Last night, less than a week after Cataclysm went live, my guild mustered up a 25-man raid and advanced upon the Bastion of Twilight.

Ill not keep you in suspense: we didn’t manage to kill any bosses. We were not, as they say, Prepared!

We did learn an awful lot though and I’m pretty sure we’ll get our first kill on Thursday when we go back, once we’ve got a bit more gear and experience under our belts.

Trash

My experience of the instance is still extremely limited, but I like this sort of trash. Pulls of 10 mobs make you think very carefully about what CC you have and where it needs to be applied, but there are also some genuine AoE packs mixed in to provide a bit of welcome relief.

The first few pulls were pretty messy, but it didn’t take long for everyone’s tired old CC muscles to tone up again and pretty soon we were taking down the trash without incident.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker

We got to the first boss after about 45 minutes of trash clearing, and had a look at the buffs. We had the Storm Rider, Nether Scion and Time Warden active, which is a pretty nasty combination for the first week.

Our best attempt was 39%, so we have a way to go but the strategy and execution feels pretty good now. We’ll test it out on Thursday and see, by which time we should have got a bit more gear and practice under our belts.

One lesson that came out of the Wyrmbreaker attempts is the need for communication. We were taking out the Storm Rider first, because his Shadow Nova was extremely disruptive, but we were still losing tanks despite having 4/6 healers assigned to them and only the boss and one add active.

It eventually transpired that the tank healers were switching off their assignments to cover the raid; that was why we were losing the tanks, rather than because the tank healing load was so excessive. Once we realised what was going wrong, we pulled the Time Warden along with the Storm Rider, which dropped the raid damage hugely. Even though we had 3 tanks engaged now rather than 2, they were staying up much more easily because the tank healers could focus much more on their assignment.

So healers: don’t be afraid to say if you are finding yourself healing outside your assignment a lot, it’s vital for the raid leader and/or healing lead to know where the stresses are being applied, and you probably know that better than they do.

Disc Healing

I’ve read mixed opinions on Smite healing from early experiences. From watching other healers, I definitely agree that Holy is the ‘path of least resistance’ at the moment, but I’m a stubborn sort so I’m sticking with Disc for the time being.

At the moment Disc is lacking in ‘throughput’ at current gear levels. The trouble is that with the 5-7% crit available from blue gear we’re not seeing much Divine Aegis, and without a lot of Divine Aegis procs we’re not getting much of a benefit from the Mastery on our gear either. With Disc’s absorbs being low, we’re having to heal more to make up for it, and that’s costing a lot more mana.

Holy, on the other hand, scales quite a bit better at this end of the raiding spectrum.

I intend to stick with Disc for a while though, but I’ll be swapping my offspec back to Holy again and learning how to work with the Chakra mechanics.

While I’m talking about Disc healing, Smite still seems to be suffering from range problems. 8 yards just seems to be a bit too small. I shouldn’t have to keep nagging my tank to move closer to the boss, especially when some bosses are (or have been, at least) twitchy and will overcompensate if you move too close to them.
This isn’t a problem on trash, generally, but bosses have much bigger hitboxes.

Mana and healing in general

Disc’s current shortcomings aside, I clearly have a lot to learn about the new healing model as well! I reforged as much spirit onto my gear as possible, but I still managed to chew through it very quickly, especially on the early attempts, and I’m certainly struggling to last through a 6-minute fight. That will improve though, once I get a few more 346 items to replace my 333s and below.

It’s quite difficult after two years of WotLK to get used to being stingy with heals, but it really is important not to heal when it’s not needed. I’ve put the /stopcasting back into my Greater Heal macro (which also fires Inner Focus on cooldown) so I can both boost throughput immediately and interrupt a cast if it’s going to be wasted, and I’m trying to stick to Smite/Heal/Penance until the tank is under 50% and actually needs that Greater Heal.

The thing is, you really do have to trust that the tanks aren’t going to fall over in the next 5 seconds, that you have the throughput to dig yourself out of the hole, and that your other healers are going to be landing heals as well so it’s not all on your shoulders.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Northrend any more!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Reflections on Heroic Healing
• Atonement, or Not Atonement?
• Cataclysm Class Previews – Priest

I was reading Kurn’s latest post, and a comment in it caught my eye:

The problem with being a GM who has a blog that’s mostly healing-related is that I have a LOT of healers and they’re all awesomesauce and all chomping at the bit to get in there and HEAL.

Now this is something I’ve observed in other guilds as well; not with bloggers (not that I know of, anyway) but with the GM and Officers in those guilds. There seems to me to be a rough correlation between the high-profile figures residing in a given guild and the number and performance of the members of that same class or role. So if your GM is a healer, you’ll find you tend to have strong, enthusiastic healers around.

