Promised Intarwebzs Embarrassment

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This is the product of the evil corruption of BA Chat.

Auz visits EJ forums

I'm not a frequent denizen of EJ forums but this thread, Raid Healing Leadership, caught my eye. So there's a good conversation going on there, and CLEARLY I need to put in my two cents. (I've posted 3 times now so they've actually gotten six cents) I finished up my response there and thought this is good stuff Auz, you should put it on the blog.



So Mondays asked:

Apart from that when i assign healing i get almost no replies from any of the healers and we usually end up wiping due too the healers not doing what they're told. Not only that some of the healers simply do not read forums,enchant and gem their gear properly. Is it a lack of dedication and respect or do i simply fail? I've been healercl in my previous guild and i've never experienced this before so i'm quite frustrated.
Also the overhealing and the flash heal spam is freaking me out how can i tell people to change their gamingstyle in a non offending way?

The best way to get respect from your healers is to give it, and to be a resource of information. We don't have any way to pay these people other than shiny epics, so I find positive re-enforcement works better than berating. Set yourself up to be their mentor and personal coach rather than their boss.

I try not to tell my healers how to heal, but rather give them information that leads them to the conclusion. People tend to own more what they come to rather than what people tell them. (I call it the fine art of letting someone else have my way) "PallyZ I see that often when a tank that I've assigned you to dies, you're casting flash of light but it seems like you're losing ground on the tanks health, how can I help you fix that?" (Have links to WWS for the inevitable "nu-uh")

Another pitfall I've learned to avoid is trying to cram a bunch of information in at once. I work with my healers and give them one task at a time to focus on. Once they've made improvement on that one thing, give them another "DruidQ I see that you've really mastered the rolling lifeblooms rotation we were talking about, I think now it's time to shift our focus to how you can incorporate swiftmends into that rotation to help us recover from spike damage."

Be clear with your healers regarding your expectations of them in raids. I don't say "bring consumables" I say, "every healer should make sure they have 20 golden fishsticks or 20 blackened sporefish" 20 guardian elixirs and 20 battle elixirs or 2 flasks and 4 charges of weapon oil for this raid, if you are unsure about which of the available consumables are best for this encounter/your class, I'll be happy to talk to you about it in tells BEFORE our raid time."

Reward good behavior! When you write a wall of text healing strat, hide an easter egg in it. "Whisper Auz the red dragon flys by night for a 10g prize." When someone blossoms under your tutelage praise them! When someone got that clutch heal and keeps the raid from a wipe puff up their little pixelated egos. When we were learning Kael, I went out one night and bought a bunch of cockroach pets, and at the end of the night I gave one to every player that didn't die before a wipe was called that night. I told my raid "Be the cockroach." When we killed him there were a bunch of cockroach pets running around the raid like a badge of honor.




Over recruit. Your healers have no motivation to do what you ask them if they know you have to take them regardless of their behavior, enchanting, gemming, etc. I keep a mental note of how many healers I need for the average encounter and make sure I have enough healers on staff to sit 1 or 2 a night. This allows me to maintain flexibility in healing composition, sit tired raiders and occasionally say "I see you're having trouble getting that new weapon enchanted so I'm going to sit you tonight to make sure you have the time to farm for those enchanting mats"

Officer Offer

So I've just offered you a spot as an officer in my guild and now I've asked you to sleep on it before you answer me. What things would you consider before answering me?

Below is a list of questions I think any member should answer before taking on a leadership role in an established guild:

• Do I intend to make a long term commitment to this game?
• Do I intend to make a long term commitment to this guild?
• What will my responsibilities be?
• Do I want to make a long term commitment to these responsibilities?
• How are my views inline with that of the current leadership core?
• How are my views different from that of the current leadership core?
• What strengths do I have to bring to this guild in a leadership role?
• Which of my weaknesses might affect my ability to hold a leadership role?
• Is my GM aware of these weaknesses?
• Am I willing to commit to being a good example for my guildmates?
• Can I establish a good working relationship with the other members of the leadership core?
• How do the other officers interact with the GM(s)?
• Is that how I want to interact with the GM(s)?
• Do I respect my GM(s)?
  
• Why is the GM looking for a new officer?
• Does your idea of the authority you should have as an officer line up with your GM(s)'s?
• Does your idea of the role you would play in the leadership core line up with your GM(s
  

What things would you consider?

I have a name!

