I'm a healer, and I LOVE this expansion.

[fex]

This past week has been some of the most fun I've had in all of my years playing World of Warcraft.

I've been eyeballing the forums for the past week, and it really seems like there is an overwhelming amount of unwarranted complaining. I want to stand up and say that I'm not just satisfied with Cataclysm - I'm in love.

Now, to be fair, I do see the other side of the coin, and I think I understand why some people are complaining. The transition from WotLK to Cataclysm was a major paradigm shift, from a fast-paced actionfest to something slower, more strategic. A lot of people, especially those people who started playing WoW during the days of WotLK, are still having a very difficult time adjusting to the new pace, and people would much rather complain than adapt.

In WotLK, the only meter that mattered was Damage Done. Nowadays, the most important meter is Damage Taken. That's a big change. Asking people to slow down and think instead of just running around spamming shiny buttons doesn't sound appealing to some people, and I honestly can't say that I'm surprised by how many people want to go back to the spamfest. It was mindless, easy, and actiony.

But you know what? I love the slower pace. I love the strategy. I love worrying about positioning. I love worrying about mana. I love canceling casts. I love CCing. I love that I can't just tunnelvision and spam the same rotation (if you can even call HL->HL->HL->HL a rotation) until the boss is dead.

I remember stepping into my very first random heroic (I was realm first 85, so I couldn't do a guild-only or even a server-only run at the time), and it was a nightmare. On the very first pull, I suggested we mark/CC, but the rest of the group laughed and ran straight in. I began blasting out expensive heals trying to keep everyone up, OOMed about halfway through the pull, and then we wiped. The group reluctantly agreed to attempt CC, and failed miserably. Every single CC either missed or was broken within 5 seconds. Another wipe. About fifteen minutes of wiping later, the group decided that it was all obviously my fault, and vote-kicked me for "not healing enough". I laughed gently to myself, knowing that the group was doomed to failure, anyway.

A couple days later, a lot of my guildies caught up. We all hopped in vent, strapped on our shiniest blues and greens, and worked our way through every single heroic, one by one. Some were pretty easy - we downed ToT, GB, and LCoT with very little difficulty. Others required a significant amount of coordination, for both trash and boss fights. Stonecore, in particular, took us a very long time, but we fought through it, geared up for it, and wracked our brains to find the right plan for each encounter.

Over the course of each heroic, I could visibly see every person in the party learning, growing, adapting. I watched melee learn where they could and couldn't stand. I watched casters cancel big casts to move out of danger zones. I watched tanks wait for CC, and carefully pull things back to avoid breaking it. I even got to Turn Evil a few things, once or twice - and I felt like a champ every single time. By the end of it all, every single person was aware of my mana, and even more acutely aware that their actions had a direct impact on how quickly it dropped.

Now, we're all downing heroics with very little difficulty, apart from the occasional mispull or sloppy CC. The DPS realize that mindlessly spamming their highest DPS rotation is no longer an option, and the tank realizes that mana and CC are both legitimate concerns. We're not in Wrath any more.

I, for one, love the slower, more strategic pace. I spent the entire WotLK expansion spamming Holy Light, but now I can honestly say that every single heal in my book gets used on almost every fight. The holy power mechanic is a tremendous amount of fun, and LoD/HR are both great tools to cover the holes in our Wrath toolset. I still feel like my place is healing the tanks, but I also feel like if I need to, I can fill any other role, too.

I guess all I'm trying to say here is that I hope Blizzard ignores the whining. It'll die down in a few weeks, when everyone has decided whether they want to adapt or leave.

[Deleted]

OP is a paladin, this is all

Edit coming in here saying healing is fine when your playing the most OP healing class is... yeah just dont

[ackis]

I'm hating it as a holy priest, I don't like being oom 1/2 way through a pull.

[Sedative]

I'm a Resto Druid and am enjoying it as well.

[brutnus]

I love the concept. I love the way the game has slowed down. Instead of running 10 heroics in a night its maybe 2.

I am a Resto Druid and i too love it when running with guildies. I hate it when running with pugs.

[Synche]

I am loving my paladin as well, I use almost every spell I have (although Flash of Light gets little or no use atm), I love the healing changes and it gives me a sense of accomplishment after healing through a big pull (this just happened last night in Grim Batol, wish I had fraps it).

I approve of this message!

[Aunor]

Im not a healer, but i will say this is just awesum expansion thank you blizzard for answering our prairs.

[Coldology]

I'm a holy paladin and I think I'm doing everything horribly wrong.

[Kavalir]

OP is a paladin, this is all

Edit coming in here saying healing is fine when your playing the most OP healing class is... yeah just dont

Was gonna say the second I saw the thread title I said to myself. 50 bucks says hes a paladin.

yes we're glad that all the pallys are having fun, unforunately a lot of the other healers aren't. I had to leave my computer instead of raging last night when I got kicked from a few pugs cause "resto shammys aren't good enough, we want a holy pally"

[Maleficious]

...and that's why I love Cata so much!

