Parsing and performance

So – last night was Cress’s first night hanging out with EO – there were 20 people subscribing to the wednesday night 10man so we had two groups.

As the sub-geared newbie, there were 3 healers in my group, so one DPS less – and I’m really not sure what healing I actually did – I do not tend to keep recount up as a rule, because there is quite enough going on with my healing frames, buff framelet, omen etc.

I’ve still not managed to get my healing fingers up to speed – I’ve got so many spells to use for healing that I have not mentally mapped them to the mouseover key combinations.

AT the moment I am using vuhdo – it is supposed to work like a combined grid/healbot version – I suspect I will learn to love it, when I have got over the fact that it is not healbot and I am not a paladin.  Paladins have so few healing spells, it’s easy to remember them – this is about not only knowing which is the right spell to cast, but which mouse command it is, and am I in range, and am I out of the fire and not with the wrong debuff.  Life was easier with FOL and HL and cleanse…

Because last night was a fun run night, and basically I was being carried through (I am quite looking forward to being more than a passenger) we didn’t have assignments – my party included a geared healadin and a geared tree – and it was TOC10N – so no challenges for them..

I died too many times.  The only time I felt I waas approaching usefulness was in the faction champions part of the fight, where I decided as an executive decision, to mass dispel as much as possible (having read that the NPCs will self buff and debuff with no room for human error) and hope this helped.  No-one said whether it did or not – but after I got stunned/silenced, I noticed the stacks of debuffs on decursive getting higher and higher.  Surely it’s got to be easier to get them down if you’ve not got a debuff, and they are not stacking buffs?  Anyway – perhaps someone will let me know if that was useful – if there are only 2 healers in the fight, does a DPS priest do mass dispel, or do I heal as well s dispel?  don’t know.

I misunderstood the instructions on twin valkyrs – so I’ll have to read up on that again – which meant I was dead and a spectator for Icehowl – which I had understood when watching videos.

I completely forgot about the anub leaching until it came out over vent – sadly some people died – about 3 of the 10 – and the comment “you’re not supposed to let the officers die” came out.

That’s the thing about going to content that other people know – you have to learn quickly and try not to stand in fire, and try not to be too much of a nub – you’ve had an explanation of the fight given to you – that should be enough.  But let’s face it – practice and learning where to stand and when to run make so much difference.

I got one healing necklace (bye bye tear of elune, I didn’t wear you for long) and two pieces of kit for off-spec – which would otherwise have gone for sharding.  I don’t want to be too greedy – but quite a lot of things are upgrades.  What I really need are some boots, shoulders and a new hat – and with the rate of emblems dropping, I might actually afford a tier 8 hat soon – which will mean I can get a 2 set bonus.

Listen to me – the above has the ring of the Nesingwary loot-crazed poachers, doesn’t it?  I’m sure the game designers had a laugh when they made up those bits of monologue.

After the raid, because we did not have WG, we decided to go out separate ways.  And those who had not done the daily heroic decided they they would like to – we were short a DPS and I volunteered to do that, and sort of conned my guildie uber-healer into coming along too.  Because it was OK, and Bad Things can happen in there when you get careless with the AOE.

Changed spec – should have put the DPS clothes on.  forgot in the rush.  never mind.  But I am glad I did not heal, because there was some careless pulling going on, and the tree died at one point.  And since he is better geared than me I think that I would have done worse.  So I off-healed until we could res him.  I just couldn’t face the “oh that new priest healer we’ve got – she couldn’t even heal a 5 man” comment.

And after that I got a whisper to come and heal Utgarde Keep.  So I decide – why not.  I am summoned.  And the immediate instruction is “buff plz now” and I remark “we’re 3 manning this?” since there are 3 of us in the party – and my candles are better when buffing everyone at once.

And then I double check – this is not for doing it on heroic – only the person who whispered me is a level 80 – the other party member is level 70 – I’ve been (almost) conned into a boost run.  So, as they are saying “come in here, hurry up” and “why have the mobs all come back” I make my excuses and drop party.

I’ll do boost runs for people I know for nothing and with no grumbles at all – because I’ve been given that kindness from them, and its the least I can do.  But complete strangers will not pay my repair bill and could easily be utter jerks or nubs – and the comment about the mobs rezzing  was an example of that, for me.

And so to the parsing and performance:  and whether I should try getting stuff up at WOL, and wondering whether there would be something up there from last night already.  Because I don’t want to wait until someone sits me down to talk to me about poor performance, I want to see it first, then I can ask for help.

And now?  well in between the demands of the day-job, I’m reading the EO forums.  There’s a lot for me to read – but surprisingly, they seem a little stagnant.  But perhaps I’m missing something.