UR Raid Week in Review – 2012 Weeks Five and Six

I realize I skipped my review last week.  I did that mostly because last week was more gear and achievement oriented than progression-oriented.  We have a few new members, and even raiders who pre-date me, who still could use some Normal mode updates before we start smashing face on Heroic.  So, this week’s review will cover both Week 5 and Week 6.

Progression

Progression is not really the correct word for the past two weeks, but I want to keep to my format.  🙂

25man Progress

Last Wednesday, I tried to take a nap before raid, cuz I have been feeling crappy, and I slept through raid.  ><  I literally did not wake up until about midnight – about an hour after raid ends.  😦  I mean, I am sure I was conscious enough to turn my alarm off and go back to sleep.  <sigh>

Last Thursday, we cleared Normal DS (Wednesday, the guild did LFR).  Madness had a few deaths, but after Deathwing was dead Lissanna admitted that she had forgotten to switch to heals before the attempt.  So we 5-healed Deathwing.  hehe  Go us!

This Wednesday night was quite exciting.  We start raiding at 8pm, and we had Normal DS cleared before we took our break at about 9:40pm.  So after we returned from break, we went to ICC and got a 25man Heroic Lich King kill!

This Thursday, we did LFR DS and finished about 9:20 or so.  (And that is only cuz some of our less-mature 😉 raiders wanted to ignore mechanics, Rogue-tank and pull whole rooms of trash and kill all the things!)  After break, we cleared Ulduar on 25man, and Effy and several other of my guildies finished their achievements for the Ironbound Proto-Drake.  😀

The LFR run was open to alts for those of us who did not need 384 gear or Valor.  So I was able to take Sifaol.  🙂  She kept up pretty well for being under-geared compared to our main raiders, and being Disc in a Holy Tier.  😛  I would stop playing her before I went Holy.

I ❤ Disc.

WoL – 2/8/2012

WoL – 2/9/2012

10man Progress

While we are clearing Normal mode DS in our 25man, this leaves us no opportunity for 10man progression.  So 10man nights have been more focused on older raid achievements.  These last two weeks, I have not participated.

Effy’s Gear

Last week, Effy got her BiS belt, which was a side-grade iLevel wise, but a solid stat upgrade.

This week, Effy made a killing in DS.  She upgraded her Tier Chest and Gloves from the LFR (iLevel 384) to the Normal (iLevel 397) pieces.  She also got Ring of the Riven, which is one of two BiS rings.  So now, she has both.

After gemming and enchanting everything, I decided to un-reforge all my pieces and start from scratch in that aspect.  Then, I looked at my stats and decided not to reforge ANYthing.  My Haste is a lil higher than recommended, but my Crit, Mastery and Spirit are all sitting in a really nice range (IMO) and so I decided I will run with this next week, and then decide if I need any adjustment.

Raid Performance

25man Performance

I could not be more proud of our guild right now.  We may not be doing “progression” per se right now, but everyone is steadily improving.  Healing is getting easier on all of the encounters, and less people are making small mistakes.

I have great confidence for when we start Heroics.

10man Performance

While we are clearing Normal mode DS in our 25man, this leaves us no opportunity for 10man progression.  So 10man nights have been more focused on older raid achievements.  These last two weeks, I have not participated.

My Performance

Even since before I started my Blog, I have read a few WoW Blogs here and there.  One that I have always referred to for my Shaman is Life in Group 5.  Vixsin is a Shaman I have respected the opinion of since I first began raiding.  The other day, she posted a Mail Bag, answering questions from her readers.

One item that especially caught my eye was her talking about using Chain Heal to consume a Riptide in order to boost the heal size of the Chain Heal.  Apparently with buffs to Riptide, and especially the extra ticks from the Glyph, consuming Riptide is not a good idea.  As logical as is this printed before me, I have been boosting my Chain Heals from Riptide all this time.

So I tried it out this in raids this week, and I think it netted me a small drop in heals.  However, I plan to give this a little bit longer for me to play with, since I noticed I caught myself trying to cast Chain Heal on my Riptide targets, which surely dropped my numbers some purely from hesitation.

Homework

1. Keep playing with the spell “rotations” I started this week.
2. Try out my heals and numbers with all my gear with no reforging.
3. Make some comparisons again at the end of next week.

Final Thoughts

Jaded Alt posted a short entry about Mains.  Basically, she asked what everyone’s plans were as far as your Main is concerned, when Mists of Pandaria goes live.

This is a tough question for me.  When I moved from Wrath to Cataclysm, there was no one I wanted for my main other than Effy.  She was so fun to raid with through ICC.  But when Cata went live, Shaman were horrible.  I felt like I was holding back our 5mans while we were all gearing for raiding.  And I think it was all our Resto Shaman that partly hurt our progression in Tier 11.

When 4.2 came out, Sifaol was 85 and geared enough to raid, and she became my main raider for a short amount of time.

Admittedly, losing the Yin to Effy’s Yang (or visa versa?) made a big difference in that decision.  I was part of one of those raiding couples that seem so popular or infamous in many Blog posts these past several weeks.  When we broke up, he stopped playing WoW, and raiding just was not the same.  I think it was part of reasoning for raiding with Sif, and also part of my reasoning for moving to Wyrmrest Accord.

Despite the fact that I am raiding again, and no longer on WRA, I think it was a good move for me.  For one, I started my Blog!  And for two, I realized I missed raiding.  One of those – absence makes the heart grow fonder kind of things.  🙂

There is talk that MoP will be the death of Shaman, that the new talent setup and the Shaman changes will gimp them beyond anything we have seen so far.  I am of the mind to wait and see.  I have other 85 toons, and I plan to make two Monks (one on each account, hehe).  So I will have options.

But Effy is my Main, and I do plan to keep it that way.  ❤

~ Effy

• Posted in: Effraeti/Effræti ♦ Healing ♦ Personal Thoughts ♦ Priest ♦ Raiding ♦ Shaman ♦ Sifaol ♦ Specs and Such ♦ Undying Resolution