Macros and Power Auras Shenanigans

Macros and Power Auras

     Let me preface this post by saying this is mainly for me. I hate it when I change a macro or lose a Power Auras setup and have to figure it out all over again. I’m sticking this here so I can easily come back and copy and paste after I make one of my boo-boos. Additionally, I’m not big on cast sequence macros. I like to have a hand in each spell selection so I can determine the best way to utilize different buffs, mana efficiency, and throughput needs. If you’re looking for any “smash one button and the following 4 things will happen” macros, don’t bother skimming down through here.

Leveling and Early 85 Shenanigans

Woot 85! It took me a surprising amount of time to do it again, (damn you real life for infringing)!The leveling experience was just as fun as it was in beta, if not a bit better because things felt a bit more polished. Opening zones were a mad rush the 1^st night, but once I broke away from the pack everything was much better. Deepholm was a little grindy but I think that’s because the map has you flying in circles a lot. Uldum was a blast, with what is probably the best questing in WoW I’ve come across. Twilight Highlands was a good zone, but not super great. I think on its own it’s fine, but following Uldum almost anything would be a letdown.  

Now that I’m 85 I’ve slowly been working my way though dungeons, crafting, and the AH to get geared up enough to be competitive in raids. I’m struggling a bit with my Disc spec as opposed to Holy, which seems pretty strong at the moment. I’ll most likely duel spec both for the time being. I want to contribute in raids, but we already have a good Holy priest, so I know my raid would prefer the diversity of me being Disc; I just need to play with the spec more. My gut feeling is it will be stronger with higher levels of mastery because I already understand many of the nuances of the revised play style. I’ll post again when I have some better numbers and empirical evidence.

Cata release blues.

So friggin bored....    
     So I've completed my checklist for pre Cata release. I've prepped my wife for the march to 85 (after 5 years of playing though, she knows the drill). I've gotten my PC all cleaned out and ready for my install. I've updated all my add-ons with ones that are Cata compatible. Justice Point caped, check. Plenty of honor points, check. Cleaned out my bags and bank and ditched my old pvp gear, check, check and check. Hell, I've even done 25 daily quests and not turned them in yet so I can get XP for them after Cata goes live!
    Instead of feeling excited about the release in two days, I'm just bored and a bit apathetic. Don't get me wrong, Cata is great; best quests I've done in WoW, (Uldum mmmh) good dungeons etc. Still, something is missing for me in the "right now" of playing WoW. My buddy (who will be going to the local Cata launch even with me tomorrow night), proposed a shopping trip to buy energy drinks and snacks for the charge up to 85, but that's still not enough to get my blood pumping yet.
     Maybe since I leveled 2 priests and a druid up to 85 in beta I'm not as excited as I would otherwise have been. Maybe I'm nervous because I'm not really good @ leveling (hence doing it 3 times in beta). Maybe I'm just experiencing a certain amount of trepidation associated with going from the top of my game to square one again. In any case, I'll be standing outside with some friends tomorrow night, marveling @ the costumes, the diversity of people in my rather small town who come out, and talking about my favorite addiction with strangers, before settling in for the blitz to 85.

My New(ish) Guild

     I love my old guild. Anyone who was a friend of a current member or who really wanted to join up got a g-invite. There were only maybe 3 people as "hard core" as I was in that guild, and we somehow managed to go 10/12 hm 10 man in ICC. You could get drunk during a raid, ninja pull a progression boss, and stand in the fire to your heart's content; somehow we still killed bosses. Somehow everyone got along and had fun.
     My new guild is quite different. Most of it's members transferred to Stormrage with the specific intent of joining a guild like this. We have actual application process you have to go through. We tell about 4 people "no" for every "yes". We have an attendance requirement, and a process for letting the GM know when your not going to be there. The raid leader demands absolute attention and proper execution during progression fights. The raid leader calls you out in vent for making a mistake, and offers insincere sexual favors as a reward for good play (it makes me laugh every time). Every player (with the exception of one or two) knows their class and role very very well and will shine at some point in our weekly raids. We've went to ICC 25 for two weeks with no pug's in the raid, and now we're 11/12 HM ICC 25. Somehow we all get along and have fun. I love my new guild.

Bubble Spam

Ah, bubble spam, how I shall miss you. Not really, but maybe a little bit. I never really was a pure bubble spammer (if there even is such a thing). I typically used it to prevent incoming predictable raid damage, and filled in with flash and penance to where there were gaps in green bars. It was a fun spell / playstyle, and allowed me to focus on watching what other players were doing, not to mention moving out of the fire etc. It's not that I don't want a more challenging concept of healing, it's just that keeping it simple during actual game play made me feel more engaged in the fight.

Just thought I would throw out this little spreadsheet tool I use for the Lich King fight. Basically the idea is for Disc Priests to be able to see if they should down rank their PW:S spells for Infest to maximize Rapture returns.

PW:S Calc Tool

For more information about the Rapture trick, please check out this video.