The Healers' Guild

[Kevin]

So your whole premise boils down to simply believing you'll get 25 people that will pay attention all the time. That is what you are banking on. But if you have had so much trouble getting people to do that now, why do you really think it will change with just healers? Why not just form a guild with people playing what they want to play and keep them focused? Because you won't have any more luck getting the 40 people you need to sustain 25 man raids all based on healer classes than you will if you are selective with the 40 people playing a broader selection of classes.


And I will go back to DPS. Because I'm not talking about BWL or MC encounter when I speak of it. I'm talking about Twin Emps and beyond. The newest encounters designed for the game. I fully expect that most of the 25 man stuff and hopefully even the 10 man stuff will require the kind of focus that these encounters required. And if you can't beat them because you in fact do lack DPS, which you do, then you can't over gear for them. The other thing is that you are expecting to find that many druids of that skill level. Non healers like to think that DPS is super easy. And I will admit it is in general easier (and I've healed all of MC, BWL, and AQ40 up to and including the trash after the twin emps, I've tanked all of MC, and everything in BWL except Nef. I've played a hunter for all of MC and all of BWL except Nef, I've played my tanking or healing class spec'd and geared for DPS on everything in BWL) but it does still take skill and focus. That average skill druid doing DPS isn't going to get to 90% of the DPS of the rogues (and that is in MC, it gets lower in BWL) it will get to 70%. Because it will be at 90% of that average rogue.

Your all healers won't get past Broodlord and I doubt they could be Chromaggus, because even though he isn't a true DPS burn fight, he will be frenzied the whole fight, a fight that will last longer, because I still don't buy your calculations, and I'm very very sorry for you if they are true. So you are looking at a longer fight that will suck mana faster, and then you get not only frenzy but the enrage at 20%. I don't recall the numbers but Frenzy + Enrage would be something like 400% more damage per attack with like 2x the attack speed. So around 800% more total damage. I just don't see you beating that. And it isn't just no hunters to stop that frenzy, it's less DPS (even with more healing). He will kill your druid tank and he will get loose. Any fight that is even as simple as Chrommie is with just those basic abilities I feel will stop you.

But again that isn't one of the DPS burns. I don't think you could get past trash designed like a Stoneskin Gargoyle and the reason is lack of DPS. In this case burst DPS. 6 seconds to go from 30% to dead or it will be fully healthy. You have no warrior execute. You have no super powered mage shots. No trinketed shadow bolts, no rapid fire hunters. No rogue 5 point finishing moves. You have a few extra shaman shocks and stormstrikes, a few extra (over the base group that you expect on this) crusader strikes, a few extra druid 5 point finishers. But I still doubt that something designed like that will be beatable by this group. And these are some of the simpler burn mobs. I full expect and hope to see more like this.


But yeah if you can find the critical mass to make it happen and have people happy with slow or no progress, more power too you. I don't expect a full healer group to be able to progress. I expect that you'll end up with a lot of alts that have to fill in, but if you got people that truly loved their healing class they simply won't be as good on those alts that you have to have. But as mentioned I can point to some of the best healers I know, and they will freely admit that they are not as good at DPS as people that really like DPS.

I think you would get better returns on your energy simply recruiting people that can play well and are willing to play a healer alt. Their weaknesses at their turn healing on the alt should be easily made up for by the fact that you should have more skilled healers than average.

But we just have a difference of opinion. I respect you for wanting to try it, I hope you prove me wrong, but I just don't think game design will allow it. I think you overestimate some things and underestimate others.

Edit:

I have no idea whether people will stay motivated, indeed whether they'l even stay, period. The deal is slower raid progress in return for freedom of role and the ability to collect a variety of gear. Some players will like the deal and some won't but in the end I suspect success if we give this a try will be about the usual issue of drama management rather than games mechanics

Just get in a guild that allows the freedom of rolls anyway. A guild that embraces feral druids, and retribution paladins and enhancement shaman, and shadow priests. In other words, get in a Lurkers guild. :) We had a new druid join. I don't think he believed us when we told him that we expected him to play how he wanted and that if he was willing we would call on him to do everything a druid can do. He has tanked, healed and DPS'd in 5 mans and 20 man raids. He hasn't joined us on any 40 mans yet. Just get a group of players that all think like that and it doesn't matter what classes they play.

[oldmandennis]

First off, its clear you hate your server. You don't like the people there, you don't like how they prepare, you think they generally have a low level of skill. You clearly don't have strong ties to one guild. I strongly suggest you transfer. Either that, or every time your server annoys you, play an alt on a different server. You will have another 60 in no time.

