Pain In the Neck.

The last two days I have been playing on a 42" monitor, using the pc I had 2 laptops ago.   Yesterday I was able to play WoW on it, thanks to my husband's brilliant thought of maintaining an updated copy of it on a portable drive. I cranked the resolution as high as it would go, scaled my ui down, and played without add ons (oh!), lagging through Dalaran, but only encountering minor lag in other zones.

 

I feel crippled without some addons. I absolutely need my Onebag, Onebank, MrPlow, Smart Debuff,  and Gbot. I can live with the standard ui., so long as I have Smart Debuff to bind my heals and debuffers with. I can live without a damage meter, and a threat meter.  I can even live without Mik's Scrolling Battle Text.  Without my bag addons I lose things, end up with full bags a lot faster from not cleaning them out as well without Gbot.  So, when I get home tonight to my computer that has absolutely nothing wrong with it (thanks Best Buy), I'm doing some add on folder cleaning.  Rowena needs an updated auction posting add on and Postal in addition to the add-ons I already listed.  That should make for a nice clean, easy to use installation.

 

As I did the dailies I could do last night, I grew to really appreciate the new Blizzard quest interface.  The number on the map is so much easier than an arrow on my screen for me, as I can see hills and other things that I need to avoid as I make my way to the quest area. I logged in standing in the middle of a pack of Ravasaurs in Un'Goro crater.  I pulled out my baby and did his daily, then killed a tonne of slimes before hearthing to Dalaran.  From there I grabbed the cooking and fishing dailies and set out. The fishing daily was difficult, with a bunch of Alliance hanging around killing everyone that landed at River's Heart.  I took advantage of my undead extended breath and resurrected underwater, then swam to the opposite shore and got my item and left.  From there I went to the Oracles and did their quests, and then I did all my Kalu'ak quests.  Then I turned in my dailies in Dalaran, getting the poison vial from the fishing daily and an extra badge from the cooking daily.  From there I took a portal to Shattrath, where I got the fishing daily, Crocolisks in the City.  I portaled to Orgrimmar to finish it up, and went out to Best Buy to pick up my laptop, which had nothing at all wrong with it.

 

Before I left for Best Buy, somewhere in the middle of leaving Shattrath to go see Old Man Barlo, the tech that worked on my computer called to let me know it was ready.  He berated me for not having virus software (I have Windows Essentials, so I do), and tried to explain to me that my browser was crashing because of virus attacks.  I didn't take it in for browser crashes, and I was a bit annoyed with him, and I think he could tell.  When I went in to pick it up, I was miffed for being treated like a girl who knew nothing about computers.  The tech that helped me when I was picking it up was very on the ball, and though we could find no problem, he advised me to go to the Asus website and see if there were any reported issues, and maybe call them.  So, as I was registering for their site and tipping my laptop upside down to read the serial number, the plug to my extra monitor dropped off.  Before that, I was randomly disconnecting from WoW, Ventrilo, and having problems loading pages.  After that, don't you know the damned thing didn't drop once?  I have no idea what connection my extra screen had with my wifi connection, but I guess I will have to buy a new screen next tax season.  I'll miss the extra screen space (no more blogging while fighting), but I'll get by, and I won't be raging at the computer ready to heave it discus style at the door.

 

So, while they were hooking my laptop up, I finished my Shattrath fishing daily, and turned it in to get Toothy's Bucket!  That is one of the four I was wanting.  Tick one item off the list.  I flew to Skettis and knocked off the daily escort and bombing, then farmed up enough pages to summon the last two bosses I needed before killing Terrok.  I tried to kill him, and would have had him if I had been a little more conscious of my health bar.  Tonight, hubby said he would help (after finding out about the trinket Terrok drops).  I am halfway through honored with the Skyguard.

 

Because of the challenges of playing on my television monitor and switching to my laptop midstream, I forgot to do the Argent Tournament.  I will do them today. If time, I may also put some time into trying for that last gold coin Delgada needs, as well.

 

Progress made?  One pet, one more day until done with Kalu'ak, another day closer to being done with the Oracles, and a lot more reputation under my belt for Skyguard.  I got 3 badges for the cooking quest, getting me that much closer to a hat.  Oh, and having heard that Zul'Gurub will be gone come Cataclysm, Hubby and I plan to be hitting that one on reset, every reset, trying for the mounts and raising reputation, as well as the planned fishing for Gazrahnka.  Maybe we will have time tonight?

