Raided again with my guild. 2 new epics, 1 tower achievement for Leviathan, couple of tries on Freya+1, quick kill of the crazy cat lady, then Hodir hard mode tries. Several.I can be satisfied with my overall performance during the raid. I did also pretty well on the first Hodir tries, despite it was the first time I've seen him. After the first try, I did not stood into icicles, didn't get frozen and was the #2-#4 position of the healers (out of 6)... until the last tries. The raid started at 19:00 and by 23:00 I was seriously tired. In the last 3 tries I got frozen because I stepped into the snow too early and got knocked back. That meant 100000 damage for the raid that is not on the boss. In one of the tries the boss was around 5% so maybe it could be a kill if I just wouldn't get frozen.
Others got frozen too. Or just killed. I was never alone in my misery, but that's no excuse. I definitely reached my limits. I could claim that "real life work does not let me be up too late", but that would be "things beyond my control does not let me, dear socials pls help". No one cares why I cannot do it. What matters is that I can't stay focused and awake for more than 3.5-4 hours (or maybe after 23:00, as I usually go to bed at 22:00).
Raids take longer for a reason. It's hard to collect 25 people so if they are together, they try to do as much as possible.
It's not fun to know that you are not limitless. However it's much better than not knowing and causing damage. If I would keep ruining the raids late night, sooner or later they would kick me, despite my 5000G or people would gquit for "I won't waste my time with this raid that can't keep its ranks clean of M&S". They would be right.
So there goes my illusion of "I'm progression raider". I'm not. I'm funding progression raiding, but not a raider myself, despite my proper gear and healing skills. I can't stay whole raid, and I can't/don't want to raid 3 nights a week. I'm a tourist there, like the space-tourists. They fund the flight, so they pull their weight. The ship needs maintenance and fuel, and they supply money for that. But that does not make them astronauts.
My early leave does not seem to be a problem for the raid, since the raid usually starts undermanned and people log on later, so there is replacement. In the agreement it was included that I can leave early. I inserted it for RL issues. I have to use it for game issues. It's not fun, but it's the proper way. Holding the raid back is not an option, not because I'm nice, but because they wouldn't let me do that for long. If you are not surrounded by morons, you have to watch yourself. Only morons tolerate slackers. I wouldn't tolerate my performance if I were them, so I won't perform that way. From now on, I'll ask for replacement between 22:30-23:00.
Summary: if you are messing something up, fix it, before others fix you. The former is not fun, but the latter is even less.
PS: luckily, my troll-cleaning ability (45 and counting on this posts) is far from its limits. Troll policy stays.
Some tree stuff.
The mana bar is still just a cosmetic thingy on the HUD, even rolling 3x LB, and casting every GCD could not empty it. This means I'll have some serious regemming-reenchanting for SP. I'll replace my 180 spirit trinket too to a badge trinket. Too bad that Blizzard changed healing into a mindless spam, but that's the game we play, take it or leave it.
Lifebloom sucks in raid heal. I still love it on tank heal where I triple-roll it, but for raid it's worthless. I'll get a new idol. The Nourish one would be great (if it would drop), the Rejuv-manasaver would be obvious (if I wouldn't swim in mana), so I'll just grab the +33 tick ilvl150.
Living seed worth its points in gold. Gave me 5% healing, and since it's reactive, it's extra useful.
Glyph of Rejuvenation provided 1%, what does not seem much, but it's done on targets below 50%, who really need healing.
The fights are so AoE heavy that I'll put Glyph of WG even into my tank healing spec instead of SM (I won't part LB as it saves me more time to roll it).
One more trick. On Mimiron my guild have "take resistance flask" policy. The flask would give 50 res. I'd rather stick to the +125SP flask and put on an FR item. It gives 60-70 FR (with FR armor kit), and the replaced item has less SP than 125. Granted I lose 30 MP5, but who cares nowadays? At last resort, I can try to find Innervate in the spellbook, last time (in TBC) it was inside.
Update's update: switching idols activates GCD, so idol-switching macros does not work.
Others got frozen too. Or just killed. I was never alone in my misery, but that's no excuse. I definitely reached my limits. I could claim that "real life work does not let me be up too late", but that would be "things beyond my control does not let me, dear socials pls help". No one cares why I cannot do it. What matters is that I can't stay focused and awake for more than 3.5-4 hours (or maybe after 23:00, as I usually go to bed at 22:00).
