Magical Addon Wish

I have a wish for a magical addon that would allow me to post cat (and non cat!) macros as raid warnings.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted to post this mid raid:

Or this, when ice blocks have chained yet again:

Do you have a pug full of strategy “suggestions” begining with “in my guild…”:

When your raid stands in defile, again:

Twilight Sparkle Party tanking makes me think of this:

Terrible pug is terrrible?

Hint: every RL is thinking this at some point.

Anyway, my point is:  WOULD THIS NOT BE TOTALLY AWESOME?

/RW fuck up macros:  I want them.  GIEFS.

Special Cookie of the Week

I’m well familar with fail pugs, especially now that my tree is in that span of levels that throws shiny new DKs at me.

I’ve zoned in, in cat form, and had them pull before I could switch specs.  Or regain mana.  Or even switch to the proper gear.  I’ve had them ignore my pleas for mana, chain pull as I try to drink, and then die and leave group in a huff.  That’s almost normal for me at this point.  I even had all of that in one group yesterday, but that’s not what I’m really posting about today…because that was not the Crowning Moment of Fail.

No, the crowning moment of fail came at the end of the instance, when I rolled on–and won–a ring.

O.o

o.O

O.O

>.<

What the fuck?!  Man, I wish I was healing you with tree punches…to the face.  It’s one thing to not know the nuances of classes I don’t play.  I don’t even know the nuances of other specs of classes I DO play.  But to insist that a resto druid doesn’t use spell power?   What?  Where have you been, sirrah? 

“lol omg your gonna pull that one”
That one what?  Have other people told you that rest druids use spell power before?  Have you stopped to consider that IT MAY BE BECUASE THEY’RE FUCKING CASTERS AND USE FUCKING SPELLPOWER?

“I got a 80.”  I KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING, FUCK YEAH.

/boggle

Amber’s Thoughtful Overview Of Proposed Priest Changes

I know I said I didn’t care about Cata changes that much but this is a convenient post.  I still plan on doing Twilight Sparkly Party–it got derailed by a work project yesterday, and I just don’t have the heart for it today.

New Priest Spells 

Heal (available at level 16): While priests already have a spell called Heal, the existing version becomes obsolete at higher levels, which is something we intend to change in Cataclysm. Introduced at a low level, the “new” Heal spell will functionally work much like a down-ranked Greater Heal did in the past, adding more granularity (WoW: expanding your vocabulary) to your direct-healing arsenal. If you need to heal someone a moderate amount and efficiency is an issue (making Flash Heal the incorrect spell for the job), then Heal is what you want to use. Heal is intended to be the priest’s go-to direct-healing spell unless they need something bigger (Greater Heal) or faster (Flash Heal). We will be following a similar philosophy with all the healing classes. 

OH MY GOD I WILL HAVE THREE DIRECT HEALS?  I GET TO IGNORE TWO OF THEM TO ALMOST EXCLUSELY SPAM ONE NOW INSTEAD OF JUST IGNORING ONE?!

Mind Spike (level 81): Deals Shadowfrost damage and puts a debuff on the target that improves subsequent Mind Spike damage. The intent of Mind Spike is to fill a niche missing in Shadow DPS, though it may be occasionally useful for healers as well. Mind Spike provides a quick nuke to use in situations where the priest doesn’t have time to set up the normal rotation, such as when adds are dying too fast or you have to swap targets a lot. Spamming Mind Spike will do about as much damage as casting Mind Flay on a target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. The idea behind the debuff is that when you cast Mind Spike, we expect you to cast a lot of them; we don’t intend you to fit it into an already full Shadow rotation. It also provides Shadow with a spell to cast when locked out of the Shadow school. (School lockouts will no longer affect both schools for multi-school spells.) 1.5-second cast. 30-yard range. No cooldown. 

This one actually sounds pretty cool.  I used to just flail and Mind Flay stuff in that sort of situation.

