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Friday, April 20, 2012

How I play dis?

For the first time since I hit level-cap in 2008, I have no tank-spec on Innana.

We have picked up what will (hopefully) be a consistent Warrior tank, our off-tank remains on her Death Knight and rather than try our luck with the fifth, sixth or seventh healer to fill our vacant 3rd healer slot, I decided to bite the bullet and get a Holy set together and become that third healer, while going Retribution or Protection as necessary, the rest of the time.

But don't worry - I'll still be writing about tanking, as it is my passion in the game, and I'm hoping I can add to my knowledge of the class by playing all 3 specs better, while helping the raid at the same time. If you were worried that I'd stop writing about tanking in the first place, that is, and I don't know why you would be because I don't really write about tanking all that much, to be honest, and when I do it tends to meander a bit and isn't particularly specific to Paladins, except when I go into mechanics and stuff... ahem, I'll stop now.

SO! After raid last night, I swapped out my gear and spec to Holy and ran a couple of dungeons with guildies where their DPS was killing stuff so fast, I didn't really get a gauge of how I was healing, but at least I figured out my UI somewhat, with a set of Mouse Over Macros and so forth.

First impression was: wow, I have a lot of spells to worry about.

Beacon of Light, Holy Shock, Holy Light,  Divine Light, Holy Radiance, Flash of Light, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn and Cleanse.

On top of that, there are the emergency Cooldowns - Divine Plea, Avenging Wrath, Divine Favor, Aura Mastery, Guardian of Ancient Kings, Lay on Hands, Hand of Sacrifice, Trinkets - and a couple of defensive cool-downs - Divine Protection, Divine Shield - and then the spare Hands - Freedom, Salvation, Protection. Whew.
 
But the fact that I can key-bind and mouse-over everything is makes it a lot easier to deal with, for me. All the base healing spells are key-bound with mouse-over macros, all the hands are click-through macros on Grid and all the cool-downs are key-bound as they stand.

For the most part, though, at least in the Hour of Twilight dungeons, I found myself casting Holy Shock, Holy Light and Word of Glory most of the time. Holy Radiance was cast occasionally and I tended to use procs of Infusion of Light for instant Flash of Light. I really only had to use Avenging Wrath and Aura Master a couple of times and Lay on Hand once. I also enjoyed being able to just hit Divine Shield to get mobs off of me and keep healing and using glyphed Divine Protection to ease AoE damage for myself.

With a mana-pool of about 110k, I also didn't have any trouble with getting low on mana, except when I had to heal up a bear from 10k to full using only Holy Shock, Flash of Light and Word of Glory - that ate up a lot of my mana very, very fast - and I imagine that's what a lot of hectic raid damage looks and feels like. Need to see if I can sneak into a 2-heal Firelands run tonight to practice.

Stat-wise, I'm a little boggled. I like Haste, I like the way my casts feel at about 1900 Haste without any buffs, I forgot to check what it was like with raid-buffs, but the faster GCDs and casts just feel better than having to worry about Crits and wondering if my Mastery Bubbles are worthwhile. It feels more reliable and has an instant return.
 WTB raid willing to let me practice healing by letting me solo Beth'tilac on the ground?

Now for the most important question: HOW DO I MOG? I want to look all holy-choirs-and-god-beams but I also want to use a dress. I'm thinking of starting with the Ulduar tier 10-person mode skirt and going from there.

Suggestions welcome!

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