Life As A Healer: Week Four

You know, life is a lot easier with a little expert knowledge.

Thanks to some advice from readers, I’ve adjusted my spec and cast priority, and as a result I think I’m a better healer for it.  I’m also now officially back on Raider status (I was promoted as I was writing this, thank you healing officer!), so I can start working on my gear without having to rely upon heroic 10-man ToC.

Speaking of heroic 10-man, I participated in it again this week, and it looks like I’m not going to get the last two bosses any time soon (if at all).  There’s only spaces for two healers, and it looks like a disc priest won’t be able to put out enough healing to get through it – they managed to get Anub’arak down, but there was only one player still alive at the end (end it was a shaman who self-ressed).  The fact my off-spec gear is still at Ulduar-level (in combination with my own underperformance as shadow) means I’m not capable of putting out enough dps to be hard-mode-ready.  (They ended up going with a holy pally and resto druid, and I think that’s going to be the pair they take in future)

That’s the problem with 10-man hard modes; in order to take the best group you can (that is, when you don’t grossly out-gear the hard-mode encounters, as we currently do 10-man Ulduar, and are starting to do with 25-man Ulduar), the “Take The Player Not The Class” idea only works where the classes are relatively interchangeable and players equally skilled.  It’d be nice to try heal or dps the final encounters, but I just don’t perform at a high enough level to justify the raidleader taking me instead of a healer or dps who have more reliable (or just more overall) output.

Well, at least I can say I’m increasingly confident of my ability to heal, and I’m beginning to be able to make suggestions of how best I can be utilised in specific encounters (such as with General Vezax: instead of being one of the sequential tank-healers, which I can do quite well, I let the other tank healers do their thing and I just cast PW:S on the tank whenever i can for extra mitigation).

With luck we’ll be seeing 3.3 on the PTR soon; I’m really hoping that’s the case, as the guild is stuck on the gulf between “Farming normal-mode 25-man ToC” and “Wiping on heroic 25-man ToC.”  We gave heroic-25 a try this week, and we were quite comprehensively (to use the vernacular) OMGWTFPWNED.  We were almost able to keep the tanks up long enough, but our dps just wasn’t enough to get to the second part of the Beasts encounter in any controlled manner.  I suspect it’s a combination of undergeared and underperforming raiders, growing dissatisfaction with ToC, and just a growing sense of ennui with WoW itself.

Speaking of dissatisfaction with WoW, I’ve found another game to dabble in while I wait to see what 3.3 is bringing to the raiding table.  The Chronicles of Spellborn is an comparatively young MMO based on the Unreal engine, set in a unique world with a novel combat mechanic that’s starting to grow on me.  While the game is being re-developed as a free-to-play game supported by micro-transactions, the current game has been made completely free-to-play, and it’s proving more appealing to me than the array of speed-bumps that D&D Online becomes after leaving the starting zone.

I doubt I’ll be playing it all that seriously, but as a diversion it’s pretty engrossing.  It does have some nice ideas, such as making gear purely cosmetic (as opposed to being the measure of your progression as in WoW) and the novel combat system (which I don’t quite have time to go into right now – maybe in another post, if anyone’s curious).

I’m kind of semi-impoverished while I’ve put most of my gold into cards for Darkmoon Faire from which I’m hoping to make some small profit; I’d like to get back to my 70k from the end of last faire, but I’ve spent so much on bits and pieces (such as the two ToC tailoring recipes for the chests and 12 Crusader Orbs to make chest and wrist pieces for Mingle) that it might be something of an uphill battle.

Well, it’s getting towards server-goes-down time, so I should make some use of the time remaining.

/wave

Life As A Healer: Week Three

WTB bigger numbers.

Yup, another week of not being a raider under my belt, and I’ve been told by our healing officer that I’m almost good enough to be promoted from applicant rank.  My shielding is fine, I just need to increase my healing.  As a tank-healer, I’m finding rather challenging (especially considering I’m usually sharing my target with a holy pally).

It’s hard to increase your overall healing when so much of it is already over-healing – and what am I supposed to do as a tank-healer, snipe raid heals instead of throwing out shields and hope the tank doesn’t die while I’m doing it?  I should really spend some time on PlusHeal, but I’m just not feeling motivated to improve.  Having a healing officer who can’t offer more advice than “Well, heal more” doesn’t improve the situation.

I’ve spent most of my remaining disposable gold on enough crusader orbs to make two of the crafted ToC pieces for Mingle along with the two ToC tailoring chest patterns (mostly to make up for the upgrades I’m not getting in 25-man).  So if nothing else, she’s well dressed (and gemmed, and enchanted) while she sits out on hard-modes.

