Thankfully they understood that this was getting ridiculous and put in a request with the manufacturer that I should be able to cancel the initial purchase and get my money back. After yet another week’s worth of waiting it came through. I got a full refund on my laptop. Wow. Despite all the hassle and waiting it turned out better than I could have hoped for in the end. Thumbs up to the shop as it’s not their fault the manufacturer licensed repair shop kept messing me about. The customer support I got was very good at least.

It was time to get a new laptop. Of course the one I wanted was not in stock so I had to wait yet a bit longer until I had a laptop I could use. What I now have is a lot better and can run WoW on significantly higher settings, which is great. Although in the midst of all this I am now getting ready to head over to the UK again for a while so there won’t be any updates here until I’ve gotten settled in there.

By the end of next week I hope to have a post or two ready! It’s time for more guides to healing in ICC and I’ll be working on those next week!

This is meant to help understand how your co-healer works, as well as help those new to healing to get a basic understanding how their class works in regards to tank and raid healing. The abilities most commonly used by each classes have been explained in the introduction to each class, so you can use those as a reference point should you need it: discipline priest, holy priest, restoration druid, restoration shaman and holy paladin.

Tank healing

Discipline priest

The tank should have Power Word: Shield on them whenever they are not suffering from the Weakened Soul debuff, the 4 piece tier 10 is ok here. It is also good for keeping on yourself and your co-healer to prevent push back suffered from AoE damage. The tank should also be the target of your Prayer of Mending. Keep an eye on who has PoM on them and as long as it is bouncing between people taking damage, it serves its purpose. However, if it’s sat on a DPS for example who isn’t taking any damage, you want to recast it on the tank as soon as the cooldown is up.

Penance should be used at nearly every cooldown and is particularly useful when the tank is taking a fair bit of damage. Keeping Renew up on the tank(s) whenever you are able is also a good idea. Flash Heal is a great heal for topping the tank back up, especially with the 2 piece tier 10 bonus. Greater Heal is an option, but only when you know you will have time to cast it because the tank is dead, which can be tricky at times. Pre-casting as a damage spike is imminent is generally a good idea. Pain Suppression is great for those awful damage spikes and its damage reduction on its target can be a life safer.

Holy priest

Flash Heal, Flash Heal and more Flash Heal spam is the general way of keeping a single target alive and the HoT added by the 2 piece tier 10 helps a bit too. Having Renew ticking away on the target (generally you should aim for the talented Empowered Renew), while using Prayer of Mending on every cooldown is often recommended. The odd Greater Heal could be thrown in, but generally you will find that you have more time to cast two Flash Heals rather than one Greater Heal because the tank could get hit in the mean time and die.

Guardian Spirit is a good ability to use when the tank is about to take massive amounts of damage as it will increase the healing the target is taking, thus making it easier to keep said target alive. It will also prevent the target from dying should it have happened during the 10 seconds this is active for.

Restoration druid

Stacking three Lifebloom on the tank as well as keeping Rejuvenation ticking away at all times is a good start. If there are two tanks that need healing then you should keep that up on the both while they are taking damage. Watch the tank’s health closely and if they are getting low as your Lifebloom is close to falling off you should let it do just that and bloom as a big heal. If you know when massive damage is about to happen you should try to carefully time that Lifebloom to fall off just at the right time. Regrowth is also a good heal to keep on the tanks. Remember that Regrowth is a mix of a HoT and a direct heal so having it land as the tank is tanking damage is beneficial. However, if the tank is taking a lot of damage frequently you want this HoT already ticking on the tank.

HoTs alone are not likely to keep your tank(s) alive. Topping up with Nourish is important. The Glyph of Nourish is particularly handy for a tank healing druid. The HoTs you keep on the tank would then make your Nourish heal for even more and the combination of HoTs and Nourish is essential. Keep Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness at hand for when an instant heal is required. If you use Glyph of Swiftmend it won’t consume a HoT off your target when it’s used.

Restoration shaman

Keeping your Earth Shield on the tank taking damage is a good start, and having it glyphed helps too. Riptide is also something you would benefit from having on the tank, especially if you have chosen Glyph of Riptide for tank healing. Lesser Healing Wave is generally the preferred heal and you should use Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave when you are tanking healing. However, sometimes Healing Wave is a good substitute. Don’t forget the benefits you gain with the Tidal Waves talent. Which heal you choose is often fight dependent. You want to ensure you have the time to cast Healing Wave, so pre-casting as damage is imminent is generally a good idea (as opposed to waiting for the damage to hit only to not have time to top the tank back up before he gets pounded face first into the floor). However, the 2 piece bonus for the tier 10 makes Healing Wave a lot more viable if it follows a Riptide.

If both tanks are taking significant amounts of damage simultaneously, Chain Heal is your best ability to heal them both at the same time. The key here is to heal the target with Riptide on them to increase the Chain Heal’s value. Nature’s Swiftness is best kept at hand and used in conjunction with Healing Weave for a fast instant heal.

Holy paladin

The first thing you want to do is place Beacon of Light on the tank who is going to be taking the most damage. Whichever other target you then heal will also heal the tank. If both tanks are taking damage you want to beacon one and heal the other, that way you will keep them both up simultaneously without a lot of effort. Although slightly depending on your chosen build and gear, Holy Shock is a good heal to use at any cooldown. Holy Light is the heal favoured by many paladins as their main (and sometimes seemingly only) heal. Using that as your main heal and only using Flash of Light to top off is probably what you will find easiest, unless you suffer from mana issues then a more Flash of Light oriented way of healing could be the way to go. The 2 piece tier 10 bonus is good for when there are suddenly a lot of damage (just remember to use Divine Illumination) such as a frenzy tends to cause and the 4 piece of the same set isn’t bad either.

If you do choose to use Flash of Light a fair bit, you should ensure you always keep Sacred Shield up on the tank as it will increase the critical effect by 5%. However, generally the tank will take so much damage that you have to use a fair bit of Holy Light to keep him alive. Divine Favor and Lay on Hands should also be kept at hand those those ohshi- moments.

Raid healing

Discipline priest

Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. Mitigating the damage works just as well as healing people back up, and when it’s glyphed it will heal for a small amount too. The 4 piece tier 10 is quite useful for this. Having everybody bubbled prior to known AoE damage is generally your best bet. Having Prayer of Mending jumping between raid members in more of a constant AoE situation is also a good idea. In constant AoE situations you will often find that the Weakened Soul debuff is still active when the first one wears off so you have to heal the player back up as well. Topping up people with Penance and Flash is what you are likely to find yourself doing. Renew is also a good option if the player is not likely to take a large amount of damage imminently, especially if you have specced to get Empowered Renew. Binding Heal is a good one to heal yourself up while healing a raid member.

Prayer of Healing is generally quite the mana drain, so you want to try to avoid it, but it’s good to have when you need to heal up a specific party quickly and you have no real help with raid healing. Holy Nova, if glyphed, could also work in some situations. Lastly Divine Hymn is useful for ohshi- moments, but with a 8 minute cooldown you cannot use it very often. As it is a channelled spell it’s not great for constant AoE situations unless you shield yourself right beforehand.

