Holy, Continued

Eesh, so it’s been a while since I’ve putten anything to paper. Or digital media, or whatever. I’ve been a busy little priest, in the hour or so here and there that I get to play. I’m still specced holy (and loving it). I did suck it up and drop Spirit Tap to spec into the normal 23/38 Raid Healing spec. Improved Divine Spirit is nice, and keeps my MP5 up a bit higher while I’m casting as well as why I’m not with Meditation thrown in there. So it works out. I can still grind pretty much non-stop using my shadowfiend when he becomes available. There’s some wand action thrown in and it’s a bit slower (because my damage is pretty lacking) but I don’t die. Which, in it’s own way, keeps the speed up.

We’ve done a few runs through some of the instances, but most of them have been the easier, LOWER than 70 ones. We did run Shattered Halls the other day. It was pretty impressive, none of us had ever run it before, and we did wipe twice, but we managed to clear it without any real difficulty. We wiped one time when we pulled one group, got feared into another group, and then before we could take them out, a pat came up and aggro’d to me (our healer). By this time, I was throwing a lot of healing out and so our pally tank had a bit of difficulty keeping the pat off of me, and as such, I bit the dust. Kicked the bucket. Etc.

The second time was on the last boss. He has some weird “aoe” type attack that deals 1200-2200 damage to everyone in the party a few times (every 30 seconds, I think) and then there are a bunch of adds too. Anyway, the mage and I died about 30 seconds into the fight the first time. The remaining 3 (Pally Tank, Pally and Warrior DPS) managed to get the boss down to about 35% without a healer.. I got prayer of mending and renew on each of them in SoR, which helped at first. The pally DPS dropped back and dropped some heals, but he ran OOM pretty quick. At least they stayed alive long enough that we got a pretty good taste for the fight though. So we took him down the next time. When the boss started doing his AOE thing, I got a shield up on myself, and a renew on the mage, and dropped out a prayer of mending. Between all that, none of us died, and a quick prayer of healing afterwards topped us back up enough. He did that 2 more times in the fight but it wasn’t too bad after learning how to deal with it. I went a little overboard the first time, actually and so held back a little the second time. Yeah, his attacks were stronger that time and so the mage almost died. He did kick the bucket the third time, actually. Got crit for like 3.6. Anyway! Good times.

That brings me to another point. I <3 pally tank. I’ve run with a good warrior tank before as well and I liked him too, but he was totally epicced out. Our “MT” is a pally and he can hold agro from large groups with little difficulty. His Def. rating is up around 490 and he’s got over 10k health buffed, and I don’t really have much trouble keeping him alive unless the group he’s holding is either really tough, or there’s a boss mixed in. We did, however, have some issues with getting feared during shattered halls the other day though, and I dunno if a warrior tank would be able to handle that any better or not.

Let’s see, as to my gear. I’m up to 3 epics now, and some good sweet blues. I’m still running some +spelldamage blues from the shadow days, but I’m hoping to have those replaced soon. I so wish I could get my cenarion rep the rest of the way up to revered so I could buy the blue healing hood from the quartermaster there. But, I’ve managed to get 2 pieces (belt and shoulders) of the primal mooncloth set. I put the lower level +heal Aldor shoulder inscription on the shoulders. I’ve gotten Pants of the Naaru +77 heals and some mp5) and embroidered them with Silver Spellthread (something like 43 or so more +heals). I got the epiccy BG bracers with +53 or so heal, and enchanted those with +30 (or is it +20?) heal. So I’m sitting at around 1090 +healing and 128 or so mp5 casting. Next on the list is the Cenarion Rep Hood (with the Honor Hold Rep +Heals piece) and the RING from the BG’s. I’m really praying for the Serpentcrest Life Staff drop from Steam Vaults (that I’m going to have to run at least twice anyway to get my Cenarion Rep up.) That’s another +227 healing. I’m wielding either a +85 dmg/heal staff or a +95 heal dagger (with no offhand yet) depending on the situation. I will probably stick with the staff, it has better stats.

I got a couple of healing pieces from some of the instances we ran too on my back and feet and hands. They can be upgraded, but they are suitable for now. Also the +55 heal neck piece is wicked. J

So anyway. It’s coming along. Slowly but surely.

Holy -- Take 2!

So, our guild's up to round about 8 level 70's now. The guild leader was originally going to be our main tank healer -- he's a Paladin. He's since then leveled a mage up to around 66 and fallen in love with that char. I had actually started another priest to lvl up to heal because I've enjoyed healing as well.

