Raid Rx: Mists of Pandaria healing changes
by Matt Low 
Mar 26th 2012 at 1:00PM
You'll notice that there are a ton of new glyphs that have been added for all the classes. That list is by no means exhaustive. I also noticed some slight changes in the way certain spells work. I can assure you it won't be anything too drastic, but these changes are enough to keep you interested and wondering. This week, I'll be rounding up what we know healers will be getting, as well as any other notable modifications.
New for druids
Cenarion Ward appears to be a Prayer of Mending-like spell without the subsequent charges. Good spell to open with before an engagement. Won't have to pre-HoT as much. Just remember to pre-Ward.
Wild Mushroom: Bloom! Hope you love 'shrooms, since you'll be gaining the use of these in addition to your Balance friends. Anticipate a moment where big AoE healing is needed, and plant 'shrooms. Detonate after raid group takes a hit, and relish in the healing spores that explode.
Regrowth can be glyphed to remove the HoT component. Benefit? 40% increased chance of a critical heal. I guess you can configure a HoT-based class to switch to a non-HoT direction.
New for paladins
Improved Judgment
Paladins received a plethora of new glyphs.
Glyph of Flash of Light increases the next heal done on that target by 30%. Does this mean the return of Flash of Light-spamming paladins? I'm not sure if that benefit is going to stack. Sounds to me like the best way to capitalize would be to alternate between Flash of Light and Divine Light.
The Glyph of Beacon of Light has the global cooldown removed off of the spell. This feels like a PvP change, and I'd also like to say it has an effect on any PvE activities. Hard for me to say, though. I struggle hard as it is right now on my paladin juggling the thing.
Divine Plea can be changed with the glyph to have a cast time with the benefit of no healing reduction while the spell is active and you receive 12% mana instantly. Sounds good to me!
Priest additions and changes
Some interesting additions and changes to priest glyphs have kicked in on the beta.
Glyph of Prayer of Mending retains the additional 60% front-loaded heal on the first charge, but it loses a charge at the end (leaving you a total of four charges). My initial thoughts are the glyph will be used where there isn't as much AoE damage action going on. Prayer of Mending still ends up fairly efficient, either way. Having the glyph equipped means that you'll want to make sure the spell gets used often on the tanks. Unglyph it if you're expecting damage auras or large AoE attacks (or anything where you can get that spell bouncing around).
The updated Power Word: Shield glyph has been nerfed slightly. Instead of applying an additional 20% heal to the initial absorb amount, 20% of the absorb amount gets turned into a heal.
Spectral Guise (level 87 ability) What is this, like a decoy or something? Let's fool our opponents in PvP? Having some difficulty coming up with PvE applications. For PvP, it seems like a fun little ability, though.
Lightwell now has 15 charges (up from 10). The new glyph adds an additional two charges to it, making the glyph not as important as it would be for present Lightwell users.
Discipline AoE healing changes have been reverted. In case you missed out, Kaivax wrote a post not too long ago that Prayer of Healing is now available to both healing specs. Holy Nova as an effective AoE healing tool ran into several issues. Blizzard's been saying this for a while, but I want to bold it, and I want you priests to heavily emphasize this the next time your leaders question you about your spec and abilities: Both Holy and Discipline should be effective at group healing or single-target healing.
That's Blizzard's goal. My dream is that one day we'll be recognized and not dismissed into a single spec or told that one spec is superior for one aspect of the game compared to the other.
Monk abilities
Here's a list of some of the new Monk abilities for the healing spec. Of course, the monk is still a class in infancy. Mistweaver (the healing spec) will be using mana; disregard anything you hear about it being an energy-based healer. Healers with energy as a resource are going to be extremely difficult to balance against their mana-using counterparts. The chi system has been altered to favor Light Chi (Dark Chi has been removed).
Transcendence is the monk level 87 ability that allows players to split themselves. Activating it means they leave a "spiritual" copy of themselves behind at their current location. You can move your body to some other location and then activate it to warp back to where your spirit copy was. Not sure if you can repeatedly activate it to switch between your spirit location and your body location. The 3-minute cooldown means that it can only be used a few times during an encounter, though.
