The Weekly Marmot -- Cataclysm Healing & ZAM Beta Key Giveaway

[Mwawka]

Slow down, I never said this was the "best" way to heal or that I enjoyed it ... I simply said it made analysis of performance easier. That said my 25 man guild has cleared all of ICC HM and our raid healers pretty much just smash out HPS as much as possible (and the tank healers just smash out heals). Sure there's *some* finesse to it but it's not some mystical art as most healers want people to believe. It never was, just before it was more strategic as you danced in and out of FSR and cast-canceled or downranked (Healing Touch Rank 4 ... I was a druid healer). Yeah it was a different game and I too liked it better back then ... I was not making a statement about which way was better I was simply stating that as a raid leader its much easier to make a quick and dirty analysis via meters than having to dig deeper to inspect quality. Quantitative analysis is much simpler ... that was my only point.

I am very happy about the changes ... can't say that enough ... and I'm glad Lore breaks them down for all of us to haggle over.

You know, you may be right. I may have been reacting to the fact that I hate that healing meters can be used to judge healers. As I said in my previous post, it makes healing into another form of DPS'ing and I don't like that. I can honestly say that the most fun I have healing is if something out of the ordinary happens and I end up having to watch my mana (I play a little game with myself where I challenge myself to never use my innervate). It's way more satisfying to successfully heal an encounter with this variable added than to just spam away rejuvenations and wild growths (though I do use my other spells situationally) and rack up the HPS. I noticed one poster noted that overhealing is a good judge of healers, but with the way things are at the moment, overhealing just means you aren't sitting around doing nothing. If mana isn't a concern, overhealing isn't a good barometer of skill. It should be, but right now it isn't.

[Spiritus]

I have to say that a "quick and dirty" quantitative analysis of HPS meters is the wrong way to go, especially for a raid leader, and especially for a raid leader that has healing experience. You say that you disagree with the "smash" style of healing, yet you use it as a metric of analysis. You cannot have cake with a chaser of pie.

There have been many times in ICC where I smashed the HPS[+APS(absorb)] meter. Absolutely annihilated it. I mean, I'm talking like I'm at 15k H+APS and the next person is at 6k. The total H+A meter shows the same discrepancy. Rarely, however, on those fights did I actually feel like I saved anyone's life. That someone isn't licking floor because of my healing.

On the flip side, there have been times where I was #4 or #5 on the meters, but I can point to multiple specific instances in a single encounter where I, alone, saved a life. Also, I'm perennially on the top of the dispel meter, which is usually inversely proportional to my H+APS.

The acme of skill for a healer always has been, and always will be how many lives did you, personally, save.

Let me put it this way, using the method of personal anecdote. I have been in raids where a raid healer was "smashing" the meters by performing a generic blanket rotation. They were on one side of the room, and I was on the other. I notice a raider starting to dip low on the opposite side of the room, I let it go for 1sec, and didn't see a DH go off on him. I then had to run across the entire room to catch said raider with a PW:S @ 5% health, pump a penance and FH to get him back up to full health.

Can you guess who was at the top of the meter that fight? Would you label that person as a more valuable healer?

[Mwawka]

The acme of skill for a healer always has been, and always will be how many lives did you, personally, save.

There is nothing quite as satisfying as the moment where you know you saved someone from dying. However, it is really tough to ferret out which healers are best at this, without spending hours going over every line of a raid log. I believe the healers know who it is tho. I certainly can tell when one of the healers in a group I run with pulls someone from the brink and usually have a good idea of who did it as well. I think that is just one of the pieces of being a great healer though. I can't count the number of times over the last year that I've swiftmended someone from the brink of death, yet I see trees who never use the spell, yet still pull great HPS. Can you really be a great healer when you leave such a great tool in the toolbox? I would argue no. I am sure that I have prevented wipes by using this spell, yet it doesn't pump my HPS, so in that way I do agree with you Spiritus.

[Spiritus]

I think it is quite difficult to ascertain who is the best healer with the meters and parses in the current game, which is all the more reason to discard them as a tool of measurement.

