Crisis of Faith

Today was one of the worst raids I’ve had in my entire raiding career. It’s a new raiding group and I was all full of hope that I had finally found the group that fit what I was looking for. Instead, here I am at the end of the day, many tissues later, seriously considering just giving up and walking away from it all.

The Troubled Path of Gearing

Gear is an essential part of playing – whether you’re raiding or PvPing or simply doing the solo quest for awesome green fire. Gear is never the end reward necessarily, but it is a necessary part of killing a boss or opponent. No, this post is not about loot drama or anything – but more about the bigger picture as gearing stands right now.

Two things in particular have followed, one after another to bring this issue up: 1) the strange gear distribution in tier 14 and 2) the recent decision stating that there will be no more 5-mans for the rest of Mists.

Until now, I admit I was mostly unconcerned with the decision not to add any more 5-mans. I sympathised with those that solely play for 5-man content and enjoy it – but I didn’t feel like I had a vested interest in arguing against the decision. That is until I took a good look at my character to get ready for raiding once again. The issues became painfully obvious once I saw the gear I got and the things I was unable to get – namely my problem slot of an offhand.

In my mind, the strange gear distribution in tier 14 and the recent no-new-5-mans decision are connected – and the decision will now go a long away in exacerbating already existing issues.

Embracing the Horde in me?

Confession time. That screenie is actually my adorable priest many many moons ago. Before there was transmog, before there was battletag, and before there was Garrosh…I was horde. It’s finally time for that update.

This expansion has yet to be kind to me as far as raiding is concerned. I found a lovely guild at the beginning of the expansion but sadly the raiding team didn’t work out, and right now I’m back to the hunt for a good group of folks to raid with. I took the chance to revisit what I want out of raiding and what kind of schedule I’d like to be on. Turns out, I don’t like evening raids as much as I thought. So I’ve decided to change my raiding schedule to be weekend mornings.

As I was writing my post on the recruitment forums, I realised that there were quite a few check boxes I wanted filled: Light schedule, weekend mornings, solid leadership, semi-hardcore environment etc. And even if they check all those boxes, they need to want a discipline priest! So here’s the best part: I found a guild who checked all those boxes and could use a discipline priest. Egads. And that’s not all – the most interesting part is that they’re horde.

The prospect of returning to the horde side is a really interesting development that I didn’t necessarily expect while searching for a raid group. And so here I am wondering, is it time for me to embrace the horde in me?

Healing Perspectives: Horridon

Horrible Horridon gave me a horridly horrendous headache. I just had to say it. 🙂  *Ahem* Horridon is actually a really fun fight that requires a lot of coordination from the raid. If everything is executed well, it turns into a lovely clean polished boss kill that can be rewarding.

This is mostly a two phase fight with the second being the final burn phase. The first phase involves dealing with waves of troll adds of different shapes and sizes and having the right dps priority in getting them down.

Alanna’s Embrace

The last couple posts of mine make it seem like healing strats are all I have going for me. An update and is in order and I’ll post it soon, when I’m ready. Until then, there’s been enough going on lately for me that I just want to revisit a part of Warcraft that takes the stress away and puts the fun back in it a little bit for me. And nothing does it for me like outfits. 🙂

My latest outfit is a lovely change to pink. Alanna’s Embrace is one of those beautiful robes that I farmed for shortly before Mists hit. There was talk of Scholomance being revamped and loot tables changing and my buddy convinced me to suck it up and spend a day in the instance until these robes were mine. I’m glad he got on my case because sadly, these robes are no longer available in game.

My favourite part about this set is how elegant it looks without showing a whole lot of skin. It’s a nice change – and I love having flowers as my offhand! 🙂

Where to get the set:

Chest: Alanna’s Embrace (no longer available)

Shoulders: Replica Magister’s Mantle (75 Darkmoon Tokens, Auction House)

Hands: Soulcloth Gloves (Tailoring BoE)

Belt: Ruthless Gladiator’s Cord of Accuracy (Honour Points)

Feet: Ringo’s Blizzard Boots ( Blackwing Lair, random drop)

Weapon: War-Mace of Unrequited Love (Heroic Nexus, Keristrasza)

Off-hand: Lei of the Life-giver (50 Honour, Alterac Valley Vendor)

Healing Perspectives: Jin’rokh the Breaker

Jin’rokh is the first bad guy in the Throne of Thunder – which, by the way, I think is an awesome awesome raid. I love the environments so far and I’m excited to see the rest!

Healing Resources for Patch 5.2

Here are a couple resources I found useful for patch 5.2 in regards to healing. It includes posts about the new proc system for trinkets, class -specific gear lists and class changes. Lots of good reads here – enjoy! 🙂