Essentially it is a documentary following the lives of a number of different raiders.  It is more than “just a documentary”, its a great film that showcases why we play the games we play, why we enjoy World of Warcraft, why we enjoy the raiding enviornment, and why we become friends with our guildmates. I am very excited to see this.

A number of community sites and blogs are going to be giving away/contesting away tickets to this very exciting event! A full list of supporting websites/blogs is available here. It is with much gratitude to the folks over at Rawrcast and The Raid that I am very excited to share with you all that Tales of a Priest will be giving away 6 PAIRS of tickets. Entering is easy! Simply send an email to contests(at)talesofapriest.com declaring your interest in entering the contest:

• You must be at least 21 years old to enter, as the Pre-screening event will have a bar and have valid Photo ID.
• You must be in attendance of Blizzcon or able to get to the Anaheim, CA area; this contest does not include Blizzcon tickets, transportation, or accommodations.
• You must have your own transportation to and from the event
• The contest is for a ticket/invitation to the Pre-Screening event only; any other goods promised or implied is not provided by Tales of a Priest its writers, or the filmmaker and its promoters. The ticket cannot be exchanged for cash.
• The contest ends and all email entries must be received by September 25, 2010 11:59PM Estern Time
• The winners will be selected at random from all eligible entries and contacted via email requesting their contact information. This information will be supplied to the Denise Duke of PeaPod Group/Rawrcast who managing the ticket distribution.
• One email entry per person.

Sadly due to work conflicts, neither Avalonna nor Derevka will be in attendance this year and we are very sad about missing this event! We’ll have to get all the dirty details from the winners!

Below is an excerpt from their press release that was published yesterday.

“The Raid” Documentary Pre-Screening & Blizzcon After-Party

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
9PM – 1AM
House of Blues
1530 S. Disneyland Dr, Anaheim, California
Rose Terrace

Mix and mingle with your favorite podcast personalities like:

·       Stompalina & Hafrot from Rawrcast: World of Warcraft Podcast

·       Mike Schramm & Turpster from The Incredible Podcast

·       Wych from Bind on Equip

·       Starman from World of Warcast

·       … and many more.

Get resourceful with teams from websites like:

·       Curse.com

·       TankSpot.com

·       Wowhead.com

·       ZAM.com

9PM: Cocktail Hour

Chic Goes Geek with music and video of from World of Warcraft machinima artists like Olibith, PVP Gurl, and Druid Boyz

10:30: Pre-Screening

Special Presentation by the film’s creator & producer, Kevin Michael Johnson

11:30: After-Party

The night will rock as famed DJ, Big Daddy, throws a spin on all your favorite World of Warcraft scores.

The Raid Pre-Screening Giveaway & Blizzcon Event! is a post from: Tales of a Priest

“Well this item has 10 more spellpower, but it has 30 less haste….”

Enter: World of Warcraft – Cataclysm. With this comes the Mastery stat. Mastery will, inevitably, complicate gearing choices. Couple this with the increased importance to haste (previously outlined here) and you now have a much more complicated process than it currently is for priests.

Lets Take a look at our Mastery Talents:

Holy
Echo of Light: Your direct healing spells heal for an additional 10% over 6 seconds. Healing increased further by mastery rating

Discipline
Shield Discipline: Increases the potency of all your damage absorption spells by 20% Absorption increased further by mastery rating.

Shadow
Shadow Orbs: You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. The Shadow Orb increases the damage done by your Mind Blast and Mind Spike spells by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

Your Mastery Pane on your Paper Doll is very helpful. It breaks down your Mastery into it’s parts: what your Mastery Bonus does to your talent and your what Mastery Rating is providing as it’s bonus.

A thing to keep in mind that any percentage shown, will show a rounded down percentage. At level 82, 298 Mastery Rating (a few questing greens) would provide a 14.68% Echo of Light, while the tooltip only shows 14%.

Holy Mastery

Holy’s Mastery is fairly complex, as it affects every direct heal you cast. Nearly every spell we have, with the exception of Renew (but Divine Touch counts), will provide a Echo of Light buff and heal your target every second for 6 seconds. Think of this akin to our 2pc T10 bonus, but with a 100% proc chance, and on all of our direct heals.

Unlike our T10 2pc, you can overwrite your Echo of Light buff on a target with a new one…. even if it is weaker. In the below image, you’ll see that a 13,154 Greater Heal (with a 14.68%) Mastery would provide a 322 Echo of Light.

(13154*14.68%)/6 = 322/sec Echo of Light

However, if I were to follow up that Gheal with a Renew, I would also be healing the target with Divine Touch. This image shows, that my Divine Touch (Healing for 1707) would refresh my Echo of Light buff on the target.

(1707 * 14.68%)/ 6 = 42/sec Echo of Light

Congrats! You just overwrote your 322/sec Echo of Light with a 42/sec Echo of Light. Ugh… I certainly hope this methodology isn’t maintained through live, as it will force Holy Priests to pay far too much attention to the ORDER in which they cast spells. I could see this forcing Priests to not cast anything but their big heals in fear that they are being short changed on their Mastery Bonus.

At it’s core, Echo of Light provides a great lingering heal over time on your target; which is some much needed throughput. As far as the overwriting EoL: We’ll see how it looks once we hit Live. (I’m hoping this is revisited because in its current state— it seems very messy. I need to remember: beta is beta!)

