We’ve been hearing the fuss for months—healing is intended to be a “triage” affair come Cataclysm. Health pools will be up while healing numbers will increase incrementally, and having players at less than full health will become acceptable again. (Hey, we might actually be able to convince dps to use … um, what were they called …. popular back in the day … bandages!) In all, a healing mana recession is poised to be released on Group 5 residents, with serious…

Raid lockouts have been the talk of the town as of late, with Ghostcrawler recently providing more than enough forum feedback for ardent raiders and trolls alike to sink their teeth into. With Beta on the horizon and a number of connected and lucky players very anxious to post without fear of the NDA hammer falling, speculation, discussion, comparisons, and talks about the raiding end-game changes have been making their rounds. As an ardent 25-man raider (I do it on…

The last major instance of the expansion and one that has been explored by a large number of raiders, Icecrown Citadel (ICC) has been surrounded by criticism and drama since its release. It was an expanded testing ground for a number of new Blizzard raiding mechanics, including limited attempts, heroic toggles and regimented gating, all of which seem to have developed enduring magnet for raiders’ ire. And while some have since flip-flopped their opinions about the overall challenge to be…

For many, avoiding burnout and sustaining interest in the wind down time before Beta news floods WoW fansites means capitalizing on the chance to explore the world of healing, Resto Shaman or otherwise. In my forays through all levels of dungeons, I’ve happened across a good number of first-time healers giving the hps side of things a try and a handful of re-rolls anxious for a better healing “fit”. And wonderfully enough, (or at least as “wonderful” as things can…

In WoW, as it exists today, elitism is both a good and a bad thing; its connotation greatly depends on who you talk to. Most oftentimes, being an “elitist” is looked upon as a negative, and not with the tongue-in-cheek approach that a certain theorycrafting guild took when they launched their intellectual salvo against “uneducated” players the world over. It is a term applied in a variety of fashions, often slung in defense of a real or perceived accusation, and…

I have a slight confession to make; make sure you’re sitting down for this one folks. I am … a WoW elitist. I make no bones about it—I believe in optimal stats, optimal specs, optimal rotations, and optimal performance. I do believe that an optimal condition exists, and although I concede that it is unattainable, for all intents and purposes, it’s nonetheless my goal to get as close to it as possible. But I’m not telling you this so I…

With the 15% buff in place and an instance of “farm” and “progression” content to clear, a number of guilds these days are facing a very real and very scary problem—raid regression. The opposite of solid progression, regression is a compounding effect, a slippery slope with disastrous consequences should you reach the bottom. I would venture every raider out there has been at a regression crossroads at some point, where attempts have been getting better and better with each wipe,…

In the world of competitive raiding, we oftentimes depend on key people—guild leaders, raid leaders, healing leads, main tanks, uber dps—to carry heavier loads than others, to hold the reigns and contribute a little more than average on our way to victory. And, as I have [sadly] discovered multiple times over the course of my WoW career, sometimes the glue holding everything together is just one person’s tenacity. When it comes to healing, we’ve all played on teams where there’s…

Without a doubt, healing is something I consider a comfort zone. I write about it, I talk about, and I genuinely enjoy the game more when I’m doing it. So a few months ago I finally bit the bullet and rolled the last healing class I didn’t have as an alt—a Priest. It was an RAF romp, capitalizing on a friend’s desire to finally level a mage. And while the leveling process was something unto itself—what do you mean priests…

When the revamped LFD (Looking for Dungeon) system was re-introduced with patch 3.3, it unleashed a wave of stories from players everywhere about the ups and downs of pugging. Horror stories became a common theme of blogs, forums, and guild sites, and I fear everyones’ noses drifted slightly higher in the air as we described our foray into heroics with the unwashed masses (which, of course, was no one we knew, just all those random baddies.) Appropriately timed with the…