Ambrosyne's Adventures With the Horsemen

You know what I learned during my adventures in the back half of the Four Horsemen?

...I suck!

And you know what else? The moment I get thrust into an unfamiliar role in a raid and am already flailing about in uncertaintly, every single recruit we have will whisper me.

I'm not kidding. First, a resto druid pokes me. Great! She says 'I see that you're busy, so I'll wait." Not a problem. She's in Naxx too, anyway.

I fail and talk with her a bit while we're getting our act back together.

Second pull. I holy shock Mr. Fallen Paladin, cast a heal on myself because I'm already low (wtf?) and then...

...the other resto druid recruit pokes me. I look at his whisper real quick. This means that I'm not staring at my feet. And even though I'm not on the boss that summons void zones, I get one anyway because their range is stupid, right under my feet.

When I'm not looking.

And I die 45 seconds into the fight.

/facepalm

At some point after this the disc priest whispers me (...) for a /ginvite. Sweet!

But OMG guys, all at once? During THAT fight? Srsly?

/flail

We downed them...after we threw my nub ass back up front where it belonged.

Also: if there's a healer shortage, why are most of my apps healers? Holy shit! I mean it's fanatastic, it's great, we need them! But...! OMG!

We definitely need people not priest flavored though. I mean priests are great! But we now have...four? Compared to one resto shaman, two holy pallys, and one resto druid.

But you know what that is? That's a 25 man healing team baby! ....assuming we can make it all on the same night, which I don't know if we can. But! We're close!

"Amber, aren't you going to phase out your paladin for your priest?"

Ssssh! And, not for awhile. Teh boy is feeling a bit of WoW burnout, and he's Lyr's pet tank. So expect me to stop my bitching about my paladin...

...several months from now. But if we need the buffbitch she'll be on duty, no worries. I'm not going to shoehorn a billionth priest into the raid if we need my paladin, especially not if our spanking new disc priest is along. YAY LASER PEW PEW HEALS.

Ahem.

We also tried two things last night: healing assignments (sort of), and my being a "more aggressive" healer. Now I'd half gotten used to That Priest putting a decent amount of healing on the MT, so during one fight I took my heals off Macharious for a second...and he died.

/facepalm

After going "SEE that is why I heal the tank and only the tank omg!" I simply noted Anub as A Fight To Not Do That On. On trash pulls and the less hard hitting bosses, I FoL'd every damn bar that wasn't full.

And ended up on the top of the healing meters.

Wut?

Now healing meters don't really mean a damned thing, but it was interesting to observe a change. I still spun in circles boredly on Gothik, though.

"Are you going to have actual content today, Amber?"

Yes. Later. I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DOUBLE POST IF I WANT TO!

Amber's Random Picture Post

This is my first attempt at recreating the original screen shot. I picked Icecrown because I thought the sky was pretty, but it does funky things to colors out there.

Amber & Josh: Mocking your typos since 2004. Vainglory is my DK. No, my other DK. Yes, the third one.

...what?




















Why can't they sell this hippogryph somewhere? I actually like the way that this one looks. Though I still want to know when deer started crossbreeding with hippogryphs...

...you know I tried to be clever with placing these pics and just made a mess. And I can't seem to delete them. Bwuh? Curse you, Blogger! Curse you!

Leveling Healy vs Respeccing

I leveled both of my healers as a healing spec. That said, if you choose to be sane and go the other route (level as DPS, respec heals), I don't blame you (though disc is seriously underrated as far as leveling ease goes).

But which is "better"? *drum roll* It depends!

Benefits of Leveling as a Healer:
-You have an easier time getting groups
-You have the time to become familiar with your healing tools in bits and peices, rather than having them thrown at you all at once at a higher level
-Getting healing gear is easier (presumably, as the healer in the group, you have little/no competition when it drops)
-Practice makes perfect

I will sadly never be able to recreate the healing experience I had with Ambrosine. She healed 5 man and 20/40 man raids at 60. She healed leveling to 70 and did some more 10 and 25 man healing there. Then she healed her way to 80 and thrashed and flailed her way through 5 mans to 10 and 25 man content. I have healed a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot on that toon, in all sorts of circumstances. I had greater finesse with her at 80 than I will on my priest for a long time.

Cons of Leveling Healing:
-Soloing can suck (unless you're a disc priest. Weee holy fire!)
-If you're on a PvP server, I have one word for you: bait. Lyr can defend herself to a point, but Ambrosyne is well nigh helpless. C'mere and let me holy shock you to death!....once every six seconds!
-Soloing can suck A LOT

Pros of Leveling DPS:
-You kill things/level faster
-You can defend yourself in PvP
-Big numbers are fun!

