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Why SO many healers?

I’ve been thinking about this a while, but there is a huge number of healers lately.  I’ve been playing dps during the AV wargames just because so many people log on as a healer. I can play multiple roles.

Back in Cataclysm, for example, I could barely log on without being asked to heal a dungeon, or a raid, or pvp.  But these days no one seems to care I healed heroics, challenge modes, or have impressed people with my pvp healing in anything from arena, rbgs, random bgs, to world pvp.  Why is that?

Well in my opinion it’s because it’s just too easy.

For instance, I watched a monk not die to multiple players just by standing in one place and casting their protected heals in our face.  Didn’t even move, not once.  Most healers can do the same thing, but unfortunately I haven’t played anything but holy/disc this expansion.  I do have all the healers but I haven’t played most of them.

The other example of it being ‘too easy’ is that nothing works together.  A resto druid use to put Life Bloom on someone, and keep it rolling with a direct heal.  It doesn’t work like that any more, you just keep casting it when it falls.

You also use to have to keep Harmony up to boost your heals by hard casting every so often, which when keeping lifebloom up, you were doing that anyway.  Well, that’s no longer a thing either.

On top of THAT you use to only be able to use Swiftmend when Rejuv was rolling on a target.  Guess what?  That’s no longer a requirement.

For a disc priest you no longer have to bounce Prayer of Mending around, you don’t have to plump up Spirit Shell, Grace does something else entirely, you no longer have Wings.  Rapture doesn’t do what it use to, there’s no Inner Focus, no Divine Hymn, no Psyfiend, Tendrils, no Spectral Guise, no Mind Spike, Mind Sear.  You don’t have to think if you cast Penance you get Grace which gives you haste for your next spell.  You don’t have to know that Prayer of Healing applies Divine Aegis on a crit.  You basically just mash buttons and people are healed.

I think that’s a big reason why I’ve been sticking to dps.  There’s still some complexity to it. Cast Frozen Orb to get instant Blizzard to general Frost Lance procs.  Rotate frost nova with ice nova with blinks to kite people. It’s just more engaging.

First Order

I realized I’ve been neglecting my druid, and WoW in general.  I haven’t raided for a really long time, but I still had pvp both in the world and with SPM.  Well I left SPM and with this expansion, world pvp hasn’t really been viable. Healing at the start of the expansion was really difficult as heals felt weak but it’s better now.

I also fell out of groups in general.  Time Lords has no activity, no one logs into the Gnomish Inquisition on Sargeras, and I have no guild with my MW on Thunderhorn.  My friends list is basically nothing for the first time basically ever.  I’m not terrible sure how this happened either, being a healer use to mean being asked to join activities constantly, but no longer.  I think that’s why I started playing my mage because you can at least get things done as a dps.

So, my first order of business THIS week is to find a guild that does things.  Then, get the frost weapon skin from the mage tower one way or another.  Also gear up Coquette and try to get that beautiful ice blue feral skin.

Great Truths on a PvP Server

 

I’ve been playing on Sargeras a whole lot lately, because I love playing fire or frost mage.  But, there are a couple of truths in world pvp in particular, that end up as pixel gut-feelings I’ve come across.

On Argus with a clump of good quests to be done? Yep, a group of horde will be trying to kill Alliance.

That single hunter isn’t going to attack you, but when a healer comes to help them, you better believe they are going to attack you.

Need to do a critical quest, like Timewalking turn in for the MoP dungeons? Yep, gonna be 40 horde camping the ever loving fuck out of the quest giver area.

You see a class that needs ramp-up like a frost mage these days, ramping up around your general area? Yeah they are going to try to one-shot you with glacial spike. When spriests had orbs it was a similar thing.

 

Oh and of course, your fellow Alliance probably won’t give a shit either.

 

ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!!!

 

Well, chasing after Thanatan has been taking a really, really long time.

 

I got to visit Harkun again but for some reason fraps didn’t want to save my screenshots.  He’s extra super polite to me these days, though.  I still find him spicey.  I mean really he’s basically like the baby sitter of the incompetent and totally racist to anyone not human but yeah.  This game really has great quests.

Worse than Timeless Isle

Back during MoP, gear out in the world got extremely unbalanced.  The best pvp gear level was 550, but raiders could get to 580ish.  That meant they could destroy pvpers very quickly, we’re talking 3 globals.  I personally recall dying to a raid tier shadow priest on my resto druid in the span of a Silence, or getting destroyed with a penance or two by a disc priest on my 550 hunter.

Timeless Isle was a real problem on pvp servers in particular, because raiders were gods and could kill pvpers like it was nothing.  I didn’t ever want to see THAT again.

But, here we are.  I’m around 935 ilevel on my mage and priest, but if I run into say, a warlock who is 960ish, they can melt me and NOTHING I can do will save me, I can’t even outheal the damage.  On top of that, you can have someone hit you even at the same item level or close, and take you to 20% health before you know it.  It’s pretty bad.

Though I will say out in Tol Barad, with the exception of that raiding warlock, I’ve still been doing ok.

But, it makes me want to raid just to keep up, it’s frustrating.  It’s totally not fair for me to do that, or have a raider do that either but here we are, again.