Feel the Love?

Eyonix gave us a bit of a preview of upcoming Priest, Rogue and Shaman changes in Patch 3.1. Although my Rogue was my first toon, she's sitting in Borean Tundra at level 70.6, so the Rogue changes don't really matter to me too much at this point. The proposed Priest and Shaman changes, however, make me cautiously optimistic.

Shaman Changes
Most of the Shaman changes (listed in full below) are for Enhancement or Elemental Shamans. The main change for we healy types is in the continued streamlining of totems. No longer will we have to choose between a Mana Spring or Healing Stream Totem; they will be combined. This is a small but awesome change for us. There are times that the steady stream of heals would be useful, but I just can't bring myself to use Healing Stream when my party (or sometimes, just me) is begging for mana. Less exciting, but still cool is the introduction of a combined Poison and Disease Cleansing Totem. In certain areas of Naxxramus this will rock. We will just have to see if there are more fights in future instances that require simultaneous cleansing of poisons and diseases. Now if they'd only give us a Virus Obliterating Totem so I could cure Sromkie of his cold, I'd be a very happy camper.

Priest Changes
The Priest changes are more exciting and should make our holier than thou friends very happy. Mase's main complaint about the Circle of Healing nerf was that Blizzard didn't give Priests anything in trade. Priests are my favorite healers because of their versatility, but that versatility makes many of them grumpy because they aren't the best at any one thing. The proposed changes give them more toys to play with and some additional AOE healing tricks. Prayer of Healing won't be confined to the Priest's own group anymore, so they will be able to cast it on any group in the raid. (Ladyspam will finally be able to heal someone who isn't in her group!)

The coolest sounding new spell is Power Word: Barrier, a Discipline only spell that will bubble the Priest's group. We'll have to see if this raid wide as well and how exactly it works, but I like the sound of it. It may end up moving Discipline Priests back into the tank or melee group.

It also looks like Blizzard is moving forward with their plans to make healers have to think about a spell rotation--at least in a small sense. Riptide followed by a Chain Heal results in a huge heal on the target, so Resto Shamans should be somewhat familiar with this already. Now our Priestly friends may get a taste with the changes to Serendipity, however, it looks like this talent will only reduce the cast time of Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing without increasing the amount healed, but it still seems like a step towards a spell rotation for Holy Priests.

Overall, I'm happy about the changes, and even more excited to see what else they have in store for us in 3.1. I know the details of the class changes will likely change many times before the patch hits, but it's nice to know what the develpers are thinking about. I just hope that 3.1 comes out soon.



PRIEST

Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.

Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).

Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.

Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.

Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.

Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.

We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

ROGUE

Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.

Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered.

Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste.

Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage.

Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done.

Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.

SHAMAN

Chain Lightning – now jumps to 4 targets but does less damage. We wanted to make the distinction between Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning more clear.

Storm, Earth and Fire – this talent now increases all damage done by Flame Shock, not just periodic damage.

Spirit Weapons – now reduces all threat, not just melee threat.

Unleashed Rage – reduced to 2 ranks, now also increases your critical strike chance with melee attacks by 1/2%.

Totem streamlining: The Mana Spring and Healing Stream Totems have been combined. The Disease Cleansing and Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined.

We are also working on giving Enhancement and Elemental more PvP utility.

Anatomy of a Healer: the Class

Why is it that looking for the images to accompany my insightful blog posts (it's my blog, I can pretend I'm insightful if I want to) almost takes longer than actually writing them? Today I got distracted by a blog by a med student/resident. Evidently she wants to be a pediatrician (but not the cutesy "here's your lollipop" kind) and has fat cats. Now on to the actual post.

If you don't count rogues with bandages--and you really shouldn't--World of Warcraft has four classes that can choose to heal: Druid, Paladin, Priest, and Shaman. Each is very different both in lore and play style, but all can be excellent at healing. So why should you choose one over the other?

I'm not trying to get into the intricacies of each class, or preach about why one is better than the other. What I do want to do is explain why, to me, it doesn't really matter which you choose, as long as you take the time to be good at what you play. I'm going to oversimplify a lot here. And I'm probably going to get yelled at by my healer friends. Please don't take my statements as gospel, but research your chosen class and read the blogs of people who actually play those characters.

