Jov sez: My Armor Sucks (redux) and Final Goodbyes

My posts lately have been so multi-faceted  and stream of consiousnessy lately, haven’t they?  Well, have some more!

Priest T10 Bonuses and Why They Suck

• 2 piece bonus – Your Flash Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over 9 sec.
• 4 piece bonus – Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.

(They’ve been updated since they were first announced)

I know some people are pretty enthusiastic about the bonuses.  But this is my blog, and I think they suck.  So nyeh.

The 2-piece: Per WoL, my average Flash Heal hits for approx 2600.  The HoT would heal another 650, broken up into however many pieces, over the next 9 seconds.  That total heal is 1/3 of my average Renew tick.  Let me repeat 1/3 of my average Renew tick.   But wait!  What about a Discipline Priest?  Well ours is geared to the hilt and her average flash is approx 2200.  Her total healing from the 2-piece would be 550.  Also, it’s somewhat unlikely the HoT would self-stack, meaning the Discipline Priest would only get ticks if their Penance is off cooldown and they take the time to Penance/re-shield.  Otherwise, it would exist in the no-man’s land of constant overwriting.

Also, the above numbers are best-case.  If you get a crit on overheal, the phrasing seems to state that only the amount healed gets the HoT value.  Double plus-plus useless.

People have also been commenting that the 2-piece is the old FoL HoT v 2.0.  I counter that the pally FoL hot was a copy of the Priest 8-piece T2 bonus (yes, 8-piece, I’m going back to the golden age of raiding before tier tokens when you had to WORK for your set bonuses).  Back in my day, that was the only stacking-hot in the game.  And it still kinda sucked.

The 4-piece: I’ll be the first to admit I kinda miss the days of no-cooldown CoH.  (You miss them too, you know it!)  I also have no qualms with admitting that the spell was totally OP at its height.  Smart, not party-limited…  no cooldown.  mmm…  Tasty, tasty OP’ness.  The problem with messing with the cooldown length on cooldown-based spells is always going to be rhythm and muscle memory.

Muscle memory may be something you can train yourself out of pretty easily, but only if the changes made are consistent.  The 4-piece is not a consistent change, it’s a chance on proc.

1.  Jov hates procs.  Murphy’s Law of Procs = shit never procs when you need it, only when you don’t.

2.  Jov hates procs.

3.  Did I mention Jov hates procs?

Best definition I’ve heard of the 4-piece bonus was “Has 20% chance of screwing up your rotation.”  Yes, it has a strong potential for burst healing, but at the same time, most people have a feeling for when they can hit their Penance or CoH, and missing this proc is MUCH worse than missing out on a SoL.

Final Goodbyes

It was great knowing you all, but I’m leaving…

HA!  Fooled you!  Y’all are stuck with me for the next while at least.

The past few weeks have seen the official closings of two of the best and brightest lights in the Priest Blogging community.  While Ego’s final goodbye was expected, as her departure had been announced quite a bit earlier, the finality of the doors closing did drive the point home.  Seri and I are still friends with the player behind the horns, and have a promise from Hannelore that we’re her first stop if she ever feels the urge to post in the future, but it’s always difficult to see something important to you move on.

And speaking of important and moving on, Dwarf Priest has also closed her doors.  While Ego’s departure was expected, Dwarf’s was a sudden blog silence, leading many to have concerns about her health (and even some rumors of her death).  While quick to dispel rumors of her death (vastly overrated), the health concerns proved to be true, and she has moved on, both from the responsibilities of the game and of the blog.

To you both, whether or not you see this:  Goodbye and Good Luck.

Jov sez: UI Post and Guild Love

First off — Snarkcraft is still looking for guest post submissions! We want a vacation we can spend on a sandy beach with an umbrella drink in hand.  Got an idea?  Want to pimp your home blog?  Email us!  Snarkcraft@gmail.com

Second — I’ve never really done this before, but I’m going to do a UI post.  I’ve seen other people doing them in the past, and I always love those posts, since they give me great ideas (plus, looking at UIs is purdy) but I’ve always been kinda hesitant to do one on my own.  I mean, Snarkcraft isn’t a UI blog, it’s a Priest/Raiding blog.  So I took a screenshot while raiding on my priest, so nyeh!

click to enbiggen

Background and Philosophy

I have healer tunnel-vision.  I stare at healthbars and get in the zone where I’m just heal heal heal heal healing, and I rarely notice anything else.  This has led to me building UIs which try to combine a need for free visible space around my character, while still keeping my eyes in that general area.  Hyjal, Archimonde specifically, taught me my old habit of raid frames on the bottom left, spells in the middle, chat frames on the bottom right, unit frames at the top?  Totally wouldn’t work for me.

