MW utility in Legion, will the absolute void remain?

[Exquis]

Hey guys.

Been looking at the new spells/talents etc for the MW rework/makeover whatever, and it worries me to no end that they will still leave us with fuckall raid utility in comparison to other healers. (From what i've seen)

Are there any news i've missed about mistweavers utility in legion? Blizzard given any insight to their thoughtprocess behind leaving us with no worthwhile cds like Sac/link/barrier etc?

[Floopa]

TFT seems to be our utility. w/ lvl 100 talents it can be very strong

what i would like if focussed tea gave TFT 2 charges (each w/ 45 sec CD) so you could keep them for 90 sec intervals (similar to AW, etc) when you need that powerful burst of healing.

[Myta]

TFT seems to be our utility. w/ lvl 100 talents it can be very strong

what i would like if focussed tea gave TFT 2 charges (each w/ 45 sec CD) so you could keep them for 90 sec intervals (similar to AW, etc) when you need that powerful burst of healing.

I believe he means raid utility. While the talented TFT is cool you have to talent into basic toolkit spells every other healer tamarack for granted.

I have hopes that Blizz listens and cares, that maybe we wont go a third expansion as bottom of the heap.

[Potta]

It really does seem like Legion will move us from arguably lowest value utility to having none at all. This is really unfortunate and absolutely must be addressed. When providing feedback over the beta period, I believe this should be the #1 MW issue. Numeric equivalence to other healers in terms of just doing our job means absolutely nothing when there's no reason for a guild to recruit MWs or a raid to accept one (short of having absolutely no other option). It cannot even be argued that other healers are having their utility removed either; I made a comparison of the raid utility the other specs bring earlier today:

Druid:
MotW
Ironbark
Combat Res

Shaman:
0 cost damage
Ranged interupt
Purge
Bloodlust
Spirit Link Totem
Wind Rush Totem
Earthen Shield Totem

Paladin:
BoP
BoS
Aura Mastery
Devotion Aura/Aura of Light/Aura of Mercy

Priest:
Hymn of Hope
Guardian Spirit

We have literally nothing. Interupt? Removed. ToD? Removed. Damage providing healing? Removed. Ignoring mechanics? Removed. Either they're going to have to start cutting way back on the utility provided to every other healer, or they must throw us a bone here.

[Tiberria]

It really does seem like Legion will move us from arguably lowest value utility to having none at all. This is really unfortunate and absolutely must be addressed. When providing feedback over the beta period, I believe this should be the #1 MW issue. Numeric equivalence to other healers in terms of just doing our job means absolutely nothing when there's no reason for a guild to recruit MWs or a raid to accept one (short of having absolutely no other option). It cannot even be argued that other healers are having their utility removed either; I made a comparison of the raid utility the other specs bring earlier today:

Druid:
MotW
Ironbark
Combat Res

Shaman:
0 cost damage
Ranged interupt
Purge
Bloodlust
Spirit Link Totem
Wind Rush Totem
Earthen Shield Totem

Paladin:
BoP
BoS
Aura Mastery
Devotion Aura/Aura of Light/Aura of Mercy

Priest:
Hymn of Hope
Guardian Spirit

We have literally nothing. Interupt? Removed. ToD? Removed. Damage providing healing? Removed. Ignoring mechanics? Removed. Either they're going to have to start cutting way back on the utility provided to every other healer, or they must throw us a bone here.

Your list is pretty biased.
- Shaman are losing Wind Shear
- Things like Combat Rezz and Bloodlust are not legitimate raid utility, because they have shared cooldowns and have several classes that can bring them. You only really need 1 Lust and 1 BRezz, and any 20 man raid comp is guaranteed to have several.
- You can't count things like Guardian Spirit and Ironbark if you aren't also going to count Life Cocoon. Yes, it's weaker in most situations, but that is an issue with Life Cocoon, not with utility.