Holy priest

Circle of Healing is your strongest AoE heal and as it is generally used when off cooldown in situations where groups of people take damage. The 4 piece tier 10 increases the effect of Circle of Healing and is great for holy priests with a raid healing assignment. Prayer of Mending is also fantastic where it can jump between players and get them healed as damage strikes the person. Another good ability is Prayer of Healing. When specced correctly this both uses less mana, and heals for more than it would for a discipline priest. If you are Lightwell specced, you should place it among those who are likely to take most damage (for example the ranged DPS on normal Festergut). Divine Hymn can also be used where for quick massive healing of a few targets, but with a 8 minute cooldown you cannot use it very often. As it is a channelled spell it’s not great for constant AoE situations unless you shield yourself right beforehand.

While raid healing where players take damage one by one, Flash Heal and Renew are you best abilities depending on whether a player needs to be healed back up rather quickly, or a HoT suffices. Don’t forget that shielding yourself will prevent push back on your casts such as Prayer of Healing in fights with constant AoE damage.

Restoration druid

Rolling Rejuvenation on every single player in a 10 man raid is quite efficient (particularly on fights like normal Blood Queen and Sindragosa), and using Wild Growth whenever it is off cooldown. The 2 piece tier 10 for trees lowers the amount Wild Growth is reduced by over time and is great for raid healing, while the 4 piece can cause rejuvenation to jump to another target thus giving you time to throw in an additional heal in your rejuvenation rotation. Do try to avoid using Wild Growth on someone stood all alone, though, as it has a small range and heals 4 other players (5 if glyphed) near the person you target with this spell. This is the easy and most commonly used raid healing tactic for a restoration druid. (In a 25 man you may want to focus on say either ranged or melee and if there are two druids you could benefit from healing half the raid each.) In specifically horrible AoE situations you could pop Tranquility if your party is taking massive damage, however beware of the cooldown, its restricted usage area and that it has to be channelled.

Nourish is a good and quick heal to top up someone fast. This is more common in raid healing situations where the damage is more sporadic and harder to predict. For example, a person could be hit bit the same random damage twice in a row before a HoT would have time to do its job properly.

Restoration shaman

Chain Heal is great for healing through AoE damage. It is a smart heal which jumps to targets nearby in most need of healing. It will heal your target and 2 other people by default, if that many players nearby are in need of heals, or 3 if you use Glyph of Chain Heal. Therefore you would generally benefit from having an idea of who are stood where. The range of Chain Heal is pretty good so hugging isn’t necessary to get the most out of this heal. Again the 2 piece bonus for the tier 10 (possibly the strongest of all the tier 10 healing bonuses) is fantastic as it makes Chain Heal spam faster as long as you remember to use Riptide whenever it’s off cooldown. The 4 piece also adds favour to the Chain Heal spam.

To top somebody up who are stood alone, or not many people are taking damage at once, you could consider Riptide and Lesser Healing Wave. However, the common shaman these days seem to prefer a Chain Heal spam regardless, just in case someone else takes damage while it’s being cast. Healing Stream Totem is generally a good idea when raid healing, especially if you choose to use the glyph.

Holy Paladin

Raid healing you say? Are you sure?

The best way to tackle this is using Judgement of Light for all it’s worth and use Glyph of Holy Light so that those stood nearby are healed for a small amount each time Holy Light hits. The general lack of AoE healing abilities means that players in need of healing has to be healed back up one by one. Letting melee heal themselves up by hitting on the boss which is affected by Judgement of Light while healing up the ranged dps is often the most efficient way. Holy Shock should generally be used whenever possible as its instant heal speeds up your raid healing slightly.

Having a tank beaconed while raid healing is generally preferred because the massive amounts of heals you would be throwing out would generally only be beneficial to a tank. There are a few cases where this choice should be reconsidered: it is for example a good idea to beacon the first player to get the Mark of the Fallen Champion on the Saurfang fight rather than a tank.  Whether you use Flash of Light or Holy Light depends as much on how big a heal the beaconed target would need as well as the target for your heal. Additionally, if there are several people nearby taking near constant damage, glyphed Holy Light is your strongest ability to keep them all alive. Flash of Light, however, is great for quickly topping up a raid member while Holy Shock is on cooldown. Both of the tier 10 bonuses are viable here as well.

A bit of both

In 10 man raids it is often important to be able to deal with both tank and raid damage either because your co-healer fell over and you’re stood there alone trying to keep people alive, or because it simply is easier to help each other out. In some fights it will be important to have a strict focus on one of the two, but often you will find that you benefit from coping with either situation regardless of what you are healing as. If you heal in a PuG in particular it’s important that you can deal with both types of situations simply because you don’t know how geared or skilled your co-healer is and you may need to push yourself to the best of your ability.

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Next up we will look closer at mana management.

First of all, you don’t need any addons to be a good healer. I’ve played with people who play with the default UI and have kept up with people with completely customised UIs. That said, healing addons can make your time healing less frustrating by making mundane actions like buffing semi-automated or at the very least, make it easier to see situations that require your attention.

Raid/party frames:

Raid and party frames are addons designed to make viewing your party or raid easier. Whilst the default UI offers this functionality, dedicated frame addons usually add extra features that come in handy for healers in particular.

XPerl – XPerl is a multifunctional unit frame system that includes support for raid frames, caster monitoring, CTRA/oRA support and other things. You can set it up to show health deficits as well as incoming heals, targets with your HoTs up etc.

Grid – Grid is a modular raid frame that is arguably the most flexible raid frames due to the amount of plugins available. It can however be a little daunting for the beginner which brings me onto..

Vuhdo – Vuhdo! Vuhdo is very similar to Grid and Healbot. Unlike Grid, Vuhdo comes preset with displays for healers that can be customised for more advanced healers.

Healbot Continued – Healbot is another similar addon to Grid and Vuhdo that gives you healer specific raid frames and built in mouseover/click casting capability. It is very flexible and comes automatically set up for basic healers and allows further customisation for advanced healers.

Click casting addons:

Click casting addons are addons that allow you to click a raid/target/player frame with a certain mouse combination and cast a specific spell/ability.

Clique – Clique is quite simple to set up and allows a lot of customisation including using macros, specific ranks of spell and different profiles that automatically swap depending on talent build for dual spec players.

Click2Cast – Click2Cast is an older addon that is similar in function to Clique. It seems a little bit out of date and I can’t see a reason to use this over Clique.

Buff monitors:

These handy addons make buffing considerably easier. They will either semi-automate or alert you to missing buffs that you can cast, or in some cases allow you to see who needs to eat food, drink flasks etc.

ZOMGBuffs – ZOMGBuffs is a buff management addon that monitors group buffs such as Gift of the Wild and can semi-automatically buff players. It can also interface with PallyPower users for blessing assignments. It can also monitor weapon imbues and poisons, and track temporary buffs like Earth Shield and Sacred Shield.

SmartBuff – This is another similar buff addon to ZOMGBuffs. Although this addon doesn’t provide as much additional functionality as ZOMGBuffs, it is still a very useful addon.

PallyPower – PallyPower is a near mandatory addon mainly for paladins and raid leaders that helps organise the awkwardness that are paladin blessings. PallyPower works with other paladins using the addon in your raid/group and assigns each paladin specific blessing duties and prevents overlaps.

Miscellaneous:

PowerAuras Classic – PowerAuras is an addon that adds customisable icons and auras to your UI that alert you to various situations and buffs. PowerAuras is not strictly a healer addon, as all classes can make some use of it, however it can come in useful if you want to time a large heal with a trinket proc for instance.

Decursive – Decursive is an addon designed to make removing various afflictions easier. Decursive automatically detects your abilities and creates boxes that highlight afflictions that you can click on to quickly remove. Whilst this functionality can be set up in Grid or one of the other raid frame addons, Decursive sets this up automatically and is easier to use.

