Arcurion
Following our theme of children’s games this instance is like one long game of tag with periodic breaks to rest. In the first encounter, Arcurion will cast Hand of Frost which should be interrupted. Everyone should be avoiding the Icy Boulders. Dispel Chains of Frost, especially from the tank and melee as they need to be able to move and position. At 30% health he starts to cast Torrent of Frost, an AoE damage that you will just have to heal through. Compared to the first boss in Shadowfang Keep you still might need to use cooldowns but you won’t have to worry about it occuring while the party is at low health to begin with.
Don’t forget to pick up your Urgent Twilight Missive for the quest, then talk to Thrall to continue on.

Gear
Surestride Boots – Shaman Boots +Haste/Mastery
Evergreen Wristbands – Druid Bracers +Crit/Mastery

Asira Dawnslayer
The Asira Dawnslayer fight is the most complex fight in this instance and definitely requires Tank and Healer situation awareness. Her main attack is Choking Smoke Bomb, just like Vanessa uses in Deadmines, except Asira casts it constantly. The tank should be kiting her out of the smoke bomb and next to the Rising Fire Totem cast by Thrall with their back to the casters/healers. This tactic is to avoid being silenced by Throw Knife. You will need to stand behind someone because her ability is a physical attack and will not penetrate to other targets. Alternatively, you can also stand behind Thrall and he’ll take the silence attack instead. Use of hots and shields are a good tactic because invariably she’ll cast smoke bomb immediately followed by the knife attack, so you will get silenced.
Don’t forget to pick up your Urgent Twilight Missive for the quest, then hop on one of Alexstrasza’s drakes to fly you to the next gauntlet.

Gear
Cloak of Subtle Light – Cloak +Mastery
Leggings of Blinding Speed – Druid Leggings +Haste
Pauldrons of Midnight Whispers – Shaman Shoulders +Crit

Notable Trash
The Shadow Borers (eye stalks) in each set of trash mobs leading up the the Temple cast Shadow Bore which will invariably target the healer, so pray the dps get that mob down fast. They don’t really need to be tanked, so a melee dps can serve as a “tank” for the time it should take to get them down.

When you reach the entrance of Wyrmrest Temple and Archbishop Benedictus runs out to talk with Thrall, do not run ahead into the temple proper without Benedictus and Thrall as there is a bug that will cause Benedictus to despawn and render you unable to complete the instance. There are reports that this bug is still occuring even though Blizzard has indicated it has been fixed.

Archbishop Benedictus
This final encounter is a two phase fight with basically two sets of the same mechanics except that Thrall will be imprisoned in phase 2 so that he can’t help you. The dps should be interrupting Smite and Twilight Blast, otherwise some targeted damage may need to be healed. In phase 1 Thrall will dispel Righteous Shear, however in phase 2 you’ll need to dispel Twilight Shear (since he’s imprisoned). Note that the debuff stacks to 2, so you’ll need to dispel it twice. Stay spread out to avoid and reduce the AoE effects of Purifying Blast and Twilight Bolt. Peroidically, a huge wave, either Wave of Virtue or Wave of Twilight, will cross the platform and can be prevented by standing in the Water Shell in phase 1 and/or just avoiding it in phase 2.

Gear
Stalk of Corruption – Staff +Haste/Mastery
Pauldrons of Conviction – Paladin Shoulders +Mastery

Peroth’arn
The first boss, Peroth’arn, following our theme of children’s games is a little like the game Blind man’s bluff. The encounter has two phases, starting with the Peroth’arn fight in phase one and the Eyes of Peroth’arn of in phase two. During phase one the tank will acquire Corrupting Touch, a stacking debuff that will eventually kill the tank, making the overall fight a DPS race. Throughout this phase Peroth’arn will cast Fel Flames on a random player, a smokey green circle will appear under you that you need to move out of. Furthermore, he will randomly target a player with Fel Decay, and any healing done to that player will cause you to suffer damage equal to the amount healed as Shadow damage. I’ve not had issues with healing it or not, so chose to heal the target based on overall party damage and your mana levels, as you could risk a player dying to the Fel Flames.

At 60% health Peroth’arn will cast Drain Essence and enter phase two in which his Eyes will spawn. Most groups will run to the pillars around the courtyard and evade them to let the shadowcloak buff stack for a bit. The longer you evade the eyes the more stacks you’ll get. However failing to dodge the eyes will cause the boss to stun you for 8 sec and increase his attack speed. Shaman and Druids can enter ghost wolf and travel form to avoid the eyes pretty successfully. Also, since everyone runs around spread out during the this phase the tank will not necessarily be close enough to the targeted player to taunt, so be prepared to lose a dps to his attack. This phase can be faked by having the tank purposefully attract the attention of an Eye so that they get the boss’ attack and returning to phase one. At 20% he goes into a frenzy and you need to burn him down. Also, if you plan to use heroism/bloodlust/timewarp during this fight, use it after the eye phase.

