Quote:Stoneskin is flat-out amazing
It's not. For 266 mana, you can place a shield on a target that absorbs damage equal to 18% of the target's HP. If your tank is a PLD and let's say, for the sake of discussion, that they're in full Darklight, then they probably have ~5.5k HP. That's a whopping 990 damage abosrbed. My Cure I can crit for well over 1k HP and regularly heals for 800. My Cure II heals for ~1.3k and can crit for nearly 2k. Cure II has the same cost as Stoneskin. Cure II's cast time is also significantly less than Stoneskin's. This makes Stoneskin horribly inefficient in a mana:heal ratio unless your tank happens to be a WAR (which, if the tank has 8k HP, would mean your Stoneskin is absorbing 1440 damage). Stoneskin is a spell you cast at the start of a fight or when you have nothing else to heal and feel like buffering your tank's HP a bit (and then it's only really worthwhile if your tank happens to be a WAR).
I'd appreciate if you didn't talk down to me as though I were dim-witted, though, and have no understanding of what effective health is. I participated in progression raiding for years as a discipline priest; I know well the value of absorbs in healing. Stoneskin is just not that awesome a spell.
Quote:You realize that overhealing generates threat, right?
Indeed. And healing threat is pretty much a non-issue as long as your tank is paying attention even the slightest bit. The only times I've ever pulled aggro as a healer have been moments where the tank ran in with Regen still ticking (which is not something they should be doing). It's simply not something to be concerned by.
I maintain that Cure III's range is far too short to be truly effective. 4y is nothing; it doesn't even cover melee range around the boss fully. I do like it as a spell; I just think the aoe range should be tweaked.
Quote:I love Aero II. Â I use it all the time. Â It's awesome. Â Aero II and then Aero and then I go back to healing.
You love a single target DoT that is nothing more than a single target DoT and find that single target DoT "awesome"? Even though it's just something you toss out casually between healing? xD Opinions are opinions and all, but really. There's nothing awesome about Aero II. It has zero synergy with your healing, and if you didn't have Aero II, you wouldn't miss it as it adds nothing to your toolkit.
Quote:There's speculation that the spell speed actually isn't being calculated correctly.
Ah, if this turns out to be the case, it would be wonderful news. Cause right now it does barely more than diddly squat. xD That said, I haven't seen anything from devs regarding this, so I won't get my hopes up.
Quote:What is Swiftcast, how does it work?
Swiftcast happens to have an animation as well, which must follow through before a spell can be cast to use the buff. This means that for whatever you're using Swiftcast for, you must factor in the length of the Swiftcast animation as well as the animation for the chosen spell. Pop in-game and do it with Holy - you'll notice the exploding purply animation that initiates the damage happens about a second after you activate the Holy ability even with Swiftcast.
Not sure what you mean about tuning a spell around fates, as I said nothing of the sort.
Quote:I've...literally never had that happen. Â I've accidentally Benedictioned myself, but that was my fault. Â I wonder if you have been lagging when you tried to use the spell? Â Are you using Mouseover Macros? Â That's what I use, and it seems to work amazingly.
If you'd read my previous posts, you would've seen me espousing the benefits of mouseover macros to the OP. So yes. I'm very much aware of what they are and how they benefit healers. I also know that spells in ARR all have animations that must complete before the action actually goes off. This is how the game functions, not lag. You can try it for anything - Cure, Regen, Shroud of Saints, Benediction, PoM, whatever you want. All have animation times. They're usually masked by the cast time, but for instant spells, it means they are not truly instant. This is a verifiable phenomenon in how the game works.
Quote:Why is that bad?  No, seriously, why is that a bad thing?  Not everyone wants to cast damage spells as a healer.
It's not bad. You misunderstand me again, as I never said damage spells must in some way contribute to healing. However, you cannot pretend that dpsing in between heals actually lends some kind of flavor to the class when the damage spells don't synergize with your healing. They're just damage spells, nothing more. Casting them or not casting them changes nothing about how you as a WHM heal. They don't take away flavor and they don't add it. That is what I'm saying.
Telling a WHM to just dps in between heals to keep things interesting is as useful as telling a tank to heal between taunts and defensive CDs and generating aggro to keep things interesting.
[edit] Random aside: I run AK with a BRD tank for lols to try and "keep things interesting". That doesn't mean that WHM is intrinsically an interesting class design.
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