Blue Tweet updates re: Healing Changes

[Lovestar]

Most of these are now on the MMOC front page.
A list of the final Tweets for today that didn't make the front page are in this post

Siege of Orgrimmar and healing changes
We'll do a tuning pass on SoO once 6.0 changes are finalized to make sure nothing gets harder as a result of systems changes.

Burst damage & healing speed
When healers can top off critically injured players in seconds, encounters have to try to kill players before healers can react. Not ideal.
To be devil's advocate, sometimes playing that sort of game is a bit fun. Sometimes, so long as it's not too fast.
Sometimes, absolutely. See the original Patchwerk. But it's limiting when it's the only option.
no, but when healing becomes harder, it does not become more fun. Thats what happened at the beginning of cata. Wasnt good.
The goal isn't to make healing harder, actually. I'd say it's to replace testing reaction time with testing decision-making.
How do you plan to counter that "players <100% is fine" (no instant deaths) puts more responisiblity on healers, less on DDs?
Avoidable damage will still kill you if you fail to get out of the fire. But now we can be more moderate with unavoidable damage

Skill gap
Looking forward to the changes. I think this is going to vastly widen the gap between low-skill & high-skill players, thoughts?
It may give exceptional healers more room to distinguish themselves. But we plan to avoid the pitfalls of early Cata healing.
Mana regen was a huge issue early Cata, along with overtuning. Created a trap for many healers; too easy to OOM.

Cataclysm healing
So, Cata all over again, unless you're homogenizing the classes so every healing spec has a triage-capable toolkit?
It's possible for every healing spec to have a triage-capable toolkit without every healing spec feeling/playing the same.
I'm also a "survivor" of Cata's healing mindset, so I'm colored by those experiences, which were highly painful.
Completely understood. We're definitely not approaching this saying "Cata healing was perfect, let's do that again!"
Core problem was high damage output paired with weak regen in blues. Felt better in epics by 4.2 but the damage was done.

HoTs as triage tools
I would like to think so, but triage and HoTs don't play well together, and Druids are all about the HoTs.
I'd argue that HoTs are an essential triage spell, for the injured player who probably isn't taking more damage soon.
Also a world in which more people are partially injured more of the time is a world in which HoTs can do much more effective healing

Class differences
Good moves I like them, I would like to see more class differences like we did with Pali and druid healers in TBC.
Agreed, though overspecialized niches are no good either. E.g. raiding resto druid in BC was often just rolling Lifebloom forever

150% crit healing
So wait? the 200% Crit dmg and healing bonus is nerfed to 150% across the board?
PvP only.

PvP ruining PvE
are the healing changes coming from a pvp issue or a pve issue?
A global issue. There are separate problems that need to be addressed in each sphere of gameplay.

Spirit's value
With spirit being buffed, it just means you need less spirit on gear, but is it still primary mana regen?
Baseline regen will be higher, Spirit will still be good where you can get it.

Filler spells
Low throughput heals served a role of feeling like the auto attack for healers. Do healers frequently do nothing during combat?
Your efficient single-target heal (Healing Wave, Holy Light, etc.) should still be a mainstay. Unrelated: Big fan of Healer:ALitD
Having a heal you can always be casting without worrying about the mana cost seems important to prevent healers just watching.
Agreed, I see the value there. For some, a DPS filler can work fine (free Lightning Bolt for shaman, Atonement for Disc, etc.).

Druid
Will Rejuvenation and Lifebloom stay instant casts?
Yes. The only currently planned changed to cast times are the ones listed in the blog.

Mistweaver
when you say you're making smartheals more random, that makes me concerned about mistweavers! renewing mists even more clunky
Mistweavers will be seeing other improvements -- we're not looking to leave their effectiveness at the mercy of random jumps.

Paladin
Why does it have Holy Light listed 4 hpally, but not Divine Light, when you said you're removing lowcost heals ie. Holy Light?
Divine Light has essentially been renamed to Holy Light. DL = big, efficient heal; Flash = big, fast, but less efficient heal
Heavily disagreeing on the need of a 1.5 sec cast time to EF/LoD. Paladins already feel immobile and this makes it worse
Maybe compared to monks and druids doing midair flips while they heal.... In any case, this is a starting point for beta iteration.

