Well, I’ve spent a good deal of time lately mostly ignoring my main.  Things had slowed down in my guild, and I wasn’t raiding regularly as I was missing out on the signups.  I spent some time working on my Hunter, who is now reasonably geared in mostly T4 level epics.  I tell ya one thing, he sure can blow through his dailies much faster than my T5 level Resto Druid.  Sometimes I wonder if I should level HIM when Wrath hits.  But, that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve also gotten my Shadow Priest up to 62, and also worked on his trade skills.  He has tailoring at around 365 and his enchanting is up to about 320.  Two very nice trades to have, and I’m glad I picked them up.

But, as you surely know, I was in Black Temple Saturday night.  It’s time to start working on my main again.

One of the reasons he had fallen by the wayside a bit is that he’s more and more difficult to improve.  It seems the further you go in terms of gear, the more difficult it is to reach that next level.  Well, now that I’m officially in T6 content, the time to refocus is here.

For starters, I’m looking at all the badge gear that’s available, to try and find the best bang for my buck.  The healing leather chest is a nice upgrade, but not game-changing.  There is a nice ring, along with a decent pair of gloves, but neither screams out to me.  I already have the awesome pants that are available.

For pure, huge upgrade, there is really only one choice:  The Gavel of Naaru Blessings. I’ve been carrying the Shard of the Virtuous for, like, ever. I just can’t seem to get lucky with any of the other drops, like off the Prince for instance. I also have not taken Lady V down, and she carried a nice healy mace. I think I finally realized that the Gavel is just the way to go.

It’s high time I start farming badges.  It’s going to take some time to get to 150, though, and I hope I can stick with the program.  I’m sitting at 56 as of now, and the last two days have made sure to do the heroic daily.

The good thing about that is that yesterday it happened to be Shattered Halls.  I’ve never finished SH.  I  have actually only TRIED once — it was long ago, it was a pug, and we didn’t get past the gauntlet.  So it was nice to see content I hadn’t seen before, and I also made sure to pick up the quests there as well.  I still needed the Honor Hold revered head enchant, and I’ve needed it for a long time.  I just haven’t had the heart to beg for heroic HH instance runs.  Heart be damned, I’m going to be begging.

Well-geared Resto Druid LFG — anything that gives badges!

They said it couldn’t be done.  Well, I guess “they” is a little nebulous.  The fact is I thought it couldn’t be done.  PTD in the Black Temple?  The Unholiest of Unholies?  Yeah right.  Well, as I said recently, I was signed up to do just that last night.  I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a raid invite as the one I got last night for BT.

Our alliance recently decided to change focus from strictly T4 and T5 raiding to more a mix of T5 and T6.  We’ve done the first couple of bosses in MH, and this week we started on Black Temple.  They went Wednesday night (a night this Part Timer can’t make) and downed Najentus.  So last night was a continuation, and we would be starting with Supremus.  Let’s get started with the rundown.

The area around the Black Temple is one I generally avoid.  Too many random nasties about, and I don’t like random nasty deaths.  About the only time I’m in the area is to do the Armament daily from the Isle of QD.  So most of the area was unfamiliar to me.  Heck, I didn’t even know HOW you got in BT.  It turns out you go through a hole in the side of the temple.  Pretty cool.  Here is a shot of the first thing you see.

Yeah, pretty standard looking cave area.  But this is the Black Temple, baby!  I even DISCOVERED it!  Excluding QD, I haven’t discovered anything since SSC about 4 months ago.  I was a little geeked up already.

Anyhow, as this was a continuation, we just ran through a few areas that had been cleared.  Here is a pic of where they say the first boss was located.

On we went, and finally started clearing trash before the second boss, Supremus.  I’m sure you’ve all seen trash before, so I won’t bore you.  There are some dragon dudes, some worker dudes, some other dudes.  We wiped once by pulling in the wrong place and getting oodles of adds.

After awhile, the trash was cleared, and I got to take some vanity pics while we set up for the fight.

First, PTD the Tree in BT, with dead mobs behind!

Next, a shot of the big bad himself, Supremus.

