Blue posts, comics

It's time for a last batch of blue posts before the patch (Yeah, still unconfirmed, I know)! The final version of the menu should be up within a few hours and you'll have everything you need to survive this patch.

Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
PvP starting gear in Cataclysm easier to obtain?
The fourth question, about the availability of starter gear in PvP, is something we are working right this moment on improving for Cataclysm. Players tended to view the Lich King starter gear as either tedious or a distraction while at the same time they were able to get high item level weapons from PvE. Those two factors contributed a lot to the very short matches we had in the first season.

We know players need some minimum level of resilience (say somewhere in the 300 - 500 range) before they feel like they can survive long enough to do anything. We need to make sure players generally aren't stepping into Arenas or BGs without it.

[...] I think 1000 is probably the point where you really start to feel like you aren't going to die at any given second. But that's okay as long as it is reasonably attainable. We offer resilience on gear largely as a reward. It's a good milestone when you realize that the gear you have worked to obtain is now keeping you alive. It's comparable to a raid that has trouble on a boss until they get enough of the right gear, at which point they now stand a good chance to beat him. In other words, if we didn't want players to have to work to get resilience, we'd just make it a passive damage reduction aura in Arenas and BGs.

But I do agree the starting sets of resilience gear in LK were unattractive given the investment it took to get them. To use my raid example above, you shouldn't be facing the boss in greens either. (Source)

Patch 3.3 Dungeon System Questions
Will the random heroic search have the option of excluding certain heroics (i.e. oculus?)
You do not have the option to exclude specific Heroic dungeons, however, if you've already run a specific Heroic dungeon that day, it is less likely to be randomly selected for you.

Will players still need to purchase keys to queue for TBC heroics?
All standard requirements for entering a dungeon will remain. For instance, if you log into the game just after patch 3.3's release and queue for a Random Heroic dungeon, you will not be selected for the Icecrown Citadel Pit of Saron or Halls of Reflection wings unless you've cleared your way through each preceding wing in order to unlock the next wing (i.e. you must clear Forge of Souls for Pit of Saron, and Pit of Saron for Halls of Reflection).

- I've heard players will no longer be saved to heroics. Does this mean we can farm Champion's Seals?
Heroic lockouts still exist. The only difference is that the Random Heroic option will ignore lockouts. So if you've run every single Wrath of the Lich King Heroic dungeon in a day, you can still choose the Random Heroic option to continue running them. You can do this as often as time allows since this option will ignore lockout timers. As I said above though, the Heroic dungeons you've run the most that day will be less likely to be randomly chosen by the system. (Source)

Downranking
I've addressed the downranking issue enough that you can probably find a good explanation for why we nerfed it.

The big problem with downranking was it propped up coefficients at the expense of everything else. It wasn't just that the lower ranked heals were cheaper. It was that the higher ranked heals just didn't have much to offer because the coefficients so completely trumped the flat points of the spell. The part of downranking that was choosing the cheap, small spell over the big, expensive spell was compelling, I'll grant you. But the part of it that was ignoring new spells because high spell power (or + healing back in the day) gave the lower ranks such great legs was just problematic for many reasons.

I agree that we need to make sure every class feels like they have the choice between big and small heals, and that may mean adding new heals to Cataclysm. On the other hand, priests have say Flash Heal and Greater Heal now but don't necessarily use them equally. (Source)

Useless/Overpowered healing sources - Lightwell and Replenishment
I don't think Lightwell means non-healers don't care about their health. Lightwell means they aren't willing to take a huge dps hit (including losing targeting) to get it. Most players will use Healthstones in my experience. They just don't feel like they offer that much currently because the healers will be able to cover them.

[...] I know Replenishment is a popular bogeyman, but we don't think Replenishment itself is the problem. It's just a generous source of regen at a time when there are many generous sources of regen. We'd more likely to nerf everything than just Replenishment, because we like having player power grow so much when you're in a group.

[...] I'm not sure Replenishment even makes sense in its current incarnation in Cataclysm. Once all healers like Spirit, then Replenishment could just boost Spirit-based regen. But this is something we haven't worked completely through yet. (Source)

Mana pool management = Caster DPS vs. Healer
When you think about the actual experience though the difference comes down to more damage nearly always being better while healing has a target, beyond which more healing isn't necessary because everyone is at 100% of their health. Overhealing exists as a concept, whereas overdamage does not (except in a few isolated fights or when threat is an issue). In a very coarse sense, damage is about as going as fast as you can while healing is about hitting your target -- damage is a 50 yard dash, while healing is playing darts.

Furthermore, most healing rotations aren't terrible complicated because they can't afford to be. If you had to get up e.g. 3 periodic spells and self buffs before you could even do your job, then a lot of time players would be dead before you could ever get around to actually saving their lives. Having a long ramp up time would just kill healing.

So the healing game ultimately becomes more about using the right tool for the job. If someone takes a little damage but isn't likely to die, a hot is a great idea. If someone is about to die, you might need a very fast spell or even a cooldown. If a lot of players take damage at once, an AE looks attractive. If you know you won't be able to cast for awhile (maybe you're moving) then again something with a duration like a hot or shield is the ticket. And so on....

Mana efficiency is ideally part of this calculus. If mana doesn't matter, then either your highest healing-per-second spell or your fastest spell (depending on the situation) is always the best choice. Increasingly in LK, it's just the fastest spell that wins because of the nature of incoming damage. If mana doesn't matter, then you aren't trying to hit the bullseye I described above because missing the bullseye (overhealing) has no consequence. If you use the proverbial bazooka to kill cockroaches, then who cares?

Many long-term healers (and I'll include myself in that) enjoy healing because you feel smart when you do it right. Part of that "smartiness" is using the right tool for the job. It's a different approach to the game than say a mage or warlock uses however. To some degree it's hard for me to understand how you like healing if you don't like mana management. http://www.mmo-champion.com/Smileys/classic/smiley.gif

Now, in much of the above, I'm describing an ideal situation. Mana generally matters a lot less in Lich King for healers than we'd like, so instead of challenging healers to hit the target we just challenge healers to keep as many darts in the air as possible. If you miss even a single GCD, then it's possible someone is going to die. That doesn't feel like smart playing to many players. That feels like whack-a-mole.

Now don't jump to the opposite extreme and assume what we intend for Cataclysm is for healers to stand around a lot and regen. What we'd rather see is that say a Holy priest uses Renew in some situations, Flash Heal in others, Greater Heal in others, CoH in others, and so on. Furthermore, we'd like to see more coordination among the healers (again because the risk of going OOM exists). That doesn't have to mean talking on Vent, though it could be that too. It could be as simple as assigning more targets or roles for your healers instead of just "You heal the tank, everyone else heal the raid."

In addition, once the group learns that healing mana matters, then individual survivability matters more too. Health stones, pots and even bandages do something. An avoid-damage ability like Barkskin or Dispersion is an interesting part of the dps toolbox instead of a PvP-only spell. Standing in fires is dangerous rather than just sloppy playing. Avoidance on tanks is more attractive because being the guy who requires tons of healing can be as much of a liability as the guy who dies from big boss hits.

Yes, the risk is that the game becomes so stressful for healers that it's not fun for them. But I think healing can definitely be stressful now, and in a physically exhausting way instead of a I-need-to-make-smart-decisions-quickly way. (Source)

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