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15 tips for brand new healers
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. So you're ready to venture into the thankless realm of healing? It's not for the faint of heart. You will be begged to heal an instance you hate and blamed for deaths that aren't your fault, only to lose gear upgrades to DPS -- all in the same run! On the other hand, healing can be a nice diversion from faceroll macro-mashing, and it's definitely nice to have instant dungeon queues. Whether you're changing specs at level 80 to help your guild progression, stepping into The Deadmines as a level 18 healer or twinking out a battleground medic -- here are some helpful hints as you prepare to make those health bars greener.
Blu-ray Discs expand to 128GB under new BDXL spec
This probably isn't a response to the 3D onslaught or even "superbit" releases like the upcoming Avatar 2D disc, but just in case the standard 50GB Blu-ray discs were beginning to feel a bit -- how do you say... cramped? -- the Blu-ray Disc Association's rolling out a new BDXL format capable of holding up to 128GB (write-once) or 100GB (rewriteable). Before you get too excited, you should know that you'll need a new player to access these -- even a firmware update won't save the PS3 this time -- since they go up to three or four layers deep and will likely need a more powerful laser. While our home movies can be compressed just fine, corporations currently still using other mediums for archiving might appreciate the extra space, as well as the new IH-BD discs, designed with one 25GB read-only layer, and one 25GB rewritable layer on the same platter. If you're looking for a place to permanently back up that super high-res "amateur photography," take heart -- a consumer version is in the works, though it will first be aimed at markets where Blu-ray Disc recorders are popular, or available at all (read: maybe Japan, definitely not the US). No word when the new hardware will actually hit the market, but final specs are due "in the next few months." In the meantime, check out the full details after the break.
The Light and How to Swing It: Resources to be the best in retribution
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. At least, he usually does. But Gregg is still pre-occupied. Therefore, Matt Low from World of Matticus will be stepping in temporarily to handle some retribution goodness! Yeah, you're stuck with me again this week and if you haven't figured it out yet, I am the world's worst ret paladin. So why am I here penning this post? Because I am on a quest. Yes, friends, I am on a quest to be the best ret paladin ever. Now am I going to succeed? Probably not. It's hard to become super awesome on a character that isn't played as often. It is an alt, after all. Now if I don't want to suck as a retribution paladin, where would I go first?
HDMI 1.4a spec released in full, lays down mandatory 3D format support details
That the HDMI 1.4 spec would need some tweaking to ease compatibility between old upgraded set top boxes delivering 3DTV, Blu-ray 3D, receivers and displays was already established and today the full information has been released to all HDMI Adopters. Firmly implemented are the mandatory formats devices will need to interpret with displays required to support all mandatory formats, repeaters able to pass through all of them, and sources must support at least one. That certainly doesn't stop older HDMI 1.3 labeled equipment from delivering a Full HD 3D experience, as long as they're able to upgrade to compatible signaling. As HDGuru explains, the main potential hangup is in the audio receiver, as older ones without 3D passthrough capability may not be able to interpret 3D signals, and can't be upgraded to interpret it requiring a workaround like Panasonic's upcoming dual HDMI packing Blu-ray player. Whether it's "frame packing" (sequential) in 1080p/24Hz for movies or 720p/60Hz for games, and either side-by-side horizontal at 1080i/60Hz or top-bottom compressed 720p/60Hz and 1080p/24Hz for TV the new updates to the spec just ensure everyone is speaking the same language going forward. We haven't heard of any looming compatibility issues for 3DTV devices but until it gets in someone's home and the cables are plugged in we're sure some will still have doubts.
CompactFlash 5.0 specification promises faster speeds, crazy 'theoretical' storage
If there's one thing that sounds more impressive than actual capabilities, it's theoretical capabilities -- and it looks like the CompactFlash Association has come through on both counts with its new CF5.0 specifications. While any actual cards or cameras supporting the spec are still a ways off, the new standard does pave the way for 48-bit addressing (up from 28-bit), along with an increased data transfer unit size of 32MB/s (up from 128KB/s) and, best of all, a theoretical maximum capacity of 144 petabytes (up from a mere 137GB with the current spec). Other advancements include a so-called "Video Performance Guarantee" aimed at professional video cameras, and a new Interface Electrical Specification that complies better with the ATA standard, and promises to allow for "easier and better" card design.
Drama Mamas: At what price perfection?
