How is healing in WOD compared to other expansions?

[Danner]

"It's like cata, without the mana starvation". This I think is an accurate statement. I do think our heals are weaker than in Cata though. I mean, I have healing spells that joyfully tells me that they heal less than 1% of a tank's hpbar per cast. I reply to those spells that they are dead to me and that I do not want to see them.

So, I'm a holypriest.

As a dungeon healer, healing is pretty much limited to "flash heal on tank until the fight is over". This barely - and I mean BARELY - keeps the tank alive when not overgearing things. Sure, you interweave a few other things to conserve mana, but that's essentially what healing is right now. Spam one button. At least it's a more interesting button than the Cataclysm "weak slow-ass healing spell".

As a heroic healer, life is pretty much the same. The difference is that tanks are better geared, and that means less healing is needed, and that means you can maybe throw a different heal every 5-6 flash heals. Ironically, I've had far less stress healing heroics than dungeons as a result. Maybe I just got lucky with my tanks. But I think the normal dungeons were a bit overtuned in terms of damage output.

As a raidhealer (LFR Molten core), life is far more interesting. Mana is tight. Maybe that's just because Molten Core loves throwing debuffs doubling the cost of your spells at you. But I oom'ed very fast, very hard. Prayer of Healing is almost unfeasible to use. Too expensive. It's renew or bust. It's just that renew is not really moving healthbars. Tanks have 300-450k hp these days. Renew heals for 2.5k-3k / tick. That's less than 1% per tick. Renew is filler at best. You need flash heal to get anywhere. And you can't really sustain that for long.

So yeah... in my 8 years of healing, I have never really felt weak as a holypriest. Until now. And I do realize that I don't have it too bad.

I do like having more mana though: It's far more fun when you have plenty of (but not limitless) mana.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Healing is great, but I kind of feel as a Holy Paladin that the spec isn't nearly as good as it once was (you can so easily oom and there's no real way of actually regain much mana at all, so you have to rely on the dpsers to finish the fight before I can not heal for much anymore). AoE healing spells are pretty mediocre unless you are healing a giant cluster of people and Holy Power is incredibly underwhelming. Word of Glory cast time just makes the spell suck really hard. Other than that, Holy is still fun despite those problems.

[Kerath]

Honestly, I've been struggling a bit. I'll preface the rest of this post by stating that I've been away from WoW for a couple of years, so I expect a good deal of my struggles are due to my being rusty and trying to get back into the swing of things, so take what follows with that in mind.
I've healed some normals as a holy priest, and I found it difficult to keep everyone up. Tank's health bar would drop extremely quickly and it was difficult to throw heals at any other party members without risking tank death. Also found that my mana depleted quite quickly, even though I was trying to use Heal as much as possible.

Fortunately, I only had a couple of wipes and a couple random deaths over the space of 7 or 8 normal runs over the weekend, but on the whole, it felt extremely stressful. I remember having to be very careful with mana at this stage during Cata, but I don't remember my healing spells ever feeling this weak before.
I haven't stepped into heroics yet, and after healing some normals via LFD I'm dreading it, I must admit. I'll try some heroic runs with guildies before I brave them using LFD. We'll see.

[Danner]

Honestly, I've been struggling a bit. I'll preface the rest of this post by stating that I've been away from WoW for a couple of years, so I expect a good deal of my struggles are due to my being rusty and trying to get back into the swing of things, so take what follows with that in mind.
I've healed some normals as a holy priest, and I found it difficult to keep everyone up. Tank's health bar would drop extremely quickly and it was difficult to throw heals at any other party members without risking tank death. Also found that my mana depleted quite quickly, even though I was trying to use Heal as much as possible.

Not been away, and I have the exact same feeling.

For a normal instance, my tanks were way too squishy. I believe that is due to normalmode instances being a bit overtuned. Especially UBRS. Flash heal spam is supposed to be overkill healing in normalmode dungeons, and it really isn't. My read is that normalmode dungeons have trash and bosses that just do too much damage. Reduce damage outputs by 10-15% and it would be much better.

For heroics, I've had nothing but good experiences so far. It's been challenging, but not soul-crushing, and the margins tended to be on our side. Even the one where the tank had to get his pizza mid-fight went reasonably well (as in, total party wipe, and the boss died to dots). I'd say it is a lot easier than healing normals. I recommend trying it when you can!

