Full Circle
2008-05-13
In World of Warcraft, Karazhan is the first of the raid instances at the current level cap; the beginning of the 'end' of the game.
About two months ago I went there for the first time. I'd been holding off going for ages, concerned that my character's equipment (or my skill at playing) wasn't up to it, worried that I wouldn't pull my weight. I was one of three healers in the group and I quietly asked the most experienced one if he would mind explaining tactics and so on, since I'd never seen the place before. He said I needn't worry about it being my first time; he could heal a Karazhan run on his own.
For those who don't play, or otherwise don't know it, there's a nice little web application for auditing level 70 characters called Be Imba! (as in 'imbalanced', gaming slang for 'unreasonably good'). It grabs a snapshot of your character and their stuff from the WoW Armory [sic], averages and weights the levels of the items and distils all your hard work in getting that far into a number, a suggestion of what content you should be doing and maybe some recommendations as to how you can improve.
My rating at the time was ~120. Just about enough to be there. The first healer, a holy paladin, was ~190: enough to be somewhere far higher. The other healer was ~170, also more than plenty. According to the combat logs I pulled my weight, and I was well pleased.
I met the paladin again on Sunday; he'd come along to help our guild because we were short of healers for some 25-man content. I was reminded what he said about solo-healing Kara, but every time I've tried to check his Imba score the Armory snap-shot has been of him in PvP gear, giving him a lower rating than in his regular healing gear.
My priest is now ~210. Last night we ran Karazhan on the spur of the moment, short of people because most of the guild already did it this week: I took my druid, now ~120. A priest a little better equipped than mine was to heal it on his own, but in practice I had to switch the druid to healing for one of the boss fights. When he had to leave I swapped characters and found that my priest couldn't quite manage it alone either.
It's not the amount of healing that needs doing: that isn't so difficult really. The problem is mainly with dying. When the enemies' hatred for our healing is split between three healers they will rarely go for one; with one person doing all the healing for a 10-man raid it's easier for them to get annoyed. Besides that, occasionally bad stuff just happens (our first solo-healer tends to be the one it happens to) and if everyone else in the group can't heal (or isn't dressed for it) then a healer death may not be something we can recover from.
I wonder whether that paladin could have solo-healed Karazhan. On paper I'm sure he can - me too, no doubt - but in practice, he'd have to be real lucky...
About two months ago I went there for the first time. I'd been holding off going for ages, concerned that my character's equipment (or my skill at playing) wasn't up to it, worried that I wouldn't pull my weight. I was one of three healers in the group and I quietly asked the most experienced one if he would mind explaining tactics and so on, since I'd never seen the place before. He said I needn't worry about it being my first time; he could heal a Karazhan run on his own.
For those who don't play, or otherwise don't know it, there's a nice little web application for auditing level 70 characters called Be Imba! (as in 'imbalanced', gaming slang for 'unreasonably good'). It grabs a snapshot of your character and their stuff from the WoW Armory [sic], averages and weights the levels of the items and distils all your hard work in getting that far into a number, a suggestion of what content you should be doing and maybe some recommendations as to how you can improve.
My rating at the time was ~120. Just about enough to be there. The first healer, a holy paladin, was ~190: enough to be somewhere far higher. The other healer was ~170, also more than plenty. According to the combat logs I pulled my weight, and I was well pleased.
I met the paladin again on Sunday; he'd come along to help our guild because we were short of healers for some 25-man content. I was reminded what he said about solo-healing Kara, but every time I've tried to check his Imba score the Armory snap-shot has been of him in PvP gear, giving him a lower rating than in his regular healing gear.
My priest is now ~210. Last night we ran Karazhan on the spur of the moment, short of people because most of the guild already did it this week: I took my druid, now ~120. A priest a little better equipped than mine was to heal it on his own, but in practice I had to switch the druid to healing for one of the boss fights. When he had to leave I swapped characters and found that my priest couldn't quite manage it alone either.
It's not the amount of healing that needs doing: that isn't so difficult really. The problem is mainly with dying. When the enemies' hatred for our healing is split between three healers they will rarely go for one; with one person doing all the healing for a 10-man raid it's easier for them to get annoyed. Besides that, occasionally bad stuff just happens (our first solo-healer tends to be the one it happens to) and if everyone else in the group can't heal (or isn't dressed for it) then a healer death may not be something we can recover from.
I wonder whether that paladin could have solo-healed Karazhan. On paper I'm sure he can - me too, no doubt - but in practice, he'd have to be real lucky...
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