The Night of 4.0.1 and Some Initial Thoughts

The servers came up about an hour before our raid time. I quickly hopped on my Auction House character and posted the glyphs I made the night before. Auctioneer was broken… I panicked for a second as I tried to put up glyphs one at a time. Then I figured I’d give Auctionator a try. I have to say, I really like it. For my AH style, it’s actually faster at posting than Auctioneer was.

Once that was out of the way, I quickly copied the spec Kurn suggested, equipped the glyphs I had laid out the night before and stuck the gem I was saving into my libram. I talked to my trainer a bit and flipped through my spellbook. I redid my keybinds, screamed at my not-working Grid, got the default raid frames into something that didn’t look like boxes were vomitted all over my screen and took a deep breath. I would have taken a screenshot, but I’ll spare you that kind of trauma.

The Joys of Raiding after a Patch

We were only slightly late at getting the raid started, pulling barely an hour after the servers came up. We were 20 manning it, addons were bugged all over the place, bringing everyone’s FPS into the negatives, disconnects were going off right and left, and most of us had no idea what we were doing. I was also struggling with 4000-7000 latency. And latency is probably my #1 in-game anger trigger- delays in casting times send me into a blind rage every.single.time.

Probably my biggest flaw as a healer, and one of my biggest flaws as a person, is that I get very stressed when I’m learning something. With me, learning is always an intense process. And here I was with a character I felt I’d never played before and disgusting raid frames I had to shield my eyes from, trying to figure out which of my spells did what.

We then proceeded to spend two hours wiping on Heroic Marrowgar 25. I was a sobbing, hyperventilating mess. Between my lag and frustration at not knowing how to play my character, I was utterly furious. But as I was typing an “ok, I can’t do this, I’m off to bed” message, it suddenly dawned on me that I was the only one bothered. Everyone else was laughing and joking around as we wiped, waited for all the disconnected people to come back online, tried to figure out which addon was causing which problem. I forced myself to calm down a little.

That’s when we killed the boss.

We took a couple of shots at heroic Deathwhisper, then called it.

Paladin Impressions

It’s hard for me to give a good impression because I was lagging so badly. I didn’t run out of mana! Probably because I couldn’t cast anything…

But from I was able to tell from less laggy moments and from spamming myself in Ironforge, I don’t think mana will be the problem it was predicted to be. I still had well over 40k mana and could spam quite a bit of the new big heal (Divine Heal? I’m terrible with names) without making so much of a dent. So while spirit is a useful stat now, I don’t think it’ll be at the forefront of stat stacking.

I’m currently gemmed all intellect, and it seems like a good choice for now. With the conversion of int into both spell power and mana, it’s a pretty sweet stat. I do feel like I need more haste, but whether that was due to the lag or a change in mechanics, I’m not sure. It just seemed that my global cooldown last years, while pre-patch, I didn’t even notice the global cooldown.

I’ll give it another go tonight by running some heroics, but I think I might I might do some reforging to up my haste. I believe I’m at around 1100 haste right now and it just doesn’t feel like enough.

About crit, I didn’t get the chance to look into it much. Everything seems to increase crit, but I haven’t figured out what happens when you crit, other than you get some unreliable overheal. I’m sure crit triggers something, but I’m in a crappy timezone, so I had to go to bed right after the raid.

Spell wise, the new little spell, Holy Light, seems to hit for a lot less than the old Flash of Light. At 4000 spell power, I felt like it wasn’t doing much. The new big heal, however, is comparable to the old Holy Light, so I was mostly casting that last night. The new Flash of Light, the “fast, hard hitting spell”, was a piece of crap, in my opinion. It took about the same casting time as new Holy Light, and barely healed for more. Might as well just use Holy Shock.

Holy Shock is fun, seems to be comparable in strength to what it was before. I kept forgetting about Holy Power and using, um, Word of Glory?. Word of Glory seems nice, doesn’t hit for very much (wtb more possible stacks of Holy Power), but it’s instant and it’s mana free, so no right to complain. Light of Dawn looks very cool. Very disco lighty. I didn’t get much chance to use it since we were spread out all over the place during Marrowgar’s AoE damage, but I can think of a few uses for it. Not our top spell, but, you know, situational.

With the nerf to Beacon of Light, I felt very cheated. One of our weaknesses in the past was that we were stuck with single target healing. At least then we could do double target healing. Last night, I had BoL on the tank that seemed to be taking the biggest beating, and was spam healing my tank. That’s it, just spam healing my tank. Very sad. Since my newly found global cooldown couldn’t really be spared to pitch in anywhere else, I feel like I’m even more restricted than I was before.

Last Word on Tank Healing

I didn’t check last night’s logs. Too discouraged. However, my tank was always the last one to die. Now whether this is because we’re still kickass tank healers or because the other tank healers had to stop healing their targets to heal mine, I don’t know.

Oh, and when I checked my AH character after the raid, I had 2000 gold waiting in my mailbox. Not bad for barely 15 minutes of work!

How was everyone else’ patch night?

ps. Apologies for the hastily written, unresearched post. Only had a few minutes between classes and I wanted to write a bit.

