I doubt this is a novelty to anyone else with a blog, but over the last 48 hours I’ve had about 80 spam comments caught by Akismet (<3) that essentially look like the following:

zjKjQr sbxmcovtzgxo, [url=http://plhhklapujuy.com/]plhhklapujuy[/url], [link=http://xevartzhiafn.com/]xevartzhiafn[/link], http://wnmubkzwplzk.com/

Unless those mean something when re-converted into some obscure Eastern European or Asian character set, they look an awful lot like random letters, and the URLs (obviously) don’t work. So why go to the trouble of posting them?

Is there a spammer somewhere simply being paid per comment, regardless of content? Is it a broken bot just spewing out trash instead of pulling URLs from a list? An ingenious DDoS attack on WP or Akismet?

Anyway, the healing-related posts will resume soon, this was just interesting/baffling enough for me to want to comment on it.

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This post is inspired by this week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic, suggested by Ecclesiastical Discipline, asking “When should a healer let someone die?”.
ED was asking about where the limit is, beyond which healers would just stop healing someone, but since I’ve not touched on the subject of triage in any depth I’ve added a bit of that as well.

Basics

The essence of triage is deciding who needs healing now, who can wait, and who you simply can’t save. The goal is to maximise the group’s performance in a given situation, which might not be the same as keeping the maximum number of people alive; that decision is one of the trickiest to make, but is sometimes necessary.

With this goal in mind, healers tend to operate with a priority list, which I’d characterise as follows:

1. Yourself – If you die, you can’t save anyone else
2. The tank – If they die, you might struggle to save other people from the damage that will follow
3. Important DPS – By this I mean people with specific jobs, such as CC, decursing, or anything else
4. People you like – This is where it gets subjective. “People you like” means people who you can trust not to die stupidly, or who you know are star DPSers on tight Berserk timer fights
5. The raid in general – Both healers and DPS are in this category. You might want to make the other healers a priority, or they might take care of themselves, so you can make this judgement individually
6. People prone to standing in fire – If you can’t trust someone to look after themselves, your precious heals might be better spent on someone else instead
7. Pets – This can depend strongly on the fight and if they are playing an active role, but generally pet classes have ways to take care of their pets themselves. It generally costs DPS, so heal them when we can, but pets really aren’t a priority. I know a lot of healers don’t show pets on their raidframes at all, which might be a step too far

As a completely random example, which definitely did not happen to me this weekend, let’s imagine we’re in Utgarde Pinnacle and, having vanquished Grauf using the conveniently-positioned harpoon launchers, Skadi the Ruthless has just landed in our midst and begun whirlwinding on the tank and two melee DPS.
Let’s further suppose that the not-terribly-well-geared Resto Druid who is healing the group only has time to heal two people before someone will die. In this case, our Druid friend falls back on the rules. The first heal goes on the tank, because he’s holding onto Skadi and a couple of adds, which we don’t want to be getting hit by. The second goes onto one of the DPS. You might have a preference (the rogue might died to just about every ability going earlier in the run, in which case you might suspect he’ll just stand in the next whirlwind), you might pick the person who’s the furthest out (allowing him to survive to get out of range), or you might simply pick whoever’s closest to the tank on VuhDo for speed.

This typically works for 5-man dungeons and perhaps 10-man raids, although when you add in the complicating factor of multiple healers or other factors, your priorities might shift a bit.

Multiple healers

As you can imagine, when you are the only healer, triage is relatively straightforward. When there’s another healer in the group as well, you will need to alter your strategy a little. For example, if you have assignments, your first priority is always to make sure your assignment is fine before helping others. There’s no point healing the raid if the tank falls over seconds later, nor is there much merit in all the healers landing a heal each on the tank and letting the raid die.

