It's not by coincidence that I'm posing in a graveyard

I tried. I really did. I waited until I had gathered more than 200 Emblems of Triumph and bought my Tier 9 set to see if it would make a difference. It didn’t. I still struggle to heal as a Restoration Shaman. I’m always a step or two behind the rest of the party. I’m looting mobs from the last pull. I’m drinking. I’m 10 yards out of range.

I’m pretty sure that it’s not the spec at fault – it’s me.

Even though I gave up on the Shaman a few months back I didn’t stop reading all the Restoration Shaman blogs that I have subscribed to. I think I was still looking for an answer, convinced that I had missed some crucial “rotation” or combination of spells, which would explain why I was so bad at playing this spec.

All that reading has paid off. I think I know why I couldn’t play the Restoration Shaman. It’s because I played a Discipline Priest first. My approach to healing with the Shaman was warped.

Why am I giving up on the Shaman? I think it comes down to two problems: no mobility and no damage prevention.

Riptide is the only instant heal available to a Restoration Shaman. And it’s on cooldown. That means that it’s the only spell I can cast to heal you while I’m moving. If we all need to run out of something nasty, I have to wait until I’m in the clear, then start up a Chain Heal or Lesser Healing Wave, then 2 seconds later you will get receive said heal.

If we all need to run out of something as my Priest I have 4 “instants” at my disposal. I can Renew (which I swear is more powerful than a Riptide tick) or send you 1 tick of Penance. I can hit you with Prayer of Mending and instantly heal you for a huge amount or I can Power Word: Shield you for an instant 2k+ heal (and that’s just from a glyph!) and then effectively pause your dropping health bar until I can fire off a party heal or a full Penance or Flash.

A Lesson from Pit of Saron

At about the time I was giving up on Restoration I was fortunate enough to be grouped up with a Restoration Shaman for Pit of Saron while I was playing Cassandri as DPS. I ran the instance with our healer set as my Focus target. I was open minded – perhaps here was my chance to learn how to play from another player, spell for spell.

As we approached the first boss I wondered how the Shaman was going to heal this. I can’t imagine a fight more difficult to heal as a Shaman. Lots of movement. And party members need to be spread out to avoid the rock throw which means that Chain Healing isn’t an option. As least we had Frost Resist Totem.

We wiped.

This is how I approach this fight as a Shadow Priest:

AoE off the boss to kill his adds at the start. DPS the boss until he has thrown a few rocks. When he goes to forge a weapon, run behind a rock to line of sight him. Your debuff is probably around 10-13 stacks by now. As soon as the debuff wears out, run back out to try and refresh Shadow Word: Pain before it expires. Wait til he forges a new weapon (around another 13 stacks), run behind a rock to LoS him.

The Shaman blamed the group for the wipe: “You didn’t LoS enough. You can’t let it get to 10 stacks!”

In every other run I’ve done we’ve all waited until the weapon forging – usually every second rock throw or so – before dropping the stacking debuff. Right or wrong, this means that every other healer that I’ve played with during the previous 20 runs or so could manage to heal through about 13 stacks of the debuff: Druids, Priests and Paladins.

On the second attempt we huddled and LoSed the boss after every single rock throw which gave the Shaman just enough time to get off two chain heals while we were stacked. Our health bars remained in the 30-60% range the entire fight. In the end I helped heal. My Shadowfiend and Dispersion won us the kill. Everyone else was dead.

I do think that fight is particularly punishing to Shaman. But the experience further cemented in my mind that other Restoration Shaman, not just me, struggle to keep green bars full in instances.

The Dungeon Finder Mentality

The players who run Wrath of the Lich King heroics are not approaching combat with the same mentality as my groups did when I first started healing as my Restoration Shaman in Naxxaramas/Tier 7 days.

In one of my first blogs for HoTs and DoTs I talked about how easy/difficult I found each of the Wrath Heroics to complete while healing as my brand new Restoration Shaman. I concluded by the end, when I was wearing all the ilvl 200 Epic faction rewards and Epic Heroic drops, that I was now over-geared for Heroics. How times have changed!

My party would listen to me when I said that they needed to group up around me for Chain Heal. They listened to me if I asked for a mana break. They declared “good job!” if I struggled to heal through a boss but somehow kept us from wiping. Even back then I struggled the most with heavy movement fights like Telestra (Nexus) and the Collusus (Gundrak).

These days tanks will not wait until I’m in range before pulling. Tanks will not wait while I regain my mana. Party members believe that it’s ok to stand in Flamestrike and be healed through it. Party members believe that if you want to stop in order to drink, you’re a bad healer. Party members believe that if everyone’s health bar is under 20% when the boss dies that you’re a bad healer.

Warped Thinking

It’s not so much that I’ve been spoiled playing the Discipline Priest (or maybe I have, they are pretty cool), it’s just that the way I approach healing is warped.

Discipline feels very aggressive to me, almost devious. You can quickly throw out a huge series of instant casts: shield, shield, shield, Prayer of Mending, Renew and then have a nap in the corner. Or better yet, skip the nap and hit “f” and Penance and suddenly you’re DPSing the enemy with your healing spells. Or you can just wade right into melee distance and Holy Nova while you run in circles like a mad man: healing and dealing damage at the same time instantly.

There’s a type of insanity to Discipline which I love. And it’s the only reason I hold a tiny amount of love for PVP in my heart – because this spec is so suitable for the battlefield mindset. One moment you might be struggling to keep you and three other friendlies around you alive and then the next moment you’ll realise that your teammates need a bit of help in order to finish off that enemy Paladin … and so you help bring him down with a fast Penance followed up by Shadow Word: Death. (And we all know that, just like a murloc,  if you leave a Paladin with less than 10% health he’ll run away only to return with 5 of his friends looking for revenge – and with a full health bar too.)

I think a Discipline Priest enters combat, and builds healing threat, slowly. We can enter combat with our “heals” already in place. We have a bit of time before our Prayer of Mending goes off. In the Burning Crusade that Prayer of Mending heal threat wasn’t even attributed to the Priest, it was attributed to the healed target. Most of the time that first bounce would be attributed to the tank thus helping them build threat at the start of a pull. I’m used to having a few seconds to myself at the start of combat to orient myself and get into a good position before I need to start casting.

