Am I a raider yet?

Maybe a baby raider, maybe.

I started into ICC on my Warlock, Bellerona, a couple of weeks ago with the Harbingers of War – that is, my guild. My family on TB. My favourite bunch of people ever. I would leave Canada to be with these people, I am not kidding. They keep me sane when I would otherwise just… completely lose it.

So, they took me into Icecrown Citadel after plenty of waffling on my part and I haven’t regretted it one bit. I enjoy Destruction Warlock DPS – more than most other caster classes, I think (sorry mages) – and seeing those five-digit crits only makes it better (moonkin is close second). I’ve been working on her gear off and on between runs – though I haven’t been available for ICC for a few weeks – and I think I’m starting to catch up. Slowly but surely.

I have also had a taste of raid healing on my Druid, Varkev, thanks to a VoA 10 run and a Naxx 10 Patchwerk run. The Naxx 10 was a trade pug that surprise the absolute hell out of me since it was made up mostly of people from some of TB’s raid guilds (including Bloodrite, Order of the BlackLotus, Winterfell-with-the-funky-letters and Guardian) … so I felt a sense of “Oh holy shit I’m among people that know what they’re doing”. Since it was Naxxramas, people knew what they were doing and a lot of folks were overgeared, there were no issues – everyone was polite and it was fun. Varkev’s gear is a mix of epics from the 200-232 levels, and I’m desperately seeking more spellpower and haste.

Thank you, Harbies, for giving me the guts to get in there and do somethin’. I love you guys, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure that Harbie Raids continue to be awesome and fun (like passing my connection issue from Monday night on to some folks from TBDF, maybe, SSSH).

Bell will start saving her frosties for T10, while Varkev - once he gets his T9 for resto – will work on his tank set. I’ll also slowly work on Matojo because, damn it, I want him to Shield Slam some baddies sometime soon.

In UI news, I changed over to Tapestry UI and I think I like Grid. It’s taking some getting used to, but I’m not wanting to beat the hell out of it yet.

No, I am not going back to using Clique. Yet. Grrrr.

Adventures in Lowbie PvP, or: How Matojo Lost Her Effing Mind

Last night, Reislyn’s transfer from Zul’jin to Thorium Brotherhood went through. While she was still on ZJ she had become a bit of a low-level PvP alt, and was running around AB and WSG healing her brains out – this worked out well. It was fun, because people in lowbie battlegrounds don’t tend to waste all of their time and energy bashing one another’s strategies, and because I… actually had a chance. I didn’t insta-splat. Shield, heal, psychic scream, no worrying about resilience and that, just being tricky.

When I moved her, I had purchased the ring and … cloak, I think, from the WSG vendor and after transfer I purchased the boots from the AB vendor. The items are cheap blues (ranging from 100 honour to 800 honour for level 28) and so, so juicy, stats-wise.

Hell, I even re-specced her to nab some PvP talents.

Back to last night. I hopped into the queue after purchasing my goodies and was sorta dreading winding up in WSG, but I did. And I… had… fun.

I had fun in WSG.

I had fun in WSG.

I decided to just stick to crowds to keep my squishy ass safe. Operation Annoy The Alliance was deployed and I ran around healing fellow Horde, dotting Alliance, shielding myself and just overall being irritating by not dying. At least, until the Alliance decided that I had to die.

I shouted IC taunts, I feared, I dotted, I healed, I shielded and all in all I had a fucking great time. Yeah, we lost both 30-minute battles, but we fought so damn hard it was just amazing.

*steeples her fingers*

In yer BGs, eatin' yer noobs.

Priest Changes and the Prospect of Using Our Powers For Evil

I’m not overly excited about Priest changes. Blizzard seems to think that Disc Priest single-target healing has an issue because of all the bubble use, and yet the mechanics of the class mean that not having weakened soul on a target means we’re gimping ourselves. I like Disc healing style, and if it winds up being more like Holy I am going to be disappointed.