More subtly, it helps to learn to anticipate who and how other healers will heal. If your Shaman colleagues tend to go straight to the melee pack with Chain Heals, prioritise the ranged DPS and healers. In TBC, when mana was more restricted, HoT healers were advised to HoT the higher health players, since direct heals like Flash Heal, and Smart heals like Circle of Healing, would be aimed at the lower-health players first.

So when is it OK to lose someone?

The short answer is: when you genuinely have no choice. Sometimes there’s just more damage coming in than you can heal up in the time allowed, and you have to choose. Sometimes a DPS player will find themselves tanking something they really shouldn’t be tanking, and you can’t react in time to save them.

The other main time it’s acceptable to lose someone is when the advantage of letting them die outweighs the cost of keeping them alive. This used to be viable on Saurfang: before he was hotfixed to invalidate this strategy, the first player to gain Mark of the Fallen Champion would often be allowed to die, to prevent Saurfang gaining Blood Power at double the rate.

There are also some quite obscure cases as well, like using Soulstones for a quick threat drop or mana boost, or Holy Priests deliberately dying towards the end of fights to use Spirit of Redemption, but these are rare these days.

In all of these cases, remember the golden rule: triage is used to maximise the group’s performance. In these examples, that’s achieved by limiting Blood Power, or by keeping a tank alive as opposed to a DPS (one DPS lost might or might not matter to the outcome, whereas a dead tank often means a wipe), or by using a resurrection as a free mana potion.

When is it not OK to lose someone?

It’s absolutely not OK to lose someone because you were unprepared or inattentive. Sometimes the damage is just too high, but if that’s because you didn’t get your Bubbles up in time for an Infest (I’ll admit to drifting off during the Lich King’s dialogue once or twice) or because you didn’t get Rejuvs all round before Phase 3 of the Black Knight fight began, then that’s a healer failure.

It’s also, in my opinion, not acceptable to let someone die because you don’t like them, or because you’re “educating” them. If someone rips off the tank, or pulls for the tank, or persists in standing in slime, fire, void zones or odd rumbling ground, by all means drop them down the priority list compared to someone who is taking incidental damage but generally avoids getting hurt, but that person should still get heals if you have them available. Refusing to heal them at all, and worse, refusing to resurrect them, is just petty and wastes everyone’s time. Most of the time a person’s death causes problems for the rest of the group, making them work harder or making fights take longer, and it’s not fair to punish the group.

Go back to the golden rule: maximise the group’s performance. Even a DPS in fire is better than a dead DPS if you can spare the time to keep them alive.

My recommendation would be to whisper the person to explain what went wrong and how to avoid it, and to point out that you have a lot of people to heal and they’re occupying an unreasonable amount of your time. I’d suggest that most people are not (contrary to popular belief) self-centred, Recount-obsessed, mouth-breathing morons who couldn’t avoid a void zone if their life depended on it, but may just not be aware that there’s a problem. Especially in 5-mans, less so in raids.

The Poison Nova on the Ick and Krick fight is a good example of this: many people don’t run away from this automatically, but when you ask them to run away next time (usually after they’ve died, but not always) most people are happy to take the suggestion on board. The culture in heroics in this half of WotLK tends to train DPS to ignore most boss abilities since they aren’t especially life-threatening, so it’s almost to be expected.

If someone’s either particularly recalcitrant, or so obnoxious you don’t want to play with them, you’re better off either attempting to vote kick them (you’re probably not the only person who feels that way), or just politely leaving the group and counting yourself lucky you escaped.

The take-away message would be that unless you’re going to try and explain to people why you’re letting them die, chances are they’ll just write you off as either a bad healer or someone spiteful who let them die for fun, and how will that teach them anything?

Having said all that I’ll admit that sometimes I do give in to the urge and underheal people. I’m only human after all, but I always feel bad about it afterwards!

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Last night my guild and I had the pleasure of valiantly coming to the aid of the Ruby Dragonflight and slaying the invading Halion and his Lieutenants. Well, my guild did that, I was stuck listening on Vent while reinstalling every patch since November 2008 (3.0.1 onwards) because the Blizzard repair tool got a bit overzealous, but I did get finished in time for the last half-dozen attempts and the kill.