Cons of Leveling DPS:
-It can be harder to find groups
-You get less time to hone your skills
-It can be harder to get gear for later healing (less so if you run with other kinds of healers, but you still might fight over rings and cloaks)
-You might get more irritated with trying to do things as healy specced later (dailies as heals = D: )

Yes, the list of 'cons' I have is longer, but the whole 'killing things faster' is pretty heavily weighted by most people.

If you chose to level as DPS and respec heals, there's a couple of ways to handle it:

-Respec before hitting max level. DPS to 70 and then switch and heal your way through Northrend
-Respec at 80, but throw yourself at a lot of normal instances until you get the hang of things. Reading strats just isn't the same. Progress to heroics later, when you're certain you have the gear for them. Being undergeared in heroics just makes for frustration. Even if you happen to have the gear for heroics right off the bat, they're not the place to start learning!

Lyr learned in the Nexus that if your level 72 Death Knight tank in blues and greens makes pulls as if he were on his 80 warrior in blues and epics, you die!

Murphy's Law

The quickest way to turn a guild Naxx run into the biggest pit of suck and fail you've ever seen is to bring a recruit.

I was a wreck all night.

"Oh god guys, shut up, shut up! Quit being stupid! Play nice! THERE'S A RECRUIT IN THE RAID OMG OMG." And then we wiped, and wiped some more, on bosses we've killed without even half the difficulty. A rogue who did 2k DPS last time was under the tank. I still want to strangle the priest. I tried to shine with my usual quirky humor in the hopes of not scaring the hunter away.

Ah, well. He'll talk to me again or he won't.

"So Amber, what's with the paladin guide?"

Coming. For srs. But tonight is a fun BC raid night, and I want to take Lyrandre for shits and giggles. Hell, at 72 she might even be able to still use some of the loot, who knows? I never did see all of SSC/TK...

I've got other topics in the meantime, worry not!

I'm also trying to recreat the screenie I used for my banner, only in Icecrown or something. Yes, including the Judgement. It's surprising hard to recapture that pose, though. D: Ideally, I'd get a good one of my priest, too. They should both be up there, especially if I want to shuffle the paladin into semi-retirement.

Hmmm...

To Kings or Not To Kings

It's a question I hope many paladins ask as they spec: do they want to put the points in kings, or not?

Once upon a time, most holy pallys had kings, because you were tossing points into prot anyway. Hell, I used to have Sanct too. You just didn't see that many healers with points in ret. Now of course we're diving after the crit in the ret tree and I've broken my 4 year long oath against never having a point in ret, ever.

I call myself the holy paladin buffbot. Imp wis, imp might, kings...got all of 'em. I'm a favorite paladin in 10 mans, I'm sure. But is it 'worth' it for you to take kings?

Well, I'll give you the same answer here that I give to a lot of things: it depends.

-What's your raid makeup like?
If you've got another paladin who has kings who shows up to almost all of your raids, then you can spend the points elsewhere. If not, then you need to consider...

-How many others want kings? If it's a sizeable number (tanks almost always love kings and they're pretty important folk to have buffed as much as possible), then you want to consider the fact that the benefit to the raid might well outweigh the benefit of some additional crit to you (as the ret tree is normally where you take those 5 points from). There's a good number of DPS that loves it too. You can get crit elsewhere. Where else can they get kings?

If you don't raid much, then you might want to consider the following:
-Kings on the tank does make it a bit easier on you (more HP! More...er...other things tanks like!).
-Kings on yourself, if you don't need mana regen, is great.
-They'll at least shut up about you not having it.

In Which I Taunt My GM

"Where a Warrior's Shield Slam looks and sounds like you have busted a skull open with your heavy shield and powerful blow, a Paladin's Shield of Righteousness somewhat sparkles at an opponent threateningly, with an utter lack of aural flair." -WoW Insider

Hey Mach, do you sparkle threateningly?

Post something already if you're going to copy me, you nubtankadin!

/toddles off to go work on her Paladin Leveling Guide Thing

Sunday Surprise

This video describes WoW PvP far better than I can. It also made me giggle.

I personally find my holy pally useless in PvP, but that might have to do with the fact that when attacked, I just run around and scream like a little girl until my bubble runs out.

Yes, I realize that holy pally is OMG WIN in arenas right now.

But if you catch me alone doing my dailies in my PvE gear, I'm still screwed!

Holy Fire, on the other hand, hurts like a bitch.

Thank you, BRK, for sharing.