"New" resto druid mastery... it didn't work the first time, why again?

[emni]

Then don't build for Mastery if you want a triage playstyle.

Right. Where is this magical wand that converts mastery into other stats and makes the devs not put mastery on our gear?

I was expecting some non-constructive comments, but some of these really amaze me. To everyone else that actually took time to discuss the mechanic, thank you.

[shaunika123]

I never really saw the problem with it in the first place.

End of the day, mastery is just another stat and if they don't like the playstyle it encourages there are a lot of levers they can pull.



Then don't build for Mastery if you want a triage playstyle.

yeah who doesnt play druid to stack hots on one/few targets right
the new mastery just seems flat out counter intuitive in raiding, it'll be awesome in pvp, but in pve it just wont work unless there are great talents/artifact points to compliment it.
i wanna cover the raid in hots, not focus on a few people and stack on them, if i wanted to heal a couple of people i wouldve went paladin

[Kaiarra]

Here, I disagree. I think their goal for Mastery is that it is:

- very easy to understand, even for a casual player
- you gain its benefit by just following the basic rotation/doing your thing
- is somehow thematically tied to the spec

Thus, they keep it simple. Mastery is just a stat. Do you expect crit to be innovative and interesting? Haste - is it boring, or not?
snip

This is starting to verge wildly offtopic, but I'll bite.

Ok, lets rephrase, most DPS specs get a mastery that basically says +%damage. It's boring (and it's already present with the ever hated versatility stat). Sure it's bleed damage, or DoT damage or frost damage or whatever themes the spec, but its boring.

Then you have something like this:

Mastery: Elemental Overload

Grants a 40% (with Mastery from typical gear) chance for Elemental Overload to occur. Elemental Overload causes a Lightning Bolt, Chain lightning, or Lava Burst spell you cast to trigger a second, similar spell on the same target that causes 75% of normal damage and Maelstrom generation, and no threat.

Now they could have just given Ele + %nature damage, but instead bothered to put in a bit of effort to produce something that's not cookie cutter, and dare I say it actually FUN. That's what I want to see for all specs, just because it's a stat doesn't mean it can't be fun. Compare Frost Mages mastery with Frost DKs, I know which is more interesting to me.

Mastery: Icicles
When you damage enemies with Frostbolt, 45% (with Mastery from typical gear) of the damage done is stored as an Icicle with you, for 30 sec. Also increases the damage that your Water Elemental deals by 45% (with Mastery from typical gear).
Up to 5 Icicles can be stored at once. Excess Icicles that are generated will be automatically launched. Casting Ice Lance causes any Icicles to begin launching at the target.

Mastery: Frozen Heart

Increases all Frost damage done by 40% (with Mastery from typical gear).

Now if all they want mastery to be is the tuning button for a class, that's fine, just give everyone a nice boring +dmg/-dmg/+heal versatility-mastery. There is a pretty massive disparity in fun factor between different specs mastery, a.k.a the majority are boring, but some specs get exceptions - WW Monk, Frost Mage, Fire Mage, Ele Sham, for example.

I mean... it's obviously possible for them to design interesting masteries, so it's nice to dream that all the crappy boring ones might be tweaked before Legion, no?

[Kuniku]

I feel a bit "Meh" about it all tbh, and about a lot of masteries reading through the various class changes out there. I always liked the concept of mastery as a stat, and ones like elemental overload for ele shamans was a perfect example, sure its just a straight up damage stat that is effectively a clone of crit, but it looks exciting, and turns you into a lightning minigun. But ones like DK's "increases shadow damage" or "increases frost damage" just come off as a bit bland.

And this new rDruid mastery also seems rather bland, and possibly counter intuitive - especially as generally speaking you can't stack that many hots on one target anyway - unless new talents provide new spamable hots. If they wanted something hot based they could've done something along the lines of:

Mastery: Life Song. Your heal over time spells also leave Life Song on the target, which heals for XX% of the original spells healing over 12 second

Still a raw throughput stat, centred around hots, and works for all situations - raid healing, more hots on more people for more healing everywhere, tank healing, more hots on one target equals even more hots on one target.

