"We want mana to be an issue"

[Ghladum]

Can anybody that has played around with a healer in Beta comment on whether or not this looks like it will actually happen? I'm definitely too lazy to look up Ghostcrawler's specific quote, but he did say something very similar to the thread topic - essentially that they don't want healers to have unlimited mana.

If this is the case, it might have some pretty large implications on tank stat priorities. Considering the avoidance diminishing returns that are in the game now, many have speculated (or declared outright) that Effective Health will once again rule Raiding Town with a strong hand, that we will fill every gem slot with +Stam since EH suffers no DR. Of course the theory for BC was "gear so that you can survive the worst case scenario... avoidance is random but a large HP pool is static."

For BC, having to receive 5k healing/second all the time (gearing for EH and little avoidance) was better than needing 2k/sec healing most of the time, but needing 15k/sec healing once in a while (gearing avoidance over EH), which would result in a dead tank.

But if what the devs have said is true, that might no longer be the case. Healers might see actual benefit from the 5 second rule now, and need their tanks to be able to afford them a significant amount of mana regen.

Throw in the fact that Crushing Blows are not in the picture, and there will be a fewer headaches and moans after hearing the tank say, "He parried me twice, which lead to a Crush." Albeit, boss parry-streaks will still be very annoying and unpredictable, but the Crushes were always the main source of worry with that, correct? They were the reason that "stack EH over all else" mentality was so effective in BC?

Sorry to be rambling, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Edit: I'll also add that with the itemization of tanking plate including Strength now, the rage-starvation is (I've noticed) a lot less of an issue when you go on avoidance streaks. This was another major issue with Avoidance-gearing. And hell, now, even if you are rage starved, we now have a lot of mechanics that allow for us to cope with not having much rage (ie - with Glyph of Revenge, you get free HSs, with Sw&B, you get free SSs, etc.)

[Rude]

It's hard to tell. I don't think it should really impact your priorities for gearing as a tank though. I would be putting more of it on the healers to be more efficient. Two or three people spamming lightweight heals on you shouldn't be happening, but it does.

Constantly keeping the tank topped off means overhealing which means inefficiency. But with the replenishment options available, you shouldn't really be going out of mana unless you're doing something stupid.

[Furi]

Wrath is going to put more emphasis on healers. Ironic because according to other posts in the forum, healers are going the way of the dodo.

Mana is an issue healers are going to have to cope with. This can be mitigated to some effect with raid composition (Priests, Survival Hunters, Ret Pallys, Frost Mages, and so on), but healers are going to have to re-examine their approach to deal with the new challenges.

Edit: You are going to see classes over-healing. Priests immediately come to mind with their talent Serendipity (a portion of mana is returned if the priest overheals a target). We must move past the mindset that overhealing = inefficiency, and come to terms that the game is changing and so are the metrics we use to evaluate healers.

We can not compare apples to oranges, or priests to shamans.

[protonly]

Wrath is going to put more emphasis on healers. Ironic because according to other posts in the forum, healers are going the way of the dodo.

That is the part that scares me when I play my protection warrior. Just about every pally I know is either ret or holy now. I think in both of my guilds there are exactly 2 full-time holys out of maybe 30 pallys. From the gossip, they don't sound interested in going back to holy -- even if it means they can't raid.

The sheer amount of potential healers (classes with healing spells) that aren't healers and don't plan on going back or starting healing will probably lead to a healer shortage. My pally is strictly a healbot so that is good news since I'll have my pick of raids....however I can stand raiding as a healer for about 6 weeks.

If they were going to make healing such an emphasis then they should have altered the game play like they did for tanks to make it less sucky and actually enjoyable. wack-a-mole where you never see what a boss does, never see how the pulls work, basically don't know any of the strats, gets boring. When the only strat you need for 90% of the fights is "Do you know which button FOL is on?" there is a problem.

