Simple solution to cat-weave dps in shadowlands.

[Shalaator]

If you did something then your mana reg stopped. You had to move out of danger. You always have to move out of danger. But the old mana system forced you to not do anything with your bars for an extended amount of time so that you could reg mana.

And no, damage should not come in like a machine gun all the time. That would be boring. That would be extremely boring game design for a healer. Go into an epic battleground like Ashran. That's what you want. Just standing in the zerg and doing nothing but heal. Epic BGs are super boring as healer.

Nothing makes me happier than join a Sargeras 20-25 man AV premade and turtling the bridge for an hour and horde runs out of reinforcements. Yes we do this on purpose, and yes you need exceptional healers for this. 5x Ineffable, GS + Ray gg.

[Archpriest]

It's been a long time since I've full time healed, so I did not realize this was something which was expected of healers atm. I guess it makes sense to deal damage when you can, the main problem I can see is how it might become a bit... clunkly. Like, I recall when playing Holy how my bars were full of healing spells. The damage spells were off to the side, with no keybinds I would have to find a better solution to that.

At the same time, I DO expect damage dealers to off heal if possible and nessesary, so I guess it goes both ways.

[Grimbold21]

Once, in the distant past, the idea of a healer doing damage was linked to periods of people not taking a lot of damage, but it wasn't relevant.

Today, particularly in m+, it is as if you're not a competent healer if you don't dps too.

I particularly do not enjoy the latter.

[Wuusah]

It's been a long time since I've full time healed, so I did not realize this was something which was expected of healers atm. I guess it makes sense to deal damage when you can, the main problem I can see is how it might become a bit... clunkly. Like, I recall when playing Holy how my bars were full of healing spells. The damage spells were off to the side, with no keybinds I would have to find a better solution to that.

At the same time, I DO expect damage dealers to off heal if possible and nessesary, so I guess it goes both ways.

ctrl/shift/alt modifiers. I have my main bar with all buttons bound to something around WASD and then a second bar with the same keys plus ctrl modifier and a third bar with the same plus alt modifier instead.

That's more than enough for PvE. It's not enough for PvP, though. I don't know how people play healers in arena and have their CCs multiple times on their hotbars, one for each arena enemy...

[VinceVega]

Once, in the distant past, the idea of a healer doing damage was linked to periods of people not taking a lot of damage, but it wasn't relevant.

Today, particularly in m+, it is as if you're not a competent healer if you don't dps too.

I particularly do not enjoy the latter.

Well in most Mythic+ dungeons you HAVE incredible downtimes if the group plays well. And then you have bulk healing parts where your DPS goes down.
Look at MDI runs. The healer sometimes has nothing to do for half a minute. Should he stand around and do nothing in that time?

I am in no way near MDI level. Neither are the people i play with, but at the end of the dungeon i still show up with a good chunk in the dmg meter as i can do this while not doing anythign else.
Doesn't mean i like it. Catweaving is HORRIBLE imho. But it is better than doing nothing.

[Aphrel]

I am pretty damn good, but when I am healing I am healing period. Just because someone doesn't want to DPS while healing doesn't mean they aren't good, I have done it and can do it but I feel like I am working harder than everyone else when I do it, which I am, and any healer that DPS's while healing is working harder than everyone else in the group so it should not be expected or looked down upon. Blizzard should just make damage spells cost 2-3x more than they do now when in healing spec for the non disc healers and that would fix it pretty fast.

Regardless of skill level, if you arent giving it your 100%, you are a slacker.

[Wuusah]

Catweaving is HORRIBLE imho. But it is better than doing nothing.

Catweaving makes resto the best designed healer in the game, imo. It makes perfect use of their hybrid nature. The problem is simply that it's too strong right now, especially in aoe. Imo, Sunfire shouldn't be in the base kit of resto druids. It should be part of balance affinity. Feral affinity has Swipe, guardian affinity has Thrash and balance affinity has nothing right now. It would make sense to give different aoe to different affinities. Spread it out a bit, so that feral affinity doesn't have it all. Maybe give balance affinity also the talent where your moonfire hits a second target.

