Weekly Update: Madness in March

It's been a crazy crazy week for me, and I'm sorry I haven't posted.  I have had a lot of random stuff happen, I've been busy, and I had some internet problems at some points.  A lot of cool stuff has happened though, and its almost time for that magical time of the year...

March Madness

Heck yea!  I'm not even a big basketball fan, there is just so many good games its unreal!  I'm pretty excited for this year, I currently have Syracuse, Conneticut, Notre Dame, and Utah State (yes Utah State) in my final four, with Notre Dame beating Uconn for the championship.  I'm probably not right though, since I never do good with my brackets.  What I do know is this year the Southeast region is going to be what makes or breaks your bracket.  There is a lot of good teams in that region and no clear dominant team (Pitt is inconsistent and has a history for choking in the tournament).  Look for Belmont (13), Utah State (12), and Old Dominon (9) all to be higher seeded teams that should pose a legitament threat. 

Coaching
If you read last weeks update or some of the other posts you would know that I coach elementary school wrestling.  Well yesterday we had our city championships and I coached my first ever city champion!  It was his first year wrestling, and he just fell in love with the sport and worked extremely hard every practice to get better.  I am unbelievably proud of him, and he came up and thanked me for everything after.  It really was a rewarding feeling, and I'm excited to coach again next year. 

On WoW
I didn't really have an opputunity to play much this past week.  I managed to level my druid to 33 (was 28), and finally got him exalted with Darnassus for my nightsaber.  I also did enough Alterac Valley Call to Arms to get the healing heirloom mace.  That is really about all I managed to accomplish this week though sadly.  I guess I also figured out that low level paladin tanks don't like speccing into Sanctuary (their uncrittable talent), luckily though I had 290 spell power and 3k mana at lvl 32, so I managed to get through it.

In other games
I don't believe I have ever talked about it on the blog, but I used to be a Halo trick jumper (search Jump Vision on youtube my gamertag was XTR3MEST).  I have recently been trying to get back into it with Halo: Reach and have been jumping in that a little bit.  Hopefully in the next month I'll have enough landed to release my next video.  I have also been working on a Halo 3 launching video with one of my friends that should be pretty revolutionary for Halo 3 multiplayer launching, so that is pretty exciting too.

On the Blog
I got a comment!  I haven't been real active on here this past week though, and I'm sorry for that.  How to Heal part 2 should be out tomorrow though (expect those on Wensdays they take a while to write and get all the links for).  I also have kept up a few consistent views and have a follower now so this is all great news.  Hopefully soon I can develop a community here and have some quality content for everyone to discuss, look to.  I think I might just need to come up with a breakthrough post that just draws a lot of attention to really pick up the views/comments, so hopefully I'll come up with one soon.

On Life
Same old same old really.  I am done coaching, still in school, still looking for a job so yea its all about the same.  Spring break is coming up next week though, and the senioritis bug is kicking my butt.  It used to be if I didn't do an assignment it was just cause I was too lazy too.  At this point I have senioritis so bad that I won't even remember its assigned so I won't do it.  My grades aren't getting dragged down too bad though so everything is ok so far.  I'm excited for college and classes that are more meaningful to me though.

On Programming
I was too busy with schoolwork and coaching and everything to even post on the blog much do you think I had time to program much?  Learning Java is still on my to do list and may have to get pushed back til later on in the year. 


EDIT:  I was playing on my druid earlier and won the Scarlet Crusade tabard!  This was pretty exciting for me, since I'm an achievement whore and am collecting tabards (have 9 at lvl 35).  Here's the picture, good luck to any other achievement hunters out there!

Feel free to ask me anything or email me!

Happy Healing!
 

How to Heal Part 1: Is healing the role for you?

Hello everyone this is Part 1 of a series I'm going to start as a basic guide (will get into advanced stuff near the end) on healing!  Part 1 is on whether or not healing is for you.

Can you handle staring at this for the entire encounter and keeping them all alive?

If your reading this I'm assuming you either just want to read it or hopefully your planning on rolling/speccing into a healer!  Congratulations you could soon be a part of the most unique role in the game.  Before you do that though, It's best to make sure that healing is a role you will enjoy.

