Paladin Healing, A Journal

So I’ve got a little space goat pally.

She makes such cute squealing noises when something is beating on her.

Was planning on leveling as retribution, like all the cool kids do… but I already have 20+ minute waits on my mage… I have a DK that can almost sort of tank on the same server… that leaves holy.

Levels 15-19

The ONLY fucking heal spell I have is Holy Light.

Regarding Holy Light, allow me to state this:

*ahem*

HOLY FUCK

It’s slow.

It’s a mana hog.

It takes forever to cast.

It’s expensive.

Did I mention that it’s not a fast or cheap spell?

Talk about the importance of a pre-cast.

Although I did actually have a tank take more than her 450 points of life in the 2.5 seconds it took me to cast HL from the start of combat.

That run was a bundle of fun for many reasons… I hate Wailing Caverns with a passion now.

Anyway.

In this level bracket, HL costs almost 100 mana and heals for about 250.

I only had between 600 and 800 mana. I can cast 6-8 heals before I’m OOM. I miss Arcane Torrent so very, very much.

If you have not taken at least 200 points of damage (and are not the tank) you are not getting a heal. So sorry, but my precious resources are going to go towards saving the tank’s hide and my own.

So I’ve got this one heal spell and that’s about it.

Oh sure, I’ve got some other toys in the toy box.

I can try to judge for light to take care of some of the incidental damage, but only if the tank actually has control of a mob. That was a really big IF.

I’ve got Lay on Hands! On a 20 minute cooldown.

Hand of Protection? 5 minute cooldown and about as confusing as Divine Sacrifice I’m sure. I can just see it now: “WTF can’t attack! o wait, all better now”

Hand of Freedom is great! If someone actually needs to be freed from something. I was rather disappointed when this did not work on that fucking Druid’s Slumber spell in WC.

Purify is also great! For all the poison and disease being thrown about… the poison part came in handy in WC, I won’t lie.

But really, all a pally healer has to work with at this point is Holy Slow and Expensive Light.

Impression of healing in this bracket: Oh shit, he’s going to die because A) I am out of mana or B) the spell is too goddamn slow.

Levels 20-24

I dinged 20 and it was like the heavens had heard my lamentations.

OK, I’m sure the deaf heard all my bitching and screaming at the monitor about HL.

I just about hugged my class trainer when I learned Flash of Light.

A full second faster, and less than 30 mana.

At level 20, my HL had a heal per mana (HPM) of 2. That’s 2 HP back to you for every mana of mine.

My new and beloved FoL had a whopping 3.2 HPM.

Yes, I was seriously excited about that 1.2 HPM.

It might only have healed for about 100, but it’s speed and small size made it far more versatile.

I could suddenly pay attention to more people than just the tank.

HL on the tank, FoL on the dumbshit DPS, HL on the tank, FoL on the DPS that was doing right but the tank was being a dumbshit, HL on the tank etc.

This is also the bracket where more tanks seemed to either get more toys to use or learned how to use what they had.

An increase in mob control meant an increase in my ability to judge for light, allowing most DPS to keep themselves topped off and limiting the twitch I get when someone’s life isn’t full but it would be a waste of a cast to heal them for 50 HP. (I know, P3 on Anub in ToCr is going to kill me.)

Around 23 I decided it was time to clean up my spazzy spec and trundled off to the trainer to unlearn my crap and relearn something useful.

(I had a habit of leveling in a dungeon and picking a talent that would immediately benefit me in the role I was in, since I was hopping between all three for a bit, this made a mess of my talent trees.)

Went straight heal talents.

By 24, My HL was healing for well over 500 and my FoL was sitting at a pretty 125+ and my mana pool was cracking 1k.

This is also about when I discovered warlocks.

Warlocks and their fucking lifetapping.

When the tank says, “Big pull, guys!” and then runs into the room to round up the whole lot, that is NOT the time to tap yourself to a tiny red sliver of life.

Or he would always wait until I had topped everyone off and started drinking.

Lifetap. Lifetap.

Motherfucker.

I hate you.

I didn’t let him die, but I hated him all the same.

So far, I feel like pally healing is painfully dull and bland compared to priest.

Very reactive, not very proactive.

And I have to stand still to do much of anything.

This is a work in progress, and yes it was a filler post for today because I had to pass out at around 7:30 last night.

Going into the office kills me.