Hybrid PvP Power nerf for healers (dmg part)

[Terahertz]

So with PvP power no longer increasing healing for DPS specs and damage for healing classes this basically screws over several mechanics some classes have.

Enhancement:
In mop every maelstrom stack increases the healing done of healing surge(?) by 100%. After the nerf, this heal presumably goes down to 25k~ (compared this to feral because idk the raw healing healing surge does without any stacks for enhancement shamans) basically removing a lot of survivability from the enhancement shaman.

WW monks
According to several forum posts on the US forums WW monk selfhealing is also down the gutter. Expel Harm is basically useless now because it does no healing at all and same goes for Chi Wave, which before the nerf did lik 9k per tick.

MW/Fistweaving monks:
Now I'm not 100% sure what the potency of fistweaving was in PvP, but I am pretty damn sure it's gone now. I remember doing 10k blackout kicks on my MW monk versus a mage, in pvp gear. So it could've been like 15k. But now, in 5.1 this will most likely be like 8k.

Disc priests:
In MoP they gave the passive that heals your friendly targets by a percentage of the dmg done by smite/penance and holy fire if I'm correct. This is basically ruined. They nerfed disc priest damage so freaking hard with this change and basically killed the disc priests key purpose.

Holy paladin:
Goodbye shockadins and glyph of harsh wards. What's even the use of these glyphs anymore?

Hotw rdruids:
No need for explanation


Now I KNOW hybrid healing was over the top for some classes. SPECIFICALLY shadow priests. But nobody has ever, in 5.0.5 , complained about the selfheals of a feral druid, enhancement shaman or even retribution paladins. I have seen people complain about WW monk selfheals, which aren't really justified because they're only effective in 1v1 and they have no passive damage mitigation. Besides 15%+ parry chance..

But they shouldn't of completely removed PvP power healing and damage. They should've lowered the effectiveness of PvP power for hybrids if you ask me.

All in all, 25k healing touches are pretty stupid

[Tya]

Healing specs are unaffected by this change. Only hybrid healers (feral, ele, ret etc).

Hybrid healing was insane. Plenty of people complained about feral, ret and especially shadow healing.

Good changes.

[RandomGamer]

I'm still able to heal half as much as a dedicated healer as boomkin on a 10 minute arena.

Shadow priests and warriors with second wind are more manageable now and hunters don't out heal me anymore.

Pretty much I appreciate the changes.

[Tya]

I don't think Second Wind was changed at all, was it?

Isn't it a % of max hp rather than something affected by PvP power?

[Flaks]

Healing specs are unaffected by this change. Only hybrid healers (feral, ele, ret etc).

Hybrid healing was insane. Plenty of people complained about feral, ret and especially shadow healing.

Good changes.

Pure heals are worse than maximum burst dps. Pure heals needed a bigger nerf than hybrid heals. Still waiting on that shit though.

[Xeraxis]

This just in, healers now need to heal and DPS now need to damage.

[Flaks]

I don't think Second Wind was changed at all, was it?

Isn't it a % of max hp rather than something affected by PvP power?

I think in instanced pvp second wind gets bumped down to 2% healing/sec instead of 3%.

[Olianda]

Was really sad when I heard this. On my Hpally I use Eternal Flame, so no Harsh Words for me (although it's handy as ret) but I often will throw a hammer or denounce if I don't need to heal.

[Brandoh]

where the fuck are ret pallys?

EDIT NVM I SEE SORRY

[Yvaelle]

I think in instanced pvp second wind gets bumped down to 2% healing/sec instead of 3%.

No. All % based healing remains unaffected by the change. Second Wind is still 3% per second, Cold Snap is still 30% of max hp, Dark Regeneration is still 50% of max hp. Death Strike is still 7% of max hp. The only classes that are really affected by this are classes with healer alternate specs - since those classes heals are often based around healing spells with spellpower coefficients - which no longer benefit from pvp power healing bonus.

[Tya]

Dark Regeneration is still 50% of max hp.

