Theun Reviews Patch 10.2 Healer Changes - Healers Still Too Powerful?

Posted 2023/09/11 at 4:35 PM by Theun

blue postSeason 3 class changesFirst Impressions of the Healer Changes in Patch 10.2The Problem with Healing in Previous SeasonsJakTheunhereherehealers were simply too powerful.Blizzard's Goals for Healingbluepost

Healers have a lot of decisions and resources to manage that change depending on the type of content you are doing. At its core, we want healers to have interesting abilities and choices to make while healing, and we want you to have to manage your mana pool. We’re hoping our changes reduce the amount of overhealing and make mana matter slightly more, which should make healing across the game a more enjoyable experience.

Single target healing spells currently don’t feel like they move the health bar enough. We want these heals to be impactful and have a purpose, and hope this makes healing a Mythic+ dungeon less stressful for healers.

Group healing spells have seen a lot of modifications and increases to their total throughput over the course of Dragonflight. These spells often feel like they are rapidly increasing a raid from a damaged state to a full health state. We plan on adjusting the effectiveness of many of these spells.

Raid survivability cooldowns feel like they have all entered the territory of making your raid feel nearly invulnerable when being used. While it’s a great moment for everyone to stack in a Power Word: Barrier and reduce damage taken and stack a few healing cooldowns, we think the combined power of these has escalated to a point where they make the raid slightly too sturdy.

Mana generation is a problem that’s related to all of the above. We want mana to feel like a finite resource and for the few ways you can still generate mana to be relevant, but want your spell choices during a raid fight to matter. We’re reducing the effectiveness of many mana restoration class abilities and specific items.

Increase the strength of spot healing spells

Lower the throughput of some AoE spells

Reduce the potency of "Raid survivability cooldowns"

Take a look at healer mana

Power Word: BarrierSpirit Link TotemRallying CryRewindHealing Tide TotemMy biggest concern going forward is still the fact that healers largely haven't been nerfed (or haven't been nerfed by nearly enough) to feel like you're still unable to top healthbars very rapidly. Healing would probably still feel very "spiky".Healer Changes in 10.2hereMana ChangesMana Tide TotemSymbol of HopeMana SpringSource of MagicResurgenceDaybreakHealing WavefarChain HealHealing WaveChain HealLiving FlameTemporal AnomalyFlash HealHealCooldownsAscendanceFlourishRewindRallying CrySpot HealingHealing WaveFlash of LightRiptideHoly ShockWhat Still Needs to Happen?

One of my first reactions to the changes was a lack of changes to the true spot healing spells, like Holy Shock and Riptide. These used to be spells you'd rely on to move healthbars in the past, and they simply do not do that at the moment. I'd like to see their initial healing increased a bit rather than them just being used as sort of a "HoT applicator" for things like Glimmer of Light and Primordial Wave.

I think they need to be careful with lowering the throughput of AoE spells. Spells like Chain Heal are made to be costly but effective AoE healing tools, and simply cutting down on external mana really pushes you away from pressing those spells very often. On top of that, if you also buff single target healing spells like Healing Wave that means those spells can simply get to a point where those AoE tools just aren't worth it anymore. I'm unsure if this is the case for every single healing spec, but at least for Resto Shaman for example, we would no longer be pressing Chain Heal with these changes. It's a careful balancing act, so I hope they're keeping their eye on this.

Sort of in-tandem with AoE healing spells, I think healers are still going to feel like they have 'too much' throughput. If a damage event goes out and you're still able to top the group in a second or two, none of these other healing changes really matter. I'm going to have to wait until Raid testing, but I think they're probably going to need to simply aura-nerf healers unless every single fight in the raid has a massive amount of rot damage to heal up. Nerfing mana pools does limit the total amount of hps you can put out because you are now limited by mana, but it doesn't prevent you from topping the group very rapidly, which is one of the main culprits of healing feeling so bad in Season 1 and 2. In my opinion, this is by far the most important point here.

