Patch 3.3.2: PvP healing change incoming
by Alex Ziebart 
Feb 2nd 2010 at 5:05AM
Patch 3.3.2 is bringing about a change to the way healing functions in Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Wintergrasp. We have applied a debuff to all players in these zones which will decrease the effectiveness of all forms of healing by 10%. This includes heals from items such as Healthstones and potions, however, it will not affect defensive shields or auras. This change is being made to balance the effectiveness of healing against the recent buff we made to the damage reduction component provided by resilience. Rest assured that we will be closely monitoring the effects both the healing and resilience changes have on Battleground, Wintergrasp, and Arena PvP game play to ensure that fights last a reasonable amount of time without overtly skewing the effectiveness of any class, role, or team combination.Should we hear any further announcements today, we'll make sure to keep you posted.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Adriain Feb 2nd 2010 5:12AM
Is it just me or did Disc just because the new top arena healer?
Sean Feb 2nd 2010 5:24AM
Sounds like it! I was hoping they wouldn't nerf healing in PvP for a while. My Resto Druid would have been ridiculously unstoppable in PvP. Even now it'll still be pretty hard to take me down and I'm still in mostly crafted blue PvP gear.
Adriain Feb 2nd 2010 10:12AM
become* Too early in the morning, bleh. But yeah...I hadn't really gotten into any PvP to test out the resil change just yet...was sort of hoping to before they changed the healing...oh well. Guess my Disc priest will get to PvP more. ^.^
mark Feb 2nd 2010 12:28PM
Disc was already quite strong. I don't understand why they would leave a Discipline Priest's damage absorption effects at full power but reduce Druid, Paladin, and Shaman heals by 10%. Any one of them would trade healing power for absorption because lets face it- not taking any damage is far better than being able to heal through huge damage.
Btw, don't forget the nerf-tastic-ness to Warlock, Shadow Priest, and Death Knight survivability.
Roboticus Feb 2nd 2010 1:22PM
My suspicion is that they realized the resilience buff actually did make healers too powerful, but they realized only too late and with little time left to make a technically difficult fix. A passive debuff is extremely easy to implement if it only affects direct heals. I would bet that it's harder to create such a debuff that deals with shields appropriately. So, in the name of limited time, they just went with what was expedient. But yes, this does make Disc nearly 5-10% better, relative to other healers, than before. It also buffs Pallies to a lesser extent (sacred shield).
Zombiemold Feb 2nd 2010 5:14AM
Healthstones...... Grrrrrrr
Vagrant Shard Feb 2nd 2010 5:17AM
It's kinda sad that prot specs are able to run around battlegrounds and put out respectable DPS whilst being adequately protected, whilst the healer, who will almost never kill someone, can't even afford the luxury of "strong" heals. Last time I checked, BGs promoted strong team play and coordination. If there is a healer, you focus it down. It is a sad day when a healer cannot heal himself through a single opponent.
Kurick Feb 2nd 2010 6:17AM
Seeing how most healers i see need at least 2-3 dps concentrating on them to have a hope of bringing them down, i fail to see how your comment is relevant. Try taking a tree out solo when ure a prot anything - its an exercise in futility. Ditto a holy pally.
Vandersveldt Feb 2nd 2010 9:27AM
My mage can take down a tree, and has done so repeatedly. My thing is to not fight them, not until they're casting spells. Most of them just sit there laughing their asses off if you are trying to do anything, so do nothing. Or maybe use your wand. React to whatever THEY'RE doing, not the other way around.
MazokuRanma Feb 2nd 2010 12:03PM
It depends on the mage spec. It can be very difficult for my mage to take down a tree druid in frost spec, since I've traded dps for survivability. On the other hand, as arcane, almost no tree druid will be able to heal through you casting your Arcane Blast up to 4 stacks, slamming them with improved Counterspell, then hitting them with a POM+Arcane Blast, Missile Barrage combo.
Another easy way to kill a tree druid: Priests. They're incredibly ineffective against Mana Burn and Dispel. Even my Disc priest can win against a tree druid in one on one. Drain them in tree form, dps them when they're out of it, dispel those hots and innervate.
Also, no prot spec has ever beaten my healers in pvp. None of them do the kind of burst in 1 on 1 that really makes a difference against a decent healer. At most, the healer will win in the end because the prot toon can never restore health; at worst, it ends up an endless endurance match. I've died against a prot paladin once in a 1v1 fight, and he so outgeared me there was never a chance I'd beat him in any spec. Protection spec toons with 50k health aren't coasting on their spec.
Bossy Feb 2nd 2010 5:21AM
It still baffles me that a game with THIS money making and such a huge number of developpers is still struggling with very basic balancing. I mean this is the basics of the basic (not even class balancing).
The day the res patch was launched I remember a fight at the LM in AB with one druid outhealing 2 DPS and I healed my two DPS. The fight lasted at least 2 minutes and after this time the druid stood at full health and full mana.
It ended with just one other druid coming in and they both placed me in CC, killing one of our DPS.
It took me a full week to even bother entering a BG again.
Like I said, it is strange that such BASIC mechanics are not tested to the fullest before going live....
