Topic
Extensive feedback on PvE healing at the moment
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Edited by Tjillin on 15/02/12 12:04 (GMT)
This is more of a cry for druid healing, but hopefully with a feedback that makes you understand why I do think it’s no fun to play since the cataclysm change. I’m also saying something about the other healers so you can understand where my ideas come from.
I’m only talking from a PvE perspective as I think PvE and PvP should have their own specializations and should have their own balancing. I don’t know how hard it is to change such a thing ingame, but for me there is simply no such thing as making something work for PvE encounters as well as for PvP and visa versa, without simplifying things till there are no differences anymore. Also, I play any of these healers in PvE only, and just some in PvP. 1. Priests For me Priests are not only one of the most balanced healers ingame, but also the most versatile. They are the only type of healer that have an option of two specializations. The discipline priest is there to stop damage, which is always the most accurate way of healing, as the damage will always have to pass through your shield first before it does anything that you have to heal. A lot of mastery talents in all healers give some shield or another, but discs heal through shielding, which is different and fresh way of thinking. Holy priests can easily switch from aoe healing to single target healing. They have some nice tricks and backups which, when used properly (also by clicking the lightwell, tnx :P), make a holy priest perfect to pick up on hard situations. Priests in general have many options. They have fast heals, expensive heals, big heals, cheap heals, aoe heals, short heals, HoTs etc etc. If you can use it well, you can handle any situation, like dungeons, 10 man raids and 25 man raids. Sudden huge damage output or constant damage over time, healing tanks or the group. It’s all there. They aren’t overpowered or underpowered. Priest is definitely my favourite, especially since chakra. |
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2. Shamans.
Shamans may be the opposite of priests for having very few spells, they are in a way the same. They are the most precise healers, and you have to handle your mana well. You cannot just ‘flash heal’ away, but you can use your extra speed for healing with slower heals. By using the few options you have with great care, they become just as versatile as the priest, although the shaman is a more reactive healer. Shamans are neither overpowered or underpowered at the moment. They are also very great in any given situation. They can raidheal or tankheal, they can handle small groups and big groups. You can use the totems for a little extra fun (by changing them) but you don’t need to do it in case something is hard to heal. Great cc’s too, for that little extra support. 3. Paladins. Well, what can I say? I do double the healing with my paladin in half the gear as my priest. They are heavily overpowered at the moment, and everyone knows it. Especially because the raidbosses require you to stack nine times out of ten, which is perfect for a paladin. They used to be awesome tankhealers… now they are awesome raidhealers too. And with too much power with that. I love the way you changed the way they work, because admittedly spamming flash heal is boring, but they are simply far too powerful right now. These days I spam holy radiance holy radiance shock light of dawn. Just put a beacon on the right tank and you could care less what happens to him as he’s being healed all the time already, with such powerful heals. They are of course suitable for any given circumstance. They will still be when they are a little less powerful, trust me. They are great now; no more boring times and no being stuck to single target healing only. |
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Edited by Tjillin on 15/02/12 14:56 (GMT)
