That Was The Week That Was

I apologize for the un-flashy title. As I write this, I’m watching the 18-hole playoff between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate for the US Open Golf Championship. (The US Open may just be my favorite even in all of sports, and I’m a bit of a sports nut.) (Spending 20 minutes on the phone on Father’s Day, watching a couple holes with my youngest son in Brooklyn, was one of the highlights of my day yesterday.)

At any rate…back to WoW. After all, that’s why you are here. 

Week 2 in The Oroborus was even better than Week 1, in many ways, even though it didn’t start off so well. We tried Magtheridon again on Tuesday, after having downed him the week before. Invites started at PM (server). Osprey was the first one invited, which I took as a compliment. (As it turns out, healers and tanks are invited first; we ended up with only five healers, but still…) 

That it took us over 90 minutes to get 25 people in the raid and summoned to Hellfire Peninsula before we even went through the portal, was a signal of things to come. I’m not going to play armchair quarterback, but it seems we shouldn’t be taking that long before we enter the instance. However, I think things like this are going to happen as the guild continues to work out the post-reorganization. I know the raid leaders, including the GM, are trying to put together 25 people who give us the best opportunity for success.

Unfortunately, success eluded us in this run. We took three shots at the dragon before the raid was called. Everything that could go wrong, did: Bad clicking, meaning even worse Blast Novas, bad luck on the warlocks, bad healing (mine, at least, since I kept dying early on, and then immediately after a battle res). Our best effort was the second, which was the only one in which we actually got Mags released. Total time on that attempt was 2:27 before the wipe. Glad that’s behind us.

During the week I had the opportunity to run some heroics, including Shadow Lab. I don’t know if that instance is so difficult, or the groups I’m in just have epic bad luck. Or something else (I’d prefer not to believe it’s something else). A guildie wanted to run it in Heroic mode to progress his attunement for The Eye. A couple people also needed the First Key Fragment (didn’t know this till after we wiped on Murmur a few times, but I’m getting ahead of myself).

Osprey was tapped to heal; we had a couple mages and, I believe, a druid or hunter for DPS. We did pretty well, one- or two-shotting the bosses, although there were some wipes. (I think I’d gotten too used to Heroic Mechanar, which is pretty much easy mode for a heroic.) Then we met up with Murmur.

Simply put, we couldn’t get him down below 15 percent. I died too early, too often. I wasn’t seeing Murmur’s Touch, I couldn’t get out of the Sonic Blast…and everyone else seemed to have similar problems. However, I think we just didn’t have the DPS in this group to get the job done. It was frustrating, and while Heroic SL isn’t my favorite place to go, I want to beat this one. Maybe today…or tomorrow… (We did figure out someone needed the key frag, so after the last wipe, we ran back and opened the container for that.)

I also got into Heroic Shattered Halls. Once again, we managed to fight through to the last boss, Kargath Bladefist. Once again, several wipes and no joy. Once again, the priest died too quickly. Need.more.health.

Early Friday, I made the decision that Osprey was finally going to get through regular Magister’s Terrace, so I could give another excuse for not healing Heroic besides "I’m not attuned." I cajoled some guildies into helping out, and we started. We changed a couple people here and there because people needed to leave, and after a couple wipes on Kael’Thas, our tank, who’d done a terrific job, also had to leave. We were able to recruit another tank (known to at least one of the other group members) and finally, FINALLY, I had Kael’s head. Glad to get THAT monkey of my back! Once again, my healing was adequate or better, but I was also dying too quickly at times. Need. more. health! 

While all of the preceding were somewhat disappointing, I still took advantage of the opportunities to learn more of the instances, to learn how to heal better in 5-mans, and I improved my situational awareness. So when the call came on Friday for a Karazhan group, I was excited to get Osprey in the group. The other two healers were resto druids; I was assigned MT healing duty.

