Who would have thought that a couple of upgrades, a few enchants, and new specs could change everything so much. Some of Arena is skill, but now I think a lot of it is a combination of gear and luck as well.
Speaking in those terms, this morning was either all luck and gear, or our single greatest Arena outing ever. We took it to every team that showed up, going 10-0 in the morning and quitting with our highest score ever, 1883.
It means, for the first time since Season 1, we are ranked. Back in the day (all of 6 months ago) no one had better gear yet, and it was a pretty even slate. We managed to get up to about 1740, which at the time was ranked about 800ish out of all teams. Nothing to brag about, but we were stoked at the time. Today, however, ranks up there in the Lore that is our gaming experience.
I am sure Dato will be telling me the story on the phone later today about how he killed the Shadow Priest and the Affliction Lock after I was absolutely destroyed. I mean, they worked me so hard I felt like a hooker during shore leave. Bad analogy, but had to be said. It was our last game, and we had said we would quit ("No matter what happens, win or lose, at ten games we quit," I had said, and he heartily agreed) no matter the outcome, and once I died, I was thinking, "Yeah, it was bound to happen...9-1 is fine, and we might lose about 20 points..."
He pulled a rabbit out of his ass on that one, let me tell you.
It just seems that the cookie cutter specs are there for a reason...sooner or later you find the groove that works best and most people will learn from that and follow suit.
So, for this week at least, we are done with our games early, and I have found that that extra bit of gear, the extra armor and the longer lasting bubble of annoyance have given me a survivability I didn't know a priest could have. I still die in almost every single 3v3 game we do, but I last so long the other team loses one player and another will be at half health. With Improved Death, I'm still in the game longer than the dead folk on the other side.
3v3 went well, too. We managed to climb into the 1600s now that Fishhead is getting the Frost thing down. He has become the CC Machine, Sheep Incoming Man. What is it with opposing healers NOT using a trinket? You asking to be demolished? It makes no sense to me.
Well, that's it for this week.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
How Things Change
Dato's transformation to the evil (and oh so funny) 27/34 spec didn't just help the cause, it catapulted us up over a 100 points in one week. Suddenly, an 1800 rating seemed feasable. For the casual gamer like us (that roughly translates to "We aren't quite as good, so we need an excuse") we are quite happy with where we have fallen so far. That being said, getting here has not always been uber fun.
Because of the warriors.
Oh, how we hate them. It caused my recent respec. Improving the shield and inner fire seemed like a waste of talent points, and putting 5 points to increase crit just didn't seem worth it either - and the funniest part, I had read that Inspiration could help, so I pumped 3 points there. I felt I might have just specced into the most retarded Arena spec I could find. After the first few fights against melee, I suddenly felt a little better. In fact, I felt a lot better. I was outlasting the other healer by a large margin, and double DPS teams were having so much trouble killing me (who would have thought Spell Warding worked so well? and wait till the resilience nerf to dots! 11% more off with 441 resilience! talk about laughing at Aff Locks...) we razed through the 1600s into the mid 1700s with ease.
We only stopped because we so often push too hard, find a team we can't beat, and lose 50-60 points. Getting 490 points is nothing to the guys in 5v5 teams, but for us it's glorious.
I find in the 1700 bracket the other team just comes barreling at me, ready to alpha stike me into oblivion. How odd that a healer's first and foremost job is take the brunt of the punishment, and if done well enough, completely negates the other team's gamble. It is, to be honest, so nervewracking that sometimes I feel I have let my teammates down. On our 3v3, with Fishhead (a frost mage), I often feel I screwed up and should have lived longer. Improved Death (aka Spirit of Redemption) means I really am in the match for 15 more seconds, and the heals are all uninterrupted, but it's still hard to say on vent, "Sorry, guys, couldn't live any longer..."
