Healing right now feels horrible and insanely weak

Community General Discussion
43

I stumbled across what I feel is actually a great comparison of how things have changed.

I was purging old shadowplay recordings and came across a Mists of Tirna Scithe M+ run from Shadowlands, when the dungeon was new. This was one of many runs I did back then to fill my vault with max level rewards, so the equivalent to a current +10 in that respect.

The first pull was handled pretty much the same as it was today. We used the skip (I opened the door), after which the tank pretty much rounded-up all of the trash in the first room up, and we stacked on the tank.

In TWW, I have to keep a full stack of HoTs (5+) on every single person, Ironbark the tank, Barkskin myself, and spam regrowth on anyone who even looks like they are taking additional damage, while praying that it will be enough.

In SL, I only had to keep maybe 1-3 HoTs per person and an occasional Regrowth to do this exact same pull.

The second boss in Mists of Tirna Scithe did not seem nearly as bad as it is today. in the recording from Shadowlands, getting hit by an orb would rarely kill you, you usually had to get hit by two orbs in order to die (stacked arrows usually). Of course, this mechanic is really not difficult to avoid, but dodging the arrows can be annoying depending on how it aligns with some affixes and the RNG that it creates, and it still highlighted the health and difficulty differences.

But probably the biggest difference was the last boss, Tredova. This boss is not super difficult, but RNG can create some really bad situations depending on where the ground effects spawn. In SL, just like today, you had ranged players not understanding that being completely on the other side of the room makes it very difficult to heal them…

In the recording from Shadowlands, it was amazing how much easier it was having Soulshape, being able to Blink out of bad mechanics and/or get to people who need healing easier. Not to mention that just having HoTs on people felt much more meaningful, where even if they went out of range for a bit, as long as those HoTs were still ticking, they would usually be okay for a while.

And toward the end of the fight, when the ground was getting full of green puddles, I ended up backed up against a wall and had nowhere to go. I died. But wait, I didn’t. I turned into a pod (podtender), and got saved, without that counting as a battle-res or anything like that. It’s almost crazy to think that just two expansions ago, you could actually still make mistakes and not die. Almost like this is a game, made for people to have fun, or something crazy like that.

So it’s not as if I can’t heal in TWW. I certainly can. I’m capped on Gilded Crests and everything. It just feels like I have to work twice as hard, with zero margin for error now compared to back then. Back then, healing was fun, even during the dungeon. Now the most fun part of a dungeon is when it’s over.

10 Likes
44

Before: use a defensive to help out the healers

Now: use a defensive because the healer aint gonna save you.

This, in a game where dps focus on parsing and consider using defenses to be a DPS loss. Many who also think the healer alone can save them.

So yes, it’s rough, but dont neglect a major reason is DPS still expecting healers to basically do everYthing.

3 Likes
45

I’ve only healed 4s, but when that curse goes out I have no choice but to use Rapture. Not a bad time for Barrier either. If they die through that they just suck.

Low keys are even worse because people invite 585 ilvl tanks. I had a tank die through IBF, Vamp Blood, my shields + Pain Suppression. I ended up leaving that key. It’s too much of a PITA to try and heal a paper thin tank and also heal DPS that are spiking from no interrupts. Nothing else is killing them but avoidable damage anyway, it’s not like it’s a mystery.

2 Likes
46

Its one of those “look at me! I’m helping!” moments. My little 74 was trying to heal an 80. He would have had to go afk for me to top off his health bar. :laughing:

I feel “okay” with my Mist and my Resto. But then with the content I am currently doing there is a good chance that my target isn’t max level so…

Don’t even care, judge me if you want but I’d like Essence Font and Healing Touch back. EF because I’m lazy and HT because instant cast big heals with Mastery was amazing and not every resto spell needs to have or be a HoT. :face_with_monocle: :dracthyr_shrug:

2 Likes
47

Yeah, for PUGs there needs to be a mindset switch, and now that I’m running around in +8s and up it seems like the DPS who are at this level know that some of the responsibility is on them. For me though, it’s still not fun. I want to bomb heals and be solely responsible for keeping everyone topped up, but for some encounters, it’s just not possible. Dragonflight healing was a lot more fun because tanks were immortal, so right away you only have to actually heal 4 people, and then if I avoid damage, I only have to actually heal 3 people.

