Prayer of Healing

I logged on yesterday out of obligation and commitment to earning 50 Emblems of Frost, which will allow me to replace my worn-out Wispcloak. Blizzard has me by the marbles in that respect. “If I don’t make it a point to do the random heroic at least once per day, then I miss out on two Frost Emblems. Oh, the humanity!”

I sighed, and entered the Random Heroic queue, silently praying that the gods would send me into AN, or UK,  partnered with a 40k-health tank. The load screen revealed Halls of Lightning. Not great but at least it’s something different, I thought. If I have to see Utgarde Pinnacle or Old Kingdom again I’m going to hurl my laptop into the woods.

I inspected the party and saw that the “tank” was a DK who was sporting 27k health with both Kings and Fortitude buffs. To make things worse, she was wearing a lot of attack power gear, including the heirloom leveling shoulders. Nothing was gemmed or enchanted. “Why do I do this to myself?” I thought while eating buff food, trying to do whatever I can do compensate for the tank’s shortcomings.

The first few pulls revealed that it wasn’t going to be a cake-walk of a run like I had hoped. The spike damage was insane. The tank’s health frequently dropped from 100%-30%, then back to 90% before dropping to 20%. It felt like I was solo healing a Patchwork fight back in the day. She did maintain aggro, for the most part. When the ret paladin and/or the other DK would steal aggro it was actually helpful because the damage was split and the melee dps had almost as much HP as the tank.

For new tanks who may be reading this, 27k health is fine for most heroics (save H-ToC and the new Icecrown 5-mans), as long as you’re defense capped. If you’re not defense capped, General Bjarngrim will critically strike you for 12,000 and if he strings two in a row, it’s a wipe; not to mention the trash before Loken that hits hard and stuns the healer. I have great respect for tanks. You guys have the toughest job, in my opinion. But please don’t sacrifice those crucial +defense gems that would remove critical strikes from the attack table just to get another thousand HP. It’s not worth it.

The run went smooth and without a wipe. I died once because the warlock accidentally backed into another group of mobs while we were fighting. Fortunately I was soul-stoned so I was able to resurrect and save us a run from the graveyard.

Loken was interesting. The strategy to move out of the nova was not even discussed. “Just stand under his feet,” the tank said. That was it. Normally I’d mention that we should be moving away from him when he casts nova, since it’s a long cast and certainly avoidable, but I kept my mouth shut. A year ago, when casters averaged 16-17k health, I would have insisted upon getting the hell out of the nova but our entire party was over the 20k health mark so it was enough to survive a blast.

I wasn’t paying enough attention to the warlock’s health before the nova and he wound up dying. It would have helped if he was under the boss’s feet, instead of 25 yards away taking unnecessary damage from the aura, but oh well. We killed Loken and the run was complete. While looting, the tank said, “How did I do? This is my first time at tank.” I think I heard the gods chuckling at their practical joke.

This week I achieved both “Looking for Many”, which gives the title “The Patient,” and “Looking for Multitudes,” which gives players the pug dog non-combat pet. Looking for Many is achieved by grouping with 50 different players using the new Dungeon Finder tool and Looking for Multitudes is achieved by grouping with 100 different players.

3 more successful runs and I’ll have a pair of T9 pants!

My lucky streak ended. After going 9-for-9, the Dungeon Finder finally dealt me a bad hand, or three.

The first queue landed me in H-Halls of Stone. Not bad, I thought. The group was solid. The tank had around 34,000 health, which is the lowest of all the tanks I’ve grouped with in the previous 9 runs, but still overkill for a heroic 5-man. After three trash pulls the tank asked the party, “Skip, or full clear?” I’m fine with skipping trash but wanted to bosses dead for their Emblems of Triumph.  “Skip,” the rogue responded.

After completing the encounter in the hectic ‘Epcot Center’ room, as I call it, we headed directly for Sjonnir the Ironshaper, which is the final boss in the instance. We killed him in record time and, instead of turning around to continue the instance, I saw several “Thanks for the run” messages. Great. They were just there for their Frost badges and skipped the final two bosses. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t at least kill the Maiden of Virtue knockoff boss, since there’s hardly any trash leading up to her. “Oh well,” I thought.

