Patch Notes

I noted on Twitter that I've been having some health problems.  It's hard to write on a blog when I'm getting migraines nearly every day.  It's also hard to lead a raid group, but I'm dealing as best as I can.

Anyway, here are some thoughts on the patch.

Druid Specific Patch Changes

Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid's maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.

I don't foresee this changing the 10 man raiding scene much; how often are there 2 caster druids in a 10 man?  Well, my group had a tree and a boomkin, but as we used him for AoE in a lot of fights, he often kept his innervate.

All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%).

I'm glad to see this change, but it's not interesting enough to get me to stack crit.

Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

The mastery change is really exciting.  In 10 mans, often a WG is enough to prep the majority of the raid for heals, so it's not as good a change as it is for 25 man raiders.  It is still an improvement, though, since no longer do we have to apply a buff (a hot) to someone before getting the effect of our mastery.  The buff that we need to get the effect of mastery (Symbiosis) is applied to ourselves by casting a direct heal.

Many 25 man druids report that they're planning on using SM on cooldown to activate Symbiosis.  I haven't been using SM on cooldown, and I suspect that in the same sized room, 10 man raiders are more spread out than 25 raiders, making it less effective in that environment.  I could just put it on the tank in those cases, to stabilize his health and activate Symbiosis.  I'll have to see how it plays out.

Between the mastery change and the crit change, I'm considering putting more points into Nature's Bounty.  As we spend more time at 85, and our gear upgrades, I've noticed that I spend more time healing similarly to LK - very mobile, using a ton of instant spells.  We've taken advantage of that in my raid team by giving me all of the healing assignments that involve a bunch of movement.  I suspect that I'll be using Regrowth more often (to activate Symbiosis). If I do, I should move points also to Living Seed, I suspect, as I'll be criting a lot more.  I'll probably remove them from Naturalist, Swift Rejuvenation, and Nature's Swiftness.

I suspect that I'll have a full post on my thoughts on our talent choices soon, once I've played with the new mastery a bit.

Other Random Patch Day Thoughts

Molten Front

I'll admit that I've been dreading this patch a bit.  I'm actively playing 3 85s, plus leveling another 2 characters.  Adding a full set of dailies does not sound like much fun, so I've had to decide who is getting the dailies done.  

My mage will eventually get them done for the vanity items and gear.  She is used to being last in priority (still doing TB dailies for mounts, since I can't stand to do them every day).  The only thing that I want for her ASAP is the JC bag recipe, but it may not be such a pressing need since gems are supposed to stack.  She'll get them last, and if I'm already tired of the dailies by the time I get to her I won't feel bad about skipping.

My pally often fills in for other raid groups, but almost never gets gear (since she's an alt, I defer to the raiders in the group and only take what others don't want).  She'll have to do the dailies to get her gear upgraded.  Plus, she's a blacksmith so getting the new BS recipes will be nice.

The druid I'm still not decided about.  I'm working on my gear lists, and there's the possibility that I'll have upgraded beyond the vendor gear by the time I would unlock the vendors (since it's a lower ilevel than raid gear). OTOH, she's killed Chimaeron 6 times or so, and has never even seen the bracers drop, so it's entirely possible that in a month I'll still be wearing some 359 gear (or the 353 bracers).  Right now I'm planning to do them on her.

My Raid Group Specifics

We're having attendance problems, so are trying to merge with another group in guild.  I'm not entirely sure if it'll be a success or not, so I wish we had another week or two to try it out.  I'm guessing that folks will be coming back for 4.2, and if we aren't going to merge, I'd like to recruit for my group!

We also haven't figured out legendary stuff (since it's contingent on if we're merging or not, really).  We'll have to figure something out for Friday.  Headache!

We finished the tier 9/12, but since we only really gelled for 2 months (started in March, got hit hard by attendance starting in May), I'm not terribly upset.  I did fill in for another group on Sunday and got a Cho'gall kill (they had it on farm, so it was not as cool as if I had gotten it with my group).  That was an interesting night, since I had to keep swapping back and forth from my druid to my pally, since the druid was saved to some stuff, but the pally didn't have nearly as much gear.

