Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
Matticus It’s Friday, and the first week of 2010 is about to end. One of my honorary guildies drew my Priest. I like it. She’s got the shoulders right and Vala’nyr looks good.
She caught my pose when I was deep in thought about something. I wish she’d done it when I had a scowl or a frown on my face.
The next question? What the heck is up with my belt?
Last night, 3 Conquest ICC 10 teams dove in with the goal of reaching the new wing. All of us were successful even though we went at slightly different paces.
Gluth’s mini brothers, Precious and Stinky, represent a serious trash wakeup call. Getting a little better at handling it but I’m still suffering 2-3 casualties in the raid. The priority is to get the current dog tank topped up fast. That isn’t the problem as we don’t seem to be quick enough in reaching everyone else. My current thinking is to bubble spam soft targets like clothwearers (players with overall low health) before dropping the raid healing bombs. The chomp doesn’t kill us, its Stinky’s fart that seems to do it. When taking care of Precious, be careful with the zombies and don’t stand next to them when they get trapped or rooted in place.
Since most of the players had worked on Festergut on the raid night before, he fell over fairly easily within 1-2 shots as we knew what to expect and how to handle it.
Now Rotface completely stoned us. He stopped all the shots the various groups had taken on him. After multiple attempts, it had gotten to the point where groups were wrestling with the increased disease spawn time (the 30% mark or so) or had proximity issues with the uber big ooze. The Ooze explosions were easy to manage.
What’s going to haunt me over the weekend is the fact that my guys wiped on Rotface with 10k health left.
Rotface juts got nerfed, by the way.
On a side note, I have to share something. Spring semester started this week and I sometimes end up getting in classes with professors with intriguing accents. In math classes or stats, I end up getting the stereotypical Asian prof (from Hong Kong or Taiwan or something) who are difficult to understand. I was pleased to discover that this prof had an eastern European accent.
In other words, he sounds like Borat.
And this is a class on International Studies.
“This u-ni-vehr-sity cam-pus is velly’ nice. Be sure to read journal article by Robert Bates for next week, yes?”
Anyway, how are you guys tackling Festergut and Rotface thus far? Problems? Can’t wait for the Professor myself.
This is a guest post from We Fly Spitfires.
Tanks and healers are the most important classes for any group. Tanks set the pace of the group, the flow of experience and man the vanguard as they lead the team into battle. Healers mend the broken bones of their companions and keep the tanks a live – without the healers there could be no tanks and there could be no group. These are the two most important classes that exist in any MMORPG. But the DPS? They’re just meat in the room.
Look at it in terms of supply and demand and stress and responsibility. Tanks and healers are in consistent short supply whereas DPS are a dime a dozen. And there’s a reason for that. Tanking isn’t easy and it comes with a lot of pressure and responsibility. Do it right and the group will sing your praises for days to come yet do it badly and you’re on the receiving end of every criticism and jibe. Healing is much the same and also comes with it’s own set of stresses and strains. If the tank dies who gets the blame? Not the DPS classes that didn’t burn the mob down fast enough but the healer who didn’t heal well enough. They carry the heart and soul of the party on their shoulders and all of the difficulties that come with that.
And raiding? That’s even more stressful. Not only do we even already acknowledge the importance of tanks and healers in this situation. We have Main Tanks and even Main Healers but who’s ever heard of a Main DPS before? There’s a huge amount of pressure to do these jobs right. Sub-par DPS can join a raid (even if it’s not desirable) but sub-par tanks cannot tank one and poor healers cannot heal one.
All of this stands to reason that tanks and healers should get bigger rewards than anyone else. I mean, it’s in our culture to reward those that do the most and work the hardest, right? Call it a Tank or Healer Bonus, and a well deserved one at that. They are more important and necessary than anyone else, rarer to find, and they’re jobs are a lot tougher and far more stressful. They’re like the mommas and papas of any group, bringing the necessary order and structure. Without a tank there is no group, without a healer there is no group. DPS can just be picked up randomly as required.
I’ve got nothing against DPS. It’s fun and there’s nothing wrong with that but they simply don’t deserve the equality of rewards. Tanks and healer should get a little something extra on the side (maybe a nice ‘Thank You Drop’ from the boss mobs they fell) because they have the hardest and most demanding jobs and are traditionally the slowest to level up (unless you turn them into DPS). They require the most effort and who can argue that as a result they should get the biggest rewards?
Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
First, congratulations to the US team for beating the Canadian team. We’ll get you back in the Olympics (seriously, that Canadian roster looks stacked with the top line from San Jose and with others).
As with every year on the blog, I try to make an annual thing out of reviewing the resolutions from last year for myself personally, the game, and the blog.
Let’s start with that. Did I meet the goals I set out to do last year?
