The Healers' Assignments

I have noticed a huge decrease in raid leaders passing out healing assignments lately. I was in VoA the other day, and the raid leader actually mentioned that us healers should decide who we are going to heal, and work it out amongst ourselves. My first reaction was psh, we don't need assignments for this, heal people below 100% hp. We never spoke with each other, or designated healing assignments amongst ourselves. End result- had no issues and killed Toravon. But WHY!?


Why does it seem like healing assignments are unimportant nowadays? We don't even get healing assignments in my 25 man ICC. Seems sort of weird. Is it just my group? I would say not, because all of the pugs I have been in, neglect healing assignments as well. There could be a few reasons for this new strategy, or lack thereof, in raids. Maybe the raids are too simple, or the healers are so awesome, or maybe people are getting so impatient and have very high expectations in raids!


I kinda think all of the above is partially true. The newer raids are much simpler in mechanics as far as healers are concerned. Ulduar was a healing heaven, as far as things to do and difficulty. In ToC and ICC, most fights could be two healed even by many PuGs and less experienced raiding guilds. Is Blizzard trying to make up for the fact that we don't have enough healers by requiring less? I find some of the fights challenging when healing in ICC with only two healers, but shouldn't it require three healers?


What about healers being extra awesome? I think as the game goes on, players seem to be getting more skilled and knowledgeable. Healers, in particular, have a great desire to learn about their classes, and work as a team. As the game continues healers understand what they are supposed to be focused on, without an assignment. Paladins work out their beacons among themselves. Shamans discuss earth shields, and totems if needed. Priests and druids pretty much heal the raid with HoTs and shields on the tanks. Healers know how to work together, and the assignments are kind of assumed nowadays. It seems to work too.


In PuGs, people have seemed to reach the height of impatience. You can get ridiculed for handing out assignments, or going into details on how the fight works. Which is why many raid leaders ask for achievements and GS. They don't want to take time to explain the fight to people who have never done it. This impatience in PuGs is really starting to take the fun away from the game. Even in five man heroics, everything is so rushed because people just want their frost emblems damn it!   This strat doesn't work for me. I kinda go along with it, I even think it is crazy to hand out healing assignments in certain places. But what about people who don't know the fight? Is it fair how we have become so hurried in places. I remember in BC where people really took their time on that evil bitch in Mechanar, b/c she was hard! In most 5 mans in BC, tanks marked everything, and asked the dps to cc. I can't recall the last time I was asked to sheep something that wasn't a raid member who was mind controlled. I wish we could get back to the way things were. Running raids and heroics for fun, and maybe gear. But really trying to coordinate the fight.


For now, the lack of healing assignments seems to be working out okay. But is that really what healers want? I think not. I think healers, above all, enjoy planning, and understanding the game. So they want challenges that force them to talk with one another and divide up roles. Hopefully something changes in the future, to force players to do this. Personally I enjoy having assignments and giving assignments. It makes me think about the game and understand other classes as a raid leader. Being able to coordinate fights is what makes WoW so much fun for me. Asking me to aoe everything down, or throw HoTs and everyone without thinking, is not enough.

Who Should You Listen to in Vent?

The answer in short: ME! (or ok, whoever your raid leader is)


Have you ever had that raider (not current RL) who is a strong leader? Or are you a raider who has had to listen to conflicting voices over vent unsure of which one to listen to? Most of the time, my raids go nice and smooth. I have, on occasion, had that raider who loves to be a leader and wants to take over at the wrong time? A few nights come to mind when I thought about this. It is bad when people are talking over vent about raid strats and no one is sure which one the raid is going to use. What is worse is calling out over vent a strat mid fight when you are not the raid leader. 


