- Image by brianjmatis via Flickr
I just had an eye opening and thought provoking experience: I often look myself up at http://be.imba.hu to see what I should be working on gear wise and what content I should be running. Its a great site for doing that. But today I took it a step further and looked up all the priests in my guild. Here is what I discovered:
First, our guild “only” has 19 level 80 priests. That surprised me. I’ve always thought of Ex Cinis Cineris as priest heavy and would have guessed us to have maybe half again that number at very least. But what really shocked me is that I am roughly tied for 4th best in terms of gearing with two others. Looking at it another way, if this data is to be believed, I’m no worse than the 6th best geared priest in our guild. There is some room for error as some folks may have logged off in pvp gear or geared for an alt spec, but still.
What this means is that I’m harboring some delusions as to my status. I’d always proclaimed quite loudly that I was at best 2nd tier and quite possibly 3rd tier in terms of ECC priests. However, assuming 4 tiers of 5 each, I’m right at the cusp of 1st and 2nd tier.
Yet I’ve hardly ever run a 10 man (3 to be exact as of this writing.) and never have run a 25 man instance. At this point I could veer off to talk about problems in the WoW reward mechanics. Clearly I’m over geared for the content I’ve run. But I’ll leave that for others to do. (TotalBiscuit of the Blu Plz! podcast does a fine job running that topic into the ground.) Where I want to go with it is that I am once more catching myself caught up in the position of underachiever. (Wherever I go, there I am again it seems.)
Actually, this revelation of my gearing status within our guild impacts me at least 4 different ways at the same time: 1) I’m proud that my efforts of the last few weeks have resulted in such a gearing improvement. Clearly, upgrading doesn’t take as much as I’d assumed. 2) I’m shocked to discover I’m so deluded. I thought of myself as more prone to honest assessment. 3) I’m disappointed I’ve let myself off the hook so easily. My excuse for not attempting harder content was that I wasn’t properly geared to do so. 4) I’m sheepish that I’ve been letting my guild down even in the slightest. ECC is by no means a hardcore raiding guild. But we are large (500+ toons) and I suspect there are more than a few that would like challenge themselves. Why not? Isn’t that part of the fun? I still think we are probably priest heavy, but I’m also sure I’m one of our few discipline healers.
I’ve been thinking of myself as a charity case in need of help when instead I’m at a point where I really should be helping others. I don’t mean just those newly arriving at level 80 but maybe all but the the very top levels in my guild. Maybe even those top players could use my help if only to fill in spots on a 25 man roster from time to time.
I’ll continue this next time talking about what this revelation means to me in terms of gameplay. I know I still want to limit my gameplay time. But maybe its time to reevaluate how that time is being spent.
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You'd be incredibly surprised at how well you can gear yourself up, even just running 100's of heroics. We have quite a few people in the guild who are getting the Triumph gear, just from running the dailies. (Sadly, I just don't have that kind of time lol.)
I don't know how much you limit your time online, but if you think about it, most of our raiding groups raid two nights a week, for about three hours each. Depending on how much time you can spare, it could be easily do-able. (Especially if you only play for 3-4 hours a night, a few times a week.)
Anywho, just my 2 copper
You're right, you can get some great. I've kind of slacked the last week or two in running the daily because I think my next piece is going to take 75 badges and at maybe 6 badges a week from dailies which is about all I'm likely to manage… well, let's just say that could be awhile.
Two 3-4 hour slots a week isn't so much the problem as is two 3-4 night time slots. If raids happened during the day, I could see my way clear more easily. Still, I'm considering it now that I know I'm geared well enough to be "qualified."
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
How many times have I told you that you are a great healer! Gear helps but you do the work! I often *gulp* when hearing "Soandso, you are healing Lue" but you are definitely not one of these Soandsos! Light be with you!
Thanks Luenyar. Coming from a great tank like yourself, that means alot. I'm grateful to have fallen in with you the past few weeks because you do such a great job of explaining the fights besides fulfilling your role.
But I'll have to disagree with you somewhat on the role gear plays. Certainly a bad player can scuttle any group regardless of gear. But just how far can a good player elevate beyond the level of their gear? Maybe a half a tier? Maybe one full tier? At very best one and a half tiers I would think. Beyond that, you simply don't hit hard enough, or absorb enough or in my case, throw big enough heals and mitigations to adequately contribute or in many cases, even survive.
I think you were the tank the first time I tried to go into Heroic Tournament of Champions. Remember that debacle? Hats reminded me of it the other day as we cruised through an H ToC run. What's changed in between the two runs? Am I that much better a healer? I don't think so. But my gear has certainly improved a notch or three in large part thanks to you and Jaileth.
Anyway, my main point here is that I'm at a stage where I can no longer use inadequate gear as an excuse. Hopefully, you'll be happy about that because it means I'll be looking to run 10 and 25 mans with you as well as 5 man heroics.
I think gear is just one part of what makes a healer, and by no means the most important part. I think about gear and healing a little bit like I think about a car and driving.
You can get new tires, put on a spoiler, improve your fuel efficiency etc, and that stuff will all be helpful at increasing the top end of what you can do. None of it will replace the knowledge of how to approach a tight curve, or what to do when you’re hydroplaning, though. It will certainly show up on the straightways of the “race”. You’ll see a big difference in gear on a fight like Patchwork when all healers are just putting the pedal to the metal.
That all goes out the window on most of the fights, though. The real differentiation comes in preparation, practice/experience, anticipation, communication and situational awareness. To put it in proper perspective gear is one aspect of preparation and to a lesser extent practice/experience (as in gear is often a function of where you’ve spent your time).
If you’re trying to squeeze out your best possible performance all the time, working on gear will be a part of that, and thus gear score can sometimes be a proxy for evidence of effort in preparation. Like any shorthand, it can miss a lot of important information and context.
Hi Ecco, thanks for weighing in.
You're right that gear is only a part and I like your car analogy. But if we carry it one step further, race cars have to qualify before even being allowed to race. If they don't meet certain minimums, their inclusion in the race might not only be dangerous to themselves but to other competitors. What I didn't realize until yesterday was that I'd risen to the point where I'm pretty well qualified for our guild's race.
But now you introduce another interesting variable: That of preparation. Up until now, I've never spent much time studying fights ahead of time to know what I'm supposed to do going in. That's another factor I'll have to consider: Do I have the discipline and desire to put in the study prep time especially when you all know some of these instances quite well and I hardly know where some of them are.