Warlords of Draenor Dev Watercooler: Building Healthy Gameplay

*quietly retires her last healer character*

Originally Posted by Frozen Death Knight

If they manage to tone down the amount of CC and not needing healers to be constantly on the move when healing in PvP, these will be in fact be pretty decent changes. I can live with Holy Paladins getting cast times on their heals as long as every other healer gets cast times to deal with as well. I just hope that they can actually get CC toned down to Vanilla levels, where there were a lot more casting and less time being CCed (if you disregard some of the more OP CCs that existed back then, at least).

To be 100% honest, they should think about using a PvP load out system that has a series of abilities you can choose for CC and CC breaking that everyone has access to much like summoner spells in LoL, and swap all stuns in game when in PvP for slows for effective kiting, keeping diminishing returns of course. This would allow people to choose the types of CC they want without any 1 class overshadowing any other for stuns and silences and class cc would just be slows.

every other expansion they do a 180 on healing. what we all know is that making dps more responsible for their own survival only makes the game more frustrating for the vast majority of the player base.

less incoming damager, smaller heals ... i dunno if it makes more interesting game play to focus on mana preservation so much. IMHO, having resources be an overwhelming constraint only adds to the cookie cutter play style that bliz is always saying that they dislike. if it gets to the point where your using a spreadsheet to choreograph an entire fight for you, so you can squeeze out maximum efficiency healing, then that isn't compelling gameplay either. When resources are too restictive thats what happens. There has to be some leeway for individual play styles and creativity.

So they're telling me they are renaming Divine Light to Holy Light?
Divine Light is so much cooler!

I'm skeptical. This is making me dread playing my holy priest in WoD. Maybe I'll stick to my rogue..

I have a feeling que times will be through the roof while we all wait for healers now. I don't give a shit about PvP healing, just keep PvE heals where they should be.

To bad PoM isnt an instant for Shadow (guess they would have pointed it out like@Pala spells) - right now I use renew and PoM sometimes in Dungeons/raids when I have to move and my 90 talent/Shadowfiend are off CD, because the only other thing I could do is my SW: P - and its such a minor DPSincrease that I rather support with some heal :/

The last time I heard them try to use "triage" in a positive way was the start of Cata, and the result was that healing became rather stressful, especially taking into consideration the massive damage a lot of mechanics did in heroics. I really prefer the end-of-expansion feel of healing, even if it's tougher for them to design around.

truly I hate healer changes.....every new add-on every healer must learn to heal in a different way again
as dd u just press Buttons (less awesome numbers now), but it is the same again just different spell names

I was on board up until the wild growth change. It's a HoT... It's an AoE HoT.

Remember before when CoH and WG had no CDs? WG couldn't touch holy priests because everything was healed before WG even ticked.

Hopefully the changes to how healing in general works (constantly lower health bars) will offset that, but in general a HoT with a cast time is extremely weak. I'm not sure it will be successful or fun. It will likely result in a lot of overhealing, given the nature of the spell. Health would have to very frequently be sub 100% for this to not be an issue.

Must admit I'm excited otherwise. More healing choices and less "OMG HE LOST ONE HP BETTER TOSS A FREE CAST REGROWTH ON HIM BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE HAS TAKEN DAMAGE *glares at the disc priest*" haha. Yes, I can get behind this, even with the murder of WG.

They should rename this blog "nerfing heals to the ground" . Im not too sure making everythign about healling weaker is gona make the experience more fun, if I were a healer and all of a suden I cant heal half as well as I could on the last xpac I would find that extremelly not fun.

Is there any news on addressing the mobility of melee classes? If they want healers/casters casting then something has to be done about melee ?

It's the same song and dance for PvP before every expac: "We're doing X and Y, which will reduce C and D, making PvP feel less bursty." Then the expac ships and it's the same ole thing: bursty PvP with two or three out of control classes which everyone switches to.

Honestly, I think this is going to make things less fun overall.

1. There is going to have to be a lot less movement in fights, and certainly nothing where we have to keep moving for more than 15 seconds. There are a bunch of fights now where if you stop to cast a spell, next thing you know the tank or many dps are out of range. While they certainly will plan bosses in the next expansion around this limitation.... it also takes away some tools the devs use to make encounters interesting. Less tools for devs, more boring boss fights

2. This is different than Cata healing. I thought the Cata healing model was great. Big health, smaller heals.. more triage and more emphasis on using the right spell in order to save mana. This time around, they are doing the big health, smaller heals... but they are taking away many of our spell options. In Cata, a big part of the ´gameplay fun´ was deciding if you should use your efficient spell, or your big spell. Looking at all the changes together, it just seems like we will be standing still, hardcasting the same spell over and over again on the same target.

