Pyatachok

Thoughts on the Patch + Ulduar

2009-05-07T19:15:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because my Internet is on the fritz, but also because I wanted to 'test the waters' of new Holy Priesting in Ulduar.

At my current gear level, and with us only having downed 10 man Mimiron, mana is once again an issue. At least it is for my play-style. I don't like to sit back and wait for the perfect opportunity to cast a greater heal. I don't care about the 5SR. This is because these tools are for healers of the vanilla days; I like to cast, and cast, and cast, and cast, and cast...until either the boss, tanks, or myself are dead. If someone dies because I didn't heal them, it will not be because I waited too late.

Anywho.

Ulduar. Mana. Yeah.

On longer or more intense boss fights, like XT and assembly right now, I probably oom at around 20%. The others, I can manage to keep a bit of mana all the way through. My conclusion: when I get Ulduar gear, I can breeze through Ulduar just as Naxx. But for progression, I bring my mojo flask, my cuttlesteak, my oh-so-Holy-packed-with-spirit-and-mp5 gear. I use my Dragon trinket, my spirit world glass, and sit just below the druid on the healing charts. My overhealing is at a decent spot. I'm...ok. I'm not overpowered. I'm not in serious need of buffage. I am perfectly content with where Holy Priests are right now. Healing naxx is boring because the tanks can sit there with a PW:Shield on and maybe lose a thousand health. Healing ulduar is fun because there are upgrades and interesting boss fights and I actually have to pay attention. I am not Azeroth's best healer. But I can heal Naxx 25 while watching House and drooling over Hugh Laurie. mmmmmm hugh laurie

As for everything else.

-I love the new Renew. LOVE. The new renew. Thank you Blizzard.
-I love Holy Nova's buff. I actually use it now.
-The Prayer of Healing buff is awesome, but kind of annoying.
-WTB: Better Priest glyphs.
-I miss Imp Holy Conc.
-I miss being able to spam Flash Heal and stay alive longer in SoR.
-WTB: More healers so I can have fun being shadow and nuking things- with DoTs that freaking crit, hecks yeah.
-Oh, btw, The Ides of March on Hyjal is now recruiting DPS of all sorts to pad in some numbers for 25 man Ulduar. We've the 25 on maybe 2 nights a week, but more DPS is more DPS. Send tells to Faeris (me) or Joms. We could use a tank or two maybe, but we don't want to gear you. No lie.

♥Fae

/Farewell to a Blogging Great

2009-04-06T23:31:00.003-06:00

As you may already be aware, Resto4Life- quite possibly the greatest healer blog out there, closed it's doors about a month ago. Phaelia's blogging community, including readers and colleagues alike shall miss her witty yet quite informative posts, her treeshirts, and well, allover- her.

BRK - BigRedKitty- is also locking up due to real life changes that require a bit more of his time than he had previously allowed them.

I'm writing this post because BRK is -the- blog that introduced me to the WoW blogging community. No, I have never had a Hunter main, or, even a Hunter alt, really. So how did I come across this, and why is it important to me? Because it was the first thing I ever looked at that took WoW more seriously than any other game. After I read through the first few post, I became interested in my own class - as a class rather than this thing that I push buttons and do stuff with.

My friend that introduced me to WoW was a Hunter. He loves to talk about class mechanics and changes and how awesome he is. He would constantly refer to this...BRK thing and I would have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I would just /nod and go along with it. One day, he posted a link to a future patch note discussion thread and told me to go look at the Hunter changes. The link, as you can probably guess, was BRK. My first reaction to seeing this blog was something along the lines of..."oh, hey this is neat". And then I read his posts. And I guess it was then that I sort of realized what 'class mechanics' actually were. Different rotations are better. Different specs are better. Different gear is better for different specs. You can't just faceroll and expect to give a significant contribution to a group.

So, then I- as a fresh 70 Mage, and still a total n00b- looked up gear lists. Looked up specs. Looked up consumables, enchants, reputations...everything. I found the Elitist Jerk forums, and I read them. I found Frost is the New Black- and I loved it. Even though I wasn't raiding at the time, nor did I really plan to, I still tried to gear myself, and play to the best that I could. I farmed for hours....days...years it seemed to make the Frozen Shadowweave set. I loved the Frost spec, see, and didn't care that it wasn't the top dps spec because I wasn't in the situations that that really mattered in. When I did start raiding...I farmed for hours of days...of days...and made the Spellfire set. Which I think I used twice. Then I decided I hated the Fire spec. So I respecced back and ended up out DPSing most of the people, anyways. When I started leveling my Priest to meet the needs of the guild, I found Ego and her wonderful blog.

Whenever I begin leveling an alt, or talking to another person about healing a fight, or speccing for certain circumstances, or anything at all related to WoW, I can generally find a blog post somewhere that answers those questions.

I guess what I'm really trying to get here is...

BRK- because of you, I am no longer a complete n00b.
Good Luck in all you do.
Cheers,
Fae

Trinkets

2009-04-03T19:55:00.003-06:00

Trinkets are wonderful little things that I like to keep several of handy. Seriously. I switch my trinkets out more times than...well. Er. I change them alot. Right now, my bags contain: The Egg of Mortal Essence, Majestic Dragon Figurine, Spirit World Glass, Mark of the War Prisoner, Soul of the Dead and the Forethought Talisman. If you look through this list you may notice that a few, ie- Soul of the Dead and Mark of the War Prisoner, are probably more geared towards dpsers or, at least, not Holy Priests. Mark is for MCing. Otherwise, it stays in my bag. However, I really like Soul of the Dead.

As I think I've said before, I'm weird. Haste is not my friend. I love Crit. This will probably change with 3.1, but for now it suits me pretty well. This happy little trinkets ends up giving me maybe 5% total mana regained after a Naxx run. No, it's not much, but I do feel that I benefit more from it than I would with say...the Spirit World Glass or Dragon. Yes, Spirit is wonderful. It is the foundation block for all that is Holy Priest healing. But if MP5 is not an issue for you, then the sp gained really...doesn't cut it. It a preference thing, I suppose. I prefer-crit.

