... and healers around the world said "Wtf!?"

[Xanthippe]

Blizzard is way better than SOE when it comes to making people happy.  And therein lies the biggest difference.

[Tale]

I'd like to hear from anyone who doesn't think WoW is little more than a better EQ with some cool PvP in it. I thought that was axiom at this point.

EQ is a more immersive Diku gameworld. When I play it, I feel part of it. WoW is a very absorbing, entertaining Diku game, but to me it just feels like a game. The world is a little shallower. So I think WoW is the better game, but it's not a better EQ.

[Modern Angel]

So what if it is? WoW is greater than the sum of its parts. It's not the greatest thing I've ever played in any genre but (and here's the secret to their success) it doesn't FEEL like a MMOG. It doesn't have shitass movement, it doesn't look like ass, it has quests to even when you grind it doesn't feel like a grind, it has interesting raid mechanics 9as those things go), and it lets you customize the way the UI feels and plays to an extent.

EQ with PvP? Partly. EQ without feeling like EQ is the big draw.

[Xanthippe]

The biggest difference as far as I'm concerned:  WoW doesn't punish players.

[Rasix]

This is a good change, IMO.  I never used any heal mods or decursing/heal mods other than having someone's health bar turn a different color if they were poisoned or diseased.  Even Chromag was easy enough to get by without even that. 

But yah, being a shaman I didn't have the most complex healing routine (1 spell ftw) or debuff removal duties.

Won't matter much for me anyhow, finding a casual raiding guild that can do the 40 man or even 20 man raids independently during my playtime is a damn near impossibility.

[jpark]

Interesting comments about having to see the entire raid party for healing.  When I was a priest in Onxyia and MC - a year ago - it kept me on my feet - I could see when other healers were low on mana or dead - and aid their parties.
 
Healing is easier in wow - overhealing causes no threat - and as a result - there is little incentive for healers in raids to have any healing strategy.  It's great we don't have CH chains in WOW from EQ - but it is not great that most healers just spam healing with massive over healing on the MT to win the day.

Because healing is easier in WOw, coordination among healers has not really developed (as a warrior I notice this in BWL Nef fight).  If it did - having more coordiation might remove the need for healers to see the entire raid party.

More broadly - on healing - the priest threatless AoE that heals and causes damage is a lot of fun - in pve and pvp.  This might be a new direction for the healing class to make it more appealing to a broader base of players.

On the specific topic - dump all healing mods.  It just allows the wrong kind of players to start playing healers who do a shitty job at it.  It also fosters the impression that healers can be botted.  This turns off prospective players - while creating a cesspool of ghetto healers.

[lamaros]

I'd like to hear from anyone who doesn't think WoW is little more than a better EQ with some cool PvP in it. I thought that was axiom at this point.

Dude the PvP sucks balls atm.

[Calantus]

Can we stop with the ezimode arguments please? There have been times after patches where I cbf'd or didn't have time to unfuck all my mods so I raided without them for a day/couple of days (I usually had ctmod updated but didn't know it had an inbuilt decursive, or it wasn't in at the time). Let me tell you that curing a raid is NOT hard. All you do is see the visual for the curse and then start clicking on the coloured healthbars and hitting dispell/whatever until all the colours are gone. You know what it is though? Tedious. Fucking tedious.

Healing is different because there's a timing issue. Hitting the dispell button before the guy goes boom is just maths. Do you have enough global cooldowns to get enough dispells in? Win!

I don't play a healer anymore in raids and let me say thank God for that but it just got a whole lot more tedious. Only times I play a healer is in PVP and this does jack and shit for PVP to me. Decursive is the worst PVP addon ever. Decursive means dispelling some of the shadow vuln off the warrior when you really just want to dispell the mage's fear. The change doesn't affect good PVPers at all, because the only time they'd use decursive is for when they were feeling lazy, otherwise it hinders more than it helps. This coming from someone who's main is a warlock currently.

