Truly Random Bits…

Looking Back on Healing…

I was just doing some reading, and found an old post I made right after the first instance that Kely healed on (Culling of Stratholme, in case you are curious).  In it, I state…

So, what did I learn on my first run out?

Lesson One: While I have to watch the entire party – I really, really need to pay attention to the Tank and to myself.  I did a good job on watching the tank – did a bad job watching myself.  Kat won’t be there next time to keep me topped off – and if I die, then the tank dies.

Lesson Two: If you’re going to spam something, then spam Lifebloom and Rejuv; not Regrowth.  I started the run with lots and lots of Regrowth and Nurture… that really didn’t work out too well, and I ended up having to play catch up far too often.  There is a time and a place for regrowth, but not as the primary heal spell.  Once I started to get the hang of the spells I started using Lifebloom and Healing Touch a lot more, with Regrowth thrown in just to HoT up the Tank if he started to take some serious damage.

Lesson Three: With a party, Wild Growth is my friend.  Seriously.  Once we were past the second boss I started to keep the tank targeted, and between Lifeblooms and Rejuv, I’d hit the party with a Wild Growth.  Kept everyone topped off, and I didn’t have to CTRL-TAB through targets to do so.

Lesson Four: Don’t blow ‘Nature’s Swiftness’ on Trash.  Not unless you’ve got at least three minutes until the next boss.

Lesson Five: Druids are not Mages.  Druids do not have Evocate or Mana Biscuits.  I need to purchase some good Mana food before runs, and I need a really good stack of Runic Mana pots.  That said, I only actually ran out of Mana once during the run, and I was able to Pot and keep healing.

So, looking back after months of raid healing, what do I have to add or change?

Lesson One: Well, Duh.

Lesson Two: Lifebloom is nice, but if you’re going to spam anything then Rejuv and Nurture.  Between the Rejuv trinkets, and Idols, and Glyphs – it only makes sense to make that one of your primary spells.  During heavy damage fights, Nurture is your friend.  Otherwise, sure – I’ll still stand by that.

Lesson Three: Yes! Yes! Yes!  I LOVE ‘Wild Growth’.  Once I hit Rejuv, I’m usually following up with ‘Wild Growth’ and just ignoring the ‘That Spell Is Not Ready Yet’ message.  I usually cast it on the tank and it’ll pick up the Melee DPS for you.  After Rejuv, easily my favorite healing spell.

Lesson Four: It doesn’t matter.  Blow ‘Nature’s Swiftness’ every time it is up, if you like.  Honestly, I don’t use it much because I’m not a Healing Touch healer.  In my opinion, while it is a big heal, it is just too mana intensive to be effective.  But, if I were a Healing Touch druid, I’d still blow it every time it was up.  The spell simply doesn’t do you any good just sitting there, and if you wait until you’re backed into a corner to use it then it is probably already too late.

Lesson Five: Druids still are not mages.  We don’t run out of mana nearly as quickly.  Mana Regen for druids, as Shanaria told me some time ago, is highly dependent on your gear.  If you have good gear, you won’t run out of mana – it’s that simple.  And if you do, there is always Innervate.

Hunters are OP

Ok.  Low Level hunters, with a new kitty, are OP.  My little horde hunter just hit 10, and went and tamed one of the Lynx near Silvermoon.  Oh my god.  I do NOT remember being a low level hunter being this easy.  I never pull aggro from my cat, and – if I’m lucky – I’m getting like three shots off before the mob is dead.

Seriously.  It’s that easy now.  So far, at level 12, she has died once – and that was because I made a wrong turn and end up pull like four groups at once.

On Role Playing

I’ve updated Ame, Kely and Glith’s descriptions here (over on the ‘About Me’ section).  I’ll be adding more on their backgrounds later.  I’ve also got a good background written up for my horde hunter – I may wait until Cataclysm to roll another Alliance RP toon – and when I do it’ll be a Nelf Mage.

Yes, I love Elves.  Even my lone human – Amerya – can (IC’ly) speak Darnassan**, studied Kaldorei lore, moved to Darnassus and fell hard for a Night Elf.  No, she didn’t have an easy time of it – Mages really aren’t trusted at all in Darnassus – but she didn’t care.

Anyway, I’ll post when I have more up to read.

** I really wish Blizz would let you purchase into speaking other languages in your faction (or heck, out of your faction – it’d be nice to shout back at the damn horde that keep yelling in Dalaran).  They could do it as a ‘Language’ Trainer.  In game I end up having to use Lore to fake it, or having whomever is playing an elf whisper me what they just said in [Darnassan] so I can make sure she reacts properly.  Frustrating.

When to say When…

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
– Albert Einstein

We paid ten man Trial of the Champion (or is it Crusader?) a visit last Thursday. We weren’t supposed to go there… we were supposed to continue our domination of twenty-five man Uldaur. However, we ended up being short a number of DPS and healers, so Trial of the Crusader (Champion, whatever) it was.

We didn’t get far. We didn’t get far at all. I mean, we ran in – everyone got buffed – and then we insta-wiped. Repeatedly. For the next two hours.

I don’t mine wiping; I really don’t. That is part of progression raiding and as long as people are learning and we’re getting a little better each attempt I’m good with it. Nothing frustrates me more than raiders who make a half-hearted attempt or two at, say, Thorim then decide that they’d really rather do Ignis instead. Or Hogger. Or maybe just faming some sheep in Elwynn. Sorry, but suck it up – we’re here to learn.

So what do you do, then, when the learning just isn’t happening? In our case, we had three healers – myself included – and we just weren’t getting the job done. We should have been able to, but the furthest we got was into phase-two of the Northrend Beasts. The healing crew consisted of two priests (both Holy spec’d) and myself (Tree Druid).