That’s one big, bad elemental dude. Scary. It turns out he hits for a LOT too!  We started at 8 PM server, and were scheduled to go to 12 AM, a four hour raid.  (A four hour raid. [Gilligan's Island Theme Plays])  Now, I won’t bore you with all the fight details, but I’ll try to sum up.

There are two phases for Supremus.  In phase one it’s a basic tank and spank.  Basically you need two tanks for the fight, one holding the aggro, and the other there to avoid this big, nasty hateful strike that does some 14k or so damage.  The healers’ job is to keep both tanks as close to topped as possible.  If either goes down, it gets ugly fast.

In phase two, Supremus basically randomly picks raid members to, well, pick on.  He targets one player and charges at them.  He charges pretty slow, so you can kite him around.  He does this for a few seconds before switching to another target.  What this means is during this phase everyone is pretty well spread out, and prepared to run if they are the target.  I found that for druids, Cheetah form is the bomb in this encounter.  Special thanks to Matticus for letting me know I could USE cheetah in this battle.  It made getting away from Supremus a piece of cake.  Also during the second phase, volcanoes pop up all over that do huge AOE damage.  If one pops by you, you better move, and fast.

That’s it.  The fight switches back and forth between those two phases at timed intervals.  One of the keys is the switch from phase two back to phase one.  At that point the tanks have to pick him back up FAST and the healers have to get back in position FAST and let loose the healing.  This is the real struggle of this fight, IMO.  Most of phase one and two are pretty easy when you know what to do, it’s the transition that can kill a raid.

Any how, 4 hours later, 10 attempts, and one re-clearing of trash later, Supremus was down.  Sadly, I was down too, but I took a pic anyway.  At fifteen minutes, Supremus enrages, and we killed him at 15 minutes and 1 second.  Wow!  At that point we were also down to one tank, one healer, and about 9 or 10 DPS.  It was CLOOOOOSE, but we got him!

And here is our celebratory pic, after myself and others were rezzed, of course!

And that about wraps it up! We are now 2/9 in BT, and it feels great. I’m so glad I was able to go, and I felt like an important cog in our success. The loot was a DPS neck and DPS leather chest. I actually considered the chest for off-spec, but didn’t take it. I’ll leave you with two other interesting pics I got. One is of the top of the stairs after Supremus, and a familiar looking statue. The pic after that is the room right behind him, which I did not go further into. It looks cool, though!

One other note before the pics.  You can raid casually. Your friendly neighborhood PTD is living proof.  You have to finagle to get it done, but you can.  I only raid ONE night a week, and I’ve now seen almost all of SSC and some of the Black Temple now too.  Don’t think that just because you’re a casual player you can’t raid.  Anyhow, enjoy the next two pics, and thanks for reading! You stay classy, World of Warcraft!

No, I haven’t seen Dark Knight yet, though I’m itching to.  Ledger just looks great as the Joker, much more frightening than the Jack Nicholson version from 1989.

Anyhow…

I don’t know about your server, but over on Whisperwind we seem to be having a bit of a tank crisis.  Take a gander at the LFG channel, and chances are you’ll see multiple groups just looking for one last piece to start a run – a tank.

Let’s face it, good tanks are hard to come by.  It’s a tough enough job running with people you know, it much be semi-nightmaric to try to tank a PUG run.  I don’t even want to get into what a Warrior’s repair bill looks like after a heroic PUG.  Ugh.

Also, in my guild one of our main tanks took a vacation for about 2 weeks and we were short a very important piece.  (Zhen, you’ve got some nerve!)  One of our other main tanks has been suffering from on again off again burnout, which doesn’t help.  Because of all that it’s been difficult to get even guild runs off the ground.

Well, I’ve been considering the unthinkable.  Respecing.  If you’ve read my blog for awhile, you’ll know that I leveled feral all the way, and spent a good 3-4 months when I hit 70 as a feral druid.  Well, I was a little afraid of trying to lead runs at the time, so I was always vying for DPS spots in instances.  That proved to be quite difficult, and my guild was also running a little low on healers.  So it was that Pummra was reborn as a resto druid.

