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World of Warcraft: Health & Healing Changes in Cataclysm
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Blizzard's Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street recently chimed in on an ongoing discussion about health and healing in World of Warcraft in order to shed some light on the changes Blizzard plans for those two aspects of the game come Cataclysm:
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"Health pools will be much larger in Cataclysm and healing will be lower. That should help address some of the overly binary feel of PvP and PvE encounters. You'll still be able to kill people as well as be able to heal them. The pace will just be a little slower and both healing and killing should require more than 1-2 buttons."
Responding a player later on in the discussion who raised concern that these changes could cause tanks to get "2 shot" by bosses, Ghostcrawler said:
You missed the part where I said health pools will be higher. Imagine a boss that takes say 3-4 hits to kill a tank, but it also takes a healer 3-4 heals to top her back off. Now efficiency of a healing spell can be as much of a consideration as direct throughput, since the tank is unlikely to die in your next GCD. Now coordination among healers can be a bigger deal since efficiency will matter. Now maximum health on the tank classes will matter less because the question of how long you can survive without a heal landing is largely academic. Now avoidance on a tank can matter a little more because saving healer mana becomes as important as being table to take the next hit.
As an aside, healers will actually need enough healing tools and enough distinction among them so that they are really choosing the big, expensive heal vs. the small, cheap heal vs. the fast, expensive heal, to name just a few examples.
For more information on the Cataclysm expansion, check out the expansion site here.
What do you think about the changes coming to health and healing in Cataclysm? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Eh as a WoW raid healer (resto druid) myself......It seems like they are just once again making things easier. If the system is so broken then why hasent it been addressed for 5 years?
He was sitting there admitting it was inbalanced...
I play all ghame
Welcomed and needed change for arena.
well, really, it is too balanced and too easy. WG is a trade-off... back & forth... DAoC had the Best of all PvP keep taking. Even though some in our guild are looking fwd to the big expansion, we only account for .0000000000003%. I am not sure what the other Guild are looking fwd too. I only fathom my what I see/read in the /2 trade voices, is that Blizz better come up with some decent stuff or they will be getting out.
Bick
So now instead of 2 buttons you'll have to press 4. More of the same it sounds like to me. In the end it will still just be a matter of gear, spec and rotations just like it's always been.
I'm not saying I won't be playing it, but it really doesn't matter how you polish it this game will still be all about a basic play style and gear in the end.
I will be interested to see how this works in the PTR (when/if it gets there). Personally I think its a step in the right direction in terms of PvP. at the moment its just rediculus. Today (on my holy priest with T8 gear), I was killed in the time it took for a pally stun to wear off. I had PW:S, PoM and guardian spirit on me at the time, and half health (12k). thats around 30k in 3 seconds. now I know I don't have any resilience gear but still, its a bit too much
I think everyone was expecting a huge direct nurf to pallys in PvP, but this is totally unexpected, and will off-set most of the moaning that a class is getting it in the neck. I'm not so sure how this will affect PvE. right now, its true and healing doesn't take much skill as long as you have good gear and a big mana pool. pallys (sorry for picking on you) can easily spam heal for 5-6mins constant. seriously, it doesn't take a lot of skill to press 1 button over and over again. now blizzard are just increasing health pools? to me, thats not an answer. it will just mean that pally healers will have even more of an advantage than before, and people will still be spamming their fastest heal in order to do the most healing in the raid.
A start in the right direction, but I think more is needed.
It is funny that a Blizzard spokesman in trying to make an excuse for making the changes has just come out and admitted how cheap WOW's combat is.
quote "you should need to use more than 1-2 buttons"
Coordination between healers is NOW more important,i guess not a big deal before lol.BTW it must be extremely tough to coordinate healers lmao,follow a clock or follow each other ,real tough.With all those add ons players are using, the combat must really be a painful experience ...not.
I think instead of him saying that they are worried about their tank getting 4 shot,maybe he meant to say,in case the dumb ass wanders into combat before anyone is ready he still has a chance to survive.Not that Raiding is so tough anyhow,because you always have back up tanks,something a small party does not have the luxury of ,but wait you can solo in WOW ,so i guess small party doesn't matter anyhow.In FFXI you can be one shot by MANY boss,and i am not talking the super elite ones either,heck your whole party can be one shot by several bosses.
Maybe another 5 years they will lose the heal pots and get combat somewhat close to challenging,probably not then those kids will be looking for even better add ons and/or quit,maybe go back to Runescape.
It is nice to see a Blizzard rep himself admit the game is shallow after all these years,contradicts what the fanbois has been saying.But wait the fanbois will now respond by saying they know the game better than the developer lol.
SO who is right?? the fanbois havn't a clue,been spewing lies? or the developer is a dumb ass??somebody has to be wrong here.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
have a blessed thread.
Well, I think what they are trying to do is give new players some kind of chance. For instance, tanking is hard to get into, because you need all that sweet purple gear. Now, maybe a fresh 80 can tank a bit.
As for as PvP, I don't see how you're not right. So the guy with the 265 DPS weapon still wtfpwns the guy who doesn't arena or raid. Just takes 4 seconds(wishful thinking) instead of an instakill.
Are they boosting mobs health, also?
Why does Blizzard still insist on creating a system where a 'tank' is a player who can get hit more than one time but fewer than five before dying and must be healed from 1 hp to full every few hits? Does that make things exciting or just twitchy?