New for shaman
Ascendance is your level 87 ability. Going into Ascendance form duplicates and distributes your healing done to friendly players near you. Pretty cool!
Lots of new shaman glyphs, but here are several that really jumped out at me.
You can increase the range on Chain Heal if you grab the Glyph of Chain Heal. The catch is that the healing done by the spell won't be as potent as the unglyphed counterpart. These are the trade-offs you have to contend with, and I suspect that you'll want to use this glyph on encounters where players are doing some serious spreading out.
Glyph of Earth Shield has changed. It now requires a little additional maintainence. The new glyph won't have any charges lost but the duration now lasts 45 seconds. Remember to refresh it!
Shaman will now gain a HoT spell (well, sort of). Glyph of Riptide removes the initial heal, but it also removes the cooldown. You guys can now Riptide all the players as much as you like. Don't expect to play it like your druid counterparts, though.
The Glyph of Water Shield has been modified so that the passive regeneration increases by 10%, but the shield doesn't activate if you take damage. I surmise that if you're really good at dodging stuff, you'll want to grab the glyph. If you plan on taking unavoidable damage, then maybe the mana return on shield activations are better.
Trade skill updates
In addition, I've got a pretty good idea of what your main-hand enchant is going to be. It's called Jade Spirit. The enchant acts as the Mists version of Power Torrent but has the ability to trigger a spirit increase if your mana falls below 25%.
For additional coverage of the new expansion, remember to visit our Mists of Pandaria page with new information and topics as we get it!
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: Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Mists of Pandaria, Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Monk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Apple Mar 26th 2012 1:16PM
[anal-retentive]
The original resource system for non-healing Monks didn't have Dark and Light Chi. It had Chi, Dark Force, and Light Force.
[/anal-retentive]
What's going to be really interesting to me is how they manage resource costs for the Mana/Chi swapping. Will the class act as a true hybrid, with healing spells costing Chi in the tank and dps stances (vice versa, et cetera)? Or will there be a stance dance (remember how fun that was)?
I hope rather fervently that it's the former; anyone in the beta that can fill me in?
jamie9966 Mar 26th 2012 2:36PM
It's not Chi that turns into mana, it's the energy bar.
But this question still holds, and I'd also be interested to know the answer.
Boobah Mar 26th 2012 2:41PM
As I understand it (not in the beta) you gain mana when you enter the healing spec, not the stance. And while that means that a dps or tank monk can heal forever, that doesn't mean much more than the fact that a dps paladin can do the same; in either case you quickly burn all your stored resource and then spend the rest of the fight auto-attacking while waiting for your resource bar to fill enough to throw another heal.
Pyromelter Mar 26th 2012 1:19PM
The new Wild Mushroom spells (bloom and plague for DK's) look absolutely fantastic and fun as hell. Credit where it's due, Blizz really nailed down the fun factor on that spell.
Lightwell, on the other hand, is the opposite of fun, and why blizz hasn't changed Lightwell into the Fountain of Light from the toc 5-mans is beyond my comprehension.
Riptide glyph... now I never really heal on my shaman, but I've played with many shaman healers. Riptide + chain heal is a massive burst healing cooldown. I would think that it would be really difficult to ask a shaman to give up the initial heal on riptide.
Epidemiix Mar 26th 2012 1:28PM
If I remember right I believe they changed riptide to not be consumed with chain heal as baseline. What i think the glyph is for is if soem shamans want to be a priests and have a renew. :D
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Mar 26th 2012 1:39PM
Agree 1000% on Lightwell.
Krishaa-ah-an Mar 26th 2012 2:13PM
WTB Lightwell: Detonate :(
Boobah Mar 26th 2012 2:47PM
The Riptide glyph also allows you to maintain the Tidal Waves buff without throwing Chain Heals.
