Bibbity Bobbity Blappity Bliip

I've never known what it was like to be loved


...Or wanted
...Or needed
...As a healer

And I really wish I'd never learned. Every bumfuck guild on my server is apparently recruiting shamans, and by the number of whispers I get, I'm the only unguilded one. After completely ignoreing what must have been the fifth person to say, "my guild is recruiting shammys r u interested?!?", I learned what it is like to be "needed" by a twelve year old that thinks he can run a raiding guild. If you randomly see me in Dalaran and whisper me about joining your guild out of the blue, I'm going to flat out ignore you. If you just invite me to your guild without any notice or conversation, I won't just ignore you, I'll say mean things and then ignore you. On the same token, if you politetly introduce yourself as the GM or Class lead, or whatever of a guild, and be professional about asking me to apply to your guild, I might give you the time of day. A guild is a place for, in my opinion, two things. Meeting and making new friends and being social, and getting a group of people together that can play professionally to get down content. It isn't a place that you log on for two hours or whatever to raid and then go back to do what you were doing, it's a place to socialize but at the same time play the game at the level you want. Which means that you have to invest time into the guild. Time is something people take seriously, and if some no-name person expects anyone to join their guild after "hey join my guild lol" they are, how should I put this politely, fucking retarded.

-End Rant

Happy Happy Fun Time!!
Now that the rant is over, I just realized that I've never explained why my site is named totem healz. I've gotten, "because ur a shaman and u have totems and your a healer", or even, "cause shamans have totems and they is uber coolz so thats why!". No, that isn't the reason at all. The story takes place in my first "raiding" guild in WotLK, which is where I meet some of the coolest people on the planet. We were in OS 10, coming onto the first dragon guy that you kill, and myself, along with the pally healer of the guild were sorta just chillin, not doing much healing wise. As we are standing infront of the boss, I decide that it's time to go get something to drink without telling anyone. I do however, drop my Healing Stream Totem just to be safe. They go in, start smacking the dragon with their tiny little swords or whatever other weapon tickles your fancy, and they notice that I'm not doing anything. They die because the pally went into the portal to kill the guys in their, and I obviously wasn't there to heal the tank. We wipe, I get back to a very angry vent that is yelling at me for not telling them I was AFK. I, being the complete jackass that I am, say, "Well I dropped my totem, thats all the healing I need to do. Maybe you guys just suck!". We proceed to kill all the bosses and get some phat lootz, and I log for the night. I come back online the next day, which happened to be a Wednesday, and noticed that I couldn't even acces the guild bank to see if we needed any leather. Well WTF is going on? I whisper the Co-GM, one of the coolest people I know, and she laughs and says look at my guild rank. It read, Healz with Totems. I stayed at that rank for about a month before I got put back to my semi-officer position. So that's the less than comical story of a less than comical site written by a person that thinks he's funny, but really probably isn't.

Definition of the Day- Bibbity Bobbity Blappity Bliip: The sound one makes when getting hit over the head with an imaginary penis while passed on a sidewalk in Detroit.

Names to live by

And now, let your heart relax, and your mind wander as you are serenaded by the sweet sweet lullaby of, Skullfucking gorilla and the pussycats.

Titles have been a part of WoW since almost, if not for sure, the beginning of the game. You had your PvP titles, of which I am a proud owner, and that was basically it. Then with TBC, you got raiding titles, arena titles and all that fun stuff. Through both of those versions of the game, we never saw class specific titles that everyone of a certain class could get. In comes WotLK, and my heart prays for a class specific title. I got shot down like the dude Dick Chaney shot in the face. Not only did we not get class specific titles, we got titles for stupid things. I understand that cooking is a bitch to level, and it isn't fun, but if I learn the cooking skill aren't I already a chef without having to get to a certain level or number of recipes?

I feel like each class should have it's own, unique title that fits the style and lore of the class, so here's my attempts at a few.

