Finally a random as it should be.

I had a random dungeon yesterday that was simply amazing in every way.  I finished 3rd in DPS and I loved it.  I seriously hate being in a random where I know that everything falls on my shoulders.  It was nice to see others that are capable of pulling their weight.

I zone in and see a tank and a healer from the same guild.  Both, barely geared.  I see two other DPS that make me look like I am still in quest greens.  Everything they have is raid gear already.  They are from different servers.

I am sure the tank and the healer looked at 3 DPS that where from three different servers and worried at first.  As I said, they were both barely geared.  This run however proved what I have been saying.  The tank and the healer are not nearly as important as having good DPS when it comes to Cataclysm heroics.

I did 13K and finished 3rd in DPS.  A Warrior was second with 15K and a Mage was first with 18K.  Makes me wonder how a Mage the day earlier could not get past 3500 and this one could do 18K.  Proof that skill makes more of a difference then gear and this Mage had the skills and the gear.

The tank marked.  I trapped, the mage sheeped, we all mowed down mobs in record time and kept moving along.  The barely geared healer could have just put the tank on follow.  Nothing lived long enough to hurt anyone and on the few times that someone took damage it was not sustained damage.  It was damage for a few seconds before the offending mob was dead.

I said before and many times that good DPS is more important then a tank or a healer and this was proof of that.  We all did huge numbers, we all avoided avoidable damage, we all knew what to do and when to do it.  This made the life of the healer easy and the life of the tank easy.  Being the tank marked, we all killed in order which meant that even in his lesser gear he never had a threat problem either.

I wish every run was like this.  While some people would be completely butt hurt knowing they got destroyed in DPS in a run I loved it.  I wish every run was like this.  If I can sit back and relax and not have to stress that I need to do everything it makes for an enjoyable run for me.   I hate that sometimes running my daily heroic is stressful and not enjoyable.

If I can have fun at the game again I would not mind being 3rd in DPS in every run I ever do.  This run proved another thing.  It is the people that have ruined the fun in the game, not Blizzard.  The average player base is so horrible that doing runs is like pulling teeth.  When you get the rare, and I mean really rare, group that can do their job and do it correctly, then dungeons can still be short, fun and effective.

There is absolutely no fun in wiping over and over with a group of idiots that just do not understand a mechanic and probably never will.

There is absolutely no fun in being the only DPS that can actually pull more damage then a level 50 Mage in an 85 heroic.

There is basically no fun to be had in heroics in the game now, with the exception of this one run.  This rare run.  This once in a lifetime run.  I've run so many heroics I can not even count and this is the first one ever since Cataclysm came out where I can say it did not feel like I was working.

I play for fun and I hate that doing my daily dungeon feels like work.  I wish I could get this same group every single day.  They make me want to try and step up my game too.  When you are around good players they make you play better.

I am sure that tank and healer were in heaven.  I could only imagine what they where talking about during that run.  They, like me, are probably used to groups where getting 1 good DPS is about the best you can hope for. 

Your average DPS build in a heroic is one good player, one barely competent player and one barely functional player.  This group was something special.  You rarely hear anything good coming from the LFD system so this is one of those ever so rare runs to talk about.

The reason for that is that the bad ones tend to stand out, they linger with you.  Good ones are just good.  They fade into the distance as soon as they are done and end up forgotten about.  Exceptional ones like that, they are rare, so very rare, that they need to be mentioned because finding one of these is basically equivalent to finding the Holy Grail.

I'd be willing to bet that if I asked 1000 people if they ever had a run like this 1000 would say I was full of crap.  Runs like this do not exist.  Trust me when I say, they do.  I just wish they where more commonplace.

Now, to work on my DPS.  There is no way I should ever be beat by a warrior and a mage.  I am a Hunter, there is no reason I should ever get beat by anyone.  That is just wrong.  Time to step up my game some.  I love that someone has finally pushed me to want to get better. 

I had become complacent with where I was.  I had become bored with even trying to get better.  It seemed there was no need to when I was always 50% of the DPS in heroics.  They taught me that I can do better.

Awesome, I have something to aim for again.  I have a purpose in the game again.  Is it possible that there might be a glimpse of a chance that this game is not as horrible as the expansion has made it feel.  Nah, this expansion still sucks, but at least for one day I actually had fun playing again. 

You do know what this means however right?  I am destine to have a horrible run today.  Have to get back to normal.  One day I was blessed.  It will not happen two days in a row.

Healer Dragnet

"This is the world of Azeroth, there are over 12 million people here, when someone gets hurt they call upon me, I work here, I heal people"
(Dum-de-dum-dum)

"It was Saturday, January 15th, 4:55 PM... I was healing the dungeon out in Uldum called Halls of Origination, here is the story..."