[Furi]

Blizzard recently said they are re-examining healing. If it's anything like their re-examination of tanking, I'm both excited and terrified. Excited because it will be something new and fun (and who knows, maybe we'll do DPS through healing, or vice versa) and terrified by the potential of healing going ez mode (a tip of my hat to the shammy healers out there *wink*).

I have to disagree with you regarding never seeing what a boss does or not knowing any of the strats (and please, don't take this as an attack on you or your comment). I've found being aware of what a boss does and knowing what is going to happen in an encounter has made me a better healer. I can plan ahead and react quickly. Frankly, I can't think of any other class that's more in tune with what is happening to a raid as a whole. Health bars, mana bars, who's dead and who's alive - I see it all.

[qygibo]

Wrath is going to put more emphasis on healers. Ironic because according to other posts in the forum, healers are going the way of the dodo.

Mana is an issue healers are going to have to cope with. This can be mitigated to some effect with raid composition (Priests, Survival Hunters, Ret Pallys, Frost Mages, and so on), but healers are going to have to re-examine their approach to deal with the new challenges.

Edit: You are going to see classes over-healing. Priests immediately come to mind with their talent Serendipity (a portion of mana is returned if the priest overheals a target). We must move past the mindset that overhealing = inefficiency, and come to terms that the game is changing and so are the metrics we use to evaluate healers.

We can not compare apples to oranges, or priests to shamans.

The issue with that is how many healers will actually realize that overleaing doesn't automatically equal inefficiency.

A lot of the addons that track overall healing done in a raid certainly don't show that--I've sometimes been showing as low on healing charts partially because as a holy pally I end up overhealing a lot of the time thanks to renews and what not on a target that I'm casting a holy light on (a lot of the time overhealing doesn't seem to show up properly on charts, and shows only what of the person's hp I actually healed rather than the total heal).

If a person goes by that mostly to determine how well they're doing healing-wise, and I suspect that people will be slow to change, then that's probably going to hurt some healers who might not see immediate benefits to the changes.

[Ott]

I have certainly heard of healers, particularly pallies, complaining about the drudge of healing. As a priest, I just don't see it. At least for me, healing is always exciting and new. I love not having any rotation or 'must always use' spells. Healing is a very dynamic endeavor.

My guess (emphasis on guess) is that Blizz may try and make healers like tanks in that they do not have niches in which they must operate. Currently Pally=Single Target, Shammies=Raid, and Druid=HoTs. Priests have the odd position of being the do-everything healer, not doing any of those as well as a specialist (at least before 3.0). Just like an AoE pack needed a Pally tank, heavy raid dmg needed shammies. They changed that for tanks, it could be coming for healers too.

I must say I am looking forward to having to deal with mana again. It makes the fight more interesting. Always having 50%+ mana is boring. Make me work for my heals.

Though as a priest... I am totally fine with the way it is now. I like having a full bag of tricks.

[Honorshammer]

The sheer amount of potential healers (classes with healing spells) that aren't healers and don't plan on going back or starting healing will probably lead to a healer shortage.

....however I can stand raiding as a healer for about 6 weeks.

As one of those 'potential healers that aren't healers and don't plan on going back', I can you tell you, your second statement hits the nail on the head.

Healing isn't appealing to a large part of the player base, this Paladin included. People rarely play for long periods of times things they don't enjoy.

[protonly]

As one of those 'potential healers that aren't healers and don't plan on going back', I can you tell you, your second statement hits the nail on the head.

Healing isn't appealing to a large part of the player base, this Paladin included. People rarely play for long periods of times things they don't enjoy.

I prolly am in that group. Downranking removed a lot of the "effort" to min/max the heal for the amount the target needed. Now I got exactly two heals and a third "sorta" heal. I will give it a try but probably just play my warrior who is just more fun to me.

The thing that "got" to me even in TBC was the shortage of healers (which will get worse). We'd have a surplus of tanks, a LARGE surplus of pewpewers, and like 5 healers (when we needed 7-8) sign up for raids.

