Resto Nation

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time in game lately and that has lead me to spend less time blogging about. I’ve had a few things to say and now with the new patch, even more. I’d like to get back into the swing of things by talking about what I like about new content and what I don’t.

What I like is probably the easiest to explain. The instances in Icecrown and the new raid are beautiful. I really think that Blizz dropped the ball on the Tournament and I think they have made up for it in ICC. The lore is deep, the graphics are stunning, and fights are complex and interesting. Of course there are new shiny gear epics to get as well.

The new LFG system is also a straight-up home run. It took 5 years, but Blizz finally got it right.

So far after the first week I’m pretty happy with my progression. My 10 man has cleared all available content and picked a couple of achievements. My 25 man has downed Lord Marrowgar. I’d like to clear all 4 released bosses in 25s, but for some reason content is always harder for us there than in 10s. Either way, for the first week this will do.

What I don’t like about new content is a little more complex, but it can be boiled down to basically unfinished old content. I am completionist and when things are not complete I am not happy.

My biggest disappointment is Ulduar. 25 mans were always dismal in there and it saddens me that my 7 shards of Val’nyr will most likely never see the other 23. I’ve learned to live with the loss of the legendary, albeit begrudgingly, but it’s 10 mans that I’m really not happy about.

We’ve cleared Firefighter, the hardest 10 man fight in the game, but we’ve only put one hour in on Algalon and failed. He sat there for weeks waiting to be tried, but we were too busy with “current content”. Alas to date I have no “Starcaller” and no Rusted Proto-Drake (we just need Yogg+1). I want them both badly even now, two content patches later.

Any fail idiot can grind gear or get an occasional drop in a 25 man, so gear score means almost nothing to me. For me titles like Starcaller and the Glory Drakes are what really let the top-level raiders show off. My team deserved to have them, but getting in there and doing it feels like pulling teeth.

At the end of the day I’m happy running the new content. It’s pretty and fun. I just really hope that my team doesn’t let the low hanging fruit we’ve worked so hard for pass us by in the name of gear score. The gear will come. The Drakes won’t be there forever…

I was doing some post-mortem analysis on last nights raids with another NO DRAMA officer this afternoon and the topic of10-man healing came up. As I was answering some of his questions I got to thinking about Raid Healing, DPSers,  and Recount.

A healers use of Recount tells a lot about them, their motivations, and often what they are doing wrong. Healers (and raid healing in general) are also misunderstood by many DPSers. Recount does not help this.

I’d like to take this oppertunity to shed a little light on raid healing in 10-man progression in general and the use of Recount. I hope his helps.

The first thing that it is important to understand is…

LearnToPray’s Golden Rule of Raid Healing :

1. If the Tank dies it is the Healer’s fault.

2. If the Healer dies it is the Tank’s fault.

3. If the DPS dies it is the DPS’s fault.

This rules applies pretty much only to threat but it is true 9 times out of 10. The main exception being infinite range raid damage phases like XT-002 Deconstructor’s Tantrum and KT’s Ice Block.

The next thing to understand is heal priority. This is the De Facto 10-man priority:

Special Assignment (ie Slag Pot or Kologarn’s Grip) > Self > Tanks > Other Healers > DPS

So barring extra mechanics the highest priority DPS starts at #6. They do not like this. However it is the right call.

With 5 DPS who gets the first heal? This is where decisions about life and death are made. A good healing team will know each other and have a good idea of who is going to heal whom. However, if one of the healers in unavailable or a number of other factors occur a healer must decide on the spot.

This is what separates good healers from bad healers and makes great healers irreplaceable. Healers should ALWAYS have Recount running. Recount should ALWAYS be on Damage Done for the current fight. This shows you the top toons’ total damage on the boss as well as their DPS.

Your choice is now made for you. If DPS A has 3K DPS and DPS B has 1.5K DPS and both are at 15% health, DPS A gets the heal while DPS 2 eats the floor. This also gives DPSers a reason other than e-peen to top the charts.