Life Grip, however, or whatever you lot prefer to call it, fills me with a fiendish glee that can only be matched by besting an asshat in a textual pissing contest (I’m easy to entertain).

Now, I know a lot of you are concerned that it means that we will be expected to deal with the stupid people instead of them having to learn some fucking situational awareness – but lo! It also opens up possibilities for our entertainment – and revenge.

Imagine, if you will, a battle against Sartharion. Very, very typical, no drakes (because it’s easy) and there’s one individual that is being an asshat.

You get into position as one of the flame waves starts to come in. And then…

… you grab hold of the asshat and yank him into the path of the flame wall.

Sure, he might not die, and certainly, it’s an asshole move – but we priests, it’s about time we STOOD UP to our abusers! We will not heal you through your stupidity! In fact, we will help you die faster because of your choice to treat us like shit!

THANK YOU, BLIZZARD, FOR AIDING IN THE PRIESTLY UPRISING! VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE! GET YOUR TORCHES AND BITCHFORKS, MY PRIESTLY BRETHREN, IT IS TIME TO YANK SOME ASS!

… I’m getting overexcited aren’t I. Shit.

I Am Not Hardcore. :(

It took me ’til the last major content patch – you know, when ICC was added – to hit 2k Spellpower in any form on Grindal.

But I had nearly 30% Holy crit.

I have a crit addiction, I admit it. I get excited when I see crit on my healers’ gear and I might even drool a little. My heart goes pitter-patter (or maybe that’s from being a fat chick, I don’t know) when a new piece of gear gives me an additional point or two of that delicious, delicious crit or I see that I’m being healed by a Disc Priest or Shaman (Holy pallies don’t exist).

Grindal had been looking for Int and Crit pieces, gemming for Spellpower and generally being a little “meh” about Haste – sure, Haste is nice and I know I need to hit the soft cap, but it’s not exciting. If my healing has ever wiped a group, it’s been because of slow reaction time, not low Haste (or uh, the cat, or not targeting the right person). He has a higher mana pool than the other Disc priest I used to regularly run with, though I haven’t played him in forever, and, well, I keep getting told I’m good at what I do.

Now that my Crit is close to 30% I’ll be piling on the Spellpower. In fact, that’s a stat that I can’t imagine any healing class not wanting, and when I see commenters on WoW.com crowing about Haste over Spellpower for Shamans I am confused. Okay, you cast faster and your global cooldowns are better, but um, what about raw healing power? Delicious crits? Is it a matter of supplementing what’s not on the gear? Maybe my little non-raiding brain can’t handle the logic behind this idea, I don’t know.

Or maybe these people are bitter about not being the Resto columnist and are venting their rage on a series of 101 Articles. For fuck’s sake.

I think, when it comes to styles of healing or tanking there’s a little more wiggle room when it comes to stat preferences. If your heals need to come fast and furious, you’ll concentrate on Haste. If you need your heals to hit harder when they come, Spellpower. If you like crits, you get the idea. Even with this said, if you’re a Paladin or Shaman stacking Spirit, you are bad and I do not like you.

I won’t pretend to know whether or not this works from a raiding perspective because my raiding experience is limited to easy shit, I mean, Sarth with no Drakes up. That isn’t exactly rocket science. That’s “stay out of the fire and pray lag doesn’t eat you” and “don’t hop into the lava you idiotfuck”.

As a tank, I’m trying two things: On one DK, I’m going for avoidance, I’m looking for gems, enchants and gear that will make things hit me less often while on other DKs and my warriors, I’m going for health pool. I love Avoidance tanks. Does this make me a failure? I dunno. I’ll let you know when my squishy ass wipes a group due to being squishy.

Oh. Wait…

As an aside, for the love of Djehuty stop sucking EJ cock, seriously. They’re one fucking resource not the be-all, end-all of everything.