EDIT: Saving Ironwood's precious, precious eyes from my grievous misspelling.

[Ironwood]

Can we add Tedious to the spellcheck.

[Trippy]

Can we add Tedious to the spellcheck.

You are assuming people use Spell Check.

[Calantus]

I don't use spellcheck to post on forums, so I think I do pretty good considering I'm rarely pulled up on my spelling. Now my grammar deserves much criticism, but I know how to do it properly and don't, simply because it's too much work for me to construct proper sentences and such rather than merely regurgitate words as they come to mind and pop in the punctuation at roughly appropriate times.

[Jayce]

Healing is easier in wow - overhealing causes no threat - and as a result - there is little incentive for healers in raids to have any healing strategy.  It's great we don't have CH chains in WOW from EQ - but it is not great that most healers just spam healing with massive over healing on the MT to win the day.

You speak as if we have infinite mana pools.  The only fight I can see this argument on is Vael, but at least when my guild was there, overhealing was not the problem at that encounter, "underhealing" was.

[Simond]

I'd like to hear from anyone who doesn't think WoW is little more than a better EQ with some cool PvP in it. I thought that was axiom at this point.

Dude the PvP sucks balls atm.

Compared to...?

[Morfiend]

I'd like to hear from anyone who doesn't think WoW is little more than a better EQ with some cool PvP in it. I thought that was axiom at this point.

Dude the PvP sucks balls atm.

Compared to...?

[Strazos]

Why does it have to be compared to anything? Why can't it just suck out loud?

[SurfD]

Healing is easier in wow - overhealing causes no threat - and as a result - there is little incentive for healers in raids to have any healing strategy.  It's great we don't have CH chains in WOW from EQ - but it is not great that most healers just spam healing with massive over healing on the MT to win the day.

You speak as if we have infinite mana pools.  The only fight I can see this argument on is Vael, but at least when my guild was there, overhealing was not the problem at that encounter, "underhealing" was.

Maybe he plays alliance?  Compared to horde, and the way we pop mana pots like candy, they might as well have infinate mana pools.  God i cant wait till we get paladins.

[Phred]

Maybe he plays alliance?  Compared to horde, and the way we pop mana pots like candy, they might as well have infinate mana pools.  God i cant wait till we get paladins.

You do realize which class this nerf hit's hardest right? Good luck keeping your new paladins playing much.

[SurfD]

How so? perhaps the alliance paladins will all bust a nut, since they were probably relegated to decurse bot duty on curse heavy fights, but the horde will leap for joy regardless, since
A: we didnt have the paladin decurse bot crutch to lean on, and
B: getting paladins will give us yet another decurser, depoisoner, and most especially, magic remover, since as horde, we have had to play since DAY ONE with only priests being able to remove magic buffs.

I am also going to laugh at all the paladins who now die a lot more often, since they wont be able to rely on autobuffer mods to auto-cast bubbles for them when they get low health in PvP.

[Ratama]

You do realize which class this nerf hit's hardest right? Good luck keeping your new paladins playing much.

No, he doesn't understand how hard this nerf hits Pallies.  And yes, the abandonment rate on BE Pallies will absolutely be the greatest of any Race/Class combo in WoW's history.

I have a 60 Shaman, and was planning on rerolling a BE pally as my main with BC; if this change goes live (even temporarily), then Blizzard won't even get a BC box sale from me (and I think a lot of healers will quit or reroll over this change, especially PvP-oriented ones).

This was a goddamn fucking retarded nerf implemented by some goddamned fuckstick that never leveled a Paladin to 60, let alone played said Pally in a BG or three.  The change will be bad enough as a Shaman, Priest, or Druid; Paladins will be gimped beyond belief (and most people think most Paladins don't decurse enough during PvP *now*...).

They want healers to play whack-a-mole with their mouse pointers to decurse folks for 4+ hours a night while raiding?  And manual Decursing during PvP... forget it.  Doable, but that will leach the little amount of fun left to Pallies in PvP as it is; at least with auto-decursing they have some time to whack folks between heals once in a while.

Why do game devs always have it in for whatever solutions that playerbases come up with to make playing a healer tolerable?

...
A: we didnt have the paladin decurse bot crutch to lean on, and
B: getting paladins will give us yet another decurser
...

...

Examine your 2 points for consistency; seriously, holy shit.  Who are the people you think are lining up to play a class as passive, yet-micro-management intensive, as a Paladin is?  The only ones looking forward to it are the ones that don't understand the class, and will abandon their new gimplings before ever even reaching 60, let alone *70*.

If you've never raided or PvP'd as a class that depended on Decursive to be *viable*, let alone optimal (compared to raid-geared Warriors and DPS classes), then maybe you should just stfu; nothing personal, but you have absolutely no goddamned idea what you're talking about.

[Rasix]

Wow, lots of sand in that vagina.

[Ironwood]

I have a 60 Shaman, and was planning on rerolling a BE pally as my main with BC; if this change goes live (even temporarily), then Blizzard won't even get a BC box sale from me (and I think a lot of healers will quit or reroll over this change, especially PvP-oriented ones).

Dan Dan DAH !!!

[Ratama]

Wow, lots of sand in that vagina.

Yet another MMOG dev team shits in its own sandbox, and you think the issue is my sandy mangina?

I have a 60 Shaman, and was planning on rerolling a BE pally as my main with BC; if this change goes live (even temporarily), then Blizzard won't even get a BC box sale from me (and I think a lot of healers will quit or reroll over this change, especially PvP-oriented ones).

Dan Dan DAH !!!

Well, how many others feel the same way I do?  If even 1% of their playerbase quits, how much lost revenue is that /month?  More than most MMOGs make?  Is there some reason they should throw away money?

Amount of $$$ stands to lose by removing Decursive > Amount of $$$ Blizzard stood to lose by keeping decursive.

So pissed-off healers and less $$$; great move.

[Tale]

then Blizzard won't even get a BC box sale from me (and I think a lot of healers will quit

Stage a mass protest outside the gates of Stormwind. And set up an online petition. Remember to threaten a lawsuit. It always works, I promise!

[Ratama]

then Blizzard won't even get a BC box sale from me (and I think a lot of healers will quit

Stage a mass protest outside the gates of Stormwind. And set up an online petition. Remember to threaten a lawsuit. It always works, I promise!

However little difference one person's sub/box sale makes, Blizzard needs my $$$ a fuck of a lot more than I need WoW.  Is there something about that you don't understand?

You wankers always wax poetic about voting with your wallet, so stop hassling me for doing what most of you are too goddamned weak to do yourselves.

[Ironwood]

Don't misunderstand - I for one totally agree with you voting with your wallet.  I applaud you, Sir.  If you follow through.  I doubt you will.  People who play these games are worthless and weak.  I know.  I'm still a recovering addict...

In seriousness, however, the idea that Blizzard is even going to notice your little statistical blip at this stage is taking the drama a little too far.

So, Good Luck and Well Done, but don't expect a Ghandi-like change coming from your protest.

[Tebonas]

Wow, thats playing out all bad cliches of aggravated fanboy rage. You will buy BC like the little bitch that you are, you will moan about it till you find something else to bitch and moan about. "I bet SoW got slower during the last patch. They nerfed it!".

That coming from somebody who isn't playing WoW for some months now anymore. As long as you still scream about it on message boards you are too passionate about your game to quit.

And even if that snowballs chance in hell comes to pass and you quit - they will survive that. They won't even have to destroy their money hats to pay the rent. They don't need you, they really don't. Enough other people where you came from. Good luck with that mass protest of yours, don't try to do it during raid prime-time or you might be shocked that those healers find their loot and raid points more alluring than your righteous anger.

Edit: Or i could it say nicely like Ironwood.

