I know this will be TLDR for some, my apologies for that. Thanks to those who read and comment!

I know there's been some discussion on this by Blizzard, but most of it has been of the "it's over the horizon, long-term planning" style so far.

There's no doubts that healing to many is a thankless task. You spend a large portion of your time staring close at raid frames, most of us cast the same few spells (or in some cases, same spell) over and over and over again. You're usually the first person blamed for a wipe.

Then, yesterday, Ghostcrawler commented that Circle of Healing with a cooldown wouldn't be completely out of left field for Blizzard, after all most DPS abilities have cooldowns. My first reaction was, "WHAT? Are you INSANE? Comparing DPS to healing is ludicrous, stupid even." I didn't post that. I like to think about things before I post. I thought about it for a while and wondered what healing would be like if it were like DPS, and I immediately thought of the class with the most interesting DPS mechanics: The Rogue.

We all know how rogues work, but I'll try to explain it as I see it: Rogues have combo moves and finishing moves and a "combo point bar" of 0-5 combo points. All these moves cost a set amount of energy. The combo moves are generally moderate DPS moves based on some combination of weapon damage, attack power and/or poisons. The finishing moves either give you some sort of buff, produce some sort of immediate DPS, give the target a debuff or some combination of the three. The combo moves produce 1 or 2 combo points, sometimes with a bonus combo point for a crit if you have a talent. The finishing moves get progressively better the more combo points you have built up. A quick example for a newbie rogue would be to hit sinister strike twice to get 2 combo points, each sinister strike doing instant weapon damage plus a small amount, and then eviscerate, "spending" those two combo points for a small amount of instant damage.

So what if healing were like that? Every class has their base healing spells that are simple: flash heal, rejuvenation, lesser healing wave, flash of light. Those are just the most ubiquitous examples, as you could certainly through holy light or renew or regrowth or pennance as well. What if those abilities gave you combo points like a rogue had? You wouldn't want them to be target-specific like a rogue, so you'd build up your own combo points. When you had 1 or more you could use a "finishing move" - these would be the big, spectacular, shiny spells. CoH, chain heal, wild growth and something new, powerful, AoE and unique for the paladin. For example, a druid puts a renew on a target and gets a combo point. He puts a second renew on another target and gets another combo point. He then has two combo points that he can use to cast Wild Growth, and suddenly the smart-healing WG is healing 5 targets with a moderate HoT. If he had built up more combo points his WG would be healing for more, or perhaps a longer time.

Careful balance considerations would have to be met, as a druid is going to get a lot more milage for a lot less mana spamming regrowth or lifebloom than a priest would with flash heal, or a shaman would with lesser healing wave. I haven't thought this out fully, but certain spells could give only 1 combo point and others could give 2. Also the finishing moves can be balanced around combo point totals this way.

As for the paladins finishing move, a direct heal that gives a damage reduction buff and also smartly heals people around the primary target for a lesser amount would be interesting. It could be 2 people for 25% of the primary heal. It could be 4 people with an HoT based on the primary heal. The imagination and the game engine are the only limits, I would think.

It's just an idea, and a drastic one at that. I have no doubts it would make healing more interesting, but it might be too complicated of an overhaul to jump to immediately. It's also clearly just in the imagination stage.

edit: 2nd part

My second idea was one of healing synergy. Someone pointed out that our bickering is pointless, we need to be working together as healers. I thought about this and let my imagination drift again and wondered what healing would be like if healing worked the way it currently does, but different spells from different classes cast on the same target at or around the same time produced a synergistic effect. I haven't thought this one through that much, but the basic concept works like this: two or more healing spells on the same target interacting with another healing spell would give that target a short buff. This works better by example:

1) A druid has Regrowth ticking on a tank. A priest has a renew on that tank. A paladin casts flash of light on the tank and because of the interaction of these 3 spells (two HoTs + 1 direct heal from a non-HoT class) the tank gets a small buff. Reduced damage taken, increased healing taken, increased rage/power/energy/mana regen - anything, really.

2) A priest casts Prayer of Mending. Chain heal or Holy Light hit the target before the Prayer of Mending bounces off. That target get a small buff that increases haste for a short while. Again, it doesn't have to be haste - it could be a small, short HoT that procs from the combo.

3) Riptide is cast on a target. A paladin hits that target with Holy Shock. The Holy Shock hits for 50% more because Riptide was on the target.