Gear
Horned Band – Ring +Crit/Haste
Orb of the First Satyrs – Reforgeable Off-Hand (DPS) +Hit/Haste

Queen Azshara
The Queen Azshara fight tends to be the most difficult fight in this instance because it requires cooperation and timing from the dps (which can be in short supply from pugs). In this encounter you don’t actually fight the Queen but her Enchanted Magi in three packs of two magi each activation. Each activation is on a timer so if the previous 2 don’t die, you will get the next two regardless. Throughout the fight she targets a random player with Hand of the Queen, causing them to become a puppet. Destroying the puppet strings releases the player from Azshara’s control, but during that time a lot of damage can occur from the controlled player. The other thing she does is a spell called Total Obedience, which is interruptible and should never be cast (shaman can help out if the damage is low at that point). The 3 types of Magi are Fire, Frost, and Arcane which will require you to spread out to avoid the AoE damage. The Arcane Magus does an AoE called Arcane Shock, which does a large amount of damage and can be interrupted which will save your mana so shaman may want to take care of this. The Fire Magus does a targetted AoE Firebomb and the Frost Magus will randomly charge a player as well as cast Coldflame, all good reasons to stay spread out.

After you defeat Queen Azshara and jump on the dragons, you can skip the cutscene by right right clicking the mount for the skip option. Or you can walk over to the portal and get ported down to the next encounter.

Gear
Scepter of Azshara – Mace +Crit

Notable Trash
At the Abyssal Doombringer, Illidan applies a buff called Waters of Eternity that reduces the damage done by the Abyssal’s fire attacks by 90%. However, this buff is range-based, so if you stand too far away from Illidan as he attacks the Abyssal, you will lose the buff. Next, you encounter three Shadowbats, with an ability called Displacement that makes them immune to non-AoE damage, so some spot healing might be called for until the dps figure out how to damage them.

Mannoroth and Captain Varo’then
This final encounter is a two phase fight with some various strategies depending on if you are working towards the That’s Not Cannon! achievement. In the first phase, you normally fight Captain Varo’then while Illidian and Tyrande fight off Mannoroth. However, if you are working on the achievement, the dps will be fighting Mannoroth to do about 10 million damage to him so that he kills the Captain for you. Throughout the fight Mannoroth will cast Fel Firestorm just like the first boss in Baradin Hold, ‘don’t stand in fire’.

The second phase begins after Captain Varo’then dies. If you don’t see a dps pick up his Magistrike Blade, make sure you pick it up and throw it at Mannoroth to apply Magistrike Arc. This fight is only complicated by the fel adds that the tank should be picking up before they reach you, but during Fel Firestorm you might pick up some of these adds so bring them back over to the tank. Finally, phase three will occur after Tyrande collapses, and at this point you may need to run into the Blessing of Tyrande to help corrall the adds and pick up the damage buff. If you can, pop a quick dot or something on the two Dreadlord Debilitators on either side. At this point the healing should be minimal and you can go to town on Mannoroth.

Gear
Foul Gift of the Demon Lord – Trinket +Int
Cowl of Highborne Sorcerors – Priest Helm +Crit/Mastery
Helm of Power – Paladin Helm +Haste/Mastery
Spaulders of Eternity – Druid Shoulders +Crit/Mastery
Demonsbane Chestguard – Shaman Chest +Crit/Mastery

This instance is kind of unique in that you are randomly ported to two of four different bosses and then face a third and final boss. So I’ll cover the four random pick bosses in alphabetical order to keep it easier to refer to this ‘guide’.

Notable Trash
The trash leading up to the Echo of Baine is some of the hardest hitting trash in this instance. The Time-twisted drakes have a fire breath and will place fire on the ground that needs to be moved out of immediately.

Echo of Baine (Obsidian Dragonshrine)
The Echo of Baine encounter is one that involves positioning since the boss changes the environment during the fight. Like much of this patch the boss fight is reminicent of a children’s game and in this case it’s leapfrog.
Start the fight with the melee and tank on the platform with the boss while the ranged and healer spread between the other three platforms. During the fight he will perform Pulverize and break a platform. Whichever platform is broken, the group/player on that platform should move to the remaining empty platform. The lava does a bit of damage so you’ll have to heal the group/player in the lava. Secondly, he’ll cast Throw Totem at a player, if you are targeted and the only person on your island that means you’ll have to throw it back to him. To throw the totem, click the totem on the ground and drag the targeting circle over to Bane and he should be stunned. Finally, he is temporarily buffed with Molten Axe when he touches magma, dispel the debuff from the tank (who should not be tanking the Boss in the magma so that the boss doesn’t get buffed).

Gear
Time Traveler’s Leggings – Priest Legs +Crit/Haste
Cord of Lost Hope – Druid Belt +Haste/Mastery
Waistguard of Lost Time – Priest Belt +Haste
Echoing Headguard – Shaman Helm +Haste

Echo of Jaina (Azure Dragonshrine)
Jaina is probably the easiest of the random bosses as she just plays tag. Start the fight by collecting all of the fragements around the bowl. Hopefully, the group also cleared all the trash mobs in the area too because Jaina Blinks all over the place and you will be chasing her around the entire zone. The fight is mostly dependent on a ranged (or the healer if no other ranged in party) stepping on the Flarecore ember to blow it up (minimal damage). If you don’t blow them up, they will detonate and do massive damage. Avoid the Frost Blades that she throws.