Deaths Overview Game – The Solution

Yesterday I posted the following image and challenged everyone to figure out how these two players died simultaneously:

Everyone who volunteered an answer (including a couple of guildies over vent last night) was on the right track. It’s impossible to tell exactly what happened from the very limited information, so I was really impressed.

The solution after the break! (Sorry people reading from feedreaders, I can’t manually truncate posts that go to readers.)

World of Logs: Looks at Deaths (featuring the Lich King)

Note: I’d like to give a big thanks to Kurn for her help is preparing this post. <3 Even without seeing the logs, she was able to catch some things I didn’t.

So I received this question the other day:

We’re working on Lich King [10 man] and we’re dying a lot to Infest, especially when I [disc priest] get picked up by Valks. Can you show me log-reading tricks so I can figure what our healers are doing wrong?

Like any other question I get, I immediately countered with “Can I post about it on my blog?“

It’s a bit strange writing about World of Logs (and the LK fight) this late into the expansion, especially with the patch coming out tomorrow and most everyone being stalled for a few days. Hopefully, though, WoL won’t face too many changes. While the fight will soon be obsolete, I’ve got my fingers crossed that working with WoL will essentially stay the same.

As usual, if any of you readers see something I missed, feel free to weight in. Only keep in mind that the raiders in these parses are not my thick-skinned, accustomed-to-being-blogged-about guildies. Most of them don’t know they’re making an appearance here, so please be tactful. Also note that they have killed Lich King and this is really just an exercise in WoL reading.

Also, if you’re looking for more about parse reading, please see:
A close look at World of Logs (Kadomi – Tank Like a Girl)
An Intro to WoL: Wading through the data (Vixsin – Life in Group 5)
The Next Step with WoL: Healing Analysis (Vixsin – Life in Group 5)
Raid Rx: How to read healing parses (or meters) (Matticus – WoW Insider)
What Can Healing Meter Tell You? (Sydera – World of Matticus)
World of Logs and Evaluating a Paladin Healer: Some Basics (Yours truly)
Lets help this Holy Pally not suck at Putricide (Yours truly)

Step One: Looking at the Fight

After an evening of wipes, you’ll want to look at any attempt that lasted longer than a minute or two. For the sake of this post, I’m going to pick Try #5. At 5min47s, it’s long enough for stuff to happen, but short enough to make the graphic editing simpler.

Since I’m looking at deaths and, thus, causes of wipes, I want to take a general look of what happened during this attempt. World of Logs graphs different aspects of the attempts, notably your raid’s damage output, your raid’s healing output and the damage taken by your raid. To get an overall picture of a multiphased fight like the Lich King, I’m going to go with Damage Taken.

And now you see a nice collection of squiggly lines with a few straight lines cutting through them.

Save a Clothie Today! Use Hand of Protection.

It feels weird writing about current stuff while everyone is so gung-ho about Cataclysm. Me, I don’t really care about Cataclysm. I would if I were in the beta, but I’m not. Nor do I care enough to try to get a beta key. (I am on the PTR but it’s ugly and funny looking and scary and overwhelming)

Besides, after discussing it with a few people, I came to the following conclusions:

- With the game being in a lull, a lot of people are playing alts.
- Just because Cataclysm is coming out in about a month in a half is no excuse to be playing badly now.

So today’s topic: Hand of Protection (HoP, or BoP after it’s former name, Blessing of Protection).

And according to MMO-Champion, this is a spell we’ll keep in Cataclysm so no writing off this post as ancient history museum content!

The Scenario

During ICC trash a few nights ago, we had a couple of mobs come up on us from behind and started chomping on a healing priest and a warlock. I slapped the priest with my Hand of Protection and the warlock died.

The question: We had 3 other paladins in the raid, one of which was a fellow holy paladin. Why didn’t anyone HoP the warlock?

Hypothesis 1: Maybe they don’t understand how Hand of Protection works

Hand of Protection protects the target from all physical damage for 10 seconds. It’ll also drop aggro from the target since the mob thinks to itself: “Oh, I can’t eat this guy (or girl – mobs are very politically correct), I guess I’ll go eat this other guy (or girl).”

Another thing to note is that someone under the influence of HoP can’t do any physical damage either. So unless you absolutely must save a melee dps or a hunter (or you just want to be annoying), save your HoP for casters. Note that in dire circumstances (for example, you have a massive crush on the ret pally and want to impress them with your life saving skills) an aggro breaking HoP can be quickly followed by a Hand of Freedom, allowing the melee player to resume dps as soon as the mobs get off their face. (Thank you Mally and Daniel.)

The aggro dropping and no doing physical damage things are the reason you shouldn’t ever HoP someone who’s currently tanking (with a few exceptions that I’ll get into later).

Note that HoP is useless against magic damage, so it won’t help a target being roasted by a caster.

Hypothesis 2: They don’t know when to use Hand of Protection

To make an informed decision concerning your Hand of Protection usage, you will need the following:

- Knowledge of the physical damageness mobs you’re facing (you can tell which are physical damage mobs by the way they eat the faces of their victims as opposed to melting said faces)
- Raid frames with aggro warnings turned on.

