Healer EHP Under Pressure

[thesmall001]

Hey all, Cursed Mistweaver here, so yes I'm gunna be a bit salty. Let's say we're in the 1400-1700 range of RBGs and Arena as of December. Before the difference became insurmountable. Let's presume a base 34k HP around 210 ilvl. A Mistweaver, Disc Priest and Resto Druid walk into a bar. 3 non-descript melee each turn to engages them before applying a 3s burst window.

The Mistweaver pops Fortifying Brew and Life Cocoon. They gains 5.1k max and current HP and a 29k absorb. In this moment they soar to 80k EHP, which falls to 46k EHP once Cocoon is popped, which obviously happens in a single GCD. This particular Monk runs with Diffuse Magic because they saw a nearby Fire Mage and had aspirations of surviving long enough for that to matter, plus I didn't want to do the calculus to simulate the variable limits on Dampen Harm since it doesn't matter to the final argument. Arguably, this Monk could run Healing Elixir and add 6/12k to that burst recovery, but that would be pointless and incorrect since it can't be used under subsequent CC and it doesn't auto-trigger now.

The Resto Druid is in Guardian Affinity, taking 6% less damage baseline. They trinket and then transform into Bear Form and hit Barkskin, Ironbark and Renewal. In this moment they jump to a similar HP but also get the additional armour and and end up at around 70k EHP but with a % based ~10k instant recovery. However, unlike Life Cocoon's benefit to EHP, the total of ~40% damage reductions remain in place and so they enjoy the benefit of 78k EHP for 5-6 more GCDs.

Then the Disc Priest laughs. They have Fortitude buff and so already sit at around 37k max HP. They cast a single PW:S on themselves for a meagre 3.5k, but granting them atonement. Let's take Lenience for that 3% damage reduction because we're presuming nobody will be able to hard-cast for 3s, so Spirit Shell is mooted. Throw in 15% physical damage reduction from Strength of Soul. Focused Will kicks in and adds another 15% physical damage reduction from the same hit. For shits and giggles they also throw down PW: Barrier for 50% damage reduction and and pop Pain Suppression on themselves for another 40%. Desperate Prayer brings them to around 43k HP. Percentages multiply, not add, so they're sitting at around 79% damage reduction. Desperate Prayer brings them to around 43k max and current HP. The Disc Priest now has 222k EHP. A second melee attack pops through that bubble, but grants a second stack of Focused Will so they've broken even against the melee. The Disc Priest still has 208k EHP.

15k DPS is required to kill the Mistweaver within 3 seconds once Cocoon is popped...
...Pretending they don't have Expel Harm or Renewing Mist available.

26k DPS is required to kill the Resto Druid within 3 seconds...
...Pretending they don't have *deep breath* Cenarion Ward, Swiftmend, Overgrowth or NS available.

69k DPS is required to kill the Disc Priest within 3 seconds once PW:S is popped...
...Pretending they don't have Rapture and Ultimate Radiance or Purified Resolve.

69 (nice) is a number 4.6x higher than 15. Blizzard see this and decide that Roll is worth 80% less EHP because, as a dragon once pointed said, 1.5s of being out of range is 100% damage reduction, never minding that Roll (presuming Tiger's Lust is the talent of choice) does not escape the problematic melee abilities providing the 75k globals. They decide the real problem is that Life Cocoon needs a 15s cooldown reduction and that will fix the obvious problem here.



In the corner, a resto shaman teases me for not being able to do the calculus required to estimate the EHP of a class under Spirit Link Totem, but it's presumed they're still in a much better situation that MW because their Healing Elixir still automatically pops at 35% HP and when under CC. And Astral Shift provides an immense 40% damage reduction and Ancestral Vigor grants only 5% slightly less max HP than Fortifying Brew, but with 100% up-time and party wide.

I'm sorry, I know this is just more burst meta QQ, and that this particular problem is only further amplified by many other design imbalances on the cards. And I didn't factor in the effect of Conduits and Legendary options. Honestly, those are smaller contributions than the core kit problems, and they can more easily be changed within the space of a balance patch. And I know I'm far from the only MW who has pointed out the problem. And I know people almost universally agree with the problem so adding more detail to it doesn't really contribute to anything.

But I wanted to point out just the sheer discrepancy in EHP and actually quantify the main problem here. Blizzard could double Life Cocoon's absorb AND the HP and Reduction of Fortifying Brew. They could do this and we'd still only come in equal to a Resto Druid's EHP in Bear Form once Cocoon is popped. Never mind that their instant and passive healing far exceeds ours. Never mind that large parts of MW's design requires us to be sustaining in melee for Chi-Ji and the Ancient Teachings Legendary; meaning we need to have a much higher base EHP by design. Disc operates on a similar design intent as MW but can operate from range; fair play, they don't have the mobility of the other healers, it doesn't really matter when they have that many survival CDs to compensate. Especially in the burst meta where anything under 2200 rating is only about surviving those opener windows.

