Malygos Down

My little 10-man raiding guild got Malygos tonight. Everyone forgot to take a screen shot though!

It was my first time in there and I have to say, I really enjoyed the fight. The drakes were a little hard to get the hang of, but didn't take too long to figure out. Hit "3" five times, then hit "4," and stay close to everyone!

I did go on my druid, Miothe, instead of on my shaman, however. I've mentioned before that my guild has two regular healers, myself and a resto shaman. After doing some reading on the fight and talking to a few folks that have done it before, I decided at the last minute to take Mio, primarily for healing during the vortex in Phase 1. It was a very wise decision, as I cannot imagine how horrible it would have been with two resto shaman unable to heal while everyone's health is dropping. Of course, I have the key on Salanthe and not on Miothe, so this means Sal will probably never finish the quest chain and get her necklace.

It took me a while to get the hang of healing the fight. I ended up keeping a full stack of lifeblooms up on the tank, usually regrowth as well. I used wild growth frequently to keep the raid topped off. I also used rejuvenation prodigiously. My feeling for druid healing is not very keen yet, so I have no idea if my spell distribution is good. It seemed to work pretty well and I certainly didn't have mana issues.

For reference, here's my WWS breakdown for all our attempts:I only used innervate once per attempt, usually just before Phase 1 ended. I'm not sure it was necessary to use it then, but I was trying to be careful. Miothe's gear is still pretty iffy (she got her first tier piece tonight!), so her regen isn't as good as it should be. All-in-all, Phase 1 was the only time I ran low on mana. All the other phases had enough downtime that I could keep my mana bar nearly topped off. Such a change from shaman healing! I know my fellow shaman was certainly hurting for mana by the end of Phase 1 and doesn't have the regen options to fill up his bar again.

The tl;dr version is that I was very excited to drop Malygos and very pleased with the way the druid handled. If she survives Kel'Thuzad this week, I am going to make a switch in main characters.

TOTEMS!

Three days remain until The Patch. Three point zero point two. Armageddon.

Melodramatics aside, The Patch will have sweeping ramifications on raiding. As one of the few guilds left on my server that still raids and as the shaman class officer, I've been working hard at determining totem responsibilities for The Patch. I've found myself wishing for a shaman version of Pally Power. I am not skilled enough with computers to write a fancy add-on of my own, but perhaps someone will read this blog and see the need!

Why would such a tool be necessary for shaman, though? What changes are coming in The Patch that affect totem distribution?

There are two notable changes. Firstly, totems with a 2-minute timer will be increased to 5 minutes. Secondly, totems will no long affect just a shaman's party. They will be raid-wide. The first change will have shaman everywhere leaping for joy. The second major change, that of totems affecting the entire raid instead of just the shaman's party, will produce mixed reactions, and it is responsible for my sudden obsession with organizing totems.

Causing totems to affect the entire raid instead of just the shaman's party is a mixed blessing, depending on your point of view. One of the oft-stated goals of the upcoming expansion is to reduce a raid's reliance on certain classes. Developers want to give players the ability to compose raids with a wide variety of classes, instead of stacking certain classes within a raid (i.e. resto shaman for M'uru). This is great news, but for a shaman who is accustomed to always having a raid spot by nature of their specialized buffs and unique abilities (Totem of Wrath, Bloodlust/Heroism, Windfury Totem, Chain Heal), it is disconcerting.

For example, my raid usually contains four to five shaman. One enhancement shaman in the melee dps group for Windfury Totem, one elemental shaman in the caster dps group for Totem of Wrath, and two to three restoration shaman for their chain heals and to distribute totem buffs to other groups. In making totems raid-wide, there are more shaman than totems. Granted, it is a very minor concern and is certainly a positive for the vast majority of raiding guilds.

Concerns over my "guaranteed" raid spot aside, let me return to the topic of totem distribution within a raid. Each shaman can buff the raid with four totems at once. There are, I would argue, seven totems that are necessary to have out at all times: Totem of Wrath (elemental shaman only), Flametongue Totem, Stoneskin Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Wrath of Air Totem, Windfury Totem, and Mana Spring Totem. Important situational totems are Tremor Totem, Poison/Disease Cleansing Totem, Frost/Fire/Nature Resistance Totems, Earthbind Totem, Mana Tide Totem (restoration shaman only), and Healing Stream Totem.