Raids take longer for a reason. It's hard to collect 25 people so if they are together, they try to do as much as possible.
It's not fun to know that you are not limitless. However it's much better than not knowing and causing damage. If I would keep ruining the raids late night, sooner or later they would kick me, despite my 5000G or people would gquit for "I won't waste my time with this raid that can't keep its ranks clean of M&S". They would be right.
So there goes my illusion of "I'm progression raider". I'm not. I'm funding progression raiding, but not a raider myself, despite my proper gear and healing skills. I can't stay whole raid, and I can't/don't want to raid 3 nights a week. I'm a tourist there, like the space-tourists. They fund the flight, so they pull their weight. The ship needs maintenance and fuel, and they supply money for that. But that does not make them astronauts.
My early leave does not seem to be a problem for the raid, since the raid usually starts undermanned and people log on later, so there is replacement. In the agreement it was included that I can leave early. I inserted it for RL issues. I have to use it for game issues. It's not fun, but it's the proper way. Holding the raid back is not an option, not because I'm nice, but because they wouldn't let me do that for long. If you are not surrounded by morons, you have to watch yourself. Only morons tolerate slackers. I wouldn't tolerate my performance if I were them, so I won't perform that way. From now on, I'll ask for replacement between 22:30-23:00.
Summary: if you are messing something up, fix it, before others fix you. The former is not fun, but the latter is even less.
PS: luckily, my troll-cleaning ability (45 and counting on this posts) is far from its limits. Troll policy stays.
Some tree stuff.
The mana bar is still just a cosmetic thingy on the HUD, even rolling 3x LB, and casting every GCD could not empty it. This means I'll have some serious regemming-reenchanting for SP. I'll replace my 180 spirit trinket too to a badge trinket. Too bad that Blizzard changed healing into a mindless spam, but that's the game we play, take it or leave it.
Lifebloom sucks in raid heal. I still love it on tank heal where I triple-roll it, but for raid it's worthless. I'll get a new idol. The Nourish one would be great (if it would drop), the Rejuv-manasaver would be obvious (if I wouldn't swim in mana), so I'll just grab the +33 tick ilvl150.
Living seed worth its points in gold. Gave me 5% healing, and since it's reactive, it's extra useful.
Glyph of Rejuvenation provided 1%, what does not seem much, but it's done on targets below 50%, who really need healing.
The fights are so AoE heavy that I'll put Glyph of WG even into my tank healing spec instead of SM (I won't part LB as it saves me more time to roll it).
One more trick. On Mimiron my guild have "take resistance flask" policy. The flask would give 50 res. I'd rather stick to the +125SP flask and put on an FR item. It gives 60-70 FR (with FR armor kit), and the replaced item has less SP than 125. Granted I lose 30 MP5, but who cares nowadays? At last resort, I can try to find Innervate in the spellbook, last time (in TBC) it was inside.
Update's update: switching idols activates GCD, so idol-switching macros does not work.
25 comments:
Progression raiding is about the quality of time, not the quantity. Our raids were limited to 3 hours/session (with a 15 min break in the middle) for this exact reason. That fourth hour is not going to be a productive one (at least for us), so it's better to skip it. It's not fun for anyone to keep thinking "I could play better than this" and keep wiping. That just leads into Sebudai-style outbursts that are rightfully ridiculed by non-raiders.
I don't believe you reached your limits. The thing is that you obviously haven't been progression raiding for realy like the rest of us. Most of the guild have been playing the game since release, learning encounters the hard way, finding out how threat works, taunting rotations etc.
You can train yourself pretty high. I still learn every day and a part of being a progression raider is that you have to practice to be on top. I spend around 1-2 hours per week just hitting a raiding dummy to perfect my rotations, trying to keep dots up on several targets.
It's also important to live a rather healthy life. If you are only eating McDonalds food for dinner, sitting in front of the computer all day and then all night and practically never go out then you will perform less.
Then of course there is always the time limit. You can't go on over and over since you will drop in performance. This is a very known fact amongst the navies around the world. 6 hours is the limit there, then you have 6 hour break.
Nice tip with the flask/gear, it might be true for the healers but for dps you would loose way more than 125 SP if I would use the legs or the chest which is the only equivalent in resistance.