[Kerath]

For heroics, I've had nothing but good experiences so far. It's been challenging, but not soul-crushing, and the margins tended to be on our side. Even the one where the tank had to get his pizza mid-fight went reasonably well (as in, total party wipe, and the boss died to dots). I'd say it is a lot easier than healing normals. I recommend trying it when you can!

Thanks for the reassurance, I do appreciate it
I'll try getting a guild group together tonight - fingers crossed!

[Zorick]

I'll be waiting for Heroic and Mythic raiding before passing complete judgement on how Blizzard did on tuning healing this expansion.

However just from gearing through normal to heroic to challenge modes - my experience has been very positive, reminds me a lot of TBC.

There's not a sense of urgency to have everyone sitting at 100% health for the entire fight. A good cooldown rotation on most fights with all of your raid members is fairly key to making everything go smooth. There's also a lot of avoidable raid/party damage that can either be moved from, or interrupted - healing struggles don't always place blame on the actual healer.

I also think people got lulled into a state of complacency in the latter parts of MOP. Considering most people either severely outgeared whatever content they were doing, or had a group with other people who outgeared the content. Now that we're back on an even playing field with the content that is "current" it come as a slight shock to actually try again.

However with all that being said, I have had my fair share of wipes, and struggles especially with Challenge Modes, mostly mana related, but that'll semi-fix itself with better and more optimal gearing (get off my gear Versatility!).

Very much looking forward to the raids coming out here in a few weeks - 5 mans are fun and all, but I'd like to get back to raiding fresh content.

[Thalur]

Same as usual. People who are talking about how wonderful healing is now must have a case of amnesia because it's pretty much the same early xpac healing I've seen for the last four expansions now.

Cast times are annoying for certain classes. A cast time for prayer of mending? Really? >.< And let's not talk about the cast time situation for poor holy paladins...if you're playing a resto druid you'll notice very few changes.

This. Druid healing is mostly unchanged from the previous expansions (meaning early in the expansion, when you didn't have unlimited mana yet). The difference is that the 5-man content is more difficult than in MoP (heroics are much harder, CMs didn't exist at the start).
I'm having a great time healing.

[Wondercrab]

The triage system is fun, the actual design of healer mechanics less so. The added cast times to various spells seems to be a pure PvP change that makes PvE slower and clunkier without adding anything compelling, since healers have always been relatively immobile and now just have even less to do while moving, along with losing some of the fun responsiveness of their spells.
Also smart heals becoming dumb heals is pretty baffling to me. Because, I mean, they made them smart in the first place for a reason. Rather than simply lowering the effectiveness/efficiency of smart heals (since the devs apparently had a problem with them) they elected to make them more mechanically frustrating instead.

[Deleted]

The triage system is fun, the actual design of healer mechanics less so. The added cast times to various spells seems to be a pure PvP change that makes PvE slower and clunkier without adding anything compelling, since healers have always been relatively immobile and now just have even less to do while moving, along with losing some of the fun responsiveness of their spells.
Also smart heals becoming dumb heals is pretty baffling to me. Because, I mean, they made them smart in the first place for a reason. Rather than simply lowering the effectiveness/efficiency of smart heals (since the devs apparently had a problem with them) they elected to make them more mechanically frustrating instead.

Triage system has always been a thing ONLY in Battlegrounds. It never existed in PvE.

[Txiv]

I'm finding the actual healing super fun on my shaman, the issues I have are more trying to convince people to play smarter. You can't heal through stupid ( at least at 640 and below I level) and trying to tell pug tanks we need to cc gets frustrating. But if people understand that interrupting / stunning/ using defensive cooldowns is MORE IMPORTANT than trying to max Dps the content is a lot more rewarding.

[Luko]

So far it's been hectic. It's funny, when I heal a DK or a Paladin there's almost no issues. They think I'm a god healer and everything goes smoothly. I heal a warrior, brewmaster or druid and suddenly I'm having to drink every other pull.

Why?

Well, as most of you have no doubt noticed, the majority of pug players have gotten even worse during the last expansion. Much like the DPS that can't stay out of the fire, many tanks seem to have completely forgetten how or when to use their active mitigation. DK's have been countering this ineptitude with self shielding/healing and any paladin who's tanked before in his life is going to be using SotR so it's almost a passive mitigation at that point, but any of the tanks that are expected to manage their A.Mitigation have been losing so much health.

