31 May, 2009

LRN2DECURSE

When it comes to Decursing, Cleansing and Abolishing, It seems to go by default that the healing class will always take up this job. The argument being is that the DPS’s sole job is to pump out as much damage as possible, while a healers job should be to keep everyone alive and healthy. Now, during the days of belting out Naxxramas in heroic gear and quest blues, running with 3 healers and hitting the enrage timer on each fight, It was normality for the healers to do the dispelling. Maexxna’s Poison, Noth’s Curse, Heigan’s Disease, were placed on top of healers shoulders to “deal with” as we needed as much DPS as possible to down these difficult bosses.

In these 10 man Naxx runs, I was (usually) the sole decurser, so it was just another part of the fight for me, like running behind the ice blocks and moving out of the fissures. However, when other druids started popping up in raids, or I headed out for some 25 man action, I still noticed the healers were putting in all the dispelling effort; the majority of DPS were plain ignoring it. Single healing 10 man Heigan once, a ret pally in the group was explaining, after the fight, that the reason why she died was due to a disease. Now, this amused me. If you are DPS and something, which you can remove, is killing you, why won’t you remove it? I made the group aware that the priests and pallies will need to cleanse, and I popped up a raid warning halfway through the fight as I was having trouble keeping all the diseased people alive, Yet this silly ret pally goes and kills herself on a disease she can remove?

This was just after Noth, when the boomkin of the group explained that he would have decursed but I seemed to have “handled it” so he felt he did not need to.

There is a never-ending argument of if the DPS should stop doing damage to cleanse, or the healers should stop healing to decurse. I think that if blizz saw fit to give you Cleanse, Abolish, or Decurse, get healbot, grid or decursive, learn to use it and learn to help out your raid. With fights like Hodir and Iron Council, I would rather utility players then recount riders.

Spex <3

30 May, 2009

Things I should probably do in raids (But usually don't)

Faeire Fire

It is one of the first skills I whack on the boss as a Boomkin, yet it never crosses my mind to pump out this as a Tree. I guess when you enter a boss fight you have it in your mind to Tank, Heal or DPS. The tank is not going to start healing himself midfight, and the DPS does not take (intentionally) take aggro, to help out tanking. So why should a tree pop a debuff on a boss, that will not affect their heals in any way? As a 10 man raider, usually I am the only druid in the group. If there is a boomkin or kitty lurking, sure, it is probably their priority. But if you’re the only druid, be nice and tap this at the start of the fight, When it comes to debuffs, the more the merrier, right?


Give the Maytr loving ret pally a HOT

Sure it’s easy to blame them for killing themselves, getting all excited and going bonkers with AOE damage, but put yourself in their shoes. They are killing themselves to keep things that can attack you, very dead. You KNOW they will take alot of damage in that pack of adds, and they need you to let them. give them a regrowth and rej and then let them go nuts. The pile of dead around them will make it worth it.


Refresh thorns please?

Sometimes I will occasionally maybe place thorns on the tank, every 40 minutes or so. this skill is mainly frustrating since you pop it on, spend 10 minutes talking "boss fight" and then you all zoom in and your thorny buff is already gone. GG blizz for not extending the buff life when they played with the pally ones. I'm not going to suggest you put thorns on all 25 people in your raid (or 10, as you see fit) But a few buffs on your tanks at each boss pull may help in those "We got him down to 2%" situations.


Check your gear

I'm going to make myself feel better and assume we have all gone into a boss fight before remembering we are still wearing frost resist/resil trinket/bunny ears, and this point is mainly a silent reminder that it’s a good idea to do a gear check before each boss fight. You can serve this as a durability gear check also. Never in your life made this silly blunder? Then check up on the tank who always wears his frost set after Hodir, or the mage that constantly annoys the raid with his piccolo.

Spex <3