Hero to Zero in 6 Seconds: The CoH/WG "Problem"

Ghostcrawler warns that Circle of Healing and Wild Growth are being considered for a 6-second cooldown.

What that means:
- The spell still remains instant cast.
- You are free to move about the cabin while casting.
- You can do other things while waiting for that cooldown.
- Cooldown means no upping the mana cost,
- And no nerfing the coefficient.

As someone who has raided as both a Restoration Druid and a CoH-specced Holy Priest, my reaction to this change?

"Awesome. Go for it."

Why?

Though Phaelia says I have 'termites for brains', I ask you Resto Druids of TBC: Did you like becoming hotwired with a 6-7 second internal timer*? That lifebloom was so powerful it overshadowed almost everything else available to you?

CoH Priests, did you like spamming CoH frantically to be considered competitive?

I don't mind seeing the protest to changes, since after the Ret Paladin Debacle every class is clinging tightly to what they hold dear. You don't have to change your mind, but try changing your perspective.

To be sure, there was a lot of pride involved with applying and maintaining multiple stacks of Lifebloom. But take a look at any of your past WWSes.. I'm going to bet at LEAST over 60% healing done was Lifebloom.

Did you really like that?

Why didn't you roll a Shaman or Paladin then, who have a much smaller number of heals and a very specialised niche anyways?

The nerfing of Lifebloom (which is another topic altogether) and a possible cooldown on Wild Growth means you get to finally discover all those other heals hiding in your spellbook.

Embrace it!

Being a Viable, Versatile Class: Even if one of them gets a timer, Druids and Priests are now equipped with at least two spells for every situation. We have big heals, little heals, heals over time, and AoE heals. We have 'oshit' buttons and (in the case of Druids) two rezzes!

Priests and Druids will synergise the best with any other healing class, because we've got all the tools. There's much more room for healer strategising in Wrath. Maybe you'll actually learn to like that Resto Shaman instead of cursing them as one button wonders.

"Well, we can't do this tonight..": Remember the Great Shaman/CoH Priest Stacking Trend? You damn near absolutely needed it for some fights in Black Temple, like Bloodboil. They were engineered that way. Resto Shamans and CoH Priests just happened to be awesome for this, but Blizzard has stated that's not what they have in mind.

A cooldown on CoH means while bleeding edge guilds would probably still stack resto shamans, I think it's rightly so. Heavy AoE damage - take a shammy. That's their Niche. However, Chain Heal (and Shamans) are still buff enough to take with you through the rest of the raid.

Which, O-M-G, doesn't mean Shaman are incredibly overpowered for having one spell that negates raid damage. They've only got two other heals.

It just means you're not going to have to change your raid comp mid raid.**

Those bleeding edge guilds will probably change their raid comp mid-instance. If they figure out how to do everything with 8-10 resto shammies.. well.. that's their business, not mine.

The Phoenix worked pretty hard at not changing comps mid-raid and maximising our time schedule wise. Still, it's a pain in the ass to have to schedule around 'we have X, we'll kill Y instead of Z tonight'.

But for a large part of the raiding set, this means you can bring less resto shammies. No more worrying about raid stacking. Your Druids and Priests can work to support and synergise pretty awesomely with that Shaman.

(And to be entirely self centered, this means as a class with a ton of tools, you don't get stuck spamming that one button in certain situations.)

Those 'Other' Guys: My fellow Priests and Druids: We Can't (And Shouldn't) Do It All, All The Time.

The Warcraft Healing Corps is actually made up of four classes: Priest, Paladins, Shaman, and Druids. Though it is entirely possible to take 10 of any to a raid instance and cheese it, and there are some guilds that do, it's not an accepted fun way to play.

Paladins and Shaman have a very limited grasp on what they can do healing wise. And, they do it pretty damn well. It's the way they're designed. It offers a different style of play.

The proposed cooldown mostly relates to Shaman. Those horny (or toothy, depending on faction) little guys own the market on AoE healing. Accept it! They're really, really good at it. Let it go.

Support your fellow resto shams! Besides, they've got sweet, sweet totems. Mm, mana spring.

I hope the cooldown goes through, for these reasons.

I'd like to see raid stacking largely negated. I'd like to see more communication between healers. I like the shift in using more then one button (or even being open to different specs, Discipline is a pretty rocking PvE spec!). I like that the cooldown would bring another class to the forefront for certain situations.

And, having both of these classes, I selfishly like having alllllllllllll the tools. I can still use them allllllll I want. Now I get to choose the time and place for them, and the damage RNG doesn't.

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* I realise Lifebloom will still be in many Resto Druid's rotation and in some cases even a 9-10 sec timer instead. But still, there is so much more stuff to use now that LB isn't Top Dog it feels much less restrictive.

** GC does mention that encounters with heavy raid damage would get a pass over if the cooldown goes through. This is another nod to the realisation that they want raid stacking to go away, and that all healing classes should be able to work together reasonably well.