Why are we being forced to use Heal

[dekadron]

So, essentially, we have been forced into using a much more mana expensive Flash Heal for the current raiding content, until Cata comes out?

I don't understand what you mean, I could cast flash heal continuously from now until the cows come home and literally never run out of mana, my regen in a raid is higher than the mana cost.

In cat it will probably be a different story, but for now there is no reason to be casting heal, except I suppose for chakra or to remove the weakened soul effect.

[Moxal]

Just as long as MT healer rotations aren't required like they were pre-TBC. I don't want to sit around and wand (or melée) until I regen. That was NOT fun.

[Autumn xD]

remember at level 85 in pvp gear you will probably have 100k hp. with damage not going up too much from where it is now on live plus the buff to resi, bursting down will not be an option. PVP ( in arena at least) will be about chipping away at the enemies hp and mana, and timing fishing combos when hp is low enough.

Timing of heals wont be measured on the edge of a knife anymore, so unless you're at 15k hp its unlikely a spell inturrept will kill the game for you.

Resilience would need to be buffed and damage numbers would need to be nerfed fairly significantly for this to hold true (in the current Beta state), but those changes are going to happen hopefully. I do have faith in Blizzard.
That or fix the mana costs, because as of now... No. (Again, in the Beta, not to be confused with live)

[Honen]

So, essentially, we have been forced into using a much more mana expensive Flash Heal for the current raiding content, until Cata comes out?

Isn't it the same cost as it was before the patch? We have more mana and the go-to spell we've been using is the same cost is always has been...

I can't comment on cata because I'm not in beta.. but for now just play like you have been.

[DruidMons]

I think its funny how people keep saying wait for Cat to come out. If you only knew. I've been healing on Beta for a while and I just dont like it anymore. I'm done healing. At 85 in Good gear its just a pain. People keep saying oh you dont have epic gear so its going to be hard. Wait until you get your epic gear. If that's the case forget it. Box your just seeing the start of a long sad road for us healers. Mage here I come

[Evolixe]

At the moment, neglect it. Leave it behind until cataclysm. As we still have infinite mana at the moment, even with spamming FH/GH.

[ShimmerSwirl]

Im guessing in Cata the Chakra crit ability for Heal will be more appealing. Right now theres no reason to use it.

---------- Post added 2010-10-15 at 06:38 PM ----------

I think its funny how people keep saying wait for Cat to come out. If you only knew. I've been healing on Beta for a while and I just dont like it anymore. I'm done healing. At 85 in Good gear its just a pain. People keep saying oh you dont have epic gear so its going to be hard. Wait until you get your epic gear. If that's the case forget it. Box your just seeing the start of a long sad road for us healers. Mage here I come

Just curious, what exactly is bad about it?

[Bombkirby]

Basically, you use it if you just are trying to keep the tank at a nice high health level or if you just need to top off a DPS who lost some health but is in no danger of dieing.

Thats the theory anyways. Prolly wont work till cata dungeons.

[dabros]

you shouldn't need to use Heal at 80, it's meant for 85 mana efficiency.

[AlexGrey]

I saw the mana cost and that is why they are forcing us to use it, so we don't go oom. But healing last night I found that heal was to slow for the amount it healed. I was finding I was still having to use flash heal to keep the tank up because of the incoming dmg. Heal would have been to slow and we would have been wiping more then we did.

Then Blizzard has done its job and made players capable of failing once more.

[Freshouttajail]

GH and FH will need to cost 5 times what it's now to make me use Heal, it's way too freaking slow for the amount it heals. Attonement alone outheals that and does dps at the same time, all while charging up archangel which is like a mana pot out of thin air. Throw some shields, prayer of mending, renew.... it's way more efficient than heal in any way shape or form.

The only situation where I can see it being useful is if you need to pre cast a heal on someone who's gonna take a very very small amount of damage, and it has to be only 1 person or else prayer of healing becomes a better option, or even holy nova while at it, lol.

Also on the priest page I see this :
Heal *New* - Heal your target for 2339.95 to 2719.4. / 9% of base mana, 40 yd range, 3 sec cast

last time I tried, even with over 3k SP this Heal spell barely did 3.5k, did it change along with the dps hotfix that happened after patch?

IMO it should heal for as much as flash heal, with less mana at the cost of slower cast time.

Cuz right now if that number is right, 1 PW: S is like 3 Heal.... without any cast time and gives mana back afterward. Worse case scenario, wait for the guy to take a bit more dmg and penance him, each tick is much stronger than a Heal...

[Kelesti]

I think its funny how people keep saying wait for Cat to come out. If you only knew. I've been healing on Beta for a while and I just dont like it anymore. I'm done healing. At 85 in Good gear its just a pain. People keep saying oh you dont have epic gear so its going to be hard. Wait until you get your epic gear. If that's the case forget it. Box your just seeing the start of a long sad road for us healers. Mage here I come

"Working. As. Intended." When I'm telling people "wait until 85", this is what I'm referring to, where things get harder again, where you can't say "but in raid gear it won't matter so I'll just do X".