Anatomy of a Mega Guild: Part II, It Was the Best of Times...

Welcome to the second post in my "Anatomy of a Mega Guild" series!  The previous post described my motivations for joining the mega guild and what I knew about how things would work when I joined.

This post will discuss the advantages of the mega guild structure.  The previous post in this series is Part I: Joining.

Is Anyone There?
There are approximately 580 individual characters in my guild (I'm not sure if the /ginfo is working correctly, but it's currently reporting 210 accounts - a PLAUSIBLE number at least).  I have occasionally seen fewer than 5 people online, but only at weird times such as 6 am on Saturday morning.

With this number of people, I can almost always find someone for whatever I need.  I can ask in /g and almost always get at least 2 other people so we can get guild rep for a heroic (if not a full group).  I can easily find a crafter for whatever I need crafted.  Folks are always doing arenas and pvp (not me, I'm terrible with it).

Specifically for Raiding
As a player it's easy to find groups to sub into on my alts.   My alts are actually doing about as much raiding as I did at the end of ICC.  Both my mage and healing pally are 4/5 in BWD and 2/4 in BoT.  Progression on my server is pretty terrible (we're ranked 115 as a server; no one had Light of Dawn until March 2011 or so).  My server is just not running PUGs right now, so having the opportunity to see these raids through the eyes of my alts is quite amazing. 

As a raid leader, it is much easier to find a sub for last minute (or unannounced) absences.  With the proliferation of alts carried over from LK, it seems that everyone has several alts.  It's a lot nicer to pick up a sub and only have to say "so, as [role] you need to worry about [extra ability]" rather than having to go over the whole fight, since they raid regularly on another character.  

Guild Perks/Achievements
Also quite obviously, it's easier/faster to have access to the guild perks.   We reached level 25 on April 7.  We had the Big Cauldron of Battle (3k flasks) on March 23. I'm not sure when we had Fish Feasts (the interface is only showing our progress towards 50k fish, we have 30k caught).

At this point it's not a terrible advantage.  The leveling perks aren't as big of a deal for a raiding group compared to the recipes (cauldrons, feasts).  If a significant number of my raiding group decided that we didn't want to be a part of the guild any more, we would take those recipes with us to the new guild.   I think a lot of the leveling perks are quality of life improvements (rep gains, faster running when dead, mass rez, etc) and aren't quite such a big deal for raiding progression. 

So, I think leveling in a large guild is only going to be a big deal at the beginning of an expansion when a bunch of things are added.

Dealing with BoEs
The only good thing (in my mind) about the extensive amount of trash in BoT are the epic BoE drops.  Obviously different groups do different things with their BoE, but selling them and funding the raid is a pretty common thing to do.   

One thing that's nice about our guild is that the raid groups often trade BoE loot to help equip their groups faster.  It's roughly equivalent to selling a BoE and then buying the other item, but by keeping trades in guild we avoid AH fees, which is definitely a plus.

Identity and Change
My raid group is being affected by summer attendance woes.   This problem is pretty common, and I was chatting with the leader of another group who has having the same problem, so we're currently in discussions to combine the two groups.  We aren't facing nearly the number of problems as when I've read about guild mergers; we already have an identity as a guild, so there's going to be a minimum of drama.

Also, as people's schedules change and their ability to raid changes, they can change teams fluidly without learning a whole new guild's worth of people or culture (there are culture differences between teams, but it's not as severe as guild to guild culture differences in my experience).

External Management
No one in my raid team has to worry about website or vent management.  When we formed, we were given a sub forum on the website and a channel in vent.  I throw $10 at the guild leader every now and then to cover costs, but reducing the number of people responsible for support functions not directly in the game means that my team has more time to actually play.

Unfortunately, All is Not Sunshine and Roses
That's a pretty big list of advantages for the mega guild structure, but there have also been problems.  I'll cover those in my next post.

