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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsRaid Rx: What druid and shaman cooldowns would you like to see?
by Matt Low 
Feb 18th 2011 at 2:00PM
No beating around the bush today. There were some upcoming healer changes that were announced earlier in the week. I can tell you as of right now, I'm worried about the Power Word: Shield change -- not because I think discipline priests will remain overpowered, but because holy might go the route. I'll explain that later on in the post.
The main focus of today's post is defensive cooldowns for shaman and druids. I'm sure a number of players don't believe there's a need for the two classes to get defensive cooldowns, but in order to compete for utility, I think druids and shaman would benefit greatly from having those spells available. The argument here is that since the four healers are approximately the same across the board (from a throughput perspective), the edge might be given to paladins and priests because of the additional cooldowns they have to offer. Shaman and druids might end up being even more attractive in 10-player raids.
The case for cooldowns
When I'm referring to healing cooldowns, I don't mean spells like Innervate or Mana Tide totem. Those are great utility spells. Instead, I'm referring to defensive cooldowns that can be used to keep tanks or other players alive. There are three main mechanics that come to mind:
- damage absorption
- damage reduction (Pain Suppression)
- healing increase (Guardian Spirit)
NethaeraWe agree with the sentiment among some players that Restoration druids and Restoration shaman are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and Power Word: Shield adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn't the kind of thing we can address via a hotix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch.
I know as a raid leader that my decision to bring one healer over another in the past has been dictated by the additional utility that some classes have to offer. By offering utility capabilities to shamans and druids, the decision would be that much more interesting. Would that mean additional homogenization? Yes and no -- yes in the sense that this would mean all classes have the capability to assist the tank through really hard phases, but no because they can save players through other means than damage absorption, damage reduction, or increased healing.
But yeah, it is high time for druids and shamans to get something else. Each healing class should have the tools to accomplish certain objectives, like AoE healing, tank healing, fast healing, and so forth. Player saving shouldn't be any different. I hope that new designs wouldn't resort to being Pain Suppression clones, but I wouldn't be entirely opposed to it even as a temporary measure.
This is where we can innovate and think of some other ways to accomplish this goal that's in line with individual class philosophy.
Ideas for druids
Let's use Barkskin as an example. Barkskin cuts down incoming damage by 20% to the druid. It has a 1-minute cooldown and can be used in all forms. That is one spell I wouldn't mind seeing castable on others. I know I'm not the only one who feels the same. But the 1-minute cooldown timer and the fact that the spell is usable in any form means it becomes a touch overpowered.
How about modifying the Barkskin glyph? Increase the cooldown timer to 3 minutes. Increase the damage reduction to 40%. Make it usable only in humanoid form, and allow it to be used on other targets. Clearly, that needs some further balance modifications. I confess, I'm not as well versed with restoration talents, but glyphs are another avenue to explore. A major glyph slot, perhaps?
Actually, it might just be easier to add another spell or talent specifically in the talent tree instead. Another spell might be the more simple solution instead of modifying another spell.
Ideas for shaman
When asked about the a cooldown wish, all that WoW Insider resto shaman specialist Joe Perez had to say was:
Joe's got some interesting ideas for cool resto shaman cooldowns. One idea he suggested that I liked is Aegis of the Tempest. Essentially, it increases the dodge rate and reduces incoming damage. I had the wacky idea of a water elemental totem. What would said elemental do? I have no idea. Perhaps the elemental could absorb a percentage of incoming damage within a certain radius before it dissolves or something.Make Riptide a baseline spell or a resto specialization. Replace the talent slot with the new defensive cooldown.
A note about priests
For priests, the Power Word: Shield cost reduction benefits from the Body and Soul talent absolutely terrify me. Once holy priests go down that tree, they can still invest points in the following talents:
I think Power Word: Shield is too powerful for holy. Cheaper shields from Body and Soul and Mental Agility? Stronger shields from Improved Power Word Shield? I just have a bad feeling about that.
But hey, hopefully I'm really wrong about that.
I can't wait for 4.1.0. No idea when that will come out, but it's another patch to look forward to for healers. With luck, we'll get a sneak preview of what they have in store. A variety of different solutions are available. Talents, spells or glyphs can be used to make adjustments.
What ideas would you suggest for druids and shaman so that they have similar capabilities to priests and paladins?
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, Priest, Shaman, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
Powatodapeople Feb 18th 2011 2:41PM
I dont think you understand what kind of cooldowns he is talking about.
