Featherstomp - Restoration Druid

Hello Core Crew,
My name is Mark, I’m 31 years young, born in Russia, immigrated to Israel at 9. Currently working as a Quality Assurance Analyst for Babylon. Always had a passion for games which led me to WoW around 2007. I’m multicultural and multilingual, Studied General History and East Asia Studies in the University. I play a classical guitar when I’m in the mood, write poems, play computer games and I love mushroom picking as well as drinking in good company. Also playing D&D with my childhood friends (not online) pencil and paper, the old fashioned way.

Armory link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/kazzak/featherstomp/advanced

WoL: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-zsw2zo27b0kvuwdb/
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-itwcb9rt0i2obo0y/

These are the last 2 raids I participated in. Was moving to my new apartment and couldn’t raid last week.

Ping: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2299750468.png
Used Stockholm because that is where our server is located.

Found Core Crew through wowprogress.com after a fast search. I’ve raided in 25 man since wrath and after all that experience I saw that in 25 man there is room for slackers which is picked up by others and kind of swept under a rug. In 10 man, a step to the left or a step to the right by any member can mean the difference between a kill or a wipe. There is simply less room for error and Everyone must perform to the best of their classes ability, otherwise progress is impossible (well, possible after nerfs….). Basically it’s much harder to find 25 leet people to work together for the same goal with the same zeal then 10. Your raiding schedule fits me, as well as the fact that the guild is on Kazzak which I’m on. Last but most important is that your progress speaks for itself and after raiding for a long time with some very talented and skilled people I simply cannot lower the bar.

I have to warn you, I’m a bit of an elitist jerk. I literally have trouble going LFR because then I see what blizzard has done to wow, reducing a noble thing like raiding to the level of the most common casual player who knows not of rotation, cooldowns, consumables or heavens forbid tactics….
I won’t pug either unless it’s with other members of top guilds. Back in Wrath I started a joint project with 2 other top guilds. I created a channel that we all could use for common interest, levelling alts, raiding with alts… all for the sake of avoiding to have to deal with unknown pugs.

For some history.
Started playing around start of TBC, my resto druid was actually my first character and although I had many I always played the most on him (Featherstomp). I raided unofficially with a friend who was in a horde first guild on Defias Brotherhood. Raided as a Warrior tank and Resto Druid. Once I got a taste for raiding I wanted more, being casual raider just didn’t cut it anymore.

At the start of Wrath I was given an opportunity to prove myself in the Horde top guild on Defias Brotherhood – Ubiquity 25 man was the name: http://ubiquityguild.com/ R.I.P
Learned so much from that guild, I’m still in touch with the core members through real id those who raid and facebook those who don’t. The guild was ranked around 600 world if I remember correctly. In the end the guild disbanded due to some people quitting and bad recruiting which the core couldn’t carry on their back anymore.

I found a new home on Stormrage in another 25 man server first guild called Heretic http://www.heretic-guild.com/ R.I.P
Sadly after killing LK on HC the guild leader who was raid leading also (A legend of a man on that server) quit the game. The guild never recovered and when we started on Cataclysm content nothing really worked, the amount of slackage was unbelievable. The guild disbanded eventually.

My next stop was a bit unusual, knowing Russian and following the advice of a RL friend who was playing on a Russian server I decided to try my luck over there. I joined the guild Exit, 25 man of course that was server first. I joined as a casual since they didn't have any more raid spots. I knew that all I needed was one raid to show them what I’m capable of. Few weeks later I got my wish, outperformed their healers and soon after was made a raider! There was one downside, verbal abuse by the guild leader. I thought I knew Russian… boy I was wrong, added a lot of new expressions to my curse book while I was there. In the end I left the guild after I got fed up with the abuse and after being accused of boosting HPS on Magmaw hc. Anyone who understands healing and that encounter can tell you that boosting HPS at that time was only possible on 2 bosses and those were Chimaeron and Anub’arak back in ToTGC.

I took a break then till about 2 weeks before DS hit. Came back to see what’s going on, I joined a casual 10 man just to gain some experience and gear. Ended up doing 6/8hc with them on 15%-20% nerf I believe. By then I was determined to finish Cataclysm with a DS HC clear so while the guild disbanded I was looking elsewhere.
Found my current home, at Ice. A 25 man guild on Kazzak. They already cleared DS hc on 15% nerf so there wasn’t much left to do but at least I finished the expansion properly.