Effectively, Druids have nothing but Mark of the Wild, and that is an extremely weak utility (it is like a ~0.2% raid DPS increase) that is close to meaningless. You could easily argue that being able to solo mechanics with Diffuse Magic or Divine Shield has more utility than the piece of crap that is MoTW. Holy Priests also effectively have nothing if they don't talent Hymn of Hope - which requires a 12 second channel and gives no benefit to the caster. The real issue is that Disc/HPally/Shaman have way too much utility and either need to have it stripped (or MW/HPriest/RDruid need utility added). I don't understand why they decided to give HPally more utility in the Aura system, when they already trumped everyone else in that department while severely gutting RDruid utility in removing Roar. It's idiotic design decisions.

[Potta]

Fair enough about Wind Shear, I didn't notice that one.

I disagree about the rest though. Combat Rez and BL are important utility to bring. Before I quit in WoD, I raided several times in groups where we lacked BL in particular. We weren't running a particularly unusual group setup, just the way the classes fell meant that we had no reliable source for it. Being that source is of value. The other issue is one that is shared with Combat Rez: redundancy. Especially with combat rez! There's no value in having 1 if it just so happens that the person with it died. Maybe these buffs in particular are not an issue in 20 man raiding, but that is not the only raiding in the game. I was more often in 10-15 man groups, and shortages on particular utilities do occur.

I do not accept that Ironbark and Life Cocoon are anywhere close to equivalent. It's perfectly valid for me not to count LC because it's so weak as to be meaningless. I understand that you think the obvious design "intent" of it being a tank cooldown is enough for it to be grouped together, but it's not a valid argument. Maybe if Ironbark was only 5% DR instead, and equivalently useless you might have a point, but the point I am making here is that so-called utility like Life Cocoon that is indistinguishable from no utility is worthless to the point that making the distinction is a waste of time. For all intents and purposes, LC does not exist as a tank cooldown when raiding. I've never had it requested, from raid leaders or tanks. It's never been in any sort of cooldown rotation that was devised by anyone else, because everyone realises it is trash. I don't think you could honestly say the same about Ironbark, which is very powerful.

Agreed however that the major outliers here are Paladin, Shaman and Disc. I think it's true that they have too much AND we have too little, not a case of one or the other. Unless by chance the pruning Blizzard would do on this is performed with a chainsaw.

[Tiberria]

Fair enough about Wind Shear, I didn't notice that one.

I disagree about the rest though. Combat Rez and BL are important utility to bring. Before I quit in WoD, I raided several times in groups where we lacked BL in particular. We weren't running a particularly unusual group setup, just the way the classes fell meant that we had no reliable source for it. Being that source is of value. The other issue is one that is shared with Combat Rez: redundancy. Especially with combat rez! There's no value in having 1 if it just so happens that the person with it died. Maybe these buffs in particular are not an issue in 20 man raiding, but that is not the only raiding in the game. I was more often in 10-15 man groups, and shortages on particular utilities do occur.

I do not accept that Ironbark and Life Cocoon are anywhere close to equivalent. It's perfectly valid for me not to count LC because it's so weak as to be meaningless. I understand that you think the obvious design "intent" of it being a tank cooldown is enough for it to be grouped together, but it's not a valid argument. Maybe if Ironbark was only 5% DR instead, and equivalently useless you might have a point, but the point I am making here is that so-called utility like Life Cocoon that is indistinguishable from no utility is worthless to the point that making the distinction is a waste of time. For all intents and purposes, LC does not exist as a tank cooldown when raiding. I've never had it requested, from raid leaders or tanks. It's never been in any sort of cooldown rotation that was devised by anyone else, because everyone realises it is trash. I don't think you could honestly say the same about Ironbark, which is very powerful.

Agreed however that the major outliers here are Paladin, Shaman and Disc. I think it's true that they have too much AND we have too little, not a case of one or the other. Unless by chance the pruning Blizzard would do on this is performed with a chainsaw.

MoTW is more useless than Life Cocoon, so you can exclude that too. However, the real issue is the tuning on Life Cocoon. If it were buffed to be comparable to IB/PSupp/Sac, that would be fine. Lust/BRezz was much more of a think in Cata/MoP when 10 man raiding was a legitimate progression path. Now that 20 man raids are the standard, you are all but guaranteed to have 2+ Mages/Shaman/BM Hunters or 2+ Druids/Death Knights/Warlocks/Hunters with BRezz pets in any possible raid comp you can put together. In 99% of cases in the current raid model, having a Resto Druid Rebirth or a Resto Shaman Lust adds no additional utility to the raid.