Other than that, things are going quietly enough.  I’m almost finished with the Brewmaster achievement for Pringle, who I think will be my designated drinker (once he buys the Brew of the Month membership, at least).

Fingle has picked up her last non-arena epic, which leaves either incremental upgrades (replacing Deadly Gladiator gear with Furious) or doing arena in order to get a pvp main-hand, off-hand and wand.

I’m slowly getting back into the swing of my Inscription business after taking a break, and I’ll need to keep on top of things if I want to replace the funds for those orbs before too long (even if they’re down to around 1.25k each).

I’m just not spending as much time online currently; between the lacklustre (and, aside from badges, reward-less) raiding, and the lack of anything else in-game catching my interest outside of that (Onyxia failed to deliver, unsurprisingly enough), life is just running slowly.  Maybe 3.3 will save WoW, but they’re going to pull one impressive hat out of their rabbit at this late stage in the game.

And it sounds like Aion is just WoW with prettier graphics on top of some very old-school grind, so I’ll pass on that, tyvm.  Fortunately it’s the new TV season in the states, so at least I’ve some interesting new viewing to occupy myself in the meantime.

/wave

Life As A Healer: Week Two

It’s been an odd kind of week; my time has been split roughly between WoW, D&D Online, and catching up on my backlog of Criminal Minds, Warehouse 13 and Eli Stone.

I’ve had my first experience with real raid healing, having spent an evening working on the hard-hard mode of 25-man Iron Council last night (which we didn’t get down in the end, but we were getting close).  Now that’s what I’d call a challenge: being one of the designated healers for the Steelbreaker tank.  Apart from a failed attempt at ToC10 Heroic earlier in the week, it’s just been normal ToC25 and Ulduar25 which, while challenging, didn’t really require me to stretch my abilities.

You see, while I’m a competent healer at this stage (helped by my relatively high-level gear), I’m still working on picking up the little things that I can do to keep a tank alive (and the pressure in hard modes encourage growth – along with the desire to throw things at the screen).  Growth in this sense means picking up things like how to time my cast of PW:S to get Borrowed Time at the right moment to then be able to cast a 1.6 second Greater Heal that lands right after Fusion Punch hits the tank instead of a Flash Heal that lands for maybe 2/3 as much.  (Maybe that’s not the best way to react to it, but it’s proving effective for me to use in that situation, especially if Penance is on cooldown at that moment)

It’s tricky, as I don’t really have anyone in-guild I can get to mentor me; our priests are all either main-specced Holy or Shadow, and our leading healer priest wasn’t able to offer much advice when I did try to get some advice.  Looking at WWS logs for other guilds are only effective in showing what spells they cast; it doesn’t give me tips on how they cast them, such as the Borrowed Time thing I described above.

One thing that has proven effective has been improving my visual alerts with the new version of Power Auras Classic, which now has support for dual-specs and more options that make it more flexible.  I’ve replaced Inner Fire Helper with a simple aura, changed my Flask aura to alert me when I don’t have either Flask of the Frost Wyrm or Flask of Pure Mojo active, and implemented another that displays when Penance is off cooldown and ready to cast.

I’m also having some success having dropped Bartender4 in favour of the default Blizzard action bars, and relocating Vuhdo’s raidframes closer to the centre of the screen so it’s easier to glance up at my toon to check if there’s something happening that I need to react to (such as patches of fire on the ground in which my character may be standing).

Sadly, the downside to being so reliant on mouseover healing is an equally growing reliance on keyboard-turning due to my mouse being unusable for turning while it’s over the raidframes; I think working out some way to get around that will have to be my next move.

Other than my healing, things have been pretty quiet.  I’ve been investing in Eternal Life for darkmoon cards in preparation for the next faire, along with my other usual AH investments.  I’m back down at 50k from my high of 70k, but I’m still ahead considering just how much I’ve invested in card mats (I’ve cards enough for three nobles decks already).

For now, though, I think I might go do some research on the possibilities of Prot Warrior PvP.

/wave

Just A Little Infidelity

WoW just isn’t doing enough these days to keep me occupied outside of raiding, so the release of Dungeons & Dragons Online as a free-to-play title earlier this week was just the thing to distract myself with.

My first character was a female Dwarf rogue, and all I can say is…  Are they supposed to be part Ogre?  Seriously, after the very aesthetically pleasing female dwarf model in Wow, the lumpy short being you get in DDO is a little…  disappointing.  Having said that, while the model isn’t appealing, the animation of said model is.  Seriously, watching her dual-wield a rapier and a dagger looks really good.

