Looking for market trends?

I would like to recommend the following site:

http://theunderminejournal.com/ 

The Disc Raid Healer - Stepping once more into the light

Why were my eyes closed for so long?

I missed this from wow.com from January this year which, although flippant in places, did have a gem of wisdom:

Discipline priests are single target healers, not tank healers!

OK OK already - I get it.

Loot Rule Voting Update

So following the first round of voting we had the following result:

For sale - Shop. Going cheap! Just 16,000g

I decided I needed a multi person mount - so I bought one.

Shield Spam FTW - A new sensation!

I did a GKP run last night. Got a token and new set of bracers for just over 10k. 7 bosses, one on heroic. 3 hours. Not too bad but not the best run ever.

Put to the vote - Guild Loot Rule Elections

More Than Raids is currently voting on the new loot rules. When I thought about it I realised that the best loot rules I could come up with were those that already existed - which isnt surprising because I had a lot to do with writing them in the first place

ICC Tokens - Main spec or Off Spec?

Yesterdays post brought up some interesting comments - but I would like to focus on Cassandri's because I have a question to ask.

Cass said:

I think you're approaching the MS/OS issue the wrong way. It's not about what the individual would like to have - it's about what items get used the most.

In your tank example, a tanking shield may be used on 40% of the time (if this tank is DPS for 60% of the raid). But if that tank shows up for every single raid that's 40% of your raiding time. If he shows up only 1 night out of 2 that's only 20% of your raiding time that shield is used.

Regardless of your GS if you only play as Shadow one 5th of the time are you really the best person to get DFO over a Mage who shows up 1 night out of 2 and DPS for the whole night? (20% use vs 50% use)

Now I understand where you are coming from Cass - honestly I do. But I would like to toss something into the mix:

Example One

Lets say we drop Saurfang and  the Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification drops.

My priest wears only wears two tier pieces in his disc spec (both t10.5), but four tier pieces on his shadow gear (one t10.5 and three t10).

Now lets assume that there is a lock in the run who has three 10.5 pieces and one last t10 item.

Extending your arguement would suggest that I am not allowed to roll on the token because its an OS roll for the priest.

ExampleTwo

Near identical situation except the priest has one t10 and one t10.5 on his disc gear. He rolls and wins the token but chooses to upgrade a piece of his shadow t10 gear instead - as he knows it gives him a chance to roll as MS next week if a token drops.

Is this fair?

Loot Rules- AGAIN!

OK this is a thinking post - so bear with me. Alas I have until 6pm to make some up so I'd better get started:

What the heck is going on with the glyph market?

Glyphs on my server are still very hit and miss - and following a 2 week break it was interesting to see what would happened.

So is it good to be back?

So I returned - I reclaimed the AH the best I could. I even sold a few hundred thousand arrows for shits and giggles. I ran a GKP run and watched Cat get 6 upgrades and break 6k GS, whilst Puraa got around 6k gold and didn't even get to see Deathbringer's Will.

Emerging into the light

At 9.45am this morning (Saturday) I got broadband with Telecom. They kinda didnt make the 7pm deadline they promised.

Seriously - customer service sucks in New Zealand. And although there have been comments that I have picked the two worst ISPs to deal with (which might be true) I had to choose one that gave good speed. Of all the other options (Telstra, Orcon, XNet etc) I didnt have faith in their services - because ultimately they all go cap in hand to Telecom for their wholesale.

About to log into WoW ... all those who have taken advantage of my absence from the AH - be warned I am back and I have two weeks to make up for.

So is the grass greener?

Gamers fire shot at Vodafone

On our national news at 6pm, there was finally a mention of the ongoing issue with Vodafone.

Its a sad indictment...

Customer service in New Zealand really does leave a lot to be desired. Over the past two weeks I have been trying to resolve ongoing issues with my ISP (Vodafone NZ) over the inability to play World of Warcraft. The customer service has at times been comical, although I admit I have struggled to laugh.

Breevok now started Twittering

 http://twitter.com/Breevok

And you think your ISPs bad?

So today I finally jumped ship back to Telecom. Vodafone had their chance to resolve the ongoing latency issues but seeing as they cant even give me an indication whether it will be fixed in August I had little choice but jump back to an ISP who hasn't decided that traffic shaping is acceptable practice

So by Thursday evening I should be back at 200-330ms latency, able to scan the AH, able to raid.

The enforced two week break has been in many ways good - I ran Black Temple last might (or the last two bosses) and was laughing constantly at the immediate DCs I'd get at the pull. Watching the reruns of the last 20 seconds of the fight when I managed to log back in. Laughing as 3 heals hit simultaneously on a target after 5 seconds of nothing.

I invented a game - its called 'Heal the Heroic with 3000ms Latency'. As a disc priest you learn to predict the incoming damage - but when you are factoring what the tank will do in 3 seconds time (or did 2 seconds ago) its a good training exercise. I decided warning the tank before the run that I was suffering immense lag would take all the fun out of it - and I am sure one or two tanks were getting nervous here or there along the way. But I would recommend it to all healers out there.

I actually think I needed the break - so I cant be completely annoyed at Vodafone. TBH I don't think its their fault - its something their wholesale provider is doing - but the customer service has been terrible. And not ETA to resolution? Thats just a joke imho.

Anyways I am kind of back - couple more evenings of nothingness and then LK here I come. :)

Life without WoW

For those wondering why I've not posted - well for a week I've been without World of Warcraft.

My ISP is Vodafone NZ, and since last Thursday they have been suffering reoccurring issues with international traffic - resulting in latencies in WoW of 10k+

Last night there was meant to be a fix applied - but it very obviously did not work. So my toons remain is stasis.

Without WoW I have little to talk about - I have been working on my shadow DPS recently but havent done enough research to be able to write a post.

I'll be back once Vodafone lets me