So, my normal set of trinkets is Soul of the Dead and the Forethought Talisman. For Loatheb, I switch to Soul+Egg. For really long fights, Dragon+Spirit World. If I had Illustration of the Dragon Soul then I would use it...pretty much all of the time. But, as it is a much sought after item, I have yet to nab it.

Different trinkets are better for different things. That's why you have two slots, and lots of options to choose from. No single trinket is completely better than any other trinket. If you prefer one stat to the next, then use the ones that meet your needs. Most loot lists don't rank trinkets- they simply list the ones that could be beneficial. If you use a list that does, don't take it for absolute truth.

♥Fae

3.1 Opinions

2009-03-13T00:29:00.002-06:00

Looking at the 3.1 changes, there are lots of good things in store for us Priesty types. Seems like Shadow is actually getting the biggest buff PvE//P wise. Spirit Tap is improved, DoTs crit more often, Shadow form reduces spell dmg...lucky folks. Holy gets some much needed mana cost reduction for our Nova, and Divine Spirit! Disc gets a super shield, making them all the more PvE viable. I could list the tons and tons of changes to each tree, but it's much easier to just look at the patch notes.

I'm curious, though. How do you guys think this will change our current play-styles, if at all? I think Holy is going to be better AoE healers, and Disc will continue to be its shield popping self. Shadow might be the spec of choice for you avid PvPers...you guys were already practically wearing plate @.@...but how will it affect you?

I need to find a new place to stick my Improved Holy Conc points, but I think the change is definitely worthwhile. Greater Heal will most likely become my cast of choice, since it won't be as much of a mana sucker. I'm thinking about dropping Test of Faith, too. I really only nabbed it for the crit >< If anyone is aware of a new tree floating around, please, let me know so I can play around with stuff =]

What do you think?

Fae♥

Gearing for Discipline

2009-02-27T01:38:00.004-06:00

According to a good number of sources, namely Elitist Jerks, Disc Priests are absolutely wonderful for fights such as sarth+3. But, most of the Priest community will probably react to the switch as I did at the beginning of Lich King- Disc? No way. PvE healing = Holy. However, this is no longer true. Even if you're in a guild that is still progressing through Naxx, or even if you're a PuGger, Disc Priests can be wonderful things to carry around in your back pocket.

Whats the difference between a Disc Priest and a Holy Priest?
Holy folks are wonderful at repair. We are the Jack of all Trades [Master of None /cry] healers who have a variety of single target and group wide heals. We have direct heals, HoTs, shields, insta-casts, long casts, everything. And we use everything. If you're healing as Holy and you don't have every single healing spell [with the exception of the leveling ones such as Lesser Heal and Heal] on your action bars then you're wrong. I don't care what your excuse is- Holy Priests use every. single. spell. Yes, many of us have become Flash Heal spammers but we still use...everything. You start the pull with a PoM and refresh it everytime the cd's up, shield a threat-happy DPSer, CoH or PoH after aoe damage, Flash Heal or Greater Heal depending on the damage taken, Binding Heal when you're hurt also, toss Renews...Guardian Spirit in O-S! situations...etc. Everything.

Discipline Priests are all about mitigation. They have a variety of shields and damage reducing spells that prevent oncoming damage. They will probably not top the healing charts...ever. Because they don't really...heal. They make the other healers in the group lives' easier by saving them mana and GCD's-making the others all the more efficient. Of course, they still have all of the wonderful spells a Holy Priest has, they're just not as good. A properly specc'd Disc Priest will go alllll the way into Disc, picking only a few talents out of the first two or three tiers in Holy. They don't get the extra healing, or spellpower from spirit, or mana cost reduction or any of the other strong Holy talents, but it's ok- they don't really need them. No, this does not mean a Disc Priest sits in the back of the raid tossing shields and never casting a heal...sitting there idly bored- maybe reading their favorite web comic. They have to know the fights just like any other healer because spells have several minute cd's, and a wasted one could cause a wipe.

So, which is better? Mitigation, or repair?
Both.
o.O
Mitigation makes it easier to repair. Multiple Discipline Priests are not really necessary for a raid, but having one around makes all of your other healers happy. Deciding which you want to play is all about...how you like to play. Holy Priests are generally in the middle of it all, tossing out heals as fast as they can be cast, while Disc's stay to the back and watch for possible incoming damage. At present, I'm still Holy but that's only because another Priest geared for Disc faster than I did ><

Speaking of Gear...
Holy Priest's aim for the max healing output with the highest amount of mana efficiency. Mmmm...spellpower, Spirit, Haste, and mp5! Crit is a good side item...int is important, but mana regeneration is strong as Holy so it's not really something to focus on.
Disc Priests are kinda like Pallies. They don't really have mana concerns, they love crit, and they don't benefit from Spirit in any way other than mana regen. Spellpower, Crit, and Int are the most important stats for Disc folks.

Using Loot Rank, I've compiled the following list of gear choices for a Disc Priest. I only chose to display the top 3, but you can copy the values and choose a longer list. If you prefer one stat over another, it's pretty simple to change stuff around.

Disc Gear List

As you can see, alot of the gear is more DPSy than Healy. But, that's because most cloth gear with crit is aimed towards DPSers >< I promise I won't make fun of you if you're wearing the Shadow tier gear.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me or post 'em here!
♥Fae

My Sixth Screenshot

2009-02-22T22:13:00.003-06:00

By request and to follow suit with the other WoW bloggers here is the sixth screenshot in my WoW folder.

This is me and my now fatty boomchicken rl friend after we both acquired our Frostwolves oh-so-long-ago. I downed a Noggenflogger to make my poor little BE self even tinier, and...I'm not sure what he took to make himself bigger..hmmm.