Priests are encouraged to take breaks while healing – we’re not built to spam cast one or two spells without pause for the entire duration of a boss fight. The Priest heals selectively, casting the right spell on the right target at the right time. They are encouraged to take pauses and conserve their mana pool. I believe, although I’m no expert, that this might be what Blizzard are getting at when they say that Discipline needs some work to be ideal single target healers – they can do some amazing things to mitigate incoming damage, but they can’t deliver their heals at the same steady, sure pace that a Holy Paladin can. A few seconds without heals and your tank can be dead. And a tick of Renew ain’t gonna cut it.

I believe I’m guilty of not adapting my approach to suit my Restoration Shaman. Perhaps I need more time away from the Priest, as Discipline anyway, before I should try Restoration again.

I think I would be better served spam healing my targets before they take damage instead of losing precious seconds at the start of combat. I think I need to stop trying to get into the “ideal” position and instead make do with wherever I happen to be when combat commences. I think I need to get heals on my tank (small ones perhaps) as they’re still picking up adds, instead of waiting until I’m sure they have them all neatly standing in one spot. I think I need to treat my spells as a “rotation” get into the habit of casting a set sequence instead of waiting to read the situation, then determining which spell to cast, and then casting it. I think I need to stop worrying about mana conservation and overhealing.

I think I need to work at being a bit more steady, a bit more predictable. I think the only way to “proactively” heal is to make sure that I always have heal about to land.

Do you think I’m on the right track?

Thank God for Dual Specialisation

Well all this reflection has been motivating. It’s been months since I healed as my Shaman. I haven’t completely given up on Restoration, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the healing spec for me.

At the moment I’m giving Xata a second chance by using her secondary spec: Elemental. But my adventures as an Elemental Shaman are a topic for another day, I think!

Ancient of War in Zangamarsh: The new Tree of Life?

OK it creeps me out a teeny bit when I write a post about how I personally envision things changing… and then I read a short paragraph from Blizzard that sounds eerily familiar.

Now all I need it my “Rampaging Tree Bash” spell and I’ll be a happy Elf.

ps. This is the third time (1 & 2) something we’ve suggested at HoTs and DoTs has become an official change – how freaky is that?!

Plate is shiny

I’m currently in the process of putting together a list of Bind on Account, aka Heirloom, gear list for a baby Paladin. I’m thinking of leveling a Paladin, not because I have any intention of playing a Paladin at max level but purely for leveling fun.

I’ve been enjoying leveling the Mage using the Dungeon Finder but I’m getting just a bit tired of the lengthy dungeon queues. Time to roll a hybrid.

I’ve been doing some research. I want to make sure I buy the very best BoA items around for my Paladin. Eventually – around level 40 – I expect I’ll need a tanking and healing set. I won’t be queuing dungeons as Damage, so I don’t really intend to put together a high DPS Retribution set. If I go out in the world to complete a few quest, well, I’ll have to just wear my tanking/shield gear. I somehow doubt that there’s much difference between DPS and tanking items at lower levels.

In doing my research I was quite surprised to find a lot of conflicting opinions about the best weapon and best enchants. I think this is mostly because some of the newer weapons (the Maces in particular) were released sometime after Wrath of the Lich King. Anyway, here’s what I consider to be the most suitable items. I’d really love to hear what some more experienced Paladins think.

Both of the weapons are 1 hand weapons which frees up my Offhand item slot for an appropriate Shield. Is it worth purchasing a 2 handed weapon to equip if I need to complete a couple quests on my own?

Tanking set

I was surprised at how poor the trinket choice was for melee DPS and tanking characters. There is no Attack Power trinket. The Inherited Insignia would be somewhat handy to get out of nets and other movement impairing effects (although I think I’m going to be playing a Human, so there’s no need). The Swift Hand of Justice haste trinket is useful for all classes to some degree.

Would I be better off equipping the spell power trinket? Do Paladins benefit from equipping spell power for dps or tanking?

The enchanting options are quite interesting and I imagine the choice comes down to personal taste. Fiery Blaze Enchantment is a great option, I believe, but you need to complete a quest around level 40 to earn it. Until then you can either choose to remain enchant-less or you can choose one of the other options that I’ve listed. Most comments that I’ve found seem to favor Lifestealing over Crusader and then recommend choosing the flat stat gain from Agility or Strength after level 60 (the point at which Lifestealing and Crusader being to diminish in power).

I think I’m going to aim for the Fiery Blaze Enchant just because it’s something that I would never have thought of using. Furthermore, it won’t cost you any gold.

Healing Set

Fortunately for me I have both the Mail spell power shoulders and the spell power mace from when I leveled my Shaman. It may seem like a lot of effort to purchase gear for 2 sets but, to be honest, I have nearly all the items for my healing set already.

Also, if you’re an excellent fisherman the Dread Pirate Ring awarded to the winner of the weekly Kalu’ak Fishing Derby would complement either set. But somehow I doubt I’m going to win this event!

Mistake #1: Using an AoE spell when there's only 1 or 2 mobs left to kill.

Lathere is a healer. I am a damage dealer. But we both have alts at level 80. And we’ve both tried to swap roles, with little success. And watching Lath fail in her new role… is actually pretty satisfying. That’s sisterly love for you.

I do a lot of 5 man healing as my Priest. I’m okay at it. Not great, but okay. I believe that’s because I spend so much time playing the Priest that I’m “comfortable”. I’m not a good healer. I don’t know exactly what the difference between me and a good healer is, other than years of experience, but I know whatever I’m doing wrong, I’m not a great healer.

In the last couple months I’ve also been healing as my newish Resto Shaman. I’m okay at it, just. The only thing I’m good at with the Shaman is totems because I know the dungeons pretty well.

On rare occasions I’ve been given the opportunity to play as Elemental as the Shaman. And not only is it pretty easy, I’ve impressed people with my DPS based on my gear. A friend of mine once advised me: the difference between mediocre and great Elemental Shaman is the ability to factor Chain Lightning (on a cooldown) into a single target fight.

Is that it?

