Monday 4 August 2008

Sephrenia's Solo Healing Karazhan run

Get yourself a cuppa and some chocolate - it's going to be a LONG story.

Well, Sunday came. I had all my potions, elixirs, food, oil, bandages ready. I had a chat with the Paladin who was going to tank for me and he said that his game card had expired and he didn't want to renew just for my run and then hang around doing nothing for the rest of the month. Fair enough. Cries. OK, so - Barkie (my husband) could take over tanking and the other Paladin, although dps spec could off-tank. Sorted. Found a replacement. Another shadow priest.

I log in to start up the raid - get some apologies from my rogue who has to take his Dad somewhere. I'm being whispered left, right and centre with people offering various characters for spaces if there are any. I have 2 SP, 2 Mages, a Lock, a Druid tank, a Shaman and a Pala. One space. There is a mage who really, really wants in for rep and a lock who has expressed interest. I'm in agony trying to work out which to take. Finally decide on the lock as he can heal himself a bit and the extra SS might come in handy.

The mage is cross, but I'm sorry - it's my run - I choose. He is left waiting outside (even though I whispered him to tell him I'm full) because my SP has brought a character that was not in the guild and, seeing only 9 guildies in Kara he thinks he might get in. Argh! All the way through the stables I'm trying to explain and heal at the same time.

Anyway - on with the show - here I am, all prepared, buffed, potted, etc.


The run turns into one of those "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" sort of evenings. We pull 2 packs on the way to Attumen. Normally this is OK, but when a horsie charges the only healer it's a bit tougher. People aren't quite alert enough yet. Maybe they are too full and drowsy from their Sunday meal.

Attumen. Let Pala do horsie, Druid do the man. Sadly, it's been a while since my hubby has played and he misses Attumen when he arrives. Being as gorgeous as I am he charges straight to me and kills me in a rush of affection. OK - this is silly - let's try again. Maybe the Druid can tank them both - someone has read about it. He can't. Third time lucky? Actually, no. Third time, we get respawns. LOTS of horsies don't like us.

So - half an hour gone and back at the start. I'm kind of feeling a bit low at dragging all these people to indulge me and we have a wipe fest at Attumen! People tell me it's not my fault - my healing is doing OK. One of the SP comes out of the shadows and we call it a "normal" raid and set off again. Actually he does hardly any healing and goes purple again as soon as I've calmed down. We clear, we get to Attumen, people back off the pew pew a bit and let tanks get aggro, Boss dies. Now THAT was better. I did solo heal the boss.

Feeling a bit brighter we move on to Moroes. Things clear well, we have a little wobble when we go into the room because at that point I'm distracted as a new guild applicant decides to whisper me. Note to self - put DND on when solo-healing a raid. Note to others - DON'T whisper people when they are raiding.

Moroes. Oh dear. Try number one - shackle breaks and runs to me. Of course it's the big hitting guy, who chops me down with a single hug. I use my SS, but it's all looking pear shaped, so I run out. It resets and the rest of the raid are a bit miffed because apparently Moroes was almost dead. SORRY guys.

I'm now feeling completely and utterly dreadful. But these guys are great. They are happy to indulge me some more, even though I'm a guilt-ridden wreck.

We have another go and Moroes dies with ease. Some days I think we like to do things the hard way, just so we can revel in how easy it is when we do it again! I solo-healed Moroes (and even got garotted in the process).

Clear to Maiden. Moderately uneventful, except we get the group of elite dancers just before the hallway - I think we were a little too keen to pull the last group opposite the archway!

At Maiden. Someone was a bit over-awed at her obvious beauty and with memories of my last picture of her, peaked to soon and pulled. We almost recovered, but it was very frantic, she AOEd me and we wiped. Regaining composure we re-grouped and killed her properly. She went down very fast (I think 1 minute 20 seconds someone said), fortunately, so we only had to survive through 2 repentances. One I managed to get myself out of, the second I think someone may have sneaked a heal in for, but it might have been the Druid's frenzied regen or something. Anyway, she died and I had healed my group all by myself.

On to Opera - we lost a mage cos it was getting a bit late, but managed to get another. I think we did OK on the trash to Opera - by this time all the dying had blurred together!

We got Big Bad Wolf. Sadly Barkie had never tanked him before so died, the Paladin picked him up and ran about a bit. Then suddenly the curtain came down. I have absolutely no idea why. I think that he must have known it was one of those nights, or something! We rallied round and tried again. Success! Still NO trinket - of course - I mean that would have been too much to ask of a night like that! Fortunately I didn't get turned into red riding hood and managed to heal all those who did really well, so had achieved my goal here as well.


It was late - we'd died enough, so we stopped. I'm guessing that my Spirit Healer counts as another death and with the SS then die again I did a lot of lying flat. My repair bill was 27g or something, but had fun!


So - I did "most" of the healing. The other priest helped a bit while I regained my composure at the start, the Druid was his own inbuilt heals, the Shaman chain healed a bit after they wipes, but I think you could basically say I managed to solo heal the first four bosses, which gives me enormous satisfaction. I'd like to try it again some time and maybe even do further. I think if people chilled a bit and weren't competing for the highest dps, rushing to get it done and if we had 2 "proper" tanks we would be great. I'd like to thank all those who came along for giving me a night of indulgence - I hope you had a bit of fun too in amongst all the dying!

Looking at the information a bit more, most of my healing was flash heal - I know it's inefficient, but when you're on your own you've got to be quick. I'd really tried to get the most mana regen I could and I don't think my mana dropped below 50% more than once. I only used my fiend after I had died and SS - and the same for mana potions - I only used one! I ate a fair few elixirs though, and munched on lots of blackened sporefish. Time to go flower picking and fishing again.

The great thing is that some people seem willing to try it again and I think having done it once, I'd be a bit more relaxed and manage a bit better.

5 comments:

Knurd said...

Wow! I am impressed! Dispite Benedykt's stats:

Bah, it won't let me post a picture.

Plus Healing: 2098
Mana Regen: 540
Intellect: 463
Spirit: 491 (will go north of 1k raid buffed and with my Earring of Soulful Meditation popped)

(unbuffed)

I am not sure I would try this. I ended up solo tanking the place using Xannder, (prot pally), this weekend which as exciting.

The only trouble we had was Netherspite ... one of our crazier rogues decided that he wanted to give a go at dodge tanking the dragon during phase two which really didn't go too badly ... but in the end we had to sub in a real tank to pull it off.

I honestly have been afraid to try this ... although I think I can do it with the right group ... I will have to find one that will let me try. :o)

Congratz and Kutos to you!!

Anonymous said...

Well done Seph, just don't make us other healers redundant :)

Anonymous said...

A shame I had to go play taxi for the father, I'd definately go for you again if you decide to, and I'm not play taxi of course!

Anonymous said...

Grats :)

Anonymous said...

Wow that sounds like an epic run! Tbh it sounds like a typical kara run from back in the day :) GL next run!
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