To those of you who think you are leading but are not: Let the raid leader decide what strat will be followed. Shockingly, different strats work on the same bosses! I have raided in many groups and PuGs and many times have used a different strat, which many times works great. So there is not only one ultimate strat to go with. If you have a feeling like your raid is facing doom because of the suggested strat, speak with your raid leader via whisper, or in a private vent bind. Do not call it out over the raid because it confuses people. Let the raid leader announce the strat. During a fight if something is not going right, and you think you can fix it by calling out to dps what to do; you can't. It is confusing to people because some people listen to the raid leader and some listen to you. So better to keep your mouth shut and see how it goes, then speak with the RL on the next attempt in private. Also, keep quiet in vent, I realize you are an awesome raider and you have great ideas, but you should not call out Brez or hero, that is my job, or current RL. I know sometimes you are trying to help out, but if you have any questions ask before the fight starts. Raiding is not always so serious, so I am sure you are capable of judging how casual your raid leader is feeling that night, and if you are on old content it probably doesn't matter as much.


To you poor raiders who are confused by this conflict: Safest bet is to always listen to the raid leader. If someone else calls something out during the boss fight, just ignore it. Then you can blame any fail on the raid leader. If half of you decide to listen to someone else, and the other half listen to the raid leader then chaos will ensue. Consistency is key. Best example is Lady Deathwhisper. If someone says stop dps and wait for adds, and raid leader says burn her down, you can see what happens if half the raid is doing one and half doing the other. If anyone listens to the extra helpful leader, then that significantly lowers the chance that the boss will be burned down in time. So try to keep this as a rule, at least everyone will be on the same page.


To the current raid leaders: When these conflicts come up, make up your mind quickly and be definite. Don't sound unsure of yourself. Let your raid know that you are in control, and remind them that you are the one to be listened to. Sometimes people have genius strats that you didn't think about. As long as you are clear on what you want to be done, then your raid will likely listen. (I have made this mistake many times, running with someone more experienced on a specific boss, and then doubting myself.) If you want to use someone else's strat, make it clear before you pull which one you have decided on. Biggest thing to do: Ask in the raid if anyone is unclear on the strat, or if anyone has any questions. This way there is no confusion and no excuse for confusion. 

What Defines A Guild?

WoW is a very competitive sport. Why is it that there are always labels for everything? Including guilds? They must have a label, you as a player must label yourself. Well what makes us feel like we have to label our guilds, and explain to others how our guild works or plays. What types of guild exist and how do we decide what type of guild to be a part of? I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because it seems as though my guildies view our guild as a casual raiding guild. When we are actually supposed to be a casual guild...period. I have been putting guild raids on the calendar since Naxx. So I can definitely see how my guild started expecting me to lead a raid every week. But the problem is that they expect to see a raid, and to be a part of that raid, like they have some sort of inherent right.

The Guild of Friends- This guild exists simply because these people were friends, either in rl or in game. They only want to play together to have fun and enjoy themselves. If they are big enough they might try out some raids. But nothing too serious, this type of guild is relaxed, and fun to be with.

The Leveling Guild- This guild was created to help people get to 80. What an awesome notion. It is so much fun to have a guild full of people low level so you can actually run dungeons at level. I wonder what happens to all of the toons when they reach 80? Sometimes the guild converts into a raiding group, many times the 80s leave the guild, and allow the 70s to help the lowbies level.

The Hard Core Raiding Guild- This guild is clear in purpose, and can be very picky about members. They attempt to be the first at kills. They require exalted with Sons of Hodir, and extensive knowledge about your class. You have to meet certain attendance requirements to be accepted, and to continue raiding each week.

The Raiding Guild- This guild's purpose is to raid. But has no desire of being server first. They raid each week with the goal to progress, and they have organized raid leaders and regular raiders who get the spots in raids. This probably makes up the majority of guilds. They plan on raiding every week, but don't have the strict requirements as the hard core raiding guild. Although the seriousness of this guild definitely varies, as well as progress, they raid and have fun.

The Casual Guild- This guild is so generic, it could really fall into so many categories. Some guilds who call themselves casual, actually raid every single week.( like my guild) Sometimes these guilds just log on and do whatever. There are some in my guild who log on, and do dungeons, and achievements, and rarely join us for raids. This guild's categories are where problems from. It isn't well defined. The name casual is why my guild started to have issues.


