Well, after many many tries and wipes, today we went in and three-shot Maly as the weekly raid boss, and many of us popped [Champion of the Frozen Wastes] in the process. We’re such noobs, half of us didn’t know where the loot was. Bring in the flying gimmick, and we’re not exactly at our best.

We followed this up with a not very successful attempt on Marrowgar-10; I think our Boomkin ditched us out of disgust.  Or maybe I’m reading too much into the sudden without warning drop.  /shrug – know what, I don’t care. He can go do that, and as soon as a replacement is available for me, he can go do that without bothering me about it.

Marrowgar is a confusing fight; even with him scaled back to 10-man strength, the whirlwind is devestating.  We need a lot more practice.  Disc healing isn’t exactly useful at that point, either.

The one good thing I saw was that my T9 2-piece bonus really makes the Frisbee stand tall.

The scary thing for me with regard to T9 and T10 is that Blizz is pushing Crit down so hard for the healing sets. Crit is a Big Deal™ for Disc healers. We get some from primary stats, which do get stacked, but the loss of Crit is going to hurt. The mace that dropped off of Maly was biased in the same way. This brings up some really interesting gear decisions.

Wretched.

That’s how I feel after our last few sessions in EoE.

For two or three nights running, we attacked that dragon. From the first pull, we did great in phases 1 and 2.  Typically we’re going in to phase 3 with five minutes left on the timer.

We rarely see that five minutes go in full.

Invariably I die within the first 30 seconds, but I doubt it has much effect since I can’t seem to heal worth a damn during that phase anyway.

It is very frustrating and made me want to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me.

It’s so difficult, to do everything in your power to ensure that you are geared appropriately, have the right consumables, have studied rotations and methodologies, and can go a full fight and still have plenty of mana left in most, then to find that it all boils down to a gimmick fight in which none of the hard won lessons apply.

“Bring the player, not the class”, they might parrot.  I contend that that is a cop-out.

You would never go into a raid with no healing classes, would you? Of course not.

If class isn’t important, then why do we have them? If levels and gear are not important, why are they in the game?  Why don’t we focus more on looking fabulous than getting that hideous mock turtleneck helm for its lovely stats?

Because class matters. Because gear matters. Because level and experience .. matter.  That malarkey about “bring duh player not duh class” was nothing but a catchphrase and it’s taken on a twisted life of its own.

This phase is unrewarding and discouraging. Right now that’s how I feel. I regret rolling on that damned key at this very moment because it put a quest in my quest log that I am at this moment considering … not doing.

We do Ulduar tonight, and I dearly hope we bring our ‘A’ game because I could really use the boost associated with doing, well, well for a change.

Perhaps in honor of GeoCities’ demise, Miss Medicina is doing a web ring thing. At first I decided against doing it because all the interesting blogs in the world had already done it, and there wasn’t much that I could offer over that. But then this post of Jong’s inspired me. Yes. I will share with you my healing things, because being a Disc priest is just that awesome. I’m not tagging anyone. There’s nobody but Matticus left to tag now, and nobody wants that on their conscience.

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

Jasra, Priest, Dis ::crack:: cipline with a side of Shadow¹.

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

I’ve been healing five mans, Heroics, and 10-man raiding for months now, usually as MT healer in raids and group healing 5-mans.

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

Tough call. I would say Power Word: Shield, because I like bubbles.² Bubbles make me think of carbonated drinks, which reminds me that it’s time to freshen my RumandCoke.

But let’s be honest here. Penance is about the coolest thing out there. Not only do I get to heal with it, but in a pinch it’s an offensive weapon!  Not only that, but when you slap your MT with this baby, he knows it. His or her whole body jerks as the healing energy gets in there and kicks butt.

“The path of the righteous is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of epic bosses. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through Naxx on badge runs. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost loots. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious Smites those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Healer when I lay my Penance upon you.“

Well, something like that.

The thing with Penance is that it fits in with healing as if Jules Winnfield had chosen to play a priest after he gave up life as a professional assasin. The same verve, passion, and exacting attention to detail as he, invariably, would have brought to the table.  I’m not saying you need a hand-stitched wallet with BAD MOTHER FUCKER embossed on it, but I’m not saying it would exactly hurt, either.

Except I’m fine with bacon. Bacon is delicious!

Anyway. Penance. It’s cool.

