I had quite the interesting regular Magisters’ Terrace run the other night.  When I logged on around 10 pm, I had already finished my Sunwell dailies with my Hunter.  I had also gotten his Demon Stalker Gauntlets enchanted with +15 agility.  Yay!  I’m still looking for someone to enchant his Legacy with +35 agility, but haven’t had any luck as of yet. Oh well, no rush.

About this time,a guildy whispered me to see if I’d be interested in healing a regular MagT run.  I had nothing else specific on my plate, so I volunteered to help out.  I switched over to the druid, and made my way to MagT.

The group was made up of a Warrior tank, 2 kitty druids, a mage and myself, a tree.  We were obviously light on CC for MagT, but it was regular mode and I felt confident enough to heal through most anything in there.  Druids are probably the best healing class for that particular instance, due to the Kael fight at the end.  That fight is just tailor made for a healer that can sling instant cast HOTs and stay mobile.

It started out easy enough, and we got through the first two bosses with no deaths.  We also handled the PVP-esque third boss fairly easily, though it got dicey at a couple of points.  This is one of the few fights I ever have the need to use Cyclone, and it’s actually quite fun.  So chaotic!

We wiped twice on the six mob pull after the third boss, but I’m used to wiping there.  I figured we would wipe at least once due to our lack of CC.  We did get through it eventually, though.

On to Kael we went.  Our DPS had been on the low side all night.  I was the most well-geared in the group, and one of the kitty druids and the tank were alright in terms of gear as well.  The mage and other kitty were a little behind the curve, though, and I thought Kael would give us some issues.  Having two of our DPSers be melee types was bound to make it a difficult fight.  To add to the problems, the mage in the group had actually never seen the fight before.  Not only was it his first time, but he was going to have to try to handle the Phoenix mostly on his own.

That’s a tough job.

So we got going, and wiped the first time due to DCs.  We got set up again and started our second attempt, and this is where it got interesting.

We handled the first Phoenix ok, but it took a little longer than I’m used to.  When Kael got to about 52%, he spawned a second phoenix.  Before we could stop the DPS, we dropped him to 50%.

Uh oh.

In the times I’ve seen similar things happen, it has not ended well.  The gravity shift portion of the fight can be tough enough as it is, what with the constant DOTs and the balls of death floating around.  Now we also had a stray phoenix blasting away at everyone.  The mage died at some point due to the phoenix, and we got through the first anti-grav phase, but that pesky phoenix was still wreaking havoc.  The kitty druids and warrior really couldn’t do much, as the AOE blast would likely take them out anyhow.  The tank wanted to wipe and start again, but I just wouldn’t let him die and we kept on keeping on.

In the next anti-grav phase, I took it on myself to show what Uber Resto Druid DPS? is all about.  Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath.  I blasted away at the pesky flaming beast, trying my darndest to get him down whilst avoiding the balls of death and throwing HOTs on the party when I could.

Well, I took him down, but he took me with him.  I ALWAYS forget to heal myself…doh!

Anyhow, the kitty druids then managed to take out the egg, as the anti-grav phase had just ended.  Whew!  No more phoenix.  After the next anti-grav phase, we had Kael down to about 27% and one of the other druids BR’d me.

We would not be denied.

All told, it probably took about 6 or 7 anti-grav phases before we finally took him down.  It was at least a good 10 minutes we spent on the fight, maybe more.  But in the end, we took his sorry butt down.

It wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done.  In a lot of ways, fights like that in which we persevere against challenging odds are far more satisfying than quick, surgical instance strikes.  Sure, I’d still usually take the 45 minute MagT run over the 90 minute version, but I usually find myself more satisfied after the latter.

As far as loot, well, I didn’t need anything anymore from there.  I’ve gotten my Vial, my Phoenix pet, and a few scattered off-spec items.  I was just there for the fun.  And on this night, it was a hell of a ride.

The deadline to submit your pic for Phaelia’s Arbor Day Challenge is almost here! (Due by May 30th!) Don’t forget to submit your Tree in all its glory today!

I just wanted to drop a quick note about some of the news that has been coming out on places like WoW Insider.  I personally think it’s premature to be talking about this, and Gwaendar at Altitis agrees.

First of all, who knows how any of this stuff will hash out?  Just look at how many things can change from the PTR for small patches?   This is a major expansion we’re talking about here, and there will be MANY, MANY changes before it’s released.

Besides that, who’s to say any of this “leaked info” is for real?  Alpha is VERY limited right now, and this leaked info could be nothing more than a bored geek in his basement dreaming up changes.  So I say ignore it!

Excuse the corporate speak, but it has come to may attention that a lot of bloggers are trying to get the word out about a potentially unjustified perma-ban issued by Blizzard. I say potentially, because I don’t know enough of the situation personally to make any kind of a judgement. I still thought it was a good idea to put up a link to a post by TemerityJane about the incident. Feel free to read it and decide for yourself. If it was unjustified, it needs to be rectified, sooner rather than later.

Kara. Our guild’s normal set up for a Kara run involves 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS. What I’ve found is that that third healer is often quite bored, if the other two are pretty well geared. I started to wonder if that third healer was necessary, and then I heard of people running Kara with only one dedicated healer.

One healer for Kara? Are they nuts?

It sounded like something I would like to try. So I made a post about it on our guild’s forums to see if anyone would be willing to take the “One Healer Kara Challenge” with me at the helm. I’ve made some great strides in my gear, and I’d call myself about Tier 4.5 equipped. I have a lot of the best healing gear from Kara, the [Grovewalker's Leggings] and a couple of drops from SSC. This puts me at 1867 healing unbuffed, and healing is the only stat that I focus on.

