Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here. Sorry I haven't posted in over a month. Things have been kinda crazy and I haven't had much time to think about a blog post. I'm still working on a logo design. I have one that I'm working on perfecting before I put it here and make an appropriate layout for it. It'll be up soon, I promise! :P Over the past, I don't know, few months? I've gotten back into World of Warcraft. Yes, I had played it, left it, and now I'm playing it again. I tried a few different private servers this time around and am currently playing with Ash Realms. I'll probably write a mini-review on them soon.
Anyway, as always, I rolled a Human female Priest, named Kinami (which is my default name, if you ever want to find me on a server.), leveled up as quickly as I could, and started hitting dungeons and raids as main heal. On a side note, I always roll Discipline; I appreciate the buff improvements and the MAJOR improvements on Power Word: Shield. It makes for soloing a LOT easier. With this particular server, though, there are 100 talent points to use at 80, so I did a 54/46 Discipline/Holy spec, covering all group-target heals and most single-target heals. I'd gotten to 80 and done several dungeons/raids on other servers, so I wasn't new to healing. And yet, I kept failing-- running out of mana, not healing quickly enough, the whole "newb" healer shebang. I felt horrible, as if I were personally responsible for letting my party wipe (which I probably was, but that's not the point.) and felt like a horrible healer. And then it occurred to me:
My gear wasn't sufficient for dungeons.
I had told my friend, who plays a Hunter on the same server, how I was feeling and she replied with something I hadn't thought about before. "Yeah, I hate how gear-dependent WoW is." Gear-dependent? Of course, that makes sense now! Of course when I was on other servers, had good gear, fully gemmed and enchanted, I was a ROCKIN priest and of course when I'm a fresh 80 my heals will suck. It made perfect sense! But then it got me thinking... Why IS WoW so gear-dependent? I mean, sure, it definitely offers incentive to get the best gear possible, which means doing SEVERAL dungeons and mainly SHIT-TONS of raids to get good gear, especially end-game raid gear, depending on which "client" you're working with (Vanilla, Burning Crusade, Lich King, or Cata, of course). But why on earth should someone who hasn't been able to get better gear fail at healing? Sure, the spell costs are high in comparison to mana pool and regen rates, I can understand that. But a 80 priest shouldn't run out of mana five minutes into a boss battle-- an experience I faced several times over until I was properly geared. And sure, mobs will be harder to fight and will require healers to heal more often for more points. I get that. But I can't help but feel that a healer shouldn't be the single determining factor in how fast your party will wipe. That is also determined by the tank's gear, their stamina level, and such. I don't really know WHY WoW is so gear-dependent, honestly, but I can try to offer solutions for other healers facing similar problems.
If you are raiding
-Let them know you are under-geared.
Raids are serious stuff and you always need to be prepared. Honestly, if you aren't geared for raids, you should NOT be signing up, but if you still want to, let them know you're not geared well. Some parties will not take you if you're under-geared and will not be happy if they find out when JUST going into the raid that you're equipment is insufficient. Usually, if they don't mind or are willing to help you out, they'll bring in additional healers to help you out. They don't want to wipe any more than you do and would probably rather sacrifice a DPS spot in favor of making sure they live.
-Jump on board as a DPS/Off-heal and let them know you're usually healer, in conjunction with the previous step. This way, you're not entirely responsible for your party's health but you can help other healers when you need to. This will also give you good experience for managing aggro, mana, and knowing what to do when, which are crucial for main-healing roles.
-Ask if you can roll for heal-spec gear. I never really considered this that much of an issue, if you do have other healers who will also be looking to upgrade gear (which will be the case more often than not, unless you're on a small private server where you raid with the same people frequently, like I do :p) ask if it's alright if you roll for upgrade gear. I'm not saying to roll for ALL things, that's a jerk-move and will quickly get you hated. The BEST move is to ask BEFORE rolling on specific items, to make sure that no one DESPERATELY wants that gear. Always make sure that the piece you're rolling for is a SUBSTANTIAL upgrade to the one you have, because if you don't really need it or have rolled/will roll for a better one, then you're wasting someone else's opportunity to get gear.
-Share with other Healers. This goes for tips, items, spells, anything you can think of, but I find it's especially nice to do so with items. If two of you roll for something and you really don't need it as badly as they might, let them take it if you win it (provided it doesn't BoP immediately). Sharing mana pots and such are nice, too, because you're looking out for other healers. My favorite thing to do is to cast Power Infusion on other healers if I'm off-healing; it's a Discipline tree skill that increases spell casting speed by 20% and reduces mana costs of all spells by 20% for 15 seconds. If you're not able to pull your own weight in a group and you have the spell, it's a really nice way to help out healers that use long-cast-time, high-mana-cost spells.
That's all the info I have for today, I hope this was useful! :D I'll try to post more frequently, I promise! >_<
If you want to see any reviews, guides, or want to suggest games to try, feel free to leave a comment below. This is Little Miss Squish and I'm looking for a catchphrase. :p
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