Priest Blog WOW
My Holy build has Lightwell on both my priests, from what I can gather, there isn’t much choice in the matter.
But who clicks on it?
I thought to try using a Lightwell Macro to encourage people to use it more.
Though this one might be more affective.
Failing it ever gets used as a proper healing tool, I now have my own portable podium to dance, and preen on
A recent comment on a recent tanking post got me thinking about how I use the Vote to Kick.
“Anonymous says
The reason: vote kick has a cooldown, and the more times you use it, the longer cooldown becomes. Vote kick must be available to get rid of game-ruining player, not lost on minor inconvenience.”
I think most of the recent votes to kick I have initiated since this cool down change has actually been people who dc, and even then casually suggest ” should we kick the dc” and someone else does it.
I got burned bad back in the early days of tanking in Mara. We had two dps afking at the start of the run. It was like they wandered off and did something else while we killed stuff and they got free xp. The cool down wouldn’t let me kick them both. So I try not to use it. Kicking someone from group for peeing me off isn’t as high on my list of things to do as it used to be, and I guess that’s the point. I don’t think I ever kicked for anything trivial, but it’s forced me to triple think, I want to be able to use it when I NEED to use it, but as another commenter said often its not worth it. How many of us are complaining about the state of attitude in groups now, ‘not worth’ it is rather defeatist, and at least I am feeling a little defeated. It doesn’t matter what the role I’m playing. Often there is always one person who makes it their job to make everyone else s just that little bit harder.
Petty Reasons
On my main in my healing gear I was doing a POS, it was a high hp tank who knew what he was doing, so I started dpsing too, a couple of dots, a mindblast, and some mindsearing in a group. We had a DK dps not doing so well, and I was beating him. Tank linked the damage metres and had a laugh at the healer and the tank out dpsing a dps.
Tank initiates a vote to kick, I say no. It fails. Tank then says ” 100 gold” and the party is like “?”
“100 gold each to carry you” he says to the DK. ” don’t be silly” I say in party chat. It put me in a bad position because I was being an over-confident /bored healer, trying to make things go a little bit faster because I didn’t have to worry about the tank as much.I may not have come to the tanks attention if I had just done my selected job.
I zoned into another instance into what looked like a wipe recovery. People at half health, scattered cross the instance probably running back. One of the Dps was slow running back, not stupid slow and it is frustrating when one person is holding the group up, but we were buffing, and the rest were drinking, and he was at least on his way, but someone initiated a vote to kick.
” Why… ”
“He is too slow”
It failed thankfully.
They highlight why there has to be a cool down so that petty reasons do not succeed. I’ll steal anonymous words again. ” game-ruining player, not lost on minor inconvenience” Game ruining is trying to cause a wipe, refusing to do your job / afking – being grossly offensive – and that’s about it. There are so many minor things which are still going to get the dungeon cleared, just aren’t going to make your game fun. The vote to kick wasn’t aimed at getting rid of people stealing your fun unfortunately.
Let them die
What if there was a “Let them die” vote. I was taught that not taunting off a dps made me a bad tank. So I feel it’s my responsibility even if it’s their fault.
Letting them die needs a collaboration between a tank and healer – healers feel its their job to heal. Tanks react when they lose control of a mob ( usually) and try to grab agro back. There has to be an agreement between tank and healer to let them die.
As a healer I’ve told dps to let the “Tank tank.. ” Linked damage metres to show they took most of the damage that the tank should have. I am not sure how I would react if a Tank asked me to let that person die, and stop healing them. I knew he was being bad, I knew that this would have stressed the tank out, spending more time trying to grab agro back then concentrating on tanking. Given what I know, if I felt the tank had good reason to say that I would support the tank if I felt I would be supported in my decision to refuse to heal, and not only is our tolerance for bad a problem, but also what is missing is the lack of support that the other players give to the people who are trying to change that.
Could I tell a healer to let someone die – maybe. I think if the situation got extreme again, I would.
However imagine the scenario
“Tank: DPs1 stop pulling
DPs1: Your too slow
Tank: Healer just stop healing him
Healer: um.. ok..
