By the way...

Might be moving this blog because I can't obsessively organize it to my liking. I'm moving to wordpress, but I'm not done with the digs over there yet...so for now, I'll still spam you here.

"Amber, were you bored at work today?"

Yes.

Edit: OMG I have to re-tag everything! This will be awhile.

Edit again: Gah! It's more complicated!

/hides here for the time being

Amber Randomly Responds to Things

One of the nice things about WoW is that it allows you a variety of choices for your character. You really aren't pigeon holed into one thing or another.

From here, "What's your weapon of choice?"

You clearly have no idea how sick of maces I am, do you? I still have my Spellbade in my bank, just because it's not a damned mace. What other weapon hoices do I have that mages and warlocks won't scream over me taking, hm? Hm? Yeah. Bite me.

But a student at Colorado University has a theory about World of Warcraft that might sound a little out there: he believes the game is a new religion.

From here.

And the subscription fee is a tithe...?

This isn't WoW related, but go look anyway.

I've noted that killer instinct and raw hate is absolutely criticial to unleashing leet sauce dps. You've got to be angry. If you can't be angry, make stuff up. For example, Sartharion is staring at my hair... is there something he wants to say? What? The high-lighted tips on my hair makes me look like Enrique Iglesias? OMFG I'll flip out.I wonder how girls get fired up for boss fights.

From here.

Oh honey, you have no idea. It's called "You fucking men! You think you can out DPS me because I'm a girl and I don't know how to play? EAT THE BOTTOM OF THE DPS METERS FUCKERS."

...see? Not hard at all!

"Amber, I thought you were a healer."

I am. Twice over. But there's another toon currently languishing at 70, decked out in purples and with a Netherdrake from that time in which I was allowed to do something other than dish out my apparently crack-laced heals. I had a hunter main. A BM hunter, who in BC days was a delightfully monstrous creature. My second 60, and my first 70, I'm a little sad that she might get leveled...fourth? FOURTH? Oh my dear Jamethera, I'm sorry. But I was a damned good hunter. Not great, but damned good.

"When you do level her is she going to stay BM?"

Hell yeah! RAWR RED PET FOREVER!!!!!!!

Ahem.

There needs to be a mod out there that visually flips the way life/healthbars for players work. When they are at 100% health, it shows them as 0% and dead. When they take damage, their healthbar fills up. That way when you heal them, it seems like you are killing them (don't lie, I know you want secretly want to be MC'd by KT so you can go postal on certain people). With that kind of mod, my 15K Holy Light crits would turn from "pansy glitter of saving" into "atomic bomb on ur fase".

This quote is from here, and incidentally how I found the crack whore elf-I'm sorry, DPS belfadin-above.

Anyway. I think that would be funny, on one hand, but it would also...just absolutely break my brain after 4 years of training otherwise. I only stuck to leveling First Aid on my hunter because I still had a strong compulsion to fill green bars.

For srs.

"Do you actually talk like that, Amber?"

I may or may not actually go "lawl!" or "kek!" or perhaps slip into lolcat speak when actually talking. I can neither confirm nor deny...

Zuki, shut up, you've sat on vent.

/cue ephiphany music

Go read this.

It is an eloquent post detailing a healer plight-and it also explains why I've been going nuts.

It would help, I think, if there weren't those couple of fights still in Naxx 10 where we "need" 3 healers. Then we could just bring two, and not be bored, and get cranky when other healers step on our toes because they, too, are bored.

I will try to do a post of my own later, but I had to share that with you.

Raiding is 'Aspensive: Doing Dailies, Healadin Edition

So now you're 80 and raiding. Cool! But raiding means wiping, especially at first. Wiping means repair bills, and nevermind the cost of consumables (WHY is my alchemist on the wrong server?*)

So how the hell do you manage to chew through dailies?

I'm uberlazy and since I've gotten my coveted egg from the Oracles, I'm terribad about doing my dailies. The best way to see that I do them is to grab a buddy.

Even if it's another healer, you still kill things faster. I highly reccomend the Oracle dailies just for cash, by the way. They can help offset the cost of repairs and the little buddy you get is a built in helper. You can also often avoid killing things in general while doing them! The exception is the one "kill things as a kitty" quest but hey, you're a kitty. DPS doesn't matter when you're looking for sparklies.

Things I Do While Soling:
1) Ret aura kills things an eensy bit faster.
2) Sacred Shield yourself. It helps.
3) Use Seal of Righteousness.
4) Judge Wisdom. You'll be taking less damage with SS up, so this will cut down on downtime.
5) Judge every time it's up for the damage.
6) Holy shock!
7) Consecrate every so often if you make a lot of friends.
8) Die after horde find you.

*I have a flower-picking warrior on Sentinels. I r RP nub.

O hai

So I was poking through my blog stuffs-play with feeds, trying to figure out how to add a doodad without it offending my sense of order, etc...when I noticed something.

I have TWO followers!

Not just ONE (i c u thar)!

Hi there stranger!

"Amber, I thought you said you'd double post today with USEFUL STUFF."

Shut it. RL is a meanie head right now and I'll take what small pleasures I can get.

I'm in ur feed, spamming ur...feed...wait, no.

Dammit.

Ambrosyne's Adventures With the Horsemen

You know what I learned during my adventures in the back half of the Four Horsemen?

...I suck!

And you know what else? The moment I get thrust into an unfamiliar role in a raid and am already flailing about in uncertaintly, every single recruit we have will whisper me.

I'm not kidding. First, a resto druid pokes me. Great! She says 'I see that you're busy, so I'll wait." Not a problem. She's in Naxx too, anyway.

I fail and talk with her a bit while we're getting our act back together.

Second pull. I holy shock Mr. Fallen Paladin, cast a heal on myself because I'm already low (wtf?) and then...

...the other resto druid recruit pokes me. I look at his whisper real quick. This means that I'm not staring at my feet. And even though I'm not on the boss that summons void zones, I get one anyway because their range is stupid, right under my feet.

When I'm not looking.

And I die 45 seconds into the fight.

/facepalm

At some point after this the disc priest whispers me (...) for a /ginvite. Sweet!

But OMG guys, all at once? During THAT fight? Srsly?

/flail

We downed them...after we threw my nub ass back up front where it belonged.

Also: if there's a healer shortage, why are most of my apps healers? Holy shit! I mean it's fanatastic, it's great, we need them! But...! OMG!

We definitely need people not priest flavored though. I mean priests are great! But we now have...four? Compared to one resto shaman, two holy pallys, and one resto druid.

But you know what that is? That's a 25 man healing team baby! ....assuming we can make it all on the same night, which I don't know if we can. But! We're close!

"Amber, aren't you going to phase out your paladin for your priest?"