Now that lolret is no longer "lol" and that a prot pally is equal to a prot war (not to mention a lot of fun to play) the amount of holy pallys that remain will be a lot smaller. Believe me, the old estimates of like 90% + of all max level pallys being holy wasn't by choice...it was go holy or go home and a lot of people chose to go holy and see content.

@Furi - no worries man. Most of what I described was due to falling asleep from boredom and having a terrible computer for gaming (for a large portion of my raiding life).

[Furi]

@protonly: ...and considering Pallys had two primary spells to heal with, I don't blame you.

@ott: I'm looking forward to the challenge of mana management once again - especially since the crutch of chain chugging will be gone. And because other mana/spellpower items will be going away. Blizz anounced wizard oils and mana oils (and sharpening/weight stones for that matter) will not be useable on weapons over level 70.

[Rude]

That probably means that they will come up with some other consumable for it. They always do.

The problem with healing is that it's at its most fun when everything is going wrong. If everything is going perfect, it's pretty much the most boring job in the world, and the point at which I start spamming smite on targets. But, as we know, when things go wrong, the margin for error tends to be so small that it's an act of god for it to not get everyone killed.

As far as the getting mana back on the overhealing thing ... That's just slop. It's 25% of the spell's cost. For a greater heal, I would be getting less than half the mana I would get by not being in the FSR. That doesn't make it efficient, just less inefficient than it would be ordinarily. And if it WAS efficient, you would just stand there and cast flash heal every single GCD no matter what. And that'd be boring.

Also, we have totally hijacked this thread.

[Lyxia]

The thing that "got" to me even in TBC was the shortage of healers (which will get worse). We'd have a surplus of tanks, a LARGE surplus of pewpewers, and like 5 healers (when we needed 7-8) sign up for raids.

Now that lolret is no longer "lol" and that a prot pally is equal to a prot war (not to mention a lot of fun to play) the amount of holy pallys that remain will be a lot smaller. Believe me, the old estimates of like 90% + of all max level pallys being holy wasn't by choice...it was go holy or go home and a lot of people chose to go holy and see content.

I both agree and disagree to this. It might be only a hunch, and it might be a bad one, but if thinking back a bit, this also happened when BC was launched. Holypriests when shadow, restodruids went feral, restoshammies went enhancement/elemental and holypaladins went retribution. Eventually, a good part of those specced back to their former main spec when they had gotten that "break" from the monotone healing in raids. And I don't find it hard to believe that this might be the case this time too. Cause in both cases, several classes got some revamps, making other specs than healing more attractive.

Again, this might just be a bad hunch

[qygibo]

I also don't necessarily see the whole "we're going to lose a lot of heals to dps" as a bad thing... if people spec to it permanently, then it'll mean that they're doing what they might be better at and it'll free myself up to more higher runs as healers run scarce... I love my healer too much to not want to heal on her

[orcstar]

There won't be a shortage of healers, there will just be a lot more dps-ers that want to raid that can't raid.

For a lot of people it is going to be either heal or don't see a lot of content. At least as a hybrid you can a simple respec you go heal..........and raid.
"Pure" classes will need to reroll to be able to raid.

It's just simple math: you got a 100 players, 10 of them want to tank and 12 of them want to heal and 80 of them want to dps. And raids take 3 tanks and 6 healers
Then there will be 2 raids with 12 healers healing 6 tanks tanking and 32 dpsers dpsing.

2 tanks and 48 dpsers will be doing daily quests and spamming trade chat.

It was never a problem for us to replace a hunter or a rogue or any dps. DPS paladins will be in that same pool now and it's hard to get out. When they realize that spots for dps are very limited and that there's heavy competition you will see a lot of them going back to healing when they see that the other option is not raiding at all.

Take your chances.

[Kahmal]

I'm currently new to healing and I am enjoying it. However the pattern I'm seeing throughout experiance and these forums is healing as a Holy Paladin is just down right boring (I'm liking it however but it's still fresh to me) at least compared to being a Protection Paladin or the new and improved Retribution Paladin.
Using Grid and Clique makes it interesting though. I still love tanking the most, but I'm somewhat debating if I like to DPS more. I think I do enjoy healing more.