Druid- (name), the Ever Nurturing
Deathknight- (name), Nightmare of the Living
Hunter- (name), The Watchful Sentinel
Shaman- (name), The Elemental Protector
Warrior- ,(name) The noble defender
Priest- (name), Cleric of the Faithful
Paladin- (name), Fist of the Holy
Rogue- (name), The whispering death
Mage- (name), Wizard of the First Order
Warlock- (name), Corruption of Mortality

I'm not entiretly happy with some of these, but all in all I think they would fit their class really well, and give people that don't like any of the current titles, or people that can't get the ones they like due to their requirements a nice alternative.

Gobble Gobble bitches

HAPPY TURKEY COMA DAY!!!

Yeah I know that I'm early, but this was the last chance I had to post anything before I started to help cook for tomorrow. So, deal with me being early.

Also, moar news!
I wanted to post a new picture of my UI because I changed it around a little and I love to new set up. I tried having grid to the side, but I kept missing orbs in ToGC and it just wasn't working out that well. The new set up works great, and I've noticed that I don't get smacked by orbs with it at the bottom.

That is all.

Eat turkey.
Be Happy.

Kick your aunts ass at monopoly for cheating last year.

Eat moar turkey.

Random post is random.

" "
Random is actually a new word I invented, meaning "crap" and "Stuff you only find interesting after not sleeping for nearly 3 days"
1. According to about 12 online tests, I am partially color blind. Yay for me!
2. Sticking your face into your dogs and blowing air into her face is only good if she isn't part wolf
3. Troll warlocks would be the coolest thing ever created
4. Healing with the D-pad of an N52 te es no bueno
5. Pendulum the band is now also Pendulum the sleeping pill
6. If I meet a person in real life that played a haste stacking shaman I would punch him in the lips

Also, if you slap someone across the face so hard that you break their jaw, is there really any proof you did anything?

P.S. Getting a camera glitch that zooms you in and out really fast is fun yet trippy
P.S.S Talking with a fake accent on ventrilo is fun when a person has the accent you are trying to imitate
P.S.S.S I am going to keep writing P.S's until you go away
P.S.S.S.S K this is the last one.

Bleep Blaap.

Boredom + OCD + No life= Why I am writing another post.

I've been putsing around the last couple days, getting my ass kicked by work and various other odd named people, and I decided that I needed to do a write up on the state of shamans as a class, and more specifically, as a healer.

Now, a few notes to make before you read this and call your friends to talk about the crazy blogger that apparently notices everything that goes on on his screen without losing his mind. Well, if you make that call, you'd be a dirty little liar, because I was never right in the head in the first place. Moving on...

As a class, I think shamans are one of the most interesting, and fun to play. We have totems, a mechanic that no other class has anything even remotely close too, and we have, in my opinion, the most buffs to bring to a raid. Totems aren't buffs, I don't care, go shove it up your butthole.

As a healer however, shamans are in a seemingly awkward place. When assigned to tank healing, we will usually get beat by our paladin or disc priest counterparts, and the same is true for raid healing, though our competition is now druids and holy priests. What people don't notice, and what even many shaman healers don't realize, is the depth a shaman healer has.

Take one of our most useful, and one of my favorite spells: Earth Shield. Earth shield is like a priest bubble having babies with a druid HoT that was really, really ugly. It doesn't absorb damage, but rather heals on a melee or spell hit. But it also decreases spell pushback, something most healers don't consider when using Earth Shield. In fights like Faction Champs in ToC, I will usually put ES on the other healer to help him out. As I am often running 25's with more that 2 other resto shamans, my ES is better served on another healer.

Near or before the release of WotLK, shamans were given a new weapon enhancement called Earthliving. Earth Shield, Earthliving, Earth shock, apparently shamans are geologists or some crazy earth sexing up freak, IDK. Most shamans view Earthliving as just a spell power boost, which it is, but it is so much more than that. You have a near 100% chance to apply EL when a target is low on health, applying a decent HoT. Most shamans think, "Oh, my EL is always over heal, its so useless", well then your a dip, because it isn't. The way my healing done is displayed, all of my EL hits are grouped up. Is 5000 healing done for a HoT I don't actively apply useless? Sure El won't count for a huge portion of your healing, but it's a nice little buffer on people that were low, or on the tank you're focused on.

