Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
Wynthea Okay, Matt’s at work (and so am I…) and I’m woefully inadequate to be the one formatting and posting this…..
but…
Tremendous thanks go out to all of our readers, subscribers, supporters… and all you other lovely people who help keep us motivated to play and write about it.
If you’ve read much that I’ve written for World of Matticus, you know that I have raided with two Priests. This is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down – and how I went from die-hard, shiny alliance to being the proudest, loudest, and dirtiest Troll. My Human had been my main for over a year – Renwein was leveled up rather slowly, alongside dear friends that I met along the way. She has a depth of experience that isn’t often found in ‘toons rolled after Burning Crusade – I lovingly collected all the keys in the game, except the Outhouse key, and ran every old-world instance except Naxx. So why give up a character into which I’d invested so much time? Raiding. Bosskilling is my anti-drug. When I came back to the game in 2007, I didn’t realize what “recommended” meant when I picked my server, and I didn’t realize how much I would LOVE the challenge of end-game raiding. The problem started when I realized how the small community on my server worked against my Illidan-killing aspirations.
Think about it: out of a TOTAL server population of 4,000, the allies were outnumbered about 5:1. (I saw one estimate that said 9:1) Which gave us 667 people. About 300 of those were level 70. Finding 25 people talented and dedicated enough to raid towards end-game is hard enough – you have to manage personalities, play-styles, schedules, and real-life. Getting the right mix of classes added another level of complexity. On Darrowmere, the top Ally guild exclusively speaks Spanish. This works well for them, but also took another bite out of the available pool willing to raid in other guilds. Looking back, it’s a miracle that we made it to Vashj and Kael at all.
Hordeside was slightly different – their population dwarfed ours, and an ambitious guild called Death is Eternal had transferred over with their sights set on Illidan. On such a small server, it’s impossible not to get to know at least names and faces of the opposing faction, but we went a little farther and swapped vent information. I found out later that this Horde guild hoped that helping Ally progression would make it easier for them to recruit from other servers – PvP servers lose some appeal if the Allies aren’t even a challenge to gank. So they critiqued our wws, watched our fraps, and occasionally came in on a borrowed character. But small-server drama took over, and while the Allies were busy re-shuffling the same players through guild mergers and disintegrations, this Horde guild stayed busy killing bosses. When my guild collapsed yet again under the weight of egos and primadonnas, and the GM got his orders to ship out to Iraq, I knew I couldn’t handle another re-build. One old friend had transferred to a larger server, and asked me to follow. But a different offer came from an unexpected source:
If you can level and gear up to be there when we kill Kael, you can raid with Death is Eternal.
DiE had Vashj on farm at this point. They were down to weekly 10-minute kills, and were working steadily on Kael. This was right before Thanksgiving, and the GM estimated that with their upcoming Holiday Break, I had about 28 days to roll a new Priest, level her, and get her geared enough to be an asset. He didn’t need to point out that her final exam would be one of the hardest fights in the game – in a guild that had developed a reputation as exacting, unforgiving, and with a previously strict no-girls-allowed policy.
If I wanted to see endgame, I had two options – leave a server where I knew practically everyone, or work like a madwoman to re-create and surpass everything I’d worked so hard for on Renwein. The next day, I bought my second copy of Warcraft, and rolled my first Horde. One benefit of already having a Priest was an appreciation of the impact of racial abilities on end-game raiding. I chose a Troll – mostly for Berserking – and began the grind. I wasn’t even allowed to carry the guild tag – “Not until you’re 70,†was the GM’s final answer.
So I listened quietly on vent while DiE continued to farm Vashj and learn Kael, and ground quests every day after work and all day on weekends. I wasn’t shy about asking for help, and the Horde players I knew ran me through lowbie instances and helped with quests anytime they weren’t busy. The most unexpected thing was all the help I received from DiE’s Raid Leader. A Tauren Warrior known for his no-nonsense approach to raids, he was a database for every quest in every zone. His brain was like WoWhead on vent, and any time he wasn’t raiding he helped me in every way he could.
About two weeks into my grind, DiE took a week and a half off for the holidays. When I hit 69, the GM and Raid Leader asked me about my progress. I had farmed the Kara attunement chain up to needing instance runs, had saved up enough gold for my regular flying mount, and begun the quest chains for my Hyjal and Black Temple attunements.
They complimented me on my hard work, and told me they had a few Christmas presents for me. The first was an invitation into the guild – the first female and non-70 admitted to Death is Eternal. The second was a full block of runs through the instances I needed for my Karazhan attunement. (Which ding’d me 70.) The final was the materials I was missing for my Primal Mooncloth Set, the Pattern and Mats for Boots of the Long Road, the Belt of the Long Road, and both Whitemend pieces. The Raid Leader had coordinated the effort and farmed the majority of the mats, and the whole guild had pitched in cooldowns, nethers, and vortices.
“You still have to earn your spot.†They told me. “And this gear isn’t good enough for Kael.†So we did two full Kara clears in two days, and as many ZA’s as possible before formal raids started again. Because they had farmed SSC and TK for so long, very few pieces of gear were needed by any healers – and I was now their only Holy Priest.
I was incredibly lucky – the help I received, and the incredible drop rate for the upgrades I needed made the unlikely speed of my progression possible. I hit lvl 70 in just under 9 days played, and I was #2 on the healing meters for the server first kill of Kael’thas on my 12th day played – exactly a month in real-time after my account went active. On Wynthea’s 15th day we killed Rage Winterchill and headed into Black Temple.
I sometimes log onto Renwein to run a weekend ZA with old friends, or just to catch up with people in Shat. I appreciate so much of the old-world content, and it still makes me sad that Wynthea’s lore-base is so shallow, but my decision to raid Hordeside was the best I could’ve made. Even after Death is Eternal parted ways, I kept in touch with a lot of the members. Most of us are working through Sunwell – all of us are looking forward to WotLK.
I’m sure this is more than you ever wanted to know about my WoW-experience, but I wanted to introduce my point of view a little more. The thing to remember is that if you really want to achieve something in the game, take advantage of whatever opportunities present themselves – even if it sometimes means starting from scratch to reach an impossible goal with an even worse deadline. Luv, Wyn
Image courtesy of hberends
Matt and I want to thank you for the overwhelming response we have received so far to our call for submissions – they have impressed us in terms of quantity as well as quality. We really shouldn’t have been surprised, considering the existing quality and participation we see from the community around this blog every day, but we were a little caught off guard by the enthusiasm!
We have decided to leave the casting-call open for a week. All submissions must be entered by midnight, Pacific Daylight Time on August 20th.
Again, the subject is a 500 or so word article on your thoughts about WotLK. Please use the contact form to send in your post (That way it is sent to both of us.)
The prize is a spot on the World of Matticus staff – an unpaid, glamorous job characterized by fraternization with the coolest bloggers in Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend.
Thanks in advance, and we look forward to hearing from you!
Luv,
Matt & Wyn
Have we been teaching wrong? Image courtesy of gozdeo
There’s a gearing question I get asked more frequently than any other. I also see it all over the Priest-related interweb. It goes something like this:
My Priest just started running Kara/Heroics, and I have the Primal Mooncloth Set. I’m dying a lot. When can I/ should I break PMC bonus so I can get more stamina?
The answer is invariably along these lines:
PMC has no Stam and makes it hard to stay alive. As soon as you have 2 of the 3 slots replaced, go ahead and break it. Shopping List: Robes of Heavenly Purpose or Gown of Spiritual Wonder, Light-Mantle of the Incarnate or Mantle of the Avatar, and Belt of the Long Road or Cord of Braided Troll Hair.
This always kind of bothers me a little bit, probably because I’m a crotchety oldster who was working my way through T5 content before the 2.3 badge rewards and ZA were introduced. Back in MY day, the only pieces that would add stamina to your stats without gimping your +healing and regen abominably were your Tier tokens. Which, with the infamous Warrior-Priest-Druid combo, in most raiding guilds, went to tanks first. And especially since Druid tank itemization meant they needed the T4 set bonus, preferably from their chest, Priests were pretty much out of luck. (I’ll spare you a very compelling QQ-anecdote about the injustices visited on my Priests specifically when it came to Tier-gear. Just know that it was very tragic, compelling, and you should pity me. Thank you.)
Basically, Primal Mooncloth meant you could keep your raid alive, and whether or not YOU stayed alive was your own business – weren’t you the healer??
As a result, many, many healy-Priests (myself and Matt included), worked their way into T6-level content with dramatically less stamina than recommended. For me, especially given the pressure-cooker of being the first and only female in my hardcore raiding guild, it meant I had to learn to stay alive. This is the origin of the “Oh s***!” macro, and why my UI is painstakingly designed to keep my field of vision clear.
My point is, I’ve done the content that the Priests asking about Primal Mooncloth have done – and I stayed alive. So I know it’s possible. So it bothers me to blame the prolific Priest-mortality rate on the gear and nothing else. If I wasn’t positive that people would feel attacked, accused, and offended, here’s what my response would be:
“Primal Mooncloth is perfectly adequate for the content you’re running. Rather than worrying about what gear to exchange to boost your stamina, let’s treat what I think is the real problem. Tell me about your raids: What’s killing you? Loose mobs, or AoE damage?”
And working from there, I’d like to go through a trouble-shooting dialogue. If loose mobs are running around and slaying healers, either your Tanks need to work on tanking, your CC needs to work on CC’ing, your DPS needs to work on not breaking CC, or YOU need to work on heal-timing. These are all very important skills, and, often, healer-deaths are simply symptomatic of underperforming raiders.
If AoE damage is killing you, then you simply need to learn how to keep yourself healed.
And the biggest one:
It’s not that good Priests never die – Spirit of Redemption points out that Blizz KNOWS we’re going to die. It’s that the best Priests know that gear is not the major limiting factor in your performance. And as much as I advocate using the best gear available to you, it should be to augment your skill as a player, not to replace it.
Notice: I hesitated to post this entry, for the same reason that I hesitate to reveal my real answer to the pertinent gear-question. I realize that my opinion will hurt some feelings, and it is not my intention to imply that people looking to break PMC with any of the numerous options in the post 2.4 game are bad players. It is my intention to imply that perhaps, as a community committed to improving our gameplay, our first instinct shouldn’t be to swap gear, but rather to ascertain how we can out-perform our pixilated limitations. If, after determining the REAL cause of death, we find a certain stat to be lacking, then we can recommend gear to augment that stat.
Luv,
Wyn
Image courtesy of 78thelemen
I’ve read a lot of the posts on preparation for WotLK, and, probably because I’m a farm-a-holic, I still don’t think the topic has been overdone. For the casual player, an xpac is a time of new experiences. For the more hardcore, it’s an opportunity to Scattle out ahead… and experience them before anyone else.
First, you need to decide if you’re going to play the xpac. A whole new WoW opening could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for to ease back into real life.
If you are going to play WotLK, you need to decide to what extent. Are you looking to make a mad-dash to 80 with your guild to shoot for server (or world?) firsts? Or are you going to take a slower pace, either solo or with a few friends and enjoy the lore and depth-of-content? Are you going to play the same character you play now, or pick up a new one? What class? What race is best for that class, and what you want to do with it? Will it be your new main? Will you roll a Death Knight?
Honestly, if you’re planning to enjoy the content at a laid-back pace on your current character, there’s not a lot of prep-work you need to do. The idea behind preparing is to make the process of leveling and gearing up more efficient, and if efficiency doesn’t matter, neither does prepping. Personally, I’ll grind Wynthea to 80 as quickly as possible to be ready for end-game raiding, then back track later, when it’s less crowded, to enjoy the quests and content that I skimmed through.
I’d also like to have as few headaches as possible so I can focus on learning the new game mechanics, so my prep is a bit more elaborate than stockpiling mats. (Although there’s a lot of that going on, too.) Here’s my EXTREME to-do list:
Image courtesy of iwanbeijes
First of all, when I joined my current guild, I came as part of a package deal. We were a Prot Warrior, Holy Priest, and Rogue. My compadres have since leveled and geared up a Hunter and a Mage. (Yes, I’m the slacker without an alt. But I rolled the perfect class on my first try, so there’s really not much incentive…especially since I’ve done it twice.)
