Single Abstract Noun

I joined for a week now the blogging community guild created by Kumquat alias the The Artist Formerly Known as Tamarind from Righteous Orbs.

At first, I didn't know what class to choose. I already have at least one alt of each class. Finally, I choose a troll shaman, Zahiou (Zahia was already taken grrr !)

Did you know you could jump directly from the Valley of Trials to Ratchet ?

My first impression when I joined is that the guild is actually very nice. Each time I log in many members are online, and most of them are very chatty. As i often level my alts in ghost guilds, having actually an active guild chat is nice ! Even if I don't participate a lot in the chat yet. It's my first time on an English server, and it's like discovering the wow language again. It's a bit awkward not knowing anymore how to say "Hello" or "Good bye" to the guild. In my french guild I'd often say "Plop" (or even "poulpe"¹) and "A +", but I'm not sure you'd understand.

Levelling a new alt on a new server is a kind of new experience too. Money-wise it's ok (thanks to the bags from the guild bank !). But levelling without any Bind on Account gear is another story. I thought levelling had became easy since a few patches, but the awesome Bind on Account gear had a lot to do with this impression.

Despite my full grey set and having found myself at 1% xp from level 10 with only one red quest left, I managed to hit level 12, and went to the Ghostland to get the awesome gear you find there. But yesterday, I finally transferred a forgotten alt who had Bind on Account Shoulders (shame on me !) and could craft Mooncloth Bags.

⁽¹⁾ Poulpe is the french word for octopus. In french servers we sometimes use french words that have about the same pronunciation as the specific wow or English name (but generally a completely different meaning). Like for example Poule (= chicken) instead of Pull, or Boeuf (= cow) instead of buff. Here Poulpe is used to replace plop.

Healing as a Retribution Paladin

I healed in a raiding environment as a shaman, priest and druid. The only healing class I never had at max level was a paladin. I tried to level a paladin. A lot of times. I must have 4 or 5 lvl 20 paladins. But before WotLK, levelling a paladin was soooo boring.

But now, retribution paladins have been heavily buffed, and with some bind on account gear leveling a paladin has became incredibly easy and fast.

Thanks to these changes I finally managed to get past the level 20 with a paladin and I'm proud to present you Naohmy :

WTF ? I have a lvl 50 paladin ??

I'm glad the retribution spec is very fast for questing, but in instances, I like healing. And you know what ? Healing as retribution is a lot of fun ! Here is how I do it :

My spec :

Naohmy has a full retribution spec. At the moment, it's a 0/0/41 spec. I think it's a pretty common levelling spec. I just didn't pick Improved Blessing of Might because increased running speed is great while leveling.

I picked first the talents that can help me healing : all talents which increase critical chance, Art of War, Judgement of the Wise, and I will pick Sheath of Light as soon as I can.

As you can see, the retribution tree as a lot of tools to help you while healing :

• You'll always have a lot of mana if you judge thanks to Judgement of the Wise
  
• You have instant Flash of Light if you crit in melee.
• You have a lot of crit. (Last time I healed, I was with a boomkin and a feral druid. I was at 20% spell crit and 23% melee crit on my judged target. That's A LOT at low level. A lot of instant and critical Flash of Light.
  

For the glyphs, I have glyph of Judgement and glyph of Holy Light. It was the best available when the slots unlocked. If you are ready to change glyphs when you switch from questing to instancing, you can take Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Exorcism (replaced by Glyph of Vengeance when you learn the spell) for questing, and you can choose between Glyph of Holy Light, Glyph of Flash of Light and Glyph of Seal of Light.

My Gear :

Of course, I'm not healing in retribution gear. As I love my alts, I get all the available bind on account gear. In my healing set I have the cloth shoulders and dress (it has spirit on it but my demo use it too), the healing mass, and the spell power and haste trinkets. As long as I can judge and melee things, I can't go oom. Thus I just pick whatever gear has the most spell power for the other slots.

How to ?

First of all, you want to choose the right seal and the right judgement. Generally, the best is to use seal of wisdom and to judge Light. If there is another (reliable) paladin who judges Light, you can judge wisdom. You can also pick Seal of Light if you have the glyph and you don't have any mana problem. But beware, if the tank takes heavy damage and you have to cast Holy Light, you can go oom pretty fast.