Enter MoP, started off well, a bit slow but still not too bad. Right now our guild is splitting, some are leaving to form their own 10 man, the core is staying to make their own 10 man. Apparently some people can’t raid well without a “guiding hand” to show them the way, call out events on vent…. And progress was halted completely. I had no interest to join the leavers and sadly the core is too tight to fit me for a spot which brings me to apply to your guild. One guild loss is another’s gain.

As for raiding experience and what have I killed and when:
Raided a bit in BC: Kara, ZA
WotLK All content was done in its respective tier, LK HC was down before Cataclysm
VOA 10/25
OS 10/25 3D
EOE 10/25
Onyxia 10/25
Naxxramas 10/25
Ulduar 25 + Algalon on 25 and all hardmodes except Alone in the darkness.
TOGC 10 (5/5) Insanity
TOGC 25 (5/5) Mad skill
Icecrown Citadel 10 hc (11/12)
Icecrown Citadel 25 hc (12/12)

Cataclysm All content was done during its respectful tier (except FL)
BoT 25 HC 2/5
BWD 25 HC 6/6
TFW 25 HC 1/2
FL 10 HC 6/7
DS 10 HC 8/8

MoP
Mogushan Vaults 6/6 normal 2/6 hc
Heart of Fear 1/6 normal

Additional information:
My offspec is Feral Tank, although I haven’t actually had a chance to use it in this expansion. Also didn’t gather gear for it, only recently started to gather bits.
During cataclysm I had 7x85 level chars. Resto Shaman, Disc Priest, Holy Paladin, 2x dps Warriors and a Feral kitty. Currently I’m slowly levelling my farm boy 87 warrior herbalist/miner.
Also levelling a healer monk (58 now) already with raiding professions Tailor/Enchanter. Must have all healing classes!
My ui is simple, I only use a few addons which make my life as a healer much easier:
Vuhdo, Dominos, OmniCC, Power Auras, Skada and of course DBM. There are others but they are less relevant to raid healing.
https://2img.net/r/ihimg/f/18/wowscrnshot111112005535.jpg/

Healing style and approach to raiding.
I take raiding seriously, learning the fight before it happens and being prepared so I don’t let the team down is something that is already part of my routine. Sometimes I assist in raid leading other times I know how and when to keep my mouth shut.
Aside from a few new cooldowns and a new spell not much has changed since Cata. I saw and heard a lot of people complain about mana, I’m not very bothered by it because it’s the same issue every start of expansion. Just need to gear up and adjust spell use, reforge and gem accordingly and there is mana enough with smart use of cds and coordination between raiders for global mana cds. There is no rotation that I can talk about in terms of healing, my biggest debate right now is whether I should switch to Heart of the Wild instead of Nature’s Vigil. While Nature’s Vigil provides with a nice healing cd, Heart of the Wild grants 6% of my total Int which amounts to another equipped Int trinket and will only grow with gear. There is still lots of debates about it and few days ago I saw Owld (resto druid from Method) specced to Heart of the Wild. I will probably be switching to it soon. What I’m trying to say is that I’m always on top of theorycraft. Back at the start of Cata I pioneered the 2005 haste cap for resto druids when it was almost unheard of. I switched Enchanting to Alchemy just so I can have the crafted Haste trinket + some reforges and gems and I got 2005 and was happily healing with my extra WG tick.

Looking forward to your pokes and question.
With regards,
Mark

Decent apply. Looks good.

However it ended to early and I feel like some information is missing.

In any case need wit to look at this one. Be patient

Logs actually seems good in %usage though a little low on output from what I can see. I do however not tend to look at the healing logs too much mainly comparing it to the person we seek to replace due to irl commitments. Been forwarding this to our priest which if you are anything of what you say you are will be someone you want to try to compete with.

Logs will be a bit low on throughput and you won't see me use all my cds on the clock (9 minute fight 3 times 3min cd). Keeping LB and Harmony close to 100% is much easier in MoP than it was in Cataclysm when our Harmony was only 10 seconds as opposed to 20 now.

I follow a certain set of rules as a healer which is hard to implement in 25 man raids when we use too many healers to compensate for slacking people who like standing in shit or can't find their own defensive cds/heal buttons.

In an optimal raid environment where after getting to know the encounter you know exactly where and when the damage is going to come and be prepared for it. What I see in many 25 man guilds is raid takes damage, then all the healers spam heal everyone like crazy, using an absurd amount of mana + overhealing. Unless there is a wave constant damage being dealt to the raid I see no point to top the raid immediately, instead use a few non expensive spells or an aoe heal and slowly but gradually heal the raid up while keeping the tank alive of course.