Ssssh! And, not for awhile. Teh boy is feeling a bit of WoW burnout, and he's Lyr's pet tank. So expect me to stop my bitching about my paladin...

...several months from now. But if we need the buffbitch she'll be on duty, no worries. I'm not going to shoehorn a billionth priest into the raid if we need my paladin, especially not if our spanking new disc priest is along. YAY LASER PEW PEW HEALS.

Ahem.

We also tried two things last night: healing assignments (sort of), and my being a "more aggressive" healer. Now I'd half gotten used to That Priest putting a decent amount of healing on the MT, so during one fight I took my heals off Macharious for a second...and he died.

/facepalm

After going "SEE that is why I heal the tank and only the tank omg!" I simply noted Anub as A Fight To Not Do That On. On trash pulls and the less hard hitting bosses, I FoL'd every damn bar that wasn't full.

And ended up on the top of the healing meters.

Wut?

Now healing meters don't really mean a damned thing, but it was interesting to observe a change. I still spun in circles boredly on Gothik, though.

"Are you going to have actual content today, Amber?"

Yes. Later. I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DOUBLE POST IF I WANT TO!

Amber's Random Picture Post

This is my first attempt at recreating the original screen shot. I picked Icecrown because I thought the sky was pretty, but it does funky things to colors out there.

Amber & Josh: Mocking your typos since 2004. Vainglory is my DK. No, my other DK. Yes, the third one.

...what?




















Why can't they sell this hippogryph somewhere? I actually like the way that this one looks. Though I still want to know when deer started crossbreeding with hippogryphs...

...you know I tried to be clever with placing these pics and just made a mess. And I can't seem to delete them. Bwuh? Curse you, Blogger! Curse you!

Leveling Healy vs Respeccing

I leveled both of my healers as a healing spec. That said, if you choose to be sane and go the other route (level as DPS, respec heals), I don't blame you (though disc is seriously underrated as far as leveling ease goes).

But which is "better"? *drum roll* It depends!

Benefits of Leveling as a Healer:
-You have an easier time getting groups
-You have the time to become familiar with your healing tools in bits and peices, rather than having them thrown at you all at once at a higher level
-Getting healing gear is easier (presumably, as the healer in the group, you have little/no competition when it drops)
-Practice makes perfect

I will sadly never be able to recreate the healing experience I had with Ambrosine. She healed 5 man and 20/40 man raids at 60. She healed leveling to 70 and did some more 10 and 25 man healing there. Then she healed her way to 80 and thrashed and flailed her way through 5 mans to 10 and 25 man content. I have healed a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot on that toon, in all sorts of circumstances. I had greater finesse with her at 80 than I will on my priest for a long time.

Cons of Leveling Healing:
-Soloing can suck (unless you're a disc priest. Weee holy fire!)
-If you're on a PvP server, I have one word for you: bait. Lyr can defend herself to a point, but Ambrosyne is well nigh helpless. C'mere and let me holy shock you to death!....once every six seconds!
-Soloing can suck A LOT

Pros of Leveling DPS:
-You kill things/level faster
-You can defend yourself in PvP
-Big numbers are fun!

Cons of Leveling DPS:
-It can be harder to find groups
-You get less time to hone your skills
-It can be harder to get gear for later healing (less so if you run with other kinds of healers, but you still might fight over rings and cloaks)
-You might get more irritated with trying to do things as healy specced later (dailies as heals = D: )

Yes, the list of 'cons' I have is longer, but the whole 'killing things faster' is pretty heavily weighted by most people.

If you chose to level as DPS and respec heals, there's a couple of ways to handle it:

-Respec before hitting max level. DPS to 70 and then switch and heal your way through Northrend
-Respec at 80, but throw yourself at a lot of normal instances until you get the hang of things. Reading strats just isn't the same. Progress to heroics later, when you're certain you have the gear for them. Being undergeared in heroics just makes for frustration. Even if you happen to have the gear for heroics right off the bat, they're not the place to start learning!

Lyr learned in the Nexus that if your level 72 Death Knight tank in blues and greens makes pulls as if he were on his 80 warrior in blues and epics, you die!

Murphy's Law

The quickest way to turn a guild Naxx run into the biggest pit of suck and fail you've ever seen is to bring a recruit.

I was a wreck all night.

"Oh god guys, shut up, shut up! Quit being stupid! Play nice! THERE'S A RECRUIT IN THE RAID OMG OMG." And then we wiped, and wiped some more, on bosses we've killed without even half the difficulty. A rogue who did 2k DPS last time was under the tank. I still want to strangle the priest. I tried to shine with my usual quirky humor in the hopes of not scaring the hunter away.

Ah, well. He'll talk to me again or he won't.

"So Amber, what's with the paladin guide?"

Coming. For srs. But tonight is a fun BC raid night, and I want to take Lyrandre for shits and giggles. Hell, at 72 she might even be able to still use some of the loot, who knows? I never did see all of SSC/TK...

I've got other topics in the meantime, worry not!

I'm also trying to recreat the screenie I used for my banner, only in Icecrown or something. Yes, including the Judgement. It's surprising hard to recapture that pose, though. D: Ideally, I'd get a good one of my priest, too. They should both be up there, especially if I want to shuffle the paladin into semi-retirement.

Hmmm...

To Kings or Not To Kings

It's a question I hope many paladins ask as they spec: do they want to put the points in kings, or not?

Once upon a time, most holy pallys had kings, because you were tossing points into prot anyway. Hell, I used to have Sanct too. You just didn't see that many healers with points in ret. Now of course we're diving after the crit in the ret tree and I've broken my 4 year long oath against never having a point in ret, ever.

I call myself the holy paladin buffbot. Imp wis, imp might, kings...got all of 'em. I'm a favorite paladin in 10 mans, I'm sure. But is it 'worth' it for you to take kings?

Well, I'll give you the same answer here that I give to a lot of things: it depends.

-What's your raid makeup like?
If you've got another paladin who has kings who shows up to almost all of your raids, then you can spend the points elsewhere. If not, then you need to consider...

-How many others want kings? If it's a sizeable number (tanks almost always love kings and they're pretty important folk to have buffed as much as possible), then you want to consider the fact that the benefit to the raid might well outweigh the benefit of some additional crit to you (as the ret tree is normally where you take those 5 points from). There's a good number of DPS that loves it too. You can get crit elsewhere. Where else can they get kings?

If you don't raid much, then you might want to consider the following:
-Kings on the tank does make it a bit easier on you (more HP! More...er...other things tanks like!).
-Kings on yourself, if you don't need mana regen, is great.
-They'll at least shut up about you not having it.

In Which I Taunt My GM

"Where a Warrior's Shield Slam looks and sounds like you have busted a skull open with your heavy shield and powerful blow, a Paladin's Shield of Righteousness somewhat sparkles at an opponent threateningly, with an utter lack of aural flair." -WoW Insider

Hey Mach, do you sparkle threateningly?