Then, you want to judge the tank target and stab it with your heally weapon. Thus :

• you'll get plenty of mana
• the tank and the dps will heal themselves without you have to do anything. That's especially great to heal the splash damage on the dps.
• you'll get instant Flash of Light to heal the tank without having to stop autoattacking.

There are some case you don't want to be in melee range though. For example, if the mobs has some high damage aoe spell, or if you're on the drakes in Sunken Temple that put to sleep some random melee target. In these case, judge the tank target and go back at max range asap.

There are some cases where you'll have to heal more than with just your judgement of Light and Art of War procs. Prefer the use of Flash of Light if the damage is light. It is fast and cost very little mana. But if the tank health start dropping faster, cast Holy Light as soon as you can. It is a long cast, thus don't wait until the tank is at 5% health to start casting !

Of course, don't forget all your paladin tools :

• Use Hammer of Justice to interrupt healing or if the tank take heavy damage, and repentance to stun a mob for a longer time. (Great if you grab aggro while healing).
• Have Hand of Protection, Hand of Salvation and Divine Protection ready when you or one of the dps takes unwanted damage. Keep your Lay of Hands and Hand of Sacrifice for the tank if he is dying.

Well, I'm only level 50, and I don't know if healing as retribution is still viable in Outland, but for now, healing with instant Flash of Light while stabbing stuff and jumping is a lot of fun ! That, and the recent post from the Bossy Pally about tanking with a retribution spec, and we could say that retribution is the best spec to do anything you want with your leveling paladin !

Getting Started with Grid

For the Lunar Festival, Khi from Tree Burglar challenge the blogging community and asks us to write some guide for new players. Here is mine !

"You're the Elder. Pretend you're smart for a few days =P"

So, you're a new healer. Or you finally want to have some tiny raid frames so you can dispel you fellow raid members. You've heard of Grid as a great raid addon, but you have also heard it was hard to set up. You're right, Grid is a great raid addon. It takes little place on your screen and let you know about anything you want to know, without giving to you useless information.
But you're also wrong. Grid can pretty well work out of the box, and I'll give you a short guide to make it usable.

Step 1 : Download Grid

If you've never used an addon before, you can download Grid on www.curse.com. But you'll get the latest version if you go directly to www.wowace.com.
Click on the "download" link, extract the file in the Interface\Addons folder in your World of Warcraft directory. (Depending on the setting you choose when installing WoW, it is generally in C:\Programs\World of Warcraft)

When you then log into wow, click on the "Addons" button at the bottom left of your screen and check Grid.

Step 2 : Getting started with Grid configuration menu

You have now grid running in your interface. You should have a new icon on your minimap, and perhaps one small and ugly square in the middle of your screen.

If you don't see the minimap icon, type /grid config, and uncheck "Hide minimap icon".
Now click on the minimap icon. A window opens with Grid configuration menu.The menu is divided in 3 part :

• Layout : Here you can choose how the little square are arranged. You can have different size of raids depending if you're in group, raid, battleground, etc., and you can choose to show pets, main tanks, have vertical or horizontal groups. You can also choose to hide Grid in some raid configurations by selecting "None".
• Frame : Here you can choose the appearance of the little squares. But, most importantly, this is where you'll choose how information you need are displayed in the square. In base grid, information can be displayed in different ways, called "indicators". It can be a colored dot in a corner, a colored border, the color of the square itself, a text information or a central icon. You can add more indicators by downloading pluggins.
• Status : Here you'll choose which information you want to see in grid.

To display any information in grid, you'll need to configure it in Status, and then to choose in which indicator it'll appear in Frame.

Step 3 : Setting Grid appearance

First of all, you want to choose a profile other than default, else your grid configuration could be erased when you update the addon. You do that in Profile.

To configure Grid without having to be in a group, you need to choose a solo layout. You can do that in Layout/solo. To place Grid in your interface, you want to choose the greater layout you'll use most of the time. For me it is by group 25.

Now you should see one little square in a rectangular background.

As the square is too small to be easily readable, you'll certainly want to change its size. This can be done in Frame/Advanced. You can change the scale of the square in Layout, or change it's form by changing its width and height in Frame/Advanced. In this menu you can also change texture, font, and the size of the indicators. You'll certainly want to change the corner size as the default one is very small.

