I took this from my guild's board which took it from DnT's boards. I didn't see any posts about it, and I figured it would be worth posting here since it's some BC info.

http://66.250.45.101/~dtguild/forums...ead.php?t=4433

Copied From DnT Boards.

Not sure what the source of this is. Sent by a friend though with a bunch of other xpac info and it all looked pretty legit.

"So i'm tryin to heal some fools in the citadel and i notice my Heal Rank 2 is only hitting for 700 or so.
I have around +600 healing. On my regular server Heal Rank 2 hits for 1100 or so and crits for 1500+
I end up using max rank heals to keep the party going, and drinking after every 2 pulls. after some testing i find that +healing gear now acts much like +damage gear. AKA it scales down % wise to the spell.

Heal Rank 1 =10% of +to healing
Heal Rank 2 =25% of +to healing
Heal Rank 3 =50% of +to healing
Etc.
Normal behavior is: 100% of the generated total is applied accross the board.

You seem to get the most out of Max ranks. In my opinion that is counter productive to the rank down method of healing most of us raiders use. Perhaps that explains the wealth of +damage and healing gear i see in the Boss drops and Quest rewards."

It has already been rumored that maximum dmg/heal bonus starts at level 40 now. The two possibilities are a sliding scale or just a reworking every time the level cap rises.

It's main purpose is to prevent the infinite healing that downranking could concievable give.

I've always thought heal downranking was unintended emergent behavior. This seems to confirm it.

Agreed, though they'd probably have to rebalance existing content if they change things now, so waiting until the expansion to make this change seems to make sense.

Well, if they just normalize the hp/mana for different ranks of spells, downranking will still make sense sometimes. If someone is missing 1500hp you don't need to cast GHeal5 on them regardless of what they do with +healing and midrank spells. Having +1000 healing still lets you downrank to save mana. But you don't need to also get even greater efficiency on top of that base savings, I think. Old spells shouldn't be strictly superior to new ones -- they should be situational alternatives.

Wouldn't this change hit paladins the hardest? Downranking is pretty much required, especially since higher ranks of holy light are way to expensive to use on a consistent basis. It also downplays on the benefits of blessing of light considering rank 1 FoL was pretty much a free heal that hits for 600. I guess rank 4 will suffice but still, really hurts the class as a whole from a healer perspective.

Spamming the same low rank of heal endlessly is very dull gameplay. Mechanics changes that discourage it pretty much can only be an improvement.

Yes. I think most immediate complaints about this will actually be caused by people imagining the effect it would have on current content (which may be an accurate assessment, but it's also an irrelevant concern). Taken alone, it's an improvement to design, much akin to AP normalization.

I wouldn't mind such a change if it was accompanied with general changes to the way fights work (which is apparently what Blizzard might be shooting for with the new stamina budget itemization). One of the most fun encounters for me is the Twin Emps where I'm doing healing on the caster emp/uppercut healing on the melee. In both situations I'm shooting for maximizing efficiency and time spent using various ranks; however, I can only do that because theres very little risk of burst killing anyone; it would be mana exhaustion that would do me in. I don't really get to do that on many other fights right now.

Sounds like an interesting change, hopefully it promotes more thinking and decision making within the healer classes, I fear some, priests particularly, are just becoming consumable drinking healbots ;), I still remember the old days in MC casting top ranks when needed etc :)

I would be interested to see what the mechanic will be, whether sliding scale or 'fixed' like the current level 20 cap.

As a druid, rank 4 healing touch under the current projected regen talents would become crazily efficient and possibly even start to tend towards mana positive while casting, especially with the supposed 70/5 flask.

Any changes that promote more thinking and less automaton behaviour get the thumbs up from me, the new priest talents seem to promote more awareness and supporting measures, rather than just /decursive /cast heal

Thinking the exact same thing, now I'll have to fit my 4k heals onto a tank ... oh, the joy. I've never really been a big fan of downranking heals either, but it's simply a necessity with how the raiding game works now. Gurg, at the moment it's quite situational as well. I find myself using rank 7 and 11 still, but of course not that often. Now it's probably just going to reverse and instead of having small heals that you can fit in everywhere and put out some good healing, you will be back at grinding your teeth over all the priests and shammies pumping out their fast heals. While you will occasionally use the small heals ... so, an exact reverse of the current situation.