Taking a break from WoW

The boredom came after six months for me.

I played way too much and I simply got bored.

And playing through the end-game content felt like work more than fun game.

With all the grinding needed to keep up with raiding is just too much.

Early in the game, rewards (e.g. gear upgrades) come every hour or even every minute - at the end game rewards come monthly. Weekly or daily if you're extremily lucky.

End game is just too slow for me. I might come back some day, but it'll be more casual.

I have subscription until end of May, so I'll be playing a bit every now and then, but it's very likely I don't renew the subscription anymore.

Forum Watch: (Priest) 2 years healing in raids, now losing spot

A Human Priest named Lizarb made a rare thing in WoW forums priests community and created nicely structured post about the problems of the healing priest in raids. She has been 2 years healing in raids, now loosing spot (repost on US Priest Forums too).

As a summary of the post: in her guild healer spots previously filled with Priests, have now been conquered by other healer classes for greater Utility and Survivability. Priests are no longer needed for raids as other classes can do the same job better.

I'm relatively inexperienced raider compared to her, as I don't know pre-2.3 WoW, but from what I read from the post, makes sence:

I get one-two shotted in raids/instances if something bad happens. I'm still using Primal Mooncloth Set as the +healing and mana regen is ridiculously good, compared to early/mid raid drops. My Power Word: Shield hardly saves anyone.

I've been relatively happy with my priest, and I think I still am, but I still feel that many aspects of the (healing) priest could be improved.

But you better read the original post by Lizarb yourself, and if you feel like it, post your comments to either the original European thread or the re-post in US forums, whichever you have access to.

Blog Watch: Interview with a Gold Seller

I was pointed to the blog in question by Matticus' post at World of Matticus.

And whether you approve gold selling, buying it, cheating in a digital game or are very much against all that, I think one of the most interesting blog posts last week was Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Interview with a Gold Seller.

I found it interesting, because it made me think again (yes! it happens, thank you very much): What kind of player I am (how I play), and why do I play WoW (or any other game).

When I'm playing a single player game, I don't use cheat codes or such, as that would be cheating and what's the point in cheating yourself?

In a multiplayer game, I play with what is given to me, as doing something against the rules would be cheating, not only against yourself, but against everyone else in the game too. Remember, you are not alone.

So personally, I would never buy gold, items, leveling service or whatever these companies offer, because that would take away everything I love in World of Warcraft:

What I got, I have earned. What I got, I had others there to help me. And what I got, I can help others with.

And where's the fun in buying bytes with credit card, when I can have the most fun trying to figure out a virtual economy and play a little business game inside the fantasy world?

When someone finally gets that *ding* for level 70 or gets that Epic Flyer after hours of grinding, I'd cheer her, she worked for it: She earned it.

But if someone would pay real life currency for the same, it wouldn't be the same, would it?

I don't admire people for what they wear, I admire them for what they are.

Two (Healing) Addons to Rule Them All

The most useful healing addons right here. Individual needs and preferences apply, but these ones I love the most.

I'm addon "freak", I use them a lot, so I reckoned to make another topic out of it.

I'm constantly tuning my UI, removing unused addons and adding new ones. I like it simple but my screen always ends up cluttered, as I feel that I need this and that.

I prefer Ace addons, as they're constantly maintained (a blessing after patches). With WowAceUpdater it's easy to install new addons and it keeps all my installed Ace addons up-to-date with single click. As all Ace addons use the same library, the addons are lightweight for cpu (compared to having same number of independent addons)

I use Omen and BigWigs, which help a lot in raids/groups.

I have Pitbull unitframes (even more important after, for some reason, my Grid started malfunctioning).

For heals I use Clique (different mouse clicks with different modifiers (alt/ctrl/shift) to do mouseover heals on frames/player).

For decursing I use, well, Decurse. And tons more (e.g. Fubar,Bartender3,Buffalo2,AuctioneerAdvanced,etc)

But if I would recommend two addons to all healers (and all casters, and they benefit melee too), it would be these:

Quartz
VisualHeal

Here's why Quartz and VisualHeal are sooo good:

Shamelessly ripped from my own posts on several forums (as I love these addons so much I'd love to more people getting the benefits, and as they will benefit even more if others would use them too).

QUARTZ

CastingBar

Holy efficiency! I stumbled upon this castingbar replacer - and even that it's very very simple - Quartz is absolutely, hands-on, the best addon I've ever seen!

Why?

Because Quartz adds "latency" to your casting bar. Without going into any client-server jargon, you're normal casting bar is showing how your client sees the casting time, but because of latency, your spell is actually going off at server before your casting bar reaches the end.

What this means? And How Quartz helps.

It means that if you have 200ms latency for example, you can see that visualized in Quartz and start your next spell / action 0.2s before your casting bar is actually full and the spell still goes off! So with ten spells, you have saved 2 seconds. With 500 dps, that's free 1000 damage more. make it 100 spells and it's 10000 damage! And all this just by tackling the latency with Quartz. If you experience 500ms of such latencies, it comes even better! Don't let lag and latency get you, get Quartz

VisualHeal

Healing Visualizer for both Healers and the ones healed

For healers: VisualHeal shows where target's health will end up after the heal hits
--> cancel unnecessary casts which would cause too much overheal

+ it shows if someone else has same target and is also casting heal on it
and it adds all this to the estimated health after your heal hits --> you can cancel cast if it would mean too much overheal, as the other healer has the target covered.

For others: VisualHeal shows incoming heals to you = where your health will end up when heal hits you --> can use abilities accordingly.
- low health & no heals coming? better use some "saving" ability!
- low health, but two heals incoming. Great! Keep pounding.

For all this to work, everyone needs VisualHeal, so once again, get it!
Must for healers. Recommended for everyone else too

+ VisualHeal shows up in unitframes too if they support it (PitBull does), so if every healer uses VisualHeal, it can be easily seen who is not healed yet = less parallel healing

So I'd say that every healer (if not everyone) should install VisualHeal (make the bar invisible if you want, but do have it). I'd think it will help you and your guild a lot, especially in 25-mans.

Where to Download Addons

Get WowAceUpdater! Keeps your addons up-to-date, and easy installs for every Ace addon. That is the best way to get Quartz and VisualHeal (and Omen, BigWigs + loads of other goodies), and keep them up-to-date.

EDIT: Unfortunately WoW Ace Updater is no longer with us, as wowace integrated with curse.com, and for me, curse updater just isn't very good (tbh, it sucks big time). New and improved alternatives for easy addon maintenance: Wowmatrix and WUU - WoW UI Updater.

There are many other places too to get addons, like Curse.com (they also have installer, which isn't nearly as good as WowAceUpdater) and WoWInterface.

More "Healing Addons That Rule"

Three (Healing) Addons to Rule Even More