Well last night saw my first attempt at healing Saphiron (sp?) and it sucked. I hear tell that they just buffed this boss to make him more of a challenge. He doesn't seem to be too difficult but somehow we just didn't put it together. On one attempt we took him to about 20% which did heaps to bolster our confidence but to no good return as we never downed him. Healing didn't seem to be as much of an issue, but low dps due to constant moves was as well as me not having frost resist gear.
Cabela has graciously volunteered 3 orbs to make the gear but I have to come up with a boatload of other mats.
In more interesting news, my cat dps set is coming along nicely with 2 epics and the remainder comprised of rep items and instance blues between levels 175 and 200. Oddly enough I think I want to spec moonkin though. I like this idea because it's ranged dps which has less problem switching from target to target and I have to move around and reposition much less. Not to mention AOE spell damage which works better than cat swipe.
My moonkin set is only slightly behind my cat set so I think I could do well in heroics already. We'll see what comes of it. Guilds tend to not like healers that respec dps. They will still think of me as healer and if I want to raid, they will assume I intend to respec. It sucks. I think I'm suffering from Duesbout-itis. I'll never be vocally pissy like he was but that doesn't mean I don't feel the same.
Overall I think it will be a nice change as it brings 5% spell crit and 4% increased damage from spells.
In other recent breaking news, I was part of a 2 healer team on malygos and we had some great attempts but never brought phase three together. It seemed surprisingly easy but...
Monday, February 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Resto yay!
Last night marked my first night of heroics that went well with Grufft healing. It was only my second set of attempts. I was thrust into them a bit soon for my liking the first time. I knew I was getting into instances, just not Heroic ones. I had done almost no healing in the new instances and didn't yet have a feel for WotLK resto druid healing. Kydic and I had just hit 80 a few days before so my toon was outfitted in quest greens and a couple of quest blues. All-in-all I would say that it didn't go poorly... it went horribly. I lost people on trash pulls (it was usually Udderlybeefy which may have been a bit of his own fault not letting the deathknight tank build up a little threat). We finished whichever instance it was (they all look the same to me, like 5 little green bars) and headed over to the new CoT instance, the Culling of Stratholme. This one smoked pole. It was really cool leading up to it and seeing the story line but healing the first boss gave me a fucking ulcer. We never did beat it.
That depressing night lead me to rethink my heal order and read up a bit on Nourish which I was trying to use as a spot heal. I think Nourish was my biggest downfall that night. I now have regrowth glyphed and it seemed to work well for me last night. There's not a ton of use to the glyph, an extra 20% healing from regrowth if regrowth is already active on the recipient. Nourish is slightly less mana than Regrowth and a slightly shorter cast but significantly less healing since I crit Regrowth about 70% of the time. /toss Nourish
The other new heal is Wild Growth... or some such. It is a talent from the resto tree and is quite nice. It's a 5 person HoT that ticks for about 550 hp at the moment. It does have a range aspect so some people may be missed if they're spread out but I don't typically find this to be a problem.
So far from instances, I have walked away with some nice blues. Feral DPS blues :S
Oh... I can't forget Emblems. I'm up to 11 so far. I hesitate to look at how many I need for a piece of gear but I'd venture 30-45 per piece of armor. I hope I'm not far off.
That depressing night lead me to rethink my heal order and read up a bit on Nourish which I was trying to use as a spot heal. I think Nourish was my biggest downfall that night. I now have regrowth glyphed and it seemed to work well for me last night. There's not a ton of use to the glyph, an extra 20% healing from regrowth if regrowth is already active on the recipient. Nourish is slightly less mana than Regrowth and a slightly shorter cast but significantly less healing since I crit Regrowth about 70% of the time. /toss Nourish
The other new heal is Wild Growth... or some such. It is a talent from the resto tree and is quite nice. It's a 5 person HoT that ticks for about 550 hp at the moment. It does have a range aspect so some people may be missed if they're spread out but I don't typically find this to be a problem.
