Roxanne Flowers

Uh ... Bear Form can't heal anyone else. You have to be in Night Elf/Tauren Form to cast any healing spells from the Restoration tree ...

Alternatively, Holy Paladins geared for Spell Power (typically means Cloth rather than Plate) make for the fastest "snipe" Healers around, if you want to try a different option.

"Quick! To the Github!" (said in an Adam West tone of voice)

Consider this other datapoint on the difference between Druid mana management and Mage/Paladin/Priest/Warlock. Our "free" spell casting talent, Omen of Clarity, requires you to MELEE HIT stuff in order to proc, and last I checked it's on a 2 PPM rate, although once procced it does have a 10 minute duration (so it can be "carried" from fight to fight). What adds insult to injury though is that it's locked behind Natural Weapons, a 5 point talent for increasing weapon damage. So we spend 6 talents to earn a "free spell cost" proc from doing melee. By contrast, Mages get their clearcasting proc for "free cost" spells simply BY CASTING SPELLS. Mages don't need to walk up and "whack away" at stuff in order to proc their mana cost rebate like we do. Holy Paladins get their mana cost rebate to proc on critical hits using Flash Heal, Holy Light or Holy Shock ... and they get another talent that gives them a guaranteed critical on any of those once every couple minutes. Priests can have Spirit Tap proc after kills, doubling their Spirit and increasing their mana recovery while casting by +50%. Warlocks can Lifetap for mana as well as Drain Life and Drain Mana (and Siphon Life and Dark Pact if Affliction spec). And Mages get Mage Armor, which gives them +50% mana recovery while casting full time. We get +15% mana recovery while casting after spending 13 talent points in Restoration ... and to proc Omen of Clarity, we not only need to be in melee range but also actively attacking with our melee weapon. Advantage: everyone but Druids and non-Holy spec Paladins and (arguably) Priests (who need to score the killing blow to proc Spirit Tap) when it comes to mana recovery rates Oh and in a raid setting, who is the Druid supposed to use Innervate on? Conventional wisdom essentially dictates "anyone but the Druid gets Innervate first" even though it's a skill meant to help Druids overcome their mana recovery issues. Instead, we're expected to DRINK (like there's no tomorrow). And that's not even including the Bass Ackwards disorganization of the Balance tree that is just a mess when it comes to any kind of "clean" progression through it towards Moonkin, especially considering that you're going to want to spend (at least) 13 talent points in Restoration just to get 3/3 Reflection. Ultimately, if you plan on playing a "dedicated" Moonkin, you wind up with something like a 38/0/13 build that looks like this with Omen of Clarity in it ... and there's remarkably little wiggle room to do anything else, short of dumping Reflection entirely or abandoning Improved Starfire. To me, it looks an awful lot as if Gimped By Design was the actual intent of what Blizzard was doing with Moonkins and the Balance tree from the beginning. All of that said, I'm going Moonkin with my Druid on Darrowshire.

