Professions that really help your alts

I've got 6 characters at 80, 5 of them at the same server.

Since we're less than a week away from Cata, I've started planning which characters I want to play and in which order. I couldn't help but notice that I'm very influenced by my choice of professions for said characters.

First and foremost, I ought to consider which class mechanics I'd rather want to work with for a while. However, after playing all healers and almost all tanks (save warrior which is reserved for my goblin), I've just realized two things. One: the grass will always be greener on the other side, no matter what fence I'm on. Second: Barring broken class mechanics, I can work with almost any class, and I consider them pretty balanced too.

With that in mind, I've started thinking about which professions I'd prefer to have maxed out first. There are several things to keep in mind here. The first is that (practically) every profession offers useful stuff for that character itself. So while some of them look really neat and cool, I try to disregard that information when evaluating professions. Instead, I'm looking at what each profession can provide for my other characters.

Alchemy

I've decided that I will be leveling my paladin first. It sounds strange for me to say that, but I really enjoy paladins now with the new 4.0 mechanic, and since I've paid for a race change, I no longer have as much trouble with the theme. In fact, I think Sunwalker is a cool theme. I have Alchemy / Herbalism on my paladin, which is a very nice thing to level first. After all, everyone can benefit from elixirs and flasks.

In addition, alchemy also bring some other gems, namely with Transmutation. Since transmutation has a 1 day cooldown, the faster I can get it the more items I can get from it. Add to that that my paladin Koiane (formerly Tirvin) is a transmutation master, meaning I can gain more than what I started with using transmutation.

There's also the Potion of Treasure Finding, which all my alts can benfit from.

I'm not going to hide the fact that I'm really excited about the ability to transform myself into a dragon. For that particular reason, I've decided not to spend time getting a nice-looking flying mount for my pally. However, ... personal benefit only, and it's only a cosmetical upgrade unless I'm going to carry friends around.

Inscription

My other full hybrid, Ayeba (druid), has inscription / herbalism. It is a very useful profession, but just not as useful anymore after 350. As far as I can see, there are no new glyphs. There are an almost-as-good-as-Fortitude-runescroll, a book that gives you a random buff on a 4 hour cooldown, the ability to create darkmoon decks and relics and off-hands. Only my priest will benefit from off-hand items apart from the druid herself. I've got several characters who can benefit from relics, though. However, it will grant no benefit if the other characters are decently equipped, then the items crafted will be stricly worse.

The interesting part for me is that I can level inscription with herbs from Koiane without actually leveling Ayeba. However, I will probably level my druid anyway, as it's a neat class in itself.

Enchanting

My death knight is enchanter / miner. Enchanting will be very useful for all classes at top level. Less useful while leveling, though.

Mining is also handy, because it can provide me with raw materials for...

Jewelcrafting

Jewelcrafting is still a top profession. Gems will always be usefulf or all classes, mostly at top level. Unfortunately, I've got JC on my shaman, which I'm not planning to level anytime soon. Right now you can call me tank-a-lot, and shamans don't qualify. However, if I spend time on my death knight, I can level the jewelcrafting without actually leveling my shaman.

Engineering

My priest is an engineer. I've had an awful lot of fun with it in the past, but unless I've missed something, it's still a very 'egoistical' profession that offers little for alts/other classes. Okay, there are a few new cool group benefits, but they require the user to be an engineer himself or herself, meaning I can't send it to alts.

I must admit I'm really tempted to play my priest just for Leap of Faith. However, no tanking here either (in fact, less so than with shamans), and other classes also get cool new stuff.

Blacksmithing

I don't have a blacksmith... yet. However, give me a few weeks and I'll probably have a goblin warrior one. (If you've been reading my journals, I decided to make my goblin a blacksmith instead of an alchemist because I now have an alchemist, namely my paladin). However, I'll need months to get it to top level, if I'm going to spend any time at all with my current 80s.

Blacksmithing is a semi-useful skill. It has the potential to be useful for my plate-wielding alts, but requires that the blacksmither becomes 85 before the other plate-wielders. Since that's not going to happen, blacksmithing will only offer stuff for personal benefits. Correct me if I'm wrong here. The only item I know of is the "enchant" that grants an extra gem slot in a belt item.