Now, in Cata, if its anything like bc/vanilla, the job of understanding who is the best healer will be simple. Just take healing done and compare it to overheal. Those at the top of healing done, and the bottom of overheal, will most likely be your most competent healers.

[Teggon]

I personally like the fact Blizzard are making so many changes. So many other games launch expansions and the new content becomes old and dated really fast. Cataclysm looks like it will be value for money as you'll have to relearn how to play the game.

On the subject of Lore's latest update Healers will no longer sit there hitting buttons and not care about mana. We healers will now have to think and time our heals better. This will also mean DPS will no longer be able to play "WHO HAS THE BIGGEST DICK GAME" and actually watch their aggro. Currently DPS players and many raids are only concerned about numbers. Now they will looking for players who know how to actually play their class. Tanks also will have to know when to pop cool downs during certain periods in a boss fight to reduce incoming damage. All this has been lost in WOTLK as healers have been able to spam huge and constant heals throughout the boss fights.

Virtually Blizzard are saying you will now be able to identify Good and Bad players. Yes you top the DPS charts at one point but spend the next 90% of the time eating dirt. No ones health dropped 2 mins into the fight but everyone died after as I ran out of mana and couldn't heal.

Good bye Gear Score and say hello to experience and knowledge !!!

[Exaltian]

My only concern with these changes is that I hope that Blizzard is moving away from the 'Everyone in the raid takes 80% damage, oh and by the way just for fun I have an AOE poison for you as well'. I don't mind making healing a thinking game, but then there needs to be time to think put into the battles. If we need to be concerned about mana totals, level of boss damage and whether or not the gnome in the corner is wearing a properly colorful feather boa, then the boss insta-smacks need to be curtailed. I didn't start playing WOW until Lick King came out so I have nothing to compare this too but initial battles in Icecrown mana was an issue because we were casting like crazy to keep everyone alive. Now with the 30% buff that has changed but still.

[Kahmal]

My concern is that I'm just confused on Blizzard intentions these days. WoTLK you can't argue that things just got so damn easy. Now there making Tanking and Healing challenging once again it sounds like. This is fine when in a good guild, but god I can only imagine pugs >.<.

Tanks wont be carried by MD and Trix anymore, and faceroll tanking AoE trash is also gone.
DPS will need to relearn how to not break CC and watch there threat more often.
Healing imo is the hardest thing to do in-game since your not just worried about your own well being, so making it strategic again will be interesting.

I just really wonder how all the "Wrath Raiders" will adjust to this. I personally started Healing on a Paladin a few weeks before Wrath came out and sucked at it. (until I got Grid and Clique) then spamming Holy Light got easy. Now I have to actually thing. Sounds fun.

[Baerkuda]

Ok I am a long time reader but first time post. I started playing just after the Linch King came out so I have never been apart of an expansion before. After reading the new talent trees and everything that Blizzard is changing I have a concern that you have not hit on yet. I get that healers are going to have to be alot smarter with there heals because of the mana issue(if your a good healer now I personally thing we will have the easist time converting to the new system) but looking at the Priest spec as discipline there are talents in there that really concern me if mana is going to be an issue why are they giving us something that is going to force us to become offesive in a raid? I don't come from a Hardcore Raiding guild but we try to make do with what we have and I run as a disc. preist tank healer even in the crazy buff inside ICC you don't get that much time to be "offensive" but the benefits of this buff seam to be a must have thing concidering how important mana regen is going to be. I guess Im asking what is blizzards thinking behind this am I not understanding things correctly. Thanks in advance and keep up the good work. Baerkuda Shu' halo realm

[Spiritus]

I, personally, in ICC, can find time during most fights to throw a little offense. I do so to keep myself from going crazy.

Now, in general, WotLK is not a place where healers just have free moments to stand around a stare at things, especially with everyone's favorite damage aura. However, in parts of bc and most of vanilla, there were times when you did actually that in order to hit the FSR to regen. Since the developers are attempting to go back to that model, but wanted to remove the FSR, they needed something to replace it. Hence why healers now have "damage to mana" abilities. Things a little slow? Throw some pew pew and get some mana back, and in the priest's case, a really nice healing buff.

