I’ve actually been playing my healer a lot lately. Mostly because she’s been sitting around in this patchwork mixture of blues, Naxx10 my-first-epics, and super OP new-badge-stuff, and I’d like to even that out a little and that way potentially be a help to my guild in the future if an extra healer is needed. (I know you’re about to warn me “Don’t do it Pike, once they start taking your healer you’ll never get to DPS again!” but my guild is actually unusual and informs me that “TAWYN IS 4 FITE”, so I don’t have too many worries about having to scrap DPS forever.)
Not to mention, ever since Tawyn got that trinket, DPS’ing heroics has turned into “Hey check it out, I can pound on random buttons and get 4k DPS”, so I’d might as well play something that can use the badges a little more, eh?
I’ve also started to enjoy my Tree more ever since I started using Lifebloom again. I stopped using it at the advice of a Very Good Tree who told me you could do just fine with Regrowth/Rejuv/Nourish, and I tried that style for a while, and it was effective and you got less overheal, but I didn’t like the style. Druid Healing, to me, has always been like Disc Priest: it’s about damage prevention and anticipating when people are going to take damage, and pre-healing. But with a Regrowth/Nourish heavy style, I was back to Whack-a-Mole, and it just wasn’t as fun. So I’ve gone back to my tactic of triple-stacking Lifebloom on the tank, and letting it bloom (for your instant heal + mana back), and using my other heals as needed for AoE damage or an extra buffer or preventative stuff. It is just a lot more fun to me and I don’t have any mana problems with it.
Anyways, I’ll stick my Tree in LFG for heroics that I know are Super Easy to Heal. Heroics that are Super Easy to Heal = Nexus, UK, Drak’theron Keep, and VH. Maybe CoS if I’m feeling adventurous. Some of the others are pretty easy too but they’ll have some aspect to them that I don’t like or something– for example, the Chain Lightning crap in Halls of Stone, or the stupid fish in the water in Gundrak. I have actually now successfully healed HToC as well, and it was a very smooth run, but I’ve convinced myself that it was a fluke and am still scared to go in there, for the most part, so it is also off of the list.
For some reason I keep getting invited to Nexus, and for some reason I keep going, despite the fact that Heroic Nexus is shaping up to be where all the bad PuGs happen.
First Special Group:
Consisted of a Fury Warrior who was doing a spectacular and amazing 417 DPS, and a Paladin tank who was running out of mana about 10 seconds into every pull, and blaming it on me not healing him enough. And for those of you who are about to say that he was overgeared: he was in Blues and getting upgrades from this Heroic.
After defeating Anomalus the whole group (sans-me) bravely leapt off the edge into that hole– you know the one I’m talking about– the Hole of Death From Which There Is No Rez’ing.
One guy had to abruptly leave because apparently his wife was yelling at him or something, and our brave, mana-thirsty Paladin Tank decided we could four-man it! Of course, he wasn’t aware of the fact that I was outDPSing the Fury Warrior with Moonfires and Starfires between heals, but hey. We actually somehow finished the Heroic. I was shocked.
Second Special Group:
This group actually wasn’t as bad, and the tank was way overgeared. When you’ve got a way overgeared tank and a healer who has at least a small idea of what is going on, you can brute force your way through most heroics even if none of the DPS is doing over 1.2k (as was in this group). As such, this heroic went overall smoothly, it just took three times as long as it should’ve.
I’ll admit to making a mistake here, namely, all the DPS jumped down, sans-tank, after fighting the Ormorok the Tree Shaper Guy. Now for those who do not know, there are baddies roaming around down there. In a moment of hubris I figured I could keep the DPS up and save the day, since two of them were plate wearers, so I hopped down as well, but it turns out that Arms Warriors and Ret Paladins are about as squishy as a mage. Byebye Tree. Hey, I tried, right?
As I was flying away from that run, I got a whisper asking me to heal H. Nexus. I was very relieved to inform them that I’d just finished it and was saved.
I don’t think I’m going to put myself in LFG for Nexus again for a while…
Lifebloom is very effective for tank healing and you should be using it in 5-mans! There’s no reason not to!
It’s just not a brain-dead heal anymore.
That’s so true… I’ve only once been in a H Nexus group that was decent – basically, it was a boost for me to get some gear organized by more advanced guildies back then.
