• 1 traitorous raid boss
• 1 elemental shaman.  Look for a zesty one with a strong lightning bolt kick and an overtone of thunderstorm
• 1 bear druid.  He will be able to stand up to the other strong flavors quite well.
• 1 frostfire mage.  Should be well-dressed.
• 1 moonkin druid.  His aura will nicely supplement the remainder of the ingredients
• 1 holy priest to keep everything cool

Grill over intense heat.  Add bloodlust and trinkets to taste at start.

Meat should be crispy in 42 seconds.  Serve with a side of Timely Death

Instead of having a clear goal, we just struck out with a variety of objectives in mind – picking up emblems of heroism, getting some achievements, and scoring any gear upgrades that our two lower members (Wapner and Zarrg) might need.

The biggest gear upgrade actually occurred before we even got started.  Dirtmop our embroiderer extraordinaire crafted a Deathchill Cloak for Zarrg (a frostfire mage).  It’s tough to pin a hard number on it, but that one piece alone seemed to give him about 4-500 more DPS.  This put all three of our DPS (with Dirtmop as a shadow priest and Tubbybeef as an elemental shaman) up around the 2k mark.

We started off with everyone’s favorite emblem mill, Violet Hold.  Got lucky on bosses (Moragg and Erekkem), so it was even more of a breeze than usual.  After that we went off to do the heroic daily, Nexus.  We started goofing around with achievements here as well.  The first one we tried was Chaos Theory, where you attempt to kill Anomalous without killing any Chaotic Rifts.  It was a pretty insane fight, as we tried to minimize the chain lightning effect from the rifts and had to deal with more and more adds pouring out of them.  When Anomalous went down, only two of our party were left standing.  Unfortunately someone must have killed a rift in the middle of that mess, because we didn’t get the achievement.  It was still probably one of my favorite boss fights of the night.  On Keristraza a few people tried to get Intense Cold as well, but no one managed to pull it off (tough with so much DPS dependent on casting).

Since we were there, we decided next to grab The Oculus.  This instance is probably everyone’s least favorite (hence why it was still on the “To Do” list for Northrend Dungeon Hero).  Unfortunately it managed to live up to its reputation a bit.  We downed the first boss just fine, but had a little bit of trouble adjusting to combat on the drakes at first.  Just as we were clearing the platforms to unlock the second boss, the server went down for a restart!  This meant that we had to clear all of the trash again, yay.  The second boss wasn’t too bad, although it definitely helped to have some backup healing when I went down to a beam from the sky.  The third boss, Mage-Lord Urom, was amazingly easy.  I’ve had trouble with him in the past, and I thought that our dependence on casting DPS would make this kiting fight tough.  Despite the fact that several people hadn’t ever been in the Oculus, the fight went perfectly with the group positioned near a pillar every time he teleported away and we needed to get him out of line of sight.  The final boss here Ley-Guardian Eregos, was a bit tougher.  We started out with 1 ruby (tank) drake, 3 amber (DPS) drakes, and 1 emerald (healing) drake.  I found as the healer that I just couldn’t keep everyone alive, as it was often a choice of channeling the last remnants of my own health away or letting the tank die.  After a few tries in this configuration we had one of the amber drakes swap for an emerald, and the fight went much easier.

We finished off the night in Azjol-Nerub.  We spent a bit of time trying to get the Hadronox Denied achievement, but couldn’t pull it off.  I think this was just a matter of execution, and that we’d be able to get it on the next attempt.  On our best try, we had a weird glitch on pulling Hadronox in which he ran back and forth a few times before coming up into the room we were in.  Meanwhile the adds were pouring down the steps and going after Raznog, and the incoming damage just became too much to handle.  When we decided to take him out the normal way, he was one of the easier bosses of the night.  After that we mopped up Anub’arak and called it a night.

As far as loot goes, it was not a terribly lucky night.  It seemed that every boss dropped plate, which no one in our group wears.  On the other hand, we raked in the emble

We spent 2 hours last night banging our head against him and never did get him down.  I think the closest we got was ~8%.

It had been a while since I’d gone to this fight.  I really don’t like it very much, and think it’s just too difficult with a high chance of getting nothing for your effort if you can’t kill him.  Our group was much better in phase 1, with really good control over the power sparks.  On multiple occasions we managed to stack up a couple of the sparks for huge boosts to damage output.  Our problems seemed to come in phases 2 and 3, simply taking too long in phase 2 to bring down the scions, and I’m not sure what in phase 3.  It seemed like we were taking a lot of raid damage and the heals weren’t keeping up.  Perhaps using 2 “healing” drakes isn’t enough for this phase and we should have gone to three.  Also, due to our limited time in phase three, it may have been useful to change our DPS rotation to stack the DoT up on him faster.

