I... Want... Control...!

When I started my WoW career, I was all into healing. After a while, I figured out that a good tank can do so much more to change the outcome of an encounter than a healer can. In fact, there is very little a healer can do to change the outcome of a fight, apart from healing like crazy. Sometimes, the healer saves the day. But I figured that more often than not, it wasn't the healer. It was the tank who managed to take control of the fight. The tank could prevent more damage to the group than the healer ever could heal.

Since then, I've played all four specs of tanks. My two non-tank classes, Zuna the priest and Kirba the shaman, has mostly been lying idle except for some short bursts of "I'm going to level up Engineering" or "I'm going to finish What A Long Strange Trip It's Been" (I have, by the way, finished it with 4 characters now).

Most recently, I had fun with my goblin warrior, whom I started after Cataclysm. I've played PVP a lot with her. Mostly as protection. I fell in love with how much control I can bring to a fight. I am really bad dps, barring a lucky reflected spell, but I could change the outcome of a fight with allies at my side, by enabling them to kill the enemy team unhindered.

When I was around 65 with my warrior, my wife decided to play with me again. She has a tauren druid, at that time lvl 63. We played together a lot, but I was always higher level than her. In addition, I had heirlooms and played BGs on my own. Sum it up, and I raced from her in XP. So she asked me to wait so she could catch up with me.

I froze my XP at level 74, when my wife had just entered Northrend. I still tried to play BGs, but since I had frozen XP I would only meet other players with frozen XP, in effect twinks. You know what I really didn't like about that? No, I didn't mind meeting much tougher opponents. I minded the extremely long BG queues. Several hours, sometimes.

So... rather than wait forever to get into BGs, I decided to play with my other characters. I went through all my tanking characters and played BGs, all of them in the 80-84 bracket except my pally who is 85. The thing I found out is that none of the other tanking specs have anywhere near the amount of control that a warrior has.

Blood Death Knights

A death knight tank has very good survivability. But control? I have a 60% snare, which I need to reapply using a rune every 8 sec. It was crippling to try to keep an enemy perma-snared, not least to my dps. Desecration in Unholy might solve some of this, but at the loss of extremely good PVP talents in the first two Frost tiers.

I was, however, able to bother healers by Death-gripping them out of range of their healing targets, strangulating them and mind freezing them, so I wasn't completely useless. But it certainly felt so. I respecced to Unholy and found that my control improved vastly, which actually improved my survivability in most fights. No need to mitigate damage that never happens because I can kite, eh? And my dots still tick (they do as Blood too, but waaaay much lower), my ghoul still damages, and my Death Coils hit like trucks range.

Feral druids

The interesting thing about feral is that you can't avoid picking up a lot of dps talents along with the necessary tanking talents. Not all of them, but enough that I really felt I could deal some damage. I've learned that a good feral druids know when to shift, and shifts fast. It takes practice. After some hours in BGs, I wasn't all that bad at it. Bear when focused or need bash, cat when I'm ignored, caster to cyclone/root and heal a wee bit, or just shift to the same form to remove snares.

Druids actually have a fair bit of control. It's very handy that the snare is attached to other abilities, meaning I'm snaring my target at almost all times. Nature's Grasp is very handy for bothering anything attacking me, and I can use Entangling Roots and Cyclone to give my enemies a headache. Feral Charge is awesome fun, though in most cases worse than the warrior charge/intercept. Bash is an on-demand stun, and Prowl -> Pounce was very handy against anyone attacking my allies when we were defending a flag. In addition, it's very handy to be able to run from most situations. Note that I played before 4.0.6, meaning I used instant Entangling Roots with the glyph, I could still break roots and not only snares by shifting and berserk made me immune to fear. Druids really needed that nerf, though.

However, despite doing fairly well, I never really felt that I was "in control" of the fight like I often did as a warrior. Truth to be told, most of the fights was more like "I hope we can kill them before they kill us", hammering my keys in desperation. And healers? Healers were gods. Outside of gettting the jump on them from prowl with berserk up, I never managed to kill one alone. It's nice that feral druids get a spell interrupt, but they kitty version costs 25 energy! Compare that to kick (rogue interrupt) who costs 15 energy. That is 2.5 secs worth of energy regeneration compared to 1.5 secs. It really takes a bit of planning to interrupt successfully.

I think I like being resto better in PVP. Tons of control attached, yes please. Someone said "If you are casting more heals than cyclones as a druid healer, you're doing it wrong".

Protection paladins

<rant>

I know I've said this before, but I have to say it again: I really don't like Hammer of Justice.

First, it has too long duraction, in fact sharing the first place as longest stun in the game with a 5-CP Kidney Shot. It worked out slightly better when there were lots of stun-reducing talents around.

Second, I feel it is "too common" in the sense that I encounter it very often, since it's shared by 3 different specs.

Third, it is a one-shot pony. With that I mean it's a long cooldown that many paladins practically rely on it to win. A lucky resist/miss or a class that can remove stuns like Mages (Blink) or Death Knights (Icebound Fortitude after 4.0.6) and very much of the paladin's control is gone. It would be better if it was a 4 sec stun on a 30 sec cooldown or something like that.

Fourth, it has no bloody requirement combined with a very generous 15 yard range glyphed. I believe every other stun in the game has requirements, and all but Kidney Shot lasts shorter.

</rant>

Okay, done ranting. Seriously, though: the only snare available to protection paladins is the glyphed Avenger's Shield. It's ... interesting, but it's dispellable and can't be easily reapplied. I've spent lots of time running after my target as a pally. Snares are very common, and as soon as Hand of Freedom is on cooldown, you're as kitable as they come.

The thing about protection pallies, as far as I've discovered, is that they are very reliant on a proc: Grand Crusader which resets the cooldown on Avenger's Shield. It only procs on Hammer of the Righteous and Crusader Strike, both of which requires melee. So if you are being kited, you have nothing more to do than wait for the cooldown to refresh on it's own (15 sec), bubble or try a hammer of justice.

It is, however, possible to get to melee in the duration of Avenger's Shield. Then, if you are lucky with the procs, you can perma-silence an enemy target. In fact, up to three, if they are clumped up. It's very fun when it happens, but very annoying when you don't get any procs at all. Not to mention it must be annoying as freakin' hell to the enemy who can't do anything at all because of all the silences.

Even less than with feral druids, I really didn't feel in control of the fights as a protection pally. In fact, it felt like I was riding the back seat of some wild RNG race.

I can haz idea!

At this point, I had an idea. If I want control, why am I not playing a class with any amount of REAL control? So I picked up my mage, Rime, who had been my bank alt since I abondoned her at lvl 23 since ... classic. Four-five years ago.

I went into a BG and ... got trashed so bad it was not even remotely funny. I logged out in a true nerd-rage. I'm not proud to admit it.

After that, I tried to get into BGs with my warrior again. Still endless queues. Fun while it lasted, not so fun to wait. After a few days, I was ready for another attempt with my mage. However, rather than heading into BGs, I went into Ragefire Chasm and soloed the place. I practiced, learning how to make a shatter combo, got a feeling on how long I had to stay away to be out of melee reach, how long my freezes lasted etc. Not to mention mana management. I ran out of mana all the time.

Then I tried a BG again. Okay, this was way much better. I could kill a warrior or rogue (provided they didn't get the jump on me) without taking any damage at all. I could take on most enemies, except hunters. Hunters outranged and outdps'ed me, and they don't seem to have any kind of deadzone anymore. I just polymorphed them and ran away whenever I encountered on alone, provided I didn't die in the ~2 sec it took to cast polymorph.

Since then, I've been doing a lot of BGs. Yesterday my better half was away, so I dinged 59 after two winning AVs, and got Wrecking Ball in the last. I have found my love... ehem... a class I love ...for now. I know myself, and know that I won't sit at a class for too long. But for now, I am in control. MOHAHAHAHAHA!

Post-cataclysmic journal from an AV-loving warrior

My goblin warrior Shoosa recently entered Northrend. I've done AV all weekend, now revered with my very own Frostwolf Howler. Between AVs, I've skilled up cooking.

Complains from the Lunch Lady

Cooking is much tougher to level to 300 now that a lot of the cooking recipes are simply unavailable. In particular, it's no longer possible to skill up using only fish.

I don't get it, Blizz: You give us Pilgrim which is like free cooking skill, but you make it way much harder to level the old-fashioned way? Design philosphy, please?

Mohaha, eat spell reflect, palatards!

I hate pally stuns with a vengeance. Okay, it's probably balanced to stand stunned for 6 seconds at level 85 with a lot of health and resilience, but at anything lower than that, 6 seconds is waaay too long. Before, when spell ranks existed, it lasted shorter at lower levels, and you bought ranks as you gained levels which increased the stun duration.

However, as a prot-warrior, I have an answer to that. With the glyph, Spell reflection has a 5 sec duration and 6 sec cooldown. If I play my move smart, I make sure to silence or stun the paladin for the last vulnerable second, and I'm - almost - unstunnable. In addition, it's hilarious fun to see the pally eating his own stun.

The exception is a smart pally that will burn my spell reflection on some other spell, but that's not necessarily a bit problem. I don't mind loosing to smart paladins. I mind loosing to everyone else, and I'm sure that not every paladin player I've met so far have been smart.

Oh, and it's also fun (though much harder) to stun Frost Mages with their own deep freeze.

Tough, huh?

After I realized what I could do, every game I've just charged straight for our mine. I can charge/intercept and just run through all the mobs there, pulling more than 20 without any risk of dying and no usage of cooldowns.

