The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Ego Maildump
by Vonya
Not feeling very good today, so I shall continue with my firmly established laziness of giving Ego MailDumps instead of long, thought-out posts.
=]
I have a quick question for you re: holy priestage, and you have probably had the answer ready since reading the subject line, but there we go.
Quite simply, aside from the obvious aesthetic and sheer bouncy-fun bonus points (á la Arcane Explosion), does Holy Nova really have much going for it? It sounded good at the time, when I got to it in the tree, but now i’m wondering if I’d be a fair bit better off reassigning that talent point. And rather than sift through sites and sites trying to get a simple (and non-flamey) answer, i’d email someone whose writing and priestliness have both impressed me thus far, ever since I started my priest and my girlfriend linked me your blog. There, obligatory flattery over as well
Sorry if you are uber busy, and thanks for your time, and for your wondrous bloggyness. Oh - and what’s the gentle snowflakes reference?
Cheers,
-Jon
My Answer :
“Gentle Snowflakes” is a reference to a comedian I really enjoy - Lewis Black. He used it in a comedy routine once when discussing how everyone’s health is different from everyone else. Because we’re all like snowflakes.
As to Holy Nova - as far as the skill goes, it’s really not the bread and butter of the priest class.
One of the other priests in our guild is known as the Holy Nova Cassanova because he’s a sweet-talker and he likes the talent.
In raid and instance healing, you’re not going to use it much.
…however. It’s only one talent point, and it sure is a ton of fun sometimes. I don’t typically run instances with someone who can AOE, so there are times when I wish I had it so I could run up and help out in Sethekk Halls or Mana Tombs. Just for fun.
Is it useless? No, not really, but it’s close enough that they shovel each other’s driveways in the winter.
If you get it, get it for fun rather than because you think you’ll be using it in any kind of serious healing situation. =]
Hello I am a fairly new reader, but I love your blog. I too have 70 Draenei Priest and I adore her. I am coming to you for advice as I simply have no one else I can think of to go to. Any advice you have to offer would be greatly appreciated.
I belong to a small casual guild. I love the people in it and do not want to leave, but I am afraid that I may have to. My guild leader is also a Holy priest, but is about my complete opposite in healing style. When I first joined he was shocked that I chose to not get Holy Nova. He still occasionally tries to get me to admit that I really should have it. If that was all though I’d not be writing! I cancel cast G. Heals, he spams party heals. I toss out renews for light healing, he Flash heals. I use fade only when needed, he spams it every time it is available. The list really could go on, but I’ll stop there.
I could live with him healing in a way find inefficient, but he wants me to heal his way. He also refuses to follow any healing assignment. And he hates add ons. What is funny is that he knows my add ons help me and puts me in positions to use them, but refuses to get them himself. I am the one to dispell on Maiden as he will not get decursive. He takes healing the main tank…only he cannot stay focused on his assignment. The tank has died more than once because a dps got lower than he liked so he switched to them…and usually I’m mid heal on them anyways. I try very hard to get him to stick to the tank and allow other healers to do their job, but he just gets mad and says that he would if we would keep the dps up.
Ok enough ranting! The problem here is that while I like my guild and my guild leader he is getting more and more insistent that I should be healing his way. At the same time I’m getting more and more frustrated with his inability to stick with his assignment and trust other healers to do their jobs. I have tried to get him to read up on his class but he won’t. He won’t read up on the new encounters we are facing in raids either. I told him what a good read your blog was, but as far as I know he did not take the bait. So I am left with both of us getting more and more frustrated with the other. Is there anything I can do to resolve this without leaving?
Firstly, your guild leader’s an idiot.
Secondly, he’s allowed to be an idiot and play however he likes.
Thirdly, he’s not allowed to try and infect you with his idiocy.
Can you heal like that? SURE! Go for it!
Is it efficient at ALL? Hell no. Dear lord, HELL NO.
If he’s got tanks and dpsers willing to run with him, then for his purposes, there’s nothing wrong with the way he heals. It gets the job done.
Me, I like a little finesse in my healing. Some flair. I pride myself on being able to execute an entire run with as few deaths/potion drinks/and water drinks as I can. I’m not stingy - my main goal is the first one (minimal deaths) but the entire run goes more smoothly if there aren’t a lot of hitches and slowdowns in between. We run the Instance Delivery Service - End boss’s head on a platter in an hour or the Nether’s free! (half hour for most non-heroics)
But just because that’s how I like to play the game, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way.
