Something really really fucking weird is going on. It’s making me as paranoid as hell, actually.
But check this out.
*peers left and right*
*glances over shoulder*
*beckons you closer*
*lowers voice to a whisper*
I’ve had a run of good PUGs.
I know! What’s with that? Didn’t they get the memo that they’re meant to be behaving like absolute drooling fucktards. I know these stories won’t be as fun as “and then you’ll never guess what HUNTARDFACE from Crushridge did next” but I think it’s important to remember – and to celebrate – the human beings sloshing around in the Sanity Tap system.
First of all, there was the shaman who didn’t roll on a dagger. It wasn’t the most fantastic dagger you’ve ever seen but it was a caster dagger without any hit on it, and an upgrade for the poor priest here who is still carrying around The Big Daddy Diving Helmet On A Stick that drops in ToC 5-man heroic. I can totally see why Mariel is so sorrowful – I’m sorrowful too, with a mace like that. I asked if I could need on the dagger, and the shaman in the group asked if she could also need for her off-spec. Obviously my instinct was “no you fucking can’t, the rule as I understand it is main spec before off-spec, bitch” but the level of behaviour I expect from random pugs is so low that, well, if they’re not actually setting me on fire and spitting on my corpse I consider it a good, clean run. So I just said something neutrally passive aggressive like “well, healing is my main spec but if want to roll on it go ahead.” And you know what she said? Go on. Guess. You’ll never guess. She said “no, you take it” + smiley. I nearly fell off my chair. I should have taken better note of who she was so I could do the opposite of name and shame. Name and adore. Name and idolise. But thank you little shaman. I am grateful. Every time I crit heal, I think of you.
And then I had a rather stressful FoS run because the tank was made of wet cheese, yet insisted on behaving like he was geared to the gills. It’s not that I mind healing squishy tanks but I fucking it loathe it when they won’t make any concessions to their own squishiness, like, y’know, actually waiting for me to be in range before pulling, not grabbing entire rooms of mobs, or, heaven forefend, letting me take mana breaks. So he was a pain in the putricide but there was also a warlock from my home server in the ground – and she was made of adorable, chocolate and cherries. Well, obviously, she was from AD. But she was polite, helpful, charming, fun and we had a lovely whispered conversation. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have left the group – Squishy McSquish Squish just wasn’t worth the stress. As it was, Temi and I pretty much ended up 2-manning the Devourer of Souls since the tank was incapable of actually tanking it – which a) made us feel awesome and b) reminded me of the good old days, when we were ruling the universe together as healer and tank.
But anyway: Myxedes of Argent Dawn, from the guild Citadel, you are a class act, and I salute you.
The other more general and completely weird thing is that I’ve been getting an unprecedented degree of respect from pugs across the board lately. Y’know, I think it must be mah hat. Or something. Despite nothing about my healing, nor my ability to heal 5-mans, having changed suddenly players are treating me like I have some degree of in-game authority. Now either my blog is better known than I think it is and people are terrified lest I eviscerate them in prose (unlikely) or having one pathetic piece of gear from 25-man current content is what it takes for other players to accord you a measure of in-game value.
In some ways, I won’t lie, this is really nice. Heh, I’m only human, I’d rather be treated well than treated badly. And, as I’ve discovered, I’m susceptible to flattery – I stayed with a group for about three runs on Saturday afternoon simply because they begged me to honour them longer with my august awesomeness (and also because we had Wintergrasp and I’m grinding shards in order to pimp my PVP alt – what’s that, Tam and PVP in the same sentence, what madness is this – madness for another post I think). Because we stayed together for longer than your average pug, the group developed slightly more investment in each other than would usually be the case, and consequently was fun and lively and talkative. And the running joke was, err, along the lines of “Oh, must have been a tough fight, Tam’s mana bar went down to 98%!”