Anatomy of a Mega Guild: Part I, Joining

I mentioned earlier that I raid lead one of several raid teams in my guild, so the culture is different from the "normal" one raid per guild structure that most people are accustomed to in World of Warcraft.

This turned into much too long for a single post, so it's broken into several sections.  The first section explains why I originally got into the guild.

Finding Myself Without a Home
As ICC and WotLK drew to a close, I hopped around in several different guilds.  I had left my ICC guild due to personality conflicts, and was searching for a home.  I transferred to different servers and tried out a bunch of different types of guilds, progression, and so forth.  I spent time with a 10 man working on Sindragosa normal, was an officer for a guild just starting out, and spent several weeks with a 25m guild working on Sindragosa HM (we finally got her!).  While I like raiding, I also like a lot of other things in game.  I realized that I didn't want to do hardcore raiding, since that would prevent me from doing these other things.

As the holiday season got closer, my husband's work got busier, and he didn't have much time to play.  He remained on our initial server, and I eventually brought my characters back there.  I joined a casual guild, but raids with them were unsatisfying.  The roster was in constant flux, so every raid was a progression night for several folks.  We didn't get very far into the instance.

I knew that in order for me to enjoy raiding, I would need to find a group with consistent attendance, but a short schedule, and without any window lickers.

And Then There Were Two
My husband loves to raid - it's his favorite thing to do in game.  Unfortunately, he works a weird schedule that keeps him from most normal raid times (he gets up at 3 am, so needs to be in bed around the time most raids start).  In LK, it seemed like there were PUGs going at all hours of the day, and that was fine for him.  It didn't seem like that would be the case in Cataclysm, though.

I realized that if he wanted to raid in Cataclysm, he would have to find a team that raided at a time that would work for his schedule.  And if I wanted to raid with him (I do!), then it would also have to meet my desires as well.


Searching
I searched around for awhile, and found a small guilds on the US servers that even met his schedule requirements.  Eliminating the groups that didn't have a stable roster or performance problems (I generally did this based on record), and I was left with a hardcore guild or two.  My husband also works 50-60 hours a week, so that wouldn't work for him, and I just didn't like raiding that much.

I realized that in order to get a group with everything we wanted, I would have to create it.  I'm the natural organizer in our relationship, and I had much more free time.

During my transition period, I had worked as an officer of a start-up guild, so I had an idea what would go into creating a guild.  It's a lot of work....and I didn't really want that.  I like to putter in game (I usually have 20 projects at any given time) and I didn't want to spend my time managing a whole guild.

About the same time, I noticed a post on our realm forums. This would be great, I thought, since I could run a raid team without the overhead of guild management.

The guild was horde (I was originally alliance), so I rolled an alt and spoke with the guild leader about what I wanted to do. While we agreed that it may be difficult to find 8 other people at a time that would work for us, he said that his guild would be a good place to attempt it.  We decided that after the Shattering (when I could be a TROLL!), I would faction transfer.  

What I Would Be Doing... and Avoiding
From those initial discussions, I learned that I would be responsible (or able, however you look at it) for recruiting folks for my raid team, and if they weren't already guild members I could invite them.  I would be responsible for my raid team (and any drama that they created).

My responsibilities also included determining my loot rules, attendance rules, and conduct rules (if above the guild requirements of "be cool"). We would have use of the vent server (and our own channel) and the guild forums (we have our own sub group).  We have a single bank tab.

By starting a group in a guild like this, I can recruit without people worrying about my guild dissolving after a few months like so many start up guilds.  The mega guild is well established and has been around for years (it was created in 2006).

I don't have to worry about managing a social rank of non-raiders.  Especially in the Cataclysm environment, some guilds are taking in extra people to help them level or get achievements.  I haven't had to face that question - we get achievements easily.

I don't have to manage the external sites - Vent or the website.  We have our own area, and the guild administrators take care of it.

It's the least time consuming way to run a raid team when I don't already have a group of folks that I can trust to delegate things to.  I know that if I started a guild, in time I would find trusted people to delegate things like this to, but in the meantime I would have to do everything myself.

