Spring Forward (Survey Backward)
In a blatant attempt to buy myself more time to write my next blog entry and to bond with new blogmates, I decide to take a cue from Lilitharien and do this survey she posted earlier. It was either this or have a slumber party with her and Lyriel, where we stay up all night gossiping and going through each other’s guild rosters and figuring out who has the cuter guildies.
Off we go!
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Oestrus, restoration spec druid (currently 14/0/57)
What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) I mostly heal 25 man and 25 man hard modes, with the occasional 10 man and 10 man hard modes. I dabble in PVP, but nothing too serious.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Lifebloom, because I miss the good old days of rolling them on numerous tanks and I love the chime it makes when it blooms.
I like it because it’s a HoT, but it doesn’t fit in the normal boundaries for such a spell. It’s strong as it is, but you can let it bloom and enjoy a nice sized heal from it. It’s not too hard on the mana pool and it’s fast enough to be used on multiple targets. It can provide a nice buffer for a Nourish, too.
And I also feel it’s one of the few spells that has versatility and that has made a strong crossover from PVE to PVP. Most druid spells still help in PVP, but this one can really save your butt and it can be good against PVE spike damage. Not many spells can demonstrate that efficiency between play styles.
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
That would be Tranquility. It’s only good for use in parties and even then it’s extremely case sensitive. I mostly just use it for screenshots, due to the great graphics and sounds.
I would have normally said Healing Touch, but that spell is making a comeback in guilds that are taking on 25 man heroic Anub’arak (which I will probably touch on, at some point).
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
I would have to say the mobility. I love being able to do almost everything we would normally do, while constantly moving – which has a huge payoff on so many fights that involve not standing in things.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? I honestly don’t feel that we have any weaknesses. I have always felt that we can do anything any other healer can do, either as well or better.
But if I had to choose, I would say we lack any kind of damage mitigation on people we’re healing. Shamans have Stoneskin totem, paladins and priests have bubbles and we have Barkskin, for ourselves. But we don’t have anything to cushion damage that a tank is receiving.
Some count a full stack of HoTs as a form of padding, but it’s not the same.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Druids definitely excel at raid healing, but we do have the capacity to be strong tank healers, if needed.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? I can’t really say that I have a favorite. I know what I don’t like healing with. See below.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Other druids. Anything more than two druids gets really complicated, I feel. Especially if one of the druids doesn’t glyph for Swiftmend (rare, but it does happen) and you find your HoTs getting consumed when/if they use it.
At that point, it comes down to who can HoT something faster and I feel like heals tend to get clipped more and overhealing becomes more of an issue. But that sparks another kind of debate, best not explored on a simple survey!
What is your worst habit as a healer? Being too thrifty with my mana. I tend to play it very conservative and not too aggressive. I could probably stand to go “all out” a bit more, but I think that’s also a compliment to the other healers I’m lucky enough to raid with. I think we all do our share and no one person has to compensate for others not doing their job.
If I felt like situations were getting tight or we were shy on healers, I would definitely push myself harder. Not to say I’m lazy or don’t impact the meters, or anything. I just keep an eye on how hard I need to push myself on any given night.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? People who request a battle res or who I get asked to battle res and who can’t be bothered to ping the map, to let me know where the corpse is. And then I spend so much time trying to locate them, that I either die or I lose sight of other things I should be doing.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Absolutely – Blizzard has been quite kind to us, I think.
I do enjoy the debates that the developers have about us having to take a form to be competitive. It would be interesting to see if they made enough changes where we could enjoy the benefits of Tree Form without necessary having to shape change.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? I tend to run on instinct and by how well the raid is progressing. I was at a point recently where I couldn’t take my eyes off the meters and I didn’t like the way it made me feel or how easily I got wrapped up in the competition factor. It wasn’t healthy for me.
I also go off raid consensus. We have pretty vocal officers and I would like to think if one of us were suffering, we would know about it. Or the healers communicate well enough with each other, where they would work together to fix something, if they noticed something we were doing wasn’t working.
If people are surviving and you’re downing content, you all did a good job. It’s easy to forget the main goal and get lost in competition and all of that nonsense.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? I haven’t really heard any misconceptions about us – maybe you could tell me some and I could clear them up that way
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? That we don’t need that much spirit. I see a lot of new druids just drowning in the stuff. Two spirit trinkets, spirit enchant on the weapon, pure spirit gems, etc. It’s nice and God knows we love it, but not that much. You should never be passing up chances to increase other stats, just for the sake of spirit.