Every once in a while you'll get that warrior who's got near perfect Shield block / barrier management and it almost feels like you have cheat codes in because the run is so smooth, but it's extremely easy to tell when they have little idea what they're doing.

[Tydrane]

My only complaint is that in random dungeons moreso than pre-formed groups (with people you know), and especially at the start of an expansion, you're exposed to every single DPS player who ignores or doesn't know about crowd control, offensive dispels, or not standing in shit. Unless I'm doing really well and the tank is near full HP with PW:Shield, I don't do any single-target heals on DPS, it's just a waste of mana.

[Aurora]

Healing is good in isolation but I'm not sure the rest of the game has adapted to the changes. I feel far more at the mercy of the rest of the team playing well and not just keeping themselves alive but proactively avoiding damage. There can be these horrible moments where a boss isn't interrupted and everyone is brought to 30% health 10 seconds before a large AoE and the tank is continuing to take heavy damage, the moment is horrible because you know it spells doom but also know that everybody else thinks it's recoverable because it would have been in every other expansion through powerful cooldowns or AoE healing. Everything is just so slow and ineffective that you can wind up in positions like that where you're reeling too much to recover. Quick heals can help a bit for recovery but you feel very limited in the number of mana draining "recovery" spells you can use to rescue a situation.
The principle of healing is good but maybe feels too idealistic. You still see tanks never using a cd until they're below half health necessitating you to switch to quicker heals and drain your mana and you still see the mentality with dps that its "ok" to take avoidable raid damage down to half health since there's no risk of it being fatal. Those attitudes will need to change for it to not be unnecessarily stressful on the healer.

[RoKPaNda]

It depends on the class, honestly. My shaman can just faceroll and the group is fine ... My priest not so much. Priests are in a weird place where both Disc and Holy are on fairly even footing and it comes down to personal preference but Holy/Disc fans will insist that the spec that isn't their favorite is garbage.

If the DPS in a group is intelligent and doesn't stand in horrible things, disc is a very relaxing experience where you just keep everyone shielded to avoid the minimal incoming damage while keeping your talented stackable shield on the tank. The tank will never take any damage in even the most punishing of heroics that way. However the minute that the DPS players' brains go out to lunch it becomes a very frustrating experience.

[calanos]

I have healed, via Priest/Paladin/Monk/Shaman in parts of every x-pack except for WotLK, including very successfully to start Cataclysm off (holy priest early in Cata was IMO the most fun I have ever had healing, so I like hard healing)...and 5man healing has always been my favorite, far so ahead of raid healing.

Mistweaver in WoD is hands-down the hardest and least-fun healing I have ever done. At 610 gear level, having to pick between tank healing and AoE healing, especially combined with the fact that I have no heals I can cast while moving, just leads to constant issues. I LOVED my MW in ToT/SoO, and had minimal problems 2-healing Heroic content. But dungeon 5-man heroics are killing me right now with the new mechanics.

Maybe I will get used to it, and in terms of the new triage system - I think the overall system is better. Way better than spamfest healing in the recent past. But the toolkit on MW in particular seems way off (in 5-mans, for raids I think the Class will be really good).

[Kerath]

For heroics, I've had nothing but good experiences so far. It's been challenging, but not soul-crushing, and the margins tended to be on our side. Even the one where the tank had to get his pizza mid-fight went reasonably well (as in, total party wipe, and the boss died to dots). I'd say it is a lot easier than healing normals. I recommend trying it when you can!

So I did my first heroic last night - mostly random group, went with a DPS from guild. You were right, had an easier time healing heroic than I did normal. We had 1 wipe - when one of the random DPS pulled adds during a boss fight, so I think I can be forgiven

[wombats23]

Healing as a holy priest is just (cmode perspective, heroics are a complete joke already):

1: Single target: FHx2 Heal (repeat)
OR
2: AoE: BHx2 PoH (repeat)

It's pretty repetitive, but I don't mind because it is kind of interesting in a hard to explain way. But I'll try to explain it anyway.

