H'okay. So paladins aren't getting covered in the class design changes preview until April 16th, a week after everyone else. I know you're all freaking out. cause I know we all hang on information that's subject to change at any given time between now and the release of Cataclysm, then again in future patches.
But I have good news. So good, I'm breaking the color scheme of this blog to share it. The paladin class as you know it? Totally wiped. Complete redesign. But what could possibly take the place of such awesome, you ask?
Bards.
Yep. You heard me. Song-slinging, dress-wearing, lute-strumming minstrels of sheer win.
Remember back in beta when our auras weren't passive, so if we timed it right, we could have more than one up at a time? Welcome to your new class design. Seals, blessings, hands, and every other direct cast spell will be removed from the spellbook in favor of auras out the wazoo.
What kind of auras? Well I'm glad you asked, newly-minted bard! You'll get three different lines of auras in the Protection, Holy, and Retribution trees. Since we only care about holy here (and singing soothes the soul), let's take a look at some choice auras:
Aura of Restoration Rolling HoTs? Screw that. Twisting HoTs, baby.
Lyrande's Locating Aura Someone released and can't find the entrance even though they've been there twenty times? Never fear, a palabard is here to track down your corpse!
Arthas' Acelerando Aspect of the Cheetah? Whatever, hunters!
Uther's Aura of Clarity You wish your Innervate was raid-wide.
Now, you may not be familiar with twisting. It's okay. You can learn. You probably won't ever be awesome at it like some of us old pros, but maybe you can twist three auras. I'll just be over here twisting six, but whatever, you know.
Since auras will no longer be passive, they will have a fixed duration that refreshes as long as the aura is up. Let's say you've got Aura of Restoration running in 10 second intervals. After five seconds, you switch to Uther's Aura of Clarity, and for 5 seconds you have both health and mana regen! See where I'm going with this?
To Awesome Town, that's where.
Oh, and that's not even the best part! Remember how Ragnaros is going to be back? Well, he's going to drop all-new legendary items to start class-specific epic quests! Wanna see your new sword, palabards? I know you do.
Singing Spellsword
+75 CHA (INT is getting placed with CHA just for us, isn't that cool?!), +75 STA
Equip: Regenerates 40 mp5
Equip: Bladedancer's Sonata (raid-wide haste just for being in your awesome presence!)
To everyone who actually gets this post - represent! And Happy 10 Year MMOversery to me! My first ever character was a bard who promptly got lost in the bowels of Blackburrow, never to be seen again...
That's right. I got this list out before somebody published the mage one. What a tease. I know you're eagerly awaiting my list, but some news before that. First, we got Sindragosa down Saturday night! She dropped her pretty blue shield. It's not better than the 25 one I have, but it's... pretty. So I'm keeping it.
Second, my posting will likely slow for a couple weeks while I figure some things out and take a bit of a WoW break. Fighting the edge of burnout, and I don't want to push myself there for fear of not blogging. So I present to you this veritable treasure trove of nonsense in the meantime:
In case it wasn't clear, this post is entirely not-safe-for-work.
Beacon of Light Shit. Where did I leave my fucking bra. Shit shit shit. I need to get out of here before he wa-- oh, look. He's radiating a bright, holy light while he sleeps. And there's my bra, under the fucking sofa.
Sacred Shield It's okay, baby. I got it covered. Nah, it won't break. Promise.
Divine Favor You know what they say about paladins. All secluded with crazy ideas and strict rules. Eager to please just for the chance to get some.
Hammer of Justice The hammer is... oh, nevermind. But just where do you think Captain Hammer got his material from, huh? That's right.
Divine Plea Please let me beat my five minute record. Followed by...
Concentration Aura Discipline, baby. You priests got nothing on us.
Summon: Charger Yeah. That's being generous. Don't shatter our dreams.
Crusader Aura For when you want to fit a 'nooner between visits to the Citadel.
Lay on Hands You knew it was going to be in here. Don't act all shocked.
And last but certainly not least...
Redemption Making it with a foxy paladin? Doesn't count, sister. We're above reproach. So if you have some silly 'Must be a virgin to fulfill a sacrificial prophecy' thing going on? We've got you covered. Besides, you know what they say. Once you go paladin...
...Nothing rhymes with paladin.
Huh.
Edit: As it turns out, a lot of things rhyme with paladin! I think I'm going to agree that "Once you go paladin, you'll be absolved of sin." Which would totally make Cleanse an honorary mention on this list.