I ported back to Dalaran and queued once again.

I knew from the loading screen that I was in for it. It was Pit of Saron, a dungeon that I haven’t attempted on normal, let alone heroic. On top of that, I’ve never actually been inside Icecrown Citadel, so the entire experience was new to me. Upon entering the instance, I buffed my party. They were already mounted up. The initial portion of the dungeon is completely outdoor and open. I mounted up and followed along.

The tank was in just about all blues, except for his iLevel 200 purple pants. I always embrace a challenge, but I would have loved the cushion of another 63k health druid in a time like this. But it was apparent by his sense of command and knowledge of the instance that this character was an alt. I had high hopes.

We got to the cave where it was explained to us, “Huge icicles fall from the ceiling. Avoid them. I’m going to pull the mobs up to the first level. No DPS until then.” It sounded easy enough. Unfortunately, he needed healing about halfway up the ramp, and when I hit him with Penance, I drew aggro for a second. Fade wiped it, though, and I was able to make it to the first platform with a half bar of life and with the tank down to about 40%.

There’s an intense and uncomfortable situation that happens on occasion when you’re a healer: the entire party is taking damage, with the tank’s life spiking up and dropping back down. Meanwhile, there are either adds, or other things that need attention (such as falling icicles) that require you to either not heal (by having to move, bubble, Fade, etc), or to choose your heals wisely. Ultimately, it results in having to make a decision, to stand there and heal the party…hoping that the adds die, and icicles choose to not fall on you, or to do what it takes to keep yourself alive, which means taking your eyes off of health bars and focusing on black holes, icicles, and kiting badies. It’s stressful and often no-win.

Last night I made the decision to stand in and keep the tank/party alive. Amongst the Consecration/Death and Decay effects, I was unable to recognize and react quickly enough, and an icicle ended me.

After the wipe, the party made it back to the portal. Well, most of the party, except for me. I could not figure out where the instance portal was. After two minutes, a player left the party. Another joined. Five minutes later, that person left the party. It was embarrassing, but I eventually apologized and explained that I need more time to figure this place out on normal before I’d be able to attempt it on heroic.

I felt bad because the druid in the party was trying to be helpful and even came out of the instance to try to find me. After leaving the group, and spending about ten more minutes flying around, I found the entrance. It’s difficult to see while in ghost mode. What a disaster. What a tool, I am.

At this point I had been playing for over an hour and had only two Emblems of Triumph and two Emblems of Frost to show for it. With hesitation, I queued once more.

Heroic AN, great. I can do this. It’s the fastest heroic, and one that I’m familiar with. Plus, there was a shaman in the party which means poison wouldn’t be an issue like last time.

I saw that the tank had 28,000 health. Not that I need a 45,000 hp tank for heroic AN, but at this point I just wanted my 5 badges quickly and to go to sleep. The snoody Ret Pally commented “Damn, you just ding 80? lol,” referring to the tank’s gear. I inspected it and saw that he was wearing mostly blues, but some greens for rings, and the old-school, level-60 PvP trinket. The other trinket was an attack power trinket. And he didn’t put a belt bucket/socket onto his belt. Crap. So much for my ‘5 easy badges’ thought.

A tank with 25,000 health was about the average to start heroics back when the expansion was first released. But people have gotten use to steam-rolling heroics. So when a new level 80 wants to get in the mix there are some players who insist on giving him a hard time and accuse him of getting “carried through”.

I could tell the tank was uncomfortable, and the paladin wasn’t helping. “Go, go, go,” before each pull. “This is going to take forever,” he commented. “Aggro!” he yelled when he pulled a mob from the tank. I know the pressure that goes with tanking, and when people are badgering you it’s even worse. I reassured the tank that he’s doing fine, and that it’s no rush.

