Cult of personality type leadership is fun, often easy for those not in charge, and even preferable on occasion for decision making; however, the skills and charisma of one person will always fall short of the combined talent of dedicated individuals.

Let me explain.  I sponsor a club at our school that only meets once a week.  I have grown accustomed to knowing the officers and relying on them quite a bit.  Without their help, our activities would grow fairly stale.  But even in light of their help, I recently failed to realize just how much I was running the show.  I impressed so much of my personality upon those students that we nearly lost all creativity.  When my wife finally went over some potential changes to the club with me, I was dumbfounded.  So many ideas!  So many things I simply did not care about or want to do.  So many things that were difficult to manage and accomplish!  Yet, I had to be reminded, the club is not supposed to be about me, my narcissism, or my desire to over-analyze things.  It’s about an organization that people can be proud to experience and enjoy.  The creativity of one person will always lack the energy of officers with free will.

So, my wishlist for our guild:

Investment of Role Leaders/Class Leaders with authority: Leadership roles reassigned based on current participation and knowledge, not tradition.  The Raid Leader should redirect players to these leaders when it falls into their purview.  But (and this is a huge “but”) be oh-so-careful about who is chosen to fulfill said roles.  Interview long-standing raiders.  Ask them if they want to help.  They may be more willing and knowledgeable of not just their class, but their role in general.

1. Clearly spoken guidelines to leaders about how to frame their conversations to fit the nature of our guild: IE, not ripping someone a new one unless actually needed.
2. Delegate to Role Leaders/Class Leaders for healing/tanking assignments, buffs, and other time-consuming actions. This requires said leaders to have a vested bit of authority.
3. Reestablishment and enforcement of role channels with leaders: Healing, Tanking, Melee, and Ranged.  Leaders should be charismatic enough to give advice without blowing their top.
4. Short, post-raid discussion amongst leadership to analyze player climate and where we should go for the next scheduled raid.

Everything below is not just about being a stickler.  It’s about the kind of atmosphere we create and want to maintain by example.

• Enforcement of Flasks: If someone can’t afford one, start a tab. The show will go on!
• Enforcement of Gems and Enchants: No Invite and mandatory redirection to Class/Role Leader for assistance
• Irrefutable Reputation for Subpar Performance: No Invite until taking advice from a Class/Role Leader (not just hearing it, but acting on it).  Steady improvement is rewarded with more invites.
• An Alt Policy: When alts are invited, a clear reason needs to be stated in raid to avoid confusion, even if obvious amongst leadership.

I have not seen much of it since that night.  We have finished ToC25, but due to an extremely oscillating group, still have yet to down Yogg Saron.  In case anyone missed Yakra’s farewell over at Mirror Shield, one of his last posts dealt with the frustration of Tier 8 from a human resources perspective.  I realize this is true of every guild, and perhaps my statement will just enrage goblins in every form, but losing players, even one or two, will gut the heart and soul of a social raid.  There is nothing more damning than replacing patient, time-honored friends with new people, especially when you are there for the experience.

Along time ago, Spinksville did a post about “the guild meet”, actually coming together in real life with long-time raiders.  She recommended taking part in such an activity, but I never imagined how much it could change my perspective on others.  So when I say “social raid”, there is much more to it than just hanging out with some internet identities. Some of us even have the luck of living within driving distance and seeing each other every few weeks.  For those raiders that I cherish but have not met, I still hope to see them at a similar event next year.  Since many will read too much into my use of the word “social”, I want to be clear that none of these people are the kind to be carried in a raid.  They are exceptional players, old friends, and skilled individuals. I hope to meet more of them every time we recruit somebody new, but 25 people represents a great deal of different personalities and skill levels.

Having come down this road of friendship and camaraderie, I find that I have crossed a strange barrier that cannot be rebuilt.  I play the game to spend time with these people and to conquer challenges together, not just obtain achievements for the sake of digital victory.  I want to laugh with them, fail with them, and remember how one of our healers really likes Golden Girls; however, at the end of the day, we do want to eventually succeed, and there simply aren’t enough of us to maintain a steady roster.

So I realize that I don’t need hardmodes. I don’t need legendary healing maces.  I just want to finish content with a group of people that can remain semi-static.  Sarth 3D was one of those gems for us.  It was at the end of a relatively short road of content, and therefore presented us with a challenge we simply could not ignore.  With the amount of encounters that offer increased difficulty these days, I’m not even sure where we’d start.

