Going Forward: Cataclysm Discussion - Page 14

Noules · 05/02/10, 5:50 AM

Originally Posted by Rijndael

The issue with Rejuv is that it is currently balanced to be efficient enough where it is a smart strategy to blanket a fully healed raid with it, in anticipation of future damage. In the world of Cata, where most of the raid hangs out below 100%, hots cannot be that efficient. However, hots still need efficiency advantages over direct spells, since they don't give their healing all at once. This is similar to how a "fast" direct heal should be less efficient than a "medium" direct heal. In fact, I claim that a hot needs to be more efficient than our most efficient direct heal. How much more efficient is an issue of iterative testing and polish.

Well, there's more than one type of efficiency, although it sounds like you're talking about mana efficiency here. It's not necessarily the case the the HoT has to be more mana efficient than direct heals, if the HoT has better potential throughput (i.e. amount healed per caster time). The fundamental distinction of HoTs from direct heals is the separation between caster time and the time spent healing. If Rejuv provides better healing per caster time than any direct heal, it would be quite reasonable for it to also be less mana efficient than direct heals. In that model, the druid would prefer direct heals if direct healing is sufficient, but ramp up to greater HoT coverage as the incoming damage increases (using direct heals as filler).

Note that at least in principle, HoTs could be at any position of the time/mana efficiency curve, though some positions are more questionable than others:
1) Flash position (time efficient, mana inefficient, typically fast cast time): This would require the HoT to be relatively expensive, but high healing per cast time. The main oddity is that it does not provide good reactionary healing which is what flash heals should typically be used for. HoT combined with Swiftmend could potentially cover that role, however. In this case, druids would be discouraged from using the HoT except in a high damage situation (which would have to be recognized early) and likely only if the druid 1-heal was superior to other healers' 1-heals.

2) GHeal position (moderately efficient in both time and mana, typically long cast time): This position seems to make the most sense, as it's what you use when you need a large amount of healing done but with less time pressure than the flash heal situation. This position would also make optimal use of the HoT considerably more involved than using it as a 1-heal or a 3-heal, and seems to make the most sense to me.

3) LHeal position (time inefficient, mana efficient, typically moderate cast time): In this case, the druid would generally keep a HoT on everyone who is damaged (since this would be the most efficient healing option available to the druid), unless other healers' 3-heals were superior, in which case the HoT would have almost no use outside of niche situations. Assuming the HoT is the superior 3-heal, as incoming damage increases it would make the most sense of the other healers to transition to their 2-heal before the druid, so the druid would likely be rolling HoTs on everyone in most cases in this scenario.

I suspect that Rejuv/HoTs will be the in-between heal (in terms of efficiency) between Nourish (3-heal) and Healing Touch (1-heal).

Fallenangel · 05/02/10, 7:43 AM

Originally Posted by Rijndael

Aura damage is "trivial." I mean, yes, it's important to have a guy who is capable of countering auras, but:

(a) it is silly to build an entire healing spec around that being the specialty, it's far too situational, and
(b) non-hot healers (shaman, disc, holy) can counter aura damage just fine, and can ALSO handle really dangerous raid damage, which is either:

(i) a lot of burst that comes and goes
(ii) ramp up like infest

Hots are bad at (i) and (ii). This is why druids mostly sit on LK, they just don't have a good niche vs dangerous damage patterns. Blizzard gave us a lot of advantages to try to compensate (no mana problems, ignores interruptions, excellent mobility), but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. We don't have a good counter to dangerous damage.

If you remove mana efficiency as an advantage hots will just go away -- they really aren't a very good way to heal when it comes right down to it. If you don't agree, try this exercise: think of a really dangerous type of damage that is best healed by hots but NOT by chain heal/disc bubbles/holy priest toolkit.

Auras are just the extreme (and best) case of preemptive healing. If someone is at 100% hp, casting a direct heal on him is pointless and it doesn't matter how efficient that heal is (barring tank healing). The same is not true for a hot and the entire druid healing method resolves around that idea.
Taking a single boss and a specific setup can lead to some weird conclusion. The real story about the lone resto shaman in paragon's setup is that other shaman specs were excluded and not an issue with trees. The whole fight is quite gimmicky anyway.
Yes, hots are not meant for spot healing or dangerous damage as you call it. That's why we have a large toolkit. The burst potential of a druid via nourish on a single target is far better than CL, even without hots on the target.
Fact is the healing situation in WotLK has deteriorated so much that a setup of holy paladins, trees and a lone disc priest is the best general setup.