Where did things begin to go wrong?

• By defining ourselves as a casual guild, we did not determine if we would raid, how often we would raid, and any rules we would go by for raiding.
• It is easy to set up raiding rules, such as looting, but as far as how often to raid, we didn't set this up.
• So apparently my guild got use to me setting up raids every week for them. But what if I want a break!? 
• We don't have any other raid leaders for end game content, only for older content. But the players want the latest thing!

So the biggest thing that happened was that people joined after we had a close knit group, of doing things together for over a year. When they joined they saw us running raids. Seems like people get upset if they are not incorporated into the raids. After everything I have gone through in my guild the last few weeks, I learned to say: Hey we are not a raiding guild!


I was getting so caught up in trying to please everyone and get people into raids. I forgot to remember that we set the guild up to be casual. Which means if you want to raid take some initiative, don't always rely on your raid leader if they give you permission to set up your own raids. If you want to regularly raid then join a raiding guild.


So when creating a guild it might be a good idea to make a clear purpose (which we did) and clearly tell everyone joining what your purpose is (which we did), and do not create habits that conflict with your clear purpose (oops).

Arena Beginnings: The Healer

Lately, I have become disenchanted with the art of healing on my druid. Raid healing becomes sort of mundane to me. The habits I have gotten into make druid healing too repetitive. Maybe if I didn't run around constantly while healing, moving out of crap would present more of a challenge. Maybe if I waited longer to try to heal the raid, I would be fighting to keep them alive, instead of hotting them up for damage I know they will take. Druid healers are awesome to bring into any raid, especially movement fights. I use to enjoy healing in raids on my druid. But now I am taking a break. So I appointed my shaman to head raider, so I still get to enjoy healing in raids. Ya shamans have way less spells, but I would argue that for me shaman healing is much more challenging... anyway...

...My druid isn't completely useless. My friend proposed that we put together an arena team. He said I should bring any toon I wanted. So I went into some bg's with both my shaman and druid and healed away. My mage would have been fun to pvp with, but since he is taking that role, I was determined to be our healer. We recruited a rogue, and we all queued up together for some practice. I use to pvp on my druid all the time, when I was bored with pve content, and I leveled my shaman in bgs  while healing. After our practice runs I was pretty sure I preferred druid healing in pvp. Being able to run around constantly is actually a huge advantage, and is a challenge because when a rogue sees a tree, you know he will try and stun lock you. So I decided to make my druid our primary healer for 3's. I can't wait to see how we do, the more I pvp the more determined I am to be able to live through any class pounding on me. BTW if you are a dk, I'm sorry but your army of the dead is not going to help you kill me, when we are in the middle of nowhere by ourselves. I have counted at least 3 dk's trying to army me in AB when no one else was around. 

I am looking forward to the new challenge with druid healing. Of course my priorities change versus raid healing, so it will take some adjusting. Best way to prepare is to do BGs get some resilience gear, and use leftover triumphs for extra resilience gear. Our first week I had no resilience gear and I was still pve specd, and no barskin glyph. We won three matches out of ten, which is kinda sad, but even with my first two pvp pieces I can now live through a rogue sap with barkskin. So I am excited to see how we do this next week. 

I love the fact that I can change the game, by joining something new like an arena team, and I have to relearn and respec in order to do well. I take back the things I said about WOTLK being boring, or maybe to easy to grab content for PuGs. I am excited about the fact that I am progressing on one toon with ICC, and now on this one I can see how I stand in pvp, something completely different. Wish me luck.

Best Healing Fight in ICC

Valithria Dreamwalker I love you!! So currently in ICC 10 we run with two healers on basically every fight. So I'm running primary spec dps, and back up heals if needed. I am so happy that I get to heal on this fight. I know others have been on this dragon for awhile, but I was just recently introduced to this boss. Basically, the tanks and dps focus on tons of adds while the healers get to experience pure healing joy, and spamming their biggest most awesome spells available to them.