On the other hand … it also makes me slightly uncomfortable. It feels weirdly like a betrayal of all the times I’ve fought for my right to heal in Naxx purples or, hell, bog standard heroic gear. I mean, actually, I am no better at healing at 5-man heroics than anyone else out there currently healing 5 man heroics – in some ways, I’m objectively worse, because I’m bored and not really committed to it. Also, as much as I passionately love mah hat, it don’t mean shit. Yes, it means 24 other people were willing to have me in the same room while they threw fireballs at a big dude, and I was fortunate enough to acquire a bigger arbitrary number than some of the other people trying to acquire an arbitrary number in order to receive a hat, but it’s no reflection of my value as either a player or a human being. I’ve been on exactly two – count ‘em two – 25-man raids. My contribution to 10-man content was to wipe us on Festerthingy. I guess this is one of the hidden perks of working on current raid content – the induction into the WoW aristocracy. I know it sounds faintly stupid – I whinge about people being mean to me and now I’m whinging about them being nice to me – but it just discomposes me when I see social hierarchies in action, wherever I’m placed on the ladder.
The hat doth not make the man.
In other news, I’ve also finally finally gone properly disco and I LOVE it. I’ve been healing my heroics disco in order to get practice in (and I think I’m getting the hang of it) but it plays so elegantly that my holy spec is looking pretty damn dull by comparison. The thing is, I always feel this way when I try out another style of healing. I do a little bit of tree-ing on Comfrey and, although I’m not very good at it, and poor old Cowfriend must have bollocks of steel to trust in my not very effectively rolling HoTs, whenever I go back to holy I always find myself chafing against its restrictions: “you mean I just stand here at the back in my sissy robe, wait til damage comes in and then heal it back up again? But that’s so … so … pedestrian.” Equally disco is just amazing. I mean, what’s better than healing damage when it comes in? Stopping damage BEFORE it come sin. Oh yeah. Holy really is the Mario of healing – useful and competant but so generic.
Bizarrely, I think it also ties into gettign more respect in 5-mans. Being disco seems to mark one out as being somehow more serious about healing, or raiding, or WoW, or something. I guess because it’s slightly trickier to manage in a 5-man because you can’t just yawn and hit CoH all the time but since holy is probably your optimised 5-man healing spec perhaps, ironically, NOT being holy shows you have your mind and priorities elsewhere. You can also get kudos, for those who are taking notes, by having both specs be healing. A rather spiffy DPS caster robe dropped in PoS (I think?) and, as the only clothie, everyone was like “Take it for your off-spec, Tam.” And I said I didn’t need it because my off-spec was holy and everybody was like “woah, this Tam, he is srs buzness, let us respect his healz.”
Ain’t WoW strange.
Anyway, here is some sweet sweet link love for the week:
Darraxus makes me rofl. Moar adventures from Nomnomhealz plz!
I tend to skim over posts directed as DPS because y’know … dps!lol but this is a great post from Sprinks on how to be bloody awesome at it in random pugs. I particularly love Point 3 but then I’m perhaps a bit biased…
Back to healing, there’s a nice post over at HoTs & DoTs about shaman healing. I love it because it has diagrams!
And Pike … oh Pike … I don’t know if this is sadism or genius or some depravity yet to be classified but it was assuredly a tea meet keyboard moment. I don’t know if I was crying with laughter or crying with pain.
Meanwhile the Rambling Dwarf has moved on from rating instances into rating food. If you ask me, his conclusions are somewhat dubious….
I’m also quite digging Troll Bouquet at the moment – this post certainly rings my healer bells. Those are some of my major pugging bugbears, although I’ve lately developed a new lack of appreciation for pally tanks who lay hands on themselves at the slightest provocation. Thanks for that, you blew your cooldown, and I blew mine – what good did that do any us, huh? Next time, trust in pain suppression, bitch.
There’s also been a run of very moving, very personal blog posts recently, all from slightly different perspectives. I love WoW, and I love the people who write about it, and now I think a love both just a little bit more…if you haven’t already, I heartily recommend visits to Larisa, Shintar, Beru and Miss Medicina.
It is so not the hat.. must be the moves
Nice to hear the positive experiences as well as the funny knobville ones 
You're right, people are admiring my smooth disc grooves…
Ahhh! You went the way of the Disco! I'm so excited!
Maybe I will find it in me to dual spec holy/disc as well. That seems to be the mark of a srs healer, right? Then again, I've noticed that same strange phenomenon, that people seem to take you more seriously if you switch to Disc spec from Holy. Haven't quite yet figured out why that is. It really is fun learning a new healing spec, even if it's somewhat frustrating too!
