It looks like generally for healers single target healing in Season 3 is going to be stronger, but that mana is potentially going to be harder to manage. The result will be less need to overuse group healing–currently a problem–at least for me healing disc in M+ in pugs–this since Disc single target healing is currently bad.
Concerns:
My main concern with this is that while being a very good thing for M+, it will mean avoidable damage will become even more of a key to success. That is because if you are going OOM then it is the result of having to heal a lot. That it will mean that those in your groups who get hit over and over by avoidable damage are going to kill your mana if you are going to continually be rescuing them. And then you, the healer, who will go OOM while the tank is not paying attention will see a wipe that you could not stop.
Sounds like SL when Disc had Shadow Mend and the tanks were pulling everything in sight.
It depends how good the atonement buffs feel, i very rarely use a single target heal right now as it is other than to apply an atonement and let that carry the way. A lot of it is going to depend on what the damage patterns look like next season as well. I have a tendancy to let my pug dps die if they continually stand in bad, mostly because if they are going to keep doing it it’s not worth the globals to keep them alive usually.
Maybe? It is hard to say at this point how it will all pan out.
I think the knee jerk reaction is to be worried that the sky is falling but I just don’t think we have enough information to go full panic over it.
I will say that during bursting weeks sometimes I would go oom because of all of the mass dispels + chain pulls but I usually could be ok by spacing out mana pots, symbol, and our little fiend friend while sipping along the way.
Not sure how much of a difference this mana change is going to be.
At the end of the day, the initially reaction I had was- I am tired. This game has tested my stamina this expansion. I main heals as holy priest and don’t start really playing my alts much until my priest is on her way to being geared.
The rat race to gear up while feeling like I am the worst healer ever because crossing the dungeon finish line feels like a mental marathon took a toll these last 2 seasons. Knowing that it gets decently better once you are geared might not be a big enough carrot for me to climb that hill again this next season.
And if mana is going to be a struggle, on top of the same struggles we have had the last 2 seasons…
Like I said, I am just tired. I play this game to relax and step out of a stressful life lol.
This is all speaking from mythic+ in mind. I have enjoyed raiding this expansion. I am part of a really chill guild that has a focus of only aotc. I love it. I don’t foresee frustration with raiding over changes just because of the people I play with and the atmosphere of it all.
S3 dungeons will prob require more ST healing. there is less pulsing damage events going out and more spikey damage
We will also get the mana trinket from BRH.
Also since we are playing the squid build AND have access to shield discipline im not too worried in keys about mana. Raid should be ok too if you take both
In the new megadungeons there’s plenty of group damage to heal up.
In waycrest/Atal it’s mostly true. There’s a couple things in there where it’s not really the case and you need AoE, and there’s some of the classic ‘if this doesn’t get stunned/interrupted everyone gets blasted’ packs but a lot of it is tank damage.
In Darkheart there’s a good mix.
I honestly can’t remember BRH much. I think Amalgam had some group damage, and the final boss had the really nasty shadowbolt volley you had to burst heal quickly from, but I don’t remember mob packs at all.
Throne of the tides was pretty low group damage, yeah.
Everbloom had some group failure checks for AoE damage. Nothing else crazy though IIRC.
Everbloom is the one i least remember having last done it in WoD i think it was. DHT the cats always got me.
Izen did another video commenting again the healers are running away. I enjoy the healing aspects. I detest having to do afflicted or incorp as well as heal. I think its about time the dps got penalized more
It’s becoming a less popular role since it became more demanding in DF S1.
It’s kinda a weird role though, because in solid groups, healer has been able to just get absolutely carried through content because dungeon design made a lot of the unavoidable stuff able to be interrupted/stunned/dealt with. It’s kinda been that way since BfA. (It was very funny seeing all the M+ content creators that rose in BfA get put back in Legion dungeons in S4 shadowlands and see how crazy those dungeons were on unavoidable damage).
DF kinda flipped that dynamic on its head with its dungeon design. There’s a lot of unavoidable stuff with very high damage, some straight up healer checks, some group coordination checks, affixes, etc. But they KEPT the failure damage from not interrupting/ccing properly. Healers can’t easily be hard carried anymore (though we were getting there with god comp).