We checked the logs for mimiron and discovered that the raid took overall around 15-20% less damage with the flask. That will net us with a pretty big damage boost since healing will be easier and no one will die :)
"I spend around 1-2 hours per week just hitting a raiding dummy to perfect my rotations, trying to keep dots up on several targets."
Good god man, it's a game, you are not training for the marines.
@K: If I enjoy doing so, what is the harm of doing it?
Gevlon,
are you fully aware that while in fight, switching an Idol will trigger a GCD?
You would have double GCD each swap, and an instant heal with GCD before landing isnt that instant...
If you really wanna do Idol swapping, which I dont recommend since the gains are low and the stress aint worth it, you gotta make it other way round, that you have your Idol equipped AFTER the cast. This would lead to you equipping, say Nourish Idol after casting Rejuv (or while if u want so). This would mean you need to know when casting Rejuv that now you wanna Nourish.
Hence you would need like 4-5 Macros for every spell...
Drop Idol swapping.
IMHO drop more mana regen and equip Rejuv Idol until you get Nourish. I myself run this pretty good.
And btw: I think Rejuv sucks. This is more my opinion than something I have reliable data for, but people under 50% are so quickly healed over, it will only shine in few fights and we have better Glyphs.
I take Nourish, WG and SM
But LB is also fine and RG is nice too, if you rely more on it than on Nourish.
But thats just an opinion
As already stated - most of us have had a lot of practice in getting up to focusing for four (our Saturday night raid is 4.5) hour raids. With time, you'll get there.
Though impressive that you're acknowledging it.
No fun in being tired for work, that translates late into poor productivity and noone likes a grumpy "X"
Solution is lots of caffiene and uppers :) You didn't think I was gonna say play less?
Regarding FR items, you'd get better stats with a wotlk green with the Fire Protection suffix than the TCB purples.
Cool macro's, suprised that you can change idol's in combat, it seems a bit OP that they keep going when u switch idols :S
oh my, that's such a sad tree on your screenshot ... /comfort ghostboci
if there is replacement for you in the later evening, i think you're having the right strategy here. in our guild usually there is no one to fill a gap, so when we realize the errors caused by tired raiders are piling too high we have to end a raid (even if it's frustrating if we have to leave a boss standing we tried to kill).
our sunday raid is also affected, although we start in the afternoon (15:00 or 16:00) - but we'll usually just make a half hour break in the early evening to regain concentration, grab some food & drink and fresh air, that really helps.
a good raidleader also knows the limits of his / her crew and picks a good ending to the raiding night. it's better for the spirit to go home right after a successfull kill, not after a few wipes.
You'll also find that the more you work with your new crew, the less mistakes you'll make, tired or not.
Gevlon:
Progression raiding is hard. That is why it's called PROGRESSION raiding. It wouldn't be progression without improvement, therefore you have to start worse than you finish (speaking of the long run here). When I started raiding with my guild, I was just a lowly noob social invite that was piggy-backing off of a friend. It took a long time for me to get enough gear and learn my class well enough to earn my way into raids. You can't expect fantastic results without a lot of time.
Take the time to know your class. And i'm not just talking about what to gem/enchant and a good spec. If you want to be a good raider, you must know the exact benefits and limitations of ALL of your spells, and know exactly which situations to use them in. That's the trick to being a good raid healer. Dps can get away with spaming the same rotation over and over again, but us healers have to be a cut above the rest.
I would HIGHLY suggest doing arenas in your offtime. They are fast paced and force you to make quick decisions about which spells to use. After doing them for a while, it will become second nature to pop cd's at the proper times, use the right spells, and know how to be a mobile healer.
So, in conclusion: ARENAS ARENAS ARENAS. I can't stress enough how much these will force you to evaluate your class mechanics and how you use them. DO IT!
Gevlon I have the feeling your guild is not that good. People should not get frozen on Hodir, the fight mechanics are incredibly simple and easy for a competent guild leader to explain.
I don't mean to be rude or anything but I think you should definately consider finding a new raiding guild.
Again, sorry I'm not bashing you or anything just that I get the feeling these guys are about middle of the road raiding wise.