The affinity talents are some of the best designed talents in the game. They truly make druid feel like a hybrid class, way more than the old talent system ever did.

More healers should be designed in a similar way. It hurts my soul to see what they did to Mistweaver monks...

[Aleksej89]

Not a fan of healers doing damage.

I would much rather have them apply impactful short-duration buffs or debuffs to enhance their teams performance.

[VinceVega]

Catweaving makes resto the best designed healer in the game, imo. It makes perfect use of their hybrid nature. The problem is simply that it's too strong right now, especially in aoe. Imo, Sunfire shouldn't be in the base kit of resto druids. It should be part of balance affinity. Feral affinity has Swipe, guardian affinity has Thrash and balance affinity has nothing right now. It would make sense to give different aoe to different affinities. Spread it out a bit, so that feral affinity doesn't have it all. Maybe give balance affinity also the talent where your moonfire hits a second target.

The affinity talents are some of the best designed talents in the game. They truly make druid feel like a hybrid class, way more than the old talent system ever did.

More healers should be designed in a similar way. It hurts my soul to see what they did to Mistweaver monks...

Agreed. But Druids are not hybrids anymore. In the sense of jack of all trades master of none. I don't like the current push to healers having to do damage wherever possible. It will never go away. Because you would have to take away the possibility to do damage completly which would make healers rather stupid.

Most people who complain about it just have a problem with the difficulty spike you get when you have to weave in damage between heals. Because it IS difficult. Which is why i would never tell a healer i am running with to do this. I only do it in low keys an with my mates where i know where i can safley do damage without anyone suddenly dying.

An on the topic of monks: What they took away was just way to strong. Infinite hots? On top of that ridicioulus damage they did? That was just way to strong compared to every other healer

[Wuusah]

An on the topic of monks: What they took away was just way to strong. Infinite hots? On top of that ridicioulus damage they did? That was just way to strong compared to every other healer

I'm not talking about the fistweaving buff they made a few months ago and then fixed because it was too strong. Also, Monks aren't doing "ridiculous damage". They are doing ridiculously low damage considering the fact that they are MONKS.

I'm talking about the changes mw monk got over the last few years, like the removal of stances...

[Piplupzero]

I dont see the problem. You dont want to do DPS then dont. i play wow to use my whole toolkit, not half of it but its fine if you dont want to, you can get your weekly 15 without it. Doing damage adds interest to the role, like my dispel on hybrid classes. Its not a tool you have to use but knowing when and how to use your extra tools is the separation point between those who are happy where they are and those who want to improve.
It takes less than a weekened to master a rotation, the situational decisions you have to make on your class are the other 90%.

[Cronovey]

There is no skill cap argument if the healer dps isnt' balanced. We're not talking about 5-10% damage imbalance from Hpriest to resto druid, we're talking 400-500%.

Yes, my Hpriest can easily top off a group (why? it shouldn't be that easy!) and spam smite/holy/chastise all day, I still wont even get close to 1/3 the output of a Resto druid.

In fact I could spam smite/fire/chast the entire dungeon and not heal a single thing, and still not do 1/3 the damage of a resto druid who is also rolling a hot blanket.

So what is this skill cap you're talking about?

What you've stated is certainly a problem (especially for someone like me who prefers Holy Priest as their healer of choice) but making it so healers do no damage in all 5 man content is a very heavy handed solution to the issue.

The proper way of shifting things around would be one of two things:

A) Shift other healers' DPS up to similar damage levels. Not necessarily the same; you want the healers to have niches as well to fit into. Discipline is probably okay where it is because buffs to their DPS will make them do extraordinary amounts of healing.