Bres is arguable, but I don't see shaman popping a totem that will increase healing on a target when they need it
On another note, I hope they are still considering the soul link ability for shaman. that can be used as a defensive cooldown
Kal Feb 18th 2011 2:43PM
That's much like saying that a druid tank doesn't need defensive cooldowns because they have battle res. Or that a moonkin doesn't need good AoE because they can go to cat and swipe.
The utility argument is great, but it sucks when you don't need that utility or you just can't do the job other people can because you've got so many other things going on (most of which are irrelevant). Yes, resto druids have battle res, resto shamans have mana tide. Holy paladins have lay on hands, and priests have brogrip. So what? The important part here is that some healers are better than others at actually doing the role they want to do, and the reason for that is a differential in cooldowns.
We saw the same thing with tanks last expansion: if tanks don't have parity in cooldowns then the tank with the best cooldown wins. We're seeing that more and more with healers - we saw it last expansion with stacking of holy paladins because of sac and aura mastery, and we're seeing it again.
That being said, please don't change barkskin to be castable on others. Having a personal defensive CD is really nice, but more importantly barkskin on a 1-minute CD is just ridiculously powerful when applied to any arbitrary tank. Don't do it. Give them a new ability.
matt Feb 18th 2011 2:43PM
Good raid encounters contain boss abilities that hit the tank hard enough that CDs will need to be used to save them. In the past only paladins and priests would be healing a tank, while shaman and druids dominated raid healing. now that the effort has been made to equalize all 4 classes in both roles, shaman and druids need a tank saving CD.
Your argument is basically the same as saying that pally and druid tanks don't need defensive CDs since they only off-tank. This isn't BC anymore dude, the kids ARE ON YOUR LAWN and they are staying there.
jealouspirate Feb 18th 2011 2:44PM
Clearly Blizzard disagrees with you.
Also, you don't need a Shaman for BL/Heroism anymore and totems have just about lost all the value they used to have.
johnny86 Feb 18th 2011 2:48PM
Mages also have Heroism (Timewarp/Bloodlust). In a 25-man raid, Resto shaman usually only need 1-2 totems, as other classes now bring identical or better buffs. Besides Mana Tide Totem, nothing else is Resto shaman specific.
A Druid's Battle Rez is not a defensive CD, and non-Resto Druids bring this to the raid as well. When a fight goes as planned, you shouldn't need to use it at all. This point is invalid as you could just bring boomkin or feral druids if you wanted a Battle Rez and stack Priest/Pally healers because of CDs.
The point of this post (and the blue post) is to point out that for guilds doing hard mode encounters, Priest and Pally healers are currently valued above Druid/Shaman healers. This isn't examining class differences, but healing differences between the classes.
For most hard mode raid encounters, stacking Priest/Pally healers makes the fights SIGNIFICANTLY easier. 10-man raids only make the difference between healer classes more profound.
Aedor Feb 18th 2011 2:16PM
How about a multi ripetide cd? Riptide hits 5 members of your raid with the lowest health. You could glyph it to make it hit an additional 2 or 3 for 25 mans.
Still Wingless Feb 18th 2011 2:31PM
You could nerf it a little, make the glyph hit an additional target (6 instead of 5), and call it Circle of Healing! :D
...oh wait. :
Lissanna Feb 18th 2011 4:52PM
That's not the type of cooldown Blizzard is talking about. that would effect the amount of healing shaman do, but the tank would still get PWNT by the boss' big strikes.
Heremod Feb 18th 2011 2:17PM
I wouldn't worry too much about holy - it's hard to see pw:shield ever being anything other than very situation, just because everything else holy priests have is so overpowered - buffed PoH, Great COH, strong cheap renews now . . . buffed PoM. And of course our holy word penance. :-).
All holy's other tools are OP enough that there's not a lot of room for a damage absorb if it only absorbs about as much as renew heals for for more mana.
I just don't know how disc can compete except as single-target healers (focused, reliable, incoming damage). But maybe that's just my opinion, I haven't tried discipline. Either bubble spam is good, or go holy, seems to be how I'd see raid healing as disc - how can disc *possibly* compete? It needs something like a 0.25 second reduction in the cast time of Heal :-p.
Boobah Feb 18th 2011 2:44PM
Yeah, the worries about Holy shield spam seem odd... especially since Holy already had access to all those talents, and at essentially the same mana cost; the Inner Will hotfix just negates the increased cost of hotfixed PW:Shield for Disc and Shadow.