Helping others/support
This is one of many peoples favorite aspects of healing.  Your whole job as a healer is to keep others alive. While you may not get all the glory this way, you can get personal satisfaction knowing that you are doing a great job supporting the team in a vital role.  If your the kind of person who likes to do what they can to help people, then that'd be a great sign that healing is for you.

No set rotations or prioritys, Constantly changing
One of many peoples favorite aspects from a gameplay standpoint is the nature of healing.  There are no rotations, no prioritys, and everything is constnatly changing.  Being a good healer is about knowing which spell is right for the job.  Being able to juggle all of your different healing abillities in an effecient manner is your main responsibility as a healer (besides keeping everyone alive obviously).  The reactive and proactive variations along with the you decide on the fly, makes healing very appealing to people seeking a different playstyle then the simple priority systems of dps and tanking.  The same pulls can change dramatically with group composition, and other factors keeping it from getting stale to many healers.

Responsibility
As a healer you will often times get the blame for when people die, even if its not your fault!  This is part of the responsibility of being a healer, a large part of every single pulls success is on your shoulders.  To some this is a boulder, to others it is a challenge they try to live up to.  If you can handle some responsibility and like meeting or exceeding the expectations others place on you then healing will appeal to you.

Short ques/High demand
Hey for some people its a big deal.  Healers have pretty short ques in the LFD system (not as short as insta que tank but usually not bad).  Healers are also usually in demand, while a 25man raid may need only 2 tanks they will most likely use 7 healers.  If having short ques or being desired for raid spots (depends on your guild) is something you want in your role, healing can provide. 

Having your own style
Healing is one of the few roles where stat values, specs, and playstyle is actually subjective to your healing style.  This uniqeness available to you is very appealing to some people who hate being pigeonholed into certain combinations (although variations usually aren't huge).  For example:  Resto shaman can make valid arguements for stacking haste, crit, or mastery all depending on their raid comp, style of healing, heroic or normal modes, raid size, etc.  Healing is the only role where you can develop your own style and base your gearing and spec off it and be optimal (with some exceptions of course, I don't care who you are if your a holy priest your taking chakra).

Unique Gameplay
Healing is the most unique role in the game.  Healing is the only role without a set priority system and the only one not focused on damaging the enemy while surviving.  Healing can provide a totally different perspective of the game for new or long time players.  As a healer you also have to handle all mechanics in most fights, providing a greater overall understanding of the encounters.  This unique experience is the most enjoyable role for many people, including myself. 

So if healing sounds appealing to you, then stick around for part 2 "Choosing the healing class for you!"

If you have any quesitons email me at healmore.wow@gmail.com or comment here.

Happy Healing All!

Weekly Update: The First Edition

I decided in an attempt to get some regularity in some posting I would start having colums i would try and run on specefic days, and for tuesday i decided I would do kind of an update on whats going on in my life in game and out.  Also I have realized that posting everyday will not work long term, and may try and cut back soon to every 2-3 days.  It will depend on what ideas I have to write about, I don't wanna post something unmeaningful/not useful for no real reason.  Plus I want to start working on a basic healing guide for all classes (later parts would go through all specefic classes, and then an advanced concepts part) and this will take time to work on.  So if I don't post for a day or two don't worry.

In Game

My priest hasn't really been worked on since the BH run, but I also haven't played much in general.  I have played my resto druid some though, and managed to hit 25 with him and promptly bought the swiftmend glyph.  I am loving my druid and am really looking forward to continue to level him.  One thing I have noticed though is that the talents/abilities don't really work out well for resto or feral tanks.  For resto you have everything you need essentially (I have rejuv, nourish, and regrowth for exmaple), but my problem is that I get revitalize in the 30s (triggers replinishment when using lifebloom), and malfurion's gift in the 40s (procs omen of clarity off lifebloom), but I don't get lifebloom until level 64!  This is just kinda frustrating cause one of the major parts of the playstyle (keeping lifebloom rolling, omen of clarity procs), and a major regen component isn't available until lvl 64 even though the talents are in the 30s and 40s.  Feral tanks have it worse though since they have no real aoe until 36 and not even a multi target attack until 25 (maul glyph).  This makes the low level instances a severe pain with a feral tank, or playing as one I'd assume (I'm resto, gonna be resto/boomkin so i don't know how feral tanking is personally).  Oh well though I'm sure I'll get over it soon, and it'll make me really try hard to hit 64 soon too.

