World of Warcraft®

The only reason this change is being made is because it makes their jobs and lives easier. They don't want to keep changing mana costs of spells constantly with every update.


Blizz taking the easy way out, instead of actually trying to figure out a better solution.

11/13/2011 04:26 PMPosted by Varnroztok

I also do not get the complaints about triage as healers have always had to choose who and when to heal someone, except that now I get to use my full healing arsenal and be effective rather than mindless spamming the quickest heal.

There are two definitions we use for Triage. One being what it means. The other being the 3 heal model mixed with not everyone being topped off defined by Blizzard for what healing was supposed to be in Cata.

11/13/2011 11:00 AMPosted by Alandel

People claim they like the high end of the mana pool ramp, but you can't have a high end without a low end. And in Cataclysm that low end was murder and caused a lot of healer frustration and attrition. Blizzard can't afford a repeat of the situation where a new healer feels like they can only afford to use "efficient" heals that hit like wet noodles.

But there's other less drastic ways of resolving this problem. What would be the problem with perhaps toning down the difficulty of normal level dungeons a bit but increasing the difficulty of heroics?

I'm still a little miffed about why all of the responsibility is being put on to the healers. Why was threat for tanks just increased by about 50% rather than making them have to play smarter like you're requiring us to do? I'm still trying to figure out how you're forcing dps classes to play smarter.

People claim they like the high end of the mana pool ramp, but you can't have a high end without a low end. And in Cataclysm that low end was murder and caused a lot of healer frustration and attrition. Blizzard can't afford a repeat of the situation where a new healer feels like they can only afford to use "efficient" heals that hit like wet noodles. And that situation is a necessary result of a design where healer character progression is provided largely by inflating mana pools. Otherwise, if the low end of the ramp is acceptably high, then the high end is way too high at the end of the expansion and they have to make damage so bad that you have to spam your largest heals or wipe.

While new healers can only afford to use their small boring "efficient" heals, the geared healers can only afford to use their big heals (because they can, and if they don't people die). For the geared healers it's somewhat more fun in that the numbers are bigger, but it's still ultimately too simplistic and boring (like Lich King). In order to make it so healers feel they are progressing in MoP, Blizzard will probably have to increase the +heal that INT provides. Keeping mana pools relatively static will keep all levels of heals relevant to all content. We just have to get used to striving for harder hitting heals rather than increasing how many big heals we can cast in a row.

Easy fix for this: Take out the stupid slow boring "efficient" heal.

You can then either:
(a) Replace it with a small heal that is actually efficient (!!) and is also at least somewhat fun to use, maybe a little class-flavored...you know, like Holy Light with HP gen and/or 100% Beacon;

(b) Design entry-level MoP encounters to be healed with our remaining arsenal of interesting/cool heals, either by having us cast them less often, or by integrating mana-regen mechanics into the encounters, or some combination;

or (c) Give all healers an active regen mechanic (something like Telluric Currents, but not involving 2-second cast lightning bolts) so that we can trade throughput for regen in low-end encounters.

What's really frustrating is that they announce this kind of chance two weeks AFTER they offer the Annual Pass program. Coincidence? I think not.

Developer 1: "I really want to make this change but all of the healers are going to rage and stop playing"
Developer 2: "Well what if we find a way to lock them in so they can't quit? Then we can screw with them as much as we want"
Developers 1 & 2" "Brilliant!"

Well, maybe that's not exactly how it probably went but the chain of events is still frustrating

luckily you can opt out of the annual pass, you just lose mount, any MoP beta left and D3 reg edition freebie

You can opt out once you sign up for the Annual Pass? That doesn't seem to make sense to me. Why would losing those items be something that would bother a person who's cancelling their account?

You are totally misreading what they are saying. Raiding (for some classes) is too easy in terms of mana consumption. Obviously it isn't too easy in general since they admitted that they made firelands too hard and went in with nerfs.

Try playing a freaking holy priest on a heavy damage fight then tell me with a straight face that it's "too easy."

Maybe I'd be willing to be more stressed out over mana if the expensive heals were actually big and felt rewarding to use. But they're not.

I think as raiders get use to a mechanic we need to heal less and overall raid damage will increase. This happens in every encounter and I don't see any reason to change our stats based on familiarity. Blizzard we aren't GOD healers, our raid team has figured it out and our healers are out of triage mode.

I personally am tired of every new expansion Bliz screw with healers big time messing up the way we play the game. MEMO: Bliz I will not use, nor will I ever use my long casting crap healing spells and if you want to change something remove that crap out of my spell book.

