1. You read the forums and WoW blogs during your 10 minute breaks.
2. You see every exclamation point as an opportunity to do a quest. (This could drive you slightly insane if you make a living copywriting. Or you’re a college student with lots of essays.)
3. You see every question mark as an opportunity to gain experience.
4. The first thing you do when you play Guild Wars is roll a smiting monk and scream, “Why Blizzard, why are they more efficient in this game!?”
5. Your only active MSN conversation is a heated argument about how male Dranei cannot possibly look intimidating because they look more like a bunch of ridiculous Hulk cartoons.
6. You choose a dinner option that takes 10 minutes less to prepare and eat because that’s 10 minutes more of WoW time.
7. You wonder if you can hook your DDR pad up to your gaming pad so you can exercise and kill Horde/Alliance at the same time. (Which would be revolutionary. Obviously.)
8. You search in a frantic for your BlizzCon t-shirt to wear after you sweated the crap out of your Yoshi shirt while playing on that DDR pad earlier. Unfortunately, you still haven’t figured out how to hook it up to your gaming pad.
9. You look at your pet frogs and think about pads and think about gaming and think about WoW. Holy crap.
10. When your Dungeons and Dragons group suggests moving your session to a day where all the players can make it–with one less hour of playing time–you adamantly fight for this option so you can get one more hour of WoW.
11. You think it’s amusing that Guild Wars asks you to take a break after 2 hours of playing instead of potentially healthy.
12. You pull out the WoW fishing pole while you’re sorting through your Magic: the Gathering cards.
13. You have the Burning Crusade opening theme on your iPod.
14. You have the Burning Crusade opening theme on a playlist called “Shower Time.”
15. You set up your G-chat or Facebook status to a quote from the forums.
16. Your email signature includes a banner of your character or a forum quote.
17. You want to know why you’re limited to six-month payment plans. Two years for $10/month sounds awesome, right?
18. You’re pissed they put the World of Warcraft discussions on the smaller stage at BlizzCon. You also want to know WTF they were thinking when 80% of BlizzCon crowds around that smaller stage.
19. You have a name reserved for a Worgen or Goblin.
20. You eat pizza while playing World of Warcraft at least once a week. You might even complain about how /pizza isn’t an option.
21. You love the achievement system.
22. You have World of Warcraft installed on the laptop you brought with you to Hawaii. You even put your Wrath of the Lich King discs in your suitcase in case you forgot to upgrade it since your last vacation.
23. You wait in slightly painful anticipation for your opportunity to jump into the Cataclysm beta.
24. You wait in even more painful anticipation for presales of the collector’s edition to Cataclysm because you’ll be damned if you don’t get the noncombat pet.
25. You drank one of those disgusting mana potions they were selling at Fry’s. Then you bought another one and dared someone else to drink it.
26. You have a World of Warcraft trading card game collection.
27. You bought a loot card on eBay.
28. You have a blog dedicated to World of Warcraft.
29. You’re reading this post.
30. You’ve bookmarked this blog. You sly devil, you.

Tiny Update: Johanah is still on Cenarius (with that slightly different spelling even) and I’ve switched primarily to Holy PvP, which I still need to write more about. In the interim, I am playing my resto druid and leveling holy paladin on Sen’jin. I apologize for the lack of updates! (I also partially blame DDR.)

I thought it was due time to add something to the smite priest community and given that our spec is mostly for the rofls, another humorous post seemed fitting. If you have more to add to this post, feel free to comment!

I’ve switched from the role of a Holy priest in ICC-10 to Discipline priest in ICC-25. I’ve also finally had the pleasure, in a rather short span, of seeing all the ICC bosses – heroic Putricide included. Crazy! I intend to continue looking into Holy and Smite specs, but my recent shift in guilds may put those on the wayside until the release of Cataclysm. Or, at the very least, it will put my practice of them on the wayside.

For all you Holy and PvP lovers though, I am keeping my alternate spec Holy PvP, and expect some Holy PvP videos from me in the near future. I’m just dealing with some touch-ups to my PvP gear. I tried Smite spec in PvP the other night, but my druid boyfriend quickly lamented about the lack of healers and I switched back to classic (and yet still not oft used) Holy PvP.

