I was cautiously optimistic when Blizzard introduced their plans for healing in the new expansion. The idea that we’d have to heal intelligently, put thought into our heal choices, and once again be something more than bubble-bots or Rejuv-spammers sounded appealing.
As I watched the implementation, I was a bit concerned; all the changes that would make healing “interesting” and content “hard” seemed to boil down to “If anyone screws up, they die”. Fine but…. how to tell the difference between “that mage screwed up” and “the healer screwed up”? I was worried we’d start in on the blame-the-healer game.
And truth be told there’s been less of that than I’d feared. I hear healers being harder on ourselves than most tanks or dps are hard on the healer. I also hear of a lot of us taking abuse, not directed at us or probably intended for us at all, but abuse. If a tank refuses to cc, well honestly it’s not him who shoulders the responsibility of the more difficult pull, but the healer. And so healers need to speak up and tell them to bloody well use sheep.
But as I’ve started to do raid fights, and getting raid geared, I’m noticing what I feared most; healing in this expansion has no in between setting. It’s either “oh god oh god we’re all going to die”, or “Oops, sorry, I forgot to jump on the dragon there because I was alt tabbed out reading blogs, yawn, wake me up at a real fight”. Honestly my healing experiences have been vacillating back and forth between utter boredom and I-just-can’t-do-it, depending on how geared my party was. Healing for Reversion? I’m /afk on Facebook. Healing for Reversion’s undergeared second bear? A full stack of HOTs and rolling Nourish and I can barely keep him alive between Swiftmend cooldowns. And that’s someone who knows every cooldown his class has, uses them, uses crowd control, and is hands down the best tank to heal that I’ve ever played with. Ok I may be biased but it’s still true.
There just isn’t a way to make healing a moderate challenge. I’d like to go in and have a heroic run where I have to work, yes, but it’s not “execute this perfectly, don’t get unlucky, or wipe” level. I want “Let’s practice being really mana efficient, a few moments where I have to use the right spell at the right time” level challenge.
Making me run out of stuff doesn’t give this level of challenge, although parenthetically I noticed I was asked to step in on a Magmaw fight this weekend for another guild raid, as a boomkin, and while my dps was bad, my situational awareness was incredible; I was the first to move out of fire, the first on the worms, got my knockbacks in at just the right time and place – not to toot my horn but when I was the first to switch sides of the room by a good two seconds that says something. I’m biased as a healer toward thinking the meter that matters most is not “damage done” but “damage taken”, and on that meter I did really darn well.
Anyway. Back to what I was saying. Another option I have is to dps while healing. I’ve actually enjoyed my priest’s Smite spec; but it feels more organic than hurling Wraths on my druid. I would have to ditch my boomkin spec for one with free Wraths, and that would make life harder for me while I’m trying to do dailies. I am considering it, but, gosh darn it, if I want to dps I have a mage that I like very much. I want to heal on my druid, thanks, and I’d like a proper challenge for my chosen role.
At least I have an interesting job in raids. That keeps me going, keeps me doing my daily heroic or helping gear up friends. Because in there I really do have to work. It’s incredible; I love it. Halfus is going down, this weekend, he’d better. And I’ll be challenged there – picking the perfect time to pop tree (actually on Halfus it’s a no brainer; I do it almost on pull to get through the first dragon, then when it’s back up it’s usually a good time to get people topped back off) – managing my mana, working with my team to keep people from the brink of death. Even the trash in Bastion is a good challenge, mostly because of the silences. Maybe you can’t have that level of challenge without redundant healers. I’m not sure.
I love healing; my brief stint as raid dps the other night taught me that. In end game, that’s my role. But I wish I didn’t feel burnt out on heroics already.
I’ll blame it on Lost City. I’ve done that place a hundred times, it seems like. I hear there’s this place called Deadmines that’s a lot of fun, but apparently it’s not in my random dungeon queue…
Deadmines. I know there’s something there that I need. Oh yeah … holy pally bracers.
Hm, that wand would be nice, too.
I’ve only gotten Deadmines once. Karius has *never* seen it. I think I’ve only done Throne once as well.
Stonecore … successfully once, requeueing after trash a couple other times. heh.
GB once or twice only.
BRC twice.
Vortex a half dozen times. Same with HoO.
Lost City and SFK I’d like to put on /ignore for about two weeks. I think I can dps them with my eyes closed by now. Seriously … ‘m gonna go look up my stats.
We maybe should try to get you those bracers, or the GB ones; I’m about 90% sure I’m going to ask you to heal Friday….
