[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[Deleted]

I know I edited my last post after your reply, but we are in DS right now and we are "allowed" to use Chain Heal in just about every fight without some dumb Glyph or ridiculous downside and it's not an issue at all. It's also never been an issue in 25s. Heck, I only cast it after HRain is down (I was 3/8 Heroic with the 10% buff in 10 man, doing 25s now and 'relarning" fights), it's a filler spell when Rain is on CD and LB is actually preferable right now unless I am at/near full mana. It's that weak, and this Glyph makes it notably worse. Chain Heal does not heal enough to justify tacking a 4 sec CD on it, and yes I am including the Riptide boost in this. Not since Wrath when it was admittedly OP and casted over just about anything else.

Dragon Soul is very stacking orientated. This is all Mists raiding which may well not be like that, if there is stacking then yes the Glyph is useless, but it may not be. In spread out fights if you're not using CH at all because people are too spread this would be an increase but it comes at a downside. Take Madness HC for an example. If your guild was struggling to heal through the Parasite damage or the bosses AoE or the slams in the platform phases, but did fine during Cataclysm and p2, you might take this glyph to help out. Obviously its unlikely that this would be the case on Madness - especially with the nerfs - but that doesn't change the fact it COULD be the case, and this glyph would help this problem as long as your other healers could pick up your slack during p2/cataclysm.

With a baseline jump increase, it would *not* realistically get more powerful than it is in DS, and if it did and we started casting CH over single target spells again, then and only then would a nerf be more justified. But with FL and DS being the most relevant and the most recent examples of Shaman raiding and CH for my case studies, I just can’t agree that making a larger baseline would be an issue. FL showed that Shaman lacking a spread heal was a very real concern when several other healers (and now every other healer spec in the game come MoP) have the ability to do so much more effectively, and in addition DS proves that CH being available for most situations didn't (and wouldn't) propel it into overused/OP territory. There are, however, no examples I can use to justify the argument of keeping it limited. It has changed far too much from Wrathspam days for that to be relevant anymore. The RT Glyph *might* be a possible concern combined with the new function of CH not consuming it, but I would then argue that the RT Glyph would be the culprit in that scenario and not CH. CH already has a perfectly acceptable Glyph augment anyway with the +people for -healing, it doesn't need additional ones. Multiple Glyphs for one spell we don't even use that much (3 if you count RT glyph) is just dumb.

No, in DS it would not get more powerful really, but its not meant to be a pure numbers increase, its meant to be a glyph that you use based on the mechanics of a fight. Glyphs are not meant to be pure number increases anymore, they are all choices and this is an interesting one for Resto to pick from. FL did show Shaman spread healing was a concern, and this would massively help it. Sure if there was more fights like Ragnaros in Mists - a lot of them not just 1 or 2 - I would worry about the state of Shaman, but if its just one fight or two, then this glyph does the job at a reasonable loss.

It will in almost every realistic scenario be more effective to simply cast single target spells and leave this Glyph alone, and then what was the Glyph's point? It's counterintuitive to itself. It makes an already niche spell more niche when the original complaint was that CH isn't functional enough to address our spread healing concerns. Blizzard even noted that Resto Shaman spread healing was a problem themselves in 4.3 patch notes, they just haven't done anything about it, and I can’t for one second pretend that this is an acceptable solution. With Paladin's LoD revamp we are by far the worst spread healer in the game for 10s at this time and sooner or later that's going to matter again unless every raid is a DS mirror.

It makes a niche spell usable outside of its niche at a reduced rate. Thats good. Niche's are interesting and change game play. You can't say you want to go back to WotLK where you just spam CH. If CH was the best option for healing even when your spread out all you would do is cast it and nothing else. Thats the point of the Glyph, it allows you to use it when spread out without making it so that ALL you cast is CH which is what would happen otherwise. If they just nerfed the healing CH did then you wouldn't cast CH at all, with double length jumps and no downside its one extreme or the other.

I already ranted about TC before and will again but I will just keep it short this time and say that a Glyph with such a significant mana return as TC is never going to be "optional" for a healer. Healers are all about mana, and TC gives way too much. If you don't need that Glyph, that means you are either overgeared for your 5 man or should be dropping a healer for more DPSers in your raid until you do need the mana. It's also INT based regen, when INT based regen shouldn't exist (according to Blizzard) and they phased out every other type of INT based regen due to scaling concerns with INT vs our fixed mana pools in MoP. We are either going to have imbalanced mana regen with it, or we will be balanced by taking it and then it isn't optional, since the mana discrepancy is too large.

