Now with LARGER Graphs

Well, I was looking over the trending in healing again this morning, in preparation for the inevitable badge run and feeding frenzy that I am sure to participate in. When I noticed that my graphs were a little small in the last post, so I decided I would make it bigger.

After a little further thinking about it, maybe I should share with you how I got to this nice looking graph. First, it is done in MS Excel 2007.

Second, I took the raw summary report directly from WWS reports. I typically like to have two reports laid on top of each other. One report that is overall, the entire run. The second one is a report that is jsut defeated bosses. All of the trash pulls, and the deaths along the way, while they factor into the progression, really don't factor esaily into useable data. You simply can't measure how effective each 30 second slice fo the fight is easily. If you could, charting DPS ramping up and healing through put would be all USEFUL information.

Third, okay so now that I got the data from the two reports, I dump them into Excel, and then chart. I can see that my spot healing is dead on, with both Rejuvenation and Nourish at 21%. Wild Growth is a lot higher, but I am healing 5 people most of the time with it. Followed by my concentration on my tank / target healing at Regrowth 17% / Lifebloom 11%. I am a little puzzled by why Lifebloom is a good 6% below Regrowth; however when I look at my Hit/HoT counts, I am using Lifebloom significantly less. There is no doubt about it. I am also glyphed for Regrowth / Nourish / Swiftmend, so I am sure that is also inflating the healing numbers as well. Lastly, is all the stuff that I use in emergencies and "oh crap" moments. Luckily, 5 total moments, over 7 bosses, with 13 Swiftmend applications. I think those stats are right spot on target. Might consider using Swiftmend a bit more for instant healing; however, that would require letting the tank/target drop below 90% health, which is something I try to avoid.

Uldar 25 Man (First Day)

Well our Uldar 25 man run went very well last night, run report linked. We downed the First 6 bosses on the first night. This is a new record for us and we have downed all of the bosses that we normally would down in a week on the first night. I am not sure which bosses we are going to attempt on Thursday, but we should be getting into TIER pieces this week. WAY ahead of schedule if you ask me.

So now that I have settled down some, and easing into the Nourish / Rejuvenation mentality for Raid healing, I decided to put a chart together on how my healing is working out. I have moved up from a solid 5th place on the healing charts to third place overall. I am pretty satisfied with the solid performance. So here is the chart.
My thoughts are, 1) I am sticking to my healing philosophy, which is what I contribute the success to. 2) I am using Vuhdo and SmartBuff to cast all of my spells. I think that being comfortable with the configuration of these two addons is what has increased my healing output. 3) Because of my button layout and concerted effort on the philosophy, I can heal albeit slower without any addons.

As for the game plan here is what I am currently doing:
1) Rejuvenation / Nourish combination, if you get a spot heal you get both
2) Regrowth / Lifebloom combination, if your my tank/target you get both with the bloom to help cover the deficit.
3) Wild Growth, I am popping this onto my tank target as much as it is up, which 90% of the time also catches the MELEE DPSers, so it is a win - win
4) Swiftmend is reserved for my tank/target, if its up and your less than 50%, your getting it.
5) Nature's Swiftness / Healing Touch, I am only using this in an "Oh Crap moment", I am also measuring how many of those I think I had during a run and comparing the number.
6) Health stones, I am seeing more frequent use of these for myself and trying to remember to save the mana instead of healing myself if it is up. (Its a work in progress)
7) I am trying to Innervate early (~50% mana), use a Mana Injector in the middle of the fight (~25% mana), and Innervate late, if needed. So far, I haven't had the mana issues I was expecting, but I think me also setting up the healing is going to contribute to this as well.

Old School Runs

Recently our Guild did a "naked" Scarlet Monastery run. The idea was for everyone to start out naked and then only use equipment that was picked up out of the Instance. The groups were formed into 5 man teams randomly, which means a couple of groups did not have healers. Welcome to farming silk for bandages, anyway the goal was the first team to complete all 4 wings of SM won 400 gold.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to the timing, but it did make me a little nostalgic for my 60 days. So I dusted off the Feralheart Rainment and my Wildheart Rainment and took some pictures of me in my just barely raiding days of early 60dom. Love that Staff of Rampant Regrowth was awesome back in the day.