Again, the possibilities are limitless. You could have a basic set of bonuses that interacted only when 2 types of spells were used, or you could have a different combination for every different possible spell combination out there. Clearly, HoTs seed the combination and direct heals make the effect flourish. This could be a problem for paladins who have zero direct heals, but the would be the enablers more often than other classes.

bump to be read. got buried in the spam QQs

I like where you are coming from, but I don't like the idea of the synergies being built around multiple healing classes. For a 10-man raiding guild, such synergies would be extremely limiting because you are never going to have all 5 specs of healers in any given raid (and if you only bring 2 healers, they might very well even be the same class/spec).

I do really like the way that Druid healing involves combos and synergies, such as Swiftmend and Nourish, and I think it makes healing more interesting. There is all this talk about Druids only using Wild Growth, but that's simply not what I'm experiencing; to operate at full potential, I already have to use all of my heals, and that's a great thing.

One concern I have in general is that healing on a whole seems to be being balanced around the 25-man case and nothing else. The stated reason for why healers are not experiencing the same homogenization as tanks is because you will typically bring so many healers to a raid, but in 10-man raid the ratio is often 1:1 (2 tanks/2 healers/6 DPS is a common raid makeup). The developers have consistently talked about making sure every healer has the tools for 5-mans, but even though 10 is closer to 5 numerically, the mechanics and healing requirements of a 10-man raid are much comparable to 25-man raids than regular dungeons.

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Q u o t e:
My second idea was one of healing synergy. Someone pointed out that our bickering is pointless, we need to be working together as healers. I thought about this and let my imagination drift again and wondered what healing would be like if healing worked the way it currently does, but different spells from different classes cast on the same target at or around the same time produced a synergistic effect. I haven't thought this one through that much, but the basic concept works like this: two or more healing spells on the same target interacting with another healing spell would give that target a short buff. This works better by example:

1) A druid has Regrowth ticking on a tank. A priest has a renew on that tank. A paladin casts flash of light on the tank and because of the interaction of these 3 spells (two HoTs + 1 direct heal from a non-HoT class) the tank gets a small buff. Reduced damage taken, increased healing taken, increased rage/power/energy/mana regen - anything, really.

2) A priest casts Prayer of Mending. Chain heal or Holy Light hit the target before the Prayer of Mending bounces off. That target get a small buff that increases haste for a short while. Again, it doesn't have to be haste - it could be a small, short HoT that procs from the combo.

3) Riptide is cast on a target. A paladin hits that target with Holy Shock. The Holy Shock hits for 50% more because Riptide was on the target.

Again, the possibilities are limitless. You could have a basic set of bonuses that interacted only when 2 types of spells were used, or you could have a different combination for every different possible spell combination out there. Clearly, HoTs seed the combination and direct heals make the effect flourish. This could be a problem for paladins who have zero direct heals, but the would be the enablers more often than other classes.

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i like these ideas alot

You forgot the 60% HoT from the Rets Crit heal. Dont forget that one.

A rogue or any dps for that matter has one target and does his damage rotation....you want healers to be like this? I look at this from end game raiding and dps is always stuck doing one set thing cause its the best dps and healers are the same way. No matter what your numbers are I will never spam CoH to heal a single target cause its not the best way to do it. Its like a rogue that does nothing but spam sinister strike and eviscerate, its not near the best way to dps but it is far easier than having to think about it. If the raid isnt taking damage Im not casting CoH, if it is I am...its not a fact of an OP spell its just that fights require you to do it cause its the best way to heal it.

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Q u o t e:
I like where you are coming from, but I don't like the idea of the synergies being built around multiple healing classes. For a 10-man raiding guild, such synergies would be extremely limiting because you are never going to have all 5 specs of healers in any given raid (and if you only bring 2 healers, they might very well even be the same class/spec).

I do really like the way that Druid healing involves combos and synergies, such as Swiftmend and Nourish, and I think it makes healing more interesting. There is all this talk about Druids only using Wild Growth, but that's simply not what I'm experiencing; to operate at full potential, I already have to use all of my heals, and that's a great thing.

One concern I have in general is that healing on a whole seems to be being balanced around the 25-man case and nothing else. The stated reason for why healers are not experiencing the same homogenization as tanks is because you will typically bring so many healers to a raid, but in 10-man raid the ratio is often 1:1 (2 tanks/2 healers/6 DPS is a common raid makeup). The developers have consistently talked about making sure every healer has the tools for 5-mans, but even though 10 is closer to 5 numerically, the mechanics and healing requirements of a 10-man raid are much comparable to 25-man raids than regular dungeons.

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perfect way of saying it, taking away a classes ability to keep an entire raid up on consitent aoe dmg makes it harder for certain classes to get in 10 mans.
i like i've stated in other posts, wg was never spammed just put on an entire raid group.
this nerf is absolutly crazy, i dont see the thought procces. if anything look at the amount of healing it does per tick, or mana it costs. but we need to be able to put it on the entire riad group or its a basic waste for 10 mans and 25mans.