Disc priests worst possible scenario is auras, by the way, as it nullifies their strongest trait. Shamans are OK for aura healing...until you realize their throughput is about 2/3 of a druid's (in practical situations, not theoretical), their healing is not evenly spread and they have seriously mobility issues.

aceofsween · 05/02/10, 4:26 PM

The Devs seem to be in a catch 22 with Druid healing. How do you make a class that is based around HoTs effective while also giving them constraints without gimping them? My biggest question mark is between Regrowth and Rejuv. I really just can't seem to figure out how you can fix it so that these two spells don't end up fighting with each other. I'll say ahead of time, I'm not a healer, but I do understand the direction they are taking healing and where all the little parts fit.

As far as our direct heals go, Regrowth is ideal for the "2-heal" spell. It's a medium cast length with decent throughput and low mana cost and the HoT aspect really makes it shine in that regard. However, if we were to assume that our HoTs (which is how we heal primarily) fit into the various roles, then Rejuv make the best case for the "2-heal" spot. They need to find a way to make the healing effect of Rejuv and Regrowth's HoT different so that neither of these spells fall to the wayside. To be honest, I don't think any HoT can fill the niche of the "3-heal" simply because of the nature of a HoT.

Everything else is fairly cut and dry. Lifebloom (and Nourish) will be the "1-heal" while Healing Touch is our direct "3-heal." It'll be interesting to see what kind of synergy they give to Healing Touch to make it more compatible (and dependent) upon our HoTs being present. Nourish already has plenty of that.

I purposefully excluded Swiftmend because it has been stated many times that cooldowns are going to be more along the lines of not being something you blow every chance you get. I wouldn't be surprised if Swiftmend's cooldown doubles and we end up saving it for when we really need it (to save someone in danger of dying) similar to Nature's Swiftness. Wild Growth is also in that boat.

ttyl · 05/02/10, 5:40 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

The Devs seem to be in a catch 22 with Druid healing. How do you make a class that is based around HoTs effective while also giving them constraints without gimping them? My biggest question mark is between Regrowth and Rejuv. I really just can't seem to figure out how you can fix it so that these two spells don't end up fighting with each other.

GC equated Regrowth with Flash Heal. Without completely removing the HoT, the only way I can imagine is turning Regrowth into an expensive Penance. Instant cast, 1 instant tick, and then 1 tick every 2 seconds for 4 seconds? That still feels like Regrowth but gives it a defined role.

Actually, after looking back, he may have just typo'd... Nourish as Flash Heal and Regrowth as Heal makes more sense.

What do you guys think the general cast times will be?
Flash Heal 1.5s
Heal 3.0s - can't be too fast or it risks replacing Flash Heal after enough haste
Greater Heal 5.0s - slightly better than 2x Heal

Playered · 05/02/10, 6:49 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

/snip/

I purposefully excluded Swiftmend because it has been stated many times that cooldowns are going to be more along the lines of not being something you blow every chance you get. I wouldn't be surprised if Swiftmend's cooldown doubles and we end up saving it for when we really need it (to save someone in danger of dying) similar to Nature's Swiftness. Wild Growth is also in that boat.

They won't touch Swiftmend as it is viewed as one of the more successful cooldown abilities in the game and your reasoning for why they might extend the cooldown are odd because that is generally how the spell is used now from my experience.

Wild Growth on the other hand may end up with the same fate as an attempt to curb the overuse it suffers now although I find that at odds with their current intention of making mana important and having people pay for the convenience of faster and stronger heals.

Balance wise for the huge benefits WG has (instant, AoE, smart targeting & fairly cheap) the only 'cost' is a very short cooldown which quite frankly isn't enough as you can see by the "use it on CD" mentality we have. The main ways to balance it better are to either make it weaker (fewer targets or lower ticks), extend the cooldown or raise the cost. The first is very unlikely so you are then left with either extending the cooldown to the point where it moves from a button you press every time it's available to one where it's used when needed (like Swiftmend now) or raising the cost so you cannot afford to just press it on cooldown and as a result you only use it when needed.

The key reason I'm in favor of it being mana based is that early on you may not need to cast it much which is fine as you cannot afford to but as content progresses you could be required to use it more frequently and as a result you need more mana to sustain it. This adds more emphasis on "I need more regen" as you progress through content and helps hold off a plateau where you have enough mana to sustain using all your abilities on cooldown and as a result can ignore mana. I'm slightly concerned that they seem hesitant to do much beyond making the direct heals scale your mana consumption especially when it comes to Druids who are still adverse to using them that often.

