Ghostcrawler on 3.1 healing team raid composition
by Amanda Miller 
Mar 12th 2009 at 11:00AM
Ghostcrawler has outlined the way in which healing teams will be chosen and organized for Ulduar in both 10 and 25-man raids, and it's very encouraging. In 10-man Ulduar, GC expects that we'll want to bring three healers, and claims that they "intend for you to be able to take any 3 healers." This means that even smaller guilds with only enough players to form a 10-man group will be able to work with the healers they have, rather than feeling the need to recruit specific classes.
In 25-man Ulduar, Ghostcrawler mentions that there will be "more pressure to have every player in the role that most emphasizes their strengths" and that we'll "want a mix of healers."
This sounds like a fairly flexible plan, allowing for groups to recruit different healing classes, and allow healers to spec into different roles, such as group healing vs. single target. It also suggests that Blizzard is not planning at this time to homogenize the healing classes any further, unlike the tanking classes.
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Classes, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Beli Mar 12th 2009 11:06AM
Umm... if you look at his post, GC wasn't talking about 25 man - he was talking about "hard modes"
"However, as you start to try hard modes there is going to be more pressure to have every player in the role that most emphasizes their strengths. You may want a mix of healers more than ever on those encounters. "
Might want to update the story to reflect that.
Ohnoto Mar 12th 2009 11:19AM
That is addition to what he was commenting on.
Note that his main statement is "We still intend for you to be able to take any 3 healers (it will probably be closer to 3 for Ulduar) in a 10 player group and be good to go"
Many guilds take 3 healers into 10 mans until it has been cleared 2-3 times and then they back off and take two geared healers.
Kar On E Mar 12th 2009 11:10AM
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zappo Mar 12th 2009 12:07PM
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PopeJamal Mar 12th 2009 1:27PM
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Lowangel Mar 12th 2009 11:16AM
So there goes the bring the player, not the class claim. "A mix of healers...." Their making it near impossible not to oom even in a ten man with geared players. They messed with spirit they messed with mana regen, and now blessing of wisdom stacking with mana stream. There seems to be a boast in healing done, but th effect is bad on PTR. This seems to be the most experimental PTR, testing some crazy concepts.
drwatson Mar 12th 2009 11:54AM
/sigh. Bring the class and gear not the player. Thanks blizz, appreciate you screwing up 10s for average guilds.
Gessilea Mar 12th 2009 11:20AM
I get the concern about mana (I play a healing druid), but I don't get the "So there goes the bring the player, not the class claim" comment. Why do so many people seem to expect that this meant that 2 prot warriors, 6 resto druids and 17 affliction warlocks was supposed to be a viable raiding group?
chaos spawn Mar 12th 2009 11:22AM
Seriously, this issue has been addressed so many times before.
http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/04/what-they-really-meant-by-bring-the-player-not-the-class/
You'll still need a good mix of classes but nowhere near the point of BC's stacking will be needed.
Wyred Mar 12th 2009 11:27AM
The 'bring the player not the class' change was never meant to mean that you wouldn't have to think about raid composition at all, just that we wouldn't go back to shammy/spriest stacking like in Sunwell. And if you look at it, that's been mostly achieved for 25 mans. not having a resto shammy no longer means you're unable to raid-heal, but it does mean you can't go into raids with 5 holy pallies. Conversely, not having a holy pally in the raid doesn't mean your tank-healing is impossible. As a healer I'm fine with this.
The main problem I'd have is this damn replenishment. It just doesn't seem to make sense to balance everything around one overpowered buff, and blizz's blue posts on the subject have not given (imo) a satisfactory answer. With the incoming regen nerf, I really wish they'd take another look at the way they've implemented this, emphasising a handful of specs and the intellect stat for no good reason.
Candina@WH Mar 12th 2009 11:29AM
????? Did I miss the memo????
when HASN'T 2 Prot warriors, 6 resto druids and 17 Warlocks been a vaible raid mix??????
MMM... DOTs + HOTS makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.....
bundee Mar 12th 2009 11:41AM
DOTS, HOTS, and PROTS
zappo Mar 12th 2009 12:30PM
More DOTS... More DOTS, MORE DOTS!
OK, stop DOTS...
PopeJamal Mar 12th 2009 1:30PM
DOTs are for procrastinators...
Gessilea Mar 12th 2009 11:18AM
Having tanks be more homogenized makes sense the larger a group you end up with. Assuming that the goal is for any tanking/healing class to be able to do any content, it breaks down like this:
In a five person group, you have 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps. Every tanking and healing class needs to be able to solo tank/heal a 5 man. Since 5 mans are pretty easy, this isn't a problem.
In a 10 person group, you have 1 tank, 1 OT (maybe), 2-3 healers, 6-7 dps. Again, every tanking class needs to be able to MT, healers have some overlap so if you have one spec that isn't really strong at a specific role, it's still okay.
In a 25 person group, you have 1 main tank, however many OTs, 4-7 healers, and however many dps. You've got more than enough room for healers to overlap and compensate for differences in healing style, but you still only have one main tank. Healing in larger groups, like DPSing in larger groups, is a group effort. Tanking relies on a group of course, but in the sense of actually doing the job of generating threat and taking damage, if you want all four tanking classes to be able to do the job, all four have to be fairly similar in terms of ability to generate threat and deal with damage. As I see it, that's a good goal, so I'm okay with the homogenization there.
Kurdon Mar 12th 2009 5:51PM
I would argue that the current state of the various tanks and their strengths mimics the variety of strengths that the various healers offer. DKs are especially good at magic damage tanking and also do well at AOE threat. Druids are best for large amounts of mixed damage types, a runner-up on high magic damage bosses, and excel when exploring unknown content where massive health is the only answer until you know better. Paladins are especially good at fights that require high mitigation or maximum possible AOE threat. Warriors are good middle-of-the-road tanks for most situations and also excel at mobility and snap threat.
25-man Naxx with 3 warriors? 3 pallies? 3 druids? 3 DKs? Doable... but not necessarily the easiest. A mix of tank types makes things more manageable if you know which to use for which wing and which boss, with a respectable amount of overlap. Ulduar will likely cause us to re-evaluate those tanking strengths and leverage them where possible to help increase chance of success. Healing should be the same, and it sounds like it will be.
A lot of the homogenization of tanks centered around the fact that their abilities were too far removed from each other for each tank to insure some chance of success in all encounters. Druids and warriors before they had AOE threat-generating abilities as of patch 3.02 were going to be woefully inadequate in fights that required holding aggro on multiple targets. We'd have ended up with paladins being chosen almost exclusively as both MTs and OTs in Naxx, otherwise.
Conversely the point as it relates to healing is that holy paladins in their current form are a little TOO different from the other healers, and this is what's becoming a problem. Especially with the upcoming changes. Holy Shock and Beacon of Light will not be enough to alleviate the monotony or the singular role they'd be forced to play as MT + 1 OT healer and cleanse-spammer.
Gessilea Mar 12th 2009 8:51PM
I'll definitly agree that the tanks still have, and should have, their own strengths. However I think you hit the nail on the head with the comment "their abilities were too far removed from each other for each tank to insure some chance of success in all encounters". There's a different between what's optimal and what's feasible. If you have 7 raid slots for healers, the chances of those all being the same class are pretty low, and it makes sense that encounters be designed to be extremely difficult if for some reason you tried to bring 7 of the same healing class.
However, every tank you bring after the MT eats up a dps spot, and even with dual specs, I don't believe that the goal is to be forced to swap tanks per boss, or even to be forced to have some respec per boss. There was a time when end game content was reliant on min-maxing, requiring a group to pull people in for a single boss, or bring a spec that was only useful for a single boss, but I think that the devs are trying to get away from that philosophy, which means the goal is for ever tanking class to be feasible for every encounter.
Daykin Mar 12th 2009 11:32AM
I couldn't help notice that among the helpful ghostcrawler posts there were a lot of angry holy paladins screaming at him that their class/spec was boring. Very polite....