Me: Move out of the purple stuff.
DPS: I am not in purple stuff.

DPS dies

DPS: WTF?  Why did I die?
Me: Because you where standing in the purple stuff.
DPS: Why didn't you heal me?
Me: I did, enough so you could get out.  You did not get out, I stopped healing you.
DPS: So you let me die.
Me: I was not going oom to keep you alive when you could have moved.

Later

Me: Move out of the purple stuff.
DPS: I am not in purple stuff.

DPS dies.

DPS: WTF? Why do you keep letting me die.
Me: Because you refuse to move.  I am not wasting mana on you.
DPS: But I was not standing in anything.
Tank: Yes you where.  Maybe you need to adjust your video settings.
DPS:  If I turn them up I lag.
Me:  Then you have three options.
Me: 1) Turn them up and lag but live.
Me: 2) Notice that you are taking damage and move knowing that there must be something under you that you can not see.
Me: 3) Stay there and die.

Later

DPS: I am lagging like crazy.

DPS dies

DPS: WTF?  You let me die again.
Me: You where standing in fire.
DPS: I know, but I am lagging and could not move fast enough.
Me: I do not care if you have an excuse for standing in the fire.  I am still not going to heal you if you do not move.

Later

DPS dies

DPS: You know, you can just heal me through it.
Me: You know, you could just move.
Tank: lol
Other DPS: lol
Third DPS: lol

"This is my world, the world of Azeroth.  Sometimes I get called in to heal and there is someone that I cannot heal.  When my job cannot get done because of that someone I turn the offending party over to a higher power."

"The DPS was turned over to Stormwind County Detention awaiting arraignment on charges of complete ineptitude.  A maximum sentence for which is up to six party kicks, high repair bills and a lack of healing from many other healers if found guilty."

I guess I was wrong about LFD.

Yesterday I did my random dungeon and got a guild group of four people.  Sometimes that is a good thing.  Four people together in a guild could very well mean they are on vent and someone knows what they are doing and is explaining it to everyone else.  Guild runs are sometimes the smoothest even if you might hear a lot of horror stories about it.

While it is true that most of the time if anything goes wrong you will be blamed for it sometimes it is impossible to blame you.  Usually if there are four people and they seek a tank or healer the tank or healer is the one that takes the blame.  If you are a DPS it is much different.  As long as your DPS does not suck, you know how to interrupt, know the mechanics and stay out of the painful stuff that can be avoided you will never get blamed for anything. Well, you still will anyway.  No one ever admits they are wrong.

This isn't about that however.  It has nothing to do with blame.  It has to do with what I wrote yesterday about looking for 8K DPS to make heroics nice and smooth.  The run I had yesterday was nice and smooth for the most part.  Only one wipe and the tank apologized because he knew it was his fault.

I got Stonecore as my random.  Stonecore and Grim Bartol are the two randoms I cringe when I get them.  No matter how geared people get, no matter how well they know the fights, these two still seem to beat the level living crap out of randoms.  Sure, they get done, but usually not without 4 or 5 wipes.

I was a little off on my DPS.  For some odd reason I was having a hell of a hard time keeping my DPS respectable.  I was 10K most of the time and that is about 2K under my average.  Maybe it was because I am doing all the work?  If anything I should have been higher then.

See, we had a DK tank that was doing 6K which is awesome from a tank.  That is the tank number that is considered great.  The Enhancement Shaman was doing 5K, which is really bad but compared to the Mage that was doing an amazing 3500 it was awesome.

After the first boss I was a little worried.  But in a way it worked out.  I did not have to worry about the shard adds.  The Mage took them out.  Awesome, more boss time for me and that is where I excel.  When you have to have a Hunter as the only person downing the shards you are in trouble most of the time.  I've learned to over stock focus so I can get two multi shots off on the shards.  It lowers my boss DPS for sure, but most groups I am in I can not trust people to switch so, as always, I have to do everything myself.

In the end, if that was the reason the Mage was so low, I can accept that.  It allowed me to do more boss DPS so I did about 3K more on that fight then I normally would when I have to conserve focus for the shards.  That made up for some of his lower DPS.  The Shaman, well, they had no excuse.  I did the same instance on my Shaman yesterday and did 6K DPS and I am not even heroic geared yet.  So a heroic geared Shaman has no excuse for 5K.

The group had no problem on trash groups.  They mowed them down like pros.  Lots of CC.  Lots of on target hitting.  It moved along nice and quick.  Next boss came up and I figured this is where the Mage would shine.  They can attack the Dragon the whole time whereas melee can't.