I think there are two main reasons for a plausible link:
 

1. Fame and respect – A well-respected class blogger and commentator like Kurn or someone known around the realm as a good player will obviously attract people to them. And the people drawn to them are more likely to be of the same class or role because we tend to pay more attention to people with similar interests as ourselves.
   They don’t need to be Officers to attract this sort of attention.

 

2. Representation within the guild – If your Officers are all ranged DPS, you might expect they they’ll have a different, possibly less sympathetic, perspective on the challenges faced by healers or tanks compared to a more balanced Officer team. Your potential recruits might not even be aware of this, but it can still affect them subconsciously.
   I know I consciously looked at the Officers when I chose my current guild, because the last guild I was in with a DPS-dominated Officer corps was not a place that was sympathetic to healers or tanks at all.

I’d strongly advise guild leaders to keep an eye on their Officer compositions, and if you have to have a corps dominated by one role or another, make sure you have good strong links with the high profile people from the other roles to reassure people that they are listened to and understood.

Early in my raid-leading days I realise I was guilty of being a bit overly demanding on the DPS, until I spent a few months forced to play Shadow. That changed my perspective a lot. You need to be open to the other person’s point of view, so make some critical friends who will tell you when there’s a real problem.

And don’t forget to pamper and spoil your blogging colleagues, because basically we’re awesome!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Constructive Criticism
• Knock, knock!
• Working Together

Ah, why not. I like the idea of a “time capsule”, and I love looking back a year later and marvelling at just how wrong everyone was, myself included!
This was suggested by Janyaa at Muradin’s Musings, and I heard about it from Enlynn at Bubblespec.
 

1. Disk or Download?
   Disk. Like Tobold, I’m baffled that it’s significantly cheaper to buy the box retail than to buy direct from Blizzard. I’d accept a couple of pounds more for the convenience, but a 40% higher cost for the direct download is a big difference.

 

2. Did you experience any difficulties? IE: Login servers crashing, late delivery, etc?
   My box arrived on the Tuesday morning, so I was able to log in and play on the day of release. It’s actually been a very smooth release for me.

 

3. What are you doing first? IE: Speed leveling to 85, rolling a new race, completely avoiding the new content, etc?
   Levelling to 85 so I can gear up for heroics and raids. I’m also tinkering with Archaeology, which is strangely addictive.

 

4. Mt. Hyjal or Vash’jir?
   Mt Hyjal – I hate 3D in WoW because I find it impossible to work out where I am or where mobs are relative to me. I can only stand so much “The target must be in front of you” before running off and sobbing in a corner.
   Plus, I love how solid and earthy Hyjal is, compared to the winter wonderland of Northrend and the wierdness of Outland. And flying into the sun from Orgrimmar to Nordrassil and seeing the shadow and flare effects are gorgeous.

 

5. Worgen or Goblin?
   Neither yet. When I do, it’ll be Worgen because they’re more interesting than Goblins. Although the “British” accent grated on beta -why is it so hard for American companies to just hire a Brit to do the voiceovers? I’ll do it, and I won’t even demand a fee!

 

6. Questing, dungeons or both?
   Questing. I prefer to level quietly and solo, so I don’t have to deal with the rushing and competition. Although I’ll be doing some dungeons with the guild, and I’ll need them to relearn how to heal.

 

7. What was the first piece of gear you replaced and with what?
   I had to look this up, but my first upgrade was replacing my T10 legs with Kilt of Reborn Future

 

8. Did you take any time off from work or school?
   Nope. I’ve just come back from 3 weeks abroad, so it would have been a bit cheeky to take more time off work for WoW!

 

9. Will you be keeping the same spec and main, or changing to a different toon?
   I fear change! I’ll be sticking with the same toon, and probably with Discipline as my spec too, until such time as it proved to be entirely unviable.

 

10. What’s been your favorite aspect of Cataclysm so far?
    The upgraded graphics and tightened up zones, I think. There’s so much to explore, and it really makes it feel like a new game.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Venturing Forth into the Cataclysm
• State of the Cataclysm
• The First Cataclysm Raid

I thought I’d break from the Cataclysm stuff with an old post I’ve finally got round to finishing.

A concept that crops up from time to time, particularly in raiding circles, is the idea of “constructive criticism”. A vast majority of guild charters and guild applications will mention a willingness to accept criticism somewhere within them, but what do we mean by “constructive criticism”? What does it look like? And how do we make sure we’re giving it?

A definition

First, let’s look at “criticism”.

Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another (the critic). To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault.

(Emphasis mine, Source)
Criticism is simply an analysis and judgement, it is not automatically negative or fault-finding only. That’s a key point to remember.

Now for the “constructive” part.

Constructive criticism is criticism kindly meant that has a goal of improving some area of another person’s life or work.

