Healer CDs - Healing in World of Warcraft
Helping Raid Leaders & Their Healing Team
If you aren’t in the Warlords of Draenor Alpha/Beta yet and haven’t made a pre-made 100, the animation for the new Condensation Totem is definitely eyecatching.
With a cooldown of only 30 seconds, I suspect the animation will get pretty old, pretty fast. And imagine an LFR with a few Resto Shaman all dropping the Condensation Totem at the same time…
We will also be adding new videos for new spells and animations for all the healer classes, so be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel too!
The heirloom weapons from Garrosh (flex, normal and heroic) will still be available in 6.0 – the pre-expansion pack patch that will last around 4-6 weeks prior to the release of Warlords of Draenor. There are some changes planned for heirloom drops when 6.0 drops.
First, raid difficulties will change to the new structure, where Heroic becomes Mythic, Normal becomes Heroic and Flex becomes Normal.
Then, when a raider kills Garrosh on either Normal, Heroic or Mythic, they are guaranteed a 100% drop for a spec-appropriate heirloom weapon. The drop rate for subsequent heirlooms will also be increased, although we do not know by how much. However, for those after the guaranteed drop from the newly branded Mythic Garrosh (currently Heroic), keep in mind that it is also being reduced for a raid size of only 20, meaning there is much less room for carrying buyers and fewer of each guild’s raid group will be able to get in for those kills.
Once Warlords of Draenor launches, these Garrosh heirlooms will no longer be available, meaning many people won’t be able to complete a collection of heirlooms, regardless of which ilevel they are (Flex, Regular or Heroic).
For reference, here is MMO-Champion‘s handy heirloom list.
Heirloom drop rates are currently very low. I have one heirloom weapon on my main – thankfully a heroic one – despite over a dozen kills. Some guildies have 3+ while others have yet to see one drop. It is also worth noting that for Resto Shamans, the first heirloom for your spec is the staff, and not one of the Main Hand or Off Hand options, so chances are good that Shamans might not get the Intellect Mace or Shield, which is unfortunate for those looking for a bit more flexibility when they are replacing weapons at level 100.
They have also confirmed that the drop rate for the Kor’kron Juggernaut, the Heroic Garrosh mount, will change to a rare drop rate when Warlords of Draenor is released.
And for those looking for Ahead of the Curve or Cutting Edge Feats of Strength, they will be removed in 6.0.
Raiders have been pretty used to seeing zone wide nerfs and buffs on current raiding tiers once the main progression race is over and less progressed guilds are still struggling to beat bosses. Blizzard usually gives a raiding instance a zone wide buff, such as the DPS buff we saw in ICC or a zone wide nerf to boss health and damage, such as as we saw in Dragon Soul.
But even though this is an expansion ending raid tier, Blizzard confirms we will not see the same buff or nerf for Siege of Orgrimmar. Instead, they plan to look at progression and make targeted nerfs instead.
The tweet was actually made last month, but MMO-Champion recently highlighted it, as it was something many people missed.
Considering we are looking at many more months of farming Siege of Orgrimmar, it is still going to make farm nights a challenge without a buff or nerf to help less progressed guilds along.
This will also likely make the market for heroic Garrosh mounts last longer since fewer guilds will be killing heroic Garrosh than might have done with a buff or nerf to the instance, which is good news for those who are killing heroic Garrosh easily enough that they can carry an extra body, but bad for those who were hoping for a nerf to be able to kill the boss.
Using Unleash Life + Healing Rain has long been a major part of a Resto Shaman’s healing toolkit, but it is being changed in Warlords of Draenor. Unleash Life will now only “increasing the effect of the Shaman’s next direct heal by 30%”. This is a change from Live where it says “increasing the effect of the Shaman’s next direct heal or Healing Rain by 30%”.
For those hoping Shamans would see a buff to Healing Rain because of the change, no such luck.
Is the ULE-Healing Rain buff being built into the baseline spell, or is HR just effectively getting nerfed 30% from that change?
Do you not think Healing Rain needs a nerf, compared to live? (Celestalon)
If you have ever played a Resto Shaman, you have probably played Earth Shield wars a time or two, especially if you happen to have more than 2 Resto Shamans in a raid. So of course it makes perfect sense that when they are dropping the size of the raid that they make the change to allow multiple Earth Shields to stack on a target.
This change means you could have multiple Earth Shields on a single tank for high incoming damage parts of a fight and you don’t have to worry about accidentally overwriting another healer’s Earth Shield when you go to reapply it on a tank.