Post something already if you're going to copy me, you nubtankadin!

/toddles off to go work on her Paladin Leveling Guide Thing

Sunday Surprise

This video describes WoW PvP far better than I can. It also made me giggle.

I personally find my holy pally useless in PvP, but that might have to do with the fact that when attacked, I just run around and scream like a little girl until my bubble runs out.

Yes, I realize that holy pally is OMG WIN in arenas right now.

But if you catch me alone doing my dailies in my PvE gear, I'm still screwed!

Holy Fire, on the other hand, hurts like a bitch.

Thank you, BRK, for sharing.

/panic

So I'm sitting here poking my e-mai, and lo! There is message from a potential recruit.

One who, apparently, found their way to me through...here!?

I honestly didn't consider my blog a recruitment method because I'm sitting here thinking that all of 5 people read this thing. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here bitching about one of our healers. Gah!

I'm working on the paladin guide, but it's tougher going than the priest one. So far it's something along the lines of "DON'T SOLO HOLY OMG".

"You started writing it yesterday and haven't touched it since, have you?"

Shut it.

Holy Light Glyph Nerf

The Holy Light Glyph Nerf - or Why This Paladin is Cranky

Alright, so I can, after calmly reflecting, see why this was deemed "OP". I am, none the less, exceptiontionally cranky.

I'm remembering 5 mans in which I wanted to shriek and stab things, before I got my Naxx25 gear. I remember solo healing AoE happy fights and grimly facing the reality that I can only seem to keep 3 people up at a time in situations like that.

If 20 yards was too much, then 8 yards is too few. For the love of all that is holy, I just want to be able to cope with aoe damage somewhat without giving myself a heart attack in the process.

A raid example of this is last night's 10 man OS. Our new holy priest, bless her heart, just kept going splat. It was a combination of her being new to the group and our DK being relatively new to raid tanking-I don't think he'd tanked OS at all before, and he was having tab targeting issues to boot. So, who ended up the only living healer for a good chunk of time? And early on for one of the drakes to boot? Yup. Me.

Maybe I don't want to play frantic whack a mole, Blizzard. *Makes strangling motions with her hands*

Gwuh.

Looking Ahead

I still want to test healing strats for Sapph. I don't know when I'll get to try them out, however, because our Naxx raids have been hitting roadblocks. Last night we got only one boss down because the horde managed to keep one of our healers out of the instance for half an hour. This sort of thing tends to send our raid leader, Zoja, into a frothing anger.

Seriously, Blizz, the placement of the Naxx stone? Bad. A DK and mage combo and sit there and death grip/blast wave people to their deaths to their hearts content. A little bit of lag-more than common when an entire horde raid is camping the stone-and you can be denied a quick escape in the enterance portal.

We are also lacking bodies. We have enough healers...when they're all here. Well, they're not. The resto shaman has finals. One of our holy paladins got arrested-and I don't know how any guild leadership can expect that. His brother let us know and /gquit him, so I can't imagine he's coming back aaaanytime soon. Drugs are bad, kids.

So, we're recruiting. More specifically, I'm recruiting, as I was just promoted to that job. Might I mention I'm terrified? I am. Totally. Had a nice chat with a couple of priests, however (one's a disc priest! woo!) and one of them might bring a mage and shaman with. We also might score us a holy pally and a GREAT unholy DK.

It does distract me a little from this blog, however!

Regardless, I'm going to be compiling a Paladin Leveling guide much like my priest one. The main hurdle to this, however is the fact that I rolled my paladin 4 years ago. I leveled holy with no idea what I was doing, and leveling was much different then compared to now. I was prot for a bit but pre 3.0, and I've been ret never. Post 60, I never leveled alone, because I always had a pocket warrior.

Research time!

I'm also going to have to sit down with one of our resident holy priests and have a chat. Especially if we're bringing a disc priest on board. Why? Well, I've ranted a bit about him before. Last night specifically we had him and two holy pallys, so you can guess who got put on raid healing.

His response at not healing the tank was to comment on how he wouldn't be on top of the healing meters then.

...

...

Dude, seriously? And when you're in a raid with a holy pally, why are you tank healing anyway? Get OFF my target! That's even ignoring the part where I prefer to heal Zoja, just because...er...I've always healed Zoja. I've been healing that damned toon since Molten Core. And now I date the player of said toon. My tank. Not yours. >:

I'm in ur raid, overhealin ur tank...

Yay!

So the FoL Glyph change DID go through and I am a very happy paladin! I shoved it in the slot where I had Spiritual Attunement and will now savor even more crit. I <3 me some Flash of Light.

This change still doesnt' address the issue I have healing certain 5 mans, much, but we'll see. I'm clinging to my theory that the CoH and WG nerf means a nerf to AoE damage in game, which means less stress on holy paladins. That seems more likely than something like, oh, Blizzard giving us another kind of heal.

Leave me to my delusions, okay?

I took my 71 priest an her pet DK into Nexus last night and we got rofflestomped. Part of it is the fact that the instance hurts. A lot. Another part of it is the fact that Josh likes to over-pull thinking that he's on his warrior in mad epix and isn't. We finished the instance, but only after a hunter "DC'd" and we brought Macharious in. 80 > Nexus. I'm not going to let it shake my healing confidence too much. It wasn't that hard on Ambrosyne, but we took a group of guildies in t4/5/6 gear. Not peoples alts in greens and blues. We're also not entirely used to our alts toys yet-while I did heal my way up through a lot of stuff on Lyr, I have a lot more buttons to play with that I did in, say, BRD. And Wrath instances are a whole 'nother type of cookie.

Speaking of healing confidence...I've really been struggling with mine. It was in pretty bad shape before Wrath, even. I need to get patted on the head a lot, so to speak. But that's not a 'yay' post. Perhaps another time.

Back to silly stuff! I've already chased people around pointlessly levitating them. We've also used it to save time riding down by jumping off a cliff. Sadly I could not save the hunter who jumped off the wrong part of a ledge in Nexus. I was too busy laughing and calling him a noob in guild chat anyway (he was a guildie-fair game!). I did enjoy the proper mana returns from PW:S. I also enjoy watching PoM bounce around on my UI-it sparkles!

Now what I really want is an add on that replaces the sound of Penance with laser sounds. Hell, replace the PoM charms with laser sounds! I AM DISC! GIVE ME LASERS!

...ahem.

Hi. My namer is Amber, and I'm a dork.

Brief Patch Day Thoughts

Paladin
-Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage done by Seals and Judgements.

Sweet. I can now...er...solo more effectively? Wut? Yeah. I'm on a PvP server. I try not to solo if I can help it (lolololDKfodder).