My resignation no doubt makes me sound very average and mundane, but ask yourself (and perhaps this requires a certain age) if you can invest your entire night for several days a week without knowing that you are building relationships.  For me, the idea of excelling with people who “get the job done” but continuously flex their epeen is a horrible one.  And yet I know that there are plenty of guilds out there that are committed to raiding professionally without such antics.  My next post will be something of a wishlist describing how I’d like to see our guild evolve in that manner, if for nothing more than my own fantasy.

Our guild sympathizes with them all, and if it wasn’t for some truly creative recruitment from my wife, I’m not sure if we’d still be raiding.  Luckily, we met a slew of new people, downed Mimiron, and managed to pull off a 25 Coliseum victory with shoddy UIs.  For my part, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the changes to Paladin healing, and since I haven’t read too many posts from players in full blown raids, I wanted to give my earnest opinions here.

Healing Alone

One of the newer paladins in the guild said it perfectly in vent halfway through the first Northrend Beasts attempt, “Huh, I’m out of mana.”  Back when I was talking up a storm about these 3.2 changes, I never realized how powerful that 30% change in Illumination would be.  You can read, analyze it, and debate on the forums, but nothing is quite like experiencing it.  Holy Light feels like an expensive spell.  THANK GOD.  I whispered the Disc priest that usually tank heals with me and told him to expect some fairly large changes.  I pulled out Flash of Light, frustrated beyond all belief, and prepared to only cast  Holy Light at the right moments.  He whispered me back afterward and said something like, “I’ve been putting out lots of heals to make it easier, but it’s been really stressful.”  This is kind of the moment in our guild that I’ve been waiting forever to experience.  You see, it’s one thing to be a cheapskate and hold out on casting big heals, but it’s another thing to just not be able to do it without going out of mana.

Anyone I’ve ever tank healed with has said something along the times of “oh how boring” or “the tank never takes enough damage” or “have fun carrying me, Ashe”.  These can be kind of humorous, but also absolutely frustrating whenever the tank ends up dead.  When you see “Prayer of Healing” as the number one healing spell for your other tank healer, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve been typecast as some endless mana sponge that just casts one spell and magically makes the tank not-dead.

And so suddenly everything has changed overnight.  The tank healers are talking more, analyzing deaths on recount, and sticking to their assignment.  It could all be in my head, but that feeling of teamwork that I missed in BC has suddenly returned.  We had plenty of communication while healing Sarth 3D, but for most of Ulduar, it felt like a lonely island where tank healing was really of lesser importance to OMG FLAME JETS FROZEN BLOWS TANTRUM LIGHTNING TENDRILS OBLIVION EVERYONE’S GONNA DIE!

Fatty Bacon

The changes to  Beacon were extremely useful on the first Coliseum battle.  Being able to keep heals on the tank with several bleed stacks during phase one while still healing the tank that has just taunted is amazing.  I’m still getting used to the play style, but so far, it has proven very promising.  At first, I had a great deal of trouble trying to pick targets out of the raid and use the right heal, especially when that heal needed to accomplish far too many things:

1.  Heal the target to safety

2.  Keep the tank going

3.  Not spend too much mana

While a Holy Light would cover two of those, it certainly isn’t efficient and does not make for good practice.  And frequently a Flash of Light would result in a dead tank.  So as the week has moved forward, I’ve learned when it’s safe to heal the raid with Flash or when I need to stay firmly on the tank during a tough phase, debuff, bleed, or poison.  While some people will argue that there’s no reason not to be healing another person since 100% of the heals transfer with Beacon, there are plenty of moments when it just makes more sense to focus properly instead of heal sniping the raid.