If you're in a fight with absolutely no time to cast LB then it may not be used, say you normally use Riptide, Healing Stream Totem and Telluric Currents but theres not much time to use Telluric Currents because theres lots of AoE damage, you could take Glyph of Water Shield instead (assuming Water Shield didnt proc from said damage and thus would actually give more mana back without the glyph). I agree TC does seem pretty mandatory at the moment as it looks incredibly powerful, I can even see some Resto Shaman taking Unleashed Lightning Glyph over Healing Stream Totem and going Riptide/UL/TC as their glyphs, but I still like the mechanic, its different and allows more depth of play in the class, do you do a Healing Surge then a LB or do you cast two Healing Waves? ect ect

Our Glyphs are a mess right now, and the above are my biggest conerns but they aren't the only ones. They are contradicting almost everything that Blizzard has told us they want Glyphs to operate as for several classes. For us Shaman specifically they are also attempting to tack our class/spec concerns anf fixes into them instead of making them baseline for some reason. Attempting to address concerns of previous expansions (and failing) with our "new and exciting" Glyphs...how could I find that anything but dissapointing (and unacceptable)? They really can't think of anything better for our Glyphs than pre-MoP class issues? Fixing WS baseline was a huge step in the right direction, they just need to apply that mentality to all of our spells (and then add better Glyphs) and then we will be ready for MoP basically.

What problems would those be? Beyond the range of CH I dont see any 'issues' fixed by Glyphs at all. Maybe Unleashed Lightning could be included in the "fixed problems through glyphs" category. Everything else is interesting, new mechanics or mechanics they have decided to make you choose rather than get baseline like Ghost Wolf snare protection (just like a lot of things have been made into talents for some classes instead of baseline - Shadowstep or Preperation for rogues for example)

[Endus]

I already ranted about TC before and will again but I will just keep it short this time and say that a Glyph with such a significant mana return as TC is never going to be "optional" for a healer. Healers are all about mana, and TC gives way too much. If you don't need that Glyph, that means you are either overgeared for your 5 man or should be dropping a healer for more DPSers in your raid until you do need the mana. It's also INT based regen, when INT based regen shouldn't exist (according to Blizzard) and they phased out every other type of INT based regen due to scaling concerns with INT vs our fixed mana pools in MoP. We are either going to have imbalanced mana regen with it, or we will be balanced by taking it and then it isn't optional, since the mana discrepancy is too large.

If I had my druthers, I'd make TC a Resto spec ability instead of a glyph, and instead of having it return 50% of the damage dealt, have it return 200% of the mana cost. That would be 7% of base mana per cast (since 100% of the mana cost is spent actually casting it), or ~1.4% mana per cast with Resto mana pools. And non-scaling with Intellect.

You'd trade off the ability to abuse phases where bosses take increased damage for increased mana return, but you'd gain the ability to use mana cost reduction trinkets in the same way, if they apply to damage spells (they're usually healer trinkets).

But TC as a mechanic I actually really like. It's enough that I glyph Unleashed Lightning in my Resto spec. But my gear is also trash and I heal with Dragonwrath because nothing I could replace it with has dropped for me, so I tend to favor TC more than most Resto should, since I get the DTR proc and some bonus hit rating.

[BigNeptune]

If I had my druthers, I'd make TC a Resto spec ability instead of a glyph, and instead of having it return 50% of the damage dealt, have it return 200% of the mana cost. That would be 7% of base mana per cast (since 100% of the mana cost is spent actually casting it), or ~1.4% mana per cast with Resto mana pools. And non-scaling with Intellect.

You'd trade off the ability to abuse phases where bosses take increased damage for increased mana return, but you'd gain the ability to use mana cost reduction trinkets in the same way, if they apply to damage spells (they're usually healer trinkets).

But TC as a mechanic I actually really like. It's enough that I glyph Unleashed Lightning in my Resto spec. But my gear is also trash and I heal with Dragonwrath because nothing I could replace it with has dropped for me, so I tend to favor TC more than most Resto should, since I get the DTR proc and some bonus hit rating.

I don't think you tend to favor TC more than Resto should. Resto should favor the ever loving shit out of TC until we get a not horrible baseline mana regeneration mechanic. Resurgence is horrible by comparison to things like Rapture.

[Endus]

I don't think you tend to favor TC more than Resto should. Resto should favor the ever loving shit out of TC until we get a not horrible baseline mana regeneration mechanic. Resurgence is horrible by comparison to things like Rapture.

I mean by doing things like glyphing Unleashed Lightning so I can use TC while running, not my tendency to use it in general.

[Kenai]

I dunno, if it were less of a mana return (far less) maybe it would be more balanced around our base mana? I just don't want to feel like I have to use it. It's bizarre leaving this in after what they did to Judgement and it returning a bunch of mana, don't you think? I'm not sure how big of a difference the new WS change is yet.

And sorry about being ill-tempered, it's never warranted and I do not want to discourage discussion of these matters. I'll have to respond more in depth later, I have a Chem Lab final waiting for me upstairs.

[BigNeptune]

I mean by doing things like glyphing Unleashed Lightning so I can use TC while running, not my tendency to use it in general.

Ah, I misunderstood. By the way, I quoted you in one of my posts on the Restoration MoP topics on the Beta forums. Hope you are okay with that, I just really think that your idea for TC is a fair improvement. Explains it better than I could.

