Adressing Healer Shortage

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

Here are some suggestions to fix healer shortage in M+ in the future, and S3 especially. Its divided into 3 parts: Damage profile, balance, new player UI.

DAMAGE PROFILE:

There are enough posts in this forum complaining about the high damage and the impossibility to heal it. And most of the discussions revolve around lowering this damage and having healers DPS, or making it bigger but creating very spiky damage profiles.

I have a different take on the subject. I have noticed that in M+ mobs and bosses have random targeting of abilities. And this is what causes problems in my opinion.

Right now damage is very high. But why do healers need to heal that ASAP by any means necessary? Well because that individual can be hit by something else in less than 1s and die.

So, by designing dungeons such that mobs have a priority targeting would allow dungeons to keep high damage, but remove the spikiness of that damage.

For example: you cant be hit by 2 abilities (avoidable or not) by any mob your are in combat with in less than 2s. That mob would have to target someone else.

And should there be no candidate in the party to target, then by default any ability would get targeted to the tank. Which would also make the tanks less “immortal” but keep their self reliant toolkit intact.

That would give healers 2 to 3s to heal an individual or party up, removing the stress of healing but keeping the damage high and “healers healing”.

BALANCE:

Balancing is hard. And the harder it is, the more difference there will be between “meta specs” and the rest. There are just too many variables to consider. So the game now is to find the least amount of variables to homogenize to prevent all healers just being the same. In my opinion, 2 variables are enough to minimize healer disparity while keeping maximum play-stile difference.

A) Since SL I have noticed that all meta healers have 1 thing in common: ways to “store” over-healing as a shield. It used to happen with druid, and it happens now with HPala.

This is a very powerful skill to have and I think every healer should have a variation of this. In exchange, nerf healer throughput. This would simplify healer balance and would allow all healers to keep their iconic abilities: Palas their instant lay of hands, shamans chain heals and totems, druids their DoTs, ect…

The change would allow each healer to be unique, but none of them to be OP depending on dungeon design and damage profile. Easier to balance them out.

B) I think its time to make all dispelled abilities to be magical. To make any healer dispel them. If the devs want a dot to do damage and prevent dispels (like what bleeds were before Evokers showed up) then do it. But no more dots that only certain classes can dispel.

NEW PLAYER UI:

Right now, if you create a level 1 character by default he is a “dps”. In fact, the “exiles reach” intro mission dungeon at the end is actually done as a “dps” with NPCs tanking/healing for you.

I think this is a mistake. The option to specialize to tank/healer (if your class allows for it) should be given before that dungeon. And if you choose healer, there should be a party frames and click-on-party frame by default for the 1 or 2 healing spells you get at those levels.

And this “by default” UI should be kept through leveling and appear every time you change to healer spec. And if you get a new targeted healing spell, it should be added to this “default UI” with the flashing box you get now for any other ability.

And this default UI can be bad. As long as it has party frames and the macros to click heal are there, its more than enough. If that new player reaches end game content with the intention to continue healing then he will download addons/weak-auras that better suit his play stile. Like we all do.

Let me know what you thing of these suggestions.

2

2-3 seconds?

Bro, what.

It takes longer to cast heal(the spell) baseline than the lower end of that, it’s a 2.5 sec cast baseline and heals 42k. To be able to heal someone up in 2-3 seconds consistently, we’d need healing to be insanely much stronger with 2-3 seconds to heal someone up after they get chunked.

Like, yeah, holy priests can pretty much fill up a DPS healthbar in 2 globals if they’ve fallen under 35%, with pw:life and then serenity but it takes a bit for that to recover. Outside of that we have heal and flash heal for directly targeted healing pretty much.

AoE healing? Forget that a holy priest can heal a party up in 2-3 seconds. Prayer of healing/coh/sanctify would need to be massively buffed for that. A cast of poh with my current gear level heals roughly 12k per person hit and CoH heals 15k and has a 12 sec cd, sanctify heals for 35k and has a 1 min cd(reduced by casting abilities).

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3

You’ve got too many talents. We’ve all got too many talents.

