heal

4 Smart Studying Lessons to Help Get an A in Your Raid

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For the few of us unlucky souls who are undergoing a summer semester in school, it serves to have a helpful reminder of what we students can do to get ahead and get an A. The flip-side is that some of these lessons work both ways and can be applied in WoW.

Do your homework

In math class, you derive equations from problem solving questions in order to find a solution. Practice, practice, practice. The goal here is to continue killing bosses like Tidewalker, Leo, Rage, Gorefiend, and etc to keep your skills sharp. Before you expect it, you’re going to get hit with an examination (who happens to be known as Illidan). The end-raid bosses serve as a check to see if you’ve learned anything from earlier bosses .

Make friends with the A-level students

Hint: They’re usually the ones that sit in the first two rows of the class. They have a good work ethic, they always pay attention, never miss a lecture, and they know what they’re doing. Typically, these A students won’t mind helping you out. They’ll give you a few tips for homework or help you study by giving you easy ways to remember certain facts. They help isolate your weaknesses in the subject, so you can recognize and prepare for them. In WoW, this might be someone in a slightly more progressed Guild. This is a player that’s already done what your Guild is working on and it pays to make friends with them so you can call on them from time-to-time for some advice on what they’ve done at certain points of a fight. If you happen to have your own blog, you just might discover that one of your readers has gone through the same experience that you’re going through right now and can help you get through the proverbial hump.

Get sleep

sleeping

Before every major exam or test, get a full night’s sleep. It’s been shown that sleeping is the most important thing a person can do to prepare because it allows the body to fully recharge and absorb materials from your studying sessions. The same holds true for WoW. There have been some raid days where I’ve been exhausted from lack of sleep. Raid time comes around and as a healer, it’s hard for me to keep my attention level high (because it can be boring on trash).  I typically counter the effects with a combination of coffee or tea (and at one point in time, caffeine pills but you shouldn’t do that), but the results are no substitute for the real thing. A rested raider is a happy raider.

Stick to the schedule you set for yourself

schedule

More importantly, make sure the raid leader follows this. There should be a 30 minute invite grace period allowing people to scramble in, get repaired, purchase reagents, create potions, etc. During this time, they should also be in position for the first pull the moment the 30 minutes are up. A late start is never a good sign since people will get frustrated. Figure out your goals for the evening and what to do if they’re met early. Will you give everyone the rest of the night off? Or push on and get some attempts on the next challenge? Decide out what you want to do, how to get there, and what can be realistically achieved with the time left. There’s a time for WoW, there’s a time for studying, and there’s a time for Wii Fit. Just as crucial is knowing what to do when you run out of time When there’s a scheduled end time, make sure that is followed. If it looks like the attempt is going to go over, kill the raid there. Don’t fall into the "just one more" trap. It’s best to come back the next raid day full of energy and life, and this ethic continues to reinforce your commitment to starting on time by ending on time. Respecting that 24 other players have set aside this time specifically for raiding, and they’ll be more likely to show up and push through the entire raid whether you succeed or fail.

Hopefully these four lessons can help you when you’re raiding. If not, maybe they’ll help you outside of WoW!

Any other students or retired students? Might there be some more sagely advice that can be added?

Brooding Over Bloodboil

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For once, I’m at a loss here and I’m hoping to garner some insight or advice from the readers. My Guild had started to work on Gurtogg Bloodboil. We were working on Bloodboil for a few hours on Sunday. I used to think that Najentus was considered a heavy healing fight.

Boy was I wrong.

I won’t go too much into an explanation, but here’s the WoWWiki link for the strategy.

Loadout

  • 4 Holy Paladins
  • 2 Holy Priests
  • 1 Discipline Priest
  • 1 Resto Shaman
  • 1 Resto Druid

Directions

Phase 1

3 Paladins on each tank. We use 3 to rotate aggro on the boss. I, the Holy Priest, heal the tank who is actively being attacked by the boss. The rest of the healers are assigned to the bloodboil groups healing (Resto Shaman, Priest, Paladin) or raid healing.

Phase 2

This is where things get dicey. The 3 Paladins that were on the tanks immediately jump the player with Fel Rage. I heal up the melee before switching to tanks and then raid healing. The Resto Druid covers the 3 tanks. 1 Paladin and 1 Resto Shaman are raid healing. The other Holy Priest and Discipline Priest are also on the player with Fel Rage.

