Holy and Disc Priests in 3.1

I'm going to try something out here, please do tell me if this is of any interest or any use to whomever still happens to have this bookmarked.

Now, as I suspect you know, I've moved on to raiding on my priest and so I've been working on healing specs for the patch. Especially Holy has changed quite a bit, and there's plenty of pitfalls where raidhealers may end up taking talents which don't support their raidhealing. Also, Disc has become a great tank-healing spec, and every 25man raid should include one, or look to recruit one.

Now, as I said Holy is ever more clearly the raid healer, and as such we've started eliminating everything that's not boosting your raidhealing and come up with this spec. There's a couple of talents most priests would gawk at, and most raid leaders too. Gheal has always been a staple of priest healing, and so people have always used talents such as Divine Fury and Improved Healing, but as we're specializing gheal is a spell that should be removed from the Holy Priest arsenal. Instead for spot-healing flash heal and renew are the tools to be used. But then why not take talents like Empowered Healing and Surge of Light? Because spot-healing still has a very low priority in raid healing. Both of these talents are optional, but you need to realize flash heal should be a rather small percentage of your healing done.

So then what's going to make up the larger part of your healing? Prayer of Healing is the new king being capable of putting out around 10k heal per target when glyphed, and should probably make up close to 40% of your healing done(preliminary numbers, depends on encounters also). Circle of healing is the quick-fix raidheal to be cast when off cooldown. Prayer of Mending should always be on cooldown as well. Renew is the fourth spell of choice, mainly for keeping up Holy Concentration.

A controversial choice is Spell Warding which serves to make your holy priests a bit less squishy on progression content. This is obviously something which can be dropped for farm content as is seen fit. The completely optional talents are as follows:

-Inspiration 3/3 which has some merit as it can proc off both PoH and CoH

-Healing Prayers if mana is an issue

-Surge of Light for some extra free spothealing with a good uptime since again it procs off your aoe-heals

-Lightwell which is situational although quite good if your raid knows how to use it

-Body and Soul an unconventional choice although with some potential synergy with the 4pT8 setbonus as well as some interesting uses f.ex. on XT-002 Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb

-Empowered Healing if you find yourself wanting to cast more Flash heals than you really should or using Binding Heal a lot(great ability, but way too situational to merit it).

Personally I'd probably pick up the last point of inspiration for progression content, healing prayers for mana longevity and lightwell to help with the healing when possible. Body and Soul may be a worthy option for one priest in the raid, though I don't see much reason for more than one healer to pick this up.

I'll hope to get some writing done on Disc spec soon to round this off.

A quick share

Seeing as how quite a few have been doubting my concerns for Druid tanking in Ulduar, here it is from Tun of Ensidia. My concerns do differ from his, although the lack of cooldowns was always an issue I was aware of it wasn't my primary concern. Figured I'd share the bad news incase someone still happened to read it.

The end.

It's the end of the line for me as regards to this blog I think.

Our guilds current roster(4 excellent rogues and 2 feral druids) is  looking very heavy on leather users going into Ulduar. Additionally we'll be adding another feral druid to our ranks in the next few days, a close friend who will probably take over as primary bear druid. Myself I offered some weeks ago that incase of this going through I would be able to switch over to my alt(Priest) and create a layer of redundancy for us in terms of Shadow Priests. Therefore my attention will no longer primarily be on feral druids.

I'll prolly continue to play feral as a alt.

Thanks to whomever's been reading and commenting, good luck with future raids and content.

Of the Nightfall..again! :)

Mchester just got his first title, going straight from not having ran sarth with any adds on it to healing 10man S3D, quite a difference. Hardest part was getting used to combining spamhealing with watching out for the voidzones, but it worked out ok.

Sarth was tanked by Elumarom, feral druid. He eaven survived a mega-breath without a cooldown on him, just pom+shield and full HP. All in all, was a very fullfilling experience :)

Common sense testing of SD

Savage Defense reads as follows:

Each time you deal a melee critical strike, you gain Savage Defense, reducing the damage taken from the next physical attack that strikes you by 25% of your attack power.

What does this not do?

-It does not mitigate magical damage.

-It does not proc if the target is immune to attacks.

-It can not proc while you are stunned or incapacitated.

-Scale with incoming damage.

What does this do?

-Crit% chance to proc a one-time damage reduction equal to 25% of AP.

-This works out to about 40% chance for current gear and around 1500-1700 damage reduced(equivalent to block for paladin or warrior).

