Disappointed with Shaman in MoP

[Lorthiros]

Hi guys,

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit let down by our level 90 talents... If you compare them with for example a priest's, we get almost nothing.
Let's look at it from a resto point of view (as that's my main specc), priests get 3 new, very cool AND useful abilities, all 3 very well usable as a healer and far from weak. We as a shaman get an ability that I feel has much more benefits to DPS speccs than to the resto specc and requires us to skip a heal in favor of a damaging spell, another one is a bland +50% increase to one of our spells, and the last one is an improvement to our 'pets'.
Now priests already have a much bigger arsenal when healing, yet here they are, getting to choose another spell while I feel like MoP won't add anything new to us RShamans, I might even switch over to a priest...
So far for my rant, I'd like to hear your thoughts about it

Cheers

[SenSayNyu]

Our level 90 talents pretty efficient and useful but very, very boring, imho.

[Deleted]

i've never played a shaman as healer before. but i think most talents atleast seems fun as for the 90 talent with elementals tho. will it be of any use for healing..?

[Endus]

Resto Shaman get no less than three healing throughput talent tiers. That the level 90 ones are more damage-oriented is not a big deal, when the other two are pure healing "oomph".

[Aviators]

At first i was hesitant about elemental blast being any useful for resto, but since it comes with hit rating baked in, now i am pretty excited for it in a PvE setting.

[Pr0ev0lution]

that may be the case with the lvl 90 stuff but they don't have to be game changers just look further up in the tree echo of the elements basically legendary staff proc that works with healing at lvl 60, lvl 75 ones you can pick conductivity which is a weaker version of the ultraxion green buff. just because lvl 90 stuff doesn't seem exciting doesn't mean other stuff isn't

[constantduty]

I cannot speak to Elemental or Enhancement Shaman, but let me address your concerns regarding Resto Shamans. I'm just going to list a portion of the resto shaman toolikit available in MoP:

1) Riptide and ES
2) Spiritwalker's grace
3) MTT
4) SLT
5) Ascendance
6) Hex
7) EBT
8) TT
9) Hero/Bloodlust

The above are all baseline skills. That's a pretty sweet toolkit. Add in the talent options including HTT and Resto Shaman look pretty damn good from a PVP/PVE standpoint. The class/spec brings so much utility to the raid AND has some very powerful CDs at their disposal. Resto Shaman can even talent into Readiness...

I main a Discipline Priest and I love playing the class and spec, but I certainly do not play a priest because I feel that my toolkit is bigger than a Resto Shamans. I know shaman like to consider themselves the red-headed step children of WoW; however, at some point you guys need to recognize that the developers are addressing some of your concerns. After all, they just designed the latest raid tier around your healing toolkit.

[Kralljin]

Our level 90 talents pretty efficient and useful but very, very boring, imho.

My thoughts, as long as they are pretty useful, i'm fine.

[Alltat]

As resto, we get nothing new that will have any noticeable impact on how we play. Everything new we get comes with a cooldown of several minutes, and since we already have those, it's just more of the same. Clicking a few more buttons per fight isn't going to really affect anything. TBC brought Earth Shield, Water Shield and Tidal Force (a throughput cooldown that eventually got removed). WotLK brought Riptide, Tidal Waves and Earthliving. Cataclysm brought Healing Rain, Unleash Elements and Timewalker. Pandaria brings... long cooldowns. I'm not impressed.

By comparison, priests get Cascade, Divine Star and Halo. Holydins get Eternal Flame, Holy Prism, Light's Hammer, and Stay of Execution. Druids get Cenarion Ward and healing Force of Nature. We get Healing Tide Totem every three minutes. It's not bad, but compared to everyone else it's boring. Dull. Uninspired.

---------- Post added 2012-07-21 at 03:13 PM ----------

At first i was hesitant about elemental blast being any useful for resto, but since it comes with hit rating baked in, now i am pretty excited for it in a PvE setting.