In celebration of six months of Jaded Alt, Windsoar proposed a challenge to her commenters: Do whatever I say. Yep. Quite the taskmaster, that one. Responding to the whip appeal, I am tackling the topic she suggested for me:When I first visited your website I was absolutely blown away by your theme–the artwork, sidebars and even the fancy script. I know you were also kind enough to donate a beautiful button to A Healadin’s Tear for a blogging contest.
I’d like to know more about the artist! Is it a hobby, a passion, something you learned just to set up your blog? (haha)
I've always maintained I am a much better writer than an artist, but you folks have indulged me with kind words, so I'm posting a bit more. The answer to that question would probably take a lot more explanation, but here's the basic rundown: It is a hobby, one I've dabbled in for years, starting rather young and becoming a bit more serious about improving in high school.The digital art is my favorite medium, so I'll discuss that mainly, I suppose. I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS2 - Photoshop is for the majority of the images in this post, Illustrator is what I use for the RSS icons and other vector images. I initially would make a sketch with Col-Erase pencils (love those things, especially the photo blue one) and scan it in, then do more with it in Photoshop. But once I scrounged together the money for a decent tablet (I use a Wacom Graphire 8x8) I started sketching in Photoshop with a custom brush that's set to emulate a fairly hard sketching pencil. I've tried a lot of different styles and it's difficult for me to say which I like best. They've all ended in some interesting pictures. Cel-shading is fairly easy - I could knock out a portrait for a tabletop game in 3 hours start-to-finish - but I also like the quick, loose lines of speed-painting. And there's a nice sense of completion in a full-on painting that you've spent over 20 hours working on. 
My explorations in digital art started when I was playing EQ2. That eventually turned into a modified DnD game, and I made character portraits for most of the main characters. More tabletop campaigns (I think we went through Werewolf, Mage, Shadowrun, DnD... mind-changing GM is mind-changey <.< ) and more portraits later, I decided I really liked making things for friends. Unlike writing, art provides fairly instant gratification, and I could finish a piece without spending days, months, or years writing and proofing. In 2006 I decided I liked it so much that I would enroll in a Game Art and Design program. I graduate from that in May (yay!) with a Bachelor's, and it's certainly been an interesting ride. I've been exposed to so many different mediums I thought I would hate but have very much enjoyed. Photo manipulations, for one, are an absolute blast. Bringing a ton of stock images together to form a cohesive image with a solid theme is a lot of fun. Most of my recent 'art' work has been done in 3D Studio Max. I've done everything from creating simple polygon meshes to building a full game level mock-up, complete with textures done in Photoshop. Which, for the record, seems boring but is also a lot of fun. Turning a flat block into a brick wall just by applying a nice texture with appropriate bump and spec maps is an exciting process to me, and something I'd like to explore in the future. 
Unfortunately, I've lost my tablet in this mess I call an apartment, or I'd still be sketching and painting. It's good stress relief, and these days I can use every ounce of that, so I may try to dig it out one of these days and fire up the drivers.
Gypsy gives me way too much credit. She probably thinks I started blogging with some lofty goals to help people and be an approachable member of the WoW community. Really, I just like to hear myself talk. Or write. I only like to hear myself talk when I'm severely inebriated and everything is just so damn funny.But I've been blogging for a few months now, and I intend to stick with it. I've fallen into a looser schedule than I would like, but I am still writing and still thinking of new things to write and share. They say the first couple of months is the hardest, and I've gotten past that particular hurdle, coming out on the other side with 155 subscribers as of today and a couple hundred views a day. That's... just mind-boggling to me, honestly. I've been linked by WoW.com three times already, and linked repeatedly by long-time bloggers I respect the hell out of. It makes me think I must be doing something right.So why do I do it?
Despite the snarky opener, I really don't blog for myself. If I did, I'd be done with it now. There's only so much of myself I can stand, really. The truth is, I started this blog to show myself that I could. I'm very good at starting things strong with plenty of enthusiasm, but I become easily distracted by other projects and tend to lose motivation. It's why I have a hard-drive full of short stories, but no completed manuscript, despite working on the same one for about five years now.I love paladins. Always have, always will. And I feel like I am fairly competent at playing one. So I wanted to share what I've learned with a community that I've found to be surprisingly warm and receptive. Without the community, I wouldn't be here. That's plain and simple and it's never going to change. Even if I don't keep up with responses for every comment, I do read them all and appreciate every one, even (and especially) the ones that disagree with me. Show me a new way of seeing things and I will take a good, earnest look. I don't believe this makes me less confident in my own view, just better able to understand those around me.
I intended this to be more of an informative blog, but that just isn't me. I'm way too fond of sarcasm to be serious all the time. But I'm also not nearly interesting enough to blog about any random thing on any given day. So I write with the hope that I can get people to laugh or nod in empathy while learning something new. I poke fun at my own mistakes because no one should ever take themselves that damn seriously, and hopefully someone out there can learn from my idiocy.