Priest
holy priest ---, reduced throughput, PoM Casttime, 90 Talent Cast Time - mana regen nerf - confused?!?
Mana regen nerf? (implying there is no mana regen nerf)
Also we didn't reduce throughput; increased player health pools and buffed heals by less. Affects all healers
are we going to be sat out for absorb healers due to no mobility at all, loss of our utility (raw power)? very worried
When people are injured more often, absorbs don't trump other heals nearly as much. Healer spec balance is important to us.
"and a new focus on efficiency decisions." which means holy priests with lack of efficient heals = regen prob(nerf wrong word)
Holy Priests will have as many efficient options as other healers. This is a broad set of changes that affects all specs.

Shaman
Is shaman healing output being rethought? Considering >80% of our healing is all smart healing. Also any spells getting casttime
Shaman has far fewer instant heals than most. And yes, between CH, HR, and HST, too much of a Shaman's throughput is smart atm.

Just make CDs longer
The nerfs to instant heals might be overkill and hard to balance. Isn't longer CDs a better solution for them?
Longer CDs lowers your throughput, which is not the goal of that change. A cast time does not lower throughput, but rather mobility

Haste
Also, is that 1.5s without haste? No more haste breakpoints, so does that mean it doesn't affect cast spd?
All of the cast times mentioned in the blog are pre-haste. Haste still increases cast speed.

Smart heals
Wouldn't turning smart heals into "not-so-smart heals" make them too random and unpredictable?
That's the point. It also emphasizes single target heals in supplement.
Smart heals are changing, does that mean you will be changing or pruning abilities like healing stream/tide and healing rain?
It's safe to say that we're changing all smart heals.

Cataclysm healing
healing felt terrible when Cata started, oom often, feeling behind the 8ball every pull. We wont be revisiting that again r we?
Nope. Cata's healing had upsides and downsides. We're capturing the upsides, and preventing the downsides.\
For example, triage healing is good. Caring about which heals you cast is good. Easily going OOM in low gear is not good.
Triage healing wasn't fun in Cata, doubt it will be fun in WOD. Feels like a constant emergency, stressful.
On the contrary, that's what we're trying to get away from. Currently, we have to hit everyone so hard, that anyone who has...
...[taken] virtually any damage is in immediate danger of dying. Constant emergency healing. That's because you have the ability...
...to heal someone back up to full from low health so fast. We aren't just going to nerf healing and continue tuning incoming..
...damage the way we have been. Damage is going to be slower; you'll have time to heal people back up without emergency heals.

Absorbs
If everyone is constantly in a state of partially injured, don't absorbs inherently lose a lot of value?
Yes.

150% crit heals
I.e. Will open orld PvP still see 200% crits? Or 150% against all players, anywhere?
150% against player-controlled units, anywhere.
What about heals out in the world? How do you determine if they are PvP?
Same as Battle Fatigue does currently.
I was actually asking why it should be 200% in PvE. I suggested 150% myself.
Say you nerf crit dmg but add a bit more crit % to compensate. Class with on crit procs will see a gain.
Proc on crit effects could be nerfed to compensate. Or could just nerf other 2nd stats too
You'd have to double crit chance, which there isn't room for. The problem is just PvP burst; focused solution.

Percent-based heals
Will abilities like death pact be nerfed? Currently feels weak in pvp however the blog said percentage based spells=nerfed.
%-based heals will not be nerfed any more or less than all other heals in general.
In 6.0+ monsters will hit harder, but my %-heal (and everyone else's heal) will be for less.
Yes, very much intentionally. That's not at all related to them being % heals though.

Instant heals
mainly wondering from PvP side. all instant heals getting a cast time? Or is the goal like 1or2 instant s per class?
There'll still be some instant heals, just not as many.

Gear scaling
so healers are gonna be the the last to be geared in a raid group cause they don't benefit as much on gear?
No. These changes aren't making gear less valuable for healers. Can fit healing progression in a smaller regen-space.
On the flip side, how do you make it so that these changes aren't irrelevant by the last tier due to outgearing?
By giving healers more room to grow with added regen. Right now you become time-limited, not mana-limited, on some classes.
Will the mana pool for healers change relative to regen? 4m fights vs 10m fights with the same initial mana is pretty different.
Intentionally so. Fight duration is a strong differentiator between fights for healers, and will stay.

