BlizzCon Discussion - Page 8

Lanlaorn · 10/15/08, 5:25 PM

Ah yes, a PUG heroic with a terrible tank and less than fully aware DPS can certainly be hectic, but that just makes it interesting

I think in a raid environment it should be safe to assume a majority of good players though.

footloop · 10/15/08, 6:01 PM

Originally Posted by Douglas

With a bad tank and bad DPSers, a healer has it very rough.

Eh, being a good player in a group with four bad players is pretty painful no matter what role you're in.

The problem I had with healing (on my admittedly not-yet-max-level priest) is that trash tended to be easy to the point that I was bored out of my mind, but alt-tabbing or focusing on something else for more than a few seconds would inevitably lead to people dying and a possible wipe. Whereas on my hunter I can afk-autoshot for a few seconds if I want to take a break and check my email, or something.

Nezralix · 10/15/08, 6:15 PM

Healing is rather stressful, with serious and abrupt consequences for failure, probably moreso than other classes. Healing is more manageable in 5-man scenarios, where the healer is in control of the entire healing responsibility. Where healers tend to crack is in raid scenarios when the raid fails to provide coherent high-level direction for healing roles and responsibilities. What *should* be a manageable task quickly spirals out of control when there are many healers all running after many healing targets. And for the average/mediocre raid, "healing organization" may not really exist at all, while healers still end up being the first to blame for wipes.

I've been in these raids, where people just start going off on some kind of vague reference to "the healers" being asleep at the wheel, when it's quite obvious that the direction provided by the raid leadership just drastically underestimated the complexity of seven or eight healers "self-organizing" to successfully heal a non-trivial healing task. Ironically, if they'd paid more attention to that aspect ahead of time, then they'd at least have some inkling about who's directly responsible for the healing failure.

But this happens often, and it (quite reasonably) turns people off to healing in high-end raid scenarios, until they'd rather not endure the stress and instead default to a DPS class. People don't play video games just to suffer abuse over factors they don't feel that they can reasonably account for.

flyingtoastr · 10/15/08, 7:19 PM

Originally Posted by Teenee

It's not stupid. The changes to ratings and the spell power changes makes it alot easier to gear two caster specs. A few percent of hit rating isn't going to cripple you performance as a restoration druid or shaman, and vice versa. A few appropiate enchants and select item choices/gems, and that may be all you need to do the job "well". I'm not sure of how close the plate users protection and DPS trees allow any sort of similar gearing. Str is good for all, but I think that may be the extent of it.

And while hearting and respeccing was always an option for more "hardcore" souls, directly supporting it in-game, with a minimum of hassle opens this door for alot more people.

There is a massive difference between healing and caster gear.

Healing gear is awash in longevity stats. Mp5, Intellect, Spirit... none of these are of particular use to an offensive caster.

Caster gear has a singular talent that no healer will ever use (hit rating) and lacks any sort of real longevity talent.

So yes, you can respec. Or or guild can play smart. Why would you bring someone who can be a great healer or a bad DPS when you can still bring a great healer and a great DPS. This changes nothing from live, they just cut the hearthstone out of the equation.

And it doesn't address paladins at all, who have such wildly varying stat requirements for each tree it is impossible to do a secondary job in the same kit.

Anedris · 10/15/08, 11:15 PM

Originally Posted by Lanlaorn

I may be just speaking for myself here, but IMO the martyrdom of healers and difficulty of healing are real misconceptions that needs to be put to rest.

I played a Mage in Classic and rerolled a Holy Priest for TBC raiding. Similarly I know a Rogue who rerolled Resto Shaman, a Hunter that rerolled Holy Priest, all amazing healers. We didn't do it out of necessity, but because we wanted to. Basically,

1) Healing is not difficult. It's not even more difficult than DPS if you're serious about both. A good player is a good player no matter what the role. If your best DPS rerolled as healers they'd be among your best healers, garunteed.

2) Healing is fun. It's not a chore that some people unfortunately have to do. You say an Enh Shaman shouldn't be concerned that he'll be forced to heal and your healers "get the chance to take a break from the much more stressful job of healing and dps on some fights". It's not a fun treat, it's annoying.

Frankly, instead of letting me DPS during trash I would vastly prefer if trash had the same healing load as the bosses it lies in between. Healers get bored on trash with low healing requirements and start DPSing not because it's an awesome break from the drudgery of healing but because they don't want to feel like complete dead weight.

All the good healers I have known feel this way. It's the bad players who reroll healers so that they are 'needed' that perpetuate these notions of the vast complexity of healing and how incredibly dull it is.

Some people find healing easy and fun. There are less of these people than there are people who find DPS easy and fun. I ran a guild for almost two years and we spent 90% of that time looking for more healers and never having enough good ones.

