Healers in Cata? - Blue Tracker

#0 - June 24, 2010, 12:39 p.m.

Why are we supposed to cast anything other than healing spells? I realize that this has been posted hundreds of times, but I wanted to voice my opinion. Since when has the groups dps suffered because the healers aren't casting damaging spell? How will our spells be effective when we are clearly geared to heal? I know this is made primarily for pvpers, but thats only a part of the games player base. Making a change for one group shouldn't make the other suffer. Looking at the talent preview many of the damage talents in the healing trees must be taken. I could be wrong though. Even so, our job is to heal, not to attack. How will we hit a raid boss when we're not speccing to hit?

I don't know, I'm just venting I guess. I feel a pvp change like this shouldn't affect pve as much as it does.

#36 - June 25, 2010, 3:04 a.m.

Q u o t e:
If healer A and healer B can both keep the group alive, but healer A can (or is just willing to) throw down extra damage, who do you think the group is going to take?

Even with the new talents, healer contribution to dps is going to be pretty low overall I suspect. In very challenging encounters, the ones where extra dps might be most helpful, healers are going to be spending even more of their GCDs and mana on healing so they aren't going to be able to fill that void.

Q u o t e:
Now that Blizzard has admitted that Arena was a mistake and is phasing it out as the main form of PvP, I think we should be a little more accepting when Blizzard introduces changes balanced around PvP.

Um. No.

Q u o t e:
The changes implemented were for PvP.

Not really. That's a very small part of it. They are to allow healers to level or quest without changing specs if they so choose, give them something to do in moments when they don't have to heal (even in the most challenging content there are times when nobody is taking serious damage), and otherwise provide an opportunity for players who want to do something else to do something else. We will make sure that there are PvE healing specs for all 5 trees that can skip over most or all of the damage. That does not mean you will be able to take 75 talent points worth of +healing though.

Q u o t e:
Assuming the wowhead talent trees make it live...

They won't. The trees we shared are very early in development. I can assure you they will change quite a bit.

Q u o t e:
Since the mana cost increase is less then 25% in all cases, the amount of healing per mana also goes up, making Shocking then Healing more mana effective.

For shaman, the cost of the shocks is deducted. It won't ever make sense to shock and heal just for mana, but in cases where you can't heal (like you're moving) then it's a chance to generate a little mana.

Q u o t e:
Old encounters may become even harder if the healers can't keep up because of the new mechanics.

We're not super concerned about the old content. We can nerf ICC even further if necessary and very few players raid content below max level with below max level characters. We'll make sure all the new mechanics and numbers work for doing dungeons (even LK ones) while leveling up.