mode FL down! was my first description of a raid and a new boss.  That same week I made the post Hard Mode XT Down.  I voiced my frustration with Blizzard's lag fail.

September
RL:
Searching for a new home and trying desperately to keep my sickly kitten alive.
WoW:
Several accomplishments in ToC and ToGC!  Nym was proud of her ability to "permafrost".  Here I met Perfectalpha.  Onyxia down.  Heroic Illumination.  And Tips for Healing 10 ToGC as Discipline.  We also downed Yogg +3.

October
RL:
In October, I turned 21 and celebrated by getting drunk with my mother and doing algebra with two very cute drunk guys.  During this time Little Nym begins to develop a headstrong personality.
WoW:
We went back and downed 3D.  A few weeks later we had ToGC25 NrB and Jaraxxus down.  I also finally killed Anub in ToGC10.  In October I met Miss Medicina!

November
RL:
I found and moved into my new apartment, completely separating myself from my parents.  My kitten began to get stronger and run around the apartment, climbing and sliding with her newfound strength.  She also starts to develop a teenage attitude.
WoW:
We cleared ToGC25 Faction Champions.  Here is where I met Sushi-cookie.  I discovered Vuhdo!  We downed ToGC25 Twin Val'kyrs.

December
RL:
December was a horrible month RL wise.  I had a ton of trouble when I moved in with the electric company and dsl company.  I lost several friends.  I had a terrible breakup with the aforementioned priest.  I now have trust issues and have become a bit more cynical.  I have to thank several friends for bringing me back from my wallowing and keeping me from going crazy or offing myself.  I made some new friends and got away from the forums.
WoW:
I did not raid for two weeks and got behind on dkp and gear.  I came back to my blog after a small hiatus and wrote about the new ICC wing.  I met Sinespe this month.  I voiced my frustration with the non-randomness that is the random heroic.


That was my year in a nutshell, RL and WoW.

For 2010
RL:
I'd like to get back in shape.  Like I was when I was dancing alot.
I hope to save quite a bit of money for what I call my Anthropology fund.
I plan to teach my kitten not to play so roughly!  Orphan kittens have trouble learning this.
I also plan to decorate my new apartment and make it more mine.
I hope to accept the date offer and not let my fear of trust take over.
WoW:
Get my druid to 80!
Help my friend get his first toon to 80 and get his best friend into playing.
I hope to not be so haughty when dealing with stupidity in pugs.
Help my guildies more!

In Miss Medicina style, my proudest moments of 2009?
RL:
Watching a tiny black kitten scale the couch in my living room.  The same kitten that a few months before had been too weak to even suckle on a bottle.
WoW:
Finding Elitist, my family and home.
Goodbye 2009 and hello 2010.  Let's make this a good year, shall we?  :)

Before I start this post, I want to make it clear that I don't mind Oculus as an instance. It is just as easy as the others. When heroics were random, I was not one of the ones to skip a day if Oculus was the daily. However, now this is not the case.

For the past two weeks, I have started attempting to stock up on Frost emblems and get the gear I need from them.  Here's the problem.  Not a day goes by that I don't visit Oculus.  I did Oculus more times than I can count and got sick of the damn place.  So one Saturday, I said to myself, I don't care how long I have to wait, I'm not doing that instance again.  Because, you see, getting emblems shouldn't be just grinding to me.  I do heroics as shadow and I want to have fun while I get emblems for gear.  Doing the same bloody instance every day is NOT fun.  So this Saturday, not the past one but the week before, I queued up for my daily heroic.  What did I get?  Oculus.  I apologized to the group and left.  Fifteen minutes later I queued up again.  I got Oculus five times before finally giving up and logging off of WoW, very frustrated.  The nights since then I have a system...

I queue for my daily heroic.  I get Oculus.  I apologize to the group and leave.  I requeue fifteen minutes later.  If I get another instance, I have a good time.  If I get Oculus, I quit trying.  Do you want to know how many emblems I've gotten in the past week?  Four.  Excluding the ones I've gotten from raids.

I've been talking to my friends about it and I'm sure they thought I was exaggerating.  Well, last night while they were at my home, I got Oculus...twice.  "Damn...you were right."

I'm not bitching about Oculus.  If it was Nexus, UK, VH, whatever, it wouldn't be any different.  So can someone shed some light on this?  How is this random heroic tool not so random?

FYI, from now on, I'll be letting you guys know which nights I get Oculus and which nights I actually run the heroic.  Just to show you.

I have been spending a lot of time analyzing the Tier bonuses and BiS gear for Discipline from ICC25. Reading both Paolo and Sinespe's blogs have actually helped, even though they have differing views. In a typical raid (nowadays), I use mostly shields, ProM, Penances and a mixture of Flash and Greater heals. The amount of flash heals I use is usually pretty small. If I'm not being lazy (I mean c'mon I have to press SHIFT to cast Greater), I tend to stick to Greater if I feel the need to throw a raider a heal. Flash heals feel weak to me. Perhaps it's just my playstyle. Either way, I discovered that I would benefit more from the BiS gear (which is retardedly better than the Tier pieces) than from the Tier set bonuses.
The only Tier piece I see being one to get is the helm. It appears to be BiS for 264 gear. Last night, the trash shoulders dropped. Doing a quick comparison, I ranked them the highest of the 264 gear and bid on them. I won. :) So here they are in all their glory, gemmed with two Luminous Ametrines for that extra intellect that I've been needing.
Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads

Another reason for not picking up Tier (this one is quite silly but it's semi valid) is that once heroic ICC is available, I will be replacing gear that I spent about fifty billion emblems to get. Seems kinda silly, ne? I know it's a dumb reason, but that's how my mind works.
 
Anyways, my reasoning may not be perfect but my decision is to choose my gear by stats.  I advise everybody to check out the two opposing views posted above and decide for yourself!

This is going to be a long blog... Okay guys, I'm back.  I went through a really rough time the past few weeks and I haven't been doing well.  I had a few friends by my side for about three weeks, keeping me going.  Without those guys, I'm not sure I could have kept going.  Man, this has been a crappy year.  I'm not going to sit here and bitch about all the stuff that happened.  You guys don't want to hear all that.

My Christmas shopping is done.  I got my family gifts and for my friends I play WoW with, I got in game gifts.  Sorry guys, but I'm broke.  However, anybody who reads this:  got a suggestion for a good friend's birthday present?  He doesn't play WoW but he is a gamer.  I believe his main games are L4D, FFXI, Aeon, and some other stuff.  He flits between games, so I have no clue what he's playing now.  His birthday is right after Christmas, so I need to get it soon.


Feast of Winter Veil
I'm working on my Merrymaker title right now.  The two achievements I have left are Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la and He Knows If You've Been Naughty.  Obviously, for the second one, I have to wait until Christmas.  For the first one...yeah...I've just been lazy.  I'll attempt to do it tonight.


Icecrown Citadel
I'm really enjoying this raid.  It was pointed out by a guildie that we seem to be "roflstomping" ICC25.  Well, here's my two copper.  Blizzard has now designed raids so that casuals can get into the hard content, so that everyone can see the content.  However, hard modes have been designed for those raiders who raid every week and put their all into it.  ICC25 is designed for raiders who are casual and in ToC25 gear.  That's regular.  While we are not gearstomping ICC25, our ToGC25 gear is definitely giving us a boost.  I think these complainers will be given a reality check once ICC25 heroic comes out.  I'll give you guys a rundown of each boss and how I do things.

Lord Marrowgar
This is a fairly simple fight.  Kind of neat though.  The two tanks tank him in the middle of the room (his debuff hits both I believe to alleviate the damage on one).  The dps and healers spread out around the room in a semi-circle.  He will send out lines of blue icy fire.  These are easy to avoid.  Just strafe away from where they are aiming.  He also impales raiders on ground spikes.  These have to be dpsed down so the raiders can get free.  His other phase is fairly simple as well.  He begins a whirlwind which is very difficult to avoid.  Just be sure you are avoiding the fire and try to stay away from him.  Healers should be able to cast instants while running to heal through the whirlwind.  Whirlwind+fire=dead, so be careful.  That's basically the fight.  Two different phases and a really neat voice telling you to "stick around".
Discipline Heals for Lord Marrowgar
In the first phase, I shield both tanks and any dps I see impaled.  I will also bubble any raiders who get caught by the fire.  Penance I reserve for the tanks, but I cast Flash and Greater Heals around the raid, depending on how much healing that raider needs.  Binding heal is also excellent for this, if I am taking damage as well.  I make sure to keep PoM bouncing as well.  (Off the tanks is always the best policy.)
For phase 2, I am running around quite a bit trying to avoid fires and whirlwind.  Because of this, I will mostly be casting shields and PoM.  I keep PoM bouncing, typically off myself since there are no tanks in this phase.  I cast as many shields as possible due to the large amount of damage the raid takes.  I gain a lot of mana from Rapture and will have time to regain mana in the other phase, so I shield without worrying about mana.

