Circle of Healers #2 – The Follow-up

Kurn / / healers, healing, paladins, ramblings

Totally forgot that Saunder posted a follow-up to Miss Medicina’s original surveyish post and her recent post in response to Saunder reminded me it was something I needed to post, too! :) I snagged all six of Saunder’s questions and the two additional ones from MM.

1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthyness.

Eh, I’m not horrified by my previous responses. I don’t use Lay on Hands enough, though — and I hadn’t mentioned it at ALL in my previous post. I think I probably forgot it existed for a few minutes when writing the original answer for “least used” healing spell.

2. Has your healing improved in the area you identified as your weakest?

Not a whole lot, really, but there’s not a lot I CAN do about my lack of heals on the move and my lack of group heals. But I have pulled some huge numbers on Blood Queen attempts that just remind me that I’m usually at my best with a persistent damage aura going. It means that the tank and OT both benefit from my direct heals (well, one of them with Beacon) and the melee benefit from my Glyph of Holy Light splashes. It’s always fun to see huge numbers.

3. Have you changed your ‘least favoured class to heal with’?

Nope. Still don’t like healing on my shaman. I don’t feel any more powerful than I do on my paladin, even though I can chain heal four people at once versus dropping a 20k heal on a single person.

But apparently, this was meant to be “what other class do you not enjoy healing alongside you on your healer?”

Four months or so ago, I would have probably said a disc priest. Not that I don’t like them, but because I had my doubts that, in a 10-man, a disc priest and a holy paladin would have been able to get through Saurfang together. But then I did that in December or early January and it wasn’t just “fine”, it was “great”. So I guess maybe a second holy paladin would be my answer now. ALL FOUR other classes/specs that heal regularly have better raid-healing capabilities than I do as a holy paladin.

4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?

I did indeed! And still traipse through other entries if I’m bored. :)

5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?

Not with regards to pally stuff, I don’t think (it’s been a while!) but I think I remember a priest writing about using Holy Nova to heal while on the run, which I thought was freaking brilliant and have used that when moving on my little 72 disc priest.

6. What tools/resources or information do you think you would need to improve as a healer and how could that help the community at large?

Maybe the ability for the combat log to record locations of people, movement and stoppage in movement. I love WorldOfLogs and love that they can show us the breakdown over time, show us combat log snippets… but it really doesn’t show us where we are in relation to others. That’s the one thing that I’ve really, REALLY wanted to see and it’s not a failing of WoL’s, because the combat log just doesn’t record that information at the moment. I think it would be GREAT for the community, though, if only to see where people are standing during fights, when they move as a group, singly, etc.

7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?

I said it was my cross-healing. To be honest, it’s not that I’ve necessarily improved in this area, but I am EASILY the healer in my guild who cross-heals the least. So I look good because other people are worse than I’ve ever been.

8. What did you list as your favorite healing spell and your least used healing spell for your class? Are these answers still true? If they have changed, what caused the change (i.e. patch fix, different healing environment, etc)?

Still a sucker for Holy Shock, but I’m using it less often now. I swapped to the Glyph of Beacon of Light from the Glyph of Holy Shock, but I’m debating getting the new libram and going BACK to Glyph of Holy Shock. The least-used (well, we’ll imagine I said Lay on Hands for that)… still don’t use it nearly enough, but I’ve used it on at least two Putricide kills, so even if I never use it again, I used it when it counted, at least twice. :)

Kurn's Q&A #5

Kurn / / q&a, raiding, ramblings

I have done virtually nothing in WoW since last Thursday. A couple random dungeons on Madrana, a couple on my druid, but I haven’t even raided. Let me tell you — being too sick to even veg out and play WoW? Not fun.

Anyways, I thought I’d do my weekly combing through my web stats and pull out 10 search terms that sent people here, as I usually do.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to lump all the Toravon the Ice Watcher results into one:

1) minimum stats tanking toravon, how to do toravon, toravon taunt, toravon “emblems of frost”, frost resist toravon, can you 2 heal toravon, toravon 10 how many tanks needed

That ought to be sufficient.