Leatherworking, Tailoring, Skinning

Got none of either, so not applicable. My wife has a skinner / leatherworker, but she's not playing WoW now and possibly never will again. Both leatherworkers and tailors, however, suffer from the same problem as blacksmithing and to a certain degree inscription 350-425: They grant only benefits to lower-level alts. With the exception of the leg-specific enchant.

Bottom line

Alchemy, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting are, in my opinion, the top three professions for helping your other characters. All three continue to help other classes even when they're all at 85.

The other professions can help lower-level alts, but grant very little once you're all at 85.

The challenges and possibilities of meta-spells for healers

Just for clarity: I define meta-spells as spells that don't do anything themselves, but instead enhance other spells. Technically, all buff spells such as Flametongue totem are meta-spells, but since they can have 100% uptime, they don't really really affect your playstyle at all... well, as long as you remember to buff up. This article only discusses meta-spells for healers.

Many on-use trinkets work like meta-spells. Take Ephmeral Snowflake.

Types of meta-spells

I'm going to divide meta-spells into three categories.

The first category includes activated spells, talents or items with a cooldown. Example: Inner Focus.

The second category include talents (generally) that grant a limited duration effect when casting certain spells. Example: Borrowed Time.

The third category include passive procs, generally from items. Often has an internal cooldown of 45 sec or stacks up multiple times. Example: Binding Stone stacks up a buff, while Althor's Abacus is a proc with a 45 sec internal cooldown.

Meta-spells by class

All healers have meta-spells. Even if I've played all four healer classes at 80, I easily forget some spells. Here's those I remember.

Shamans have

• Nature's Swiftness: Many use this simply as another heal in their repertoire combined with Greater Healing Wave.
• Spiritwalker's Grace: Cast spells while moving. Doesn't improve theoretical output.
• Unleash Elements, the Earthliving Weapon version. Increases the next heal by 20%. It has so short cooldown it's doubtful whether it belongs here.
• Bloodlust (or Heroism): Also rather special, as it has a very long duration and cooldown for such a spell.
• They also used to have Tidal Force, but I can't find it in the current talent tree. Perhaps it was removed in 4.0.

Druids have one spell: Nature's Swiftness. I don't know about anyone else. Okay, if you really want to count it: Barskin.

Priests have Archangel, though it's rather special in the way it works since it requires you to cast Smite before this has any effect.

Discipline priests also have Inner Focus, as mentioned above, and Power Infusion. Complete with cool graphics. Holy priests have their signature spell, Chakra, which changes how certain other spells work. However, it can have 100% uptime, so you don't want to save it for any purpose.

Paladins have several meta-spells that can be combined together.

• Avenging Wrath: 20% more healing. Oh, and pretty wings. Ooh! Shiny!
• Divine Favor: +20% haste, +20% spell crit.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings, the holy variant Ancient Healer. Casts Light of Ancient Kings. Against a single isolated target, it doubles your healing. More if there are other allies nearby.

They also have a rather special meta-spell, DIvine Plea, which reduces all healing done by 50%.

In addition, all classes can have on-use trinkets. Lifeblood, the granted ability from Herbalism, activates a 20-sec internal cooldown with on-use trinkets.

The challenge with meta-spells

Meta-spells can be very powerful. They can significantly improve the throughput of your spells. However, they can also be completely wasted. You may activate your meta-spells only to discover that there were no need for them, and waste the CD. Worse, you may wait for the perfect opportunity to use, only to forget to use it when you really really need it.

To be the best healer you can be, you need to remember to use your full repertoire of spells, including meta-spells.

A big challenge of meta-spells is finding out how you want to combine them. My paladin has herbalism, and so always has access to Lifeblood. That gives me 4 on-use meta-spells. I can use them separately, and I can combine them.

Combining them all gives me +20% healing, +20% haste, +20% crit, +480 haste, and my next 5 heals are duplicated and also splashes to nearby targets. That at least doubles my throughput, possibly triples it. Phew.

However, if you don't count Valithria Dreamwalker, it is rather likely that stacking so much healing at once will result in a lot of overhealing. So it's probably better to not spend everything at the same time.

I still need to figure out how to best combine my cooldowns. Add to that they have different cooldowns, so macroing two abilities with different cooldowns means that I'll either wait for both to come off cooldown before using them, wasting one of them, or spend them separately after the first time. Which isn't necessarily such a bad idea.