Inner Will (level 83): Increases movement speed by 12% and reduces the mana cost of instant-cast spells by 10%. This buff will be exclusive with Inner Fire, meaning you can’t have both up at once. Inner Fire provides a spell power and Armor buff; Inner Will should be useful on a more situational basis. 

Flail and cast bubble/renew time?

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro (IF HE HAS AGGRO I DON’T WANT HIM NEAR ME!), are being focused on in PvP, or just can’t seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown. 

Ways to abuse “Life Grip”:
Yank the DPS INTO the fire.
Yank the overpulling tank back to you.  Bonus points if he is tanking something that cleaves and this drags said mob through other people resulting in much death.
Yank some easily movement impaired class  to you for no reason other than to fuck up their DPS.
Yank the melee to you after they blow their cooldowns.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics 

In addition to introducing new spells, we’re planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you’re familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

• All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately. Hasted HoTs and DoTs will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks (meaning they will gain extra ticks to fill in the duration as appropriate). 
  I will have some…really awesome…renew…crits?
  
• We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an “execute” — something you do when the target is at 25% health. 
  But is it still something I kill myself with when I’m not paying attention?
  
• While we want to keep the priest’s role as a well-rounded healer, we also want to make sure the class is a viable tank healer, which is something priests moved away from a little in Wrath of the Lich King. Greater Heal will probably be the tank-healing spell of choice, though we’ve also discussed giving Discipline a second shield so that they have a small shield to cast on lots of different targets, and a big, more expensive shield to cast on a tank or anyone else taking a ton of damage. 
  I must have missed the memo where I was supposed to drift away from being a viable tank healer.  …wait, what?  Greater Heal?  YOU WANT ME TO USE GREATER HEAL?  WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN.  My brain, it is–ooh, moar bubbles?
  
• Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit will be removed from the game. As Spirit will be the primary mana-regeneration stat, we don’t want it to vary as much between solo, small group, and raid play. Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild will not boost Spirit either.
  I’m curious to see if they replace it with anything.  It would feel weird to just be missing a buff.
  
• Mana will be a bigger consideration for all healers. We aren’t trying to make healing more painful; we’re trying to make it more fun. When the cost of a spell isn’t an issue, then casting the right spell for the job is less of an issue because you might as well just use your most powerful spell all of the time. We are, however, getting rid of the five-second rule, because we don’t want to encourage standing around doing nothing. We’re also going to cut back on the benefits of buffs such as Replenishment so priests (and all healers) don’t feel as penalized when those buffs aren’t available.
  Ironically I hate huntering without replen even more than I hate healing without replen.  Not feeling as crippled without it will be nice, but I’m mildly concerned about how they’ll balance this. 
  Wait, I’m making acutal thoughtful commentary.  FUCK.  NOT ALLOWED.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• We want to improve Discipline’s single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn’t always a more attractive option than healing. 
  Well, you know, there’s that whole “weakened soul” thing?  Strangely enough I do HEAL between bubbles already.  So that I can get soap bubbles up.  I am…confused by this statement, though if you want to give me more thoroughput go right on ahead.
  
• We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal’s throughput is similar between both specs. 
  I saw “PvP” and “holy” didn’t even read this part.
  
• We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts. 
  Yes please, reduce our short fight fail.  *remembers above*  By giving us one button to mindlessly spam.
  
• Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield. 
  LIES.  THE BARRIER IS A LIE.  I WIL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT YOU COCK TEASING WHORES.
  
• We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast. 
  blah blah Holy blah
  
• Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities — something we’re trying to avoid in Cataclysm — we will need to replace several of the tree’s talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike’s cast time. 
  Insert all sorts of balls jokes here. 
  
• Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn’t variable depending on group composition.
  Because gear juggling is SOOOOO much better.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses 

Discipline 
Healing 
Meditation 
Absorption 

Holy 
Healing 
Meditation 
Radiance Wait why do they get to be shinier?