-Judgement of Wisdom: Now returns a percentage of base mana instead of a percentage of max mana.

This is...uh...hm. You know, honestly, I don't know wtf that means. I mean I understand base mana and max mana. But IS a percentage of base better than max? Or worse? /headtilt A percentage of a smaller number sounds worse than a percentage of a bigger number, but...I...er. Mind. Meeeelting!

-Avenging Wrath: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Avenging Wrath cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other anymore. Forbearance removed from Avenging Wrath.

This is good, because I go D: when needing to bubble...and not being able to because wings triggered Forbearance.

Priest
-Holy: Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown.

YAY. Now nerf AoE damage plox.

-Levitate is now castable on others.

I will find a way to use this to annoy people.

-Rapture: This talent will now correctly return mana for Power Word: Shield based on the caster’s mana poll instead of the target’s mana pool.

Score! More mana!

Glyph
-Glyph of Holy Light now affects friendly targets in a larger radius.

Yay, more overhealing! It might even be slightly more useful.

...no change to Glyph of FoL? D:

Spirit Vs Mp5

So I read this totally awesome thread on the PlusHeal forums about Spirit vs Mp5 for disc priests.

Shame I didn't understand most of it. Threads like that or why I have this blog-I can't be the only one who reads that stuff and gets a glazed over expression. Just tell me what to prioritize, people!

I managed to glean this:
It depends on how much time you actually spend spamming. If you tend to spam, as disc priests are wont to do, mp5 is better. If you do find yourself getting acquainted with the 5sr, then you get more benefit from spirit and might want to weight spirit a little more heavily.
And as I said here, after 1k int, int/spirit gems are more beneficial than int/mp5.

Here is a neat calculator if you want to play with math.

The same thread devolves into a Flash vs Greater Heal discussion, but after a certain amount of numbers my brain melted. I'll touch that topic later. Maybe. If I recover.

Frustrated Paladin Preaches Appreciation

Today's blog fodder: A WoW Insider post about priest roles.

Dear QQing Priests,

Shut the hell up.
No, really. Quit your bitchin'.
O noes, they're nerfing CoH! O noes, we don't have clear and defined roles! We are made of suck and fail!

You want a clearly defined role? Take a paladin! There's your clearly definined role. I heal one thing really damn well. That's GREAT in raids, and I'm not even being sarcastic!

...unless most of your healers are paladins, a la last night's OS (2 pallys and one bad resto shaman who might as well have not even been there).
...unless you're healing a 5 man with aoe damage.
...unless that's all you can do.

Priests, when you look at their spells as a whole product and don't get hung up
on any one ability in particular, work great. ... Holy Priests are great
healers, and there's really no situation where they're completely
helpless. ... The fact that Holy Priests are so well-rounded means that in
situations where only one Healer is needed (such as 5-man groups), Priests are
fantastic. They have all of the tools required to excel in that format. There's
not really a single boss that can give them a lot of trouble. All of the Healing
classes have the tools required to get them through 5-man dungeons and Heroics,
but Paladins, Shaman, and Druids all have encounters that really trip them
up. Priests rarely have this problem. 5-mans are kind of their playground. They
utterly dominate.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why I rolled a priest. Even a disc priest has the tools nessecary to cope with the varied situations that a 5 man will throw at them. My question is: how does this change in raids?

I don't think it does. In a raid, you can still AoE heal. You can still toss HoTs. You can still heal a single target pretty well. Why does this make you weak in a raid? If you have two holy paladins healing a raid, they're probably going to struggle more than if you had two priests. Now Macharious and I did great, but Mach and I are awesome, even if he is a cranky temporarily converted healadin. I imagine that some of the other healing classes are similarly limited. We can do it, but it's more difficult.

Priests bring versatility to the table. If you don't value that in a raid, you're a fool. What if your holy paladin healing the tank dies? Boom, priest can step in. What if a Shade pounces on you unawares in the middle of explaining a boss fight and half the group all is /afk? The priest is ready, despite being the only healer present and not staring at 4chan on a second monitor. What if you log on to raid and your holy paladin/reso shaman/tree isn't there? The priests can do it!

Problems start coming up when you increase the number of characters in play. Things start shifting from who has the most tools to "Who will heal the tank?" and "Who will heal the DPS?" In bigger raids. You stop looking for versatility and start looking for who's the best at what job. ... The issue is that you fill your niche roles first, and plug in the Priest(s) second.

Versitility should be valued even in a 25 man. I'd be unhappy if I didn't have a priest or two in my 25 man raids. I'd grab one just as quickly as I'd grab anything else. I don't think the problem, then, is not with the priest or with how they work. It's with how some people form raids.

I'd be okay with, as the Insider says later, giving the priests more of a niche...but please, for the love of all that is holy, don't take away their Jack of all Trade skills. Expand on the Hymns or spells like Power Infusion if you want. Those could all lead to fun, useful directions.

But I don't want a repeat of Ambrosyne's leveling process with Lyrandre, where there remain certain instances I just won't do without a lot of inner sobbing. I want to be able to walk through any instance portal and know that I gave the tools at hand to do my job-keep people alive.

Priests have a niche. I just don't think that they-or raid leaders-appreciate it enough.

Oh look, a shiny! /distracted

Most of my creative effort for the day was sucked into polishing my guild's misson statement. Why was I doing that? Because they made me recruitment officer. Yay! As recruitment officer, though, I want to have a shiny misson statement to point recruits to, and no one else had gotten around to it yet (did I mention this is NOT a new guild? Lazy!).

We tackled Naxx last night, but didn't get to Sapph, so that experiment is...still waiting. I did end up using Blessing of Sacrifice on the MT for Anub to soak some of the damage, a seldom used trick I'll have to remember more often. I honestly never used that thing except for Maiden.

I did an absolutely silly near 6k HPS on the Instructor. I also nearly went OOM, but he died (eventually...) so we win! I definitely don't have the crit for that sort of nonsense on a regular basis, though. I don't remember having that much trouble with him before, but we were also training a new OT among other things, so it wasn't an optimal night.

I'm still almost looking forward to 2-healing things. There are certain fights where I spend the entire time spinning in circles FoLing the tank, hoping the spinning makes it more interesting.

It doesn't.

Can I snap my fingers and make my priest 80 yet?

Guest blog.

I have a guest blog over at World of Matticus! I am pleased and terrified all at once.

Excuse me while I go and quiver in a corner.

/fade

So You Rolled A Priest...

So you rolled a priest. Maybe, like me, you just wanted to try something else. Maybe your raid needs a healer. Maybe this is your first character! Now you're level ten and staring at your talent trees.

This is intended as a leveling guide, not an end-game guide. Spell rotations and specs will reflect that.

