The last expac broke the World of Warcraft in every way possible. Out of the ashes of WotLK, came Cataclysm. Gone were the days of AoE burns and Tanking the entire dungeon. Crowd Control was king and Heroics were just that, Heroic. Blizz listened to the vocal minority of players and gave them what they wanted. Blizzard gave that minority challenging dungeons and complex encounters that took coordination and precise execution. The majority of players were left with a difficulty barrier that only time and nerfs would let them breakdown. It was also a fine time to feed the Hate.

Cata’s long list of destruction includes, but not limited to, a Guild Master, a guild, and a Server. Panzer, Deaths Desires, and Uther were all left broken and bloodied. Panzer ascended stronger then before after his mental ‘break’ and ‘breakdown,’ but the later two never recovered.

The opening raids of  Tier 11 welcomed DD with open flaming arms of chaos. Tier 11 also proved a crucible for DD Healers, giving birth to the greatest healing team I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. Zyley, Mooyou, and Shammypants. Damn perfection if you ask me. The team distilled down to Zyley and Moo with Shammy off healing when needed. I’ve never played with a team that worked on pure reflex before, and might never again. I would say that the whole team Healed with Hate in there own way.

For me, Zyley, I looked at every encounter as a chance to heal the un-healable. A chance to make my team say, “wtf?!? how are we alive? and why do the healers look so pissed?” Every time a DPS or Tank say “Oh this place isn’t so hard.” My inner Hate® gets just a bit stronger.  When DD ran without the Holy Brotherhood of Healers© (That’s what we called ourselves) they would know it. They would know it because they were dead.  That’s one of the things I like best about healing.   My team feels it when I’m absent.  They feel it because- I’M A OLD GOD DAMNED, HANDSOME, BAD ASS HOLY PALADIN HEALER. (Sorry, the Hate® sometimes seeps out)

T11 was taken down before the next patch, a first for DD, we then looked toward the Firelands.  With  our sites firmly set on Rag, Uther died on us.  The server population just up and left.  Our Firelands progression was good and right in the middle of it we gambled on a server change.  We packed up dozens of Characters, leaving a level 25 guild, and hit the ground with boots running in our new home, Dragonmaw.  DDs death was the Cataclysm Trifecta for our group.

Determined to rise from the ashes, like a Holy Healing Pheonix from Hell, I assembled a mercenary band of raid members to take down Ragnaros.  We’d barley beaten Alysrazor the week before, when I made my move on Rag.  We didn’t even have a full roster yet on Dragonmaw.  Veteran and Recruit level members who wanted to break themselves upon Majordomo Staghelm banded with me and in two raid nights he was down.  Majordomo was taken down by the Zergadins before the Firelands nerf.  We would have taken out Rag as well, but time ran out before we could learn the dance.  Rag did go down the next week.  Did I mention how we Healed those two encounters?  I didn’t did I.  Well…

MOOYOU AND ZYLEY TWO-HEALED ‘DOMO AND RAG WITH HATE!

We didn’t need a fancy three-heal.  “You’re saying we need more DPS?  No problem, we’ll just two heal this shit!”

Then Dragon Soul descended upon us.  Easier?  Yes.  Less Healing with Hate?  Yes.  More Fun?…  I’ll admit, Yes.  I was spent after Firelands and T11.  Dragon Soul is a vacation compared to the Hell our guild has been through in the last few months.

The Mists of Pandaria expac is looming.  Is there still a need to Heal with Hate®?  If the Dragon Soul style raiding model keeps repeating itself, probably not.  Sure there will be times when Zyley swoops in on a Winged Dragon of Holy Paladin Healing Redemption, but not as often as in past tiers.  I feel the Healing monster may not be fed much in Mists.  Healing will happen, but it will take a different style of healing to get it done.

Hate® never dies though.  Hate® just finds a new home…  far far away.