ICC has very few boss fights that involve physical damage adds. With the exception of Lady Deathwhisper and Gunship (and Dreamwalker for non portal paladins), you’ll mostly be using HoP during trash. I usually use mine during the trash before Marrowgar and for the Valks after Saurfang.

On 25 man Lady Deathwhisper, you’ll want to use your HoP as soon as possible and keep it on cooldown since there is that chance of being mind controlled and HoPing the boss… (Thank you Daniel- funny story, the day after you left your comment, the other holy pally in my raid got MCed and HoPed the boss.)

You know to use HoP when a purple (warlock), white (priest) or light blue (mage) square on your frames lights up with an aggro warning. In some cases, a dark blue (shaman) or orange (druid) squares are also suitable targets. Just make sure it’s a caster type of druid or shaman.

When a target lights up with an aggro warning, keep your eye on it. As soon as they start taking damage, BAM! Hand of Protection.

Hypothesis 3 : They’re afraid of “wasting” their Hand of Protection

This could be true in certain instances.

In ICC, though, the places where you could use HoP are rather far apart. Depending on the casting paladin’s spec, the cooldown on HoP is 3 to 5 minutes, nothing to worry about. I prefer to use HoP as soon as I need it. I won’t know whether I’ll need it again and I’d rather save someone now than let someone die now out of concern that someone might die later.

If a caster gets eaten while my HoP is on cooldown, well, tough for them.

Hypothesis 4: They might have HoPed the same target.

Ha! Wrong! This is the funky thing about HoP: it causes forbearance (not to be confused with Jong’s Forbearance).

Causing forbearance means your target can’t be smacked by a Hand of Protection again for the next two minutes. So if someone beats you to a target, you won’t be wasting your cooldown. If you get an error message trying to HoP the priest, get that HoP on the warlock.

Hypothesis 5: They don’t have an appropriate UI

(Thank you Enlynn!)

As healer, you should have your UI set up in a way that you can access your spells very quickly. Unless you have jedi reflexes (and it does happen, I’ve seen some), this means either mouse-over macros or use of a Clique-like system.

HoP is part of your tools and should be just as accessible as Flash of Light or Holy Light. See Fictional Question #3 for some tips on choosing a proper key binding for your HoP.

Your fictional question: Are there other uses for Hand of Protections?

Glad you asked!

While most of the time, I use my Hand of Protection for loose trash mobs or boss adds, it can also remove a bleed effect. The fight that comes to mind is Saurfang, where HoP removes the Boiling Blood debuff. On heroic, when all the paladins in the raid use their HoP on a caster or healer with Boiling Blood, it can make a pretty big difference in the fight outcome.

Your fictional question 2: I’m not a healing paladin, can I still use HoP?

It’s a trainable ability, so yep.

In a raid setting, it’s easiest for a holy paladin to use, but any paladin who wants to rescue a clothie in distress is free use their Hand if they can spare the global cooldown.

In 5 mans, I love, and I mean LOVE getting my HoP out as a tank. I know the trend is to let those who pull before you die, but I frequently use it to get mobs off hormonal casters. I also use it to teach impatient melee players a lesson, but, um, please don’t tell anyone.

Your fictional question 3: What’s this about exceptions to never using Hand of Protection on a tank?

General rule is, using Hand of Protection on a tank, even by accident is a bad, bad thing. My guildies still constantly remind me of a certain keybind mishap involving a tank and a few undesired HoPs… To prevent these embarrassing moments, make sure your HoP isn’t bound to anything that would include your press-to-talk button or any buttons bound to spells frequently used on tanks.

There may be times, however, when you’ll be asked to use your Hand of P on a tank. To assist in certain tank switches, for example, or to remove a bleed effect (Gormok the Impaler in ToC comes to mind). During the trash before Blood Council, a quick HoP immediately canceled by a Hand of Freedom can erase that annoying Bloodboil debuff. (Thanks Daniel!)

Different raid teams have different strategies, though, so even if you think it’s a good idea to help out by HoPing a tank, I caution you to wait until you’re asked. This isn’t the place to take initiatives. An unsuspecting HoPed tank might not immediately realize what happened, which could throw off their next move. The tank might also have used one of their own cooldowns and your Hand will be wasted.

Your Fictional Question 4: Is Hand of Protection useful in PvP?

I confess I’m not experienced enough in PvP to give a really good answer here.

In Battlegrounds, I love it. It’s great for protecting your caster buddy from annoying meleers buzzing around them. I believe, however, that it can be spellstolen by mages, dispelled by priests and purged by shaman.

In all logic, it would be useful in arena as well. All the arena junkie holy paladins I’ve raided with, however, never use their HoP. So I dunno.

Your Fictional Conclusion: Wow! What a fascinating spell! I promise to use Hand of Protection at all the right times! Thank you!

No, thank you.

Speaking of thanks, lets go back to the original scenario. When I used HoP on our priest that night, she thanked me. Which was very polite of her, but it sort of made me sad as well.

As a holy paladin, pulling our utility spells out of our toolbox is our job just as much as keeping Beacon up and casting Holy Light is our job. She shouldn’t feel the need to thank me for a HoP anymore than thank me for casting my regular, direct heals.

