If you go to U.GG and check the healer tier list for higher end keys, 70% of all healers are represented by 2 specs, resto shamans at 45% and void disc priest at 25%.
Every other spec is well under 5% representation.
I personally play a mistweaver at 2600+ score and getting invited to anything above a 10 is impossible, i sat in Dornogal for 2 hours last night just blasting through listings, declined, declined, declined.
“Just play with your friends and guildies!”
“push your own key, problem solved!”
This shouldn’t be the answer to the issue, clearly there’s a problem with end game healer balance to the point where resto and disc utility is so overtuned compared to every other healer spec, that and the community suffers from a really bad case of FOTM syndrome.
If you compare the utility toolkit of something like a resto shaman to a mistweaver monk, a resto druid, a preservation evoker it is just insane how much more power resto’s toolkit has.
Other healers need better toolkits to keep their team alive, i’m not advocating for nerfing resto shaman or disc priest utility but please give other healers some love, Mistweavers don’t even have an external defensive for their team unless you count cocoon which is a terrible ability unless you spend 3+ talent points to make it viable.
Come on blizzard.
Would love to hear other people’s opinions on how to balance the situation out.
I personally think it’s awful how certain healers just can’t deal with mechanics like curses, every healer should have a decurse.
I understand the need to create healer specs that stand out in their own ways but something as simple as dispelling mechanics that kill your team should be universally enjoyed by all healers, no?
Like who in their right mind would ever bring a mistweaver to something like Grim batol? the healer that can’t decurse? please.
Melee is already pretty crowded, so ranged healers are generally simply less in the way. This is the main reason I chose not to bring a monk to heal in my groups. Hard-mechanics aside, like Dawnbreaker 1st boss (that can be played around), is one thing. But there is a ton of swirlies and other that a ranged option makes so much easier and safer for the group overall.
When it comes to decurse, I would and likely still do bring other characters that can dispell curses. Stonevault is a lot safer if you bring other than the healer to decurse.
Monks do not seem to struggle pumping out the numbers required to keep people alive. The problem condenses to monks being in melee, making everything just that little bit more lethal.
You won’t get any balance changes and dungeons tuning until mdi is over. Just accept that anyone except mdi tryhards are 2nd class citizens. Accept and move on.
Magic debuffs are a healer mechanic, and all healers can handle them. Anything else is a group-mechanic. Curses can be removed by Mages, Druids, Shamans, and Evokers I think? Plenty of specs to choose from, that are not a healer.
Yeah it was mostly a comment to the «who would invite a healer with no decurse to GB». If you make a group with other decursers in it you can perfectly fine do it with a healer without decurse. Bring a mage, druid, shaman or evoker (1 min cd i think?) to help out. Not every dispel has to be a healer job (although many dps would prefer to not have to dispel but thats another story).
In the meantime i have healed a +10 grim batol on 613 on my mistweaver already with only a guardian druid in the group that can dispell curses. Most curses in grim batol are just healing absorps which you have plenty of time for to heal away. They dont do anything when the debuff expires.
The curses at the start of Stonevault are actually dangerous.
Why have we then time and time again seen that a large portion of the playerbase prefer soloable content and systems that allow them to pug through relevant content? i love grouped content and the social aspect of wow but i also understand that there’s many people in this game who enjoy being able to pug, who want to be able to do m+ without using voice chat tools.
MW is in a good spot “throughput” wise but they lack a lot of utility, so much of their utility power is front loaded into their 5% physical dmg buff but as a healer, i do not want to nor care for a 5% physical dmg buff, neither do much of the playerbase when they can bring a class that gives everybody 5% stamina or 10% increased health simply every time you heal them, because mythic+ right now doesn’t suffer from lack of damage, it suffers from lack of survivability.
Why ? Its a dumb proposition. You are a person that does not understand one bit what the meta is about.
Understand the following: There is no such a thing as “meta spec”. It does NOT exist.