Now, before someone says something, yes I know that currently it doesn't feel like healers have the time to cast damaging spells. For many 5man encounters I would agree with you. Keep in mind that numbers are not being balance at the moment, just mechanics. I fully expect things to be tunned differently during release. I mean, let me put it this way, as of the last time I ran Stonecore, our party wiped several times on the 2nd to last boss. Now, several of those wipes were due to some funky connection issues of one of our DPS, but at least one was due to my inability to keep up the party [and yes, some damage could have been avoided, but that has never stymied me in the past]. I firmly believe if the boss were left in as is [meaning when I last saw him], PuGs would leave Stonecore upon zoning in a la Oculus.

Long story short, I do believe that healers will have the time to throw "smites for mana" because we use to have the time to have a very engaging staring contest with the wall in the middle of a fight. At least now it will feel like you have something to do while there is a lull in healing and you need to regen for the next burst.

[Sinuviel]

This is in reply to the vid, not the comments that have followed:

Although I have no experience with how the healing was in classic WoW, I do know the healing game from a holy and now disc priest point of view since TBC. I agree on your way of viewing the TBC way of healing, and I must say I enjoyed it more than I have Wrath so far. In TBC as a priest you would be doing a constant 5second rule mana dance to not run out of mana, although near the end I must say I had little issues with my mana.

According to you the same thing, or even worse, happened in Wrath after the introduction of replenishment. I have to disagree with that. You see, together with the introduction of replenishment, Blizzard nerfed other ways of mana regen. For priests, the 5 second rule lost all value. At the current gear levels, as a disc priest my mana is fine most of the times because of the way I get back mana from shields, but this doesn't mean that I do not have to think about and plan out my Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend usage, together with the occassional potion.

You point out that cataclysm will emphasize that more, but I don't know a class that doesn't think about their mana cooldowns and how to weave them in through a fight. If they would not use them, they will go oom. Furthermore, you are thinking in terms of normal mode ICC perhaps, but once in heroic mode fights, mana is pushed to the test without a doubt. On top of that, we currently are sporting a 30% ICC buff. I'd say, try to go through heroic icc without the buff and see how healers mana holds it own. I'm certain that it will be put to a serious test.

I am interested in how things will work in cata. The current issue is that if you miss a splitsecond heal on a tank, he might be a goner. Having a bit more breathing room, but on the other hand having to lower your overheal, will be a welcome breath of fresh air into the healing game. It will distinguish the good from the bad healers purely by overheal & how much mana they got left in the tank. I've always healed from the standpoint of having to be able to heal eternally through a fight. This should fit that style perfectly, if they execute it well.

[ermik]

BTW Last frame of Marmot says:

secret secret

i got a secret

[Khilbron]

I cannot believe i am just now getting around to listening to this. Hell i was even in vent with Lore when he said he was uploading it. *slaps self in face*

[Yggdrasil]

I think one thing a lot of people forget is in Wrath really a lot of these actions weren't because healers were trying to top meters, or trying to peek HPS but because when you have a vast majority of your fights using massively powerful raid wide auras of damage it is what you HAD to do to prevent the raid wipe. Or that throughout the course of a fight a MASSIVE AoE strike would/could nearly cripple the entire raid on a nicely fixed set scheduled. The game design favored, no, forced that style of play. Trust me I play a resto druid and the fact that I have to keep up all my HoTs on 2-3 tanks and rejuv up on the maximum number of players in the raid at nearly all times isn't my idea of a thrilling good time. Even if it usually means I get to break peoples ankles on charts. Hell I have destroyed 2 keyboards and 3 mouses this expansion due to that. The ends simply justify the means in these cases sadly enough.

