August News/Discussion

[Artega]

Tank healing in a lot of the fights that Tuftears describes is "pre-emptive" rather than reactive: if you wait to find out how much healing the tank needs before you cast your heal, the tank is dead before you finish your cast. So you choose your spells based on how much healing you *anticipate* the tank will need in 2 to 3 seconds time (depending on which class you play).

Brutallus is the clearest example of this kind of fight in TBC that I can think. He hits very, very hard, and very, very fast (duel wielder). Plus because of the Radiance effect, he doesn't miss much. During the Stomps, I *have* to cast Greater Heal 7 - the highest rank currently available. But it simply isn't feasible to sustain GH7 for the entire duration of the fight (much as I would like to).

So outside of the stomps I use Greater Heal 4 most of the time, occasionally throwing in Greater Heal 7 is the tank is low on health when I'm choosing which heal to cast next (low in this case meaning anything less than about 80% health really). Fully buffed with amp magic, GH7 heals for about 5.8K-6K, while GH4 heals for around 4.7K-4.8K. From memory, GH7 costs 700-something mana while GH4 is around 550 or so.

Unless I'm lucky enough to get a Shadow Priest, I usually use a couple of mana pots, a Shadow Fiend, and hope for some Blue Dragon procs. I also wear 2 pieces of the Avatar set for the 100 mana returned on Greater Heals that top the tank up to maximum. Even with all those bonuses, I'm frequently running on fumes by the end of the fight.

I'm a little curious as to whether Blizzard plans to remove mana management entirely as an issue for healers (which could be possible with new talents, raidwide VT and other buffs and so on). If they did, it would remove some of the skill of being a healer. "Healing a tank? Okay, set up the woodpecker on your desk to tap the Greater Heal button for the next 5 minutes".

Chris

Yeah, I'm worried that my pally - who is already damn boring in raids - will get even worse with these changes. Holy Shock to instant Holy Light sounds cool, but without downranking... where does the intelligence of healing go? Right now, knowing when to use rank 7 (or rank 6, if you prefer) Holy Light instead of rank 11 is a quick and easy way to telling new pallies from experienced ones - hell, I even use rank 7 Holy Light in PvP a lot.

And the loss of rank 1 shocks (especially Earth Shock) is going to hurt Shammies. I don't think it'll hurt Enhancement too much since we don't run out of mana, but it might cause problems for Elemental and especially Restoration.

Just seems it's overall a poorly thought-out change.