Welcome to Tier 3, Here’s Your Anti-Healing Debuff

(Updated to add a couple of extra abilities that people reminded me of in comments, thanks all!)

Anyone who has played WoW will know the power of the healing debuff. Available originally to only one class in that game, that ability alone would have made Arms Warriors essential in any competitive PvP group. Healing can be very powerful in PvP, so any ability that can reduce it can potentially be a battle winner.

A lot of classes have heal reduction debuffs available to them in Warhammer, either as baseline abilities or in one of the talent trees. Some of these will come into play in Tier 3, and it will change the way PvP plays. For one thing, healer survivability drastically reduces — unless they remember to cleanse the debuff. If you are a debuffer, try to target the classes that can’t remove the debuff on themselves.

So which classes do get heal debuffs? I’ve listed them here. I also listed all the classes who can remove debuffs. Its very hard to spot debuffs on the UI at the moment, hopefully some addon writers will help us out with that.

It looks biased towards Destruction who have two classes who can put out a 75% heal reduction, a tank with a passive heal reduction aura, and the ‘heal debuff on crit’ ability put into the dps line of a melee healer (as opposed to Order who have it on a Runepriest — they won’t be gearing to crit or critting anything near as often and many of them never even cast dps spells in RvR). But most of the Order classes with heal debuffs can apply them at range, whereas in Destruction it has gone to melee classes.

I do think Runepriests (and Order in general) got stitched by having a dps heal debuffing tactic on the class least likely to be dpsing.

Order Heal Debuffers

Archmage – Scatter the Winds (Hex Ability, requires 5 points in Vaul tree). 50% heal reduction. 10s cooldown, lasts 9s.

Bright Wizard – Playing with Fire (Hex Ability, requires 5 points in Immolation tree). 50% heal reduction. 30s cooldown, lasts 10s.

Rune Priest – Rune of Nullification (career tactic, requires 11 points in Grungni tree). 100% heal reduction, lasts 5s, requires a crit.

Shadow Warrior – Shadow Sting (Ailment Ability, requires 5 points in Skirmish tree). 50% heal reduction. No cooldown, lasts 9s, target must be Ailing.

Warrior Priest – Absence of Faith (Curse Ability, requires 9 points in Wrath tree). 25% heal reduction. 20s cooldown, lasts 10s. (thanks Brian!)

White Lion – Thin the Herd (Curse Ability, requires 13 points in Axeman Tree). 50% heal reduction. 10s cooldown. Lasts 10s.

Witch Hunter – Punish the False (Ailment Ability, requires 11 points in Inquisition tree). 50% heal reduction. 10s cooldown, lasts 10s.

Destruction

Chosen – Discordant Turbulance (Chaotic Aura, requires 5 points in Path of Discord tree). 30% heal reduction. Persists while aura is selected, remains for 12s after it is dropped.

Disciple of Khaine – Curse of Khaine (career tactic, requires 11 points in Torture tree). 100% heal reduction, lasts 5s, requires a crit.

Marauder – Tainted Claw (Ailment Ability baseline, has a tactic to improve heal reduction to 75% at 11 points in Savagery tree), 25% heal reduction (75% with tactic). 5s cooldown, lasts 5s (10 if target is crippled)

Squig Herder – Rotten Arrer (Ailment Ability, requires 11 points in Quick Shootin’ tree). 50% heal reduction. No cooldown, lasts 9s, target must be Ailing.

Witch Elf – Black Lotus Blade (Ailment Ability, requires 9 points in Path of Suffering). 50% heal reduction. 10s cooldown, lasts 10s.

Witch Elf #2 – Healer’s Bane (career tactic, requires 11 points in Path of Suffering). All path of suffering attacks have a 25% chance to reduce healing by 75% for 10s.

Zealot – Windblock (Rank 4 Morale Ability, requires 15 points in Dark Rite tree). Affects all targets within 30′. 50% heal reduction. 60s cooldown. (thanks Zealbot!)

So who can remove debuffs?

Archmage – can remove hexes and ailments

Runepriest – can remove curses and ailments

Warrior Priest – can remove curses and hexes

Disciple of Khaine – can remove ailments and hexes

Shaman – can remove curses and ailments

Zealot – can remove curses and hexes