Progression is a kick in the junk

I tell you what. I am not a "Wrath Baby". Anyone who reads this blog (all 3 of you!), knows that I have been playing since Vanilla. I bashed my head against a wall with the best of 'em. But, starting a new guild with the idea of raiding is really hard. On top of that, the fact that we are consistently one healer short makes trying to progress that much harder.

Last night was a great example.

Last week, we worked on Halfus, and finally got some good solid progression on him. At the beginning of the night, we were getting one drake down, but wiping before we got the second down. Then as the night went on, we were getting two drakes down. Then, on the second to the last pull, we got all three drakes down, but hit the enrage timer at 4.5 million remaining health. Then, on the last pull of the night, we got all three drakes down and hit the enrage timer with 3 million health left. We were obviously making solid progress, but we hit out ending time.

Fast forward to last night

After our progress on Halfus last Tuesday night (we got him down to 3 million health when enraged) everyone was coming into this week's raid with high spirits. Unfortunately, Halfus kicked out butts "six ways to Sunday". We weren't even getting one drake down. It was ugly. Things were just not clicking. The only difference was the pug healer that we had to run with (see above statement about being short healers). Now, the pug healer we had last night is good. I know and trust her, and her numbers were good, but still we were having major issues.

So, we decided to go work on Magmaw instead. Now, this is a 1 tank fight, so I have to go heals (did I mention that we are perpetually one healer short), while our bear tanks the boss. It didn't take long before this fight started kicking us in the junk as well. We couldn't do even the most simple things, it seemed.

Then, just when the raid leader and I were talking about quitting early for the night, we gave it one more try, and FINALLY things started to click. We didn't kill Magmaw, but we did get him to 37% (our best attempt thusfar).

The worst part is, neither the raid leader or myself could figure out WHY we were doing so bad. All the numbers seemed inline with the numbers we were pulling last week, but we were getting no where near the successes we saw last week.

I was ready to quit last night. I really was. The frustration was so high, I just wanted to walk away and do something else. That has really never happened to me before during a raid.

I guess we will see how if goes tonight . . . if we have enough healers online.

Holy Paladin! (Re-visited)

This is gonna be a long one (for me anyway).

Our guild is having a serious crisis of a healing sort.  As in . . . out of our entire roster, we only have ONE mainspec healer.  That makes it a little hard to raid.

So, being the team player that I am, I have volunteered to change my second spec to Holy.  

You know, take one for the team.

Now, it has been documented before, and you may, or may not have read it before, but . . . I HATE paladin healing.

I have tried it a few times throughout my WoW career, and it has always felt . . . "Too hectic!!!  Not enought time to get heal off!!!  GAH!!!!"

Well, that was under the old healing model.  Where throughput was everything.  I understand that Paladins have never had throughput issues, but all I know is . . . Healing on a Disc priest is easy, and healing on a Paladin is hard.

That was until last night.  Our one dedicated healer had other plans last night, so I was the only "healer" available for our nightly heroic runs.  After a little cajoling, off we went.

I realized very quickly, that my UI needed some adjustment.  When I first started working on Rotface in ICC, I was always the ooze tank.  And, since I was a paladin, I was also the ooze cleanser.  So, I had made a mouseover macro for my Cleanse, so that I could Cleanse the targets in the game world instead of having to Cleanse a unit frame.  It is bound to one of my thumb buttons on my mouse, and has served em well ever since.  however, for some reason, and I still can't figure out why, my mouseover Cleanse macro just refused to work on the party unit frames.  I was even using the default (raid style) unit frames.  It always did before, so I am not sure what gives there.  Oh well...I just left the mouseover macro keybound to the thumb key on my mouse, but also assigned the normal Cleanse from my spellbook via Clique to the same button.  You know . . . double dip.

Once I got that sorted, I realized that I need to move my party frames.  As a tank, you need to see your party frames, but they don't need to be the center of your attention.  Has a healer,  your party's unit frames are EVERYTHING.  So, unit frames moved from the bottom right of my screen to pretty much dead center.  Lined up right below my toon's feet.

Now keep in mind, I was adjusting all of these things WHILE we were running heroic dungeons.  So making quick adjustments and such between pulls until about 3/4 through the second dungeon of the night.  

Conclusions?

I was actually having a lot of fun.  Hectic at times, but in a good way.  I need to get out of the WotLK mind set of keeping everyone healed up to max all of the time.  There were a few fights where my mana got dangerously low.  The Beauty fight in Stonecore (for example), I ended the fight with 2100 total mana (keep in mind that my in-combat MP5 is just over 2000).  

I was using cooldowns constantly.  

I was involved.  

I was entertained.

So, the Big Shiny Shiled may have a little more shine and a couple fewer dings in the coming expansion.

We will see.

Long Time...No Post

It has been along time since I posted anything here. But that is okay, because I don't have any readers anyway.

What has happened since my last post? Let's see.......

1. Cataclysm has been released. Just in case you guys weren't aware.

2. I have leveled Gathorc to 85 and have begun running heroics. I have also levelled the warrior and priest to level 81 each.

3. Have started a new guild with several of my closest friends. This was planned long before Wrath was over, but now it is done. What was not part of the plan was the fact that, somehow, I ended up being the Guild Master.

4. Have had to work much harder than I originally thought in order to get enough people ready to raid with this new guild. Had some folks who were part of the original plan drop out, which left us short on people, but we are getting there.

5. Have spent much money and time levelling up mining and blacksmithing to 525.

6. I got a sexy new 24" monitor for my birthday. My UI has been completely rebuilt, and I like it a lot. I may make a post on it later this week.

I am already sporting 160k health buffed in heroics, and only currently have one purp...the BS crafted shield. First guild raid is this week, and I am really looking forward to that. It is time to get back in the groove of progression again. I realize we are weeks behind, but that matters little. I am here to have fun with my friends, and that has already been accomplished.

I will be posting much more often now that raids will be starting up again (hopefully).

oh, and . . . . . Happy New Year!