Been slowly leveling and haven't yet reached the next performance breakpoint at Level 36. Right now, my Priest is Level 29 and Starshards is working very nicely against targets that I can Spirit Tap to recover mana. Aiming for a Spirit heavy build, rather than one that is Intellect heavy, is still the operating assumption, simply because of the inter(re)action(s) of the 5 Second Rule with a 6 second channel casting time for being able to recover more mana while casting than would be possible for chain casting spells with shorter casting times. My current rotation to alpha strike a target to begin combat while soloing is to Power Word: Shield, Holy Fire, Starshards and then either repeat Starshards or simply melee or Wand. The build plays an awful lot like an Ice Barrier Mage, except you throw Holy damage (to open) and then switch to an Arcane DoT and/or Wand to finish. This would be consistent with a Mage using Ice Barrier, then Fireball, then Arcane Missiles before switching to Wand, in terms of spell casting behaviors and purpose. The difference is that Ice Barrier has a 1 minute cooldown, while Power Word: Shield merely can't be reapplied for 15 seconds due to a debuff. Fireball does Fire damage, for which there are Fire Resistances, while Holy Fire does Holy damage, for which there are no Holy Resistances unless using consumables for protection (Holy Protection Potions and the like). Arcane Missiles is a 5 second channel cast, which almost but not quite is very friendly to the 5 Second Rule of spell casting, while Starshards is a 6 second channel cast, which out of the box is extremely friendly to the 5 Second Rule of spell casting. Arcane Missiles checks crit chance and hit chance on each volley fired at the target, while Starshards works in an "all or nothing" fashion where there is a single hit check and a single Resist check for the entire casting (and I have now seen what happens when Starshards gets Resisted on cast). In the case of both Arcane Missiles and Starshards, casting the spell IMMEDIATELY and instantly apply Threat, even before any damage has been delivered to your target. As a Mage you want your Fireball to finish its flight time and "impact" for damage before beginning to channel Arcane Missiles (for reasons of alerting, tactical positioning and Clearcasting procs) ... while with Starshards you want to cast Starshards IMMEDIATELY after Holy Fire completes casting, since there is no flight time factor to consider with Holy Fire, which takes effect "instantly" upon completing casting. As an opening move, although Holy Fire does less damage per mana spent, the casting time to "wind up" Holy Fire when opening from non-combat is essentially "free" time spent for ranged damage, particularly since the global cooldown finishes cycling while the 3-3.5 second windup to cast is progressing ... meaning that instant casting of Starshards after completing the casting of Holy Fire is not only possible, but from a 5 Second Rule of mana recovery cycling extremely prudent. Against particularly strong or hard hitting (damage) opponents, my go to strategy is to Power Word: Shield and then WAIT about 10 seconds before starting my Holy Fire casting. This ensures that the Weakened Soul debuff of Power Word: Shield is close to expiring by the time the mob I'm fighting is getting in my face which means that I'm free to recast Power Word: Shield a second time during the fight at a time of my convenience (usually right after it drops due to incoming damage). That then gives me a very nearly 2-for-1 sort of use of Power Word: Shield to "refuse" incoming damage, and extend my survivability. Martyrdom has turned out to be less "exciting" of an option than I had hoped for Clearcasting procs, if only because there seems to be plenty of interrupts that will take effect through both Power Word: Shield and through Martyrdom. Knockdowns and Stuns in particular seem to override the protection offered by Power Word: Shield and Martyrdom, since both will interrupt spell casting regardless of the protection offered. So while it may be effective against a Rogue's Kick attack or a Defias Knuckleduster's "slam" for Interrupt, alternative means of interrupting spell casting are certainly available and effective. Since Starshards rank 3+ follow the Curse of Agony model for damage (2/18ths, 2/18ths, 3/18ths, 3/18ths, 4/18ths, 4/18ths damage ticks over 6 seconds) you really lose out on Damage Per Mana efficiency if Starshards isn't able to channel for the entire 6 seconds of casting time due to the "back loading" of the damage production. However, Starshards produces so much damage in such a short amount of time that against most mobs I'm fighting there is simply no reason to cast Shadow Word: Pain at all. The one exception that I encountered so far was actually the Venture Co. Machine Smith up by the water wheel in Stonetalon, who would summon a Harvest Reaper with Elite Boss health totals that would hit for absurd amounts of damage if the Machine Smith wasn't damage spiked to death in under 10 seconds. Adding insult to injury, the Machine Smith, if left alone would summon MULTIPLE Harvest Reapers if they lived long enough to keep casting. So realizing I needed to "spike" the Machine Smith as fast as possible, I switched from my more usual "relaxed" style of producing damage in the most efficient manner possible over to producing as much damage as fast as possible and not worrying about the mana costs. This meant adding a "melt faces" component into the usual rotation and opening from "maximum range" where a line of sight to target was ensured for the entire time the Machine Smith would be closing to come at me, resulting in: Power Word: Shield, Holy Fire, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast, Starshards, Wand Very mana inefficient, but it delivered the necessary damage spike in a short enough span of time that the Machine Smith didn't get to (instant) cast his Harvest Reaper cheat that has health and hits like an Elite without actually having an Elite symbol marker on its portrait. Given the (successful) results, I wasn't going to complain about spiking down a serious threat before he could play his cheater card while costing me far more mana than he was worth. Just one of those edge case adaptations that worked out successfully given the constraints of the encounter. So overall, the experiment is working out remarkably successfully as a solo leveling build. Next up for my Priest is dealing with Rethiel the Greenwarden's quest line (because I want to do ALL the content this time through), along with finding Sida's Bag around Ironbeard's Tomb, looting 6 Giant Crocolisk Skins and dealing with Whelgar's Expedition and the completion of The Absent Minded Prospector quests in The Wetlands. Once I've done that, I'll be taking on the Elite Wetlands quest chain and then going LFG for a BFD group to get that dungeon off my To Do list before turning to finishing up Duskwood and then Ashenvale before moving on to clearing The Stockades in Stormwind. Then it'll be on to Refuge Point (Arathi), Southshore (Hillsbrad), Nijel's Point (Desolace) and Stranglethorn Vale (guess...) as the next zones to start clearing my way through as I keep leveling my way on up. The one thing that I can say is that despite the "decay" in effectiveness of Starshards over each 10 Level span before getting to the next rank of spell, the entire build does feel like it is getting progressively stronger and stronger with each level up and added talent point. The growth is somewhat subtle, but it doesn't feel like a "two steps forward, one step back" kind of progression. At this point, I'm REALLY looking forward to being able to respec at Level 34 to having just Holy talents up through 5/5 Spiritual Guidance and then spending 35-39 on getting Spirit Tap back before finally turning back to Discipline and working my way further down the talent tree than just Wand Specialization and Martyrdom, starting at Level 40. By that point, I should have my build thoroughly grounded in being based around Spirit with useful doses of Spell Power from Black Mageweave and Dreamweave items that I'll be able to Tailor by those Levels. All of that combined should start to REALLY boost the DPM (Damage Per Mana) potential of the build. At the present time, the build plan remains to invest in a 21/25/5 arrangement of talents which is capable of operating as a medic/healer when necessary, although the preference remains (certainly while soloing) to produce the most efficient DPM possible. I have toyed with the notion of moving a couple talent points around to invest in Searing Light instead of Holy Reach, but to be honest, I don't think shifting 3 talent points for an extra +10% damage and a 0.1 second casting time reduction for Holy Fire (only, since I essentially don't use Smite at all) and Heal+Greater Heal really makes for a good tradeoff. Have a look and decide for yourself if you think such a configuration would be superior. So yes ... I'm still enjoying playing my Night Elf Priest. The only problem I've got is a slow rate of progress due to playing 8 characters in parallel and trying to keep them all "together" on their progress so I don't miss out on stuff. It may be slow going, but it's building up quite nicely over time, such that I have no worries about being able to afford Mounts for everyone at Level 40 (and/or very shortly thereafter). And this is including leveling up every Profession and taking every Class Skill along the way, which under the circumstances winds up being the most efficient way to do things. By the time I get everyone into the mid- to late-50s, I'm going to have an "army" of well rounded characters who have plenty of resources at their disposal who are ready to go on to bigger and better things. I'm already getting the occasional invites to Guilds on Darrowshire after running Elites and Dungeons with people, so I must be doing something right (aside from progressing slowly through content that is). So far ... Elune's Spirit Guide has been remarkably successful for me as a build strategy. Only (a lot more playing) time will tell if that trend will continue to hold in the way that I'm expecting it to.

