Are you excited about the return of 'Triage' style healing?

[Callypso]

I don't think its going to be what you expect. Most likely people will always be topped off, instead of you constantly topping them off.

There either can't be much raid damage, or there can't be much triage. You can't have both.

This.

Honestly, the 'new' concept with people having more hp (so your heals doing relatively less) and less 'omg heal now' moments just sounds to me like there will be lots of small hits on a lot of people at the same time. Right now part of being a good healer is knowing where the damage will be, fast reflexes, and, unfortunatly, raw output. Those skills won't be much of an issue if you have ample time to top people off. If that's indeed the game, healing will become less about the healing and more about managing your mana.

If in Cata triage healing will become more prevalent, that just implies that druids will be top-of-the-line healers once again. Many people taking small hits --> say hi to hots.

[bozwell]

This.

Honestly, the 'new' concept with people having more hp (so your heals doing relatively less) and less 'omg heal now' moments just sounds to me like there will be lots of small hits on a lot of people at the same time. Right now part of being a good healer is knowing where the damage will be, fast reflexes, and, unfortunatly, raw output. Those skills won't be much of an issue if you have ample time to top people off. If that's indeed the game, healing will become less about the healing and more about managing your mana.

If in Cata triage healing will become more prevalent, that just implies that druids will be top-of-the-line healers once again. Many people taking small hits --> say hi to hots.

Good thing? For people like me that has priest, druid and pal? =P

[Zeuq]

I don't think its going to be what you expect. Most likely people will always be topped off, instead of you constantly topping them off.

There either can't be much raid damage, or there can't be much triage. You can't have both.

I disagree. You're looking at it from a WotLK perspective. I imagine in Cataclysm health pools will probably be no less than 2-3x as big, but healing will be roughly at the same point it is now. In this sort of case you can have both. The problem now is that mana is a non-issue, so using lots of big or AOE heals just isn't a problem. Since these heals heal for so much relative to the health pools, the amount of damage going out has to be limited, otherwise people will get one shot even at nearly full health. IOW, the current situation has the total damage necessary less than the amount of healing that can go out.

In Cataclysm, with larger health pools and relatively smaller heals, there will be much less risk of someone who is at 3/4 health could die. This means you can either wait to heal them and focus on more damaged targets first. Combine this with less regen, and not only is it easier to avoid overheal from proper triage, but it's necessary to avoid going OOM. With less overheal and less risk of people getting one-shot, raid damage can be much closer to the actual HPS that the healers can put out. Thus, the result where you can have enough raid damage to keep you casting the majority of the time, but still having to be careful with your spell and target selection.

So, really, if it's done right, it will largely be like the best parts of BC, where triage and spell selection mattered, but it ought to still include the best part of WotLK, where you're not sitting around for chunks of time doing nothing because you're sitting OOFSR regening mana or stacking the hell out of nothing but regen just so I can keep up.


I do think, as the Blues and others have mentioned, that HoTs can be potentially very powerful in this sort of environment and they will need some rebalancing. There's a number of ways to address it, whether it's addressing coefficients, mana costs, durations/rates, etc., so I'd rather wait to see how they decide to handle it before getting worked up about it.

[Azyoulike]

The first thing to consider is that this will pretty much kill disc priests. The disc priest mastery is going to buff their absorbs, but absorbs are only particularly valuable when damage is high in relation to HP pool. This is why disc priests were so sought after for Sarth+3 back in the day, and PW:S becomes just a weak HoT on a fight like BQ.

Moreover actual HoTs are going to scale with haste, while shields won't - and there's nothing currently suggesting shields will be able to crit either.

Result: Disc priests will either die out in PVE or require a substantial rebalancing by the 2nd or 3rd raid. Our AoE-shield may be sexy, but it won't be able to bridge the gap.

As to the other changes, I think they are possibly a good thing for healing, possibly bad. It's certainly looking like having all 4 healer classes at end-game levels (as I currently do) will be pointless given the degree of homogenization.

[Zeuq]

The first thing to consider is that this will pretty much kill disc priests. The disc priest mastery is going to buff their absorbs, but absorbs are only particularly valuable when damage is high in relation to HP pool. This is why disc priests were so sought after for Sarth+3 back in the day, and PW:S becomes just a weak HoT on a fight like BQ.

Moreover actual HoTs are going to scale with haste, while shields won't - and there's nothing currently suggesting shields will be able to crit either.

