Aggro - I'z Squishy! Nooo! /splat

So yea, Fio went ahead and made a nifty post about Aggro.

It's great fodder to think about, and he gives good math for DPS Pew Pew'rs, but where does this help you my squishy bantam?

Ok, basics. Aggro is the term used to describe a mob's attention. You want your meatshield to have it, because they are the best equipped to handle it. That's why they are your meatshield. DPS can follow Fio's advice and hold off while your tank is getting all that lovely aggro... but you're the healer! To get aggro, your tanky is taking damage, and as soon as you pop that Renew/Flash Heal/Greater Heal... BOOM! You haz aggro!

But the mob doesn't come running right away (if your tank is worth their salt in plate, they better not) because you ticked it off by association (though honestly, I'm surprised healers don't generate more aggro... I know they piss me off in BGs... /grumble). No, if you're doing the smart thing and staying back as far as possible, that's one aggro mitigation. I'm not a number cruncher, but from what I do understand, there is some mechanic that deals with range aggro: the closer to the mob you are, it generates a little bit of aggro. All your healing spells are going to generate aggro in some way, shape or form on all mobs in the brawl. Some spells generate more than others. But if you're using a Threat Meter (like Omen or KLH Threat Meter) you can see just how much aggro every one in your party is generating.

Oh and another term for aggro is threat. Just what kind of threat should you be generating? Let's face it, no matter what the situation, your going to be generating threat from the beginning of the fight. Tanks can tell DPS to wait for however many sunders/lacerates before they can start whaling away creating their own threat, but you don't have that option.

So what do you do?

There a few things in combat we can do to mitigate what threat we generate and then there's some out of combat things we can do.

In combat, The Frisbee is your Friend. "But Squeekie! What about before Level 68?!" I don't know how I got along with out the Frisbee, but here's a bone to the pre-68 healers. Renew is usually the first thing you want up, because for a little mana it goes a long way. And it's a slow aggro gain. Which is fine, cause while you may generate 100 pts of aggro, your tank should have doubled or tripled his/her aggro with the mob, which makes your "little" heal not look so enraging. Squishy butt saved. But if you have a Frisbee, ho ho! Things change. That first hit and your tank will probably heal it all back with the Frisbee spell. And all that healing aggro? It's the tanks. It counts as healing s/he did, and so they get the threat. It's a beautiful thing. This is why you want to start a few seconds before the fight with a Frisbee, and then when your CD is up, toss another one. It pretty much solidifies your tanks aggro way ahead of yours. Now you can get down to business.

Frisbee's done, refresh your Renew every 15 secs, but if you see your tank getting hit harder and faster, don't hesitate to GHeal when s/he's at 50%. As long as the mob isn't doing 25%+ damage every second, your 2.5 sec cast should be enough to get out of OH SH!T territory. But now, you've just done a major heal, and that gets lots of threat. If you see yourself passing the tank in threat, Fade. Its only a temporary threat fix, but I usually save Fade after big heals like 2 consecutive GHeals or a Prayer of Healing. That usually gives the tank enough to get aggro back. If you happen to be in the OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD and your tank needs that heal 2 seconds ago, Flash Heal. Yes, it's horribly mana inefficient to use FHeal, but a FHeal followed by a GHeal usually saves the day. Oh and then Fade ^.^

Don't just use Fade because the CD is up. Doing that isn't efficent aggro reduction. Really, you should just be using it when either you've passed (or are about to pass) the tank in threat, or when you've just finished a Big Heal. Because remember, Fade is a spell, and casting it means you're just another second away from the 5SR we all love and adore. /snuggle

Out of combat, priests have a second tier Discipline talent called Silent Resolve. Max'd out at 5 pts, that's 20% threat reduction on holy and discipline spells, as well as a 20% chance that your spells won't be dispelled. That last part is awesome for PvP, but the reduction in threat to your healing spells is a must have for the holy healer. Trust me, you can afford the 10 pts into it. Also, as of this patch, a Subtlety to Cloak enchant is available from the Honor Hold/Thrallmar Quartermaster if you're Exalted with said faction. (Btw, I hates Shattered Halls... so I don't have it yet T.T)

Now that you have a little bit of an idea of why mobs are coming to hit you even though you aren't DPSing, here's a way to have fun/strategically help out the group in case the damage coming in is greater than the healing you can produce.