-Our combined swingtimer of swipe+maul is about 8 attacks every 7.5 seconds before factoring in haste. This means we're dealing with a about 1.0 swingtimer when correcting for lag.

-It takes on average 2.5 seconds to get a crit against a single target based on these assumptions.

-1500/2.5=600 damage reduced per second on average.

-Multiple mobs will increase the uptime of SD, but never beyond our combined swingtimer, so at best it will reduce damage by 1500 per second.

When will it be good?

-Trash tanking when dealing with a relatively small amount of mobs. More mobs increases the uptime, but beyond having 2.5 mobs(2.5*0.4=1.00=100% chance to crit on atleast one mob every second) there is litle gain. Multiple mobs infact simply scale the unmitigated portion of attacks since when working properly, SD is only intended to block one such attack, regardless of size, for the given amount(1500 low end estimate).

-2.5 second swingtimer boss hitting for less than 37.5k(15k DPS)(based on assumption of 12% protector of the pack and 30k armor post-3.1 as opposed to 37k armor pre-3.1 vs. a lvl83 mob which is a reduction of mitigation from ~73% to ~69%).

-Faster swingtimer reduces the portion of attacks SD reduces, balancing out at 15k DPS for a 1.0 swingtimer being the highest 1.0 DPS for which SD is beneficial.

-Basicly, as long as the physical damage portion of the fight does not go beyond 15k DPS SD is a buff.

When will it not be good?

-Extremely fast swingtimer/multiple sources of very small(less than 4.8k unmitigated) physical attacks.

-Slow, hard hitting bosses.

-Bosses for which physical DPS portion is over 15k.

Logic. Pretty great isn't it?

Rebuttal of "Exhaustive Tank Comparison"

This post is aimed at being a counter-point to Parris analysis of the state of tanks, which some have already pointed out quite aptly should have been renamed ”The problems of block scaling”. Firstly as has been noted, the analysis only deals with the mitigation of physical damage. This means the results say nothing about the current disparity in magic damage mitigation. The reason this is a problem is that he attacks druid health quite hard in the post, whilst conveniently bypassing the reason druids were given such large healthpools, namely their lack of magical mitigation. As he later points out, mitigation always scales superior to something which is essentially a fixed number, such as healthpools are, as they are dependent on gear in the same way that block is.

Parri states clearly that the reason high magical burst encounters are not included is that he considers them gimmicks. He instead opts for a 20k dps physical boss, starting with a 1.0 swingtimer and ending with a 2.5 swingtimer. This sounds quite reasonable, but upon closer inspection the swings have increases to 50k per hit by the time he reaches his 2.5 swingtimer. Furthermore he boosts the incoming damage to clarify the disparity, ending up with a boss hitting for pure physical damage at 75k per hit. That, my dear friends, is a gimmick fight that favours scaling mitigation and avoidance. Pure and simple, what at first seems a reasonable test has turned into a biased attack on high-armor classes.

A more reasonable approach is to assume a far lower amount of physical damage, as any purely physical boss, as has been shown, turns into a gimmick as the swingtimer increases(or, indeed, decreases, as block mitigates a larger and larger amount of ever more frequent hits). Therefore a more reasonable test of tanks physical damage capabilities would be a more restricted(1.0-2.0) swingtimer boss who's physical damage contribution is something in the range of 10-15k dps and where magic makes up for the rest of the damage. Now if we ignore the magical damage portion and focus on the physical portion, we'll find block fairing quite a bit better and I suspect overall the DTPS numbers would be within Blizzards guidelines of viability.

At this time I'll appoligize, I'm more theoretically inclined as opposed to empirical. However, I believe Parri's analysis provides enough proof for me to state that perhaps a more theoretical approach is overall better, as empirical evidence only tells us about specific circumstances which can easily be manipulated and influenced by personal bias.

As some have also pointed out, the analysis was made before the inclusion of recent DK/Druid nerfs, and these will change the outcome to some extent. In particular for druids as we've incurred two scaling nerfs, it is quite possible that our advantages on even the gimmick side of slow hard hitting bosses will have been cut quite a bit. Whilst I wouldn't argue this is unfair at this time, the coupling of armor and hp nerfs is in no way compensated by a mechanic such as SD, and furthermore we're in a very bad place now in terms of surviving high magic bursts. Needless to say that the polar set was a gimmick that is unlikely to be useful for any future fights, as it coupled high magic damage bursts with low physical damage and no requirements on TPS.