We down the boss and the Mage once again sits at 3500.  The Shaman once again a little over 5K.  The tank once again around 6K which is pretty nice knowing that they can't always attack.  The Mage died half way through.  The Shaman died at the beginning and reincarnated.  I did what it is I do.  I murdered the sucker.  This is a fight build for any ranged class.  Did only 13K because of the wait time a few times for hiding.  Otherwise I am sure 15K would have been a breeze.  I was double the damage done of the other 2 DPS combined.  Sad.  But amazing.  We have two DPS doing what 1 DPS should be doing and we are still downing bosses.

The rock guy might prove to be interesting if I did not play the role of the boy scout and always be prepared.  I walk around with stacks of sulfron slammer should I ever get Stonecore as a random.  So I never took paralyze damage even once, every Hunter worth their name should do the same or they are just a slacker. 

We where doing well, even the Mage was up to 4K, when the tank accidentally turned the boss and it surprised us taking me, the healer and the mage out.  The Shaman and the DK tried but there was nothing they could do after we where gone.  The boss did not have much life left but the damage was just not there.  Maybe if I were there doing my 15K on that boss instead of the Shaman doing his 5K it would have been easier.

We go back, we get it done.  Again, Mage in the 3500 area and Shaman in the 5K area.  Last boss, apparently no one cares that the adds are going for the healer so I have to split time between the boss and saving the healer over and over, when it is much easier for a Shaman or a Mage to begin with. Sucks for me with focus and being a Hunters only AoE is Multi and it takes forever to regain focus to do another one.  This meant I was kiting about 25 mobs around while waiting for more focus to do something.  The boss went down, I did a lame 11K but the Shaman stepped it up, they had a whole 5800 that time around.  The Mage was still sitting at 3500.

I wrote yesterday that you need 8K to do heroics.  I apparently was wrong.  As long as your DPS, even if the suck at DPS, can get out of the bad stuff and the healer is really skilled as to not wasting mana, then fights going on longer can still be done with one really big DPS player in the group.  However, I stand by what I said.  8K does make things easier for sure..  I am amazed that we did the dungeon is just over an hour and with only one wipe.  I am even more amazed that things went down with such pitiful DPS.

What bugs me however is that when you look at the end results I did nearly 50% of the damage and not once did I get a thank you for dealing with what on the surface was a completely subpar group.  At the end when I said thanks for the group not one of them said thanks back.  I was not looking for them to say, hey, thanks for carrying our crappy DPS players, I was at least looking for a thanks for coming.

When I do guild runs and we pull one person in we always, all four of us, say thanks for coming at the end of a run.  We are respectful people, that is what makes my guild good in my opinion.  We are not jerks like most people that play the game and I have no tolerance for people like that.  It takes no time to say thanks for the run at the end of a run. 

I can't believe it was done, but as it seems we did that dungeon with 2 DPS because the Shaman and the Mage added together made for what should have been the output of 1 DPS.  So I was wrong, 8K is not needed.  But it sure as hell is appreciated.  I hate being in a group knowing that if I die it will be a wipe because the DPS will never get the boss down.  Who says the tank and the healer are the only important people in a group?  There is proof that the DPS is just as important or in this case, more important.  Without me, they would have never made it past the first boss.

How can you enter an 85 heroic doing less DPS then you could in an 80 heroic the day you hit 80?  I still do not get it.

Expected DPS?

Do you have an expected DPS you enter heroics with?

I remember when I first hit 80 I did not even consider entering a heroic until I could do an acceptable DPS.  I did lots of research online and saw most people say that if you could do 1000-1200 DPS it was acceptable but 1500 was considered good.  It would make the bosses easier.

With that in mind I tried to make sure I could do as close to 1500 DPS before I ever even considered entering a heroic.  My first one I pulled 1400 DPS and was second behind another hunter that was rocking it with 2200 DPS.  I always kept that number in mind.

Even later in the expansion where you could easily pull 8K without trying, if someone was doing at least 1500 I considered they where doing fine.  In truth, they did not really need to do more.  1500 was the good number from when I started them so it was a good number now. 

Later in the expansion I would hear people say that if you did not pull at least 5K in a heroic you suck and should be kicked.  Excuse me?  Why?  All that is needed to do it is 1500.

Now with the Cataclysm heroics I see numbers thrown around all the time and we each have our own I am sure.  Personally I consider 8K to be the 1500 of this expansion.

If you can do 8K in a heroic you are doing fine. 7K would not be horrible but could be better, like the 1200 of before.  That is how I see it at least.

I do not do heroics on my Rogue because I suck at being a Rogue really.  I can pull 7K single target with ideal situations.  I still would not touch a heroic unless it was a premade and you knew beforehand that I suck.

