WoD TODO List

With MoP finally winding down there is little motivation left in me to really do much MoP related "stuff" and having gotten the legendary cloak on Alaphnull there isn't much left to do anyhow. Instead I'm looking forward and making a list of things I'd like to get accomplished come WoD.

First though a list of things I would have liked to have completed but didn't get around to:

• Shaman up to level 90, I boosted a Monk and wish I could go back and unboost her.
• Tillers all best friends. There's still time to do this and its not going anywhere so maybe in WoD
• All Royal Satchels on all main toons and all Bank Royals on other toons. I just got lazy with this one. 
• Proven Healer. I made it to Endless Wave 22 and have lost the drive. With so much changing for WoD I just don't see the point in pushing for this. 

I'm sure there is a ton more but meh, MoP is over. Long live WoD. 

Goals for WoD:

• Holy Priest to 100 and get Proven Healer
• Disc Priest to 100 plus Proven Healer
• Shaman to 100, Proven Healer
• Druid to 100, Proven Healer
• Holy Pally to 100, Proven Healer
• Monk to 100, Proven Healer
• Get Alaphnull to max archaeology and work on getting the wolf pup
• Complete all Heroic Raid Content for T17
• Work on the Mythic content for T17.  
• Get a large number of pets to 25 and work on Battle Pet cheevos
• All Gold Challenge modes
• Get new bags in all slots on main toons and in Bank slots on toons under level cap. 

Basic list for now but I will be expanding it come the release once I'm getting down and dirty.

5.97138E+23

5.97138E+23

Given a group with 2 tanks, 4 to 6 healers, and 12 to 14 DPS there are 5.97138E+23 different permutations that can arise from different spec selection. If you look only at class then the number is 1.17947E+20. 

Five mans run with 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 DPS as is standard look a bit better at 365,010 permutations for specs and 54,925 class based permutations. 

It's a wonder anything is ever balanced at all. 

Let us image for a moment that you playing a game of chess. Your opponent is the computer and it runs one of 9 different scripts that determine how it will respond to your moves, how aggressive of defensive it is, etc. The game is to figure out how to beat each one within a specific amount of time. Attaining the quickest time on all nine gives a very nice reward. Attaining a slower but still quick speed gives a reward and finally attaining a certain maximal time gives a final reward. Anytime beyond this maximal time has no reward. 

To further complicate things you only move one type of unit. You have a team of players that you work with and they move the other types of units. 
So one player moves the King, one moves the Queen, one for the Bishops, another on the Knights, one more on the Rooks, and a final player moves the Pawns. 6 players in all and each of you has to work together in order to beat the computer opponent in a quick enough time to reward you the prize you are after. 

I've got to get better

So I'm thinking that perhaps transcribing what went wrong and where I lost it may help me to improve.

I can fraps and log the attempts and go back and articulate what went wrong.
I'll also try to write up something immediately after an attempt.

I'm consistently hitting mid teens with no problem and usually losing out to poor planning and not mana so I'm kinda ok with my gear.

Attempt 1

Forgot to log.... XD

so Wave 19. Whew. Felt ok. Lost some mana made some mistakes. How did I lose it? Kavan was low, everyone was low. Mana was low. I didn't get her stabilized quick enough. I was flustered.

So that an issue. So many people low and not knowing how to get out of that situation. Shouldn't have been there in the first place but still.

So I put in a few more attempts before I had to leave for work.

Notes to work on:

• no point in saving mana if that doesn't save lives. I've been trying hard to focus on Heal use but sometimes I need a greater heal or a hard flash heal instead. I need to start recognizing this difference. 
• Anticipate. Up to wave 5 I know what is coming and have internalized it. I need to work on remembering what 6,7,8 are and have. 9 for now is simply the oh shit wave but I should work on better understanding it. I've read it a million times but its not been internalized yet and this means I'm wasting and saving mana at inappropriate times. 
• continue to work on fears and interrupts. As a priest this is very limited but I was watching Hamlet's vid again and noticed him move over to a Hive Singer and fear it out of combat for some time. I need to work on this. 

So yeah. Not too much longer to go in the xpac and still 11 waves shy of my goal. On top of that I'm super happy with mana and health in wave 11-19 considering the increased damage coming in wave 20-30. 

Rethinking Spirit Part 2

In my last post I made the assertion that Spirit could be viewed as a kind of regen haste. In this post I'd like to expand upon that idea and dig a bit deeper into the way regen haste influences our game play as healers.

Our common metrics for evaluating healing spells are not influenced by spirit or regen in the same way that they are for other stats. Heal per Mana, Heal per Cast, and Heal per Cast Time ignore Spirit and thus can not be used in order to evaluate the value of Spirit in our day to day healing.
This begs the question of what metric is useful for evaluating Spirit and more importantly how are we to think about Spirit in order to move away from the common "Spirit until you are comfortable" advice that is so common today and into a world where a hard value for Spirit is feasible.