Forgive me, I’m not being very kind to Elemental Shamans. Of course there is some further mastery involved. If I were taking it seriously I’d be looking into whether or not it’s preferable to reapply Flame Shock early so that it doesn’t cause Lava Burst to be on cooldown even 0.5 seconds longer than necessary. It would also be a good idea to find out whether it’s worth sacrificing Totem of Wrath to put down a Fire Elemental in a 5, 10 and 25 man raid setting.

Actually the most interesting part of Elemental DPS, in my opinion, is when you need to AoE. Most classes that I’ve played get incredibly boring when you AoE. But an Ele Shaman’s AoE is on cooldown. And it’s kind of fun to try and spread the DPS all around.

Sorry – how did I get so off topic?! Self evaluation so far:

Shadow Priest: Awesome!
Discipline Priest: Good
Resto Shaman: Crap
Elemental Shaman: Good

And now I’m playing a baby Mage (level 46 as I write this) and receiving quite a lot of compliments. I figure, for every compliment typed in party chat during a cross-server pug there are probably about 5 compliments that never actually “said”. Of course I have a heck of a lot to learn about the Mage and I’m really ignoring a lot of the Arcane and Fire damage spells in my spell book as I’m leveling as Frost. So let’s add:

Mage: Good

Meanwhile Lathere has been swiftly moving up the ranks on her level 80 alt, Alexria: a Discipline Priest. I’d say that my Resto Shaman and her Discipline Priest are pretty evenly geared. There’s one major difference: Lath is actually pretty damn good at the Disc Priest. And I’m still total crap at the Resto Shaman. She can hold her own in a ToC or ICC10… and I highly doubt I could do the same.

But the tables have turned!

Before Alexria was a Discipline Priest, she was a Shadow Priest. That was mid 2009. And she was awful.

Mistake Number 1: AoEing when there are only one or two targets.

I’m pretty confident that it holds true for all damage dealing specs across all classes. Except perhaps Ele Shamans when Chain Lightning hits the initial target so hard it doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t hit much else.

Mind Searing 1 target when it only has 1 other target nearby actually taking damage from Mind Sear? Mistake!

Tip: If you play with enemy nameplates turned on (hit your “v” button when you’re in range to toggle them on) it’s very easy to see just how many mobs there are in a pull. You should mentally count the number in the pull as the tank is pulling them – every pull.

Mistake Number 2: Not knowing the kill order.

I think only a healer could ask repeatedly “so do we kill these adds or not?”. After a while I just got into the habit of actually explaining all fights and situations to Lath as if she was a new player and had never been to Obsidian Sanctum, Naxx or the Nexus before.

If you’re really not sure, watch the melee in the group. If they’re willing to move a few steps over and kill something, you probably should too. Or, if you count more than 3 debuffs applied to your target someone else is probably killing it already.

Tip: In instances either assist the tank (click on the tank and hit “f”) or kill anything with a mana bar first. Anything called a Disciple, Acolyte, Priest or anything that waves its hands around with a golden glow should be your first kill.

Back to the Story

I won’t even go into the other, specific, things Lath did wrong as a Shadow Priest. That would have come good (I hope) with a heck of a lot of practise.

Around the time she was giving up on Shadow damage dealing, she also had the opportunity to switch to Moonkin when we dropped to a 2 healer set up for ToGC Anubarak on 10 man. She’d had the opportunity to DPS a few times during Ulduar, but this 10 man fight was the time we really needed to see some numbers.

Lath had some Tier 9, 25 man, Moonkin gear and, factoring in some inexperience, you’d think she’d come in 500-1k DPS below the rest of us. Oh no. Lath was able to achieve a whopping 2.8k DPS. How is it possible that such a good healer could be so bad at DPSing?

Mistake Number 3: Pausing between casts

One of the things I’ve noticed while Lath and I have been playing DPS together is that she will wait until her cast is finished. Then start cast another one. I first noticed this during AoE packs because the cast/channel time of her AoE was so long, and I could see the 1.5 second gap between the animation ending and the next spell starting.

You need to queue up your next cast (click it) before the current one is finished. There should be no gaps.

Healers are encouraged to think carefully about what spell to cast and when to apply it. They are rewarded (extra mana regen) if they are conservative and take breaks when healing isn’t necessary. That’s not true of damage dealing. Cast all the time. Even if you’re not sure which spell is the right one to cast at any given moment, casting something is better than casting nothing.

Back to the Story

To be fair, I don’t know if chain casting was the missing element that caused Lath’s Moonkin debut to fall so flat. I doubt it was just that one thing. It also didn’t help that she wasn’t sure what targets to DPS when (I think I just told her to follow the Mind Flay beam when in doubt, so she wouldn’t have to fess up over Vent).

I think she was a bit flustered by Eclipses and frankly I know nothing about Moonkin damage dealing, so perhaps it’s a complicated topic. I do know that most main spec damage dealers use Addons to help them track the complicated parts of their rotation. Which leads me to:

Mistake Number 4: Using a healing or the default UI

How hard is it to heal using the default UI when you’ve been spoilt with healing addons like Grid or VuhDo or Healbot? Very hard.

The same holds true for DPS, too. DPS players use DPS addons. If you play a DoT heavy class like an Affliction Warlock or Shadow Priest use a DoT monitoring addon like ForteXorcist.

If you need to react differently when something procs and you gain a buff, (Fire Mages track Hot Streak, right?) consider using Power Auras or Elkano’s Buff Bars and great a custom visual effect, or at the very least, enlarge just that one buff so you’re not staring at a tiny icon in the corner of your screen that keeps moving around.

Back to the story

Now that Lath is quite successful as a Discipline Priest her dreams of pew pew-ing it up have been projected onto her level 80 Mage. According to Lath: “even a monkey could play Arcane” so either she’s finally come across the spec/class combination that she can excel at… or… she’s a monkey. I don’t know, but she’s doing quite well.

There’s just one final thing that she needs to master:

Mistake Number 5: Ignoring your Interupt key!

Spending most of my time on the Priest without an interupt to call my own has definitely made me appreciate having one as the Shaman and Mage.

When your tank pulls a pack of five and several seconds later there’s 1 who hasn’t moved towards the group and is merrily waving their shadowy/icy/firey hands in the air? Interupt the next cast.