I took to healing like a fish to water (more on that later) and haven’t looked back.  I enjoy my role as a healer, and I’ve come a long way in terms of gear and skill.  In my good healer gear, I’m sitting at about 1900 +heal – not a huge number, but more than adequate for T5 and everything below that.  Since I’ve raided SSC, Kara and Heroics so much, I’ve also slowly been amassing tanking and DPS gear.

I didn’t know how far I had come in that respect until the other night.  I knew I was close to a really good tanking set, but I didn’t know how close.  When I put everything on, I was at 10.2k health, 18k+ armor and 418 defense.  And that’s resto spec’d.  I had kicked around the idea of trying to tank again before, but I just got a couple more recent upgrades to push me over that magical 415 defense number.  I have some fantastic pieces, like the Wildfury Greatstaff from SSC.

So should I take the plunge? I very well might, and even offered to OT Kara Friday night if necessary. I don’t like the idea of paying for respecs all the time, as I still plan to raid as a healer, but I’ll live with it. I’m no longer intimidated by leading or marking on runs, so expect to see Pummra’s Big Bear Butt soon!

I had quite the interesting regular Magisters’ Terrace run the other night.  When I logged on around 10 pm, I had already finished my Sunwell dailies with my Hunter.  I had also gotten his Demon Stalker Gauntlets enchanted with +15 agility.  Yay!  I’m still looking for someone to enchant his Legacy with +35 agility, but haven’t had any luck as of yet. Oh well, no rush.

About this time,a guildy whispered me to see if I’d be interested in healing a regular MagT run.  I had nothing else specific on my plate, so I volunteered to help out.  I switched over to the druid, and made my way to MagT.

The group was made up of a Warrior tank, 2 kitty druids, a mage and myself, a tree.  We were obviously light on CC for MagT, but it was regular mode and I felt confident enough to heal through most anything in there.  Druids are probably the best healing class for that particular instance, due to the Kael fight at the end.  That fight is just tailor made for a healer that can sling instant cast HOTs and stay mobile.

It started out easy enough, and we got through the first two bosses with no deaths.  We also handled the PVP-esque third boss fairly easily, though it got dicey at a couple of points.  This is one of the few fights I ever have the need to use Cyclone, and it’s actually quite fun.  So chaotic!

We wiped twice on the six mob pull after the third boss, but I’m used to wiping there.  I figured we would wipe at least once due to our lack of CC.  We did get through it eventually, though.

On to Kael we went.  Our DPS had been on the low side all night.  I was the most well-geared in the group, and one of the kitty druids and the tank were alright in terms of gear as well.  The mage and other kitty were a little behind the curve, though, and I thought Kael would give us some issues.  Having two of our DPSers be melee types was bound to make it a difficult fight.  To add to the problems, the mage in the group had actually never seen the fight before.  Not only was it his first time, but he was going to have to try to handle the Phoenix mostly on his own.

That’s a tough job.

So we got going, and wiped the first time due to DCs.  We got set up again and started our second attempt, and this is where it got interesting.

We handled the first Phoenix ok, but it took a little longer than I’m used to.  When Kael got to about 52%, he spawned a second phoenix.  Before we could stop the DPS, we dropped him to 50%.

Uh oh.

In the times I’ve seen similar things happen, it has not ended well.  The gravity shift portion of the fight can be tough enough as it is, what with the constant DOTs and the balls of death floating around.  Now we also had a stray phoenix blasting away at everyone.  The mage died at some point due to the phoenix, and we got through the first anti-grav phase, but that pesky phoenix was still wreaking havoc.  The kitty druids and warrior really couldn’t do much, as the AOE blast would likely take them out anyhow.  The tank wanted to wipe and start again, but I just wouldn’t let him die and we kept on keeping on.

In the next anti-grav phase, I took it on myself to show what Uber Resto Druid DPS™ is all about.  Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath.  I blasted away at the pesky flaming beast, trying my darndest to get him down whilst avoiding the balls of death and throwing HOTs on the party when I could.

