Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

I’ve just about reached the conclusion that leveling my level 51 priest via the new Dungeon finder tool is not worth the pain. I had a series of bad PuGs last night, the first such series of consistently terrible groups since I began using the tool back in the Scarlet Monastery days of two weeks ago.

When I say “terrible,” I mean so fantastically terrible, I was left wondering why I continue to play this game at all. From a healer’s perspective (and I guess I am now, officially, a healer), a terrible experience usually comes down to everyone doing everything so badly that the resulting chaos is impossible to heal through.

I can compensate for a bad tank. I can compensate for terrible DPS players. I can’t compensate for both in the same group. It’s physically impossible.

LFG: The Best and Worst

It’s been about a month now since Patch 3.3 dropped onto the live realms, and I’ve spent much of my playtime in the LFG tool, on my alts as well as Warlock.  Actually, I’ve probably spent more time in instances on my alts than on my Warlock, to be honest.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been leveling a Priest, who is now level 50, and until the LFG tool was released I was doing it mainly in Battlegrounds.  Now, I am leveling him primarily in instances.

Scarlet Monastery, Zul’Farrak, Sunken Temple, Maraudon…yes, Maraudon.

There are so many wonderful, incredibly useful things about the LFG tool, but perhaps the most wonderful is being able to port into instances like Maraudon and port back out again when finished.  Furthermore, something I’ve found really surprising, considering what a bad rep Maraudon had in the community, is that it is actually a fun, beautiful instance, and it is ideally suited for the new LFG tool.  Since it is divided into wings, much like Naxx, a group can run, for example, the Pristine Waters wing in a half hour or less.

Sunken Temple, on the other hand, is still very much a pain in the ass.

In fact I am finding that all the level 48 to 60 instances are a pain to do at-level, for a variety of reasons.  Some of it has nothing to do with the instance itself.

Learning the Healing Arts

I haven’t mentioned it, but in the past few months I’ve broken my long-standing phobia of taking a more responsible role in grouping.  I’ve been healing, and not just on my 80 Shaman, but on my level 40 Priest, as well.

Actually, before I ever healed a Heroic on my Shaman, I was already healing on my Priest.  I decked him out in heirlooms a few months ago, and I’ve been leveling him primarily in BG’s as a Discipline healer.  Leveling a Priest through questing is not my idea of fun; it’s slow and boring.  But battlegrounds supply an infinite amount of opportunities for excitement.

It was actually healing the BGs that first tipped me off to the fun of keeping others alive while they do all the work of killing things.  So this weekend, for the first time, I took my Priest into an old world instance and healed Scarlet Monastery, Library and Armory.

Power Auras: truly powerful

Following up on my article from yesterday, there is one add-on I’d like to promote that can really make PvP and PvE much easier and more fun.  Power Auras Classic.

I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned this little addon before, because it has become one of the most essential addons in my game folder.  Like Auctioneer or Arkinventory, I would find it difficult and not very fun to have to play WoW without it.

What it does is it prompts you to take action under certain conditons, particularly gaining a buff or debuff.  Sometimes it can prompt you when certain conditions are not met, such as a class buff dropping off.

As an example, on my Warlock I use it in a couple different ways.  First of all, I use it to prompt me when Fel Armor drops off.   When it happens, I have it set up so that a green reticule bubbles around my character.  I have similar effects set up for Water Shield on my Shaman and my Paladin’s buffs and auras.

The real beauty of this addon, however, is how useful it is at prompting me when I gain a certain effect or buff, such as Decimation when I am in Demonology spec, or Backdraft and Backlash when I am in Destruction.  Blizzard doesn’t provide much of a prompt when these abilities proc.

Backlash has the same prompt as Nightfall, in the Affliction tree, which is to say not much of a prompt at all, especially in a noisy Wintergrasp battle.  So what I’ve done is to set Powerauras to give me the louder, more distinctive raid prompt warning when Backlash procs along with a red, flashing reticule around my character.

There are probably innumerable other uses for this handy addon.  I know I first heard about it from Big Red Kitty, who used it to notify him when Lock n’Load procced.

The Other Side of WoW

No, I have not faction-changed Holdwine to the fearsome Undead Warlock he would be, if he were Horde.  I’m talking about PvP.

As my game has become more casual, I’ve been PvP-ing more, on all my characters.  This is the part of WoW I used to hate with a passion, so I’m as surprised as anyone that I actually find myself enjoying it.

I think it was Wintergrasp that changed things around for me.  I.  Love. Wintergrasp.  Even with all the changes, from queues to weekly quests instead of dailies, I still love Wintergrasp.  There are days when I log in only to do Wintergrasp.

One reason is that the rewards are so substantial, and easy to obtain.  I’ve purchased nearly all the heirloom items I could ever want, for any class, via WG Stone Keeper’s Shards.  I’ve almost fully outfitted HW in PvP gear (lacking only bracers and cloak, I think) in a relatively short period of time.  It’s so easy to reach the Honor cap, there is no reason anyone should not have their faction PvP trinket and at least one other piece of Deadly Gladiator gear within the first two or three days of beginning to PvP.

I love it.  And as my other characters have reached 80, I’ve embarked them on the same course as my Warlock, sending my Shaman and Death Knight into WG at every opportunity.