How to Make a Cranky Matojo – Healer Edition

WoW_Ladies got me off on a little tangent, of course, so I figured I’d expand here.

I can be a pretty cranky healer (some days, I even reach Angry Healer level). For some of my friends, that’s the appeal of having me along – if people are being idiots I’ll say so and I occasionally pay enough attention to be able to give pointers on what to do (whether or not people actually listen to me, I don’t know). When I’m not running into pats. Or getting lost. Or jumping around. Or dancing. Or spacing out. Or being chewed on by the cat (“NO SIMON NO NOT WHILE I’M HEALING AUGH MY FEETS – theregoesmymouse”). For the most part, I’m pretty chill.

But there are ways to wind up on my shit list, oh yes, and some of them are fairly common for most healers.

1. Don’t run back after a wipe, just wait for me to rez you. That is, after all, what my mana is for, right? You might as well save your mana and food for soloing! I’ll just take my time getting to you. First, I’ll have to drink – gotta have full mana to rez the lazy bastard! – and then play with the cat. Oh, and feed the cat. And rescue the dude that got lost on his way back. And and and…
2. Don’t eat or drink. My mana, after all, is endless and there’s no way in hell that I pay the same amount of in-game currency for my stacks of water and food as you. Besides, it’s not like you have anything better to do while waiting for me to get my health and mana back, nope. Standing around with your thumb up your ass is a much better use of your time.
3. “Rez plz. Rez plz. Can I get a rez?” OH! How silly of me, I didn’t notice that your health bar was empty and that you were lying on the floor THANKS FOR REMINDING ME. I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN TO REZ YOU IF YOU DIDN’T ASK. YOU KNOW, IF MY HEAD WASN’T STUCK BETWEEN MY SHOULDERS I WOULD FORGET THAT TOO, LULZ AND SO FORTH.
4. Treat other party members – especially those who have my guild tag above their heads (<Harbingers of War> and <The Refuge>, respectively) – like shit. Bonus points if it’s the tank and his name is Wyat/Sorchia/Shaliandra or Rikua or Violeta/Cyael or Douzer and his disguises.
5. Please tell me how to do my job, because I obviously haven’t been healing for ages and don’t know my head from my ass.
6. Trigger events if you’re not the tank. Go ahead, do it. I hear the floor is nice this time of year.

So, dear other party members, if you’re a decent human being with only a small stupid streak, I’ll be decent right back!

What do other players have to do to wind up on your shitlist, readers?

Bear Butts and Flailing Trees

Most people know that I have a tree druid, Ipolani, hanging around. She’s my Scribe and my main source of money (when I’m not lazy and  actually mill herbs) and may eventually become a Panzerkin. Whether or not this will happen I really don’t know, it depends on how crazy I feel.

I also have a bear, see. A wee level twenty-one bear named Delplas.

Last week, Del was level 11, Balance and wearing cloth gear, Wrathing her way along. She had been stagnant for several months until it hit me that I really wanted to try the low-level LFG. I thought, hey, I bet it’ll be fast and easy to heal through LFG in the low levels! … Then I found that it was very slow-going, the wait was atrocious, so I bought her some leather Stamina/Agility gear, slapped some Stamina/Agility enchants on it, and hopped into LFG.

My first run as a bear tank was Ragefire Chasm. My DPS would try to pull, so I’d growl it off them and bash away until the next mob, rinse, repeat. Sometimes there would be a few mobs and I’d get to panic and Demoralizing Roar a bit while maul-tabbing through. It was a success, though. The healer remarked that he hardly had to heal me, nobody complained, we didn’t wipe!

It got easier at 16 with Swipe, then even easier at 18 with Feral Faerie Fire.

The only difficult run I’ve had so far was a Wailing Caverns where everybody else was level 20, I was level 17, and I gave up tanking to try to heal with my piddly mana pool, then tried to DPS as a bear. Then the healer had to go raid. Then it was just me, the hunter and warrior. Then I said “screw this” and said I had to go, too, and bailed.