So, the way things are going now, I've respecced Holy (ONCE AGAIN), and he's working to get his mage up to lvl 70 to DPS with us. A mage utility is definitely not the same as a Shadow Priest utility, but the DPS is round about in the same category.. Spell Damage out the arse.

So, that leaves me as the main (and as far as I can tell, only) healer. We've got an Enhancement Shaman that has spoken of going Resto now that he's level 70, but I don't know how well that will work because he's never BEEN Resto. He may like it, he may not. I don't know.

I'm sort of glad that I've gotten shifted to the healer role (for the time being) because that way I can work on my alt that's already lvl 61 -- my rogue. Much less work to get him to level 70 than it would be to start a character from scratch.

I didn't go pure heal because I still want to be able to daily and make some cold hard cash. I'm sort of a good (I think) mix between a Smite build and a Healing build, with 5 points still (and probably always will be) in Spirit Tap. Spirit tap (Particularly with Divine Spirit in the Disc Tree) allows for almost non-stop grinding. I can't imagine a reason that I would ever want to get rid of that. Sure, it wouldn't be useful in the least in a healing role, but most of my time is spent soloing anyway. Or, for now at least.

So anyway, that's where I stand. Playing the rogue again whilst running dailies on the priest. The guild leader asked that we all layout a good time, 2 days a week, when we can all get together and start running instances. I think that's a fantastic idea, and I can't wait. Now, to get healing gear. +500 healing isn't going to cut it for very long, I don't think. hehe.

What to do, what to do?

I don't much know, really. I've been finishing up some netherstorm quests, and doing dailies where I can to make money. I haven't maxed out tailoring yet so I still need to do that. I don't really know where my cash has gone, because I've only got 200g. Crazy.

I've bought up some mats to make shadowcloth so that I can start crafting my Frozen Shadoweave set. The next piece MAY come this weekend, but I'm not sure. I haven't PvP'd much anymore. I've been helping the guildies out with runs through instances and such... well, RUNS as much as a shadowpriest can. I get 3 or 4 of them together and basically just say "GO CRAZY." They DPS everything and I just don't let them die. That's about all I can do since spirit tap doesn't proc unless I get exp. It seems to work though. And I think they enjoy it because they're still doing most of the work.

Though I did find it amusing, I "RAN" ZF last night with a group of lvl 43-49 or so, and my wand did as much DPS as their going full out. Hehe.

Anyway. That's about it for now. Back to Dailying and questing. And alting more. hehe.

Ding, 70!

Woohoo! Finally!

I know, I skipped 69.

But it just went by so fast. I saw that only ONE MORE LEVEL and just BLEW through it. I'd say about 8-10 hours or so. In about 3 days. I spent the first half or 2/3 of the level finishing up some Blade's Edge Mountain quests and then just grinded out the last third or so of the level. I hit 70, proceeded to SMV to get the flying mount, and began flying around! I didn't accomplish much the remainder of the weekend, I did a few daily's and quested a little more. Of course, all of this was just to pay back my guild leader for being so nice as to lend me the last 300g for my flying mount.

I feel pretty poor that I couldn't afford it, but it was all because I spent so much time leveling up my tailoring. And, after all that, I can't even make myself any of the FSW kit yet. I actually made my first 2 shadoweave cloth last night. Only two more and I'll be able to craft the shoulders. Woo, shoulders. Hey, can't complain, it's an upgrade. I think next on the list is actually the S1 wand, the Gladiator's Touch of Defeat. It's only 8,000 honor and 10 Eye of the Storm marks. I'm about half way there. I can't wait just because it'll be my first level 70 purple. Well, unless I can get 10 Primal Water and make my shoulders first. Either way. I'm excited. hehe. I can't wait until I can get the spellblade or the staff or something but they're significantly more "expensive", honor wise.

SO! Now that I'm 70, it's time to gear up. Slowly. That's the plan now. I respecced a little, so that I should still be viable at PvP (mass, PvP, not so much arenas) and I should be viable in a group (with around 500 spell dmg, 8kh and 7k mana). Just time to work on getting better!

Tailoring -- Take 2

So I’ve spent some good time grinding for mats (on my rogue mostly – leveled him up to almost 61 getting all the runecloth that I needed). I bought some cloth but ended up grinding most of it just because the prices on my server for anything other than Netherweave is outrageous. I’ve gotten my tailoring up to about 367 now (even though it did cost me around 300g!) Stupid Arcane Dust was expensive. I can make armor up to my level now, and even some of the lvl 70 stuff. I can make all the types of bags available (Linen, Wool, Silk, Mageweave, Runecloth, Netherweave, and Imbued Netherweave), which I feel should help out my guild some in the long run.