Hybrids:
First of all, all healers are hybrids.

There are four "pure" classes in the game: Hunter, Mage, Rogue and Warlock. These classes cause damage. That is all they can do. If a Rogue respecs from Assasination to Sublety or vice versa, she will still do damage. She does not have a tanking tree or a healing tree--she has three dps trees.

Every other class in the game is a hybrid class. Let me say that again. Every other class--except Hunter, Mage, Rogue and Warlock--is a hybrid class.

I'm sorry for harping on this. But Priests are not pure classes no matter how much a certain guy I know thinks they are. And it's important to think of all healers as hybrids in order to get over certain misconceptions many people have.

Druids:
Now that I've beaten the hybrid concept into the ground, we can focus on the class that is arguably the biggest hybrid of them all. Druids who choose to embrace their outer Barkskin are very powerful healers in Wrath of the Lich King. Restoration druids have many heal over time spells to absorb spiky damage as well as several larger heals that make it possible for them to heal bigger chunks as well. The druid play-style isn't for everyone and requires that you be able to manage a lot of different timers as well as predict who will take damage when. I see druids as proactive healers who can spread their healing over many targets. They are less whack-a-mole and more sand box; they enjoy filling the smaller dips with HoT stacks but are able to pour out more healing on demand to plug the larger holes as well.

Paladins:
Holy Paladins are still great at single target healing, but WotLK gave them more tools to use as well. Playing a paladin well requires quick reactions and is most often seen as whack-a-mole at its finest. I'll admit that I know little about raiding as a paladin. But from what I've read on other blogs, WotLK has given them more flexibility. And I know I'm always glad to have them along.

Priests:
I'm biased. I love the priest class. I chose to bench my priest for a few different reasons, but none of them was because I disliked the class.

Priests are my favorite healers because they have so many different tools to choose from. If you need a priest to be a single-target healer, they will do it. If you need a priest to spot heal the raid, they will do it. If you need a priest to help mitigate incoming damage on a player, they will do it. Priests can do everything, and they can do it all well. I'm not saying that a priest will do better than another class at a specific job, just that they can do any job. Being a good holy or discipline priest requires the same level of dedication as the others with the added burden of choosing the right spell at the right time.

Shamans:
I've talked about shaman healing a bit before, so I won't bore you with all the details here. Wrath of the Lich King gave shamans a few new tricks to make them a little more rounded than they had been before. Chain heal is still what we're known for, but it isn't the only spell in our arsenal, and shouldn't be the only one we use. However, in a raid situation, knowing who to use as the anchor for chain heal based on positioning is very important. Shamans need to have better than average situational awareness (something I'm still working on) in order to choose the right spell to the greatest effect. Using a Chain Heal on the mage who is way out of the group may not be the best choice. Likewise it may be better to cast a Chain Heal on a rogue when those around her are about to take damage than to top her up with a Lesser Healing Wave. I may not advocate true heads up healing, but knowing what is going on around you as well as who is standing where is necessary to be a great shaman healer.

Whack-a-Mole, Sand Box, Heads Up, Spacial Awareness. Whatever you want to call it, healing takes skill, patience and a certain amount of trial and error. I stand behind my assertion that all healing classes can be effective healers. No one class is better than the others, but one class may be better for you.

Huh? He gave up?

Tonight I experienced one of those moments that make the game worthwhile. It wasn't clearing Naxx - 10 in 2.5 hours. It wasn't winning epic loot. It was a much simpler moment than that. It was picking a flower in Sholazar Basin...and living through it.

I play on a PvP server. I'm not here to cry about the ganking or anything, but to revel in one moment where I managed to get the better of the other player--because, as my friends would gladly tell you, I suck at PvP.
I was farming flowers in Sholazar tonight and I managed to pick a flower that a level 80 Tauren Druid was eyeing. To express his displeasure, he shifted out of flight form and proceeded to attack me in Moonkin form, even going so far as to release his trio of Treants (herd? gaggle? army?) on me. And all I did was heal. I threw on Earth Shield, hit myself with Riptide, cast a few Lesser Healing Waves (glyphed of course), and at one point popped a Nature's Swiftness/Tidal Force Healing Wave. To be fair, I did hit him with one Flame Shock, but not until he had finished fighting some mobs that had spawned behind him. I was getting close to running out of mana by the time he gave up. But the point is that he gave up. He bowed and clapped for me and allowed me to go on my way.