Since that encounter, I’ve barely ever joined LFG for that instance but now and then you have to rest from hc toc + daily combo. So I did go there with my 2.5kdps – 3kdps hunter only to be kicked out of the group after a few trash pulls by a tank leader that couldn’t hold aggro and blamed it on my over-dps and not enough misdirections. Ouch :/ We ain’t friends no more.
/sigh. I am not aware of healing-intensity of various heroics cause im pure dps, but if you can heal toc hc perhaps this is what you should do. Or try to double check team members and go to the harder encounters with better teams to test and learn a bit 😉 Just a thought though – the most important thing is to enjoy it.
@ Bell – Yeah, I kind of like where Lifebloom is at right now. It’s gone from being like, 97% of my heals to… a much lower number, but I still use it a lot. /nods
I have had a couple bad Nexus runs too, but I’ve found that they usually are decent. And when you have a group it’s a real easy skip-through.
…though I must confess that once I clicked my disengage button when I was reaching for FD while fighting Anomalous and took a solo trip into the Hole of Death From Which There Is No Rez’ing. Felt a little silly there :-/ Next day I moved my FD button ;o)
I realize you’re pushing for badges, but the place you should run is regular TOC. Boatloads of iLvl 200 epics, you can wear the cloth and leather, and it’s as easy of the heroics. Actually, just get 4 guildies that are competent and go farm that place. It’s a normal, so you clear it and reset it. Two hours is easily 5 runs, bring an Enchanter to DE the unwanted shards, and gear up quickly in there. You’ll still be running heorics for badges, and pugging them probably, but you’ll be much bettter geared, will be ready for HToC, which you can run each day for badges and ilvl 219 loot, and prepared for the call to go to Uld-10 on an offnight.
As for Nexus, I’m unconvinced it’s an “easier” instance. Not becuase of the damage which isnt’ too bad. But because there are several group coordination mechanics that are required and PuGs just seem to fail miserably at them. I feel the same way about Heroic VH – you get a bad selection of bosses in there and you can wipe quickly in a bad group.
On the other hand, Heroic AN is by far the easiest, imo. Fast instance and only three bosses that are mostly tank and spank. Only thing a DPSer really needs to do is not stand in bad stuff.
I just reached 80 with my resto shaman, did heroic Gundrak last night as her first heroic. It went quite well, but I had a good group who survived even with their grossly undergeared healer. I’m dying to do some ToC farming though, I can gear her up fast that way.
@ WB – In regards to Nexus, the main deal with it for me is that it is a Resto Druid’s playground. There are a couple tough pulls and some AoE damage going on but nothing I can’t heal through, and the last boss is a joke since the vast majority of my heals I can do on the move or while jumping, not to mention switching forms will get me out of that ice chains thing. I am not sure if it is harder for other healers, perhaps.
Heroic AN I am scared of because I had a really bad experience with the last boss a long time ago. Granted, that was pretty much my second heroic ever, and I’m sure I’ve gained several hundred spellpower since then, so I should probably give it another shot.
And you are probably right about doing Normal ToC. Badges are so shiny though!
There is a reason I NEVER pug Nexus on my disc priest alt lol 😛
That heroic ToC run wasn’t a fluke. That was just you going with a couple people who actually know how to play. ^^
That is why I’m apprehensive about taking my paladin into pug heroic groups. He’s a touch undergeared but I’m more concerned about pugging a bad healer than I am being squishy. I also don’t like bringing my resto shaman into pugs either due to possibly getting a bad tank, which is a shame because I love shaman healing. Bananananana beams, AHOY!
The paladin mana issue… ah how fun that is. Though, if he was taking substantial damage, and you were healing (but you would be, you are smart tree) he needs to really, really look at his rotation / spec. And I have to wonder… was he using Divine Plea?? Though, if the Tank wasn’t taking enough damage… he wouldn’t have been getting mana back… I saw that issue when off tanking Naxx. I didn’t get smacked enough to be high on the healer’s list, so I burned through mana like it was cotton candy.
A solid spec + Divine Plea + Massive Damage + Heals = Mana happy Paladin Tank. I have NEVER had a mana issue with a Tree healer, but that’s because almost all of your heals are HoTs. HoTs = constant mana regen to paladin.
As for the Lemmings incident? I’ve seen it happen in other groups… and its always a kick when your Guild Leader is the one to make the initial leap, and the rest of the group blindly follows. That’s one way to lead… I guess.
Next time tell that pally tank to pop Divine Plea and spec for Guarded by the Light. No matter his mana pool size he should have no mana issues as long as he is smacking something around which is the tanks job anyway.