I was thoroughly confused as to what I was suppose to do as a healer when I first attempted this boss. The whole point of the fight is to heal the big dragon up to 100% hp. How to go about this? Well you have to have one healer keeping an eye on the raid, so you can dedicate a healer or rotate healers through the portals. We have a dedicate pally on the raid, b/c ya he can beacon the big dragon! The other healers take turns clicking on a portal, or so I was told a portal, but really a green ball that you can jump on like getting into a vehicle. Once you click on the green ball you can start flying around collecting stacks of green awesome. All you have to do is fly through the green clouds floating around, and collect as many as you can before you get knocked out of this state. Once you get knocked back down to the ground, you can begin healing. (I thought I could heal in the air while flying, I was confused, maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the explain). Each stack of green increases healing done by 10% and increases mana regen. So spam away! Target the big dragon, apparently she is not on healbot, so just click her big butt. Our priest's healing one one attempt was over 15k hps. It is just really fun to heal away, with no overheal! This is finally a fight that lets the healers shine, and takes away all the glory the dps have received in ICC. So enjoy healers, I know I did.

A few tips: If you want to go easy mode go with four healers. The dps will be fine, but maybe this is kinda too easy for some of those hard core raiders. Don't send too many healers in the portals at one time. They will steal each others stacks, and it is much better for them to have more than 6 or so stacks each. When you click on the green, hit your space bar right away, flying around as quickly as you can and stacking the green clouds. Always heal the dragon if your raid doesn't need heals. If you raid healer has mana issues let them go up once to get a few clouds for the mana regen. The fight has a soft enrage at around 6 minutes. A crap ton more adds come out, so it is essential to finish the boss before this point. Heroism makes the dragon really huge and it is just cool looking. Since I am a shaman the only shield I really have is earth shield. But sorry disco priests, this dragon isn't taking damage so no shielding necessary. She starts at 50% so just healing spams needed. Enjoy your time to shine healers, after this fight the heals are back down to two.

Circle of Healers: Part Two

Ok, so Miss Medicina has posted some new questions as a follow up to the original Circle of Healers Survey.

The New Questions:

1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthiness.
Ok, so I was primarily a druid healer when I first answered this survey. Now I can safely say that I can competently raid anything as a shaman healer. I have done ICC as both, but moreso on my shaman.

2. Has your class's healing improved in the area you identified as its weakest?
I still feel as though druid's are weaker in the area of tank healing. Now that I heal with my shaman, I think my biggest weakness is mobility. On my druid I can run around almost the entire fight unless I need to cast a regrowth or nourish on the tank. 

3. Have you changed your "least favoured class to heal with"?
I originally said that I disliked healing with paladins. In a two healer fight if I am on my druid pallys are completely fine, and probably somewhat desired. On my shaman, I might struggle since we have no HoTs b/w us, and we both have the big crit heals. In a 25 man I prefer to run with a huge variety of healers. I love them all.

4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?
I paid close attention to other druids and shamans.

5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?
It helped me to read what shamans said, since I was new to shaman healing. Looking back I realize I can identify my shaman play style with some of those posts. I love the tank healing! I can do it yes I can. Healing melee is awesome for shamans too, I can chain heal a few times in b/w healing the tanks. As a druid, I didn't really learn much, but was definitely interesting to see how we all have our favorite spells, and how no one uses healing touch lol.

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?
There isn't a whole lot of information for shaman healers blog wise. I try to read up on elitistjerks. I would love to put out some info on shaman healing, and now that I have healed in 10 and 25 man ICC, maybe I am a bit more qualified. It is always best to compare yourself to other healers of the same class, which I was able to do last week in 25 man. When I heal in PuGs I get to run with other resto shammys so all of this helps me improve and get a good idea of what I am doing right and wrong.

7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?
I identified myself as an impatient healer. Which I still am! On my druid I know exactly when people are going to take damage, so I HoT them in advance. This doesn't lead to mana problems, or extra high overheals, because these people do take damage. But it frustrates me when I look at recount and see the other healers so low. I need to learn, still, to be patient, so that the other healers can do their job. This is more a problem in ten mans than 25s. As a shaman, I don't have this issue, because I HAVE to wait to heal. I think this is why I enjoy shaman healing so much, I get to see bars change drastically when I throw a heal. One little lesser healing wave is so much more healing in one quick shot than a rejuv. So I like to see the bars change, not over time, but right now! I am impatient remember!

