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Google makes rich richer, poor poorer in search results
If you've been paying attention to the state of search as of late, you'll know that Google's between a proverbial rock and hard place right now. Some individuals and companies claim Mountain View's beloved search engine is losing to the spammers, squatters, scrapers and content farms by failing to weed them from the system -- though you can now do that on your own -- while others say it's squashing the little guy by unfairly downranking competitors in search results. We're not sure if either is truly the case, the company's made a mildly controversial move this week: it's tweaked the search algorithms to "reduce rankings for low-quality sites," and "provide better rankings for high-quality" ones. As ever, Mountain View's not talking about what that change mathematically entails, though it says about 11.8 percent of queries will be affected as a result. In short: some will be happy, some sad, some angry, and many won't notice at all.
Spiritual Guidance: Everything you ever wanted to know about raid healing at level 80
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus offers his opinion and experience on raid healing at level 80. Find out about how Matt manages his mana, his take on whether Priests really are "useless", skills needed to thrive, and just how hard it is to heal tanks. When I write blog posts about Priests, I don't like to rely on speculation. I am certain there are many Priests (other healers even) who want to know what the next age of Wrath healing will look like. I am not a Shaman, a Paladin, or a Druid; therefore, I cannot speak from their perspectives but I have seen them in action. I am not a theorycrafter. I can't break everything down into numbers for you. There have been a few blue posts asking for healer feedback and maybe this post can offer some insight.That being said, this post is drawn from my experiences as a healer in both normal (10 man) and heroic (25 man) versions of Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum. I won't tell you what I think should get nerfed or buffed; I will, however, tell you how I coped with the challenges that the expansion brought forth.
100 amazing Mage tricks
If you're a Mage, this thread from the EU forums is definitely worth a read-- it's based on a Warlock tips thread (which I looked around for but couldn't find-- if you see it, let me know and I'll link it up for the locks) that basically ran down 100 basic and advanced tips for players of that class.If you're a super advanced Mage, you probably already know most of this stuff. The basics are here for sure-- use Blink judiciously to move in an out of range, use Sheep to interrupt casters, and downrank utility spells in PvP. But there's some other interesting things here as well-- I play a Shaman, and my first step when fighting mages (well, right after Grounding Totem) is to Purge all those buffs off. So casting Ice Barrier during my spellcast is ingenious-- either I have to interrupt to purge, or just let the barrier eat the damage.Especially for beginner mages, this stuff is gold. If you're in the mood for tips on how to make your mage better, check it out for sure.Update: Here's the Warlock thread. Thanks to everyone who sent it to me. Also, apparently the Warlock thread was based on a Warrior tricks thread. Anyone seen that one?
Spell damage bonuses and the Burning Crusade
While I say "spell damage," this is more often an issue you'll see in healing rather than damage dealing. What am I talking about, you ask? Down-ranking spells. Most healers who have hit the end-game understand that, with massive amounts of +healing on their gear, they can use lesser ranked healing spells to heal the necessary amount with a low mana cost -- giving great mana efficiency. (Damage dealers, alternatively, tend to stick to their max rank spells for best damage output.)However, in the Burning Crusade, all this will be changing: spell damage and healing will be applied differently to lower level spells than max rank ones. The standard +damage and healing bonus will be multiplied by ((spell level) + 6)/(player level). (Based on the explanation given, I assume that the spell level is the level you get the next rank spell, but read into it what you will.) There's already outcry amongst the healing classes, who say that downranking is necessary to conserve mana throughout some of the game's long boss encounters -- and that this change will simply force them to use mana potions every time the 2 minute cooldown is up. I, however, am trying to reserve apocalyptic judgments until we've gotten a better feel for how this change will play with expansion encounters.