Despite working retail for five years, I like people. I like meeting new people and learning their point of view and where they're coming from. And that's really what blogging is, to me. I have blogs in my reader from classes and playstyles I would never enjoy, but the authors of said blogs are entertaining and present well-phrased ideas that even I can understand. I have folks that I have read for years with whom I now share a common hobby as well as the drama that comes along with it. And as common sense as it should be - no one wants to blog into a void, after all - most every blogger wants to converse with their readers. These are the unofficial Warcraft community representatives with whom you can actually talk, one-on-one, in a laid-back environment.I suppose that's what I aspire to be. It's cliche, and I'm ripping off Gypsy here too, but there's really no better way to put it: If one person says to me 'Thanks, your writing made me smile / helped me / got me inspired to blog' then I've done my job. That's what I write for.
I'm a little late on this, but I think in general since I've tried to keep a fairly upbeat vibe this week, it was a good time. Also gives me a chance to toss some of the WoW.com folks toward the Blog Azeroth community, which is a good thing in my book! And apparently I have no other shots of Putricide, so the guide will have to wait until Monday.
The March opener Shared Topic suggested by Zan of Altoholic Anonymous prompted us to write about a positive dungeon experience with the LFD tool. With so many horror stories, it's sometimes hard to remember the average groups that progress without incident, but the truly great are sure to stick around. Plus, I take screenshots of everything. Except Putricide. But to answer this topic, I have not one but two excellent PUG stories, both of them from restosham land. One is pre-80, one is post.
The Oculus
Y'know, I'm one of those crazy folks who actually likes Oculus. Even pre-nerf I didn't mind it. But a few Saturdays ago, I was not in the mood for dragon-related shenanigans. I was looking for something quick and easy to help grind out that last little bit to 80. What I got was Oculus with four people who had never been there before. I considered leaving. I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is. I wasn't awake at the time and was just trying to knock something out before I had to start on the boring stuff people, you know. Actually pay me to write.
I did stay, though. The folks there were slow to admit they hadn't done the instance before, but they did say it, which I appreciate. I had someone from Shattered Halls (seriously!) whisper me a few days back in gratitude for some helpful instructions for HoL/HoS, and I really don't mind doing that. I think most people don't mind doing it, and the rest are just dicks, so who really cares. Moral of this mini-story? Speak up if you haven't done an instance!
The drakes were a bit rough, as expected. They got a crash course in all the drake abilities, and I hopped on my green and allowed it to nom itself to near death. No, I didn't fall off this time. I've definitely never done that. Not ever!
But the point is, we got through the instance, and now four people understand how to do Oculus. Curious thing about it, while I seem to get it every day on heroic, I got it all of once on normal, and while helping a friend's shaman to 80, saw neither hide nor hair of it. It's very possible, then, that new 80s are coming into heroic Oculus having no clue what's going on. Suddenly the tank drops, the rest of the group whines, then whatever hodge-podge is left scrambles to finish because everyone hates the place so much. God forbid you actually get aggro from one of the drakes, your ass gets vote-kicked faster than you can parachute down into the rocky depths below.
The Oculus is a shining example of how the vehicle system failed miserably, but c'mon! It's not those poor PUGers' fault.
Forge of Souls
I dare look upon the Host of Souls, ayep. Though I was a bit scared about doing so. My first PUG experience in Heroic Forge was... not pleasant. The tank kept rushing ahead, then on the ghosties toward the end explained to me patiently 'u no u can decurse rite'. I was like '4 srs?' and he was like 'y rnt u doing it'. I kinda lost it, since said beartank had just consecutively pulled two mobs that rip the group to shreds without me even being in range. I had to Chain Heal my ass off to catch up. And yes, I do know that particular curse inhibits heals on the target. But... it was on the tank. I wasn't going to be terribly broken up about watching him die.
But for this one, I got some really nice folks, pictured in the screenshot above. We blew through the place pretty easily, and chatted quite a bit about this and that. They encouraged me to roll on things, complimented me on my healing, and all-in-all made it a very positive experience. I'm fairly sure this was right after yet another horrible Old Kingdom run, so I definitely needed it. And I will say this: DPS wasn't off the charts, the tank wasn't raid geared. Folks still did things they shouldn't have, including myself.
All of that didn't matter one bit. They were great people and were actually social in a social game. (I know, right?) So kudos to you folks, especially the two from Ghostlands.