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

Greater Heal; when I rely on that, Jas is OOMPriest in no time. My spec has and glyphing has perverted Flash Heal into my “slow” heal of choice. For the really big heals, see “penance” above.

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

Priests are really the jack of all trades when it comes to healing. We can be point healers, raid healers, or even emo shadow-loving trickle healers and mana battery bitches. All other classes have at most one healing spec.  All of our specs can heal, for some value of ‘heal’.

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

I like tree Druids and resto Shammis in raids because they compliment my point healing. The only down side of the shammi is that chain heal is unpredictable at times and we end up overwriting each other a lot without meaning to.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

(1) Situational awareness. I’ve been known to die without realizing it.  (2) Renew. I drop that sucker on everything. Tanks, DPS, pets, shrubberies and other decor… No wonder I go OOM so much.

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

(1) People that attempt emotional blackmail and indirect methods to get you to come heal thier group.  Listen, just ask directly, OK? And if I say I’m busy, don’t try to bargain.

(2) Playing alongside Captain Obvious types. In other words, I don’t like healing stupid people. However, if they shut the hells up, I might toss a frisbee their way.  QUIET stupid people are moderately tolerable.

(3) People that stand in stuff. JUST DON’T.  If you make a habit of it, I will let you die.

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

Classwise, yes. Specwise, as long as I stick to my strengths.

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

I don’t do healing meters.  I know if I did my job, if my charge(s) is/are still standing. If we downed that boss.  And I know when I didn’t do my job.   Recount is good to evaluate how you used your heals, but the HPS meter is useless, in my opinion.   But if I see a certain spell’s healz to mana ration is low, I get interested.  I don’t ignore analysis tools, but I only work with appropriate ones.

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

That we’re everyone’s bitch. I run with a good bunch of people, so largely I am given proper respect as a person. It doesn’t hurt that a lot of them have healer alts, so they appreciate my work, and I theirs. That helps a lot. But there are so many people that will abuse a healer’s very nature.

While I’m on the subject, my favorite NON-healing role is the Tank. More than anyone else, the tank earns the healer’s respect and loyalty. A good tank knows the healer’s got his back, and a good healer knows that tank will take a NUCLEAR WEAPON IN THE FACE for you as long as you keep those heals coming.

In a way, it’s kinda a co-dependent relationship, but it’s the axis around which all over roles revolve. Discuss among yourselves.

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

(a) Situational awareness. Almost everyone knows to load up Grid and bind things, right? But learning what to do when circumstances change … that’s the rub.  Don’t stand in stuff. Stay alive. Learn to heal and be mobile (something I still need work on).

(2) Know when NOT to heal and conserve mana. Again, guilty. Sometimes it’s unnatural to not be doing anything. I recommend playing with your wand in those cases.

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 over healing, low healing output, etc)?

They would likely see that the resto shammi was outhealing me and /kick me. Buh bye.

Seriously, Disc priests are not chart toppers. Single-target heals with little splash compared to multi-target heals with big splash. It’s like comparing Blizzard versus Frost Bolt.

Haste or Crit and why?

Crit, then haste, because Crit has greater immediate effects. Haste has a downside, too: faster on the mana drain.  So something that gives me moar healz for the same mana makes me happy.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Holy Palli. I really have no idea how that works. I need to work on that.

What add-ons do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Grid. Clique. Decursive. Quartz. X-Perl. Rating Buster.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I tend to overbias on a stat until I reach a point I am happy with, then work on others. For example, for the last two months I have focused on SP over regeneration; recently I have decided I went too far on that so I am now biasing more towards regeneration until I can heal Iron Council without sweating bullets. Once I am happy with those two, I’ll probably work Crit.

Of course, if I can get all four in an upgrade, I’m ecstatic.

There you have it. Enjoy, if possible!

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1. Shut up, Flora! [↩]
2. See wut I did thar? [↩]

I had a very bad feeling about this evening’s Naxx.  Just a vibe.   It turned out, it was completely unfounded. We rolled over three wings and had time for a heroic after.

Our MT and two main DPS were complete beasts. We set guild records for every kill. As an example, Anub went down before the second insect plague. Faerlina’s enrage timer barely went off (after we killed all her acolytes). We had time for two swaps on Four Horsemen, no more.  We HALVED our time on Razz, almost.

That was awesome.

I tried a new healing approach; Renew was only used in special circumstances. Otherwise, I kept to PW:S, Lesser Heal, and Penance when off cooldown. My mana was never in danger of draining.