Moving Forward   So, these were all things that I knew going into Cataclysm.  The next several posts will break down the specific advantages/disadvantages, as well as address some concerns that people seem to have when they talk about this.

Loot Systems

I've been working on a post explaining what it's like to be a raid leader in a mega guild (we have between 500-600 characters in the guild and 5-7 active raid teams at any point in time). This post started as a tangent off of that post, but it finished itself first. To understand why the raid team is structured the way we are, though, means that you need to know the guild size/structure.

Our First Loot System

Each team is allowed to use their own loot rules. When I was deciding between loot systems, I first listed what I wanted (and needed) out of a loot system.

•  Manageable in a multi-team guild environment.  While EPGP is actually pretty simple when the addon does all of the tracking/math for you, any addon that relied on storing data in the ingame officer notes wouldn't work in this situation.  Those addons do not seem to be made for guilds with more than one team.  Imagine what would happen if 2 teams used the same system/addon, and someone from the guild subbed into both teams.  The addon (at least any of the ones I could find) can't tell the difference between Team Star and Team Moon.
• Simple to manage.  Since I couldn't find any addons that would work, I'd have to be able to figure out the loot by hand.  I didn't want to spend 10 minutes giving out loot, so an involved spreadsheet wouldn't work.
• Loot prioritized to regular team members. I wanted to make sure that loot that dropped would benefit the raid team to help increase progression. This is pretty straightforward, and most organized loot systems do this (by awarding points for attendance, boss kills, or whatever).
• Not Loot Council. I know it works for some folks, but it seems like too much of a headache to me.

The system that I eventually came up with is a basic random system with Home Team Advantage.

Home Team Advantage gives the regular team members priority over subs.  I use a 75% attendance rate for obtaining HTA - if a sub reaches that level then he's not really a SUB anymore (and I did actually have a tank sub in for us long enough that he simply joined us formally).

As far as tracking goes, I keep an attendance roster.  I note on there when BoE's drop so I know which list of folks to send the money to later, after it is sold.  But the basic attendance roster is the only record keeping I need.

The way it works is that A is a member of the team and B is a sub.  If something drops that they both want, they both roll.  If B wins the roll, the lootmaster announces that A has home team advantage and is awarded loot.  In 2 months of raiding, this happened once (either because the raider actually won the roll and so was awarded the loot anyway, or because it's a 10 man raid and there's not much overlap).

The Drama

The first time it happened it became a big problem and drama spilled out into /g (not when it happened, but later when I was looking for a sub for the following raid week). 

I was accused of not being clear enough with the sub (a holy pally; and I believed that when I explained HTA and further explained "regular members have priority on loot, but any int plate will be yours" that I was clear enough... but I guess not).  The super ridiculous part was that the pally received 2 pieces of loot and a BoE dropped, for which he received just over 1k g in the mail the next day.  I guess that wasn't enough?

I really believe that the drama was caused because we had to say "You can't have this".  Other loot systems do that, but not in such a direct fashion (in either DKP or EPGP, subs don't have enough points to actually win anything that a regular raider wants).

Why Prioritize Regular Raiders?

I did actually have people (including the guild leader!) who told me that the first system was unfair. I honestly do not understand that position, so I'll explain the reasoning behind favoring the regular team members.

First, loot in Warcraft has two purposes. 

1. Increases character power.  When you gain more of your primary stat or better allocation of secondary stats so that when you play exactly the same, you'll be better at your job (more dps, heals, threat/survivability).
2. Reward for completing a challenge. You did something special (whether that's Sinestra or Magmaw) loot is the reward for killing a big baddy.

It is important to me that the characters that are regularly in the raid (whether they are subs or alts of a regular raider who switched to cover an absence) gain power (to make progression easier), and I don't care what the power of random members in my guild is.

Now, in a small guild, a casual rank player or alt has a pretty good chance of being in your raid another night, so you could still gain from their power increase.  In a guild the size of mine?  It seems like all of the raiders (1 25m team, 1 10 that's expanding to 25, and 4 10m teams) have an alt or two that can fill in if we need help.  I can easily give a couple of pieces to someone and then not have them in my raid again until the next content patch.  If that loot was useful to someone in my team, I'd like it to go to my team (and be useful the next week) rather than a random guild member where it will never benefit my team (of course if it's not useful I'm glad that we have a sub who can use it - if they're subbing in my raid, often they sub in another raid or two as well, so is generally useful to SOME team).

How Can You Get Subs Like That?

The other question that I've been asked is why would anyone want to sub in my group with rules like this? 

Most folks that have subbed in with us (including one guy who I forgot to explain the HTA to until after the loot dropped! *facepalm*) reason that they are on their alts (since their mains are saved to whatever raid team that they are in), and since the alt isn't played very often, they don't need loot as much as someone who raids weekly.  They only need enough loot to be able to function as a sub occasionally.

Other reasons to sub when a team uses HTA or similar systems...

• Often 10 man teams don't have loot overlap so specialty items (like int plate) can go to the sub anyway.  They aren't a benefit to the raid.
• Often 10 man teams (with any history anyway) have seen that item (or similar) before, and no one needs it as an upgrade.  Those items can go to the sub.
• The only way to get VP capped is to raid. 
• Some folks (my husband) just like to raid more than any other part of the game; getting to raid more (with or without loot) is awesome.
• Some raid teams (like ours) are a lot of fun to laugh/joke/chat with, so why NOT be a part of that for an evening?

Looking for a New System

Still, I'm considering switching to a new system to prioritize regular raiders, but which wouldn't require me to say "You can't have that".  Again, it would have to work in a multi-team guild environment and not require a hugely complicated spreadsheet. 

I'm thinking of having the regular raiders roll 101-200 (and subs the basic /roll 100) so that it's clear what is going on. 

Another option would be a Suicide Kings variant where people could roll, and if they lost and wanted something anyway, they could Suicide (I need another name for this!) ahead of anyone lower in the list (and then be moved to the bottom of the list).  If subs were added to the bottom at the beginning of each raid night, then that would allow a regular member priority over a sub once.

I'm not sure.  I'm still thinking about it and talking with various raid members when they're online.

Optimization Discussion

There's been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere over the past week about optimization, and how crowd sourcing of it has changed the game.

Honestly, I think players fall into two categories: Character Builders and Dragon Slayers. Let me explain.

Character Builders
Character Builders enjoy the aspect of the game where they increase their character's power. Power can manifest in different terms - perhaps the best dps, the most utility, a good RP story, whatever. The important aspect here is that the player is invested in personally making decisions to make their character have the most power (however the person defines power) that they can.

This is the type of person who likes running optimizations themselves, and who will balk when criticized for trying out something that has been crowd sourced as "suboptimal" but which the player hasn't proven to themselves is suboptimal (yet). The point of the game to these people is figuring out how best to create character power, and crowd sourcing that solution is taking a shortcut, or cheating.

Dragon Slayer
The Dragon Slayer enjoys aspects of the game where they are given a task and are able to complete it. These tasks can take different forms - quests, achievements, and dungeon/raid bosses. The important aspect here is task completion.

This type of person is more likely to accept a crowd sourced solution for optimization without thinking twice about it. What's important to them is that they go into a given task with the best preparation that they can (and in today's environment, that means researching out of game). Then, the game becomes execution (knowing the boss strategies, and employing the correct tactics at the correct time).

Cooperation
Both groups can play happily along side each other, as long as some understandings are present. Character Builders can quite happily participate in end game content, since getting higher gear increases character power. A Dragon Slayer can work on optimizing his/her gear themselves, if no other solutions are present, or if he/she knows that their personal playstyle or situation is different than the norm. Having the optimum setup means that the task is completed faster/easier.