So now that I only collected 5 of 8 Tier 1 Cenarion Vestments, 3 out of 8 Tier 2 Stormrage Rainment, I was wondering if anyone else was also going back and collecting those old dungeon sets, including Tier 4 and Tier 5.

Flame Warden Fenrous

Well in my traditionally retentive way, I completed all of the Midsummer Festival meta-achievements last night. Flame Warden Fenrous. I am still debating on whether or not I am going to do them on Cywyn as well. It would be a shame not to, but I don't want to waste time on her either. I also got my achievement for Leading the Calvary. It seems kind of silly on Fenrous, since I am not likely to use them, but hey that is me.

The other item to share is I got to run a Vault of Archavon 10 man as a SOLO Healer. Emalon's Run report, in which there were NO deaths and Archavon, in which 1 Hunter died. I topped 4K in heals per second as well. I feel pretty confident that I could do it again.

Uldar 25 Man (Second Day)

Well we made some nice strides in our raid progression, downing two (2) new boss encounters on Heroic mode. Our Uldar 25 seems to be growing and people are starting to get excited. So the only boss that we downed that we consistently do is Auriaya. I rather like the encounter, but I also received my Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed. It was hard to remove my Valorous Dreamwalker Robe but as I had no other Tier 7.5 Gear, the raw stats of the Vestments made it a rather easy choice.

I also seemed to be having a rather excellent healing night, having arrived at third on the healing chart. BTW, the healing and DPS charts are only reviewed after a run and not during. So either everything is clicking or it is not. Thursday night, I just seemed to be in the groove. However, I am also a lot more confident after continual reviewing of what I am doing and seeing steady improvements. My overall over-healing is also going down significantly.

Uldar 25 Man (First Day)

In our Uldar 25 man from 6/16, I wasn't the only healing tree. Sydia was also with us as well. I noticed that Sydia, whom I have not run with before, relied on regrowth spam as his primary heal with rolling Lifeblooms. Sydia also spent a lot of time lying on the ground, thus reducing his effective healing, which leaves me wondering how effective the time he spent healing was and what caused him to die so much, as the tanks never lost agro on their targets. I suppose the only explanation would be that Sydia simply didn't know the fights and insisted on standing nearly on top of his healing target. I did notice that overall, Sydia's healing did heal more per tick, regrowth (5029/4595), lifebloom (8332/7881), rejunvenation (1978/2026), and nourish (4412/5011). So judging by these numbers, he is using his heals that are bigger for him, and I am using my heals that are bigger for me. The only other thing that really stood out for me is that I used Swiftmend 13 times while he used it once. Thanks for the mana regen nerf and nerfing lifebloom Blizzard.

So, I am also hoping that I get a chance to run with Sydia again this week, so I can get another chance to compare build/healing preferences side by side again.

Argent Tournament / Daily Obession

Well, I was in a trying to figure out a solution to a problem with Fenrous. You see I am an achievement nut. Like pokemon, I got to collect them all; however, back in the day, I did most of the starting area content for Night Elves, Humans, and Dwarves, which meant that leveling thier reputations was going to be a TON of Runecloth turn ins. Having already done this once to get to Exhalted with Stormwind for a Horse mount; I was not looking forward to doing it a for each of the other 3 factions. Then along came the Argent Tournament, and thus there was much rejoicing.

So, now the Argent Tournament quest chains are a daily obsession in which I participate in completing quests for Champion's Seals and Valiant Tokens. I am currently a Champion of Darnasus and working on Stormwind. I frequently try to group to do several of the quests including Threat from Above, Before the Citadel, and At The Enemy's Gates. The nice part is that the numerous of these quests can be completed at the same time.