Real life

Nothing really knew me and my girlfriend still together, senioritis is kicking my ass though.  I am in AP (advanced placement) English, and every senior at my school has to make a scrapbook thats 50-100 pages long about various topics that also includes 20 essays.  The problem is in AP English that isn't your homework thats just extra stuff thrown ontop and with all of my other classes its really bogging me down.  I also find myself totally uninterested in all of my classes, I'm not too worried about that being an issue in college cause the atmosphere is totally different and the schedule doesn't kill me as much.  Plus I'm generally interested in some of the things i'll be learning in college while in highschool I'm just not.  I scored a 29 on my act with a 34 in reading comprehension but have a C in english just because I can't get myself to comit to doing all the work.

On the blog

So a big pickup in views yesterday which is great!  Still not getting any comments but thats ok, I'm sure eventually I will start getting some.  I'm gonna be posting around on different forums and things of that nature so feel free to pop in anywhere and say hey.  Also if anyone has any questions about healing (or even in general about wow), or blog topics they want me to cover feel free to email me at healmore.wow@gmail.com and I will answer the best I can (if i don't know answer I will look up).  Also I realize holy pally's are the only class I haven't discussed a lil at least so I will try and post about them soon.

Coaching

I have elementary coaching tonight.  Two pracitces left and 1 tournament then I'm done, but i have to say I will miss it.  Coaching is a great way to gain a new perspective and genuinely help and impact some kids, so I would like to say to everyone don't be afraid to get involved in coaching any sports.  Those overtime matches will be the death of me though.

Programming?

I haven't really programed much in a while, but I plan on teaching myself Java soon.  I wanna become a computer software engineer and figure teaching myself some of the basics before college will help a lot in my understanding then.  I've even thought about writing a wow addon (a simple one) just as a kind of project that would be a lil more fun then making the computer count to 1000

In python that program is

x = 0

while x < 1000:

       x = x+1

print(x)

Stay tuned for potential healing guides coming up soon, and feel free to email or comment!

Happy Healing All!

10 Tips for Resto Druids to get Dark Intent

Recently Jar over at r4healingtouch confirmed that you get a 9th tick of the new effloressence at the same point as wild growth.  This makes getting that 2005 break point an extreme increase in thoroughput, or 1573 with Dark Intent.  So I thought I would make a list of tips to try and convince that warlock to give you Dark Intent.

1) Promise to let him lifetap as much as he wants, and keep him alive
A great way to start, promising to keep him alive no matter what goes down should be a good incentive for him to buff you.  Make sure you keep that rejuv rolling on him!
2) Go cat form and /purr
Awwwwww kittens are so adorable, give him those cute little kitten eyes and he will be powerless to resist
3) Go Bear form and growl
So cute and adorable didn't work?  Go ahead and try turning into a big scary bear and intimadate him into it
4) Go travel form and run around him
Here your just trying to annoy him into it, run circles around him unitl he gives it to you
5) Pretend to be hunter alts pet
Every hunter in the worlds dream is to tame a druid, why not pretend to let him do it on an alt!  Just go bear form or cat form and /follow him and auto attack whatever he does!
6) /flirt
This works especially well if your a Night elf female (if your a worgen female go human form... unless their into that kinda thing).  Go up and give them some moves, soon they will be powerless to resist (you can even take them to goldshire inn pre raid if you wanna make things interesting).
7) If he's dressed up as pirate go aquatic form
Everyone has seen the people who transform themselves into a pirate, if your warlock is doing that then go aquatic form so he'll think your a sexy mermaid!  Hey it worked in real life (thats where mermaid myth came from, sailors so desperate they thought manatees where mermaids), and who wouldn't wanna buff a sexy mermaid?
8) Talk about how awesome he is in trade
/2 Oh man *insert warlock name here* is so awesome, he's the best warlock on the server for sure, none of you guys can even compare.  He was doing 30k dps back in ICC and now hes trying to break 100k he's so great.  Once he's flooded with all the whispers about how awesome he is how could he not buff you?
9) Promise him a brez
Sometimes people die, it just happens.  Whether its old age, or standing in void zones at some point its gonna happen.  So if promissing to keep him alive didn't work, try promising him a brez.  Sure another healer or tank would be more important, but this is your hps were talking about damnit!  Everyone's looking at recount and you wanna look good.
10) Threaten with death
Finally if the whole "I'll make sure you live, I'll even brez you" thing didn't work try threatening them with death.  Make sure you communicate with your other healers (tell them he was saying mean nasty things about them behind their back) so that he happens to die on any encounter with unavoidable aoe, til he gets the message. 