With that said, I love the feeling I get when I blow all my cooldowns (often while having Concentration Aura and Aura Mastery or Divine Shield up) while healing left and right in a hectic battleground fight.

I've also had much fun actually being able to kill something as a healer. All the paladin cooldowns except Guardian of Ancient Kings work on Exorcism too. Yay! I can kill stuff! ... and I call myself a healer.

Essences chapter 6: Native

It was early evening when Din arrived town. She had had a clear plan about returning to town, but not what she was going to do once she arrived.

At least she could finally get a decent bath. With a bit of luck, she'd even be able to wash of the stench of sweat without resorting to a shovel. It felt about that dense now.

She made her way to the same place Din and Rob had rented a room earlier. The rent was fairly cheap, and it was a decent in more than one way. For a start, there was a landlady and not a landlord, which felt a bit comforting right now. Din still had some money left, enough that she had no reason to worry immediately.

Like earlier, she attracted a lot of stares. She tried as best she can to avoid meeting any eyes, walking as fast as her tired feet would carry her while looking mostly down. It really bothered her. She wondered if it felt like that for other woman all the time, or if there were something special about her. She really wished they'd just ignore her like they had mostly done when she was still a boy.

The landlady was thankfully home, and opened the door quickly. She looked middle-aged and fairly plump, but nice as long as you didn't test her patience. Right now, she looked a bit puzzled at Din.

"Yes? What can I do for you, girl?" she asked, her tone indicating that she really wasn't sure what to make of her.

"I'm in need of a room for a few days," Din asked.

The landlady looked slightly more puzzled. Had Din said anything wrong? Was she somehow suspicious?

"Yes, that can be arranged," the landlady replied, "How many rooms do you require?"

Now it was Din's turn to be a bit puzzled. "Only one. For me."

"Oh," the landlady said, "I'm sorry. I just assumed you were a maid from your dress and your lack of accent."

Din hadn't thought about that. Most natives spoke with at least a bit of accent.

The landlady led the way inside. "No luggage, dear?" Din shook her head. "Perhaps you've run away from your master, hmm?" the landlady inquired. She caught that Din looked a bit scared. "No need to worry, dear. I'm not going to tell anyone. In fact, if you don't want me to, I won't even say you're here if they ask."

"T-that won't be necessary. No one will come asking for me," Din stuttered in reply.

"No? That's a rather sad fate, having no one miss you," the landlady said as she handed Din the key. "Second floor, first room on your right."

The room was simple, and fine. It was next to the room where Din and Rob had lived until recently. She could stay here for a bit, until she figured out what she would do. Or until her money ran dry.

She wondered what her family thought. Rob was going to tell them that Din wanted to stick around some more in town, but that story wouldn't hold up forever. She was fond of her family, but that didn't mean she wanted to return home, live with her family and eventually get married away.

It was time to get the bath she had thought of for quite some time now. In order to do that, she had to fetch a bathtub, get water from the well, heat it up in the common room below, and carry everything up. The landlady commented how she was happy that Din found herself comfortable in the middle of the second bucket of water. It dawned to Din that it might have been a better idea to ask first. She didn't want the landlady to get suspicious. Well, more suspicious.

Finally, the bath was ready. Din undressed fairly fast, making sure not to breathe in with her nose, and lowered herself into the tub. However, the tub wasn't big enough to cover everything, and so she had a very good look at her breasts above the water.

She had both dreaded and looked forward to this. Dreaded because she now had to find out more about her new body, and she was still uncomfortable about it. Looked forward to because it turned her on a bit. That, in turn, brought even more mixed feelings.

When she emerged from the water a good while later, she had learned quite a bit. For a start, she was very sensitive several places. Second, she had no experience at this. Finally, it had been so many strange feelings that she didn't know where to start.

Sleep came fast. She had been hungry, but not enough to prevent her from easily falling asleep.

She saw herself. Or, another version of herself. The priestess. She was clad in a kind of dress so thin you could see the silhouette of her body through it. She was leading a man to a tent. Judging from the scars and the muscles, the man was a warrior. He was also recently wounded, the bandage around his head was fresh with blood. He was wearing nothing but something that resembled a pair of pants.

