Suggested MoP Shaman Talent Changes & Resto Abilities

[Protoman]

Right now it's only the 'worst' because everyone else has mana CD's that increase in value as their mana pools increase (i.e. with Intellect). Considering MTT scales with Spirit, and the fact that everyone's [insert max mana CD] will be a static gain, one could speculate that Resto Shaman's mana regen and their mechanics were exactly what Blizzard had in mind all along.

MTT is the worst cause it has an aoe component which gives less regen in general (it should give more to the Shaman themselves), and being based off spirit scales poorly compared to total mana pool which is the same thru all lvls and gear. Its also shamans ONLY mana regen cd, while some other healer classes have more then one....and we gotta rely on active mana regen like telluric currents or getting hit by water shield or something.

Being based off spirit is pretty dumb, and so is being based off base mana pool. Being based off spirit means you suffer more when you have crappier gear, and thats when you really need your mana regen to be potent. All mana regen cds for healers should be based off % of total mana pool. That way its just as effective from lvl 1 to 90, no matter how much spirit or int or sp you have on gear.

I don't see why Blizz would want healer cds based off spirit and not total mana pool....unless they want the cds to scale backwards and be crappy when we need it most. It would be like if tank cds that "increase hp by 40%" was instead based on stamina, so when a tank is just starting the first new raid of MoP they might only get 25% of their hp back, and later when they outgear it the same cd would give then 40%.

[Radux]

Again, please realize that things are changing in MoP.

Intellect will no longer gain mana. This means from start to finish of the xpac, you're going to have ~the same mana. That means that people have to rely on Spirit and their mana CD's for regen. For healers who have their CD's as [give back max mana], that's going to be as good as it gets from beginning to end.

What that means is that people can't have (as an example), 2000 Spirit at the beginning of the expansion and expect that to carry them all the way to the end. That's especially true if healing demands increase. So we'll be able to pull more throughput as we gain more stats, but if demand increases, the only way to increase regen will be to get more Spirit.

Yes, that could give the small potential of Shaman being mana bots again: I'm against that.

I'll agree with the idea that we should gain more from our own throughput CD than others.

Again, things are changing. You can't just look at things currently and expect us to still be god awful in terms of regen. Frankly, we don't know enough currently to know one thing or another outside the fact that Holy Priest + Holy Paladin will probably scale with Spirit a bit better than others due to their 'Increased Spirit regen by 30%' or whatever talent.

I'm not sure how things are in their current internal testing. I'm not even really willing to speculate since they change their minds all the time.

However, they said a long ways back that Resto Shaman was the ideal regen/throughput model they could put together. Other healers just ended up far above the intention (ya know... mana mattering and stuff). Given their huge push towards Spirit being the only form of regen outside of big mana CD's, I'd say they still stick to their guns with the idea of Shaman being what they did right (whether other posters believe this to be true or not) based on their intended model for Cata. If that is the case, I'm theorizing that they're trying to have other healer's mana regen be similar to Shaman.

[Ize]

Yeah, I can only assume other healer's CDs will end up scaling off their Spirit as well in Mists. Tho I would like our MTT to provide us with more, say 400% to the shaman caster (like MTT gave at the start of cata) but only 200% to rest of the raid like it was nerfed to.

[omniscience]

*sigh* you know nothing about Ele Shams do you? An ele sham who uses water shield is a failshaman. Plain and simple. Telluric currents wouldn't change that if it was a glyph. Ever. Period. I know you'll say "what about movement and pvp". No. Still won't change it. Glyph of Unleashed Lightning allows LB to be cast while moving. Switching to Water Shield will cause Ele Shams to drop ALL fulmination charges, which incase you didn't know, Fulmination is a heavy hitter for Ele Shams.

well, maybe it's like that now but my point is two-sided. 1: Ele shamans should go oom at a point. 2: that glyph would still be to good.