At least you're wealthy enough to head back to Dal and get drunk on http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44626
I don't think you reached your overall raiding potential. Odds are you did on that night due to fatigue - it is not easy to maintain a high level of focus for four hours. It does get easier if you take many small breaks (30-45 second breaks) - that's how I've managed to sit through four hour raids in the past as well as today.
@ Markco
People weren't getting frozen constantly on every single freeze on every single try, it was one here and there as a result of people being dps horny to kill him fast.
Shit happens, we aint no damn backpedal guild.
I disagree with Hirvox: we have often killed the boss in that 5th hour of a 4-hour raid. My pet peeve is when we start half an hour late and then go over by an hour... grr..
Hodir hard-mode.. ah, the memories. That's a fun fight. So is Thorim hard-mode. XT hard and Council hard are borrrring.
Actually I agree, for me 3 hour raids are about the ideal length. After that, people start getting tired. And as a raid leader, I'd rather call a raid when people are happy, just starting to get tired, and still asking to keep going than when people are practically collapsing on their keyboards and all silently praying for it to end.
But, I don't raid hardcore. Hardcore RLs do push harder. It's cool that you have an option to get out early though, like I say, I personally think 3 hour chunks is about optimal.
But the thing is, with practice, you will get better at playing fine while tired. Whether or not it's a good idea to do the 4 hour stretches is another question but practice will definitely help if it's what you want to do. (ie. if you can do a fight fine when you are alert then practice will help you do it fine when tired also, it's not a hard limit that can't be passed.)
@Gevlon
What, do you think you're perfect, and shouldn't fail even when the hardcore raiders surrounding you do? :P
Most of them probably out-gear and out experience you. In addition, you doing unfamiliar fights at a unfamiliar time of night. If you can keep up with them, you're doing great, imagine what it'll be like when you've spent a few more days in there, and start to gear up.
Windwalkers beat both Hodir and Thorim hard mode this week, not bad for a 3 days per week guild. In our opinion anyways!
Technically you should top the meters on hodir as a druid. General plan: WG every 6 seconds, rejuv between, possibly LBx3 on tank. If you do anything else, you compromise your output. Yes, it's horrible faceroll.
I also run hodir with boots/belt frost resistance gear, that gives you 300+ and basically makes you unkillable from random damage. I lose some mp5 (haha), and a 200 sp tops (that's what? 3% total healing?). I highly recommend that.
Here's a tip for maximizing dps on hodir: Have a prot warrior wear belt + boots frost resist and just shield block the frozen blows. That way you don't need an offtank tuanting for them (dunno if you do that anyway).
And hey sorry for the previous comment if it affended anyone. I had nothing to go off of except the information in the post. Good luck to you guys!
I have been in this position on raids as well. I had to get up for work at 3:30am and our guild had listed raids from 6pm to 10pm. I also play a Resto druid, Dillion on Dalaran. I had informed them well in advance that I could not raid past 10:30pm as I needed to sleep. Originally it was not an issue but as well progressed through SS, the Eye and BT we started to edge closer and closer to 11pm and they got a little upset with me having to bow out.
After a extensive talk with the guild leader I had to set him straight. It had been plastered on my application and their raid times were from 6pm to 10pm. If they didn't like me leaving they had the option of not taking me. I came to every raid prepared, knew all the strats and placed high in all of the healing charts for every fight. I'd find another place to raid, I told him. In the end he got my back and kept me. I didn't have to worry about it and they had someone on hold for me when the time came. There was always exceptions and I'd let them know. First Vashj kill happened at 11:30pm one night but I wanted to see her go down. Got Rune Totem Mantle for it! ;P
Anyways in your situation I would say that you made the agreement already. They need to hold up on their bargain. I wouldn't feel bad if you've already discussed this.
Your screenie looks like such a sad tree. You shouldn't feel so bad. Four hours of progression raiding on a healer is rough. You are well out of M&S territory by even stepping into Uld25 on a healer. IMO we do the hardest job in the raid. On missed GCD or a heal on the wrong person and someone dies.
I agree about spellpower over resistance, especially on tree. (In all honesty, your raid lead should not be making that choice for you.) We don't recover well from losing a big chunk of spellpower. I used to go light on the shadow resist in BT in order not to gimp my healing too badly and I don't go full frost resist on KT.
Hang in there, and give yourself credit for healing well in a progression raid.
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