So we have 5 ‘toons to work with. Here’s how we’ve got it worked out:
Warrior: Mining and Jewelcrafting. (Has literally EVERY pattern.)
Rogue: Herbalism and Elixir-Alchemist.
Hunter: Skinning and Leather Work
Mage: Tailoring (Scryer) and Enchanting
Priest: Tailoring (Aldor) and Herbalism (Herb is going bye-bye in favor of Inscription.)
We decided that Blacksmithing and Engineering didn’t provide enough benefit to us all as a group to justify picking them up, since most of the best goodies are specific to the person with the profession. The idea is that no matter what we need to improve our raiding abilities, we can have it made among ourselves – Gems, Enchants, Spellthreads, Armor Kits, and Consumables. This way, too, if there’s a specific older pattern we need, we can just farm for it rather than counting on finding someone via trade. The Mage is the newest 70, and we’ll be starting his Kara grind this week. We did manage to get Death Frost for him during the Summer Festival, and have made good progress on the arduous task of getting him Exalted with all the outlands factions. Since Blizzard decided to update the better AQ enchants for TBC, we didn’t want to assume they’d be available for WotLK mats.
Although we all raid and contribute heavily to our actual guild, we also have a personal alt-guild and bank set up. (We probably house the wealthiest lvl 1’s on our server) This way, we have the storage space for the mats to get the first few notches up in each of our professions. This means taking a look at whatever patterns are orange or yellow in your profession-window, and getting a good idea of what mats they use. Sure, with the xpac will come new mats and probably entry-level patterns, but getting a few bumps in from “old” outland mats will put you ahead of the curve as far as what materials you need to farm, and what patterns you can access in Northrend. Think about holding enough materials to get 10-15 ticks for your professions, including primals and other odds-and-ends. A few examples:
Even if your set-up isn’t so elaborate, decide what professions you want on what characters, and level them up now. Designate your gatherers and your crafters, and get them ready to tackle Northrend. Also, finish grinding rep that is required for pertinent profession-related items. Even now, some of the best items require old-world rep (Brilliant Mana Oil requires Friendly with Zandalar, for example.), and for at least the first several patches, Northrend will probably be the same. JC’s will likely still want lots of scale of the sand and consortium rep, Enchanters will want exalted with outlands factions, etc. It gets harder to grind rep for these things in the “old zone” so do it now! Besides, even if you change your mind about your professions later, rep is something that stays with your ‘toon. It’s kind of like saving your place with some hard-to-get patterns and recipies.
The tank and I have both stashed some decent gear for DPS grinding – I’ve read about the changes to gear coming up, but without knowing anything for sure, it just seems more prudent to be prepared with a second, specialized gearset. It’s nothing fancy; gear from badge-runs and farm content that would otherwise have been sharded. One thing I noticed about vintage gear was that even with the dramatic stats swell moving into Outlands from Azeroth, some things kept their value. Trinkets, especially, can hold up particularly well since they often grant percentages of stats and scale with the rest of your gear. If there’s a trinket or two that you think you may want, farm for it now. It’ll be much harder to get the runs you want when everyone is focused on new content. Even if you don’t PvP regularly, contemplate getting some gear with some stamina and resil for those packed starting zones on PvP servers. It’ll save you time and frustration – and it’s easy, since you can buy blues from Outlands factions that will have enough resil to make you less tempting.
Image courtesy of designkryt
This may be so obvious that I could skip it, but the single most helpful resource you can stockpile is cold, hard cash. Whatever Northrend holds, you can bet your sweet bippy that being able to buy gear, patterns, skills, and materials without difficulty will be handy. I don’t know if we’ll manage it, but I’d like to have about 10k per character. That’s in addition to each one having their epic flyer already. (The mage is the only one left without his.)
Finally, in order to give yourself plenty of distraction-free WoW, look into taking some time off work. If the xpac hits in November or December, as has been suggested, those silly people with families and holiday obligations instead of video game addictions may have requested all the available time. Let your boss know now that you may need to take a few personal days. 🙂
Luv,
Wyn
edit: I always ask Matt to look over my posts before they go live – he’s the one that finds the great stock illustrations. Of course, he also likes to randomly bold things….
Let’s all give him a hug!