I want to agree, I do. I was excited for the theoretical model. In practice it's not working out to the stated goal as currently implemented. The issue is healing throughput is reduced dramatically (as a function of health vs incoming damage) and healers are constricted to casting 95% or more of the time their single "efficient" healing spell. To do otherwise is to drain your mana bar in under 6 casts. It's very boring and un-fulfilling. Never before have I had less choice in what to do. The priest spell Heal takes 2.2 seconds to cast and does a trivial amount of healing per cast compared to health pools. This means you just have to spam cast it. If you vary from this spell for more than a couple of global cooldowns you are punished severely ie wipes / deaths. Incoming tank damage alone is tuned right now to require nearly constant casting of this spell on the tank (after setting up your renew and getting into your chakra), and if the DPS doesn't do their job you can't save them most of the time because the tank will die if you get 2 GCDs behind.

Healing has gotten even less dynamic and even more monotonous. The theoretical model was "we want healers to make choices", but the actual implementation is "healers have no choice except to cast this one spell 95% of the time or wipe".

In PvE mana efficiency tuning will probably allow things to work, but they may or may not be fun (it remains to be seen). In PvP mana efficiency tuning doesn't solve the problem of "I have no choice but to stand here casting long spells that any monkey with an IQ over 37 can interrupt."

With "we want pvp to last longer" philosophy which I am all for, what they actually did was make healing less effective and made damage higher. This theoretical actually just worked out to "PvP is somewhat longer, but the outcome was already decided before you started if you're a healing priest - and that outcome is you lose, but it took a little longer".

I've seen some hotfixes going in already for priests, and I'm going to check them out tonight.

--Sly

 

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Another great theory. If you don't think I've had marks on hotkeys since the ability was introduced years ago... well I do.

You can make a macro to state it, you can mark them, and I've done all that. The issue is I can't MAKE them listen or do what is required, and the way the gameplay is right now - they have no instant feedback DEATH to snap them to and make them listen. Instead as I said, they slowly die, they figure it's the healer who sucks (and the guy that keeps talking trying to tell them how to play instead of lololsmash in silence), and they blame the healer.

--Sly

 

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For me:

The not fun is everyone else's character got stronger as they leveled and at 85 mine got weaker. I have no ability to be a difference maker by being a good player. I have only the ability to cast exactly what Blizzard wants me to (1 spell 95% of the time) or die. Couple that with the long cast time of the 1 spell and it is extremely uninspiring to play. It's so boring. There are no choices, and the only way that mostly works is horribly slow and tedious to play.

I heard someone describe it as "being a manual Renew" and that's exactly what it feels like. If I don't cast heal the "ticks" don't happen. My job is to cast Heal every 2.2 seconds so my heal can "tick". Boring.

--Sly

 

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Not being castrated and having the heals needed to finish a dungeon is fun for me. If the heals actually scaled for HPM versus mana, than yeah, it might be fun even though it's hectic.

Currently it's almost like healers are being set up to fail, and then to take the full brunt of the blame.

And it feels like the devs are doing this :

It's no big secret. Everyone is aware of the reasons. In fact we all knew before the expansion came out. Redundant is redundant.

I'm sorry, was everyone that plays WoW in the beta? I realize that beta players knew it. I even realize now that beta players have been telling Blizzard about it. I wasn't a beta player. Most players weren't beta players. I'm sorry if I've offended you buy trying to understand and help others understand the problem with healing in WoW Cataclysm.

--Sly

 

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After tanking heroics for 3 days, they've only gotten easier. I use less and less CC on the same pulls I did when I first hit 85 and it's starting to become the mindless, AoE-fest it was back at Wrath. Sure some of the bigger pulls it might help, but I can just pop a CD or two and it's not a big deal.

 

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I understand you cannot make them play correctly. Stating all of this up front absolves you from responsibility for their actions, and after that, to hell with them.

 

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I have been having some issues on getting people to understand the need to CC while tanking. I even assign a symbol to a player and tell them you need to sheep, trap, sap etc XXX symbol for the run when it is marked. I don't leave a pug because the healer didn't keep me alive, but I will leave if the DPS won't take a second to CC and make everyone's job easier.

 

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Come to think of it players had/have a lot of trouble with HoR particularly the first part and even today will leave if they get it via a random because of the wipe fest it can be, this should have been a big fat sign for Blizz not continue down that path.