Because Cataclysm is supposedly making everything different as far as the way we all play our roles, it makes sense that patch 4.01 would drastically change everything in hopes of preparing us for these inevitable changes. But either no one is getting the hint (cough dps cough) or we are being led to go one way, and read that Cataclysm will want us going the other way. There's a bit of confusion among my guildies and I as we explore the patch content within ICC.
"But if healer mana doesn't matter, our whole combat design collapses. Healers won't value cheap heals. Since mana won't constrain them, overhealing will be common, so they may start devaluing crit as well. DPS specs won't value talents that help them stay alive. And the only way to challenge raids will once again be to clobber tanks so hard that any missed heals will result in tank death. It doesn't have to be this way, and in fact it wasn't this way for much of the game."
Ok. So here's the problem with this blue post, as of 4.01 in WotLK.
"But if healer mana doesn't matter, our whole combat design collapses."
As far as druid heals are concern after 4.01, mana is not an issue. I also know that priests and shamans are not having issues as well. Pallies were, but it got hotfixed, and they are doing okay now. So. In essence, mana doesn't matter. Many people I know are bypassing mana talents for other talents because, why waste talents for mana you're never going to spend. Blizzard missed the ball with this one.
"Healers won't value cheap heals."
Blizzard decided it was important we start working with the new healing style. Unfortunately, ICC boss fights and the proposed Cataclysm boss fights rely on completely different strategies. And these so called cheap heals are long and ineffective. And because, mana is NOT an issue, who uses them? Yes, Regrowth spamming does hurt you in the end, but Nourish is far more ineffective and a long cast time. For the types of heals we are expected to pull out in ICC (intense, reflexive heals), we don't have time to sit on our butts and wait for 2.5 second (with talents and 1k haste, its still almost 2 seconds).
For shamans, Healing Surge is said to be a quick, but costly heal. This is very true. It is about as expensive, although slightly cheaper, then Greater Healing Wave. It's also about half the speed to cast. Shamans can now bypass using GHW in favor of Healing Surge.
"Since mana won't constrain them, overhealing will be common, so they may start devaluing crit as well."
This is untrue. In most guides, people do place value in crit. I'll be honest though. Relying on crit is a mistake, especially for a healer. A chance to hope for a 10k heal instead of a 5k is just plain stupid. I don't understand why they think we value or devalue crit neways. It's a risky it's completely based on chance. As a healer, I have never ever placed a huge amount of value on Crit.
With their changes to intellect now giving spellpower and spell crit, i think players are forced to get some crit rating anyways. Thanks to all my intellect, I am sitting on 30% crit rating. I am not going to drop some intellect because I want to get rid of crit. So in essence, Blizzard is making me value crit anyways.
Overhealing happens because healers are in a race to top everyone off. I can hot people up, but a shaman will top them off before my hots have a chance. This has nothing to do with mana constraint.
" DPS specs won't value talents that help them stay alive."
Blizzard wants DPS to also watch their threat more. Unfortunately, Blizzard does not understand their players very well. Most dps who can pull numbers like that are going to be obsessed with doing those numbers (I want to say this isn't the case with everyone, but I've yet to meet a dps who isnt proud of their high numbers). They don't watch their threat now, and I truly don't believe they will watch it later. I've personally had DPS blame healers for their death. I've also had a lock tell me that because he pulled threat, nearly died, but survived, that it was okay that he pulled threat. This is just ridiculous. DPS don't value talents that keep them alive; they expect healers to save their asses, or say that tanks are bad because they can't hold their ridiculous threat.
I think the concept is good. DPS should have more responsibilities, and we've seen this happen with fights like Freya, where you don't just stand there and dps, or watch out for fire. But unfortunately, no one is really listening, and it's ruining the game for others.
Tanks are complaining because dps can't keep their fingers off their keyboard for a couple seconds. Healers are complaining because they are obligated to heal unnecessary damage. And while we could just all be dicks and let them die, when you're doing endgame hardmodes, every person counts. Including that 10k dps mage. So you have to keep them a live. I wish they saw value in us, the way we see value in them.
"And the only way to challenge raids will once again be to clobber tanks so hard that any missed heals will result in tank death. It doesn't have to be this way, and in fact it wasn't this way for much of the game. "
I don't think this is true. While yes, in ICC the tanks get smacked around in the face a lot, Blizzard has been successful at creating boss fights that aren't reliant on keeping the tanks alive. They are reliant on many factors that include cooperation with dps, healers, and tanks. I do not understand why they are claiming that the only way for raids to be challenging is to clobber the tanks. Have they done their raids before? A lot of raid wipes have nothing to do with, oh the tank is dead." Can we start talking about Defile? How about DPS not taking care of oozes the correct way in Professor Putricide?
I am definitely frustrated with Blizzard when it comes to them justifying the changes they are making in raiding. Some of their claims just seem really far stretched. I still don't understand (and yes, I know they've been doing this for expansions in the past) why they have to release patches early. I never raided in BC so the changes from BC to WotLK were not much of an issue for me. I don't know if this was the way it was beforehand.
But if Blizzard wants us to learn to raid with the new style BEFORE Cataclysm comes out, they're going to have to change WotLK content, or release Cataclysm content for us to play with.
Healing is supposed to no longer be about topping a player off. It's just about keeping people alive. Blizzard claims that we'll survive fights with 50% of our health left. So they've tailored heals to be this way; less about urgency, more about efficiency and longevity. But we're not fighting in fights like this; we're still fighting in WotLK. So it's confusing that Blizzard wants us to learn a new style of raiding, but I guarantee you, everyone is tailoring a spec to ignore the things Blizzard wants from us for Cata, and make us useful in ICC. Healers don't have mana problems for some reason, thus they can use expensive heals and be successful healers. Is this Blizzard's way of making ICC doable for us?
If so, why bother releasing the patch anyways. I am currently sporting a spec based entirely off of Rejuvenation, yet a lot of the T11 bonuses and talents point towards druid's turning into tank healers. Am I preparing for this? No. Am I practicing for this? No. I am far more effective at raid healings.
hm...so we have
Healers with no mana problems
DPS who are still threat whores and can't control themselves
and Tanks who can't compete with it.
Bravo.
(Speaking about RNG deaths; tanks getting killed after 2-3 hits)
"This is also something we have set out to change. I understand that you personally don’t believe we will change it, and since your vision of what the world will be like is at odds with our vision, it is unsurprising that the changes we make to bring about our vision might not make sense to you."
I'll hold you to that then...
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