How do different healing specs heal

I don’t understand how in lore each healing spec performs its healing, can someone please explain or tell me how to find out

You’ll find that in many cases deep detail on things like that are rarely explained. There are some things that can inferred but more often than not one can only speculate. I’d say this is especially true in regards to how the magic at work actually works. Still by looking over the classes, the names of their abilities and such, one can generally come to some logical conclusions.

A few disorganized examples:

As Priests are typically religious servants, channeling powers earned and/or learned through practice and cultivation of their faith, it’s easy to assume many of their feats are performed through prayer. Some nuances might be observed in different faiths; differing methods of prayer/worship, peculiar rituals etc.

The majority of Restoration Shaman spells appear to be water based. Spirit may also be used in some cases. Shaman Calls, to me at least, are likely similar to prayers. This can at least be observed in function, as many in-game examples of Shamans performing them tend to entail verbal invocations of an element to aid them. One could speculate many things as to how else this works; how particular effects/techniques are performed, who within the relationship is responsible etc. I seem to recall once reading something about calls typically being performed through minor elemental spirits but I can’t remember where exactly I saw it so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

I find Wowpedia is a decent source of lore in general, especially if you know what you’re looking for. Obviously it pays to be discerning in regards to the info found there as well, as is the case with wiki sites.

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I find this to be true, as well. It largely comes down to your own observations and interpretations.

If I may offer up my own interpretation of things, for the OP’s consideration.

Every caster will utilize at least two of three components to spell casting. These three components (yes, I’m pulling this from D&D) are Verbal, Somatic, and Material.

A Call, a Prayer, a muttering of esoteric jargon or gibberish; really anything that involves you audibly calling out to someone or something is the Verbal component.

A hand gesture made in a precise fashion, a wild arm motion, or a seemingly uninhibited body flailing dance would be an example of a Somatic component.

A specific material such as a fragrant herb, or symbolic item such as an effigy or religious symbol, or an offering of any type, would all be an example of a Material component.

These three components combine in different ways to focus and ultimately express the caster’s Will and Intent. This, I think, is the key expression of any proper spell casting. Without a clear focus of Will and Intent a spell might not ever be cast. Or, if it is, that spell may be wild and unpredictable.

How these three components come together is largely filtered through the individual caster. Through their experiences and training they have learned how to produce a certain affect. If you’re a wielder of the Light, for example, you may make a plea for aid to the Light, or to a being that represents the power of that Light. As an example, a Human Paladin or Priest might make a plea to the Light itself (as we’ve seen Anduin do) while a Tauren Paladin or Priest might make a plea to Anshe. A Night Elf Priest might call out to Elune. Each might thrust their arms into the air, fingers splayed, holding either an open book, a talisman, or casting out a bit of crushed herbs. This is an example of how all three of these components might be combined or employed.

If the caster has the strength and focus to clearly invoke their Will, then they may only employ one or two of these components. A simple intense stare may be enough to induce an affect, or an intense stare coupled with a muttered word, or a sharp hand gesture may just do the trick. It all comes down to how the character interprets and filters all of this.

As to my interpretation of the healing power itself, I interpret Nature Magics as pulling from the individual casting, the one being cast upon, and the ambience, to either encourage or force the body to repair itself. I see the Light as utilizing that esoteric cosmic energy to excite the growth and/or creation of new tissue to repair or replace what was damaged or lost. The difference in my mind being that Nature Magic may well leave scars, where Light Magic usually won’t.

As for other darker forms of healing, such as with a Shadow Priest, a Death Knight, or even the little Warlock gems, I see those as forcing the body to knit itself back together without regard to how painful, how unhealthy, or corruptive the process may be. It’ll get you back on your feet and running, but there may well be side affects down the road. Things like infections, persistent pain, permanent loss of a sense, or induced psychological issues. Even paranormal induced nightmares or hauntings. This healing comes from a dark negative plane so after affects would reflect that, where as Light and Nature come from positive and balanced planes. Hence feelings of peace, comfort, and reinvigoration.

Not sure if any of this helps…

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interesting, i was just trying to figure out if anyone healed through natural methods like eat these herbs and do this corrective exercise etc

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I feel like that might just depend on your character!!!

There’s certainly examples of NPCs of a certain class using these methods - although I’m going to offer a weird perspective -

See - in classic (and i think through wrath? Maybe cata?) Our characters needed things like relics and souls shards to do things like resurrect people and cast certain spells.

I always love adding lore reasons for changes like that - so my specific take on why we don’t need to use those methods anymore is because we’ve transcended that. Our characters have grown past the need of needing most of those steps - the words, the items, the movements - we’ve gotten to the point where we’re powerful enough to will things like that into happening.

That’s also why I think we’ve dropped first aid - we’re just naturally healing now, past the need of bandages.

Now - that doesn’t mean your character can’t refer to those old ways! I’m certain there’s still some druids who administer their less urgent healing through natural means, and priests who are just as skilled in anatomical cures as they are magical ones. Depends on the person!

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Lore really does not bother explaining mechanics of any sort including healing. Make up your own character’s explanation.

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Ah. Well, I’m sure there are some examples of these kind of things in lore somewhere. They may mostly be implied rather than explicitly explained. As Drahliana said…

First Aid use to be a common profession. Anyone regardless of class could learn and level in it, and it’d teach you not only different effective bandaging techniques but also ointments, salves, and antivenoms… if I remember correctly.

Alchemy allows you to refine herbs into healing potions of various potencies, as well as mixing potions with various affects. One of the very first quests you come across is to collect kelp in Elwynn’s Crystal Lake so that a man in Goldshire can mix together an invisibility potion. This implies to me that such knowledge, while not exactly common, isn’t exactly rare either.

Anyone with the curiosity and discipline to study and practice the art of healing could certainly pick up more than a few techniques that don’t employ magic. I just don’t know of anything explicit within lore.

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You don’t because again, that’s not what they write about. Stuff like that doesn’t make for books that sell for a bundle on Amazon. There has’n’t been stories about any of the crafting professions either, there’s no stories about enchanting, leatherworking, or tailoring either… probably because they’d be as boring as spit for the audience that ponies up for these novels. There is a major major disconnect between the game professions and the lore.

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True enough, but lore comes to us in several different ways. Not the least of all is through questlines. Arguments have been made in the past about questline reliability where lore is concerned. As I understand it they can at times contradict each other. Nevertheless, this is the source I try to pull from when approaching topics such as this.

Clearly Christie Golden or Richard Knaak have better material to pull inspiration from for their stories than Cooking, Fishing, or First Aid. Though I’m sure if they did write a book on Nat Pagle it would be an entertaining tale, to say the least. :slight_smile:

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Nat Pagle is at most, an amusing scene or interlude.,…He’ s not novel material.

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/shrug, to each their own. :slight_smile:

There’s an entertaining anecdote about an author who argued that it’s not the material but the writer’s skills that make the story. To prove his stance he challenged “give me the two worst ideas possible and I’ll make a novel out of it”. They told him Pokemon and the Lost Roman Legion. Jim Butcher went on to write the Codex Alera series, which seems to have done pretty well.

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Foremost, I’m going to emphasize what has already been stated, which is that there is very little detail given in either “canon” lore sources, or in-game.

That said, I, personally, really appreciated something that someone said on a discussion here on the forums about scarring and the various healing methods. His comments can be found here.

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Be honest… did you lay out money and buy a copy?

Would you pay 20 dollars or more for a Nat Pagle hardback?

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I apologize for derailing this thread any further, so I’ll make this my final response on this. Not that this hasn’t been an interesting back and forth between us Drah. :slight_smile:

Honestly, I didn’t even know this series existed until a few months ago when I started diving into the Brandon Sanderson lectures. I’m not a bookie and not even well read by any stretch, but I’m trying to rectify that as I’m really invested in improving and expanding my writing skills. So, no. I haven’t yet, but it’s on my To-Read list. When I get to it, I will.

I paid the money for the William King novel about Illidan, and up until Legion I didn’t even like the character. He felt like a paper thin villain to me. Like I’m suppose to buy into the fact that he’s doing evil things because mustache twirl. I couldn’t buy into any of it in BC. He felt more like a tragic character who had valid reasons for being angry, but I digress. I was interested in the character shift they were attempting with him in Legion, and I was most interested in the Demon Hunter character Vandal. More for the potential lore perspective on the class that he’d lend than anything.

I got deep into fishing during Mists of Pandaria. I started with working to collect all the fishing items from the Booty Bay tournament. Then dipped into fishing achievement hunting. For a long while it was my favorite thing to do in game. I’d log on solely so I could go fishing for an hour or so. I’d hop into the Darkmoon Faire when that changed just so i could fish. I really enjoyed all the little tid-bits of story they’d drop about Nat, as well as other fishing related tales, and he became this funny pseudo mythologized character to me. When I could actually get quests from him and raise a reputation with him, I was excited. My most favorite memories of MoP are of its fishing and exploring, finding out of the way little places where I could drop my line and that also told small stories that weren’t connected to quests. They were small and specific little tale, often implied.

So, yea. If even a semi well known author came out with a Nat Pagle book that seemed to have an interesting premise, I’d drop 20$ for the hardback. I’m such a nerd that I’d probably drop 30$ or 40$ for a quality special edition. Probably more if the author was well known and well regarded.

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actually i think alchemy answered my question in part, because essentially i was wondering who heals by saying eat these foods and do this etc. Who would be the holistic healer although alchemy could also be related to pharmaceuticals and therefore not what i was seeking