I introduced him to the game after I had been playing for about half a year all by myself. Bringing friends in definitely made it even more fun. We quested together, farmed enchanting patterns together- jerk totally stole Crusader from me /sob- and eventually began raiding together. You know all of those silly people in PuGs and the occasional guildy that loves to stand in the pretty flashy void zones? We made fun of them. We yelled at them. We blamed our repair bills on them. We made a chat channel and filled it with people who shared a burning hatred for a certain guild member. And it was fun. We stayed on Skype and cursed and hollered when things went poorly yet calmly explained the problems over Vent...because we could. And it was fun. Having someone you actually really and truly know in the guild makes it fun. The wipes faced on progression nights were no longer wipes, they were excuses for more inside jokes, verbal stress relief and, most importantly, ideas that sprung to mind could be bounced back and forth between someone who knows how you think. And these ideas became new strategies, new ways to attempt a boss, just...something different. And it was fun.

Off-nights and Threat

2009-02-17T10:41:00.004-06:00

I used our weekend of off-nights to get two more levels on my druid, Kaeman, yay 76!

However, whilst on a HoL run (btw...don't run it at 76, you can't hit anything @.@) I was reminded of a smaaaalll but very important thing to remember...threat. Since I'm usually healing, I don't even have my Omen up. Ever. Unless I'm leading the raid and I know there are some crit-happy DPSers. Why? Because I trust my tanks. I know that if someone pulls the MT or OT, or just someone who happens to feel like a decent meatshield will pick up the loose mob. So it doesn't really matter.

Right now, my guild is filled with healers. We have no problem finding any number of healers for anything. We can drag 5-8 into a 25 Naxx, and know that if//when one or two of them have to leave there are always some more on to replace them. I've been building a pretty decent shadow set, and am looking forward to be able to put it into play soon. Hopefully, I'll have some rotations and gear possibilities up in a bit. Even if I don't get to go shadow for some of our main runs (oh please oh please oh please) the druid can slide into some offnight 10 mans, at least. Regardless...threat. Yes. Threat.

Threat is bad. Run away from high amounts of it. Unless you're a tank. If you pull, shame on you! Even you're running with the worst tank you've ever seen, if you pull it's your fault. Bad! /smack! I had gotten so used to not paying attention to anything other than the little bars of health covering my screen that my tunnel-vision as a healer led me to become tunnel-visioned as a DPS. Just because there aren't big spinning flashy things yelling at you to move or stop casting, doesn't mean you shouldn't. Your Omen may not be pinging yet, but it will. And then you might die.

/cry

♥Fae

Busy week!

2009-02-08T19:34:00.004-06:00

This past week or so has been pretty hectic. I haven't been able to get on WoW much, but, when I can I like to fill that sparse amount of time with as much WoW fun as possible.
Last week I managed to sneak into a Malygos kill. Unfortunately, I still haven't done Halls of Stone on Heroic, so the title continues to escape me. I got to see some wonderful Disc Priest action in our Heroic Naxx, and I'm wondering If I should lean that way myself. Disc priests are all about mitigation, so their actual healing output is rather low. But they definitely make the job of repairing what damage is done much easier for the rest of us. The gearing is very different however, so it may take some time before I actually make the switch, if I do.
My druid is at 75. I'm taking it slow leveling him mostly because I know he won't see any raids for quite a while. I also started a Warrior, after spending some time around a RL friend of mine go on and on about hers. They seem fun! So, I'm trying it out =] I've never really played a melee class before, besides the little bit I did with the druid before I switched him from tank to chicken. I have tons and tons to learn >< If You guys know of any wonderful Warrior sites, let me know!

I hope you all are doing marvelous.

Cheers!
Fae♥

Has healing become....hard?

2009-01-30T11:18:00.002-06:00

Every now and then I check up on the World of Raids website.This morning, whilst mindless scrolling down through the Blue Posts I came across...this.

On Current Healing Difficulty:
You are welcome to disagree with out decisions, but I do not recommend coming onto our boards with the intention of insulting us. This is not constructive feedback and will get you banned.

I am sympathetic if you find healing too difficult. Many players do not and are clamoring for more of a challenge. There are many ways we challenge players in PvE, including complex encounters, short enrage timers and high damage. When mana management, or healing in general, are too easy then certain encounters become too easy. Furthermore, the game mechanics as designed don't work -- Spirit and mp5 become stats players aren't interested in. Choosing efficiency vs. throughput is not a meaningful decision. Healers in general are marginalized because raids can get by with fewer of them.

When you claim we are dumb for thinking healing is too easy, you are disagreeing with a lot of other players who post on these boards. Your conclusion must be that they are dumb too and we should design the game just to support your playstyle. Above all I am constantly encouraging the community to read what other players are saying. They are not always going to agree with what may be blindingly obvious to you. Does that mean they are wrong? Does that mean you are wrong? Of course not. All it means is the WoW community is large and diverse.

We have structured the game in such a way that you can find a difficulty level you are comfortable with. Naxxramas is one of the easiest raids we have ever done. Malygos gets a little more difficult, and Sartharion with multiple drakes is fairly difficult. Going into the future we will keep adding even more challenging and hardcore encounters while still making sure players who just aren't into that can still enter raids. The game has difficulty levels. If you are finding things so difficult that they aren't fun then by definition you probably aren't a cutting-edge raider. That's cool. We want to make sure you still have plenty of interesting things you can do, even within a raiding environment.

Replenishment and Mana Regen:

We consider Replenishment mandatory. What I mean by that is we assume that you have Replenishment available to your raid. It is technically possible to go without it, but you will need to overgear the instance or otherwise compensate for it in other ways.

That doesn't mean we will or will not nerf Replenishment. But we don't want it to feel optional (assuming you are in reasonably challenging content) and nerfing it too much might have that effect.

