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  1. #1

    Resto - 6.0 latest patch notes discussion

    As someone quite rightly pointed out on the 6.0 shaman discussion thread, it might be best to have the different specs split out onto their own post.

    So here is the resto one to discuss thoughts on the latest shaman patch notes.

    My opinion rhymes with Turf and Hat, but we dont know how this will play out across healing in general vs other classes, however it seems druids are clearly played by Devs!

    Could be some tough times ahead for Resto shams (early tier anyway).

  2. #2
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    I don't mind to be honest, Restoration Shaman had it a long time coming. We've been the most viable healer and definitely most successful for almost the entirety of the past two expansions.

    I'm more annoyed about Enhancement and Elemental losing Healing Tide Totem, as well as the Healing Stream Totem change, will that reduction of healing effect those two specs because its healing is already abysmal without that.

    If you look at the bigger picture, you'll notice how effective Chain Heal might end up being with the talents, perks and changes so that's kind of hyping me up.

    I'm most excited for the Draenor perks than any of the other class changes, though.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Blitheqt View Post
    We've been the most viable healer and definitely most successful for almost the entirety of the past two expansions.
    Patches 4.0, 4.2, 5.2 & 5.3 would like to have a word with you.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    As a resto druid for 8 years recently rolled shaman I wouldn't say Druids are favoured. When I switched to shammy healing I couldn't belive how powerful they were.

    The nerf to resto shammy healing, and I would definitely call it a nerf, seems like they are just brining them down in line with other healers. As for druid specifically they're getting their own massive changes like wild growth becoming cast time and more expensive.

    All this being said, the shammy healing nerfs to chain heal, unleash life + healing rain AND healing stream does seem a lot. But with smart Healing across the board being nerfed I'm sure it will balance

  5. #5
    I'm extremely worried seeing all these nerfs and nothing to compensate for them.

    "along with buffs elsewhere to keep them competitive" Ha, what buffs? they've listed only nerfs.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Blitheqt View Post
    I don't mind to be honest, Restoration Shaman had it a long time coming. We've been the most viable healer and definitely most successful for almost the entirety of the past two expansions.

    I'm more annoyed about Enhancement and Elemental losing Healing Tide Totem, as well as the Healing Stream Totem change, will that reduction of healing effect those two specs because its healing is already abysmal without that.

    If you look at the bigger picture, you'll notice how effective Chain Heal might end up being with the talents, perks and changes so that's kind of hyping me up.

    I'm most excited for the Draenor perks than any of the other class changes, though.

    Um, what? Aside from 4.3 and 5.4, Resto has been around or at the bottom of the barrel in terms of healer balance for the entirety of the last 2 expansions. Even in the 2 patches (out of 8) that we have been fairly strong, we weren't at the top either (see Paladins in 4.3 and Disc in 5.4).

    The concerning thing is - Shaman were already being heavily nerfed by the smart heal algorithm changes to begin with (targeting random players instead of lowest HP) because Shaman are the most smart heal dependent healer. Putting those changes through and then gutting Chain Heal, HST, and HR (through the ULE buff removal) on top of that is over the top. We are getting no real new abilities or mechanics, and while they have promised to "buff us in other areas" to compensate and keep us competitive, you have to be concerned about what they actually can buff. The only thing left is Healing Surge, Healing Wave and Riptide, and they would need to buff those to an extreme level that they blow every other healer's single target out of the water to justify the other changes. It's also incredibly disappointing to see the L90 talents being ignored when they haven't been a decision (outside of take Primal Elementalist and ignore it) for Resto the entire expansion.

    What I suspect will end up happening is - Resto will be completely terrible in beta/raid testing for the entirety of beta with these changes. At the last second and in the face of player outrage and without any other option with so little time left, they will put through some kind of ridiculous Healing Rain buff putting our numbers back within reason. That has only happened what every tier in MoP and several more in Cata?

    As far as HTT for Ele/Enhance, they said they are removing raid CDs from more non healers that didn't make the patch notes. For example, Ret is being stripped of Devo Aura that we know of, and more changes are incoming.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Raedeon View Post
    As a resto druid for 8 years recently rolled shaman I wouldn't say Druids are favoured. When I switched to shammy healing I couldn't belive how powerful they were.

