Restoration WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 44

uliko · 10/30/08, 10:10 PM

I did some quick testing when I got into the beta (so old data, 3.0.1 I think?) and even if the rejuvenation tick brought them over 50% the glyph heal would still trigger.

Edit: Just logged on to the beta and this is still the case.

Lorrianne · 10/31/08, 9:29 AM

After dumping my healing touch glyph and gemming/speccing for the soul reason to LB and WG my fellow raiders a thought occured to me. Are we essentially losing our identity as a healer of sorts.

Our new "flash heal", Nourish, and now our wonderful AOE healing, Wildgrowth is starting to make me feel as tho i am doing the same job as a priest healer( which a i use to be up unti, May of this year). If i see multple bars go down, i hit Wildgrowth and if i see a single target low on health (patch 3.0.2 as 70, would be healing touch spam).

TBC was wonderful in the sense that all healers seemed marginally different yet lacking somehow, but bring a variety and you would have a complete and stronger raid group.

Which has lead me to think, even though essentially, as druids/trees, we have only gained new abilities (which we shouldn't complain at), other than buffs/rebirth, what else do we offer that we couldn't replace with another class of healer? Or conversly are we the class to replace all others?

We can talk about scenarios until we are blue in the face, but having been in a guild which has raided without a resto druid for quite a long time during those horrendously difficult SSC/TK days, are we irreplaceable?

Has our new abilities been granted to use due to wishes and wants of the performance healers out there (chasing the meters).

Or will Blizzard finally understand that maybe its about time, given all these new abilities, that less is more and give us healers focus rather than free for all attitude that has plagued us duing those BT/MH/Kara nights.

Our abilities are wonderful in the sense that, now i am more viable to heal 5 man heroics or perhaps a 10 man Kara, but in a 25 man raid with 8 healers, i feel a little lost/melded into the fray of all new abilities that our wonderful healing compatriots have.

Thoughts please and perhaps, if Blizzard could point us into the direction that less is more, maybe the gifts given to us by Blizzard could improve much further. I want my regen back

Rhaegal · 10/31/08, 9:48 AM

All you're talking about is the "class homogenization" that Blizzard is intentionally doing in WotLK, and has explicitly stated is precisely so that raid leaders don't have to stack raid groups based on perfect class balance, but instead take the best players over the best classes. This is old news.

You're also taking the point a little too far. Yes, we have an AoE heal now, and yes we will have a Flash Heal equivalent at 80 (or now with glyph+talents). Have we lost our identity as healers as a result? Not even a little. Druids are still the absolute kings of HoTs. Priests have one. Resto shamans have one now. Paladins still don't. We have four, one of which can be stacked up to 3x, one of which is an AoE HoT. HoTs are still the strongest things we bring to a raid, stabilizing tank HP extremely efficiently and sustainably. We still have by far the biggest reactive heal in the game (NS+HT). Trees are still trees, and a raid without them will still feel different than a raid with a couple of us.

GTtheBard · 10/31/08, 1:09 PM

I personally feel like a lot of druids are feeling misplaced because raids are so easy and everyone is spamming everything that they have. We're used to having our hots be effective buffers - now that everyone can spam their heals like no tomorrow, the buffer niche that we once enjoyed filling now seems slightly useless.

That's my excuse, at least. I'm eagerly awaiting gameplay at 80, as that should (theoretically) change the free-for-all healing fest that is raiding these days.

Raised · 10/31/08, 3:56 PM

It's been stated a couple times (can dig up links if needed) that mana management was going to make a big comeback in WotLK after being noticably absent by the time healers started getting up to Tier 4 and beyond. Right now, the TBC paradigm was to instantly heal damage as it comes up, because mana was unlimited so it made no sense not to.

In WotLK, if they keep to their promises, the paradigm could very well turn to *requiring* a good portion of predictable, non-lethal damage to be healed by HoTs (Especially now that 3/4 classes have them) and save the direct heals (Both AoE and Single-Target variety) for emergency situations where you can't afford to wait for the HoT to tick.