Priest Specs-The Basics
Ask yourself several questions.
-What do I want to do with this character?
-Do I mostly want to heal? Do I mostly want to DPS?
-Do I want to PvP, or focus on PvE?
-Am I going to be soloing, duoing, or instancing my way to 80?
-How crazy am I?

Shadow
Shadow is considered by many to be the 'default' leveling spec and is arguably the fastest. If you plan on mostly DPSing and/or mostly soloing, this is likely the route you'll take. You will likely get asked to heal as shadow, because people are silly like that. If you don't mind, it's entirely possible to heal as shadow until fairly close to end game.

Holy
Holy is a healing spec. If you plan on soloing/questing, this is...probably not the way to go. If you want to level primarily through instance groups or with a friend, holy is fine. Learning as you go is a great way to get a handle on healing and you probably won't lack for groups!

Disc
Disc is another healing spec, and my personal favorite (warning: bias ahead!). It's good for healing in PvE, with some different talents it's also great for healing in PvP. I leveled as disc on a PvP server and not only was I durable, I was dangerous! If you want to heal instances but know you'll be doing a lot of questing on your own, disc might be for you. And you get to heal with pew pew lazers later on. :D

Regardless of your spec, you're likely going to want to take points in Spirit Tap in the Shadow tree. I didn't, but I'm nuts. I'll post leveling specs when I can get home and can actually look at the talent calculator. :o For now I'll throw up what I've got.

Disc Specs: Here is one leveling path... I put all my points into disc to start and only went into holy later.
Holy Spec: How about this one? I don't know, the mere idea of a holy leveling spec kind of broke my mind.
Shadow Spec: coming!

Spell Rotations
As Disc, my DPS rotation while questing was as follows:
Shield > Holy Fire > Shadow Word:Pain > Devouring Plague > Mind Blast
If mob was at less than 50% health, then I'd wand them to death for mana conservation. If it was not, then I'd bust out the smite until it was. At higher levels, PW: Death is great to finish things off as long as you're careful. It might seem a little slower to wand things to death, but you save time drinking, so it evens out.
While duoing, I holy smite everything I can just because it's funny. My tank is less amused, but tossing dots up on whatever he's aoe tanking does help things go faster.
Can you lolsmite DPS in groups? Yes. Are you going to do awesome DPS? No. Does it matter in Maraudon? Not really.

Holy would switch up the disc rotation a bit. Or more than a bit, I suppose. Er. Here!:
Holy Fire > Smite > PW:S > Smite > Smite
Toss SW:P and Devouring Plague up for tougher mobs that will live long enough for the DoTs to be worth it.

I picked the brain of a shadow priest or two or four, and came out with the following rotation:
Vampiric Embrace > SW:P > Vampiric Touch > Mind Blast > Mind Flay
Use SW:Death judiciously, as always, and use MB in between MFs when it's off cooldown. Rotations are a bit different for max DPS in groups, and you'll want to keep your DoTs refreshed, but that's getting into stuff a little too complicated for this disc priest and her healing-focused blog.

Don't forget to keep Inner Fire up!

Gear
Leveling gear is generally whatever the hell you can grab. With today's quicker leveling until 70, the gear you get before hand isn't terribly important. You're usually looking for stamina, intellect, spirit, and spellpower on your lower level greens. Later on you might pick up some peices with mp5 and crit.

What you want to focus on depends on your build. A holy priest is more focused on spirit/mp5 than a disc priest, who is likely going to lean more towards int/crit. A player on a pvp server might want a bit more stm.

For shadow, you'll want to pick up some hit gear where you can. Spellpower, crit, and haste are what you're after next, in that order. For all specs I'd consider haste the least of your concerns until nearer end-game, however.

If you get a peice with gem sockets, look at what gear you have now. What are you missing? If you have a lot of mp5 peices, consider crit gems. Int gems are always good. Spirit for holy, etc. Don't spend too much money on gems sub 70, because you're likely to replace the gear soon. On your way to 80 the gear replacement slows down...a little. That said, Lyr's had three different weapons in 2 levels.

Sources: the many fine players of the wow_ladies community! <3

In which I am vain.

I used to mock Judgement. "Plate skirt, what the hell?" But it was pretty bad ass for all of that, although Lightbringer wasn't bad. Belly baring and bananarific, but not bad.

Now I miss it. I miss it so much that I keep it in the bank, all eight lovingly gathered peices. They represent untold hours of raiding, back in the day when I had four/five other paladins in a raid to 'compete' with. I never saw tier three on my character, but didn't think much of the set back then. In BC I tried to collect the purple version of Judgement but never did manage it all, and was...not impressed with tier four.

It was...meh.

I missed t5 and t6. Now we're back at recolored t3, which is awesome for some classes and...not so awesome for others. Like, oh, power rangers. I mean paladins.

Do I care that Ambrosyne doesn't have any of her tier gear? Nooooo. I'm content with my recolored DK armor. It's not very...paladiny, but it's sure as hell better than Random Pointy Objects Jutting Out Gear.

I should totally stand around Dalaran in Judgement. Last time I did that in Stormwind, a warrior dragged out his t2 and stood next to me. Good times!

Dear Blizzard,

WTB bad ass looking paladin gear.

Kthxbai,
-healadin

Priest gear tends to look better. Like I need more incentive to play her, right?

Useful posts coming later. Researching! Gasp.

DPS =/= Tank

Over the weekend we decided to tackle both Durnholde and Black Morass 'normally', that is, with pugs and not a guildie running us through. I wanted the healing practice. Although we did tackle-and beat!-BM with a group of 67s (!), it was something of a painful experience and didn't have a lot to do with our levels. The shadow priest we had was cool (Reene! A shout out to you for not sucking!), but the others? Eenh. I wouldn't even post about this one group, except that I had run across this problem before recently.


Dear PUG DPS,

This is your healer speaking. Specifically, this is your single target healer speaking. I can heal several of you, especially if I'm on my priest. But I'm not great at it, it's not mana effecient, and really, in non-AoE circumstances, I shouldn't have to.

When you are invited to a group as DPS, then please, DPS. This means that you watch your aggro. Do not purposefully charge off in another direction and tackle different mobs. Do not taunt off the tank. Do not run ahead of the tank. Do. Not. Tank.

If I ask you politely to please watch your aggro and to let the tank, well, do his job, and you continue to purposefully make my life harder? Then you might find yourself eating floor. Accidentally, of course.

*Halos*
-The Healer

Meh Mondays, or: Pic Spam

With luck, my "study" on healing Sapph as a holy pally will be up tomorrow-though since internet issues cut out last raid short, I'm not sure we'll get that far in Naxx this week. A shame! Soon, though. :)

I was busy over the weekend. Lyr dinged 68 and I squee'd over Prayer of Mending. Then she dinged 69. And...