(Emphasis mine, Source)
What makes it constructive is that the criticism is meant to help the recipient improve. It does not say anything about the content of the criticism.

What does it look like?

I’ll illustrate this with a hypothetical example.

Your guild has recently taken on a new recruit of your class, who says in their application that they always welcome constructive criticism. It’s been noticed that they seem to be struggling with mana and going OOM a lot, calling for Innervates a lot more than the other healers.

Let’s say that you’re asked by an Officer for an appraisal of that player; they want to know about the new recruit to evaluate their trial. At this point you’re still probably in the realm of simple criticism. Your feedback to the Officer might be quite brief and factual, for example:

This player seems to be fitting in well, asking questions in the healing channel.
They stick to their assignment well.
They put out good healing on the meters but they do seem to have mana problems, calling for a lot more innervates than I usually do.

Recall the definitions above. From the definition of criticism, note that there’s both positives and negatives in there, and some judgement, but the feedback is pretty objective and factual. There’s no real attempt to help the person improve, which would be required to meet the definition of constructive.

Now, imagine that the Officer asks you to have a chat with the recruit to see if you can help them with any mana problems they might be having. Now the purpose for your feedback has changed: you’re interested in helping them improve, which is where the constructive part comes in. So your feedback to the recruit might look something like:

It’s really nice that you’re fitting in here so well during your trial.
I’ve noticed that you seem to be using a lot of Innervates though and I wondered if we can help you out. Do you find mana a problem in raids? Why you think why this might be? What do you think of this alternative spec?
It’s also really good to be able to rely on you to cover your assignment in raids.

I know that sounds a bit stilted, it would be much better as a conversation than a single message to the recruit, but it does illustrate a few points that I’ll look at later. The difference between the two examples is that in the constructive example the intention is clearly to help the person improve.

Giving constructive feedback

I can’t hope to offer a pro forma for giving feedback, and you need to use your judgement about the situation and the people involved, but there are a few general guidelines that might help.

1. Choose your moment – Criticism should be given close to the event so that it’s fresh in everyone’s mind, but doing it in the heat of the moment when emotions might be running high is unlikely to get the desired results. You also need to allow enough time for a decent conversation, including thinking time.
   Use your judgement: if someone’s standing in fire, mention it between pulls; if someone’s underhealing, that might be better saved for between raids.

 

2. Include praise – Some people talk about the “sandwich technique”, where you surround your criticism with praise before and after. I’ve done this in my hypothetical example above, and it looks a little bit odd written down like that, but in a real report or conversation it’s easy enough to end on a high note. The recipient’s attitude to the whole of the feedback is shaped by the tone of the first few exchanges or sentences, so you should start positive; the mood they’re left with is influenced by the last things that were said.

 

3. Address the area that needs improvement, but don’t criticise the person. – This can be a very tricky line to walk at times. It’s fine to observe that someone runs out of mana a lot, but you must not judge the person as a “bad player” or “fail” because of it. Think of those “How to raise your little horror” TV shows: you can, and should, tell your child that setting fire to the cat is unacceptable because animals have feelings too, but just labelling the child as “a naughty child” is not useful.

 

4. Ask questions – The best way to remain objective and avoid the recipient feeling like you’re picking on them is to let them do most of the talking. Sometimes the best way to help is to ask a really insightful question that gets right to the heart of the issue. For example, rather than saying “you should use this spec”, ask them for their thoughts on the spec or a blog post talking about it. By doing this, you get to make a suggestion, but you also give the recipient a route to refute that suggestion.
   The other advantage of asking questions is that you reduce the risk of simply telling people what they already know, which can come across as patronising.

 

5. Focus on solutions, not causes – While it’s important to understand what’s going on, your goal in giving the criticism is to help the person improve, so move on quickly from the problem to solutions. This also helps to keep the discussion positive and focused on the future.
   Where possible, the soltions should also be phrased positively: instead of “stop using spell X”, have the solution as “use more spell Y”. It sounds corny, but it does make a difference.

 

6. Be objective – Your only agenda should be to help the person improve, so you need to keep your own prejudices quiet. Don’t just push your solution on the person, but work with them to find the right solution for them.
   And make sure that the solution can be objectively assessed later, so that when you come to do follow-up (you do intend to follow up, right?) you can keep your future judgements objective as well.

Dealing with defensiveness

Sometimes, despite your best intentions, you might not get the response you’re looking for, and the most common response to feedback is defensiveness, where the recipient of the feedback refuses to listen or might even become angry.

In my experience, the first thing you should do is stop and step back; pressing on is likely only going to antagonise the person further. Wait a while, and you might find that point you were making might be taken anyway, once everyone’s emotions have faded and the recipient can consider your words more calmly. They may approach you again, or work out a solution on their own.

