The change to way of the crane is idiotic

Community General Discussion
1

This change right here, did anyone actually think about this change, or was it ChatGPT?

Right now, Spinning Crane Kick (SCK) heals 3 people for 125% of the damage done. This means that SCK is not always the best button to push, right? Your use situations for SCK right now are:

  • >5 targets
  • Dance of Chi-ji procced, and RSK is on cooldown
  • Dance of Chi-ji procced and >=2 targets

You don’t always spam SCK, and even in those scenarios above there are situations that you don’t want to press SCK – like if you have tea up, you can RSK 4 times back to back which is more healing than spamming SCK, especially with jade stomp.

With the new change, your #1 priority button is going to be SCK always. You’re not going to use tiger palm or blackout kick because they deal low damage and don’t heal all that much, you’re just going to go RSK > SCK spam until RSK is off cooldown > RSK > repeat. Regardless of how many targets there are. In AoE you won’t even look at any other buttons anymore because they’re also gimping jade stomp’s healing.

Is that fun for anyone?

Can we please pretend like we know how to design the game, or at the very least actually talk to people who play the classes?

And for people who don’t read comments, here’s a bunch of math from a little ways down the thread.

No, it’s the opposite.

Right now, Way of the Crane has a hard limit per target you heal. Using my stats right now:

  • One target SCK (two GCDs since TP > Blackout takes 2 GCDs) = 14,520 healing per target
  • Two target SCK = 29,040 healing per target
  • Three target SCK = 43,560 healing per target
  • Four target SCK = 58,080 healing per target
  • Five target SCK = 72,600 healing per target

So on 5 targets the absolute max I can heal one person is 72,600 healing. I have more overall healing, but per person I have less.

One TP > Blackout combo (using current ancient teachings) does:

  • 53,214 healing against a single target
  • 60,185 healing against two targets
  • 68,260 healing against three targets

So, in two GCDs, SCK will heal one person less than a TP > Blackout combo up until 5 targets, where SCK spam does more per person in healing.

Ancient Teachings healing is divided amongst 5 people, meaning one person can get all the healing from a proc if no one else is injured. This means, even if there’s a lot of targets, sometimes it’s better to TP > Blackout combo, or cast RSK (which is 45,141 per cast using current numbers). If I’m healing just the tank, SCK is bad.

With the new numbers:

SCK, per 2 GCDs, does (using new numbers):

  • 39,494 healing against one target
  • 78,988 two targets
  • 118,482 three targets
  • 157,976 four targets
  • 197,470 five targets

This healing is all funneled into the lowest health person. If only the tank is taking damage, this means they will get all the healing.

Using the new ancient teachings numbers, one TP > Blackout combo does:

  • 62,675 healing one target
  • 70,884 2 target
  • 80,395 3 target

So this means at two targets SCK and TP>Blackout are doing about the same healing for healing one person, and at 3 targets, regardless of how many people I’m healing, spamming SCK is better.

If I’m against 3+ targets, RSK is entirely a troll ability, as it’s only healing 53,166 healing per cast.

So I’m forced to do nothing but spam SCK. Absolute highest priority will always be dance of chiji procs with these changes too, where currently you don’t ALWAYS want to use dance of chiji the moment it procs.

Current Way of the Crane is way healthier and has way more diverse gameplay.

But removing diverse gameplay is probably the intention anyway since modern “Blizzard” hates it when you have to think to play well.

2

How does a nerf to SCK net healing mean you need to press it more? One target instead of 3, plus it being less than 3x effective in that single target means less effective healing and, likely, more waste in overhealing.

3

It heals 3x more per tick. It’s going to out heal both tiger palm and blackout kick. The only thing that will beat it is RSK.

So for max healing you’ll just spam SCK while pushing RSK on cooldown. In AoE (AoE meaning 2+ targets now) you won’t touch anything but SCK.

1 Like
4

Only on one target compared to three. If 3 or more allies would benefit from healing for all 4 ticks, the current Way of the Crane provides more healing throughput than the new one.

What you should press for max healing is driven by both how many targets you will be hitting and how many of your allies need healing, not just how many targets you will be hitting. In fact, very little is going to change on the targets you will be hitting side of things.

It seems you are misunderstanding this change, or you are only focused on the times when one target needs major healing rather than when your entire group needs healing. Today, Way of the Crane causes SCK to perform 12 casts of healing (4 ticks on 3 targets) for 125% each, for a total of 1,500%. With this change, Way of the Crane will cause SCK to perform 4 casts of healing (4 ticks on 1 target) for 340% each, for a total of 1,360%. In terms of total potential healing, this is a nerf.

It all comes down to the kind of healing you need in the moment. If a large number of allies need moderate healing, the current Way of the Crane is better. If a smaller number of allies need heavy healing, the upcoming Way of the Crane is better. Personally, I think it’s a good change; it helps cover up a glaring single target healing weakness Way of the Crane had compared to Way of the Serpent.

