Dragonflight Beta - Changes to Player Health and Creature Damage at level 70
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Throughout raid testing in the Dragonflight beta, we have noticed that healing has felt too powerful in level 70 content. This has largely been the result of the impact that 10 additional talent points can have on player damage and healing throughput at level 70.

Generally, we increase player health at the same rate as throughput. This ensures that the pace of the game feels relatively consistent across all levels. One recent example is the covenant renown reward, Deepening Bond, that increased player Stamina by 10% to offset the power gains of Covenant abilities, soulbinds and conduits. After further analysis and playtesting, we have decided that in an upcoming build we will bake the 10% increase to Stamina from Deepening Bond into the base stats of level 60 characters to offset power gained from the new talent system and change Deepening Bond to an increase to movement speed in the Shadowlands.

When damage mitigation abilities and healing are too strong relative to player health, the only way to threaten players is to make enemy damage very high and spiky. If healers can very quickly top off their teammates and mana isn’t a limiting factor, enemies have to be tuned to have the capacity to do burst damage that kills players before healers can react. That isn’t very satisfying gameplay. Increasing player health gives players more time to react to incoming damage, and it make players’ choices about cooldowns and mana management more meaningful.

To address this, we are increasing player stamina and creature damage by 40% at level 70 . This has an effect on the power of healing in PvP, so we will subsequently evaluate and consider adjusting the PvP trinket set bonus values and the tuning of Dampening in Arena. We’re also looking at how this change affects the balance of percentage-based healing versus other healing spells, and we’ll make targeted adjustments there if necessary.

We look forward to your feedback and experiences with these changes on the Dragonflight beta. Thank you!
This article was originally published in forum thread: Dragonflight Beta - Changes to Player Health and Creature Damage at level 70 started by Lumy View original post
Comments 40 Comments
  1. Biomega's Avatar
    Good move, though I'm not sure it'll really shift the whack-a-mole feeling that's been plaguing WoW healing for the longest time, where people drop precipitously and you heal them up to full almost immediately. A more drip-feedy healing approach would be nice, but given the vast array of healing tools available I don't see this happening anytime soon even with this change.

    But who knows, maybe I'm wrong.
  1. Hotmail's Avatar
    Getting "and then we doubled it" vibes from this
  1. EverDash's Avatar
    Holy shit. 40% is not an inconsequential amount.
  1. Jigga93's Avatar
    good change. I hate the pre-cata healing style of spikyness.
  1. ceall's Avatar
    While increased hp is nice, the blanket 40% damage increase is just bad.

    Monsters in zero affix +12 Keys one shot players oftentimes. Increased auto attack damage is fine, but abilities should be tuned individually
  1. Nynax's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Biomega View Post
    Good move, though I'm not sure it'll really shift the whack-a-mole feeling that's been plaguing WoW healing for the longest time, where people drop precipitously and you heal them up to full almost immediately. A more drip-feedy healing approach would be nice, but given the vast array of healing tools available I don't see this happening anytime soon even with this change.

    But who knows, maybe I'm wrong.
    There's been a couple expansions where they tried to focus the healing game on mana conservation and triage healing. While the elite players adjust fine, the larger player base simply never responds well. There's some inherent psychological need to keep health bars topped off and the meta always became w/e the most mana efficient healer was; combined with all the usual memes of DPS standing in fire.

    The nail in the coffin is that, even in those expansions, the way gear scaling and damage works in WoW means that the end of the expansion is always flooded with high damage mechanics anyway or you end up with tanks that simply can't die without making every single fight have an enrage timer.
  1. PixelFox's Avatar
    Last time I main healed was the end of Wrath when Atonement was super easy and hella fun. And people wonder why not enough people want to heal these days.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nynax View Post
    There's been a couple expansions where they tried to focus the healing game on mana conservation and triage healing. While the elite players adjust fine, the larger player base simply never responds well. There's some inherent psychological need to keep health bars topped off and the meta always became w/e the most mana efficient healer was; combined with all the usual memes of DPS standing in fire.

    The nail in the coffin is that, even in those expansions, the way gear scaling and damage works in WoW means that the end of the expansion is always flooded with high damage mechanics anyway or you end up with tanks that simply can't die without making every single fight have an enrage timer.
    You played during the Cataclysm expansion too, huh? It was just the worst being a healer and, in the end, the devs failed at their goals anyway. Not sure why they're convinced a second go-around is going to fare any better.
  1. schwank05's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by PixelFox View Post
    Last time I main healed was the end of Wrath when Atonement was super easy and hella fun. And people wonder why not enough people want to heal these days.
    Bring back MOP Release Disc and just Smart heals in general. I will be more than happy to, applying atonement has always felt shitty and makes gameplay more annoying than anything.
  1. TbouncerT's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ceall View Post
    While increased hp is nice, the blanket 40% damage increase is just bad.

    Monsters in zero affix +12 Keys one shot players oftentimes. Increased auto attack damage is fine, but abilities should be tuned individually
    This is news to me, I didn't know you can do M+ without any affixes.
  1. noidrawr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by javierdsv View Post
    TLDR: We are artificially increasing the time spent playing instead of adding actual mechanics because it felt like too much fun to feel powerful while healing.
    Usually a TL;DR is to summarize for people who didn't want to read it. Not for you to demonstrate that you obviously didn't read or comprehend it.
  1. Larynx's Avatar
    And everyone hated it.
  1. Pratt's Avatar
    M+ unplayable after this?
  1. Nereidaa's Avatar
    This is a great change, I really don't enjoy the spikey health bar style and this might get me back into playing healers.
  1. Larynx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nereidaa View Post
    This is a great change, I really don't enjoy the spikey health bar style and this might get me back into playing healers.
    Maybe they should appeal to people who actually play healers.
  1. ceall's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TbouncerT View Post
    This is news to me, I didn't know you can do M+ without any affixes.
    On beta you can. And this is what I was referring to.
  1. Chucknourishlol's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TbouncerT View Post
    This is news to me, I didn't know you can do M+ without any affixes.
    I could be wrong but i think M+ in the beta have no affixes other than thundering at the moment.

    Ex. Naowh running this 15 key and it only shows one icon above the death counts, thundering i believe?

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1639658528?t=01h25m03s
  1. Segus1992's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Alayea View Post
    You played during the Cataclysm expansion too, huh? It was just the worst being a healer and, in the end, the devs failed at their goals anyway. Not sure why they're convinced a second go-around is going to fare any better.
    A large difference is that in Cata you were balanced around an influx of intellect and spirit (and a LOT of healers had other stats that influenced regen, such as crit for Holy Paladins) - that is not the case anymore. Healer mana is a lot better than it was in early Cata (and it will remain more or less at that level throughout Dragonflight, making it MUCH easier to balance around).

    Furthermore, even a 40% increase to health isn't going to make the situation anywhere near what Cata was with healing power either.
  1. heltvild's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by javierdsv View Post
    TLDR: We are artificially increasing the time spent playing instead of adding actual mechanics because it felt like too much fun to feel powerful while healing.
    yea increasing players health and monster damage is surley artificially increasing the time spent playing
  1. Darbycrash's Avatar
    I wonder if this will fix restoration shamans low tuned numbers at 60...

    Agree with this tho. Old Blizz wouldnt have done this.

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