I have learned my lesson about WoW hubris. Never again will I whinge about finding healing heroics tedious. Never again. Dear Azeroth, forgive my foolish pride, and verily did I deserve the smiting you gave me on Friday.
I was moseying about in Dalaran, trying to revive my flagging WoW mojo, and it turned out that the guild was going to attempt to zerg Sarth + 3 drakes, and that there was space for a healer. To be fair, I didn’t go in there like a lamb to slaughter, I wasn’t sure I could do it, and I made it quite clear I wasn’t sure I could do it. But we got ourselves together, buffed up and off we went.
And, uh, we failed. Over and over and over again, for about three hours.
Welcome, Tam, to hard modes. Leave your sanity at the door.
It was certainly interesting, I will say that. And certainly a challenge.
Not, one, however, that I rose to.
It wasn’t always entirely my fault – there were a couple of comedy pulls, a few times I got my face eaten off by Tenebron, and sometimes the DPS would just go fire dancing. And for something that was basically an exercise in banging your head against a lava wall, it was a remarkably painless – I mean nobody lost their temper, took out their frustrations on others or, err, blamed the healer despite the fact it would have been deserved.
I did, overall, enjoy the experience, but I am so unbelievably frustrated with myself that I couldn’t pull it together. I’d like to think it was just a lack of raw basic healing oomf but unfortunately I think it was a combination of factors all of which I need to seriously address in my healing if I ever want to try something like that again. I think, weirdly, what it required was massive amounts of counter-intuitive healing and I just failed miserably to adapt.
I’m way too used to playing delicate, thoughtful, resource allocation games with myself, maximising healing, minimising over-healing. This is entirely stupid in a 90 second GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT YOU BITCHES situation. But I couldn’t get myself into the spam-healing mindset, or at least it required a constant pull against my own muscle memory and instincts. For example, if one of the DPS blunders into a firewall, under these sort of circumstnaces it’s so much better to use CoS, even though it’s AoE, rather than flash heal, because it’s instant cast, dammit. But unfortunately in the time it took me to lurch towards flash heal, think “oh no, wait use this instead,” likely disaster had occurred and either the DPS and/or the tank and/or me were dead. And this happened over and over again, with me desperately trying to retrain myself to fit this new situation… and not quite succeeding.
Also, I don’t know if it’s by class or by nature but I think I am a support healer. The more I raid, the more I have become used to slipping myself around, and supplementing, other people’s healing patterns (hopefully without ninjing). It’s possible I just collapse like a wet paper bag when given any sort of primary responsibility. Responsibility has never really been my forte, to be honest. Maybe I’m secretly a DPS. Maybe I’m a warlock.
Last week Miss Medicina wrote several posts about rotational versus reflex based healing and putting the Sarth+3 zerg attempt into the pattern she described, I think my problem was a killer combination of: unpredictable damage, unpredictable target COUPLED WITH predicable damage, predicable target, which basically left me a crumpled sissy robe, weeping and gibbering in the corner. Assuming nothing went wrong, we would always get to the same point: Sarth would reach a certain % of hit points, the tank would take a 22k(ish) damage spike and then raid would go splat. Okay, Tam, fair enough. That’s simple enough. Man up and deal with it. You’ve got wings, you’ve got PW:S, you’ve got instant cast heals, you’ve got knowledge and knowledge is power. Except, at the precise moment of being about to deal with it – i.e. in the seconds before the spike, something unpredictable would always, and unfailingly, happen. A firewall would come in from a bad place, and I’ve have to move, a random DPS would suddenly drop to 5% health, and that would do for me, I couldn’t quite navigate the predictability/unpredictable valley of doom.
And I’m kind of furious with myself because I knew intellectually exactly what I should be doing but I couldn’t quite put everything into place and fucking well do it. Gah! Gah! A thousand times gah! An ocean of gah. A world of gah. A universe full of nothing but gah.
Ignore me, by the way, this is the pitiful, and somewhat self-indulgent, cry of having lived, to some extent, a charmed life when it comes to application of brane to problems. I know this thing, why is knowing not sufficient?! Knowing is not doing, young padawan.
Also I can’t quite work out to what extent we were merely relying on the good will of Lady RNG. There seemed to be so many random factors in play – the direction of the flame walls, since, obviously the more you move, the less you heal and the less you DPS, the amount of damage taken by the tank, since the luckier his numbers the less healing I would have to do, and the less commitment Tenebron would have towards eating my face off, even stupid things like the precise amount of lag afflicting me at precise moments during the fight… It all seemed very slightly too reliant on a combination of absolutely perfect play from everyone involved, everyone, AND the benignity of Lady RNG. I’ve been saying for ages I should make a shrine to her … maybe I should…
There. I’ve done it. Go and worship.