It takes two shaman to provide the raid with every necessary totem, with one water totem spot left over for Healing Stream Totem. And only one of those shaman must be an elemental shaman. The other shaman could, hypothetically, be any spec at all.

It's not that easy, however. Certain specs have talents that improve certain totems. For example, it is preferable to have an enhancement shaman provide Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Stoneskin Totem, and Flametongue Totem. You must have an elemental shaman to use Totem of Wrath, and restoration shaman are best for providing Mana Spring Totem, Healing Stream Totem, and Mana Tide Totem.

Concerns such as those are why I wish shaman had an add-on like Pally Power. I could sit down right before each raid, plug in which shaman I wanted to take care of which set of totems, and that would be it! Such simplicity. Instead, I will be busy inspecting each of my shaman to see what talents points they have, taking into consideration their T6 set bonuses (elemental shaman in 2-pieces of T6 need to have four totems down at all times), trying to make sure each shaman has some responsibility for providing totems to the raid, and typing it all out in the shaman channel (and hoping they are paying attention!).

One additional challenge in managing these buffs is range. Totems have a limited range. They only affect raid or party members within 20-30 yards of the totem (depending on talents). This means that shaman will have to learn to become aware of their position within the raid and in relation to other shaman, particularly if they are dropping the same totems.

The best example of this important consideration is for providing totem buffs in a raid setting such as the Illidari Council, where the raid is spread across a vast area. The shaman stationed on the dias will need to provide different buffs for his/her melee than the shaman following the paladin around, or the shaman on the other side of the room near the mage. It complicates fights such as Kalecgos because raid members will never have access to all their necessary totem buffs at once. It makes me wish that add-ons like Big Brother had a totem monitor so I could keep track of totem buffs.

Many, many things to consider and juggle. I am still doing some testing and research, but I hope to have a post soon regarding totems and how I plan on dealing with some of these issues within my own raid. And if any readers have suggestions, please comment!

I Had a Dream...

Once upon a time when I first began raiding, I used to dress Salanthe up in the tier gear, just to see what she would look like in full T4 and T5. It was to give me motivation to work on her and improve my playing.

Once I moved from T4 to T6 content (I kinda mostly skipped T5, but I did get attuned for MH/BT before the patch and I earned my Hand of A'dal title), I tried on the T6 gear and the matching accessories, again to give me something to dream about.

Well, against all odds, Salanthe looks the way I used to picture her all those months ago. When we downed Illidan a few nights ago, I got the T6 chest and amazingly, the Crystal Spire of Karabor. Now she matches!

On another note, this raiding week was the first time my guild has cleared Mount Hyjal and Black Temple in one week. Prior to yesterday, we had not downed Archimonde since the patch that installed all those invisible walls around the hills. It's a huge coup for us and honestly, it feels like we downed a new boss, even though I've been wearing the T6 helm for months.

Leadership

Last night was the first night I got to fulfill my new role as healing lead because the regular healing lead wasn't online. I learned a lot last night and have a better understanding of what I need to do, what to watch for, and when I need to step up to take charge.

I don't have the mental coherency right now to go in-depth, but let me sketch out various events and my thoughts on them.

Inviting healers to a raid: Luckily, not too difficult in our case. We have pretty much the exact number of healers we need online at the start of raid. The unfortunate part is that sometimes those healers are somewhat sub-par. Right now, nothing to be done about it.

Arranging healing assignments: I have Black Temple covered. I can do that. Mount Hyjal on the other hand? Not so much. We one-shot Council tonight with two of our best healers missing and one healer who had never seen the fight before. Then we wiped on Anetheron because there was some terrible issue with the way I assigned healer positioning.

Now I have a better understanding of what needs to be taken into consideration when assigning healers. You have to be willing to take risks (i.e. having an essentially untested priest to solo heal the mage tank) and you have to have some understanding of what your healers can do.

Replacing healers: We had to replace two healers tonight because of disconnecting issues. It's hard to find new healers and it's even harder to step up and tell the other officers what to do (at least for me it is). This is something I will have to work on.

Other things I need to work on:
Paying attention to what the healers are doing during boss fights. I have terrible tunnel vision when I'm healing. I focus on my little green bars, everything else be damned. I need to be more aware of what's going on across the raid to make sure that everyone is doing what needs to be done and that healing is covered if something isn't working right.

Calling out battle rezzes, reincarnates, and bloodlusts. Seriously, I need to be better at this. I really, really need to be better at this. I can't expect anyone else to make those decisions. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to learn those skills.