Shadow 
Spell damage 
Spell Crit 
Shadow Orbs Testicles!

Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.  cake

Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target. 

Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like “Shadow priests” before they obtain Shadowform. So they’ll feel more like shamans?

 

 

A few quick clarifications: 

Neither Inner Fire nor Inner Will has charges. The decision is on which armor you want up at the time. 

Preventing dot clipping is something we want to do in general. It obviously benefits Shadow priests just as much as warlocks. 

The idea behind Mind Spike is that you can’t always settle into your normal, and high-ramp up rotation. It’s also useful when you have to move or get school locked. 

The closest analogue to PW:B is the DK Anti-Magic Zone, but it has some important differences, such as a way to counter it in PvP (since it absorbs all damage, not just magical damage). 

The idea behind the Holy “cast three in a row” talent (it’s called “Chakra”) is that we’ve always positioned Holy as a versatile healer. This talent lets you shift into different modes. If you need to be a tank healer, cast three single target heals and your single-target healing is now better. Cast three area heals, and you can be a temporarily specialized group healer. We’re going to try to play this mechanic up with a cool UI to try to get that “I’m almost in the zone” feel. We’ll let it apply to as many types of spells as we can, perhaps even Smite for those times when nobody’s taking damage. 

We pulled Misery because we are pulling every group benefit that improves hit. It’s annoying to have to swap your gear in and out depending on who shows up for your group. In general we’re going to push even harder in Cataclysm for bringing people you like to play with, not bringing people who have awesome buffs. The answer to almost every question of “But why would they bring me?” should be “Because you know what the hell you’re doing.”
Well fuck, don’t invite me to a raid ever again then.  >.>

Success in the Face of Failure

Brotherhood of Oblivion: failing where we should succeed, and suceeding where we should fail!

On Thursday night we had two potential recruits listening on vent.  This meant one thing for sure: the night was going to go to hell.

I hummed to myself and made some flower wreaths for the handbasket.

First of all, Tim, one of our intrepid DPSers, had himself a non-working OS because he’s just clever like that.  Cranky Tank mosied over across the street to fix it before raid time…and bricked the mother board.

Slick, my love.

So we’re down a tank, a DPS, and…our other tank, as Steve’s computer is drafted while they try to fix Tim’s.  This leaves us our tank with strength gems in his gear and Andy, who’s been retired from tanking for awhile.

Right, so, no continuing ICC25 for us!  14 manning Naxx25 for the weekly raid quest seems like a splendi…

…Hunt just pulled an extra spider pack and we wiped.  Okay.  Well, let’s recover from that and go on to Anub, shall we?

Anub is easy sauce, it should just be a matter of-

…did we all just die?  We all just fucking died!

Fail.

Well, Steve’s here now, let’s 15 man it, then.  We magically succeed this time, and reform into an ICC 10.  Steve wants to bring his warlock and the warlock wants to bring his shaman.  For some reason I say what the hell, and off we go.

To wipe on Marrowgar.

Well, fuck.  Okay.  So we regroup and stomp him into the ground, and then proceed to…wipe on Lady Deathwhisper after one of the tanks unexpectedly goes down to a Hulk.

(Me, mid raid: are those big green things wearing purple shorts?  Raid: Yes.  Me: …)

So we regroup again, down the Lich Bitch, and head to Gunship!  One of the tanks dies on the way because I paused to eat chocolate.  Mm, chocolate.  Okay, so, we get to gunship and…

…the warlock smears himself on the deck, because that’s what warlocks do.  The DPS left loses control of the adds on that ship, the tank goes down, and we…wipe on Gunship.

We wipe on the mother fucking boat!

This does lead to the amusing discovery that you don’t die if you’re in a cannon.  This comes in handy for when we make our-by this point required-wipe on Saurfang (at something like 4% even).  Yes, I ran the fuck away from the boss to hide in a cannon.  This was after yelling at the rogue and hunter for hiding in the cannons when they can get out of death some other way.  Bitches!  MY WAY TO CHEAT DEATH GTFO.

