The Trend... Heroic = Forcing Healers Doing More Work

[Ondre]

As a healer it really pisses me off how much stress heroics place on the heals. If you think about ICC heroic fights, the healer is the star of the show. Heroic = Bosses have more health which means fights last longer so healers must heal longer, which can lead to running out of mana a lot sooner. Tanks take sometimes double the damage, which means healers have to really pay attention and drop big heals. I like healing heroics the challenge is fun, but i feel that DPS and sometimes tank arnt really being stressed enough. After watching footage of cata heroic 5 mans... I feel there should be a balance... More 1 shot mechanics to punish dps, more enrages... Tanks for most fights are fine, i see tanks doing their thing. With threat decay, managing cd's, they have enough work. But most fights are tank and spank, you can spam attacks and accept heals.

Stonecore has it down, those fights are pretty balanced... I like that.

[eternalwhitemoon]

Did you see Totalbiscuit's video in Blackrock Caverns? Looks like they do implement "one-shot" mechanics.

The title thread is misleading--this sounded like it was supposed to start as a QQ thread, at which point I was going to smack you upside the head, but now I see you're just trying to state your desire to have mechanics equally balanced as far as performance standards go. DPS shouldn't be able to mindlessly pew-pew as the healers and tanks have to actually work the mechanics, and I think we'll see more DPS accountability in Cataclysm. Hopefully, no one will want to be 'that guy' or the 'mana sponge' that keeps dying to stupid avoidable things.

[Rivin]

DPS have to do their job as well in order to get the boss down before he enrages... It may be less challenging in some ways, but it's still vital.

Also: Threat decay doesn't exist.

[Nangz]

DPS must dps harder in order to beat tougher enrage timers because bosses health increases but rarely do the enrage timer.

I do think that tanks need a harder job though, not many heroic fights get something more hard for the tanks.

[Sy]

so, healing and tanking in cataclysm will be more challenging than dps?

weeell...

i don't remember a time when that has been any different.

edit: that's actually part of why i enjoy healing and tanking more than doing damage (or at least did before wotlk regarding healing^^).

[Deleted]

I agree that tanks and healers have usually had a bit of a harder job, but like was said further up, if you watch some videos of the heroic modes there's a couple of encounters that do one-shot dps, some of it is even on trash mobs that whirlwind etc.

Aside for 1-shot deaths i don't see how giving the dps something to avoid makes it easier for the healer, surely they'd have to heal more if one of em fails?

[Direpanda]

Running heroics on my HPally right now, I might cast, like, 4-10 heals over the course of an entire run. Most will be on the DPS.

I for one will like having something productive to do. Maybe healing will be fun again?

It is also worth noting that more incoming damage also stresses the tank to properly use cooldowns, manage rage, etc.

---------- Post added 2010-09-29 at 01:37 AM ----------

Aside for 1-shot deaths i don't see how giving the dps something to avoid makes it easier for the healer, surely they'd have to heal more if one of em fails?

Not at all. As a healer, you always have the option not to heal someone, particularly DPS. Just like DPS have the option not to take damage from the fire.

[Nymphys]

Indeed it's long been a challenge for designers in that it's one of the major difficulties in designing encounters. The standard way to make any boss harder is to simply make him hit harder. However, that doesn't necessarily increase the difficulty for the tank or DPS, just the healer.

In WOTLK we've seen a lot of great examples where mechanics have been introduced to make individual players take a lot more damage if either themselves or their team members don't do something. Void zones on bosses (and even trash) have become a lot more common.

The last boss in Forge of Souls is a great example of Blizzard trying to solve this. There's both parts where players have to move to get "out of the beam" or they take ridiculous damage, and a phase where people have to stop DPSing or damage is dealt to the channeled player target.

The downside is, random dungeons are still run with cross-eyed, mouth-breathing, button clicking PUGers, who just stand in one spot DPSing as hard as they can no matter what's happening and then blame the healer when they die (or another player dies from their channeled DPS).

I hope to see a lot more examples in Cataclysm - they really have abounded in Wrath - although I'd also like to see warnings dumped into group chat along the lines of "PLAYER A IS DAMAGING PLAYER B THROUGH <EYE OF SOMETHING>" or "PLAYER A IS STANDING IN THE ****... STILL STANDING THERE", simply to embarass people into realizing their mistakes and improving their playstyle.

[eternalwhitemoon]

Indeed it's long been a challenge for designers in that it's one of the major difficulties in designing encounters. The standard way to make any boss harder is to simply make him hit harder. However, that doesn't necessarily increase the difficulty for the tank or DPS, just the healer.

In WOTLK we've seen a lot of great examples where mechanics have been introduced to make individual players take a lot more damage if either themselves or their team members don't do something. Void zones on bosses (and even trash) have become a lot more common.

The last boss in Forge of Souls is a great example of Blizzard trying to solve this. There's both parts where players have to move to get "out of the beam" or they take ridiculous damage, and a phase where people have to stop DPSing or damage is dealt to the channeled player target.

