I wanted to give a quick explanation for my recent absence, and weekend-only posts – Been working too hard! Unfortunately, my work-load got doubled about two weeks ago, and my resulting hours have stripped my calendar of the time I used to use for WoW-research and writing. I shall return, and Matt’s posts will once again be edited for grammatical and factual accuracy. I do have to go out of town next week, but should be back to some kind of regularity soon!
Divine Hymn: Reactive CC. When a Priest gets hit or a party member gets hit, the attacker gets incapacitated temporarily. Could be a spell along the lines of Inner Fire where it has to be maintained. Don’t think we’ll see it in Aura form.
Guardian Spirit: Castable Cheat Death. Borrowing a term from our WWI resident Shadow Priest on what it essentially is. Ability to negate a killing blow. A mini-you shadows your target and if your target dies, your mini-you dies in its stead. Expect to see this bound into our oh crap macros.
Dispersion:Shadow 51 Point Talent. Places yourself in stasis and regenerates 6% health per tick over a period of time. Also reduces incoming damage by 90%. Expecting to see a Stoneform/Dispersion Macro for Dwarf Priests. Looks primarily like a PvP talent. Unsure of how well it will pan out in raids.
There’s a contest being held by Slideshare that I fully intend on entering.
I’ve been working on this for a while anyway so I figured I might as well go ahead and enter it once I finish. Here’s a few teaser slides that I’ve had so far. I think one can easily get the gist of the main story I’m trying to tell.
Why a presentation format?
I’m always interested in exploring new ways to share ideas and concepts. Other bloggers have released action videos, some decide to do podcasts, and I wanted to try something that hasn’t really been done before.
Second, I’m a student. As a student, you’re exposed to presentations on a daily basis. Eventually, you have to stand up and give your own. Some of the lectures and presentations given by my fellow student and teachers are jammed full of text. This is my way of learning how to use Keynote without putting a grade on the line.
EDIT: Nevermind! It’s been brought to my attention that there *is* in fact an all healer community in existence that’s been around under my nose for the longest time. Light Natured forums appear at first glance to be what I’ve been looking for. The community forum’s been broken down by class and has some extra sections devoted to general discussion and UI’s and such. How I’ve never found this place, I will have no idea. Obviously I didn’t look hard enough =). They need to do a better marketing and promotion job. I guess I’ll have to flex my blogging and WoW Insider muscle and raise some awareness. I do seem to be suffering some performance issues on the forums. They do take a while to get into the different sub sections.
This is one of the few pleasures I get from blogging. My interaction with readers sparks ideas. Sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re good, and sometimes I come up with a “EUREKA” of an idea that would’ve done ArchimondeArchimedes proud.
Tonight I had a discussion with neutralise as we were discussing the impact of a raid wide Prayer of Healing. Somehow, my brain went off on a tangent. I wondered if there was a community or forum specifically devoted to Holy Priests who would discuss their trade (similar akin to the Shadow Priest.com forums). After some quick searching, Twittering, and general asking around, I was amazed to discover that there wasn’t a community already in place.
Not only that, there doesn’t seem to be places for Resto Druids, Holy Paladins, or Resto Shamans specifically either.
The only place that I know of that represents anything close is the Elitist Jerks forums. I’m not going to lie. Every time I go there, I feel fairly intimidated. There’s also a lot of information to wade through to get an answer you’re looking for.
My vision
Seeing as there doesn’t seem be a local healer community, I thought to myself why not start a healer community?
Financing is not a problem. One of the reasons I run affiliate advertising on my blog is so that I can take what I earn and invest it directly back into the community. Heh, like it or not, money makes this world go round.
I’m picturing a discussion board where healers of all shapes, sizes and progression levels can:
Exchange ideas and tips amongst individual classes
Ask for help and advice during PvE content
Discuss upcoming healer changes
Interact with other healers overall
Come for early advice and support on getting started with end game
I’d handle the maintenance and logistics of the project myself including hosting, software and such. The design and structure would be an interesting challenge to undergo.
My obstacles
Moderation – It’s a no brainer that a community like this would most likely attract some big time morons. As much as I’d like to, there’s not a chance in hell that I’d be able to completely police the place. I’d have to realistically turn to volunteers that have proven themselves fair and in possession of a back bone.
