Healing Meme – Sorak

Sorak was kind enough to complete the meme for us and I have his replies here:

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Sorak, shaman, resto spec

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

5 mans and 10 man raids

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Chain heal, it’s very efficient provided you cast it in an ideal situation (when people stack or are clustered).  I also like Healing Rain, same conditions as the prior (see a pattern developing here?)

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Unleash Elements, it’s fairly new in my healing career.  I forget to use it because I’ve swapped mains to my DK and I don’t get to heal as much on Sorak anymore.  It’s a good spell, can be used as a bomb heal in conjunction w/ Greater Healing Wave or make my Chain heal hit for more.  Another reason is the CD is quite long on it, I believe 15 seconds. 

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Totems, we can fill in a lot of buffs needed to round out a well balanced raid group. 

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Movement.  I can’t speak for other Resto Shams, but I never did very well with it.  We only have one instant heal (Riptide, hits for a small amount and then applies a semi long HoT).  More importantly after you cast Riptide, I get a buff that lowers the casting time on Greater Healing Wave and Lesser Healing wave to 1.5 seconds, for the next two casts of said spells.

We have a 2 min CD ability you learn at 85 called Spirit Walkers Grace which allows you to move and cast for 15 seconds.  Again, only being able to cast on the move every 2 minutes or so isn’t what I’d consider good!

8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I enjoy healing with classes that can mitigate damage, since I’m more of a brute force healer in 10’s.  We’re not as blunt of a healer as a Holy Paladin but we’re nowhere near on the level of a Resto Druid or old school Disc priest for mitigation. 

9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Another blunt healing class.  Not much variety in our heals doesn’t make up for a good raid composition. 

10. What is your worst habit as a healer?

I get tunnel vision in raids, too much staring at grid to pay attention to what everyone else is doing.  Perhaps my worst habit is too much casting Lightning Bolt to regain mana back from Telluric Currents.  C’mon, you know restoring 2k mana is more important than keeping party members alive, especially during Chimeraon!!

In 5 mans my worst habit is pulling mobs when the tank is too slow (ie mostly every pug), I’m a gogogogogo kind of person, and If I’m pulling as the healer, the tank is not moving fast enough. 

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

STACK UP BITCHES!  Every successful raid plays to their raid comps strong points, when I’m healing, my most efficient heals require people to stack up!  We have a lot of bad ranged members (the most notorious one starts with an L, and ends in yssianna).  As soon as he/she (the verdict is still out there about a voice over program) get into range to pew pew, he/she stops and well………pew pews.

See the pic below for my Spirit Link Totem macro

 

Asking SR to stack is like asking me to CC, it doesn't happen.

 

 

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Now that Resto Sham’s finally have a raid CD we can use to mitigate damage I believe we should be on par with other healers.  We won’t be top heals, but at least we can contribute raid damage mitigation, hell even fury wars received something like that before Resto Sham’s did!

 13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Did we down the boss?  Recount and World of Logs

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

No clue. 

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

As a Resto Sham, always keep Riptide on CD.  It helps keep your casting time down to a minimum.  Punish those that don’t stack, negative reinforcement is the way to go!   Some ranged dps (the most notorious one starts with an L, and ends in yssianna) feel like they can survive on their own w/o any help from healers, he/she/they should be thankful I don’t heal much anymore!

Keep up Earthliving Weapon on at all times, keep Earthshield up on MT / OT or Zugzuug. 

Be aggressive w/ Mana Tide totem, it’s a short CD, take advantage of it!

16. If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Too much Lightning bolt spam and not enough casting of Unleash Elements.  In Cata I don’t tend to over heal as much, I think my healing output is OK, but I’ll let others determine that. 

17. Haste or Crit and why?

Haste to lower your GCD down to 1 sec, and get an additional tick of Riptide on your target.  I know crit is our lowest stat weight, but crit does help.  When you crit a direct heal, you get mana back from water shield, you also proc Ancestral Healing and Awakening.

Ancestral Healing: reduces physical damage by 10% for 15 seconds

Ancestral Awakening: heals the lowest percentage health in the party / raid for 30% of the original heal. 

18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?

All of them except for a Resto Sham.  I’ve never played another healing class o I don’t know the mechanics to play one well.  I happen to be lucky and play w/ pro healers.  They do their job well and I leave it at that.

 19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

In Wrath I’ve used grid, I’ve been using the default raid UI for a while, just a few days ago I swapped to Vuhdo.  Totem timers, does exactly what you think it does.  Power Auras to keep track of my CD’s. 

I’ve always used mouse over macros since I’ve started healing, even though you can configure Vuhdo to do mouse clicks, I’d rather not rely on a mouse or addon like someone I know (starts with an L, and ends in yssianna)

 

 

Thank you Sorak for filling out the survey and although you are a total brat (seriously) we still love you. 😀

Healing meme Take 2!

Well the the healing meme is going around again and I got tagged twice.  As some of you might remember, I filled this out in the original call for it.  Although I am no longer primarily healing (I get to pew pew bitches!) I still heal from time to time.

Now I am going to preface this by saying that I don’t heal much at all so a lot of my answers really won’t have long replies.
 

