Coagulater casts Ressurection

I am still alive (with the glory of love)…..

And I finally downloaded the patch last night and healed a heroic. My first impressions? BUBBLES!

And so it begins, my reign of terror returns in the form of bubbles, POM’s and Penances. Thank you blues, I will show you my appreciation by not letting anyone die, and last night I didn’t let it happen.

My lack of updates lately has been due to an ever increasing RL Aggro, thou I absolutely promise that I won’t be leaving indefinitely. I just need to set aside time to play again before I can start calling up some post ideas into play.

Quick side note: Two resto shammies and a disc priest are infinitely OP in Tol Borad, just saying. Trust you healers, they are never far behind.

Gracing and Bubbling

Over the past few days I’ve been busily outlining 4.0.6 Disc priest information in a notepad on the computer, all the while trying to figure out how to piece it all together in a nice form so that it was clear, concise and it dished out how to apply the info into a healing style. Unknown to me, so was Matticus, and he beat me to.

Looking at mine and reading his, I think I would have somewhat double posted, so instead of being a parrot in a room of canaries I’ll just give his post some commentary (and attitude).

Just becoming a statistic…..

Blizzard, you have me frustrated….

Disc Priests don’t need a fix, here’s what needs to be fixed:

• People need to learn to more effciently heal
• Converted Holy priests need to understand Disc is gear dependant
• RDF n00bs need to learn to CC
• RDF n00bs need to understand WHAT a Disc priest does
• Playerbase in general need to learn that fire is bad (I shouldn’t have to say this)

So to fix Disc priests you are just reinforcing that they are a broken talent tree when the real problem is everyone wants things to be easy.

I’ve stuck Disc for now and everyone in my guild can back me up by saying I am doing just fine, so why am I being “buffed” just because people don’t like the challenge that healing has become? Why must I feel like after a patch no one is going to take me seriously because I just bubble and wand, and throw the occasional renew on DPS.

I’d like to say I’m looking forward to the buff, but after it happens my renegade status will just become another priest statistic……thanks Blue.

The woes of a new expansion….

A list of things:

Have GM switch Coagulater to Officer and push Fealen back one (Check)

Get Fealen’s Herb/Mining to 525 (Check)

Get Coagulater’s gear up past 329 ilvl (Check)

Now what to do?

More gear and more gathering….such things never end…..

Countdown: 4 Days til Cataclysm

It’s always the same old song and dance

The patch before every expansion always brings a lot of questions. Mostly similar to the likes of “Where is this vendor?” and “Why can’t I *insert unbalanced spell here*?” Those questions are weak and provide nothing but headaches for those who know the answers as they repeat them hundreds of times.

My favorite questions are those of thought and reasoning like “Why didn’t Proudmoore just man up and get Wrynn as a sugar daddy?” or “What is your most missed subject of the last patch?” Essay questions my folks, not only are they fun to answer, but they provide good blog topics. I will be answering the latter of the inquiries in this post. 😀

The bubbles are weak…..

I hate holy priests. Only in Battlegrounds thou.

You see, they all do this thing, when they are healing, that involves bubbling someone being beat on.

Now a holy priest should lay off of bubbles. They are weak and useless; my bubbles are more powerful than anything they could imagine.

In a scientific comparison conducted by the Discipline Undermining Holy Healers (D.U.H.H for short) group showed that a Holy priest’s bubble is like common parchment, where as a Disc priests bubble is like Titansteel.

So I’m making my stand now! Every priest that I see in a BG, I am going to inspect. If I find you to be Holy, and I will…don’t hide it from me, I’ll be forced to call you out in public. Besides, I’m only saving you mana.

Thank you.

Have a nice day. 😀

Could it be…..

Last night was entertaining, a better night then usual in Azeroth. I know that some of my guildies read my blog, and when I post on a particular subject that involves a guild member it gets noticed. Even when I rant someone at least lets me know that they either understand or it was foolish. I have no problem with <Revenged> reading my blog, I posted the link on the forums for a reason. The openness allows for such things:

A conversation was had between me and the GL’s wife (she’s standing in while he is on a work trip) that had the topic of my ranting about using my priest more. The only boss I’d like to bring Fealen in for is Deathbringer Saurfang, he just needs the tier piece tokens. With the loot rules the way they are I’d have no problem only getting loot through offspec rolls against mains. I’ll get good drops from 10man, I’m happy with that for now.