    The nerf to resto shammy healing, and I would definitely call it a nerf, seems like they are just brining them down in line with other healers. As for druid specifically they're getting their own massive changes like wild growth becoming cast time and more expensive.

    All this being said, the shammy healing nerfs to chain heal, unleash life + healing rain AND healing stream does seem a lot. But with smart Healing across the board being nerfed I'm sure it will balance
    Considering that Druids have now had their L90 talent tier reworked what 3 or 4 times now this expansion to make it more balanced? Meanwhile, 2 of the 3 Shaman L90 talents have not been viable for Resto since day 1, and they keep ignoring it. Stuff like that heavily fuels the perception that they are lazy about Shaman class design relative to that of other classes.

    Also, in no way do "Shaman need to be brought down in line with other healers". That is unabridged idiocy. This is the only patch this expansion Shaman haven't been lagging behind most healers. Also, the current discrepancy between non Disc healers is only in the ~5% range.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post

    Considering that Druids have now had their L90 talent tier reworked what 3 or 4 times now this expansion to make it more balanced? Meanwhile, 2 of the 3 Shaman L90 talents have not been viable for Resto since day 1, and they keep ignoring it. Stuff like that heavily fuels the perception that they are lazy about Shaman class design relative to that of other classes.

    Also, in no way do "Shaman need to be brought down in line with other healers". That is unabridged idiocy. This is the only patch this expansion Shaman haven't been lagging behind most healers. Also, the current discrepancy between non Disc healers is only in the ~5% range.
    If thats your only reasoning for blizzard favouring druids over shamans then you might want to see your later comment: 'unabridged idiocy'

    Addressing my apparent 'idiocy', resto shammys are ridiculously strong right now, and most of their spells are mindless passive smart heals. Just so happens its these exact heals which are being nerfed. As someone going into WoD as a resto shammy im welcoming the changes.
    Last edited by mmoc9c2ec1fd5b; 2014-04-04 at 10:58 AM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Raedeon View Post
    If thats your only reasoning for blizzard favouring druids over shamans then you might want to see your later comment: 'unabridged idiocy'

    Addressing my apparent 'idiocy', resto shammys are ridiculously strong right now, and most of their spells are mindless passive smart heals. As someone going into WoD as a resto shammy im welcoming the changes.
    Nowhere did I say "Blizzard favors Druids over Shaman". I said it's an example that fuels that perception. Shaman strength right now is primarily a numbers thing. Mechanically, we are actually very limited and they appear to be unwilling to do anything with that.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    I feel we are limited by spell choices, chain heal, healing rain, HST. Its all passive stuff we cant control, and the changes to make them 'less smart' doesnt address that. At least making them less efficient so that we employ GHW more is a positive move. I feel more could be done though

    Thats how i feel anyway.

    I do think however, we excel with cooldowns. HTT, ascendance and spirit link totem are really strong really fun cooldowns.

  10. #10
    I'm most concerned about the smart heals change:
    We also took a look at healing spells that were passive or auto-targeted (so-called "smart" heals). We want healers to care about who they're targeting and which heals they're using,so that their decisions matter more. To that end, we're reducing the healing of many passive and auto-targeted heals, and making smart heals a little less smart. Smart heals will now randomly pick any injured target within range instead of always picking the most injured target. Priority will still be given to players over pets, of course.
    RNG isn't good for healers. At least with CRIT, which is RNG dependent, even if a spell doesn't crit it still heals for something.

    But with those changes? Suppose we drop a healing rain. Today it heals the six most injured players standing inside. Now with the nerf to smart healing it could happen that the most injured players would not be healed at all simply due to RNG not choosing them.

    And when we have 20 people standing in the healing rain, it won't be uncommon at all that the most injured player won't be randomly selected for few consecutive ticks in a row.

    He might even die due to not getting any heals despite standing in the healing rain.

    I guess they want us to use more single target spells to specifically target the lowest player. But if that's the case, just eliminate the smart heals alltogether, or leave them smart like it used to be, but lower the numbers -- we need healing to be reliable.

    So what did we have? Prior to 5.4 healing rain healed everyone inside. Now in 5.4 we got this "smart" thing due to completely unrelated attempt to fix lag. Now they say we rely too much on "smart heals" and they make it choose completely random targets...