Mana cooldowns
Casting MB on CD feels like just having more spirit.... not being in control of my mana pool. See also Innervate, Plea, etc...
Yeah, there's not a lot of gameplay involved currently with Innervate and similar. Hit it on cooldown...

Healer power progression
W/ health pools scaling w/ healing power, how will you make healers feel more powerful as the expac progresses?
Faster casts, able to do more expensive heals, crit more, able to use more cooldowns, more mastery effects, multistrike more.
Interesting - I assume you mean added regen earlier on, being removed in later tiers? I appreciate your response.
Take current MW for example, in first tier. Now double her mana regen. How much does her throughput go up? Not a lot.
So damage as % of total health will increase each tier just not to the extent of previous expacs?
It will increase a bit, but not remotely as much as previous expacs. 20%->40%, instead of 20%->70%, maybe ballpark.

Healing for non-Healer specs
Healing bloggy didn't overtly touch on non-healer heals. Will those see proportional adjustments identical to healer heals?
Yes. Healing changes aren't restricted to just healers' heals.
Oh I figured that. This was more a question of whether the application of those changes will be identical across the board.
By default, yes. We of course do more tuning than that, but that's just a single blanket change to us.

Gift of the Naaru
Is Gift of the Naaru going to be reduced to 12.5% instead of 25%?
Gift of the Naaru heals for 4% of your max HP, every 1sec, for 5sec.
Is it instant cast?
Yes.

Tank self-heals
How do these healing changes affect tank self-heals? Will they be on some sort of CD or just not as effective as today?
Tank self heals are currently very much related to Vengeance, which we're changing (mentioned a lot about before).

Druid
Efflorescence is listed as a healing spell for druids. What happened to Shrooms & Swiftmend it was tied to
Efflorescence is on Shrooms baseline now.
Is Efflorescence an active spell now?
No, it's just baseline attached to Shrooms.
Ah ok. So referring to it as higher efficiency in WoD means using shrooms?
Yes.
with removal of a lot of insta casts is NS staying? For resto or all specs?
Yes, but as per the aforementioned CC changes, it won't be usable on CC spells.

Mistweaver
What do you think if mistweavers picking up chi explosion and use it in place of uplift as it would not have a cast time?
It does have a cast time.
Is it 1.5sec like Uplift is then?
Yes.
Will Uplift and Chi Explosion Be able to cast instanlty while using it like Chi Surge and Enveloping Mist? Thanks for responding
Haven't decided yet. Mistweavers are seeing several interconnected changes, so evaluating any one in a vacuum is difficult.
And Chi Explosion will not have a cast time for Windwalkers and Brewmasters correct?
Correct.
Is Enveloping mists being removed or just not mentioned in the post? Without it MW lack a single target chi finisher.
Enveloping Mists is still there.
It's high throughput, for 3 Chi, but we're still working out the effective 'cost' of Chi.
No mention of melee healing for Monks, can you tell us if we should get our hopes up or not?
Fistweaving (via Crane Stance) is still planned.
So absolutely no support for Serpent stance? Soothing in melee sorta ruined the spec for me, would be nice to have something
I think you may have misread something? Serpent = Mistweaving (not in melee). Crane = Fistweaving (in melee)
sounds like WoD frees us from HAVING to be in melee, but gives us the choice. sounds awesome.
No it doesn't, you WILL be in melee because it's EASIER.
That is objectively false.
Uplift is usually a monk's #1 or #2 throughput spells. Will its numbers be adjusted to reflect the new cast time?
Yes.
Is there a plan to keep lvl 30 talents as AP based or will it change to % based healing?
Staying AP based.

Paladin
with wog and LoD getting cast times, is holy power getting removed/reworked?
There are many interconnected changes; it's natural to see one and want to follow the chain. Hang tight for now.
Whats the point to add cast time for EF/LoD? We already have the worst mobility from all healers and you are still nerfing it .
We're bringing down mobility across the board, not just for you.
I meant to healers, wasn't talking everyone.
Also if you plan to increase value single target heals . Any plan to change HP generations or we will have to spam HR anyway ?
Holy Radiance will not be your optimal way to generate Holy Power for single target healing.

