Stupid paladins. Why did I roll a paladin? Why did rolling a paladin mean that I get lame skills and lamer talents? SIGH.
The Paladin Preview is out. Here’s the MMO-Champion direct link.
Let us examine it, bit by bit, shall we? WE SHALL! I haven’t read anyone else’s thoughts on things, this is just my initial impression. Can’t wait to see what others have to say.
New Spells:
Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure’s ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.
What the hell are they doing? Giving me a freaking damage spell, complete with HOLY TALENTS that increase damage and crit chance? Sounds great for prot. Does not sound great for Holy. Unless you’re PVPing. In which case, hey. Nice. Grats to those of you who give a damn about PVP. But what about the PVE holy paladins? “Ooh, I get to have another damaging spell when I want to quest or farm or something!!!!” …really?
So level 81 – nothing of interest for me happens. Good to know. NEXT.
Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
Uh. Please, please correct me if I’m wrong, but does this suck or what? How much does this heal for? Lasts six seconds — does it pulse every second? Every two seconds? Every three seconds? With a 15-second cooldown (like the vanilla/BC Holy Shock) will it be used regularly and frequently or will it be relegated to OH CRAP AOE! moments?
I do like that it’s an AOE thing. I do not like that it’s based on our position. I do not like that it’s likened to healing stream totem. My character is not a totem, thank you very much.
It really seems to me like they’ve taken a common suggestion over the years (make Consecration into something that damages enemies/heals friendly units) and just made it a new ability that doesn’t have the issue of causing damage to enemy units. And added a longer cooldown. But really, isn’t this just some healing version of Consecration? Think about it — we’re at the middle of it. It’s something we pop and we can get back to doing our regularly-scheduled healing. It’s short-range, so people need to be near us. Yep, I think that’s about the same as Consecration. Obviously, we’ll see how this works out ($10 says they patch it out in beta!) but I’m not thrilled. It’s weird that I’m not thrilled, because I really would have liked a decent AOE heal. If this ends up being decent, I will happily eat my words.
I’d also like to object to the name. If Blizzard doesn’t think that HAND of Reckoning doesn’t already confuse people when you have spells like Hand of Protection, Hand of Salvation and Hand of Freedom, then I guess I can understand why this thing is called Healing Hands. Why not something like Waves of Light? Or Light Flow? Or Wind of Light? Or, hey, how about Stream of Light? I actually like that.
Anyways. NEXT.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
So, hang on a second. We’re going to get a base ability that, depending on our spec, does different things? I actually might be able to get on board with that. Except that I think the holy one is lame. Seriously, we already have this in the game. It’s called Ancestral Awakening and it’s a resto shaman talent. And again, it’s single-target: “heals the most wounded ally in the area”. And what’s the area? Is it something I can target like Blizzard or Volley? Or is it something that just appears and heals anyone within 40y or so?
Blah to new skills.
Changes to stuff:
– Crusader Strike at Level 1. We already have an instant attack. It’s called Judgement. But okay. Another button to push. Hooray.
– Cleanse isn’t actually changing, so I guess I’m glad about that, unlike shammies, who must be pissed to lose things like Cleansing Totem.
– BOM/BOW… Well. They’ve streamlined it. I think that’s a positive. But will either be improved? Will both be improved? Will there be an imp BOM talent? An imp BOW talent? Will these affect which BOM is on someone? Also, possibly more importantly, are we going to be stuck with the fist icon? I like my icon for Blessing of Wisdom. :P
– Holy Shock available to all paladins. Wow. I am… not impressed. Holy Shock has been THE holy ability for years. And now it’s just available for everyone? So rets are going to be able to toss a Holy Shock in arenas while on the run? Prots will be able to cast it on themselves or others? That’s MY SPELL, Blizzard. MINE. What the hell are you doing, giving it away all willy-nilly?
– Possible duration changes on Divine Shield. When my brother asked about paladin changes the other day, he was like “well, what kind of things would they change?” and I said “I don’t know, but they got rid of Tree of Life, so anything’s possible.” And his reply was “Are they going to change bubble?!” and he was all concerned. “They could do anything,” I told him, “maybe even get rid of it.” He was properly horrified at that thought. And properly horrified about this potential change as well.
