On Monday, I logged on to the baby paladin and got invited to the raid group and we went in and got Baleroc down. I had prepared myself for a long night of work on Alysrazor, but we managed to get her down (a Choice guild first!) on the first attempt. Granted, it took all three rotations to get her down. The fight was almost 14 minutes in length. And I stood in tornadoes, twice, to help heal my tank through it since his hatchling was still up.
But we did it.
And so, on to Majordomo Staghelm.
Trash was hilarious and brutal, as it was for Apotheosis the other week.
Break time came shortly after the trash was down and two of our healers dropped offline. Including the healing lead.
They pulled in a rogue and an ele shaman who has a resto offspec and that was going to have to do.
It was right about then when the disc priest in the raid said in healer chat “so, since none of us have a clue what to do…”
And I facepalmed. I ACTUALLY put my head in my hand and took a moment to say “oh, no.”
Why did I say “oh, no”?
Because I knew that I was about to step up and take care of healers.
“I’ll take care of healing,” I found myself typing.
Given that I’ve successfully done the fight once and have 50+ wipes under my belt, I figured I was in the best position to do this.
Now, see, normally, this doesn’t happen. Normally, if the healing lead is unavailable, the GM (a kick-ass resto shaman) steps in. But the GM was not around for tonight’s raid, as she has family visiting.
So NORMALLY, I would never be put in the situation where the healing lead (who has amazing attendance) AND the GM (who also has amazing attendance) would BOTH not be available. I raided with these people for like, five months at the end of Wrath and one of the two of them was always there.
But of course, I stepped up to the plate because I really was the best person qualified to do healing assignments.
I looked at the raid. Six healers (Apotheosis likes seven, but there wasn’t a seventh available for us): 2 holy paladins, 1 disc priest, 2 resto shaman and 1 resto druid.
The plan was to stack for 11 Flame Scythes and 5 Cat leaps. And so, I started handing out cooldowns.
I gave myself my regular assignment — pop Aura Mastery just before the 6th Scythe comes out. I like to pop it right about 78 energy.
I gave the other holy paladin the assignment to pop Aura Mastery just before the 7th Scythe.
Just before the 8th? Power Word: Barrier.
Just before the 9th? Spirit Link Totem.
And then I got the prot pally to Divine Guardian just before the 10th, too.
We pulled and it went okay. We had 6 tries and got to second scorpion a couple of times, but always died to Searing Seeds because someone would die to a Flame Scythe and their seed would explode while they were still in the raid.
I was satisfied with the work the healers did. I had a lot of resistance from them, though. I hadn’t healed with any of them back in Wrath. These are all people who have no idea that this Madrana chick knows what she’s talking about.
I did get a few whispers; one healer complimented me on my style of healing leadership and I thanked them and explained that I’ve been doing it forever, it seems like, and that my time in Choice in Wrath was the only time in the last several years where I wasn’t asked to do healing assignments at some point in time. So I gave them the story about how I raid with Choice part time and I’m the GM of Apotheosis and all that jazz.
At the end of the raid, I thanked everyone for their efforts and thanked the ele shaman in particular for healing. Then I uploaded the WoL (since the healing lead normally does that but obviously, his logs would be missing all the Majordomo attempts) and then I wrote to the healing lead to let him know what cooldowns I’d assigned and when, even down to Mana Tide totems.
This whole “raiding with two guilds” thing is weird. On the one hand, I get mocked and ridiculed by Apotheosis folks and on the other, I’m sort of a part-timer with Choice. The bonus is that I get to share knowledge between the guilds — I used some of the info from learning Baleroc with Choice when Apotheosis first tackled him and I’ve used some Apotheosis experience and knowledge to help with Alysrazor and now Staghelm.
It’s come in handy a lot and I’m glad I had knowledge of Staghelm to share with Choice, but I think what disturbs me about tonight was that there wasn’t even a question in my own mind about me standing up and volunteering to take care of the healers.
I just did it.
More, I KNEW I was going to do it.
My desire to help the guild get a semblance of meaningful attempts on Staghelm short-circuited the “nooooo, this is my night off!!!” thought.
And so, without even thinking about it, I just stepped up and took charge.
Here’s something you may not know about me: I am what I like to term a reluctant leader.
If there is a qualified, good, awesome leader, I will follow them like any other sheep. This goes for WoW and real-life, too.