In regards to spell separation it isn't that hard:

Healing Touch = Greater Heal (somewhat confirmed).
Nourish = Heal/Holy Light (somewhat confirmed and logical as the 'go to heal' similarities from other healers posts).
Rejuvenation = same as now just weaker/less efficient.
Regrowth = NR+RJ - a situation where you need direct healing and to apply hots this converts 2 casts into one at the expense of a higher cost and a slightly weaker heal on both ends.

This allows an 'uprank' on both tank healing (NR -> HT) and raid healing (RJ or NR -> RG) which will let Blizzard tune both content demands and mana consumption easier. LB has the niche of 'roll on the tank' and WG has the AoE healing role while Tranquility emerges as one of our panic buttons, NS, SM & ToL being the others.

All that really needs to be done to RG is tweaking the hot component (shorter duration, stronger ticks) so that it feels more useful and closer to Rejuvenation, paired with reducing the RJ duration so that blanketing comes at a higher restriction.

Duilliath · 05/02/10, 6:55 PM

Has it been stated how much the increase for the WG cooldown was? Currently, you can have two WGs running at the same time. Bumping the CD up to 8 or even 9 seconds won't impact the spell that much, but will remove much of the blanketing going on.

Diskorde · 05/02/10, 7:09 PM

The latest blue posts say that tank healing will primarily be done with Lifebloom, Nourish, and HT, so I'm assuming that Nourish will indeed become the 2 heal spell, and not Regrowth. Actually, that may not be completely accurate. Given the nature of Regrowth, it's very possible that Regrowth is a second 2 heal spell, specifically meant for raid healing.

This is just pure speculation now, but it may be that Rejuv, Regrowth, and WG become the 1,2 and 3 heals respectively of raid healing. The fact that WG is instant does go against the idea, but an increase to the mana cost would balance it out.

aceofsween · 05/03/10, 1:22 AM

It's not been explicitly stated, but I suspect something between 15 seconds and 30 seconds for Wild Growth is an acceptable Cooldown given our innately incredible multi-targeted healing potential, but as I've said before I'm not really big on the healing scene. Call it a gut feeling, if you would.

The thing about Regrowth that seems to fit the 2-heal spot so well for me is that it is almost perfect for it. With a base cast time of 2 seconds, it's not super slow, but it's not the fastest spell either. It is easy to make it mana efficient. You use it when someone is taking damage, but is not life threatening (needing a quick heal) or particularly large (needing a bigger heal). If someone requires more healing on top of Regrowth, you can either use Rejuv or Lifebloom and depending on the situation blow Swiftmend as well (or even Nourish, if the synergy remains there to allow it). It just makes sense and is the balance between all of our spells. But what do you do with Rejuv then? If anything, I think that Regrowth and Rejuv together will make up a quasi-"3-heal" when used together. Separately though, I expect both to act similar to 2-heal, which is why I'm curious as to how it will end up working.

Like I said before, Druids just do not fit into the 1-heal, 2-heal, 3-heal setup very well if they are intended to be a HoT-based class. At least, not nearly as easily as Paladins and Priests do.

Fallenangel · 05/03/10, 7:05 AM

I'm not sure how increasing the CD on WG to 15s will make it less of a use-on-cd ability. A group hot that won't save lives but serve as an hp cushion will not be saved because it's not the same as SM - an emergency ability. You don't use SM on CD because it doesn't make sense doing so - if the tank is on 90% you can just cast a normal heal. WG on the other hand is just a super rejuv and is you're not really forfeiting anything by using it.

Noules · 05/03/10, 11:31 AM

I would imagine that any cooldown-limited healing spell will not fit into the 1,2,3 heal format, simply because they have an added 'resource' limitation besides mana and caster time (the CD of the spell itself). Lengthening the CD of spells tend to make it more acceptable to wait for the ideal moment to use it, which seems to be what Blizzard wants (e.g. current 6s WG versus Heroism, for an extreme example).

The purpose of distinguishing the 1-, 2-, 3- heal is to establish where the heal is in the mana/(caster) time efficiency hierarchy. Assuming the spells do not have a CD and are thus spammable to an arbitrary degree, this trade-off is virtually the only distinguishing factor between the heals. The other primary attribute is cast time (which is NOT the same as time-efficiency), but barring extraordinary cast times or odd combat mechanics, cast time does not impact healing either in terms of throughput or total healing done.