4. Druids.
And then there are druids. To be honest, I quit playing my resto druid as soon as the changes came out. I tried to heal with it, but they have no backup plans whatsoever. Oh yes, they top the meters in 25 man raiding, because they are the opposite of shields: they heal any damage immediately by throwing in aoe heals all the time. But at the start of cataclysm (when things were still worthy of being called a game in difficulty) I suddenly couldn’t heal dungeons anymore. I had no problems on my other heals apart from what everybody experienced, but my druid just couldn’t keep up. First, you have to click a gcd by using lifebloom every two spells or so, especially when you have to use your 2.2s cast ‘normal heal’. Everything is based on you keeping up HoTs, but sometimes (like in dungeons) only the tank gets damage… and he gets heavy damage so what are you supposed to do then? Well, you have some tricks, of course, but I’ll explain why it is impossible to keep up a tank that’s under constant fire of a boss. When your tank suddenly gets damage you can use swiftness… once every 3 minutes! The one big thing that druids have is tranquillity, and guess what the cd on that big spell is? Right! Also 3 minutes. Apart from that priests have such a big (or even bigger) spell also every 3 minutes these days. It was the one thing a druid had. Imagine your tank having to fight a boss for 2-3 minutes. You get one –ONE- fast heal. The other thing is sacrificing a HoT to get a small instant heal on the person you used it on + an aoe at the place that person was standing the moment you used your spell. Meaning he has to be able to keep standing there, which is not often the case on bossfights in dungeons. In raids I use that spell on myself so I can place the aoe better or lots of aoe healing is lost, meaning the instant heal is lost anyway, and only the aoe remains. For that I have to walk towards the place where I want it, which is not always the best place to be. You can go treeform and use regrowth as instant spamheal. Regrowth isn’t only highly mana consuming, it gets half of its power from being a HoT. Spamming it takes away half of its power. Also treeform has a long cd to not make it overpowered, which is understandable, but it makes it quite bad as a rescue plan for healing up a single person, as you will oom. In raids, and especially 25 man raids, druids are great in power, although the having to keep lifebloom up is annoying, especially because the penalty for not doing it is 3 gcd’s. I mean, why three? It’s not like you are using it with only one or two stacks ever. And you have 9 seconds to place a new one. That, with a normal heal of 2.2s cast + gcd’s is just not a great feeling. Even when everybody stands still waiting I have to keep that bloody spell up, because if they start without it I start with 3 gcd’s. I have a new mouse but my lifebloom button is worn down already. Besides, paladins are far better at aoe spamming at the moment. I say whaaaat? In dungeons, druids are the worst to play. They would feel bad even if there were no other heals to compare to. Yes, the latest dungeons are very easy, but that doesn’t mean druids are fun to play. And to keep up that bloody lifebloom is just a pain in the lower backside. Make it more beacon like, or at least stop with the 3 stacks thing. I hope you keep this in mind when you change things for pandaria. I’m very curious about the new system, and I hope it will change things for the better as cataclysm did for most healer specs. But my druid does nothing more than lfr at the moment, as raids are the only thing that feel a little okay. |
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It is called Chakra and has a quite long cooldown. This statement couldn't be more false compared to all the other classes and speccs. As I see it, it is right now only a limitation to us. Just had to point out:) |
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It has no cd longer than the need to switch. Usually you pick what chakra you use before the fight. But if something changes (like people dying) you can easily change chakra at that point. Sorry for the misspelling. It's called shakra where I come from ;) |
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What trolling.
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I have to say, while I sympathize with Druids feeling they're overnerfed - or rather, weak considering how much the other 3 specs already struggle with keeping up with Paladins - I am growing incredibly tired of these "Druids have it so bad"-threads.
No, your problem is not Druid-exclusive and yes, while it can be masked by say, buffing your direct heals by -0,5s cast on all or +40% scaling on Harmony, or making Rejuv trigger harmony or whatever, it won't fix the underlying problem. And that underlying problem is ... big. Without a clear differentiation in incoming damage as towards which damage is more for HoTs and which is more for Heals, there is very little space with which to make HoTs and direct heals truly unique to the point where specs can be built around them. Compare shields: Predictable damage favours shields. Reactive-only damage makes them nearly useless. Easy, design can be done base done that. But HoTs are, due to the slow nature of bossfights, just a source of total HPS on the raid. They're not "special" enough. |
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Edited by Saphiramoon on 15/02/12 13:07 (GMT)
It is called Chakra and has a quite long cooldown. This statement couldn't be more false compared to all the other classes and speccs. As I see it, it is right now only a limitation to us. Just had to point out:) I'll have to agree with Drena here, the so called versatility of holy priests is a joke. Chakra has a cd of 30 seconds, which means you cant jump to the help of the tank in a critical situation and then get back to your usual job, which is a raid healer. You will rarely put a holy priest on specialized tank healing, their mana efficiency on single target blows. As for the druid issue, I appreciate the time you obviously took to write these things down and I can tell you are not a complete stranger about the other healing classes. You do have good points: personally, I dont see why LB needs to be stacked to 3 anymore these days, considering it is limited to a single target (apart from tol but I doubt ppl use tol to spam lb). They could add a prime glyph that stacks 3 of your lbs in one go but gives it a medium cd, or they could just extend the duration of the hot: even disc priests need to proc rapture only every 12 seconds and in one spell, druids need 3 gcds to stack it and refresh it every 9 seconds. That being said, looking at general classes mana efficiency, I suspect the druid kind is a bit more cumbersome because upon using it perfectly it gives a ton of mana, which makes druids quite mana efficient nowadays. |
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This is 1 issue. Nr 2 is Mastery blows for druids, limiting their spellchoices by a lot. 3rd is their actual lack of AoE spells atm. Should be easy enough to fix. Glyph of Lifebloom is one easy way (3 stacks 1 button). Extend duration is another. The healing provided by LB is not big enough to justify 3 GCD's and/or keep refreshing it that often. Neither is it worth to let it bloom really. Mastery: extend the duration by the double. I do like the idea to mix direct heals with HoTs to prevent spam, but this is too much. AoE: Reverse the Glyph nerf for Druids. Another thing; Give Druids Barkskin castable on others already, and separate Efflo and Swiftmend! They never belong together in the first place! If needed, balance it all up so the HPS won't go through the roof like in FL. |
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Edited by Saphiramoon on 15/02/12 13:22 (GMT)
Long waited tbh, the barkskin thing, it would give them a bit of utility they severely lack atm (since they lost their monopole on CR) and its not like 1 more tank cd will break the bloody game into pieces. I gotta say the efflo and swiftmend would feel weird if I played a druid. Back in wrath, when I did play one, swiftmend was my "oh!@#$ that guy is dying" button, which could be just somebody that got slowed in some crap or randomly hit by something. Combining the idea of an "oh%^-* snap" button with the "lets put a pretty healy puddle in the floor when ppl can stay in and be happy" into one move does not compute for me very well. |
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Edited by Tjillin on 15/02/12 14:23 (GMT)
Posted by Drena Why respond if you haven't read it? To everyone else: tnx 4 your nice remarks. It seems the lot of you have all the solutions (being serious here, don't see why it couldn't be implemented in the game all these patches ago). I made this thread hoping blizzard will get some feedback they can do something with. Yes yes, everyone and their old grandma knows druid aren't fine at the moment. I just wanted to point out where it feels wrong to me. instead of shouting FIX BLIZZ NAW. Apparently others do feel the same way. |
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Edited by Halaberiel on 15/02/12 14:51 (GMT)
Saph, LB requires stacking because of tree form. If it went to 3 stacks instantly tree would be completely OP. I don't really see why it requires changing either, it's fine as it is. I think extending LB to 12 seconds would be OK though, as I can see you'd find it annoying to keep up in 25. For 10s it's less of an issue since healing the tank refreshes it anyway.
EDIT: Also LB is used during tree if you're low on mana (although used a great deal less this tier) for OoC procs |
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First, you have to click a gcd by using lifebloom every two spells or so, especially when you have to use your 2.2s cast ‘normal heal’ Uhm, I see why you felt the need to stop playing a druid. By all means, I agree on that we're underbalanced compared to the other healers. But you're exaggerating here. With the proper amount of haste (at least 2005) you have enough gcd's for 5 spells inbetween -at least-, it's just to do the math based on the worst possible gcd of 1,5 sec. In dungeons, druids are the worst to play. They would feel bad even if there were no other heals to compare to. Yes, the latest dungeons are very easy, but that doesn’t mean druids are fun to play. And to keep up that bloody lifebloom is just a pain in the lower backside. Make it more beacon like, or at least stop with the 3 stacks thing. Druids are fine in dungeons. Druids aren't fun to play in dungeons because our mechanics, where ever we use them, have the same clunkiness.
Yep. It's horrible having to use to make 60% overheal to get efflo when you -know- it could be useful on a tank or -someone- else who actually needs the saver. There are alot of threads on druids, on every forum. It's just a shame they acknowledge the class as much as they acknowledge the JC bonus balance.... |
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Yes, the point is that's what you get with your gear when you gear them up for raiding. Raiding is not as fun with my druid as with other healers (to me) but the possible output is more than fine, as they are absolutely meant for raiding. The point is all the time you don't have that nice gear and are doing dungeons. Even with reforging you would still lose a lot to get to those numbers. I'm still trying to get gear from lfr so no, I don't have the best gear yet. It's getting easier as I get more gear, ofcourse, but it isn't getting any more fun. Why it lacks its fun is what I was trying to point out. |
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Edited by Nuvielle on 15/02/12 20:54 (GMT)
The point is all the time you don't have that nice gear and are doing dungeons. We've all been there. Yes, we struggle at certain gearlevels and can't save the groups. Neither can other classes on the same gearlevels. You do what all others do. Make the best of it with decent groups while struggling through those gearlevels. Saying that a druid is great in power in 25-man raids and sucky in 5-mans is wrong and utter bs, when any class can handle 5-mans and druids fall short on progression fights in 25. On German forums there's a suggestion on making Harmony take 15 secs upkeep. Together with an ability to move the lb stack and removing efflo from sm (though I don't hold high hopes of them separating it) , it would make a world of difference.
@ Drena, doing this will solve nothing for the balance in 10-mans, which supposedly is the thing to go after these days. Reversing the glyph will either not be strong enough, or it will be too strong again; making us succeptible for another yoyo turn of balance. And Halaberiel, it would be perfectly possible to not be able to switch 3xlb in ToL, but to be able outside of ToL, or restrict it in a sense. Nothing is more annoying to have used 3 gc'ds and the tanks switch >_< but the possible output is more than fine You forget that our output gets compared to output without absorbs. And when it is, it's not fine. Why it lacks its fun is what I was trying to point out. I understand this. There are other threads to do it in as well :) |
Saph, LB requires stacking because of tree form. If it went to 3 stacks instantly tree would be completely OP. I don't really see why it requires changing either, it's fine as it is. I think extending LB to 12 seconds would be OK though, as I can see you'd find it annoying to keep up in 25. For 10s it's less of an issue since healing the tank refreshes it anyway. Well, thats why I suggested it with a medium cd atached, so it doesnt become spammable in tree, and being a glyph, it would be completely optional - so if the druid wants the OoC procs during tree, then he will have to put up with stacking the spell normally. Extending the spell works too, but not so great when you have to switch tanks. |
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30 sec cd of chakra makes priest ot go into chakra b4 the battle b4 the battle, only because we cannot switch between the 2 states effectively. I wouldn't say Fh is my main spell, mentioned in shaman part. Shaman may have to watch his mana, but hpriest is The healer who has to judge as mana lacker.
For druids - druid needs an aoe spell, serving the healing every sec for 3-4 sec, with potention of one PoH for example so rejuvenation won't go be needed that much, especially for 25 man where blanketing is imposible. Barksin is called Iron skin and it's not fun to have a divine protection with 2 min cd, nothing special. I prefer druids to get a GS instead of this another dmg reduction cd. The suggestion of Saph is rlly good, something like 3 sec cd will be enough. Drena is right about the heal power of LB , 1200 per tick for 3 sec aplying. Standart 12 sec cd hot will be appropriate. Also mastery last 15 sec will take some burden of the shoulders of the druids, because I tried rdruid in dungeon and every 2nd-3rd spell has to be direct to the tank. |
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The shamans greatest weakness is not shown in Dragon Soul because Dragon Soul seems to be designed around Healing Rain and maybe more importantly Holy Radiance.
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Problem is excessive restrictions, change doesn't look promising for MoP either. I laughed at the awesome talent updates, a 50% haste buff for your next spell when you cast swiftmend. Do blizz want swiftmend to be a saving heal? they seem to promote using it on cd whether people need healing or not. Think ill roll that priest i've always wanted.
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