I should point out that I’ve got a strategy here on this very site, updated with info from last night. That’s where the bulk of the information on the fight is, while this will just be some extra thoughts, tips and healer-centric comments.

Trash

I didn’t actually get to see the trash, but it was quietly pleasing to hear the “hmm, maybe we need to do something about those” after a very quick wipe on an early trash pull. Most of the pulls have tricks to them: some mobs have a stacking buff depending on proximity to others, for example, which means they need to be tanked apart.
I can’t offer many more details, except to warn anyone new to the encounter to pull carefully, separate big, scary-looking mobs, face everything away from the raid and CC whatever you can as a precaution. This is my default approach to new raids, which was, to my utmost disappointment, generally unnecessary even in Icecrown.

The Lieutenants

The biggest dangers posed by Baltharus are from the knockback and the stacking damage buff. Make sure you’ve cleared the space around him so no one can pull anything extra, and keep a close eye on Baltharus for his stack of Siphoned Might. A Brand on melee quickly gave him quite a large number of stacks and we lost a tank, so keep fingers on cooldowns.
The whirlwind got a mixed response, with some people claiming they didn’t notice it and others confirming that it exists and hurts. I’d suggest getting melee DPS to run out to begin with, and see what the damage is like on those people who’re slow (you know there’ll be some) to decide if it’s safe to let people stay in.

Saviana doesn’t need any special care from a healing perspective, since the things she does can be countered by the raid as a whole playing smart. You will need to watch her for the Enrage, which can be unpleasant if your hunters or rogues are slow to dispel it, and keep an eye on people who get Flame Beacon and will be conflagrated, since this hits pretty hard.
I’d suggest making sure healers are spread out, to avoid too many running away at once, as the only major organisational thing required.

Zarithrian is also not a terribly difficult encounter. Healers will need to be careful of their aggro when adds are spawning and tanks are controlling them. Priests with Fear Ward and Shaman with Tremor Totem should be working together to keep fear off the main tank, and preferably themselves as well.
The tanks in our 25-man were swapping at 3-4 stacks (once their debuff had faded), and the damage at low stacks is very weak, just don’t get lulled into a false sense of security, and be aware that it will change.

Halion

Ah, the bit I do know about first-hand.

Beforehand

The first question is probably how many healers to take. We used 7 for 25-man normal, although it could easily have been done with fewer. For 10-man it could probably be covered by two decent healers, but a third will add some wriggle room, especially in Phase 3. On heroic the healing load is significantly higher, so 7 on 25-man and 3 on 10-man would be necessary, I think. You could argue for taking a 4th healer for 10-man heroic, but usually this means your raid is taking too much hurt, not that you don’t have enough healers, so my advice would be to address that first.

Before pulling, you need to have a plan for Phase 3, and for dispelling. You will need to split your healers in Phase 3, so those people need to know who they are. One strong MT healer should be in each group, and the Twilight Realm group would benefit from a Resto Druid because of the aura, but the exact split isn’t as important as making sure it’s relatively even. Every healing class can dispel the Mark of Combustion/Consumption debuffs (Priests and Paladins can do magic, Druids and Shaman can do curses) so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Whether or not you assign someone to dispel the Marks or just leave it as free-for-all is a decision for your raid group to come to for itself. The benefit of a dedicated dispeller is that you don’t have multiple healers running around trying to cleanse people at the same time, but leaving it free-for-all can mitigate the impact of someone running out too far from the named dispeller. If you do assign a dispeller, give them a raid icon (and a macro to reapply it, DBM gets a bit mark-happy) so people know not to run to the opposite side.
If you’re planning on heavy use of Body and Soul, that priest would probably also be well-placed to dispel, which might simplify things.