 

 

Hormones and Healing Naxx

I got a phone call from our illustrious guild master last night. Seems they were going to try Ulduar and needed me and my hubby, and the raid leader had lost my number. This was right about dinner time, and I had already proclaimed it free for all night, so I logged in and was promptly invited. I then logged into Ventrilo, slipped on my happy new headphones (thanks hubby for my early birthday present, they're awesome!), and started getting together the flasks and money I needed to raid. I don't raid often, so I don't usually have everything together. Sometimes I have the flasks, sometimes I have the food, sometimes my bags are full of rotting animal parts and discarded low quality weapons. Provisioned, I fly to Storm Peaks and manage to locate the stairway to Ulduar and enter the instance. Figuring I am the first one there, I afk to grab a snack, completely forgetting that, on my husbands urging, I had installed a new raid unit frames mod and I hadn't set it up yet. I get back to my desk, and hubby is in the instance with me, and everyone is saying we're missing. What? I told them I was waiting in Ulduar, and they said they decided we weren't geared enough, so we were doing Naxxramas. Snarf Snarf Snarf, I hike up Delgada's robes and run her out of the instance portal, only to get beaten into the ground by some Alliance that were waiting for someone easy and squishy to kill. My Spirit of Redemption pops up, and I growl, try to right click it away, and growl more as it doesn't work. The buff runs out, and I make the corpse run, growling, and click accept as I run past my body, back into Ulduar, where I accept a summon to Naxxramas.

Now, notice my mood has quickly soured. I forgot to mention that it started dipping below excited once I saw three priests and, when I asked who was healing, they said me. I have dual specializations, shadow as my main and holy as an off specialty. Specialty is really not the right word for it. I can keep people up, sometimes. I overheal, a lot. My gear is ok, not spectacular, just good enough for the odd heroic that I want to run where I have to heal, and in 5 man instances, I don't mind, because it usually is pretty easy, but in raids, I'd rather dps. I'm a fairly good shadow priestess. I am a teh suck holy priestess. Yeah, my guild tells me I am fine, but really, if you don't like it, you won't do your best at it.

Back to the raid. We entered, buffed, and started on the Construct quarter. We flew through the trash on the way to Patchwerk, and Patchwerk died shortly after I managed to kill off both the tanks. Yeah, I killed them. If any of the rest of the guild tell you differently, they are wrong. I was cranky already, and I killed them. Just leave it. It gets better. Frogger boss, failed. I was directly between the slimes. I always am. But for some reason I always die. Whatever. I am resurrected, and we head over to the trash before Grobbulous. Trash is cleared quickly, fight is explained, and we get started. It was a messy fight, farts dropped in bad places, but most everyone lived through it, and loot is distributed and we head for Gluth. The first attempt is bad, and the people in charge of kiting the chow let a lot through, Gluth heals to full, and I manage to be one of the last 3 standing after he enraged. I also manage to be the last into the instance, due to not being able to click off my debuff. Frogger boss, I wipe out on the first row, get resurrected, and wipe out on the last row. My resurrection timer is now at 45 seconds, so I go to the bedroom to change for my date with the hubby that is closing in fast. I get back to Gluth, we try again, and though there is better control on the chow, we lose our chow herders and then I lose it and kill the tank, again. Another wipe, and I fly back up to the instance, run into a couple more slimes on Frogger, and go to my room to finish changing.

As I return, I see a friend log in, a holy priest. YES! This is my chance to replace my cranky, useless self and get out of the raid. I whisper him my plight, he asks how long, I say now, and I tell the raid leader to invite him, as I am hormonal and apologize as I log out. Hubby followed shortly after, and we finished getting ready and left the children in the care of the oldest so we could go eat a late dinner.

Sizzler was delicious. Sorry I was so horrible. Please don't invite me to another raid as holy for the next 4 days. You won't live, and you'll have to listen to my growling in ventrilo. Now, pass teh Crunch n Munch and a can of Mountain Dew. I'm going to level Lulubelle some more.

Shadow Priest Kindergarten - Stats

Alright, class, our subject for today will be stats. What are they? What do they do? Which stats should we, as shadow priests, look for first?

Here we have our baby priest. She can't be shadow yet, because all she has are holy spells. That's ok, it still gives is some insight into what stats to start for from day one.


Our baby has 20 of everything it seems, with a small bonus to Intellect and Spirit. Intellect gives a priest 15 mana per point, and a small amount of critical spell bonus. Spirit gives a small amount of health and mana regeneration. Stamina gives 10 health points per point. Agility and Strength are melee stats, and generally not useful to a priest. After reading that little bit, I have determined that, for now, I will want to pick up gear with Intellect, Stamina, and Spirit, with the emphasis on importance being in that order, to start. As you get higher in level, it pays to stack Intellect and Spirit as evenly as possible, and add the Stamina when it doesn't interfere too much.