An odd aside - if your healers really are pro, why were you having trouble with Raz? That fight is pretty much all on the priests.

Second, this idea doesn't really have a chance of working. You just woln't find enough players who are good and are ready to put up with all the extra working and wiping this entails. You will need to flask early and often. The suppression room which is already a chore will be come an eye clawing experience.

One thing you are missing (that a couple of people have tried saying) in comparing your hypothetical "80%" damage dealing hybrid is that when people quote 80%, that is fully buffed/debuffed. Your kitty who is worth 80% of a rogue under normal circumstances is worth only ~80% * 80% or 64% when the mob is not sundered. Your OOMkin who can do 80% of a mages damage normally is only going to do 72% without CoS. He is going to go OOM even faster without AI on him.

All that said, I think it would be possible to get farther then people think. Domo would be the only really difficult problem in MC - you would probably have to leave him and Rag standing until you could outgear the encounter. Mag wouldn't be that hard - double tremors will handle the fear, tons of innervates and mana tide will out heal the frenzy.

The suppression room would be really tough, but I don't think it is impossible to outrun the respawns even with all the traps up. Flamegor would be really hard I think, pretty much all damage would have to be off most of the time while he is frenzied. Chrom's frenzy is unintimidating, it's nice to get it tranqued, but with all the mana available for dispels I don't think it would be a problem. Nef is pretty possible, though difficult. PvP trinkets and blacksmith trinkets break fears. You do not need warriors to pick up the zerg - we just have the mages go in with assigned shaman, and the warlocks behind them. It could definatly be done with hurricane, a couple of pallys holy wrathing, some lobbed in holy water, and fire nova totem.

Skeram might be easier - just make sure only druids are catching the MC. Bugs are trivial. Pally's and druids can give you all the stuns you need on Sartura. Innervates will let you holy nova through the tunnel, with the help of fire totems. Fangkris himself is pretty easy. Huhu burndown is a major problem. Getting the twins before enrage is a major problem.

You should have plenty of mana burns available for Moam. His adds are fearable, so it shouldn't be hard to set up a scream rotation to handle them. Bursting down Buru might be a problem. I can't think of a ZG fight that would pose a problem.

My guild isn't very far in Nax. Raz would be cake. Is Anub tauntable? You could set up a cat sprint rotation.

[MongoJerry]

So if this healers' guild has the potential to clear MC, ZG, AQ20, Ony and BWL then we also have the potential to match all but our faction's three top guilds for achievement

You mentioned Horde, Lissa, please bear in mind that in TBC the only distinction between factions is racials which are pretty trivial.

And herein lies the contradiction. You speak of TBC, but your targets are already old trivial instances whose encounters and items will be long trivialized with mere blues that people will get in TBC from quests. What you and your theoretical guild will want to try to tackle is the newly level 70 raid instances. We don't know exactly what those encounters will be like, but we can look at the most recent raid instances available to get an idea of what raid designers are thinking. Looking especially at Naxxramas, you're looking at bosses who almost all have some sort of timer associated with them such that if you don't deliver enough damage in time then the boss enrages and kills people in one shot -- sometimes killing them in a massive chain lightning shot all at once. Or you run into encounters where things are normal simple encounters until the boss gets down to, say, 20%, and then you have to bust every cooldown to kill the boss before the boss wipes your raid (fights where dps warriors shine). Or you run into encounters where things constantly spawn and if you can't kill the spawns fast enough, they slowly gradually overwhelm your raid. This dps dependency, a concious raid design choice, is used in almost every encounter from Huhuran on through Naxxramas (a few of the trivial Naxxramas encounters excepting). It seems likely that this trend will continue. The old 1 tank and 39 healers raid won't cut it anymore. You have to have the dps.

A lot has been made about lack of dps. Healer classes generally do poor dps because of itemisation. Not only does feral gear simply not feature in MC but also healers are usually encouraged not to spend dkp on it. Comparing the dps of a feral druid with MC gear relative to T1 Rogues to the dps feral druids will be able to do with the low end level 70 raid gear is not valid. TBC brings in off-spec dps gear and this guild would support people in collecting it.

Nope. I support alternative builds very much. Heck, people know me as the guy who played a naked no-points spent sorceress in Diablo II. But you'll never see me saying that a naked no-points spent sorceress is just as powerful as a geared sorceress who actually casts spells. The same is true of shadow priests, cat druids, melee paladins, and enhancement shaman. I support anyone who plays an alternative build and chooses to try to play it to the highest skill level possible, but I'll never make the mistake of thinking that they'll match the dps of an equally geared and skilled mage, rogue, dps warrior, or hunter.