Crystalsong Forest....coming to a neighborhood near you!

2009-01-29T19:04:00.003-06:00

Oi!

Oi, oi, oi.

I absolutely love the Winter. It's so... cold. And snowy. And all of those other wonderful things that goes along with December--March. Plus, I get a little bit of extra time to play WoW. I mean. Socialize. Er...

My area is currently under the lasting effects from Tuesday's ice storm. The trees are covered in at least a half inch of ice. The newer snow is sitting on top of ice, which is sitting on top of snow, which is sitting on top of ice... It's been a really long time since I've seen anything so absolutely Wintery. I have pictures, but my camera is refusing to upload them. Hopefully I can post them soon.

Work is closed. So, I've been running around gathering the blessings from my Elders for the Lunar Festival achievements.

As I approached Ironforge, I said my prayers to the WoW gods and just kinda...ran in. I lagged as soon as I entered the front gate and pulled three guards. When I cleared up I had maybe 10% health left, but I'm a Priest. So I did what any self-respecting Priest would do in this situation. I shielded and screamed. Tossed a Renew and PoM, CoH... and kept running. By the time I had gotten to the Elder a Pally decided I didn't belong there. I was just barely able to complete the quest before he killed me. Thank you Spirit rez. Stormwind proved to be much less of a hassle. I swam in to the Docks, avoided nearly all the guards to the park, walked up to the Elder. Completed quest. Yay done.

Then, of course, I got bored and decided to watch some House. Mmmmm Hugh Laurie.

I hope you all stay safe and warm. Watch for ice and falling trees! :D

♥Fae

Another little note about Circle of Healing

2009-01-24T13:22:00.003-06:00

A long while back, around the time they introduced to the PTR the CoH and Wild Growth nerf, I made a post called CoH QQ Moar.

Now that the patch has finally been released and these nerfs had actually been put into play, I can smugly smile at myself- for I was right.

We went into 25 Naxx a few days ago and one of the Priest's in the raid said something along the lines of "Ugh, god. I'm so mad they nerfed CoH. I have to completely change how I heal now, I suuuck at raid healing..crycry...QQ..." I almost laughed. Almost. Because at the same time, I was so sad. At the end of the night we had cleared Plague, Arachnid, and Military and stopped because it was getting late for some folks. The WWS was linked, Recount was announced, and I noticed the two other Priest's healing output was waaaaaay below where it usually was. Their boss fight healing was just fine but trash heals were...kinda terrible. I talked to them a bit about it and they said that they just weren't used to not having CoH to rely on for raid damage.

CoH served as a crutch for many a Priest. Once that crutch was taken away, they fell. Depending on how flexible they are, it'll either take a few raids, or many many many raids for them to be able to get back up again.

My advice to those of you suffering through this nerf- watch your raid bars. Know how much your heals do. Use Prayer of Mending every time it's up. Unless you've specced out of it, CoH is still there! You can still use it! Just, not as often. Flash Heal is quick, Prayer of Healing gets you're entire group up. You have tons of options to choose from, you're a Priest! It's kinda....what we do. Jack of all trades...master of... um...er...PoM is a Priest only mechanic, right? Maybe...

♥Fae

New Year, New Talents!

2009-01-02T01:47:00.002-06:00

Sadly the holidays are over, and so are the lazidays. Unfortunately I've been quite busy these past few weeks and haven't been able to update the blog much ^^; My apologies. But! No worries! In this post I'll be talking about a few of the wonderful talents a Priest gets to choose from.

First is Surge of Light!
It's waaaay down off to the side in the Holy tree and at a glance seems something to skip over quickly, in favor of more beefy talents like Holy Concentration. But, stop a touch and look at it. 50% proc rate on crit, mmmm crits, free insta cast Flash Heal. That's right. No mana. Procs off of HoTs, PoH, CoH, PoM, everything. Free. Heal. That's generally a great thing. And there's more! It doesn't seem to have an internal cooldown. But, I rarely see another Priest carting it around. I really don't understand why. You'll waste three points in the Disc tree for 20% less threat, but you won't take free heals!? Madness! I even had my techno-savvy friend make me an addon to tell me to Flash Heal when SoL procs. I love it so much.

Lightwell aka LoL
Ah, Lightwell. Poor thing has been laughed at since it's introduction to the game, no doubt. It really is a nifty little tool. Pop one out and lots of HoTs for everyone! They even gave it a nice buff for Wrath. Unfortunately, the flaws of Lightwell do not reside in itself, rather, the problem with Lightwell is the tunnel-vision of a DPSer. Who wants to stop DPSing to heal themselves? No one. These are the same people that stand in fires, or disease clouds, or Blizzards and wonder why they die. Lightwell is an amazing healing tool. If you can get your raiders to actually use it, bravo! If not, well, it's good to heal yourself with ^^;

Silent Resolve
7%//14%//20% less Holy spell threat. Should you get it, or no? Well. It's up to you. Honestly, I'd say try experimenting without it and see if you find yourself pulling from your tank. If you do just fine, then don't waste the points on it, if you pull after a lucky crit, then you should probably toss at least one point in it.

Holy Reach and Healing Prayers
Both of these are targeted at the same few spells - Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing. If you don't spec for CoH...don't get these. Seriously. Put your points somewhere that you'll use them. Yeah, PoM costing 10% less is nice, definitely, but I still think you could do more with your points. These talents are really good for the raid healer, because well. It's what you do. You heal lots of people all at once and it's awesome. If you're a tank healer most often, then Test of Faith and Inspiration are what you should go for.

More may be added later, but this is it for now!

Happy New Year folks =]

Naxxramas 101.5 Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad

2008-12-23T14:08:00.002-06:00

After jumping in the blue glowy rabbit hole that leads you to Sapphiron's lair you're faced with an area resembling that of the tree place in the Nexus. But, instead of treemen you come across the remains of a dragon- Sapphiron. One Ready-Check later and you're running in throwing a PoM as you see the remains come together. Ever see Felmyst? He's much like that.

