Hello. I’m Kenneth, mage healer for Btribe and Wowhead guide writer for the spec. Mage healer currently does very strong damage as Frost and very high raidwide HPS. Nerfing mage would be warranted in P8, but the levers chosen to accomplish this are very poor.
Regeneration has not seen substantial use in many phases because it is a clunky spell that competes with strong runes. On the latest PTR build, nerfs went live that will force us to use Regeneration if we want high MR uptime. This fixes none of the issues that Regeneration has always had, but strongarms us into using it anyway. Here are the issues, as I see them:
- Regeneration competes with Fingers of Frost and Enlightenment. This means we cannot justify taking it as frost and the cost for taking it as arcane is still very high
- Regeneration does very low healing and has the opportunity cost of a GCD that could be used to heal your current Temporal Beacon targets
- Regeneration is a channeled spell, meaning we cannot spellqueue it. The client does not support frequent casts of Regeneration without unavoidable downtime
- Frequent uses of Regeneration do not fit SoD encounter design. We cannot enter a phase of low healing and then ramp up to a burst of high healing because SoD encounters do not fit that damage pattern.
- Set bonuses that synergize with Regeneration have a strong opportunity cost compared to using set bonuses that give damage. I ignored T2.5, Healer T3, and would ignore healer T3.5 if these changes go through.
A quick response poll to these PTR changes showed 90% of players not wanting to cast Regeneration. Even though most players agree mage healer needs nerfs, leave regeneration in the basement.
The core gameplay loop of our spec is to maintain Mass Regeneration beacons on 1-4 groups and maximize uptime of offensive spells to increase both our damage and healing. We are seven phases deep into Season of Discovery. Mages still playing at this point enjoy that gameplay loop. Nerfs should come in the form of % damage or sqrt scaled healing nerfs, not nerfs that change our gameplay loop to something people do not find fun.
25 Likes
Agree 100% on what Kenneth says , Regeneration is just an awfull spell . always have been , thats why no one wanted mages healers on p1 , and that why some people even after p2 dont want mages healer nowhere near.
We have been an awfull healing class since reciently. I just dont understand why when the class its playable and fun u want to take us back to p1 , downgrade the coeficent if u find that it does a lot ( that would be a HUGE nerf case we are just doing something cause of the naxx seal) but dont force us to use regeneration cause we will be back to the meta were no one wants mage healers , and mage healers drop cause gameplay its just boring and useless.
5 Likes
Someone must have had a very slow day in the office and veeeery bored and decided to tackle an issue that might have been left alone at this point.
Who even cares anymore that mages do strong raid healing and damage? Did the naxx bosses write a customer support ticket?
If you take away raid healing from mage healers what are they even good for anymore?
There were signs going all the way back to MC that regeneration was rarely picked, used. Why wait 7 efing phases to ruin how a class plays?
5 Likes
Completely agree. Changing the core gameplay loop this substantially at this point feels like a backstab coming from an unseen rogue. I agree mage healing is a bit too strong, we could use some % nerf. What we have going right now is FUN in terms of gameplay regardless of how strong it is. Projected changes are nerfs to the FUN part while trying to address the strength of the class. Nerfs, not murder please! Listen to the community
4 Likes
Healer mage since P1 and I completely agree with Kenneth.
Healer mage nerfs are 100% justified, but changing the gameplay loop around a spell no mage wants to use feel very bad.
Pressing regen has never felt good in SoD and without further changes it will remain to feel bad.
If the problem is in numbers, then change the numbers. There is no problem in the core gameplay loop and currently is very enjoyable way to play mage healer.
Increasing the cooldown of Mass Regeneration creates problems when you need to react to changing situations and your main (and only!) aoe healing ability is on long cooldown.
Furthermore; creating a problem that the new tier set solves doesn’t feel like a bonus, but brings us back to how the spec should play without the set. This feels very bad considering our tier sets since T2 have been very lackcluster and we have been pushing throught with T2 6piece bonus, which is making us very strong healer because 1-4 groups wide constant aoe-healing.
The only way to justify these changes around the core gameplay of healer mage would be completely reworking Regeneration.