Face the facts, Priests only use heal when #1 it was the only healing spell available until we got flash heal or #2 on Bal when we have +100 stacks of buff and heal actually heals.

i think its more like

expansion less than 50% old, blizz says: "Our new changes are GREAT!"

expansion 50%-80% old: "We think a few tweaks are warranted."

next expansion imminent: "BUCKLE UP WE'RE CHANGING EVERYTHING!!!!!!"

11/13/2011 11:00 AMPosted by Alandel

People claim they like the high end of the mana pool ramp, but you can't have a high end without a low end. And in Cataclysm that low end was murder and caused a lot of healer frustration and attrition. Blizzard can't afford a repeat of the situation where a new healer feels like they can only afford to use "efficient" heals that hit like wet noodles. And that situation is a necessary result of a design where healer character progression is provided largely by inflating mana pools. Otherwise, if the low end of the ramp is acceptably high, then the high end is way too high at the end of the expansion and they have to make damage so bad that you have to spam your largest heals or wipe.

Your comment has some truth in it. I want to state that, for the record, the main issue was that mob damage output was way too high and Blizzard had been warned beforehand about it.

11/13/2011 11:00 AMPosted by Alandel

While new healers can only afford to use their small boring "efficient" heals, the geared healers can only afford to use their big heals (because they can, and if they don't people die). For the geared healers it's somewhat more fun in that the numbers are bigger, but it's still ultimately too simplistic and boring (like Lich King). In order to make it so healers feel they are progressing in MoP, Blizzard will probably have to increase the +heal that INT provides. Keeping mana pools relatively static will keep all levels of heals relevant to all content. We just have to get used to striving for harder hitting heals rather than increasing how many big heals we can cast in a row.

A static number is inherently boring for mana users. I remember back during the days of ICC that I was looking at players for curiosity's sake, and saw how some still had 16k mana. I felt pleased with myself because I had ~30k due to my efforts.

Now I'm being asked to sacrifice that part of feeling accomplished because Blizzard royally botched healing for this expansion (among other things). Trivial? Might be, but you also need to remember that in terms of psychology that just about nothing is considered trivial.


Edit: Wasn't there a blog fairly recently where GC was explaining about the rate of change? It seems that Blizzard could take a hint from their own.

11/13/2011 05:00 PMPosted by Elliora

You are totally misreading what they are saying. Raiding (for some classes) is too easy in terms of mana consumption. Obviously it isn't too easy in general since they admitted that they made firelands too hard and went in with nerfs.

Try playing a freaking holy priest on a heavy damage fight then tell me with a straight face that it's "too easy."

Maybe I'd be willing to be more stressed out over mana if the expensive heals were actually big and felt rewarding to use. But they're not.

Holy priests are pretty close to shaman, so it's not that bad. But I wasn't even referring to holy priests.

The way we see it, Intellect increases the power of your heals. Spirit (and other regeneration mechanics) replenishes your mana. Having Intellect also increase the size of your mana pool complicates things. It's harder to balance, and feels worse for players trying to balance their character.

While we think the healer mana model for Cataclysm is sound and ultimately accomplished what we wanted, it was still a little too difficult for a on fresh level 85 just going into dungeons, and a little too easy for raiders. Part of that comes from what improved stats do for healers: they get bigger heals (from Intellect), the ability to cast more heals (larger mana pool), and the ability to cast those heals for a longer period of time without running out of mana (as a result of regen). Along the way, the tank and the group are take more damage from tougher bosses, but also have higher damage and higher survivability from improvements to their own gear.

Please remember, the goal isn’t to make healers so resource-starved that they can’t heal. That isn’t fun. The goal is to reward healers who limit how much overhealing they do (in other words, play smarter) for their efforts. You limit your overhealing by doing things like casting a smaller heal when a smaller heal is sufficient, or casting a slower heal when death isn’t imminent, or casting a single-target heal when the group isn’t all taking damage at once. Skillful healers should prosper. When players feel like increasing their skill doesn’t increase their success, they tend to get bored or frustrated.

I remember that forcing healers to have to choose the most efficient heal was the healing goal for Cata. I remember that health for everyone, most notably tanks, was scaled WAY up to help facilitate a healers ability to heal with a form of triage. No longer would healers be stuck spamming every single GCD with the fear that a single missed heal would result in a death.

At least that's what was sold to us.

Extremely quickly in to Cata raids it was clear healers were back to not just spamming their strongest heals, but HAD to spam their strongest heals to keep people alive for fear of people dying within a single GCD. We went right back to the WOLK healing model within 3 months of Cata launch, and it's been that way since.

Now you're promising the same thing you promised near 2 years ago like it's a new concept that you haven't already mishandled. I think the whole thing is just a joke at this point.