Furthermore whilst Parri shows off avoidance great ability to lower DTPS, no mention is given to the fact that druids are at a point where further scaling is hindered whilst the more diversified parry+dodge classes will still be able to continue scaling in T8 gear.

Screenshots? Whaddamahuh?

I realize I've been a bit quiet recently about the direction druids are taking on the PTR, barring a few posts in ThinkTank, it's still a bit hard to say what's going on, but my feelings aren't overly optimistic. However, my GL found this the other day, which may be of interest for those of us trying to figure out where we stand for the future. I'd point out that the test inherrently favours armour-heavy classes, so druid doing somewhat decently needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since that's supposed to the precisely the encounter we'd shine in.

Now, on to more pressing matters. I've been tagged.

Now, I've recently been playing around with my UI and most my screenshots are of just that, and I've decided to include a picture of that a bit further down, but the 6th picture requested turns out to be something quite different:

So that's Shamad standing on thin air. Techniqually I noticed you could just abuse the spear hanging over Dun Niffelem and by positioning the camera correctly get a pic in which the spear doesn't show at all. Sometimes it pays to fool around in the game, clearly.

And this is what my UI looks like at this time. Not too complicated, I'm still a bit iffy about the positioning of some elements of DBM as those are used only when needed. Also looking into prettying up the buttons on Bartdender, and maybe changing the look of my Pitbull bars. I recently also changed from using CT_viewport to Sunn Viewportart, just for the looks really. All in all, a very functional and clear UI, although I really do wish I could get the memory footprint down a bit.

This also brings back memories of when my gf was still playing(she played a druid), and as she had just gotten her bearform and was hanging out in Crossroads, there was another bear sitting at the entrance to the inn. Now, naturally I walked her bear over and sat myself next to the other, and called out into the notorious Barrens chat for another bear to come join us. I wonder how many people are aware that the entrance to Crossroads in is exactly the width of 3 bears sitting next to each other. Sadly, the screenshot has since been lost.

ps. I hope to get some time soon to go over some things to do with the coming major content patch and what you and your guild might want to consider doing, from a organisational standpoint, to prepare for Ulduar.

[Edit]A slight contribution that I stole off of my GL(hi rinku!)[/Edit]

Hot Topic: Hard raid hallelujah!

If you're not Finnish, I hope to god you didn't get that reference. If you did, I wish you early onset alzheimers so you may forget you ever heard that horrible horrible song.

So Karthis seems to have set the ball rolling and WoWwiki are trying to pick it up about the current raid content and how mindnumbingly easy it is. When I hear Fusion say they've run all of naxx25 with 2(!) healers and 2 tanks...that just makes me want to cry. But so what? This is entry level raiding, it's going to be entry level even when eventually we've got the sunwell equivalent of wotlk. It's Karazhan for 25man. So what?

Now, you might argue that KZ was, initially, a lot harder than naxx, and I'll agree, the trash required more focus and the fights were relatively speaking more complex. However, when my friends who used to play in Massive rolled a bunch of fresh chars and "returned" in early TBC, they also cleared the original KZ in one night, every boss on the first attempt. Good players who know how to adapt will be able to do this, especially as it's not their first time in this game, or any other. Yeah sure, Blizz could have introduced Naxx, Maly and Sarth as harder than they did, in style with KZ/Gruul/Maggy(which, I'm told, was completely insane when TBC came out). But that's not really the problem.

Problem is the normal dungeons are pointless. In TBC, you had to farm rep to get into heroics. Even more so, you had to farm gear to be able to do said heroics. You had to do the heroics to get into KZ(even if we ignore the atunement quests, which to be honest, no sane person would miss).

Now what we do is get to 80 by questing and then go do Naxx25man. Normal dungeons at 80? HAH! Not done a single one, barely did a few while leveling my main since there was plenty of people from the guild to group with and I had a few quests. But you can literally level to 80 without ever entering a dungeon and go straight into naxx25 now. That's just a bit lame. Yeah there's some ok gear to start off with to be had from heroics, but you don't need it. Naxx is tuned so low, not only is it accessible to everyone, it's accessible without any effort what so ever.

Now while I don't expect there to be content designed for hardcore guilds since day 1 of a new expansion, I do expect there to be some kind of progression even before the first major content patch. Now you may argue that the achievements are the content for the hardcore, but to me, achievements initially seemed like the casual players delight. However, it seems these are being approriated to fill the content hole for hardcore raiders as well, so I guess that's just something I have to live with. And yes, some are useful for keeping people focused while we wait for Ulduar, but the lack of tangible awards from doing most of them does mean a lot of hardcore players aren't terribly motivated. Having said this, Sarth3D seems to be the model for the future, so I guess I should talk about that a bit.

