The Treasure Of The Midnight Isles
6 days ago
Showing posts with label Circle of Healers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Circle of Healers. Show all posts
Saunder actually started this up nearly a month ago, and it has been sitting in a text document entitled "DO THIS JBIZZLE" on my desktop this whole time.
I've also been a bit hesitant to bring up the Circle of Healers topic again, because while it was awesome, it was also slightly overwhelming in terms of the number of responses! I actually STILL get responses from people, along with emails asking to be included on the responders page. For those of you who are listed on the page, you probably have noticed you still get quite a bit of traffic from it, especially if you were one of the first to respond.
The original iteration of the Circle of Healers healing survey was intended to make you think about how you heal, and to encourage you to learn about other healing classes, and how THEY heal - and then spread the word, and get to know your fellow healing bloggers. The aftermath was that dozens of healing bloggers added one another to their feedreaders, and we all got to know each other a bit better - but did we learn anything about our healing abilities?
Saunder wants to know, and asked me to personally look back on my responses and consider a handful of questions, to which I've added a few of my own. I invite the rest of you who originally responded to ponder these questions as well, and ask yourself: How much have you learned about healing since you replied to the survey?
The New Questions:
1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthiness.
It's interesting to look back on my responses from 3 months ago, because I have completely changed specs and raiding format. Therefore, it makes me laugh to think that at one point in time, Circle of Healing was my favorite spell. PSHAW. PENANCE FTW. I find myself shaking my head patronizingly at the holy version of myself. I was intimidated by the concept of Disc at the time... and now I completely love it.
2. Has your class's healing improved in the area you identified as its weakest?
My original answer to the "What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?" question was "Lack of instant burst healing... I'm thinking Penance or even Holy Shock. I wish we had a single target instant burst heal, even if it were on a long cooldown. Something like desperate prayer, but for someone other than ourselves."
Of course, now that I have changed my priority to Disc healing, I *do* have Penance. But aside from that, one of the many tips and tricks I learned from adding so many other healers to my Circle, and by getting more involved on the Priest WoW forums as well as the PlusHeal forums, is that I learned that in order to generate a lot more single target burst healing, a lot of Holy Priests use the Guardian Spirit trick. They pick up the Glyph of Guardian Spirit, which effectively gives your Guardian Spirit a one minute cooldown unless things go badly, and provides a 40% boost to the healing received by a target for 10 seconds.
It's still not exactly what I was looking for, but it's a start. To be fair, I don't think I will ever see the kind of single target burst healing spell to which I was referring for Holy Priests, and maybe that's okay from a balance perspective. Disc Priests have the single target burst healing spell that far surpasses any other (Penance), and Holy Priests have the AoE burst healing spell that is better than any other (Circle of Healing). In this way, Blizzard has managed to balance the two healing Priest specs against one another - when you pick your spec, you make your choice there.
3. Have you changed your "least favoured class to heal with"?
When I originally wrote this question, there was a lot of confusion about what I meant, since I worded it poorly. I had intended to ask what healing partner you prefer. My original answer to most favorite class to heal with, as a Holy Priest, was a Disc priest (which makes me cringe from a 10 man raid organizer standpoint, by the way). Now that I'm Disc myself, I frown when I see another Disc priest in the raid. It just doesn't work well in a ten man to have two Disc Priests (though in a 25 man it's perfectly fine - just takes more communication) due to the fact that Weakened Soul does not stack.
On the rare occasions that I do run Holy, I like the combination of a Holy Priest and a Holy Paladin now. The Pally can focus on the MT and OT, I can use my Renew liberally and take care of the rest of the raid.
Originally, I listed my least favorite class to heal beside as a Resto Druid - which is pretty funny now.
I absolutely love the combination of a Disc Priest and a Resto Druid. These two healers work in a fundamentally different way than the other healing classes, but partnered together, they can cover all the weaknesses of their individual classes. I can prevent a target from taking more damage and give the Druid's HoTs a chance to heal the target up. I can handle the tanks, with a spare bubble thrown around the raid, and the Druid works best peppering the raid with HoTs and rolling a few on the tanks to help me out. It's a great combination.
4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?
I did - and I put together some word documents separating the responses by class, but that's about as far as I got in terms of analyzing the responses. I learned quite a bit about how other classes work - knowledge I still use to this very day when organizing raids!
5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?
Absolutely. I learned what other healers of my own class perceive as strengths. I learned tips and tricks for how to play my class better. I also learned that all classes have the ability to do well at single-target healing, but not all classes are as strong on multi-target healing. I learned the difference between Raid Healing and AoE Healing. I learned that plenty of Disc Priests are raid healers.
6. What tools/resources or information do you think you would need to improve as a healer and how could that help the community at large?
Saunder mentioned that he would like to get more feedback on his healing from other Holy Paladins, but the opportunity rarely presents itself. This is very true - when you are widely regarded as a single target healer, then you don't often get to raid with other healers of the same class/spec. Even in a 25 man, I rarely heal next to another Disc Priest against whom I can compare myself. It's not that I'm trying to compete with others - it's simply that I want to do the best job I possibly can. I'd love to put my numbers next to someone like Paolo on a 10 man ICC run, and get a feel for what kind of Weakened Soul uptime I have compared to him.