If the player is a clothie, Pain Suppression gets applied.

Problems

A player with Fel Rage has the following effects:

  • increases armour by 15,000
  • increases health by 30,000
  • increases healing done by 100%
  • increases damage done by 300%
  • increases size by 100%

The raid gains a buff called Insignificance where every spell they cast has no threat. One problem is that if a clothie gets hit with Fel Rage and Pain Suppression is applied, the player dies just as Fel Rage is about to wear off. Gurtogg gets progressively stronger during this phase. I can’t help but wonder if it would be a better idea to delay Pain Suppression for about 5 seconds before it becomes applied.

In our case, it’s not just the person with Fel Rage who is dying. Other members of the raid seem to be dying from a lack of heals or other miscellaneous reasons.

I can’t help but wonder if it would be better to stack all four of the Paladins on the Fel Rage’d player immediately along with the Discipline Priest and then have the Holy Priest switch to raid healing instead. This would essentially give us a picture of something like this:

  1. 4 Paladins and a Disc. Priest on Fel Rage
  2. 2 Holy Priests, a Resto Shaman, and a Resto Druid on the raid divided up accordingly

By switching the Holy Priest to the raid, this opens up a lot more options that the healer can use other then Flash of Light spamming.

Another problem that isn’t so urgent is our DPS output. Gurtogg has a 10 minute enrage encounter. I notice that when we hit the ~50% mark, the timer is around 4:45 or less. Granted we did lose 1 or 2 players at this point.

I seriously hope the Recount Death meter gets fixed as soon as possible. With that tool being down, we have no way of ascertaining the cause of death when players die. As a result, healer blame has increased in recent weeks and has gotten me irritated. Most of the time, it’s never justified. It tends to be the result of a fight mechanic that players seem to forget about (some raiders mysteriously forget that Najentus’ spines can be removed). Therefore, the "blame healers" catch all is used. I’m afraid that I might one day lash out if I see another "healers fault for wiping" comment in the raid.

Get a Bear Mount: 10 Tips on Beating the Zul’Aman Timer

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Image courtesy of Daino_16

The Zul’Aman timer run is one of the most difficult challenges in the game. If executed perfectly, you’ll find yourself with a brand new bear mount along with a host of other extra epic goodies. You have exactly 45 minutes to kill the first four bosses in Zul’Aman if you intend to get that bear mount. I haven’t been able to get a bear mount yet myself, but I’ve learned a few tricks after talking to a couple of guildies and from my own experience.

Be Overgeared

This is a real big no brainer. If you plan on beating the timer, you should be almost out of T5 level gear and into Black Temple/Mount Hyjal gear. That means your Kara/Gruul/Mag gear has got to go. In fact, you shouldn’t even need ZA gear.

Know the fights

Again, also a no brainer but there is no time to explain. You have to know the encounters by heart because it simply takes too long to explain it.

2 Healers

Yes, you read that correctly. Bringing three healers is almost essential just to completing the instance. To bring 2 healers would almost be suicide! But believe me, by bringing only 2 healers, that extra DPS will go a long way in netting a bear mount.

Prot. Paladin, Feral Druid, Fury Warrior

This is the suggested tanking group. Your Prot. Paladin’s going to shoulder most of the load. Your Feral Druid will be switching back and forth from DPS to tanking as necessary. Your Fury Warrior is just going to lay the smackdown on everything. Trust me on this. If you can find an awesome DPS warrior, you’ll be amazed at how fast trash can drop and go down. Furthermore, less down time without having to get mana back.

Group Make Up

Consider running 2 Warlocks and 2 Shadow Priests to increase longevity and overall damage. This was recommended to me by a Guildie who has successfully done it.

Skip the Chests

Yes, seriously, skip the chests. Don’t open them until after you success or your failure. The clock is ticking while you handle the extra loot. Just get everyone to get their badge, and haul ass to the next one. The chests will still remain there untouched and unopened while you’re plowing through the bosses.

