re-newb: coming back to wow after 1.5 yearsFollow

I'm coining a new term here: re-newb. That's how I describe myself after coming back to wow after 1 1/2 years. It's been a humiliating and humbling experience. I used to be a damn good healer, my first instance I got got flamed for a wipe. I of course dropped the group and logged out. How can I go from being a damn good raid healer to not being able to heal deadmines? 2 dps died on the 2nd boss in dead mines, and eventually the tank dies. I am fail. It's like I forgot how to heal after 1.5 years. You'd think it would be like riding a bike.

And then I load up my high level paladin, but I have no idea how to play a ret paladin with all the changes. I won't even touch my level 80 characters. I have no idea how to play them. This is the problem when you have too many changes in a game. It's easier to start up level 1 characters, and learn as you go. That's the problem with Cataclysm as I see it so far (after a couple days play). I have no incentive to play high level characters, as I want to see all the changes in low level stuff. And of course, I am too scared to even think about raid healing again. This game almost requires you to play constantly to keep up with the changes.

I'm going to have to play this game as a single player game until I learn how to play again.

I guess I should make a point to this thread, and ask a question. Are there any link anyone can provide helping to explain talent builds and how to play classes? Ret paladins seem very different, for example. Many spells and talents are moved around. I noticed spell descriptions no longer tell how much damage they do, which seems lame. This makes it even harder to tell which ones are better than others.

I think there's an option in your interface options to turn off "simple tooltips".

One of the benefits of the /LFD tool.

Step 1 - Go to Elitist Jerks and get a general Idea about what you should do (Gem, Gear, Stats, Reforge, Rotation)

Step 2 - Don't have a guild.

Step 3 - Use the /LFD tool. As a healer you should have <5 minute Queues.

Step 4 - Proceed to wipe, kill, Fail groups until you get a clue what's going on.

Step 5 - Win

I usually go to elitist jerks for alt information although I've heard that http://www.noxxic.com/ is good as a quick guide to different classes/specs (not tried it myself).

I think it's harder when you have a break from the game as a whole as you need to get used to all the things which have changed, rather than just class specific changes. Healing has definitely changed a lot, the old favourite spells are no longer spamable and mana is much more of a concern (at lower gear levels) than it used to be.

Also bear in mind that pugs are still pugs and some people will blame you for wipes even if it's their own fault. Might be worth reading up on the instances you are likely to be tackling at your level so you have an idea of what to expect and if there are any abilities that people should be moving out of or interrupting rather than expecting you to heal through.

I'm not sure about leveling from 1 to get a feel for the class. Some classes feel really stilted at lower levels, I found resto shaman and paladin particularly difficult to get to grips with (due to the lack of abilities) until over level 30, and there are often key talents that you won't get higher up that will change your priority for abilities. For dps characters I tend to head over to the target dummies to try and get myself familiar with rotations (for sub 85 characters you could do this while questing). For tanking and healing I tend to go for something a bit lower than my (gear) level or fire off a quick 'new at this, please be patient' at the start of the run.

All healing classes now how a weak 'filler' heal, a big heal, and a fast heal. The rest is mostly flavor like HoTs, instant casts and various CDs. Generic advice would be to spam your weak 'filler' until something starts looking bad and compensate with your other spells. Also, there's a lot of problems and such at the low levels, so don't feel dismayed. A mix of fail players (can't really think of a nicer word to put there at the moment) and a poor selection of spells and CDs. Don't worry you aren't the only raid healer who found themselves face down in a deadmines PuG.

Anyway, do take the time to enjoy the single player, as others have said. The remake of the old world is probably the best part of Cataclysm. Well in my mind at least.

I have to second the battleground suggestion. When I respec or go to a healing toon that I haven't played in a long time that's what I do to sharpen up. AV in particular can be a great way to relearn how to heal without worry that you'll wipe a raid.

This explains why my priest has 30k hks =)

IF it's removable in the stock interface it'll be in your options area you were directed to in the thread already. It's a visual indicator or what roughly the completion of the current heal being cast will do to their health level so part of the "easing"

Yeah I saw something under raid profile, but it didn't seem to do anything. Oh well. I'm used to it now. It just threw me off because I hadn't seen it before. I may have been canceling heals when I should have let them land. It's a slightly different color, I'd rather it have more contrast to the green bar. But now I know what to look for, it isn't bad.

Things went much better tonight. Although I also used my low level shaman (I have an 80 shaman too) to heal instead of my druid. I can honestly say shaman healing is like riding a bike, as that's what I raided with. It's what I'm comfortable with. Although yesterday it was a bad group I realize. They weren't getting out of the way of the bombs. I shouldn't have to heal the dps that much. I didn't have to in my two runs tonight. They did a good job staying out of the bombs.

Excellent thread. I'm also coming back (or at least will as soon as the forever-download finishes) after a few years away, and am appreciating the comments.

For the moment I plan to leave my 80s alone and level up. Dying to see the revamped starter areas.

I was curious about archaeology, as I'm big on crafting. Been reading up on it and I don't quite get the point. You dig up artifacts, stick them together and then...you get an item from that? LOL anything worthwhile?

Also, I understand that you can now fly in the "old" zones. Has that totally screwed up herbing/mining for the newbies? I'll admit that I sometimes went herbing in lowbie zones when I was trying to level inscription, but at least at the time I had to do it on cat-back.

There were some epics that were decent at the beginning of the expansion, but it's mostly a time sink. It gives decent experience though, I use it to skip zones I don't want to see again while leveling.



Not so much, at least on my servers.



Edited, Oct 4th 2011 1:46pm by someproteinguy

For flying in the old zones, yes... once you buy the old world flying skill (200gold???)

But it is vanilla "zones" and the newest ones, you still (so far) can't fly in azuremyst or bloodmyst isles (space goats starting areas) and I'm assuming its the same for blood elves area but I'm not sure as I haven't gone near there on anyone that can fly anyway.