We all knew the patch from last week had contained some extreme changes to nearly all the classes, but I wasn't to sure how it was going to impact my healing. For the moment I am reserving judgement on the changes because one night of raid healing doesn't quite equate to a fair trial.
I had logged on and started going through my list of things I needed to do when I get a whisper from our raid leader asking, "You healing tonight?"
I replied, "Sure thing, I just need to spec, pick up some glyphs, maybe a gem or 2, and set up my keybindings." Yeah I know I should have had at least the glyphs and gems bought by this time.
Our raid leader replies, "Well you got 15 minutes."
OH CRAP!!! It was 15 minutes before our raid time. So I go through my talents, select the resto summary and decide on a build like this (2/3/31) http://wowtal.com/#k=RqSJ9KSs.a6d.druid. I had figured I wanted to go for the stronger HoTs and maximum manan since we never know on our raid nights what our 3rd healer might be. We've been fielding just me and our discipline priest lately and he does a great job on tank healing. Therefore, I try to field the raid heals and hope whoever we pickup can swing between tank and raid healing.
I check in and our raid still isn't full, so I play around with regemming some gear for haste and try to get that dismal 710 (21.65%) haste rating up some. After changing gems and finding the reforging guy in Stormwind, I ended up with a haste rating of 896 (27.5%). Eh... it'll have to do for now. The whole goal is to hit that soft cap of 1016 (37.5%) and add in a 6th tick on a single Rejuvenation cast.
I start in setting my keybindings when I get an invite to the raid. I wasn't quite worried since we were still waiting on our tank to log on. Fortunately I am a creature of habit and the keybindings went pretty fast and I made my way to Ice Crown.
Now, I'm heading into ICC with no addons (yep not even DBM) and clueless on how my rotation is going to work with the restrictions on Lifebloom and the ever so long casting Nourish. I used those 2 spells so fluidily before these changes that I knew there were going to be some tough habits to break. It was just something I'm going to have to watch. This was definitely going to be an entertaining night in ICC since we were starting with an old id and on Sindy.
Our raid finally gets going an hour late with 3 PuGs, a mage, a hunter, and a discipline priest. Our regular priest is missing and probably had something to do at the school. I did come to find out that during my fishing excursion, the guild had recruited a resto shaman. Yea for chain heal and herosim (BTW, what happened to heroic presence?).
The Sindy fight goes along pretty well considering that the hunter and mage hadn't seen this fight. I found using my Tree of Life form for her last phase was a good place for it since things tend to go south of hell at that point. Tree of Life is extremely useful and powerful on phases like that, but it's a really bug mana drain.
We head up to the Lich King throne and I was surprised that we were attempting him with the 4 new people. But what the hell! I'm game.
We ended up attempting him 6 times and our best was the 3rd when we pushed him below 30%. Our biggest problems were in DPSing the orbs and slowing the Valkyries. Other than that, our raid was on.
As for the resto evaluation, I really like Efflorescence, Rejuvenation is a monster, and the faster and crittable Regrowth are nice. I am bummed with the 30 minute cool down on Rebirth and the restricted use of Lifebloom. I can tell it's going to take a few raids to square everything out. So everything looks good, but we're not quite there.
Showing posts with label ICC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICC. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Problems with Progression and PuGs
Last night we had a run of ICC's plague and blood wings It went very well considering we had one humbling wipe on on trash and another on the Blood Queen.
For the most part, me and our Disc/Holy priest filled out the healing roster very well and we make for a good compliment of healing partners. Our DPS was rock solid as were our tanks, but we did have to pick up 3 DPS slots and ran the night pretty melee heavy with only 2 ranged DPS.
I've been noticing that since we've transferred servers that PuGs are somewhat more selective and hesitant to go on progression runs. Some players running alts appear to only want a full run and not mess with progression attempts (be it heroic or boss progression). Even players running on their main characters could care less about running heroic or boss progression attempts at this point in time.
I suppose the ALT players go hoping for some gear drops, pick up some emblems, and get a few achievements. I can see that. On most larger servers people ask for gearscores and achievements on raids which you can't get with an alt character unless you PuG yourself into a raid. So it's a catch-22 at that point.
However, I've seen people playing what they claim to be their mains join our raid only to back out once they realize out what we're running. Our guild is good about letting people know that in trade chat what we're looking for and for what. We don't spring surprises on anyone. The thing is, we advertise some heroic progressions, but we're also not going to spend 2 hours on one heroic boss attempt.
Fortunately, we did raid with another player who did very well. An older player who has a couple of kids and prefers to play after they go to bed. Which is alot of what our guild is. Older players whose real life obligations vastly surpass that of the game. And you can't find those "fits" for your guild unless you pug players. And at this point, we need to pug about 3 more people.
On a personal note, I did manage to pick up another piece for tanking (Precious's Putrid Collar, http://www.wowhead.com/item=50852).
For the most part, me and our Disc/Holy priest filled out the healing roster very well and we make for a good compliment of healing partners. Our DPS was rock solid as were our tanks, but we did have to pick up 3 DPS slots and ran the night pretty melee heavy with only 2 ranged DPS.