Now, I like Sarth3D as an encounter. It's not as hard as people make it out to be, there's about 3 things to look out for of the "don't stand in the fire" nature, there's some adds so there's actual need for multiple tanks, and there's a real risk of tanks dying so it's somewhat interesting from a tanking/healing perspective as well. But once people stop failing the voids, the flame walls and learn not to just dps like crazy if their on low hp while Vespiron is up, it's a pretty easy fight. 3.0.8 made it a bit harder for those of us not using DK tanks, but that was still cured just by setting up a cooldown rotation on the MT if you weren't allready using one(there really wasn't a need for it before). The encounter is actually somewhat well liked in the guild, since it's not a complete faceroll and we actually have to do more than just show up and loot. The fact that is has extra loot also placates those who don't give a shit about achievements. The fact that it's a lot more fun than the pragmatic Immortal or annoying Maly 6min(which favours dk's and range dps heavily, which again, sucks) is also a huge plus.

Now, when we heard there's going to be tons of hard modes in Ulduar, and they are going to be modeled after Sarth3d, most of our guild seemed to rejoice. Sure, very few of us are actually the least bit syked about vehicle combat, but what the hell. That being said, there are some achivements which have clearly become all-around hated, and which nobody would like to see in Ulduar hard modes:

1. "Ironman" - Sure, when you've cleared everything and content is irrelevant, doing old farm content with as few players as possible is a challenge in itself. But it's not fun to 20man content for a bloody achievement. Make it so you can choose to increase the overall difficulty by 20% instead. Some switch or whatever, make use of the "Epic" setting that allready exists in the game(if you don't know what this is, it's because it's never actually been used for anything). Taking the time out of farming content to Ironman it just sucks for the people who get left outside a raid. It's not fun, it doesn't add complexity, it's just shit.

2. Immortal - Anything that hinges on people not disconnecting or lagging for completion is pretty damn shit. It wouldn't be so bad if the servers weren't lagging, but as it is, the only reason Immortal has only been done by 1% of guilds(according to GuildOx) isn't that it's hard, it's that you have to do it far off peak raidtimes, the guilds on our server who've gotten it have just done it at 23:00-02:00 servertime(most raids on our server are 19:00-23:00). Again, it doesn't add complexity, it just hinges on random shit and lag.

3. Random component - Right. So this is stuff like Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows. This is, literally, a reward for fucking up. If you actually do what you're supposed to, there's just about nothing you can do to avoid getting hit by a meteor. If you get that lucky, it wasn't that you did anything right, it was just random. This might be the most idiotic achievement EVER! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

So what should the Ulduar hard modes be like then? It should be pretty obvious from this post, but let me summerize it anyway:

1. Adds! - Force the tanks to work harder, the healers to work harder, the dps to disengage from their task every now and then. Adds add complexity. Complexity is good.

2. Distractions! - Force us to do more than just stand there and wait for shit to happen. Voids, flame walls, beams(think Illidan) and what not. Keep us on our toes, keep us focused. Distracting people makes the fight more complex. Complexity is good.

3. Phases! - Phases change the nature of an encounter. When done right(read: not like the utter boredom of Phase 1 on KT atm) they make for a more complex encounter. Complexity is good.

So what do hardcore raiders want? COMPLEXITY! Because when you're being pushed to your limit having to do 10 things at a time, you actually feel like you've achieved something. And when there's an appropriate reward for doing that, you are actually insentivised to do it. And most importantly, the fight is different, and in this way, it actually creates another layer of real content.

[Edit]Damn, got a bit carried away and forgot to say that, although some seem to be harkening back to how great it was in TBC when there was KZ/SSC/TK/BT/Sunwell and therefore there was something for every level of player, people are forgetting that was the situation at the END of TBC. We're only getting started with WotLK, so ofcourse we're not going to have the same spectrum of content, don't be silly. But at this point in time, that spectrum should be dungeons/heroics/10man raids/25man raids, in that order. The problem is, it's basicly just 25man raids, there's no steps to be done in between. You might have spent weeks, even months, clearing things like SSC and TK. In BT and especially in Sunwell, one single boss might have had you on the ropes for as long as the whole of SSC or TK took you to clear. But you sure as hell didn't take a week to learn Prince(or 'Spite), Gruul or Maggy. The fact that Sarth3D took even a few days to learn for decent guilds(before the videos came out, damn nice work Fusion btw) is shocking for 3.0 content. To expect anything else than to have everything on farm within a few weeks, if you are a good guild, was just dillusional. It's the price we pay for being progression raiders. It also means we get to enjoy life until the next major content patch, or at the very least level some alts(working on my 3rd atm, guildmate is on his 5th or 6th...). Let's be honest, nobody wants to raid 24/7 from 3.0 straight to the end of WotLK. Getting the whole content farmed in 2h each week wouldn't upset me one bit at this point(without lag I figure we could do it in about 2h 30min atm if we tried).[/Edit]

Bite me!