The mage and shaman also weren’t over-geared. The shaman mentioned, “This place was impossible on regular,” which tipped me off that she hadn’t been here on heroic. After the first boss, recount showed the mage to be at 1400 dps, the shaman at 1600 dps, and the pally at 2100 dps. Again, I’m use to these numbers because I’ve done heroics since before iLevel 213 gear was available without raiding. We were rolling along just fine.

We approached the second boss. The pally once again commented, “This is never going to happen.” I replied “We’ll be fine.” The tank pulled and we began the long fight. About one minute into the battle, the pally left the party. It took a long time (and a Hymn of Hope, Shadowfiend, and Mana Potion), but we eventually four-manned the boss to death. Fortunately for both the tank and myself, the tanking trinket dropped.

We queued for a 3rd dps member. Almost immediately, a DK joined the party. I explained that we’re on the final boss. “No problem, be right there,” he replied.

The final boss was challenging. During the first attempt, the shaman died, twice. When the boss was around 20%, I made a huge mistake and was too close to the boss when he cast Pound, and was one-shotted. A wipe ensued.

The next attempt we killed him and collected our emblems.

By the end of the night I collected just 7 Emblems of Triumph; 16 less than the night before.

In patch 3.3, Blizzard implemented an upgrade to the Looking for Group tool. It’s called Dungeon Finder and it allows you specify which dungeon you’re interested in, which role in the group you’d like to play, and matches you with others in the same battlegroup. Not only that, but players will receive bonuses in the way of gold, and extra emblems as encouragement to use the random dungeon feature.

I can’t overstate how huge this is for a player like me.

My Warcraft playing habits have been reduced to whenever both my two-year old and five-month old are sleeping. I don’t have time to pencil in 3 hours to raid on a set evening. My kids have no regard for my video game time, as well they shouldn’t. So, prior to 3.3, my gaming experience went something like this:

• Log in at 11pm and enter the LFG channel
• Do dailies or some battlegrounds until I found a group needing a healer
• Notice a group who needs a healer and dps for a dungeon that I’d like to do
• Whisper and get flack asking if I’m geared enough for a heroic (which I’ve been doing since 3 weeks after Wrath was released).
• Get an invite and see that the entire group is spread all over the map, with no signs of heading to the meeting stone.
• Sit around for another 30 minutes trying to find the last member of the group

It was too much work and I stopped PUGing altogether.

The Dungeon Finder solves all of those problems. In all three cases that I’ve used the tool, I’ve found a group within a minute. There’s no talking or haggling back and forth when forming the group. Just click “Ok” to enter the dungeon when prompted and you’re teleported into the instance with your party. Beautiful. No more sitting around for an hour hoping that a group needs a healer. No more waiting at the stone while players are shopping in Ironforge. And also, since it’s the only way for players to get their hands on the new Emblems of Frost without raiding, it gives incentive for good players to roll the dice.

Oh, and the party receives a buff called Luck of the Draw which increases some attributes by 5%, which serves as a handicap to offset the potential disadvantages of rolling the dice.

So far I’ve randomly been placed in heroic Utgarde Keep, Utgarde Pinnacle, and Old Kingdom. All three runs have been successful, netting me 16 Emblems of Triumph, and 6 Emblems of Frost.

The one negative result of the tool is, since good, well-geared players are using it, in two out of my three experiences, I’ve had a tank who is in a rush and who has no respect for the dungeon itself. I’ve said it before, tanks who get cocky and are in a rush, almost always cause unnecessary wipes which makes the run take longer than it should. Not only that, but there’s a social aspect that I enjoy when grouped with four strangers. Having a player bark “Go go go” “Mana up” “Hurry”, sort of takes away from the fun.

Last night I was grouped with a pally tank sporting around 42k health (with buffs) for heroic OK. As soon as we were ported into the instance, he ran ahead and started fighting. I was still buffing and eating. We wiped on the first boss because there were about 1,000 small spiders swarming me. The dps must have been ignoring the ‘guardian’, which allowed the spiders to accumulate out of control. The tank’s response: “Healz?”

What?