For tanking stats, I presume that if you can tank Koralon, you can tank Toravon. I think there’s less damage taken in the Toravon encounter overall. Figure 35k+ health for 10-man and 40k+ health for 25-man. You will only need two tanks for Toravon, just like Koralon, Emalon and (back in the day, anyways) Archavon.

I recommend taunting Toravon every 3-4 stacks of Frostbite.

Yes, Toravon drops 2 Emblems of Frost on BOTH 10-man and 25-man, just like Koralon dropped 2 Emblems of Triumph on both 10/25.

You don’t need frost resist gear for Toravon. It’s advisable to have Frost Resistance Aura from a paladin or Frost Resist Totem from a shaman, however, just to mitigate the frost damage. But resist gear is, in no way, needed.

Yes, you can 2-heal 10-man Toravon. My (not well-geared) resto shammy successfully did so with a druid. I chained off the tanks and the druid hotted up the raid.

As to how to do Toravon, here’s a guide I wrote last week.

2) “body and soul” rotface

Totally. Awesome plan. If you have a holy priest specced for Body and Soul, have them toss the infected people a shield. Good call.

3) “invisibility potion” putricide

I think I see where you’re going with this. You think if you can go invisible (like mages can) in combat, before a phase change, you can get free DPS on Putricide, right? Not bad thinking, to be honest, but I’m pretty sure this doesn’t work. During my sneaking around Orgrimmar to get the BB King achievement (that video’s still forthcoming, btw!), I used the invisibility potion to no effect once I was actually IN combat. If, however, I was fading out of visibility when I engaged mobs, it worked fine. So, sorry. Only mages and rogues, to my knowledge, can use their abilities to get some free DPS on Putricide.

4) does divine sacrifice stack

That’d be a big ol’ “no”, sorry. If you activate Divine Sacrifice and another pally does so immediately after you do, your DS will fade on yourself and the raid, and the other paladin’s will become active. You CAN use them back to back, however. On heroic Twin Valkyrs on 25-man, for light vortex, the other holy pally pops his divine shield/divine sacrifice, then I pop mine after I see his emotes in raid chat. The theory here is that his DS will have already been consumed by the insane raid damage light vortex causes by the time I go through the globals to activate my bubble and then DS.

But no, it doesn’t stack.

5) do icc bosses drop emblems of frost

Yes. Each boss on 10 and 25-man versions drops 2 Emblems of Frost, even the Airship battle. (Although that one doesn’t give you any rep.)

For clarification, here’s how you can currently get Emblems of frost:

a) 2 per level 80 character per day for the successful COMPLETION of a random heroic dungeon

b) 5 per level 80 character per week for the successful completion of the weekly raid quest

c) 4 per level 80 character per week for downing Toravon on both difficulties (2 Emblems of Frost for each 10 and 25-man kill)

d) 2 Emblems of Frost per boss killed in Icecrown Citadel on 10 and 25-man difficulties

e) 5 Emblems of Frost per ICC weekly quest completed (up to two — one on 10 and one on 25-man)

If you can down the Lower Spire, the Plagueworks, The Crimson Halls and heal up Dreamwalker, for example, on both difficulties, plus you do your random daily every day, plus you kill Toravon twice, plus doing two ICC raid quests, plus the weekly quest, you would get:

8 from Lower Spire, 6 from Plagueworks, 4 from Crimson Halls, 2 from Dreamwalker (20 total) — times 2 for 10/25-man, so that’s 40 from boss kills in ICC. Random heroic done daily is another 14 badges. Toravon dead twice is another 4. Two ICC raid quests is another 10. Then the regular weekly raid quest is another 5. So that’s like, 73 badges in a week. Yowza. Makes me want to get my non-raiding toons into ICC. :P

6) mobs dying to ret aura not giving loot

Not sure if you mean that you were just sitting there, afk, with ret aura on, and something beat on you until it died, but if that’s the case, that makes sense. Your character has to deliberately attack the mob in order to get credit/loot for the kill. Hunters and warlocks have the same problem with pets. If I send my cat over to wail on something and he kills the mob without my having even shot at the mob once, then I don’t get loot.