An example from TBC could be Felmyst:

They can scale the frequency and damage of the mechanics such that something like Gas Cloud would require HoTs to top off people (since they aren't in any real danger of dying once they get their dispel) in order to not run OOM by the end of the fight. However, where a group that gets an Encapsulate, they would need direct Chain Heal/CoH or risk dying because of the much more concentrated and bursty damage.

This also could extend into tanks, requiring even more use of stopcasting for Priests and Pallies because they can't afford to waste mana by keeping a tank constantly topped off and risk substancial over-healing. With no crushings anymore, perhaps tanks will float around 80% health as their normal value rather than the 95%+ that current encounters need to avoid RNG gibbing of the tank.

One can hope, at least.

On a side note: I hope they get rid of Nourish as is and put something more interesting at 80. I think an ability called 'Nourish' that was on a medium-level cooldown (15-30s) and, for very little mana (or no mana), either renewed the duration of all DoTs on an enemy or all HoTs on an ally could be a very interesting tool. It wouldn't bloat a druid's healing stable moreso than it already is, give Balance something to work with, and could encourage the mana-efficiency that seems to be central to a Druid.

Logros · 10/31/08, 3:58 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

100ish more spell power from gear

...

The main part of it though was simply not getting enough healing out of the spells I cast. Lifebloom and wild growth just aren't giving enough bang for the buck. The mana cost on them is fine, the amount healed is not, which means I have to cast more heals than I should.

Are we sure this isn't mainly just a gear issue? I mean right now on live people are running 70 heroics in gear that is far beyond 70 heroics - when you first hit a heroic like this in TBC live with your blue/whatever gear, wouldn't you have been strapped to heal then as well, with no battery and missing some buffs, and felt like your heals didn't heal for enough?

I'm all for buffing the class I play and I'm still reading the thread, and there are alot of valid concerns gear won't fix, but I always take a wait and see approach when there are any complaints about throughput and mana, which seem to be gear problems more than balance problems.

Anaram · 11/04/08, 1:27 AM

Originally Posted by Raised

This also could extend into tanks, requiring even more use of stopcasting for Priests and Pallies because they can't afford to waste mana by keeping a tank constantly topped off and risk substancial over-healing. With no crushings anymore, perhaps tanks will float around 80% health as their normal value rather than the 95%+ that current encounters need to avoid RNG gibbing of the tank.

I'm fairly sure this won't happen (except in isolated situations which you also had in TBC). Mana management was much more of an issue in vanilla wow than it is in Wotlk and people were still keeping the tank topped up. In

Raid healing with hots might happen, however - old Sapphiron was much like that. That said, the balance is extremely fragile. Rejuvenation with idol and set bonus is is brutally efficient compared to any other single-target heal (and even AoE heals other than Wild Growth) - balancing between healer classes can easily turn out to be totally messed.

Toolzy · 11/06/08, 2:45 PM

Hi. I'm new so I can't really make new threads yet. I'm sorry if I am posting possibly in the wrong thread but it's related in general. I just wanted to know if anyone has an idea if living seed works properly now on the live 3.0.3 patch. I was trying to test it out last night but I couldn't get a crit heal before I was completely healed. =\ Please let me know.

thank you.

Lord BEEF · 11/06/08, 4:25 PM

Originally Posted by Logros

Are we sure this isn't mainly just a gear issue? I mean right now on live people are running 70 heroics in gear that is far beyond 70 heroics - when you first hit a heroic like this in TBC live with your blue/whatever gear, wouldn't you have been strapped to heal then as well, with no battery and missing some buffs, and felt like your heals didn't heal for enough?

I'm all for buffing the class I play and I'm still reading the thread, and there are alot of valid concerns gear won't fix, but I always take a wait and see approach when there are any complaints about throughput and mana, which seem to be gear problems more than balance problems.

The post of mine you quoted was really old, and before the wild growth buff.

I was doing heroics which have since been nerfed pretty heavily. The last boss in halls of lightning in particular, people were having to bring two healers to keep up with the damage. I was one of very few who actually managed to single heal it. It's now very much doable for any healer so nobody has anything to worry about there.