Do not expect Discipline PvP articles on this blog because, quite frankly, it’s not my playstyle – although feel free to discuss it as much as you’d like!

I’m looking forward to the potentiality of Serendipity-like benefits to Smite in Cataclysm and hope this drives my non-raid-healing spec into a Smite direction. I’ll be leveling a Worgen rogue with my boyfriend and his buddy in Cataclysm, and if I understand rogue PvP fun factor right, that will make me abandon priest PvP pretty much altogether. Anyone out there crazy enough to level priest twice just to have a priest Worgen (before race changes include Worgen, of course)?

Update: For kind readers and Kalecgos stalkers, we are currently guildless due to things not working out on a social level in Pirate. (I thought they talked way too little and were way too serious, then they picked a fight with one of the people that joined with me. I didn’t wait for strike three.)

I’m sure they’re a great guild and it just didn’t work out for us. We’re just too far into WotLK, which I’m not a huge fan of, and too close for Cataclysm, for me to waste any mental energy in it.

I’m in Vegas at the moment, but I’ll be doing an update soon on some of the predicted changes on see for Smite in Cataclysm due to its current alpha! (I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting into the beta and then this blog will primarily change to that focus versus WotLK, as an FYI.)

So, the story. The first thing I did, of course, was comb around for smite benefits. A sad face struck me when I saw how they would be balancing the mastery system (it’s all healing fun for the Discipline and Holy trees), but then my shadow priest friend pointed out later the possibility of Smite being thrown into Chakra, the Serendipity-Replacement-on-Steroids.

Here’s Ghostcrawler’s quote:

The idea behind the Holy “cast three in a row” talent (it’s called “Chakra”) is that we’ve always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We’re going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that “I’m almost in the zone” feel. We’ll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody’s taking damage.

The way Chakra was described earlier in the post is an “improved healing state” that Holy priests will have access to. I imagine it’ll be deep into the tree to avoid Discipline priests getting access to it in addition to their already stellar bubbles. (Did I mention they’re finally doing the group bubble and — wait for it — LIFE GRIP!?)

The other thing I really liked about the changes – beyond the fact Smite has a chance, however small, of being as neat as it was in Burning Crusade once Cataclysm hits – is that they’re addressing Holy in PvP. Now, I already PvP Holy, so whatever they do will be a bolster in my stubborn land. Hurray for Discipline not being the only way to go!

To read more, check out the priest preview on the forums.

Here are the changes we’re looking at:

• Druids will be able to dispel defensive magic, curses, and poison.
• Paladins will be able to dispel defensive magic, diseases, and poison.
• Priests will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and disease.
• Shaman will be able to dispel defensive magic, offensive magic, and curses.

What’s this mean for priests? Not a lot, really.

Druids got magic, great. I don’t play paladins, so I’m not sure what occurred there. Shamans got a boost to Purge, woot. Shamans also lost poisons and diseases… that’s a sad panda.

You could say, “But wait!–Holy priests lost the ability to remove poisons on themselves!” but they’ve already reassured that Body and Soul will remain the same. Score. Dispels also cannot be mashed anymore (they’ll go off whether there’s something to dispel or not), and this makes me excited concerning mashing is just a bad mechanic in general. I like smart dispeling.

Shadow priests lost the ability to remove diseases, and while I could complain about that, I interpreted that more as, “So now you have to have a healing paladin or priest on a boss fight with disease.” And that, to me, is just jiffy.

Except wait!

That means we’ll be interchangeable with paladins! Nooooo, don’t make me Discipline!

If your guild is collapsing, try:

1. Recruiting new members. Go to your server’s forum and post that you’re recruiting. Spread the news through the proper channels. For the love of all that’s Holy Nova (haha, I made a holy priest joke), don’t spam the trade channels.
2. Setting up a meeting to pick new raid times. Lots of people leave because they can’t make raid times, or because they’re more interested in 25-mans than 10-mans. (Speaking from a casual endgame guild perspective.)
3. Setting up a meeting to discuss other problems. Is there guild drama going on that’s causing the ship to sink? Address the problems and see if you can make mends.
4. Raiding with other guilds. Find another small guild and do joint raids with them! It works like a charm (for awhile.)
5. Merging with other guilds. You can have one guild swallow your guild, or the other way around.
6. Asking friends. If you can’t recruit, get a guild to raid with you, or get a guild to merge with you, ask your friends in the bigger guilds if they’d be willing to join your 10-mans. Many of them aren’t saved to 10-man dungeons and will gladly help out.
7. Shopping elsewhere. When saving the guild fails, just shop for other guilds looking for your role.
8. Transferring elsewhere. If your guild sucks and your server sucks, pack your bags and go on a journey. Hell, throw the $50 and try a different faction along with your server change.
9. Leveling a new character. If you don’t want to pay the money to transfer somewhere else, pick another server and start leveling. You’d be amazed how fun low levels can be when you’ve been away for awhile.
10. Playing a different game. I personally can’t wait to level something in the new, shattered world in Cataclysm. If waiting for Cataclysm sounds like the best move, I recommend sitting on your hands and trying out Etrian Odyssey 2. It pairs well with WoW addicts.

Just like a challenging raid boss, there’s always multiple strategies. Sometimes changing it up is the best way to get it down. As someone that has personally tried these options, I recommend them all as a band aid to fix your guild woes – in the order of desperation, even.

Priest Winnar

Ghostcrawler is the Blizzard face behind whether they buff you or nerf you; and Ghostcrawler plays a Holy / Discipline priest.

Alright, now that we’re up to speed… here’s something you might not have read before! Ghostcrawler recently replied to a priest thread on the forums about his playstyle when he’s Discing and Holy’ing. It’s a quick and helpful read that healing priests across the Interwebs can benefit from.

Disc: PoM on cooldown. PW:S as much as you can (esp. on the Arcane mage until 3.3.3). Use Penance often when you need burst. Resort to PoH if a lot of people need healing at once, especially in 10-player raids where you don’t have a lot of other healers to pick up the slack. Keep Pain Suppression and Divine Hymn for emergencies. Use Power Infusion on a mage or lock if you don’t need it.

Holy: PoM on cooldown. CoH on cooldown if there is any raid damage. Renew to handle the rest of the raid damage. Flash Heal if someone is still low after all of that. Save GS and Divine Hymn for emergencies or timed boss cooldowns. I tend to use Binding Heal a lot more than most priests because it makes me feel smart, especially when globals are in question.

What I like: Feeling smart when I mix the right tool with the right problem. Saving lives when someone thought they were dead. Sitting there at full mana halfway through a fight because I didn’t heal when I didn’t need to. Penance in general. Body and Soul. Borrowed Time. Serendipity.

What I don’t like: Using CoH so much. Dealing with Weakened Soul (esp. as Holy). Lightwell. Seeing priests die. (In all honesty I don’t die a lot, but I see Spirits of Redemption constantly. I guess as a sweeping generalization, priests have the stare-at-Grid syndrome worse than other healers.) Blowing 3 candles every wipe. Looking like a mage if I pick the wrong gear.

This is obviously meant for PvE; not PvP.

My Discipline playstyle mirrors what Ghostcrawler mentions here rather fluidly; nice parallel there. As far as Holy though, I tend to use Flash Heal over Renew for patching up a raid, just on the grounds that it gets me closer to my precious Serendipity. Renew is something I reserve for tanks. I’m not sure if that’s an inferior decision or a decision based on taste, but it’s fun nonetheless to make the comparison.

Also, he’s darn right about Binding Heal. Most priests forget they even have it, and it really makes me feel smart whenever I hit my 7 key.

Short answer: Do both.

Got duel spec? Okay, good. Now make one spec Holy and the other Discipline. You can get your 50g back doing your random daily later. (Need to have a DPS spec for switching roles because you have too many healers? I’d suggest switching roles per raid instead of per fight; it’ll simplify the dilemma.) Now I’ll go over the details why.

There are several bosses where you can play whatever floats your boat. Some say it’s great to have the damage reduction and bubbles in a raid for all fights, others say the impact Holy priests make on the charts is astronomical. If you want to be a winnar though, you’ll need Discipline for Saurfang and Holy for Festergut (some call him Sporeface.)

