Not just one Overton window
2 hours ago
Alright, time for the big reveal.
Your responses, while hilarious, were nowhere near the truth - with the exception of commenter Tannim Murphy. There's a very simple way to make the rainbow circles make sense. Here's the key.
If you noticed, the circles are drawn on a grid. Were you to count the number of squares that measure the diameter of each rainbow circle, you'd find the range of each AoE healing spell (I assumed maximum glyphs and talents).
The original intention was to measure the surface area of each heal. Unfortunately, the dynamics and characteristics that make each heal different and unique make it really hard to compare them to one another fairly, let alone measure surface area.
Chain Heal, for instance. Chain heal doesn't look anything at all like a rainbow circle. It looks, ironically enough, like a CHAIN. Imagine that.
Methodologically speaking, you can't directly compare Chain Heal to the other AoE healing spells, because it doesn't function the same way. It's linear instead of radial.
Divine Hymn is channeled. It works on ticks, and therefore it's unlike many of the other spells - You don't have spellcast -> spell effect.
In order to really compare all these spells, you'd also need to think about the differences in cooldowns, mana cost, and the amount of time it takes to cast each spell. The spells are also different in that some affect only one's party instead of the whole raid. Some are smart heals. Some, I have no idea how the UI decides who gets the heal (i.e. Holy Light glyph splash).
And thus, I gave up on the rainbow circle AoE heals post, because after spending hours creating my rainbow circles graph (not to mention days spent searching to find the perfect software program with which to create it), I went and confuzzled myself with all the ways that my methodology would not function properly. And then I abandoned it.
Your responses, while hilarious, were nowhere near the truth - with the exception of commenter Tannim Murphy. There's a very simple way to make the rainbow circles make sense. Here's the key.
If you noticed, the circles are drawn on a grid. Were you to count the number of squares that measure the diameter of each rainbow circle, you'd find the range of each AoE healing spell (I assumed maximum glyphs and talents).The original intention was to measure the surface area of each heal. Unfortunately, the dynamics and characteristics that make each heal different and unique make it really hard to compare them to one another fairly, let alone measure surface area.
Chain Heal, for instance. Chain heal doesn't look anything at all like a rainbow circle. It looks, ironically enough, like a CHAIN. Imagine that.
Methodologically speaking, you can't directly compare Chain Heal to the other AoE healing spells, because it doesn't function the same way. It's linear instead of radial.
Divine Hymn is channeled. It works on ticks, and therefore it's unlike many of the other spells - You don't have spellcast -> spell effect.In order to really compare all these spells, you'd also need to think about the differences in cooldowns, mana cost, and the amount of time it takes to cast each spell. The spells are also different in that some affect only one's party instead of the whole raid. Some are smart heals. Some, I have no idea how the UI decides who gets the heal (i.e. Holy Light glyph splash).
And thus, I gave up on the rainbow circle AoE heals post, because after spending hours creating my rainbow circles graph (not to mention days spent searching to find the perfect software program with which to create it), I went and confuzzled myself with all the ways that my methodology would not function properly. And then I abandoned it.
Instead of actually finishing up the bajillion half written posts I have that I lost interest in, I thought it would be fun if I just presented small portions of them to you, and have you tell me in the comments wtf you think the point of it was supposed to be.
Case in point. Observer the rainbow bubbles below, and you tell me, dear readers, what post you think I was writing to go with this fabulous diagram I spent hours upon hours getting drawn properly.
Case in point. Observer the rainbow bubbles below, and you tell me, dear readers, what post you think I was writing to go with this fabulous diagram I spent hours upon hours getting drawn properly.
First off, a couple of things.
Next week my mother is coming to stay with me for a few days, and I also start my new job (yeah, I know I said that last week... I have a bad habit of going into a new job a week early on accident >.<) so next week will likely be light on posts unless I get some substantial time over the weekend to schedule the 20 different drafts I have half-written.
Also, uhm, has anyone else noticed that my blog is now titled "Full Healing Blogroll" on google reader? I'm sorta weirded out by this, and have no idea how to change it. I'm assuming it started about the time I made my full healing blogroll post - any thoughts on how to fix it so that it shows Miss Medicina again?
As if you didn't know... more cataclysm class preview changes this week! Therefore, Druids and Pallies get the most attention for this week, just as Priests and Shammies got more last week.
Druid
Priest
Paladin
Shaman
Crossovers - I'm a big proponent of the idea of perspective. A good healer in a raid has a basic understanding of their entire healing team, and the synergy between themselves and the other healing classes. That was the entire purpose of the healing questionnaire, and it's also the reason I make these Friday healing world posts. So, I especially enjoy posts where folks who play one healing class predominantly try out another class. They sure are a fun read!
This post took me 4 hours to write, in one sitting. ahmahgah
Next week my mother is coming to stay with me for a few days, and I also start my new job (yeah, I know I said that last week... I have a bad habit of going into a new job a week early on accident >.<) so next week will likely be light on posts unless I get some substantial time over the weekend to schedule the 20 different drafts I have half-written.
Also, uhm, has anyone else noticed that my blog is now titled "Full Healing Blogroll" on google reader? I'm sorta weirded out by this, and have no idea how to change it. I'm assuming it started about the time I made my full healing blogroll post - any thoughts on how to fix it so that it shows Miss Medicina again?
