Bay 12 Games Forum

Hopefully HoT style healing is still viable. When I stopped playing it seemed like they were trying to turn druids into paladin-style direct healers.

While, I feel the supposed shame of playing WoW in the first place...
That is actually the one point that made me quit.. I played the game on and off.. But even seeing this sentance makes me a little bit angry.
Infact, reading all this new stuff about the healing makes me ready to rage out about it. But I'm going to drop the bait and press on with my main point... Okay, in comparison it's a bit weak, but this thread is already too long anyway. ^{Turns out my point is actually a massive wall of text as well. And totally irrevelent too. Sorry guys!}

I still remember playing the game, and I actually still have some fond memories. I was worried that the last of the new stuff that I encountered would have tainted those memories, thankfully. It didn't.
My first character was a Tauren Druid. I rolled that perticular character because I saw a friend playing a Tauren. When he showed me his Druid, well, I was practically sold. (Imagine initial thought: "SHAPESHIFTING MINOTAURS?! WHOA!")

Well, I leveled my character. My view still stands, the first 20-30 levels are where the best. (Until all of this mount stuff came up. Urgh.)
As a complete newbie, I joined Rage Fire Chasm groups as a wildcard, which automatically lead me to gain massive amount of personal experience healing. By Wailing Caverns, I was a veteran healer. By that, I mean I'd join groups under an explicit agreement that I'd heal, feel annoyed when people healed in my place, and absolutely shouting and screaming at my computer when I got assigned to position of dps, with another healer in the group. Okay, I never shouted. I never screamed. But I did get really annoyed.
So, this leaves me roughly level 30, and already, I'm really into playing healer. By level 40, I found that stats where irrelevent. Not totally, but as a gameplay mechanic, it relied entirely on the players choice. Better players could make better choices to suit their style. To prove this point, I ran Zul'Farrak (I think, I can't remember the exact name.) in starter gear, with a tank I knew really well. And it was that knowledge that got us through, every time. Basically, we knew how to handle each others mistakes. And we knew when to do it, even before it'd happened. We didn't make many mistakes, but we just knew when the other person was gunna make one, and we countered accordingly. By that point we where just winding people up about how cheeky we could get to not killing everyone.
A little while after level 60 I went mad, I think. I started to stack spirit like a kobold stacks shiney things.
It got to the point, that while running the early Lich King dungeons, I had so much regen I could keep everyone's health on full, overheal, and have full mana.
Then I hit 80. And quit.
So, that whole story played out over /many/ years. I started that character in patch 1.12. I never hit the level cap once.. Till I got to 80.
I didn't quit due to the dynamic change of the level cap, either.
Level 80, was just one-hit heals and gear hoarding. The two damned things I'd avoided the whole game.

But, of all that, I'm glad I quit, because it means I have the memories of when I had fun. (Which is after all, the whole reason for playing.)
Oh, but of course... I doubt all classes are getting as butchered to death as Resto Druids. So, I'm sure there are probably still some fun memories out there. For some people.