DPS is a rather shallow role in my opinion especially in raids, at least Mages and Hunters or other ranged DPS have the responsibility of being the Healers last line of defense in 5-mans, but overall in raids all you really do is hit shit, and unless its a DPS race if you die no one really gives a shit unless your role was vital (mage tank). This where my personal problem comes into play. When I DPS I go on a high get careless and get myself killed by not paying attention. (screw dmg meters)

Tanking gives you absolute control of the situation, where you go the group has to follow. Worrying about positioning, threat and keeping your damn self alive is a thrill and is by far my favorite thing to do. The only thing about tanking however is that for most fights many of the bosses signature game breaking abilities dont apply to you either because you can either live through it or it just doesn't target you, not so much of a big deal though, Main Tanking is always fun.

Finally Healing the one thing I love about healing is when you do die people do care, as you can tell I like being important tank or healing. Another thing that makes healing very fun and engaging is unlike tanks you have to worry about the same shit the DPS has to worry about. (unless it's melee based) DPS can always take it slow and focus more on whats going on around them if time permits but the healer doesn't always have that option, people must be healed!!! Mobilizing while healing is fun and challenging (especially as a paladin) The one Flaw in healing however is....I normally dont know whats seriously going on in the fight, I have to interpret it through grid. I only look up from my bars when I see something coming my way or when it's time to move.

Duel Specs should also cover shortage problems, either you heal the group or you dont group at all. Even though people while leveling that say no I 'cant/wont' heal/tank I'm DPS make me sick.

[Horacio]

I haven't played my healer much but I know my wife is having issues on some fronts. It depends-it seems that if you have strong healing in your raid, its less an issue. They are not just trying to make mana an issue but push healers away from frantically spamming spells repeatedly.

When your healing is deficient for the content, you'll suffer. We had 5 equally 'decent' healers yesterday. None spectacular but above average, I think. And 2 very weak ones for Mother yesterday. And wow....my wife was in mana trouble the whole time. I might be ill specced for a heavy damage fight like that with zero talented avoidance.

so.....I dunno.

[Ott]

This thread has become a parallel to the lack of healers thread. They might be close enough to merge.

Anyway, your healing population is largely server dependent. Healers simply fulfill a role that is required in most group situations. That role may be more difficult to fill, but in the end it is a question of quality. If your guild offers skilled players in the non-healing roles, healers will naturally want to play with you. This is also dependent on your server of course. If you have the unfortunate position of being 2nd best on a low pop server, things can be hard as the top guild can snatch your healers by offering more. On a high pop server you can get away with being less aggressive as long as you offer the kind of progression most skilled healers desire.

All in all its a marketing thing. If you can provide a quality playing environment then healers will come. If you can't they won't. And you have a deeper problem.

Edit: This is assuming all other things are equal. Some players are extremely loyal, so their loyalty matters more than skill. Some don't care about anything but goofing off with their friends, or pvping, or fishing, and don't need a strong guild structure. My post was meant to apply only to those healers looking for raiding progression as a primary goal. Same applies to all other roles of course.

Edit 2: My tank friend points out that no sweeping generalizations can be made about certain classes or guilds or personalities that hold true. So, as always, take what I think with a grain of salt.

[Bajumba]

I gave up being a healer several months ago after almost 3 years of raid healing.

When WoW came out end game was about raiding. BGs and arenas didn't exist, what mattered was getting your raid spot and the raid's communal success. In addition there were 10 and 15 man ez-mode raids running 24/7. Instance loot provided enough gold to pay your bills.

During TBC the game shifted so much more to solo capability.