As we level, some other stats will show up on our gear choices. Spell Power grants a bonus to damage and healing spells. Critical Strike Rating will increase our chance to get a critical hit. Haste will speed up our spell casting. The first of those three is easy to understand. An item with +20 spell power will give us 20 more damage and healing. Critical Strike Rating is a little different. All the bonus points your armor gives to critical strike do not just add in. Take that number, divide by 45.91(at level 80), and that will tell you what percent of crit rating your gear gives you, before figuring in the bonus from Intellect. As for Haste Rating, 32.79 points of haste give you 1% faster casting. For what fun this is causing with my global cooldown, I would rather go for crit rating instead. So, of the three stats, spell power, then crit rating, then haste, in that order. If your spell power is pretty high, you can reverse the first two, and work toward a better crit rating.

One stat I forgot to mention is Hit Rating. Hit Rating starts to be important around level 70. This helps you keep from missing with spells when attacking mobs from 3 levels below you to 3 levels above you. You will normally have 4% chance to miss a spell cast at a mob your level. In order to get rid of that 4% miss rate, a level 70 would need about 52 hit rating. But that only works for mobs at the same level. Most raid bosses are 3 levels above the cap of that zone (for example, Netherspite in Karazhan is a level 73 mob). In order to ensure that you would not miss on a level 73 mob, you would need 215 points of hit rating. At 80, the number, before talents, to shoot for is 446.

There you have them. Stats, and how they affect a priest. Next article will be on talent trees, and how to best spend your points. This will be, in part, an opinion piece, as I am sure how I spend my points may not be how most would spend their points. Stay tuned!

Thanks to WoWWiki and Shadowpriest.com for their insight into what stat is worth what. For a little help in game, try the add-on Rating Buster!

Healing - do I really need THAT add-on?

Recently on several blogs I follow, there has been a discussion, and heated rebuttal, of whether it is good to use add-ons while healing. Now, I am no expert on add-ons (my husband is nodding his head as I type this), but there are a few I use because they help me with my awareness. I'm big on not so many add-ons, mostly because I operate on my husbands last built computer (now hooked up to the 42" widescreen in the living room) or my laptop, and have not so much memory and disk space that I can use them frivolously. These add-ons don't cast heals or dispels or disease cleaners. Do I lean on them too much? Perhaps. It is hard, in a raid, to use the Blizzard supplied UI to spot things like disease and magic debuffs. I am able to spot low bars, and renew/bubble/omgty insta-flash heal the ones I can catch, but if it's a dot that is killing them, they're just going to die anyway. I am not that good.

Now, I have guildmates that use quite a few add-ons to heal. They are more knowledgeable and, more than likely, have more space/more memory/less crap on their machines with which to handle the added usage. Do they do better on the charts? Yes. Dispel-faster than me. Cure Disease-before I even think about it. But then, who am I kidding? They are also college students with faster reflexes and less distractions. Quite likely, they could run modless and still run circles around me. Oh, yeah, circles, can't do that either when I am healing. I still haven't learned my key bindings, so I'm clicking. I'll bet if I used some of their add-ons, it might even out the reflex/distraction difference.

I got side tracked. I think there are some talented add-on authors out there. Some add-ons are wonderful additions that can aid a healer in spotting areas of necessity. Would I use something like Healbot? Nope. I just read the Curse page on it, and I like plug in and play add-ons...this one wants me to configure stuff. Some of you like spending time in game configuring add-ons (my husband is not paying attention, I was pointing directly at him), I do not.

My conclusion to this discussion? It doesn't change my position...if you got 'em, use 'em. If they're broken and you can't live without them, well, sorry, here's my unused copy of World of Warcraft Programming. Fix it or wait for the author to catch up. Maybe that level 12 hunter you've been using as a bank character needs a few levels? I'll continue being an adequate(not fabulous) healer with my sad short list of add-ons.

