Essence Font With a Cooldown

03/31/2017 06:28 PMPosted by Gargabrew

However, one point that I would like addressed is what are we supposed to do when Essence Font is on cooldown, Uplifting Trance isn't available, Whispers of Shaohao has been used, and the the group still needs to be healed?

The initial version going out has a small buff to baseline Vivify. Also, the changes greatly increase the practical value of mastery, which is a hidden buff to the Vivify, Enveloping Mist, and Effuse casts you'll be making in between Essence Fonts.

Part of it, though, is you should have more of cadence between the high-priority heals that somewhat solve problems on their own, and the spells that don't always do that. You asked what to do when the "best" 3 or 4 things are on cooldown or not available, and that's similar to a Druid falling back to laying down Rejuvenations when she can't use Wild Growth or Swiftmend, or a Paladin using Flash of Light between Light of Dawn and Holy Shock cooldowns. Making use of the no-cooldown spells that are more limited is meant to be a moment when you look forward to the next heavy hitter coming back (even if it's just a few seconds for an Essence Font).

The concerns in feedback seem to mostly reflect tuning--that the "filler" kit of Vivify, Enveloping Mist, Effuse, and Soothing Mist isn't strong enough. Possibly that's true and the problem has been papered over on live by the ability to focus everything on Essence Font. Overall tuning will be something to watch on PTR, as with any spec getting any degree of shakeup. Tuning debates usually aren't too productive in early feedback, but maybe a helpful thing to say is: "if we hadn't been making any changes to Mistweaver, it would probably have gotten a small flat throughput buff before the next raid."

03/31/2017 08:52 PMPosted by Yooxui

With the changes to Mistweaver during the transition to Legion, there was already a degree of homogenization from what was previously a fairly unique gameplay experience to something more similar to what already existed in other healing classes. As you consider further changes to Mistweaver, is further samey-ness something that's "on the radar"?

It is, although possibly in the opposite way. If anything, thinking that Essence Font had to be forced into an off-cooldown design from the start "just to be different" probably didn't help anybody. The spec flowing better for everyone using it matters more than symmetries or antisymmetries between specs and how they look on paper. Nobody actually playing either spec is going to forget whether they're on a Mistweaver or a Resto Druid just because Essence Font follows a successful design like Wild Growth. The spells around them, the different interactions they have, and the whole pile of talents, traits, and item bonuses all doing different things ensures that.

There's always a balance between lessons and good designs that are generally true throughout the game, and variance between specs. And powerful AoE heals usually having some cooldown (for a number of reasons) is a factor that's more likely to improve Mistweaver gameplay than worrying about being a carbon copy of other specs (which it's pretty far from, all things considered).