13,300 mana / 1234 mana

= 10.

10*2.2s = 22s.

1,632,000 health / 22s / 6 DPS = 12k individual DPS.

Isn't going to happen, m8s.

@C

[Sinespe] http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p3/tier10sneak/huge-sh.jpg
[Zicon] ... err, what?
[Sinespe] Shaman Tier 10
[Sinespe] Looking at that helm, what's your first reaction?
[Zicon] "who put that moose in the freezer"

ENJOY 3.3.

Gear II: Gear Harder.

I wish I could drop this. I just can't. (Just as Paletress refuses to drop her trinket.)

I've already mentioned gear once, from a top-down approach. Now I need to return to the root and work upwards, because this is the position in which I find myself.

A certain website with a gear-score-based system (Whose name I am not going to mention ... But let's call them "Iamamazed-Champions") gives the gear score of my recently-80 Death Knight is a mere 1.8k. The reason I am linking you a screenshot to my page, rather than linking the page itself, is because I want to deny Iamamazed-Champions as much web traffic as I can. Now, I don't particularly care for the number itself. I more want to draw your attention to the "Progress bar" that they have. They insist that I should focus on Naxx25.

I'll back up a bit: My Death Knight dinged 80 three days ago. I have geared her up like a hardcore raider on steroids, Powerthirst and chocolate, inasmuch as luck would allow me to deck her out in free epics. I've never played a Death Knight before -- or, rather, I've never played one since 3.0.8, and they've changed a lot since then. As a result, I'm pretty much re-learning the class, and I will write later on about what it has taught me of the situation regarding melee DPS.

But, because I have a brain, I am capable of pulling between 3,498 and 4,124 DPS with that character, on a boss, depending on my raid composition. In a VoA 10-man Class Run with bad raid composition (No Feral Druid, no Enhancement Shaman, no Retribution Paladin ... pretty much all I had for physical damage was the Rogue), I was able to pull 3,750.2 DPS on Koralon. I topped that meter, and it was a one-shot. It was slower than if we had all been 5,000 DPS, but we cleared the required threshold.

Now, Koralon is not a benchmark for PvE DPS. He's designed as a PvP boss: with the exclusion of tanks requiring defence-based gear, competent PvPers working around hit caps and the like are supposed to be able to kill him. But, let's go through some DPS thresholds for a moment.

The following is on key, non-optional bosses for various raids, who have enrage or berserk timers and the fewest gimmicks I could find. Where there are gimmicks, I explain reasonable allowances in-depth.
I always assume the following:

• Tanks do 50% of the damage of DPS classes when tanking; and 75% of the damage when they have nothing else to do but DPS, making the further assumption (which will be very false in a great many cases, but I will nevertheless make the assumption) that they also have no Dual PvE DPS Spec.
• Raid composition is always 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 DPS for a 10-man; 2 tanks, 5 healers, 18 DPS for a 25-man.

So, let's dive in, shall we?

Naxxramas 10-man:

Faerlina: 2,231,200 health, plus four adds of 83,408 health, for a total of 2,564,832 health. 60*4 + 60 = 300-second soft Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 8549.44. Individual DPS requirement (One tank. Other tank on adds, so not added): 1554.44
Patchwerk: 4,322,950 health; 360-second hard Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 12008.194. Individual DPS requirement (Two tanks): 2001.36.
Thaddius: 3,834,875 health; 360-second hard Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 10652.43. Individual DPS requirement (One tank, other DPSing): 1704.38....
Loatheb: 6,693,600 health; 420-second Inevitable Doom Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 15937.14. RDPS requirement (One tank, other DPSing): 2549.94.

None of these factor in mechanics such as damage boosts (Thaddius and Loatheb) or movement (Thaddius). At a guess, the +50% crit bonus on Loatheb would increase DPS by about 20%. So, the DPS requirement for Naxxramas 10-man is about 2.1k, give or take.

Naxxramas 25-man:

Faerlina: 6,763,325 health, plus two adds of 521,320 health, for a total of 7,805,965. 60*4 + 60 = 300-second soft Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 26019.88. Individual DPS requirement (One tank. Other tank on adds, so not added): 1406.48.
Patchwerk: 13,038,575 health; 360-second hard Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 36218.26. Individual DPS requirement (Three tanks): 1957.74.
Thaddius: 30,400,100 health; 360-second hard Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 84444.72... Individual DPS requirement (One tank, other DPSing): 4386.73.... Actual Individual DPS requirement, given a 100% damage boost all of the time by Charges: 2193.36.
Loatheb: 20,220,250 health; 420-second Inevitable Doom Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 48143.45. RDPS requirement (One tank, other DPSing): 2500.95. (Before crit bonus accommodation.)

Well, this is amusing. In the case of Patchwerk, the DPS requirement goes down on 25-man. But, again, we're left with roughly the same value: 2.1k DPS required for Naxxramas 25-man. This means you can do Naxxramas 25 in the same gear that you would be able to do Naxxramas 10: If you pull the requirement for Naxxramas 10, you pull the requirement for Naxxramas 25.

