6x6x6: The Challenge of Sixes

There is a new meme going around, started this time by Gnomeageddon. It's the Meme of Sixes and is an interesting one. It turns out this has been around for a long time; a little casual link-surfing took me back to February 2009 and a swedish blog and a photo of a dog cuddling a baby. It's now making the rounds again in the WoW blogosphere and I have been tagged by both Navimie of the Daily Frostwolf and Karagena the Reluctant Raider to participate in it. It's so nice to be loved.


THE RULES

• Go into your image folder
• Open the sixth sub-folder and choose the sixth image.
• Publish the image! (and a few words wouldn’t hurt, though I dare say I couldn’t stop a blogger from adding a few words of their own).
• Challenge six new bloggers.
• Link to them.

Of course, those rules are nice. They're simple and easy to do. Honestly, I could have this post done in minutes if I wanted to. But that wouldn't really be in the Battle Medic tradition, now would it?

So let's complicate things a bit.


THE BATTLE MEDIC RULE OF SIX BY SIX BY SIX

If there was a TV show for people who are incapable of deleting things on their computer, I would be featured on the premier episode. We'd call it Hard Drive Horders: Buried in Megabytes. I have all sorts of files and images that go back years, and quietly get transferred from hard drive to hard drive as I upgrade and then sit there collecting layers upon layers of virtual dust.

Consequently, I have many, many folders on my hard drive with images so picking just one doesn't seem quite right. Picking six would make sense, given the nature of this particular challenge, but that might take this innocent little challenge into deep, dark places of my computer that are better left unexplored. Who knows what one might find while picking through the decrepit ruins of my digital projects from the distant past.

Sounds like fun. Let's get started, shall we?


#1 - World of Warcraft Screenshots folder

Delving into my WoW Screenshots folder reveals a lot of subfolders. For simplicities sake, the source images of each panorama that I do get their own folder, and the sixth one happens to be Netherstorm. This beautiful panorama was featured in my Images of Azeroth: Outlands Part 2 post a few months ago.

However, the sixth image in this sixth folder turns out to be probably the least interesting image on my hard drive.

Yup. Nothin' but purple rocks. It's the sort of scene that makes your computer's video card wonder why the hell it's spending its considerable processing power rendering such a pointless, prosaic set of pixels. There really isn't much you can do with an image like this. Well, unless we decide to make it all about the textures instead of the objects. Hmm... let's try making it a black and white and then playing with the cropping and see what we get.

A little bit of creative blurring later, and suddenly we have something interesting and worthy of being featured on Battle Medic. Mind you, it's still not exactly a Monet.


#2 - Screenshots folder: Six Down and Six Across

Ach! This option puts me right in the middle of an unfinished Images of Azeroth panorama that I was saving for a later post.

Dude, you got your Deathwing all over my Tower. Ewwww.

One unexpected benefit to having a max-level Shaman at my disposal is the ability Far Sight. It gives me options for screenshots that I simply can't do on my Paladin. This image, for instance, was done after completing an End Time run and is a perspective that is not normally available to most other classes because it's half-way up a mountain on a completely vertical slope.

Look for the full image in an upcoming post.


#3 - Battle Medic sub-folders

The Battle Medic folder contains the very bones of this blog. Each image that I have created for Battle Medic, whether used or not, lies here in a state of perpetual readiness. This folder illustrates my image hoarding tendencies perfectly because I literally have no need for any of the images in this folder; the ones I needed have already been uploaded to the blog and are stored online, and the ones that didn't make the post aren't needed at all. It is an interesting archaeological dig through my blog's past, though.

The sixth subfolder of the Battle Medic folder happens to house the raw images from the photo shoot that I did with Ophelie of Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon back in June.

Digging through the layers of this folder is a little frightening. One of the fundamental truths that one learns very quickly as a professional photographer is that only about 1 in 10 portraits that are taken is worth keeping. The rest have closed eyes, weird expressions, strange homeless people wandering in the background or some other flaw that necessitates editing that image in favour of another. Randomly picking an image out of this folder could be disastrous.

As luck would have it, however, the sixth image in this folder was one of my favourites.

As a photographer, an image's success depends as much on your personality as it does the subject's; how people respond to you shows up very clearly in the finished images. A laugh is always photographic gold. I like this image because it feels incredibly genuine.

The image above is the unaltered version and is just how I took it. Below is the finished image once I was done with it.

Ophelie, probably laughing at my bad Austin Powers impression,
"IGNORE ME DOING THIS! IGNORE ME DOING THIS!"

#4 - Battle Medic folder: Six Down and Six Across

Like I said, I hoard my image files, and this illustrates it perfectly. This Blood Bowl image was pulled off the Cyanaide website for my post Encouraging Infidelity: On Burn-out and Blood Bowl, and I did use a portion of it in the article. I certainly don't need the full image any longer, so any sane, rational, non-hoarding person would simply delete it and move on. Not I. I kept it.

But not only that, I ended up keeping two of them. Because of the way that Chrome downloads files (possibly the only thing I don't like about the web browser), I accidentally downloaded an extra one; this is the second one.

"Some people think Blood Bowl is a matter of life and death. I assure you,
it's much mor... ARRRRRRGHsplorch."

And my wife wonders why I need to buy hard drives so often. Little does she know...


#5 - Artwork folder

The sixth subfolder in my Artwork folder lands us conveniently in the place where I store the finished work of my Portfolio. The sixth image in this folder is one that some of you will be familiar with already, as it was featured during my Images of Azeroth: 50,000 Words series of posts.

Sunset in Motion

Of course, the actual sixth image in that folder was the printer-ready version of this file which weighed in at a hefty 11 megabytes, so this is obviously a slimmed down version for the blog. I actually gave a 20" x 30" print of this to my sister this Christmas, and it should be hanging on her wall by now.


#6 - Dwarfling folder

This is what most of you were waiting for, I'm sure. Admit it, you're here for baby photos.

Of course, I have a folder of images of the Dwarfling. There are literally hundreds, maybe thousands of images in there. However, the sixth image in the sixth folder is this one:

The Dwarfling at 18 Weeks

Yikes. My daughter loves the camera and, at least in her father's eyes, is very photogenic. This one, on the other hand, is certainly not her best photo. It was taken by her mother and due to the camera-shake and the rather bizarre, doll-like quality of her expression this image would likely never have seen the light of day if not for this challenge. It would have been deleted except, as I mentioned above, I am an incurable image hoarder. It's times like this it can come and bite me in the ass.

Here are a couple of better, non-random images of her to keep you all happy.

One year old...

...and cute as hell.

PASSING THE TORCH

And in keeping with tradition, I hereby pass the torch along to these fine folk.

• Mylindara, my Guild Master and author of the seldom updated Cleansing Waters
• Gneisha, the lovely Ginger of Mountain Top and full of Unleashed Rage
• Nymphy at DE the Tank, founder of the militant wing of the Dwarfling's Internet Aunties
• Voros, fellow WoW Panoramist and author of The Other Tank
• Corath of Corath's Blog, proud new papa of the Spawnling.
• Aidrana of Miss Pew Pew

Secret Santa: The Fellowship of Gamers

Happy Holidays from Thespius, over at Healer By Nature! As a recent transplant into the Star Wars universe, and also as a WoW player for 5 years, I thought it would be great to remind everyone that we're all gamers with a passion for what we do. Especially those of us that blog, read, podcast, or more!

I sincerely hope your holiday season grants you lots of love and happiness with family and friends, be they in person or in game! I wish the Blessing of Kings on you and yours. Bond with nature; be bestowed with the Mark of the Wild. Let the Earth Shield you from harm and negativity. Look to the new year with Fortitude and Grace! Look to your friends in times of need as they offer you a Hand of Protection. For the spiritual, sing your Divine Hymn to those you believe in, and find Tranquility in that Hymn of Hope. Swallow your pride, find Penance, enabling your Ancestral Awakening and Redemption. And finally, from the home of the Dwarven Battle Medic, let the Healing Rain down on your allies! And...umm.... Power Word: Barrier..... Let us all...

This post is part of the Blog Azeroth Furtive Father Winter event where bloggers exchange holiday themed posts in a Secret Santa-style, RNG-determined blog ring. My gift-giver, I was delighted to discover, is Thespius of the blog Healer by Nature. I have heard a lot about Thespius in my many conversations with his WoW guildmate, Opehlie, and am very happy to publish his gift post this holiday season on Battle Medic! Thanks, Thespius!


You can read the article that I wrote for Akabeko at Red Cow Rise entitled One Winter's Veil Morning...

A Thanksgiving Evening at Fannon's

The sun was still peeking over the mountains of Dun Morogh as the day waned, the dying light glistening off the freshly fallen snow surrounding the little home cut into the rock. A warm glow was coming from its frost covered windows, wafts of smoke floated out of the little chimney. The scent of the nearby pine trees mingled with the tantalizing aroma of cooking. Inside, a crackling fire was burning merrily in the hearth, warming the small room, in the center of which stood a table filled with bowls and trays and platters filled with steaming food of all sorts. In the center of the table was a conspicuously empty space.

Around the table were seated an eclectic mix of people. At the head of the table sat a tall, dark-skinned man, powerfully built and dressed in a simple tunic of silver and gold. He was sitting on a cushion on the floor so as to be at the right height for the table. Next to him was seated a ferociously red-haired Dwarf wearing a festive red dress, trimmed with an intricate gold pattern that set off her pale, freckled complexion. She was chuckling at the gnome seated across from her.

The gnome, whose head and shoulders barely rose above the table height, peeked around the large, foaming mug of ale that she had placed in front of him that completely blocked his view and grinned, "Now that is a proper sized drink, Thallie."

"Aye," she smiled, "Tis nearly as large as yer head. But wha ye’d expect from a dwarven draught?"

Thosif gave a hearty laugh and shifted on his cushions to get more comfortable. "I’ve always wondered where you managed to store all the ale that you drink, Krupel," he said as he took a drink from his own glass. "Truly, it is a marvel that such a tiny little creature can put back such a quantity!"

"It's an ancient gnomish secret; very hush-hush," Krupel laughed in his squeaky, yet oddly gruff voice as he wiped the foam from his white moustache.

"Indeed," said Thosif seriously. "And where is that husband of yours, Thallie? He's been sequestered away in that kitchen for hours, it seems. One must wonder if he plans to feed his guests in a timely manner or merely let us waste away!"

Krupel placed his mug on the table with a loud and empty thud. "I don't blame you for being impatient, Thosif," he said cheerfully. "I image that you're sick of eating those severed fish heads and greasy whale milk that you Paladins do. Ick!" The Paladin scowled at the gnome as he continued, "Getting some hearty Dwarven food into your belly will be good for you. But I've gotta agree; Fannon sure is taking his time!"

A string of dwarvish swear-words, uttered by a deep, gruff voice with a thick Dun Morogh accent came from the kitchen doorway, "Magni's beard! A little patience, a'ready! Th' food'll be done when it's done!" 

From the opposite corner of the room a piercing cry interrupted the laughter of the guests. Sitting in a comfortable armchair was a young, fetching woman holding a tiny baby who had just begun to cry. She had a startled look on her face, as if she was unsure what to do.  She stood up, bouncing the baby to try and calm her down, whispering, "It's alright, little dwarfling. Shhhh."

After a moment, the crying subsided. "She likes yeh, Ophelie," Thallie said, "Ye're a natur'l."

"Thanks," Ophelie said, smiling. "She's adorable! And thanks so much for inviting me over to share in the holiday feast." 

"Nae mention it," Thallie winked. "Consider yersel' part o' the family."

Between sips Krupel chuckled, "That means you have to do the dishes, Ophelie. It's not as great a deal as it seems like at first."

"You don't seem to complain too much as long as there's plenty of food and drink, Krupel," said Thosif.

Thallie gave Krupel a playful slap, "Quiet, you. Ophelie, find yersel' a place t' sit 'round the table, the rest o' th' guests should be here any minute. An' Fannon should be done w' th' food soon. I hope, a' least." She gave a skeptical glance towards the kitchen, where a great deal of worrysome noise and the occasional curse could be heard. "I should go check on 'im, make sure he's -"

Just then a knock on the door resounded through the house. Thallie moved to open it, and from outside heard, "Vidyala, my love, I do not think I can fit though this door."

Opening the stout, wooden door revealed a large, blue-skinned Draenei crouching low so that his head would clear the top of the it. "Greetings, my dear Thallie. We are so glad to join you on this auspicious occasion," Vosskah said as he twisted and contorted his huge frame through the diminutive, dwarf-sized opening. His wife, Vidyala, followed him through with considerably more grace. She was nearly as tall, with pale, almost translucent skin, her long brown hair styled smartly around her horns. "That's how it's done, Voss. You just need a little more dexterity," she laughed.

"We warriors are built for power, not dancing, my darling," Vosskah said gently, smiling. "Hear hear! Built for power!" slurred Krupel in the background, who raised his tankard in salute before guzzling it back.

"Welcome an' welcome again t' our home, both o' ye!" Thallie beamed, "Fannon an' mesel' are s'glad t' have ye!" The distinct sound of something breaking came from the kitchen. "Errr, dinner'll be in a trice; Fannon's just finishin' up sae details," she continued, a slight flutter of concern in her voice.

The newcomers found a seat at the table and got comfortable. After a moment, Ophelie began animatedly telling a story of her many travels to exotic lands, while Thallie busied herself getting drinks for the new arrivals as well as Krupel - who was now starting on his third gigantic stein of beer and showed no signs of slowing down.

Suddenly, the door flew open and a man burst in. Clad from head to toe in simple black leather, he quickly shut the door and sprinted for the fireplace and began to warm himself up, shivering. "Winter in the mountains!" he said mockingly. "I'm not sure why on Azeroth we couldn't have met at my place where it's warm!"

The company laughed. Thallie hugged the latest guest, "Good tae see you too, ElBne," she laughed. "Th' weather would nae be s'bad if only you'd dress for it!"

ElBne smiled at Thallie, "Do you know how hard it is to move around stealthily when you're wearing six layers of bear skins?" he asked. "My professionalism wouldn't allow that!"

"I would think the clinking of the wine bottles in your cloak would tend to give you away more than the bulkiness of a winter jacket," joked Vidyala.

ElBne grinned and pulled out two bottles of wine from his cloak pockets, "I come prepared for anything!"

"Welcome, laddie," Thallie said warmly, "Now we're just waitin' for our last guest. ElBne, did ye chance tae spot Corath out there a' all?"

"As it happens, I did. I think it's alright to start without him, though," ElBne said. "When I saw him last he had accidentally attracted the attention of a few of the guards of Ironforge and they were chasing him through the hills towards Gnomeregan. I think it will be a while before he loses them and makes it back here."

Thallie sighed, "It's a pity tha th' guards dunnae know him as we do. I know he's a Tauren an' technically the enemy, but he's such a sweet little cow. I hope he escapes."

"I'm not certain there would be room in here for both of us," said Vosskah. He was sitting on a cushion on the floor next to the table, his head bent at an odd angle to keep it from hitting the wooden beam of the roof.

A long series of alarming sounds suddenly burst forth from the kitchen, accompanied by a loud hooting and more than a little smoke. The dwarfling, whom Ophelie had rocked to sleep and put in a fur-lined basket near the fire, began crying again. Thallie picked her daughter up, sat down on the hearth and began softly singing an old Wildhammer lullaby to calm her down.

Thosif stood up at the table suddenly, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the ceiling, and pulled everyone's attention away from the drama that was happening in the kitchen. "Please friends, find a place to sit around this magnificent table," he said formally. "Whilst our host is, uh, otherwise occupied with the preparations for our repast,  I would take this opportunity to offer a toast.

"I would like to thank you all for coming tonight, on this most excellent holiday," he began solemnly. "Each one of us have, at one point, stood up against the worst evils that Azeroth has to offer and has come out victorious. But not one of us could have achieved these victories without the help and support of the people around us. Friendship is what allows us to endure the unimaginable hardships and succeed when we feel that the Light has abandoned us, for we know that our comrades will stay true and show us the path through the darkness."

He raised his glass, "To you, my friends. To Vidyala and Vosskah, who came from so very far away to see us tonight. To ElBne and, yes, even our "enemy" Corath. And especially to you, Ophelie. All of you, your friendship means so much to me that it is truly impossible to properly describe. I salute you."

The room was silent as each person raised their glass and took a sip. The dwarfling gurgled in her basket.

"Brilliant!" Fannon exclaimed, appearing at the kitchen entrance holding a large, red cooking pot. "Finished a' last!" He was a mess. His elegant white robes - made of a shimmering material and trimmed with black and gold - were covered with stains and several rips. The hem of both sleeves bore the unmistakable scorch marks of being recently set on fire. His white beard - pulled into a thick braid in the front and tied with an ornate silver band - was frizzy and disheveled, with a still-wriggling fish tail protruding out of it. "Tuck in!"

With a flourish, Fannon placed the feast in the middle of the table. The room was suddenly quiet for a long, awkward moment. The guests glanced at each other nervously.

Krupel broke the silence, "Umm, isn't that lobster supposed to be dead?"

This post is part of the Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving Event hosted by Amerence, in which we are to give thanks to those bloggers who have inspired us in some way this year. I chose to thank those people whom have come out of the digital ether to become real life friends. I salute you all:

Vidyala from Manalicious
Vosskah from Sword & Board
Corath from Corath's Blog
ElBne (No blog, but we're working on him. Follow him on twitter in the meantime)
And the lovely Ophelie from Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon


Have a Happy Thanksgiving, despite the fact that it's a month and a half late.

Tag, I'm it! 20 Questions for Healing WebRing 2.0

Saunder over at Non-Squishy Heals has resurrected an old blogging meme originally started by Miss Medicina, one of the great, lost luminaries of WoW blogging. The original 20 questions circulated back before I started writing Battle Medic, or even reading WoW blogs, so I didn't have a chance to participate or read any of the old ones. Saunder has tagged me to help kick things off, and I'll tag two more people at the end to carry on.

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? 

My main healer is a Paladin by the name of Thosif. He is, confusingly enough given the title of my blog, a human and not a dwarf, although I'm very tempted to change that.

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

I am a dedicated PVE healer, so my main healing environment is anywhere people are trying to kill Internet Dragons. I enjoy raiding in particular, and I love the intensity and accountability of the 10-man raiding format where there isn't anyone else to cover for me if I make mistakes. It's the most delightful kind of stress imaginable.

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Lay on Hands, or as I like to call it: The Reset Button. It is the most deliciously overpowered spell in the game on a measly seven minute cooldown when properly glyphed and talented. There is no other spell in the game that can instantly reset a Tank's health and give the caster a huge chunk of mana at the same time. There is no greater feeling of exultation than a perfectly timed Lay on Hands that saves a person from imminent death. I look for any excuse I can find to cast it.

I just wish it could Crit and transfer through the Beacon of Light. I miss those days, but if there ever was a spell that was overpowered, that was it.

The biggest problem with Lay on Hands is when I accidentally hit it a split second too late to save the target. I have Auto-Self-Cast set to On, and so if I cast LoH just a split second too late and my tank dies, it automatically casts it on me, usually wasting a large majority of the heal. I've had to create a macro to only cast it if my target isn't dead to work around the problem. My Tank will still die, but at least I don't blow a long cooldown for no reason any more.

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Flash of Light. It's definitely the Holy Paladin's most useless spell. It's better now that Infusion of Light makes it instant, but it's still too expensive relative to the amount it heals, and it's cast time isn't fast enough to justify ever using it. I admit, however, that I do use it occasionally when a raid member is on the brink of death. It's a rare occasion when I do, though, and it normally means that the person in question is a single stiff breeze away from being a floor smear.

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

As far as healing in Cataclysm goes, the Holy Paladin's biggest strength is Mana Efficiency. This point is proven every single patch as Blizzard frantically nerfs us to bring Holy Paladins down to the same level of efficiency as the rest of the healing classes, and each time the plate-wearin' battle medics just roll with it and keep bombing the big, expensive heal. Holy Paladins simply have a staggering array of unique methods that regenerate a silly amount of mana - Divine Plea, LoH and Judgements - in addition to options like potions and trinkets that are available to all classes. I continually find it astonishing how quickly I can make a dire mana situation comfortable again by just intelligently using the tools available.

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Raid Healing, no question. With only Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn to add a tiny amount of AOE healing to a raid setting, Paladins are hard pressed to keep up with the other classes when the raid is taking a lot of damage. And if everyone is spread out then we're completely screwed.

Interestingly, Blizzard started Cataclysm with the goal that each healing class would be able to fulfill both tank and raid healing roles, and yet it seems that each change that they make pushes Holy Paladins back towards being specialized Tank Healers. I don't mind this because I actually like the idea of a degree of specialization in the healing classes, but I do find the inconsistency in Blizzard's approach a bit annoying. Am I as a Holy Paladin capable of being a Raid Healer that is as effective as a Shaman, Druid or Priest? As of 4.2, the answer is no.

7. In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? 

In light of what I discussed in the previous question, my best healing assignment is on the tanks. We have a lot of flexibility and utility when it comes to Tank Healing that we simply can't bring to the raid. A single, skilled Holy Paladin can go a long way towards keeping two tanks up - although he will need some help.

8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I adore Paladin healing. There is a spell for any situation that can come up in an encounter and the Holy Paladin's answer is not necessarily limited to pouring more healing onto a target to solve it. Got too much threat? Hand of Salvation. The mage pulled aggro again and is about to die? Hand of Protection. Your tank is about to take a staggering amount of damage? Hand of Sacrifice. Ooops, the Tank is about to become worm food? Lay on Hands. Need an eight second vacation from all worries? Bubble, baby.

9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Well, I can't say that I'm an expert on the other healing classes. Aside from the Paladin, I have raid healed in WotLK with a Priest (both Holy and Discipline) and done low-level dungeons with my Shaman. My druid is still languishing at level 20, so I wouldn't say that I have a good grasp on tree healing yet.

Each of the different healing classes feels different, and I appreciate each one for what they do best. I enjoy my priest, and miss the days of the bubble-spamming discipline style. I also really like the little Shaman: There's nothing quite like healing with bouncing laser beams. And while I haven't got a good feel for Druid healing, I have always loved Heal Over Time spells, and that style of healing really appeals to me.

To avoid sounding like a complete cop-out, though, I suppose that the class that has the healing style that I like the least is probably the Shaman. I find that having all cooldowns tied to totems needlessly complex compared to the simplicity of the Paladin abilities. Having to turn off one ability - Healing Stream Totem, for example - to activate another and then remembering to reactivate the first one seems a lot more clunky than could possibly be fun. I can see myself healing a raid as a druid, but I'm not sure if I can keep all the various totems straight to the point where I could be effective on a Shaman. Time will tell, I guess.

10. What is your worst habit as a healer?

Well, one of the officers of my guild would say that it's letting Enhancement Shaman die too frequently.

As with most healers, I can tend to focus on my raid frames too much and not be as aware of what's going on around me as I should be. It's killed me more times than I can count. I call it getting Gridlocked.

Also, every now and then I'll accidentally hit the Whisper Reply button while healing and get stuck in the chat box and unable to heal or move. It's easy to tell when this happens to me, because I'll die and then immediately say, "11111111111wwwwwwqqqqqqqqq333333333" to the raid. It's kind of embarrassing, honestly. I can already see the comment section filling up with people telling me to switch to Clique.

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to healing is when a Warlock Life Taps himself to the brink of death and then expects me to heal him mere seconds before a pull. This is why you guys are so squishy! Life Tap is a great tool, but it's not designed so that you don't ever have to use water to regenerate mana. All you're doing is forcing me to drink after I heal your lazy ass.

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

If by well-balanced you mean ridiculously overpowered, then yes.

Seriously though, I think that Healing is in a good place right now and all of the healing classes are well balanced right now. Healing numbers in the raids that I've seen have been very close, and any healing class can top the meters on any given fight. A rare victory for the Bring the Player Not the Class concept.

13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

I use Recount, and I look at my spell choices and performance after most boss fights, particularly the wipes. I haven't really used World of Logs much, although I understand it's unrivaled as far as deep performance analysis goes.

But the main criteria that I use is the ol' Did my Healing Assignment Die? method.

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

The biggest misconception that people have about Holy Paladins is that they seem to think the we're not absolutely awesome in every way. Flaws are for other, lesser healing classes.

Another misconception is that all Holy Paladin players become extremely arrogant once they put on Intellect plate, and I have no idea why this myth keeps persisting. It's a mystery.

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

The thing that most new Holy Paladins have a hard time getting used to is that one of the most fundamental things that must be done constantly has nothing to do with healing: Judging. Casting Judgment returns a significant amount of mana and gives us our Judgments of the Pure buff. The one thing it doesn't do is actually heal, so it's a little counter-intuitive that a healer should be wasting a Global Cooldown on it. Once that lesson is learned, mana problems tend to become a lot easier to deal with.

Also, it takes a long time for a new Paladin healer to get used to all of the utility spells that are available. There are a lot of them, and they aren't going to be something that will be used every single fight, but are extraordinarily powerful when used at the right time. Believe me, the Mage that's topping the meters will adore the Paladin that casts Hand of Salvation on them to help reduce their threat so they can rock out even more DPS.

16. If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

They would likely notice that I strictly follow my policy of never healing Rogues. Just kidding, I love my stealthy, backstabbing brethren.

A very close analysis of my healing logs would show a very good usage of short-term cooldowns such as Judgement and Holy Shock, and an appallingly poor usage of long-term ones. I admit, I'm awful at using my throughput cooldowns like Avenging Wrath or Divine Favor. It's a flaw that I'm working hard to overcome, and just put together a couple of new Power Auras to remind me to use them and let me know when they're available. I'm just always afraid that I'll use a cooldown and then not have it available when I truly need it. As far as flaws in my game go, this is probably the biggest.

17. Haste or Crit (or Mastery) and why?

I have always been a Haste fan. I like the responsiveness that haste allows, and the throughput benefits in undeniable. I ate, slept and pooped haste in Wrath of the Lich King.

However, with the changes to Mastery in 4.2, let's just say that I'm crit-curious. At some point I am going to experiment with a Crit/Mastery build and see how that goes. I'm pretty sure that the pure healing numbers will be great, but I'm not sure about how it's going to feel: Is it going to feel so slow and clunky as to make healing no fun? Are my heals going to arrive a split second too late all the time? I don't know, but at some point I'm going to give it a try.

18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Druids, for the simple reason that I haven't ever really played one before - at least not in any meaningful content. Although I do keep up with a lot of Druid bloggers, so I think I have a decent theoretical understanding of the class.

19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

I don't do any healing at all if Grid is not installed. It is my minimum requirement as far as addons go. Thankfully, the developers seems to respond quickly when Blizzard breaks it with a patch and it's downtime is typically very minimal. I also have GridManaBars and GridSideIndicators installed and customized. I have it configured just so, and it is a warm, fuzzy blanket of comfort when I step into a new dungeon because while the encounters may be unfamiliar, Grid is always there for me.

I also use Deadly Boss Mods, Mik's Scrolling Combat Text, Power Auras, Stuf Unit Frames (not the Raid Frames), Recount and Omen. I try to keep my user interface relatively stock and basic - it's more patch resistant that way - but I've been noticing that more and more addons have been creeping in as I try to improve my healing performance. But I really try to make Grid and Power Auras do most of the heavy lifting as opposed to having more addons.

20. Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

A Holy Paladin that isn't stacking Intellect these days is an rarity, certainly. The secondary stats are more up in the air, however the vast majority of Holy Paladins came down on the side of Spirit and Haste. Unfortunately, until patch 4.2 our Crit and Master simply weren't good enough to bother with. Now that our mastery has been vastly improved there is a little more wiggle room for out-of-the-box thinking.

Well, there we go. 20 questions answered - some more thoroughly and less glibly than others, but answered nonetheless. I hope you enjoyed it or, at the least, didn't find it offensive. Now to tag two more healers representing different classes to pass it on.

I throw it over to Angelya of Revive and Rejuvinate and Oestrus of The Stories of O. I can't wait to see what these lovely ladies have to say.

EDIT: I also tagged Glorwynn of Heavy Wool Bandage to answer this questionnaire as well. She has answered here from her unique perspective as a dedicated, but low-level healer. Give her a read!
 
 

Professing On Professions

This post is a response to the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic "What is your Favourite Profession?" as suggested by Amaranth of Specced for Drama.

After playing WoW for more than two years, I have a guilty secret.

I have never had a maxed out crafting profession before - on any of my characters.

I know, I'm ashamed.  How can I be a progression raider if I don't have my professions maxed out?  How can I be a blogger - someone that people come to for advice - and have my main start the new expansion at <gulp> 110 Jewelcrafting?  The priest that I raided Icecrown Citadel with?  140 Alchemy.

Yikes.

Yes, I admit, I have always sucked at levelling my professions.  The highest crafting profession that I have ever managed, until recently, was Tailoring at 420.  The worst part about this is that my Tailor also happens to by my Protection Warrior.  I can just imagine this heavily armed Gnome sitting in a little shop in Ironforge near the Military Quarter, darning socks and hemming trousers for the victorious Alliance armies coming home from Northrend.  It's a little embarrassing, and the only reason I haven't ditched the profession is that it was my only crafting profession that was leveled to the point that I could craft something - namely bags - that people would actually want to buy.

So when the Blog Azeroth topic Favourite Profession turned up... well, let's just say that I wasn't quite sure how to answer it.

Do I say it was the one that I have levelled the highest?  That would be Jewelcrafting on my Paladin, which was power levelled just recently, although not quite to cap.  I can't say that I particularly enjoy Jewelcrafting, and frankly, the dailies get annoying after a time.  So, no.  Not that one.

Tailoring?  Again, no, because it brings up the shame of levelling it on a class that is just a horrible match for it. I created the Warrior when I moved servers and the biggest thing that pissed me off about the first server that I was on is that I had an awful time getting bags.  So I figured that a Tailor would be awesome, especially since the other profession I really wanted to do was Enchanting.

Well, then, what about Enchanting?  My Warrior - who was my main for a long time - levelled that up pretty high as well.  I do like the idea of Enchanting a lot, and some of the high-end Vanilla enchants are really quite cool:  Crusader, Life Stealing, Unholy Weapon, and so on.  It's cool, and I would say it would come in a close second, but it's not my favourite.

Cooking doesn't count.  Hell, the only reason that I managed to get any kind of a decent level - much less max level - is because of the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday.  If not for that I would have been stuck at level 230, again on my Warrior.

And don't talk to me about fishing.  Seriously.

Heck, even Archaeology could be considered.  I hate the mechanics of the profession, as I discussed before, but it was the inspiration for one of my favourite articles that I have written for Battle Medic, so I do have a fondness for it; similar to how you can't help but love the adorable puppy that keeps peeing all over the carpets and chewing up your vitally important tax forms.

No, the profession that I would consider my favourite would be the one that I started on my very first character, so long ago.  One that was such a rotten pain in the neck to level that I haven't even looked at it since.

Engineering.

Now, I've never actually levelled Engineering, but I love the concept.  Being able to build trinkets and robots and bombs is simply the coolest thing ever.  How can something like Blacksmithing compete with that?

Blacksmith:  "Hark!  I have beat this hot metal into an Axe!"

Engineer:  "Great!  While you were doing that I knocked together these random parts to build a motorcycle.  Listen to it roar, doesn't it sound cool?"

Blacksmith:  "My axe's name is Mittens."

Engineer:  "Umm.  Ok.  I'm going to go and hang out with all of those half-naked Night Elf girls, OK?  OK."

The list of gizmos and widgets and doo-dads that Engineers can make continue to amaze me.  To be able to drop down a portable mailbox in the middle of an instance is cool.  Jeeves is so incredibly useful that it is an essential tool to any raid group.  The Goblin Jumper Cables!  Parachute Cloaks!  Cool Goggles!  Helicopters and motocycles!  If the Engineers weren't all Gnomes, they'd get all the girls.
 
 

Favourite Weapon

This post is part of a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic "What is your Favorite Weapon" as suggested by Dangfool.


Throughout the course of levelling and raiding in World of Warcraft, it's safe to say that each character goes through enough weapons and gear to arm two small armies.  From ridiculously oversized maces, sexy swords, daggers, or gigantic, hideously dangerous looking axes, there are a plethora of awesome weapons.

And there is nothing more satisfying than bashing your enemies face with your favourite one.

I gave this topic a lot of thought.  I get emotionally attached to my characters, and especially to their appearance.  In thinking about it I realized that I did have a favourite weapon, and even though it is one that you can't put Crusader on it's great fun to bash people in the face with it.

Shields.

I was really disappointed when Blizzard took Shield of the Righteous away from Holy Paladins and made it only for those silly Protection Pallys.  During Wrath of the Lich King I tried to heal every heroic boss in melee range so that I could whack him in the bum with my giant, spiky piece of arm candy once in a while.  It was very satisfying.

I learned that I had a fondness for shields when I got to Northrend with my Warrior and decided to try out tanking.  I loved the way that Protection played, even during questing. The noise that Shield Slam made was the sound of distilled awesome.  I bashed and devastated my way all the way to level 80.

I turned out to be a lousy tank, but my warrior is still Protection, simply because I enjoy the playstyle and the fact that I get to wear a shield.  There is nothing cooler looking than a two-and-a-half foot Gnome carrying a six foot tall chunk of wood.

Equipping this shield gives +100 Awesome

My all-time favourite shield is the Grand Marshal's Aegis.  It is, by far, the best looking shield in the game.  The model is used by a lot of NPCs, but is only available for a player through PVP rewards at level 60 and again at level 70 as the Grand Marshal's Barricade.

I have this shield on my Paladin main, Thosif.  I levelled Thosif as a Retribution Paladin, but I armed him with the Battleworn Thrash Blade and a shield. In terms of levelling efficiency, spec synergy or common sense it didn't really work, and frankly I'm not sure why I didn't just pick up a Protection spec and go to town on 10 mobs at once.

But damn, Thosif looked cool.

In order to get this shield I spent the vast majority of levels 50-60 in Arathi Basin, farming Honor points.  I hate PVP with a passion, but I really wanted this shield so I sucked it up and spent a lot of time watching the Resurrection timer in The Stable graveyard.  I finally got it, and I kept it equipped for most of Outlands until I finally switched to Holy.  It is still in my bank, and it's one of the few items that I keep purely for sentimental reasons.

Luckily, Holy also gets to have a shield.  Probably my most thrilling drop of WotLK was when the Lost Pavise of the Blue Flight dropped off of Sindragosa, and one of the weirdest moment of Cataclysm so far was when I replaced it with a rather boring looking off-hand healing sceptre.

I'm now using the Elementium Stormshield, which has awesome stats but doesn't look anywhere near as cool as the Grand Marshal's Aegis or the Lost Pavise.

But I just wish I could bash someone in the face with it.

On Archaeology and the Trials of Surveying

This post is a response to a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic suggested by Ringo Flinthammer, "Digging Archaeology".  We'll overlook the pun just this once, Ringo. 

Back when I was in first-year University, I took an Archaeology class.  It was an introduction to the subject, painting it in very broad strokes, but I managed to learn a couple of things between naps:

1) Archaeology is very pain-staking and methodical.  It is a science where the context of where you find something is every bit as important as what you find.

2) Fedoras are not required and bull whips are actively discouraged.  This point was stressed on the first day.

3) There are rarely Nazis involved.

4) Archaeology is not nearly as exciting as you want to believe it to be.

5) Running around willy-nilly digging random holes and taking the stuff you find to the nearest shady, back-alley antiquities dealer to sell for lots of money is a good way to get yourself arrested.  This is particularly true in some countries like Greece or Egypt which are rather sensitive about these sorts of things.  And it invariably ends in a dark room, sitting at a table with a single bare light bulb above it and getting some rather severe looks from gentlemen who think that their priceless cultural artifacts do, in fact, belong in their country and would like nothing better than to arrange for you a first-hand experience of what it would be like to be stuck in a tomb for four thousand years.