Conclusions

Having to make all these decisions revolving around Beacon and mana conservation has made my own healing experience  far more interesting, and I no longer feel 24 angry eyes (imaginary or not) on me when the tank dies to something.  I only have one actual complaint here…

I was lucky to be one of the paladins that didn’t avoid MP5 gear, not like you could in Ulduar.  So I’m sporting plenty of it now, and I even used a (gasp) Mp5 flask on Thursday when we finished Northrend Beasts.   But this is where the sick humor begins.  Take a look at the holy tier 9 stats.  Seems good, plenty of decent stats, nothing too overlooked.  Now examine the tier look-alike pieces that drop in Trial of the Crusader.  That’s right, keep reading.  They’re all PERFECTLY itemized for THE LAST PATCH, overloaded with spellpower, haste, and crit with no Mp5 in sight.  And considering how long it takes to get the authentic tier 9 pieces, these bizarre throwbacks are going to make for some tough gear balancing, especially since it’s hard to ignore the massive amount of intellect on all of them.

I guess I’ll just sit back and enjoy my pseudo-robe for the moment now that my “pally training bra” has finally disappeared.  =)

Beacon of Light will count overhealing:

This is obviously the change that could alter our entire play style; however, much like Amber (our favorite pally-gone-disc-maybe-holy-priest), my worries are firmly centered around whether we can afford to cast anything other than Holy Light on the raid.  That is to say, if the tank is threatened to die in two hits, Beacon’s transference of overheals doesn’t mean much if we’re busy shooting out a Holy Shock on a raid member.

If you look at my last post, you can tell that I’ve been trying to find ways to stop chain casting Holy Light.  As soon as I see any sizable damage reduction cooldown on the tank, I take that moment to do something different.  That is assuming the situation isn’t an emergency where they are taking more damage than normal.  I’ve also been more actively using Hand of Sacrifice.  It’s not completely frightening to use now that it cancels after a certain percentage of your own health.  For that reason, it’s also not entirely useful, but it does the job.  Having it off the GCD would really make it a more interesting spell.  But I digress!

I am personally tired of being punished for taking a single GCD to cast Sacred Shield or refresh a Judgement.  Sometimes, it’s not even possible to use Holy Shock because the RNG of avoidance has finally decided that your tank will be hit twice in a row for 25K health.  I’m gonna be honest here, and I apologize if it sounds egotistical.  Sometimes, when another tank-healer dies, I don’t even notice the difference.  We usually never have more than two people on the tank, though we do have very attentive druids and priests that toss the tank lots of hots in their spare time or keep a Guardian Spirit ready for use.  I owe them alot, but at the same time, I also feel like I’m solo-healing.  That is not to say that the other healer is not doing their job.  Perhaps it’s the absolute absurdity behind 15K Holy Light crits every few seconds for the entire battle that makes them think, “What’s the point?”

We have a great Disc/Shadow priest that usually tank heals with me.  He’s the only tank-healer that really makes me feel comfortable when I’m working with him, but he still spends alot of his time doing Prayer of Healing.  And I wonder, who could blame him?  The problem is that if anything adverse happens to me at all, we run the possibility of tank death.  And it’s been happening more and more lately.  All I can think is….my god, what could I have done?  It makes me furious, not at him, but at myself and the entire lunacy of tank healing as a Holy Paladin.  I think perhaps we need to get away from these massive Holy Light dumps every couple seconds, let other tank-healers spend more mana so that they feel interested on focusing their assignment.  Once we do that, perhaps there will be time for a spare GCD and room for Beacon to transfer more than just Holy Light.

Illumination Nerf:

Ha!  Remember back when people used to complain that pallys needed to go back to 80% mana return on Illumination instead of 60%?  The recent change to 30% should really be making those people stir crazy.  Surprisingly, I already Mp5 on every piece of my gear, not counting weapons, shields, and trinkets.  I kid you not! In Ulduar, there isn’t much getting around it, and I’m not one of those elitist pallys that’s going to cry about taking elemental shaman gear or stay in T7 out of spite.  You simply can’t do that, especially when Blizzard drops all sorts of foreboding messages about it.  In any case, I doubt the 25% extra Mp5 will be really noticeable, but it’s nice to know it’s there.  As I said already, if this stops the constant Holy Light chain casting, then let it happen.  If the tank cannot be kept alive, then perhaps not everyone healing the tank is making full use of their time.

Sacred Shield allows Flash of Light to place a HoT:

This one really seems interesting, but I have to say that I’m on the same wavelength as those who are arguing that it should stack to make the heal more viable.  I’m sure the danger is in making it so appealing that pallys do nothing but Flash of Light, but there is good reason to worry that this healing over time spell will be sadly overshadowed.  If you’re a holy paladin and you’ve tested your two piece tier 8 bonus, then you’ll know exactly what I mean.  Yes, it ticks for a massive 300-something health about three times and fades.  Free healing is free healing, but sheesh…throw us a bone.