As if you didn't know... more cataclysm class preview changes this week! Therefore, Druids and Pallies get the most attention for this week, just as Priests and Shammies got more last week.
Druid
- Bell offers more thoughts on regemming for that elusive Haste cap - should you?
- Keeva's protest image is making the rounds! (Image above)
- Bell at 4 Haelz
- Lathere at HoTs & DoTs
- Lissanna at Restokin
- Kae at Dreambound
- Fealen at Cow and Bones
- Averna at Nerf this Druid
- Angelya at Revive & Rejuvenate: Part 1 and Part 2
- Jaslya at Cannot be Tamed
- Restoration Druid
Priest
- Wik at Holyform wants us priests to just take a breather, and stop hatin' on Leap of Faith - and I agree with him. I don't think I really made it very clear in my post where I discussed LoF, but I'm actually pretty excited about the spell. If anyone tries to say something like "omg healer! why didnt you yank me out of the fire?!!?!" I probably won't notice, because I won't be paying attention to dumb. I'm excited to see all the different cool ways LoF can be used!
Paladin
- Great stat tips from Zabery for healing Valithria Dreamwalker. I especially Zabery's list of other classes that have abilities that can help you do your job even better.
- Tarinae at A Healadin's Tear: Part 1 and Part 2
- Coriel at Blessing of Kings
- Khraden at Illumination: Part 1 and Part 2
- Kurn at Kurn's Corner
- Codi at MoarHPS
- Rudy at The Holy Light
Shaman
- Apparently, Mages will be getting their own version of Bloodlust/Heroism, and so there are quite a few shammies who are not particularly pleased about this.
Crossovers - I'm a big proponent of the idea of perspective. A good healer in a raid has a basic understanding of their entire healing team, and the synergy between themselves and the other healing classes. That was the entire purpose of the healing questionnaire, and it's also the reason I make these Friday healing world posts. So, I especially enjoy posts where folks who play one healing class predominantly try out another class. They sure are a fun read!
- Healing as a Pally, from the perspective of a druid. Very different healing styles, but Bell is here to help you out.
- Healing as a Disc Priest, from the perspective of a shaman. And hey, I'm trying to level a shaman, so I especially loved this post!
This post took me 4 hours to write, in one sitting. ahmahgah
Aaaaand.... the talented stuff.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Most of this is actually old news, since Blizz used Priests as an example earlier when trying to explain how mastery would work.
For Discipline:
For Holy:
Blizz is really pushing the HoT mechanic for Holy Priests. I've noticed this more and more throughout Wrath. Druids are no longer the sole provider for good strong HoTs, but they are still the best. To be honest, as someone who enjoys running around with lots of Druids, I'm not very keen on it. There's such a thing as too many HoTs, as far as I'm concerned.
For Shadow:
- We want to improve Discipline's single-target healing capacity. One key is to make sure shielding isn't always a more attractive option than healing.
- We want to improve Holy for PvP healing. One way to do this is to make sure that Heal's throughput is similar between both specs.
- We want to improve Shadow for short fights and reduce its susceptibility to school lockouts.
- Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
- We want to make Holy a little bit more interesting to play. One new talent will push the Holy priest into an improved healing state when he or she casts Prayer of Healing, Heal, or Renew three times in a row. The empowered state varies depending on the heals cast.
- Since the Shadow tree has a lot of passive damage-boosting abilities -- something we're trying to avoid in Cataclysm -- we will need to replace several of the tree's talents. One idea is to play off of the new Shadow Orbs mechanic (see Mastery section below), possibly allowing you to consume an orb to increase damage from Mind Blast or reduce Mind Spike's cast time.
- Misery will no longer affect spell Hit chance. We want players to be able to gear themselves around a Hit cap that isn't variable depending on group composition.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Most of this is actually old news, since Blizz used Priests as an example earlier when trying to explain how mastery would work.
For Discipline:
- Healing (this will increase your healing power)
- Meditation (this will increase your mana regen)
- Absorption: Improves the strength of shields such as Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis, and Power Word: Barrier.
For Holy:
- Healing (this will increase your healing power)
- Meditation (this will increase your mana regen)
- Radiance: Your direct heals add a small heal-over-time component to the target.
Blizz is really pushing the HoT mechanic for Holy Priests. I've noticed this more and more throughout Wrath. Druids are no longer the sole provider for good strong HoTs, but they are still the best. To be honest, as someone who enjoys running around with lots of Druids, I'm not very keen on it. There's such a thing as too many HoTs, as far as I'm concerned.
For Shadow:
- Spell Damage (This will increase your spell damage... duh)
- Spell Crit (This will increase your spell crit... duh - but... why crit instead of haste? hmm)
- Shadow Orbs: Casting spells grants a chance for Shadow Orbs to be created that fly around you and increase your shadow damage. This will help lower-level characters feel more like "Shadow priests" before they obtain Shadowform.
Yeah, I still hate the ICC buff. Sorry. That's not ever going to change. In practice, it's become something of a joke amongst my raiding group, how stubborn I am about it.
DPS1: "Man, if only there were a way to drastically increase my dps in one night."
DPS2: "Yeah, woudn't that be awesome?"
Me: "There is. It's called fail less."