Result: Disc priests will either die out in PVE or require a substantial rebalancing by the 2nd or 3rd raid. Our AoE-shield may be sexy, but it won't be able to bridge the gap.

Well, DA will effectively scale with Haste and Crit because either stat will either increase the the opportunities or probability of the DA procs. I think, and frankly hope, that PWS will at least somewhat fall off in usage because it's just really boring, with PWB taking up a lot of that slack. I do think PWS ought to have some way to benefit from Crit, perhaps make it able to proc DA from the absorb and not just from the glyph or just scale with Crit sort of like DoTs used to. It doesn't need any added Haste since it opperates more like an instant heal than a HoT. Either way, I think absorb effects suffer from a lot of the same problems that HoTs do, in that they're either ridiculously overpowered or they're effectively useless so, like you indicate, it will take a lot of careful balancing to make them work well in this new environment.

As to the other changes, I think they are possibly a good thing for healing, possibly bad. It's certainly looking like having all 4 healer classes at end-game levels (as I currently do) will be pointless given the degree of homogenization.

This pretty much has to happen with the 10-man raids becoming a primary progression path. In order to tune encounters correctly, they have to be able to make more consistent assumptions about what buffs or abilities are present. Now, they can undertune a little, by not assumping certain buffs/abilities are present, and if you happen to have an ideal setup, it's just a little easier; but that's okay, because it's tuned below 25-man anyway. If they make those same assumptions, then with only 10 people, a 10-man raid will have very little flexibility in what classes they can bring in what roles. That is, now, they can get away with having all the mandatory buffs in more raid slots than they'll be able to get away with in Cataclysm, and so you'll have the same problem if not all healers can also serve more effectively in different roles (most notably, Paladins as raid healers and Priests as tank healers).

[harky]

@bozwell: Didn't read a word of my post, did you. Oh and rank 4 Heal? No. Greater Heal 1 was more efficient. Did you not play past BWL? I'm sorry, not everyone was total fail in Vanilla. Still, Transcendence had plenty of +SP (+healing at the time) on every single slot. Trying to redefine 'Vanilla' is retarded. Vanilla implies pre-BC. Always has, always will. If you want to talk about specific raids, that's fine. Still, if you were using Flash Heal on trash in Vanilla you were doing something wrong. It was lower HPS and lower efficiency than GH1, which was the absolute go-to heal. Even in MC you could be walking around at 300+ healing without much issue. Honestly, it sounds like you had experience in Vanilla, but it sounds like you were pretty awful at it. GH1, stop casting GH5 and Renew were are go-to spells in Vanilla, stop-casting GH4 pre-AQ, but that was a little less than half of Vanilla's timeline. :

[bozwell]

@bozwell: Didn't read a word of my post, did you. Oh and rank 4 Heal? No. Greater Heal 1 was more efficient. Did you not play past BWL? I'm sorry, not everyone was total fail in Vanilla. Still, Transcendence had plenty of +SP (+healing at the time) on every single slot. Trying to redefine 'Vanilla' is retarded. Vanilla implies pre-BC. Always has, always will. If you want to talk about specific raids, that's fine. Still, if you were using Flash Heal on trash in Vanilla you were doing something wrong. It was lower HPS and lower efficiency than GH1, which was the absolute go-to heal. Even in MC you could be walking around at 300+ healing without much issue. Honestly, it sounds like you had experience in Vanilla, but it sounds like you were pretty awful at it. GH1, stop casting GH5 and Renew were are go-to spells in Vanilla, stop-casting GH4 pre-AQ, but that was a little less than half of Vanilla's timeline. :

No, you didn't read my post. Even at Vanilla, there are a few patches, say like ZG, AQ, nax...etc.
(even BWL wasn't fully implemented in the beginning and Stra scholo was considered a raid.)

And in different era of vanilla, priest play slightly different. Say, when ST was a raid, SP was virtually non-existent.

To even insinuate that MC era is the same as ZG as AQ era and name it all under "Vanilla" is just idiocy. BWL / MC was made easy(somewhat a joke) if you have AQ gear.
To answer your question, I was all the way from beta to Naxx in what you called Vanilla.
Heck I still remember farming the stupid fire resist potion recipe and the unholy amount of mana potion I have chuck sometimes in a raid.

Well, awful, /shrug, like I have anything to prove to a scrub that thinks Nax = AQ = BWL (as in all played the same way .. as they are all "vanilla").
I bet you didn't even know where Nax's entrance was.

