A few weeks ago, with 21 people signed up to raid, the Unemployed crew split into 2 10-person teams to head into Ulduar and see how far we could get. This was not the beginning of the Summer Drought. It was mid-drought, but we had pretty much been able to pull together 25 people and get things done previous to that week… So when we didn’t have the numbers for 25′s it was actually a surprise. So, I looked at the roster and saw 3 little letters next to my name… d-p-s. Now, usually next to my name it says sometning like “Tank 1 > Raid” or “Tanks > Raid” or “everythinglol”… This time It said something alien to me. DPS.

Oh crap! I don’t even have gems or enchants in my DPS gear. I mean I can dps in my healing gear. I do have over 2400 spell damage in moonkin with no buffs, but that’s zero hit, so I’d be horrible at Boss Fights. So, I had to get cracking. I spent about 600 gold on stuff before the raid to get myself ready and it was well worth it. Gems, Enchants, new bracers from the guild bank…

Oh, did I mention I have been raiding for over 3 years and have never entered a raid instance in anything other than Restoration spec? Do I know what I am doing? Will I be able to do this? It’s a completely different monster than healing. Will it be easier? Harder? Will I remember to FF the boss? Will I remember to keep IS and MF up? Will I notice eclipse and swap to Starfire in time?

The answers to those questions is the same. Most of the time, yes. I got FF up on every boss and every trash mob I attacked. It was pretty simple to remember. Insect Swarm and Moonfire were also pretty easy, with Squawk and Awe there to show me the cooldowns in a more visible way than my standard bars. With the ability to look at the whole screen rather than just the grid frame, Eclipse was very easy to see also, and add SAA to that and I always knew when to swap to Starfire.

I didn’t perform greatly. with my hit gear on I was coming in at about 2100 spell damage unbuffed, which jumped quite a bit when I put on some of my resto pieces once I realized I was over the hit cap. Then I got upgrades and even had to re-gem.

All in all it was a very fun night and I can’t wait til I get a chance to try it again, But I’ll not be forgetting my Roots(pun intended) as a healer.

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