So far from instances, I have walked away with some nice blues. Feral DPS blues :S
Oh... I can't forget Emblems. I'm up to 11 so far. I hesitate to look at how many I need for a piece of gear but I'd venture 30-45 per piece of armor. I hope I'm not far off.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
It's been a while
Well I took a break and have returned to play WoW again. My return was due in part to patch 3.x.x which presented some early expansion material. The biggest introduction was the new talent trees. I had done no research except looking over the hunter trees a bit. A reversion to beast master was imminent with the introduction of exotic pets. BM hunters can now tame such previously untameable beasts as devilsaurs, wasps, core hounds and silithids. /cheer Throw in the introduction of pet talent trees and specs... /drool
In honor of red-head Max, it seems Blizzard introduced tanking pets. These guys are great. Upon respec'ing to BM I grabbed a devilsaur, silithid, core hound and gorilla. The dps pets seem the same as before with the introduction of pet family specific abils. The utility pets are cool but I don't see myself using them. This is the pvp'ers pet. Tanking pets are pretty darn cool, depending on breed. I grabbed a bear first to try out tenacity. He sucked. At level 65 he seemed to lose aggro instantly. I dropped his furry butt in exchange for the gorilla and oh my. Not sure what causes the difference as they were similarly spec'd on their talent trees, but can he tank. Before respec'ing BM and before I quit, my level 70 DPS (cuz that's what they all were basically)cat lost aggro fairly readily to my survival hunter. Ranged crits were plentiful and two in a row meant I was going to tank the rest of the fight. The level 65 gorilla can hold aggro most times. Silently in the background to this is the much lower crit rate and lower dps of my hunter and the increased pet dps but still...
Since I played around with the pets I didn't do much else on Lÿnn. My time with Grufft in the expansion consisted of spec'ing him feral, trying out the new pounce, spec'ing him resto and healing Magtheridon and Gruul and then letting him sit. Sadly, he is the toon that interests me the least at the moment.
Now we come to Desconocida, the rogue. She is where I have invested most of my week and a half back so far. I signed back in to a rogue that had two epics, the druid chest piece Shadowprowler's Chestguard and the Merc Glad offhand sword. After that she was almost completely quest greens and some instance blues. With a combat spec and a +hit over 250 she was developing some nice dps but still had a long way to go. This is what brought me to focus on her, she had a lot of easy upgrading that could be done.
Since coming back, I have taken her through several heroic instances. I got lol's at my HP every time but the DPS charts at the end spoke well when I was only 1-3% behind the DPS leader of many parties. I picked up a few more epics and BoJ's and got the two trinkets I was aiming for, the Abacus and Hourglass. I was collecting BoJ's to get the Isle of Quel'danas fast offhand dagger or the Angelista's ring. A random call from guild chat to run a guild Zul'aman run piqued my interest. I would never have dared take my rogue there before but the lolhammer befell ZA and it is now retarded easy. We made it all the way through and never wiped. Hexlord or whatever his name is dropped a nice dagger that no one cared for so I rolled and got it. Finishing the instance brought me enough badges to buy the offhand dagger. Immediately I regretted it. I had the fast offhand and my thought was to get ano0ther dagger so I could spec Subtlety for leveling in Wrath and if I wanted I could try a mutilate build... Did I mention it was the fast offhand. I had forgotten that mutilate rogues want a slow offhand. I would have been just as well off with the merc glad off hand I had as the offhand has no effect on Ambush damage. Meh...
I took my new daggers, which Alenko enchanted for me (thanks Max), and ran off to respec. Ambush crits that take off 50-60% of the mobs HP... oh how I missed thee. I practised on the Isle and fights typically go as follows: Ambush>Hemorrhage>Eviscerate>dead. To do my DPS justice, I really should replace hemo with Sinister Strikes as I'm not getting the full benefit of hemo. Some fights last about 3 seconds... they make me giggle. Just don't take a sub rogue into a raid or instance. Huge openers are great but my dps hits the floor after the first 3 seconds.
Two more days until Wrath of the Lich King is released and maybe another one or two after that I will buy it. I can't wait to make a chick death knight haha!!