We aren’t bad healers, but the force just wasn’t with us that night. One priest was fighting through latency/disconnect issues. The other was, frankly, still undergeared/skilled for TotC. As a result, we just hit a wall. Once that happens, how long do you give it? Personally, I’d give it about an hour – if we aren’t getting anyplace after an hour, then it is time to either call it, or make some composition changes.

It can be very difficult to tell if you’ve hit a wall, or are just struggling through strategy. I remember raid-leading Kara back in the day, and running into the Shade and then spending hours there trying to put him down – some nights you could feel that we were making a little-bit of headway into the fight, and other nights you knew after the first attempt that the mojo just wasn’t with us.

For me, it isn’t just how far we’ve gotten the boss down – it is how smoothly we’re starting to get the fight. With the Shade of Aran, it isn’t really anything to get him to 40%. But you need to watch – are the tanks picking up the elementals? Are the warlocks banishing? Are people getting killed by Blizzards or Arcane Missiles? Are the frostbolts getting kicked? All those elements have to come together, otherwise you’ll end up lying there dead screaming in agreement with the Shade when he goes on about wanting the nightmare to be over.

It’s that careful choregraphy that has to happen… and it won’t happen immediately – but if you don’t see it happening at all, then it is time to start watching for that wall.

Back in Trials of the Champion (Crusader) – our raid lead gave it two hours before he called it. I really appreciate his patience and support in trying to figure it out, but it just wasn’t going to happen that night. We healers just weren’t finding the choregraphy for the night – and it was costing the other seven members of the raid dearly.

The next question, perhaps the more important question, is ‘do you know why you failed’? Well, yes. I think in this case I do.

And if what I learned can prevent a wipe-fest in the future, then maybe the evening was worthwhile after all.

Looking for an Off-Spec

One of my goals with Kely, in addition to becoming a healer, was to PVP more.  I really do enjoy it, and I think that I’d have more fun with it on a druid, than a mage.

Kely’s Primary spec is PVE (Raid) Healing.  Lots of HOTs, and I think I’ll modify the spec some to include a chance at replenishment as well.  In runs, I can handle most fights with Lifebloom and Regrowth, and a Wild Growth thrown in for party healing.  Of course, instant heals are always going to be an issue, and I do start to run into problems when a group member gets slammed by something – especially if I’ve already used my Nature’s Swiftness.  But, I digress.

I leveled to 80 with Kely as Feral-DPS.  Great for grinding, but horrible for trying to heal.  I don’t mind using it, because I’d really like to finish my daily quests in a short a time as possible, but I’m thinking there has to be something better out there, where I can combine PVE Soloing with PVP Healing.

One spec that I’m considering for PVP is the Restokin.  It wouldn’t do anything to increase my health or armor – but it would give me some efficient offensive spells, some mana regen and let me keep most of my healing tree.

Best of all – I wouldn’t have to have two completely dissimiliar sets of gear (well, not until I get a good PVP set, but anyway).

It is worth pondering, and maybe even trying out, I think.

In other news…

* We got two more bosses down in Ulduar – Razorscale and XT.  We also cleared the trash after XT – it was NICE… soooo nice to Crowd Control again.

* I’ve been doing more healing on Kely, and I’m starting to get some confidence.  I’m doing better at watching my own health.  Though, honestly, it does get away from me still.  From time to time.  Still, three of us noob healers got through the first two wings in 10-man Naxx.  Maybe we can get back in and try to finish it tonight – if the 25-man doesn’t happen.

*ding*

I’ve been having fun leveling my Druid the last couple of weeks.  She hit 74 last night, and post-raid game plan for this evening is to wrap up Howling Fjord.  That, or help a friend level (if she is on, and is up to spending some time questing… she’s been swamped lately).

One big difference I’ve noticed – Kely is dying a LOT less than Amerya did, and can handle more Elite mobs by herself.  Which is really, really fun. Anyway.

Right now, Kely is spec’d and geared for feral DPS.  I’m planning on taking her resto at 80, but with the advent of dual-spec I’m sure that she’ll always have this kitty edge to her. My challenge is that I really don’t understand the ways of the Druid.

I mean, I understand that as an Arcane Mage you need to get your spell hit up, and you need to focus on Intelligence and Spell Damage; then Haste; then Crit.

But for a kitty druid?  I have no idea.  I think Agility is an important stat – but I’ve heard that Strength is important, too.  And is Hit more important than Crit?  Where should Haste fall?  Or Attack Power?

And with druids being a hybrid class, I end up looking at loot and quest drops trying to sort out if item X is good for a Tanking set, a Healing set or a DPS set.

Want to know a little secret?  It gets so overwhelming that at 70 (and so far through WotLK) I just keep one set of trinkets and rings for all the specs.  Otherwise, it just gets confusing and I end up selling off something I need for another spec.

I’ve done some research on Elitist Jerks, and I know I can bug the hell out of the druids I know and respect (for example, and just to list a few: Shieke, Riusfrey, Shanaria, Mayonaka) but I don’t want to annoy them too much – plus I know I can figure it out.

Maybe its just that I haven’t really focused on raiding with a Druid until now; at least, not like I did with Amerya.  I knew with her that I had to have the right spec with the right rotation or else I’d be left behind.  I just need to give the same focus to Kely, and I’m sure I’ll be fine.

On Healing…

I’ve had a few people try to warn me about becoming a healer (even an alt healer).  Apparently, it can suck you in and keep you from getting back to your main.  Despite this, I’m looking forward to giving it a shot.  While the increased responsibilty scares me a little; I think the payoff will be worth it.

I just hope that I can do a good job; and if I do become a good healer – that we’ll be able to balance my ‘healing time’ with my ‘blow stuff up’ time on my mage.