The Gold Star goes to Bell from 4haelz! (I took artistic liberties to fit it on the header) Thanks for all the suggestions. They were all much better than what I came up with on my own. In fact, I had such trouble picking that I made Mikedabutcha help me. While I was adding Bell, I updated my blog list, because I now read a lot more blogs. Thanks to the friendly people at BA, I've been introduced to many good blogs, RSS feeds, feed readers, better layouts, using pictures, copywrites, disclosures, and questionable chat content. They've also gotten me to promise to throughly embarrass myself on the internet this weekend, so check back for that.

Second Chances

Warning opinions expressed in this post are mainly from the perspective of a raiding guild and may not apply to other types of guilds.

So recruiting a new raider is always an interesting experience. But what happens when someone who has already raided with you applies as a raider a second time?

On the positive side, you've raided with this person. You know what to expect from their attendance, attitude, raid preparation, comprehension and consumable use. Sure apps tell you what to expect, but everyone knows the right answer and reality don't always match. Additionally your team knows them, and integration into the guild should take less time.

On the negative side, it didn't work out once. Like I'm fond of counseling one of my friends "There is a reason he's your ex." Unlike an app, this player carries baggage from their previous experience with your guild.

Generally when I'm considering a previous raider as an applicant, I focus most heavily on why and how they ceased raiding with us. Was it a philosophical difference or a lifestyle change? When they ceased raiding how did they treat their peers and the leadership core? Did they disappear overnight or did they take time to talk about what was going on?

If the player left for a philosophical difference, what has changed? If your policies haven't changed and their perspective hasn't changed, then I believe tagging the player again will only lead you back to the same place. If your guild's policy changed or the person's perspective changed you should still do an inventory, are these changes sufficient to prevent further friction?

If the player left because of a lifestyle change, how permanent is this change? Are they likely to have real life obligations pull them away again or are they now able to make a stable commitment to your guild. If their lifestyle is not stable, the raider may fall into a yo-yo pattern of commitment and flakiness that cause your more stable raiders to question why they are stable when this player's mercurial nature is tolerated. While I will occasionally give this type of applicant a second chance, I won't give them a third.

How was this player's attitude when they left? If they said unpleasant things to other team mates or leaders, those people may be hesitant to allow this person to integrate back into the guild. If your other raiders are opposed to this player's return then you are probably better off bringing in a player without that baggage.



Finally, how well did this player communicate with the leadership the last time they left? When people have to leave a guild, the way they chose to communicate and how much they chose to communicate tells you a great deal about their level of respect for the commitment they made to your guild. If they didn't bother to talk to you the last time they were in your guild, I wouldn't give them a second chance.

Auz, you didn't discuss what happens if you removed a player. Yeah I didn't. Generally I won't remove a raider unless I feel there is absolutely no hope that this player will integrate in the way I need them to. Because of this, I won't generally consider a player I've removed from a raiding position.

Some Lamaa support

I don't have time for a full post today but I wanted to draw some attention to TJ's post that I've renamed in my head "When WoW Bans happen to Good people."

While we all understand the need for banning those that aren't playing by the same rules, I would hope that Lamaa finds some recourse.

Byline me baby!

Description: The "Insert Witty Byline" part of my blog header was supposed to be a placeholder until in a fit of creative inspiration, the perfect byline would fall from the heavens into my lap. It's been a little while and no such inspiration has come. I think maybe I'm just too close to the blog to step back and see it as a whole. So I'm calling upon you for help.

Entertainment: To aid your creative inspiration, I'm providing you a list of bylines that didn't make it:

10 years of gaming, 6 years of GMing and a great set of tits too - Rejected because if you don't know me it's not funny also, it may draw the kind of attention I don't care for.

I have 35 kids - Rejected, I don't really think of my raiders as kids.... most of them anyway =P

Wrangling at the funny farm - Rejected, the farm reference was supposed to be a play on "chick" but that didn't really come through, and again, I don't really think of my raiders as animals... most of them anyway =P

A Medivh Carebear - A play on Stop the Warrior's byline "A Medivh Badass." Rejected, I don't want to be too closely associate with Stop's blog, as our topics are largely unrelated and our tone is much different. Also, while I am known as our guild's carebear for positive reasons, carebear has gaming connotations I don't embrace and may soften the message I want to send.

An over opinionated chick's thoughts on GMing - Rejected, too close to the truth so it might scare people away.