My recent post The Threads of Connection
The thing is, it wasn't any sort of sacrifice for me – I don't use my shadow spec for anything, and I don't have any DPS gear at all, so it was basically 1000g sitting there wasting. Besides, although there's less actual pew pew from disc, the sheer surviviability of it makes messing around in Azeroth much much easier than holy and proably vaguely comparable to shadow.
I suspect people 'respect' disc more because it's targetted more at raids than 5-mans – and implies you're a main tank healer which is better than a raid healing, amirite? I'm being slightly cynical here – heaven knows what's really going on
For some reason I suspect holy is just a spec of low respect – if you show up as shadow and then swap to holy people are, again, generally nicer to you – I think because they think you're actually srs DPS who is going holy for the benefit of the group. It's weird.
Nice post. I must say I am a bit lacking on good pug stories lately, I just pop in, get to LFG as healer, get my group, close my eyes and hope for quick end. And sometimes, the end is not coming.
A good pug is a remarkable thing these days – I usually lie back and think of Azeroth as well, and occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised.
Perhaps the lovely flames on the lovely hat are just that cheering, bringing to mind marshmallow roasting and stories. Or, it has a secret proc type thing that only groups you with people that have been GM pre-approved! Either way, squee!
Squee indeed. Mah hat of good cheer! I knew it was awesome
Perhaps the lovely flames on the lovely hat are just that cheering, bringing to mind marshmallow roasting and stories. Or, it has a secret proc type thing that only groups you with people that have been GM pre-approved! Either way, squee!
I *knew* it. I knew you would love disc.
And I cannot believe you are not giving me probs, and offering me your first-born as a little nod at my direction.
While we are on the subject of disc, it is a lot better for 5 manned than holy is tbh. You shield and hot dumb dps and you spam the tank. Smooth, easy and fun.
About your hat: its awsome. Did I forget to mention that? Anyway, i think its the same mechanics that come into effect when people say that "heal better, i know healing my main is a healer" or "i know my gear is crap, but i got a [same class or function] on another server/as a main and i know what im doing, we have done [massive epeen achievement].
Weirdly enough its also the same effect that comes into play when you are on an alt. If you play your level 15 hunter, and a level 30 warrior comes prancing (all warriors prance) by on a mount, you stop and go "oooh" and if you speak with them, you will always treat them as an authority (or at least remember to stop yourself from doing that).
Even if you do have lots of highlevel super experience on the same class that he is on, and it is clearly his highest level toon. You still treat the guy with respect. Stupid, but there it is.
Yes, you were right. You're always right
Actually, you are – disco is awsome *struts funky stuff*.
I find it's better for competant 5-mans, but sometimes if there's a lot of damage going on, and all the DPS are played by dribbling morons, I end up swapping back to holy. I'm not sure it really has anything to do with the specs themselves so much as I still feel vastly more confident with holy, and what holy can do.
I think you're probably right about the other stuff as well (shock) – mind you the thing that really used to piss me off back when I couldn't heal ToC-5-man, was people who'd say "My main is as shaman – this place is easy."
And of course all warriors prance. In their nancy platemail on their nancy horses.
Mario isn't generic at all! You're just overused to it… Mario has an embarrassment of riches if you ask me… in what other series can I have ducks with turtle shells, talking mushrooms, and bricks that are smashable with my bare hand? Heck, in SMB2 you could fling vegetables at your enemies including beribboned eggspitting dinosaur type critters…
Familiarity, it seems, does breed contempt.
Anyway, I'm learning to holy with my level 40ish priest, and I'm finding it to have the same embarrassment of riches compared to pally healing. What, you mean, I have a tolerably decent hot? I have a variety of heals of various sizes, some which hot and some do not? I'm not limited to the small fast heal (flash of light), the long casting overhealing huge heal (holy light) and the mid-sized nonspammable instant heal (holy shock)? OMG – AOEEEEEEE!!!
I'm sad to hear you not appreciating holy. I love being able to do everything.
Ah, I didn't mean Mario the game, I meant Mario the character – compared to all the fun you can have with his friends. I guess I'm a closet Luigi Lover ….errr…that sounds bad. Luigi and I have a purely platonic relationship. Also when I played SMB2, I played super-high jumping Luigi who could also fling vegtables AND jump higher than Mario.