Oh, right, and there was the Deadmines run with the AoE-happy mage, running around and Arcane Explodeying every time. Yeah, no. Protip, LFGers – low-level instances are not AoE-fests. It’s harder for most classes (except warriors, I believe, and Paladins past level 20) to hold AoE aggro at low levels. For the love of Anpu please, please, please just stick to single-target DPS. This beardrood will thank you. Also, don’t choose the middle of a multi-mob pull to tell your tank that on-hit procs don’t work with druid forms so the weapon she’s using is totes wrong for a bear and by the way weapon DPS doesn’t apply to bear form even though you haven’t played a feral druid since level 70 which this bear cub assumes means “the end of BC” and oh well maybe things have changed – did you miss the occasional shadow bolt coming off my paws? Come on now. Don’t discuss mechanics mid-pull. I can’t tank and type at the same time.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the lowbie LFG and I’ve been told I’m a good bear tank. I’m really looking forward to heading the rest of the way with Delplas.

As for tree healing, well, I’ll cover that adventure in another post.

Adventures in Healing: Level 58-64 With Masamba the Restoration Shaman

A week away from home has been bad for my nerves and postings, let’s see if we can get back into the swing of things in start for a brand new year!

As soon as Masamba hit level 58 I dropped back into Orgrimmar, gave him dual spec and immediately nabbed him some starter Restoration/Elemental gear. I dashed to Thrallmar to pick up some quests, then immediately hit the queue for Hellfire Ramparts – which popped right after I confirmed that yes, I wanted to wait in line to be some random group’s healer. My very first instance run in Outland, as a healy shammy, went smoothly and I won some gear.

The Legacy items that I have for Masamba (mail chest and shoulders, plus the PvP one-hand spellpower mace) make gearing absolute cake and provide nice bonuses in the stat and experience boost departments; an extra 20% increase to experience gains on top of rested XP is nothin’ to shake a stick at.

So far, the majority of my forays have ended up in Hellfire Ramparts, with two runs each of Blood Furnace, Slave Pens and Underbog. There have been some groups that I would love to run with over and over again (one in particular that was lead by a female Tauren DK where everybody in the group was sad that LFG wouldn’t let us queue for another instance ’cause some of us were 62 while the others were 65). So far, I’m happy enough with LFG that I’m quite willing to level right to 80 using it – and I just might.

Also, I am loving my Resto Shaman. 2010 may be the Year of the Shaman for me – I want to hit 80 and gear up like, right now.

The Good:

• Most groups have been competent, with only a handful of incidents where I was required to be a jerk in order to get a point across.
• Gear has been easy to come by, though I am still in need of some upgrades.
• Questing hasn’t been a necessity – I’ve only hit up a small number of quests in Hellfire Peninsula.
• Crit-happy shaman with relatively high mana regen = not much downtime, quick recovery from crazy pulls.

The Bad:

• Ramparts, Ramparts, Ramparts. Seriously, LFG, you can put me into other instances.
• Sometimes, people don’t pay attention to party chat. Protip: If your healer isn’t following you, check party chat for an AFK message.
• Despite decent regen – IF YOU ARE DPS SPECCED BUT TANKING ANYWAY, YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER AND THEREFORE HARDER TO HEAL, SO STOP AND LET YOUR DAMN HEALER DRINK EVERY SO OFTEN.

What I’ve Learned:

• Nobody notices the fact that I’ve been dropping Stoneskin instead of Strength of Earth to compensate for tanks that don’t have the Toughness talent.
• Chain Heal is Godly.
• Earth Shield is Godly.
• I’m just as likely to forget my weapon buff as I am to forget Inner Fire.
• Riptide + Nature’s Swiftness + Chain Heal = new favourite “OH SHIT” combination (thanks to Sankareth for that one)
• I enjoy healing as a shaman, possibly moreso than as a Disc Priest (the world is ending, onoes)

Overall, the Shaman LFG Experiment has been proving successful and I’m hoping he’ll hit 70 by the weekend.

