Watcher on health and healing changes in Warlords of Draenor

March 7, 2014

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If you remember after the last Dev Watercooler, there was a flurry of activity on Twitter as Celestalon and Holinka answered questions. This time Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has taken to social media to answer questions and explain what's up. We're collecting his tweets here, to give folks a chance to see what he's got to say about the big changes coming to health and healing mechanics in Warlords.

Currently, with healers able to heal everyone so quickly, fight damage has to almost kill them instantly to get healer attention, which is a design they want to get away from.
The goal is for every healer to have a triage-capable healing kit without feeling the same.
No, they're not just trying to repeat Cataclysm's healing game.
Shamans have too many smart heals. But they have less instant cast healing that other healers.
The changes to crit damage and healing in PvP mentioned in the watercooler are indeed PvP only.
These changes are intended to affect all healers - this is a start for beta iteration to follow.
Healers may have time to put DPS attacks into their rotations while healing in the new healer paradigm.
Baseline mana regen will be higher, but you'll still use spirit to boost it when you get it on gear.

There's more after the jump.

Fights like Thok in SoO (which are currently very dependent on instant casts) will be retuned when 6.0 drops.
Heal over Time spells are considered invaluable for the triage model, and with people staying damaged longer HoT's will have more chance to shine.
Mistweavers will be looked at.
Rejuvenate and Lifebloom will stay instant casts.
The changes are meant to address both PvP and PvE issues, not one or the other alone.
The goal is to balance absorbs against other kinds of heals.
Avoidable damage (i.e. standing in the fire) will still kill you if you don't avoid it, but unavoidable damage doesn't have to be as high as it is now.
Hoping to see a chance for skilled healers to distinguish themselves and not simply return to the days of Cataclysm healing.
They are not trying to make healing harder.
The trouble with the Cataclysm attempt at a similar 'triage' model was high incoming damage and weak regen in the blue gear available at expac start. This won't be repeated.

Hopefully they'll get their stated goals (less unpredictable damage in PvP, more healer options for smart play) working with the overhaul that's coming.

In this article: healers, health, ion-hazzikostas, pve, pvp, watcher

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