As soon as the "door" was closed, the priestess started kissing the warrior. He reacted with almost animal instinct, kissing her back and holding her tight. If Din could close her eyes, she would've done so. However, even closing her eyes wouldn't help, she could somehow feel the warrior's aggressive kissing on her lips, his strong hand fondling her butt, and his warm and hard body against hers. Not to mention the very hard thing about crotch-height.

The kissing didn't last very long, because the warrior was far too impatient. Soon he was kissing her neck. His other hand reached down, between her legs...

She darted up to a sitting position in her bed. Momentarily confused, it took her several moments to figure out where she was. The dream had felt so real. She felt really strange between her legs. Wet, too. She touched her lips and her neck where the warrior had bitten her. She couldn't feel anything there right now, but the memory was still vivid and alive.

It took some time before the mix of panic and arousal settled down. She tried to think rationally about what had happened, but it was hard. Tendrils of panic and ... something else kept creeping into her thoughts.

After a few minutes, her thought started to swim. She gave up trying to make sense of it. Whatever had happened and possibly still was happening wouldn't be any easier to handle if she was lacking sleep as well.

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note: The title 'Essences' is just a working title. I have a feeling it'll stick, but I reserve the possibility to change it.

Heard between Cielstrasza and Alextrasza

Alextrasza: Cielstraza, can you come over here for a moment?

Cielstrasza: Of course, Life-Binder.

Alextrasza: What just happened?

Cielstrasza: A blood elf flew in. He was very eager to get our tabard and champion for our cause. Then he left.

Alextrasza: Yes, I noticed he jumped down. So why is there a blood elf corpse with our tabard on the ground by the temple now?

Cielstrasza: I'm not sure, Life-Binder. He appeared to be unconcerned about the height when he jumped off. He seemed to cast a spell, which as far as I can tell, rendered him immune to all damage.

Alextrasza: That still does not explain why there is a corpse there.

Cielstrasza: I don't know myself. He said something about 'oh no, they've reduced the duration!' as he fell.

Alextrasza: ...

Alextrasza: I'm starting to doubt whether out our tabard to all these mortals really aid our cause.

-----------------




If you didn't get it, I fell to my death because Divine Shield now lasts 8 seconds rather than 12. The first thing after I bought and equipped the Wyrmrest Accord tabard. I just imagined the conversation in my head as I flew back (at snail speed) to my corpse.

What to write? Decisions, decisions

Since the last post, I haven't been writing much at all on my (now no longer) NaNoWriMo story. It's just as far from balance as writing all the time at the expense of everything else.

My original plan was to publish my NaNoWriMo story here in November, and go back to my "regular schedule". Now, I'm not sure what to do.

Who am I writing for?

A good question to start with.

Originally, I intended to write for myself, mostly. To have something to look back to. However, I'd also like other people to read what I write. I've got a lot of stuff on my mind I want to share. Recently, I've also wanted to write about non-WoW-related stuff. Okay, I have done that before, but at a very minor scale.

I don't have any clue how many read this blog. I know how many official followers I have, but I've got a heapload of blogs in my own reader, and I'm only officially following one of them.

WTB votes plz

I'm adding a poll to my blog for a while. Hopefully some people will vote on it. You can vote for multiple alternatives. If you feel I'm lacking any alternative, please post in a comment here. It closes at the end of November.

On an almost unrelated note...

There's also another reason why the writing is slow. I was recently recommended I should read a comic called Gunnerkrigg Court by a friend. It was completely awesome, and I'll be following all updates at it.

NaNoWriMo status and thoughts

My wife complained a bit about how long the chapters have been so far. I'm making a test with shorter chapters. Perhaps that makes them more easily readable.

Apart from that, I'm lagging far behind the expected writing speed. An average of 1666 words a day means that even a single day skipped will result in a good amount more words on the remaining days.

Two evenings ago, I had an argument with my wife. She felt I was focusing too much on the writing at the expense of family life. I have only about 1 to 1 1/2 hour time during the evening after my daughter has gone to bed, and I need some time to land right before heading to bed. So writing one evening means sacrificing all social life.

I've decided that spending time with my wife is often more important than writing for NaNoWriMo. However, I'm also glad that I finally got started with my story. So I'll keep writing, but I won't be sad for not meeting the deadline. The real downside, however, is that without the deadline, I'm more likely to skip writing in favor of doing other relaxing stuff.