Honorable Mention: Apathetic Culling of Stratholme
I had almost forgotten about this one or it would be near the top. Super late one night I got into an 'Already in progress' Culling of Strat. Certainly doesn't bode well, in general. What I popped into was four guys (I want to say from Velen?) from the guild Apathy who were giving each other shit while they waited for another healer. The timer was still viable, so I scooted my hot human butt up there and healed through the waves with only a few words between their quips.
Once it slowed down inside the inn, I stated the obvious: Your guild name is very misleading. I expected a 'lol' or blank stares, because the last time I asked someone about their guild name (V is Forever), I was met by a rousing chorus of 'lol idk'. But these guys snarked right back at me, and I was very pleasantly surprised. We continued discussing the ironic nature of this situation through the gauntlet, got to the Guardian of Time with 5 minutes to spare, and got me a drake I can't even use yet, since all the apathetic dudes already had theirs. Or they just didn't care.
There are a few more positive dungeon stories I could recount, probably just as many as the truly horrid, but those ones stand out to me as having improved my day for running them. In the end, this is a game played with other people. If I wanted to be alone or with a select group of folks, I would fire up the console or sit around a tabletop. You have to take the abysmally bad with the super-awesome, sometimes. Unless you're from Apathy. Then I guess it really doesn't matter, does it?
I need to tell you guys a secret. Sometimes, when things aren't going too well and we spend four hours in an endless wipefest, I get a little cranky. I know. Hard to believe. But it happens. And since we've been banging our heads against Blood Wing (10) and Festergut/Rotface (25), I'd begun to dread the weekend and its jam-packed ICC schedule.Let me bring it back a little bit; break it on down for you folks, old school. Well. Not that old school, just back to Ulduar when my tank was my main raid character. See, once upon a time there was this girl who had never really raided before. She'd done Molten Core - 5 minute blessing and cleanse bot for 40 people, no less - and Karazhan, even some Zul'Gurub back in the day. But not much else beyond that. Then when WotLK released, she got into some Naxx 10 runs and had a blast. When Ulduar came out, she was recruited into a second ten-man to work on the content. But it was slow going, and while she liked tanking, it was hella stressful. She started to get super bitchy - a real downer for her team - when everything just kept going to hell. She didn't have much faith in her team. Really, not much faith in herself. Didn't really help that she had someone echoing those feelings every Friday and Saturday night, as well.
So she took a break from raiding. Got her paladin to 80, geared him for holy. Rejoined her team in ToC, which in and of itself was a huge morale boost. She started making an impression, and felt better about herself and her approach to raiding. By the time ICC came out, she was feeling great, finally gaining some confidence in her abilities and her usefulness to the team. But then said team lost a tank. And a DPS. And someone else every other week. Things got rocky. She considered joining another team, but she stayed, determined to make it work. With every night of silly mistakes, though, she felt herself getting more and more frustrated.That brings us to present day, more or less. I've admitted before that I can be a control freak. I have a tendency to try and lead things when I don't have any business doing so. And I'm sure my personality clashes with several others. Also, I can just be a bitch. But I don't like wiping over and over and feeling like I am one of the few putting in an effort. I know that's not true, even if my teammates are easily distracted. But it sure does feel like it sometimes.
A few people have been talking about the 5% buff, calling it a pity buff. In some ways, I agree. I see where folks are coming from. But... I'm never going to be a hardcore raider. I come from a 'carebear RPer lolololol' background. The only reason I'm raiding now is because WotLK has made it accessible and my guild has made it fun. I enjoy the accomplishment. The teamwork reminds me of my days playing youth sports. But boy howdy is it frustrating sometimes.So I don't mind getting a nudge to compensate for the fact that folks like to stand in fire or yammer on in Vent when they should be paying attention. I'd like to get the Lich King down while we still have the 10% buff, at most. But other than that? I'm good. Because on Friday night we blew through Lower Spire and Plague, getting our third ever 10-man kill of Putricide almost flawlessly, then Saturday we beat down the Blood Council and Queen Lana'thel, a fight none of us had seen prior to that night. I still felt like I worked for it, because we had to make a good many adjustments. And it was still satisfying to see the achievement spam at the end. On Sunday, after a good month plus of trying, we hammered both Rotface and Festergut down on 25, getting our ret paladin her Shadow's Edge, and 5 more frost emblems from the weekly which we... inadvertently cheesed. Apparently if someone is outside the door during Rotface and happens to be targeted with Mutated Infection, he will despawn, allowing folks to have the Rotface and Festergut residue, thus completing the quest. <.< This weekend, I plan to kick Valithria in the teeth. Or heal her in the teeth. Whatever. Maybe even get some solid attempts on Sindragosa. Hell, maybe even get Putricide down on 25. We got him to Phase 3 last week, which was great! And I feel better about raiding than I have in a long while. I'm actually looking forward to this weekend, rather than counting the hours before I can go back to RPing. So, yeah. It may be a pity buff for some. For me, it's a little nudge in the right direction. A morale boost that will help me enjoy PvE again and make me less of a bitch. And I'm okay with that. On a side note, the Rotface video will have to wait for a bit, I'm afraid. Not everyone was comfortable with it and I have to respect that. However, I am open to suggestions for other videos that may help folks!