That is if there is a next time.
More thoughts:
Unless over geared, which this tank was not, how could he have mana issues. We have Spiritual Attunement (plus glyph, Divine Plea (plus glyph), Guarded by the Light, and Blessing of Sanctuary.
If he still has a mana issue I am dumbfounded.
Had a pally tank like that last night. He was new to tanking and would run out of mana by the 2nd consecrate. He knew he wasn’t doing it right, but after I mentioned divine plea 3 times throughout the run, he still hasn’t managed to find it in his spellbook…
I love the tree picture it had me laughing out loud. Yea Heroic nexus does have a reputation as somewhere you can go when you cant handle the harder heroics.
Heroic AN was mentioned, I had some horror runs their as a new tree. Tanks that cant hold aggro against heals and dps that dont dps the right target will wipe you quicky on that first boss.
Having a prot pally as a co-main, I have to agree with the posters who say a pally tank with mana issues = a fail pally tank. Even if Divine Plea (which he really has no excuse to not have up as any decent tank spec will have it refresh whenever he smacks something and the glyph gives him damage reduction to boot) and BoSanc aren’t enough to keep his mana up, he’s got Seal and Judgment of Wisdom to keep his mana up – I have maybe a point in Spiritual Attunement and I really don’t have mana issues at all.
That said, I ran into a PUG with a tank like that a couple of days ago. Pally tank did not keep divine plea up and had lots of mana issues. He also had 500 defense and got hit HARD, to the point where the healer let me and a DK die in the mage boss because they were so focused on keeping the tank up. That and a ret pally who kept spamming healing recount and i almost quit the party.
Nice tree picture, Pike. Made me giggle.
I’ve yet to PuG Nexus sadly. The only PuG I’ve been in to do a Heroic was CoS and that didn’t go too well D:
At least you got some giggles from your PuG adventures!
Yeah nexus can be fail, I have pulled a few new 80s through there, them going wow so much dps, and me going whats your hit rating? that leads to mucho discussion and gearing conversations. Looking back on them now it seems like Nexus is a lets learn the basics for how to raid. Switch targets on anomulous, make sure to take down the split chick who will silence or shep your healer first, and, watch out for ground things(ormonk), and move and dps on dragon woman.
Alot going on, and for many it can be eye opening.
I think things are easier now with well geared folks being able to pull others through heroics, months ago it was worse. I have found that pugchecker.com is my friend
Every single bad PUG I’ve had recently has been, without exception, in the Nexus. The fact that it’s seen as an ‘entry level’ heroic does seem to attract incompetence. Maybe that’s a little harsh; It seems standard now for new 80s to jump right into heroics without visiting normal instances at all. Perhaps it’s simply ignorance, not understanding how the rules change at the level cap.
I’m pretty sick of the thrice-accursed Halo-themed place now, and killing Keristrasza always makes me sad…
My favourite part of doing Nexus with a failpug is when they won’t jump or move. “Just heal thru” they say, accumulating a massive stacking debuff … joy!
I have pugged heroic Nexus 20 times and until yesterday, all were positive experience.
My group was in the queue when I received a whisper from a mage stating “Need a mage? I do AWESOME dps!”. I invited him to the group and we enter the instance a minute after. He goes directly to the first mob and start DPSing. The elemental shaman and beast mastery hunter run after him and the hunter turns his pet’s taunt on. They killed the mob while the healer remained seated. I told the mage if he wants to pull, he can tank too.
We go down the first ramp when I see them mage blink in front of me and starts a frostbolt at max distance. I do nothing, being curious what he will do.
The frostbolt hits the caster and the two beasts start running towards him, gaining separation from caster. He frost nova one beast and runs forward, further away from the group. He finally ice blocked and now we have three mobs which are spread out over 30 yards. I picked the trash up and we killed them.
I asked the mage what was he doing and he responded this is the best strategy to maximize his damage done. We had a little chat but to no avail; I removed him from group after the next pull when he did the same thing again…
Folks often confuse “entry-level” with “easy”.
In game, 5-mans exist to develop skill and experience needed for future raids: stand here, don’t stand there, target/tank switches, do this, don’t do that.
When folks hit 80 running few regular 5s and jump into Heroics because they’re “supposed to”, they are often ignorant of any group mechanics and quite surprised at the complexity of some.
In any pug, I always remind myself that the person next to me may have bought their toon yesterday….