With these tips you should have no problem getting your warlocks to give you dark intent and dramatically increase your healing power!  If you want more exact numbers check out Jar's post at the top, and warlocks remember Resto Druids love you!

Happy Healing all!

The Facebook Generation a step towards the future, or a step back?

As a current highschool senior I'm old enough to understand a few things about my generation (not necessarily me, but I'm sure some apply).

Nothing is ever enough
We always want more, the newer bigger toy, the fancier phone, whatever it may be we all want the best, and even if we get it we want more then that.  

Partying is cool (this one's definantly not me, but I know mannnyyy people this applies to)
Shows like Jersey Shore, The Real World, and the like have sadly become the model many teenagers are trying to become.  Suddenly, being that "bad boy" or that "bad girl" who goes out and breaks all the rules and gets drunk is really cool, while the boy or girl with the 4.0 headed to Yale is lame (no that's not me).  I've seen so many people try and brag about how drunk they were or how many girls they got, because that's the stereotype that goes with  popularity now a days.

Working sucks, being lazy is better
So many kids cheat and find the lazy way out now a days its ridiculous.  One of the things I've told the parents of the kids I coach is that wrestling will help them learn how to work and work hard.  The coaches won't let you have an easy way out (and trust me people try) so you just get used to doing it the hard way and working as hard as you can.

Appearance is everything
One of the reasons why Facebook is so popular is because it allows you to publicly talk to people (wall posts/comments) where everyone can see to give yourself a certain social status.  This is also why girls will wake up at 4am to get ready for a normal school day, and groups of kids always wear the same brands, its part of "fitting in" to them.

Some of these are part of the reason my generation has earned the nickname "The Facebook Generation."  With the constantly advancing technology that we've grown up with, and the increase in cell phone and mobile technology, many kids (including my girlfriend) have constant access to facebook and other similar social media sites and check them almost constantly.  Studies have shown that 47% of kids under 18 talk more over text and other chatting methods more then in person.  So this leads me to the question, is this advance in technology and thusly social behavoir a step forward or a step backwards?


A step forwards
While this advancing technology may change social structure it could be for the better. Being able to interact with people from all over the world at all times can broaden children culture and teach them about the world. Not to mention the usefulness of having constant internet access everywhere (google saves lives ya know).  Also these new forms of social media has lead to people being able to interact with others easier and more often then ever before, in some cases building strong relationships or friendships that will last them a lifetime.

A step backwards
With this constant access to social media, some experts worry that real life social interaction will soon become outdated.  I know many people that are great to talk to while texting but in person just can't seem to be the same person.  This has also led to an increasing focus on social appearance leaving those who have different styles or personallitys doomed to whatever they appear as.

So obviously everyone knows that times change but in recent times technology has advanced faster then ever before.  This increased technology has sent ripples and changed culture entirely with it. 

I'd love to hear anyone's opinions on this guys so feel free to comment

Happy Healing
 

Druid CDs, and Spirit of Redemption ftw?