Just like back then, I wanted to make sure I could do 1500 before I entered a heroic I would have to make sure I could do 8K in a heroic on any character I go in with now.  And no.  I do not consider "ideal situations" to be your DPS.  That just means what you can top out at.  If you can do 8K on any boss, even the ones that suck for your class, then you are heroic ready I say.

Am I the only one that keeps these numbers in the back of their heads?

I had a heroic yesterday where a boomkin did 2500 on a boss attempt.  We wiped but I figured it was just a bad start for him.  Next attempt, we wiped again and the boomkin had done 2200 DPS.  He died early on that one however.  I saw that.  He was standing right next to me and when we had to move, you know, from damage under your feet, I moved and he didn't so he just died.

To me, that right there was a reason to now inspect.  Not only was his DPS dreadful but he could not move from stuff.  He was wearing a mixup of gear.  Some spirit gear (not horrible really) and some agility gear (for a boomkin?) with attack power enchants and stamina enchants.  What?

I kicked his feathers faster then you could count to three.  I do not mind low DPS.  I can compensate for some of it.  I do not mind ungemmed or unenchanted gear.  Some people are just starting to gear up.  That is why they are in heroics.  I can accept that.  But the wrong gear?  With the wrong enchants?  And only 2K DPS?  Kick time.

I don't bring my Rogue into heroics because my Rogue is not heroic ready and I am not talking item level here.   Sure, I can get him into one but I will not be doing the best I could do.  I would not put myself out there unless I knew (or felt) I could succeed.

I know with the LFD system you will get grouped with a bunch of people you will most likely never see again and therefore your accountability is not held up like it used to be.  Back in the day your entire server would end up knowing you suck and it would require a name change and/or a server change to ever get invited to anything ever again.

Even with knowing that there is no accountability any more where is the self worth?  I would never enter a heroic unless I knew I would be an asset to the team..  I do not care if I never see any of these people ever again.  I am not doing my best for them.  I am doing my best for me.  When I play I want to play the best that I can play.  I might never be one of the best players in the game but there is something I can achieve and that is to be the best that I can be. 

I would feel like crap if I walked into a heroic and did 2K DPS.  I would drop group and apologize for wasting their time.  I would be embarrassed even knowing I would never see these people again.

I can not tell you the number of runs I have been in where I was the only person over 8K.  8K is the new 1500.  It is not required but it does make it easier.  Easier is nice.  We all like easier right?  In the average runs I do each week 4/7 I am the only one over 8K, 2/7 I am one of two that is over and only 1/7 are all three over 8K and that is usually the one time I go in guild with all three being guild DPS.

Are there really that many bad players out there?
Have I set the bar to high?

The worst part of it is some of my very own guild mates are pulling those subpar numbers.  Some ask, want to do a heroic, and I have to say no. 

It is not because I do not want to.  It is because I do not think I will get the heroic done with you in it basically.  I am just way to polite to say that to them.  I always turn around and offer to heal or tank a normal for them so they get an instant queue and that way they can gear up and learn some more.  They just do not get the hint.

It might have a lot to do with classes as well.  Give me a Warlock, a Mage and a Hunter for DPS and I will go anywhere with you.  Give me a Priest, a Warrior and a Paladin as my DPS and I say no thank you.  Sure, Warriors can put out some stupid DPS now, insane really, but they bring nothing else to the table except for aggro issues and that is a dish I would rather not have on my table.

I have yet to see one Paladin do over 6K that wasn't the tank.  Paladin tanks do more DPS then rets.  I've run with so many ret paladins and have not see one that can crack 6K, same for priests.  Perhaps that is the game design and they are partly broken right now but right now is when I am playing the game and right now I do not want to see them in my heroics.

If I get into a heroic and see a ret pally and a shadow priest I know that I am going to have to basically down the bosses myself with only a little help form them.  They are not going to actually pull their own weight.

Which brings me back to what this post is about.  What is the expected DPS in a cata heroic right now?  I'll stick with 8K boss average, not 8K boss you're good at.

When you get in a heroic and look at the numbers what number sets off the bells and makes you think that you need to inspect that person?  Under 6K for me. 

I figure 6K for a fresh 329 person with no gems, no enchants and lots of green gear it is acceptable to a limited extent.  Like if me and one of my guild mates are there and we are both pulling over 12K then having a fresh 85 is not as much of an issue.  As long as they get out of the bad stuff on the ground.

I just do not understand how it is even humanly possible to level a character to 85, get yourself to all 333-346+ gear and still can not out DPS my autoshots.  How is that even possible?

So my plea, as wrong as it might sound is this...

If you can not do 8K DPS do the wow world of favor and stay the hell out of heroics.  You do not belong there yet.

