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.

On the road again, but managing to stay connected

I am on the road again, and although I am sad to be away from my wife, I'm trying to make the most of my travels.  I explored some new areas, worked in a military capacity, and had a few hours to play WoW and Hearthstone.

On the Hearthstone front, I can tell that it will continue to be a fun game to play, especially when the connection will not support higher level LFR groups in WoW.  There is only so much WoW daily quest grinding you can tolerate, after all.  Hearthstone is a great deal of fun, although it requires uninterrupted time to play each game.  It is also a game that will require you to lose a lot before you have a decent deck, from what I can tell.  I have probably opened 5 or 6 bonus packs of cards so far, using gold that I obtained from daily quests and victories.  I am becoming quite familiar with the feeling of losing to other players, and even the NPC practice opponents destroy me quite often.  Even with a deck that includes blue and purple cards, it seems to be a very luck-dependent game.  An addicting and fun luck-dependent game which will probably consume some of my actual income for new card packs.

On the WoW front, I reached ilvl 488 by completing the Golden Lotus revered grind and running quite a few LFR groups.  I finished Throne of Thunder today, concluding the list of available LFR instances, although I observed 75% of the Lei Shen fight as a corpse.  I still have no idea what killed me.  But I have put epic pieces in ever slot except trinkets...those simply elude me, and I anticipate more rep grinds to obtain those.  I do not expect to have a good enough connection to continue running LFR groups, so my priest will likely remain my best geared character for quite a while.  

I am bringing directional wifi antennae, and multiple wireless cards and connection points in hopes of developing a reasonable and reliable connection with which I can skype my wife and play an online game when I have time.  Remembering my last two deployments, I am bridling my optimism so that I am not sorely disappointed when the internet sucks.

So, I'm preparing to shift to alt leveling and rep/heroic gearing.  I have a goal to level some classes that I have not ever played so far, such as lock, pally, shammy, and monk.  And, I am completely unfamiliar with my DK, druid, and hunter, which are all sitting patiently at 85.  Smoogestab, my rogue, is now at 86.  Icy veins seems to be the new go-to place for leveling and gear questions, and I have adopted their combat rogue leveling strategy, paired with a good leveling addon.

As far as UI stuff goes, I have experimented with quite a few addons recently.  So far, I have settled on Dominos, Recount, Dugi, Atlas Loot, and a leveling addon.  I am still looking for a good unit frame and cooldown addon for both my priest and all of my alts.  I am tolerating Healbot and TellMeWhen, and I dislike the xPerl unit frames I currently have installed.

Congrats Sad Panda...and cataclysm discussion continues.

As I have not kept up this blog until today, I have a lot of input. But before I get back into game mechanics, I want to give a huge shout out to my guild of many years, Sad Panda. I was online the other day when they accomplished First Level 25 Guild on Smolderthorn.

I’m honored they let me stay in as a legacy member, despite my raiding and instance inabilities. These guys have stayed competitive for years in WoW. Originally a guild called Entropy, which cleared up to BWL, we merged with another guild and became Epic. Some of the old faces are still around, such as Daedal, Bugs, and maybe even Fuse. After Epic, many left and formed a rival guild called Gloryhogs before BC released. Epic shifted to what was then an alt guild called “Sad Panda,” and Fuse led that guild for years. I know others have had some great input there, including my friends Jason and Josh, as well as Kkyle and Jessica, and now a new cadre of apparently very capable guild and raid leaders and raiders. The core competencies are still evident to me, and there are a lot of high level, hilarious, experienced players in SP…congrats on a great achievement!

On to the discussion on latency and its adverse effect on both disc and holy priest specs.

For holy, your rotation now involves heal, greater heal, binding heal, prayer of mending, circle of healing, chakra states, and prayer of healing for the most part. I rarely found myself using my old staple, flash heal. High latency hurts casters big time…especially healers, and especially priests. Refer to my previous notes on queuing spells, because you’re going to need to do that on a bad connection. First, you will notice very quickly in cata that mana is an issue when you have crappy gear. Also, latency means your throughput is even less. So, I recommend using your big spells and staying away from heal simply because it loses its value if you can’t cast it quickly. Your tank will be dead if you are on a 2000ms connection spamming heal, most likely. One good dynamic, though, is that you will find yourself in the 5 second rule for mana regen more often, by nature of not being able to cast as much. I found that I was less likely to run out of mana than wipe the party, so I had to lean towards larger, more expensive heals and just pay the price of drinking after nearly every pull if necessary. Also, I leaned very heavily on the AoE version of chakra, because of its “fire and forget” nature, along with the unconventional renews. I also glyphed for prayer of healing and used prayer of mending on cooldown EVERY time, because those spells would continue to be productive when my connection choked for a few seconds at a time, which happened frequently. Ultimately, it looked to my party like this: PoH procs HoT from glyph, renews on people that have taken any dmg, PoM on tank, chakra AoE around tank, and “why is that priest just standing there waiting now” followed by a binding heal or flash heal.