On to a shamans role in a raid. I've heard people say we are strictly tank healers, and strictly raid healers. People that say we are "strictly" anything don't honestly understand shamans at all. Glyphed correctly, a shaman can compete aggressively with paladins on tank healing, and druids on raid healing. But more importantly that talents or glyphs to be effective on those two fronts, shamans need to gear slightly differently for those two tasks. Many people will say haste is more important for raid healing, and even tank healing, well I whole-heartidly disagree with that. With 4pc t9 and raid buffs, my CH has nearly a 50% chance to crit. That counts to all of the jumps, not just the initial heal. With TW, my LHW has nearly a 70%, if not higher chance to crit. All of your crits heal an additional 30% of the effective/overheal. If I crit with CH for lets say 22k, my AA proc will hit for 6600. Sure I could make that up if I had a ridiculous amount of haste, but I don't target anyone for AA, and it's another on of those nifty smart heals that shamans are known for. And on the note of tank healing, shamans are extremely effective. Some people think, "no, we r teh needin pally for teh tankz!". Well, learn to speak english, and then look at a shaman without any bias. A HW, will usually hit for ~13k, and crit for nearly 20k. A crit will then proc AA which will hit for ~6k, and when the tank is taking most of the damage, it will go to him. Let's not forget AH procs on crit. 10% damage reduction on a tank, and a large portion of the raid is amazing.

Throughout writing this, I keep thinking that I haven't really talked about CH as much as people expect shamans too. CH is an amazing spell, but Shamans are flexible even with our limited spell pool. So what is the state of the shaman? In my opinion, the state of the shaman is right where it should be. Do we top healing charts? No, but if that really makes you sad you shouldn't be a healer. The state of the shaman is an amazing healer, with more depth than most people give us credit, and the ability to excel at any task given to us as a healer.

This wall o text brought to you by-Trade Chat Spammers: If you would only buy of wares we could feed our families and then piss the shit out of you in raids instead of trade chat.

The not so summer slump.

I don't know if it's just my guild, or maybe just the younger crowd, but I can't count the times I've seen serious raiders miss a raid because they were playing MWF2 or L4D2. The fall slump is sneaky, and it likes to kick you in the pants when you aren't looking. We've lost around 5 or 6 members because we can't get a raid because half of our regulars are playing something else. I can't say that I haven't even been guilty of this, but I know that when I join a guild I'm accepting a responsibility to them, and I don't let the awesomeness of L4D2 get in the way of that. Long and the short of it, I have to start looking for a new guild because of two things: 1) After going to the hospital for staying awake for nearly 70 hours, I am no longer capable of raiding at 2 am two nights in a row 2) We haven't been able to raid in nearly two weeks and I'm sick of it. 3) Seeing t10 on a draenei makes me cry inside... it looks horrible.

This garden fence brought to you by- The GSAA: Because someone needs to be aware when you are being skullfucked by a gorilla.

Gorilla skullfucking awareness association... cmon guys, work with me.

Y=2h

Yeah, I just slapped some math right in your face, deal with it. That really isn't math, it's how I address what I like to call, "A healers healer". All healers know that tanks have a healer that they always run with, and same goes for healers with a tank they always run with. Now, this could be because they are your friend, your significant other, or even just someone you like and know will perform. But what about who other healers like to have by their side chucking heals at the raid? Well, I know that I for one have people that I like to run with more that some others. The two other main healers in my guild are a druid and a paladin, both great people and great players. When I'm sitting waiting for raid invites to start, I pray that those two will be with me because I know that we won't have any problems. If I get hit by a kobold on the Northrend Beast encounter, I know that when I call out in vent that I'm locked out, the other two healers will cover my assignment until I'm able to cast, and the same goes if they got locked out. Not only do I know that they will perform, I know that we will be able to critique each other if we see something wrong and neither of us will get mad and, "STFU NUB I R 2 ROFLSTOMP U". If you're a healer, or especiallyl a tank, you need to count on the healers around you to do their job so that you don't have to over work and eventually die or run out of mana and all that non fun stuff.

