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.

DK vs Druid tanking

(Note: I decided not to spend the time parsing all spell names to wowhead-links. If someone miss that, let me know in a comment, and I'll start doing it again.)

I decided to test out the new instances with my druid, Ayeba. She's geared enough for that place, but far from overgearing it. I tanked Forge of Souls heroic and healed Pit of Saron heroic. I might discuss the healing in another post, but for now I'll focus on the tanking side.

Okay... where to start...

Gathering the mobs

First, Death Knights have a HUGE advantage when attempting to gather mobs. Against "ordinary" melee mobs, I need to get close enough to hit them all with swipe at least once. I'm used to dropping a Death and Decay (which is really rather big) and it will tag almost all mobs so they'll run to me. Slightly irritating, but I can live with that.

Now, what about ranged mobs? Uh-oh... bad stuff. Druids have no way of moving them at all to where you want to tank them, apart from getting aggro and breaking Line of Sight on them. Bash? Stuns them, they just start casting from the exact same position when the stun fades. Feral Charge? Immobilizes them for exactly as long as the interrupt lasts.

In effect, any group with at least two spellcasters who aren't already grouped are a pain. Consider the third group in FoS (excluding the single skull): as a druid I have to run back and forth all the time to keep aggro on all. It is also possible to keep aggro on a single ranged by hitting him with Feral Faerie Fire every time it's off cooldown, but painful. While running, I risk putting my back towards the melee mobs, killing all the avoidance I have.

Death Knights have... Death Grip! Oh, how I love it. But also Mind Freeze, usually causing the spellcaster to follow for as long as the spell school is locked out, and Strangulate to silence at range, guaranteeing that they will come to you. And I don't even need to collect them all to keep aggro on them: If I target a mob in the middle, I can keep aggro in a 30 yards range. Pestilence has 15 yards ranged glyphed in every direction, and once I've got diseases ticking, I can usually hold threat on them.

Health and avoidance

My druid had 45k health during the run... but some 40% avoidance. My DK has only 34k health self-buffed, but almost 60% avoidance. I do notice the difference. Avoidance stacking is not recommended, but I don't recommend stamina stacking either. If damage taken is fairly low, though, Improved Leader of the Pack rocks with a high max-health.

Generally, it's a trade-off, with both having their advantages. However, the tank will require more healing over the course of a raid or instance the lower avoidance is.

Emergency buttons

Druids have 3 emergency buttons.

A bear-tree? Tree-bear?

Barkskin is solid, -20% damage from all sources, lasts 12 sec, only 1 min cooldown, and doesn't cost any resources at all. It (usually) lasts longer than Bone Shield, provides more damage reduction than Unbreakable Armor and works against magic as well. Bonus that it can be used while feared or stunned.

FRENZYYYY!

Frenzied Regeneration is a bit so-and-so in itself. It's very costly on rage, meaning that it's hard to get off any other rage attacks while it's on without hurting it, but glyphed it's pretty good. +20% healing taken compared to Vampiric Blood's +35% healing taken. Lasts fairly short, though, only 10 sec, compared to Vampiric Blood's 15 sec glyphed duration.

Must survive. Must survive.

Survival Instincts is rock solid. Increases current and max health by 45% (glyphed) of your total health for 20 sec. More than Vampiric Blood's 15%, and lasts longer.

Druid roundup

Survival Instincts and Frenzied Regeneration work extremely well together. God-like survivability. That's both an advantage and a disadvantage: Many times I feel I have to save both for the same time, because Frenzied Regeneration isn't too powerful on it's own. So, you get either a fairly good 1-min CD and a superb 3-min CD (combining both), or you get a fairly good 1-min CD, one decent 3-min CD and one good 3-min CD.

The same logic can be applied to any tanking class: of course you get a much better CD if you combine two at the same time. But all CDs should be powerful enough on their own to be worth using alone. I don't feel Frenzied Regeneration is, particularly not unglyphed.

The next sad thing is that you have to glyph two survivability cooldowns, leaving you only one for threat-generation or utility.