Seems 3.0.9 is in the pipelines without a hint of an warning and perhaps due for a release this week. Unexpected to say the least.

The only change so far is a cap on Ferocious Bite energycost at base(35)+30. Welcome news if perhaps a bit underwhelming from a PvE standpoint. A lower cap would have made the ability very useful in a PvE dps rotation but would also have reduced kitty PvP burstdamage to a point where it would have been rather insignificant. Personally I believe it's a mistake to balance feral PvP around a pure burst ability, rather it should be brought more in line with the bleed-effects which allready dominate the PvE rotation. As it is we feel like some half-hearted mix between a rogue and a warrior, neither side developed properly. All we're good for is farming flags in WsG. Well, hopefully getting rid of the distraction of the once-in-a-while big crit of FB might allow Blizzard to get around to adressing some of the classes real PvP issues. And once they figure out how they want us to work in PvP maybe we'll get a really decent PvE finisher out of FB. One can only hope.

A Glimpse of the Future

One of the primary reasons behind the 3.0.8 armour nerf was that we were getting very close to hitting the cap. Now with 3.1 we're being told we'll get a new shield-mechanic working off offensive stats, but they want to nerf our armour further. Natural reaction is probably to think that maybe Blizz sees us closing in on the cap again in further tiers, so let's check if that's the case, or if a further armour nerf combined with a potentially weakened block-mechanic(can only mitigate one hit after a crit) is wholly unjustified.

First some quick examples of gear at the current iLvls:

Chest:

iLvl 200 564

iLvl 213 578 (+2.48%)

iLvl 226 591 (+2.19%)

Legs:

iLvl 200 494

iLvl 213 506 (+2.44%)

iLvl 226 517 (+2.17%)

Now the numbers for all 8 slots of leather gear + the cloak slot(assuming no bonus armour as it's not multiplied anymore):

At iLvl 200 armour from gear is 3394

At iLvl 213 armour from gear is 3480 (+2.53)

Projections for the next tiers:

T8.25: iLvl 226, total armour from gear 3567 (+2.5%)

T9.25: iLvl 239, total armour from gear 3656 (+2.5%)

T10.25: iLvl 252, total armour from gear 3747 (+2.5%)

After applying current armour modifiers(8.58) we get:

T7.10: iLvl 200, total armour from gear 29120

T7.25: iLvl 213, total armour from gear 29858

T8.25: iLvl 226, total armour from gear 30604

T9.25: iLvl 239, total armour from gear 31368

T10.25: iLvl 252, total armour from gear 32149

Conclusion? With the current modifier and assuming no bonus armour items we'd still be short of our pre-3.0.8 potential numbers even at a theorethical T10.25 gearlevel. Barring some pretty crazy bonus armour items we can all but kiss hitting the cap(49.905 vs. lvl83 mobs) goodbye.

So then what does that mean? It means we're getting a sub-par block for tanking trash whilst losing out on the best scaling stat against hard hitting physical bosses. 3.1 doesn't make us any more healable, and as such doesn't enable us to scale with stamina as we could. There's not relief for our single avoidance mechanic which is allready hitting the DR. In short? At current time, unless the effectiveness of this new shield is truely insane we're looking at a nerf.

Classification of encounters based on tanking

Khalon's recent Anti-Tank series is an interesting idea as to how the 3.0.8 armour changes might be used to our advantage. However, viewing his talent spec, I realized he hadn't actually changed much of anything compared to a normal tanking spec, which made me question the premiss of his anti-tank gear. Are there really encounters in which it's advantageous to have a cross between feral dps and feral tank gear?

Single Tank Encounter

Examples: Maexxna, Heigan, Loatheb, Sapphiron

These are encounter in which the only circumstances under which a OT will be required to tank is if the MT dies. Pure DPS gear is recomended.