[Deleted]

I'm a resto druid, and i like it and hate it. When one single thing goes wrong my mana pool halves from what it was, because my main spell is around 9% of my mana and raid damage is high so i usually cat around 3 rejuvinations and 1 wild grouth, so i have to be extremely careful for when I cast and what i cast on, and also if it will be worth the mana to spend.
Also dps start thinking that when your standing around most of the time when your actually saving mana they find it as an excuse that your not healing very much, whereas your only waiting to heal when its actually worth it.
But i do like the fact that everything has got more challenging in general, pugs however i absolutley hate - people still use to facerolling wrath heroics im assuming.

[Kezaren]

I don't mind the slower pace or the fact that mana is a valuable resource, but it's turned up to 11. It's too much.

Now the required disclaimer: I've got a 335 average ilevel, and I play very conservatively, never healing someone who isn't going to die right away, always using my most efficient heals when possible, and playing with guild members who are very good players and tore through heroic ICC25 every week. Trash isn't always horrible because we CC everything we can. But the majority of boss encounters are boring. Wiping for an hour or two on the very first boss in SFK and having nothing to show for it is boring. Mostly boring because the only way it's going to get any less punishing and brutal is to slog through it for the JP. I don't want them to be too easy either, but I can't wait until heroics get fun again.

[Sattaro]

What does being a holy paladin have to do with anything? Resto Shaman are just as good, if not better.
The only TRULY gimped class would have to be Holy and Discipline priests at the moment.
My main is a Holy Paladin, and I'll admit, at first healing was shitty. Oom Every Pull, having to sacrifice a few DPS to keep the tanks up, yeah it sucked..
But then I got this fantastic healing trinket. It's called Tears of Blood. It changed EVERYTHING O_O
The biggest problem I see some healers having is they keep gemming/reforging for haste and intellect. If you're Oom'ing almost every pull you probably need more spirit. I'm sitting at around 2k Combat regen, and the only times I ever really Oom is when I'm in a pug.

[iLive]

I have to agree with you fex. I am just worried that it will get too easy again after 1-2 patches. I LOVE to heal, and I don't want to see all he fights becoming too easy again. :S

[DarkShell]

I don't mind the slower pace or the fact that mana is a valuable resource, but it's turned up to 11. It's too much.

Now the required disclaimer: I've got a 335 average ilevel, and I play very conservatively, never healing someone who isn't going to die right away, always using my most efficient heals when possible, and playing with guild members who are very good players and tore through heroic ICC25 every week. Trash isn't always horrible because we CC everything we can. But the majority of boss encounters are boring. Wiping for an hour or two on the very first boss in SFK and having nothing to show for it is boring. Mostly boring because the only way it's going to get any less punishing and brutal is to slog through it for the JP. I don't want them to be too easy either, but I can't wait until heroics get fun again.

I'm sorry, but if you're wiping on the first boss in SFK it's either your fault for not healing well enough, or your tank/dps fault for not interrupting when you need to. That fight is not hard, especially if you're claiming you have been doing Heroic Lich King every week. Heroics are where they are at for a reason, to make people learn. If you can't learn, you shouldn't be in there in the first place.

Long story short, it's you, not the dungeon. Pay attention and learn from mistakes and you'll find the heroics are insanely easy for you. It's all about the person at the keyboard and not the character on the screen, remember that.

[Aragen]

I love you Fex

[Honen]

OP is a paladin, this is all

Edit coming in here saying healing is fine when your playing the most OP healing class is... yeah just dont

Regardless of class the OP is in the first (some would argue second) most progressed guild on our server. Fex is without a doubt a really great healer and one of the main reasons for their success.

However, with that being said... it is also because of the talent that surrounds him that he is able to adapt more quickly than others.

I myself am having some trouble adapting to the new mentality. No problems at all in regulars but heroics are giving me a run for my money.

- Holy Priest

edit:
Progession information of course coming from Wrath progression considering Cata progression hasn't started yet due to the leveling curve still being tackled by some

[Eletharin]

Hey Paladin, the comments about the way healing is tuned is generally referring to priest/druid healing. By a large part of the intelligent community it is accepted that pally and shaman healing, while certainly more difficult then before, are still reasonably designed. "I'm a healer" should probably read "I'm a paladin healer". I'm sure there are paladins bitching somewhere who will argue with you that the world is over now (there always are aren't there?) but this thread being aimed at healers in general is misguided.

[Delmorgan]

I am enjoying healing in cata... It was tough at first with my resto druid but now with a little experience under my belt it is very enjoyable.

[Whiskra]

I'm glad I'm a holy paladin, because I get instant queues because other healers obviously get kicked all the time!