Experience Boost for my Holy Pally

I just have to take advantage of the new experience boost from 70-80. After getting my Lock to 80 and a 5k gear score I am now working on my Paladin. I started at 70 and have already passed the halfway point to 74 in just a few days. With the Blizzard provided boost and a couple heirlooms (even if they are cloth, they still have int. and crit.) I am at +40% experience, that's really nice.

I must say I am impressed with his healing ability in the new 4.03a world. I know it's a big change for most Holy Pallies but speaking from someone who has never healed as a Pally, it's not bad at all. I have decent burst healing, I can heal on the run and I have have numerous "oh shit" buttons. The only thing I am lacking is a HoT. I am really thinking about glyphing for the HoT with Word of Glory just to try it out. We'll just have to wait and see how things work at 85. I hear it's a whole different world (never tried beta or test realm).

Looks like my Druid will be my Cataclysm main

Here is my link for 4.0 Resto notes. Looks like this will be the route I take in Cata. My priest is my "closet main" I guess. He is my old-school main but I just think Druids will be more fun to play in Cata. Plus epic flight form in Old World is going to be a LOT of fun.

http://treebarkjacket.com/patch-4-0-guide/

Healing Burnout

I guess I am in a burnout stage. I log in to heal but I just can't bring myself to queue up. I don't know if it's boredom or what but I just can't seem to get into it. I should start reading up on Cata stuff. I know it's right around the corner. I guess I'll just have to start workign on the Shaman again...

Raid Rx: Is addon-less healing possible?

It's not impossible, just harder. And why make things harder just to prove you can? I use Clique to make it easier and avoid huge cumbersome macros. Does that make me less of a healer or just lazy? I use Grid because it's just easier to set up compared to the default raid frames.

I don't think it changes your knowledge or performance. It's just a matter taking shortcuts or a different route to get to the same place.

Raid Rx: Is addon-less healing possible?:

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related.

I see a fair number of emails and messages about this topic. Is it possible to heal without using any addons of any sort? Naturally, the default user interface (or UI) includes a limited number of features where this is possible. Is it recommended in dungeons or raid instances? No, not quite. I've seen opinions from some players where they practically insist that healing without addons should be the way to go. Anyone who does use addons is relying on a crutch. I don't think that's quite fair to say. It's not like these addons are scripts or anything that can 'think' and heal for you.

The Full Healy-Blog List

The Full Healy-Blog List: "I follow a lot of healing blogs. I mean, a lot. Big or small, I’ll add most any healing blog to my feeder to at least give it a shot. I will highlight what I think are the best posts of the week every Friday, but if you’re wondering what my resources are for making my Friday post (especially if you’re wondering if I’ve missed something), here is my full healer specific blogroll.

Of course, I have lots of non-healers I read, but if you are looking for a list of just healers in the Blogosphere, I imagine this one should be pretty exhaustive. People don’t always focus their blogs, so a lot of these blogs cover multiple specs of a certain healing class (a la Restokin).

I don’t limit my list of resources due to popularity, size of readership, or any politics. I don’t care if the writer bashed me in a post that one time, or if they are smelly and a big jerky mcjerkface. If people post something I don’t like, or I’m not interested in… well then. I just don’t read that post.

The purpose of this list is to keep me up to date with what healers are saying in the blogosphere – from the small bloggers to the big ones. I don’t care if you only have 2 subscribers, and I’m one of them. If you post something that is good, I want to know.

This is a direct list from my feed-reader. If you know of a healy blog that is not on this list, please let me know so I can add them to my personal feed-reader.


Druids

• 4 Haelz
• Cow and Bones
  
• Dreambound
• Falling Leaves and Wings
• HoTs & DoTs
• Leaf-head
• Light & Leafy
• My Name is Forrestump
• Rejuvo
• Restokin
• Swiftmend
• The View Through the Branches
• Tree Bark Jacket
• Tree Burglar
• Tree Haelz

Pallies

• A Healadin's Tear
• Blessing of Kings
• bubblespec
• Divine Plea
• Flash of Saysm
• Holy Shock
• Holypaladin.net
• I am a Paladin
• IndecentHealer
• Moar HPS!
• Non-Squishy Heals
• The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon
• The Holy Light
• The Physician's Log
• The Suicidal Healer
• The V-Team
• (Un)holy Randomness

Priests

• An Absolutely Ordinary Priest
• BobTurkey's WoW Blog
• Desperate Prayer
  
• DiscoPriest
• Divine Aegis
• Flash Heal
  
• Healer Trek
• Holy Fire Spec
• Holy Nova
  
• Holyform
• I Like Bubbles
• 'Priest' board on PlusHeal
• OMG...Priest!
• Pain Suppression
• Penance Priest
• Priest with a Cause
• PW: Bubble
• Righteous Orbs
• Runcible Trout
• Save the Lightwell
• Shy at WoW
• Soul Warding
• Tales of a Priest
• The Angry Healers!
• The Impenitent Priest
• The Munch Land
• The Wanted Priest
• Thoughts of a Discipline Priestess
  

Shammies

• Ancestral Knowledge
• Ankh = Life
• Blueberry Totem
• Borsked
• Flow
• Healing Way (no longer updated)
• I say LOL IRL
• Kattastrophes Happen
• Life in Group 5
• ShamWoW
• Tank 2 Heals
• Totem Forest
• twenty-five boxes

Multiple Class Healing Coverage

• World of Matticus
• Sheep This
  

"

Mouseover Macros

Here is a wonderful explanation of a Mouseover Macro; something all healers should know about.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Essential addons and macros for holy:

Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the addons and macros that can be used to make your life easier.