As a 10man progression raider who is going to be aiming for US Top 50 come MoP, I am genuinely worried about some of the glyphs and our mana regeneration mechanics. But I feel like I am beating a dead horse because our issues and ways to try and solve them have already been discussed over and over in here. If they could just find a suitable balance for the Chain Heal glyph, or god willing give me a new spell so I can try and heal my raid when we are spread out like our other two healers do, I would be much happier. Even if Resurgence continued to still be such a, what I consider to be, horrible baseline mana regeneration.

[ScizCT]

I mean by doing things like glyphing Unleashed Lightning so I can use TC while running, not my tendency to use it in general.

My 10-man's resto shaman has been known to do this on some fights. It's not a bad option if you can afford to drop one of the other prime glyphs.

[Recom]

First, sorry about that "stupid" that was a pretty... stupid thing to say especially at the beginning of a post.

Did you actually read my post or do you not actually have anything worthwhile to argue about? CH is weak enough so that it is not OP in DS despite the fact that we can use it almost all the time and even spam it if we wanted to for some reason.

Chain heal is extremely good because of its heal/mana ratio (with heroic T13 you can almost spam it and never go oom) and the fact that it gives you 2 charges of Tidal Waves. So it's a very good spell which gives utility if you need it.

So explain to me how it's going to be OP if we can use it almost all the time in other raids with the baseline jump increased. No one else has been able to, but maybe you are the one?

CH has a much better heal/mana because it is meant to be used when people are clustered, take that out and it just becomes THE best spell in the shaman kit. When CH hits 4 targets, it heals for almost as much as GHW if not more (when multi crit) so why would you use GHW if you can just spam CH (except for tank healing ofc) ? You may also have forgotten that Riptide will not be consumed by CH anymore, so if you cast it only on Riptided targets CH is even more powerful. That may not be OP because OP means better than other classes and we all know nobody can beat Paladins :P

Context. Chain Heal is absolutely weak when the time comes to heal multiple people and the raid is spread which was the entire point of my post. You can't use it at all in those situations because it's so ineffective at it that single target healing is better, yet single target healing is going to be ineffective compared to everyone else's spread heal.

I agree with you on this but, really but CH is meant to be a spell for stacked phases. Might as well ask for a new spell.

Now in DS when I can use it all the time? It's fine, but I still use HRain first AND LB for Mana and use all my single target heals just fine. Where does the OPness come in? Where is the spamming of it over everything else???

That is not true, you can't just spam it all the time.
Morchok : you can use it 2 maybe 3 times to get your group topped.
Yor : you better not be spamming it (purple debuff) + tank healing
Zon : you can only spam it during the 15/20 sec of black phase
Hagara : no real spamming except when you use the "under the buble" strategy
Ultra : you can spam it but it's almost useless before the 4min mark of the fight
Blackhorn : nope
Spine : useless to spam because you want to target people with the debuff + dispel
Madness : can't spam all the time, only after killing the Corruption when everybody is stacked and take steady damages

So no, even in DS you don't spam it and when you do (Hagara, Madness, 5/6 min Ultra) you stomp druids/priest and can even compete with paladins.

This Glyph actively punishes Resto Shaman for choosing to raid 10 mans over 25s, because for some reason they aren't allowed to have a functional Chain heal in a 10 man scenario, except in DS where it's perfectly fine?

That is very true and I hadn't even considered it, thanks for bringing it up.
However healing 4 targets out of 10 is a lot more than healing 4 targets out of 25. I'll have to think about it.

Some people keep saying it would be OP but they never have any actual examples of this beyond the completely irrelevant WotLK version Chain Heal, which is a completely different level from the spell we have today (and in MoP) and is no way comparable.

I think it would be comparable with the increased range and the riptide bonus which is why I brought that up.

We do however have the perfect example of CH not being OP in DS while being fully functional and yet this gets ignored. It's being insultingly obtuse for me to have to spell this out over and over again.[COLOR=red]

[Protoman]

With a baseline jump increase, it would *not* realistically get more powerful than it is in DS, and if it did and we started casting CH over single target spells again, then and only then would a nerf be more justified. But with FL and DS being the most relevant and the most recent examples of Shaman raiding and CH for my case studies, I just can’t agree that making a larger baseline would be an issue. FL showed that Shaman lacking a spread heal was a very real concern when several other healers (and now every other healer spec in the game come MoP) have the ability to do so much more effectively, and in addition DS proves that CH being available for most situations didn't (and wouldn't) propel it into overused/OP territory. There are, however, no examples I can use to justify the argument of keeping it limited. It has changed far too much from Wrathspam days for that to be relevant anymore. The RT Glyph *might* be a possible concern combined with the new function of CH not consuming it, but I would then argue that the RT Glyph would be the culprit in that scenario and not CH. CH already has a perfectly acceptable Glyph augment anyway with the +people for -healing, it doesn't need additional ones. Multiple Glyphs for one spell we don't even use that much (3 if you count RT glyph) is just dumb.

It will in almost every realistic scenario be more effective to simply cast single target spells and leave this Glyph alone, and then what was the Glyph's point? It's counterintuitive to itself. It makes an already niche spell more niche when the original complaint was that CH isn't functional enough to address our spread healing concerns. Blizzard even noted that Resto Shaman spread healing was a problem themselves in 4.3 patch notes, they just haven't done anything about it, and I can’t for one second pretend that this is an acceptable solution. With Paladin's LoD revamp we are by far the worst spread healer in the game for 10s at this time and sooner or later that's going to matter again unless every raid is a DS mirror.