Malygos 10-man:

Malygos is a hard fight to gauge accurately, because of the strange way in which it works. However, we will model it thus: We will devote equal time between the three phases. This means you have 200 seconds in phase 1 to take him to 50%, then 200 seconds to kill adds, then 200 seconds to burn him down. The last of these cannot be modelled, because the drakes don't work that way. However, we will assume that if you have the DPS to take him down to 50% in three minutes you will have the gear required for your Drakes to be scaled far enough to burn him in phase 3, shall we? That sounds reasonable to me. We will also assume, from the nature of Sparks and Vortices, that Sparks contribute a 20% DPS increase. We will even do Iamamazed-Champions a favour here and assume that you are forbidden from taking Malygos below 50% health after phase 2 initiates.

Phase 1: 6,972,500 / 2 = 3,486,250 health. RDPS requirement: 17431.25. Individual DPS requirement (One tank. Six DPS): 2681.73. Factoring in the 20% DPS boost, Actual Individual DPS requirement: 2145.38.

The DPS requirement for Malygos-10 is 2145.38 DPS.

Malygos 25-man:

Phase 1: 19,523,000 / 2 = 9,761,500 health. RDPS requirement: 48807.5. Individual DPS requirement (One tank. 19 DPS.): 2502.94. Actual Individual DPS: 2002.35

The DPS requirement for Malygos-25 is less than 10-man.

Sartharion 10-man:

Drakes! We will include drakes here for your pleasure. Sartharion+0 and +1 have no Enrage timers. So, technically, there isn't a DPS requirement. It's very safe to put them with Naxx etc.

Sartharion+2: Two tanks are assumed here. Shadron will land 45 seconds after Tenebron does. Ideally, then, you want to kill Tenebron after 50 seconds maximum. 976,150*1.25 = 1,220,188 health. RDPS requirement: 24403.76. Individual DPS requirement for 50 seconds: 4437.04. Assuming you have a Shaman, this is reduced by 30% to 3105.93. Very hefty stuff compared to Naxx.

Sartharion+3: Two tanks with a DPS indisposed after 25 seconds on Tenebron to tank adds. Vesperon will land 95 seconds after Tenebron -- 50 seconds after Shadron. Ideally, the raid will have killed Tenebron and taken Shadron down to about 50% by the time Vesperon lands. 1,830,282 health. RDPS requirement: 19266.12. Remember, one DPS is out of the action after about 25% of the time, so he only counts as 0.25 of a DPS. Individual requirement is then: 4056.02.

There is a reason Sartharion10+3 was considered the hardest boss before Ulduar. The setup requirements are so tight with only 10 people that the DPS needed is very much inflated -- either you have three tanks, or you are under-tanked. If you are under-tanked, you can now do the Zerg method:

Sartharion+3Z: One tank, with a DPS (Feral druid, usually) indisposed from 35% onwards, kiting Tenebron away. This is not reflected, since it is pretty much balanced by Heroism, which you will have if you're trying this. 3,137,625 health. Time allowed: between 76 and 100 seconds, give or take. We'll say 85. RDPS: 36913.23. Split between 8(.5 for the tank): 4614.15 Individual DPS.

Sartharion-25:

Sartharion+2: Three tanks assumed, so there is no DPS requirement here. Lumped with Naxx.

Sartharion+3: Three tanks assumed, but this time you really do need to burn down Tenebron and Shadron pretty hard. We will say that they must both die by the time Vesperon lands. 5,578,000 health in 95 seconds. RDPS requirement: 58715.78. Individual DPS requirement (17 DPS): 3355.18 DPS.

Ulduar-10 Normal:

XT-002 is the obvious one here, but I'll also do others. Freya and Hodir are nice.

XT-002-N: 5,000,008 health, but with additional damage taken in Heart phases. Effective health is roughly 3,000,000. 600-second hard Enrage. Oh yes. You know where this is going, don't you? RDPS requirement: 5000. Individual DPS requ... Oh I can't even do it. Work it out for yourselves. What a joke.

Freyaaaaaaaa: One tank. Over 6 minutes, you must down different sets of adds -- one per minute. The highest health of these is the Children, with a combined health of 735,054.
Add phase RDPS requirement : 12250.9. Individual: 1884.75
Freya herself has 1,394,500 health, and you must kill her in 4 minutes before the Berserk occurs. She will negate 6,000 DPS. RDPS requirement: 6000 + 5810.41 = 11810.41. Individual: 1816.98.

Hodir: 8,115,990 health. 480-second Enrage timer. RDPS requirement: 16908.3125. Individual (1 tank): 2601.27. Assuming poor use of buffs, leading to a 30% increase in DPS, this means 1820.89 base individual DPS. This allows for a couple of pieces of Frost Res gear!

Thorim: 3,346,800 health on Normal mode. His stacking buff is gained approximately once every fifteen seconds, and it becomes impossible to tank and heal through once cooldowns have been blown around stack 14 on Normal. 15 * 14 = 210. RDPS: 15937.14; Individual DPS: 2656.19

Ulduar-10N DPS requirement: 2.7k. Now that you've seen my formula for Ulduar, I'm going to be brief with the rest of my analysis of this raid.

Ulduar-25N:

XT-002. Let's see if he's still a joke, shall we? 22,499,978 health, minus 40% again for the Heart. 13,499,987 health. RDPS: 22499.978. The Berserk timer makes this such a joke.