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Q u o t e:
I like where you are coming from, but I don't like the idea of the synergies being built around multiple healing classes. For a 10-man raiding guild, such synergies would be extremely limiting because you are never going to have all 5 specs of healers in any given raid (and if you only bring 2 healers, they might very well even be the same class/spec).

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Excellent points, and I'm glad you made them. I come from a solid 25 man raiding guild. We do 10 mans like afterthoughts and usually have a good balance for them. When Lich King hits and we (most likely) split into two teams for Nax 10-man, we might face some of your issues. This is part of the reason why I think paladins should get some type of smart AoE heal - a talent high in the paladin holy tree that makes X% of flash of light and/or holy light hit the nearest and/or lowest raid members of your target.

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Q u o t e:
I do really like the way that Druid healing involves combos and synergies, such as Swiftmend and Nourish, and I think it makes healing more interesting. There is all this talk about Druids only using Wild Growth, but that's simply not what I'm experiencing; to operate at full potential, I already have to use all of my heals, and that's a great thing.

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I focused a lot on my resto druid alt the last few weeks since my guild is plowing through all of BC in just a few nights. I've done all of both T5 and T6 content 3 or 4 times each and I must say I really enjoy druid healing. Even in 25 man raids the majority of the time I'm keeping lifebloom and rejuv up on tanks, spreading lifebloom out on other targets and using swiftmend, regrowth and wild growth as necessary. Yes, I've spammed Wild Growth, but it's rare when I do - usually when something has gone wrong like a bad pull or a CoH priest or Resto Shaman dying.

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Q u o t e:
One concern I have in general is that healing on a whole seems to be being balanced around the 25-man case and nothing else. The stated reason for why healers are not experiencing the same homogenization as tanks is because you will typically bring so many healers to a raid, but in 10-man raid the ratio is often 1:1 (2 tanks/2 healers/6 DPS is a common raid makeup). The developers have consistently talked about making sure every healer has the tools for 5-mans, but even though 10 is closer to 5, the mechanics and healing requirements of a 10-man raid are much comparable to 25-man raids than regular dungeons.

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Again, I agree. Either every class has a smart multi-target heal or no class does. This will take a pretty drastic working of at least 1 class, but IMO it's what needs to be done.

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Q u o t e:
...That's why we think those changes would have to be implemented with a more holistic look at combat and healing in general.

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Hrm..how is it that this wasn't considered in the development and testing of WotLK? You guys are really going to release the expansion pack and *then* after its released taking a holistic look at combat and healing...give me a break.

Just to play devil's advocate, my immediate concern for this type of healing would relate to the nature of raid content as it currently stands. Essentially I have specific heals for specific situations, waiting on "combos" so to speak isn't always possible.

So I'm assuming the mechanics of raid encounters would have to evolve with such a system of healing in place, but I'm having a hard time envisioning how that would be enjoyable (perhaps due to my lack of imagination :0).

I like having little to no time to react to an urgent situation and finding the right ability before the battle is lost. I"m not sure how that would play out under such a system if I'm forced to follow a pattern of heals in order to unlock either a) more powerful heals or b) more powerful versions of the heals I'm already spamming.

If it's a, then I couldn't imagine a more frustrating healing experience if I was unable to save a player/group simply because WG hadn't unlocked for me yet. Or if it's b, all that's changing is the size of the numbers I see flashing by on my combat display.

Maybe I"m missing where this is going, but then again I enjoy healing as it stands now. Perhaps I"m in the minority.

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Q u o t e:


Hrm..how is it that this wasn't considered in the development and testing of WotLK? You guys are really going to release the expansion pack and *then* after its released taking a holistic look at combat and healing...give me a break.

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I wouldn't be surprised if someone got chewed out for not getting the last X-pack out by Christmas and they made darn sure it was this time. ;-)

That being said, an MMO is a living, growing entity. Just because there are plenty of things that need to be reworked doesn't mean they all get reworked specifically for a large patch or an expansion pack. I'd rather the development team take the time to do things the right way based on large amounts of data and extensive playtesting than do it the Microsoft way: throw a bunch of ideas in an unfinished product and call your alpha the initial release then let the paying customer beta for you and fix things in a "service pack."


edit: me and my darn grammar.

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Q u o t e:
Just to play devil's advocate, my immediate concern for this type of healing would relate to the nature of raid content as it currently stands. Essentially I have specific heals for specific situations, waiting on "combos" so to speak isn't always possible.