In any case, I still like the idea of this Flash of Light effect on Sacred Shield beacause it will give me something to track.  I want to have this healing over time up the entire fight on the tank.  It gives me a nice little bar to watch, so I’m eager to try it out.  I do not, however, think that it serves as any kind of viable damage buffer, at least not in its current form.

Final Thoughts:

We needed change.  Some people wanted to be the one-and-only MT healer, chain casting Holy Light until eternity.  For me, regardless of nerfs, there is much to experiment with and appreciate.  I look forward to testing!

Of course, there are tons of people that simply macro a raid warning when they use things like Barkskin, Icebound Fortitude, Divine Protection, and Shield Wall.  While informative, this can also become slightly annoying, especially considering the frequency at which these skills can now be used.  Other tanks simply announce their use of these skills over Vent or some form of voice communication.  Again, I’ll argue that this has become less likely when we consider the rate at which these things are now used.  Now, if you can pick out a shield wall icon from twenty-something other buffs, procs, and flashing icons using either the default interface, X-Perl, or another system, then you have my sincere admiration.  For the rest of us, there just isn’t enough time or space on the screen to list and sort through all that garbage.  90% of what a healer  sees under a tank’s character portrait is absolutely worthless.   So, what is a healer to do?  And as a healer, why should you care?

Mana -Saving Opportunities

While the use of something like Shield Wall or Last Stand once implied an emergency situation, the bulk of modern usage can be attributed to several other circumstances.  We see tanks use them during difficult swaps, repositioning, overly high incoming damage, and even just as good practice when everything is going according to plan.  As a healer, we want to take advantage of these moments.  If a Death Knight pops Vampiric Blood, we suddenly have a moment to keep him afloat with smaller and cheaper spells due to the increased healing it provides.  If a Druid pops Barksin, we can ease off the button mashing slightly.  Wait a couple seconds between your big casts, and let that glorious damage reduction do its work.  This won’t always be the case, especially if these are actually being used in an emergency situation; however, a couple big heals is usually enough to fill the tank up long before the duration of the buff has expired.

If you’re a paladin healer, than you realize how tough it can be to throw in a judgment or refresh Sacred Shield.  Even though avoidance will typically rule in your favor, resulting in a dodge or parry during that GCD, there is ALWAYS a moment when the tank gets thrashed twice in quick succession for 25K damage.  In fact, this moment occurs more often than I would like.  With the massive raid-wide damage in Ulduar, I’m willing to bet most guilds are using only two healers on one tank.  That missed GCD can be horribly painful with that setup.

Cooldown-Saving Opportunities

Any healer with a host of their own cooldowns will also find comfort in knowing when a priest has thrown Guardian Spirit on the tank.  Whether that means you can save your own Lay on Hands, Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, or Blessing of Sacrifice will depend on the situation, but remaining oblivious is certainly not a viable option.  If you’re a raid healing priest, why not set your focus to a tank and shoot off a Guardian Spirit in a bad spot if nobody else has come to the rescue?

Remembering back to Sarth 3D, it would have been nice to be notified after our Death Knight tank had used up his important cooldowns.  It would have saved alot of stress over Vent.  Sometimes waiting for a response just isn’t fast enough.  Did the other healer in the cooldown rotation end up in the wrong place?  Do I need to cover for them?  Has somebody else already done the job in their place?   All of those questions should have immediate answers on your own screen.  So, how to do it?

Using Power Auras

Holy Dueg has a nice article about using this mod to a healer’s advantage.  When I originally started using it, I was doing it for DPS purposes.  I did not expect it to do what I wanted for healing, so I ended up banging my head against Quartz, Class Timer, and a few other mods before I finally realized how simple things could have been.

Seriously, it couldn’t be more simple. Download the mod, create a buff aura with the name of the cooldown, and then select it to use your focus or target.  That’s it!  The first time I did this, I had to choose a generic icon to appear over my head, but like some demented Pokemon game, the icons would fill in during the course of the night as tanks used them.   I could then select “Use Own Texture” to get the proper icon to display over my head.  Let’s just hope I wasn’t intentionally creating those situations.  I still need Divine Protection and Guardian Spirit…[mumbles something about "accidentally" getting locked out on Ignis tomorrow night].