3. PvP and raiding are too dissimilar. This is just the nature of WOW, but the goals of healing for the devs are completely different between raids and pvp. I think they are doing a disservice to the game by trying to keep most of the rules the sames in regards to spells. I am not one of those people who say ´omg, pve nerf because of pvp´.. and stuff like that. But I think they need to realize sooner rather than later that trying to keep the same spells and rules for pvp and raiding is going to permanently limit the fun of both. They could make healing in raids really fun if they didn´t have to worry about pvp ramifications and vice versa.

Originally Posted by b2121945

You don't COMPETE with other healers, you work with them. Destroying their specs doesn't make you any better player.

THIS DAMMIT.

I've never wanted any class to be nerfed. At least not after my initial grumble. I'd rather be lifted up to parity with them. Why? Go see the Lego movie. I'd rather we all do a good job and win, than someone else specifically lose. Let the computer (boss) lose.

"Regarding Priest Level 90s... We've made them do either damage *or* healing, based on spec, not both, and be instant for Shadow." ~ Source

Thankfully they will remain instant casts on Shadow at least.

Another of our goals for healing in this expansion is to strike a better balance between single-target and multi-target healing spells. We've taken a close look at the mana efficiency of our multi-target heals, and in many cases, we're reducing their efficiency, usually by reducing the amount they heal. Sometimes, but more rarely, raising their mana cost was a better decision. We want players to use multi-target heals, but they should only be better than their single-target equivalents when they heal more than two players without any overhealing. This way, players will face an interesting choice between whether to use a single-target heal or a multi-target heal based on the situation.

As a resto shaman, I am curious about this particular statement. We have been pushed and shoved into the aoe heal "niche". We are painful in fights where people are spread because our 'single target equivalents' were not so great. So they made our multi-target heals better and apparently, this was where we belonged. Years of concerns about this and we were shoved further into the "niche".

I must admit, I am feeling somewhat paranoid about the mixed messages in that blog post. First the statement above - "reducing their efficiency" - and then the list of 'healing rain' under the higher efficiency. Which is it to be. Will we be shoved further into the niche, or will they buff our single target heals?

Lots of complaining about the loss of smart heals and healing being overall less powerful. I for one welcome the change!

I've been through all the changes to healing since the beginning. Back when I was raiding Sunwell hardcore in BC, you had to intelligently downrank your heals. It was important to use the correct spell at the right time, because making poor choices often meant going oom. You had to consider mana efficiency, as well as overhealing. You had to think.

I completely agree with Blizzard that it is more fun to heal when you need to rationalize using the appropriate heal on the fly. When damage is so bursty that healing just turns into a game of reflexes, it isn't as fun. When you just only need to get off one heal quick on your target and then your smart heal does the rest of the work, it isn't as fun. It lowers the skill cap when you don't need to make intelligent decisions on the fly.

First proving grounds to enter dungeons and now healers being erm... De-healerized ? Hello 2 hour heroic dungeon que.

Originally Posted by Gerberus

Is there any news on addressing the mobility of melee classes? If they want healers/casters casting then something has to be done about melee ?

Did you read it? HP is been double relative to DPS.

Therefore, healers should be nerfed because they don't need to be that strong when HP is getting such a large buff. Plus, encounters are being changed to account for this.

So it's not really a nerf in the sense that raids are harder.

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Originally Posted by markdall

THIS DAMMIT.

I've never wanted any class to be nerfed. At least not after my initial grumble. I'd rather be lifted up to parity with them. Why? Go see the Lego movie. I'd rather we all do a good job and win, than someone else specifically lose. Let the computer (boss) lose.

Yes, I know why. You'd rather classes be buffed, so that when something gets overbuffed, other classes will again need to be buffed, and so on.

Basically, you want buffs so you can faceroll the content.

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Originally Posted by Zvinny

You're heals will heal for less! Your absorbs as well! You won't be able to know who your AoE heals will heal! And you're mana will be harder to manage! Wait, why do you guys look mad? - Blizzard.

Triage healing is more fun than wack-a-mole healing.

It looks like they are nerfing heals again Cata style. I remember how "fun" that was. The problem with small heals/small damage/large health is that it makes healing extremely slow and boring. All you do is keep casting the same spells over and over on the same person until their health is up. I much prefer larger incoming damage and larger/faster heals because it keeps you on your toes and you have to make quick decisions. IDK why Blizz is always trying to make healing a snoozefest (probably PvP) but I wish they would just go back to the Wrath style healing and add some mana management. You can have mana management and large heals. Right now it looks like at least the beginning of WoD will be "wait until health is sort of low, heal up, wait again, repeat."

And dont get me started on removing instant cast heals. "Too powerful while moving" Well then just make them less powerful so that you have to use other spells too but completely removing most of them will, with the other changes, likely mean that healers will just run around during movement, doing nothing else, and heal everyone up at the end. Again, its more fun to have to move and heal at the same time or else people will die.