Lady Deathwhisper
Lady Deathwhisper reminds me of two bosses in Northrend.  Kel'thuzad in Naxxramas and that lich in Gundrak.  It makes sense, since she is also a lich.  She will summon adds for the first phase, giving them buffs.  The melee dps must burn these adds and tanks must pick them up.  Ranged dps will stay on Deathwhisper, dpsing down her mana shield.  She will randomly cast a Death and Decay on the ground.  Raiders must be sure to get out of it.  Phase two starts when her mana shield is burned down.  She will stop summoning adds.  It's generally a good idea to slow down when her mana shield is at 5% to allow the melee to kill any existing adds.  She will throw frost bolts around the raid and will summon the ghosts that will explode upon reaching their target.  The ghosts must be avoided.  Other than that, phase two is a burn phase and ends fairly quickly.  Phase one, however, is fairly long.
Discipline heals for Lady Deathwhisper
This fight isn't nearly as good for Discipline as Lord Marrowgar.  Basically, I heal phase one as I would heal trash.  It's fairly simple.  No one should be taking large amounts of damage.  In phase two, I dispel the frost bolts to enable the dps to be able to run from the ghosts.  Bubble tanks, keep PoM bouncing and that's basically it.

Airship Battle
This is a really fun fight.  First, one of the opposite faction's mages will create a portal over your airship, causing adds to spawn on your airship.  Kill them.  Avoid the pretty red marks on the ground.  Three raiders will need to man the cannons and shoot the other airship as fast as possible.  At a certain percentage (I can't remember what), the airship's captain will call for a mage to shut down your cannons.  The raiders will be pushed out of the cannons and your rocketpack crew will jump onto the other airship.  Tank first.  Dps down the mage channeling the frost spell on the cannons and then jump back.  And repeat.
Discipline heals for Airship Battle
I stand near the cannons so that when the group jumps over, I can reach both airships.  Bubbles, PoM, your basic healing.  Pretty easy to heal as long as everyone is paying attention.

Deathbringer Saurfang
After a fairly long but cool introduction, the Saurfang fight starts.  This is a really cool and really new type of fight.  Every bit of damage your raiders take will give Saurfang power.  Once his power meter reaches 100%, he will cast a debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion on a raid member that must be healed through the rest of the fight.  The more debuffs he throws out, the harder the fight gets to heal.  Tanks will get a debuff called Rune of Blood that causes him to gain power.  Raiders will get another debuff called Boiling Blood that gives him power as well.  He also summons blood beasts, which give him power every time they hit a raid member.  He has a soft enrage at 30% which Bloodlust/Heroism should be saved for.
Discipline heals for Deathbringer Saurfang
This is the best fight for Discipline right now.  I try to keep PoM bouncing if I have the GCD to spare.  I keep shields on the tank, anyone who has Boiling Blood, anyone who has Mark, and anyone who is targeted by the blood beasts (vuhdo shows which raiders have aggro).  The shields are a full time job.  Watching DBM is very important here as it shows who gets what debuff.  Because shields absorb damage, Saurfang gets less power from a raid with a Discipline priest than he would from a raid without one.

Achievements my guild has accomplished in ICC
I've Gone and Made a Mess (25 player)
I believe this achievement has a lot to do with the fact that our raid makeup contains a Discipline priest.
I've Gone and Made a Mess (10 player)
Same with this one.
Boned (10 player)
Fairly simple.  Just do the fight correctly with good dps.

ICC Loot
I haven't won any drops, due to my dkp being a bit lower than most.  (I missed a few raids from RL drama.)  However, with 60 frost emblems, I obtained Gloves of False Gestures.  As far as I can tell, these appear to be BiS for Discipline, even surpassing the 277 gear.  Just barely.  If anyone finds anything better, please link it here.  I'd love to be challenged.  I gemmed my gloves with two Luminous Ametrines.  For the socket bonus, but also because I noticed that I needed a bit more mana to be comfortable on Saurfang.  I also achieved friendly with the Ashen Verdict and picked up my first rep ring:  Ashen Band of Wisdom.


Ulduar Hard Modes
A few of my guildmates, myself included, have noted the fact that we have left a boss standing in an "older" raid!  Algalon.  Since it will be a while before the entirety of ICC is available, we will have time to go back into Ulduar and finish the hard modes that we have skipped.  We will keep this raid lockout until we have finished all of them.  This week, we started with Iron Council.  Difficult fight but interesting.  We managed to down it, as we have worked on it quite a bit in the past, getting very close several times.  Gear stomp?  I think not.  The way Ulduar is designed it is nearly impossible to gear stomp these fights.  More gear definitely makes the dps/heals part easier, but IC is not based on heals or dps.  Every raider must be paying attention.  When finishing up Steelbreaker, no one must die.  We are proud of our accomplishment and hope to continue on to the keepers' hard modes next week.


Shadow 3.3
Shadow is so much fun in 3.3!  I've been selecting dps only for my random heroic each day.  I'll continue to heal raids, but I want to dps heroics from now on.  Unless I'm helping guildies.  I can keep up with those on par with my gear!  Dpsing as shadow is super rewarding now.  I'll have to start putting aside haste pieces for my shadow set too.  Haste for shadow and crit for discipline.  Now it is easy to tell which shadow priests were complaining for good reasons and which ones just...sucked.


Let's see...did I forget anything?  If I have, I will edit this post.

I am hurting pretty bad.  I'm not going to whine on here and tell all my problems for all to see.  This week has been horrible, with the weekend just making it worse.

The basic story?  I've never appreciated my guild so much before.  Oh but I do now.  I am single again...woohoo.  Trust issues?  I has them.

Now that you know the whole story, I will be disappearing for a while.  I will not be patrolling the forums or my usual blogs.  When I come back, I may be changed.  We'll see.  I intend to stay mostly on the facebook priest group and I do intend to help my guild in ICC.

Until then, <3 to all my healing friends.

Meter readers tend to be a waste of space in a raid setting.  Elitist has a chat channel called elitistmeters where the e-peen strokers can sit and link meters to their heart's content.  Anyone linking any type of meter in raid chat will first get a warning and then a raid kick.

Comparing pure HPS and pure DPS is not helpful to anyone.  A DPS who is spamming interrupts may not keep up with another DPS who is just spamming.  Raid leaders should realize this and look at all the meters to judge DPS performance.

Comparing DPS:
A DK is at the top of the DPS meter with 10k.  He has to be rezzed twice because he doesn't move when he's supposed to and he dies in a fire.
A mage is towards the middle of the meter with 6k.  He stays alive the whole fight and is still dpsing when the boss goes down.
Which you take to a raid if you had to choose?
The meters will show the DK above the mage.  I personally would take the mage over the DK, due to his situational awareness.

Comparing HPS:
A resto shaman is topping the HPS meter with 7k HPS.  He's been told to focus on a tank as his healing assignment.  His tank dies, but the meter shows him at the top, above the other healers.
Good healer?  Or not?

Another example of comparing healers:
One resto shaman is pulling 8k HPS.  He's at the top of the meter.  He calls out for two innervates during a particularly long fight.  At the end of the fight, he is completely oom.  He is also topping the overhealing meter, above the druids and pallies.
A second resto shaman is pulling 5k HPS.  He's a little lower on the meter, maybe 2nd or 3rd.  He has no need for innervates and has about 10% mana left when the boss dies.  He is very low on the overhealing meter, above the disc priest and just barely above the holy priest.
Both shamans have about the same amount of regen and about the same mana pool.
Which is the better healer?
In my opinion, the second resto shaman is the better healer.  He knows how to manage his mana and knows when to cast and not to spam.  The first shaman is just spamming in the hopes that he gets some heals off.  In this way, he does obviously catch several targets with heals before the other healers.  But in the process, he's wasting more mana than he's actually efficiently using.  If he had been healing like the other shaman, the targets would have still gotten their heals, as the heals would have been more spread out between healers.  And the innervates could have been saved for a healer or dps that died and had to be rezzed.

