Judging June 15, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Games, Holy, Paladin, Warcraft.add a comment
There have been some excellently eloquent and detailed articles on who should judge what in a raid containing multiple paladins, one of the best being on HolyPaladin.net. Fantastic as these accounts are however, I must confess to finding Blizzard’s underlying principles a touch out of kilter.
I’m a holy paladin right? My raison d’être is to heal, yes? So why, in the heat of mayhem, should I ever be deferring any of that responsibility to another Paladin? Do they care about the health of the rest of the crew? Perhaps, but only in a back-of-mind kinda way, not as a primary thought process. That’s what we do. So why is it that one of the tools of the trade, the Judgement of Light, is actually better for the team coming from a Prot or Ret pally than one of a Holy persuasion?
Not only that, but judging light over the top of theirs can adversely affect a number of different abilities from those pallies, almost making it a complete no-no. Now some may say simply judge wisdom and be done with it, put up and shut up. But not only does it not sit comfortably the fact that other pallies should have anything to do with one of the tools of our trade, but what if they don’t judge (possible), they use a different judgement (possible again), or judge a different target to the one my tank is looking after. This means we not only have to focus on healing our charges, but we now have to check the target of our charge to see what if any judgements he has on him? Once a minute?
Yeah right.
So if Replenishment has now been redirected to other more suitable paladins, does that now pave the way for JoL’s inherently holy mechanic to be re-jigged to favour the spec that it connects with the most?
A night in with Mimiron June 11, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Games, Warcraft.add a comment
Good lord Mimiron you are one tough bugger. I mean hats off to you, really.
A stray bomb? One down. A stray mine? Another down. On a far too regular basis we were facing phase four with half of our 10-man crew left, typically two of them being the tank and the pally healer, me. It’s back to the craziness that is 5-man healing times about 500, and a dps burn set to run for eternity.
Three hours later and the brain was fuzzing, the fingers were numb, and he was still pointing and laughing. At one point we saw a 2% on all three parts of him, but that was it. We’d run out of time.
The problem? Lethal mistakes. This is the most unforgiving fight I’ve ever had the misfortune to stick my head into. Ironically, for me looking after the tank it’s a fairly straightforward affair to begin with, and with the accompanying druid and priest, we handle things comfortably. But then we lose one or two, just because that’s what happens when everything that’s coming at you is nigh-on insta-kill, or because it’s such a mobile fight, something you run into is insta-kill. And you can guarantee that at some point one of them is going to be one of the other healers. Then the crap hits the fan, the Beacon hits the tank, and the face takes on a crazy focused stare whilst the mind prays that no-one else makes a mistake, and then, bugger. Trod on a mine.
The solution? People need to quit making mistakes. Really. None. Zero. Zip. Especially at the start. For example, one of our attempts saw our major dps warrior dead in about 5 seconds of the fight. That really is not good. Another saw our dps-chart-topping rogue dead on the first laser barrage, really not good considering how much notice you get of the impending doom. But there’s just so much going on, and it’s all so new and amazing, and gah missile strike. Game over.
So next week we’re relying on the team having done some reading and some figuring. Which is a fair assumption considering just how much good stuff there is out there. And we have a good team. These guys saw Hodir one-shotted on Monday, the Council down without a second glance, and Freya chewing grass in short shrift. So, when you have education, communication and qualification? Well, I’ll let you know next week.
Merging discord May 14, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Warcraft.add a comment
Of all the things that I thought might blow my raiding out of the window, I never thought it would be guild issues.
Our guild has spent this last few months on weekly naxx raids with another guild; 25-man content is a tall order all by your lonesome, and coming across like-minds of a similar age and disposition is never a thing to pass up. And the great thing is this situation gave us the best of both worlds; a guild to call our home, just big enough to get a real sense of community, and just small enough that everybody knew everybody else, as well as a larger group to then do the bigger content with. Everyone was happy, everyone got stuff done, and we tore through the place.
But now we’ve tipped over the edge of a precipice.
One of the key tenets of management is don’t make teams too big. If you’re a manager you already know that the optimal size is considered to be 7 +/- 2. Okay, so this is going to be tough to bring across into game space, but here’s a thing, have you noticed how real conversation in the chat channel seems to dry up when you get more than ten people trying to speak? I don’t mean random blurtings from young nips, i mean real communication. It gets hard to follow, it gets even harder to join in. Now consider what happens when a nice, small, homely guild gets merged with a monster. It actually reminds me of the time that Grange Hill merged with Brookdale and Rodney Bennett (and if you remember that, I definitely want to hear from you!)
Now a few weeks on, things are just… well, quiet. Prominent voices have become mere drips in the ocean. Once fun and vocal people now sit silently in the background, speaking only when spoken to. Some haven’t even come across, preferring instead to loiter in the ghost town of the old guild waiting for the odd remnant to appear out of the mist and disappear just as quickly. I’m sure they’ll drift away eventually though, seeking company with other like-minded fellows. A sad end to an era.
So what of the raiding? The favoured few from the big guild are of course first in line for the new content, the rest of us will be waiting in the wings like chicks waiting to be fed. The guild doesn’t have enough well-geared players to hit Ulduar as a 25, and all the leaders that exist now have their eyes focused in that direction. Maybe patience will prevail? Maybe they will turn their attentions to the rest of us eventually? But then of course it won’t be in a “let’s learn this content together” capacity, but in a “I’ve seen it and done it already, so do as I say” kinda way. Hardly the stuff dream-teams are made of.
