However, thank you for offereing your advice. Even if I am stubborn and defensive of my people

I took a quick look at Monolith’s WoL records for Valithria and even on the best attempts (sort by hp healed – look for short fight durations) it didn’t seem like the dragon healers were consistently putting up the kind ehps that are typical for victories. I would check to see if suppressors are still alive during the healing phases. I also didn’t see bloodlust used for many attempts.

Of course, now with the 15% buff active, the amount of slack in the fight has increased dramatically. So maybe now you don’t really need the advice, and can make due with a paladin healing from outside instead of asking him to step up his game.

However, I will admit to being a bit offended, and didn’t really get my branches ruffled, until your second comment, by being flat out told I’m doing it wrong, which is essentially what you did, even after I commented that we have to work with the raid make up that we are given

You made the assumption that I have the same tools and skill level of players to work with in my raids that you do, and then made an assessment that I feel that I’m entitled to correct and offer a more through explanation of our healing composition and where our strengths and weaknesses are to provide you with a better undestanding of where I stand with regards to assigning portal healers in my raid.

You also feel quite strongly that druids shouldn’t take the portals (which I believe you’ve been vociferous about over on EJ as well…unless there is a different Jurik posting there or I’m mis-remembering the conversation, it’s been awhile since I’ve read that far back in the thread so if I’m recalling incorrectly I do apologize!). I happen to disagree with that opinion, and I’m not alone in that disagreement. Are we “the best” for the job? No. But we are also far from the worst! And regardless of how many times you voice that it is your *opinion* that trees shouldn’t be going into the portals, I will likely tend to respectfully disagree.

Each guild will have different situations that they need to work with, and come up with solutions that work well for them, and it’s likely that most guild’s strenghts will lie in different areas, which means that their solutions may vary.

I am very happy to receive your advice, and quite honestly welcome it. However, I think it’s also important to understand that group dynamics vary, so often times advice can’t be given in such black and white terms

And I read about your shift to moonkin with great interest. I am a kitty with a tree off-spec, but it’s beginning to look more and more like I should change my tree to moonkin for some fights (we’re a really melee-heavy group).

Of those 6 full time healers, one of the two paladins really struggles with portals (we are debating doing a portal boot camp in a 10 man for him to see if we can get him squared away), regardless, he is FAR more effective tossing a beacon on the dragon and healing the tanks. I know this from experience while we were learning the encounter in normal mode.

Of the 5 healers left in our raid, we are already sending the shaman and other Holy paladin down.

Of those remaining, there is myself and two priests. And druids are far more effective than priests in the portal. That being said, we are still sending one of the two priests down as well, and having a few off spec healers stay up top and deal with the raid.

As I said earlier, we are solid portal healers, and each raid needs to play to it’s strengths. For us that means that I take the portals. For your raid, perhaps you are better served up top on your raid.

With all due respect, I disagree on what I “ought” to be doing based not only on my experience, but also based on our raid composition and the individual players in our raid. Not to mention that I already respectfully disagreed that we have no business in the portals. I also know that I’m not the only druid in a progression guild that has put up comtetitive numbers taking the portals.

Don’t get me wrong, we were damn close last night. Unfortunately we do not have enough time this week to give it another go, so we will have to finish it out next week.

As for Druids in the portals, I am going to have to respectfully disagree. While we won’t outdo a good paladin, we are far from worthless in them, and are still capable of preforming impressively. Also keep in mind that people have to work with what is available on their raid team, not everyone will have the same strengths lie in the same places. =)

As for my feelings regarding today’s big announcement…I’m going to sleep on it before offering up my thoughts. Largely because I am not entirely certain how I feel just yet!

Waiting for your thoughts on the 25+10-inclusive raid-lockout change.