If you mean that the killing blow was from ret aura and you didn’t get loot, open an in-game ticket.

7) two elixir or one flask?

Well, now. That’s an interesting question and generally depends on what stats you’re looking for. As a holy paladin, I use Flask of Distilled Wisdom. But because I’m an alchemist, my flasks last two hours. So I’ll generally finish up my raids with two elixirs instead — which are actually better than the flask. I use Guru’s Elixirs and Elixirs of Mighty Thoughts. Due to my being an alchemist, I get a slight boost to each of these elixirs and will end up with slightly more mana/intellect than if I use the flask, not to mention another 200-some health from the Guru’s. So technically, it’s better for me to use the two elixirs than to flask.

Your mileage may vary, however. On my hunter, I’d much rather use a Flask of Endless Rage because 180 attack power is more than I’d get from an Elixir of Mighty Agility or Wrath Elixir along with an Elixir of Mighty Thoughts. (Why an intellect elixir? Careful Aim.)

In most situations, a flask will do just fine, but definitely check out wowhead.com for consumables you might prefer to use.

8) razuvious be tanked in icecrown gear?

No. He casts Unbalancing Strike. Apart from the fact that wowhead.com says it hits for about 100,000 physical damage AFTER mitigation, it reduces your defense rating by 100, leaving you crittable. Note that it WAS possible to tank the level 60 Razuvious in Sunwell gear, but even then, you risked an unlucky hit that would instantly kill your tank. I do not believe this would now be possible or would even be possible once we’re in Cataclysm.

9) onyxia where should healer stand

Onyxia is, believe it or not, your standard dragon fight. That means two things off the bat: being at her head is bad and being at her tail is bad. All dragon fights in this game (well, boss-dragons), without exception (I believe) have some sort of damage at the head and some sort of damage or otherwise bad thing at the tail.

So, being a healer, you should go left or right and stand about 25 yards away from Ony at her midsection, so you can heal melee, ranged and the tank. I prefer to go left, but that’s leftover from 40-man Onyxia, where I was usually in Group 1 and we had groups 1, 3, 5 and 7 go left, 2, 4, 6 and 8 go right.

10) flash of light hot tick

You know what? I always put Sacred Shield up on my target (if I’m not sharing with the other holy pally) and ALWAYS put up (and try to keep up) my Flash of Light HoT. It’s not that it ticks for anything like Rejuvenation or Renew, but it’s a bit of extra healing which is never, ever a bad thing. Does it lower your overall healing per second? Yes, because the time you spent casting Flash of Light could have been used to cast Holy Light. But honestly? I care more about keeping my tank alive than my numbers.

Raid-buffed, my FoL HoT ticks for anywhere from 450/tick to 950/tick, depending on if I crit or not. Every second for 12 seconds. That’s really not too bad. I do miss my 4pc T9, though, which doubles that.

Okay, I wrote this throughout the day. Time to post and try to get some sleep.

Seriously.

Kurn / / paladins, raiding, ramblings

I have like, six posts I want to write, including one about the utter fail of a certain holy paladin, now that I’ve seen his armory and LACK of any pre-BC or BC-related rep. (Plus some questionable spec and glyph-related issues.)

But I’m still sick. I’m actually not even going to raid tonight, that’s how worn out I am. And I think the guild is doing the Dreamwalker fight. :(

Ugh.

Kurn / / facepalm, lfg, ramblings

So my brother gave me his cold when we went up north last weekend. I feel like crap.

I logged in to WoW today and queued up as a healer only (which I only really do when I’m tired/in a rush/etc) and got heroic pit of saron.

With noobs.

I said, specifically, before Ick, to run out for poison nova, run away if you’re being chased, don’t stand in the arcane explosions and not to stand in poison.

Well, the first time someone’s chased, it’s the DK.

BAM, one-shotted.

/facepalm

Then the idiot tank was like “stay close to me, mount up, everyone go at once”. What is wrong with people that they can’t interrupt the 5-pulls on the way up the hill? He had me put on crusader so we’d get up the hill in time.