*sigh* if you dont want to discuss it in a proper way, then dont. Spare me for your arrogance

[Protoman]

Again, please realize that things are changing in MoP.

Intellect will no longer gain mana. This means from start to finish of the xpac, you're going to have ~the same mana. That means that people have to rely on Spirit and their mana CD's for regen. For healers who have their CD's as [give back max mana], that's going to be as good as it gets from beginning to end.

I know bout that change, but not sure if they will stick with it or maybe go back and still give some minor inc in mana pool with Int. Either way, like you said that means your mana pool will be almost the same thru all gear lvls, and so mana will still matter several raids into the xpac.

But its still backwards, the spells will cost the same, but the SP and spirit will be much more later on. That means we will have stronger spells so don't have to cast as often, and better regen so won't be as mana starved. Mana tide will still return more mana later on then it will in the beginning, say 40% in first raid and after 3 raids and alot more spirit, you get 50%. And that will be the same for all other classes if their mana regen cd is spirit based as well.

Spirit based regen cd doesn't make sense, it should be based off total mana pool so it will always give you 50% mana no matter how good your gear gets, and you won't be gimped when you are just starting to gear up.

Again, things are changing. You can't just look at things currently and expect us to still be god awful in terms of regen. Frankly, we don't know enough currently to know one thing or another outside the fact that Holy Priest + Holy Paladin will probably scale with Spirit a bit better than others due to their 'Increased Spirit regen by 30%' or whatever talent.

Yes, I can't know anything for sure, but I do know our mana tide cd will still be weaker then other classes single use mana regen cd cause ours has an aoe component. And I also know that we only have mana tide, where other classes sometimes have more then 1 cd or its on a real short cd. Without even knowing numbers and just looking at mechanics it seems like Resto still has the short end of the stick compared to other healers.

I'll agree with the idea that we should gain more from our own throughput CD than others.

Yes please.

However, they said a long ways back that Resto Shaman was the ideal regen/throughput model they could put together. Other healers just ended up far above the intention (ya know... mana mattering and stuff). Given their huge push towards Spirit being the only form of regen outside of big mana CD's, I'd say they still stick to their guns with the idea of Shaman being what they did right (whether other posters believe this to be true or not) based on their intended model for Cata. If that is the case, I'm theorizing that they're trying to have other healer's mana regen be similar to Shaman.

Just like Shaman DPS is supposed to be the "ideal" standard/average as well right? Why is it we are the ideal examples of what Blizz wants out of a spec, yet everyone else is overtuned compared to us lol? How bout overtuning us in the meantime till they find a way to actually nerf everyone else.

I think we could use another mana regen cd on 5min (or make MTT baseline, and add a personal regen cd in place of MTT for resto only, or vice versa), or bring telluric currents back as a glyph so we have atleast 2 active ways to regain mana, cause otherwise we just have MTT and passive water shield.

well, maybe it's like that now but my point is two-sided. 1: Ele shamans should go oom at a point. 2: that glyph would still be to good.

Why does Ele need to go oom? Like I said, the mana is supposed to restrict their healing ability, not really their DPS. Most dps mana classes have regen mechanics built into abilities in their normal rotation so they are always regaining mana as long as they dps, and its not really supposed to be an issue. Most other classes have a base regen cd as well like innervate. Even with telluric currents glyphed, Ele would still go oom in a few healing surge casts, and would still have to cast for a while to regain their mana back. I don't think the glyph is as OP as you make it out to seem, wouldn't really be a big deal and prob not even something Ele would bother to glyph if there are better pure DPS options.

