Shame on me

Hodir has come to make me feel like a crap healer for several reasons:

1. One of our other healers said last week that when he did Hodir in another guild (I assume) the druid healers usually outhealed him by like 10%. I'm a druid healer and I don't.

2. The same healer stated that Hodir is "a healer fight" that needs a lot of spam healing of hots and instant casts. Who has the hots (and I also guess a lot of the instant casts)? Yup me, the druid.

3. When we wiped (several times) the same healer said we needed more healing and I really felt he virtually pointed at me, the druid with the hots and instant casts.

I'm not saying I shouldn't try to be better at healing on the move but I was of the clearly naive notion that the Hodir fight was not only about druid healing. I thought it was at least a tiny bit about everyone avoid falling ice blocks, moving constantly etc. And it's not like I usually stand around not healing out of sheer laziness as opposed to spam healing needed on Hodir.

Still the other healer's statements make me feel very, very heavily that the responsibility for keeping the raid alive on Hodir is on me and only me since I'm a druid with hots etc. And when we wipe, like we did several times this week, it feels like I'm personally to blame.

Ok, I realise I'm probably oversensitive on this.

Hello again Hodir

New week, new try on Hodir. This time we knew what to do in theory but it took some tries to make it work in action. The keyword in the Hodir fight reallt is movement. Move not to stack up damaging frost debuff, move not to be hit by falling objects, move to friendly fires/pillars of light, move onto snowdrifts, move, move, move. And try to remember to cram in some damage, healing or tanking at the same time. First try I died of being ice trapped and then immediately hit in the head by a falling ice block. Only afterwards did I remember that shapshifting would have freed me of the ice trap had I used in time (yes, yes, I see the "noob" comments come on this but then I have at least made the day for those of you who read here to confirm your own awsomeness compared to others).

After a few tries we managed to get things right and Hodir was defeted without anyone dying and even with all the friendly npcs alive in the end. Next boss up to try is Freya which, judging from movies at Tankspot.com, seems quite complicated. Having to fight against flora gone mad also always make me a bit uncomfortable, I don't really know why. Maybe it's the tree in me protesting about the thought of nature going evil?

My scattered thoughts on Hodir

This is more or less a transcript of what went through my head when we did Hodir for the first time yesterday:
Ok, have to keep moving all the time and ofc heal, thank god for instant heals, remember to move so I don't freeze to death...blue circle on the floor, get out! Another blue circle, get out! And yes don't forget to heal. A fire, always avoid fire....or no not this time...standing in the fire is good...or maybe not IN the fire, stand close to the fire. And don't forget to heal. Blue circle is still bad though. Very nice with a helping npc moonkin. Is fire out? Keep moving. And healing, don't forget to heal that is why you are here. Do that [name and class withheld] have to stand under every ice block that is falling? Oops, missed that one myself, have to keep moving. And watch the floor. And heal. Flash freeze coming up...where are the larger circles? There are circles everywhere, I hope this is the right one, jump into it or no wait until ice have fallen. Now! Still alive but not healing enough since some other people have died. How to move, watch out for falling objects and massively heal at the same time? And here comes frozen blows on tank...heal away heal away. And move etc....No it won't work damn and here is Hodir coming my way... hello there Mr Frosty....arrrghh I'm dead...

No, we didn't defeat him. But I think you have guessed that already.

Being stubborn doesn't always pay off

I'm not a seasoned raider but I have one solid piece of advice when it comes to raiding I want to share and that is: if you wipe on a boss 4 times and there is no progress in sight (i.e. you are getting closer to the kill every time) move elsewhere or try again another day.

Note that I don't say that you should just try 4 times and then give up as a general rule. Sometimes it takes more than 4 tries to get everything right or you realise tactics was all wrong and start over again. But the keyword here is progress. When you wipe repeatedly, going through the same motions and the health bar of the boss seems stuck at the same percentage every time you all die, chances are you will continue wiping until one of two things happen: either you have to call it off three hours later after continued wiping, leaving everyone feeling exausted as well as disappointed (more likely on guild runs) or the group will start desintegrating with people blaming each other and leaving in a huff (more likely in pugs).

Sometimes all it takes is a short break, killing something else. Naxx is a good place since, if you haven't cleared the rest of the place already, you can always move to another wing for a change of scenery for a while and then go back to annoying Heigan, irritating Gluth or the four tiresome horsemen and you will probably kill them.

Yesterday I didn't follow my own advice in Ulduar. We tried hard mode on Flame Leviathan (and no I don't agree with Tamarind that it looks like a golf caddie, I always think of it as the mad snow plough. There is after all a lot of snow in Storm Peaks. Perhaps Flame Leviathan was set to work though it all and went insane by the sheer impossibility of it all) but that was too much for us to take on with fire, ice and all the crazy flowers running about so after two tries we destroyed two of the towers. Two towers up we usually manage perfectly fine but yesterday was one of those nights when things just didn't work. We died again and again and stubbornly refused to destroy the two remaining towers because we should be able to to it really. We wasted a lot of time on the evil snow plough and in the end we still destroyed the other two towers just to be done with it. By then it was quite late and I should have gone to bed but it felt so depressing to end the night like that so I said ok, let's have a go on XT before bed. We went to the scrap yard, killed the boss in no time and that was it. It went so fast I felt what the hell, let's do Kologarn too so we went over to him and yep, he went down, no problems at all.

If we hadn't been so stubborn on Flame Leviathan we would have had time to move further in Ulduar. As it was now at least we felt the night ended better than it begun but still I regret we spent so much time on Flame Leviathan with towers up just because we should be able to to it really.

First steps in Ulduar

On Wednesday we took our first steps in Ulduar. Since noone in the group had been there before the spirit was one of trial and error, trying to learn how to best manouvre the different veichles in the first part. Soon we headed down to the area with the storm beacons and the towers of frost, nature, flames and storm. It was great fun bashing away and firing at the towers and the mobs. At first we didn't realise that the green cicular spots were repair stations. After we discovered their funtion it was easier to manage.

When it came to Flame Leviathan we had two really good tries at him (we actually had five tries at him but two was started accidantally and on one try one of the chopper drivers got disconnected). When I have read strategies for the fight it says that Flame Leviathan should target one of the slavaged engines at the time but to us it seemed more like it targeted anyone at random. Maybe we were positioned wrong so the demolishers were too close to the boss?

All in all the night was great fun and I'm sure we will down that mechanical next time we see it!