Discipline Mastery

Discipline’s Mastery is the easiest of the 3 specs to understand: it is a flat percentage increase to your absorbs. (Power Word: Barrier, Power Word: Shield, and Divine Aegis). Sweet! Without over-analyzing it with concepts like Rapture I think that it is an awesome bonus.

Arguably, you could see Mastery becoming more valuable than Spellpower(Intellect) for Disc Priests. Remember, Spellpower provides a linear increase to shields, while Mastery is exponential (% bonus) and will scale as your Spellpower increases. How will gear drop’s “itemization points” vary for Intellect/Spellpower and Mastery? Gems? Enchants? —time will tell.

Shadow Mastery

Shadow’s Mastery is another easy one— more damage is more damage. Your Mind Blast and Mind spikes are directly buffed by the presence (and stacks) of your Orbs. The only trick, which I’ll leave to my shadowy brethren to number-crunch: is it better to hold off on your MB nuke for 3 stacks, and continue to Mind Flay, or MB on cooldown regardless of Orb Stacks? Quick Target Dummy tests showed me that for a higher sustained DPS, it seems better to hold wait for 3 stacks. In the current build your Orb Proc Chance is fairly high, add in Harnessed Shadows, and stacking to 3 orbs isn’t too difficult. However, without a DPS meter on beta and the fact that combat text is bugged, exact math and analysis should be held off.

Mastery Overview

Mastery has the potential of being a very potent stat for all 3 Priest Builds. It, at the very least, will bring some thought provoking analysis to our gearing decisions. Alternatively, will Mastery become Cataclysm’s version of Armor Penetration? This nebulous stat with complicated calculations? I think some refining will need to be done before we see this go Live, but overall I am pretty impressed with the new stat!

All of the information in this post is based off of Beta Build 12803 and, of course, is subject to change.

Cataclysm Beta – Mastery Preview & Thoughts is a post from: Tales of a Priest

Flame on!

Let’s look at the spell: Power Infusion

(Remember that 1% haste = 32.79 haste rating, so Power Infusion grants 655.8)

Some of the confusion comes from the fact the spell didn’t always work this way – it used to be a 20% direct damage boost. Now that’s pretty easy to understand, isn’t it? Everyone wants MOAR DAMAGEZ!!!111111ONEONE. But with the change, it’s no longer a pure spell damage boost – it’s now a haste boost., and who it benefits the most is no longer so cut and dry.

“WHHHAT? “ you say. “Don’t all casters want MOAR HASTE? God, you’re dumb, Ava.” Well, yes, I am dumb, but that’s besides the point. Most casters usually do not skirt the haste cap on all their spells, but that doesn’t mean that you should just randomly pick a caster to toss is on, nor does it mean you should toss it out when ever it’s up without thinking about it.

Power Infusion Does NOT Stack with Heroism

First, let’s get the most irritating thing out of the way: What PI does, and does not, stack with. A general rule of thumb is that you can only have one external activated haste ability at any time. Things such as Heroism/Bloodlust are considered External, and therefor DO NOT stack with PI. You can, of course, still cast PI during a Heroism/BL, but the only benefit received will be the mana reduction – quite the waste of a powerful spell.

While you can’t stack external haste buffs, you CAN have an infinite number of self only buffs. Things such as Trinket Procs, Potions of Speed, Troll Beserking – those will stack with PI.

Passive abilities, such as a Wrath of Air totem, Swift Retribution & Improved Moonkin Form will also stack with PI

PI also does not affect your GCD.

So Who do I put Power Infusion on?

In no particular order:

Shadowpriests: Show our shadowy brethren some love. Shadow priest damage scales very well with haste, & this is especially yummy on fights with multi target mobs.

Warlocks: I just want to thank Bringing Chaos for his infinite patience with my warlock questions this expansion

• Affliction: Incredible haste scaling with their DoTs, but only only a good choice when the boss is above 30% health.
• Destruction: Gain direct output from haste. A good choice ASSUMING they are not GCD capped and can still receive haste benefits. You wont see too many of these at ICC levels.
• Demonology: a good choice. If you are running with one, wait until you see the big purple demon form aka metamorphosis, or when a boss is under 35% health for maximum gain.

Mages: All 3 spec mages are good choices, but just to clear up some confusion I’ve seen:

• Frost/Arcane mages: Icy Veins DOES stack with PI. Arcane Power DOES NOT. Some of the confusion regarding AP comes from what happens when casting this on a mage with this active: If you cast PI when AP is already active, you receive “A more powerful spell is already active” error. If you cast PI and THEN the mage casts AP, PI is over written.

Elemental Shaman: While my first choice is usually a Warlock, Spriest, or Mage, Elemental Shamans are still a good choice. They love haste, & PI DOES stack with Elemental Mastery.

Boomkins: Again, not my first choice, but to maximize the gain, cast PI during an LUNAR eclipse, not Solar. Look for the blue moon. Someone once remarked “Once in a Blue Moon, give a boomkin PI” and the saying stuck.

Yourself and other healers: We rarely use PI on ourselves, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an option. The key to a great healer is being able to quickly choose tools and adapt. If you are in a hairy situation that requires intense direct healing, use it. If you fill more of a bubble spammer role, and you see your tank healers are struggling, give it to them – better to lose some DPS than wipe the raid. That being said, don’t use PI on yourself as a mana saving tool unless it’s a make or break situation – if mana is tight, ask for an innervate, pot, Hymn of Hope chain, Fiend, have a shaman in your group drop Mana Tide…the DPS gains outweighs the mana reduction, especially if you have other options. On a side note, if you give PI to a holy pally during Dreamwalker, he or she will probably hump your leg.