Here’s a fun couple of pictures to illustrate setup and usage.  It’s all about aesthetics, and you certainly don’t need to setup the aura to be icons like myself.  I might consider adding a timer to these as well in the future.  Also, it’s okay to admit how gorgeous I am in these shots.  No, really.

1.  Millions of Buffs!  Ewww! And a conversation about over-healing that may result in deforestation of the guild. =P

2.  A short break in Ironforge to configure addons

3.  Lots of options

4.  Success!  It actually does work in raids, but I’m only using the “Test” feature in this screenshot.

Too Many Options

Ten man Ulduar variants are causing more harm than good.  I was once there, every weekend, blasting through Ulduar bosses with some of my favorites guild members.  I had a ball, but I eventually had to bow out for several weeks.  Last November was the same situation in Naxx, except we literally finished the entire place (including Malygos) in less than a couple weekends.  The difference is that we never went again, not even once unless it was a bunch of alts.  It was simply too much raiding in a single week to try and maintain.

During this brief time, no issues ever cropped up concerning these ten man groups and the rest of the guild.  With Ulduar, however, players have created an additional avenue of progression that is likely to last a month or two at the very least.  It doesn’t take long for other guild members to feel like they’re part of the “B” team.  Sometimes, these members don’t even want to go, but they feel disheartened that an invitation was never extended.  While there will always be a large spectrum of player skill in a twenty-five man raid that will naturally give rise to a certain amount of labeling, this situation becomes dangerous for a number of reasons:

1) Several members of your ten man team begin to feel burdened by others in heroic raids, blaming only their ineptitude for each wipe instead of rising to the new challenges inherent in a larger grouping of people.

2) Several members of your twenty-five man team begin to feel that they are less critical to the raid’s success since they are not good enough to be invited to the smaller runs.

3) Anxious to see new content, some members start to see heroic raids as a burden, sapping precious time from quality attempts in a ten man setting.

Overcoming Pride

It all comes down to priorities.  I realize there are some upgrades, sidegrades, and even some experience from ten man content that can directly translate onto the twenty-five man scene, but I would argue that there is a certain point where the health of the guild is at stake.  I am certain that some guilds have more than enough people to field several ten man Ulduar runs during off-nights, but this is not always the case.  The consequence of having two avenues of progression hits core members the hardest if they cannot commit to that much of it.

I want to make a distinction here between “raiding” and “progression”.  Plenty of people will have time for the former, but not everyone is capable of entering the progression mindset on a daily basis.  Whether it’s due to family, work, or simple burnout, I know several core raiders that need a breather on off-nights.  If they can’t go to Ulduar 10 or prefer to gear up an alt someplace easier, then all sorts of emotions start to come into play for both parties: guilt, resentment, desperation, and even betrayal.

My thoughts on the matter?  I have two ideas at different levels of organization:

1.  Ten man instances should not be accessible if you are locked into the twenty-five man version with your raid ID.

2.  Guilds, depending on their size, should not permit serious progression into Ulduar 10 until such progression has been made in Ulduar 25.

Both of these are horribly authoritarian policies, but bear with me.  Friends have a right to raid with friends how they see fit.  But there’s a distinct part of me that says these raids are not always about that.  They are progression, plain and simple.  It’s about “getting there first” and feeling good about it.  It’s about pride and self-fulfillment.  These are not bad things, but if not handled right, they can foster feelings of elitism and exclusion that can be detrimental to a guild trying to maintain a steady roster for heroic raids.  Packing an Ulduar 10 full of officers also sends the wrong message, potentially the worst one of all.

Undervaluing People

Does this mean I’m advocating a warm, cuddly, impossible-to-maintain, care bear environment?  Maybe, which is why I’m conflicted.  But delusional or not, a close-knit guild of barely over twenty-five active players needs to be extra careful in how it handles itself. People need to know they are important to the success of the raid.  The bonds that hold players to that heroic raid roster every night are built on a shared need to progress with like-minded people and friends.  If that progression is completed elsewhere, especially through exclusionary runs, those bonds may be dissolved for both sides of the house.   Considering the rabid competition for recuirtment as the summer hits and players go on vacation, I think we will see whether allowing access to both ten and twenty-five man content within a single week is something that larger guilds can withstand.  How many of the top ten guilds on your server have you seen disband into smaller units for the purpose of only running ten mans?