Well, I took him down, but he took me with him.  I ALWAYS forget to heal myself…doh!

Anyhow, the kitty druids then managed to take out the egg, as the anti-grav phase had just ended.  Whew!  No more phoenix.  After the next anti-grav phase, we had Kael down to about 27% and one of the other druids BR’d me.

We would not be denied.

All told, it probably took about 6 or 7 anti-grav phases before we finally took him down.  It was at least a good 10 minutes we spent on the fight, maybe more.  But in the end, we took his sorry butt down.

It wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done.  In a lot of ways, fights like that in which we persevere against challenging odds are far more satisfying than quick, surgical instance strikes.  Sure, I’d still usually take the 45 minute MagT run over the 90 minute version, but I usually find myself more satisfied after the latter.

As far as loot, well, I didn’t need anything anymore from there.  I’ve gotten my Vial, my Phoenix pet, and a few scattered off-spec items.  I was just there for the fun.  And on this night, it was a hell of a ride.

I had never run heroic Magisters’ Terrace before last night.  I had heard how tough it was, and based on how tough MagT is in regular mode, I believed the hype.  Well, last night I got to see the truth.

The group was a Druid tank, a Lock, Mage, Hunter and myself, the Tree.  Perhaps a warrior or pally tank would have been preferable, but I’d say that’s pretty close to an idea makeup for that instance.

We started out just peachy keen, one shotting the first two bosses without any wipes.  Things got a little dicey when we got to Delrissa, but we took her down after a couple of attempts.  She was also gracious enough to drop the [Vial of the Sunwell], one of the only drops I was looking for in there.  I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about that trinket, if it had +heal it would be a slam dunk, but I’ll test it out and see how it flies.

That pull between Delrissa and Kael, though, is just plain nasty.  Groups I am in RARELY wipe on five man trash, but that is one case where we did.  Even with the great blend of CC we had going, it’s just a brutal pull.  Still, we took them down in a couple of tries.

Then, the big guy.  Those fireballs he flings around hit HARD!  I made a big mistake in our first few attempts, I was trying to stay out of tree form since I had to worry about the phoenix.  Never again.  It was all I could do to keep the tank up, and if any of the squishies got aggro, forget about it.  2 fireballs and they were down.  We probably wiped on him 5 times before I finally found the error of my ways.  I finally wisened up enough to just stay in tree form and deal with the Phoenix slow feet and all.  That made all the difference, and we took his butt down.  It was a great learning experience for me, as I found that sometimes you just have to stay in Tree no matter what.  The bonus from the aura and the mana efficiency made all the difference in the world.

Oh, and I also ended up picking up the [Phoenix Hatchling].  Woot!

All in all, it was a fun night.  In  the future I don’t anticipate Heroic MagT being a real problem as long as we have a good CC mix.  I also got 2 drops I was looking for, along with 4 badges, and all it cost me was 24g in repairs!    All in all, I’d call it a nice, challenging instance where you can easily get your head kicked in.  I have the bruises to prove it.

The future of 10-man raiding looks bright. Blizzard saw that 10-man raids were very successful, and they have had the wisdom to focus on such “small team” raiding in Wrath. This is one of the most exciting changes to come in Wrath for me personally. It’s just much easier to get a 10-man rolling than to get together 25 willing souls to attempt the present end game raids. I can’t wait.

There is a problem I foresee, however. My guess is that the difficulty of these future 10-mans will be ratcheted up a notch or two, and the present “Kara Laziness” in healing strategy will go the way of the Dodo. Some guilds have had Kara on farm for so long they don’t even bother thinking about healing assignments, or what healers they bring. I’m sure there are also a few of you out there who are still learning about 10-mans, and maybe you’re wondering how the different healing classes work with Tree Spec Druids.

Well, I’m here to try to inform. Let’s look at the three different possible combos and what their synergistic strengths and weaknesses are, and what roles they fill best when working together. First, let’s look at the strengths of the Tree Druid.