Maybe the Spirit of Christmas isn't totally dead after all. I hope Greatfather Winter brings him more spellpower this year.

Trust Me?

“He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.” Lao Tzu

Tonight we finished off Heroic Naxxramas, killing Kel'thuzad for the first time as a guild. Afterward, we headed to Heroic Eye of Eternity. It was my first time facing Malygos in a 25 man raid, and although we did not walk away victorious, it was a fun time and should set us up to kill him soon.

We ran with seven healers tonight, which is fairly standard for our guild. There were three Priests, two Holy and one Discipline; two Resto Druids; and two Resto Shamans. We managed phase one pretty well once we had figured out the positioning when returning to the platform after a vortex. Phase two was a little tricky for the tanks to reliably pick up all the Lords so they didn't kill DPS, but we'll get it next time. But our learning curve isn't what this post is about.

This post is about trust. (See the clever way I named it. Tricky I am.) Specifically trust among healers.

As I have stated before, I do not think that any one healing class is better than the others--at least not in all situations. I believe there is a synergy inherent in Blizzard's design of the classes and their respective skills that makes us strongest when we work together. I guess since I have leveled all four classes that have healing buttons (even though I've only raid healed as a Priest, Druid, and Shaman) I've always thought this concept was obvious.

I was wrong.

When WotLK came out we had several people change mains--including me. A few other people switched specs. A couple of these switches brought people who had never really raid healed before (and here I'm talking more than 10 mans with two-three healers) into our healing corps. One of those individuals was in the raid tonight. Before WotLK he had always played DPS classes, and he played those classes very well. In the expansion he chose to level his Holy Priest.

Tonight after one of the attempts on Malygos, he said in vent "I go OOM so fast in this fight." This comment prompted our raid leader, a Resto Druid, to ask what he was doing to run out of mana that fast--he was completely tapped before Phase 2 every attempt. His response was that he was hitting Circle of Healing constantly since the raid was taking so much damage. When we explored this further, we found that he was spamming CoH during the vortex and after a blast. I explained that Chain Heal is not an instant spell, but will help to top up the raid within a few seconds, and that with two Resto Shamans he needed to trust us to heal after a blast. His somewhat joking response was that there is only one healer he trusts...himself.

I blame his DPS background for this mentality. When you play a Warlock, your only job during most fights is to do damage, and to do the most damage you possibly can. You are not part of a "DPS Team." Most of the time you do not have to think about who else is also damaging that mob, you just have to hit the boss as often and as hard as you can with your spells (while also making sure to GTFO of any bad things).

Healing is a whole different ballgame, and I guess it takes longer to acquire the proper mentality. Healing is not about topping the meters. It isn't about healing harder, it's about healing smarter. And to be a smart healer, you have to be aware of a lot of different things: the mechanics of the fight, so you know who will be taking damage and when; the strengths and weaknesses of your raid members (like knowing which squishy mage is likely to forget to GTFO of the AoE and will need extra healing); and how your healing style meshes with the rest of the healers. The last requires trust. You have to trust that your healing corps isn't watching The Family Guy and not paying attention. You have to trust that your healers will manage their mana so that they can last to the end of the fight. You have to trust that they will follow the tank who has gone out of your range and keep him alive. You have to trust each other to know which spells to use to maximize the synergy. Without this trust, you turn into a one-man army that runs out of mana within the first 2 minutes of a 10 minute fight.

This individual was close to the top of the healing meters for the night, but, to me, this means nothing. The raid leader actually told him to stop worrying about the meters and to trust the rest of us. I don't know that it sunk in, but it's good advice for all of us. If topping the healing meters is all you care about, I can't trust you to heal smart. And if you aren't healing smart, why are you in my raid? Like the Chinese guy said, trust me or I can't trust you.