healing
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Forum Post of the Day: Who's your main healer?
Poster Runeolth asks forumgoers whom they'd pick as their main healer: a druid, paladin, priest, or shaman? There seems to be little agreement on the subject, with players answering every option, a few saying that all are viable, and a few answering with options that weren't offered. So what does each healing class bring to the table?DruidPros: Excellent variety of HoTs (especially talented), MotW a very nice all-purpose buff, leather armor (and ability to shapeshift into bear if needed) makes them fairly durableCons: Can only rez once a half hour, no damage shields, group heal on a cooldownPriestPros: Most versatile array of healing abilities (a HoT, direct heals, a damage shield, and group heals), PW:F an excellent stamina buff (great for group survivability)Cons: Squishy, and with no good way to dump aggro if neededPaladinPros: Very mana efficient, excellent variety of buffs (blessings and judgements), very durable (plate!), low threat healsCons: No HoTs, no group heals, short duration buffsShamanPros: Versatile buffs with totems, quite durable (mail), can self-rez to save a corpse run after a wipe, good variety of healing abilities (direct heals, group heals, and some healing over time via totem)Cons: Need to be in range to get totem buffs, can't always give players the buffs they would want because of element restrictions, only damage shield is a 41-point talentWhat's your opinion -- is there anything important left out of this little chart? And do you have a healing class of choice?
AddOn Spotlight: MendWatch
Non-Priests (or Priests that don't heal), you might just want to skip over this one. MendWatch is an AddOn that...well, the author explains it best: MendWatch attempts to track the priest spell Prayer of Mending. A timer bar shows the current target of the Prayer of Mending spell with a countdown of how long the spell will last. When the target gets hit the amount the Prayer of Mending healed for will be shown and the bar will slowly fade away. If the Prayer of Mending jumps to a new target a new timer bar will be shown for the new target.This AddOn fixes my one complaint about Prayer of Mending: it can be a bit hard to track who it's on or whether you even have one out there at all, when the battle starts getting thick. Just like Cloak of Shadows brings a Rogue vs. caster duel from "imba" to "insane," MendWatch brings PoM from "awesome" to "incredible."If you're still reading but not familiar with Prayer of Mending, here's the spell's description:390 mana, instant cast, 40 yard rangePlaces a spell on the target that heals them for 800 the next time they take damage. When the heal occurs, Prayer of Mending jumps to a raid member within 20 yards. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump. This spell can only be placed on one target at a time.
Improved Divine Spirit by the numbers
Having just hit 70 on my priest this morning, my mind is on heal specs. I'll probably stay with my holy DPS spec for a little while for attunements and rep grinding and whatnot, but sooner or later I'm going to go healbot. I just know it. For my money, the big debate as far as healbot specs go right now is Improved Divine Spirit (IDS) -- that is, whether you'll be better off with 21/40/0 or 23/38/0 (builds are for illustration only; I haven't been able to figure out whether Holy Concentration is worth it or not). These builds differ by only two points: the first has no points in IDS and 5/5 Empowered Healing (EH), the second has 2/2 IDS and 3/5 EH. Anyway, I was researching the issue, and eventually made my way over to the worldofwar.net Priest forums, where theorycraft superstar Trepidation (aka Trep) crunched the numbers and came up with a very nice chart of how much more you'd get from EH vs. IDS for various heals and various values of +heal and spirit. EH always helps your Greater Heal and Flash Heal more than IDS does; the question is whether the boost IDS gives the rest of your group, as well as your other heals, gives it the edge. The charts are too long to repost here, but I encourage you to go check them out. However, for commonly-quoted early endgame values of +1000 heal and 500 spirit, here's the breakdown: Rank 1 Gheal: 1.74% Rank 7 Gheal: 1.10% Rank 7 Flash: 1.17% That is, EH will give you somewhere between 1–2% more than IDS will, for your Gheal and Flash. These numbers will go up as you get more +heal, and go down as you get more spirit. So does IDS help other casters in your group, and your other heals, by 2% or so? If so, it might make sense to get IDS. Otherwise, it seems that EH is a stronger choice.What has your experience been? Have any of you had a chance to test some pure healing priest builds yet? Another question I've been wondering about, as I alluded to above, is Holy Concentration. I like it in theory, but I'm having trouble freeing up three points for it. How has it been working out for you, if anyone has it?
