Valerian

There is another option and that is the new spell ranks are not fully determined yet (especially for classes that don't have their talents up yet) and the numbers arnt the values that are going to be used. Also in that giant list I only saw the datamined values for the new ranks of spells. Maybe the old ones were also changed?

 

◊ zeidrich

I see 3 possibilities with the new healing spells:

1: Everything will stay much the same and everyone will just downrank to TBC spells (unlikely)
2: Current non-spirit healers will gain new talents to make use of spirit and earn a lot of spirit on new gear to make up for hightened costs.
3: Downranking will be prohibited, but fights will require much less predictive (spam) healing, and more reactive healing, where deaths, particularly tank deaths, are more likely to come due to healer OOM than unexpected burst damage.

I personally expect #3, and in particular expect to see shaman and paladins' roles change the most drastically of all the healing classes. And then be somewhat restored midway through the expansion. I kind of expect paladin and shaman healers to likely be the weakest healers on WotLK release due to severe longevity issues and lack of options.

 

Copernicus

Option 3-

It's the Alpha build still, and Blizzard cares far more about testing graphics, quests, and the newly designed spells/abilities/scripts (for both PCs and NPCs) than a bunch of numbers that can easily be changed. If this was a beta build, I'd start being concerned. But so far in advance with so much stuff likely to change, it really doesn't matter what the specific numbers are.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

I was just offering some speculation, and did not mean to imply that those were the only options. Yes, clearly there are many, many things we're still in the dark about.

 

Incoherence

Vampiric Embrace's return is purely a function of your damage, and has no +healing or +damage coefficient of its own. Same goes for VT. So... no.

I'm a bit curious why it's just +healing and not +damage, personally.

 

Gokey

Isn't there a new shadow priest talent that turns all your bonus healing into spell damage? It may apply here.

 

Axanor

20%, so it would give 46 damage to an Spriest, but not a healer.

 

• Tsook

These spells are new in 3.0.1, which doesn't necessarily mean they weren't copied from some previous spells, but does indicate some kind of new development.

Chicken, can you do the same datamining for focus cost/cooldown for a couple other spells that're in the files? urlshort.com/wotlk doesn't show those fields. I'm most curious about the new Swipe (Rank 1) - spell id 50256. I'm also curious if Rushed Assault (Rank 1) - spell id 50262 - really is a pet skill or just something that accidentially got marked with (Rank 1).. the damage on it looks too high to be a real pet skill.

 

Malleus

Or if they give Paladins a talent that adds crit based on Spirit. That would be interesting in a way that turning us into Priest-in-a-Can wouldn't.

Removing downranking ... just wouldn't work. Mana users would burn through their mana in under a minute, unless regen was boosted so ludicrously on new gear that the lvl70 gear would instantly become non-viable (which we've been told it won't) or talents were added such that nobody would need to drink between level 60 and 75.

One thing to consider is that the penalty boundaries for downranking will definitely change. For example: the lowest rank of Holy Light that currently gains 100% benefit from +heal is HL10, with significant dropoff starting at HL7. In WOTLK I believe that HL12 will be the lowest rank to gain 100% benefit, with the big dropoff starting at HL9. So where a lvl70 Paladin might currently use HL4 for light healing and Light's Grace maintenance, HL9 as a bread-and-butter large heal and HL11 as an OSB, a lvl80 Paladin will probably be using HL6, HL10 or 11 and HL13 in the same way. If I had 18k mana and 250 MP5, which is not unreasonable scaling, then with the new potions I could spam HL11 for as long as I can spam HL9 now.

 

bellator

That is unless the mechanics of encounters changed, so they became less heal pammy and tank/raid survivability became more along the lines of can we keep everyone up without running out of mana before the boss is dead.

 

flyingtoastr

I really think a large problem with healing right now is that Blizzard has gone with the philosophy that in order to make encounters harder they just increase the damage done to the tank/raid.

Lets say you have two bosses, a Tier 7 boss called Boss A and a Tier 8 boss called Boss B. Boss B should be harder than Boss A. To do this Blizzard makes Boss B hit a lot harder than Boss A. This encourages healers to find the most efficient method of healing and spam heal for Boss B. If instead they implemented other mechanics that required execution and coordination it would fix a lot of this. So Boss A and Boss B both hit for the same amount, but Boss B is harder because he forces the raid to move in a specific patten while the rest of the floor in the room explodes (yes, I'm ripping this off from somewhere ). Then, as you wouldn't especially need absolutely maximized spam healing but execution in difficulty.

Then of course they can always throw in a Patchwerk where you do have to spam heal and you get an awesome soft enrage from OOM healers.

Stuff like that.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

◊ Regen

Is this not exactly what they are doing already? I think it is unfair to say everything from Gruul's Lair to Sunwell has simply increased expected hps/dps/tps. I think they have done a fair job (given no boss pre twins really should have taken more than 2 full raid nights to progress through). Certainly on some fights bosses will hit harder, but as incoming damage increases so does expected mitigation/increased gear.

