Why survivability matters in Cataclysm class design
by Brian Wood 
Nov 8th 2010 at 7:00PM
A player was complaining about being forced to take utility talents to reach the bottom of her tree, and she gave as an example a talent that reduced the magic damage taken. She pointed out that the only time you'd take damage was if you stood in fire, which should never happen anyway.
Ion could have pointed out the many, many boss encounters in which the room just pulses unavoidable AoE damage throughout the fight, but instead, he went in what I think was a very insightful route when he responded:
This is pretty much spot on. We've had a lot of discussion recently about combat rez changes -- but just like no one should ever get hit by a void zone, so too should no one ever die if everyone is doing his or her job. But they do, and combat rez is a great ability. With healers at risk of running OOM in Cataclysm, anything that reduces your damage taken or increases your self-healing is going to help your raid. After all, dead DPS do no damage, and wiped raids kill no bosses.In an ideal world, none of these things would be needed, right? In an ideal world, something like combat rez wouldn't be a useful ability because no one should ever die. In reality, people die.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Suinimtao Nov 8th 2010 7:12PM
I love the way the direction the new content seems to be going in, much more fun to have to play a role in your own survival, rather than just letting all the healers do the work.
Rob Nov 8th 2010 7:41PM
Okay, this sounds very old timer-ish. But any way. in BC we were lucky to get a heal as DPS. That's the truth. We had bandages, our lock cookie, and a health pot if we really needed. And our pets? Hah. So many times our pets would go splat, which just killed the hunters dps (as BM, which everyone was back then). We may be seeing that model again, with tanks having 200k health and the dps not all that far behind; get used to being at half health. Use that lightwell. Pray for that rejuv . Step in the eflorescence. Be a more active participant in healing yourself.
chris Nov 8th 2010 7:56PM
sounds just like vanilla. heals were saved for tanks mostly. the "learn to bandage" saying got pretty popular. ctraid used to have an option to let you see what was in peoples inventor. our raid leader would kick anyone who didnt have HP pots on them.
Rob Nov 8th 2010 7:57PM
I just hope DPS can make the change. I think going back to this style of fighting is good, but PUGs will be in for trouble.
The focus on meters and not overall surviving and beating the encounter is going to be hard to change for some people. I really liked the idea I read in a comment about punishing DPS players by making void zones and such actually hurt their DPS - not their health. Hurting health just makes healing more stressful, instead of getting DPS better at their jobs.
Hurt their meters, not the healer's sanity.
MrJackSauce Nov 8th 2010 8:18PM
@rob, I wouldn't go so far as to remove the need to heal players that are standing in that stuff, but hey: a -50% haste rating for standing in bad goop isn't too unreasonable in an unreasonable world right?
Finwe Nov 9th 2010 8:42AM
I love the idea of the void zones hurting the dps output. A similar model to Professor Putricide's orange flasks that do some damage but give you a big -hit debuff could work really well. I don't think the health aspect should be removed completely, but a mix of the two could really help with DPS focus on awareness. Now, if only I could remember to watch out for this stuff when I'm healing....
Harvoc Nov 8th 2010 7:12PM
Amen to this!
Wild Colors Nov 8th 2010 7:14PM
Don't even count on a combat res in Cata...I'm planning to save mine for use as a mana regen tool for my fellow healers ;) (what, OOM? go stand in fire and you'll come back at full mana....once per encounter).
Wild Colors Nov 8th 2010 7:18PM
Bah, scratch that, I never had space for Glyph of Rebirth before 4.0.1 and I just realized it brings you back at full health, but it doesn't say full mana....
Deco Nov 8th 2010 7:18PM
Except for how, then a healer dies a legitimate death in the fight, and no one has a rezz for them and you wipe.
The goal isn't to make it so no one dies, the goal is to make it so you have to pay attention to not die. Way too many wrath encounters just require you to run out of the void zone, or keep jumping, or do other easy to MACRO things. Cataclysm raids will have more "random" and unpredictable things. Will flame jet A or B go off this time? What about the spawns from the back door?
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2010 7:33PM
I saw someone get brezzed recently that came back with full health and mana... thought that was a rebirth with glyph?
"Way too many wrath encounters just require you to run out of the void zone, or keep jumping, or do other easy to MACRO things. Cataclysm raids will have more "random" and unpredictable things. Will flame jet A or B go off this time? What about the spawns from the back door?"
Hard modes/heroic modes were like this in wrath of the lich king, as well as certain normal mode encounters like blood princes, lich king, professor putricide, sindragosa.
Helston Nov 8th 2010 7:36PM
OOM healers? Save the rez for who needs it, a healer should be looking out for their own mana. If there's a nasty tank debuff, a tank, if everyone's getting hurt all the time a healer, or if you're not going to beat the enrage a dps. Good battle rezzes save raids.
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2010 7:16PM
The problem with survivability talents for dps'ers is that they are generally not fun. Utility talents can be fun, but something like magic reduction (as seen in the elemental shaman tree) is really, really boring.
I can speak for the ele shaman tree, there are places you can spend those points where you don't have to put them into the magic damage reduction. If there is another tree out there where there really isn't any good choice, I'd feel for them though.
One of the things many people blizzard feels they got right is with the fun-factor of mage survivability talents, such as Cauterize. An ardent defender-type proc that will give you a chance to save your own butt but will kill you if you aren't on top of things, it's just a really fun way to survive.
It's one thing to be forced to spec into some utility/survivability, it's another thing entirely to be forced into survivability that is really freakin boring, like 12% magic damage reduction.
Krishaa-ah-an Nov 8th 2010 7:32PM
I find 12% magic damage reduction a lot more exciting, than lying dead on the floor the last 4 minutes of a boss fight... Might just be me though *Shrug*
mark Nov 8th 2010 7:33PM
"The problem with survivability talents for dps'ers is that they are generally not fun. Utility talents can be fun, but something like magic reduction (as seen in the elemental shaman tree) is really, really boring."
agreed
which is one of the many reasons i LOVE cauterize
itstops you dying - but if your not paying atention your gonna kill yourself in 12 sec
Helston Nov 8th 2010 7:38PM
Errr mark, you might want to pay a bit more attention. It kills you in 6 seconds.
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2010 7:41PM
Krish, if you're an elemental shaman, and you're taking a bit of extra magic damage, you have a much better way to help your healers out, it's called Healing Surge. It's basically 1 gcd to make up for way more than the damage you prevented. And ele shaman are not going to have mana problems themselves, so no worries there. IMO, it's more fun to add survivability with a self-healing spell (see the recuperate post just below this one) than a passive "yawn" magic reduction talent. Out of all the healing classes, IMO elemental shaman have the best healing for their non-resto/healing tree (better than pallies, better than enhance, better than shadow, and better than feral/moonkin).
In other words, if you are getting low on health, and you are an elemental shaman, and you die from simple aura damage without healing yourself, in my opinion you are a very very bad elemental shaman, and you deserve to lay on the floor for 4 minutes.
Brett Porter Nov 8th 2010 9:53PM
As they say, boring talents are boring. However, the top two tiers of most (all?) the trees are just that: boring. The really exciting ones start around level 29/tier 3, in the ele shammy case Elemental Focus.
I assume they put the "boring" talents in because everyone needs access to those from the other trees, plus when you actually pick up those talents you are low level and they are actually useful then. Not to mention what others have said, where more survivability provides for better group/raid experience.
Just my two cents. /shrug
albanesp Nov 9th 2010 8:44AM
I actually like the challenge that Cata will bring to dungeons/raids. The Wrath formula is just getting boring for me (as both a lock and enh shammy). The formula is click through your rotation, move out of the fire, back to the rotation , switch to an add, back to the rotation, execute phase and voila.....dead boss.
That's why I'm pretty happy with my Warlock's Drain Life Affliction spec. It really fits what Blizz wants to do in Cata. I have 2 points in Siphon life that give me 50% chance per tick at 2% health regen. Boring? Yes. Dps-buff? No, but helps keep me alive and lets the healer focus more on the tank. The filler spell in this set up is Drain Life. It is a harder spec to manage than the Shadow Bolt affliction set up, which means probably less damage during dynamic battles, but much better for survivability.
I will gladly sacrifice 2 unsexy points for survivability
Nate Nov 8th 2010 7:20PM
Hey rogues! Dont healer hate! RECUPERATE!