Hopefully, you haven't forgotten your frost resist gear. Everyone in the raid takes 1200 frost damage a second until Sapphiron is dead. If you're too slow, it shoots up to 7200 damage a second after 15 minutes. You should probably kill him before that. A tip for you healers, make sure everyone stays topped off. If one of your members is Ice Bolted and dies... you just lost a hiding spot. The Bolts don't do much, around 3k if I recall, so it should be pretty easy to avoid this. Keep up PoM. Don't forget to heal yourself. CoH, PoH, both are wonderful here, but be careful not to drain yourself too soon. Use your mana pot, 'Lock candy, Lifeblood if you're a flower picker, Shadowfiend, etc. Once Sapph is at 10%, he won't go to phase two. Congrats. Yay Malygos key.

On to Kel!

This fight starts off with waves of trash...ugh. Lich+trash waves = old. But, no worries. The Skeletons can be one shotted with SW:Death. More than likely, no one will be taking damage until an Abom pops up, and then, only that tank. Toss some DoTs on a few banshees, kill some Skellies. Don't overdue yourself- mana is your friend.
Kel doesn't hit too terribly hard by himself. But, if uninterrupted, his Frostbolt volley can get annoying. I usually stand in the middle, so PoH was able to heal everyone in my group back up to full. When someone gets tombed, toss a PW:Shield on them. I know it may not seem like much, but it's plenty to keep that person alive. At 40% or so two beetles come out and should be picked up by the OT. The OT CAN be tombed. Keep him topped up, if it looks like it's getting close, use Guardian Spirit if you have it.
In my opinion, this is one of the more healing intensive fights. Keep on your toes and you should do just fine =]

/Whew

2008-12-18T14:46:00.003-06:00

Finals are over and I'm all settled in for the Holidays. My WoW /played is going to shoot through the roof, along with my daily calorie count ^^; /Sigh, ah, the Holidays!

I'm one achievement away from Merrymaker Faeris! It has such a nice ring to it, don't you agree?

Otherwise, when not pushing through 25 man Naxx I'm spending my free time loafing around on several alts. Right now, I'm working on my Pally- Xaesca. She's level 20 and is taking a break for Kaeman, the druid, to mine her up enough Iron ore to level her Blacksmithing. Speaking of Kaeman, I decided to try out the Balance walk of life. Bad choice, since, the last time he was Balance was back in the 50s. But, no worries. I leveled a Holy Priest! I can do anything! =]

I am enjoying WotLK so far. Everything is new and shiny and all kinds of amazing. Thank you Blizzard for making leveling interesting again.

I still wish Chepi was updated to I could buy candles from her again. /Crycry

♥Fae

So, you're 80. Now What?

2008-12-11T08:23:00.002-06:00

"Hey, Ama/Fae...When are you going to level...Ama?"

Am I going to level my mage? Probably...maybe...sometime. I think. Honestly, up until I was asked that the other day, I had considered Amaela the high critting Frost mage of awesome to be retired. She's still sitting in the Scryer's bank in Shattrath next to the mailbox, stripped of every consumable and copper, and serving the sole purpose of breaking my BoE's for enchanting mats. I'm not sure that I want to level her. Actually, I was thinking of getting my druid to 80 and switching him to a boomkin. Or, you know, I've always wanted a holy pally...or an elemental shaman... hmmm.

I log on. Do my dailies. If it's not time for raid, I do a few heroics until it is. Then, I log off and do something crazy like homework or something. The time I used to spend on WoW, jumping on a railing in the bank or just sitting their talking to people is gone. I've drifted away from that and on to trying to do something productive. Generally, this is doing heroics for badges but, you only need so many. When I'm done with that...what else is there? PvP? Yeah, I've always wanted the Conqueror title...but that grind may be a touch too daunting for me -.-

Level an alt? Hm. This sounds good. But 80 levels is a long stretch for a busy lady.

Well. There ya go. My answer to the end of the 70-80 grind. Kinda.
Level an alt.
PvP.
Get extra badges.
Yeah. Have fun with that. I'm gonna see if it's possible to run a groove into the streets of Dalaran.

What are you guys doing?

♥Fae

Naxxramas 101.4 The Construct Quarter

2008-12-09T08:33:00.002-06:00

Miss your Abom buddies from Mount Hyjal? Never fear! The fourth Quarter of Naxxramas on this list is full of them. Big ones, puppy ones, some that do annoying poison-like things, all sorts.

The first boss encounter here is Patchwerk. His big deal is that after about 5:30 min he enrages and will one shot everyone, so this is definitely a DPS race. Only two people should be taking damage this entire fight- the MT and someone in melee range who has the highest amount of health, so, a Hateful tank is necessary. To protect your other melee folks have them take a dip in the slime, reducing their hitpoints by half. Make sure to avoid healing them, otherwise they may end up taking a hit before the Hateful tank is healed.
Done on Naxx night 3 for us, the raid healers were myself, another priest, and the druid. Renews and HoTs were kept up on both tanks to make sure that they are being healed the entire time. Since Patchwerk himself doesn't hit too hard (If I recall correctly, he hits between 4-6k)your main focus should be the Hateful tank. Because we had 3 healers, I alternated between spamming Greater Heal on the Hateful Tank and throwing the MT a Flash Heal. It may be difficult to maintain a decent mana pool, so be careful of ooming quickly. You have Shadowfiend, Inner Focus, and a mana pot at your whim, so use them!
When Patchwerk is dead, run through some slime, and on to Grobbulus.

