Secrets of Shadowbolting

Raid leading is a very delicate balance. On one hand- you want to win. On the other hand if someone is bringing down the raid you have to get them to fix it. My current favorite topic is my one pally healer. Now 100% Flash of light used to work just fine on boss fights. Keyword here is USED to.

All of a sudden we’re in ZA and fighting the lynx boss or the bear boss in bear form and the doesn’t just hit like a mack truck. They are a mack truck on a down hill slope with no brakes repeatedly smacking my tanks.
We just went from healing 101 to healing 201 for advanced content because we’re planning on moving past ZA at some point. I have been trying to explain this concept to my healer. Really I have, I have tried being nice, I have tried explaining it and he wasn’t getting it. He was 100% FoLing on bear form of the bear boss and I sent him a whisper saying I need you to vary your spell casts to get better heals off.
What do I see but
S**** is now ignoring you.

< — very angry warlock.

You may tell me you disagree, we may have a reasonable conversation about it but if I’m raid leading and you signed up for MY raid and volunteered to come, I AM THE BOSS. If you /ignore me, that is the fastest way to become #1 on my Do Not Invite To Raids List.
If you think you are a genius, you can raid lead. Otherwise shove it, suck it up and don’t stand out as the bottom heal/dps/threat gen by enough that I have to point it out to you and we will be fine.

I do my best to not humiliate people in front of the raid, but if you’re causing wipes, you’re going to get some of my wrath until you fix the issue. If all is going as expected I am calm. I am not as mean or rude as some of my fellow RL’s in guild, but if I ask you to do something multiple times, I expect either a friggen awesome reason you are not complying or a ration explanation of why you disagree. During the raid is not the best time to argue either. There’s lots going on. If you’re not prepared to step up and take over, take a seat in the back and enjoy the ride.

Luckily his brother plays too, I hate using siblings against each other but I tried to pull him into a private channel to speak to him, he didn’t want to hear it. So I played dirty and sent his bro over to talk to him with the message “S – If I ever catch you doing 100% FoL on a boss fight again I will kick you from my raid so help me god.”
(I double checked with the brother to see if he thought I was being too rude and was basically told “no, you’ve been telling him this for a while. He’s stubborn. If you don’t get mean to him he won’t change” so i felt a little better about myself)

He flipped out on me a little and decided to talk to the “REAL pally healers” instead of me since I apparently am not a good source of information on this. The real pally healers were given a heads up and were able to explain to him that a greater spell rotation is needed on the bosses that hit extra hard. They were able to explain it so he understood ( which is something we have been trying to explain to him for WEEKS now).

I received another apology from him and apparently he was better in the Kara raid this weekend but ……………………that has been a few weeks of pain.

The worst part is, he is not the only one that needs training. I do not have the time OR the patience to do that for everyone. I am one person, I am trying to coordinate 10 people, not babysit 2.

/roar

We’ll get there. It can just be amazingly frustrating at times because there is nothing aside from a /raid kick that will get it through to people that I am serious and most of the time I don’t have enough people online to be super picky about who I bring.

I still wouldn’t give up RL’ing, I’m just trying to be a little more patient…but just a little because I have high hopes and expectations.

I’m better now. I promise.

My new pet….

It took some work but was worth the effort of raiding silvermoon, ogrimmar and Undercity’s flame… oh and almost every city in the eastern kingdoms cause that’s where the lower levels are.

It’s so cute and burney.

The best was finding a lvl 34 PVP flagged horde rogue all alone in Tanaris. How could I resist? I was on my horse, rode after him, he never saw me coming since I was behind him. 1 shadowbolt and he was done. It was beautiful.

I giggled.

There’s many things I like about warcraft and some things that just make me wonder. For example, yesterday I was working on one of those infiltration quests where they have you turn into something, you sneak up to some people and listen in on a conversation. The thing I always wonder about though is what about the pets and minions?
I mean yes it’s cool i’m a crab, but DID YOU SEE THE BIG GIANT BLUE DEMON STANDING RIGHT THERE?

Apparently not. Demons are popular in the Zoram Stand. People hunt them for fun and they just randomly show up to infiltrate conversations with giant crabs… This is normal. Really. *nods*

I personally think it would be more challenging if you had to dismiss your demon or pet to avoid detection, but then maybe that’s just me…

In PvP if you showed up with a giant blueberry on your side thats a BIG GIANT red flag LOOK! ATTACK ME! I’m a WARLOCK.

PvE NPCs apparently aren’t quite as intelligent. But then we knew that already

I’m not going to say “I told you so” but the facts speak for themselves. Obviously this was not a 1 man raid, but good healing can make or break a fight. so – ZA… certain bosses hit like MACK trucks. Try 1

wipe….. Try 2


wipe…. Try 3
Not saying that 1 person can make a raid but when your MT stays up you tend to have a much better chance of success. Amazing that a healadin can out heal a prot specced healer this time around… Now if we can just get that to stick, we will be in much better shape. *note to all whom were in the TS channel last night – he apologized to me for his outburst later in the night*

Let me start out by saying I am not a paladin. Ok, I have a level 13 pally alt but when talking about raiding this means nothing; so I am not a paladin. Anyway, while I am not a pally, a few of my good buddies in RL and in game are pallies and we have talked about pally strategies a lot…the one issue that has come up recently is pally healing.

Now T4 and below when you are suitably geared, yes you can spam Flash of Light and keep people alive. Sure. No problem.

However, progressing through the end of Kara and into ZA when certain lynx bosses hit like MACK trucks, this tactic no longer flies. No longer can the person be at half health when you start to case a greater heal because by the time you finish the person is at 3% health. No good. Those greater heals need to come in anticipation of damage (take that Healbot) instead of just barely keeping people alive.

