No heals for you.

http://4haelz.blogspot.com/2008/01/encouraging-bad-habits-with-good.html

^^^ This post. Read it.

Now that you've read it, I'd like to inform you that my first ever 80, my holy priest, as well as my current pally-healer has the same issue. I don't just want those health bars to be full, I NEED them to be full.

And ask anyone who has ever sat next to me while I healed a PuG would have often heard me say: "Crap. I hate it when they have confidence in me." This is usually followed by: "That idiot! Pulling THREE groups?! What was he thinking?! I should let him die! But then I'd die.....stupid choices!"

....Seriously. Healing+over-confident-tank=stress for me.

That being said, I'll always be a healer at heart. My first ever character was that Holy Priest. (I'm not counting the trial warrior I played to level 20 on a friend's account in Vanilla that first got me hooked.) And being a Holy priest, I'm used to dying. I almost rerolled a few times due to being too squishy for life, but I stuck to it. My gear still sucks, but it's not as bad as it was.

One of my Warlock buddies says that he loves it when I heal, because he knows he'll live.
My Mage buddy, says he's okay with me healing, but that he knows he'll always die.

Why? Because I do this thing called 'prioritize'. Meaning at the start of each run, everyone gets a number.
Tank is number 1.
Healer (me) is number 2.
Warlocks and hunters are number 3.
Pallies, DKs, warriors are number 4.
Priests and Boomkin druids are number 5.
Shammies, rogues and Catform druids are number 6.
Mages are number 7.
Anyone that annoys me is number 8.

The higher the number, the quicker you get heals.
Usually, everyone is kept at their peak heal, but on boss fights etc. where I have to chose who to heal and who to let die, this is my system.

So, naturally, 'locks love me. Mages, not so much.
My reasoning is that 'locks and hunters have pets, so we lose two dps'ers if they go down.
Pallies, DKs, and warriors wear plate, so they can take a bit more wailing and live longer as they dps.
DPS Priests and Boomkins are next, because Boomkins are massively powerful, and so are S-priests, but neither pull too much aggro.
Shammies, rogues and cats.....they do killer DPS, but they pull aggro ridiculously! And backchat if you ask them to tone it down a bit.*
And mages....they not only pull aggro, but they get one-shotted. *
And for those who annoy me..... well, they rarely get any heals...or rezzes....or kindness in general until they apologise for their stupidity.**

I am quick to let people die. If I'm explaining a fight, and you charge over towards the boss, or pull something, no heals for you.
If I click my drinking macro***, and you pull, no heals for you. Until I've got my mana back at least.
If you are constantly playing "Simon Says Companion Pets"****, no heals for you.
If you talk in only cAPS & NUMB3R5 after I ask you not to, because it hurts my eyes, no heals for you.
If you say "Get with the times grandpa" after the above occurs, no heals for you.
If you ask for heals, you get a macro#, but no heals.
If you whine about my macros, no heals.
If you polymorph ANYTHING that you're not supposed to (critters, the next group, etc), especially during fights.
If we wipe and you unjustly blame me, no heals.
If we wipe and you justly blame me, I will apologise. (Shocked?)
If we wipe and you demand to be rezzed, you won't be.
If we wipe and you say nothing and don't release......depends on my mood.
If we wipe and you ask for a rez.....you'll usually get one
If we wipe and you ask for a rez politely, you will almost always get one.
If we wipe and you say you get lost, I say "lol, I hear that" and rez you. Assuming of course, I don't get lost on the way to your corpse## =/


*The 1st Law of Mana Conservation comes into play here. "If you're non-essential, and it takes more mana to keep you alive than to rez you, the group is better if you die."
**I'm making a full post about this later, but in the meantime please don't hate. I acknowledge the difference between ignorance and stupidity. That is factored in.
***For those interested it's:
/e sits to drink.
/use (water of choice goes here)
/p GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!
/p I am currently out of mana, and no more heals will be coming till my blue bar's full. With that knowledge, feel free to pull. If you really think it's the smart thing to do.
****I'll admit, this game is rather fun, but during fights it just isn't appropriate.
#The macro depends on the class. My Priest's is:
/p Thankyou for requesting a heal!
/p For Greater Heal, please press 1.
/p For Flash Heal, please press 2.
/p For Renew, please press 3.
/p A healing representative will be with you shortly! Have a nice day!
##I am known for getting lost in ToC. ....Seriously. Not finding it. While in it. .....yeah.

If I ever have to PuG [insert dungeon here] I will [insert action here]!

We all have one, a dungeon that we hope the LFG system will never throw us into.

Naturally, it's the next one you get.

But what do you do? Do you stick it out? Getting hopelessly lost and possibly suffering abuse from your fellow group members? Do you leave and suffer the PuG-deserter debuff(the one that looks like a dead canary)?

Up until quite recently, mine was Wailing Caverns. And all my levelling alts would always get thrown it there. Usually I would stick with it. Sometimes I left. Then one day, the ultimate horror happened:

Guildie: Hey!
Me: Hey.
Guildie: You doing anything?
Me: Playing with the AH.
Guildie: Wanna run me through something?
Me: Sure!
Guildie: Sweet. Meet you at WC! /log
Me: o_O

I hate WC. This guidie KNEW that. But they wanted the Fang set for their Druid. So, I sucked it up and went.