[Phred]

You never know. Something like this could snowball badly. If enough healers get pissed off playing whack-a-mole with healthbars, the guilds are going to find it harder to raid, which is liable to lead to others quitting from the frustration of calling off raids or even just dungeon groups, due to lack of healers. Not that it's likely given the addictive nature of the game but it could happen.

[Ironwood]

No, it couldn't.

To jump in on both arguments, not neccesarily in this thread  :

1 - My wife is gorgeous.  And she plays WoW.  So anyone in the other thread can knock off this 'pretty women don't play WoW'.  :)

2 - My wife is one of our best Guild/Raiding Force Priests.  She uses decursive but she hates it.  She can decurse manually and thinks it's part of her job.  She wouldn't even think about quitting because of this change unless they made all encounters NEED massive amounts of decursing.  And, considering the Huuuuuuge changes they're making to instances/encounters that's just not going to happen really.

(Honestly, if you've read Reaper Man, watching my wife manually decurse is like watching Death Take On The Combination Harvester).


Using the 'harder to raid' excuse would only matter if they weren't already revamping raiding hugely to make it not so totally 40-man and asstastic as it is now.

[Phred]

Interesting take on it. I hope you're right and they drop the mass curses completely in the expansion, but Naxx doesn't suggest any change in their thinking, or at least the Nox fight doesn't. He has an ae curse that has to be removed from everyone who gets it in 10 sec or the raid wipes. The grand widow is another fight that is very decursive intensive. You'd think these changes would have influenced their encounter designs in the latest dungeon they did but it doesn't seem to have.

[Merusk]

Interesting take on it. I hope you're right and they drop the mass curses completely in the expansion, but Naxx doesn't suggest any change in their thinking, or at least the Nox fight doesn't. He has an ae curse that has to be removed from everyone who gets it in 10 sec or the raid wipes. The grand widow is another fight that is very decursive intensive. You'd think these changes would have influenced their encounter designs in the latest dungeon they did but it doesn't seem to have.

Considering how large Blizzard's gotten, and how long it takes them to develop ANYTHING much less an entire dungeon, I'd call that one case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.    Now I'm sure they've heard about it and are examining it by now, but I wonder if it was known about at the inception. 

 Hell, you could probably talk to the encounter designers and find out that the entire reason it has to be done in 10 seconds is the widespread use of Decursive, and if it IS finally completly broken they'll scale it back.

I do believe this will lead to fewer healers, though.  It takes a special personality to enjoy healing of any sort and to just sit back and be the unsung hero in all encounters.   I did it for long enough in EQ, and I've done it off and on in WoW.  I have no desire to do it in large encounters anymore, after having played a damage-dealing class in the same raids.  I expect the removal of mods that do make it easier for some folks and let them pay attention to the overall picture will cause some to quit. 

 It's far more interesting than squinting at all the health bars for debuffs (I don't use decursive either.) or micromanaging health bars.  Proactive healing/ curse counters would be much better, but hey there you go.

Oh, and there will definatly be more bitching at pallies and burnout there.  As Ratma said, people already bitch at them for not cleansing enough (both in pvp and pve)  add in more tedium to a group that thinks they're a damage class, and you're just going to feel it that much worse.

Once more, it's a good thing the raids are 10-25 man.  That alleviates a lot of the tedium and scramble.

[Ironwood]

heheheheh.  Screw Pallies.

[Azazel]

Wow, lots of sand in that vagina.

I do have to admit though, that being a Pally in raids blows dead dogs. I only did it a couple of times before putting my Pally in a box and not even bothering to throw away the key.

[Strazos]

This still sounds like a lot of bitching and moaning because Blizzard is starting to disable easy-mode. Oh noes, you can't auto-cleanse and shit in PvP now? Good, maybe those curses and shit will actually be Useful now. No auto-bubble? Can't say I will miss it..

I played a Priest in PvP, and did that shit manually. My friend did the same as a Paladin all the way to 60. Sure, you can't look like a superhuman bot anymore, but it's not hard to contribute, if you have some skill.

[Dren]

Wow, lots of sand in that vagina.

I do have to admit though, that being a Pally in raids blows dead dogs. I only did it a couple of times before putting my Pally in a box and not even bothering to throw away the key.

Same.  I use my pally as a miner and AH gansta these days.  He's still waiting though.  Still waiting.

[Ratama]

So, Good Luck and Well Done, but don't expect a Ghandi-like change coming from your protest.

I'm really wishing I hadn't have mentioned my quitting; why was that one throw-away line what you guys decided to focus on, instead of the whole 'fucktarded decursive change, after 1 1/2 years' bit?

Wow, thats playing out all bad cliches of aggravated fanboy rage. You will buy BC like the little bitch that you are, you will moan about it till you find something else to bitch and moan about. "I bet SoW got slower during the last patch. They nerfed it!".
...
Edit: Or i could it say nicely like Ironwood.

Like most of us here, I've been around the MMOG scene since UO, and I've never had any problem quitting.  In fact, from a dev standpoint, I'm probably considered a 'bad customer'; I bitch loudly about changes/features I don't care for, and then I don't just talk about leaving... I actually quit, and take as many of my friends as I can with me.  WoW is the first Diku-model MMOG I've ever reached cap and raided in, but that won't stop me; in fact, the whole switch to a raid-focused game after release is just more incentive for me to quit.  WoW is being run by dumbshits too stupid to design the majority of new content for use by the majority of their playerbase, so fuck 'em.

You never know. Something like this could snowball badly.

No, it couldn't.

It already has; check out the attrition rate for healers as opposed to DPS classes in raid guilds/conglomerates.

The really sad part?  Blizzard is aware of the 'healer burnout' issue... and many of the changes made to raids were made with healers in mind.  But then they go ahead and take this giant step backwards... fucking stupid.

Using the 'harder to raid' excuse would only matter if they weren't already revamping raiding hugely to make it not so totally 40-man and asstastic as it is now.

For PvE raiding, it's more a matter of that whole 'fun' thing, as opposed to 'hard'; no decursive will make raiding less enjoyable for the large majority of healers.  Yes, there are some healers that don't use decursive; I don't care how fast your wife's reflexes are, she'd be a faster, better dispeller w/decursive.

But like I said, the biggest impact will be felt in PvP; not only are healers currently balanced for PvP with decursive in mind, but again, it's the additional tedium/inability to just chill and play the game without micromanaging health bars that's really going to sap the fun out of PvP for healers.  They should have built in additional autotargeting for healers, not removed what was already there.

This still sounds like a lot of bitching and moaning because Blizzard is starting to disable easy-mode. Oh noes, you can't auto-cleanse and shit in PvP now? Good, maybe those curses and shit will actually be Useful now. No auto-bubble? Can't say I will miss it...

... Says the fucking dumbshit non-healer that doesn't even consider how these changes will negatively impact his/her own raiding.

I played a Priest in PvP, and did that shit manually. My friend did the same as a Paladin all the way to 60. Sure, you can't look like a superhuman bot anymore, but it's not hard to contribute, if you have some skill.

If you 'did that shit' manually, then you either did it in exclusion to actually playing the game, or you did it slowly and shittily.

Again, it's not a matter of skill; it's a matter of fun.  But quite frankly, regarding 'skill'; if you play any class but a Warrior and have issues with Paladins in PvP, then you either suck, or need to compare yourself to equally geared Paladins, not the freaks in full Avengers w/Severance.

"Superhuman bot"?  Counterspell shuts down the whole fucking Paladin class for 10 seconds, and that's hardly the only issue Paladins have in PvP (just the worst, by far); making PvP harder/less enjoyable for healers in general, and Paladins specifically, was not the direction Blizzard should have gone.  And it was some goddamn fuckstick devs who, like Strazos, had never played a Paladin that mandated that change.