For Saurfang: Your bubbles are going to slow down how fast he gets runic power, and therefore how quickly he starts to mark people into a pit of utter doom. You’ll be amazed at the difference you make in this fight when you’re Discipline; no other healer comes close. (They might think they do if they’re chart whores though. )

For Festergut: Raid damage EVERYWHAR. Holy has an advantage here, letting you run around and CoH, not to mention the Serendipity build-up for your huge PoH spells. Plus, I’m a Holy fan, so… of course I’m going to recommend it for something. :p

Of course, if you don’t have dual spec–or you’re just unwilling to spec Holy and Discipline because the concept seems asinine (it used to seem stupid to me, too)–then you can play whatever fits comfortably with your playstyle. I personally stand by my theory that Discipline is more useful and Holy is more fun, but this is an opinion that can be supported or diverted with endless amounts of subjective numbers and theorycraft. In the end, you should do what’s right for you, and what’s right for your raid based on the other healer you’re paired with.

I'm out of a job, but I gots this barrel!

Today is rant day! I’m curious what the perspective of fellow healing priests (and other healers) are on this touchy question:

“Who gets to heal?”

Johannah’s guild, Momentum, is over-flowing with healers. As the only healer that has healed and remained healing for the guild since it’s formation back in the Karahzan days of Burning Crusade, I can safely say that I have seen more drama over who gets to heal than any other kind of drama you can dig up for an inspiring update to Officer Chat.

And how we determine who gets to heal on which day has a stringent set of rules that are adhered to about as often as visitors adhere to the “don’t feed the animals!” signs at zoos.

One of the things that I find causes the most problems is healing yourself out of a job. What I mean by that is, right now, many guilds are using three healers for ICC-10; once ICC-10 has fully released and everyone has geared themselves to the brim, it will likely reduce to two healers. There are fights right now where we are already dwindling to two healers. Healers get better at the fights, get the gear they need, and heal themselves right into an alternate position.

The three healers then enter a knife fight in which the most passive aggressive person is at the top and the most non-confrontational person is at the bottom, with the person in the middle trembling in verbal fear. Never mind when, like this last Friday, four out of the ten people that can go all play a main spec healing role.

How does one expertly handle healing yourself out of job, or having too many healers available?

Through competition?

WoW.com asked the question once, “Is healing competitive?” You better believe it. One of the biggest reasons I heal Holy spec despite my revelation on the benefits of Discipline in 3.3–beyond the fact I think Holy is a more enjoyable experience–is that Holy simply pulls more on the charts. Immature players like to measure themselves through the numbers provided on these charts with no adherence to the Discipline absorption rule, and I got sick of the underhanded opinions derived from this method of thinking. (For the unfamiliar, this rule is that the Discipline priest is generally going to be 10% under the other healers due to bubble love.)

I have also noticed an amazing phenomena about two like-classes healing together. A Restoration druid by itself does not perform nearly as well as, say, two Restoration druid head-to-head for the trophy I-Am-Mother-Earth-Hear-Me-Rawr. A Holy priest in a VoA-25 did me the courtesy of molesting my Discipline heals, as I divulged in my last post, “Playing nice with other priests.” Strutting your muscles next to fellow kin is a popular practice for many players.

The biggest problem with gauging a healer’s effectiveness through competition is that it is not always an accurate ruler for skill. For instance, if you have one healer that does 4k HPS and stands in fire, and another healer that does 3.5k HPS and moves when they are in scary stuff, who do you think is the better player?

Through power?

In Raid Rx, writer Marcie Knox quotes, “This is where I control your raiding life. Those cookies better be in the mail!” Should officers get dibs on healing over the players beneath them? We all want to say “no” because of the conscientious angel inside our minds, but you know the power trip happens. You know people exercise their rank in their favor. My fear of this is so grand that I find myself DPSing more than any other healer (except maybe our recent Restoration shaman) in our guild. I just don’t like the idea of “guild-master’s-girlfriend-always-gets-to-heal” drama.

Sometimes that power needs to be exercised though. There is no justification for not making it through a progression raid simply because healer XYZ refuses to learn how to DPS and thus thinks it is okay to occupy the healing spot when they are breaking a fundamental rule, such as: not healing as much as healer ABC; or playing a class that fills the other healing role and negating the benefits of multiple healing classes/specs working together. Stubborn people weigh everyone down and “you’re exercising your power over me!” is a lame cop out.