In regards to the larger community, the same problem that I saw three months ago still stands - a severe shortage of Resto Shaman blogs. Of course, since the Circle of Healers survey, I discovered Vixsin at Life in Group 5 and he has proven to be a wonderful resource to whom I recommend all resto shammies I meet. But I still do not see very many Resto Shammies period - and even less who have the skill and the ability to inform others on their class.
7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?
I listed my worst healer habit as using AoE heals when there were only one or two people needing heals. Obviously, as a Disc Priest, I no longer have this problem nearly as often - however, I have finally come to terms with the fact that using an instant AoE heal like Circle of Healing to heal only one or two people is incredibly common, and not necessarily a bad thing. Since Holy Priests lack that single target burst healing spell, it makes sense to use the AoE version liberally.
8. What did you list as your favorite healing spell and your least used healing spell for your class? Are these answers still true? If they have changed, what caused the change (i.e. patch fix, different healing environment, etc)?
I had to include this question along with Saunder's original six, because I think listing our most and least used spells helped many of us identify the weaknesses of our healing. When I run Holy, Circle of Healing *should* be my most used spell, and that was my original answer, and that was perfectly acceptable. However, I also identified that I never used Divine Hymn - and that was bad news. Of course, mathematically, with such a long cooldown, that spell will get used rarely - but I never used it.
However, I'm happy to report that ever since I took the time to note this problem in my survey response and set out to rectify it, my Meatloaf Hymn macro gets used nearly every boss fight - whether I'm Holy OR Disc. I can't even tell you how many wipes this spell has saved. Ever since I created my macro, I've never died during the third phase of the Black Knight fight in ToC5 - and that phase was always a challenge for healers.
Now that I'm Disc, I need to address the issue of not using Power Infusion and Inner Focus every cooldown. Paolo pointed this out to me in a 25 man ToC to which he invited me, and I have been working to rectify that ever since. So, who knows... maybe soon you will see a fun macro post about Power Infusion that is intended to encourage me to use it every cooldown! After all... it worked last time!
~~~
Since I despise memes, I'm not going to tag anyone specifically for this - but I do encourage all of you who originally responded to go back and reread your answers and ask yourself if the survey helped you improve as a healer at all. That was the original intention - so if you feel that it was an aid in any way, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to take these questions written by Saunder to which I have added my own, and repost them with your own responses.
I've also been a bit hesitant to bring up the Circle of Healers topic again, because while it was awesome, it was also slightly overwhelming in terms of the number of responses! I actually STILL get responses from people, along with emails asking to be included on the responders page. For those of you who are listed on the page, you probably have noticed you still get quite a bit of traffic from it, especially if you were one of the first to respond.
The original iteration of the Circle of Healers healing survey was intended to make you think about how you heal, and to encourage you to learn about other healing classes, and how THEY heal - and then spread the word, and get to know your fellow healing bloggers. The aftermath was that dozens of healing bloggers added one another to their feedreaders, and we all got to know each other a bit better - but did we learn anything about our healing abilities?
Saunder wants to know, and asked me to personally look back on my responses and consider a handful of questions, to which I've added a few of my own. I invite the rest of you who originally responded to ponder these questions as well, and ask yourself: How much have you learned about healing since you replied to the survey?
The New Questions:
1. Reread your original answers to the questions. With the benefit of hindsight, score your own work in terms of its cringeworthiness.
It's interesting to look back on my responses from 3 months ago, because I have completely changed specs and raiding format. Therefore, it makes me laugh to think that at one point in time, Circle of Healing was my favorite spell. PSHAW. PENANCE FTW. I find myself shaking my head patronizingly at the holy version of myself. I was intimidated by the concept of Disc at the time... and now I completely love it.
2. Has your class's healing improved in the area you identified as its weakest?
My original answer to the "What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?" question was "Lack of instant burst healing... I'm thinking Penance or even Holy Shock. I wish we had a single target instant burst heal, even if it were on a long cooldown. Something like desperate prayer, but for someone other than ourselves."
Of course, now that I have changed my priority to Disc healing, I *do* have Penance. But aside from that, one of the many tips and tricks I learned from adding so many other healers to my Circle, and by getting more involved on the Priest WoW forums as well as the PlusHeal forums, is that I learned that in order to generate a lot more single target burst healing, a lot of Holy Priests use the Guardian Spirit trick. They pick up the Glyph of Guardian Spirit, which effectively gives your Guardian Spirit a one minute cooldown unless things go badly, and provides a 40% boost to the healing received by a target for 10 seconds.
It's still not exactly what I was looking for, but it's a start. To be fair, I don't think I will ever see the kind of single target burst healing spell to which I was referring for Holy Priests, and maybe that's okay from a balance perspective. Disc Priests have the single target burst healing spell that far surpasses any other (Penance), and Holy Priests have the AoE burst healing spell that is better than any other (Circle of Healing). In this way, Blizzard has managed to balance the two healing Priest specs against one another - when you pick your spec, you make your choice there.
3. Have you changed your "least favoured class to heal with"?
When I originally wrote this question, there was a lot of confusion about what I meant, since I worded it poorly. I had intended to ask what healing partner you prefer. My original answer to most favorite class to heal with, as a Holy Priest, was a Disc priest (which makes me cringe from a 10 man raid organizer standpoint, by the way). Now that I'm Disc myself, I frown when I see another Disc priest in the raid. It just doesn't work well in a ten man to have two Disc Priests (though in a 25 man it's perfectly fine - just takes more communication) due to the fact that Weakened Soul does not stack.
On the rare occasions that I do run Holy, I like the combination of a Holy Priest and a Holy Paladin now. The Pally can focus on the MT and OT, I can use my Renew liberally and take care of the rest of the raid.
Originally, I listed my least favorite class to heal beside as a Resto Druid - which is pretty funny now.
I absolutely love the combination of a Disc Priest and a Resto Druid. These two healers work in a fundamentally different way than the other healing classes, but partnered together, they can cover all the weaknesses of their individual classes. I can prevent a target from taking more damage and give the Druid's HoTs a chance to heal the target up. I can handle the tanks, with a spare bubble thrown around the raid, and the Druid works best peppering the raid with HoTs and rolling a few on the tanks to help me out. It's a great combination.
4. Did you read the entries from others in the webring, especially your class?
I did - and I put together some word documents separating the responses by class, but that's about as far as I got in terms of analyzing the responses. I learned quite a bit about how other classes work - knowledge I still use to this very day when organizing raids!
5. If Yes to #4, did you learn anything that made you a better healer?
Absolutely. I learned what other healers of my own class perceive as strengths. I learned tips and tricks for how to play my class better. I also learned that all classes have the ability to do well at single-target healing, but not all classes are as strong on multi-target healing. I learned the difference between Raid Healing and AoE Healing. I learned that plenty of Disc Priests are raid healers.
6. What tools/resources or information do you think you would need to improve as a healer and how could that help the community at large?
Saunder mentioned that he would like to get more feedback on his healing from other Holy Paladins, but the opportunity rarely presents itself. This is very true - when you are widely regarded as a single target healer, then you don't often get to raid with other healers of the same class/spec. Even in a 25 man, I rarely heal next to another Disc Priest against whom I can compare myself. It's not that I'm trying to compete with others - it's simply that I want to do the best job I possibly can. I'd love to put my numbers next to someone like Paolo on a 10 man ICC run, and get a feel for what kind of Weakened Soul uptime I have compared to him.
In regards to the larger community, the same problem that I saw three months ago still stands - a severe shortage of Resto Shaman blogs. Of course, since the Circle of Healers survey, I discovered Vixsin at Life in Group 5 and he has proven to be a wonderful resource to whom I recommend all resto shammies I meet. But I still do not see very many Resto Shammies period - and even less who have the skill and the ability to inform others on their class.
7. What did you identify as your worst habit as a healer? Have you improved in this area?
I listed my worst healer habit as using AoE heals when there were only one or two people needing heals. Obviously, as a Disc Priest, I no longer have this problem nearly as often - however, I have finally come to terms with the fact that using an instant AoE heal like Circle of Healing to heal only one or two people is incredibly common, and not necessarily a bad thing. Since Holy Priests lack that single target burst healing spell, it makes sense to use the AoE version liberally.
8. What did you list as your favorite healing spell and your least used healing spell for your class? Are these answers still true? If they have changed, what caused the change (i.e. patch fix, different healing environment, etc)?
I had to include this question along with Saunder's original six, because I think listing our most and least used spells helped many of us identify the weaknesses of our healing. When I run Holy, Circle of Healing *should* be my most used spell, and that was my original answer, and that was perfectly acceptable. However, I also identified that I never used Divine Hymn - and that was bad news. Of course, mathematically, with such a long cooldown, that spell will get used rarely - but I never used it.
However, I'm happy to report that ever since I took the time to note this problem in my survey response and set out to rectify it, my Meatloaf Hymn macro gets used nearly every boss fight - whether I'm Holy OR Disc. I can't even tell you how many wipes this spell has saved. Ever since I created my macro, I've never died during the third phase of the Black Knight fight in ToC5 - and that phase was always a challenge for healers.
Now that I'm Disc, I need to address the issue of not using Power Infusion and Inner Focus every cooldown. Paolo pointed this out to me in a 25 man ToC to which he invited me, and I have been working to rectify that ever since. So, who knows... maybe soon you will see a fun macro post about Power Infusion that is intended to encourage me to use it every cooldown! After all... it worked last time!
~~~
Since I despise memes, I'm not going to tag anyone specifically for this - but I do encourage all of you who originally responded to go back and reread your answers and ask yourself if the survey helped you improve as a healer at all. That was the original intention - so if you feel that it was an aid in any way, I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to take these questions written by Saunder to which I have added my own, and repost them with your own responses.
So, the healing survey is still growing. In case you thought I just posted the questions, and let people go to town on their own blogs, I thought I would make a little post to let you know what I'm doing with mah baby.
Though I stated repeatedly that I would only include people on the list if they left me a comment... well, I'm a little too OCD to actually follow through on that. While it definitely HELPS if people leave a comment, I have been expending a lot of effort in tracking down any responses I can find to it, and linking to them. Obviously, if the responses are on a guild forum, this isn't something I can easily do - especially since about 2/3 of the guild forums that link to Circle of Healers are in a foreign language (why doesn't anyone post in Latin? Oh that's right, because I wasted 7 years of my life learning it!).
Llyra over at Healing Way finally posted her own response to the questions, and noted at the end of the survey that she suspected there were lots of foreign translations as well. This is absolutely true. I have linked to two foreign translations on the list (Finnish and French), but if there are other translations, I am still in the process of tracking them down. (I also just noticed that the French Proprieter over at wowfrostmage has linked to several French responses for me... merci beaucoup! ::did i spell that right?::)
There is also an interesting little IP that has been going through all the responses from a nice little place in California called Irvine. Read into that what you will.
So what do I intend to DO with all these responses? After all, didn't I promise to "analyze teh dataz"?
This has proven to be a lot more difficult and tedious than I originally hoped (also, when I posted it, I had no idea it would get to be so big), but rest assured, I AM trying to assemble all the information. In a spreadsheet. Nomnomnom <3 spreadsheets. Sans the foreign language versions, sadly. :(
After Bobturkey returned from vacation and made his response (which I had been gleefully waiting for, since I knew his responses would be very interesting), I finally began assembling the answers. I have not even finished with Holy Priests yet, it is just that time consuming. Lest you think that everyone and their great grandchildren has completed the survey by now, I still have a handful of people respond every day - and it's gone outside of the WoW blogging sphere, and into Livejournal, and even a blogger from a newspaper - which confused me a bit, but I'm just gonna go with it.
How have I been tracking responses?
In essence, I have no idea when I will be able to post the results. I will continue working on it, and posting about any significant progress, but it may be awhile. Truth be told, however, diffusing all the survey responses down to something that can be mathematically analyzed will strip a lot of the awesomeness from the responses. For instance, here are some gems from Tamarind at Righteous Orbs's responses that wouldn't show up in the charts and graphs that will result from the survey, and definitely deserve notice:
Though I stated repeatedly that I would only include people on the list if they left me a comment... well, I'm a little too OCD to actually follow through on that. While it definitely HELPS if people leave a comment, I have been expending a lot of effort in tracking down any responses I can find to it, and linking to them. Obviously, if the responses are on a guild forum, this isn't something I can easily do - especially since about 2/3 of the guild forums that link to Circle of Healers are in a foreign language (why doesn't anyone post in Latin? Oh that's right, because I wasted 7 years of my life learning it!).
Llyra over at Healing Way finally posted her own response to the questions, and noted at the end of the survey that she suspected there were lots of foreign translations as well. This is absolutely true. I have linked to two foreign translations on the list (Finnish and French), but if there are other translations, I am still in the process of tracking them down. (I also just noticed that the French Proprieter over at wowfrostmage has linked to several French responses for me... merci beaucoup! ::did i spell that right?::)
There is also an interesting little IP that has been going through all the responses from a nice little place in California called Irvine. Read into that what you will.
So what do I intend to DO with all these responses? After all, didn't I promise to "analyze teh dataz"?
This has proven to be a lot more difficult and tedious than I originally hoped (also, when I posted it, I had no idea it would get to be so big), but rest assured, I AM trying to assemble all the information. In a spreadsheet. Nomnomnom <3 spreadsheets. Sans the foreign language versions, sadly. :(
After Bobturkey returned from vacation and made his response (which I had been gleefully waiting for, since I knew his responses would be very interesting), I finally began assembling the answers. I have not even finished with Holy Priests yet, it is just that time consuming. Lest you think that everyone and their great grandchildren has completed the survey by now, I still have a handful of people respond every day - and it's gone outside of the WoW blogging sphere, and into Livejournal, and even a blogger from a newspaper - which confused me a bit, but I'm just gonna go with it.
How have I been tracking responses?
- Through comments directly left on my blog.
- Through direct emails (to those of you who have emailed me, I did not respond via email, but I am including them)
- Through traffic coming from the blogs who posted the responses and linked back to my page
- When someone is tagged, I've been monitoring their blog to see if and when they respond.
- Through comments left on other people's responses on their own blogs
In essence, I have no idea when I will be able to post the results. I will continue working on it, and posting about any significant progress, but it may be awhile. Truth be told, however, diffusing all the survey responses down to something that can be mathematically analyzed will strip a lot of the awesomeness from the responses. For instance, here are some gems from Tamarind at Righteous Orbs's responses that wouldn't show up in the charts and graphs that will result from the survey, and definitely deserve notice:
"It’s the good kind of pressure, like a slightly over-weight cat purring on your chest."I mean, c'mon. Beat that. THIS IS NO TIME FOR BLOODY SINGING
regarding Divine Hymn:
"Also it’s just got a rubbish name. This is a fucking battle, no time for singing!"
regarding MT healing:
"It’s not even proper whack-a-mole, it’s simply a direct transfer of the contents of your blue bar into their diminishing green bar, like you’re some kind of perpetual human health funnel. "
In case you are interested (and please, pass it on!) Koriel over at What is Boom took the Healer Survey and converted it for tanks - so if you have a tank and like filling out and posting these surveys, try a Circle of Tanks!