Phase 1 and the Pull

First things first, know where your tank is pulling from and where he’s going to face the boss. If he’s inconsistent, nag him until he picks a position and sticks to it. The reason for this is that Halion cleaves and stuns with his tail, so you need to know where he’s going to be so you can get in and start healing right away.

Phase 1 is really just a bit of a warm-up. Don’t get over-excited and twitch-dispel the unusual debuff that’s just popped up on your rogue (not that I put a flame patch under the melee by accident, of course not… /nonchalant) and keep an eye on where the Meteor is going to hit (melee can find it tricky to see the rune on the ground, especially under things like Consecration) and life should be fairly straightforward.

Phase 2

When he gets to 75%, move to the portal but don’t click it until you can see that the tank for Phase 2 has already gone. This applies to everyone, not just healers. We lost way too many people who went down immediately and found they had aggro, or that the tank hadn’t had time to turn Halion away.
Because of the aggro-drops when taking portals, and the delays caused by zoning between Realms, we left a tank and healer in the Physical Realm twiddling their thumbs so that the tank was ready to pick Halion up immediately when Phase 3 began. It’s not a fun job, but it is useful.

The Twilight Realm is more interesting. The AoE damage aura, Dusk Shroud feels roughly equivalent to normal Sindragosa: the average tick was a shade over 2k, which isn’t really enough to stress people out, although I suspect it will be much more of a factor on heroic.

The other big thing from a healing perspective is the requirement to heal on the run when Twilight Cutter is active. On normal mode it’s not too difficult to avoid this if you watch for the emote and then run to a position just behind where the beam will turn up (you have 5 seconds to move, and as of today DBM will show a cast timer for this to help out), and if you’re lucky you might not need to move again since the beam only sweeps out about 90 degrees.
Remember to account for latency when you move though: the beam may not be exactly where you think it is if you have high-ish latency, and the damage extends a yard or so either side of the actual animation, so give it a bit of respect, like you did for Yogg-Saron’s clouds.

The biggest problems we had in here from a healing perspective tended to be tank deaths due to healers moving or being dead. There’s not much we can do about Cutter deaths (although a bubble might make the difference if someone clips the edge of the beam, since it’s a number of very quick hits, not one big hit), people just need to learn to look up at the world and dodge.

You’ll probably blow Bloodlust/Heroism at the beginning of this phase.

Phase 3

I was mostly in the Twilight Realm for this week, so I can’t tell you too much about life upstairs. Really though you have all the information you need since nothing has really changed from Phase 1/2, although since there will be fewer healers in each Realm every healer should be watching out for the tank in case the “tank healer” has to move at the wrong moment.

The other adaptation your raid can make to make your life easier, especially as a Physical Realm healer, is to stop DPS at the transition and let the Physical Realm DPS and healers get through the portal and into position. Otherwise it’s quite possible to push Halion to high Corporeality very quickly and make the tank take double damage before healers are ready. Count to 5, or 10, whatever works for your raid, then start DPS again.

A good general tip is to have someone watch the Corporeality counter and call for DPS pauses as appropriate to keep damage under control.

Overall

Really the point to emphasise is that this is a survival fight with high mobility and awareness requirements. You will need to be aware of the area around you, and be ready to move if necessary. You should also be able to change your healing rotation to keep healing on the move, especially for the Twilight Realm and even more especially on heroic.

Other info

Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket posted a couple of PowerAuras exports for the debuffs you need to run away with. You can modify them to suit your needs, but they’re a good quick starting point.

PlusHeal also has an entire forum dedicated to this, albeit with only two posts at the moment.

Derevka at Tales of a Priest has a guide to heroic 10-man from a healer’s perspective, which is highly recommended reading.

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I have a few chunkier posts in the works, including looking at Heroic Sindragosa and levelling in the middle levels, but since they’re not done and there’s been a bit of a gap lately, here’s a quick comment on the new Circle of Healing Podcast.

