Being the odd one out

My guild is not a group of active raiders. We have members consisting mostly of their 30s and onward. Heck, one of our officers is 59, if I'm remembering right. That is not to say, we don't raid, but it is to say, our raiding time is a bit more limited than most, and getting scheduling down

I'm still pretty young (I guess?) so I have loftier expectations of raiding. I want to push icc content, and thankfully we downed anub'arak this week, so in the future, icc looks doable.

However, this week I still wanted to persue ICC goals. I preform to the best of my abilities while dpsing in a PUG 100% of the time, for exactly what I'm going to describe to you. I ran a mostly guild rep run a while back with another guild, one that I hadn't had much interaction with at all. Theres about 7 or so guilds that raid, and 2 or 3 of them are pretty elitist/cliquey. This group saw I preformed my role to the best of my ability, and their raid leader, asked if he could jot down my name.

I LOVE getting asked for friend request, not because I want friends, but because it shows me that people are willing to rely on me, if they find themselves short a person on random day.

So today I get a whisper, from said raid leader, asking "hey your enhance right?" and my immediate reaction knowing he was in ICC, was "and resto, if you need it" because healers are NON-existent, so any shot for a raid, is one I want. Apparently they run a VERY range heavy group full of mostly younger members who knew each other on a first name basis, and were on lady deathwhisper. It's a completely different dynamic than my own guild, which is incredibly melee heavy, old, and we all refer to each other by our characters name at the time, for the sake of ease of anyone not completely in tune with us.

Well I was brought in to physical dps, which was a bad decision for them, but fine nonetheless as I'm sure said raid leader considered this when inviting me along, rather a good dps, than another facerolling dk.

I've never done the deathwhisper fight from the perspective of picking up adds (normally they'll stick me on a shield) but hey, when you have no physical, you got no physical. I did ABYSMALLY, but we one shotted the fight. I did my said role of killing the specific add.

Now when I say I did abysmally I'll try to paint you a picture, this morning I went to the doctor, to treat a huge swelling in my neck, which as far I know, may be mono. I'm am not in the best state of mind, and it may show in my writing, I don't know, but I'll tell you what, when I died, for seemingly no reason, then ankh'd into a death and decay, I felt outright embarrassed. They called for a battle rez on me (their tank, no less. I felt horrible). Sure the rest of the encounter I preformed fine, but I felt like everyone was judging me, although it was far from the truth. They were all ecstatic that they finished the fight the second I joined. Trash occurred, and I tried my best to make amends by pushing out as much dps as my tiny little shammy body could, and it happend until we got to the stupid dragon.

I HATE dragons. There's something about their hit boxes that are misleading to me, I always end up standing in front of them and going splat. (I do the same thing every time I get to dps ony, I'm surprised it hasn't become a running joke yet).

Of course I'm the only one who died on all of trash, and again, I feel the sting of guilt. I hugged my rezzer, and mana/healed up on my own. I don't like wasting resources.

The gunship battle was next and while it was everyones first time there I was the on the boarding party, and through some combination of luck and awful, the entire front side of the ship decided to aggro me and kill me. That attempt was THANKFULLY a wipe, and I saved face a bit.

The second attempt was a lot smoother. I died again, except through no fault of my own. The pilot the tank was supposed to tank, decided to ignore his taunts and attacking and eat my face off, despite none of my dps being on him. It was like my mere presence in ICC that day was a mistake. I'm glad the tank noticed that was the problem too, or I'd probably have to deal with a grumpy raid leader about how I couldn't manage to stay alive.

Loot dropped, and I asked If I was allowed to roll. I beat out the hunter, which again made me feel terrible, as he/she was sporting 232 bracers, and was generally topping the dps meter. I've made it a point to save for some crafted 245 bracers for him/her and give them to her in good faith. My leatherworker tends to depend on me for mats anyways, so I'm excited to help out another guild.