I’m looking forward to trying this on Iron Council.

One thing I recall from the announcement of the new expansion was the outrage over some of the new class-to-race combos. One that people scratched thier heads over was Gnome priest.

Personally, I scratch my head pondering those people.

Haven’t you ever been in the Clean Room in Gnomeregan?

Who’s this?

Sure, you’re going to say there’s a big difference between a ‘medic’ and a ‘priest’. I agree.

What I am addressing is the people that think that Gnome priests are something out of the Ether.

I disagree. There’s a foundation, right here. The rest … is embellishment.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Incidentally, to those people thinking that Gnomeregan will be restored as a new Gnomish capit0l city, I’d like to give you one reason why it won’t.

The Horde.

If the Alliance gains a new capitol city, and the Horde does not, the tears will be bitter and widespread. The QQ will be epic. Those delicate Orc warriors won’t be able to deal with such an affront.

So, if it DOES happen, there will be a tradeoff.  I wonder what it might be?

Maybe it’ll be half of Ashenvale and the rest of Hillsbrad. We already know they’re swinging Horde, and I have heard of no territory given over to Alliance. So maybe Gnomer will be the tradeoff.

Or maybe something will open up for the Trolls.  ZF?  Or maybe ZG – we’ve already heard of massive changes taking place in STV.

Well. Something to consider.

So Jas ran Grimm’s sweetie’s alt through Uldaman last night. Overheard in party chat:

“I swear, there’s no doubt you’re Floramel’s sister.”

I’m so proud, I’m almost misty over here.

Almost.

DoTs are DoTs are DoTs, sister.

We returned to Ulduar this weekend and I’m happy to say that XT, Razorscale, Kologarn, and Loot Leviathan all dropped respectfully before us, one shots all.  I seem to be having a problem staying vertical, though.

It also seemed – at least to me – that we didn’t bring our ‘A’ game. There were more than enough people to fill it out, but I didn’t feel the energy. Maybe it was just me.

Ignis did not light my fire

The MT had a thing he wanted to try, so we gave it a shot. I’m not entirely sure if everyone grokked it or not, considering that nobody ever started out where he said to. And as usual our DPS (which was rip-roarin’) had a tenancy to start as soon as he made contact. I finally suggested that he call out when he was settled, and THEN they attack. We promptly had two DPS start early anyway.

One officer offered to drop out to make room for a better DPS. We were pretty sure, however, that DPS was not the issue. As with last week, getting the adds together and killing them is the big thing, and we’re failing on execution.

The Iron Council

Eventually the boss decided it was time for a change of pace, and we went to test the waters with the Iron Council. Initially we failed to manage too well because we were using a 25-man strategy; once we had the chance to realize that we started making headway; phase 1; phase 2 (revenge of the phase); eventually we were left with one guy to take down, the dwarf caster. We had a bit of a deadline which we intended to meet, but we had that ‘five percent go fever’ going, in which nobody wanted to leave it at 5 percent, or 4, or 3. So we made two more attempts…

Now about that mana thing …

This is a LONG fight. There is easily time for two shadow beast evocations in there, and that’s without a shadow priest talent tree. I had pots. A druid innervated me. I had elixirs. And still, mana – not so much.

I have been doing homework. I’m starting to see that I need to change my habits.  One of the first things, probably, is to get my HoT off of a hotbar.  My mechanic is skewed towards direct heals and bubbles. I need to learn now to drive that better.

Until then … :: sigh :: … MP5 is back on the table as a major player in my gearing decisions.

Our broken pug of the night before last has been given a new perspective. Just go over here and look at this article on WoW.com. Here’s the relevant part:

Step 1: Cast a glyphed Power Word: Shield on a target

Step 2: The next action/attack will be credited to the Priest along with any extra side effects

What does this mean?

Well, take for example, if I bubble a warlock, and the next action he does is Incinerate. My damage stats, my aggro table, everything – gets updated to reflect the effects of that attack.

And if you bubble a tank and he throws up a taunt?

You, the priest, are “credited” with that taunt. Congratulations, you just acquired a new piece of wardrobe in the form of a mob.

This is major.

The good news is that by the time I logged in yesterday, they had hotfixed it.

So, our pug failed because every time the DK or tank tossed down an AoE aggro generator, and it was after a bubble (which I throw out early and often), guess who’s coming to dinner?

Oy.

