I recently did a clean installation of WoW for a new account and rolled (of course) a Discipline Priest. But something was bugging me: Penance and other channelled spells not only turn your character to face your target but this also makes your camera turn to face them.

In a boss fight, for example, my camera is usually facing in a particular direction to watch something specific, and the last thing I want when I throw a Penance at an off-tank or aggro-monkey DPS is for my camera to swing violently around.

The Cause

The key to figuring out the cause is that this doesn’t happen to me on Malevica. That’s because the account is much older. (This might also be the case for many of you reading this and thinking I’ve gone mad!)

You see, it turns out this behaviour is controlled by an option that used to be exposed but now isn’t, so new installs default to the annoying ‘turret-mode’ and there’s no obvous way of fixing it.

Enter the non-obvious!

The Solution

Edit: Zhiva in the comments suggested a much simpler way of achieving the same result as my original instructions (which appear below). Simply type:

into your chat window in game and you’re done. No messing with configuration files required, which is a plus.
Thanks for the tip!

All you need to do is add a single line to one of your WoW configuration files, as follows:

1. Make sure WoW isn’t running.
2. Navigate to your WoW directory .
            (e.g. C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\)
3. Head into the WTF folder, then Account, then the folder for the account you use.
            (e.g. C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\<ACCOUNTNAME>\
4. [Optional but highly recommended] Make a backup copy of config-cache.wtf somewhere safe, just in case something goes wrong.
5. Look for an entry containing:
            SET cameraSmoothTrackingStyle “1”
   If this line exists, change the “1” to “0”.
   If this line does not exist, add the line:
            SET cameraSmoothTrackingStyle “0”
   to the end of the config-cache.wtf file and save it.
6. Restart WoW and enjoy!

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• Atonement and Penance Bugs – Updated
• Smite Healing – Tips

When I first came across this week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic from Amaranth of Specced for Drama I was a little puzzled by the question: “What is your favorite profession and why?”. I mean, as a progression raider it doesn’t matter what my “favourite” profession is, I simply take what benefits me most. There’s no emotion involved, right?

Well then I thought about the question a bit more and realised that actually I do have an answer to the question. Two, in fact.

Tailoring

Malevica is a tailor, and has been since I rolled her back in 2007. Even when Tailoring went through its darkest days in early Wrath (Darkglow wasn’t worth much and they’d just taken away the idea of BoP crafted epics) she didn’t drop it and pick up Jewelcrafting or Enchanting like every raider worth her salt ought to. Here’s the point: I’d grown attached to it!

Tailoring had become a sort of underdog in my mind, and while I was the only tailor in my guild I felt like I was keeping something alive, keeping the faith somehow. I had to believe that one day it might be improved again and I’d be vindicated in my steadfastness. Plus, I didn’t want to waste the hundreds, maybe thousands of stacks of cloth that I’d sunk into it. Now, of course, Tailoring is the pick of the crop for most, if not all, caster classes.

Malevica is a tailor today, and the new baby Priest I’ve recently rolled on a fresh server is also a tailor. So I’d say it’s a good candidate for my favourite profession, if for unconventional reasons!

Engineering

I know it’s probably an obvious pick but Engineering is still, for me, the most fun profession in the game.

It’s been watered down a bit in recent times to keep its measurable benefits in line with the other professions, but there’s still plenty of interest to be had. Parachutes and rocket boots and the Cardboard Assassin make for a lot of fun as well as providing utility to your team. You also get the Flying Machine mounts and the convenience of Jeeves and MOLL-E when you’re out in the world.

It’s a shame that the pets and Mechano-Hog were made BoE, because they were great ways to distinguish yourself as an engineer, but I can definitely understand the desire to give engineers an income stream. It’s still a very expensive profession to level in a hurry, but I doubt you’ll regret it!

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Well, OK, I do enjoy topping the meters from time to time when I really get into my groove or a fight seems tailor-made to a Priest’s healing style (I’m looking at you, Atramedes and Nefarian!), that’s just natural.

What I’m talking about is the conflict between being a big fish in a small pond and being a small fish in a large pond.

Fish?

It’s a metaphor.

As I’ve progressed through this game, the average skill and potential of the guilds I’ve been in has tended to improve each time, from the guild where the Maiden of Virtue was an insurmountable challenge to becoming stuck at Kael’Thas (twice) and finally to my present guild.

In each of my previous guilds (not this one!), I’ve eventually found myself topping the meters on a consistent basis, either as a damage-dealer or healer. Now I know that meters suck, healing meters in particular, that they don’t tell the whole story and that there’s more to a player than their ranking. So don’t write in! Just consider it a shorthand for “performance”, OK?

The point is, eventually you may simply outgrow your guild, you become the big fish in your guild’s small pond, and it may well be time to consider moving on.

What’s wrong with being the big fish?

If you’re happy where you are, then stay where you are. But there are some pitfalls to being the big fish.

Frustrated potential – This is probably the most significant problem you’ll find, sooner or later. If the rest of your guild is ‘lagging behind’ you in terms of performance, then you might not be experiencing the level of content, with all its associated challenges, that you really need to give you a truly fulfilling gaming experience.

This is a common source of friction in just about all raiding teams, and is very difficult for leadership to manage because the solutions take time, or might mean an unacceptable compromise on principles. You can’t simply “kick the bads and recruit better players” (because they might not want to join you, or their desires and needs might conflict with the guild’s founding principles) and nor can you expect a Hollywood-style inspirational speech (and certainly not a rant) to instantly boost your raid’s DPS output by 30%.