But so many holy paladins don’t go beyond their easiest task, then have the nerve to complain that paladin healing is boring. Of course it’s boring when you’re not using most of your spells!

A few weeks ago, we had a trial holy paladin bragging on our vent about how he only healed with one button. I wonder how if he knew how close to his head the Giant Spoon came…

But in conclusion, remember that, with Hand of Protection, YOU CAN save a squishy clothie TODAY! What are you waiting for?

The Secret to Healing Sindragosa as a Paladin

I wasn’t going to write this post. When I got back from vacation and thought about post writing and stuff, I told myself, naaaah, no one wants to read about Sindragosa anymore. At least not normal mode Sindragosa, not with all those shiny hard mode guides everwhere. But after talking with other paladins, I discovered that some are still deprived from the Secret. The Secret to healing Sindragosa as a paladin.

Ok, so you know phase 3? The one where the tanks play hot potato with the boss? And you’re TRYING to keep your beacon on the right tank while not dying and not getting too many stacks of everything? Yeah, that phase.

The closest thing I had to a Sindragosa screenshot

Oh, but before I reveal the Secret, here are some other tricks to healing Sindragosa:

1- If you have trouble running from Blistering Cold, you might be standing too far away. You don’t want to be in melee range (you’ll get mana back as you melee but you’ll also take Chilled to the Bone damage), yet you don’t want to be at max range either. The further you are, the more time you waste getting pulled in.

2- When I’m affected by Unchained Magic, I rack up 5 stacks of Instability by casting Holy Light, then count down from 5 before starting over. Everyone has their own strategy, but that’s the one that works for me. 5 stacks means I get decent healing out before having to pause, but there’s still some leeway in case I need to make an emergency cast.

3- On the last phase, when she’s throwing Frost Beacons around and getting poor, good-willing, innocent holy paladins caught in misplaced Frost Tombs, you can get out of the way by getting slightly closer to her. Don’t melee her (you don’t want to be Chilled to the Bone), but snuggling up will keep you out of the path of wayward Frost Beacons who can’t run fast enough dropping their tombs on your face.

As for the Secret…

On the last phase, as the tanks take turns holding Sindy’s interest, as everyone is out of line of sight all the time and as you take tons, oh tons of damage…beacon yourself. Just beacon yourself. Direct heal whichever tank is currently hanging on to the boss and bask in the redirected heals.

(Edit: Only do this on the last phase, when the constant switching of beacon targets becomes a waste of GCDs and mana. For the rest of the fight, just beacon whoever is tanking the boss.)

Suddenly your life becomes so much easier. The constant influx of heals on yourself means you don’t have to drop your stacks as often, you don’t have to blame the raid healers for not healing you, you can just focus on what you do best: delivering ginormous, blissful, toe-curling tank heals.

And, that, friends, is the secret to getting those scary, epic Sindragosa kills that end with only you and the tanks alive, and the rest of the raid groveling in admiration at your feet.

Things About Healing the Lich King fight as a Paladin that the Lich King Doesn’t Want You to Know

I got a request to write about healing the Lich King fight (as opposed to healing the Lich King- that doesn’t happen, you don’t get to heal the Lich King). I’m a bit of at a loss for words. I don’t have an epic story to tell, my tears of frustration are too fresh to have gained that (melo)dramatic tint of QQ. I don’t have a specific mechanic in mind to focus on. Heck, while I’ve seen the first two phases way more often that I care to admit, phase 3 is a bit of a blurr in my mind. Once you get there, Arthas gets really squishy, really fast, so my memories of that phase are mainly fumbling around for my boss fight notes while pretending to know what I’m doing.

So I reach out to my final (and usually also first) resort: cheap pop psychology/health with a “they’re against us” feel. Things about healing the Lich King fight that the Lich King doesn’t want you to know.

1- You’ll have your hands full with the tanks

I hate infests, I really do. Not because they chew up your team if your discipline priests and raid healers are otherwise occupied with whatever else they may be doing, but because there’s all that deep, glorious damage going on and there’s nothing I can do about it. If I take my attention away from the tanks, the tanks go splat. Chances are you’ll face the same. Despite what Arthas wants you to do, you have to trust your raid healers and keep your attention on the tanks.

2- You can dispel diseases in Phase 1

It’s tough, but you can do it. On both 10 and 25 man, we typically have a disc priest cover dispels, but I’ve done it on occasion. Make sure you have Necrotic Plague showing on your raid frames. Call out whoever gets the Plague so they can move towards the Shambling Horrors pronto. (Assuming here you have all the range stacked together on Phase 1.) Dispel sooner than later. A death due to Plague will likely be a wipe, an extra jump of the Plague is salvageable.

3- During the parts with two tanks, direct heal the Lich King tank, beacon the other tank

More often than not, you’ll have more people hanging around the Lich King, cheerfully in range of your Glyph of Holy Light splash. This is especially true of phase 1. After that, it’s just more convenient and I’m all about convenience. On 25 man, during the single tank parts, I’ll move beacon to myself since constantly swapping beacon around is hassle on top of being a waste of mana and global cooldowns. On 10 man, we don’t tank swap so I keep Arthas’ tank beaconed.