Meter Cheesing
While I do giggle at this terminology, meter cheesing is very real.
A DPS who ignores snobolds on Northrend Beasts so that he can keep up his rotation on Gormok is meter cheesing.  He may show up on the top of the meters, but was he doing his job?
A healer who spams like the shaman mentioned above is also meter cheesing.  A very specific example of meter cheesing is a Discipline shield spammer.  Shield spamming can be very successful, for certain fights.  Twin Valks and Anub phase 3 are specific examples.  Fights were damage is either constant or easy to anticipate are perfect for Disc, being mitigators.  A disc priest who keeps the entire raid shielded and needs several innervates is not a good healer.  His absorbs may be very high.  His absorbs may also beat out the other healers because he's causing them to heal less.  But wasted shields are wasted mana.  And wasted mana is wasted heals.

So how do you judge healers/dps in raid settings?
Watch out.  You may have to think here.  My simple answer?  Use your brain.
The more complicated answer:

• Watch to see who is dying before it's a wipe.  You want to have raiders who are situationally aware.  Raiders who can survive to continue tanking/healing/dpsing.
• Who is interrupting successfully?  Who is dispelling whatever needs to be dispelled?  Especially on a fight like Faction Champions, dispels/interrupts are extremely important.  Raiders who keep up with this demonstrate situational awareness and good timing.
• For healers, (this is easier in hard modes) whose target is consistently dying?  It could be a healing problem or a tanking problem.  It usually isn't hard to figure out.
• On a "burn" fight, a DPS meter can be used to measure DPS.  Also, a DPS who is pulling 2k or 3k and doesn't have a specific assignment other than kill the boss is quite possibly not pulling his weight.
• Healers should be competitive on HPS.  What does this mean?  This means that healers should be moving around the meter each fight.  A healer consistently at the bottom may be undergeared or not pulling his weight.  A healer consistently at the top could be outgearing the other healers or spamming to cheese the meters.
• Overhealing meters are useful, but you have to realize something.  Druids and paladins should be at the top, as they are going to overheal due to their style of healing.  Make sure that your overhealing meter is something like this: druids/paladins, then holy priests/shamans, then disc priests.  Somebody out of place may not be doing it right.
• A healer who needs innervates and mana tide consistently could be a potential problem.  He may not have enough regen on his gear (spirit, mp5, int) or he may be spamming too much.

These are just a few ways to successfully judge raiders.  Some of them use meters; some do not.  A raid leader who uses pure HPS/DPS meters exclusively is not a good raid leader and will not lead his raid well.  Be wary of meter readers and don't become one yourself!

It has been a stressful week.  First, I hate holidays.  I got to work Thanksgiving.  I was happy for that at least.

Let's not forget that traffic right now makes me slightly homicidal.

I signed my lease last Tuesday.  I attempted to get a hold of the electric company all day Tuesday and Wednesday.  I got the same message every time:  "Our system is currently down.  We have been told to tell all customers to call back in an hour."  The company was then closed for the holidays until Monday.  Yesterday was a hectic day at work since we were all trying to catch up from the holiday admissions/discharges.  I didn't have time to call and after work, my brain was fried.  I worked out a little, cleaned up and unpacked some boxes, made dinner and BAM out went my electricity.  Right after their damn office closed.  I called them this morning, got my account set up and was told they'd be out Thursday.  So...I get electricity on Thursday.

After calling the electric company, I started to wonder why my modem for my new dsl hadn't been delivered yet.  So I then called the dsl company.  "Oh it's already been delivered."  Huh?  The lady then read off my address, which was incorrect.  Oh dear.  So we redid everything and she resent my modem.  They will turn on my dsl Thursday.

Everything else has gone relatively smooth and I'm done dealing with address changes for now.  I swear everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.  I will not be raiding again until Thursday.  I'm starting to wonder how big a hit my dkp is taking right now.  Oh well.  RL comes first.  However stressful it may be.

I plan on spending my evenings at my parents and returning home just to sleep.  I won't be online much.  So <3 to all my lovely priest and healer friends and I'll talk to you guys at a later date.  Hopefully Thursday!

My druid is now 71.  I'd like to get her to 80 in the next few weeks...but...no internet is kinda making that impossible.  Her dps is close to 1k now.  I suppose that's where it should be.  I just got kitty swipe and I haven't been able to try that out but til 71 I was irritated because I had no AoE.  It was a strange feeling.

Also, thought I'd share something amusing.  I don't know about other servers but there are a ton of crappy DK "tanks" on my server.  They all think that they can tank in their dps gear.  Frost presence makes me a great tank, right?  WRONG.  First of all, I've pulled aggro off of some of them...for casting a HoT.  (This was the tank not using Death and Decay on an AoE pull.)  Second, I don't have Nourish yet so I don't have a spammable heal.  And third, I don't have my comfort zone.  The beautiful, healthy shield.  I've attempted to cast my shield so many times I've lost count.  I've healed paladins and warriors successfully.  But both fail groups (since NR) have been DK tanks.  After that I'm begging to heal something else, so I can renew my faith in my druid healing.  Does anybody else see this happening?  Crappy DK tanks from 70-80?

One group that was especially annoying was a PuG UK.  Just a reg UK.  I was level 70 and they asked me to heal.  So I agreed.  I stepped into the instance, switched specs, helped the mage summon a table and opened my bags to switch my gear (my equipment manager hates life).  The tank had already pulled.  So there I was, attempting to keep him up with no healing gear and no mana.  The tank went down, as did the rogue and ret pally.  The mage and I managed to run out.  After running back in and rezzing the lazy ass pugs, I switched my gear and sat down to get mana.  The ret pally and DK tank then proceeded to get on my ass about not healing the tank.  I explained to them very calmly that I hadn't switched gear, as my main spec was kitty, and that I hadn't sat down to drink.  They quieted for a moment.
We cleared a few trash pulls, made it through the first boss somehow and got to the hallway with all the little ghouls and geists.  The tank pulled a large group and did not drop Death and Decay.  As soon as he started taking damage, I started my rolling hot "rotation" if you can call it that and pulled aggro with the first hot.  Needless to say, I died.  And yes, I did cast the Barkskin or wtf ever it's called.  So I sit for a second, waiting for the paladin to toss me a rez as it would be faster than me running back.  The paladin says "run back dude".  "It'd be faster for you to rez me," I reply.  "I didn't do the quest," the paladin says.  What?  Level 70 and you can't rez?  Are you shitting me?  At this point, I sigh quite heavily and start the long trek back.
I get back in, go into tree form, drink up and realize that the tank is already pulling several large groups.  Squishy DK tank in dps gear pulling several large trash groups.  I pop my cooldowns and try to save his ass.  The paladin begins to pull aggro and take heavy damage.  I cast a few hots on him and have to switch back to the tank rather quickly.  I'm spamming WG the best I can.  The paladin goes down and the tank follows, as I have to start healing myself from the aggro I'm pulling.  We wipe and I release and start contemplating whether or not I'm going to stay.
"Dude, learn how to heal," says the paladin.  At this point, I'm fed up.
"My main is one of the best healers on this server," I bristled, "do not presume that you know how to heal better than I do.  It may be a different class, but it's the same basic concept.  And I know how to spot fail tanks.  You, sir, have found one."  I normally never act like that and I'm ashamed to say that I did.  But this pug deserved me looking down my nose at them.
"Who's your main?" the tank sneers.  Eager to prove my point and make these retarded pugs realize who they're dealing with, I tell him.  Party chat is quiet for a moment.
"Ha!  Best healer on the server my ass!  Not in that gear and that guild!" he says.  I'm taken back.  Who on earth did he look up?
"Elitist?  In ToC25 and ToGC25 gear?  On ToGC25 Anub?  You're either retarded or in denial.  Either way, I'm done with this pug and done with both of you."  The tank doesn't say another word.  The paladin continues to tell me how fail I am.  I drop group.  The paladin whispers me so I put him on ignore.  And then the retarded tank for good measure.  About ten minutes later, as I'm sitting in Dalaran relating the story to my significant other, the rogue whispers me.  "Bad tanks are easy to find.  :)  Good luck in your next group."


I'd like to be able to do some raids as kitty dps just for funsies when I don't feel like playing a caster.  My priest will always be my main, but being a kitty is fun!

I hate the holidays.  I hate the traffic, the commercial-ness, and the spending time with family I don't get along with.  When I found out I was working Thanksgiving, I did a victory dance.  No lie.  Oh and I can't stand Christmas music.  It's a good thing I don't work in retail.