I'm standing at max range, and the tank has 3 guys on him. My group is pretty good in watching out for me, teh squishi, because they love healz. Tank is getting hit extra hard and all Crowd Control that can be deployed has been, so what do I do? GHeal, GHeal, and no Fade. I've peeled off two mobs and they're making a bee line for me. One of two things can happen. I let them come running to within 5 - 10 yrds of me and either 1) Fade, which will send them running back at the tank. Congrats, thats enough time to get off another GHeal and lessen the load of damage tank has taken, or, if there's room you can 2) Psychic Scream and then Fade. The Scream generates some aggro too, but the Fade after gives you and your group time to get things under control. Also, if you happen to have a mage in your group, then the peeled mobs can be Frost Nova'd into place, and since no one's beating on them to break it immediately, well, it's yet another breather for you and your meatshield.

Now, don't do the above if you think it'll tick off your tank. Some tanks don't like people intentionally pulling off them unless it's the hunter for their trap. So make sure your group is cool with your unconventional Crowd Control ^.^

Any one else had some fun tricks with their Priestly Aggro? Lemme know ^.^ I always like hearing new tricks.

The DragonSlayer has been Slain!

Commence celebration! /dance

So yea, as Kitty has probably made clear, AC took out Gruul on Monday. Skin of our freakin' TEETH! At 3% We had our 5 rogues Evasion tanking since all three tanks were down. It was a big rush. ^.^

I have a vid up on Youtube, but sorry working people. I've realized a bit late that by linking the uploadable version to my website (also our guilds site) I'm close to going over my bandwidth usage T.T

So will have to deal with crappy Youtube until I can find a place to put the 64MB file. Any suggestions?

My initial thoughts on Gruul... well, our group make up was as follows: 3 tanks (MT, OT/Hurtful strike soaker and 3rd Oh SHIT tank), 6 healers (pretty much who ever we could get to log in) consisting of myself and another holy priest /cheer, 2 pallies, a shammy and a tree, and the rest DPS (tons of rogues, a smattering of casters and hunters).

Now, all you Gruul's vets are probably having heart attacks over the numerous melee guys. Well, couldn't be helped, unfortunately. But our rogues did a super job. We had very little in Shatter casualties once some of the new people to the fight got used to it, and Cave ins on the melee were rough... but having 6 healers there (with a pally dps/Off healing) helps.

But yea, back to my initial thoughts: I think the next time I go, I'm going to equip my DPS staff for the first part of the fight. If you see the video, there are many things I had to cut out for length, but I was Wanding/Smiting/Mind Blasting initially in the fight. The two pallie healers and the Tree were assigned to the tanks, with the Shammy, myself and Val spot healing the raid. So initially, Snow, Val and I didn't have much to do other than DPS. Which is where I noticed... damn it, I'm getting resisted a lot! T.T So yea, going to try that next time. It probably will be such a small contribution as to not matter, but I'm going to try anyway (stubborn, moi?)

I could really afford to cast DPS there too. Since the 5SR and I were getting lots of action together, well, mana wasn't an issue. I'm kinda relieved there, too. I thought Mana was going to be my biggest prob. Thankfully, it isn't. I am, however, sorely missing not having any +hit... /grumble...

Oh and our illustrious Raid Leader is jealous of my Ground Slam hiding nook. I luff's it. I don't get tossed half way across the screen ^.^


So yea, this is a little mini summary of my advice on Gruul. I'll post soon on a healing guide to King Maulgar soon, but first, something I've been inspired to write due to my husband of the Boom. Oh and a revised Addon post is upcoming. I've got some new ones since the 2.2 patch.

Ya Gotta SHOUAHUAHUAHT Your Lungs Out!

If you haven't watched AMV Hell 3 ... you're missing out. Go watch it. XD

This post today is going to be broken, revised and is going to be very fluid. I'm writing it in between different PCs and they don't let me save a draft... or Blogger does, I'm just a tard and can't find it.

Le sigh.

Anywho! Where the hell have I been?! Umm, not doing very priestly things, thats for certain.

AC is still kicking ass, taking names, all that guff. Last weekend, we had Gruul's on Sunday. Maulgar pwnd us. Repeatedly. It was a sucky, sucktastic day. Then Monday rolls around and Celliana, our Rail Leader of Awesomesauce, smelled blood in the air, and we proceeded to One Shot Maulgar that night and go on to get Gruul down to 5% (new low!) So Monday > Sunday. Hooray!