The downside is, random dungeons are still run with cross-eyed, mouth-breathing, button clicking PUGers, who just stand in one spot DPSing as hard as they can no matter what's happening and then blame the healer when they die (or another player dies from their channeled DPS).

I hope to see a lot more examples in Cataclysm - they really have abounded in Wrath - although I'd also like to see warnings dumped into group chat along the lines of "PLAYER A IS DAMAGING PLAYER B THROUGH <EYE OF SOMETHING>" or "PLAYER A HAS DIED DUE TO STANDING IN THE ****", simply to embarass people into realizing their mistakes and improving their playstyle.

Kind of like the emote from popping a cloud on Yogg-Saron. "The clouds swirl upon touching <player>!" or however it was phrased. It was proof absolutely undeniable of someone screwing up, and I loved that little easter egg, because there was absolutely no way to hide your failure.

[Khanjin]

The way dungeons work in the beta at least, is that DPS will know when they're doing something wrong and took a shitload of damage/died. The non-idiots won't blame the healer for it. There is a lot more preassure on the DPS in the cataclysm content, thank god.

[Wonderwuman]

Running heroics on my HPally right now, I might cast, like, 4-10 heals over the course of an entire run. Most will be on the DPS.

I for one will like having something productive to do. Maybe healing will be fun again?

no way ur casting 4-10 heals in a lv 85 heroic

i just tanked h sfk and i know i and everyone else got healed more then 10 times

[Deleted]

Not at all. As a healer, you always have the option not to heal someone, particularly DPS. Just like DPS have the option not to take damage from the fire.

Haha, yeah that's always a good option, i actually mained a Resto Druid and moved onto my Shaman for some melee goodness, though it has always been a fun hobby of mine to let stupid dps die, rage at me, and then leave.

It's always for the greater good

[Nymphys]

Not at all. As a healer, you always have the option not to heal someone, particularly DPS. Just like DPS have the option not to take damage from the fire.

I get kicked from PUGs when I do that. So really, if I identify I have bad players early on, I usually dump the group and go do a daily.

[Ondre]

I like healing i just hated the fact that heroic icc was designed to stress the healers as much as possible. DPS would suck all day and heals would have to make up for it. Melee can stand in fire.... No problem, I got heals for that. Rogues wont interrupt. No problem i can heal that. In cata healing will be harder thanks to heals costing tons. So DPS screwing up will cost the healers EVEN MORE. But of course dps will never get called out.

[Rivin]

Not at all. As a healer, you always have the option not to heal someone, particularly DPS. Just like DPS have the option not to take damage from the fire.

To be honest, I find it much easier to just keep them alive (as long as no one else needs healing, of course). Letting people die is such a hassle.

I like healing i just hated the fact that heroic icc was designed to stress the healers as much as possible. DPS would suck all day and heals would have to make up for it. Melee can stand in fire.... No problem, I got heals for that. Rogues wont interrupt. No problem i can heal that. In cata healing will be harder thanks to heals costing tons. So DPS screwing up will cost the healers EVEN MORE. But of course dps will never get called out.

I think under the new healing system, people standing in fires are going to be penalized much more by the raid than they are today. As long as it's not a bad group, of course.

[Deleted]

no way ur casting 4-10 heals in a lv 85 heroic

i just tanked h sfk and i know i and everyone else got healed more then 10 times

I think he was talking Live heroics, hoping that Cata heroic will "maybe make healing fun again"

[Deleted]

Just throwing it in there - I absolutely LOVE these new heroics and I certainly hope they stay the way they are.

To be honest, I want to barely be able to hold my group up and my mana to be almost out when the boss is dead - Halls of Reflection was a tiny step towards a better 5-man instance, but it was a little bit too late.

[Deleted]

I like healing i just hated the fact that heroic icc was designed to stress the healers as much as possible. DPS would suck all day and heals would have to make up for it. Melee can stand in fire.... No problem, I got heals for that. Rogues wont interrupt. No problem i can heal that. In cata healing will be harder thanks to heals costing tons. So DPS screwing up will cost the healers EVEN MORE. But of course dps will never get called out.

Well i think this is exactly where DPS are gonna get called out, the players with a reasonable understanding of the game are gonna realise that it's not the healers fault the DPS are dying when they're getting 1-shot and your heals cost a bazillion mana, sure if you're using the LFD tool it's gonna be like that for quite a while i imagine.

Best bet is probably sticking to guild/friend runs till people wise up to crappy dps

[MortalWombat]

Actually dps has something to do. Their job is to avoid any avoidable damage so that the healer doesn't get overwhelmed. One shot abilities aren't needed to make dps have something to do.

[sicness]

You do realize that maximizing dps equals less time needed to heal meaning less healing needed? Healing has just as much to do with the damage output of the encounter as it does with your dps' damage output.