What horrifies ME more than anything is this: “Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.” I’m sorry, either I’m going to have 80,000 health or I’m going to heal for 3k per big cast. 12 seconds won’t be enough time spent casting to heal myself???
– Ret rotation. Well, whatever.
– Sacred Shield/improving the Holy Paladin toolbox. Okay, I can handle a 30 minute buff on my main healing target. That’s fine. I’m not sure I LIKE the change, but I can certainly live with it. I feel like I spend raids juggling ability cooldowns as it is. Removing one from the rotation is fine. But I don’t trust them to adequately improve our toolbox. The last time they did, we got Beacon of Light. Which is hax on some fights and stupidly useless on others.
– New, bigger, healing spell. Okay, here we go. FoL, HL and then unknown bigger spell. I’m fine with that. Interesting that our current “bomb” spell is the middle one, though. Also, if this is going to be the same as the other classes, they’re changing FoL from being fast and efficient to being fast, but inefficient. Not sure I like that too much.
– Beacon of Light change. “Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.” Screw you, Blizzard. You give us Beacon of Light and it sucks. Then you change it to include overhealing and it’s still halfway useless sometimes, but other times, it is the reason for getting the encounter done (hi, heroic Deathbringer Saurfang, how are you doing?). And now you’re going to change it to… well, as I understand it, only work with Flash of Light? SERIOUSLY? Take the ability away. Just get rid of it. I want a 51-point holy talent that is worth a damn and a talent that is an ability that mirrors only the SMALLEST of our heals? That’s not a talent worth a damn.
– Spirit. Blah, blah, I knew this, but it still sucks. Stupid spirit.
– Prot rotations. Sounds neat. The prot pally tanking method is way too good for both single-target threat and AOE threat.
– Holy Shield, no more charges. So what, this will last 8 seconds with no charges? That sounds boring and predictable. Bind Holy Shield to all your abilities and it’ll be cast when it’s off cooldown.
Mastery thoughts:
– Holy. Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more. Oh, gee whiz, CAN I have more overhealing? Please?! :P I understand that they’re changing things so that we can go back to healing reactively instead of mindlessly and this will change some of the overhealing issues (as well as mana becoming an issue again) but I don’t know that we really need super crit on our heals. I imagine we’re still going to overheal a ton.
– Prot. Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks. Sounds reasonable, although odd. Are they trying to make tanks more niche-specific again? You have the prot pallies who are The Blocking Tanks versus the bears who can’t block or parry at all. Sounds to me like, given the choice to AOE tank things, a prot pally now has even more reason to tank, whereas a bear or DK don’t.
– Ret. Holy Damage: Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased. Uh. Okay?
On the one hand, some nerfage. On the other hand, some lame skills. On a third hand, a couple of perhaps interesting changes.
Lots of things will change, of this I’m certain. I’m being overly critical and cranky, I know. We all need to wait to see what beta brings with it. But those are my initial impressions.
Tell us how you really feel. =P
On a more serious note, Blizzard has posted some clarifications on things like Beacon of Light and Critical Healing Effect. I completely agree, though, that we’ll just have to wait for beta and see how things go.
Honestly, it’s all relatively meh, much like most of the other previews. A couple classes (warlock, shaman) got some big news and interesting toys, but most of us are getting not much in terms of excitement or nifty toys.
I’m not upset over any of the proposed changes, but then I’m a tankadin. I actually am looking forward to different rotations for tanking as it currently feels like a 2 button rotation with the 9/6 deal.
As a tankadin I’m happy about:
Holy Shock (ha ha, I get another ranged damage spell!)
Blinding Shield: It’s another spell in my rotation, or possibly even a CD! (I like CDs)
Healing Hands: I’m a blood tank! (it another CD, wooo CDs)
Guardian of Ancient Kings: Look ma! More CDs!
Improved Block Amount: This actually is something I have seen a few tankadins complain about. As it stands we can actually reach the block cap and turn trash into a joke, which is kinda badass. With the block change in cata that is instantly gone, with this we get it back a bit, which I appreciate. I mean, I understand not wanting us to be able to ignore trash, but having this as a defining feature is nice. Bears have huge HP, warriors are (theoretically) well rounded, and DKs will be self healing.