As a healer you should be a inherently selfless team player. This is not always true. Healers who try and “top the charts” through Effective Heals or Lowest Overheals are not playing correctly and will hurt the raid by trying to be “better”.

As long as you don’t run out of mana, over healing is never a problem. Waiting to heal and under-healing to is a problem.

Assignment sniping, stepping on HoTs, and going OoM from spamming group heals all increase your Effective Heals at the expense of better play.

Healers with huge e-peens also tend to cause drama and get their feelings hurt. In rare cases healers will let other players die out of spite on a progression run. If I ever hear of this or know it is happening, that player is dead to me. They will be immediately gkicked, ignored, and banned for life. I have zero tolerance with that.

Another reason to not measure healers by only Recount numbers is beacause it is the same as DPS. Healers do two things: Heal (add numbers back to HP), and Mitigate (prevent numbers from being subtracted from HP). Recount only tracks Heals not Mitigation, which is actually better. This kills the overall numbers of Discipline specced Priests and 52 / 17 / 2 specced Holy Paladins.

Due to Beacon of Light and Glyph of Holy Light Holy Paladins also run an average of 50-60 % overheal. Resto Shamans also have large overheal with Chain Heal being the 3 or 4 closest toons. Druids do as well as their HoTs are commonly sniped and Living Seed is almost always and overheal.

I hope this post makes healers not already in the know better and the rest of the raid more understanding and knowledgeable.

Oh, and one last thing: Yes, every time you ask, we already know you need heals…

As NO DRAMA continues to expand and we venture further into 25-man content I am given pause to reflect on what makes 25-man raiding “Heroic”. I have come up with one answer: Leadership.

Two nights ago I was running 10-man Ulduar with more or less the same group that I have been since it was released. It was very smooth. Everyone knew what to do. They knew the fights, they knew their class, and they knew their role. Loot was even fair and basically decided by the group as soon as it dropped. All in all it was pleasant and fun.

Last night we did another 25-man run on The Arachnid Quarter in Naxx. Over all the run went well and we even started out with 21 toons and it was still not a problem. This concerns me.

Basically it is almost impossible to not pwn everything in the Arachnid with appropriately geared toons. The “Naxx is too easy” horse has been beaten to death, but it’s true. Ultimately we are running 25-man Naxx for three reasons:

1. We have not cleared it as a guild. This is simply because we were a 10-man guild for most of WoTLK and just recently have the manpower to do it.
2. Gear people up. It is not uncommon for new recruits in the guild to trade up 187 blues for 213 purples. Some of them have never even seen the inside of Naxx (10).
3. Prepare to run Ulduar (25).

It is this last point that concerns me.

Last night we walked into to Anub’Rehkan and had to explain the fight. I don’t think I’m being an asshole when I say you should know that fight. Seriously. In fact, even if you have never personally done the encounter you should always read the strat before a raid. It makes you a better raider.

Raid Composition is also important. You should not go into Naxx with 7 healers. It is overkill. You should also not go into Sartharion + 2 with five tanks. Two of the tanks are useless and that fight is a DPS race.

Unfortunately we are at a cusp. We have enough people to run 25 mans but the composition is off for main specs. Until we get more people we need to have tanks and healers leverage their dual specs.

The issue is that people who we can carry through Naxx will wipe the raid in Ulduar. Grobbulus and Thaddius are smaller examples of this.

As raid and guild leaders it is important to strike a balance where we can help people get better and gear up but at the same time not coddle them. On the flip side we need to be stricter with time so we can clear more content. Yet we want it to be fun, and rules and consequence make games less fun.

In the end it is much like herding cats. You can try and direct the cats, but really it is up to them what they want to do.

Raiders need to be informed, prepared, and motivated. As Leaders we need to be driven, but also helpful, understanding, and patient.

Anyone who ever said this game is just about pushing the same buttons over and over has obviously never raided.