So after dying our way through farm content, will all sorts of insanity on vent, you’d think the recruits would be smart and run away, right?

…no, they went ahead and transferred.

I invited them in the middle of our third wipe in an all guild Heroic CoS.

Yes, we even failed at H CoS (did you know that if you do the gaunlet without talking to Arthas, talking to him makes more elites spawn?  Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah don’t send your healer). 

I love my guild.  I don’t always know why, but I love them.

Open Letters to Pugs

Dear Fail Bear,

Asking if everyone knew the fight, given that it was Oc and most people bail first chance they get, was good.  Announcing “pulling” into the silence that followed when everyone wasn’t even back on their mounts yet was silly (many other questions will be ignored, but usually a ‘ready?’ will garner a hurried response if not).  Trying to vote kick me because I suggested that you ask before pulling (again: “pulling” =/= asking or a ready check) is silly, especially as your healer is my guildmate.  You are probably not going to succeed, and the person you tried to vote kick will know about it. 

Check guild tags, yo.

Love!,
The cheeky hunter

Your turn!  Later today, if luck is with me, the Saurfang strat will go up.

Thoughts on Gearscore

I don’t know what my gearscore is.

I don’t care what my gearscore is.

I don’t ask anyone what their gearscore is. 

Gearscore doesn’t tell you what someone’s skill level is.  It doesn’t tell you how much DPS they can actually do.  It doesn’t tell you that they’re not a douchebag.  It doesn’t tell you that they know how to gem, or spec, or enchant what gear they do have.  It doesn’t tell you how much thought they’ve put into everything.

In other words, it doesn’t tell you a single.  Damn.  Thing-except how big your penis is and how many emblems you’ve farmed tormenting pugs in random heroics.

And your penis is not helping me out here.

I’d much rather take a look at someone’s gear and take a look at their enchants, gems, and general gear choices.  If I see a DK with a SP gem, then I know I’m in trouble in a whole different way than “oh he only has a GS of 2”.  There’s a difference between recently dinged and ignorant.  I’d like to know what I’m really dealing with, you know? 

So in short: gearscore can go die in a fire.

The Joys of Random Pugging

Edit: Broken recount is broken.  So let’s address the rest of the fail, because that’s still perfectly valid.  :P

If you don’t know an instance, speak up.   Better you ask than have your healer screaming obscenities at you IRL.  I mean sure, I’ll wonder inwardly how the hell you don’t know NEXUS, but that’s better than calling you a douchenozzle becuase you’re making my life insanely difficult, right?  I’ve had several cases of DPS wiping groups because they didn’t know fights already (though it makes more sense in the new heroics).  Bwuh?  ASK, PEOPLE.  At least for the new heroics, I stop and ask if people know the fights first.  If you don’t answer and then wipe us with something stupid, I’m going to be pissy. 

If a boss has spell reflect, it behooves you to notice your own dots stacking up on you and STOP.  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP.  If you keep taking a ton of damage, your healer is screaming JUMP at you in party, and you notice a stacking debuff?  Yeah.  Do it.  Please.

Speaking of heroic fails, my lovely tank healing, high crit, low haste build?  Yeah, it fucking sucks for heroics.  Oh the normal ones are fine, but if you get in the new ones with even a semi-derp derp group?  Yeah, kiss your sanity goodbye.  You can’t have low DPS in there.  You just can’t.  I know this because I tried.  And I couldn’t just group kick because they were guildies.  Bwuh.

I KNOW ALREADY!

Dear Tank,

I know you need heals.  I see that your green bar is less green than it should be.

I know you have aggro.  There is a red outline around the square with your name in it.

I know you have stacks of the debuff on you, there’s a wee little icon with a wee little number in it on my UI.

In other words, I KNOW, SHUT THE FUCK UP, CLEAR VENT FOR SHIT WE DON’T ALREADY KNOW. 