In Ice we have a healing officer who would assign general cds (tranquility) for certain times. Of course I follow the order but always adjust if there is a need for it. Sometimes I get no assignment and I won't use a single cd in a raid (very unlikely) however, I always coordinate with other healers regarding healing cds.
I have Ora3 open and monitor which healing cds are available and adjust my healing accordingly.

Finally I sometimes assist in raid leading, mostly calling out mana cds for the healers or warn the raid about an incoming ability that requires repositioning / defensive cds and other things.

10 man is a different sort of beast as I said in my original post, it takes some adjusting no doubt and the amount of sync between healers must be incredibly high for efficient healing. My 10 man experience pales in comparison to my 25 but I have done some 10 man runs to Firelands hc, DS hc. Also back in Wrath when 10 and 25 man were separate raids I ran 25/10 on my resto druid, then twice more on my resto shaman and holy paladin in 10 man on alt runs. DS 10 man HC Deathwing I was ranked world 37, although I never strive to rank I heal to keep the raid alive and get the kill to progress.

In the end there is only 1 sure way of finding out if I'm for real.
Also you can always contact any officer/gm or raider in Ice and ask them about my performance (With the exception of 1 recent raid where I was exhausted and kept dying) I believe there won't be many, if any, complaints.

Cheers.

One question from me.

Current progress: 2/6HC

Killing Stone Guardians twice doesn't count as 2/6, so how comes Armory says you haven't killed Feng? I will accept if it was a very recent kill and it hasn't updated yet because it does do that sometimes.

I apologize, indeed I have not killed Fang on hc.
No plot of deception was conceived here.

My progress on Mogushan Vaults HC is 1/6

Just waiting for wit's conclusion i guess^^

Hi Mark. I would as you say suspect 2 many healers in 25 just because "you can" . I do personally feel that you can carry more people in 25man then 10. Or in this case stack healers to avoid sorting your players out when they don't play properly.
Its a shame that 10man still isnt acknowledged for what it really is. But major guilds still work on a 25man basis and they are the ones bringing in the money so I suspect we will always be seeing that habit of world firsts ignoring 10man guilds

Paragon or Dream Paragon as they are known now went 10 man just because a lot dropped out and finding new amazing people is extremely hard in a short period of time.

I would say that Blizzard paved the way for more 10 mans since they changed the loot system in Cataclysm as opposed to Wrath where 25 man loot was different than 10.
Being in a 25 man guild may be more prestigious than 10 man but the skill cap of having a 10 man guild is higher I think just because there is less room for error.
I'm talking about successful guilds who do hcs of course.

I completely agree, except the loot part, 25man are %wise getting more loot per player then a 10man but yeah atleast the loot is the same.

With the new loot system I would simply increase the chance of getting loot from coins in 10 man only. Because 3 is too much and 2 is too little for 10 man and we spend coins anyway on this. Either this or have the dropping loot be better attuned to the 10 specific raiders, giving them a needed item most of the time as opposed to being completely random.

There is another minor bonus which 10 man has as opposed to 25. While in 25 man loot will most certainly go to someone, in 10 man there is more chance to have it disenchanted. Disenchanting gets bloods and those get us epic craftables.

Sorry for beeing slow to reply to your post. We will have a closer look at it shortly.

Livvy can you trick wit into checking this out?

Meanwhile I'm helping myself to your logs. Very enjoyable.

Oh yeah he is on his way doing it. Just been cracking on with checking out the new bosses etc. I've also had him on house arrest watching the newborn kittens as he works from home most of the time anyways.
He will probs get around to it this weekend.

I understand, meanwhile uncle Sha was kind enough to drop legs (not really, coin got em), enter 2 set bonus.
I'll hold of on getting saved to any raid just in case.
Experimenting with Soul of the Forest and Heart of the wild for now in lfr. So don't be alarmed by the strange spec and glyph of stampeding roar instead of the usual WG which I'm not 100% sure about when it comes to 10 man raiding.

That's alright don't worry about getting saved. Rather get any extra gear you can. There's always next reset.

A wise man once said:
All misfortunes come from either a lack of information or from leaks.

Hi Mark,

Sorry about the delay in replying to you. Your application deserves some time and consideration and I simply haven't been able to get around to it until now. It's a shame there is so little discussion going on here as well.

I have very mixed feelings about this application, evidently you have a strong grasp on the English language (probably more so than me.) You have an attitude that we look for, well geared and at first glance you seem pretty dedicated.

However, this application doesn't really tell me anything about your ability to play your class, you have included next to no information about resto druids, your play style, ability usage, adapting to raid mechanics or how to prepare your character for any specific encounter. For someone who prides himself on his theory crafting ability this feels like somewhat of a black mark.