I threw on some PvP gear for extra stamina and the dps paid attention to the guardian so we downed him easily on the next attempt. But the entire run was a rush. Occasionally he’d bark at the dps to “pick it up”. Or he’d yell, in caps, “HUG THE WALL”. Again, this didn’t ruin the run but it did take away from the experience. Also, it is the first time I’ve witnessed a tank yell OOM in the middle of a fight.

Overall I’m very happy with the new Dungeon Finder tool and will make it a point to use it nightly, since I can log in, find a party, and be inside the instance within 3 minutes.

About six months ago I posed the question to the WoW forums asking whether or not Blizzard will ever add more gear to be purchased with Emblems of Heroism. I don’t raid because of time constraints, but was logging on nightly to do a heroic or two with a steady group of friends. After having every possible emblem upgrade, and plenty of heirloom items for alts, I began losing interest in playing my character because I was out of upgrades. I enjoyed running heroics but there wasn’t much of an incentive from a progression standpoint.

My forum thread was full of players saying that it was doubtful because Blizzard doesn’t want a repeat of the latter stages of Burning Crusade, where Hiijal/SSC-geared players were forced to slum heroics for gear upgrades. I was discouraged and eventually wound up leaving my priest alone to level alts.

Fast-forward to now: Blizzard made Emblems of Conquest drop from heroic dungeon bosses, and Emblems of Triumph are now the reward for completing the daily heroic quest. Beautiful! They’ve given my priest room to progress!

I logged on last night hoping to find a group for The Headless Horseman. He drops a ring that is an upgrade to one of my holy spec rings, and I enjoy the fact that the seasonal bosses are quick and don’t require hours of time. It appeared as though my guild had already killed him, so I hiked to Scarlet Monastery figuring that there’s bound to be a group spamming General chat for a healer.

I kind of just stood in the lobby of SM, toying with the level 31 mobs. Fifteen minutes went by and I saw no promising groups that were looking for a healer. One group did need a healer, but I was turned off by their message: LF 1 more, healer, must have summon and must summon first!” No thanks. I’ve been burned too many times in this game to roll the dice with that situation.

There was a group in the LFG channel that needed a healer for heroic Azjol-Nerub, the daily heroic dungeon. I was hesitant to volunteer because my 3-month-old daughter had just fallen asleep next to me and could wake up at any time, but I took a chance. The group sent me an invite and I headed to Star’s Rest.

The group composition was solid: A paladin tank, a warrior, a death knight, and a mage. The melee would compliment each other well, and the mage provides water, intellect, and possibly Replenishment. The tank had 38k health, which is always nice to see as a healer.

Upon entering the instance it was evident that the tank was in a rush. I had to hurry and eat for food buffs, and he started the first pull while I was out of range and only a half bar of mana. Call me old school – I know that at this stage of the game just about every level 80 player can out-gear heroics with a trip to the auction house, but I hate taking heroics for granted and wasting time running back to corpses because we’re caught off guard.

During the pull right before the first boss, the mage pulled aggo from an add, and died. As I was resurrecting him the tank pulled the boss, which interrupted my rez. The tank, once again, lost control over an add and it skittered over and killed me. Thankfully the graveyard is a short run from the instance and we were both able to make it back to the boss before the tank died.

The remainder of the run was fairly smooth. The second boss seemed to take forever to kill. I had to use Shadowfiend, a mana potion, and Hymn of Hope. I checked Recount and the dps was doing 3200, 1800, and 1350 dps, which didn’t seem extremely low for a heroic.

The final boss is an annoyance for one reason, poison. In fact, that is the problem with the entire instance for a priest healer. We’re the only healing class that cannot cleanse poison. So when Anub’arak’s adds are spitting acid that ticks for 3,500 hp every few seconds on two different players, instead of dispelling it, we have to watch it tick down and heal through it. Again, at this stage of the expansion, it’s nothing more than a moderate annoyance, but it made the fight interesting.

He dropped the wand and, since it was a side-grade to my wand, I passed so the mage could have it.