BigWigs / Deadly Boss Mods – Whilst not limited to healers alone, these addons will most certainly alert you to situations that you need to deal with ASAP during boss fights and in some cases even trash. These mods often come with plugins for special situations not covered by the core package.

oRA 2 / oRA 3 / CTRA – Again, whilst not strictly only for healers, these addons work in the background, supporting other mods and providing information such as cooldown timers for things like Rebirth, Divine Intervention and other things like tank status. They even give raid leaders and assistants information about resistance, durability status etc. A very useful mod indeed.

Links:

Curse Gaming – Very large database of addons covering all specs and purposes, news articles and more.

WoWInterface – Another large database of addons with forums.

WoWUI – Another addon database and forum.

In conclusion, these are just some of the addons you could use to help you heal. They are far from necessary, but they help out a lot. I have come to rely on a few of these addons and would have difficulty coping without them! I hope this short guide has been useful.

I personally play this game for a different reason: the people I play with who makes the experience so much better. I’ve gotten some good friends in the game, some of them I knew before I ventured into the world that is computer games and some of them I’ve gotten to know via the game. I think what happened this week proves as a good example why it’s the people that make it worth while.

Broken again

Last weekend my laptop was running remarkably quiet, too quiet in fact. It was getting increasingly hotter without any change to the fan speed. Regardless how hot it was getting, it was insisting on running at its absolute lowest settings and I could only take it back to the shop for them to look at it again. It’s only been a little over a month since I had it back the first time the fan went bust, so I’m not overly happy. Of course, with my awesome timing, it had to clash with the Children’s Week event…

I have been working on the seasonal event achievements on my warlock for the past year, and the Children’s Week event was the last one I had to complete. Having to take the laptop away for repairs made it look impossible, but I decided to see if my PC would, against all odds, run WoW. Somehow, it does work! It is very old and hasn’t even got a graphics card, but that didn’t stop it. However, barely breaking 15fps in the abandoned Exodar didn’t look very promising. Yet, I was going to give this event a go, knowing full well that the worst event achievement through the whole year had to be completed for the meta, the school of hard knocks.

Friends and guildies

Struggling my way through the orphan quests was slow work, but doable. With every setting on its absolute lowest it was challenging trying to complete the dailies, which I did in Outland, but that too worked. I was getting there, slowly. However, there were two achievements I didn’t think my PC would handle at all. Utgarde Pinnacle and the battlegrounds. After a cry for help in the guild, they lined up ready to help me complete UP, willing to drag me through while I possibly had to wait until the end to teleport in. It was nice to see so many willing help with this and I felt less stupid for asking when so many had volunteered. So to Utgarde Pinnacle we went. Surprisingly the PC coped enough to let me DPS my way through, at between 6 and 10 fps. Slowly the hope of completing the PvP achievement grew…

Giving up

After Utgarde Pinnacle was completed, four guildies went with me to Eye of the Storm, which I predicted would prove most difficult on a non-PvP geared squishy little warlock trying to run in a straight line with 4 fps. It was terrible. We went up against well geared PvPers and even holding onto the towers proved too difficult a challenge, at which point my four guilies (who all dislike PvP) gave up. Before they gave up I had already determined this would be nearly impossible and logged off quite gutted knowing it would take yet another year for my pretty 310% flight speed Violet Proto-Drake.

I’m stubborn though… Next day I went back into the battlegrounds and fluked getting the Arathi Basin flag at the stables! That’s all it took for me to decide to spend all the time I possibly could to try to struggle myself through this. And then I got into WSG… I didn’t even stand half a chance of keeping alive, let alone trying to kill the flag carrier, hah! There wasn’t much hope left, the achievement would have to be done next year.

More friends

I whined about the achievement at some friends who happened to be online at a time. One of them, Sil the fearless (or annoying as the Horde would say, I’m sure ), said ‘I’ll help you’. I thought great, but my lag would still be an issue. If I can’t do much at all with that kind of lag I thought surely I would only waste his time, but a accepted the offer and decided to at least give it a shot. He is a pretty good PvPer after all so if he thought it was possible, who was I to argue, eh?

Another friend, Paralorian the Noble (he’s going to laugh at that, I just know it…) chipped in and together they dragged a third one, Finaldo the brave, along with the goal of getting me the three remaining obstacles. A cunning plan was in the making!

First we went to EotS. Before I’d even managed to get to the right tower, Sil was running towards me with the flag! After dropping it at my feet I lagged over to the base and placed the flag. Score! Two down, two to go! They fought on trying to seize victory, but to no avail, we lost the battle ground and without further ado we went on to the next one, the awful Warsong Gulch *shudder*.

The plan was simple, the flag carrier was going to die and I was going to get the flag back. As we got in, more and more orphans appeared and it was obvious I was going to have competition getting this one completed. Sil and Finaldo were having a go at the flag carrier who miraculously made it out into the open and almost the whole way to the horde base before he died, which was right as I got feared miles away from the flag. Before I got to where the flag carrier (or carriers by that time) the flag had been dropped 4 times before the last flag was picked up by alliance. I got deserved abuse for being slow while they were fighting their instincts of clicking the bloody flag. So back to the base we went, waiting for the next horde to show up wanting our flag. It didn’t take very long. While they were fighting the flag carrier, Paralorian was doing his absolute best to keep my squishy lock alive while dispelling the near constant freezes I was put in by the mage who had me focused. Despite his efforts I couldn’t make it to the flag carrier before he died and someone else had returned the flag.

This happened once more and I was getting more deserved abuse for being slow, until a couple of tries later I was in range of the flag carrier and was clicking like mad randomly on my screen hoping the flag would pop up somewhere nearby. I couldn’t see a thing, but it worked. I got the flag! Much cheer followed before they decided to win this battle ground. Sil capped the flag 3 times, being kept alive by Paralorian, while Finaldo made it his own mission of returning as many flags as possible. I was just happy being able to take on first a hunter and then a shadow priest and come out winning both times!

One to go, Alterac Valley.

So yeah, in order to cap a tower in Alterac Valley it would be very beneficial if you get there first. With my lag I couldn’t see how this was even going to be half possible until Paralorian suggested I caught a ride with him on his mammoth! The cunning plan looked like it was working until we got all the way down to Frostwolf! Yey!

Bugger! The mammoth was too tall!

Running from  the entrance before the towers was too long for the laggy PC and I got caught up and stood no chance of getting the flag. As we were losing another tower up north we went for that, but others were closer, it was not looking good. Soon afterwards the horde won the battleground and we were in the queue for another.

This time Finaldo and his chopper was going to take me down to Frostwolf, but without Crusader Aura to help us it was going to be difficult. However, Finaldo’s mad racing skills proved superior and we got there first by a good margin. Now the biggest challenge remained; getting to the top of the tower. After falling off the slope once and while having Finaldo yelling ‘come on come on’ I finally made it to the top. The tower got capped and achievements were spammed. Yey! Mission accomplished!

Thank yous

Have you ever tried running around a spiralled slope at 4 fps after feeling motion sickness being driven down through Alterac Valley on a jumping and zig zagging bike after already been through it on a mammoth? I don’t recommend it, I felt sick for the rest of the day, hah.

There were several reasons why attempting this was essentially not a good idea. Other people did all the work and helped me get an achievement which should have been impossible. It makes this mount worth something other than just plodding through events. They all deserve a big thank you, first my guildies for taking me through UP and trying PvP with me despite hating it. And then Sil, Paralorian and Finaldo for their kindness in helping me get the PvP achievements. You guys rock <3 . I guess I owe you big now heh.