A few ways that I've learned of to help a fellow healer get comfortable with you is to talk to them. Weird right? Talking, this new fangled idea that someone invented! If you joke around on vent, or guild chat or even in whispers the healer in question will be trusting of you, and able to perform better when in a raid situation.

I know for myself, the more healers I can count on, the more relaxed I am in a raid. I don't have to worry about keeping everyone up because someone isn't doing a good job, I can handle my assignment and if another healer needs it, I'm more than willing to help out.

This wall o' text brought to you by:Tanks-Thanks for standing there and getting slapped in the face by a huge ass demon fucker while we chuck fireballs at it, couldn't have done it without you!.

The problem with shamans.

Shamans have a few problems, just like everybody else. Sure, ours don't include homicidal tendencies(deathknights) or an affinity for shooting things in the face for funnsies(hunters), but we do have our problems. Shamans are, by nature, a very versatile class. We can heal very effectively, and have two methods of dealing massive amounts of damage. However, our problem comes from the way we do all of these things. Shamans, unlike most hybrid classes that heal, dps, or even tank, have a small amount of spells to do each of these tasks. For example, hunters have multiple shots that they use depending on the fight, they have traps, their pets etc. A shamans dps rotation consists of four spells, almost always the same no matter the encounter. A priest has many,many spells to use in different healing encounters. They have instant AoE spells, party only healing spells, and damage mitigation spells. A shaman has four spells for healing, with one of them rarely used these days. As of right now, it sounds like all I am doing is complaining, "Oh boohoo, us poor shamans are so hated". But that isn't the case, I'm merely laying the foundation so that we can explore possible solutions.

DPS Solution #1- This solution is actually already in the making, with the introduction of the new Fire Nova spell coming in patch 3.3. The solution is this: Provide shamans more variety and freedom with the spells they are using by taking off the element specific nature of enhancement dps. Stormstrike is arguably the most important spell in a shamans rotation. If provides a significant buff to our nature spells, and hits relatively hard. Unfortunately, this nature specific buff pigeon holes enhancement shamans into use Earth Shock, and not being able to pursue other styles of dps. It would also be a welcome change in tactics if the Maelstrom Weapon effect actually affected Lava Burst. To make this solution viable, a good amount of re-working would have to go in to ensure that shamans dps did not dip, or skyrocket to the point of unfairness.

Healing Solution #1- A good way to remedy the problem at hand, would be to add new spells to a shamans healing repertoire. With the other healing classes with their own, very class defining spells, this solution runs the risk of further homogenization. However, I think that blizzard has put shamans the on right track to a specific, different style of healing. With the way shamans heal, targets have to be bunched up to receive a Chain Heal, and our other spells have a high enough mana cost that it sometimes isn't wise to use anything else other than Chain Heal. One remedy that I thought of was something on the lines of a hybrid of a priest lightwell and a druids tranquility. An on cooldown, placeable totem that would heal the targets party members for X% over lets say six seconds. So to clarify, if I was in group two, and my target was in group one, I would place a totem either on the ground, on the targets back or something along those lines and it would heal the target and this party members for a set amount of healing as a HoT.

Those are only two of the various possible solutions that blizzard could introduce to provide shamans with more variety in all aspects of the game. Of course, most other classes would need a rework of there spells, as pigeon-holing and lack of variety is a plague effecting almost every class.
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Ok so this has nothing to do with what I said above, but it needs to be said for all shamans out there. When in a raid, during a boss battle, in the heat of combat, WE DONT FUCKING LOOK AT OUR RAID CHAT TO SEE YOU CRYING FOR HEROISM!!!!!!!!! For fucks sakes, if I have to see, "lol we didn't even use hero... fail shaman nub" one more time I might just have a psychotic break and go on a killing spree. It isn't even the fact that you asked for heroism or that we might have killed the boss with it, it's the fact that you expect me, the person making sure you live through the encounter, TO BE LOOKING AT A LITTLE BOX OF TEXT WHILE PEOPLE ARE DYING. My solution to these problem is to design a program that comes with every chat addon, that will give someone a 50,000 volt shock through their keyboard every time, "AMAGAWD HERO" or something stupid like that is said in raid chat. Or you could just say that if hero isn't called for in vent you won't pop it, but I like my idea better.