For Holy, I’m kinda sad to see them normalizing EVERYONE on the 3 heal system (baring Druids), which makes me even less interested in being a Holy paladin (my main healer has a good chance of being a shaman this time around).
You kinda are cranky this morning. XD Everything is pretty “meh” to me with the exception of the changes to Bubble and Beacon. Since we won’t be able to afford to only FoL with the HPM changes to it, it’ll be back to only healing the tank. Oh but this time we’ll be standing in melee to heal them with our aura-thingy. (The only real part I like about this…)
I’m actually kinda meh about losing cleansing totem. I cleanse faster than it pulses and it’s still group only so I rarely use it except when I pvp. What made me have the initial reaction of, “omfg I quit come cata!” were the changes to cleanse spirit and the fact that we can’t cleanse poisons at all (and disease too? the notes said “curses with a talent to cleanse magic too”) Um, wtf? Taking away something useful and essential for pve BECAUSE of pvp? I can understand getting rid of something basically useless in pve as it is for pvp reasons but seriously…
Lame.
The rest of the resto shammy changes are kind of “meh” to me too. Sure some things look neat on paper and would be cool to try, but there’s nothing good enough to make up for the loss of 1-2 debuffs to cleanse. None of the pally changes look amazing, either. I may just end up switching my main to druid come cata, if I’m still playing. Changes to druids can’t be that bad, as GC plays one, right? :P
Have fun with “healing hands” kurnie!
/giggle
Damn. I really like your post. That almost exactly how I feel. I just can thing for all of those “Paladin” excited about the just reveled new changes in Cataclysm that all our them are just alt. Anyone who really understand the Class must be, like you are now, disappoint about all this crap…
The nerf to Beacon of Light and the impose to use Crit it looks frankly unnecessary to me.
Healing Hands kind of strikes me as one of those situational spells. If you can keep casting during it, why can’t you keep moving? So, let’s say the group needs to run out of a Desecration (for example, the one in ToC-5, Black Knight, but I can’t imagine anybody would try to make the healer heal through that damage) or the Blizzard on Shade of Aran, including the healer and tank. Pop HH and run out, and assuming you’re moving in the same direction, you’re still doing your best to keep the group up. Other than Holy Shock and maybe a HOT from FoL, are there any heals that you can keep up on the move as a holy pally?
While I’m thinking about it, re: taking spec’s main abilities: You’re right, it is pretty lame that Holy Shock is being taken away from holydins, but to be fair, they’re also taking Crusader Strike from retadins. The way I see it is, with a hybrid class, you can generally do more, but you have less variation with it. A protadin has SoR, HotR, Consecration, Holy Shield, Judgements, and Hammer of Wrath during the last bit of the fight. Compare, say, a warlock, who has Corruption, Curse of Agony, CoE, CoEx, CoW, CoT, CoD (wait we have cow and cod?), Immo, Incinerate, Shadow Bolt, Soul Fire, Haunt, Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, and more that I’m probably forgetting. Granted, no (good) warlock will be using all of them during any given fight. Realistically, they’ll only use 4 or 5, but the option to use more is there. It seems to me like they’re just trying to give everyone the option. It’s not like a prot paladin will be putting Holy Shock to the same use that a healer will, but having another ranged pull, or another way to keep someone alive for a few seconds if the healer is stunned or dead, seems like an acceptable change to me.
As for the duration change for DS, I don’t think they’re pointing to holydins with that remark. As it stands, if I need to bubble-heal, I’m lucky to get half of my health, because I need to keep Divine Plea up or I’ll be out of mana entirely when the bubble comes down. For me, I really do get 3,000 health back from a Holy Light in a bubble. Doesn’t do me a ton of good as a prot pally, even in my level of gear. It would ALMOST be worth it to level first aid to make up for that.
Personally, I like the changes. Generally speaking. But only time will tell, what with the inevitable changes coming before Cataclysm.
Gryphon: I think that sitting back and waiting to see how things shake out is really going to be the best option for most people. It doesn’t make it any easier right now to tell ourselves “just wait for beta”, or at least it doesn’t make it any easier for me. ;) But I think it’s wise advice.
