A few trees (and only one is a druid)

Well I took my first crack at all of the healing trees.  I don’t mean to say I’ve played them all but from my experience I know what I like to choose and what I don’t like to choose.  To be honest I really don’t do a lot of experimentation with my talents.  I would love to hear what differences you may have made although with even fewer points to spread around and some new limitations on spreading your points out, they may be minimal.

To begin, I’d like to go over a few of the general guidelines I like to use.

Gameplay
I don’t PvP so this is definitely not one of my considerations.  Although I do solo in order to level my characters, I don’t have a special spec for leveling.  I’ve actually found it quite safe and cozy to level in my healing spec since it is fairly hard for a non-elite mob to take down a healer. Besides, with the invention of dual specs I can just use a DPS class if I’m in a hurry. So the target here is dungeons (I haven’t been raiding in awhile).

Passive Abilities
So yeah, I’m lazy.  Anything that helps me without me having to take action, take advantage of a proc or think about it in anyway is awesome.  I wouldn’t say that I have tunnel vision but I don’t have Dominos or any other mods that let me move everything around. On top of that, I like watching the Healbot bars go up and dowm (the former more so than the latter).

Extra Spells or Enhancements
I do like having more tools in my toolkit. You may think this contradicts my laziness but a whole new spell is nice and I like it when the spells do more without any extra effort from me.  I will also put free haste and crit into this category.

Taking Aggro and Being Attacked
Um, no. That’s protflashes job and I don’t PvP.  If for some strange and unimaginable reason I do die then I stay quiet and let protflashes take the blame.  She so readily likes to say she’s sorry, even if it was my fault. :)

DPS
Despite Blizzard’s attempt to push healers to DPS, I still don’t want to. I mean I tried doing some of that with my Shaman but I much prefer to be ready for the unexpected. That means not being mid-cast on a lightning spell. I don’t mind doing the occasional shock (interrupts are cool because they save me healing time) and a hex here or there (once again, one less dude doing damage that I don’t have to heal). But DPS for the sake of DPS doesn’t really suit me and that’s why I play a healer.

That’s the short and sweet of my guidelines.  As much as I love to be meticulous and detailed, I really don’t fret over every last point. Now for some screenshot from Wowhead.

Druid

Druid - Resto

There seemed to be a lot of places to put points in the resto tree. Anyway, I’m still a little sour at losing my tree form and didn’t see a lot of benefit yet in increasing the effects from my shapeshifting (especially since I’ll probably forget to go into tree form at all). The shapeshifting isn’t so passive anymore. I also left out points for a few damage items (dealing and taking).

Paladin

Paladin - Holy

Again, I left out the Exorcism points right off the bat. Although I had Divine Protection and Hand of Sacrifice configured in Healbot, I never really used them so I also left out “Paragon of Virtue”. And I’m not getting hit so I left out Blessed Life. I do like the idea of a free heal with the new Word of Glory spell and I tried it a few times (not in a dungeon but just roaming around) and I think it will suit me fine.

Just a side note before I continue. Do me a favour and read the text for Conviction and imagine a crazy healadin running into to combat with the other paladins. I can’t help but laugh as I see my little dwarf up there in melee swinging his mace like a madman.

Shaman

Shaman - Resto

The paladin and shaman are beginning to look more and more alike. One of the things that leads me to this conclusion is the push to use shocks. I left the points out of Focused Insight just because I liked the looks of Elemental Weapons and Improved Shields. I might change this around sometime in the future though. The remaining items were all damage related. I also really like the idea of an Ancestral Awakening. Sounds pretty cool and means I can heal people without even knowing it. :) Bonus!

Okay, I saved the priest for last because I did both trees.

Priest – Discipline

Priest - Disco

There were a few tough decisions here. Moving around a little faster with Inner Sanctum good be advantageous but I was never that bad at positioning. I did, however, have a hard time with Loken at first and may respec for that dungeon but I’m pretty sure I got it now! Rapture also seemed quite useful but then I remembered my obsessiveness in never letting the shield just die out; I usually have the thing renewed with a couple seconds left. After those decisions, the rest was easy.

Priest – Holy

Priest - Holy

I felt a little weird not taking any points from the Holy tree when I did up the Discipline tree so I tried not to borrow here too. I would say that Mental Agility may have been useful but I did end up taking a few points in Twin Disciplines for a base healing bonus. I also left points out of Test of Faith but that is because of my ego…..when do I ever let people get under 50% health. Come on!

Anyway, the trees have changed since I picked my original specs (at least I noticed changes to the druid and paladin trees) so these may not be final. Nothing is after all. I would like to hear your opinions because I don’t play nearly enough attention to notice the differences.

The new talent trees (aka 4.0)

Well, well, well.

I’ve been reviewing my trees and have pretty much settled on the specs for all my healer toons. I’m not really sure what to think yet.

The only char I’ve healed with in any capacity since the update was my shaman. It went smoothly. I avoided the shock and lightning bolt talents. After discovering that I couldn’t oom even if I tried, I was happy with those choices. I’m sure things will be different in the 80+ dungeons though.

I was really disappointed with the fact that I won’t be seeing my tree form as much on my druid. Can I even call her my tree anymore? I haven’t loaded up this char yet but I can say that it will take some getting used to. I won’t recognize the sprite for the first little while because I rarely had the char in Tauren form. Oh well. I understand the forms are buzzing so maybe Blizzard will change their minds yet; I hope they do.

I still need to try out my other chars but here’s hoping they feel just as good as my shammy.

Savethefails