Gear
Jaina’s Staff – Two-handed Staff +Crit/Mastery
Ward of Incantations – Healing Shield +Haste/Mastery
Time Traveler’s Leggings – Priest Legs +Crit/Haste
Cord of Lost Hope – Druid Belt +Haste/Mastery
Waistguard of Lost Time – Priest Belt +Haste
Echoing Headguard – Shaman Helm +Haste

Echo of Sylvanas (Ruby Dragonshrine)
Sylvanas is a standard ‘don’t stand in fire’ fight with two phases, and is a little like the children’s game Red Rover. During the first phase, a ground phase, the party should stay spread out range 6 to reduce the damage from her targetted abilities. One of those abilities, Shriek of the Highborne, will deal about 75,000 damage to one person instantly, and debuff their movement speed to 50%. It can be dispelled, but should be easily avoidable, otherwise healing may be rough if the person is also targeted by Blighted Arrows. During the second phase Sylvanas will raise up into the air and do Calling of the Highborne. During calling she pulls the group in to her, then surrounded the group by a ring of Risen Ghouls and the purple blight. At this point the healing is minimal and you can help kill the targeted ghoul. Once the add is down run through the gap in the purple blight. Sylvanas will drop back down and phase one will resume.

Gear
Time Traveler’s Leggings – Priest Legs +Crit/Haste
Cord of Lost Hope – Druid Belt +Haste/Mastery
Waistguard of Lost Time – Priest Belt +Haste
Echoing Headguard – Shaman Helm +Haste

Notable Trash
The trash leading up to the Echo of Tyrande is unique in that there is a 90% damage reduction debuff on them until they are pulled into the moonbeams. Additionally, there is an achievement for making it through this gauntlet without taking damage (Moon Guard), so expect some spot healing on the run.

Echo of Tyrande (Emerald Dragonshrine)
The Tyrande fight feels a little like Hopscotch if you’re the only ranged person in the group. As a ranged/healer, you will not want to stand within the water zone as she has a debuff (Lunar Guidance) which slows casting speed by 25%. However, you can stand at the edge of the water so that you don’t get the debuff, but also don’t have to worry about the twin eyes from Piercing Gaze of Elune moving behind you. The melee should be interrupting Stardust or you could be faced with massive AoE. The tricky part of this fight is the movement needed if you are targeted by Moonlance, which will stun you for 5 seconds. Both of these can and should be dispelled from the party if they get caught by them.

Gear
Crescent Moon – Priest Wand +Mastery
Whisperwind Robes – Priest Chest +Mastery
Time Traveler’s Leggings – Priest Legs +Crit/Haste
Cord of Lost Hope – Druid Belt +Haste/Mastery
Waistguard of Lost Time – Priest Belt +Haste
Echoing Headguard – Shaman Helm +Haste

Notable Trash
The two sets of trash before Murozond appears both contain two Infinite Suppressors which are the hardest hitting trash in this instance. They both cast Temporal Vortex and Arcane Wave and are hopefully being CC’d or interrupted.

Murozond (Bronze Dragonshrine)
The last boss in this instance is a little like a game of Musical Chairs, in which you start and stop the encounter, each time you “reset”, one of his abilities speeds up. The tank should be picking him up and tanking him away from and perpendicular to the Hourglass in the center. Make sure you are between the Hourglass and the boss when the tank pulls so that you start each “reset” close to the boss. When the tank pulls Murozond, a “copy” will be created of your health, mana, cooldowns, and position. One of the ranged players (which may be the healer) will need to stand near the hourglass to activate the Blessing of the Bronze Dragonflight. This will “reset” you back to the “copy” that Murozond made, also resetting aggro so watch popping those cooldowns right away. Remember he resets cooldowns and mana, so you should be going wild (yes, Flash Heal spam is viable). Throughout the fight he drops a Distortion Bomb at a random player which leaves an 8 yard radius “void zone” that needs to be avoided. The only other ability is Flame Breath which he casts roughly every 12-15 seconds hitting for an average of 55000-65000 HP. Finally, ‘standard dragon rules apply’, don’t stand in front of or behind the dragon. Once there are too many Distortion Bomb zones, or the group’s health/mana is dangerously low, click on the Hourglass and begin again. Note, that activating the Blessing of the Bronze Dragonflight will give you a 40% haste buff and speed increase. Also, if you are healing and on Hourglass duty, range can be an issue, so strategically moving for placement of the Distortion Bombs can be useful. A good time to hit the Hourglass is as soon as Bloodlust/Heroism expires or you have backed your way up to the Hourglass through strategic Bomb placement.