To be continued... on another PC

Right, so I was thinking of the Gruul vid, planning ahead, when I forgot what it was that I wanted to do. Don't you HATE that!?! I know what the beginning vid is going to be like, but there was a part in there with me and Celli talking... that I just totally forgot. Ah well, hopefully, it'll come back to me. Meanwhile, I must stealthily figure out a way to record our prestigious Raid Leader's voice and said phrase without him being the wiser... man, I still wish I had voice being recorded during our first Maulgar kill. He was so excited, and sounded so adorably cheesy. When you get moments like that guys, treasure them. XD

Ni Hao - I have this song stuck in my head. Thanks Dem. ;P

Over at Doom's, he started a lovely thread about random thoughts of violence. Honestly, I just think this is something our brains do to A) keep us sane, 2) keep us honest and III) keep us entertained. A boring day at work, the brain wants to play. So let it. No one knows where your strategic body hiding spots are except you - and maybe your psychic SO. But that's a story for another time.

Did I mention that this post wasn't going to have much of a point? Why haven't I been doing my duties in writing about my priestly ways? Well, to be honest, I'm in a bit of a writers funk. I had a spew of ideas, and then I found these awesome priestly blogs that also have a spew of ideas... and then things I think of have pretty much already been said, in a much more entertaining and better way than I could think of. That and I just haven't had an urge to really play Cay for a bit, unless it's raiding. Heroics are a yawns fest now, we actually cleared Kara from Moroes to Prince in 3.5 hours last night (wewt!). DO not get me wrong: I lurv my healing job. Lurv it to bits and pieces. But I'm bored. So I play on my alts. Who right now need some lurvin's.

My Giddglet just got her Retainer's Blade (Huzzah) and I'm working on getting the Riftmaker. She's about 14K Keepers of Time rep from it. Which is fine. While Doom will curse me till the day I die, I have the Hourglass for her, but I could use the gloves in the Assassination set for the set bonus for our Arena team (Spanish Inquisition: two druids, 2 rogues, you do the ZOMG MONTY PYTHON reference ^.^). That blade is Giddg's second purple ever. It makes me warm and fuzzy. She was my first toon, so she's near and dear to mah heart.

I'll tell ya too, after taking a break on her, it feels like going home when I get to play her again. Though I still feel slightly noobish. I mean, everyone and their mother has a rogue. But trying to figure out how to play one well again, after healing, is fun.

Then there's Sashara, my big butt'd bear (XD) who's gotten some recent upgrades to her tankiness. Specifically the Idol of Ursa from Heroic Under Bog. Celliana and I basically have a role reversal in there. I'm tanking, he's healing on his pally. It's funny and weird and... well silly all at the same time. Oh and last night I totally noobed it up. I'm wondering why the hell I'm getting hit so damn hard in this first pull... I got to pop my trinket... the penis looking one... shoot, lemme find a link... this one, anywho, I got to pop it... and realize it's not equipped.

Yea, I was in kitty gear.

D'oh.

(PS: You cannot tell me that this doesn't look like a phallic! Ok, maybe this looks more like one... a Cthulu one, but ZOMG it does! You have to be looking at the tiny icon in the game to get it maybe... the WoWhead pics are larger.

More thoughts on another PC...

Healing Curator: Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

See that? Its a good picture. It means your group has made the first hurdle into the raiding world. You've downed Curator. The Curator is the 3rd non-optional boss in Karazhan, he drops your first Tier 4 gear token (gloves) and his fight is an interesting one.

When AC hit him the first time, we were just doing our typical "Oooh lookie a new boss -ZOMG GACK" looksie. Which means we tried it once, tried it again semi seriously, and then ran out of raiding time. But the first serious time we went after him, it took a few tries to get the whole thing down right.

It's not really hard. Healing wise, we have one person on the tanks (we have both tanks on him, one tanking, the OT taking the Hateful Bolts) and the other healer spot healing the raid. What makes Curator so weird is the DPS isn't hitting him at first. Instead they're killing his little Arcane Flare adds. Each add costs 10% of Curator's total mana. WoWWiki has the Strat of nifty-ness, here's how it feels healing it.

The Strat:

Honestly, if you're healing the tanks, then your job is easy peasy. Your MT will need a Frisbee in the first minute or so, and your OT only really needs a Renew/GHeal after s/he gets nailed with that Hateful Bolt (it's an Arcane blast for about 5K Arcane Dmg, so that OT will be sporting some Arcane Resist gear to mitigate it), but after the first intial aggro gain, send your Frisbee to the DPS. They'll need it more than the tank. Your tank is going to need your GHeal/Renew lurvin's too, so don't forget that.

If you're assigned to heal the DPS, do as above with the Frisbee for the initial aggro gain boost, but after words, you'll be doing a lot of Renews (Renew... Renew!!!) DPS is going to be killing those Arcane Flares, and they do annoying little AoE arcane mini ... well, flares. They aggro randomly, which means you might get targeted. Power Word Shield helps cut the bite. You'll definitely have time to toss a GHeal on someone getting too much Flare love.

On the second to last Flare, we announce the next flare is X's, so make sure you keep an eye X DPS'r, since they'll be the only one hitting the Flare, and usually said Flare runs over to try and kill your Flare Killer.

Right.

While X DPS'r is doing that, everyone else LAYS IN to Curator. See, when Curator runs out of mana, he goes into an Evocation stage, where he stops attacking, turns big and blue, and takes 3x's as much damage. Yea, so this is why no one's on him during the Flares. If I'm on tank duty, I usually start wanding and cheer at my 700 wand dmg. If I'm on DPS, I'll make sure X is up while they cry that the damage meter is going to be stacked against them this fight.

Then Curator has full mana and it's lather rinse repeat until Curator reachs 15% health. Then he enrages, hits a little hard, still Hateful bolts, but no more Arcane Flares. A group just starting out will probably reach 3 to 4 Evocations on Curator. Then after you get a little more experience and gear, 2 Evo's is the usual thing to see.


THINGS TO NOTE:

This is a semi mana intensive fight, so make sure you have your pots. The tank healer may have some time to cuddle with the 5SR, but the DPS healer probably won't, especially if you have a lot of melee DPS in the group.

However, during an Evocation, your Shadow Fiend will sparkle. Use him as a little Priestly Innervate. Because remember, he's doing 3x's as much damage, and that means 3 times as much mana back. It's very win/win.

Otherwise, have fun with the fight! It'll be fun to watch all your melee running around, rogues trying to get behind something that doesn't have a face... OO

Oh and Loot to look forward too: The Tier 4 Gloves Handwraps of the Incarnate

Not a super huge upgrade over the ones from Attumen: Gloves of Saintly Blessings, but I mean, they are Tier 4... and they are really pretty (about the only thing I find pretty from Tier 4, other than the shoulders *gacks at the helm*)

PS:

Tier 6 looks EVIL! I <3 it. ^.^

Arg! /headdesk

So yea, I've fallen behind. Getting the brain pan in order to cooperate and write. Silly brain.

I've been trying to sit down to write the Opera overview, but it keeps giving me the finger (not in a good way).

So, that's put on hold for now. I'm going to be playing Rakzha for a bit tonight, just to get a feel for the 20s on a shadow priest ^.^ Should be exciting.

As for my irregularity in postage, maybe its my inner moron rebelling against a schedule. I don't seem to be making my Wednesday posts, so I'm going to change that to when ever my brain pan stops being retarded. Which is at least once a week. So expect at least a post a week, if not more. This way I don't disappoint myself (or anyone else) when I see Wednesday come and go with no post.

And as you've probably already guessed (since BRK, Doom, Tred, and Brig have squee'd about it) AC took out High King Maulgar on our first night. Which rocked this baby raider's socks off.

(Viddage - Younoob / Website DL)

As you can see from the vid.... it was chaotic, but we recovered pretty well from it.

I've never done a raid higher than a 10 man, so it was definitely a new, exciting experience. I was in charge of all our awesome healz that night (we had 3 pallies, 2 druids, 1 shammy and myself) so we totally had that covered. Hard core. It was excellent. And I was totally nervous the entire time... I've never organized that many people in a life or death situation like this before. Ok, it's not real life and death, but you have to make a snap decisions. Even when my LARP werewolf was Alpha, I still had the luxury of well thought out plans. So yea, big fucking rush. It was great XD More thoughts on that later...

There are plans to revisit HKM and his crew this Monday, with the goal of seriously trying to take out Gruul. Eeee! So yea.... here's hoping for more good raiding!

This House, Is Clear!

Last night, Aetherial Circle, my guild of awesome, cleared Karazhan. After 5 wipes, we took out Netherspite.

Wewt!

