The Healers' Guild

[lfd]

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

Level 60 for the Conjured Crystal Water we get these days, although I understand there are new trainable (as opposed to quested-for) ranks in TBC.

[Monkey]

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

Just to continue in the fine tradition of nit-picking here on the Lurker Lounge, I'd like to point out that the location for alts would be Stonard (proximity to Karazhan/Outland), and not LHC, CH, and Kargath.

Also, the leveling of mage alts in a guild full of healers probably wouldn't be that bad.
"Who wants to come heal my mage alt, 'Waatrmakr' as I AoE farm xp?" would probably be met with many offers of assistance. And it's not like you'd need to gear them up to make water, either.

[Monkey]

While discussing TBC Mana Management with a friend, it occurred to me that there are new abilities and items in TBC to help the theoretical healerguild.

First let's talk about the new ranks of Judgements and Totems:

Judgement of Wisdom (Rank 4)
Attacks and spells used against you have a chance of restoring 74 of the attacker's mana.

Mana Spring Totem (Rank 5)
120 Mana
Instant cast
Summons a Mana Spring Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 1 min that restores 12 mana every 2 seconds to group members within 20 yards.

Everyone in the healerguild will have access to melee weapons that auto-attack at 2.0 speed or faster, so you're looking at a regen of 43 MPS, minimum. Alliance druids already use cat auto-attack off JoW (1.0 attack speed ftw!) and I know priests that hunt down 1.2 speed wands for the same reason. 43MPS over 2 minutes is 5160 Mana

Second, a couple of trinkets on thottbot:

Oculus of the Hidden Eye
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 65
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 33.
Use: The next opponent killed within 10 sec that yields experience or honor will restore 900 mana.
Cooldown: 2 min
http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=1154

Power Infused Mushroom
Binds when picked up
Trinket
Equip: Restores 200 mana when you kill a target that gives experience or honor. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.
http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=12

So a potential bonus of 1100 mana on a kill every 2 minutes. With the totems, we're at 6260 Mana over 2 minutes.

And last, let's talk about Vampiric Touch, since healerguild will undoubtedly have no shortage of shadowpriests:

Vampiric Touch - Rank 1
Requires Level 50
325 Mana 30 yd range
1.5 sec cast
Causes 450 Shadow damage over 15 sec to your target and causes all party members to gain mana equal to 5% of any Shadow spell damage you deal.

Trainable Ranks Listed Below:
Rank 2: 400 Mana, 635 to 640 Damage
Rank 3: 425 Mana, 685 to 690 Damage

How much damage will a shadow priest be doing? Although a dedicated Shadow priest will have plenty of +shadow gear, but I'm going to ignore that as well as the global cooldown just to establish a ballpark baseline:
Shadow Word Pain @70: 1236 over 18 Seconds (69 DPS)
Mindflay @70: 528 over 3 Seconds (176 DPS)
Shadow Word Death @70: 572 every 6 seconds (95 DPS... until the priest runs out of HP)
Approximate damage @70: 340 DPS
Minimum returned mana: ~2042 Mana (17MPS over 2 minutes)

(I've seen calculations on Shadowpriests achieving over 700DPS in TBC, so in spite of my faulty calculations, this is conservative)

The healerguild members will easily hit 8302 mana during a 2 minute fight. They will probably need healing rotations so that some people can regen off Judgement of Wisdom. This analysis also ignores the Shadowfiend, BE Racials, Innervates, and any baseline regen that people have. I think the healerguild's biggest (mana) problem will be mana for buffs and not mana between fights.

[Zarathustra]

So a potential bonus of 1100 mana on a kill every 2 minutes. With the totems, we're at 6260 Mana over 2 minutes.

I wouldn't be surprised if those required you to deliver the killing blow in order to work.

[Kevin]

I wouldn't be surprised if those required you to deliver the killing blow in order to work.

That and mana was never the concern for an all healer guild. DPS was because they design fights so that you can't just beat them by staying alive forever.

[Monkey]

That and mana was never the concern for an all healer guild. DPS was because they design fights so that you can't just beat them by staying alive forever.

Yes, I was only addressing the "no mages to make water" concern.

Also,

I wouldn't be surprised if those required you to deliver the killing blow in order to work.

Yes, you're (sadly) probably right, which cuts the mana numbers down to 7200 Mana / 2 minutes with one Shadowpriest in each group. More Shadowpriest 'pewpew', more mana.

[Epi]

In pursuit of my perfect guild I'd like to brainstorm another idea

The premise of this guild is that healing is a chore

From this simple premise comes a guild concept

If healing is a chore and we want to be fair then everyone has to heal. That means that every member of the guild must be a paladin, druid, priest or shaman. (there is actually another possibility but we'll not address the dps main/healing alt idea yet)

Uhm, sorry for stupid question, but did you consider creating a guild where everybody have 2 mains - one healer and one other? Sure, gearing up 2 different toons will bit slower then one hybrid, but not much... and you won't get into all these issues with "mandatory" classes on the raid.

-Epi.

[Brista]

Uhm, sorry for stupid question, but did you consider creating a guild where everybody have 2 mains - one healer and one other? Sure, gearing up 2 different toons will bit slower then one hybrid, but not much... and you won't get into all these issues with "mandatory" classes on the raid.

-Epi.

Yes I did Epi and it's a potential solution for some players

What I like most as a concept now is the idea of a healer-heavy guild. You need 30% of the raid to heal, you take 60% healing classes and 40% non healers. That gives every healer roughly a month on, month off. No reason why someone couldn't play one character during their on duty month and a different character during their off duty month

I've got sucked into a guild of old friends now so this idea is on hold, I also have to level a Blood Elf Pally to 70 before I even think about raiding but I am expecting to launch some kind of non-healbot guild at some stage in the future. When it eventually happens it seems to me we must stress individual choice because that's the big thing such a guild would have over a You Must Spec XX for Our Advancement guild