Well, after that at least we got to do a bit of Ulduar.  Made it through Flame Leviathan and the Deconstructor without a ton of trouble and took a poke or two at Razorscale.  I really like Ulduar a lot, and I’m hoping that we focus more on running it in the future as opposed to EoE.

Before I get into my ramble for today, a question: Are heroic raids “capped” at about 1400 incoming DPS?  I ask because it seems like no matter what I do, my heals/sec is hovering around this level.

—

Anyway, I still wanted to get through Utgarde Pinnacle, so I put myself in LFG.  I got a PST asking if I’d do Halls of Stone instead, and since it was the daily I agreed to go.  I ended up being the odd man out in a guild run, and unfortunately not a particularly good guild.  Our tank was a DK, and once again he was new to it and not very good.  At all.  I was managing to heal him up just fine, but it was harder work than it should have been.  It was also clear that they were completely unfamiliar with the instance.

This all came to a head at the first boss, Krystallus.  This is a big rock giant who is pretty much EASY MODE SUPREME if you remember one important rule.  When you get knocked back, do not run into melee range or near a party member until after he does the freeze/shatter.  It’s really simple – just stand still and wait about 5 seconds.  This concept was apparently far too difficult for this group to grasp.  The kicker for me was on the 4th or 5th attempt, when I watched the tank get knocked back, then run over and start humping our warlock, killing them both.  I ended up just healing our last surviving DK while the rest of the group ran back in and we finished him off.  At least I got a piece of gear, the spaulders of krystallus.

Needless to say I was pretty fed up with this group and convinced that we would not clear this instance.  The Tribunal of Ages is a really tough fight even for people who know what they are doing.  I guess some of the other members felt the same, because that most annoying of all happenings, the mid-instance bail, started occuring.  I decided to give them a few minutes to find a replacement (a tank, and our previous “tank” moved to DPS), and unfortunately they did.  Our next try was the Maiden of Grief.  I got pretty unlucky on this fight, mis-timing the stun, then had a black hole spawn on me, then an immediate Pillar of Woe hit that pretty much one-shotted me.  The new tank’s response to this was “Heals suck, no wonder the last tank left” to which I replied “lol” and quit the party.  I won’t be running anything with that guild (Monolithic) again.

I decided to try and improve on this by forming up a group for heroic Nexus with Zarrg, who’s been wanting to run it for a few days.  I won’t say much about this, besides to say that it was a complete 180 degree difference from the first group.  Everyone had a good attitude, even though it took a while to get started.  The group’s DPS wasn’t the best, but we made it through smoothly and everyone had a good time.  I’m convinced from here on out that it’s really attitude that matters.  I don’t really care if the DPS is doing 1k or 2.5k, if someone is being a shithead and draining morale it just won’t be a fun experience and wiping/not finishing are much more likely.

The group took a while to get started, as various members went AFK.  I still don’t understand people who get into a PUG and aren’t really prepared to run an instance (an issue which we will return to later).

Anyhow, we started clearing the place out just fine.  I had a disturbingly tough time keeping the (Death Knight) tank alive on some of the trash pulls – he would just take these massive hits of damage every once in a while for no obvious reason.  After just a bit we made it to the first boss, Svala Sorrowgrave.  We decided to go for the “Incredible Hulk” achievement, where you position an abomination add on her altar as she tries to sacrifice someone.  After two messy attempts we did not manage to accomplish it, but we did manage to wipe once and kill the boss, so it was time to move along.

The next fight was against Gortok Palehoof.  I was a bit worried about this one, actually.  Since you have to kill 4 minibosses before him, I knew that mana conservation would be critical.  I also had remembered tanks taking big hits of damage from Palehoof himself.  Surprisingly this fight was really easy.  The minibosses didn’t seem to hit hard at all, and I was only down about 1k mana when the main fight started.  Palehoof also didn’t hit as hard as I had feared, and we breezed through it.  I did end up dying at the end of the fight, when I got impaled while at low health and was moving into position to lay down a Tranquility on the group.  It wasn’t a huge deal since the boss died seconds later and we had a paladin who could bring me back to life.