However, I wouldn’t stand for someone telling me that Flash Heal was a primary heal for all raids (it has its place, but it’s terribly inefficient), or that healing assignments are stupid, or that addons (when used CAREFULLY and in MODERATION) aren’t a godsend to the overworked healers. Or that Fade is even remotely like Feint.
If you’re in a casual guild and you’re all just sort of running whatever instances look tasty at the time, then it shouldn’t matter much because you won’t be healing with him. He’ll probably get unhappy when the main tanks of the guild start requesting YOU for their runs, but that’s hardly YOUR fault, right? *winks*
But if you’re in a raiding guild and his behavior is affecting your fun of the game, you should probably evaluate why you’re still there. I am a big fan of people being loyal to their guilds — up until the point where the guild is truly not a good fit or the guild isn’t loyal to them.
If you demand more out of your guild than that, then talk to him (it’s always good to talk to your guild leadership before you gquit a guild, so they know what’s up). If he’s unreasonable and totally unwilling to listen to you, then you’ve at least done your part. Nobody’s perfect - the best you can do is to try and keep your nose clean, avoid drama as much as you can, and shake the dust off your boots if you have to leave.
But if you’re looking for a group of people more dedicated to at least minimal theorycraft - it sounds like your guild leader at least isn’t going to provide that for you. If the rest of the guild follows his example, I’m guessing your raids aren’t much fun at all.
I’ve never tried to gear my blog at the heavy duty theorycrafters. Numbers make me break out in hives. There are plenty of other blogs out there who will joyfully argue the exact values of X versus Y.
Me, I’m more for understanding what works and having a decent idea of WHY. Anyone not willing to at least go that far with their class is going to have a hard time when it comes to raiding, and they’ll swiftly become an albatross for their guild, someone that other people have to carry through content. The game doesn’t teach you everything you need to know. It’s not handed to you on a silver platter, and sometimes things just don’t make sense right away.
You have to do some extra work to figure out what’s really going on sometimes, and in my opinion, that’s really not too much to ask.
How much threat is generated by a single point of heal? No quest in the game is going to tell you that, but a simple google search will reveal the answer. People have DONE the hard research, there’s no reason not to capitalize on the output of their work. The minimal work of doing a google search to find an answer is nothing compared to the mathematical contortions that went into them defining 1 point of heal = .5 threat.
Play the game to the level that you personally enjoy it. I enjoyed the game before I dipped my toes into theorycraft, and I personally enjoy it more now that I can see what’s going on and make intelligent decisions when it comes to my healing. I find that I enjoy the company of others who care about their quality of play more than those who just like to squeak by.
You may have to make that same decision, and if you do, I hope that you can find others who feel that way. It really and truly makes the game more fun to play with others who have a similar philosophy to your own. =]
January 24th, 2008
Letter 1
Holy Nova has limited to no purposes in PvE. It is fun to use in KZ on aoe pulls and Slabs when you pull the undead skelly’s. In PvP its is viable, almost important. A rank 1 Holy Nova can be spammed fairly liberally and will pop a rogue out of stealth. A rank 4 Holy Nova will kill a Hunter Snake trap. Other than that it isn’t used in many other places, but again it’s only 1 point and in most PvP builds or even PvE builds you have a point or 2 to play with.
Letter 2
If you are in Heroics or KZ healing style doesn’t matter as much. Ask your guild leader to go post on Elitistjerks.com and ask them about how he should heal. They will theorycraft him to death.
January 24th, 2008
1) I really disliked Holy Nova for a long time, but I recently respec’d to deep holy, and it was easy to spare the one talent point to try it out. The main thing I like about Holy Nova is that all of the talents that you are picking up to buff your Circle of Healing are going to buff your Holy Nova too (Mental Agility, Holy Reach, maybe even Holy Specialization). Holy nova is still incredibly situational, but it definitely gives me something to do while soloing as well.
2) I have a similar situation where there is another holy priest in the guild who means well, but I am just baffled by his spell selection. There was a recent fight where he was tank healing on void reaver, and he did something like 85% flash heals. He is oom on every fights, chugs mana pots, and demands innervates. He also /whispered me one time and was trying to deride another priest for spamming rank 2 greater heal. I had to explain to him that the priest had 2200 healing and, downranking gheal was a really good way to save mana. We are well into T5 content, and progressing rapidly, and I feel like I should not have to explain these concepts to him! Unfortunately, I just don’t think there’s a nice way to sit someone down and say “hey, the way you’ve been healing for the past 5 months up to this point isn’t good.”
January 24th, 2008
Letter 1: I actually have never ever used it. Seems really kinda useless to me, then again I’ve only been a strictly shadow priest, or strictly healing. So holy dmg is a sort of unknown to me.