Dun dun DUN!

Today, we are going to talk a short hop away from restoration, and a quick drop to SRZ TOWN.

I've discovered something so annoying, so fucking stupid and idiotic, that I am at a lose for words.
-"Then how are you writing this?"
For one, fuck you its a figure of speech, and two, I'm writing this because I have anger problems and I like to use my weak, unknown blog to whine about it.

The problem I have has nothing to do with WoW, or any game for that matter, it has to do with the system you play it on. My problem, is programs not having an option to either wide pop-ups, not minimize the current program on pop-ups, or get rid of them all together. I was raiding yesterday night, having a good time, destroying the other resto shaman in the raid and just fucking around. As we pull trash, I get kicked out of WoW by my spysweeper program. /oh noes! Right? No, not oh noes, it wanted my to run a sweep because I hadn't in a week. Could you not wait like an hour? I hope back into WoW, and completely forget about it. Until... It asks me to do it again, in the middle of Onyxia 25. I disable the program and hop back into WoW, dead of course, and start muttering curses under my breath. I get out of Ony, 2 badges richer, and head to AV to get some honor. And then what happens? My firewall program pops up to tell me an update is ready. MOTHER FUCKER I DON'T CARE. I disable all firewalls, virus scans, browsers, and pretty much every program not WoW, and keep on playing. I kid you not, my printer is the devil and it just knew, it fucking knew, just when to pop up telling me I had no ink. I don't think I've ever been that pissed off over something so small in my life. I plug pulled, took my printer downstairs and and put it in our den.

Does this post have any real value to read? No. But if you've ever seen the classic freak-out video, that was me nerd raging in my room about how incredible fucking stupid and annoying pop ups really are. I didn't happen to stick a remote up my ass, but I was pacing my room and throwing things. Also, I'm not a fifteen year-old kid with extreme emotional distress.

Double post. Double stu.... Oh wait.

Double post time! Zomg lol roflmao nub.
Acronyms= Bad mkay?
I was talking to one of my friends on her vent channel, and as we were talking, we began using acronyms for our healing spells(she also plays a resto shaman). This is all well and good, allowing us to talk faster, and because it is just a habit we both have. The real problem came up when another good friend of ours joined the channel and popped in to chat with us. He play's a resto druid, and obviously doesn't share the same acronyms that we do. As the conversation goes on, he starts to get really quiet. We have to ask him a question directly to get an answer. I ask him whats wrong, and I get one of those responses that you get when the person isn't really listening to you. He was sort of distant, rude almost and then wouldn't talk again. So, being the jerk that I am, I completely ignore him, and keep on talking. What happened over the next two minutes follows.

"No no no. You focus the tank, ES him, RT him for TW and spam lesser or chain depending."-Me
"That's what I try to do, but I have to weave lesser's in between chains and I use TW way to fast to notice. I probably need to track those lol"-Her
"Are you doing most AoE healing or a lot of tank? Cause that's what I do for tank but I do weave lesser's in between chains on like twins and stuff.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO TALKING ABOUT!? Fuck this, im going to go talk to people that fucking speak with words."-Him

He blew up. And I mean he flipped a lid and ranted for a good minute until we could get a word in. And honestly, I completely understand why he did it. How annoying is it to be in a conversation and have no idea what is going on? So we started talking with actual words, and he joined back in to awe us with the massive numbers of HPS he can do on twins 25 man.

Moral for today: No one knows the acronyms for other classes(or maybe I just don't pay attention enough, I don't care). So talk with words, you know, those things you've been using since the age of two.

I hate other people.
I do, I honestly really hate other people. I ran into something that bothered me so much, that I considered reporting at least twenty people for it. There was a conversation in trade chat on a realm I have a few alts on. I was chilling in Org, fiddling with a spec, and what do I see? A conversation on why black people, women, handicapped(physical I'm assuming) people and anyone else that was "different" should have to have a label on their character names so that guild/players could do whatever it is egotistical pricks do. I nearly flipped my lid. I was on vent with the afore mentioned people, and I say to them, "racist fucks like this are the reason I hate other people". How horrible of a person do you have to be to degrade and belittle people in a game? Do you get off on it or maybe you are just too stupid to realize what you're saying? I'm happy to say that I didn't get involved with it, calmly walked away and nearly broke vent because I was swearing so much.