To make things better, I'm moved out and into an apartment with NO INTERNET.  Uhh I have raid tonight.  But my parents won't be too pleased if I stay here til 1 am.  Nuh uh.  So no raid...haven't raided in a long time actually.  Didn't get to raid Tuesday because my dad is...a wonderful person.  Didn't get to raid Thursday because it was yay...Thanksgiving.  And don't get to raid tonight because I'll be home alone in an apartment with no internet.  And all my neighbors are smart enough to password protect theirs.

To top it all off, I have a slight hangover and I'm pretty sure I fell last night as I have a bruise on my calf and a bump on the back of my head.  Yay crappy housewarming parties...

I've had several questions about the addons I use for my UI.  I thought I'd list them here with a description of each.



Satrina's Buff Frames
See the tiny buffs at the top left corner?  That is the highly customizable Satrina's Buff Frames.  I also have a small buff frame of my procs for SW:P to the left of my character.

Deady Boss Mods
This is the addon that creates the boss timers on the right side of the screen and the raid warnings in the middle.  A must have addon for high end raiding.

This is the circular mod in the middle of the bottom of my screen.  It does multiple functions including auto repairing, selling vendor trash, auto buying reagents, and much more.  I put my buffs and things I don't usually cast in combat on it as well.

Quartz
The cast bar above my mini map is my Quartz bar. Quartz takes into account latency and shows you where you can start casting again.  Your game may not have registered that you have already cast the heal but Quartz will.  Quartz is especially useful for DPS trying to get the most out of their rotation.

Bartender4
Bartender replaces your default Blizzard UI for clean crap-free movable bars.  You can resize them, turn them off or on, add more bars, etc.  Lots of options for your spell bars, micro bar, pet bar, vehicle bars, and bag bars.

VuhDo
This addon is the brightly colored bars on the right side of my mini map.  A lot like Grid, it's a healing addon that I also use for raid frames.  You can assign any manner of clicks, mouseovers and keybinds to any of the spells in your spellbook.  This addon also updates to include debuffs on boss fights.  Out of all of the healing addons I've used, VuhDo is by far the best.

Recount + RecountGuessedAbsorbs
Recount is much more accurate than Skada so I prefer it, even if Absorbs aren't included with healing.

WIM (WoW Instant Messenger) v3
This addon organizes your whispers by turning them into their own chat boxes.  It disables itself in combat.  You can make it so that each individual player is a different chat box or have them tabbed all together.

I remade my UI when I got my computer fixed so once again this is a WIP!

As you can probably see, I am working on my blog.  I grabbed a template from btemplates and stuck it in and then started using my own common sense to tweak it.  Some of it is starting to come back to me...but it's been a long time.  So for the moment I'm looking for:

• A gadget for WoW Armory like Sushi-cookie has.
• Font-found what I was looking for.
• Changing the font fixed my Darkspear symbol.

It's going slow at the moment as I remember how to do things but it's coming along.

I post way too often on here. And I just realized that I logged out with my fishing pole equipped. Oh how threatening my troll must look!

Recent Achievements
The Coin Master
When I was waiting for a raid to fill up, I would fish in the Dalaran fountain in a feeble attempt to get my achievements. Well a few days ago I noticed I was only a few coins off so I started fishing there at random times during the day. Yesterday I had only one left. I sat for five minutes and caught it! Anybody who does this achievement and appreciates lore: read each of the coins before you sell/throw them back in. They're very interesting! Also from now on I carry Archmage Antonidas' coin: Grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Ah yes, after getting the achievement, I received a mail from Jepetto Joybuzz with a little gift:
Titanium Seal of Dalaran

Higher Learning
While I was packing last night, I sat my character in front of the spawn point for the last book I needed. I happened to look over once and there it was! I got a mail as soon as the achievement popped up from Rhonin. It was a letter congradulating me for mastering the different types of magic. I also received a book, The Schools of Arcane Magic - Mastery. The book teleported me to a hidden room in the Violet Citadel! It's Archmage Vargoth's own private study! For such a talented mage, he's rather slow at leveling…but anyway, I showed him the book and he allowed me to keep it but he also gave me a little gift. A Kirin Tor Familiar!


DRAMA
On a more serious note, my guild is having the first bit of drama in a LOOOOOOOONG time. A hunter commented on a hunter app's thread calling him out for gemming incorrectly. A DK (a raider that I respect for his passion for raiding and his good attitude) created a thread in the General Discussion forum of the guild website calling out that hunter for challenging the app's gems when the hunter himself doesn't have a Greatness card or his max enchants. The DK stated that his post was not necessarily directed at the hunter raider but all our raiders. He just noticed the hunter and that's why he made the post.

Here's what I don't understand. You put in all this time and effort to get into a raiding guild. You want to do hard modes. Yet you don't gem/enchant/gear your toon to the best of your ability?

I desperately wanted to play a priest again after my alliance friends quit. I wasn't particularly enjoying my hunter since I was BM and the pet I enjoyed was crappy dps. My guild needed healers at the time and I knew priest well so when I offered to level a priest for Ulduar, they agreed to help. It took me a month to get her to 80. The very first night I got to 80, Ulduar had been out a week and my guildies were anxious to get in, lack of healers or not. I had six epics when I dinged 80 so I was ready to go! Crappy healer or not, I helped my guild down some of the very first bosses in Ulduar. A few weeks later I had access to all the best enchants.

My point is that I was vying for best geared healer a few weeks after I hit 80. Not necessarily from my guildies' help, but from my own passion for the game and for raiding. So how is it that we're in ToGC and we have raiders that still don't have their Hodir shoulder enchant or their head enchant? And better yet, those guildies get offended when they're called out. Mind=blown. But it gets better, these specific raiders are on a lot during the day, even on offnights. I just don't get it...and I wonder why we get behind all the other guilds on hard modes...>_<

Finally happy with my UI





I'm looking for someone who knows html! I need a template for my blog! Anything based on trolls and priests would be great! Please get in touch with me if you're interested!

Damn good job Elitist! We wiped to the dark shield (again) the very first attempt so the guild leader announced over vent "I personally don't think the idea Nym had is an exploit. What do you guys think?" I sat quietly waiting, hoping they would take my advice. A few people were adamant we should do it the "right" way. But most of the raiders challenged these with "what is the right way for any specific boss?" Finally the argument "it's either this or we rely on luck" won. They decided to take my advice.

Right before every single ability, they switched to the one who would be casting the heal (inside the shield) and started spamming interrupts. When the dark shield appeared, the heal had already been interrupted. We downed them in one attempt.

To me it seems so easy. So easy that it must be an exploit. But without the exploit, we have to rely on luck. And if luck isn't with us...ugh.


Moving on, we didn't have enough well geared tanks to attempt Anub. Our main tank is with his family due to a death in the family and another was out enjoying a football game with his wife. So we called the raid early and on a good note! :D


I almost forgot to mention which strategy we used for Twin Valks! We did the door strat because we are very melee heavy and our healers are our strongest point. Everyone went dark, except for one tank and one soaker. Our soaker kept us alive and we only got maybe one or two of the light orbs (which we could easily heal through).

We just dpsed the light shield, but every time DBM warned of a special ability dps began spamming interrupts until they were sure it wasn't the dark shield. We healed through Light Vortex (which isn't easy as a priest mind you) and both the holy priests and I cast our CDs on ourselves right before it went off so we could stay alive to heal. My rotation for Light Vortex went Pain Suppression (myself), Inner Focus+Divine Hymn macro, Desperate Prayer (or Healthstone) and a Prayer of Healing to get us back up to full. It helped that all of the dps used their CDs and healthstones during the vortex. And the two holy paladins used their Divine Sac+Shield+Aura Mastery to keep us alive.

With that strategy, it was easy as pie. I'm starting to think it's not an exploit and here's why: guilds have been doing it that way for several weeks now. If it was an exploit, it would have been changed in a hot fix already. That's my logic and I'm sticking to it!


Random Tidbit:
Perhaps I will post a picture of my new tiny nerdcave if I can get one off my phone. It's such a precious little apartment for such a good price!

Finally I remembered to take a SS in raid.

Notice that I hit a lag spike right before I took it. Well, that was our Faction Champions down last night. Now we're banging our heads against Twin Val'kyrs. But it does feel like we're getting somewhere.

I broke my 258 cherry!
Sandals of the Mourning Widow


On the Subject of Gemming
When I first started perusing the priest forums, I was surprised at how many priests attacked my gem choices. At first, I started doubting myself. Am I doing it wrong? But my arguments always made sense to me, so I didn't change. I did some research and realized that I'm not alone in how I gem so I felt more secure.