Now, unlike every other post I have ever seen that would leave it at that I am going to attempt to help people here. This should help everyone get a foot up.

1) Work on your rep and buy rep rewards.  Some of them are awesome and there are some for every class and spec.
- You can get rep from doing quests. 
- You can get at least honored, hyjal can get to revered, just by doing the quests.
- Wear a tabard and do normals.  The top three will get you rep.
2) Spam normals when you can.  The top ones drop 333 gear you know.
3) Check the auction house.  Some people throw good stuff up cheap sometimes.  You might get lucky.
4) Don't forget the PvP Rep.  The trinkets are amazing (359) and so are the weapons (346).
5) Hit the dummies and I do not mean the people that enter heroics with 4K DPS.
- Practice your rotation on the dummy and understand that it will be lower then in a dungeon.
- When you got your timing down pat so it is second nature you are ready to move on.
- While looking at DPS you are working more on timing and effectiveness.
6) Read your class forums.
- And the ones on wowhead.
- And the ones on elitist jerks.
- And the ones on mmo-champion.
- And the many others out there.
7) Don't fear change. 
- Just because MM worked last expansion does not mean you can make it work now.
8) Use those Justice Points you saved up on gear.  That is what they are for you know.

If you do all of that I can assure you that you will enter heroics doing 8K DPS without even trying hard to do it.  8 Rules to follow, 1K DPS per rule.  Not all that hard. That will make your heroic experience nicer.  Good luck.

Shaman Healing is Fun

So after reading about how to heal as a Shaman on Friday I went home and picked the best of the gear I collected while leveling and was ready to jump into Shaman healing. 

Compared to Priest healing it did not seem like it would be much of an issue leaning.  There are just not as many tools to keep track of for a Shaman.

First thing first, a quick scan of the auction house to see if there are any cheap fill ins for my missing spots.  I had an item for every spot except for trinkets.  There was one trinket on the auction house for 300 gold so I snatched that up and figured I would fly with one trinket until I could get a drop.

I enlisted a few guild members to help me on my learning experiment and when I was done with all my gear and making all my macros we went out to test drive Shaman healing. 

I use mouse overs for everything I do when healing.  It makes life so easy, a few numbers, shift, alt modifiers, and everything you need is at your finger tips.

We get HoO as my first random normal.  We die... horribly... on the first pack.  I'm sorry.  That is about all I can say really.  I need to get used to knowing where I put what.  Trying to riptide when it is on CD is not a good thing.  Trying to chain heal and casting a healing wave does not exactly have the same desired results.  You know, all that jazz.

We try again and all is fine and dandy.  What exactly does fine and dandy even mean?  We make it a few bosses in and wipe again on another trash pack.  Damn it.  I can not keep up with the trash mobs.  Bosses, no problem, trash is killing me or better said, killing everyone because of me.

More CC please.  Okay, all is fine now.  After clearing the four elemental we get ready for the big guy and it is going well for the most part but for the first time every I go oom.  A shadow priest takes over on healing and I throw whatever little I can when I regen mana and we down it.  Maybe once I get another trinket that will help a little.

We go through the whole thing.  Nothing drops for my poor little shammy.  We do another random and once again, nothing for my restoration set but at least I got two enhancement drops.

Third time is a charm on Saturday.  I grab a second trinket and a replacement for the trinket I bought on the auction house as filler and get two other drops and now had enough rep to get another item.  So the restoration set is starting to look nice.

Another run later and I am suddenly 329 item level.  Don't let the number fool you.  Blizzard, in all their infinite wisdom (please note that is sarcasm), decided that they like to count both my enhancement set and my restoration set as part of my item level. 

As it worked out, the pieces I was missing and still wearing 272 and 285 items on my restoration set I had a 333 and 346 of in my enhancement set up.  I was no where near heroics in either spec but put together I had enough. 

A guild member wanted me to heal a heroic and my basic response was, what the hell, are you insane?  Just try it they said.  Okay, but when you die don't come looking to me to cover your repair bills.  We try, we wipe, we give up after about 6 more wipes.  It is partly me still learning and it is partly me having a 272 chest piece and other crap items.  I was doing fine every try, until I started to go oom. 

The trash packs where more deadly then the bosses.  Even if we downed them I had to drain every bit of healing into the tank and the tank alone.  If anyone else took any damage they where on their own.  If I took my eye off the tank for even a riptide on anyone else it would have been a wipe. 

The bosses, I could just not last through.  My heals where not landing for enough which meant I needed to cast a lot more of them then I should have which meant that I went oom a lot faster.  If one DPS took aggro and I tried to save him then it was good night for everyone.  I told them I was not heroic ready.