Priest
Why has divine star never been nerfed? 15sec cd, no DR. Disc was supposedly being nerfed, then DR was removed and SoO = broken.
Divine Star is probably the most overpowered spell in the game, currently. It will be nerfed in 6.0.
I see that DS will be getting a throughput nerf (as needed) but currently H/D RELY on this so much. Will we be compensated?
Yes. There is always reshuffling of where your throughput comes from, for all classes. We'll tune it all.
Cautiously optimistic about the healing blog, but can you tell us what's the new Disc-only Holy Nova do?
Similar to what it does today, except decent, efficient healing. Damage still likely to be trivial.
"smart"?
Probably will have a target cap of 6 for better client/server performance. Will hit 6 random injured players.
Cooldown like COH? Or spamable? 1.5 Cast time I assume....
No cooldown. Still deciding on instant vs 1.5s cast.
still just an explosion around you?
Yes.
Can you shed any light on the intention for Atonement healing? Intended only as filler or can it still be my main healing?
Atonement will not be as much healing throughput as normal healing. Does significant damage when you don't need as much healing.

[Krazzorx]

Tyvm for this (though I'm sure it will find itself onto front page)

[Lovestar]

Tyvm for this (though I'm sure it will find itself onto front page)

It will, but sometimes it takes them hours or even days to round them all up. Because of the magnitude of what's going on, I figured I'd get it up ASAP to help inform discussions.

[The Stormbringer]

As has been said, thank you for this! It does help somewhat.

[Lovestar]

As has been said, thank you for this! It does help somewhat.

At the moment I'm staring at this infodump and wondering just how they're going to fit it onto the front page when they get around to the standard Tweet collation.

This is like... an entire extra blog post on its own. >.<

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I'm glad I don't play holy on my pally, seems like the healer equivalent of a mage with those changes.

[Lovestar]

No. Don't give them ideas.

Next thing you know Holy will have a giant healing scroll it places on the ground and has to stay inside or its Spirit regen goes to zero.

SCROLL OF POWER! >.<

[TheWindWalker]

It just occured to me. Isn't Holy Nova (but better) just Circle of Healing with a tiny damage output attached?

[Lovestar]

It just occured to me. Isn't Holy Nova (but better) just Circle of Healing with a tiny damage output attached?

You have to convince people to stack on top of you for Holy Nova; CoH can be fired off at whoever is clumped up wherever.

So in some situations yes, others no.

[TheWindWalker]

You have to convince people to stack on top of you for Holy Nova; CoH can be fired off at whoever is clumped up wherever.

So in some situations yes, others no.

That's assuming the redesigned version doesn't have a much larger range and different mechanics.

EDIT: I feel I'm being pedantic here.

[Lovestar]

That's assuming the redesigned version doesn't have a much larger range and different mechanics.

But there's a Tweet up there by CT saying it's basically the same spell.

[TheWindWalker]

But there's a Tweet up there by CT saying it's basically the same spell.

Well, for it to do decent, efficient healing it'd probably be modified in some way to avoid the pitfalls of the current version's design. Or not and "stack plox."

[Keiyra]

Or not and "stack plox."

Prolly this - it can be disc's version of healing rain/sanc/efflo/lights hammer/sck - they can spam nova when stacked (assuming its even worth casting - they tried it before and gave up on making it work, so lets see what they got this time around in beta)

[Lovestar]

Updated with latest Tweets trickling in.

[TheWindWalker]

Updated with latest Tweets trickling in.

Who's awesome? You're awesome.

[Anzaman]

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

Hmm...

[Traveler Voltin]

still feel like benching my disc priest

[TheWindWalker]

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

Hmm...

Well that kills my "go Shadow Priest so I can have raid utility and be a DPS" strategy. Guess that's a Shaman thing now. Seeing as they have the most insane offhealing in the game and are getting yet another talent that does DPS to HPS. Yay.

[Armourboy]

As with Cata, the issues won't come with design but with how they actually implement it. Fundamentally the ideas behind early Cata healing weren't bad, they just never actually existed once you got past 5 mans and got into raids. Will be interesting to see how people react to it once they get their hands on it in Beta.

[Seditian]

Well that kills my "go Shadow Priest so I can have raid utility and be a DPS" strategy. Guess that's a Shaman thing now. Seeing as they have the most insane offhealing in the game and are getting yet another talent that does DPS to HPS. Yay.

I'm sure they'll fix that. Although I do like hybrids being able to properly off-heal for a short period of time, Ancestral Guidance requires zero effort and that's a bad thing. I'm sure it'll get a hit with the smart heal nerf, though.