Bar go down, Bar go up!

Earlier is evening I did the weekly on my shaman and popped my head a little further into Ulduar for a few more badges and a chance at some loot, as he's only been level 80 for about a day now. It was great fun, doing the Unbroken and Shutout achievements all in one when taking on the now laughable excuse for a first boss, Flame Leviathon.

Now, due to lack of interest, I was healing, mainly in my currently collected Elemental gear, which felt a little bit weird but still, I'd done a few heroics before hand and got some stuff for mp5 on and was feeling quite safe in my ability to heal the raid, especially with our usual priest and a vastly overgeared Resto shaman to carry me every step of the way.

So after getting a few tips from the lovely Tam. I plopped my Earth Shield on a tank and got ready for healing!

Now, the tips were quite simple.
1. Bar go up, Bar go down
2. Priorities - If two people are getting twatted, make sure the one who benefits the raid more lives
3. Have fun

I felt a little bit like I was playing god. Especially with the whole deciding who lives and who dies but lets face it, it's kinda true. I'd healed some 5 man dungeons while levelling and I'd been doing it then, letting the weaker dps die if it was a toss up between him and someone else.

So we went ahead and took on Ignis, who was the weekly raid boss, everything was going smoothly. I was healing the adds tank, not too hard, even found the time to toss a few heals round the raid and take a dip in the Crotch Pot for the achievement. So I'm there there, nicely spamming Chain Heal into a group of casters that had taken some damage from the Flame Jets when BAM - Tam dies. "Ahhh, shit." I think, I fucked something up! BAM - Overgeared Resto shaman dies. Now, two things popped into my head at that moment in time.

1. Oh fuck, I've messed up healing the raid. Two folks are dead an-
2. AHHHHH SHIT THE TANNNNNK!

So, I panic. I wet my pants, shit the bed and have a heart attack at the same time. I frantically run into range of the main tank after sticking a Riptide and Earth Shield on add-tank. I hit my "Oh shit" macro and get a decent crit on an instant healing wave. Tank goes from 8% to a good 16-18%, I spam a few more heals before realising - add tank is slowly dieing! Back over there, Riptide, Lesser Healing Wave, BOLLOCKS! Main tank is getting fisted again...oh and look there's someone in the crotch pot.

I smelt a wipe, I tried my hardest, I ran around, I hit Chain Heal and suddenly - Main tank is back at full health. Thankfully, Blizzard had seen fit to create Soulstones to stop new healers shitting themselves completely when the "main healers" have bought it.

But through my little panic, I'd had a TONNE of fun. I was reacting to things happening, having to balance cooldowns and intensity of heals, all the while thinking about my rather crappy mana pool. I may have solo-healed Ignis for around 15 seconds but still, it was a fantastic feeling. Better than topping a Recount meter as a rogue and different to successfully main tanking a boss on a warrior.

So we trudged on to XT, which was chain heal heaven. Much fun was had during the tantrums, I actually felt like I was pulling my weight on that fight. Like I'd actually contributed to keeping people alive and making the other two healers life a whole bunch easier.

After an attempt on Iron Council, which had me healing a pant wettingly high amount of damage, the Disconnection demon got us and claimed the first victim of the night, our mage. We decided to down Kologarn with 9 - with me Riptiding and chain healing my little heart out, while trying to dodge them bloody annoying eye beams. After that, more disconnects forced the raid to come to an abrupt end, which was a shame but couldn't really be avoided.

I've been dps'ing in raids for a while now and I just take it as a given that if I take damage, some kind-soul will heal my sorry arse when/if I decide to stand in the fire but fter the raid, Tam said something quite interesting to me, pointing out that healers dont brag about it, dont broadcast it to the party/raid but often or not, they will bring someone back from the brink of character-death. Often saving the raid. It's a very humble job, the majority of the time. You can still get those who are determined to tell you everytime they save your pitiful character-life.

I recently blogged about having a tough time choosing a spec for my shaman but I think that after healing a raid (and having a tonne of fun while doing so) the end of my (brief) time as an Elemental shaman could very well be over.