Gear
Distortion Greaves – Shaman Legs (DPS) +Crit/Haste
Mantle of Time – Priest Shoulders +Haste
Time Altered Legguards – Paladin Legs +Haste
Timeway Headgaer – Druid Helm +Crit/Haste

Happy Healing!

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Twitter

I’m such a slow adopter of technology and social media considering my chosen profession is in the IT industry. Anyways, I finally signed up for Twitter (@Kahiaau) so that I could at least read and listen to the wow chatter that I’ve been missing out on. I’ll probably be more of a lurker than a commenter, but I’ll happily respond if folks have a question or comment for me. Also, since I have an email account associated with this blog feel free to email me too!

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Buff/Nerf Cycle

One of the forums I lurk on has had several requests in the last month to reference a comic that they saw somewhere but can’t remember. Well, the comic in question is by the estimable Daily Blink guys, and here it is:

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Amazing Podcast

I recently came across an amazing Podcast called My Epic Heals. These guys have really done well with putting these podcasts together with some great guests and amazing healing discussions. I can’t stress enough how awesome the healing community is in wow.

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Happy Healing!

For each healing class the 6 tiers of talents can be categorized into basic groupings of talents, of which the healing capable classes all seem to have similar groupings. In no particular order of priority the six groupings seem to be mobility, crowd control, dealing with damage, healing based, class defining, and cooldowns.

Druid

Level 15: Mobility
Feline Swiftness: Increases your movement speed by 10% and by an additional 20% whilst in Cat Form.
Displacer Beast and Tireless Pursuit both require Cat Form to be usable, and since I doubt Restoration Druids will be in cat form much even in Pandaria, Feline Swiftness is going to be our most logical selection.

Level 30: Healing based
Nature’s Swiftness: When activated, your next Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Healing Touch, Hibernate, Nourish, Rebirth, or Regrowth becomes instant, free and castable in all forms. The healing and duration of the spell is increased by 50%. (Instant, 3min CD)
Renewal: Instantly heals the druid for 30% of maximum health. Usable in all shapeshift forms. (Instant, 2min CD)
Cenarion Ward: Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target for 2660 every 2 sec for 6 sec. Gaining the healing effect consumes the Cenarion Ward. Usable in all shapeshift forms. Lasts 30 sec. (Instant, 40yd range, 30 sec CD)
All of these are interesting healing choices, so theorycrafting and play style will likely determine their fate.

Level 45: Crowd control
Mass Entanglement: Roots all enemies within 12 yards of the destination for 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Cannot be cast while in Bear Form or Cat Form. (2 sec cast, 30 yd range, 1 min CD)
Typhoon: Summons a violent Typhoon that strikes targets in front of the caster within 30 yards, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 sec. Usable in all shapeshift forms. (Instant, 20 sec CD)
From a Restoration perspective Faerie Swarm would have very little use unless you are hitting a mob, so that leaves 2 choices of which Mass Entanglement is likely to be the top pick for PvE use considering the usefulness of roots as a crowd control in dungeons.

Level 60: Shapeshifting (Class defining)
Wild Charge: Grants a movement ability that varies by shapeshift form.

Non-shapeshifted: Fly to an ally’s position and your next healing spell costs no mana.
Bear Form: Charge to an enemy, immobilizing them and granting you 30% haste.
Moonkin Form: Bound backward and gain 20 Lunar or Solar energy, whichever is more beneficial to you.

Incarnation: Activates a superior shapeshifting form appropriate to your specialization for 30 sec. (Instant, 3 min CD)

Feral: King of the Jungle. Improved cat form which allows the use of all abilities which normally require stealth, and allows the use of Prowl while in combat.
Restoration: Tree of Life. Tree of Life form that increases armor by 120% and enhances Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Regrowth, Entangling Roots, and Wrath spellcasts.

Force of Nature: Summons 3 treants to assist in the Druid’s current combat role. Treant capabilities vary by specialization. Usable in all shapeshift forms. (40 yd range, Instant, 3 min CD)
As class defining talents, these will probably be another tier in which theorycrafting and play style will likely determine their fate.

Level 75: Dealing with damage
Demoralizing Roar: The Druid roars, disorienting all enemies within 10 yards for 4 sec. Using this ability activates Bear Form. (Instant, 30 sec CD)
This tier contains very feral/bear centric talents in the form of Ursol’s Vortex and Bear Hug, so there wasn’t really a healing talent choice. as they stand now don’t provide a very good option for restoration druids, but Demoralizing Roar is the one I’d be most likely to select for those “get them off me moments”.

Level 90: Cooldowns
Disentanglement: Shapeshifting now removes roots. In addition, shifting into a form heals the Druid for 20% of maximum health. This heal cannot be received more often than once every 30 sec.
This tier doesn’t seem to have anything to support Resotration; Heart of the Wild and Master Shapeshifter in particular don’t have anything compelling for healing druids.

General Thoughts:
There are a couple of talents here that feel very out of place within a given tier, so I fully expect some changes to occur before this tree goes live. This is particularly true since they are switching up the specs for druids to include all four “specs”.