Holy paladins have come a long way since our days in vanilla WoW. Back then, we were a three button class: Cleanse, Flash of Light, Holy Light. The infamous addon Decursive even did all the dispelling for us, leave the human user simply casting Flash or HL for hours on end. Seals and Judgments were for retribution and protection: we were standing 40 yards away filling up life bars. Things didn't improve much in TBC either: while Holy Shock was fun to finally use, we ended up being purely FoL bots in most raid situations.

Blizzard took a new approach to healing in Wrath, including completely revamping each existing healing tree to make sure each one was balanced, viable, and most importantly, enjoyable. Holy paladins now enjoy a complexity that is multiple times more entertaining to play than anything that we've seen in the past. However, with this added functionality comes added complexity. To help us lighten the load, we can use a few amazing addons and macros manage our 'holy 3.0' paladins; this allows us to focus on keeping people alive.
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Essential addons and macros for holy

To pull or not to pull... a healer's perspective.

Okay, I've been healing in this here game for years (since the beginning I suppose). I have a Druid and a Priest running heroics and a Pally waiting in the wings at 71 so I am familiar with most aspects of healing.

I mainly stick to random dungeon pickup groups. As you can guess, the latest changes have been a great benefit to me in many ways. As a casual player I rarely get time for raids. This post is applies to pickup groups as raids always have a mechanism for this type of thing.

I've come across all kinds of Tanks and all kinds of DPS. One thing I've never understood is the agreement on when to pull and when to wait. Sometimes, rarely, but every once and a while this will be agreed upon in the beginning. Some times there will be the simple "r?" in party chat, other times it's just pull, pull, pull until someone says something. Here are the 3 methods I've seen.

• An agreement before the first pull on who sets the pace of the run. This is ideal but slows things down a little bit.
• The generic "r?" in party chat. This is bad because nobody EVER waits for everyone to respond.
• Pull, pull, pull until something bad happens or someone says "Wait a sec...". This is bad because something bad usually happens before anything changes.

The other day in Utgarde Pinnacle I was running with a particularly eager DK Tank (I know, hard to believe) and he runs like two rooms ahead and charges into a large group. Now we were outgeared for this instance in general but he pulled the whole room, around 8-10 mobs. By the time I get there he was dead and the Pally DPS was next in line. I backed away and with a little luck, melded successfully. I proceeded to apologize and rez people. The first thing he says is... "Wow, that sucked... I didn't get one heal.".

My suggestion to every tank or aspiring tank is to make a quick macro. If nothing else just use it in random pickup groups. It will save the party from much grief and your healer will thank you, I promise. If nothing else it can just say "/y The tank is pulling now...". If you want to get creative you can throw in an audible emote. This makes things great for that errant healer that might be watching the television while drinking or alt-tabbed out to browse applicable loot. It gives just enough warning that when the flesh starts to fall, a greater heal or a regrowth should be right behind.

Miss Medicina's Web Ring

This is a response to Medicina's Healing Questionnaire.

First of all let me say that I am a Disc Priest but I rarely have time to raid. I have a wife who works full time and 4 kids that keep me busy IRL. I haven't made it to anything outside of Naxx 25. When I do get to raid my guild has more than enough healing to keep things going. I am usually just along for the ride. So, that said, I am just providing my limited view of healing. I have done my share of Heroics but have very little large raid healing experience.

• What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Wilgrin, Disc/Holy Priest.
• What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) 5 mans really. An occasional raid.
  
• What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Penance - just because it's fast, easy and pretty to look at =)
  
• What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? Divine Hymn - Same reason as Medicina I guess. Can't seem to find a situation for it.
  
• What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? Single target non-stop healing. Between Penance and Flash Heals... I can dump a lot of heals quickly. If I can't heal through it, something is wrong (at least in heroics).
  
• What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? Mana Recovery - With a huge mana pool, all we can do is sit and drink.
  
• In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Single target MT or OT.
  
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? Holy Pally - They are great at keeping people alive when the fit hits the shan.
  
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? Druids - Mainly cause I'm jealous =) I have one up in the 60s now so we'll see how that works out. I guess also because they utilize HoTs and they are hard to keep track of.
  
• What is your worst habit as a healer? Not keeping track of HoTs and not shielding enough.
  
• What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? Over zealous DPS. Usually a hunter or a specific mage that pulls aggro.
  
• Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Yeah, it's improved greatly during Lich King.
• What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? How smooth things go during the encounters. When the healing goes well things can be surprisingly calm and controlled.
  
• What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? That we can't raid heal. It seems people think we can't AoE heal at all. Using the proper Glyphs, we have a decent amount of AoE heals and aside from crazy stuff
  
• What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? Just healing the MT and ignoring everyone else. Or pulling aggro and not knowing what to do (fade, shield).
  
• 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)? Low healing output I guess. I don't have great gear and I am usually low in overall healing. I guess that comes with the territory too. I also don't keep my shield up enough.
  
• Haste or Crit and why? Balance just because I don't have a lot to choose from. I need a little more crit before I'd be happy enough to pass it up for haste.
• What healing class do you feel you understand least? Shamans by far. I just haven't played enough since they have been around.
  
• What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? Grid and Clique. I wish Blizzard would work on getting ALL of their functionality into the default interface. It's really needed and practically there already. Oh, and a Shield-Me macro, but that's old and not really needed with Grid and Clique around.
  
• Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? My gear isn't that great so I just work for a balance. I suppose I am working on crit at the moment but my other stats are lacking as well.