Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 7:59PM | Llyra Damage prevention and Ancestral Healing
Twice now I’ve made requests about getting more damage prevention abilities for Shamans, and twice I’ve been castigated by commenters for ignoring Ancestral Healing. That’s the Resto talent that will proc up to 10% damage resistance (Ancestral Fortitude) for 15 seconds after a critical heal. In the past it would proc an armor bonus up to 25%, but the flat damage resistance was added in a buff pass in patch 3.2.
It’s a nice effect, but it doesn’t meet my needs when I ask for the ability to prevent damage. Because:
- I can’t precisely control when it gets applied. That comes from the nature of an on-crit proc. I have not fond memories of one of our Resto Shamans holding up pulls in Karazhan spamming rank 1 Lesser Healing Waves with cries of “Hold on, hold on! I need to proc the armor bonus!” When I know damage is coming, I want to take an active hand in preventing it. Not throw good mana after bad spamming overheals hoping to proc the effect in time.
- It’s invisible. That might sound trivial, but the only way to know that you have spawned the effect on a target is to scrub their buff list for it. Feedback-free effects like this drive me batty. If Blizzard wants us to get our heads out of the UI and pay attention to the world, they’re going to have to start by keying important information visually and aurally.
- While I don’t like whining about deficiencies with respect to other class’ abilities, it is markedly inferior to every other mitigation effect in the game.
I want damage mitigation to be a first-class mechanic in the game. And for that to happen, every healer (Druids included) needs to be able to effectively stop damage. It is no longer enough to spend your whole time responding to damage that has already been applied.
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Reader Comments (9)
This is actually a really interesting idea, and I've been reading everything you've posted about the idea of damage mitigation for resto shammies. I feel like shammies, more than any other healing class, seem to lack a well defined niche. I mean, you could say that for holy priests as well, but the "niche" for holy priests is ability to do everything.
Ancestral Healing sounds like Priests' Inspiration, which is pretty pathetic. I would like to see there be some more interesting mechanics for resto shammies, because as it stands right now, I feel they are the healing class that needs the most attention. Mitigation would be a good way to do that. It doesn't need to be as impressive as a Disc Priest's mitigation abilities, but at the same time, I think Blizz has done a good job with mitigation for priests, and it would be nice to see them try some of that out on shammies.
Very interesting thoughts, keep them up! I enjoy reading them!
> That might sound trivial, but the only way to know that you have
> spawned the effect on a target is to scrub their buff list for it.
... or you can add a custom buff to grid and assign it to one of the corner indicators.
I, personally, simply assume that when I do RT-LHW-LHW on two of our tanks, I cover both of them.
If Ancestral healing was an instant cast spell seperate from our other tools, would you prefer it? And would you use it? If not how much do you think it would have to be buffed for it to be something you'd actually try to keep up on a tank?
I have been thinking they should change Earth Shock to give it some sort of 'bubble' like effect on friendly targets - many of the earth totems are 'protective' or defensive totems so it would fit with the elemental theme and would be more harmonious with Earth Shield as well. The current ES slowed attack speed could be folded into frost shock, and the Earth shock could reflect/ground the damage or stun the target mitigating damage temporarily. This keeps the effect within one of the Shamans' defining features (shocks), and gives resto shaman a shock to use as part of their retinue.
Another idea would be to create an 'earthlink' (groundlink) totem with a fair amount of health, that has to have a target when thrown, that transfers all damage from target to the totem until destroyed. Again, this keeps the effect within defining features (totems) and this wouldn't look so much like priest's pw:s. It would basically be a melee version of grounding totem.
I disagree that all healers necessarily need to be able to prevent damage. Emergency buttons are important but life would be really dull if they were all bubbles. That said, stoneskin desperately needs some love, maybe this could be its niche.
What about some kind of time-delay shield, Ancestral Barrier or something, that wasn't so much a PW-Shield type (e.g. artificial HP that has to be eaten through before the target starts taking damage) than a front-end buffer to soak up damage, that we could then heal with overheals?
Example:
Tank affected by Ancestral Barrier gets hit for 10K. Life does not change, but that 10K sits in the buffer waiting for AB to drop before it 'connects' with the tank. The shaman can then pro-actively cast to reduce the footprint of the incoming damage.
In fact, any heals directed at the target that would heal in excess of the tank's max HP reduces the size of the incoming damage.
Obviously risky, if you don't get it down in time the tank is going to get hit by a huge spike, but you would know exactly when that would be. It's an emergency button that lets you delay response to meet some other, more pressing need.
Or some kind of new, multi-target Shield that spreads out incoming damage from whoever has Earth Shield active at the time. You could pick some low-risk targets and Shield them up, letting raid healers 'help' heal the tank/off-tank indirectly without heal sniping.
"Emergency buttons are important but life would be really dull if they were all bubbles."
I kinda agree with this, too. I feel there should be more of a trade off for the 'oh crap' ability to prevent damage. I like the idea of spreading the damage around. Another option would be something like casting a priest-like dispersion, mage's Ice Block, or astral shift on the target, saving them from damage but preventing action from them in the meantime.
Too much damage mitigation from healers will make the game incredibly boring and predictable. But let's look at damage mitigation first:
Firstly, we have active, short cooldown damage mitigation in the form of PW:S. The talent is a nice ability for a holy priest and a bread and butter spell for every disc priest. PW:S spamming form a disc is directed and predictable incoming damage to give healers some more room to breathe. But it is ALWAYS directed at damage which can be healed with clever timing as well (If this wasn't the case, every raid would need a disc priest). Shamans don't need an ability like that, nor do druids or paladins unlike we all want reactive healing and quick reflexes to matter a lot less. A good discipline priest is very cool and has a fun playstyle, but he isn't mandatory.
Secondly, we have long cooldown panic buttons like pain suppression/guardian spirit/HoS. Here I would like some love for Druids and Shamans because many Heroic Bosses have abilities, that are just impossible to heal with a CD from tank or an external CD. I think it is silly to have a shaman heal the tank but then the holy priest who heals the group is the one in charge of the live saving cooldown for the tank.
Another reason against too much damage mitigation is that not only we healers have a responsibility for other players health, but also every damagedealer. All classes have some damage mitigation abilites, panic buttons, health pots etc. Leave some responsibility to every player and the rest to reactive=fun healing.
As far as Ancestral Healing goes, we have more than enough control over it: It is very easy to watch with tank set as focus and NeedToKnow watching the buff. It can be controlled via gear (crit). It can be forced via Tidal Force. It has an excellent synergy with RT-LHW-LHW rotation. It is in fact a great talent and provides a huge amount of Mitigation for tanks or in a fight like Faction Champions Heroic. If someone thinks the talent is pathetic, just calculate the damage mitigation it provides, see how high the uptime is we shaman can provide and be happy.