How? Rend one, Thunderclap to spread it around (with the talent), spam spell reflect and throw a shockwave once I've collected some 10+, and Victory Rush shines up like a christmas tree all the time.

I also took down a rogue who 3 levels higher than me while having more than 5 mobs on me. In fact, they helped me a lot. They granted me a ton of rage through a talent, and broke Blind and Gouge on me instantly.

However, there are tougher around...

No matter how tough I like to think I am, Prot Pallies are tougher in one-on-one fights. Possibly Blood DKs too, haven't met too many of those. Enough pallies around, though. With Word of Glory every 9 sec, it's hard to keep up with their self-healing ... so far.

At least I'll get something in a few levels... Shattering Throw. Say bye bye, bubble-boy.

Perhaps surprisingly, Resto druids are also tougher in one-vs-one. I just can't bring them down. Only instant heals, which I can dispel one of every 6 seconds, and they can slowly take me down with Insect Swarm and Moonfire. Emphasis on slowly, I ran away after a 2 min fight with a druid, and I still had half my health left. She, however, had full health and almost full mana.

Looking forward to the next AV weekend

Which is some 2 months from now. I really enjoy AV, and it almost never comes up with random BG. And I'm not a fan of queing just for that and waiting around forever.

For some weird reason, though, Isle of Conquest comes up a ton during prime time with the random, though. How come only IoC and not AV? No idea.

I have one design issue with AV, though. It yields *way* more honor and rep to those that fight north, and very little to those that choose to stay south and defend and retake towers/GYs.

A very simple change would be to grant the same "honorable defender" buff in AV as you get in AB. Wouldn't solve anything, but it would make slightly more people defend south. Right now, I understand why so many choose to rush north; it's just way better rewards, both on a win and a loose. Even if it was a critical defense that granted the victory.

The challenges and possibilities of meta-spells for healers

Just for clarity: I define meta-spells as spells that don't do anything themselves, but instead enhance other spells. Technically, all buff spells such as Flametongue totem are meta-spells, but since they can have 100% uptime, they don't really really affect your playstyle at all... well, as long as you remember to buff up. This article only discusses meta-spells for healers.

Many on-use trinkets work like meta-spells. Take Ephmeral Snowflake.

Types of meta-spells

I'm going to divide meta-spells into three categories.

The first category includes activated spells, talents or items with a cooldown. Example: Inner Focus.

The second category include talents (generally) that grant a limited duration effect when casting certain spells. Example: Borrowed Time.

The third category include passive procs, generally from items. Often has an internal cooldown of 45 sec or stacks up multiple times. Example: Binding Stone stacks up a buff, while Althor's Abacus is a proc with a 45 sec internal cooldown.

Meta-spells by class

All healers have meta-spells. Even if I've played all four healer classes at 80, I easily forget some spells. Here's those I remember.

Shamans have

• Nature's Swiftness: Many use this simply as another heal in their repertoire combined with Greater Healing Wave.
• Spiritwalker's Grace: Cast spells while moving. Doesn't improve theoretical output.
• Unleash Elements, the Earthliving Weapon version. Increases the next heal by 20%. It has so short cooldown it's doubtful whether it belongs here.
• Bloodlust (or Heroism): Also rather special, as it has a very long duration and cooldown for such a spell.
• They also used to have Tidal Force, but I can't find it in the current talent tree. Perhaps it was removed in 4.0.

Druids have one spell: Nature's Swiftness. I don't know about anyone else. Okay, if you really want to count it: Barskin.

Priests have Archangel, though it's rather special in the way it works since it requires you to cast Smite before this has any effect.

Discipline priests also have Inner Focus, as mentioned above, and Power Infusion. Complete with cool graphics. Holy priests have their signature spell, Chakra, which changes how certain other spells work. However, it can have 100% uptime, so you don't want to save it for any purpose.

Paladins have several meta-spells that can be combined together.

• Avenging Wrath: 20% more healing. Oh, and pretty wings. Ooh! Shiny!
• Divine Favor: +20% haste, +20% spell crit.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings, the holy variant Ancient Healer. Casts Light of Ancient Kings. Against a single isolated target, it doubles your healing. More if there are other allies nearby.

They also have a rather special meta-spell, DIvine Plea, which reduces all healing done by 50%.

In addition, all classes can have on-use trinkets. Lifeblood, the granted ability from Herbalism, activates a 20-sec internal cooldown with on-use trinkets.

The challenge with meta-spells

Meta-spells can be very powerful. They can significantly improve the throughput of your spells. However, they can also be completely wasted. You may activate your meta-spells only to discover that there were no need for them, and waste the CD. Worse, you may wait for the perfect opportunity to use, only to forget to use it when you really really need it.

To be the best healer you can be, you need to remember to use your full repertoire of spells, including meta-spells.

A big challenge of meta-spells is finding out how you want to combine them. My paladin has herbalism, and so always has access to Lifeblood. That gives me 4 on-use meta-spells. I can use them separately, and I can combine them.

Combining them all gives me +20% healing, +20% haste, +20% crit, +480 haste, and my next 5 heals are duplicated and also splashes to nearby targets. That at least doubles my throughput, possibly triples it. Phew.

However, if you don't count Valithria Dreamwalker, it is rather likely that stacking so much healing at once will result in a lot of overhealing. So it's probably better to not spend everything at the same time.

I still need to figure out how to best combine my cooldowns. Add to that they have different cooldowns, so macroing two abilities with different cooldowns means that I'll either wait for both to come off cooldown before using them, wasting one of them, or spend them separately after the first time. Which isn't necessarily such a bad idea.

With that said, I love the feeling I get when I blow all my cooldowns (often while having Concentration Aura and Aura Mastery or Divine Shield up) while healing left and right in a hectic battleground fight.

I've also had much fun actually being able to kill something as a healer. All the paladin cooldowns except Guardian of Ancient Kings work on Exorcism too. Yay! I can kill stuff! ... and I call myself a healer.

Druids: Soothe now dispels Enrage effects!

For all I know, this change might have been live for some time. However, I just discovered it by reading a tooltip. The former Soothe Animal, now Soothe, removes an enrage effect, and it's dirt cheap to cast too.

Dispelling enrage effects have some utility in PVE. However, in PVP, it'll reduce warrior damage by 10% (removing Wrecking Crew, Enrage and Bastion of Defense for the three different specs of warriors) and preventing one of their self-heals (Enraged Regeneration). Don't rely on being able to stop them from healing, though, as they can just wait for their next enrage effect (since it's a passive proc) and use Enraged Regeneration before you manage to get off a Soothe.

It should also be possible to remove Hunter's Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within. Haven't tested it yet, though. It's also possible that just soothing the pet will take care of the hunter too, at least with the way the talent is worded.

There have been a lot of other changes to spells as well, but this one had so far managed to stay under my radar.

Edit: There might also be other enrage effects it can dispel. Owlkin Frenzy is a possible candidate.

Soon, the point of no return...

4.0 (actually 4.0.1) is on the test realm. That translates to it hitting live servers soon. I'm really looking forward to it, although there's a few things I'll miss.

I'm not a fan of whining and complaining about changes. I believe that Blizzard does what they think is best for the game, even if that includes nerfing the class I currently play. When I stop believing that, I'll probably stop playing the game. However, so far it has worked out fine. Thus, I consider all change "good" in the broad sense that they'll over time make the game better and better.

I'd just like to list what I look forward to. I think it'll be fun looking back at it in a half year's time.

I look forward to practically every overhauled talent tree. It's just exciting to see the new possibilities and combinations, and test out various new or overhauled talents. Some specific highlights.

Before we start, I just got to say I really love that Mortal Strike and the similar abilities no longer halve healing, but reduce it by 25%. It'll be balanced in the end, but I think I like the balance that I can heal a bit more consistently no matter what enemy I'm facing.

Death-tards

First and foremost, the dedicated Blood tanking tree for DKs. I'm going to test something like this for tanking. I'll also test a modified version, for example this, for PVP as blood.

The other two DK trees look... fair enough. Good thing they're overhauled, but no super-changes I'm all wired up about.

Tree-huggers

Generally, I'm looking forward to the overhauled Thorns. I hope it'll be castable on yourself while tanking.

Bothersome Bear Boredom

The first two steps towards more entertaining tanking for bears: Pulverize and Skull Bash. Thrash is obtained at 81. Going to a bear-tanking spec like this for tanking.

Coming out of the closet... or bark

Druid healing without tree form, yay! Unlike a lot of other druids, I'm super-excited about it. This is how I PVP as a resto druid already. The resto tree is so full of awesome that I'm having a very hard time figuring out what to spec. Most likely a case of repeated respecs. I'll probably try a PVP-oriented build first, and see how well it works for PVE as well.

Just let me see if I got this correctly: Fury of Stormrage reduces the mana cost of Wrath by 100% at all times? So I can chain-gun wraths like there's no tomorrow, if noone is in need of healing? Oh, I'm so excited that I just can't hide it!

Ability to remove magic, fantastic!

The new spell costs will take some time getting my head bent around. The speedy healer, Regrowth, and the big healer, Healing Touch, costs almost the exact amount of mana. Meanwhile, Nourish, which heals for about the same as Regrowth, costs only a fifth as much mana. Hm. Interesting.