Next was Skadi, one of the hardest bosses to PUG in my opinion.  It’s just one of those fights that requires a little group coordination.  Our group did not have it.  On our first attempt, I looked away from my character for a second in order to try and slap a heal on the tank, and ended up getting one-shotted by the freezing breath that he lays down.  This is one of those times that I miss Jod’s health (and plate?  I’m not sure if this damage is mitigated by armor).  Now the whole “dedication” thing reared it’s head.  One of our DPS bailed out because “her boyfriend needed her”, and it took us a little while to find another.  Once we did, another DPS was perpetually AFK, so we booted him and picked up another.  Meanwhile the tank is bellyaching about how he needs to go soon.  I think he must have been distracted, because on the next two attempts he failed to pick up either an add (once again my squishiness was an issue – I got one-shotted by a shadow bolt) or the boss, leading to wipes.  After that the group pretty much disintegrated, leaving me with no loot and no completed quests/achievements yay.

I was a bit disheartened, but I did manage to quickly jump into a group for Violet Hold.  Once again the tank was a bit sketchy, missing adds and not properly taunting Cyanigosa, but we did manage to finish without any wipes.  No loot, but emblems are nice.

Here’s hoping things improve from now on.

After reading a bit, I decided that the most gear for me would drop in heroic Nexus.  Given that this is one of the easier heroics, I figured it would be pretty straightforward.  Immediately I encountered one of the nice aspects of being a healer – I was in LookingForGroup for all of about 10 seconds before it was time to dive in.

Overall the instance went fine, although I learned quickly that healing in a heroic is much more difficult than a regular dungeon.  It probably didn’t help that our tank was new, but he seemed to be taking big chunks of damage.  I found myself going to Swiftmend, Nourish, and the “oh shit” combo of Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch a lot more than I ever had before.  It was a mixed blessing that the entire group besides myself were Death Knights – no buffs for me, but they also had a fair bit of self-healing going around due to blood presence.

I did the instance in my max mana/5 gear, and would still run low during long fights.  I can tell that as I gear up this is a stat I’m going to want to look for in my selections.  I find that I’m more or less always inside the 5 second rule during boss fights, due to the fact that I’m spreading HoTs around, maintaining them, etc.  I’m wondering if it’s going to work out better for me to focus on gear that provides fixed MP5 as opposed to spirit.

The run ended up being remarkably good for me as far as loot – every boss dropped caster gear, including the piece de resistance War Mace of Unrequited Love, a mace that should last me up to 25-mans.

It was a good learning experience, and our repeated wipes in the follow-up Heroic Halls of Lightning showed me that I still have a lot of work to do.  Overall I was happy with my output of about 1400 heals/second.  I seem to recall some of our guys doing ~1k when they first went into Naxx.

Once patch 3.1 came out, I immediately dual-specced.  My “primary” spec which I use for questing is balance (Moonkin spell damage), while my “secondary” spec is Restoration.  Finally I had Tree of Life form and all the healing goodness that came with it, and starting living life in LFG so I could learn how to heal.

Almost all of the druid’s healing spells are Heal Over Time (HOT), meaning you put them on and they tick for some amount over a period of several seconds.  This makes the healing a bit different than other classes.  I find myself putting HOTs on the tank right at the start of the fight, rather than waiting until he takes damage.  If I fall behind (he’s taking more damage than the HOTs are restoring), then I start to have more trouble, as I then have to change to the long cast, mana-costly spells which provide an instant health boost.

So in a typical fight, I’ll put two stacks of lifebloom on the tank and see how this holds.  Lifebloom is an interesting spell, in that it is a HOT which can be stacked up to 3 times on a single target to make it “stronger”.  At the end of the HOT, it also heals the target for a certain amount and refunds half the mana cost of the spell.  So I watch the two stacks on the tank – if they are doing fine then I’ll keep it around that level, decreasing it to 1 as the incoming damage is reduced.  If 2 stacks is overhealing, you just drop one for the next cycle.  If it’s not enough, you can throw on the third stack, as well as a Rejuvenation (standard fairly strong HOT).  When things get hairy it’s time to reach for the Healing Touch, an interminably long 3 second cast.  I tend to save Swiftmend and Wild Growth for situational use – Swiftmend when I need very fast heals and Wild Growth for when the group is bunched up.

I really enjoy being able to heal on the move, since most of the spells are instant-cast.  This allows for better positioning, less interruption if someone wanders out of range, and allows me to drag an aggroed creature onto the tank.  Some of the other druid abilities (like Barkskin) are also nice when trouble with adds occurs.