But in making those changes with the dungeon designs, lower level pug healers who were already struggling with groups that would just let stuff go off? They’re struggling way more now. So I’m not surprised they’re quitting. When a group lets an AoE go off now it feels awful to try and recover from. And it’s pretty common in the 1-15 range.
Izen did a video ages ago, (when his main was resto shammie) that healers are being found out this xpac. Last xpac it was healer dps and this xpac its actual healing and those who kinda hid last xpac are finding it hard. He was harsher in his appraisal of it though.
But he isnt wrong. People wanted to actually heal and not dps and when it came to it at first some healer classes struggled but now its more the healers themselves
Well, I personally still havent figured out how to do like 80k dps in a run like I saw Moad do last week–and like I’ve seen Jak do as well. I dunno if I’m doing it wrong. That said, I am a little sloppy about my buttons, could run a damage build like squid which I dont, but then I do know that in a lot of pugs you really can’t focus on dps more than healing or it will end badly. That said, while I do have a few not bad damage parses, some are abyssmal. I’d personally like to pump a lot of damage if possible, and while not sacrificing healing.
Holy priest damage is pretty bad right now. I wish they would do something about that because some of us would play it more. The healing of Holy Priests has never been a problem, and you ought to be able to pump when you have downtime or if your group is first rate at kicks, cc and avoiding damage. In fact, that would be the ideal build because it would more incentivize deeps to push more than just their damage buttons and get out of the fire faster.
Much as these are incredibly annoying and take away time from dps and hps, and can require fair bit of eyeballing–wasting time, if you heal a lot you get used to them. I loathed them up until very recently. A lot of dps seem better at handling them as well.
Neither have i mate I also dont have beacon. But it also requires big pulls to make full use of the 5 jump shadowfire. But i also dont care. At the level i am which is around 20/21 my 30-40k dps does the job.
But my comment was more aimed at all the posts ive seen in the last 2 years of healers begging to be able to heal and are tired of being expecting to dps. They got their wish this xpac.
I dont heal a lot atm. I only do about 4 keys a week atm. Too much enjoying hardcore classic wow and work gets in the way plus kids. Plus working on getting my bench to 170kg and squat to 250kg. A bit of a flex.
In my 15 UR i pugged with a tank friend cause he needed UR, every single time incorp came up i did one and the other free cast. Every time
Yeah, it’s those mythic raid trinkets. Sigh. Well, what are you gonna do if you dont have access. Yaaay, Blizzard!
I healed 26 keys last week. I have five disc priests. I also got the new Night Elf set. A little disappointed with it though as it shows as a bikini at Armoury, but completely differently in game.
Me? Access. Naw. I am not in a mythic raiding guild, have never been in a guild with a nice raid lead and/or guild lead who has a clue, and/or knows enough people who have the availibility and/or people/coaching skills for it. Hence, I just pug. And with a 300+ f list of folks I rarely do anything with unless I play meta or do low keys/content.
Honestly, if the mythic raid locks were not a problem I would make raid groups of my own. But you get locked to one instance a week, and so what can you do?
I don’t really mythic raid either because it doesn’t suit my fun in wow. But, I still have access to it same as you. We just choose not to bother with it. Heroic heart is still fancy.
I dunno. I would heal mythic raid and probably enjoy it if I found a nice group of people that were not super competitive, and yet just the same, competitive enough to raid regularly and get the achievement and earn the gear that comes with it. M+ is just there any time you want it, you also can just leave a group without a care in the world if you like (not that I do that very often). You also don’t have to worry about a raid lock which for me is the biggest barrier. If there was no lock and you could pug mythic right off the bat I would raid regularly in much the same manner as I heal keys. I have zero doubt about that. Blizzard just has all of these barriers in place that really I see as shooting themselves in the foot (a), and hurtful to the player base like me who like to play whenever they feel like it and could actually do the content with practice and not having to put up with shortsighted people that call themselves raid leads (b).
I also dont have beacon. But it also requires big pulls to make full use of the 5 jump shadowfire. But i also dont care. At the level i am which is around 20/21 my 30-40k dps does the job.
I also got the new Night Elf set. A little disappointed with it though as it shows as a bikini at Armoury, but completely differently in game.