The Tree Druid

• Very good tank healers. A well played tree can roll lifebloom on multiple tanks, 3 fairly easily, and up to as many as for or 5 with some effort.
• Good raid healers. Lifebloom or Rejuvenation are often enough to top off small bits of raid damage. Regrowth, since the changes to it in 2.4, is a very useful spell for raid healing as well. Reasonably fast cast, chance to crit and a ticking hot on the tail end. Their vast supply of instant HOTs can often make the difference in a raid healing situation.
• Poor at group healing. If there is a lot of splash damage to raid members all at once, Trees are not the best class to take care of it. We do have tranquility, but it is on a 10 minute cooldown and is limited to the group we are in.

Tree Druid, Holy Pally

This combination makes for a very easy assignment. Paladins just make flat out poor raid healers, but they are excellent single target healers. For that reason, this pair would work best with the Paladin watching the MT and the Tree handling the rest. Depending on the situation, the Tree can also assist with MT healing if necessary. This is one of the stronger combinations, IMO, because it is obvious how they can work together. You have all your bases covered in this scenario.

Problems could arise with this duo if there is a lot of raid damage. As mentioned before, Tree Druids are not very good at healing groups efficiently. If the splash damage comes at once and then stops, the Druid can handle it. If it is any kind of sustained damage, it could be difficult. The Paladin also does not have much to offer in this respect, so if there is a lot of raid damage, it could spell trouble.

Tree Druid, Resto Shaman

The strength of the Resto Shaman is the Brain Heal. This “smart” multi-target heal makes them a VERY strong raid healer. The big heals of the Shammy, however, are not conducive to effective single target healing. In this case, the Synergy says the Tree should handle the tank(s), and the Shammy can worry about everyone else. One of the benefits of having a Shammy in this situation is that he/she can easily throw a few heals the tank’s way in a pinch, without totally sacrificing his/her raid healer role. Ahh, the beauty of Chain Heal.

The only thing that worries me about this pairing is if both the MT and OT are taking a LOT of damage. Trees are excellent at smoothing damage spikes, and keeping tanks up in general, but if things start to get out of hand their tricks are somewhat limited. Pair that with the Shammy who isn’t the best at single target healing, and you could be in trouble. In my experience, however, I’ve rarely seen such a situation. Of course, who knows what kind of wonders await us in Wrath.

Pair of Trees

I’ve personally never run with this combo, and I’m curious as to how well it would work. There would be a heck of a lot of HOTs flying around, that’s for sure. There could be an amazing amount of Heals Per Second on the tank, if both trees are stacking HOTs. If they could figure out a way to play off of each other, it could be a potentially very strong combo.

It could also fall right on its face. Lots of spike damage and/or raid splash damage could easily spell doom for this duo. This would be interesting to see in practice.

Tree Druid, Holy Priest

I saved this combo for last for a couple of reasons. First, I believe it may be the strongest 2 healer combo you can get in the game. I would venture a guess that a lot of 10 mans in the future will be looking for this combo first and foremost. I also saved it for last because I found it the most difficult to articulate.

These two have to communicate and work together. The priest will have a large responsibility in this duo, as I would want the priest to both heal the raid and keep an eye on the tanks. The Tree Druid will focus on rolling all his HOTs on the tanks. These two have to communicate and work off of each other. The tree can handle throwing the occasional lifebloom onto raid members if necessary, and the priest can top off the tanks if they take spikes of damage that the tree alone can’t handle.

When I thought of this article about the synergy of Tree Healers and other healing classes, this is the combination I thought of. In this combo, both classes are using their strengths. The Tree Druid is the best there is at maintaining health, and smoothing spikes of damage. Priests are very versatile, and are both very good at big, single target heals and group healing situations. These two working together could be a VERY potent combination.

Conclusion

Assigning healing roles can be tough. It can be hard for me to understand the intricacies of Druid healing, and I’ve spent countless hours doing it. It’s even more difficult to understand how the different healing classes work. I don’t envy the people who have to make assignment decisions. I imagine a lot of it comes from the very basic understanding they may have of healer’s strengths. Couple that with differing specs, and it can be quite difficult to understand how best to use your healers.