I need to reach a balance. I want to write, but I don't want to write so much I burn myself out and start hating it. I also want to play WoW and do other stuff, but not at the expense of everything else.

With all that said, I've got a lot of the story planned in my notebook. If I write long chapters, about 3 to 5 more chapters. If I write short, obviously a lot more. It's fairly easy for me to come up with more ideas for the story. All my sessions as a GM probably helps, but I had a pretty wild fantasy as a kid too. I could sit for hours with my Middle-Age "Knight" Lego and roleplay with myself. Needless to say, it included quite a lot heroic stuff.

NaNoWriMo Chapter 5: Returning

It took them another two days to reach civilization. Or at least, the outlying farms. The trip was uneventful, or "refreshingly boring," as Rob put it.

The only events were Din's dreams. She recalled only bits of it in the morning, but seemed to remember the blue woman each time. She never explained much, and Din wasn't sure what to make of it. As long as Din and Rob talked, Din didn't think much about it, but it certainly bothered her when she was alone and couldn't help think. And then it was the presence that always seemed to bother her. One way to put together two and two gave birth to the theory that it was the blue woman who was watching him all the time. The thought scared Din, and she couldn't quite dismiss it either.

On the first farm they came across, Rob had asked Din to wait in a fair distance while he bought some food. Din agreed to that, figuring that all the blood on her clothes probably wouldn't attract a good reaction.

He returned with more than enough for a good meal, even eggs. He also brought an old dress belonging to a former maid. Din was a bit baffled, but accepted the dress. She figured that wearing a dress would be preferable to walking around in the blood-stained clothes any more than she had to.

She changed behind a tree, with Rob sitting like a statue facing the other direction. Her nose reminded her how much she needed a bath. However, she didn't feel very keen on finding out just how freezing the water was. She was glad Rob had gotten a pair of long wool socks as well, the air and wind made it quite chilly.

It felt really weird to be wearing a dress. Rob seemed to think that it was a bit strange sight as well. "Wow... it looks ... really good on you. It's just... strange seeing you in a dress and knowing it's you, Din," he commented. Din felt herself blush slightly at the comment.

Reaching the farms also meant that they were splitting up soon. Din wanted Rob to join her back to town, but Rob had been adamant about going home. He had, in fact, tried to pursue Din to return to her own farm and convince her parents with Rob's help. However, Din hadn't been very positive about that idea. There was also something else bothering her. She had something she needed to do, but she couldn't really describe what it was.

They said their farewells when they were still out of eyesight of Din's farm. She felt a bit sad by it, even after Rob assured her he'd come visit her in town once his leg had gotten better. For a moment, she felt it would be natural to hug him goodbye, but discarded the thought.

It felt strange to walk all alone. As she was getting closer to the town, there were more people around too. She felt she got some strange stares, and wondered what could be the reason. Okay, she could think of several reasons, but she didn't know exactly why they looked at her that way.

It wasn't a very long walk from her farm to town. Her family used to go there to purchase what they couldn't produce themselves. She remembered when he, as a young boy, was allowed to go with her father to town. In particular, she recalled seeing an essence-user for the first time in town. A man that looked like a giant to the young Din had walked past while carrying several timbers on his shoulder, engulfed in a red flame as he walked past them. The sight had been forever burned itself into Din's memory.

When Din and Rob had left their homes, they'd found themselves a room in town. They had planned it for quite some time prior to leaving home. Din had an older brother who would inherit the farm, so their parents agreed it would be a good idea to live for himself for a bit. Rob had just wanted to try something different for a while, and while his father hadn't agreed, at least he hadn't prevented him from doing it.

They had originally planned to find work and earn money for themselves. They had gotten work too, but perhaps not as adventurous as they had hoped for. Cleaning the stables was neither very exciting nor very well-paid. Besides, Din felt he had spent enough time cleaning stables at home, even if they only had a single horse.

So when the offer came up for to join the adventurers to the crypt, they had been far too eager to accept it. Din wondered how they would have ended up if they'd rejected the offer. Somehow, she didn't really regret it, despite all that had happened. While she wasn't comfortable with all the changes, at least she had some of the adventure she'd always dreamed of now. And she was fairly certain it wasn't over yet.