ICC and Algalon

So, I finally got to raid last night.

We did ICC10 and put in our hour on Algalon.  I healed ICC10 on Becoming, along side a Holy Priest.  Overall the instance wasn't too bad.  I didn't do it last week, so I can't comment on the change to Marrowgar's tank damage at all.  That said, the fight wasn't hard at all, and we easily one shot it.

Next up, Lady Deathwhisper.  We went with the strat that has all DPS switching to the adds, to blow them up quick, and allow more DPS (people) on the boss when adds weren't up.  I'm not sure how many add waves we had while we were draining her shield, however, it didn't seem like too many.  I'm looking forward to trying the 25 man version of this fight tonight, since it adds the MC and a few other neat tricks that should make it a touch more interesting.  That said, for last night, we had a pretty easy one shot of her as well.

We move on to the Gunship Battle.  While this seems neat in theory, overall it was just a little silly, with not much to it.  DPS ship, mage spawns, jump over, heal, heal, heal, jump back, rinse / repeat.  I did end up dying just before the last jump over.  I got a battle rez, and it unequipped my jet pack.  I tried to jump over again, and it was too late, as the tank over there was dead, but so was the mage and the rest of the away team had made it back.

Finally, we reach Saurfang.  A neat intro to the fight to start off, though annoying that you have to go through it each time you start the encounter.

When we started out, we were just going at things like we normally do.  That being healing assignments of "all healers, heal everyone who needs it".  This was made worse by having two raid healing spec'd healers.  So, the first couple of attempts went great until the first mark went out.  Once it did healing went from boring to OMG WTF IS HAPPENING!

We tried switching roles around a bit, with me on DPS, our pally tank going heals, and the bear solo tanking it.  It did not end well.

Back to original roles, I switch back to resto spec, and we work out actual healing assignments, with me on the Marked targets, and the priest on the tanks.  We trigger the start, and the priest notices that she has the Mark debuff on, I look up and so do I.  We all run back to the boat and reset the fight, and the debuff fades properly.

We attempt again, and it goes well.  We ended up with 1 mark out (on me), no one died, and we got the kill.

After that we moved over to Algalon.  Since that fight wouldn't happen without a real tank healer, I logged into Ditto to tank heal.  We picked up Unbroken by not repairing during FL without any towers, killed Razorscale for the daily.  On XT we accidentally triggered Hardmode, but downed it without any issues.  As an aside, I got to use the new Divine Sacrifice, and it was nice.  Incoming damage to myself was noticeable but very healable.

It is then that our priest says that she all of a sudden isn't feeling well, so needs to go, because she won't be able to make it through an hour of Algalon attempts.  I end up switching to Becoming to raid heal, while our Pally tank switches to heals, and one of our Warrior DPS switches to tanking.   We had a couple of rocky attempts at the beginning of the fight, and our best attempt was barely about half way past the first Big Bang.  Our DPS was on target to enter Phase two just after the second Big Bang, but people kept getting hit by Cosmic Smash, or our star killer would kill one while it was standing over two people, and call it out after it already died.

Hopefully we can get a steady group for this, as I wouldn't mind getting the fight done, even though we do overgear it by an insane amount by now.

Too busy, hit 80

So, with the summer lull in raiding, we had a few raid nights off, which I used to full advantage to get the druid up to level 80.

I leveled from 68-80 as boomkin in preparation for being 80.  As it turns out, it didn't help much, since leveling boomkin and grouping / raiding as boomkin are wildly different.  For instance, while leveling there is no reason to DoT things, no reason to use Faerie Fire anything, and there is no such thing as a rotation.  It's pretty much open with Starfire, unless you happened to be under a wrath eclipse.

That said, it was still quite fun, and it let me keep my bags at least somewhat clear with only needing a 'caster' gear set, with a couple items to switch out for healing an instance.

So, I started out doing a couple instances as DPS at 80, so I can get some starter healing gear, and had a friend craft me the Earthgiving legs and boots.  I started out at ~1100DPS, because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

After a respec (basically moved 3 points from Owlkin Frenzy to IFF, took 1 out of intensity and moved it to Typhoon just to have an extra button to push, and since I was able to spam buttons and never run out of mana), a couple upgrades from heroics / regular ToC, and getting some practice at a rotation, I was able to hit 2300 DPS.

I also boosted my spell power to ~1350 unbuffed, and am half way to hit capped, which has likely helped as well.  I will probably run one more day as DPS just to get a few fast runs in, and then go into the dreaded LFG as heals or dps, with the assumption that I'll be the former more often than not.

Tonight and tomorrow are raid nights, so will likely not have a chance to play on the druid until Friday.

If I have a chance, I may put together a new pre-raiding gear guide, and include some items from the new patches (ie, ToC, Argent Tournament,  and new Badge Gear)

First Post

Well, not sure how many people will see this, but I figure I can start blog about healing.

First, a bit about myself.

I've been playing World of Warcraft for a little over 4 years now. Prior to that, I played Everquest for 5 years.

When I was playing EQ, I tried out a cleric, and it was one of the most painfully boring experiences I've ever had in an online game, to the point where I had to play an Enchanter at the same time. After I got bored with EQ, I tried a few other MMORPGs, and none of them really held my attention. SWG was the closest, with a somewhat unique take on character advancement, but it ultimately still disappointed.

Enter Warcraft. Now, my main character in EQ was a rogue, and I swore I wouldn't play another one in Warcraft (of course, I did). However, I always liked the Paladin in EQ, so tried playing one (this was a couple months after WoW released, so the class was very different than it's current iteration). I was ultimately drawn back to the rogue, which I played for a little over two years in WoW. During that time, I made several different alts. A disc / holy priest and a protection paladin.

The priest was leveled as shadow, but healed in PvP and the occational Karazhan and SSC raid. Considering my previous healing experience was in Everquest, it was a welcome change to the paradigm.

Now, the paladin was leveled when my girlfriend decided to start playing WoW. She played a warlock, and I figured the paladin would be a good compliment to the class, and would make leveling for both of us that much easier. I leveled as Protection, and never went holy or attempted healing until I hit 80, and tried to heal for a group of friends in Halls of Lightning.

I was horrible. We ended up having to bring out a repair bot before we even got to Loken. I thus decided I did not want to ever heal on my paladin.

After several attempts at finding a guild and failed PUGs for Naxx, I applied to my now current guild. Now, the trouble is, they didn't need any paladin tanks, but did have room for a Holy Paladin.

So, the decision was made to try my hand at Paladin healing. While I have been enjoying healing as a paladin, I feel the overall feel of it doesn't quite suit my play style.

I have been leveling a druid to eventually be my new healer, since their more mobile style of healing seems to suit how I prefer to play quite a bit more.

This blog will be about my experiences both of leveling a druid healer, as well as raiding in a guild that is currently 8/14 in Uld25, and 12/14 Uld10 as a pally healer. Additionally, I will comment on up and coming changes that apply to the healing specs of both classes, along with the random commentary on game changes as a while.

My Paladin is Ditto, on Shadowsong-US. My druid is Becoming, also on Shadowsong-US.

-- Ditto