Recently Dawn Moore (WoW.com’s healing priest columnist and Disc Priest), Matt Low (a.k.a Matticus, of World of Matticus, the sadly-neglected NoStockUI and WoW.com), and Kinaesthesia of the US guild Vodka released the first two editions of their new healing podcast. I had a listen through the episodes and wanted to give my thoughts.

If you prefer to make up your own mind before reading other people’s thoughts, you can find an introduction and download links at World of Matticus. Just remember that these are very early episodes.

The first thing to say is that it’s great to have another way to access information on healing. The podcast is quite accessible, and wisely tends to steer clear of trying to present complex technical information in an audio medium, while still giving a fairly in-depth discussion of the healing issues and topics. It’s also a good way to keep up to date with the big upcoming changes for healers and their implications, although it’s not aiming to be a news-focused show.

However it’s early days and it’s very much not a finished product yet, which unfortunately shows. The golden rule for content creation (blogs, podcasts, videos, anything like that) is to produce the first three, file them quietly away, and begin your public releases with the fourth one. The thing is that there will be technical issues, stylistic shifts and just a general development of personal interactions in the first few episodes, and in theory these will settle down by episode 4. You can always re-record and re-use the content later.

For example, in the first podcast Kinaesthesia had trouble being heard on the VoIP solution they were using for the podcast, something which the listener probably didn’t need to be made so acutely aware of.
The presenters also seemed a little uncertain about when to speak, wary of talking over each other, and the exchanges felt a little stilted. Some podcasts get over this by having a parallel text chat (inaudible to the microphones) running for cueing, but whatever means you choose, this is something you can best hammer out in the early episodes before you go public.

The other thing that bothered me a lot about the podcast was that the presenters, Matt in particular, seemed to be doing other things during the recording. At one point Matt had to have a question repeated because he wasn’t aware what he was responding to, sounding like he just wasn’t listening. Edit it cleverly if you like, but at least maintain the illusion that the presenters are paying attention to the discussion and each other.

I suppose this is partly a stylistic thing, and some people will undoubtedly enjoy the quirky, slightly haphazard, frequently tangential and very laid-back approach, it’s just not what I prefer to listen to.

The final caveat I have is that all three presenters are Priests, one Holy and two Discipline (although Matt plays both), with limited experience of other classes. Hopefully they will settle soon on whether they will just stick to Priests or incorporate other classes as regular guest presenters, otherwise I fear that they may struggle for credibility a bit.

Wow, that sounded pretty rough! It’s not all bad by any means.

By the second episode all the technical niggles seemed to have been ironed out and the discussion of the new Priest talent trees was quite interesting, with a more fluid and informative discussion taking place. The listeners’ questions section also promises to be quite valuable, once people are submitting questions for real.

Dawn, Matt and Jerome (Kinaesthesia) are people who are playing their healers at quite a high level, with a good understanding of the class, so it is a valuable resource, and definitely one to keep an eye on.

On the whole I expect the podcast to settle down from here, and the presenters to get into their stride, so I’d recommend keeping an eye out for future episodes. There’s great potential in a healing podcast, and the niggles I have are really more superficial than deal-breaking.

The website is still under development as I write this, but the links from World of Matticus will let you listen the first couple of episodes for yourself.
The podcast is also apparently on iTunes under the Video Games section of Games and Hobbies, or if you prefer regular RSS there’s a feed as well.

Oh, final point of feedback, please make the volume louder and better-normalised on the mp3. I found I had to turn it up very high to hear, and then someone’s laugh will be almost deafening. Small point, but being able to hear the podcast over traffic is handy!

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It’s about this time in the WoW expansion cycle that my mind inevitably turns to alts. Why? I’m not sure. I think it’s the sense of progression I get from levelling up and acquiring gear, spells and power, as well as the lack of pressure and time limits: no one’s forcing me to conform to a timetable or level at a certain rate, and it’s quite liberating.

But which class?