Paladin

Level 15: Mobility
Speed of Light: Increases your movement speed by 60% for 6 sec. During this time, you radiate healing to nearby allies.
Long Arm of the Law: A successful Judgement increases your movement speed by 45% for 4 sec.
Pursuit of Justice: You gain 10% movement speed for each current charge of Holy Power.
All of these provide a nice movement boost for Holy Paladins, but Speed of Light gives a bonus to healing as well.

Level 30: Crowd control
Fist of Justice: Stuns the target for 6 sec. (30 sec cooldown)
Repentance: Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min. Any damage from sources other than Censure will awaken the target. Usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead. (1.5 second cast)
This tier looks to contain more situational or PvP talents for Holy Paladins and Seal of Justice reads like it will require regular damage to get the most out of the talent.

Level 45: Dealing with damage
Blessed Life: You have a 100% chance to gain a charge of Holy Power whenever you take direct damage or are stunned, feared or immobilized. This effect cannot occur more than once every 8 seconds.
This is an interesting tier because both Sacred Shield and Ardent Defender are geared toward situations in which large amounts of damage are expected, leaving Holy Paladins choosing Blessed Life.

Level 60: Healing based
Selfless Healer: Your successful judgements reduce the mana cost of your next Flash of Light by 50% and improve its effectiveness by 50% when used to heal others. Stacks up to 2 times.
Eternal Glory: Your Word of Glory and Light of Dawn have a 30% chance not to consume Holy Power.
Holy Shield: Shields a friendly target, absorbing 1507 damage per charge of Holy Power for 10 sec (costs Holy Power).
This tier contains some real choices for Holy Paladins, but based on the incomplete nature of these talents I expect some tweaking in the future.

Level 75: Hand of the Paladin (Class defining)
Acts of Sacrifice: Reduces the cooldown by 20% and mana cost by 20% of your Hand of Freedom, Hand of Protection and Hand of Sacrifice. In addition, your Cleanse will remove one movement impairing effect if cast on yourself.
Clemency: When activated, immediately finishes the cooldown on your Hand of Freedom, Hand of Protection, and Hand of Sacrifice. (Instant, 5 min cooldown).
This tier focuses on the Paladin Hand spells and provide some much needed alternatives for that under used Hand of Salvation. However, I don’t see Veneration being widely used by Holy Paladins unless it’s an encounter specific need.

Level 90: Cooldowns
Holy Avenger: Summoning your Guardian of Ancient Kings also imbues you with the power of a Holy Avenger. Holy Avenger: none of your abilities consume Holy Power and cast as if 3 Holy Power were consumed. Lasts 10 sec.
Sanctified Wrath: You gain more frequent access to one of your abilities during Avenging Wrath.

Holy: Holy Shock has no cooldown.
Protection: Judgement has no cooldown.
Retribution: You can use Hammer of Wrath.

Divine Purpose: Abilities that cost Holy Power have a 15% chance to cause the Divine Purpose effect.
As Paladin “cooldown” talents go these will probably be the tier in which theorycrafting and play style will likely determine their fate.

General Thoughts:
Interestingly, the Paladin talent tree felt like I was getting a lot of choice in talents for a healer for most of the tiers. This talent tree feels like it is the most complete of the healing classes, so I predict that the Paladin talent tree will have the least amount of talent movement and redesign aside from basic tweaking of the talent values.

Priest

Level 15: Crowd control
Psychic Scream: The caster lets out a psychic scream, causing 5 enemies within 8 yards to flee for 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. (Instant, 30 sec CD)
Void Tendrils and Psyfiend both seem very situational, if at all viable for healing priests in PvE settings, so I’ll probably stick with the tried and true. However, it does strike me as odd that one of the priest’s defining abilities is stuck as a talent.

Level 30: Mobility
Body and Soul: When you cast Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith, you increase the target’s movement speed by 60% for 4 sec.
Path of the Devout: Increases your movement speed while Levitating by 25%.
Phantasm: Any time you Fade, you remove all movement impairing effects from yourself and your movement speed will be unhindered for 3 sec.
I’m excited to see the Holy talent Body and Soul accessible to Disc and Shadow priests, so that is a win for me at least. The other two talents look like interesting choices for all priests as well, so it will probably be left up to situational and play style choices.

Level 45: Dealing damage
From Darkness, Comes Light:

Surge of Light (Caster Form): You have a 6% chance when you Smite, Heal, Flash Heal, Binding Heal or Greater Heal to cause your next Flash Heal to be instant cast and have no mana cost.
Surge of Darkness (Shadowform): You have a 6% chance when you deal damage with Mind Flay to cause your next Mind Blast to be instant cast and have no Shadow Orb cost.