As a side note; the Water Shield glyph is nice because it allows you to hit the Water Shield button once every ten minutes and then forget about it; if you're getting hit regularly AND are regularly burning GCDs to keep it active THEN using the glyph is a mana hit. Otherwise, it's a net gain (especially if you frequently fail to notice that you've burned all three charges), and it will always free GCDs for actual heals which can be a mana saver in its own right.
Matthew Mar 26th 2012 2:53PM
Yes, you are right! As a shaman, esp a PvP shaman this is my only instant heal. I'm not parting with it! (unleash elementals doesn't count)
-Me
brihelwigspam Mar 26th 2012 3:44PM
Regarding Lightwell, and while it might be clunky for custom UI and special fights, what is it used the special action button or perhaps something akin to the Symbosis spell that a player in range of the well can use to active. It's an idea but not blizzards bag, it's clunky, requires to much work but would have a nice payout, and Monks perhaps could have a statue that does the same. The reason I find it interesting is that it reinforces focusing dps on their health as some monk and aoe spells do now without requiring to many hoops for the player to jump through. And anything that helps shift more responsibility onto the majority of the raid is a plus in my book.
Happy about Bloom.
Matt are you active castle age? It's prob a mirror image steal but curious.
Matthew Mar 26th 2012 6:05PM
@brihel: nope, not a castle age person. Don't know what that is. I found this avatar somewhere online. It reflects my personalitay quite well.
Geiss Mar 26th 2012 1:19PM
Spectral Guise - have to imagine it would function as dispersion for holy/disc, or maybe a priest's ice block (?) but havent gotten my annual pass beta invite yet. Sounds as if it is a nice way to dodge a few pulses of an AOE ability? Just some PVE thoughts.
andysters Mar 26th 2012 1:25PM
I feel like sure holy and disc both can do either role but I don't really want to tank heal holy. I just keep a disc and a holy set and spec and do other shit on an alt.
Sure, you can do it but it feels like trying to drive a screw with a hammer. It's leaving so much optimization left on the table.
Erebos Mar 26th 2012 1:58PM
Exactly. I'm kind of sick of hearing that all the healers can do everything and it's all rainbows and unicorns, because it's not. I've tank healed as holy (as recently as two weeks ago), and if you have a good tank, it's not bad, but it's something I don't want to have to do it if I can avoid it. And disc raid healing is nothing but PoM + PoH, which isn't much fun.
Absorption is just so effective on a tank that paladins and discipline priests will always be more useful.
Shrikesnest Mar 26th 2012 6:42PM
Agreed on Disc raid healing being sort of weak, but Holy tank healing is actually really good when you get used to it. It's just that almost everyone who tries to tank heal as Holy is used to tank healing as Disc, and it takes quite awhile to change ingrained healing habits, especially with the same class. You have to heal in a totally different mindset to optimize Holy tank healing, and most dyed-in-the-wool Disc healers understandably aren't comfortable with a different healing paradigm, especially in Heroic raiding guilds where there really isn't a lot of margin for dicking around with a spec you're not used to.
Reservoir Mar 26th 2012 1:30PM
I still wish they would add more healing specs. And some kind of PvE rating like we have now for PvP. That would help immensely in creating better groups.
bigalthebear Mar 26th 2012 2:18PM
Correct me if I am wrong.
But does the beacon of Light glyphe allow you to write a macro along the lines of
#showtooltip Flash of Light
/cast Beacon of Light
/cast Flash of light
If the above works you can switch your beacon to who ever your healing at the time for some extra healing goodness.
Boobah Mar 26th 2012 2:59PM
Yeah, it should work. But the question is, is the Holy Power you generate from Flashing your Beacon worth giving up the Beacon heal? Beacon doesn't copy healing directed to the Beacon target.
Alysandir Mar 27th 2012 12:01AM
Also, do not forget the cost of the Beacon itself. I'm not sure one holy power is worth the cost of Beacon plus losing the echoed heal. Even on a fight like Baleroc, where you might acquire stacks more quickly by blowing a one-power WoG each time instead of healing for effect, I'd think the GCD on WoG would still make that strategy prohibitive.
tabby90 Mar 30th 2012 4:55PM
Glyphed a beacon costs no mana