Kantus Update June 1 2010

Many of you already know that my priest left the guild last week. I won't go into all of the details except to say that it was a decision I needed to make at that time. I felt really bad for the 10-man group I run with on Saturday mornings. It's mostly a group of alts with a few mains in, but a great bunch of people. We had reached 9/12 progression, and definitely would have gotten farther but we tend to run out of time. The good news is that the group is continuing without me - so best of luck to you in there! I know some have been curious as to how it's going, so I thought I'd throw up a post about my experiences so far.

Kantus moved to a guild called Priory on the Burning Legion server. Their progression was 11/12 on 25-man's, which when I was looking around was really where I wanted to be. I wanted to be a part of the LK kill on normal. For me, that's an important milestone this expansion and means a lot more than just being taken through it. I was a little nervous when I put in my application since my priest hasn't been my main focus this expansion. I like to think I'm a good healer, but what is good enough?

Through the application process I ended up working on several things based on feedback. One was completely changing my spec - I hadn't really kept up to date and some talents just didn't make sense anymore. The next was changing the priority/rotation I use to heal. As I said, things change and if you want to be doing the best you can do, you have to be willing to research and adjust. The next thing I did was finish any upgrades possible on my gear - which included the craftable bracers and boots. Finally I got my professions up to the level they needed to be in order to gain the benefits from them (My enchanting wasn't high enough for the latest ring enchants for example).

The transformation was truly amazing. I don't know how many of you have heard of this place called Halls of Reflection? Yes - that Halls of Reflection. As a healer I always found the first 2 bosses/waves very intense. Mana issues, threat issues, it was never fun. It could have just been a lucky group, but that very weekend I found myself back in there. No issues at all. I was pretty happy with the results.

Shortly thereafter, I found out that my application was accepted. For the first time in a very long time I was a new player, in a new guild, hoping that I'd be able to prove myself. One of the hardest parts of being in a new guild is that you are an outsider. I've gotten so used to being the one leading raids and the guild, I find myself out of my element a bit. But so far it seems like a good group of people.

Because of a real-life guild get together and the long weekend, they only raided 1 night last week. From what little I can tell so far, invites seem to be based on who's there first. No calendar invites, no pugging. We pulled on-time with 23 people, and those that weren't at the raid site yet just made there way quickly. No complaining about a lack of summons. If you aren't ready when and if they go out, deal with it. They also pull fast. As a healer if you run out of mana, that's what your replenishment options are for. There was no downtime on trash. Halfway through the raid there was a 10-minute break. Other than that, the only readycheck was at bosses.

There was noone explaining the fights - so I had a few whispers from people and I was just adapting as I went. Thankfully they are all familiar enough to me where it wasn't so bad. I think I only got yelled at twice. Once for cleansing too quickly on rotface. They do it differently than we do. If there's an ooze out, you don't cleanse someone else until it combines so you don't get uncontrollable big oozes. So you wait and heal people through it if needed. It's a little more stress on the healers, but definitely smoother for the raid. But after 3 hours of raiding we were working on Sindragosa. Since raiding is 3 nights a week for 3.5 hours each, and their progression is 11/12, that leaves a lot of time to be working on the Lich King. From what I could tell, average dps was around 10k (top 5+ doing around 12k) and average healing around 4k. Obviously depending on the fight.

At one point I asked someone how I was doing. They said you really can't tell until Sindragosa since everyone pretty much just sleeps through the rest of the bosses. I do like their strat for sindragosa. It's one that we had considered for our 10-man, but seeing it in use it really makes a lot more sense. It was easier to follow and move around.

Then this past Monday I was doing the daily fishing quest on Boman when a little level 1 popped out of nowhere and asked me if I wanted to raid last night to do some attempts on Lich King 10-man. I'm always a little hesitant about last minute things, but I said sure. I got on around 6:30pm my time and it was due to start at 7pm. It was one of their normal 10-man's raid id's that was locked at dreamwalker. But since it was a holiday this was a last minute thing and most regulars weren't showing up. This group hadn't gotten LK down yet. Since they didn't want to pug, we ended up waiting until 8:30 before finally filling up. I remember thinking that back in our groups we don't have many people with that kind of patience.

Once we got in, we one-shot Dreamwalker, then one-shot Sindragosa. I had already watched the LK video and took notes earlier so I was prepared. In addition to healing, for that fight the really needed me to be discipline. So I had also gone out earlier and changed my disc pvp spec to a pve spec and made sure I knew what was important on that fight for a discipline priest. I was given a quick 30 second review and off we went.

The first few wipes we got used to phase 1, the next few wipes we got used to phase 2, and somewhere in between took a 10 minute break. At some point during the first few wipes I was reminded that I should be using PoM at every cooldown. Oops! And up went my healing numbers! Finally, at just after 11pm, we got him! It was a crazy fight, and one I'd definitely call the most difficult one in there. It was the most amazing feeling I've had in ICC to date being a part of downing the lich king and seeing everyone get the achievement.

I can't really say what's next. In my mind I really want to start doing hard modes. But I don't have a regular 10-man group. I just happened to be lucky to get in last night. It was one of those rare moments where the group hadn't done it yet, they decided to try it, and I was available and actually was able to go with them. Amazing! So I may start trying to put together a 10-man on that server. We shall see! Hard modes are just too tempting.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw out an update on how Kantus was doing! He now wears his Kingslayer title proudly - even though I'm not really one for titles.

-Boman

So... I won't post forever but while things are still new I thought it would be interesting to throw out some of my experiences. Last night was 25-man night. We got started on-time and it was decided to extend from last week. So we started on Sindragosa at 8pm (my time). First try was at about 15%, and 2nd try Sindragosa was down. Primarily people not managing their debuffs and a rough position or two.

We spend the next 3 hours wiping on the lich king. I still have to say, I really love that fight. It's very complex, lot of moving, and just a lot of fun. Our best attempt got him to about 20%. At 10% the fiight is over, so it was pretty close. It wasn't until near the end of the night that we worked out a cooldown rotation for whoever gets Harvest soul in Phase 3. You just can't heal through it on 25-man (you can in 10) without using cooldowns. So my job was to get Guardian Spirit on the first person to get it. It does 15k dmg a second for 6 seconds and if the person dies it's very very bad. The Lich King gets a 10% dmg bonus.

So not to tie everything back to what we're doing - but I think we all know this. We need to keep filling up, and we should be going our entire raid time even if it means wiping all night on a single boss. We don't go for so long that 3 hours of constant wiping is really that bad. And if it is the same people not learning... that tells you something too.

-Boman

On Wednesday we continued our attempts on the Lich King 25-man from 8pm-11:30pm (my time). Our best attempt had him at 18%. It's a very unforgiving fight so with 25 people and all the movement and abilities going off, it makes the fight that much more difficult. Our last few attempts weren't so good - because there really is no room for mistakes. I like the focus of the raid leaders - the plan is to go back Sunday night again and extend if needed next week. They aren't resetting until the Lich King is dead. And I think it won't be long.

We did end up going with 7 healers. It wasn't ideal - for that fight I believe they prefer 6. But it worked out ok. But even with this group doing 8-12k dps across the board, there is no room for slacking. An interesting journey to say the least.

-Boman

As a follow-up - and probably final post in this thread - we downed the Lich King in 25-man tonight! Congrats to everyone over in Priory for a job well done.

-Boman

lol nice guild name and grats on the kill