For some reason, I hardly seem to get tagged for these anymore. My friends tell me it’s because I’m supposedly all big and popular.
Hogwash I say. I’m not sure how many of you remember when I was but a young blogger still struggling to make a mark in the WoW community. I was once a small time blogger too, you know. Even though my time has diminished, my interest has not. I’ll do my best to respond to them if I feel they’re fun to do (or if I’m dodging a really important paper that’s due on Tuesday).
- What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Mallet, Discipline Priest. I’m ambi-spec-trous and will go Holy if the situation calls for it.
- What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) Primarily raiding environments.
- What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Power Word: Shield. Sometimes I think Protego to myself when I cast it. There’s nothing more satisfying to me than a field of bubbles.
- What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? Renew. That’s only when I’m Discipline though. I usually have better spells to respond with. If I’m idling, then I’ll use a Renew. But I’m rarely idle.
- What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? The ability to protect and to extend the health buffer of a player is the difference between life and death.
- What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? Weak raid healing. All we have is Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova. But then again, that’s not supposed to be our jurisdiction. We can raid heal, just not very well.
- In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Anything that enables me to watch playoffs. Generally, I prefer covering the raid. I’m a twitch healer.
- What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? Priest. It’s the oldest healer I have and I have a diverse array of spells to use.
- What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? Paladins. I once nodded off in the middle of a 5-man. It was a truly boring experience.
- What is your worst habit as a healer? Not staying on target. I’ll sometimes cheat and heal a different player than my assigned target if I feel I can get away with it. About 1 in 25 of those situations will result in the death of my assigned target. It’s like base stealing. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it bites you in the rear.
- What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? Dying to avoidable deaths. Healing is not a cure for stupidity. There’s only so many chances we will offer.
- Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Yes I do. Discipline has come a long way.
- What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? I rely heavily on Recount, Obituary, and World of Logs or WoW Meter Online. I mainly look at the cause of death the most to determine whether or not it was something that I could have prevented.
- What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? That Disc sucks for healing in raids (not raid healing, I mean having the spec in raids).
- What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? How to do things in addition to healing. Many new healers are caught staring at their bars when a fire lights up on their character. Try moving your head back a few inches to get a larger perspective on the entire screen. Move your camera back too. Awareness of bad stuff will get you far in this game.
- If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)? Lack of healing because they don’t have the Recount Absorbs addon installed.
- Haste or Crit and why? Haste. Speed is life. The faster the spells, the faster you can cycle to different targets and cast them again.
- What healing class do you feel you understand least? Druids.
- What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? I rely on Vuhdo for all my healing needs.
- Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? On my Priest, I’ll stack a ton of intellect via gems and break socket bonuses if necessary. It’s not uncommon for me to reach over 35000 mana with full raid buffs. This adds to Replenishment, Shadowfiend and Hymn of Hope. The more mana I have, the more options I’ll have at my disposal. That and spellpower are stats that are universal to Disc and Holy Priests. There’s no sense in grabbing Spirit as it’s not going to do much for my Disc side anyway.
Thanks to Sushicookie for reaching out and tagging me (as well as sending me a direct tweet about it since I usually miss these things). Of course, this was the brain child of Miss Medicina. You can find the rest of the responses from other bloggers here too.
We’re a bit shy of you, you know. It’s a side effect of stardom. But rest assured that we who are not quite as big and famous appreciate the interest you show and the bond you have to the rest of the WoW blogosphere. You’re still one of us. Sort of. 😉
.-= Larísa´s last blog ..Tickled Pink: Do titles matter to you? =-.
@Larísa: I will always be the big brother bear of the blogging world :P.
@Sushicookie: Glad to know I’m not the only one who has such a bad habit too!
As a holy paladin, my favourite thing to accompany me in 25 man raids is a disc priest. Me and a disc priest on tanks, with a resto shaman, resto druid and holy priest on raid, everybody overlapping, everybody absolutely pumping out the heals = heaven. Well, a second resto druid would be even nicer.
I remember sitting there in a raid before a pull and suddenly I realise that my holy priest friend has nearly as much mana as me. It was alarming and I felt as if my penis shrunk 2 inches. I hope holy paladins stay on top in terms of big heals, big crits and big mana pools. 😐 Don’t get me wrong, I want everybody’s to be big but mine to be biggest. Hahaha.