I think because of how weak your heals are relative to player hp pools, it gives this sense of healing as an investment of time, rather than the whack-a-mole sensation of MoP. Especially in challenge modes, damage it feels is 90% of the time just huge constant damage on the tank with varying patterns of party damage (e.g. compare the 2nd boss of skyreach, the last boss of ubrs and the mage boss of everbloom). It becomes a question of how you can weave these two rotations into one another (since both BH and FH provide serendipity to buff Heal and PoH) to pick the group back up while keeping the tank at a healthy level because as soon as you fall behind on the either tank healing or group healing, it just snowballs out of control (and CDs like divine hymn are useless this time around in 5 mans since they've been made weaker but without an AoE cap to be balanced in raids). Of course, the less coordinated your group is, the more damage your group will take more than likely, which can lead to problems. That said, this is just the perspective of someone only shooting for silvers at the moment (and sometimes settling for bronze).

I think players are supposed to be below 100% hp more often for longer periods of time, but my experience in challenge modes say other wise. Maybe if mana was a bigger issue, I could see that happening. However, with mana potions giving you something ridiculous with 25% mana and mana regen being so high (IMHO), I can always top my party off. It's never a question of mana to me, it's a question of time. If I'm REALLY actually worried about mana, I'll bite the bullet and go suicide in fire and come back in angel form. It's actually an extremely helpful tool as a holy priest. The two spirit of redemption glyphs are actually worth experimenting with. Not only do you have infinite mana for that amount of time, but you don't have to worry about your own HP. On the other hand, if my mana is fine but I'm falling behind on healing, I just pop an int pot. 1000 int when your total int is only 3000~ is overpowered.

My only real complaint of WoD so far is how niche some of holy's spells feel right now:

Renew is a HPS loss as a single cast but if you cast it when there's no damage out yet in preparation for AoE damage (e.g. 1st boss of UBRS) or just keep it up the entire fight (e.g. Skyreach 2nd boss), it's can be (extremely) useful. TBH, if glyphed BH didn't refresh it while in serenity stance, I probably wouldn't touch renew. I'm honestly not too convinced casting renew mid fight is worth it. For example, on the second boss of skyreach, if a renew falls off a party member because I failed to refresh it, I'd much rather cast another BH or FH than cast renew because the immediate heal and the serendipity stack is almost always more important. That said, this almost 'requirement' to make renew useful adds enjoyable complexity and micromanagement.

Prayer of Mending is complete shit (in challenge modes at least; it'll certainly be amazing in raids especially once we get you get your tier bonuses). It has a cast time, it's random, it might not get all of its bounces used. PWS on average does more than mending.... and is instant. It has its usages like renew. If you're in a moment of no damage going out and you know there's gonna be pulsing AoE coming soon, it could be useful. That said, in almost every case I'd find mending useful, I'd probably be better off spreading renews and refreshing them with BH. And don't even get me started on words of mending. They just over write each other in 5 mans. That talent was made for raids.

HW: Sanctuary is useless, as always. Part of that is because I really don't have much reason to step out of Chakra: Serenity in 5 mans. I guess you could use it on the first boss of UBRS, but meh.



That said... my final verdict? Healing is fun. Blizzard set out for a more methodical healing style and I think they did a good job at it. It's one of those things that you have to try out yourself.

(One last thing: Shout out of DK tanks. Maxed resolve death strike + glyphed guardian spirit is basically a 10 second long lay on hands where the DK does all the healing himself and regen 10k~ mana. Honestly shout out to glyphed GS in general. It's my new favorite ability in the game. Easily the best external oh shit button ever.)

[Foxtails]

I've been struggling on my MW monk during challenge modes quite significantly. The fights basically consist of soothing mist (which costs more per second then i regen) + full surging spam into the tank. No spare gcd's ever to drink mana tea or heal a dps unless there is a strong cd running on the tank.

Mana issues tend not to be that bad unless i have bad rng with crit mana tea stacks however. My main issue is renewing mist and uplift have been gutted that hard they can't out heal AoE damage. Basically i have to rely a big revival to carry the entire fight ... It's just bad tbh.

[Danner]

So I did my first heroic last night - mostly random group, went with a DPS from guild. You were right, had an easier time healing heroic than I did normal. We had 1 wipe - when one of the random DPS pulled adds during a boss fight, so I think I can be forgiven

Glad to hear it!