Viddage is here:

Younoob

AC Forums


In other news, Friday was our Raid Leader's night for loot.
Prince dropped his T4 helm, and Nightbane dropped his Shield of Impenetrable Darkness. Prince also dropped Light's Justice, which I blew all my points on. Now I need nothing more from Kara! Yay! But the last bit for our Raid Leader, after 20 some odd freakin Heroic Mechanars, The Sun Eater FINALLY dropped. /cheer

So yea, tonight, we plan on wiping in a spectacular fashion on High King Maulgar and crew. It will be my first 25 man ever.... I mena, like raid wise... it'll be my first big raid.

/squee!

Oh and PS: I have no idea if I'm going to be coming out with a How to Heal Netherspite... because even I'M not sure what the fuck I was doing that night....

ZOMG CRAZY! That's the fight. XD

Healing Prince: I'm Super! Thanks for Asking!

Good Morning folks and welcome to another installment of Healing Karazhan!

Today is time for the total whore, Prince Malchezaar! I'm really not going to bother with a strat to this guy... well, ok, I lie, but this fight has a huge, mega, retarded LUCK factor to it.

I don't care if you have the DPS of GOD, unless you're a GM who just /kill mobs, you're probably going to wipe your first time on this SoB.

I hate luck fights.

This is a one tank job. So if your OT is prot s/he may want to bring his DPS gear to help out. You don't want anyone taking aggro from the tank in this fight. This too will cause a wipe. This fight also is prejudice against melee DPS. Not sure why, I mean Prince must love to take it from behind (srsly, watch him patrol, he prances... it's funny XD)

Anyway! Ok, here's the skinny on his abilites:

Enfeeblement/Shadow Nova - This is something that's going to give you a panic attack the first few times it happens. This randomly hits 4 to 5 people in your raid (never your tank UNLESS someone grabs aggro, in which case, insta wipe) This reduces peoples Health to 1 HP. Healing has NO EFFECT on them. Really stinky. A few seconds after he enfeebles he casts a Shadow Nova ability, which if any melee were in the way, get nailed and die since they were at 1 HP. Also why if your tank get Enfeebled, once he grabs aggro back, you can't heal him, and he gets nailed since he only had 1 HP. The bonus to this is after the Shadow Nova
, anyone with the Enfeeblement is healed to full, regardless of what their HP was before hand. So that's a tiny, itsy bitsy bonus. Also, he only does Enfeeblement during phases 1 and 2.

Shadow Word Pain - It's dispel-able, and for the first two phases, he only casts it on the tank. In third phase, he'll start casting it randomly, which is a pain, but with a Prayer of Shadow Prot up, its tics on your raid aren't ZOMG life threatening.

Infernals - Here's the luck factor folks. Others would call it the "DPS Race" meter, but you could have 2 shitty infernal drops wipe the raid right off the bat. Basically, periodically (not sure the timing, but I know it's consistent because Fio's DeadlyBossMods broadcasts a timer) Prince calls down an Infernal to randomly drop anywhere on the map. It has no aggro table, so where it drops and lands, it will start an AoE Hellfire that tics for about 1.5K on my clothie butt. Many a times we've had an infernal land on top of the ranged DPS's head or on top of the tanks and wiped us in a reposition. If someone is in range of an infernal while they're Enfeebled, consider them done.


AC's had 4 successful Prince deaths - 1 Tank, 2 Healers, 7 DPS. This was our group make up. One of the DPS has always been at least 1 boomkin, probably 2. We could only get him to like 1% when we had 2 prot warriors (1 in DPS gear) in that make up, then we get killed by the crazy infernals dropping like rain. Give it time, and we'll probably get him dead with both tanks in there.

Anyway, that was the the annoying bits, here's what your holy keister shall be occupying your frontal lobes with.

The Strat:

OK, your job here really is to just keep the tank up. Both you and your other healer will be concentrating on your Meat Sheild with gusto. Prince hits for a decent amount in his 1st Phase, but honestly, Frisbee, Renew and the periodic Dispel of Shadow Word Pain, and nothing to panic about. When ever your melee DPS gets enfeebled, just toss a Renew on them AFTER the Nova. It'll take care of the 3Kish Shadow Nova. Also, that Shadow Nova has a 30yd range. Sound familiar? Yea. Your dispel only works within 30 yds. I usually stick to the maxium edge of my healing range on the tank, and then when the SWP gets tossed on him, schooch up, Dispel, schooch back. Otherwise you get hit for 3K in the Shadow Nova and get knocked back a fair amount. Not fun.
Position is key really for this fight to work. Our tank is always tanking Prince in the opposite corner from the door (as shown, sorta, in the picture). As such, he can only see Prince's lovely loin cloth and not much else on his screen. We have 1 person watching out and calling out Infernal drops, while all the ranged DPS/Healers cluster near the door. This gives us as much Leeway as plausible for Infernal drops and repositioning if we need to.

