Special Delivery: Roundup Of This Week’s Best WoW Posts

The Shattering! This Tuesday?! Is it happening? Isn’t it happening? Is the World As We Know It Going To Go Kaboom? Maybe.  One thing’s for sure: Azeroth’s not going to be the ideal holiday spot with balmy breezes and clear sea views for much longer. Unless you count the whoosh of dragon wings above you and the view of a tidal wave coming right for you as you lounge on the beach polishing your tier kit. Not that you would be, of course, because you like everyone in the blogosphere are getting ready for the Big Changes whenever they happen. Right? Right.

After its lolloping back and forth between various topics over the past few weeks the blogosphere seems to have settled firmly on looking at healing. Well, I say firmly, but there’s the odd look at guilds in Cataclysm, too. Generally things are hotting up in the blogosphere as we get ready for lava to ruin our holiday locations. So as an aside from my normal task of finding the best blog posts and delivering them over at MMO Melting Pot, I’ve gone and dredged the blogosphere for the week’s bset on healing, leading and guilds for you here at WoM. And this week there really should be something for everyone. Except possibly trees.. wait, resto druids, no permanent tree forms, what do we call you guys now?

• T-Minus-3 Weeks: The State Of The Resto Shaman: Vixsin over at Life In Group 5 has a timely preview of what raiding resto shaman can expect to get out of their healing toolkit come the time to raid. She=’s looking at all of our healing spells, old new and tweaked, and how effective they’re looking after the latest beta changes. She’s also looking at how they interact with our stats and has some in-depth but digestible explanations on how much Mastery affects various spells. Very well written, and also an encouraging post for resto-shaman kind. Almost makes me wish I was staying a resto shaman for raiding!
• Five Tips For Holy Paladin Healing In 4.0.1: Kurn’s got some practical tips for any holy paladins still getting on with the business of healing here and now, Cataclysm malarky aside. The tips are well written and look to be good advice – she’s got thoughts on how and whom to beacon, whether Flash of Light is any good, and the importance of Divine Pea. Sorry, Plea. She’s also got a tip and video clip specifically aimed at dealing with Infest if you’re still visiting Arthas regularly. She does have the caveat that these tips might not be as useful in 4.0.3, but they are probably worth a read as somewhere between food for thought and a discussion point for you Holy pallies.
• Cataclysm Enchants For Holy Priests: Oestrus has a two part guide that does just what it says on the tin. You can find part 1 here and part 2 in the link at the start. It’s a no brass-buttons guide which gives you just what you need; she goes through all of the equipment slots and gives you the run down on which enchants she thinks will suit a priest best to go do their holy thing. Of course, nothing’s set in stone yet and things may change come the time we all get to 85 but Oestrus’ guide looks well researched and thought out, and should let you know what to be aiming for. Some of the new enchants are really creatively named, too.
• The healing model in Cataclysm: pwnwear has highlighted a post on their forums by Adrift, one of their readers. It’s a very cogent piece on the interaction between HPS, burst healing and desireable tank survivability with an undertone of awareness that mana will be at a premium. Adrift looks at the ways a tank might be geared – avoidance vs. stamina – and talks about how this might impact his healing, and then the same again for theoretical raid damage. He also takes a look at what stats healers are likely to prioritize both earlier and later in Cataclysm raiding content. I found this an absorbing read both from a healer and a tank’s perspective – would recommend reading it yourself then sharing it with your guild’s meatshields.
• Tips for applying to a guild as we move towards Cataclysm: Moving guild, getting a fresh start. The thought might’ve crossed your mind. Rank4HealingTouch is one step ahead and has an excellent post guiding you through the major sections of a standard guild applications. The guide’s split up by sections and covers everything from the basics of spelling and checking to answering questions on your computer specs, your class, your role, and yourself. In each case as he goes through, he talks about how to answer the questions – and how not to. He also gives some examples for certain topics to get you thinking. Think of this guide as a kind of cheat sheet, if you will – I’d not recommend cheating and it doesn’t give you all the answers, but it is incredibly well written and good advice.

That’s it for this week. Have a happy Shattering! Oh, I might not be able to do one of these next weekend, so apologies if so – but I’ll quite possibly be gooey eyed at the local Christmas market full of pretty lights and sweet things. But should resume the following week, if so.

Til then, then! Oh, and by the way, what are you hoping to read more or less of, from around the blogosphere? And just what do we call trees now?