I stubbornly held on to my principles. Much of my guild remembers me leveling through BC and Wrath, and they know how I am. No, I don't want you to run me through that dungeon since you are five levels higher than me. Get away from me, you're tainting my sacred leveling path of teh solo. No I don't want you to run me through anything. No, I don't want you to partner up with me to make this quicker and easier. Yes I know that you're all sitting at level caps, waiting impatiently for me to get there so you have a healer, but DON'T RUSH ME.
However, I am one person amongst a group of ten, though Raid Leader I may be. I do try to take everyone's concerns under consideration, and mold things accordingly. The one thing I wouldn't budge on was the damn buff, but it was definitely starting to be a problem. I could tell people were getting frustrated with me and my stubborness, and the way I'd run straight into ICC and tell King Wrynn to piss off, because his presence annoys me.
I mean seriously, Wrynn's presence is supposed to make me 10% stronger? Is that like, aura of annoyance? Does it make me 10% more powerful because I just want him to GTFO and hurry up and finish this crap because I don't want to be around him anymore? I could kinda see that.
What about "Gordin's Presence"? Gordin is our warrior off-tank, who brings a huge air of serendipity to our raids. If it weren't for Gordin, we would probably be yelling at one another, glaring at bosses, completely tunnel visioned, and forget that we're there for fun. Someone sets themselves to follow Gordin when we are running back from a wipe, and he jumps off a cliff just to make them follow him to their deaths. Gordin yells "GERONIMOOOOO" while running into the second room of the pre-Marrowgar trash to trigger the traps so we can get our skellies dead. Gordin inserts "that's what she said" comments in raid warnings.
If there were an Aura of Gordin, bunnies would randomly spawn and start humping. At specific intervals, giant Smurfs would appear and pwn the healers. Occasionally you'd hear the Lich King in the background making knock-knock jokes. You know that glitch that everyone gets on occasion? The one where it appears that everyone is naked? Well, Gordin is the reason that glitch exists. One day he called up Eyonix on the phoney-mcphone, and he was all like "Yo, Whelpling. If you don't add some random pg-13 nudity into this game, I'm going to drive my bus over to your house... and you know that won't end well."
And thus, on occasion, you get to see some nice Male Dwarf boxer-briefs. Because Gordin wouldn't have it any other way.
Sadly, there is no Aura of Gordin. Instead, we get shafted with Strength of Wrynn. I'd feel more inspired by Thrall, though I'm pretty sure our hunter MuffinCups would be fairly distracted by flirtation.
My fiance and co-raid leader had been bugging me about the buff for a few weeks. "How about we just use the buff for the first wing? We have it on farm, so it's not like we need it, but it would make it faster so that we could spend more time on the progression bosses. We'd turn it off right after we cleared the first wing." "NO."
"NO."
"NO."
"NO."
But after a tearful conversation with a few of the DPS who really wanted to utilize the buff in order to see more content, I finally got off my stubborn stool and compromised. When you're only raiding 2 hours a week, it's true that time is of the essence. So, as of our Monday night run, we will be keeping Wrynn around for the first wing, and then telling him to GTFO as soon as we finish off Saurfang. Seems that it works. We're so eager to get rid of King Douchebag that we do power through the first wing much faster, and preserve our standards for the bosses we aren't quite farming yet. As far as I'm concerned, as of last night, the numbers on the first wing mean nothing. I don't care what the HPS or DPS is, because without the proper genuine context, it's useless.
Still no Aura of Gordin though. I'm submitting a ticket.
DPS1: "Man, if only there were a way to drastically increase my dps in one night."
DPS2: "Yeah, woudn't that be awesome?"
Me: "There is. It's called fail less."
I stubbornly held on to my principles. Much of my guild remembers me leveling through BC and Wrath, and they know how I am. No, I don't want you to run me through that dungeon since you are five levels higher than me. Get away from me, you're tainting my sacred leveling path of teh solo. No I don't want you to run me through anything. No, I don't want you to partner up with me to make this quicker and easier. Yes I know that you're all sitting at level caps, waiting impatiently for me to get there so you have a healer, but DON'T RUSH ME.
However, I am one person amongst a group of ten, though Raid Leader I may be. I do try to take everyone's concerns under consideration, and mold things accordingly. The one thing I wouldn't budge on was the damn buff, but it was definitely starting to be a problem. I could tell people were getting frustrated with me and my stubborness, and the way I'd run straight into ICC and tell King Wrynn to piss off, because his presence annoys me.
I mean seriously, Wrynn's presence is supposed to make me 10% stronger? Is that like, aura of annoyance? Does it make me 10% more powerful because I just want him to GTFO and hurry up and finish this crap because I don't want to be around him anymore? I could kinda see that.
What about "Gordin's Presence"? Gordin is our warrior off-tank, who brings a huge air of serendipity to our raids. If it weren't for Gordin, we would probably be yelling at one another, glaring at bosses, completely tunnel visioned, and forget that we're there for fun. Someone sets themselves to follow Gordin when we are running back from a wipe, and he jumps off a cliff just to make them follow him to their deaths. Gordin yells "GERONIMOOOOO" while running into the second room of the pre-Marrowgar trash to trigger the traps so we can get our skellies dead. Gordin inserts "that's what she said" comments in raid warnings.