So why is it that I feel a bit empty these days?

Is it because we’re racing the nerf clock?  Partly.  But I think it mainly has to do with the foreseeable split in our guild when it comes to hard mode raiding and, for more immediate relevance, some issues with 10 man Ulduar.

On the topic of hard modes, I have to say that I never doubted our indulgence of Sarth3D.  I always knew it was our end goal.  When we finished it, my mind was thoroughly wrapped around our inevitable hard mode attempts in Ulduar.  Even when we were wiping hopelessly on Lady Vashj in BC, I never questioned that we would eventually get to Illidan.  It was just my nature to assume we would always shoot for the best, even if we came up short in the end.

I think this is still a healthy mindset, but part of me the other day asked the inevitable question, “Do I really care about hard modes?”  I cared about Sarth 3D.  I cared ALOT, so much so that I wrote a huge inspirational post about it on our guild website.  No, we didn’t farm him after our initial kill.  Truth to tell, we never even went back, at least not with the same goal.  But the point is that we felt accomplished.  Looking at Ulduar, I’ll ask the question again: Will players feel that same level of excitement when hard mode encounters are not all identifiable by additional enemies on the battlefield?  Or,  more to the point, how much are devoted players willing to endure when a third of their raid makeup constantly changes due to disinterest?

When we started on 10 man Sarth 3D, my own interest truthfully began to wane.  It was something I could see as really worthwhile and enjoyable, but after conquering the heroic version, I felt guilty about the whole ordeal.  It was like robbing everyone of the victory we had just experienced.  My wife loves to make videos of our successes.  She remarked to me that they are often her way of “making peace with the fight”.   It’s true that we raid for those zen moments, and the biggest part of that zen involves all the players who succeed together.  One our officers, a little gnome warrior I’ve mentioned in the past,  only had one thing to say when we finally bagged ourselves a Sarth 3D kill on heroic.  He wrote in raid chat, “I’m smiling so big right now.”

That’s the kind of thing that also makes me smile, and the problem is that there were too many people deprived of that excitement on our 10 man attempts.  Having just opted out of some 10 man Ulduar progression, I know all too well how it feels to see those achievements populate guild chat while sitting idly at the auction house.  We can say that it’s for “guild progression”, but most of us are not racing other guilds on the server.  We’re around the middle of the pack, sometimes near the top, sometimes a bit lower.  Excluding people for nothing more than ranking does not sit well with me.   Maybe that is why Nights is always mocked as a carebear guild.  Either way, I already spend four nights a week raiding, and I’m starting to realize that while I still want to be playing WoW, I don’t necessarily want to be tied to the chair for hours and hours on the weekend.  When that time becomes more about beating content and less about enjoying the company of people, then the whole experience falls to pieces.

I remember going for nearly an entire hour without any conversation on Vent during one of our recent 10 man Ulduar runs. We one-shotted everything that night, so the tension was not in regards to failure.  There just wasn’t any balance between progression and relaxation.  It’s obvious when some people are only being invited to replace more appealing players that could not come.  It’s also obvious when certain people are burned out and only there to satiate friends who are rabid for content.  Being in either of those positions breeds frustration and even a bit of resentment.  Having that spill over into heroic raids is downright dangerous.

The game is supposed to enrich your life, not destroy it.

Bringing all that full circle, I try to remember some of the best moments I’ve ever had in WoW.  I don’t have a set list, but they are all vastly different experiences.  That is to say, they do not all involve raiding.  Some of them are about throwing together a matching set of armor, learning to keybind raid icons to my numpad, or simply trying to tackle something together with my wife that was way beyond the ability of two players.   I also like to revisit a time when all my real life friends and relatives played together on the same server.  Or when the biggest worry on my mind was whether or not I could sell enough mana potions to buy my mount at level 40.

