Downranking nerf will cause healer problems
| by Sarjin | 24/10/2006 18:15:51 To describe my position, let me preface this by saying I don't see a real problem with the Decursive changes. Similarly, a change to the downranking system as we use it today in itself wouldn't be a problem; while very handy, using level 22 spells as one of our main heals is a bit stupid when you think about it. So a fix to the way spells scale would be fine, but not if the only change being made is the one today. The downranking change For those who haven't seen it yet, please refer to http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=38173821&sid =1 To summarize, downranking is basically going to be changed to a spell gets a modifier to how much it benefits from +spellpower gear depending on its level. This modifier formula is : ('spell level'+6)/'character level' Meaning that spells below level 64 will start getting penalties on their spellpower benefit when used. Now for most DpS classes this doesn't offer too many problems, as Warlocks and Mages tend to mostly try to do maximum damage, and use top ranks. For healers however, this is vastly different. Every healing class in the game tends to currently downrank spells; part of this is because it considerably increases efficiency, the other because currently top ranked healing spells tend to overheal horrifically in most cases. The fact that extremely low level spells gain full bonus may seem a bit counterintuitive, and for this reason the modifier in itself is not such a bad concept. However, without a fix to top rank heal scaling to go with it, it diminishes healer's power greatly. Right now, healers using their top rank heals scale much worse than Warlocks and Mages do (mathematical example further down), and downranking is the only way to get a similar benefit for raiding out of their gear (with this gear scaling worse for PvP where top ranks are used more often, and useless for soloing). With Blizzard trying to remove this possibility, what's left is the imbalance in top rank scaling. Scaling at top ranks As promised, I'll now give the mathematical example why top end scaling is a major problem right now. The root in this lies in the mechanics of +dmg/healing (which means + to all spellschools), and the way it is applied to spells. A '+ to all spells' modifier would normally be expected to benefit all schools equally, something however which goes wrong here, due to the parameters +dmg/healing does not take into account. It only accounts for the cast time of a spell, but doesn't take into account things like cooldowns, and most importantly original magnitude. As a result, heals with the same cast time as a damage spell get the exact same bonus from +dmg/healing gear as said damage spell, despite having a much greater original magnitude than this damage spell. This should have been solved by changing mechanics to correct for this and give heals the same % power increase from gear as damage spells got. Blizzard however elected to try and solve this with an extensive +healing gear itemization, which in turn gave rise to all healing classes beoming horribly one dimensional in raiding gear and causing frequent healer burnout. On top of this however, this specialized +healing gear still didn't provide healers with the same top rank scaling as the damage dealer classes. To give you an idea, I will compare how a Holy Priest's Greater Heal (supposed to be his main heal, on top of being his best scaling one) will scale compared to a Frost Mage's Frostbolt (his main nuke). Please note that similar comparisons can be made by replacing the Priest with a Shaman, Druid or Paladin, or the Mage with a Warlock. Priest As said, the Priest is a Holy Priest, so I am assuming he will have all talents enhancing GHeal and as such relevant to the calculations. These are Divine Fury (-0.5 sec cast time), Spiritual Healing (+10% healing done), Improved Healing (-15% mana cost) and Empowered Healing (+20% from +healing effects). I'll assume the Priest will have +1200 healing Spiritual Guidance included, which seems a very easily attainable figure at 70, if not a bit conservative. Going by the 55 +healing vs 30 +dmg/healing enchant balance, that places the Frost Mage I'll discuss below at 650 +dmg/healing, which again seems a bit conservative but is of no importance for our scaling discussion. *Completely untalented and ungeared, the Priest Greater Heal rank 7 will heal for 2490 HP, on a 3 second cast, with 825 mana cost. *When figuring in talents but not gear, Greater Heal rank 7 will heal for 2490*1.1 = 2739 HP, on a 2.5 second cast and costing 825*0.85= 701 mana. This is 1096 HP/s and 3.90 HP/mana *Now let's put on the Priest's +1200 healing gear. His Greater Heal rank 7 will now do (2490+(1200*3/3.5)+(1200*0.2))*1.1 = 4134 HP healed, again in 2.5 seconds and for 701 mana. This means 1654 HP/s and 5.90 HP/mana. An increase of the important parameters by 51%. Mage I'm assuming a fairly deep Frost build with the mage having Improved Frostbolt (-0.5 second cast time), Piercing Ice (+6% damage), Frost Channeling (-15% mana