In particular, in order for the 'spammable' heals to be interesting, the following relationships have to hold:

1) 1-heal HpS > 2-heal HpS > 3-heal HpS > ...
and
2) 1-heal HpM < 2-heal HpM < 3-heal HpM < ...
and
3) the graph of HpS/HpM is concave down

where we define the 1-heal as the most time efficient heal, 2-heal as the most time efficient heal except 1-heal, etc. If these relationships do not hold (note the first is by definition), then there are heals which are strictly inferior to a combination of other heals. Analyzing the requirements for direct heals is relatively straightforward. Based on what Blizzard has said about tank healing as a druid, it sounds like Nourish will be the 3-heal equivalent (high HpM, low HpS) while Healing Touch will be the 2-heal or the 1-heal.

The problem with HoTs (in this context; neglecting e.g. haste scaling) is that they exhibit a mixture of behavior based on the situation. In a situation with sufficient number of targets, HoTs effectively fit into the 1-2-3 format as they are essentially arbitrarily spammable. If there are not enough targets, HoTs are essentially CD limited. In the first situation, HoTs need to follow the same scaling as no-CD direct heals or they completely replace direct heals (which based on what Blizzard has said may not be desirable). In the second situation, HoTs have to be better than direct heals or there's no point in using them.

There are a couple of possibilities here, assuming Blizzard's objectives are being interpreted correctly and are met. The first is for HoTs to fit into the 1-2-3 format. In order to follow 'not spamming the raid' limitation, it requires that there be a direct heal which is higher HpM and a direct heal with higher HpS, limiting it to the 2-heal position (or something between the 1-heal and the lowest HpS heal). This would imply that the HoT is something you would mix with either the 1-heal or the 3-heal (though not typically both) depending on the specific amount of incoming damage and the number of targets that require healing.

The second possibility is for HoTs to be target capped, so that they always operate as a CD-limited spell. For example, if Lifebloom only could be applied to a single target at a time, then it doesn't have to fit into the 1-2-3 paradigm for it to be interesting (since it is not spammable).

Some combination of the first and second are possible, too, given the number of HoTs druids have. I would imagine that Regrowth (if it exists in a form similar to now) will have to fit into the 1-2-3 paradigm (it would be odd if the HoT component of a direct heal were target limited). Lifebloom almost makes more sense to be target limited given the stacking nature, while Rejuv could make sense either way.

Personally what makes the most sense to me, assuming spells work roughly as they do now:

1-heal: Healing Touch
2-heal: Rejuv, Regrowth
3-heal: 'powered up' Nourish (i.e. Nourish on a target with HoTs)
4-heal: Nourish without HoTs (most mana efficient since you do not need to maintain the expensive HoTs)

Lifebloom: limited to one or two targets, better HpM/HpS than Rejuv. Maybe trying to add LB to an extra target would cancel the first LB and cause a bloom, which could add more interesting interaction. Limited targets fit using LB as a tank healing spell pretty well.

WG: Likely 15s CD to match the new pally/shaman AE heals. The problem is preventing it from being still used on CD in AE situations without making it useless. Options would be smaller radius or interaction with some state that changes relatively frequently. Another possibility would be to make the WG heal less frontloaded and longer than the CD.

gnoop · 05/03/10, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by ttyl

GC equated Regrowth with Flash Heal. Without completely removing the HoT, the only way I can imagine is turning Regrowth into an expensive Penance. Instant cast, 1 instant tick, and then 1 tick every 2 seconds for 4 seconds? That still feels like Regrowth but gives it a defined role.

Actually, after looking back, he may have just typo'd... Nourish as Flash Heal and Regrowth as Heal makes more sense.

What do you guys think the general cast times will be?
Flash Heal 1.5s
Heal 3.0s - can't be too fast or it risks replacing Flash Heal after enough haste
Greater Heal 5.0s - slightly better than 2x Heal

The problem with Regrowth as the go-to heal is that you're going to be using it a lot on the tanks at least in theory. That's going to mean overwriting the hot portion quite frequently. That does not sound like good mana efficiency as the hot portion is estimated in the mana cost. It's that or you wait until damage is at a point where HT can work. Then, you have to hope that one of the other healers doesn't already have a heal winding up on the tank.

Regrowth makes more sense as your quick flash heal. It's not something you're going to cast a lot, thus making the hot portion more beneficial and less likely that you'll stamp it out. Nourish, since it benefits from lots of hots and has no hot component of its own, can fit the Heal analogy better.