Layout

I’m gonna be honest here…  My chat frames and action bars on the right and left of my screen?  I generally don’t look at them when I’m raiding.  Likewise with my minimap and buff/debuff bars.  They’re there for me if I make a mental note to keep an eye on them, but my focus is entirely on the center 1/3 of my screen.  Gone are the days of Vanilla WoW, when some fights just had me pounding my decursive key while chatting on vent/reading chat.  Unless you send me a whisper (which causes a popup window to spawn directly above my top chat frame) or say my name (which causes a combat text message) I’m not going to notice if you ask me or try and tell me something.  However, I know this about myself, and as GI Joe taught me back in grade school, knowing is half the battle.  The primary question becomes “What do I really need?” which can easily be answered in 3 steps.

1. Raid Frames — I’m a Grid healer.  Specifically, I’m a Grid + Mouseover healer.  I don’t use Clique, I don’t use Decursive, I don’t use Healbot or Vuhdo.  You could say I’m a creature of habit, and you’d probably have a good bit of truth.  You could also say I’m stubborn and spent long enough setting Grid up in the first place that I’m never going to use anything else…  you’d probably also be right.  Suffice it to say, I use Grid because we’re old friends who go way back.  I’m comfortable with it, it’s comfortable with me, and we understand each other.  My must-have Grid modules are Mana Bars, Raid Debuffs, HoTs, Missing Buffs, and Side Indicators.

2. Unit Frames — I have a love/hate relationship with unit frames.  I started out a few years ago with X-Perl, primarily because it allowed me to have the nifty 3d portraits.  Unfortunately, that was all I liked about it, and soon after I tried AGUF before moving on to PitBull.  I used Pitbull forever, mostly for the same reason I use Grid.  Yes, it’s a pita to set up, but once it’s set up, your initial thought is “OKAY NEVER DOING ANYTHING ELSE EVER!”  Unfortunately, it was a memory hog, and my computer, which was a good computer when WoW first released, couldn’t quite handle Ulduar, leaving me in a mad scramble to try and find low-memory alternatives, which led me to oUF.  I picked oUF Lyn primarily because it was workable, especially with a couple guides I found for editing the .lua.

3. Other Stuff — Cooldowns, consumables, and boss alerts all count as stuff I want to keep an eye on, but at a distant 3rd priority.  For my cooldown thingie, I use Coolline.  I’ve seen the other things, but they all include stuff I don’t really need.  I also have a couple DBM alerts (the urgent ones…  I don’t need to know an ability is gonna fire in 2 minutes, I need to know it’s going to fire now) above my cooldown bar and one action bar for primarily consumable and emergency buttons directly beside my raid frames.

Final, unrelated note

I love my guild, but we have the worst luck with some things.  From it’s founding, Axiom has had THE WORST luck when it comes to legendaries.  (Don’t let that stop you — We’re also still recruiting ranged DPS!)  Specifically, we never see them.  Months of farming Illidan in TBC, nothing.  Fairly regular MC runs during TBC and Wrath looking for Bindings of the Windseeker?  Nada.  We never see them drop.  Well, last night, Axiom FINALLY broke the curse, and Crutches (y’all remember Crutch from So You Think You Can Blog?) got the first in-guild, not-transferred-in Legendary Axiom has ever seen.  And it makes me squeal with glee when a friend gets something.

Congrats on your hammer, hun.  You deserve it.  <3

Jov sez : Patience is a virtue

*oops*

Post incoming, just a wee bit late.

Jov sez: ToC makes me want to not-WoW

Though I’ve made no real secret of it, I can’t actually remember if I’ve stated here, on the record, that I hate ToC.  So I’m going to do so:  I hate ToC.  I hate it’s mother.  I hate it’s babies.  I hate it’s cute little pet kitten named Mittens.  Nothing about ToC isn’t boring at best, cringe-inducingly obnoxious at worst.  I know it is the source of all that is good and ilvl 245+ but if I never went back there again, it would be too soon.

I also tend to be a somewhat cyclical raider.  Each expansion, Blizzard releases that ONE INSTANCE that just makes me want to punch babies.  Back in Vanilla, it was AQ (Bugs, why did it have to be bugs…?).  TBC had Hyjal (and it’s waves and waves of dynamic trash encounters.)  Wrath has ToC.

I’m also surrounded by people who enjoy it, or at least enjoy the ilvls enough to farm the shit out of every available version as often as possible every week.  I’m stuck in the position of being a bad raider, and occasionally preventing groups from going just because I’m unwilling to burn myself out faster by spending 5 days a week in there.  I do the guild-progression 25s, but no, I’m under zero obligation to run it for “fun” on 10s as well.

I’m also kinda tired of people trying to convince me I’m a bad person, or wrong or mistaken for not enjoying the encounters, wanting my PVP kept separate (read: not present entirely) from my PVE, or the constant assurances that “It’s really not that bad.”

No, I’m sorry.  You’re not in my head, you don’t know what I feel.  ToC really is that bad, and I’m not going to go there any more than I have to.

Now, I fully admit that these are my issues.  I found ToC boring but bearable until we hit Faction Champions for the first time.  Jov doesn’t pvp.  Specifically I do not pvp.  It’s somewhat the guild joke, but…  I don’t.  Get me in a pvp situation, and my brain turns off and I turn into a ball of super-anxiety.  I’m totally useless on that fight.  I hate the fight, I know (and hate) that I’m useless, it’s a nice happy ball of feeding on itself.