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)?
My favorite spell on my druid was rejuv combined with swiftmend. This is the most powerful spell I can use to save someone quickly, or get a huge heal to the tank. I would say wild growth will almost tie with this. It is awesome for raid healing, and anyone notice the pretty two set t10 bonus? On my shaman my favorite spell is riptide. I love being able to splash that water on someone, and make my healing wave a much quicker heal. Chain heal is awesome and everything but, I love the riptide.

A WoW Without Add-Ons

What would WoW be like without any add ons? Would we even be able to function? Has anyone forgot to check "load out of date add ons" when your add ons where out of date and you were forced to run something without some of your favorite add ons? I am curious if we could even run raids without using add ons. If we don't know how much damage we are doing, how do we know how to improve ourselves? How would we ever know if our rotation was right? What about boss timers, how would we know when the overcharged add is coming? or bone storm? We would just have to like, react or something instead of anticipating.

I would like to address what my favorite add ons are, and what add ons I doubt I could live without. I am also curious what other people view as the have to have add on. I even have add ons that I hate using!

For me, I would have to say the add on I depend on most would be a tie with Deadly Boss Mods, and umm.... don't judge me... recount. Deadly Boss Mods(DBM) is absolutely awesome. It yells at me when I am standing in crap. It gives me the ability to yell at my raid when bone storm is coming in 5 seconds, or blood beasts in 10 seconds, or w/e is needed. Without DBM we would have to react when something happens without knowing beforehand. This add on is so essential when I lead a raid, I think I would be lost without it. What about /range, how do I know what 12 yards is? I know recount can be limited in usefulness, but it helps me in my personal raiding and as a raid leader. It is important for me to know if people are improving on certain fights. I like to know what fights are a struggle for certain classes, and what fights favor others. I also like to compare my dps week to week, to see if my upgrades are improving my dps. Recount can be abused, but it can also be awesome. I use it to check on my healers, if they are having mana issues how much overhealing are they doing? What classes are prone to overheals? By watching recount and always checking heals, overheals, dps, etc. I can know what should be a trend for certain classes.

I also use GRID for healing. I just started using grid during ToC, so I know I can fully function as a healer without it. But I love being able to see incoming heals from other healers, and see in a nice format who is taking damage. This add on is a luxury for me, not a need. I know many healers who could not live without healbot or grid. I can definitely see how it is easily addicting. I also use de-cursive. I realize that I can use grid for this, but I like how de-cursive yells at me, and when I am on my mage, I don't watch grid too much. I use omen when I am doing dps, but could definitely live without it for bosses, I have learned to use the in game threat meter.

I love using Quartz or IceHud for my cast bars, but it isn't necessary. I also live off of AtlasLoot, which is totally not necessary, it is kinda fun to be surprised by what the boss drops. Oh and my new favorite feral by night for kittys. What about the new add on I found for tanking, tauntmaster? I love it!  I use so many add ons, I am not sure I could play without them.

It seems like every time I use a friend's computer they have one thing that drives me nuts. Gatherer!!! Ok, I know this is completely useful, but I can't stand all of those pictures on my maps. I also hate when it tells me someone in my guild picked an herb, because I really don't care. Lucky for me this is an add on, and I don't have to download it, it just drives me nuts when I realize the computer I am on has it.

So, what would WoW be like with no add ons? I wonder how raids would work. I can't imagine that things would go well at first if they were all taken away. We rely so much on these add ons. Is there anyone who raids who does not use add ons? I can't even imagine one of my raids where I can't go back and check what went wrong. We would be raiding blindly! What a scary thought. I will definitely try to get some screenshots and post them later of all my add ons. I just think it is interesting on how dependent I have become, and I wonder about others; Are we add on dependent?