Normally I'd expect the Cat Figurines to respawn at the same rate as the Mathystra Relics ... which is to say within 5 minutes or so.

Finally got my Rogue to Level 30 and reached Hemorrhage at long last, and already it's making a difference in how fast I can build CPs and burn them away with finishers. I'd always planned to level up as an Ambush/Hemo build (thus a Dagger build), but one that eschewed Assassination entirely in favor of Riposte in Combat plus deep Subtlety. But lately, I've been thinking about a lot of the discussion that can be found at the end of this thread and basically came to the conclusion that I really wanted to do fast combos more than I wanted to use Riposte to Disarm targets in PvE. So I reformulated a little bit and reached the following 12/8/31 build instead. The intended method of deployment is to open with Ambush and then immediately follow with Ghostly Strike for 100 Energy spent from Stealth. Options are to then either immediately Slice and Dice with whatever combo points are available (once some Energy has been recovered to do so), or to Hemo as fast as possible to 5 CP in order to either Rupture or Eviscerate depending on the circumstances. Setup offers a proc on Dodge for "free" CPs on your target, while Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes work to reduce the "build to 5 CP" expenditures for you. The underlying philosophy behind the build is Kill Through Combos, rather than Control Through Combos, and being able to unload Big Finishers as rapidly and as frequently as possible in PvE situations. Since the build I'm presenting here is oriented around using Ambush as the opening attack and either Rupture or Eviscerate as the preferred finisher, with Slice and Dice and Kidney Shot being the go to alternative options for spending CPs in Finishers. Setup procs from Dodging melee attacks are intended to fuel this process of fast build up and quick release to burn back down the CPs built. Dirty Deeds is not taken due to the bias towards use of Ambush over either Cheap Shot or Garotte as openers so as to finish fights as quickly as possible, with the mindset that the shorter the fight lasts, the less opportunity there is for a reversal of fortunes or a disruption of planning. It is still possible to Cheap Shot + Gouge for up to 10 seconds of crowd control, should that prove necessary. The thing that appeals to me about this particular build strategy is that it ought to be quite versatile, since it is optimized to add CPs and use Finishers as rapidly as possible as the cornerstone foundation of the build strategy. This essentially makes for a "quick and dirty fighter" sort of playstyle that helps make you feel like you're actually playing a Rogue who brings an entire bag of tricks to every fight you engage in. Obviously, this is a PvE build, and one that can be leveled with, rather than a PvP build, since I've taken almost none of the usual PvP "preventative" talents.

