Recently I put up a review of the Circle of Healing Podcast, a Priest-slanted healing podcast by Dawn Moore of WoW.com, Matt Low (a.k.a. Matticus of World of Matticus and WoW.com), and Jerome “Kinaesthesia” Phillips of the US guild Vodka.
At that time I felt that there were some wrinkles which needed to be ironed out, but that there was a lot of promise in the podcast. After a short break because Dawn apparently had some computer problems, they’re back and have released episodes 3 and 3.5 (a shortened one without Matt Low), and the website (http://www.circleofhealingpodcast.com/) has also gone live. Since the quality of these two episodes is way higher, I wanted to return to the subject and give them an updated review.
I had a couple of main criticisms at the time. The first was more technical, in that there were some issues with hearing the contributors and with them hearing each other, and the volume normalisation was a bit iffy in places (Kina was very loud, Dawn was very quiet). The second was that the discussion didn’t feel quite as smooth as I personally prefer, with contributors sometimes drifting off on tangents or seeming distracted.
I’m pleased to report that these last two episodes have really stepped things up a notch. The technical niggles have been sorted out now and everyone is clearly audible, and no one made my ears bleed when they spoke.
More importantly, the dialogue between all three (or two) contributors feels a lot more fluid. I personally feel that a podcast should, if not hide, then at least not draw attention to the fact that these people are sitting in different cities, states or even countries; the dialogue should flow as if they were sitting having a chat to each other (and with us). In these latter two episodes there’s some genuine three-way discussion happening, which makes the podcast come alive somehow.
I’ve also been really enjoying the content. It’s great to have a couple of high-end raiders on the panel in Dawn and Kina, and it’s nice to have someone whose raiding experience is more towards the average experience of the audience (with apologies to Matt, I couldn’t find a better way of phrasing that!) to represent another point of view. As I said in the previous review, these are people who play WoW and heal passionately and collectively they have a huge amount of knowledge they can share and this podcast is a great vehicle for it.
The last question I had about the podcast from episodes 1 and 2 was the question of where it was aimed: healing in general or Priests specifically. It’s pretty much settled on being a Priest healing podcast, with general healing topics being hit on as they crop up. That’s fine: I started this blog intending to be a healing generalist but ended up writing almost exclusively about Priests (although there’s some more general interest articles around the place) but it’s worth bearing in mind that if you’re not interested in in-depth discussions of Priest talent trees or mechanics you might be needing your fast-forward button a bit.
Anyway now the quality has stepped right up and the podcast is really hitting its stride, I’d unequivocally recommend that you go and check out the Circle of Healing Podcast, and submit your questions to the panel so Dawn, Kina and Matt don’t have to make up any more!