So we skip two groups of mobs.

And we stop too close to the next group, obviously.

At one point, we have ALL FIVE people in the group with aggro. I hit bubble and divine sacrifice when it became apparent that the warrior tank really didn’t seem to CARE that I was nearly three-shotted. He didn’t care that the mage had aggro. Or the DK. And did the hunter feign? No.

So after that pull, as I’m rezzing the mage, I’m telling him he needs to hold aggro better on those pulls and so he’s like “it was a preemptive pull” and I’m in the midst of arguing that doesn’t matter, he needs to at least TRY to pull aggro off his healer and DPS.

So what does he do? Charges forth to the next group. Whereupon neither he, nor the DK, leave the rings of frost that get cast. SERIOUSLY. It’s the same mechanic as in Zangarmarsh. It’s NOT rocket science, people, especially if it happens to you even ONCE.

So I’m like “seriously, guys, gotta move out of the frost circles.”

“sorry, do you want me to go back and get the mobs we skipped, too?” he asks.

“You know what?” I reply, “I’m gonna take off. It’s clear that you guys don’t even understand the basics of the trash mechanics here.”

“good” says the tank.

“Adios,” say I, and I drop group, putting the hunter, the warrior and the DK all on ignore. (The hunter and warrior were guildies and the DK was clearly an idiot.) It dawned on me that I had just screwed them all over fairly well, putting two of the four challenging packs of trash in that place between them and a new healer. And while I feel bad for the mage (who gave me AB instead of AI, and his Focus Magic), I don’t feel too bad (no table, no offer of water, etc).

Anyways, for whatever reason, I left party and didn’t get the deserter debuff. I’m not sure how that works. But anyways, I queue up again and am hoping for something easy like Violet Hold or even Gundrak. Just something mindless.

And I get Heroic Halls of Reflection.

So I apologized to the group and said I was sorry, but I wasn’t feeling up to that instance, wished them good luck and left.

I’m so tired of doing random dungeons on my pally, but since I rarely do 10s, it’s a significant source of my emblems of frost. I have 159 atm, and 2 pieces of T10 (both upgraded) and am hoping to get the gloves or pants from Toravon, on either difficulty. That’ll save me another ton of emblems and maybe I’ll actually take a break on Madrana for once. I’ve missed precisely one heroic random since 3.3 launched and it is seriously taking its toll on me.

Let's PUG together!

Kurn / / general, lfg

Saunder over at Non-Squishy Heals has a great idea that concerns you if you are:

– level 80

– Alliance

– playing on a Bloodlust battlegroup server

If you’re up for it, on Friday, March 5th at 9pm ET (Saturday March 6th at 2am GMT), let’s all go pugging together for a bit! Even if you can’t make that time, head over to the signup post and post your details so we can arrange something at some point. :)

Another night, another raid.

Kurn / / icecrown citadel, raiding, ramblings

Last night, we did Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Airship, Saurfang, Festergut, Rotface and Professor, in that order. Rotface took us an uncharacteristic 3-4 attempts, too. Professor Putricide? 1 wipe, 1 kill, leaving us 19 attempts for Blood Queen Lana’thel and Sindragosa and the Lich King.

So tonight, it’ll be mostly new content. I suspect Blood Prince Council and maybe (?) a couple of attempts at BQL before heading in to try out Valithria Dreamwalker and see if we can save that dragon’s scaly hide before facing off with Sindragosa. But I could be wrong.

Still, it’s mostly new content night. And I feel like crap. I think I’m coming down with my brother’s cold. So of all the nights to not want to miss, I don’t want to miss tonight. :P I’m hoping some Tylenol will see me through ’till 2am, whereupon I hope to pass out happily.

But first, to the store, so that I can buy a metric assload of orange juice to stave off this cold.

Excellent post.

Kurn / / general, ramblings

Just read an excellent post at WorldOfMatticus. Thespius talks about clueless raiders, the lack of challenges in current heroic content and similar issues. Thespius and I share many views, just based on this post alone, because we both seem to believe that there is A Specific Way to Do Things. That is, the Right Way. The way that isn’t AOEing things down as a first strategy, the way that encourages us to use our abilities to counter boss abilities.