So after all these innovations we'ven seen lately (cross server dungeons, dual specs, experience turned off options) .... there is still very much a big trial -error rate in this game.
Stunning.
mors tua vita mea Feb 2nd 2010 6:35AM
If it's so easy, then maybe you should make your own WoW-type game.
There are people at Blizzard that are constantly testing, testing, testing. You can't say they implement something without testing it. It must be excruciatingly hard to balance this game. Whenever they balance something, people always find a way around it to make something else OP. It's just the way it goes.
Just be happy you are able to play this game and it is fun. If you don't like it, then quit.
valkry Feb 2nd 2010 6:53AM
Maybe you should have helped dps down the druid intstead of healing the miniscule dmg he would have been putting on your 2 dps
Res Feb 2nd 2010 7:39AM
Unless everyone played the same class with the same abilities and same gear, there will never be "balance." The time it takes to achieve any semblance of balance is also irrelevant because the game is constantly changing based on spells/talents/gear that is always evolving. The goal isn't perfect balance in the first place, it's to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. That's the nature of the beast when you're dealing with an MMO that has a PVP aspect. There's going to be constant tweaking and changes happening. This finally looks like a step in the right direction though, making a change for PVP that finally doesn't nerf PVE.
Drork Feb 2nd 2010 5:23AM
Should the healing Debuff be a ratio of how much resilience you have on you. Resilience could be come a double edge sword more you have the more your protected but the less your healed, at a rate where its better to have resilience over not for PvP. Would also reduce the use of PvP gear in PvE.
Beruza Feb 2nd 2010 6:40AM
That's a great idea, but I think it will make people wear less PvP gear in PvP too. And I don't think Blizzard wants it that way. I think they want people to wear as much PvP gear as they can get their hands on.
Thundrcrackr Feb 2nd 2010 8:20AM
I wish they would just do away with PvP gear entirely. We shouldn't have to wear two sets of gear to fight NPCs vs other players. That's been a silly idea from the beginning if you ask me. I need one set of gear to kill this blood elf mage in this raid, but another to kill this horde blood elf mage i ran into in wintergrasp? why? where is the logic?
If survivability is a problem with PvE gear then they should just make an HP% buff in arenas/BGs/wintergrasp like they're doing with the healing debuff. We should all be able to get equivalent gear from either raiding or PvP. There is no reason the two should be so separated. Whether we're fighting people or monsters shouldn't matter. We shouldn't have to choose one or the other when deciding how to gear our character, or be forced to carry two sets of gear just so we can do both.
Hoggersbud Feb 2nd 2010 9:01AM
>why? where is the logic? <
The logic is basically that what works in one situation doesn't work well in another. Would playing a BG where you could spend 5 minutes on one dude be fun? Would a raid where you blizt down the boss in 30 second flat be good?
Even if you limit it to just trash, how often do you have 4 other people around to take down one dude, or 9, or 24?
Could you add more numbers of dudes? Sometimes, but there is an upper limit before performance starts being a problem. Even today there are people who disconnect in Onyxia due to the sheer numbers of whelps.
This isn't just a problem for WOW either, other MMOs have had to deal with the problem. Some by adjusting how much damage is done versus NPC targets versus Player targets, some by completely different changes.
Thundrcrackr Feb 2nd 2010 11:14AM
@ Hogger
I agree, but I wasn't asking where is the logic in the need for a solution, i was asking where is the logic in making that solution be a whole separate stat requiring a whole separate set of gear/gems/enchants when they could have simply made the solution be a BG/Arena/Wintergrasp-wide buff or debuff.
The problem is that, in PvE gear, our damage output gets to the point where it far exceeds the damage we can take. For example, my mage can hit for 10k, but he only has 17k health, which means i can 2-shot myself (or any other equally geared DPS, the same as they can do to me). That doesn't make for good PvP, so to counter this, Blizz came up with the stat Resilience to reduce incoming damage. This in turn requires us to farm a whole separate set of gear, gems, and enchants and ends up dividing a lot of the WoW community between PvE and PvP cuz most people just don't have enough time in the day to do both.
What i'm suggesting is that Blizz use a HP buff or damage debuff in BG/Arena/Wintergrasp instead. It would be a percentage which would scale with your gear, so gear would still matter, it just wouldn't have to be a whole separate set of gear anymore. Blizz could then focus all the man hours they spend creating PvP gear and apply it toward something else and more players would be able to partake in both PvP and PvE, it would be win-win for everyone.
dkhar Feb 2nd 2010 1:06PM
Also need to remember that the only reason they put in the pvp gear was that for the people that only pvp'd had a way to gear up and not be so very badly undergeared when they fought the people running around in raid level gear. Back then it was very bad, the guild's that ran the raid's would come into AV and just own everything and the people that pvp'd all their time in the game never could get gear to match or even contend.
As much as I hate what resillence has done for this game, it was their answer to what was happening for a very long time. Would love for them to get rid of it all, and now they could do it seeing as how it is so much easier to get raid type gear without raiding. But then you still have the problem of people who just pvp and don't like to pve being forced to pve for the sake of their pvp. /shrug