Ruby Sanctum Announced.

[Sheepherder]

Obviously the lead-in for Cataclysm.

The tank and healing trinkets are interesting:

Melee attacks which reduce you below 35% health cause you to gain 4401 health for 10 sec.  Cannot occur more than once every 30 sec.

Each time your direct healing spells heal a target you cause the target of your heal to heal themselves and friends within 10 yards for 356 each sec for 6 sec.

[Soulflame]

Throughput procs are useless in current content.  Assuming Blizzard pulls off their idea of changing healing into a contest where healers painfully watch their mana and try to keep everyone alive (and not topped off, because then healers would run out of mana) those sorts of trinkets will instantly become BiS.  Assuming Blizzard doesn't fuck up and put in excellent regen trinkets, which will then instantly become BiS.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Oh I just looove healing right now.

Are you spamming entire raid with your highest hps spells?

Yes > goto loot

No > goto graveyard

Sorry but it's boring as shit, takes no skill whatsoever and is more reliant on gear than anything else.

[Soulflame]

Actually, I rarely spam the raid with nothing but my highest HPS spell, because if I did, I'd run out of mana in less than three minutes.

[caladein]

Mind you, that's only the proc's spell.  The actual items will have stats and the proc.

The healing one is the HoT version of Althor's Abacus and the tanking one the HoT version of Blood Draining.  Both of which are pretty good at this point.

Without turning this into the healing thread, I agree with Lakov.  Hard Modes and some Normal Mode progression as a healer are basically "Do lots of HPS": which for me almost entirely revolves around hitting one of four buttons every second.  It's not fun and it turns every fight into a reskin of every other with a slightly different cadence.

[Sheepherder]

You guys are all missing the part where we're at the end of an expansion.  Blizzard is trying new things in a short and sweet epilogue of this expansion / prologue to the next expansion instance, take note.

Expect them to hit mana regen hard enough that you cannot afford your AoE heals for merely topping off DPS, hence this healing trinket.

[Musashi]

I pine for the bad old days of healing rotations.  Though they were bad, they were better than infinite mana Holy Light spam.

[bhodi]

The healing trinket is odd; it's useless for priests, who don't USE any direct healing. Not for druids either, really.

The standard priest thing these days is to keep PoM+CoH on cooldown, then simply renew spam every GCD. On longer fights, you also use SoL when it procs to decrease your mana usage. Don't use PoH, don't use Gheal. Don't use flash heal. In panic single-target throughput mode, use binding heal.

Doing this, I have enough mana to cast every GCD for every fight in icecrown citadel if I weave in an appropriate number of SoL procs. How many to use is based on the fight (and the length), but with 2/2 SoL it's almost always up due to renew ticks.

My sustained HPS is 8-9k doing this. Admittedly, I have good gear, (though I have not enchanted/gemd my pants I got in preparation for the new 4pc set bonus yet), but any priest that is 232/245+ geared should be able to do the same.

Sadly, we're still at the bottom of the charts in terms of throughput - most of my HPS is simple heal sniping except on fights like sindragosa or blood queen.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The above is pretty much what I meant, though I used the term HPS which doesnt apply for priests really but it's the same basic thing.  No matter what the situation, if you are a healer you are just spamming 2-3 buttons. There absolutely no thought put into effective healing, mana is frankly a non issue in almost any fights and its as boring as shit.

Oh sure dps isnt that much more complicated but at least you are killing stuff and that actually seems to go a long way into the fun factor of things.

[Sheepherder]

Again: Your current rotations mean nothing, because they're getting broken the same patch this arrives.  Stop fucking talking about them like they mean something.

[Lakov_Sanite]

3.3 isn't the cataclysm revamp dumbass.  that's patch 4.0 which will come a month or so before the expac hits, which is around sept.

[caladein]

Yes, Ruby Sanctum is 3.3.5.  The patch currently on PTR, 3.3.3, has the Random Battleground Queues and other smaller changes.

Hell, at this point the only thing we know about 3.3.5 is that Ruby Sanctum is in it.

[Rendakor]

It is entirely possible that 3.3.5 may contain the Cataclysm stat changes; it's too early to tell at this point.

[Sheepherder]

3.3 isn't the cataclysm revamp dumbass.  that's patch 4.0 which will come a month or so before the expac hits, which is around sept.

Okay, so let's assume there's a two or three month period where you ranting about how free heal procs aren't useful is correct (because 4.0 will hit a month or two before the expac if they follow the same procedure, which you're assuming).  Again, the point stands: expect a lot of small hots to proc off of single target heals or Judgment of Light style effects.

But them explicitly stating that the stat changes go in before Cataclysm launch, and by the way you DPS warriors should be looking into plate armour right about now, should indicate that you are being a retard, regardless of which sub/major version it is.

[Ingmar]

It is entirely possible that 3.3.5 may contain the Cataclysm stat changes; it's too early to tell at this point.

That's too incremental a patch number to contain major changes to game systems like that, Blizzard is pretty consistent about how they number patches.

[Evildrider]

It is entirely possible that 3.3.5 may contain the Cataclysm stat changes; it's too early to tell at this point.

That's too incremental a patch number to contain major changes to game systems like that, Blizzard is pretty consistent about how they number patches.

They said they are going to release the stat changes/item changes before the major Cata patch, but I don't see it coming in 3.3.5.

[K9]

The above is pretty much what I meant, though I used the term HPS which doesnt apply for priests really but it's the same basic thing.  No matter what the situation, if you are a healer you are just spamming 2-3 buttons. There absolutely no thought put into effective healing, mana is frankly a non issue in almost any fights and its as boring as shit.

Oh sure dps isnt that much more complicated but at least you are killing stuff and that actually seems to go a long way into the fun factor of things.

80K Healing Waves on Dreamwalker are fun.

I don't seem to be as burnt out as you, but I'm not in a leading progression guild. I still find healing fun in 10-mans.

[Merusk]

It is entirely possible that 3.3.5 may contain the Cataclysm stat changes; it's too early to tell at this point.

That's too incremental a patch number to contain major changes to game systems like that, Blizzard is pretty consistent about how they number patches.

They said they are going to release the stat changes/item changes before the major Cata patch, but I don't see it coming in 3.3.5.

IIRC a more accurate phrasing was that they said they will release the stat changes prior to the XP, like previous expansion patches.  For BC, 2.0 went live a few months prior, then 3.0 prior to LK.. so 4.0 would be prior to Cata.

But it's a silly thing to argue about.

[Sheepherder]

But it's a silly thing to argue about.

Which is why we must argue it, at length.

Seriously though, it all comes to the same thing: the mechanic on this trinket looks like a contender for a mechanic will reuse extensively in the future.

[Ingmar]

FWIW the tanking trinket at least isn't exactly a new idea:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34473

[Sheepherder]

The Last Stand effect off of a trinket is, though the listed value is pretty weak.  Maybe Blizzard is trolling data miners again.

[K9]

It depends on the other stats on the trinket. If it comes with 200 or so Stamina it will be incredibly good.

[Dren]

The current state of healing is only trivial if you have an exceptionally high DPS group.  With high DPS groups, the battles are short and mana is never an issue.  When you are struggling with DPS and the fights take longer, you can't just spam your highest mana consuming spells.  Thus, you are seeing different opinions back and forth.  The group dynamics make a big difference.

I see this painfully when comparing guild runs on instances versus PuGs.  I typically heal only when I need to rather than spam overfheals all night.  I do it more to make sure if things go wrong, I'll be able to adjust.  It also keeps me in practice for participating in groups that aren't all that hot.  I can do this and still heal effectively.  The only risk is that I might miscalculate based on the tank's avoidance/mitigation of damage and I get surprise spikes of 75% health dips or something.  It might result in a wipe now and again, but never twice in a row (at least from lack of healing.)

[kildorn]

I don't expect to see any stat/talent changes until about a month/month and a half before Cat comes out. They're still going to be in flux in the beta, and they usually only deploy the final idea out.

As for healing now versus healing then: the only way they won't get into the same trap is by making mana regen a relatively static thing that is hard to alter via gear. Or at least make it entirely Spi/OO5SR again instead of allowing so much during spam casting. Because no matter what at the end of an expansion, we have enough regen to spam healing pretty happily. The problem is looking at the gap between a newly 80 healer and a well geared healer. Beyond the HPS differences, the newly geared healer will have issues healing for more than a minute or two so straight during a boss fight. Worse if it's AE damage heavy at all. I really want them to make healing less of a snore when you outgear an encounter without completely breaking new/leveling healers.

[K9]

I agree, I actually miss the days when mana management actually required some thought, and you would use various tricks to abuse the 5SR

[Soulflame]

The cataclysm stat changes for healing will not change the number of spells you cast, in all likelihood.  You'll mainly cast your best HPM spell, instead of your best HPS spell, because using anything else will simply run you out of mana.  It sounds like so much fun.  Actually, it kinda sounds like playing a holy paladin.  Except with even more FoL than I currently use.

Also, Dren is spot on.  If your dps can burn a fight in 3 minutes, you can HL your way to victory.  If a fight is going to run 5+ minutes, you're going to be judging every free GCD you get, using DP at appropriate places during the fight, probably burning mana pots on progression fights, remembering to renew beacon and sacred shield, and standing in melee range of as many bosses as possible.  Plus you'll be using FoL as much as possible, because as I've already noted, unrestricted HL spam will run a raid geared and buffed holy paladin with 39k mana OOM in about 3 minutes.


Edit:  Those of you who long for the good old days of mana management, a suggestion.

Play a holy paladin in a raid with average DPSers trying to do progression fights with DPS gear checks.  You'll be sweating the entire fight.  Also, this isn't any fun at all, unless you're yearning to run dry and stand around for 30s while everyone around you simply dies because you haven't any blue left.

[kildorn]

Paladins have healing issues, we know. They're either 100% broken in a good way or 100% broken in a bad way depending on the fight/role. Oh, and they're apparently too stupid to use more heals if they were given them or something.

My priest has enough tricks to get back mana that you really need to be boning up the fight and taking avoidable damage left and right to kill off a disc priest's mana at this point of gear. Or rolling with 2k dps in ICC.

[March]

Well, I'll play captain obvious here and state for the record that it all depends on how they tune it.

They say that their goal is to slow down the damage by increasing the HP pools... if they tune it right, then healers can afford to make split-second deliberations on efficiency vs. through-put.

...as opposed to current <gear level appropriate> content which is more like: Aiiieee(click)eeeee(click)eeeeee(click)eeee(click)eeee(click)eeee(click)eeee(click)eeeee(click)eeeee(click)eeee(click)eeee(click).... did we win?

What strikes me as questionable judgment is fiddling with the part of the triad that is most sensitive to being a really, really sucky job; mess this one up and LFD will be a healer ghost town.

Everything I've read seems to suggest that they "get-it" but hey, it's all in the execution.

[Ingmar]

The Last Stand effect off of a trinket is, though the listed value is pretty weak.  Maybe Blizzard is trolling data miners again.

There are a bunch of clicky last stand trinkets, though, this is just combining the two.

[Sheepherder]

This is Blizzard, incremental change with certain results is what they do.  I expect you might be seeing Ardent Defender talents on a lot of trinkets too.  They might even ditch the talents in favour of more interesting things, though that's more speculative than the healer changes IMO.

They say that their goal is to slow down the damage by increasing the HP pools... if they tune it right, then healers can afford to make split-second deliberations on efficiency vs. through-put.

They're buffing effective health and (armour) mitigation for all classes.  But yes, they want everyone to be capable of soaking damage for longer, which drastically increases the effectiveness of HoTs as raid healing.

[K9]

This is Blizzard, incremental change with certain results is what they do.  I expect you might be seeing Ardent Defender talents on a lot of trinkets too.  They might even ditch the talents in favour of more interesting things, though that's more speculative than the healer changes IMO.

I strongly doubt you'd ever see AD as a trinket effect. It's just too powerful, it would be instant-BiS for all tanks without question.

[Sheepherder]

Except it's already slated to be a trinket effect as of 3.3.5.

As I said, it's pretty speculative at this point, but I wouldn't put it past them to put (EDIT: the health recovery part of) Last Stand and Ardent Defender on trinkets, and give them a shared cooldown with the similar talents so that any tank class can have one, both, or none depending on how they choose to spec.

[K9]

That's not the AD effect, and as Igmar said, the 'X happens when you drop below 35% is hardly novel, we had that back in heroic MgT'.

[Ingmar]

Except it's already slated to be a trinket effect as of 3.3.5.

As I said, it's pretty speculative at this point, but I wouldn't put it past them to put (EDIT: the health recovery part of) Last Stand and Ardent Defender on trinkets, and give them a shared cooldown with the similar talents so that any tank class can have one, both, or none depending on how they choose to spec.

re: last stand

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39292

among others.

[Sheepherder]

It doesn't share a cooldown with Last Stand.  Which is kind of my point: I'm wondering if Blizzard is going to move some of the essential and unique tank skills on to trinkets so that they don't get players bitching about unbalanced tank talents.  Again, speculation.

That's not the AD effect, and as Igmar said, the 'X happens when you drop below 35% is hardly novel, we had that back in heroic MgT'.

And the MgT trinket isn't the same as this one.