I wouldn't say I feel contempt for holy and/or Mario – it's just novelty had turned my fickle head. I do have a deep fondness for holy too – although I temporarily forget in the disco excitement
It's alright for some, just as you start to get a *touch wood* good run of PuG's, I get a fleet of failboats coming at me! Have been reading a few peoples blogs and there's been some complaints (You've had some wicked stories of utter fail pugs) and I didn't see what all the fuss was about until the other day when I attempted to do the daily 8 times and didn't finish it once. Put me off using the LFG tool for a few days it did!
Well, there must have been some karmic retribution for my good fortune – sorry, however, it rebounded on you
Failpugs make for good stories though – miserable experiences but good stories!
"And I said I didn’t need it because my off-spec was holy" I laughed! That is some serious healing-commitment – Holy + Discipline.
What hat have you got Tam? The revamped Tier 2 one from Onyxia? Do you really think people are checking your gear and treating you differently because of it?
And yeah, getting that shield in place right before the Lightning Bolt (or whatever) lands can make you feel like a GOD.
My recent post Revisting Uldaman
Oh it's my big flaming BBQ hat. I don't know if people are treating me better based on something as arbitrary as one piece of headgear – at least I hope not. Maybe I've just been lucky.
Srs healer is srs! Actually it's not that much of a committment to be honest – my shadodw spec was getting no use whatsoever whereas at lesat I do use disc occasionally. Otherwise it was basically just a waste of my 1000g dual-spec fee.
I'm still not great at disc, to be honest, I need more practice – but hmm … getting it is rather hairy for others.
Traitor! Pssh, all these people defecting to that new-fangled Disc thing.
To be honest it is mostly a case of envy, I would love to try it, but I would need a 3rd spec to do it. Since ICC arrived I have been mostly pewpewing (shock horror), as the guild had so many healers signing up (I know, unbelievable).
I s'pose I could respec my heal spec to disc and try it in some 5-mans, but at the moment I am needed every once in a while to help heal in raids and I don't want to risk standing there on the night going "Oh, hmm, so what does this button do?".
I've actually secretly want to play with disc …well … forever. Every since I saw it had abilities called Penance, which suits Tam down to the ground. I don't know how much use in raids it's likely to get, since I don't know it well enough to feel confident to actually deploy it effectively in a critical situation. There's still a moment of thought along the lines "I think it's time for a pain suppression" whereas with holy doing the right thing is basically instinctive.
Although it probably indicates Tam is srs healer, it's also probably slightly unhelpful for my guild – it wasn't like I'd put any pewpew effort in before but now it's pretty much "yep, Tam does nothing but healz." I suppose they WTB flexibility.
I think it's funny that just because I hit 50k health (which isn't very hard for a bear to do, anymore) I get mad props in 5-mans for my hp.
My recent post Frost Emblem Accessories Redux
Don't you know, having 50hp makes you a superior *human being*?
50 hp! Not sure even you Tam in your hat of awesome would be able to keep a tank with 50 hp alive in most dungeons. He would be easy to heal to full though whenever he wasn't one-shotted
Today's demonstration of the importance of the letter 'k' is brought to you by Tam, the Typing Failure.
What happened to the O?
My recent post Mammoth!
Just for you Tessy…
Oh … oh … oh !
he is O, oh … oh … oh ? Hmm can work
My recent post Mammoth!
Don't blame me, blame Ottawan!
Think I'm more of a hands-up person myself. At least when karaokeing.
My recent post Mammoth!
Damn it Tam! At least you had the diving-helmet-on-a-stick. I've been running ICC on my pally still carrying the Titansteel Guardian (yes, the healing mace blacksmiths can craft). Did countless ToC hc runs for Mariel's Sorrow and HoR normal for Bone Golem Scapula without any luck. And then my shammy gets 5/5 T9 in one week and gets Surtgeon's Needle in his first PoS run… At least I recently got Splintered Icecrown Parapet, not a 100% healing weapon, but at least better than the mace.
I dualspeced disco my priest when he was 76 or so, after being shadow all his life. Found it was a great spec for survival and compensated the lack of hard-hitting with this survivality, so taking down elite mobs was easier (at least more safe). Anyway I haven't healed much in dungeons with him lately, I'd prefer to get some practice with guildies (although I've healed 5 man pugs before) but since now everybody seems to break some world record by chainpulling the whole place I don't want to get stressed. I prefer to sign him as dps and use the waiting time to collect herbs.