Healing Paranoia

By now, most people know that I play a Discipline Priest as my main healer and that I really do like healing. No, honestly, I do. I have healed almost every heroic in Wrath, though I’ve never set foot in a raid instance outside of VoA and Sarth. I’ve survived (with most of my party intact) bad pulls, near-misses, crazy packs of elite and non-elite mobs in Icecrown (with my favourite Protadin, Wyat) and yet…

… I’m nervous about trying to heal in this new LFG system.

I was so excited about the new LFG, about never having to wait more than fifteen minutes for an instance ever again and then I looked at Grin’dal, he looked at me, and I realized, I don’t have the confidence to heal a group of strangers.

I know how to heal Wyat. I know how to heal Rikua, Violeta, Douzer, Dariahn and Tendaros. I know their tanking styles and I know they are more than capable of handling anything and tearing it apart. Strangers? Oh Gods. Oh Gods. I don’t know.

There are, however, people in the WoW blogging community that I look up to – who I’m also lucky to have on my Twitter account – who love healing PUGs. They do it a lot, they enjoy it. My friends tell me I’m a good healer.

… So what the hell is my problem?

I’m a Troll priest, not an elf! What am I scared of? 

LFG, let’s dance!

* Running Violet Hold with two PUG DPS doesn’t really count when it turns out that I actually did know one of the DPS, and my usual tank was in the lead.

The Return of the Cranky Healer

I’m a relatively patient person.

With that said, I still prefer to stick to healing people that I know – and got to do just that over the weekend when Wyat, Ceirin and I decided to pop into some heroics to get Cei some badges and gear (new guildie, new 80!). We wound up in Violet Hold with another person from our realm – a fellow RPer – and a random Death Knight from a different server.

Right off the bat, the DK pissed me off. He triggered the instance event without warning (“btw i started instance lolol”), then proceeded to bash the DPS of the other two members – even posted his Recount. Unfortunately, I was too busy healing to inform him that Recount is broken for cross-server LFG, but that’s not important.

The important part is this: Don’t piss off your fucking healer, kiddies.

Here are the easy ways to do this:

• Go ahead, insult her guildmate … who is here to gear up so she can be better.
• Insult the other, friendly, intelligent-typing person that’s from her server.
• Be sure to insult the tank that she’s attached to, too. I mean, it’s not like he’s not the only thing between you and the Dragonkin that are eating his fase.
• DEMAND things. Any things. Like heals. And a rez in the middle of combat.

Most of all: just be a dick.

I am not opposed to letting stupid people die, nor am I opposed to letting stupid people run back to their corpse or taking my sweet time to rez them. My lack of patience can definitely be attributed to certain issues of my own that I’m now aware of and may fix itself again in a few months (I used to be pretty easy-going and generally am), but, damn it, somebody was a jerk to my guildies and friends and that, right there, is how you wind up on my shit list.

It’s a Heroic. It’s Violet Hold. The tank is overgeared and the healer is a shield machine, both know what they’re doing. Two out of three DPS are intelligent people. If somebody is intelligent and pulling over 1,000 DPS, I have no problem with them; they aren’t pulling adds, they aren’t stealing aggro, they’re contributing and not making my job harder.

Have I mentioned that it felt really, really good to not heal this guy and to watch him die on trash? Also, to be like, “lol no” when he started begging for a rez? The fact that he actually did run back and that we held our own without him was just delicious.

So, beware, World of Warcraft denizens – don’t piss off the Troll in the dress.

Matojo Is A Lemming: Circle of Healers

Several other healers have filled this out – it started with Miss Medicina -  so I figure it’s my turn too. There’s a tank version that I’ll be digging into at some other point!

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