No mention of Earth Shield in the patch notes. Surely you are scrapping that, it’s such a pain with multiple Shamans!
Multiple Earth Shields can stack, not a pain. (Celestalon)
So you are changing Earth Shield so 2 can be on the same target at a time finally?
Yes. (Celestalon)
This change is a long time coming, but it is a shame they didn’t make the change long ago.
Mistweavers have some pretty significant changes come Warlords. On the positive side, they have a new stance which is designed specifically for those who want to fistweave, with the ability to swap between fistweaving and healing without too much difficulty.
First, Uplift now has a 1.5 second cast time, up from an instacast. This is part of blizzard’s plan to tone down the abundance of instacast heals in the raid.
Mistweavers get a brand new passive called Focus and Harmony.
Focus and Harmony: Haste effects lower the global cooldown of your spells and abilities.
However, with this new ability, Mistweavers will lose Stance of the Wise Serpent and its ability to increase Haste from items by 50%.
Several abilities will no longer generate Chi for Mistweavers. Crackling Jade Lightning and Soothing Mist won’t generate Chi.
Thunder Focus Tea has been redesigned.
Thunder Focus Tea now causes the next Renewing Mist to jump up to 4 times (used to cause the next Uplift to refresh the duration of Renewing Mists on all targets).
Ah Healing Spheres, Mistweavers love or hate them, and usually it is hate them unless it is a fight that sees raid members constantly on the move all over the place – but even then, it isn’t unusual for raiders to run around them, mistakenly believing they are some bad boss mechanic.
First, Healing Spheres as the spell are being removed. Instead, Gift of the Serpent will summon Healing Spheres.
They are getting a change that increases the range and healing they give on expiring.
Healing Spheres now heal an ally within 12yd (up from 6yd) for 100% (up from 50%) of their normal healing, when they expire.
Another new ability for Mistweavers is called Detonate Chi, which is another way to put those healing spehres to work.
Detonate Chi: Instantly detonate all of your Healing Spheres, causing each of them to heal a nearby ally within 12 yards of the sphere. 15 sec cooldown.
They’ve also solved the issue where a slightly damaged raid member could run through the Healing Spheres and detonate them all at once. Now, a player will only consume as many as needed, leaving the remainder on the ground.
Mana was another area where Mistweavers had no problem whatsoever. They could happily choose gear without any spirit at all, and reforging away as much of the spirit as possible that they had, and mana regen still wasn’t an issue – so rather than solve that issue, Blizzard worked the class around low spirit instead. Blizzard is trying to rectify this in the new expansion, back to a place where Mistweavers have to care about mana and spirit.
The alpha patch notes have quite a bit about the new Stance of the Spirited Crane, aka the Fistweaving stance.
Stance of the Spirited Crane is a new ability for Mistweaver Monks, which replaces Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
The Spell-Power-to-Attack-Power conversion effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
The Eminence effect has been moved from Stance of the Wise Serpent to Stance of the Spirited Crane.
Teachings of the Monastery now makes Spinning Crane Kick heal friends instead of damaging enemies, while in Stance of the Wise Serpent (previously, it would heal allies in addition to damaging enemies).
Mastery: Gift of the Serpent’s Healing Spheres now scale with Spell Power instead of Attack Power.
Serpent’s Zeal has been removed. Eminence now always includes Auto Attacks.
Muscle Memory and Vital Mists have been merged. Muscle Memory now requires Stance of the Spirited Crane, and passively increases the damage of Crackling Jade Lightning by 100%, causes Tiger Palm to trigger the Vital Mists effect, and causes Blackout Kick to hit 4 additional nearby targets for 50% damage.
The following abilities now require Stance of the Wise Serpent for Mistweavers:
Enveloping Mist, Renewing Mist, Soothing Mist, Uplift
The following abilities now require Stance of the Spirited Crane for Mistweavers:
Blackout Kick, Jab, Tiger Palm
These are quite significant changes that Mistweavers will have to learn and cope with. It’s great that they’re getting to stance is so they can split between being that hybrid healer/DPS or a straight healer, something that’s is usually advantageous during progression when every little bit of DPS matters.
It is definitely worth it for Mistweavers to either hit the beta when it’s available to learn the new nuances of the class, or plan to hit 6.0 hard with raiding, so you can be fully competent once all these changes go live.
As always, these are Alpha patch notes and Blizzard is subject to change them at any time.