I’ve decided that I ultimately won’t know the value of any current experiences until well after the fact.  Nevertheless, I need to remember that if I care about the mental investment I’ve put into my characters, then I need to learn when to rest.  If I care about shared moments of guild success, then I need to not feel like progression is a chore by burning out in two versions of the same content every week.  Despite saying “…and the people that make it worthwhile” in my blog description, I feel like I’ve never quite followed through on that aspect of my writing.  Those people include my wife, my guild, and a host of regular raiders.  The sheer amount of effort they invest is what creates meaning in our accomplishments.  So, if too much Ulduar is sapping your interest and emotion, consider reeling back from the edge of progression.  Putting forth everything on the nights that matter will re-solidify those relationships when precious victories finally come.

1.  “Every time I watch that I almost cry.”

2.  “More awesome action from Wrynn!”

3.  “Beyond amazing!”

4.  “It makes me all teary-eyed.”

5.  “This is getting me all pumped up.”

Oh god, just stop there!  I can’t even bear to paraphrase these.  I thought they were being sarcastic!

Let’s talk about the Wrathgate event first.  The most exciting aspect of the whole thing was the shock of even seeing a in-game cinematic while playing WoW.  But please, all of you out there with some sense of story-telling, tell me you didn’t die a little inside from, “I couldn’t let the alliance have all the fun today!”

UGHHHHHH!  It still makes me laugh.  Was it supposed to be comedic?  Was the dialogue supposed to be a derivative piece of fantasy with enough one-liners to make Legolas sliding down an elephant seem acceptable?!  I want to say that I need to lighten up and realize that WoW is not about serious narratives.  But honestly, Warcraft is a genre that has always taken itself very seriously and managed to fit humor into appropriate situations.  This…abomination…was more like watching a Saturday morning cartoon.  Arthas even manages to finish it off with a classic “This isn’t over!”  Oh dear, what a sinister threat!

If there is any sympathy to be had for Bolivar’s death, it is completely eclipsed by this mess.  And adding to that, did we really care that much about this guy with his gold-and-blue warrior PVP set?  Sure, he’s been there watching over Stormwind for years, but his death doesn’t mean much when this is the first time we’ve ever truly been introduced.  It feels cheap, and the only way his death can realy have any meaning is if he gets brought back by Arthas as some god-forsakenly difficult raid boss in Icecrown.

And then there’s the slightly more subdued Ulduar trailer.  I was into it at first.  Bronzebeard is a fun character, and his dialogue was pretty convincing.  Then there’s barbie-doll Jaina, Wrynn, and some other dopes.  Thrall comes walking in off the streets of Dalaran like he just left a coffeshop with Saurafang.  Sigh, I guess it was “okay”.  These things just aren’t doing it for me though.  I mean, do we really need all the referencing about “who will save us now, blah blah blah”.  Yes, we know!  We feel very important now as players!  Now quit all your melodramatic dribble.

When you get right down to it, World of Warcraft is not really setup to move ahead with stories or create new lore.  The moment is truly rare when you feel like you are experiencing something important unfold.  It was easy in Burning Crusade to make Illidan and Kael’thas interesting villains.  We already knew their motivations and history from Warcraft III.  Now, you would think that Arthas, the ultimate fanboy villain, would follow the same setup.  The problem, as outlined by many others, is that Arthas just talks too much.

The Lich King was full of mystery and dread when we first watched Arthas reach the top of Icecrown in Frozen Throne.  I realize that Blizzard wanted players to see the main villain of this expansion and to make his role more pivotal as people leveled through Northrend.  Still, all it makes me want to do is punch him in the face every time another cheeseball line comes out of his mouth.  Players got into these characters in previous games because they played AS them.  Watching these “dramatic” events take place really means nothing in WoW, because there is no instrument to overcome the fact that the game is an MMO at heart, a social game based on PLAYER interaction.

Did anyone else find the trailer for Zul’Aman quite good?  I didn’t know Zul’jin, but he laid it all out for me.  I may not have believed a second of those fight scenes with people scattered all over ramparts dueling trolls, but the dialogue overlayed across the whole thing was believable.  He was a convincing character, so much so that I was even giddy when I finally got to face him.  I think Blizzard succeeded with him by keeping things simple.  They gave him a motive, introduced him in his own voice, and then gave us a “Have at him!” towards the end.  That’s the sort of thing that makes sense.  He’s not changing the game world or having melodramatic conversations with famous characters.  It was a trailer in all the sense of the word, enticing you to experience new content in a clever way.  It was NOT an overblown debate between characters that have long since been overshadowed by the game itself.