As to the clarifications, I still don’t like what they’re proposing for Beacon. It may give us 2-for-1 on heals, but Beacon’s something like 1400 mana. That’s a lot! It pays for itself quickly, mind you, but it’s still a lot!
Nethaera said:
“There also seems to be some confusion about Critical Healing Effect which simply means a critical heal can do more than 150%. (Think of talents like Ruin for warlocks.) We wanted to keep some of the feel of Holy paladins getting big critical heals and caring about crit in general. This mechanic wouldn’t really have worked in Wrath of the Lich King because big crits just translated into overhealing. In Cataclysm that shouldn’t be the case.”
I’m doubtful that it WON’T be the case, but I’d like it if it really isn’t the case. I would like my heals to land and be meaningful. I wonder how much a crit heal WILL hit for?
thansal: Haha, I’m glad that you’re happy with Holy Shock (even though that’s MINE!) and your shield. I hadn’t thought about Healing Hands being a base skill, but it obviously is and it’s interesting to think about prots and rets using it. The prot Guardian sounds interesting, too.
I also like the “block tank” specialization, but I’m concerned about the viability of other tanks. I think we’re currently at a point where protection paladins are slightly overpowered compared to other tanks (Ardent Defender? Come on. That’s just cheating! :D) but I think that any kind of tank can adequately do current content. We use two warrior tanks and a bear for our third tank, but were running with a warrior, a DK and the bear until recently. And it’s not that much different, healing the second warrior versus the DK or either warrior versus the bear.
I’m sad about the normalization too, but like I said, we’ll see how it goes. I continue to be amused by the normalization because, when setting myself up on a new healing toon, I relate everything to Flash of Light and Holy Light. So on a priest, that’s Flash Heal and Greater Heal. On a shammy, it’s Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave. Druid healing just screws all that to hell, though. ;)
Codi: I may well rename myself Cranky Healer now that Cranky’s going by Zelmaru. ;) But seriously, you like the idea of being in melee? I LOVE being at range. Being up close with the mele seems way too dangerous to me and, as such, Enlightened Judgements is one of my favourite talents to spend points in! :)
Fad: By “Cleansing Totem”, I meant that as a blanket term for all the cleansing changes shammies are going to have to deal with. The blue post said “Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.” So while they don’t mention diseases, that’s probably the way it’ll go, IMHO. Lame to the extreme, if you ask me.
I’m very underwhelmed by ALL of the changes, to be honest. I’ll wait and see what happens in beta, but I’m totally not motivated to play any of my toons at this point. Kurn’s losing the mana bar. If Madrana’s supposed to be in melee range to heal, screw THAT noise. Not being able to cleanse like a mofo makes the shammy unattractive, although if Healing Rain is AWESOME, maybe I’ll heal like that. :P Maybe I’ll go druid? Not sure about the mage, I’ve always found hunters to be more fun than mages. Blah.
I’ll Healing Hands you, lady!! <shakes fist!> ;)
Erknost: I’m not so disappointed so much as I don’t have my hopes up. I haven’t seen anything to really make me excited about continuing on my paladin. But I expect some really interesting discussions once we get to see some of this stuff on beta.
The BoL nerf will be interesting to see, but as it is, I hate the talent, so hating it more won’t make too much of a difference. ;) The crit thing is interesting if, as I said to Gryphon above, the heals actually mean something and the crit isn’t just overheal. Thanks for your comment! :)
X – That’s an interesting point. Maybe Healing Hands is sort of like a non-damaging Holy Nova? That could have its uses. Holy Shock is our only instant-cast heal that’s not on an obscene CD (like Lay on Hands), but a crit HS procs an instant Flash of Light. So Divine Favor + HS = Instant FoL. But apart from that, that’s it. So that’s a really good point about our mobility, and I really hadn’t thought about that.
As to Crusader Strike, I don’t care about it. I never asked for it. I don’t want it. Thus, don’t fuck with my Holy Shock. ;D No, seriously, Holy Shock has been in the game since I started playing, if not before. Crusader Strike was a ret talent that came about in Burning Crusade and is substantially different today from what it was then. What offends me is how they’re changing things that have been unchanged since Day 1. Holy Shock has undergone very little change over the years and it was only in Wrath that we were actually encouraged to use it given a lowered cooldown. I still used it in BC, because I might have had times when I had to heal myself after running out of fire… ;) But it was inefficient and not a good use of your mana.