To everybody else, both friends and completely random people, who makes the game an enjoyable experience for others by helping and generally being nice and friendly to those who they play with: thank you.

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On a side note

The laptop being away for repair again means (as illustrated above ) that I can’t carry on playing as I’d like. My next posts regarding healing in ICC are likely to be put on hold for a bit longer as I wanted to take another character through healing it first and there is no chance of that on this PC, but I might change my mind and get them up anyway. Sylvaine is currently working on the next post in the healing series and I am working on the continuation of those which too, unfortunately, may be slowed by the general inability to play WoW.

Gemming

Keep in mind that orange, yellow or green gems can be used to fill a yellow gem socket to get the bonus, red, orange and purple can be used for to get the bonus from a red socket, while purple, green or blue gems can be used for the blue socket bonus. A prismatic gem can be put into any coloured socket for the bonus. You do not need to gem for a socket bonus, that is down to both personal choice and the usefulness of the socket bonus itself. However, make sure you always have enough gems to keep your meta gem active.

Below you will find a table of gem possibilities and what healing class would benefit most from each of the gems. I have linked to the epic gems as they are fairly easily available these days. All of the gem types are available as lower quality ones as well.

There are various gem combinations that are useful for each class, but generally all will find use for spell power. The chain heal type of Shamans love their haste, while paladins still seem to favour intellect in their gem choices. Combinations with these types of stats may be what you would benefit most from. Majestic Zircon (blue) provide the least used types of gems, people who prefer spell power tend to choose Dreadstone (purple) gems, and those who favour intellect, haste or crit in their gems tend to pick Eye of Zul gems (green). The socket bonus can easily be ignored, just make sure you have enough of a colour to active your meta gem.

If you feel you are low on stamina and unable to keep yourself alive specifically because of this then there are combination gems, green and purple, available with stamina on them. This stamina would either be grouped with spell power (purple), haste, crit or intellect. It is generally not necessary for a healer to use stamina in any of their gems, however it’s good to know you have the option for those particularly hard heroic or hard mode progression raids.

Don’t forget that you can have an [Eternal Belt Buckle] made by a blacksmith, or purchase one on the auction house, to add another gem socket to your belt. You can put whatever colour gem you want into this socket. It does not affect the any potential socket bonus available on your belt either.

Enchanting

You can get a lot of your gear enchanted, some of the enchants you can purchase off reputation vendor (head and shoulder) and others you can get by either applying a scroll purchased off the auction house or have an enchanter make them for you. Healing leg enchants are made by tailors and are generally also available on the auction house.  Some professions also have specific enchants available that are better than those you can obtain from generic places and they do not stack with each other. Let’s have a closer look at what is available to us healers.

There are two useful head enchants, [Arcanum of Burning Mysteries] comes from revered with Kirin Tor, while [Arcanum of Blissful Mending] is from revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Make sure you the correct tabard equipped for instances if you need to collect the rep for one of these. If you already have a level 80 on the same server with the appropriate rep you can purchase the desired enchant on that character and mail it to your healer as these enchants are now Bind on Account. Unless you struggle with mana and would like more MP5 on your gear the enchants with spell power and crit will likely be a better option than the ones with spell power and MP5.

The same goes for the shoulder enchants which are available from Sons of Hodir. You can get the lower level ([Lesser Inscription of the Storm] and [Lesser Inscription of the Crag]) at honoured and the best shoulder enchants ([Greater Inscription of the Storm] and [Greater Inscription of the Crag] at exalted. You can purchase the exalted version on another character with the appropriate reputation on the same server, the honoured ones are for some reason not Bind on Account. If you need to obtain the reputation it will entail a long quest chain a fair few dailies. The first quest is available in K3.

There are two types of leg enchants to choose from as a healer; the [Brilliant Spellthread] with spell power and spirit and the [Sapphire Spellthread] with spell power and stamina. Generally you will find that as a priest or druid you want to choose the one with spirit and a shaman or paladin would prefer the option with stamina. Although there are rare quality ones available, the mats for the better epic ones are normally reasonable and therefore strongly recommended.

You can get an enchanter to enchant your cloak, chest, bracers, gloves, boots, weapon and shield. Although there may be a vast range of enchants available there aren’t that many viable options available at high level and the enchants available generally have spell power or intellect.

Food, flasks, elixirs and potions

To up your stats for specific encounters you can use buffs such as food and flasks or elixirs. To increase your stats once or for a short period of time you can use a potion. You cannot use a flask and an elixir at the same time. You can, however, use two elixirs simultaneously as long as one of them is a battle elixir while the other is a guardian elixir. Most healers are likely to benefit most from pure spell power buffs, but let’s have a look at what is available anyway. (Only the highest available items will be used as examples.)

Food:

• Fish Feast – these are always nice, but expensive. On the bright side it would feed everybody, not just you, so it’s a nice way to make a good impression and contribute with raid buffs. However, you need to have near max cooking skill to put one down and that can be annoying to level.
• Spell power and stamina (good for anybody): Firecracker Salmon and Tender Shoveltusk Steak
• Haste and stamina (good for shamans, paladins and raid healing druids): Imperial Manta Steak and Very Burnt Worg
• Crit and stamina (good for both types of priest): Spicy Blue Nettlefish and Spiced Worm Burger
• Spirit and stamina (ok for druids): Cuttlesteak
• MP5 and stamina (ok for anybody needing to up their mana regen): Mighty Rhino Dogs and Spicy Fried Herring

It you need find out what buff food you would personally benefit most from. If you are low on haste then that could be ideal, if you need to up your mana regen slightly, eat mana regen food and so on. It’s a good idea to keep a full stack of food.

Flasks:

• Flask of the Frost Wyrm – Spellpower flask which is decent for any healer type
• Flask of Pure Mojo – MP5 flask to increase your mana regen. Good for anybody in need of increased regen.
• Flask of Distilled Wisdom – Intellect good for paladins in particular. This is an old flask, but still has its uses.

A flask lasts for an hour and persists through death unless you are an alchemist where it would still persist through death but last an extra hour. Unless you feel the need to swap flasks half way through the previous flasks duration, you can simply bring as many flasks as the raids duration. If the raid is likely to last a little over 3 hours, you should bring 4 flasks etc.

Elixirs:

There are two types of elixirs, battle elixir and guardian elixir. You can use both at the same time, but only one of each type. Generally the battle elixirs increase a supplementary stat, while guardians elixirs increase a base stat. I’ve added various options of both types in a table to make it easier to see what you can use together. You can use one from the battle elixir column and one from the guardian elixir column at the same time.

Elixirs lasts for an hour or until you die. After each death you would have to consume new elixirs, so a full stack of each type you would use in a raid would not be a bad idea. You are likely to best know what stat would increase your performance, but my general recommendation to those who prefer elixirs over flasks is a spell power or haste battle elixir together with the intellect guardian elixir.

Potions:

Normally the most useful one of these is the Runic Mana Potion which will restore some of your mana (increased effect for alchemists and engineers who has used the Mana Injector Kit on a stack of mana pots). You should always keep a stack at hand for those emergency situations where you need mana as soon as possible for whatever reason.