In effort to make this actually useful, here are some things you should know about healing this as a holy paladin:
- Footmen do an AE silence and spell-lock, so move away from them.
- Holy Shock and Flash of Light is going to do a lot of your leg work here; sometimes Holy Light just won't be fast enough.
- Refresh Beacon and Sacred Shield between waves, even if you're glyphed for it. Having it fall off is not fun.
- The first boss requires heavy cleansing.
- If you're getting behind on heals for him, pop BubbleSac and heal up quickly.
- If your group is low on DPS, pop your cooldowns to help mitigate some of the debuff.
- Waves 8 and 9 are particularly nasty, and if someone is left to get sniped from a far, you might lose them.
- With enough haste (potion+food) you can get someone up between waves.
- On that note, use your Divine Plea between waves if you're having mana problems.
- Holy Wrath can buy everyone some time. Use it.
- Turn Evil is excellent for mercs when no other CC is available. Use it.
- Sylvanas has some sort of ab-hardening secret. Use it.
- Blow your cooldowns on the 4th Escape from the Lich King wave.
- Don't get into a rear-end collision with cops sitting right across the street. Oh wait. That one's just for me.
- Holy Shock and Flash of Light is going to do a lot of your leg work here; sometimes Holy Light just won't be fast enough.
- Refresh Beacon and Sacred Shield between waves, even if you're glyphed for it. Having it fall off is not fun.
- The first boss requires heavy cleansing.
- If you're getting behind on heals for him, pop BubbleSac and heal up quickly.
- If your group is low on DPS, pop your cooldowns to help mitigate some of the debuff.
- Waves 8 and 9 are particularly nasty, and if someone is left to get sniped from a far, you might lose them.
- With enough haste (potion+food) you can get someone up between waves.
- On that note, use your Divine Plea between waves if you're having mana problems.
- Holy Wrath can buy everyone some time. Use it.
- Turn Evil is excellent for mercs when no other CC is available. Use it.
- Sylvanas has some sort of ab-hardening secret. Use it.
- Blow your cooldowns on the 4th Escape from the Lich King wave.
- Don't get into a rear-end collision with cops sitting right across the street. Oh wait. That one's just for me.
So, supposedly there’s a Cataclysm coming, or some such. Not sure what all that nonsense is about. I guess we’re supposed to be losing a bunch of stats, too? So even in my ridiculous two pieces of tank gear, I would be defense capped and you know, totally capable of tanking raids. That’s definitely not sarcasm in any way, shape, or form.
The most notable change for healers, I suppose, is that mp5 will be removed completely and replaced by spirit. That means our gear will likely soon include spirit and we can hang our heads in shame after laughing at all of the mages and warlocks forced to take spirit crap. Except they won’t be anymore, because apparently it’s only going to be on healer stuff.
What does that mean for a holy paladin, though? It’s not as if we have mana issues. The last time I actually had a mana issue in which I wasn’t just being lazy was when one of the tanks disconnected during Toravon and the poor fool left up got to 20 stacks of the debuff. Blizzard plans on changing this, making mana actually mean something again, but I’m not sure how much of this is going to affect the throughput of a holy paladin because to the best of our knowledge thus far:
INT isn’t really changing. Spellpower is now out the window, so a holy paladin’s INT will give him even more pewpew.
Divine Plea is still a 2 minute mana battery. When I switch over to play my shaman now, I have to remember that I actually need to drink to refill that blue bar. I don't see this really changing, though I hope other healers will be getting an equivalent spell.
I do expect a couple of things, however:
The benefit from INT is going to be reduced. Smaller mana pools seems to be the theme of Cataclysm; forcing healers to be smart about their spells instead of dropping heal-bombs into one target. And I do agree with that. There’s nothing fun or challenging about spamming Holy Light on one target.
We already know that INT is going to give less mana. But I expect paladins will be gemming for INT post-Cataclysm, as well. With the Reforging system, we’ll be able to convert 50% of another stat into something else, so gemming for haste or crit seems silly at this juncture. With the removal of spellpower, even FoL paladins will be gemming for INT.