Now, you can place Grid where you want on your screen by dragging the "Grid" tab. The background give you an idea of the place it'll take when you're in a raid. Make sure you uncheck "lock frame" (in Layout) to be able to move Grid. If the little Grid tab does not appear, check and uncheck "lock frame", it should appear.

You can also change the background appearance and the spacing between the squares in Layout and Layout/Advanced.

Step 4 : Displaying needed information

The default Grid configuration show most information you'll need :

• magic, disease, curse and poison are shown as blue, brown, purple and green dots of in top right corner and as a center icon (no screen, sorry but level 1 mobs don't put debuffs !)
• name is shown in center text if the target is at full health
• Incoming heals are shown as a green dot in bottom left corner, on center text and as a visual heal bar.
• aggro alert is shown as a red dot in top left corner
• health deficit is shown in center text if the target isn't at full health
• the border change color to show low health warning, low mana warning and your target.
• Frame alpha changed if target is out of range, dead or offline.

I still suggest doing a few change to this configuration :

• hide the debuffs YOU can't dispel on the center icon icon indicator. To do so go in Frame/Center icon, and uncheck the debuff types you don't need.
• The incoming heals alert show in 3 different indicator. I suggest you disable at least one of them. (I disabled the bottom left corner)

• The border change color to show low health and low mana warning. Personally, I find this information redundant / useless and I suggest you disable it. (You'll see if someone is at low health, you won't wait for the border to light up to heal !). It'll save you one great indicator to show more relevant information (for example, aggro alert). If you want to see an indication of mana, I suggest you download GridManaBar instead (see below).

In the default Grid configuration some specific class buffs and debuffs are already entered in Status/Auras, but they're not shown. These buffs are Lifebloom, Power Word:Shield, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Renew, Riptide, Forbearance, Mortal Strike and Weakened Soul. To begin with, I suggest you enable only your own buffs and debuff, and to check the "Show if mine" option. Then choose the indicator you want and enable your buff. For example, I choose center icon for the Mortal Strike debuff, bottom-left corner for Renew and top left corner for Power Word:Shield and Weakened Soul.

You can add more buffs and debuffs in Status/Auras by entering the exact name in the correct text area. You can use this functionnality to show missing buffs. For example, I want to see a wite dot in the bottom right corner if Power Word Fortitude is missing. To do that, I enter the buff name.

A new line "Buff : Power Word: Fortitude" appeared in Status/Auras. I choose the color, and check "Show if Missing".

Now I go to Frame/Bottom Right Corner and check "Buff: Power Word: Fortitude".

Step 5 : Having more from your Grid

Your Grid is now usable. But there are some additional change you'll certainly want to make before a long time :

• Showing raid debuffs : you'll certainly want some of the debuff raid bosses use to put on your raid to appear in you raid frames. That can be done in 2 ways. The simplest is to download GridStatusRaidDebuffs. You'll need to update it often to have new debuffs. That's why I suggest you to download it directly at wowace.com to have the newest version.
  In Status/Raid debuff, you can choose which debuff you want to see (you don't want to see all debuffs, some are not useful and will just hide important information). You can also choose not to show dispellable debuffs (I suggest you choose this option, as the dispellable debuffs are already shown). By default, the raid debuffs are normally shown as a central icon. If not, go to Status/Central Icon and check raid debuffs.
  If you don't want to download a new plugin, you can add each debuff manually. (It also works for any buff/debuff you want to see in Grid)
• Setting different priorities allow you to see multiples status in the same indicator : for each grid status, you can choose a priority level. If differents status are displayed in the same indicator, only the status with the higher priority level will appear. For exemple, I chose to have Power Word: Shield and Weakened Soul in the same corner. I chose a priority level of 91 for PW:S and 90 for WS. Thus I see the WS debuff only when the PW:S is consumed.
• You'll certainly want to know how much time is left on your hots. You can have that by downloading GridStatusHots. If you're a priest, instead of selecting Renew in your renew indicator, you'll want to select My Renew. Then the color of the hot will change depending on how much time is left on it. You can choose the colors of the dot in Status/My hots/My Renew, as well as the moment you want the dot to change color.
  
