World of Warcraft®

The system intended for and implemented with cata isn't sustainable, while regen and mana pools keep rising, putting all healers in a position to cast more and more bigger heals.

MoP will (try to) fix it, by implementing fixed mana pools, which stops gear inflation for healers to some degree.

22/02/2012 10:29Posted by Saphiramoon

Tbh the only class that is exclusively based on spirit regen are the holy priests:

Does speccing holy somehow remove Mana hymn and shadowfiend, both based on int and on relatively short CDs, from your spellbook?

HAHAHA... Let me lie down. Short CD's? Yipyip.

22/02/2012 15:00Posted by Phatpimp

But that's the thing! Discs had it so bad before, it's a psychological miracle they still exist today! If that was my class, I'd probably just take the easy way out, collect my monthly paycheck, buy that old Smith on the pawn shop and try to make a big enough mess for a CSI crew to clean up, at least they would remember me.

Indeed it is exactly as you describe it, my dear sir! It was a nightmare! But we would not be defeated so easily! No, good sir - and here I can indeed see the warm soft heart you really posses. We did not take the easy way out. Somehow, the sturdiest of us endured and are here to take to kick !@# and chew manatides.

And we don't give a $%^- about manatides.

22/02/2012 15:14Posted by Khoren

Tbh the only class that is exclusively based on spirit regen are the holy priests:

Does speccing holy somehow remove Mana hymn and shadowfiend, both based on int and on relatively short CDs, from your spellbook?

Is 5 (talented 4), respectively 6 minutes a relatively short cd in your book? I'd say its a relatively long cd, but point taken, there is no class solely relying on spirit regen.

22/02/2012 15:23Posted by Saphiramoon

Does speccing holy somehow remove Mana hymn and shadowfiend, both based on int and on relatively short CDs, from your spellbook?

Is 5 (talented 4), respectively 6 minutes a relatively short cd in your book? I'd say its a relatively long cd, but point taken, there is no class solely relying on spirit regen.

I'd say each one alone is relatively long, but using them sensibly means you could have a mana cooldown at least as often as a druid gets innervate. I don't know how much mana they give you back in holy though.

More on topic: I can get through most HoT dungeons without a mana break now if I heal sensibly. However when doing raid-finder I do find myself going OOM on the longer encounters.

Despite this on madness (which I find the worst encounter for mana usage) I can usually get to the end by alternating tree of life and innervate to maintain mana and pop a potion on the last stage to toss out a tranquility and stuff. I won't top healing done, but I'll be doing a respectable amount.

keep in mind that not only the healers, but tanks and dps outgear instances as well.

This gear-inflation and mana management thing was a question in Healing Q&A from last July.

Our plan was always that healers could gradually grow out of being very mana-limited, but we didn’t want that to happen in the very first tier of content. If it happens in the final tier of content, that’s fine. It will help healers feel like they have actually become more powerful from accumulating so much gear. [...]

Rest is here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2842884762#2

I dont know why you keep bringing up the "non existing mana issue". It is there, and it is definitly there if you want to perform on top. There is always the balance of having too much mana=reforge to other stats balance. I doubt any healer class can reforge completly out of spirit and just spam away?

I can only speak for myself and my main+alts and OS, I certainly can make every char have mana issues if I reforge and heal without thinking and using CD's. Heck, I could probably make my 402 ilvl Holy Pri go oom in full spirit gear if I was playing reckless enough..

I don't see a problem here, really, as long as no "limits" are reached where you no longer have a choice and just bathe in mana no matter what you spam and no matter how you reforge.

For me, the balance is perfectly fine right now; I need to make spellchoices, I do go oom if I don't use my CD's very wisely etc. I would reforge away some spirit if I had too much, and I would add some if I wanted more. Why do you want a more narrow limit? I would defenitly feel helpless and annoyed if mana was more of an issue than it already is.

Is it just Holy Priests? I don't think so, my Hpala goes oom in a blink if I spam HR and forget CD's/spank boss for mana for example. Same with my Druid and Shaman although they do have lower ilvl ofc...

22/02/2012 03:22Posted by Tomoshibi

Hello. We all remember the start of cataclysm. The pain. The horror.

thanks for the laugh. you played pala start of cata, i played disc. disc was so godawful those first few weeks i actually switched to pala and it was a joke. pain? horror? what were you doing? playing blindfold in mittens?

23/02/2012 00:07Posted by Badb

thanks for the laugh. you played pala start of cata, i played disc. disc was so godawful those first few weeks i actually switched to pala and it was a joke. pain? horror? what were you doing? playing blindfold in mittens?

You clearly didn't read what Paladins posted back then. It was all because they were far more skilled healers than other 3 classes. They learned their Holy Power mechanic back at 80 and as such were well prepared for their completely balanced lvl 85. They were simply more skilled than us, clueless noobs that didn't learn to conserve mana by getting free heals through casting our efficient heals.

I still say this is one of main reasons that Triage failed. One spec effortlessly healed five mans and other 4 struggled. Pallies rubbing it in only made things worse, people demanded to be buffed to their level - and that's what we got.

And Raid Healing was absolute mess from day one. I refuse to believe that even something as simple as Magmaw was designed with "triage" in mind. You don't "triage" unavoidable raid wide AOE that does >50% hp, combined with another AOE that randomly hits X people for similar number. And that was only the first boss. Chimaeron was probably as close to "triage" healing we had, and nothing else really came close... Yor'sahj Purple ooze tries, but it's more about abusing Beacon and raid/tank cooldowns than "triage".

Hello. We all remember the start of cataclysm. The pain. The horror.

thanks for the laugh. you played pala start of cata, i played disc. disc was so godawful those first few weeks i actually switched to pala and it was a joke. pain? horror? what were you doing? playing blindfold in mittens?

I agree, Disc was harder. But you still had a choice to spec Holy.

But this thread isn't about balancing between the classes. It's about all the healers. And the situation we see today.

23/02/2012 01:18Posted by Ailawiu

I still say this is one of main reasons that Triage failed. One spec effortlessly healed five mans and other 4 struggled. Pallies rubbing it in only made things worse, people demanded to be buffed to their level - and that's what we got.

Yes, and which was completely the wrong way around. It should have been that Paladins get nerfed down to everyone else's level. Although to be fair, before their initial buff shortly after Cata release (around when most hit heroics), they were pretty awful as a healer.

The thing is I was going to say it was hard, then i went LFR on undergeared priest...

It is because we're on the extreme edges of the exponential scale so it's hard for Blizzard to actually balance things out. The dragon soul heroics is at an Ilevel 353 while you can easily get to Ilevel 380 without actually raiding, meaning you're outgearing the heroics by a heavy margin.

If you want some healing challenges I suppose you have no other choice but to go into raid. Beside, the community is so messed up anyway that having a slightly difficult heroic 5 man would only make them whine their behinds off due to "things taking too long time".

Honestly, I just think the game has always gone from 'managing mana' to increase through-put in the final patch. I don't mind this change, gives you a chance to try new specs and things, and also doesn't get so frustratingly difficult that you just quit, for example, when i first leveled to 85 in the first few weeks of cata, it was difficult to even heal the normal modes, let alone the heroics, which caused me to become bored of the game, i lost interest due to not actually completing any dungeons, and so I just didnt play for a bout a month until things had start to balance out a little more.

Finished spine heroic with 90% mana this week... It's getting to the stage with T13 gear that you have the mana pools and the regen to have a similar playstyle to that of ICC - many rejuvs, handle it!

Frankly, I cant say I miss the whole mana management thing: was fun in the first hcs, was fun in t11, but I think a whole expansion watching my mana bar wearily would somewhat put me off. I'm personally not at the stage where i have too much mana - however, if I use my cds and play responsibly, I end up the fight with "some" mana left. If I have some excess, few shields solve that quickly.

That being said, I've been last night in some silly alt run 10 man DS on my little pala: oomed plenty with her 374 ilev, though I reckon I'm not much of a pala healer.

22/02/2012 16:47Posted by Cherrydivine

I'd say each one alone is relatively long, but using them sensibly means you could have a mana cooldown at least as often as a druid gets innervate. I don't know how much mana they give you back in holy though.

there you are wrong, fiend alone is ok but the hymn alone is not that great. Its way better to pop your fiend and right after do the hymn so your max mana goes up and your fiend returns more mana with each hit.

It is because we're on the extreme edges of the exponential scale...

That's the problem. Some things scale exponentially, while other things scale linearly.

Health pools scale linearly. Higher ilvl => more stamina => more health.
Healing output scales exponentially. Higher ilvl => more intellect * more haste * more crit * more mastery => tons more healing

Mana spending scales linearly. Higher ilvl => more haste => more spells cast => more mana spent.
Mana regeneration scales exponentially. Higher ilvl => more spirit * more intellect => lots more mana spent.

The end result is that our mana regeneration grows faster than we can spend it (assuming a spell selection similar to what we used in T11) and our healing output grows much faster than the health pools of the people being healed. The end result is that healers can play much more aggressively and that health bars will jojo more as gear improves.

The first of these two is tricky to fix. The second should be fairly easy to fix: revert spirit regen to no longer be affected by intellect, stop having the amount of mana returned from regen trinkets be item level dependent, and make mana pools fixed.