Now, at 66%, Prince ramps it up a notch and heads into Phase 2. During this phase, he summons two axes, still casts Enfeeble/Shadow Nova and SWP, but now, he's Sundering the Tank, and Cleaving any forward DPS. ZOMG HARD HITS! This is going to be a very intensive healing phase. Prince could well 3 shot your tank if you and your other healer isn't on the ball. Toss your Frisbee for that 1.5K oomph, but make sure you're casting your GHeals here. And not like it should be a huge issue, but watch your aggro. Mine's never really shot beyond the tank or anything here, but it will shoot up and gets kinda nervy (damn Omen and it's flashy red %'s XD)

This will probably be your most mana intensive phase since you will not get a chance to cuddle with 5SR. Its ok, you have a Fiend, and pot as soon as you can fit it in. Did I mention? He's still tossing Infernals, so hopefully you won't have one drop on you or the Tank during this phase. This is the biggest wipe risk factor here because you can't really afford to run around since your tank is going to need that 2.5 GHeal STAT and you need to be standing in one spot to do that. You get a bit of a reprive when he's casting that Shadow Nova, but it's not much. Def the suckiest part of the fight (other than the Infernals).

At 33% Prince stops hitting like a nuke and goes back to Phase 1 damage, but those axes of his have a life of their own and start hitting others in the party. Here's where the awesome that is being a priest REALLY shines. If someone's getting hit with the axes, make sure your tank is ok FIRST. The axes don't hit that hard (unless that craptastic Amplify Damage has been cast, then well, they might hit a little harder) so you can make sure your tank is not in PANIC NEED HEALZ and toss a renew on the axes target. If they're taking a bit more damage than that, toss your tank a heal, then toss them either a FHeal or a GHeal (use your judgment on how much time you can leave your tank a lone, and also say something to your other healer so they know you're focus is shifting to heal X party memeber). No matter what, you always want to have 1 healer on the tank at all times. Are there a few people down on health because the axes/SWP/whatever has decided to crap on them? If they're in your party /cheer Prayer of Healing! (Make sure before you start you're in a group with mostly Ranged, your melee DPS are too far away for your PoH, but if you're a Circle of Healing Priest, well, then they'll get a smidgen of AoE healin' lurv too I guess XD)

Also, during phase 3, Prince starts casting SWP on anyone who strikes his fancy. So that can get a little hectic. BTW! If the Axes start attacking you, Fade actually helps deter them for a moment or so (at least it has for me). But if they're getting really annoying, bubble to stop the casting interuption they're causing you. Trust me, they won't stay on you or a single target for too long. Its great when they aggro on something in ranged, then you Fade, and they decide the rogue waaaaaaaaaay back at Prince was much more tasty. (The rogue has Quick Recovery right? ;D, they'll be fine.)

By the way, those Infernals? Still dropping. In fact, in this phase, they're on double time, so you gotta be STUPID quick in killing him or else you're going to get a 1% surprise infernal on your head, and that Blue Diamond WitchWand, while pretty swank, does not kill 5K HPs (Prince at 1% T.T)

As long as you pot early and often in this battle, you should be good to go on mana.

Now that he's dead, /cheer and Celebrate your T4 Helm token (or don't in my case, since it has yet to drop /shacks fist.) Honestly, at this point, I'm waiting till all my tanks/druids have their head tokens before I nab mine. My Whitemend set is still doing me some good. What you should be pining for is Light's Justice. It's a very, very, very (did I mention Very!) nice healing mace. And I wants one. O.O My Gavel is great. But Light's Justice is a huge freakin' upgrade. Though I will say, if you've got the Nightstaff of the Everliving off Nightbane, I, personally, will let my pallys/shammy's get it first. We can equip staves without getting a gimp (Pally's can't equip staves, Shammy's don't get their swank shields XD.)


And that's it folks! Opera coming soon! ^.^

Update (and a Mini Rant)

Ok, so I've been a bad blogger. I've fallen down on my duties in bringing fun to read How Tos to the bored WoW masses.

I AM ASHAMED!