DPS2 : Just pull the boss
DPS3: finish the Fracken instance
Lack of Support
Because everyone “Just wants their badges so we can all go home. Healer and Tank refusing to compensate for a person making their lives difficult are not going to get the other dps’s support, and the tank and the healer will be the ones slowing up the instance by causing drama or making a fuss, not the asshat in the first place, and that’s the sad part. I guess when you talk about this different mentality you need to have when being the healer, or the tank – it can also mean you are very much all alone, and the price of your conviction inconveniences the rest, and what would cause the most stress, is not the asshat, but not feeling supported for doing ‘the right thing”.
Your Enjoyment
We had a bad dps in an instance say ” Hurry up – I need to go soon,” I told him to “dps faster”, and also said ” why is it the person doing the least damage is that one that wants to hurry it up” I don’t like being that person – but I tried it on for size, and it didn’t make him perform better – or the run more enjoyable.
I think this is where ” it’s not worth it” can make your experience better, Ignorance is bliss. How bitter those words taste. If only I derived more joy from being snarky at people. Then maybe I would feel better about sounding like the asshole.
But Support the right decisions. Maybe I should have supported the vote to kick the slow dps, but there are so many other factors we would need to ask them – new player? First 80? new Spec? Lag? to at least justify why we thought they were bad. They were just low, and in the scheme of things stuff was dying. It was ok. Don’t support the person who is a little slow running back ( little.. ) Personally I would LOVE to kick the people who want to vendor/repair/get reagents as soon as they zone into the instance. Usually it’s dps who have had how many min’s of waiting time to be be prepared. We get to the first boss. ” Hey I’m back” – you didn’t need me” but again. Is that a kickable reason? In comparison to what other crap people pull.
We need an I like bubbles “Vote to kick” Friday Flow chart.
But for now you get a pic of my cat being grumpy.
Yes I have been Pvping a lot. 31900 odd HK’s to go to 100k kills. It’s going to be a long time.
I was healing an Eye of the Storm this weekend and a little Pally healer is yelling at people to protect them. It took me a little while to get close enough to gear check them – and I think my snarky retort in Bg chat of “It’s a little hard to protect you with 16k Health and no resilence’ probably got completely missed.
Protect the healers – Lol
I don’t expect to get protected at all while healing in a BG. I have a trinket – I have fear, I have GS, I have Shadow Meld. ( Shadow Meld is very useful when getting smacked around by pets of any kind. Works on Army of the Dead, hunters pets ect. ) I can also heal myself. I have to take some responsibility for my own life – I mean I’m the healer damn it.
It’s not like I can ask a dps to heal me – hopefully they are either destroying the horde, or ccing them, and I am keeping them alive long enough to be more affective.
I have never asked people in a BG to protect the healer. Should a healer expect to be protected?
I work on the principle of if you get heals in a bg your lucky. There is no target priority in any bg bar the flag carrier in WSG/EOS. It’s keep up who you can, so if you are getting any heals be grateful. Mana gain in BG’s with that nerf, and in Pvp gear can be pretty terrible – hence why I am in half pve gear while healing – in Pvp healing gear it was heal untill your OOM – die then do it all over again, and I know some BG healers don’t even bother with Pvp gear at all. I like to be somewhat harder to kill.
As a dps I don’t do too much to protect healers, I might fear any melee/pets away from them, shield them , target their attackers – but not so much because I am protecting a healer, but more because it’s Pvp – and often thinking does not often move past.
OH! RED TAG KILLLLLLL EEEETTT
Fear or death is usually the only thing to get a enemy off a healer anyway, sometimes they don’t notice the healer behind the dps healing their little heart out, but when someone gets a little smart and ” Kill the healers First” command is issued – well then your healer is in trouble anyway.
I think a 16k health person – healer or not with no resilience is asking WAY too much for people to protect them. Yes everyone needs to start somewhere – but it’s one of those times I would like to say ” Suck it up princess” because they can’t help you when you can’t even help yourself.
BGs take two…
I think we also need to start a campaign for Disc Priests and the “Healing Done” on BG boards to include absorptions too. While they are at it, add dispels/decurses too.
I think my arena dream is over.