If people box their healers because they can't handle it, then overall it's good for the game. We're sick of appealing to the lowest common denominator. This isn't directed at you, more or less the community in general.

[Chitzu]

There's alot of missing factors in this thread already.

None is forcing you to use "Heal", but you'll want to use it in Cataclysm when you're helping out on Tank healing unless it's stressful and the Tank(s) is taking too much damage, or even if a single raid member in 1 group is taking too much damage, then Flash heal would be of use as well, since using PoH would just waste mana for healing 1 person, which is less healing then using a Flash on him.

However... When you're in Heal Chakra, you refresh the renew on the target everytime you throw it + Echo of light stacking up, it all adds up to about the same as casting a Flash heal, but for way less mana cost in the current state of WoTLK raiding.

An example would be: Heroic Lich King 25-man, During Phase 1 i literarely got nothing to do, i heal Grp2 by myself obviously since all i need to do is to throw a PoH and they're topped off, now... would you use PoH Chakra for that 1 heal once in a while when infest hits? i think not.

Instead, you stay in Healing chakra during the entire P1, throw a Renew on the tank you're healing, or you could throw it on both and heal one target + refresh the renew with a heal on the other once in a while before it runs out. Now doing this will result in going out of P1 with about 95-100% mana left for Transition phase and you waste all mana you want there basically cause you'll want to use Shadowfiend at the start of P2 so that you got it up for P3 again as you'll most likely be in PoH chakra during P2 to the end unless you decide to be in Renew Chakra for Shadowmourne room, atleast i spend a lot of mana there as im constantly healing people through the entire fight, if there's nothing to heal > you heal tanks, mostly with Heal and a renew up unless he's dropping too fast and you have to Flash heal (one of those moments would be during Soul reaper)

But as said, the balancing is for 85, you'll use it more then cause the mana cost will go up by a lot, it wont be as now where your mana is close to infinite.


Also, the "Heal" HPS isn't too bad, mine is critting for 8-10k~ almost, that's what a uncritted Flash heal is healing for (it's a little more, but close enough.) dispite the casting time, it's good for the moments where you'll need the mana later if another healer dies or w/e.

[harky]

If you feel you're being forced to cast a spell because it's a good spell then you should reorganize your priorities. Having a spell which is a very good stable filler with multiple side benefits is a good thing. Why would you ever possibly consider this to be bad? It isn't. Heal and Greater Heal now amount to down-ranking, but officially legitimized. Heal is simply a down-ranked Greater Heal. Very high efficiency, still scales decently, but has much lower base healing.

Try tank healing and think outside the box. Just because you can pigeonhole yourself to a pre-4.0 style doesn't mean it's the only way to play. Heal is a big part of why. That and ignoring the logic that the Renew chakra devalues Haste. Stop thinking of yourself as a Paladin when spamming Heal. You're not. You're a Fire Mage.

[XepNes]

Chakra -> Heal -> Renew -> spam heal to keep renew and chakra up. I had chakra up and running for 15 minutes while waiting for Lfd in dalaran what I really am disappointed about is that your more or less forced to take some talents you actually dont want just to proceed in the talent tree.

[harky]

No, you're really not. Surge of Light is totally unnecessary and ineffectual in its current implementation. The only question that should ever cross your mind as a Holy Priest is to take the 1 'bummer' point out of ToF/TD/Darkness. ToF is less reliable, so it's a somewhat easy option. You're overestimating how many actual spec options there are as Holy at 80.

[Geckomayhem]

So damage is going to be that low that we can afford to cast that slow of a heal that will heal for that little. hmm

No, health pools are going to be higher. We will be using heal a lot more than greater heal and flash heal for our basic healing spell, but it will be a matter of knowing each encounter and how to heal for them. If you must do a quick heal for extra damage, then there are other options, just as if you need to heal up a lot of health you will have the time to cast a greater heal in place of heal.

We have more option but the current gameplay model doesn't line up with the new class mechanics.

[Paulosio]

It's the exact same situation for druids with nourish and healing touch. Both have around the same cast time but healing touch costs about 3 times the mana and heals for about 3 times the ammount. It's quite important since they have massively reduced healers mana efficiency so that mana management is once again an important skill.

[XepNes]

It's the exact same situation for druids with nourish and healing touch. Both have around the same cast time but healing touch costs about 3 times the mana and heals for about 3 times the ammount. It's quite important since they have massively reduced healers mana efficiency so that mana management is once again an important skill.

what...? pre-patch I had to watch my mana, now im faceroll healing... atleast in heroics and yes its a bad geared character and recently became my main

[Drekor]

I really only use heal to strip weakened soul(hooray for SoS!).