[omniscience]

Why does Ele need to go oom? Like I said, the mana is supposed to restrict their healing ability, not really their DPS. Most dps mana classes have regen mechanics built into abilities in their normal rotation so they are always regaining mana as long as they dps, and its not really supposed to be an issue. Most other classes have a base regen cd as well like innervate. Even with telluric currents glyphed, Ele would still go oom in a few healing surge casts, and would still have to cast for a while to regain their mana back. I don't think the glyph is as OP as you make it out to seem, wouldn't really be a big deal and prob not even something Ele would bother to glyph if there are better pure DPS options

I just think every mana using dpsers should be able to go oom by dpsing, along with healing and other stuff. Why do ele shamans, mages, warlocks (I know, they are a bit out of the equation) and boomkins have a mana pool if they shouldn't monitor it while doing their things?

[Sarevokcz]

I just think every mana using dpsers should be able to go oom by dpsing, along with healing and other stuff. Why do ele shamans, mages, warlocks (I know, they are a bit out of the equation) and boomkins have a mana pool if they shouldn't monitor it while doing their things?

well, eleshamans maybe because they have no really reliable and powerful enough mana regen mechanic otherwise? Without RT eleshaman would be oom very quickly, even if Thunderstorming on CD? Or maybe globally because with the giant base manapools Cata introduced because of healers, all caster dps would be close to useless on longer fights without powerful regen mechanics? What can caster do, when OOM? nothing. Casters are balanced around having mana always, just as (most) meleers are balanced around not having their resources always.

Unless they completely change how every caster plays with mana as resource, I dont see how they could ever go to vanilla style where casters/hybrids were going oom 2-3mins+- into the fight

[omniscience]

well, eleshamans maybe because they have no really reliable and powerful enough mana regen mechanic otherwise? Without RT eleshaman would be oom very quickly, even if Thunderstorming on CD? Or maybe globally because with the giant base manapools Cata introduced because of healers, all caster dps would be close to useless on longer fights without powerful regen mechanics? What can caster do, when OOM? nothing. Casters are balanced around having mana always, just as (most) meleers are balanced around not having their resources always.

Unless they completely change how every caster plays with mana as resource, I dont see how they could ever go to vanilla style where casters/hybrids were going oom 2-3mins+- into the fight

It would be a great mistake if it returned to vanilla status, of that I think there's no doubt. Maybe ele shamans just need a mana regaining spell/ability like evocation/dispersion etc.,?
I think it adds alot to the perfect gameplay of a caster to monitor his mana during a fight, not just mindlessly spamming spells because he never will go oom anyway... maybe it's the best dps but that's just another twist to this discussion.

[Sarevokcz]

It would be a great mistake if it returned to vanilla status, of that I think there's no doubt. Maybe ele shamans just need a mana regaining spell/ability like evocation/dispersion etc.,?
I think it adds alot to the perfect gameplay of a caster to monitor his mana during a fight, not just mindlessly spamming spells because he never will go oom anyway... maybe it's the best dps but that's just another twist to this discussion.

you have arcane mage for that...

the point is, if every caster has powerful self regulating regen tool, like now, they dont have to worry about mana, if they have big evo-like CD, then they dont have to worry about mana either, as it would give them mana back and if they dont have either of those, then they have only limited time before they start to suck...

...unless they massively rework how every single caster works with mana, to either more arcane mage-like model, or tBC hunter aspect dancing-like model.

I, for example, could imagine the second one sort of on shaman if RT regen was gone. For example we would get Water Bolt, same parameters as LB, no CD, 2s cast, proccing everything, but doing less damage, like 1/2 or so, but regening mana rapidly, maybe based on damage dealt, so it has some scalling potential, so we would switch between LB and WB depending on situation if we needed full mana for some burst phase, we would WB before and LB during the phase etc. In fact, I would love if eleshaman had some more complicated mechanics (that actually work properly and I can control them 100% of the time), but I just dont see it happening

But doing that for all casters, when there are 9 caster specs with wildly different mechanics? Probably not worth the development time it would take. And it would be probably the same reason, why monks will have mana instead of their unique resource for healing - way too much trouble of rebalancing every single healer and their mechanics and also simplify fights to work with non-mana based healer

[Endus]

I just think every mana using dpsers should be able to go oom by dpsing, along with healing and other stuff. Why do ele shamans, mages, warlocks (I know, they are a bit out of the equation) and boomkins have a mana pool if they shouldn't monitor it while doing their things?