Make Holy Priest the single target DPS healer; allow Holy Fire to stack higher than 2 stacks as a talent and replace Surge of Light while making their Smite/Holy Fire/Chastise do real damage. Surge of Light has been around forever so people may be resistant to its removal but it would probably be broken in a DPS focused Holy Priest build and it would be a good spot for it; it'll be on the level 40 row come Shadowlands which is 2/3 of the way to level cap so it won't be broken in early content and move the stacking Holy Fire DoT up to say, 5 stacks instead of 2. With meaningful damage and the reset mechanic while Smiting, it would give a solid DPS boost to healers who find themselves able to chain cast without having to stop and heal meaning that the better your group is at avoiding damage the stronger your healer DPS output will become.

Allow Mistweaver monks be the AoE damage healer; give them Fists of Fury baseline in Mistweaver spec but leave them unable to cancel the channel once started so they have to make a choice when using it knowing they won't be able to heal for a couple seconds, remove the Focused Thunder talent (Level 50 row) and give them Whirling Dragon Punch as a talent option right next to Rising Mist as the AoE option compared to Rising Mist's focus on single target DPS for HoT extension and leave Upwelling as the pure healing option.

I'm not particularly inclined to the other healing specs, but you get my point. There are ways to make other healers competitive because when it comes to the higher keys the limiting factor is generally not a healer being unable to keep up with incoming damage but rather missing the timer due to not killing things quickly enough.

The other option:

B) Nerf the fuck out of druids' damage until they're in line with other healers, in which case everyone loses. Keystones won't be cleared at higher levels (talking the 25-30 range) any more unless they're retuned entirely because without healers being able to contribute significant damage to the group you'll end up short on DPS before any other problems. This option reduces the ability to clear super high end keys (30+ currently) but levels the playing field for healers again.

Personally, I'm in the column A camp here. Carving out niches for healers to contribute will make the dungeons more competitive because say you're trying to clear an AoE heavy dungeon on Fortified week; take a Mistweaver monk for their hard AoE contribution! Oh, it's Tyrannical week and you want to push bosses down faster? Take a Holy Priest along for their notable single target damage while they won't need to contribute much to trash killing because it's not Fortified. Have a dungeon that is heavy on trash but it's also a Tyrannical week? Maybe take a Holy Paladin for their balanced contribution between single target Holy Shock/Crusader Strike DPS on bosses and their Consecration for AoE damage for the trash.

You get the idea.

[keldarepewpew]

Reduce all effective damage done by healers 99% in 5 man content for Shadowlands.

Discipline will still get 100% atonement healing, but the actual damage will also be 99% reduced. If discipline needs 5 man buffs in actual throughput to compensate for damage loss so be it.

I want to play something other than resto druid to push beyond 22.

Also more traditional healers (Hpriest) will be readily accetped for even +15's.

Hpriest is fine in +15s btw, but meta freaks (who can't even play the game themselves) don't take on 15's because the board is dominated by resto druids in 20+ keys.

that would once again reduce the skill ceiling, no thx

[Skildar]

What I would really like to see for druids is that when you're shifting into a form that isn't your spec's form then it has cooldown of 1m30s. Meaning that for a healer : moonkin, feral and bear form become dps and damage reduction CD.

Even when doing outdoor content it makes dealing damage as a healer/tank a bit less dull.

[Samuraijake]

1) 99%?

2)just resto and disc need to be balanced towards the other healers

3)you dont "NEED" healer dps for 15 keys. and you dont "NEED" a key higher than a 15. so i dont know why you feel "Forced" into anything.

4) there's periods of time at the start and in certain times of fights where players dont take damage... which is fairly boring for a healer i'd imagine.

[Grimbold of Skullcrusher]

I am pretty damn good, but when I am healing I am healing period. Just because someone doesn't want to DPS while healing doesn't mean they aren't good, I have done it and can do it but I feel like I am working harder than everyone else when I do it, which I am, and any healer that DPS's while healing is working harder than everyone else in the group so it should not be expected or looked down upon. Blizzard should just make damage spells cost 2-3x more than they do now when in healing spec for the non disc healers and that would fix it pretty fast.

