With the introduction of Penance coupled with Power Word:Shield Disc has become a very viable raid/tank healer. In my opinion more tank then raid but I will get into that a little later.

My one huge recommendation to you should you choose to spec Disc is know that most of the time other players are not going to understand how effective you really are. You will usually (NOT ALWAYS) be second to a holy priest or pally this is due to very little information about how awesome we are, and RAID leaders doing little to no research on viable classes/specs and still raiding like this is Burning Crusades. Take it with a grain of salt as you are able to get in to RAIDS and even Heroic 5 mans people will become more educated and you will be asked back.

Second big thing IGNORE meters they can not possible tell your effectiveness in a RAID and any raid leader using them to make decisions about healers is not doing their job properly.

So lets get into stat stacking because the question is asked over and over and argued about everywhere. Generally it is Holy speced priests not understanding the stat stack is DIFFERENT and that what may be good for them might not be good for their disc counter part. So lets go with the most important stat first

Spell power (SP): By far and away the most IMPORTANT stat to stack. For the most part you can not have enough. When ever possible you should be gemming and enchanting for it. I have been known on occasion to drop a socket bonus to use a Runed Cardinal Ruby especially if it’s some stupid bonus like Spirit. It is going to raise the effectiveness of everything you do as well as allowing your PW:S to absorb just a ton of incoming damage.  With that being said you of course can not ignore the other stats we need.

Intellect (INT): Ok so the major debate that lies here and how to weight it  and BLAH BLAH BLAH… a lot of talk without a whole lot of easy to read reasoning behind it. Here is what I see first and foremost your mana pool is directly based on this stat so in order to cast you must have it. Second it will add to crit which is one of the stats we will work later. (On a side note this secondary crti thing not as big a deal as you would think since you need 166 int to get 1 percent crit)

Ok so now we move into the seriously debated stats CRIT/HASTE/SPIRIT/MP5

First if we are talking a RAIDING disc priest lets just get sorta ignore MP5 and SPIRIT. The reason is that you will get all you need from gear. You never need to “stack” those stats. The reason being that first of all we should very rarely be outside the 5 second rule (which is the nice way of saying we should be perma casting) and because of this spirit does very little if nothing for us. As far as MP5 in a raid situation you will have sick mana regen because of all the raid buffing and Rapture.

(mana pool) x Return Percent from rapture(1.5/2.0/2.5) / 12 * 5 = X MP5 (stolen from Ejerks)

For the nitty gritty facts lets just say that if you mana pool is in the 21k range and you are SW:P the tank when ever possible then you will see a return of like 150MP5 added to your current MP5.

So all that being said when possible you should chose MP5 gear over spirit gear and never ever gem/enchant for either.

Now this is the the area we differ greatly from holy priests, stacking spirit is something they do.. why ? I don’t know and frankly I don’t care I don’t spec holy I don’t heal holy and truth be known if it were the only option for priests with healing like back in the day I wouldn’t play a priest.  Ok mini rant over .. moving on…

So what do we have left ? CRIT and HASTE

Critical Strike: Ok in my opinion this stat is more important then stacking haste. Once you get haste to about 11 percent is it useless for us .. so good rule of thumb stack crit and hope the gear will have enough for you hit the 11 percent cap. Divine Aegis is one of the main reason to stack crit where you can and when given a choice over haste or crit gear you should pick crit. A free bubble is a free bubble. The other reason is a critting flash heal is just awesome. It is low cast time, low mana and just be spammed like crazy. This stat right now is the one I am working and I will tell you it has helped my through put  a ton I am critting for near 8k on a flash heal. So I Flash heal, crit and now they have divine aegis which lets me be able to take a moment to bubble (Power Word:Shield) another raid target.

Haste: So yeah a lot of talk about GCD (Global Cool Down) which in easy terms is the time it takes for your spells to be able to be cast again. Even instants cant be rapid fired. With haste you can drop the GCD to 1 second but that is as good as it is going to get on that. Haste will still continue to drop cast times of your spells though. This is important because even though it is not as effective as a Holy Priest for us to cast Prayer Of Healing/Greater Heal sometimes it is just a must and dropping the cast time of these beast healing spells will help the Raid in the long run. A good rule of thumb on haste is cap it at 11 percent.