OMG Owerpowered magic-ignoring stuff

Now, DKs. They have Anti-magic shell, which has 3 simultaneous effects. First, it absorbs 75% of spell damage taken for it's duration. Second, it prevents the application of any negative stuff and suppresses debuff auras for its duration. Third, it converts spell damage absorbed into runic power. It also works on poisons, diseases and curses. It has low duration, 5 sec unglyphed (and no tanks I've ever seen choose to glyph it), but also a fairly short CD of 45 sec.

There are fights where AMS doesn't help at all. However, I think most boss fights feature something AMS shell works against.

I love AMS. It almost trivializes some fights, like Goarfrost where you can reset the debuff stack, and Falric, where it suppresses his -75% healing and damage done debuff for it's duration, allowing you to be healed fully up.

Chill out, dude

Icebound Fortitude is possibly the most powerful DK cooldown. In non-tanking gear, it reduces damage taken by 20%, equal to Barkskin or Bone Shield. At 540 defense (raid boss crit immunity) it reduces damage taken by 41%. At 600 defense it grants 50% damage reduction, same as Divine Protection. Most DKs have something in-between, meaning it mitigates between 41% and 50%. Quite solid. It also grants stun immunity, but this is very rarely important in PVE. It's a solid cooldown.

Rise and ... never mind, die again

Death Pact provides instantly 40% of total health back. Usually used with Raise Dead, but can also be used with Army of the Dead or Summon Gargoyle. The latter is a very rare talent in a tank build, though. I like it. Especially poweful when combined with Vampiric Blood, restoring 54% of your health. Less powerful in raids, but does have it's place to help the healers overcome a spike.

1 min talent CDs

Each talent tree has a tanking cooldown: Vampiric Blood for ... guess what, Blood. Unbreakable Armor for Frost. Bone Shield for Unholy. Personally, I think Vampiric Blood is the best of these three cooldowns. The other two are fairly good too. Unbreakable Armor does nothing against magic damage, and Bone Shield is a bit unstable; it can fade in as fast as 6 seconds, or last for 5 min... though the latter is very unlikely. The nice thing about Bone Shield, though, is that you can pre-cast it and have it ready again when you enter combat, so you can "chain" it from the start of a fight, or have it up at the start and use it again before 1 min has passed. Bone Shield's duration can be extended by combining Bone Shield with an activated avoidance trinket, like Glyph of Indomitability.

The downside of all these three cooldowns is that they require a rune... which means you either must save one rune until you need it (loss of threat), wait until it comes off cooldown when you need it (risky) or combine it with Blood Tap which also has a 1 min cooldown. I have a macro which I press without modifiers to cast the CD, and press with shift to cast Blood Tap -> CD.

Wait wait, another talent CD

In addition to the 1-min CD, Blood and Unholy has another tanking CD you can spec into.

For 4 talent points in Blood you can have Improved Rune Tap, which restores 20% of your health on a 30 sec at the cost of a blood rune. Frost and Unholy tanks can get the 10% health on a 1 min cooldown without sacrificing much. However, only blood tanks can really use this talent well. To effectively use it, you need to save a blood rune for it (loss of threat, loss of blade barrier), wait until it's off cooldown (risky) or use it with Blood Tap (which means you can't use it with your 1-min CD) or with Empower Runic Weapon (5-min cooldown). I don't like it. Blood has much easier access to blood runes since you can turn both unholy and frost runes into death runes. The unimproved version isn't very powerful at all. The improved version is fairly good, especially combined with the rest of Blood's arsenal like Vampiric Blood, then it restores 27%.

Unholy tanks can spend 4 talents points as well to get Anti-Magic Zone. 3 of those points boost AMS to 100% and reduces spell damage taken by 6% at all times. Anti-magic Zone requires an Unholy rune, and thus is a bit unpractical. However, it can absorb a ton of magic damage, well worth spending Empower Runic Weapon on if you need. It lasts for 10 sec or until it's absorbed enough damage, then fades. Unfortunately it's extermely stationary. It's a very circuimstancal cooldown, and can really shine on some bosses. Since it also absorbs damage on your party, it has extra utility.

Frost doesn't have a second cooldown, but Icebound Fortitude lasts 16 sec for a frost tank, compared to 10 sec for everyone else.