Paladins do not, IMHO, need another ranged pull. Hand of Reckoning for singles, Avenger’s Shield for more than one. Done. Warriors have a ranged weapon and Heroic Throw. Bears have Feral Faerie Fire. DKs have more options. Paladins seem to be just fine with the current “toolbox” for pulls. IMHO.
“The way I see it is, with a hybrid class, you can generally do more, but you have less variation with it.”
This is true. I got to taunt The Lich King, after all. ’cause I have a taunt. But that’s the first time I’ve used it while holy when not attempting to wipe faster. ;) I CAN use Shield of Righteousness when in melee range (and should do so more, since it can proc Seal of Wisdom) but I rarely do. I feel like I have a lot of options, but none of them are great options because they’re not for “my” spec. I guess I just don’t understand why prot and ret need an expensive, instant-cast heal that will really not do a lot for either of them, given the fact they have no spellpower. And is it going to scale with AP so they can deal damage with it?
I think that, with regards to Divine Shield, they’re hinting (as they’ve said more clearly elsewhere) that healing is changing in the sense that MANY heals will be required to top people off. That perhaps *even* a holy paladin might not be able to top themselves off. Which is all at once exciting and horrifying. Will our heals not heal worth a damn? Will health pools skyrocket to insane proportions? I remember when tanks had 6-7k health. My MT now has 67k raid buffed. Are we going to cross the 100k barrier for typical tanks and keep healing at about the same level as it is now?
Ugh, want beta NOW so we can figure out WTF is going to happen. :P
Maybe not as a ranged pull, but I can think of some uses for it. The other day, I helped a random group take down Sirana Iceshriek in Storm Peaks. I solo’d the quest on pretty much all of my toons (except maybe Avvan?) so I figured I’d go in, Hand of Reckoning, and go to town. Wellll, that worked fine, until the casters decided to open up before Sirana got to me. I could have used my Shield, too, but with the daze effect, they still would have pulled aggro before I was in melee range. If I had something (hell, I would settle for a thrown weapon (considering I was using the PvP FoL libram at the time…)) to grab a little more aggro, the druid wouldn’t have had to run away. Only situationally useful? Sure, but I’d rather be prepared in those instances. I get what you’re saying, though, and am mostly just playing devil’s advocate. Again. I do that a lot.
As far as health hitting the 100k point? I sincerely doubt it, at least near the Cataclysm launch. They’ve said a number of times (though, as usual, take it with a grain of salt) that stat scaling isn’t gonna’ be nearly as absurd as it was between TBC and Wrath. I think that stam-stacking tanks, fully raid buffed and with cooldowns might see 100k, but I don’t think that will be the norm. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we peaked at around 90k for top-of-the-line, never-leave-their-parents’-basement raiders.
I suspect that the main thing we will be seeing is that our goal will no longer be to keep EVERYONE topped off, instead sitting around 75% hp is fine. It will take more effort to heal some one to full, but we will also not be seeing bosses doing that “HA! Let’s see you keep up with THAT!”. So, paladins get to keep the ability to be the ones that regularly toss out the biggest, nastiest single target heals around (200% done on a crit? sure, why not), and they will excel in situations where there is predictable LARGE damage coming in, similar to how they are now, but I dono, different? These changes actually make me really worried about my druid. If a holy paladin can’t top some one off, wth am I going to be doing? I guess dealing with all that raid damage.
I guess it is all reaction to the fact that healing has 2 modes currently:
1) Yawn, sleep time now.
2) Yes, if I push my HPS to the MAX I can JUST keep you up.
Where I suspect they want a middle ground, where we have to regularly pay attention, but rarely is it just “spam your heal into the tank as hard as you can”.
