Gruul 1% wipe

Yes last night was a slightly frustrating night in Gruul's Lair. We one shotted Maulgar, and then got to work on Gruul. Unfortunately, it seemed that it was incredibly difficult to keep Wynri up. Mostly this was because we only had 5 healers instead of the 6 that we had before. Once we made the necessary adjustments to add a few healers, we kept Wynri up. At that point we had 7 healers. And we actually made it to grow 17 with Wynri still alive. That was our 1% wipe.

It apparently just wasn't our night. Wynri would take very large hits right before the reverberation all the time. We had HOTs on him, but since there were only 2 of us assigned to him, it become very difficult. This happened 3-4 times, the reverb killed Wynri.

Makes a big difference sometimes when you have 6 healers with 5 of us specced for healing like we did last time. We ended up needing 7 healers, since only 4 of us were specced for it. Sometimes group makeup makes a difference.

Amazingly, our raid DPS was a lot lower than last time too. I don't know how they managed it last week, but we had 8793 raid DPS. Last night on our 1% attempt, we only had 6400 raid DPS. That's a huge difference. I think the reason for this is definitely attitude. Last night was a frustrating night, and morale was very low by the end. People were tired and probably not paying quite as much attention as they needed to be.

But every raid is going to have nights like this. It's apparent that we can do it. We just needed to plan properly for it.

In the meantime, everyone should still be searching for ways to improve. Whether it's DPS, or longevity of healing, or just looking for gear, don't forget that there is always a way to improve somewhere along the line. Work at heroics, come to Karazhan, do whatever it takes to find that extra 1% that we needed last night. That way we can make sure it doesn't happen again.

I know as a healer, I'll be more ready for next week than I was this week. Make no doubt about it.

Just some quick notes

1. PVP is a lot of fun, but only if you're grouped up. Every DPS class in PVP wants a healer to run around with them. Every healer in PVP wants a DPS class to run around with them. It's a beautiful relationship, and a lot more fun than going alone.

2. Still no patch. I find it amazing that when Blizzard released information about Zul Aman, everyone was all pumped and excited, and it began much drama. Here it is around a month later, and we still have a patch before it can even go on the test realms. The same thing goes for the next expansion. I see all sorts of posts on the forums about what the 51 point talents are going to be. WHO CARES? Shut-up and learn how to use your 41 point talents instead. No sense in talking about something that's over a year away.

3. I hate the Netherwing. I can complete 2 dailies in Skettis and 3 dailies in Ogrila in around 45 minutes. It takes me that long to complete 1 or 2 dailies down there. Screw them. (I've heard it gets better at friendly, but I'm not all about inflicting pain on my soul until then. Holy priest FTW.)

4. Wynri's a few badges away from his shield for tonight. Just 7 more. If someone wants to run him through Slave Pens or something if they are bored today, I plan on running him through the first 3 bosses in Mech, the first boss in Mana Tombs, and the first boss in Sethekk Halls if he really needs them before Gruul. Speaking of Gruul...

5...BE THERE TONIGHT. Show up like last week, bring your A game, and he'll die again. Everyone's improved since even last week. I know he should go down. That means YOU Azi.

Server Healer Rankings?

So last night before Karazhan, I went to help Bronton get a single badge of justice so he could get the 50 badges of justice shield. We hopped into heroic Mana Tombs and downed the first boss. While we were there, he was mentioning that he wasn't doing all that well as a tank that day. He mentioned that he ran some heroics and was really messing up left and right, which is a shame. I know that I've run with him, and he's been damn good.

But he mentioned when he was there that the Auchenai Crypts run healer said he was the 6th ranked healer on the server.

Now, my first question is who the hell did those rankings? Second question is why the hell do you advertise something without having proof? And third question is, where am I on that list? :-P

Seriously though, is there a ranking system in place by someone somewhere? I think it's absurd. Unless you put every healer in the same situation to see where they came out, it's ludicrous to think that you're #6 on the server according to.....what?

Last night I was on the top of my game (not in 5v5...sorry guys :-( ). We flew through the end of Karazhan. We started at 6 server, and by 9:30 server Nightbane, Curator, Shade, Chess, Prince, Netherspite, and Illhoof had kicked the bucket. During Curator, we played a 2 tank, 2 healer, 6 ranged DPS setup, which is possibly the best you can do for Curator....we were pretty lucky in our group makeup. But Murien was disconnected, and we body pulled. Now I didn't realize that Murien had DCed...all I knew was that healing was ridiculous...I was at 20% mana before I knew it. At that point, Murien came back online. He came back, only to DC again later. I had to use 2 mana potions, but we ended up downing him. Murien pretty much said that I just about solo healed Curator. I was on top of the world. I'm not usually one to boast, but I was proud of that. There's no way I would have kept it up without Murien there, even for a short amount of time, but it's good to know that we survived.

Later on, when fighting Netherspite at 40%, Alarion and Murien died...our two other healers. I hopped in the green beam, and started dishing out a lot of healing. I had to pop a potion and use shadowfiend, but we barely survived and downed him. And that fight is one of the worst for healing and chaos. I let a few people die by the skin of their teeth, but I felt really good that we one-shotted him.