We moved back to normals and I gathered up a few more pieces for both sets, still wearing that damn 272 chest piece however.  I am up to a 336 item level between the two sets of gear.  Funny part is, on their own, neither one is heroic ready (325 Enhancement and 316 Restoration) but together I am more then heroic ready.  Blizzards system needs some serious fixing I think.

All in all Shaman healing is fun because there is not a great deal to it.  It is basically three buttons.  A few more for occasional use and a few more for situational use.  That is it.  I have more healing spells alone on my Priest then I have all spells on my Shaman. 

Priest healing means I need to decide what to cast, when to cast it, consider the mana usage, consider the possible impact, etc.  Shaman healing there are basically three things to do.  That's it for the most part.  If the tank will be taking some big hits I need to add a forth into normal usage maybe.

Now I really see why everyone says Shaman healing is laughable.  It really is a learning class for healers.  If you have never healed before this seems to be the way to go.  Fewer buttons means fewer decisions that need to be made on the fly which in turn means fewer chances for error.

I am still overhealing a lot, but I contribute that to not knowing what the incoming damage will be so I am always playing it safe and over compensating for the fact I know my heals are not strong.  I need to learn to stop that.  That is my downfall when it comes to mana management.

There is a healer rotation even if everyone will tell you there isn't, even if rotation is kind of the wrong word for it.  In a way you need to be just like the DPS.  You need to know when you use your rapid fire or use your berserk. 

You can't go burning your big damage ability when you know you will not get to use it.  Learning the fight means you learn when you can use your damage boosting abilities to their best effect. 

Healing is the same way.  Knowing when the big damage is coming to the tank allows you to plan for it and have that really long cast big heal in mid cast so it lands the split second that the tank takes that huge hit.  Knowing when a huge AoE is going to come and how much it is going to hit for makes life easier too.  If the AoE is going to come and tick for 50K total over 10 seconds then you know, as long as everyone is over 50K and not taking any additional avoidable damage that you can concentrate on the tank alone and go do some catch up work on them later.

So that is the stage I am at.  I am thinking, while learning that part of it.  The healing rotation so to speak.  I might be better off doing it on my Shaman.  Like I said, less buttons means less chance for a mistake.  On my Priest there are so many time where I could make the mistake of casting something that I would have been better casting something else.  That can't happen with a Shaman, there is nothing else they can cast to make that mistake with.

That is what makes Shaman healing fun.  I look forward to doing it more.  Maybe I will even start doing some randoms without guild members soon as well.  That is always the true test for healing ability.  I just worry about stupid DPS taking avoidable damage.  DPS taking avoidable damage is the downfall of most healers, even the good ones.  The learning ones like me, well, if DPS starts taking huge damage you might as well just call for a wipe.  I either heal them and oom or ignore them and hope that the tank and me can finish the fight alone because they are going to die from their own stupidity.

My few attempts at heroic healing however left a bad taste in my mouth.  I know I was amazingly undergeared at the time (would guess around 305 item level) and there was no reason for me to be there at all but I really feel I should have done better and I didn't.  It is not all about gear.  It is about skill and I do not feel I operated at the skill level I needed to. 

From what I have seen, a skilled healer, can easily heal heroics even in green gear.  I know it for a fact, I had a healer in one of my randoms that must have had better gear on their offspec because all but 4 pieces of gear were green and they healed it no problem.  There is no way they were heroic ready. I hope one day I can get that good.  Trying to get that good will be the fun part.  Trying on a Shaman seems like it will be a lot easier.

A New Task At Hand

Playing a little bit here and a little bit there my Shaman managed to stumble it's way to 85.  That is the perfect description about how leveling is in Cataclysm.  It really takes no effort what so ever and the experience flows in so damn fast that you do not even need to try to level.  It will just happen on its own and if you are on rested it will happen lightning fast.

My Shaman is Enhancement, always has been since day one really.  I leveled it that way as well with intentions of making my second spec Restoration once I reach cap which is where I am now.  I have nearly a complete set of gear for resto in my bank.  As I was leveling, when there was nothing for enhancement, I took any resto rewards and held on to them.

Each time I got a new one I would compare it to the ones I had saved and keep the best ones.  Looks like trinkets are the only things I will be lacking for my starter resto gear.  Of course it will be a little bit of an adventure to start off with.  I have never played a resto shaman before.  Not even just for fun and playing around. 

I will still be Enhancement main spec.  I am only rolling resto as an offspec because I really have no choice.  Waiting forever for dungeons is bad enough on my Hunter.  Any class I have that can do anything other then DPS will do it. 