If we want to say the new Way of the Crane is too much, we certainly can. I could easily be talked into such a position. But that is because SCK might heal for too much today, not because of this Way of the Crane change.

2 Likes
Way of the Crane change is idiotic
5

I think OP thinks that the 340%×1 is some how 3 times more healing than 125%×3.

6

No, it’s the opposite.

Right now, Way of the Crane has a hard limit per target you heal. Using my stats right now:

  • One target SCK (two GCDs since TP > Blackout takes 2 GCDs) = 14,520 healing per target
  • Two target SCK = 29,040 healing per target
  • Three target SCK = 43,560 healing per target
  • Four target SCK = 58,080 healing per target
  • Five target SCK = 72,600 healing per target

So on 5 targets the absolute max I can heal one person is 72,600 healing. I have more overall healing, but per person I have less.

One TP > Blackout combo (using current ancient teachings) does:

  • 53,214 healing against a single target
  • 60,185 healing against two targets
  • 68,260 healing against three targets

So, in two GCDs, SCK will heal one person less than a TP > Blackout combo up until 5 targets, where SCK spam does more per person in healing.

Ancient Teachings healing is divided amongst 5 people, meaning one person can get all the healing from a proc if no one else is injured. This means, even if there’s a lot of targets, sometimes it’s better to TP > Blackout combo, or cast RSK (which is 45,141 per cast using current numbers). If I’m healing just the tank, SCK is bad.

With the new numbers:

SCK, per 2 GCDs, does (using new numbers):

  • 39,494 healing against one target
  • 78,988 two targets
  • 118,482 three targets
  • 157,976 four targets
  • 197,470 five targets

This healing is all funneled into the lowest health person. If only the tank is taking damage, this means they will get all the healing.

Using the new ancient teachings numbers, one TP > Blackout combo does:

  • 62,675 healing one target
  • 70,884 2 target
  • 80,395 3 target

So this means at two targets SCK and TP>Blackout are doing about the same healing for healing one person, and at 3 targets, regardless of how many people I’m healing, spamming SCK is better.

If I’m against 3+ targets, RSK is entirely a troll ability, as it’s only healing 53,166 healing per cast.

So I’m forced to do nothing but spam SCK. Absolute highest priority will always be dance of chiji procs with these changes too, where currently you don’t ALWAYS want to use dance of chiji the moment it procs.

Current Way of the Crane is way healthier and has way more diverse gameplay.

But removing diverse gameplay is probably the intention anyway since modern “Blizzard” hates it when you have to think to play well.

7

dont worry its useless for ww now too

8

This seems ok in my books? 2-3 targets and you use it. So are you saying that using it for 1 target would be good?.

9

It’s going to overpower everything else in your kit regardless of the situation at 3 targets, where currently it has more nuance to its use.

10

Ya I agree with you. I been doing mistwalker. But on another point. It does make it easier for people to know when to use it when not too. That seems like what Blizzard wants.

I am a new mistwalker so I am not sure if it is good or bad change. Already feels pretty fun, so this change is kinda weird but I guess they want to make sure new players know when to use it.

11

I’d rather they don’t make every class braindead and boring.

Cata had 13 million subs, MoP had 10-8 million. Game was infinitely more complex, and we had constant new players.

This is just pretentious at this point.

Besides, fistweaving was always considered the harder spec, so just let it be harder. Caster monk healer is easy mode, and new players can use that.

12

You need to do math before confusing people

13

I did, scroll up.

14

But again, healing one target for a large amount is not the only healing scenario that exists. The current implementation of Way of the Crane heals 3 times as many targets; and if you look at your own numbers, you’ll see 3x current > 1x new in every case. If your only focus is on healing one target at a time for the most possible amount, then sure, the new Way of the Crane is strictly better and simpler.

It’s just incomplete at best to act like needing to heal multiple targets for a moderate amount is not worth considering since it’s a scenario that happens all the time, especially since Blizzard has added more rot damage in Midnight than we’ve had in the previous few expansions, at least. This new version of Way of the Crane is worse for that, both in terms of the style of healing and in the total amount of healing. In fact, the current Way of the Crane is better at healing the style of healing it specializes in than the new Way of the Crane is at the style of healing it specializes in.

Current Way of the Crane has a significant blind spot toward single target healing. It was looking likely that mistweaver would have to switch to Way of the Serpent when in content where you need to bomb single target healing because Way of the Crane wasn’t going to cut it.

We will never know Blizzard’s true motivation for this change. I won’t try to convince you that Blizzard isn’t making the change because they hate needing to think to play well, even though the change merely shifted that need to think to a different incoming damage profile. But there is a clear design reason why this change could have been made other than dumbing down the game. You just seem to not want to consider the trade off that exists with this change toward any other scenario.

1 Like
15

Holy batman! That’s a pretty nice numbers breakdown Neko.

