Free

‘World of Warcraft’ Themed App, ‘Healbot,’ Astounds

Normal people would call Healbot [Free], an app that aims to help people “practice the World of Warcraft healing mechanic anywhere you have your iPhone or iPad,” stupid, but I think those same normal, mildly unaware people would be surprised by how much traction World of Warcraft-anything gains. It’s a big MMO with a huge player base that seems to love absolutely anything that even vaguely relates to it.

Also, what World of Warcraft player wouldn’t like to get better? Raids are fun and all, but if you or your pals are causing boss wipe after boss wipe because of poor or unenlightened play or performances, you’re going to be looking for help.

At its core, that’s what Healbot tries to do. Kotaku breaks down the mechanics like this: the game features six health bars, five of which represent your and allies. The top bar is a boss character’s pretend bar. As you play, all of these bars lose health at different intervals, and since you’re a healing wizard as the game’s namesake implies, it’s your job to cast different healing spells to bring up the allied bars as the boss is drained of life.

And, yeah, that’s all there is to it. It’s impossible for me to evaluate if it can actually make you a better healer since I don’t want to give my life away to Blizzard, but I imagine that it can, at the least, give relative newbies a sense of what to do and when in a hectic boss fight.

I wonder if future updates will attempt to add in specific bosses and their attacks? Now that, I think, would probably make this invaluable.

[@lpollet via Kotaku]