As I continued to browse the priest forums, I began to notice that most Discipline priests who posted there got at least a few trolls telling them they're gemming wrong. I began to realize that there is no "right" way to gem for Discipline.

Gemming preferences change depending on spec, healing assignments, raid setup, and other reasons. Discipline is so versatile that they can fill in almost any role. Obviously a shield spammer wouldn't gem the same as a tank healer. This is why I find it ridiculous that I am challenged by both tank healers and shield spammers on how I gem, since I am a raid support healer.

The most common argument I get against my gemming is the argument that "PW: S doesn't crit". That would be your shield spammers talking. Here's my argument: I don't just use PW: S. I am a raid support healer. I want all of my Discipline talents and abilities to be utilized and so gemming a little crit to get me to almost 45% raid buffed insures that I have Divine Aegis, Inspiration and other crit based abilities constantly around the raid. Over 35% self buffed crit means that you're neglecting other stats so I regem to reflect that as I get gear.

I run with some very talented healers and after adding my absorbs I end up in the top 1-3 for most fights. Plus, we hardly ever wipe on fights due to a healing issue. I know most people condemn "well it works for me!" and I agree with them…partially. When it works for you in hard modes, that means it works. Most hard modes leave little room for error. When you consistently down several hard modes a week, you're doing something right.

I guess the whole point of what I'm trying to say is this: if you can back up your reasoning for gemming/gearing/speccing a certain way and it makes sense, don't change because some one else says to. A shield spamming priest picking up crit because a raid healing priest said so would make that shield spamming priest that much less effective. If I gemmed straight spell power, I would probably have mana issues and I wouldn't get as many Divine Aegis procs or Inspiration procs. Never underestimate a Discipline priest's crit!

My reasons for my gems:
I gem enough Intellect to be secure in my ability to not go oom. Just enough. Any more is a waste. Reason? That should be obvious. This makes me very self sufficient, never needing an innervate.
I gem enough Crit to get my crit in between 30-35%(ish). Any more than that gimps my spell power. Reason? Divine Aegis/Inspiration procs. More absorbs.
The rest of the slots I gem spell power.
I ignore blue sockets because I don't need spirit or mp5. I can get much more use out of Int/Crit/Spell power.

Didn't think it was possible as Discipline? Think again haha. That fight is made for bubble spam.
Anub'arak 10/10
Shep did in fact mess up that fight. Halfway through Phase 3, he says in vent, "oh shit it's phase 3 already?" So...he healed more than he should have been.
This is why I don't understand why most people think Disc can't heal Anub in ToGC. It's so amazing for regular and there's not much change in heroic, except that it's just more healing. So wouldn't the Discipline priest increase their "healing" output just as much as any other healer? Wouldn't they still be on top? I'm doing ToGC10 tonight. We'll see how that goes.

SO! Updates!
First, I got my application approved for an apartment that's closer to my job! I'm so excited! If this is the one I want, I sign the lease and can start moving in on the 24th. Today during lunch, I get to go inside the apartment. I'm sure it's big enough for my tiny amount of furniture. It'll just be Lil Nym and I for a few months. Josh (Cryssa) will join us later.

On my UI...
I got home from work yesterday and logged on to discover my UI was gone. I had to do things around the house before I could get to it, but I had to sit down and recreate my entire UI. It was not fun... It looks a little different now, but I like it. I forgot to get a SS last night; I was so scatterbrained. Also, I'm obsessive compulsive and I like pretty. I want all my fonts to match but I don't want them to be the default one. I'd like something that is pretty but is easy to read. Does anybody know if there's a way to choose the font I want and use it for everything? My addons included? Any information would be appreciated.

Well, I gotta get back to work before I get in trouble. Happy healing all!

I have to thank Sushicookie and Perfectalpha for suggesting Vuhdo. Eager to get away from the errors and bugs of Healbot, I grabbed at an opportunity to try a new healing addon that wasn't Grid/Clique. Basically Vuhdo is everything I love about Healbot but it's cleaner, has more customization and hasn't had a single bug yet. I tried it out last night while doing some heroic achievement runs and I absolutely loved it. I still don't know how to work half of it and I already like it more than the other healing addons.

Okay I was supposed to post a SS of it several days ago but I got busy. >_>
If everything goes through, I move into my new apartment on the 24th!
I will attempt tonight to post a SS, but I can't promise anything. I'm still pretty busy and now I'm on meds that are making me crazy...again...

I turned off my raid frames and decided to use my Healbot as my raid frames. I also turned off Decursive and I'm going to try out using Healbot for dispelling too. Well, here it is. Comments are appreciated.

Well done Elitist! Three attempts this week!

The fight took forever, but we stayed organized. And I stayed alive the whole time. And beat the dispel meter. Woo! Not much to say about this fight. We didn't change our strat, just reorganized and focused. We killed shaman first, then priest, mage, warlock, warrior, rogue, death knight, hunter, shadow priest and lastly the paladin. I think I mixed up some of the melee, but that was the general kill order.

We then started on Twin Valkyrs. I had to turn my graphics down for this fight. Standing in the doorway with all of our raiders plus all the orbs made me lag like crazy. But the strategy I keep seeing everywhere is the strategy that my guild is very skeptical of. This strategy says for the majority of the raid to not switch colors. For the opposite color vortex, a paladin has to pop Divine Shield + Divine Sacrifice and you have to have Aura Mastery. For the same color shield, you pop Bloodlust and all your dps cooldowns. Other than that, you just heal through everything. I'm going to research this strategy a little more, as I'm sure everyone else in my guild will.

So sadly FC didn't drop the BiS cloth boots, but it did drop my resto shammy friend's boots. So yay for her!

Here was my achievement for the weekend:
Mag'har of Draenor
It didn't take any time at all. Started at neutral on Saturday morning and spent a half day on the quests. The quests themselves got me to Revered. Then I just farmed ogres and their Obsidian Warbeads all Sunday while cleaning my apartment and doing laundry.
After getting the 8 Talbuks, I had 56 mounts. So I got my Albino Drake as well!

So! Next week, we should get down Twin Valkyrs! Or at least get somewhere on it. I also plan on seeing if we can get our Ulduar 10 hard mode group back together. And my achievement for next weekend:
Flying High Over Skettis

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Nymarie, Discipline priest

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
25 man raids usually, some 10 man raids just for funsies

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Penance, I mean come on, who doesn't love Penance?

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Renew-it's crap for Discipline

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Lol the same strength that Miss Medicina gave! The versatility! I can be a tank healer or a raid healer or just fill in the gaps.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
No real throughput. When Penance is down, I can't really compete with a holy pally.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
The best assignment for me is as the support healer. Healing both tanks and raid so that I can get all my best spells out there and be the most useful.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Resto shammy. One of the coolest healers around. Pretty versatile and fun to heal with. And Chain Heal makes a neat sound when it goes off.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Another Discipline priest. It sucks when you go to bubble somebody and see they already have the Weakened Soul debuff.

What is your worst habit as a healer?
Deviating from my healing assignment. My target usually doesn't ever die when I do this, but I do tend to be bad at throwing shields around the raid while tank healing.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
When people yell "HEAL ME" over vent unless it's a tank saying "I'm picking up such and such mob, heal me." Or when people say "I didn't get heals" when asked why they died to fire...

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
At the moment, not quite. I think Discipline is good yes. But I think they focused too hard on making Discipline so versatile that we no longer excel at either tank or raid healing like other healers do.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Did the tanks die? No? Good. Every once in a while, I'll pull out a Dispel meter, but healing meters (even those who attempt to measure absorbs) suck.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
Hmm...there are a few. First and foremost is the one that's the most annoying: that's a PvP spec! No...no it's not. The next one is "Discipline is only for tank healing." Not anymore.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? A few things, especially if they've healed before. First, it takes a while to adjust to the fact that your spec is based on absorbs not throughput. And I see Discipline priests stacking spirit instead of int, because everybody knows that pallies and shammies use mp5 for regen and druids and priests use spirit right? Not quite...new Disc priests do not realize that they will get more regen and benefit from Intellect. But they learn.

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)?
Very low overhealing, sometimes below the spriest and ret pallies. Average throughput and heavy absorbs. And lots of dispels. I am the DISPELLING MASTA!

Haste or Crit and why?
Both! They're both so beneficial that I can't choose just one!

What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Holy pallies. The only healer class I haven't played before.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
xPerl for raid frames and Healbot for shielding or healing dps. I still prefer keybinds to hard core macros.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I like a balance, but the stats I tend to balance are spell power, intellect and crit. Usually in that order.


Well there it is! I meant to post last night but I got busy.