I already have a Shaman, Druid, Paladin, 2 Priests and a Warlock (every family has a black sheep, after all).

The trouble is, I’m not a fan of pure DPS classes. I find the kill-it-quick-before-it-can-kill-you playstyle a bit of a challenge, even though I know that, objectively, DPS classes have an easier time levelling.

I’ve also never quite got the hang of melee DPS either. I find it hard to feel immersed in the action unless I have the camera zoomed in fairly close, and then I feel blinkered because I can’t see behind me.

Long story short: I decided to roll yet another Priest. And because that’s the sort of person I am, I’m levelling Holy (again).

Don’t you get bored?

The short answer is no! Each time I’ve picked a different race, across both factions, and have been effectively playing a different game each time.

When I was levelling Malevica, way back in mid-2007, the Burning Crusade had only been out about 8 months, and the Black Temple was new content. Levelling back then was a very different proposition from my second Priest, who was a child of Wrath, but who didn’t have any of those fancy heirlooms to help her level.

And this time around I’m not only in a full set of heirlooms, but I’m also able to take advantage of the changes to the “introductory experience” and the quest objectives tracker that came with Patch 3.3.0 in December 2009.
From the patch notes:

A number of changes have been made to World of Warcraft’s introductory experience, including updated character and class information at the character-selection screen, more robust tooltips with images, improved health and mana regeneration at lower levels, and adjustments to various classes designed to make it easier for players to get started. In addition, all-new quest-tracking features have been added to assist players in finding objectives, including new interface functionality in the quest log, the map (“M” key), and the Objectives pane.

So how are those changes working out?

Well, the updated character and class information is a small but useful improvement. It now puts class and race characteristics at the top of their respective boxes rather than below so you can glance across easily, and the class description lists primary stats (“Spell Power, Intellect and Spirit if healing”), which is helpful for a new player to know. Unfortunately for our Druidic and Shamanistic brethren and sistren (is that a word?) “their primary stats depend on their role”, which doesn’t help a new player much.

One little thing I do miss, and I have no idea when it disappeared, is the little button to generate a random name. I know, I know, I should spend hours coming up with a name that fits my character, but it’s much easier to pick a suitable-sounding name from a list than try and make something up.
Given the names I’m coming across in Elwynn Forest though, I suspect I’m largely alone in this.

Another big change is that all the mobs in the starting zones are now yellow, so they won’t attack you unless attacked and they won’t link. I don’t recall dying much in the starter zones before, but I suppose if you’re really new to this sort of thing, getting a bit more time to get to grips with the interface is of benefit.

The final change I want to talk about is the change to mana and health regeneration. Both of these have been massively boosted (outside combat) for the very low levels. From the PTR patch notes at the time:

Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player’s level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15.

Great, so you don’t need to worry about eating and drinking along with all the other things that you need to get to grips with at low levels. But wow, did I ever get myself in trouble around level 12 when that gradual reduction started to bite. From regenning all my mana between mobs, I very quickly found myself with almost no mana regen at all, and it caught me out on more than one occasion, pulling with only a couple of Smites in the tank and then whacking things with my staff until they died.

I like the feature, but please, please signpost this better! If I spend 10 levels getting used to something, it’s rough to take it away without warning. And the slope could benefit from some flattening too, the transition from infinite mana to permanently running on fumes felt like only a level or two.

Talent choices

By level 15 I’ve amassed an almighty 6 talent points to spend. Looking at the talent trees, frankly I’m underwhelmed with Holy and Discipline. I know I’ll need to spend some points there sooner or later, because the higher talents are so delicious, but for now I want to boost my power.

The best place for the first 3 points is probably Spirit Tap . The first half of the tooltip is what we’re interested in with Spirit Tap. Doubling your spirit gives a big boost to your mana regeneration, helping you to recover for the next mob. The second part helps if you’re pulling multiple mobs, or pulling mobs in quick succession.
Improved Spirit Tap is quite a lot weaker, because it doesn’t boost your spirit much, mobs won’t live long enough to make a short period of increased regeneration worth it, and it relies on spell critical strikes. Your crit rating is likely to be pretty low, so you’ll not see much benefit from this one.

