Gruul's and Mag's

So, a lot has been happening lately. On Tuesday, Deressy went to Gruul's Lair for the first time with Distant Beliefs. Her only other attempt there had ended rather quickly so this was her first time to see anything beyond the High King. We had a couple of minor wipes, but downed both Gruul and High King! Woot! Since she wasn't part of the guild, she wasn't able to roll on the T4 gear that dropped (others were wanting it), but she did manage to pick up Cowl of Nature's Breath, which was a very nice upgrade for her.

Tonight she headed into Magtheridon's Lair. This was a progression run - her second time into Mag's (both times with Distant Beliefs). The first time was really not very successful - we had a hard time with the clicking, the staying alive etc. Tonight, the Raid Leader was trying a new strategy - 8 healers. I lost count of the number of attempts we made, and don't really want to count 2 of them at all; not once, but twice, someone right clicked a warlock to start the event - when not everyone was ready or even in the room. If you total up my durability loss for the night, I'd be somewhere around -80%.

We did, however, get better and better with each run. Our best attempt had him down to 10% - unfortunately, we lost a bunch of people to cave-ins and then some folks missed clicking their cube (likely because they were dead), and it ended up our tank and offtank (both pallys) trying to kill him and stay alive. We'll be trying it again on Tuesday, so I'm quite looking forward to that.

Now, I don't use damage or healing meters at all - have always been a bit concerned about people focusing more on the meter rather than on what's best for the raid. But twice last night, I had one of the other healers whisper me to let me know I was 'catching' him on the meter - later I found out I ran second in every fight. Not sure if that's good or bad - I was on raid healing though, so it's no surprise I'd have high heal numbers. What I don't know, and would have like to have seen, is how much of that was overheal. Oh well...maybe if I can find a semi-reliable and very non-intrusive meter, I'll install it.

On a separate note, after a very long and difficult process, *zul and I decided to leave our guild and join Distant Beliefs. We really loved Asgard and the people in the guild, which made this decision even more difficult. However, given some real life issues which may limit our time playing this game, we felt as if we would progress more and see more end game content by making a move. Everyone at Asgard has been incredibly encouraging - I can't recommend that guild enough if you are on Runetotem looking for a guild. They've also picked up one of my favorite resto druids - and one who I learned a lot from (grats, Asgard and Mondas).

Remain Resto or Respec?

Having leveled resto from Day 1, I have had many an opportunity to run instances - they were sometimes the easiest way to gain XP as well as a good opportunity to meet new folks. PUGS R US. With a few exceptions, I have been in some awesome PUGs - I find that letting folks know up-front the PUG rules/expectations works really well.

So I managed to get all the way to level 67 without a spec-crisis. I was on travel (you never know how hotel lag is going to be) and was vehemently asked to heal for a PUG going to Sethekk Halls. I'd never run that instance before, didn't know anyone in the group, but was assured it would be cake - we were running with two prot warriors. Well, it wasn't cake. We managed to inch our way to the last boss, despite my plethora of problems - pulling aggro, occasional lag, and general unfamiliarity with the instance.

However, we couldn't down the last boss. After several wipes, I was typing out a suggestion that they might be better finding another healer (my lag wasn't preventing the healing, but I couldn't seem to get out of the boss's AOE in time) when I was unceremoniously kicked from the group. Ouch. I would have gladly left on my own and was just suggesting that very thing.

At any rate, the experience was demoralizing and I lost confidence in my ability to heal anything. I stayed away from instances for more than two weeks, finally only agreeing when Dorchah, a shadow priest and good friend of mine, insisted they needed me. I was quite tempted to respec to something (anything) other than resto. The problem was, I generally really enjoy healing and the challenges it presents.

I stuck to getting Kara-attuned and running dailies for a while. A few weeks later, still hesitant about my spec and my direction, having achieved all but the Black Morass step of Kara-attunment, I was running dailies up in Og'rila and grouped up with some folks I hadn't met before to get banishing over with quickly. Oddly enough, in that one short session, I ended up with two invitations to join raiding guilds.

One of those guilds, Ásgård, took me down to Black Morass and helped me get attuned. Then they proceeded to invite me to run Kara with them that night. Keeping in mind that Essy is my main (not Deressy), and really I wanted to join a raiding guild with *zul so we could raid together, I was hesitant to make any sort of commitment until he and I had discussed it and he'd had a chance to get to know the guys from Ásgård and decide for himself.

Lucky for me, the guys (and gals) from Ásgård are a quality bunch and were happy to have me run Kara with them for a couple of weeks while the *zuls got to know them better. As you've probably noticed, not only did I not respec, but I joined Ásgård as did Hunzul.