I’ve been busy.

LFR has been kind of me–even while the loot gods extract their payment in simply not dropping the transmog gear I want. Woe.  At least I match. I also leveled my druid to 85 and got her to LFR level…and she is yet another healer, ladies and gentlemen.  WILD GROWTH ALL THE THINGS. We’ll see if she inherits the LFR loot luck or must flail around being That Healer in PvP Gear for awhile. I seem to be doing much better with my under geared druid than I did my priest at the same gear level–the other day I healed Well with a  full guild group where the tank was in DPS gear for giggles. In my pvp blues. What?

Anyway. Lyr. I had her transmogged into t9 but liked this set enough to strip the transmog from it–except for my helm, of course. Halo forever. I think I need a new weapon to really match it, but…well, later. I remain frustrated in my ability to play Word of Dresscraft because the loot gods are just NOT dropping my PRETTY gear.

Except for the druid, who got lucky in Ulduar and landed a lot of the transmog gear I wanted in one shot.

So…by that logic, she is probably screwed for actual gear. Fuck.

Anyway. Hi. I live. Doing LFR as much as I am, surely I’ll have blog fodder…at some point…right?

 

Coming Soon to an LFR Near You

Coming soon to a LFR near you: that mother fucking disc priest in PVP shoulders, a +hit chest (albeit reforged), and a fucking blue weapon.

Fuck yeah, baby. Lyrandre’s back in town. You know you missed me. I sure as hell missed you.

Don’t look at me like that, internet. I promise I will gem and enchant ALL THE THINGS before I hit LFR.  Even if they’re PVP and +hit things. Except maybe the weapon. I’m just going to have to replace that piece of shit.

The healing reflexes were pretty rusty when I started this project, but I think I’ve got them mostly working now. I haven’t wiped a 5 man in awhile–just that one time, when the tank and I ran in opposite directions by accident. I’m excited to get Lyrandre back into a raid situation–even just LFR–just to see how it flows.

When all else fails, retreat to what you know best.

Dear Ramparts, I Hate You

I have two alts that I am working on currently–Jamethera, my beloved  BM hunter, and Icestone, my ele/resto shaman.  Once I get tired of DPS queues I tend to flop over to Icestone for the soothing ritual of filling green bars.

Only it’s not soothing–not when I load into Ramps. I don’t know what it is about this instance, but tanks suddenly want to pull ALL THE THINGS.  And I would just like to say, Mr. 58-60 tank, that you are not a raid geared tank in a Wrath heroic. Y0u are a fucking lowbie tank. If you’re a DK you don’t even have your taunt or D&D yet half the time.  When I’m running around screaming because I have HEALING AGGRO ON SHIT, then you should maybe NOT PULL THE ENTIRE GODS BE DAMNED ROOM.

EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN TIME.

This…never seems to happen in the other instances.  I hope, since Ice melted her way to level 63 yesterday, that my time in the Ramparts of Hell is done. I pity anyone who doesn’t heal those without dripping Heirlooms.

But for everyone else…

…how about pulling one pack at a time, eh?

Picking Hard Modes

For one reason or another, you’re now looking at doing hard modes.  The hard part, of course, is in picking which to try! 

I haven’t tried them all yet to say, but to steal from Rhidach’s Twitter, his ranking is as follows:

Gunship > Marrow > Rotface > BQL > Dreamwalker > Festergut > Saurfang > Princes > LDW

You wanna know something though?  The second HM we did in SiB, after Lootship…was LDW.  Chew on that for a moment.  The real answer when it comes to picking hard modes, although this is not the answer you want to hear, is: it depends. 

I’ve done my best to compile a list with notes on what makes each heroic mode hard, so that you can adjust at will: if you don’t have your ace healers or a strange, raid healing light raid comp, you know to skip BQL, etc.  Now I havent’ done all of these myself and don’t have notes for all of them yet either, so feel free to comment and toss your own experiences out there so I can update this.

<3

Gunship: is full of lulz and should be doable by just about anyone.

Marrowgar: Can demand some tricky positioning work on behalf of the tanks.  Healers and DPS need to be more alert for boned targets during bone storm, but I don’t remember it being an especial strain.  It’s definitely more about getting everyone to stand in the right spot.

BQL: Is healing intensive, but aside from that, not overly difficult in my opinion.  Good for new tanks because you just slot them in as OT and tell them to go play Tetris.

Rotface: We’ve only tried one night, and we struggled in part due to a newish tank (and my love for hugging slimes?).  I’d say it’s a lot of situational awareness and the slime tank keeping the booger where it needs to be.

LDW: Awaremess, awareness, awareness.  New tanks should avoid tanking the adds.   Your CCing DPS needs to be on the ball for MC’d targets.

Putricide: DPS, DPS, DPS.  I’d say positioning, too, just going from the normal fight.

Saurfang: Tank heals need to be solid (I hear holy pally is the favorite for this), and your ranged needs to be good at handling the adds.

Fester: high DPS and “a pulse” according to one lovely Twitter comment.  XD

Princes: no concrete answers on this one yet, but if awareness isn’t up there I don’t know what would be.

Dreamwalker: ?

Flowchart Friday: Basic Raiding Strats

Brought to you by doing some Ulduar hardmodes, noting that the dps have approximately a billionty things that they have to do in every fight, while I go “HAHA, WHATEVER” and stand in the corner healing.