Care and Feeding of Healers
Posted on August 27, 2008 - Filed Under Healing, silly
Congratulations! You are now the proud raid leader of a group of people, some of whom are very likely healers! Some of these healers are probably priests, while others may be paladins, shamans, and druids.
It’s very important to care for your healers properly, as burnout and irritation may cause them to lose interest in raiding, wither, have attention problems, pick up strange diseases like “altitis” and “real life”, and potentially, in extreme cases, disappear altogether. Supplying them with tasty food and a comfortable environment are the two best ways to care for your newly acquired healers.
Remember, though, that each healer will have his or her own preferences for food. Some healers like blackened sporefish, while others prefer golden fish sticks. Still others, usually of the paladin persuasion, prefer the much more expensive Skullfish Soup. If you are the caretaker of a large group of paladins, you may want to reserve the more rare Skullfish Soup for treats and special occasions, providing the more readily available sporefish and fish sticks for everyday raid food.
Generally, it’s best to feed your healers on a steady diet of any of the above fish species - the fish is good for them, being high in protein and low in fat, and supports a strong constitution for resistance against wipes, people with addons calling out for healing, and rogues that pull aggro*.
The high concentration of healthful fatty acids, like omega-3, found in fish oils are especially good for shaman healers, who use the oils to help keep their friends heart-healthy and foot-light, especially over water and when swimming. All healers benefit from these fish oils though, as it helps to prevent heart attacks and high blood pressure caused by tanks who are not yet uncrushable*.
Should one of your healers seem to be having problems with near death experiences, you may wish to provide them with some Spicy Crawdads or perhaps a Fisherman’s Feast. Both of these tasty seafood delights have good effects on healer survivability.
Remember always to get your fish from a sustainable and reputable source. Though not possible for all raids, fishing these tasty morsels up yourselves is both practical and environmentally friendly. It provides an opportunity for socialization and team-building, as well as taking away some of the market for the mass-fishing operations (or worse, fish farms) usually sold in auction houses and various trading venues.
These mass fishing operations are prone to high levels of undesirable metals which, if consumed over an extended period of time, may cause healing performance to decrease*. Overfishing by these operations is also detrimental to the natural environments of these fish, and they often have sat in the storehouses for longer than is optimal for consumption. Fresh fish is best!
We here at the Too Many Annas healer care department hope that you find nothing but raiding success, good LootFu, and strong, competent healers through good care and conscientious leadership.
*these statements not confirmed by the Azerothian Food and Drug Administration; No healthcare regimens should be undertaken without the care of a properly trained dietary specialist or physician.
Resto Shaman vs Rage Winterchill - A Healing Guide
Posted on August 27, 2008 - Filed Under Healing, Raid, Shaman
This is one in a series of posts covering resto-shaman-specific information for tier4 and tier5 Burning Crusade boss fights. It will NOT be a boss kill strategy, rather a list of tips and tricks for your friendly neighborhood shaman to make these fights run a little more smoothly.
Previous guides for Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, SSC, and TK: The Eye can be found here.
Welcome to Mount Hyjal - where the bosses are bad and the trash is… different. Your raid has likely killed 3/4 and 5/6 in tier 5 - possibly even downed Kael and Vashj as well. Likely, Rage Winterchill will be your first steps into tier 6 content.
Winterchill is a Lich - a powerful undead sorcerer corrupted from a previously living body - often a necromancer. This fight will be as much about learning to manage the trash as it will be about actually working on the boss, so be prepared to be patient.
Winterchill Basics
- First - a moment about the trash. All of the trash in Hyjal is done gauntlet style. You have between 90 seconds and 3 minutes (depending on the wave) to complete each of 8 waves before each boss. The waves of trash get harder as you get closer to the boss, and as you progress deeper into Hyjal. If you wipe on the trash OR the boss, you start the entire event over again. (The only exception to this is Archimonde, who has no trash, and therefore resets like any other boss)
- As soon as you kill the last mob in wave 8, the boss will spawn.
- The Winterchill fight has only one phase - it will be consistent from beginning to end.