However, with talents, Regrowth is an almost guaranteed crit for 150% healing (an additional 60% + 4% from talents), and then provides both a Living Seed for an additional 30% of the critted amount, meaning about 45% of the normal amount, and a bed of pretty flowers under your feet for another 30% of the critted amount, or 45% of the normal amount. So assuming it crits, which it will do often, it can potentially heal for 240% on the main target plus a heal over time, and 45% of everyone else who happen to be standing in it. Given at least three targets in the zone, its approaching the efficiency of Nourish.

Finally, I'm all excited about the new Tree of Life, now on a cooldown. All the enhanced spells... so much fun.

Sailor Moon... kin!

I'm not going to test it straight away, but I am looking forward to the balance changes as well. Ranged knockdown and spell interrupt, great! I'm just not as excited as the other trees.

Huntards

I've never had a hunter before, but I'll probably make a Worgen one. Both to test out the starting area and story, and the class itself. It's rather low priority, though.

Water-vendors

I have a low-level mage, which I'm intending to pick up just to test the various new mage specs. Pretty low priority as well, though.

Loladins

So many great changes here. I'll definitely test them out, to see if paladins may actually suit me now. It'd be great to have a single character that can both tank and heal, and so far I've found paladins lacking due to general boredom.

The new resource system, holy power, looks really neat. Now, finally paladins will have to make some choices about how to use their resources as opposed to earlier (where holy paladins spammed a single spell, tanks just used a rotation, and retribution paladins just mashed whatever button came off cooldown first). Not just what to spend it on, but whether to spend it at one, two or three charges of holy power.

Tanking without a rotation, oh, how I look forward to that. Dps with a more depth than just cooldown-mashing, great. AoE healing and more choices while healing. Without even testing it, I am 100% sure that this is a great step in the right direction for paladins.

Interestingly enough, paladins can now (finally?) chain-cast a dps spell, Exorcism.

Preists

(That was intentionally misspelled, by the way)

Lots of neat stuff here. However, priests where already a pretty well-rounded class, so I look at the changes are more of rounding off an already great class, with a few exceptions.

The ability to heal by damaging enemies looks interesting, particularly when combined with a stacking buff and an mana restoring and healing increasing effect. I really wonder how it'll work out. At least healing in 5-mans needn't be boring when you're overgearing the place.

The priestly version of Anti-magic Zone looks neat, not least because it reduces all damage and not just spells. Pretty much superior to AMZ, in fact.

Blizzard is trying to make Holy priests viable for PVP now. Or, more viable, this is probably their third attempt or something. Chastise is back. I never got a chance to test it while it was a racial spell.

Chakra looks like it could be real fun, particularly with Chastise morphing to other spells while chackra'ed. By the way, I can't stop thinking of Naruto each time I hear the word Chakra.

The shadow tree looks polished and neat, but apart from the Shadow Orbs doesn't strike me as anything really new. However, it worked well before, it'll probably work slightly better now.

Rouge

(This, too, was intentionally misspelled)

I've got three RL friends who play rogues, so I keep an eye on the changes here so I can discuss it with them. However, I don't have a rogue, I've never had a rogue, and I'm not even remotely planning on getting one myself.

It does, however, look to me that rogues will be completely and utterly overpowered until the health pools increase. Bypass 50% armor for 10 sec after an opener? Probably a bit broken in combination with the health pools and dps of level 80 characters.

Ehm... lightning-huggers?

Sadly, I don't know any pun on shammies.

I think the changes here will be great. However, I'm not sure how I feel about the class. I do have a 80 which I've had a lot of fun with, and I will probably level her at some point, not least since Jewelcrafting is a great profession for all my characters.

However... I'm not sure I want to spend too much time as a shammy anymore. With that said, if the changes are good enough, I might. In particular, Elemental and Enhancement never agreed too well with me. Resto was good. I'm certainly going to test out the new talents and stuff.

Interestingly enough, I look forward to buffs getting lowered. Shamans had, in my opinion, too many buffs, and they're balanced around having all those buffs. Now that the buffs aren't quite so powerful, they'll need to be balanced around that, which means that they'll be more powerful when buffs are present... translate that to most PVP action.

For Resto, I'm in particular excited about the ability to remove magic, restore mana by casting lightning bolt, improving healing by shocking and 15% improved speed at all times.

I'm wondering if they have or will change Mana Tide Totem. I did read that they intended to change it, but can't see it anywhere. In PVP it's way less effective than every other mana-restoration ability for healers.

I'm still not sure I'll be a great fan of Elemental. I'm not sure how well Earthquake will work. Time will tell how well it'll work.

healthstone-vendors

I've got my level 34 alliance lock which I stopped levelling about two weeks ago. Will test out stuff with her. Honestly, the changes look really great, particularly after annoying myself to death with the old soul shard mechanic... lack of bag space, anyone?

As a low level lock, I'm also excited about getting the specialization spells now instead of having to wait until level 60.

Meat shields

I do have a warrior, retired a loooong time ago at level 34. ... how come I abondon several classes at that level?

However, come Cata, and I intend to make a goblin warrior. Since I don't have too much experience, I can't really tell what changes are good and what's not. But it looks quite interesting.

... and that's not all, folks

I'm also looking forward to the non-class specific changes. Too many to list here, but the spell alerts look particularly good.

Until 4.0, I've decided to get Crusader on my DK, to get the "bank access anywhere on a cooldown" thing. Lacking 5 days of dailies. You may also call me sir-fish-a-lot. So far, some 1200 fish and no turtle.

There's one thing I'll miss, though... the ability to tank as an Unholy DK... but oh well, can't have it all.

Hear my plea: Will a paladin suit me?

Ah...paladins. Being Horde in classic WoW (before BC) meant I hated paladins. Then BC came, and I intended to switch main to a paladin. However, I found their playstyle to be dirt boring, so I gave up and returned to my other characters. Now I'm "back" again. I still think their playstyle is boring as hell at low level, but now it no longer bothers me much because I'm far above the level where that is a problem.

Demand 1:

PVE healing style that fits me

Hm. Paladins have changed since BC, but a lot remains the same. First and foremost, the huge difference between the healing spell design of paladins vs other healers mostly remain. Priests and shamans both have a quick healing spell with good throughput and low mana-efficiency, Flash Heal and Lesser Healing Wave, resepctively. Druids have lacked such a small heal for a long time, but got one at level 80. In addition, priests, shamans and druids have a slow-casting healing spell with good throughput and good mana-efficiency, namely Greater Heal, Healing Wave and Healing Touch. But... since it's so slow and big, you can't use it all the time.

Now, paladins have the opposite. A quick healing spell with low throughput which is mana-efficient, and a slow-casting healing spell with great throughput but bad mana-efficiency. So, while the other healing classes wanted to use their big spells as much as possible to be as efficient as possible, paladins wanted to spam their small heals until kingdom come.

Of course, more than that have changed. A discipline priest speccing and glyphing for it has a fairly mana-efficient flash heal as well. Druids have gotten Nourish, which is mana-efficient when specced and glyphed and their target is hotted up. Not to mention they can now turn their big slow Healing Touch into a small fast heal by glyphing it, though few do that at 80. Shamans have gotten more utility with Lesser Healing Wave, namely 25% crit as long as Tidal Waves is up. In addition, paladins' spells have changed a bit as well, particularly the glyph of Holy Light which turns it into a semi-AoE spell.

Interestingly enough, paladins have only three heals. Flash of Light, Holy Light and Holy Shock. The latter is the only instant, direct healing spell on a low cooldown in the game. Can be glyphed to 5 seconds too. Granted, Empowered Healing, Riptide and Prayer of Mending might count, but the first two aren't very powerful (and it's very unwise to spam them on the same target mana-wise), and the last requires another hit to actually heal, which is not guaranteed when healing a non-tank. But, in addition to their three heals, paladins have a rather big toolbox of meta-spells (Divine Favor, Beacon of Light, Divine Illumination) and utility spells (Hand of Freedom/Sacrifice/Protection/Salvation etc). If you want to stretch it, you can also call Judgement of Light a healing spell. Stretching it even more is calling Seal of Light a healing spell. Granted, it indirectly heals, but only the caster when he's auto-attacking. I've never ever seen a paladin healer do that in 5-mans, for a good reason.

For a long time, I used to call it easy-mode healing. Now, healing in itself can be challenging as any class, but I believe there is still some truth in this. However, a lot changed when the Beacon of Light was added and modified until it's current version. Their Beacon of Light (or Bacon of Light, if you deliberately want to misspell it) is now one of paladins' most defining class features. I've been envious of the beacon on several occasions. For PVE, they can snipe heals on raid members while healing the tank, much to the annoyance of my shaman who was trying to heal them up with chain heal. In the end, I gave up and sniped heals myself with Lesser Healig Waves, when it had less than a sec cast time. Paladins can also heal the main tank and off-tank at the same time... I was red with envy when I watched a single paladin keep up both tanks on Koralon during Meteor Fist after every other healer had died. Or they can just heal around while being practically immortal by beaconing themselves.

They used to lack any type of healing over time (like Renew, Rejuvenation and Riptide) and healing on demand spells (like Earth Shield, Prayer of Mending and Living Seed). They still do, up 'till level 80. That's the most annoying with healing in 5-mans as a paladin, you have no way of easing the incoming damage without brute-force healing it down like a crazy whack-a-mole game. If they'd still lacked them at 80 too, I would never think twice about considering paladins. Too annoying for my taste. Since I don't have a 80 paladin yet, I don't know how powerful their heals are. However, I know that Sacred Shield is considered "bloody powerful" by a lot people. It was not without reason that it was limited to a single target.