Here is what really exists:
Meta COMPS. So RShaman/DPriest are only good IF there the other 4 specs are also specific specs. Because Utility can only shine as a group, not individually. For example kicks. Does shaman have a kick ? YES. But that is irrelevant. What matters is that your whole group needs X # of kicks. And Shaman provides some of those kicks, while the other specs provide the rest (like Prot Pala for example).
Now that you get why in high keys there is a meta COMP and not meta specs, you can understand no why its absurd to ask for specific spec nerfs.
Let me ask you something. WHY is DPriest meta ? Because RShaman gets replaced by Enh Shaman. That is why. So nerfing Resto shamans makes no sense.
Then you go to complain about DPriest utility. OK. Lets nerf them. Then DPriest will be replaced by Holy Priest, OR, by SP priest. So we should nerf the DPS specs too? Is that what you are saying?
See where im going with this ?
Here is my opinion: Do you play higher end key levels ? No ? Then balance is fine. If you look at lower end key levels its RShaman 30% and everyone else 10% to 12%. Not perfect, but not catastrophic either.
But if you really, really want to complain about something how about you complain about the elephant in the room: Augmentation Evoker.
Aug has formed part of the meta comp for 4 seasons in a row. It has never happens in the history of wow. And as it stands, they are gonna be meta in S2 as well making it 5.
That should give you something to complain about. Especially for all those PEvokers who have an amazing toolkit and 20% more raw HPS than any other healer out there, but are grossly underrepresented (for 4 seasons in a row) because of Aug.
Or Devastation Evokers. When was the last time you saw a Dev Evoker ? Are they bad ? NOPE. They got a great toolkit and fantastic DD. But Aug exists.
Yesn’t. If your DPS/Tank kick enough of the random casts, then this statement is absolutely correct. The issue that the healing absorb starts wrecking you, when other sources of dmg get applied. Especially when having a Lavabender with Ascension in the pull.
Also because prot paladin was made playable and prot paladin brings a lot of kicks/interrupts so the group gets away with bringing literally the only class in the game without a kick. (small rent intended).
Not sure if Disc would’ve gotten into the meta comp if prot paladin wasn’t.
Why ? Because Holy Priest performance is not as good as all the other healers ?
Did you read what I said ? When forming a Meta Comp (I repeat COMP, not spec) you often have situations where Fortitude, and PI + a DPS is MORE valuable than a drop in HPS from a sub-performing spec.
Either way. I am not claiming that HPriest would replace DPriest should it get nerfed. What I am claiming is that it is within the realm of possibilities that the overall meta comp benefits more from having A priest (regardless of performance) than not having one.
I think priest will get dropped from the meta entirely should disc get nerfed, or should enha get nerfed.
And dont get me wrong, thats not a complaint because i couldnt care less what the meta is, i play HPriest, Brewmaster(very very badly) and bm hunter.
We will see. I hope not. I also wonder how the meta will shift should Aug get nerfed too… But either way. I still find all this meta comp situation a bit frustrating.
It is basically caused because each class is too “unique”. The game is to match 5 pieces of a really big puzzle to get the best result. But once you pick those 5 pieces, you cannot swap them to specs that give “equivalent” benefits. Because they don’t exist. Everyone wants to be unique. Which is something that I think should change.
One obvious place to start would be with raid buffs and how they should be normalized (which for the record is not the same as homogenization).
So in my view for example Warrior Battle Shout and Mage Arcane Intellect should be merged into +3% main stat. Instead of +5% AP and +3% intellect. And Monks and DH should get the same treatment and both be given +3% damage (not just physical/magical like today).
There will always be a meta. We cant change that. But things like my proposal would allow for more than 1 meta comp to exist. Which is a win in my book.
I honestly think this is only a problem of the very highest key. When every spec is basically able to time keys on -1 or -2 of the nr 1 key, then i am not too worried.
In the end people will find specs that complement each other just a little bit more than any group of 5 random (different, so not stacking classes) classes.
