Growing Pains

Hello my friends and welcome back!

We've gotten past the oohshiney new phase of Warlords of Draenor and have settled back into the rhythm of WoW again contentedly. My team started out on really solid footing for the beginning of an xpac, probably the strongest we've ever been. Granted, GoF as a guild has had a pretty low turnover rate since the opening of ICC (I hate and love thinking of just how long ago that was) for which I'm profoundly grateful.  We learned from our mistakes we made in Mists of Pandaria and hit the ground running this go-round. We haven't yet ventured into Mythic territory of WoD content, but we're at a solid 6/7 H with about 21-24 people showing up ready to roll on raid nights. 

The roster size has been particularly challenging for us, though, building towards the Mythic team. GoF has historically, with a few scattered exceptions, run a ten man raid team with a rotating roster of about 14-16 raiders. We found this was our sweet spot, and very very rarely have had to cancel raid because of poor attendance. If a raider had to bow out for a night or a week, we had no difficulties filling the slot because standby raiders were ready. If a raider had all their needed gear and just wanted a night or a fight off, again we'd pull in a standby. All was golden and all was good.  With the announcement of the Mythic raids, we started to discuss changing the way we do things.

Rolling With the Punches

"In the face of great adversity, great heroism can shine through."  -Me

While burning through content, there's always the possibility that things can go sideways.  A thunderstorm knocks out the electric, the dog chews through your network cable, kids get sick - we've all been there.  If it hasn't happened to us personally, it has happened to our team. My team has the infamous Jasper Wipe of 2012, when at 3% on what would have been our first kill of Deathwing, our dog Jasper knocked the power cord out of our wireless router. You can imagine the uproar that ensued with the main tank and a healer disconnected there - and of course the ensuing wipe.

Thrust Upon Me

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them"  - William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

I was very recently given the honor of being appointed by our Heals Lead to step in to her role for our raid team.  She was the bomb-diggity with a side of iggity when it comes to heals lead.  I have no clue how in the name of the Monkey King I'll actually fill her shoes.  I'm doing my very best not to panic at the thought.

There are so many things that made her such a badass heals lead that I hope to emulate.  She would research every single fight for hours and hours and post in our guild forums healing strategies and tips before we even stepped foot in the fight.  After, she'd always follow up with adjustments to fit our team.  She'd always be supportive and encouraging of us to really flex our healing muscles on any fight.  She set such an atmosphere of teamwork and mutual respect that it didn't matter if you failed miserably in a fight – we were all in it together.  There was never any infighting in the heals team over gear, raid spot, or even over oreos or chips ahoy being better.  She has a soothing presence, is a quiet, gentle, but strong leader.  She also seems to know each healing class inside and out.

The research is easy.  Boiling it down to essentials that all the healers need to know about will be a bit tougher, but it's possible.  For me, the biggest hurdle I'm fearing to start is that intimate knowledge of the other healing classes, as well as my own.  I'm very comfortable healing with any class beside me, true, but I worry about advising the raid lead on which healers to bring in when, how to best use the tools in our toolbox to their greatest advantage.

I have always and will always believe that the teamwork of the healers is the most important aspect of healing.  Yes, topping the charts is something I always strive to do, but it's not the be-all and end-all of healing.  If you're busting the roof off the charts but the raid is dying anyway, you're doing it wrong.  If you're tops and have zero mana two minutes in, you're doing it wrong.  If you're not properly utilizing all your skills and those of the rest of your team, you're doing it wrong.

No one person wins a fight.

Well, unless it's one man standing at the end.  Which is a rush, but is completely besides the point.

I'm taking a crash course on the other healing classes....so why not share it with the rest of our community?  Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I will be doing a series of posts about how to play well with others.  I plan to detail the strengths of each healing class and how we as Druids can work in tandem with them to help our raid teams be successful, no matter which boss we fight.

For now, panic is being held firmly in check, and I wonder if I will grow to the greatness that my heals lead set the example for.

**GULP**

Until next time, long days, pleasant nights & happy Raiding.