Grobbulus is quite possibly the ugliest boss I have ever seen, but, his fight is simple and only takes a bit of coordination.
We had the MT pull him on the ramp and kite him slowly clockwise around the room, staying right up against the wall. Whoever got the disease, ran away from the raid and dropped their circle of poison at the edge of the first one. As a healer, your job is to stay off to the side, so as to avoid his poison spray and trail of death. PW:S absorbs most of the damage taken after the disease wears off so definitely put one up on yourself, if not everyone who is targeted. The amount of raid damage is, meh, medium. You have the MT and whoever is taking the slimes to heal, and of course, whoever is diseased. Make sure to stay out of the poison circles and no matter how much your finger may twitch- Do. Not. Dispell. The. Disease. >< That's bad. kk.

Gluth: a very oddly put together pit-bull appearing doggy boss. His favorite snack? Zombies. Of course! Who doesn't love the smell of Zombie breath? His pen, er, room, is huuuge. So, if Gluth is tanked against the far wall there's no way you can heal both the tanks and the zombie kiters in the back. Also, you may possibly pull healing aggro from the kiters. Myself and the other priest stayed next to each other at max range from the tanks, so we could continue to heal them, and the kiters' job of picking the zombies off of us would be a touch easier. We also were each assigned a tank. Your DBM should tell you when decimate is about to happen, sometimes it's off- be prepared to stopcast. In anticipation of Decimate, I started casting Greater Heal on my tank about 2 seconds before Decimate would go off, of course, my latency isn't that bad so I knew I could stop it if the heal wasn't needed. After healing my group, yay for PoH, I went back to topping of the tank and protecting myself from zombies wishing to eat my brain. The druid ran around in the back throwing HoTs on our two kiters to keep them up.
Also, note that the zombies are undead. You have shackles for things like this, and, Divine Hymn will stun them. This may help to be a few OS buttons. =]

Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, and now, Thaddious! This fight starts off with a group composed of at least one healer and tank going to each platform and nuking down two mini bosses. Make sure they go down around the same time, or you get to do it all over again! And, kep them close to their coil otherwise the group gets a nasty chain lightning Watch for the tank switch, and keep both tanks HoT'd and healed.
Thaddious himself is somewhat similar to the Mechanar boss fight. He gives each person a charge, increasing damage they deal by however many people are near them, and, doing damage if they stand next to someone with the opposite charge. We had positives to the right, and negatives to the left, rotating counterclockwise (Or, always run to the left of the boss) when our charges changed. There is a bit of a group AoE that will need to be healed, but it's a pretty easy fight. He does have an enrage timer, so, group up to get the most of the charge buff and nuke him down as fast as possible.

That concludes quadrant 4 of Normal Naxxramas. Afterwards is Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad, but, we took a break from Naxx to gather frost resist gear. We did go into VoA, and Obsidian Sanctum, clearing those, but those are posts for another day.

I'm off to finals and moving, hopefully I can get in another post this week, but, well see.

Enjoy!
♥Fae

Naxxramas 101.3 The Military Quarter

2008-12-05T13:39:00.003-06:00

Hop in a portal, clear some trash, and off to fight Instructor Razuvious.

For this fight, your tanks get to play with toys. Razuvious hits very hard, and the best way to do this fight is to use the crystals to Mind Control the Understudies and let them tank the Instructor. As a healer, your job is heal them, the Understudies, that is. I made a focus macro, with target of target shown (I use Xperl, so this is easiest for me) to be able to quickly switch to the understudy that Razuvious was currently beating upon. The Understudies have about 400k health, so, it's pretty easy to keep them topped up. One raid member will get hit with a knife and take DoT damage, so make sure they call it out, and keep them healed. Some other small raid damage is done, but this fight is pretty straightforward. After he's dead, the tanks can fight each other with the understudies. Fun times.

Gothik the Harvester took us a few times. Our DPS make up was kinda bad so one side was clearing, whilst the other wasn't. We rearranged to two healers with the highest 2 DPS + tank, and the other with one healer, 3 DPS and a tank.(Military Quarter was done on our day 2 of Naxx, so we had 3 healers).The trash waves are harder than the boss itself. Seriously. If you can kill the waves, you're set. Free loot. But, while the waves are charging in at you, use Fade before they get there in order to keep off of you. Keep up Shadow Protection for Gothik's Shadowbolts, and be prepared to...suddenly stop healing when he teleports to the other side. Mana regen is fun times. He switches back and forth a few, I'm not positive when the gates open and both sides get to fight him at the same time, I think it was after 4 teleports? Regardless. He hits for about 4k. It's kinda sad.

The Four Horsemen is again, about coordination. But this time, there's a touch more to the fight. One healer went with the hunter to take on two of the horsemen. I went with the tank to take Thane first, and the third healer went to the tank and rest of the DPS on Baron. Binding Heal quickly takes care of the Meteor damage, and it's pretty simple to keep up the tank. After three marks, switch sides, for us, I was now with my tank on Baron, the DPSers on Thane, and the Hunter and druid still in the back. Repeat until Baron and Thane are dead.
Then, run to the back, avoid Void circles, heal heal heal, dead. After the Baron and Thane are dead, the rest is pretty easy.

And that's as far as I've gotten so far. Construct Quarter will be posted as soon as I can get in there.

Hope these help!

♥Fae

And as a side note. After 9 bosses, 2 Caster items have dropped. A sword, and a DPS ring. /Crycry

Naxxramas 101.2 The Plague Quarter

2008-12-05T13:17:00.004-06:00

After your encounters in the Arachnid quarter, you jump into the rabbit hole and are sent to the Plague Quarter!