If there were an Aura of Gordin, bunnies would randomly spawn and start humping. At specific intervals, giant Smurfs would appear and pwn the healers. Occasionally you'd hear the Lich King in the background making knock-knock jokes. You know that glitch that everyone gets on occasion? The one where it appears that everyone is naked? Well, Gordin is the reason that glitch exists. One day he called up Eyonix on the phoney-mcphone, and he was all like "Yo, Whelpling. If you don't add some random pg-13 nudity into this game, I'm going to drive my bus over to your house... and you know that won't end well."
And thus, on occasion, you get to see some nice Male Dwarf boxer-briefs. Because Gordin wouldn't have it any other way.
Sadly, there is no Aura of Gordin. Instead, we get shafted with Strength of Wrynn. I'd feel more inspired by Thrall, though I'm pretty sure our hunter MuffinCups would be fairly distracted by flirtation.
My fiance and co-raid leader had been bugging me about the buff for a few weeks. "How about we just use the buff for the first wing? We have it on farm, so it's not like we need it, but it would make it faster so that we could spend more time on the progression bosses. We'd turn it off right after we cleared the first wing." "NO."
"NO."
"NO."
"NO."
But after a tearful conversation with a few of the DPS who really wanted to utilize the buff in order to see more content, I finally got off my stubborn stool and compromised. When you're only raiding 2 hours a week, it's true that time is of the essence. So, as of our Monday night run, we will be keeping Wrynn around for the first wing, and then telling him to GTFO as soon as we finish off Saurfang. Seems that it works. We're so eager to get rid of King Douchebag that we do power through the first wing much faster, and preserve our standards for the bosses we aren't quite farming yet. As far as I'm concerned, as of last night, the numbers on the first wing mean nothing. I don't care what the HPS or DPS is, because without the proper genuine context, it's useless.
Still no Aura of Gordin though. I'm submitting a ticket.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Now let's talk about those changed mechanics...
"All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately." This has been a long time coming, and Blizz has done a LOT of testing to see how they can make this work in a balanced way. I can understand why; giving over time abilities the benefits from haste and crit is a huge change, and it's a dynamic one. One of the big changes with this change is this portion: they "will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks". It's better to have this be something that is implemented with brand new content than try to add it in a patch with current gear levels, because it completely changes the value of haste and crit for those that use over-time components. If the duration of the effect is shortened by haste, it can drastically change rotations based on gear levels.
Oh man. The theorycrafters are going to have a FIELD DAY with this change. How much haste will i need for each individual extra tick of heal or damage? GO.
"We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health. " Okay. Uhm, thanks for the info? That was... helpful.
Making Priests viable tank healers. Well, I would argue, quite stubbornly mind you, that Discipline priests are perfectly viable tank healers, thankyouverymuch. Having said that, I know what they mean. I put a bubble on the tank, and it's gone in one hit, and I can't put another shield on them for 15 seconds or so. Most of my mitigation actually comes from Divine Aegis. I would love a more expensive, bigger shield for tank healing. Greater Heal *should* be the tank healing weapon of choice. That's how I've tried to treat it - much to my own detriment. Just because something *should* work a certain way, doesn't mean that it does. Thing is, all I really need is a big shield on the tank that could reduce incoming damage while I'm casting my big heal.
No More Divine Spirit. This makes me sad, but with the changes coming to how spirit works, it was inevitable. One of the things I really liked about this spell is that it added an extra component to the beautiful synergy between priests and druids. Now I weep. Druids won't want me around anymore. YOU ONLY LIKED ME FOR MY SPIRIT.
No more five second rule. As far as I'm concerned, 5sr has been essentially obsolete at end game since patch 3.1. This isn't really news either. I never really liked the 5sr so I'm not mourning the death of it. It was kinda cool back when Holy Concentration gave you free procs, and you could dance around a bit with Inner Focus in and out of the 5sr.
So... what about Spirit Tap? I'm anxious to see how this will change (if at all). I know that end-game healing priests don't use this amazing talent, but it's integral for leveling.
"All HoTs and DoTs will benefit from Haste and Crit innately." This has been a long time coming, and Blizz has done a LOT of testing to see how they can make this work in a balanced way. I can understand why; giving over time abilities the benefits from haste and crit is a huge change, and it's a dynamic one. One of the big changes with this change is this portion: they "will not have a shorter duration, just a shorter period in between ticks". It's better to have this be something that is implemented with brand new content than try to add it in a patch with current gear levels, because it completely changes the value of haste and crit for those that use over-time components. If the duration of the effect is shortened by haste, it can drastically change rotations based on gear levels.
Oh man. The theorycrafters are going to have a FIELD DAY with this change. How much haste will i need for each individual extra tick of heal or damage? GO.
"We want to bring back Shadow Word: Death as an "execute" -- something you do when the target is at 25% health. " Okay. Uhm, thanks for the info? That was... helpful.
Making Priests viable tank healers. Well, I would argue, quite stubbornly mind you, that Discipline priests are perfectly viable tank healers, thankyouverymuch. Having said that, I know what they mean. I put a bubble on the tank, and it's gone in one hit, and I can't put another shield on them for 15 seconds or so. Most of my mitigation actually comes from Divine Aegis. I would love a more expensive, bigger shield for tank healing. Greater Heal *should* be the tank healing weapon of choice. That's how I've tried to treat it - much to my own detriment. Just because something *should* work a certain way, doesn't mean that it does. Thing is, all I really need is a big shield on the tank that could reduce incoming damage while I'm casting my big heal.