  
  
  For example, as a shaman, you'll want the riptide dot to change color earlier than for other hots. I set it to change to color 2 at 4 seconds remaining and to change to color 3 at 2 seconds. When the dot is color 2, I know it is the perfect time to cast a Chain Heal on that target. When it change to color 3, I know I don't have the time anymore to cast a Chain Heal before Riptide wears off.



Bright pink dot :
Riptide just applied



Red dot : less than 2
seconds left on Riptide



4 to 2 seconds left on Riptide,
time to cast Chain Heal on that target



• If you're a priest or a shaman, you'll want to see your group mana bars. You can download GridManaBar. This plugin can be easily configured in Frame/Advanced/Mana bar.


• There are 2 useful options to set up Grid on your screen:
  In Layout, you can check (or uncheck) the option "Horizontal groups", depending if you want your groups displayed horizontally or vertically. In 25-men raids it won't make a huge difference, but in 5, 10 or 40-men raids you'll need to use this option to fit Grid in your UI.
  In Layout/Advanced, you can define an anchor for the unit frame. Selecting the good anchor will allow Grid to be exactly where you want, whatever raid setup you're in. For example, I chose the Top-left Anchor. Thus, the top-left square of Grid will always be at the same place, and the groups will grow to the bottom and to the right.
• There are more options to change the look and feel of you frames. Default frame are empty at full health and fill up vertically. I find it great : you can better notice low health people and the vertical orientation allow me to have small frames thus I don't have to move my mouse a lot. But it can be confusing at first. You can change that in Frame/Advanced.
  Frame orientation allow you to have your frames fill up horizontally, like most unit frames.
  Invert frame color will allow you to have your frames full at full health, like most unit frames.

I think I summed up all you need to know about Grid to get started. Of course it won't be the awesome layout you can see on some UI, but you should be able to use Grid and improve your layout to make it fit your needs as you go along.

Mourning Priest T10 4 pieces bonus

Since Icecrown release, the T10 healing bonuses have been controversial. Their usefulness wasn't proved, and thus many priest didn't pick the T10 healing set at all. But in the next patch, the 4 piece bonus will change and improve the favorite spells of both holy and disc specs.

RIP Funny priest T10 bonus

For now, the T10 healing bonuses are the following :

• 2 pieces : You Flash Heal has a 33% chance to make your target to

  heal for another 33% of the healing amount over 9 seconds.

• 4 pieces : Your Penance and Circle of Healing spells have a 20% chance to make your next Flash Heal cast within 6 second to reset the cooldown of your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.

The 2 piece bonus is ok, but it has many imperfections. Many disc or holy priest seldom use Flash Heal. And for the priests who spam Flash Heal on the tank, there is a risk that the hot will never heal (or at least, not heal for a long time). Indeed, when the hot is applied for the second time on the same target, the next heal is delayed by 3 seconds. If the hot is each time re-applied before the first heal, it will never heal !

Here is an example :

If you only cast one Flash Heal :

• t = 0 : your Flash Heal land and the hot is applied.
• t = 3s : first tick of the hot
• t = 6s : second tick of the hot
• t = 9s : last tick of the hot.

If you spam Flash Heal, assuming a 1.25 seconds cast time, you can have this happen :

• t = 0 : first Flash Heal land, the hot is applied
• t = 1.25s : second Flash Heal land
• t = 2.5s : third Flash Heal land, the hot is reapplied (next tick delayed by 3s)
• t = 3.75s : 4th Flash Heal land
• t = 5s : 5th Flash Heal land, the hot is reapplied (next tick delayed by 3s)

Etc.

In this short period of time, the hot is applied once every 2 Flash Heal. Thus it'll be a moment where your hot will finally heal the target. And at this moment, it'll heal for a lot. But the hot didn't tick for more than 8 seconds !

As you can see, the 2 pieces bonus isn't absolutely awesome.

And it is the same for the 4 pieces bonus. If you cast Penance every cd, once every 5 Penance, you'll have a cd reduced to your Penance + Flash Heal cast time. Assuming 20% haste raid buffed, that's a 2.75 cd. That means you can cast 5 Penance in 34.75 seconds instead of 40 seconds. That's 5 more Penance on a 5 minutes fight (43 instead of 37). If you cast Penance every cd, that's ok. And it becomes a great bonus if you take into account the fact that Penance is often a life-saver spell, unlike Flash Heal. But a lot of these shield-spamming priests out there found this bonus pretty useless.