My flesh was only getting in my way

Army of the Dead can be used in one of two ways. While channeling the army (4 sec), you take reduced damage equal to your parry + dodge chance, which means somewhere between 40% and 60% damage reduction. However, the duration is painfully short, and you can't avoid anything at the same time. Statistically you will take the same damage in the long term against dodge/parryable attacks. However, against attacks which are unparryable/undodgable, it will still reduce damage. It is very circumstantial to use the army this way.

The second way of using the army is that it will taunt anything lower level than a raid-boss. Each skeleton dies pretty fast, though, so it's only a temporary help. The main problem is that you can't taunt the boss of them again until they're gone, or they'll just retaunt. Their taunt seem to have a 1 sec cooldown EACH. That means you can't move the boss where you want him or her, and that can prove death for your group certain places. Against a raid boss, they will provide a bit extra damage and fodder for Death Pact, but nothing else.

Desperate measures

If all other cooldowns are on ... cooldown, it is possible to spam Death Strike like crazy. For a Blood or Unholy tank it restores 15% of your health for each DS that hits, and 10% for a frost tank. Combine it with Empower Runic Weapon and you can theoretically restore 60% of your health (without Vampiric Blood) over 4 GCDs.

DK roundup

DKs have a lot of cooldowns. The main difference between theirs and a druids' is that many of their cooldowns are very circuimstancal. I believe they're better if you can use them in the right circuimstances, but for general-purpose they're about equal.

Threat

Any properly equipped tank can hold aggro on a single target without any trouble at all, barring a string or dodges/parries from their target.

Well, not true. A druid must choose to spend his GCDs swiping (generating AoE threat) or Mangling/Lacerating/Fairie Firing (generating single target threat). Maul will usually be macroed to all those attacks, causing your auto-attacks to generate solid amounts of threat. Glyphed it will even hit two targets. However, I found that I was not always able to hold threat on my primary target while only swiping: I had to throw a mangle or something to stick an enemy to me.

Even spamming swipe, I felt that my AoE threat was only on par with a blood DK. That might be because my DK is better geared than my druid now, but it was very annoying still. Frost and Unholy seem able to put out much more AoE threat.

This is the part of druid tanking I hate the most, and the reason I switched to a DK in the first place; The endless, mindless spamming. Granted, a DK rotation can also be viewed as a bit spammy, but a 20 sec rotation is much more interesting than a 6 sec rotation. And AoE is much smoother as a DK. You drop Death and Decay and get some threat on all enemies, then you hit your primary target with Icy Touch and Plague Strike and then pestilence. The two single-target attacks on your primary target + auto-attacks provide enough threat to hold the primary target to you. Then you weave your abilities as you best see fit.

Conclusions, sort of

I hate swipe-spamming. Otherwise druids are okay. I'll definitely stick to my DK for now.

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.

When the blame hits the fan...

Imagine the following situation. You've just wiped. The tank died first, and held all threat until he started hugging the ground. He did no obvious mistakes like standing in the fire.

In almost any pug, 5-man or raid, the first question that will pop up is: Whose fault was it? The healer(s) or the tank?

I've encountered the situation several times. It's just as embarrassing and annoying every time.

The blame game

The main problem is the focus of the group: The focus should not be "whom to blame?", but "what can we do next time to prevent it from happening again?". It's freakin' hard to admit you did any mistakes when you need to eat through a heck of a lot of mean words in addition to the weight your conscience is already putting on your mind. Most people prefer to remain silent in such a situation, and that's a very bad starting point for finding out what could be done differently.

There are times when you just need to replace someone in your pug. However, that ought to be plan B or C, not plan A. Plan A should always be to try again, improving from last time.

The people that like to blame are also prone to leaving whenever something goes wrong. Just yesterday, we did the weekly raid quest to kill Razorscale in Ulduar 25. We waded in with no plan whatsoever and wiped at 2%. People started leaving. What the heck? 2%? It's nothing left. We were practically guaranteed to get him down on next attempt, and we did. Similarly, when the new 5-man instances just were released, I wiped with my group 5 times on Garfrost because people insisted on doing it as a dps race. While that is possible, it requires Frost Resistance Aura, Frost Resistance Totem, a very special setup consisting of only classes capable of removing debuffs including a paladin healer, or lots of lucky resists. Several people came and left. Only me and one other persisted. And we learned the encounter the hard way, how we were supposed to hide behind the boulders to clear the debuff stack. We got him down. It felt just as good as downing any raid boss the first time.