PWNing boys since 1998 - Rejected, this is more confrontational, and egotistical than I want. Ideally I want others to be able to catch a glimpse of the world from my perspective, not alienate them. Also it's a little less mature than I normally am. I'm still grumpy with masculine side of our species, so to me, it's kinda funny today.

Prize: As a baby blog or as Matt put it, "Upcoming Blog" (made my week Matt) I don't have much to offer. The winner gets a link on my blog roll (if you aren't already there and have a blog) and a gold star.

A Rare Non WoW Post

For the record, I don't understand boys at all nor do I understand the way I interact with some of them. I think it was simpler when they all had cooties. I'll be back to regular blogging after I get my cootie shot.

The back seat

And on the 6th day, I rest. (Sorta)

I don't lead raids on the weekend. Some people can lead raids 7 days a week but I am not that person. I make myself available for one on one sessions with my raiders regarding raid performance, real life, personal interactions, gear plans, etc. But leading a group of 25 raiders, just drains me.

My guild, however, has become it's own living breathing thing. With 148 accounts and 358 characters (only 38 of which are raiders) our guild has four hour raids five nights a week that are "official, " and 5 Karas, 4 ZAs, 2 Mag/Gruul runs, and a smattering of pre-bc runs scattered in our off time. The runs are sometimes run by my officers, partner-in-crime and sometimes by random members that just stepped up and started running it. Sometimes they consist solely of members of my guild and some are a collection of people from various guilds.

Normally I avoid the ones my officers don't lead. It's hard for your guild not to look to you for leadership, and it can make the leader feel like they need approval for the things they would otherwise just do or say. This weekend however I decided to go to one. My baby druid is coming along nicely, and I thought she was ready for some 25 man content. It was interesting. I bit my tongue while some interesting healing assignments were made and watched my member as he made careful adjustments to his instructions. We ended up one shotting, High King, Gruul, and Mag with a group of alts and casual friends. He didn't do everything I would have done, but we were successful. One time I was unable to contain my advice, so I whispered it to him rather than blurt it out. (Taking two very observant players off cube duty and instead having them watch nearby cubes as back up, if you were curious) He handled it with grace (namely listening to me =P)

I can't say I was a perfect raider. I can say it was very interesting to be in the back seat, watching the raid from another perspective. It was also interesting to note how he established his authority, how he handled questions, how he put down rebellion and how the raid in general responded to general nuances of his personality. I'm thinking about using fraps to record myself in vent and the raiding effect. It would be interesting to see if I can recreate my observations and translate them to my own leadership skills. I can never hope to be unbiased, but maybe I'll be able to learn something anyway.



On a side note, I've about had it with that little blue dragon. I've tried about all I know how to try from a leadership and strategy perspective. I've done indepth WWS analysis, made graphs, pictures, wordy explanations, set up captains, educated captains, worked on a one on one basis with those that are repeatedly not executing, recruited new raiders to replace the ones that are not executing, tried different strats, spoken to leaders of guilds that have killed him, spoken to members of guilds that have killed him, everything I know how to do. If we don't kill him soon, I'm not really sure what to try next. We have the gear, strat, ability and desire, it seems we lack the focus and execution. All guilds have high points and low points, and we'll get through this one too, it's just frustrating to be in a low point.

So you want to be a raider?

Long Boring Intro:
I have a secret. A long time ago, I was a "casual" player. For about a year I had a real life priority that took enough of my time to prevent me from raiding with any regularity. In that time I was part of a pvp team (where I met my partner in crime! Mikedabutcha) and then part of a real life friend guild. (You had to know someone in real life who was in the guild, A la Kevin Bacon). Once my real life priority had passed, I found myself too bored to play casually and sought out a raiding home, but I've always stayed in touch with that real life group of friends. Recently one of those members e-mailed me and let me know they were considering "raiding" and wanted advice. What is "raiding" and where might they find a good home? I e-mailed them back a specific response, and then upon re-reading it decided some of the advice I'd given him could be generalized and may be interesting to others.


The better player myth:
Intrinsically, dedicated raiders aren't any better or worse than their casual counterparts. Rather than a reflection of skill, dedicated raiding is reflection of effort. Most people do become better with time and effort, but I've seen some really terrible players in some really good gear. In fact, in some cases I've been responsible for putting some good gear on bad players.

