3.1 brought about a host of nasty mana regeneration nerfs. Most notably for me, Mana Spring Totem got changed to a replenishment-esque x mana every 2 seconds buff to a Blessing of Wisdom clone — perhaps even the anti-Blessing of Wisdom, since Mana Spring totem now removes Blessing of Wisdom if I drop it. (Eeeuuurgh.)

I hit on a metaphor for why I don't like the mana regeneration nerf the other day, and if this is too pretentious, forgive me, but here's the deal:

Healing is an art, not just a series of spellcasts. Working with a really good healing team is utterly fantastic, because between knowledge of each other's personalities, tendencies, strengths, and instincts, you have a pretty good idea of whose healing is going where when stuff starts happening to the raid. Ulduar has given us a bunch of nasty raid-wide damage to deal with, and yet because of our healsquad leetness, we've adjusted pretty darn fast and have come up with a lot of reasons to use utility talents and abilities that didn't come up very often in Naxx/Maly/Sarth. The healer channel is full of intelligent strategy and ways of keeping people alive, and that? That's fun.

I will grant you that perhaps the complete and utter lack of worry about mana regeneration is not what Blizzard had in mind for healsquads. Given that Mana Tide totem is a 31-point talent — once the crowning glory of the Resto tree — you can understand that they want us to need that sucker. But it's frustrating to have synergistic abilities (Mana Spring totem/Blessing of Wisdom) turn into competing abilities — since Mana Spring removes BoW, if we're going to use BoW at all I can't have Mana Spring up at all, lest it remove the buff from someone who's going to go out of range later. It's frustrating to know that I can help with mana regeneration, but to have one of my key utility abilities (+1% hit) party-only, so my raid has to pick between stacking me with the healers for mana regen or stacking me with melee — and usually the tanks — for hit, tremor totem, and disease/poison cleansing totem.

Worrying about mana regeneration is like having to worry about how much your paint costs. Okay, yeah — paint costs do go up, especially with the economy in the shape it's in now. But at this stage, our healsquad has a team that's been winning blue ribbons at art shows for the last six months, and now we're being told "your art is too nice — we're increasing the cost of your paint so your paintings will look crappier."

Sigh.

I like working out new ways of working with the healsquad to improve our efficiency, help each other out if we've got issues, and stack our buffs in the most synergistic way possible. I'm sure in another month or two, we'll have worked around this. But it's a pain in the tail having to rework my spec over and over again because the artwork the healsquad turned out was too damn good.

Healer (Me: healer main/DPS off-spec)
Tank (DPS main/healer off-spec, healer alt)
Melee DPS (healer alt)
Melee DPS (healer main)
Ranged DPS (healer main)

When I jokingly said, "Where is this group going to find more healz?" there was general snickering.

Anna has mentioned that one reason her shaman got respecced elemental, and her paladin leveled up ret, is because she knows so darn many healers, and it was easier to get groups that way. I was lucky that I was able to stay resto all the way up to 80, but it has been hard finding a way to group with all the people we'd like. One nice thing about being in a 25-man raid is that I actually get to adventure with my five or six favorite healers, without folks getting left behind.

I remember when it was hard finding a healer for things, and as I was logging off, I did get a PUG invite for another heroic — so clearly healers are still in demand. I wonder what it is that has so many of the people I know rolling healers!

I suppose part of it is how long we've all been at it. Many people didn't start out with a healer, but rolled one at 60 when they found out how hard it was to get a group for one. Many people just wanted to give it a shot. I can't think, off-hand, of a whole lot of people who started with another role and then ended up with a healer main, but if you are one, feel free to say hi and tell me what your story was. ^_^

I do know some people who started with a healer main and then switched to something else. My favorite boomkin was one of our group's premier healers back during classic/vanilla WoW. It was a shock when she ended up going balance, but she's turned into a very boomy boomkin indeed!

Then there's me. My main was a priest (shadow, but this was in the days when it didn't matter), and then I rolled another priest (disc). I tried out a paladin (holy PvP), and then I rolled a shaman, who was elemental all the way to L70 and never even considered going resto until… well, until one night when I said, "Hey, this could be fun!" Famous last words. So, um. Healer-healer-healer-healer. I take some friendly ribbing from friends who are shocked, shocked, they say, when they see me on my warrior/mage/warlock/other mage alts, and there is a running joke that, if I get tipsy, I roll rogues. (There is a L2 dwarven rogue named Ovistyne running around Coldridge Valley. I don't know where she came from.)

I think dual-spec is really going to help us shake our groups up. We'll have several options for DPS, tanking, and healers that we don't have right now. It won't be a question of "who gets to bring a healer, and who has to bring an alt?" — instead, we'll, I dunno, /roll 100 or something for who's healing. Or people like me, who could use some practice with our off-spec, may beg other people to bring their healers to the group so we can fling some lightning.

I'm really looking forward to it. Oh, and for anyone who wondered whether I was ever going to respec my paladin (she's been Prot since L60, after I burned out on PvP): I think when dual-spec goes in, Holy PvP is going to be making a comeback. I kinda miss it!