And flash heal ... yes, it's lower HPS, efficiency, but it's 1.5 seconds cast? Like you need to care about HPS / efficiency in trash? really?
Back then, as long as you have adequate number of healers, using anything other than FH will result in alot of overheals. (unless a few of the other healers die, then yea, you will care about HPS / efficiency then use a bigger and more efficiency heal)

Again, this shows you are a terribad, that only know to use 1 heal. You musta play a pal. lol.

No, you wouldn't be walking around with 300 healing in MC gear. (again, you are probably thinking after the revamp of the gears and didn't know how the gears were like back then. )

here's the actual set stats back then:
Prophecy Set (Tier 1)
---------------------
Armor: 584
Stamina: 113
Intellect: 168
Spirit: 114
Healing: 130
Damage: 30
Mana Regeneration (5 secs): 18
Shadow Resist: 24
Fire Resist: 34
Bonus:
3: -0.1 sec to the casting time of your Flash Heal spell.
5: Improves your chance to get a critical strike with Holy spells by 2%.
8: Increases your chance of a critical hit with Prayer of Healing by 25%.

Transcendence Set (Tier 2)
--------------------------
Armor: 666
Stamina: 114
Intellect: 176
Spirit: 127
Healing: 300
Shadow Resist: 30
Fire Resist: 35
Frost Resist: 10
Arcane Resist:10
Nature Resist:13
Crit with Spell: 1%
Bonus:
3: Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
5: When struck in melee there is a 50% chance you will Fade for 4 sec.
8: When you cast Greater Heal, you now automatically cast Renew (Rank 5) as well for free.

As for ZG, AQ, pretty much heal anyway works for you.

[harky]

Yeeeah, so you wouldn't be able to hit 300 healing in MC? 130 healing is not including Neck, Rings, Trinkets, Weapon, Wand Cloak, or weapon enchant. Or you know, did you walk around with only your T1 on and no other gear? :

And yes, healing changed between MC, BWL, Ony, AQ, etc. However, it was never what you're describing. Casting FH didn't matter because yes it was less efficient, yes it was lower HPS and... it didn't matter. On trash you'd just use GH1. You know, along with the other 14 healers all stop-casting on tanks even on trash. FH was a waste of time because it did not allow you to play with the 5 second rule as much. It was a PVP spell, same as in TBC for the most part.

Seriously though, getting all snobbish about healing pre-AQ? Who cares? MC and BWL were mostly about logistics, not hard content. A few fights were a bit over-tuned here and there, but MC in particular was pretty silly. Healing in the MC/BWL days was boring precisely because you really did only use two heals (three if you count the occasional GH4) and damage was honestly really, really slow.

It's why Blizz wants TBC to make a comeback. Faster pace, but still requires resource management. Vanilla was more twiddle your thumbs while stop-casting, unless in an active tank rotation, then spam 1 button until a rotation swap. It wasn't fun and there's a very good reason there were so few healers in Vanilla.

[Kelesti]

Just to interject, harky, our healers were running Lesser Heal 3 until Downranking was nerfed, and then the switch was made to the highest rank of Heal as far as I can remember.

[bozwell]

Yeeeah, so you wouldn't be able to hit 300 healing in MC? 130 healing is not including Neck, Rings, Trinkets, Weapon, Wand Cloak, or weapon enchant. Or you know, did you walk around with only your T1 on and no other gear? :

do list them then. let's see if u get 300. : :
Funny that you mention cloak.... and neck .... and wand .... if you did went through vanilla. hihi FR gear.
I call your BS on your apparent lack of knowledge of gearing back then.

For neck, it's this:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=16309

For cloak, it's this:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=15138

Trinket, it's either:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=19288
this pair, if you are lucky
http://www.wowhead.com/item=17064
http://www.wowhead.com/item=17082

I can go on, but I guess that' enough to prove you wrong.

Which needless to say, mostly are mana-regen purpose. Did I mention stop acting you play through vanilla, if you haven't? Why would you want to do that, I have no idea, not that it's something spectacular. :

And yes, healing changed between MC, BWL, Ony, AQ, etc. However, it was never what you're describing.

Right.... :

Casting FH didn't matter because yes it was less efficient, yes it was lower HPS and... it didn't matter. On trash you'd just use GH1.

Wrong. . with enough healer where mana isn't an issue, you use FH.

You know, along with the other 14 healers all stop-casting on tanks even on trash. FH was a waste of time because it did not allow you to play with the 5 second rule as much. It was a PVP spell, same as in TBC for the most part.