[Potta]

Now that 20 man raids are the standard, you are all but guaranteed to have 2+ Mages/Shaman/BM Hunters or 2+ Druids/Death Knights/Warlocks/Hunters with BRezz pets in any possible raid comp you can put together.

Standard? I think you mistake Mythic raiding requirement with "standard". The vast majority of players do not raid Mythic. They raid Heroics in groups from 10+. I don't think it's too much to ask for raiding utility to be reasonably spread out so that smaller sized groups do not run into problems. Having particular classes like Paladins and Shamans providing 2-3x the utility of others whilst performing their role on par with others is not acceptable. In groups of 10-15, you can fairly easily find yourself missing a BL or CR.

One thing I think you're forgetting about MotW is the psychological impact of it. A lot of this comes down making classes equally appealing so that some are not highly preferred over others when trying to find groups or filling raiding rosters. While MotW might be a very minor DPS increase for the whole raid, psychologically it's quite important for the players that get it - and those that don't! If a Druid and Monk were to sign up to the last spot in a raid in the group finder, with equivalent gear and experience, the spot would go to the Druid, and part of that decision would be down to MotW being available to keep that DPS friend happy.

[Deleted]

Life cocon and revival are your utility.

Also tiberria please stop whining over weak motw, ofc that's completely unbalanced at this point in time. It will be much better on live servers.

[Chassara]

With the Platinum Repose Legendary Cape (brez function) the utility of BR will most likely diminish.

In saying that, I'm with everyone though. Our toolkit seems extremely lackluster compared to the other healers.
Resto Shamans are able to keep their HTT, doubt SLT and can talent into ascendance.
Resto Druids get to keep Ironbark, Tranq and have the options to reduce the CD of tranq and also spec into Tree.
Holy Priests get to keep Guardian Spirit (imo still better than LC), Divine Hymn and have the option to spec into Hymn of Hope
Holy Paladins get more auras, adding to their already powerful utility
Disc priest still get to keep all their cds, some absorbs (rendering LC STILL useless) and DPS/Heal the boss.

We get Rev, a watered down absorb, and Chi-Ji, if talented. Compared to the others and also take into account the loss of fistweaving, that seems fairly lackluster. I don't care that fistweaving is gone, I don't care that our spec was given a re-work. I'm all for change. But if our primary "niche" was gutted and given to another class, at least give us something to make up for that. Mistweavers have been saying for a very long time how terrible LC is (for PvE) and it has still been overlooked despite the huge re-work. At the moment, I don't know why you would bring a Mistweaver. Sure the TFT is great and Rev has its uses, but look at the toolkit of every other class and tell me that looks balanced compared to what we have - which is the bare minimum.

What do I suggest?
If Blizzard refuse to give us any new spells, at least change Life Cocoon to a viable tank CD.
Some sort of group healing mobility: Possibly something Fox-like, allowing group healing and movement for a short duration or speed increase (OP, but at least we would be brought for something)

[Potta]

Life Cocoon is not utility. It's trash tier and may as well not exist.

Revival is not utility. It's a core part of the healing toolkit, no better or worse than what every other healer gets.

At very least Life Cocoon needs something that could bring it up to the level of being considered a viable tank cooldown. Maybe a glyph that halved the duration but doubled/tripled the absorb.

[Deleted]

Oh I agree life cocon is too weak but it is certainly intended as utility by blizzard.
Also throughput CDs are regarded as utility as well (there's a reason they are a lot stronger than devo aura and pw:b in any real life scenario).

But I guess it would be fair for mw to get another small tool when holy priests get mana hymn, druids (talented) 2min tranq and dps CD (affinity). Also don't forget asc is now a talent for rshaman for which they have to give up either high tide or a new powerful aoe heal.

[Totaltotemic]

Oh I agree life cocon is too weak but it is certainly intended as utility by blizzard.
Also throughput CDs are regarded as utility as well (there's a reason they are a lot stronger than devo aura and pw:b in any real life scenario).

But I guess it would be fair for mw to get another small tool when holy priests get mana hymn, druids (talented) 2min tranq and dps CD (affinity). Also don't forget asc is now a talent for rshaman for which they have to give up either high tide or a new powerful aoe heal.