3 Likes
Arcane mage healer main here. I cant remember the last time I posted on these forums. I agree with OP, don’t make us cast / channel regenerations. Not fun, not challenging and not intriguing.
Build us up around mass regen or at least doing make regeneration is single target channel. Most mage healers are in this for the fun of it - to push the limit. Not to sit in a single target channel for 25% of a fight.
At the very least, seek some inspiration from Cata/MOP disc playstyle and let ST regen be a niche build for people who wants their friends to parse.
4 Likes
I just can’t wrap my head around the choices made with these current PTR itterations. Yeah our AOE healing was too much, but there are so many other, better ways to bring our healing into line. Even then, in all honesty there are still plenty of roles mages do not do well, such as ST Tank healing, or periods of incoming damage with no damage to output.
Can we expect paladin nerfs because beacon is too good for those niche situations too?
If it really, really is the goal to homogonize and gut every single healing class’ strengths, then my god, good job. Not many things left to do now before nothing is fun.
5 Likes
Regeneration is pretty poggers ability, very sad that the mage healer “enthusiasts” feel like it’s beneath them to heal with a healing spell! #nochanges
100% What Kenneth said.
Healer Mage since P1 here, channeling regen was never a thing to beginn with. The spell is more then clunky.
Nerfing us is maybe over due but not in that way and not by making the CD on Mass Regen that high and forcing it on Regen interaction. MR CD is fine.
The PTR changes are completly horiffic and if that goes thru, you will see drastic numbers of mage healers dropping.
I will also not play this and be on my way to cancle my subscribtion.
SoD was for me, a long lived Mage Veteran, a dream come ture, playing something there never was in a familiar setting.
But changing that developing playstyle that drastic after seven Phases will allways leave with a bad taste of SoD in the future.
3 Likes
Changing the core mechanics of how the current healing gameplay meta is for healing mages at this point feels a bit reckless. I agree with comments above that mage healing raid healing needs a bit of tuning, but otherwise the gameplay is fun and I feel like healing mages have their place in SoD raids with unique tools and at times interesting gear/rune choices.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the direction that in order to tune us properly our current tools and gameplay have to be massively overhauled. Instead bring the current overtuned tools down a bit, while buffing the tools we don’t pick as often to make them more competitive.
If you want to make Regeneration ability to be picked more often, maybe make the healing it does while channeling ramp so it can be seen as a more legitimate single target heal.
If you feel like Mass Regeneration ability is overperforming because of the semi-short cooldown which then leads to mages being a bit too strong raid healers, then maybe bumping the cooldown a bit is warrented, but increasing its cooldown by 150% feels bad. However and I don’t hate the idea that Regeneration ticks could decrease the cooldown, but right now this change really gutters the current gameplay which in itself is not broken, and as mentioned earlier, instead tune down the numbers to be more aligned to other healers feels more justified.
I really hope this is not the final version of what healing mages will get to experience in P8 and hope there’s some more changes coming which still makes the uniqueness of mage healing be a thing.
2 Likes
I will agree with most my fellow mages here.
Mages being able to heal was THE thing that made come on SoD. The very concept of healing decently while doing relevant amount of damage is to me the way of healing mage, and I’ve been appreciating it since P1 (despite the bad P3 phase).
We almost all agree a nerf is needed, it is illogical to be equivalent (if not better) with other healers while doing incomparable level of damage. (We never had any damage reduction effect on target, and that was part of the balance).
But please do not kill the very concept of mage heal, forcing regeneration, and making us basically a shieldless bad version of priest.
If I may add my 2cent, I’d say the 6p T2 is the reason the spec became broken. 21s, if not 25s beacon with 6s CD on mass regen is what make with whole healing fest while doing damage possible (and forces all of us with that specific bonus on shoulders).
I could suggest an 8s cooldown on MR, and a good 15s cooldown to be added to the 6pT2.
And remove that bonus where regeneration reducing the cooldown of MR.
The idea of regeneration increasing healing done was eventually relevant for tank healing (thing at which mage heal is bad so far), and that could be a choice: if you wanna tank heal, take regen.