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. At what point does the perfectly optimized spec, spell rotation or gear set (for the sake of the guild) take precedence over a spec, spells or gear you simply prefer (for the sake of enjoyment)? Be off with your trollish, black-and-white responses! The Drama Mamas favor neither the airy-fairy, let's-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya crowd nor the hard-nosed, theorycrafting progression rockets. You can hypothesize about what people should do 'til the Beast Mastery pets come home -- but unless you're talking about specific people in specific guilds with specific goals, you're just another victim of the Pack mentality. We'll explain why and show you how to find the line between optimizing for performance and optimizing for fun. Dear Drama Mamas: Our raid is working on ICC-25. We've done a few hard modes in TOC, back before ICC came out, so we aren't completely terrible. We've cleared everything except for Putricide, the Blood Queen, and the Frostwing Halls. However, my guild leader is noticing more and more that our DPS is falling behind and that a few players are making choices about their characters that are ... well, "not optimal." These include a fire mage who isn't too interested in respeccing Arcane, a shadow priest who's still falling behind even after the buffs, and a holy priest who plays well but makes some odd talent choices. We keep hitting DPS walls on Putricide and of course the Blood Queen, which is definitely a DPS race. We value the players as much as downed content; however, it would be nice if we didn't have to wait until we overgeared the fight to be able to clear it. What would be the best way to encourage players to retool their specs, gear and playstyles, in the most fair and personable way possible? Thanks, Theorycrafter
HDMI 1.4 spec getting freshened up in preparation for broadcast 3D
The drumbeat for HD 3D continues to pick up the pace, and with broadcasters around the globe pushing forward 2010 plans to bring 3D home HDMI has updated the course of its latest 1.4 spec to ensure compatibility between displays and boxes. Quite simply, existing cable and satellite hardware isn't going to be held to the same requirements as Blu-ray and videogame equipment rocking the 3D sticker and expecting compatibility with displays on the way, since they won't be passing the same high quality, high bandwidth dual-stream 1080p images anyway. Additionally, some broadcasters are pushing for HDMI to officially support "Top/Bottom" 3D transmissions they plan to use, which sacrifice resolution while saving bandwidth by shoving left/right images into a single frame. While that should add an entirely new angle to the line counting and claims of "HDLite" (get ready for 3DLite) all viewers can do is wait to hear when or if their hardware will get a software upgrade to 3D (like the one we expect will allow the PS3 to play 3D Blu-ray discs) in the months and years to come, once there's a standard everyone can adhere to of course.
Blood Sport: Beginner's guide to arena, part II
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column. Listening Music: The cutest kid you've ever seen covering Jason Mraz. Blood Sport normally features the musical works of professionals. For this little guy, we have to make an exception. My favorite part is right before the first verse. I love the intense scrunched face and little head nod. I dare you to find anything even half as cute. That video of a tickled kitten has nothing on this. Last Week: part one of our beginner's arena guide. First, we fielded a possible complaint about catering to casuals. After that, we talked a little bit about some of the best ways to gear up: finding an arena team, doing battlegrounds, and running Vault of Archavon. Check it out if you have the time. This week, we'll talk about some frequently asked questions players have when considering jumping into the arena. Read on for part two of our arena guide for beginners after the break!
Patch 3.3 PTR: Shadow Word: Pain not affected by haste
We heard a little while back from Ghostcrawler that haste would soon affect Heal-over-Time (HoT) and Damage-over-Time (DoT) spells, and sure enough, soon after that, Shadow Priests -- who use DoTs all the time -- saw a nice buff. But of course this is the PTR, and everything is subject to change, and so last weekend, Blizzard removed Shadow Word: Pain from that equation -- right now, it's not affected by haste at all. GC says that sure enough, Blizzard thought shadow priest DPS was too high with all of their DoTs given a boost, so SW:P got the boot (for now -- remember, this is all still on PTR). Misery, my go-to shadow priest, has some good insight on the change, and says that sure, if shadow priest DPS was too high, it was too high. But it's too bad that Shadow Word: Pain had to take the nerf, especially since you get it so early on in the class and it's such an iconic spell for the spec. The reason these guys are so happy about the hasted DoTs is that DoTs as cast don't really scale with your gear -- they just sort of do their damage on their own. When haste got put into the equation, shadow priests became happy that they could go after more haste to increase the DoT part of the damage. They could tailor the spec and spells the way they wanted to use them. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Spiritual Guidance: Healing throughput or mana regeneration?