But now, everyone takes damage and there’s a ton of unavoidable damage popping off that randomly targets everyone in the group, and Blizzard didn’t juice up healing to account for it. It’s a joke that HoTs are ticking for 40k-50K when players have 4-6 million hit points and periodic damage is ticking for 500k-800k. The math ain’t mathing :upside_down_face:

3 Likes
48

I may be wrong, but this feels like the usual cycle. Blizzard seems to have shifting views on game difficulty. They nerf healing, then tanking, then taunts, then dps, then damage reduction, then talents, etc. Once they feel the content seems to get easy they target a list and just go through the motions. Partly i dont blame them, between introducting new spells, talents, classes in some cases its a nightmare to do balancing in an mmo where everyone is doing what they can do get an advantage over the game.

49

Yeah, I was comparing it to your max HP, healing was something I rarely had trouble with as MW. Expel Harm could heal half my life, if you set up vivify it should also be doing about half your life.

50

There is definitely something off about any instance that has scaling. Could just be health pools, but if you want to move health bars it feels like you have to roll cds, and spam big heals for some impact.

51

they really really hate healers this expac

2 Likes
52

There’s unfortunately healing scaling in place that makes leveling potentially awful depending on the circumstances.

If you go into 70-80 with a high item level for that level range you’re actually basically a healing god for the first few levels, especially when healing higher level targets as the healing scaling significantly scales up your healing when healing higher level targets in leveling content.

I’m not sure if they ever changed how the scaling worked since I stopped paying attention after I finished leveling everything, but I wrote a lot of posts about it when TWW first came out and some people doubted what I was saying even though you could literally just walk around town as a healer of different levels, healing people of different levels to see it in action. When you gained a level your healing on a target 1 level lower (the level you just were) would be significantly lower than moments before you leveled. As a 78+ healer especially your healing was massively nerfed against low 70 targets.

The healing scaling system significantly nerfs your healing when healing lower level targets in addition to you getting weaker as you level due to a loss in secondary stats and what not.

If you’re leveling in dungeons as a healer this can make your experience wildly different depending on your level, your gear level and the levels of the rest of your group.

53

Is it not normal? If you want to top players fast you need to use cds right?

54

They changed level scalling vs item level this week to be harder and ramp faster because timewaking dungeons were to easy :dracthyr_a1:

At max level endgame content i havent noticed any changes compared to last patch, its a little annoying in keys but thats just cause its healer/cleanse week for the affix and a shammy cant just handle it themsleves with totem the whole dungeon anymore.

55

Awesome post, and that’s cool that you had old gameplay vids to compare to. I agree that TWW makes it hard to constantly jump in and queue up for another one. During Dragonflight Season 3 I always had a “just one more” feeling after ripping through a mythic+ and could easily knock out 8 in a day for a full vault. Now, even when it’s a great group and the run goes smoothly, I need to decompress from having healed it. So yeah, I tend to only try for one or two runs a night and then switch to alts :sweat_smile:

1 Like
56

I bought 5 pieces of armor for my Holy priest at 80.
My Smite and dps spells all doubled in damage. Smite went from 112k to 240k
My flash heal went from 150k to 175k

I dont even bother casting hots anymore, not worth the GCD.

I leveled a resto druid recently form 64 to 70. ONE rejuve made a difference. Cast a Regrowth and the bar would MOVE. My 75 Resto druid take 2 rejuvs, regrowth hot and a lifebloom JUST TO MAINTAIN HEALTH LEVEL.

SICK SICK SICK of this healing nerf for last 3 expansion. I want my heals to feel something. Crit a flash heal and act like a lay on hands. As it stands now if I crit a flash heal I just need to cast flash heal 9x instead of 10.

5 Likes
57

I’m not even talking about emergency healing. Sustained normal healing isn’t touching health bars.

2 Likes
58

would be stupid.

59

I mean bro I was taking your post seriously till I saw this. if you can’t heal 70-80 leveling dungeons you just gotta get good, like I got bored leveling my druid spamming duns because of how boring it was.

60

this resume healing in TWW

61

Pfff, you think that’s bad. You should try healing.

62

I dunno. Healing scaling feels super funky at the moment. Leveling a Prot Paladin and Shamans were healing surging me for like ~50k when I’m 74 and they’re 78 or 79.

At max level it feels fine, but scaling it giving some weird results.