25%-------

[Yvaelle]

25%-------

30% and 25% bonus healing recieved for 12 seconds.

Edit: I checked, it used to be 50% in beta though I'm pretty sure - when I was debating a main change. I don't think it was ever as low as 25% though?

@OP

The idea that Enhancement and Windwalker are the most affected hybrids by this isn't correct imo. While their smaller heals become smaller still - their effectiveness in pvp is the least balanced around their heals of all the hybrids. The hybrid healers most affected by a big hybrid-wide nerf to healing are the hybrids who spend the most time clutch healing - maelstorms are good for keeping you topped off through pressure, good for 1v1 situations - but nobody puts an enhancement shaman on their team for their heals - ditto for WW's.

If you bring an enhancement, its as support buffer to something like a warrior - combined with their damage, survivability and best offensive dispels. Windwalkers you bring for CC synergy and damage - nobody is going "we need a class who can clutch heal, forget the ret or spriest - let's get some Chi Wave up in this!" Because it's not a significant factor in their composition, they aren't greatly altered by the change.

Now, the same is not true when someone decides to put a ret, spriest, boomkin or elemental shaman on a team. The healing output of these classes are one of the decisive factors in taking a ret over a dk, or a spriest over a lock. Triple DPS teams almost unanimously use Rets as the effective healer - if they don't, they often have to combine the other hybrids (ie. spriest/boomy/frostmage). So in reality, while Enh and WW went from bad healing to worse - you can also say they went from irrelevant healing to irrelevant healing - while rets and shadow went from great healing to *potentially* insufficient healing to justify not just bringing a dk or lock in their place (respectively).

[mmmmmmmBacon]

Not really surprising with blizzard's track record for balancing pvp: some small issues that could be easily fixed with tuning some numbers for a few classes here and there (which could be done in a hotfix) and instead they take a sweeping change and make pvp power only useful for a single side of the spectrum.

The only hybrid healers which were out of control were the caster hybrids because of their large mana pool, with shadow priests being the main offender. Shadow priests could chain cast flash heals till they were dry, and between vampiric touch and dispersion, have a near-limitless mana source for the healing, while still putting out some pressure between dots and mind flay, with their low mana costs.

The melee hybrids however had no such way of putting out such healing without build up time: Maelstrom weapon for shamans and Selfless-Healer for Paladins, both of which are dispellable. You might see a massive word of glory out of a ret paladin here and there, but this is mainly because of their cooldowns: 20% bonus strength through guardian, 5000~ strength for the on use trinket, 3000~ strength for the passive pvp trinket, and 20% bonus healing through avenging wrath can lead to some crazy heals: but any holy power going into a word of glory is sacrificing damage to put out that heal. The same for shaman: they sacrifice an instant cast hex or lightning bolt (ha) if they choose to heal with maelstrom weapon instead. Both of the said classes could only heal for around 35k~ with a flash of light / healing surge, and only get off 2 casts with a full mana pool before they're dry.

To another extent this also ruined the ability for healers to help put out pressure during cc chains, which used to distinguish decent healers from amazing ones: RMP in wotlk was dependent on that strategy; landing a perfect cc chain on their dps or healers and then the priest turns around to holy fire and smite to land a kill, or lose the mana battle and the game later on. This change to pvp power neuters the best druids and paladins (hell maybe even the few priests who still play) who would take these opportunities and just puts them in the same boat as a drooling raider who just stands there and watches his raid frames and heals his team.


All in a all a poor balance choice by blizzard. They could've bumped around with mana costs for caster-hybrids to limit the amount of burst healing they could dish out, or change the amount of healing hybrid healers get out of pvp power and then compensated melee hybrids through spellbook passives, but instead melee hybrids get shafted, healers lose their ability to assist dps, and I doubt this change will do as much as people expect it to curb shadow priests' off-healing power.

[Yvaelle]

@mmmmmmmmmmBacon

So much misinformation in that post, I shudder to begin correcting it. But, here goes:

- they didn't just nerf Flash Heal, because Flash Heal wasn't the only OP heal - since ALL hybrids were scaling too well with pvp power (because it double dips for us, increasing both damage and healing) ALL hybrids either already were scaling too well, or would be scaling too well if pvp power was not changed (and so, they nerfed all of us)

- "The only hybrid healers which were out of control were the caster hybrids" caster hybrids were only half the problem, the other problem was rets, who had far and away the biggest burst clutch heals - to the point that like 95% of triple DPS teams use a Ret (not a shadow or boomy) as the effective healer. Please stop perpetuating this myth that ret healing sucked before and does nothing now - it was too good before, and is as intended now

- Mana and GCDs are the largest limiting factors to shadow in pvp post 5.0 - we Used to have unlimited mana back when we had Archangel (25% mana back every 90 seconds), Masochism (10% mana back every 12 seconds, x2 during execute range), Spirit Tap (12% mana back on kill), Replenishment (0.5% mana back per second), Dispersion every 75 seconds (36% mana back, now every 120 seconds). We now only have 2 ways to get mana back, Dispersion (cooldown significantly nerfed as mentioned), and Vampiric Touch (2% mana back every 3 seconds, 5 ticks) - the first two ticks of which cover the cost of the cast itself. Vampiric Touch is dispellable, a number of effects remove it (bubbles, shamanistic rage, unbound will, ice blocks) - and has a cast time (and is therefore interruptable with every stun/silence/kick/CC in the game). Let me put this in perspective: Mass Dispel costs 21 seconds of VT uptime, Halo costs 24 seconds of VT uptime, Flash Heal and Power Word: Shield each cost 9 seconds of uptime - and that's me ignoring that the first two ticks go to reimburing the cost of the cast itself - if you include that - a spell like Halo or Mass Dispel requires 3 VTs going to full duration to cover their cost (over the course of 45 seconds). Once OOM, there is Nothing a spriest can do either defensively or offensively (including apply VT to gain mana) - this is not even remotely similar to say, a ret, who still works at 80% capacity when OOM - comparing caster mana pools (shadow worst of all) with rets or enh makes zero sense - you guys have energy bars that are blue for some reason, it's not mana.

- "Pressure between dots and mind flay" - please take a guess as to how hard shadow dots tick in BiS gear at level 90. If you said 5500, you are correct - otherwise you're wrong. You see, historically Shadow's damage Did come heavily from DoTs - but after 5.0 - Shadow has some of the weakest dots in the game now (to prevent our damage shooting up like it did on multi-dot fights, they kept nerfing it every patch all beta).

- "any holy power going into a word of glory is sacrificing damage" - any GCD and mana put into flash heal is sacrificing time and mana I could have put into damage (once you realize that spriests go OOM 2-3 minutes into arena, this makes more sense - since you seem to think we have infinity mana still, we dont), we might not need shadow orbs to heal - but if I want to horror/disarm I DO use shadow orbs for that - and Shadow Orbs generate like 3-5 times slower than holy power - so this really isn't a remotely fair comparison, whats more - even if I want to disarm more - disarm still has a cooldown on it - I can't just do it whenever I have the resources like ret can WoG / SH. What's more, WoG/SH - while being resources - build incredibly fast and build seperately - you can expend your HP on WOG and then follow it up with selfless healer - so the idea that damage is being lost is only really true of WoG, not SH - and losing holy power for WOG over TV is always the right call - TV is hardly an important source of ret damage in pvp (especcially since rets in pvp mostly heal, CC and support outside of their burst phase - so nobody really cares about your non-burst phase pressure ;p)

- "this also ruined the ability for healers to help put out pressure during cc chains" - no it didn't, disc still hits quite hard. What changed is that now not ALL healers hit crazy hard - just the ones they actually intended to be able to do useful damage (specifically, disc and mistweaver - resto shamans and resto druids and hpals shouldn't be scoring kills). None of the healers "just stands there and watches his raid frames and heals his team", all of them - Especcially in MoP - need to constantly be swapping between offensive and defensive action. All pvp healing specs got the disc priest treatment in 5.0 - instead of just disc CCs and damage and dispels being important to the success/failure of their team - all healing specs now have more offensive actions required of them - more CC (paralysis/legsweep, blinding light/repentance/HoJ, cyclone/root/typhoon/ursoc, etc), more dispels (weakening of offensive dispels on DPS specs made healer offensive dispels much more important for rshams and dpriests), more damage (all healers have something to contribute during a burst now).

