The *urnaks family continues leveling up, with 4 chars already at top level (warrior, paladin, priest, mage) and another that will hit it this week (hunter). Professions are also over 500, with Blacksmithing and Alchemy at 525 (plus others like Mining, Herbalism and Cooking). I've also started doing some instances (on normal mode to learn them), mainly as dps (tanked BRC with the paladin and wasn't that bad). But yesterday decided to try healing.
I think next time I'll try shooting myself in the foot. I think it will be less painful.
Other great bloggers have already mentioned healing in instances, like Tam or Shintar and yes, it's that bad. At least right now. The most appropiate word I can find to describe healing dungeons is panic. It won't matter if your level is above the required, or your gear. Or the tank's. You're going to panic from the very first moment. And you'll continue panicking all along the whole run. Welcome to Panic Heals Word. Please don't forget to take your stress pills.
It was supposed to be a Vortex Pinnacle guild run and I decided to switch from dps to healer, but ended being a semi-pug (so no guild rep). Still I decided it was about time to try healing. I brought my disco priest since healing with a disco priest was always kinda relaxed. You shield the tank and you have time to prepare for the worst if tank is starting to get bitch-slapped. That was how it worked. But that's over, baby...
You shield the tank, PoM it, even add a Renew just in case and the tank is prepared to pull. Tank pulls first trash pack, shield lasts 1 second, he gets a magical debuff and his life bar goes from full to 20% in a blink after that first second where the shield lasted. Then comes the Panic and your mind starts to block. If you start casting fast heals you'll run oom and the amount of healing won't bring the tank over 25%. If you cast a powerful and slow heal the tank surely won't survive at that hitpoints level. Panic flows in even greater quantities. In your mind Deathwing's laughs while he tells you with his deep voice "you're f*cked!". Using the right heal at the right time, Blizzard's motto for Cataclysm healing. My hairy balls in a leopard skin thong, I say.
Of course we wipe... on first thrash pull on normal dungeon. Great man, great job! Pugs ask wtf happened. I wish I knew, because I was unleashing all my arsenal and couldn't save the tank (Save the Tank, Save the PUG). I wonder if I could ask a refund for my dualspec and just leave the priest as Shadow...
Take two. Tank pulls again, his life bar plunders but this time I manage to keep him alive... but only for some time, after downing one or two mobs (I couldn't check since I was focused on the tank's damn green bar) he dies again. Panic just bursts out of my ears, flooding my room. Now the dps are also taking damage in big quantities but I manage to keep them up (don't ask me how) and the tank runs back and takes all mobs off the dpsers, saving this pull.
The rest of the run was strangely smooth. Looks like first pull in instances (other people in guild also said the same) are tougher than the rest as a kind of sieve, because it's not normal that first pull just makes you fail as a healer while healing bosses (remember, it's normal dungeon) is almost a laugh, specially the last boss, Asaad.
If finding a tank was hard in Wrath I foresee finding a healer will be even harder in Cataclysm. Or at least find a healer that hasn't gone insane chanting "panic, panic, panic..."
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Aw, sorry to hear that your first run was such a pain. I haven't had any major problems like that in normals... in fact my pugs are already getting back to the mindless zerging mentality of WOTLK, which is annoying in its own way. Two days ago I healed a normal Vortex Pinnacle and on the first pull the mobs were all over the place because we used no CC and one of the mobs kept banishing the tank. After a few repeats of this and lots of swearing from the tank I suggested that we could simply avoid this problem by using some crowd control, which was of course completely ignored. Two pulls later I got killed by an untanked mob and the rest of the party easily finished off all the remaining mobs and then another pull with no healing while I corpse-ran back. Yeahhh...
ReplyDeleteConcur with Shintar. Heroics are back on farm status for me.
ReplyDeleteA lot of healing now is realizing that your group mates are largely responsible for their survival. Trash packs often times have mechanics, and if they don't follow the mechanics they will die. Doubly so for bosses. The sooner you can acknowledge it's not your fault and responsibility the better you will heal. I have just stopped healing people who can't stay out of the bad. We end up 4 manning bosses frequently, but they are very smooth 4 mans.
We didn't use CC on that run, but dps people weren't also doing wrong things like staying in fire or stealing aggro. And it was just the first pull. After that I found healing easier (and specially on bosses, which still makes me scratch my head wondering why) but very mana-consuming, even trying to use the cheap Heal to maintain tank on his current hitpoints.
ReplyDeletetank sucked.
ReplyDeletenow a days it takes two to heal the tank, the healer and the tank. If he wasn't using his self-heal (or massive blocks, or whatever it is bears do), then he be the cause of your wipes.
Tell the tank to stop being a douche and trying to win the meters, and instead use his survival abilities. Stupid tanks are stupid.
I've survived heroic trash pack with a dc'ed healer, just by using my defensive abilities.
Ah the grumpy old dwarf... some things never change...
ReplyDeleteNo, the tank didn't sucked and he was selfhealing too. I think the biggest problem in that pull is the banish debuff the tank and another dps get, so tank is unable to do much until dispelled, so before starting to heal him you must get rid of that debuff or he dies pretty fast.
Disco is certainly, err, challenging these days. I think part of the problem with disc specifically is that it has a slow ramp up time - you cannot get you life-saving out heals out as quickly because you need to get borrowed time up and Archangel proc'ed - while you PW:S has vanished like a piece of lace you draped scenicly over the tank's arse.
ReplyDeleteI think the key is honestly cc - I mean if they'd only bothered to bind, or banish, whatever the elemental with the nasty magic debuff you'd have been fine. I generally insist on cc on trash mobs of 4 or more. And if they don't I flounce off :)