(Not that Stamina, MP5 and Spirit are unimportant, it’s just that I find that the items with good +heal give me those stats anyway.)

Well, I managed to find enough interest, so I posted a run. We took our best geared prot warrior, who I would put at around Tier 5.5, who is also one of our Raid Leaders. We also took an offtank and 7 DPS classes, all ranged, all fairly well geared (some VERY well geared). One of those was a Shadow Priest we put in group 2 to make my job a little easier. There were also a couple other healing classes that could throw in emergency heals now and then, including a boomkin, elemental shammy, and the pally off tank.

My hope was that we would succeed by sheer strength of DPS. The boss fights would largely be a race. Could the DPS burn them down before my mana bar ran out? Everyone also pretty much knew that I would focus almost entirely on the MT, and couldn’t afford to toss out many other heals. To that effect, everyone brought plenty of pots and bandages.

So last night was the night. I was REALLY looking forward to testing my mettle. Another reason I wanted to do this was to prove that I could. I don’t often to get to raid with many of my guildies, so a lot of them rarely if ever got the chance to see me play. I’m sure a few of them wondered if I could handle it – I know I did.

We got started on time, and the pulls began. On the very first pull, I died. One of the skeletal horsies got loose and came for me as I was building a good deal of healing aggro off the bat. I was a little geeked up, and probably threw more healing out than I really needed to. Nerves. The skelly horse whacked me, feared me, and with no other healers to help ME out, I went down. Oh well.

We continued on to the first boss, Attumen. Again, I got a little to healy, and Attumen himself aggroed me. 2 shots, I’m dead. They still managed to take him down, though, with the Boomkin healing and mad, crazy DPS. Oh well again.

I have a real tendency to die a couple of times early on any run tougher than a normal five man. I’m not sure why that is, I guess I have to kind of get “warmed up” and get my healing legs beneath me. Part of this is probably because – due to my limited play time – I have to get in and get going right away. It just takes me a few pulls to get going. There is a real art to healing, and when I get in the zone I feel like I can keep anybody up. Under any circumstances.

After that, things started to go real smoothly. We one shot Moroes with no real issues. We moved on to Maiden and one shot her as well. For Opera we got Oz, which I thought might be the most difficult of the three, but we one shot that as well.

Then we got to Nightbane, and my world was turned upside down. Was it that I just didn’t have the chops to heal that tough fight? No, that wasn’t the problem. It was FRICKING TECHNICAL ISSUES. We start on Nightbane, and things are going swimmingly. I’m keeping the tank up, and we’re really dishing it out. The next thing I know, I’m lagging. HARD. Say hello to my first DC of the night. (I say first because there were MANY more to come.) And, of course, a wipe.

So I get back in and we try again. Another DC, another wipe. Third try, I DC early, manage to get back in, and we take him down. Ack.

After that, I DC’d all the time. On bosses, on trash, you name it. I took a few shots even, though I don’t remember where we were at this point..I think clearing to Aran.

ARRRGGHHH! ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! (Make sure you repeat that as you look at the pics for full effect.)

Here it kind of looks like I’m in some bad Sci-fi movie, and I froze everyone in time. I was also getting some very odd rubberbanding, where I would get “caught up” for half a second, then more freezage.

Ok, I wasn’t really laughing. Here you can see another angle on this fight. I suppose it might have been useful had I been diagramming a trash pull, or something. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It turns out that’s how the WHOLE rest of the run went for me, for the most part. I managed to get through Curator without a DC. And man, was it beautiful with all that DPS. Once he got to his first Evocation phase, it was all over but the crying. I’ve NEVER seen him go down that fast. Heck, there’s a bunch of 5 man bosses I haven’t seen go down that fast.

I DC’d and we wiped on Aran. The second try I DC again, get back in, and we take him down. I get through Chess fine, though I stuck with a pawn just in case. (Of course I dont’ have any stupid DC issues on CHESS!!!) We get to Prince, and more DC issues abound. I DC once, wipe. I DC again, halfway through, and they took him down before I got back in. Thank god for massive, mind blowing DPS.

Needless to say, my frustration level was high, very high. Let’s put it this way, there was a fork nearby, and I was about 2 DCs from inserting said fork into either my DSL modem or my eye.

I have never had DC issues. Never. I just ran SSC Saturday night with NO problems. Now, when I’m trying something quite difficult for the first time, in an effort to prove myself and accomplish something cool, our group wipes multiple times because I can’t….fricking….stay connected!!

So we called it after Prince. (I did also upgrade my cloak to the [Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted] from Prince, bully for me. I also got a handful of off-spec feral upgrades.) I’m sitting here trying to put into words how frustrating it was, but I can’t. That’s how frustrating it was! I really feel like given the overall issues, it was a great success to get all the way through Prince. I think we did prove that it COULD be done with just one healer, and in a lot of ways it made the run more interesting. I only wish technical issues hadn’t gotten in the way. It would be one thing if I just couldn’t keep up. I could live with that. Maybe I’m just not good enough, or I need more +heal, whatever. But for the roadblock to be some frigging ISP related issue is just plain bupkiss.

Anyhow, that’s my story. I have good but not great gear, and I think normally I wouldn’t have any real problems one healing Kara. It would have been nice to see how Netherspite and Illhoof would go, but hopefully we’ll try this again in the future. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to drive to the local AT&T office and bust some heads. Thanks for reading!