It’s really quite simple. More talents means more cooldowns and modifiers and other effects. In the case of DPS that just leads to overly complicated rotations and mobs having to have very high health pools, but in the case of healers it leads to that same very overcomplicated intricate healing, but also very high healing and no higher health pools to match.

Healing is currently often about 2x that of damage dealers in raids and of course this translates into M+ - but in order to threaten players this high healing must be offset by high damage, leading to a spiky damage profile and very low reaction times for the healer. Your complaint about one player getting hit by the same randomly targeted thing twice in a row killing them is pretty much all the evidence you need. These mechanics were there in Legion like the Pelters, and although they were annoying, they were nothing like this.

Healers also need constant passive nerfs in PvP for the same reason, and they sure have a lot of them now.

The only way to fix this is to nerf mob damage and healing by like 30%, and the reduced healing should come as a result of more restrictive talent trees with high points costs instead of reducing baseline healing.

And now I’m really popular.

:popcorn:

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4

So my poh would be even less worth pressing because it heals for less than nothing when it already heals for nothing.

Great fix.

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5

Dont really want to go back to 6 or 7 talent choices. If you want to do that may as well just remove the talents altogether.
Up until talent trees were reintroduced they literally served no purpose. The only time you needed to switch talents was if something was buffed or nerfed.

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6

Fix for healer shortage is go play healer yourself.

2 Likes
7

No. I specifically wrote that is NOT what should happen. Read it again.

I agree, but currently we have 3 times more talents than you do in tBC because they all cost practically no points, and it’s leading to a very bloated game.

8

I have read it.

You’re saying to reduce healing by 30%. PoH already heals for nothing and isn’t worth pressing in 5-man content. Like, bro, we have dps running around with closer to 600k hp and my prayer of healing heals them for like 12k per cast at my gear level. Even with damage reduced by 30%, it would still not be worth pressing because it heals even less if you nerf healing by 30%.

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9

We’ve had this in BFA too though, just that it was only an issue in WAY higher keys than it is at the moment, the dungeon design is just complete garbage, constant unavoidable hps checks, stupid boss mechanics and game breaking bugs that still aren’t fixed.

I’m perhaps less affected by the high damage spikes because as rdruid i’ve always had to preemptively setup heals, doesn’t exactly make it more enjoyable though.

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10

Like bro, you haven’t read it.

I can see you can speak English. There’s no excuse.

I said reduce the healing by removing abilities and cooldowns, not by nerfing PoH or whatever.

Please show some respect when debating others by reading their post.

11

I know it sounds shocking but maybe people avoid healing because it’s less fun and more frustrating than the other two?
Most of your attention goes to generic things like raid frames and damage patterns, which make it monotonous and your only interaction with fights are the occasional stuff you dodge.

I wanted to say the solution is way more smart heals but considering MW’s healing is 90% auto targeting in dungeons and it’s still the most underplayed spec by a huge margin, I’m unsure what people want.

12

The paaaain!

It already feels rather laughable when your heal does like 25k on a 500k healthbar. Even smaller would feel very sluggish, ugh lol. I do get what you mean tho, it’s wonky how healing feels sort of gimped atm and yet the numbers dispute that.

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13

OK. I made up the 2-3s. It could be more or less, but you can balance those things out and it would be MUCH easier to do than it currently is. Because right now nothing more than “instant cast” is good enough.

With my suggestion at-least you give a spot for casted heals in general.

While I agree with your statement, I must say that none of the suggestions your propose are feasible. You cant reduce talent trees of healers and leave the dps one intact. Its a NONO.

Given that healer power stays, then we need to find solutions.

That is what I was proposing. You cant just increase/decrease healer HPS or mob damage. It would give the SAME eternal discussions of healers not healing and dps, or healers overwhelmed and stressed.

There is no way out of it if we keep repeating the same thing over and over again.

By avoiding instant 1shots in dungeons, you can better balance out healer power with raw mob damage/sec with raw hps of healers. Its easier to do basically.

Also, there exists things like “smart heals”. So the game can locate who in the party has the least health and apply things to them. Im confident that the same engine can be used to tweek mob targeting as well.