4- Following Arthas’ cooldown timers helps you move to the right spot, at the right time

Your boss fight addon of choice keeps track of Val’kyrs, Defiles and Soul Reaper. I’ve had guildies complain that their timers are off, but I haven’t had any problems. I use Deadly Boss Mods. Have a Holy Light timed to hit right after a Soul Reaper. Right after a Defile, move back to your Val’Kyr position. Right after the Val’Kyr(s) chooses its/their target, position yourself in a way to move fast if you get targeted for Defile, but within Hammer of Justice path of the Val’Kyr(s).

You’ve probably discovered by now that moving too much isn’t very compatible with tank healing, especially on this fight, so you’ll want to limit movement as much as possible by anticipating the upcoming optimal location and timing your moving with Soul Reaper.

5- Raging Spirits don’t have to eat your face

If a Raging Spirit (during the transition phases) spawns near you, you can, you know, move. It can take the tanks a second or two to pick up the Spirits and it takes far less than a second for the Spirits to turn you into pulp. The solution is to be far enough from a newly born Raging Spirit to be able to kite it if you happen to grab healing aggro.

Also, I probably shouldn’t have to say this, but please, oh, please don’t stand in front of Raging Spirits. Also make the sure the tanks aren’t silenced by Soul Shriek. Soul Shriek is a magic debuff and should be showing up on your frames. If doesn’t, then fix your frames. Dispelling Soul Shriek is a priority. You can split dispel jobs between other healers by each claiming a tank, but still, make sure neither tank is ever silenced.

6- Aura Mastery, Hand of Sacrifice, Divine Sacrifice: You have them, you can use them.

Aura Mastery + Devotion Aura can be helpful for phase 1, especially if the Shambling Horrors are getting pissy and the tranquility shot is slow on coming. (Lots of physical damage.)
Aura Mastery + Shadow Resistance can be helpful for Infests and Soul Reaper.
Aura Mastery + Frost Resistance can save slackers making their way to the edge too slowly during transition phases.

Hand of Sacrifice is a saver during Soul Reaper or if you have to run at an unfortunate time (say you’ve got defile and all the other healers are getting carried away by Valks…)
Divine Sacrifice really shines at the beginning of the second transition phase, when you’ll undoubtly have some slackers and space cadets making their way to the edge of the platform waay too late.

7- If you make it to the end of the second transition phase, rejoice.

Or not. I have no tricks for phase 3. My memory’s hazy but I know I really like ending up inside Frostmourne. Makes me feel like a real paladin. Use healing boost cooldowns to up healing without wasting as much mana. On the outside, my guild tanks Arthas along the edge of the ring and we drop our Defiles in the middle. Anticipating the next optimal position works even better in phase 3. Um, and run from Vile Spirits if they chase you. Spirits exploding on your face is unpleasant. Someone once told me that bubbling and running through the Vile Spirits kills them but I’ve never gotten it to work. Most of the time, I’ve already used my bubble as an emergency resort by phase 3 anyway.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. All the things about healing the Lich King fight (and not the Lich King) that Arthas didn’t want you to know.

Now go forth and complain about others standing in defiles.

Next best thing to a real defile screenshot

ps. Huge thanks to Hempia for the first screenshot.

2 Paladins, 1 Raid : Healing with Another Holy Paladin

Team Pally! I’ve always loved the sound of that. The whole “I’m part of something grand and wondrous and amazing”…ok maybe it’s not quite that exciting. But still, the coordination of blessings and judgments between all the paladins in the raid and paying attention to beacons and shields between holy paladins are aspects of the class that I especially enjoy.

That and how it gives me an excuse to chase people around to talk about pally stuff: “YOUR BEEAAAAAACON I KNOW YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT YOUR BEEEEAAAAACON!!!!! HEEEEYYY!! WHY ARE YOU SWITCHING VENT CHANNELS WHILE I’M TRYING TO TALK ABOUT BEEEAAACONS??”

Having two holy paladins in a 10 man team can be a royal pain, unless you outgear the content. Last time I tried (tried 2 paladins in a 10 man, not tried to out gear content), it was a Sindragosa fight and it wasn’t pretty. So I’m not going to get all creative with how to play 10 mans with double paladin healers. I’ll leave that challenge to others. (Aren’t I nice?)

25 man, though, that’s a different story. Two holy paladins? Yes please! 3 is doable as well, depending on what the rest of your healing team looks like. (If they’re ugly, you might need a third paladin to up the hotness factor.) So let’s talk about that today. Having 2 paladins in a 25 man and making the most of it.

Getting to Know Each Other

Getting to know each other as healers, of course. I like knowing all about my teammates because I’m nosey, but just knowing about how they heal does a lot to make the job easier. If you know that Jack ALWAYS lags out between seconds 15 and 28 of a fight, you know to when to cover for him. If you know that Linda has jedi reflexes, you know she’s got you covered if you happen to get a hand spasm. (Hey it happens, ok)

These are pretty extreme scenarios, but figuring out your partner’s strengths and weaknesses goes a long way in adjusting your own playstyle. It would be lovely if we all healed exactly the way EJ tells us to, but the majority of us don’t play like machines, so getting to know to your partner and adapting to each other gives that extra ooomph to your performance.