.-= Mann´s last blog ..Design 01: Slash Roll, my beloved WoW guild =-.
Huh, you know, I was confused about the “What class do you most/enjoy healing with” when I realized that it can be read two different ways. I assumed it meant “healing alongside”. Hehe.
.-= Pike´s last blog ..Thunder Bluff is a Pain to Grind Rep For =-.
@Pike: It’s okay Pike. Pick whatever interpretation you like ^^. Happened to choose the one that I thought fit my rationale at 1230 AM .
🙂 Your welcome Matt! Everyone loves filling these things out. And I do the base stealing-heals on my priest too, and sometimes people die for it too. lol.
.-= Sushicookie´s last blog ..So creative, Blizz… =-.
ambi-spectrous, that’s a mouthful… I’d have said simply bi… oh, wait…
someone forgot PoM as a group heal ? And pre-shields ?
I’d have put healing on the move as my sorest point as Disc, and floating healer as my favorite assignment.
Someone’s been keeping vuhdo a secret ? In which way is it better then Grid ? I’ve never heard of it before !
@Olivier: Not quite. I’ve written before on WoW Insider on how to group heal as a Disc Priest. I haven’t forgotten about Pre Shielding and I’m assuming you meant Prayer of Healing as I wouldn’t count PoM as a group heal per se. But a Disc Priest cannot match the raw group healing output that a Holy Priest can do, pound for pound. They can match them in terms of prevention but they have to know exactly when a raid wide hit is going to strike. Sometimes its not always that easy. Again, even in that case it is mitigation as opposed to going from 50% back to 100%.
I find Vuhdo better because I remember Grid requiring multiple plugins or extra downloads for it to function. Vuhdo is just 1 addon tops. You could even configure spell casting without having to use Bartender 4 to bind spells or something. But honestly, whatever works for you is what you should stick to.
I’m really glad you joined in! I hope the lack of people jumping in to tag you doesn’t make you feel too lonely up there at the top 😉
The funny thing is, the original intention of the survey was actually to provide a bunch of smaller healing bloggers a link to one another to generate a bit more traffic and network some more, as well as learn more about other healing classes – it got a bit bigger than I intended, with a lot of big name bloggers joining in as well – but I’m not complaining, and I doubt the others are either.
Also, I did a bad job of wording the “who would you like to heal with” question. It was supposed to be about who is your favorite healing companion, because I’m working on a little “Power Healing Combos” segment, but lots of people interpreted it differently, so it works either way.
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Lychordia, Holy Priest
What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) 5 mans, want more raids.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Flash Heal and more Power of Mending
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? Renew. Takes too much time to cast it. But often will shield then cast this to help tick some hots while I heal other raid members.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? The fact that what has been proven and continues to work is a solid Priest healer.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? I feel that the theory crafting has really taken the fun out of healing sometimes.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Hehehe, I will take the Pally tank any day. But I seem to be getting nice results in raid healing. Despite the beams of that Shaman blowing my numbers out of the water.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? I enjoy healing a Pally. I like success. And if I can keep that Pally and s/he can keep that aggro then we are destined to success.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? Warlocks. They are squishy and use their life to mana spell way too much and takes too much attention to keep healed. I will let them die anyday before any other member.
What is your worst habit as a healer? Pressing the wrong keys. My fingers will move and I think I want flash heal when actually I keep trying to PoM through the cooldown only to have my pc ding repeatedly when i try to heal.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? Low DPS. I think there are higher rates of success if you just get that dang boss down. Oh… And please stay out of the fire…
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? I feel I have lost some ground in raid healing with the shaman healing beams. What a tool that is!
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? I don’t have a decent tool to use due to my crappy pc and don’t have the fps to support it.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? That Holy priests can’t heal raids. They can if it’s a good healer.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? How to move and jump at the same time.
If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)? Lower healing cause I am seriously in a healing slump i guess. But I am increasing my activity to help match the other healers in a raid.
Haste or Crit and why? Hehehe, I just finally understood what Crit was. I like it. I mean haste is nice too. I want them both.
What healing class do you feel you understand least? Shamans
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? I rely on xPearl.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? Intellect and Spellpower.
Ha! This is a newbs point of view.