The Queue: Healing is super fun

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Let's get right down to business today. There are a few points I get to talk about concerning healing, too, after the break.

Patrick asked:

Are tanks still going to be stacking stamina? It seems like they finally have enough.

I don't see any reason for tanks not to stack stamina right now. I know that there are a lot of tanks who prefer to stick in hit, dodge, parry, etc. ... but I think the generic build will be stamina stacking again.

Imber asked:

Is healing always going to be like this? Why is it so damn hard?

Healing can be very difficult right now. It's certainly one of the more challenging aspects to the game right now. But that's for a number of reasons.

First, we don't have the gear to let us easily heal heroics (or even normal) dungeons. This is going to be a temporary situation, though, as gear will get better as the days and months go on. We won't always have problems with healing people in even the hardest of heroics; they will eventually be as easy to heal as Wrath's were.

Second, groups need to get used to using more crowd control. It's imperative that this happen, no matter what class is tanking and no matter how good the healer is. Without CC, the group will wipe and the healer won't be able to keep up with the damage output. The first few pulls in Halls of Origination can be a total wipefest without good CC.

Third, people are going to have to get better at not standing in stuff. Poison, ice, fire, etc. ... They can't stand in it if they want to live. The damage is designed so that there's little you as a healer can do if people are going to be less than smart and stand in crap. They'll die, and it's their own fault. You need to let them go, triage the tank, and politely remind them to move out of stuff if they want a heal from you.

Finally, players are going to have to get used to not being at full health. DPSers have 100,000+ health for a reason -- to give the healers breathing room. In The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, it became the norm for a good healer to keep everyone topped off. That's not just going to happen in Cataclysm for a long time, if ever. As a healer, you've done your job if everyone is alive at the end of the pull (save as noted in the third point, above). If they're missing 25,000 health, who cares? I don't. They're still alive and can DPS better than a dead person.

Liz asked:

Does WoW have over the 12 million people playing it right now?

Probably. We know that Blizzard sold 3.3 million copies of Cataclysm within the first 24 hours, so it's a safe bet that there've been a lot of people coming back to the game who weren't playing before. As far as how many people over 12 million are playing, your guess is as good as mine. It might be around 12.5-13 million, in my opinion.

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!