As much as I try my hardest to delegate things to people, I still have a tendency to overextend and overestimate my capability. This became apparently last night when I failed miserably at blanketing the raid with shields against the power of Infest. Lich King attempts are steadily increasing in promise. I think we scored back to back 50% wipes on the tail end of the night.
Progress? Oh you bet. We’re going to beat this guy. We’re going to take it defile by defile, val’kyr by val’kyr. No alcohol until we get him down.
But today’s post isn’t about that. As I mentioned earlier, as much as I’m slowly relinquishing control, it’s not enough. When a tank healer gets yanked by Valks, I instinctively switch to tank coverage until they are free. Because of this though, I lose maybe 4-6 people on Infests. Part of it’s due to the chaotic nature of the fight where we’re spreading out on Defile. I can’t reach some of these guys. The other part is that I’m burning GCDs on tank coverage. Again, overextending myself.
I wish we had smaller GCD timers.
Thursday, I won’t be around to raid. I’ll be watching Video Games Live with a guildie who’s in town. She suggested it and I figured I’d go for it. Now, last year, quarterbacking heals was split between me and Syd. She’s taken a leave of absence with this whole grown up, real life stuff. I never really trained anyone else to do it largely because there wasn’t the need to and I hadn’t found anyone who actually wanted to do it. I had one of my other priests volunteering to do it just for the day. I suppose I should take the advice of one of my druids and just not worry about it. Hard to do that. I’m a chronic worrier.
Matt, if your heal team doesn’t know what to do by now, they’ll never get it. I learned a long, long time ago (after getting bit in the ass by overextending myself in a real-life situation) that you can’t cover for everyone. People will either step up to their responsibilities, or not.
You’ll know Friday who did, and who didn’t. In the meantime, enjoy your date.
.-= Kestrel´s last blog ..MarsEdit 3.0: Blogging Software for the Mac =-.
Might be helpful for us to have another afteraction discussion like we did before. Talk about what works, what doesnt, where our issues were, etc. I think those chats really help fix issues.
I was automatically switching to tank healing when that happened as well when our Resto Shaman got yanked since I knew she was covering the tanks – you didn’t call it. The second time I continued blanketing the raid with renews when you did call it. Communication is vital. I need to auto call it too and you need to start trusting me enough to know I’m going to pick up tank healing when they lose a healer. Especially since we discussed it last.
One thing for sure, if you are aiming for shielding 23 guys every defile you will not have time for anything else.
I’d recommend holy pala on both tanks with shammy on melees + MT. Then you are left with 4 healers for 4 groups. On normal 25 it’s totally doable to handle infest using any class. So, take 1 group for you, leave rest for others – they need some fun too.
If you really want to do more – gogo shield other guys groups, or if tank healer id grabbed go for tank.
You will also love the fast burs you can give to guy with Harvest Soul on p3.
Long story short – don’t put to much on you.
GL with LK
There is no “I” in TEAM!
🙂
Your other healers simply need to step it up and help out with infests, or help out with the tanks, whichever you decide. It can’t be all on the disc priest(s), that’s why you have shamans, druids and holy priests around too. That’s just a healing breakdown, not a failure to delegate.
If it’s a big deal, I’d suggest assigning who will be the backup tank healer so you know who is switching. That way, you won’t have everyone switch because you’re afraid of losing the tank, and then lose people to infest.
.-= Wugan´s last blog ..How to Wipe on the Lich King Encounter =-.
Although I understand the knee-jerk reaction when stuff hits the fan is to revert to what you know you can do, as disc, you are vital to keeping players alive through Infest. While a resto shaman, pally or druid can keep a tank alive in a crutch situation they absolutely cannot proactively mitigate Infest on 10+ targets or PoH a group that’s running after Valks. In my not-so–humble opinion, you should lay tank deaths at someone else’s feet; your time and your GCDs are better spent elsewhere.
By way of example, for HM LK25 we run: Pallies x 2 on tanks, Disc on ranged dps (groups 4/5), Holy or Disc2 on Healers (group 1), and Shaman/Druid on melee (groups 2/3), for a total of 6 healers. If one or both of our pallies is picked up, the druid and I switch primary focus to tanks while the Disc/Holy stay as assigned. Conversely, if two raid healers are picked up, then it’s an ideal time for DSac, Hymns, Healthstones, Cloaks, Iceblocks, and/or Tranquility.
.-= Vixsin´s last blog ..The Construction and Deconstruction of an App =-.
Trust and delegation are essential components of a good leader. It’s difficult, but you trust to earn trust. Hang in there! Just assign 1 person to call incoming defile, 1 person to call incoming valk’ and focus on calling out infests.
🙂
We failed for a long time (70+) when I was solo shielding the raid for infests, but since switching to shielding just groups 3,4 and 5 (ranged dps and healers) and leaving my two druid mates to focus on a group each we’ve killed him 2 times out of 3. It also means I get time to do something other than shield and provides leeway for val’kyr/defile/disease/phase transition movement. Hope it helps.
It is odd you wrote this before we did ICC 10 man last night and the difficulties you were having