Don’t hate – COMMUNICATE!

It’s a lot to think about, so the best way to maximize PI usage is COMMUNICATION AND AWARENESS! Set your raid frames up to track these buffs you need to watch for. If needed, have the casters macro in a notification /tell to you on certain spells so you know when ( and when not to) cast PI. Use a mod like Guardian Spirited to communicate to them what you’re casting, or make a simple macro yourself.

Plan your targets before the pull, and make sure you understand the fight (and therefor the best times to use PI), and what the positioning will be, especially relative to your chosen target. The last thing you want to do in a fight is take your attention away from your healing target(s) to go chasing down a PI target. Also keep in mind the range of PI when planning this – just because a target is in range of heals, doesn’t mean they’re in range of PI. Let your potential targets know what you plan to do so they can be aware of their positions as well.

A PI macro is a big help. You could do something as simple as setting a Focus Target and using:

/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead] Power Infusion

However I find that rather limiting. As I said, a good raider is about reaction & adaptability. If your focus target is dead, DC’ed or out of range, it leaves you fumbling around to “click & pick” a new target – not something you want to be doing.  You need to quickly pick a target, keeping in mind these pointers. Sometimes, the best choice for PI isn’t the ideal one, due to the dynamic nature of a raid encounter. For this reason, I use this:

#showtooltip

/script local u,pi=”mouseover”,”Power Infusion”;if IsSpellInRange(pi,u)==1 and GetSpellCooldown(pi)==0 then SendChatMessage(“Flame on, Asshole-You have Power Infusion! “,”WHISPER”,nil,UnitName(u)) end

/cast [target=mouseover] Power Infusion

I embed mouseovers into most of my spells, as you see, so this allows me the flexibility to quickly mouse over  a target, check that it’s in range, and cast with a notification. I also run guardian Spirited, so the embedded tell is kinda redundant. I tell myself all the /tell spam makes sure they’re paying attention, but really it’s because I can’t pass up an opportunity to call someone an asshole.

Use it or Lose it.

The worst use of PI is to not use it at all. We’re a big fan of ForteXorcist and PowerAuras – both can notify you when PI is off cool down. As I mentioned, don’t spend time hunting and picking for your PI target either. If you planned to throw it on the mage, but he’s clear across the room, throw it on the elemental shaman right next to you – you’ll do more harm trying to chase him down for a potentially larger DPS gain than you would hitting who you can. Think Heroic Lich King – do you want to delay your shields and possibly risk blowing up a shadow trap to find someone? Probably not. Analyze what’s available and in range, and quickly pick.

I’m sure most of this is old news, but hopefully someone will still find this useful. Derevka has our Beta key and infinitely more time, so I’m left cleaning up the few remaining topics for Wrath. Obviously these mechanics can and will change in Cata so CAN I HAVE A BETA KEY PLEASE?

Re-Revisiting Power Infusion in Wrath is a post from: Tales of a Priest

The first change I noticed was the change  to the Holy Tree Specialization Spell. No longer is it Desperate Prayer (which has since been placed back in the Talent Tree for 1 point), they currently have a spell that is Not Yet Implemented (NYI) called “Sanctuary”.

What’s this?!?! Is this the spell that Holy Paladins have always wanted their Consecrate to be? I think it is! Is that a 90% AOE Aggro drop? Yes, yes it is! Huzzah!!!!!

Breaks squeel!

Hold one one second there, cowboy… it is not yet implemented, so there is no way to test it (or see if it has a pimpin’ animation!). one top of that, overnight Ghostcrawler had this to say: “We don’t have a new level 10 Holy ability in this build (it’s not Sanctuary) “. (source)  (it has been hotfixed/removed from spellbooks, but still is shown on the Talent Tree window.)

Now, does that mean we’ll never see Sanctuary? No… however, it might be in a different form. Personally, I now see this as a great reason to cast Life Grip. I can pull a high aggro target to your Sanctuary to save them from pulling aggro and wiping the raid. That being said, in it’s current form it is VERY powerful from a Threat Management perspective; however, the range is a bit large– as you’d need to be far from a tank to make this not exceptionally dangerous. If we see this in a build again, I would imagine a reduced range/radius will be implemented.

It is no secret, I have been one of the loudest opponents to the previous incarnation of Chakra. You can see that in my previous post here and in the many Priest/Healer Forums I visit. This new version of Chakra is pretty solid! It now is a self cast buff that is consumed by either Heal, Renew, Prayer of Healing, or Smite– what spell you consume it with determines the Chakra state you enter! On a very generous (and I bet will change) 1 Minute Cooldown! This solution answers the concern that many priests had regarding the “Spam Factor” that the fact that the old incarnation of Chakra forced you to cast 3 of the same spell in a row prior to entering Chakra and was counter-intuitive to Blizzards new mantra of “no spamming”.

More importantly, they’ve added a new talent called State of Mind which allows you to extend your Chakra state by an additional 4 seconds when you cast the spell that is associated with your Chakra. This answers one of the other concerns with the old Chakra, which was the fact that it limited your ability to weave other spells into your rotation should you need to extend Chakra’s duration. With State of Mind, you can cast other spells and then extend your Chakra state using State of Mind.