We got to saurfang naturally, accidently started the battle and took it as a "well lets learn on the go" attempt. I made observations while we trucked along, barely getting anywhere but it provided them with insight into how the fight works. They took a break to "video watch" and then came back. I knew my roll was that of patchwerk dps so when I loudly proclaimed "FINALLY A FIGHT I WONT DIE ON FIRST THAT I'M THE ONLY ONE THATS ALLOWED TO FACEROLL" the entire group snapped into laughter and had a good time of it. We didn't down it as our healer fell asleep on us (quite literally, 8 minutes into the fight she greyed out to afk) but it was a good attempt and it was fun.

I still very sorry to that guild, that I wasn't preforming to the standard I normally hold myself to when dpsing but alls well that ends well. That hunter will possibly see a neat wrist replacement in their mailbox, and I walked away with a shiny bracer myself. It's an odd situation though, being that one person, pugged in, failing. I don't much like it, but they were good sports about it.

Gearing up in 3.3

I started writing this article, thinking I would eliminate item pieces from which you couldn't get an equivalent emblem piece. This left me with basically feet items, and weapons. due to a simple overlook, I also realized even feet items and weapons could be bought. Silly me, however I do believe those pieces and trinkets and rings, and even back pieces tends to be some of the hardest to come by. This is due to no small part that the valor and heroism vendors give very lame pieces for their cost, especially that shifty valor vendor.

Instead of telling you what pieces to get, I'm going to guide recommendations. In general every class of every spec is going to want to hit the tier 9 four piece, and then get either a 245 helmet or 245 shoulder. I'll let you use your best judgment. Personally I went with the 245 shoulders, because the tier 10 shoulders are cheap, and gets you half way to that tier 10 2 piece bonus if you so wish. You should also pick up the "ranged" slot piece and a single ring from that triumph vendor.

Get that trinket too, unless you're a healer. If you're a healer you should heavily debate the merit of the trinket. Use trinkets I find to be too cool down oriented, and healing I've always found to be too reactive, to make significant use of. If you're the kind of healer that has multiple "oh crap" buttons, you might like it. I tend to rely on pure and simple skill, and forget I even have cool downs until I see single digit percentages.

Now trinkets are your first goal for gearing, since there aren't a ton of them. I will from this point call trial of the champion, pit of saron, forge of souls, and halls of reflections "the new places". These places have very few trinkets for classes, but for the few they do, they're some of the best stuff you'll find. Weapons are good here too. Really anything you find in these instances will outclasses anything you'll find if you haven't been raiding. Don't assume the good stuff is in the heroic mode only either. Regular modes of the new places have been jammed full of loot that while not quite as good as heroic mode, will be the only place you'll be finding stuff. Me personally? I've run regular HoR a crap ton to get "muddied boots of brill" because there simply isn't as good a boot elsewhere.

Like I've said, keep a special eye out for rings, boots, cloaks, trinkets and your weapons (or shields and off hands, you know). Doing this, along with triumph and conquest gear will mean you'll keep your ilvl average at a minimum of 219 (stuff from heroic toc) all the way up to 245 (stuff you actually get from triumph guy, love you triumph guy!)

Now trinkets, once again, are a tricky bunch. You have to get two of them, and the ones from the instances might not be good for you. This is the only time I endorse heroism vendor guy. His trinkets are solid until you find something else you may prefer more. Once again, personally I have the mark of supremacy from triumph guy, and mirror of truth from heroism guy. I could have gotten the needle encrusted scorpion, but armor pen ain't such a hot stat for enhancement shaman, so I passed on it.

Try and research your class about trinkets, and don't trust item levels for them at all. Darkmoon cards are amongst the best trinkets you can find, for instance, but their ilvl 200 is very deceptive.

Don't you just hate trinkets? Yeah me too.

Low population server

I wake up most mornings, and log onto wow, not having a particularly hectic job, and a great deal of time to waste. One of the most disappointing things I deal with is not being able to see content due to my realm choice. When I started wow, I picked mal'ganis. This was the server my significant other was on, having a mid-level warlock. It was a high to locked population server. I had lots of alts and I have about 8 characters hanging around level 50 there right now.