Duilliath · 05/03/10, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Fallenangel

I'm not sure how increasing the CD on WG to 15s will make it less of a use-on-cd ability.

I haven't read the blue post as stating that they want to make you not use Wild Growth on cooldown. Merely that they want to open up the space in between Wild Growths, giving you some breathing room to actually cast something in between other than a few HoTs.

With the abovementioned 15 seconds (which sounds reasonable enough), that's a lot of leeway to actually get in some spells with a cast time, without losing out a lot otherwise.

ttyl · 05/06/10, 2:47 AM

Cata talents: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid#,,1192711927

Resto Changes:

Blessing of the Grove - increases Rejuv by 4% (replaces Imp MotW)
Improved Rejuvenation - now also increases healing by Swiftmend in addition to Rejuv by 15%
Improved Tranquility - instead of reducing cooldown "reduces the damage you take while channeling Tranquility by 50%"
Nature's Bounty - Increases the critical effect chance of Regrowth by 50% when the target is below 25% HP and you have a 100% chance when you critically hit with Nourish or Healing Touch to reduce the remaining cooldown on Swiftmend by 0.5 sec (not sure if the 0.5 sec CD reduction is increased with ranks 2-5)
Nature's Swiftness - requires 5/5 Naturalist
Fury of Stormrage - 6% chance Nourish makes your next Wrath instant and casting Moonfire on a target <=25% hp makes your next Starfire instant. lasts 8 sec. (crazy for pvp?)
Empowered Touch - HT heals for 10% more on targets below 25% hp and Nourish has 100% chance to refresh Lifebloom
Efflorescence - Regrowth crits heal everyone within 15 yards of the target for 30% of the crit every 1 sec for 7 sec (30% every tick or total?). requires 3/3 Living Seed
Revitalize - Regrowth and Lifebloom HoT crits restore 3% of your (the Druid's) base mana
Tree of Life - +15% HoT healing, +200% armor, -30% movement speed, and "some spells temporarily enhanced". 45 sec duration, 5 min cooldown
Improved Tree of Life - 90 sec off cooldown and "increases your damage done by 15% while in Tree of Life form" (typo? damaging in tree sounds strange)
Gift of the Earthmother - +20% Tranquility healing on targets below 25% hp, +10% healing done by Lifebloom's bloom, and your Rejuvenation instantly heals for 15% of the total periodic effect
Wild Growth - 10 sec cooldown
Nature's Splendor - requires 15 points in Balance and is now 3 ranks. 33/66/100% chance when you cast MF/IS/RJ/RG/LB to increase it's duration by 3 sec. (interesting... worse for Regrowth and better for Lifebloom)
Genesis - also increases Swiftmend's healing by 5%

Amazing. 15% is basically the same as T8 4P... Imagine it in Cata's damage environment?

Dioneirra · 05/06/10, 3:08 AM

Quite a lot of talents seem to be based on a relative health level of 25%. This is somewhat interesting, because compared to todays average health levels this is a really low breakpoint. Today the next [raid]damage would simply kill of such a unlucky fellow, but in Cata it seems to be not that dangerous anymore (just judging from the way the alpha talents are designed), of course. So either the focus moves away from raidwide, regular damage so we actually get to heal someone without mindlessly spamming a spell over the whole raid, or the damage will be more a nuissance than an actual threat.

The new version of Empowered Touch would make Lifebloom viable again even in it's actual, somewhat sad state (i may be wrong, but didn't they test such a talent before and skipped it fast afterwards?). Most of the other changes will only show it's influence, after we actually get to experience the way cata raiding will be like. Tree of Life really sounds like a ripoff from Demon Form right now, and tranquility could still need some additional love.

The Inevitable · 05/06/10, 3:33 AM

A couple of additional changes you missed:

Improved Rejuvenation - now also increases healing by Swiftmend in addition to Rejuv by 15%
Nature's Bounty [NYI] - Increases the critical effect chance of Regrowth by 50% when the target is below 25% HP and you have a 100% chance when you critically hit with Nourish or Healing Touch to reduce the remaining cooldown on Swiftmend by 0.5 sec (not sure if the 0.5 sec CD reduction is increased with ranks 2-5)

With 3 talents that increase healing when the target is under 25% HP, I have to wonder how often such an occurrence would be in Cataclysm. Fortunately, each of those talents also have other useful enhancements, so there's little chance of the talent points being wasted if some/most encounters don't have raid members dropping below 25% hp generally.