Networking

One of the factors that's really been holding me back from raiding in this expansion has been my network at home. I run a wireless network because I've just bought and decorated a new house, my "study" (ie games room) is three floors away from where our phone port is, and I don't want to run cables everywhere. My connection is generally fine for solo play and groups up to 10 man, but it is unpredictable and drops occasionally. 25 man raids were pretty much a no no.

On the advice of a friend I tried out powerline networking last night - this runs the signal from your router via your electrical wiring and is supposed to produce a much clearer, reliable signal. I am impressed so far - there is some lag and so it's not as good as a proper cable system, but the lag is certainly playable (about 150 ms). The main difference however is the clarity of the signal - I ran a levelling instance last night on my alt and had no slowdown whatsoever at periods of high activity. Lag spikes have caused several wipes for me in the past (eg tanking KT at 10% when a 5 second spike coincided with him casting a void zone on me - we wiped and I have still never killed him), and I hope that with this new system I will do away with them completely. I'm pretty excited about the benefits to my 10 man group, as well as the prospects for more serious raiding and 25 man stuff.

I also may level a healer, something I have stayed away from in the past because a lag spike is usually a wipe when healing.