Freya:
Adds: 2,280,755 health in 60 seconds = 38012.58 RDPS = 2000.66 individual
Freya: 4,183,500 over 240 seconds. RDPS: 8000 + 17431.25 = 25431.25. Individual DPS: 1338.48.

Hodir: 32,477,904 health in 480 seconds. RDPS: 67662.3. Individual DPS: 3561.17. Account for poor use of buffs: 2492.82 DPS.

Thorim: 11,713,800 health over 210 seconds. RDPS: 55780. Individual DPS: 2935.78

DPS requirement for 25-man Ulduar: about 3k.

Ulduar-10H:

XT-002: He's no longer such a joke. Hopefully ... 5,000,008 health. 25% of that to enter the Heart phase, then kill the heart (900,000 health), then burn down another 7,500,012 health. A total of 13,400,020 health in 600 seconds. That sounds more like it! Let's try running those numbers. Raid DPS requirement: 22333.36. Individual DPS: 3435.90

Freya: I might be working with out-dated information. Tankspot claims that the adds and Freya gain a 72% health bonus with all three Elders up, but this could be wrong. But hey, I'll run with it.
Adds: 1,264,292 health in 60 seconds: 21071.548 RDPS. 3511.92 individual DPS.
Freya: 2,398,540 in 240 seconds. 6000 + 9993.91 = 15993.91 RDPS. 2665.65 individual DPS.

Hodir: 8,115,990 health in 180 seconds. 45088.83 RDPS. Seven DPS for this one with a couple of Frost Res pieces. 6441.26 individual DPS. Roughly a 70% increase in damage from good use of buffs. 3788.97 base DPS.

Thorim: 4,183,500 health in 210 seconds. RDPS: 19921.42. Individual DPS: 3320.23

DPS requirement for Glory of the Ulduar Raider (10 Player): 3.8k

Ulduar-25H:

XT-002: 43,124,962 health over 600 seconds. RDPS: 71874.93. Individual DPS: 3782.89.

Freya:
Adds: 3,922,899 health over 60 seconds. RDPS: 65381.64. Individual DPS: 3441.13
Freya: 7,195,620 health over 240 seconds. RDPS: 8000 + 29981.75 = 37981.75. Individual DPS: 1999.03

Hodir: 32,477,904 over 180 seconds. RDPS: 180432.8. Individual DPS: 9496.46. With good use of buffs, there's about a 100% multiplier here, so 4748.23 base Individual DPS.

Thorim: 14,642,250 over 210 seconds. RDPS: 69725. Individual DPS: 3669.73.

DPS requirement for Glory of the Ulduar Raider (25-player): 4.8k.

Trial of the Crusader-10:

Twin Val'kyr: 5,790,000 damage over 360 seconds. I'm not 100% certain on the DPS increase of the Light/Dark Attunement, but it feels like 25%, so I'll go with that. RDPS requirement: 16083.33. Individual DPS requirement: 2680.55; 2144.44 with DPS increase.

Anub'arak: 4,180,000. This is a little tricky to work out, but let's have a go. Berserk is 10 minutes. After three burrow phases, which adds up to 7 minutes and 30 seconds altogether, you'll need to be taking him into phase 3 and killing him.
100%-30%: 2,926,000 health over about 260 seconds. 11253.84 RDPS.
30%-0%. This is trickier. Anub'arak will drain 10% of your raid's health -- a minimum of 2,500 HPS. We'll assume, though, that you keep everyone at about 7,000 health (Offsetting tank health). That's 7,000 HPS for Anub'arak. 1,254,000 health over the remaining 150 seconds. 8360 + 7000 = 15360 RDPS. Individual DPS: 2560.

Depressing how low the threshold is, no? Only 2.6k Oh well.

Trial of the Crusader-25:

Twin Val'kyr: 27,890,000 over 360 seconds. RDPS: 77472.22. Individual DPS: 4077.48; 3261.98 with Attunement bonus.

Anub'arak: 20,917,500 health.
Phase 1: 14,642,250 over 260 seconds. RDPS: 56316.34. Individual DPS: 2964.01
Phase 3: 6,275,250 over 150 seconds. RDPS: 41835 + 17500 = 59335. Individual DPS: 3122.89

DPS requirement for ToC25: 3.3k

Trial of the Grand Crusader-10:

Beasts of Northrend:
Gormok: 2,789.000 health over 180 seconds, plus ~135,000 health by four snobolds: a total of 3,329,000. RDPS: 18494.44. Individual DPS: 3082.40. A DPS penalty applied for anyone Snobolled, resulting in roughly a 25% decrease in DPS. Actual Individual DPS requirement: 3853
Acidmaw & Dreadscale: 3,137,625 health over approximately 165 seconds. 19015.90 RDPS. 3169.31 Individual DPS
Icehowl: ~4,100,000 health over 195 seconds. 21025.64 RDPS; 3504.27 Individual DPS.

Twin Val'kyr: ~8,000,000 health over 360 seconds. 22222.22 RDPS; 3703.70 Individual DPS.

Anub'arak: The general idea here is to take two healers and go for a single Burrow phase. 5,440,000 health, with 2*235,000 adds every 45 seconds.
100%-30%: 38651.85 RDPS. 5521.69 Individual DPS: You would ideally have Heroism for this, bringing the requirement down to around 4693.43 DPS. After that, it's not so much a burn as a survival test and an intelligent, reactive healing test.