If you get no results from this though, you have two main options. The first is trying again, using a different medium. Changing the medium will also almost certainly alter the tone of the conversation: a whisper is less personal than Ventrilo, while a PM allows the recipient to take their time in dealing with it and can relieve a lot of pressure they might feel.

The second option is to have a different person try. Sometimes it can be a personality clash, or it could be your position in the guild, your gender, nationality, or one of many factors that causes the recipient to respond differently to you than to someone else.
Some people get very defensive if someone not of their class/role tries to offer criticism, while others might get defensive around someone who is the same class/role because of some percieved competition.

Your input

I’ll freely admit I’m not the best at people management, so I would really welcome comments from other people about how they deal with giving feedback, be it in the form of advice or anecdotes.

Have you had to give feedback? Did it go well? Did it go badly? How do you take feedback yourself?

Possibly Related Posts:

• Priest Class Feedback
• [Leadership] The Influence of Celebrities
• Knock, knock!

I noticed after posting that this week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic is “Initial Thoughts on Cataclysm” (suggested by Jaedia of Jaedia’s Menagerie. So if you’re looking for a range of opinions and views from across the blogosphere, you could do a lot worse than to look there.

First, in case you’ve not noticed, and in case you’re interested, I’ve got very rough strategies for most of the new raids hammered out now (I don’t have Blackwing Descent finished, or a Sinestra strat yet).
You can find them in the menu above, or they have their own index page. I’ll update them, but I’d appreciate feedback from anyone who experiences the content on Live before me. Leave a comment on the strategy page!

First impressions

My early experience of Cataclysm is a good one. I played through each of the zones on the beta but bugs prevented me from really experiencing the flow of the new zones, so it’s been really nice to see how well the quests link up to tell you a story as you progress through a zone. The variable respawn rate on quest mobs seems to have been refined pretty well, so there’s not many bottlenecks to overcome either.

People, though, are a constant source of frustration. I’m absolutely not a competitive person by nature, so spamming a target/SW:P macro to try and be the first to tag a slowly respawning mob isn’t fun for me; but I can only be so patient before I start getting annoyed at the people who don’t seem to understand that if someone’s at a spawn point before you you should a) try and group with them, and b) let them go first. Special mention goes out to the people who try and ninja a quest mob spawned using a quest item you get given…

Levelling

The pace of levelling seems about right to me. I logged in briefly at Tuesday lunchtime to find that we already had a handful of level 85 players and a Realm First tailor who had started at midnight and not slept, but since I’ll be levelling in the evenings only it’ll probably take me until the weekend to ding 85. I made 83 last night in Deepholm after about 9 hours of play time.

I’m levelling as Discipline, which is working out quite nicely. The healing from Atonement means I have to try really hard to get killed, and the DPS isn’t too bad either. I’ve always levelled as a healing spec, and I just accept that it’ll take a bit longer to kill things. Since I intend to use my second spec for Holy once I’m 85, I really don’t want to reconfigure all my bars for Shadow only to have to put them all back again in a few days’ time.

Instances

I haven’t run many instances yet on Live, partly because of a shortage of tanks and surplus of healers in my guild, and partly because I just prefer to level solo, always have.

But my guild will be running guild 5-mans on our regular raid nights for the next couple of weeks, so that’s what I’ll be doing this evening, and of course I’ll share my thoughts.

Early priorities

Well clearly I’m aiming to get to 85. Preferably on Saturday so I can spend some time at 85 on Sunday and maybe run a few heroics.

I’m also keen to get my Guardians of Hyjal and Therazane reps up fairly quickly so I can get access to the Arcanum of Hyjal and Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone head and shoulder enchants.

Then comes the rest of the gearing for starting to raid. I’ve been glancing at gear lists on other blogs, so my priority after getting my Guardians of Hyjal rep to Exalted for the Cord of Raven Queen will be the Earthen Ring, to fill in a few more gear slots.

I’m not levelling my professions especially aggressively yet though. I’m not selling off my mats for obscene amounts of gold, but I’m also not buying materials either. I doubt I’ll have Alchemy maxed for a while, since I’m one of the huge number of double-crafters lulled into a false sense of security by the low material prices of WotLK. I’ll get there when I break out my alts.

I’m doing the cooking and fishing dailies religiously though, and making a nice stash of cooking mats in my bank for when I have enough tokens for the new recipes.

What I am slightly obsessed with is Archaeology. I’m having to fight the urge to run around the world digging up artefacts rather than questing. Getting XP for every find I make means it’s not actually too bad, but it’s not getting me gear, and at this stage of the expansion my focus is on getting into those first raids.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cataclys-meme
• State of the Cataclysm
• The First Cataclysm Raid