If, however, there is NOT a qualified, good, awesome leader… I will almost certainly step up to the plate.
So that was my night. A Baleroc kill, an Alysrazor one-shot (that was excessively long) and Majordomo, paired with healing lead stuff.
It still stuns me how quickly I slipped into the role. But I guess if I spend 9 hours a week doing that as it is, it shouldn’t be a surprise, right?
Looking forward to Wednesday’s raid when I hopefully WON’T have to do anything except heal. I need my nights off. :)
“If there is a qualified, good, awesome leader, I will follow them like any other sheep. This goes for WoW and real-life, too.”
Ooooh, how I agree with you. :D I never push myself into the leading role, but I hate situations when leader’s missing and everyone’s quiet, just hoping that nobody says his/her name.
Btw; I wanted to tell you that I really like reading your blog, your articles are great and very pleasant to read. So… just keep on! :)
Hrm. Did it bother the Choice people to have you step in that way? We have several more progressed folks raiding part time with us, and there’s very little that annoys me more than having someone come down to us from “on high” and tell us what to do. Perhaps there’s a difference in the guild style, but I want to actually be PART of my progression, and if it has to be slow to make that happen, so be it. I’d far rather struggle and work it out with my teammates than have someone else come and direct me through it without my needing to do more than do what I’m told.
It’s been asked what the difference is between that and using a pre-tested strat (from Tankspot or IcyVeins or what have you) and I think the difference is that when we use a strat, we almost always have to modify it and hammer out the details to make it work for us. It still, by the end, feels like OUR STRAT, the original guide is just a jumping off point. Whereas when someone who knows the fight comes and talks us through it, I feel like we’re using their strat and their hard work and just breezing through it without ever working properly for the victory.
Now I’m not saying that’s what you did at all, I don’t know Choice and I don’t know your style, beyond what you blog about. That’s just my experience with more progressed part-time raiders. I’d be interested to know what you think about it?
Nibenwen – You nailed it — that moment where everyone’s just like “… soooooooo. Now what?” That’s the moment where I’ll be like “oh, great. That’s my cue.”
Glad you enjoy the blog. :)
Rhii – Healing chat was quiet as a tomb until the disc priest was like “sooooooo. Since no one knows what to do…”
There were no instructions from the raid leader, no suggestions from the healers. So I said “I can do assignments, if you like.”
The healers were like “I think we can figure out that the paladins are on the tank and the others are on the raid.”
“haha, yes. ;) But use of cooldowns are going to be important. Do you want me to organize that?”
No response. From anyone. Not the RL, not the healers. So I was like, okay. This is when my experience will help the raid as opposed to ordering them around as though I know everything.
So I assigned the cooldowns and was met with some resistence. One of the shaman was like “if I drop SLT early, I’ll have it up again for the second Scorpion phase.”
I knew he wouldn’t, but I asked him if it was a 3m cooldown anyway. The conversation (paraphased) went a little like this:
“Yeah.”
“Sadly, we won’t have three minutes for it to come off of cooldown. 2m cooldowns just barely come back up, so let’s hold off on you dropping Spirit Link early and just save it for the second phase, okay?”
“Okay.”
I don’t think they minded. I’m fairly certain the RL was glad that SOMEONE, ANYONE was dealing with healing and cooldowns.
I’ve had more progressed people in Apotheosis beforehand and the biggest challenge to them fitting in was them keeping their mouths shut, so I’m really, REALLY aware of my own mouth. ;) Last night was the most assertive I’ve been since I brought the baby paladin over there, but I do think the situation called for it. I preferred taking the responsibility on myself at the outset than have a terrible wipe and then have the RL ask for volunteers to organize the healers. At least this way, the healers knew what to do and when and knew when damage on the Flame Scythes was going to be bad and such, rather than panicking around the 6th Flame Scythe and losing everyone by the 7th.
So I hope they didn’t mind, but given it was their first night of pulls on Staghelm at all and without either person who serves as healing lead, I think we made the most of the situation.
Definitely not eager to do that full-time, despite one of the healers asking me why I *wasn’t* the healing lead. ;)
I can’t see that happening again except, like this, in the perfect storm situation we had last night. I appreciate you stepping up, though.
Beez – Yeah, that was very “perfect storm”-like. Never happened in my first chunk of time with Choice, can’t really see it happening regularly. I was glad I could help, but I’m sad I missed some of my night off. ;)
Grats to the baby pally and Choice!