Don't tell me to play better. Don't tell me to use my cooldowns differently. I have. I know what I'm doing. I've tried. It was manageable until non-scalar damage reductions and heals (% based) totally eclipsed things like Life Cocoon that do SP-based healings/absorbs. But that's the entire meta now: You either have the most % based scaling or you don't.

Edit: I forgot to multiply the Resto Damage Reductions so the image should state 40% damage reduction rather than 46%, for a total of 70k EHP instead of 78k (for all the difference it makes) but I've updated the body text to reflect this.

[GnomeEU]

Because druid is running around in bear all day. And are not totally useless then sure.

Disc priest CDs are the best, that's nothing new.
Still the top rbg teams are not all disc priest so maybe their HPs are lacking.

If you love em so much you should try a disc priest.
Try them in high keys with lots of random fails and you see how bad disc is burst healing multiple people.

[lozza]

I dont play monk but i do go against them in arena, and i must admit they don't cause many issues so i can see your point. The healer that i always dread is the resto shaman, i dont know what it is that they are doing to survive but they must have crazy EHP

[thesmall001]

Because druid is running around in bear all day. And are not totally useless then sure.

Disc priest CDs are the best, that's nothing new.
Still the top rbg teams are not all disc priest so maybe their HPs are lacking.

If you love em so much you should try a disc priest.
Try them in high keys with lots of random fails and you see how bad disc is burst healing multiple people.

Being in bear form for 3-5s doesn't really matter. We're talking about the specific situation of a healer reacting to a pressure window. Since that's all it takes to end the match right now. If you want to make it more realistic, you add in the fact that Resto can instantly throw out more HoTs than any other healer by a significant margin without hard-casting or even incurring a GCD, but we don't need to do that since the situation already greatly favours them before we add in all their other tools and escapes... Which I have listed in my post and stated we're not factoring in even though it only furthers the point I'm making.

[kukkamies]

Still the top rbg teams are not all disc priest so maybe their HPs are lacking.

Was interested in this since in arenas it's all about hpalas.

Disc is the most represented class in rbgs... Didn't think they are are that powerful. Even above balance druids for rbgs

[thesmall001]

I dont play monk but i do go against them in arena, and i must admit they don't cause many issues so i can see your point. The healer that i always dread is the resto shaman, i dont know what it is that they are doing to survive but they must have crazy EHP

Not super familiar with Resto Shammy but they have access to a 40% damage reduction + up to 25% effective damage reduction from Spirit Link (the PvP replacement, not the Totem, though this can backfire, I think) so that's up to 55% damage reduction when they already have higher armour than Leather and Clothies. Then you have 10% max HP from Ancestral Vigor and 27% from a Conduit when Earth Elemental is up which grants a total of 37-39% more max HP, I'm not sure if % HP increases are multiplicative or additive. This puts them at like 103k EHP under pressure. So very high.

They have an excellent Mastery for clutch healing, which naturally suits arena. They have a fairly strong instant heal and HoT in one GCD from Riptide and a 20% HP heal in Nature's Guardian which auto-triggers at 35% HP, even under CC. Finally, you have the totems which do a lot of passive healing and mitigation. So they're just very cooldown rich with above average EHP.

At this point the only one I haven't calculated is HPala and HPriest. But I think the point has been made! MW needs major survivability buffs!

[TheAld]

Stopped reading after you stacked all of the Disc priest CDs on top of one another and included Strength of Soul as if anyone uses it.

I agree monks need to be tankier outside of life cocoon, but citing a disc dumping all of their DRs in one go isn't the best way to argue for it.

[thesmall001]

Stopped reading after you stacked all of the Disc priest CDs on top of one another and included Strength of Soul as if anyone uses it.

I agree monks need to be tankier outside of life cocoon, but citing a disc dumping all of their DRs in one go isn't the best way to argue for it.

If you think I was arguing that Disc doing this is an effective strategy, then you totally missed the point, which is that vector abilities are far out-pacing scalar abilities and this is massively favouring some classes over others. You're right that this would be totally unnecessary, Disc can use a fraction of their available options to survive burst better than any competitor, and still have CDs to spare to help their allies, or survive another burst window. EHP is purely a way of quantifying how many viable options they have in their kit. The overall point here is not that MW need to be tankier (though they certainly do), it's that there is a systemic flaw in the current class design. Right now, only MW has reached a point where they physically cannot scale to be viable. But this same problem will gradually swallow the Resto's and Holy Priest, as classes gain more DPS and our actual healing contribution in PvP further drops off, especially with the way Versatility is going to be going into the next 2 patches.