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 No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. This week, it's a reexamination of spell power throughput vs mana regeneration.Update: Couple of errors have been fixed along with extra clarification added. My apologies. These two sides have had strong arguments over the past several years. This is more of a debate between play styles among Priests and how to build their characters. Some people favor getting more mana regen as much as possible. Others prefer a balanced attack between mana regeneration and spell power throughput. Is there a right answer? Technically, no as this is a matter of personal preference. It depends on largely on how you heal. Other factors include which fights, which consumables you use regularly, and so forth.
Spiritual Guidance: What's up Shadow Priests?
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 No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. Get ready for something you'll thought you'll have never read! Sorry healing Priests, it's your week off today. I've never written much about Shadow Priests at all mostly because I don't play one extensively enough to confidently write about them. I can tell you basic stats to shoot for like the amount of hit necessary and that crit is an excellent secondary stat. But full in-depth guides for what to do on bosses? Nope, sorry. Anyway, this week's post isn't about that. I wanted to write this post from the perspective of a raid leader instead of a person playing a Shadow Priest. We're going to take a look at Shadow DPS as a whole.
Spiritual Guidance: A Lightwell primer
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 No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. What exactly is Lightwell? How is it used? Why does no one use it? Oh Lightwell. The things you could have been. Misunderstood by many and under-talented by a large number of Priests. Will you ever see raids? Perhaps not. But we can try! Lightwell The first thing Lightwell novices need to understand is the purpose of the spell. It creates a Holy Lightwell wherever you want it that any player can interact with. A player who uses it gains a charge that heals them for more than 4500 health over a period of 6 seconds. It's got a 40 yard placement range. Be sure you pick up the Lightwell glyph for it. A 20% boost to Lightwell ticks go a long way and will help make this talent even more worthwhile. There is a slight downside. If the player under the effect of a Lightwell charge takes a hit that's 30% of their total health, the effect disappears.
802.11n finalization just a formality, interoperability to be preserved
C'mon, say it with us: "phew!" Considering that just about everyone has been shipping "802.11n" wireless kit since draft 2.0 was put into play two summers ago, we couldn't be more relieved to see the Wi-Fi Alliance confirm that it won't change the baseline requirements of its 802.11n certification program when the format gets certified this September. Just as we'd heard, the WiFi standard will leave its stagnant draft status and sashay into the wondrous realm of officialdom in merely two months, with the updated test program to "preserve interoperability with more than 600 Wi-Fi certified 802.11n draft 2.0 products released since June 2007, while adding testing for some optional features now included in the standard." Good thing, too -- can you imagine the uproar if your forthcoming 802.11n dongle wouldn't play nice with that draft-N router you snagged last June?[Via Electronista]
802.11n should go final by September, just when it's starting to feel slow
It's been a long, long... long time coming, folks. Since 2004, the world at large has been waiting for 802.11n to finally go legit, and while we've been getting along just fine with Draft-N devices, the IEEE is inching closer to completion of the final specification. According to Bob Heile, the chairman of the IEEE 802.15 working group on Personal Area Networks, "802.11 [has been] granted unconditional approval to forward 11n to RevCom," which is currently scheduled to take place on September 11th in New Jersey. He continued by uttering the understatement of the year with "this was an extremely complex project." We won't even bother retracing all the time line slips that we've seen over the years, but we can't help but chuckle at the notion of an ever faster 802.11 protocol to be discussed at the very same meeting. So, let's see here -- 802.11n finally gets its certificate of authenticity after parading around for half a decade as an unfinished draft, and CES 2010 brings about devices based on the even faster 802.11ac. Marvelous.[Via Digg]
Blood Pact: Return to the depths of the third tree!
Warlocks had best beware! Blood Pact preys on people who wander too deeply into the dark depths of the internet! Author Nick Whelan apologizes for being a tad late this week -- sometimes final projects just don't go smoothly, ya know?It's no secret that I haven't exactly been in a PvE mood lately. I don't know what it is, but every year around this time I just...lose all motivation to progress. I've come to accept it as the natural cycle of my WoW-life, but lately I've been thinking I want to get back into it. I'm not ravenously trolling Dalaran looking for a raid, but I've been doing some heroic pugs to dust the rust off of my shadowbolting finger. Frustratingly, though, I've been having an exceptionally difficult time getting back into Affliction. Not only does the rotation and casting style fail to engage me, but it feels like far too much of a struggle to dish out DPS. Back during that golden age between patch 3.0 and patch 3.1, Affliction was a zen thing for me. My rotation was so deeply ingrained that typical spell casting was handled by my subconscious mind. My fingers seemed to move on their own! Post 3.1, Affliction seems to have been made so user friendly that I keep stumbling whenever I try to do something. Like switching from Windows 3.1 to Vista overnight. The most reasonable course of action, I concluded, was to revisit the first instructions given to me by my Jedi teacher. I needed to unlearn what I had learned, by switching to a completely different spec. So without further ado, welcome to Project Respec: Post 3.1. As clever readers probably divined from the title of this post, the subject this week is Destruction!