Group Loot

While we’re speaking about loot, don’t use master looter. I’m assuming that there is little if any upgrades for you in this instance. Set it to group loot instead of master loot so that you don’t waste precious time handling rolls and timers and such. If a player wants it, hit need. If not, pass it. Get your DE’er to greed it. Except you might want to consider master looting the bear when you get to it

Use your cooldowns to minimize downtime

I’ve mentioned it before but you cannot skimp out on cooldowns. This is especially true as a healer. Remember our Shadowfiends have a 5 minute cooldown between use. Innervate is 6 minutes for Druids. Heroism is 10 minutes. Evocate is 8 minutes. You get the idea. Be very liberal in their use. You can’t spend a lot of time drinking. It’s literally pull, after pull, after pull.

Shortcuts

Check out these screenshots:

Zul'Aman Shortcut Outside Lynx

Zul'Aman shortcut path for Lynx

Recognize the location? This is the area leading up to the Lynx boss. There are a couple of huts on the left side that have no mobs inside them. Those windows might look small, but rest assured you are small enough to jump through them. Anyway, there are 2 such hits. The one shown above is the first. The diagram above is a very crude reconstruction. But hopefully, it will give you a better idea of what you need to do. If executed properly, you will bypass about 2 pulls which should save you between 1 minute to 2 minutes.

There’s another shortcut amongst the trash pulls leading to Dragonhawk. I’ll see if I can nab a few shots of it or even make a quick video about it in a future post.

Stable Core

If you plan on doing this run, you have to find a stable group of people to run with. Start off doing non-timed runs but try to keep the people the same. You don’t want to pug any players at all. Get the team chemistry going. I’ve communicated with my other healers enough to know who is healing who without having to ask. But playing with 9 other people you are familiar with is a good thing to do.

Good luck! I expect screenshots of you on your bear when you pull it off!

Prayers Were Answered

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We prayed long and we prayed hard. Even though it took 9 attempts, I had a feeling the big loot god in the sky smiled upon us (after deciding to slap us around a bit). But then he pulled the rug out from right under us. What a cruel joke. Like honestly. First he picks the same guy like three times in a row. This is a guy who has NEVER seen the fight before and JUST got briefed on it 5 minutes after we got there. Not only that, after kill him we only get one real piece of loot.

Sure enough:

Totem of Ancestral Guidance
Shadowmoon Destroyer’s Drape

 

I look forward to seeing the Twisted Blades of Zarak drop next week.

I’d also like to point out that I did 2860 DPS on that encounter and was 2nd on damage meters. 150 APM (actions per minute) helps a lot. I will definitely have to make a video for this stage. This is like the only encounter in the entire game where I get to DO something aside from healing! *squeal*

Weekly Digest: Gorefiend in the Crosshairs, WPDesigner, and Criticism

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What’s Happening in WoW

Not much in the way of progression so far. Our Tuesday involved getting down 4/5 Hyjal and on Thursday we cleaned up Shade of Akama in under 3 hours. This means Sunday will be a real progression night and a test to see if we have that guy in the raid or not. I sincerely hope not. But I will have the cameras running for the Carnage highlight reel.

And shout outs to that Warlock who messaged me the other day to pick off a White Remedy Cape (I think) off of me as well as to the Druid who I partied with in doing Heroic Slave Pens. I forgot your guys’ names but thanks for reading. You’re like the only two players I know of on Ner’Zuhl who read my blog. Other then my Guildies of course. I’ve somehow attracted the attention of Blori, the worst warrior on the server. I’ll have to watch what I write more carefully.

What’s Happening with the Blog

Interested in getting some new themes for your WordPress blog? I’m running a give away courtesy of WPDesigner. Check out this post for more details and bring your RP skills.

Latest Blog Posts

5 Barriers of a Raid Healer

My 5 part series for this month looks at the problems that new raid healers may come across.

  1. Indecisivity is Bad
  2. Dealing With Criticism

20 Questions by Matticus

I couldn’t find any victims last week. But this week, I found one! Nightravyn, one of the lurkers on the BA chatroom, sat on the hot seat.

Past Hits

Past columns I have written that still hold true to this day.

Blog Spotlight

Too Many Annas – Most of this blogger’s characters start with An. I haven’t come across many blogging Shamans yet. There are some notable ones out there, of course. But a Resto one is rare. Then again, maybe I’m not searching hard enough.

Matt likes: Raiding and the Resto Shaman. What? You mean there’s more to healing as a Resto Shaman then spamming brain heal?