Heroics, love them or hate them they are without doubt the big topic of the moment. There is very little middle ground and it is the cause of lots of emotional outbursts in the SKF /g channel.

What I have noticed though is that the 2 camps are adamant that their view is correct and their belief is based on one thing. My take on this magic factor is unlike most theories I have seen paraded around the WoW blogosphere it is not dependant on the skill of the player, the class they play or indeed how hardcore or casual they are.
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Everyone knows that Cataclysm Heroics are not the faceroll that heroics were in Wrath.However, it is still possible to run any dungeon quickly and efficiently. The trouble that most people are having is because the Wrath method of achieving this goal is currently not viable and the method I am about to layout would have slowed down groups in Wrath. There are also some changes people need to make in the way they play and the abilities they use.
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Apologies for this post but it was a rapid replacement of the one planned. Last night was one of the proudest moments of my WoW raiding life. In only our 4th real night of attempts on Magmaw, Saturday Knight Fever killed him. The only better moments I can recall were my first kills on Nefarian, Gruul and Lich King. Sure for most progression raiders we're weeks behind but the point is we're not elite raiders we're a bunch of regular folks attempting content we're not really ready for.

Let me explain, our designated MT was healing, one of our top DPS was healing and 2 of our healers were DPSing. Confused? Well we took 2 pally tanks, a retadin, 2 DPS warriors, a resto druid, a resto shammy, a disc priest (me), a mage and a warlock into the fight and the Lava Worms were never gonna die quick enough with only 2 ranged DPS on them, sometimes you have to go with what you've got and use that off spec or respec entirely.


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This week has been a bit strange for me, not enough WoW time due to family visits, although to be honest I felt better for it and will probably take more breaks especially as I'm pretty happy with Evlyxx's gear levels right now.

However, the week has not been without some postworthy incidents. firstly I decided I had slacked enough and really should finish off the Deepholm quests and get my rep up with Therazane so I could get the latest and greatest shoulder enchant. I had been putting this off because while I am a bit of a rep junkie I don't like being forced into grinding for it.

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Duane has decided he hates Cataclysm.

Back in Wrath Duane loved Warcraft and has always been a bit of an instance junkie. He did change his main from the DPS God class of the week to the OP pally tank. Now to be fair, Duane was a really good mage and like myself just got bored of raiding on a mage because the rotation as arcane was the old 1,1,1,2 that you could macro so you could watch TV and raid, another guildie did this one ICC raid and let his 4 year old play while he was on the phone one a Lady Deathwhisper kill and still out DPS'd 6 others. He wasn't so good on his paladin at first but with practice and some gear he became a reasonable, if occassionally reckless tank who did specialise in chain pulling and actively encouraged the AoEing down of vast numbers of mobsvast numbers.

When Cataclysm launched, Duane levelled his paladin furiously capped mining and blacksmithing real quick and was 85 before most of us. We finally caught him up and went instancing and had a few teething troubles on the normal mode 85 dungeons because Duane didn't like CC as it slowed us down and refused to accept that slow steady progress was actually quicker than recovering from a chaotic pull.
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The guys and girls of Saturday Knight Fever ventured out this week with our first night of raiding in Cataclysm. OK we did visit Blackwing Descent on December 14th and got our collective asses handed to us as we failed to kill more than a single trash mob and Magmaw, he did lol at us as we ran away with our tails firmly between our legs.

But more than that I have been shown a harsh lesson, one that I've been expecting if I'm honest but it still caught me of guard. My step down from serious progression raid guild to a fun and friendly guild that has some people who want to raid has left me with a group that values their time more than the purple pixels dropped by slain Internet dragons.

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One of the refreshing things about Cataclysm is the return to life of the capital cities. I remember the days of "unknown entity" in Ironforge in Vanilla and the lag that was also in Shattrath. But with Wrath we were assured that the no fly zone would help prevent the lag in Dalaran.

Sadly even Dalaran was way too small to play host to all the citizens of Azeroth without causing major lag for most people at all times of the day and particularly around late afternoon/early evening rush hour. So bad was the issue that Blizzard had to change its plans for the Argent Tournament to be hosted in the Crystalsong Forest and relocated it to northern Icecrown (did you wonder why the pre-Qs were in Crystalsong?)
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Happy 2011 to you all, a New Year and a new expansion (well it is less than 1 month old) and I'm full of hope for a cracking year in Warcraft and my plan is to bring you my news of what it is like playing a priest in Cataclysm on these very pages. I can't promise much in the way of theorycrafting but when anything noteworthy happens in game to Evlyxx, I'll post it here and my aim is for this to be done regularly each Wednesday and Saturday, there maybe times when I post additional "newsflash" type things in addition to the standard posts and today is one such post. I'd love your feedback so please leave a comment.

