Still here in Afghanistan...transmogs and leveling

That about sums up how we feel about deployments!

OK, I'm really enjoying the transmog thing.

Running Flex raids with this set is just cool to watch.

Also, I have two new toons joining the fight at 90.  My first tank ever, and a hunter.  I am enjoying the druid tanking style, and even tanked my first level 90 raid successfully with no wipes!

The hunter seems to be a little lackluster in dps, but he's only 480-ish itemlevel.  The queues are considerably longer for dps than for tanks, of course.  My druid will pass my hunter with help from Timeless Isle and quick raid queues.  However, leveling a druid as guardian was a total pain in the rear.

Tier 5 transmog, a quick trip for a great set

OK, so for those of you who missed the tier 5 raids, you'll be pleased to learn that they are each soloable at level 90, although the final bosses in Serpentshrine and The Eye will each require more strategy than the lesser bosses.  I now have 4/5 pieces of the tier 5 transmog set, after just 1 run in each of those instances.  I did die once on Kael'thas, the final boss in The Eye.
Also, it's worth noting that Kael'thas also has a small chance to drop a coveted phoenix mount.

Here are some shots from recent boss kills, and I have to add that it was a lot of fun, and quite lucrative, to run these level 70 instances.

Tier 5 gloves!

Fathom-Lord stuns a LOT.

Lady Vashj was here!  Tier 5 helm!

Void Reaver silences a LOT.

Kael'thas was a proper challenge!  Tier 5 chest!

A disc priest can solo serpentshrine cavern, lady vashj, tempest keep, and Kael'thas at level 90!  It is definitely possible to get your tier 5 transmog set in 1 week.  The belt, Belt of the Long Road, must be crafted by a tailor who has the BOP pattern, so you may need to spam org chat.  A very nice player crafted mine for free when I provided the mats, which I bought on the AH.

Tier 1 and 2 level 60 instances all soloed as a disc priest

Any vanilla players will remember this scene...Ragnaros down once again.  He drops the Tier 2 legs, btw.

Well, this went remarkably faster than I expected!  In a short amount of time, I cleared all of BWL, Onyxia, and Molten Core.  That means I have proven that it is possible to solo all of the bosses that drop the 8 pieces of Tier 2 Transcendence gear.  Since killing the bosses goes quite quickly, and since you can only do those instances once per week, I have decided to also work on Tier 5.  My favorite priest tier set, tier 3, is no longer available in the game, unfortunately.  However, Tiers 2 and 5 are each remarkably distinct sets that look fantastic on a priest.

Here are clips of my Tier 2 solo tour:

 
 
I got the boots off Broodlord Lashlayer!

The 5 bosses following Razorgore were not hard.  Vaelstraza, the second boss will cause you to die after you beat her, because of a debuff.  At 90, DPS was not a problem at all.

Use the sand and dispel or you will get MC'd, he heals to 100%, and you have to wait 5 minutes.  Trust me.

 Chromaggus took a little longer, because I forgot about his mind control, but I got the shoulders!!!  These Shoulders took me months to earn when I used to raid with a DKP system.  How ironic I should pick them up on my first day of trying.

Nefarian turned out to be just as easy as the lesser bosses.

Onyxia was easy to find and simple to kill.  Divine Star helps with the adds.  She drops the Tier 2 helm, btw.

Regaining the original tier 2...old school loot

I have decided that I am going to restore my priest to the original set that I had at the the end of vanilla WoW, all those years ago.
Some people may not know that the old tier sets, as well as the bosses that yield them, still exist.  On my original priest that was long since traded away or deleted or both, I had EVERY single piece of Transcendence gear, and I got that gear at a time when resilience did not yet exist and there were no higher instances in the game than Blackwing Lair.  I was literally the best geared priest on my original server, Smolderthorn, for quite some time.
Unfortunately, that character was deleted from WoW years ago, and my new priest, of the same name, has fine gear but not the legacy pieces that once stayed in my bank.

HOWEVER, you can still get this stuff!  I am now going through the process of clearing Blackwing Lair ALONE!  Despite many naysayers online, I successfully destroyed the first boss, Razorgore, using Discipline.

Details, in case anybody wants to try this: I MC him on the orb, start destroying eggs on the far side, and as the timer comes close, I bring him back to me, shield him, then use divine star to thin out the adds and build up aggro.  The shield heals and protects him, but you can only use an instant cast spell because casting breaks your hold on the orb.
I got about 60% of the eggs on the first MC, and he was still above 80% health.  It took 3 MCs total, and he had about 40% health left at the last egg.  He is, of course, simple to kill at that point.  The only trick is not getting him killed during the egg hatching, but the adds seemed to favor me, for whatever reason.

Good luck all you priests!  And stay tuned as I continue in BWL on my quest for the lost tier 2 gear.  Btw, nothing dropped from Razorgore, so I'll have to try him again next week.  Also btw, I had to get attuned to BWL, which was a simple process that involved soloing upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS), which was a lot of fun to see again as a level 90.  All in all, it took 5 attempts to learn his fight, but it took almost just as long to find the entrance to BWL.  When was the last time you entered Burning Steppes anyways?