Here is a video of the new version of Chakra, its animation as well as how State of Mind works. (Click here for the Full HD version)

In addition to these changes, Inspiration is now a 2 point talent as well as Improved Healing. This does remove some of the bloat out of the top tiers of the tree… something that really was needed.

All in all, I am really excited about the changes to the Holy Tree this pass-through. There are still a few things that need work (ahem, Lolwell)– and Disc is due for its look. If Blue can implement Sanctuary without it being as overpowered as it currently sounds, it will be a great cooldown in our arsenal!

All of the information in this post is based off of Beta Build 12759 and, of course, is subject to change.

A Beta Build With 20% More Priest Love! is a post from: Tales of a Priest

Haste has played a fairly big role for a number of classes when it was introduced in The Burning Crusade and now in Wrath.  After some initial testing, it seems that Haste is going to be bigger and better in Cataclysm. Before you go rushing out and getting as much Haste Gear that you can in preparation for Cataclysm, let’s remember the basics about haste…

Haste, like crit, requires more to scale as you level. That means, 1000 haste at level 80 isn’t the same as 1000 haste at level 81. For example, at Level 80, I have 29.4% haste (964 Haste)– the second I dinged 81 my haste dropped to 19.1%. Pretty dramatic.

As we all know from the multitude of Blue Posts, haste will affect HoTs and DoTs. Haste will shorten the time between each tick of a HoT or a DoT and could allow for additional ticks in the spells duration. One thing to remember, Channeled spells are classified as “over time” spells, meaning they too benefit from haste!

Haste doesn’t reduce the duration of channeled spells– we just get extra ticks in the same time that we did before.  As priests we have a lot of spells that will benefit from Haste: Renew, SW: Pain, Devouring Plague, Hymn of Hope, Divine Hymn, Penance, Mind Flay, and Mind Sear.

After some initial testing on beta, Penance has a 25% haste breakpoint which grants an additional tick. That means in the same time a unhasted Penance would volley 3 orbs of light towards your tank, a Penance with 25% haste would have 4 ticks. This got me thinking, what about 5 or 6 ticks? There is a YouTube video out there with a priest stacking haste, Black Magic, Borrowed Time, and Heroism getting 6 Penance ticks. (Borrowed Time has since been removed from the Disc Talent Tree). After some discussion with Priest Math Master, Zusterke, we both agree that for Penance a 5th tick would require 75% haste and a 6th, 125%. (I didn’t confirm this on Beta, mainly because I don’t have 125% haste! But his math he shared with me seemed accurate).

Additionally, should you not have enough haste to add a tick to a channeled spell the haste will shorten the duration of the channel. Using the previous example with 24.9% hasted Penance, you would have a shortened Penance channel time with 3 ticks. At 25% you would have a 2 second channel with 4 ticks. (added this paragraph due to missing clarity that was pointed out by Nimaj…)

What does this really mean in application?

Well, it could provide major complication in your gearing and gemming decisions. Let’s pretend the Staff of Awesomesauce drops and it has Intellect (remember Int is the new Spellpower) and haste… it has LESS int than your current weapon but more haste. So this means you would get a net loss in spellpower, but you’d increase your haste…. You now need to know where your breakpoints are! For purposes of this example, lets pretend you are sitting at 24.9% haste: You now need to determine is getting a entire extra tick out of Penance worth losing X amount of spellpower. I am sure you will see theorycrafting numbers available for nearly every HOT/DOT/Channeled spell letting you know the haste breakpoints for each spell… however, logic should always prevail when making a gearing choice: Does it make sense for me to use Item X over Item Y?

Haste is now even more important of a efficiency stat. It allows you to heal for more at the same mana cost. It is directly proportionate to your Healing Per Mana. Keep in mind, Blue has stated efficiency is going to be a major part of the healing game. With more haste your hots will have additional ticks and overall, heal for more. For the same mana cost, you could get 1, 2, or even more ticks from a single spell. 4 hits from Penance? Yes please.

Am I suggesting that in Cataclysm you gear and gem only for haste? No, not at all. We all should be aware of the notable increased value of haste and how haste, depending on how much you have already could very well be more valuable than other stats available.

Note to our Readers:  During the Beta, Tales of a Priest will continue to cover BOTH Live and Beta topics. I will primarily focus on beta information, and Ava will primarily focus on topics on the Live Servers. Stay tuned!

All of the information in this post is based off of Beta Build 12644 and, of course, is subject to change.

Cataclysm and Haste is a post from: Tales of a Priest

After logging in for the first time, I made my way to Stormwind through the handy portals in Dalaran and… OMG… you can mount anywhere in the world now! Standing in the Auction House on a Amani War Bear? Allowed. Sitting in the Inn on your Proto Drake? Allowed. It certainly was a treat to fly from the Mage Quarter to the AH Steps in Stormwind… no more snaking around the canals and realizing you missed your turn! Heck I was inside the Bank on my drake! (Protip: to get to Hyjal, there is a NPC that will port you there from the steps of the bank!).

But enough about flying around Stormwind, that isn’t why you came here— there is more than enough Beta Coverage showing you how the world has changed… lets go into the priest stuff!