- Rage has a 10 minute enrage timer - this fight is technically a DPS race - can you kill him before he picks off too many of your raid members to go on?
- As expected for a powerful sorcerer, his melee attacks aren’t too scary ( around 3K on plate), but his spell attacks are NASTY
- There are two major attacks that you’ll need to watch out for:
- Icebolt - instant cast on a random target, hits for 5K or more, and has a freeze debuff that ticks at 2500 damage per second for 4 seconds. This. Thing. Hurts. Healers with a fast cast time spell (paladin flash of light, priest flash heal, shaman lesser healing wave) will be assigned to target Winterchill and watch who HE’s targeting like a hawk. Just before he icebolts, he’ll briefly target the player intended for the spell, and the bolt-healers will then spam quick heals on that player.
- Death and Decay - 10 second, 20 yard AOE centered on a random raid member. It deals 15% of max health as damage every second to any player in range. Yes - that means 150% of max health over 10 seconds. If you stand in it, YOU WILL DIE. It looks like little patches of faint red mist on the ground (you may have to turn spell effects/distance up to see it). Because of this ability, the raid must be spread out to minimize the number of people affected by Death and Decay at any time.
- He also does a frost nova that will hit melee. It’s pretty trivial.
Group Considerations: Nothing special on this one. Go with your standard group - but be aware of totem range. Hyjal is a BIG place, and Death and Decay means people will be scrambling.
totems, Totems, TOTEMS!: a Frost Resistance totem is nice to help with the Icebolt damage, otherwise, whatever is appropriate for your group
Earthshield: The tank.
Heroism/Bloodlust?: Either when called for or at 25(ish)%. There is some validity to using heroism early on in this fight, if your raid has a tendency to lose people to Icebolts and your tank doesn’t have a TPS problem.
Don’t stand in the: Death and Decay. Really. Don’t stand in it. It can be hard to see, so watch out for it (raid warnings are good!). If you see it, don’t finish casting. Don’t drop a totem. Pick up your shiny blue arse (or your brown/green one, if you’re a horde sort) and MOVE.
Shaman Friendly or Unfriendly: I’m going to go with unfriendly on this one. Lesser Healing Wave is mana intensive and not very healing efficient, making it the least good choice for an icebolt healer - but shamans also often start having some haste gear around this time (through gems and Z’A gear), which can help your LHW be the first heal to hit an icebolted person. Chain heal is nice for taking care of frost-nova’d melee, but that’s not going to be a big issue. Because of Death and Decay, you’ll have a hard time keeping everyone in your group in range of the totems, and you’ll have a hard time using chain heal effectively.
Fortunately, he drops some tasty mail healing bracers. Woo!
Other stuff:
- This boss, like the other bosses in Hyjal (except Archimonde) is linked to the trash. If you wipe on the boss, you get to do the trash again.
- If you die on the trash waves, and it’s earlier than wave 6, you can run back from the graveyard and save some healer-mana in between pulls.
- Be very careful with healing aggro before your AOE tank has a chance to really nail down the mobs. If you drop a big chain heal that hits three people, you may have an abomination in your face.
- If you have a PVP trinket, it WILL remove the Icebolt debuff, as will a paladin bubble.
- Watch for Death and Decay on the melee - he will do it, and chain heal is really nice for keeping them alive until it goes away.
- Winterchill also drops the Time-Phased Phylactery, a quest item in the Black Temple Attunement chain, which you should do, even if you don’t need the attunement, for the Medallion of Karabor - Shadow Resistance is VERRA NICE in some of the later Hyjal fights, and absolutely *essential* in Black Temple.
Why I love Lore
Posted on August 26, 2008 - Filed Under Alts, RP
So sparked by yesterdays comments, I’ve rerolled my warrior (who was previously a Draenei) as a little brown haired, green eyed gnome named Annie Mae Spursparkle.
Krizzly, from Frost is the New Black, has been helping me with gnome lore and is the “character concept” that started little Annie Mae as well. He’s got an excellent post about general Gnomish Lore today, and we’ve been having a discussion in the comments about gnomes, trying to iron out some of those pesky details for Annie Mae’s backstory.