In honor of red-head Max, it seems Blizzard introduced tanking pets. These guys are great. Upon respec'ing to BM I grabbed a devilsaur, silithid, core hound and gorilla. The dps pets seem the same as before with the introduction of pet family specific abils. The utility pets are cool but I don't see myself using them. This is the pvp'ers pet. Tanking pets are pretty darn cool, depending on breed. I grabbed a bear first to try out tenacity. He sucked. At level 65 he seemed to lose aggro instantly. I dropped his furry butt in exchange for the gorilla and oh my. Not sure what causes the difference as they were similarly spec'd on their talent trees, but can he tank. Before respec'ing BM and before I quit, my level 70 DPS (cuz that's what they all were basically)cat lost aggro fairly readily to my survival hunter. Ranged crits were plentiful and two in a row meant I was going to tank the rest of the fight. The level 65 gorilla can hold aggro most times. Silently in the background to this is the much lower crit rate and lower dps of my hunter and the increased pet dps but still...
Since I played around with the pets I didn't do much else on Lÿnn. My time with Grufft in the expansion consisted of spec'ing him feral, trying out the new pounce, spec'ing him resto and healing Magtheridon and Gruul and then letting him sit. Sadly, he is the toon that interests me the least at the moment.
Now we come to Desconocida, the rogue. She is where I have invested most of my week and a half back so far. I signed back in to a rogue that had two epics, the druid chest piece Shadowprowler's Chestguard and the Merc Glad offhand sword. After that she was almost completely quest greens and some instance blues. With a combat spec and a +hit over 250 she was developing some nice dps but still had a long way to go. This is what brought me to focus on her, she had a lot of easy upgrading that could be done.
Since coming back, I have taken her through several heroic instances. I got lol's at my HP every time but the DPS charts at the end spoke well when I was only 1-3% behind the DPS leader of many parties. I picked up a few more epics and BoJ's and got the two trinkets I was aiming for, the Abacus and Hourglass. I was collecting BoJ's to get the Isle of Quel'danas fast offhand dagger or the Angelista's ring. A random call from guild chat to run a guild Zul'aman run piqued my interest. I would never have dared take my rogue there before but the lolhammer befell ZA and it is now retarded easy. We made it all the way through and never wiped. Hexlord or whatever his name is dropped a nice dagger that no one cared for so I rolled and got it. Finishing the instance brought me enough badges to buy the offhand dagger. Immediately I regretted it. I had the fast offhand and my thought was to get ano0ther dagger so I could spec Subtlety for leveling in Wrath and if I wanted I could try a mutilate build... Did I mention it was the fast offhand. I had forgotten that mutilate rogues want a slow offhand. I would have been just as well off with the merc glad off hand I had as the offhand has no effect on Ambush damage. Meh...
I took my new daggers, which Alenko enchanted for me (thanks Max), and ran off to respec. Ambush crits that take off 50-60% of the mobs HP... oh how I missed thee. I practised on the Isle and fights typically go as follows: Ambush>Hemorrhage>Eviscerate>dead. To do my DPS justice, I really should replace hemo with Sinister Strikes as I'm not getting the full benefit of hemo. Some fights last about 3 seconds... they make me giggle. Just don't take a sub rogue into a raid or instance. Huge openers are great but my dps hits the floor after the first 3 seconds.
Two more days until Wrath of the Lich King is released and maybe another one or two after that I will buy it. I can't wait to make a chick death knight haha!!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Magtheridon down!
Another post about Grufft's raid progression. I healed for Magtheridon's Lair. It was our first Mag kill and put Colombian Necktie to 15th on our server for Horde-side raid progression. We have yet to down anything in Sunwell, TK or SSC. The fight seemed really easy. We needed multiple tanks at the onset to tank the summoner orcs and then just one main tank for Mag himself. We wiped the first try due to inexperience with the cubes but the second time he was worm food. The fight posed no real problem for me as a healer. I can still cast while being bounced around by the bubbling floor and adding hots before the ceiling crash helped keep Garrus's health up. I ended up top of the healing list despite not having a tank assignment. I was relegated to spot raid heals and covering one person that was clicking on a cube.
One of each chest token dropped. I rolled a losing roll on the druid/?/? token but the roll was overruled since it was a huge upgrade for me. Now, if I had turned in one of the two t4 glove tokens I got for healy gloves, I would have had a set bonus. Oops. The tree-mender mitts are about the same so I took the balance gloves first and the feral gloves after. Well no worries. The set bonus is just a chance to get 120 mana from a beneficial spell I cast. I tend not to have MP issues /knock-on-wood
I am now 12 badges away from getting the 100 BOJ pants from the Isle. I really should start running some heroics. Mike has been running Bot on a daily basis he said. If I run those I get a chance at nice blue healing gems (+5 SPI, +9 Healing) and of course the druid staff from the last boss. It would replace my current feral staff which was from Bot also. With my new Malorne chest and those pants... can't wait to check Be.Imba.