Through taking turns?

This method, I thought, sounded the most amicable. If healer XYZ heals one week while healer ABC DPS’s, then the following week, healer XYZ should DPS and ABC should heal. An elitist guild would say “whichever healer is the most effective should heal all the time,” but that might really piss XYZ off and casual guilds aren’t about making members mad. Taking turns is the communal, non-conflict way of handling it.

Provided, of course, both XYZ and ABC can heal through the bosses without getting the raid spanked.

Be kind to your fellow healers and respect some of the critical rules of raiding.

In short, follow some rules of kindness with your healers and the raid:

• Don’t double class. If you are a priest, and there is another priest already healing (especially if that priest is your spec!), maybe you should let the other class heal. Variety is the spice of life. The same applies to two druid combos, two paladin combos, and two shaman combos.
• If you know one of the healers you’re fighting for a healing spot with DPS’s all the time, let them heal. It’s ridiculous to think you’re entitled to making their life hell.
• Get some DPS gear. There really is no excuse with the availability of tier 9 via running random heroics.
• Treat others the way you’d like them to treat you. If you expect your fellow healers to be semi-decent at DPSing, you should also be semi-decent at it. If you expect healers to share the healing role with you, you should share it with them.

Good luck playing your main spec role!

I switched to Discipline almost right away because one of the Holy priests just didn’t play nice.

Then it occurred to me, in my brief belief in the better side of humanity, that the Holy priest might not have known what “playing nice” with his fellow Holymates meant. I continued along my Discipline way, thinking it a mere misunderstand.

And found a bubble on the tank that’d never received a bubble before.

That cinched the deal that he had a vendetta to rub people the wrong way and saw my Penance as an obvious sign of weakness. If this is you, this post isn’t talking to you; you clearly have no intention to play well with others. But let’s assume you’re not this individual for a moment and you’d like to make friends with the other priests in your raid. What are some helpful pointers to make sure you’re not stepping on each others toes?

When there are two Holy priests in a raid, PoM sharing is caring

Remember that your Prayer of Mending can override the Prayer of Mending of other priests. As Holy priests, we get our PoM at lightning Divine Providence speed, so it’s easy to accidentally override a PoM out of knee-jerk reflex. To steer clear of this overlap (which is obviously wasting the mana of one of the priests present), take a backseat and watch what target your priest friend is PoMing. More than likely, it’s the main tank. Now find another target–off tank, I’m guessing–and start PoMing him/her.

When there are two Discipline priests in a raid, Power Word: Shield sharing is caring

Same principle as Holy priests, but watch your Power Word: Shield. Remember that PW:S is going to give Borrowed Time, so while you may want to argue that any bubble is a good bubble (it’s not like someone’s wasting mana when the target cannot be bubbled again), you’re jipping your other priest’s haste by not giving them the opportunity to bubble effectively. The answer? Just let the other Discipline priest do the MT bubbles, or ask him which targets you should each focus on. You can always PW:S a reckless DPS to get your haste if necessary.

When there is a Holy priest and a Discipline priest in a raid, stop ruining each other’s trademarks

Discipline priest, want to PoM? Do it on the OT or the suicidal DPS. Holy priest, don’t bubble. It wastes mana.

Have fun priesting together in harmony!

Yesterday, I talked about how Serendipity brought the fun to Holy heals. The game’s fun isn’t just derived from strategic healing though; it’s also taken from pegging your role. And your role as a Holy priest is to raid heal, backed by your good ol’ pals Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing.

“But wait! Holy priests tank heal just fine,” you say. If this is you, I recommend checking out iPud: Discipline versus Holy in 3.3. Discipline priests fit the tank heal mold and are arguably stronger in 3.3, so there’s no need to stress yourself with Holy tank heals.

Back to raid healing… Serendipity gives you a 36% hasted Prayer of Healing to save a group in a pinch, but Circle of Healing is your smart heal. What makes it worthy of your 41-point talent?