One of the toughest things about Warcraft Lore is the timeline. Unfortunately, most of the dates are “approximations” - which isn’t such a problem if characters don’t know their exact ages, but can be both fun and frustrating for those of us creating characters to fit within the timeline appropriately. (That timeline is why Aelflaed is older than Annalira, and why Angoleth is a *really* old elf, for example)
Anyway - here’s a bit from our comment discussion - which highlights some of the things about WoW Lore that I really enjoy. It brings out the historian in me, and provides a really fun jumping-off-point for characters (particularly when done with a friend!)
Krizzly Responded:
Backstory (really brief) - Anni was born Annilee wheatsprinkle, named after her dad who designed mechanical harvesters for the farmers in Westfall. She grew up spending her summers on a westfall farm of one of her dad’s clients, playing “cowboys and bandits” with the human children. She was so enthralled by the experience that she even brought that personna back home.
After the invasion of gnomeregan, Annilee and her family emigrated to Ironforge, where Anni is now of age, and has taken up the art of the Warrior/Rogue, and renamed herself Anni Spursparkle, in hopes that one day she will not only take back Westfall from the Defias, but also go on adventures that she once dreamed of while playing “cowboys” with the farmchildren.
And then I later added some refining of the actual timeline, depending on when (exactly) the exodus of Gnomeregan actually happened in relation to now, which is about WoW 30. (She also became Annie Mae, when all variations of Annilee and Annibeth were already taken)
Assuming the Gnomeregan exodus happens in the Third War - when the Gnomes mysteriously disappeared from the Alliance forces against the Burning Legion…
That means, if the 3rd war was WoW 20-21 (Reign of Chaos/Frozen Throne), they could easily have already been working for Westfall Farmers - particularly if her parents were part of the Alliance engineers in the 2nd war, and retired to a “less chaotic” life, putting them far away from Gnomeregan at its irradiation and keeping them out of the 3rd war entirely as they helped to rebuild the area around Stormwind.
Westfall lay in waste after the 2nd war, so a contingent of farmers (and engineers perhaps?) have tried to reclaim it after the destruction of the Orcs - even in the face of the Defias.
Given the lifespan of gnomes (200ish years, on average), Annie Mae is probably somewhere between 25 and 30 years old - big enough to be on her own, but still a young’un to most (and young enough to be born after the 2nd war, in WoW 5-6). She’s decided not to bother going all the way up to Ironforge - a place she’s really only been once or twice - and is training in Northshire Abbey right now, since that’s where all her friends went anyway.
The Defias give her a pretty good reason to be learning how to be a warrior - given that between them and the bonkers harvest golems, “Westfall ain’t such a nice place no more, if’n yes know what I mean.” That, and she *really* wants her own horse. Which means she’s got to make “them stiffs up in Stormwind think she’s all-right folk”.
Somehow I think, when this is all said and done, she’ll end up with a Paint Horse. Just seems to fit. She’s not told me what kind of non-combat pet she wants though.
Back in the saddle again
Posted on August 25, 2008 - Filed Under Random
So, after what has essentially been two weeks of wow vacation (I showed up for the raid last Thursday, and that’s been the entirety of my logged-in time for two weeks), I’m looking forward to getting back to my “normal” schedule again.
My usual game time is Tuesday through Saturday evenings for a few hours (more for raids, less if I’m just taking care of other things), but some weeks I see less of my characters than others. Hopefully now that school is starting back up, the “summer slump” that everyone has been seeing will get ironed out again, and TRI can iron out the lumps and really get some time in Black Temple. Oh - and we need to off that Archimonde guy.
*guilty look* I’ve also been playing some of Diablo II again - I’d forgotten how much fun it is (and how much less thought it takes than being a healer!). My little Amazon is pewpewing her way around Act II right now, and I’m having a blast.
So what does this mean for Too Many Annas? Probably not too much - but it does promise a return of the Resto Shaman vs. ?? posts, now that I’ve seen Kael’thas, 4/5 Hyjal, and some of Black Temple! Hooray! I don’t feel comfortable writing up a guide to a boss that I’m not comfortable fighting, but I think we’ve covered enough ground, enough times by now.