But, I hope to remedy this.

I still have (counts on fingers) 3 more How To Heal Karazhan's coming, with a fourth not ready to be made yet since AC has yet to go for Netherspite. Do you guys find them interesting? (Insecure about her writing? NEVA! -.-)

I also have updates that are forth coming about my baby priesty and how her leveling is going (btw, her current outfit... that's a toe... isn't it?!)

Among other things, I've guild stuff has been going loco. We're excited and thrilled that we've been able to field 2 groups. But one is far out pacing the other. And we're rethinking the way we do things. And I think morale is getting sunk. So, I have a question for all you guild people out there: Have you ever done something fun, silly, crazy, or just plain weird as a guild to get every one feeling good?

Some one mentioned to me once (Or I could have read this somewhere, it's very possible) that they were their guild's Morale
Officer. Very nifty. I think I'm kinda like that. But! What did you do to raise the morale! Send everyone a Mechanical Squirrel and demanded Nutz of Doom at Dawn?! Raiding Horde places doesn't sound as fun (or creative) as something bizzaro would. The 40 man gnome zurg on Hogger is old... bah. I'll think of something, but what have you done, or seen done, or heard done, for general mischief and mayhem?


Also, I must admit, I got sick, and tired, and just plain worn out with the priest forums on the O boards when I was perusing them for some +healing stat advice... WTH PEOPLE! ... Er, wait...

/soapbox

I am sick and tired of all the LOLERSkates who troll the Priest forums saying, "You guys suck for X, Y, Z and Theta reason, QQ and reroll Pally if you want to be a healer." Is it because the Pally boards are nothing but "Prot This" and "Ret That"? They couldn't bemoan something about healing on their forums so they decided to bring over their "We're the bestest healers in the game, you squishi noobs suck, blah blah blarg."

I don't normally let trolls get to me. But sometimes, its not the trolls. Reasonably intelligent people are even saying, "You want to be main healer? Reroll Pally."

You know what, I didn't roll a paladin. When I made a healer, I wanted to be as obvious as I possibly could. I rolled a priest. And guess what? I'm MAIN F-ING healing. I recognize that Paladins are superior single target healers. They have the talents, the gear and whatnot to get as much healing bang for their mana buck. Thats awesome. Druid Treehuggers have just as many nifty talents for their HoTs of Eluney Awesomeness. I think the only class that got a widdle bit of a healing shaft is Shamans (Practically no threat mitgation ftl - I know they have a totem, but still, not as cool as Fade), but they've got Chain Healing (which rocks my socks off cause it makes thunder noises /shiver). Each healing class has some uber strengths and weaknesses.
I do think priests, as you know, the OBVIOUS healing class, could use some better holy healing talents, but whatever. Improvise, Overcome, Adapt as my pappy always says.

And you know what, as cool as those other healing classes may be, I still love my priest. I made a squishy and she can patch you back together TOT sweet and be smart enough NOT to pull aggro doing it!

So, before I tell the entire paladin class to STFU and FoaD, I rolled one. I won't knock something until I try it, but be warned! I'm extremely prejudiced! /grumble

Oh, and the pally is a Hordie, so this ought to be interesting.

/end soapbox

So yea, that's what I've been up too. Its lots of things. Oh and for some random geekiness... I'm running a D&D session for the jr high kids at my place of work (library). /squee

Tune in later for How to Heal Karazhan: Opera - The Most Fun You'll Ever Have

I Live

And this was supposed to have more text to it, but my work PC ate it.

Neva fear! Moar Priestly things coming! I swearz!

Healing Night Bane: ZOMG Dragon!

Heyo! Welcome to another installment of Healing Kara! Yea, I know, I'm missing Prince, Opera, Curator, etc, BUT! Nightbane is a dragon. He's a f*cking dragon! I lurv dragons, every since I was | | big! In order to get to this boss, you need to finish this quest line, Medhiv's Journal. That quest requires things like killing the Shade of Aran, then doing Heroic Settheck (ANZU IS MINE!) and Heroic Shattered Halls ( /shiver).

Ok, enough with the foreplay (though, yet again, check out Wowwiki for a good over view of the strat ^.^).


The Strat:

Ok, he's a dragon. So Draenei and Dwarf priests have a leg up in that they can fear ward the tank. Other wise, your tank must do some creative stance dancing that is beyond this priest (care to elaborate Brig? XD) because he does fear. Our group make up for this fight has been 1 tank, 3 healers, 6 DPS (with at least one being a mage). Nightbane has two phases, on the ground and in the air. His air phases come at ever 1/4 of his health (so at 75%, 50% and 25%).