Hey guess what healers! Nym turns 21 today!

For several weeks, I have been unable to run ToGC10 with my guild. The first week I missed was the night I had no electricity til 4 am. Then after that, I didn't get an invite for whatever reason. I assume it's due to my spec. So on Friday, my guild tried what someone suggested to me about going shadow for Anub with 2 healers, a druid and a pally. This worked great every time…til phase 3. In phase 3, there was too much raid damage going around. So the guild leader and I put our heads together and this is what we came up with. Bear with me because this is a strange strategy but it worked.

Using 3 healers in phase 1 and 2 of Anub is overkill. That's why most strategies tell you to use two. My first job as the discipline priest was to drop the Frost Spheres. This way the dps could focus on the boss and adds and we didn't have a healer sitting around doing nothing. After dropping the four spheres in the four corners (basically) of the room, I targeted the boss and smite spammed his ass. That's right, smite spam. Well....more like holy fire, penance, smite spam. Anyway, point is this. I dpsed hard core, making sure to use my Arcane Torrent whenever it was up. When the boss got to 35% (and we had plenty of time), I shielded the entire raid. Then I waited for a few sec for my group to get to 50% and popped Power Infusion, healing them with Prayer of Healing. After Power Infusion went down, I pulled out the shadowfiend for mana and a tiny bit of extra damage. Then I rotated between using Prayer of Healing and shielding my group. When I got to 50% mana again, the boomkin tossed me an innervate. Not sure why, but he paid attention to my shadowfiend and when I had already used it and I was at 50%, he was gave me an innervate. Needless to say, I did NOT run out of mana.

Once I got my rotation down, my group did not die. The amusing thing is that the tanks were in the group the druid healer was focusing on. So...the druid's group had him and the pally healer on it. Yet they were the ones dying. Not my group. But after Dema and I organized this strange strategy we downed him in only a few attempts. I felt good after that night. But I still want to know how groups 2 heal this. Our pally+druid couldn't do it, and that's supposedly the best comp.

Last night was 25 man raid night. We wiped on Faction Champions for 4 hours. This is the only fight in the game I hate. But I did notice something that made me happy. At the end of the night, my dispels for the entire raid was at 955. The next closest was a holy priest who goes discipline for FC at 611.

Yeaaaaah, I think I've secured my raid spot for a long time.

Well guys, I've been pretty sick lately. Missed work since Tuesday...woo...

On a happier note, I spent my sickly time getting Netherwing rep and I'm the proud owner of 6 gorgeous Netherwing drakes. I got the free one and then logged on this morning and my significant other had bought the other five and stuck them in my bank to surprise me. He says it's my birthday present since I turn 21 on Thursday.

Well, back to farming frost lotus for raid tonight. Hopefully we'll get somewhere on Faction Champions.

Very proud of Elitist today. Well done guys!

Northrend Beasts
We wiped a few times but we knew we had it. We ended up doing this with 6 healers. Healing was a little strained in Phase 2 and 3, but we were ahead of every single timer. Avoiding Icehowl's charge was what finally did it for us. All we needed to do was have every single raider paying attention. We also had a wait list threatening those who consistently died to stupid things. How shocking...very few raiders died.

Jaraxxus
Easy sauce. Our first try we got him to 20%. Our mistake was not arranging where our healers were. But that didn't take long to figure out. We put 3 healers on the left of Jaraxxus and 3 on the right. The ranged spread out in 2 groups, one to the North and one to the South. Anybody who got Incinerate Flesh ran towards the melee. This strategy worked and we killed him after about 4 attempts.

Faction Champions
This fight goes from being a hard burn to controlled CC. Without CC, it's impossible. I think the most viable way of doing it is locking down the healers and killing the painful dps. I'm kind of biased here though since the melee dps like to force me to eat dirt (or wood) every time I cast mass dispel. I'm pretty sure my rotation was Mass Dispel, Fear, run like hell, Mass Dispel, Fear, run like hell. I'm also pretty sure that I died early on the majority of our attempts because our CC wasn't well organized. We spent an hour on this fight and then it was bedtime. It didn't feel like we accomplished much besides realizing that we needed to do some research. But I think that no matter whether or not we decide to burn the healers first, CC will make this fight for us.

My guild doesn't run guild 10 mans usually. We don't get to do a lot of 10 man content because of this. Those who go to ToGC10 are friends of the person who hosts it. I go with a group outside of the guild. I was originally picked up as a pug healer for another guild's 10 man. They had been having trouble finding a third regular healer and were relieved to find that I wasn't a fail pug. So they asked if I would become their regular third healer. I told them I'd like that, seeing as how I don't have a regular ToGC10 group. With that group I hope to kill Anub on ToGC10 on Sunday afternoon. But tonight, my guild leader is hosting a "super leet" Ulduar hard mode group. I think he wants to get to Algalon at least, if not kill him. I was invited, signed up and hope I get to go. Here's to hoping I get to meet Algalon!

One more thing before I stop being such a chatty Cathy. I'd like to know other discipline priests' thoughts on gear. In our guild, druids and priests do not bid on mp5 gear and shamans and paladins do not bid on spirit gear. I have one such druid in my guild who finds it completely irritating that I can basically use anything, whether it has spirit, mp5 or neither. I informed him last night when the mp5 ring dropped that I would not be bidding against the shamans and paladins. I told him that once our two resto shamans and our holy paladin have the ring, then I will bid on it if it drops again. He was flabbergasted and asked me why I would limit myself when there is no reason to. I told him that I wanted to be fair to the other healers and as such I will bid on what a holy priest would bid on, unless the other healers (shamans and paladins) do not want it. I guess it didn't cross his lootwhorish mind that I could possibly think of the other healers when considering a bid. However, when it comes to dps, I don't hold back on bidding. Sorry guys, but you can bid on hit gear and I can't.


Figured out the "ban". Thanks to Apollia. My payment is pending, so I can't post til it goes through. How stupid is that...

I'm resisting the urge to kill my guildies today. We got to Phase 3 on almost every single attempt of 25 heroic NrB. Our problems were either we lost too many people on Phase 2 because people weren't spread out, or weren't letting the tanks get aggro, or were too close to the worm. One of the dps actually died to standing in poison! That's pug stuff! If we made it to Phase 3 with everybody alive and both worms dead, somebody had to get hit by Icehowl's charge. Anyway, we got super close but...no cigar.

Guess who was the first person to die to fire. Me. Yeah, uh huh, Nym died to fire. You know how often that happens? Never. Nym is the one that the raiders are saying "just freaking die Nym so we can zone in". After that wipe, which we did get to the end of phase 2, my guild leader says "Nym...no one died on Phase 1 except you. What happened?" So I read my combat log to him. Here's a brief overview of what it said:
Nym takes initial damage from fire bomb (2k ish)
Nym gains Nym's Power Word: Shield
Renewed Hope spam!
Penance at tank
Some other spell at tank
Nym takes 7k! Damage from the 4 stack fire bomb dot
Nym takes 7k! Damage from the 4 stack fire bomb dot
Nym takes 7k! Damage from the 4 stack fire bomb dot
Nym has died.
Abuh??
The best part was watching the warlock who usually stands next to me skirting around the fire to look at my body. He then announced in vent, "Invisible fire-1, Nym-0". There was no fire near my body. Probably about 10 ft away was the fire that had hit me initially, but there was no other fire. The holy priest and I then decided that Levitate would be the way to go. While our specific tank wasn't tanking, we hit every dps and healer in range with Levitate. He stood on the right side of the boss and I stood on the left. This made Phase 1 smooth as glass. Not only did NOBODY die to fire after that, but ranged dps sky rocketed because they didn't have to continuously move of fire. I would suggest doing this for hard mode NrB. For one, it reduces the amount of raid healing you have to do so you can focus on tanks. It raises your ranged dps. And it altogether avoids the invisible fire bug.
Anyway, if we don't get this boss down on Thursday, I'm going to be very surprised and very annoyed. So much progress last night!