1. It gives healing to the people that need it, rather than being group dependent like Prayer of Healing; think Chain Heal, but free of the range issue
2. It’s an insta-cast every six seconds (and you really shouldn’t need it more than six seconds; more on this later)
3. It usually procs Surge of Light for a quick Flash Heal for Serendipity, thereby fueling its Prayer of Healing cousin
4. It glyphs up nicely

Despite these merits, most non-priest players have never heard of CoH. Shadow and Discipline priests even give it a head cock now and again. Let’s get a quick history lesson on this spell so we’re all on the same page, then look at when to cast Circle of Healing and when to cast its Prayer of Healing friend.

The history behind Circle of Healing

Back in the cobwebs of 2008, patch 3.0.8, Circle of Healing got the nerf bat. Prior to that, Holy priests were treated like mana pits that spammed the insta-cast CoH relentlessly and received every Innervate known to man (remember Zul’aman days?). Holy priests were so enraged by the supposed nerf of CoH that the Discipline priest population skyrocketed; I played my Restoration shaman in those days and literally couldn’t find a Holy priest in all of Kalecgos.

Eventually the QQs died down though and priests accepted the 6-second cooldown on CoH as a way of life. Strategy and intelligence set in where the 1-button spam once sat. And the glyphed, 6-target smart heal that occupied Holy priest’s 41-point talent slot integrated itself cleanly into the strategy of Holy priest raid heals serverwide.

When to cast Circle of Healing

First and foremost, I use CoH as my stepping stone to Serendipity 3. I can rely on the fact that CoH will proc Surge of Light (and if it doesn’t, I writhe about like I have ants in my pants), which means I get an insta-cast, mana-free Flash Heal right after it goes off.

That doesn’t mean to cast Circle of Healing just to get SoL, though! Splash/raid damage in most of these Icecrown raid fights is inevitable. (And other WotLK raids, for that matter.) Use Circle of Healing the moment 3-6 people are hurt and the smart heal will find them over however many XYZ groups your raid has and allot the healing accordingly. It will then give you that quick FH that you can use for whatever leftover damage there is, even if that’s just a tank.

What if your raid is taking damage constantly?–should you use CoH every time it’s off cooldown? The short answer is yes, but the strategic answer is “consider if Prayer of Healing is better.”

Let’s look at when to use Prayer of Healing and hold your breath on that next CoH.

When to cast Prayer of Healing

While the knee-jerk response to when to cast PoH is, “Whenever Circle of Healing is on cooldown,” that isn’t the mentality I always follow. PoH has a bigger oomph to it than CoH, so a raid that has sustained considerable damage should receive the PoH if you have a lingering Serendipity 3 (regardless of if the six second cooldown’s over). Also, if CoH is on cooldown and the raid hasn’t taken enough damage to warrant the PoH, consider dropping some Renews or the FH needed to get to Serendipity 3 instead. You can even use Binding Heal to get yourself and another target and gain a Serendipity boost.

If the raid damage is slow and steady and you have Serendipity 3, it’s a good idea to hold out until PoH won’t overheal [considerably]. That way, you can immediately follow with CoH to get another SoL/Serendipity 1 and save some mana with the free Flash Heal.

When to NOT cast Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing

A Discipline priest said once, “I can’t raid heal.” I made the mistake of saying, “You have Prayer of Healing, don’t you?”

Suddenly this priest did raid heal; unfortunately, she also clocked 75% of the raid’s overheals and had over 60% of her heals dedicated exclusively to PoH.

Trigger-happy healing priests are easy to identify. Your CoH or PoH is taking the overheal charts by storm, and you show a 40%+ use of just one spell on the healing meters. Now, I’m not saying to turn into a meter whore; I’m suggesting that everyone download a meter to watch the percentages of spells they use, and to make sure that Circle of Healing and/or Prayer of Healing is not vastly different from Flash Heal and Renew.

If any spell is doing more than 30% of your heals as a Holy priest, you’re doing it wrong. The purpose behind priests, especially Holy, is versatility. Circle of Healing is amazing, but it should not be used on every cooldown without hesitation; and Prayer of Healing rocks, but if there are only two (or even three, depending on the speed of the damage in the fight) people injured, a Renew or FH would’ve sufficed. Healing Prayers won’t save you either, only slow down the PoH mana-piss problem by 20%.

Heal as little as you need to, as full as the bar can go. This is the best way to enjoy your awe-inspiring, Chain-Heal-crushing Circle of Healing spell.