They also lack any direct AoE spells. However, with the advent of their Beacon, they can at least hit two people at the same time. Still, for the few occassions where everyone is taking damage in 5-mans a paladin healer really got to make use of every single global cooldown to keep everyone up. Loken, for example. However, they have the advantage that they never have to make the choice between keeping the tank up or keeping everyone else up. As long as the beacon is on the tank, they will keep the tank up while healing the other party members.

Speaking of tank healing, paladins are certainly among the elites there. Add to that that they got a damage reduction spell without spending a single talent, Hand of Sacrifice. It has a limit on how much it absorbs and might still kill the paladin, though, but combine it with either self-healing (still with beacon on tank) or Divine Shield or Divine Protection, and they're good. On cutting-edge raids, Nature's Swiftness (both shaman and druid version) can't compete at all with abilities that scale, such as Hand of Sacrifice, Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit. But hey, paladins can even spec into another emergency button, Divine Sacrifice. Has some limits as well, but is now fail-safe in the sense that it can no longer kill you. Speaking of Nature's Swiftness, paladins have an even more powerful version of that, Lay on Hands, which doubles as another damage reduction abilitiy when specced for it. A single healer can have three such emergency buttons... did someone say overpowered? Definitely powerful in the hands of a skilled healer. On the other hand, they lack an Inspiration-like talent, but druids have managed fine for a long time without it.

There are also their buffs... in particular Blessing of Kings. I've seen 25-man raids that refuse to start until they've got a paladin to buff Kings. Blessing of Wisdom and Might are also powerful stuff, but can be duplicated by others. Handy that they no longer need to be refreshened every 5 min. They are also the most powerful buffers in the sense that three different paladins can provide three different buffs. Shamans can come close, but they only have two unique buffs for most slots, unless you are in need of a particular resistance. Oh, and then you can have three different paladins provide three different auras. Not only that, but their auras have a longer range and are more reliable than a shaman's totems, making them the first choice for resistance effects such as Fire Resistance.

On the topic of survival... let's see... plate armor which allows them to mitigate a lot of physical damage, divine shield that makes them completely immune to (almost) everything, and their various "hands" which can reduce threat, remove any movement-impairing efect, completely drop aggro / ignore physical damage and the ability to spam huge heals on both themselves and the tank at the same time? Yes, they are solid.

The ability to help recover from a wipe, or at the very least ignore any repair costs once in a while, Divine Intervention, is just icing the cake.

Yes, I think I can get used to the paladin toolbox.

Demand 2:

Potential as PVP healer

Again, I have no direct experience here at high level. The only experience I have is battlegrounds at lower level. However, arenajunkies.com clearly show that paladins are among the most common healer in arenas... in fact THE most common healer, from what I can see. That alone should say something.

The infamous bubble is perhaps their most known (and hated) feature. While it can now be dispelled by two classes, no matter how fast you dispel it it will at least clear you of all debuffs. If there are no dangers to your bubble nearby, you've got 12 seconds of free healing... almost. Solid, but a paladin can't rely on that alone. However, there is also another use for the forbearance trick: Divine Protection. It is clearly weaker, but has the advantage that it can't be dispelled by warriors, has a shorter cooldown, and priests often miss that it's on due to it's rather subtle graphics. Compared to Divine Shield at least. A good priest won't be fooled, though.

What else do they have? Hand of Protection to give an ally (or yourself) completely immunity to all physical attacks? Nice. Hand of Freedom to make an ally or yourself completely immune to movement-impairing effects? Very nice. Slap it on a warrior and watch him crush the mage into small pieces, unless he's got his Ice Block off cooldown. Hand of Salvation which glyphed provides a -20% damage taken buff on yourself? And I thought I was going to miss barkskin. Hand of Sacrifice and Divine Sacrifice to make you immune or at least highly resistant to a lot crowd control, not to mention it makes the damage on your target much more manageable.

Oh, and there's still beacon. Except now you'll slap it on yourself instead, and copy all healing you do to yourself. Mohahahaha! In arena it's just as good to slap it on a team memer, depending on who's going to take more damage. Add to the survivability that they also has a lot of armor that will always passively protect them.

In battlegrounds you can really feel the difference with Crusader Aura. Not least, this enables you to ride away from others. The opposite is rather frustrating, when you only got 100% speed and your tail got 120%... trust me on that one. Crusader Aura is handy when travelling anywhere, not just in arenas. Paladins are the only healer with a mounted speed buff of any kind.

Now, they lack a snare, but they have a very special ability... Judgement of Justice. As a holy paladin, it has a 40 yard range. Use it to semi-dismount people from a long range. They can't run away using abilities such as Ghost Wolf, Travel Form, Sprint or a mount.

Paladins got a reliable stun, on a 40 sec cooldown talented. They can also fear and stun undead and demons. But that's the limit of their crowd-controlling abilities.

On the topic of mana, 1 min cooldown on Divine Plea rocks for battelgrounds. Can't say how well it works in arenas, with the healing debuff slapped on it. I know that my arenamate (a paladin) and me could outlast a lot of enemy teams. The only ones we had trouble outlasting was druids... but they couldn't run us out either. After about 15 min, they gave up.

What do they lack? Well, they lack any sort of sprint themselves. Shamans and druids can often run away, while priests and paladins have to stay to take the heat unless they got enough range to mount up. Fair enough. Just as in PVE, they don't have Hots to play with. They do have one, but it's on one target only, making it unusuable for healing damage in battleground effectively. Sure helps on that one target though. Going to miss that from my druid. Aura Mastery allows them 6 sec of playtime every 2 min, but they can still be stunned and death gripped. So under heavy fire, they're not always able to get out heals at all.

Aside from Hand of Freedom, they have a hard time with debuffs. Sure, they can remove 3 different types, but only every time they hit cleanse and burn a global cooldown. Priests, shamans and druids all have a "persistant" dispel that keeps dispelling several times after the initial gcd (Abolish Disease, Abolish Poison, Cleansing Totem). Priests can also dispel two magic debuffs every gcd, making them able to compete with a frost mage's ability to apply debuffs. The talent Sacred Cleansing can help, but it's not reliable.

Now, paladins have the same problem as druids; lack of dps in healer spec. But there's also a difference: While the druid can only cast heals, paladins can actually cast other spels as well. It came as a surprise to me, but my paladin partner could actually throw in a decent nuke to help me (as a DK) finish my enemies off: Hammer of Wrath, Holy Shock and Judgement actually made a difference. My healer often ended up with more killing blows than me, of course with me being a heck of a lot higher on damage done. That may make all the difference to me. I don't need a lot of sustained dps in a healer spec, only the ability to throw in a decent nuke. Like priests can chain Holy Fire (+ Smite) + SW:D for some burst. Druids lack that. The closest thing they come is chain-gunning Wrath if they've spent talent points to get it down to 1.5 sec. Shamans have a very decent burst with Flame Shock + (Lightning Bolt + Chain Lightning) + Lava Burst.

PVP healing will take some time to get used to since I've been healing a lot as a druid earlier... but it'll work out, I hope.

Demand 3:

Potential as ranged dps

Fail!

Second options

Paladins can't do ranged dps, but they got two other options: Tanking and dpsing. Why would I want to tank as a paladin when I can tank as a DK? For one thing, it might be easier to find groups that way. Tanks are in even shorter supply than healers, but it's pretty easy to get groups as a healer too. And who knows, I might really like their tanking. I can't tell 'till I've tried. Well, I have tried, but not as a full-fledged high level protection paladin, only as a retribution paladin at level 71 and a protection paladin at level 62. Might write a seperate post about that.

The tempting thing about going Retribution is that it allows you to be a semi-healer in PVP. You don't have the faintest chance to compete with a full-fledged healer, but you still got Hand of Sacrifice and Protection. In addition, Hand of Freedom can be used to remove stuns when talented, and why skip that for PVP? While dpsing, you can also throw out a lot of instant Flash of Lights, and Cleansing is possible as well. Too much of it will naturally drain the mana pool in no time, but judging on every cooldown with a glyphed Seal of Command generates a pretty good amount of mana. I have tried it a bit at 71, and it was fun. With that said, as a DK you can peel your allies extremely well, use Anti-Magic Shell to reduce damage taken, use ghoul stun and silence casters to prevent incoming damage. In effect, I'm trading one toolbox for another, and it's not necessarily a better one for my purposes.

One decent thing is the ability to self-heal between combat in battlegrounds/Wintergrasp. As a DK, I'm forced to eat unless I've taken so little damage that a bandage will do.

So, I'll have to give up the idea of going ranged dps. I think I can live with that, but then I might just as well go druid, right?

Feel

Generally, I don't like paladins. No, seriously, I don't like the paladin feel.

To start somewhere... the original paladins were special members of the church who were given permission to dabble in heretic magic to further the church's goal. That dissapeared somewhere along the line. I don't like the "purity" and "holier than thou" feeling. Granted, the wings are cool, but belong to priests, not paladins. I like the feel of blood elf paladins a lot better, as they didn't care for the holier-than-thou stuff, just for the power.

But... it's "just" a game, and I'm not roleplaying much these days.

Conclusions

Need more experience

I'll just have to spend some more time finding out if they're suited for me. As Gravity noted, I'm a crazy altoholic, and this won't exactly reduce that impression.

The paladin I will level (Mirlei) is on a RP-PVP server, where all my other characters are on a RP server. Tirvin, my paladin on Earthen Ring, is dedicated to play with my wife. And she doesn't play much at all these days. Since Mirlei is on a different server, she can't benefit from all the high-level crafting materials I've gathered, my max-level jewelcrafting, inscription, engineering and enchanting, and she can't have heirloom items. ... Actually, the worst part is not being able to fly. Old-school. Extra challenge too? The game isn't exactly very challenging itself until max-level cutting-edge content.