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Naedaessa aka PPP.  She is a Disc priest.  Although I think she is in her shadow off-spec for dailies currently.  I used to heal with Tattia (Tatia the nelf in the original survey) but I found that I just don’t enjoy my druid the way I enjoy my priest and I switched over as soon as I could.

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

PPP primarily does 5 mans or our 10 man alt runs.

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Penance bitches!  Lazer lights up your butt!  I love to see the ticks crit for 20k a pop.  It makes me giggle and smile.

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Well this particular answer isn’t so much because I don’t like the spells, it is just because I FORGET I have the spells and thus forget to use them.  >.<  I am BAD at priesting here people.

So let’s go down the list!

Renew – too expensive and doesn’t heal enough to warrant the spending of mana;  Prayer of Healing – I forget I can hit Inner Focus and use this every time IF is off cooldown;  Lifegrip – Forget I have it until someone else grabs me thus pissing me off that I have been grabbed;  Divine Hymn – Forget I have it until Slice calls for it;  Hymn of Hope – Forget I have it unless it is asked for;  Some others I forget to use:  Pain Suppression, Power Infusion, Binding Heal.

I told you I was a bad priest!

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

We are fantastic single target healers and are very flexible with healing roles.  This is especially helpful in 10 man raiding.  We can do it all bitches!

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

AoE heals.  I can single target heal a person up very well, but when you bring in more than 2 people I start gasping for mana and die in the vapors of my mana pool.

8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

Well I have only healed with a pally and a druid.  So I really can’t answer this well.  I just don’t have any experience with other healing classes (or enough in this case) to really know what I like and I don’t like.

9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

See above.

10. What is your worst habit as a healer?

See #4.  BAD PRIEST!

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

People telling me how to heal if they place that class (I’m looking at you Slice! *glares*).  If I am doing something wrong and people are dying, then yes by all means step in and fix the situation.  If people are living and I am not OOM then STFU.  I play my priest a bit different than most (all you have to do is see my spec to see this) but I get the job done.  I am sure if I had more practice healing in raids (soooooo not happening) then things would probably change, but until then STFU!

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

I think that Disc is ideal for playing with others.  We can even play nicely with another Disc priest.  Everyone loves us and our Power Word: Nipple.

13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Did Slice lecture me?  Did people die?  Am I OOM in the beginning of the fight?

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That you cannot bubble spam and have mana (I can and do!) and that Heal sucks.  I LOVE Heal.  I think I am the only priest out there that does.

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

EVERY FUCKING SPELL A PRIEST HAS.  Seriously though, we have SO MANY spells that if you learned to play a priest like I did (LFD with bubble/Penance/Renew/Flash Heal as my only used spells) then you might have some issues.  I know that I had to actually keybind OTHER spells when I started healing 5 mans in Cata.

16. If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Honestly I couldn’t tell you.  I haven’t really researched my healing on recount/WoL.  Most of the time when I am playing PPP she is healing a 5 man and that really isn’t much to look at for comparison.

17. Haste or Crit and why?

LOL I wish I could answer this one.  When I get a new piece of gear I ask Slice what I should do with it.  So see his answer.  Now with my druid I knew I wanted Haste, but I just have no clue with the priest.

18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?

It is a toss up between a Holy Pally and a Holy Priest.  I have played a lower level Shaman so I have some idea (not a lot but SOME) of what you need to do but I haven’t ever played a heally Pally, nor have I played Holy.  My very first priest (a space goat named Lyssiana of all things) was Holy but she only made it to like level 30 before I switched back to the lock.  This was also way back in BC era so things are different now.

19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Vuhdo through and through.  I use the mouse click options for my spells.  Macros hate me so I only have 2.  One that announces that I am OOM and another that I spam when I am getting hit that says “I am being HIT!”  I love to spam that one. 😀

I use Power Auras when I dps but I haven’t set up any for my healing.  I probably should, but I am very lazy so it probably won’t happen any time soon.

Let’s see, whom do I want to tag on this . . . I want to see if I can get the other healers in SR to do a guest post and answer these questions.  So I will tag Sorak, Zarm and Zerl’s Pally Lery.  Of course all of them are in their DPS specs.  /Sigh.

Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a drop to drink . . . yet!

As most of you know, PPP hit 85 a while back.  Since then I had been mostly using her to grind out TB dailies and to farm herbs.  I did a few heroics (she only had 4 green pieces when she dinged 85 ^_^) but those were as shadow.  While I was leveling her post 80 she didn’t set foot in a dungeon.  Which considering she was leveled in LFD is kind of odd.  My main reason for this was so she could herb as she leveled.

Yes I am serious.

The other reason was because I knew that Disc healing in Cata kind of sucks until you have some gear.  A fresh 85 (usually) doesn’t have the gear to not struggle.  Even though I had already popped my Cata healing cherry with Tattia (and it didn’t hurt all that much tbh) I was still apprehensive about healing with PPP.

I think a big part of it was because I leveled with the old style of Disc.  The bubble spamming Wrath-era Disc.  Where I could bubble everyone in the group and spam Flash Heal when someone dropped below 75%.  Even though I knew I could no longer play my priest that way I still was slightly worried.