Other than that, your choice of points is pretty much free. I’d recommend sticking with the Holy tree for a while, until you can get to Divine Fury, but your choice from Tier 1 depends strongly on whether you’re going solo PvE/questing or going to be instancing your way to 80. For solo play, Holy Specialisation is probably the better choice, while a dungeoneer might prefer to boost their healing output with Improved Renew and Healing Focus.

Glyphs

At level 15 the first two of your glyph slots opens up: one major and one minor.

Major Glyphs at level 15:

Minor Glyphs at level 15:

For Minor glyphs there’s not much to be excited about. You’re probably more likely to case PW:F, so I’d recommend that one.

For Major glyphs you have a choice depending on your playstyle and where you think you’re weak. I’d recommend the Glyph of Smite for soloing, because although Holy Fire is a level 20 spell, your next Major glyph slot doesn’t open up until level 30. You can always use another glyph in the meantime.
If you prefer instancing, consider either the Glyph of Renew if you’re needing a boost on tanks or Glyph of Power Word: Shield if you’re finding yourself healing the non-tanks more often.

How’s that toolbox looking?

These first few levels actually give Priests quite a versatile toolkit already. We have a HoT, a direct heal, a shield, a DoT, two direct damage spells, a resurrection, two buffs (albeit one self-only), a dispel, a panic button (Psychic Scream) and the slightly out-of-place Fade.

Low levels are characterised by Smite spam, primarily, with Mind Blast thrown in if you can spare the mana. Shadow Word: Pain is probably too expensive to be worth using at very low levels, since it costs one and a half times as much as a Smite for about the same damage, and you probably won’t use the full duration anyway.
Once you get Power Word: Shield, this becomes the opener before every pull. It’s not cheap, but no pushback on spells means fights go so much more smoothly. Plus, often I found that a PW:S absorbed all the damage a mob could do to me before it died, especially once I got Inner Fire (armour affects the size of the hit before absorbs are taken into account, so you absorb more, smaller hits with IF up).

Fade is an anomaly here, slightly at odds with the simplification of the game at low levels. You get given it at level 8, but since it has zero effect in solo play, and you can’t enter dungeons until the early teens, and no one really manages aggro in Ragefire Chasm anyway, I’m puzzled that it’s not given to us a bit later, nearer level 20 or so when dungeons become a bigger part of the experience.

Anyway, let’s check up on our Priestly toolkit so far. New spells are in green so we can track the evolution of the Priest.

Any other tips?

Here goes:

• Don’t worry too much about Shadow Word: Pain. It’s just not worth the mana at low levels.
• When you get to around level 10, go buy yourself some Ice Cold Milk from an Innkeeper or drink vendor. You’ll be needing it soon.
• If you can afford it, pick up a wand when you pass through a city. Enchanters make loads of Lesser Magic Wands and Greater Magic Wands as they skill up, so supply tends to be high. Wanding for the last few seconds of a fight saves you mana from casting a big spell on something almost dead, and gets you into the not-casting, higher regeneration period earlier, so you’ll have more mana for the next fight.
• When you get to level 11 or 12 and you’re done with your faction’s area, consider skipping Westfall/Barrens/Silverpine/etc and instead heading off to either the Blood Elf or Draenei intermediate zone instead. Because they were introduced in The Burning Crusade, they benefited from much neater quest locations and flow, and tend to give more appropriate and useful rewards.
• If you’re thinking of taking up a gathering profession, go to your Capital and pick the profession up early. Once you get to the level 12-20 zones you’ll find the starter nodes are more sparse and the next rank of nodes require skills of 50+

 

Next time

Level 15 opens up the random dungeon finder, so stay tuned for the fun and shenanigans!

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