For those that are curious...a list of what I currently use (hopefully pictured well in the snapshot above)

Auctioneer(not pictured. gathers pricing data and eases auctionhouse headaches)
Autobar(all consumables,trinkets,buffs,and much more...on configurable bars shown in default setting)
Bartender4(allows skinning and arrangement of bars/buttons your way!)
Cartographer(discovers the map. allows note taking and waypoint creation)
Gatherer(not pictured-gathers your nodes and group/raid/guild found nodes and puts them on map)
Lynstats(line on top of screen with latency, memory usage, xp to level, mail indicator, rested indicator)
MBB(gathers all my minimap buttons in a handly little area)
MikScrollingBattleText(not pictured-adds ready abilities notification (off cd or on activation)
MrPlow(not pictured-sorts bags)
Omen(not pictured-threat meter extraordinaire)
OneBag3(takes all bags and makes them one :))
OneBank3(not pictured, but set up much like above)
Postal(not pictured, adds open all and other great functions to mailing)
Questhelper (buggy atm..I don't reccomend it for WOTLK stuff)
RatingBuster(shows what stats on gear add what to healing/dmg/etc)
Routes(not pictured, works with gatherer to make a node route on maps)
SexyMap(gotta have something pretty to look at!)
Violation(not pictured-a meter for all things measurable while grouped)

What add-ons help with my awareness?

Bartender has a range indicator on the button when I target.
Omen (and the red ring on my picture, and the larger scrolling text) let me know when to cool off and let people take a little damage so I can survive.
Autobar helps with buffing (class specific bar with left click self, right click group/raid buff options)
MLKScrollingBattleText to announce debuffs starting and buffs ending and special abilities that have come available.
All these add-ons do is translate information and abilities already available to me into a more easily digestable form. I still have to act on that information. And that is how I like to play.

Play it your way, it's your 15 bucks. Just wanted to throw in my 2 copper.

To Add-on or not to Add-on?

I have people on my guild from all over this discussion. There's my never lose a battleground buddy who professes to have broken down and installed the queue joining add on everyone touts in trade chat as his only add-on, then there is my husband who installs about every new cool add--on he finds. I like to try and strike a balance, enough to enhance my game play without having to figure out how my add-ons work before a fight. What brings on this topic? My desktop slowed to a crawl and made my laptop more appealing for raiding. Playing on my laptop with only the bare essential add-ons kept me from posting auctions, having proximity meters and timers for boss fights, not to mention my pretty buttons were gone. Below, my must haves, and my favorites.


Auctioneer
I use the advanced suite, because my husband said to, but I'm sure the regular package is all anyone really needs to make a buck on the auction house. I can't set a good price without it, unless I do a search on the auction house for every item in my inventory as I price them. Huge time saver!

Autobar
This bar arranges all your consumables, mounts, pets, and class specific spells (emergency buttons included!) on bar(s)for ease of use. You can use the already made ones, or switch them up to your liking.

Automaton
This makes my repair and bag unloading trips easier. When speaking with the repairman, it will automatically repair if money is available, and sell all grey items. For you that like to collect odd items like a Rogue's Diary, make sure you bank it before it gets sold.

Bartender4
What can I say about this? It makes my clicking area look better. Yes, I am a clicker, unless I am on my hunter or rogue, who have a single button to spam. (cue to point and laugh) It also allows you to put your bag bar and character functions bar and fade them, drag them anywhere on your screen, or just not use them at all.

beql
This not necessarily one I need...but it moves the quest description area to the right, giving more room to view available quests and the quest description.

Cartographer3
Do you like Google Maps? You'll love this.

Gatherer
This add-on shares what you find with others in your guild, and also grabs what they find and puts it on your map. Great for when you need to find a certain herb or mining node!

LynStats
FPS, latency, xp to level, a "new" indicator if you have mail, and time in 24 hour format, all stuck at the top of your screen. YAY!

MrPlow
It shuffles, it stacks, it sorts, it's a plow! It will even organize your bank.

Omen
A threat meter. Have you been pulling off the tank and finding yourself in an iceblock, or worse yet, squishy stuff between the toes of the mob? Maybe you should check this out. This may not be necessary after WOTLK, but now, it's the difference between life and death.

OneBag and OneBank
This skins your bags into one big bag frame.

TomTom
A navigation helper, complete with arrow for us dummies, pointing the right direction to your objective.

TourGuide
This is a great addon for those of us who have already done the first character or two. I don't recommend this for new players, who should be experiencing the lore. This comes preloaded with guides, level per level and zone to zone, to level up easier.

Violation
This is the meter to end all meters. You want healing? You got it! DPS? Here you go. Overheals? Yup. Total damage done? It's all there.

And, last but not least, I give you the best way to get all these add-ons...

WoW Matrix

It helps you download new add-ons and installs them for you, it updates existing add-ons, and has a launch button for when you are done. This, to me, makes add-ons that much less of a chore.

Now, back to your game!