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14

If blizz implements your suggestion even I would quit healing since people will just ignore mechanics and tell me to heal more. I’m certain one of the top reasons people dislike healing pugs is having to compensate for fails, so if anything failing core mechanics should deal 10x your maximum HP.

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15

Ye OK. Agree. Core mechanics should 1shot with out the option of healing at all.

However, if people dont interrupt the anoying “XXX bolt” of some casters, then the party would still wipe. Granted. Eventually 5, 400k “earth bolts” directed at the tank (+ the damage he is still receiving) will kill him.

And by adjusting healer power to not allow you to top 3 DPS health pools in 2s, DPS will STILL have to press their defensive.

But at-least now, you wont need a <1s reaction time to pop defensives. Or, 1 non-interrupted cast (simply because you ran out of CC) will not wipe you 1/5th of the times.

I think you would keep healing and would enjoy it… :slight_smile:

16

Healing power is irrelevant. The difference between a group who plays perfectly AND uses their defs efficiently, and one that doesn’t is that former doesn’t even need a healer.

You think DPS in sub 20 keys will play better because you nerfed healers? Come on…

If you want to make healing equal to the other roles, make their challenges identical. Tank and DPS have static checks. If you do enough, you’re good.
So let’s have healing checks that require X healing- if you can do that you’re good. And if someone fails the ONLY way to save them is through utility that’s distributed across all roles.
Turn healers into “just another player” instead of the guy who deals with everyone’s mess ups.

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17

I don’t wanna leave the DPS intact :smiley: It’s a problem across the board.

But healers are healing FAR higher than damage dealers are dealing damage if there is anything to heal.

I really don’t like the idea that mobs deliberately try to be kind to you. They’re our enemies.

EDIT: Those who don’t understand what I’m talking about, try watching this:

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18

Easy fix for the current state of M+ be would be to add an NPC at the beginning of the dungeon who offers (mind - its optional, for the masochists among us) the healer a “Divine Shield” that lasts for the whole duration of the dungeon. That would already help a lot. Not having to mind where to stand - to actually be allowed to cast your heals instead of running out of voids - and to heal/dispell yourself gives more time to heal the other four (three, since a good tank doesn’t need a healer anyway) players in the group.

(PS: of course, if the group wipes - which would be all other four players are dead - the mobs resett, ignoring the Divine Shielded healer)

I’d actually like to do that, I used to play healer back when it was still fun, but nowadays it’s just too stressful and the spec doesn’t feel powerful. You get outhealed by tanks (once again, mind - that’s not a call to nerf tanks, I love my crazy hps as DK tank) and even if you manage to do a lot of hps, it’s nothing compared to the numbers dps manage in equal situations. In addition, dealing dps as a healer is a joke for most classes, especially for monks who have to work a strikt rotation and are also melee… only to do the fraction of a dps’ damage. I’ll go back to healing as soon as the devs have fixed that.

19

if people fail at important mechanics then they should be punished

people can always choose to stick to +11 and then have easy fun time.

problem is a lot of people want to be carried. and this works only up to certain level.

20
  • Punish bad DPS players by reducing their damage output, rather than making them take damage, e.g. by disarming them.
    • Obviously, don’t completely remove damage taken, but DPS need to feel more impacted by failing mechanics.
  • Reduce or even eliminate healer affixes.
    • Healing already takes way more cognitive effort than DPS’ing (keeping track of health bars and dispellables, in addition to everything else). Yet, we have to or are expected to deal with way more M+ affixes than tanks and DPS. Why? We should have fewer affix responsibilities than DPS, not more!
  • Increase healer damage, so they have more fun stuff to do during down-time.
    • A good group that avoids unnecessary damage should allow the healer to blast DPS. In Shadowlands it was pretty decent, e.g. resto shaman earthquake elemental and Kyrian totem, or Venthyr Ashen Hallow were really cool, but at the moment it’s too low, compared to tanks and DPS.

Basically, healing should involve a more consistent amount of damage that needs to be healed, and M+ affixes must be fairly distributed, so that healers don’t have a 100x more stressful job than DPS’ing.

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