Tanks can’t really tank stuff out of their melee range. And if they’re not tanking it, the healer is going to. So by interupting you force the enemy mob to stop casting and instead it will come and try to kill your tank from melee range using physical attacks. You then get one more mob to include in your AoE, so everyone wins.

And if a caster mob starts to cast anything with the word “heal” or “mend” in it? Interupt! Casting “Mind Control”? Interupt that too! Oh, and anything with the word “volley” in it should be interrupted.

See Rules #6, #7 and (unofficial) #16

Guess which feature of 3.3 had me the most excited? Not Icecrown Citadel (a gated raid instance launched at the start of the holiday season?), not hasted Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch. The new cross-battlegroup Dungeon Finder matching system.

Since yesterday I’ve been queuing them pretty much non stop. Some on my Shaman, because my Priest was swallowed whole by the glitchy new dungeons in Icecrown for hours on end and couldn’t be retrieved.

I don’t know if I really have any conclusions about the system just yet. But I do think it’s like going from an organised Battleground premade into well, the normal bg queue. Lessons learned so far:

1. Anonymity makes me act like a jerk (usually I hide how impatient I am)
2. Even though you get ported to the instance you’ll spend more time waiting for your teammates than you should have to
3. If you queue as a hybrid say goodbye to DPSing cause it’s never gonna happen
4. Participants probably won’t meet entry level heroic requirements in gear
5. Participants won’t meet entry level common sense requirements either, forget about skill
6. The less said by your party members, the better the run will be
7. Groups are either terrible, or fantastic (see image above), there is no middle ground
8. You will end up in the one or two dungeons that you goddamn hate
9. The Party Leader will be forced to confess mid way that they actually know nothing about the instance
10. Each person’s role is branded into their portrait (and into VuhDo, I should add) so you’ll know what’s what when you arrive
11. Not all Heroics are equally difficult
12. If you’re an Enchanter be prepared to create Shards and Crystals against your will
13. You can only win gear of the highest armor type that you can equip
14. You can’t trade with party members from another server so don’t get caught without water!
15. Replacing a lost party member is a breeze, even if you are half way through
16. (Unofficial rule) All tanks are Paladins

*Update* I can’t believe I didn’t think to include these:

17. One DPS will always be a Death Knight

18. Your group will be diverse. Two Mages in 1 party? Highly unlikely. My Priest has never been grouped with a Shadow priest. And the one time I refused to check “Healer” the healer picked wasn’t a Priest either. My Shaman healer has never been grouped with an Ele or Enhance Shaman.

When I used to form a heroic group, the old fashioned way, I used to go about it in one of two ways. Sign myself up as a healer and scout out a tank (preferably from a guild of good reputation) or talk a guild tank/healer duo into coming with me. I didn’t care if DPS in the party did 2k. I didn’t care if they’d never done that instance before. I didn’t much care if the tank wasn’t in 25 man raiding gear. I thought I was pretty open minded.

The new Dungeon Finder is a heck of a lot more random than that. And perhaps it’s just because everyone wants to try out the new system but even I was dismayed by the two extremes: excellent group, or dismal group. I thought that in a group of 5 you’d get a nice cross-section of the different gear and skill levels of all players ready for heroics. Instead what I found was that a lot of people who wouldn’t be invited to a heroic showed up anyway.

Xata – The Nexus

Let me explain my very first experience. Cassandri was AWOL – she didn’t even have a location on the login screen – after we ran into some pretty heavy duty bugs in our first ICC Heroic (not sure which one, the one on the left of the Summoning Stone maybe) so I logged into Xata. Now Xata hasn’t gotten a new piece of gear since the day that Ulduar was released. And she’s got quite a few rares still equipped. And I’m pretty rusty. I waited about 2 minutes before being prompted that I had been assigned to heal a dungeon.

I hit the confirmation button… Culling of Stratholm loading screen. We arrive and I’m a bit concerned that the Paladin tank has the same health as the DPS warrior, but I let it go. Just as we finished the 5 crates quest I was prompted to join the queue and choose my role. Again. And Again. After doing this about 5 times our whole group is ported to the Nexus.

Good, The Nexus, easy way to start. The run goes ok, but the leader seems to be very lost. We do the bosses in the wrong order. The Warlock in the party seems incapable of avoiding cleave and whirlwind damage. But they leave and are replaced by a Hunter. And when we requeued to replace that missing member it was so convenient to just wait for them to run to us. Nobody had to summon. Nobody had to explain that we were 2 bosses in already.

But I didn’t have any water on me (I’ve been ruthless about her bag space in preparation for a server transfer) and nobody could give me any. That sucked. I probably could have ported out of the dungeon to buy some and just port straight back in. But at the time it was just easier to heal less, and huddle closer to my Mana Spring Totem.

The real problem with the group was that the overall DPS was just awful. No, it’s not okay that you only do 900 DPS (I thought Death Knights were meant to be easy?). It’s even worse when the other 2 DPS are doing 1.5k.

The Hunter’s pet caused havok as we shortcutted by jumping off the platform on the way to Anomalus – any qualified “Party Leader” should have seen that problem before it happened but as I typed “dimiss pet!” it was too late. At least I stuck around to keep him alive while we fought the pack – the rest of the group were long gone.

Oh yeah, thank god for Frost Resistance Totem. When you have terrible DPS Keristrasza takes a really really long time to die. And even with all the changes to MP5 I just don’t have the mana pool to go on all that long.

Cassandri – The Oculus

I was able to retrieve Cassandri after my Nexus run and wound up in, you guessed it, a half completed Oculus.

“What drake do you need me to take?”

Ended up with a long argument between the party members. The party leader ended up saying:

“I think we lost a DPS drake”

Not a good sign. Confidence, please! Let me get this cleared up:

“Do you have 2 Emerald? It’s much easier to complete with 2″

“Take whatever.”

Sigh. Another leader who has no idea what they want their party to actually do. I take an Emerald drake. We 4 man the Arcane Nova-y boss because someone’s friend had to AFK and because it’s someone’s friend the rest of us can’t vote and succeed at kicking him from the group. The fifth member of the group shows up as we get to Ley-Guardian Eregos.