Trade chat was just terrible there, I couldn't stay. There was an elitism there that just angered me. Everyone required gear scores, and achievements for content. I never reached 80, but I knew I wasn't going to like it if I did.

Sweet relief came when said significant other had a friend that played on a "recommended/new players" realm. We were very much for the prospect of synchronized leveling. While I eventually would outpace (I'm floating around in t9/t10 and shes still in tanaris). Said friend was originally one of the top alliance guilds. Literally number one in the server. Given that alliance was the unpopulated side, it didn't mean much, but it was neat being the only lv20 in a guild of several 80s with no alts visible. Drama occured, guild split, faction transfers happend. Now I'm in some random algamation of the original guild, which I enjoy very much other than their distaste for my pronouncation of the most common resource in the game (mana)

Now while very much my own fault for sticking with this server, theres a ton of downsides. There are literally 5 or 6 guilds taking on higher level content and by higher level, I mean naxx and up, not icc. There is a gross imbalance in the H:A ratio with my last informal records being about 8:1. There's simply not a lot of options for guilds. Our guild is probably 3rd for our faction, and the problem we face is getting enough players for a ten man. Doing a quick scan for main specced healers there were literally only about 160 or so who were even in heroic gear. Now granted these numbers may be skewed. Maybe some of those healers are dps specced primarly, maybe some pvp. I know I myself get shoehorned into heal due to the general lack of healing avaible (but hey, if we get a lolret, he'll be forced to spec holy, as I put out just disgustinly good dps as a shaman being the only one who seems to care about his terrible hybrid specced class. ;])

I don't really know where to turn at this. I would faction transfer to once again join the guild that split off from me original, but I don't consider it of vital importance, plus my guild is just a good set of people, and I don't want to further halt progress (apperently ktang! of heroism is that important?) My only problem is specifically I'd like to play my spec. I don't like healing, (if my first post didnt make that clear) and I'm one who strives for perfection within reason. When I heal and I see only one melee dps hitting marrowgars spikes I cry a little. Especially when we only have one ranged dps...

Oh limited options, how you pound me in the face. Maybe I should rerollon a medium-high pop server...

The biggest challenge when leveling

How many characters do my reads have? 1? 10? the full 50 available? Every person makes they're own amount, with their own tastes. The great thing about leveling is choosing a "subpar" non-raiding, non-pvp spec that suits all your own tastes.

I play with my now ex-girlfriend on occasion. We have a set of leveling characters that we will NOT play unless the other is there, effectively dinging within moments of each other. She's a shadow preist, and I'm a combat rogue. Because we generally level together, mobs die far quicker than on our own, so we very much build our specs around each other. She's taking aggro reducing talents as mindblast followed by holy fire tends to send things sprinting in her direction, and I'm taking talents that increase any survivablity I have, parry, dodge, what have you.

But what if you're leveling by yourself. Do you want to know whats the hardest part about leveling?

It's levels 40-50.

Didja hear that? Now I'm sure many people will disagree with my about this, but I hold firm in this. I've got around 40 characters, most aren't very high leveled and the few that are decent are floating around this level range. They werent all made the same time, so its not a matter of burning myself out on a specific character, or leveling area.
There's a few reasons and I think I've gotton most of them down pretty well. First off the hubs that start around level 40 (feralas, tanaris) are in the ass end of nowhere. I don't know how alliance doesn't want to kill themselves trying to get there, because I sure do dread the trip, and I tend to hang out in thunder bluff more than any sane man should when I'm a hordie. The second reason I can think of is most classes stop any notable developement for a while. 40 is a HUGE level for most classes, but the levels following them become "play with your toy" levels while they come up for new things to give you. Prot warriors learn shield slam, the corner stone of their tanking, enhancement shaman learn to dual wield, boomkins become just that, etc etc. It's a great level but man will you be bored after that. Whats worse is you don't get much of a consolation if you hit 50. You get some of in my opinion the worst questing hubs, and a minor glyph slot. There's not much to work with, and it's unfortunate.

I hope the mastery system becomes a prominent change to these problems, I want intersting skills AS I level, not just at mile stones, as a carrot on a stick to guide my leveling.

