I have admitted it before, and I will state it again. I am a social. Yup, that's right. I'm one of those people who values courtesy and kindness and community to a somewhat irrational extent. I'm okay with that.

But I am also a very logical person. Most of the time, I find that logically speaking, courtesy and kindness provide more personal and group benefit than the alternative.

Now I do have some friends that can’t stand reading Gevlon’s blog. I, however, enjoy it immensely – even though Gevlon would probably consider me an M&S. But I don’t get offended. I know folks who hate reading his material because they feel it is nothing more than incendiary nonsense, just written to piss people off and get a reaction.

I disagree entirely.

Of course, the value of Gevlon’s blog may inherently lie in the fact that his somewhat Aspergian theories and perspectives are far against the typical Wow blogger norm. For me, however, that’s not why I subscribe, and it’s not why I read it.

I enjoy reading Gevlon’s material because he can piss people off just by using basic logic. He is not a troll. He is a goblin.

In my very first Geography class in college, my professor gave us all a handout that listed 42 different logical fallacies. No, I don’t have them all memorized, but I haz a bookmark. I don’t mind if you disagree with me. In fact, if you agree with me all the time, why are we even discussing the topic? How boring. I might even argue that the attraction between my fiancé and I is based on the fact that we disagree on just about everything.

But one thing I don’t tolerate is a logical fallacy-based attack.

And that is the difference between a troll and a goblin. Gevlon will disagree with you; Gevlon will piss you off. But the vast majority of the time, he has very good evidence and rationale for the things he says that piss you off. If you want to argue with Gevlon, you better be prepared with some solid logic, because he is not even going to waste his time responding to you if you are using an argument based solely on a logical fallacy. Telling him that he is just a big ol’ meanie mcmeanikins isn’t going to have any effect on him, and won’t get you any real satisfaction.

I doubt that Gevlon would agree with my brand of logic. In America, the most powerful vote you can give is arguably with your dollar. So, if I disagree with a company’s policies, or I think they pursue completely unethical objectives, I won’t buy things from them. I will even go so far as to make sure my investments (such as mutual funds) do not put any money into their coffers. It means I make less money, but it also means I’m not contributing to what I perceive as a problem in my country, and therefore in my life. I don’t stand on the corner holding a sign that says the company is evil. I just don’t financially support them.

That’s not rational from an economic perspective. But if I complained about a company, and then continued to provide investment funds for them, wouldn’t that make me something of a hypocrite? That’s my kind of logic. I would argue that the inherent difference between my rationale and Gevlon’s rationale is a different definition of value. He considers economic benefit to be the most important value, whereas I do not. Look at that, I just used rational logic to explain why I would disagree with Gevlon on things, as opposed to an ad hominem attack.

Tobold and Gevlon are both bloggers that provide a forum for especially intriguing thought and insight into the MMO universe. They also make a solid attempt to weed out the trolls, while keeping the goblins around.

If you comment on a forum or blog, and provide nothing more than attacks based on logical fallacies just to get a rise out of people and piss them off, you, sir (or madam!), are a TROLL.

If you comment on a forum or blog, and provide meaningful evidence, logic, or rationale in an effort to disagree with the writer, you might just be a GOBLIN.

Goblins are welcome. I can respect a Goblin, because I can actually learn something from a Goblin. Trolls? Well, you do amuse me.

Much longer and larger post incoming, but I have a quickie question I need to ask.

I'm getting a LOT more spam comments ever since I removed the word verification out of courtesy to some people who find it to be a pain to comment because of the verification box. I sympathize with that, because I really do hate those verification thingies, though I understand their necessity.

I have very few comment moderation options available:

• Turn off Anonymous Commenting (which would mean that anyone who comments needs at least an OpenID, which is annoying)

• Turn on Word Verification (which is also annoying for the afore-mentioned readers, and a serious PitA for mobile phone users)
  

• Turn on Comment Moderation (I currently just turned this on to screen any comments on posts older than 3 days - that's an FYI for those who might be wondering why some of their comments haven't shown up yet) (I like comments to show up ASAP anyway... I don't like the idea of screening others' words)

What I would ideally like is that either A) All anonymous comments are screened or B) All anonymous comments are subject to word verification, but if this is possible with Blogger, I don't know how to do it.

As a side note, half of the spam comments I get don't even have a link anywhere. They are just random combinations of words. Case in point, the last one I deleted said the following: "Brim over I acquiesce in but I about the list inform should prepare more info then it has."