There is no reason in hell for anyone that plays a hybrid to ever enter a dungeon as DPS.  That takes away a spot from someone that has no choice but to be DPS and that slows things up even worse.  People could at least try to be a little bit of a team player and be a tank or a healer to help out queue times. 

Not to mention, it helps themselves too.  I mean really, would you rather wait 45 minutes for a dungeon or 3 minutes? 

I'll wait 3 minutes, heal the hell out of the dungeon and roll on all Enhancement gear being that is my main spec.  Being my offspec is the only spec that should be rolling on resto mail.  Unless there is a Elemental Shaman in my group that is rolling for spirit pieces, I will have no competition for gear for my off spec and only Hunters to compete with on my main spec. 

If the Hunter needs an item however, I will not need on it.  A Hunter needs the gear more then I do.  I can get instant queue times as a healer and have that option, the Hunter does not have that option.  A tank or healer that rolls on gear someone else needs is a jerk.  Plain and simple.  They get instant queue times and can come right back in and get it next time.

So the task at hand for me today is to learn how to heal as a Restoration Shaman.  When I go home tonight I will heal my first normal.  From what three friends of mine have told me healing as resto is so easy a caveman can do it.  Not to mention, from what they said, Shaman do not seem to be having as much of an issue with mana as the other healing classes are.  After healing on my Priest I can appreciate that. 

Speaking of running dungeons as your off spec for instant queue times I got one of those people in my heroic daily on my Hunter yesterday.  Unlike me, who collected gear to heal, this person did not collect gear to tank.  Good thing for him however that he was a Druid.  Feral gear for cat and bear is basically the same gear.  It is just a matter of how you gem, enchant and reforge it that makes it for a cat or for a bear.  Then it comes down to talents.

I am not about to enter a dungeon on my Shaman with my Enhancement spec and expect to heal so why is it okay for a Druid to enter a dungeon with a feral cat spec and think that just switching to bear makes him a tank?

Our tank, and I use the word tank loosely, had 127K hit points.  To put that in perspective my Hunter had 126K hit points.  They had nothing gemmed, enchanted, or reforged to seem as if they where trying to tank with that character and even worse, they did not have any bear talents chosen in their spec.  This was a clear cut case of someone that queued as a tank just for the instant queue and was hoping someone else would be able to tank once then entered the instance.  Not happening with a Hunter, Rogue, Mage and Priest there with them.

People like that are not only bad players but they are bad people.  They are selfish jerks that do not care about anyone but themselves.  There was one saving grace however.  There was me, a Hunter and another player, a Rogue, that made sure mister kitty cat in a bear costume kept aggro.  I still needed to FD all the time, we still wiped repeatedly on trash but we somehow made it through bosses no problem.

We must have wiped 18 times.  No kidding.  All on trash pulls.  With no bear talents the tank could not hold threat on anything and there was only so much me and the Rogue could do.  They also, with no bear talents, could not take the hits from multiple mobs like that.  Even with the Rogue sapping, me trapping and the Mage sheeping we still dropped left and right on trash mobs.

Why did I stick it out?  It was interesting.  It was a challenge.  I wanted to see if we could do it.  If we could basically carry the tank.  We never wiped on any bosses at all.  We went through healer after healer after healer of course because I know I would not stick around healing a non tank that thought they could tank.

We got to Rip and the tank had to leave to pick up his girlfriend, thank god I thought.  I was really worried about this fight with a tank that has the same amount of hit points as I did and basically no mitigation.  We got our replacement, killed rip, killed cookie and killed Vanessa. 

Well, they killed Vanessa, I sat by and watched.  Nope, I did not die but I did have a major Huntard moment.  See, Shift 1 is my Misdirect macro and Shift 2 is my Disengage macro.  After our first swing on the ropes when we landed I misdirected to the tank and started to shoot, but there was one problem.  I did not misdirect to the tank and start to fire.  I disengaged off the freaking boat and left a parting shot.

I tried to get back up to the boat but I could not figure out how to do it.  The only way would have been to run though a ton of fire and most likely die from it so I just stood there and waited for what I thought would be a wipe.  To my surprise, they downed her.  She is a really easy boss actually and I guess we all have those oh crap moments where we hit the wrong button.  I thought it was funny.  A fitting end to a Deadmines run that lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes and wiped more on trash then I've ever wiped on a raid boss.

Now to visit all my favorite sites to learn how to Resto.  Should not really be a problem.  Healing is a ton easier to learn then DPS is, at least in a normal dungeon environment.  The job of the healer is to keep the tank up in dungeons and occasionally offer some heals to the DPS. 