Quality of life changes should be the norm.

Blizzard has been fantastic lately with adding changes that make the game more convenient. They've made a paladin's righteous fury skill last until canceled. They made meeting stones usable by anyone above level 15 and not just in a set range. They've lowered the spell cooldowns on a ton of skills that would be otherwise overpowered in arenas, but removed the ability to use them in arena (Fire Elemental Totem went from 20 minutes to 10 minutes with an additional 5 minute reduction if glyphed which just means it's freaking awesome!) Call Stabled Pet is 5 minutes instead of 30. There's a lot of good coming from it, but sometimes I think they could go farther into the changes.

I've been one to start characters, get to know their style and then drop them because I just wasn't interested anymore. It became tedious to level them. That I got one character to level 80 is nothing short of amazing. Changes should be made that level 80 characters recieve that lower ranked characters don't. I mentioned that a hunters "call stabled pet" is now on a 5 minute cool down. Do you know when a hunter learns it? I'll give you a hint. It's level 80.

That's 70 long levels of toiling with whatever pet you can find nearby. Now if you're like me you have a combination of laziness, short attention span, and perfection. When I level my hunter I want to get a new pet all the time. Most importantly I want to NOT BE LIMITED. I don't want to grab a turtle to level with, hop in the lfg and use that same turtle in the instance. I'm not saying hand us the skill at the second we learn how to train pets, but give it to us around level 20.

There's lots of changes like this that should occur. 80s shouldn't be entitled to anything lower level characters can't do. Show me a level 30 10 man raid, and I'll show you the day I'm happy.

Resto Shaman in 10 man raids.

I'm going to start my first post off by saying, I'm a dual specced Enhancement/Resto, with Enhancement being my primary spec; being what I'm fantastic at, comfortable with, and most knowledgeable about and Resto being what I'm relegated to more often than not. So I tend to approach most of my raids as positive and fun experience with a tinge of bitterness that I'm healing.

I've been inside naxx a total of 4 times. 3 times healing, once smacking things in the back of the head. I've rarely gone inside higher level raids despite having a higher level gear than necessary for a given raid. I don't fault anyone other than myself. I picked a "newer players" server when I started, went on the lower population faction, and expected more than 4 guilds to be tackling higher level content. So my advice will be from very casual raid experience and 5 mans.

Resto is a bad spec to heal with. That is my conclusion. Encounter design is almost set to make resto preform badly. I tend to view each class and spec by a defined small set of skills, with notable ignorance often popping up, not to be ignorant but to summarize the general abilities you will use. A Resto shaman consist of 5 heals.

1. Riptide
2. Earth Shield
3. Chain Heal
4. Lesser Healing Wave
5. Healing Wave

I'll explain each skill individually listing their pitfalls and advantages, my personal bias, and whatever else I can think of.

Riptide!
This is by far my favorite heal on the toolkit I have to work with. It's an instance cast spell that a decent initial heal (about half of what lesser healing wave does), then leaves a heal over time that ticks for a not insignificant amount. It has a short cooldown, and it should be abused. This is pretty much the corner stone of the entire healing method of Shaman.

Earth shield.
I like to think of this as a "reactive" heal. When you put this on a person, (generally the tank) whenever they take damage, they'll get healed for a set amount. If it comes off a target, it's not a big deal, but think of it as free healing. There's no reason why someone shouldn't always have this on them. Oh small consolation for having it on a target, they get 30% reduced push back from casting spells. Tanks won't make much use of it, but hey, its there. I personally consider it the most useless of our heals in a raiding environment. I put it up only if I have nothing else on my plate.