Our 3’s team has become well – for Sh*ts and Giggles, and not something we want to work on getting right.
My enthusiasm for arena has died a little with the teams loss of enthusiasm.
But I found skirmish. I will always have skirmish. I don’t need a team, and I win some, and I lose some, and it doesn’t matter how crap I am, because I always meet someone worse than me in a skirmish. Though the Disc experience, and my holiday as a proper Shadow Pvp was a lot of fun.
However it’s easier to have my offspec as holy. I know I should do what I want to do , but it’s the curse of a hybrid. I don’t want to be swapping my gylphs, and my talent points just in case and not have it used. For now the rewards for having that offspec available to be used instantly outweighs what else I could be using it for.
Guess that means I am back to Healing LFG’s again for the shorter Queues because I don’t have to wait the 13-19 odd min like the rest of the dps. Fun times 🙂
I have been in the portals once before in Dreamwalker on an achievement attempt as an offspec healer. Pop green bubbles. Don’t lose your stacks – Heal the big green dragon.
incoming delivery of Cake.
You can do eeet!
I have been healing a 25 Gdkp ICC on my Healing Priest, and a 10 Icc regularly for a few weeks now. I usually get out going in the portals by asking for a ‘pro’ portal person. Stroking other peoples ego. Of course everyone thinks they are pro – so I normally get to stay out. Not this time. Icc 10.
“Ok the Two priests go in.”
Oh crap.
I knew what to do in theory – and I was doing fine. ” Hey ma! Look at me ” ( yes It’s corny catch phrase monday) I would come up under the bubble and strafe up a little to pop it. Was getting awesome stackage. The advise I got was that lag means that sometimes you can not pop it – and I made sure my stacks didn’t drop
“Why isn’t Dreamwalker up yet?”
Heal Heal Heal Heal Heal.
Wipe.
Other priest mumbles something about losing focus or something and losing stacks.
We try again.
Wipe.
“Urhhhhhhh ” I say to the other priest who was holy for this fight . “Why are you using “Prayer of Healing?” ( Heals all party members) We are supposed to be healing Dream walker. I was doing twice his healing on Dreamwalker as target.
“I don’t know – this is just how I do things – I’m not doing too bad.. I’m not far off the other healer ( me)
“Um – but you’re not healing the dragon – and a small discussion happens over why he isn’t flash flash flash greater healing instead. So after I clarified his understanding on serendipity – and the target we were healing. I had to add – Could you also stick up renew on Her as well. I noticed you didn’t cast it or a greater heal it at all last fight.
I was telling another healer to suck eggs, and I hate that. Even because now I am still not sure my way of doing it was the most effective. Renew up all the time. Reapply with new stacks. Flash Flash Flash Greater Heal. Guardian Spirit where appropriate – depending on if there is another Holy priest in raid and if her debuff is off), I’ve seen it done before, so I have had lots of theory to work with. I also stuck a Divine Hymn in because I noticed it was hitting Dream more than my raid as long as they weren’t taking damage.
I was doing Twice his healing,
I eventually convinced him over to my point of view. I had to do this on vent, and I also had to convince him with numbers – eg the party heal your casting is only hitting a single target for…. yet if you used greaterheal with the your 3 stacks of serendipity you will heal … base amount. Stick renew up as soon as you can out of the portal blah.. I was fully expecting him to blow up at me about doing it his way
We did it my way – ( mostly. 7 ticks of Renew on his part >< ) Dream walker: ” I am renewed!”
Give him his due – whether it was because I was keeping my voice calm and reasonable, and not insulting his healing , and appealing to common sence, he seemed to take the feedback ok.
I find it difficult to instruct other people – especially strangers – of which I have no idea how they will take it, on something I don’t feel confident about. Even if I have numbers to show that what ever I was doing was working.
Stuff I’ve been reading since puts priests in their best place outside the portals yet we sent the two in as holy ( he was disc for some fights) and kept the Shammy outside, It certainly was doable. Would have been even better if he had put renew up!
As for the rest of the raid.