I'm not going to migrate her to another server. I want to try some world PVP action, and the ability to gank alliance that annoys me. Note that I don't do that without reason, only if they go after my mining veins. If anything, I could transfer a bank alt to her server with gold, heirloom items, crafted items and stuff. But that costs real money, and it's hardly worth it.

Test of Faith: Are priests my thing?

Zuna, my priest, was my first 60. I've healed a lot with her, and watched the priest class move through changes. When I think about it, though, priests have been one of the more stable classes in the game, except for the complete re-haul of Discipline.

Because of my uncertainty, I decided to pick her up again and play with her a bit. Test things out.

Demand 1:

PVE healing style that fits me

Priests have two distinct PVE healing styles to choose from. To be completely fair: Every healer class have several healing styles, but none as different as holy vs discipline. With that said, it is different to raid heal with a shaman laser-chain-heal style and tank heal. Same with a druid. Can't speak about paladins, no direct experience in raids there.

Holy

I've only got experience as a raid-healing priest at lvl 70, and that was as holy. Still, I don't think it is a completely different experience now... well, except that Circle of Healing is on cooldown.

Holy has, when specced for it, a very strong hot in Renew. Glyphing it is completely overkill for normal 5-mans, but I can see how that could be useful in raids. Empowered Renew remind me of Riptide. I like it.

Surge of Light is also fun, especially since it can proc multiple times on a single Prayer of Mending. However, if I were to stay a holy priest, I'd get some addon that shows me when I've got a proc up. Too easy to miss.

Mana regeneration is also top-notch as holy (including Meditation, mind you). In fact, I often threw in some damage because I had mana to spare.

I didn't get to test out a lot of Holy's group healing in 5-mans. A random Circle of Healing (which practically guaranteed a Surge of Light following), once in a while a Prayer of Healing. I know from experience it is solid. In fact, I think Holy has the best tools for handling damage to a lot of party members in 5-mans.

I enjoy Guardian Spirit. It is very powerful and fun. I also played around with Body and Soul. Fun, and handy in PVP, but not a MUST-HAVE. Inspiration is as usual powerful.

The thing I didn't like so well with Holy was handling lots of tank damage. But that's comparing to Discipline and druid-healing, which is a bit unfair.

All in all... I liked holy healing fairly well.

What I didn't like so well is the Shadowfiend. Long cooldown (compared to Innervate and Divine Plea), too. That's not limited to Holy, though.

Discipline

Ah... discipline. For a loooong time, I insisted on being a discipline priest, long before the rehaul that made discipline actually good. Back when Divine Spirit was the 31-point talent.

Anyway... I like discipline too. Powerful shields which can be tossed out extremely fast thanks to Borrowed Time and Penance that can heal a tank up from nada to full (almost) in no time are the two main selling points. Renew ticks for a lot less, naturally. Prayer of Mending is still powerful, though.

But, to start somewhere else: Discipline is not scaled well for below-max-level mana management. The mana returns from Rapture is just way more powerful when you got a good lvl 80 mana pool. At 71, I had trouble with my mana as discipline. Had to sit down and drink every third pull, less with a very tough tank. I know from second-hand experience that Discipline's mana is in a pretty good state, though. Had a disc priest heal my DK when I tanked the two groups after Ick and Krick. He ended up with more mana after the two groups than before he started, and he didn't use his Shadowfiend.

I also find the lack of a instant-heal slightly frustrating. Ironically. I'm tossing out shields like there's no tomorrow... which translates to everyone having Weakened Soul on them all the time. At least everyone who is taking damage. But it isn't that bad, I'm just not used to it from being a holy priest for a long time.

Discipline has a lot more cooldowns to play with. Good thing? Bad thing? Definitely something I need to learn. I didn't use them too well.

By the way, Engineering gloves enchant + Berserking troll racial + Power Infusion + Borrowed Time + Enlightenment is a sick amount of haste together. Resurrection in 4 seconds, anyone?

Demand 2:

Potential as PVP healer

If you look at any kind of rated arena, Discipline is the only way to go. Blizz has tried to make Holy viable with talents like Body and Soul, Blessed Resilience and so on, but Disc is still king. I don't mind, though.

Disc priests are very powerful in PVP. Priest-Mage-Rogue, anyone? They have powerful crowd-control in their Psychic Scream, shields that ignore any healing debuffs, penance that insta-heals the first tick and nearly the second too, Mana burn goodness for the right compositions (double healer + dps, for example), both offensively and defensively dispels, quick nukes at the right times... powerful, indeed. They're not built for outlasting another team, they are an offensive-type healer.

Sadly, I can't test too well. Walking into PVP with no resilience these days is a sure way of getting blown up, particularly as a healer. So I'll just have to take the word of the community, which says priests doesn't suck. Still... cloth means that my nemesis is warrior and to some extent rogue. I liked being tough and not fearing warriors as a DK.

Shadowfiend is worse in PVP. Can get kited around and killed easily, reducing my possible mana returns.

Demand 3:

Potential as ranged dps

Interestingly enough, this is the first time I've really specced shadow during all those years of being a priest. Dual-spec, I love you.

I like shadow. It's cool with the shadow ... stuff which seems to evaporate from you all the time. I like having three dots to play with, one CD nuke and one no-CD nuke. Creates a game of weaving, where I need to make sure stuff are up all the time. I can get used to that, and thrive with it. No proc-watching involved.

It wasn't so entertaining in PVP, but then again that might steem from my complete lack of resilience. There are some shadow priests among high-ranked arena teams, which should say they are viable. I liked the immunity Dispersion provides. The only good answer against a bladestorming warrior... haha, eat that.

I missed a snare. Mind Flay provides a semi-snare, but I have to stay immobile to maintain it, and that means I can't kite anything around.

Feel

That's a tough question... do I like the priest feel? The question is really, what is the priest feel? From the artwork on some of their armor, they're sort of Oracles, bringers of divine fury, angels... stuff. What do they worship? Easy to answer or a human or night elf, hard for a troll or an undead. And come Cataclysm, and we'll have gnome priests as well.

Angels and stuff are cool and all that, but it's not ... well... shamans are cooler, I'm certain about that.

Conclusions

Possible

I think the priestly playstyle might fit me. I'm not completely sure.

Tree-healing, gotta find your roots.

I'll make one blog post about each of the healer classes and what I like and don't like about them.

Demand 1:

PVE healing style that fits me

I generally enjoy druid-healing. I've always - or at least since BC - thought that a good druid healer is a godsend to any raid. While they're not able to keep up everyone alone, on any encounter where a large part of the raid often take damage, they can ease the damage taken by spreading out their hots. A druid healers' throughput when they've got hots running everywhere is rivaled only by paladins spamming glyphed Holy Light through their beacon, if all of it is effective healing. Paladins are also the only to rival druids at overhealing. Can't stop the hot from ticking even if the target has been healed up, after all.

Druids also make good tank-healers. With 3-5 hots rolling and glyphed Nourish to cover spikes, they've got solid tank-healing.

I also like the fact that Nourish with Nature's Grace and Nature's Bounty has so good throughput while still being a short cast when massive healing is required.

Another good thing for PVE healing is Barkskin. It can when properly used help them staying alive through large bursts.

Druids lack any buffs which gives a good reason to stack several druids, like shamans and paladins can provide a bigger range of buffs when there are several of them available. They also lack any kind of damage reduction ability on the tank, such as Pain Suppression and Hand of Sacrifice, so they've got to heal through it all. Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch is the closest thing they've got to an emergency button. It's not too bad, but it lacks the scaling of Pain Suppression and the like. However, they're the only healing class with a battle res, which can in some cases enable you to avoid the wipe despite losing a tank or something earlier.

All in all, I believe I'm fine with their PVE healing.

Demand 2:

Potential as PVP healer

Well, reading at arenajunkies.com, it seems druids are not in that bad position. They're generally regarded as the "outlasting" healer, as opposed to disc priests who are better fit in arena teams where the goal is to win in less than a minute, max two.

In battlegrounds/Wintergrasp/world PVP, they have the advantage that they can away from most fights. Particularly if they're healing, then they usually have a decent range from the action when they start noticing things go bad and run. Innervate is also awesome for mana regen.

What I don't like with druids in PVP is two connected problems. One is that their healing and survivability potential is tied to staying in tree-form. They have a rather serious arsenal of crowd-control abilities, but need to drop tree-form to do anything apart from healing, which in most cases means at least a 10% drop in healing done until they return to tree again and a drop in damage mitigated = easier to die. The other problem is that I feel a resto druid seriously lacks dps. Granted, healers aren't "supposed to" be good dps, but they're really only beaten by holy paladins in the "bad dps" apartment. It's very handy in arena that the healer can put out some dps when you need to burst someone down. Besides, doing dps as a druid healer destroys any advantage they have in mana-conservation over other healers.

Conclusion: Druid healer PVP is not my personal favorite.

Demand 3:

Potential as ranged dps

This is a less important demand, but I consider it an advantage if I could have a dual-spec healer who can also do ranged dps. I can do melee dps with my DK if I desperately want to. To be the best healer I can be, the optimal situation is to have two healer specs, one PVP and one PVE. However, since I'm not doing anything cutting-edge, I'd stick with a PVP healer spec and use that for PVE as well. The difference isn't that noticeable for anything below serious raiding.

