Tactics #3: Dispels

This tactics post will probably be shorter than the first two, since dispelling isn't something that's particularly difficult; it's more something to be aware is crucial on some fights, and what your character can (if anything) dispel.

Wowpedia has a good table for who can dispel what; if your class and/or specialization can dispel, and you aren't already running a healing addon that tells you about it, a nice non-healer-specific addon for tracking friendly/defensive dispels is Decursive.  An addon isn't necessary for dispelling if you're good at watching buffs/debuffs on health bars, but if you just can't seem to keep track of them, Decursive has its own little tiny health bars that you can plop somewhere you can keep an eye on them.  I switched over to Decursive during Cataclysm after three expansions of healing as a priest without an addon, simply because I got tired of juggling Dispel Magic targets.

So what's the deal with dispelling?  Some fights you'll run into have bosses or other monsters that will put a debuff on some or all of the characters in your group.  These debuffs may do massive damage to their targets, or if they may have a debilitating effect if left on too long.  Some debuffs can just be healed through, but if your group is dying repeatedly to them, focusing more on dispelling than keeping everyone's health topped off may prove to be more effective.

Dispelable debuffs come in four flavors: magic, poison, diseases, and curses.  Different classes can dispel different debuffs, but most healing classes can dispel at least two.  If you're not sure what you can dispel (if anything), check out that Wowpedia table or just browse through your spellbook.  If you're coming back to the game after a relatively long break, dispels underwent a major overhaul in Mists of Pandaria, so they may have changed since you last played.

Some points to remember:

• Healers have the most dispel options, but caster classes in general often can do at least one, even if it's only to dispel offensively (for example, if the boss puts a heal-over-time spell on itself).  If your healers are getting overwhelmed, see what your options for spreading out the load are.
• If you're in a group that has multiple healers, divide up the work.  Most dispel abilities have an 8-second cooldown, and frequently two or three targets will need dispelling at the same time.  All the healers should probably be watching for them.
• Priests have a mass-dispel ability on a longer cooldown; this can be helpful when everyone is grouped up, but it doesn't work on all effects.  It's also mana-intensive when used repeatedly, so it's not really effective as a crutch in a large group if the other healers aren't helping.
• Dispelling is similar to shield effects in that it frequently prevents damage rather than heals damage taken.  A healer with a lot of dispels in a dispel-heavy fight may have a lower healing throughput on a meter than the other healers in the group, but similar to shielding, they may be making up for that with the dispels.
• Some fights may require a diverse healing roster due to the variety of debuffs involved; if you're missing a dispel type, it may be harder for your group to kill that particular boss.

Quality of Life Addons

I don't run with a lot of addons.  I use the default interface for most things, including raid frames and healing.  I have the standard minimum for raiding - a boss mod (DBM), a threat meter just in case, and a DPS meter (Recount) to make sure I'm not entirely useless.  Most of what I use is for minor quality of life, things, though.  Here are the ones I absolutely can't do without:

• Altoholic:  Keeps track of what I've got on who, when the last time I logged everyone on was (I do a full log-on of my random little alts about every three weeks), who has auctions I should check on, and so forth.  It also keeps track of what my toons are wearing, so when I log over to a crafter, I can easily see who needs upgrades in which slots, or which slots aren't enchanted.

• AuctionLite and AuctionLite Improved Search:  I love love love the purchasing interface for AuctionLite, and I appreciate the searching/pricing options on the selling tab.  The improved search purchasing interface lets me search specifically for Battle Pets, and all the various entries for each pet are smooshed into a single entry in the big list, so I can easily see if any of the handful of auctionable pets I don't have are listed.

• BattlePetCount:  There are other similar addons out there; this is the one I use for the mouseover information and quality flagging (it tells me if what I'm fighting is better than what I've got with an asterisk).  Given that I occasionally try to up my standing on my realm on WarcraftPets, it's been fairly handy.
• CT:  I'm using three parts of CT: MailMod, MapMod, and PartyBuffs.  MailMod is nice for opening a lot of mail at once and having a log of just who you just mailed that 500g to, and it's the one that makes me realize a patch has disabled my addons (because they're now "out of date"), because it's the first one I notice missing.

I run others, but these are the ones that I miss the most if they're broken or if I haven't yet re-enabled addons.

Moving on

After the shake-up of our raid leadership and, to some extent, our officer corps, our Icecrown 25 raid group has moved on.

Festergut is dead. (Pictures later when I get home.)

Yes, there's a 5% damage/health/heals buff in Icecrown now, but a raid DPS output of over 152,000 means that we could have done it with out the buff. (Technically. Psychologically may be another matter.)

We did a single ranged collapse point, in case of missing spores, but it was more or less unbugged for us. Once we had all figured out what we were doing for the collapses (some of us have only seen him three or four times ever), and everyone remembered to push buttons and not die, we were sailing smoothly. :35 extra on the enrage timer, as well.

Apparently repeating "shoot" obsessively to myself throughout the fight helps me remember to continue pushing my buttons during movement/spores - that was one of my biggest problems; I'd move over to the spore collapse point, and then be so focused on staring at the spore, waiting for it to pop, that I would forget to push buttons.

Quartz has proven useless to me - I can't get it to remember anything. I set it up, and as soon as I zone, it loses the profile, or something. The profile's still there, and still selected in the dropdown, but it's not being applied. I'm about at the point of deleting it. (All I wanted was an autoshot timer, and maybe a global cooldown bar.)

I don't think we have another 25 scheduled for this lockout, but if they decide to put one up on Monday, they'll probably be playing with Rotface.