So today, I dragged Draklite over to the AT area now that he is level 77 and started doing the quests with him.  We tried dueling but twice the duel canceled before i as done killing him. Think he was having a hard time with loosing his target and me being behind him.  Yes, I know, not fair, but was kind of fun. 

And my Argent Squire never looked so good.  Tomorrow I should have the pendant for Stormwind as well. And there was much rejoicing!

Eye of Eternity

Had my first go at raid healing for EoE 10 tonight. We didn't down Maly, but I am feeling better about raid healing now. First attempt there was some pressure on my mana pool / regen, but on the subsequent attempts, was much better. Class Timers is a MUST, and playing on my laptop isn't as much fun as my screamer machine at home. So we ate some blockage tonight, but all in all I lived to heal at the end on 2 of the attempts, so it is getting better.

Also, www.end-result.org is selling runs through Heroic instances of Naxx and OS. Might be something to look into on their method of doing it.

Naxx 25 Heroic Mode

Well, I have just completed my first tour of duty last night as a healer for Naxxaramas 25.  I got several complements on my healing capabilities having arrived at 4th overall and only 300 points behind the average at 1300.  I personally am interested in reworking some of my talents or settling down with what appears to be a suitable healing objective.

Raid healing now is completely different than what I have done on Fenrous before.  The original raid strategies were pretty simple, keep rejuvenation and supplement with healing touches according to how much damage the tank had missing.  It prevent a large amount of overheals and worked pretty good for keeping the tank alive.  Well that is of course all preBC.  Before, I would rarely toss a rejuv on anyone other than the tanks, and between casts would bandage the ranged dps that was hurt standing around me.  I am wondering now what would be said i if I did similar on one of our Naxx runs.

Anyway, here is my struggle, having only recently dinged 80, there is a good chunk of my gear that just isnt performing as well as I need it to.  Twice last night, while main tank healing, I would be watching my rotating stacks, keeping wild growth, lifebloom, rejuvenation, and regrowth up on the main tank, applying refreshes as needed to keep them rolling and the tank would be 1 shoted right out from underneath me at nearly max health.  I tried to make it a point to keep the tanks above 80% across the raid, which proved to be outside of my capabilities; however, just wasnt able to keep up with the damage coming in.  I wasnt really running out of mana nor was I having to use my Innervate excessively.  It was always up when I felt I needed more mana; however, just the amount of healing that was coming out seemed a little low to me.

So, I am working on identifying if it is simply a Druid Talent build issue or if I just do not have enough spell power that I am looking for in my healing output. So, I am left wondering about my talent builds and playing around with Rawr to answer my question about output.  I have also just recently learned how to output for WWS so my raid sessions are going to be looking up now.

I picked up 4 new pieces last night Valorous Dreamwalker Robes, Desecrated Past, Gloves of Peaceful Death, Siezed Beauty

For my first Naxx 25 man run on Fenrous, we did really well, full clear in a little less than 5 hours, all wings and all bosses.  We did not complete any heroic achievements, but having only laid down in 2 raid wipes and doing the Haegan dance, I am feeling pretty confident on future runs and being an asset and not a liability on the run.

Updated / Enchanted WoW-Heroes Score 1877

History of Fenrous

The history of Fenrous is a curious thing.  Fenrous started out on Azgalor as a Night Elf Druid to be played on the server that one of my wife's co-workers had a character on.  Azmodious.  It is from this humble beginnings that Fenrous' journey started in the World of Warcraft PVP; however, that is not the exact beginning of the story of Fenrous.  No, that begun many years before, many, many a nights of saying, "Five more minutes then I am done honey."

You see, there is the Druid named Cebon Gladerunner on Erollisi Marr of The Raenore, which is where the story actually starts.  For a long period of time, I played EverQuest and was the guild leader for The Raenore for nearly a year during this time; however, I found that guild life in EverQuest was limited.  Belonging to a social networked group of friends whom disapproved of me leaving thier non-guilded social group for a guild of like minded individuals, whom grouping was a regular occurance; however, the grouping system for mobs was terrible in EverQuest, but I loved the niche that druids provided the game.