Flying high again!

So, I am back in the flying rotation, and I've got to say...it feels good!  

Me (left) and my crew - Nov '13

And, while we're tearing it up over the friendly skies of Afghanistan, I've had a few moments here and there to continue my raid healing experience.

I finished collecting the top tier transmog set:

And, while I was lucky to loot a Flex 540 item level staff off Galakras, I think the new look compliments the aviary look of the tier set:

I have 548 level shoulders, but I am currently equipping a 528 set piece from LFR so that I can experience the 2 piece set bonus: 10% extra crit whenever I use archangel.  This is HUGE as a disc priest, since I generally use archangel on cooldown while atonement healing.  That means more shields on raid members!  Still running around 300-800ms latency in-game, but I've now completed much of ToT (Throne of Thunder) on 10-man and most of the first two zones in SoO (Siege of Orgrimmar) on Flex.  Bottom line: I'm not slumming it in LFRs, and when I do LookingForRaid zones, I usually end up on the top of the meters.

I am countering the lag with prevention, and stats that compliment server-side heal decisions.  Crit, which automatically converts to shielding, is very effective when paired with atonement heals.  Cascade is proving to be valuable as a raid heal, which I often use on cooldown.  Oh, and mindbender is considerably better for me than solace.  Power Word: Solace requires me to use it on cooldown to receive the mana benefits.  Since my latency is high, that global cooldown can be a lot more expensive, and I don't always get the PW:Solace on cooldown.  Mindbender is available every minute and returns a considerable amount of mana with a single button push.  And of course, I am using spirit shell, paired with archangel and inner focus, to prevent damage.

Oh, and I am now a mere 2 Titan Runestones away from my legendary cloak, which has me very excited indeed.  I set a goal to achieve that by the end of the month, and it looks like I will exceed that goal handily.

Disc healing Afghanistan...Priest and Pilot is back, better than Iraq.

Priest and Pilot is back.

I'm about to pick up a full time crew and step out of the job I've been doing for nearly two months.  Up to this point, my Afghanistan experience has been 6 days a week in the "mission planning cell," or tactics shop, supporting our daily theater tactical airlift missions as the deputy chief of tactics.  All that means is that I am responsible at night for the development of the products our crews fly with, and occasionally I get to fly.

How does that relate to the common theme of this blog?

Well, I have had a consistent schedule, and I've made some time to play a game here and there in between my work shifts.  In contrast to Balad, Iraq, where I spent my first two deployments, this place has "high speed" internet in the rooms.

This time around, I set up the small form factor desktop and I use the same USB adapter as before, the AWUS036H that I used in Iraq.  Since the routers are close to the room, I ran the simple omni-directional antenna outside the door to my pod and mounted it using a magnetic base.  (I will create a separate entry for the LAN work I've been doing here to optimize my connection.)

So, the end result is that I have a decent connection which allows me to game online, to varying degrees.  Since arriving, I have taken my priest from itemlevel 485 to 530.  I've managed to complete every raid via LFR, with the exception of the final boss in Siege of Orgrimmar.  The 400ms-1200ms connection makes effective healing a challenge for sure, but I have even completed the Legendary questline through the metagem.  Now, I am patiently gathering the final pieces to earn the Legendary cloak, which will be the first orange item I have ever earned in WoW.

One important lesson I learned early on was that I could not compete as a reactionary healer.  With limited bandwidth and “red” latency, you need to fill a role that either prevents damage or automatically selects heal targets at the server level.  If that isn’t possible, you need to be able to direct heals as quickly as humanly possible.  These parameters drove me to atonement healing as a discipline priest, and forged the way I heal raids technically.

Atonement priests deal a portion of their healing via Smite, Power Word: Solace, and offensive Penance.  The damage is directly (and automatically) duplicated to the raid according to who needs the healing.  The value is great; it maximizes effective healing, reduces overhealing, and removes the time required for choosing healing targets.  When your latency is high, a player may be already healed by the time you select them and cast your direct heal, but atonement healing allows you to be just as effective as the nerd spamming chain heal.  Now, add Halo, Cascade, Spirit Shell, and Power Word: Shield to atonement, and you have a viable healing platform with moderate to high latency.

Addon-wise, some important things had to happen as I ventured into LFR (and later in flex raids through oQueue).  I researched macros for smite, shield, and my direct heals.  I am only in the rookie phase of macro use, and I combine that with a clean UI called "LUI."  These macros all include a mouseover function, which blends nicely with any raid frames.  I happened to settle on Grid2, primarily because of the simplicity and minimalist nature.  Thus, when I place my cursor over the tank’s “square” and hit the key for my PW: Shield, it will shield him even if I’m targeted on an enemy, another raid player, or myself.  Likewise, if I select the tank as my target and cast smite, it will cast against the tank’s target.  Built-in logic allows me to quickly select heals without having to spend valuable time searching for a target.  How a healer would ever succeed at high levels without these tools, I have no idea, but I met a disc priest today in Flex that uses more macros, no mouseover, and focuses on higher atonement dps and healing.  I should also mention that yesterday I ran a Flex 10-man Siege of Orgrimmar (SoO) and was the top healer of 3 healers, and my latency was consistently higher than 850ms the entire time.