On a happier note, we did regular ToC25 first and I finally won a second trophy.
Tier9.25 Pants FTW!
Zabra's Leggings of Triumph
Gemmed with:
+23 Spell power
+20 Intellect

After wanting to murder my guildies for not spreading out in phase 2 of heroic Northrend Beasts on 25, I made a suggestion in the healing channel that we move on. But the raid leader said, "Head to Sartherion!" Abuh?? So we slowly start heading there... While on the way there, our raid leader gives a nice little speech. "3d is all about situational awareness and coordination. If you get hit by fire walls or void zones, you do not get to roll on the drake." So we're practicing coordination and situational awareness with the reward of a cool looking mount? Okay. So we down it with a ton of people dead. Uh huh...and we wonder why we can't do hard modes. Anyway, we loot the dragon and move on to Ulduar.
We called a wipe on Hodir at 4%...once again, situational awareness. Raiders dying or not standing in the right buffs. I was #7 in damage done in my offspec shadow gear. I beat the new shadow priest. >_> Bad times. Both the guild leader and one of the officers applauded my dps and told me that it was bad that I was outdpsing an spriest in better gear than me. One of the officers asked me why my main spec wasn't shadow! I told him that shadow isn't very good except on gimmick fights.
So we didn't accomplish much except for realizing that most of our raiders lack situational awareness…but I did get a nifty title. Twilight Vanquisher woo!

Okay updated healing Priest Tier 10
2 piece bonus - Your Flash Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over 9 sec.
4 piece bonus - Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.
2 piece bonus I can definitely deal with. The 4 piece bonus I can see as viable. I assume whenever it procs you will get some sort of buff letting you know that if you flash heal you can use another Penance/Circle of Healing right away. Much better than the original. I think I may get this 4 piece.

Healing Priest Tier 10-
2P Bonus - After your Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit talents expire on your target, they grant your target 10% increased healing received for 10 sec.
4P Bonus - Your Flash Heal spell has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance Spells.
Okay the 2 piece bonus sounds fantastic. That is well thought out. The 4 piece bonus-what? Penance has a 8-9 sec CD if you're specced correctly and have the glyph. So if it's a 15% chance, what are the odds that it even resets it before it's already up? I hate math so I'll let others do the math but I don't see this as viable. Also, as a priest, it annoys me slightly. I like playing priest because we have so many different viable healing spells for different situations. This 4 piece bonus will just make us FH spammers...like paladins. No thanks.

I reread my very first post on beginner discipline healing. It's still pretty accurate for what I was healing then, but now that I'm into hard modes I don't heal like that anymore. It's only been about a month and a half and I've already changed my healing style due to these hard modes I've been getting into.
Well I'll keep posting tidbits on stuff I learn. It was just amusing to see how far I've come in a month.

I'm on a constant quest to improve my healing as I'm sure most players are in whatever they do. Tanking, healing, dpsing, even PvP. It's been pretty slow at work so I decided to try my hand at this math crap some healers talk about. I calculated each one of my spell's average healing per second and healing per mana and pretty much backed up what I thought about my healing. I used the logs that our guild uses from our last raid. Gonna post it here for anybody to review.

Starting with Prayer of Mending
Average ProM heal-5296-Jumps up to 5 times
Mana cost w/Mental Agility-521
It is difficult to determine what ProM's healing per second is due to the fact that you don't know when it is going to do each jump. I did calculate what its healing per mana is however.
Healing per mana-46
46 healing per mana is highest out of all the spells I use. This is why I have this spell constantly jumping on high AoE raid damage fights.

Penance
Average Penance heal-4143-Typically 3 times
Mana cost-618
Healing per second-6215
Healing per mana-20
Fairly high healing per second and fairly high healing per mana make this spell my best single target spell.

Power Word: Shield + Glyph
Average PW:S Absorb + Glyph heal-8235
Mana cost w/Mental Agility & Soul Warding-666
Healing per second-8235 Instant absorbs and healing
Healing per mana-12
Surprisingly its healing per mana was not as high as I expected it to be. I guess this is why shield spammers stack lots of intellect. This spell has very high healing/absorbs and this is why shield spamming is viable. I use shields quite a bit even when I'm tank healing.

Flash Heal
Average Flash Heal-5469
Mana cost w/Improved Flash Heal-591
Healing per second-4558
Healing per mana-9
Flash heal's healing per mana is fairly low compared to the other spells. Its healing per second isn't bad and as it is a very quick cast time, it is a decent spell to use.

Greater Heal
Average Greater Heal-12371
Mana cost-1236
Healing per second-5176
Macro'd to haste trinket healing per second-6217
Healing per mana-10
Contrary to popular belief, Greater Heal has higher healing per second and healing per mana than Flash Heal. I do tend to use this spell more than the average priest but typically only with the haste trinket, so that my target doesn't die while I'm casting it.

Binding Heal
Average Binding Heal-4470-2 heals
Mana cost-1043
Healing per second-7450
Healing per mana-9
This spell is basically a double flash heal. Its high healing per second makes it very useful but it is still very situational. I have to be taking damage for this spell to be used to its max potential.

Prayer of Healing + Glyph
Average Prayer of Healing Heal + Glyph HoT-5155-5 heals
Mana cost-1854
Healing per second-10,785
Healing per mana-14
Macro'd to Power Infusion
Mana cost-1483
Healing per second-14399
Healing per mana-17
According to the math, this spell is very valid for AoE healing. I had to do this math at least 3 times to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong. Even with its decent healing per mana, this spell still costs enough mana to make a priest pause before they spam it. The other issue with this spell is the overhealing. It should not be used unless that entire group is low.

Renew
Average Renew tick-2092-5 ticks over 15 sec
Mana cost w/Mental Agility-591
Healing per second-697
Healing per mana-18
The healing per mana isn't bad but the healing per second is. I only use this spell on the start of pulls or in between phases like in Northrend Beasts. Otherwise, it's a waste of a global cooldown.

And just for my curiosity-Divine Aegis
Average 2186 instant absorbs for every crit

My math is probably wrong somewhere since I did this in between doing timesheets/physician visits/orders here at work. Feel free to correct me.

As an after thought, to those who think I'm a strong advocate of "Discipline/Shadow is fine!!", I'm not. I think these two specs could use a little love to get them on par with the rest of healers/dps. However, just because the two specs are a little behind doesn't mean they suck. And honestly, the game is about having fun. If you're not having fun because you're not the best, play an overpowered class. Don't just sit on the forums and bitch to everybody else. No one wants to hear it. With that said, if you've got some good ideas on how to fix these specs, feel free to share. The "QQ my class sucks" helps no one. The constructive "this is how I think we should fix it" helps people get to thinking and could possibly get Blizzard's attention.

Just typed this up for my guild:
Hey guys!! I had some ideas floating around in my head for progression and such and thought I'd share them!!

Ulduar is still progression for us. We haven't done all the hard modes and some of them are possible for us. Most of the time we just run out of time or people become tired of the place. I think our issues with Ulduar is that it's such a long instance and feels like a drag sometimes. I know that's why I hate it. I wish it was shorter.

So! My idea is this:
Obviously, we want to roflstomp Onyxia and ToC25 every week. VoA25 too. It's free loot. We also want to work on ToGC25. But we don't want to spend 4-8 hrs wiping on the same boss.

We need to do Ulduar but trying to do a fresh Ulduar every week causing us to become tired and run out of time. So I think we should extend each raid lockout while working on hard modes. Like say, we finish Onyxia, ToC25 and VoA25. We work on ToGC for about 2 hours. If we don't wipe on easy content, that's basically one raid night. So we go into Ulduar and that week kill FL 4 tower, Ignis, Razor and XT hard mode. And then we start working on IC hard mode.

So maybe we won't get IC hard mode the first night. We may move on and kill Kologarn or we may not. But we'll extend our raid lockout and move into the next week.

The next week, we do the easy raids. We work on ToGC for a bit. Then we start on IC hard mode and perhaps down it! Then we can move to the next hard modes.

This counters the "Ulduar drag" and allows us to progress. A little slower maybe, but more enjoyable and possibly more efficiently.