I've been noticing that since we've transferred servers that PuGs are somewhat more selective and hesitant to go on progression runs. Some players running alts appear to only want a full run and not mess with progression attempts (be it heroic or boss progression). Even players running on their main characters could care less about running heroic or boss progression attempts at this point in time.
I suppose the ALT players go hoping for some gear drops, pick up some emblems, and get a few achievements. I can see that. On most larger servers people ask for gearscores and achievements on raids which you can't get with an alt character unless you PuG yourself into a raid. So it's a catch-22 at that point.
However, I've seen people playing what they claim to be their mains join our raid only to back out once they realize out what we're running. Our guild is good about letting people know that in trade chat what we're looking for and for what. We don't spring surprises on anyone. The thing is, we advertise some heroic progressions, but we're also not going to spend 2 hours on one heroic boss attempt.
Fortunately, we did raid with another player who did very well. An older player who has a couple of kids and prefers to play after they go to bed. Which is alot of what our guild is. Older players whose real life obligations vastly surpass that of the game. And you can't find those "fits" for your guild unless you pug players. And at this point, we need to pug about 3 more people.
On a personal note, I did manage to pick up another piece for tanking (Precious's Putrid Collar, http://www.wowhead.com/item=50852).
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The Vicarious Druid
Vicarious? My that's such a big word for you Bacon. Yeah, yeah I know. But as I was listening to the song Vicarious by Tool and I was wondering, "what in the hell does that word exactly mean?" I mean I'm not surrounded by alot of people who use it. Most of the people I deal with on a daily basis develop software and ignore all other biological forms near them. I do hear other terms (or homonyms for you grammar geeks) similar in sound used like precarious from the rare conversation with the administrative assistant, but I've never really heard common usage for vicarious. So off to Google I go.
Vicarious is an adjective that describes "taking the place of another person or thing; acting or serving as a substitute."
Oh wow! That sounds just like a druid in the game. Granted most of my time playing a druid has been as a healer, but there are a few times this last year I have taken on the role of tank and ranged DPS. It's been a fun time and there are times like last night when our guild leader asked me before the raid if I was interested in tanking.
Hell ya I'm interested, but I had a few things working against me (unfortunately our DK tank had his ISP working against him). To begin with I had just got back home from a trip up to Green Bay, Wisconsin where me and the family had a great time. Unfortunately, I was beat. I drove all day Monday to get home at 1:30 am Tuesday morning. Of course things don't stop the minute you pull into the garage. No siree, you still have to unload the car and clean out the trash. So it was around 2 am that I finally went to bed. Problems with my house is that the kid wakes up at 6 am and is ready to get everyone going.
Secondly, I caught the beginnings of what feels like a head cold which ended up being a crushing headache and sinus pain.
So with me being tired and not feeling too hot, I declined on tanking. I don't want the raid to suffer through some mistake that I made due to not being a 100%. Which really sucks, because I want this and here was the prime opportunity. Oh well, there'll be future opportunities.
We attempted heroic Marrowgar a few times and Lady Deathwhisper twice. We pushed on through heroic Gunship and that was really nothing special. By this time, I was feeling real crappy and I prayed that we could push on through Saurfang with no heroic attempts. Unfortunately that wasn't case and he proceeded to show us why heroic mode is hard. By then it was 11am and this Vicarious Druid had to call it a night. I just hope they found another healer to continue on.
Vicarious is an adjective that describes "taking the place of another person or thing; acting or serving as a substitute."
Oh wow! That sounds just like a druid in the game. Granted most of my time playing a druid has been as a healer, but there are a few times this last year I have taken on the role of tank and ranged DPS. It's been a fun time and there are times like last night when our guild leader asked me before the raid if I was interested in tanking.
Hell ya I'm interested, but I had a few things working against me (unfortunately our DK tank had his ISP working against him). To begin with I had just got back home from a trip up to Green Bay, Wisconsin where me and the family had a great time. Unfortunately, I was beat. I drove all day Monday to get home at 1:30 am Tuesday morning. Of course things don't stop the minute you pull into the garage. No siree, you still have to unload the car and clean out the trash. So it was around 2 am that I finally went to bed. Problems with my house is that the kid wakes up at 6 am and is ready to get everyone going.
Secondly, I caught the beginnings of what feels like a head cold which ended up being a crushing headache and sinus pain.
So with me being tired and not feeling too hot, I declined on tanking. I don't want the raid to suffer through some mistake that I made due to not being a 100%. Which really sucks, because I want this and here was the prime opportunity. Oh well, there'll be future opportunities.
We attempted heroic Marrowgar a few times and Lady Deathwhisper twice. We pushed on through heroic Gunship and that was really nothing special. By this time, I was feeling real crappy and I prayed that we could push on through Saurfang with no heroic attempts. Unfortunately that wasn't case and he proceeded to show us why heroic mode is hard. By then it was 11am and this Vicarious Druid had to call it a night. I just hope they found another healer to continue on.
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