All of this information is based off of Beta Build 12644 and, of course, is subject to change.

Stat Impressions:

This is what my priest looks like versus what is on Live.

Even though I am in my Disc spec, you’ll see I have a lot of Spirit Gear equipped; (My Holy Spec Gear) Spirit is our regen stat…. even as Disc spec. In the same gear on Live (with Inner Fire Up and in Disc Spec), I have 3701 Spellpower— on Beta 4101, this is directly related to the increased Intellect amounts. Also take a look at my HP and Mana Levels: 35,870HP/33,628 Mana— in the same exact gear on Live (unbuffed) 31,693HP/24,610 Mana. A dramatic tilt… considering what Blizzard has said about Tank HP levels, we shouldn’t be surprised to see our numbers move as well.

One of the most interesting things, and something I am still struggling to fully understand the impact is the change in the mana regen “While Casting” (live) and “Combat Regen” (beta). On beta my combat regen is the same as my out of combat regen… when compared to my Live “While Casting”  it is through the roof! With our spell’s mana costs scaling up as we level, I am sure this amount of Combat Regen won’t seem as OP at 85 as it does at 80.

All MP5 gear has been converted to spirit, at what seems to be a 2 spirit : 1 mp5 ratio.  I would imagine that Disc Priests that currently have very little spirit gear should consider getting a few pieces if they can. Without spirit gear, your regen will bottom out come Cataclysm. I put on my Sanctified T10 Shadow Set (minimal spirit in comparison to the healing set) and my regen was cut in half… You know those ever so tasty Haste & Crit items (that have 0 spirit)?  Yeah, those might not be so tasty come Cata.

Dungeon Impressions:

I’ve been able to run both Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides using the LFD system… First, the dungeons themselves are impressive looking; and have added some really cool graphics to a number of mob abilities.

One of the hardest things with the Beta Tool is the LFD system working cross-realm. Nearly every time, I am the only US based player and the rest of the people in my group are EU players. Why is this a hurdle?  Well, sometimes you have language barriers… but more importantly party chat only works if you are in the same Server. I can’t talk in Party Chat with anyone from the EU. That makes understanding trash packs, or boss mechanics a bit more difficult. You can, however, talk in /say… but sometimes that can be challenging.

The beta does not allow you to use AddOns; for those of you who know me know that I love my AddOns! However, the improved Raid and Party frames are much better than the ones we’ve had in the past. As you can see, the new frames are very HealBot/Grid/Vuhdo reminiscent. Each role is clearly defined with an icon, so you immediately know who the LFD system has assigned as your tank, and you can see buffs/debuffs on each player frame. (see my Inner Fire buff). It does also show “Incoming Heals” which should be handy with the new world of Flash Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal. The customization of this frame is limited, you can select to only show your buffs or debuffs you can dispel, however the placement and size of those indicators are lacking.

I am sure the purists out there will regale the new frames, and duly so… they are much much better and provide a lot more information than the old frames do… however, I still see myself using an AddOn that will provide more customization. And yes, Ava – this means you still have to finish the Grid Post. (Ava edit: FML)

Healing these dungeons has been tricky. The trash packs haven’t been overly difficult, & only a couple that the groups I was with required a CC of some sort. However the damage output the bosses have been doing is nothing to scoff at.  I’ve healed these dungeons as Discipline, and have been using mouseover macros to heal as well as weave Smite in my rotation to try to stack Evangelism to 5 to then be able to use Archangel. However, with the numbers that our heals are hitting for and the amount of damage a tank can suddenly take… smite has been hard to justify to put into our rotation. As much as I like weaving smites in between my heals and popping my Archangel wings… it can be tricky and outright dangerous to your tank’s well being!  I think this is directly related to the fact that Priests have yet to have their ‘pass’ by Blizzard Development. The numbers we are healing for are far too low, which pretty much require us to heal how we’ve been healing all of Wrath– spam.

What do I mean by that?

My Flash Heals have been hitting for 9-15k , and my GHeals for a 12-20k… regular Heal has been hitting for 6-10k. Wait… what? How is Flash Heal clearly the Go-To heal? Because we haven’t had our pass yet! Blue has made a few comments not to worry about numbers just yet for our healing… which I find a little amusing and hard to accurately beta test— but it is reassuring that they know our heals aren’t where they need to be (or should be!).

Talent Tree Impressions:

Discipline still feels very bloated to me. Not in the ‘If I want X I have to give up Y‘… but in the, ‘How can I show up to a raid w/o these 2 talents?’. For example, Inspiration is a great talent… but is it worth 3 talent points? Even more so since you are forced to give up crucial Disc talents to get it. Atonement, even ignoring the issues with attempting a smite rotation, heals for around 1500-2000; not worth it for 3 points. Then add in the fact that I am lamenting the loss of Borrowed Time…

Holy…. oh Chakra… what the eff? I know I have been a very Negative Nancy about Chakra since they announced it… and my point still stands.  Casting the same 3 spells in succession like that just seems clunky. Prayer of Healing… 3 times in a row (at least in a 5 man) just is obscene. Renew… would be ok, but the last beta build nerfed Renew by taking Empowered Renew and turning it into Divine Touch. (which is the same as Empowered Renew, but without the spellpower bonus… ugh). The other issue I have with Chakra is that there is a substantial ramp-up time required to get into your ‘healing state’. This means you’ll likely see priests spamming spells to trigger Chakra to get into the “improved state” prior to boss pulls, or for example you’ll see priests spamming POH prior to AOE damage hitting so they have POH Chakra up… which is not beneficial to the raid, and counter to the new methodology of healing/mana conservation. I would much rather see Chakra be a cooldown like Tree of Life form. Buff yourself with Chakra and consume the buff with the next spell cast– entering into a healing state based on the spell you consumed it with. (ie. Consume it with POH, you buff your AOE heals for the next 15 seconds… consume with renew, buff your renews for the next 15 seconds).

