Achieve Greatness

Usually at this point post expansion I would have taken two characters through to the level cap, however as it stands I only have one! This is down to two major factors:

Firstly Time! I have committed to raiding regularly which consists of 3 nights a week, 4 hours a night! Then, believe it or not, I like to spend some time with my girlfriend. This essentially leaves me with an hour here and there to just “play” warcraft.

This in itself would not be a problem, however it leads my nicely on to my second point and problem, a fairly new thing to warcraft, simply known as, ACHIEVEMENTS!!!

I want to start by saying im by no means an achievement whore (as they are so affectionately known). Im not interested in spending hours at a time doing the same dungeon for 1 fricking achievement, but there are some that I am enjoying working on.

For example, at the moment I am working towards by chef and salty titles, which involves completing a number of cooking and fishing related objectives, two professions that I find both relaxing and enjoyable.

After which I am planning to work through some of the old world reputations and maybe even the 50 mount achievement. Basically any achievements I get along the way are a nice bonus!

Last night however I did find something quite interesting on a site dedicated to all such achievements. Via this site I discovered that in terms of achievement points I actually rank at 169 on my server!! The server is on high population, so admittedly I found this surprising, especially when you consider I didnt complete any of the outland dungeons at all.

I guess what im getting at, is that whilst achievements have certainly added something extra to the game, it strikes me that many of these so called achievements are less of an achievement and more of an award for perseverance. “congratulations on spending 4months grinding on the same mobs for reputation!!! Heres 10points!!!!”

How do you rate achievements, and do you got out of your way to obtain them?

3.1 at a glance!

The chances are you have already heard about the expected priest changes [enhancements] in 3.1, and if you haven’t…. where the heck have you been all day. For anyone that’s missed it, heres the highlights:

• Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.
• Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).
• Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.
• Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.
• Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.
• Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.
• We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

As a hybrid build ive tried to absorb the best talents from both trees. Im sure people will disagree, and in fact I probably do too (I’ll talk about the respe later), however I like my current spec, and it seems to like me just fine too.

Where was i… Ah yes! The surprising change for me was the inclusion of divine spirit as a base talent. Undoubtably improved spirit will still be in the discipline tree, but where it sits is yet to be revealed. Personally, if I can afford to spec improved, I will!

Another intresting inclusion to the discipline tree is PowerWord:Barrier, which as I understand it is essentially a raid wide power word shield. Personally at the moment I don’t see there being a great need/use for it, however it may yet prove a useful spell in a priests armory. Moreover, im really excited to play around with it!

Prayer of Healing becoming castable on other groups is potentially massive for those without CoH, although good news for holy spec’d priests!! Following the nerf’ing of COH blizz have seen fit to rebuff the healing output of the spell…. How kind! Whether or not it makes up for the 6 second cast is yet to be seen!

Its fair to say theres some serious healer love in the forthcoming patch, and I cant wait to play around with some alternative specs!

The problem with this blogging business.....

Is getting recognised.

My motivation to post is directly linked to my numbers. At a point where I appear to be getting good numbers I tend to have an inclination to write more. For example today I have darfted 3 or 4 different articles in response to having 80 hits yesterday alone. However, the reality is, these hits are unlikely to be sustainable in the short term, and the majority of these hits will be as a result of kestrel’s shout out on Tuesday.

Im in a catch 22, if I don’t post something innovative or interesting, people have no reason to visit, if people don’t visit I have no reason or inclination to be interesting… im stuffed either way.

Despite this I have a larger underlying concern. Where are all the comments? A blog is a living, breathing entity that is driven not only by its author, but its community. It strikes me that a lack of comments may suggest something about the content I am publishing!
So I Put it too you, the community to have your say.

Tomorrow, Friday 6th February will be known as Freedom Friday here at priestistheword!! This is your opportunity to post whatever you like, there is no censorship or editorial of the comments you leave.

Whether it be a comment about the blog, a comment about priests, healing or otherwise! Share your view and opinions with me and the rest of the community!

And another thing!

Along with my new years resolution I think its time for a site redesign…. Hopefully I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew with this one, but I think its time to freshen things up a little….

I’ll have a look at some things tonight possibly, with a view to going live before March….

Stay tuned for further developments!

New Years Resolution Part Deux!

I hold my hands up! I know it, you know, everyone knows it! I have been a crappy blogger for as long as ive been doing this! Its not to say that I don’t have something important to say, or that I cant form sentences… Its that I don’t make the time to pass my opinions on!

However I have set myself a goal. For the time being this is a rather small goal, but the main target is to get into a routine on this stuff. Essentially I am going to aim to write one post a week! Admittedly the quality of the content may vary from time to time, but it’ll at least get me writing again!

Secondly im going to spend 30minutes each day (where possible) to read and comment on other blogs! Due to work constraints I tend to sit in front of google-reader in my lunch break, but this doesn’t allow me to comment as I would like! So, each evening before I boot up wow, im going to take the time to do some reading.

There are many great bloggers out there, and they aren’t all priests! Ive been reading the likes of kestrel and matticus for over a year now, but still Ive probably only commented a handful of times (at best), these are all things that have to change.

Until next time!