Some might enjoy some friendly competition with their fellow paladin. It’s certainly an option. Me, though, I’d rather gang on up the squishies. Team pally vs team who dies all the time. Oh yes.

Things About Your Partner You Should Spy On

Stalking them on Facebook = Creepy.
Tracking their Beacon of Light and Sacred Shield = Perfectly Acceptable.

I always know which paladins don’t track others’ Sacred Shields (SS). It’s easy to tell because they overwrite mine. Well, on some occasions, we do it to each other to be pests but, most of the time, having your SS overwritten means your partner isn’t watching. So let them SS first and pick another target. If they forget to refresh it, you’re free to steal their target if you want.

I can’t tell you how to track other people’s buffs with Healbot or Vudho (I’m a fail blogger, I know, sorry!), but if you want a walkthrough of how to do it on Grid, read this guide from Dristanel.

Using Beacons Together

If you’re tracking your partner’s Beacon, you don’t even have to ask them who they’re Beaconing, you can just look at your frames. If they’re waiting for you to make the first move, do it. You can move your Beacon as the fight goes on if you have to.

Two paladins can Beacon the same target. It won’t overwrite.

Whether or not you want to Beacon the same target is up to you. Some fights work better that way, some fights work better when you cross Beacon (such as, one person Beacons Tank A and heals Tank B, the other Beacons Tank B and heals Tank A). And in some fights are completely unconventional (Beaconning Mark targets during Saurfang, for example). Keep in mind that a Beaconned target receives a constant stream of healing while directly healing a target has the advantage of allowing you some extra control.

Sacred Shields do Overwrite

You can’t SS the same target.

Look to see where your partner is putting theirs and put yours somewhere else. There are lots of ways to use SS (I actually started a post on that way back, but never finished it…so I have nothing to link to here) and you don’t necessarily have to SS a tank. Anyone taking a steady stream of damage makes a good target. SS is one of those tools that are kinda subtle, but since they’re there, you might as well wring out as much use as you can from them.

Talents and Judgments and Blessings and Technicalities

It’s nice to coordinate talents so one paladin has Improved Concentration Aura and the other has Improved Wisdom.

For judgments, if there’s no other paladins, one of you judges Light and the other judges Wisdom to keep the hunters happy. Most likely, both of you will want to judge Light (damn you meter padders!) so if you can’t agree, take turns, draw straws, flip a coin, whatever. I avoid this problem by having a prot and a ret paladin in the raid. (Extended Team Pally FTW)

Blessings are managed with Pally Power. If you’re unlucky and don’t have any other paladins, one of you will be blessing Kings, the other Wisdom/Might to taste.

The Glorious Holy Light/Flash of Light duo

If you read about holy paladins, you’ll be smacked in the face with the words “Holy Light build” and “Flash of Light build”. The short of it is Holy Light paladins stack intellect and use Holy Light as their base spell, Flash of Light paladins are mysterious and stack spell power and rely on Flash of Light. If this surprises you, you can find out more here.

Does a Holy Light paladin play well with a Flash of Light paladin?

In my experience, yes, but it’s dependent on the players. A Flash of Light build is lacking in versatility, requires gear that’s top notch for the content you’re running as well as pretty good reflexes. Two Holy Light paladins can still be a kickass team, but if one of you is dying to try a Flash of Light build and has the right gear, then be all means, go for it. I really enjoyed being a Holy Light paladin with a Flash of Light partner.

And Now Try to Get Along

I’m a big mush, so I get really attached to my partners. I still ask about the first fellow holy paladin I raided with a few years ago. She’s long since left WoW and I miss her. When my last partner decided to quit raiding, I spent the next few raids whining about how I couldn’t play without him. (I think I’m a large part of the reason why my guild keeps claiming that paladins are emo. Damn my emoness.) I got a new partner shortly before I left for vacation, so I’m just starting to creep get to know him. We seem to have similar temperaments, which means we’ll either be the most awesome kickass crazy team pally EVAIR or we’ll rip each other’s heads off and leave a bloody mess that will need to be cleaned up.

Working closely with another paladin adds so much to the game, especially if, like me, you’re the type who really likes to harass talk paladin with other paladins. You’ve got this teammate who (hopefully) can carry on a conversation about your class and who (hopefully) is as passionate about it as you are. Worst case scenario, you’ve got a partner you can watch closely, learn from and become a better healer by synching your playstyle with theirs. Doesn’t sound too bad, no?

Shared Topic: Starting Over

Last night I got the Skyshattered Achievement!

I hadn’t been planning on taking part in this week’s Shared Topic. Not because it’s a bad topic (it’s a great topic and tons of bloggers participated!), but because my energy level is still pretty bad. I’m always amazed and proud that I manage to make it to the bathroom on time and all my blogging attempts come out like wdedxgnfsdknhjfraswdj.

But the Skyshattered Achievement really inspired me.