The "raider" mindset:
In another post, I've already talked about how the commitment to raiding, alters a players view of the game, so I won't rehash that here. The advantage of this mindset is that you feel more involved in the game, you are able to see more things and the encounters do challenge you to master your class. The disadvantages are the you have to make raiding a priority in your life, you may end up playing with people you don't necessarily enjoy outside of raids, and gaming time becomes a little more stressful.

Defining your commitment:
Often times in discussions we'll put players into boxes: "Casual," "Hardcore," "Elitist," "Scrub." But in reality it's not that simple. Rather than black or white there is a grayscale of levels of commitment to raiding and ability. So while considering raiding, consider realistically how much time do you want to spend playing this game? How much time can you spare from your everyday lifestyle? Remember that you are committing to more than just raiding, but also to being prepared for raids. A good rule of thumb to consider is that you'll need about 15 minutes of preparation time for every hour of time you spend in a raid.

Finding a guild that matches your expectations:
This isn't always easy. In fact, it was so hard for me that I ended up making my own guild. One of the easiest tricks to finding a guild that raids when you want to is to just type "/who Serpentshrine Cavern" (Or whatever zone you're interested in raiding) and note the guilds of the people who are in that zone. Do that for a few days and make a list of the guild names you see. Once you have your list, do a search on the internet for "GuildName WoW Servername" or ask a member for the guild's website. The first thing you should check is that their raid expectations match up to what you want to commit. Second, check their available information and see if their culture seems like the kind of culture you want from a guild.

Impressing the guild you want to join:
Once you've decided you want to join them, you have to explain to them why they should want you. Take a look at their raiders who play the same class/spec that you are playing in the armory and see how they have gemmed or enchanted their gear. Take a moment to evaluate your own character and used the "find upgrades" button to see if there is something easy you can do to make your character stronger. If this guild is killing bosses you haven't seen yet, read information about those bosses. Remember in an interview, the recruiter is checking you to see if it's worth making a time investment in you. The more things you can do to show them that you are investing time in yourself and your own progression, the more likely they are to feel that time invested in you and your progression is worthwhile.

Everything I need to know about GMing I learned from my mother!

"It's better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you aren't." - Your guild, however amazing it is, isn't going to be the place for everyone. If you are talking to an applicant, be sure to be honest about what they can expect from your guild. Bringing in a member who clearly desires something your guild doesn't provide will only breed discontent.

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness." - This may be a stretch, but I use this advice as motivation to keep my information organized. I can tell you in 30 seconds or less the attendance of a raider since the first day they stepped into the guild, who broke a sheep in the raid, the resistance each raider has on, how many symbol of kings one of my pallys has, the average mana level my priests have, who's isn't flasked and who's missing what buffs in a raid. My raiders are impressed. I tell them it's because I'm omnipresent, but it's really just because I'm well organized.

"Don’t say anything you don’t want on the front page of the newspaper." - Electronic information is forever. Between screenshots, vent recording, and forum archives, what you say can be shared with people you didn't intend for it to shared with. Be sure before you speak that you would willing stand by and support your statement if it were published in the newspaper or more topically, shouted in the Trade channel.

"Never argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience." - If someone is being unreasonable, you cannot reason with them. Sometimes it's better for you just to say "I'm sorry you feel that way" and move on.

"It's better to eat soup with the one you love then to eat steak with someone that you do not." - If I find a new recruit who looks like an awesome player of his class, but I don't think his personality is going to mesh well with our guild, I pass on him. First and foremost this is a game, if we're not having fun no matter what bosses we're killing, we've failed at the basic concept of entertainment.

"Anything worth doing is worth doing right." - If you're going to put your time and energy into something, don't half ass it. Your members will respect one well done project to better your guild much more than 3 halfway done things. If you don't have time to do something well that needs to be done, then delegate the responsibility to an officer or trusted member who does.

"Well behaved women rarely make history." - If you do what everyone else is doing, you're going to end up where everyone else is. Sometimes you have to push the envelope and operate outside of the normal to accomplish something extraordinary.

"Deep down most people just want to be understood and valued for who they are." - More than shiny purples and getting into every raid, most of the people in your guild want to feel like they contribute something important. If you take the time to get to know what's unique about your raiders and make an effort to capitalize on that uniqueness, you will inspire more loyalty in most people than if you just give them purples for showing up. That being said, in a raiding guild you have to give them purples and get them into raids too.


If you have any sage mom advice you think could be applied to GMing I'd love to hear it!

Zomg Drama!