Noth the Plaguebringer is more than a touch annoying. He has Curses, Magic Effects, and endless waves of skeletons. But really, it's a simple matter of learning the fight and being prepared, and mana- able, to heal when needed. This fight can get long. Ours was about 11 minutes. Of course, we had many fresh 80's, but, for now. 11 minutes. DK MT, with warrior OT for the skeletons, DPSing otherwise. If your group is as fresh as ours was, use your shadowfiend early, so you'll have it again later. The curses and magic effects need to be dispelled ASAP, the curses being the actual worry, Cripple is just annoying and may prevent your tank from grabbing Noth when he aggro wipes, so, dispell when you can.
While actually fighting Noth, it's pretty tank and spank. The tank doesn't take too much damage, and the only worry is the dispells.
When he teleports up to the balcony and calls down a bunch of skeletons, kill them as fast as you can. At first, there will be alot of raid damage because the skeletons attack random things. Though, they always spawn from the same side, so, myself and the druid just stayed on the opposite end at max range.
Keep everyone topped up, use a mana pot, and shadowfiend wisely and it's done!

Heigan the Unclean is about coordination. Really, it's kind of a pitiful fight. Keep up Abolish Disease, run away from the Eruptions, rinse and repeat. There is very little damage done to the tank during this. The only concern is people getting caught by the waves, which do around 7k per tick. We used smoke bombs to mark safe places, and stayed grouped up, far enough away from the Boss' platform to avoid the Spell Disruption (About 20 yds.) Run around, toss some DoTs, and Frogger doesn't die today.

Loatheb seems to be annoying, and horrid if you just read up on the fight. But, really, he's kinda easy. You have 3 seconds every 20 seconds to heal. So, for 17 seconds you can chill out, toss some DoTs, smite every now and then if you so please. Since we had the parties split into two groups for the spores, I never really left the general area of my group. Prayer of Healing is wonderful here. At about 1 1/2 seconds left of the debuff, I started casting PoH. It lands almost right after the debuff wears off, leaving plenty of time to throw out a flash heal, or two if you get the Holy Concentration proc. My party stayed healed the entire time. The druid's party was just as fine because he threw HoTs preemptively and let them tick. Shadow Protection may help with the DoTs, but not a whole lot. Still good to keep up, though. If your DPS is low, the raid starts to take too much damage, and will die to Loathebs DoTs before you are able to heal. So, get the free crit from the spores, and stay on your toes.

That concludes the Plague Quarter. Next, is the Military, or, Death Knight Quarter. =]

Naxxramas 101.1 The Arachnid Quarter

2008-12-05T12:30:00.003-06:00

This is the first post in a series of tips and tricks to healing regular ol' 10 man Naxx. Basically, just an outline of things I've noticed to be quite helpful. =]

First up in the Arachnid Quarter is a cute cuddly giant beetle named Anub'Rhekan. He has a few annoying abilities, but myself (in blues and greens due to my lack of WoW time ><) and a resto druid were able to heal through them all just fine. As a priest, keep up PoM and use Levitate to mitigate the fall damage you will receive from Anub's Impale. When scarabs spawn from corpses (10 from a Crypt Guard, 5 from a player) wait a tick and use fade to send them scurrying back to the AoE'ers. You may want to toss a shield on one of the AoE'ers but really, the scarabs have so little health that it shouldn't be a problem.
When Locust Swarm is about to come up, max range the tank. We had ours kite him around the room, and I stayed on the edge of the middle circle farthest from the tank and was able to heal just fine without getting Swarmed.
Top off your DPS as they get Impaled, keep the MT and OT healed. Range Locust Swarm. Fade off scarabs. The end!

Next is Grand Widow Faerlina! Once again, done with myself and a resto druid. We had our warrior tank OT the Worshipers, whilst most of the DPS stayed on the Widow. All switched to the Worshipers to avoid Frenzy, then went back to dodging Rain of Fire. Basically, for this fight, it's pretty straight forward for us healers. MT and OT will need heals. Slow DPSers will need heals, maybe a shield if they decide to run into the rain, instead of out of it -.- Poison Bolt Volley hurts, and if you have a poison cleanser in the raid, make good use of them. Whoever if afflicted with the poison will take about 4k damage initially, and then have a nasty DoT ticking for around 2000 every 2 secs. DPS her down before 4:45 is up, then, grab your loot and move on.

Maexxna is, /sigh, another spider boss. Sadly, your Death Knight's Death and Decay (as of Dec 2, 2008) will fall to the floor beneath her web and not do very much at all. But, no worries, they should have no problem keeping aggro. We had a hunter specifically designated to get rid of the Web Wrap, and, I found that a single flash heal was good enough to keep them alive, if it's all you can do at the time. For this fight, don't stand in front of her so you can avoid her Poison Splash, and keep up Renew for when you are caught in her Web Spray, otherwise, your tank could be lacking heals for 6 seconds. At 30% Maexxna will frenzy, dealing double her normal damage and attacking half again faster. Still, keep up renew, have your poison cleanser abolish any and all poisons they can, and keep the raid topped off best you can. Afterwards, grab loot and move on.

Nose to the Grind

2008-12-02T08:22:00.004-06:00

I did manage to ding 80 over the weekend, despite my family's interruptions. (That was a joke...see...I love my family! ><) Silly Thanksgiving...with all the food and laughing and Happy.

I've only been able to start healing a few heroics because I haven't been on much, but, the guild did wrestle Wintergrasp away from the Alliance long enough for us to hop into the Vault of Archavon last Saturday. The fight seems pretty tank and spank, actually. Not too much raid healing is needed. I healed the tank while my Druid friend topped off the raid, with us having no problem doing so in our quest blues and greens. The biggest issue I can see for some is DPS. I believe the Wiki page recommends, in a group of two healers and two tanks, that the tank needs at least 550 DPS, while each raid member should sustain about 1100. Overall, 7700 DPS is needed to down a regular Archavon before he enrages and one-shots everyone. Hunters and rogues are good to have when Archavon drops threat, so, keep up those misdirects!

Of course, he had to drop Druid loot. Grats to the tank on Heroes' Dreamwalker Handgrips, and healer on Heroes' Dreamwalker Leggings =]

I am slowly working on my reputation grinding and tailoring. One guide I saw mentioned a need for over 7200 pieces of frostweave from 375 to 450...I am going to be spending alot of gold, soon. /sob And, why don't the Sons of Hodir have a tabard!? That's awful!

