1) I was utterly WRONG about warlocks being able to send the frisbee on.

This ability will now be triggered when a player takes damage from effects placed on friendly targets.

That sure sounds like Lifetap to me! But I’ve confirmed, it doesn’t work at all. Warlocks are still not the sharing type. *cry*

2) Lightwell. I like it. Somewhat. I say that cooldown is way too long, but at least it’s something I’ll use now. We tried it out in a couple of heroic runs, and it came in handy. I don’t believe I’d have had any problems with healing the situation without it, though, which means my OFFICIAL position on the spell is that sometimes it’s kinda nice to have.

It DOES heal for a lot now. I basically tacked a one thousand in front of the old healing amount, so it now does nearly 1,800 (not quite) per tick. The warlock likes it. I wouldn’t advise someone to try and bend over backwards to get the spell, nor is it something I’d expect another priest in the group to have.

But it’s better than it was, and situationally useful. I’ve heard people argue that every spell we have is “situational” and that’s true, but the situation where I use Binding Heal (as an example) happens with far more regularity.

It is most useful in a fight where the ranged dps is taking periodic damage. Not steady damage, but periodic. And with enough time between hits that they can use the Lightwell and not have the effect canceled.

The cooldown makes it useless for reducing downtime between fights. The number of charges makes it less useful for use on longer fights (like Nightbane. I’ll use it on Nightbane, mind you, it would just be a lot more useful if it had…say…ten charges).

BUT, it’s definitely much improved over the old version, and I wasn’t doing anything with that talent point anyway. In Kara, I think it’ll be useful on every single bossfight, and that’s a good enough recommendation for me.

3) I was told that Frisbee got a new graphic. I didn’t notice a difference…did anyone else?

4) I’m still distraught over the warlock thing. I was so HOPEFUL. I was so SURE! *crycry*

Wow Web Stats.

WWS is a nifty tool that will read in your combat logs and parse out the information into human-readable format.

It’s VERY snazzy, and I like it.

However, I submit that it’s simply a bigger, better damage meters.

We all know damage meters are bad, right? You end up with people constantly trying to top each other, pulling aggro, and refusing to use their group/raid friendly spells because their personal dps suffers and they look worse. If you’re looking at a pure numbers came, you’ll end up with a disorganized mess of a raid or group. You’ll have people constantly pulling aggro as they push the limits and never use their threat-wipes. You’ll have people maxing out their damage gear at the expense of their stamina.

It’s all around a great big muddled mess.

And it’s darn near useless for healers. We’ve discussed how useful healing meters are for healers before, and pretty much come to the conclusion that you get such a distorted view of the battle that you couldn’t tell a good healer from a drunken chipmunk.

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Patchmaker, Patchmaker, make me a patch!
Give me a Buff,
Please no more Nerfs!

Am I the only one who sometimes looks at Patch Notes and goes “DAaaAAaaAAng, I didn’t even know I could do that!!” ?

• Power Regeneration: Any effect which triggers a change in your rate of power regeneration (Mana, Rage, Energy, Focus) will now cause an immediate reward of some power at the old rate of increase, and then begin new “ticks” of power at the new rate approximately 2 seconds later. This was done to improve functionality of abilities such as Evocation and Innervate so that they did not have wasted “ticks”.
• Focused Power: This talent now increases the hit chance of all components of Mass Dispel correctly.
• Inner Focus: This ability will no longer lose charges when Shadowguard or Touch of Weakness is triggered.
• Lightwell: The heals from this ability are now increased by the bonus healing effects on the Priest.
• Mass Dispel: The portion of this spell that removes immunity effects (Blessing of Protection, Ice Block, etc.), now has a chance to be resisted, and will display correctly to the combat log. It will no longer cause Rogues and Druids in Cat Form to lose stealth.
• Mind Control: Creatures immune to this spell will now cause an immediate error message rather than make it seem like the spell succeeded with no effect.
• Mind Control duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds.
• Pain Suppression: This talent will now reduce the chance for any buff on the Priest to be dispelled, rather than reduce the chance of dispelling buffs cast while it is active.
• Prayer of Mending: This spell can no longer jump to an Imp with Phase Shift active. It will also no longer cause the healed target to stand up.
• Prayer of Mending: This ability will now be triggered when a player takes damage from effects placed on friendly targets.
• Shadowguard: This ability will now work properly even when the Priest is stunned, fleeing, or incapacitated.
• Shackle Undead: It is no longer possible to have Shackle Undead on two targets at the same time in the outdoor world.
• Surge of Light: This ability now properly grants its effects to one and only one casting of Smite each time it activates. Interaction issues with Inner Focus have been fixed.
• Touch of Weakness: This ability will now trigger properly if struck while mounted.

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I am, incidentally, waiting for a non-PTR version of the patch notes to discuss for today’s post.

Sure, I could just use the PTR notes, they’ve never done me wrong…but I’d rather make sure they’re accurate, as they hold good news for us priests!