I played a healer for most of that time so I well know that healing can be rewarding, it can be easy at times (and stressful at others), and it can certainly be fun. But the simple hard evidence is that there is almost always a shortage of healers.

François · 10/16/08, 6:39 AM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

There is a massive difference between healing and caster gear.

Healing gear is awash in longevity stats. Mp5, Intellect, Spirit... none of these are of particular use to an offensive caster.

Caster gear has a singular talent that no healer will ever use (hit rating) and lacks any sort of real longevity talent.

So yes, you can respec. Or or guild can play smart. Why would you bring someone who can be a great healer or a bad DPS when you can still bring a great healer and a great DPS. This changes nothing from live, they just cut the hearthstone out of the equation.

And it doesn't address paladins at all, who have such wildly varying stat requirements for each tree it is impossible to do a secondary job in the same kit.

I think you underestimate the value of longevity stats for offensive caster, but time will tell. Crit rating is now a longevity stat for holy priest, and a good shadow dps stat. And I know I will probably wear some hit rating stuff when having to heal and shackle as a priest, if such gimmick fights still exist.

The difference between healing and caster gear won't be so dumb in WotLK than it was for a tailoring priest in early BC.

However it's true paladins still have one gear need per talent tree.

aleyro · 10/17/08, 3:55 PM

Originally Posted by Douglas

...

IMO. YMMV. IANAL. EIEIO.

I spent about 3 minutes trying to figure out what EIEIO stood for.

Aditu · 10/17/08, 5:40 PM

Saying healing is easy and not more difficult then dps is fundamentally wrong. Being bad dps isn't going to wipe the raid or group outside of brut but being a terrible healer can immediately make a progression night difficult and painful. Though ironically myself and the other best healers under me are all DPS rerolls.

footloop · 10/17/08, 8:32 PM

Originally Posted by Aditu

Saying healing is easy and not more difficult then dps is fundamentally wrong. Being bad dps isn't going to wipe the raid or group outside of brut but being a terrible healer can immediately make a progression night difficult and painful. Though ironically myself and the other best healers under me are all DPS rerolls.

Well, the consequences aren't necessarily proportional to the difficulty. That said, I can't imagine healing being possibly easier than DPS, considering how easy DPS is :p

Dancing Wu Li Master · 10/21/08, 12:08 AM

Originally Posted by Aditu

Saying healing is easy and not more difficult then dps is fundamentally wrong. Being bad dps isn't going to wipe the raid or group outside of brut but being a terrible healer can immediately make a progression night difficult and painful. Though ironically myself and the other best healers under me are all DPS rerolls.

Think back to SSC; a bad DPS could easily wipe the raid on Hydross, and potentially on Vashj or Leotheras too, in ways that a healer couldn't really do (or couldn't do nearly as easily).

Soralin · 10/21/08, 1:52 AM

Let's not turn this into a "which raid role is easier" discussion. Every role has its own strengths and weaknesses. Every role will die if they stand in the fire. Every role has its part to play in each fight - and in some fights, the likelihood that one specific role will wipe the raid is higher than others.

Regarding your comment about Leotheras - from my experience, especially pre 2.3 (if I remember that was the patch where healing -> spell damage conversions came in) healers were more of a liability on Leotheras with the Inner Demons, than some of the DPS (although given, leaving DoTs on him could cause issues as well with the aggro resets). That could simply have been that we had dodgy healers and good DPS.

Dancing Wu Li Master · 10/21/08, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by Soralin

Regarding your comment about Leotheras - from my experience, especially pre 2.3 (if I remember that was the patch where healing -> spell damage conversions came in) healers were more of a liability on Leotheras with the Inner Demons, than some of the DPS (although given, leaving DoTs on him could cause issues as well with the aggro resets). That could simply have been that we had dodgy healers and good DPS.

I was more referring to (originally) the huge DPS requirements, and in general the fact that the DPS was more likely to pull aggro on a transition (at least in my experience). But yeah, it's not about which is easier / more challenging etc.

Pheus · 10/21/08, 2:39 PM

Originally Posted by Lanlaorn

Ah yes, a PUG heroic with a terrible tank and less than fully aware DPS can certainly be hectic, but that just makes it interesting

I think in a raid environment it should be safe to assume a majority of good players though.

If you're in a server first type guild and you have quality raiders applying all the time (giving you the luxury of kicking out retards) maybe that is true, but in a middle-progression guild you probably have about 10 really solid players, and a mix of inconsistent or retarded players making up the rest. Often you have to take what you can find because you can't get anyone else. At least, that was my experience in a guild which had a late start.. 3/4 and 5/6 in tk and ssc (not really cockblocked, only had a few attemps on vashj and none on kael) when attunements were lifted. Eventually, after repeated wipes on azlagor, the guild fell apart when it became apparent that the raid gas a group couldn't advance. Point being, there are definitely cases where you can't assume raiders will be competent.