#0 - April 29, 2010, 2:06 p.m.
Q u o t e:
What was stated is that Regrowth will be the quick flash heal. Nourish will be the Medium go-to heal. HT will be the inefficient large heal (aka also a mana hog).
Q u o t e:
All this Blizzard handwringing over resto druids continues, meanwhile they seem not to have a care in the world that holy pallies have a ridiculously simplistic healing rotation, if you want to even call it a "rotation."
I really don't understand what got GC so worked up about resto druids, but it's not making for a very fun lead-up to Cata, for me at least. I thought the whole point of the preview was that we weren't going to get new spells but the ones we had would be made to work better.
Yet (except for the extremely long-cooldown tranquility) I've heard absolutely NOTHING about any IMPROVEMENTS to spells we have. Just a nerf to Wild Growth, and delusions about Lifebloom and/or Healing Touch being good tank healing spells.
I'd really like some reassurance that the spells we have will actually be IMPROVED or I'll probably put my resto druid on ice and level another character to 85 during Cata.
Q u o t e:
This is egregiously unfair to the poster you quote: the issue is not one of "overpowered" versus "underpowered", but rather a question of whether the class, as people have come to know it and love it over 5 years now, is going to be radically changed, such that people who previously enjoyed resto druids will boot up Cataclysm to discover the class they played doesn't exist anymore.
Q u o t e:
I think it's a good thing. I don't think though that blizzard wants to go back to you only casting HT or a place where LB was completely dominant. They want to continue what you have going on now, except make a place for all of the heals that are in your arsenal. They aren't going to do that with the druid talent trees and spell selection alone, but also with encounter design.
Maybe your mobility will go down if spells that have cast times start to have a use, but that doesn't mean that suddenly you will stop also using your instant cast hots.
Q u o t e:
Please see the underlined portion. We already make use of all our spells. Every single one of them. In some fights we completely change up how we heal the fight based on how the damage comes in. Sometimes we have to pre-hot, sometimes you have to reactively heal, other times you need to nourish spam a tank because a paladin had to run etc. etc. There is a use for every single tool we have for healing. Even the not often used HT gets some shine on it in high HPS situations like what was required in hard mode anub'arak.
Q u o t e:
I totally agree that I don't want to play the way you're describing. However you and I are reading the same things and coming to vastly different conclusions about what's being promised for Druids in Cata. My parse on GC's words leads me to believe that the design goal is for all of the spells in the Druid's toolbox to have a solid and well-defined role, with plenty of spectacular uses for Rejuv, LB, and WG just as much as HT, Nourish, and Regrowth. Your parse leads you to imagine a world in which Druids sit there and fire off Healing Touches 'til the cows come home, with Rejuv and WG relegated to the dustbin. I think that's a badly mistaken interpretation.
It sure would be nice for GC to come in and adjudicate the dispute over the meaning of his words! ;-D
Q u o t e:
If druids have all 3 of the heals everyone else has, but also have valuable HoTs, then aren't they simply superior? Given that GC has repeatedly mentioned that the developers feel druids use REjuv and WG to the exclusion of all else (I do not endorse this notion, by the way), this seems very unlikely.
Q u o t e:
They don't want Druids to become Paladins. They want Druids to be able to tank heal, and not be so amazing at raid healing.
Q u o t e:
Nobody calls raids because of the types of healers they have log on. We've called plenty of raids but we never called on because of the type of healer that is online. So you are being overly dramatic with that.
Q u o t e:
Unless I've seriously misinterpreted the topics I've read, I believe Resto Druids value Haste quite highly right now — the only thing they prize more is Spellpower.
Q u o t e:
The Holy Light + glyph technique you suggested at the time had only just appeared on Sath. Until then, paladins still relied a lot on Flash of Light. So you actually suggested that casual players be aware of top-level raiding techniques, with the right glyphs on top of that, just to beat a 5man encounter.
That's not fine. I had done the Loken encounter on both my newbie druid and newbie paladin at the time. There was just no comparison.
Q u o t e:
Are steps being taken to avoid having 10 man hard mode fights that are perceived as requiring specific types of healers? (Ex: How like a disc priest trivializes a big part of the LK.)
Q u o t e:
This is a non-sequitur, and a worrisome one at that. It's the sort of evasive answer one sees when the answerer wishes to avoid conceding, but wants you to understand they're not actually contesting the issue.
Q u o t e:
You didn't get my point though : sometimes, you need to take a step back and look at the game from a casual player's point of view. Someone who doesn't read the forums everyday. On these forums, people are geniuses : they know everything about the game. But outside, it's different : you can still find rets who equip spellpower gear.
Q u o t e:
The statement I labeled a non-sequitur is in italics; In the original question, the issue is how druids can be balanced in Cataclysm, if they have the same trinity of heals that all healers have, as well as "valuable HoTs". In other words, the question is how valuable HoTs can be if healers are all in possession of the same trinity of heals (as they have been stated to be in Cataclysm). In response, the statement was made that this is not "necessarily" so, and an example is given from current content.
Q u o t e:
Has there been any discussion about adding a damage mitigation spell or death preventing CD spell for the two healing class/spec that do not have them? Specifically a spell that can be used when dealing with situations that healing spells can not effectively handle. One that is not based on race or class, but it actually available because they are a healer.
Q u o t e:
Please link a blue post or other official preview that says they are "giving druids more power in non-mobility fights." I THOUGHT that was what they intended when I read the Cata previews, and I assumed that in the days and weeks that followed we'd be reading a GC post about how they were making this or that healing spell work better for single-target heals. Instead we get GC posts about how Lifebloom is a great tank healing spell just the way it is, and about how *suppress giggle* Healing Touch can be a good emergency heal. And we get an outright nerf to our strongest group heal Wild Growth.
Q u o t e:
Regarding the bolded part, it's curious you're interested in preserving very, very hard fights (H.LK is awesome) but are ready to nuke 25 man difficulty by equating them to their 10 man variants.
Q u o t e:
Is it poor design to say that Disc Priests are the absorption healers, simply because they are vastly more powerful than every other healer on "absorption" fights and less so on fights where it matters much less?
Q u o t e:
After looking at the quote in the post directly above mine, it looks like you are right in your interpretation of GC's intentions vis a vis Healing Touch. He doesn't plan to make it better relative to Holy Light, he just thinks the Cata health pool circumstances will let us get away with casting comparatively bad heals.
Q u o t e:
But then druids also have lifebloom, rejuev and the hot portion of regrowth. Basically they either get to be better than the other healers or just flat out worse under anything but the ideal situation.