I agree with a base buff to CHL jump. We already have a niche spell for stacked groups, Healing Rain. CHL does not cover much more area then that, only advantage being you can target someone far away. I have always felt we need a short radius aoe spell (HR) and a larger radius aoe heal (CHL). At this point they feel redundant. And as you mentioned, mosst of DS had the raid stacked pretty close and it didn't seem like a big deal. Plus CHL already has a glyph to augment it.

I already ranted about TC before and will again but I will just keep it short this time and say that a Glyph with such a significant mana return as TC is never going to be "optional" for a healer. Healers are all about mana, and TC gives way too much. If you don't need that Glyph, that means you are either overgeared for your 5 man or should be dropping a healer for more DPSers in your raid until you do need the mana. It's also INT based regen, when INT based regen shouldn't exist (according to Blizzard) and they phased out every other type of INT based regen due to scaling concerns with INT vs our fixed mana pools in MoP. We are either going to have imbalanced mana regen with it, or we will be balanced by taking it and then it isn't optional, since the mana discrepancy is too large.

If I had my druthers, I'd make TC a Resto spec ability instead of a glyph, and instead of having it return 50% of the damage dealt, have it return 200% of the mana cost. That would be 7% of base mana per cast (since 100% of the mana cost is spent actually casting it), or ~1.4% mana per cast with Resto mana pools. And non-scaling with Intellect.

I agree that TC should not be a glyph and rather a passive of Resto spec. It is a mandatory glyph for resto, since mana is everything to healers. Having it return 200-300% of mana cost would be a good way to limit it's regen and make it constant and predictable amount of return each time. With a solid understanding of the avg mana you could gain in a 5 min fight, they could then balance WS and buff the mp5 or something if we need it to make up for the loss of the crazy regen we get right now from TC.

What problems would those be? Beyond the range of CH I dont see any 'issues' fixed by Glyphs at all. Maybe Unleashed Lightning could be included in the "fixed problems through glyphs" category. Everything else is interesting, new mechanics or mechanics they have decided to make you choose rather than get baseline like Ghost Wolf snare protection (just like a lot of things have been made into talents for some classes instead of baseline - Shadowstep or Preperation for rogues for example)

-The WS/LS glyphs were one issue, trying to solve a tedious and outdated mechanic thru glyphs....this was recently fixed.
-Giving CHL a buff to it's jump radius is another one, long overdue buff that was blamed on mechanics and now being forced to glyph for.
-TC as a core regen mechanic for Resto, and mandatory glyph slot
-Ghostwolf our core form of mobility in PVP for both closing gaps and escapes. Used to be baseline, w/ talent instant....and now mandatory glyph slot for PVP. Meanwhile, druids keep snare shift, ret has their movement impair cleanse. This is basically like making mage glyph for blink, or warrior for charge.

These 4 I would consider all things that are core mechanics to the class and should have been added at the base level, and not thru glyphs. Their glyphs hold more value and "mandatory" status compared to the others, which means we lose a glyph slot and greatly reduce our choices and flexibility to customize towards our playstyle.

I would probably also add "Totemic Vigor" as a possible "core mechanic". Totems deserve some base HP, maybe even 5%, or the ability to absorb one direct attack or spell before dying . In MoP many buffs are becoming undispellable, and very few classes have access to an offensive dispel or enrage dispel.....totems on the other hand can be "dispelled" by any class and it usually takes only one instant attack. All defensive totems should get 10% of HP, most do but bulwark and SLT are still 5hp.

[Kenai]

What problems would those be? Beyond the range of CH I dont see any 'issues' fixed by Glyphs at all. Maybe Unleashed Lightning could be included in the "fixed problems through glyphs" category. Everything else is interesting, new mechanics or mechanics they have decided to make you choose rather than get baseline like Ghost Wolf snare protection (just like a lot of things have been made into talents for some classes instead of baseline - Shadowstep or Preperation for rogues for example)

Well, CH is by far my biggest one because it's being prepped to be our "solution" to healing a spread out raid when literally every other healer in the game gets the ability to do this baseline.

I basically see it like this (ignoring long CD-type spells):

Pally: HR for stacking, LoD for spreading out
Druid: Efflorescence/Mushroom Bloom for stacking, WG for spreading out
HPriest: HW Serenity for Stacking, PoH/CoH for spreading out

and so on. Then we come to Shaman and our "spreading out' is notably absent because CH just can't do it reliably. And to do it reliably we are required to give up a Glyph slot and nerf the functionality in other ways. And this *only* affects 10 man raiding. Where is the justification? Again, I would be perfectly happy with an entirely new spell if CH really is so overhwelming that it can't fulfill that role properly without being OP, but I think it can (since it does right now in DS).

