Doing Heroics

I once said that I would never be geared for heroics.

Looks like I lied.

Again.

 I haven't done many heroic dungeons yet, but the few I have done have surprised me. They aren't impossible. They are doable. Dare I say it, they are even fun.

Allow me to make something clear, new heroics... maybe even new max level dungeons are what puts me off of new expansions. Ever since Cataclysm hit and I couldn't heal through one group, much less a whole heroic, I've become a little bit wary of new dungeon content. I am pleasantly surprised that Blizzard learned from the travesty that was Cataclysm and did not make heroics so punishing that they were un-fun again.

That's not to say I found it easy, I have pretty much the baseline required ilevel and have an average skill level. If it was easy for me, I would have been disappointed. If I were an exceptional player, I would probably find them too easy.

I've made it through all of the dungeons I've gone through with minimal mana starvation and only one or two party member deaths which were all due to lack of attention paid to mechanics on their part and not really because of my lack of skill or mana.

I am so pleased that I can complete them without A) going holy or B) ripping my hair out in frustration. I've been reading lately that a lot of players find that Disc output is lacking (maybe it's just for raids?), but I was able to keep my group up adequately and; therefore, have no real complaints except that I still want my Divine Hymn back without going Holy. I feel a little bit lost without carrying it around in my back pocket in the event I fall behind, get stressed, and want a get out of jail free card. I'm sure that will pass though, I still have plenty of toys in my toolkit to play around with.

I still need to work on using Spirit Shell optimally, but I think that will come with time.

Also, LFD has given me decent, non-douche bag groups lately. I didn't know those existed, but am thankful, I needed a break especially after learning that I'm being forced to work both Christmas, and New Years. If I could afford to quit... Anyone want to hire a poor college student trained pastry chef?

I'm trying not to dwell on that.

I suck at not dwelling.

I would also like to draw your attention to my blog roll. It seems that it only took me two months to learn how to make one, and I'd love it if I could get suggestions for awesome blogs to put up there. Priest related, or WoW related, doesn't matter, anything that's worth a read.

Leveling Discipline

I've said it before, I was not super excited for Mists and the crux of it was really because of the state of priest healing in early Cataclysm. When Cataclysm hit Disc was in its prime and bubble-spam was in demand. In raid my character felt powerful, and competitive against other healers. Heroics... they were a joke if you had a decent group and if you had a good healer mistakes were survivable.

When Cata hit my powerful, awesome priest became what felt like a weak, useless waste of pixels. Forget raiding, I couldn't even do Cata heroics confidently. I understand that Blizzard was trying to reintroduce crowd control as a necessary factor in both group make-up and the thought process behind pulling as well as bring back the idea that mana is a limited resource and that one needed to think before healing. In theory, I'm actually ok with that model. The problem is, in practice the damage tanks took was still spiky and that priests took the nerf to mana efficiency and spell efficacy too hard. If my groups did not have enough crowd control to give the tank one mob at a time it was almost a guaranteed wipe, and if not my mana efficiency was so bad that I needed to stop for water every pull. If a dps pulled aggro, they died. End of story. I did not have enough mana or the time in between tank heals to heal a dps and keep the tank up. In the end I tabled my main, and leveled an enhancement shaman. Honestly, the dps queue time was worth the anguish I avoided.

Yes, through patches the healing game got better. My priest started raiding again, and is still the only one of my toons to have earned "Destroyer's End," but I spent the better part of a year hating my favourite toon and suffice to say I was not in the mood for another expansion to come along and potentially break my class again. I feel like a level 85 character, even if not the maximum level, should still feel powerful. I don't need the games I play to make me feel inadequate.

Now, I'm currently only level 88, classes and work severely limit my play time so I have no commentary on End Game content - raids or heroics, yet, but so far my leveling experience has been pleasant. I've really enjoyed the new leveling zones, both in content and the overall esthetic. I level as Disc because of Atonement, which keeps me healed while I smite things to death and because of the ease of transitioning from leveling via questing to healing dungeons.

I have really enjoyed the new dungeons, particularly the "Stormstout Brewery," once you kill Ook and the Hozen come out and start dancing. That's a riot. I feel like the level of difficulty for a potentially unskilled pug is just fine. Some mistakes will kill you, others just cost me mana. A hardcore group of friends or raiders will find likely them too easy, and that's fine. I feel like dungeons, and even heroics to some extent should cater to the causal audience anyway. My mana efficiency is pretty good. It's not unlimited, nor should it be. My heals are appropriately effective as well. Overall I don't feel overpowered, but I don't feel weak or under powered either.

From what I've experienced thus far I'm excited to see what Mists has to offer us as players, but will have a better idea on the state of priest healing once I too hit the level cap.

Mists of Pandaria, a talent system

People often ask me, am I excited for Mists of Pandaria. Until recently, I would have said "Yes, I'm just not sure about that talent system." Two weeks ago the new talent point system was implimented, the one that gives you six talents instead of 31. While I am sure that there was mumch thought put into this new talent system, I have to admit that it falls kind of flat for me. Intead of being something that brought in new, and exciting options for customization it feels more like the illusion of options to me. Yes, you get to pick one of three things; however, those three options are all relatively the same for the more part. For example, the first set of talents you get as a priest are all forms of crowd control. To me, that says "Blizzard wants you to have crowd control, pick one." All of the talents feel situational. None make me feel like my priest is more powerful, because none make her more powerful. This lack of power really just makes me feel like talents have become oversimplified, oversimplified to the point of becoming nearly obsolete.

Another thing that I don't like about the newly implemented changes are the changes to the spell book. I liked the way that the old spell book looked. It is harder for me to find my spells while swimming in a ten page disc spell book.

I want my spell book back. Also, my disc priest wants her Divine Hymn back.