Blizz "fixing" healing input-lag through drastic measures, by overhauling AOE heals?

[Dracodraco]

So, for those who have yet to read the PTR patch notes for 05/09/13, let me copy them:

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Spinning Crane Kick now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.
• Talents
  
  • Rushing Jade Wind has been redesigned and replaces Spinning Crane Kick.
    
    • Rushing Jade Wind: The Monk summons a whirling tornado around them, dealing damage to nearby enemies (heals nearby allies for Mistweavers). Rushing Jade Wind has the same costs, Chi generation, and periodic rate as Spinning Crane Kick, but, deals 80% of the periodic damage or healing, lasts 6 seconds, is instant, and not channeled.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Holy
  
  • Holy Radiance now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.
• Talents
  
  • Light's Hammer now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• Holy
  
  • Holy Word: Sanctuary mana cost reduced to 3.8% (down from 6.3%), and now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)

• General
  
  • Healing Rain healing has been reduced by 30%, and the area-of-effect has been increased to 12 yards (up from 10 yards). In addition, Healing Rain now functions like a smart heal, healing the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted (Wild Imps, Bloodworms, Snakes from Snake Trap, etc.). There has been no change to the total amount of healing granted by the ability.

Now, this means that every single "diminishes after 6-target" AOE heal, that was previously causing huge input lag due to "uncapped" targets, healing pets etc, has been fixed. The only remaining "true" aoe heals I can remember off the top of my head now are:

Mushroom Bloom.
Revival.
Divine Star/Halo.
Daybreak (paladin-holy shock splash).

However, isn't this going to have significant impacts on the healing balance in SoO?
If every AOE heal is now a 6-target smart heal that heals the lowest targets, it means that all AOE-healing is basicly going to be like druid's Wild Growth or a holy priests CoH, and it means that countering burst damage (think lulin's meteors) is going to be alot easier to deal with.
Meanwhile, people who are "almost topped off but not quite" are going to rely on HoT's from monks and druids to actually tick them to full HP, while the AOE heals deals with "real" damage.

Also, Tortos/Malkorok are going to be PITA boss fights for healers now <.<

Question also is, won't this be a significant nerf to both shamans (harder to keep up the 10% hp buff), and paladins (harder to keep their mastery shield from running out)?

Thoughts?

[Squishei]

I believe it was ghostcrawler who answered it on twitter. They are going to retune the AoE damage in SoO to match the new AoE caps. ToT's getting a 20% nerf anyways, I'm kinda impartial, though I think I'm about to hear words from my holy pally.

[Tehterokkar]

All for the better..

[Deja Thoris]

Well if they change it they have to balance the damage dealt in encounters around it so I don't see an issue.

[kamuimac]

hm considering how much healing from hots was going into overheals this may not be such a bad thing ....

[Sparky_b]

Most of the heals (as posted just above me) were going to be overheals anyways. The fix that was implemented also helps out 25 man raids (and to a lesser degree 10s), since ground effects are once again using up a ton of space, and it not only gets hard to notice a boss' ground effects over a player's, but starts actually adding to input lag. This was not only proven to be the case by players, but by Blizzard as well.

As also stated above, SoO is being re-tuned to have these heals still be effective.

So, our heals got smarter, the fights are now tuned for it, and we get less lag in the process. Win/win if you ask me.

[Dracodraco]

Most of the heals (as posted just above me) were going to be overheals anyways. The fix that was implemented also helps out 25 man raids (and to a lesser degree 10s), since ground effects are once again using up a ton of space, and it not only gets hard to notice a boss' ground effects over a player's, but starts actually adding to input lag. This was not only proven to be the case by players, but by Blizzard as well.

As also stated above, SoO is being re-tuned to have these heals still be effective.

So, our heals got smarter, the fights are now tuned for it, and we get less lag in the process. Win/win if you ask me.

This isn't going to change the amount of clutter on the ground, and it's a very, very, very small part of the lag if at all, really =P. Healing rain, sanctuary etc will just become carbon-copies of druid's effloresence (ticks on 3 lowest targets every X seconds) instead of healing everything standing in the circle for a watered down amount of healing.