DPS requirement for ToGC10: 4.7k

Trial of the Grand Crusader 25-player:

Northrend Beasts:
Gormok: 11,853,250 plus 808,860*6 = 16,706,410 over 180 seconds. 92813.38 RDPS; 4884.91 individual DPS. The DPS penalty for being snobolled isn't quite so severe here, because of the increased abundance in general. 10%-ish. 5373.40 DPS
Acidmaw & Dreadscale: 13,387,200 over approximately 165 seconds. Individual DPS: 4270.24
Icehowl: 18,128,500 over 195 seconds. 4892.98 individual DPS.

Twin Val'kyr: 39,046,000 over 360 seconds. 5708.47 individual DPS. 4757.06 base individual DPS

Anub'arak:
27,192,750 health, plus at least 727,974*8 =

100%-30%: 24,858,717 damage in 180 seconds. 7268.63 individual DPS requirement.

Requirement for ToGC25: About 5.5k, with incidental AoE pushing up to 7.3k

Onyxia:

She doesn't have an Enrage timer, but 3.5k is more than acceptable. It all gets skewed by AoE anyway.

To recap, in order of increasing DPS:
Naxx10, Naxx25, Malygos 10, Malygos 25, Sartharion 10+0/1; Sartharion 25 +0-2: 2.1k DPS
Trial of the Champion 10: 2.6k
Ulduar 10: 2.7k
Ulduar 25: 3k
Trial of the Champion 25: 3.3k
Sartharion25+3: 3.3k
Onyxia10: 3.5k
Onyxia25: 3.5k
Ulduar 10H: 3.8k
Sarthation10+3: 4.1k
Sartharion10+3Z: 4.6k
ToGC 10: 4.7k
Ulduar 25H: 4.8k
ToGC 25: 5.5k

Before this analysis, I showed you a screenshot from Iamamazed-Champions. I've zoomed in on what I want to show (I'm sorry that it breaks my blog's template):



Now, let's look at the same image, with those actual, real DPS values taken into account. Remember, "Yellow" indicates what I should be focusing on -- i.e., what I am geared to complete, and where I am likely to get the most upgrades.





What's out of my reach in my current gear? Trial of the Grand Crusader 10, OS10+3Z, Ulduar 25H, Trial of the Grand Crusader 25.

So, to Iamamazed-Champions, I have only this to say: You have been measured, and found wanting.

When Bots Go Bad.

Warning. NSFW. Seriously. But it's so goddamn hilarious.

There is a bot in a channel I frequent in IRC called Wheaties. He, for the most part, comes out with garbled, often crude, messages. Sometimes this is random. Other times, it is when you address him by name.

This link catalogues the very best, oh-so-appropriate times that he fires off a message, in this particular channel and others like it.

I'm dying of laughter.

A Bubble of Healing Bloggers

So, I've been tagged by my GM over at Planet of the Hats to participate in a questionnaire started by Miss Medicina. I will confess to having been forewarned about this indirectly by Paolo, who was tagged earlier in the day. I will also confess that I ... don't actually have anyone I can tag -- only person I know is Paolo, really. Oh, wait! I know! Muahahaha ... The next link in the chain will be at the bottom.

Post this questionnaire, with your answers, on your blog. Pick the healing class you know most about (or is the focus of your blog) for the questionnaire, and then send it over to another healing blogger you know and love who heals with a DIFFERENT class. Include a link to the blogger who sent you the questionnaire, as well as a link to the blogger to whom you are sending it.

• What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Sinespe, Discipline Priest, primarily shadow
  
• What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) When required by my guild, I heal Trial of the Grand Crusader 10-player, up to and including the Twin Val'kyr.
  
• What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Lightwell. No, seriously; stop laughing. Lightwell. I know it's not even in my spec, but it is my favourite Priest healing spell. People need to be educated in its use, because it is ludicrously powerful. Coming in a close second is Binding Heal. Both of those spells are unique to the Priest class, in spite of all the homogenisation that has gone on in Wrath.
  
• What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? Either Greater Heal or Divine Hymn. The former just because I forget or don't find time to use it, the latter because by the time I realise I have it we've probably already wiped. I need to work on that.
  
• What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? As just about every other priest will have said, our biggest strength is that we have a spell for every occasion. Specific to Discipline, Borrowed Time allows for quite amazing single-target burst healing when it's needed -- Power Word: Shield is an instant 7-9k's worth of prevention, and following that up with a GCD-capped Flash Heal ... there's nothing quite like it.
  
• What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? I ... really don't think we have one in PvE. Specifically where Discipline is concerned, we have quite a lot of ways in which we can remain mobile while still casting useful spells -- Prayer of Mending and PW: S being the instant ways to do that, and Borrowed Time allowing for very short bursts of standing still while needing to move. I guess you could say that we have problems where our itemisation is concerned, because the lines between throughput and longevity are very rigidly defined: Intellect gives negligible throughput, and spellpower negligible longevity. But that's not a bad thing -- all it requires is intelligence enough to focus on a particular philosophy according to what you and your raid need.
  