Chain Heal
This is the reason any class will even give our healing a second thought. This is a fairly powerful smart group heal. Let me explain it in detail.
It takes just as long to cast as our "big" heal, healing wave, but heals for EVER so slightly more than lesser healing wave. Why should you cast it. Well as I stated before its a group heal. When you cast it on someone, it will find people within range of them, and also heal them, for decreasing amounts. The "smart" portion means that it will target lowest health members if available. If you heal someone with 8 people standing near them, 6 of them at 50% health and 2 of them at 10% health, it'll go for the 10%ers. While generally this seems great, it does present problems. Jumping to lower health members who are in no danger of incurring more damage can get annoying. The range is also a bit disappointing as ranged dps tend to hate hanging out near each other, and melee dps tends to be JUST far enough from tanks that they won't benefit from it. Effectively it makes me feel like I have to heal 3 separate groups of people.
There's one thing I neglected to mention about riptide, and I'll mention it here because it concerns chain heal as well. When riptide's HoT is on your initial target, chain heal will consume (read: remove) that HoT and add it to the amount chain heal is healing for on THAT TARGET ONLY. This allows chain heal to act as our "big" heal, while still preforming it's intended role of group healing.
All in all its a very strong, mana efficient heal with some limitations.

Lesser Healing Wave
The typical "goto" heal. It has a short cast time, and heals one person for a bit. There really isn't much to say about it.

Healing Wave
A bigger heal than Lesser Healing Wave, that takes more time to cast. It heals for roughly double, and takes roughly two and a half times longer to cast.


Now assuming you've read everything I've said and had no outside knowledge you'd be thinking as follows:
Keep riptide rolling on different people, cast chain heal when the group is hurt, cast lesser healing wave when one person is hurt, and take healing wave off your bar because its useless, and toss earth shield at someone who needs it if you remember.

While it's SIMILAR to what's the truth blizzard has crammed an amazing amount of synergy into the talent leading up to riptide. Tidal waves is what makes shaman passable healers. When you cast chain heal, or riptide it does a ton of things. It

1. Makes Healing Wave faster, and heal for more
2. Makes Lesser Healing Wave more likely to critically heal, and heal for more.

Okay so it's only two things, but they're fairly significant. Healing wave time becomes almost negligible from Lesser Healing Wave, and Lesser is more likely to heal for a decent amount.

With this in mind it makes Shaman very easy to dissect. The basic is idea is to cast riptide, then cast two other spells, and repeat.

Ending thoughts?
I haven't much explained why Shaman are bad healers, although that was the premise of the article. Each of the healing specs are designed to be different and excel in odd ways. Druids are the masters of heals over time, paladins are terrific single target healers, a discipline priest excels in mitigation and prevention, holy priests are the flexible ones, and we shaman, are the group healers.

Now I do love my group healing role, I love being lazy with my heals. I personally glyph chain heal so I can group heal more effectively (it adds an additional target), but situations are VERY rare when it turns out as planned. Encounter design tends to have people standing away from each other. Habits have us standing away from each other. More importantly 3/5 of our heals have cast time (riptide and earth shield) and movement intensive fight RUIN our ability to heal. Other classes have reasons to not be as concerned.
Druids heals are all terrible low cast times, or instant cast. They take a while to get going but they can literally spin circles while healing and do just fine.
Discipline priests are able to use their staple shielding on the go, and their typical role (tank healing) is single target oriented. Shielding allows for a brief moment where they can set up a heal uninterrupted.
Holy priests have ways around movement oriented fights. they possess the shielding discipline priest have although not nearly as good, they can drop a HoT whenever they want, and their circle of healing (also a group heal, very similar to chain heal) is instant cast. I'd say they're in a very good place when movement is concerned.
Holy Paladins might have the most reason to be as bitter as shaman. I lack experience as a paladin healer but from what I understand they have 3 single target heals of various strengths, with the ability to make it dual target for a short while and they're VERY good at healing these specific targets. However their saving grace is they can "judge" a boss to cause ANYONE causing damage to this boss, to give small amounts of life back. Since this debuff happens to the boss, and it's instant cast you can comfortably heal the raid without actually healing them.

Shaman have their place though. Stationary fights with chunks of raids damage being thrown around and a small area to move around in? That's us. 5 mans, we're pretty good at that too.

Still on any encounter I'd rather have any class healing than a shaman. I know our tool kit, and I'm not comfortable being healed by it.