It's useless. The duration is too short compared to the casting time, meaning that you're spending a very significant part of your total time to get a rather weak buff some of the time. It's a HPS and HPM loss in every conceivable scenario. Including precasting. Had it worked like most of the stuff that other "hybrid" classes get and been castable as either a damage spell or a healing spell, then it could have been very interesting. In its current form, it has zero value for restoration, and wouldn't be worth ever using even if you got it baseline. It's a shame, because I like the idea.

[constantduty]

As resto, we get nothing new that will have any noticeable impact on how we play. Everything new we get comes with a cooldown of several minutes, and since we already have those, it's just more of the same. Clicking a few more buttons per fight isn't going to really affect anything. TBC brought Earth Shield, Water Shield and Tidal Force (a throughput cooldown that eventually got removed). WotLK brought Riptide, Tidal Waves and Earthliving. Cataclysm brought Healing Rain, Unleash Elements and Timewalker. Pandaria brings... long cooldowns. I'm not impressed.

By comparison, priests get Cascade, Divine Star and Halo. Holydins get Eternal Flame, Holy Prism, Light's Hammer, and Stay of Execution. Druids get Cenarion Ward and healing Force of Nature. We get Healing Tide Totem every three minutes. It's not bad, but compared to everyone else it's boring. Dull. Uninspired.

Come on. Resto Shaman's get readiness and tranq in their talent trees as well as another powerful CD in Ascendance baseline. I can't help but feel Resto Shaman's always through the baby out with the bathwater...So, you're not impressed with your level 90 talents. Just because you're not in love with them does not mean you didn't get anything new...

[Deleted]

I think its a bit strange that some of our talents dont have different effects for healing or dps. I feel a bit limited as resto compared to on my druid where i can pick from all of the 3 talents in a tier both as resto and as dps/tank.
One thing that worries me after the cote nerf is that every sane resto shaman will go with healing tide totem getting it nerfed into nothingness as well.

[Endus]

I think its a bit strange that some of our talents dont have different effects for healing or dps. I feel a bit limited as resto compared to on my druid where i can pick from all of the 3 talents in a tier both as resto and as dps/tank.

It's a difference in class concept. Shaman have always been about enhancing their existing spells in various ways. That's one of our core concepts. That's why we have mechanics like Tidal Waves and Earthliving Weapon and Ancestral Awakening, that work off and adjust our existing toolset. Those extra spells for other specs are, mostly, damage/healing hybrid spells, and they're typically pretty situational from what I've seen, whereas the options for Resto Shaman are a bit more universally useful. Plus, we've got a healing/damage hybrid in Elemental Blast; it doesn't do direct healing but, in the same manner as Unleash Earthliving, it boosts subsequent healing, so you can use it during downtime to supercharge the next 8 seconds of healing. That won't always be an ideal pick, but there's two other options for fights where it isn't.

One thing that worries me after the cote nerf is that every sane resto shaman will go with healing tide totem getting it nerfed into nothingness as well.

One of the big reasons people were pushing for HTT was that CoTE would reset it. Now that it won't, there's a lot more viability to Ancestral Guidance and Conductivity by comparison.

[Deleted]

This thread reminds mi of a Calvin&Hobbes comic strip: http://www.versvs.net/archivos/artic...08-euforia.gif
If they are efficient and useful the only "quality" difference between the shaman talents and the other clases talents are the sparkles.

ED: if ascendance (super saiyan mode) is not cool enough I don't know what else would you want.

[mjolnrik]

Why do people keep comparing us to other healers? We have enough tools to keep people alive and compete with other healers when played right. So theres no reason to say "shamans are neglected and all the other healers get some new cool tricks" blah blah blah, we have enough to keep people alive and some sweet talents of our own, healing tide anyone? And if thats not good enough for you how about ascendance? I think they are perfectly fine how they are and if you think other healer classes are better in anyway, maybe you should roll one instead?