Blue teeches u 2 Burning Croosaid (also CoH is being looked at)
Here's a couple of notes on what you need to do, once you've got your claws on a copy of the expansion, to play.First, don't delete the WoW-2.0.0-to-2.0.3 patch. Apparently BC needs this patch to install, which makes sense, since the expansion went gold long before 2.0.3 rolled out. From Nethaera: As the Burning Crusade expansion was finished prior to the most current patch versions it will be necessary to re-patch to 2.0.3 once the expansion is installed. As some players remove their patches after they have been applied we would like to provide a helpful warning not to delete the "2.0.0-to-2.0.3" patch file as it will be required after the Burning Crusade is installed.
AddOn Spotlight: Grid
I used to raid heal using mainly the CT_RaidAssist emergency monitor. Call me a bad healer if you want; it was a lot nicer than having 40 health bars all over my screen. The emergency monitor is not clickable in WoW 2, and thus began my hunt for a way that I could see everybody's health and still see the fight. CT_RA bars, Blizzard's bars, and the like were all out due to being simply too big. Furthermore, I find them a bit overwhelming, making it hard to spot who's low on health. I mostly heal main tanks, but I like to be able to easily see if a Rogue or something takes a big hit. So where does one turn for a set of raid health bars that's small, legible, and informative?
Everybody loves healing
It's true! Comments to an earlier post suggest that a large number of you really get a kick out of keeping your fellow gamers alive. Blizzard's well-equipped you for this, with priests, druids, paladins, and shamans standing ready as class options. Personally, I've been the main healer for a group with all four of those classes, and can understand the satisfaction one gets from keeping a group going and not letting anyone die when a pull goes wrong.So if everyone loves healing so much, and with almost half the classes able to heal a 5-man or 10-man group as main healer, why is it that we still see the LFG channel inundated with "LF1M Healer for [instance here]. Will pay 5g! Will walk your dog! Will buy you flowers!" ?
Nanofiber bandages slated to heal en masse next year
While we've seen a few snazzy band-aids in our day, not to mention talking first aid kits, a nanofiber bandage that can heal typical skin wounds faster is about to go mainstream. University of Akron professors Daniel Smith and Darrell Reneker are growing ever closer to bringing their invention to life, as a trial just wrapped up in Columbia that they hope will "win them FDA approval for clinical trials in the United States." The duo used electricity to spin ultrafine polymer fibers while infusing them with chemicals that open a wound to oxygen; then, the treated fibers "reduce inflammation, kill bacteria and repair slow-healing wounds faster than conventional methods," according to Smith. Moreover, the creators have already found a Minnesota-based firm willing to mass produce the nanobandages should they receive the green light, but the professors are hoping to build the new manufacturing plant in Ohio if at all possible, and have products on retail shelves "by 2008" at the latest. Given the presumed popularity of the quick-healing bandages, the team is continuing to work on other "nanofiber products" in their spare time, hoping that the mending aid is just the beginning of a long line of sweet nano-based products to come.[Via MedGadget]
Forum Post of the Day: I rolled a healing class because...
As a priest, I can relate. I rolled a healing class because I wanted to feel like I was making a serious contribution to any group I was in -- a contribution that you couldn't start the instance run without. Maybe it was a long history of being unable to find healers for groups when playing characters. But I've had my share of rough times at the healing game, and seem to get yelled at for not healing in Alterac Valley as often when I am healing as when I'm not. So why did you roll a healing class? This thread delves into the mysteries of why healers roll healers -- and why not all of them did it to heal. And, hey, if nothing else, it's worth a few giggles.
Spell damage bonuses and the Burning Crusade
While I say "spell damage," this is more often an issue you'll see in healing rather than damage dealing. What am I talking about, you ask? Down-ranking spells. Most healers who have hit the end-game understand that, with massive amounts of +healing on their gear, they can use lesser ranked healing spells to heal the necessary amount with a low mana cost -- giving great mana efficiency. (Damage dealers, alternatively, tend to stick to their max rank spells for best damage output.)However, in the Burning Crusade, all this will be changing: spell damage and healing will be applied differently to lower level spells than max rank ones. The standard +damage and healing bonus will be multiplied by ((spell level) + 6)/(player level). (Based on the explanation given, I assume that the spell level is the level you get the next rank spell, but read into it what you will.) There's already outcry amongst the healing classes, who say that downranking is necessary to conserve mana throughout some of the game's long boss encounters -- and that this change will simply force them to use mana potions every time the 2 minute cooldown is up. I, however, am trying to reserve apocalyptic judgments until we've gotten a better feel for how this change will play with expansion encounters.