Stats from Shade of Aran – chosen because our pally tank was healing while specced as Prot. Guess which one he was?

As documented above… FoL spam healing does not have the best stats…especially when pally #C died midway through and pally #K is specced as prot….something wrong here?

mm yes. Pally #S is going to get a talking to about Healing 201: Advanced Healing techniques for T4+ healers

So no, I am not a paladin. But i am a raid leader and I want success for my group – not wipes. So this needs to get fixed ASAP or I have to bring a different healer with me to ZA…

*so sayeth Vuur, so shall it be done.*

One of the coolest thin about our guild is not only are we laid back, we’re calm and we love getting advice from people who know more than us. Last night was a great example. My new tanking pally buddy’s first day in the guild and I know he’s pretty well geared and I find him a slot for ZA. One of my main tank’s, his alt is a warlock and he hasn’t been able to play the lock in a while because we have been stealing his pally tank instead due to lack of available tanks in the guild. He gladly swaps to his lock and as we only have about 3 tanks even geared for ZA, this is a win win situation for everyone. We whip through ZA, have a few issues here and there but the 2 locks are carrying over 1k dps and the pally tank and druid tank are doing fine.

First 2 bosses we take down pretty quickly and move to the lynx boss. Now this isn’t the super uber most amazing group the guild could have put together but its fairly string and as we are all laid back we’re fine. We’re making things work and while it may not be perfect, we’re getting the job done. My new pally tank has a few great ideas and he’s telling me all things to help us improve as we run. Its great to have a new knowledgeable voice in the guild. Sure I can help lead but I’ve dealt with most of these people for a while, I will admit to getting blinders where certain people are concerned at times. Anyway, lynx boss isn’t happening, not our night. After about 4-6 wipes ( I really lost track) we call it. Kaylok, the new tank, has some great advice especially where the pally healers are concerned. Kay and Spud and I start talking for a bit and then they go all crazy pally specific and I drop off to grab some sleep.

My biggest issue with ZA so far is no cloth drops. Plenty of plate, mail and leather…. But no warlock goodies. Guess that just means I need to be running more ZA…

Warcraft is a funny game. It’s one of the few that I have found that allows you to walk into almost any situation, drop a few key words and watch a few people’s eyes light up like Christmas trees. Example…. I recently started a new job and was out socializing with my new co-workers. After we finish dinner and drinks we decide to go out bowling. I drop the line “well I have a kara raid starting in 10 minutes but bowling sounds fun too. There’s always Kara next week.” This starts off one of the guys who has been silent all evening saying “karazhan? I’m supposed to be in a raid too soon!”

Well then you go through meeting a fellow gamer 101…

“whoa, you play too? Alliance or horde? What characters? What server?”

You know…all the important stuff. Imagine my luck when I find out the guy is a t5/6 alliance pally tank (with a healing set) and a fire mage. “yeah I’m not so sure I really like my guild…and my mage used to be on exodar..”

So of course us nerds discuss warcraft the entire night throughout bowling and in the car ride home and I’m just saying “transfer servers, we need tanks! We love tanks!” the entire night. Today we find out how persuasive I can be and if I can get the other 5 guys that play to transfer over as well..

May be needing some shadowbolting to knock people to their senses…

So when most people hear “ZA raid on Tuesday” that’s no big deal to them. Well, I must be special as I see to have unique challenges wherever I go. Today was my first day at a new job and I go out to dinner with my new boss KNOWING that ZA starts at 9pm. I’m at my hotel by 8:10 – plenty of time to get set up for 8:30 invites. Except…it’s my luck. Nothing goes as planned. The “free wireless” only has 2 bars and alternates between 3 bars and no bars of service. No biggie. I’ll hop on my cell modem….. 2-3 bars of service.

Ok. I’m not panicking. There’s an Ethernet jack in the room….no link lights…. So I cal the front desk. “call our 1-800 support line” *sigh* fine. I’m a tech nerd but I’ll play by your rules. After sitting on hold for 7 mins the brilliant tech offers this solution. “replace your Ethernet cable”. Ugh. Fine. Called the front desk. The “internet engineer”/janitor/handy man stops by to see what the trouble is. I explain my problem, there’s no link lights and I don’t have a strong enough connection for my graphics intensive business meeting in 20 mins. The hotel resets their routers. Still no service in my room. Tech stops by again, has no luck with his laptop; concludes I am not crazy. Tries to find me a new room with working Ethernet but the hotel is booked. So he offers me use of his work room or a public line in the lounge area. Well I cant play wow in the open and pretend it’s a business meeting so I choose the workroom.

While we sort out ZA and the crew that is going the janitor stops by a few times to check on me. In the middle of clearing our way to the hex lord he brings me bottled water since I have been there an hour and a half. How sweet…except my raid members are laughing hysterically at me as I’m sitting in the janitor’s work room under the stairs in my hotel with my headset on and my mouse so I can raid.

I’m also on 4 hours of sleep since I was up till midnight doing a kara run the night before and was up around 4:30am for a early flight today. Talk about raiding dedication.

I go outside to get some ice before bed, run into the housekeeping guy and he says that i’m getting a room change tomorrow to a room with working internet.

oh to be an empowered female who wants her internet….

and now it is SO time for sleep.

shadowbolts rock. they do a lot of damage and today i was critting over 7k in kara. It was very very nice. I’d write more about the fact that one of our top DPS warriors had to respec to prot and one of our healer druids was tanking….and the reson this happened was because our MT had no power and was struggling on battery backup until the battery died before maiden…but that’s just how it goes…and I need some sleep badly…
Web stats… go Vuur