We got Sin down two shot, which is not bad for a pug. We would have had H Marrow if the mage hadn’t have been on the phone( >< x 2) On our way to boat. ” Oh Hai guys my dps should improve now that I am off the phone – like I have been the last 1/2 hour”
Several attempts at the LK – with the ‘best tank on the servers dps alt” Yes that is how he was sold to us as a replacement when one of our dps had to go raid 25’s. Best tank refused to get on vent because of his tendency to scream at fails apparently. In vent ( where the best tank was not) I was told by his friend not to mention that I disagreed with his self-declared title of best tank on the server. Cause I know one that’s better.
But yes we failed. Defile. Running into orbs, disease not coming off quick enough. Shammy cleansing totems bouncing the disease – only half the raid had seen the LK before, but we were getting better. We are probably locking it out, and spending next week working on him in the 10’s group.
Healing ICC is SO much easier than dpsing. Can I just say that.
*** CONTENT UPDATE – this page contains out of date information but was a useful tool at the time *****
I’m probably extremely late for the party on this one but thought I would share it anyway – sourced by digging through my new guild forums
It’s a Face book Application ( see you can’t escape from it’s clutches) < LINK NO LONGER WORKS > that is for healers to get practice at keeping one target alive during penetrating cold on Anub
I was expecting to need to keep all the marked targets alive, but your target is the only one you need to heal – so the challange for 180 sec is to keep the changing “Heal this target icon” alive – this changes approx every 30 secs.
My target only died to lag. I swear.
There’s only one spell you can cast, and one target. So it’s more like a priest going Flash Flash Flash Flash! where in reality it probably would be Flash Flash renew – Hit them with a POM, and a COH in varying intervels.
But if your bored and you want to heal green bars for fun, or your need practise left clicking
Edit – Because I am aware of the overhealing mechanics on Anub 😛 ( in before the comments correct me reality is on the TOG’s I’ve healed is keeping renew up on the targets – flashing when they need a top up, but if course keep them low. I’ve only healed a 10 TOGC + the normal 10/25 and that was stressful. Would hate to be a healer on a TOGC 25
So with content getting easier you would think that I wouldn’t moan so much at being kept challenged by people who want to experiment in dungeons.
I am a Dps at heart. Long time readers will remember my complete and utter disdain at being made to heal. But I want my cake badges. When on a good day I can do one instance in 12 min – why would I want to wait 13 min to then spend as long as the wait in a run = less badges, less gems to sell = less time doing other stuff. So I heal. Popular opinion seems to be I do it well ( unless you make my life difficult and then I rant.)
As I have two 80 priests, I am much more confident Dpsing as a Holy spec on my main Zahraah – with more mana, better gear she can hot up a standard tank, throw a mend every now and then, flash a little, then dot up the boss. Holy fire a mob, ( love the lightening bolt spell graphic) do a mindblast, Holy Nova a pack – or even mind sear!
(Seems silly to give Holy mindsear and not mindflay)
I have never lost a tank because I was dpsing. I may have lost a dps though when they stole agro unexpectedly.
I also know you’re wondering if my desire to dps causes me mana issues, and no – I will only dps with a strong tank – if its a weak tank needing more heals my attention is always on them .
On Ostara my Holy only priest I am not as geared, so when healing on her gear I’m not as confident, but depending on the tank, she will do what she can to add to the damage.
I won’t go disc to dps/heal – I like healing as holy.
As a holy dpser we don’t get the benefits a shadow spec would get eg replenishment procs, and a real healer would never dare to spec into the Dps points available on the holy tree. However Staying active sure beats standing there with a dopey expression on my face.
^^ perpetual dopy look.
But here is my challenge to all healers but the Trees ( sorry.. Unless you want to melee the mobs) More dps = faster funs without the tank having to go pyscho pulling. ( Yes there are too many of you doing that!)
Healers! I call you to arms. Or wands or staffs or whatever.
I want you OUT DPSING THOSE SCRUB DPSERS
and I want screenshots. I shall endeavour to do the same.
We measure a dpser by how much dps they do as it usually means they have been active, and that they are continually casting. Measuring the success of a healers dps will not be as easy. We are otherwise occupied some of the time, but damage done should suffice for now.
Then one day ….. I shall enter a LFG in Holy Spec as a DPSER! *shock horror* then I can be the scrub dps that people laugh at.