I feel like there is some important message in there that I'm just simply not enlightened (or stoned) enough to interpret.

It was pointed out to me by a couple of people that I didn't have a blog archive up. I have no idea when and why it disappeared, but it has now made a grand reentrance. Obviously you won't see it through a feedreader, so you'll actually have to pop on through to see it. Thanks for the heads up guys!

Tam gave me the gift of syph. Results are incoming.

So several other people have contributed to the Divine Aegis vs Power Word: Shield testing (see the comments), and they all seem to have come up with results similar to mine (That Divine Aegis is used up before Power Word:Shield). If you've done some testing of it yourself and can provide combat log data for me, I will post it for others to give more practical evidence to our skeptical theory crafters (skepticism = good!).

Also, Soluna asked in the comments section: "would it be reasonable to theorize that the shield with the lowest duration is used first?" and I will answer that here. I thought that as well, but though I did not post the testing I did on that particular topic, I did test that by proccing Divine Aegis just before my power word: shield wore off, and DA was still used up before PW:S. However, this was incredibly difficult to test well due to the exactness of timing, which is why I didn't post it (since it was very easy to do it improperly). If you are able to test this and confirm, please let me know.

Today is my last day at my internship, and then I get to breathe a sigh of relief and update all my guides - especially as I now have a lot more experience with the Disc aspect of priest healing. I used to think that Disc Priests were only really for single target healing, but now I know better, and I want my guide to reflect that.

Last night was my first foray into ICC10 man! We only spent two hours in there, but we were able to two shot Marrowgar, and get in a few solid tries on Lady Deathwhisper. I hadn't expected us to get that far in such a short time, to be honest, so I was not completely prepared for Deathwhisper. We had a lot of fun learning how all the trash worked, since I had only looked up boss guides. It was a nice challenge. Also, if you are doing ICC10, and haven't brought a rogue in yet... you should try it. There are some special little things Rogues can do in the first room - but I won't spoil it for you :)

Thanks to lots of help from some fellow bloggers via twitter and my genius fiance, I was able to get World of Logs up and running last night for our ICC10 run. I made it work, but I don't really know how to interpret the results. Also, for some reason it doesn't show our Marrowgar kill :( Also, my recount is not working 80% of the time now for some reason. I find that really frustrating as I'm only just starting to learn how to properly interpret the healing meters, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Along both those veins, I am putting out a general call to my fellow bloggers (especially you healers) - I can't tell you how much I would appreciate an idiot's guide to reading and interpreting log parsing results. Right now, for the most part, it's just a great big jumble to me.

Larisa wants to know what YOU think the best moments were of 2009!

And when Larisa asks, how can you resist answering?

Best Raid Instance - Well my vote goes to Eye of Eternity. I loved that place, even if I could never get a group because everyone else seemed to hate it!

Least Successful raid instance - Definitely ToC. The vast majority of raiders simply hated it. Part of me thinks it was a bit of a joke on Blizzard's part - "oh you want less trash? Faster raids? Well here you are, how do you like 'dem apples?"

Silliest Gold Sink - The Dun Niffelem mammoths. They don't do anything interesting except keep you from getting into the bank in Stormwind, and block the flight masters so that others will report you.

Most longed for instance - Icecrown, hands down.

Most juicy guild drama - Oh bother. I obviously have not been paying enough attention to the gossip in the Inn! I can't think of any particularly juicy guild gossip.

Biggest Addition to the Game - Dual Spec! It might not have been as exciting for the full DPS classes, but for the healers and tanks, it allowed us to do a little more solo content!

Best Quest - There was a little quest offered in Dalaran near the capital portals, and its only requirement was for you to bring a journal to a new NPC hanging out in Darnassus. This new NPC, Archmage Mordent Evenshade of The Highborne, is presumably the start of the lore allowing Night Elves to be mages - and is a warning of the coming Cataclysm! Little quests like these that require so little but give so much background are great fun to me.

Ugliest Tabard - Wyrmest Accord. Honestly. Your leader is the hottest Belf evar and you can't come up with a better looking tabard? Yeesh.

Favourite Non-Combat Pet - This spot goes to Stinker who provided countless hours of amusement to Fuubaar and I in Naxx, while we tried to fill out our 25 man groups. I don't know why the sight of her pet Stinker chasing after my black cat and repeatedly getting his heart broken was so entertaining, come to think of it. Why are we so mean? Poor Stinker.