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yeah who doesnt play druid to stack hots on one/few targets right
the new mastery just seems flat out counter intuitive in raiding, it'll be awesome in pvp, but in pve it just wont work unless there are great talents/artifact points to compliment it.
i wanna cover the raid in hots, not focus on a few people and stack on them, if i wanted to heal a couple of people i wouldve went paladin

tbh while I know raid healing has been our "niche" for quite a while, I've always prefered tank healing with my druid - namely back in the TBC days, of lifebloom, rejuve and regrowth ticking on 2/3 tanks at once....

[TheMeat420]

Glad you like ele shaman mastery. Sadly we've been one of the worst classes to bring into a mythic raid for ages now.

[emni]

Here, I disagree. I think their goal for Mastery is that it is:

- very easy to understand, even for a casual player
- you gain its benefit by just following the basic rotation/doing your thing
- is somehow thematically tied to the spec

Thus, they keep it simple. Mastery is just a stat. Do you expect crit to be innovative and interesting? Haste - is it boring, or not?

They have many better tools to introduce complexity into a spec's rotations, these are: talents (blah blah, I feel like a Blizz parrot repeating it again, but that doesn't make it any less true), tier bonuses (which can shift playstyles a bit), specific trinkets (like the HFC class trink), and in Legion - the Artifact, which will give you 2-3 active abilities and a lot of passives on its own.

The masteries they propose do their jobs in general. Cats, who are bleed-based, get +bleed. Affli locks get +dot damage. Tanks get +block or +healing received or +dodge or whatever they arbitrarily chose to be the "gimmick" for each spec. It is easy, can be explained to a new player in one sentence and fullfills the above mentioned goals. The only thing is that it might be a bit underwhelming, but what if you get some way to rapidly blanket the raid with a weak hot to just proc mastery? E.g. your shroom explosion leaves a hot, or you get a hot 2min cooldown that basically just Rejuvs the whole raid? You don't know, you won't know (until we get a playable beta with at least an early lineup of talents and Artifact powers put in).

An example from my class: Affliction locks seem to get a burst aoe attack from their weapon, on a medium cd. Neat! And it changes things quite a bit as far as the spec is concerned...

I think you are misunderstanding my post. My complaint is not that the mechanic isn't interesting or complex enough. It's that it rewards a bad playstyle when raid healing and is outright useless when trying to play resto druid's strength (i.e. spread out healing of a lot of people over time).

If mastery is supposed to give you benefit by following basic rotation, then it fails miserably in that regard. Please explain to me how you are gaining the benefit when the whole raid takes damage and you can't get any use from the mastery unless you heal only the people who already have hots on them instead of everyone who actually needs healing.

[shaunika123]

Glad you like ele shaman mastery. Sadly we've been one of the worst classes to bring into a mythic raid for ages now.

ele is one of the better specs in HFC atm, and resto shamans are pmuch the best healers after disc priest
and while enhas admittedly suck, i dont see your point about the other 2

[Kaiarra]

Glad you like ele shaman mastery. Sadly we've been one of the worst classes to bring into a mythic raid for ages now.

Well that is always a good argument for boring masteries - they're far easier to balance.

I think you are misunderstanding my post. My complaint is not that the mechanic isn't interesting or complex enough. It's that it rewards a bad playstyle when raid healing and is outright useless when trying to play resto druid's strength (i.e. spread out healing of a lot of people over time).

Think his post was aimed at my post saying Druid masteries are dull, and how I hope they're placeholders that will be changed.

[Hyve]

This means that you have to choose if you want to actually use your mastery and make your healing look competitive with other healers or forget all about it and actually save people's lives and spread your hots around.