But what’s going to happen to Divine Plea? I would hope that the co-efficient will change a bit. Hitting a cooldown every 2 minutes does not challenging mana management equal. Even in the middle of a boss fight, popping cooldowns with Divine Plea negates it almost completely.
I’d love to see a Divine Plea with charges that proc when you heal. If you want to be unoriginal, make it proc off of crits. And make it shoot down a pillar of light from the sky. Like a holy laser beam of greatness and awesome. That’ll show those disc priests.
Of course, there’s another small thing. If you’ve logged into WoW since yesterday you’ve noticed a patch. The first of the ICC buffs is now live, and I expect it will help nudge some guilds stuck on certain fights. I’m very much hoping we can get Blood Prince Council down and move on, and I anticipate with the buffs and our raid leader pointing out Slime Spray awareness, we’ll get Rotface in 25. Or at the very least, Festergut. That means 25 Putricide is swiftly approaching. Oh. Joy.
So how do I feel about the ICC buff going in before my raid team has cleared half the content? I don’t care a wit. I don’t raid to spend three or four hours doing the equivalent of beating my head against a wall. Sorry, I just don’t find that fun. The Wrath model of raiding may have ‘dumbed down the game’ for some folks, but I am not one of them.
And hell, I’m even glad. These buffs mean we might start seeing some new (to us) fights, and that can only be a good thing. Doing the same six bosses every week is pushing me rather haphazardly toward the edge of burnout. It’s Ulduar pre-Watchers all over again, and it’s driving me to be even more of a bitch than I normally am.
So this 5% buff? That’s cool. Making healing more fun in Cataclysm? …Good luck! Not giving holy paladins pewpew laser beams? …For shame.
On a related note, I will be FRAPSing the Rotface10 fight on Friday for cleansers. I hope to have it edited and available for viewing on Monday.
On Sunday morning I welcome a fourth 80 to my crew, my resto/enh shaman. I’ve leveled him mostly through the LFD tool so that I would have a good basis of experience healing when it came time to do heroics and the occasional outdated raid. I’ve got my keys bound similar to my paladin and I feel fairly confident that I know enough to get by.
But apparently I Am Not Prepared.
My first two heroics were with guild groups, and I don’t feel too horrible about letting over-eager Bladestorming warriors die. But this morning I threw myself to the wolves, queuing on my own as a healer. My first draw? Halls of Stone. I explained that I had just hit 80 and would do the best I could, but asked that the tank not chainpull and please wait for mana.
Naturally, he ignored me completely. After the inevitable wipe, he left and I requeued. Utgarde Pinnacle. First tank was a paladin who apparently had no clue where his blessings were and felt it was a good idea to chainpull with his 26k hp and a new healer. Second tank ended up getting us through, so that was a relief. After that I got Old Kingdom, one of my least favorite instances. I couldn’t keep up with the AE damage and got the lovely whisper pictured above. Tank dropped, I dropped. Same story in DTK.
Four failed PUGs in the span of a few hours. I promptly turned tail and swapped to my DPS spec, eating the queue and getting mocked for my 1500 DPS for another few heroics.
I’ll admit, I’ve been That PUGer before. I’ve probably overpulled without looking at the healer’s gear level. I’ve gotten frustrated when a new tank won’t go as quickly as I am used to. But I always stay, and if they make it known that they are new and/or undergeared, I dial it down. Yeah, it might take longer than 15 minutes to get my frost badges. So what?
Patience seems to be a rare commodity these days, and I feel very sad for the folks whose main has just recently hit 80. Boss explanations are few and far between, and people with legitimately bad gear are needlessly belittled.
So to channel my frustration, I thought I’d offer some tips for the new healers attempting to stick it through today’s Northrend heroics.
Queue during peak times: You’re much more likely to get folks around your same gear level if you queue during prime time. It won’t alleviate all the trouble, but it should cut down on some of the stress and will gate you into a lower heroic.
Queue for specific dungeons: Yes, you won’t get the two extra badges, But you can start yourself off with easier heroics instead of relying on the randomizer to choose for you.
Gem and enchant to the best of your ability: Get some green gems into those empty slots as you acquire gear. Toss on some cheap enchants. Fill your glyph slots. Spring for some crafted blues or purples. In short? Do the best with what you’ve got.
Make sure you’re using the right ranks: Dual-spec has really put a wrench into this, so be certain you have the max ranks of all of your spells. You will get RankWatch spam if you don’t.
Be honest: Tell your groups that you are new and will do the best you can. Most people will adjust for that, but the internet breeds stupidity through anonymity, so you’ll get people who are just plain dicks about it. Let them leave the group and eat the debuff.
