This was actually an offhand remark of Ghostcrawler's a few days ago, but it didn't seem to get much attention. In a thread devoted to the possibility of extending buffs like Blessing of Kings to additional classes in Cataclysm, Ghostcrawler mentioned the following:

Ghostcrawler

Obviously things like Rebirth can't just be handed to out to more classes unless we did something like a second exhaustion mechanic for battle rez or whatever. For now we're going to try the cooldown at 30 min again. In Icecrown's world of limited attempts, a 30 min cooldown likely meant you just cooled your heels until the cooldown was available again. In Cataclysm the hope is sometimes you'll have the benefit available but not every time, which scales back on how much of a game-changer it is.

An alternative to a longer cooldown for Rebirth is something where one druid using it would trip everyone's cooldown for a few minutes. That it's a bit gamey, but might solve the problem.

Also keep in mind that Rebirth is much more useful in today's game where people tend to die from massive damage. In a world where people sometimes die because the healers have run out of mana, then Rebirth doesn't buy you quite as much.

source

I think there's a cogent point there about the extent to which raid mechanics have to reflect the current state of raid buffs and cooldowns (and vice versa, I guess), and there are a few additional clues as to Blizzard's thought process on Cataclysm encounters. Right now it's so damn easy for players to die to massive raid damage or even targeted abilities (e.g., heroic Blood Princes, heroic Lana'thel, Harvest Soul and Spirit Burst on the Lich King) that Rebirthing a fallen player is pretty routine. A 10-minute cooldown on battle resurrection has also made the limited attempts mechanic in Icecrown more bearable.

Then again, on truly difficult encounters, a 30-minute cooldown is still going to be one ugly mother. It wasn't all that long ago that my raid seriously debated whether to wait between Kael'thas attempts for our warriors' Shield Wall cooldowns to come up (30 minutes!), and the idea of doing the Cataclysm equivalents of Yogg+0 or ToGC-25 Anub'arak with only two battle rezzes an hour per druid is enough to give me hives.

It's another blow for druids, who are already reeling from the probable loss of Tree of Life form, but I guess we'll see how it plays out on the beta. If the need to heal raid damage requires less in the way of hair-trigger reflexes, then we really may not notice the increased cooldown as much. However, between things like this and the large-scale retreat of raid and damage buffs, I'm becoming more and more certain that Cataclysm is the closest thing we're going to see to a "classic server" experience.

Tags: battle-ressing, battle-resurrection, battle-rezzing, druid, druid-healer, forums, gating, ghostcrawler, limited-attempts, rebirth, rezzing, shield-wall, tree-of-life

Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion