20 Second Harmony

[Williee]

Yup, don't forget as resto druids, you will provide more cds for a tank then live yay ironbark + symbiosis for some of the time tanks.
In terms of raw throughput, I've heard resto is somewhat lacking behind. But of course, its still beta.

[sharkwouter]

This will make mastery a usefull stat in pvp, I'm happy with it. Altho I do not see why they don't just make it passive.

[Avena]

yay ironbark + symbiosis for some of the time tanks.

True. I've been testing with a warrior tank from my guild though, and costs are insanely high at the moment. Savage defense. i.e. costs 60 rage which makes it difficult to use spontaneous. Maybe that will change until release. Would be nice.

Still, it's a single target tank cd, no aoe dmg reducing cd like bubble, slt, am etc. - this was what made druids stand behind all other healing classes in dragon soul, and I hope that this will change in mop without making us predestinated tank healers.

[Kelesti]

Still, it's a single target tank cd, no aoe dmg reducing cd like bubble, slt, am etc. - this was what made druids stand behind all other healing classes in dragon soul, and I hope that this will change in mop without making us predestinated tank healers.

Tell me again where Holy Priests fit in with "aoe dmg reducing cd". Because you're flat out wrong when you're saying that you're behind all other healers.

[Torty]

You'll mark my word if they leave everything like it is atm. We will still have to struggle as resto druids to prove our value for the raid.

Nobody is talking about class strengths. It's still early beta, no heroic raid testing done or anything. I'm worried about how the class will feel in the beta, i.e. I don't want to play ICC or FL type of resto druid. I'd much rather play t11 resto druid.

[Avena]

Tell me again where Holy Priests fit in with "aoe dmg reducing cd". Because you're flat out wrong when you're saying that you're behind all other healers.

Priests have the choice between disci and holy. Every decent player has two specs that he/she plays. Of course holy priests don't have dmg reducing cds. But discipline priests do, and it's also one of the strongest cds in the game. Ergo, every raid will want to have a priest healer in their squad.

Druids have no choice there, and the healing class "druid" is not mandatory for a raid setup in dragon soul whereas healing classes with dmg reducing cds were in progress. That's all I'm saying. No offense plz.

I'm worried about how the class will feel in the beta, i.e. I don't want to play ICC or FL type of resto druid. I'd much rather play t11 resto druid.

Yeah, I understand that. I don't want that either. But I think this is only going to happen if they don't balance the new spells properly. Meaning, if shrooms are crap, nobody will use them => less options => boring gameplay.

I could imagine that - as example, and atm it looks like it - shrooms could be the mana saving aoe raidheal for us, whereas reju/wg or incarnation lb/wg could be the choice for more hps. I already see many, many more options for druids than there were in icc (5x rj, 1x wg... who didn't hate it...), so I don't think we have to panic here before everything has settled.

And of course this is all hypothetical! That's the use of this thread! We discuss about things that might possibly be with different likelihoods. You can just evaluate the status quo and hope for the best when the release comes closer.

[Kelesti]

Priests have the choice between disci and holy. Every decent player has two specs that he/she plays. Of course holy priests don't have dmg reducing cds. But discipline priests do, and it's also one of the strongest cds in the game. Ergo, every raid will want to have a priest healer in their squad.

If Balance is lacking in viability of encounter design, is it okay to say "Well have a feral spec that's good, so stfu people still want druids"? It's not okay. Two different specs with two completely different playstyles, two completely different gearing points. It's a bullshit argument. Holy and Discipline have that. So your solution is as Holy, to give up ever having either a Holy Spec so we can play Discipline and stfu, or give up Shadow and play Holy/Discipline as our only viable choice, with Discipline still being the primary spec. That bullshit argument isn't fun or enjoyable for Druids, why's it okay for you to push it on Priests?

Druids have no choice there, and the healing class "druid" is not mandatory for a raid setup in dragon soul whereas healing classes with dmg reducing cds were in progress. That's all I'm saying. No offense plz.