Exactly! I am pretty good DPS but I refuse to use my class utility to help someone survive/make the key easier. Poppin Darkness as DH to ease group dmg? Fuck that lol, not wasting a global. Sniping someone with WoG/LoH to full hp? Not gonna happen, i just want to press those dam buttons... When I DPS I only DPS! You want me to do something else? How dare you!

[Smallfruitbat]

Why do people want to continually lower the skill cap for things? I enjoy cat weaving, if I didn't do that I'd just sit there twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to take damage. I'm not great at it, but it gives me something to do during lulls.

People need to get over the fact 'I don't get invited cause my class.' Most of the time when players get declined, it's because someone else pipped them to the post on the LFG. I've declined DPS in the past because I was melee/caster heavy. I've declined players because someone in guild has popped on line and offered to step in. I've taken shammy healers over druid for the totems and lust (I'm cheap and I like to save the gold I would have spent on drums).

[Shalaator]

Exactly! I am pretty good DPS but I refuse to use my class utility to help someone survive/make the key easier. Poppin Darkness as DH to ease group dmg? Fuck that lol, not wasting a global. Sniping someone with WoG/LoH to full hp? Not gonna happen, i just want to press those dam buttons... When I DPS I only DPS! You want me to do something else? How dare you!

God forbid the dime a dozen dps have to do something other than smash a scripted target dummy.

I can't think of anything more boring than dps. Thank god they give you something to do.

- - - Updated - - -

We're also going down the "slippery slope."

Eventually there will be dedicated healer (in the traditional sense), the current trend is going towards "dps-lite + support class." The more self healing, avoidable damage and rapid cd defensives, the less an actual dedicated has been needed and less it will be needed in the future.

If you don't like healing, don't play a healer!

[Simca]

Mythic 22+ content won't be balanced. It won't even be close. They should at least try a little bit harder than they are right now, though, yeah. It sounds like your criticism is more like "I don't like DPSing as a healer", which is fair enough. Some of this can be fixed by affix balancing, too. Some weeks I feel like I push like 2 heals per pull, and other weeks I'm just spam healing through the pulls.

The 'simple solution' for balancing healer DPS is they could spend maybe 10 minutes looking at the numbers and then buff a few spells.

There's no reason Holy Priests' damaging spells have to do so little damage. The only excuse they have is not caring enough to buff them (over 2 years of BFA), which isn't a good excuse at all. Resto Shaman could also use a DPS buff, though their situation is trickier because they can use Elemental's Azerite Traits to get some additional synergy that pushes their DPS into the realm of 'almost half a resto druid' (unlike HPriest DPS which is in the realm of 'wait; they can attack things?!').

Honestly the higher-end healer DPS (Resto Druid and Holy Paladin mostly) is a bit all over the place right now due to Azerite Trait stacking (mostly with offspec traits) and Corruptions. Neither of those will be balancing issues in Shadowlands... so maybe they'll do a better job of balancing healer DPS there.

Oh wait, I forgot they left Holy Priest DPS in the shitter for 2 years. Well, while it will be easier for them to balance healer DPS in Shadowlands, they still have to muster the effort to care.

[Ysil]

Mate wtf never heard of someone declining a healer because "your class deal no damage". Nor I think that healer damage is an issue at all, what would you do when there's no damage or your hots are ticking? Stand afk?

And healer damage shouldn't even need to be balanced, it is already a balancing lever for the class as a whole by itself. Its a plus when a healer get to deal good damage. I play a monk and a pally, my pally hits like a monster and can burst like a real dps class while monk damage is real shit. My monk is way more agile than my pally and has stuff like leg sweep and ring of peace. I do different stuff on different toons to help my group and I get my keys done on both classes just as easy.

If you think that healer damage is the selling point of a class you might just be playing the wrong class for you. Try pally or druid and perhaps reroll.