At the moment my main problems are with mana use (I don’t hate paladins as much as I used to – Blessing of Wisdom is magnificent) and with very healing intensive fights where the tank is taking lots of big damage hits.  I feel like my slow cast big heals just don’t get the job done, and the tank can end up dying while I’m watching my cast bar creep along.  Partly this is because since I use these spells so infrequently I don’t have a good feeling for how long they really take to fire.  Also, I have not gotten very good yet about remembering Nature’s Swiftness, an ability that makes my next cast instant.

I’m interested to see what it’s like to raid as a tree once I get to 80 with Wapner.  It seems like a druid would make for an excellent raid healer, but I’m wondering how they fare as main-tank medics.  I’m assuming that Nourish comes in handy here, but I won’t be able to find out for another 4 levels…

Jod the DK is now rolling around with a few pieces of Valorous gear from a good 25-man Naxx run or two, and has been occasionally doing dailies for gold and glory.  Unfortunately, being a DK with no starting rep, I’ve got to grind up my Sen’Jin rep to get the title from the Argent Tournament.

In addition to his DPS role, I’ve been taking him more often as a tank (thank you for Dual Specs, Blizzard) into heroics.  It’s definitely a different job, and I always walk away feeling like I need an antacid.  For some reason when I’m tanking I feel like the success of the party rests more on my shoulders than when doing other jobs.  Regardless, it seems to go OK for the most part, aside from the occasional n00bitry that is part of the learning process.  I wouldn’t want to try to tank in Ulduar, but it gets the job done in heroics and even Naxx to some extent.  Main-tanking Patchwerk was probably the scariest thing I’ve done in a while, and I got seasick from the up-down motion of my health bar.

Where I’ve really been paying my dues is in leveling up my Druid, Wapner.  At level 76 now, he is the character that I have brought the farthest in this game (my original “main” is level 73, and the DK starts at 55).  I liked playing as a Druid before patch 3.1, and now with Dual specs it’s amazing.  I log on in my moonkin spec, put myself as a healer in the queue for a dungeon, and start questing.  Once I get in a group and summoned it’s a 5 second spec and gear change, then I get to heal.  It’s really sped up my ability to level him and also allowed me to learn how to heal at the same time.

I’m hoping to have him to 80 soon, and then it will be another bit of a gear grind to get him ready to roll with the big boys.  I’m looking forward to having a full range of role choices for raiding.

First, we decided to go for Obsidian Sanctum with 1 of the 3 drakes still up.  Unfortunately this wasn’t a full guild raid, and after a couple of wipes we decided to just down the drake and finish of Sarth.  I could tell that we were slowly getting it, but the two wipe runs with the drake up both had some serious mistakes (bad positioning of Sarth on try 1, hunter misdirecting onto the wrong tank in run 2) that cause serious trouble.  I think we can get this one if we get a full guild group and just work out the strategy.

Next we stepped into the Eye of Eternity to fight Malygos.  This is another complex fight.  The first two phases take place on a circular platform.  Power Sparks fly in and have to be killed on top of the group to provide a damage output buff.  If they reach Malygos, the dragon gets a buff and it becomes very hard to survive.  After phase 1, the dragon lifts into the air.  Anti-magic bubbles appear on the ground and some humanoids on flying discs come in to attack  The raid group has to stand in the bubble and DPS down these humanoids, then melee hops on the discs and flies around killing other adds still in the air.  I’m not even going to talk about phase 3 – firstly because we didn’t get there and secondly because it’s cool and I wish I hadn’t known about it myself before seeing it in-person.

So, we wiped a lot here.  As I say, the fight is tough.  It is largely a tanking/movement fight, in that the tank needs to position Malygos away from the incoming sparks but also in range of melee DPS.  The people on spark duty have to try to make sure not to let them get to the dragon, and also to make sure to get the buff applied to the raid group.  The increased DPS is crucial in downing Malygos before the end of the 5 minute enrage timer.  The fight is also fairly healing intensive, during a vortex phase where Malygos lifts everyone up into the air.  For the most part, I felt like our healing was fine (even a bit overpowered with three healers), but we were light on DPS and having trouble with tank positioning.  It’s hard to tell how long it will take us to get this fight down; part of me thinks that we need better gear still before it will become anything less than a mighty struggle.

Big big rep bills this week, but at least we’re seeing new content and learning/having fun (for the most part)!