Healer Proving Grounds

Last night, I wanted to see how far I could make it in the Proving Grounds. I was actually surprised on how easy it was to reach Silver.

As a healer, you run with a heroic dungeon group (tank + rogue, mage and hunter). Adds continuously appear immediately after the last (based on timer) and you have little to zero time to regenerate mana. Your goal is to keep everyone alive. WoWhead has a decent write up about the healer scenarios.

Things I noticed.

1. Vuhdo does not recognize the scenario tank as a tank. Not bad, but annoying because I like to use this different window to throw the Prayer of Mending frisbee at. 
2. Bronze is rather easy. Did it in my first pass as Discipline. Silver included a couple AOE options that require mitigation. I found myself throwing Pain Suppression on the tank when he got really bad. 
3. Mana was always an issue. I had to make sure my pet was ready for the mana regen. 

Gold has been impossible to complete so far. Reading WoWhead, it appears that an interrupt is necessary to avoid the Sonic Blast damage.

Silver-Thread Regalia

I've been tired of the way my PVP outfit looks lately. Really wanting to find a different top to fit in more with the 'ninja' look, I found and picked up the Silver-Thread Armor piece off the auction house.

I liked the look of this piece so much, that I have started acquiring other pieces of the entire set as I find them. I have a bid on a set of boots (or found I can probably make similar), already have the cuffs and the cloak. What I really want last is those pants. Unfortunately, they have a really, really low drop rate (0.3%) in Scarlet Monastery or Gnomeregan.

Off to run over and kill everything in SM:Graveyard, one more time.

Shared Topic - Hardmode / Heroic PVP

“Why not have ‘hardmode’ pvp matches? More difficult goals and the like you can sign up for?” (source)

Interesting idea. A queue-able BG that would allow me to take on harder opponents, maybe in a more complex environment and possibly have better rewards. Now that I have a good portion of my Cataclysmic Gladiator set (ilevel 393), I think this would be a lot of fun.

1. With greater requirements, comes greater dedication. Heroic PVP is going to have less trolls. If the iLevel requirement is set high enough, there are going to be less people that don't know what they are doing. Less people standing in the middle of Eye fighting over the flag when absolutely no bases are guarded. The number of people running around with Kid's Week orphans will be dramatically less. 
2. Complexity breeds excitement. Now, Tol Barad was a great concept. Complex PVP environment that required the teams to work together to effectively overthrow the incumbent. Sadly it was an open environment that encouraged everyone to participate because for some classes the rewards being BIS gear. This was unfortunately too complex for the average pug. It required that a majority of the players effectively know what they need to do and where to be. As time went on, puggers stop showing up and Blizz simplified the requirements, the ownership of TB changed more often. If Blizzard could have kept a version of TB exclusive to those that have the gear level, this could have been more successful when implemented. Maybe add features like having NPCs that work with you. Recruit a tank or healer if you want to go DPS. 
3. Greater rewards encourage participation. This year I am participating in a 3s arena team. Unfortunately due to timezone differences, we've only been able to meet about 5 or 6 times. The best reasons for participating in arenas, are 1) faster acquisition of conquest points, 2) heroic level arena gear and 3) cool titles that you can't get anywhere else. Unfortunately, if you're in my situation, the team is unable to meet unless I stay home sick, or don't go to work. 

Personally, I love the idea. This is what I thought Rated Battlegrounds were going to be when first mentioned in Cata. Unfortunately, it turned into a guild activity and I appear to be in the wrong guild for it.  Heres to hoping for changes in MoP to open up more opportunities for PVP.

Fun Site for Disc Priest in PVP

Facebook made a recommendation to me today that I found really interesting. The Heal Over Time blog by LilPeanut has some great posts on Disc PVP/ Arena and game awareness. You can see all her drawings via her Blog or her Flickr Stream.

Go Mog Myself - Admiral's Hat

I was just reading Poneria's blog post about her taking pictures for her Go Mog Yourself post. On GMY, they have various authors posting about their current transmogrification projects and why they developed them. I've mentioned my little mog set for my PVP set, where I try to look less healie and more melee in bgs. This seems have had a decent effect in that usually I am left alone when defending a flag.