I don’t want to get too deep into my ‘concerns’ with the priest trees as we haven’t had our real pass yet; we’ll get our turn.  (not to mention the several bugs I’ve found with Chakra, Renew, and PoM) The next build that has a good overhaul I expect to see some pretty significant changes to the priest trees… then we can dive into specs and talents a bit more. Right now griping about our trees and talents seems a bit premature… that is, unless this IS the final cut. (which I highly doubt).

Overall Impressions:

The beta is clean, and I like the way the world seems to have evolved.  Short of the few quests that are bugged, most of the quests are enjoyable and bring back some of the NPC’s you fondly remember from Vanilla… complete with Baron Geddon and “You are the bomb!”. Over the next several weeks you’ll see posts from from me should have substantially more beta information, in addition to some great posts that Ava is working on with content from Live.

If you have any questions or certain topics you’d like investigated on the beta servers feel free to email them to us via the blog, or ask on twitter!

The Cataclysm Beta Journey Begins! is a post from: Tales of a Priest

With promises of bacon and my first born child (lol), our friends over at Curse gave me a Beta Key Code!

That means we’ll be covering all the exciting and new priest changes on Tales of a Priest! I am very excited to be given the opportunity to check out some of the Priest changes and Talent Trees before it goes live. We’ll, of course, be covering as much as we can– which hopefully will be substantial now that our raid week will be down to 2 days to clear all content.

If you have specific Cataclysm questions or content concerns feel free to email them to me or Ava and we’ll see what we can do to answer them. Right now, I am the only one of the two of us to have a key – so apologies if we cannot answer every question, but we will do what we can to answer them!

By the end of this weekend I hope to have some first impressions of the current Trees— however I will be critical to a point; Blue has been very clear that the Priest Trees are not anywhere near final and need a lot more polish. (To that I say, “Good!”… as I really am not super excited about the current makeup).

Onward to Deathwing!!

Cataclysm Beta Coverage Incoming! is a post from: Tales of a Priest

That being said, we DO have some great posts coming in the next 2 weeks – Renews & You, Holy Nova How to, Grid For Dummies, PI guide for non healers, Heroic LK25 (finally killed it) & Heroic Halion 25 guides, so you’ll see some great discussions to make up for the down time. We’re just trying to put the finishing touches on them all.

I just thought I would use this post to take a moment and reflect on things related to raiding in Wrath, & give our opinions on them. Beta is currently ongoing (Invites please?), & the current expansion is winding down. I’m not sure how raiding will turn out in Cata, so let’s just look at what was good, what was bad, and what was downright ugly in our current expansion:

Raid Zone Buffs (ICC)

• The Good: It solved the issue of how to get more people to see the content. Lore is a huge part of this game, and I know I enjoy the stories & background. Being able to see and experience the boss fights shouldn’t be so far out of reach of the majority of the player base. Also, having the buff gradually increase allowed more capable players & guilds to progress as normal, while allowing those that lagged behind a light at the end of the tunnel.

• The Bad:
  • The buffs had no business being in heroic mode raiding. The fights are not drastically different & do not add anything to the lore, but require more skill and team play – adding a buff negates the whole concept of HEROIC mode raiding. They give raiders a goal to work towards, and if a fight proved difficult, you work on strategy & gear until you win. There’s no sense of accomplishment in steamrolling things.
  • Also, having a heroic mode with an end boss that was tuned for the high end of the buff value was just plain silly. For most people capable of that fight, the entire zone becomes a 2 hour cake walk, only to have the difficulty go over 9000 by reaching LK25. It was very awkward, and it sends mixed signals:  Do you intend for people to see all the content, or was LK only intended for the Best of the Best, frustrating the guilds that finally managed to scrape their way past the last few heroic bosses as the buff hit 20-30%? There’s nothing wrong with bosses increasing in difficulty as you progress – that’s how it SHOULD be – but having the difficulty at completely different scale as the rest of the instance is downright annoying.

• The Ugly: As the buff increased, it gradually began to negate the need to understand one’s class and the need to play well. Instead of gear being a reward for tackling content, it became an expected right, something everyone seemed entitled to. As gear became commonplace on even the worst of players, certain asshats started looking for a way to discriminate. Since skill was no longer much of a factor, a player’s worth started being designated by a nonsensical numerical value called Gearscore. It didn’t matter if the rogue in T9 could out DPS a one in a 5500 GS – his gearscore sucked, so he must as well. And when PuG raids made up of these high Gearscore players encountered difficulty or wiped, they were bewildered – how could that happen? And then the insults and rage would ensue. No one seems interested in learning the mechanics of their class or content, or even gearing properly – it’s all about making that number bigger. It’s no longer a MMO community – it’s every man for himself on the quickest, easiest path to purples, and it down right sucks.

