Divine Plea is really hard to use in PvE
I took my paladin to a guild Naxxramas raid on the weekend, which was a nice change of pace – since Wrath came out I’ve been raiding primarily on my rogue. While I’ll happily run heroics in my hybrid spec I decided to go with something more traditional, though I must admit I actually forgot to put beacon on my hotbar until half-way through the second wing.
Serious business right? Thankfully Ring of Valor has prepared me well for not standing in various fires!
I got a few nice PvE upgrades, but not the second t7 piece I was hoping for – I’m still trying to complete my two piece bonus for arenas. I almost have enough emblems to buy the gloves or chest, though, so that’s an option if Archavon isn’t feeling benevolent this reset.
Raid healing has quite a different atmosphere to raid DPS, I find. Although you have the constant stress of people dying if you fail to perform, you don’t have the same optimization problems that DPS classes have. On my rogue every boss is a competition, even if it’s just against my previous personal best. There’s always room for improvement.
On a healer, if nobody dies, you’ve pretty much done your job. I’m not convinced the healing meters (especially the overhealing ones, hi beacon) are especially relevant or useful. Once you have enough intellect to not go OOM, enough throughput to keep up with Hateful Strike – well, gear evaluation becomes a largely academic exercise.
The positioning factor and the somewhat dynamic triage aspects (or “whack a mole” if you prefer) of healing are pretty entertaining though. Maybe I just needed a change from 4s/4e CttC rotations?