I’ve been reflecting on our roles in Azeroth and came up with an idea for a healer class that might just change the game. My personal experience as a healer has been a bit daunting, especially due to the complex interface setup required. I remember those days of endless tweaking and adjusting – it was overwhelming!
So, what about a class that simplifies and revitalizes the healer’s role? Imagine a healer who doesn’t just click buttons to heal, but employs a unique “friendly combat” mechanic. Instead of traditional healing spells, this healer would ‘attack’ allies to heal or buff them. It’s like transforming damage into health or enhancements.
Why this could be a game-changer:
Intuitive Mechanics: It eliminates the need for complicated interface setups, making the healing role more accessible and enjoyable.
Dynamic Gameplay: This introduces a new layer of strategy and tactics in combat.
Unique Twist: It opens the door for fresh lore and captivating stories in the WoW universe.
I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think this approach would make the healing role more appealing and fun? Your insights and suggestions are most welcome!
Let’s discuss this and, who knows, maybe it will catch the eye of the Blizzard development team!
Excellent question! The main difference lies in the gaming experience and the player’s perception of their actions. Traditional healing, which involves selecting an ally and pressing a healing button, can be seen as a more passive and monotonous process. In my ‘friendly combat’ suggestion, you actively ‘attack’ allies, creating a more dynamic and engaging gaming experience. This approach not only adds a new layer of strategy but also makes the healing process more intuitive and fun. Essentially, the gameplay shifts from waiting for health points to drop and clicking on an external interface to a direct player-to-player interaction. This direct engagement provides a more immersive and interactive healing experience.
How would it? No matter how you’re healing you’re waiting/preparing for people’s health to drop to be able to heal unless your healing is absorb-based.
You’re absolutely right that in traditional healing roles, there’s often a focus on reacting to dropping health points. However, the ‘friendly combat’ healer class concept aims to alter this by integrating healing into the active combat process itself.
This approach means that healers will be constantly engaged in the battle, not just in a reactionary mode. They would apply buffs, shields, or healing through offensive-like actions, effectively ‘attacking’ allies to benefit them. This makes the healer’s role more about proactive engagement rather than just waiting for health to drop.
Healers in this role would continuously interact with allies, dynamically responding to the flow of combat rather than just reacting to health bars. It’s about shifting the focus from passive healing to an active, strategic involvement in every phase of the battle, enhancing the overall gaming experience for those playing the healer role.
Let me illustrate the difference with an example: In the current setup, while allies are actively engaged in combat, having fun attacking the mobs, healers often find themselves in a more passive role, waiting for health bars to drop to start healing. This is the standard approach for healers. My suggestion aims to make healing just as fun and engaging.
Imagine healers also ‘attacking’, but their targets are allies. This continuous interaction with active game elements, rather than just managing health bars or custom interface squares from an addon, brings a new level of excitement to the healer role. It’s not just about healing; it’s about being an active participant in every moment of the battle, using ‘attacks’ to heal, buff, or shield allies. This approach aims to integrate healers more seamlessly into the flow of combat, making their role more interactive and enjoyable.
I hope this clarifies the intent behind my idea. It’s about enhancing the fun and engagement for healers, making their role as dynamic and exciting as that of their damage-dealing counterparts.
So we mouseover our partyframes and press an attack spell instead of a healing spell. I do not see the difference. In the end healing is filling up bars. we also do that by pressing Faeline stomp and kicking the mobs in front of us. Quite active playstyle i have to say.
And we are shielding and buffing already. It is like life cocoon or tigerlust, blessing of sacrifice/freedom/protection, aura mastery, etc etc etc does not exists to you. Not to mention the literally shields of disc priest.
I would love for a redesign or option to return to the disc priest style of healing we had in wrath. Major focus on absorbs to lessen the strain on other healers or to mitigate big aoe moments. This required the player to know the fights well.
In m+ I can see this working less, so they could mix this with some extra spot healing.
I can’t stand how disc plays atm with having to constantly repply atonement. It would be fun to have atonement as a passive buff when you’re in disc spec, but that would be too OP? I dunno, I main holy and it’s more than fine, but it’s the most pure caster healer from ye older wow days there is.
I appreciate the ongoing discussion and would like to clarify a key aspect of my proposal. It’s not about introducing new mechanics like shields or targeted spells, but about transforming the overall gameplay experience of healers.
Currently, the role of healers often revolves around a reactive playstyle - waiting for health to drop and then responding. While abilities like Faeline Stomp do add dynamism, they still fit within this reactive framework. My concept is about shifting this to a more proactive and engaging approach.
Imagine healers who don’t just passively wait and react. Instead, they would actively participate in the combat rhythm, using a Tab-like mechanism to cycle through allies, applying healing, buffs, or shields with each ‘attack’. This approach is intended to make the act of healing itself an active and integral part of the combat, rather than a secondary or background task.
This wouldn’t just be filling up health bars; it would be an active engagement in every phase of battle, placing healers in the heart of the action. The goal is to enhance the role of healers, making it as dynamic and thrilling as that of DPS classes, transforming their gameplay from a somewhat passive experience to an actively involved one.
Read what a disc priest is doing? Playing disc priest reactive?? What do you talk about? And starting rolling hots as a druid reactive isn’t the brightest idea either.