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)? The overhealing has definitely increased, since Blizzard made it where HoTs continue to heal, even when a target is topped off.
I tend to heal in the same cookie cutter fashion other druids do, though I noticeably use Nourish a lot less. My bread and butter is Rejuvenation, Wild Growth and Lifebloom. I have been trying to Swiftmend more and there is the occasional Regrowth.
Haste or Crit and why? I think a nice balance is important to have. I use crit head and shoulder enchants, to help out with my tier bonus and I just go with the flow, in terms of gear choices. I can’t say I have ever favored a piece of gear over another, simply because of haste or crit.
What healing class do you feel you understand least? The idea of healing as a paladin bores me to tears. I don’t think I could do that for a living – lol. I would imagine I’d have really empty action bars. I can’t see having too many spells that you need to put on there. Your choices seem kinda limited.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
Right now, I am enjoying a new interface called VuhDo and I use the basic raid addons, like Omen and Deadly Boss Mods. Otherwise, I try to run pretty mod light.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
Balance is extremely important as a druid (no pun intended) – especially given how versatile the class already is. Right now though, I’m at a point where I need nothing more than pure spell power. I have a good sized mana pool, strong mana regen, a good amount of health and I just need stronger heals.
I do make sure that gear upgrades or swaps provide a definite stat increase, in most areas
Tagged as Meme, Restoration Druid + Categorized as Druid
“I would imagine I’d have really empty action bars. I can’t see having too many spells that you need to put on there.” that statement makes you just as bad as every other simple minded numskull in wow. i have two 12 button bars all full, not including any spells that i use to directly heal someone.
in my mind you may aswell have just said lol, paladin, easiest class ever.
While I can’t echo the sentiments of Thrasius above, I can tell you that I have many, many keybinds to push and I’d have a whole lot more if I didn’t have macro’d things. Paladins seem to have half a million spells just labeled “Hand of ___.” Our only have three healing spells makes it all seem simplistic, but I actually find it -more- complicated than healing on my Tree. Druids have more spell selection, but paladins have ungodly tons of cooldowns and little tricks to keep track of.
Codi´s last blog ..Holy Paladin Mana Regen – Mp5 vs crit vs INT
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, Thrasius and I do appreciate you taking the time to leave your opinion on my thread.
The only thing I can stress is that you took the time to read a survey, done by a druid, who writes predominantly for druids and who has little to no experience healing with a holy paladin.
At first glance, it does appear to be very simple. I have a level 80 paladin that I have never healed with. When I look at the pieces of the puzzle, I admit, I don’t see how they fit together. I actually feel like the game company didn’t send me enough pieces sometimes – lol.
But it’s my opinion and I freely admit I don’t have any experience with it. I think to be as fiercely opposed to my thread, given the nature of why I’m here and what I write about is surprising. I’m here as a druid voice. Not as the gaming community, as a whole.
Were I writing as a paladin and I expressed such views, I could see why you would find me simple or shallow. But to some extent, I am not really sure what you were hoping for me to say.
Thanks again for reading and have a good one!
I think your answer to the healing class you like the least comes across as tongue in cheek. Which I’m sure is how it was intended. And you are answering a question about ‘understanding the class least’.
Codi, you’re right. Pallys are judging targets for buffs and can spend downtime from healing by melee swinging the boss to regen mana. And no other class has the same headache inducing plethora of buffs to throw out on a group :)
I enjoy this blog site. It’s my favorite right now. My main is now a disc priest and my start in the world of discipline healing was so much easier because of this site.
Keep up the good work all of you !! :)
Thank you very much for the reply, Ella!
I really didn’t mean for that to come across as tongue in cheek. The question was asking what class I understand the least and I answered a paladin. Like I mentioned in comments, the whole pally package never added up for me. When I looked at the spellbook, looked at the bars and looked at the situation in front of me – I was lost. The light bulb never went off – lol. From what I’m used to, as a druid and from what I see happening in raids, I don’t think that way of healing would be for me.
And I bash my own class, too! I mentioned that I don’t care to heal with too many other druids. So that makes me pretty “equal opportunity,” I’d say.
But it didn’t seem like your comment was negative, so I don’t want to sound defensive. I was just trying to reiterate that I really did mean well and hope that the readers do see that.
I did laugh at your comment about the “plethora of buffs to throw out in a group.” I remember hearing my mom’s voice in my head, when I was a kid saying “You’ll eat what I make or you’ll eat nothing at all!” or something along those lines. All those people going “No, I want Kings – No, Sanctuary.” Good old mom sure had a point!