Probably a function of high server population on Elysium. Trick question ... do you see many mining nodes or herb nodes around Mathystra? If you don't, you're probably not the only one who's been there recently.

Of course it does ... /em defenestrates table

Anathema is on patch 1.10 and is due to advance to 1.11 in September 2017 (so, next month), hence the push to PTR Naxx right now. Elysium is on patch 1.6 and isn't due to advance to 1.7 until October 2017 and if plans are not changed will reach 1.11 in September 2018 (a full year after Anathema). Once the two realms are operating on the same patch, presumably they could be merged then without major issues (since it would be an "apples to apples" type of character database merge), but that point isn't slated to occur until September 2018 at the earliest given current planning and progression. Doesn't deal with any name conflict issues that such a merge would bring about, but that's the nature of the many-tentacled beast whenever doing a merge where character names MUST BE unique. There's only two (complimentary) ways for Anathema to be merged into Elysium "Soon™er" than the above outline ... which is to slow Anathema's advancement to 1.11 (which we already know will NOT be happening, since Naxx is being texted for release on schedule) ... and/or ... speed up Elysium's progression through the patches to catch up to Anathema (which, realistically speaking, we also know won't be happening because it would be "unfair" to the Players on Elysium). So *IF* Anathema is going to get merged into Elysium at some point down the line, the first realistic opportunity to do so shouldn't open until September 2018 ... which if you'll check your calendars isn't going to be any time SOON™ (at least as far as forum threads are concerned). This then means that threads which basically amount to "I'm inconvenienced NOW so FIX IT NAO!" run counter to the structural issues I've just enumerated. The conjunction of stars will happen eventually but it isn't scheduled to happen for at least 1 year yet ... which isn't exactly the message that people want to hear, let alone accept (obviously).

You want to be using this addon for that functionality in your macros.

I know there's a joke in here somewhere ...

Yes it's okay. You're just more of a "straight up fighter" Rogue than you are a "backstabbing" Rogue, that's all.

Think Murlocs. You remember Murlocs don't you? You know how they try to run off and pull an aggro train back to you once they hit 40% Health? Judgement of Justice prevents them from Fleeing when they would ordinarily Flee. You'll still see the "flees in fear" message in the chat window, but the mob won't go anywhere, so you won't have to chase them down to finish them off. THAT.

Almost a 10:1 ratio. Now if only there was a way to Gather on Anathema and Play on Elysium ... I'm kidding of course ...

You want this addon.

Spent the last few days fruitlessly trying to get some BFD quest groups organized, and it feels like absolutely no one wants to run BFD. To be fair, over a decade ago, hardly anyone wanted to run BFD then either. In this case, I've got 7 Alliance characters who need/want to run through the BFD quests and I just can't get a group started, let alone filled out for a run. I know I can't be the only Player who wants to complete BFD for the quest rewards and reputation bumps. Is there anyone else interested in clearing BFD on their Level 24-30 Alliance characters?

Yes. I've been using /1 in Ashenvale and Darkshore as well as using /2 in capital cities, since Trade chat is shared among all capitals. Before Darrowshire went down today, I was able to finally put together a BFD group for my Warlock, who needed quest items from BFD for a Warlock quest, and when we got to the meeting stone, there was ANOTHER group of 5 there gathering up to go in. And irony of ironies, I was able to complete all my quests in BFD except for the Get 10 Quest Drops one off the Twilights towards the end, since everyone else scarfed up the drop items before I could loot any corpses. Finished the dungeon with 0/10 for those. I figure I'll just go back in when I'm in my mid-30s and wreck the place solo to get those last quest items. When it rains (fire) it pours (incendiaries). Anyway, I've still got another 6 Alliance characters to run through BFD (everything but Warlock and Paladin) and will be looking for BFD groups in Trade chat in cities for a while yet.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?spell=8177 "One HARMFUL spell" ... How much damage does Polymorph do again? Take your time, I'll wait while you count to ZERO. If it doesn't damage you, it's not a "harmful" spell ... right?

Having Improved Seal of Righteousness factor after spell damage bonuses would help ANY Paladin wanting to generate increased Threat via Holy damage.

Presumption would be to Holy "type" spells, meaning school of magic.

I just had a -8 PvE mob break Sap in under 10 seconds after I had used Vanish to reopen (with Ambush) on a completely different mob nearby. So I'm wondering if the "heartbeat break" you're referencing is limited to PvP, since it appears to also be operating to help break Sap in PvE.

A macro too lazy for the proverbial Lazy Hunter? There's got to be a heresy in here somewhere ... why can't I find it?

In which case he needs to LEARN SOME. Two gathering professions (herbalism or mining, plus skinning) ought to work just fine as a cash flow generator via Vendors and the Auction House.