Even though I really didn't have time (was expecting to go to Naxx), I accepted an invite to join an Heroic Nexus PuG. I was told they were on the third boss, so it was 10 minutes, tops. Of course, I completely forgot that there's an additional boss in Heroic Nexus, so in reality they had 2 mini-bosses left and then the final one.
I joined and within 5 minutes I knew I had made a mistake. Something was really off. After the first wipe on Anomalus, I had to give a quick speech about letting the tank get aggro before DPS attacks. The hunter got defensive saying he got attacked by the boss right away and I didn't send him heals. I explained that the only reason the boss attacked him was that he hadn't given the tank enough time to establish aggro. And, since it was clear he was going to die quickly, any heals I sent his way would have been aggro magnets for me as soon as he was down.
We wiped 2 times on him before we got him down. But, I died at the last second. As I was running back, they looted his corpse and ran off to the next area. I still had to get my Emblem of Heroism so I ran back to loot the boss. (I was NOT going to walk away from the run with nothing!). They were so clueless about their surroundings that they walked right into a group, engaged it, then started screaming for heals and asking where the "damned healer" was.
I rezzed them then apologized, saying that my 10 minutes were up and it was time to go to Naxx. This time I was not feeling guilty at all for abandoning a group.
I'm not an elitist jerk by any means. But, the way these people played, they were clearly not experienced enough for heroic dungeons. I can only hope that the advice I gave them after each wipe will sink in and they will improve.
My First 25-Man -- Obsidian Sanctum!
I was waiting for word on whether or not I'd be going to Naxx with guild #2 when I got an invite to a 25-man Obsidian Sanctum run. I confirmed with guild #2 that they were not going to Naxx, then accepted the OS invitation with guild #3. What a fun experience!
The run itself was not at all like I've experienced in the 10-man version. Not because the encounters are different -- because they're not. But, because we wiped at least 6 times on the final boss and still didn't get it down. I don't think I've ever wiped in Obsidian Sanctum 10-man. How difficult is it to run to the gap in the lava wave? Apparently very difficult -- even for me. I was so mortified by my own inability to move to the right spot fast enough. In order to save face, I ended up using Guardian Spirit on myself so I wouldn't die from the lava damage. If I died one more time from it, I was sure they were going to call me out. Because they were making it clear that they were getting tired of the idiots who couldn't get to the gaps. Luckily for me, I was not the only one, but still. Considering I've done it a couple other times with no problem, I was surprised that I just couldn't manage it last night.
Now...not to make excuses, but I do think there are factors that contributed to my not being able to get out of the lava waves.
- The tank positioned the boss in a different location than what I'm used to. In my previous runs, the boss was positioned at the far end of the space, turned left. This tank insisted on pulling the dragon a little further down so that his belly was located at the gap in the lava wave. This made it necessary for us to run to the dragon's belly for every wave coming from the right side. It was very disconcerting to run right up to the dragon and stand beneath it. I have to admit each time I did that I was not 100% focused on the gap. I was distracted by the huge dragon towering above me.
- This was my first 25-man run. I know that might sound like a lame excuse. But, the truth is, it was a lot to take in for a first time. It was chaos everywhere. I rarely even noticed when I myself was taking damage, which is unlike me. There were times that the warning regarding the lava wave came up and it got lost on me because there was too much going on.
- Raid Healing vs. Tank Healing. I was assigned to raid healing. That experience is very different in a 25-man than in a 10-man. Or at least it was last night. In a 10-man, "raid healing" really just means focusing on 7 other people. (Excluding the 2 main tanks and me.) I find it pretty manageable. I'm able to keep DPS alive while throwing a PoM on the tanks on every cooldown. Occasionally, I have to help keep up the main tanks. But, still, that's manageable. In the 25-man last night, my healing focus was all over the board. There were just so many more people to take care of. And they were all taking damage! As with the point above, there was just so much to focus on I found it difficult to pay attention to the lava flows.
- Healbot's interface is not good for 25-man raids. I had always planned on downloading Grid/Clique before venturing into 25-mans. But this invitation came out of the blue so I did what I could to adjust Healbot to show all 25 players and 3 pets. My biggest problems were that I couldn't see the names of the people on the boxes and that, in some cases, I just couldn't see that they were losing health. Don't get me wrong, Healbot was accurately displaying loss of health. But, I couldn't see it because the bar was blending in with the background. This meant that I was spending more energy than normal trying to make sense of what Healbot was showing me, and not enough energy paying attention to my surroundings.
- Not enough healing. As I mentioned above, in my 10-man experience I'm able to raid heal quite effectively. Last night I found myself helping out on the main tanks quite a bit. This meant that the DPS didn't get as much of my attention as they deserved. Was that my fault for not actually focusing on my assignment? Should I have trusted the tank healers to do their jobs without my help? Or were they actually unable to keep up with the damage and my help was absolutely necessary? Were they undergeared?
- Not enough DPS. On the final attempt we actually did quite well with respect to the lava flows. No one (not even me!) got caught in one. Since that is the main trick to the encounter, failure had to be for other reasons. Perhaps the DPS just weren't putting out enough damage for the encounter. Several times in vent I heard people saying, "Kill the adds faster. Come on guys, not fast enough."
- The tank couldn't keep aggro. Almost every time we did it, the dragon turned/moved and attacked others at least one time during the encounter. I heard people yelling in vent for tanks to stop taunting the dragon. It sounded to me like the tanks were making several mistakes. (At this point I'll note that I don't think I ever want to tank. It seems too complicated and requires coordination that I don't (yet?) have. Playing wack-a-mole with a healing interface is much easier than switching focus between several mobs, and constantly paying attention to what each mob is doing.) In my 10-man experiences the dragon stayed put...always on the tank and never changing focus. Was the tank not doing his job well enough? Were the other tanks taunting the dragon away? Was the DPS too high, taking away aggro (though I don't think that could have been the case)?
Guild
Again, nothing. But, then again, I spent the entire time with other people.
Personal
Se murió el ratoncito. Lo ví en el suelo esta mañana. Pobrecito.
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