No More Divine Spirit. This makes me sad, but with the changes coming to how spirit works, it was inevitable. One of the things I really liked about this spell is that it added an extra component to the beautiful synergy between priests and druids. Now I weep. Druids won't want me around anymore. YOU ONLY LIKED ME FOR MY SPIRIT.
No more five second rule. As far as I'm concerned, 5sr has been essentially obsolete at end game since patch 3.1. This isn't really news either. I never really liked the 5sr so I'm not mourning the death of it. It was kinda cool back when Holy Concentration gave you free procs, and you could dance around a bit with Inner Focus in and out of the 5sr.
So... what about Spirit Tap? I'm anxious to see how this will change (if at all). I know that end-game healing priests don't use this amazing talent, but it's integral for leveling.
Oh yeah. I'm weighing in on the Cataclysm Class Preview Changes as well. Because I have to, duh!
If you are what I would call a "purist", and do not want to be spoiled by any upcoming changes, look no further! I respect your choice, but I'm not always good at giving warnings, so don't hold it against me >.<
There's a lot of information coming, and so I'm going to split this up into multiple posts. I mean, let's face it - news is dry right now. We have to stretch out everything we can!
Heal. (The simplest, most basic name for the most basic and fundamental spell that any healer can have. Look at that, a spell named for exactly what it does. Can you imagine if you had two spells: Heal and Hurt? Anyway.)
You know what annoys me beyond all rational explanation? Waste. Wasted spells. Spells you learn at low levels that are replaced but never removed. Lesser Heal anyone? Heal? Especially when you have talents that affect those spells. I mean, why not just call them "Flash Heal" and "Greater Heal" at lower levels? The mechanics are the same.
So why do these two spells exist right now anyway? Pre-wrath, lots of healers used downranked spells to give their heals significant granularity. This was essentially removed from the game when Blizz increased the mana cost of lower ranked spells. Lesser Heal and Heal were occasionally used for added granularity back in the day - but since the mana cost changes, they were especially useless. Since mana is effectively a non-issue at high gear levels, and since we have significant gear inflation and saturation, most people just spam their quickest, most powerful spells, with little regard for mana cost.
The idea is to bring back that granularity to healing. Priests are arguably the most granular healers as it stands - we have a massive arsenal of healing spells. That's what makes playing a priest especially fun and interesting for me. Lots of decision making when it comes to spells. So, I'm very excited about having that extra level of granularity that was taken away from us with the changes to mana costs for downranked spells. I started raiding right before that change, for the record - I never used downranked spells. I hated it, and managed to heal well without using downranked spells, but I was also not participating in any real progression raiding.
If Blizz can pull this off effectively and bring back the granularity and decision making that has gone out the window in recent patches (and as a fangirl, I have faith that they can), then I think they are heading in the right direction.
Mind Spike. (im in ur hed hertin ur neuronz! STABSTABPOKE)
I actually have a hard time judging this spell without understanding exactly what the debuff it causes does. First and foremost though, "spell school lockout" has been a significant problem for shadow priests. I haven't forgotten you viscious Brittle Revenants - back when you guys were actually cool, dammit. Reducing the mana cost of Shadowform is great and all but... yeah. A frost spell is a great idea.
Now, back to that debuff. I think that in order for this to work effectively (meaning that this is a spammable spell used in situations where time needed for the buildup for your regular rotation is not available), that debuff needs to be short. Short enough that in order to get any real use out of it, you really will have to spam Mind Spike. And in that case, that's not really that fun anyway, is it?
But then again, in a battleground the other day I was confused about how I got even 1 killing blow... apparently I mistargeted and accidentally Penanced someone to death. As you can see, damage is not really my forte...
Inner Will (vs. Inner Fire)
This has been a long time coming. There won't be charges on the new version of Inner Fire. Why did we have a spell that was an armor boost with charges anyway? Because if it didn't have charges, it would require no decision making whatsoever. It would have just been a flat spellpower/armor boost (also, keep in mind that the spellpower buff was a Wrath addition, and Inner Fire doesn't give spellpower until your level 70s). Taking those charges out and implementing an alternative turns it into a self buff with a decision tagged on to it - much like Mages and Warlocks already have.
I love this idea. Need more throughput? Inner Fire. Need more mana? Inner Will. Lots of adds with physical damage? Inner Fire. Lots of movement? Inner Will. Making the gear switch between a damage spec and a healing spec? Use your buff to help you make the transition (for instance, my damage set may have more spellpower than mana regen - I would turn on my Inner Will to help fill the mana regen gaps until I pick up a few new pieces).
Leap of Faith. (HEROES! TO ME! /Jaina)
The description of this includes the following: "Intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time."
Now wait just one second... Players already have this amazing ability to get out of spot focused damage. It's called legs.
Yanking someone closer to you because they have aggro? Not a great idea. In most cases this will not make them lose aggro - it will just bring the mob closer to you, potentially pulling aggro on to yourself.
Yeah, I can see the PvP argument.
But I find this spell fascinating. So now I'm just randomly brainstorming on non-PvP specific uses for it.
A 30 yard range isn't enough to justify pulling the target in to put them in healing range, since 30 yard is generally within healing range. I can also see this as another indirect form of crowd control. Send one of the melee over to a spellcasting add, have them get aggro, and then yank that member over to you and the group. Seems kinda like a weird way to handle it though, especially if you could just silence the mob or something.