Why are you playing with the FSR for trash again? So you get like 1 second more outside of FSR? Like trash last enough for this point to matter? like really? Your raids' DPS that bad? Or the DPS in your raid usually dying left and right?

Seriously though, getting all snobbish about healing pre-AQ?

/shrug, never said it was an big achievement or that you should bow down. Just you shouldn't talk about stuff you don't know. Which clearly some of you don't.

Who cares? MC and BWL were mostly about logistics, not hard content.

hahaha... another confirmation you didn't play. Boy, this hole you dig yourself is getting deeper and deeper.

A few fights were a bit over-tuned here and there, but MC in particular was pretty silly. Healing in the MC/BWL days was boring precisely because you really did only use two heals (three if you count the occasional GH4) and damage was honestly really, really slow.

Again, this strikes me you went to BWL / MC whatnot after you out geared the content, if you did play there at all.
I don't know about you, I have like 5 - 7 heals on my bar there are like 1-2 heals and around 3 GHs, FH, renew, shield. You are just bad.

Here let me emphasis, so you won't go haywire with your false accusation. I don't think you are a bad healer or you suck because you didn't went through vanilla, but please refrain from talking as if you did.

It's why Blizz wants TBC to make a comeback. Faster pace, but still requires resource management. Vanilla was more twiddle your thumbs while stop-casting, unless in an active tank rotation, then spam 1 button until a rotation swap. It wasn't fun and there's a very good reason there were so few healers in Vanilla.

/shrug, in vanilla, most if not all healers are priest (others pale in comparison to a priest... so)
You essentially get 1 good healing class. (not to mention shm/pal wasn't available depended on which faction you are on)
druid were meh in healing.

TBC bring that up a bit and pal / shm / druid became viable. (priest was nerfed pretty bad.... disc for PvP and shadow for PvE as mana battery and holy kinda, well.. shm stacking > all. )

Lastly, let me emphasis again, because you like to miss things. I don't think anyone is bad.. sucks... whatever if they didn't play through vanilla, but please, stop acting you have when the stuff you preach are evidently from someone who didn't play back then.

May I suggest stop before you are further behind than you already are?

[cruxxy]

What was this thread about again?

[bozwell]

What was this thread about again?

Either this is a meaningless rhetorical, or a true question due to lack of ability to read the thread's title. hm.... ...

Hard to decide :-\, think I'll go with latter.

This thread is about old style "triage" style of healing coming back, Jimmy. :

[harky]

So let me get this straight, Bozwell... If you were using all that fire resist gear on all fights in MC/BWL then you had a lot bigger issues than worrying about how to heal. People really went overboard on Fire Resist, that's true, but it wasn't needed for most fights, so half decent players had a Fire Resist set for Rag and then a normal set for basically everything else. Kind of goes right back to the thought that while you were there, you didn't really know what you were doing. And yes, MC and BWL were mostly about logistics. Getting 40 people who weren't horrible together was the primary issue that held people back in early 40 mans. Later on it became easier to recruit based on who was already in full T1/2. As far as the other healing classes? Paladin sucked until the blessing change and Druid sucked throughout Vanilla (couldn't tank until the end of Vanilla, bad healing, bad DPS). Shaman wasn't as bad as you're implying though and once the blessings were change Paladin was good as well.

@Kelesti; The shouldn't have been using anything lower than Heal rank 2 due to how the original downranking worked. You could have used Lesser Heal when you had very low SP, but once you were in tiered gear using it wasn't an option. That's due to the original level 20 rule. Heal 4 vs GH1 did come up occasionally, but GH1 was the better spell due both to its skill level and the fact that it cost almost the same mana, but healed for about 30% more. People who thought Heal 4 was the way to go often did prefer max rank FH now and then, but this was a mistake caused by using Heal 4 itself. It had a larger penalty for use and enough less healing that Flash Heal's output was better, but switching to GH1 instead of Heal4 fixed that.

[Eisaderfrau]

I do miss the downranking game. I know Blizzard decided they hated it, but having to actually think about not just who to heal but which version of the spell to use was fun.

