Grr...

Why is there no epic crafted spellpower sword or dagger?

Because of this, my 'I have a family so I can't do Naxx' Warlock PvP buddy (who I plan to do 2's with on my Druid) has to run Heroic Occulus for a shot at a decent ilvl 200 weapon.

I hate Heroic Occulus with a severe passion.

Hate

Hate

Hate

Circle of Healing vs Wild Growth

Circle of Healing (CoH) and Wild Growth (WG) were two spells recently nerfed with the onset of 3.0.8. Everyone remotely close to the raiding scene knows this by now and there have been tons of posts from people both denouncing and praising the devs for their actions against these two cross party healing spells. After healing with WG last night in a 25 Naxx raid on my Druid, I have come to the conclusion that the nerf to CoH was very justified, while the nerf to WG was completely wrong and didn't resolve anything.

Why?

It's all about proactive healing vs reactive healing.

See, when looking at the styles of healing out there, the Holy Priest is a great reactive healer. Damage gets done, they heal it. They can be a bit more proactive with some renews and shields, but really, that's not their forte. Their forte is super strong single target heals that proc efficiency (Surge of Light, Holy Concentration) with some awesomely strong raid/party heals (CoH, Binding Heal, Prayer of Mending, Holy Nova, Prayer of Healing)

Contrast that with a Resto Druid. While their reactive heals (Regrowth, Healing Touch, Nourish) can be very efficient and strong (Glyphed Regrowth/Touch), their retinue is mainly made up of efficient heal over time (HOT) effects. Healing multiple people takes alot of time with these tools through either stacking HOTs on people or chain spamming Regrowth/Touch. As such, the Resto Druid is an amazing proactive healer, being able to place upwards of 3 HOTs on several people, buffering their health pools, especially if it is expected that they'll be taking damage.

Herein lies the problem. By nerfing CoH and WG with a 6 second cooldown, they've essentially turned CoH into a situational heal to be used when multiple people have all taken damage, and they need a 2k+ heal to help them out. You can use it for 2 people, but if it doesn't heal for enough, you'll still have to single target heal, thus ruining your efficiency and speed and time lounging about outside of the 5SR. However, the same is not true for WG. Since WG's front loaded heal is much smaller than CoH, WG can essentially be used as an AOE preheal HOT effect. Since it's duration (7 seconds) is longer than its cooldown (6 seconds), up to 10 people could have the WG effect on them at any time, depending on the game AI with determining who gets WG. A perfect example of this is on the Loatheb fight where a Resto Druid will use WG right before 3 seconds till the Necrotic Aura wears off so that WG can be used again during the healing window. Even if only 1 person needed a heal.

Does this sound like any other heal? Yep. That would be Prayer of Mending (PRoM). With both PRoM, and now WG, you target someone that needs (or will need) a heal soon and if it bounces/applies to another target that needs heals, great! If not, no worries, 'cause you got it covered.

So why is this bad? Sounds great right? Well, it basically makes WG a mandatory cast every 6 seconds on an encounter that has splash damage. Or when 2 people are going to get damaged. Which is just about every encounter. With CoH, timing the usage of CoH became much more important with the addition of the cooldown. If you used CoH on some trivial damage and then a Whirlwind or a Shadowbolt Volley came through the raid, you'd probably be kicking yourself and mashing the CoH button, hoping it would come up faster. With WG, it doesn't really matter. When that damage comes, you already have hots ticking and will have more ticking shortly.

Because of this discrepancy in utility, I believe that the nerf to WG was unjustified as it still pigeonholes WG as a mandatory staple of the healing rotation; it's not a conditional heal like CoH. The fix doesn't solve the mindless spam of WG, we just do it every 6 seconds now. However, try as I might, I can't think of any fixes to either version of WG that would balance it. Proactive heals/buffs (Divine Aegis, Sacred Shield, Living Seed) should never be guaranteed if they're going to effect multiple people.

If anything, make it work like the Death Knight's Pestilence, allowing HOTs a chance to spread from target to target.

That'd be cool.

Green Grass

The old saying goes, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." and for those who have genetically inhibited higher thought functions, this particular saying is used to identify people who aren't satisfied with their own situation; they think others have it better.

I've used the short form of this saying, "The grass is always greener..." in reference to several situations in WoW, and here's that short list of grievances where I'd call out some major QQ.

• Alliance always win BG's. I bet that if I rerolled Alliance, I'd win!
• I can't break out of the 1700's because I'm a (insert race here). If I were a (insert other race here), I'd be rated over 2k!
• My guild sucks! I bet that if I joined another guild, I'd get that weapon off of 25KT next week!

Just a few points of note, to set the record straight:

• If you're solo queueing for BG's, thank the stars if you have a 50% win rate, regardless of your faction. There are idiots abound on both sides of the faction coin.
• If you can't break the 1700's because you don't have a specific racial ability, your skill may be lacking far more than your racial abilities.
• If you think that joining another guild will let you have instant access to top gear without putting in a massive amount of effort to get in the good graces of your new eFamily, think again.

Usually, I'm the guy who calls people out for excessive QQ'ing (aka, being a whiny bitch), but, last night I had a major bout of QQ. My Priest's 2's partner (a DK) and I went 1-6 earlier that day and due to the new match up system, ran in to 1900+ teams all day. We ended up only 17 points down from where we started, which means all of our losses were single digit losses, BUT, its the losses that hurt. Why? Because every dps/healer team we fought had a Paladin as the healer.

The ability to crank out insane heals from using PvE gear and gem for mana instead of stam/resil all because they wear plate and because they can go immune is just beyond my partner and I's skills to cope. The additional fact that they can spec for an additional instant ranged cc (Repentance) that's not on DR with their primary CC (HoJ) is just ridiculous. My clothy butt has to manage mana, pre-heal myself with several instants to just survive a single Kidney Shot and tank damage because I have no way to remove snares.

See? I've started QQing again.

I toyed around with a level 7 Paladin and killed exactly one Springpaw Cub before I logged off that Blood Elf Goku twin and back onto the Priest.

In this case, the grass is definitely greener. If Holy Paladins were grass, they'd actually be so effing lush, smell so crisp, and be so god damned green that Kermit the Frog could drape his naked butt all over it like some sick Muppet porn and no one would notice anything. It's like the dev's poured Scott's Turf Builder all over the Paladins and created the perfect healing class for today's sick burst and low survivability environment.

But, I digress.

I'm going to stick with the Priest and the Druid (talk about another gimp healing PvP class) for now because I can't level another character to 80.

It would literally kill me.

At least until my Asian Power Leveling Racial Ability comes off of its 6 month cooldown.