She is now sporting full spiffy Northrend gear. I like the look, though she's no longer the "classic priest" that she was throughout Outlands. Glad to have escaped the worst of the Outland clown look though! Now to go back to Nagrand to get my Talbuk mount. Grr, Elekks.

In the background there is Drake, her pet DK tank, as played by the infamous Josh. While I'm picture spamming, here's Ambrosyne and her pet warrior tank, Zoja. Zoja is also played by the Josh. He just likes tanking that much... Kudos to him though, seriously. I pally tanked for a bit, and enjoyed myself despite the stress. My warrior tank? ZOMGHARDWORK. So, love to all you warrior tanks! Hell, LOVE TO ALL TANKS.

Lyr's in a weird combination of DPS gear and healing gear at the moment. Then again, being a crit focused clothie healer, I think that's just going to be her lot in life. Her neck even has hit on it, but hey, it's good for those holy fires I keep tossing out, right?

Our duo is at least sometimes a trio, as our GMs shadow priest tags along. While normally we espouse a Live and Let Live philosphy, sometimes we can't help ourselves. Look, I'm sorry Mr. Random Ret Pally, but we only killed you once. You're the one that came back 3 more times...

And now I'm randomly reminded of issues I've had pugging of late, but I'll save that for another post.

/end random ramble

Tanks and Bubbles

It's about time that I Like Bubbles actually spent some more time on bubbles.

Once upon a time, tanks fussed about bubbles. Wrath has changed much, however, leaving a few of us in confusion. When is it okay to bubble the tank?

Paladins have a couple of bubbles. The only one we're really going to worry about here, though, is Sacred Shield.
You don't want to BoP...er...HoP?...the tank. In fact, you might want to move that button somewhere out of the way. What, me speaking from experience? Nooooooo.... *shifty eyes*

For disc priests, you have PW:S and your divine aegis proc. You can't control the latter, however, so never mind that.

When you bubble is pretty depending on what you're bubbling, so let's go down the list of tanking classes.

Warrior: Warriors are going to be your problem children. Don't bubble them before a pull. Don't bubble them if they're over geared for the instance and thus ending up rage starved. Otherwise, once in a fight I wait until I see they've got about half a rage bar before tossing one up. In a raid, keeping one up as much as possible on a boss is a good idea. This applies to both SS and PW:S.

Druids: Druids generate rage very differently than warriors. You can be a bit more liberal with the bubbles here, though I still wouldn't use one pre-pull. They generate rage from crits, and even in an instance they vastly out level (the 80 bear I had taking us through Slave Pens, for example), they don't seem to have issues with rage generation.

Death Knights: For the love of all that is holy, bubble them as much as possible. Runic power is generated solely by their attacks and they are currently plagued with some mitigation problems, so go wild. This is the one class where I bubble pre-pull every chance I get.

Paladins: Mana starvation in a tankadin seems to have gone the way of the OP warlock. With the way Sanctuary works now, bubbling seems to have a negligible effect. They start with the blue rage bar at full, so to speak, so you can get away with pre-bubbling.


Don't forget the elusive disc priest tank. They seem to appear along side unhappy frost DKs, usually after giggling and casting holy fire on an add...

GTFO Mah Tank!

The Comcast backbone we're connected to spazzed mid raid last night, halting it entirely because you can't go very far when you're missing a healer, both tanks, and a rogue. It took forever to come back up. You're costing me Sapph practice time, Comcast! Rawr. But that's not what I'm here to bitch about.

Now, I like the synergy between the our three normal healers in the 10 man runs. It's me, a holy priest, and a resto shammy. I sometimes quibble with the holy priest, though, for one simple reason:

He tries to take my damned job.

After Anub, I whisper the GM about how I hate all my heals on the MT being overheals while the OT is threatening to splat (I beacon'd him but he was often out of range). It was as much a random whine to a friend as a legitimate complaint, though it's not the first time I've had the Priest say he's healing the tank and made the O.o face. Then we came to the Widow, and the Priest pipes up with healing asignments over vent.

"Okay, I'll take Mach, OtherPriest take Zoja, Amber you get the raid."

"Wait wait wait wait wait," I spluttered over vent. The holy priests get the tanks and I get the raid? Seriously?

Macharious cut me off. Wisely? Perhaps. "Amber gets Zoja, OtherPriest gets raid."

Now, Priest isn't a bad guy. He's actually a great, generous guildie. He's certainly not a bad healer. He just has NO CLUE about the other healers he's running with. I used to do healing assignments in ZA, and to start I flat out asked the shammys what they were best at because I had no clue. Raid heals? Kay. Raid heals it was. While I know that a holy priest can keep up a tank just fine, it's pretty silly to put the aoe healer on the tank and the single target healer on the raid.

While this situation makes me grouse, it also makes me want to go read up on resto druids and shamans, so that I better understand them. All I know is tree = HoTs (and aggro magnet, it seems like), and shaman = chainhealsomg! I had a very polite tree once ask me to not top off the DPS he's HoTed if they weren't in danger, as that wastes his mana. Oops! I try reeeeally hard not to do that anymore and have turned my UI's HoTs display on. I miss that tree. :(

This should probably be the goal of every raid healer. Learning about your other healers can help you work together better. Working well together = less death! Less death = yaaaaay!

Well. I had meant to write something useful today, but I actually had to work at work. Strange!

I promise less Amber QQ in the next post. Maybe I'll even be funny! I've heard rumors that I do that on occassion.

Strengths of a Holy Paladin, or: Amber loves her some Patchwerk

I love healing Patchwerk.

You see, I spend most of my time at the bottom of the healing meters. This is fine, as it's not my job to be at the top of the meters. It's my job to keep Macharious and Zoja from telling me what flavor the floor of Naxx is tonight. But...well...see, once upon a time, I got away with raiding on my hunter. All of a sudden, I wanted the top of those meters. I blew all my cooldowns every chance I could without pulling aggro (when your tank is sitting in the chair behind you, you don't pull aggro) to do the most DPS possible. Admittedly, part of this was because my guild was chuck full of hunters so I had to go balls to the wall to even get into a raid to begin with...but part of it was just because it was fun, and a way to pat myself on the back.

So there's a part of me still that likes being on top of meters, even if healing meters are piss poor at showing actual performance. So...I love healing Patchwerk.

This is the type of fight where holy paladins shine. One target is taking a ton of damage. I am healing that one target. Wee! Toss beacon on the MT while spamming the OT and poof, I'm shitting heals everywhere. Okay, on two targets. But that's two targets that need a lot of heals. I say it again: wee! I keep Beacon and Sacred Shield up all the time on this fight...a fun little juggling act, and a mana intensive one, but I didn't go OOM. Didn't even use a pot! I know this because uh...I have the bad habit of forgetting to buy mana pots. Oops. I get healing pots all the time for drops, but when the hell do I use those!?