I'd rather have a concept where healers can do short buffs on players and a few actual damage spells between heals and a tank who can actually survive quite a while alone. Heals would have to be far less effective otherwise healers would just wait until 1 hp again and then do a massive heal, but overall it would be far more fun and far more logical in my opinion. Perhaps tanks wouldn't feel like their purpose is simply to hold aggro and hope healers can heal them from 1 to full fast enough to keep them up.
Short version: Why are tanks -supposed- to only be able to take a hit or two before needing a heal or exploding?
Other bonus of tanks being slightly more survivable: Encounters can be more diverse in doing damage to random players and other mechanics as healers don't have to worry about twitch healing the main tank every moment of the fight.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Hmmm so i guess there trying to make healinga little difficult and more complex?
Good stuff, now if they make CC and kiting as essential and fun as it was in vanillia WoW I'll be a happy-chappy.
UBRS 15 people CC'ing and kitting for 2 hours.. never got boring.. lets bring that felling back.
Didn't they say this is every expansion where they raised the health pool ?
But really, slow paced combat = boredom.
Errr no, just no. WOTLK's arena pacing was just horrible. Plus they don't change the global cooldown itself(and it will probably still scale with Haste), just the combat duration of PvP and PvE encounters.
It's really not funny when you get globalled and you couldn't have a single reaction.
To me it was the most boring thing ever, yes it felt maybe fun all those years ago, but after about 10 runs or so it was bloody awful, along with LBRS, the only fun dungeons was DM trib runs, and maybe just maybe DM west. Other than that UBRS sure as hell was not fun.
-snip-
It's really not funny when you get globalled and you couldn't have a single reaction.
This. And @ ;Thenarius, I highly doubt combat will become as slow paced as it was in BC sometimes.
A decent balance between the "burst problem" of WOTLK and the "45min mana battles" of BC is what i'm expecting.
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
-snip-
It's really not funny when you get globalled and you couldn't have a single reaction.
This. And @ ;Thenarius, I highly doubt combat will become as slow paced as it was in BC sometimes.
A decent balance between the "burst problem" of WOTLK and the "45min mana battles" of BC is what i'm expecting.
Yeah...me too, SL/SL locks and resto druids were basically the specs that exploited TBC's slow pace.
Something in the middle would be great.
I do miss the CC and Focus Fire trash in raids/instances in Burning Crusade and Vanilla, but as a tank on my Warrior it's a LOT of work to AoE tank an entire instance, where as on my Paly it's a joke.
They need better balance between AoE and single target, and use that balance to design the encounters to requre JUST enough CC and focus fire and JUST enough AoE.
As a Paly healer though, right now it's either "use efficient heals and keep 'em topped off" or "spam my largest bomb heals and pray" and coordination is a joke, the overhealing is RIDICULOUS.
We had two Paly healers (me and another guy) on 25-Ony last night, both of us watching the Main Tank in phase one and three, and it was a joke. We had about 80-85% overhealing each.
Yes, Ony is very easy but there is no skill in it at all.
I look forward to tanks not being two shot (as both a tank and healer) and I look forward to healing being more strategic and about conservation and knowing WHO to heal and WHEN rather then just spamming my largest healing bombs....
I just hope they don't see that as "we need more raid-wide damge" because raid healing as a Paladin is... well... you might as well bring a druid/shaman/priest with HALF the gear.
Your opinion is immaterial.
It seems like BLizzard think adding more stamina and health pools is going to solve every problem... Thats simply not the case. Then you just get another issue that is even worse. That is - you can outheal any dmg done.
Why haven't they implemeted more stamina on gear already ? They could add +20 stamina to all gear at this point in WOTLK. The truth is much more serious. You can double up the health and still the crits will kill you in 2 shoots. Cause damage keeps going up.
I think they know what happens when you bring huge stamina pools, very effective resilience and subpar damage-BC happens. It was like that from S2 to S4.
Now, WOTLK is at the other side of the extremes, with burst being horrible.
I'm pretty sure that, after seeing what happens when you overdo it, they will come up with decent damage&healing/maximum health ratios.
I think they know what happens when you bring huge stamina pools, very effective resilience and subpar damage-BC happens. It was like that from S2 to S4.
Now, WOTLK is at the other side of the extremes, with burst being horrible.
I'm pretty sure that, after seeing what happens when you overdo it, they will come up with decent damage&healing/maximum health ratios.
My point is that if its all about dmg /healing and max health then they should have implemented it already. The last patch isn't out yet is it ?
Cause having more buttons to push is more entertaining...... i dont like the way they keep nerfing healing potential, HP pool keep going up but they dont scale the healing power accordingly supposedly because it's too easy ? I dont buy that.
Maybe because they don't want the BC state where good geared disc priests and resto druids could casually tank 5 average geared people in battlegrounds.
Healing in WOTLK is huge(be it PvP or PvE), a single spell can bring someone from 20% to 100%.
Anyone using 1-2 buttons to heal isn't playing their class to its fullest potential.
That aside, making health pools larger will just shift emphasis from smaller/faster heals to larger slower heals (which are not very useful currently). I wouldn't mind the damage/healing mechanics to change a little bit so everything is centered around spike damage so much.
Once again.. wow is changing itself to make it more like how EQ has been working for years.
To me it was the most boring thing ever, yes it felt maybe fun all those years ago, but after about 10 runs or so it was bloody awful, along with LBRS, the only fun dungeons was DM trib runs, and maybe just maybe DM west. Other than that UBRS sure as hell was not fun.
FOR YOU UBRS 15 man was the best instance ever!