Plus, you'll be doubly harmed by not having all of the cross-class buffs -- battle shout, arcane intellect (25 casters and no AI!), imp -- and debuffs -- sunder armor, curse of recklessness, and curse of shadows. Not having these buffs will reduce your dps even further.

Regarding Fear a blue posted regarding the new Priest racials to state that Fear would be much less significant in TBC end game (can't find the link, it was stated after player complaints about Draenai getting Fear Ward)

Never believe what Blizzard has to say about class balance. They still think that the two factions are about equal now. Meanwhile, they ban the only US Horde guild to have ever beaten KT. Go figure. Anyway, the blue post was that basically Fear Ward wouldn't be as big of a deal in the future. (This is progress. They used to say that Fear Ward wasn't a big deal currently). That doesn't mean they can't keep having encounters where tanking warriors are expected to stance dance around fears.

[Concillian]

15 hybrids and priests on dps averaging 80% of a well-geared focussed rogue = 15 *80 = 1200%

compared with
3 well-geared focussed dpsers = 300%
6 moderately geared pvp spec dps paying attention @ 75% each = 450%
6 half-assed guys with Carrot trinket watching a movie while they play @ 40% each = 240%
Total from the dps team = 990%, which is 210% less than the hybrid dps team

And please don't tell me we can't beat MC/BWL with such a team, I've been doing it all year
Actually I'd prefer not to

But have you beaten Broodlord with no rogues? Flamegor and Chromaggus with no hunters?

[oldmandennis]

Next question - zanier idea: this guild or the perform or kick guild?

I vote the kick one. This one, if you could cross server recruit enough people could get most of MC, a couple in BWL, and most of AQ40 down. The other one would implode before that I think.

[Ruvanal]

All that said, I think it would be possible to get farther then people think. Domo would be the only really difficult problem in MC - you would probably have to leave him and Rag standing until you could outgear the encounter. Mag wouldn't be that hard - double tremors will handle the fear, tons of innervates and mana tide will out heal the frenzy.

I think many of you are missing one the game mechanics that will have a serious effect on these encounters even for a level 70 group. Currently the bosses (but not their minions) are level skull, not level 63. From some time back the level of skull was set to be highest character level +3. This scaling is apparently applying to hit points, armor and damage out put of the bosses.
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/wow/forums/i...view=getnewpost

That means that on a case like Domo, the minions would be like level 63 while Domo is level 73 to an end game TBC group. Since Domo is currently a relatively easy part of that enounter now to keep distracted, I do not think he will be a lot worse to a group of level 70. Domo's minions which currently really make the encounters difficulty are a fixed level that can be easily over leveled and over geared come the expansion.

It is some of the other bosses that you will need to take a closer look at considering that they will be effectively scaled to level 73 by end game TBC charaters.

This could change if the developers go back and assign these bosses a fixed level instead of skulls as they had done to some of the encounters in Uldaman shortly after they started using this skull method of setting bosses in the instances.

[Brista]

And herein lies the contradiction. You speak of TBC, but your targets are already old trivial instances whose encounters and items will be long trivialized with mere blues that people will get in TBC from quests. What you and your theoretical guild will want to try to tackle is the newly level 70 raid instances. We don't know exactly what those encounters will be like, but we can look at the most recent raid instances available to get an idea of what raid designers are thinking.

Yes we will be looking to try the new 70 raid instances

And no one currently knows what they're like

But I think using Naxx as your benchmark will turn out wrong, MJ. My guess is that they won't be as demanding as Naxx. The reason I think this is that I believe they will want to make raid content accessible to players who aren't very good at the game

We don't know

As for my server I do actually like my server. RP is great, people are friendly and pvp rivalry keeps things interesting. We just aren't collectively very good at raiding. I'm well-regarded there. If I wanted to apply to a reasonable guild as a moonkin or cat dps I'd probably get in although the very top guilds wouldn't take me unless I were Resto

I'm interested in this idea just for its own sake

If it really doesn't work then it's probably worth trying, to at least raise awareness of how much more there is to these classes, then merge into another guild leaving the final guild heavy on heal classes, part of the deal being we keep it heavy on those classes so that healers can rotate roles and give healers a chance to get off spec gear

Be very interesting to see how far we can get before having to do that

[Monkey]

We don't know exactly what those encounters will be like, but we can look at the most recent raid instances available to get an idea of what raid designers are thinking. ...This dps dependency, a concious raid design choice, is used in almost every encounter from Huhuran on through Naxxramas (a few of the trivial Naxxramas encounters excepting). It seems likely that this trend will continue. The old 1 tank and 39 healers raid won't cut it anymore. You have to have the dps.