Ranged druid dps translates to boomkin. Hm. Getting good balance dps is highly dependant on squeezing the maximum benefit of Eclipse. And Eclipse procs randomly on Wrath and Starfire. I left Frost because I didn't like the proc-watching, and this isn't much better.

There's also another reason why I don't want to be boomkin. I've yet to meet a single boomkin in PVP as my DK that actually posed a serious threat against me in 1 vs 1. Of course they are dangerous if left alone, but their dps is nada and they can't keep me off as long as I'm focusing on them. I use Anti-magic shell to go immune to Nature's Grasp, Death Grip to stop them from Cycloning me after Typhoon, I interrupt any of their nature spells with Mind Freeze, and got Strangulate for any kind of emergency or just chain it with Mind Freeze to really stop them from casting spells. Their instant-healing (Rejuvenation and Lifebloom) isn't strong enough to keep them alive for long, and I'll stop any attempt to use cast-time heals. I can see how they can pose a threat if they can live through my initial arsenal of shorter cooldowns, in effect with a healer to back them up. However, they'd be terrible with a healer in arena. If I'm sticking with my DK on top of them, I can stop a lot of their dps.

So... ranged druid dps is not my cup of poison.

Second options

I could go cat-dps with a druid. While I have done some cat dps earlier, I've never done so while kitty-specced and glyphed. I kinda like the kitty dps style, it's fairly challenging to put out good dps. Can even tank a random heroic in kitty-spec, but not in a raid. Which is fine for me.

Feel

I like the druid feel. Protectors or avenger of nature, or any other RP variant. Ironically from one who also enjoy the death knight feel, they are practically opposites.

Conclusions

Possible, but not probable

I like druid healing fairly well. They've got potential for PVP, with a minor annoyance for me. I don't like druid tanking or ranged dps. So, while I can make it work, I'll test my other options first.

The end of the line of casual upgrades

Enter 3.3. Emblems of Triumphs available for farming.

Fast forward a few weeks to today.

I've got no further upgrades to look forward to as a tank.

Not true. I do have a few left, but the list is incredibly short.

1. Farm the new heroics, hoping to get a Battered Hilt and then win the following need roll by everyone. I mean, it's worth so much that anyone will roll need even if they already have it to sell it to someone else, just like any BoE epic. In effect, I can do it as long as it is fun, but I don't have any desire to farm every mob in there just to increase my chance of it dropping by 0.01% per run.

2. Fly around and get Titanium, smelt Titansteel, and get crafted BoE gear that requires Crusader Orbs, purchasable with Emblembs of Triumph. However... titanium is a rare spawn node... Bah. Boring. I do grind sometimes on off-hours, though.

3. Buy stuff. Always an option. But then I'd have to grind gold. Bah. Boring. Can quest, though, there are some storylines it would be neat to finish before WotLK ends.

4. Join pug raids, particularly Onyxia 25-man, Icecrown Citadel, TotC 25-man, TotGC or VoA. Hope for some drops. I'm actually geared enough to tank ICC 25 now.

5. Get 2 frost Emblems of Frost every day from the random heroic, and 5 from the weekly raid. Slowly upgrade stuff. Next will probably be the +226 stamina trinket. 2.5k extra health? Now we're talking.

Meanwhile, I'm spending my Emblems of Triumph on ilvl 232 PVP gear. Joining an arena team now ... about time. I've got the solution to my schedule problem: I'll join a 2vs2 and 3vs3 with the same two guys. When I'm not available, they'll go with their 2vs2. When all are available, 3vs3. Then I don't need to drag down any arenamate relying only on me.

The other side of the fence is hereby desecrated

I have now tested out a lot of specs, in the following order: Unholy, Frost 2h, Blood, Unholy and Frost DW.

First and foremost, I found that I love the Glyph of Anti-magic shell. If I got it on before I get hit by a CC, I can ignore any attempts to CC me using magic for 7 seconds, often enough to drain half my opponents' health. Interestingly enough: It also allows me to run away from non-combat rogues. Combine Toughness, Da Voodoo Shuffle and Enigmatic Skyflare Diamond, and all movement-impairing effects last only half the original duration (actually: 53.55% of the original duration). Crippling Poison actually fades from me during the AMS duration, allowing me to safely run away, leaving a chained rogue behind.

Frost PVP

Supposedly, frost offers superior control compared to Unholy and Blood. I found the main controlling ability, Hungering Cold, to be a one-shot pony. Of course many would trinket it, but that's to be expected. However, since I'm mainly in BGs, and BGs usually are less than perfectly well coordinated, Hungering often broke almost immediately. Not only because of others attacking the targets directly, but because the targets were dotted and cleave damage.

I could put out a decent amount of burst damage if I could stay in melee, but PVP means you run in and out of melee range all the time. I have mixed feelings about the proc system; It's handy when you get a Killing Machine proc to know that you're going to deal a hefty crit with your next Frost Strike or Howling Blast, but unless I also waited for a Rime proc I would waste some of my dps. Technically. So I spent Killing Machine procs as they popped up. The problem is that killing machine seems to proc only on auto-attacks, and PVP has way less auto-attacks than PVE.

I missed a burst ability. A garantueed crit every 2 min is not much burst compared to Dancing Rune Weapon and Summon Gargoyle. Naturally, I also missed a pet, but that was not unexpected.

The worst part is that I felt very squishy. More so than Unholy. Unbreakable Armor looks like a nice cooldown for both dps and damage reduction, but requires a Frost Rune. Frost Runes are what is often lacking in PVP because I need to use Chains of Ice to stop my target from getting away after a Frost Nova or the like. Death Strike has no synergy with the rest of the tree, and heals for only 10% my total health. In addition, Unholy has three diseases that needs to be cleaned instead of just two, a clear advantage when facing dispelling classes.

I liked the fact that Iceblood Fortitude lasted so long. Owned several rogues with it. I also liked the snare, very handy. Howling Blast is also a good ability in itself, especially with the glyph, but it's not able to carry Frost alone unless you like the rest of the tree.

I never tried it as PVE dps. Proc watching like that is not my cup of poison.

Blood PVP

On paper, Blood offers increased survivability compared to the other two. 15% health back regularly, Rune Tap for 20% at a mere 30 sec CD, Mark of Blood, Vampiric Blood... I didn't test Improved Blood Presence and Bloodworms.

Blood was not too bad, but it had a few serious disadvantages. I liked the fact that Death Strike crit like a truck as long as you've got 25 runic power, regardless of any diseases. Having diseases up merely increases the healing it does to you. I also liked the fact that most abilities require a blood rune, which does not mess up your Frost-Unholy rune moves. In addition, with Death Rune Mastery you've got plenty of Blood Runes and Death Runes available. Vampiric Blood -> Rune Tap -> Mark of Blood anyone? For BGs, one of the best features is that Blood has almost no downtime at all. The snare from Glyph of Heart Strike works for its purpose well, but does require that you start any attack with Heart Strike despite having no diseases up, just to apply the snare. Dancing Rune Weapon was awesome for burst damage, especially since it has only 1.5 min CD. The problem, though, is that if you're CCed, the blade does not deal any damage either, so you need to time it well. Compare that to Unholy: The Gargoyle's damage is fire-and-forget.

The disadvantages... Blood is very dependant on staying in melee range. Frost also requires melee to do much, but you can deal ranged damage with Howling Blast (and Death Coil, if you're desperate) and diseases tick for a decent amount. Unholy's diseases hit hard, the pet will often be in melee range even if you're not, and Death Coil can deal good damage from a range. Blood, however... it's diseases ticks as hard as rain and have short duration (you don't have talent points for both Epidemic and Endless Winter). Death Coil hits for way less than Unholy.

I also found the sustained dps a bit lacking. I've read that Blood is very dependant on Armor Penetration. I've got a decent amount of it on my PVE set (around 30-40%) but in my PVP gear I only have 10%.

In addition, any healing reduction like Mortal Strike and Wound Poison hurt like heck. They destroy the advantage Blood has in survivability. Truth to be told, outside of lower downtime, I never really felt the advantage Blood has in survivability over Unholy. In fact, I felt tougher as Unholy.

Unholy PVP

Now I'm back to my roots again. Unholy works best for me. I feel tougher than any of the other two specs. Why? I've tried to think of a few reasons.

Against magic damage, 6% less damage taken all the time and 100% of spell damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell actually makes a difference. Anti-Magic Zone is good, but I often use it as a desperation move on my part, as it requires me to stand completely still. Need to find out how I can use it better. One of the cases I know of is when I get frozen by a mage, entangled by a boomkin or rooted by an elemental shammy; Then I'm not going anywhere anyway.

Each of the three trees have their own 1 min tanking cooldown. However, Vampiric Blood and Unbreakable Armor need to be used when you're under attack. Vampiric Blood is effective even on low health, Unbreakable Armor is not. It's also useless against magic damage. Bone Shield, however, can and should be buffed up in advance. It even lasts 5 min. Since there's a CD on 2 sec for each bone, it lasts a minimum of 4 seconds after the first attack. That means that for any surprise attack by a stealth class, I'm taking 20% less damage the first 4 seconds. That's actually a fair amount of damage avoided, especially since you can't trinket the Cheap Shot, you need to save it for Kidney Shot and sometimes for the following Blind.

When we're on the topic of rogue stuns, On a Pale Horse is a good PVP talent. 20% less duration on the stuns, combined with the above, translates to me actually having a fair amount of health left after a rogue or feral druid opener. It's also good against warriors (especially protection, bloody annoying bastards).