For disc, PW:S is a required pre-cast, as well as PoM on cooldown. I use PI and Inner Focus on cooldown…IF is even macrod in every gheal cast. If it’s available, I’m using it. I use PW:Barrier and Pain Suppression on cooldown too. Then I’ll Q up a penance first, gheal second. I have an A/A spec, so if the connection is decent or the damage distribution is steady and not too much, I LOVE smiting for automatic healing distribution around the party. However, keep in mind that you won’t be able to do that on trash if you have high latency and the mobs are dying relatively quickly. Your throughput will go to zero. I typically use it for big mobs and bosses where damage is manageable.

One important lesson learned this deployment: do not sit in an instance and wipe a party because of bad lag. You’ll end up just getting vote kicked anyways, and you will have wasted time queuing. Know what your playability limit is…mine is about 2500ms. Anything higher than that, or if I’m experiencing frequent bandwidth lag (game seems to pause and then catch up real fast a few seconds later), I will heal through a pull then leave the party when they are safe. That’s right, I don’t even try to finish. It’s more productive to do some of the options I’m about to discuss. Unfortunately, that means I’m not able to do a lot of instances right now.

So what DO I do?

I find other ways to support and develop my character or cater to my end goals in the game. I always play every game with a goal in mind. For instance, in Black Ops, my goal was to hit level 50 so that I could unlock all the weapons. In WoW, there are so many different things you can shoot for. For me, it is to create the ultimate healer that is asked for when any tough healing situation arises. To be competitive at the highest levels of PvE as a priest healer. What caters to my goal? Anything that adds value to my main. Gold, mats, crafted items, professions, instance experience, UI improvements, and networking.

So, here are options I have been exploring and enjoying in cataclysm when I’m not able to heal instances as I would prefer.

• I started a DK at lvl 55 and leveled the toon with herbalism and mining. (I have played my priest almost exclusively since WoW released...I originally shunned the idea of serious alts, but I was missing out) Taurens get fast herbalism gathering, and pale rider in the frost tree means I can fly faster on my 150% speed flying mount.
  
• Gathering is considerably easier and faster now that you can fly, and those mats are lucrative. The lower level mats have earned me about 2000g so far, which is really a small amount in cataclysm. However, Kyle Rudd has informed me that flask sales on the AH are guaranteed to bring in thousands with good frequency.
  
• I plan to have my alt gathering herbs and Smoogee already has almost maxed out alchemy. I estimate I'll be bringing in about 10k per week once I have that system running.
  
• The leveling process is fun and new, and along the way I am auctioning nearly everything I can. I anticipate that my DK will have earned about 20k+ gold by the time it is 85. And THAT could be an ilvl 359 BoE healing Staff of Dark Mending, or Vial of the Sands, or something I really want. Also, I plan to purchase some heirloom items for my DK if the timing works out with justice points…may or may not happen. Gold opens up a ton of options for anybody’s main.
• I am leveling my alchemy and enchanting, and neither of those will be cheap. I’m already at a high level, and I have my rings enchanted and the alchemy trinket. Oh, by the way, pots help a ton for priests.
• Networking is the last thing I’ve started getting back into. Rebuilding my friend list with current players who I can go to for parties, help, professions, or even information. Remember when WoW first started? I still have connections from the version 1.0 days, and it makes a lot of sense to intentionally redevelop that habit pattern. That way, when I can play at higher performance levels, I’ll have relevant connections on my server. (The new “add a note” feature is awesome, as well as the RealID system)

Cataclysm...2500ms style

I'm sitting here on my new 2011 macbook pro using bootcamp for Windows, in a place called the USO (an organization that does things for our troops). They have free (slow) wifi, WoW works to some degree, and I have made some progress while I've been out here.
Kyle Rudd, a friend who has played with me since beta, encouraged me to continue the blog, and the timing is perfect for that. Today I'll cover:

• Options for high latency OR low bandwidth connections in general
• "GCDA" or Global Cooldown Availability
  
• Applications for tunneling that will work with WoW on either Mac or Windows
• The effects of bandwidth/latency problems on disc and holy specs
  
• Gameplay suggestions for instance play as a priest in poor network situations
• WoW suggestions in general for consistently crappy internet situations
• Cataclysm options for someone in my situation
• Mouseover, the new standard for healing in WoW
  

I'll start by saying that I did buy that directional antenna, and it is fully functional. That means that I have a consistent internet connection in my room here in Iraq. It does NOT provide any noticeable performance increase over my old omni-directional antenna, only a more stable connection to the routers. While the latency fluctuates between 700ms and 10,000ms in game, the bandwidth is so restricted that instance play of any type is impossible under ANY circumstances. My connection provides 20Kbps during the best performance hours, and less during peak usage hours. So, like last year, in order to get some JP and start the gearing process, I still have to find external sources. However, I'll talk about what I have been able to do with that connection.