Well we finally got it. And I think we FINALLY have a solid raid group. Some of them hadn't done Yogg yet. >_> Anyway, the paladin got his hammer and according to one of the more annoying healers in my guild, that's gonna make healing SOOO much easier. Some of my guildies are under the impression that that hammer will make or break our raid. Reality check loves, hard modes are still hard!!! I hate that hammer. With a passion. It basically makes that stupid paladin a paladin and a disc priest in one. I wonder if those stupid bubbles stack with all of my bubbles...
Moving on from the paladin and his OH SO AMAZING hammer. We didn't get to try any hard modes this week, due to sucking on Yogg for 10 billion years. But we did finally get in and roflstomp ToC25. We wiped on NR Beasts. On REGULAR NR Beasts. Because people were getting charged...
Anyway two new loots for me. QQ all you shamans and pallies on the cloak. It's an upgrade for me and I think only one shaman rolled against me. And he's a back up healer. So I didn't bother bidding low for it.
Cry of the Val'kyr
Maiden's Adoration

So since I know how to heal all of ToGC on 10 man, I thought I'd share my strats on keeping my tanks and raid alive.
Northrend Beasts

• Phase 1-Gormok the Impaler

Best spells:
Power Word: Shield
Prayer of Mending
Prayer of Healing
Penance
Flash Heal
Greater Heal

Start this fight by shielding the first tank. Send a ProM and give him Renew. Don't spam your heals but as soon as the tank gets the first debuff, start using Penance whenever it's up. Here you must use your own judgment. Flash heals must be used in between Penances. If you have a Scale of Fates, macro it to your Greater Heal and use it whenver Scale is available. If you are doing this correctly, you and your other tank healer should be focusing on the tank tanking, but should be able to keep the second tank up. When the boss's aoe goes off, your ProMs should be bouncing in the raid. Macro your Power Infusion to Prayer of Healing and use this spell on the two groups. This will help your raid healer. If you get a snobold, use shields, ProMs and Renews until it's gone to avoid getting spell locked. One thing we noticed is that when DBM announces Fire bomb, if you strafe into an empty spot you will never get hit.

• Phase 2-Acidmaw and Dreadscale

Best Spells:
Power Word: Shield
Prayer of Mending
Penance
Flash Heal
Greater Heal
Hymn of Hope

You want to heal your tank basically the same way as phase 1. Don't forget that if you're burning Acidmaw down first to switch to Dreadscale's tank when Acidmaw dies if you were healing Acidmaw's tank. Dreadscale's tank will start taking a lot more damage. Shields are perfect for this phase. Shield anybody who gets poison or fire. Don't forget to spread out! You may also want to use Hymn of Hope here when you get low and the worms are underground.

• Phase 3-Icehowl

Best Spells:
Power Word: Shield
Penance
Prayer of Healing
Shadowfiend

You will probably be very low on mana at the beginning of this phase. Pop your shadowfiend as soon as the tank gets aggro. Keep up your tank healing rotation and shield+flash heal those who get caught in Icehowl's Arctic Breath. If Icehowl charges you ro someone near you, look around while you're stunned and plan your path. Use your strafing keys to follow this path. After he slams into the wall, use this time to top off your raid.

Jaraxxus
Best Spells:
Power Word: Shield
ProM
Dispel
Penance
Flash Heal

Heal your tank just like normal. Shield+Renew the offtank as well. Be sure to help dispel the tank if he gets the debuff and dispel Jaraxxus's buff. Your tank won't be taking a lot of damage but the raid will. Pay attention to who gets Incinerate Flesh and spam heal them til it's gone. Throw a shield on whoever gets the Legion Flame. Make sure that there are 15 yds between you and the other raiders to avoid heavy chain lightning damage. A new mechanic of the fight is a type of charm cast by the Mistress of Pain. If you see the hearts above your head telling you she has charmed you, target the boss and cast Mind Blast. It will spell lock your shadow spells and you can go back to healing.

Faction Champions
Best Spells:
Power Word: Shield
Penance
Mass Dispel
Psychic Scream
Pain Suppression

Dispel, dispel, dispel. That's your main job here. Your only real healing spell you will use is Penance. Throw it on raiders taking massive damage. Shield the raiders who are taking hits from the champions. Make sure that you are dispelling any dots or debuffs on the raiders and be sure to dispel the champions' bloodlust/heroism. If you get aggro, fade (it actually works oddly enough) or psychic scream. If these abilities are on cooldown or the champion resists and you are taking a lot of hits, pain suppress yourself. You will get a lot of aggro this fight for mass dispel. I don't know why but it happens. So be careful and keep yourself alive.


The Twin Val'kyr
Best Spells:
Power Word: Shield
Prayer of Mending
Penance
Flash Heal
Binding Heal

Since you constantly take damage in this fight, Binding Heal is a very good spell to use. Be sure to not overheal too much with it. Prayer of Mending shines in this fight as well. It will be bouncing all over the raid to tackle that raid damage. Get the opposite color of the majority of your dps near you and be sure to avoid orbs of the opposite color and touch the ones of the same color. Not much else to say here. Just make sure that when one casts the shield, the other one's tank is being spam healed. She will do more damage when she is shielded.

Anub'rekhan
Best Spells:
Power Word: Shield
Penance
Flash Heal

I haven't actually downed this but I know how to do it for the most part. This isn't a heavy healing fight until phase 3. Just typical tank healing. Phase 2 is the critical phase. You have to stay alive here. On phase 3, designate one healer to keep the tank up and the other two to keep the raid at 30% or so. If you are tank healing, use your usual tank healing rotation. If you are raid healing, shield your group and flash heal those that get below 20%. Keep them at 30% so Anub'rekhan does not heal too much.


And that's all I got! Critiques are welcome.

Onyxia was tons of fun! The fight was pretty much the same with one minor difference. Adds like the trash at the beginning spawn and have to be offtanked. We did it on 10 man too and got a bunch of achievements.
She Deep Breaths More – Defeat Onyxia without anyone taking damage from a Deep Breath in 10-player mode.
More Dots! – Defeat Onyxia in less than five minutes in a 10-player mode.
My helm dropped too!
Aurora of Transcendence
Last night we did our usual 10 man ToC, regular first and then heroic. Almost got Anub down! He was at 20%. I got several upgrades (it's good to be one of the few casters).
Pendant of Binding Elements (a slight upgrade)
Scepter of Imprisoned Souls (I had the regular version)
Illumination (OMGOMGOMG IT DROPPED)

A couple of things to note on the helm and staff. The 10 man helm from Onyxia is actually better than the Tier 9.5 helm. Definitely lost all interest in the Tier 9 4 set bonus after getting this helm from 25 man.

Also, heroic Illumination is the best staff for discipline. It has everything a discipline could possibly want. Crit, int, haste and spell power all in a neat cool-looking package with 3 slot bonuses!!! 3!!! I'm gemming them with a crit gem, an int gem and a spell power gem since those are the 3 stats I gem for. I fell asleep while gemming it last night so the int gem isn't in it yet but it will be when I get home this afternoon.

Going to try to get my guild to do Onyxia tonight. They want to do Yogg or whatever to get our paladin's hammer but I want us to do Onyxia first. I've never actually done it before because I started playing way after BC came out. Well, we'll see what happens. I'll post about it if we do it tonight!

I haven't posted in a while. New job is really a bunch of little jobs in one. It's a lot of stuff to keep up with so I'm adjusting. Updates!

Last week I subbed in for a druid healer in the 10 man heroic Trial. They had already downed the two bosses I downed with my guild's main tank and his friends.
We downed Faction Champions after some adjustments. We discovered that in any group it's best to burn the shaman first if he is present. Then the warrior and other very hurtful dps. Healers next and not so hurtful dps after. This worked out rather well. We burned the shaman, then the warrior and death knight. We then burned the warlock and her pet. Then the hunter. And finally the holy paladin and shadow priest. We had our warrior tank preventing the paladin from casting any heals. After attempting this strategy, we downed it no problem. One thing that I did notice as a discipline priest is that mass dispel pulls a lot of aggro. I spent most of my time healing and bubbling myself after mass dispels. I also spammed my fear button every time the dps champions got close.
Next we killed the Twin Val'kyr. Much much harder than regular. There are only two major changes. One is that the two Val'kyr will randomly target a player in the raid to put a debuff on. You simply need to make sure that you are the color of the debuff. The second major change is the amount of colored orbs. The number of colored orbs nearly triples, making staying alive much more important. Zooming out all the way makes this slightly easier but not by much. We managed to kill them after several attempts.
Last week's Anub'rekhan-bad times. Had some issues with adds being able to burrow. There was less permafrost on the ground, which meant less room to maneuver away from the small adds. The poison debuff stacked up on us and wiped us several times. We ran out of time so we called it after several wipes on this one.

Tuesday-I missed the regular ToC 25 man. (Gonna try to pug it Friday night) We didn't have enough tanks to try heroic ToC so we went to Ulduar to work on some hard modes. We're hoping to get into heroic ToC tonight.

Last night we went into heroic 10 man again after finishing it on regular. Flew through Northrend Beasts, had a few hiccups on Jaraxxus due to a healer not helping with Incinerate Flesh. We one shot Faction Champions using our ideas from last week. We ended at the Twin Val'kyr. We're still having some issues with orbs and we ran out of time. Monday night we will down the twins and start working on Anub.

I got some hit boots from heroic Faction Champions last night that are better than the ones I was wearing. I'll gem them as soon as I get a chance.
Sunreaver Magus' Sandals