RetTreeDiscadin wah!?

As many of you may have noticed, there has been a distinct slow down on posts here at The Misadventures. Svenn has talked of “burnout” and general apathy he has been feeling towards WoW for awhile now; the constant Heroics grind for badges, the “free” epics which just don’t seem to help some people improve, etc. … None of these ominous reasons (often associated with leaving WoW all together) are to blame for the dearth of posts in recent weeks. In fact the lack of posts is a GOOD thing. Previously, daily postings were fun, because the game simply wasn’t. As Svenn was not having much fun playing WoW, posting about it became more fun than actually playing.

Svenn has found the fun again…as a healer!?! No, Svenn himself does not heal, he is solidly entrenched in the Prot/Ret duality of his life, rather, 2 of his other toons have emerged as favorites. As he has alluded to previously, the tree (Knutsen) has been seeing some significant action healing for a friend’s guild…in 25 mans! Never having raided 20/40 mans in Vanilla/BC, this is an entirely new and exciting experience. They were kind enough to break him in gently on a ToC25 run last week and an Ony25 run earlier this week before jumping into ICC25 last night. And, while probably not all that exciting, Knutsen solo healed a weekly 10 man raid run (Patchwerk) with only 9 in the group, all but 1 or 2 alts, and the “OT/ cleave eater” being a DPS DK converted for the fight to “tank”. It was good fun, and as much of a healing workout as any of the 25 man raids.(Thanks to FIST for believing in me enough to let this recently converted tank try solo healing a raid, even if it was just Patches! :)

The other healer is a bit more surprising. Ottar, Svenn’s first real healer and the toon that first earned him the title “The Grumpy Healer”, has made a reappearance in Heroics. With a conversion to Disc, he is now merrily healing his way to DPS gear. Unlike Knutsen, Ottar can bring the pain while healing, maintaining around 1-1.5k DPS comfortably without slacking on the heals (Note: some tips from Vidalya helped Knutsen DPS while healing too, he’s just not quite as effective at it as Ottar yet). While all the badges are being spent on DPS gear, the incredibly low hit cap for Spriest’s is ideal for multifunctional gear to serve as both Disc and DPS sets.

Some say, “Wow that’s a lot of switching back and forth, ala EmberIsolte’s Altoholic”, but that is yet another source of fun. Trying to keep various classes and spec’s straight and perform well in the marquee positions of tank or heals, puts an element of challenge back into the game. That Svenn is no longer pigeonholed into tanking every run has greatly increased the fun factor. Hopefully, that is a good enough reason to cut back on posts again. Don’t worry though, I haven’t forgotten about the next installment of the Holiday Parody Series, it’s just taking a bit longer for inspiration to strike than normal.