* Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.

* Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.

* Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.

* Thorns and Nature's Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.

* Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.

* Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed "Revitalize." It now also works with Wild Growth.

* We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

Some interesting things for feral druids. Mostly meh if you're Balance or Restoration.

*sigh*

Oh well, at least there's dual spec. Wait. There *IS* dual spec, right?

Healing Savvy. L2useyourbrain.

Of course I have alts.
Doesn't everyone?

My level 2 AH BElf Mage runs around Orgrimmar in the prettiest Festival Dress.

And then there's my 18 undead priest, created the same time as my druid, and left stagnant when i realised I preferred playing on my druid, and now brought back to life because I want to experiment with priest heals. It kinda gives me goosebumps to think I have 2 healers at different levels in the game. (No way I'm doing holy paladin though. No chance. Nada. Nil. Zip.) And I would love a shammy, but the totem thing gets to me.

ANYWAYS, getting back to the point of this post.

I did an RFC run the other day with my then 17 priest. No, I wasn't healing. There was an 18 priest in the group who was. But of course I have had Grid up, and I'm looking at everyone's health bar, while pew-pewing with Smite and SWord:Pain and other pew-pewy things. And I notice the healer is using Heal, at the LEAST sign of damage. Oh no, the tank's short of 20HP - HEAL. Oh no, the warlock lifetapped - HEAL. Oh no, the hunter fell and scraped his knee - HEEEAAAAALLLLL. (I'm thanking God at this point that he/she didn't have greater heal yet.

Now, like any obsessive compulsive healer, I know, understand and appreciate the feeling of needing everyone at full health. But I also appreciate the need to conserve mana, and use spells that FIT the need (read: RENEW.) NOT use hugely mana intensive heals that cause you to go OOM every 2 pulls (of 1-2 mobs each)

It's frustrating and there were many times when I saw the incoming +250 heal on Grid, when the actual damage was -50 that I wanted to snap at the healer on party chat.

Grrrrrr.

Am i over-reacting?

To Tree or Not to Tree, that is the question.

Ahh, I forgot for a bit that I had a blog. My apologies. :)
Also, I took a short trip, so wasn't online for the past week. Woot.

It all started when I came back last night, though. As soon as I logged on, a good rogue friend of mine whispered me and said, "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS 73?"

This rogue friend (who I met when I was 71 and he was 68), is now 80, and has been for about a week.

And that did it for me.

So I have officially re-specced to Balance, nothing long term, of course. Just till I hot hit 80, because I still do love the heals.

BUT, the thing that has happened is that it has re-awakened my interest in the game. The questing in Northrend, which I was unable to do with my Resto spec, is a breeze in Moonkin form. (Of course, it also helps that I was level 73 in the Borean Tundra)

=P

The other thing is that I'm excited about the questing and the stories they provide. On one quest, Saurfang told me, "You have never been alone, Splintered." I swear my heart skipped a beat.

And it's been a long time since I've been this excited about actually playing the game. And it's a lot more interesting than standing around in Dalaran, skimming through the LFG channel, and looking for groups that needed heals. And more often than not, I'd end up in a group that had a DK who'd never tanked, but didn't mind trying. (Srsly, WTB Tank)

And we'd fail miserably, and I'd get about 1/2 bar for XP for the 1.5 hours spent getting the group together and at the instance.

Blech.

And now, in one night after speccing Balance and questing, I'm halfway to ~75~.

My lil' healbot

Healing is a tough job.

But then again, so's tanking, and dps. We do what we do, because we enjoy doing it. And if you like doing leet dps, or thunderclapping the c*ap out of mobs, more power to you. (No offense to pally/dk/druid tanks. Thunderclap was just the first thing that came to mind. And anyways, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be reading a tanky blog?)

I arrived late to the whole WOW thing. My friend, who was a lock, got me to join. After reading all the class details, I announced that i wanted to roll a druid.

"YOU DON'T WANT A DRUID," he says. "They're a hybrid class and don't really excel at anything."

Oh.... errrrmmm, then maybe I'll roll a lock, like you?

"GREAT IDEA"

And so Incumbent was born. And he was pew pew. And ba-boom. And every other descriptive sound in the book that signifies enemies being blown up.

But somewhere along the way, I got tired of doing all this damage. And I knew it was time to roll a healer when tried to Health Funnel a dying party member.

So I read up muchly on the topic of healers. And I finally decided on a.... druid.

grumble... mumble... stupid friend...

And so it begins.

Of course, I have to start by saying thank you to the people who wrote all the other healing/resto blogs that I've read (resto4life and 4haelz ftw!)

Hmm, at this point, I just noticed that both my top two most read blogs have the number 4 in them. Is it too late to change my blog name?

But I digress, as I will often do, over the course of my postings.

Like I was saying to the writers of every blog that i read, thank you for taking the time to write. You have inspired many people with your number crunching and personal anecdotes, and now, i shall take it upon myself to share the many inanities that I encounter in the World of Warcraft.