Letter 2:
Well, what do you mean by ‘resolve’. If you mean to get him to change his way of healing then I’d say forget it. That won’t happen and pointing him to any place with information on it is useless since he has clearly made up his mind on the “proper” way to heal as a priest.
If, on the other hand, you just want him to stop taunting you, then it *may* be possible. Typically I have found people (in all of the mmo’s I’ve played) don’t change (or change very little), but some do. So there is a chance that you may get him to stop taunting you.
My suggestion is (and you probably won’t like it) is to start looking around for another guild that is doing the stuff you want to do. I’ve had to make the same decision you are contemplating about 3 times now in WoW, and it is tough. But frankly, there *are* other people in WoW who are friendly and fun. Those two things are not exclusive in any one guild.
And yeah, Elitist Jerks would ruin your GM lol
January 24th, 2008
@Bendyr: How would you react if someone said you suck and have to improve? Badly, right? And you’d be totally justified.
How would you react if someone suggested you could save some money while also kicking out even better HPS?
Ask how he can afford to buy all those pots, ease into a conversation. After sympathising a bit, suggest he could use less with a bit more pom/gh2. What he’s doing is fine, but he could do better. If he’s unsure, ask him to try it out one raid, no commitment.
It’s all in the presentation. Get him saying “yes, yes”, try to see his point of view, ask open questions and let him do the talking. No one can convince anyone else, people have to talk themselves into things.
January 24th, 2008
Eldr, do you sell cars? I’d like to buy 3.
That’s definitely great advice- I will try that.
January 24th, 2008
Hello all! I am the writer of the second email. I wanted to clarify a little here. The problem here is that I like my GM…he is a very nice guy. I like my guild. I do not care if my Gm changes the way he heals, well no I do care…but I can live with it. The problem for quite awhile now has been him constantly harping on me to fade more. If I die, which is not often, he tells me it is because I do not fade enough. he tells me I should fade every time it is available. I have talked to him and explained that fade doesn’t work that way, but he says he knows from experience that it does.
On top of that he also is constantly telling me to heal someone. Which is silly as by the time he says something I better already be casting. The topper to it all though is that the other day in Kara he noticed that I was above him and the other healer in the group on the threat meter. I was still below 50% of the tanks threat, but he decided that I should be lower and started ranting about it. telling me to stop healing so much. Several people popped up in my defense, but he dug in his heals and insisted. I just turned off my mic and tried my best to ignore him.
I know he means well, but he is so convinced that he is right and I am wrong. He cannot trust me to heal who I am supposed to be healing and is so busy watching my healing assignments he sometimes ignores his own. Honestly though I can live with that. I just need him to let me heal my way. What I mean by resolve is how do I get him to just let me heal?
January 24th, 2008
@Lillend
Hehe… it’ is NEVER a healers fault if they pull agro from healing. We run 2 healers spamming CoH and Chain Heal in KZ… cause well we are lazy. Never had an agro issue. You only gain threat from effective healing, meaning if they are that low that you need to spam heal them then that tank needs better gear. This is all assuming you have Silent Resolve. Now while I feel I wont pull agro without it, a tank best laid that talent out for me like this. “If I could spec a talent that let me gain 20% more threat, it would simply be OP. So you having 20% less, is huge”
I would highly recomend you referring your GM to http://www.elitistjerks.com it has improved my healing 10 fold, along with this lovely blog.
January 24th, 2008
Sorry to post again… Le sigh. People shout out big heals on so and so all the time in vent. There are a few easy responses. Explain that if a heal isn’t already on the way they are dead. Reply thanks for the heads up I was busy face rolling my smite dps and didn’t see the spike damage, or my favorite is shouting very loudly DPS THE BOSS!!!!
January 24th, 2008
@Lillend
Your GM may be a nice guy like you say but he is a terrible leader and by your description only a half assed healer. If you can’t focus on your own healing assignment and your people die it is because you have failed not because you HAD to help out another healer. I mean unless your helping heal the tank no one else should matter to you as much as your people.
On his leadership as you have described it. He is an Idiot, I am a soldier IRL and if you treat your troops with as little respect and show so little trust in their ability to get the job they have been given done then the effectivness of your section drops as you will be to busy micro managing your people to do your own job. As is what is happening apparently. You also acquire for yourself the ill will of the men and women who follow you. Ineffective leadership leads to death, in my line of work that is unacceptable in game it is a little less severe but I don’t stand for it personally.