- "They could've bumped around with mana costs for caster-hybrids". Yes. They could have, and they did not - what does that tell you? It should tell you that they considered it, then decided all hybrid heals were scaling too strong and were either already a problem or soon would be, therefore - all must be nerfed. Melee hybrids didn't get shafted at all. Enhancement and Windwalker are practically unchanged in gameplay - rets - who were overrepresented and were singlehandedly making triple DPS viable - were nerfed straight up because their healing was too good. Caster hybrids were all straight up nerfed as well - but to say "melee hybrids" were nerfed implies rets aren't the only ones nerfed here - when really they are - because enhancement shamans and windwalkers don't really care - nobody was bringing them in place of actual healers to begin with.

-

[Dundebuns]

Only Shadow Priests and possibly Boomkins needed a slight nerf to their off healing. Enhance and Ret are hardly OP at the moment, and this will negatively affect their survivability and utility.

[Yvaelle]

Only Shadow Priests and possibly Boomkins needed a slight nerf to their off healing. Enhance and Ret are hardly OP at the moment, and this will negatively affect their survivability and utility.

Enhance healing isn't really a big deal, it wasn't a factor people were considering when bringing an enhancement shaman before - it isn't now. Ret is an entirely different situation - their ability to instantly respond to burst with massive, uninterruptable, instant heals makes them the best hybrid healer bar none. Shadow and Boomkin were able to heal too well if left to freecast, rets could heal just because (and still can, albeit hopefully not for such large portions of a health pool instantly).

Every hybrid healers survivability and utility is affected here - not just enhancement and ret - affecting the survivability and utility of hybrid healers was the point of the nerf.

[Divinism]

As a windwalker monk, I was thinking of switching my PvP power gems to Agility to increase my healing a bit. Has anyone done else changed their gemming to their primary stat? Does it make a difference?

[Fargus]

Healing specs are unaffected by this change. Only hybrid healers (feral, ele, ret etc).

Hybrid healing was insane. Plenty of people complained about feral, ret and especially shadow healing.

Good changes.

Please tell me how ret healing was "insane". It was shit before the nerf and now it's even worse.

[scvd]

People need to read Yvaelle's post, spoken truth.
Blindly following posts online saying priest was overpowered means you are pretty shit, and I don't even play one.

[Snuggli]

Ret is an entirely different situation - their ability to instantly respond to burst with massive, uninterruptable, instant heals makes them the best hybrid healer bar none. Shadow and Boomkin were able to heal too well if left to freecast, rets could heal just because (and still can, albeit hopefully not for such large portions of a health pool instantly).

I feel like you're just comparing numbers in an ideal situation. Rets heal using WoG, which costs 3 holy power. In order for a ret to get holy power they have to use abilities. CS is melee with a 4-5s CD, Judgement is ranged with a 6s CD and Exorcism is ranged with a 15s CD. This means that every 15s they can get:

3x CS
2x Judgement
1x Exorcism

This is 6 holy power, with 100% uptime. That translates to two word of glory's in 15 seconds which will heal about the same per WoG as your Flash heal does.

I'm not arguing what was/is more OP, Shadow Priest flash heal spam or Ret word of glory, but you can't just go around saying rets respond to burst with massive instant heals, because quite simply they don't. If they have spent their holy power offensively, and then their partner eats a frost bomb or chaos wave, then they wont be able to get a WoG off for another couple of seconds. Where as a Shadow Priest could instantly start chucking out flash heals.