Feedback on Resto and current PTR notes (and a little Moonkin)

As usual, just publicly posting any feedback I give:

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Few things on Resto (I should do Balance at some point, but Balance is really complicated).

1) Effloresence. People have been talking about this a lot lately. In particular, perhaps a redesign inspired by the current PTR bug where it's healing one player per tick. That could be a pretty neat way to have to an AoE heal work, actually (among other things, it would allow Swiftmend to be used on a lone target without feeling like it wastes the Efflorescence).

I think it somewhat misses the point that the biggest current issue with Efflorescence on live is outright numerical weakness though. It just does so little healing for the cost (cost in terms of talent points and appropriating the use of Swiftmend). I won't totally repeat it since I've mentioned this in every bit of Resto feedback for a while. Efflorescence probably can't be as strong as Healing Rain, but there is currently a huge amount of room between them. In its best case right now (clumped targets, etc.), Efflo is unimpressive, and redesigning how it works while keeping the output constant might not really change much.

All that said, some sort of smart effect instead of the straight AoE could make for a nifty spell. But a plain AoE can be just fine too (again, Healing Rain is a great spell) if the numbers back it up.


2) Raid Cooldowns. I post about this a lot on the BB, but just to concisely summarize:
--Raidwide damage reduction effects are in a whole different class of strength from anything that "only" heals. Strategy coordination at hard encounters often revolves around Power Word: Barrier and Aura Mastery specifically; Tranquility is comparatively irrelevant. You can't use Tranq to survive something that would otherwise kill the whole raid.
--The current patch notes put Tranq and PWB both at a 3 minute cooldown, but Tranq is still just points of healing, and PW:B is still a significant amount of DR. Balancing these two types of effects against each other is very hard at best, possibly untenable.
--I hope there are more changes still to come, but to make the point clear, if the above were the only changes to raid cooldowns, I predict that it would effect no change at all in the perceived relative value of Priest and Druid healers in raids.

3) Tank Cooldowns. Just to to emphasize that these are two separate and independent issues. PWB is to Tranquility as Pain Suppression is to Nature's Swiftness. The Priest cooldowns have a qualitative effect that outstrips the value of any number of mere points of healing. Somehow it just so happens the two classes with the good tank cooldowns are the same as the two classes with the good raid cooldowns. But both issues have to addressed separately.


All in all, I think there's a tension here between a need for balance between classes, and a desire for variety as opposed to homogenization. I know it's important for different classes to have different strengths and weaknesses, and that their tools don't always have to be completely equivalent. But coming up with something that's as strong as raidwide (or targetable) damage reduction is a tall order, and the balance discrepancy currently in the game is pretty drastic. Some degree of homogenization of these extremely powerful effects is probably necessary.


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Brief note on Balance.
There's a Starsurge nerf in the PTR notes today. This is a pretty odd change from a PvE perspective since it hits the single-target damage, which is not even especially strong anymore, but leaves mostly unaffected the areas where Moonkin tend to outperform other classes (multi-dotting, AoE, movement). Maybe this is purely PvP-intended change, but if the goal is to help PvE balance, Starsurge isn't a good spell to nerf (a much more obvious candidate currently would be Wild Mushroom). Like I said, I'll go more into Balance soon, but I was curious about that one.