Tranq, Revival, Divine Hymn, and HTT didn't get slowly tuned to do massive amounts of healing over the years because they are supposed to be "utility", they got there because Holy Paladins and Disc Priests have absurdly overpowered HPS and absurdly powerful 3 minute healing CDs are the only way for healing specs aside from those two to end up contributing anywhere near as much HPS. Besides, that's a ridiculous idea that a throughput CD is regarded as a utility (regarded by who exactly?) because it's like saying that Recklessness is Warrior utility. Contributing more of the numbers that your spec is supposed to contribute isn't utility and it never has been considered that.

It also doesn't matter whether Blizzard thinks Life Cocoon is equivalent to Sac/Pain Suppression/Ironbark or not when it's been a nearly 2 minute CD that does less to protect someone than PW:S/CoW for over 3 years now. Absorbing a single boss swing is not equivalent to taking 30% off of 6 or 7 swings.

[Tiberria]

Also throughput CDs are regarded as utility as well (there's a reason they are a lot stronger than devo aura and pw:b in any real life scenario).

Throughput cooldowns may be more powerful, but 100% of the effective healing they do shows up as throughput (which is what healing specs are apparently balanced around), whereas damage reduction raid cooldowns like Devo Aura, Barrier, and SLT do not show up at all. Paladins expect to be balanced around doing the same amount of effective healing as Mistweavers/Druids, even though they have major raid cooldowns that are over and above those HPS numbers.

Therefore, sorry, throughput raid cooldowns are not really utility. They are balanced around being part of your throughput contribution. Raid utility is stuff that is over and above basic throughput balance. Devo/Barrier/SLT are utility. Tranq/Revival/HTT are not the way healers are currently balanced.

[BedlamBros]

Revival is a pretty good raid utility.

There's also Life Cocoon, which could have pretty good synergy with Zen Pulse.

There's also Invoke Chi Ji, which lasts 45 seconds.

I mean, I wouldn't say that Monks have the best utility around, but I also wouldn't say its non-existent either.

[Mukor]

Just so you're all aware, artifact talents haven't been shown. And remember everything you see can be changed.

[Deleted]

Don't know if you noticed that nearly all boss fights have short windows of very high burst dmg. Spells that can deal with these situations are utility.

Don't know if you noticed that nearly all boss fights do damage. Spells that deal with doing damage are utility. Therefore, all heals are utility. Let's start counting number of healing spells in the spellbook!

Nice hyperbole. But oh well I guess it's random how blizzard decides to give out CDs.
Guess disc was able to heal one round solo blackhand P1 (pre second nerf).

[Totaltotemic]

Don't know if you noticed that nearly all boss fights have short windows of very high burst dmg. Spells that can deal with these situations are utility.

Don't know if you noticed that nearly all boss fights do damage. Spells that deal with doing damage are utility. Therefore, all heals are utility. Let's start counting number of healing spells in the spellbook!

- - - Updated - - -

There's also Invoke Chi Ji, which lasts 45 seconds.

I mean, I wouldn't say that Monks have the best utility around, but I also wouldn't say its non-existent either.

Oh just kidding, we've apparently already started counting basic healing spells as utility now. I hear Healing Stream Totem is totally utility.

[Tiberria]

Yeah, Rejuv is also definitely utility because you can pre-hot people before they take damage. Seriously, let's stop being ridiculous. Of course, raid cooldowns heal up damage, just like healing spells heal up damage. The point is, the contribution of Revival, Tranq, etc. is clearly accounted for in healer balance. If Revival does 20% of your healing, and you are balanced to do the same healing as Holy Paladin, the MW's baseline toolkit will be 20% weaker than the Paladin's. Revival is not utility; it's part of your core toolkit and throughput contribution you bring to the raid. Devo Aura, Barrier, etc. is not part of that throughput contribution, and is a benefit those specs bring over and above the throughput contribution. If a Holy Pally and a Mistweaver do exactly the same throughput, the Paladin is clearly superior/overtuned, because they bring an entire raid cooldown, and multiple other elements of utility over and above the raw HPS.

[BedlamBros]

Well Revival also clears Poison, Disease, and Magic effects instantly. Doesn't that count for something?