Divine Star: Fires a Divine Star in front of you, traveling 20 yards doing damage to all enemies and healing all friendly targets in its path. (Instant, 30 sec CD) After reaching its destination, it will return to you also dealing damage and healing all targets in its path.
Archangel:

Archangel (Caster Form): Consumes your Evangelism, increasing your healing done by 5% for each Evangelism consumed. (Instant, 30sec CD)
Dark Archangel (Shadowform): Consumes your Shadow Orbs increasing the damage done by your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 5% for each Shadow Orb consumed. (Instant, 90 sec CD)

Unfortunately, the stickler for me was seeing the loss of the mana regen aspect of Archangel. However, I like the idea of Divine Star and look forward to seeing how it plays.

Level 60: Healing based
Desperate Prayer: Instantly heals the caster for 30% of their total health (instant, 2min CD)
Angelic Bulwark: Increases the effectiveness of your own shield effects on yourself by 30%.
Final Prayer: Any time a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 sec.
It looks like our “healing based” category is all self-healing/mitigation based options, but I can’t say they won’t be compelling choices considering how useful Desperate Prayer is in Cataclysm content.

Level 75: Mana Infusion (Class defining)
Twist of Fate: Increases damage and healing done to targets at or below 25% health.
Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts 15 sec. (Instant, 2 min CD)
Serendipity: When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 20% and mana cost is reduced by 10%. Stracks up to 2 times. Lasts 10 sec. Mind Melt (Shadowform): When you real damage with Mind Spike, the cast time of your next Mind Blast is reduced by 50% lasting 6 sec. Mind Melt can stack up to 2 times.
The Mind Melt component of Serendipity feels tacked on to appease Shadow priests so I fully expect more tweaking of the talents in this tier.

Level 90: Cooldowns
Vow of Unity: You create a Vow of Unity with the friendly target. Whenever you heal the target through spells and effects, you are also healed equal to 20% of the amount. In addition, when the target is attacked, 50% of the damage is redirected to you over 6 sec. If your target is victim to an attack greater than 30% of their total health, the Vow of Unity effect ends. (Instant, 3min CD)
Void Shift: You swap health percentage with the current friendly target. After this effect ends, you are instantly healed for 25% of your total health. (instant, 3min CD)
Vampiric Dominance: When you real damage or healing 15% of the amount is healed to up to 3 low-health nearby allies.
This tier will give priests some really interesting choices for healing and damage, so I expect theorycrafting and play style will likely determine their fate.

General Thoughts:
Priests are a unique class to work with because they have two distinct healing specs, so the talent tiers are heavily tipped in that direction. However, I predict that the higher level talents will get some rework in the future to balance the healing with the class defining talent tiers.

Shaman

Level 15: Crowd control
Earthgrab Totem: Summons an Earthgrab Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 45 sec. The totem pulses every second, rooting all enemies within 8 yards for 5 sec. Recently rooted enemies will instead have their movement speed reduced by 50%. (Replaces Earthbind Totem)
Repulsion Totem: Summons an Air totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 15 sec that repels enemies.
The talent Frozen Power seems very situational for Restoration to be using, especially with more obviously useful options available.

Level 30: Dealing with damage
Nature’s Guardian: Whenever a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, your maximum health is increased by 15% for 10 sec and your threat level toward the attacker is reduced. 30 sec CD.
Stone Bulwark Totem: Summons an Earth totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 30 sec that grants the caster a shield absorbing 2549 damage and refreshes that shield ever 5 sec (1 min CD)
Astral Shift: Seek haven by shifting partially into the elemental planes, reducing damage taken by 50% but also all damage and healing dealt by 50% for 6 sec. (2 min CD)
A potential self-healing cooldown for Restoration Shamans is included in this tier, which considering my comments in the healing based category, I suspect there will be some talent swapping before these go live.

Level 45: Mobility
Windwalk Totem: Summons an Air totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 30 yards immunity to movement-impairing effects. (1 min CD)
Tranquil Mind Totem: Summons an Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 30 yards immunity to spellcast interruptions and silence effects.
Improved Ghost Wolf will probably be a more PvP selection talent, but the other two options in this tier suggest that Restoration Shamans will have some interesting choices to make in their talent selection.

Level 60: Healing based
Healing Tide Totem: Summons a Water totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 10 sec, healing the 5 most injured raid members within 40 yards for 1060 health every 2 sec. (3 min CD)
Ancestral Guidance: When you deal direct damage or healing for the next 10 seconds, 40% of that amount is copied as healing to a nearby injured ally. (3 min CD)
Fortifying Waters: Allies standing within your Healing Raid receive a 10% reduction to incoming magic damage.
Some really interesting choices available to Restoration Shamans, although Fortifying Waters feels more like a “Dealing with damage” ability, so I expect some shifting around to occur before the talent trees go live.

Level 75: Cooldowns
Nature’s Swiftness: Passively increases spell and melee haste by 5%. When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time of less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell (1 min CD)
Echo of the Elements: When you cast a damage or healing spell, you have a chance to gain Echo of the Elements, duplicating that spell’s effect.
This tier will be the source of our old old healing cooldown and Echo of the Elements which has some very exciting potential, but also Elemental Mastery which isn’t really a compelling choice when balanced against the other two options.