I’ve taken her through the starting zone, and she’s sitting in the Stormreach harbour at the moment, just short of level three.  WTB people to level with.  (sigh)

Yesterday I rolled another character, a female halfling cleric this time to try a class with a little more utility.  Sure, rogues are awesome for dps (especially when you can kill things fast enough that you don’t get de-stealthed), but the healing potions needed to keep your health up are not cheap.

On my cleric, I healed a couple of the starter instances with some random players in the LFG channel; while it’s not the same as 5-mans in WoW, it was still quite enjoyable, not to mention pretty frantic at times.  There seems to be less differentiation between the classes at lower levels (there was no designated healer or tank, and it was very much a free-for-all melee), so I’d like to think things would start to gel as characters gained levels and gear.

And the inability to customise the UI bugs me just a little.  (I think that’s something that’s going to buy me about most games I play, now – WoW really did hit that one out of the park)

But, it has three things in its favour.

1. It’s new.  I wouldn’t say I know Azeroth from back to front, but I’ve been in there for going on 4 years.
2. It’s free to play.  It’s hard to underestimate just how much this lowers the bar to entry.  Yes, you can purchase stuff with real money, but you don’t need to in order to get a lot out of the game.
3. It’s not WoW.  (See point #1)

I haven’t stopped with WoW, of course.  I’ve actually managed to get some more personal goals out of the way, and increased my overall personal wealth in the process.

Mingle’s finished her Colosseum grind, and bought the Swift Gray Steed for her collection, and is now (slowly) working towards an Argent Warhorse (when I can be bothered with dailies).

Fingle has completed the Netherwing grind, and followed that up by completing the Leading the Cavalry achievement in order to get her Albino Drake.

And I’ve broken the 70k gold barrier.  I remember when…

/wave

Life As A Healer: Week One

Well, I’ve a week of raid-tank-healing on Mingle under my belt, and I think I’m off to a good start.  (Translated: when the tank died, it wasn’t my fault)

I suspect the situation would be different for someone in a guild that isn’t one of the better-known progression guilds on their server, but it’s fun being able to enjoy fights that left me gritting my teeth as shadow.

In the week past I’ve healed 10-man and 25-man Ulduar, along with 10-man normal, 10-man hard-mode and 25-man normal ToC.  Admittedly the 10-man Ulduar only consisted of doing Razorscale, XT, Kologarn and Auriaya while the main raid did the first three bosses in 25-man ToC (and I was the raidleader for it – talk about stressful).  And on 25-man Ulduar I sat out for Yogg-Saron+3, but I’m proud to have successfully tank-healed up to and including General Vezax.

The way we tank-heal on General, we rotate through three healers who each heal the tank until they’re down to 50% mana, at which the next in the series takes over and continues until they reach half mana.  When the third person in the sequence starts healing, the previous two go stand in a saronite pool to regain their mana and get ready for the first person to take over from #3.  Anyway, I was #3 in the sequence, and was quite surprised when the boss died just after I hit 50%, and before I got to engage the saronite-boss.  Bear in mind that I’m still pretty inexperienced; enough so that I don’t know how much of the time I spent healing (which felt like I was in there for ages) was due to very-well-geared and skilled DPS, how much is due to well-geared and skilled healers, and how much is me not screwing up.

While I was only in for the last 25-man ToC boss, Anub’arak, I was in for the full 10-man normal clear, and the first two 10-man heroic bosses that were downed.  No pretty loot for Mingle, but some other new raiders got some upgrades and one of our priests finished making Val’anyr.  (Why yes, I am just a little jealous)

The Heroic Beasts encounter was pretty full-on to heal; the tweaks between normal and heroic change the substance of the fights quite a bit, especially that change to Icehowl that changed the fight the most, namely removing the speed-buff you gain after everyone is stunned and knocked back to the wall, right before he charges someone.  (The tank wiped us twice by not running out quite fast enough; she’ll probably be very happy to hear that they’ve added an extra half-second before he charges)

The Faction Champions are even harder on heroic than I expected, and they’re such a hard fight on normal that it’s already (sometimes) remarkably difficult – it’s probably the most unpredictably difficult encounter I’ve come across, with the difficulty of the fight being almost completely reliant on their group makeup.

Still, I’ve managed to pick up one piece of nice badge loot (the non-tier badge shoulders, not to be confused with the horde equivalent), and I’ll probably be looking for the badge ring next.