The permanent ghoul is also helpful. In particular the stun. I actually put it on auto when defending a node. Hello, rogue, want to stun me? Have a taste of your own medicine. In addition, Death Pact is easily available.

Improved Unholy Presence offers a solid 15% movement increase. That's actually a pretty serious upgrade, and does make a difference. Among other, I can outrun a warrior who is bladestorming me, given that he does not start on top of me. I didn't have any speed enchant on boots when tseting the there specs, which makes the comparison a bit unfair. When I don't have a healer, I'm usually PVPing in Frost Presence. I did try the other two in Unholy Presence, but felt it compromised my survivability too much. Frost Presence offers much longer time to live, and longer time to live means longer time to deal damage to my opponent. In the end, I deal more damage over my total lifespan. Against healers I switch to either of the other two, though.

And then there's Army of the Dead. With the other two specs, that's once in a while. As Unholy, I can use it more often, every 6 min. Nothing rocks calling those up when defending an Arathi Basin flag. I've even seen enemies turn away and head for somewhere else when I start bringing up my army.

A minor difference might also be the combination of stronger Death Coils and Lichborne for self-healing. However, it does not really compare to Blood's Rune Tap.

Finally, Desecration is a much better snare than I first gave it credit for. After all, it's automatically applied to everyone in the area. It allows better kiting of multiple enemies. While it is bad at stopping a single enemy from running away from me, it is probably better for allowing me to run away from an enemy. Besides, I've got Chains of Ice to stop someone anyway.

Aside from the survivability, there are also two other properties of unholy I love. First, the passive damage, namely the dots and pet. I can actually kite and bring a single enemy fairly low using dots alone. Kited a rogue all the way through the Warsong Gulch tunnel, only getting into melee with him for about 4 sec total to hit him with my Plague Strike and refresh Blood Plague on him, using Anti-magic shell to avoid getting snared myself. He did slow me with Deadly Throw, but couldn't catch up because I retaliated with chains myself.

Second, the burst capability. I've macroed Berserking and a trinket to Summon Gargoyle. As long as I can prevent the enemy from running away, the gargoyle deals really serious damage. Even better, it keeps firing even when I get chain-CCed. Has allowed me to win battles despite running around like a feared chicken because it kept firing.

On an unrelated note...

Disarming. It sucks. Royally. Death Knights have one semi-defense against it, though: Rune of Swordshattering. But that would mean sacrificing Rune of the Fallen Crusader, which is a serious dps upgrade. However, without it, rogues eat me for breakfast. Shadow priests and smart warriors too. If I get another identical weapon drop, I can have two different runes depending on the type of enemies I meet.

Conclusions

It's fun playing around, but Unholy really is my game. Not only mine, but 90% of the arena DK population, from what I can gather from reading various forums. With that said, many seem to play it as a support-spec, just applying pressure and allowing their team to set up the kill, often harassing a healer. Mind Freeze + Strangulate + Gnaw + Death Grip to keep healers busy for a long time.

Death Grip, you ask? Yes, it's a trick I learned from watching a PVP movie. You know paladins using Aura Mastery? Immune to silence and interrupts suck, huh? You can still stun them (though DKs are not the master thereof), but more importantly for us you can still Death Grip them. So when they use the mastery, move a bit away, and death grip right before the cast is finished. With good positioning, you can also pull them out of line of sight or range of their healing target. Fun, fun.

Posts I want to write:

• Tanking specs testing results


• When is it the healer, when is it the tank whose at fault?


• When you no longer have access to any gear upgrades

More DK talents, oh joy!

I apologize to those of you with no interest in this. It's just stuff I sort of think about anyway, and writing them down helps the though process, thus I might just as well make it public. Perhaps some other guy somewhere in the future has the same problem.

First, in my previous post I said that Endless Winter was the PVP talent. While this still holds true, I forgot that in taking it, you usually also take Toughness, Icy Reach and Lichborne, all great PVP talents. Losing out Endless Winter hurts. Losing all of them hurts practically too much.

I've boiled down my options a bit. Focusing on which specs can double for two purposes, I've gotten six possibilities.

Just a word of warning: I've had the 3.3 changes in mind while writing this. The Glyph of Icy Touch will in 3.3 buff Frost Fever by 20%. Scourge Strike will hit harder, meaning Reaping and Epidemic will provide more dps increase.

Option 1: Blood tank/PVP

Combining the PVP and tanking talents for blood, I get something like 51/17/3. Compared to a true tank, I lose Will of the Necropolis and only get three points in Anticipation. Further, I have only 3 points to put in Subversion, Death Rune Mastery and Sudden Doom combined. Both Sudden Doom and Subversion get better with Death Rune Mastery, as it provides two extra Heart Strikes during a 20 sec rotation at the expense of a Death Strike. However, since you both in PVP and tanking regulary take damage, perhaps the loss of a bit dps is offset by the gain of a bit more healing?

Generally, I think this build loses out too much mitigation for tanking and too much dps for PVP.

The other spec would 0/51/20 Frost DW or 17/5/54 Unholy dps.

Option 2: Blood PVP/dps

51/17/3 provides the essential Blood dps talents, and adds 17 in Frost for Endless Winter and 3 in Unholy for Virulence. Actually a fairly balanced build. The two points in Improved Blood Presence could be put anywhere else as well, for example Rune Tap and Scent of Blood (for PVP, mind you).

The loss of Epidemic hurts, though. I've played with the thought of only putting 11 points in Frost and the rest in Unholy, losing Endless Winter. However, that's going to hurt in PVP.

The other spec would be Frost or Unholy tank. Linking to the awesome site Pwnwear.com. Gravity has a much better grip on pure tanking specs than me.

Option 3: Frost tank/PVP

9/55/7 succeeds in getting all essential tanking and PVP talents for frost, as far as I can see. Looks like an interesting option. Alternatively, 9/57/5 switches out the Glyph of Frost Strike with Glyph of Howling Blast, for a single-disease rotation. It drops Epidemic. I put the two spare points in Chill of the Grave, but an interesting option is to put those two points and a single point from Scent of Blood into Acclimation, but then you risk getting seriously Runic Power starved regulary.

The other spec would be 51/0/20 Blood or 17/5/54 Unholy dps.

Option 4: Frost PVP/dps

A suggestion here is 0/51/20 Frost PVP/dps, which includes On a Pale Horse. I don't have the weapons nor the talents points to spare to get DW dps.

The secondary spec would be Blood or Unholy tank.

Option 5: Unholy tank/PVP

It might work with an Unholy tank/PVP build. However, the main problem is that you lose Wandering Plague, only get three points in Blade Barrier, and lack Ravenous Dead, meaning your pet is a heck of a lot easier to kill, and only usable for keeping other players in combat. It's not a combination I would recommend.

The secondary spec would be 51/0/20 Blood or 0/51/20 Frost DW dps.

Option 6: Unholy PVP/dps

I like Unholy for PVP. I'd say something like 0/17/54 is the way to go. It'll serve moderately well as a dps spec as well. Includes On a Pale Horse.

The secondary spec would be Blood or Frost tank.

Playing what I like

All of the above are options that might to a lesser or greater extent work. However, that's only one part of the question what to do. The second is what I like to play.

Listing what I like about the various specs in various roles.

Blood is awesome for the self-healing, particularily in PVP. I'm not sure I like it as a dps spec all that much. For tanking, I like the skill cap resulting in being able to use Death Strike at the correct time. For max threat you will need to spam it. However, for survival, it can be handy to wait some seconds with Death Strike until you take damage. I've had success doing this with boss abilities that are announced in advance, such as Meteor Fist on Koralon and the big AoE on Emalon.

What I don't like with Blood is that it isn't so good for AoE, but then again I'm comparing to Unholy which rocks the AoE hard. In PVP it's also much more physical damage compared to the other two, meaning I don't tear through pallies and warriors as easily.

Frost is great for tanking because of the extra mitigation. It's also great to have Icebound Fortitude lasting 16 seconds, particulary in PVP where it means 16 sec of stun immunity. I like Howling Blast because of it's snappy aggro. What I don't like about Frost is that I need to watch for procs all the time and align them correctly for max dps. Fortunately this is less of an issue for a tank, and for PVP you can't afford to wait with procs, you blow when you get the chance. However, I'd like to try DW tanking in 3.3, and only Forst can offer that without a serious threat loss. I don't think Unholy can put out enough threat while dual-wield tanking. If I do that, I need to go with option 2 or option 6, combining PVP and dps with my other spec.

Unholy is great for having a permanent pet, great AoE, powerful dots and great debuff. In addition, I find the rotation fits me fine, much more than Blood and Frost. It feels like they're slightly less tough as tanks against physical damage, but way better against magical damage. I think Desecration is a kind of bad snare. It takes so long to kick in that the target has time to get out of the area, provided they're moving in a straight line. Without Chains of Ice to fall back on, I'd have given up Unholy for PVP a long time ago. For PVP it's also great that Ebon Plague counts as an extra disease for removing diseases.

Conclusions... sort of

Of the six main options below, I find option 5 to be the worst. Option 1 and 3 combines tanking and PVP, but at the expense of dps. I might end up sacrificing so much dps that I have trouble bringing my enemies down, and that's going to hurt.

I want to test out what I like about a single-disease Howling Blast glyph Frost build somtime, option 3. Perhaps I like it, perhaps I don't.

