Spell Power is pretty straight forward, more spell power = more damage and healing.
It is probably the most common modifier in the game followed by armors, and it buffs your abilities to do more in the long run, the question comes to mind is… what makes such a mechanic special to get an entire thread about it?
Good question forum dweller! Let’s talk about spell power in REVERSE.
How spell power is probably your ticket of winning games because you applied it on the AoE healer rather than picking it against the mage, I mean it’s still a good choice against mages since spell power reduction are quite common and a huge amount of heroes who play generalist or tend to be strong picks in the right hand unlock this all the way starting from level 4 (Chen) and with the majority from 7 (Garrosh, Ana, Blaze, Rehgar) and 13 (Hogger, Valeera) and finally Anubarak chilling on lvl 16 with -50% spell power.
The best part about all of these heroes except Valeera sadly, all of them can apply these effects in repeatedly in AoE or by existing (at least for Garrosh) with so little concern, just pop the ability/attack, it does the rest, time it right in crucial situation → congratulations you’ve unlocked anti-healing without the need for it.
The best part about this? Now imagine stacking this with anti-heals from other heroes and you end up with healers unable to squeeze anything out, if you can deny burst damage, so the same can be said against burst heal, especially burst AoE heal shutting down the entire engage.
Things to keep in mind though: Spell Healing is affected including self sustain, meaning heroes like Sonya, Qhira and even Malganis’s Ult will suffer a powerful penalty, resulting to heal LESS on top of less damage.
Lifesteal is completely unaffected unless lifesteal is tied to the spell damage dealt.
Whitemane’s Zeal is unaffected because its tied to her damage, meaning she won’t get destroyed twice (e.g, -50% spell power and -50% healing → -75%).
Ok I lied. Let’s talk about the other unsung hero, positive spell power!
I mean it was already said, more spell power = more healing. If you keep this in mind, this means talents like Air Ally from Kharazim affects all healing done from all abilities including his. Li Li getting +10% spell power? She deals damage? No, it’s more than that it affects all her types of healing including her ultimate, more spell power = more healing.
Nano boost is the same case, have you ever faced a nano’ed Qhira? she can literally go from 1% HP to 100% with one click of a button because her healing is tied to her poison stacks.
And my favorite busted combo: Imagine, 80% heal increase from EVERYTHING, do you know what it takes?
Varian’s Banner of Dalaran (20% spell power to everyone) and Glory to the Alliance (+50% healing) and you have a banner with +80% heal increase and 12 seconds cooldown of a 12 seconds duration, funny how these number work, two separate modifiers result in multiplicative results and always on? Balanced? Kill the flag? Maybe?
Conclusion:
Spell power… is a certainly a power that not only affects simply mages, but anyone you would expect to capitalize on their abilities and their features. Remember, this isn’t implying that you need to use spell power specifically for healers because they are still crucial against mages to deny burst but do keep in mind of what it takes to win a fight could be also be to shutdown healing done by either the hero itself or the healer.