A big thanks to everyone who responded to the no-seriously-this-is-not-a-meme healing survey! I hope that those of you who are linked on the page will benefit from the extra traffic, and be encouraged to post more useful information! It probably goes without saying, but the survey became vastly larger than I expected, and despite my best efforts, I just can't keep up with finding everyone who has responded and linked to the post, unless you left a comment for me - too many WoW.com hits have flooded by statcounter log. Not that I'm complaining... it was like having a big weekend party at my house. I will try to continue posting links to blogs that responded as long as you leave a comment, however.
I'm still trying to work my way through all the responses... I've been trying to copy and paste them all into a word document, but after crashing word a few times, I gave up for awhile. I do fully intend to finish reading through them though, and I am pleased that all the new material will hopefully help everyone who reads them become a better healer.
So far, one of the best things I've seen to come out of it is a post over at MoarHPS. Noting how few people really understood how the stats that come from meters work, Moar posted a really informative guide explaining how all those measurements work, and what they are good for. I think the point is that while meters are not the end-all, be-all for healers, they can definitely be used to help you figure out where your strengths are, and where you need to tweak - as long as you understand what they mean. I'm exceedingly grateful to Moar for the post, because I wasn't willing to admit how poor my understanding of those stats was >.>
On a slightly less happy note, there was a pretty nasty comment over at WoW.com referring to my own answers to the survey that I wanted to respond to here. Had I known the survey would become so big, and so many people would be looking at my own answers with such a critical eye, I might have explained my answers better. So, from the perspective of this holy priest, I'm going to respond to the criticisms leveled at my answers - because it's my site and I'll do what I want to, even though I know that some people just want to rip others apart, even though they may have no better answers themselves. So there. Suck it.
Lack of Burst Healing for Holy Priests
One of the questions on the survey I wrote was "what is the biggest weakness of your class?" Some of you might have found this very difficult to answer! I know that I did, because the thing about Holy Priests is that we can do a little bit of everything, and quite well. We can fit into any healing role. But, as with every jack of all trades, there are none for which we are truly the master. One thing that I have desperately craved since the days of Kel'Thuzad is a solid single target instant burst heal. The critic in question insisted we have plenty of burst heal options, and for each spell they mentioned as an example, I will respond accordingly:
I will be the first to admit that I am far too sensitive to criticism, but despite that, this comment reminded me of the same thing that always annoys me about so many players - that the vast amount of wow players are not in the upper echelon of raiding. Why do I rarely use Divine Hymn? Because I'm serious when I say that I'm rarely in a situation in which that powerful of a healing spell is needed - usually a CoH or a Serendipity-hasted Prayer of Healing will more than suffice. Were I currently working on TotGC 25 man hard mode, I'm sure my answer would be different. But I'm not. I am probably one of those average WoW players, really. I do 10 man raids regularly, I do 25 mans on occasion, and I do a lot of 5 mans. I like to think that were I interested in participating in hard core raids that I would perform fairly well, but the truth is, I just don't want to make the commitment that requires.
There are a lot of new subscribers to my blog, so it probably bears repeating here that while my focus is on Holy Priests, and to a lesser extent Disc Priests, I do discuss a lot of the issues relevant to assembling a strong healing team for raiding, as well as some officeering topics. However, I am not solely interested in raiding - if you prefer 5 man content, I always try to consider that aspect as well when discussing Priest mechanics. I see too many people give advice to priests that completely ignores the differences between a 5 man scenario, and a 10 man or 25 man scenario. Healing a 5 man all by yourself is actually quite different than healing in a raid. I do try to always keep that in mind when I dish out Medicinal Wisdom :)
NB: For those of you wondering, part of the reason why I'm not using pictures so much in my posts these days is due to the covert way in which I am forced to blog at my current job. Pictures of WoW related things seem to be a bit of a red flag on google reader when my boss walks by. I would apologize for the walls of text, but I feel apologies should carry an intention of stopping the crime with them, and since I have no intention of stopping... well, you see the dilemma.
I'm still trying to work my way through all the responses... I've been trying to copy and paste them all into a word document, but after crashing word a few times, I gave up for awhile. I do fully intend to finish reading through them though, and I am pleased that all the new material will hopefully help everyone who reads them become a better healer.