"So you were tossing HLs everywhere, right?"

Nope.

See the crit percentage there for FoL? Sacred Shield is glorious. I did toss a lot of HL's for one fight, but for the most part, with SS up FoL does its job nicely.

I can only speculate on how a disc priest would perform on this fight. I'm sure they'd be great, only their numbers would be lower because they prevent damage. I think they'd probably be a bit better in coping with lesser geared tanks on this fight than a holy pally.

Upon further reflection (I'm not as over the top with mp5 as I'd feared) I'm pretty happy with where I sit, stats wise. I do my job, people don't complain, people don't die, and I don't go OOM too soon.

That's raid buffed up there, of course, with a crit chicken in raid and imp wisdom up. 19k health and 21.2k mana-yummy!

Now if only healing 5 mans on her didn't suck so bad...

Oh, oh! Amber is excited.

I HAD COMMENTS ON A POST.

Plural even. That means that like, 3 other people read something here. Sweet! That is totally worth double-posting today over. Because I am a dork.

And now I will go back to waiting until work is over so I can go level my priest more. Maybe tomorrow I'll have er...useful content posted. Maybe. Or maybe I'll just bitch about how Blizzard has given paladins ugly gear post-Judgement, I don't know.

On Gearing the Newly 80 Priest, And Random Stuff

Penance Priest says it so much better than I can. Go see! He talks about 'phases' of gear and everything.

...now to get my 66 priest to 80. Want moar healz! I know I seem strange for leveling a single target healer when my frustration with my paladin was that she was a...single target healer. But a holy paladin is just screwed in aoe situations, whereas at least a disc priest has a shit ton more options for coping. Mmm, buttons.

Speaking of said baby priesty, I apparently love taking pictures of her sitting or floating and looking adorable.

Tonight we're finally moving Lyrandre and her pet frost DK into Nagrand. At 66. Holy sped up leveling, Batman! Oddly enough, my enjoyment of said sped up process is dampened by the fact that we're going to hit 70 and then craaaawl to 80. Getting out of Outlands gear will be worth it, though, even if Lyr's gotten damned lucky so far. Then again, you can't see her pants. I'm sure you know which pants they are, too, seeing as how they're rather infamous in their ugly. Mmm, lime green and purple...snake?....things? I'm also dead set on scoring her a Talbuk mount before we leave. I love those things. My hunter has a blue one. I want a black one for her but there's no way in hell it's happening, so silver it is!

No Sapph healing experiments yet. Myself, Macharious, and Skyrender-two of our MTs-instead helped a buddy guild that had been beating itself against a wall. This week, however...! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. You know, all...none of you...that reads this. :D

PvE Holy Paladin Guide for the Math Wary

Amber’s PvE Holy Paladin Guide for the Math Wary
Or, The “Just Tell Me How To Not Suck” Guide

Disclaimer: I based much of my work upon the EJ thread. It's an excellent resource, and this is merely my attempt to make it more friendly for those of us who find the math headache inducing. The thread and other sources are linked at the end of my babble.

Part One: Stats
Stamina: A dead healer is useless. Stamina is good! But I’ve noticed how many “upgrades” seem to have uh…less stamina on it than the piece I’m replacing. /headtilt, Bliz? If the gear is an upgrade in other respects, just take it. But you might want to keep around that high stam piece for ouchy fights.
Intellect: Know this stat. Love this stat. Int is boosted by Kings! Int gives you mana, crit, and spell power! Int is also your primary regen stat, as it boosts Divine Plea and Replenishment returns.
Spirit: What the fuck, no.
Spell Power: +Heal. Duh. This is obviously a very important stat, but not one I’d worry about terribly because they throw it at you on all of your gear. I believe I entered Naxx 10 with about 1200 in spellpower. SP boosts the effectiveness of your Sacred Shield.
Crit: Crit means bigger heals for less mana. It’s a great stat, especially as you get into more uber gear. Aim for at least 25% for Naxx, and shoot for 30%+ as you gear up in purples, with the exact amount depending on your play style and who you run with. I do love me a good pet crit chicken.
Haste: I consider haste to be a secondary stat. If your gear has some +spell power and int and other tasty stuff on it, as well as haste, well hey! Bonus. I wouldn’t gem or even specifically gear for it, however. If you find yourself in the position of needing to spam Holy Light (HL), then haste is your friend, but save haste for after you have good levels of crit (30%) and mp5. With luck you’d have some haste from Judgements and your local friendly shaman totem, anyhow.
Mp5: Crit is greater than mp5 these days, but do not ignore it!
I happily take it if it’s on gear that’s otherwise a massive upgrade and I don’t take much of a crit hit, but I wouldn’t gem for it unless your gear is oddly lacking in this stat. Int and crit are the better stats to gem/enchant for, int especially.
Remember, mp5 is easy to make up without gear-replenishment, totem, wisdom, flasks, etc.
If you come to a raid with crit stacked sky high and only 30 mp5, I'm going to make sad faces at you. Aim for 200 or so before wandering into Naxx. Flash gets a greater benefit from mp5 than crit and yes, you're still going to use Flash.

Part Two: Abilities
We remain largely two button healers. FoL and HL are still going to be your bosom buddies. You shouldn’t class yourself as a FoL or HL spammer, however. How about spamming whatever is required for the fight? On trash, this is likely to be FoL. On bosses, this can be FoL combined with Sacred Shield (crit boost!) or, yes, Holy Light (o hai, Patchwerk!).
If Blizzard really wanted us to spam HL all the time, why would SS work the way it does? You can compensate for Light’s Grace not being up, honest. If you need a buffer for a ‘slow’ HL to land, toss SS if it isn’t up already, toss a holy shock and an instant FoL if it crits, and then HL. I’ve macro’d an Oh Shit Button just for this (with Divine Favor to guarantee that crit).
I seem to toss more HLs around in 5 mans than I do in raids, but that’s largely because in raids I have other healers to back me up.
Learn to predict incoming damage. You can’t be perfect all the time of course, but it’s not hard to know that X boss tends to do slow steady damage/spike hard/require you to never take your eyes or heals off the tank ever. Anyway, down to specifics…

Holy Light: Yes, if set up right, we can toss quite a few of these around. If you pile on mana reducing effects then the efficiency of HL and FoL can be rather close. Be wary of overdosing on this spell on longer fights, however, because nothing sucks quite as much as being OOM when you’re needed. Except perhaps being dead.
HL can cause zomg crazy! overhealing but as long as you have the mana keep ticking, it’s not a huge deal.

Flash of Light: It’s smaller than its more lauded cousin, but quick and cheap. Love it and use it, for goodness sakes. It’s great for lulls in action, or for buying time until a bigger heal can be gotten off. It’s also great for spamming (especially with SS) when the incoming damage isn’t enough to warrant a HL.