So there will be two half-posts today instead of one big one. The Set Bonus baby-rant, and the Patch Notes.

Means I’d better think of a really good Thursday topic though, hmmmm…

Okay, so here’s the deal.

I’ve been begging Greatfather Winter for over a year now to give me an AoE HoT - and area affect heal over time.

Sort of a BOOM! Everyone around me gets a weak Renew.

I’d be fabulous. It could be expensive (only worthwhile if three people get full effect or something), it could have a cast time, it could have a low range.

But I want it.

And so when I finally got my Tier 4 glove token from Curator, I clicked my heels together and skipped all the way to the vendor.

Because I already had the hat, and that put me in line to get my first Set Bonus!

(2) Set: Your Prayer of Healing spell now also causes an additional 150 healing over 9 sec.

Joy! Bliss! Glee!

I was overwhelmed. Sure, I had to cast PoH to get the effect, and I don’t use it a LOT…I could overcome this.

We had a Heroic Slave pens run the next day (Quagmirran STILL hasn’t dropped the blasted trinket. He’s also holding my hunter’s shoulders for ransom. I am not amused).

I came upon a situation where three group members needed a Flash Heal, grinned wickedly, and cast Prayer of Healing. And there it was! Up in the bufflist, there was my HoT! On everyone!

…but…but what’s this?

Surely I misread.

IT TICKS FOR FIFTY HEALTH?!

FIFTY?

You’re kidding me, this has to be some sick, twisted joke.

FIFTY?

That’s nothing. That’s worse than nothing, that’s absurd, it’s insulting. How can it NOT get a bonus from my healing gear? In what realm of existence is that EVER going to make even a tiny bit of difference in any battle past level 10? This is RAIDING gear!

FIFTY?!

I haven’t checked on my renew in a while, but a month or two ago it was around 700 per tick.

FIFTY. Fifty. Fifty!

I feel like the devs are laughing at me. *facepalm*

An Egotistical Reader wrote in with a very good question, so I thought I’d share it for two reasons :

1) The answer may be helpful to lots of people and
2) The answer may deal with shadow priesting, and I’m still a nublet when it comes to shadow damage.

So! Without further ado…the email.

I play XX (Name ommitted for privacy), a shadow priest on Darkspear. He’s just about to ding 70 (one bar off!) I have only instanced up to Coilfang Resevoir so have no special gear. There’s so much grinding in Outland that I haven’t really had time! But now that I’m about to max out my talent points and have to start thinking more about gear than xp, I’m very confused about the synergy between gear and talent points. If you have the time, I would really appreciate your wisdom and advice please!

The problem, as always, comes down to mana regen. I love spirit tap. For solo grinding nothing beats it. And I want to keep it because even at 70 I have a lot of grinding for rep and tailoring left to do and I am a long way off being ready for heroics and Kara, let alone raids. It seems to me that you have to work very hard just to get your mp5 up to around 50, and that gives very poor returns when compared to spirit tap in solo play.

But cloth damage gear in BC carries very little spirit — it’s all on healer gear (I even wear a pair of healing gloves to keep the stat up). Instead, I have a big pool of +crit which, frankly, I don’t care about (except, ironically, when I heal instances and I get nice returns on PoH crits!) So I’ve gone from mana regen of about 240/tick at 60 to 200/tick at 70.

Logic tells me to drop spirit tap and give up on spirit as a stat entirely and go for mp5. But the majority of mp5 gear I see is healer gear too! I’ve read that some of the best shadow gear out there pre-heroics are the tailored sets — shadow’s embrace + battlecast/spellstrike — but none of those items carry spirit OR mp5! I could dress like a mage or a lock but I’d end up with a huge drinking problem and only my shadowfiend on 3 min cd for mana regen.

Can you see how confused I am?! Is it possible to get balanced gear that includes spirit and +dmg? Should I be thinking about speccing for divine spirit? And if I have to give up on spirit, how can I get close to decent mp5 before the raid sets? Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

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As a companion to my Climbing the Mountain post from last week, I’ll continue the focus on gearing up your toon.

The comments made me realize there was a lot more that needed to be covered there.

Firstly, and most importantly, STATS.

What stats should a priest concern themselves with?

“That’s an easy question!” some of you may triumphantly crow.

Well, let’s list them out, shall we? Let’s gear up a fictional holy/disc priest. We’ll call her….Nonya. (They always say “Write what you know”)

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So! Since I posted a while back on my upcoming shadow priest, Kytta, I thought I’d give you guys a general update on the state of my toons. So you don’t think I’m ignoring your advice. =]

1) Vonya - she’s doing great. Had some very nice Kara drops this past weekend, including a new trinket that I’m going to bind to my flash heal and try out. If I like it, I’ll add it to my trinkets post.

