Idea to fix healing problem with shuffle

PVP Arenas
1

With the lack of healers and people interested in healing/support roles its creating quite the dilemma for shuffle que times. An idea I had was borrowing from crane monks.

Similar to how prot pallies only que into each other, why not open up another method and give the DPS in lobby a “Look at me! I’m the healer now!” aura buff that similarly works like crane? Healing from DPS and just have it rotate between DPS every round.

May not be optimal but in an already meme format why not if it speeds up ques.

2 Likes
2

We look to fistweavers to fix our problems lol. Doesn’t sound bad except three DPS is a lot harder to heal through than two DPS. If they reduced all damage by like 50% and did something like this maybe

1 Like
3

Fistweaver in the sense. The concept is what were after.

Healing and support roles are always going to be unpopular in general and only specific types of players actively seek them out. Nothing wrong with that and nothing should change for their ques other then QoL improvements.

A 6 DPS lobby with a crane type buff applied to one of the DPS and rotating each round so basically everyone has to be the healer for a round might be the most effective solution to fast and enjoyable que times. Shuffle is its own thing anyway not like were looking to expand it to any other format.

Its a lot simpler then trying to overhaul and rework the entire healing system to get people to actually wanna play a support or healer role in WoW, heck any game.

Shuffs already a fun meme, why not refine it so we can get near insta-ques with a new healing system like that. I can’t see any reasons why we shouldn’t.

1 Like
4

Yea it’s not like ideas haven’t been pitched on here already. It’s just that blizzard has shown that they don’t care

5

This is amazing and brilliant signal boost this

1 Like
6

How does this “crane” system work?

7

Every round Healer buff rotates between DPS and selected DPS heal the team thru their sustain and burst DPS similar to how a fistweaver works.

So as a fire mage for example my sustain dps and ignite would keep you guys up and you would see some huge heal bursts during combust.

Maybe as a poster above threw in having some sort of baked in damage reduction to buff so even someone trained can still output enough.

Obviously this is just exclusive to shuffle but it would alleviate the que system and provide a bit of fun so not everyone is waiting to get a spot with the small pool of people willing to play healer/support in a shuffle environment.

Or for giggles it could convert ALL Damage into pure healing. IE You do zero damage but all actual damage is converted into team healing instead for other 2 DPS. That would be a hilarious spin on it.

8

Not a bad idea. I still also think opening a 2v2 bracket up for double dps only in shuffle format would help people feel like they get to play the game while also not fundamentally changing how the game works. Seems like low hanging fruit to hold people over until a real fix is implemented.

1 Like
9

There really isn’t a fix without changing how the game works fundamentally. A lot of eastern MMOS have already keyed in on that aspect and have combat systems that aren’t build upon the holy trinity of DPS/Tank/Healer.

WoW is built upon it like other MMOs and is a core part of gameplay. The problem is healer/support will always be an unpopular role in any game, yea some people do it and enjoy it but the majority don’t and DPS will always be the most popular. You can’t fix that aspect at all. We can try bandaids and thats about it.

The solution shouldn’t be “Oh people should just quit their favorite class and become a healer to help que times either”. If the product stinks and majority don’t like it style its never gonna become appealing no matter how much you try. Putting lipstick on a pig won’t change how unpopular healer/support roles are in ANY game.

Sure it has it appeals to some players like tanks but its largely unpopular. They could introduce a new tank spec/class and healer spec/class every month until we have 100 different unique ones and they would still be offering incentive rewards to que cus no one wants to do it haha. Just how it is really no real fix.

1 Like
10

i see

I believe that the solution to this “problem” is something very…delicate. There are so many ideas here on the forum that it’s strange that Blizzard itself didn’t already have these ideas in a brainstorm meeting (maybe they did and ignored them all).

Regarding this idea of “crane”, I see it as: it would be an interesting idea, but it would not solve the problem 100% because healers would still have their mmr/ranking counted in a strange way, and problems with balance could also exist (very high chance).

IF, if balancing problems could come with this idea (which is a good idea, just to make my point clear), then other ideas are also viable (or interesting).

People have already posted ideas like: healers winning mmr even in 3-3…all healers are available for all brackets but have individual scores…prevent the healers’ scores from getting so low (ranking) in every match…give 1k gold per round regardless of winning or losing…I came up with the idea of all dps classes having a healer spec…

In fact, this idea came to solve several requests, for example , most pure DPS (classes without spec healer) want to get the SET and face gigantic queues and when they find a match they have some problems such as people leaving the match, players losing by their own choice, ping problems with some teammates, combined match/trade win, AFK, etc… this causes people who even play well to wait for a long time and being affected by these situations …So, for example, if a mage had a healer spec (time mage (chronomancy), white mage, battle mage, or anything like that) they could help themselfs AND help others players; There is some other ideas on this : Dk healer (a necromancer for example) or a warrior (fantasy support, battle healer type) or a hunter (healing bandages, etc.) or rogue (plague doctor with potions, smokes, etc.)…

Well, do you know what this idea has in common with this crane idea ? Both would cause balancing problems and in my view, both are difficult to implement. I think CREATING new specs is much more difficult, of course, but putting 1 dps as a healer and converting all damage into healing as if it were a disc priest or fistweaver… is also something complex that will need to change all DPS specs. It’s not just “enabling” this and that’s it…it’s something much more complicated.