Ok, for any readers who just aren’t really sure of this fight or this place, but is determined to get the Party Leader reward anyway, this is basic, basic strategy to win:

• 1 player takes a Ruby (red/tanking) Drake. Ruby drakes are the only drake that can AOE kill the Whelps – and Whelps will spawn pretty damn quick
• 2 players take an Amber (orange/dps) Drake. Amber drakes have the Time Stop ability which stuns the boss + whelps on command. 2 Amber drakes can alternate to freeze the boss when he enrages periodically throughout the fight.
• 2 players take an Emerald (green/healing) Drake. Emerald drakes leech life off the boss back to themselves, but can also funnel their health into another party member, healing them up. Because the Emerald player will lose a lot of life healing others, then need to swap back to hitting the boss to regain life, it’s really easy to alternate between 2 Emerald drakes so the healing is more constant.

I’ve done nearly all the Heroic achievements in Oculus which means we experimented with all kinds of weird setups, including none of one type of drake (actually if you’re playing with friends 5 Amber is incredibly successful – but you need to precisely time your Time Stops in succession). The combination above is the winner for a PuG. Trust me.

Anyway we die horribly to Whelp overload. Oh right. Nobody took a Ruby drake.

“Is there a reason we don’t have a Ruby drake?” I ask.

We return, this time with the combination I described above, and killed him nice and quick. You see, it doesn’t matter how much they nerf Oculus, people will still suck at it because either:

• (a) They don’t know what they’re doing, but won’t confess
• (b) They can’t coordinate
• (c) Nobody is assertive enough to tell them what to do

At least I only came in half way I suppose. I wonder if their previous healer really did “disconnect” or if it was a rage quit.

Cassandri – Gundrak

This time around the random dungeon was Gundrak. Which I actually like, as an instance. The party was silent. The tank and DPS were all reasonably well geared and without much ado got right down to chain pulling and doing their jobs.

The snake wrap boss was first, and was surprising difficult to heal (I don’t quite understand how you’re meant to deal with the snake wraps, but I don’t remember it being as difficult as it was). The rest of the run went on practically without a hitch! A lot of poison, such is absolutely awful as a healer I can tell you, but I was paired with a knowledgable Ele Shaman and Paladin tank this time who covered some of the cleansing.

Then for no apparently reason I was struck with a pretty damn awful bout of lag at Eck. I hate saying it, but I felt I had to explain:

“I’m lagging really bad, can we just wait a few minutes?”

I guess the tank was as skeptical of players citing lag as an excuse as much as I am because he replied with:

“You heal pretty convincingly for someone who has lag”

“Flash Heal spam. Thank god it worked”

We make our way to the last boss. Every time I enter combat my screen freezes. Then speeds to catch up. Then I’m stuck casting a spell for 10 seconds. I just spam my buttons (my cooldowns keep ticking, how weird is that?) hoping that they’ll get through. I suspect that the reason we survived the last boss was a combination of the Shaman’s Chain Heals and the tank’s Hand of Protection when I was impaled.

But they were very nice about it. Actually the entire run restored my faith in PuGs everywhere and this new system.

Xata – Trial of the Champion

Before returning to another round of punishment I actually successfully used the Dungeon Finder to find a Heroic group for Halls of Reflection (by choosing a Specific Dungeon). Unfortunately half way through the first boss we all disconnected and Cassandri went AWOL again and couldn’t be retrieved.

Back to Xata. I couldn’t be more dissapointed than seeing the Argent Tournament Colosseum loading screen flash up. I hate this place. I hate this instance. I actually dislike it even more than Oculus. Jousting sucks. And it’s really hard to heal. Remember how I said Xata didn’t have very good gear? Well I don’t think she was quite ready for Trial of the Champion. I prepared for the inevitable wipe and prepared to desert my first heroic of the day.

Surprisingly, I’m grouped with a pretty decent group of players. That’s the only way we got through it. I healed my little heart out, but I’ve never taken the Shaman to ToC5 before. My DBM (I just got the latest version for ICC and it has warnings for ToC5 apparently!) is screaming at me to Dispel Renew and Dispel this and Run Away. I’m practically talking to my computer:

“Hello? I’m here as a Shaman, not a Priest? I don’t have Dispel Magic”

So I ignore the warnings and go back to non-stop healing trying to keep the party alive. Then during the Paletress trash pulls it all goes haywire. One DPS dies really quickly and suddenly we have 2 groups of mobs and monks, not just 1. Then all the mobs are on me. I’m running towards the tank, but it’s too late, I die. I watch for a few seconds and the tank seems to have them again, so I used Reincarnation and was able (just! no mana) to get through all the mobs without offically wiping.

To make matters worse, I get blamed (politely) for the wipe:

“You’re meant to dispel that btw Xata”

I felt like yelling “What are you talking about?! I’m NOT PLAYING MY PRIEST” but I held back the urge, the group had been nice so far, and start thinking instead.

“Was I meant to drop Tremor Totem? Does that work?”

“Probably”

I don’t even remember there being a Fear. Or a Mind Control (I think that’s actually what happened, but I can’t be sure). But fortunately it didn’t happen again. I dropped Tremor Totem for the rest of the trash just in case. I also didn’t point out that as a Paladin the tank could have helped too.

The actual boss fight wasn’t too bad and once I got used to ignoring Deadly Boss Mods’s announcements to *Dispel Renew* we got through it with no deaths. Chain Heal, I love you. In hindsight, I’m sure I’m meant to substitute the DBM terminology of Dispel for Purge, but I just totally forgot about Purge. DBM is overrated.

The DPS was great so killing the Black Knight wasn’t as bad as I expected it would be. And I Chain Healed my way through without too much pain. I was so happy that we got through it when the first item (and a major upgrade for me), a spellpower piece, dropped that I dearly wanted. Trouble was, it was cloth.

“Ok if I take those cloth boots?”

By then everyone, including the Mage, had chosen Disenchant about the same time I discovered that I couldn’t actually hit the “Need” option – it was disabled. So the boots got sharded. What a waste. At least I know I can heal that instance on my Shaman now.

Cassandri – Halls of Lightning

Not much to say about this one. I was grouped with a fantastic over geared group of players (who said nothing of course) and a tank that knew how to keep a good pace, and push the group to take on as many mobs as we could comfortably handle. I spent the second half of the run on the phone and even paying half attention to what was going on my screen we breezed through the place.