Heroic Modes:

• The Good: Excellent concept – a great way to add extra challenge for progression raiders when normal modes weren’t quite the difficulty people were looking for. The rewards were slightly better, yet not substantially enough to offer a severe advantage on later content, and rewarded prestige items that had no impact on actually gameplay such as mounts and titles.

• The Bad: Pick a way to access heroic modes! In my opinion, the “flip the switch for heroic” like ICC & TOGC was downright lame and boring – most fights simply came down to more damage & bosses had more health.  Sarth 3D & Ulduar were much more interesting, adding elements & ways to approach the fight that usually completely changed the fight itself. Now THAT was interesting.

• The Ugly: Certain cosmetic rewards for doing these probably should be removed after some point. Removing them immediately after new content is released might be pushing it, but going back to get a Sarth 3D drake or Ironbound Protodrake in full T10.5 gear cheapens the accomplishment since they’re intended to be rewards for doing the hardest (at the time) content. Or an better idea is to have them attached to conditions, like a more loose version of Dedicated Insanity or Herald of the Titans, where you can’t outgear the instance by a certain factor to complete the achievement – that way they can still be done at any point in the game, AND it gives people a reason to go back and gear up in old instances.

Mounts & Titles are rewards for Challenging content

Progression:

• The Good: This expansion offered a much easier way to progress & stay current. You could change your main or come back after an extended break and be right back in the game after a minor amount of time. It also allowed more casual players to partake in content without falling behind as well.

• The Bad: With every new raid or dungeon, previous content was completely negated. There was no need to progress thru older content to gear up and “learn to play”. In a nutshell, unless it was part of the weekly dungeon quest, all previous content was forgotten.

• The Ugly: This resulted in a complete loss of character progression. In an MMO, you develop your character thru progression. By collecting badges on the way to 80, running the new 5 mans, weekly dungeon, and crafting some gear, you can usually be ready for the latest normal mode content in a minimal amount of time….and then you’re out of things to do, unless you roll an alt, and do it all over again. It’s become the norm for most players to have several characters, and it’s become a boring treadmill. I would have loved to progress new alts thru naxx & ulduar, but my guild had done them to death, & PuGs have no reason to do them now, other than to steamroll them for mounts.  Bring back content progression, time investment and character development to the game!

Gated Content:

• The Good: It kept players from being overwhelmed by so much new content.

• The Bad: It provided a brick wall to more progressed players. I’ve heard Blizzard say it was a way to keep players from being unhealthy, but IMO – who are they to tell people how to play, or enjoy the game? If guilds like Exodus or Paragon want to play nonstop until they’ve cleared all the content – LET THEM. Don’t put an artificial barrier up on the way people play the game.  Saying people will  bored if they finish all the content so fast can be counter argued they’ll be bored & frustrated by being forced to wait.

• The Ugly: I don’t know if this is considered ugly, but I always believed gated content was a way to release the content before all of it was finished. If that’s the case, say so – don’t try to feign concern for peoples’ well being.

Limited Attempt/Timed End Zone Bosses:

• The Good: I liked this. A boss like Algalon was not required to complete a normal raid instance, but was an optional, heroic challenge that opened up after completing heroic modes, and offered some excellent rewards. I also like it because it forced more focus to be on skill, rather than throwing yourself at a boss until 3am. More guilds could remain somewhat competitive without raiding absurd amounts of hours.

• The Bad: If it’s a limited attempt boss(es) like H LK, those that really want to will use alts to learn the fight. But I really don’t think that’s bad – that’s dedication, as far as I’m concerned. But if it was Blizz’s intention to prevent top guilds from continuous work on a boss, it didn’t work too well. Other than that, I don’t see really anything BAD with ‘X’ attempt bosses, other than when atrocious server lag would rear its ugly head in the middle of them. If you can’t guarantee a stable server, then you might want to rethink this.

• The Ugly: A Timed boss, like the hour on Algalon, was also at the mercy of server stability and internet providers. If the server crashed or went down unexpectedly for maintenance, or some part of infrastructure for an area of users failed, the timer didn’t stop and there goes your attempts for the week.

These are just some random thoughts I had on what I’ve seen during this past expansion. There’s more things I could talk about, but those are the major changes I saw. Most of you know Derevka and I are hardly elitist Pricks, so please don’t read this post with that angle. What we are, however, is passionate about a challenge in our hobby. I think that’s what most raiders find fun. The biggest rush is working together with your guild to tackle challenges, and I am crossing my fingers that Cata can bring back the positive things we saw introduced for raids this expansion, while refining the things that didn’t work so well. I’m holding my breath that Cata can bring back challenges and accomplishments to raiding, and find a way to balance 10/25 man raids so they have both.

So what do you guys think? What are your thoughts on these issues? What did you like or dislike about Raiding In Wrath?

A Reflection on Wrath Raiding is a post from: Tales of a Priest

If you are bringing only 1 priest, you will want them Holy Spec’d and with Body and Soul – especially for Heroic. I will go into detail later, but Body and Soul becomes invaluable. Personally, I found that Holy proved to be notably superior in the Twilight Realm because of the movement required and our COH, POM (reduced CD), Renew, and Surge of Light were all lifesavers. (PW: Shield seemed to be eaten away too quickly.) Note the links of the abilities in this post are with NORMAL MODE Wowhead data, as the HM stuff wasn’t available yet on Wowhead.

