Moving to Wordpress

Hey all, I'm moving to Wordpress because I like the layout and tools a bit better. Check me out at my new address http://terrasus.wordpress.com

Laters

PTRs Suck

I've only seriously participated in 2 PTRs in my WoW career, and I really think I should stop. Everytime I help with PTRs I end up pissed off because "Blizzard's screwing us again!"

While I know that everything on the PTR is under scrutiny and will be removed if it's bad enough and nerfed if it's too good... I'm pissed that we're never one of the "too good."

Discipline Changes thus far... I'm not going to go through all of these... that's just too tedious.

They're nerfing Rapture. This talent alone made me a never-oom (with Replenishment). I rarely use shadowfiend or have to drink between trash pulls, and if shadowfiend becomes necessary, I pop him and go about my business. With a 25k mana pool raid-buffed I go from 30% mana to basically full in one shadow-fiend.

Now... the rapture nerf. They're basically giving us a self-only Replenishment which will only proc when our PW: Shield is 100% absorbed. Plus we have a % chance to restore mana, runic power, rage, etc... for whoever we're healing. Kinda cool, but all those calculations we did over the past few months can be deleted. They no longer apply. @^@%!

See. This is why I think I shouldn't participate in the PTR anymore. It pisses me off, yet I know it will change... or will it. My prediction is that they'll leave most if not all of these changes. Reason: all of this disc stuff is new. They really won't know what it's going to be like until they can test it thoroughly, which probably won't happen until 3.1 goes live and gets used for a few weeks.

Ok, we'll see, but I'm seriously considering going back to holy.

Spirit is getting nerfed... they touch Rapture and its on

Blizzard has posted patch notes, and it looks like OOFSR regen is getting nerfed pretty hardcore.  My guess is that Holy priests are going to be fighting for mana.  Druids will be gasping for breath after their innervate is gone.  However, Discipline Priests, Holy Paladins, and Restoration Shamans will be basically the same.  We all concentrate on MP5 moreso than Spirit.  However, if we as Disc Priests want to have our Tier 7.0, 7.5, and sets going forward, we have no choice but to pick up a lot of Spirit.

I forget where this was addressed, but I am sure it would not be difficult to find Discipline Priests griping about gear availability that focuses more toward our desired stats.  If I have a choice between Spirit and MP5, I'm probably going to take the MP5.  I rarely am OOFSR, a.k.a. not casting.  You're better off throwing shields around to everyone since Blizzard seems to love AoE damage.

Back to the point... After Spirit regen, the only thing they have left is Intellect and all talents that use our "Maximum Mana" to calculate mana regeneration... Rapture.  It is OP.  It is our primary regeneration tool.  When all other healers start going OOM while we sit back and flex, someone will start pointing fingers.

My hope is that we will remain transparent.  Our rank on the healing meters may help us out with this.  While shields not showing up on the meters is an ego-killer.  It may save us from the Nerf Bat.

Priests are getting some cool stuff in 3.1

Hey everyone,

I don't know if you've been over to mmo-champion lately, but check it out... priests are getting some pretty neato buffs.

Divine Spirit will be trainable, rather than talentable... nice.  So that means 3 points Discipline Priests can put somewhere else.

Power Word: Barrier... AoE shield... Sounds A-W-E-S-O-M-E.   mmm mmm mmm  /drool

AOE heal changes include:

Prayer of Healing can be cast on ANY GROUP /yum

Holy Nova costs less mana... sweet

CoH heals more... cool

Shadow Priest pvp viability... yada yada grats

PENANCE!  ...can now be targeted on the priest.  About f'n time.

Serendipity reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing after Flash Heal or Binding Heal are cast.

...and more pvp viability for holy priests.  /woopee

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All sarcasm aside, these have potential to make 3.1 very interesting.  I know there will be some holy priests very glad that they can keep 3 or their points out of the Discipline tree, and I for one will be glad to devote them to that new Power Word: Barrier.  I can't wait until it's in PTR, so I can go test it.  I only hope that it gets some benefit from Rapture because I'm sure that it won't be cheap mana-wise.

Rapture Fixed... ain't healin' great?

If you all have not discovered it yet, although I am sure that you have, Rapture is fixed and is rocking the world.  I just finished running 2 wings of Heroic Naxx, and I was 3rd on the meter for mana returns.  #1 Prot Pally and #2 Frost/Fire Mage and me, #3 Discipline Priest.

I'm actually going to be gemming spell power in red slots now.  With 25,000+ mana fully raid buffed, I'm returning a ton of mana.  Not to mention that Replenishment is ticking like nuts.... Thanks to my fellow shadow priests.

I'm basically at the point where my mana is being restored constantly.  I only popped shadow fiend one time tonight, and that was because our tanks got overzealous pulling trash.

Sidestory:  I ended up going holy for about 2 hours the other night to kill 10 man Sapphiron.  All that AOE damage was just too much for one Discipline Priest and one Holy Pally to handle.  I respec'd, and after I had remembered my buttons, we downed him.  I believe it took just 2 more tries after I respec'd.

The reason I bring that up is that I went back to Discipline tonight for our 25 man, and it was like a bottle of Gatorade after a long hot soccer practice.... it was such a relief.  I simply do not care for the PoM,PoH,CoH,FH,FH,.... setup.  It's just not much fun.

To be honest, we're basically Pallys in cloth with AoE heals and hots.  We're OP... just don't tell anyone.

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Everyone, keep your shields up and your penance on cooldown.  I'm off, laters.

-Terrai

Still Busted...

Well, they promised us a fix for our Rapture returns from PW: Shields.  It was, and it still is, supplying Rapture gains based on the maximum mana of the shieldee.  Thus, any shields we have been putting on Warriors, Rogues, and other non-mana units have been returning nothing.

The blues say something did not make its way to the live realms and that they are working on a hotfix.

I was looking forward to this change a great deal, and was sorely disappointed to see no mana ticks from Rapture while healing one of my guild's warrior tanks through nexus on patch day.

Keep hoping everyone, they will make us right... eventually.

Rapture Returns Spreadsheet

Hey everyone,

Check out this spreadsheet if you're wondering how you calculate what intellect will do to your rapture gains.  It's pretty neat.

More mana = more mana for less of a heal.  This should be pretty useful, and it looks like anything over about 11.4k healing crosses your line of diminishing returns from Rapture.