If you get enough people together, drama is an eventual byproduct. This week it happened to our guild. I'm sharing it with you because A) this is probably the only place I can vent where it reflects on me and not my guild and B) I hope someone can learn from our drama or at least be entertained.

So a few days ago I was summoned from my book writing via a MSN message from a guildmate "Check the realm forums." I yawn, stretch, and direct my browser to the realm forums. To discover this gem.




It's posted by a level 12 alt, but the genius was intelligent enough to use an alt tagged with the same guild as his main. So it was easy to identify the poster as a hunter we'd given an initiate opportunity to but decided not to retain as a member. The post was clearly bait and the realm community had already responded with some additional trolling but mostly skepticism. I asked my raiders not to respond however the request missed a few of our non-raiding members.

Sidenote: Who starts a flame thread with "I know everyone else like you guys."

So Operation ignore the troll was put into place and we ignored him through this post:


But I'm afraid one of my soldiers broke ranks and posted a response on an unguilded alt prompting this response:


I haven't figured out which member it was, and to be honest I haven't tried too hard, but I suspect it was one of mine because the information shared wouldn't have been public knowledge. I think raising to the bait does reflect poorly on my guild in some ways, however it is at this point that he moves from the slightly sophomoric to the absolutely absurd, conveniently diverting attention away from my errant member's misbehavior.



Unfortunately for the poster, he's now entirely lost the crowd prompting this next gem:




Now thus far it's been easy for me. Ignore the poster as he slowly digs his hole. I know, if left alone, he'll dig his own grave and eventually tire out. I know that nothing I say to him will calm him down. But now he's growing hostile towards my server mates, and he's told his first complete untruth. Everything else has just been his interpretation of the events that do have some base in reality, twisted as his perception of that reality may seem to me. I know better, I really do, but at this point I feel compelled to make an attempt to reach him, resulting in:



I'm not sure if I reached him or not, but it's 7 hours since I posted and he's yet to respond. The "Drama" thread has derailed into a Monty Python sketch. Yes, I did try to recruit in the drama thread. What can I say, I'm shameless.

So that's my drama story. I hope you've been entertained, but I also hope that you and I can learn something from this example. While examining this situation or any unpleasant situation I don't care to repeat, I try to look at the following things:

Prevention: The drama in this event comes from an initiate who was not granted member status. Unfortunately the purpose of an initiation period is to determine if a player is a good fit a guild and the guild is a good fit for the initiate. If there was a way to ensure a player and a guild will work well together there would be no need for initiation phases. I would say the conversation in which I informed the initiate that he would not be offered a member position within our guild could have been smoother, but honestly that conversation was as pleasant as that kind of conversation can be. We parted on amicable terms and allowed him to remain in our guild on a non raiding rank until his server-transfer cool down was up. (He chose to return to his previous raiding guild, despite my offer of assistance finding a new guild on our server.) Frankly, I was quite surprised to see his post in the forums. That being said, we've previously relied on the interview process to inform cross-server applicants that we make no guarantee they will be invited to member status. I believe that due to this event we'll add this information to our application, so we'll have documentation this information was provided.

Room for Improvement: The post made with information only known to members of our raider core, should not have been made. Once it's all said and done I'll have to track down who and have a heart to heart about why that post, while cathartic, was probably not in the best interest of our guild. As a guild leader, I'm not a tyrant, I'm not capable of nor do I desire to control the actions of my members. That being said, I don't make requests idly. By explaining the rational of radio silence, I could have gotten higher buy in. Also we did a good job letting our raiders know we preferred they not post, but we did not get to our friend rank members in time to prevent a few of them from making comments. An outside observer doesn't know the difference between the girl friend of a raider who logs in once a month and a core member of our guild from their forum posts. I'm considering adding information to friend rank induction reminding friends of this fact and asking them to consider how their posts will reflect on our community before posting.

Gold Star: I probably shouldn't have responded to the thread, but given that I did, I think the response was professional and did not take the bait to indulge in mud slinging with him. I was tempted and could have cited that:

• In our raids he did an average of 400 dps less than he promised in his interview.
• He caused wipes on fights he claimed to understand.
• His ability to follow directions regarding when to misdirect was so bad that we had to create a safety word to be his cue to pull.
• His interpretation of the events of his initiation period was suspect to be generous.

I didn't (but I must say, it is nice to get that list off my chest in my own personal corner of the interwebz) take the bait, instead I focused my comments productive things that did not lend themselves to debate. I reminded him that I was available to speak with him one on one to clarify and address any outstanding issues he may have. I expressed my regret at his dissatisfaction, without taking accountability for that dissatisfaction. While it may have been in poor taste, I used the free publicity to highlight my guild's recruitment needs (and to my amusement have had two potential applicants get in touch with me as a direct result). Finally the reaction of the server including the lack of people to jump on the bandwagon with their perceived slights, leaves me to believe that all in all our interactions with our server mates have been fairly strong.

Damage Control: When all is said and done, there isn't a lot of damage control to be done. Should the thread continue, I may need to re-evaluate, but I feel like in it's current state this has been more of a nuisance than anything else.

Int vs mp5: a lazy post

I'm feeling lazy, but also feeling the need to update. I've decided to cater to both by sharing some healer math I posted in response to a friend rank guild member's question in our guild forums.

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Question: "Healers in general, but specifically for paladins (as we have other perks to int) What is the perception on mp5 versus mana pool? Is a weak mana pool ok with enough mp5, or vice versa a huge mana pool ok with lower mp5?
I'm worried I might have stacked too much mp5 and sacrificed some of my overall mana pool. My mana and mp5 stats should be in my signature, i can regem to get my int up higher, but I'd lose some mp5 in the process. Not to mention one of my rings has zero stats on it, and desperately needs to be upgraded.
But yea, anyone have some advice on mana pool vs mp5? "


Long nerdy AuzAnswer(tm): "The significance of a large mana pool is relative to the length of the fight. I did my calculations based on a 10 minute fight which I've found to be the average length for a NEW boss fight (I emphasis new because as a boss fight becomes farmed the time it takes to down it shortens). For a 10 minute fight 1 mp5 is equal to 8 int. (I'd like to add a caveat that this is for MANA REGEN only.)

Ooo look math:
1 int = 15 mana
8 * 15 = 120 mana

1 minute = 60 seconds
60 * 10 = 600 seconds
600/5 (mana per 5 seconds) = 120 ticks
120 ticks * 1 mana = 120 mana


So in 10 minutes 1 mp5 gains you 120 mana or 8 int gives you 120 mana to start the fight with. As you can see from the math portion, the shorter the average fight you experience the more important int becomes relative to mana regen.

In addition 80 int = 1% spell crit (NOTE: I'm certain this is true for PRIESTS, I haven't done all my fact checking for other mana users, honestly I just care more about priest minutia than other classes) I know that as a Pally you get 60% mana back for a spell that crits. So you can 1/800 * .6 * average total mana you use per fight and add that to the total mana you gain via int. (To be honest this number will probably be small enough to discount.)

Other considerations:
Blessing of Kings will multiply your int by 1.1 giving it a greater yield in comparison to mp5 which does not scale with Kings. This changes the ratio of a 10 minute fight to 7.27 int = 1 mp5, but this is only when you have Kings active.

When you get to a ridiculously small mana pool, the mana gained is too slow to meet up with your usage curve. (Remember 1mp5 is given out 1 mana point at a time) For 5 mans this is probably evident with mana pools below 6k and in raids below 8k but I've never seen gear allow you to drop below this pool unless you're making an effort to avoid int)

If you use spirit, which as a pallidan you don't, int also raises the amount of regen each point of spirit provides you. Given your small spirit score it's not worth calculating.

5 man fights and 10 man fights tend to be 6 minutes or less, I won't redo the math for you but you can see this will skew your ratio more heavily in favor of int.

Mods:
If you want help gaining the assumed statistics I used, I reccomend RegenFu (if you use Fubar) it will post your total mana regen and the length of the fight after each combat in it's display.

Caster Weapon Swapper also does the same thing (and switches weapons for Spellsurge procs automatically!) only it reports in to your chat window.

Healpoints is a stand alone mod that will allow you to theorycraft changes to your stats and how they will affect your healing per second as well as your endurance (how long you can heal before you go OOM) Maybe if I get bored I'll make a Healpoints theorycrafting guide.

/nerdmode off

{Name removed to protect the guilty} will tell you to maintain a 9.5 - 10k mana pool and ignore my nerd math, {Name removed to protect the fanatic} will tell you "FUCK REGEN" and request that you hit 14k mana by tomorrow"
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So that's my lazy post idea. Also now that I've discovered people actually read this stuff, if you have your own questions feel free to post them and maybe when I'm feeling less lazy I'll provide an AuzAnswer(tm).