Too Many Annas

Differing Species of Healers

19 Written by Anna on June 8, 2010 – 9:16 am

Awhile ago, I published part 1 in this series, a very well thought out and extremely serious post on Tanks and the various types of tanks you might find in WoW.

… Ok, “serious” might be a stretch… >.>

Anyway, here’s part two. The different types of healers that you might find in WoW.  Once again, I’m not talking about classes at all…

• Quiet Healer – shows up, does his job, doesn’t say much, and manages to not be around very much outside of raids. You probably don’t know a whole lot about this guy’s personal life, and you think he might have alts on other servers or in other guilds, but you’re not sure. Still, he’s dependable and does his job reasonably well, so nobody really asks.
• Angry Healer – The opposite of “blame the healer” this is the vocal healer that always has a word for other people that screw things up. Particularly if they screw things up in a way that makes them a) unsaveable or b) wipe the raid. Generally tolerated as long as she has solid performance, and can be combined with just about any other healer type (except possibly the Quiet Healer). If the Angry Healer is angry about things that can be fixed, and remains mostly constructive, she’s not a bad group member. Otherwise? She’s just /angry/.
• Burned-out Healer – Has been doing this WAY too long, and is just tired of putting up with the shit that goes with healing. May also be tired of raiding in general, but may find relief in being allowed to pick up a DPS spec occasionally. Probably either very quiet or very chattery, but only about non-raid-related things. May turn into the Angry Healer or the AFK Healer easily. Burned-out Healers can be created out of Bored Healers, but also can be created out of stressed out Healers, if the raid is constantly pushing the healing team to the very edge of sanity.
• AFK Healer – Lights are on, nobody’s home. Possibly not at the keyboard, possibly just pretending not to be there. Subsets of the AFK Healer are the Disconnected Healer, the Distracted Healer, and the Alt-Tabbed Healer. Frequently a stress-relieving mechanism for Angry and Burned Out Healers, this situation does sometimes occur with the Theoretical Healer, especially if strategy is being discussed.
• Professional Healer – Has three alts that all are healers, all of whom are at or close to level cap, and all of whom have seen raid or instance experience as healing. Possibly carries two healing specs on some of those characters. If she wants to bring a non healer alt to a pick up raid, nobody can remember who she is. Leaders who don’t pay attention may assume her presence means healing, even if she’s playing a hunter today. Knows enough about all the various healing classes to be really helpful, unless she’s also the Angry Healer, in which case she can be kind of volatile if someone else screws up.
• Lost Healer – Knows the ins and outs of every boss fight in the game but can’t seem to find her way out of the instance. This type of healer is very prevalent due to Green Bar Hypnosis.
• Theoretical Healer – Knows every healing trick in the book, and is intimately familiar with any new theorycrafting that might be done for his class. May also be part of the group that DOES the advanced math theorycrafting for his class. Constantly poring over logs to optimize performance. During difficult boss fights, will mention offhandedly (as though everyone already knew) some secret little trick that makes the healing part of the fight incredibly trivial. Can also be somewhat pedantic, depending on the personality, but usually an incredibly valuable member of the healing team.
• Bored Healer – Overgears it, knows all the fights, has been here, done this, and is really over the whole experience of raiding. Bored Healers can quickly turn into Burned-out Healers, depending on raid morale. Or they just start to sneak in DPS when they don’t think anyone is looking.
• Reluctant Healer – Not usually a healer, the Reluctant Healer has been asked to respec or bring an alt so the raid can get off the ground. May turn into the Angry Healer if she really doesn’t want to be doing this – particularly if she’s asked to heal/bring the healing alt for weeks on end when her main is really a Rogue.
• Flail Healer – Whether from an excitable personality or an overabundance of caffeine, he’s wound like a spring and /everyone knows it/. May be either excitably happy and flailing, or nervously twitchy and flailing. Probably talks too much, and may be new to healing. The Flail Healer can usually be found running around mashing buttons – possibly not even the right buttons. Particularly wound up but Bored Healers often become Flail Healers. While not always effective, he’s always exciting to be around…
• Not-A-Healer – This is a non-healing hybrid, a ret pally or an elemental shaman perhaps, who – when the shit hits the fan – drops the pew pew and bails out the raid with a couple of well timed heals. Though not effective for long periods of time, in a tight spot your Not-Healers can pinch hit well enough to either get the Priest a battle rez or tick off the last 2% on the boss.
• All-Star Healer – You’re not sure what this guy ate for breakfast, where he got his gear, or how he managed to get Chuck Norris to autograph his shield/mace/favorite tree branch, but this is the healer that can heal anything. Tank healing? Sure. Raid healing? You got it. The last healer alive on a bad boss pull with 12% health and no mana and somehow she pulls it off and you win… yeah. You’d love to hate her, but she’s just That Good. Class is irrelevant. Spec is irrelevant. This guy can heal it, and not even break a sweat.

Of course, through all of this, there is one last kind of healer. The saddest kind, and the kind that we (particularly as heal-leads and raid officers) never want to see.

The Former Healer

All joking aside, though, healing isn’t always easy. Like tanking, it requires a specific sort of situational awareness, a lot of mental attention, and occasionally a shot of something stiff to keep you willing to put up with the crap. I can see myself in most of the healers on this list, and I’m sure we’ve all had our days as the Angry Healer (and I am well known for being the Lost Healer, especially in a new instance).

Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments! (DPS post is in the works as well, but I make no promises on a delivery date.)

<3!

PS: If you’re bored and looking for things to read today during the Extended Special 24 Hour Maintenance, check out WTT:RP’s post on things to do during server downtime and Matojo’s post on Being Different.

A First Time for Everything

3 Written by Anna on June 7, 2010 – 9:54 am

I’ve done a few things for the first time (either ever, or in a long time) recently, and it’s been quite a lot of fun. It’s very easy to get into a rut and do the same old things all the time, and I’m certainly guilty of finding my niche and staying there. But occasionally I do branch out (sometimes with a solid kick in the pants from other folks to get me going), and I’ve had a lot of fun with these “firsts”.

I Tanked A Raid Instance

Granted, it was 8-man Naxxramas and then VoA 10, and I was the offtank. And I had a lot of help, both in the form of SSH (who helped me with boss strats and stuff) and in the form of several really good healers. But we won, and I even got a little bit of loot. So yay for that!

I’m not sure tanking is my favorite thing to do, and I still prefer healing overall, but it’s certainly a lot of fun, and I’m very slowly getting better at it. I still don’t do really well with chasing down adds that get loose, but otherwise, I manage to do ok!

I Am Playing My Hunter

Something that doesn’t usually happen very often – especially the part where I’m really enjoying it. I leveled Angoleth mostly with gritted teeth in Burning Crusade. I really wanted her to hit 70, and I wanted to be able to use her leatherworking/skinning skills as part of the great alt conglomerate to ease up on the cost of raiding mats for the three raiding healers I had at the time. The last time I was a hunter for more than 10 minutes at a time, I was running Karazhan (can that really have been 18 months ago or more?), but I’m finding that once I get the dust off, I’m enjoying it again.

I’m also planning out achievements I want to get… which is another first.

I DPSed For A PUG (and had fun doing it)

See that bit about being a hunter. I know very little about “modern” huntering, and my hunter instincts are weak at best. But I managed – and the group I got plunked into decided to keep me along for a second run. (To the guys from Crushridge – thank you for being awesome, and for even RPing with me. You rock!) I had my pet on passive with growl off; I MD’d the tank on cooldown; I used Bestial Wrath on boss fights and frost-trapped things that tried to eat the Tree.

I am not yet to the point of doing MQoSRDPS, but I will get there.

I Killed The End Game Boss

For the first time since I started raiding, I have killed the Big Bad of the expansion. TRI never made it to Illidan or Sunwell in the last expansion, and while I saw Nefarian, I never saw the original Naxxramas or even C’thun. But I have a Kingslayer title (and hopefully will soon have the 25 man version to go with it), and I think that’s pretty cool, especially considering the RP implications Arthas’ death has for Aely.

Being able to take part in an Arthas kill is something I really wanted for Aely since the expansion launched, and I’m really thankful for the other people I raid with. Without them I’d never have gotten to see the fight, let alone beat it.

What new things have you done lately? Are you trying new things in RP, PVP, or PVE, or maybe even all three? Have you enjoyed them, or did they reinforce that you prefer to do other things?

Lots of Howling in the Fjord

2 Written by Anna on June 6, 2010 – 3:42 pm

Howling Fjord is one of my favorite zones in the game, and probably my favorite zone in Northrend. This quest chain is just one of those reasons.

Angie and Shan’re had fun running around as wolf-buddies, and from an RP standpoint? Totally awesome.

Character Soundtracks – Update

7 Written by Anna on June 4, 2010 – 9:34 am

A previous Friday Five had us thinking about songs that reminded us of or signified our characters. I wanted to update that a bit, since there are a few new Aely songs running around, plus one or two for Annie Mae.

For Aely:

1. Miranda Lambert’s The House That Built Me – brought home particularly by the ending of this War in the Frozen North, and her desire to see her home again
2. Mumford & Sons After the Storm – Another Yva find. Yva is awesome!
3. Eva Cassidy singing Fields of Gold – Sadly, this one is no longer available online
4. Warren Zevon Keep Me in Your Heart for Awhile - for Aely and Jolstraer
5. There are a number of songs for Aely and Arrens, but the one that’s most appropriate right now, since Aely’s at the front full time and only back in Stormwind rarely, is David Cook’s Light On. There are other, happier songs too.

For Angoleth (who isn’t really this sad, but these two songs just fit somehow):

1. Imogen Heap’s Speeding Cars
2. Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Round Midnight – I don’t know the lover that she lost, that’s part of Angoleth’s story that she’s not told me about, but there’s something about this song, its disjointedness, and Angie’s tendency to just wander around at night that makes it work.

For Annie Mae:

1. Kristy Lee Cook’s Cowgirls
2. Toby Keith Beer for my Horses

Oh come on, you can’t expect Annie to be anything OTHER than up-tempo country music!

What are the songs you associate with your characters? Obviously for Aely I’ve got a whole soundtrack, but others are just a song or two for when I get into their head (or they get into mine). Do you listen to the songs when you’re playing the character, or is it just an association?