Options for extremely high latency or very low bandwidth connections in WoW.
Under the worst conditions, understand that your gameplay changes dramatically. You need to familiarize yourself with the concept of queuing your spells and building specs that improve general survivability. Here's my first example: I rolled a DK alt (more on that in a moment), and using a frost spec, I will Q up an obliterate and half the time Killing Machine will proc in the 2-3 seconds it takes for my command to reach the servers, process, and get back to me. Using this strategy of ability selection, I can actually anticipate events and speed up the grinding process. As a priest, this is even more difficult, and I HIGHLY recommend speccing for HoTs and DoTs. Hunters and warlocks, by my estimation, are probably the very best classes for high latency connections, because you can "fire and forget" and much of the work will continue to be done while your computer waits for the server to fill you in on what's happening.

Global cooldown and you...most of our overseas users already know this...
The global cooldown is a limiting factor for all competitive players on good connections...in PVP especially, but also in raid healing situations as both disc and holy (especially disc). It is the rate at which you can cast spells one after another. On a poor connection, though, your GCD changes completely, no longer limited by your character, haste, and that little circle thing on your boxes that goes clockwise to tell you that you can cast again. On a poor connection, you are guaranteed that you will never run up against the GCD again, rather you are just waiting for your GCD to even become available! Instead, you have to wait for the server to see that you casted and to be able to process your next request.
Example: you cast PW:Shield on someone and choose Prayer of Mending as your next spell. When you activate PW:S, that icon will highlight until the server sees that you casted it, and by the time it goes grey (indicating a successful cast), it's guaranteed to already be past the GCD timer (approx 1 second).
What you MUST do on a poor connection is queue up your next spell, but sometimes not immediately. You can't spam every spell on your bars and expect the server to cast them in order...otherwise we'd do this with good connections. However, you can spoof the connection by simulating a GCD before selecting your next spell. Aside from abilities that do not trigger the GCD (trinks, Power Infusion, Archangel, chakra), you can only select one spell in sequence. I HIGHLY recommend using your non-GCD abilities EVERY time they're available and activating them during that anticipated cast, before your queued ability. In this example, I'd cast PW:S, then immediately select archangel or PI, then select greater heal. Shield would cast, there would be a standard delay, depending on your connection, then the server would activate your PI and cast gheal once it caught up. (For my DK, I often Q up non-GCD abilities during that in-between "lag void.")

Tunneling WoW...a month of research and effort to save YOU some time.
USE LEATRIX LATENCY FIX...first step on any network, windows OR mac.
Learn how to ipconfig /release /renew /flushdns if you are on a wifi network that drops you frequently or seems to slow over time...this actually helps me on the connection in my room (Babtel....boooooo....hisssssss).
It is entirely possible to tunnel to log on, but not easy to describe. I began experimenting with the Tor network, as well as Your-Freedom, PuTTy with SSH to a shell server, and eventually settled on HighPingBuster.

• Tor: is SLOW, due to the p2p nature. It is not ideal for any games, although it can be used to get things like Steam online, or for downloading patches. Tunneling WoW through Freecap is one option, and if you can get the Tor network online, you should be able to get the downloader working through Freecap. Word to the wise: Widecap is best for this, because you can set profiles and capture the "extra" exe's that are running, such as Blizzard downloader. In my opinion, the Tor network will really frustrate you. However, using Tor with Firefox is an outstanding way to access sites such as HBP or Your-Freedom in a lockdown situation such as mine. Those sites are normally blocked, but Tor allowed me to get the files downloaded to use later.
  
• Your-Freedom: this is a better platform for tunneling, and it's free. If you have a poor connection, chances are you'll never exceed the bandwidth or streams allotted. Similarly, programs like Pcap are not bad utilities to actually tunnel your specific programs (just throwing out different ideas, I've tried them all and each requires tutorials). I used google to research the configuration for both WoW and Steam.
• I tinkered with PuTTy and buying my own Linux shell. The company I chose never configured the shell server, but I think this is a VERY strong option...read on.
• HighPingBuster is a pre-configured tunnel program specifically designed for WoW and other online games like Rift. It actually uses an embedded PuTTy program and they have a pre-loaded list of shell servers around the world to choose from. I love how they let you ping the servers through their app. It is extremely simple to set up, and it's only like $6 a month. This is a great option for connecting to WoW on a network that blocks WoW! It does not, however, help much with our crappy satellite connection. I thought I noticed a slight reduction in ping, but I honestly think it's about the same as without...but it always allows me to log in. NOTE: if you have connection issues with HPB and it was just working earlier, quickly uninstall and reinstall...that has helped me three times so far.

I'll cover the rest of the topics in my next post, because I actually want to log in and play right now, and a seat just freed up where nobody can see my screen (not supposed to online game on this network and military guys talk so much crap when they see people playing games). More to come, hope this helps...email me with any specific questions if you're in a situation like mine.