Jul 14, 2009

Clutter and addons

The other night I spectacularly failed at offtanking Ignis (well his adds). I couldn't figure out the best spot for the camera that I could see both zones where adds spawned from, and my frame rate per second dropped to 2. TWO. If I was lucky. I was too stressed to be staring at that little number most of the time.

So, I am taking a look at my addon folder. The main tank thinks I have too many running thus explaining my horridly long zone in time. Me I just know my computer is a P.O.S. but hey whatever I'll see what I can do.

So what addons do I run?

!swatter
ACP (addon control panel)
Altoholic
Bartender4
Cellular (tabs/popup window for whispers)
Chatter (alternative to prat basic functions)
Chinchilla (map)
ChocolateBar (new testing alternative to FuBar)
Converse (records chat windows)
DeadlyBossMods
ElkanoBuffBars
Grid with a few additions
CT_Viewport (alters window with black bar at bottom for bars/chats)
InspectEquip (very nice when inspecting people)
Lightheaded (only turned on for alts leveling)
Loggerhead (so i don't forget to combatlog)
Obituary (reasons for death awesomeness)
Omen
Ora2
Outfitter (tho I'm learning to deal with Equipment Manager on PTR)
OmniCC (is this really necessary with Ora? then again not everyone runs Ora)
Pitbull (unit frames)
POM Tracker
Quartz
RatingBuster
Recount
TipTac
TomTom
TotemTimers (until 3.2!)
XLoot

That does not seem like a lot to me. I might be able to ditch Outfitter and maybe Omen since I'm more often healing than anything else.

Jul 12, 2009

Healing Assignment Redux

The question I pose is this: Any help on what to do with 2 pally healers and 3 tanks? And, should multiple holy pallys use the same judgement? We had 3 holy pallys, zero ret and prots. For the full story, read on.

Last night was a nasty night of wiping on Ignis. It's not a hard fight, it's just very chaotic with a LOT of things going on, and very healing intensive because of the constant raid wide damage.

Our main tank or an off tank was almost always the first to die. This is a great clue that healing assignments just weren't effective. So I've been struggling to come up with something better, but I have a massive problem. I don't understand paladin healers. I'm currently leveling a paladin but she's in her 20s and is more prot than ret at the moment. So I really have very little clue how raid healing works.

We started with 3 tanks, 7 healers. 2 bear off tanks and a DK main tank. 3 paladin healers, 2 shaman healers, 2 druid healers.

After the fifth wipe, I traded my bear out for my priest (we really had no priest buffs before then, too, no shadows) because I seriously failed grabbing those adds. 2fps is not helpful there. So one of the paladins went prot. That leaves us with a Prot paladin and a bear on the adds, and a DK main tank. 2 paladin healers, 2 shamans, 2 druids and a discipline priest.

So, the healing numbers of the paladins were really unimpressive. I am not healing lead in that guild, but often I step in and make solid recommendations (especially when healing assignments are bass ackwards). I know priest, shaman and druid healing even if I'm not a number whore about it. I try to use both class strengths and healer-player strengths to their fullest.

Any help on what to do with 2 pally healers and 3 tanks? I don't solidly understand pally skills. For some reason the RL who is a paladin healer had 2 pallys on the same assignment and then wondered why one of them had low healing numbers... *sigh* My other big issue is there is so little communication among healers. My other guild actually has a GUILDhealers channel for healer discussion. So I don't know that the pallys communicated beacon targets, that they worked together at all. Just, ugh.

And I really hate to make suggestions regarding pallys because I don't understand the spells well enough.

Jul 2, 2009

My raiding, looting and hybrid philosophy

WowGrrl asked why we raid?

I love teamwork. I lack the epeen to try and top numbers anywhere, whether it was tanking (look I can keep them ALL on me!), dpsing (I rolled a shadowpriest in The Burning Crusade for heaven's sake) or healing (hello, Discipline Priest here). I am in raids because I get a vicarious thrill in killing the monsters, in working with others (sometimes total unknowns, since I like to pug alot). That's why I'm there.

I don't consider myself a hard core player at all. I usually log into the game at least once every day, either for two hours after work or during the summer months for a majority of the day when not working/running errands. (I believe in making the most of my $15) I don't min/max everything I do. I have fun in the game, it's not a second job. But I treat people the way I would want to be treated, and I make sure fairness is always present where ever I am involved.

Looting is an integral part of raiding. Loot makes the killing of the bosses, the conquering of the instance, easier to accomplish and for those more focused on what a raid offers them, the loot is a personal reward for good performance, good attendance, etc.

When I led raids I figured it was the most fair approach to limit players to one upgrade. Those that hoarded their rolls and passed on obvious upgrades instead of letting the rolls fall where they may on an item and just dealing with chance on what loot will drop and what others will roll were not invited back to raid with me.

I've always played a hybrid class until recently (my low level alts don't really count) but I was a one-act hybrid in Burning Crusade. I only tanked on the druid. I only dpsed with the priest. Sure I picked up offspec gear when no one wanted it for their main spec, and I took my chances rolling on offspec gear with other offspec rollers. I think that approach has stayed with me. I had a raiding spot on my tank always. My shadowpriest was not so lucky because she wasn't awesome dps, but I didn't sweat that. I still managed to sweep through Mount Hyjal in a pug and get most of the way through Black Temple on the priest, too, also with a pug. (Okay so it was after the great nerf prior to WotLK getting released.)

My point is I do not see HOW THE FUCK dual specs has "dramatically changed" the raiding environment. Is it nice to have a flexible toon, on a night when you need a healer instead of a dps? Yes. But it does involve more work for the player to gear up all those specs. It naturally takes more time to gather 2 or even 3 complete sets of gear than 1. I do not believe hybrids, nor hybrids with dual specs, deserve access to more gear because of their flexibility. They raid the same number of times as others, with the same amount of lockouts. Their access should NOT be increased. There are other ways to gear up via crafting, heroics, and other raids out there.

If it hurts the raid because you're not giving this greater gear access to your more flexible toons, then you need to recruit more. And those with dual specs need to work harder on gearing their alternate specs.

That's just how I see it. I didn't get any special breaks on my druid in TBC and I won't give special breaks to dual specced hybrids in Wrath. They can pick a raiding spec. If it limits how often they raid because that spec is less needed, that was their choice. If they want to change specs in order to raid, they have to put the work in to gearing up that new spec.

My guild still hasn't worked out what is up with loot in ten mans. Still no hard written guidelines. (Hell I'm the one that copied and pasted the guidelines as they are now, which a raid leading priest violated.)

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