% based damage reduction stays proportionately powerful to damage done. Absorbs and heals based off Spell Power actually have to be balanced to stay competitive. PvP balance, fun and design is dead as long as the entire toolkit of a class is meaningless, except for their %-based cooldowns.

[TheAld]

If you think I was arguing that Disc doing this is an effective strategy, then you totally missed the point, which is that vector abilities are far out-pacing scalar abilities and this is massively favouring some classes over others. You're right that this would be totally unnecessary, Disc can use a fraction of their available options to survive burst better than any competitor, and still have CDs to spare to help their allies, or survive another burst window. EHP is purely a way of quantifying how many viable options they have in their kit. The overall point here is not that MW need to be tankier (though they certainly do), it's that there is a systemic flaw in the current class design. Right now, only MW has reached a point where they physically cannot scale to be viable. But this same problem will gradually swallow the Resto's and Holy Priest, as classes gain more DPS and our actual healing contribution in PvP further drops off, especially with the way Versatility is going to be going into the next 2 patches.

% based damage reduction stays proportionately powerful to damage done. Absorbs and heals based off Spell Power actually have to be balanced to stay competitive. PvP balance, fun and design is dead as long as the entire toolkit of a class is meaningless, except for their %-based cooldowns.

No, I understand your argument. I know you weren't arguing that it's an effective strategy, but using Strength of Soul (15% physical dr for the duration of a 3k absorb) to contribute to your EHP calculations comes across as hyperbolic. Hell, you may as well include Holy Paladins, who have the tools to create an infinite EHP (bubble, blessing of protection) that they can use multiple times, and still have cds for allies (Sacrifice).

[Philomene]

Yes MW survival is currently really bad but if you think Disc survival is insane you need a reality check like every other healer it dies in a stun if PS in on CD without a trinket. Every healer can be killed in a proper switch if it doesn’t have trinket. Nobody plays with strength of soul neither, it’s such a trash talent considered the low absorb of PWS and the fact that a lot of damage sources now aren’t physical. 50% barrier is also a debatable talent choice.

TLDR: those maths could be interesting if they were reflecting reality which isn’t the case. Disc gets gimped by 2 damage dealers once trinket is off like every other healer.

[thesmall001]

@Philomene @TheAld

I take both your points that the calculation is not an accurate reflection of reality, but I still feel that it does accurately reflect the options available. If another talent (PvP or otherwise) were to be subject to nerfs or buffs, those options would be there and may rise to the top, they are designed into the kit even if other options successfully provide a better option. And, at its core, this analysis goes beyond the balance concerns of today, or even this season/expansion, and more comments on the disparity between design directions/depth for different specs.

Though, sure, it also comments on the problems right now. Particularly for MW. Perhaps a literal tally of viable, subviable and unviable talents and factors that go into PvP might have been a better methodology but I am but one armchair designer.

[Raugnaut]

Not super familiar with Resto Shammy but they have access to a 40% damage reduction + up to 25% effective damage reduction from Spirit Link (the PvP replacement, not the Totem, though this can backfire, I think) so that's up to 55% damage reduction when they already have higher armour than Leather and Clothies. Then you have 10% max HP from Ancestral Vigor and 27% from a Conduit when Earth Elemental is up which grants a total of 37-39% more max HP, I'm not sure if % HP increases are multiplicative or additive. This puts them at like 103k EHP under pressure. So very high.

They have an excellent Mastery for clutch healing, which naturally suits arena. They have a fairly strong instant heal and HoT in one GCD from Riptide and a 20% HP heal in Nature's Guardian which auto-triggers at 35% HP, even under CC. Finally, you have the totems which do a lot of passive healing and mitigation. So they're just very cooldown rich with above average EHP.

At this point the only one I haven't calculated is HPala and HPriest. But I think the point has been made! MW needs major survivability buffs!

Keep in mind that Resto Shamans also have Ascendence, which on cast is a 860%-ish of spellpower heal, or basically their entire HP bar.

[GreenJesus]

No, I understand your argument. I know you weren't arguing that it's an effective strategy, but using Strength of Soul (15% physical dr for the duration of a 3k absorb) to contribute to your EHP calculations comes across as hyperbolic. Hell, you may as well include Holy Paladins, who have the tools to create an infinite EHP (bubble, blessing of protection) that they can use multiple times, and still have cds for allies (Sacrifice).

Divine Shield - 5 minute CD (3.5 if talented), BoP - instant dispelled, ultimate sacrifice 100% transfers the damage to yourself now, but the damage isn't reduced.

[TheAld]

Divine Shield - 5 minute CD (3.5 if talented), BoP - instant dispelled, ultimate sacrifice 100% transfers the damage to yourself now, but the damage isn't reduced.

PW: Barrier - Gripped/Knockback/RoP'd out of.
Rapture PW:S - Dispelled.