Presumably, the Character Builder will eventually reach the same conclusions as the crowd sourced optimization - the problem is when the Dragon Slayers criticize the Character Builder in progress (since it's known that the gear/spec/rotation/etc is suboptimal, but the Character Builder doesn't Know it yet - he's still experimenting).

To be honest, I'm a Dragon Slayer. I don't have any problem with Character Builders experimenting in my raids, so long as the boss still dies. I prefer for folks to experiment with new specs and such between raids, or at least keep the previous spec/gear/etc so that if the new experiment doesn't work, they can go back to it. I think it's important to note that my raid group is pretty much a normal mode only group. I suspect that groups pushing progression generally prefer that members be completely optimized before stepping foot in the raid.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with either viewpoint. They are different ways to look at the game and to enjoy different aspects. The problem, as always, is how we as people deal with folks who don't share our view.

---

For the record, here are a list of posts that I've seen in this discussion (so you can read other viewpoints). They're roughly ordered by date.

Tobald's MMORPG Blog - Fear of Suboptimal (May 3)
Nil's MMO Blog - Phobia of Inefficiency (May 3)
Blessing of Kings - Optimality (May 3)

Blessing of Kings - More Thoughts on Optimality (May 4)
Nil's MMO Blog - Enemy is Not Optimization (May 4)

Blessing of Kings - Optimizing and Fun (May 5)
Spinksville - Optimisation Doesn't Belong in My MMOs (May 5)

Tobald's MMORPG Blog - Extrapolating Optimization (May 6)
The Greedy Goblin - The Choice (May 6)
For The Bubbles - Your Optimal Isn't Mine (May 6)

Srs Business - Optimally Yours (May 8)

Trinkets, Procs, and Innervate

I've been adjusting my gear recently.

Tear of Blood and Mandala of Stirring Patterns

I've been using the (heroic) Tear of Blood, but I was curious about the Mandala of Stirring Patterns. It's hard to compare the two without information about their proc uptimes. So, I wore each of them into Magmaw (which is a lot of damage, but not chaos like Omnomnom while still being a "farm" fight).

Tear of Blood
Static Intellect - 285
Proc Based Spirit - "Your healing spell critical strikes have a chance to grant 1710 spirit for 15 sec."
Proc Name - Cleansing Tears

World of Logs based uptime: about 20%.
Average Spirit over fight: 20% of 1710 = 342

Notes: The uptime was almost exactly for Magmaw, and varied between 15-22% on other fights; the lowest was Maloriak when I seem to spend the whole last phase kiting adds from healing aggro. I'm surprised it's that high, since my crit is pretty low.

Mandala of Stirring Patterns
Static Spirit - 321
Proc Based Intellect - "Your healing spells have a chance to grant 1926 Intellect for 10 sec."
Proc Name - Pattern of Light

World of Logs based uptime: 19%
Average Intellect over fight: 19% of 1926 = 366

Notes: Playing with the Mandala is weird. I'd prehot the tank, during the pull both the Mandala and Power Torrent would proc, and my mana pool would go from 115k to 165k - so I'd have cast 3 spells into the fight and my mana looks like I've burned through 1/3 of it.

Bigger Innervates
Before the raid I had spent some time setting up a power aura to alert me when my mana was below 80%, Power Torrent and Mandala procs were active. I've now switched it to when my mana is below 55% since when both procs are active, even if my mana was full before the procs, a big chunk would be missing. 55% of my mana with both procs (165k) is approximately equal to 80% of my mana with no procs (115k).

An innervate with both procs up gives me an extra 10k of mana. That's a pretty big deal! I set up separate power auras for each proc, so if I felt that I needed to innervate and not wait for the procs to line up, I could do it when only one was up, but I didn't need to (that could be fight dependent).

Static vs Temporary Intellect
I did some testing while just standing in Orgrimmar. I have on Mark of the Wild and my flask (draconic mind) from last night.

