Hello, I just thought of a few ideas to improve druids. As some of you raiders may know druids are definitely not "THE" wanted healer in raids, guilds have the chance to pick up a shaman (Wards are pretty much like death pervents and destroy the heal parse), and clerics (especially inquisitors are the BEST for cures and safe heals), but druids are kind of stuck in the middle, other than picking up a fury for the mage group, top tier raiding guilds really don't run with a ton of them. My idea to at least improve druids is, for one, to DEFINITELY CHANGE THE USEFULLNESS OF THE BUFFS (some ideas posted below on what to change them to would be great). Wardens group buffs really aren't that needed in the current expansion, and besides the few fury buffs that help mages, they don't have all to many good ones either. My second idea to help make druids more wanted, is to change how the mechanics of dots, especially wardens (They're less wanted than furys, but they're still a great class and one of my favorite, it's just ashame) Would be this; 1. When an ally hits red or a certain percentage, (Keeping them the same speed till they hit red) make them update like a half a second quicker till the ally hits yellow, then just go back to normal updating. OR 2. When an ally hits red make the dot heal for a MASSIVE amount of health, but cancel the dot on just that ally. Number 2 I think would be the best personally, because not only does it not matter that much that it cancels since druids are spammer healers anyway, the heal should be back up in seconds. Ideas?
I don't like either of those ideas. I love my warden and I feel she is a much more powerful healer than my mystic, and her gear is complete garbage compared to the mystic. I find her buffs to be quite good, obviously pointed towards a melee dps group. I like all the cures we get, and the abundance of little tricks that help us. I had to read your post a few times because I wasn't understanding what you were wanting. You were talking about HOT's, which is heals over time, but calling them DOT's, which is damage over time. Our HOT's do not need help, they're already VERY powerful for healing spike damage (so long as the damage doesn't one-shot a player), much moreso than any shaman can even compare to. If you can't get in a raid, its not only because you're a warden, unless you're with an ill-informed raid leader who uses old information to fill his raid.
I raid frequently with my warden and I have to agree with Maewyn. Wardens are awesome at healing and curing. They do best in a tank group (MT or OT) because they have so many abilities aimed at keeping one person alive, bunches of block chance boosts, etc, but they're also useful in melee dps groups.
(Wards are pretty much like death pervents and destroy the heal parse) And WHAT ???????????????? Wards is not only the shamans, but shamans do not have anything else. Hey St#F#k SOE, esp. Mystic ! I play a mystic and warden, and potential warden is stronger =\ =( Clerics ... then of course the Aeralik`s shadow
Maewyn@Unrest_old wrote: I felt this way from a raid perspective. Now go solo heal ST heroic with your warden and your mystic and see if you still agree. I found my defiler 100x easier, where my warden failed horribly.
Ulrichvon wrote: I've solo healed ST heroic. The last fight was the only one I struggled with. Once the tank got the cadence down and snapped the adds as soon as they popped, it went smooth though.
Mermut wrote: If I had gear that surpassed the zone I had no problems. Having meh gear, its a rough go of it. Far too many lock downs that if they land when HoT's are expired people die before you can cast again.
Ulrichvon wrote: If you're solo healing, you should be rolling your HoTs constantly.. unless the stun lasts longer then the HoT and you don't have tranquility macroed to yourself, your group should always have at least one HoT rolling on them.
Interrupts go along way for the final mob in ST heroic. Some effort has been made by SOE to give value to the 3 styles of healing. Large uncurable dots on the group & unwardable damage being examples of those efforts. There is indeed room for improvements though. Still a heroic zone with overgeared players is a ideal group for any solo healer.
You aren't going to change anything about druids in a raid situation unless you change either the parser that everyone uses or the way the game 'counts' heals. If you had one of each healer all equally geared, your healing would be just fine in pretty much any situation. What's going to change whether you are deemed useful or not, or weather you like playing that healer in that situation is your ability to buff and the playstyle of that kind of healer. That's it. I hate to say it, but after years and years and years of trying to get Wardens to be really a 'go to' healer in a raid...it just ain't going to happen. I'm not talking 'yes, I can get a raid spot, I'm a good healer'. I'm talking "we are doing tippy top bleeding edge content and we just can't do any of it without a Warden in every group." I appreciate the OP's shiny do-or-die attitude, but am coming from 8+ years of ....It ain't gonna happen.
Why are you even paying attention to the heal parse? That doesn't tell you jack... My fury is amongst the bottom of the heal parse on raids. At the same time my group isn't dying. Why? Because I cure so fast that heals aren't really needed... Shamans top the heal parse because of wards and the fact they are always in the MT or OT group in raids. But have you tried playing a shaman and try being the only healer in a group to cure and try and play catch up when your wards are off? Good luck I've also led raids before where we had a Inquis and Warden as the healers in the MT group, and they did just fine. And their heal parse shot up, but again... its easy to top the heal parse when you are healing the MT or OT (the ones taking the most of the damage in a raid) Again... heal parse doesn't really mean anything or matter. We all have different strengths and weaknessess. And the Heal Parse doesn't show or prove any of it... Even the cure count is kinda moot. I'd rather know the average time it took for a healer to cure a detriment, not the total number of times they cured... I have a Fury, Mystic, and an Inquisitor. I love all three of the classes, they have unique skillsets that are usefull in many different situations and they play different. But they are pretty equal when it comes to being a Priest class!
I think Warden is already very powerful and almost OPed, while Fury can get some improvemnets like hibernation can last for 20sec and trigger at 40%(at 15% currently) or group mana restoring tools can be nice like Fury casting DD/DoT has a chance to give mana back to group members. If you still want HoT improved, then my ideas are like these 1,make their casting time significantly shorter(0.25-0.5s for ST HoT, 0.5-1.0s for Group HoT) 2,make their duration longer and add more ticks,15sec or 20sec duration may be nice