The funny part was I was kind of getting used to playing Shadow.  It isn’t quite like Affliction.  It is more like the ugly redheaded step-child of Affliction.  I still prefer Affliction’s playstyle, but I will admit that Shadow is fun.  While with Affliction you have to watch all of your DoTs and keep them refreshed, you really don’t have too many procs to look out for.  With Shadow I have found you have the DoTs to track but the vast majority is spent building up stacks and using the  procs.  I find that while I am herbing in Uldum I get attacked by every croc and snake out there.  If I end a fight with an orb proc or an archangel proc I feel like I need to pick another fight just to use it.  The closest Affliction has is a Nightfall proc.  Unfortunately that proc has only a few seconds vs 30 some odd seconds for the orb proc.

I know that Slice and Sorak have been trying to figure out what I am planning to do with my priest.  Mostly it involves complaining that I am not healing heroics on her.  Because heaven forbid I level an alt to just farm. :-p

As I mentioned above, I had been grinding out TB dailies on her.  My main goal was to get her the healing trinket.  Well I finally got it on Friday (I think) (Edit: Thursday!) and thus had run out of excuses.  Saturday I got her enchanted up (some basic ones at the least) and then said that I was ready to try healing.

A normal.

Yeah I am doing this the correct way!

AKA the wussy way according to some people.

Slice offered to tank on his pally, Rep brought her mage, Arv nabbed his priest and Sorak brought Sorac, the fury warrior.  Luckily for me Rep & Arv were 81 and Sorac was only 83.  This meant that they wouldn’t be doing too many horrific things to me and we would get a fairly low level dungeon.  I knew it would either be Throne or Blackrock.  Sure enough Throne popped up.

I had no issues.  In fact I was rather bored.  To be fair it is a level 80-81 dungeon and I am heroic ilvl (I did say I had 4 greens) so I overgeared the place, as did Slice’s pally.  So it really didn’t count.  Arv & Rep got a few upgrades.  I think Sorac even got something so the run wasn’t a total waste.

After we finished the run Sorak decided we were done with the “pansy normals” and people switched out to run a heroic.  Arv got on his pally to tank, Sorak got on his rogue, Rep switched to her DK and Slice got on his boomkin.  We queued up and got Heroic Halls.  For one I was excited because lots of bosses = points & lots of chances for gear.  Then the other part of me freaked out because the first part of that place is HELL on healers.

Slice was in vent with me and was teasing me about pulling out my hair.

It never got that bad.

Mostly because when Slice can heal on a toon, he does.  Even if it is dps spec.  He throws out heals on his priest his pally AND his druid, no matter the spec.  I don’t think he can help himself.  So I know that the run would have gone A LOT rougher had he not been there on his druid.  I think he actually spent more time healing than I did.  I finally had to ask him to stop healing so I could see if I could handle it and would ask him for him if I needed it, which I did.

I will say that the fire shield guys SUCK without someone that can deal with their shield.

I use Vuhdo to heal.  I love it.  The problem is I don’t always remember which button combination gives me what spells.  While leveling PPP I didn’t really have to use many spells.  It was mostly bubble and forget it.  The result is I don’t know what half of my spells do, nor do I remember to use the ones that I do know.

PW: Barrier?  Yeah I forget I have that to use.  Pain Suppression? Yep forget that one too.  Power Infusion? Oops! Forgot!

I kept finding myself wanting to use my right mouse button to spam heals.  On my druid this button is Rejuv.  Previously on my priest it was Flash Heal.  I changed it to Heal.  So I’ve been spamming heal.  I have Penance as my left button and PW: Shield as my middle button.  Shift+Left Click is Greater Heal.  Button 4 is remove magic.  Button 5 is remove disease.  And that is the extent of what I remember I mapped. >.<

What I really need to do is update my spells.  I need to put Flash Heal where I will remember it (I specced into Surge of Light, yes I know, but frankly I like it and the free big heal is nice).  I also need to get Prayer of Mending on a button.  99% of the time I forget to cast it.  PS and PI need to be popped on there too.  A big problem I have is because I am Smite specced (and I do Smite, sometimes) I don’t have Vuhdo set up to where I target the person I am healing.  This allows me to keep a mob targeted (and not lose it) so I can Smite.  The issue comes up when I want to use a spell that I either don’t have mapped or if I need to target a person for some reason or another.  Then I either need to remember which F key is which person or I need to click on the party frames.  This of course causes delays etc.

Yes I am fail!  Trust me I am aware of it! :-p

At the same time I don’t know if switching to the targeting (like I have on my druid) would work with my Smite Spec.

Oh well I’ll figure it out with practice.

Other than wiping to the fire shield guys we actually didn’t have any major issues.  I let Sorak die several times.  Mostly because I just cannot heal more than one person THAT much at once.  AKA you pull aggro and don’t lose it, you die.  He was on his rogue.  If he couldn’t drop aggro then he is a bad rogue.