The info I have given comes from my experience of working with other healing types, and seeing how they can work off of each other. If I had my choice of any combo including a Tree, it would be a Tree and a Holy Priest. I just think they cover all the bases, and both can play to their true areas of strength. I hope that the little knowledge about how Tree Druids can work with other healers can help someone, and I’m more than open to criticism of my thoughts and opinions, or questions if you feel I haven’t explained something fully.

I also need to give a special thanks to Matt Low icus of World of Matticus for his thoughts on the Tree/Holy Priest duo. Thanks Matt! As always, thanks for reading. Now flame away.

Awhile back I wrote a post about whether it was worth it to level another druid. I started out feral, and there are times I miss that spec’s flexibility. At the time, I didn’t like the idea of spending 50g here and there to switch back and forth.

My how times have changed. Money isn’t nearly the issue it was, since I did manage to pick up my epic flyer. The real difference, though, is gear. In the course of my raiding in Kara and SSC, I’ve gotten most of the healy drops I want. (Well, admittedly there are a few things I’d still like to see, like the [Lightfathom Sceptre] from Lady Vashj, but I haven’t yet killed that blasted Naga.)

Anyhow, I find myself getting the opportunity to roll on a lot of off spec stuff, since if nobody wants something, it doesn’t cost me anything to roll off spec. I’ve ended up with a number of great drops for both tanking and DPS, including the best tanking staff in the game, the [Wildfury Greatstaff].

So, just for giggles, I put on all the bear gear I had collected as an “off spec,” along with gap fillers from my feral days, like some of the clefthoof stuff. What did I end up with? Keep in mind I’m still resto spec’d in this gear, but I was around 20k armor, 10.5k HPs and 401 def. A couple gem swaps and I’m uncrittable.

I wonder. Could a resto spec’d druid tank Shadow Lab?

The deadline to submit your pic for Phaelia’s Arbor Day Challenge is almost here! (Due by May 30th!) Don’t forget to submit your Tree in all its glory today!

First off, I want to apologize again to the cast of thousands that read my blog (ok, maybe not that many…I’m no BRK) for my lack of posts lately. I have been really under the gun at my RL job (the one that pays) and just haven’t had the time. That will be behind me soon, however, and I expect to be back on track within a week or two.

Also, I’ve changed the name I will use when writing posts, as people end up calling me PTD anyhow. I also only recently realized how close “Pummra” is to a certain animated pig. Though the physical comparison is close, I’d rather avoid it.

On to the topic at hand. I have a tendency to peruse the official druid forums to try and keep up on any developments in the druid community. While dodging posts whining about arena left and right, I also notice a lot of posts that ask this question: “When can I heal heroics?” The answers run the gamut from 900 or so healing to one guy who actually suggested a minimum of 1500. Quite a range, there. So what is the answer?

Heroics Are Tough

I’m sure we all know this. A well geared healer can sleepwalk his way through any 5 man (well, any 5 man outside of Magisters’ Terrace) but can end up getting his or her head kicked in once that difficulty is changed over to heroic.

In heroics, you have to be on your game. (Unless you have the fortune to be paired with a fully T5 geared tank and DPS. Most of those guys aren’t interested in running five mans anyhow.) In a realistic group though, you have to be on your toes. The tank is going to be taking a LOT more damage, and quicker. There will be more overall splash damage to the group, and clothies and healy types can often go down in one or two hits. The bosses will often have new abilities to boot, and everything has more hit points.

It’s tough.

It is called HEROIC after all

Numbers Do Matter

Obviously, gear plays a big part in mitigating a lot of this difficulty. A well geared tank goes a long way in making things easier, as well as DPS that can manage threat AND pump out the damage. Then of course, there is you.  I really don’t put all THAT much stock in numbers, but with a gun to my head, I’d say you need the following:

• 900+ Heal for Slave Pens, Ramparts, and other “easy” heroics
• 1100+ for the next “tier” including Blood Furnace, Steamvaults, and others
• 1400+ to comfortably heal just about any heroic (though some are nasty, regardless of your numbers)

Still, these are just numbers. They aren’t hard and fast rules. I didn’t get real comfortable healing heroics until I got around 1200 or so, then it started to get a little easier.  I’m still a little scared of the tough ones, like Arcatraz, Shadow Labyrinth, Shattered Halls and the new bad boy, Magisters’ Terrace, but I’d step into any one without reservations.