And I know there are issues that haven't even cropped up yet that I will need to learn to deal with. What happens when I have to ask someone to sit because they are underperforming? There are so many things I need to learn...

Additionally, we seem to have a vacuum of leadership. There are things that need fixing, but I don't feel comfortable enough with my position within the guild to step up and make those suggestions. It's such a difficult place to be in! I learned my lesson about taking on too much responsibility with the Earthwalkers. I don't want to end up as raid leader or de-facto guild leader or any such thing in this guild. I'd rather not have my life revolve around a computer game, despite what my mother seems to think.

Gold

I need to make a rule for myself. No Zgu until after my dailies are done.

I respec two to three times a week on Salanthe, so I need the money. Elemental is my pvp spec and restoration is my raiding spec. Sometimes I respec to elemental (pve) or enhancement to make my dailies go a little faster, or just for fun.

All that money spent to respec was fine while I was still rolling in gold, prior to falling in love with my warrior. Zgu has sucked dry all that extra cash on Salanthe though. From leveling her blacksmithing and mining to buying epics for twinking to making sure she has enough for her first mount... Well, let's just say that Zgu has been a very expensive little toy.

Salanthe on the other hand has suffered from lack of attention. Being the hardcore raider that she is, repair bills are high. She's an alchemist and herbalist, so she doesn't need to spend money on that, and her cooking and fishing are maxed out as well. Those profession skills help a lot, but only if I spend the time farming materials to use them. Which I haven't been doing because I've been spending so much time on Zgu. Coupled with the outrageous respec costs, well, let's just say that I've run Salanthe a bit dry.

I'd like to have about two thousand gold on Salanthe, so I have enough to splurge on something cool on the AH. Right now, she's sitting at a measly four hundred. I have lots of work to do. It's not like Zgu is going anywhere or will suffer if I give some serious time to Salanthe... It's just that I don't want to. I love my alt and I want to get her to 70 so badly!

Progression Competition

I'm kind of ashamed of myself for doing it, but I have a bookmark for our primary raiding competition so I can keep tabs on their progress. And I just learned that they downed Mother Shahraz last night. This makes me sad because it means that they are at the same place progression-wise that we are at. They raid more days per week than we do and for a longer duration of time. With the trouble we've been having getting people to show up to raids, I think this may be the end of our server first reign. Which does make me sad, even though it's silly.

The one claim we can make that they cannot is that 1) we reached Black Temple and Mount Hyjal before 2.4 and 2) we earned our shadow resist gear for Mother. They came to BT/MH after the patch and after attunements were lifted. They also purchased -all- their Hearts of Darkness and primal shadows and lifes from off server.

For what little that is worth.

New People

Last night was an interesting one. After the guild drama I wrote about previously, I was apprehensive concerning last night's raid. As I said before, one of the people that left has been instrumental in helping us beat Reliquary of Souls.

Well, it was not a smooth night. We started late because so many people logged on late. We ended up 23-manning the trash to Gorefiend. And the disconnects and afks! My goodness! Once we finally got rolling, we downed Gorefiend easily despite the new folks, and things looked bright. Well instead of going on to Bloodboil, we went to RoS and proceeded to wipe for the next two and a half hours. The problem? Our brand new fury warrior (who happened to join not two days before the old one quit) was learning how to do interrupts. We actually got RoS down to 5% and then 1%, but too many people had died during Phase 2 for us to pull off Phase 3.

That attempt where we got it down to 1%, I reincarnated at the last second, just as the last person died and tried to frost shock the damned thing down, but it had just a few too many health points for my meager resto dps. It was sad and would have been absolutely brilliant if it had worked. Oh well. The lesson there is that I should have reincarnated earlier to help heal the remaining dps. In my opinion, one of the hardest aspects of playing a shaman is knowing when to use that ankh.

Despite all the pitfalls tonight, I feel somewhat reassured about my guild's future and I'm hoping that most of our attendance issues are due to the time of year - final exams and the beginning of summer. I hope that things will improve once those real life things settle down.

I do have one somewhat selfish concern though. I have to spend about a week moving my stuff from Kansas to Minnesota at the beginning of June. I'm worried that my guild will end up downing Illidan while I'm away! That would be unspeakably awful. I hope things improve faster rather than slower so we can get Illidan down before I have to take a week off!