Every spec has several factors they are supposed to be monitoring to maximize their performance. For the most part, mana isn't one of them for caster DPS. Caster DPS are designed with multiple cooldowns and DoTs and such to monitor, and interweaving those properly is what defines and limits their DPS. Melee typically have a resource system that is central to what limits their gameplay flow; Enhancement is a notable exception, in that it has a more "caster-y" focus on cooldowns rather than a resource limitation. Healers also, in theory, are watching mana consumption, though this has become less of an issue as time goes on in both Cata and WotLK.

The only reason casters should have to watch their mana is if melee DPS would have to watch their own resource levels. And by that, I mean they would have to be actively using abilities to generate more Rage/Energy/Runic/etc, abilities that do crap or no damage, because not using them leaves them "oom". Their resource generation isn't restricted by ability use, and neither is a caster's.

[Deleted]

Give us a spell that will dublicate our next heal to the one that carries earth shield. Would be nice in arena to get a heal off in LoS. That way we can even use it on our self when topped off.

[Radux]

Give us a spell that will dublicate our next heal to the one that carries earth shield. Would be nice in arena to get a heal off in LoS. That way we can even use it on our self when topped off.

That's pretty much exactly what Beacon of Light does right now.

While I agree it's a cool mechanic, I doubt they'd give us a nearly identical tool.

[omniscience]

Every spec has several factors they are supposed to be monitoring to maximize their performance. For the most part, mana isn't one of them for caster DPS. Caster DPS are designed with multiple cooldowns and DoTs and such to monitor, and interweaving those properly is what defines and limits their DPS. Melee typically have a resource system that is central to what limits their gameplay flow; Enhancement is a notable exception, in that it has a more "caster-y" focus on cooldowns rather than a resource limitation. Healers also, in theory, are watching mana consumption, though this has become less of an issue as time goes on in both Cata and WotLK.

The only reason casters should have to watch their mana is if melee DPS would have to watch their own resource levels. And by that, I mean they would have to be actively using abilities to generate more Rage/Energy/Runic/etc, abilities that do crap or no damage, because not using them leaves them "oom". Their resource generation isn't restricted by ability use, and neither is a caster's.

It kindda stands or fall with the mechanic introduced. Cause the korrelation to melee's resources is of course equivalent.

I just think it feels different to be a caster, maybe it's just me but the fact that I have a mana bar around that of a healer (approx!) i should be aware what I do with the mana. I'm taking enh shamans out of this view because they're that different.

... and yes, I do have several healers and fill that role mostly so my mind is affected by my "main characters"

[Cai]

Yeah, I can only assume other healer's CDs will end up scaling off their Spirit as well in Mists. Tho I would like our MTT to provide us with more, say 400% to the shaman caster (like MTT gave at the start of cata) but only 200% to rest of the raid like it was nerfed to.

I have always thought that MTT should of given us more regen than rest of the raid.

[Deleted]

Using this thread for posting two ideas that came to my mind last night.

1) Some kind of Totem that can store up to ~45k healing done, from all raid members, but not from AOE effects. It then releases this stored health onto a target below ~30% health within ~15yards. This effect would have ~1.5min cooldown. Basically an instant heal that we dont currently have, that could be used for either emergency uses or people running in with low hp, depending on encounter. Would work nicely with BotE. Obviously Im not too good with values, but you get the idea. Heal could not crit, but would benefit from talents/buffs increasing targets' recieved healing.

2) Let UL trigger either EL/AA or both in addition to its current effect. GCD used for boosting next direct heal isnt worth it unless theres absolutely no damage going out and no mana to gain from TC. Would be a nice little change to make UL usable in other conditions.