So far, one of the best things I've seen to come out of it is a post over at MoarHPS. Noting how few people really understood how the stats that come from meters work, Moar posted a really informative guide explaining how all those measurements work, and what they are good for. I think the point is that while meters are not the end-all, be-all for healers, they can definitely be used to help you figure out where your strengths are, and where you need to tweak - as long as you understand what they mean. I'm exceedingly grateful to Moar for the post, because I wasn't willing to admit how poor my understanding of those stats was >.>
On a slightly less happy note, there was a pretty nasty comment over at WoW.com referring to my own answers to the survey that I wanted to respond to here. Had I known the survey would become so big, and so many people would be looking at my own answers with such a critical eye, I might have explained my answers better. So, from the perspective of this holy priest, I'm going to respond to the criticisms leveled at my answers - because it's my site and I'll do what I want to, even though I know that some people just want to rip others apart, even though they may have no better answers themselves. So there. Suck it.
Lack of Burst Healing for Holy Priests
One of the questions on the survey I wrote was "what is the biggest weakness of your class?" Some of you might have found this very difficult to answer! I know that I did, because the thing about Holy Priests is that we can do a little bit of everything, and quite well. We can fit into any healing role. But, as with every jack of all trades, there are none for which we are truly the master. One thing that I have desperately craved since the days of Kel'Thuzad is a solid single target instant burst heal. The critic in question insisted we have plenty of burst heal options, and for each spell they mentioned as an example, I will respond accordingly:
- Power Word: Shield - This is NOT instant burst heal, and to say that it is is so ridiculously silly that it barely warrants response. This will reduce the next incoming damage of course, but I'm talking about green-bar-go-up type mechanics when I say burst healing. Is it something that can be used in an emergency scenario to keep the target from dying from the NEXT hit? Of course it is - but that was not what i was talking about.
- Prayer of Mending - First of all, as Matticus discussed in a post that all Disc Priests should definitely read, Prayer of Mending doesn't go off if the damage is absorbed from a shield instead. Prayer of Mending needs to be cast BEFORE the damage hits in order to heal. The target CAN die from the damage before benefitting from the PoM heal, if I understand the mechanics of this spell correctly (if this is not the case, please correct me). Therefore, this is NOT instant burst healing that makes the green bar go up immediately - it is a response to the next bout of damage. I am talking about the desire for something to respond to a massive damage input that has already happened.
- Surge of Light - Sorry, I don't always have a surge of light proc sitting in my pocket. It's great when it procs, but because it is a proc, and because it is based on crit, which in and of itself is based on chance, you cannot rely on a surge of light to be there when you need it.
- Circle of Healing - This is a viable answer - and this, in addition to Empowered Renew, is what I currently use when an individual needs an immediate burst of healing. With any luck, I can CoH, Renew, and have a SoL proc - but all of those are subject to global cooldown, and do NOT aggregate into a single target instant burst heal. And yes, this works quite well, but I suppose it really grates on me to use an AoE spell to respond to single target damage.
I will be the first to admit that I am far too sensitive to criticism, but despite that, this comment reminded me of the same thing that always annoys me about so many players - that the vast amount of wow players are not in the upper echelon of raiding. Why do I rarely use Divine Hymn? Because I'm serious when I say that I'm rarely in a situation in which that powerful of a healing spell is needed - usually a CoH or a Serendipity-hasted Prayer of Healing will more than suffice. Were I currently working on TotGC 25 man hard mode, I'm sure my answer would be different. But I'm not. I am probably one of those average WoW players, really. I do 10 man raids regularly, I do 25 mans on occasion, and I do a lot of 5 mans. I like to think that were I interested in participating in hard core raids that I would perform fairly well, but the truth is, I just don't want to make the commitment that requires.
There are a lot of new subscribers to my blog, so it probably bears repeating here that while my focus is on Holy Priests, and to a lesser extent Disc Priests, I do discuss a lot of the issues relevant to assembling a strong healing team for raiding, as well as some officeering topics. However, I am not solely interested in raiding - if you prefer 5 man content, I always try to consider that aspect as well when discussing Priest mechanics. I see too many people give advice to priests that completely ignores the differences between a 5 man scenario, and a 10 man or 25 man scenario. Healing a 5 man all by yourself is actually quite different than healing in a raid. I do try to always keep that in mind when I dish out Medicinal Wisdom :)
NB: For those of you wondering, part of the reason why I'm not using pictures so much in my posts these days is due to the covert way in which I am forced to blog at my current job. Pictures of WoW related things seem to be a bit of a red flag on google reader when my boss walks by. I would apologize for the walls of text, but I feel apologies should carry an intention of stopping the crime with them, and since I have no intention of stopping... well, you see the dilemma.
Oof! Sorry I haven't been posting any new content over the past couple of days!
Looks like the Healer Questionnaire is a bigger hit than I expected... and I've had my hands full trying to keep track of who all has answered it, and read all the responses.
I've always been of the mindset that in a raiding environment, the best healers (or, if you prefer, the most efficient healers) are the ones who understand at least a little bit about the other healing classes: their strengths, their weaknesses, how some of their major heals work, etc. The larger the healing team, the more varied the healing makeup, the more important this is.
That was the original purpose of this questionnaire for me... I have great interest in understanding all the healing classes, even though I don't seem to have the dedication to really level all of them... but reading through these questionnaires has given me a lot of insight into the different ways each class works - and the variety of ways you can play each one!
One of my major goals is to summarize all this information, and put it together as a handy guide for healing organizers.