Structure – Organization of this community would have to be done properly. Like boss fights, it’s one thing to know what to do. It all comes down to execution. If I can pull it off right, I have no doubt it would be a great community. Done incorrectly, and it would just be another failed startup project. Razorbax suggested a Forum/Wiki combination but I have my reservations about that. I could go forums first and then “immortalize” epic posts after into its own Wiki for easier navigation and access.
By the way, that quote Razorbax listed? Not me.
I swear.
Name – You guys might think this is silly, but the name is important. I don’t simply want to create forums and slap World of Matticus forums on it. A day might come where I won’t be around and it’d be nice for this community to be able to stand on its own. I’d sponsor and support it, but it should have a distinct brand of its own. The challenge here is to think of a name that’s catchy, easy to remember, and isn’t already registered on the WHOIS database.
Interest – But right now, I’m getting ahead of myself. What’s the point of establishing a community if there’s no one interested in it? I ran it by the night owls still awake in BA chat, and they seemed receptive and encouraging of the idea. Still, I’d rather ask you the community in general and get your thoughts.
Any ideas, feedback, questions, or comments would be welcome. But do answer the poll first below =).
Would you participate and be interested in a community aimed for healers?
Okay Priests, listen up! There’s a big rumor circling around right now affecting a little used spell called Prayer of Healing. The spell is rumored to be retooled come the expansion. How will it be retooled? It’s being considered to affect the entire raid instead of the party of the Priest casting it. Yes, you read this correctly. Prayer of Healing is being looked at being changed to affect the entire raid. Now, before you cream your pants, there’s more.
It would have a limit of 5 targets raid wide and heal the lower health players within range.
In other words, it will heal the 5 weakest players within a certain radius.
This is all the information I’ve been able to glean.
Speculation and guesses
This is the Priest answer to Chain Heal. *grin*
In any case, I suspect the cast time will remain the same.
But I also suspect that the mana cost will no longer be static. Instead, I have a gut feeling that a spell like this will have a cost equivilent to a certain percentage of your mana like maybe 6%. Again, this is purely speculative at this time. This would certainly help counteract the proposed nerf to to the Circle of Healing with regards to the addition of a 6 – 8 second cooldown.
Reliability of rumor
I’m going to take a page from Eklund on this one and create a similar ranking system on any unconfirmed rumors that I see happening around.
M1: Rumor is text only, 1 location (forum post, website,, unofficial patch notes that are unconfirmed, etc), no official comments M2: Rumor consists of a screenshot or 2, or forum posts from blues M3: Source consists of multiple screenshots from many different players with multiple angles and is considered too difficult to fake, M4: Rumor is all but confirmed. It’s been generally accepted as something that will go through live with minor modifications, if any.
So with regards to this possible change in Prayer of Healing, I’m going to have to rank an M1 on this in terms of how reliable it is. If you’re crafty and curious enough, you’ll run into the source sooner or later. I have to be skeptical here because it is taken from an image (which I’m not going to post because I am one scared ass blogger) of a forum post (which could have been doctored).
Still, I simply can’t not report this and bring it to your attention. I’m not a reporter. I don’t have a list of devs or beta testers that I can talk to easily. I’m only reporting what I’m seeing from other places and piecing together what I think makes sense. I cannot vouch for the authenticity, reliability, and so on from these places. Therefore, the best I can do is tell you what I’ve read and what I think about it. I’ll tell you how reliable the sources are and if I’m able to, I’ll pass a direct link for you to evaluate independently on your own.
So with that being said, let’s get some constructive discussion going on here with a few talking points!
Think I’m in the ballpark about the mana cost? Would there be any other drawbacks to casting the spell? (IE, a longer cooldown between use, cast time, or something)
Is this a good or bad change for Prayer of Healing?
What other spells would we like to see revisted in an AoE format to be made more viable as a raid spell? (Note, I do plan on doing a post in the near future about spells I’d like to see that would affect more people than just one.)
When I showed this to Wyn, she had a total nerdgasm on vent. It was glorious. I wish I had hit the record button.
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