One of each chest token dropped. I rolled a losing roll on the druid/?/? token but the roll was overruled since it was a huge upgrade for me. Now, if I had turned in one of the two t4 glove tokens I got for healy gloves, I would have had a set bonus. Oops. The tree-mender mitts are about the same so I took the balance gloves first and the feral gloves after. Well no worries. The set bonus is just a chance to get 120 mana from a beneficial spell I cast. I tend not to have MP issues /knock-on-wood
I am now 12 badges away from getting the 100 BOJ pants from the Isle. I really should start running some heroics. Mike has been running Bot on a daily basis he said. If I run those I get a chance at nice blue healing gems (+5 SPI, +9 Healing) and of course the druid staff from the last boss. It would replace my current feral staff which was from Bot also. With my new Malorne chest and those pants... can't wait to check Be.Imba.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Zul'jin Down
I have been part of downing Zul'jin for a second time. The first time, I was on Lÿnn and this time I was healing with Grufft. With the group we had, most fights were fairly easy. Garrus was main tank and from our guild we also had Mulgorn, who tore up the trolls somethin fierce. The remainder was made up of FDL and Pandemonius people. I believe we one shotted the eagle, bear, and lynx. The dragonhawk was the only one to provide much of a problem and of course it was the hatchlings. With three healers, none of the fights were all together difficult to heal. Hex Lord and Zul'jin were a little more challenging. Sadly we cheated on Hex Lord. It would be nice to say we defeated it normally but we did it with no adds. Shadow bolt is a bitch to heal through, although I did learn that a stitch in time saves nine. We had one guy that was very low on hp and as such died or almost died every shadow bolt salvo. To help this I dropped 2 stacks of lifebloom on him before it began and that worked wonders.
Zul'jin was a real bitch to me the first attempt. Walking to my position, I was the recipient of the first Grievous Throw. Bastard! The hit was half my hp and 2 ticks later I was dead. Max berated me a little for not healing myself (I dropped one lifebloom on myself before dying) but in truth I died too damn fast. The other two healers didn't even hit me with any heals so... Our fourth attempt was very solid and I lasted through to the lynx. I have the same issue there, in a few hits I was dirtnapping. The toon is only half Kara geared and as such has shitty HP.
I walked away with 13 badges and one burning question: Why the hell don't I get any heals during the hawk stage? Lÿnn has seen Zul'jin twice and Hawk stage was always a bitch as I try to bandage myself between getting ping-ponged against the wall. As a healer I was dropping continuous healing. As long as I was in the fight people were getting healed well. I would Regrowth one person, then Regrowth myself, Regrowth two others and then swiftmend myself. I'd be at nearly full health and three people had HOTs helping to keep their HP up. Getting hit for 900-1200 each cast is not that bad. I guess I just see the fight through druid colored glasses but...
It will be a while before my up and coming rogue sees Zul'jin but it will be fun to see another aspect of this fight: melee DPS.
Zul'jin was a real bitch to me the first attempt. Walking to my position, I was the recipient of the first Grievous Throw. Bastard! The hit was half my hp and 2 ticks later I was dead. Max berated me a little for not healing myself (I dropped one lifebloom on myself before dying) but in truth I died too damn fast. The other two healers didn't even hit me with any heals so... Our fourth attempt was very solid and I lasted through to the lynx. I have the same issue there, in a few hits I was dirtnapping. The toon is only half Kara geared and as such has shitty HP.
I walked away with 13 badges and one burning question: Why the hell don't I get any heals during the hawk stage? Lÿnn has seen Zul'jin twice and Hawk stage was always a bitch as I try to bandage myself between getting ping-ponged against the wall. As a healer I was dropping continuous healing. As long as I was in the fight people were getting healed well. I would Regrowth one person, then Regrowth myself, Regrowth two others and then swiftmend myself. I'd be at nearly full health and three people had HOTs helping to keep their HP up. Getting hit for 900-1200 each cast is not that bad. I guess I just see the fight through druid colored glasses but...
