Healer CDs - Healing in World of Warcraft

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Helping healers heal in World of Warcraft

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Healing Stream Totem & Power Word: Shield 5.3 changes are tooltip updates only

If you got all excited about the Healing Stream Totem changes or unexcited about the Power Word: Shield changes on the PTR for 5.3, you have nothing to worry about, Ghostcrawler has confirmed they are simply tooltip changes, not buffs or nerfs.

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From the 5.3 PTR notes:

Shaman:
Healing Stream Totem (Restoration) now heals for 83.3% of Spell Power, up from 31 + 42.6% of Spell Power.

Priest:
Power Word: Shield SP and base absorb reduced by 20% for Discipline. Holy also saw a
reduction, showing the same tooltip values as Shadow priests now.

That said, things could still change before 5.3 drops 🙂

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Primordius hotfix targets dispels that do not remove positive buffs

Primordius dispels are a tricky task – you want to be careful you aren’t dispelling away positive effects when they are stronger than the negative effects or offset each other, because when you dispel, you dispel all positive and negative effects.  (Read our Primordius Healer Raid Guide here)

However, raids had discovered a few tricks to make dispelling much easier, by utilizing dispels that only dispelled the negative while leaving the positive.  But Blizzard caught on and issued a hotfix that will prevent warlocks (with Sear Magic and Singe Magic via Fel Imp) and Priests (Mass Dispel) from being able to do this.

During the Primordius encounter, spells which dispel a single harmful effect (Sear Magic, Single Magic, or Mass Dispel) will no longer work if any of the positive effects are active on the target (Improved Synapses, Keen Eyesight, Thick Bones, Clear Mind, or Fully Mutated).

Dispelling on this fight is pretty easy, with raiders simply calling out for single target dispels when negative buffs outweighed the positive ones.  It saves healers from having to try and guess who needs dispelling… however it won’t prevent those people from being annoying by dispelling helpful effects of fellow raiders they want to piss off.

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Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon hotfix no longer activates above level 69

Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon has been a healer’s secret weapon for 3 expansions since it was originally released in World of Warcraft Classic (yes, that long ago, back in patch 1.11.1).   And it has been the latest old school item to get hit with the Blizzard nerf bat.

Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon now has a reduced chance to activate its effect for characters that are level 61-69 and its effect no longer activates for characters above level 69.

During Wrath it was a Best in Slot trinket for some fights. Right before Cataclysm released (when Blizzard made the first significant mana changes for healers) healers began dusting off their old Blue Dragon cards as a mana regen trinket until they got something better – in fact, they were going for tens of thousands of gold on servers for those who didn’t already have one. Even when Pandaria released, healers were using it to level 85-90 if they didn’t have healing trinkets from Dragon Soul or Firelands to carry them while dungeoning. And it was considered a very viable option for those with level 80 healers doing Herald of the Titans runs.

But The Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon card has now seen it’s last useful days for those who have kept it (and other older trinkets) in their bank or bvoid storage. Blizzard has officially nerfed it in the last hotfix.

It isn’t clear what spell healers were using to exploit the level 60 trinket (although one wowhead commenter said it still had a 20-25% uptime in raid), but it was likely because it made a heroic ToT fight significantly easier than it should be, as it has been a known advantage for two expansions now. The change will also affect anyone doing Herald of the Titans runs with this trinket, which is unfortunate, as it was a great healing trinket for Herald toons with unlucky RNG or who were unable to obtain a Darkmoon Greatness card.

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Inscribed Bag of Hydra-Spawn buffed in hotfix

Another one of the Throne of Thunder healing trinkets has been buffed in the April 2, 2013 hotfixes.

Inscribed Bag of Hydra-Spawn now has an increased chance to activate its shielding effect.

Of course, like the Lightning-Imbued Chalice buff, Blizzard isn’t revealing exactly what the increased chance of the shield activation is, meaning healers will once again need to theorycraft and troll through World of Logs to determine the new increased chance is.

The last two weeks we have seen two healing trinkets buffed, so it is likely we could see more trinket buffing in the coming weeks.

At this rate, I recommend that healers should take a shot at getting any of the resto trinkets this tier, and see how it all shakes out, particularly if they are heroic or Thunderforged trinkets.

Expect new data to come out about this trinket over the next few days as being hit regular and heroic raids with this trinket.

For more on this trinket, see the HealersCDs Guide to Inscribed Bag of Hydra-Spawn

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Disc Priest Atonement Nerf Coming in 5.3

Disc priests have been sitting pretty at the top of the healing charts so far for T15, but that could be changing if the current Atonement nerf does go through with the 5.3 patch as it has been announced.

Atonement now heals for 80% of the damage dealt, down from 100%.

This is going to have a pretty significant impact on disc priests and their raids.  First, you are going to see priests move some of their atonement spam healing (usually with smite) into healing spells that will have a higher output of healing.  But second, those raid teams are going to lose the supplemental DPS that disc priests provide with smite, expecially those raid groups that are close on enrage or have lower-than-average DPS.  Losing that smite spam could hurt if the nerfed atonement healing isn’t high enough to compensate for the disc priest using it instead of a better healing spell.