In the recent patch notes one of the changes to Malfurion's gift were to lower tranquility's cooldown by 5 mins putting it on the same 3 minute cooldown as Power Word: Barrier and Aura Mastery.  This has scared many resto druids into thinking that Tranquility is meant to become their promised new "cooldown."  Derwent over at Feral Tree and Beruthiel over at Falling Leaves and Wings have pointed out why this would not be the solution to druids lack of a strong CD at all.  A castable barskin would not be a good option either since no one wants to sacrafice a personal defensive cd (plus the pvp balancing reasons).  So in trying to think of a damage reduction cd for druids to gain that would fit with the theme with the class I came up with 1 idea.

NewDruidCooldown (creative name eh?)
Calls on the spirits of nature to reduce the damage taken by the target by 40% and healing for x amount every 4 sec for 16 seconds, every time this ability heals the damage reduction is reduced by 10%

This fits with the druids hot nature while still providing strong mitigation.  There's also an interesting tradeoff here to make it different then pain suppression.  The 40% damage reduction only lasts 4 sec, but overall you have some form of damage reduction for longer then other abilities along with some healing to compensate.


So last night my priest (still in entry level heroics gear ilvl 332) managed to get in on a baradin hold pug.  The other healer (a paladin) was wearing full pvp gear (it was viscious at least) and had 80k mana raid buffed, while I was at a whopping 70k raid buffed.  After 3 wipes on trash due to people not grouping up, I was not too confident in our abilities to finsih it.  With 15 secs left we make it back in the instance we are getting the warning this instance is going to reset soon. We run over to argaloth buff up and pull, and madness insued.  I run oom at about the 2nd fel fire and pop everything I can to make it a lil longer but then at about 10% the pally dies, and I run completely dry with no cd's left.  I get the magic debuff you have to dispel and die... then I came back as the spirit of redemption and start spamming heals in desperation....

And we kill him!

I was so excited! I ended up with 1.9mil healing done to the pallys 2.1mil and I did all the dispelling.  Sadly nothing for me dropped but I think it was a great experience and confidence booster!  I also finally managed to get enough time to complete a few heroics, excited for when real life will let me start raiding!

Oh and congrats to Alleiia my best friend's newly 85 mage, he dinged her at my house.

Happy Healing all!

Coaching, Spirit Link totem? and alts

So my personal big news for the day was how the elementary school wrestling team I coach preformed in the feeder tournament last night (the feeder tourney is to find the top 3 at each weight, for them to go to the city tournament representing the highschool they feed into.  Aka the feeder tourney).  We had 13 kids place top 3 to get to advance to city including 4 champions!  2 of our champions won in overtime, and 1 was down by 5 with 10 seconds left and pinned his opponent!  All in all I am extemely proud of the team and am really excited to see them preform at city!

On interesting wow news for today, I have been informed that shamans new totem has been put on the ptr:

Spirit Link Totem (new talent) reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3-minute cooldown.

This is pretty interesting design, I expect it to be changed slightly (maybe even scraped).  The 10 yard radius really limits its uses though, but it also makes it less likely to be in range of people standing in the bad.  I expect the most effective uses of this to involve focusing on healing a single target and using the totem to spread the healing to the others within range.  Effective example would be on chimaeron when everyones grouped up, have all healers focus on 1 target (using wild growth, circle of healing, and dawn of radiance as their instant though) to raise everyone very quickly without having to use tons of mana on aoe healing (also 10% dr has potential uses as a tank+offtank+shaman combo).  I'd love to hear some shamans opionons on this

So I have to admit something...  My name is tamek and I'm an altaholic.... Just kidding I actually hate leveling I'm just usually working on alts because I don't have time to do anything substantial on priest ;p.  Anyway my latest alt is my druid and I honestly think I could take him all the way to 85 (maybe even become main) because I am loving him!  I love hots so I started wondering why I never went druid before and I feel stupid for not rolling one earlier.  I am loving my druid wether its healing, or rooting ele shamans in place then darkflight travelforming away to cap the node in Arathi basin then watching a rogue kill himself off thorns, so if you can't tell I'm really enjoying my druid.  I just wish lifebloom was at a lower level (seriously you get revitalize in the 30s and malfurions gift in the 40s (i think its the 40s) but you don't get lifebloom til 64?  WTB low level life bloom qq.

All comments, or any advice for blog appreciated
Happy Healing!