Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?Preparing Your Level 80 Holy Priest For Naxx
Three Months After Entering Naxx
Besides the bustle of Christmas and New Years (which were wonderful, hope yours were too), there were a number of in-game opportunities to raid and do heroics with my relatively-new guildmates in this raiding guild I joined a month before WoTLK came out.
Our guild council decided long before WoTLK came out that we wouldn't officially start guild raids (25 man, that is) until the New Year, giving everyone 6 weeks to get to 80 and get a bit geared up for re-entering into the End Game experience.
Having hit level 80 three weeks after the expansion pack came out, however, I was ready to raid a lot earlier than the New Year, as were many of my guildmates.
We ended up fielding a number of 10 man raids over the holidays, generally running two groups at the same time because we were a few shy of being able to run with 25. We also got two nights of 25 man raiding in, during the same week even, but none of those raids were official.
In the mean time, everyone was allowed to PUG as they saw fit, but most of us saved our ID for a guild run, since there were enough outside of the Officer core who wanted to run things on a weekly basis.
Documented Priestly Process
One thing I thought would be highly valuable was the thought of documenting a lot of the "just hit 80, getting ready for my first Naxx run" things I went through, so I took the time at the crucial moments to record pre-Naxx stats, gear lists + sources, and other things I was learning about what Consumables and what Enchants and Gems are best for me in my current (Holy) spec.
I spent a lot of time researching information about the Holy Priest in the new WoTLK era, especially because until recently I had been the only level 80 Holy Priest in our guild and there was simply nobody to turn to for advice. I spent hours pouring over information on various websites in order to gather this information together.
If you're looking for that kind of detailed data, consider checking out my new mini-guides on various Level 80 Priest Gearing topics:
- Level 80 Holy Priest Consumables Guide
- Level 80 Priest Gearing Guide
- Level 80 Holy Priest Gemming and Enchanting Guide
Loving Heroics, Loving The Raids
I've had a great time with this expansion, with all the new dungeons and the new raid zones I'm going into.
I feel like the Heroics are like mini-raids in terms of their fight complexity for the boss fights - sure, some fights are way easier than others, but things like avoiding the Dragon's Breath in Utgarde Pinnacle reminds me very much of the Felmyst fight in Sunwell, and Loken's Lightning Aura that kills so many players in Halls of Lightning has raid-like dynamics, too.
Each of the bosses that require special dances to take down (partially because we're not all overgeared right now) are especially delightful to me.
Painful PUGs, Delightful PUGs
One of the things that is going on right now in the game is that people who got into Heroics and Raids after the big 3.0.2 nerf of raids and buff of characters are jumping straight into Heroics and Raids as soon as they hit 80, because it worked for them at 70 and they know that's where the great gear is.
Unfortunately for them, Heroics and Raids are actually challenging right now, and especially in the Heroics range, if you can't pull your own weight then it's noticable in the party.
THIS is why I got into a good raiding guild just before WoTLK came out. While I still PUG a lot and some are painful and some aren't, it's always nice to have a fall-back group of people who I know WON'T provide a painful experience.
How's your WoTLK coming along?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related posts:
- Holy Priest Gem and Enchant Guide
- Holy Priest Pre-Raid Gear Guide
- Awesome Holy Priest Consumables Guide
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OMG the god damn hassle i am having just now gearing up with PUG HC and rep is painful.
I am Disc but will se your guilds when i get home work blocking FTL.
I waited a bit before I leaped into heroics I wanted to have the correct gear once I did I checked Be.Imba and started running them. :-)
I've been in those groups when I've struggled to heal usually it has been the dps I can think of one time when the tank wasn't geared. He wasn't a tank (druid who was not tank specced) but thought he could handle the heroic instance just like the regular instances. I seriously had my doubts but since the two (himself and a lock) had played the game since release I thought well maybe they know what they're talking about. I should have listened to my instincts. The "tank" took on too much damage and could not keep threat, since I was constantly tossing heals to keep him alive naturally I became their new focus of interest and poor Holiterra went down fast, and the party followed. After the third wipe, I politely said we need someone who is tank specced and left. I ran the heroic the next day with a real tank no problems. The "wanna be tank" is in my guild and yes he still wants to tank heroics. /facepalm He's entitled to do so, but I won't be in his group. ;-)
The worst thing at the moment is that you can ding 80 and walk into any Heroic in the game.
It would be nice if people had to complete each instance on normal before being able to try out the Heroic :(.
Hi and hello! Only recently after stumbling across your FAB blog, was i inspired to start my own http://www.everydaytroll.blogspot.com . I couldn't agree more with this post. A holy priest myself, I did struggle at first and had to gently ease into the heroics. I had guild officers (pala tanks) who decided they were uber the moment they hit 80 and could heroic right away. I point blank refused to heal them! And eventually after the 20th wipe or so, they realised i was talking some sense!
You capture the newness of the game in this post, and the way that BIG 70s are now small 80s in a lot of ways. I was in a PUG last night that was pure chaos, reminding me of how nice it is to raid with the guild.
The only thing standing inbetween a fresh 80 holy priest and one that is heroics and raid worthy is gold. Moonshroud gloves and robe, Aurora boots, Moonsomthingoranother pants, Titansteel Guardian, Tailored head wrists and shoulders, BOE blue quality rings from the AH, BOE blue quality offhand and probably more stuff that I'm forgetting. It took roughly 4K gold to get the two holy priests I've geared from a 215 beimba score to around 315. At about 315 Beimba you should do fine in the easier heroics and ok in the raids.
My guild has been short of healers for our raids so I moved my priest alt to a new account and let my son take him over. He has a lot of TBC raid experience on his mage but got bored with him at about level 76. He doesn't have all the instincts that a long time healer has but he's doing ok and it is a big help to the raids. I had him at 77 so my son leveled him the last 3 levels. We got him from 214 Beimba to 315 in about 4 hours and pulled him into a 25 man later that evening.
I just repeated the process with a fresh 80 holy priest that just joined our guild. I was low on gold so it took a few days instead of a few hours. Ya, we need healers that bad.