Level 90: Totemic harmony (Class defining)
Elemental Harmony: You may summon multiple totems of the same element simultaneously.
Totemic Restoration: If a totem is replaced or destroyed before its duration expires naturally, its cooldown is reduced in proportion to the lost duration.
Totemic Projection: Relocates your active totems to the specified location. (10 sec CD)
Some really interesting and new options for Shamans and I for one am looking forward to how Elemental Harmony will play out, especially for healing cooldown totems (e.g., Mana Tide).

General Thoughts:
Since Blizzard has indicated a distinct and long overdue change to how Shaman totems are used, the talent tree definitely reflects these changes. Categorizing tiers of very totem centric talents, which are a class defining concept was a lot harder to accomplish even than the unique perspective that priest talents contained.

Special mention to MMO Melting Pot for providing the talents in text form for me to use in my post.

Happy Healing!

This sample of paladin posts were drawn from a semi-random sample of 3 pages on the forum in which healing was mentioned. The 18 posts I looked at contained 8 posters claiming at least some PvP experience and all of the posters claiming PvE experience. None of the posts I reviewed were by a player that was strictly a PvP player.

The biggest quality of life issue mentioned by seven (7) of the posters was the need to talent into the ability to dispel magic debuffs. This is a difficult transition for many Paladin players with the introduction of Cataclysm because this was a standard Pally ability in previous expansions that has now been relegated to ‘optional’ status. However, no suggestions for improvements were provided by the sample group.

Two factors in the Paladin struggle with mana regeneration are the healing reduction during the use of Divine Plea (6 posts) and the use of Judgement in the healing rotation (2 posts). Both of these issues came up in association with controlling mana regeneration, since there is limited ability for Paladins to generate a burst of mana regeneration as there is for the other healing classes. While there is a ‘/cancelaura’ work around for the Divine Plea mechanics to reduce the healing impact, the mana regen is then further limited. Additionally, the frequent loss of a GCD to maintaining Judgement uptime has impacted Paladin efficiency during high work load encounters.

Interestingly, several posters (4) mentioned the ‘ramp up’ time associated with Holy Power and included a plea for it’s redesign on their wishlists. However, there is a facet to this new mechanic that makes the Paladin playstyle enjoyable. Only time will tell if additional tinkering with the spells associated with Holy Power generation and sinks will alleviate some of the tension here. At least there were some interesting recommendations on changes to these spells to make the Holy Power mechanic more interesting. One of which was to make the cone for Light of Dawn wider or radial from the Paladin, thereby increasing it’s effectiveness even though it’s tied to Holy Power generation.

This brings me to the topic of AoE healing and the positional requirements of Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn (6 posts). Holy Radiance constrains the Paladin’s range for AoE healing and Light of Dawn constrains the direction that the Paladin is facing and the angle of the other players from the Paladin.

The topic of highest priority on Paladin wishlists (7 posts) was a change to Mastery (Illuminated Healing). Illuminated Healing only produces the ‘bubble’ from direct heals and doesn’t transfer or work on the Beacon of Light target. For this reason, Paladins feel like mastery is more of a small bonus to their healing rather then a stat actually worth taking. Suggestions included changing it to a way to generate holy power, or at the least make it work on the Beacon of Light heals.

As expected, the Paladin feedback mentioned problems with Flash of Light and Divine Light. The reduced use of Flash of Light and Divine Light are another problem similar to what I’ve found mentioned for the other classes. For a review of how much the Paladin feedback on these concepts is interesting in light of the numbers see the Druid Feedback post.

A total of 20 different abilities were mentioned as being unused spells including Flash of Light (9 posts), Hand of Salvation (9 posts), Light of Dawn (5 posts), and Turn Evil (5 posts). At least with the ‘Hand’ spell, it has very situational uses, explaining it’s placement on this list.

Happy Healing!

This sample of shaman posts were drawn from a semi-random sample of 3 pages on the forum in which healing was mentioned. The 30 posts I looked at contained 14 posters claiming at least some PvP experience and all posters claiming PvE experience. One (1) of these posters did indicate that they had very little healing experience or that healing was a secondary spec or play style for them. None of the posts I reviewed were by a player that was a strictly PvP player.

Water Shield was the most frequently cited quality of life issue throughout the forum. Over 36% of the posts indicated that water shield was difficult to keep up throughout a fight. Most of these posts indicated that a glyph similar to the one for Lightning shield should be added for water shield.

The other quality of life issue was that while totems are a unique and desired play style for shamans, the mechanics and functioning of them are a problem. Six (6) posts indicated duration and range problems, six (6) posts indicated problems with active totems replacing passive totems when dropped, four (4) posts indicated problems with Elemental totem control, and three (3) posts indicated problems with constantly moving totems during fights. An additional problem mentioned was 2 posts on the limitations of Spirit Link Totem, including range and throughput issues. It seemed that these problems led to more interest in changing the underlying mechanics of the various totems. One example would be to create Elemental totems associated with each spec. For example, Elemental spec gets a fire elemental, Enhancement a wind elemental, and Restoration a water elemental. Additionally, a change to Spirit Link Totem to make situational use more in line with a raid or tank saving cooldown.