[Lorthiros]

Thanks for the replies people, I hadn't looked at it that way... Yeah shaman do look positive now that I read some of the comments
What I'm wondering, will Chain Heal work like some of the other AoE heals (as in you don't need to worry as much about spacing) when glyphed (give 4 sec CD and make the bounce range 25yards)? Will be interesting to see and definitely fun to use.
Cheers guys, but do keep on the discussion!

[Deleted]

You people do moan a lot. These changes are good, I'm incredibly excited for Enhancement shaman in MoP. This reminds me of the Mass Effect 3 ending cult, I thought it's ending was great, but the clowns who are so elitest into what they want, demanded better things and eventually they were given their lollipops. Blizzard are doing a good job on the Shamans end so far, give it time things may change. I'm not a fan of the totem-cooldown system, but I'm sure I'll grow to like it later on.

Deal with it.

[Deleted]

Why do people keep comparing us to other healers? We have enough tools to keep people alive and compete with other healers when played right. So theres no reason to say "shamans are neglected and all the other healers get some new cool tricks" blah blah blah, we have enough to keep people alive and some sweet talents of our own, healing tide anyone? And if thats not good enough for you how about ascendance? I think they are perfectly fine how they are and if you think other healer classes are better in anyway, maybe you should roll one instead?

I think you misunderstand me, i wanted to know why our talent design looked the way it did compared to other hybrids. Endus took his time with answering the question and sumed it up perfectly.

When i raid i dont always get to choose what i play for progression fights so a bit of comparison between the healers is only natural.

My main is a shaman and i will play him as much aas possible as i prefer the feel of the class (goes a long way).
I'm more worried about our mana regen than our talents at the moment.

[Endus]

Why do people keep comparing us to other healers? We have enough tools to keep people alive and compete with other healers when played right.

To be fair, Resto Shaman need to be able to pull their weight in raids and PvP as healers, or they'll be relegated to second-class status. That's reason enough to compare us, in general terms, with other healers.

That said, I agree there's little point in comparing the specifics of our toolkits. To use actual toolkits as an analogy, it's like looking at another guy's toolkit and saying "awww, he's got a shiny Robertson screwdriver, AND a flathead, AND a Phillips. I've just got this one multi-socket screwdriver." You're focusing too much on the tools and not what the tools do; both mechanics are equally capable of driving or removing screws of the three most popular types. Using three screwdrivers versus using one interchangeable one doesn't mean you're better with screws.

That's loosely how I see Shaman design; we have flexible tools and the means to adjust them to fit our needs, where other classes just have a wider variety of more narrowly applicable tools. Spells like Light's Hammer look cool, but for healing purposes doesn't do anything Resto can't already do with Healing Rain and possibly Conductivity. Maybe less AoE damage (though it DOES work with CL, if you really want to), but arguably better healing.

[Deleted]

You people do moan a lot. These changes are good, I'm incredibly excited for Enhancement shaman in MoP. This reminds me of the Mass Effect 3 ending cult, I thought it's ending was great, but the clowns who are so elitest into what they want, demanded better things and eventually they were given their lollipops. Blizzard are doing a good job on the Shamans end so far, give it time things may change. I'm not a fan of the totem-cooldown system, but I'm sure I'll grow to like it later on.

Deal with it.

And then there's the clowns who are so elitist that they open their mouth about Enhancement stuff while the OP is talking about Resto's toolkit. Moving on...

I always thought that Resto had a very limited choice of talents for MoP, but that might just be me. I'd like to see them remove on of the three level 90 talents and replace it with something for Resto, but I doubt that's gonna happen. They can bin the new UE buff talent for all I care, though...

[Amuatar]

They haven't really changed much with Shaman in quite a while. Most Shaman aren't happy, but they haven't changed anything in a long time. Its also interesting to read all of the patch notes... most classes get a good amount of changes, where Shaman are lucky to get a line.