The Patch 4.1 notes are starting to trickle in. The notes are very new, they are evolving very quickly and also seem to contain obvious errors, so it’s best not to get too caught up in what you read today; tomorrow it might be reverted, amended, better, worse.

Having said that, though, it’s hard to resist discussing what appears to be happening in terms of valuable cooldowns. Namely, Tranquility and the ability to resurrect in combat.



Tranquility reduced to 3 minutes

Gift of Nature (passive) also reduces Tranquility’s cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes.

Note: The Gift of Nature part is likely a mistake, because passive abilities don’t have ranks. We’ll have to wait and see what it’s meant to be.

I am quite certain that this isn’t the cooldown that we were promised – so I would say don’t immediately panic or feel disappointed.

At first I thought that perhaps they were changing the base cooldown to 13 minutes, and then having Resto druids bring that back down to 8 minutes through talents – perhaps to stop DPS druids from using Tranquility in raids for more raid healing. But considering that some priest abilities are being adjusted to 3 minutes, perhaps it is simply an adjustment.

It makes me worry, though, because we don’t need 3 minute Tranquility; and if we don’t need it, then I worry that it will be watered down to compensate for being able to cast it 2-3 times per fight.



Death Knights get battle rez

Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.

My first thought, honestly, was, “This is great because there are lots of times where I can’t afford to stop healing people to go find that corpse and rez. If a DPSer could do it, it would be much better.”

Of course, a glyphed Rebirth is better – but having the choice to let a DPSer do it during periods of heavy healing or times when your resto druids are out of reach (or mind controlled, or silenced, or dead) is great.

Unfortunately, though, we can’t deny that this will have an effect on our desirability. We no longer bring a unique buff (Mark of the Wild is interchangeable with Kings), Innervate is not something that we are specifically brought for, our big cooldowns are throughput-based and not mitigation-based, and DPSers (Moonkin, kitties, DKs) bring battle rez abilities – and these abilities are on the same lockout as stones and ankh.

I’m certainly not wailing about us being obsolete or useless – but considering that Blizzard has openly stated that they want to balance healer desirability a little better, it is worrying.

Rank 4 Healing Touch is saying something similar:

My only argument is that this means we need to be balanced up in the healing/preventative cooldown department more than ever.

R4HT on the two rez abilities, compared:

Unless Death Knights gain access to a glyph that allows Raise Ally to bring people back from the dead at 100% HP then that is actually a significant difference. In a world where players have 120K raid buffed and tanks are pushing 200K raid buffed the difference between 20% hp and 100% hp is fairly significant. One must also take into account the inherent danger of coming back to life at low HP during a fight with high raid damage. This could possibly maintain a level of balance between the two abilities though I would love to see Rebirth be instant cast myself.

I tend to disagree with the last statement about balance; while I can’t ignore the fact that glyphed BR is better than a normal rez, I disagree that this will maintain balance and make you want to bring a druid healer in.

Superficially, I like the change – because there are times when I can’t afford to stop healing to go rez someone. Or, for example on Al’Akir, running around the platform to reach someone may result in chaining between groups (not to mention I leave a healing gap behind). So there are times when having a DPS do the rez would be desirable.

Of course it’s risky, that DK-rezzed person may pop up at not-very-much-hp and take damage – but other than in aura/pulse fights, this is something that most people can avoid by looking at their surroundings, waiting for boss timers, counting in their rez, and making use of health stones, etc. There will always be a small element of RNG, but many/most of these post-rez oopsies can be avoided, if you play smart.

So, while there is an undeniable advantage to having someone with a 100%hp rez over a low hp rez, I don’t think it’s a deal breaker when choosing which healers to bring. Bringing someone up at 100% hp is a fantastic bonus, but I honestly don’t see it as something that would make a raid leader say, “No, we need to make room for a druid healer.”



The H Word

If homogenisation leads us to sharing key abilities (like Bloodlust/Heroism and Rebirth), then the developers should take a long, hard look at what else those original classes can still bring along, and how they shape up against other class options. It’s certainly not a case of “omg, now nobody will ever bother with resto druids ever again because DKs can rez, so why take a druid”, but there are definite impacts on our desirability if another class gains one of our abilities that was previously kind of a big deal.