For my raid set, I wanted something completely different. I wanted to be able to plop into a dungeon or raid and know that I wasn't running the wrong set. It was skimming the auction house, that I spotted the Admiral's hat. I immediately bought it up and started working on a matching set.

Thematically, I am looking for:

Admiral's Hat

1. Strikingly different than my PVP set. Gown / dress ok
2. Blue with Gold accents to match the theme of the hat.
3. Regal looking. I looked and there isn't necessarily a set to go with the hat. Not going to wear the Pirate Shirt along with my Navy hat. 

With those basic thematic ideas, I started skimming the auction house and my tailoring patterns to see what I had. These are the visible items that I started off with:

• Head - Admiral's Hat - Tailoring pattern - vendor
• Chest - Royal Gown - Scholomance drop (found on AH)
• Back - Spidersilk Drape - Tailoring pattern, trainable
• Shoulders - Mystical Mantle - U'goro crater drop. I am not in love with these shoulders yet. I've tried a different model, but this one seems to fit the theme better. (see pic). 
• Belt - Serenity Belt - Blackrock drop 
• Hands - Brightcloth Gloves - Tailoring pattern, trainable

I don't worry about my legs, feet or wrists; they are not visible. I had mog'd my off-hand recently so that I wasn't carrying around a skull popcicle. The Shadow Council Orb has  a nice spell effect where a yellow sparkly spins around it. I think the blueish color with yellow glow is a nice effect. 

Overall, I am happy with the total outfit. I wish that it didn't crop off my pony-tail, but that is the hat's fault. It does create a wee bit of a stir when I first drop into a dungeon/raid as people check out the stats on the healer in iLevel 48 gear models. (Yes, I see you all targeting me in my Vudo panel. I'll pop a shield on you, just so you know, I know.)

Satchel of exotic wtf?

The other night I saw the call to arms healer popped. My arena partner just signed off and I was up for a little random adventure. Top it off, they were offering that big sack of promised goodies.

Sadly, the cataclysm heroic dungeon I got was zul'gurub. IMHO, one of the worst dungeons that could pop. I stuck with it until absolutely there was no more people in the party. 90g in repairs and nothing.

So, glutton for punishement, when it pops up again, I hop on. ZG again. Another crowd that has never done the dungeon. First boss, tank dies quickly but I manage for 5 minutes to keep a rogue alive as he kills the boss. "Cool! You two should do 2s arena." Had to laugh. We proceed through the dungeon at a fairly even pace. A few more wipes as people learn the fights.

Finish off the last boss, grab my satchel of goodies!! and then peek inside anticipating wonderous, glorious, treasures. Ok gold... 24gold!! AND 2 HEALING pots. Healer got 2 mythical healing pots. Same potion that any alchemist can make with 1 twilight jasmine. I was really expecting, I dunno, a pet, some cool weapon, maybe a vanity pair of socks. Nope, not even enough gold and goodies to pay for my repairs.

I am really not sure if the call is going to be heard again. I can get 150 valor without the bills.

23 fights and still no rating... :(

My arena team is just starting back up. We've had a tough time meeting up this season. He's East Coast, I am on West. I don't logon most nights til after 9PM, so an early midnight for him. 

We've managed to run 23 fights so far, but still no rating. The issue being, so far we get a lot of random fights. Sometimes it's less geared people, but often it's been better. The other night, we hit a run (6 times) of melee dps ( several dk/pally or pally/rogue). When they focus on me, in cloth, I am a goner and quick. No amount of shields, or druid cc's is going to keep me alive for long.  I remember one fight, just constantly dropping renew, and running to keep dispels off us. My main job was to keep Nine not cc'd down. 

Ninebreaker is really good, I'll have to say. I feel that I am riding along on his coat-tails this season. (Check out his body-builder transmog pvp set).

When we do get in the arena with pally's, I am now supposed to throw more Mass Dispel around. The plan is to clear off some protective buff they have.. He says the pally-angel(?) is a buff.. :)

Hope to catch up with him again later this week and get those last 2 wins. Then at least we'll have a rating and can correctly get placed with similar rated teams.