Maybe it's intended to just be situationally useful. Assuming you can use this on people who are rooted in some form, then yes, I likes it a lot. I'm thinking of our recent ventures on Putricide, with people getting rooted in slime puddles. They can't move out of the crap on the ground - for once people have an excuse! Instead of spam healing them, I can pull them to me. Now I'm going to start looking for scenarios in which I can use this spell!
If you are what I would call a "purist", and do not want to be spoiled by any upcoming changes, look no further! I respect your choice, but I'm not always good at giving warnings, so don't hold it against me >.<
There's a lot of information coming, and so I'm going to split this up into multiple posts. I mean, let's face it - news is dry right now. We have to stretch out everything we can!
Heal. (The simplest, most basic name for the most basic and fundamental spell that any healer can have. Look at that, a spell named for exactly what it does. Can you imagine if you had two spells: Heal and Hurt? Anyway.)
You know what annoys me beyond all rational explanation? Waste. Wasted spells. Spells you learn at low levels that are replaced but never removed. Lesser Heal anyone? Heal? Especially when you have talents that affect those spells. I mean, why not just call them "Flash Heal" and "Greater Heal" at lower levels? The mechanics are the same.
So why do these two spells exist right now anyway? Pre-wrath, lots of healers used downranked spells to give their heals significant granularity. This was essentially removed from the game when Blizz increased the mana cost of lower ranked spells. Lesser Heal and Heal were occasionally used for added granularity back in the day - but since the mana cost changes, they were especially useless. Since mana is effectively a non-issue at high gear levels, and since we have significant gear inflation and saturation, most people just spam their quickest, most powerful spells, with little regard for mana cost.
The idea is to bring back that granularity to healing. Priests are arguably the most granular healers as it stands - we have a massive arsenal of healing spells. That's what makes playing a priest especially fun and interesting for me. Lots of decision making when it comes to spells. So, I'm very excited about having that extra level of granularity that was taken away from us with the changes to mana costs for downranked spells. I started raiding right before that change, for the record - I never used downranked spells. I hated it, and managed to heal well without using downranked spells, but I was also not participating in any real progression raiding.
If Blizz can pull this off effectively and bring back the granularity and decision making that has gone out the window in recent patches (and as a fangirl, I have faith that they can), then I think they are heading in the right direction.
Mind Spike. (im in ur hed hertin ur neuronz! STABSTABPOKE)
I actually have a hard time judging this spell without understanding exactly what the debuff it causes does. First and foremost though, "spell school lockout" has been a significant problem for shadow priests. I haven't forgotten you viscious Brittle Revenants - back when you guys were actually cool, dammit. Reducing the mana cost of Shadowform is great and all but... yeah. A frost spell is a great idea.
Now, back to that debuff. I think that in order for this to work effectively (meaning that this is a spammable spell used in situations where time needed for the buildup for your regular rotation is not available), that debuff needs to be short. Short enough that in order to get any real use out of it, you really will have to spam Mind Spike. And in that case, that's not really that fun anyway, is it?
But then again, in a battleground the other day I was confused about how I got even 1 killing blow... apparently I mistargeted and accidentally Penanced someone to death. As you can see, damage is not really my forte...
Inner Will (vs. Inner Fire)
This has been a long time coming. There won't be charges on the new version of Inner Fire. Why did we have a spell that was an armor boost with charges anyway? Because if it didn't have charges, it would require no decision making whatsoever. It would have just been a flat spellpower/armor boost (also, keep in mind that the spellpower buff was a Wrath addition, and Inner Fire doesn't give spellpower until your level 70s). Taking those charges out and implementing an alternative turns it into a self buff with a decision tagged on to it - much like Mages and Warlocks already have.
I love this idea. Need more throughput? Inner Fire. Need more mana? Inner Will. Lots of adds with physical damage? Inner Fire. Lots of movement? Inner Will. Making the gear switch between a damage spec and a healing spec? Use your buff to help you make the transition (for instance, my damage set may have more spellpower than mana regen - I would turn on my Inner Will to help fill the mana regen gaps until I pick up a few new pieces).
Leap of Faith. (HEROES! TO ME! /Jaina)
The description of this includes the following: "Intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time."
Now wait just one second... Players already have this amazing ability to get out of spot focused damage. It's called legs.
Yanking someone closer to you because they have aggro? Not a great idea. In most cases this will not make them lose aggro - it will just bring the mob closer to you, potentially pulling aggro on to yourself.
Yeah, I can see the PvP argument.
But I find this spell fascinating. So now I'm just randomly brainstorming on non-PvP specific uses for it.
A 30 yard range isn't enough to justify pulling the target in to put them in healing range, since 30 yard is generally within healing range. I can also see this as another indirect form of crowd control. Send one of the melee over to a spellcasting add, have them get aggro, and then yank that member over to you and the group. Seems kinda like a weird way to handle it though, especially if you could just silence the mob or something.
Maybe it's intended to just be situationally useful. Assuming you can use this on people who are rooted in some form, then yes, I likes it a lot. I'm thinking of our recent ventures on Putricide, with people getting rooted in slime puddles. They can't move out of the crap on the ground - for once people have an excuse! Instead of spam healing them, I can pull them to me. Now I'm going to start looking for scenarios in which I can use this spell!