As for holy shock:
I don’t expect to see it in my tankadin’s rotation (we don’t need it), however I expect to keep in on my bars as something I use every so often. Some times I simply can’t position all the casters on me, and wish I had something I could toss at that stray just to keep my threat up on him, and now I get to toss a shock at him. Really it just makes me happy because it’s another tool to use. This is why I love being a tankadin, I have tools all over the place. I need tome extra damage? Wings! I need some mitigation? Bubble! I need to deal with group damage (get out of the damn fire!) Bubble wall! My healer just intentionally suicided with one min left on the Brann escort? Lay on hands! (that one felt good :P) Of course, all three of those share a CD, which I think is a GREAT way of giving a class versatility with out being OP. But now I get more tools. Extra healing, extra mitigation, extra ranged damage or healing, and another AOE tanking tool.
I agree with you that all the tanks are rather well balanced in terms of end game, however when first gearing up, and learning your character tankadins are horribly OP as it is now. We are EASY to play, we have high damage out put (with no skill involved) etc etc. I found bear tanking uninteresting (not enough buttons), and more of a challenge, however I would say that good bear tanks are just as good as good paladins, however they probably have to work at it a bit more. My warrior has been doing just as well as my tankadin when leveling, but I do work at it more. I lack ranged silences, I lack AoE silences, pulling a group is just harder than it is with the tankadin. The rotation is much more reactionary (which I like) and I have fewer tools, but am not starved for them like with the bear.
Ultimately:
Yah, until they give us beta, buggered if I know wth is going on.
I thought the pally changes were kind of neat, at least on the prot end. Our MT is pretty happy there.
Everything seems a bit underwhelming. I’m looking at my priest going “Ok… so how differently will I have to play to enjoy this?”. Right now, I’m the resident bubble spammer and it’s getting pretty boring. If Blizz f*cks up my shields I’ll be pissed.
Like Fad said, it’s entirely possible I’ll also swap to my feral tank come Cata if the changes stay, but we all know lots is bound to change! I’m leveling a shaman and that’s been pretty fun so I’ve got that option too.
I’ve only recently become a decent kitty DPS after collecting enough gear to pass 8500 ish dps on STANDSTILL fights, please god don’t ask me to move.
I like that they’re making it more forgiving for kitties but that challenge is the fun part, imo. (and, i love bear tanking like, 99% as much as I love my priest so i could totally switch)
I’ve never been very good with energy based classes a la Roguez, so this focus thing on my hunter is gonna mess up my shit.
Anyway, to quote Thandal “until they give us beta, buggered if I know wth is going on.”
thansal: I agree about the overall health. It seems that we’re going back to a reactive style of healing rather than a proactive one. I “proactively” heal all the time, spamming Holy Light for the most part. Gone are the days where I’d cast Flash of Light until a huge hit of damage came along, then Holy Light for a couple casts, then back to FoL.
I think that the resto druids will be more… what’s the word I’m looking for… will be more like the buffer between life and death. Druid hots will probably be the difference between a tank living or dying between the casts of the direct healers. They’ll probably also continue to be the “set it and forget it” type of heals for raid members. I think that druid hots have really gone another way from that sort of buffer-type heal that we used them for in Burning Crusade. :) I think that the healing classes have been fairly well balanced in Wrath, but I guess we’ll see how it changes in Cataclysm when beta comes out and stuff.
You’re right about healing being alternately boring as crap and high-stress, by the way. At least, that’s been my experience.
Holy Shock only has a 20y range for the damage component, btw. ;)
… you had a healer who killed himself during Brann? Dear God, why would they ever do that?!
I like bear tanking, perhaps more than pally tanking. Maybe because pally tanking IS so easy. Righteous Fury. Consecrate. Hammer of the Righteous. Etc.
And your summary works nicely! hahaha!
Kal: Of course Blizzard will fuck with your bubbles. That’s what they do. They screw with things we like. But hey, Power Word: Barrier? Sounds neato!
Seems like everyone’s got alts out the wazoo these days. I’ve got my hunter, pally, mage, druid, shammy and am levelling a priest (dear God, I hate my brother for convincing me to level another toon with him) so who knows what I’m going to end up playing either. I’m very sad about the hunter changes. I just want to hold my mana bar and never, ever let it go. :(
BTW, go you for having even a clue as to how to kitty dps. I wouldn’t know how if the rotation bit me in the ass. All I know is I have to use Mangle in there, somewhere. … right?