January 24th, 2008
Thank you for all your responses! I spent the morning talking in vent to another member of our guild. He was a healer when I first, but leveled up a dps class to play instead. What I did not know was that he did this because he could not stand healing under our gm. He is begging me not to go though. He says the GM is stubborn and talking to him is not likely to help, but I have to try.
January 24th, 2008
Lillend:
Yeah, that is pretty much what I was talking about with regard to trying to find out what you mean by resolve. If you are happy doing what your guild is doing, then fine - ignore the guy (easier said than done). But if you want to do other things, then you need to make a move. From what you are saying, my impression is that your GM is not going to change and is a poor leader (at best). Call me a pessimist but I think it will only get worse, mostly because a certain amount of jealousy will start to surface when he realizes that everyone ELSE knows you are the better healer even though you don’t do anything he tells you to do. So at that point I only see bad things. Like I said, call me a pessimist but I’ve been around the block more than a few times and have seen this situation over and over.
January 24th, 2008
Not sure if I’m permitted to keep posting website but you can use this as a good Theorycrafting reference for Mana/Heal ratio.
http://priestheal.googlepages.com/priest_heal.htm
January 24th, 2008
#1 you could do as he says results
the tank will probably die
a wipe will ensue
if you have people who know how to read raid blogs they will see the flaws in your raid leader system.
from here the raid can ask to switch strategy or continue wiping.
The longer you carry him on your back the harder it will be to progress as you get into more unforgiving places.
let the raid wipe by following your leader’s orders…. it will be hard as it’s against your nature but some lessons can’t be learned any other way.
January 25th, 2008
@Bendyr: If you want this kind of thing to be easier, read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. It’s a really creepy title hiding a great book. It’s old, so you can pick up a copy for very little.
Bonus tip, reread that paragraph - I tell you WHY first, then WHAT to do. Stupid thing, but it helps motivate the reader.
@Lillend: Props to Underbridge, gus, Hildi. In order… he lacks respect for you. He won’t listen to you, so you can’t gain respect with words. You have to undeniably demonstrate the value of your approach.
Halazzi (the Lynx) is ZA is a great boss to challenge the healers. Two healers is plenty, IF they stick to assignments. Make sure your tanks are geared for it though, and you may want to prep your DPSer friend to be extra sharp on totems. You want everything to pivot on the quality of MT healing.
After a few wipes, hopefully your GM is crying a bit and/or saying “it can’t be done!”. Ask if you can switch assignments. Rock the GH, loot and do not in any way rub it in his face or he’ll feel bad and become hostile, instead of gaining respect. Praise him for his raid healing if you can bring yourself to do it, you want him to come out feeling positive but mystified.
If you haven’t farmed out Kara, even Nalorakk (Bear) might be enough. Try to arrange a raid without any druids so he can’t lean on innervate. Whichever boss you choose, next week, let him start again. Wipe, wipe, wipe. Someone else will probably ask to try you on MT. He should be thinking pretty hard during the loot, come to you and ask for advice.
If he doesn’t, well… there are great people in other guilds too. Like Hildi, I’ve been around the block… I’ve seen a lot of people get trapped in small guilds, with people who refuse to learn, out of misplaced loyalty. Every time one escapes, while they’re a bit sad not to play so regularly with their old friends, the satisfaction they gain from playing with other competent people and the new relationships they build enormously outweigh it.
*kof* And pardon me but this IS the ego blog… Al’ar down, KT and MH beckon
January 25th, 2008
Letter #1
Holy nova.
Its it required to heal….nope, does it make you heal better, not in 99.9% of the situations. When would you ever use this thing? When you pull the AOE packs in Kara on the stairs and on the way to opera/Maiden and in front of illhoof, as well as skeletons in Slabs, and when my pally tank grabs everyhting under the sun in BM before we start the event. I can get above 1000 DPS in these places while also healing whoever is closer. Is it fun…oh ya. Is it neccesary…oh no. I you want to min/max to be the best raid healer possible you should proabably not take it….but i have to throw a little fun in there.
January 25th, 2008
Use webstats, it is inaccurate for little things like food buffs sometimes, but it provides a good picture of how a fight went in terms of efficiency. If he is wasting mana, taking lots of mana pots, not sticking to his assignments; it will be shown in %overhealed and who heals whom.
I play a tank for my guild, but read here to get the healer perspective, they are often the key to the raid.
You have to evaluate your tanks’ performance as well to see how efficient you really are or how efficient you could be. If you are MT healing and he is raid healing, your MT will have a lot to do with how efficient you are.
