SoD: Mage healers need slight adjustments

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Edit: Looks like they finally ditched the beacon split mechanic :slight_smile:

tldr: change Temporal Beacon to act more like modern Disc Priests’ Atonement, and rethink Rewind Time and Arcane Blast sharing a rune slot.

Regeneration / Mass Regeneration
Applies Temporal Beacon to friendly target(s) for 30/15 seconds. 100% of all Arcane damage done by the caster will be divided among the caster’s current Temporal Beacon targets.

Problem: Because of the healing split, healing a low number of beacons is very strong and healing a high number of beacons is very weak. For example with beacon active on two tanks, they will each be healed for 50% of your arcane damage. However with a properly performed raid ramp on 20 players, they will each be healed for just 5% of your arcane damage.

This needs to be changed for the following reasons, because currently:

  1. Encourages 1-2 target healing only, which is one dimensional and largely a waste of the mechanic (buff tank every 30 seconds and otherwise normal DPS gameplay)
  2. Discourages raid healing and ramping, which is skillful and satisfying gameplay
  3. Requires party and raid members to make use of /cancelaura Temporal Beacon macros to properly mitigate lingering healing splits

What are ramps (high level)?
Alternate between two phases:

  1. Applying large numbers of Temporal Beacons to your raid (low healing phase)
  2. Using damage cooldowns and rotation to heal the raid (high healing phase)

Example healing chart using retail Disc Priest Atonement ramps:
imgur. com/a/kFZWKQO

Possible Solutions:

  • Change Temporal Beacon to heal for a flat percentage of arcane damage dealt to all affected allies (similarly to Legion-Dragonflight Disc Priest Atonement). For example, All allies with Temporal Beacon are healed for 40% of your arcane damage dealt.

  • Change Temporal Beacon to only split on effective healing done and add a percentage floor. For example, 1 target = 100%, 2 targets = 50%, 3 targets = 40%, 4 targets = 30%, 5 targets = 30%, 6 targets = 30%, ...20 targets = 30%, etc.

Bonus problem:

Rewind Time
Your current target with your Temporal beacon instantly heals all damage taken over the last 5 seconds. Ineffective on targets that did not have a Temporal beacon 5 seconds ago.

Arcane Blast
Blasts the target with energy, dealing Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage and healing of all other Arcane spells is increased by 15% and mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 175%. Effect stacks up to 4 times and lasts 6 sec or until any other Arcane damage or healing spell is cast.

There is no universe where Rewind Time is ever taken over Arcane Blast (they share the glove slot rune).

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My vote is to absolutely NIX this mage healer nonsense, it absolutely clashes with the Classic vibe. It’s simply a move to slide an Evoker into Classic. I don’t play retail for reasons.

7 Likes
3

These mechanics don’t have anything to do with Evokers.

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If this is just the first wave of runes, I can’t wait to see how busted the level 40, 50 or 60 bracket bull-onga is going to be.

Inb4 Warrior is actually the best healer class.

OOOH!

I’m betting $500 Warriors get a rune that makes the Diamond Flask healing permanent with 2000 health per 5.

2 Likes
5

Since Blizzard unfortunately gutted absorb Disc and forced atonement disc, their way of doing it made Disc weak in 5 mans for a long time because atonement was balanced around being able to have a lot out in a raid and didn’t scale backwards well for smaller groups. I think it wasn’t until Dragonflight that they tried to do something about that.

The way they’re doing it with arcane mage actually makes it much better at the smaller scale than atonement while not being grossly overpowered when you put it on a lot of people at once. While some Disc priest streamers liked the raid burst ramp thing, that was really the one-trick Disc had and many old Disc players that liked Disc before the atonement re-work hated the spec because that was all it was good for.

Raid ramp atonement is NOT fun for everyone and I wouldn’t want them to copy that style.

I think mana cost and spending seems to be a big factor for mage healing. I saw some streamer saying how OP mage healing was standing out in front of org spam casting it, but he didn’t seem to be aware he was spamming his mana away so fast.

Rewind time appears to be a 1m CD with no mana cost. The 1m CD makes it seem disappointing but the no mana cost might be relevant. Probably a decent PvP ability at the very least. Especially since their main heal is a channeled ability and easily interrupted.

I think rewind will need to be changed because the 1m CD + you can cast it seemingly when it’s not effective, which will require addons to even be able to use it well and be sure your 1m CD isn’t entirely wasted as it seems in its current state.

I doubt you’ll want to spam arcane blast as a healing mage and run oom in 5 seconds for most things though. It’d be nice in PvP for the burst and you can get OOC and drink a lot in PvP. Arcane glove slots seem underwhelming entirely for any PvE that has longer fights though.