You've admitted that your logs are low, and from what I understand you are using the lack of challenge as your excuse for not performing as well as other members in the raid. To an extent I can understand not feeling a motivation whilst raiding in a guild using too many healers (although it certainly doesn't bode well in an application) but on the other hand if I were in your position I would still want to challenge myself to perform as well as possible working within the mana constraints for the duration of the fight, even if that means more over heal but ending the fight on less than 100% mana.

Looking at your Imperial Vizier log you are the weakest healer on the burst phases other than donyy the holy paladin and on the burst phase that left two players dead you were rock bottom. In my opinion those raid wide bursts are the only moderately challenging aspect of that entire fight for healers and come heroic modes we couldn't afford to bring someone who doesn't understand how to maximise their burst aoe healing.

Looking at your normal mode logs, the same applies. You are generally underperforming in comparison to the other healers in the raid, and it is even more apparent during the difficult phases of each fight. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-itwcb9rt0i2obo0y/sum/healingDone/?s=5963&e=6022 Elegon's spam heal burn phase, what happened?

You mentioned that you have been looking at our logs. Do you have anything more to say about them I would be interested to hear your thoughts, good or bad. Or anything you can say to show me an understanding of mechanics, and performing as best you can in a raid.


Right now Mark, you need to show something to prove to us that you are more than a leftover from a guild that has lower progression than us, and that you could really pull your weight here in a guild that relies on exceptional performances from every player to make up for our lack of raid days.

Looking forward to your response. If you would prefer to talk over mumble I can send you the details for that.

Hello Witweed,

Thank you for taking the time to put a well thought and detailed response as well as a few good words. I will take it apart and do my very best to answer all the questions and fill in the blanks that I have left. Hopefully by the time you finish reading it, you will be satisfied and with enough information to make your judgement regarding my application or perhaps after a mumble chat.

I’ll go back in time a bit to WoTLK, to the last boss of ToTGC (Anub’arak). I believe that this was a turning point for me when I started to experiment with healing in different ways and began to actually adapt instead of the usual mindless rejuv blanket that I used to do. I read somewhere, or perhaps mined it from a log that resto druids were suddenly using healing touch on that fight. After gathering some info, checking out armory it was clear, a HT glyph was used that lowered the cast time by Half (I think) also the throughput + haste gear and I could cast HT at 0.7 seconds (If I recall correctly), the only restrain was the GCD. Armed with this new HT, healing the penetrating cold was a different story. Each group had either a resto shaman who would keep people up with his healing stream totem alone or a Shadow Priest that had to put talent points into improved vampiric embrace because otherwise the healing from it was not enough.

Regarding resto druids in general, hots were and still are our bread and butter of healing. Druids always lacked one thing, that is heavy burst aoe healing. Despite the attempt of blizzard to give us mushrooms it is still our weak spot. We simply cannot provide a huge amount of burst aoe heal over a short period of time. Tranquillity is the only reliable heavy burst cooldown that I can use. I had no time to test this but with Soul of the Forest I will be able to use a kind of a rotation to empower my WG/RJ/Tranq. Right now if I had to burst aoe heal the raid at a certain time where we all group up together my actions would be as following: Preset 3 mushrooms on the healing spot and have a RJ run on a few targets (as much as mana constraint will allow) so that I will have an easy target for swiftmend.
As soon as damage starts:
1 pop mushrooms.
2 Swiftmend (proc. Soul of the forest)
3 WG with soul of the forest
4 Tranq
5 Regrowth any critically low raider or continue with normal healing according to situation.

There is a lot of utility in the druid, and in the right hands a very useful tool for the entire raid. Stampeding Roar is used almost on all fights, there is so much movement that it’s a must. I think it can be literally used on all the bosses. Depending on positioning since the effect is limited in range when cast. Blade lord Ta’Yak (last phase) is an excellent example for use of stampeding roar (Kind of obvious).
Controlling adds on Will of the Emperor with Typhoon or Ursol’s Vortex is another place the druid’s utility is used. Basically any encounter that requires knockback to be honest.

Symbiosis, I usually use it for someone who wants it but, if it was up to me I would symbiosis to a monk for the defensive cooldown or on some rare situations (Stone Guards) symbiosis a shaman so I get spirit walkers grace, after a few times of channelling Tranquility and had to interrupt it because of a crystal/pool spawning right under me this is a good solution to not loose channelling time on a huge raid cooldown. Ironbark is "new" to me, unlike other healing classes that already had personal cds to put on tanks this is the first time druids have a cd like this. I do my best to synchronize with tanks or raiders and use it just before heavy damage starts to mitigate the damage. I’m not 100% on this yet but I’m learning.