Well, last night on Deconstructor, I was healing the main tank in combination with a not-so-Disc, Discipline priest that really confuses me in their talent choices.  Anyhow! As is typical of 25 man encounters, I was stuck spamming my biggest heal to keep up with the bursts of damage on the tank.  I can’t say that I truly enjoy this type of playstyle, especially when my mana begins to drop, but having that  “heart phase” to melee the boss would shoot me from 8K mana to 25K in combination with Divine Plea.  This gave me leeway to refresh Beacon constantly on another target, which gave me some semblance of complexity (cough, one button healbot).  I found myself not enjoying the healing experience as much as in 10 man where I could Holy Shock quite frequently to help the raid.  This is becoming a common theme with me in regards to Ulduar fights.  I guess I was spoiled with the heal-everything-in-sight mentality of Naxxramas.

All in all, I find myself really desiring another Holy paladin or a fully-fledged Disc priest on the tank.  These days, I feel like I’m solo-healing the main tank on some encounters since we’re rather short on healers and most of the others are needed for raid healing.  I guess that should actually be a good feeling, but the paladin teamwork described in a recent post at World of Matticus (I don’t have the direct link, silly internet filters at work), makes me pine for a single-target healing partner.  We had some really good Holy paladins in our guild about a month before Ulduar.  I wonder where they’ve all gone.  Maybe they’re making cloth-pallys out of their Disc priest alts.  =)

1.  Fusion Punch (Iron Council): This is a great ability.  Not only does it hit fairly hard, but it also puts a devastating damage over time effect on the tank that must be immediately cleansed.  In 10 man, where I have to solo heal the tank, there is great pressure to time my biggest heal to land right after fusion punch with a cleanse immediately to follow.  When I do it right, you can’t even tell that the tank took damage.  When I do it wrong, the dot either does massive damage before I can cleanse it or the tank ends up at half health from the initial hit while I try to cleanse, wait for the GCD, and finally cast a big heal.  The tension is really exciting.

2.  “Oblivion!” (Kologarn):  Yes, it’s just a big splash of raid wide damage, but it’s one of those things that is on cooldown without being predictable enough to catch with timers.  It happens fast, and it happens often.  If another healer is being gripped in his right arm or being chased by eye beams, you have to break assignment and get the lowest person up a bit before the next one hits.  It’s exciting, impromptu healing that rewards putting trust in your teammates.

3.  Flame Jets (Ignis): This is less exciting overall than the others, but I love having to make sure the tank is perpetually topped off before having to cancel my next heal.  Being made to watch his health drop as I bound through the air (helpless to do anything other than a holy shock) makes for some tense moments.  The perpetual threat of a 12 second silence (not sure of the exact number) for failing to stop my cast is a horrendous punishment that is fitting for the boss.  I like it!

4.  Deconstructor:  No special ability here, but the momentary downtime during the heart phase allows an opportunity to regenerate mana through Divine Plea without fear of the tank dying.  It’s a nice touch that allows healers to burn mana-intensive skills during tantrum.  Making sure not to hold back during the big damage phases becomes a fun dynamic.

5.  Razorscale: Oh, those fireballs are intense.  I’m not talking about the ones that erupt into flames on the ground.  Nope, I’m referring to those unavoidable little balls of flame that constantly defy the notion that lightning never strikes the same place twice. Even with 25 people, I’ve been hit with four consecutive blasts for around 10K a piece.  On 10 man, there simply aren’t enough healers to stand on one side and tunnel vision a tank.  Every second after a fireball hits a raid member, they are in danger of insta-death from the next one.  The whole fight is frantic, and every healers needs to be on the ball.  Reaction is more important than throughput or efficiency, which makes this another interesting change in pace.

Granted, I’m viewing these fights from the perspective of a Holy paladin.  Raid wide damage scares me to no end.  I used to pump out insanely fast Holy Lights in combination with Holy Shock crits before 3.1.  Since that cast time reduction is now gone, I usually have to  cringe and bear it when multiple targets take damage.  Holy Shock shines some in 10 man situations, making me feel more useful for clutch healing to counter the RNG.  I’m looking forward to more fights that dispense with the “this guy hits really hard” formula.  Trying to determine when to cast certain heals and how quickly has always been more entertaning than Patchwerk style battles.  I hope I’m not playing the wrong class.  =)