Oh! And you still look like some evil warlock, even with your new hat
My recent post A Tyranny of Tanks
I LOVED my titansteel guardian – I still miss it. It was the best weapon I've ever had, not only because it was lovingly hand-crafted by Chas, made of titansteel I farmed myself over many many days. And it looked awesome, and I dripped holy light onto the ground … I've never had to weapon to equal so don't you DARE dis the titansteel guardin
I think you're right about the survivability ot disco – i guess it feels less "efficienct" than shadow because you lose out on the pewpew but there's nothing less efficient than dying!
I felt pretty nervous healing my first pug as disco – but thankfully it went okay-ish. I still swap to holy if there's much raid damage though, or I feel too stressed. LFG pugs are not forgiving though . Talk about a baptism of fire!
Oh it's my big flaming BBQ hat. I don't know if people are treating me better based on something as arbitrary as one piece of headgear – at least I hope not. Maybe I've just been lucky. Srs healer is srs! Actually it's not that much of a committment to be honest – my shadodw spec was getting no use whatsoever whereas at lesat I do use disc occasionally. Otherwise it was basically just a waste of my 1000g dual-spec fee. I'm still not great at disc, to be honest, I need more practice – but hmm … getting it is rather hairy for others.
Tam, Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo, please tell me you haven't. You have gone over to the Dark side!. From the (admittedly shallow) depth of my newly tanking Paladin heart, I plead with you to leave the land of bubbles and return to the true calling (Holy). "what’s better than healing damage when it comes in? Stopping damage BEFORE it come sin", For the DPS. Yes. For your poor Pally tank, Nooooooooooooooo. (Thats the more eloquent I can be
. My mana bar in Prot is inversely proportional to my stress levels 
Bubbling Disc priests don't help either 
My recent post When meters really may indicate a problem
According to Ghostcrawler, disco bubbles shouldn't interfere with paladin mana regen these days – but I promise, for you, and because you said "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", I shall keep an eye on the mana of any pally tanks I get and if they seem to be struggling I'll go holy!
According to Ghostcrawler, disco bubbles shouldn't interfere with paladin mana regen these days – but I promise, for you, and because you said "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", I shall keep an eye on the mana of any pally tanks I get and if they seem to be struggling I'll go holy!
According to Ghostcrawler, disco bubbles shouldn't interfere with paladin mana regen these days – but I promise, for you, and because you said "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", I shall keep an eye on the mana of any pally tanks I get and if they seem to be struggling I'll go holy!
According to Ghostcrawler, disco bubbles shouldn't interfere with paladin mana regen these days – but I promise, for you, and because you said "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", I shall keep an eye on the mana of any pally tanks I get and if they seem to be struggling I'll go holy!
According to Ghostcrawler, disco bubbles shouldn't interfere with paladin mana regen these days – but I promise, for you, and because you said "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", I shall keep an eye on the mana of any pally tanks I get and if they seem to be struggling I'll go holy!
According to Ghostcrawler, disco bubbles shouldn't interfere with paladin mana regen these days – but I promise, for you, and because you said "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo", I shall keep an eye on the mana of any pally tanks I get and if they seem to be struggling I'll go holy!
Yea, but as when Ferraro makes similar comments, you have to remember that both she and GC are running in gear that makes the rest of us look like we are in the hand-me-downs from our rich cousins. Pally tanks over geared for heroics are sometimes still finding it hard, at least from my view – you just aren't taking the damage you need unless you can keep up Divine Plea. And there are some instances where you just cant chain pull because there are artificial delays between mobs. (VH comes to mind atm)
No it's not always hard, but neither is is blanket easy like GC seems to think
I mean the other alternative is, as a good Pally Tank friend of mine suggests, is to swap out tank gear for DPS gear to make sure you take more damage. personally I think that is unfair to the healers, but then, as you know, I'm a healer at heart
My recent post When meters really may indicate a problem
[...] appreciative and savoring the weekend and so forth, I would like to direct attention to Tam’s post over at Righteous Orbs. I thought this post was wonderful, not only for Tamarind’s hilarious [...]
[...] so has everyone else). I have lately acquired both a holy and a disco spec, and I will admit that disco temporarily turned my head. I think it’s partially the novelty of learning something new but also disco is shiny as all hell [...]