Psst!  He couldn’t drop aggro. 😉

About halfway through the run Arv had to go and we kind of made Rep tank.  She DOES NOT tank heroics.  So thank you again sweetie for tanking! 😀  She did a fantastic job and really wasn’t tough to heal.

Funny thing:  When you go into heroics with a green level chest (hey I did TRY to do regulars) getting a blue heroic chestpiece is a HUGE upgrade and makes healing soooooooooooo much easier.

We did another heroic with a few people switching out.  We got SFK.  Sorak was on his shaman and we dragged Zari in on his shaman too.  Slice tanked and we picked up a PuG DK to dps.  As we grouped up Zari was all “where are the DKs?”  He just HAD to jinx us. >.<

Actually the DK wasn’t bad.  Was kind of a jerk but wasn’t a bad player.

Now that run was VERY easy to heal.  I blame the shamans.  I have a feeling one of them was running healing stream.  I think we only had like 1 or 2 deaths.  The only time I panicked was during the first boss fight where he drains everyone’s life.  Slice was telling me when to use my Barrier (which I had COMPLETELY forgotten about and not used once all day) and I of course used it at the wrong time. /sigh  This led him to ask me why in the hell I had used it when I did.  Yeah I panicked.  It is all good though!  We made it through!  Sorak even said that he wasn’t helping me heal at all!

We did a couple more changes and Fayle decided he was going to tank.  Slice wanted to heal on his pally.  Zari switched to his priest and Rep came back on her DK (she had been afk).  I came along as shadow because I wanted the points and a chance to steal gear from Zari (which I totally did!).

Just FYI – I SUCK at trying to make it around corners without pulling mobs we are trying to skip.  So if you are in a party with me and you are trying to cut corners *cough*Sorak*cough* remember what happens.

Yeah I kind of wiped the group. >.<

In my defense I was trying to eat pasta (brown rice pasta is GROSS when it gets cold) while it was still hot.

Not a very good defense, but there it is!

The elusive wand dropped (first time there and it drops! win!!) and I snagged it.  I don’t know if Zari needed it or not.  Tis mine though!  On the final boss we changed up the specs a bit.  My dps is shit as Shadow (main spec is Disc after all) so Slice went prot, I went Disc and Fayle went dps so we could get the adds down.  At this point I had replaced my helmet, chest and wand (2 of those were green) and OMG the difference!  I actually had been remembering to use my Shadowfiend (I can never think of him as anything other than Nigel thanks to Tam) so I didn’t have any problem with mana.  I actually made mana pots for PPP and have yet to use one.  The boss dropped a staff (woot! upgrade over the Very Manly Staff).  After that run I was “told” I was coming on one on my lock. /sigh

All in all it was a good weekend.  I got boots from the quest reward so there went another green.  Yes my new helmet and boots have hit on them, but frankly I don’t care.  They were upgrades!  It wasn’t like I was taking them from anyone else who could use them.  The only green item I have left are my bracers.  Yes I know I could craft the PvP ones, but I refuse to.  I will get bracers when I get bracers.

As an aside, bracers dropped in the heroic I was in with my lock.  Go figure.

Tonight is raid night and the funny thing is all I want to do is to run heroics on the priest.  I had gotten to where I wasn’t a fan of them.  Now with the new challenge they are interesting again.

Go figure! 😉

I think I shall make a post!

I have settled into an odd mood with WoW.  I am not quite bored of it, nor am I burned out, but I am not exactly feeling the need to log in constantly.

I have my two 85s and now that Tattia is starting on heroics the challenge is back, but in a different way.  I am not saying that heroics are by any means really easy on Lyssi, but I know them (except for ToT, I still haven’t even seen that place) and I don’t really have any “O Shit! What do I do here?!?!” moments on her anymore.  With Tattia there is the challenge of healing.  This has put a whole new shine on everything and I am kind of looking forward to logging in a bit more.

Healing at the end of Wrath sucked.  I was bored to tears of ICC and I never wanted to heal it again.  The new healing style of Cataclysm suits me so much better and I am loving healing again.  Looking back, I pretty much already healed this way.  Until I switched my druid to SR she wasn’t geared to where she could spam heals and never go oom.  I had already been working with a “stand there and don’t heal unless you have to” mentality.  The difference from then and now is that back then I actually was trying to top off everyone and now I don’t even worry about it.

I had been healing regular dungeons here and there on Tattia.  Mostly in PuGs.  Yes I know, I am a sick sick person.  I actually got pretty lucky in my groups.  I only had to drop out of one and that one was destined to fail no matter what I did.  Since I didn’t want to be blamed for the “dps queuing as tank” fail I quickly & quietly left the group.  Most of the time my regular dungeons were specific ones because I was hunting for the gear upgrades that I needed.  It took forever and a day for me to upgrade my green quest reward relic in regulars.  Get this!  In my first heroic dungeon I got a relic upgrade.

Go fucking figure.

The original plan for last night was for Slice to tank some regulars and for me to heal him.  I tried to get Del to log in when he got back from class but he was a no show. :-p  What ended up happening was Slice took a nap (he had been feeling sick) and I got into a heroic with Sorak and Zarm.  We nabbed Dro (one of our new guys) and Sorak told him he was tanking.  Now Dro has never played an MMO except for WoW and he just started playing a few months ago.  He is one of my brother’s friends that came over to play with him.  From what I understand he leveled mostly dps (fury) but tanked here and there.  Since he was so new to the entire everything there is a learning curve, but all things considered he didn’t do too badly.

We first went in as 4 guildies and a PuG dps.  We got a mage and I immediately started squeeing over getting mage food.  The stingy mage made me ONE STACK of mage food and didn’t even offer it to the rest of the group (shaman & druid).  I was kind of sad I didn’t get a table, but I thanked him in chat and then talked crap about him in vent.

It is just how I roll bitches!

We had a bunch of afk time in the beginning of the dungeon then wiped to the first pull (bad positioning and too many kobolds).  The amount of damage was fast and high.  I think I was one shot.  The mage left.  It was rather funny.  We had just been talking about the rightness of booting him and bringing in a guildie.  For once I wasn’t the mean one (I am looking at you Sorak!) and was actually saying it wouldn’t be cool to boot him because he probably waited like 45 mins to get a queue.  When he dropped we grabbed Slice (who had finally woken up) and headed back in.

For some reason Deadmines can either fly by super fast or it can just take you 50 million years to complete.  There is no in-between.  Between Dro’s tanking, and my “just barely heroic ready” healing we ended up with a LONG ASS Deadmines run.  Guess what dropped?  All rogue gear.  There were 2 pieces of non-rogue gear:  the caster staff and the caster relic.  Both of which I snagged.  Yes I know the staff doesn’t have spirit, so it isn’t that great of an upgrade, but damn it!  It was still an upgrade from what I had equipped.  You can always reforge some spirit onto the item!  The relic was the biggest reason for squeeing.  I was already anticipating having to wait forever to get that item upgraded just to have it drop in my first heroic.  Yay for me!

My impression with healing wasn’t too bad actually.  As I mentioned above, I already was kind of healing this way.  While healing regulars I got the “rotation” down.  It is amazing how much healing you can get done with very little mana.  I never went oom in the entire heroic run.  I never used a potion and I rarely used my innervate.  If I got below 40% mana (I usually ended the fight around 50 something %) it was because I had to cleanse a lot of stuff.  I also never use the ToL form, which I know is probably very bad.  The times when I used it during Wrath I went oom so fast my head spun.  I find that in panic situations (where I should probably pop it) I just pop rejuvs and move my lifebloom stacks around.  When it is really bad I hit tranquility.

This is typically how I heal:

3 stacks of lifebloom on the tank.  I pop a rejuv on him when he starts taking damage.  If he gets below 80% I let the lifebloom stacks bloom.  If not, then I refresh them using lifebloom (it is less mana AND faster than nourish).  I pop swiftmend EVERY time it is up to get Efflorescence  down.  I use my Clearcasting procs to pop a regrowth up on either the tank or on a dps that is low.  If I don’t have a Cc proc I don’t usually use regrowth (unless it is an emergency and I need that heal fast) and the dps will get a regrowth and possibly lifebloom stacks if I don’t need to keep them on the tank.  I have been trying to remember to pop Wild Growth each time it is off cooldown (I forget to use it, long cooldown & yes I have a timer on my screen for it) so that probably needs to be used more.  I’ve been typically trying to use Innervate when I hit around 75-80% mana, but even then sometimes I forget until I am around 50-60%.

Yes this run wasn’t exactly proof that I am pure win and healing is easy peasy for me (although it kind of is) but it definitely was a nice intro into heroics.  We didn’t really CC each pull, and the bad dps *cough*Sorak*cough* kept pulling off the newbie tank.  Several times I had healing aggro and Dro wasn’t able/didn’t seem to know and Zarm switched to bear form and saved my furry ass.  Even then I was usually able to recover.  I did die a lot though.  I do mean a lot.  Even with the guild perks we have I had broken gear halfway through.  >.>

I don’t want to take full credit for the lighter load on my healing run.  Slice was on his shadow priest and he can’t resist helping heal.  He has twitchy fingers.  I would constantly see weakened soul up on people (yes babe I see when you are “helping” me heal) and Sorak has his healing rain macro’d to go off when he gets some proc.  So I know I was getting help.  I don’t think I am quite ready to fully PuG a heroic, but I just might be ready to do a run with Zug.  Not necessarily Zug tanking, but a Zug dpsing run.  Maybe.

Yes he will be allowed to die several times.

Both Sorak & Zug know that I will flat out not heal them when they pull aggro & die.  They take it good naturedly and laugh about it.

Once I thought Zug had bitched me out, but he was complaining about the boss.  It was kind of funny actually.

Anyway, it is kind of quiet on this front.  Depending on my work schedule (meaning if my boss shows up or not) I will post when I can and if I have something to say.  I know I missed Friday’s post, but in my defense Slice was visiting and I wasn’t really thinking about my blog if you catch my drift.

You blushing yet sweetie? 😉

Last night

Was a ton of fun.  At least that is what I keep hearing from everyone.  Slice was telling me that over and over again while on the phone after the raid.  My brother kept whispering me telling me how much fun he was having.  Sorak pings me on gchat and tells me how last night was a lot of fun.  When I was talking with Repgrind she also told me she had a lot of fun.