So, after all that, a small, squashed healer took his sissy robed arse to ToC-10 on Sunday evening, did his job, didn’t whinge once and even rolled on a wand (which I didn’t get but who cares). But in all darkness, he who seeketh shall find light.
Or in this case … singing!
For the first time ever I managed to use Divine Hymn, despite its silly silly and off-putting name. So, yes, I spent phase 3 of Anub singing to the raid. Divinely. And they seemed to like it. But it really helped with the leaching swarm. Honestly, I felt like a D&D bard.
Edit – although this should probably win some sort of competition for Worst Time To Sing a Song Ever. I think my flawed thinking was that if I waited until the very last second, and the clothies were all on the verge of death, I’d be able to heal the three with lowest health up to catch up with the plate-wearers and then stop channelling… it seemed to work okay, but possibly the DPS were cursing my name…
Further edit – this slighty whiny post was entirely self-directed. I have absolutely nothing but praise for the rest of the team.
Hah, I find it amusing that the first time you used Divine Hymn was on Anub’arak of all bosses – I told my fellow priests in my guild that this is the one place where I absolutely never want to see someone use Divine Hymn, since it’s about healing as little as possible (or else Anub gets healed as well) and Divine Hymn is kind of the nuclear bomb of priest healing…
The Sarth+3D zerg is weird these days. It’s obviously much easier than executing the “proper” tactings from before people had all this insane gear, but it’s still quite mad. I’ve done it twice now but both times we ended with the whole raid dying at the same time as Sarth.
Heheh, then I’m probably an idiot. I waited until the *very last minute* if that helps – like the first time we tried, I panicked and over-healed (it’s so hard not to) without any singing at all and the second time I was like “fuck it, I will sing this song.” So I waited until people were tiny slivers of life and BURST INTO SONG. Maybe I shouldn’t use it in future =P
I really have no idea when is the best time to use a nuclear healing song….
I’ve been a good boy and prayed to Lady RNG.
Sarth + 3D is a bitch of a fight. You are balancing on the point of a needle (the edge of a knife, at least, is two-dimensional) and even with first-class tanks like Raggy and top-notch DPS like me and healers who know what they are doing like Kalori we really, really struggled. Granted, we got the kill in the end, but I totally recognize your analysis of the fight.
And I totally agree that it’s a very horrible fight because you always feel that you have it in your grasp. Some fights (like Yogg) we are still humbled by, like “we can send in ten people and at least practise surviving phase 2…”, but Sarth 3D is a focused burn with very little margin for error that most people in this game overgear by a lot compared to the people who got the first kills. It SHOULD be an easy, facerolled zerg, but it’s really not that simple.
May your streaks be forever hot, amen.
Meh, I’ll get it someday – also I’m not precisely at the top of the healing game at the moment, a bit tired and a bit unfocused, and thinking about some things too much and others not enough … but, yeah … I’m not quite ready to be a warlock yet
Sarth with 3 increases the pain by an order of pain akin to being kicked in the nuts repeatedly with a steel toecapped boot.
Can’t believe you never used DH before, it’s just immense when you pop inner focus on a fight like the champs in CC. Sing yer song, thefight gets easy
I just never know *when* to use it, I find chanelling really restrictive, and the concept really ridiculous. But, God, yes, inner focus + silly song, faction champs, *why did I never think of that* =P
The nuclear bomb of raid healing. That’s a good one.
“combination of absolutely perfect play from everyone involved” welcome to hard modes.
“combination of absolutely perfect play from everyone involved, everyone, AND the benignity of Lady RNG” welcome to hard mode shortcuts!
Really the whole thing only works if you can trust everyone else to execute their job perfectly – leaving you free to do your thing.
Sucks that it didn’t work out. Sounds like you really gave it your all as a raid, too.
I absolutely can’t whinge about other people not executing their job absolutely perfectly – which most people were most of the time – when I can’t do it myself.
The problem, in a general sense, is the “mosts” in there – even if you get it right 99% of the time, there’s always going to be the time you don’t.
I think the 20k wipe was the tear jerking moment. According to Barry the Boomkin you did good
On anub pop dh at approx 25% of peeps hp. Just don’t do what I did and follow it up with a PoH that managed to crit everyone. I cried in amazement and annoyance since he started going back up. Bad priest is bad
Oh dear, Barry the Boomkin … that sounds like some deeply perveted children’s show.
I was petrified of over healing so I waited until about 15% on the clothies … I’m sure a couple of the warlocks must have been on the verge of pissing themselves. I know I wasn’t feeling exactly comfortable myself.