Some people cannot be unbroken

There might be some reasons for replacing people, however. Unwillingness to learn is the primary reason I want to kick people. People insisting on repeating the same mistakes despite a different strategy being agreed on in the chat. I'll give another example.

We wiped times and times on the 9th wave in Halls of Reflection. The healer complained that I was taking too much damage, he couldn't possibly keep up. He wasn't superiorly geared, but neither was he particularly undergeared for the instance. He said I wasn't usually taking too much damage, except when I got stunned. Not strange. I got almost 60% avoidance normally, but when I get stunned I avoid 0% damage. That means I take more than twice the normal damage. We discussed in party chat, and decided on killing the mercenaries first. It worked like a charm. Except for one rogue, who insisted on killing the priests first, because "that's what had worked for him earlier". That meant I had to maintain lots of threat on two targets rather than one, and it took longer to burn down the primary target. Annoying. We were, however, successful. However, I dislike people doing it like that. At the very least, he could've protested on party chat, letting us know he disagreed before we actually got into the fray.

Call me undergeared, huh?

Another thing that annoys me is people entering the group, taking a look at my unbuffed health (about 32k now, was around 30k earlier) and leaving. They consider me undergeared because I don't have 40k health. That buggers me seriously off.

Before my current career as a DK tank, I was a druid tank and healer. Once I was pulled into a group in Trial of the Champion heroic, as healer. The tank was a druid with 45k health self-buffed. Great, I thought, the tank is well equipped, this ought to be easy to heal.

It wasn't. It was actually harder to heal than most other tanks I had healed. Why? It turned out he had skipped on all kinds of avoidance to buff his health sky-high. That meant he took much more damage over the instance than one who had had more balanced stats.

Consider it this way: Let's say the tank is going to take 1 million damage before avoidance but including mitigation (armor). If he avoids 30% of the damage, he will take a total of 700.000 damage. If he avoids 50% of the damage, he will take a total of 500.000 damage. That's 28.5% (the difference, 200.000, divided by the total, 700.000) less damage taken, a huge difference. Note that the difference is more than 20%, the actual difference in avoidance.

I go with balanced stats. That yields me less health than tanks going all-out stamina, but allows me to take less damage over the instance. While it is less effective against magic damage, there are almost no encounter that does not combine magical damage with physical (avoidable) damage. take Koralon in VoA 25. He hits for a lot of unavoidable magical damage with his meteor fist. At the same time, he auto-attacks. If I can parry or dodge on of those, I'll have better chances on getting healed in time compared to a tank who avoids nothing but has more health to soak the damage.

No, you can't depend on avoidance. At the same time, you can. The waves in Halls of Reflection heroic hits for a lot together. Since they hit separately, you get a lot more attacks incoming per second than a single boss with the same total damage would've given you. That's where you can depend on avoidance: As you take more hits, the number of actually avoided attacks get closer and closer to the number on your character sheet. See the difference between how much damage the tank normally and when he's stunned on those encounters, and you'll see.

I do have the Black Heart myself, but I've skipped it in favor of an avoidance and a mitigation trinket of higher item level.

When healing fails

Sometimes, though, it's just not enough. You've got a properly equipped tank, he's not taking unnecessary damage, and he's holding threat on all mobs. Blizz has in the latest 5-mans added a lot of abilities which hits a random target member. You need to keep everyone alive while not losing the tank.

There are a few things that can be done differently. Talents might matter. Sometimes they make a major difference. Once we had trouble with an encounter, I (tank) died first every time. The healer was a bit underequipped, but not horribly much so. He shared his frustration with us. I inspected the druid healer to see that he had skipped Nature's Grace, one of the most hardcore tank-healing talents. However, in most cases, talents are not the problem.

However, priority often seem to be a problem. Many healers overreach themselves. Some need to be told that while healing, the tank and the healer is priority. If they have trouble keeping up, let dps die first, not the tank. In particular, this holds true when dps takes excessive damage. Not moving out of the AoE on the ground? Dpsing while everyone else hides? Let them die. Sometimes the healer can carry them through their mistakes, but that's not how it is supposed to be done. If the healer has trouble keeping everyone up, they should die and usually will die first.