Druids
Paladins
Shammies
All
POSTED BEFORE FIVE PM SO IT TOTALLY COUNTS AS A FRIDAY POST (to be fair, I was waiting as long as possible because I had hoped the Druid class preview changes would be out before 5 today - LAWL wtf was i thinking anyway? I'm sure next week we will be overloaded with waving branches)
- Jasyla talks about Barkskin and its underappreciated value, providing specific examples from ICC of where it can be used well.
- Ohhh, I love this post by Bell. Are resto druids bad at tank healing? I've said it before, and I'll say it a million times more - every healing class has the ability to tank heal, so that they can effectively heal 5 mans. Some classes perform better at raid tank healing. Bell talks about this specifically for druids, and how you can be a better tank healer.
- And on the same topic, Beru chimes in with even more explanation about why "sucking at tank healing" is not the same thing as "not the optimal choice for tank healing".
- HEY GUYS. HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT CATACLYSM CLASS PREVIEW FOR PRIESTS? NO? ->
- Healer Trek
- Priest With a Cause
- PW: Bubble
- Shy at WoW
- Avalonna at Tales from a Priest
- The Mediocre Priest
- Amber's Very Thoughtful And Helpful Commentary
- Light and Leafy
Paladins
- Do you dual spec holy/prot? Illumination has some tips for you on creating a UI that will do the trick for both.
- There was a lot of sad faces about the fact that Paladin class changes are coming out so very late. Poor pallies...
Shammies
- Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman. Because I'm sure you hadn't heard yet. Oh and Nethaera posted this one, so it must be the best.
All
- Druid Main starts this post by talking about how dispel mechanics will work in Cataclysm (according to the current information, obviously). All healers will be affected.
- Actually, there were a lot of people who chimed in about those dispel mechanics, particularly the shammies. Check out Borsked and Blueberry Totem.
POSTED BEFORE FIVE PM SO IT TOTALLY COUNTS AS A FRIDAY POST (to be fair, I was waiting as long as possible because I had hoped the Druid class preview changes would be out before 5 today - LAWL wtf was i thinking anyway? I'm sure next week we will be overloaded with waving branches)
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You know what's more fun than breaking my wimpy back painting over white walls with... a slightly different shade of white (yay home improvement!)?
Wiping on Putricide for 2 hours straight!
What a fight. I've heard the nightmare stories, and I've dreaded it for weeks and weeks. But if you look beyond the repair bills, and the stress, and the arguments about positioning and who should stand or run where and yada yada yada... every wipe is followed by a slightly better attempt. It's not a one-shot. It's not a tank n' spank. It's not an ez-mode.
It's progression. Bloody, frustrating, messy... but I'm there, with 9 of my friends who may hate me for two hours (and several days afterward for that matter), banging my head against a boss fight. And each bang leaves a slightly deeper dent. And it's hard. But I know that when Putricide finally falls to the ground, mutilated and defeated, it will be one of my proudest in-game moments.
If it were easy, I wouldn't be proud about it. I don't mind struggling through the tough times, the rough nights, because I know that once I conquer it, I will be proud for persevering through all of it. I don't really care about the gear - it's the feeling of hard-won victory.
That's the attitude you need to have when you raid. You need to be able to see the big picture, and then step in and objectively identify the details that present problems.
Now, I'm going to take that positive raider attitude and try to apply it to my REAL life. Back to the paint can with me, folks. I start my new job next week, and I'm going to try and be more productive this week before I start, so bear with me as my posts may be light as I endure this phase change!
Here's a question for you guys: How do *you* define "progression"?
Wiping on Putricide for 2 hours straight!
What a fight. I've heard the nightmare stories, and I've dreaded it for weeks and weeks. But if you look beyond the repair bills, and the stress, and the arguments about positioning and who should stand or run where and yada yada yada... every wipe is followed by a slightly better attempt. It's not a one-shot. It's not a tank n' spank. It's not an ez-mode.
It's progression. Bloody, frustrating, messy... but I'm there, with 9 of my friends who may hate me for two hours (and several days afterward for that matter), banging my head against a boss fight. And each bang leaves a slightly deeper dent. And it's hard. But I know that when Putricide finally falls to the ground, mutilated and defeated, it will be one of my proudest in-game moments.
If it were easy, I wouldn't be proud about it. I don't mind struggling through the tough times, the rough nights, because I know that once I conquer it, I will be proud for persevering through all of it. I don't really care about the gear - it's the feeling of hard-won victory.
That's the attitude you need to have when you raid. You need to be able to see the big picture, and then step in and objectively identify the details that present problems.
Now, I'm going to take that positive raider attitude and try to apply it to my REAL life. Back to the paint can with me, folks. I start my new job next week, and I'm going to try and be more productive this week before I start, so bear with me as my posts may be light as I endure this phase change!
Here's a question for you guys: How do *you* define "progression"?
You know what's tricky? Spending hours trying to discern "real" thursday posts from "APRIL FOOLS" thursday posts. Yes, I know that I am just as guilty. Shove it.
Lots of heroic mode impressions and Lich King kills this week folks. A hearty congratulations to all of you! Maybe my babyicc10 group will see a Putricide kill before Cataclysm!