They made me heal a ICC 10 on my main – it was a pug run, being run by a guildy alt.
Well, no one made me .I did protest something a long the lines of ” You serious – I’ve only raid healed Ony – the rest has all been 5 mans and pvp.”
I had my eyes on 3 more bars to a new Ashen ring with a proc! ( Squee) 2 badges to a piece of Tier ( Squee) so I was easily convinced. I said yes ( with massive disclaimers)
I healed, and hotted, and mended, and circled and did all the stuff a healer is supposed to do. We killed the first 4 bosses easy – I had some difficulty with the next wing.
When we got to the two doggies, and the decimate the shammy healer was having a go at me for not dispelling something. I’m like. the doggies don’t do stuff u need to dispel, and besides my VuhDo wasn’t showing anything. I even linked him the recount for dispels/decurses/cleanses for the run so far, showing me 3 times as high as him, and the Resto druid, She said instead of trying to prove something I should “f’ning do my job, because she had spent the last fight as a slime.
Oh.. a Slime.
“Can we kill the scientist before we kill the dog?” I ask. ( see I did know what I was doing?) we had been pulling a scientist and one of the dogs at the same time, so at a decimate and my healing mod had everyone at red meaning ” heal heal heal which overides the purple dispel prompt. So I did fail, and probably have earned the animosity of the shammy for life, especially since I pointed out to the shammy that I wasn’t the only dispel capable healer in the raid, so I hoped that they were having a go at the tree as well.
We killed Rotgut, and called it on Fester, and considering I had only killed Rot in a pug, and tried Fester in a pug at Dps, I am somewhat happy, and besides a new ring, and Tier gloves I got new shoulders and a new offhand. I did ok loot wise. Still find it silly I need to heal to get upgrades for my DPS set, but what ever works right?
The experience also made me realise how much more I need to learn about raid healing, some of its mana regen, some of it’s trying to determine the pace of steady and spike damage which is not as predictable as 5 man healing has become. Knowing the fights as a healer rather than as a dps, not getting health bar fever, and getting one shot because I was staring at other peoples healthbars, it’s an adjustment in mentality.
I did ok, I was 2nd on heals, slaughtered by a resto druid, but I know numbers don’t necessarily mean anything, ( esp when the druid was at 67% over heal) and there was no wws to properly evaluation my performance.
The Dps player in me was ok with the healing when it was easy, but when it got harder, and there were slimes, and spores to worry about – then I didn’t like it so much.
I hesitate in caring, and it’s hard, I found an area I need to improve in, and the achiever in me wants to challenge myself again, and throw myself to the wolves, sure! I’ll heal – but then my shadow self, the skin I feel most comfortable in – says Nay don’t go there.
Even my 2nd priest in all her holy glory ( and now 4.3k GS ) cringes a little at never do more than a 5 man. However what else is there to do, but challenge oneself? ( or level yet another alt.. )
My two cents on “Harming others for being fair” I’m sorry Tamarind got kicked from a group for sticking up for principles. If I had been in that group, then I probably wouldn’t have been so fervent in the principles of making them run back, I would have rezed them. Because it was POS and I want that trinket, so yes I would sell my principles for 5 min, BUT! any other instances – I really have nothing to lose so I can stick to my guns as much as I like. ( I stand by leaving an instance cause a scrub dps made himself more scrub by wearing a santa hat and refused to take it off)
I disagree that rezing one person because they were lazy can be more time efficient, sure arguing with them is counterproductive, but here are some numbers for you to consider from a priest healers perspective.
It Costs me 5.5k ish mana to rez on person you if you die in a dungeon –
2317 – Resurrection
1197 – Shadow Protection
1043 Fort
1004 Divine Spirit
So after a wipe add an extra add an extra 3k mana if I’m applying group buffs. Which I can’t do untill the person needing rezing pops up, and
yes I have to rebuff everything or people get upset.
When I rezed into the instance I had around half my mana pool of 23.6 k mana available, so 11.8 k mana
To rez that one person, heal them to full , top up the rest of the group that didn’t sit down and eat ( usually the non mana party members) I am down at least 9-10k mana – so all the while my mana regen is ticking, I still need to inner fire myself, and sit down and drink myself back up to full mana.