Who knew raiding would be fun like this in the 11th hour?

I personally was just stressed to the max healing.  So while everyone was having fun and getting phat lewts, I was freaking out over healing and developing a stiff neck.

Normally I wouldn’t be freaking out but trying to 2 heal ICC with the “new” mana regen was not fun.  Arv and I double druid healed.  He didn’t have much experience with resto druid healing, but he is pro so I wasn’t worried about it.  The problem I was having was the fact that I was going OOM in every fight.  There wasn’t an opportunity to sit back and let my passive regen happen.  I know that if I was having a problem that Arv was probably having even more of one.  I was using a flask of pure mojo AND spirit food.  I was popping innervate every time it was up and mana pots when I was dead in the water.  The druid healing style of Wrath doesn’t fit with the current system.

In ICC there is a TON of damage coming in from all angles.  The tanks are getting whacked with huge hits and the raid is being slammed with constant damage as well.  All during Wrath druids would blanket the raid with rejuv and pop in a few regrowths as needed or even spam nourish.

You can’t do that anymore.

Nourish now takes too damn long to cast.  You don’t really want to use it because it just doesn’t work with the fast paced environment of damage in ICC.  There is the option of using it with nature’s swiftness, but it doesn’t heal for as much as healing touch so you don’t want to gimp that big heal.  Let’s face it, if you are using your NS macro, then you are hitting your “oh shit!” button and you need as big of a heal as you can get.  So Nourish is out of the running.

Regrowth got its timer lessened.  Now you get a nice big heal upfront and a very short duration of a hot.  I really do like this spell, don’t get me wrong, but I am not used to the new version of it.  My mind still thinks of it lasting longer so I still treat it like it is the old version.  This results in me forgetting to keep it up on the tanks.  Otherwise this is your go-to spell.

Rejuvenation isn’t all that changed.  With everyone’s health pools being so large this heal doesn’t feel like it does all that much anymore.  I hit this spell more out of reflex than anything.  I am then left feeling very unsatisfied afterwards.

Kind of like how I felt with some of my exs . . .

Yeah you knew that was coming 😉

This all added up to me freaking out.  Yes I have healed since the patch changes, but it was with Sorak and he is so damn OP it is ridiculous.  Although it was freaking hilarious last night when he logged into Sorak to heal Sindy with me.  He hadn’t logged into him since before the patch so his talents had to be set up and he had to put his buttons back on his action bar.  Then he was all “What! I have to dps to heal!?!”  Yeah it was funny.

I think that was my favorite part of the night.

It certainly wasn’t the part where I had to swim on VDW.  Sad tree is sad.  I always feel ineffective when I have to swim.  For the most part I can hit the bubbles and get stacks (I ended up with 30 when she hit full health), but I always end up at her ass end and have to run to the front where all the fucking portals are.  So yeah, not exactly fun, but what are you going to do?

I do agree with Slice though.  It was really nice to see people get upgrades for once.  My brother has been attempting to level his hunter for months.  He took like a 6 month break when his computer died.  He now has a new one (I am so jealous of it and how gorgeous everything is on it) and finally dinged 80 on Friday.  We ran him through a bunch of dungeons and got him some crafted gear.  When he set foot into ICC last night he had a 3200 gearscore.  He was in a few purples, several blues and even some greens.  I think he is in half leather too.  Poor guy.  He did snag some pretty nice upgrades, including the bow that drops off LDW.  I think he creamed his pants when he saw it.  Now he just needs to get all gemmed and enchanted up before tomorrow’s LK continuation.

It was cute.  I got a whisper from him last night when we were closing down shop “Can I go with you guys again on Thursday?”  Yes you can silly.  We aren’t going to bring you through ICC just to tell you that you can’t come to the LK fight.  I really hope that we don’t have anymore DC issues so that we can get him a title.  I am excited for him.  He might not have ever raided in WoW before, but he definitely learned fast and everyone was very pleased with him.  I hope he will be able to raid with us at 85.

I really enjoyed getting to play with Rep.  She is already a ton of fun, but to see her in action is pretty awesome.  Her toon wasn’t even Ulduar ready and she was holding her own in ICC.  As she said it helped to get a buff when everyone else got a nerf, but even then you have to be a good player to pull off what she did in the gear she had.  I was very happy to see that she got several upgrades too.

I don’t know if there really was something that made last night more fun than our raids usually are, or if it was just knowing that this was the last time we will ever have to raid ICC.  I like to think that our guildies & raiders are just awesome people.  We had people come in and raid who really didn’t want to.  Thank you guys again!  It warms me to know that you guys are willing to help out when needed.  If they hadn’t then the raid might not have happened.  Sorak and Slice both thought that we wouldn’t be able to pull it off.  I was going to pug people if I had to.  I wasn’t going to get people’s hopes up with being able to raid then tell them “oh we didn’t have enough people, sorry no raid for you.”

Yeah I didn’t want that.