    A healing design in which every wipe attempt is massively different from the previous due to RNG is just a bad design.
    Last edited by Koor; 2014-04-04 at 11:18 AM.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Pretty much that, Koor. First they push us into more and more smartheals, making HR into one and introducing HST buffing talent, then they nerf us across the board because there is "too much smartheals" in restoshamans' toolkit. Well, whose fault is that? We never asked for it...

    Coming right up: suprise about how resto shamans are lagging behind other healers and puzzlement about the root of the problem.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    Totally agree with the above.

    I HATE not being in control of healing. They want us to be more in control with healing.

    RNG is not control

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Oh, here's another thought. I can bet you anything they will use the "curbing of smartheals" as an excuse to not touch resto mastery. It will stay the same, old, crappy one. And yes, it will do marginally better than it's doing now, but it will still be miles behind crit and haste. And here's the kicker: you will not be able to reforge out of it anymore

  14. #14
    It's amazing how a technological limitation like input lag has such a big effect on the gameplay. Was it even proven that all those smart healing changes introduced at the last moment of the 5.4 ptr actually fixed the input lag? The input lag was fine in previous expansions despite AOE spells such as healing rain being "stupid" and healing everyone inside. It might even be that the wrong fix was applied to the problem, and now we are stuck with "RNG heals" instead of "smart heals" as a result.

    I didn't like the smart heals since they dumb down the playstyle but at least they were reliable:

    If I drop HST I know that it'll save the lowest target.
    If I drop healing rain I know that people in it are reasonably safe.
    Other players know that running to the healing rain if they are low HP is a good thing.

    But now? Even if I'm a DPS why should I make an effort to run to the healing rain if I don't even know if it'll pick me? I'll just prefer standing outside and maximizing my DPS, especially now that I can't cast while moving. Just let the healers heal me with their single target spells.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Koor View Post
    I didn't like the smart heals since they dumb down the playstyle but at least they were reliable:

    If I drop HST I know that it'll save the lowest target.
    If I drop healing rain I know that people in it are reasonably safe.
    Other players know that running to the healing rain if they are low HP is a good thing.

    But now? Even if I'm a DPS why should I make an effort to run to the healing rain if I don't even know if it'll pick me? I'll just prefer standing outside and maximizing my DPS, especially now that I can't cast while moving. Just let the healers heal me with their single target spells.
    Koor I would love for this to be sent directly to Blizzard, as I feel it adequately highlights the problem shamans will have in 6.0.

  16. #16
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hexcuseme View Post
    Koor I would love for this to be sent directly to Blizzard, as I feel it adequately highlights the problem shamans will have in 6.0.
    What I hate about Restoration is that we're too forced into the stacked healing niche that Blizzard demands we fulfill, in addition to all the passive healing.

    And to those that think otherwise of Restoration in PvP, we've been pretty goddamn viable even winning most tournaments while we have a wide array of compositions we can play, see RLS, WLS, MLS, etc. we have AMAZING synergy with a lot of classes and that's not to be underestimated. A high-rated Restoration Shaman definitely overpowers the other healers even if we lack the CC that they all have, we make up for that in raw healing utility. We might be easy targets, but that's what we have our other two team mates for. A 'carried' (and by carried I mean supported) Shaman can do wonders.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Raedeon View Post
    I feel we are limited by spell choices, chain heal, healing rain, HST. Its all passive stuff we cant control, and the changes to make them 'less smart' doesnt address that. At least making them less efficient so that we employ GHW more is a positive move. I feel more could be done though

    Thats how i feel anyway.

    I do think however, we excel with cooldowns. HTT, ascendance and spirit link totem are really strong really fun cooldowns.
    Exactly, and our reliance on smart heals and passive heals is something that needs to be changed. However, the way to go about changing it is not to nerf the living hell out of the way smart heals work, then nerf the living hell out of all of our smart heals on top of that unless they are going to give us new things (i.e. new spells and new spell mechanics) to actually replace that with. It really sounds like they've backed themselves into a corner in not adding to our toolkit, because they have nothing to buff to compensate for these changes except HS, HW and RT, and how interesting is that going to be?