Oh sweet Elune. You won’t believe this … Kerick needs to run SFK for a helm. >.<
So apparently the armory doesn’t record stats for Cata dungeons? WTF. How am I supposed to know how many times I’ve killed Lord Godfrey?
Yeah, I need to go make a list. Maybe I’ll do that now.
Deadmines – fun – hard last boss – need helm from said last boss
Lost City – agree with Repgrind
SFK – done twice
GB – not too bad with a good party
Stonecore – Bleh
Vortex – not bad at all
BRC – I don’t believe it exists – never seen it
HoO – Seen parts of it twice
Halfus? Can’t wait to see him fall
In general… Working very hard to make your job as boring as possible 🙂
I’m quite enjoying heroics now and I’m at that place where I can choose my heals, not spam buttons and hope. I’m guessing our gear is pretty similar – I’m in heroic gear, with a couple of rep/crafted epics. With a decent-but-not-amazing group, it’s fun and challenging. With a good group… well, I like my Facebook time!
The one thing I don’t like is how painful being undergeared is (doh). When I’m raiding I’m still supposed to be choosing spells, but it’s not working out when everyone can get 2-shot… what does that remind me of… oh right, Wrath, when my Nourish didn’t have a 2sec cast.
Most appreciate the slightly different viewpoint. I agree about the pain of under-geared…. and yeah, in raiding it’s basically still spam rejuv and Regrowth and hope nobody dies. Great job shaking things up there, Blizz.
“But I wish I didn’t feel burnt out on heroics already.” That’s why I can’t rush myself. I know in my head that these are the heroics/instances that I’ll be doing for probably the next two years. If I rush into them I will take away all the new-ness of the game and burn myself out. If I go slowly I probably won’t be as frustrated.
Grim Batol seems to be all i get……./sad panda.
Blackrock Caverns – the bosses range from faceroll….hard. But not too bad really as long as you watch mechanics. only been here once.
Stonecore – 2x – not too bad imo but certain bosses can be a pain!!!
Throne of Tides – been here 3x. Not a fan of the gauntlets they have in here…..annoying!!!! WTB old cleansing totem.
Vortex – faceroll. 🙂 – been here 4 or 5 times?
Lost City – face roll 🙂 – 3-4 times?
SFK – 2x? Fun place!!! I like it!
Deadmines…..was hard at first but easier now, but still lots of fun!
I’m with Troutwort on this one. I’m taking my time.
Many WoW players (and I’m not counting you) have become their own worst enemy due to the pace they devour content. I have people in my guild who took vacation days off to blast their way to 85, then rocket their alts up, then get burned out on the current content already.
In my opinion Heroics exist only to gear you up for raiding. Under this level/advancement system they are not meant to be fun for heavier geared players. In order to keep them a constant challenge, regardless on your leve,l you would have to have a flexible difficulty system in place that changes accordingly.
Further, if these locust have become unchallenged by the current content, then they are in the wrong environment and should perhaps be in another guild that’s pushing further.
(I got off track. I’m not accusing you of that.)
One of the fundamental problems I have with WoW is that you must always stay even with your friends in order to have some sort of a challenge while playing with them. You cannot help but be bored while your raid geared tank tags along for Normal Blackrock Caverns with your high school sweetheart.
And conversely they often cannot branch up into your playing environment as the level system is designed directly against it.
Either you stay “current” and within a small character advancement window with your peers or you risk falling behind or the boredom that comes from out advancing them.
It’s not a deal breaker for me obviously, but it’s an annoyance and overall I think it hurts the “spread” of the game between vets and new players. Especially when coupled with the condition that comes with MMO gamers where they tend to eat their young.
Sometimes it’s just dauting to break into such a big game.
-1 for being offtopic
I don’t know about all that. I think the recent expansion makde that advancement window larger. An 85 and an 82 can go run something and it is still fun. It might have been harder when both were 82 and badly geared but that does not always mean it is not fun now. Playing with friends does favor alt-a-holics who can always swap to something lower and help a friend out. Actually making gearing at top level into another sort of ‘leveling up’ process makes it easier too. If the game went to level 90 then a lvl 90 and a lvl 85 would not be able to run the same content as easily as a geared level 85 can run with a new level 85. Someone that has been 85 for months and has super gear can still help out a friend who is 83 or just barely 85.
Sure they can, but that lends itself to the boredom Ana hinted at and I see that “problem” deepening over time as the gear hits the “streets”.
And I’m not a welfare gear hater either. I am more inclined to level alts knowing I can get gear easier for them then I could my main when the content was first released.