If you're in a fight with absolutely no time to cast LB then it may not be used, say you normally use Riptide, Healing Stream Totem and Telluric Currents but theres not much time to use Telluric Currents because theres lots of AoE damage, you could take Glyph of Water Shield instead (assuming Water Shield didnt proc from said damage and thus would actually give more mana back without the glyph). I agree TC does seem pretty mandatory at the moment as it looks incredibly powerful, I can even see some Resto Shaman taking Unleashed Lightning Glyph over Healing Stream Totem and going Riptide/UL/TC as their glyphs, but I still like the mechanic, its different and allows more depth of play in the class, do you do a Healing Surge then a LB or do you cast two Healing Waves? ect ect

I don't like the mechanic at all, but I have no problem with other people liking it and wanting to use it. I'm just very upset that Blizzard pretends it's optional when it's not and I have to use it when I don't want to. I feel like they keep saying it's optional so that they can leave it clunky. It's my biggest source of mana regen in DS by a wide margin in most fights. How is that optional? It's also the only mana regen talent in MoP right now that scales with INT. Why is this not held to the same standard as other regen? Heck, the last we heard from a Blue about this it was from GC in Cata Beta claiming it was intended to be mana neutral! Honestly at this point before MoP is over we might be switching out ELW for FT for better mana returns. Maybe they will care then? Maybe not.

---------- Post added 2012-04-26 at 07:06 PM ----------

Hi and ty for the apology, i am sorry about it too. I really do like to discuss rather than rant.

CH has a much better heal/mana because it is meant to be used when people are clustered, take that out and it just becomes THE best spell in the shaman kit. When CH hits 4 targets, it heals for almost as much as GHW if not more (when multi crit) so why would you use GHW if you can just spam CH (except for tank healing ofc) ?

See, I'm not sure I understand the complaint here. If we are healing 4 targets and the healing is effective, that's exactly when we *should* be using our multi-target healing spells. And if there are less targets to heal, then you admit yourself that our single target heals will be the better choice. So what's the issue with it being like this?

You may also have forgotten that Riptide will not be consumed by CH anymore,

Nope, I accounted for it! And it's pretty easy to take any Shaman's CH usage and healing % done with it in WoL in DS 10 mans and boost it by 25% to see how much it would do, and that's pretty much the best case scenario in favor of it being OP. There...is no case for it being OP using this information.

I agree with you on this but, really but CH is meant to be a spell for stacked phases. Might as well ask for a new spell.

Blizzard seems pretty interested in tweaking CH to be used for our spreading situation. otherwise, why would they mess with it at all? We have no new spells for spreading and already have HRain for stacking. Best of all we could still use CH just like now, we could just...use it more, specifically when the raid is spread out. Whatever new spell they gave us would probably be redundant for 25 mans anyway since CH already works like it should there.

That is not true, you can't just spam it all the time.
Morchok : you can use it 2 maybe 3 times to get your group topped.
Yor : you better not be spamming it (purple debuff) + tank healing
Zon : you can only spam it during the 15/20 sec of black phase
Hagara : no real spamming except when you use the "under the buble" strategy
Ultra : you can spam it but it's almost useless before the 4min mark of the fight
Blackhorn : nope
Spine : useless to spam because you want to target people with the debuff + dispel
Madness : can't spam all the time, only after killing the Corruption when everybody is stacked and take steady damages

So no, even in DS you don't spam it and when you do (Hagara, Madness, 5/6 min Ultra) you stomp druids/priest and can even compete with paladins.

All of what you said is *highly* debatable or misconstruing what I said (no one spams healing on purple Ooze, for example, I shouldn't have to point things like that out), but I especially take issue with the bolded. We are the *lowest* healers (HPS wise), in DS in 10s going by WoL and raidbots and whatever, so how exactly are we "stomping" anyone with our HPS? We are bringing unique buffs (AV, SLT) to the raid and Energy-Bar esque mana regen mechanics on things like Madness. We are competitive and aren't holding back the raid/left with an absolutely huge HPS discrepancy like we were in pre-nerf FL, but let's not get carried away here.

However healing 4 targets out of 10 is a lot more than healing 4 targets out of 25. I'll have to think about it.

LoD and PoH and WG and all that also heal a significantly larger % of the raid in 10 man, don't forget.

[Madcap]

That is not true, you can't just spam it all the time.
Morchok : you can use it 2 maybe 3 times to get your group topped.
Yor : you better not be spamming it (purple debuff) + tank healing
Zon : you can only spam it during the 15/20 sec of black phase
Hagara : no real spamming except when you use the "under the buble" strategy
Ultra : you can spam it but it's almost useless before the 4min mark of the fight
Blackhorn : nope
Spine : useless to spam because you want to target people with the debuff + dispel
Madness : can't spam all the time, only after killing the Corruption when everybody is stacked and take steady damages

I'm not sure what tier you've been clearing for the last 5 months, but if you're not essentially spamming CH in 7 out of the 8 heroic encounters, then you're probably doing it wrong.