It will be a while before my up and coming rogue sees Zul'jin but it will be fun to see another aspect of this fight: melee DPS.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Money Pit
Holy crap! I must stop respec'ing!
So SSO dailies rock. Well they suck, but they rock. They're damn near free money and I have already forgotten what it was like before them and how long it took to get enough gold to do anything. Now, I can raise 100G in about 2 hours of super easy quests. I know there's tons of people that claim to make millions of gold per hour farming or crafting or cybering... well let's just say I don't believe them and leave it at that. Doing one toon's dailies is sufficient for me. It's not like I'm trying to raise funds to buy the Black Temple. Besides it's not for sale.
Sadly this loose money has fed a respec'ing habit that I must now beat. Cat druid is a riot to solo. Tree is not!! So for a quick 50G (about one hour of dailies) I trade in my Regrowths and Rejuv's for Pounces, Mangles and Shreds. <3 Inevitably I get a guild invite to go heal something in that same hour and off I go to respec back to tree.
Well... that's it. I'm going cold turkey. No more Cat DPS for a long long while. I have a dps class that can quite efficiently complete the dailies. Gone are the days of doing both Grufft's and Lÿnn's dailies. I don't need that much anymore. This means that I can still complete some of the SSO supply bags quests for the occasional free BOJ but the vast majority of gold shall come from Lÿnn.
The first step is admitting you have a problem :(
So SSO dailies rock. Well they suck, but they rock. They're damn near free money and I have already forgotten what it was like before them and how long it took to get enough gold to do anything. Now, I can raise 100G in about 2 hours of super easy quests. I know there's tons of people that claim to make millions of gold per hour farming or crafting or cybering... well let's just say I don't believe them and leave it at that. Doing one toon's dailies is sufficient for me. It's not like I'm trying to raise funds to buy the Black Temple. Besides it's not for sale.
Sadly this loose money has fed a respec'ing habit that I must now beat. Cat druid is a riot to solo. Tree is not!! So for a quick 50G (about one hour of dailies) I trade in my Regrowths and Rejuv's for Pounces, Mangles and Shreds. <3 Inevitably I get a guild invite to go heal something in that same hour and off I go to respec back to tree.
Well... that's it. I'm going cold turkey. No more Cat DPS for a long long while. I have a dps class that can quite efficiently complete the dailies. Gone are the days of doing both Grufft's and Lÿnn's dailies. I don't need that much anymore. This means that I can still complete some of the SSO supply bags quests for the occasional free BOJ but the vast majority of gold shall come from Lÿnn.
The first step is admitting you have a problem :(
Monday, June 16, 2008
We merged
We have merged with End Result, upping our numbers greatly. We should have nearly enough people to run Gruul's and Mag's now. We also have a funky new calendar add-on to help coordinate Kara runs and such. Having additional runs will keep people in the guild longer and help gear more people, faster.
The other healing item I got from Kara is a healing belt. It replaced my Sash of Mercy which was long overdue for a change. With my new additions, BeImba puts my healing gear to the end of Kara for functionality. Pretty cool considering I have only 1440-ish bonus healing. I still have some upgrades from Kara itself I could get but gear has at least taken a couple more steps forward.
I did change things up a bit with my current spec. I had taken in the past a few things to help do a little more DPS when I was solo'ing. Things like Swarm and Naturalist. I have completely neglected them with my current spec, instead dropping the points into the increased spell crit/decreased incoming damage after being crit talent from resto and Improved Tranquility. I almost neve use Tranquility, but at least now if I do, I won't worry about my imminent death afterwards/during.
The other healing item I got from Kara is a healing belt. It replaced my Sash of Mercy which was long overdue for a change. With my new additions, BeImba puts my healing gear to the end of Kara for functionality. Pretty cool considering I have only 1440-ish bonus healing. I still have some upgrades from Kara itself I could get but gear has at least taken a couple more steps forward.
I did change things up a bit with my current spec. I had taken in the past a few things to help do a little more DPS when I was solo'ing. Things like Swarm and Naturalist. I have completely neglected them with my current spec, instead dropping the points into the increased spell crit/decreased incoming damage after being crit talent from resto and Improved Tranquility. I almost neve use Tranquility, but at least now if I do, I won't worry about my imminent death afterwards/during.
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