One of the fun things about playing a Disc Priest is the amazing amount of utility. Because our best abilities take place before damage actually happens, and because this immediately makes us vastly different from other healers, there are all kinds of fun things you can do in the game that would be a lot trickier to do as a traditional healer.

Friday night I was sitting around Dalaran, Divine Hymning and chatting, and generally bored. A level 70 Hunter was begging in trade chat for a priest to help him tame a beast, offering 100 gold. To be honest, I normally ignore those kinds of requests, but my chatty friend nudged me and said that if I were bored, I should help the guy out - that he was likely trying to tame a beast, and a Disc priest would be perfect for it. I shrugged, and figured why not.

As it turned out, he was trying to tame some giant flamey green dog thing named Uvula. Or whatever.

Having never really helped a Hunter tame a beast before, we struggled for some time before I really figured out what the problem was. I didn't realize that Hunters had to keep aggro on their target for the entire time in order to tame it, but that was the biggest issue we were having. Since I'm level 80 and he was level 70, that certainly presented something of a problem - one shield on him after combat began, and I had aggro. He knew enough to recognize he needed a priest (Fear Ward against Terrifying Roar), and some heals, maybe a shield. The problem was the level differential.

But Divine Aegis saved the day! That and down-ranking... oh and Fade.

1. Buff hunter with Stamina and Fear Ward.
2. HealyHealyHealy until Divine Aegis shield procs!
3. Power Word: Shield (highest rank)
4. Go Hunter, Go! Tame that tonsiltosser!
   
5. Once Weakened Soul dropped off, cast a lower rank Power Word: Shield
6. Immediately cast a lower rank Renew
7. Immediately Fade baby Fade!
8. Receive lootz (well not exactly, but the hunter was happy)

IMO, the key to all of that was actually the Divine Aegis bubble which gave enough extra protection to the hunter with no aggro for myself that it enabled us to finally finish off his tame beast cast. The lower ranked casts were necessary so that I could get them both off and have time to Fade before it broke his tame beast cast.

After the Hunter cheerfully tipped me 100g (which I originally thought I wasn't going to take, but after all that effort I changed my mind), Uvula respawned and I pwned his ass out of bitterness.

Have any great stories featuring the utility of a certain type of healer outside of the instanced environment? I'd love to hear them!

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