It appears as though Blizzard has decided to go through with the implementation of a six second cooldown on Wild Growth and Circle of Healing. (Source information: WoW Insider)

For Druids this change is more a nuisance than anything else, and I do not have enough experience as a Priest to really comment on that portion of this change. What really makes me wonder about this, though, is if Blizzard really thinks this is a smart move. Let’s look at some key things that, in my opinion, make this a flat-out stupid idea.

1. Wild Growth is useful, but there is no way I can find any exaggerated, illogical reason (much less a logical, honest one) to support the thought that, as Ghostcrawler stated (Source), “Resto druid were in a very similar situation — lots of tools, but everything looked like a job for Wild Growth.”

Let’s look closely at that thought. In every single encounter that I have run, Wild Growth has been marginally useful, but not nearly strong enough to handle the splash damage I have had to heal. What it does do is provide me with enough time to get some combination of heals off on those people that need it (typically Rejuvenation or Lifebloom, just depending on how quickly I need to get them healed). I’ll even be happy to start logging every single instance I run and posting the information if that is what it takes to prove that some things are, quite simply, not true.

2. Wild Growth is designed to use some sort of “smart-targeting” system.

That really sounds great. However, what I find more often than not is that the spell is horribly unreliable in the event I want to truly get some type of heal out to everyone. It is not a range issue, it is simply that the way it chooses targets seems flawed. I find, quite often, that I have to hit Wild Growth twice in a row to get that healing on everyone in the party, which is where the real nuisance of having a cooldown comes into play. Given my current disposition to go for tossing a Rejuvenation on all party members as a normal rotation anymore, primarily because I’m not very impressed with Wild Growth’s performance in the first place, really makes me think this spell is becoming completely worthless.

3. The mana cost of Wild Growth makes it impossible to use it as a “default” tool for very long.

Not only would this method of healing be horribly inefficient and, honestly, stupid, but it is also not sustainable. The claim has been made that this change is a way to reign in overuse of a spell, but I honestly do not see it being used enough to even begin to see overuse. Are you guys sure you are looking at level eighties running level eighty content?

4. AoE Healing.

I want to rant horribly in this section, because there is a huge inconsistency in how Blizzard is going about some things with all of the class changes. I’m going to refrain, however, because there are two key points I want to focus on instead:

• This will make it drastically tougher on certain classes to be able to heal 5-Man Heroics as solo healers.
• This places one class as the “supreme” class to go to for a specific purpose, and no other healing class has that same niche.

Explanation:

Five-man dungeons are already taxing for most healers, primarily due to the need to cleanse and heal without assistance. Obviously this can be addressed by changing party composition slightly, which is what most of us do. Where this becomes an issue, though is when you look closely at what this change affects from a typical “looking for group” scenario:

• There is one healing class in the game that has the ability to AoE heal easily and effectively, as well as cleansing the group in one step quickly and efficiently.
• Most of the encounters in Northrend seem to focus more on a need for AoE healing.
• There will be, with these changes, one class looked for most often to heal as a result.

With all of that said, I want to make sure it is understood that this is not a “waaahhh, they are changing my spells and I don’t like it post.” Honestly, the change to Wild Growth won’t even affect me enough to justify why I wrote such a long post about it. What really makes me sick, though, is that the justification for these changes simply does not exist. If someone is healing, and they are so stupid that they sit and spam Wild Growth or Circle of Healing through a fight, let them. They won’t continue to heal for too long, or at least not in any “difficult” content.

The other part that truly becomes annoying, and perhaps this is merely a personal issue, is that (as a byproduct) one class has a very distinct, defining niche when it comes to healing roles. Perhaps this is planned for all classes, but if so at least provide us with some insight.

(And please, don’t try to tell me a healing style, such as direct heals versus HoTs, is a “class-defining niche.”)