Leaf-headrestoring a resto druid

It was after the Safety Dance when the tank whispered me to say, “Uh oh. This is now an Undying run.” But I didn’t believe it, because I had yet to see Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad. Ever. It was my third visit to Naxxramas. Ever. I’d seen the safety dance only once, and died at the very end of it. And yet! On this run not only did I get everything right and not die, so did my raidmates. And so we earned a title we hadn’t been expecting when we zoned in. I’m proud of it.

Those of you who have been raiding since the release of WotLK can be all blasé about “The Undying” and tell me you’ve had it for months. As indeed I’m sure you have. My coworker Mr JB told me how proud he was to get those titles with his guild in the months when Naxx was the end-game raid and they were all working toward drakes. You don’t get drakes for doing the Glory of the Raider now, because Blizzard decided that better gear made the achievement easier.

And of course it does. My TOC25 gear definitely made healing this run much, much easier than it would have been for me when I was in reputation purples. Gluth was the only fight where I thought we were going to lose somebody. Even the K’T fight felt calm to me. We got into phase 2 and I healed my first frost blast victim and thought, well, that wasn’t hard. There’s no way I walk into Naxx for the first time in rep purples and maintain that calm.

However, the run wasn’t trivial. This was a raid full of alts. The tank was our Living Bomb expert mage, main-tanking Naxx for the first time on his Death Knight alt. The run was an impromptu pickup run for badges, not a planned Undying attempt. We did the plague quarter third, for instance. (Most planned attempts would get the Safety Dance out of the way early, because heartbreak later in the run is worse.) But everybody got it right. They stood where they should stand, moved when they needed to, killed the right targets. Our two tanks were on top of everything. And good execution is what made the run so smooth.

I think our MT has earned the right to brag. And tank harder stuff.

Speaking of bragging rights

Achievements Leafie earned last night:

The Safety Dance
Sapphiron’s Demise
Kel’Thuzad’s Defeat
The Fall of Naxxramas
The Undying
Champion of the Frozen Wastes

The Immortal gets its own title for a good reason, I think. 25 people all executing well enough not to die. All lucky enough not to crash or disconnect during boss fights. I have not yet even been inside Naxx25, because it’s dusty content for my guild now, so my chances of attempting that one are low.

Tweaks

I’m now running the Need to Know mod to monitor certain spells on my target. While I’m not giving up the HOT dots on my unit frames ever, I do want to train myself to have a better sense of when Lifebloom is going to time out on my tank. I was thinking that I could also try making another SexyCooldown bar for my target, to accomplish the same task. I really like the logarithmic scale that mod uses.

I cast Regrowth last night a whole lot, and Nourish only when worried, as part of an experiment in tank hotting. Regrowth is more set-and-forget; I don’t need to return to somebody I’ve Regrowthed for a while. It went okay. My overhealing was sort of insane, hovering around 70% for the night. Mana was not an issue in Naxx. Mana is now where it should be for ToC25 fights. If I flask for spell power instead of regen, I spend fights watching the Innervate timer, and I use one mana potion per fight. This is good. I will learn to cast less often with mana pressure on me.

Hilarious side note: I’ve never seen Gift of the Wild time out in a raid before.

Goals

I’ve now seen every WotLK raid boss save Algalon, and killed everything I’ve seen save Yogg-Saron. I really have managed to do almost everything on my WOW wishlist, less than two months after joining a guild.

My next problem to solve: What am I going to do with all these Conquest badges? Buy PVP gear, I guess. Fill out any remaining holes in my cat gear. Build a bear set?

Answer: PVP gear. My husband’s arena rating is better than mine, and this cannot be allowed to stand!