Druids in t12 did just fine. Holy Priests were at an all time low, not because they didn't have a damage reducing cooldown (Druids proved one was useful, but not completely necessary), but they had no cooldown. An 8 minute Divine Hymn that healed less than if you just spammed your normal heals outside of it. But it gave Tranquility a 10% buff!... Then Dragonsoul where they turned Hymn into a Tranq+1, still no damage reducing cooldown but suddenly Holy Priests were not mandatory for raid set ups, but they did just fine in Dragon Soul without switching to Discipline. Still no "Damage reducing cooldowns" for either single or multi-target healing. The problem with Druids here was that Hymn wasn't balanced, and overtuned, so if you pick one that does X, and the other does X+25%, for the same cost (1 raid spot), you're going to go with the better deal right?

Divine Hymn being overtuned (yes, coming from a priest, it was too much) was why Holy surged and Druids who generally fill the same role slightly dropped but were still brought along (unlike t12).

Giving Druids a Barrier of sorts would not actually fix redundancies or gaps, but further push up the Cooldown-Arms Race and its bi-polar nature on whether a target lives or dies. And as a healer, that is not an engaging or enjoyable experience in any sense of the words.

[Avena]

You sound frustrated.

[Keiyra]

He's right though avena,

The argument of you're a priest just go disc if holy isnt working is just a bs argument to make. Each spec needs to stand on its own; all 6 healing specs come MoP should be balanced to be reasonably on par with each other, not exact copies (some will do better on some fights than others)

Each spec doesn't need to have a raidwide DR CD...unless they design encounters that basically require it (would be foolish on their part). The entirety of the resto and holy toolkits can be balanced against the other specs without giving them carbon copies of DR cd's

Honestly it would have been better to strip all raid CD's from the healers and the tanks and adjust encounter design; but its not likely to happen so at best you try to get some parity across the specs, which does not mean each spec should have exact counterparts to every ability.

[Avena]

I think we just view the game from different perspectives. I don't think you understood what I was trying to say. Of course I'm all for balanced healing classes. I never said that I wasn't. But that will never be the case. I just hope that for mop my class will be the class of choice and not be left out because of the spells I don't have.

I come from a progress guild with a small raid squad, and it's just normal that you play the spec that is best for the encounter. If you don't, you're left out. Period. And if your class doesn't have a spec suitable for the encounter or another player is better with a specific spec than you are, you're left out. Period.

Just as example: For Madness hc, there was no use for a resto druid if all other healers were there, simply because other healing classes had cds better suited for the encounter. I was left out for Ultraxxion as well. Not because I don't play good, but just because my class wasn't the best for the encounter at that time. Sometimes I could play my balance spec. That is normal in progress guilds, and this is what I'm talking about. Nothing else. I don't understand why you get so upset about it. It's just what it is, and you have to accept it if you want to play top 100 or even top 500.

[Cambria]

I doubt anyone is going to disagree that at top end as a priest you play the spec that's needed. If you are a healing class, or any class, that isn't needed, you play something else or sit. Most endgame raiders prepare for that and have geared alts if they know they will need to be sat for a fight. I went DPS or played an alt for many..many fights this expac as a resto druid in a high progression guild, doesn't mean I was happy about it.

The problem is, it's bad game development.

Class A having a raid CD vs class B not was never the problem. Not every class needs to be a copy of the other class. The problem lies within boss strats not matching and fitting all niches. When you have a fight where class B is completely useless due to no big CDs, then completely OP the next fight due to having hots and that favors them, that means the encounter developers didn't do their job. Each class should have something that they bring that makes them worthwhile. You should be brought based on your skill, not on what class you play. If each spec has a niche, each fight should support that niche in some way. Certain classes will still be better than others, but you shouldn't be sitting a class because they are completely worthless.

Holy priests as an example not having CDs would be fine, as long as something in the fight favored something else they had. There will always be min/maxing for top end, but it wasn't just top end raiders sitting healers this expansion due to them being terrible. Every spec should be viable and worth taking, super top end is the only place where tiny differences should matter.

[Avena]

The problem is, it's bad game development.

Yes, I agree.

[Grubjuice]

it's not like the other healers' masteries aren't passive (Deep Healing, Echo of Light, Illuminated Healing, Shield Discipline).

why is anyone upset that our mastery is becoming easier to use? It was the only healer mastery that was a pain in ass because it had to be maintained.