I joke at times, but respect for doing that.

16

Wasn’t that how it already was in TWW? I’m no mistweaver player, but I did partially gear and jump into M+ and did some 7s, and it was near impossible to play off just punching, your hots, and CDs sometimes in dungeons like Dawnbreaker, where some packs put massive dots on one player while other damage was still going out.

17

It was, and largely still is. Fistweaving has always been lower healing output than casting heal spells, even when specced into fistweaving talents. The spec has always needed to fallback on heal casts during the most threatening of times.

In a M+ context, mistweaver is already strong with AOE cleave healing, even without Way of the Crane buffing Spinning Crane Kick. As players move into more difficult content, the spec has an easy time relying on renewing mists and its various cleave effects. But for bombing single target healing, the current Way of the Crane offers little, to the point where it was looking likely the player would need to swap to Way of the Serpent, despite that option being pretty weak for all other healing profiles that are necessary in a dungeon.

18

When I played SoD I had fun pressing an extremely over powered Prayer of Mending and it was 1 button.
When people say they don’t want brain dead specs or whatever, I don’t think they ever played a game with good bread and butter abilities. I also don’t think they ever played a game with Ex moves (Street Fighter, Battle Rite, Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear, etc).
It doesn’t take that much to add a lot of depth, people act like you need to build a new Mariana Trench to achieve depth.

19

Yes, current Way of the Crane heals more overall, but PER TARGET is lower healing, so there are situations where, even if you’re in high target situations, you want to do RSK or the TP > Blackout combo since they can heal one person for more.

Ancient Teachings is literally split amongst your group. We already have this front covered. You also have ReM going out.

That’s like using Prayer of Healing to heal the tank. It just doesn’t make sense, does it?

For single target healing you use Ancient Teachings, and possibly throw in some cast healing even if you’re not talented into it, as enveloping boosts all your healing on the target and with talents makes them heal every time they take damage.

With conduit you can easily cast enveloping on the tank without ever needing to use soothing or tea as well, thanks to the half cast time. This will also trigger spirit font.

Dumbing the game down has been their goal since WoD prepatch. They removed chi from MW to make it easier. Then they had a broken spec so removed 80% of it and made fistweaving not a thing. They finally bring fistweaving back and, oopsie, we still don’t have chi, so it still feels weird.

And regardless of what I think, with this change, at 2+ targets you’re literally better off just spamming SCK and ignoring the rest of your kit. It’s not a healthy change.

Almost like I say the things I say for a reason.

Fistweaving isn’t 100% damage, you sometimes have to use healing abilities. There’s skill expression in knowing / deciding when it’s time to do damage, and when it’s time to spam cast heals.

That nuance is going to go away even more with this change to Way of the Crane.

Not true. Fistweaving is competitive with caster monk healer, and imo has more consistent healing. It’s just most people don’t know how to play it properly, talent into things that make no sense, ignore talents that you need, and end up doing 70% of what they could be doing.

Conduit and spiritfont make this a non-issue. And the talent overflowing mists massively boosts tank healing in large target pulls, or situations with a lot of small ticks of damage.

They’re making SCK the #1 move to the point you ignore LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN YOUR KIT at 3+ targets, and you can do the same at 2+ though it’s tied with other ways of playing.

It’s not a Mariana Trench, it’s Mt Everest. They’re removing 90% of the class for no good reason.

20

Yes, I have not once disputed that the change will be beneficial in many situations. It’s trade off; better single target healing and worse group healing. With the current Way of the Crane, there are similar concerns regarding using nothing but SCK in rot damage situations. It’s fine to be concerned with the rotation for low target healing with this change. Just up until this response, you didn’t even address the point I was making regarding the same situation occurring with the current Way of the Crane on AOE healing.

This isn’t apples to apples. Prayer of healing only heals, thus the decision on whether to use it or not is only dependent on how many targets need healing. With the damage > healing conversion on SCK, what matters is the number of targets being attacked rather than the number of targets that need healing.

That’s true for mistweaver, but this is far from true for all specs. For example, feral druid got more complicated when bloodtalons was changed from cast regrowth to use 3 unique builders in 4 seconds. It again got more complicated with TWW when Blizzard slashed energy gain.

Blizzard made a big effort to simplify things for everybody coming into Midnight, for sure. But they also gave their reasoning for doing so, implying it is transient.

I’m not sure this is always the case for 2 targets because of RSK resets from blackout. It also won’t be true if you need moderate healing across your entire group rather than heavy healing going into one target.

Regardless, none of my comments toward your responses have been to try to shake your opinion on the health of the change. I just wanted to make sure anyone coming across this post would have the full information. The change trades one situation for another.

I admit I haven’t run the numbers for Midnight due to lack of free time. Perhaps fistweaving is truly competitive in Midnight. However in every expansion from at least BFA through TWW, caster always had higher healing throughput than fistweaving at the cost of mana issues and no supplemental damage output.