So, I was always loving the Warcraft games, and I signed up for Beta testing.  Luckily I got in during the 'Open Alpha' period.  I was immediately hooked and decided that I would be migrating from EQ to WoW quietly and discreately.  The first night of alpha, I played until I was a Level 12 Druid. I died doing the bear quest nearly 8 times.  Now that was back in the day where the first 5 levels took a LONG time, especially when you spent more time reading quests, saying these yellow question marks are awesome, and just looking around the enviroment.  Also, I couldn't believe my luck in the death penalty system, NO DEBIT.  NO LOSSING LEVELS, just a durability cost,  SIGN ME UP.  So I ordered my Collector's Edition World of Warcraft and was

 on my way to enjoying myself, or so I thought.

One of the basic mistakes that I made in EverQuest, very early on, was turning in the Book of Discordia, and becoming flagged, PERMANETLY for PVP.  Which at level 1, meant that you died ALOT to people whom just wanted to be mean because your noobsauce, even at the time a toon 5 levels higher, because I got on the EQ bandwagon when it came out, could EASILY kill you.  So, I selected a non-PVP realm, Role Play, perfect for me, or so I thought and off I went to Earthen Ring.  Cebon had been reborn as a Night Elf Druid.  I had given up porting people and making food, for being able to have no death debit.  I was enjoying myself.  Then the envitable happened, as a casual gamer, there is only so far you can go in the game, so by the time Cebon was mid-40s, I had already become overly bored with the game, but still logged on occasionally, to work a couple of quests down a night.  Hey, I was doing more quests in WoW then I ever could even find in EQ, and I wasn't having to monster grind to get up in levels.

All is well, and I am leveling, then one day my, then wife at the time, comes home and sayes that I needed to talk to this guy at her work about World of Warcaft, because he also played.  Turns out that during this conversation, everything that had started to disappointment in WoW could be fixed.  And trust me, not having any friends playing or knowing

 anyone else playing has a HUGE impact on your enjoyment of WoW.  So, I decided that I would join Azgalor, playing anything that I wanted, as long as it was Alliance, and Azmodious would help me out doing quests.  At the time, Azmodious was a Level 35 Night Elf Hunter.

Now, you have to understand that I was pretty unhappy with EverQuest, unhappy with Earthen Ring, and didn't really want to start from scratch, but knew that if I went to play with Azmodious, that I would probably not play after a few months of reaching level 60.  So, off I was to try something new, thus the Night Elf Druid Fenrous was borne.  At this point in time, around Mayish 2004, there were only a few new instances being added to the game, with Dire Maul having recently come online.

Thus, the Legacy started on Azgalor.  Orignially, I decided that I would create a guild named Ordo Lupus and convince Azmodious to join, which I did successfully do; however, my absence in EverQuest, and all the rest of the online games did not go unnoticed.  Unfortunately, that is again when issues would arise.  See, the social gaming group found out that I was playing World of Warcraft, and between them complaining about the class abilities and me playing Alliance, we lived for a few months with utter turmoil, as myself and Azmodious were doing more and more redicoulus things, like trying to kill the Dragons at the entrance to Caverns of Time.  And we did get the first two dragons down as a level 45 Hunter and level 32 Druid.  Eventually, the guys either stoped complaining or were playing Horde more than they were playing Allaince.  I have to say, the series of events that happened next for the most part are thier faults.

So, the leveling began, Azmodious and myself having reached level 60 at nearly the same day,

 assisted and ran quests with the other Ordo's members hoping that we could get onto better content.  During this time as Ordo Lupus' Guild Leader, we grew out to 25 active members, 15 inactive or very casual players, published 3 web comics, and I worked on my gear.  The battlegrounds were just beginning and was a good time sync when other people were not on or doing things with guildies.