• In a 25 [10] man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? (I don't do 25-mans, so I've edited this question.) I don't actually have a preference. Discipline has very strong supportive raid healing with its shields and Prayer of Mending, but also strong supportive Tank healing with Penance, Bubbles and Flash Heal. In a 10-man raid where the other two healers are a Resto Druid (Almost certainly a raid healer) and a Holy Paladin (Almost certainly a tank healer), I like to fill in the gaps between the two.
  
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? Discipline, of course. I wouldn't give up my offspec for anything. I like to feel that I have an intuitive knowledge of both Discipline and Shadow -- as such, if either spec gets jumbled by changes, I get jumbled by them too. (In the words of "Kungen", "Live inside your character. If it dies, you die. FOCUS!")
  
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? I would most likely have trouble playing a Holy Paladin. I know that they have a lot of utility if they spec 51/20/0, but they are, for the most part, a "Stand still and heal" kind of a class. They get most hamstrung by movement fights, and especially in ToGC with fights like Gormok the Impaler with his Snobolds and Jaraxxus with his bassément Mistresses, I'd feel annoyed if a tank died because of my inability to heal them.
  
• What is your worst habit as a healer? The same as when I'm DPSing: Jumping (to the left or right, generally) whenever I cast an instant spell. If I hit PW: S, I jump. Prayer of Mending? Jump. However, I see this as a good thing: I have been conditioned to associate "Instant-cast" with "jumping" -- i.e., when I need to move, I will know my limits in terms of my healing capability, and I will know where my instant-cast buttons are.
  
• What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? I dunno ... I guess when I'm in PuGs I get annoyed at DPS who pull less DPS than me (while I'm healing. I smite in 5-mans to alleviate the boredom) -- and there have been people who do that, in epics, no less. I know they're only heroics, but I do wish people would focus just a little bit. I don't like slacking from other people, when I'm always trying to run at >90% efficiency for whatever I'm doing.
  
• Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Oh, definitely. I mean, I'd love some kind of Power Word: Bacon that I could apply to a target, and which would mirror my Penance healing -- that would give me a bit more single-target healing output to compete with Paladins, but, really, it would be a luxury. It's not something we need.
  
• What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? I use Pitbull. If Boss health is at 0%, fellow raiders' health are above 0%, and my mana is at 10% or lower after having popped every mana cooldown I have, then I consider myself to have performed perfectly. I do check the "Deaths" section of Recount to see if there were anything I could have done to keep dead people alive, but apart from that I don't generally focus much on anything other than what I'm doing at the time of a boss fight. If I screw up, I know it, because it doesn't happen often.
  
• What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? That we are tank healers. I think that misconception still exists -- I don't think enough people yet rate Power Word: Shield spam as a viable form of raid healing; or, if they do, I don't think they realise that we not only can raid shield but also can tank-heal at the same time.
  
• What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? The importance of Meditation. While levelling my Death Knight, I've seen so many holy priests who have gone too deep into Holy before hitting Northrend, and thus haven't picked up Meditation (including one train-wreck of a priest, but he has since respecced Discipline and it doesn't look as terrible as it used to). I find that Discipline is pretty self-explanatory. It's obviously about shields, and it's obviously centred around Flash Heal and Penance.
  
• 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 wouldn't see a pattern. I try to keep low overhealing, but apart from that, it is entirely fight-dependent
  
• Haste or Crit and why? MOAR DAPPS
  
• What healing class do you feel you understand least? Holy Priest. It's changed far too much since Wrath came out, and I don't really recognise it any more. I sort of get it, but ...
  
• What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? /cast [target=focus] Power Infusion, on the Macro side, and that's all. Add-ons, I use Grid, Quartz ... that's about all.
  
• Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? I follow Paolo's advice: Intellect comes on gear, Spirit comes on gear where there are no double-dip slots, so stack Spellpower and Crit as high as you can. Moar DAPPS.

So. Tone. Your turn. You're not a different class, but I don't know anyone else with a blog. Go go.

Gear.

Paolo has already written on this subject, but something just happened which incensed me to the point where I had to add to this, from something of an opposite end of the spectrum, but firing at the same point. The point is that "Gear is not everything". But the premise this time, instead of being about skilled people in low gear, is unskilled people in Naxx gear.

I'm going to just say this bluntly, because I feel like it. Stop blaming bad DPS on your gear.

In my Simcrafting, I ran a simulation of a Patchwerk fight, with the gear template being this set. This is a set of gear that I am actively collecting, to prove a point, but for now, I will work off the following information to build a reasonable hypothesis:

Simcraft gave my Blue gear a DPS potential of 4.3k DPS.
On a target dummy, I determined that I work at a 92.5% rate of efficiency with respect to mess ups in rotation, crit variance, and the like. So, on Patchwerk, I would be able to pull 4k DPS in my blue gear.

Let me say that again: A skilled Shadow Priest can pull 4k DPS in heroic blues, given full raid buffs and less than 500ms of latency.

This is also a continuation of The Greedy Goblin's foray into Ulduar10 wearing gear sets rather similar to the one that I have created. In another post, though I believe it is on the same blog, Gevlon states that high-level gear only accounts for around a 40% DPS increase in current casual content -- i.e., if someone in iLvl 200 epics does 4k DPS, that same person on the same fight with iLvl232 epics will do 5.6k DPS.

Now, when a class is said to have "scaling problems", either positive or negative, this is because their gear is either contributing too much or too little a proportion to this DPS gain (I.e., it's either above or below 40%) -- and I know that you can throw a tonne of examples at me about why the 40% figure is arbitrary, such as melee classes scaling better with their weapons than any other part of their gear, or X class pulling 200% of the DPS in Ilvl245 gear that they pulled in iLvl200 gear, but my point still remains solid through all the minutiae: Player skill is far more important than gear.

I won't rant for long about the incident itself, but, to summarise: Someone in VoA25 pulled 3k DPS and apologised for it. In their apologetic sentence, they said they "Needed better gear". They were in iLvl200-213 epics. I called them out on it. They then fell back on "This is my offspec."

You know what? It's fine to do badly in your offspec. Make that the core of your apology for why you only pull 3k DPS. Don't blame it on your gear. If you blame it on your gear, it carries with it the implication that you have this false belief that, with a full complement of ToC epics, you will magically transform into an awesome raider.

And don't put me on ignore when I'm about to link you to my shadow priest guide. You want to improve? Listen to me.

One last hurra-LEEEEROOOOOY ...

Sometimes, just sometimes, there arise from the ashes, phoenix-like, old memes, for one final, triumphant, Original Content return.

May it now rest in pieces.

... And everyone else. <3

So while I'm on the subject of thanking people and making them known, and since I don't really want to blogroll notable people whom I read, here is just a run-down list of all the other fine folks in the Wowhead Priest and General communities, and some other awesome people, and why they are most certainly worthy of mention in this little corner of the blogosphere:

Wowhead:

General awesome people

Casey (Malgayne) -- Awesome community manager, if far too infuriatingly forgiving of some of the trolls on the Wowhead forums. Always a joy to talk with through IRC or the super sekrit Premium e-mail address. He has this blog, too.
Corgan -- Corgan is a dick. Anyone who has been on #wowhead will know this. Be on his good side, though (I.e., Don't Be A Dick), and you find a cuddly owl who cares about the upper-tier content and cares about enabling people like me to get there. Hear that, Corgan? Your secret's out. Better start telling people to eat dicks again, or your reputation might start faltering.
Sarah (Noxychu) -- Has a hot voice (and I say that as someone who is used to hearing English voices anyway, so is not biased by the sexiness of British accents in general). She's also a Priest, and an extraordinarily talented artist -- and I hope that Blizzard takes note of her abilities sooner or later, because she would be a credit to their design department. She also keeps trying to get me play on the US servers. Not any time soon, I'm afraid, my dear. ;3

Priestlings

Euan (Primar) -- A retired Shadow Priest, through whom I was able to elbow my way into the Troupe of Superfluously Flamboyant Headwear where I now permanently reside. He now occasionally attempts to derail threads in the Priest section of Wowhead. I encourage him; he has a 100% success rate at derailment. Hilarious to listen to when drunk on Ventrilo. Always going AFK for more beer.
Paolo -- A Discipline Priest of whom I am a keen disciple, and with whom I have some kind of undefined rivalry. Day by day, I am slowly turning him British, while tapping him of all useful knowledge regarding the ways of the Bubble. Soon, Paolo, the student will become the Master. Of what, I'm not sure.
karlusdavius -- In the gold corner, representing Holy Priests. Wowhead's resident expert of the ways of CoH and Holy Contentration (or what we folks used to call OO5SR), and infrequent troll -- but he's toned that down a lot.
Patty132471 -- British, so I am biased to include him. An intelligent contributor to the forums, always worth reading.
Seneca -- At the time that Seneca actually started making himself known on the Priest boards, I was in my third year of Uni, and, coincidentally, part of my Latin course was to study three of Seneca's works. This I find amusing, though in no way significant of anything. Recently returned to the fold, and hopefully sticking around, Seneca is a fellow Shadow Priest, and Lord of Priest Memes. im shock.
Gwennevere -- Doesn't post often, which is a shame, because I always know to expect quality when I see the Rapture avatar.
kuinkitty -- A Paladin, regularly, but has recently entered the Disciples' fold and is doing rather well, from what I gather. A resident of #wowhead.
Astarael -- Another #wowhead resident, part of the little clique that Noxy, Euan, he and I share as Priests of IRC.

Other awesome folk:

Sihmm -- Also Chayah (ch-eye-ah ("ch" as in "loch")), Charles, or simply C. My GM. Very supportive, and willing to listen to far too many of the walls of text I throw his way.
Boubouille -- This guy requires no description. His website says it all.
Fáy -- A Shadow Priest on Shadowsong, with whom I enjoy talking about our buffs and nerfs. A hardcore 25-man raider.

If you're not on this list and you should be, then I'm very sorry for leaving you out, and I will remedy it as soon as you /glare at me.

Belated thanks.

It occurs to me that I never properly accredited my new blog design and layout, after my previous "I'm sorry for the mess" post.

Thanks must go to Zicon of Wowhead -- also Isolde of the fine 25-man casualcore raiding guild, Aurora, on Quel'thalas-EU; and Tone, to give her real name, which isn't pronounced at all like "Tuna" -- for painstakingly designing this new layout from scratch, after looking at the mess of HTML that comprises Blogspot's default layouts.

Kudos on your recent Heroic Beasts kill, Tone. May Aurora continue to thrive.

Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain.

Why is he climbing the mountain?

Wat.

Wat.

More 3.3.0 number-crunching.

Now. Once more, I'll deliver the disclaimer that this is still PTR stuff and it could all change. Additionally, I will say that my numbers are of a 10-man-heroic BiS list, and thus the numbers do not necessarily apply to any other gear set, above or below.

This is my BiS wishlist. I decided to have some Simcraft 3.3.0 fun with it. Firstly, I did some basic controls:

3.2.2 average DPS over 300-second fights, 10,000 iterations, full raid buffs: 7514
Scale Factors (Normalised):
Spirit: 0.35
Int: 0.23
Spellpower: 1
Hit: 1.45
Crit: 0.73
Haste: 0.69

3.3.0 average DPS, same conditions: 8726 DPS
Scale Factors (Normalised):
Spirit: 0.55
Int: 0.22
Spellpower: 1
Hit: 1.17
Crit: 0.74
Haste: 1.36

Then I started to have some fun with it. First test: Changing all "potent" gems to "Reckless":
8789 DPS
Scale Factors (Normalised):
Spirit: 0.56
Int: 0.23
Spellpower: 1
Hit: 1.25
Crit: 0.74
Haste: 1.31

Second test: Changing all "runed" gems and all "potent" gems to "Reckless":
8833 DPS
Scale Factors (Normalised):
Spirit: 0.55
Int: 0.20
Spellpower: 1
Hit: 1.28
Crit: 0.73
Haste: 1.14

Third test: Changing all yellow sockets to Quick King's Amber, and all red sockets to Reckless Ametrine:
8827 DPS
Scale Factors (Normalised):
Spirit: 0.56
Int: 0.20
Spellpower: 1
Hit: 1.14
Crit: 0.71
Haste: 1.09

So the third test took it too far -- as predicted in my previous post on the subject, socketing as many Quick gems as possible causes too much spellpower decay and the haste scaling loses its potency. There is something to be said for changing Potent to Reckless, but beyond that it starts getting a bit silly and expensive for not very much reward. And, besides, this is only tier 9 gear -- when patch 3.3 does hit, we'll be wanting to replace it all.

Huh. How about that.

So, it's early days on the PTR; thus, all things are subject to change. Buuuut ... I was curious about whether anyone had done any 3.3 Simcrafting, taking into account the haste changes.

Elitist Jerks, naturally, came through. The PP values of the current build, using 3.2.2 BiS T9 gear, and with 2/2 IST etc. etc., are:
Spellpower: 1 (Always)
Hit: 1.42 (No surprises here. Hit's always what you want)
Crit: 0.84 (Fairly consistent, really. It just naturally goes up as gear improves)
Spirit: 0.56 (Very consistent with the buffs to spirit. I guessed this precise number before I even saw it. For me, it would sit at 0.5 exactly because I don't run with 2/2 IST -- IST gives it a little extra push; just over 10%, as you see)
Int: 0.24
Haste: 1.31

Haste is better than Spellpower.

But don't all start gemming for it just yet. Early days, folks, early days. If these numbers do make it to Live, I would recommend exercising caution -- consider full Reckless gems rather than switching everything to Quick King's Amber. Scaling relies on all the stats available. The values above are from a full complement of BiS tier 9, gemmed optimally for 3.2.2 stats. In other words, all the slots apart from two would be gemmed pure spellpower. If you sink >200 spellpower and turn it all into haste, and then run the 20,000 Simcraft iterations again, you're going to get a much smaller gap between Spellpower and Haste: you'll speed up, but each thing you do will be doing less damage.

When MMO-Champion starts giving us enough data to build a Tier 10 BiS list, we'll be able to see the theoretical scaling values of a set with full Quick King's Amber versus one with full Reckless Ametrine or Runed Cardinal Ruby. My intuition tells me that Reckless will be the way to go, but time will tell.

About-face.

The chilling presence of the Frozen Throne deals Frost damage to all nearby enemies. Removes 1% of your health every 3 sec.

So, Blizzard, I heard you didn't want another Sunwell Radiance aura in future expansions, because it was a sign that you had screwed up some game mechanics. You put in diminishing returns on avoidance to ensure that this wouldn't have to happen.

So instead, you seem to think that healing is far too powerful, and that that deserves to be drained.

Fix your bloody game and stop being hypocrites.

In which I get Tailoring nerfed.

I apologise to all tailors. I just respecced Tailoring from JC. Blizzard will now nerf it, in line with their policy of breaking any profession I choose.

EDIT 1: (I can't sleep. As usual.)

EDIT 2: Oh god. 9g for a stack of Mageweave. Brickwall time! Fortunately I have lots of Runecloth stockpiled for the tailoring equivalent of the Thorium Sink.

EDIT 3: So apparently I don't actually need Mageweave at the level I learn how to Bolt it. Back to cheap silk. Yaaaay

EDIT 4: You can tell I planned this way in advance.

EDIT 5: Long craft times are the bane of my existence.

EDIT 6: Gee, Chris, do you want to guarantee these ten insignificant levels by using your overpriced Mageweave cloth, or will you take the ULTIMATE GAMBLE and risk losing TENS of silver by crafting YELLOW silk pantaloons?

EDIT 7: Why the hell do dyes stack in 10s if thread stacks in 20s?

EDIT 8: 225. Time for all the Mageweave to disappear magically.

EDIT 9: 250. Let's see what Runecloth I can scrounge up from my Death Knight.

EDIT 10: Ah. Runecloth Belt. My old friend.

ToGC. Healers: Tuonie, Chayah ... Sinespe?

You better believe it. I shelled out sixty emblems to pick up the Tier 9 healing Shoulders and Gloves, because I've had no luck getting the gloves from VoA, and I helped heal the first four bosses of Trial of the Grand Crusader, in my mix of off-spec-rolled healing pieces and just-happens-to-work-for-Disc-too DPS items. Ironically, I got no upgrades for my DPS set tonight, but I got three items (Belt, boots and ring) from ToC10N and Onyxia10 for my healing set. Know what I was doing in ToC10N and Onyxia10? DPSing.

Additionally, there's nothing quite like clearing ToC10N in 26 minutes and 30 seconds, including breaks.

Still wouldn't want to heal as a main, but it's nice to know I'm keeping myself fully up-to-date and competitive even in my offspec.

I have 12k HPS

And so can you.

I GOT THE BASTARD.

[13:30:21] [RL] [80 Shibba:1]: [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] roll
[13:30:24] Sinespe rolls 92 (1-100)

FUCK YOU, SARTHARION.

Urgh.

I'm ill. Whenever I get flu, my early warning sign is a sore throat. Sore throats happen to be the thing I hate most about illness. I can cope with the aches and the shakes just fine, and the loss of appetite isn't so much of a problem (thanks to Charlotte for sorting out that one: "Drink squash. Really strong. With lots of sugar. You'll trick your body into thinking you've eaten something and you'll get lots of glucose to fight the virus.").

I write the above paragraph as a warning that I might not be quite so lucid as I normally am, since I have something to respond to today. Yaaaaay.

Eoy now tells us that Ensidia has dropped him from regular raiding in ToGC25, out of reasons of efficiency. Naturally, one of those points of "Efficiency" is our "low DPS" compared to other classes. Which other classes? Mages and Warlocks are the two noted in his post. Those are pure DPS classes. Fair enough, a 2k discrepency is perhaps a tad higher than it should be, but those things could be fixed by nerfing damage done across the board rather than boosting Shadow Priest DPS, and comparing us with pure DPS classes has always been a silly thing to do. Nowhere in his post does he mention Elemental Shamans, Boomkins or Retribution Paladins. Now, why would that be ...?

As you know by now, I don't understand why people are complaining about our DPS. Primarily, this lack of understanding is because I do things like this (Note the lack of boomkin buffs). But let's talk about utility today, ladies and gentlemen. I'm willing to admit that our utility is not very exclusive, and I think it's a slight problem. I'm fine with Ret Pallies having Replenishment. Why? Because they're a hybrid DPS class. I'm fine with Frost Mages having Replenishment. Why? Because if you want to provide Replenishment as a Mage, you're going to be sacrificing some of your DPS in order to give it.

This brings us to Survival Hunters and Destruction Warlocks. Unlike the Frost tree for Mages, there is not such a huge loss of DPS by speccing Survival or Destro as opposed to Marksman or Demonology. Why should that be? They are pure DPS classes already, so why is their purity of DPS not tainted by picking up the extra utility?

But let's go back to the damage issue. Here's why I don't think it's very useful to say "omg buff us" (and, yes, as selfish as it is, it relates to my own situation). Let's take it as a fact that in 25-man cutting-edge content, Shadow Priests aren't performing well; but let's also take it as a fact that in 10-man cutting-edge content (where I currently am), Shadow Priests are performing well. What happens if you buff us based on the first fact alone? Our damage becomes overpowered in 10-man content. So what is Blizzard supposed to do? How can Shadow Priests be buffed for one raid setting without making us overpowered in another raid setting? Are we going to have to have a system whereby all abilities have a different base damage value depending on whether they're being used in a 10-player or a 25-player context? Would that not be something of an artificial solution to the problem?

And now I'm going to wander carelessly into the minefield of self-entitlement by saying this: cutting-edge content is not the only content there is. Or, rather, the "hardcore" attitude is not the only attitude in the game. Fancy Hat Club considers itself pretty hardcore in terms of our raiding ability, but I can't help but feel that guilds like Ensidia take this kind of stuff waaaay too far. If you're raiding in a guild where, as apparently is the case for Eoy, people are "Focus-geared" for the sake of "Efficiency", and where 2k DPS out of >100k RDPS matters that much, then, I'm afraid, you're not really in a setting that is representative of the game as a whole. "Bring the player, not the class" is the philosophy taken by Blizzard -- if Ensidia chooses not to follow that philosophy, do they not relinquish any claim to being representative? On their own heads be it, and I hope Eoy leaves Ensidia to find a guild that doesn't feel the need to min/max to such a minute level in order to rush through the content.

"Who's tanking?"

This question irritates me.

Specifically, this question irritates me when it comes from healers, in pugs. If you're a healer, presumably you have some kind of raid/party frame for, y'know, healing. Presumably this can be clicked to see a unit frame of the person you've selected. Presumably this unit frame tells you that person's current & total health. Total health is generally a good indication of whether someone's a tank or not.

If this is not the case, I'd love to know how you heal.