You wax on (correctly) about the incredible efficiency of CH, but then seem to suggest that a 4 second CD wouldn't be detrimental to our AOE healing ability. Those views seem contradictory in my opinion. In your Firelands examples, you claim on a fight like Rag that we'd only want to cast CH once after a seed explosion, anyways. Again, I'm not sure what game you're playing, but it would take me 3 or 4 CH casts in a row before people were close to full health again. It doesn't matter that, in your words, follow up damage was not imminent (which I disagree with). The alternative to casting 3 or 4 CHs in a row is casting less efficient direct heals. That's a problem.

The fact of the matter is, every healing spec has a spammable AOE heal, and there's a very good reason for that. Glyphing CH would remove a critical tool from Resto's healing arsenal.

[PsyBomb]

I do think the intent of the glyph is to change Chain Heal from a Spammable skill to a Rotational one. If the fight is going to have lots of stacking, such that you will be spamming the spell... don't use the glyph! In any other case, the 4-second cooldown just allows a couple of Tidal-boosted spells to be thrown in between, which sounds like a normal and efficient way to run things in any fight with light to moderate splash.

In essence, the glyph will guarantee maximum hits in all but the strangest situations and having half a brain will ensure you start on a RT target 90% of the time. The heal therefore becomes extremely strong and efficient, assuming the level-90 numbers are at all like today's in relative terms.

[Endus]

I do think the intent of the glyph is to change Chain Heal from a Spammable skill to a Rotational one. If the fight is going to have lots of stacking, such that you will be spamming the spell... don't use the glyph! In any other case, the 4-second cooldown just allows a couple of Tidal-boosted spells to be thrown in between, which sounds like a normal and efficient way to run things in any fight with light to moderate splash.

Pretty much.

In a 25-man, unless you all have to be over 15 yards apart (unlikely), it's pretty consistently usable even unglyphed. The glyph's mostly going to be useful for 10-mans that need to spread out, or situationally for a few fights that are REALLY stack-unfriendly.

If your DPS are always scattering to the winds on 25-man so that you can't ever get a chain heal going, you need to teach them to play properly, not complain about Chain Heal, IMO.

[Kenai]

I do think the intent of the glyph is to change Chain Heal from a Spammable skill to a Rotational one. If the fight is going to have lots of stacking, such that you will be spamming the spell... don't use the glyph! In any other case, the 4-second cooldown just allows a couple of Tidal-boosted spells to be thrown in between, which sounds like a normal and efficient way to run things in any fight with light to moderate splash.

In essence, the glyph will guarantee maximum hits in all but the strangest situations and having half a brain will ensure you start on a RT target 90% of the time. The heal therefore becomes extremely strong and efficient, assuming the level-90 numbers are at all like today's in relative terms.

So, instead of immediately reverting to our single target healing when spread out, we'd get to use CH... a whopping one time before we revert back to single target healing a spread out raid. Why even bother? I've mentioned time and again (and used WoL) to point out that in DS, with liberal CH use, that a 25% increase would not raise the spell into "OP" territory. Do me a favor right now, go into WoL (because you don't need to take my word for it), take any random Resto Shaman in the top~50 or ~100 in any fight with liberal CH usage in DS, and boost the effectiveness of the spell by 25%. in reality the CH % would be less, but let's just assume a flat 25% CH boost for argument's sake.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I have been picking random Shaman in these DS fights and I'm just NOT seeing the OPness of this spell, in any way at all. Do you see the OPness? Does anyone? Can anyone explain it to me here? I really feel like I am missing something if so many people are ok with the Glyph like this and CH being gutted like this for 10s, but I am looking and see nothing.

There is no way that *one* CH is going to be enough 90% of the time even with the 25% boost, unless the completely change all types of AoE damage going out between now and MoP. CH isn't even strong enough to use just "once" in a row the 5 man on the bosses we have, usually not even the trash where AoE is any kind of concern. Why would I expect it to be adequate in a raid? And why would I expect anyone to ignore the inevitable AoE healing discrepancy between Shaman and every other healer when spreading out (a common occurrence) if things don't change? Again, where is the justification?

[BigNeptune]

So, instead of immediately reverting to our single target healing when spread out, we'd get to use CH... a whopping one time before we revert back to single target healing a spread out raid. Why even bother? I've mentioned time and again (and used WoL) to point out that in DS, with liberal CH use, that a 25% increase would not raise the spell into "OP" territory. Do me a favor right now, go into WoL (because you don't need to take my word for it), take any random Resto Shaman in the top~50 or ~100 in any fight with liberal CH usage, and boost the effectiveness of the spell by 25%. in reality the CH % would be less, but let's just assume a flat 25% CH boost for argument's sake.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I have been picking random Shaman in these DS fights and I'm just NOT seeing the OPness of this spell, in any way at all. Do you see the OPness? Does anyone? Can anyone explain it to to me here? I really feel like I am missing something if so many people are ok with the Glyph like this and CH being gutted like this for 10s, but I am looking and see nothing.

There is no way that *one* CH is going to be enough 90% of the time even with the 25% boost, unless the completely change all types of AoE damage going out between now and MoP. CH isn't even strong enough to use just "once" in a row the 5 man on the bosses we have, usually not even the trash. Why would I expect it to be adequate in a raid?