That's what I anticipate in future encounters in TBC. Less cheesy "bring hunters with tranq shot" and more general requirements Blizzard seems to be departing from the equal-numbers-of-each-class format and focusing instead of general roles. But they're also giving hybrid classes more flexibility to compensate. A leading Karazhan group said using feral druids was bringing 'real DPS' and reports from the PTR indicate pallies keeping up with GM Warriors damage-wise.

Key to evaluating Brista's plan is that the healerguild has no aspirations to world-firsts or server-firsts. Instead, the healerguild's goal would be reasonably successful raid progression. They might have to work a little harder to achieve it, but that sounds like fun to me.

I'm honestly surprised at the vehemence with which people have argued against this idea. All too often the attitude I encounter among people who have never rolled a [class-that-can-heal] is, "You obviously rolled a [class with heals] because you enjoy healing Me. Now quit screwing around and do what you enjoy, already!"

Brista's healerguild avoids that attitude and the concurrent social/drama issues. The response to anyone who whines inappropriately about "the healing" is simple: If you don't like it, you can do it yourself. And everyone will have equal (or near-equal) access to gear for non-raiding PvE. Those things alone make me think it's worth the effort to try. Heck, the 5/10-man guild my friends and I are organizing looks to be mostly shadow priests and feral druids. Brista and I should compare notes a few months into TBC.:)

Never believe what Blizzard has to say about class balance. They still think that the two factions are about equal now. Meanwhile, they ban the only US Horde guild to have ever beaten KT. Go figure.

What does that have to do with anything? Overrated cheated, they got banned for it, end of story. No faction imbalance or amount of legitimate success justifies cheating. The designers and community managers aren't even the people who decide ban cases.

[Tuftears]

Early reports suggest that yes, Naxx-like execution fights will be part of the new dungeons and raids.

I mean execution in level of play, not so much in level of gear needed.

[Legedi]

I've also heard that some fights are gear checks like in Naxx. Don't have the DPS and you get overwhelmed. Don't have good enough tanks or healers and healers will go OOM before the fight is over.

I like the system where they mix executions fights and gear check fights. It means you have to put in the time to gear up, and also be a good enough player.

[MongoJerry]

What does that have to do with anything? Overrated cheated, they got banned for it, end of story. No faction imbalance or amount of legitimate success justifies cheating. The designers and community managers aren't even the people who decide ban cases.

I would think it would be clear from the context. There are many Alliance US guilds that can kill KT and only one... oops... zero US Horde guilds who can. Blizzard's concept of faction balance is and has always been totally skewed. To hear them say, "No, trust us this time. Fear Ward won't really be that big of a deal anymore" is laughable.

[Lissa]

You mentioned Horde, Lissa, please bear in mind that in TBC the only distinction between factions is racials which are pretty trivial

In correct on so many levels. For a Nefarian fight you have to deal with a fear thta Nefarian kicks off. Druids do not have a way to remove fear which means you have to depend on a tremor totem. If the tremor totem procs just before the fear goes off, the MT ends up feared and then Nefarian could swing over toward the raid while the MT is feared and Shadowflame which will drop a majority of the raid. The other problem is what happens when Nefarian makes the druid call and suddenly that beefy bear tank with over 10k armor is now a cat with maybe 3k armor, can you say squish?

Alliance atleast can try to have a Retnoob try to take Nef and hold aggro while having Dwarven priests through Fear Ward on him to make sure that he keeps the aggro.

Without Warriors, Horde could not take Nefarian.

[oldmandennis]

Without Warriors, Horde could not take Nefarian.

The other problem is what happens when Nefarian makes the druid call and suddenly that beefy bear tank with over 10k armor is now a cat with maybe 3k armor, can you say squish?

Oh please. Isn't this supposed the place where people don't assign talent points? I know I got shouted at and told "I'm glad I don't play in your guild" for stating facts about what is optimal.

Tank it with a paladin. Duh.

The fears go off roughly every 30 seconds. With that many druids and paladins around, you can always have an off-tank step in with his PvP trinket or his black smithing trinket.

Much more difficult? Yes. But it's definitely doable, unlike Huhu, Patches, possibly Flamegor, probably the emps.

[Monkey]

I would think it would be clear from the context. There are many Alliance US guilds that can kill KT and only one... oops... zero US Horde guilds who can. Blizzard's concept of faction balance is and has always been totally skewed. To hear them say, "No, trust us this time. Fear Ward won't really be that big of a deal anymore" is laughable.