Healers and their extra heals
Hal over in the WoW Ladies lj forum posts a really interesting question: What is a priest's (or other healer's) responsibility on all those "extra heals"? For example, it's when a pet needs healing, or when a warlock lifetaps their way down to almost no health. To those, I'd add healing for warriors and other melee classes after a fight, when everything is dead.Personally, I'm pretty conservative. On one side, I've played a priest and a resto shaman, and I will throw a lifetapped warlock a heal only when I'm at full mana and impatient to start the fight. Otherwise, he should be eating-- I shouldn't have a responsibility to heal him after he's hurt himself. Now, some guildie warlocks I like, and I'll do it anyway. But I don't think there should be a responsibility there. As for pets, I'll heal them in a fight 1) when we need them, and 2) when I've got mana left. If I'm healing the main tank with little to spare, sorry, but your kitty is gonna die. But if your VW is the only thing between me and a melee add, I'll keep him alive. Still, I don't think any pet class should ever count on heals unless the situation has called for it. Pet classes have ways to heal their pets for a reason.On the other side of things, as a warrior, if I'm out of a fight and still hurt, I make it a point to be eating or bandaging before the priest even has a chance to look at me. With mages around and food extremely cheap, there's no reason a priest should have to waste mana in between pulls, even if it's as simple as throwing a HoT on. Carry some bandages (no excuse for not having runecloth), or eat that bread ASAP.Of course, there are lots and lots of exceptions. Most priests I know will heal me anyway out of combat. And as a priest I'll usually throw off a few extra heals before I drink, including a few to the pets. But as for responsibilities, I think there should be as few as possible on both sides. Your thoughts?
Playing healers (or not)
Relmstein had an interesting series recently on why healing classes are so unpopular. I know from experience that healing classes are rare, because some days there's a lengthy queue for my time starting from the instant I log on. The following is representative of my daily login attempt -- and is usually enough to make me go log on my rogue!Welcome to World of Warcraft![Guild] Friendlymage: Hey Lizzy - want to heal Scholomance?[Randomshaman] whispers: need healer for BRD! last spot!![Randomhunter] whispers: LBRS?[Randomwarlock] has invited you to join a group.You have declined [Randomwarlock]'s group invitation.[Guild] Lizzy: Okay!You whisper to [Randomshaman]: Sorry, going to Scholomance.[Friendlymage] has invited you to join a group.You whisper to [Randomhunter]: Can't, heading to Scholomance.[Randomshaman] whispers: pls!!! will pay 5g.You whisper to [Randomshaman]: I can't -- I'm already committed to going to Scholomance.[Raider] whispers: Hey, we need more priests for Razorgore, wanna come?[Randomshaman] whispers: 10g?You are now ignoring [Randomshaman].[Raider2]: We need healers for BWL!You whisper to [Raider]: Sorry, busy atm.[Raider3] whispers: BWL?
Healing in PvP
The priest I'm currently playing is the first character I've made any serious attempts to PvP with. And, no, I'm not blazing through Alterac Valley in shadowform - I heal, much to the amazement of people I end up grouped with. At first I was surprised by the shock of other players when I healed them, but after spending some time in all of the battlegrounds, I've come to realize that healing in PvP is quite a headache.In PvE groups and instance runs, players are arranged into parties. In a raid group, where there are multiple parties, there's usually a healer in each and we stick to healing our own parties. We move forward as a group by necessity - because a single player would be highly unlikely to stand on their own against the monsters we're fighting. I watch my party's health bars, and I heal them when they get low. Easy enough, right? But in a PvP situation...
Answers for Those Nagging Priest Questions
This charmingly titled FAQ provides a nice compilation of answers to questions that are posted in the forums ten times a day by priests. From what enchant to put on your Benediction to whether spirit gear is better than mana per 5 gear, this guide isn't covering the basics - for basic information for a starting priest you might try this FAQ instead - but it does hit on all the hot topics. If you're a priest looking for answers, this is a very good starting place. Hopefully it will also slow the constant inquires over the best enchant for the Benediction, but I'm probably just being optimistic...