Sorry, where was I?

Oh, yes, Archaeology!  The new secondary profession in World of Warcraft where you run around willy-nilly and ... dig random... uhh.... and ... err... priceless cultural artifacts... umm... sold to any vendor who happens to be standing near you... err... Oh dear.

I was very excited about the idea of Archaeology when Blizzard announced that it was going to be added with the Cataclysm expansion.  I am a bit of a lorehound, and I loved the idea of a secondary profession that added to the story of the game in an interactive way.

I have been playing with Archaeology very casually since it was released.  Very casually indeed, actually, since before this Shared Topic popped up my main character's Archaeology skill was a mere 6.  I decided that it was a good idea to actually play around with the profession a little before writing a post on it, so rather than running a heroic or doing Tol Barad dailies, I popped up my in-game map, and headed to the nearest dig site.

I'll say up front that I'm not really a fan of the main mechanic of Archaeology, Survey.  Running around following a big arrow that Blizzard dressed up as a surveying instrument isn't really my idea of fun.  It's somewhat diverting for the first little bit, but gets old very quickly.  The concept that there is no competition and that each person's digsite is their own is fabulous, however, and well implemented.

The problem is that it's not fun.  There are benefits to the profession, like a wonderful epic trinket, vanity pet and a mount, but getting them is an exercise in tedium.  It's much like fishing, really, and there aren't many people who find fishing a fascinating and engaging thing to level up, either.  I am spending rare and valuable leisure time playing this game and I want to be entertained while I'm doing it.  If I wanted to be bored doing a repetitive task I could do the household chores I've been desperately trying to avoid and make my wife happy, while at the same time saving fifteen bucks a month.

As well, the profession also disappoints in an area that was supposed to be it's core strength:  Lore.  The idea behind the profession is that each artifact that you complete tells you a little tidbit of the overall story of Azeroth.  The Archaeology interface has a huge area for the detailed lore that is supposed to make this profession irresistible to Warcraft lore nerds and completionists.  Except that it doesn't.  As Windsoar pointed out, the information that is given on most of the items is nothing more than a blurb.  Not really much more than what you would expect to get from a fortune cookie, if the Smithsonian Institute delivered Chinese food.

Where is the story?  Where is the lore?  Where is the context?   Some of the flavour text is interesting or funny, but there is so much more they could have done.  Why not tell a story of past Dwarven or Troll cultures through these artifacts?  Why not add some mystery, or an interlocking story that is told through the discovery of these different objects?  Blizzard has always had story-telling as their most important competitive advantage, and I feel that they have missed an extraordinary opportunity to offer a unique and engaging way to interact with the overall world history.  At least for now.  The nice thing about this profession is that Blizzard can add more to it any time they choose to tell whatever story they want.  Here's hoping that they decide to tell a tale that's more important than a bed-time story in the future.

The other issue I have with the Archaeology profession is that it really isn't archaeology.  Let me explain. Actual, real-world archaeologists attempt to discover information about past societies by studying the physical remains that they leave behind.  A digsite is excavated layer by layer, carefully extricating each artifact and then placing it within the proper context so that conclusions can be drawn from what you find and where it was found.

OK, fine, but this is a game, right?  Yes, I'd agree with that.  But this thought struck me as I was staring at this digsite:

"Ummm, aren't these Trolls still using the stuff that I'm finding?"

The study of a living culture and the artifacts that they are using is, in fact, Anthropology.  But more importantly, when you then take those artifacts of a living culture to a museum or, say, a shady back-alley antiquities dealer, that process then becomes what is known in the scientific community as stealing.  I find it very odd to wander into a Troll village and start digging up and taking their historical artifacts.  It would be like someone coming into your house, lifting up the stack of newspapers that you carelessly left on the coffee table, yelling "Eureka" as they pick up the TV remote that you forgot was under there, and then selling it at the nearest pawn shop as a historical treasure.

So Blizzard has implemented a new profession that more accurately should have been called Thievery with Shovels.  But that's OK, really, since the entire game is based on getting stuff from other people who are currently using said stuff.  At least with Archaeology we don't have to bring nine friends and kill anybody to get it.

Philosophical and semantic arguments aside and getting back to the World of Warcraft for a minute, Archaeology is an interesting profession, and I'm intrigued to see what Blizzard does with it in the future.  The implementation is solid, the potential for advancing lore through the flavour text is there, and while the actual game play is very grindy and repetitive at least there are some rewards at the end that are worth getting.  In contrast, the only thing you get by leveling fishing is more fish.

The First Annual Peevie Awards

This is a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic as suggested by Amaranth of Specced for Drama

Hello, and welcome to the 2010 Azeroth Peevie Awards, where we recognize excellence in the art of irritation and annoyance!  Your host for this year is, as always, the single most annoying character in all of Azeroth and the Outlands, CORKI!

[pause]

Wait, I’m sorry, I’m told that he’s been kidnapped again; this time by a hostile coalition of squirrels from Elwynn Forest.  Oh well, we now present the 2010 Peevie Awards after the jump!