I mean a little strategic managament is nice (like pumping up a bubble before a pull on a holy paladin or disc priest, or knowing that your triage will be stronger the less life your target has on a resto Shaman), but druid's frantic 10 second rotation always seemed to like innapropriate singling out at worst or poor design at best.

[Kelesti]

it's not like the other healers' masteries aren't passive (Deep Healing, Echo of Light, Illuminated Healing, Shield Discipline).

why is anyone upset that our mastery is becoming easier to use? It was the only healer mastery that was a pain in ass because it had to be maintained.

I mean a little strategic managament is nice (like pumping up a bubble before a pull on a holy paladin or disc priest, or knowing that your triage will be stronger the less life your target has on a resto Shaman), but druid's frantic 10 second rotation always seemed to like innapropriate singling out at worst or poor design at best.

So if it was a baseline Druid thing from level 40 instead of Mastery scaling at 80, would it change anything, really?

Sure, a Discipline Priest doesn't have to push a button to activate Shield Discipline, but that's because they're already keeping Evangelism, Grace, Weakened Soul, and Rapture all flowing. They have buttons to push, timings to consider, and that's more than just blanket hotting with x spell on cooldown.

Quite frankly, Harmony on 10 seconds was still a much better design than the old one, no matter how much certain MVP-bloggers cry otherwise. The old one is what, +X% healing on targets that already have a HoT on them? That's not intuitive design. THAT is punishing. A 10 second "rotation" that even if you're not paying attention to, just spamming Swiftmend's cooldown and using OoC procs you'll have a 90+% uptime. Hardly punishing.


Druids are also the only healer that, unlike the "passives" is actually straight out +X% healing no strings attached. Paladin's? An absorb after the fact that may or may not be overheal (or over-blanketed by Discipline Priests, and never be allowed to trigger). Shaman? Wasted on high health targets. Holy Priests is a residual HoT in a game flooded with HoTs, splashes, etc - extremely high overheal. Discipline? Only applies to a spell they can't afford to spam, uncontrollable crits, or 23% of total output from a Prayer of Healing.

Druids have +X% healing, for pushing Swiftmend on cooldown, occasionally weaving a free Regrowth in, or ultra hasted Nourishes if they can't use a free Regrowth. Again, not demanding.

[Cambria]

I agree with Kel 100%. The old Harmony was awful. It pushed you into playing a certain way when it wasn't the correct way to play. It was one of the poorest designed spells I've honestly seen in this game.

And she's correct again, Harmony right now is mindnumbing. You use SM on Cd, which you will already be doing, and you auto have it up 75+% of the time.
Harmony needs a complete redesign. When harmony is active, it is active 100% of the time. By making it 20 seconds, may as well just make it passive.

Since it's basically passive, every single direct heal and every single hot get the +healing buff the entire time it's active, which will be 99% of the time in MoP if you play correctly.

Pallys: Always up, but absorbs are pointless unless the target takes more dmg. If target X is at 20% and an absorb goes on him and he takes more dmg, that absorb does nothing. As for us, our + healing on all heals is giving an increase.

Shaman: They get minor + healing at high health, a lot at low. While theirs is also up most of the time their mastery is either way OP, or worthless.

Holy: Always get a hot on direct heals. I'd say it probably evens out with the additional healing on druid hots. If a holy hot goes to overheal, the +healing on the druid hot would too. But, we also get a straight increase on direct healing and theirs only works on direct heals.

Disc: Hard one to judge since it will be based on how much you absorb. I've never focused on disc, so it's not one I can comment on.


In the end, here is the problem. Druids direct healing was shit. They added a passive buff through mastery to fix it. Pointless, they should have fixed our direct healing, not made a passive buff to it since our direct healing is still shit. You can't even count the direct heal part because it really has nothing to do with our mastery, just their quick fix on direct healing.

We have a buff to hots. This, even at 10 seconds, is significantly better than the old one. With the amount of shit we have to balance in MoP I can understand people seeing this as a viable fix due to being GCD capped. Being GCD capped IS a problem, but the point is making mastery basically passive is not the solution.