Oh my God, DH, followed by like a PoH crit. When does that *only ever happen when you don’t want it to happen?!?*
*curses the heavens*
Awww, don’t feel too bad, Tam. I have yet to even take down OS+2! And there’s nothing wrong with being a support healer normally. It’s what holy priests do best, after all!
I laughed at the part where you hesitated about casting CoH on a single person who took damage… I cringe everytime I do that, because surely, i think to myself, there must be a more efficient way? But… there usually isn’t. So I try to tell myself that the “Wasted” heals will hopefully proc me a surge of light, and then won’t be a waste… right? >.<
Also, there's nothing more frustrating for me than healing a fight and my fingers not doing what my brain says they should do because I have them trained to handle things differently. Stupid habits!
Maybe this shows a little too much of my geeky background, but Lady RNG reminds me very very much of Tymora (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Tymora)
Aaaanyways: Good healing means one of two things (imo.. and preferably the ability to do both)
(this also works for learning fights)
one: Know when damage is coming, know the fight. Being able to take that famous step back and make sure you know what everyone (incl. yourself) is doing, and what is going to happen to them.
Or two: spam any healthmeter that moves, as soon as possible -untill you have the first method down
Lastly: trust your assignments. If you went into that fight without any healing assignments given (I assume you had, but just didn’t post about it) you are setting yourself up for a long night. But also like Cassandri said: trust everyone to not fuck up. You can’t sit and wait for a dps to fall asleep and wander into some lava, they need to be able to avoid most of that- so that you can have an easier time of saving everyone.
Ahaha, I think she is a bit
I will certainly give more practice to option 2, it may help.
Also healing assignments weren’t precisely necessary since the healer was myself – I mean, I know I’m a bit inexperienced but still
I think the problem was, since we needed maximum DPS in order to avoid Sarth going invincible, I wasn’t really in a position to jettison the DPS if they took damage. So I couldn’t quite split my attention, and my healing, adequately between the tank and the raid. Sigh. Practice practice practice.
1 healer? I’ve never done it in that haxxor speed mode you speak of, but one healer seems to be stretching your luck a whole lot. Then again, i’ve never been there since Ulduar came out, so what do I know.
I think it’s the only way to do it if you’re trying to rush it like that. I mean, if you have 2 healers you compromise your DPS.
I don’t feel being a good healer is knowing the fight – thats more of a good researcher, and yes in this day and age on WoW you have to study each battle before doing them to be a good player, but it kinda upsets me that to finish a fight, you have to “read the spoilers”.
It feels like before watching a scary movie you read the IMDB entry to try and find the exact moments you are going to get a fright in order not to jump off your seat.
I WISH the fights were different each time and people couldn’t write idiots guides to each fight and people had to have pure skill and knowledge of their class to overcome fights, and not some manual saying “Stand here to miss fire, then run here and stop attacking, then take 3 steps back, 4 forward then begin attacking again”.
Tam, your dps should not be stumbling into flame walls in your Sarth 3D zerg. If they do so, you can’t save them, and it wasn’t your fault.
DPS were absolutely great – and I know I walked face-first into flames at least twice.
It’s good that they tried to make hard mode idiot proof, it helps to weed out the bad apples.
But at the same time the hard mode mechanic can be so unforgiving, it can literally rip apart tightly-knit groups of individuals.
Hard mode is hard shocker =P
Oy – been there done that on the “what did I do wrong” analysis. I guess it’s reasonable to need a few practice runs on a new boss before you really feel like you know what you’re doing healing it, but oy those practice runs FEEL wretched.
So belly up to the bar and I’ll pour you a drink and we’ll water them down with our own tears together
Seriously, that was a *lot* of practice.
*weeps into beer*
Heh, considering that someone told me it took then FORTY attempts to down Maly-10, there may be more to come. Now THAT’S depressing!
Seriously? It’s not like you’re a dwarven priest trying to sing to her flagging mates — you’re a sissy robed blood elf ^^
Hard modes are NOT normal
Don’t beat yourself too bad, they’re hard because you have to do WEIRD stuff to make ‘em work.
I know … it’s a little bit mad isn’t it? I don’t even think Tam’s even a very good singer.
Usually I’m one of those supportive and nice types.
So I’ll go against the type-casting and say – this is a learning experience. BUT, you can and should be able to do it at this point.
I did Sarth3D both zerg and non-zerg even before I was in best in slot Naxx/T7 gear. Now THAT was insane and required perfect execution and lady RNG’s blessing, but it could be done. Given the gear you (and I’m sure the rest of the group’s) are in now, it should be very doable.