I actually forgot about this run altogether until I spotted a screen capture on my desktop (above).

Cassandri – Draktharon Keep

Draktharon Keep has to be one of the easiest Heroics in the game. Well it should be. Not for this group. This was the only Heroic that I deserted during the entire day. That’s how bad it was.

The Party Leader, a warlock, confesses immediately “actually I’ve never been here before” and passes Leader to the tank. We start pulling.

And I watch in awe as:

• (a) the DPS pulls agro from the tank
• (b) the tank doesn’t attempt to retrieve the mobs running rampant and tanks 1 target
• (c) everyone, except me, stands still in the black voids

“Don’t stand in the black holes, pls” I type, thinking perhaps they just don’t know the 1st rule of PVE play.

No improvement. It’s actually really hard to keep healing my way to the first boss. I have to Fade constantly because I keep pulling threat. The Mage and kitty Druid are each tanking a mob. I’m actually grateful that I don’t have Recount set up, because I suspect that they DPS is very very slow. Just before the first boss the tank says he has to AFK “for a while” because his daughter is crying.

Now, I’m sympathetic, but in the space of time that it’s taken us to start, buff and clear to the first boss, 15 – 20 minutes, I’d have expected us to have finished the entire instance. At the rate we’re going I’m never going to leave this place. I start to wonder how mean it would be to leave when there’s a baby crying somewhere out there. The other party members are making “you’re such a good father” comments in party chat so I definitely can’t vote to kick him and hope to win support.

He’s back within 10 minutes and we kill the first boss. Up the stairs into the first spider pull. I shield the tank before the pull. He pulls a spider or 3, I shield the Mage when they pull threat and get attacked by a spider… a couple spiders run off into the corner and spawn more… I get aggro on 6 spiders. I’m doing more tanking that the goddamn tank! For shielding twice! The spiders eventually wear me down, perhaps I should have hit Pain Suppression, but I just didn’t see the point. The tank didn’t pick them off me that’s for sure. He was happily chasing one that ran off into the dark. We wipe.

I run back and zone in and call it quits:

“I’m sorry but I think this run is going to take more time than I have tonight. Good luck you’ll get a new healer soon enough” and ported out of the dungeon and left party before I saw a response.

I hate being the fussy group member who drops the party after the very first wipe. But honestly, if you can’t tank, don’t say that you can when you’re asked to define your role. If it had been a group from Barthilas I think I would have been nicer. Or I would have tried to help more, but I just didn’t think this group was going to succeed no matter what I said. They weren’t ready for Heroics, they should have been honing their craft in Normals first where losing threat on all but 1 mob in a pack isn’t going to kill the healer.

Back for More

So I had some good groups, and some bad ones, and nothing in between. When I play Cassandri I’m scared to be queued for one of the new Heroics because I know that I’ll be chosen to Heal. And the new Heroics aren’t a walk in the park, especially not at this time while everyone stumbles through unsure of the best strategy to minimise damage.

Xata is even worse – there’s just no way her gear is good enough (Naxx, Tier 7 isn’t the base standard anymore) to do the new Heroics as DPS or as Restoration.

But I’m still going to queue the Random Heroic. I just hope that I get lucky: good group and good instance.

A tower is left undefended by the enemy. I can do nothing.

I’m going through a phase of Battleground discontent. Playing Discipline is fun. But I’m certainly not a one-man-killing-machine. More and more often I watch my map, stuck “defending” a node on my own. Of course, I can’t really defend it on my own, I can only hope to scare off attackers who assume that my back is being guarded by a stealthed Rogue.

And I watch as a single Alliance mounts up and takes to the road picking off unsuspecting passerbys. You know the type. I’ve started to think of them as Lone Rangers. They can operate independently. They rarely stay with the group.

They can lead an attack. As a healer, I can only follow.

Who is mostly likely to be the Lone Ranger in your battleground? Forever riding off into the sunset with just his trusty horse as his companion?

• Paladins
• Druids (well, the ones that switch between all the forms and can deal a lot of damage… so not the Tree Form ones)
• Death Knights
• and these days even Warlocks

Notice that these are the classes that can deal quite a lot of damage while regenerating their own health or healing? These players don’t need other players to run around behind them healing them or helping them kill their target. Sure it will speed things up. But one on one, playing aggressively, they will usually come out on top.

As a healer, it doesn’t matter if I can spot the weak points in the enemy’s defense. Sure, I can point them out in battleground chat, and I always usually do, but I can’t run off and attack.

And when I get so frustrated that I do just run off on my own, it always goes badly. I can draw out combat with one other player for a good long time (assuming they are light on the stuns) but I won’t be able to kill them. That is, I won’t be able to kill them before help arrives. By then the element of surprise is well and truly gone and you’ve just highlighted to your enemy the weak point in their defense.

As a healer, I’m of best use to the group when I’m actually, well, healing. Not defending a node on my own. So often I’m lumped up with 90% of my team while we all attack one point. Even though I can see that we’re going to lose our other 2 nodes while we capture one. I can wish that 3 or 4 of our offense would break away and head back to defend our nodes. But I can’t make that happen. If I get truly frustrated, I’ll break away… and then remember I’m not a Lone Ranger.

I think this problem was hammered home in a Eye of the Storm match. I was stuck at Fel Rever Ruins with a Death Knight that I was pretty sure was AFK. They had parked their butt at the node closest to the graveyard. But I was still grateful. Just having another person next to me might deter the enemy from attacking. However as time went on, and we were losing, I could see that the Mage Tower, under Horde control, was apparently undefended. And most of the participants were squabbling over at the Blood Elf Tower.

So I suggested several times that we should try to capture MT over chat, both /battleground and, unsuccessfully, via /say to the Death Knight next to me.

Minutes go past. And I figure, fuck it. That AFK Death Knight can defend on their own. And I mount up and rush over that bridge. And who do I find single handedly trying to take on a Druid?

Another Priest. Another Discipline Priest at that.

[Battleground][Cassandri]Help MT need dpw

That’s meant to read “dps” but it’s bloody hard to type properly when you’re under attack.