So I’m in a bit of a quandary. Do I go elsewhere and lose my friends but get back to the comfortable guild roots? Or maybe I push myself forward and start standing up for the under-represented, leading them into Ulduar and beyond myself? It’s a tricky one. As time goes on I’m sure a natural order will ensue. Who knows whether I’ll be in it or not.
Hidden from view May 6, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Games, Warcraft.add a comment
In a game focused on killing, it may strike people as strange that anyone would want to be a healer.
They don’t get their screens splashed by big numbers, there’s no heads caving in from crits from a weapon clearly too big for any mortal to carry, no bloodlust, endless rage, immolation or heroism. Quite the contrary, at times of intensity, the most you’ll see from the healer at the back is a caster’s pose, cool, calm, collected. Of course behind the keyboard they’re all staring in despair as the health they’re sworn to protect heads downwards faster than the cast bar heads upwards, fingers clicking, pure concentration, willing a haste proc that may never come, but they’ll never show it.
It’s a hell of a responsibility keeping the party alive, from the first day riding solo in 5-mans, through to holding on for dear life in the damage-fest that is most of Ulduar. It requires utter focus for the full time of the instance, particularly for those with limited “Oh crap!” buttons to forgive any lapse in concentration. And there are no mechanisms for training, no levelling or quests used to progress healing skills unlike their DPS and Tanking brethren; they’re thrown in at the deep end without ever really knowing what’s about to hit them. “Heal our fellow brethren as we storm into the raging inferno of battle!!”? Not a bit of it.
Beacon and Hand of Sacrificing the tank, popping a Bubble, Hand of Protection to quickly save the Mage, a Divine-favoured Holy Shock, fast Glyphed Holy Light and two follow-up hasted Holy Lights around the raid, getting people back out of the red all whilst the shit hits the fan during a bad pull, all before drawing breath. It’s a crazy challenge, an inducer of raised heart rates and sweaty palms whilst the rest of the raid continues to spam chat with DPS charts.
So why do it? Why put themselves through all of this for neither appreciation nor tangible reward?
Some will revel in being one of the select few, happy in the knowledge that they’re different, that they bring something special to the show. And raiding a 25-man, with a concrete spot on the team, they won’t need anyone telling them they’re doing a good job. They won’t need charts, or big numbers. The satisfaction will be in the flow, the survival. There’ll always be a nod and a wink from fellow healers, they know how it is, and that’s always good. But when they’re humming, when they’re in full flight, fingers dancing without thinking, streams of casts flowing in perfect harmony, they’ll know they’re in the right place.
Let the other folk have their big numbers and bigger weapons, let them hit and be hit. Everything healers need is right there in the moment. It may stay completely hidden from view, and most players will simply never know just how it is. But then, perhaps that’s just the way it should be.
Reading the meters May 5, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Games, Warcraft.2 comments
Despite what the detractors might say, stat recorders such as Recount remain so incredibly useful that they should be on everyone’s list of addons, whether DPS, tanking or healing.
The last spec on that list comes in for some criticism in particular for staring at the meters. No, topping the healing charts doesn’t mean you’re the best healer the raid has ever seen. If all you do is mop up any leftover HP when an encounter is over, you’re a problem not a solution whether you top the charts or not.
But there’s been two occasions recently where Recount has changed the game.
On a recent Naxx25 run, I was sharing healing duties with another pally, a couple of priests and a druid, a respectable mix that keeps most people topped off most of the time. We’ve only been working together for a couple of months, but it was clear from day one that there was something strange going on with my fellow pally’s healing.
Whilst I was up at 1 or 2 on the healing chart, he was at the bottom, hitting a fraction of the numbers I was. Now he’s a good player, so that wasn’t the issue, and we were on a similar mix of tasks, tanks, off-tanks with a bit of raid thrown in for good measure, so no disparity there. A quick check of the armoury showed we weren’t far off each other on gear either. So when we finished I asked him what addons he used to heal with.
As a long-time pally healer, I can’t see how I could be Naxx25 effective without tools such as Clique and Grid to hand. Even Healbot has shown itself to be a trusty comrade in years gone by. But nothing? No addons at all? He called it “old-school” healing, I called it madness. The figures were on my side.
Another Recount game changer occurred yesterday on a guild booster-run through Violet Hold. Seeing the inside of VH after so long was an intriguing prospect, so I piled in as dps with a bunch of relatively new additions to the guild, one of who was hoping to add himself to the pally healing ranks. It’s nice to give these guys a helping hand to pull them up towards Naxx.
As most pally healers know, 5-man healing can be a cruel beast when you’re gearing up, and not overly friendly when you’re sporting T7 gear either, but I wasn’t prepared for just how quickly we went down on the first trash pulls. It’s always good grace to give people the benefit of the doubt for at least a couple of wipes until everyone’s up to speed, but beyond that it’s time to take stock.
First stop, healer; yup, gear terrible, no Int, no SP, no Crit. Tank? No stam or avoidance. In fact barely an epic to be seen between them, a smattering of greens giving the flash of rainbow that we all hate, particularly in heroics.
Now that was bad enough, but Recount told an even bigger story. The healer was using all of one healing spell, Flash of Light. That’s it. No Sacred Shield, no Beacon, nary a Holy Shock or Holy Light as we were going down in our balls of flames, and it goes without saying that the two key glyphs, Holy Light and Holy Shock weren’t in place either.
The guild is going through an education process at the moment. We have a bunch of guys really eager to progress who just need a little guidance. And it’ll be good to see them coming through, and it’ll be even better when we can start to take them on their first Naxx10 runs. Doubtless tools like Recount will continue to play a key part in shaping the new generation when it comes time to replace us old crusties. Thankfully though, it’ll be a while off yet.
