Raid Rx: Patch 4.0.6 healing thoughts
by Matt Low 
Jan 14th 2011 at 9:00AM
Even though I wasn't responsible for it, its nice to believe that my little story in last weeks column might have influenced the Mana Tide change. What is the change, you ask?
It won't be an overpowered mana reset ability anymore. I have to admit, I do miss having that synchronizing aspect that all the healers share. Having a shaman give a 3-second warning that he is going to drop a Mana Tide cued the rest of the healers to activate their spirit trinkets. I thought that was a neat little interaction. I wouldn't mind seeing more of it somehow later on -- little ways that help promote (but not so much require) healing coordination would be a cool addition. I'm just not sure what other ways methods can be explored.Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide.
On the bright side, I don't need to figure out which players have the lowest mana regeneration in order to stack them into the healing group.
But hey, enough about resto shaman already! Some additional healing changes (both nerfs and buffs) will be coming soon. No idea if any of this stuff is going to stick. Tell me what you think.
Now keep in mind there is no way I'm going to be able to comment on every change. Some of these are good, some are bad, and some just won't warrant any reaction at all whatsoever.
When should healing spells be learned?
By contrast?Healing Touch now trained at level 78, up from level 3.
Okay, I can understand that change. Fresh healers should have access to their normal, medium heal fairly early on in the game. But have you noticed that the slow, hard-hitting heal varies in terms of trainable levels?Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.
- Healing Touch now at 78
- Divine Light at level 62
- Greater Healing Wave at 68
- Greater Heal at 38
What about AoE healing? Other nerfs?
Another contrast?Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30% and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10.
A sad face has appeared as my expression. Although as much as I would honestly like to see a slight reduction in Circle of Healing, I'm not too worried about the timing. I went from working with a no-cooldown Circle of Healing to a 6-second and now a 10-second cooldown. I would love to see a lowering of the internal cooldown for it, but I don't think I can come up with a suitable case. That 30% increase alone is enough for me to keep ensuring it is used on cooldown (at least, if the players need it).Circle of Healing effectiveness increased by 30%.
Several healing spells have been nerfed . Prayer of Healing is 15% weaker. Protector of the Innocent is also 30% weaker. Restoration shaman have had their Greater Healing Wave nerfed both in cost and
I don't want to pin any kind of blame here, and I don't think that is necessary. Usually, it is the progression-oriented guilds that come across these situations, and there is a period of time that will pass before the difficulties they face will be the difficulties we experience.
However, I would advise not looking at those healing nerfs exclusively. They need to be looked at in relation to everything else that affects healing. For instance, I know there are a few healers out there who are struggling on healing heroics. (Obviously, they don't read my work, right?) So while some healing spells received nerfs, those same heroic heroic dungeons were also adjusted in some fashion to be a little more forgiving (at least, in some cases).
But there were buffs!
For priests, I applaud the Divine Aegis buff:
Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.
I hope this change gets pushed through. Having an additional Divine Aegis proc will be handy to have around.
That looks to me like a definite PvP addition. I guess Blizzard is trying to give priests additional survivability. It makes me wonder how long that Divine Aegis can keep going off like that.Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds.
Changing Desperate Prayer from a flat amount to a percentage? Love it. Namely because it was getting to the point where it looked really weak to use in comparison to other self-healing alternatives. Aside from that, the only other notable holy change is the fact that Holy Concentration is being dialed back down again. I personally thought our mana regeneration was in a fat car.
Nice call on increasing Chain Heal by 10%. I think that number will still warrant additional testing on the PTR. Now that we won't be bringing shaman in purely for Mana Tide totem, we can bring them in for other reasons (like additional healing).
Glyph of Spirit of Redemption has been converted into Glyph of Prayer of Mending, increasing the healing done by the first charge of Prayer of Mending by 60%.
I love that addition. That glyph is certainly going to be appealing for both discipline and holy!
I'm going to try to hit up the public test realms sometime soon so I can give some of these changes a shot. I'll be on Matticus, my priest, on either the PvE or PvP realms (whichever happens to actually be up). Somehow, I don't think this list of changes is going to be final just yet.
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raiding, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
crsh Jan 14th 2011 9:13AM
I fear they're not addressing the bulk of healing-related suggestions and complaints; heals don't scale like they should. Perhaps they need to clarify the "healing power" stat itself, but there's little difference in potency whether you have 5k or 6.5k healing "power", our regen just gets better with better gear (as it should) - they're also out of sync with the size of health pools.
Before I need to put on a flame suit, I'm NOT asking to go back to Wrath-style healing or to have big heals take a target from 15 to 100% in 2 seconds, but sometimes needs to be adjusted somewhere in between.
Dixinormous Jan 14th 2011 9:44AM
I think you may have a point, but its worth remembering that we are still in the first tier of content and you dont know how much stat inflation will be between tiers.
I also think maybe your putting too much emphasis on spell power as a stat. We have Mastery now which in most cases provides buffs to our healing niches' in ways that spell power never could, for example I as a resto Shaman will see my spells scale justly as the targets health get lower, more spell power just increases the healing done on a target that is always at full health.
Having said that, I am no expert on the topic so I may be missing something.
Interesting though.
Meatwadz Jan 14th 2011 9:24AM
Disappointed that you didn't really touch on the MANY aoe-centric resto druid changes and how those will affect raid healing.
Lissanna Jan 14th 2011 9:44AM
He hit on the Wild Growth resto druid change.
Saeadame Jan 14th 2011 12:18PM
Rejuvenation is an important change, too, however. Yes, it's not an "AoE" spell in the traditional sense, but it has always been part of resto's mukti-target healing toolkit. I think the change is great, because Rej doesn't actually heal for very much, so I've hardly been using it because it takes like 5% of my mana away, which I could better use on the extremely cheap nourish or a Reg Clearcasting proc. I've started trying to work it in, because I know these changes are coming and I don't want to find myself "forgetting" to use it in the new patch. But, it's only possible because my regen is much better now - druids who are just geared enough for heroics probably can't afford to use it almost at all.
The change for the Nourish/Rej relationship is kind of "eh", but it'll bring Nourish down to being a fairly quick spamable heal when there's a lot of damage going out (it's healing is seriously weak, but we'll see how much having two HoTs on the target affects it).
Luke Jan 14th 2011 9:27AM
I think resto shaman greater healing wave is getting a nerf in cost, but a buff in potency - not a nerf to both.
From patch notes:
"Greater Healing Wave mana cost has been increased by 10%; healing done has been increased by 20%"
Joe Perez Jan 14th 2011 10:29AM
Overall it's a buff. The increased cost really isn't that bad 10% is really a minor increase, but the 20% increase in potency is a HUGE bonus for the spell. It will really help separate it from the other heals and help define it's role. Who knows, resto shaman might actually use it now!
Jackwraith Jan 14th 2011 11:23AM
@ Joe:
I don't have a problem with GHW so much except in so far as the cost/benefit comparison with Surge was a little ludicrous (e.g. if they heal for basically the same and cost basically the same, why spend 3 secs when 1.5 secs is better?) My complaint is really about Healing Wave. It really has almost no practical application in heroics right now and it's supposed to be the "base" heal for shamans. I spend virtually all my time tossing Riptide and UE and then following with GHW or Chain. Casting HW has so little effect that I only occasionally do it hoping for a crit and, of course, almost never being satisfied.
murmaiderxx Jan 14th 2011 12:35PM
I thought that was to chain heal not greater healing wave? They need to look into some more effectiveness of those spells. My attributes are not low by any means, but the spells I do not think are effective enough for me to be anything but a raid healer at this point.
Joe Perez Jan 14th 2011 12:37PM
@Jackwraith
Oh I get you there. HW is more of the "damage is pretty mild right now, going to keep things stable" heal while you get situated and wait for the big damage to start up, but you hit the nail on the head with HS and GHW. GHW was supposed to be the big emergency tank heal, but hitting for the same amount(ish) as HS was just... sad really. it basically made the spell almost useless in most cases, there wasn't really a choice. I really think that this change will at the very least make it a separate choice from HS.
Joe Perez Jan 14th 2011 12:44PM
@murmaiderxx Chain Heal is getting a 10 % boost in 4.0.6 as it stands right now.
Matticus Jan 14th 2011 12:52PM
Fixed.
Like a G6.
Also, you have permission to call me Baddicus.
Columhcille Jan 14th 2011 1:18PM
compared with Health pools, i agree that Healing Wave does little to satisfy healing needs.. but the only other currently effective single target direct heal is Surge and you use three or four of those and you're down to 50% mana. If tanks in raids get in a tight spot and at too-low hp adn i have to quick heal them back up with a hand full of Healing Surge's as a shaman, I'm SOL for most of the rest of the fight because now I'm OOM practially, right? : / I spend half raid fights biding my time, not doing much other than soem minor healing waves and RTs just letting others do the job on single target until we need raid heals. I'd freak out if my raid told me to focus tank heals for a night... we have no mana vs output single target effective healing. Sure RT and ES are great, but HW won't keep a tank up and the only other two spells we have for single target are too high cost.. the fights too long.
Maybe it's just gear... ??
I keep toying back and forth with spirit vs int and some mixture of haste food/flasks/trinkets to see which helps out most for output based on boss strat requirements.... we'll see... ><
pittMAN Jan 14th 2011 9:36AM
"Restoration shaman have had their Greater Healing Wave nerfed both in cost and in potency."
Cost is up 10% (nerf) but potency is up 20% (buff). Correct? I believe those were the numbers from the last patch notes I read. They're buffing the output (and increasing the cost) of Greater Healing Wave to differ it more from Healing Surge. It's currently a bit of a wash so folks tend to go with the faster spell.
Arbolamante Jan 14th 2011 9:43AM
For druids, a couple of interesting changes:
*Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost has been reduced from 26% to 16%.
*Nature's Bounty no longer affects Swiftmend, but now has a new effect. When the druid has Rejuvenation on 3 or more targets, the cast time of Nourish is reduced by 10/20/30%.
Ok, I was never a 5Rj/1WG healer, but the absurd mana cost of Rejuv in Cata has been, well, absurd. Combined with all the Lifebloom changes, the interaction of various talents and tier bonuses, it has really seemed the devs were pushing Resto druids towards being tank healers. This will give us some of our raid utility back, and make 5-mans a little easier.
Oh and this: *Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
Blizz, seriously, we get it. You don't like tree form. Really, we do. Message received. I promise to only use it for Machinima and really special occasions. OK? So no more nerfing?
Lloren Jan 14th 2011 10:23AM
The further massacre of ToL is all about PvP I suspect. It really has few uses in raid healing that I've seen. It's kind of a helpful Oh Sh*t button for when the whole raid takes a lot of damage and can be a mana regen tool of sorts if you just spam everyone with lifebloom and use your clearcasting procs, but overall the only place that I can see Blizz feeling any need to nerf a relatively useless ability is in PvP. It gives us a lot more survivability, lets us do a decent amount of dps, and, until we go oom, makes us pump out some serious heals. Though I've also noticed that, especially in BGs or Tol Barad, if you don't have glyph of the treant, popping ToL is like screaming "KILL THE HEALER... ITS THE ENORMOUS MOSSY BOULDER WAVING ITS HANDS IN THE AIR... CAN'T MISS IT!"
Saeadame Jan 14th 2011 12:29PM
Yep, ToL has been pretty useless lately. I think there are only very specific bosses and phases of those bosses where I usually pop it - for heroics it's the last phase of the first boss in SFK, or the last phase of the last boss in Throne of the Tides.
I'm sure all the ToL lovers will hate me, but I would really prefer they make ToL into a "pet" kind of like the paladin thing for Holy. Or just change it in SOME way. Something that comes out and casts the same spells as you for a short time. Granted, the multi LB is nice, but now that we're not going to be able to maintain it on multiple targets after ToL ends, I really don't need that anymore. It could even be a pet that has X amount of mana, and spam casts Regrowth on all targets in range, or something ridiculous. I don't care, but current ToL is kind of eh. Then again, old ToL was kind of eh too... 'cause it didn't really DO anything except make your heals useless in caster form and make you unable to do anything offensively.
Saeadame Jan 14th 2011 12:33PM
Addition: I think the only other change I would rather see to ToL is have it actually do something for our mana - either restore some, or reduce the mana cost of our spells while it's active or SOMETHING that gives it a niche in "things to use when I'm running out of mana" rather than "things to use almost never".
Arbolamante Jan 14th 2011 12:46PM
Give Trees AOE Innervate. Do that and they can nerf the rest of it all the way to Sunday (which come to think of, it they pretty much already have. At least to Saturday afternoon.)
matt Jan 14th 2011 1:58PM
ToL is kinda dumb for pve, Its probably the best you can do with that 1 talent point so you might as well take it. If you wanted to protest and leave it out of your build, it would not really hurt. the 15% through put buff is rarely needed except for the heroic encounters listed above. I am kinda worried about all of the buffs resto is getting in this patch, tbh I fell a little overpowered right now.
Haiku for ToL:
You cannot nerf spells
Which I hardly ever use
so go and buff soothe