In other news PPP is now 65 and cruising through Outland.  I have a feeling she will be replacing my druid in Cata as my primary healer.  I don’t know if it is just that I haven’t come up against what Northrend can throw at healers or if Disc is just so easy that I have a false sense of healing security.  I do know that healing as Disc is easy and yet a lot of fun.  While I bitch and moan when the tanks pull the whole room and I end up OOM keeping everyone alive, I still feel all pumped that I was able to pull it off and keep everyone alive.  I usually emote flexing on PPP.  Then flex in guild chat.  If I didn’t have to keep my hands on the keyboard and mouse I would totally flex IRL too.

*flex*

Like that.

😀

This is what I did tonight

I am renewed!

Oh yeah!

So I guess I should be posting a blog post here huh?  Yeah I am a total slacker.  Forgive me?

Last night was ICC 25.  I was ready to go on my lock.  One of the first people inside (as per usual) and had a portal down to summon the lazy.  We had just summoned in the last person when I find out that Tir is short healers.

FUCK.

Arioch had already switched to her priest and so I asked Tir if he needed my druid.

“Yes”

FUCK!

Ok, ok it isn’t the end of the world.  I know I am helping out everyone.  This is why I transferred my druid over right? *cries*

Healing commence!

The healers were all SR peeps.  Sorak, Ari, Tel, Slice and myself.  This of course meant that we were talking shit about everyone else.  Healer channel FTMFW.

Also, what the hell is up with DPS not having any fucking situational awareness?  When the shock vortexes occur in BP do me a favor and follow this step by step list:

1.  Look to see if there are people around you

2.  If there are people, move away 10 yards from them

3.  Once you are 10 yards away, STAND THE FUCK STILL

4.  Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT keep running.

5.  If there are no people around you, STAND THE FUCK STILL AND DPS

6.  Do not run into the healer’s bubble and force her to move away from the tank who is dying and needs heals.  This will cause her to be hit and pushed back.  This means that she is even FURTHER away from her healing target, who by the way, IS STILL FUCKING DYING!

Seriously, don’t make me hate you any more than I already do.

WTB SITUATIONAL AWARENESS FOR DPS PLAYERS PST!

Kthxbai!

Back in the saddle again

I was going to keep mum about this but then someone went and spilled the beans so now I am going to talk about it.

Yes I transferred my druid over to Shadow Rising.  Some level 29 Undead Priest had the name Tatia so I had to make a slight change.  My Night Elf Druid Tatia is now a Tauren Druid Tattia.

Yes I am still crying about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Taurens.  I have a Tauren hunter that I enjoyed immensely (when I played her).  It just doesn’t yet feel right being a cow instead of an elf.  It does help that she is usually in form so I do have a modicum of comfort there.

I had not played my druid in over a month.  In that time I was able to get so much rust on my leaves that I was flailing about for the first couple dungeons.  Luckily my guildies are PRO so there weren’t any issues.

For the longest time, I only wanted to raid on my druid.  Healing was cake and it made it easier for me to raid lead when I wasn’t having to worry about DPSing.  When I got going on Lyssi my attitude changed.  DPSing, while not raid leading, was a blast.  Even if I am the lowest DPS there, I was still having fun.  There wasn’t any “true” stress put on me, other than what I put on myself.  Raiding became much more fun for me.

I didn’t miss healing.

Fast forward a few weeks.

Shadow Rising had one resto druid, Del.  He has since retired from raiding.  This means they didn’t have a resto druid.  Guess who has an ICC geared resto druid? >.>

I don’t think they meant to put pressure on me to transfer my druid.  I think a lot of it was me knowing what was needed in the guild and (me being me) doing what I could to help.  For all intents and purposes, Tatia was just sitting on Bloodhoof molding.  By bringing her over to Drak’Tharon I would actually get to play her and use her for the purpose that I struggled to level her for.

I also missed having only one 80.  I had three 80s on Bloodhoof.  It made it nice to change up what I was doing.  I only have Lyssi on Drak’Tharon.  What is the point of having 4 80s when you can only play 1 right?  I had planned to eventually transfer fail mage over to Drak, but I was going to keep Tatia on Bloodhoof.  I guess the best laid plans and all that.

So Tatia is now Tattia the Cow.

I spent most of the weekend running Soth through dungeons on his baby pally.  Well I don’t think I can really call him a baby pally anymore.  The dude does 5.6k dps >.> so yeah, nerf Soth. ^_^

Sunday evening rolls around and Tir needs another healer for group Peanut Butter’s ICC 10 run.  They were on PP and were just “estatic” to have a druid healer for that fight.  Now remember, I have only healed up to Festergut.  We gave Rotface a few tries, but I have no experience healing beyond Festergut.  Good thing I knew the fights as DPS.

BTW we one shot PP.

*flex*

I even kept Soth alive as he DCd in the middle of a giant slime puddle.

*flex*

Did I mention we two healed it?

*flex*

Then came The Blood Princes.

I HATE this fight as dps.  HATE it.  I think I hate it even more as heals.  I finally found a spot in the room where I could hit everyone (for the most part) and keep the tanks in range.  Guess what happens next?

THE DPS GET IN MY BUBBLE!!?!!