On a side note today is the release of 3.3 patch so I will have to take sometime and see how much this effects our healing and if the new encounters are making anything different.

Tech and I restarted on a PVP server as horde instead of Alliance this time. We really are having a great time. We chose a Paladin and Priest, which may seem odd from me since I already have the Ally priest on Senjin but what the hell I really like that class.

We spent most of our time so far in a guild called Heretic. We have met some really cool people and also helps our good friend was already playing over there. We have since moved on from that guild to a new venture with No Breaks. I will go ahead and post our less then stellar fun here to include vent chats, silly fun in guild and every time I get tail swiped into the whelps!

1. Spiral Defense - I LOVE this game. It is a tower defense game thatyou can easilly play for hours on end. I think it was a buck or 2 and totally worth it.

2. Bubble - Useful app, I use it all the time. It is a level that is very accurate and really nice when you can only find a HUGE level.I used it to level a LCD TV and shelves in my sons room.

3. Scrambled Net - another fun game that is free so there is a bonus. The game is based on the “pipes” type games. It is pretty mindless and fun when waiting in a DR office or something. Has the ability to shut off the sounds.

4. HideNSeek - This is a useful utility for hiding your files on your G1, when you open it from the menu it pops a flashlight up and then you hit menu 3 times and are prompted for a password. The only down side I have seen from the app is you need to remember to CLOSE the program when you leave or then anyone can access the program.

5. Statusinator - Good Face Book app. Allows you to upload pictures right to your wall as well as see friends updated status and update yours as well. If you tap to a feature not supported it takes you right to facebook to see that thing. I use this app every day.

Ok so there is my top 5 G1 apps I will add more as I go through them. I will try and let you know which ones blow too.

Matt Giraud-  there is something about this kid and I don’t know what it is. More then likely it is that gravely blues thing going on with his voice. I was shocked to see him in the bottom 3 a few weeks back, and have decided that was Idol playing with the numbers again because they wanted to keep Crazy Megan. Yes I have a very conspiracy theory view of Idol. I think they send the people home who are voted off, but I also think sometimes they play with the bottom 3 to try to get results they want.

I will say, that even though they are touting this group as the best ever (like every year) I am not seeing it. I think that seasons 4,5, and 6 were definitely the hay day. Last year was a snore! This year isn’t turning out much better. I watch every week and find myself more and more talking through the performances and ignoring what is going on. I think it is a multitude of reasons, but the main one for me in the new stage.. HATE IT! I liked the closeness of the other set. I liked being able to actually SEE the band.

One was odd had like 1000 uses left to it. Gift of Lost Legacies.. so I claimed it. I received two 10 stack of potions 3 pieces of armor all better then what I had on .. it was the Defiant stuff.. a new weapon (which I did have better of) and a  book with 5 charges of port to PoK. I think this is awesome, part of the problem I have had in the past with trying to go back to Everquest, is that my gear just is not good enough for the newer zones. This allows me to gear back up and go hunt without having to go back to the older expansions that no one is in to get re geared. One of the potions is the Adventurer Potions which allows you to increase your exp for 30 minutes. I guess you can now buy these with real cash. So they have given returning players 5 hours of increased exp which is nice. I have not checked out the new mercenary system, but I think it has something to do with hiring PC’s to hunt with you. I find that kind of sad, means that the server populations have dropped so much people need to hire people to hunt with them. eqtheme

Ever wanted to get back to an app with out having to pull the menu back up? All you have to do is hold down the home button and it will pop up a screen with the programs running.

Worried about hiding things on the phone? There is 2 ways to do this one you can go to the “market” and download Linda File Manager for free this will allow you to change the name of folders and files on your memory stick. it will also allow you to copy, cut, and paste files. If you rename a folder by putting a period in front of the / it will hide the folder. There are a couple of pay programs on the market and the best one I have found is Hide  and Seek it is $.99 so a good deal, allows you to tap to hide and has password locking as well as a cool flashlight feature to hide the face you have a program hiding files.

The G1 is a heat touch screen which makes it awesome in MOST situations, like no pocket dialing. It sucks though if you have gloves on because you cant use the phone without taking them off defeating the purpose of the gloves.

Want to add app shortcuts to the home screens?  In the app menu just press and hold the app and it will drop the menu away so you add the app to the home screen.

