A Look At Cata Healing, Part 1: General Design

I couldn't think of an appropriate image, so here's an adorable kitty.

 So I've finally had time to actually play with (almost) all my healing characters now fairly extensively in an instance setting on beta, and I must say, It's quite different. Not that I've had the chance to play with it, it's time for me to pontificate about the new system's ups and downs. This will be split into two parts, this first part dealing with general design of the healing system, and a second part dealing with individual classes and my thoughts on the changes to them. The second part will be posted in a few days.

More H Pally Beta Info - Build 12759

New beta build, new stuff to talk about! Sorry for the sloppy/ugly format, just trying to get this posted for my own use more than anything else. I do have some screenies of the new holy power ui element though.

Spirit to Hit Conversion: Best Thing Ever? Quite Possibly.

When I say I love all things healing, I am conveniently forgetting to mention something: I hate leveling. Leveling healers is pretty much the worst thing ever. Sure, you can sit there for an hour while ten mobs beat on you, but that's about how long it takes to kill them. Yea, you can group up and instance easier, but isn't that what dual specs are for? I'm sure plenty of people level as a healing spec just fine, but I'm not one of them. It's pretty much the only time I DO bust out a dps spec, as most of my toons are usually dual specced healing, whether that be for pve and pvp, or simply utility for different fights. So, how does this change affect the hardcore health bar junkie? Do we need to start building up an offset just to level without missing every other shot? Short answer: Nope.

New Launcher Live in Beta

So today I wanted to do a post on the default UI in the beta, and how it affects healing, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I wanted to get a better feel for it first, and when I logged in to do so today, i was greeted by a message telling me the new launcher that was recently announced is now available, and I'd have to reinstall WoW. I thought I'd use the opportunity to take a look at this new launcher and how it affects game play if you fire it up before it's completely done patching.

Paladin Spell Values in the Beta

I really couldn't think of a better title. Forgive me, I'm tired.


Anyways, what this is is just a comprehensive list of all the spells in beta right now, and how they compare to spells currently in live. My goal with this is to give an idea of how the playstyle is changing, strictly by the numbers. Click past the jump for the break down of the Paladin class in a live vs beta comparison.

The Stonecore - My First Experience In Cataclysm Healing

The Stonecore

Last night I logged into the beta server and realized that much of the information I had gathered thus far was really not much without application of it. Data alone is useless. So, I donned my healing gear and opened up my queue page. Not knowing much about any of the instances, I decided to just hit the "random Cataclysm dungeon" and see what happened. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I was on my way to The Stonecore.