What worries me is the fact that every part of testing is basicly done by now, and they decide to change healing around at this point - isn't this what they are supposed to, y'know, be testing? To make sure it works <.<?

[Tharkkun]

This isn't going to change the amount of clutter on the ground, and it's a very, very, very small part of the lag if at all, really =P. Healing rain, sanctuary etc will just become carbon-copies of druid's effloresence (ticks on 3 lowest targets every X seconds) instead of healing everything standing in the circle for a watered down amount of healing.

What worries me is the fact that every part of testing is basicly done by now, and they decide to change healing around at this point - isn't this what they are supposed to, y'know, be testing? To make sure it works <.<?

Blizzard has said in the past it takes extra time to recompile a spell to be mechanically different. After they were satisfied that healing rain worked they could then do the same for all the other spells of that category. They can hotfix the healing and numbers but a patch is needed to change the spell completely.

[Squishei]

That's what LFR testing is for today, right? j/k

Jokes aside. It guts shaman's "signature spell" pretty badly and yes, I am pretty surprised they changed it this close to patch day. I mean, there are probably not as many stack fights for SoO compared to ToT anyways.

[Ethas]

I'm really happy with those changes.

[Nobleshield]

Not being a healer, I've heard enough arguments about the lack of "smart healing" that this sounds like a pretty good idea. I can't comment to specific changes since I don't know enough about how healers play. The new RJW sounds pretty cool though.

[Axelond]

Huge loss from wild imps not counting. All that healing would go to cloak overhealing but is now just removed

[Aboubacar]

Huge loss from wild imps not counting. All that healing would go to cloak overhealing but is now just removed

reminded me of my favorite movie of all time

[Floopa]

However, isn't this going to have significant impacts on the healing balance in SoO?

No. All healing remains the same but it's just distributed among 6 people instead of 25. For some heals (SCK) it's a huge buff to actual eHPS.

[Oratory]

What worries me is the fact that every part of testing is basicly done by now, and they decide to change healing around at this point - isn't this what they are supposed to, y'know, be testing? To make sure it works <.<?

This has actually been on PTR for a couple weeks now.

[Totaltotemic]

What worries me is the fact that every part of testing is basicly done by now, and they decide to change healing around at this point - isn't this what they are supposed to, y'know, be testing? To make sure it works <.<?

This has been on the PTR for about 3 weeks now. It reduced input lag significantly and isn't terribly OP because disc was still pretty far ahead so now every other healer has caught up a bit.

[Dracodraco]

This has been on the PTR for about 3 weeks now. It reduced input lag significantly and isn't terribly OP because disc was still pretty far ahead so now every other healer has caught up a bit.

Hm, fair enough. Haven't been testing 25 man heroics. It's odd that they would decide to add the changes to the patch notes NOW then, though, if it's been there for weeks. Has it not just been healing rain working that way?

[Aboubacar]

Doesn't input lag increase significantly from different damage things. For example when your attacks per second go up significantly (bloodlust is when i get the most input lag) from lust, stormlash, all the legendary proc cloaks going off and during significant amounts of aoe damage. Also when the entire raid is affected by a debuff like arching lightning on iron qon.

How is damage not playing some part in this as well? Even in cata there was some input lag during bloodlust just not as much as today.

[Dracodraco]

Doesn't input lag increase significantly from different damage things. For example when your attacks per second go up significantly (bloodlust is when i get the most input lag) from lust, stormlash, all the legendary proc cloaks going off and during significant amounts of aoe damage. Also when the entire raid is affected by a debuff like arching lightning on iron qon.

How is damage not playing some part in this as well? Even in cata there was some input lag during bloodlust just not as much as today.

Tests some guild ran in ToT over an entire evening on the dummies in front found that only healing was creating the severe input lag. Remember that when you lust, the healers also get haste that makes their HoT's and AOE heals tick faster/for more, which would be why the input lag gets worse. I have never experienced lag due to DPS on live - only due to healing (Meg rampages, anyone?).

[Deleted]

Why on earth are they doing this in the final week before the patch is supposed to be out? If the encounters are to be tuned around the new healing, wouldn't it have made sense to change the healing before testing them?