Ghostcrawler
has spoken up in this thread a little bit about the balance of PvE and PvP play that we'll be seeing in the next expansion. Specifically, he says that they're
slowing the pace of PvP play down a little bit: "Health pools will be much larger in
Cataclysm and healing will be lower." We'll have more health overall, and healing spells will heal less. That will
make a difference in PvE as well -- it'll take more hits for the boss to finish off the tank, so heal size is expected not to matter as much as healing coordination. It won't matter if your tank is up to full health as much as it matters whether or not you can help them survive the next hit.
Obviously, this is very early theory for an expansion that's still in development. But what GC is saying is that Blizzard wants healers to strategize a little bit more about which heals they're using rather than depend on big healing to get the job done. Avoidance will matter, he says, because it'll help conserve healer mana. Fights will be more about strategy than overpowering with big heals.
Cataclysm's endgame is a long time away, but that's Blizzard's idea for it right now.
Tags: cataclysm, expansion, ghostcrawler, greg-street, healing, heals, health, health-pools, icecrown, raid-healing, raiding, wow-cataclysm
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Raiding, Battlegrounds, Cataclysm
Dec 4th 2009 at 9:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Coldbear Dec 4th 2009 9:04AM
PVP fight go last twenty minutes?
Ugh. I hope they get this right - life in the manaburn/outlast lane is a bit meh to me.
Then again, burst is way crazy in Wrath.
Para Dec 4th 2009 11:27AM
Yeah but read the part where he says "heals will heal less" = more casting = more mana wasted, you dont see 20 min fights anymore because the amount of damage floating around is so high that your dead before your mana runs out, usually.
AWSOME change tho, cant wait for cata i might dust my healers off because i rolled a healer towards the end of TBC, just for wrath to totally destroy how fun they were in pvp. being 2-3 shotted by rogues, paladins and dks in the opening season was just a joke.....
Jeff Dec 4th 2009 2:56PM
Lower healing to health ratio should make it easier to burn someone down because they can't just land a big heal to bring them back to full. But I guess it will depend more on the health to damage ratio, so we'll have to see.
But really, how is this different than what he's been saying for the past year about PvP?
Thorlo Dec 4th 2009 9:06AM
As much as I would like to still just watch nub holy pallys spam Holy Light, it's nice to know that in Cataclysm kids are finally going to learn to heal smart and not just roll their faces on the keyboards to win.
Aedilhild Dec 4th 2009 9:36AM
As if on cue, a recent thread on the official game forums attracted several boosters of Holy-Light-and-Nothing-Else. Really, what gives? Flash, Shock, and Holy each has its own place; as do a paladin's buffs and procs. You're right that if and when the game discourages reliance on a single, powerful healing spell with glyphed collateral — especially if mana pools shrink — players will rediscover their class' repertoire.
Thorlo Dec 4th 2009 9:52AM
so true... I mean, sure, I use Holy light for certain fights and situations, but i LOVE holy shock and FoL, I mean, there is more to it than just pressing, "2222222222222222222 3(Divine Favor) 22222222222222"
Dreamstorm Dec 4th 2009 9:06AM
Sounds like a good idea to me, although it may make fights less hectic (and thus less fun?) and more long-term tactical instead of short-term tactical.
unlikelyhero Dec 5th 2009 11:52AM
Personally, I've enjoyed those fights where you have to desperately keep spamming holy light and holy shock. That and I'm not sure how increasing health pools will make you deliberate more on which spell to chose.
devilsei Dec 4th 2009 9:24AM
"Avoidance will matter, he says, because it'll help conserve healer mana"
Okay, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to tanking, but didn't they nerf avoidance already? On top of the dodge% reduction debuff we'll be getting in ICC, this seems completely opposite of what they are currently doing.
Sounds to me that tanks will be stuck stacking parry and dodge, and DKs and druid tanks will have an inherent advantage there over warriors and paladins.
Darthregis Dec 4th 2009 9:53AM
Just because they want to make avoidence worth less doesn't mean it's worthless. (When I first started writing this, I honestly had no intentions of doing that.... anyway... moving along.)
Nerfing avoidance while reducing boss burst damage (as per the ICC debuff) just means that we'll be taking the same damage, but over more time and more hits. So, that's not saying that avoidance doesn't matter. Getting hit 100% instead of 75% of the time will make life harder for the healers. That's all GC seems to be getting at.
This also does not mean that druids and DK's will have any inherent advantage over the other tanks. From my understanding, tanks are fairly balanced from an avoidance standpoint (ie: Warrior dodge + parry % = druid dodge %) and damage mitigation standpoint (be it a higher health pool or some other mechanism). There is nothing to suggest these changes they'd like to make for Cata will disrupt that balance.
devilsei Dec 4th 2009 10:06AM
Ahh, I understood the current changes were to ease healing so it wasn't as... insane as it could be like in ToC 10/25, and the debuff is to help fix the issue they created with all the tiers-within-tier gear and stat inflation.
And I only said DKs and druids might have the advantage in Cataclysm because of this upcoming reliance on avoidance stats. I've only tanked on my paladin anywhere close to end-game content so I myself don't know how my stats compare to a druid of equal gear. I do hope though that it stays relatively balanced, though its the DK part I'm still slightly worried about. Druids only have dodge, but the DKs have dodge and parry, and gain parry simply through strength, leaving the only difference between them and sword-and-boards is blocking, but considering that only stops some damage instead of all, thats how I hit the conclusion I mentioned.
Eh, maybe I just mistook what he said a bit, who knows.
s256 Dec 4th 2009 9:24AM
I really like how this sounds. Right now, we really can just overpower a lot of damage with crazy heals. I'm elated that they want to re-introduce a bit of strategy to healing after killing downranking and buffing all mana regen to crazy levels!
jtrain Dec 4th 2009 9:25AM
My prot warrior likes the sound of this. EH is the fotm buzzword, and it's nice to hear that avoidance will be making a comeback of sorts. Maybe then players won't instinctively look at your health pool as the one and only tanking stat that matters.
Lighstagazi Dec 4th 2009 6:44PM
People always have and always will look to tank health as the primo stat for judging a tank. Until we can target you and have it show us your avoidance, adding that extra step or 3 to find it out inhibits the number of people who will use it.
Besides, since so many tanks just gear/gem/enchant exactly like they're told to from guildies or the internets, their health all gives a pretty accurate picture of where their avoidance is relative to the other tanks. I have seen very very few tanks that are noticably different ever since the proliferation of EJ and Tankspot and other, similar sites.
Biub Dec 4th 2009 9:26AM
If they want to bring back healing as a thinking mans, strategic game, couldn't they just bring back down-ranking healing spells? That was always fun I thought. Or do people as a whole just hate having to do that?
Greyhame Dec 4th 2009 9:44AM
The problem with that is they can't. Spell ranks (as in things like Holy Light Rank 1) are being removed in the expansion, your spells get more powerful as you level.
zappo Dec 4th 2009 10:27AM
Depends on the class. Priests still have lesser heal and heal. Blizzard COULD have given them the same coefficients as GHeal but made them heal less in proportion to mana consumption. But they didn't.
Maxpowr Dec 4th 2009 11:19AM
@ zappo
I totally agree. They should "update" lesser heal and 'heal' to the proper level (85 in Cata). At the same time, I could see newbie priests having trouble grasping our already packed arsenal of heals.
SimonT Dec 4th 2009 9:29AM
Now, the question is only whether healer mana relative to amount healed will go down (as in less regen and mana, or more expensive heals). This is really tied in to this whole concept.
If mana stays as high as today (where you can pretty much spam heal forever), then these other changes won't make any real difference at all.
Vladeon Dec 4th 2009 9:44AM
"(where you can pretty much spam heal forever)"
you must play a tree druid. I mean, I don't know about you but at least in arena, tree druids are the only healing class I've ever seen that never runs out of mana. Truids (?) are way OP right now when it comes to healing, the only way I can not go OOM doing ony as a holy paladin is by religiously hitting divine plea even when I don't need to and using flash of light only with over 500 haste and the arena libram http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42616
but then again i'm not the best geared holy paladin in the world since I tank first and heal second.