I still had the Recount stats from that fight in my buffer when I logged in, so I checked, and, sure enough, my healy priesty self was generating 550 dps.  And I don’t have a single damage spell keybound in healy form.

Just … WOW.

The other good news is that the tank from that night logged in yesterday and I immediately sent an apology about ditching the group to him. He was not only understanding, but had just come from reading the same article on WoW.com, and had reached the same conclusions as myself.

The amazing thing is that this did not wipe our OS raid¹, or the following H-UP run. We dodged a bullet there.

Final analysis: now that the dust has died down, this has interesting implications. This sort of thing usually happens when they get code into the system before it’s fully implemented. For example, there are situations where they’ve gimped the near-term damage of an ability but not yet implemented the intended long-term improvements. What if this is one of those situations? What, then, were they trying to do with that? What are the ultimate intentions? Is there going to be something new and interesting in the future for the Glyph of Power Word: Shield with regard to aggro?

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1. Our GM did notice a 200 dps or so drop that she couldn’t explain. Say hello to her missing DPS. [↩]

Let me revisit last night’s pug.

Well, wait, let me wind back a couple of hours.

We started out running OS/0d, which went well despite the number of newbies. We then decided to go pay Ony a visit. They’ve toughened that up quite a bit, and doing it 10-man is interesting from a logistic perspective. Many wipes. Handle it! Despite the number of newbies in the group, we got to phase 2 before our OT had to bail for the night.

Following that I was asked by our MT to run H UP with him, and I accepted. We got a pug ret palli and the run was picture perfect, fast, and painless.

Immediately thereafter he asked if we’d be interested in H ToC. Not really, but I’m trying to keep him happy since we’re short of tanks right now¹ so I agreed. We pugged a SV hunter and in we went.  First two bosses were perfect. Nobody died. Hunter was doing excellent DPS; our other DPS were a bit undergeared but that’s fine.  We ran H ToC on the first day it came out and got through it on Naxx gear and less, so no worries.

The Black Knight said otherwise; well, really, his adds said otherwise. Time and again, they’d mob me. I’d run towards the tank to make it easy for him or the DK to get them off me, or at least make it convenient for the warlock and hunter to AoE, but it wasn’t happening.

At the end of the third wipe, the pug hunter said “gee, nobody’s getting healing.”  “That’s because your priest is wearing mobs,” I replied. “Gear doesn’t matter, only skill.” was the retort.

Yep, I dropped. “Fine, heal it yourself.”

[JASRAGE²]

I am a priest. I have many preisty addons that tell me when people are in need of heals. They are working perfectly. I know who needs heals and who isn’t getting them.  I don’t really need  a reformed MM huntard³ to inform me of these things. I’m not blind.

I’m also not indifferent to the fact that people – including me! – are dying. I came to heal things up, that’s what I do. Otherwise you would not have made it to the second boss.

If your healer is wearing adds, it’s out of my hands beyond getting closer to the tank in the hope of getting them pulled off⁴. If I’ve popped Fade and done all of that, I’m really out of options other than bleeding.

If this amounts to failed healing, then it’s good that I dropped group to make room for a good healer, don’t you think?  Good luck on your future career of being dragged through 25’s by competent players.

[/JASRAGE]

I’ve probably zarked off our lock too, but considering how many times he’s ditched the guild in a fit of pique, I’m not really worried about it.  I feel bad about the tank being ditched, as he is one of the best warrior tanks I’ve seen in a while, but I have limits. If he bails on the guild because of me, then they can demote me or /gkick me if it makes them feel better. I’ll likely thank them for it.

At least Hannelore has mana crystals. I have to settle for this … stuff … in Flora’s liquor cabinet.

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1. A task I have no doubt failed spectacularly. [↩]
2. like /jessrage, but with more shadowy undertones [↩]
3. It was obvious. [↩]
4. By the way – healer aggro scales way up the closer you are a mob, so that probably made things worse as soon as I popped a heal or a shield. [↩]

I share something with Hannelore; you get three wipes. I am willing to negotiate that based on what kind of wipes they were. If we’re all learning, then fine. Slack will be cut. However, if a DPS prima donna is trying to tell me how to heal, and I’m failing to heal because I’m wearing mobs that DPS should be taking down … you get no more than three. And if you start bitching before that, two.  Then I dump the party and go on my way.

It’s been a quiet week here at Casa de Grimmtooth. People getting settled in, setting up a new rotation that gets Fai some time to get her trades up, and so on.

