Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsRaid 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 3 of 3)
Discipline Feb 6th 2011 1:29AM
NickH Soory brah, but like PotI mostly overheals, and Honestly I can't Remember the last time I saw our Holy Pally's getting "up close and personal" in Raid encounters. That Spell is incredibly powerful even at a 30% Nerf. It's a totally passive ability that you dont even need to think about; dropping 7K heals on you every time you cast ANY heal... lol like wat!!?
Daisyfizzi Feb 8th 2011 4:36PM
My last heroic run (no raiding until Thursday) had my Protector of the innocent as 65% of my overhealing ( Bacon was 2nd with 15% ) , I can't see a 30% nerf mattering all that much to me tbh.
anderson.horn Jan 14th 2011 12:06PM
Priest changes are very welcome. PvP needed to have some sort of viable self protection mechanism, and the SoS change will help. Self bubbles and bigger bubbles will help.
When I roll Holy, I feel like I have too much regen again, now that I am geared in avg ilvl 339, but as disc, I feel like mana is really an issue when I have to AoE heal. I think the balancing they are doing will help.
As far as when heals are learned, on a lvl vs lvl basis? I really believe that priests are the only 2 heal spec class, so they are going to see double the amount of fun healing stuff on the way up...but only when they spec into 1 or the other. As for the small/med/large heals, I do think there is a slight discrepancy between the healers in who gets what. I almost want to lvl another priest and pally healer just to see how it's different....worgen/goblin, here I come.
Moo Jan 14th 2011 12:50PM
For you Holy Pallies out there like me, there are two pretty significant buffs that are not touched on in the post.
"Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%."
Old news for some folks, I think this has been in the last couple of PTR builds, but with respect to mana regen, this is welcome. 2% more mana per Divine Plea is nice, but the kicker here is reducing the time of the spell (and therefore the healing debuff) by a full 6 seconds. This allows is to use Divine Plea in more situations, where damage lulls are shorter, or reduces risk for those of us already using it on CD. It granting 4% per tick also means that we're getting more bang for our buck if we have to cancel the spell early for some reason.
The second buff is related:
"Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds."
Obviously this is just a 1% increase over the current glyph, so it's a minor buff, but I was concerned that Blizz would change the glyph to add mana, but revert back to a 15 second spell up-time (so taking the glyph would be a bit of a trade off). Instead they went with a straight buff. So glyphed Holy Pallies will now (Thrall willing) be returning 18% of total mana over 9 seconds, vs. currently returning 15% of total mana over 15 seconds. When we are talking about enormous mana pools, 3% is nice. But the key here is the reduction in spell time.
Good change for those of us paranoid about regen.
swcdrumman Feb 8th 2011 11:24AM
yea but did you see that they increased the mana needed for holy light, divine light and flash of light by 10 percent. So that buff to divine plea doesnt seem so great to me any more.
Bith Jan 14th 2011 1:37PM
I was under the impression that the new Mana Tide Totem ADDED to you spirit instead of "modifying" it.
What I mean is:
2000 spirit x 3.5 = 7,000 spirit would be the old form
(2,000 spirit x 4 = 8,000 spirit for everyone.
Having noted that this is a buff in general, does it simply changed the spirit to everyone affected to 8,000 spirit?
A note: even without 2,000 spirit, our rest shaman that had 1,8xx spirit (more crit due to water shield) still gives us all more spirit in 4.0.6 than in live where the rest of us seem to have a lot more spirit.
wow Jan 14th 2011 3:52PM
look on the bright side mat, you'll never get to the end of a raid night, realize the resto shaman is in group 4, and kick yourself for all those OOM healer wipes.
obarthelemy Jan 14th 2011 6:14PM
I've played a healing priest as my main toon since Molten Core, and I'm having my hardest time ever right now:
- there's new spells and a new theoretical gameplay to learn and master
- there's new fights to learn
- there's an unprecedented amount of damage on the raid, especially with DPSers that still haven't gotten that minimizing incoming damage in now one of their duties
- I'm taking more damage than ever, and must move more than ever (which is hard as a healer in general since we're not looking at our own toon all the time, and as a priest specifically, since priest suck at healing on the move)
When I compare that game experience to my DPS toons (hunt, warlock , rogue) or even my healing druid, it's significantly harder, even stressful to the point of being no fun.
Trying to think of things to make it better for me:
- Make Chakra a permanent aura that I just set once and for all, and that doesn't drop at the worst time, and take 2-3 GCDs to re-set.
- Gimme a bit more mobile healing, maybe by changing Inner Focus to a "mobile healing" cooldown. 15s every 2 mins ?
- Make healers in general take less damage than DPSers. Hunters' pets take only 10% of AOE damage because it's sooooo hard to manage ONE pet... Why are healers expected to handle 10/25 raiders, and be as aware of what's going on as DPSers ?
Wist Jan 14th 2011 11:53PM
Considering that Spirit is a viable stat that is utterly necessary for healers and the current focus of this particular modification by the developers, I am still clueless as to why my favored "Divine Spirit" and "Prayer of Spirit" has been removed from the game.
With the improvement of drops in 10-man raids to match 24-mans, the chances of having a shaman available solely to drop this totem becomes slimmer. Why not allow another class to also buff to Spirit? Have we been given a good answer to this? I miss my buff!
obarthelemy Jan 15th 2011 1:53PM
"take the class, not the player" ? Oh, wait ...
Stargazer Jan 15th 2011 4:48PM
Another option is to reduce the cooldown on Hymn of Hope and Tranquility. Give us access to our "oh, crap" spells more often.
Druids could have ToL act like the shadowfiend, restoring mana when active and both would be on shorter cooldowns.
It seems we have huge increases in damage to heal, an increased agro table, underpowered healing spells, and dps/tanks who still play like it's the old days.
I am hopeful things will ease up as we get better gear (current valor point gear will be bought for justice points in the patch?). I envision the day when I have a 150k mana pool, heals that are 50% stronger, and dps and tanks that actually learn to play their class (two out of three won't be bad).
Discipline Feb 6th 2011 1:30AM
4.0.6 Can't come quick enough for Discipline Priests... It's been a bit of an unfun/unfair roll so far in Cata. Priests in General have had MAJOR issues that even now baffles me that all of these issues got to live. No other class has had so many critical errors in balancing the intended gameplay. I can list them for the players who have no clue. I just wanted to vent... and it will be good to see discipline, specifically rise to power again as a powerful healing/prevention spec. I also want to say to those Pally healers that QQ a bit, I am equally confused as to your "concerns" with healing thus far... you've had a bit of an OP status (healing) all of Cata so far, and it always bugs me when players are not objective about their classes. That they are TOTALLY BLIND, and or deflect/dismiss clear imbalances, or oddities that should be addressed in the class/spec that they play every raid. To ensure I don't sound hypercritical I'll offer these 2 examples about priests that need to change, and they are (and I called this before 4.0.6 notes were posted)
#1 Holy Concentration felt WAY to Powerful, esp. comparing it to the more complex Discipline Regen ability (Rapture)
#2 Prayer of Healing being reduced 15%, Honestly I almost think it should be reduced more, Since Cata launched a priest can spam that in raids and top the meters (just the expression, not always true) That's not Triage healing!! and now with the Devine aegis Buff to PoH I think Disc priests will find it mathematically beneficial to continue to spam PoH, I dont work at Blizzard and I can tell you thats not going to be be "Working as intended".