And as we ran it, I was shocked my how much of it I knew. Although I shocked an RL friend that was with us on Vent (he was sitting next to me IRL). Apparently, he never realised how much I swore while tanking/healing/boosting. Or how much stress the boostee causes me. I found his reaction amusing.

Over Vent, I was confident about the way through. "This way." "We're going left here." "...your other left." etc.

IRL...."Oh, crap." "@#$%, where'd he go?" "Damn...I'm lost." "This wasn't here last time...." "Gah, where am I?" "I hate this place." "I'm never running anyone ever again!" etc.

He informed the guild over Vent, that he was leaving the computer for a while. When asked why he said: "Because Am's mutterings are freaking the hell out of me." Now everyone wants to hear them. I don't want them to. I think I must be the only person that mutters/talks-to-self while playing the game. I don't even realise I'mdoing it until someone points it out.

But, back to the story, I eventually got all the bosses down, so we headed back to the start to talk to the druid there. All the while I'm thinking 'pleaseletitworkpleaseletitworkpleaseletitwork'. And it did. So I'm crowing over Vent, as we follow the insanely slow-walking druid. (I swear that it took longer for him to get to the Sleeper than it did for us to run the instance =/)

Eventually we got there. Killed the swarms. Killed the murloc with glee. (I HATE them with a passion. That passion is hate.) Watched the two druids turn into birds and fly out. Complain about how the druids could use Flying form in Azeroth. ("I CALL HAX!" was said often.) Eventually we stopped sulking that they had flying forms in Vanilla (well, mostly. I'm still sour.) and left for Xroads.

All in all, it was a fun day. I found in-game-hax, as well as finally not being afraid of LFD'ing Wailing Caverns.

Now, to conquer Gnomeragan, Blackrock Depths, and Sunken Temple. Especially BRD. Although finding the dwarf-guy with the coffer-key is kinda fun....

Although I STILL hate regular Oculus. Heroic is alright, because everyone knows the fight and it's over quick. But regular...you're lucky if the tank can keep aggro, and everyone can get it through their heads to STAY ON THE DAMN DRAGON FOR THE LAST BOSS! I want to reach through the internet and slam their heads against their screens.

Oh, well. I guess we can't have them all.....

Best of luck to all your PuGs.

Later Days.

Doing It With One Hand....

Calm down, I'm talking about raiding with one hand. Meaning trying to run a raid or PuG while eating, reading, or anything else that requires the full attention of one hand.

I'm guilty of this. A lot. So are most people I knnow.

But, unlike most, I can still move, attack/cast/heal AND eat, while not causing a wipe.

I'm not trying to brag here, I just thought it would be interesting to post about it after a funny Vent convo I had the other day.
(unless specified, everything is being spoken over Vent)
RL: Ready? GO!
*fight goes here*
RL: Shik, you keeping up?
*silence*
RL: Shik?
Shik(me): (typed) Yeah, I'm good.
RL: Dude, why aren't you talking?
Me: (typed) Coz I'm eating, noob.
*fight's over*
RL: ......Dude, you were healing while EATING?! WTF is WRONG WITH YOU?!?!
Me: (talked this time) I kept up didn't I?
RL: Well...yeah...
Druid-buddy: Wotcha eating?
Me: Pie.
Druid: I like pie.... What flavour?
Me: Umm...beef? Is that a flavour, or a filling? Hmm....either way.
Druid: ....'Kay.....
RL: Lemme get this straight....you healed...while eating?
Me: Yup.
RL: You did it...with one hand?
Someone else: That's what she said....
RL: Not cool dude.
Me: Well, yeah. I have VuhDo, you know.
RL: .....But how'd you move? Use your action bars?
Me: .....Use the mouse?
RL: But...that'd.....you'd be swinging it everywhere, wouldn't you?
Me: Nah, I got a mouse with extra buttons. Got my action bars wired up to them.
RL: ...How many buttons does this mouse have?
Me: Umm.....*counts*....17.
RL: .....wtf? Why do you need that many?
Me: Duh. So I can eat pie during raids.


Incidentally, my mouse is a Razer Naga. I combine it with the addon made specially for WoW and the mouse. It is awesome. I'll post a pic or two of it here once I work out how.
Anyway, it's awesome.
I'd only recommend it if you either have small hands (women or kids) or are okay with using small mice (like me). It's even smaller than some 'standard' mice I've seen, and the smallest gaming mouse I've ever laid eyes on, excluding laptop/portable ones.

It did take a week or so to get used to, but now I can honestly say that I couldn't go back. I almost had a panic attack when I had to heal while using a friend's computer using his non-Naga mouse. Let's just say we wiped a few times until I worked it out. So, no moving, no attacking, only healing. And even then, only sparingly.

I would fail without my mouse.

Well, I'll stop pimping my mouse now. But seriously, check out their website, or at least Google them.

Later days.