But to sum it up, please do not make the whole spec both clunky and potentially useles to fix an overpowered old set bonus. Please fix the set bonus so it isn’t mandatory anymore.
2 Likes
Bottom line is we don’t want to spend most of our time channeling healing spells, but doing some kind of damage rotation.
3 Likes
I’d like to emphasize this point a bit. I play a resto shaman and a healer mage. On my resto shaman there is no leeway at all, almost, in the runes I pick.
Healing Rain rune on chest is a joke that you abandoned and forgot about and nobody uses it anymore for good reason.
Now what is happening to mages is as if you came after so much time and so many set bonuses tailored to not using Healing Rain and suddenly nerfed Overload rune and the synergies with it.
It adds nothing, it only takes away from what people used to enjoy, this is what you are doing now with the changes to Regeneration.
If you want Regeneration to be used then make it worthwhile, buff it specifically, make it attractive. Don’t bulldoze what worked fine, maybe nerf numbers if it was over-performing.
One of the things I liked about my mage healer is/was how so many of the runes felt useful. Don’t take that away and force everyone to play the same thing, that’s boring.
2 Likes
Completely agree with all of the above. You will destroy mage healing if you implement this nerf. Please do not destroy mage healer
Throughout the last 3 phases of SoD i’ve loved playing the arcane variant of mage healing. The concept of it essentially being a Disc priest /w attonement was awesome!
With the most recent changes on the PTR pigeon holing us into using the regeneration rune, completely disrupts the gameplay loop that has been established since the changes in ST.
The regeneration rune feels so unfun to play with that there is a reason that no one runs it. It has no incentive to use, channeling for the heal isn’t fun or just for a higher duration beacon held no candle to using Mass regen.
I’ll agree that with Naxx the numbers for mage healing was specifically high when using tier 3 6 set and combining it with seal the numbers we were achieving were high and that we need changes to be brought in line. With the new raid being uncharted territory no one can predict what healing style is needed.
Pair this with the tier 3 trying to incentive using the regeneration rune but failing entirely it should show that the playstyle you are trying to cultivate isn’t interesting enough to get people to swap to using it.
If anything nerf healing done, don’t change playstyle now at the very end, mage healer gameplay feels just right as it as at.
I agree with what a lot of people are saying here. I understand wanting to tune the overall healing output to reduce the insane amount of overheal, but at this point in the game I am having a really hard time seeing the point of completely changing how the class is played. Instead of enjoying the brand new content which I’ve been looking forward to since SoD was released, I will be struggling to relearn how to play my class IF it is even viable for progression.
I’m a returning player, having played mage and resto shaman from release through Cata, and I can say without a doubt I’ve never had more fun than Ive had as a Mage healer. Using damage to heal is such a cool mechanic, and the time manipulation theme really fits in with mage lore. The “easy to learn, hard to master” aspect of the class has also been great. Its not as rotational as situational, you have to actually pay attention to everything that’s going on around you.
The decision to take that away after 7 phases, the “culmination” of SoD, honesty feels like a huge “f* you” to the people who have actually seriously played the class. If you wanted us to use Regeneration in our toolbox, there has been more than enough time to work in changes in other phases, and in a much better way.
So now what? We’re going to be locked in to channeling. And channeling. And channeling…killing our mobility and further reducing our toolbox. Forcing hundreds of players to relearn how to play their class.
I don’t like to put it like this, but its honestly not fair to the players who have taken so much time and care to learn to love mage healing. Its unwarranted, misguided and alienating.
2 Likes
Maining mage healer since p1 as well, this spec was the only reason I wanted to try SoD and fell in love with it
There were down times, now we have good times, and I agree with most posts - nerfing % healing is okay; killing core rotation, playstyle and fun (!!!) this late into Season is ridiculous
Not because of forcing us to use Regeneration (some people in my raid still can’t learn “hugging” their group members to get beacon, so I use it to cover those “far away” boys)
But because I can’t imagine technical possibility to keep 4 groups beaconed with the changes, even with Regeneration casts and CD reduction on MR
Please don’t bury the spec!!!