The Druid wears us down and our cavalry never arrives. Within minutes I’m back to try my luck again. And so is the other Priest. Screw healing. I’m Smiting and Penancing my ass off. I think we actually did kill the Druid. Didn’t cap the tower though. But that Priest and I were buddies for the rest of the match.

Is that smart? To have two of your healing Priests trying to DPS their opponents side by side, far away from the rest of the group, keeping all the golden glowing goodness to ourselves? I don’t think so either.

I’m left pondering my place, as a healer, in Battlegrounds. I don’t feel that it is my job to defend a node. Certainly not on my own. But I can’t initiate an attack and expect to win. The best battlegrounds that I’ve played have been where I’ve, through chance, hooked up with a partner that can dish out the hurt.

As time goes on, and I become even more discontent with Battlegrounds, I’m becoming more active in my quest to find a partner. Sometimes I’ll just flat out ask in Battleground chat at the start of the match for a partner. This seems crazy, I usually join the queue to join a battleground because it’s one of the few activities at level 80 that doesn’t require you to organise a party beforehand.

Mr Lone Ranger… can I join you? Ride your coat-tails?

Both Cass and I have tried several raid frame addons and both of us have been using VuhDo for several months. We love it.

Introducing VuhDo

VuhDo out-of-the-box in Alterac Valley

VuhDo looks great, gives you all the customisation of Grid, and is as easy to use as Healbot.

You don’t need to be a healer to like VuhDo, and if you form any kind of party, battleground or participate in Wintergrasp battles, you might like playing with something more compact and meaningful than the default Blizzard UI.

Here’s just a highlight of what VuhDo does:

1. Displays need-to-know stuff about your party/raid members
   Life, Mana/Energy/Rage/Runic Power, Debuffs, Player Status (eg. Ghost or AFK)
   and especially for the Healers: Incoming Heals, who has Aggro, HoT Timers
2. Click Casting
   You can heal, decurse, target raid members with mouse clicks
   You can automatically resurrect and decurse players out of combat
3. Buffing
   Smart buffing, with 1 click will buff the entire raid – you can set up the parametres

But the stuff that is really impressive, I think, are these little things:

• See immediately who has aggro – you’ll have a Rejuvenation and already be casting Regrowth on that Mage before the mob even reaches him and the tank has realised something’s gone wrong.
• Players who can be resurrected can automatically resurrect simply by clicking on the dead player’s frame out of combat. Even better still, you can see who is already being resurrected (their character name turns green). And, of course, you can customise your I’m-rezzing-you announcement to say exactly what you want.
• Auto-cleanse off afflictions that are still on the player when you leave combat. If you’re chain casting heals the minute the last mob is dead the next heal you go to cast will instead be a cleanse to automatically remove any nasties from your target (that might be making you heal in the first place).

And overall it’s just easier to set up to monitor your HoTs and other buffs like Power Word: Shield on your targets as well as debuffs like Weakened Soul (for Priestys like Cass) than any other raid frame addon.

To access VuhDo’s options type /vuhdo opt

My Final Result

Lath's Interface with VuhDo dead center at the bottom of the screen (click to expand)

In my interface VuhDo takes center stage while my spells, bags and action bars are moved off to the side. Keeping the raid alive is my responsibility so I like having VuhDo right there where I can’t miss it.

I find it’s easy to identify who’s who by colouring my frames using the Class colours option and you can clearly see who’s tanking and taking damage by the red borders and >>Character<< symbols  to show aggro/threat.

I have it set up so that Rejuvenation is a little box on the bottom left (you can see in my screen shot the white boxes).  It does a count down from 9 ticks onwards so I don’t waste mana and refresh too early.

Lifebloom ticks and stacks are also easy to keep track of. 1 stack is red, 2 is yellow and 3 stacks is green. The timer lets me know how long I have until the stacks will bloom and fall off.

Pets can be displayed and customised to take up very little room (the green bar list to the right of my player frames).

Cass’s Final Result

Left: In 25 man Ulduar, playing as Shadow. Right: In Isle of Conquest, healing as Discipline

You can drag and drop VuhDo at any moment to reposition it, and that’s how I like to play. When healing, I’ll drag it closer in to the screen center. I like the 2 column format because it expands out so easily to accommodate 40 man battleground raid groups. 1 column looked too much like a rainbow (way too distracting!).

When I play as Discipline it’s important to track Power Word: Shield and Weakened Soul.

In my configuration Weakened Soul is represented by its debuff icon and is displayed in the top right hand corner of a frame. I have it set up to only display, at most, 2 debuffs, and Weakened Soul is given the highest priority no matter what else is going on.

Power Word: Shield is represented by the white little box in the bottom left corner of a player frame. The Paladin in Group 3 that has run out of range in the right hand battleground example (a sure fire way to die!) has both Power Word: Shield still active and Weakened Soul and “agro”.

Renew is represented by a little red box in the top left corner of a player frame (not shown in either example).

My spells are set to:

• Scroll up/down (easier than clicking): Target player
• Left Click: Flash Heal
• Shift Left Click: Penance
• Alt Left Click: Prayer of Mending
• Ctrl Left Click: Prayer of Healing
• Right Click: Power Word: Shield
• Shift Right Click: Renew
• Ctrl Right Click: Pain Suppression

Nightsong Robes modelled by a Night Elf Druid

I splurged out with my conquest badges last Wednesday to purchase the tier 8 chest piece – Conqueror’s Nightsong Robes meaning I was finally getting to try out the resto druid 4 piece bonus that I’ve been drooling over ever since I saw it posted on MMO Champion. Thursday night saw us in front of the lovely Freya and lucky for me I was assigned to raid healing! Rejuvenation now does an instant tick of approximately 1500 plus its regular ticks.  I’m finding when assigned to raid, Rejuvenation is now contributing to approximately 50% of my healing, followed by Wild Growth and then Lifebloom.

It’s amazing – back in BC I rarely used Rejuvenation at all. Lifebloom was just so much more effective both in terms of healing output and mana used.  While I’m still sad that Lifebloom is a shadow of its former self, it is good to see a once weak spell now take its place front and center in my healing rotation.