Telling me “it’s not that bad” doesn’t actually do anything but make me feel worse, but thanks for playing.

I’m looking at the finish line.  In Vanilla, Naxx 40 was my salve to AQ.  Hell, even in it’s nerfed version, I still enjoy Naxx.  TBC had me squealing in joy at the thought of Sunwell enounters; it was just enough to get me through the Hyjal grind.  My eye is on the prize; and that prize is Icecrown.  I just hope Blizzard continues their tradition of ending an expansion with a bang.

Final Results!

Congrats to Myranda for winning the Party Grenade!

And to Oraxia for winning the Sandbox Tiger!

You two should be receiving your codes via email shortly.  Thank you again to everyone participating in our birthday extravaganza (Prizes = extravaganza y/y?)

And now, back to your regularly scheduled Snarkcraft programming.

Wednesday Weener!

Congratulations to Ayslin!  Your code is on it’s way and now you can tell your raid leader to shove it when they say “don’t stand in crap!”

If you didn’t win, have no fear; there are still more chances!

Monday’s Birthday Drawing Winner!

I came, I counted (not counting my comment or the pingback), I rolled.

Apparently the early bird does get the worm!  Congratulations to Larísa from the Pink Pigtail Inn (fitting, one of our first commenters and one of the first people to blogroll us)

Larísa, expect to see your code for the Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E. in your mailbox soon!

Everyone else — Don’t despair.  Your Snark Mavens are generous, so there’ll be more chances to win as the week goes on.

Jov sez: Why Jov will ALWAYS be holy

So, after being the bastion of all that is good and Holy here in the blogosphere (turning my guns on Bubbles and even my partner in crime, Seri), I feel a bit of an explanation is in order.

1.  Holy is awesome.  I lurvs me some AOE healing, and raid healing is the shiznit.

2.  Disc is kinda meh.  It’s fine for 5-mans, and yes, Penance is an awesome spell…  But tank healing puts me to sleep.  Seriously, it’s like zzzzzzzzz.

3.  My mostly-retired Alliance Priest Former Main thingie is Discipline.  She’s also lv 71.

4.  I’ve been stuck as the IDS bitch in raids.  I didn’t like it.  I want AOE healings.

5.  MONTHS OF MOLTEN CORE OF-LEVEL.  I’ve raided as a Discipline Priest.  It was back when Molten Core was the shiznit, BWL wasn’t open yet, and Divine Spirit was the top-tier Discipline Talent (and a single-target buff to boot.)  My raid leader insisted every member of our 40-man with a mana bar got hit with DS.  You do the math.

6.  Did I mention that I’m not a pullerdin?  Cause I’m not.

7. Turning off scrolling combat text mods in favor of the default blizzard lets me see shiny yellow numbers scattered all over my screen, and makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl.

8. I’m immature and stubborn.  Where have all the holies gone?  Everyone wants to go bubble-priest.  Everywhere I turn, it’s bad holy and (more often) bad Disc specs surrounding me.   (My server seriously needs an intervention.)

9.  You’ll pry SoR and CoH out of my COLD DEAD FINGERS.

It’s our Birthday (and YOU get the gifts!)

Happy Birthday to me!  Happy birthday to me!  Happy birthday, dear Snarkcraft…  Happy Birthday to meeee!

One year ago this week, your beloved Snarkers were outed by Matticus (after much poking and prodding) and we began getting our first comments.  Since then, it’s been a rollicking trip!

Seri wins with the “most visited post” category, receiving nearly 4,000 hits to her World of Repgrind guide.  (She also steals the show with #2 (Leveling Holy/Discipline) and #3 (Lrn2WWS part 2).  Jov brings up the #4 position with her guide to Speccing Your Priest.  Y’all love you some Seri!)

Ego wins with the “Top Referrers” category (though, she’s defeated if you attribute all the World of Matticus and Spiritual Guidance referrals as coming from Matt…)

Finally, our top two search terms are “World of Snarkcraft” and “Snarkcraft” respectively.  What can we say?  You know what you want!

Now, what about my parenthetical aside in the topic of this post?  Well!  As a thank you to our readers, we’ve managed to make a deal with a couple of goblins, so we’ll be sprinkling opportunities throughout the week to win some fabulous prizes!

Just leave a comment to this post, and we’ll do a random selection.  Winner gets a fabulous (did I mention they’re fabulous?) Slashdance card!  (You too can infect your raid with a Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.)  Comment between now and Midnight CST US for your chance to win!  (Not certain when Midnight CST lands?  Check the timezone converter!)

Also, while we don’t want you commenting leaving your email, make certain the email field you fill in to comment contains the email you want the code to go to.

Jov sez: Dear Bubz

I didn’t want to do this, but you forced my hand…  Since you’re complaining so hard about my lack of proof: