Managing the Priest

I have been writing a whole ton of posts, recently about death knights and tanking, so I decided to take a trip down a different road this morning. Most of you have probably noticed that my priest has been leveling up some and he has indeed been the focus of most of my gaming for the past week. The reason was simple, I had just finished the Tribute to Skill achievement and consciously decided to take a break for something totally different.

And what could be more different than playing a healer? A total opposite to what I usually play, however something I have always, as a tank, felt close to; a bond if you will, between those whom I keep safe and whom struggle and do their very best to not let me be squashed. Aye, never an easy task, but we make due ;)

Achn is actually a character that I have, since inception, been leveling with a partner, my real life partner in fact. Anyone who has not tried it, have my recommendation, for it is a match made in heaven. Her human paladin tanks for me, while I heal and dps for her. I started out all out in holy spec, for I wanted to get to know the class from a healer's point of view. But now, after we have crossed the level 60 threshold, I have moved to two specs; shadow and disc.

I use the shadow spec for our quest marathons, for it is a minor inconvenience for me to occasionally heal her, while doing extra dps to get the mobs down quicker. When going to instances, like the Hellfire Citadel dungeons that we have recently been nearly farming for gear (I know, it is not sexy to care about gear when leveling, but bite me), I will of course go disc.

Why the change from holy to disc? My own personal choice tbh, but I did not very much enjoy the constant threat of ooming as holy. Also, after simply trying disc, with my mana problem removed, I fell in love just the style in which we heal. However, juggling these specs and getting some real healing experience as a level 59 in Hellfire Ramparts, I began to question some of the addons I was using, or rather, the lack of proper ones.

First of all, a proper cast bar. There is no question about it and the only viable option I managed to find was Quartz. There is almost no contest; Quartz is highly configurable and has the most efficient features.

The second a must have addon is ForteXorcist. This is a massive addon, centering around the idea of micro managing all the small whistles that most classes have. These include shards and healthstones for warlocks, cooldowns, spell timers, messages, and so on. The list is almost endless and configuring this mammoth can easily seem daunting. However, it is a lot less complicated than it seems and it truly is invaluable.

The main feature I use for my priest, is the spell timers. I could not possibly live without them, especially in shadow spec, which relies on the exact management of dots on the target to produce quality dps. Xorcist shows me all the spells I have cast on the target, in easy to read rundown bars, with timers.

For my discipline spec, I use the spell timers to keep an eye on my Power Word: Shield and Weakened Soul debuff. Before you say that I can also manage the same by watching the debuff frame, yes, I know and that is what I did before. However, at least in my minimalist UI, the frame is tiny and watching the debuff tick around clock-wise is not very optimal.

Third, but not least, is a reliable way to track your Prayer of Mending. This is actually something I have yet to test, for I will not be able to learn the spell itself until level 68. However, it is something to think and prepare for. One options that I have heard a lot of good about is PoM Tracker; I love the simplicity and that it will be yet one more feature on my screen that will not take a lot of space. Also, what I read is that is a lot more reliable than many of its competitors. For one, it does not get confused by multiple prayers.

That is all for the moment. I would consider the three above mentioned addons crucial to any priest and high recommend you have a look at them, if you have not yet done so.

Good luck and enjoy.

UI Makeover

Inspired by my fellow World of Warcraft players, I decided to take on it once more and redo my UI. I was mainly intrigued by the popular addon Kgpanels and I wanted to make look really unique - something I had never had before. I must say I am quite pleased with the look. It still has same sense of minilism that I enjoy but also looks really nice.

I had already previously moved from Pitbull 3 to Pitbull 4, after I got fed up with the clunky configuration and just outright anarchy that resides inside the addon. The new pitbull has succeeded in streamlining the layout much more with a lot less chaos than its earlier incarnation.

Aside from Kgpanels, I also added SLDataText to replace the uncomfortable Fubar texts, as well as to compensate for the lack of a microbar, so I can always see my latency, memory usage, and frame rate. The last newcomer is caelNamePlates for prettier nameplates, however I am not complete satisfied with it. The plates tend to crowd and blow the view.

Esthetically, I have separated the public channels into their own chat window on the right. The minimap addon is still the same, Sexymap, however I did consequently change to a more prudent skin.

For a view of my older UI, feel free to read up on Rhin's User Interface. Promise though, it like a monkey's ass compared to this one.

For future features, I will most likely experiment for a proper castbar addon, such as maybe Quartz and Aloft for a better nameplates.

Achn of the Holy Light

The time has come, yet again, to begin leveling a lower level. Nothing sounds less pleasing however, to once more be in the shoes of a weakling, before even my first mount and scratching together gear from quests and the few instances that you get a group for. I am in a slightly better position though, since I am leveling a holy priest; pretty much guaranteeing me a spot in any group.

But still, the numbness of reaching my level 80 on Durithim is still fresh in my memory, so I will opt a different method to rising up the ladders; instances. When running solo, quests are the single best way to level with reletive speed, but if you have a dedicated group, running instances is not only quicker but also more interesting. At least for me, since I have already seen most what the game has to offer between the level 1-80.

I am bring my girlfriend along to the Blade Edge for this purpose. As she takes the responsibility of tanking, I will begin to practice on healing, and for the other roles we are getting three dps terrors from Retribution itself. So it is us five low levels versus the world.

The poor world doesn't stand a chance.

The evening today has passed nicely in modifying my UI again. This time for the purpose of my healer, which calls for some additional pieces of software. Most important of these, of course, is Healbot. Aye, some can argue that it is not necessary for effective play but I found it very useful when last I played on my priest; the ability to point click all my healing spells and saving keyboard bindings for other tasks is extremely precious.

I also installed FuBar for more additional functionality and made modifications to my action buttons, since I have less of them on my priest than death knight. For scrutiny and pleasure of the eye, here is the latest screenshot.

Rhin's User Interface

It has taken a couple of days of testing but I am finally getting it the way I like it. I have long watched some good looking UIs on discussion boards, wowinterface, etc. and even tried a few downloadable ones out. But they never quite sat well with me. They may have had bugs, obsolete addons, or just had glitches in the outlook.

One I used extensively was SpartanUI and it met most of my needs. However, as time passed the small misgivings in the UI began to stand out and it was time to change. The big, persisting issue with SpartanUI was its slow development process. Bugs and updates to WoW weren't getting upgraded quick enough.

Thus I dumped it and for a month, went back to using WoW's base UI. The only issue with that really is that it begins to clutter very quickly. Action bars take loads of space, everything tends to be huge, and there is very little configurable options. One of the real holes is the key binding, which has to be the most unintuitive in the history of software.

I wanted a change and now after 3.1.1 patch, I began to download pieces for my new UI. To be honest, I did not have any particular master plan. I knew about how I wished to lay it out and just went for it.

So, here is the result.

 

It is all very straightforward. I used Bartender for the action bars and key bindings. I tried several unit frames but none really sat well and finally I settled for Perl. It is clean, easy to configure, and has a lot of options to use. Sadly I could not find a buff frame mod for Perl so chose Satrina's BuffFrame. Last but not least, Sexymap for a cool outlook for my map.

There are still some issues I need to work out. The unitframes still take a lot of space and I am hoping Grid will help me out on that. Also it is missing the reputation and experience bars, as well as Fubar or Titanpanel to finish it all up.

The whole idea is to keep it as minimal as possible. I am a tank, usually a busy one so I like to see as much as possible around me. Beyond that, it just needs to look pleasing and provide the entertainment. For anyone who is interested in this kind of tweaking, I highly recommend it. It is fun and it will improve your UI without the shadow of a doubt.

That's it for now. I will keep you guys updated on the progress.