Like Patrix said, we don't trust Blizzard to get this right. I understand the goal you tried to reach with Cata but you didn't make it. Now you seem like you aren't even going for that goal, instead you are taking a small portion of the goal (which doesn't sound as good with out the rest of the goal as part of the package) and trying to make mana matter again.

I'm sorry, leave us in the slow cast time hole you put us in and leave us to figure out a way to have fun healing. I already carved a picture in this hole and don't want to have to move to a different hole and have to get up the enthusiasm again to carve another picture.

This entire discussion on whether dps scale better or the same as healers is irrelevant. They perform different tasks that aren't related to each other.

Lets just assume DPS scale better than healers, then the average health of a boss will scale at the same rate to provide a similar difficulty level. If healers scale worse then it just means the damage output of the bosses scales at the same rate.

That being the case the comparitive scaling between roles is meaningless. The only meaningful relationship is the scale value vs the scale value of the role they are performing.

The other thing I find bizzare is that people are trying to insinuate (without experiencing the change) that a loss of increased mana pool leads to a decrease in power. The fact is that encounters are tuned to the capabilities of the classes that perform a role at that moment in time. That means relative power is always static. If you need to heal at x hps to do an encounter then it means the damage output of y needs to be on average the same as x. Now whether x is 20,000 or 200 doesn't mean much, its how it compares to y.

After cata healers dont trust blizz cares at all about them. if this was a stamina wont effect health so we cant streamline fight mechanics thing the tanks would be uproaring and furious along with all pvp players. Dont worry, wow will die at this rate and be F2P soon so you can waste your money on a game where when something is fine they dont break it

I think one thing everyone can agree on is that the slow, efficient, teeny heal sucks. It doesn't feel fun or powerful. I don't WANT to cast it, really, ever.

Downranking wasn't just about a small efficient heal. Low ranked heals cast faster than higher ranked spells. The class designers seem to have forgotten that part.

Merge the flash heal and the efficient heal by making the efficient heal 1.5 cast. Adjust amount healed accordingly. If I can shotgun the little heal I'd at least be happy to use it.

11/13/2011 06:42 AMPosted by Azreluna

A large margin of the people who quit from the game in Cata were angry healers. Hearing that Blizzard thought the healing model was sound is also depressing as it makes me rethink whether I really want to deal with it again in Mists of Pandaria.

Actually, a large margin of people who quit the game in Cata were DPS who could no longer afford it and tanks who just stopped showing up to raids.

I base this, as you do, on the fact that I can think of two people off the top of my head who no longer play, and that's what the story is for them.

ive been in 4 busted guilds this expansion.. everyone of em busted up because the healers couldnt hack the changes to thier classes (this is the first 6 months) an the healing model. most of the failures were because of players standing in fire and dying but you couldnt get the dps to acknowledge that at the time.. it was simply why wasnt i healed.. your healers were left there wondering why the heck everyone was dying and why they were getting blamed that they were oom before the bosses were even at 50%.

lack of content and massive changes to all the talents and such had thier place and the game being old is another. but from my experiance and from all the healers ive talked with on my server (which are alot since ive been around since day 1 of the game) i would say that its pretty universal that everyone hated the healing model at the start of the expansion unless you had a guild group that worked togeather. pugging.. oh hell no would be the most common answer.

11/13/2011 06:21 PMPosted by Vagaz

After cata healers dont trust blizz cares at all about them.

This. For me, at least.

11/13/2011 06:21 PMPosted by Vagaz

After cata healers dont trust blizz cares at all about them. if this was a stamina wont effect health so we cant streamline fight mechanics thing the tanks would be uproaring and furious along with all pvp players. Dont worry, wow will die at this rate and be F2P soon so you can waste your money on a game where when something is fine they dont break it

These tank comparisons are kind of ridiculous. If you were to make a comparison, it would be a situation where strength also increased health and avoidance such that when tanks got well geared they had so much health and avoidance that they felt no need to use their defensive abilities. So what does blizzard do? Make strength no longer do those things.

That's what they need to do here with mana. Int will no longer give mana. Maybe gear will start to have +mana like it has stamina. And we'll have +mana gems. But we won't be able to inflate our mana bars by stacking our primary stat that also gives the best throughput.

11/13/2011 06:40 PMPosted by Melkar

These tank comparisons are kind of ridiculous. If you were to make a comparison, it would be a situation where strength also increased health and avoidance such that when tanks got well geared they had so much health and avoidance that they felt no need to use their defensive abilities.

But that's the thing, we aren't well geared enough to ignore our cooldowns. Not once during Firelands progression have I had any sense that I could arbitrarily throw out inefficient heals. The only situation when we can ignore CDs is when we ridiculously out-gear the instance, in which case we should be able to, or else the progress we've made feels shallow.