There is also some speculation that disc priests who have relied heavily on atonement for their healing thoroughput could end up being a one trick pony who can’t adjust to the 5.3 atonement healing nerf.  It isn’t unusual for disc priests to have atonement as one of their top 2 heals (it shows up in World of Logs as Atonement), and those priests will suddenly find themselves having to learn a completely new rotation if atonement isn’t providing the HPS their raid leader or healing leader is expecting them to put out.

Why did Blizzard make the change?  We definitely saw Blizzard put a higher emphasis on Mistweavers via fistweaving to be the healer/dps hybrid that disc priests are also currently occupying for the 5.2 patch.  Add to that the fact that Disc Priests are still far above most other healing specs for a good number of fights, so a nerf was kind of expected by hardcore raiding priest healers.  And atonement has long been a spell that many believed was overpowered.  (Spec Score for healers 10M; Spec Score for healers 25M)

Disc priests have been a “flavor of the month” type of healer this expansion, and many non-priest healers have switched to Disc because they have seen it as being particularly strong against other healers.  It is those healers – who aren’t as familiar with the entire disc priest toolset – who could find themselves struggling in 5.3.

Are you concerned you are an atonement one-trick pony?  Now is the perfect time to start practicing your healing rotation in LFR sans atonement or with a lot less emphasis on it and see what kind of HPS you are able to get.  This will help you get more comfortable with your rotation, what heals in your toolset you should (or could) be using, as well as getting feedback from other priests as you relearn disc priest for 5.3.  Doing it now is far better than waiting for the patch to drop and discover your HPS is left in the dust behind other healers because of the 20% nerf to atonement.

To end with, Derevka from Something Wicked (who also blogs at Tales of a Priest) said it perfectly…

TLDR: Use your whole toolkit, and this nerf is really of little consequence.

It will just remain to be seen how many of those atonement spamming priests follow that whole toolkit advice.

Here are current discussions on the atonement change (beware of some of the QQ):
Atonement Nerf, No buff to compensate? (PVE) – World of Warcraft Official Forums
Patch 5.3 PRR. Attonement Nerf – MMO-Champion
5.3 Atonement Nerf – HowtoPriest

UPDATE: Ghostcrawler has hinted that the nerf might be reduced from 20% nerf to 10% nerf.

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Dispelling on Horridon Heroic & Normal

Most fights that require dispels, Blizzard is usually kind enough to make it a magic effect so all healing classes are able to dispel.  However, Blizzard threw us the Horridon curve ball in Throne of Thunder.

There has been some confusion over dispelling this fight because there are multiple debuffs that need dispelling, and not all healers are capable of dispelling each one.  There is nothing like getting yelled at for not dispelling diseases when your class is only capable of doing curses or poisons.

This fight has been a stumbling block for many guilds, particularly slightly undergeared or less-than-ideal raid comp 10m groups, hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion over how to handle all the dispelling on this fight.

Here are the various debuffs and how you can dispel them, along with priority of most painful debuffs to least painful (although depending on your particular raid comp, venom bolt and deadly plague can be equally painful).

Note: Click here for the complete Heroic & Normal Horridon Healing Guide

Venom Bolt Volley (2nd door)
If the venom bolt volley isn’t interrupted (Gurubashi Venom Priests and Venomous Effusions both cast this), it applies a debuff to targeted raiders.  This debuff is a poison effect.  Druids (Remove Corruption), Paladins (Cleanse) and Monks (Detox; Revival) can dispel this.  This is a stacking debuff, ticking damage every three seconds for one minute.  You can also dispel the raid using Detox at the end of the phase.

You can pre-mark the venom-priests for interrupts, assigning an interrupter for each one to help with the amount of poison going out.

Deadly Plague (3rd door)
This is a disease effect which lasts for 5 minutes on the target.  Paladins (Cleanse), Priests (Purify) and Monks (Detox; Revival) can remove this.  A resto druid can also symbiosis a pally to get Cleanse and help dispel (Bonus tip: You can symbios a pally outside of raid and still use it inside).

However, one great way to combat this is to have your DKs save army for this phase, as the Risen Drakkari can target each mob in each army for the plague.  Time your armies out, if you have more than one, so you don’t get overwhelmed, so make sure your DKs know the order of their armies.  You can also use earth elementals to help, since the diseases are applied when the Champions and Warriors melee a target.  Raid stacking up and using slows can help keep them off range.

Also, some classes with immunities can self-dispel with things like ice block and greater invisibility.

Hex of Confusion (4th door)
This is a curse effect.  Shamans (Cleanse Spirit), Druids (Remove Corruption) and Mages (Remove Curse) can dispel this effect.

Blazing Sunlight (1st door)
This is a magic effect and ALL healers can dispel this debuff.

Stone Gaze (1st door)
All healers can dispel this stun.

Oh, and think Blizzard will balance healers in LFR so there is at least one healer capable of dispelling?  Think again, I have been in groups that couldn’t dispel Deadly Plague in LFR.