Then the tank pulls because he is ready, and so is the rest of the party – its just that stupid slow healer that is holding you up.
So the pull starts with me on 2- 3k mana.
Silly – if it’s an easy pull – we survive, but who wipes on the easy pulls in POS – So if its one with flamebearers, and diseases that need cleansing, dispels that need dispelling, group damage. 3k mana just doesn’t cut it.
I am then expected to blow a cool down – a mana pot, use my fiend, to make sure I have enough mana to heal you because I don’t want to die.
Cool downs aka oh sh*t buttons should not be used due to impatience.
(working on the assumption in this senario the tank doesn’t wait – doesn’t have raid frames and is impatient – which is about 50% if the pug tanks I heal. )
So the harm.. yes the harm is you might just wipe again….
I found out an interesting thing on Krick and Ick the other day – a tank made a terrible pull while there were too many adds up in the local area – the dps all blew up because they didn’t run out and no healer can heal through that.. so when Krick was running at me – the last party member alive. Ground shaking – his eyes ablaze. I Shadow melded.
Meh – the only thing your failure cost me on that was the silver for the buff reagents. I can live with that.
I’ve been doing H Pit of Saron on practically a daily basis for the Nevermelting trinket that drops. I want it. I keep getting outbid on GDKP runs for Reign, and no one is running Ony anymore –
I think healing H POS shows my dedication for a trinket upgrade. *removes the bitter taste of healing from the back of my mouth. You should hear my cries of relief when I am allowed to dps.
I don’t hate healing. Now I have better gear/ more confidence it does sit a lot better with me, just all this healing business has been for the express purpose of getting me better dps gear.
I find healing POS difficult – because so much of it depends on people being aware of their own surroundings to reduce the un-necessary damage to themselves – all the while I chase whatever selection of tank I have managed to get in the dungeon finder ( or a friendly tank) and keep them alive.
This is the instance where the pugs link damage done, and wave their Epeen about, and I cut it off with a link to damage taken asking ” Why is the tank number 4 on the list?
I have been at fault for getting too many stacks of Permafrost from Garfrost on myself because I didn’t let it fall off due to chasing of tank/dps with too many stacks, I try and pick my own health over the DPS’s on the LOS – sometimes they die. Though when I survive, so does the rest of the DPS and tank. It is easy to get tunnel vision on this one.
If a DPS dies on Garfrost – they also seems to die on Krick and Ick – most often blown up by a poison nova, or walking backwards rather than running when being chased by Ick. I heal my little heart off in this instance, because I have to, theres no way of half heartedly doing this one. So if you die, it’s not because I’m not churning out heals, look at your stacks or where you were standing.
I’ve lost a tank in the Tunnel on the way to Tyrannus – he did the “lets see how fast I can run with a healer getting beat upon by skellys, and only able to renew, mend, and shield on you while running for dear life. He gets to the end of the tunnel going ” Wtf? – where were my heals?
It’s not so much a b*tch post about the randoms, there have been some awesome runs, and some ok ones, and a OMG fail however I’ve been lucky enough to see every one , I have run all the way through.
There have been a lot of blog posts about the randoms that bloggers have been encountering and peoples with varying perspectives. My hunter is now 80, and I am about to be throwing her at the mercy of LFG’s – she is scrub, has a few Ah bought Purps, is BM, and am paranoid about my pet. After being so confident as Dps on my priest, and even now as a healer – I can heal without issues any random you throw at me – putting my scrub hunter, with green gloves into heroics or normal runs with strangers scares me.
I liked these perspectives on the Random Dungeons from bloggers and are definitely worth reading to get a better appreciation of random experience and quell those evil thoughts when it comes to the performance of people in your own random.
Tobolds Most embarrassing Pug ever – When it’s you that might be having the off day
Matticus’s I can Carry you – “brute force healing ” those who are taking too much damage / don’t know the fights
Honor’s Code Enjoy LFD Now – feel lucky you’re being grouped with people who can carry you now – because they will be otherwise occupied with the new wings later.
Provided by Nexodyne
Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog 