Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
Every story, article, column, piece, and so forth on World of Matticus ever published.
I was debating between that title or 40 Raids and 40 Wipes.
But he’s dead. What a thrill! =)
We started him at 4:00 and killed him about 40 minutes later. First attempt of the night! That gives us about 4 hours to play with Mount Hyjal. Whoo hoo! Expect a Priest primer on Kael in the coming days and how to assign healers to the various assignments.
Anyways, can’t blog much right now. We’re heading into Hyjal.
I have a very ambitious goal in 2008. I want my Paladin to eventually become a force to be reckoned with. Last night, she’s started taking the necessary steps to do it by going into Karazhan for the first time.
We’re making progress! It’s going slowly but surely. Carnage’s finest got Kael down to 57%. On Sunday, nearly 6 hours will be allocated to him in the hopes we can finally polish him off. We’ll see how that works out.
Oh and I killed Zul’Jin for the first time!
If you’re one of the few individuals who actually look at my Affiliates on the side, you’ll notice I’ve partnered up with Jinx! They’re a game clothing company. If you’re interested in showing off your Geekiness, head over and check out their offerings.
My Blogroll has continued to plague me for quite some time. One of the measures I’ve taken is displaying a list of random blogs. You can find them on the side beneath the polls. I’m experimenting with the idea of having a “surprise” web link where it will take you to another blog on my list completely at random.
Here are the posts from this week:
This week I had a chance to sit down with Phaelia of Resto4Life.
Past columns I have written that still hold true to this day.
Blog Azeroth is a new community which virtually sprouted over night. It’s an online forum where both veteran and new bloggers can go to share ideas and learn more from each other. If you’re a blogger or if you’ve ever thought about blogging, Blog Azeroth is a great place to start interacting with some of your favourite bloggers (like me =D).
4 Haelz – If I had a copper everytime I ran into a Druid blog, I would never have to worry about repairs again. She offers a fresh pair of eyes from the shape shifting professions although she is primarily a Resto Druid.
Matt likes: Encouraging Bad Habits with Good Healing
Three Druid Noob – Okay, this is the last Druid blog (this week anyway). He’s an Australian blogger that has three (3) Druids with each one specced differently. He even has a few stories to share about his dualboxing (tri boxing now, I think). This begs the question of what’s worse: Having 3 druids or having 3 healers?
Matt likes: Adventures in Dual Boxing
Critical QQ – This sharp, Troll Fire Mage certainly has a feisty approach to blogging. Euripedes has been on my reading list and blogroll for quite some time and I never show any mages any love.
Matt likes: Confessions of a Magi
We killed him. 8 Carnage and 2 of our allies. It was midnight when we threw ourselves at Zul’Jin and we were able to gradually wear him down. Well, that’s one resolution for the new year fulfilled. Could this be a sign of redemption? Let’s hope the momentum from today will carry on to Sunday’s Kael’Thas raid.
Cleaver of the Unforgiving
Loop of Cursed Bones
In 10 seconds, anything can go wrong. In upper level raiding, there’s a certain element of micro management that needs to be done. We tried Kael again today and we still could not polish him off. Our best attempt was at 57% in Phase 4. It’s like your trying to get a good solid grip on running water. You can feel it through your fingers but it continues to slip away elusive to your grasp.
Here’s a scenario of a crazy, paranoid, overanalyzing Dwarf Priest in overdrive on a Kael fight during Phase 3:
Tank at full health. Weapon swing coming in half a second. A quick glance at the Heads-up display reveals a Fear happening in 3. Thaladred’s gazing at a Priest adjacent to me and is heading to my direction (Gaze means he’s going to walk towards a player and hit him hard).
Activate a shield on my healing assignment, and start moving north away from the incoming mob.
I currently represent half the healing on my tanking assignment as the other Priest is busy evading Thal. Big heals are a must as is the fear ward.
Fear Ward, Renew, Prayer of Mending.
Gaze is off my partner and is now on a hunter next to me who just went flying through the air and is sitting at 45%. A quick glance at my assignment with 80% health shows my partner has him targeted with a heal on the way about to land in 0.7 seconds.
Hunter’s not going to be able to sustain another hit. Target him, Shield, Renew, switch back to healing assignment.
“FEARED!”
