A Little Guilty Secret

I've got something to admit.

I am addicted to Recount.

Not just the whole "how high can I be on there" addicted, but the whole "what are my best numbers" addicted. The "compare myself with everyone else" addicted.

Unfortunately, with this sort of addiction, I tend to find flaws in other people. By being addicted, I can see a general trend among tanks, healers, and DPS of all classes. Now, mind you, I tend to do it only toward classes I understand -- rogues are a mystery, know nothing of warlocks, and the only thing I know about paladins and warriors are the stuff my friends tell me when I tell them I see one of those in need.

[Although, a warrior friend says I know a lot about warriors! I keep him alive.]

But druids and shamans right now I tend to look at a lot, especially if their performance on the meters are low.

For those who don't know me, I am a PvE nut. I'll dabble in PvP to help out, but mostly it's the whole "oh, my, someone wants to kill me! Don't die, don't die, don't die! -spam heals on self-" sort of PvP. And I die anyway. So, basically, I'm useless in there.

I currently attend four Naxx raids -- two normals and two heroics for my two eighty characters. It's ridiculous, I know. They're all at different stages of progression: Losse's twenty-five clears all wings up to Thaddius, and we've just recently conquered him [thank heavens! He's really not as annoying as that raid makes him!], her tens full clears Naxx, does Vault10, does OS [we're aiming for a drake this week, maybe two -- week before we eight manned him], and killed Maly for the first time -- second week trying him, four weeks of being together. Kanta's twenty-five I just changed to a friend's raid, and may become healing leader for to help things along, and her tens... well. A good bunch of people they are, yes, but they are PvP focused roleplaying people that want to see raid content.

Some things just don't go over so well from the transition of PvP to PvE. One uses different abilities, has to keep different things in mind, and has to watch out for more than yourself and maybe a few friends/partners.

My warrior friend, for example, never stepped a foot in most of the BC instances until about two months before Lich King came out. [Which was really funny. Take him to heroics and we'd hear on vent -- "Oh, hey! I discovered The Slave Pens!"] All he did was PvP -- he had one character, and that was what he did. While now, in Lich King, he does many instances and heroics with us and has even expanded to raiding, he has 75K honorable kills. He entered Lich King with over 20K gold. He's mentioned in reference to dead bodies by other guilds, and Horde fear him because he can't resist a flagged target. It took him a while to get up to speed -- when teaching him normal instances, references to "okay, pretend you're guarding the farm. Mobs that run at you are Horde... kill them" were made. Still, not an easy transition.

I applaud them -- it's great that they're willing to step away from the defense of towns for a slaughter more brainless. However, there are a few things one must know before one leaves their PvP flags behind.

And this is where I come in. As someone who has always been quite involved on the PvE scene, as a tank, DPS, or a healer, I've learned a lot since I've started playing. As someone who is just a wee bit obsessed with looking at Recount, I tend to know when things are a bit out of place. I also have other situations to compare them to, for I attend three other raids that attack the same place: Naxxramas.

And tonight, after at least three deaths to Anub'Rekhan, I decided to put my PvE and obsession to use.

I started with the tank. Most issues with groups tended to stem from the tank and healer ends -- the lack of enough DPS ends can be seen easily enough. From Recount, I realized that in an eight minute boss fight, Shield Slam was used twice. For those who aren't warriors and aren't familiar with the spell [I just knew it was good in theory, not specifically what it does], basically it does lots of damage and has a high amount of threat.

A druid analogy would be mangling twice in a boss fight.

Not good.

Especially when it is buffed by Sword and Board -- a free Mangle? I'll take it!

And, looking over at the resto druid, I notice that she's not using Wild Growth. At all.

Trees are currently the strongest healers in game, so I've found. Two trees top Losse's Naxx25 over two shamans, a paladin, and two priests. Our resto shaman is bored in Losse's Naxx10 because the tree has HoTs everywhere and has pretty much nothing to do half the time. They're strong healers.

Which is why I thought I'd stop in and look at the druid that was doing significantly less healing than me.

Wild Growth is a very strong spell. To not use it is like not using Chain Heal or Circle of Healing. Really rather silly, if you ask me.

All three of the aforementioned trees, in raids, have Wild Growth as their top heal. I know I whined slightly about Chain Heal in one of my previous posts [at the very end], but I've come to the conclusion that Wild Growth really is much more amazing. [Please don't nerf it any more, Blizzard!]

With these in mind, I checked gear... and found it lacking.

After the raid, the raid leader and I had a long talk, and, in essence, we agreed upon a class workshop. To help those who aren't as familiar with what is needed in PvE, and to get them better acquainted with their abilities.

To make sure they get in the A-game.

To make sure we stop dying to silly things.

And, maybe the most important of all, make sure I don't go out of mana halfway through a boss fight despite using Mana Tide and Figurine - Sapphire Owl -- my two best friends on my shaman... nearly twice.

New Title? Raid Analyst.