If I asked you would you take a talent that would save you 50% of your mana during a raid boss encounter would you take it? Just like a tank asked you about threat, you can ask back. That is what a crushing blow is to a warrior and pally tank, 150% damage. If your tank is taking multiple crushing blows, he or she is not playing his toon well by not using sheild block at every global cool down. If your tank isn’t mitigating damage with ironshield pots and socketing for +stamina a healer can look terribly inefficient, since they are going OOM quickly or overhealing due to an avoidance tank damage being spikey.
As far as aggro, healer aggro is much much easier to contain than dps aggro. If there is a healer aggro threat like the pull of HKM in Gruuls or the Shaman in Karathress fight (first swing hurts). Tanks can Ironshield up, trigger their autoblocker (warrior) for more threat, or put on a rune of sheilding and mitigate the initial spike damage until the healers can settle into a healing pattern well below the 130% ranged threat to pull aggro.
I like this blog, so neat to read a healers perspective.
thanks,
fubs
January 28th, 2008
@Eldr.
After many, many lasered cows we finally got Illidan last week. Can’t say how happy I am for my guild, was lots o work and fun.
Grats on your kills!
Good ideas on how to get that GM to acknowledge there are other ways to play the game, hopefully Lil can pull it off.
@Fubs.
You can definitely tell when a tank is on his game or not during a fight with a boss that does crushing a lot. Unfortunately, IMO there is not really a ‘healing pattern’ anymore. At least for a priest. Seems like there may be one for say a Pally or Druid tho. I’m only basing it on spell usage between those two classes and a priest. Example: Checking Recount detail usage per healer, I typically have cast anywhere from 5-7 different types of spells. Same fight for a druid reveals 2 spells, and some fights they are only rolling LB, so thats like 1 spell. Similar with Pally’s, and to a lesser extent Shaman. IMO, priests have to think on their toes much more often than the other healers and have to be lucky enough to recognize a situation and respond with the appropriate heal spell.
Gawd I hate crushing blows
January 29th, 2008
“Firstly, your guild leader’s an idiot.”
Classic.
Lillend can heal in my party anytime.
January 30th, 2008
Letter 2.
The GM is a complete tool. I wouldn’t put up with his crap for one more day.
Not only does he not have a clue about healing, but he refuses to do anything to improve himself. We don’t all have to heal the same but we should all be aiming to heal well and this idiot cannot be anywhere near close to that and yet chooses not to even research his class.
If you are wiping on Maiden, the raid sucks bigtime, although that might be because the GM is such a pitiful healer, but the net result is the same. The only thing saving him from a /gkick is the fact he is GM. Why people stick around is the mystery however…
January 31st, 2008
Letter 2
What I don’t understand is that you say that the GM is a really good friend of yours, yet you don’t want to have a frank/open discussion regarding your opposing styles. If he takes your criticism as a personal affront OR if he continues to deride your style after the open discussion, then maybe he doesn’t hold you in as much regard as you hold him…time to re-evaluate your allegiance. However, if he takes it well, then you will come out with a better game-experience AND a stronger relationship.
Xcal
February 11th, 2008
Just thought I’d come in with an update….Both my boyfriend (Pally Tank) and I left our guild this morning. It was sad to go, but we both feel it is the only real choice for us. We had been discussing it for a week in the midst of a lot of guild drama. Several other people left a couple days before we did. All people I would consider some of the best players in the guild. Fact is there were a great many problems in the guild and a complete lack of leadership. Anyhow…I thank you all for your advice. I wish that things could have ended differently, but atleast now I can try to find a guild that better suits me.
Xcal:
I did try to talk to him, he just was so convinced he was right that nothing I said mattered. And you are right…I never felt respected by him. I know that he means well, but he is stubborn and set in his ways. So I can like him as a person, but not as a healer or a leader.
February 15th, 2008
I’m sorry to hear that you had to leave. I hope you and your friends can find happiness in another guild.
If for some odd reason, you can’t find another guild to join on your realm, there is always the possibility of transferring. I can’t imagine it myself; i have about 6 major characters and i’m not about to pay $250 for anything WoW-related.
February 15th, 2008
Whoops, i meant $150. Typo, much?
February 19th, 2008
Two members that left started up their own guild and we have joined with them. In fact all the members that left the guild we were in have joined. We now have 2 groups going to Kara though we do have to have alts played and pug members brought in to fill in the holes. We are growing and so far we are doing well.
As for transferring…yeah not gonna happen. I may not have as many to move as you, but still too many. I have 3 70’s and my boyfriend has 2. That is a bit more than I care to spend. Things will work out though.
March 15th, 2008
@ Lillend: Good for you!
Re: Holy Nova: Priests with Holy Nova who meet Blackheart the Inciter make Baby Jesus cry.