Phase 1 -
Phase 1 is the easiest of the 3 phases. You have 2 major abilities you need to be aware of, Meteor Strike and Fiery Combustion. Meteor Strike has a target mark on the ground where it will hit (very similar to Mimiron’s rocket strike) – on Heroic this WILL ONE SHOT you. Where it hits, fire will spread out from the strike zone. Warcraft 101 – don’t stand in the fire.

Randomly throughout the fight someone will be targeted with Fiery Combustion, which should be dispelled after the person moves away. This person MUST move ASAP. No waiting to finish a cast – you move. Ideally, you should run to the EDGE of the wall of fire to minimize the space wasted. The longer you take to dispel/decurse, the bigger the Zone that is created becomes. If you are too close to the Zone as it pops, you take damage and are knocked back. This is a perfect opportunity for Body and Soul— get away faster!

We had 2 camps (Melee Group and Ranged Group) one on each side of Halion with a dispeler in each group to ensure dispel range on the Combustion target. This also maximizes the amount of space available to drop the zone.
On heroic mode the Flame Zones persist in both the Physical and Twilight Realms until they despawn.

70% we transition to Phase 2.

Phase 2 -
Welcome to the Twilight Realm – this is the most difficult realm to be in. There is a constant raidwide aura dealing roughly 4000 shadow damage a tick. (~3200 with Shadow Resistance Aura/Prayer). Instead of Fiery Combustion, you have Soul Consumption. It operates the same way as Firey Combustion except that it sucks people IN instead of knocking them back and (unlike normal mode) it also snares all targets caught inside the void zone. Again you will want to drop these Zone’s along the edge of the room. Your Holy Priest should Body and Soul the target as soon as Consumption is dispelled- getting them out of the Zone and minimizing the affect of the snare is a huge help.

Now comes the fun part— instead of 1 Twilight Cutter beam, coming out of the rotating orbs, you get 2… creating 4 rather narrow pie pieces to be in. The orbs are active for 10 seconds, then are dormant for 20. Everyone should be aware of these orbs at all times, especially if you are snared/dropping Consumption debuffs– You don’t want to get caught snared and have the “Twilight Cutter Beams of Death” zap you.

At 50% HP, you go to Phase 3.

Phase 3-
You now get to fight Halion in BOTH realms at once: Physical Realm and Twilight Realm. We left one of the healers and tank outside all of Phase 2 to be able to pick up Halion ASAP once P3 started. (Warrior Tank and Pally Healer). You need to damage him at the same pace because of his Corporeality buff. We put our caster DPS in the Physical Realm since there is no need to avoid the Twilight Cutters, and our Melee in the Twilight Realm since they can dps and rotate around the room with some ease.

We had 2 healers in the Twilight Realm: Resto Druid and Body and Soul Priest, leaving a Holy Pally in the Physical Realm. Phase 3 Twilight Realm healing can be tough, especially since you have so much movement and awareness required. I even cast Greater Heal on the Twilight Realm Tank several times after having to move for Consumption Dispelling with Twilight Cutters out. (I know… I was surprised too!).

The physical realm tank/healer should be ready to use cooldowns if the healer has to drop a Combustion debuff.

Be aware of when either the Physical or Twilight version of Halion casts their Breath. The tank will take a surge of damage- be ready, especially if you are on the move. (LOL Serendipitous GHeal)

On top of all that Void Zones dropped in either realm show up in both realms- so placement is key.

General Notes:
Communication when in Phase 3 is of huge importance. Stopping DPS on one realm may be needed.
I created these Power Auras for managing the Combustion/Consumption debuffs. Immediate awareness is needed.

Fiery Combustion Warning

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Fiery Combustion Stacks

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Soul Consumption Warning

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Soul Consumption Stacks

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We only did a couple of attempts on heroic 25 Halion this past week since our Raid Week was cut short to only 1 day due to the Canadian and American Holidays. (we do 25’s on Tuesday, and 10’s on Thursday). As such we cleared 11/12 Heroic ICC (to hopefully get some trinkets) and only had a few Heroic 25 Halion attempts before switching to Normal and calling it a night. Next week, we’ll be working on Heroic Halion. Hopefully you’ll see a WOTLK All Raids Complete Post after we get Heroic LK25 and Heroic Halion 25 next week!
Remember Dark Nemesis is recruiting! www.godarknemesis.com

Halion Heroic 10 Man Guide is a post from: Tales of a Priest

CYPHAN? Sounds like a venereal disease, doesn’t it? I assure you, it’s not. It’s a new Midwest Scifi/fantasy convention for costumers, collectors, gamers and fans located in the Chicago Suburbs, and it’s happening this weekend.

One of the weekend seminars is a World of Warcraft discussion, and a last minute change of plans (or desperation) has planted yours truly as one of the speakers. It’s nothing hardcore, raiding or even healing related – more of an intro to the game for new and newer players. We’ll be covering such things as choosing a faction, race, and class, leveling, gold making, guilds, dungeons, & etiquette. So if you’re in the area, and need something to do this weekend, come check out the convention! The seminar is scheduled for Saturday at 11:00 am, so come join us and share your experiences with newer players….and you can say ‘hi’ to me. I don’t bite. Hard.

Check it out here and hope to see you there! Oh, and yes – they do server liquor there. That’s the only reason I agreed to do this.

See you at CYPHAN! is a post from: Tales of a Priest