We start Naxx today. Wish me luck!

Ever So Slowly...

2008-11-26T04:38:00.006-06:00

Today the Priest dinged 78, and I got a ton of upgrades. I went to Halls of Lightning- which I actually plan on posting about later- and The Oculus, completing the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement =]

After equipping the new gear, I was a touch startled, and then had a good five minute or so laugh about the new appearance of my troll. I went from wearing the basic whitemend set + t4 helm (terrible, I know, but she was an alt!)to....well. I'm not sure how to exactly explain it. The most common phrase used was- "scary".

I don't think I'll be available the rest of this week, for I am visiting my family. Faeris will probably sit at 78 for the next few days =/ But, who knows, maybe the folks'll prove to be less desirable company.

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving! Don't eat too much! Or too little!

♥Fae

Happy Birthday WoW!

2008-11-23T20:56:00.004-06:00

Today is the fourth year anniversary of World of Warcraft. I love my little polar bear! They're so cute! I logged on all of my alts so they could get the achievement and pet.

I've been playing WoW since May of 2007, not long, I know, but I guess I just never really thought about how much time I've spent on the game. My mage has a /played of about 2 and a half months, my priest is closer to a month. Adding in my alts I've spent over a third of the past year and a half on this game. I think I lead a fairly social life- I have a job, I go to school, and I often hang out with colleagues and friends. I do my work, I get plenty of sleep, and I have a fairly decent GPA. But, if you just look at the 'third of my life' section, it seems like a big deal. Am I addicted to the World of Warcraft? Maybe. I've never tried to take a break or just stop playing altogether. Of course, I've never really felt a need to do so either. I can see where people are coming from when they stereotype WoW players as having no social life outside the game, but I don't think that I fit into that category. Many of the people I play with have been good friends of mine for years before I started playing. We still do things together outside of the game, and can easily hold a conversation without mentioning PvP or Naxx.

I play WoW because it allows me to achieve whatever goals I set. I can make a list of gear to work towards and get excited whenever I get upgrades. I can get angry when people kill me, and seek revenge in AV. When I'm healing, I have a little bit of control whether or not the group succeeds. WoW allows me to mean something to other people in a visual way. I'm not entirely sure if that makes sense, or, if it's really what I want to say, but itll have to do for now. =]

I hope you all are enjoying your cubs. Loktar Ogar!

♥Fae

Green Tea with Citrus.

2008-11-22T21:04:00.005-06:00

The queue seems to have subsided on Hyjal for the time being. I am no longer faced with hour and a half waits to log on around 6PMish, and I am thankful. Whether it's because people have transferred off, or quickly tired of the x-pac I have no idea. Honestly, I don't care. I have WoW again!

Currently sitting at level 76, parked in Warsong Hold. I went back to Borean Tundra after finishing with Dragonblight because I figured the quests were easier and gave close to the same amount of xp. So far, I'm glad I started with Howling Fjord, the quests there were way more fun to do. I really liked the lore filled quest lines of the Tundra, but they just seemed to go on forever. Granted, there are a bunch of really easy quests which entail a small area of the zone, but I prefer the Fjords one hub per large area feel.

Today, I went into the Halls of Stone. I must say, it dropped the Nexus down on my favorite 5 mans list. HoS has a better layout, a mini Gruul!, and is quite pretty. There are see-through floors and sparkly statues! It's awesome.

I can't wait to be 80. There are soooo many quests to do. I'm already sick of leveling and I'm only halfway there v.v Hopefully the later zones will get me back into my groove ^^;

That's all for now. Happy leveling!

♥Fae

To Crit, or to Cast Faster?

2008-11-18T08:46:00.004-06:00

Has anyone else noticed that just about every piece of cloth gear has either a ton of crit, or a ton of haste on it? I'm not complaining, I'm just..pleasantly surprised.

I know that alot of healers are going to run for the haste gear because I mean, come on, who doesn't want a Greater Heal to only take 1.5 seconds? In fact, it's what I've been doing since the release. But, last night I was thinking.

If you cast faster...you can cast more! But...if you cast more you're likely to oom faster and end up having something crazy like a 40% overheal ratio. Also, I find that I'm not taking Prayer of Mending into consideration before I throw a Flash Heal at someone, because the Flash Heal will land before they get hit again to proc PoM. Really, this is just sloppy healing on my part, but I think that the bulk of the issue could be fixed by switching up my gearing.

If you crit more, you get clearcasting + haste (if you have the improved Holy Concentration talent)procs more often. And, if you happen to overheal with the crit you'll get 25% of that spells mana cost returned to you (via Serendipity). Crits generally make healing easier because they amount to almost two heals' worth tossed into one.

My conclusion- haste is wonderful. It's very good for the times when you have to spam in order to keep a Death Knight tank alive, or when the group is taking a ton of damage because someone accidentally moved too close to the right and aggro'd the pat of elementals. However, I think at this time crit will be more beneficial mana efficiency wise.

In PvP, it's never so much important to keep the group alive, as it is to keep yourself alive. We are very, very squishy creatures. Haste will be absolutely fantastic for arena and BGs, crit, not so much.

To sum it all up-
Crit = PvE stat.
Haste = PvP stat.

The end =]

♥Fae

Icey Trees are Pretty.

2008-11-16T18:16:00.004-06:00

It's been 4 days after the release of Wrath, there are already a slew of 80's on my server, I feel so behind. =/

I'm leveling Holy, which is possibly the reason it takes me longer to do quests, though, finding groups for the new instances is easier than ever. One I'd like to note is Nexus. The boss fights are interesting, and the zone is so pretty! The treants with Ice shields are all kinds of awesome, and it kills me to have to dispel them v.v

I bet it's going to be a blast on Heroic!

That's all for now. Happy leveling!

♥Fae