Can't argue any of these points. It's one thing to sit back and agree with how the glyph is if you raid 25's, but I can't see how anyone who has raided in a 10man progression environment think it's fair. Then you can say just to not take the glyph. Well, let's imagine we're in a raid where everyone has to spread and is getting AoE'd at once. You're raiding with a Disc Priest and Holy Paladin. You more or less have to have that glyph. If I don't take it I'm more less exactly like I was in Firelands. Bench spec. It doesn't deserve a CD of 4 seconds, hell even a 1 second CD is too much for it's current strength with extra range.

[Deleted]

So, instead of immediately reverting to our single target healing when spread out, we'd get to use CH... a whopping one time before we revert back to single target healing a spread out raid. Why even bother? I've mentioned time and again (and used WoL) to point out that in DS, with liberal CH use, that a 25% increase would not raise the spell into "OP" territory. Do me a favor right now, go into WoL (because you don't need to take my word for it), take any random Resto Shaman in the top~50 or ~100 in any fight with liberal CH usage in DS, and boost the effectiveness of the spell by 25%. in reality the CH % would be less, but let's just assume a flat 25% CH boost for argument's sake.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I have been picking random Shaman in these DS fights and I'm just NOT seeing the OPness of this spell, in any way at all. Do you see the OPness? Does anyone? Can anyone explain it to me here? I really feel like I am missing something if so many people are ok with the Glyph like this and CH being gutted like this for 10s, but I am looking and see nothing.

There is no way that *one* CH is going to be enough 90% of the time even with the 25% boost, unless the completely change all types of AoE damage going out between now and MoP. CH isn't even strong enough to use just "once" in a row the 5 man on the bosses we have, usually not even the trash where AoE is any kind of concern. Why would I expect it to be adequate in a raid? And why would I expect anyone to ignore the inevitable AoE healing discrepancy between Shaman and every other healer when spreading out (a common occurrence) if things don't change? Again, where is the justification?

This is all on a niche fight where your spread out the whole time and thus without the glyph would not be able to use CH at all. You bother because its an AoE heal rather than a single target and if you need to AoE then you use it. Thats why. Its a throughput increase. Its not at all that Chain Heal is overpowered, its that its better than single targetting for AoE. If your raid taking AoE damage and the CH glyph was in as standard/had no down side, all you would EVER cast is Chain Heal (and Riptide). Thats not fun. It would go back to the WotLK mechanic of "CH or gtfo". Its not that CH is overpowered, its that its better at AoE.

In reference to your last paragraph, no one chain heal is not enough, but its more than you have now, and if on an encounter you can't stack then its better than not Chain Healing at all. Its unlikely there will be massive AoE damage (think Madness p2 pre-nerf) phases where you're not allowed to stack up. If they put in a fight like that I will be up in arms with you guys, but until thats the case just because in that situation we would be weak doesn't mean we are weak. And no Chain Heal is not powerful enough to use 'once' then nothing else, but you 1 - fill the gaps with other heals and 2 - If you need to AoE heal and your team isn't stacking/coming together at least a bit then thats their fault, not your job to compensate for.

As for your last sentence, thats the whole point of this glyph. Yes there is a descrepancy, and if on an encounter that is a problem then you take this glyph, but like I said if it was made baseline all you would EVER cast in Chain Heal, and thats just not fun.

Can't argue any of these points. It's one thing to sit back and agree with how the glyph is if you raid 25's, but I can't see how anyone who has raided in a 10man progression environment think it's fair. Then you can say just to not take the glyph. Well, let's imagine we're in a raid where everyone has to spread and is getting AoE'd at once. You're raiding with a Disc Priest and Holy Paladin. You more or less have to have that glyph. If I don't take it I'm more less exactly like I was in Firelands. Bench spec. It doesn't deserve a CD of 4 seconds, hell even a 1 second CD is too much for it's current strength with extra range.

I'm 8/8 HC in 10 man, I'm ele but we have a Resto Shaman too and I've healed every fight except Spine and Madness (where in general you're stacked so this point is irrelevant to them anyway). I'd sure as hell take it on a fight where you're spread out. If I need to AoE heal but we are spread then this is a huge throughput increase. Yes in Firelands we struggled because of spreading out and movement screwing over Healing Rain, but this glyph helps combat that, but there are no glyphs at all that are pure throughput increases with no downsides and as I have said many times in this post if it was baseline all you would ever do is cast Chain Heal because its a higher heal/mana spell than single targetting, especially with Riptide (which you can put on most of the raid thanks to the Riptide Glyph so you're have the 25% buff basically 100% of the time).

[Kenai]

In reference to your last paragraph, no one chain heal is not enough, but its more than you have now, and if on an encounter you can't stack then its better than not Chain Healing at all.