I sold most everything I made over level 45 or so to the vendor. I have an enchanting alt that I was able to DE the lvl 20-45ish stuff with, but beyond that, I was pretty screwed. Although most of the stuff usually sold back (over that level) for more than the mats cost anyway, so it wasn’t too bad. DEing stuff netted me around 100g or so, which recouped some of the cost. If it weren’t for that stupid Arcane Dust!! I would have been fine. Or if I’d had a higher level enchanter, it probably wouldn’t have been as bad either. But it’s fine. I’m down to about 300g now, level 68, and I need about 600g more before I can get my flying mount when I hit 70.

But who cares? Now, I can make SWEET ARMOR! Hehe. And BAGS! If only it hadn’t cost so much.

367 Tailor LFW.

Ding, 68!

So I’ve hit 68 now. I’m actually about half way through 68 to 69 at this point. I guess I was slow writing up a post. L Sorry. I did a bunch more of the Nagrand quests (I’ve almost finished most of them) and spent some time grinding on the Ogres in the south-east of the zone. There’s a cave up there that’s rarely visited by anyone else on my server. There are mostly melee mobs (which are my bitches) up in there, so the grinding isn’t bad.

I also got a bunch of netherweave drops, which is mostly what I was going for trying to lvl tailoring as well. I probably ground out the last 175,000 exp of 67 to get to 68. But it was flying. I was averaging 105,000 – 110,000 experience per hour, topping the charts at around 120,000 or so for a little while. Just grinding. It was amazing. Until two (66 and 67) druids decided it would be fun to stalk the grinding priest. That ended that little adventure for the night. I managed to kill them a couple of times, but it just was no longer worth my time. So off to other things.

Next day though, I finished up the last 75k or so in the same spot.

This really made me curious about the grinding vs questing argument. 120k xp/h is amazing. Really amazing. But then I was questing the other day in Nagrand a bit more, doing a handful of quests around the big open field area off to the west side. They were kill xx yy mob quests, and collect xx of zz thing quests. Upon turning them in after about 40 minutes or so of play, my XP/h spiked to around 132k/h. So, it’s a tough call. It seems that both work well given ideal circumstances.

I enjoy questing more, but when I don’t know how long I’m going to be on, I’ll typically just grind for a little while. I guess that’s why I’m slow getting through Nagrand. Not that I mind – more quests left for lvl 70 that way. I was actually a bit worried about that since I started outland at 58, but definitely not a worry now. Cool Beans! Can’t wait for 70!!

AV ROCKS

So, I decided that since I figured that I would PVP more than PvE once I hit 70, I should give it a shot. I sucked it up, picked up an AV quest or two in Shatt and talked to the battle master. “First Available, please.”

Less than 5 seconds, and *poof*. My first time EVER in AV. The match had already started and I was joining mid-way through. I had never been in Alterac Valley before (if you’ve never been, I highly recommend it – particularly at level 67-69 range). I’m in this cave with one exit, so I head on out. There’s fighting going on all around me.

Well, my “Healbot” addon is taking up my whole screen at this point, I’d never been in a 40-man raid group before. So, tweak that a bit and get that set back up and where I can see everyone.

Then off again. I mount up, ride around a corner, and immediately dismount. There’s a battle raging. I’d say 10-15 of my teammates are fighting off a party of some 20-25 horde. Looks like a no-win. But I throw in where I can – tossing heals around, dotting up the enemies, Mindblast à Shadow Word:Deathing when the cooldown is up. I got a good number of killing blows to keep my spirit tap procced as much as I could to try to keep my mana up. But definitely not like in PvE. I had to stop and drink several times. Skidaddle back around the corner where no one will see me, have some water, and back into the fray.

This battle raged for what seemed like ages, but was actually probably around 10 minutes. The BG ended and I checked my honor. I had something like 600 Honor Points for around 6-10 minutes of being in a battle ground. I only got about 4 killing blows. It was great.

So I started right back up in another game and played through, following the mass of people leaving the tunnel. I got a bit more of a feel for the BG this time, capturing towers, killing NPC’s, etc. There are a bunch of quests in there, so I picked some up, but wasn’t able to finish any. This one went on for about 30 minutes, and we actually won this one. Two Thousand Honor?! For 40 minutes of play. Amazing.

Maybe the PvP gear won’t be that hard to get after all. I don’t even have my first PvP trinket (Insignia of the Alliance) yet. That’s first on my list. Well, maybe I’ll hit 70 first. I asked a guildy about 70 AV and he said it was just about the same as the 60-69 bracket, if just a little more “intense.” I can handle that. I’m really looking forward to it now, it was a very good time. Maybe I could be a PvPer after all.