On Wednesday Grimm entered the Heroic ToC (to his surprise as well) and with a few minor glitches got through OK. No major drops – in fact, a lot of leather, some cloth, and one belt that was mostly an upgrade for him. But no BRK-1000 or Marrowstrike.

Yesterday, our GM’s little sister – a Dwarven Priest – got invited to run it in regular mode, and they did so for five straight. The goodies flowed like water.  I didn’t see all of them but I can bet that she’s getting closer to being able to hold her own as a healer … which means that Grimm or Flora might be called out of the minors sooner than they thought.

To have choices is a good thing. To possibly give Grimm a chance to flex his trigger finger some more is, as well. He’s great about this, he really is, but it seems to be unfitting to have our patriarch not completely decked out in finery. Well, as he’s pointed out, the day of the BM hunter are past, and that’s what he is, and that’s that. “And”, he chuckled once, “I’m not givin’ up BM until I have me a spirit beastie!”  So there you have it.

Oh, and this: Chef’s Hat. I didn’t get it for the cooking speed buff. I got it for those boss screenies, to go with our MT’s sombrero.  I am done with cooking dailies for a while, until I need more spices.

For a while now I’ve been running around dual specced, with Shadow as my alternate. For grinding it doesn’t actually make a big difference and in fact my old Disc Hybrid spec was in many ways more durable. The problem was, that spec was tweaked for survivability and soloing, and I really needed to step up my healing game. Thus, the full-on Disc spec I sport today when I go in for raiding, and shadow spec for soloing.

I have to be honest – I didn’t like Shadow spec at all when I tried it around level 50. Even then, Holy/Disc hybrid seemed to carry a lot more oomph, have less down time, and have a higher survival rate. So I adopted that new (home-grown, I proudly add) spec fully, and pretty much sailed through content from then on.

Still, I am well aware of many successful shadow priests out there, so I did some research. What I came up with appeared to be a viable DPS build. The beauty of this build and Disc is that both share a lot of attributes between them in terms of what gear is good. Right now, I’m focused on Spell Power because it’s rare that I’ll run out of mana during the run of the mill fight anyway. Both like Crit, too – crit heals or crit DPS, we like it all. The down side is that +hit gear is not of any use to the Disc build, and usually takes away from what I need to keep up the healz.

I figured out a rotation, a solo rotation, set up my keys, and proceeded to play around. Still, it was unlikely I’d raid in this spec. Heals are what I do, generally.

Until last night.

Two heroics – UK and UP – gave me insight into my damage potential as a shadow priest, and I am rather impressed with the numbers. There was me, an ungeared DK, and a Naxx geared boomkin. The boomkin was head and shoulders above everyone in DPS, but I came in second with 1650-ish numbers, better than either Grimm or Flora can post right now. And there were misses a-plenty.

Of course, you have to account for the fact that I’m rocking Naxx epics all over the place here. Grimm and Flora have seen Heroics and that’s about it.

We have a fledgling priest in the guild that intends to go full on Shadow for raiding. I whispered him after our runs to let him know what kind of numbers we’re seeing and he was happy. So we’ll see how that works out. It would be nice to have an SP next to me, especially if we can get him to dual spec Disc as well.

And possibly in a future Naxx-25, I’ll slip into shadow form and we’ll tank Raz together.

Remember when I said that one of our Heroic Naxx boss encounters demonstrated that the priest healer (me) needed to work harder or something? And that homework might be required?

I was right. Just not the way I expected.

So, we were taking on Grand Widow Faerlina. In 10 man, when she enrages, you drag one of the adds over and kill it, which clears her enrage. We were doing this. We were dragging them over, and killing them. And yet she stayed enraged.

Those of you that have cleared Naxx-25 are already laughing and pointing.  I know.

Yes, folks … in 25-man, the priest has to MC the add and cast Widows’s Embrace. The one and only priest in this 25-man raid was, in fact, sweating her butt off trying to keep the tank veritcal.

You may laugh now.

On the other hand … we did get the achievement Heroic: Momma Said Knock You Out. Booyah.

Let this be a lesson: always do your homework, and don’t assume a Heroic is just an amped-up version of the normal mode. I should know this by now.

/facepalm

Our GM pointed out that the uber leet DPS druid and warlock pugs that we had didn’t bother to point this out, either, but just left after the sixth or so wipe.   Of course, it’s possible they didn’t realize it. I’ve seen plenty of DPS that just gloss over details not relevant to pew pew pew. And I know that when Meta fires up Grimm or Flora these days, he’s usually confused on some fights because he’s only seen them through my eyes.