Trust me, you'll want the three healers for this fight. If you have two pallys with you, great, the tank will definately be topped off, but having you there is great for when Nightbane really wackes him. And he will. Nightbane hits HARD. Really gorram hard. Celli and I were goofing around right after I got the urn, and he and I summoned him (fully expecting to die) and ZOMG, he hits hard! Having the third healer for this group is a godsend, because you'll get more time with the 5SR (and everyone will love you for it, trust me).

Now, while on the ground, Nightbane should only be hitting the tank. Melee has instructions to slice and dice his armpits, while the ranged DPS and healers should be at their max distances on either side. This is to avoid cleaves (which will 1 shot you, clothie, it did to me -.-), tail swipes and breath weapon of doom. More than likely you're going to be out of range of some of your raiders, so in case they take any damage, it's ok, there's going to be a healer with them. You just concentrate on the tank while the dragons on the ground.

Prayer of Mending? Check. Renew? Double check. GHeals? Of course, but not necessary every second. Your Frisbee is taking care of bad hits by giving your tank some healing back, the renew is nice insurance when you or your other healers need to run out of a Charred Earth (nasty AoE on the ground that does damage to you, but you can just move sideways to get out of it). Those Fears are annoying, but they're on a long timer, so you'll have plenty of time to re-Ward your tank after a fear. You can even spare a few seconds to toss them a heal first, since they were going with no heals for all of 3 seconds, and then re-Ward.


Now, once Nightbane launches himself into the air at 75/50/25%, things get a little interesting. Firstly, Power Word Shield yourself. Trust me, you'll want this. Nightbane is going to target someone random and start a Rain of Bones. Its a bunch of skeletons that start attacking people, watch your mage and heal him/her, since they're going to be taking care of downing most of them ASAP. Nightbane is also going to target the healer with the highest healing aggro and start fireblasting them.

That's right, the highest healing aggro. I suggest that as soon as Rain of Bones starts, you Fade. If you have a holy pally in your group, they can start flash healing themself, and since the fireballs Nightbane tosses count as a physical attack, the Pally, with boatloads of armor, takes less damage, and takes the heat off your back. As a clothie, the bolts were hitting me for around 3K, every couple of seconds. It wasn't fun. The pally can handle it, and I imagine a shammy can too. But we've had a pally in our group for him, and it worked like a charm.

Also, make sure people are grouped up in the center of that platform. If anyone gets more than 40 yds away from Night bane, he gets cranky and starts hucking random fireballs all over the joint. To prevent this, everyone stay close and play nice with the big angry skeletal dragon.

Nightbane only stays in the air for about 45 seconds, then he'll land, whether you've finished off the skeletons or not. If you have a hunter in your group, make sure he has a Misdirection up to bring aggro back to the tank. Nightbane's landing is an aggro wipe, and usually our poor mage has bit it since he just annihilated the skeletons. Luckily, we have many druids with us, so a battle rez is readily available. AC is like the druid mecca, it's funny.

Anywho! After Nightbane lands, it's lather, rinse, repeat. Just toss your Frisbee to the tank, slap a renew on and wait until the next air phaze. Its the transition from Air to land phaze that's the toughest, but once you get that down, you're on your way to Nightbane pwnage.
Also, a note on Mana. You will go through tons. This fight is long, so if you have Mp5 gear, abuse it. I'm lucky in that I have a pocket Boomkin who loves to innervate me if we think I need it. For Nightbane, I do, but only about 4 to 5 mins into the fight. If you use your Fiend early, I guarantee, your first few wackes at Nightbane, you'll get to summon your fiend twice for the fight (both times I've fought and won against him, the fight took about 11 mins). I go through about 4 pots in this fight too. So bring many, especially if it's your first try. You will use them.

What does the priesty have to look forward to after this fight? Well, if you're one for staves, and Prince hasn't coughed up Light's Justice yet, than the Nightstaff of the Everliving is a pretty swank healer staff. Nightbane also drops the Emberspur Talisman, an Ok healing necklace. (Personally, I think the Necklace of Eternal Hope is better. It has some needed stats and it only costs 25 heroic badges.)


Well, that's about it folks, tune in later for Prince Malkazaar: I'm Super! Thanks for Asking!