As to the Triage part, I am not so sure. Why you ask? The bitching. Triage, by it's very definition, has a component of "Those who are likely to die, regardless of what care they receive" to it. Generally, this ends up being a DPS. Currently, if a DPS pulls threat on some piece of raid trash or boss and you somehow manage to keep them from dying, it is "wow thanks for somehow keeping me alive" and if they die in 1 shot, they just go "meh, my bad for pulling threat." If you have trash/bosses that are not instant death for dps, now they will get pissed if you let them die because you wanted to top off a tank. I remember healing in BC (not Vanilla, I know... scrub/noob/blah blah blah) when I kept the damage out meter up on my recount and my priority went me > tanks > other healers > then DPS based on damage. Yes, that's right. If you sucked in damage or were an under geared alt, you were at the bottom of my healing queue. I didn't mind this, but what I DID mind was getting tells from dead DPS going "WTF I was standing RIGHT NEXT to you and you LET ME DIE!"

So sure, bring back triage. Just don't complain when I make the conscious decision NOT to heal you if someone more raid important needs it. Smart heals take this out of the equation. My PoM will bounce to an idiot, low dps tard standing in fire weather I want it to or not, and CoH will heal the same guy. If I am required to go back to point healing to keep my mana fine, that guy is going to die a lot.

[Stevegasm]

I loved the triage style of healing. I'm excited to see the nerfs of AOE healing so we can actually get back to using our skill to show healing prowess again.

[Sans]

I am a resto druid and I can't wait. Sounds like healing will be fun again.

[GennGreymane]

what ever will make healing more fun

[Deleted]

They wanted to change that even during WotLK...look how far that went. I don´t trust their abilities anymore...

[taishar68]

This change, like the plans to reintroduce the need for CC and smart pulls, concerns me in the sense that I worry if the player base will really adapt to it.

If you started in vanilla, whether you were an elite player or not (I started late and had very little vanilla raid experience), you have progressed along with the game and have an idea of what seems to be in store for us in Cataclysm. I did not heal in vanilla, only in BC with my Paladin (go-go FoL spam), but I remember even in our 20-mans the healing rotations and triage and...wait for it...DPS using bandages to help healers conserve mana, which would be viable again if they remove or extend enrage timers.

I digress. Players who only know LK healing may find the new system too daunting for them, which could lead to an outpouring of "healing is too hard" complaints from the community. I understand that many in the community relish the difficulty, whether it be for the actual challenge, the ego boost, or both, and that is cool if it moves your meter; I worry that the changes, however cool they may be, never see the light of launch day because too many have cut their teeth on softer fare.

[wyll]

Lol... no SP wasn't common at vanilla vanilla. (as in BWL being the *top* raid).

No, I am not thinking GH. Read, HEAL rank 4. specifically. That's the most efficient heal it was back then. As in naf being the end boss. Again, this shows you never did the MC > BWL back then. So, please, stop showing more your non-existent knowledge on healing back then.

Later on, the AQ ..ZG... nax... which alot have changed for those "patches" for healers already. More mana, SP were much more accessible...etc.

And the best healing talent / spec wasn't holy back then. Stupid lightwell / holynova was crap. go far enough into disc to get DS and the rest mostly holy and a couple last points in disc or holy. Like a 2X/2X variant kinda deal.

Again, you seemed to have no idea what are talking about. No flash heal on your bar? Dude, that was the heal to use on trash. And sometimes needed if your other healers lags / DC whatnot. You just didn't went through vanilla healing admit it, and stop pretending you have.

just as a starter i've healed on every class in game, priest at 60, druid at 70, and pally, druid, shammy at 80.

i'll admit i did use holy nova in vanilla....but only on vael when i was in the melee group. course that was just for fun not really for practicality. infinite mana ftw!!! Despite being the infamous guild killer i still think that was one of the most fun fights in the game, especially when i got to go on my mage, instant cast fireballs before blowing up ftw.

oh and for all you ally priests, you are forgetting that us hordies didn't have all those pallies hanging around to dispel for us, so we always had priests designated for dispel duty on top of healing rotations.

i always use to hate that 5 minute explanation at the beginning as all the healers got assigned their certain rolls and rotations set up etc etc. But i could see healer rotations possibly coming back. All depends on how much dps is needed to beat enrage timers vs mana efficiency. Good healers will be able to adapt and learn to be mana efficient while the baddies will...well i dunno cause we still need healers.

i have mixed emotions on the changes, while i hate that i have to spam holy light on my pally or the tank dies. but what i really hate is that i have ridiculous overhealing and that's not a big deal. 50, 60, sometimes 75% overhealing and i don't run out of mana? That's kinda stupid. despite all that I'm really looking forward to cata and can't wait.