For the moment, I'm using Option 6, Unholy PVP/dps and Blood tank. It works out well, but I'd like to try the other options as well. If I don't find any I like, I'll return to Unholy PVP/dps. It rocks.

I also think that tanking and PVP are the two most important aspects of the game for me. If I deal 500 or even 1000 dps less (as long as I'm above 3k) it does suck a bit. Howevever, if I take 10% more damage as a tank, it's downright devestating. Similarily, if I can't stick to the enemy (in effect, get snared all the time), I'm going to end up so annoyed I might just skip out of PVP alltogether. That means I'm much more inclined to go with option 2 or 4, since they don't sacrifice anything from the tanking spec, and effectively go dps with a pure PVP spec.

I'm going to pay a lot in respeccing and reglyphing in the following weeks.

WTB Triple-spec

Blizzard has stated that they don't intend to implement anything beyond dual-spec anytime soon. I can see some logic behind their reasonings; If you implement 3 different specs, why stop there? Why not 4? And then some would cry for 5... Better to leave the beast alone by only giving two specs.

What bothers me about the dual spec system is that I enjoy three aspects of the game. PVE dps, PVE tanking and PVP. With only two specs, I will have to choose either to optimized for two purposes and lacking for the last, or optimized for one and compromised for the two others.

With my druid, it was even worse. Ideally, I wanted five specs with my druid. Tanking, PVE dps, PVE healing, PVP dps, PVP healing.

For the moment I'm running a
Blood tanking spec and a Unholy PVP spec. It works out fairly well. I use the PVP spec when going dps, and still manage to put out above 3k thanks to my gear. I'm wondering if I can reach 4k with the last gear upgrades and a hardcore dps spec.

However, I'd like to experiment with other specs as well. If they don't work out too well, I can always return to status quo.

For tanking, I need mitigation and avoidance talents. No matter what tree I spec into, I'll need Toughness, Improved Icy Touch, Anticipation and Blade Barrier. I don't need all of them to tank 5-man, but for any pug raid I join they're essential. In addition, there's the tree-spesific tanking talents.

For dps, I need the dps-talents of the tree, which various greatly depending on what tree it is.

For PVP, I need a mix. Survival is important, so is utility, but you need dps as well. However, no matter what tree I spec into, Endless Winter is almost a nescessity, along with a more permanent snare. Blood has Glyph of Heart Strike, Frost has Chilblains and Unholy has Desecration. In addition, Virulence can make all the difference in the world against some classes.

For all three aspects of the game, Epidemic is a talent I love. Cleans up rotations, makes losing the enemy in PVP for a few seconds less painful, helps keep up AoE threat... I love it.

Finally, I'd love to have One a Pale Horse in one of my two specs. It's so handy to have an on-demand 20% extra riding speed, both in BGs and when travelling generally. However, only Unholy specs get it easily. Blood or Frost tank specs can't get it at all. Blood and Frost dps specs can get it without sacrificing too much, by sticking at least 17 points in Unholy.

Note that my PVP is limited to BGs and WG for the moment. Might go arena sometime, have a friend I can go with, but we haven't worked out a good schedule for it yet.

I've thought of a few combinations that might work.

A Blood tanking/PVP spec might work, if I sacrifice Endless Winter, but take the Glyph of Heart Strike. Even a tanking spec can attain almost all dps talents in Blood. Tons of survival.

A Blood dps/PVP spec might also work. Less survival, but more dps thanks to the talent points freed up to go into Unholy. Still need Glyph of Heart Strike.

The problem for me with Blood PVP is that with 51 points spent in blood, I don't have points enough for both Epidemic and Endless Winter. Endless Winter is generally more important for PVP, making 51/17/3 the spec of choice for a pure PVP spec. However, that spec lacks the mitigation talents for tanking, and has to chew to a lot of suboptimal dps frost talents to get Endless Winter. However, it is a possibility in the same way as my current Unholy PVP spec. Unholy does, however, benefit more from +10% shadow and frost damage than Blood does.

Frost have a ton of choices connected to it. Unlike Blood, you can successfully go DW or 2h, either might work. I'd love to try DW tanking sometime. However, that sometime will have to wait 'till 3.3. I don't have the gear to attain 540 defense without the Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. 3.3 will add a similar Rune for one-handers, called Rune of the Nerubian Carapace.

Further, since I lack two slow and solid one-handers (above ilvl 200), I'll have to go for 2h until I can get some solid 1h upgrades somewhere.

The next choice for Frost is the Glyph of Howling Blast or not. It allows a single-disease rotation, ignoring Plague Strike and Blood Plague completely. It allows 5 obliterates during a 20 sec rotation rather than the normal 4, but each hit for less. However, that's another 15% chance to proc Rime. It is not a valid choice for a hardcore dps specs. The loss of the damage from Blood Plague hurts, and throwing a Howling Blast from the very start in AoE might steal aggro from tanks that need a bit time to get proper threat on all enemies, particulary other Death Knights.

However, for PVP, for the price of a some dps, you gain a ranged AoE snare with Chilblains. For tanking, you gain even more and snappier AoE threat; Howling Blast -> Blood Boil -> Death and Decay. For either, you can completely avoid casting Icy Touch at all provided Rime procs on one of those Obliterates. No need for Epidemic at all.

So... Frost can offer a HB glyph tank/PVP spec, or a non-HB glyph tank/PVP spec, or a non-HB glyph PVP/dps spec.

Unholy... well, to be honest, Unholy PVP completely sucks without Endless Winter. The snare from Desecration takes a few moments to kick in, and on a moving target often doesn't kick in at all until they're out of the desecrated area. The snare does have it's uses, but it's not completely reliable. That means I don't want to attempt to make a PVP/tank spec. The spec I have now, PVP/dps, works fairly well, but not exactly superb for dps.

So... I'll try to boil down the options I have. It's a safe assumption that if possible, I'd like to delve into two different trees. Before I had tanking gear enough to tank seriously, I ran Unholy dps/Unholy PVP, but it's kinda fun to have different options to fall back on.

• Blood tank/PVP, Frost dps


• Blood tank/PVP, Unholy dps


• Blood tank, Frost PVP/dps


• Blood tank, Unholy PVP/dps. My current setup.


• Frost tank/PVP, Blood dps


• Frost tank/PVP, Unholy dps


• Frost tank, Blood PVP/dps


• Frost tank, Unholy PVP/dps


• Unholy tank, Blood PVP/dps


• Unholy tank, Frost PVP/dps

Choices, choices...

PVP strikes back

I had, for quite a while, neglected a part of WoW I really used to love so much. PVE has lots of fun factors. In particular, I love the cooperation required to bring down bosses, and the excitement of succeeding together. However, playing only one aspect of the game will burn it out faster than playing all aspects.

With the "birth" of my death knight, I played a bit PVP along the way. And heck, what fun I've missed!

While levelling up, my DK has the heirloom PVP shoulders, heirloom PVP trinket, heirloom chest and heirloom axe with Crusader on it.

BG 50-59 was a bit of a joke. More than half of all players joining were death knights. In fact, it was joked that "whichever side has the most death knights wins", something that proved painfully true for all rounds I participated in.

Come 60 and lowest level in BGs. Interestingly enough, I didn't feel underpowered. Quite the opposite, it felt "just right". Most likely because of the superior gear I had for my level (DK starting area blue gear is about equivalent of lvl 65 greens, I think). Of course, I was feeling a bit squishy, so I played all the time in frost presence.

Here's the thing: I don't like following all the stupid sheep that races towards the stables, Balinda or just mindlessly fights in the midfield in Warsong Gulch. I stick around in our base to defend our flag in WSG, I stick at a base in AB and defend it, I try to keep Galv alive, get our towers back and prevents stealth caps in AV.

I'm used to playing a healer. What happens when a single healer sticks around a place to defend? Well... at best I can survive until my mana is all gone. That's the limitation of my abilities.

As a DK, I'm able to succeed on my own. At least some of the time.

Now, I've hit 80 with my DK. There are a few problems.

I'm painfully reliant on a good weapon, and I'm STILL running around with my heirloom axe. It helps a lot being unholy -- I did 4.5k dps in quest blues in the Onyxia 10 pug I joined. Superior AoE, anyone? With a bit of luck, a new weapon will drop sooner or later in TotC heroic.

I still only have two specs to play around. I want three (at least). PVE dps, PVE tank and PVP. For the moment I don't have all that good tanking gear, so I've got PVE dps and PVP. Considering tanking with my PVP spec. It has Toughness, Magic Suppression, Anti-Magic Zone, Bone Shield and even Glyph of Anti-magic Shell, so I'm only lacking Anticipation, Blade Barrier and Improved Icy Touch of the core tanking talents. I can even afford two points in Imp Icy Touch in my PVP spec without losing anything important.

Other than that, I'm gearing up my third character. At a point I got really tired of it and switched back to my shaman for some PVP. It took less than a single AV to recall what I liked about my DK.

1. The get-out-of-jail-free cards. In particular Anti-Magic Shell and Icebound Fortitude, but also Strangulate and Chains of Ice. Together, they allowed me to survive for quite some time alone with an enemy. Except retribution paladins, bloody annoying bastards. They stun me for 5 seconds before I got the runic power to get off either AMS or IF.


2. Just being a tank. Standing around defending a node in frost presence, and a rogue fires up his arsenal at me. But hey, I've got tons of armor, I can survive for quite some time. Compare that to a shaman, even with a shield, whose only defense is trinketing out of a stun or die before the stunlock is up. Well, almost.

I like being a tank in PVP.