DS 10 Normal from a Restoration Shaman's Perspective

So, last weekend, my Shaman was finally geared enough to make the weekly guild DS run. I was a little apprehensive at first, but I knew the fights well from a DPS perspective. My girlfriend, who has a DK tank and a Druid healerkitty, talked me through the healing. Let me just say, making the jump from healing HoT Heroics to DS is a HUGE leap. At the time I hopped into the raid, my item level was 381, lower than what our raid leader usually felt comfortable with, but he knew my GF would talk me through it all in Vent.

First fight of the night? Heroic Morchok. I don't care if the Aspect buff was up to 30% at the time, as a newbie raid healer, the fight still seemed daunting. I hadn't even successfully completed it on my hunter! So we dive right in, and we wiped on our first attempt. This was normal, since we normally attempt Heroic Morchok a few times before everyone gets fed up with the fight. But our second attempt? Flawless victory. I was stationed on the main tank, riptiding, healing waving, and chain-healing my little Draenei butt off. But we did it! Zonn'oz and Yor'sahj went as expected, as did Hagara.

Ultraxion...how I loathe thee. We made some good attempts at his heroic version, but it didn't go so well. He would cast his wonderful Twilight Eruption spell far earlier than the Raid Journal's six minute timer. So we decided to forget Heroic Ultraxion after our sixth wipe on him and downed him normally. One thing I found I didn't have to worry about as a healer that I normally do as DPS was the Fading Light debuff. Plus I got to use the Ysera crystal to maximize my healing (I have such a soft spot for The Dreamer, it's not even funny). My poor girlfriend though kept incurring the wrath of Ultraxion, who kept glitching and killing her in one hit, which is not good at all when she's our off-tank. Funny thing after that Ultraxion fight. The Belt of Shattered Elementium dropped, my best in slot belt. Nothing had dropped for me that I desperately needed so far, so I need-rolled on it with no opposition (quite a change from what I'm used to). Blackhorn even went smoothly that night! It seemed like I was on top of the world that night. Until the dreaded Spine fight.

Funny thing about the Spine of Deathwing fight, he's got that lovely little debuff his blood likes to put on people, absorbing all their delicious heals and whatnot. I thought I'd figure that a stronger healer would help me out, but we were all low on mana about halfway through the fight. Mana Tide Totem to the rescue, though! I swear, that is the best little totem in my arsenal of totems for DS. We recovered enough mana to get all of those plates off, and the next thing I know I'm on a little rock in the Maelstrom. We wiped once on Madness due to poor platform choices. We tried again, using the LFR platform rotation, downed Deathwing once and for all, and then this little beauty dropped. Reins of the Blazing Drake. I've seen it drop once before on my hunter, and my girlfriend won it on her druid. We have open need roll, and I won! I've never won a need roll on a mount in a raid before! So now I get to cruise around on this pretty dragon.

All in all, I'd say it was a good raid night.