Skill Matters More

Sadly, there is no real way to quantify this. You can’t do it by gear, you can’t do it by how long someone has played the game, you can’t do it by whether or not they’ve killed Lady Vashj. The only real way to measure skill in WoW is to see it.

Heck, even then, it can be difficult.  Sometimes, a really good healer is kind of transparent. If he’s really good, you might not even notice it. You just keep pumping out your DPS and get used to the heals being there when you need it.  Of course you’ll notice the healer if you are wiping repeatedly, but when things are going smoothly sometimes we are forgotten.

That’s a good thing.

A skilled resto druid can keep a 3 stack of LB and Rejuv on the tank, spamming Regrowth and Swiftmend when necessary, and be quick enough to toss out a few spare LBs or Rejuvs to the party, without letting that 3 stack of LBs on the tank expire. A skilled resto druid is aware of what’s going on all the time, and can anticipate damage to mitigate it early. A skilled resto druid knows when to blow Nature’s Swiftness, or when it’s time to hit Tranquility.

Again, none of this can be measured. But when you get down to brass tacks, I’d take a SKILLED druid with 1200 heal over a doofus with 1500 any time. Things can go south in heroic in an instant, so you can’t afford a slouch.

Conclusion

Still, after all this rambling, I’ve concluded that I haven’t concluded anything. Heck, this post seems more about what the answer ISN’T than what it is.  A lot of this is due to the difficulties in gauging skill.  IMO, skill is the REAL determining factor in success in heroics.  You may be reading this and wondering “So when the heck can I heal heroics?” Well Chachi, there’s really only one way to find out.

“Resto Druid LFG for Heroic Slave Pens.”

Trust me, it’s the only way to really know.

Kara. Our guild’s normal set up for a Kara run involves 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS. What I’ve found is that that third healer is often quite bored, if the other two are pretty well geared. I started to wonder if that third healer was necessary, and then I heard of people running Kara with only one dedicated healer.

One healer for Kara? Are they nuts?

It sounded like something I would like to try. So I made a post about it on our guild’s forums to see if anyone would be willing to take the “One Healer Kara Challenge” with me at the helm. I’ve made some great strides in my gear, and I’d call myself about Tier 4.5 equipped. I have a lot of the best healing gear from Kara, the [Grovewalker's Leggings] and a couple of drops from SSC. This puts me at 1867 healing unbuffed, and healing is the only stat that I focus on.

(Not that Stamina, MP5 and Spirit are unimportant, it’s just that I find that the items with good +heal give me those stats anyway.)

Well, I managed to find enough interest, so I posted a run. We took our best geared prot warrior, who I would put at around Tier 5.5, who is also one of our Raid Leaders. We also took an offtank and 7 DPS classes, all ranged, all fairly well geared (some VERY well geared). One of those was a Shadow Priest we put in group 2 to make my job a little easier. There were also a couple other healing classes that could throw in emergency heals now and then, including a boomkin, elemental shammy, and the pally off tank.

My hope was that we would succeed by sheer strength of DPS. The boss fights would largely be a race. Could the DPS burn them down before my mana bar ran out? Everyone also pretty much knew that I would focus almost entirely on the MT, and couldn’t afford to toss out many other heals. To that effect, everyone brought plenty of pots and bandages.

So last night was the night. I was REALLY looking forward to testing my mettle. Another reason I wanted to do this was to prove that I could. I don’t often to get to raid with many of my guildies, so a lot of them rarely if ever got the chance to see me play. I’m sure a few of them wondered if I could handle it – I know I did.

We got started on time, and the pulls began. On the very first pull, I died. One of the skeletal horsies got loose and came for me as I was building a good deal of healing aggro off the bat. I was a little geeked up, and probably threw more healing out than I really needed to. Nerves. The skelly horse whacked me, feared me, and with no other healers to help ME out, I went down. Oh well.