That's why many priest didn't pick the T10 healing set at all, and preferred some off-set items, or even the shadow set !

Personally, I didn't have enough frost emblems to buy the full set, but couldn't wait to try the 4 pieces bonus. Even if it wasn't a great healing increased, it would have add some changes and, most probably, some fun to my gameplay.

But today, as I read the updates to the 3.3.3 patch, I was a bit sad. The 4 piece bonus will change ! And I don't even have the time to try it ! (I have 2 pieces by now, and as I don't raid I'm far away from the 4th piece bonus)

The new bonus is far better for most priest: it increases the healing done by Renew and the absorption done by Power Word: Shield by 5%.

But is that fun ? Not at all. It's just healing the same way I healed for the past year, just with bigger numbers. Well, switching gear to T10 already give me bigger numbers, as I have more spell power. I'd better have some fun from my set bonus.

And you, what do you think of the old and new bonuses ? Will you change your gearing strategy with this change ? What to you wait from a set bonus ?

Where all of this begin...

I hate writing the first post of a blog. This blog is created for a few days, I have some articles almost ready to be published, but I still don't have a first post.

But today I finally have the inspiration. I was visiting Looking for More and find this post that reminds me of my early stages in World of Warcraft. I wanted to post a comment to share my own experience, but then I realise it could take an entire blog post as it was quite something.

What a stupid game !

I suppose you guessed it by now, my boyfriend made me play wow more than 3 years ago. When we met, I didn't play video games at all, apart from this windows game where you have to find where the bombs are hidden without clicking on them (I don't know the English name of the game sorry!). I played once a car race game, and it took me 20 minutes to finish the race, instead of the 3-5 minutes it takes normally !

My boyfriend was playing wow since the release. At this time, he played a mage in a raiding guild and was doing AQ and Naxxramas. One night I was his place as he was raiding, and he suggested I tried playing. In the middle of a fight against an giant and ugly insect (I hate insects), he let me seat in his chair and explain me how to play :

"It's easy : you just need to type "2" all the time."

Well it took me at least 1 minute to understand that I actually add to smash the button all the time, and that I couldn't just let my finger rest on it. And after another minute, I let him back on his chair, and I was totally sure this game was completely stupid.

After that, I made a internship in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon. For those of you who don't know, it's a little french island 30 minutes away with a ferry boat from Newfoundland with a ferry boat. And I discovered about everyone in there was playing wow. I suppose they were bored, being stuck in this small island with 7000 inhabitants. The important is that at the coffee break, everyone spoke about World of Warcraft. I was quite surprised as the first time I heard of this game was 1 month ago from my boyfriend ! They explained me the game wasn't just about smashing 2, but that it was also about role play. And that there was a lot of girls playing. I suspect they spoke about the female characters, and not the female gamers. But the important is that when I come back in France, I didn't see wow as a completely-stupid-game-where-you-just-smash-the-same-button-all-the-time anymore.

And after seeing my boyfriend playing a few more time, I was really wishing to try again !

Learning to walk...

So my boyfriend gave me the old account of his brother, installed wow on my laptop, and I created my first character. He choose the class for me ("What is the easiest class to play when you know absolutely nothing about video games ?"), and I end up with a human mage named Titiyette (his mage was named Titiyet, I didn't have any inspiration for a name either). And I began (slowly) to become familiar with the game. It was hard. I first had to learn how to move. I took me at least 40 lvl, and yet strafing was something far too difficult for me. I discovered than if I have to press 1 many times to cast many frostbolts, if I right-click many times I'll stop auto-attacking... And many other things most of us are doing naturally were soooo difficult for me.

After a few levels, my boyfriend found out that mage was too difficult for me, and suggest I played a rogue instead. As he made a priest to level with me, I accepted, and my first character to lvl 60 is born. It was long, and I would have give up a few time if he hadn't helped me with one of his alts.

And now I'm there, at the head of an army of alts. Some of them are 80, some of them will get there some day, some will stay at their low level forever, but I love them all, and I won't leave them !