Holy Shock: Holy shock is a handy oh shit button, or something to toss off while running away from whatever stupid thing Blizzard has us stationary healers fleeing from this time. It’s not terribly mana efficient in comparison with FoL, but damn it’s handy in a pinch. A HS crit means a quicker HL or an instant FoL if you have Infusion of Light. Once you hit 30% or more crit, this becomes more viable for more frequent use as a crit naturally means a cheaper spell cost, but I still wouldn’t use it too much. Don’t use it in place of FoL unless the instant factor is crucial.

Beacon of Light: Because somewhat better than being able to only heal one target at a time is being able to heal two. Beacon is annoying for two reasons: one, it has a short duration. Two, it isn’t cheap. I personally don’t bother with it a lot. Sometimes only the tank is taking damage and it can be such a huge mana sink.
It’s great in situations where there is aoe damage, especially in 5 mans. It’s great to toss on the OT while healing the MT. It’s also great to toss on yourself if you’re bad at watching your own green bar (I am) or when you need to stand still and eat some aoe (#^&^%& mojo puddles!) in order to be of any use. There are some simple mods out there to tell you when Beacon falls off and I recommend getting one.
Note: Over healing does not trigger beacon. Neither does trinkets with a healing effect. L

Sacred Shield: The disc priest in me was excited by this spell, though it works quite differently than any priest bubble. SS lasts for 30 seconds. The SECOND time someone takes damage with SS up, then it creates a buff that absorbs a CERTAIN AMOUNT of the damage based off a percentage of your spell power + 500. The damage absorbing buff lasts no longer than six seconds, and has a six second cool down. Also, while it is up, you have 50% more crit from FoL.
Normally, SS is used on tanks. I have not noticed any rage starvation issues with my pet warrior tank, but don’t cast it pre-pull. It’s damned nice on Patchwerk.

Avenging Wrath: Wings! Admittedly I forget about this spell most of the time and it currently has the annoying side effect of triggering forbearance. It increases healing by 20%. I’m careful using it since it deprives me of my bubble for 2 minutes, but it’s great when combined with Divine Plea to negate DP’s healing reduction.

Divine Plea: DP gives you mana back based on int, though it does reduce your healing output. I counter it with AW as mentioned above, and use it preemptively just like I used to do with mana pots. Its short cooldown means you can use it multiple times in many boss fights. Sadly, Wings has a longer cooldown, but I can still use it more than once, especially when I blow it early on.

Divine Favor: Poof! Your next heal is a crit. It’s useful to follow up with HS for an instant FoL or shortened HL.

Divine Illumination: This is another spell I’m bad about remembering, except on fights that I know are going to be HL intensive. Useful on boss fights to extend your mana pool. If you know you’re not going to need it at a certain point (after an enrage for said HL spamming) then it’s good to use it whenever it’s up.

Lay on Hands: Sure as hell isn’t what it used to be, in a good way. Use it as a last ditch oh shit button on the tank or on you for mana.

Judgements: Regularly judging can be a right pain in the ass. Sometimes you just can’t take your heals off the tank for a moment! For that reason (and healer tunnel vision) I would pick whatever judgment is the least important as far as uptime goes. Use it if you can for the mana/healing, as well as the haste buff for you, but only as often as the haste buff drops off. No need to toss out on every cooldown.
Some say that a ret paladin would be better off judging Light, and a holy paladin better off judging Wisdom, since Light scales better with AP. I’d just go with what I said above and have any meleeing paladin keep up whatever’s the most important for your group/raid.

Hand of Salvation: If you have a moment, glance over at the threat meter, see which DPS is on top, and throw this at them. It’s better to be proactive with this than reactive, since it reduces threat over time rather than immediately.

Hand of Protection: This is your “oh shit the mage already pulled agro” button. It’s also used to force tank transitions. Do not place this spell where you might hit it on accident because HoPing the tank is baaaaaad. Why yes, yes I’ve done this.

Hand of Sacrifice: As a holy paladin I forgot this existed except for Maiden in Kara. I honestly prefer other methods of deflecting damage off the tank that doesn’t put my own health at risk.

Sources: EJ’s Holy Paladin Guide (http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t35975-holy_paladin_guide_wotlk/)
World of Matticus' Recommended Requirements for Naxx (http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2009/01/05/recommended-requirements-for-naxxramas-normal-and-heroic/)

For gear, I highly recommend Banana Shoulder's list here. She also has a great list for gems. I seem to use nothing but Brilliant Autumn's Glow and Smooth Autumn's Glow, however I also don't yet have a meta gem to worry about. The Dazzling Forest Emerald was great until my gear shat mp5 at me. If I did have a meta lot, I'd probably lean towards the Insightful Earthseige Diamond. Mm, int. For gear of all classes, this is not a bad resource either.

And yes, I did actually go for nothing but int gems for my t7 chest and my belt buckle. The crit gems are awfully expensive on the AH, and I couldn't find my guildie with the pattern. And well...int is tasty.

I am working on something. Ssh.

The EJ forums are awesome. It seems that every time someone has a question, someone somewhere will thrust the link at them. But damn, wading through those posts can be a chore...oh, and by the way, I HATE MATH. I'd much rather ask someone and have them tell me "If X is the case, do Y in order to not suck."

So I'm going through all my resources, and compiling a simplified "How To Not Suck" guide to Holy Paladins end game. Will anyone read it? Prooooobably not. But if nothing else it's likely good for me, and thus my poor raiding guild, to do the research. I'll try to resist the urge to defend my 200 unbuffed mp5 again (though let me tell you, I'm sure I'll love it on Sapph, when we can survive more than a few moments).

I SWEAR I wasn't going for mp5 gear on purpose. I could get the crafted mace over my Nexus dropped epic, but...but...it just has stam on it! No int! I'll take the int and the damn mp5, thank you very much. Mumble mumble crit...

I'm currently debating on if I want to throw int or crit gems into my gear. Or both. I'd like a little more crit but I DO get it from raid buffs...and int is buffed by kings, which results in more awesome...mmm. Fuck it. Int gives me crit AND other stuff, and crit is just crit. INT IT IS.

Now tonight I go help a buddy guild of ours that's been floundering in Naxx. This does...not make saving for Lyr's eventual epic flyer easy, but I like helping people. So! I'll uh, let you know how that goes. I want to pick apart some of my recount reports anyway.

Coming later this week will also be my report on To Run Away From Blizzard During Sapph, Or Bubble and Sacred Shield and Eat It?: The Debate. BoO hasn't downed him yet so I'm sure I'll get a few stabs in to experiment. I'm leaning towards eating the damage, myself. It worked on those @%#^&%$&^ing mojo puddles.