So I'm assuming the mechanics of raid encounters would have to evolve with such a system of healing in place, but I'm having a hard time envisioning how that would be enjoyable (perhaps due to my lack of imagination :0).

I like having little to no time to react to an urgent situation and finding the right ability before the battle is lost. I"m not sure how that would play out under such a system if I'm forced to follow a pattern of heals in order to unlock either a) more powerful heals or b) more powerful versions of the heals I'm already spamming.

If it's a, then I couldn't imagine a more frustrating healing experience if I was unable to save a player/group simply because WG hadn't unlocked for me yet. Or if it's b, all that's changing is the size of the numbers I see flashing by on my combat display.

Maybe I"m missing where this is going, but then again I enjoy healing as it stands now. Perhaps I"m in the minority.

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How about this: you can cast your spectacular, class-defining heals with no combo points, but they won't do nearly as much or hit nearly as hard as if you had a few combos.

I understand your concerns. I never claimed my strange ideas were the way things should be, I merely threw them out there to see what other people thought.

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Q u o t e:


I wouldn't be surprised if someone got chewed out for not getting the last X-pack out by Christmas and they made darn sure it was this time. ;-)

That being said, an MMO is a living, growing entity. Just because there are plenty of things that need to be reworked means they all get reworked specifically for a large patch or an expansion pack. I'd rather the development team take the time to do things the right way based on large amounts of data and extensive playtesting than do it the Microsoft way: throw a bunch of ideas in an unfinished product and call your alpha the initial release then let the paying customer beta for you and fix things in a "service pack."

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A) I was responding to blue post...but thanks for your unfounded opinion
B) I've generally found when the people that made the problem try to fix it, it doesn't improve

I'll throw some thoughts out too.

What if whenever there were certain combos of heals thrown on targets it triggered other effects?

What if in order to build combo points you had to use different spells in a certain amount of time and it triggered neat stuff? I know when I play my pally as a healer I just throw out beacon on the tank and raid heal using flash only. So lets look at what for instance pallies want is a form of Hot. So a pally uses beacon on the tank and if say the pally does a flash a shock and a holy light all while beacon is active in a certain amount of time it triggers a Hot on the tank?

Or maybe if a chain heal - Pom - flash of light all hit a tgt at the same time a bust of heal energy = to the amount of overheal the target would have received bursts out from the target in a 10 yard radius also causing holy damage to any enemies in that area.

I can just see this as being a ton of fun starting to use combos of spells to trigger aoe heals or aoe damage effects.

Maybe 3 healing classes dots on 1 target causes an aoe holy dot on enemies in the area.

This leads to benefits to not pulling agro off of the tank and having the group be less aoe crazy so that there are certain benefits from the healers.

Another thought is a holy rage bar. It fills with holy energy as you heal but has diminishing returns from casting the same spell over and over again on the same target. But when you switch it up a bit heal different tgts if fills faster and when full it opens up other spells - much like runic power - so to activate COH you need to do other heal spells to fill it up. When you use COH it decreases it below the recast threashhold so you have to do other spells to recharge it to be usable again. Also the healer has dots and nukes that are on this holy rage as well so they can add in dps too.

Boy the possibilities are endless and this would make me thrilled to play with whenever I am needed to heal.

the game is fine atm , they need to stop changing it, thats where all the problems arise, noone even knows how things will play out at level 80 , save all this feedback till then imo

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Q u o t e:
My second idea was one of healing synergy. Someone pointed out that our bickering is pointless, we need to be working together as healers

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I rather like this idea. I think it would have to be implemented carefully or else you'll run into the same problem of raid stacking, especially in 10-mans. I think it might work best if the system was something where a class can give a buff to healing done to all classes, perhaps slightly less of his own: so to borrow your Riptide idea, have it buff the target so that while Riptide is on the target, the target takes 3% greater healing from direct heals from Paladins/Priests/Druids, and 2% greater healing from Shamans. Really loose example, I know.

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Q u o t e:


How about this: you can cast your spectacular, class-defining heals with no combo points, but they won't do nearly as much or hit nearly as hard as if you had a few combos.

I understand your concerns. I never claimed my strange ideas were the way things should be, I merely threw them out there to see what other people thought.

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Yeah, I'm not saying it's not possible, and kudos for you for offering a solution rather than just joining in on the QQfest. I"m just having a hard time seeing how healing could continue to be meaningful and therefore enjoyable if the encounter was designed with sub-optimal heals being accounted for a good percentage of the time.

I would think it would mean more gimmicky type of things to do, such as passing cores, clicking on cubes, etc., but maybe that's what folks prefer. For some reason I enjoy the feel of healing as it stands, whether I'm on my Druid or Shaman. Perhaps I'm just strange :0.