There might be some parts of the encounter that someone in the group is not familiar with. I've beat encounters with seriously underequipped people as long as they know exactly what to do.

Often a dps can do something different that can change the outcome of the fight. CC a mob? Use a different totem (like Grounding Totem or Cleansing Totem)? Change Aura? Stun more, even at the expense of dps? Put a pet on a mob, letting it "tank" it and die rather than letting the tank take more damage?

Finally, most encounters are impossible to do without enough dps. If dps is lacking, it's neither the healer nor the tank's fault.

How to spot "problems" and solve them

I have three primary tools.

First, inspect. It will give you an idea of what gear level the tank or healer is decked in, and what talents he is using. A Blood tank is going to bring a lot more self-healing, but less AoE-threat. A paladin tank will usually take less damage from most hits because they block so much, but have no particularly defense against magic.

Second, recount. It will tell me what kind of spells the healer is using. Is the healer having trouble keeping you up? Perhaps he's not using Nourish at all (many druids seem to rely only on hots and Swiftmend, scarily enough).

Third, chat. Communication. This is and will always be the primary way of solving any kinds of problems. Talk with the group, acknowledge their frustrations and problems, and work with them to solve the problem you're facing.

The glyph shuffle, shamanic version.

3.1 brings a lot of changes. Dual-spec, for example. Personally I'd prefer a Quadruple-spec (Healer PVP, Healer PVE, dps PVE, dps PVP), but I'll take Dual-spec over single-spec any day. When dual-spec hits the "shelves", I'll have at least one of the builds as a resto-PVP build. I'm debating whether to have elemental PVP or resto PVE as my second build.

But it's important that you also get two set of glyphs. Because of that, I'd like to take a closer look at the various glyphs that can be useful to resto builds. For all of the glyphs, I'll rate them either 1 (rarely/hardly useful), 2 (handy), 3 (very handy/critical) for each of these purposes:

• PVE Chain Heal: Where Chain Heal contributes 90% of your healing done. Mostly translates to 25-man raids, some 10-man and rarely 5-man.


• PVE Mix: Where you use a mix of various heals and not only chain heal.


• PVP Arena: Where you'll meet a limited number of enemies who usually are well coordinated, and their objective is to keep you from breathing. Mana is a secondary problem compared to just staying alive.


• PVP BG/WG: Where you'll meet lots of uncoordinated enemies, and the objective isn't nescessarily to kill you. Running out of mana is a concern.

The newcomers

Glyph of Earth Shield: A straight-foward buff offering +20% more healing on Earth Shield. I'd consider it pretty stupid to take this glyph without also speccing Improved Earth Shield and Improved Shields, as they stack together. Buffs each charge of Earth Shield by something between 300 and 500, depending on spellpower. This is what I'd consider a handy ability for all purposes, but nothing critical for either. Check your recount values. Find how much effective healing Earth Shield provides (discarding overhealing), and multiply the number by 0.2. This is a rough estimate of the increased healing done by this glyph. Score: 2 all around.

Glyph of Riptide: 3 more sec on the Riptide HoT. Each tick of Riptide heals for something between 600 and 800, depending on spellpower. On a non-crit, this increases Riptide's total output by about 11%. on a crit (with Ancestral Awakening), about 8% more output. For this to be useful, the target must actually have less than full health at this final tick, which is 18 seconds after you initially cast Riptide on someone. In PVP, chances are high that you have to overwrite the buff early because you need the instant potion of Riptide right NOW. The glyph doesn't really convince me. There is one redeeming feature, though. Extending the HoT also extends the window in which you can cast Chain Heal on the target and get a 20% buff. But still... meh. Skip this. I'm 90% certain we'll see this glyph buffed sooner or later. A simple +5% crit rate on Riptide would be better, or perhaps "lowers the global cooldown after casting riptide by 0.5 sec". Current version: 1 all around.

Glyph of Hex: Increases the damage a hexed target can suffer by 20% before hex breaks. Similar to Glyph of Entangling Roots and Glyph of Frost Nova. I can't actually see who would want this. In any sort of group PVE, it's in 99% of the cases broken by the tank (often through AoE) and while it's a bit more incoming damage on the tank, it's nothing really bad. After all, by breaking it, the tank is sure to have aggro on it. In PVP I find that the most common reason for hex breaking being the PVP trinket. The second problem is that the target simly runs away, if it has any kind of intelligence between it's ears. With a 45 sec cooldown, it's a poor return for a glyph. 1 all around.

Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Shields you when you cast Stoneclaw Totem. According to a poster on wowhead, this shield aborbs 4340 damage no matter how much spellpower you have. On current PTR, the shield amount is unaffected by Earth's Grasp. In effect, another instant heal spell, but with a few limitations. 30 sec cooldown like the totem. Probably range-dependant meaning it stops working if you move more than 30 yards away from the totem. Possibly disables you from using Earthbind Totem or Tremor Totem for the same time the shield lasts without loosing the shield. The bright side is that being a totem, you can use it despite being counterspelled/silenced. It also has the other advantages of shield spells. And 4k extra health on demand isn't such a bad deal. Handy in PVP. There are few cases where I see the need for this in PVE, versus just healing yourself up. PVE: 1. PVP: 2.

The old fellows

Glyph of Chain Heal: Makes Chain Heal hit four targets instead of three. This has two effects. First, it improves Chain Heal's average throughput by 1/14 or 7%, given that it's always a fourth (wounded) target in range. Second, and harder to measure, it provides another target that potentially can proc Earthliving. If you're raiding 25-man (and possibly even if you only raid 10-man), Chain Heal will usually contribute most of your healing done. This will provide a nice increase. PVE Chain Heal: 3. PVE Mix: 2. PVP: 1. The effect of this glyph is further amplified by...

Glyph of Earthliving: Increases the chance to proc Earthliving by 5%. Notice, though, that there are several cases where this does nothing. First, Earthliving never procs if you heal a target at full health. It can proc if the direct heal brings the target to full health, though. Second, with Blessing of the Eternals you will have a 100% chance to proc Earthliving on a target at less than 35% health without this glyph. Finally, earthliving doesn't stack, but merely refreshens the duration of the last earthliving if it procs again on the same target, making it less useful if you spam heals on one target (like the tank). But still... I think this is a rather solid glyph. Most of the cases you will be healing people at between 35% and 100% anyway, and it can proc on any direct heal, making it an work just as well in 5-man and 25-man. It's nice for PVP too, since there's a chance that the last earthliving was devoured/spellstolen/purged/dispelled/whatever. I rate it 2 all around.

Edit: As drug pointed out, Earthliving is a minor part of healing done for a priest mainly relying on Chain Heal. I agree with his comment, there's probably better glyphs for a chain-healer.

Glyph of Healing Wave: Heals you for 20% of the amount Healing Wave heals your target for. I have sometimes, but not every time, experiened that this extra heal triggers even when I'm the target of my own HW. Possibly a bug. Personally, I love this glyph. Since I favor using Healing Wave as much as possible, I rarely ever worry about my own health in PVE groups. In fact, between this glyph and ancestral healing, I often heal area damage without using Chain Heal at all. Of course, it does rely on you using Healing Wave. Since shorter casttime = less chance to be interrupted/kicked/silenced/etc, not to mention higher chance that my target is alive when the heal hits, I mostly favor using Lesser Healing Wave in PVP. However, there are times when I can use this, and I try to maximize those. PVE Chain Heal: 2. PVE mix: 3. PVP BG/WG: 2. PVP arena: 1.

Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave: Increases the amount healed by Lesser Healing Wave by 20% if the target has Earth Shield. This is *the* PVP resto shammie glyph. Don't leave home without it. It both increases throughput and mana efficiency of your most used PVP healing spell, but only if the target has earth shield. More handy in arenas than in BGs, but it is always handy because you can earth shield yourself and spam Riptide -> LHW -> LHW -> move/root until Riptide is ready again for maximum chance of survival. It does have some use in PVE as well, but since Earth Shield will almost always be up on the tank and HW is preferable to LHW as a tank heal if you've got the talents to support it (mainly Imp Healing Wave, Imp Water Shield and Healing Way), it's usually better to stick to HW. However, if the tank needs heal right NOW, he may not have the extra second it takes to cast HW. PVE chain heal: 2. PVE Mix: 2. PVP BGs: 2. PVP arenas: 3.