Queue with folks you know: This is always the best option when you’re just starting out. Even if it’s just a tank, you’ll double your chances of getting an instance you can actually heal. And people tend to freak out when they see a tank with less than 30k HP unbuffed, so the asshats are likely to leave post-haste.
Above all else, don’t let bad PUGs get you down. You’re still learning, you’re still gearing, and everybody had to start somewhere.
So the above picture, yet again, doesn’t have much to do with my post. Beyond the fact that there’s some sort of mage conspiracy going on. Precious’ Ribbon finally dropped this weekend. Not once, but twice. And who should win them? Not me, naturally. No, the only two mages who consistently raid with us. However, one was Gypsy, so I really can’t grump too much.
Now, for the actual post – a day late because allergies are kicking my butt.
I don’t like to rant. (lol inorite) At least not publicly. That can generally be accomplished just as easily by whispering a friend and blowing off steam. But Sunday night really got to me. So much, in fact, that I’m still thinking about it.
Our 25 man is a bit behind on progress compared to the two 10s we run. One 10 is almost done with the Dragon wing, the other is… well. We won’t talk about that. If I see another sparkly vampire I’m going to bite someone. Just.. not like that. Because it would be too vampirey.
But the 25 has been consistently stuck at Lower Spire, unable to down Festergut or Rotface. We’re getting close, and I think with our regulars there we can get Fester. But our regulars weren’t there, not entirely. So we spent our last half hour poking at Rotface.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I do the cleanses for this fight. In fact, in 25 I do very little else. And for once we had a pretty balanced healing team – two druids, a shaman, a priest, and two holy paladins. So that wasn’t a problem, but for people standing in the way of Slime Spray.
What was a problem is that on our best attempt, chatter erupted in /raid and Vent about the fact that cleanses were being dispelled too quickly. I did agree with that, but had to point out the principle of the thing. Because I’m a pain in the ass, and the person who brought it up, while polite, wasn’t the only one. Oh, and also? Someone else decided I wasn’t cleansing fast enough. And someone else decided I wasn’t healing.
I tried to play it off. Really, I did. I even talked to the other holy paladin about getting some help on healing targets with Mutated Infection once he dipped below 30%. I know I could have done better, and I absolutely don’t deny that. We all need to tweak what we’re doing to succeed. But here’s my problem with all of this:
The loudest complaints on a fight almost always comes from someone who has never healed it.
I realize your DPS rotation coupled with moving out of shit is very difficult – and let’s be honest, I’m only pushing three buttons, right? – but trust me, you don’t know a raid boss until you’ve healed it. We heap the blame on ourselves in spades, and I assure you not all of us are as arrogant as we might appear. I’m just as insecure about this game as I am about everything else. I know we need you. I know you’re trying your best.
But stop being such an insufferable prick. And if you’re going to be that way, roll a healer, gear it to raid, and come do my job for a night.
Thank god for RP therapy.
Interrupting the paladinity of this blog to tread into no-man’s land.
Yesterday was a horrible day. I woke up in a crappy mood and went to bed in same-said crappy mood, and at 7PM to boot. And I kept telling people ‘Eh, it’s just been a meh week. I’ll get over it’. But I knew what was wrong with me.
This is not a life sciences class, so I’ll spare you the details of how our womanly parts function, but it boils down to this: Once a month, many of us go through Three Stages of Hormonalism (it’s a word because I say it’s a word, and now it’s on the internets), and some of us do so in fairly significant extremes.
You, unsuspecting WoW player, will be playing your game and minding your own business when a female guildmate logs on. Immediately you receive a whisper to this effect:
Hi! How are you today? Do you need help with anything? I was going to do x and I thought I remembered you saying you could use y and—
Good luck impeding her. She’s decided that today you are the person that must benefit from Stage One: Maternalism (also a word because I say so). Eggs are a’cookin’ and her brain is telling her she needs to find some poor, pathetic soul to shelter from this hard, cruel world. Congratulations. You are today’s winner of the Poor, Pathetic Soul Badge.
The next day, you’re stuck in a raid and she wants to talk:
Hey… can we talk? It’s just that… well we never really get to talk anymore and I really miss you and I wish we could talk like we used to, you know? I’m sorry, I’m probably just being silly…
So you talk. And you learn more about her in an hour than you ever wanted to know about anyone. Ever. In the end she thanks you profusely for listening and says repeatedly that she shouldn’t have troubled you, then she logs off without a word.
You, good sir or madam, have just been Weep Roll’d. Stage 2: Weepyism has just dropped out of the sky, and you’d better start digging a foxhole. Eggs are no longer a’cookin’. Don’t ask what happens to them. You don’t want to know. But it’s sad and it makes us sad and we endeavor to make you sad with us. And then apologize for it. Profusely.
