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

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♥

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

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♥

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

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

"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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

Today, I continue updating this blog and finish racing my old feral druid to 70. One level to go, 4 hours to complete it.

Tonight, I buy Wrath of the Lich King, and stay up too late playing it.

Tomorrow morning, I roll out of bed and regret my existence. And then I remember- I have to get to 80.



Due to extreme boredom I've been leveling a feral druid. At this very moment he is 69 and parked in the Zabra'jin Inn waiting for me return from my coffee break and finish leveling him 9.5 bubbles of experience. That's about 330,000 xp. The midnight release party at the local Game Stop starts at 10, so, I have 4 hours and 7 minutes to get him to 70, and myself to Game Stop. This. Is not going to happen. But I tried, old buddy, I tried.

Looking back, I guess it would have been smarter to farm AV//AB//WSG//EotS tokens on my priest to get a jump start on gear in Wrath... but I reaaaalllly didn't want to. I still don't want to. I do not regret my decision to pull out my dear burr and level him. So, so, so many hours have been spent on him over the past several years learning how to tank and getting groups that were willing to let me =]

What are my plans for Wrath? Well. I plan on leveling my priest. I plan on gearing her as fast as I can whilst still enjoying the game. I plan on PvPing with her, because she is the only character I have ever enjoyed PvPing with. And, when the guild stabilizes and we gather a decent set of raiders to begin the 10 and 25 man content, I will PvE with her. I have no idea when I will level my mage, or my druid. Heck, I went through most of BC without touching an alt. I began with a BElf mage, and would have ended with her if it hadn't been for the guilds sudden need of healers.

I'm glad though. I love my druid, but I love my mage more. I love my mage, but I absolutely adore my priest. I wonder. how many people start off with a class they think they'll enjoy to find out some years later that a completely different class was the best for them?


I apologize for the random posting. I just had Wrath on my mind and started reflecting...and then staretd blogging. It's what I do!


♥Fae

Echoes of Doom

It’s been a few weeks since the release of 3.0.2 and tons of fun things have ensued! Zombies! Guardian Spirits! Improved water elementals! Tanks are better, DPS is higher and Kara has been reduced to sub-heroic difficulty. Some of us may pity Curator now that he is able to be killed before his first evo and others wish that ZA was this easy pre-patch so we could have a slew of Bears running around. Regardless of your sympathy level for once semi-difficult raid bosses (yes, back when only the good guilds could trudge their way to Prince…wait, was that ever so?) many of us are happy to report the death of Illidan, Archimonde, Kael’thas, Vashj, and, occasionally Kil’jaeden- foes that were at one time a true accomplishment.

November 13 I will happily announce to my guild the switching of my main. The past few months as we have slowly started to overtake t6 dungeons (I know, I know, we’re a touch behind) I have found myself in a priestly holy roll rather than a magey frost one, and I love it. I love having the control of who lives and who dies, I love having to actually pay attention to the entire raid. Healing is awesome- it does not require patience, hardcore spell rotation...hey...Frostbolt is pretty hardcore…or any form of competition. I do still find myself a touch giddy when I am effectively outhealing people who vastly outgear me, call it the DPSer in me, but in the long run it doesn’t matter. As long as my targets stay alive I have succeeded. When they almost die I find myself doing absolutely everything I can to keep them alive, and when they go down I feel disappointed in myself and try to figure out what I could have done to prevent that. It has been a long, slow learning process but I believe I’ve mastered most parts of the priest healing capability.

I decided to start this blog because I want to remember my experiences and views on future objectives. To level, gear, and play my priest I read up on a lot of blogs and articles written by various players and I appreciated those people oh so much for taking the time to write them. I do not claim to be the best priest, by any means, or the best healer, or the best at anything. In fact, I can only say I am remotely mediocre at my job. But, if I can help someone the way others have helped me, then I will be a touch happier.

Thank you for stumbling upon this blog and taking the time to read my first post. I plan on updating it every Thursday from here on. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions please, feel free to post them or email me at pyatachokpriest@gmail.com.

Many hugs