Resolution: 3000 subscribers – Thanks to your readership, I have exceeded that and have managed to entertain 5000 bored players at work or school.
Resolution: 1.5 posts per day – Nope, not quite. My responsibilities have increased and I have not been able to fulfill that resolution. I’m working with a great crew that’s as diverse as it can get. With Lodur, Thespius and Mimetir, the blog provides a variety of insights.
Still could use that elusive Holy Pally contributor.
Resolution: Top 10 server – Nope, Ner’zhul is a ridiculously competitive server. We’re barely breaking into the top 20 overall. According to Guld Ox, we’re exactly 10th Alliance side.
Resolution: Avoiding Burnout – Still here and I’m still not close to feeling any burnout. Thank goodness for cheap steam games in keeping me occupied.
Resolution: Raid achievements – Managed to pull off some of them but not as many as I’d like. The focus continues to be on progression. We’ll look at some of the other stuff later on.
Resolution: Let things go – Yep, I’ve learned to keep my distance on topics that I would have commented on in the past. Sometimes, it just isn’t worth it.
Resolution: GPA to 2.5 – Nope, holding at around 2.2. I learned that distance education courses and myself just don’t agree with each other. I lack the discipline on my own. I need to actually be in a classroom where I can directly ask for clarification on stuff that just doesn’t make sense to me.
Time to set some goals and tasks for this year.
Resolution: 10000 subscribers – A bit ambitious and it will be double the current amount. It’s how I measure the progress of my blog. Page views have remained increased slightly (not in the same ratio). I’m more concerned about being read then I am with just page views.
Resolution: Consistency with NSUI – It’s a great blog and a great idea. I just wish I had more time I could devote to it. I blog about different addons and ways to help players when I can. I’ll try to start with a consistent update time on a weekly basis.
Resolution: 8000 achievement points – Slowly but surely, I am getting there.
Resolution: Arthas hard mode (25) – That’s my ultimate goal.
I’m not quite sure what to do at the moment. I feel rather lost. Undecided about Crim and Communications (or Journalism) is unavailable to me. Maybe I should just finish with a BA and get out of here and start working.
Get the heck out of school would be a great resolution but I won’t be able to pull it off this year.
Last week, I ran a poll asking if you cleared out all bosses when running heroics. Here are the results:
I resounding 47% of you do go after each and every boss in the instance. The next chunk of players are indifferent and go with the flow. A staunch 16% won’t knock out all bosses if they can get away with it. I suspect those might be the players where nothing attractive remains in current heroics or from Triumph badge vendors.
I promised I’d write them and they’re on the way. Bear with me. If it takes me a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, I will get them finished.
I stepped down from handling Spiritual Guidance to focus on more general work and Raid Rx on wow.com. The site is expanding. A healing priest and a shadow priest have been brought on for twice the priestiness.
Yes, our class is so awesome, we get two columns featured.
They’re also looking to expand again. A Resto Druid, a Holy Paladin, an addon specialist, and a lore specialist.
More healers would indeed be awesome. Now they can heal me through the various PTR runs!
Quick application tip: I’m just going to use an example on the blog here when I look over contributors who want to work with me. Don’t bite the hand that feeds. If you’re applying for a position, don’t talk trash about the employer and then apply to them expecting to be successful in your application. I’ve seen people trash my blog and the work I invest into it on their twitter or their blog and then they get in touch with me asking why I never link to them or highlight their work.
Like, seriously? I didn’t realize there were people that dense that were out there. Blogs are google-able. Everything is accessible. Nothing is hidden.
There is a line between constructive critique and being a dumb troll. Dumb trolls don’t get very far and they never will because they just don’t learn.
In any case, if you’re even remotely thinking about applying, just give it a shot. If you read the blog on RSS, you’ll notice I insert a quote by Wayne Gretzky:
“I miss 100% of the shots I never take.”
So take chances and shoot more. You just might score one. If you’re unsure or have any questions, feel free to drop me a line. There are some questions I won’t be able to answer but I can try.
It doesn’t hurt to know every pop culture reference and cult classic known to man. I was ridiculed for the longest time when I didn’t understand the Monty Python and Princess Bride references.
Which by the way, I finally watched. To be honest, I didn’t understand much of the humour. Probably a generation gap thing though.
You didn’t think I was going to finish out the year without the traditional “Best of 2009” post, did you? Here’s the top posts of 2009 based on your views, comments, and tweets.
To other WoW bloggers, I’d love to see you compile a list of your favourite posts that you have written over the past year and don’t be afraid to post a link in the comments to it below.
Have a safe and happy new year! I would share my New Years party stories, but chances are, this Dwarf would not remember. There was that one year where I woke up half naked with a Tauren beside me and a banana…