It boils down to strategic use of our abilities.

For example, if I’m on Putricide and I’m targetted by the green ooze and DPS isn’t killing it fast enough, I could bubble.

But I don’t bubble.

Why don’t I bubble?

Because I want to make perfectly sure that, around the 7m45s-8m mark of the fight, my bubble is back up, so I can cast Divine Sacrifice as a raid-wide 20% damage mitigator, without incurring any extra damage to myself. I hit it after the other pally does, so roughly when our second tank takes his third mark. Not only does that keep me alive, which is good, because I’m healing the crap out of the tanks, but it also helps reduce the healing needed across the raid.

This is a strategic use of my abilities.

And Thespius seems to be a fan of that sort of method. I can’t stand brute-forcing encounters (like the way we do twins, or the really dumb way we’ve chosen to try to do heroic Anub’arak on 25), so I really liked the post, which detailed a few of the ways I think easier heroics are bad.

That said, as someone with 4 80s and a 78, I am grateful for the shorter length of regular instances and heroics. But I’m sad that the only way I’m challenged is if someone else screws up or decides to pull an entire room. (Yes, Majik, I’m talking to you. ;))

In particular, the following paragraph resonated strongly with me, so I’ll leave you with this to think on (emphasis mine):

Regardless if you’re a completely new player, or just levelling an alt, I fear that we’re starting to lose the building blocks to being a good raider to the ease of too much convenience.  (Sidenote: Notice I said “too much”.  I’m all for crafting the game so everyone has a shot, but there is a point when it goes too far.  I don’t want to go back to the days of needing to run alts through Karazhan to begin the gearing process for Black Temple.)

Random rolls are random. Right?

Kurn / / lfg, ramblings

So I’ve been running random dungeons with my brother on his hunter, our buddy Majik on his DK and I’ve been healing on my druid. We did a quick VH today, collected our badges and then Maj had to go. So my brother and I queue up for Halls of Stone. Sadly, this was on purpose, because my brother really likes that instance. I thought for sure I’d be the tank (I queue up as tank and healer, always) and was the healer, which was surprising, but not a bad thing.

My brother is a miner. So was the tank. So they decided to roll for the saronite spawns in the rock boss wing and then for the boss himself. I’m C, my brother is J, the tank was B and the shadow priest was S.

I laughed. A lot.

Excited? Moi?

Kurn / / icecrown citadel, raiding, ramblings

I don’t even know if we’re doing the Dreamwalker fight tonight in our ICC raid, but if we are, HOLY CRAP, am I excited for it! GO GO overhealing!

I’m also going to attempt to get a screenshot of my interface that isn’t hideously insane so that we can talk about its elements in my Holy How-To guides, since I will definitely be talking about addons and screen layouts. It’s not a lesson in how to have a clean layout, that’s for sure. ;)

So much to do!

Kurn / / ramblings

Seriously, this is getting to the point where I’m going to need to choose what I want to do very carefully.

As of right now, this is what I feel obliged to do every raid reset on 4 level 80s.

– Daily random heroic every day

– Weekly raid every week

– Toravon 10/25 every week

In addition to that, I also raid 12 hours a week and have to find SOME time to farm/fish/mine/prospect/etc.

Plus, I’ve been levelling the druid with my brother and our buddy Majik, so I do a daily random or two with them every day. At least I’ll be able to do my daily random on ONE toon with them when we all hit 80 and maybe the weekly raids, too. And I won’t even be forced to just do those on the druid. I’ll be able to pick any of my toons, which is pretty awesome. Of course, I’ll WANT to do it on the druid for badges and gear and stuff. :P

After a couple of weeks, I think I’ll drop doing the daily on the mage and maybe the shammy, just doing the weekly and Toravon on them, while doing dailies on Kurn, Madrana and the druid. I don’t know, though. Emblems of FROST, you know?

This is why Blizzard has the most successful MMORPG. Seriously. It’s not addiction, it’s a sense of obligation. :P