When preparing for an encounter I usually take into consideration:
1 How long the encounter lasts?
2 Good times to use own cds?
3 Boss abilities that deal heavy tank/raid damage and at what time/interval they are cast?
4 Watching videos of the encounter helps me with movement during the encounter.
5 Looking at logs of the encounter can often broaden a picture for the fight. Can show if ranged or melee take more damage for instance.
6 Is there downtime where I can consume potion of focus?

I have no excuse for performing poorly, when there is no challenge I simply do not perform. On the other hand I can’t even begin to express enough how exhilarating and alive I feel when there is an actual challenge and the weight of the raid is on my shoulders. Last time I truly felt that way was when we killed Deatwing on hc in 10 man. We were 2 healers and I literally put my soul into healing that encounter, managed to rank 37 world for that if I remember correctly.

As for Imperial Vizier, I was not assigned to use my big cd (Tranq) at the burst healing phase (Force and Verge) so I just kept it for my personal consideration. I had Tranq off cd during the time those 2 people died, there I have no excuse. I miscalculated, should have used regrowth to heal those 2 up quickly to avoid death. Now also when I go over the logs I notice that I don’t use regrowth as much as I should, after all that is the spell that will most often save people’s lives. (It wasn’t glyphed back then also… another fail on my part)

As for that http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-itwcb9rt0i2obo0y/sum/healingDone/?s=5963&e=6022 Elegon’s spam heal burn phase.

I will give you another example of the same fight when instead of 6 healers we had 5
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-vil70pmap8qt0j31/sum/healingDone/?s=4261&e=4798
The entire kill.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-vil70pmap8qt0j31/sum/healingDone/?s=4743&e=4789
Spam heal burn phase.
This is our first kill as well, I had less gear than in the log you saw.

As for your logs, I was generally admiring them. Usually what would always happen after an evening of frustrating wipes is that I sit down and start checking prime suspects of low performance. Last one that I checked in Ice was a Monk. I didn't know much about monks when I started to compare his logs to someone else’s. At the end I saw a huge gap in rotation/spell use and learned a bunch of stuff about monks as well.

I'm good at drawing parallels between same class/spec performances on a same encounter. I'm usually able to spot what could be done to improve performance. I really enjoy data mining (Perhaps that is why I work in QA), I can stare at logs and compare player performance in a similar encounter for hours. Sadly, I mostly fall on deaf ears because rather than taking my advice people react negatively so I'm very careful with dispensing it. Instead of pointing out the wrongs I usually ask leading questions and ask a person to explain to me about a rotation of a certain class. At the end I ask why is another raider in a close to identical environment uses a different set of spells/priority…… those who want to learn will learn, those who want to shut down and be small minded are free to do so.
Not knowing the players in your guild, how they react I rather not express my opinion openly, besides not knowing how you tackle an encounter or what roles/itemization was used can lead to erroneous conclusions and I rather avoid those. I did see some things that I am curious about, perhaps I'll ask about it in mumble if at the end of reading this you feel we have something to talk about.

In conclusion, it has been a while since I was in a really serious raid environment where everyone had the drive and skill to push forward without wasting time or mindlessly wiping without giving enough thought or preparation beforehand. Usually I start very strong but loose interest after seeing horrendous performance in raid. I do not have as much time as I had a few years ago, I will not level all my healing alts and learn to play them with the new spells/abilities for mop as I've done for both Wrath and Cata. However, I am keeping a close eye on resto druids. I check out various druids armory to see their itemization/reforging, go over logs to see healing style and spell use per encounter and I implement all those for myself. Once in a raid environment I learn the patterns / behavior of other raiders so I can better synchronize with them, know what to expect of them and how to heal them better. For example knowing if I can count on raiders to use personal defensive cooldowns or hybrid dps classes that have healing spells actually use them in heavy damage periods can shift my regrowth from one raider to another.

I'm also the first person to point out my own failures as well as learn from them. Whichever way this application goes I already feel that I've gained some useful knowledge by reading, writing and looking at things from a different perspective.
Currently I have not raided for almost 3 weeks, hopefully I didn't gather much rust over that time. However I'm confident that even if I did, I can shake it off quickly, learn all the new encounters that I've missed and be an asset to this Guild.

With regards,
Mark

Application withdrawn,
Thank you for your time.
Good luck with progress raids!

All the best.
Mark