From now on, any time you say “heal me!” I will repond equally inanely with “TPS the boss!”

No love,
The person who assigned individual healers to each tank, and was assigned to you and doing nothing but heal you…no, really

P.S.,

This isn’t the first time I’ve written a letter just like this for you.  WTF?

How to PROPERLY Place Blame

I was sitting there innocently wasting time in Twitter instead of blogging or working on my Nano outline when lo, this post came to my attention.  I read it over and immediately noticed a massive problem: he was always blaming the wrong people.  I decided that it was my DUTY to set the record straight.

ETA: Don’t forget to check out other versions here and here.

Here, then, is a CORRECTED version of Mortigan’s list:

Amber’s Totally Fair and Unbiased Guide to Placing the Blame for Wipes

Cause of Wipe: The tank appears to be losing aggro left and right! 
Person to Blame:  The DPS
Possible Solutions:  First, cuss at them a lot and remind them to LOOK AT OMEN.  If they would just LOOK AT OMEN, then we wouldn’t have this problem.  CLEARLY, any and all aggro issues lay at the feet of the DPS.  I mean, they’re making it, right?  Totally their problem.  If that doesn’t work, take away the shamans weapons and make him DPS with mining picks.*

Cause of Wipe: The tank dies.
Person to Blame:  The DPS
Possible Solutions:  Clearly, the tank died because the DPS took too long to kill the boss and the healer went OOM.

Cause of Wipe: Boss immediately ignores tank and 1-shots the DPSers.
Person to Blame:  DPS
Possible Solutions:  Uh, DON’T STAND THERE, tardbuckets.

Cause of Wipe: The healer dies.
Person to Blame:  The DPS
Possible Solutions:  Misdirect onto the tanks correctly, hunters, or drop a frost trap!  AoE the adds down quicker! 

Cause of Wipe: The adds are killing everyone.
Person to Blame:  The DPS
Possible Solutions:  If you KILLED the adds then they couldn’t kill  YOU.  See also: previous wipe.  Alternatively, if you weren’t standing in fires all the time, the healers would still have mana with which to heal your legitimate ailments.

Cause of Wipe: The DPS is too low, and the boss enrages.
Person to Blame:  …the DPS!
Possible Solutions:  MASH BUTTONS FASTER AND WITH LESS FAIL.

Cause of Wipe:  People don’t know the fights.
Person to Blame:  the DPS
Possible Solutions:  Tanking and healing are very similar from fight to fight.  CLEARLY, if the strats are being mucked up it’s the DPS’s fault, because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing!  Go read strats, nubs!

*We honestly did this back in Kara.

Emoquitting and You

1) Don’t do it.  There’s better ways to go out. 
2) Definitely don’t do it repetedly.
3) Especially not in the same guild.
4) The GM may keep inviting you back, but everyone else might well start to think you’re a bundle of loldrama.

/stares

And in more random WTFery, I honestly have these conversations with some of you folks:

Kyrilean:  yellow
 me:  what?
 me:  blue?  green?  purple?
 Kyrilean:  the phone goes “green”, i “pink” it up, and say “yellow”
 me:  …  WTF
Kyrilean:  a 2nd grade elementary teacher asks her class to use three words in a sentence: green, pink, and yellow
teacher says, “Susie, please use those three words in a sentence.”
Susie says, “My dress is green. My crayon is pink. The sun is yellow.”
“Very good,” says the teacher
me:  but that’s three sentences
 Kyrilean:  “Jose,” says the teacher, “please use those three words in a sentence.”
Jose thinks a moment.
And then says, “The phone goes green, I pink it up, and say yellow.”
you must say that last part with an accent btw
think Speedy Gonzalez :)
me:  you are so not PC
 Kyrilean:  I’m a mac
 me:  I’m blogging this
 Kyrilean:  shit

I will not share the god awful jokes I heard after that.   You’re welcome.