I like the idea of creating healer specs for DPS because this solves 4 problems in my opinion:
1 - there would be more healers for mytcs, raids, pvp;
2 - This would create fantasies that some players have been asking for a long time;
3 - would reduce the SS queues by some %;
4 - Pure DPS’s would have the possibility to enter as a healer if the queues were too long.

Another idea (which isn’t mine but I found it interesting) would be for a healer to earn a token (only one per season) when getting 1800 to buy a class set (account wide). Then, if the person wanted to farm more sets, they would play with other healers on their account, which would eventually bring more healers to SS.

But I believe this is something…very difficult for Blizzard to create (both ideas, making a dps a healer via damage or creating a healer spec)

I think that at most Blizz will increase healers’ gains in pvp (ranking) and that’s it…

The ideal scenario would be to bring ALL these ideas together at the same time.
Imagine if halers benefited more in SS - if they gained gold per complete match - if this idea of crane existed as well as other healer specs and if they improved the ranking system for healers, at least in 3-3…

That could reduce queues a lot.

1 Like
11

The problem with this crane thing is it would have to be a separate bracket as it would not be as competitive. In normal shuffle having two healers play with a combination of everyone creates a semi balanced playing field that is good at rewarding the better players.

In this crane approach, every player getting the buff only once would basically create 6 wildly different comps and it would create more random outcomes than the normal approach.

Maybe if two random DPS are designated crane roles for the whole match? This would make it more even. Although some classes would be way more overpowered. Frost mage, which is a set up class and usually does last in damage would do terrible healing. DH would do MASSIVE healing. Casters in a melee lobby would get trained and do 0 healing on their crane turn. Over all classes with alot of pad damage would be overpowered

12

This is simply too logistically complicated when you factor in how players are shuffled and rated.

The ability to convert damage into enough potential healing to fulfill the need to match incoming damage has sweeping ramifications that not only grossly effect different damage dealing specs in vary different ways, but also creates a mess for having a balanced rotation in the 6 round format. In fact solo shuffle only really works because two of the participants are dedicated healers of the which the other 4 participants rotate around. Thus you would have to reformat the ranking system well beyond simple MMR adjustments.

There is no solution here beyond completely rebuilding the foundation of the group dynamic of wow. Support roles have historically been far less popular in every online game.

You either:

-A) eliminate said role and convert the game mode into more of a role agnostic environment.

-B) create a team based format that includes more damage roles per support role to better saturate the non support role queue

Both solutions fly completely in opposition to how arena has worked in this game since the day it was added. Solution A means you must further divorce pvp from pve or else you are faced with uprooting the foundation of pve group dynamics. Solution B means you are basically making micro BG death matches. One only needs to look back on 5s to see how that plays out.

Frankly, imo this is just a natural aging problem. Wows arena format as many have come to enjoy is simply not compatible under the framework that has governed wow for decades, when you are attempting to create a modern style accessible queueing system. And to those who say a simple 3v3 single match solo queue would alleviate the issue, it would not. The system is still going to need to find 2 available healers for every 4 available damage dealers. This queue time situation has really only served to prove that wow rated pvp was always a very cliquish members only group endeavor of which finding players to fill the support role was not an issue because the spread of participants was hyper focused. Open up the format to everyone who wants to try rated pvp but not wanting to deal with the (justified or not) scrutiny that has always existed but more recently manifested itself in the LFG tool, and you see clear as day the actual discrepancy magnified by the lack of healers.

Competitive 3s is not nearly as popular as those that basically have lived within that bubble believe it to be. It’s popular in that the queue times are long and the leaderboards filled, but not elegantly designed enough for the necessary amount of willing support role participants beyond the very dedicated minority of healer players that have enabled / held up the format in years past.

13

How about we just can Arena already

It’s never been the favored form of PvP, even when it has all the rewards tailored to it. Additionally, dumb idea to make it the premier game mode when the Healer to Dps ratio is nowhere close to 1:2.

If Healers were more like Supports in MOBAs (basically DPS with some defensive utility) maybe it’d work.

Until then - Bring on Rated Blitz babyyy