You do your job, which is heal people. Stop worrying about meters...

[Fazer]

From a game design view, not everything is balanced around raiding. You need to balance things for PvP and especially now in Legion, around dungeon content as well.

[Nevcairiel]

If mastery is supposed to give you benefit by following basic rotation, then it fails miserably in that regard. Please explain to me how you are gaining the benefit when the whole raid takes damage and you can't get any use from the mastery unless you heal only the people who already have hots on them instead of everyone who actually needs healing.

A single HoT triggers itself, so it'll get the benefit from mastery, just not as much as it would when multiple HoTs would be on the target already.

On the other hand, it gives Druids an edge in single target healing, where having Lifebloom, 2 Rejuvs (assuming that stays) and Regrowth on the target will actually boost the healing quite a bit more than it ever did before. Which I really like for challenge modes and whatnot.

[Pyrianis]

A more fitting mastery could've simply increased all HoT durations by X%. Oh well. New Harmony doesn't sound too bad on paper, but I too remember the unsatisfying gameplay it created back in Cata. :/

[emni]

You do your job, which is heal people. Stop worrying about meters...

You must not raid on a high level if you think that I, as a raider, get decide whether other people worry about meters or not. It also encourages other people to leverage meters to support bad play styles since most people playing other specs aren't aware of the resto druid mechanics and a healer doing more healing is usually better than a healer doing less healing.

It all comes down to: This didn't work last time, why would it work now?

A single HoT triggers itself, so it'll get the benefit from mastery, just not as much as it would when multiple HoTs would be on the target already.

On the other hand, it gives Druids an edge in single target healing, where having Lifebloom, 2 Rejuvs (assuming that stays) and Regrowth on the target will actually boost the healing quite a bit more than it ever did before. Which I really like for challenge modes and whatnot.

I missed this, this is great news actually. It's better than Symbiosis then, but I still worry that it encourages layering as opposed to triage. I'm with you on CMs, I certainly enjoyed Symbiosis in Cata heroics, but I have some not-so-pleasant flashbacks to Omnitron and being completely outhealed by holy priests who didn't have any layering issues and could use all their stats to their full potential. But I seem to be the only dinosaur around here who actually remembers this.

[Nubulous]

This is more what I was thinking, but I had no way to confirm it. The Resto Druid palystyle is about rolling hots on the raid. If anything when executed in this manner the spec should be quite strong.

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I LOVED the original LoD. No HoPo, original LoD and being switched back to more single target heals is right up my alley for Holy Pally healing. Definitely fits my playstyle.

Ya I cant decide whether I want to heal on my druid or paladin..its a tough choice

[Hyve]

You must not raid on a high level if you think that

And you shouldn't jump to such conclusions. I've healed most of my time in World of Warcraft, and through that I've been at top level Hardcore Heroic (now Mythic) raiding, as well as casual raiding. It's always the same, your job is to heal, your job is to keep the team alive, not to look good on the meters at all.

You said yourself, the Mastery isn't dull, it isn't that it's weak, it's just that it is unrewarding when you see other healers doing less work, for a higher meter position, that is where your issue lies. You're so fixated on looking good to the others, you're willing to risk doing your job properly to do so.

Any decent raid leader or guild master knows that some classes naturally out-perform, despite a low skill cap. If you, or your raid leader base your capabilites and worth in the team on your meter position, you clearly don't raid on a high level.

[stormgust]

I missed this, this is great news actually. It's better than Symbiosis then, but I still worry that it encourages layering as opposed to triage.

For sure it encourages layering, but wether that opposes triage comes down to how restricted in GCD's we'll be, which really comes down to the question, wether there are more talents/passives akin to Flourish (or e.g. added HoT duration on the Artifact)

[emni]

And you shouldn't jump to such conclusions. I've healed most of my time in World of Warcraft, and through that I've been at top level Hardcore Heroic (now Mythic) raiding, as well as casual raiding. It's always the same, your job is to heal, your job is to keep the team alive, not to look good on the meters at all.