Professions

There are no longer any crafted gear that is Bind on Pickup, although there are trinkets available from alchemy, engineering and jewelcrafting these are not much use at higher level of content. Therefore it is mainly the profession specific boosts that should be considered. Let’s have a look at what they are:

• Alchemy: flasks lasts twice as long and you can increased effect from elixirs and potions. You can also transmute an epic gem a day at 450 skill (and hope for a proc if you are a transmute master).
• Blacksmithing: you can put an extra socket on your bracers and your gloves, potentially giving you 46 more spell power or 40 additional intellect than without these sockets
• Enchanting: you can enchant your own rings and gain an extra 23 spell power per ring giving a potential boost of 46 spell power.
• Engineering: you can enchant your gloves to give you additional haste for 15 seconds with a minute cool down, a crit bonus for your boots and add spell power to your cloak. These do not stack with normal enchants.
• Inscription: you can enchant your shoulders with a greater enchant than those available from exalted with Sons of Hodir. There are both crit and MP5 versions available to an inscriber. These shoulder enchants provide 46 more spell power than the exalted shoulder enchant from Sons of Hodir. These do not stack.
• Jewelcrafting: you can have 3 better quality gems cut into red, yellow or blue as you want, I have used the spell power and intellect options for this comparison. By using all spell power gems here you would gain 48 spell power, or as a paladin you could gain 46 intellect if that’s what you prefer.
• Leatherworking: you can add fur lining to your bracers which will give you 48 more spell power than the highest spell power enchant on bracers. These do not stack.
• Tailoring: you can add spell thread to your legs for hardly any mats at all, but the stats are the same as the spell threads available to everybody. Additionally you can add a Lightweave or Darkglow embroidery to your cloak for either a chance to get 295 spell power for 15 seconds or a chance gain 400 mana when you cast a spell. These do not stack with other cloak enchants.

The gathering professions have minor benefits and are not as beneficial as the various professions listed above. As illustrated, all of the possible professions have a useful buff for any type of healer. However, a paladin choosing to stack intellect over spell power will find it most useful to be either a blacksmith or a jewelcrafter.

While levelling you might benefit most from having two gathering professions to make gold you can use to purchase gear or mats for when you reach max level. However, keeping these gathering professions will not help boost your stats. If you would still like to keep a gathering profession to keep earning gold off selling mats on the auction house at 80 then that is perfectly viable. You may however find a good balance in having one crafting profession for boosting your stats and one gathering profession your best choice. In a top end raiding guild you are likely to want two professions to boost your stats on your main character, while having another character for grinding mats.

Glyph swapping

Some glyphs can be very useful in one boss encounter, while another would be better in the following encounter. An example of when glyph swapping could be useful is when healing a tank as a restoration shaman you might prefer the Glyph of Riptide together with Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave and Glyph of Earthshield, while when you are healing the raid you are likely to find Glyph of Chain Heal more useful than said Riptide glyph.

You can easily swap glyphs before a boss encounter, simply put a new glyph on top of the existing glyph. You can also shift + right click to remove your current glyph if you don’t want to replace it with anything else. Do make sure that you keep a few spare of the two glyphs you would be swapping between so you don’t find yourself without either when you would really like to use it.

Does it matter?

Yes! Imagine you have 10 empty sockets on your gear of various colours which would yield no bonus at all. However, by just choosing to put one type of gem in them all and ignoring all the socket bonuses, you could get as much as 230 spell power or 200 intellect or even 200 haste. It is not quite that easy to get your gear its optimal stats as sometimes the socket bonus is worth considering and you should certainly ensure your chosen meta gem is active. The bonus you can get from enchanting your gear is equally significant. You don’t have to put the highest level of gems or enchants on lower level gear, but showing that you have put some effort in is generally appreciated by those you do dungeons with. When you do top end raid content you will certainly benefit from having your gear as optimal as possible, even if it can get expensive if you purchase everything in one go. Buff food, elixirs or flasks are generally a good way to show you are trying to be the best you can be and they do help.

Professions and glyph swapping is less significant, however they are worth consideration. The bonus gain from various professions are generally fairly equal these days unless there is something specific you are after. Glyph swapping is a very quick, easy and often cheap way of modifying your strengths towards whatever encounter you will be up against next. It could prove to be just that little extra that makes the encounter easier for you.

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Before we move onto the next chapter we’ll have a look at useful add ons for healers.

When changes have been made to the game I’ve never felt strongly about them. However, when I read the preview about a few minutes ago it felt like a slap in the face. I double checked the date and no it’s not April first any more, so they must be serious:

Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

My druid is a tree, and she takes pride in being a tree. Being a tree is simply part of Rebella’s identity. It’s great to be unique (as unique you can be with 3 other trees surrounding you). There was never any doubt which druid was the healer. The idea of boosting my own healing could be nice, but not by making me heal in caster form most of the time. Surely there has got to be another way of giving us a similar boost. In all honestly if I could choose I’d rather not have to rely on a cooldown that would make such a difference as that one implies. Consistency is one of the druids strengths as I see it anyway, oh well.

Yeah, OK, it would be nice to have HoTs benefit from haste and crit without any fancy glyphs or set bonuses, but this is something that they will add to all classes by the looks of it and will affect DoTs as well. I know this will be a great boost to our healing, but that was pretty much all they decided to give us and it’s not even something special.

If you want to show off your nice armour you can hang around the bank in caster form or reroll. A druid in WoW is all about its shapeshifting. If they increase healing while out of caster form then why not increase caster dps out of form? It seems they have just decided on one of the specs and deforestation seemed the best way to go. I’m sure some will like the change and other will be indifferent and that there are plenty of blog posts out there to analyse the announced changes sensibly and even rationally .

Just to top it off we’re not even getting any new spells because we already have a lot to choose from. As if priests haven’t got even more spells, and even they are getting new toys… Sigh

I hope they get enough feedback from other people disappointed with the change so they will change their minds and leave us alone. If tree form goes, so do I. It is not looking very good:

We knew changing Tree of Life to a cooldown was going to be controversial. There was just no way a change this big would be unanimously accepted. My apologies if being a tree was what really drew you to the class.

Or maybe there is hope after all

We might (*might*) consider a minor glyph that kept the visual of the old tree form in some fashion even when not using the Tree of Life cooldown.

If they add that then that might be what it takes to make me happy.

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If you want to see all the announced druid changes, have a look on the official forums

Spec and abilities

If you have been levelling as DPS or tank you want to ensure you have your healing spec sorted right away and abilities trained for max level. Equally, if you have levelled with healing as dual spec you want to ensure you have your max level abilities trained. Lastly, if you have levelled with a healing spec, you may want to change from a soloing spec to a more raid and dungeon oriented spec. For quick access to a reasonable healing builds, I have added my personal choices for each class below and included a selection of glyphs. There are viable variations for each class and you can experiment to find a build that suits you.

• Discipline Priest (58/13/0)
• Holy Priest (14/57/0)
• Restoration Druid (13/0/58)
• Restoration Shaman (0/13/58)
• Holy Paladin (51/5/15)

Before you venture into healing a dungeon you should ensure you are using max level ranks of your abilities. Back in TBC down ranking had its advantages (particularly mana and proc related), but that time is over. A significant number of people still use lower ranks of abilities unintentionally because they have either not updated their buttons on their button bar or haven’t trained the most recent rank. I have seen people blissfully unaware using low level ranks in ToC raids so it doesn’t hurt to double check.