Multiple Tank Encounter

Examples: Razuvious, Patchwerk, Gluth, Sartharion

These encounters require multiple tanks for the full duration(or close there to) of the encounter. OT's will take significant damage during the encounter and therefore full tank gear is required.

Optional Multiple Tank Encounter

Examples: Anub'Rhekan, Faerlina, Noth, Grobbulus, (Kel'Thuzad), Malygos, VoA

These encounters are most commonly done with a limited time OT, or an OT who will take very litle damage. In each case if sufficiently geared, the MT can take the adds which are normaly the OT's responsability, or the OT can be replaced by generic plate-dps who equips a shield for the situation(Malygos, VoA). Even if using an OT, argueably on all of these encounters the OT can wear pure DPS gear for the entire fight(although the advantages of this on Noth are questionable).

Limited Time Multiple Tank Encounter

Examples: (Anub'Rhekan), (Faerlina), Gothik, (Four Horsemen), Thaddius, (Kel'Thuzad)

These encounters are typically phased encounters or encounters with one-time-only adds. During phases without adds or once initial adds have been disposed of, the OT is free to DPS. This type of encounters usually has quite low damage on the OT and therefore the OT can either be replaced entirely, or the encounter can be OT'd in DPS gear.

Damage Mechanic Multiple Tank Encounter

Examples: Four Horsemen, Kel'Thuzad

These encounters have some mechanic which constitutes a threat to players or a burden on healers the more players are involved in an optional situation.

In the case of Four Horsemen, a tank who has finished with his job on Baron/Thane might decided to run in and start tanking or DPS'ing Zeliek. However, due to the nature of the fight, he now presents one more target for the healers to heal. Also, whilst moving away from Zeliek he may cause further links, increasing the chance of that his Holy Wrath will jump to multiple targets and insta-gib someone.

In Kel'Thuzad, whilst during Phase 2 no OT is required, each additional melee dps increases the number of targets for Frost Blast and increasing chane of Shadow Fissure in a highly crowded area.

What possible additional DPS the OT may provide in said situations is far outweighed by the additonal risks to the raid he constitutes. In such encounters, it is therefore better for the OT to simply stand off to the side than when not needed.

So my findings are that there is no situation, atleast in the current content, where the Anti-Tank gearset which Khalon suggests is actually useful. You are better off having two seperate sets of tank and dps gear.

This just in

Seems Blizzard wasn't all too happy about guilds facerolling Sarth3D(we were 1shotting him weakly without breaking a sweat and so were many others), so they've made the encounter a good bit harder. You used to be able to avoid most giant breaths by removing the twilight torment debuff, but after the patch there's no way of removing it. This forces any guild wanting to do this to keep up a cooldown rotation on the MT. It also means the whole raid is taking a periodic dot whenever they hit anything. And it means that the healers are being taxed more even as they've just been hit by some pretty decent nerfs.

Don't worry too much though, 25man is still doable and I expect 10man to be as well. We added another healer and changed our tactic a bit and added some more cooldowns on MT, but in the end Sarth gave in after about 90 minutes of raiding.

Nise Gusy

Sorry about the rather long hiatus. Ive not been dormant, if thats what you were thinking. Ive picked up a few more of the remaining best in slots(my armour now goes cleanly over the cap with the +25% armour bonus from spam healing), the guild has Sarth3D comfortably on farm and my personal group also has the 10man Sarth3D on farm. At this time weve just started working on Immortal, although the lag on Twisting Nether does hinder such attempts.

But what I really want to talk about, is alts. Yeah, I realize most guilds are still gearing up, perhaps not even through the whole raid content at this time. The top raid guilds however are allready deep into their alt-naxx. For us its the second week, and were looking to team up with OoR to fill the last spots incase people are unable to make the raid. Itll be my first week back raiding properly on my old old TBC main, a healing priest called Mchester. Since our GL went for Holy on his priest, Ive opted for Disc on mine. Its a bit of an shocker as I find myself doing quite the opposite to what conventional wisdom was. Im spamming flash much of the time, where as I barely had it bound in TBC. GHeal, the former backbone of my healing arsenal, is now my secondary single target bind. Im throwing around shields much more than I used to, and Ive got a few new tools(penance and pain suppression mainly) which Im still adapting to. PoM and Binding Heal are still important niché abilities.

Whats more important is Im getting a better view of healing in WotLK than what I was able to get as a tank. Being myself now a tank healer, I hope to be able to better gauge what I would like to see in a tank, and perhaps improve my own tanking further. Ill keep you posted on what I find.