Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast.

We are one week away from BlizzCon! I cannot wait! While most of the healing changes have already been outlined for 4.3, I'm sure there are a few things that you wish would be different. I have a list compiled myself of things that would be interesting to have or revert back to. However, you and I both know these are things that will never happen. But who cares? It's fun to think about the possibilities, at least. I'm sure there'll be other exciting announcements next week. Maybe we'll see some new healing reveals that Blizzard's planning for the next expansion.

Ever wish there was a way to play the game a little differently? Maybe some new features or things that can alter up healing a little bit? Here's what's on my list of things that I know better than to ask for but I still fantasize about every so often. Fat chance we'll ever see any of these any time soon.

Reverting to Wrath of the Lich King-style healing Healing in the last expansion was a little easier. There were two general player states: alive and dead. Right now in this expansion, there are more opportunities for health to be in between the two. Healing is a little more intense now, especially for pickup raids and newer players. Wrath was great in the sense that it helped introduce players to healing and made it accessible. No instance did a better job demonstrating this than the Trial of the Crusader instances. Icecrown Citadel helped with that to an extent, but that didn't happen until after the nerfs.

A new healing class Topping the list of things we're not likely to see for a long time is the idea of an entirely new healing class. Personally, I'd love to see a monk of some sort, maybe one who is blind. Their DPS spec would purely be melee, though -- perhaps an energy-based healer or one involving the use of an alternative resource system would be in order. That's not likely to happen, though. A new class hasn't been added since the death knight. We're currently limited by the number of character slots we have on servers as is. Even if you had one character of each class, you'd still wouldn't have enough for the 11th character. Besides, maybe four healing classes is all we need. Still, I wouldn't mind a new healer that didn't have a dependency on mana. The balancing issues on that would be horrendous.

Complete healing balance Smart healing would become even smarter. Your heals would automatically balance and adjust themselves relative to that of the other healing classes. If you were healing more then the other players in your raid, your next spells would decrease in potency. If you were underhealing, your heals would strengthen. This means that at the end of the encounter, everyone's healing done and HPS should be about equal. It'd be a straight line from top to bottom with no stairs. This means no more arguments about who's the better healer, because now we're all equal! No more having to link absorb meters as a discipline priest. No more discussions about how you were lower because you were too busy tank healing!

Even more cooldowns Every healer clearly needs an additional raid and tank cooldown (or two). Then we could really cut down on the amount of healers necessary to bring to raids. This'd make it easier in terms of constructing raid comps, too. No more late-night runs you have to cancel because there aren't enough healers around to make the run happen. Seven DPSers, two tanks and only one healer? Works for me! Now it would mean we can really superman heal any raid instance (or at least try to).

Another elemental totem for shaman I'm actually hoping we'll see something like this in a subsequent expansion. I know that our mage friends have a water elemental already. Maybe an air elemental would be another option. I'm not sure what neat effects or abilities it would have, but I've always wanted another one.

Gutting holy power from paladins I liked the older model of paladins when the new holy power mechanic wasn't introduced yet. I only liked it because it was simpler for me to play the class. All I had to do was hit Flash of Light or Holy Light. If the holy power mechanic got removed, I could go back to watching games on TV and using two buttons for healing.

Permanent tree form for druids After all, balance druids get to stay in big bird form. Why shouldn't tree druids get their own form in combat permanently? Besides, druids in tree form are extremely easy to spot in raids. I know if I'm on a different character and I need to hustle somewhere for a healer, I'd look for the character that didn't look like a character. I'd just need to pray that they saw me and my health.

Holy form for priests Yeeeeeaah, that's way too much to ask for. Just like how there are shadow priests with their own form, how about even more potent healing priests? I wouldn't mind gliding around in an angel form.

All right, I suppose that's enough of a list of things we know that would never happen. Still, it isn't a bad way to fantasize ways our raids could be different or how the healing game could change again. I'm pretty satisfied with the overall healing system as it stands right now. Another week to go to see if healing revamps (at least, if there are any) are slated for the future!

---

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.

---

Tags: blizcon, featured, guide, healing, healing-guide, how-to-heal, raid-guide, raid-healing, raiding-guide, wish-list, wow-guide, wow-healing, wow-raid-guide, wow-raid-healing

Filed under: Raid Rx (Raid Healing)