Druid have been a clusterfuck for a very long time. Instead of fixing us like they have said they need to so many times, they continuously just add spells, take away spells, or try and change the numbers in them. With our spell line up and trying to keep us in a hot/support niche we will always be broken. We will never be truly balanced.

The need to redo ALL masteries(or tweak/fix them) and go back through each classes spells. There is no synergy and no balance, and until there is one to 2 classes will continue to be sat each tier/encounter.

[Torty]

Druid have been a clusterfuck for a very long time. Instead of fixing us like they have said they need to so many times, they continuously just add spells, take away spells, or try and change the numbers in them. With our spell line up and trying to keep us in a hot/support niche we will always be broken. We will never be truly balanced.

The need to redo ALL masteries(or tweak/fix them) and go back through each classes spells. There is no synergy and no balance, and until there is one to 2 classes will continue to be sat each tier/encounter.

Healers are benched for one reason: numbers. Once the class is nerfed/not buffed and other classes are buffed, you are benched. It takes little to no brain to balance all healer classes. For example, it required druids to not get 2 second WG cooldown increase in DS to be viable on most encounters. Shamans could get 10% healing increase on chain heal in FL to be viable, etc. Really, it takes only a small hotfix after you see first WoL parses to realize what's wrong.

Now, my thoughts on mastery. I find the first version of mastery a lot more interesting and requiring at least some brain to use. It was godlike when raid was taking a lot of damage and you could take advantage of hotting already hotted people. It was pretty bad when damage was low and your 'hots on hots' started doing a lot of overhealing. Basically it was like the current feral druid design: mastery reforge for single target dps is better than mastery reforge for aoe fight. I do think that's how mastery should work. Not pure numbers (like it is now), but rather your playstyle thing. You can see all types of disc priests with all sorts of reforges. Druids are like twin brothers and sisters with maybe 300 spirit difference.

[Avena]

I again agree with Myrrar. You take the thoughts out of my head.

In the end, I don't think our mastery is our problem though. As Myrrar stated before, the encounter design is one of the keys to balanced gameplay. Give every class something special to do and everyone can be happy. If Blizz adds some movement intensive fights or where ppl are spread out a lot, resto druids will shine.

[Cambria]

Healers are benched for one reason: numbers. Once the class is nerfed/not buffed and other classes are buffed, you are benched. It takes little to no brain to balance all healer classes. For example, it required druids to not get 2 second WG cooldown increase in DS to be viable on most encounters. Shamans could get 10% healing increase on chain heal in FL to be viable, etc. Really, it takes only a small hotfix after you see first WoL parses to realize what's wrong.

Exactly. That's why it's just so frustrating. They have PTR and while many players cry their class will be killed when they aren't, this is one of the 1st time a lot of top theory crafting druids stepped up and said the nurfs really were too much and we would be benched. I remember saying it for probably the 1st time ever on these forums and people attacked me for it. Then ofc, we were indeed sat.

They have had too many chances to stop, and redesign the healers to be balanced, have a full arsenal of spells, and to fit comfortably in their niche if they wanted to. Since they don't, once they see all top parses with healer class A and zero healer class B they can just take the lazy way out and hot fix them. It's not a real fix, but at least it's temporary and people can still continue playing their class. The fact that they don't is just insulting. No other game runs like that, I'm pretty much out of patience for Blizz after 7 years of trying to stand up for their decisions.

While I have always pushed we needed a raid CD, even at the cost of healing based on encounter designs, as long as we did enough extra healing to make up for not having a CD we were still taken to most fights. That's not good balance, but if you want to stick people in niches and make it so they don't all get the same type of spells it was close. But, another healer class was still sat. Them adding mastery when all the classes are so....so badly balanced just made it 100x worse. They wanted to add something interesting, but that doesn't work when you don't have your shit together for the simple things.

I've been hardcore raiding since early MC and have done it for every encounter, every expansion. I haven't played since late February after HM DS was already on farm. Looking at what they are trying to do to fix all the healing classes in MoP, this is the 1st time I have had no interest at all in coming back. You don't have enough GCDs? Harmony is kind of crappy? We'll just make it basically passive so you'll forget about it and stop complaining. sigh.....