Triple post...Suck it.
Yeah...suck it go-- Oh wait right, yeah sorry.
So I just quick wanted to trow in another UI post, just to go over something that I recently started to do, and have found in extremely useful.
If you can see, which you might not be able to as the alpha is set to about 10%, I have my condensed action bars devoid of any non-macro'd spells. I have everything set up to my mouse and modifier keys, and the buttons I do have on my bars are keys near enough to the WASD pad, that I can access them easily. I used to have all my cooldowns on my bars, and all my CC/damage spells on my vars too. Recently, I've mapped them all to my mouse. I've already gotten feedback that I do better when I play like these. Better use of cooldowns and trinkets, faster movement, and somehow, faster reaction times(I don't know about this last one, but I'll take whatever compliment I get). But, I did move my bar so that whatever spells are on there, are a quick twitch of the mouse away.

So that's it for today, I bet you are so glad that you spent a shit ton of time reading stuff that had nothing to do with anything! Leave now, I have stuffing to do, and some sucking.

Because originality is what I do best.

Nearly every healing blogger has seen, done, or read the meme that isn't a meme, and as I love to be original and do new things, I thought I would join the wagon. And, as no one knows about this blog and I don't have the energy to try and get people to, I'll just pretend that I got tagged.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Martik, restoration shaman.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Almost strictly 10 mans with a smattering of 25 man pugs.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Riptide. Oh blah blah Chain Heal, yeah I know it's a good spell, but riptide is by far my favorite due to the HoT and the increase to Chain Heal.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Wave. Don't get me wrong, this is an intense spell, but I usually forget to use it. /oh noes!

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Oh good lord could I get controversial with this one.Raid healing. Tank healing. Shamans are sort of the gimpy cousin of priests. We can raid heal and tank heal, but with Chain Heal, I would say raid healing is our strength.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Ugh. I really don't know.If I had to, I would say the fact that we have one HoT that usually gets removed by Chain Heal.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Raid healing. With Chain Heal being a smart heal with a large range and AA procs from crits, shamans can do some intense raid healing(druids need to stop beating me so I can feel good about myself, gawd).

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Discipline priests. Even when on the tank/off-tank, they have more utility than paladins and the damage mitigation really takes the stress off of the other healers.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Well, I can't really answer this one. I love all healing classes, and it comes down to the person. If you play a class that could single heal a raid, but die in fires or stuff like that, I would hate you. If you played a class that needed two other healers to be effective but you were an amazing player I would love you.

What is your worst habit as a healer?
Not healing myself. I always seem to die because I am throwing heals on the raid like a madman but never on my self.

Using my cooldowns. In the heat of the moment, it's hard to remember that I have that spell that increases my crit chance by 60%.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
Other healers blaming a healer for a wipe or a death. If you saw that player going down and not getting healed, why didn't you try to help? Well Johny, I'm glad that you were first on the healing meters but if the raid wipes because you didn't want to help out a fellow healer that was stunned/oom/got disconnected, then I suggest you go die in a literal fire.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Well.... Honestly, I think that shamans are slightly over-powered. A shaman that is skilled at rolling riptide on the maximum number of people and planning on when to use Chain Heal for the increased effect can cast a Chain Heal that will hit, with one or more crits for 25k effective healing done(I've seen it happen on twins 25).

We have so many talents to return mana or improve crit that we have near limitless mana and in my opinion, the second most versatile set of spells next to a priest.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Recount. Specifically the healing done, over-healing done and mana return sections. I am usually near/at the top of the healing chart, bottom to middle of over healing, and somewhere in between on the mana gains.