I know a flying race seems to have nothing to do with a topic called “Starting Over”, but bear with me. This is, as usual, a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic. It was suggested by Pieces from Blasting Away and you can find links to the (many!) other takes in the thread at Blog Azeroth, appropriately named Shared Topic: Starting Over.

I kinda live in the moment. I rarely get excited about things until they actually happen (Cataclysm? What is this Cataclysm?) I also don’t hang onto regrets. Whenever I fill out one of those teenagery Livejournal/Facebook surveys, I have to give a boring answer to the “what’s your biggest regret” question because, quite honestly, when something is over and done with, I forget all about it. (This also makes me really bland at the truth part of truth or dare because I never remember my juicy, embarrassing mistakes.)

So my original answer to this topic would have something boring like “If I could start all over at WoW, I would do it all exactly the same!”

Then, last night, I was flying around Outlands and thought to give that race over by the Netherspite a try. I’d only ever managed to get past the first race, and I’m sure many of you have seen this video of me as I did my many attempts (yes, I’m totally an animated blob IRL, didn’t you know that?).

This time, almost two years later, I gave it another shot. I kept my eye on the NPC I was following, I used the mouse to navigate and the space bar to move up. I ended up one-shotting every single race. Sure it helps that at level 80, I wasn’t accidentally pulling all the other stuff flying around, but still, I was shocked at how much better I’ve become at controlling my character.

It made me think of how different my playstyle is now compared to when I first discovered WoW. In my head, I went over the misconceptions I had when I started the game.

“I’m always going to pug instances”

“I don’t want to make friends in-game”

“I don’t want to raid”

“Raiding is super serious and scary and takes up all your time.”

You know, I really hesitated before joining my old (very casual and understanding) guild because I was nervous about having to play seriously. Ironically, one of the reasons I moved on two years later was because I wanted to play more seriously.

So, if I were to start over, I’d still play a paladin. A human one. I might level with a better spec…(random talent allocation isn’t ideal!) yet I’d probably still be respeccing all the time to explore my character more.

But knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t be so intimidated by other players and by end game content. I missed out on pre-BC raiding and that makes me sad. If I were to go back in time and do all over again, I would definitely focus on leveling faster, I wouldn’t sweat buckets before joining my first raiding guild and I would experience at least Molten Core, with 39 others, the way it was intended.

Once upon a time, I thought I couldn’t do the Sky Shatter race, just like I once thought I couldn’t level at a proper pace, that I couldn’t find a guild I enjoyed and that I didn’t have what it took to raid. But last night I discovered I could do the race just fine. And it reminded of everything I missed out on in game because I foolishly thought I couldn’t do it.

I Don’t Want to Write Something Useful, so I’m Going to Talk About 10 Man Raid Leading

GM: How’s your 10 man looking this week?
Me: It’s looking good. But it’s not really my 10 man.
GM: It’s your 10 man.
Me: It’s not mine!
GM: You took it over, therefore it’s your 10 man, no ifs, ands or buts.

So I ended up with a 10 man raid. Apparently it’s “mine”. I’m too new age-ish for that. It’s mine and 9 other people’s. It’s ours.

Actually, raid leading is one of those things where I can’t decide if I really like it or really hate it. I enjoy the planning, the list making, all the logistics that go into getting a 10 man together. And when it all works out, it’s extremely rewarding. However, as shocking as it may sound (yeah, I know it’s hard to believe, ha!), I have a terribly anxious personality. I need everything planned and sorted ahead of time and any last minute changes are the end of the world. Not to mention that I’m one of those slow, deep thinkers that take forever to make up their minds. Which is great in certain circumstances. For example, I never make impulsive purchases. In a raid context, however, my lack of spontaneity can be problematic.

*DPS dies*
Druid: Should I battle rez?
Me: Um…
…
Me: Um…
…
Me: Um…Yes. Err, no, wait, the boss is already dead.

I had two 10 man teams going in my old guild, although I usually only actually led one of the two (I can’t two box). The experience was bittersweet. We did get some cool guild firsts under my lead. But I also have memories of getting in fights with the backseat raid leader who kept arguing with me (I’ve actually said “Who’s leading this raid, you or me?” before). And the very last raid I led with them ended with wipe after wipe after wipe on Faction Champs, normal mode. In my discouragement, I was crying so hard I couldn’t even speak enough to call the raid. (Apparently, no one noticed which is good!)

So about a few months ago, this happened:

Guild leadership: We don’t have enough time for progression so we’re taking 10 mans out of our regular raid nights, you’ll have to do them on offnights.
Regular raid leader: I’m starting something on Wednesdays.
Someone else: I’m starting something on Sundays.
Me: I’m free whenever.
Guild: You’re going Sunday.

Then, after a week, the guy who ran Sunday’s group left the guild. In a rare moment of impulsiveness (I guess there’s hope for me yet), I started a new thread, got everyone from the original group to check in and built a new team. Before I knew it, it somehow became known as “my” raid, even though I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.

I was pretty nervous. I’m not an aggressive leader at all. Even in my old guild where everyone was older and laid back, I had no authority whatsoever. I’m the kind of person who says please before telling you to move out of the fire. With a shaky voice.