There are a couple of main reasons why this happens. Firstly, if you have dual spec and go to the trainer and train for the spec you are soloing with and not your healing off spec, then the spec specific abilities will not get trained. Secondly, if you train your healing abilities while in your soloing form, your buttons on the second spec don’t automatically get updated, which is both unfortunate and annoying. This is the main reason people don’t realise that they are using lower level ranks. Double check to ensure your abilities are at their max level and you will certainly find healing dungeons and raids a lot easier. Not to mention you will be saved the embarrassment from when someone points out you are using lower level ranks.

Gearing up with crafted items

First of all you should make notes of what stats to aim for on your gear. As you go along you may find that a different balance of the stats may better suit you for what you normally end up healing. For example, you are likely to benefit from having close to 400 haste at least on any class as quick as possible and then balance other stats afterwards, or you might struggle with your mana and want more mp5 on the gear than you will need later on. If you are unsure of what stats to aim for, have a look at each of the introductory pages; discipline priest, holy priest, restoration druid, restoration shaman and holy paladin.

There is a vast range of items available off different crafters. A necklace and a ring are available from Jewelcrafting and are of item level 200. There are in fact a lot of crafted item level 200 items available. A tailor can make cloaks for healers as well as robe and gloves for priests, leatherworkers can make legs and boots for druids and shamans, a blacksmith can make helm and boots for paladins. These are generally not too expensive to have made, except perhaps the paladin gear because it requires titansteel. It would be a very good idea to look at how much these items cost on the AH before you consider farming mats for them as some make these to level up and therefore sell them cheap as they are not overly popular to have crafted anymore.

Belt and boots are available from Ulduar patterns (item level 226) and these are generally quite good for the mats required to have them made. Then there are chest and wrist items available for each armour type from Trial of the Crusader patterns (item level 245). These items are quite good and I would recommend investing in these if you’d like to gear up quickly with decent items. The ToC crafted items come in an Alliance and a Horde version, although stats are the same they look slightly different, so ensure you get the correct faction (sometimes people are funny and list the wrong type on the ah). Below is a list of what healing items are available from these Ulduar (items with hit are not included) and ToC patterns (it’s the Alliance version I have linked to):

Cloth:

• [Spellslinger's Slippers] (Ulduar)
• [Savior's Slippers] (Ulduar)
• [Cord of the White Dawn] (Ulduar)
• [Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers] (ToC)
• [Royal Moonshroud Bracers] (ToC)
• [Royal Moonshroud Robe] (ToC)
• [Merlin's Robe] (Toc)

Leather:

• [Boots of Wintry Endurance] (Ulduar)
• [Belt of Arctic Life] (Ulduar)
• [Moonshadow Armguards] (ToC)
• [Lunar Eclipse Robes] (Toc)

Mail:

• [Lightning Grounded Boots] (Ulduar)
• [Blue Belt of Chaos] (Ulduar)
• [Black Chitin Bracers] (ToC)
• [Ensorcelled Nerubian Breastplate] (ToC)

Plate:

• [Treads of Destiny] (Ulduar)
• [Plate Girdle of Righteousness] (Ulduar)
• [Sunforged Bracers] (ToC)
• [Sunforged Breastplate] (ToC)

Unlike the cloth items, where there are two options of each type, leather and mail items are typically made to be usable for both dps and healers. Therefore you should keep in mind that not all items will be optimal stats wise, they may however be a fair bit better than what you can easily obtain and would therefore prove a good temporarily upgrade if you can afford it. There are also legs and boots available from ICC patterns, but they are still very expensive to have made so emblems of triumph gear as well as instance drops are worth considering instead. Let’s have a closer look at what is available.

Gearing up with emblems

There are so much gear available it will easily make your head spin. Emblems of Heroism, Valour, Conquest, Triumph and Frost are all currencies you can use to purchase gear. Currently it is the emblems of triumph which is easiest to get a hold of and the gear obtainable with these emblems is quite good. If you use the looking for dungeon tool as you level up you can gather two triumph emblems every day. The 5 man heroic bosses currently all drop an Emblem of Triumph each and once you have completed your daily random dungeon (which awards emblems of frost upon completion, see below) the subsequent heroics you complete using this tool will award 2 additional emblems of triumphs. Due to the amounts of Emblems of Triumphs available you are likely to find it relatively easy to gear up. The different items of gear may not be optimal stats wise, but they are likely to be vastly better than what you obtained while levelling and non-heroic dungeons.  Therefore the gear available from these emblems are what you should look at first.

With [Emblem of Triumph] you can buy a full Tier 9 set of gear; helm, shoulders, chest, gloves and legs. This gear is available off the various armour type vendors around Dalaran and on the Tournament Grounds. There are also shoulder and helm items available which are not apart of the tier. Additionally you can purchase rings and trinkets as well as relics for this type of currency. Lastly it is worth noting that Crusader Orbs used in the ToC crafts mentioned above can be purchased from Emblems of Triumph. For a list of all items available from triumph emblems, have a look at WoW Wiki. You may want to check out the different pages for the tier 9 sets aimed for healing too; priest (this set covers both priest specs), druid, shaman and paladin. These are the Tier 9 (item level 232) sets, which are the sets available from emblems only. I have linked to the Alliance versions. Do double check that you have picked the correct tier item and not one for a different spec.

You can downgrade your emblems to a lower type to purchase gear off those vendors as well, if you want to. However, you can only downgrade one step at a time, so Emblem of Triumph can be made into Emblem of Conquest, Emblem of Conquest can be traded in for Emblems of Valour and Emblem of Valour can be exchanged for Emblem of Heroism. All of which offers gear for a lower tier than what they are traded from. Therefore, you are likely to not find much you want from heroism and valour which will give you slightly less to keep track of.

Then there is [Emblem of Frost], the highest level emblem currently available. As of when you reach level 80 the first random dungeon you do with the looking for dungeon tool each day will award Emblem of Frost upon completion. You will also get 5 Emblems of Frost upon completing the weekly raid. Additionally bosses in the ICC raid dungeons drop Emblems of Frost, as does the most recent boss in Vault of Archavon, Toravon, and you get 5 Emblems of Frost for completing the weekly ICC raid quest (located randomly inside ICC). The frost emblem vendors are located inside ICC and in Dalaran next to the other vendors, however you can currently only access the tier 10 vendors from inside ICC. Once again WoW Wiki provides good information about the items available from emblems of frost, as well as the healer tier 10 sets; priest (once again one set for both discipline and holy), druid, shaman and paladin.

Gearing up with dungeon drops

Before you get many frost emblems you are likely to go through a few gear upgrades from dungeons as you go along while gathering Emblems of Triumph in particular. All heroics have epic items drop off the last boss and the looking for dungeon tool should ensure you don’t get dumped into a heroic you may not be geared and ready for. But before you jump into these, have a look at getting into Trial of the Champion on normal mode. All bosses drop epic gear of the same quality as most heroic 5 man end bosses. You can get into Trial of the Champion from level 75 and from at least level 78 there is no reason to keep waiting. As you reach level 80 you may then be better prepared for what awaits you and the gathering of Emblems of Triumph will speed up greatly.

After you have obtained a few better bits of gear you will be able to enter both the normal ICC 5 man dungeons (Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection) and then later also heroic Trial of the Champion which you are likely to find both more challenging and if you are lucky you may get some more gear upgrades. (You can theoretically get into the ICC 5 man dungeons from level 75, but you’re likely to find it very difficult.) You may find these more difficult to heal than the heroic 5 man dungeons you have been getting into so far, but as you get more experience you will find it easier. (I have written a guide on how to heal the ICC 5 man heroic dungeons, but most of the abilities are present in normal mode as well. Have a look here if you are interested.) The gear drops in these instances is likely to be better than what you have been able to access from dungeon drops thus far, and with some luck regarding drops, you may get some good gear upgrades.