You said yourself, the Mastery isn't dull, it isn't that it's weak, it's just that it is unrewarding when you see other healers doing less work, for a higher meter position, that is where your issue lies. You're so fixated on looking good to the others, you're willing to risk doing your job properly to do so.

Any decent raid leader or guild master knows that some classes naturally out-perform, despite a low skill cap. If you, or your raid leader base your capabilites and worth in the team on your meter position, you clearly don't raid on a high level.

No, I did not say any of that, please don't put words into my mouth. For instance, I specifically said that Symbiosis was in fact weak when raid healing due to the layering mechanic. You seem to be so fixated on what you think my complaint is that you failed to read what my complaint actually is.

If you read the threads I linked from 2010 and 2011, you can see clearly why Symbiosis was weak, supported a bad play style, was unintuitive and punishing. There is a good reason it was removed.

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For sure it encourages layering, but wether that opposes triage comes down to how restricted in GCD's we'll be, which really comes down to the question, wether there are more talents/passives akin to Flourish (or e.g. added HoT duration on the Artifact)

That is true, but it is frustrating to see recycled mechanics that were axed for a good reason, if you know what I mean. It's like we've come a full circle and I don't know if I'm interested in another trip on this ferris wheel.

[Isheria]

It got brought back because blizzard wants to nerf aoe spam healing once again and promote single target healing. The mastery change is simply their way to nerf aoe healing for resto druids like they did with every other healing spec. Spirit is also getting removed for the exact same reason but that ain't fully decided yet.

[Hyve]

You said ...

I certainly enjoyed Symbiosis in Cata heroics, but I have some not-so-pleasant flashbacks to Omnitron and being completely outhealed by holy priests who didn't have any layering issues and could use all their stats to their full potential.

and ...

My complaint is not that the mechanic isn't interesting or complex enough. It's that it rewards a bad playstyle when raid healing and is outright useless when trying to play resto druid's strength

You're talking about exactly what I said you are. You don't feel it's as rewarding when you see others doing more healing for less work.

Yes, it's not going to be ideal, it's not perhaps as finely tuned to your classes strengths, but you're basing that off the current model of healing, which might change slightly in the Beta. We don't know yet, we don't know how the boss mechanics are going to work, how the stat weights might change over the Beta, the itemisation on gear from the Raids & Dungeons.

The fact is, yes, it may not be ideal, but you said quite clearly ...

This means that you have to choose if you want to actually use your mastery and make your healing look competitive with other healers or forget all about it and actually save people's lives and spread your hots around.

Again, it's about how it looks. Whether or not it is competitive isn't as much of a concern for you, as much as whether it looks competitive. I healed as a Monk in Highmaul, and I hated it. Everything had Mastery on it, next to nothing had Multistrike on it. My healing looked terrible on the meter, but I knew by me being there, by me doing the best I could with my gear, and my skill, we killed bosses.

If that isn't enough for you, you need to re-roll to the Flavour of the Moth (FotM) class, because you clearly don't like being on the backfoot when it comes to meter readings.

[emni]

You said ...

That wasn't a worry though, that was my experience. Druids were sat because they just weren't as good as holy priests and paladins who reigned supreme. It happened. It's history. It's the whole reason mastery was changed. I simply don't want this to happen again. Telling me to stop looking at meters is completely missing the point.

and ...

You're talking about exactly what I said you are. You don't feel it's as rewarding when you see others doing more healing for less work.

Lol what? No, I am not. I said the lack of complexity and interestingness wasn't a problem, not that I think the mechanic is complex and interesting. I understand English might not be your mother tongue, but come on. It says it right there. I also never mentioned less work, I talked about bad play styles, which is genuinely a problem.

Again, I employ you to actually read what I wrote and not what you wish I wrote so you could pick a fight.