What made last night fun? Doing an ICC with what I’m going to dub “Team Surprise”. It was comprised of 4 ICC25 geared toons. (3 from our core 25man team) 5 alts and 1 probitionary, that we acquired last week if I remember right, made up the rest of the group. I got go in and actually heal, what made it more of a surprise is we two healed Lower Spire, Plague Wing (Gur went heals for Festergut) and Blood Council.

We spent 3.5 hours raiding, and it only took that long because Gur had to explain each fight to the new guy. We also had a few wipes due to silly things and bad luck (Grrr RNG).

I picked up a few new pieces for Coagulater and grabbed another 264 PvP piece with badges.

Our plan is to go back in Saturday night; I think we will be successful. Thank you 20% Buff.

I do have a simple request. In my current gear I’m not sure what kind of throughput I should be achieving as a Discipline priest. I know I’m not going to match a druid or paladin in HPS or Overall, but what’s a good gauge for me to use to tell if I’m doing everything I can? Last night me and my druid partner were split about 35/65 in percentage of effective healing, I assume since I’m just bubbling and what not with flash heals to top people off as needed that it was a good split. I also need to re-gem my gear for Disc-ness. (Missmedicina, I’m coming for you) So either you can comment here or you can email me: FealenWoW@gmail.com

And I’m still waiting for Garrosh kills. The future of the world depends on it! Answer the call Alliance, take out the biggest threat! (And send screenshots)

Where Disc Priests Go To Die……

My WoW mood has been pretty stale lately, as highly noticeable from my last post. I wouldn’t call it burn-out; it takes a lot for me to not want to play the game. (You just lost) Lately to me raiding has become a chore, not with the mechanics and repetition of the game play, but dealing with people’s attitudes and what not.

I’m afraid to say that my vacation from raiding has been PvP. I’ve done my fair share of healing in the BG setting to grasp Battlegroup strategies and tips that pertain to each particular battleground. Your results may vary.

Warsong Gulch – I’d say a healers nightmare, with limited number of targets for opponents to rip into, your chances of becoming a floor tank are a bit higher then the rest of the battlegrounds. As a healer this chance actually increases, because as soon as you start assisting someone people will notice and you’ll become the center of attention. Typically the first wave of the battle sets the pace, generally each team rushes flag room and heads for the home base. The biggest advice I can give here is to stay in the middle of the pack, don’t mind AoE’s and try to stay on top of the flag carrier. Your ability to survive in WSG is reliant on how good you are at not standing out.

Arathi Basin – 15v15 is the balance I enjoy the most, so this one is right up my alley. This BG is a beast in its own; the flags are completely out in the open so most casters will always have a bead on your forehead. You can do 1 of 2 (smart) things in here; you can either pick a flag that has someone at it and do your job to hold it with them, or you can pick a (preferably melee) DPS and follow them around as they assist INC on other flags. I say melee because they can still hit your attacker even if you have to drag one through the various buildings near the flags in an attempt to LoS them. Pick a partner, a healer alone here is a turtle on its back.

Eye of the Storm – This is a healer’s delight in my mind. It has it all, a flag carrier to keep track off, territorial points to hold with viable LoS spots at each area and vast open travel routes, to allow battle avoidance and 1v1 confrontation. My general strategy is hope we grab Draenei Ruins or Fel Reaver ruins and protect those. Both have structures and uneven ground around them that allow you to heal from behind the lines, as opposed to staying in the fray. Close graveyards allow you to jump right back into healing comrades, and unlike AB, you only have to be in the area, not baby-sit a flag as you are focused on the enemy. Find a spot and make it your own.

Strand of the Ancients – The little brother of Wintergrasp Lake, the silly immature brother of Wintergrasp Lake. As a healer I find this place annoying. ‘Why?’ you ask, because you can’t heal people in a vehicle from raid frames. Besides that the strategy is simple, stay near people driving demolishers. Eventually it’s going to break, and when it does someone has to be there to heal them. That’s what you are for, the key of constant attack. Get people fully healed so they can grab another demo and run it into another wall. Don’t forget to heal those fighting players, they protect your vehicles.

