Back-seat Warlock

An interesting thing about playing an alt is that it's kind of like going undercover. Playing an alt healer is, I think, even more so. Reason being that when one person keeps drawing your attention, you often stop to look at why, and see if you can fix it.

Such was the case yesterday, when on yet another bad random(and this is most of them on my healer, it seems) the warlock, who was doing half the dps of the next guy up, kept pulling aggro off the tank. So I pulled up a recount of his damage, and saw that he was chain-casting Searing Pain, a high threat spell that has no business in any warlock rotation. Ever. He had also cast about 150 Rain of Fire, which is interesting, because with an 8 second channel time, that meant he cast 20 minutes worth of RoF in the first 15 minutes of the run, not including all the other spells he had cast.

I called him out on it and he got all pissy, which incompetent people often do. He then, interestingly, told me to do my job and concentrate on healing. I pointed out that I was, but that i needed to focus on the tank, not him. And, by the way, a soul stone and soul well would be nice, dumbass.

Hence the difference between a good warlock and a bad warlock.

Healing != DPS

Chaahnee, introduced in my prior post, is a Discipline specced priest that I am leveling as and play as a healer. Having only DPS'd in the past, this is a refreshing break from the end-game raiding I do on Ayonel, which, while enjoyable, requires a lot of concentration and focus.

But casual healing turns out to be more like raiding than it is like casual dps. A casual dps run requires you to do as much dps as possible without pulling aggro, and to stay out of fire or whatever boss gimmick/mechanic there may be. With healing, you have to keep a group of people, who may or may not be any good at their role, alive. If a crappy dps is crappy, it doesn't matter much. But if the healer isn't up to it, or the party members won't let the tank hold aggro, everybody dies, and it's your fault. Sounds like fun, huh? Now you know why good healers are hard to come by.

I have to say, while it was slow starting, I am really enjoying playing my priest now, and have had some fun(if exasperating) instance runs. Unfortunately, as more experienced healers have told me, no matter how good a healer you are, there are some parties that you just can't heal. Whether you take this as a sign of failure depends on you, but is no less frustrating, and still feels like failure to me.

The motivation for writing this is the juxtaposition of my raiding/instancing experience on my geared high-end guild warlock, versus my pugs on low level characters. On Ayonel, almost everything is easy because the people she plays with are all highly experienced, well-geared, knowledgeable players who focus on the game's most difficult content. Consequently, everything else is easy. On Chaahnee, I often find tanks who can't get, or hold aggro, dps who manage to pull aggro but do poor dps, or generally ignorant players. By ignorant, I mean to say only that they do not know the correct way to play their class(yes, there is a correct way.)

I have seen very little in-between. Either my runs on Chaahnee go very well, or they don't go well at all. While I think that she is doing pretty well, and that I know how to play her(how else to explain all the elites I can solo when focused on keeping myself alive), I still find it to be maddening to heal instances, except when it isn't.



Hopefully in another week or two, she'll be at 80, and then the real fun begins.

About Chaahnee

Chaahnee was born of the Darkspear tribe some twenty-four years ago, and grew up in the area south of Durotar, on land provided to that broken people by Thrall. She was very closely attuned to nature, but her interest in the spiritual world and her belief in how that world was structured led her down the path to the priesthood. The priests of the Undercity supplemented the training she received at Sen'jin by instilling in her a rigorous discipline in her practice. It is one that informs the way she expresses her craft. Her powers are used not only to heal, but to shield herself and her allies from danger, and to strike her enemies with power channeled by the very gods themselves.

Because the land on which her people live is so unforgiving, she took an interest in its plant life and learned a great deal about the herbs and plants that grow there. This has developed into an expertise that she exploits whenever she travels to new areas. Along with that, she has learned the knowledge of the elixir masters, and mixes together the herbs she collects into potent brews that grant her wondrous powers.

She has traveled the breadth and width of the world in defense of the Horde, and in doing so has seen the devastation visited upon her people spread to all realms, wild and civilized.

She now calls Dalaran her home, though she still spends much time in Orgrimmar, and has devoted herself to defending the Horde, and to protecting her allies from harm, whatever its source.

Her strange, absent aunt of unclear relation, a forsaken called Ayonel, has supported her in her development and was able to secure her membership in a powerful guild. Her aunt also instilled in her a hatred of the Alliance; however, in Chaahnee this hatred is tempered by her belief that no people can truly be so mindlessly evil, so pointlessly violent as the Alliance has been to virtually all the creatures of the world unless some madness has befallen them.

She believes, because she has to, that there may be hope for them, if only the evil controlling them can be removed, and they can see the error of their way.

Professor Putricide and the Blood Princes

We downed Professor Putricide and the Blood Prince Council on 25 this week, server second for both. Guild ranking now in the top 1500 world.

On an unrelated note, my priestess, Chaahnee, is level 53 and exploring Un'Goro Crater. She should clear Un'Goro, Felwood, and Winterspring this weekend and likely begin exploring Outlands. She is making more gold selling the herbs she collects than Ayonel does selling bags every day. I anticipate that she will make more money on herbs and flasks than Ayonel does by far and that will take over as the primary gold generation source for my small clan.

More Dead Stuff!

Okay, I have been remiss to say the least. So suffice it to say:

We have been wiping on Heroic Twins for a while now.

We have been working on ICC, and got server first for the first wing, and server second for the second wing on ten man, downing Professor Putricide last night. Only one other guild has downed him.

Working on Putricide 25 this week.

I have to say, the gear in ICC is a pain in the butt. The stats are all mixed up and require a complete rebuild of gear.

Lord Jaraxxus Down!

Server second this time. Not bad for our little backwater realm.

Now ranked 2nd.

Northrend Beasts Down

Last night we finally downed Icehowl on 25 man heroic. That puts us back up into 3rd place rank on server.