cost) and Empowered Frostbolt (+10% from +dmg effects to Frostbolt, +5% crits). As mentioned before, the Mage is assumed to have +650 dmg/healing. *Untalented and ungeared, Frostbolt Rank 13 will do 620 damage for 330 mana with a 2.5 second cast time. *Figuring in the talents, but not gear, this will mean a Frostbolt Rank 13 will do 620*1.06 = 657 damage for 330*0.85=281 mana and a 2.5 seconds cast. This is 263 DpS and 2.34 damage/mana. *Now let's add the +650 damage. Frostbolt Rank 13 now does (620+(650*0.81)+(650*0.1))*1.06 = 1284 damage, again for 281 mana and 2.5 second cast time. This is 514 DpS and 4.58 damage/mana. An increase in important parameters of 95%. Conclusions So to summarize from this example: *The Priest in this example is wearing specialized +healing gear, which only enhances his healing and none of his other abilities. (and as such, doesn't enhance his soloing power at all) The Mage on the contrary is wearing generic +dmg/healing gear which will also enhance his spells from the Arcane and Fire schools. Had I put the Priest in +dmg/healing gear or the Mage in specialized +frost gear instead, the difference would have been even greater. *When both specced for maximum enhancement of these spells, and wearing the same level of gear, the Frost Mage sees an increase of the important parameters on his top rank Frostbolt by 95%. The Priest on the other hand only gets an increase at top rank of 51% on the important parameters. *My calculations did not figure in critical hits yet, which would even further tip the scales in the Mage's Favor. A Priest may have Holy Specialization for +5% crits, and will get a +50% critical strike bonus on his heals. The Mage on the other hand will commonly have Shatter (+50% crit chance on frozen targets, obviously not as significant in raids), Winter's Chill (stacks on mobs for +10% Frost crits) and Empowered Frostbolt (+5% Frostbolt crits) in addition to Ice Shards for 100% critical strike bonus. So a Frost Mage will crit more often, and for higher bonusses. (on top of which critical damage is essentially never wasted, whereas critical healing often is) *When you see how fast Frostbolt's efficiency scales, it does a much better job than Greater Heal. Initially, Frostbolt started off at 60% of Greater Heal's efficiency, with gear added it's already at 78%. Eventually, it might even surpass it. *A bit offtopic and not the most important, but I'd say the additional 'utility' a mage gets out of his Frost talents and new spells is considerably higher than what a Priest gets from the Holy tree. Resulting problems So again to recap, I compared a healer (in this case a Priest using his best scaling heal) wearing specialized and one-dimensional healing gear to a damage caster (in this case a Frost Mage with his main nuke) in generic +dmg/healing gear of similar gear level. The damage caster's scaling was nearly twice as good. At the moment for raids, this is mitigated to an extent by the downranking healers use to attain high efficiency. With downranking nerfed and Blizzard seemingly wanting to encourage using high ranks of spells, this however gives rise to the following problems: *Despite being pidgeon holed and wearing one dimensional gear which doesn't help them outside raids, healers even inside instances scale much slower than damage casters. *In PvP with healing scaling much slower than damage, as gear increases healing will become weaker and weaker once more, just like what has happened over the past two years. And then haven't even mentioned abilities like Power Word: Shield which barely scale at all. *Right now, massive healing power tends to lead to massive overhealing. With the stamina increase in TBC and bosses likely hitting considerably harder, this seems less of a problem though. Potential Solutions I'd say this being a problem is pretty obvious. I've been thinking of some solutions, so some suggestions from my side: *Scrap the downranking nerf. This will at least help a bit for raids, but does nothing to alleviate the problem of healers in PvP or while soloing. *Significantly reduce the costs of +healing on gear. Currently according to formulas, 1 +dmg/healing costs about the same as +1.83 healing. However using current mechanics at top rank, healers wearing their highly specialized gear with the same portion of item budget devoted to enhancing their spells will scale far slower than damage casters. Solves the scaling issue, though it won't solve healer burnout as a result of one-dimensional gear. *Completely redo the spell enhancing system. +dmg/healing is another term for '+to all spells' and should as such benefit all schools equally. As mentioned before due to missing a number of significant paramaters most important of which is origina [ Post edited by Sarjin ] |
| by Crezax | 24/10/2006 21:21:22 Also remember, for raids, the fact that due to a 25 player raid cap, you will have less healers in the raid and thus lowering the risk of overhealing. Won't eliminate it completely of course, but will be a bit lower than it is today. |
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