I also look at what cooldowns I had to use or ask for. If I had to pop NS and Tidal Force than maybe I was lagging behind at one point. If I had to ask for Innervate than maybe I wasn't using the proper spells for the situation.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That all we do is spam Chain heal. I weave as many LHW's in between Chain Heal casts as possible and riptide is use on every cooldown. Is chain heal a good spell? Yes. Is it the only spell? No.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
When to use the right spell for the damage taken. Many new shaman healers spam Chain Heal and get away with it until they raid and suddenly are like a fish out of water.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
As I said above, high to mid healing output, low to mid over-healing and a decent amount of mana gained. To be honest, recount isn't a good way to evaluate a healer. We don't have rotations, we are almost purely reactive players, and what we do changes minute to minute. If someone said I fail because of HPS on recount, I would probably laugh in their face.

Haste or Crit and why?\
Crit. Crit Crit and MOAR CRIT. I don't care what any other shaman says, but crit capitalizes on more talents and abilities than haste. I've tried haste stacking, and while I was at around 830, it felt wrong. I barely got mana returns and I seemed to always need an innervate. Once I switched to crit, my mana was always solid, my effective heals when through the roof and it was just a better play style for me.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Priests. If I had almost ten spells to juggle my brain would explode. And even if they had fewer spells, I couldn't tell you what half of them do.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I have all my healing spells bound to my mouse, with some needing modifier keys. I use clique and grid for healing, and I have several macro's for ES, riptide and the like.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
As of right now, I stack primarily crit because it increases my throughput more than anything else. I try to balance it our with haste and spell power so that I don't fall too far behind in those, but it isn't a priority.

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Homesick.

It may just be me and my weirdness, but I miss the realm I started playing WoW on. December of '05 is when I rolled my first character, a dwarf hunter that never got above level 25. I started with a few friends on the Lothar server, and I'm happy to say that I still know people that play there. When BC was announced, Lothar was offered a free realm transfer to Drenden and I took it. Drenden was my real home, the place I got my first 70, the place I started my shaman, and the place I made some amazing friends. I know that there essentialy there is no difference in realms, and that if I wanted to, I could ask some friends to join my on Medivh, but I really do miss Drenden. As my guild begins to become stagnant, and my desire to raid increases, I keep thinking about Drenden and the time I spent on it. I have a feeling that Martik(name of my shaman) will be taking a trip home soon, hopefully meeting up with old friends and making new ones.

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Get some dips.

On Friday night, with no prospect of raiding as a guild, our amazing hunter and I decided it was time we took a dip into TogC. We got invited to the same group, and decided we should both read up on the differences from non-heroic to heroic. As I'm reading, I can't help but say to him over vent that this is a little intimidating. Now as a dps, I don't think he really knew why I thought it was intimidating but I won't hold that against him. So we get onto the pugs ventrilo, and I prepare myself for utter failure on my part. To my surprise and delight, the Rl was polite, patient, and down right nice. He said we were going to take it slow, if we wiped so be it, and that if we made it two bosses in he was happy. On to the bosses.
Northrend Beasts
Gormok:
Impales hit harder and last longer. The fire applies a DoT that will kill you.
Worms:
Acid pools expand faster, toxin slows you down faster, bile can wipe a group if you aren't spread out.
Icehowl:No run-speed increase on his crashes.(hold down your strafe keys and don't be like me and enrage the boss)

Lord Jaraxxus
The only real difference is the you must kill the portal and the volcano when they spawn.

Faction Champions
You cannot taunt the nps's in this mode, which means that your lovely shaman healer will get destroyed by the death knight, the priest, the hunter, and the rogue(Yeah, I died in 1.32 seconds. Fun stuff). Other than systematically destroying people, this fight is exactly the same.

Twins
A de-buff is applied that will basically blow up people of opposite aura to the target of the de-buff. The orbs hit for more, and for some reason they seemed to float faster, but that may have been me.

That's as far as we got. Well actually we only got past champs, but I know the twins fight front and back, so I wrote about that one too. From what I hear, Anub is quite difficult in Heroic, and I am quite happy we didn't get to him because I had already had my fair share of "Oh shit" moments. Once the guild gets into TogC, I should have the full strats up and all that fun stuff.

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