Most charming Blizzard employee - Actually, I have a bit of a crush on Bornakk, if you hadn't picked it up from my emoted swoons and such whenever I quote something he says on the forums. It is completely due to the fact that he is courteous, funny, a bit of an underdog, and a sexy, sexy orc.

Best podcast - Save or Die Radio. Not that I'm biased or anything. Okay, it's not WoW specific, but it's manna for gamers.

Biggest Blog Facelift - I'm going to give this a somewhat liberal translation, and assume it means something beyond just a new "look". In that case, Forbearance and Righteous Orbs are a tie for me. Forbearance for combining the forces of the illestretpally Jong with the random rapping of OOMegan. Righteous Orbs for throwing together Sissy Robe donning Tamarind with math geek Ideathtard Chas. Both are perfect examples of combined forces in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Most memorable blog post - Perhaps this is only because it is somewhat recent, but the Gevlon v Marko post (in which I learned that *popcorn* is, in fact, a valid emote), which elicited commentary from multiple wow blogs was immensely entertaining.

Most noticed blogger breakthrough - Undoubtedly Gevlon takes this prize, if for no other reason than that he has made some of the most memorable posts, inspired some of the most rampant drama, and gone to great lengths to provide evidence for his stances.

Most solid content provider - My favorite thing about Killing 'Em Slowly is that I know there will be a post every weekday. I may not know the exact timing, but I can rely on the fact that there will be something, and it won't just be a "sorry no time to write today!" post. When I started this site, it was the best advice Fulguralis gave me - posting at regular intervals, so people know what to expect, and I've tried to adhere to that principle - one I feel Ful himself has mastered.

Most hugged blogger - Well that's easy... is there anyone more huggable than Larisa herself? Perhaps Gnomeageddon would qualify as a very close second. I'm noting a pattern here. There is something particuarly huggable about gnomes. I guess if you're Horde, you can translate that into "puntable", but just you wait until you get your goblins. Then we'll see who's getting punted.


I would like to add another question, though it is entirely up to Larisa whether she will include it in her decision. "Blogger Most Likely to Succeed in 2010" - And by this, I mean a new WoW blog that shows an extraordinary amount of promise. My vote here goes to Life in Group 5, a relatively new Healing Shaman blog that I think will quickly come to be a solid replacement for the hole left by Healing Way. Vixsin doesn't make overly frequent posts, but the posts he does make are extensive, thorough, and very informative.

The aftermath of the Circle of Healers survey explosion left me with about 50 new blogs added to my google reader. I updated my blogroll then, initially including everyone who had responded to the survey... but then, as you might have noticed, the survey responses just kept on growing beyond the capacity of my posted blogroll.

I updated it this morning. While I'm not really that exclusive about the blogs pumped into my google reader, I didn't want to have a long list of recommended blogs. Basically, in the section for Circle of Healers, I wanted to include a selection of various healing classes (though with Healing Way shutting down, there is yet again a shortage of strong Resto Shammy bloggers).

The other thing I wanted to note is that I do not normally include big name blogs on my blogroll, though there are some exceptions. I love BBB and Pink Pigtail Inn and read them religiously - but I sort of assume that if you are reading this blog, you already know about them, and don't really need my recommendation. I prefer to point you in the direction of some possibly lesser known blogs that you might not have found otherwise, because I personally think these writers are fantastic. I based this on number of subscriptions via google reader, so I could be completely off.

Whether it be pure entertainment value from Tamarind, thought provoking posts from Rejuvo, handy tips from The Bossy Pally, or some hardcore theorycrafting explanation from MoarHPS, my hope is that you will find every site I link from my blogroll to be not only clearly and well written, but also a solid resource on some level. These are my favorites for good reason!

ETA: WHERE IS MORTIGAN THE LOCK?!!?!? I went to his blog this morning to add it to this post as one of my favorites... and it's GONE!!! Has anyone heard from him? Now I'm really worried. Send out the search parties!!!

I generally detest blogging about… well, blogging. It’s like making drama about drama. A topic, squared, does not necessarily increase the amount of interest on that topic. Meta-blogging is really not my thing.

Be that as it may, I am currently having a previously only internal debate regarding the direction of this site. No, I’m not going to stop writing it anytime soon. I have 12 drafts in my blogger queue, 7 drafts sitting on ScribeFire, and 18 emails I have sent to myself with other column topics I’m working on. And let’s not forget the giant Healer Survey data analysis that glares at me angrily every time I sit down to my macbook with the intention of running dailies. This brain, it’s like a fountain I tell you. A FOUNTAIN OF SPLENDOR. There’s no risk of drying up anytime soon.

