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Blizzard I challenge you to look at the other side of an issue instead of arbitrarily changing intellect in MOP. One fact that you are overlooking is that raid healing is more stressful at the end of an expansion than it is at the beginning. Our dps are doing more and taking less damage in raid encounter because they have learned the mechanics. This fact happens after a raid has figured out an encounter over a long period of time, like the time period of 4.2-4.3. Many raids are cutting healers in favor of more dps which leads to stress in the healing community, especially for those healers that do not have a viable dps spec. This stress causes healers to compete against each other in order to keep their healing spot. Hence, healers are spamming to get the highest numbers they can get in every encounter - I doubt any healer in a competitive position has any mana to spare at the end of the encounter. I also imagine that the healer that is spamming his most mana efficient heals will be sitting on the sidelines next raid. This will change for the most part when the new raids come out in 4.3, but for now the numbers you are looking at in my opinion are vastly different than the numbers you were looking at in the beginning of 4.2.
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What does this have to do with the intellect change?
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Well for me its summed up like this. LOL @ anyone preferring the vanilla healing model. Having entire groups of healers doing nothing so they could regen man for when it was their rotation is stupid. I'm a vanilla baby and it was the freakin' dark ages. Sure you have fond memories but life is much better now. That being said, I agree with the 'stop changing stuff every two weeks' sentiment. |
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I love the idea of a fixed intellect pool. One of the problems with gear scaling the size of the resource bar, is that it pushes out the timeline until mana becomes a constraint out further and further. Let's say that a full panic rotation can oom a healer who's using their cooldowns in 2 minutes. With an increased mana pool, a couple tiers later that balloons to 3-4 minutes. This means that the boss fights have to increase in length or healer stress in order to remain interesting. With a fixed mana pool, they'll be able to avoid having every fight in the last content patch from being 8 minutes to challenge healer mana.
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Nothing compared to the stress of healing T11 IMO D:
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Edited by Elliora on 11/14/11 2:24 AM (PST)
Well, I had more fun healing in vanilla than I did now. The vanilla healing model would suck on current raid bosses, I wouldn't ask for it back after enjoying BC and WotLK. But at the time, I had a lot more fun than I have while healing in Cata. So yes, based on my enjoyment at the time, I'd rank it BC>WotLK>Vanilla>Cata. However the only healing models I'd want back now would be BC or WotLK. |
No, YOU didn't like it. I DO like it. And there are many other people that liked it as well. The healing model failed because of encounter design - not because of the way they'd intended for heals to go out. When they stop forcing raid healers to top everyone off all the time, then the healing model will actually work. Unfortunately, that has yet to happen. In fact, it was said pre-Wrath that they were going to tone down the AoE boss damage in raid encounters. Still waiting for that. (And the dance studio, and a moose.) |
It is the total package that matters. The abstract concept as described by Blizzard is fine, but as pointed out they nerf healers/healing, but then do not follow-through and balance the other side of the equation - damage to your group/raid. Healing early on in CATA was extremely tough. Yes, after I really geared up I could carry groups in heroics, and so almost all of my heroics have been 100% random. I have tried to contribute to helping the randoms work, because I enjoy that and I liked the concept. But with the continued attitude that healing must continue to be singled out for yet more change, yet more stress and yet more difficulty, how many will do that? How many will simply leave when faced with that bad experience again, and the cost of yet another expansion? Of those who remain, how many will opt out of randoms? How many will opt out of healing? Does Blizzard really think new players are going to come into the game, buy all the expansions, level to 90, face those increased difficulties and stress reserved for the healing role only, and then heal random groups, let alone random raids? The differential difficulty and stress, coupled with yet more CHANGE, and yet another expansion to buy, and yet more leveling up and gearing up to do will imo combine to mean a substantial exodus from healing if not the game. |
I wish they would just stop freaking going off about how sound and incredible and how much was done with the Cataclysm Healing model. It stank. No one liked it, its a flawed system, and the longer they keep propping it up, the more healers that will quit or reroll Dps and Tanks. Don't talk for all of us. Some people like the basic idea behind the new model, even as we concede that the implementation needs work. The idea that I don't need to keep everyone 'topped off', that people should be 'safe' at 1/2 of their HP bar, and that healing is a reactive triage situation where you heal the people who need it most... I love the basic concept! And, as implemented in normal dungeons it works well. The only real problem is gearing, because HP pools don't keep up with the amount of damage encounters produce. In some cases (like Bale'roc) that's deliberate, but in other's it's just annoying. |
Not really. I like how it was supposed to work out. I don't like how it ended up. It ended up the way it did, purely due to encounter design. They are two completely different things. |
I don't like the way it ended up either. But encounter design is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is scaling. Once healers scale too well the encounter designers have to start tossing out huge damage because that's the only thing that can challenge the raid. |
You misunderstand. Boss encounters can be designed in such a fashion that triage healing (what was touted at the beginning of this expansion) actually becomes meaningful. Spell choice will play a part into it, but depending on the amount of damage done and the rate of it, can lead to meaningful choices between our "three main heals" they are so wont to push on us (which I wouldn't mind). We don't tend to use those single-target heals as much outside of tank healing or specific encounters (Shannox or Baleroc, for example) because otherwise it's just ZOMGAOEHEALALLTHETHINGS. There's so little in-between it's actually quite ridiculous. |
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I might have read this wrong, but I thought they meant that int would no longer increase your mana pool as it does now, but having more spirit would mean more regen, and unless I'm very wrong I don't think it would change anything apart from making spirit more meaningful and making our mana increase come from regen instead of a more static mana pool. For now I'll content myself with believing that this could actually lead to more mana over a fight, and hope I'm not living in a fantasy dreamworld when the reality is that no matter how you gear your performance will never, ever change
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This is how I interpreted it. It does not affect longevity, but merely inhibits unnecessary spamfests. |
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And a big reason for that is regen/mana getting out of control such that raids CAN drop healers. Which is actually a reason to support this change. |
