I understand the goals described in these patch notes. I support a slower, more deliberate pace, meaningful mana management, and group play where avoiding unnecessary damage matters. I also appreciate the value of natural downtime for regeneration, conversation, and brief breaks. I am not asking for unlimited healing or for dungeon encounters to become trivial.
I also recognize that this is not simply an across-the-board increase in mana costs. The notes explain that some costs decreased, and that some spells retained or even improved their efficiency. If Wisdom scaling pushed healing beyond the intended values, revisiting those numbers makes sense.
My concern is that the approach described seems to place too much emphasis on healing amounts and mana efficiency, without sufficiently accounting for the purpose of each spell and the full cost of using it. Adjusting numbers is part of balancing, but those adjustments need to follow an understanding of what makes a spell worth choosing in actual gameplay.
The delayed heal is the clearest example of what I mean. With the values I am seeing, it heals for only about <50% more than the regular direct heal, costs more mana, takes 3 seconds to cast instead of 1.5 seconds, and then adds another 6 seconds before the healing arrives. That is roughly nine seconds from starting the spell to receiving its healing, compared with 1.5 seconds for the direct heal.
That is not the same as a nine-second cast, but the distinction does not make the waiting period irrelevant. The target still has to survive until the healing arrives.
These are several separate costs that need to be considered together. The longer cast commits more of my casting time. The delayed delivery requires me to anticipate the target’s needs much further in advance. It also creates the risk that the heal will arrive too late, or that circumstances will force me or another healer to address the damage before it lands, wasting some of its value. The higher mana cost is an additional disadvantage on top of those restrictions.
Even before considering the delay, twice the casting time for only around <50% more healing means less healing per second actually spent casting. That is a comparison of casting time, not mana expenditure, but it illustrates why looking primarily at healing per mana does not tell the whole story.
The patch notes argue that HoTs and delayed heals already have value because their different mechanics make them useful in different situations, and therefore do not need a large mana-efficiency advantage. Having a situational use is not the same as adequately rewarding the costs and risks involved in using the spell.
I am not denying that delayed healing can have tactical advantages. Scheduling healing for a later moment can be useful. But that usefulness needs to be evaluated against the spell’s actual restrictions and the encounters in which it is used. A different delivery mechanic is not automatically sufficient compensation for a longer cast, delayed availability, and a higher mana cost.
With those restrictions, my expectation would be that the delayed heal restores at least twice as much health as the 1.5-second direct heal, while costing only slightly more mana. That is my proposed starting point for balancing this particular trade-off, not a claim that one ratio must apply to every spell rank and every situation.
Twice the healing would at least match twice the casting time. A substantial mana-efficiency advantage would then reward the anticipation and risk involved in waiting for the heal to arrive. The direct heal would retain its major advantage: getting healing onto the target quickly and reliably when it is needed.
Alternatively, keep the delayed heal’s current healing amount unchanged and give it the same mana cost as the 1.5-second direct heal. This would establish a clearer trade-off: the direct heal delivers healing quickly, while the delayed heal offers better mana efficiency in exchange for twice the casting time and an additional six-second delay. That efficiency advantage is also conditional in practice: the target must survive long enough to receive the healing, and the additional healing must actually be needed rather than lost to overhealing.
This alternative would address the concern about heals becoming too large relative to player health while giving the delayed heal a more convincing reason to be chosen. It would not remove its drawbacks or make it the right spell for every situation.
Meaningful mana management should include opportunities to save mana through good anticipation and appropriate spell selection - not just the need to stop and regenerate. Whether this particular adjustment would be sufficient needs testing, but it is another way to balance the spell around its actual role rather than simply reducing its numerical output.
I recognize that simply increasing the healing amount could recreate the overhealing problem described in the notes. If the health pools and encounter design cannot accommodate a delayed heal of that size, then its cast time, delay, or mana cost should be reconsidered instead. The answer should not be to preserve all of its restrictions while reducing the reward until its practical purpose becomes questionable.
What I want is a meaningful decision between different tools. The direct heal should be attractive because I need timely healing. The delayed heal should be attractive because I can anticipate the need and gain something worthwhile by accepting its limitations. Successful anticipation should feel rewarding, not like taking on extra risk and inconvenience for an underwhelming result.
There is also a broader concern about class identity behind this feedback.