During a recent guild Heroic Blackrock Caverns run, I had an epithany moment. I was running with a group that was 2 pallies and 2 warlocks. The crowd control was good and on trash I was being under utilised as a healer and decided to help speed up the trash clearing by actually using my Atonement build (33/6/2) and smiting the main target.
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With 2010 drawing to an end I thought I'd take a look back at the year's highs and lows. From changing guilds, to killing the Lich King suffering ISP issues and more guild drama 2010 has bee a strange year. I have had great times and bad times, happy days and sad days but I've never regretted anything I have done and have become better as a person out of game as well as in game because of it.
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Making gold in Cataclysm has not been hard you herb, mine or skin and post your daily gatherings on the AH right? Sure its one way and I did this on day 1 and made a lot of gold in the process. But I'm not one for stating the obvious.

Great success has also been had with Netherweave Bags, my poor old mage has been crafting literally hundreds of bags to keep up with the increased demand over the holiday period and at 7g profit per bag its a handsome profit. My scribe too has found excellent sales with glyphs  of around 2,000g per day. But the best ROI (both gold and time) has been something different and rather unexpected.

I took 50 Volatile Life, 12 Cinderbloom, 12 Azshara's Veil and 12 Heartblossom and ended up with 3000g profit but to take advantage you must be an alchemist and an enchanter.

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Cork, our resto druid in Halls of Origination, yes they let me DPS sometimes too

Blizzard seem to have the healing thing rightish but not perfect, The main flaw is my heal size compared to tank health pool and the damage coming in, it simply is not in balance. Lets define a few things here. 

Blizzards goal: Healing should not be a spamfest but rather a triage approach;

Tank HP: 150,000

Stad Boss damage: 25,000 every 2 seconds

Heal = my econo heal: 8,000 every 2.3 seconds

Flash Heal = my fast heal: 17,000 every 1.4 seconds

Greater Heal = my big heal: 22,000 every 2.3 seconds

Renew = my HoT: 3,000 every 3 secondsm

Power Word: Shield: absorbs 10,000 damage every 15 seconds;

Prayer of Mending: a heal in advance approx 5,000 every 6 seconds

To cope with the incoming damage there are 3 choices:

1) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and spam my heal;

2) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and my hit the tank with a Greater Heal when his HP needs topping up;

3) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank, spam my heal and throw in a Flash Heal or Greater Heal depending on the speed I need to play catch up;

All 3 are viable solutions but they all rely on DPS either not taking damage or applying self heals and either the tank avoiding a lot of damage and applying some self heals and if 3 is applied I end up out of mana real quick and even using potions, the Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend really provide very little returns. Although I did /cheer when the mana regen hotfix got applied on December 15th and it did make a noticeable difference.

The big point for me though is that I am having to throw out a heal every Global Cooldown (GCD) which goes against the Blizzard goal. To add to the frustration any movement I need to make is a huge risk as it is a few GCDs without heals going out to either the tank or the DPS and either the fight mechanics are designed really intelligently or I'm on the end of bad luck as the times I always need to move are those clutch situations where I really need to be casting big heals.

The major plus point for me is that I have become a better healer and begun to blow cooldowns Pain Suppression, Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope much more freely than ever before. Well I was always liberal in my use of pain suppression but never the hymns.

Also, the guys from SKF have begun to realise that I will let them die if it is a choice between them or the tank and have begun to move faster from the fires or using any self heal abilities. 2 weeks ago I was offended when Dixxie, my pally tank (yes he belongs to me not the guild) was healing himself with his Word of Glory as I took it as a failure on my part, now I love it and treat it as an intelligent "oh shit" feature.

All told the new heroics are just that, heroic. They are really like 5 man raids and for that Blizzard must be applauded. The players that want to get better will get better by running these heroics and those that QQ about them being to tough, to long and needing too much strategy will either quit or just get by running normals until their gear is maxed out with 333 loot, rep rewards upto 359 and all the heroic badge gear their class can get from Justice Points that they are able to pug heroics at a reasonable pace. 

Finally a plea to Blizzard, please, please, please do not nerf these heroics not now, not ever. Infact, when the next tier of raiding comes out could you buff them so the mobs hit a little harder and have more HP so we don't start over gearing them.

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Go me, I did ding 85 and yes I still had my T10 robes (although all other epics had gone /cry)

Well the first 3 weeks of Cataclysm have passed and it is really about time I started to talk about it I guess. I have been very busy playing and have had some time off work but now the main buzz has settled.

I did not do the mad zerg to 85 many friends and guildies did, day 1 was spent farming ore and herbs on my druid to fund my profession levelling and I managed to get him to 82 just doing the farming piece. Days 2 and 3 were spent gathering, levelling professions and levelling Evlyxx through quests and dungeons. Healing the Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Caverns present no real challenge but they did show signs of advanced strategy and that is only good for us all.

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Not very Christmasy I know but they make such a nice couple

A very quick post this fine Christmas morning to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

I'd also like to offer my apologies for lack of posts since early December with work and Cataclysm filling most of my free time I have neglected things a lot. Over the next few weeks I'll be bringing all the updates that I should have posted then and more.

Have fun and don't eat too much turkey or drink to much wine.

Evlyxx. more »

Tonight the boys and girls from All about Beer, the guild of friends that I house my 'lock with managed to kill the Lich King. Sure, to many this is no real achievement, but for a small group of very casual folks its a big deal and it was done in gear that would qualify us as a strict 10 man group and many people don't get to do that.

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