One last side note, or rather, plea: If you or someone you know sets the feed settings for your blog so that people can only read a brief description of the post or the first few lines via feedreader... I'm begging you to change it. Please. I know you put the effort into your sites, and I know you want to see people actually visit your site as opposed to reading it through a feedreader, and I understand that... but for those of us who read a bajillion blogs, or for those of us who try to feed our blog addiction from work in a filtered environment, it just means we can't/don't read your posts. I always *intend* to go back to those posts and click through and read them, but I forget as I'm going through the other material that is more readily available to me.
<3 MM
Druids:
Paladins:
Priests:
This Special Section is Reserved For Codi's Genius
BEST APRIL FOOL'S DAY POST
Lots of heroic mode impressions and Lich King kills this week folks. A hearty congratulations to all of you! Maybe my babyicc10 group will see a Putricide kill before Cataclysm!
One last side note, or rather, plea: If you or someone you know sets the feed settings for your blog so that people can only read a brief description of the post or the first few lines via feedreader... I'm begging you to change it. Please. I know you put the effort into your sites, and I know you want to see people actually visit your site as opposed to reading it through a feedreader, and I understand that... but for those of us who read a bajillion blogs, or for those of us who try to feed our blog addiction from work in a filtered environment, it just means we can't/don't read your posts. I always *intend* to go back to those posts and click through and read them, but I forget as I'm going through the other material that is more readily available to me.
<3 MM
Druids:
- Tree Bark Jacket provides a PSA regarding the 4pct10 bonus amongst several resto druids in a raid.
- Speaking of t10 and set bonuses... Jasyla examines the functionality and benefit of that 4pc set bonus... WITH MATHS.
- Angela at Restoration Druid has some nice videos of the heroic versions of Gunship10 and Rotface25 from her perspective.
Paladins:
- Kurn's Holy How-to #4! Gems, Libram, glyphs, and more.
- Zabery explores the use of Shield of Righteousness to get a bit more mana back. As a pally-noob, I spent an hour trying to understand this, and even tried testing it, and was still completely lost, but I thought it was a pretty interesting argument regardless!
- Oooooo I *love* Pally-as-a-raid-healer? posts and Illumination has a great one this week! (Unless of course it's an April Fool's Joke... look, no one really believed that I would ever pull a Paolo... did they? Now I'm wondering if Pallies as raid healers is more or less believable than that...)
Priests:
- Okay, this isn't about a specific post, but the writer of this blog left a comment for me on my blogroll post this week linking me to his blog - and I thought it was such a great concept, that I wanted to tell y'all about Priest and Pilot. Tim writes about all the exciting adventures he has... trying to play WoW with the internet service he has available to him in Iraq - things such as switching from Holy to Disc in order to deal with the high amount of lag (which I thought was a pretty good tip). Also, I really do hope that I can send a bit of traffic his way to wish him well and send him support. <3
- Leafie offers some tips for lower level Disc Priests healing Maraudon.
- I don't know wtf Ava is talking about; Her lolpaintdiagrams are vastly superior to my own. Anyway, it's the moment you've all been waiting for: How to Disco with the Lich King... AVA STYLE
- Zorash at Healing Council gives some tips on how to anticipate damage. I'm listing this under Shaman, but it's actually good info for ALL healers, especially <begin bias> my fellow Disc Priests <end bias>!
- Borsk gives some impressions of a few 10 man heroic ICC encounters - but the best tale of all was about solo-healing heroic Putricide from 81% health to dead. What an awesome feeling it is to pull something like that off - nice one B!
This Special Section is Reserved For Codi's Genius
- Codi provides some great tips for healers who are having mana struggles. I know that at top gear levels most folks don't run into mana issues, but particularly for those gearing up, mana may be more of a problem. Codi has advice for each individual healing class, in addition to a list of great items to help you out.
BEST APRIL FOOL'S DAY POST
- Sometimes I let monkeys write my posts too, V.
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So, the real reason I posted my blogroll of healy blogs yesterday?
I'm done with this healing thing.
Between life-tapping warlocks, tanks forgetting their pants, aggro hungry mages, and other disc priests bubbling my target, I just can't handle it anymore!
The sickest thing about being a healer? When everyone is doing their job properly, YOUR job is mind-numbingly dull. When everyone is screwing up? You're pissed off because they keep screwing up.
I'm sick of wiping up after your messes, non-healers! It's a thankless job. It's a stupid job. Seriously, healers are completely pointless. Basically, your health is your green bar plus a multiplier of my blue bar. Do you ever think about how ridiculous that really is? I mean, couldn't you just, like, not take damage? This is sort of like throwing money at a problem. I'm throwing my mana at the problem - YOU!
SO NO MORE
Shadow I become.
For the record, this is known as "Pulling a Paolo".
I'm done with this healing thing.
Between life-tapping warlocks, tanks forgetting their pants, aggro hungry mages, and other disc priests bubbling my target, I just can't handle it anymore!
The sickest thing about being a healer? When everyone is doing their job properly, YOUR job is mind-numbingly dull. When everyone is screwing up? You're pissed off because they keep screwing up.
I'm sick of wiping up after your messes, non-healers! It's a thankless job. It's a stupid job. Seriously, healers are completely pointless. Basically, your health is your green bar plus a multiplier of my blue bar. Do you ever think about how ridiculous that really is? I mean, couldn't you just, like, not take damage? This is sort of like throwing money at a problem. I'm throwing my mana at the problem - YOU!
SO NO MORE
Shadow I become.
For the record, this is known as "Pulling a Paolo".