Additional issues mentioned included, limitations with AoE healing (4 posts) and healing throughput/cooldowns (5 posts). Improvements to these issues were on the top of most (36%) Shaman post wish lists. Including such creative suggestions as changes to Chain Heal. “If it hits less then 4, the ‘wasted’ jumps spread riptide on random injured raid members. So if your chain heal heals just 1 target, 3 riptides on random injured raid members are applied”. Another creative suggestion was associated with a potential ‘Water Elemental’ which would have a “passive ability similar to what the Ancestral Awakening talent does, healing frindly targets for a small portion of your direct heals, critical or not”.

A total of 28 different abilites were mentioned as being unused spells including Unleash Elements (9 posts), Healing Surge (9 posts), Rockbiter Weapon (7 posts), and Chain Heal (5 posts). At least with Unleash Elements and Rockbiter Weapon, they have very situational uses. The reduced use of Healing Surge and Chain Heal are another problem similar to what I’ve found mentioned for Druids and Preists. I bet even the Paladin feedback will mention problems with Flash of Light and Divine Light!

Happy Healing!

This sample of priest posts were drawn from a semi-random sample of 3 pages on the forum and since all three specs can do healing, holy or disc specific comments were targeted. The 32 posts I looked at contained 15 posters claiming at least some PvP experience and all but one claiming PvE experience. Four (4) of these posters did indicate that they had very little healing experience or that healing was a secondary spec or play style for them. The posts were also nearly evenly experienced with 15 having healed as Holy and 19 having healed as Disc priests.

An interesting comment that kept weaving through several of the posts was that Holy priests felt that they were forced to spec Disc in order to gain raid spots (at least 3 specific comments). However, based on the sub-sample collected it looks like the Holy priests are still out there holding their own. In fact, 1 post discussed how much they enjoyed Holy healing in raids compared to other healers. This sounded to me more like a guild problem than anything else.

Another freqently cited topic was the state of cooldowns for priests, Holy specifically. This seemed to be the biggest factor as to why many of the holy priests claimed they didn’t get raid spots. Seven (7) comments specifically requested raid wide cooldowns for Holy and one (1) comment added an improvement to Guardian Spirit. Of course, I also saw mention by two posters that both Power Word: Barrier and Guardian Spirit were too situational to be effective. So, there may be a situational factor with the Guardian Spirit Cooldown that is causing problems too.

Atonement and Archangel specs for Disc priests were a frequent topic of discussion, as 6 posts indicated problems with different aspecs of this spec. The major problem was the range issues priests were expriencing with certain fights that are slated to be fixed in the 4.3 patch (source). Interestingly, one of the posts also mentioned the investment involved in the Archangel/Atonement spec, as it requires 5 talent points and 2 major glyphs to be effective. On a more asthetic note, one post recommended increasing the size of Archangel wings on Tauren, something I’ve certainly heard mentioned being slightly odd looking.

It also seems that discipline priests (7 posts) are finding that the Mastery talent needs to be reworked. Having a limited number of spells affected by our mastery and the weak balance of Divine Aegis itself were mentioned as factors. In fact 2 comments mentioned wish list ideas for reworking Divine Aegis by perhaps moving it to a multi-target shield spell.

It would also seem (and from my own experience) that priests are experiencing some problems in PvP with regard to mana and melee. Five (5) posts mentioned that one of their quality of life issues is the inability to counter melee focus and melee cleave teams. While, only one (1) post mentioned that mana issues in pvp were a quality of life issue. Of course, Blizzard will also have to wade through posts by very confused priests, such as the one that mentioned that a problem with the class is that “the only cc we really have is fear ward”.

Additionally, it appears that priests have the same problem as Druids in that 28% of the posters reviewed indicated that one of their least used spells was either Heal or Flash Heal. So how about the priests take the time machine back to last week’s Druid Introspection and return. Back? Good. Then maybe you noticed that the Priest Heal is competitive within the pack, slightly below Paladins but slightly above Druids and Shaman in terms of effective HP. What’s the problem here? Perhaps it is the weak state of Heal and the mana consumption of Flash Heal as they were the topic for a couple of the comments for other questions.

The other spells that are less frequently used included Mind Sooth (12 posts), Holy Nova (11 posts), Renew (10 posts), and Mind Vision (5 posts). I imagine that Blizzard would agree that Mind Sooth and Mind Vision are situational spells and there is a reason that they don’t see a lot of use. As for Renew and Holy Nova, I suspect that we’ll see something Soon™; from Blizzard in response to the utilization of these two spells.

I hope these class feedback reviews are motivating other healers to think about how their class functions and that comparing your perceptions are not always the most effective way to evaluate a particular class. It has certainly been interesting to review these comments and realize that some of the healing population (regardless of class so far) lack understanding of the differences that Blizzard has built into the different classes.

Happy Healing!