Raid Healing

First impression on raiding with fixed mana in MoP

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So we’ve just had our first raid in MoP, Mogu’shan Vaults. It was pretty interesting from a healer perspective. Fixed mana has been one of those ultimately strange concepts from the time it was announced, and to be fair we weren’t quite sure how it would play out in a regular raid. I’m here to give you my first impressions on it, and a few opinions.

Again these are just my opinions, and my observations.

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Admit It: You Get High From Being Clutch

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gs-save

Ever wonder what it’s like to feel “high” in this game?

This is one of those methods.

I’d wager that Holy Priests get a bigger kick out of it then the other healers. Unlike the other clutch healing abilities, Guardian Spirit has two key effects: It offers both increased healing received on the target and the ability to grant a second chance in case the target dies.

Usually, when Holy Priests burn Guardian Spirit, it’s meant for the extra healing because of some massive amount of incoming damage.

But if tank health, your global cooldown, your lag and your reflexes all line up, then you just made a great save. The rest of the raid might not be aware of your efforts. But who cares? Deep down inside, you are the one that made that save and salvaged a possible kill from a definitive wipe.

It’s one of the best feelings in the World of Warcraft. I’ve never been able to score that feeling of satisfaction playing other healers. Sadly, whenever you do pull off the save, it ends up being a wipe. Seems rare whenever such a tank save results in a kill.

In any case, a new year means new responsibilities for people. Players have new priorities in their lives (or other games). My guild’s looking for 2 healers. I’m not picky on any classes. Yes, we’ll even consider Priests even though we have 3 right now. I would genuinely like the services of a Holy Paladin and a Resto Druid.

Special Delivery: Roundup Of This Week’s Best WoW Posts

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The last couple of weeks have seen the blogosphere gently swaying from side to side during the wait for Cataclysm, like a drunken llama on a narrow fence. A couple of weeks ago the blogosphere leaned more towards the healing type topics. Last week it loosely double-focused on healing and guild organisation. And now this week… well, this week we’re wobbling decidedly towards the guild organisation side of things and away from healing, although not entirely, because if we do that we might loose our balance.

Why, you ask?

It’s likely because as Cataclysm draws close we’re looking at restructuring our groups of seasoned (and I’m sure not inebriated) warriors so that we can meet Cataclysm’s challenges. And at the same time there’s not much new to say about healing now that the patch has been and gone, until Cataclysm itself hits and we wake up to find our healers at the top of the DPS charts.

…Oh! You meant why the llama analogy? I don’t know. Someone gave me caffeine. And it’s Saturday. But I bet you kept reading. Anyway, without further ado here’s this week’s MMO Melting Pot-sque roundup ‘specially for WoM readers of the healing, leading and guild related posts from around the blogosphere. Albeit with a distinct shimmy towards the latter.

  • Falling Leaves And Wings: Are 25 Mans Going To Be Worth The Effort In Cata? – Beruthiel is looking ahead to Cataclysm and wondering whether it’ll be worth running 25 mans in the new raid setup, even for a guild that specialises in 25 mans. Her worries are that raids won’t be properly balanced and 10 mans will still be easier for the same gear, added to the possibility that 25 mans won’t drop enough quantities of gear to make them progress at a relative speed to 10 mans. An interesting read for any raider, 10 or 25 man’er.
  • Organizing a 10 man team – Aunna’s got a brief if really quite detailed post on 10 mans. Not just on organizing them, though that does make up the latter chunk of her post. She’s also covering the benefits and disadvantages of raiding as a 10 man group, which is well written, refreshing to read and very grounded. Hear hear!
  • What It Takes To Be a Great Raid Leader – This is a great 5-point list for raid leaders by Saga over at Girls Don’t Play WoW. She says that it’s aimed primarily at newer raid leaders but as an experienced raid leader myself I found her post a very interesting read. Her points might seem obvious but they are all core principles of raid leading, some of which are easy to make mistakes with sometimes. Great post, and well timed for when people are organising for Cata.
  • Daily Thoughts: Raid healing – a short post by Sharden over at 15 Minutes of WoW musing on his recent forray into, yep, you got it – raid healing. He’s used to healing as a paladin and not doing the raid healing so much, so trying out the new role on his shaman sounds like it was a fresh experience. A nice read which I bet a lot of us can relate to or remember similar experiences!
  • Syl and Theanorak: Preparing For Healing Changes As DPS – This one’s not directly aimed at healers, but is from a healer trying to help their guild’s DPSers. Syl from Raging Monkeys has written a guide to her DPS guildies prepare for healing mechanic changes in Cataclysm, so they can brush up on their knowledge of what to stand in and what healing to expect. She invites you to use or adapt it for your own guildies, if you think they might benefit from it too.
  • Rules for Raiding – Analogue from Looking For More has posted her guild’s prospective raid rules and is looking for your thoughts on them. They’re covering things like attendence, strategy, tasks – and how raid members should behave in regards to these things. She’s asking us readers if we think they’re reasonable or whether we’d raid under them; an interesting question…

That’s it for this week. In a moment I’ve got to be heading off to do some organisation work for my own 10 man guild, but just before I go – what do you think, this week? Do you have a bee in your bonnet about any of these topics or are you hoping for more posts on a different subject?

Another Battle Rez?

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In my morning perusal of MMO-Champion, I came across a Blue Post from our friendly neighborhood crab (AKA Ghostcrawler) about the mandatory nature of Shamans. You can read the whole post if you like, since there are some compelling arguments on both sides.  However, I want to draw your attention to one specific part that caught my eye:

For now, in Cataclysm, we are just sharing even more of the buffs and debuffs across a wide gamut, especially very powerful ones like Bloodlust and Battle Rez,….

Say what now?!! We can all agree that Rebirth is a very nice ability to have in progression fights. It’s the only ability to bring someone else back to life in the middle of combat. Sure, Shamans have Reincarnation, but Rebirth allows any class to return to the land of the living.

Even our beloved Goblin Jumper Cables XL lack the ability to rez in combat.

Another Battle Rez?! What an awesome addition, if you ask me. Especially if the intent is to make 10man raids more appealing. There won’t be a need to stack druids on harder fights where a lot of people are “off’ed”. Take a look at a couple other skills that are being shared:

Who is going to get it, though? The new class abilities show no sign of another in-combat resurrection, even amongst non-healing classes. Will it be something that can be learned like the Jumper Cables? Or will it be assigned to one specific class? With the latest tweaks to Guild Perks, we can’t expect it to be one of those. Blizzard doesn’t want those to be game-changing abilities.

So, who do you think it will be?

Email: Elder.Thespius@gmail.com | Twitter: @Thespius

Configuring the Healing UI: What’s on Your Wishlist?

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You can see elements of the default healing UI in place in a recent post. A number of you asked what the configuration window for it was like.

Don’t laugh.

Here it is.

healing-ui-config

Yeah, that’s it.

I should also add that it’s certainly possible to drag it the frames around. I can’t seem to find a way to lock it but maybe that’s a user error.

You’ll notice a c heck box that says Keep Groups Together.

Unchecked, it allows you to sort groups by role, group or name.

Now I don’t expect the default interface to outright replace addons like our beloved Vuhdo or Grid. But I do believe there are some aspects of it that could use additional improvement. It’s important to discern between must have and nice to have but can probably heal without it type changes.

  • I’ve already mentioned the need for clearer debuffs to appear on the frames
  • Resizeable bars would be excellent to have because not everyone plays on the same setup
  • Customizable energy bars. I don’t need to see rage, focus, or energy bars but I do need to see mana bars of other players (healers specifically)

What about you? What would you like to see added? What do you think is important to have on your healing UI? What can you get away without having?