If I have found a spot where I can be 10 yards away (as I am supposed to be) someone has to come along and get in my bubble.

I swear I am just going to make a macro that yells “GTFO of my bubble” and just spam it until people get the hint.

The funny part is I warned all of my guildies that I am a mean healer.  I warned them over and over again.

They didn’t believe me.

Soth tells me this today: “Gosh you get angry”

Then he tells me: “You are a great healer.  Definitely your best role.  Dps is pretty good too, but wow, awesome druid heals are yummy.”

So yeah, I have this horrible feeling that I will be healing a hell of a lot more than I had planned.  Even with being a very grumpy and angry healer.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though!

Arioch told me this today: “As far as I’m concerned, your lock is your main.  You can heal in the casual group if you want.”

You know what this means?

FAIL LOCK GETS TO KEEP DPSING!

Happy Koala is happy.

Healer’s meme revisited

 
Miss Medicinia called out for those of us who filled out the healer meme thing a while back to go back and revisit what we had posted before.  So without further adieu:

The New Questions:

1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthiness.

Wow I was a nub.  I got my stats wrong and was completely ignorant about tank healing as a tree.  At the time I wrote that I was still fairly new to tree healing, now I feel like I have the hang of it.  The majority of that post was cringeworthy.  So yeah, don’t go back and read it for info guys, I fail. >.>

2. Has your class’s healing improved in the area you identified as its weakest?

I mentioned that I sucked as a tank healer and that I was all about raid healing.  Yeah sooo very wrong.  We are still working out the kinks in our healing strat for ICC, but it looks like I will be healing the OT and back up raid healing.  I have figured out how to lifebloom correctly and now use Regrowth when tank healing.  I still have my “oh shit” NS + HT macro, but I use swiftmend more often with better results.  I am currently working on using that whenever it is off cooldown.

3. Have you changed your “least favoured class to heal with”?

At the time I answered this question I had only just started playing with Heleva and her Disc priest.  I was used to just working with Vel and his resto shammy.  Now that I have done several raids with her I feel like I can understand her a bit better.  I use my HoTs with her bubbles to the full effect that I can.  I think once we get the new tank healing situation under control and work with it enough we will be an unstoppable healing machine.

I no longer have an least favorite.  There is just my jealousy of Vel’s 14-18k crits on his heals.  I’m thrilled when I see an 11k crit.

4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?

I have to admit that I did not.  The only ones I remember that I read were from Ilikebubbles and Miss Medicinia.  I think I might have read a few others, but I honestly cannot remember.  I know that since then I have found other tree blogs and priest blogs.  My blog roll exploded after that meme.

5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?

Actually yes.  I learned what I actually needed to gear for.  What the raiding rotation should be and how to fulfill roles I previously thought I couldn’t.

6. What tools/resources or information do you think you would need to improve as a healer and how could that help the community at large?

I need to push myself more and learn where I can truly excel.  Up until we started raiding ICC, I didn’t have that much to do.  Healing raids was actually kind of boring.  Now I am being challenged and actually have to pay attention to what I am doing.  I went oom!  Several times!  I am a tree!  We aren’t supposed to go oom!  I have since fixed the issue, but now I find I am actually thinking about which spell to use and how often to use it.

I think most healers just need to be able to practice in something that will provide a challenge.  Most of the time healing in raids turns into the boring whack-a-mole that we all know and love and we get lazy.  I am very happy to see that ICC is bringing the healing challenges we need.

Most new trees were like me and confused to what we need.  Something like Lissanna’s blog with her awesome guides, but more leaning towards raiding.  Her guide is fantastic for beginning trees, but something that leans towards making sure the trees have a challenge.  Let’s face it, trees are OP, we need something to keep us on our toes.

7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?

I said overhealing.  This is still an issue, but it is something that I am actively working on.  Trees should never go oom :(.  I don’t know how much I have actually improved since it is a work in progress, but I think there might actually be some improvement.  I am still horrible about clipping and overhealing over my HoTs.  I put them up just to get a bigger Nourish; which is pretty bad.  I am working on it though!

8. What did you list as your favorite healing spell and your least used healing spell for your class? Are these answers still true? If they have changed, what caused the change (i.e. patch fix, different healing environment, etc)?

My favorite spell is still Rejuv.  I think I have finally gotten used to the quicker ticks thanks to the glyph, but I still find myself wanting to spam Nourish.  It has gotten better in 5 mans though.  99% of the time I pop one Rejuv on the tank and then go make a sammich.  It heals for ridiculous amounts of healing.

The least used healing spell I listed was Regrowth.  Since I have started healing the tanks I have found I use it a lot more.  It is usually one of the first spells I put on them.  Yes Lifebloom goes on faster but Regrowth lasts longer.

I used to never use Tranquility either, now I actively try to find a time when I can use it.  I like to think that I helped save us all by using it.  It might not be the case, but I can dream right?

Well those are my replies.  If you participated and now read my blog go post your answers!  You can post them here, in your own blog or over at Miss Medicinia’s place. 😀  Happy healing!

Screenshot Friday

Who is ready to heal?

She is ready to heal.

Renew bitches