Vanilla question

[dudurududu]

Since I played the game from TBC to CATA on private servers (shame on me, I know, but it was hard to convince my parents that paying for a game is ok) I never really experienced true low level experience of that time. When I leveled my first char I did only quests and later on with my alts it was queueable.
So I was wondering, before LFG and dual spec, how did one person leveled as a healer? Did he killed mobs and did quest as healer or did he respec at the talent guy every time he was needed for a dungeon?

[Kyr]

you leveled very very slowly. gold didn't come as freely as is does now so respec costs were relatively expensive. I'm sure some people respeced alot but not most people. it was either group up with someone so they could kill stuff for you while you kept them going, or kill stuff yourself at a snails pace.

[Deleted]

So I was wondering, before LFG and dual spec, how did one person leveled as a healer?

You grouped up with a warrior, that's all. If you didn't find one you were kinda hosed.

[Joathen]

As a Holy Paladin? Put +Spell Damage gear on and Holy Shock things to death. I miss Shockadin, there were fights in Kara/Mag/GL where I'd DPS as it over healing. :/
But yeah, it was slow going. Even pairing with a Retadin it was still slow; everything was slow compared to my mage who could AoE grind.

[Deleted]

I was the fourth or fifth horde priest on my realm to reach level 60 and I levelled as healer all the way. That meant mostly wand-ing stuff till 12 or 13 as casting spells would drain your mana super quick and you would lose out on any contested mobs to people with instant attacks.

It didn't really become a drag till 53 or 54 when there no longer were enough quests and you had to start grinding. Still for people coming from older, much grindier games (I played lots of AC and some UO), levelling in WoW felt like a breeze - even in healing spec.

[Ciddy]

You either leveled very slowly if you did things solo, or you ran with a friend. Running with a friend was the best option. It was by no means impossible to level solo as a healer, but it was a lot slower because it took you so long to kill stuff.

Frequent respeccing could get very costly (the cost topped out at 50 gold if I remember correctly, and that amount could be painful in those days if you were respeccing multiple times), so you didn't do that often unless you had a good amount of gold. It was also pretty inconvenient to hearth/run back every time since you had to visit the class trainer.

I leveled a paladin as nothing but holy in Classic and didn't find it too bad. The upside to being a healer is that dungeon groups were easy to find, and Classic WoW had a lot of those group quests where healers were in demand. My first 60 (and still my main today) was my warrior. Compared to the holy paladin, I leveled faster but died a lot more often while getting my warrior to 60.

Fun story about that holy paladin: I got the two pieces of that epic 2h sword from Zul'farrak on him because nobody else in the groups wanted it (I ran with the same tank both times, and he already had it). Still have the sword in my pally's bank.

[Lochton]

Since I played the game from TBC to CATA on private servers (shame on me, I know, but it was hard to convince my parents that paying for a game is ok) I never really experienced true low level experience of that time. When I leveled my first char I did only quests and later on with my alts it was queueable.
So I was wondering, before LFG and dual spec, how did one person leveled as a healer? Did he killed mobs and did quest as healer or did he respec at the talent guy every time he was needed for a dungeon?

If no partner, it was slow, as in, "oh my god, I'll reroll" slow..

[smallz]

Until max lvl content you could easily tank or heal dungeons with whatever spec you liked.
So most people just had a normal dps spec for leveling, and only switched to heal at max level (if at all)

[Lochton]

Until max lvl content you could easily tank or heal dungeons with whatever spec you liked.
So most people just had a normal dps spec for leveling, and only switched to heal at max level (if at all)

You 'could' but one mistake and you were the blame of the fail.

[Deleted]

nobody sane leveled as a healer in vanilla. everyone put points in dps tree and carried healing gear with them. contrary to popular belief people could still heal even if they had 0 points in healing tree. the only thing you needed was int gear and lots of water. people didn't mind waiting for those extra 10 seconds after every couple of pulls back then.

[Deleted]

You grouped up with a warrior, that's all. If you didn't find one you were kinda hosed.

The point of grouping with warriors was meeting people for dungeon groups. Prot warriors levelled slow as fuck as well. For "speed" you wanted rogues, hunters - or at 35 or 40+ mages for aoe grinding, sitting down to drink every one or two pulls.

[smallz]

You 'could' but one mistake and you were the blame of the fail.

No it was absolutely normal to have fury tanks and shadow healers, especially in leveling content. Nobody expected you to gimp your leveling experience so badly, and the dungeons were still easily doable.

Also nobody would even notice because you didn't see talents when inspecting someone.

[Zindai]

This was on a private server, so it's not 100 % authentic, but... I levelled my paladin with a dungeon oriented Holy spec and melee gear for questing. It was slow, but not to the point where it felt like a struggle, because I could take on multiple mobs with Consecration and heal with close to no interruption, also regaining mana from crit heals. I just didn't feel like Ret offered much extra when taking both downtime and kill speed into account. Edit: And then I didn't have to feel suboptimal in dungeons. Yay.

Other than that I don't want to repeat what everyone else has already said.

[Deleted]

I was a hybrid Resto/Feral talent build and it worked fine.

[Tuesdays]

It was painfully slow, respec wasn't an option really since the cost was ridiculous going back and forth, on top of how repairs worked, as a clothy not so bad, as a tank.. Chances are you couldn't afford it alone. So if you chose to be a healer, or a tank, your best option was to make friends.

[Deleted]

I leveled my priest to lvl 28 or something by quests and after that I just swapped alts whenever somone was searching for a healer for dungeons at my level-range.
Took an eternity but I really wasn't in a hurry back then. Come to think of it every char took an eternity to get to lvl 60.

[Aeula]

Lots of wanding and slowly smacking your way through the game, one mob at a time.

Unless you grouped up.

[Lady Dragonheart]

In all seriousness, back in that time, leveling a healer essentially required leveling with someone else. You had little choice unless you had a decent offspec to counter the hybrid tax of the time. If you were a healer and didn't have a friend to quest with, you lived in trade chat in order to level, hoping that your dungeon PuGs were competent.

[Deleted]

You either levelled with a buddy, or you simply did not pick healing spec until you were 60

You could heal/tank even while taking a DPS spec.

[TheWorkingTitle]

So I was wondering, before LFG and dual spec, how did one person leveled as a healer? Did he killed mobs and did quest as healer or did he respec at the talent guy every time he was needed for a dungeon?

Priests had the notorious wand-spec. http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Wand_S...iest_talent%29

You'd preemptively put a bubble up on yourself or even just a renew, then pull with Mind Blast, and immediately Shadow-Word Pain them. After that opener, you'd just wand them to death. It was slower than DPS classes but efficient on mana and you never had down time if you pulled 1 mob at a time.

I actually enjoyed leveling that way compared to my Mage. I leveled to 60 in Classic as Arcane for Evocation and then Fire, and I had to eat/drink often because of how costly spells were and how much CC was needed. My Priest just slowly grinded down mobs and could always go right into the next one.