The 2 big ones I haven’t really had the chance to go crazy in. I’ve only done 2 Isle of Conquest battles and only 1 Alterac Valley as a Disco priest, Holy is all but a memory to me.

While my frustrations from Rogues and fear-spam Warlocks have driven my other-half into a scared comatose in the office chair beside me, it has helped me learn to pull my cool downs and use everything I got. Lately I’ve seen a lot of “PvP helps PvE”, and I believe it, even on Fealen, I am slowly learning how to help my healers out every day in raid.

No Garrsoh Kills Yet?!?!? What are you Alliance doing? <Revenged> might go kill Fordring, would you answer to that? FealenWoW@gmail.com Send me kill shots!

Blizzard feeds us stuff we might be playing with Soon(TM)

Well well, it’s been quite a while, and since my last post a lot has happened. I don’t know where to begin…..lets start with the easy stuff!

Blizz announced the preview of Druid and Priest class changes for Cataclysm on the forums, makes me happy and sad at the same time. I just got use to both of the classes after they went through tweaking in the last two patches even thinking about relearning something is a little scary, but at the same time it makes me all bubbly inside to think of all the new toys I’ll get to play with. I’ll go over my favorite things:

Druid

• Wild Mushroom (Level 85) Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.

GREEN WRITING! Back to the subject…..So yea…..League of Legends…..or the other way around, I forget….but YES! Can you imagine PvP servers with this. Park yourself fake-AFK with this blocking the only way to you….Rogue hits it….mwhahaha. I can’t recall who mentioned Moonkin’s becoming hippies but they were wrong, we were always hippies. The long hair, the nature love. I have the ponderment this image will look like the mushrooms in Old Kingdom at the fungus boss, I hope so, those mushrooms are pretty cool.

• Eclipse We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

MORE GREEN WRITING! Omg, I need to focus. Ummm, yea….please tell me how this makes any sense. So imagine if you will a bar…..like a PvP flag bar in Hellfire Peninsula. The little marker are the bar moves Left and Right. Got it? Cool! Fealen is chugging along casting Wrath (cause it’s quick) and he fires off 4 off them, the little bar is 4 ticks into Arcane bonus….so he starts firing off Arcane spells until he’s four ticks into Nature bonus. Rinse and repeat. But wait, this doesnt seem very effiecent, he is losing all that damage building up nature bonus….so wouldnt it be better to cast one Wrath than one Starfire. If this bar effects all Nature and Arcane damage then the game plan is entire different and my hatred of it might be null and void, but if I’m hitting the nail right on the head than what use to be a 1111,222,1111,222,1111 just became 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2. That doesnt seem like a fun rotation. Not inculded in this post is a new spell we are getting which leads me to believe Blizz is going show some tricks from their sleeve, I can only hope.

Priest

• Leap of Faith (Level 85) Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can’t seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cool-down.

BLUE TEXT! I FEEL LIKE A CM! Wait….Leap of Faith. So the general outcry from this has been “Not only is our fault when you die, it’s our fault when you stand in fire”, which is part of what I feel. I think in some secret room in the Blizzard Studios someone suggested a way to move D/C’d and lagging members of a raid to safe zones….thus Leap of Faith was born. Thou the abuses of such tool will come in due time I can’t express the amount of excitement I’ll receive watching my friendly mage blink and then be pulled back to me in the race after wiping on a boss. (We all do it, don’t deny) On top of the nicknames I give spells that Coag has (Holy Baseball, Holy Confetti) I can easily see this as becoming perverted, but here it goes: “Come to me Altar Boy”

I have been playing in Disc spec now on Coagulater as well, and as I told Missmedicina “My priest got in a time machine and got stuck in the DISCO era” I don’t think I’ll ever go back. I plan to write a little learning experience post coming up, I just realized how long this post was.

Good night Azeroth!

Tip: Penancing random people in Dalaran and then hiding in buildings is a fun game. Disc Priest tag anyone?