Luckily, things have been working out so far, the group is fairly disciplined so I don’t really need to be authoritative. I raised my voice once. Immediately, I got 4 whispers:

Four people: Lol, you got mad!

The harshness in my voice was really just me trying to control my giggles. I’m not very good at getting mad.

Oh and I’m obsessed with having my group confirmed as early as possible in the week, as well as with starting the raid on time. The raid is scheduled for 6, we must pull at 6, regardless if only the mage and I are inside the instance. Attendance and punctuality are pretty much the only things I’m inflexible on. And by inflexible on, I mean overly anxious about:

Me: You’re coming on Sunday right.
Raider: Yep.
Me: You’re sure?
Raider: Of course.
Me: Really sure?
Raider: Yeah.
Me: Are yo-
Raider: OMG YES.
*night of the raid*
Raider: Um, I had something come up.
Me: *nervous breakdown*.

And of course there’s always some smartass overhearing me sob on vent.

Smartass: You don’t handle stress very well, do you?
Me:…

We’ve had our hurdles. To name them: Superbowl, Valentine’s Day, Spring Break, Gold Medal Olympic Hockey Game, Sindragosa. I don’t think we’ve ever had two consecutive weeks with the same 10 people. There’s always one person who has to work unexpectedly, who has computer issues or needs a night off. Then there’s the stress every week of “3 people want badges, 3 people won’t go if we have to clear downstairs, 2 people don’t know what they want, 1 person doesn’t understand the in-game calender system and 1 person hasn’t discovered we have guild forums yet.”

But amazingly enough, week after week things work out. Except Sindragosa, 1% wipes omfg. Unless there’s been a planned delay, we’ve started our raids on times. In about two months, we’ve only had two signed-up-but-didn’t-shows, and one of those was actually a /gquit I hadn’t been aware of.

We’ve become used to playing together. And by that, I mean that our druid doesn’t even have to pay attention to vent or look at her raidframes to know who needs a battlerez and when. We got to know each other and our teammates’ IRL eating/flasking/buffing habits pretty well. During downtime and trash, we joke around on vent and share TMI (unlike the other 10 man team…I sat in their channel once and it put me to SLEEP). They even sorta forgive me for stuff like bopping the tank. My teammates are also great about communicating what they want so the rare times where we can’t resort to a vote, decisions are easy to make.

I get tons of help from the guild leadership, which is a first for me. In the past, I had always been met with “your raids, your problem, we want no part in this”. But now I get a regular supply of answers to my questions and pats on the back when requested. When the other 10 man moved their raid on top of ours, the little conflicts and frustrations that inevitably came up were short lived, despite that we still give each other crap over them.

In the end, even my fears of being a crappy “leader” were resolved when I discovered that one our priests (I’M GOING TO LET YOU ALL GUESS WHO) was probably a sport commenter in a past life. Not only does he seem to know when I’m wishy-washy about a certain fight and need someone else to jump in, but also narrates entire fights in a very entertaining and engaging manner. I can just sit back and hit buttons. (Unless I’m tanking…I haven’t learned my new keybindings yet, so when I tank, I sit back and pound my fist on the keyboard in hopes that my character does something.)

So now I don’t have to say that I lead a 10 man raid, I can say I coordinate a 10 man raid, which sounds much nicer to my ears.

Oh and I’ve become quite attached to the task of getting the group together every week.

Me: OMG we’re going to fail, no ones going to show up, we’re not even going to get Saurfang down. Why the hell did I volunteer for this?
Fellow Raider: I can take over if you want.
Me: NO. MY RAID PAWS OFF. MINE MINE MINE.

Why do I Need Battle Text? Let Me Tell You!

So last night, I was super ready to raid : flasks, Symbols of Kings, repairs. An exciting new raid week was in store for me and I couldn’t wait!

Then, right from the first pull, something was…off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it yet, but I was definitely being rubbed the wrong way. A feeling of frustration was growing under my skin. Being the introspective sort, I began to analyze my feelings.

Was it the lag?

No, not lag. While my teammates were complaining about lag, I wasn’t particularly affected.

Was it the rogues talking shop on vent again?

No, they were putting me to sleep earlier with their chatter, but now they were focused on the raid. (You’d think rogues would be the stealthy quiet type, but nooooo, not in my guild!)

Dammit, what’s bothering me?

Hmmm…. Wait- I know! My scrolling battle text isn’t working!

Oh.

Em.

Eff.

Gee.

I had to resist the overwhelming urge to tear all my hair out, right then and there, using both hands. Then I fought off the need to break down and sob.

Did you know some paladins can heal without scrolling battle text? Seriously! How is that even possible? Oh, I can go without healing addons if I have to. I can pass on shmexy titan panel that shows me my gold and durability and provides cool icons that help me access the configuration pages of my other addons. I can even play reasonably well without DBM. (Actually, DBM was broken too and it wasn’t bothering me too much.) But scrolling battle text? I NEED NEED NEED it.

Pretty, pretty battle text!

(Putting in a cut here…I hate cuts, but for some reason, whenever I use bullets, WordPress screws up my page layout if I don’t cover them up with a cut)