But here's my personal favorite. Last night, finishing up the 2v2 for the week, Dato and I were on a nice run. We have pulled up to about 1770ish, and our next match was an affliction lock and a druid. Everything was going ok, just a long, long match to a team we had already lost to twice, and it appeared we might have them. They were lower on mana then we were, but my HP were getting kind of low. Corruption was ticking away, and I knew I had to dispell it before I hit myself and Dato with a nice Binding Heal...however, at the exact moment I hit my Dispell macro it appeared the affliction lock had cast Unstable Affliction. One moment it wasn't there and then it was...as I pressed that fated button.
UA critted.
I died.
I'm still angry that I the timing worked out so. I mean, I BLEW up like a sad water balloon full of epic whine.
Oh, well. It was an interesting week, to say the least. We will finish up 3v3 Monday morning or evening, so we'll see how that one turns out.
Because of the warriors.
Oh, how we hate them. It caused my recent respec. Improving the shield and inner fire seemed like a waste of talent points, and putting 5 points to increase crit just didn't seem worth it either - and the funniest part, I had read that Inspiration could help, so I pumped 3 points there. I felt I might have just specced into the most retarded Arena spec I could find. After the first few fights against melee, I suddenly felt a little better. In fact, I felt a lot better. I was outlasting the other healer by a large margin, and double DPS teams were having so much trouble killing me (who would have thought Spell Warding worked so well? and wait till the resilience nerf to dots! 11% more off with 441 resilience! talk about laughing at Aff Locks...) we razed through the 1600s into the mid 1700s with ease.
We only stopped because we so often push too hard, find a team we can't beat, and lose 50-60 points. Getting 490 points is nothing to the guys in 5v5 teams, but for us it's glorious.
I find in the 1700 bracket the other team just comes barreling at me, ready to alpha stike me into oblivion. How odd that a healer's first and foremost job is take the brunt of the punishment, and if done well enough, completely negates the other team's gamble. It is, to be honest, so nervewracking that sometimes I feel I have let my teammates down. On our 3v3, with Fishhead (a frost mage), I often feel I screwed up and should have lived longer. Improved Death (aka Spirit of Redemption) means I really am in the match for 15 more seconds, and the heals are all uninterrupted, but it's still hard to say on vent, "Sorry, guys, couldn't live any longer..."
But here's my personal favorite. Last night, finishing up the 2v2 for the week, Dato and I were on a nice run. We have pulled up to about 1770ish, and our next match was an affliction lock and a druid. Everything was going ok, just a long, long match to a team we had already lost to twice, and it appeared we might have them. They were lower on mana then we were, but my HP were getting kind of low. Corruption was ticking away, and I knew I had to dispell it before I hit myself and Dato with a nice Binding Heal...however, at the exact moment I hit my Dispell macro it appeared the affliction lock had cast Unstable Affliction. One moment it wasn't there and then it was...as I pressed that fated button.
UA critted.
I died.
I'm still angry that I the timing worked out so. I mean, I BLEW up like a sad water balloon full of epic whine.
Oh, well. It was an interesting week, to say the least. We will finish up 3v3 Monday morning or evening, so we'll see how that one turns out.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
In the Beginning
I tried full Disc. Pain suppression, Reflective Shield, the whole glorious shebang. It seemed to work, too, for a little while. Getting PS off when stunlocked by rogues, or stunned by a warrior, was just too difficult.
Calling out Power Infusion on vent drove me nuts, mostly due to the fact I cast it, something happened (a well time fear by the opposing priest) nerfed its value.
See, I run with Dato, a warlock, who at the time was full Destro. He loved the Shadow Fury. I have to admit, the first (and only) time he was left alone against two melee and they were running at him only to be hit by his Shadow Fury and both died...well, it is still something we laugh about to this day. Shadow Fury FTW literally. We did OK, but stayed near a 1600 rating forever. If we went up, we shot back down.
So I started the great respeccing insanity. You have to understand, this was Season 1. No one knew what to do. Everyone was going full this, or full that. The 28/33/0 spec didn't even really exist yet, except to those few priests who really got it.
I admit, I slowly moved toward that build on my own until I read an article on World of Ming and took Blessed Resilience. Our score shot up, and at the end of season 1, with limited play time and much tweaking, we ended at 1740.