And so begins the technical discussion on atonement healing in current raids, both 25-man Looking For Raid (LFR) and 10-man+ Flex raids.  What sets some disc priests apart in the raid setting in Throne of Thunder (ToT) and SoO?  It all comes down to two elements: HPS (healing per second) and damage prevention.  The former includes a proper management of your available mana, appropriate stats on your gear, and simply keeping people from reaching zero.  The latter requires a knowledge of the fight, situational awareness, and appropriate use of preventative spells, such as Spirit Shell.  I’ll be talking a lot about those elements of healing over the next few months while I’m out here.

Itemization for priests in cata...crit?

A guildie comment sparked some curiosity in my mind. I saw a 359 staff with stam, int, spirit, and crit...and thought that it looked good to me. He said that crit had no place in healer gear. I pointed out that the compendiums indicated otherwise, but he held that no healers chose crit over any other caster-related stats. I suppose he is correct, but it got me thinking about what would be best for a player in my circumstances.

In the holy tree, inspiration adds survivability to tanks. This is entirely crit based. In the disc tree, crits proc additional bubbles, which I estimate are almost always effective healing. But the bigger picture here is really whether or not crit is useful in the long run. I have to say that personally, crits are responsible for many of the good saves, and have prevented many wipes under my current circumstances.

Here is an example: with about 2000ms latency, if a tank gets below 50%, he is immediately a priority one heal target. This is because greater heal has a long cast time and penance doesn’t heal for quite enough. Shield is probably already on cooldown, because I use PW:S on 5-man tanks on cd anyways. PoM is a good choice, but it will only heal for so much and that takes up a global cooldown. An inner focus greater heal is simply my best option for saving a tank where a lot of damage is coming in. For instance, a 5 pack pull of heroic trash with no CC, or a boss that is putting some hurt on a tank. And, of course, the all too common “5 second bandwidth choke” that practically puts your game on pause. When that happens, you better be queuing your ultimate lifesaving spell, because when your internet catches up to real-time, your tank will simply not be where he was. And at that point, you’re crossing your fingers for a crit to buy you even more time as you catch back up.

The other option, as infeasible as it was with brand new gear at level 85, is a flash heal triple cocktail. If your latency is low but your bandwidth chokes periodically, this is an outstanding way to save a single player. It is a ton of mana, but it will top him off and put him back on the bottom of your healing priority. With crit, though, the game changes some for me. First of all, I love the feeling of critting a greater heal for 60k and watching the bar fill up completely.

Here’s the deal. DPS players love crit, because any extra damage caters to their final goal of higher damage throughput. They get the gratification, from level 1 to 85, of seeing large numbers that mean they just owned something or someone. This is one of the simplest game dynamics that makes it a blast to play a mage or a rogue, or a warrior, or a DK, or a shammy...well, pretty much any DPS class. Healers will whittle their way to a new level cap if they quest, or they’ll spec for DPS and enjoy it for a little while. Perhaps you’ll have a viable shadow set alongside your healing set, but I typically did not when I was raiding at the highest levels, because I spent DKP on healing items. As far as I’m concerned, healing is what I enjoy and why I play a priest. I am gratified by the knowledge that I singlehandedly support a group and allow them to succeed at some kind of team goal.

BUT...just because I’m healing doesn’t mean that I don’t also want to see those numbers flickering on my screen that say, “You just owned at what you do.” I intensely dislike sliding by in any fight or encounter. If I’m oom and everybody ends up with 80% or more health, I feel awesome. If I’m full blue and everybody is nearly dead, well that means my connection sucks. (If you are full blue and everybody is nearly dead, that means your connection sucks or YOU suck, btw.) Crit allows me to enjoy a role that is in high demand. And, as far as I’m concerned, if I’m doing my job and you aren’t dead, let me have my crit. If I’ve got the spirit to maintain my casting rotation and I want to pommel some tank with flash heals because it’s fun and it’s a normal instance...I’m enjoying the same kind of thing that a mage enjoys when he’s popping his cooldowns and nuking a boss. When you’re squeezing every bit of mana out of your gear that you can, I suppose there really is a smaller role for crit, but I’d like to see a breakdown of inspiration and the damage reduction, as well as the AOE healing average gains from crit. I am not convinced that it is irrelevant. There aren’t enough talents that support a hands-down crit build, but I have a hunch that it is still worth keeping an eye on, especially at the higher levels of gear. Crit will perform independently of the global cooldown, and it will apply to nearly every spell, and every individual heal of a prayer of healing/mending/circle of healing/10 minute AOE. Add both heals in binding heal to that list, on top of every other single target heal on my bar.

Anyways, impressive screenshots and videos will visually lean toward crit for any class, because it is simply bigger and bolder and more fun to see. I’m a healer, and I like having fun too, not just being the robot that sits in the background while everyone else gets credit.