So the latest tempest in a teacup for WoW is the impending healing nerfs...I hate to say it, but healing is easy. It can be difficult sometimes, but for the most part, the better geared and trained the group is, the more retarded the healer can be.
Lets face it. Which of the three roles are least likely to be crippling if done by an idiot? Tank, dps or healing? I mean, healing... just target the tank and hit the slow heal button over and over. The rest of the party can compensate. Trust me... I know. I've been on both sides. I loves my Unbound. But healing tests in WoW are few and far between. Loken in Heroic HoL is mostly a gear check. Saphiron and Kel in Naxx... yeah.
Saph... conserve mana and keep moving while healing your assignments...
Kel... you gonna have to drop an emergency heal on someone within 3 secs of them becoming the ice block bitch.
Otherwise...
Lotheb is so retarded I can't even mention it as a check.
Patchwerk... whats harder to get, a better healer or a better dps? Spam heals till the mana runs dry, and if the dps cant get the job done by that time, it's their fault. Fer christ's sake... three times Unbound had her healing buddy DC during the fight, and had to keep the offtank up (Naxx 10) by herself... and did with no problems. Minimal skill required.
But when I get into a conversation with the guild master prot pally, and he tries to explain the 696 tank rotation to me... or the surv hunter shot rot...
Crap... I got three moves... riptide, chain heal, and lesser healing wave. There are times I should break out healing wave, and these are usually personal fail times. My arcane mage has a dozen more dimensions than my resto shammy. And is thus much more challenging to play...
Which is why I have mixed feelings about the nerf. Deadly megs explains it best... once you've done extensive pvp asa healer... with that big damn bullseye all over your butt, its kinda hard to go back to the 8 bit theatre that is PvE. So... mana nerfing is gonna be part of how Blizz tunes Ulduar to be a tougher encounter. So be it. Bring it on. I'll strap some more mp5 panels to the old cow, maybe regem, and I'll be just fine.
I'm warning the rest of you tho. Your healers... are not prepared.
3 comments:
I disagree. I think the shaman within the resto tree might be the most brain dead healing...with Druid right behind. What about priest healing? I have a priest but plan to leave him at 70 becuase of the way resto shaman and druids take the cake currently. They do lake the 'OMG' buttons of a paladin, yet simply use less spells to get the job done, thus have a much less complicated rotation.
I also feel that you are missing the whole stress factor that healing has. The healers mana pool is the top tier of the group. That fills the hps of the tank and the group. The healers pool, is the only pool (hp, mana, rage, runic)in the party that is most cirtical for success. People ARE going to take damage. The healer MUST keep them up. Blizzard has put plenty of AoE coming toward the players nowadays so the healer must keep the highest level of aletness which brings higher stress. Yet as the overall groups' skills, equipment and knowledge of the events grows, the stress on the heals goes down. Tanks simply will take less damage, the healers will heal for more and the dps won't stand in the fire.
Tanking is stressful at the high level because if a critters gets loose for a split second, it could equal death for any one of the squishies, thus higher tank stress. If the healer misses a heal to answer the phone in the middle of a fight, splat on someone else, thus high healer stress. If the DPS fails to do the job...the critter just keeps whacking the tank until, you guessed it..the healer runs out of mana, or misses a heal, etc.
I would rate healing as the #1 most stressful role, with tanking close behind and DPS...WAYY in the back. If one dps fails to produce, what happens? More stress on the tank and healers for one!
Gl
-Bummer
Oh, you're right on the resto shammy thing. Earth Shield is so ridiculously broken now it isn't funny.
But then, so is beacon of light. And prayer of mending. And pretty much every druid spell.
Personally, I think priests have it the worst. I don't quite understand why all my guild priests have greater heal as their go-to spell, but it doesnt seem to be... um... as efficient as one would hope.
And I've next to no experience running with resto druids...
But the problem right now is the issue of the power heal. If a healer can maintain a 80% overheal without mana problems (see the EJ thread on Holy pals) then healing is just retarded. No point in arguing. And I suspect that the bulk of healers right now fit into that range.
Of all the roles, healing is the one without primary feedback. DPS has meters, Tanks have aggro... but healing is the one role where the more you do, the worse the group performance is.
And as far as stress... stress isn't skill. I spend a crap load more time fretting about my mage rotations than my shammy healing. Playing the mage isn't stressful... but it does require a lot more forethought, and I'm still unhappy about how low my damage is.
My healer... meh. I just need to be able to switch back and forth from spot healing to power healing. And that's just to reduce overhealing, since I don't run outta mana.
Agreed, at least, on the difference between healing PvE and PvP.
Even something as simple as healing a WSG or AB is far more taxing than any instance I've done as a Holy Paladin.
Not so much stressful, though. It certainly is difficult to heal multiple people in the clusterfuck that are BGs, but I'm taxed mostly by other friendly players breaking LoS or running away from me when I'm trying to heal them.
WTB Death Grip that I can use on friendly targets. -_-
Post a Comment