That being said, it still requires almost perfect execution, despite ‘overgearing’ it at this point.
My fail/case in point has been heroic northrend beasts 25man. I’ve been doing 10man heroic for some time now – and even though we almost completely neglect 10man (not even making a single attempt some weeks), the group I do it with is almost to Anub. My guild focuses on 25man and we’re still failing. At first we could say it was because we were a new guild and we had just started Ulduar right as TOC was released – and the guilds clearing heroic the first week it was available were better geared. But we failed week after week after week – even when we geared the guild up. The fight has to be executed properly, and some folks aren’t there yet. Some fights can’t just be overgeared.
So the conclusion is fail.
But guess what?
Try, and try again.
But not try and try again the same fail effort/strat/execution.
Analyze what went wrong, who did what, and what you can do better (as you’re doing to some extent in between the whing).
I have faith in your ability to analyze your mistakes and correct them. Muscle memory can take a bit to overcome, but you can retrain those fingers to spam spam spam the right heals to keep your group up while dodging fire waves etc.
Yoo can doo eet!
Don’t worry, I know this was my fail, and entirely my fail. I write here for many reasons and one of them is for self-analysis (the unexamined virtual life is not worth living etc. etc.) – and not just to get people to pat me on the head and tell me it’ll be okay. I am well aware I should have been able to do it. And I will.
Right about now you could do with a combat log parse …
*looks to the sky*
really helps with the self analysis
Are you expecting recount to drop from the sky? I have it, and I do look at it, I promise =P
I guess I mean self-analysis in the conceptual rather than numerical sense
WMO or some such.
Even moar moar better than recount.
I’ll have to try healing the zerg on my shammy so I can add my own fail to the pile.
When we did our Sarth3D zerg, we had our Paladin heal it. He put Righteous Fury up to piss off all the adds, Beacon on the tank and spam healed himself (as all the adds were eating his face).
This, however, did not prevent his glorious death to void zone (which he could not see underneath 438564837658473 adds).
I can’t imagine healing it on another class. I think I would absolutely cry trying to heal it on my druid. Hardmodes are hard.
Are we some kind of mirror images? I was trying Sarth 3D yesterday too, but as dps (check my last post). And it’s damn hard. You need a good combination of flame waves (so you don’t have to move much and cut the dps) and time the heals precisely when drakes come (and of course uber geared people who know the drill). We wiped, and wiped, and wiped… oh, did I say we wiped? But even we didn’t make it (4%, 3%… argh! so close) I don’t consider it was a waste of time and gold in repairs. It was a good lesson on how to squeeze the max out of your character.
When our group zergs we wipe…we’ve been doing it the way it was intended to be done, and have gotten all but 1 a drake. Coming weekend the last one (that’s 15 drakes total).
2 healers, 2 tanks, 6 dps. Kill the drakes as they come down, then kill Sarth. Works like a charm.
We did Sarth +3 zerg-style this weekend for the first time…and let me tell you, even with 25 people in T8/T9 level gear, that fight is a stone cold bitch. Do not feel bad. It’s very RNG-dependent.
On the other hand…my God, it’s so much more fun doing it that way than doing it the “right” way. No subtlety, minimum tactics (and those basically centered around just keeping the tank up five more seconds near the end). Just get in there and GO GO GO DPS FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL. We wiped six times before finally getting him with only 8 of the 25 people left standing (at which point they got nom-nommed by the whelps) and nobody complained because we were having so much fun blowing cooldowns and pushing it to the limit every time.
Tam, I just ahd a flash of semi-reason that may also helpout…
In reading a couple blogs (Gnomeaggedon’s in aprticular) as well as tinkering in RAWR (all caps, becaus ethe folks that wrote it HATE ALL CAPS) and there seems to be 2 “standards” for healing: “burst” and “sustained” healing.
Long dungeon crawl raids & fights are the sustained. You will need things like MP5 to prevent OOM, so you need to gem/enchant for it.
Heroics and other short fights (with drinking time between), tend to be a bit more INT and Hit/Crit intensive…
I have ZERO clue about what actual gear/etc is appropriate, but it may be worth a brief perusal to see if you gear is tuned, not just for your level, but for the particular raid/instance that you are trying.
(I did read this at the time you posted it, but happened to re-read it, and am currently wearing different eyes, so well, maybe a slightly different perspective may help)
[...] and ages (and ages) ago when I was much more noobie than I am now, which is still quite noobie, I tried to heal a Sarth 3D zerg, and failed. And this has BUGGED ME for what feels like my entire life. It was entirely my own succession of [...]