So what’s on my list right now?
- Still don’t have a flying mount for Annalira
- Still don’t have Aelflaed’s SSO rep up for her alchemy trinket
- Still have a level 42 feral druid
- Still need to get Annorah’s engineering to 375 (at 365ish right now)
And I think that should keep me busy enough for now. If not, I have a level 10 warrior (Aneela) that I’ve really neglected, not to mention all the other alts!
*Regarding the title - I’ve always wanted to create a “cowgirl” character in game, but haven’t yet figured out how to do it. Perhaps a human warrior? Weilds an axe, rides a horse, and carries a big gun? Dunno - but it’d be fun. Aneela’s tiny enough that she could be rerolled as such, but I kinda like the Draenei as well. Which would mean deleting one of my other characters, or rolling on another server. Any advice?
*image courtesy of Mark Miller
Friday Five - RP Style
Posted on August 22, 2008 - Filed Under RP
So some of you have expressed interest in RP but aren’t sure how to get started. It’s a common problem (and one I still struggle with frequently in game) In that light, for a few Fridays I’ll be posting question sets, similar to the Friday Five of blogging fame. Some of these will intentionally be silly, others thought provoking.
The idea is to pick a character (or one of your characters) and see how they would answer the questions. Let your imagination go, and let the characters talk for themselves sometimes too.
Feel free to comment your answers (or turn them into a blog post of your own!). If you’re unsure of some of the logistics - I highly suggest starting with www.wowwiki.com - you’ll be surprised how much AWESOME lore there is to be found. (And no, not all questions will require any kind of lore-related background). Don’t get too hung up on the details - these are for thinking, and there are no wrong answers!
Anywho! On to the Friday Five!
-
- What is your character’s name?
- Why did he/she pick his/her class?
- What’s the worst trouble he/she ever got into as a child?
- What is his/her favorite thing to eat?
- What does he/she have in his/her pockets?
(These can be answered in first or third person, depending on your preference)
And - since it’s only fair to ask these kinds of questions if you’re going to answer them…
- Annorah, granted the title of Farseer
- It picked her, more than she picked it. Annorah had very little tie to the Light before the destruction of Shattrath, but - once the Elements began speaking to Nobundo - she found his teachings relatively easy to follow. She’s been “claimed” particularly by the element Fire.
- With her several-years older brother (who fortunately was the one to get them OUT of said trouble). He dared her that she couldn’t go with him out into a forest of some kind, and she - not being one to be cowed and wanting to seem as brave as her brother - took him up on it. They ended up lost for just over a full day, and though they were in no real danger (and had enough sense and fishing skill to rummage up dinner), the consequences on returning home were… less than desirable.
- Dragonbreath Chili. The hotter, the better. Spicy Hot Talbuk is good too. She actually carries hot spices to dip her Golden Fishsticks in.
- Fel Iron Bolts, spare change, assorted items that remind her of various times, and a small set of polished, black divining stones.
In Which Annorah Steps On Her Soapbox
Posted on August 21, 2008 - Filed Under Peeves, Shaman
Gentle Readers :
It’s Draenei. D-R-A-E-N-E-I.
Three consonants. Four vowels. I realize that this word is an unusual one, as your language does not usually have dipthongs (combinations of vowels) like that. We have, however, been in major areas of Azeroth for at least 18 months now; I do not expect immediate understanding of our language, but spelling the name of my people properly would be nice, at least after all this time.
My thanks for your courtesy,
Annorah, Farseer
If you’re curious as to how it’s supposed to be pronounced, find a Draenei female and ask her to run through her /silly emotes. At some point, she’ll say “Single Draenei Female seeks blacksmith with grinding wheel to take care of me - and my gorgeous hooves.” (for the curious and impatient, it’s DRAHN-eye)
ALSO! (And some of you may be seeing this for a second time, as I did post it over on Plus Heal, so my apologies, but it’s come up!)
The Plural of Shaman is…. SHAMANS
You can look it up in a dictionary or an encyclopedia. It’s not shamen, or shaman (like the singular - kind of like moose is both singular and plural), or shamens.