Azmodious and I wanted to raid. We wanted to hit end game content.  End Game at this time was still, Dire Maul, but they had added two new big time upgrades to the game, the dungeon instances which contained Tier 1 sets and Zul Grub.  Now, understand that originally T1 is now what is considered T0 sets.  So if you wanted to progress, you needed at least 10 to do most of the dungeons, had to have a set of T0 gear, and be getting upgrades out of Zul Grub.  We couldn't get our Retribution pallys to accept the fact that they either needed to Tank or Heal, that anyone Retribution spec'ed in a raid was gimping the raid.  It is also at this time that we realized that we had to get our gear and they were not going to group with people that were not guildies; however, they were also against adding people whom they didn't know personally to the guild.  So, very quickly we were already gimped by my members.  Eventually, I had my Wildheart set all 8 pieces, and they had nothing, having just done quests for gear and buying items off the auction house.

Enter, The Children of the Grave.  So one day Azmodious sends me a tell telling me to drop guild and come with a group to Zul Grub.  I was excited to say the least; however, I wasn't happy with dropping guild, but they let me come along in one of their PUG spots because I was restoration spec'd.  Yes, these are the days before Tree Druids, before Moonkins, and before druids did anything other than HEAL in raids.  This is also the time of AQ's world events prior to the opening of the portal.  So, off I went with 20 people I barely knew to heal the tanks.  At this point I was hooked on end content raiding.  So much so that by the time Children of the Grave started to fall apart, I joined another raiding guild which was doing Molten Core and Blackwing Layer raids every week, Retribution.  It was a great time for me, healing and then working on gear in dungeons. Faction work as another priority and was REALLY painful in those days, where only by turning in stones did I get to Revered with Argent Dawn. But, I was working on Tier sets, and had my want lists, and pretty much had everything macro'ed out that I was never turned down for a raid spot, and eventually became Class leads and Healer leads.

By now its Thanksgiving 2005, I had decided to go to my brother's house that year.  While the kids and everyone did activities downstairs, I was feverishly playing away upstairs grinding out Argent Dawn faction and doing any pickup raids I could since about this time all of the active Retribution guild runs had begun to wind down and the guild leadership was talking about scraping the guild into a 10 man raiding guild for Burning Crusade.  My brother decided that he

 was tired of playing EverQuest ina  two box scenario because there was no-one to play with and joined me on Azgalor playing a gnome warlock.  After a couple of weeks worth of play, he made 26, we decided that we would attempt to roll Horde and join the other gaming group; however, they were playing on Bonechewer and my Horde toon, albiet low level, was on Laughing Skull.  So we sat down and mapped out a new guild on Emerald Dream called Sanguineous Dragons.  It was at this point, I decided that if I couldn't play Fenrous, I didnt want to play a Druid.  So the Blood Elf Mage Cywyn was crafted.  I wish I could say everything was well, but it wasn't.  I think looking back now, we overlooked one core design flaw when we mapped out the guild, THEY were not playing as much as we were lead to believe.  So we attempted to get raiding going,

 which failed.  We attempted to get a Core Dungeon group going so we could do faction grinding, which meet with some success, as in my

 factions are maxed, but ultimately resulted more from finding pugers than anything else.  Then I tried to find a couple of raid groups on Emerald

 Dream.  The one I ended up getting a chance in the very first run resulted in me rolling against people whom had already won 2 items, and end result was 2 spell dps casters getting 4 items

 each, while I got nothing. Then was told when asked about my disappointment, that is the way it rolls.

So, here is Azmodious telling me, dude, come back to what you love.  Come back to your Druid on Azgalor.  So I informed my brother of my decision and rolled back to playing Fenrous.  Now I am in a good guild, with Azmodious and my brother Draklite.  The guys that play at work are all in the guild as well, and from here is where my journey back into raid healing has begun.

So far, what an interesting Journey it is......

Rantings of Fenrous

You've found Fenrous' Ordo Lupus page dedicated to the fine are of being a Druid in the World of Warcraft universe.  It is a very niche place to be and one that I call home.   Please excuse my dust as I get settled into my new topical ranting / obession place.