I’ve sat here for about 4 minutes now, staring at the screen because I just realized I have to go through Outlands again. *shudder*
At least I’m a tank (why do I need a 4th tank anyway?) and can skip the Q times.
I had an absolute blast leveling my hunter to 60 and seeing the new world. Then I shelved her since the idea of going through Outland and Northrend again was too horrible. I think I’ll explore the new zones further before I get any alts to level 80…
Jen, keep in mind too that they are going to eventually update Outlands and Northrend to be current with Cataclysm events. This apparently is coming in a patch not as another expansion. Now I’m not sure of the timeline of that, but they did mention this. I am going to hold my toons at around 58 or 60 (only two alts that are below that) so that I can experience the new areas–though I might have to wait a year.
Healing LFD randoms is a crapshoot.. pray the tank uses cc, and the dps is not cheesing the ilvl so badly they are sub 5k dps.
Most days, if I can’t get at least a partial guild group (1 tank and at least one competent cc’er) I’ll skip it on the druid. It is just not worth my sanity to try a pug. I thought it might get better with gear, and it does with a good group. Hey I’m only drinking every two or three pulls rather than each one now. But really does every trash pack pull have to challenge our mana pools? Because sitting and drinking for 20s+ between each pull is so exciting. Bad groups + Stonecore = easily exceeding 12k hps before we even hit a boss.
My disc priest, on the other hand, with an equipped ilvl of 316 doesn’t feel near as challenged as my druid. Nor does my shammy (336). Both of whom I will pug randoms with, they don’t always go perfectly by any means but I don’t feel like I am pulling my hair out trying to heal them. I’m feeling very burnt and broken on my druid atm even with her far out gearing any of my alts (ilvl 352).
If you’re having problems with that gear… it’s either you spamming yourself oom (and if you’re not using Regrowth a lot, that shouldn’t happen) or the fail of the group. Stonecore is its own private hell and my groups (even with guildies) fail there regularly, but most other heroics should be fine.
Unlike you, I find my reasonably geared shammy (338) is doing worse than my druid (344). I absolutely love her utility (CC and interrupt), but healing itself feels gimped. It might just be my lack of experience on her, though… but I welcome a challenge on my druid, while I prefer to stay safe on my shammy.
You know, everytime I queue I either get Vortex or GB. The only time I get any other heroic is if I’m with a group that queues for a specific one. The one thing that I dislike, is that right now, it feels like if I pug, I’ve just commited 3-4 hours to one heroic and I hate it. Its usually better with guildies but even then, it sometimes feels like I haven’t accomplished much because I’ve only gotten through one dungeon. So even though I really could use those 359 feet from Ram, I just cannot motivate myself to spend the entirety of the brief amount of time I have to play during the week, solely on heroics. *sigh*
Druids and Shamans got nerfed the most in this expansion.
Shammys more so… Paragon is running with 3 Pallys 2 Priests – all druids are dps feral/balance
I have sworn off healing until 4.1 I knew that Blizz was going to pooch it up when they nerfed healing for Cata. The bigger health pools just did not compensate for the lower healing rates vs health pools now.
I am also really worrying about the wow community these days. Everyone seems so hair trigger on complaints and critique now. Maybe people didn’t read during the beta but I KNEW that healing would be a pain. And since I dropped healing like a lot of my friends I KNOW there are less healers now. So no wonder people are feeling burntout.
Overall I am getting more and more wistful about Wrath and remember Heroics back then. My only hope is that 4.1 will be more like 3.1 was.
After all they can’t continue to screw up…. right?
I think I had the wrong tone with this…. a little too heavy on what I don’t like. I DO still like healing, even if I’m a bit nerfed; I can do my job, I just have to work harder. I also knew just what a pain healing would be so I was prepared. I really don’t mind it being a pain; I DO mind that when it’s not a pain, it’s boring.
I found that I like healing now. I enjoy having to watch intently the health of my tank.
What I don’t like is not having a fast heal. I have swiftmend and NS+HT, but even then that just doesn’t seem like enough. Sure I can use Regrowth to put a spot heal up, but then I can say goodbye to my mana pool.
I don’t like how druids are in this place where they aren’t quite tank healers and really shouldn’t be raid healers (at least in 10 mans).
Returning us to Rejuv spammers is not the answer. I dislike rejuv spamming. I will probably end up putting my druid on the back burner if that ends up happening again. I really hope it doesn’t. I am finally enjoying healing again.
Yes this made no sense, even to me. Oh well ^_^