No, I got that, what I didn't understand was the relevance of your sidebar:

Meanwhile, they ban the only US Horde guild to have ever beaten KT. Go figure.

I agree that as long as Blizzard's willing to lean on fear as a crutch to make encounters hard, then fear ward creates imbalance. And I agree that Blizzard's been vague and almost mendacious in response to significant player concerns in the past. But Overrated was (appropriately) banned for using a hack to bypass almost all of AQ40--Neither faction imbalance nor their status as the only US Horde guild to kill KT had anything to do with the ban.

[Lissa]

Oh please. Isn't this supposed the place where people don't assign talent points? I know I got shouted at and told "I'm glad I don't play in your guild" for stating facts about what is optimal.

Tank it with a paladin. Duh.

The fears go off roughly every 30 seconds. With that many druids and paladins around, you can always have an off-tank step in with his PvP trinket or his black smithing trinket.

Much more difficult? Yes. But it's definitely doable, unlike Huhu, Patches, possibly Flamegor, probably the emps.

At present, Horde does not have Paladins, thus my comments. I guarentee you that on a Druid call, the Bear is going to go from around 10k to 11k armor to around 3k armor in cat form and it's going to be quite difficult to keep a cat up with both normal attack, shadowflames, and fears going off.

And honestly, if Blizzard keeps the boss mechanic in place for all the pre-tBC instances with boss level monsters they will become ghost towns. (Testing in the beta right now is showing that the bosses are still scaling to character level +3 and some decently geared tanks that were in their mid to high 60s were taking 15k hateful strikes from Patch alone, what do you think is going to happen on Rag, Nef, and everything else in the pre-tBC instances?)

[oldmandennis]

You mentioned Horde, Lissa, please bear in mind that in TBC the only distinction between factions is racials which are pretty trivial

In correct on so many levels. For a Nefarian fight you have to deal with a fear that Nefarian kicks off.

Tank it with a paladin....have an off-tank step in with his PvP trinket or his black smithing trinket.

At present, Horde does not have Paladins, thus my comments.

This whole conversation is predicated on TBC being out. Horde will have paladins, but not fear ward. The question is, could a horde healer guild handle a Nefarian style boss (Deathwing maybe?) with an AOE fear who needs to be tanked 98% or so of the time. The answer is probably yes, with a trinket rotation.

[Brista]

At present, Horde does not have Paladins, thus my comments. I guarentee you that on a Druid call, the Bear is going to go from around 10k to 11k armor to around 3k armor in cat form and it's going to be quite difficult to keep a cat up with both normal attack, shadowflames, and fears going off.

And honestly, if Blizzard keeps the boss mechanic in place for all the pre-tBC instances with boss level monsters they will become ghost towns. (Testing in the beta right now is showing that the bosses are still scaling to character level +3 and some decently geared tanks that were in their mid to high 60s were taking 15k hateful strikes from Patch alone, what do you think is going to happen on Rag, Nef, and everything else in the pre-tBC instances?)

Lissa, I apologise, the whole thread has been jumping in and out of metaphor at my instigation

I am proposing a TBC level 70 raid guild for tackling level 70 raid content. I (and everyone else) have been looking at what we know of current end-game raiding to speculate about the viability of this hypothetical guild in the as yet unknown content that awaits us

Bearing that in mind I don't think Fear Ward is a huge issue. If Fear is a problem we may try a Shadowform Priest tanking with Wotf or some such or simply load up on Shadow resistance and trinkets

And if that doesn't work it's another thing for us to "plan B"

Incidentally I want to say thank you to everyone who has replied here. The responses have been very interesting and very well thought-out

It may be that if I do go ahead with this I may adapt the plan to some watered down form. We could for instance recruit X number of each class that can't heal and 2X of each class that can with the expectation that all of our healers rotate

Anyway if I do get something going I'll report back and let everyone know what we find working and what we struggle with

Cheers

Brista

[Artega]

You do realize that you have no Mages, right? That means no infinite water supply.

Unless, of course, you want to load some poor bastard down with a few hundred stacks of Morning Glory Dew.

[oldmandennis]

Make an alt and station them at LCH, CH, and Kargeth. Log on 15 min before raid.

[Artega]

Make an alt and station them at LCH, CH, and Kargeth. Log on 15 min before raid.

Would that be considered some form of punishment for misbehavior within the guild? :)

EDIT: It'd have to be a pretty high-level alt to be able to make the strongest magewater, wouldn't it?