I can say this much so far to all the healing leads out there about a healer's biggest pet peeve, since this seems to be the most popular response - STOP TELLING US WHO NEEDS HEALS.
Looks like the Healer Questionnaire is a bigger hit than I expected... and I've had my hands full trying to keep track of who all has answered it, and read all the responses.
I've always been of the mindset that in a raiding environment, the best healers (or, if you prefer, the most efficient healers) are the ones who understand at least a little bit about the other healing classes: their strengths, their weaknesses, how some of their major heals work, etc. The larger the healing team, the more varied the healing makeup, the more important this is.
That was the original purpose of this questionnaire for me... I have great interest in understanding all the healing classes, even though I don't seem to have the dedication to really level all of them... but reading through these questionnaires has given me a lot of insight into the different ways each class works - and the variety of ways you can play each one!
One of my major goals is to summarize all this information, and put it together as a handy guide for healing organizers.
I can say this much so far to all the healing leads out there about a healer's biggest pet peeve, since this seems to be the most popular response - STOP TELLING US WHO NEEDS HEALS.
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If you are participating in the non-memey Healer Questionnaire, you may want to bookmark this post, as this is where I will be keeping track of people who have responded and posted their own answers. Consider it like a Chain Heal... it started with me and went to someone else who will hopefully send it to someone else, and so forth. My hope is that no matter how far out that chain heal extends, I can maintain a list of all the responders here! (See what I did there Zigi? That was for you!) Hopefully the survey will experience some Wild Growth. Ha ha I'm so full of funny. Okay, bad puns aside....
If you know of someone who has responded who is not included on this list, please let me know via comment! Also, if you do post a questionnaire response, it would be great if you linked back to this post so that others can also see who all has answered.
Once this post was linked from WoW Insider, the amount of traffic quickly surpassed my ability to keep up with all the responses (not that I'm complaining!). That having been said, I will continue to try and keep track of the people who have responded on their blogs, as long as you comment and leave me a link! There are also a lot of people who have left their responses in the comments section below, so be sure to check it out.
ETA: Hey look! Koriel at What is Boom started a Circle of Tanks!
ETA: If you are looking for responses in French, pop on over to wowfrostmage, where the generous proprietor has assembled a list - merci!
Holy Priests (Most of us roll Bubbly on occasion):
Disc Priests:
Resto Druids:
Holy Paladin
Overachievers who have too many healers:
Some time this weekend I am going to totally geek out and... /cue dramatic music.. ANALYZE TEH DATAZ
Stay tuned! I'm trying to keep this updated as quickly as possible! If you notice someone is missing, and it's been more than 24 hours since they posted, please shoot me an email to let me know -> elimeny at gmail dot com.
Thanks!
If you know of someone who has responded who is not included on this list, please let me know via comment! Also, if you do post a questionnaire response, it would be great if you linked back to this post so that others can also see who all has answered.
Once this post was linked from WoW Insider, the amount of traffic quickly surpassed my ability to keep up with all the responses (not that I'm complaining!). That having been said, I will continue to try and keep track of the people who have responded on their blogs, as long as you comment and leave me a link! There are also a lot of people who have left their responses in the comments section below, so be sure to check it out.
ETA: Hey look! Koriel at What is Boom started a Circle of Tanks!
ETA: If you are looking for responses in French, pop on over to wowfrostmage, where the generous proprietor has assembled a list - merci!
Holy Priests (Most of us roll Bubbly on occasion):
- Miss Medicina – Jessabelle
- Christine - Amerence
- Righteous Orbs - Yay Tamarind joined the party! I was feeling like the only Holy Priest on teh interwebs!
- Theatre of the Absurd - Tiis
- Artisan Level - Maegwen
- Holy Nova NOW! - Bati (it's a swinging i as i like to call it, but i fail at putting in different characters...)
- Priest with a Cause - Shintar
- Rainbow MMO - Bloodsun
- Harpy's Nest - Erinys
- Empowered Healing - Andracon
- Strictly Heals - Suvixon
- Peripeteia - Sabely (btw Sabely, your site is beautiful!)
- SpriestBlog! - Spazmoosifer (lol epic)
- Misadventures of a Priest - Elisse
- Balance of Power: Earth and Moon - Presaya
- The Unconventional Priest - Fuyuko
- She Plays Wow - Caste
- Priest Punditry - Mads
Disc Priests:
- Killing 'Em Slowly - Abigora
- I Like Bubbles finally got harassed into joining (thanks everyone for helping with the pointy pokes) - Lyrandre
- Anathema - Sinespe (well, normally Shadow, but shh)
- Penance Priest - Paolo
- Save the Lightwell - Mongrr
- A Klockwerk Luka - Klockwerk
- Hybrid Love - Amharach
- World of Matticus - Matticus was very sad that no one tagged him earlier. We musn't forget to invite the big famous guys to the party as well!