Tear of Blood
Rejuvenation Tick - 3723

Mandala of Stirring Patterns
Rejuvenation Tick - 3653

Mandala of Stirring Patterns with Proc
Rejuvenation Tick - 4130

These numbers are just to give a ballpark (which is why I picked Rejuv, because getting a proc while only casting one spell (I didn't want mastery to show up here) is annoying). It illustrates the scale of what's going on. If I'm wearing Tear of Blood, I'm always casting 3723 Rejuvs. If I'm wearing the Mandala, about 80% of the time I'm casting 3653 Rejuvs and 20% of the time I'm casting 4130 Rejuvs. Which means in a fight where I only cast Rejuv, the Mandala is an average of 3748.

That's not terribly helpful. We have a lot of spells with different coefficients (perhaps later I'll use Tree Calcs, and some spell distribution data from WoL, but I'm not up to that right now).

Also, the proc may not line up well with heavy healing needs. I didn't have it happen, but if it had activated while we were in a head down phase, it would have been fine for innervate but not good for throughput.

And, the intellect only affects the hots that you're casting, not the hots already out. I wonder if I had a LB on the tank that was cast/refreshed with the buff, and refreshed it (early, with a nourish or HT) after the buff fell off, would it be rewritten with the lower value LB? I suspect so. In that case, I wouldn't even be getting the full value of the proc.

Overall impressions
I ended the fight with some crazy amount of mana (35k) when normally I'm drained dry by the end of that fight (well, not quite, as we usually end in a head down phase, but I didn't have mana problems once I got into the groove of the procs).

The last thing to notice is that it took a bit of management to get these results out of the Mandala. I like proc based systems (on my mage I love love love fire), so I'm fine with juggling the procs. Someone who hates having to monitor and manage procs would probably be better off with the Tear of Blood's constant throughput and low maintenance spirit proc.

I'm going to keep playing with it. I'm still struggling with mana on some fights (I'm sure it's my love of Rejuv that's causing problems) and the extra mana from innervate turned out to be a big help.

Once I stop struggling with mana so much, I can always reforge the spirit on the Mandala into haste or mastery (I still can't meet the 2005 haste cap no matter what I do, but maybe this and another upgrade or two will do it). That's another plus for the Mandala. A passive intellect trinket with a spirit proc can't be reforged at all.

Fears About Call To Arms

I'm still far enough behind in raid content that I'm running heroics most days to cap my valor points (we got 6/12 this week, and are consistently adding a boss every week, so I'm not upset with our progress at all).

I've started to run into tanks who look at my gear (or perhaps recognize the iconic druid shoulders from this tier - which I LOVE) and say to themselves "hey, this healer is raid geared! We don't need any cc!" and they rush in.

And after the first pull goes successfully (because I blew my cooldowns and totally drained myself of mana), they think "hey, she can handle it!" and continue big chain pulls like what we saw in Wrath. Often this type of tank will pull while I'm WAY out of range drinking or dealing with an add that they left behind or whatever. So it becomes this weird situation where I'm blowing everything on trash and not needing it on bosses (which is good, because by then I have nothing).

I've tried talking to them, but they don't listen. "Lol, you're an epic healer you can handle it."

I've tried letting them die, but either they don't get it, or the rest of the party takes the tank's side.

I've finally resorted to vote kicking them. Which means that by now, it takes me 2/3 of an instance to be able to initiate a vote kick.

Even though I can handle it, I don't see why I should be sweating and cussing while the rest of the group sails blythely through. Especially when it's more efficient for a lot of classes to single target the mobs ANYWAY, we don't loose anything by cc'ing one or two for the difficult pulls.

Right now, the Dungeon Finder is a miserable experience for me (and we seem to have a shortage of tanks in our guild, so that's not always an option). Perhaps I just have bad luck and keep getting these Wrath baby tanks? Or folks are feeling progressed enough to start pulling out their 3rd or 4th alt? Or they're getting ready for the Call to Arms feature?

I don't know. But I'm sure that it's going to get worse when Call to Arms is implemented.

I hope by then we're killing enough bosses in raid that I can forgo the Dungeon Finder entirely. And I'll bet that that is not the effect that Blizzard is looking for.