Why?
The word “Shaman” is a native word from a Siberian language. It got brought in whole to English, and thus gets just an “s” on the end to make it plural like any other normal noun. Because it’s not an English compound created from two other English words, it’s not “shamen” (like man - men).
According to WoWwiki, Blizzard uses both the form “shamans” and the form “shaman” for the plural (so technically both would be OK when in game), but to truly be correct, it’s shamans.
The diminutive form “Shammy/Shammies” originated outside of Warcraft and was, in the first releases of World of Warcraft, derogatory due to issues with class balance. Now, in the more balanced world, many shamans have accepted the term simply as a more playful or lighthearted title for the class.
So stand proud, shamans, and accept no misspellings!
(AND NOW YOU KNOW!)
**Also, the proper term for a female shaman is “Shamanka” not “Shamaness” - but I’m not going to push for that one. Even if it is possibly the coolest title EVER.
**Also, also - Today is Spaceship Husband’s birthday! Whee!
I’m Back!
Posted on August 20, 2008 - Filed Under RP, Reality
I had a nice, mostly relaxing vacation, and I didn’t get too badly eaten by mosquitoes. Also - I dunno what you guys were up to this weekend, but 543 unread posts in my feed reader? Good grief.
So apologies to anyone that posted something awesome, amazing, interesting, or shaman-tastic - I may not get to read it until tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe
See - I have houseguests coming this weekend too. Did I mention that?
*Edited to Add - In July I had to bump up my hosting plan, since I finally maxed out my monthly bandwith. Sometime over this weekend I hit 25,000 hits and 50,000 pageviews since I started tracking stats in March. Hooray! <offers the blog a birthday cupcake>
*mutters* Poncy Git
Posted on August 15, 2008 - Filed Under Raid
didn’t drop my cloak.
… but he *died*. he died an hour early. and there were FOUR fire elementals up on death. They were very confused.
One. Dead. Bloodelf. Prince.
I love to play WoW
Posted on August 15, 2008 - Filed Under silly
(( To the tune of I Love the Whole World ))
I love the warlocks, they love to dot and kite,
I love the paladins, they always fight for right,
I love to play WoW, with all the epic fights,
Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada,
Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada.
I love the hunters, with all their pets and traps,
I love the sneaky rogues, who love to stealth and sap,
I love to play WoW, with all the crazy crap.
Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada,
Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada.
I love to gank n00bs, I love the battlegrounds,
I love to do quests, with all the running around,
I love to play WoW, with all its sights and sounds,
Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada,
Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada.
*This bit of lighthearted fun is brought to you by gnome rogue Ginnee, who posted it on the TRI forums. Happy Friday!
**TRI is taking on Kael’thas tonight. All TK, All Night. Unless we kill him. If you have any spare Boss Fu to send, we’d appreciate it. Poncy Git…
***Anna and Spaceship Husband are going out of town for the weekend to visit with family and laze around at her parent’s pool. Normal posting will return next Wednesday.
U kiil?
Posted on August 14, 2008 - Filed Under Peeves
Reading Nasirah’s post yesterday over on Alt’s Ahoy, I was reminded of a conversation I had in Theramore while Annylais was questing…
Person invites you to a group. Accept/Decline?
/who person
[Person] <large guild> level 17 night elf hunter
[Decline]
Hunter invites you to a group. Accept/Decline?
[Decline]
Hunter Whispers: u help me?
Annylais: with what?
Hunter: come
Annylais: no. what do you want?
Hunter: u help me?
Annylais: help you with what?
Hunter: kiiil
Annylais: … no. you’re level 17, everything here is too big for you
Hunter: i no u kiil.
The best part was, there were 12-15 people in his guild online at the time, ranging in levels from 13 to a few 70’s in Shattrath. I’m not sure if he was kidding, new, very young, or just didn’t speak English, but I’ve wondered if I shouldn’t have asked his guild leader about him. Either way, I don’t remember him or his guild now, and it’s too late. I did at least tell him to go to Darkshore or Westfall where he’d be able to kill things by himself before I put him on ignore.
keep looking »
