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!