The next day (why are you still logging on…?) you figure since she’s feeling bad and hates herself, you’ll invite her to your raid and stroke her ego a bit. This is what you get in response:
…
That’s right. A whole lot of nothing. So you ask in guildchat. Still nothing. Eventually, after several more whispers, you ask someone else to ask:
Sorry, dude. She says she turned guildchat off and has you on ignore.
You may be wondering what you did to deserve this. The most conceivable answer is: Nothing. But the real answer is that you exist, and you exist in a space near her. Even a virtual one. Stage 3: Isolationism (oh sure… that one is actually a word) I blame on the archaic custom of ostracizing women each month so that they can keep their hellspawniness to themselves. So now, guess what? We don’t want you around us. In fact it’s probably best for your mental and physical health that you avoid us entirely until we approach you again.
Most likely you will log on the next day (seriously, why do you do this to yourself?) and she will be back to her normal self. But now you’re gunshy, you say? You want to know what you can do to better prepare for the next month?
Indulge her: Tell her she’s awesome, let her help you when she insists, invite her to your groups and raids.
Socialize with her: When she wants to have that long chat, be willing to listen. Pick her back up when she knocks herself down a few hundred pegs.
Get the hell away from her: This is for your safety, and she knows it.
Now you may notice the above advice provides conflicting strategies. And if you point that out, you’re going to regret it. These are more like guidelines, anyway.
Disclaimer: I am female. I love and respect women. Sometimes (usually once a month) I hate being a woman. All my examples are exaggerated citations of things I have personally done, and not meant to offend. Now get the hell away from me. Please.
Good news, everyone! We finally got Putricide down Saturday night.
Yes, I know the above picture has absolutely nothing to do with Putricide, but that is what I logged into last night, courtesy of some of my favorite people in the world, including an (apparently drunk) Gypsy-tank. This riveting discussion on space goats was followed by an hour-long diatribe in Vent regarding the failures of Subway and Shattered Halls PUGs.
Seriously people, what is up with all the folks Shattered Halls sends to the LFD queue? 9 times out fo 10, if someone is being a complete dick in the Retaliation battlegroup, -Shattered Halls follows their name. You can’t all be like that!
I know Valentine’s Day and all of its related crap is over in the real world, but since Love is in the Air is extended for another week, I thought I’d make one more lovey-dovey post dedicated to my raid team. I know there are some folks who probably have this stuff on farm by now, but for a ‘roleplaying’ guild on a ‘roleplaying’ server, we’re doing pretty damn good if I do say so myself.
Dear Team Scyce:
90% of the time I want to strangle a good 60% of you. And trust me when I say these percentages are 46.53678% total crap.
You can be as unfocused as kittens in a tinsel factory, and I have a bad habit of turning on Pandora when you guys start yammering on about how broken this or that is in Vent, but it’s not because I don’t love you.
I love when you say ‘We can totally do this, guys!’ after we’ve been wiping for an hour with no progress. I love how you purposefully don’t touch the healing essences just so the warlock can have the pleasure of not ever being able to interrupt them. I love your ASCII fish – I can’t sit down to eat without it – and the fact that only half of you actually read raid chat.
Mostly I love that when things look bleakest, you seem to be able to pull your shit together for a win in the last few seconds of the game.
Yours Truly,
Drist
I had an opportunity a few months back to audition for a healing spot on our other 10-man team. Personality-wise, with the exception of one or two people, I probably fit in better with them. Goal-wise, theirs align better with mine, I’m fairly certain. They already have Blood and Plague down (congrats guys!) while we just finished Plague. But in the end, after some very difficult decisions, I withdrew my name from the running, and there’s really one simple reason for that:
Loyalty.
I’ve been on this team since Ulduar. Hell, since we started running a second Naxx10 team. And I’ll admit I’ve probably done a pretty drastic 180 since making my paladin my main. Raid tanking was a stress I don’t care to undergo on a regular basis, and I remember raising a regular fuss about pushing on to things I didn’t think we stood a chance at downing. But the ease of ToC brought some more cohesion to our dysfunctional little family, and we came into ICC very strong.
So yes, we’re having some rough times. We lost a tank, we typically lose a key DPS every weekend, and some folks could really use a break. I expect the other 10 man will be kingslayers long, long before us, but that’s alright.
You all forgave me when I snapped at people after getting frustrated with DK tanking. You let me take a two-month break from raiding to get my paladin raid-ready. You gave me back a permanent spot even when I really didn’t expect it. You put up with me when I DI you just for giggles, and you cover my ass when I’m too busy eating ice cream to heal.
I love you all. But I still want to strangle you.
Friends