- Mind Blast - Kaelea
- Divine Aegis - Lilitharien
- Duct Tape and a Prayer - Theande
- BobTurkey - Turkelife
- WoWGrrl - Shrimproll
- Troll Bouquet - Grindall
- Rez the Weak - Xeonio
- Pain Suppression - Sheqeri
- Runcible Trout - Runcible
- Twenty-Five Boxes – Zigi
- DKDeathGoddess - Hinenuitepo (It's a DK blog, but one can't resist a NON-MEME!
- Planet of the Hats - Chayah
- Unreal Realities - Serevok - Two thumbs up for using the proper plural of Shaman! My OCD side just twitched a little in happiness!
- Cat Tales - Ezza
- Tank 2 Heals - Airdrigh
- Shamantics - Exelus
- Shaman on Ramen - Elam
- Altadin - Liluye
- Sham's Life - Khaelie
- A Shaman's Journey - Nimayne
- Healing Way - Llyra
- Cabboose - Cabbini (with another swinging i!)
- Blueberry Totem - Rahana
- Life in Group 5 - Vixsin
- Monstarkin - Kelmaa
- Kattastrophe
- Elemental Healing - Selacia
- Kamalia et alia - Kamalia
Resto Druids:
- Sheep It – Kailanii
- Kotakh (not a blogger, but responded in a comment)
- Kungaloosh AKA Shadow Word: Blog - Sammich
- Dreambound - Kaelynn
- The Angry Healers - Aanthe (You have to check this site out - the banner alone made me guffaw in ways that should not be done at 8:30 in the morning)
- HoTs & DoTs - Lathere
- Rejuvo - Verile
- Sushi-Cookie was sad to not get tagged - but I could have SWORN i saw some sushi tagging somewhere - or maybe it was something i thought about but forgot to do, so now I shall make you pie.. PIE! - Sersokhi
- RamblingDwarf's responses cracked me up - Kochi - Dwarf Warrior.. oh wait, I mean Resto Druid!
- DoTs & HoTs (I giggled) - Tatia
- Unreal Realities - Isla - The Tree of the group chimes in!
- Dysmorphia at LiveJournal
- Tree of Doom - Hermia
- DorkArt on Livejournal - this is a PvP resto druid, which is really interesting to read, since I don't PvP much! Great info if you do :)
- Tree Healz - almost missed your comment, Firewood (ps i LOVE your name) - sorry for the delay!
- 4 Haelz - Bellwether
- Restokin - Lissanna
- Forrestump - Forrestump (yet another name I love)
- Evian Tree Bear - Wingood
- Elsen
- French Version posted on WowFrostMage - Killh
- Divine Aegis - Oestrus
- Buel's World - Buel
- Wild Growth - Tazha
- Druid Tree - Innoue
- Nerf This Druid - Averna
- Resto-Melee - Mikata (Sorry I missed this earlier!)
- Cannot be Tamed - Jasyla
- Monstarkin - Rebella
Holy Paladin
- The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon (YES A SPOON) - Rykga
- MoarHPS - Uruz
- The *urnaks - Turnak
- HolyPaladin.net
- Divine Plea - Amathalanea
- I Sheep Things - Myrhani
- Non-Squishy Heals - Saunder
- Unreal Realities - Nazaniel - There are several healers over at UR, the resident Pally pipes in to clear up some pally-confusion!
- The Secret of Being Numb - Beladin
- Holy Shock - Ruhtra
- Lux Legis - Almaster
- Lintuperspektiivi - Kyer - OMG it's in Finnish! I tried to read it anyway. I was only really able to make out name and class, but baby steps, right? Thanks so much for taking the time to translate it Lintup... Kyer!
- Altoholic Anonymous - Anonymous preserves his anonyminity... anoninnymini... secretness.
- Kurn's Corner - Madrana(h)
- Flash of Moonfire - Gillien
- Resto Nation - Koramoor
- World of Warcraft Wanderings - Akromah
- Snottydin is totally a girl IRL - like, DUH - Snottydin (best response EVAR)
- A Touch of Arcane - Shazalyn
- Holy Ret - Tomkr
- A Healadin's Tear - Tarinae
Overachievers who have too many healers:
- LFM: Need Healer PLZ - K & D - Disc Priest & Resto Shammy, respectively
- Casual Hardcore - Kyrileanthos, Erdkrieg, Maedchen, Selfreya - Holly Pally, Resto Shammy, Holy Priest, and Resto Druid respectively
- Thoughts of a Discipline Priestess - Nymarie - Disc Priest
- There's a thread over at CafeMom for WoW moms for this questionnaire too!
- Falling Leaves and Twigs - Beru (Resto Druid), Dannie (Holy Pally), and Mynn (Resto Shammy)
- Green Bar Spec - Resto Druid, Disc Priest, and Resto Shammy
- Gnome Warrior is an Oxymoron - Druid, Priest, and Shammy
- Light & Leafy - Druid, Priest, and Shammy
Some time this weekend I am going to totally geek out and... /cue dramatic music.. ANALYZE TEH DATAZ
Stay tuned! I'm trying to keep this updated as quickly as possible! If you notice someone is missing, and it's been more than 24 hours since they posted, please shoot me an email to let me know -> elimeny at gmail dot com.
Thanks!
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