I'm unsure which raid cooldowns they intend to target, but a lot of the times it feels like your first "fix" to a cooldown issue in raid is to actually look at non-healer cooldowns such as a Death Knight's Anti-Magic Zone or a Warrior's Rallying Cry. I still want these cooldowns to feel good to have and be powerful, but I also think they need to be careful about nerfing every single healing cooldown that we have. Encounter design alone can make some cooldowns 'mandatory' even if they otherwise aren't that powerful. Again, this is something I hope they're careful with. The nerf to Flourish for example seemed a little heavy handed.

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Comment by TortyAwesome article. Big fan. Keep it up!Comment by avm1997I really think they need to be careful with AoE healing. The gear jump for this next raid is already too big, and nerfing AoE healing going into it is going to be disastrous.Comment by BuckblindHealers don’t need nerfed. Healers need buffed like crazy. Nobody wants to heal. Nerfing them won’t make people want to heal. Buff their healing, buff their damage. Make them OP as possible for a season so people actually want to heal.Comment by BuffretplzHealings the worst role in the game, it should be enjoyable to play and probably on the overtuned side. i doubt many of the best players flock to a healing roleComment by fakebatman72Great article, Theun. I appreciate everything you’ve done for the healer community.Comment by WockHit mana hard, Dont allow healers to just be bots with high potency spells. A healer should be able to hit a spell and expect a return They shouldnt however be able to hit 1 button every 15/30 seconds and win. Theon has some decent points however his solutions arent great for "Every" healer. Flourish heavy handed? Druid literally is a covoke/flourish bot, it needs to be killed.Comment by FrostyDwarfThis whole article can basically be summed as follows: healers are still going to be too powerful. That begs the question, if healers are so powerful, then why is no one playing it?Comment by Eternius00Healers becoming DPS who also heal was a big design oversight.Comment by icarushudHow can you tell the people making these changes dont play the game?

changes like this.

No one WANTS to heal, its STRESSFUL, Nerfing healing at a time when they need buffs is crazy..
no one wants to be drinking after every pull in m+ no one wants to be wiping raid because theyre oom because their raid made one mistake, chill with it, healers are there to keep us alive, remove mana, let them have infinite resource, make it a energy type resource.

people who try to learn to heal often quit healing because it gets too difficult, and youre making it harder to play.Comment by MordoTekniqCan someone explain to me like I am 5 why feeling powerful in a GAME is so wrong?Comment by HisstressToo much talk about nerfing AoE healing but not fixing the problem with AoE damage mechanics to begin with since every fight is just big AoE spike of damage followed by a short window to top everyone up followed by another AoE spike.
If you want to nerf healing to avoid overhealing problems go ahead but also reduce how spiky damage is in content so we don't NEED to burst heal everything.Comment by Inquistrixhealers were simply too powerful.powerful?lookComment by DarwecThis whole article can basically be summed as follows: healers are still going to be too powerful. That begs the question, if healers are so powerful, then why is no one playing it?Comment by YodasEvilTwinspot healing spells felt really weak, and more than anything - healers were simply too powerful.inability to perform critical healsComment by PhrozenAshI must ask is this article a deliberate joke? “Healing felt too powerful” “healers need nerfs” like uh no it’s the very damn opposite of you’ve been following the discussion and why no healers, I heal in every game, this expansion I do not and flourish nerf made me jump for joy I hated that spell with a burning passion, Druids were useless outside it, it was not engaging gameplayComment by farmerjoe258AMZ is fine, at least for DPS dks. It's capping out at around 1.1m per cast which is roughly 55k per target (Which is not a lot in comparison to actual health pools, 550-700k), if it's even all absorbed. It's also Niche, where as rally is 15% regardless of the damage type.

Holy shock / Riptide definitely need buffs, as holy shock without the current tier set is pathetic. (60% crit modifier)Comment by PhasedruidGreat article, keep up the good work Theun.Comment by TOMRUSHealers don’t need nerfed. Healers need buffed like crazy. Nobody wants to heal. Nerfing them won’t make people want to heal. Buff their healing, buff their damage. Make them OP as possible for a season so people actually want to heal.Comment by ToxictimboThrilling article Theun, I will watch your healing career with great interest son.Comment by LuckylunayreIs this a joke? Healers felt too powerful? We've been nerfed to crap lol. I stopped playing because of how WEAK we felt.

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