But… what is the purpose of Miss Medicina? If I had a mission statement, what exactly would it say?

When I originally began to write this (with lots of encouragement from Fulguralis and Fuubaar), my premise was simple - a blog about healing philosophy. Not traditional theorycrafting, because math is like, hard, but a different kind of theorycrafting that comes from finding overarching general patterns amongst how healers heal, how they play, and the nuances of healing style. I planned to start with healing as a Priest, expand into Holy Healing (by progressing into Holy Paladin information), and then slowly begin integrating Nature Healing with Druids and Shammies. First and foremost, I wanted to write a blog that would be a resource for new healers. I wanted to help them cover the gap between “l2play n00b” and an Ensidia application.

The progression never happened. It’s not because I don’t love resto shammies (why does Word keep trying to change this to shimmies?) and druids, but more because I struggled with my Paladin, and then kept going back to my lovable, huggable, femdwarf priest. There are plenty of people who are altoholics, who simply love playing lots of different classes. I, however, judge everything against my Priest. I love everything about the Priest class. I love my class so much that when I play OTHER games I always pick the priestliest character class I can find (such as my 4e cleric). When I try to level a new alt, I never get past the early teens… unless it’s another priest. Yes, that’s right. Arguably the most detested class to level, and it’s the only class I’m interested in leveling. That having been said, I certainly enjoy reading about other healing classes.

So therefore, as it happens, I have posted a lot more information specific to Priests – yet even here I’ve made a distinction. I’ve completely ignored that shadowy spec, because I wanted to restrict my focus to healing (hello… Medicina?). So now I’m in something of a conundrum that really grates on my type A – I-like-things-in-neat-little-categories brain. If I’m going to focus on priests, shouldn’t I include more shadow priest discussion? If I’m going to focus on healers, shouldn’t I expand to more than just Priests?

This is one of those things that makes Priests a somewhat tricky class about whom to write. Of the four healing classes, you have two full blown hybrids that can cover every role (Druids and Paladins), one class that has 2 DPS trees and 1 healing tree (Shaman) and then you’ve got Priests, with 2 Healing specs, and 1 dps spec. I don’t read a large number of Shaman blogs, but of the ones I have seen, there seems to be some struggle with this as well. For priests, most of the time you find people either writing solely about the Healing Priest (Holy & Disc), or the Damage Priest (Shadow), and ne’er the twain shall meet.

Before dual spec, it seemed that we Priests had something of a standoff. Many who were healers were adamantly opposed to Shadow, and many more Shadow Priests were sick of being asked to heal. The lines have blurred a bit with the release of Dual Speccing. Many of us who were once solely healers picked up a Shadow spec for the purposes of grinding dailies, or other every day tasks.

Dual Spec has allowed me to play around with shadow in ways I never had before. I have a lot of questions, and a lot of topics I could write about shadow priesting, especially as I have recently begun raiding as shadow (the irony is that these are alt runs – everyone else brings an alt, and here I am, just running a different spec on the same toon). But is this really the place for it? Can Miss Medicina bear the weight of so little focus?

Ideally what I would prefer is a place to regularly write about Priests specifically (all different manifestations), and another place for Healing Philosophy in general. Until such an opportunity presents itself and is settled, however, Miss Medicina remains as it has been – a healer’s blog, with a special interest in Priests of the non-shadow variety. If, however, I were to have a weekly post specific to Shadow Priests, would it merely annoy my readership?

What a heavy Friday topic. I am having an identity crisis, it appears. Which role am I first? The Healer or the Priest?

I am obsessive about checking my number of readers on google reader. It's the best indicator I have (that I can figure out) that lets me know how many people read my shiznat on a regular basis.

So imagine my despair when I checked my count tonight. On Friday the count was 122... AND NOW IT IS 121.

WOE IS ME

Someone left me!!! Did I use too many exclamation points? Did I post TOO often? Did my newbishness regarding hunter pet training turn you off? Was it because I abandoned Holy and went Disc?

I think my heart just broke a little. I feel like I just got pseudo dumped.

I wonder if this means I *might* be a little too sensitive?

How to look busy at work while other people walk by when what you are really doing is secretly reading WoW blogs:

• Copy and paste the blog into a notepad document, make it small, and read it next to the Powerpoint Presentation you are supposed to be creating. (psst if you were wondering, this is usually how I write my blog posts)
  

• Send the blogs to yourself in an email that includes a very large picture of your company's logo.
  