    My guess is that our entire toolkit will be built around spamming Healing Wave all day (which will heal for about what GHW does now at about half the mana cost if I understand correctly). With Tidal Waves both staying in and being buffed 10% by level 100, our HW will be a ~1.5 second cast time while every other healer's equivalent (Greater Heal, Holy Light, etc) will be ~2.4 seconds. I can't say that that is going to be remotely engaging gameplay. It will be T12 all over again.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Koor View Post
    I'm most concerned about the smart heals change:


    RNG isn't good for healers. At least with CRIT, which is RNG dependent, even if a spell doesn't crit it still heals for something.

    But with those changes? Suppose we drop a healing rain. Today it heals the six most injured players standing inside. Now with the nerf to smart healing it could happen that the most injured players would not be healed at all simply due to RNG not choosing them.

    And when we have 20 people standing in the healing rain, it won't be uncommon at all that the most injured player won't be randomly selected for few consecutive ticks in a row.

    He might even die due to not getting any heals despite standing in the healing rain.

    I guess they want us to use more single target spells to specifically target the lowest player. But if that's the case, just eliminate the smart heals alltogether, or leave them smart like it used to be, but lower the numbers -- we need healing to be reliable.

    So what did we have? Prior to 5.4 healing rain healed everyone inside. Now in 5.4 we got this "smart" thing due to completely unrelated attempt to fix lag. Now they say we rely too much on "smart heals" and they make it choose completely random targets...

    A healing design in which every wipe attempt is massively different from the previous due to RNG is just a bad design.
    Right on. Without even mentioning that Chain Heal loses its heal most injured nearby targets. I am sad some of the things that has changed, but I reserve Judgement when I can test it myself.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Koor View Post
    It's amazing how a technological limitation like input lag has such a big effect on the gameplay. Was it even proven that all those smart healing changes introduced at the last moment of the 5.4 ptr actually fixed the input lag? The input lag was fine in previous expansions despite AOE spells such as healing rain being "stupid" and healing everyone inside. It might even be that the wrong fix was applied to the problem, and now we are stuck with "RNG heals" instead of "smart heals" as a result.

    I didn't like the smart heals since they dumb down the playstyle but at least they were reliable:

    If I drop HST I know that it'll save the lowest target.
    If I drop healing rain I know that people in it are reasonably safe.
    Other players know that running to the healing rain if they are low HP is a good thing.

    But now? Even if I'm a DPS why should I make an effort to run to the healing rain if I don't even know if it'll pick me? I'll just prefer standing outside and maximizing my DPS, especially now that I can't cast while moving. Just let the healers heal me with their single target spells.
    I'm not even convinced that the input lag is fixed in the first place. Input lag is still awful on "outdoor" fights in SoO on 25H like Protectors and Iron Juggernaut, and awful on stacked fights. During both Garrosh and Siegecrafter progression, we had to have healers /cancelaura our legendary cloaks on the pull because it apparently was causing massive input lag. I don't really see any justification for not just reverting HR to it's pre-5.4 mechanics.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Blitheqt View Post
    What I hate about Restoration is that we're too forced into the stacked healing niche that Blizzard demands we fulfill, in addition to all the passive healing.

    And to those that think otherwise of Restoration in PvP, we've been pretty goddamn viable even winning most tournaments while we have a wide array of compositions we can play, see RLS, WLS, MLS, etc. we have AMAZING synergy with a lot of classes and that's not to be underestimated. A high-rated Restoration Shaman definitely overpowers the other healers even if we lack the CC that they all have, we make up for that in raw healing utility. We might be easy targets, but that's what we have our other two team mates for. A 'carried' (and by carried I mean supported) Shaman can do wonders.
    And, they are basically all but destroying the stacked healing niche in WoD with the massive nerfs to smart heals and HR/HST/CH. That is fine, but they are giving us absolutely nothing to compensate and nothing to make our mechanics less clunky in terms of spread raid healing or burst (outside of cooldowns).

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Doesn't seem too bad, only ~15% or 23% nerf to HR and Chain Heal seems to be buffed when taking High Tide - talent. Only things I'm concerned of are mana cost of HW and CH, mana return of Resurgence and the uptime of HR with Conductivity without a filler like the current HW. I'm happy they nerfed HST over other abilities.

    I can't judge the smart heal change yet as we don't know how big window there is to heal people to safe levels with the higher health pools.

    Not changing spec/class yet.
    Last edited by mmoc0e128285d8; 2014-04-04 at 03:26 PM.

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