BGs were full of uninspired and unmotivated players who were a chore to heal. Healing is support, there really is no point busting your balls supporting players who are semi-afk or mindlessly honour farming or some other meaningless contribution to the battle. Nor do 99% of players watch out for you. So BGs for me became much more fun if you were killing rather than healing numpties since healing is only fun if you're healing someone who is being effective.

Arenas were tense affairs full of blaming. I didn't manage to find an arena team that could simply play the game without turning on their healers unfairly whenever they lost.

Instances were no longer profitable. You would make little if any money running a five man.

Grinding became important. Every epic recipe requires you to murder about 300 elementals of one sort or another or spend a small fortune on the AH. I did my own murdering but it was slow and if an enemy player picked on me I'd lose pretty much every time (rppvp server).

Then daily quests were brought in with a loud fanfare of you don't need dps to do these. It's true of some, your personal dps doesn't matter on a bombing run or a fishing trip. It's very much not true of many of them, I would estimate over half of the current dailies require killing. The notion that they would be a strong gold source that tanks and healers could use just as well as dps never worked out in practice, even before you take ganking into account.

But what really burned me out was a phenomenon I saw throughout TBC of cutting back on healers. 10 man raids were always considered to require 3 healers in 2007. In 2008 it became standard to do it with 2, occasionally people want to try them with one. I was doing SSC with a guild that took 5-6 healers. Coping required intense focus, fantastic snap decision making about who to let die and considerable resources as we chain potted our way through the fights. In a guild where (it felt) the dps seemed to be afk autoshotting while watching movies the healers were busting our balls trying to keep things afloat. I did eventually manage to move to a better guild where they had no such problems but by that time I was feeling resentful. I felt that the netherwing quests in particular were simply horrible for someone who takes 40 seconds to kill a mob since you always get one of those elite drakonids turn up if you dont get your kills done fast. I lost interest in doing my dailies which in turn lead to me feeling like I was paying a tax in gold for the "privilege" of doing the most thankless job in raiding.

I'm a Mage now. Loving it!

[protonly]

There won't be a shortage of healers, there will just be a lot more dps-ers that want to raid that can't raid.

For a lot of people it is going to be either heal or don't see a lot of content. At least as a hybrid you can a simple respec you go heal..........and raid.
"Pure" classes will need to reroll to be able to raid.

I think what you say is mostly true. People will be forced back to healing if the choice is heal and raid or don't raid at all. But it'll only be for as long as necessary (for a dps spot, or another guild, etc.) With the "1%" mandate I don't think many people would settle for being forced into something they don't like -- especially with the 10 man raiding scene opening up things even more.

Though, ever since the 3.0 patch hit I have noticed one thing: healers are more rare than dps warriors with dual warglaives. Don't know, have to see.

I will say one comment about overhealing that the second poster brought up: yes you will see a lot more of it. Downranking helped a lot with this as you could fit the rank for the amount needed but you can't do that anymore (FOL spammer). Also with my judgment of light I'll assume it'll contribute heavily to overhealing (haven't seen meters/logs) since it seems to be going off like a fireworks show now a days. No downranking and lots of "aoe" heals will make for more overhealing. Though you still can view the effective healing and the hpm and such to see what is going on.

[minrog]

In TBC the Moonkins/Shadow Priests/Elemental Shamans/Enhance Shamans/Ret Paladins ect basically sucked. Oh I know a raid needed some of their buffs but it wasn't a level playing field DPS wise for these guys especially at the top end. I don't see WoTLK being a repeat. These players are going to get to level 80 after doing enormous DPS (finally heh) and never want to go back.

It's going to be even more brutal to find a capable healer. How many of the healers do you know that actually would prefer to do it full time? For me it's like a quarter of them at best. As the ones who found it totally boring switch to useless DPS roles I guess we'll get to see if you really only need 2 healers in your guild to run 10 mans. :P

Edit: I don't think healers ever had trouble understanding the mechanics of a fight or how damage was incoming to the raid. I have noticed they have a great deal of trouble seeing the fire before it engulfs them. Maybe those whack a mole deals obscure their view hehe.