Unfortunately for me, while the 4 piece set bonus is deliciously good, the actual gear is nice but not great. It will be awhile before my guild is clearing 25 man on hard modes, and until then my tier 8 pieces are pretty sweet.  On hard mode there are many individual pieces available that are much more valuable in terms of stat distribution and I’m hesitant to keep 4 pieces of tier just for a bonus.  I’m going to be keeping a close eye on the healing meters to see whether or not the instant heal is worth keeping my Conqueror pieces, it’s still early days
Cheers
Lath

Mostly from my recent experiences as Xata (Restoration Shaman) here is how I rank the Wrath of the Lich King heroic dungeons from easiest (#1) to hardest (#11). I have also factored in how easy/hard other healers seem to cope in these heroics from what I’ve seen when I’m not healing.

Please note that The Oculus is not on the list because I haven’t yet found a group willing to do this in the last few weeks. Based on remembered experiences playing my priest, I’d put The Oculus around 9 after Gundrak and before Utgarde Pinnacle.

Lath, how would you rank them?

1. Utgarde Keep

Ingvar the Plunderer from Utgarde Keep

Easiest heroic by quite a long shot. The last boss is even easier if you play with Deadly Boss Mods which tells you when to stop casting. If you do it wrong, you could get silenced for a hell of a long time, but that’s easy to avoid, and your group will probably survive even if you get silenced.

2. Draktharon Keep

I actually have to think quite hard about this instance to remember the bosses because not one has given me grief – ever. The giant dinosaur boss (3rd) could be difficult if you don’t have Tremor Totem or Fear Ward and your tank gets smacked in the back while you’re on the other side of the courtyard, but I doubt it.

3. Culling of Stratholme

A little more tricky if you want to make the timer (but personally I think that’s more to do with the DPS) but still a fairly easy heroic. Keep up with your tank and take lots of water with you to drink whenever you can. Some of the early bosses like to silence/chain you as a healer so make sure you are using some kind of HoT to ease through that or alternatively be ready to spam some fast heals when you are free. Never really sure where to stand for the last boss Mal’Ganis (which has gotten me killed a few times) so if you’re unsure do like me and right before the pull ask your tank “where do you want me to stand?”.

4. Violet Hold

I know most consider Violet Hold much easier than I but hear me out. Firstly, the huge shadow void boss simply cannot be healed through if your DPS don’t do their job when they are phased (and no DPS seems able or willing to do this). And secondly, if you do wipe you have to start from scratch. And good luck finding a replacement with one or more bosses down if you lose a group member.

5. Old Kingdom

This heroic requires some level of healer competence all the way through. There is no part or boss that you can sit back and do nothing. The last few bosses in here are cool and each do something a bit unusual (*evil laugh* begins to cast Insanity). Hardest part to heal is the trash pulls just after the second boss – each pull is made up of casters and elementals. Worshipers, Acolytes you name it. Don’t try and conserve mana here. And don’t be afraid to ask for CC.

6. Halls of Lightning

I consider Halls of Lightning quite straightforward to heal, although you might not agree.

The last boss Loken can be killed using two strategies. The first is easier for everyone else and hard on the healer and I simply call it “Staying In”. My chain heal still isn’t strong enough to heal up Loken’s huge AOE hit before the next cast. This method can work if you have a hybrid DPS in the party willing to help you out (a Prayer of Healing from a shadow priest or Tranquility from a druid can make all the difference). The second strategy requires your party to be quick on their toes, spinning around and running away from Loken the moment he starts to cast his Lightning Nova. I call this “Running Out”. Done correctly, Running Out means the party takes almost no damage. Even when 1 person doesn’t run far enough in time, and takes a hit, this is still my preferred strategy for this fight.

7. The Nexus

Grand Magus Telestra

One reason: Grand Magus Telestra.

It doesn’t matter how geared your tank is, it doesn’t matter how high your party’s DPS, there’s something about this fight with its steady stream of stuns, polymorphs, interrupts and blizzard AOE that have me screaming obscenities at my computer. There is, quite simply, almost no time to cast. And when there is time I’m busy running out of her blizzard. Use whatever instants you can – Lifeblood and Gift of the Naaru if you have them.

I hate this fight. I hate this fight with a passion. I’ve got the War Mace of Unrequited Love and I’m never going back.

8. Halls of Stone

The bosses in Halls of Stone can catch an unprepared group off guard. The difficult part of Halls of Stone is the timed event most groups usually leave second last – The Tribunal of Ages. Your success (or failure) in this event has very little to do with your healing, and much more to do with the abilities of your tank. To help you succeed, watch out for the laser beam that kicks in towards the end, it’s a bright yellow fire. It will kill you if you don’t move away immediately. Pause your healing as new mobs rush into the room until you see your tank has caught them.

9. Gundrak

I’m ranking Gundrak as very hard to heal because I believe (like Utgarde Pinnacle) even the trash mobs require healer concentration and a lot of healing. Everything just seems to hit hard, and often. A cleansing totem can help here. My general advice would be to heal fast, and heal often and you should make it through Gundrak.

10. Utgarde Pinnacle

Like Gundrak everything in Utgarde Pinnacle just seems to hit hard – really hard. Don’t be afraid to ask for CC on any trash pulls with more than three mobs.

The hardest boss in here is the third boss Skadi the Ruthless. My three tips to succeed at this fight are: stay off the ice-y floor, don’t stand between your tank and the mob spawn point and when Skadi starts to whirlwind – don’t heal, run!

You also need to be a bit careful when pugging Utgarde Pinnacle because a lovely epic tanking sword drops from the last boss. I consider Utgarde Pinnacle to be the Mechanar of Wrath of the Lich King in that you’ll never find it difficult to get a tank. However, I’ve attempted UP with some tanks who, while eager, just aren’t ready for UP and get smacked down pretty fast. If you are unsure, it might be a good idea to check that your tank is defence-capped and has some decent mitigation.

11. Azjol Nerub

And here it is, the hardest heroic in Wrath of the Lich King to heal. Azjol Nerub is short – only 3 bosses and very little trash. And pretty much everything in here likes to do poison volleys and, as if that wasn’t difficult enough to heal, curses too! Don’t bother coming in here as a holy or discipline priest unless someone else can cleanse poisons. I feel this is particularly mean as the last boss drops both an epic cloth belt and a lovely epic wand. Haven’t tried this with a pally healer – how do you guys find it?