• Copy and paste the text of the blog in question into that word document you are supposed to be editing, and fiddle around with the font of it while you read it.
  

• Whilst reading from the little notepad C&P of your favorite blog, highlight and unhighlight random pieces of text from whatever document you're supposed to be working on, so that it looks like you are moving around and adjusting text.

• Randomly resize images in a powerpoint file.

As proof that I actually do all of the above things, I provide for you a screenshot.

Thanks to my favorite butt of a bear, a fantastic event happened this weekend - Raid for the Cure, in honor of a WoW player named Julie who recently discovered the has Breast Cancer. All the details can be found at BBB, but I wanted to share some of my own screenshots of pinkness for you folks!

I was running late (literally - it's a long haul from Ironforge to Darnassus!) so I met up with the group in Auberdine... and this is what came off of the boat to greet me!


We made our way slowly, but surely, with guards from Sidhe Devils to protect us, through Darkshore.



After safely transversing Darkshore, we paraded through the Barrens to meet up with our Horde companions in Crossroads.

(PS nothing hotter than an Orc in pink!)



Combined Alliance and Horde forces continued on to Ratchet to jump on a boat.



One quick overseas voyage, and we arrived at our final destination: Booty Bay!


And there, we assembled on the bank roof and danced, yelled, shrieked, lawled, and generally emoted our attempts to raise awareness about cancer. As if all the pink shirts weren't enough.


And then Fulguralis, Fuubaar, and myself decided to have a peaceful game of hearts... before I got disconnected ;)


Thanks for everyone who joined in, and thanks to BBB and Sidhe Devils for organizing such a great event.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During the run, lots of people were telling, in various channels, the stories of those they know who have suffered from all forms of cancer - not just Breast Cancer. Here, I'll share mine.

A few years ago my father informed me he had been diagnosed with Lymphoma, and that it was most likely due to his time in Vietnam and Agent Orange. He is, thankfully, in remission. I know Veteran's Day has now passed for us Americans, but please think of the Vietnam Vets that you know, and call them and remind them to go to their doctors and be on the alert for signs of Lymphoma. I thank God every day that my dad chose to fight the disease, and is still around to show that he won. Not everyone is so lucky.

If you are a smoker, consider switching to vaping in an effort to quit. My fiance and some of the guys from Save or Die Radio have started recording a podcast all about vaping - all of my friends and I have switched from smoking to vaping, and I strongly encourage you to do so as well. If the health benefits don't convince you, then maybe the cost benefits will. No one here will judge you for being a smoker - but seriously, vaping is so much better for you, and a helluva lot more fun!

Cancer is one of those diseases I can't abolish, and dying from it is one death I can't rez. So stay out of the damn Cancer-fire!

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?

• 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

And so on and so forth. As you can see, I've been keeping myself pretty busy trying to keep track of all the responses! Only about half of the survey responses are directly linked on my Circle of Healers page, because a lot of the responses had no way I could link to them. In addition, there were likely quite a few responses made from people in the days immediately following the WoW Insider link that did not leave comments for me - Sadly, I'm afraid I may not be able to find those responses unless those folks generate traffic back to my site, because the WoW.com traffic flooded my logs!

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."
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. "

I mean, c'mon. Beat that. THIS IS NO TIME FOR BLOODY SINGING

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:

• 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.

That was the biggest criticism the commenter made that I felt warranted a response, but in answer to the other comments he/she made, yes, I realize Divine Hymn is a very powerful spell, and that I should use it more. Obviously, that's why I listed not using it as my worst healing habit (eyeroll). I love having druids and their innervates and b-rezes and HoTs around not because I expect a druid to give me an innervate or B-rez - but because when it is needed by someone in the party, I appreciate knowing that those options are there, since aside from Hymn of Hope, I don't have a way to return mana to my fellow raiders - and IMO, Hymn of Hope is somewhat weak unless coordinated very well with others. The final criticism was in regards to my insistence that Holy Priests CAN do main tank healing, despite it not being optimal. I've already discussed that topic ad nauseam, however, so I feel no need to delve further into the topic.

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.

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):

• 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
  

Resto Shammies:

• 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
  

Fire Mage: Wait, what? Oh you silly gnomes. First you think you can tank, and then you think you can heal! There's a resto shammy in there somewhere too, but that gnome is stealing all the limelight.

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!