Usually a move to a more progressed guild is the eventual outcome. If you’re willing to stick with the guild though and work patiently with your guildies to develop their skills and inspire them to greater things, you may earn yourself a lot of respect and some friends for life.

No yardstick – The question every raider should be asking themselves is: “how am I doing”, followed by: “how can I do better”. When you’re in a situation where you have little or no competition, you will struggle to answer those questions and that can easily lead to stagnation.

Accepting that healing meters on their own don’t tell the whole story (or damage meters, to a lesser extent), they can at least be an indication of how you’re doing as a raider. If you’re always head and shoulders ahead of your classmate and it can’t be put down to assignments or fight mechanics, you have no immediate pressure to improve, nor any inspiration to derive from them.

This one can be a slow-burner, but eventually you will probably begin to feel like you want to feel a challenge to hone your skills, and to have someone to look up to and emulate.

The pressure to attend – While it might be great to be your team’s all-star player, particularly in smaller teams your presence might be make-or-break for success in a particular fight; or at least you might have that impression. Either way, that can lead to a strong sense of obligation to be at every raid.

Quite apart from the pressure being problematic in its own right, everyone needs a guilt-free night off from time to time after all, it also locks you into a class and spec. If you’re irreplaceable, you don’t have the freedom to change your mind at will, which might also trigger a change of guild.

Resentment – Finally, there’s the ever-present human nature to consider. This one depends strongly on your guild and team, and how you present yourself within that team, but there can be a certain resentment of the big fish that builds over time.

Maybe someone is worried that they’ll never get a regular raid spot while you’re around; maybe they don’t want your advice on how they can improve; maybe they think you’re trying to pull the guild in directions they don’t want it to go.

Whatever the reason, and however well-founded it might be, these feelings are real and can be very destructive if not dealt with. It’s possible that you can change how you interact, but maybe it can’t be fixed and a change of scenery ensues.

What about the small fish?

Well, unless you make only the tiniest step up the progression ladder, chances are you’ll find yourself struggling to keep up and maybe fighting for your survival within the guild. How much of this you subject yourself to depends on how ambitious you were when picking your new guild.

To make matters worse, your skills are likely to be at least a little rusty. That’s either the reason for the move or a likely corollary. So it’ll take a bit of time to stretch out your muscles and perform at your best.

The transition can be very tough. The automatic respect that came from being thought of as a “good player” in your old guild won’t be present in your new guild, which means you have to be very careful how you offer comments and suggestions. And, regardless of what anyone says, it is nice to see yourself on top from time to time.

Get through it though, and maybe you’ve found your new home. At least for a while…

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My favourite fight of this expansion so far has to be Nefarian’s End. Not because of the environment, although the moving platform and lava pouring from the walls is a great setting for a fight, but because in this encounter I really feel like I can flex my Priestly muscles: I go from tank healing in Phase 1, to intense multi-target healing on the platforms in Phase 2 to a mix of the two as we push through Phase 3. It feels good to shift gears during a fight.

Phase 1

In this phase I’m assigned (with a little informal help) to the Onyxia tank. Because there’s just the tank in range for most of the phase I’ve kept hold of my Atonement spec and use a mix of Smite, Penance and PW:S to keep the tank up. Binding heal helps get my health back up after Electrocute, and I can PW:S myself so a Tail Lash and Electrocute combination doesn’t embarrass me.

With Train of Thought shortening the cooldown on Penance and Archangel helping with throughput and a little bit of mana return, it works out as a pretty mana-efficient way of keeping a tank up when there’s no concerns about the heals going anywhere else.

Plus, although I might not do much damage to Onyxia I do manage to crank out around 8k DPS during Phase 1 and every little helps!

Phase 2

Here’s where we really kick it up a notch, and Disc comes into its own in this phase.

Right from the start I throw a Power Word: Barrier onto my platform as I’m jumping up onto it, which is a massive help getting the group stabilised. If you’re taking an Electrocute in this phase though, you might want to save the PW:B for later to make dealing with the damage spike easier.

Once everyone on the platform is safe, then the rest of the AoE healing tools come out. My team assigns a single group plus 3-4 others onto each platform, so I cover the single group with Prayer of Healing and keep up the rest of the players up with Prayer of Mending on cooldown and Power Word: Shield as often as I can afford it. Any PW:S cast without a corresponding Rapture proc is an expensive proposition but also provides extremely high throughput in a situation like this when you know the absorb is going to be used, as well as improving the throughput of the Prayer of Healing. For me it’s a judgement call, depending on how I’m doing mana-wise.

I tend to use my Shadowfiend and Hymn of Hope in this phase to prop up my mana, particularly if I get a lucky coincidence of Lightweave and Power Torrent.

Phase 3

In Phase 3 I tend to be assigned to a tank. On the Nefarian tank Heal becomes the bread-and-butter spell instead of Smite on the tank, because Atonement is too unpredictable with large numbers of other players in close range. On the add tank though it’s really useful to weave Smites in with the Heals to take advantage of the throughput boost from Archangel when the adds’ damage starts getting heavy.
You can also make good use of PW:B or Pain Suppression when Electrocutes are due either on the raid or the tank.

If you are assigned to the raid in this phase, spreading some Divine Aegis around with Prayer of Healing when an Electrocute is due will take the edge off the damage spike.

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