Breakfast Topic: That spec you hate
I'm going to be honest here. I hate the current iteration of arms spec.One of the reasons I hate it is because it works better than my beloved fury spec for what I do in raids, which is dealing damage. It's gotten to the point where I'm usually dual-specced arms/fury, arms for most bosses and fury for trash clears. I haven't specced arms because I like the spec... I find the reliance on procs irritating, always waiting for Sudden Death or Taste for Blood, never knowing when they're going to proc, having a timer on my rend up time so that I never let it fall off but don't waste rage... it's effective, and I know there are lots of warriors that like it. But I don't. Although I do love using Bladestorm while defending a cap in Alterac Valley, I'll admit that. Those poor hordies trying to take Tower Point back did not expect that. So maybe I don't hate arms spec. But it's not my spec of choice.The reason I've dual specced arms is because of the recent nerfs to fury. It's not a secret or a surprise, arms just does more damage than fury right now. I'm sure I'm not the only player who's ever used a spec he or she didn't like simply because it performed better in their chosen role playing the game. For that matter, I know lots of players who play a spec and role they hate just because that's the spec/role their guild needed or asked them for. So now I ask you: have you ever had to play with a spec you hated?
Save your specs with Talented
Respecs have been flying around lately like Prayer of Mending during a Sapphiron fight (healing priests, you know what I'm talking about). Several commenters have expressed annoyance at having to remember where exactly they placed those 71 points, and at having to click each of them back into place again. Heck, I would be annoyed myself, with three level 80s and various alts to manage. However, I don't get annoyed, because I have something that many of you apparently don't: Talented. Talented is an addon for managing talent specs, with several nice features:
Triple specs appear to be at least possible
Many people have mentioned this before in conversation about Dual Specs – why not just allow triple specs? We've all speculated for a while that the technology is already there and is just a matter of further implementation.Today Bornakk, a blue community poster, said that right now all Blizzard intentionally wants is to have two specs be available, but that they "...want to see how the system works out first," before considering triple specs. I think it's pretty safe to read between the lines here and take it to mean that it's possible and has at least been discussed by Blizzard to some extent if community people (and not a developer like Ghostcrawler) are already talking about it. Remember here that community folks usually don't talk about development related things without running it by or hearing it from a developer first.Triple specs would offer even more flexibility to play the class in whatever way is possible. A druid would be able to switch between a healer, tank, and caster role in a single instance / raid. A paladin would have the same amazing flexibility. While each class right now has at least two specs that can really shine in specific situations, triple specs would allow three-role hybrids to become amazingly powerful characters.
DiiVA home networking spec exposes itself to potential partners
Sporting an extra "i" DiiVA is back, ready to show off the initial draft of its home networking spec. The same old crew of Chinese manufacturers are still pledging support, claiming it solves data channel issues for the future of interactive TV and such. We'd probably want to make sure the name is nailed down before signing up but interested parties can register as a DiiVA promoter to review and provide feedback before its finalized. Still, in the China-based format race, it probably has better odds of ever catching on than CBHD or HD NVD.
Dual spec available at level 40, reagent requirement removed
Dual spec is one of patch 3.1's headline features: for the price of 1,000 gold, you can unlock the ability to keep a second spec for your character, which you can switch to for free. It was stated a while back by Ghostcrawler that dual spec would only be available to level 80 characters, which was upsetting to many (including myself). It's a feature that has the potential to be amazingly useful for those who like to do dungeons while leveling - why remove that possibility? I am happy to report, therefore, that Zarhym has just reported that dual spec will be available to characters of level 40 or higher. This is an excellent compromise between not wanting to confuse newbies, and giving players the flexibility to heal dungeons (for instance) as they level while not being gimped in solo play. The real game might begin at 80, but it's important not to neglect 1 through 79. Furthermore, the announced reagent requirement has been removed - no longer will players need to be in a city or find an inscriber to create a portable lexicon of power for them. Now that's a dual spec feature I can love, even at a 1,000 g cost. Update: Zarhym has clarified the processs a little bit. "You literally just click a button," it's a five-second cast, it swaps your glyphs and action bar along with your spec, and there's no cooldown. You can't use it in combat or in BGs/arenas. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