2) Khuuna - my hunter. She’s currently leveling Outlands. I’m focusing on her right now for a few reasons.

a) After playing a holy priest, it’s fun to be overpowered.
b) I’ve always loved the hunter class and any game that involves pets. I recommend Jade Cocoon 2 to anyone who likes to research stuff that the game won’t tell you - the merging programs in the game are VERY sophisticated, and it takes a lot more strategy than it’s cute, bubbly interface suggests. Tons of fun.
c) Vonya needs lots and lots of consumables. Cooked food for buffs, herbs for enchanting oils, mana potions, etc, etc. She needs Primals, she needs money. She’s basically a huge gold sink right now. Khuuna is giving her all of those things. She supplied my erstwhile priest with two stacks of Blackened Sporefish, and two stacks of mana pots for this past weekend’s raid, and she only just hit level 62 this weekend.
d) I get to play and instance with my friends. <3

and last, but not least,

3) Kytta - my abandoned level 60 priest. She’s going to stay right where she is until the expansion comes out and my beloved tank rolls a Death Knight. That way I have a character that is (hopefully) the perfect level to play with him.

So you may not hear much from Kytta until next year, but after that I’ll probably have a lot of entries on Shadow Priesting.

Incidentally, hunters are crazy-complicated to play correctly. I ended up installing a shot timer (LittleTrouble) so I could actually SEE my autoshots. The animations are sometimes misleading, and I needed to know when I could crank up my Steady Shot without clipping my autoshot and thus totally gimping my damage. Reading the Elitist Jerk forums, sounds like no other class has to worry about their specials breaking their white damage? Absolutely insane. Fun, mind you, but definitely more involving than the point and shoot I had envisioned the class as, and that it pretty much was up till level 62.

Also, chain trapping is SO much fun.

Khuuna’s adventures are probably going to drive my posts for a while. I had forgotten what it was like to be leveling up a new toon, and she’s reminding me. So the things she’s teaching me, I’m passing on to you guys while it’s fresh.

That’s it. Just wanted to let you know what I’ve been up to, and why you haven’t seen The Continuing Adventures of Kytta. She hasn’t been abandoned, she’s just in cold storage.

Having an alt to farm my consumables for my raiding priest is like…like…well, it’s like playing a game of Solitaire with a full deck instead of one that’s missing a few key cards.

I’ve had it.

I’m fed up, and I’m not taking it anymore.

No, I’m not going on an axe-murdering spree (priests can’t equip axes, let’s not be silly)…instead, I spent some time and put all the blogs I regularly read into the Google Reader.

I now have a far more accurate way of keeping track of my favorite blogs, rather than just visiting and hoping something’s changed.

I ALSO have a nice way of keeping an eye on possible blogroll additions - World of Matticus (as an example) has been in my eye for a long time, but I’ve not been able to watch accurately because I’m a scatterbrain. Pretty sure they’re overdue a link, but now I can know for sure.

THIS makes me a happy panda.

So if you have a blog for me to evaluate and possibly add to my blogroll in a month or day or so (depending on my mood) then feel free to offer a link. Remember my rules though - you can’t get angry if I don’t add you.

…okay, you can get angry, but I’m not obligated to feel bad about it.

ALSO, and far more importantly, I have a question.

Sometimes I’ll ask a question or respond to a thread in the comments.

Is there any way for me to watch the COMMENTS on a blog?

BRK, for example, I’ve twice put up questions and I have to manually remember to go back and check for updates. (Once about freeze trap panicking, and once about simultaneously leveling two pets).

I also add comments here and there if I’m feeling frisky. If the owner of the blog responds, I wanna know, so I can respond back if necessary.

Some of you guys seem to psychically know when I comment — how do you do that? Is there a cat5 cable I can just plug behind my left ear, and if so, how much does the port surgery cost?

But yes. Google Reader for the WIN.

Now if only I could add my friends page on my livejournal and my messages from deviantart, I’d never have to leave my safe, comfortable circle of three sites.

And before you ask, yes, I added icanhascheezburger and cuteoverload to my list. No list complete without it!

Also before you ask, no, I won’t tell you who I am on LJ and DA. Not because it’s a secret, but because I like to watch you squirm. DANCE, monkey, DANCE!

/use Piccolo of the Flaming Fire

Today, my friends, we are going to discuss two things - Wishlists, and Gear Progression.

A “Wishlist” is a single set of gear that you “wish” you had.

The best wishlists are attainable wishlists, since it gives you a goal, something to work for.

Most high-end players have some kind of wishlist. Some idea of where they want to go, knowledge that TrinketX drops in InstanceY. You can formalize a wishlist using a tool like WowDigger.com, you can have a semi-formal listing on your guild boards, or you can just have a half-formed idea of what gear you’re looking for.

They’re all wishlists.

And there is an inherent downfall to all wishlists.

They are fluid.

TrinketX is great, and there was much rejoicing when you got it. But oooh, what’s that? TrinketZ is VERY shiny.

Your wishlist just changed.

And maybe TrinketZ drops off of SuperGodBoss_04. You couldn’t take down SuperGodBoss_04 without the help of TrinketX.

THIS, my friends, is Gear Progression.

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