Moving!

I've decided to move my blog from blogspot to Wordpress. It's just a lot easier to use and it also appears to be a more popular site. So all 0 of you out there that read my blog, make sure to update your links to:http://strangemelt.wordpress.com/ !

Will discipline fly for groups?

Penance seems to be the talk of the day amongst priests. On paper, it's a 2 second cast, healing 2K x 3, and can crit on any or all of the heals. The two big drawbacks being that a) it's channeled, meaning the mana cost is front-loaded and it's also subject to interrupt, and b) it's at the very bottom of the Discipline tree.

To be honest, the channeled/front-loaded mana bit isn't too big a deal for me, since I hate cast-canceling anyway and it's no easier to interrupt than a GHeal. Plus the new push-back rules mean you'll always get something out of it. The problem I see is that you're choosing the Path of the Shielder instead of the Path of the Healer.

Discipline pretty much forces you into a style that leans heavily on PW:S, since your heals just won't have the "oomph" that a holy priest does. So, your fallback becomes "shield to prevent, then heal the rest." Many people claim that this requires a more anticipatory style, but I disagree. I think you can react to someone get aggro fairly quickly. Even as holy, I'm as likely as not to toss a PW:S on a DPS taking damage. The problem comes when you toss it on a feral or warrior tank -- they don't like taking less damage due to how it effects their rage. If I'm forced to keep an eye on rage bars before deciding what spell to cast, then I don't think it's worth the effort.

And the healing meters won't take mitigation into account at all, so if you're Pugging or running with a guild that puts a heavy emphasis on recount numbers, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do.

But all that notwithstanding, I'm eager to try something a little different. In a 5-man, no one cares what your healing numbers look like -- you either live or you die -- so I think the instances on the way to 80 might be a good place to do some experimenting in the discipline tree.

Too cool for school

When I last left my mage, he had finished most of the Zangermarsh quests and was getting ready to start on Terrokar Forest with a full load of rested XP and the new patch. Mob killing was the typical FrBx3, FN, FrBx2 with a rest every 3 or 4 mobs to drink.

Well, the patch is here and Frost is a whole 'nother world. I'm running a pure frost spec and I feel so OP that it's crazy. The key talents I feel are making the difference are Improved Water Elemental, Fingers of Frost, and Brain Freeze, but there's plenty of support talents that really set Frost on a lofty pedestal.

It's pretty easy to see why Imp WE is great, but it's more than the extended duration - when he's out, I regen mana fast enough that I can cast non-stop without running out of mana. And that's a lot, since my new rotation is a lot closer to FrB, FrB, FrB, Fireblast, dead mob. That's because there's usually a Brain Freeze in there somewhere that lets me toss an instant-cast, 0 mana cost Fireball into the mix. I didn't think it would be that great, but it procs a lot. I would say once every mob or two is pretty typical. Added to the extra slowing of Chilled to the Bone and extra damage from Fingers of Frost and I rarely cast Frost Nova anymore, especially since you can just stand there with Ice Barrier on and let it auto-FN anyone who breaks it.

To give an example, I did the quest The Shadow Tomb last night. If you recall, it involves a 3-wing mini-dungeon where there's an object at the end of each wing you need to retrieve. To further complicate things, there's also an NPC you have to rescue as part of an escort quest that generally starts as the respawns start popping. Oh, did I mention that the mobs run when low on health? This quest was very painful on both my shadow priest and my rogue.

In contrast, this was a walk in the park for my frost mage. I was able to kill about four in a row without stopping with my WE out. Stop for one drink, then finish the room. Repeat twice and start the escort. The only thing even close to dicey was when I had a double respawn in the central chamber coupled with a caster from a side chamber (3 mobs total). Had NPC on one, sheeped the other, cold snapped and popped the WE on the third and it was cake. I think I cast Frost Nova only once the whole time I was in there.

I love my mage!

Less pew-pew, more stabbity, stabbity?

Yes, I secretly have a rogue alt. It's nice to get up close and personal on occasion. So if any of you out there do the same, Shadowpanther has a nice set up gear lists and talent builds for rogues in 3.02. I haven't tested any of it yet, but I'd say it's a nice place to get started!

Hurry up and wait!

So with the 3.02 patch pretty certain to be coming on October 14th, I've begun strategizing the best way to finish the push to 70 on my mage, who just hit 63 last night. As I mentioned before, 3.02 brings the reduced XP to level, so I'm trying to determine the best way to optimize my play to get the most benefit out of the changes.

Rested XP - this is a no-brainer, but it's more than just not playing until the patch hits. As soon as it hits, the clock to WotLK starts ticking again, so I don't want to be stuck sub-70 on release date. My current plan is to play just enough to keep my rested XP bar completely full at 1-1/2 levels (or 30 bars, for those of you on the original interface). So I've been jumping on for a few hours, doing a few quests, and then hopping off once I've used about 6 bars' worth. Actually, I'm using a Fubar addon called RestFu, which tells me how much longer I can rest before filling up, so I'm getting it to about 2-3 days before quitting a session.

Quest Turn-ins - One of my guildies suggested getting my entire quest log full of completed quests so that they can be turned in all at once once the patch. I'm using a leveling mod which leads me on the optimal patch of turn-ins, so it's a little tricky to do this since so many are chained. But with only a few days left anyway, I'm starting doing this as much as I can (I currently have about 6 completed quests in Zangermarsh ready to turn in).

That's about the only things I can think of to do other than the typical things (buy buff pots, keep gear upgraded, etc.). My big fear is that even with the leveling speed increase that I won't make it to 70 by launch. So if anyone has any other ideas, please leave a comment -- anything that can speed the journey is welcome!

I'm baaaaack...

Well, despite my best efforts, a mere week was all I could stay away.

There's just not enough alternatives out there in the ether to hold my interest. And I finally decided that a lot of the problem was me QQ'ing about my priest. I'm bummed about priests, I think they got nothing interesting in the expansion, and they nerfed my favorite spell, Prayer of Mending. Call me pessimistic, but nothing anyone says will convince me otherwise, so I'm parking my priest (except when needed for guild instance healing) and I'll either confirm or deny my suspicions on my own when the expansion comes out (although 3.02 may be sufficient to make that judgement). If it turns out I over-reacted, so be it. Otherwise, it'll be time to look for another main!

In the meantime, I'm leveling up a shaman. Of all the other healing classes, it seems like the best fit for my style of play. Plus as I mentioned before, Spirit Link looks very interesting! I've flip-flopped 3 or 4 times between elemental and enchancement, and I've settled on enhancement. With some help from guildies (and the AH), I think I've finally gotten into the swing of things.

And just in time, too, because with the leveling speed increase of the 3.02 build expected to be coming in just under two weeks, it's time to park my mage and build up that rested XP!