So I don't know, judging by my performance last night, where am I on that ranking? :-P In all sincerity, I know that I'm a good healer. But having an excellent group that knows when to bandage, when to use a healthstone, when to pop a potion....these are also reasons we survived those fights. It takes the whole group. And I'm not just being modest. We had trouble in a regular Arcatraz yesterday, because DPS was low, and the people just didn't know how to bandage or to stay alive. The #1 healer on the server would have struggled with that group.

So I guess I still ask if these rankings exist and what they are based on. That way, I can discredit them, or get my name on there :-D.

Old Hillsbrad on Heroic

For anyone who has tried Old Hillsbrad on heroic mode...yeah it's awful.

Everyone has to be on the ball. Tanks, healers, DPS, everyone. It's meant to be difficult, but it's beyond that. It's ridiculous.

At any rate, Murien, Rubix, Alarion, Bootz, and I went in there. We wiped a lot. But we got through the awful part of burning the buildings, killing the first boss, escorting Thrall, or "The Sheep Breaker" as we like to call him, and killing the second boss. We escorted him to Tarren Mill, and met up with Tabitha. We engaged the final boss encounter. It was sloppy due to lack of experience. However, we figured out a strategy that would work well, and I do believe we would have dropped the final boss after the initial wipe.

So we zone back in, and the encounter is supposed to reset back to when Thrall is standing in front of Tabitha. This never happened. We had the final boss standing out in the middle instead. So when we couldn't find Thrall, we decided to engage the boss.

We got him down to 1% and wiped. Now it isn't what you're thinking though. It wasn't a true 1% wipe. He was at 1% for over a minute. Since Thrall wasn't there, he was unable to die. So, we kited him around for a bit, hoping Thrall would appear. No such luck.

So in conclusion, we all had around a 25g repair bill and all we got was 2 Badges of Justice.

I submitted a GM ticket, but of course they say that it's working as intended, and if Thrall dies you cannot kill the boss. Now in a future patch, they'll be changing the number of resets from 3 to 10, so that was a load of shit. The GM also said to reset the instance when I pointed out that you cannot reset a heroic instance. Then after waiting a while, he mentioned that a "soft reset" (meaning zone out and back in in 45 minutes) would reset the encounter. That's a load of shit too...I'm not waiting 45 minutes to fight the boss again.

At any rate, we weren't too pleased with the situation. I really hope they do something about that fight, because it is very buggy. Just a warning to you all. Stay away from heroic Caverns of Time, unless you have lots of gold, lots of time, and are wanting to smash any pride that you may have.

In other words, I'll be trying it again soon.

Arenas vs. Battlegrounds

If you've been doing arenas and are getting quite good as a team, I seriously recommend going to more battlegrounds as a group. It's truly amazing how morale-boosting it is.

I remember going into BGs with a smallish group (5 people) and usually doing reasonably well. When you have coordination, it's rarer that people die, and you can more easily take down horde with a group effort.

But wow, arena is 5 times more difficult. You're going up against 5 well trained people who know each other like the back of their hand. They coordinate so well with trinkets and cooldowns, it's very intense.

Now, flash back to battlegrounds. If you take your 5 man arena team into battlegrounds with a similar focus...say defending or attacking a node in AB. It's truly amazing what practice and synergy can do. Usually in battlegrounds, you don't have all of your cooldowns at the beginning of the fight, but neither do the other guys. It's really a lot more fun to try to take on 5 guys with 3 and win, or to survive 7 incoming guys with 5. I strongly recommend taking your arena team in there for some fun-filled gankings.

Gruul is no more

Well, Gruul has kicked the bucket. And this all despite the following:

1. One of our 700 DPS mages being on vacation
2. Two of our higher DPS people (fury warrior and affliction warlock) being stranded without internet.
3. Only 24 people in the raid
4. No shadow priests (mana batteries)

On our final attempt, we killed him at grow 11 or 12. We even made Murien a resto druid go moonkin, and he got darned close to 500 DPS too. 14 people were above 400 DPS. 10 had over 500. 5 people above 600, 3 people above 700, and 1 person above 800.

Truly an amazing job by everyone. Everything clicked. Healing was perfect. Tanking was perfect. And everyone gets to go home feeling really really great about themselves.

I do want to say here publicly (to the 1 person who reads my blog) how proud I am of the raid in general. I've talked to a lot of people who have really stepped their game up heavily. They have done the work. They have figured out their best DPS spell rotations. They have farmed what gear they need. And most importantly, they have worked their tail-ends off to bring their A-game when it matters.

I can't see Gruul not going down from this point on. We may have some bad nights where he doesn't die, but it won't be long before he's farm-bait. Look out Magtheridon....we're closing in fast.

Prepare for Gruul

Just a reminder to anyone who reads this to be ready to kick some Gruul ass in two days. This gives plenty of time to make sure you get everything that you have enchanted and gemmed, gather a flask or elixirs (if they will be significantly better than a flask), get enough food for each attempt, and come with your reagants, fully repaired, and on time.

I merely say this to help spread the word. I think Gruul is dying in two days time. We are extremely close. Our DPS is if not on the mark, right there and poised for the kill. We should have the healers this week, and Maulgar will be one-shotted (two-shotted if something goes crazy.)

So you definitely don't want to miss it. Try to get online for 5:30 server to make sure you're ready to go and reserve your spot. I know you won't want to miss it when we kill him.