I was probably one of the two or three least Kara-savvy in the raid, but I think I’m a quick learner. And let’s be honest: for the most part, healing Karazhan isn’t the hardest assignment in the game. With the group we had, it was a snooze-fest for much of the way. Attumen: one-shot. Moroes: one-shot. Maiden: one-shot (dead priest here right at the end). Romulo and Julianne: one-shot. Curator: one-shot. Chess: one-shot. (And once again, I had no control bar for my piece; I really need to figure which add-on(s) are preventing that. If anyone has an idea, please let me know!) Shade: one-shot. Nightbane: Three tries, down to about 15 percent; pass till Saturday. Prince: one-shot. Netherspite: Three tries, no joy. However, I hit Honored with Violet Eye and was able to get my next-level Signet–and MORE HEALTH! I’m now over 7K unbuffed. Hooray!

So yes, Kara was easy money. I got virtually no loot (a DPS neckpiece somewhere along the line, because we had no enchanter to DE stuff), but the experience was worth a lot more than loot. I also got some pretty nice props: During the Shade fight, our restos went down relatively early in the fight. At that point, the RL said over Vent something along the lines of "Osprey, I hope you have some mad healing skills." One of the dead druids (with whom I think I’d done one 5-man heroic before) typed out, "Don’t worry, he does!" When Shade went down (without another death in the party), she then said, "See? I told you." Talk about a warm fuzzy! You can be sure I made a point of thanking her for the compliment.

On Saturday, we went back to clean up the three bosses we didn’t get on Friday. Both dragons were one-shot kills; Illhoof took us three tries before everyone synched on the demon chains. Woot! My first full clear of Karazhan! I can’t wait to go back this week.

Earlier on Saturday, I answered the call for "one more DPS for heroic SH" with Talonis. Time for another huge compliment: Our GM was the healer; our main tank (including for our Kara group) was in the party, along with a couple of our younger members, a warlock and a mage. As we were buffing up the tank said, "I hope your trapping skills are as good as your healing, Tal." Clearly, I’d made quite a favorable impression the night before. Makes me think my being "first pick" for Magtheridon wasn’t an accident.

The run itself was pretty easy. Certainly helps to have the guild’s best tank and healer leading the way. My trapping was at least adequate. I do think that every time the first trap timed out, the ‘lock was dotting the square, but I’m not positive: Maybe my second traps just weren’t holding well. However, everything went smoothly up to Kargath. On that fight, I was more than adequate, and pumped out MASSIVE QoSRDPS. Easy money once again. Still, my luck with loot was lousy: No useful drops at all. However again, I was more interested in the experience than the loot.

On Sunday morning/early afternoon, our "regular group" of five was able to make considerable progress in our Kara attunement progression. We headed to the Caverns of Time and Old Hillsbrad. We recalled our struggles of a year ago trying to get through here as we breezed through the entire instance in about an hour. What a difference level 70 and good gear make! Later Sunday night, we ran it again for other characters. We wiped once on the escort, but after that hiccup, the rest was easy. Can’t wait to finally get into Black Morass!

So what am I taking away from the past week? Talonis first: I’m a good hunter. I bring value to a group in terms of damage; my trapping is improving with every instance. I am getting better at protecting my healers (dropping a trap, pulling aggro off). My misdirects are quicker. My mistakes are fewer. I don’t break my traps anymore. And my confidence is growing.

Osprey: I know now I’m a good healer. I was pretty sure before, but gained considerable confidence with the heroics I did this week, as well as a full clear of Karazhan. Yes, the compliments help, but I also know how well I’ve been doing. I still overheal too much, but my almost-infinite mana pool (over 10K, and not even fully buffed) has me a bit spoiled. That’s something I need to work on this week. Unquestionably, installing Grid has been a huge, huge help. I can still do some tweaking, but at least I’m recognizing and dispelling Magic and Disease debuffs. I need to use Flash Heal more: Yes, Greater Heal is more mana-efficient, but a lot of the time, I need to cast a faster heal, not a bigger one. So, I’m still working out that balance of effective heals and mana conservation. But I also have some great opportunities coming up to learn how to best manage that balance.

Life is good.