Hi. Mobs basically have a pool of HP, a damage potential and abilities that force opposition to adapt (aggro switching, enrages, immunities ... ).

A group/raid of players could be compared to it. However, unlike 99.9% of mobs (hello Naxx Gargoyles) what a group has is the ability to heal and regenerate its HP pool. No group would try nontrivial content without a healer (note to nitpickers, Stratholme with T2+ gear is trivial content).

Why shouldn't all elite mobs (with very few exceptions, like demons from the hunter quest) have 20% less HP but a small regenerating abilty (like 600 HP/5s for a vanilla 60 elite, 5k HP5 for a molten giant and 10K HP5 for patchwerk). Of course the numbers could be tuned but the idea would be that difficulty would be the same for a standard balanced group (a 5 men with 1 tank 1 or 2 healers and 2/3 dps classes, totalling the ability to offtank/CC at least 2 mobs, or a 25 men raid with 2-4 players of each class)

- this would reward DPS. Considering the number of healers who would like to reroll or respec for hybrid or DPS, this sounds like an interesting move from a design point of vue. The reason while dps would be rewarded si obvious : if a mob regenrates 0, a group with 1000 dps will down it 2 times slower than a 2000 dps group. If it regenerates 2500HP5 (though I think thiw would be too much for a GROUP elite), the low dps group would have 500 net dps, compared to 1500 for the other group, which leans helaer would have less mana problems because the fight would be 3 times shorter Hence a advantage to using more dps.

- this would limit kiting cheese. The idea of hunters soloing Ebonroc/frost mages soloing scholomance/DireMaul, for exemple, IMHO just doesn't sound right. Kiting wouldn't be taken out of the game, but it would become more a CC mechanic and less a "I pwn anything melee wich runs slower than me" mechanic. If ebonroc would regenerates 5k HP5, there would be no way a level 60 hunter could solo him anymore.

- the only limit/drawback would be that it would create/allow more gear checks. An undergeared group would have a much tougher time than now downing a boss while lacking DPS, while a better stuffed group would find things more easy. This is not necesarily a drawback by the way.

Opinions ?

Part of the fun in the game is taking that 5-man instance or 3-man group quest and seeing what level you can complete it solo.

As a paladin, I derive a great deal of enjoyment from taking on a similar level elite/boss and attempting to solo it. Often this can take 5+ minutes and a lot of my cooldowns, but it gives me a great sense of accomplishment that I just beat that difficult group boss.

A baseline HP regeneration would pretty much ensure you need a group with a mimimum of one high dps class. It would also nearly ensure that you would need at least a tank, healer and (x) DPS for each boss. To me, this doesn't add anything to the game. You are taking a way the variety and synergy that comes from soloing/duoing difficult bosses.

If they don't want a mob to be kited, it is much easier to address that with a specific anti-kite mechanic (i.e. Razuvious' run speed, Patchwerk's AoE Poison).

Any sort of Mob Health regen would probably hurt warlocks the most, since DoT's make them so strong in multi-target fights. I.e. if you think of 2 molten destroyers, the secondary target gets loaded up with DoT's, while you DPS the first. If they regenerated health, the DoT damage on the secondary target would be close to useless.

This might be an interesting idea for a dungeon (a regeneration effect in place all the time) or as a once off (ebonroc) but it has issues as a "general" purpose solution.

You're essentially requiring random damage classes the same way mob damage output currently requires healers, which has some repercussions vis a vis raid stacking. Also, once you have sufficient d/s to offset whatever regen you have, the fight simplifies to today's encounter. I'm sick, so no long math post from me today, if there's confusion about it I have faith someone else can explain why that is.