We continued on to the first boss, Attumen. Again, I got a little to healy, and Attumen himself aggroed me. 2 shots, I’m dead. They still managed to take him down, though, with the Boomkin healing and mad, crazy DPS. Oh well again.

I have a real tendency to die a couple of times early on any run tougher than a normal five man. I’m not sure why that is, I guess I have to kind of get “warmed up” and get my healing legs beneath me. Part of this is probably because – due to my limited play time – I have to get in and get going right away. It just takes me a few pulls to get going. There is a real art to healing, and when I get in the zone I feel like I can keep anybody up. Under any circumstances.

After that, things started to go real smoothly. We one shot Moroes with no real issues. We moved on to Maiden and one shot her as well. For Opera we got Oz, which I thought might be the most difficult of the three, but we one shot that as well.

Then we got to Nightbane, and my world was turned upside down. Was it that I just didn’t have the chops to heal that tough fight? No, that wasn’t the problem. It was FRICKING TECHNICAL ISSUES. We start on Nightbane, and things are going swimmingly. I’m keeping the tank up, and we’re really dishing it out. The next thing I know, I’m lagging. HARD. Say hello to my first DC of the night. (I say first because there were MANY more to come.) And, of course, a wipe.

So I get back in and we try again. Another DC, another wipe. Third try, I DC early, manage to get back in, and we take him down. Ack.

After that, I DC’d all the time. On bosses, on trash, you name it. I took a few shots even, though I don’t remember where we were at this point..I think clearing to Aran.

ARRRGGHHH! ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! (Make sure you repeat that as you look at the pics for full effect.)

Here it kind of looks like I’m in some bad Sci-fi movie, and I froze everyone in time. I was also getting some very odd rubberbanding, where I would get “caught up” for half a second, then more freezage.

Ok, I wasn’t really laughing. Here you can see another angle on this fight. I suppose it might have been useful had I been diagramming a trash pull, or something. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It turns out that’s how the WHOLE rest of the run went for me, for the most part. I managed to get through Curator without a DC. And man, was it beautiful with all that DPS. Once he got to his first Evocation phase, it was all over but the crying. I’ve NEVER seen him go down that fast. Heck, there’s a bunch of 5 man bosses I haven’t seen go down that fast.

I DC’d and we wiped on Aran. The second try I DC again, get back in, and we take him down. I get through Chess fine, though I stuck with a pawn just in case. (Of course I dont’ have any stupid DC issues on CHESS!!!) We get to Prince, and more DC issues abound. I DC once, wipe. I DC again, halfway through, and they took him down before I got back in. Thank god for massive, mind blowing DPS.

Needless to say, my frustration level was high, very high. Let’s put it this way, there was a fork nearby, and I was about 2 DCs from inserting said fork into either my DSL modem or my eye.

I have never had DC issues. Never. I just ran SSC Saturday night with NO problems. Now, when I’m trying something quite difficult for the first time, in an effort to prove myself and accomplish something cool, our group wipes multiple times because I can’t….fricking….stay connected!!

So we called it after Prince. (I did also upgrade my cloak to the [Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted] from Prince, bully for me. I also got a handful of off-spec feral upgrades.) I’m sitting here trying to put into words how frustrating it was, but I can’t. That’s how frustrating it was! I really feel like given the overall issues, it was a great success to get all the way through Prince. I think we did prove that it COULD be done with just one healer, and in a lot of ways it made the run more interesting. I only wish technical issues hadn’t gotten in the way. It would be one thing if I just couldn’t keep up. I could live with that. Maybe I’m just not good enough, or I need more +heal, whatever. But for the roadblock to be some frigging ISP related issue is just plain bupkiss.

Anyhow, that’s my story. I have good but not great gear, and I think normally I wouldn’t have any real problems one healing Kara. It would have been nice to see how Netherspite and Illhoof would go, but hopefully we’ll try this again in the future. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to drive to the local AT&T office and bust some heads. Thanks for reading!