The hard part is on the shoulders of the DPS.  They need do the CC and be good enough to avoid damage and put out enough damage to kill things before the healer goes oom.  So healing is a hell of a lot less pressure then DPS while in the gearing up stage at least.  A healer has the perfect excuse if there is failure.  They ran out of mana.  What are the excuses the DPS might have?  They ran out of the ability to do damage?  The DPS can now thank me for healing for them by making my runs nice and easy.

Heck healing normals on my Priest is now like LK stuff.  I throw a heal here and there and just smite my way through the dungeon.  There is nothing for me to do most of the time unless I get stupid DPS that do not know how to get out of avoidable damage.  If I get that, then every pull is compete hell and I go oom at the drop of a hat.  Other wise, I put the tank on follow and occasionally click a heal once in a while.

Makes you wonder why there are not a lot more healers out there.

How do they do it? They read of coruse.

I came across this post in MMO-Champion and it reminded me of all the times I have said the same thing.

Link to post.

Often I would see people claiming that they could do xxx DPS in the same gear I had basically and I was left to wonder how.  I tried everything I could from getting all possible buffs, eating, flasking, having heroism and rapid fire in effect and I would still come no where near the DPS they were claiming.

This lead me to believe, without doubt, they where completely full of crap.  They where of course.

However they are not always full of crap.  I was seeing posts a few weeks ago where people where claiming to be doing 16K-17K on bosses in heroics and I was wondering how they were doing it. 

Once I figured out they where survival it made sense.  That is why 14K-15K was my tops, I was MM.  MM, besides being the worse spec at the moment, is leaps and bounds harder to time and carry out then survival.  Doing 14K DPS as MM is not easy.  Doing 17K DPS as survival is easy.

See, I read the posts and I figured out what I was doing wrong.  I was in the wrong spec. That is the key to figuring out what you are doing wrong.  Actually reading.

This guy is saying he is having problems when he answered his own question within the question.  He mentioned his rotation (problem #1, there is no real rotation, only a conceptional one) and his haste being 3% (problem #2, his haste is dreadfully low for trying to do that rotation).

This person is the definition of the average hunter.  I will not say a bad hunter.  A bad hunter is one that does not take the time to even look up rotations or to post asking for help and would not know their haste even if you told it to them right before you asked them.  So he is an average hunter at best.  Perhaps some day, being he is putting in effort, he might be a good hunter.

This person is the average player and this is why the average player does okay.  He can continue to do 14K and no one will ever complain.  14K is fine for a heroics, hell it is better then fine.  In his own circle people might even look to him as a great hunter. 

Heck, 14K would still make the Hunter the superstar of the run.  I rarely, if ever, see anyone even break 10K besides me.  Overall data of my Stonecore daily yesterday had me at 12K over all, a Mage at 6K and a Ret Pally at 5K.  This is your average run.  Remember, most people suck.

What separates him (the average hunter) from someone doing 19K (the good hunter) is the ability to understand why that is the suggested rotation.

He quotes the suggested rotation and even says he fires three cobra shots.  This is all fine and dandy but he does not seem to grasp the concept of why three cobra shots was suggested. 

It was suggested because with the appropriate haste rating you can squeeze in three cobra shots perfectly between explosive shots.  Being his haste is not the appropriate level each time he casts that third cobra shot his DPS is going down, not up.

It is one thing to read a rotation and another thing to understand a rotation.  This is the reason why I suck at playing a rogue.  I only read enough on it to know what I should do and not enough to know why I should do it.

Once you understand the why of how your rotation works then it becomes easier to make it work.  I am no theroycrafter but when I switched to survival I played around with my stats some and figured that having a cobra shot of 1.64 seconds would be exactly what I needed.  A week later I read a post saying 1.65 was needed.  Hey, I was close, as I said I am not a theorycrafter and not even half as smart as those guys that figure out all these little numbers but I was able to figure it out. 

Do you know how I did that?  I did that because I understand why I needed to get the cast time of my cobra shot down. 

I understood that if it took to long I could not fire off three without pushing back an explosive shot and I knew if it was much quicker I would have a wait time while I waited for explosive shot and that extra haste could be used to up my critical or mastery instead of being wasted on haste that was not needed.

I did not just read someone say 3 cobra shots and go blindly ahead and follow the 3 cobra shots rule.  I knew why they were doing 3 cobra shots.

It is not enough to know your rotation.  You need to know why that is the rotation.

You do not need to be a theorycrafter, you only need to understand what is going on around you.  That will allow you to figure it out on your own or read it on the forums some other time.  Just make sure you actually read it.

Reading it is the difference between being an average hunter and a good hunter.

For that person, as soon as I got my cobra down to 1.64 cast time I was able to pull 19K without a problem in heroics on some of the easier fights.  Before the 1.64 cast time I was not much more then 17K.  That is how much of a difference it was for me.