I’m not oblivious to the fact that a certain amount of homogenisation is important for smaller raid groups; they shouldn’t feel obliged to squash a Shaman in for Bloodlust/Heroism, but the unfortunate upshot of this is that if you have a Mage, then Bloodlust/Heroism is no longer a selling point for a resto Shaman. If you already have a DK, a cat, a Warlock and a Shaman all fighting for the rez count, then Rebirth is really not a huge bargaining chip for a resto Druid trying to get a raid spot.

Unfortunately this tends to send us around in ever-tightening circles; in order to balance classes (for the “bring the player” philosophy), there has to be some homogenisation, but with homogenisation, key desirable abilities are no longer the reason for bringing a particular class, and so in compensation, they are awarded abilities to bring them in line with other classes and make them equally desirable – but this generally means more homogenisation. And so we go around – more homogenisation, more sharing of previous free-pass abilities, more homogenisation to compensate, and so on.

Note: I believe that homogenisation is an unfortunate reality as the size of raids shrinks and leaders are forced to pick and choose much more carefully (or as smaller guilds don’t have much of a choice). This is not an issue that our vanilla foregamers had to worry about very often, as a 40 man raid usually included a decent mix of classes by default, simply because there were more people.



Class Needs vs Leader Needs

Back in TBC, we were given the ability to rez out of combat. We didn’t need this for raiding, but for 5 mans, druid healers were being refused groups because they lacked the ability to rez. We don’t want to be homogenised into big green blobs – but when a difference in one class is seen as a particularly large disadvantage in raiding or groups, and this leads to that class being excluded, then there is a problem.

If a group demands a particular buff or ability, and my class cannot provide that, then I may be excluded. This is why buffs have been shared, why there’s a much bigger range of CC abilities, and key abilities like Bloodlust/Heroism and Rebirth have been given out to other classes.

Do they need those abilities? No – they don’t “need” them – but if a raid or group leader “needs” them, then without those abilities, they will likely be passed over for someone who can bring them. This is why a certain amount of homogenisation is necessary and to be expected, particularly as group sizes shrink and spots are more limited.



But you already have ToL AND Nature’s Swiftness!

Something that frustrates me a lot when discussing this issue is that so many people (druids included) will simply say, “Druids already have Tree of Life, Swiftmend, Nature’s Swiftness, Innervate, Rebirth.. stop being greedy. You don’t need a cooldown.”

Whoosh – that’s the sound of the true issue sailing over their heads.

This is not about healing output. It’s not about whether we can pump out massive healing in ToL with Tranquility up. Put that out of your mind for a minute and just focus on this single question:

If you were a 10man raid leader and you can only take 2-3 healers, who would you take, and why? (And who would you turf out, and why?)

There are two sides to this question, though: a) the guilds who have a lot of members to choose from, and b) the guilds who have few to choose from.

If you have plenty to choose from, you’re likely to focus on pally/priest combos because they have raid and tank-saving abilities that are simply more desirable. Druid and Shaman won’t be as desirable because they don’t have these abilities, even if they can pull pretty good numbers. And if you have DPS druids/DKs and a mage, then you have your haste and rez abilities covered.

If you have few to choose from, and can only take two druids and a shaman, then you’ll be hurting pretty bad for big raid cooldowns. So smaller guilds or guilds with a poor mix of healer classes will tend to perform worse on fights that “require” damage mitigation cooldowns, if they do not have the right mix of classes to slot in.

If the first question wasn’t enough to put the issue into perspective, try this one:

Would you rather take a healer who could prevent tank/raid death by reducing damage taken during massive spikes, OR would you rather take a healer who could heal people up afterwards or rez a single person who died?

Healing after spikes is very important, but reducing the impact is better and more attractive to raid leaders. Preventing damage is better than recovering from it; a healer combo that can reduce damage that the raid takes is simply more desirable than a healer combo that revolves around recovery only.

Basically – while Tree of Life, Tranquility and Rebirth are great abilities, and while yes we do have Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness (though these are weaker as emergency heals now), I really don’t think that raid leaders are falling over themselves to grab resto druids as a priority – and I don’t think that a 3 minute Tranquility will change this. Whether or not we can pump out big heals or top the meters is not the issue.

And so we continue to wait for the “real” cooldown – presumably a damage mitigation ability that is as desirable as the priest and paladin abilities.

I’m also keen to know what inspired the Tranquility change, as well as what talent it is actually attached to, and whether the healing will be lowered.



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