That is arguable since most fights have spreading and stacking phases, OR simply stacking phases. In any fights where there is any point of stacking in addition to spreading, this Glyph automatically makes the spell much worse for the fight. I can't even think of ANY fights where there is spreading out but no stacking. Even then, this Glyph is requred to heal a spread out fight when everyone else can do this baseline. So in any fights with *only* spread out healing (what fights are these again?) we'd be woefully inadequate to anyother spread healing toolbox if we could only cast one CH every 4 secs. If we had to move on top of that? Heh...

but like I said if it was made baseline all you would EVER cast in Chain Heal, and thats just not fun.

Completely disagree, otherwise we would be using nothing but CH in 10 man DS right now. It's not WotLK, the spell is not stronger or more effective than casting single target healing spells in single target situations. My GHW does ~40k in DS right now as I type this (full health non-crit ES). My CH boosted by RT does...~16.5k to one target (full health non-crit ES). HRain is way better than CH spam too when the raid is stacked (that's why we almost always cast it first even though we can just use CH instead when stacked). That's not even counting the casting speeds that TW gives to GHW and the like but not CH, or the insane ELW proc rate of HRain. The notion that we would begin to spam CH inappropriately and it would be anywhere near as effective as using the rest of our toolbox appropriately is ridiculous.

[Endus]

That is arguable since most fights have spreading and stacking phases, OR simply stacking phases. In any fights where there is any point of stacking in addition to spreading, this Glyph automatically makes the spell much worse for the fight. I can't even think of ANY fights where there is spreading out but no stacking. Even then, this Glyph is requred to heal a spread out fight when everyone else can do this baseline. So in any fights with *only* spread out healing (what fights are these again?) we'd be woefully inadequate to anyother spread healing toolbox if we could only cast one CH every 4 secs. If we had to move on top of that? Heh...

And that's where the nature of tradeoff comes in.

Are you spread out far enough and often enough for the glyph to be worthwhile over the normal form? If not, you just don't glyph CH. If you are, you have that glyph as an option to improve your performance.

This does not mean something is horribly flawed just because the glyph isn't a guaranteed boost to the spell 100% of the time.

[Kenai]

And that's where the nature of tradeoff comes in.

Are you spread out far enough and often enough for the glyph to be worthwhile over the normal form? If not, you just don't glyph CH. If you are, you have that glyph as an option to improve your performance.

This does not mean something is horribly flawed just because the glyph isn't a guaranteed boost to the spell 100% of the time.

But that's why I want the range increase to be baseline and not a Glyph, so it doesn't have to be a "tradeoff" and it can just be better and comparable to every other spread heal. I've never seen this Glyph as an acceptable solution to our basic spreading issues. The same issues that were a huge issue in FL 10s and Blizzard acknowledged in 4.3 notes and have yet to actually fix. You don't address that with "optional" glyphs when every other healer has those abilities baseline. That's crap.

I was first arguing that CH would in fact not be OP with additional range, and basically proved it by pointing out that it isn't OP in DS 10s or any 25s where it has full use and suggested anyone who cared to check WoL and see how "OP" Chain Heal would be with a flat 25% boost to any ranking Shaman's CH in DS 10 (or 25 I guess) if they were worried about the RT change (because no raid will realistically have more CH usage than DS does now) to see if they were seeing something I was not. No one at all seems to be able to thus far, although I admit that I am still waiting to see.

With that notion that a range increase would be "OP" gone, then it can just be baseline. We already have a Glyph altering CH directly anyway, and it solves the range problem that 10 man Shaman has been (poorly) dealing with without needing to add additional spells or implement another DS-like tier.

The three basic arguments I have been seeing from various folks here and on the official forums is either)

we don't "need" it (when there's no reason not to have it, and not having it was a big problem in FL 10s and will likely be an issue again when every other healer does have something to use and DS fights stop being the standard tier)

that having the range baseline would be OP (i have yet to see any precedence for this being the case),

or that Glyphs should come with tradeoffs (when I think this should never have been a Glyph to begin with and should in fact be baseline).

None of these arguments have been acceptable to me.

[Protoman]

IMO I do feel CHL should have a buff to it's jump radius, not 30yds....but somewhere between 15-18yds. It's a long overdue buff. Every healer seems to have an aoe raid heal that goes from 0-30yds except Resto, and having both Healing Rain and CHL cover a similar area is redundant.....HR should be for a stacked raid, while CHL covers a wider range.

If your raid taking AoE damage and the CH glyph was in as standard/had no down side, all you would EVER cast is Chain Heal (and Riptide). Thats not fun. It would go back to the WotLK mechanic of "CH or gtfo". Its not that CH is overpowered, its that its better at AoE.

And why wouldn't you use an aoe heal when there is alot of aoe raid damage to deal with? The problem with CHL spam in the past was that it was used for single target healing as well as group heals.....that's not an issue anymore cause of things like tidal waves, stronger single target heals, and better mana return....plus CHL being expensive and not as powerful. For Aoe we would be using healing rain, chain heal, riptide....and the occasional GHW/HS if needed. Basically what we do now except CHL can reach targets more effectively.

This does not mean something is horribly flawed just because the glyph isn't a guaranteed boost to the spell 100% of the time.

I don't expect the full glyph effect to be part of CHL, but I would like to see it buffed up to atleast 15yds, 12.5 is such an obscure number.