Charts are usually only effective to use healers based on fight to fight and directly compared same class to same class combined with comprehension of assignments given. It takes a little more creative thinking also though. As a healer lead for 2 expansions now over 2 guilds I tend to look at things like survivability, ability to fallow instructions, and yes throughput. Also taking a look at time stamps of tank deaths. A good healer will modify his game during times of tank distress. Did the resto druid toss some nourishes his way, a SM, or a NS + HT or did he simply keep putting rejuv's up across the raid? Did the disc priest stop bubble spamming and throw the penance? Things like that which show adjustment to the situation at hand that works outside the realm of pure assignments (with that you have to see what were tank healers doing, and how fast the tank died etc). Something that may mean your not 12k HPS for a moment to make the raid continue. Overhealing doesn't matter to me and never has as long as people were staying alive and the given healer wasn't running out of mana. Yes, of course that started to mean a little less in BC and then a whole lot less in Wrath. But still plays a role in my head while I am making judgments on say a healer app.

[Halandir]

any chance this vid will be uploaded to the download server?

[Verg]

As a dps, who has a very casual healing alt (who has healed some very minor raids), I am actually excited about this return to certain "vanilla" healing thought processes. This may sound strange, but I am a rare dps who does not enjoy the fact that all I have to do is plant, complete a rotation, move out of fire and repeat. What I see this change really exposing are all the dps who spammed and topped meters, while relying on the healers' "infinite" mana pool to keep them alive through their stupidity. In fact, dps became so boring for me, that I have actually stopped raiding for the moment.

A lot of people are probably thinking...why don't you just become a healer then, if you like this change soooo much? Well, I just might when Cataclysm rolls around.

[unigolyn]

This will also mean DPS will no longer be able to play "WHO HAS THE BIGGEST DICK GAME" and actually watch their aggro.

No. Just no.

This is not a desirable direction to go in. There is nothing complicated about a tank maintaining maximum TPS on a boss, and forcing DPS to "tone it down" because the tank's gear is lacking is just a really annoying way to deal with things. The tank is being penalized for things beyond his control, and the DPS is penalized for doing their job well.

DPS is fun when you get to do your job, which is dealing damage. It's not really a "who has the biggest dick" game, except on glorified test dummies like Patchwerk. In a well-designed, mobile fight, with intermittent "burn phases", the highest DPS is generally the most skilled at minimizing downtime and managing their cooldowns and resources properly. That's fun. There's absolutely nothing fun about "oh I guess I don't get to push any buttons for the next 20 seconds".

How would you, as a healer, feel about fights where you couldn't heal for extended periods of time because you were constantly riding the tank's threat? How would you feel if raids kept backup healers whose job it was to not to heal or DPS at all until big burst happened, so they'd be low on the threat list? How would you feel wearing that particular dunce cap?

Threat should only be a concern during pulls or new adds. That's the fun solution for both tanks and DPS.

DPS can be hindered in other, more interesting ways, like insta-kill hazards, CC duties, positioning, etc.

P.S. Threat can be an interesting mechanic on certain fights, such as "make sure the offtank(s) is(are) above the melee or bad things happen". But making it a constant issue is kind of like making every single fight a Vezax clone for healers - "heal for a bit then go stand in this crap to regen".

[Darksend]

Threat should only be a concern during pulls or new adds. That's the fun solution for both tanks and DPS.

Please explain to me how only having to worry about threat the first 10 seconds of a fight is fun for tanks.

Fun for me is every single dps being at 95% of my threat for the entire boss fight, forcing me to work harder and have a perfect rotation.

[Spiritus]

How would you, as a healer, feel about fights where you couldn't heal for extended periods of time because you were constantly riding the tank's threat? How would you feel if raids kept backup healers whose job it was to not to heal or DPS at all until big burst happened, so they'd be low on the threat list? How would you feel wearing that particular dunce cap?

In Cata, healers will have something similar to "having to watch threat" and its called "having to watch mana." While DPS may be limited by a tank with a poor rotation or lacking gear [by poor itemization or tier level], a healer will be limited by poor movement, positioning, and defensive CD usage from DPS and tanks.

In Cata, a raid will be like an enormous clock. It only works if all the little cogs mesh together. A clock must be clean, well lubricated, and wound tight....

The WotLK king raid, in comparison, is about as close to 10/25people playing a single player game in the same instance as one can get and still call it an MMORPG [with the exception of a few HMs].