 

Malan

Well the idea is that Boss B in the T8 instance hits harder than Boss A in T7 so that you can't just waltz into T8 without having done at least ~some~ of the prior content and geared up a little bit. The raid zones are going to reset in executional difficulty at the lowest tier again because they want to give new guilds and new players a place to start. If they hit the same amount but just required pure execution, Nihilium would be finished with the raid game in under a month.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

flyingtoastr

So SK-Gaming killing the final content in the game 4 days after it came out now isn't the same? If it wasn't for the artificial blocks in Sunwell the instance would have been cleared weeks ago, don't pretend otherwise. Clearly the system right now isn't working too well either, wouldn't you say?

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

Mordekhuul

Didn't SK put in some 50 odd hours on that one boss, constituting the equivalent of 10 five hour raid nights in those four days? That doesn't seem like something overly easy.

EDIT- on second thought, your point is well taken, however. As you say, a guild like SK certainly would have taken all of their time off on first release and plowed through from start to finish in a few weeks or so of concerted effort.

 

lairpie

4 days of how many hours a day? Now convert that into how many weeks its going to take a guild that raids 12 hours a week, 8 of which are taken up with farming gear and clearing to there in the first place each week.

Brewmaster of WBC

 

nfw

It would make much more sense if it were healing done to, instead of by the priest.

 

malthrin

I hope that they are intentionally increasing the mana cost of spells. Pre-TBC, there were two important minigames I played as a healer: keep my targets alive, and don't run out of mana. In TBC, especially since 2.4, the second minigame has fallen away. Bringing back that challenge, in conjunction with some kind of nerf to mana potions, could make my job harder (and more fun).

 

flyingtoastr

Nihilum and SK-Gaming aren't 12 hour/week raiding guilds. The point he was making is that if tiers were determined by complexity rather than outgoing damage SKG and Nihilum would breeze through content, not Joe McArenawelfares and his guild <Raids twice a week>.

The point remains that those guilds will always blow through content. Using them as examples is kinda stupid.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

◊ zirky

Well the solution is either to tune towards 90% of noncasual raiding guilds and accept that the Nihilum and SK's of the world will roll the content or tune to the that tier and have the original SSC.

I'm sure there is a happier middle ground, I'm just not sure what it is beyond artificial gear checks and resist (yuck) fights.

 

◊ Regen

The specifically stated they took 2 weeks off from work and dedicated pretty close to 12 hours a day. I guarantee you there are other guilds of high caliber that could pull off a KJ kill in one week or very close to it if they had the same amount of time to dedicate to it in that given week. There is no amount of tuning or difficulty that can extend this time period (Most are extremely impressed it last that long).

 

GSH

Put time limits on the bosses. The boss despawns 2-4 hours after the first pull. (I think original Vael did something like this.)

 

Cube

Archimonde, while the overall encounter design isn't that great, is a good example of this middle ground. It's a pure execution test on everyone in the raid, because the majority of the damage he outputs is avoidable, and forces the raid to adapt to it. While he does hit quite hard on the MT, tank deaths are usually not the direct cause of wipes.

 

Vhex

More annoying you mean. All being stretched for mana pre-tbc meant was that you either used a mod or built a /stopcasting macro and would "Cast big heal, cancel if target is still above 70%" Healing was still whack-a-mole, it just had that added 'strategy!!!" of punching you in the balls if you overhealed. Or you just raided as Alliance and never had to worry about mana efficiency.

In an ideal world, they'd get rid of mana, make healing more pro-active and call it a day.

Besides, in 99% of the content you could remove healing entirely and you wouldn't change the mechanics of the fight one bit.

You want to make healing intense? Here's what you do.

Step 1) You remove heals from the game.
Step 2) You remove mana from the game.
Step 3) You add spells that prevent damage from being done via various means.

Bam.

This also gets rid of the need for enrage mechanics on every single boss because you won't be able to last forever. Balanced properly, you could bring more healers but with lower dps, the fight drags on longer. You'd still have to find that perfect threshold.

An example, here's my 'ideal' paladin heals:

Holy Light: Wards the target against 6,000 damage, absorbing a maximum of 50% per hit. 2.5 second cast, 20 second duration.

Flash of Light: Wards the target against 2000 damage, absorbing a maximum of 30% per hit. 1 second cast, 20 second duration.

Holy Shock: When used on an ally, absorbs 50% of the damage done to that target for 5 seconds. When used on an enemy, deals damage and reduces their next damage attack by 50%. 10 second recast.

Blessing of Light: Increases the amount of damage per hit absorbed by your Light spells by 10%.

Consecrate: Deals damage to all enemies in area effect. Allies in the area of effect take 10% less damage.

Seal/Judgement of Light: Reduces damage done to you by the next source of damage by 100. Lasts 4 seconds after a proc.

You can fudge the numbers but you get the idea. Encounters are now about killing the enemy before he kills you, as opposed to the modern MMO heal mechanics which make it more about killing the enemy before you run out of mana.

 

Vhex

Yes, and it was a terrible idea that pretty much everybody who wasn't a jerk hated.