Well, that which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

Wait, what?

There are days that I feel, with the utmost of my being, at one with Hannelore.

Yesterday I ran Heroic Nexus … with four Death Knights.¹

Four melee DPS, all ganking aggro off of each other. Can we talk about hard to keep up with? Inevitably, I’d choose one to let go, and focus down on the two or three top gankers, since that was the only way to keep the Big Uglies off of me.

Our GM’s priest tried with the same bunch later on, in UK, and actually said the nicest thing about me that anyone has in recent memory, praising the fact that we actually got through H Nex, where her gang stalled on the first boss in UK. I confess, I glowed just a little bit brighter for a minute there. She is a veteran of may Kara runs and has healed Maiden countless times. That, to me, is the bigger deal.  So coming from her that’s huge.

The big difference is that I’m running with a 16K mana bar now, and she’s got 14K.

Speaking of mana, was there a sudden nerf over the weekend to mana regen, or increase in mana use? We both agreed that we spent a LOT of time drinking, DKs notwithstanding.

To close out the evening, we ran Heroic DTK with two DKs and two mages. Two DKs is only marginally less difficult than four, since you still get to play a form of demented Aggro Pong using Grid as the playing field. Follow the little red dot.   /sigh

On the plus side, to offset Mr. Gloomy Grimmy, we managed to pull off our first ever clear of Naxx 10’s spider wing. There were two non-guildies in there (3 counting one former guildie) but at our core, we were us. Despite many pratfalls, it’s good that we have managed to get that far.

Oh – to round things out, I spent the last week getting the gold together to go dual-spec. Shadow, naturally. As Seri points out, Disc and Shadow have a certain synergy, and as long as I don’t plan on raiding as DPS, I can live with it quite cheerfully. I quested a little with the new spec; just for grinding the spec doesn’t shine out a whole lot. But at least it takes fewer keystrokes to bring down a mob this way.  In a way it’s like having an affliction warlock spec, though I haven’t had the opportunity to see how well that works as of yet.

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1. ”… some bizarre purple beam which shoots out, grabs the monster by the face, and yanks them through the air towards the knight for spankies. This is a wonderful spell to force a caster into melee range. This is a terrible spell when used by the knight who just woke up from a coma, standing beside me, and yanks a monster away from the group being beaten by the tank far ahead of us. Suddenly I have two tanks. Now another one does the same trick, and I have three tanks.” It’s as if she looked through the future and saw my pain. [↩]

Today’s Meta’s birthday, and many are celebrating in the traditional manner. He, of course, is busy camping the laser kitty while everyone else is off at work.

This weekend we actually executed our plans to raid – having more level 80 healers is a boon – and downed our very first L80 raid boss – Archie – as a guild. Naturally, the druid chest piece dropped, and naturally, we had no druids.

We attempted the Arachnid wing of Naxx and didn’t make it past Anub’Rekhan, but we identified several things that needed fixed before the next time¹, so it wasn’t all a loss.

We then attempted Sarth +0D, got the drakes down, but again failed to down the boss². Again, we learned from the experience.

I was elected to stay outside with the MT during the one drake where everyone runs inside the portal. Around 3/4 through, I was asked how my mana was holding up, and I was pleased to report that I was at around 13K out of 20K still. As I continue to run this spec I am learning a lot about its ins and outs. Rapture makes it so that any time your shield absorbs damage, part of that gets translated into mana for you. So if I keep my shield up on the MT as much as possible, my mana consumption is reduced to a trickle. It is very sweet, let me tell you!

What is interesting to me as a priest is that our GM has gotten her priest to 80 as well, and has started running heroics. Her comment last night was to the effect that she had no idea how hectic healing had become in WotLK. I was stunned. I had thought that this was just a case of Meta – a born DPSer – shifting gears to be a healer, and mostly just brute-forcing through it. To hear from an experienced healer the same thoughts that have flitted through my head … well, it was a load off my mind.

It changes everything for me. Now instead of wondering what I am doing wrong, I focus on what I do right and improve it. It’s a subtle difference, but it means a lot mentally in how one approaches what one does.

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1. Namely, people need to learn the strat and stop trying to bully everyone else into non-standard strats [↩]
2. Again, for much the same reasons. [↩]