Once you have gotten more gear and experience, the heroic ICC 5 man dungeons will be unlocked in the looking for dungeon tool and the bosses in here can drop items of the same quality as gear obtainable from the Emblems of Triumph. Forge of Souls will be available first, followed by Pit of Saron and eventually also Halls of Reflection. Although these can prove quite difficult to heal, the experience from healing them on normal mode helps a lot. There is a lot of gear available and many items not available from the emblems of triumph vendor can be found here, for example weapons. Priests, druids and shamans can get a nice dagger, [Surgeon's Needle], from Forgemaster Garfrost PoS while paladins have to make due with the caster dps weapon, [Seethe], from Devourer of Souls in FoS. For full lists of gear available in the different ICC instances (both normal and heroic) check out the Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection pages on WoW Wiki.

Vault of Archavon can be an easy way to get both tier 9 and tier 10 (both 10 and 25 man versions of the gear). However, you have to be very lucky with the drops. There are few drops off each boss and they can be any leg or glove tier (tier 10 from Toravon, tier 9 from Koralon etc) as well as PvP items. The tiers are spec specific as well so you may well find it easier to grind the emblems to purchase the gear. The bosses in there do drop two triumph emblems each though, except for Toravon who drops two Emblems of Frost so it is worth doing for a try at the tier and getting some emblems.

What’s next?

With the gear available you can start healing Trial of the Crusader on both 10 and 25 man as well start start venturing into Icecrown Citadel and say hello to the first few bosses in there. These instances are likely to offer more temptations gear wise and you may want to research gear upgrades before you go to not end up needing on everything just in case. Make sure that the items you need on are definite upgrades and not just a higher item level as that as useless as a “stat”. However, you may want to make sure you are confident with your healing first and have good rotations, useful addons and a good mana management. These will all be covered later on in the healing series.

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Next up is consumables, professions, glyph changing, gems, enchants and the like.

Back in December I made a very happy post that I’d finally gotten my Swift White Hawkstrider after months of grinding for it. Before we went in I jokingly said that mount better not drop. Anybody want to guess what happened in the Magister’s Terrace run I had earlier? Yup, the mount dropped, on my baby alt’s first trip to the heroic version of the dungeon. I couldn’t believe it. After an epic roll of 7 it appeared in my bags mocking me. Thankfully, after 15 minutes of intense persuasion, Sylvaine accepted his nice new shiny mount. Grats to him. But the irony, oh the irony… sigh…

Unfortunately, if you want to heal at level 80 you have to get to that level first which can be a long and daunting process. Thankfully there have been tweaks and additions in recent patches which will help speed up the levelling. This post will look into what spec to level as once you have chosen the class you prefer, then there will be some comments about gear before it’s finished off with some tips on having fun while levelling. However, the very first thing you need to do is decide what class you want to level.

Picking a class

Ah, this is always the difficult bit. At least it takes me absolutely forever… There are a few things to consider, but most importantly is what kind of healing style do you think you would enjoy and what is it that you want to be healing? Would you like to heal the raid, or would you prefer to keep tanks alive? Do you want to heal in 25 man raids, 10 man raids, PvP or just in 5 man heroics? These are all important questions which you may want to consider. Wanting to heal the raid (and not focus on tanks) in 25 man raids could easily influence your choice as for example paladins are not currently a great raid healing class.

It is always nice to consider the guild’s needs if you are not particularly fussed what class you’ll be playing. However, unless it is a very small guild or you level stupidly fast then there is likely to be someone of the particular class in your guild by the time you get to 80. Therefore this is something that shouldn’t be a vital part of your decision. You are likely to be just as useful if you choose a class you think you will both enjoy and master.

There are four different classes to choose from; priest (which you can heal with both as discipline and holy), druid, shaman and paladin. (If you are picky about what race you want to be, you may be limited to only a couple of the classes.) If you are going to be healing in 10 man mostly you will probably find yourself healing both the tanks and the raid no matter what class you heal on. However, in a 25 man holy priests, druids and shamans are most frequently on raid healing duty, while discipline priests and paladins tend to get assigned to tank healing. There may of course be variations, but that is the stereotypical classification.

Another thing you might want to consider before you pick the class is what type of spec you would prefer levelling as. Some people are not particularly fond of melee, while others struggle playing a caster. If you are either of those types, it is worth noting that you don’t want to melee your way to level 80 as a priest, nor is it a good idea to level the paladin as a caster. Both druids and shamans can be both caster and melee.

OK, so you’ve chosen what class to level (hopefully it doesn’t take you three days just to pick a name, sigh..), now to decide what spec you want to level as.

Spec

Right, so you want to level up quickly. You will get your first talent point at level 10 where you can start specialising. Any class with a healing spec available also have at least one DPS spec available, druids and paladins also have the ability to tank. Trying to level with a healing spec only can be quite slow and a lot find it unnecessarily difficult; not because you are likely to die (as you’re not), but because it takes a lot of time and effort to kill mobs compared to other specs. It is very important that you enjoy the spec you choose to level as. If you don’t enjoy playing the spec you have chosen you can easily get fed up and stop levelling all together which is hardly the intention. If you do reach this hurdle it is really worth considering respeccing and trying something else your class has to offer.

Dual spec is a great way of having a healing spec for instances as well as questing with a DPS spec. This is available from level 40 and for a person new to the game the 1000g it costs may seem like a stupidly high amount. Keep in mind that you can go to a trainer to respec if you want to, without having the dual spec, so you can both do quests as DPS and heal the odd instance with a healing spec should you wish to spec back and forth. If you choose to level as a caster you can probably heal well in that spec until level 40 or so without having to get a specific healing spec. Dual spec is not necessary, but it’s a nice option if you want to both level as quickly as possible while getting some healing experience in instances. If you do choose to have dual spec, make sure you continue to put your points in both talent specs as well as get training for both of them. You have to swap spec by the trainer to train any spec specific talents. (Some button add ons may require you to update your buttons as well.)

Below I have made suggestions on what specs I would likely to choose to level with; none of which are very healing oriented. These will include a glyph suggestion. The sole purpose of these builds is levelling, so they are all likely to be quite poor for dungeons and raids at max level. These series will only cover healing specs so you will have to go elsewhere for dps and tanking raid specs . Please note that if you choose to dual spec early you on may as well go straight for a proper healing spec as your secondary spec. The raid oriented healing specs will be looked at in the next episode.

First I would focus on getting to level 50 and the bottom tier talent because these are generally quite nice abilities. As feral talents are so similar for both cat and bear I’ve only included one talent suggestion which works for both types. I have included a discipline/holy spec for levelling as DPS as well as it is the most viable DPS option of the healing types in my opinion. Here is where I would put the first 50 talent points:

Then I would continue placing talent points until I got to level 80 where I would instantly respec to something less levelling oriented and make sure I have all the required training. Here are what the builds I would use from level 60 until the last talent point you’ll use while levelling at 79:

Now the spec is decided, you need to know what gear you want.

Gear

If you already have a level 80 alt on the same server, purchasing heirloom gear will surely benefit you greatly. Make sure you purchase the heirlooms for the spec you want to level as because the experience bonus will speed up your levelling significantly. It is important to note that the stats and armour type of the heirloom scale as your character levels up. Therefore, if you are levelling a paladin you want to purchase the plate gear, and as a shaman you want to purchase mail gear. Both of these classes uses a lower level armour type until level 40 and although the plate heirloom may look unwearable at lower levels for a paladin this is not the case. If you have a lot of emblems to spend on heirloom gear, you might also want to consider some items for a healing off spec as well to have some optimal gear items for when healing instances, although it’s not really necessary.