Hawkeye and Pierce would have been proud….

The game does not frustrate me, glitched boss and instance mechanics do not frustrate me. Concepts that go against the Geneva Convention in Wintergrasp frustrate me. I know the game isn’t real or follows any conduct set forth to balance out war, but I surely found out last night what it was like to heal some battlegrounds as a Holy Priest. I learned a lot about trying to heal in an uncontrolled setting (besides Faction Champs, which actually follows some scripting) where without warning the AGGRO sign can clutter my screen and a few seconds later I’m showing off my fail angel for the world to see.

I get so focused I forget what I was focusing on…..

Guildies down second boss in UK with a wipe

The Random Dungeon Finder has become a necessary evil. For the most part the significant other and I have had a good time with it. The few bad apples we’ve been graced by have done nothing but taught me something on the way out, like a moral at the end of a movie. In the grand scheme of things it put one majoring factor in my head: Awareness. Such a simple context, but the cause of most of my bad instances, at least the lack of it being the issue.

Healing heroics requires quite a bit of awareness; I generally spend more time watching what’s going on around me then healing (Renew + PoM trivialize dungeons). This allows me to analyze and predict when a player is going to take damage, or if a new mob is going to enter the fray. I like having control of my surroundings as much as I can, and I’d expect that other people would feel the same way. I apparently expect too much.

Back by popular demand…….well….just demand…..

So the hiatus is over, my muse has been roused out of bed, and like Rip van Winkle, a lot has happened since I went away. I’m not sure where to start, best be where I ended as to not confuse anyone.

My last post was about my hatred for Arthas, very much still implanted in my head thou, the task of getting to him is getting to be quite a problem. (Luring him out with cupcakes has been deemed useless) Thou Arthas still holds onto his throne the guild has been beating the pulp out of the first 5-6 bosses in ICC possibly diminishing some reinforcements under the Lich King’s command (imagine if it were like AV…. hmmm, Blizz, listen up). Fealen has been getting some gear and I have seen a nice increase in his damage over the course of updating his swagger. Coagulater basically geared up overnight with the help of the Random Dungeon Finder. All this has been quite a ride, and from what I’ve seen coming up it will only get better.

There’s no wrong way, but you’re not doing it right…..

So last night was moderately eventful. Kainda dinged and Coagulater managed to come within 3.5 bars of 74. This pace is definitely not working for me; I need 80 before the patch. So we shall push ahead and do what we can. I might try to heal some instances to get more experience and what not with certain instance mechanics that I have not seen from a Healer point of view nor have I seen it leveling. Plus it would knock some quests out and give me a nice chunk of experience.

The evening wasn’t eventful till pretty late.

How to make your leveling partner upset…

So apparently <Revenged> needs to take classes on bug extermination cause Anub25 keeps eluding us. We solved “Add confusion” now we are stuck on a “DPS running around absent-mindedly” problem. Friday night was not worth the repair bill. Can’t wait until I get Coagulater up to gear with TotC, I will no longer be grouped with the chart watchers. 😀

So after another week with no Anub loot it’ll be nice to have a night without raid instruction on Coagulater. I’m finding that leveling holy with a BM hunter has provide alot of boring moments, with high peaks of “OMGZ, spam CoH…..”. This only comes from the fact that my partner in crime sends her bear in, it grabs 4-5 mobs and than they are DPSed down in no time. I usually end up just throwing Renew on the bear and by the time the last tick goes off everything is dead. Being as experienced as I am at the game I normal goof off or get myself in to trouble. I have grouped up a nice list of things that stick out in my mind as what I’d like to call “Leveling hijinx” They are as follows.

One mood to rule them all……

THE SANDBOX started a mammoth party on the landing one night last week!

I told I’d let you know how 10-man Totc went. It was bumpy, and people were less than enthusiastic from what I could tell. From people who like being chacoaled to people trying to hug Icehowl the groove wasn’t there. We did get Anub down in one try, but overall I wasn’t impressed with effort placed forth by the veterans of the place. I hope to see attitude adjusts by invite time tonight. 25-man Anub does not give leeway for “I’m tired and not in a good mood” whines.