Project Lore

During the (incredibly short) leveling process my Priest was mostly specced Shadow, with a little bit of Discipline thrown in for good measure. Upon hitting level 60, and no longer gaining the benefits of the Refer-a-Friend program, I promptly respecced Holy. It has been three weeks since the change, and I feel that I can finally weigh in on my decision with a semblance of intelligence. In weeks past, Solidsagart has gone from level 60 to level 66, sheerly through instances (along with some dungeon-based quests). I stuck to dungeons so I could prepare myself for group healing. Not to mention the fact that the grind as Holy would totally suck. Initially, my healing ability was appaling; ADHD would kick in and I stopped paying attention, stopped looking at people's health, or decided that I was DPS again, and wasted all my mana trying to contribute to the chart. What can I say, old habits die hard. I decided that the best way to overcome my need for DPS was to stop playing my Rogue for awhile. For more than a solid week, Solidsagart was the only character I played, allowing me to hone my healing skills, and grab some respectable gear from the early Burning Crusade dungeons. Another obstacle I had was to get used to multi-target healing, rather than a single-target mindset. Thankfully, my spec has some built in utility for AoE healing. While on the topic of my spec, I have heeded some of the insights from the previous post's comments. I decided that Guardian Spirit is indeed, nearly useless (thanks Ryan) . Along those lines is Spirit of Redemption. The talent is very situational, and doesn't increase my healing unless used.  It has only made a difference once to date. So, I will be moving that SoR point and Guardian Spirit's into Holy Reach (thanks Claxo). I thought about moving two points from Searling Light to have full Inspiration (as PopeSeanPaul suggested), but decided that I wanted some DPS buff, for when I grind between instances. As a personal experiment I will be dropping Silent Resolve, moving the trio of points into Serendipity to help with mana conservation (numerous people pointed out the overheals issue). I would like to think that I do not burn too much mana off overheals, but I know I burn some. On the flip side, I have yet to pull aggro from the tank. Hopefully, I can maintain that statistic. The slightly modified spec now looks like this. I doubt I will get any raiding time in before Wrath of the Lich King, so that report will have to wait a few months. I would also like to thank the players (not Goggins) who pointed out Grid and Clique, they have been wonderful additions to my suite of addons. Groupmates have loved my "Oh, SHIT!" button. :p

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I believe that one of the biggest issues with raiding and partying in World of Warcraft is ego. So many people out there think that they know the game better than the creators themselves.  That confidence can often be a player's downfall. The fact of the matter is this, probably less than 1% of World of Warcraft players know it well enough to be considered experts at the game. Sure, many players known their class very well, but do they know its utility for raids, parties, Battlegrounds, Arenas and every boss fight? Not likely. What about the other classes?  Do they know how to get the most out of the Auction House? The ins and outs of WoW's scripting language? The often neglected lore? Doubtful. You may think I am here to gripe about how we could all open our eyes and learn a little from our guildmates, PUG-mates or Buddhism, but I promise you that isn't the case. Sure, I showed an officer last night that he could link his professional abilities rather than telling everyone what he can do, but he was gracious about learning from the “new blood.” I am actually here to ask for help. If you have been following my blog here at Project Lore, then you know that I made a Priest alt for the Refer-a-Friend promotion. I have never, ever, in all the MMOs I have played, gone healing. With Wrath coming in less than a month's time, I figured now is as good a time as any. With the refunded talent points I created this healing spec. Let me restate this, while I know the basics of healing, I certainly do not know the nitty-gritty details. My spec was designed to reduce casting time and mana consumption, while bolstering heals and crit heals and the chance to crit. Survivability was an afterthought. I do realize that being new to the “keeping people alive” rather than “killing everything that moves” mentality will likely cause me to waste tons of mana on overheals. So, the Serendipity talent is something I will likely move too. So Priests, and healers in general, now is your time to shine. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated – that means the first poster better have some good input – and it just doesn't have to be talent spec pointers. Good addon, macro or rotation suggestions are welcome too! I did create one macro already, my personal “Oh, shit!” button which I stole from my brother's old Priest. It yells, says, sends to party and raid the following message: “Fox! Get this guy off me!”

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