The camera on the phone sucks, no way around that right now. I believe the camera in there is more then likely fine but the apps written for it so far have all sucked, including the one Google gives you with the phone. There is no video recording as of yet if anyone finds a decent app that is doing it let me know.

Uploading music to the phone is simple enough through the USB port, it took me a minute to figure out that you need to actually mount it thru the phone when it pops up saying it is connected to USB. I love the Amazon music download, it is all in MP3 format and allows me to just use my amazon login info to purchase

The “Market” this is a great way to get appp, I have never been really able to buy apps for my phones because the actual bill is a business phone so if I bought apps thru the phone it was charged to the bill. With the “Market” you just use google checkout which makes it so I can just charge my credit card. I wish that it had more ways to search and parse the files but I am sure that will come in time.

Worried about your phone getting scratched up? I have a Zagg invisible shield on mine. These things work! I am the type to dump my phone in my purse and be on my way. I dont have one scratch on it yet and it’s been about 3 months. The shield is a little pricey and a pain to put on, but totally worth it for protecting your investment. I dropped the phone about 2 weeks ado and even though the corner where it smashed into the ground looked bad when I lifted the shield it was fine. I just cleaned out around the little tab (sand) and pushed it back down and it if fine.

Looking to play flash? -sigh- Too bad for now, there has been rumors of an update but that was supposed to be in March so they must have been just that.. rumors.

Now the reason I am bringing this entire thing up is tonight is the Myth Busters new Discovery Channel Shark Week special, actually in 40 minutes I am going to sit and watch it. I hope this is a good show filled with ridiculous experiments that put Adam in REAL peril.. like the time he scorched off the hair on his body, not just another wanna be special effects show, if that is what I want to see I will go watch a movie with the money to give it to me.

Q. How do I grow my mob?

A. There is a lot of answers to this question but the easiest way I have found to cause some growth is to invite people to your mob with a lot of mobsters already, they will usually have a Myspace Friends Category that they will add you too. Once in that category you can see all the friends they have that also play mobster and are more than likely looking for more friend invites.

Q. Do I have to have them be my friend in order to add them to my mob?

A. YES! This can be circumvented with some “shady” software but this is not the intention of MySpace or Mobsters and can be cause for banning on MySpace. Your best bets is just add the friends, play Mobsters with them, and enjoy all the new people you are meeting. I was a hard core REAL LIFE friends only before Mobsters with having like 30 real friends and 20 “star” type friends, I am loving all my new pals and anyone who annoys me I just delete them.

Q. Why am I losing fight all the time?

A. You have to remember that your Mob strength is based on your level times five. So let’s take me for example I am level 35 so 35×5=175, so I am only using 175 of my mobsters when I actually fight. That means I can have 1 gun, 1 body armor, 1 Vehicle for each of the 175 people it counts. So if I go and look at my equipment screen this is what you will see.

This allows me to be at full strength when I am attacked, if I didn’t have a weapon, body armor, and vehicle for each person it counted that mobster would fight with their fists. It is also good to remember that when you attack you are getting a higher “dice roll” and get preferred treatment by the mobster app in the fight for being the aggressor.

Q. How are people getting over 500 Mobsters?

A. Ok I know I went over this in another post, that maybe it was a cheat, but it isn’t which was clarified but a great commenter. Deal is Mobster will only ever allow you to use 500 mobsters RIGHT NOW. You can have as many as you like but owning over 500 guns, cars and such does you no good. So yes you mob can be over 500 but you can never bring more then 500 to a fight which begs the question is level 100 the max mobster level?

Q. What is the most important stat to increase?

A. To me this is completely subjective. I have a ton of friends that like to increase their stamina so they can fight the hell outta people, and me I like increasing my energy so I can get about 2 million an hour. If someone has some better ideas of what stats are important and what ones are not let me know.

Q. How do I get more Godfather Points?

A. You can buy them with Paypal, or you can sign up for silly surveys, or you can earn a few here and there by reaching certain achievements with you Mob. I have not found it important to have the Godfather points, but it is the way the guy who wrote Mobster makes money off of us, so it can’t hurt to go and fill out some of the free ones.

So that is some of the ones I come across in my emails every day if you have any other please feel free to leave a comment and I will try and answer to the best of my ability.