You also can’t take arcane surge and the AoE heal at the same time which is a shame since arcane surge would have been useful. Arcane surge also appears to be a 2m cd.

Just going by values in a random blizzcon stream I could find where some guy actually moused over the abilities.

I also think mass regeneration and wild growth should use more modern AoE targeting functionality and not be party based. Priests were the only class that had to keep using party based limitations all the way into Cataclysm and it was annoying. You have to change your raid UI to be ordered by party instead of role, which I hate. WotLK Wild Growth didn’t do this. Just make them up to 5 nearby party or raid members.

The 3 mage healing abilities aren’t remotely similar to Evoker healing besides rewind, though even that works differently. Evokers don’t have to put up a buff to start a timer to rewind on, it just works whenever they cast it.

6

With the exception of the last one, I’m not sure these are actually problems. We’ll see how the rest of the balance shakes out but what you’re describing is how a lot of healers work in Era right now. Case in point, Druids and Paladins have no effective AoE heals and are still quite successful in the types of content SoD will focus on initially.

My only real concern with this approach at all is that it effectively replaces the need for a healer at all. Era dungeon healing isn’t like retail. There’s not massive amounts of unavoidable damage. People only get hit when they stand in bad and opportunities for that are exceptionally minimal in any content that will exist on the journey up to 25, excluding the unknown BFD raid of course.

Retail has the healer as DPS meta and honestly, I’m not a fan. I hope that doesn’t become the meta in SoD.

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Medivh was a fun support in Heroes of The Storm.

If they can push mage healers to be like that, that would be fun

8

You missed the connection entirely, DPS mage like class that also heals. It was very simple.

9

You’re trying to pretend a connection exists by zooming way out and making a silly generalization.

Arcane Mage healers aren’t similar to Evokers.

If you were trying to make a comparison they’re more similar to atonement focused Disc priests, but even that isn’t a good comparison overall.

10

Recent datamining additions:

  • Healing transfer 100% → 40% of arcane damage dealt (still splits between Temporal Beacon targets)
  • After applying Temporal Beacon, Fire and Frost damage reduced by 50% and Ice Block uncastable. Lasts 5 minutes.

So now if you press Mass Regeneration, you heal for 8% of your damage. Do a mini 10-man ramp? 4% of your damage. Large 20-man ramp? A whopping 2% of your damage. You’re a glorified health regen enchant in AoE.

This splitting mechanic has got to go. This just does not function as-is.
(also locking you out of Ice Block is cringe)

11

Seems pretty low. Maybe in internal testing they tried heavy AoE and realized it was going to be OP with arcane explosion for 5 mans or something.

All the healing runes also seem kind of expensive mana cost wise.

The fire/frost ice block nerf seems like they’re nerfing it for dueling… which seems like an immensely stupid type of content to balance for. It also leaves arcane mages in a really awkward space in group PvP when you’re arcane locked. That also seems like an especially odd thing to bother changing now given nobody will have ice block at 25.

Also, was there not a datamine summary anywhere for the last build? I see these changes in the wowhead calculator but there’s no datamine page like the original 1.15 datamine as far as I can see.

12

They literally just have to copy Atonement. Not sure why they’re trying to reinvent the wheel here, relearning all of the same lessons along the way.

Power Word: Shield, Flash Heal, Renew, and Power Word: Radiance apply Atonement to your target for 15 sec. Your spell damage heals all targets affected by Atonement for 40% of the damage done.

Healing increased by 50% when not in a raid.

Area of effect damage triggers Atonement once per cast.

Fire/frost nerf is a super jank PvP change. Ice Block removal is comical because no other class gets locked out of their defensives because they have a heal.

Also, was there not a datamine summary anywhere for the last build?

They stopped doing them because a bunch of 30 year old children kept circlejerking about dIsCoVeRy as if they weren’t going to look it up the second it came out anyway.

13

Go back to retail. The connection is there, right in front of your face. Disregard it all you want.

14

9 day unhinged classic purist response seems even more unhinged after 9 days.

Scrolling up to see why you’re even mad:

I was just correct. Arcane mage’s in SoD aren’t remotely similar to Evokers… Guessing you just haven’t played one if you think otherwise.

15

Watching dedicated classic players comment on the modern game is quality content.

16

wew that datamine change…OUCH

17

Yea I mentioned this in the other mage thread, but the mana costs for regen and mass regen are also massively changed. It’s actually to the point where I think the devs might be trolling datamining. They have mass regen at 69% base mana atm. Even with buffs I think you’d only be able to cast it twice at 25 before being oom?

18

that’d be brilliant.

19

I think mage healers is a little weird because it doesn’t really fit the original designs much at all

Shaman tank, Warlock tank, Paladin tank, Druid tank - those were all part of classic.

20

Comes out in less than 3 days and the spec is still completely nonfunctional…