Glyph of Healing Stream: Increases the amount healed by Healing Stream Totem by 20%. It makes little sense to take this without Restorative Totems. I'm a personal fan of Healing Stream totem in 5-mans myself, as it provides a nice steady return to health for everyone, meaning I can just ignore everyone with less than 2k health missing. However, since it's party only (unless I've been missing something, which reminds me: WTB raid-wide Healing Stream totem), it is significantly less effective in raids, especially 25-man. I rarely ever use it in PVP. PVE chain heal: 1. PVE Mix: 2. PVP: 1.

Glyph of Water Mastery: Also called glyph of 30 mp5, at least as long as you have Water Shield active. A solid glyph if you ever run into mana problems. PVE: 2. PVP BG: 2. PVP Arena: 1.

Glyph of Shocking: Reduces the global cooldown of all shock spells to 1 sec. This one is for the PVPers, especially at higher levels of arena. Of course, it does require that you rely on shocks as a source for interrupts/snares/burst in the first place. PVE: 1. PVP: 2.

Glyph of Frost Shock: Increases the snare effect on frost shock to 10 seconds. PVP glyph without doubt. Without Reverbation, which few resto shammies have, Frost Shock has a duration of 8 seconds and a cooldown of 6 seconds, meaning you technically can perma-snare someone. This is easier said than done, and another two seconds help a lot. But more importantly, pretty much every melee'er who would want to stay on your face beating you have access to some talent that reduces the duration of snare effects by 30%. That reduces the duration of non-glyphed frost shock from 8 to 5.6 seconds, meaning you can't perma-snare someone. With the glyph, this increases to 7 seconds. Like the glyph of shocking, this is a good glyph if you can't find any other for a PVPer. PVE: 1. PVP: 2.

Glyph of Mana Tide Totem: Increases the amount restored by Mana Tide Totem by 1% per tick. It will now restore a total of 28% of total mana instead of 24% of total mana. Last time I checked, Mana Tide Totem was a very low part of the mana restored during a fight, and so I consider this a minor upgrade. However, redeeming trait that it affects all party-members. This glyph provides an additional 20% of total mana across all affected, which isn't bad.

To tell the truth, I don't like this glyph. I don't like any type of glyph that provides a buff to others (versus just your own healing), because the raid might end up forcing you to take it. No, I'm dead serious. Let's now say that Uldar really brings mana troubles for mana users. The raid leader might require that all priests run with this glyph because it helps with the mana trouble. While it's nice that the priest in question can help others, he has to sacrifice a glyph slot which could be used for some other glyph he'd rather want to have. It might cripple his own healing somewhat, while helping other healers.

But min-maxing, it's not a bad glyph for PVE. PVE: 2. PVP: 1.

Recommendations

For a PVE raider relying primarily on Chain Heal, the primary glyph is Chain Heal. Good choices for the last slot are Water Mastery, Healing Wave, Earth Shield, Lesser Healing Wave, Mana Tide Totem or Earthliving.

For a PVEer that relies on a mix of heals, especially in heroics, I'd strongly recommend Healing Wave. If you regulary user either, Healing Stream, Chain Heal or Lesser Healing Wave can make good choices. If neither are too much used, go with Earthliving, Water Mastery, Earth Shield or Mana Tide.

For a PVPer that stick mostly to battlegrounds, wintergrasp and other world PVP stuff, there are a lot of choices. If you have trouble with survivability, go with Stoneclaw, Earth Shield and Lesser Healing Wave. Mana trouble? Water Mastery. Neither? Healing Wave, Shocking or Frost Shock all make decent choices if you rely on those spells. Finally, Earthliving is always handy if you can't find anything else.

For an arena healer, I strongly recommend Lesser Healing Wave. As with BGs, if you have trouble with survivability Stoneclaw and Earth Shield could help you. Depending on what partners you run with, Frost Shock can also be tremendously useful, also in reducing incoming damage because you can slip away from your enemies slightly easier. Shocking is a solid choice if you're good at watching your enemies.

For an all-rounder, Earthliving and Water Mastery might be the best bets. If you use Healing Wave a lot, it's a good glyph, otherwise Lesser Healing Wave.