Class balance should mean that classes are equally valuable, not that they are interchangeable. Classes should have distinct strengths, meaningful weaknesses, and different reasons for being wanted in a group. Their differences should affect how we play and how we depend on one another, rather than amounting to different spell names, animations, and flavor text.
If Cleric is intended to be the dedicated healing specialist, then it should be allowed to be substantially better within that specialty, provided that this comes with meaningful limitations elsewhere. Exceptional healing should be part of its identity, not automatically treated as a problem. Druids and Shamans should have their own compelling strengths and reasons to be chosen. They do not need to match Clerics at everything, just as Clerics should not need access to everything they offer.
Choosing a class should mean choosing both what I excel at and what I give up. Another class being better than mine in one area is not, by itself, evidence of imbalance. The question is what each class contributes as a whole, what it sacrifices for its strengths, and what it needs other players to provide.
This is why I believe player feedback needs to be evaluated critically against the intended identity of each class. The patch notes mention players reporting that heals were too large relative to player health. That is a legitimate concern, and it is not the same as objecting to Clerics being healing specialists. I do not want to conflate those two arguments.
But if someone chooses Cleric and then objects to the class being strongly specialized in healing, I find that a baffling reason to change its identity. If they would prefer a different balance between healing and other capabilities, Druid or Shaman should be alternatives to consider, not a reason to dilute the Cleric’s defining strength for everyone who deliberately chose it.
What I object to is the superficial comparison where someone sees another class’s distinctive advantage, treats it as an unfair disadvantage to themselves, and ignores the limitations attached to it. Not every disadvantage is a design flaw. Sometimes it is the price of having a different advantage. Responding to every demand for parity by narrowing those differences is not thoughtful balancing; it is homogenization. Developers need to be willing to defend meaningful distinctions rather than assume that making classes more alike is inherently fairer.
I am not claiming that this update alone makes the healing classes interchangeable. I am explaining the design direction that concerns me, because it connects to the same underlying issue: spells and classes should be balanced around their complete roles and trade-offs, not isolated numbers.
I chose Cleric because I want to excel at healing and rely on other players for things my class cannot do. That specialization and interdependence are a major part of the appeal of MnM for me. If it becomes another game where my class choice barely matters because only the flavor changes, I will lose interest very quickly.
I am not asking for Cleric to be the best at everything, and I am not asking for every healing spell to be equally effective in every situation. I am asking for genuine specialization, meaningful choices, and rewards that justify the restrictions attached to them.
Before deciding how much healing or mana efficiency to remove, I would like the starting question to be: What is this spell intended to do better than the alternatives, and is that advantage actually worth what the player gives up to use it? The same question should guide class balance.
I also want to clarify something about the stated goal of creating occasional pauses for healer mana. I appreciate naturally occurring downtime, but I do not want the game or future balance changes to punish me if my spell selection and timing eventually allow me to sustain a dungeon group without needing mana breaks. If I achieve that through careful decisions, effective use of my tools, and coordination with my group, that should be a legitimate outcome of playing well, not automatically a problem that needs to be corrected.
There is an important difference between healing being so efficient that almost any approach works and a healer achieving excellent efficiency through anticipation, restraint, and appropriate spell selection. The first can undermine resource management. The second is resource management succeeding. Both might result in a group avoiding mana breaks, but they should not be treated as the same balance issue.
Mana management does not become meaningless simply because successful mana management prevents the healer from running out. Its significance can lie in the decisions required to maintain that efficiency—not just in how frequently the group is forced to stop afterward.
The patch notes explicitly say that healers should feel rewarded for managing mana well and that groups should benefit from reducing unnecessary healing. To me, following through on that means accepting that sufficiently good play may sometimes remove the need for healer-mana pauses altogether. If the response is always to reduce efficiency until even those groups must stop, then avoiding downtime becomes a moving target that players are never actually allowed to reach.
I am not asking for uninterrupted dungeon progression to be effortless or guaranteed, nor does this mean that any spell which enables it must be exempt from balance changes. I am asking that the absence of mana breaks should not, by itself, be considered evidence that healing is overpowered. What matters is what it takes to achieve that outcome, how reliable it is, and what happens when decisions go wrong or encounters become more demanding.
Groups should remain free to pause, talk, or take a break. But supporting a slower, social game should not require designing away the benefits of excellent play. Let downtime be a possible consequence of the challenge - not a quota that balance changes must enforce regardless of player skill.