It’s the start of Week #2 though, so hopefully it’s more of the same, but better this time.

Oh, and I’ve managed to reach another personal milestone.

Ding 50k.

/wave

The Downside To Changing Raiding Spec

Well, I’ve experienced the upside of changing Mingle’s raiding spec (healing is fun!), now I get to enjoy the downside.  Maybe in a month I’ll start being able to pick up some upgrades for her healing gear that don’t require badges.

Yup, I conveniently forgot that part of the process of changing raiding spec was that Mingle’s rank drops from Raider to Applicant, and with that goes the Raider-first loot opportunities (along with guild repairs and flasks, but they’re not really as important when you’re financially secure like I am).  Now, due to a combination of bad luck (/roll doesn’t like me), generosity (it made sense to pass on the mace from Razorscale which was of more benefit to the other dps caster who wanted it rather than roll on it for my underperforming shadow priest) and a biased loot system (mp5 on an item means healers get preference – which is kind of necessary in order to differentiate otherwise identical loot, but it’s painful when there aren’t many 1h caster weapons that don’t have it) she’s currently wielding Mariel’s Sorrow and Accursed Spine.  Not the worst combination you could think of, but it’s irksome when I bear in mind that (barring upgrades from Ulduar or ToC10) she’s going to be stuck with them for a while.

Well, I guess I can look forward to being promoted back to raider in a few weeks (provided I get the nod from the healing officer – still WTB feedback on how I’m doing), and by that time there should be enough people who’ve received loot that I’m a bit closer to the top of the queue when Misery’s End drops.  Of course, that’s provided the guild lasts that long – we still don’t know if we can up our game sufficiently to keep the raiders who want to work on hard mode progression from leaving for greener pastures.

I love being an optimist.

/wave

Maybe I’m Not As Burnt-Out As I Thought

Yesterday I officially started raiding on Mingle as a disc priest, and it was pretty enjoyable.  Apart from the Faction Champions.

I’m not saying I dislike that encounter – indeed, it’s very much the opposite.  Healing through the Champions on 10-man was Awesome!  Seriously, that fight alone was the most fun I’ve had playing WoW in quite some time.  And the rest of the night was pretty good as well.

I’ve yet to get some feedback from the Healing Officer about my performance so far (I’ve been told not to expect too much until I’ve several raids worth of WWS for officers to study), but I’m cautiously optimistic.  I think part of that is the fact that healing (at least, Disc-style) plays up one of my strengths (reaction time) whilst avoiding my two biggest weaknesses (targeting mobs at range as a dps class, and hesitation when starting to dps).  But it’s quite a turn-around from the last time I did the Faction Champions on my priest – that left me fuming and probably the angriest I’ve been in a long time, when I last did it as shadow.  (That was the 25-man version though; I’ve yet to see what it’s like to heal)

I was also in for the first guild 10-man run of VoA and the new boss, Koralon, on tank Dingle.  It was easier than Emalon (and probably almost puggable, given decently geared people with at least a little competence), but a fun little fight.  I still haven’t been able to get in there on priest Mingle; missing out on the 25-man VoA run last night was annoying, but considering that we had so many new raiders that we ran a 10-man Ulduar simultaneously with the 25-man ToC run to give people something to do, it’s not really worth getting upset over.  (I guess I’ll have to see if I can get Mingle into a VoA25 pug)

Anyway, I haven’t done any ToC25 so far this week – I’m really hoping I get the chance, as I have enough emblems of triumph saved to be able to buy a t9.5 piece (probably the Shoulders) but need to get my hands on a Trophy of the Crusade.  It’s a pity the tier 9 is such a plain, characterless set – hopefully the tier 10 from Icecrown will make up for this set’s boredom.

But I have been in ToC10, and the guild group managed to clear it all – even Anub’arak (which was more fun than he was in AN).  After the 25-man raid, we went back to do heroic ToC10 and managed to get through both the Beasts encounter and Jarraxus.  (Sadly, the bosses don’t drop the Trophy I need for my shoulders – apparently they only drop from the tribute chests after killing Anub’arak, if you have enough attempts remaining)

Unfortunately we’re stuck on the Faction Champions again, which is even nastier than it was first time around.  Fortunately while it’s irritating to be wiping on the encounter, it’s challenging to heal and not mind-numbingly frustrating the way I found it when specced as shadow.  We’re going back tonight after 25-man, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.

For now, though, it’s time to get busy with the little bits and pieces I’ve been putting off – not least of which is grinding Netherwing rep on Fingle, who’s going to be my designated drake-rider.

/wave