Not great, but most people we knew personally that did Arena were stumbling around 1400-1500. We were loving it.
Season 2 has brought it's own pain. I still maintain a variant of the 28/33 build that allows me to do the occasional instance and still grind solo content without respeccing every other day. It has limited certain things I can do - but it has potential.
See, this whole Arena thing started because Dato and I love PVP. We love sitting up on the Lumber Mill in AB and declaring it our property. Epic have been the battles up there, and we have often said it is the property of Kiss My Fist, our guild. We want to plant a banner there. Nothing is more joyous than Mind Controlling a feared Alliance member and tossing him off the edge once the fear ends. Especially if they die on impact. I saw a macro the other day from a priest that yelled out "Wingardium Leviosa" when he did it. I seriously lol'ed on that one.
So when Arena showed up, we thought we would show the world how great we were. Most days now, we ask each other if we really suck and can't admit it yet. Arena is tough on your ego. Some days it goes great and you avoid the Pally/Warrior Pally/Rogue Pally/Anything combos (Warrior/Druid and Warrior/Shammy suck just as bad). You have to be ready for the days where a newly formed team with mostly Merciless gear shows up and runs through the lower ranks like a meteor. It's been getting better the last couple of weeks, however. School is letting up and the wife is about to start teaching again, meaning Dato and I can practice more than a few games a week.
Plus, he finally went to the dark side and specced the evil Siphon Life/Soul Link spec.
Which I will blog about next week as I need to pay attention to my instructor right now. Oracle SQL Programming sucks as much as Warrior/Pally combos and is just as over powered.
Calling out Power Infusion on vent drove me nuts, mostly due to the fact I cast it, something happened (a well time fear by the opposing priest) nerfed its value.
See, I run with Dato, a warlock, who at the time was full Destro. He loved the Shadow Fury. I have to admit, the first (and only) time he was left alone against two melee and they were running at him only to be hit by his Shadow Fury and both died...well, it is still something we laugh about to this day. Shadow Fury FTW literally. We did OK, but stayed near a 1600 rating forever. If we went up, we shot back down.
So I started the great respeccing insanity. You have to understand, this was Season 1. No one knew what to do. Everyone was going full this, or full that. The 28/33/0 spec didn't even really exist yet, except to those few priests who really got it.
I admit, I slowly moved toward that build on my own until I read an article on World of Ming and took Blessed Resilience. Our score shot up, and at the end of season 1, with limited play time and much tweaking, we ended at 1740.
Not great, but most people we knew personally that did Arena were stumbling around 1400-1500. We were loving it.
Season 2 has brought it's own pain. I still maintain a variant of the 28/33 build that allows me to do the occasional instance and still grind solo content without respeccing every other day. It has limited certain things I can do - but it has potential.
See, this whole Arena thing started because Dato and I love PVP. We love sitting up on the Lumber Mill in AB and declaring it our property. Epic have been the battles up there, and we have often said it is the property of Kiss My Fist, our guild. We want to plant a banner there. Nothing is more joyous than Mind Controlling a feared Alliance member and tossing him off the edge once the fear ends. Especially if they die on impact. I saw a macro the other day from a priest that yelled out "Wingardium Leviosa" when he did it. I seriously lol'ed on that one.
So when Arena showed up, we thought we would show the world how great we were. Most days now, we ask each other if we really suck and can't admit it yet. Arena is tough on your ego. Some days it goes great and you avoid the Pally/Warrior Pally/Rogue Pally/Anything combos (Warrior/Druid and Warrior/Shammy suck just as bad). You have to be ready for the days where a newly formed team with mostly Merciless gear shows up and runs through the lower ranks like a meteor. It's been getting better the last couple of weeks, however. School is letting up and the wife is about to start teaching again, meaning Dato and I can practice more than a few games a week.
Plus, he finally went to the dark side and specced the evil Siphon Life/Soul Link spec.
Which I will blog about next week as I need to pay attention to my instructor right now. Oracle SQL Programming sucks as much as Warrior/Pally combos and is just as over powered.
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