I recognize that voice. It’s my Priest partner. There’s a tremor totem on the ground from the shaman in our group and it pulsed 2 seconds ago. Not enough time. Hunter should be fine and in the clear. I’m going to be on my own for the next several seconds on my assignment.
Prayer of Mending. Better hope the WoW gods are listening and that it is able to mitigate more damage then the tank is taking. Tank’s health returns up to 60%. Activate Divine Illumination. Additional 25% chance to crit is better than 10%.
Blue rings shimmer around my assignment. It looks familiar, what the hell does it mean? Too late, I think to myself. It’s a Remote Toy. That equals stun. Stun equals lack of ability to take defensive measures by my healing assignment. Which also means not good. He’s down to 35%. Adrenaline’s already coursing through the system. The coffee I had earlier in the day is all but exhausted. He needs a big time crit heal now.
Slam max rank Greater Heal now.
XPerl shows my colleague starting to cast a heal not a moment after I did. Wait a minute…
…He’s casting a Greater Heal, too.
…There’s only 2 of us healing him.
…Which means he has less then 2 seconds to live based on weapon swing timers from the boss…
Do the simplest action to cancel a heal which is move. At the same time, blow a PW: Shield and pray it can withstand a hit. Oh no, Thal’s arm is up, and that means-
“MAN DOWN”
Oh crap. You failed the team. One simple miscalculation. One wrong heal at the wrong time. Sanguinar is now free and goes forth rampaging the raid.
Game over.
Priests are so easy to play. There are so many options to choose from. It’s easy to scrutinize one’s play in hindsight. But when you’re in the moment, the difference between raid success and failure can hinge on a something so insignificant as using the right heal at the right time.
Over 5 options to choose from and I picked the wrong one. Kael could have died tonight. This is going to haunt me for a long time.
It’s quite possibly one of the worse feelings anyone can experience in the world. It’s not being told what you did wrong by someone else. It’s knowing what you did wrong and knowing that it could have been prevented.
I should have rolled a Hunter.
By the time this post goes out, I will have finished getting the necessary Sporregar rep to transmute Primal Earth to Water on my Paladin. No more spending gold to buy Primals to transmute Skyfire or Earthstorm diamonds!
Kael is still giving us a hard time. I’ve localized the problem down to the transition from Phase 3 to Phase 4 which has been the largest headache. All of us know our jobs and what to do. But there’s a lot of stupid mistakes going around that by themselves are minor. When combined together though, the raid caves.
Thankfully, our GM has publicly called out some of these players to step up their game. Hopefully it will have a desired effect on Sunday.
I’m still hard at work changing up my blogroll. I mentioned it before, but the blogroll will have it’s own page. My intention is to set it in such a way where when it is loaded, there is a different blog spotlighted every time.
Technical problems, but nothing my gnomish engineers can’t fix!
The hard part about blogging is finding interesting topics. It becomes much more difficult when the blogger intends to do a podcast. I am virtually committed to doing a podcast and I have some great ideas to explore. I might even go a step further and turn it into a video cast. We’ll see. I’ve always had a passion for public speaking and giving presentations. I don’t want to reveal too much for now. I don’t like to make empty promises. It’s a fairly monumental project in it’s own right and I don’t even have the technical knowhow on how to pull it off.
Haven’t quite picked a name for it, so I’m going to tentatively refer to it as the Mattcast since saying World of Matticus Offical Podcast repeatedly would get old after a while.
Lots of learning and lots of reading to do in addition to my school work, that’s for sure.
There’s been a large outcry over Blizzard’s reversal in their stance of the ghost wolf pet (formerly a bug). Others don’t see the big deal.
I don’t have a hunter myself, so I cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like to lose the ability to tame it. Blizzard’s decision ultimately cost them the subscription of a player-blogger.
Personally, I think it was a combination of things that made him quit.
Past articles that I’ve written that still hold true to this day.
Light’s Grace – It’s a brand spankin’ new WoW Blog! He’s She’s a Blood Elf Paladin (oh great, not another one). Kulrayk, the blogger, followed me on Twitter for some time and we’ve chatted for a little bit. Now he’s she’s decided to create his own blog! Go show him her some support! It’s tough to get a blog going from the start because you often question yourself and wonder if you have the motivation and dedication. All it takes is some readers.