Terrant Feb 18th 2011 4:48PM
Hmm, a way to get shields out to a group without it being one player spamming... I know! Blizz could imitate Lightwell with Shieldwell! :)
Tom Feb 18th 2011 2:23PM
They can always nerf Power Word Shield for holy again if it's OP. Holy doesn't have the Mastery benefit that Disc has for their shield, so there is wiggle room to get it right for the System Designers.
I don't think Shaman and Druids need damage mitigation cooldowns like Priests and Paladins have.
Tanks already have their own cooldowns, so have additional damage mitigation cooldowns on your healers is useful, but only adds more of what the tanks have, it isn't an entirely new opportunity. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to give them more cooldowns - but they could be in the Tranquility, Mana Tide (Healing Tide?) vein rather than needing to be a straight replacement for Pain Suppression or Guardian Shield.
By the way, Rebirth and to a lesser extent Reincarnation.
ahsanali Feb 18th 2011 2:19PM
I'm sad about the PW:S nerf to discipline. I guess it was overpowered for people who were super geared, but at my gear level (~348), it was a very useful tool but by no means spammable and by no means the only spell I was using. Nerfs to PW:S and PoH leave disc feeling decidedly unfun when there is a lot of raid damage going on. We just don't seem to have an effective tool to recover from a situation where the whole raid is hit at the same time.
I used to be able to put shields up while the other healer brought everyone back up. But now it looks like tank healing is the way to go for now. I will miss the flexibility.
For barkskin, I'd rather they added a new spell. We need barkskin to be self cast only so we have it usable for those oh-crap-cast-tranquility-NOW moments. Buffing dodge wouldn't be enough - magic damage would still get through.
For druids, a Pain Suppression clone wouldn't be too bad either though I'd like more druid flavor to it. Maybe some twist on living seed... a temporary 33% health buff and any damage taken in this time triggers a fast HOT that heals for 50% of the damage taken over 3 seconds. So you get the damage buffer and a boost to healing, but it isn't completely mindless.
Fubbalo Feb 18th 2011 2:19PM
For druids you could tie it into ToL maybe add a new effect for barkskin increasing the damage reduction and allowing it to be cast on another target this would alleviate the need to change the CD on barkskin because of the CD already on ToL
saspera Feb 18th 2011 2:19PM
Summon Water elemental totem
50% base mana
Summons a Water elemental to heal the entire raid/party for 2000 every second for 15 seconds. after it disperses the cooldown for MTT is reset (thats a big wish)
Earthern barrier
consumes the current charges of earth shield on the target to apply a damage reduction of 10% per stack (lasts 5 seconds, or less per charge)
Summon Air elemental
30% base mana
while the air elemental is functioning it reduces the damage taken by magical Aoe spells by 30%. Also increase haste by 25%
those are just my 3 cents and i think having riptide available to all shaman would be great IMo. all those are rough ideas
matt Feb 18th 2011 2:52PM
I would like to petition to change the name of earthen barrier to "rock pile":
your earth shield is transformed into a pile of rocks that reduce incoming dmg by 4.5% per stack of earth shield on the target. The rocks will persist for 8 seconds.
That would roughly copy pain suppression in terms of mitigation 9*4.5 is 40.5 and it should totally have a graphic of a pile of rocks in front of the tank.
Necromann Feb 18th 2011 2:22PM
I like disc as it stands now.
HÖBÖ Feb 18th 2011 2:27PM
My idea for a Druid cooldown would be something along the lines of a Lifebloom talent modification that would be worded something like If 3 stacks of lifebloom are currently applied to a target, that target in the case of death will have Lifebloom "Bloom" saving the target from their untimely death. 5 Minute CD
Saeadame Feb 18th 2011 2:47PM
That would be a rockin' Druid Guardian Spirit.
Steven Feb 18th 2011 2:25PM
"Cheaper shields from Body and Soul..." Where in the tooltip does it state that this talent in any way reduces the cost of anything? All it does is give a movement speed increase? What am I missing (or is the article missing)? Yes, holy priests have access to slightly better shields than they used to, but I think the point Blizz wanted to make was that PW: Shield is supposed to be used by priests of both types, albeit a less powerful tool as Holy spec (i.e. Disc mastery improves the shields whereas Holy doesn't).
Anywho, I would love to see Barkskin available to place on others; it would be great for a tank who has worked through a series of CD's but needs one more little boost.