To be honest; the healer is already the most active and thrilling role of the game since it is doing everything a dps is also doing in the first place.
I think you have some really awful idea here and I think you do not even play the current game.
Healer is no longer a passive role and has not been one for many years. As healer you cannot simply wait for people to drop hp, you either contribute to the fight or you get replaced.
So in reality, your revolutionary concept would only complicate the healing process.
Healer would need to continually be swapping targets between mobs/bosses to allies and then back to mob. So exactly what they are doing right now with the difference being that current addons help you not to drop the boss target while healing. Will that be the case when you have to attack your allies? I do not think so.
Also your explanation in the op and further clarifications lack any substance. You keep saying same stuff over and over again, using slightly different words and presenting your opinions as facts. I am sorry but this is not a high school, you need to do better than padding the word count with the same arguments ina hope that your teacher is not paying attention.
To sum up you have weak idea that you have failed to justify cause of your weak argumentation. Git gud.
This is basically a disc priest. You switch between applying stuff on allies to grant them the atonement buff, which should be done proactively, after which you switch to DPS spell that heal through the buff you applied. Buff expires so rinse and repeat.
Disc also has shields that mitigate incomming damage.
The only difference that you suggest is that the buffs and shields are applied by damaging the boss, which is a very minimal change compared to how disc plays already.
I for one like the reactive playstyle currently have.
I don’t know if you have played healers a lot the past expansions, but there is hardly any waiting around
I think there’s a fundamental aspect of my idea that might not have been fully clear. Let’s break it down in simple terms: DPS and tank classes have fun by actively engaging in combat, directly attacking mobs. Healers, on the other hand, traditionally don’t ‘attack’ in the same way; their role is more about responding to damage rather than actively participating in the combat through attacks.
Here’s where my proposal comes in: What if healers could also ‘attack’, but instead of targeting mobs, they target allies? This isn’t about healers doing damage, but about changing the way they interact in battle. By ‘attacking’ allies, healers would be actively engaging in combat, making their gameplay as lively and engaging as that of DPS and tanks.
The idea is to add more fun to the healer’s role by transforming their traditional reactive playstyle into an active, combat-like experience. It’s about giving healers the same level of direct engagement in battle that DPS and tanks enjoy, but in a way that suits their role – healing and supporting allies.
Why are you not participating in attacking, interrupting, stunning, cc’ing, replacing mobs as healer? I for sure am. We attack in exactly the same way as a dps/tank. Except we have extra responsibilities on top of it. Which means we are the most active diverse participating char in the party.
And we are not reactive. But i think we have said that already for quite some times.
I really really don’t understand… What’s the difference by ‘attacking’ i.e. filling a castbar with fireball to a boss, with filling a castbar of a healspell to heal an ally.
At the end of the day when your hp bar is full you don’t have to stress. IN THEORY.
In practice the hp bar of your allies is never full for more than a single second, so while it’s called reactive healing, you rarely wait until they are below 50% hp, for example. You have to predict incoming damage so starting to heal just before the hits land is they key to success. If you wait around for heals to be ‘100% worth it’ your party/raid will die. Every healer overheals this way, but it’s needed to have those split second reaction times.
Healers have more than enough going on, trust me. I’ve been healing since 2007 and it’s never been more hectic as it is now. Debuffs, mitigation on tanks through CD’s, raw healing when allies are damaged, casting stuff to make sure hits from mobs are less effective and/or don’t oneshot your group, doing mechanics or affixes in m+, all while moving out of pools of fire/acid/whatever. Not to mention trying to get some dps in when we can.
On top of that every healer plays different already. Like I said disc and holy is night and day, and that’s in one class. Hpala is a melee battle healer that stands on the front lines, druid is very reactive with hots.
So basically i am punching and kicking my allies to heal them… Thats a novel idea…
So a right hook is like a small heal, an uppercut is a medium heal, i could poke them in the eye for a HOT.
If i cut off one of their limbs then they could get a big heal?
I don’t think it needs a revolution. It just needs a class that works like that if some people want it.
I think it’s always dangerous to start overhauling a class that is enjoyed by a lot of people in terms of its class fantasy. Sure you can do new abilities and whatnot, but if you start striking out the core tenets of the spec I think you’re probably making a mistake.
Like, oh I don’t know, “druids are shapeshifters, jack of all trades and master of none” for example. :] Or mages being very squishy but slippery is another good one. These are old examples of course.
But I think what’s going to happen is people are gonna use a healing grid anyway and then they’re going to zoom around the battlefield like manians trying to reach the people in trouble. Sort of like Evokers, actually.
If I were to suggest a class that might be able to support something like this as an optional build, I’d probably say Paladin. Probably.
The grammatical structure of your sentences is sensible but words themselves make no sense, and you just continuously repeat everything over and over. Are you testing some ChatGPT version on us or something? All healer specs are ‘combat healers’, there’re no desktop office worker healers in WoW. When there’s a need for healing, you cast healing spells, and when that need is low, you contribute in the same way as does any other member of your group, so there’s no downtime, no reactivity, only proactive adaptation. The only difference between your proposition and the current state of affairs is that you want to change the names of skills that healers are casting?