Dual spec means you should ideally collect two sets of gear – one to use for levelling and one to use for healing instances, even if you don’t have the extra emblems to spend on heirloom gear. Unless you plan on going all the way until max level without healing a single instance you probably want two sets of gear. No matter which of the two levelling approaches you pick you definitely want to start collecting healing gear around level 75 both as quest rewards and instance drops. To find out what stats you want on your healing gear, have a look at each class’ introduction page (discipline priest, holy priest, restoration druid, restoration shaman and holy paladin). Though keep in mind that you won’t be able to obtain much haste on gear until after you reach Northrend. If you level as melee, the gear you pick up for your levelling spec is going to be of no use to you as a healer, while caster gear will benefit a healer more. Those who level as a caster can therefore easier reuse bits of their DPS gear for healing.

Have fun

There are plenty of ways to have fun while levelling. Some people will enjoy levelling with a friend for nattering and company while others focus more on for example a role play angle and create a story for their character as they go along. Then there are some who prefer reading all the quests and are interested in the lore while others mostly ignore this part of the game and plough through as quickly as they possibly can. Some will enjoy questing, while others will prefer to do instances. It has thankfully been made easier to get an instance group with the looking for dungeon tool. There are many different ways to add more enjoyment to levelling a character and you will be the best to determine what it is that would up your experience.

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Next up we’ll look at proper healing specs and how to gear up quickly.

History of the feral tank

The feral tank has gone through several evolutions since launch. As my character was created shortly after Burning Crusade’s launch, I have very little experience of vanilla ferals, other than the idea that any druid not healing was not actually considered for raid spots and most tanking was done by warriors.

Burning Crusade feral:

• Wasn’t crit immune out of the box
• Highest armour, avoidance and health of 3 tank classes, making them the best for tanking hard hitting bosses
• Only tank that couldn’t avoid crushing damage
• Unable or undesirable for tanking certain bosses due to mechanics (Kael’thas, Illidan)
• Very poor AOE threat

Burning Crusade ferals used specific feral tank gear, gemmed to a point for defence and had an insane amount of effective health coupled with very high avoidance. Whilst this was a very good thing, we were often sidelined for warrior tanks as they were capable of avoiding crushing blows altogether, where druids were designed to absorb them through superior health and armour. Also druids were not capable of tanking certain fights where boss mechanics would result in a dead tank without specific abilities such as Kael’thas’ Pyroblast that needed to be absorbed by a shield and spell reflected, and Illidan who’s Shear needed to be blocked by a shield.

Wrath of the Lich King feral:

• No longer concerned with defence – crit immune out of the box
• Better TPS/DPS than in BC
• Crushing blows are no longer an issue for any tank
• Avoidance, armour and health generally lowered to be in line with other tanks

Wrath ferals of both DPS and tank flavours now use the same gear, there is no longer a distinction between “tank” and “dps” gear. As we are now crit immune without having to do much, there’s no longer the need to carefully balance defence rating through gemming and gear choices. With the launch of WotLK, all tanks received a significant boost in DPS and TPS, ferals were no exception. We are now considered the tank with the highest single target threat. Crushing blows have also been removed from consideration for raiding, as only mobs four levels higher can crush. This however has been replaced with the magic damage “crushing blow” that druids are ill equipped to deal with. More on this can be read here. Our avoidance, health and armour have also been reduced to fall in line with other tanks, removing one of our niches from the game. Whilst we still have the edge on effective health, it’s a lot less than it was before.

Today’s bears

So what does a typical bear do these days? Besides hibernating, we’re a lot more viable now than we were. There’s no longer any boss mechanic that favour or outright require one tank over another and gear is easier to pick and balance, as there’s no need to factor in that magic uncrittable number. Our AOE threat is now a LOT better than it was, going from a three target tight cone based attack to a 360° unlimited target attack. It’s a wonderful time to be a druid tank. Or is it?

Currently there is a strong movement among tanks of all types to get to uncrittable levels of defence and stack effective health (stamina and armour) to the exception of everything else. There’s no longer any reason to gear for avoidance outside of certain fights, especially in Icecrown Citadel where the zone wide debuff lowers the value of balancing avoidance with effective health. Since ferals don’t need to worry about defence rating, almost every gem can be a stamina gem. There’s no longer any need to think about how to gem or enchant before doing it, just stack stamina as much as possible.

Next up is the state of gear since Burning Crusade. Back then we used items like Band of the Swift Paw and Treads of the Den Mother, which were specifically for feral tanks and no one else. Blizzard decided that having bosses drop gear that was only for one subset of one spec of one class was not a good thing, and removed this in WotLK, instead making us crit immune without having to gear/gem and making us further share drops with rogues. This in itself should have been a good thing. In some ways, it is a good thing. Less specific loot that you can guarantee will drop when a feral is not in the raid, win win. However where this fails is that feral tanks are not rogues. The gear is far from optimal when compared to say, plate tank gear. This means we ferals are stuck with stats like ArP, haste and crit rating that we don’t actually get enough of to make a difference even if we did want them. Another bugbear with feral gear is that we seem to be “sharing” drops with more than just rogues. Plate tanks get their own selection of tanking gear that is only desired by other plate tanks. Our “tank” gear is desired by more than just feral tanks. This makes it extra difficult to gear up a feral tank as we’re often fighting off other feral tanks/DPS, rogues, enhancement shammies, retribution paladins, DPS warriors and death knights and hunters. When pugging 25mans or other raids this is pretty unpleasant to deal with.

I look like a rogue.

Next is our inability to deal with the new WotLK equivalent of the crushing blow – the large magic special attack. This ability seems to have replaced the old crushing blow where bosses would melee for 150% of normal, causing nasty spikes in tank health that made healers sweat a little. Where paladins and warriors would be able to push crushing blows off the combat table, we ferals absorbed those hits with our hefty health pool and excess body f.. armour. Nowadays, these “crushing blows” are in the form of magic, and ferals are not equipped to deal with this. We can pop Barkskin and Survival Instincts, cross our fingers and hope that’s enough, but beyond that we’re in trouble.

Last of all is the loss of our tanking niche. We were the best at tanking hard hitting, non-crushing bosses. All of our extra health and armour that usually compensated for crushing blows made us totally imba if the boss didn’t crush. Whilst the loss of this very specific niche can be considered a good thing, it also takes some of the specialness out of the class. There’s no reason for a feral to tank over any other tank class. I think whilst part of me yearns for the “Sylv, we need you to tank this one” from the RL, the other part of me is thankful that I’m not just brought along for the trash and that one boss, and that I can capably main tank the entire raid with no issue.

Conclusion

Feral tanking has gone through a lot of changes since vanilla. Some good, some bad. I think that feral tanking since WotLK’s launch has felt “watered down” somewhat and the class/spec could use some tweaking and perhaps an in-depth look at by the developers. But there are good sides to what they’ve done which have made me happy, a proper AOE tank ability and making us crit immune through talents, removing that awful defence balancing act we had in TBC.

I hope this overview of feral tanking has been useful to some. Hopefully I’ll find the inspiration to write more, perhaps on the state of feral DPS! But for now, this is as much as I can think to write. Thanks for reading!