The 5.4 Shaman Thread

[Jayma]

Enhancement Shaman healing for 5-10x the amount of WW monks doesn't make much sense. JMO

[Aviators]

Enhancement's primary concern should be damage, which it does not lack.

[Deleted]

RPPM trinkets are now a very bad joke. Just been testing it on PTR as Enhance, ilvl 552, haste gemmed, letting trinket proc, got OOC for 90 sec and then startet hitting again.

Trinkets with ICD procc ALWAYS very fast so you can use them for FE and Ascendance, but RPPM trinkets are a very bad joke right now.

First, their proccrate basically is a lot lower than on live or PTR previously. Got down from 0.9 to 1.2 for enhancers to 0.54.

And what is even worse:

Those are the times until the first trinket procc (after waiting 90 sec after a proc):
80 seconds
55 seconds
72 seconds

Basically this means that we won't be able to line up those trinkets with Ascendance and FE - which in the end makes them totally worthless. We will have to take trinkets with ICD.

[Wataurenyew]

No, but 2 stacks on L. Shield from Rolling Thunder was exciting, as it changed the playstyle at least a litte (as we speak from t14).

The T16 bonuses are boring as they dont change the playstyle in any way. Mabey you can micro with the 2p, and apply it directly before an ascendance to get the 4% more dmg for the duration, but thats it, not to mention its a debuff on the target wich messes up targetswitching even more.
The 4p is totally boring, as you have absolutely no control over the elemental, it does near to 0 dmg, ~2.5k dps (considering the 1min icd) in my last tests which is just laughable as we in t15h already hit the 250k dps mark, so t16h will probably end up in 350k+, but sure in at least 300k+, so its less than 0.8% dmg increase. On a 4p bonus.

I didn't say that the T16 bonues aren't boring, but most boring ever?
I just picked the 5% LB damage as a recent example of more boring bonus, but if he meant the most boring 2p / 4p combo, I'm going to still say it's not.
10% crit on Flame shock and 10% cast time reduction on LB was more boring than at least getting a visual from a proc.

[Deleted]

Basically this means that we won't be able to line up those trinkets with Ascendance and FE - which in the end makes them totally worthless. We will have to take trinkets with ICD.

Hmm does that mean I can start using passive agi trinkets again? (might be worth trying to snag one from Primo HC or Lei Shen for when the patch hits)

[Deleted]

Some thoughts on the new Conductivity talent:
Assuming your HR rotation is UE>HR>HR without conductivity, you have HR up for 20 seconds out of 23 seconds and need to spend around 4s cast time. 10 of those 20 seconds HR uptime will also do an additional 30% healing thanks to conductivity.

With conductivity you have 23 out of 23 seconds uptime and every HR tick will be buffed by the 30% from UE.

In numbers, thats going to come out as a 30% buff from HR ticks and around 3 additional HW casts with TW:
(10*1.3 + 10) / 23 = 1.0 vs. (23*1.3)/23 = 1.3

Now assuming HR will do 2m healing every 10s or a total of 24m raw healing over 120 seconds, then not having conductivity would come out to 24 / 1.3 = 18.46 healing. So conductivity is a gain of around 5.5m raw healing, whereas AG would provide the 2m*1.8 = 3.6m from HR while doing so with less overhealing. Conductivity also grants a total of around 20.8s of more time to spend casting during those 120s, which is very comparable to the 180% additional healing during 10s of AG.

Two more advantages of Conductivity are better mana efficiency (up to ~220k mana saved over 2 minutes) and a significant QoL gain, because you no longer need to watch HR/UE timers as much and you no longer need to cast a ground targeted spell as much. Another advantage is that we no longer need to reach an HR haste breakpoint for haste to boost Healing Rain, which could turn out very significant for BL and EM.

All in all, which one of the two is better will obviously come down to the fight mechanics, how important an additional cooldown is, how much HR is going to overheal and how strapped you are for mana, but I can see myself playing around with it extensively.

[Deleted]

Some thoughts on the new Conductivity talent:
Assuming your HR rotation is UE>HR>HR without conductivity, you have HR up for 20 seconds out of 23 seconds and need to spend around 4s cast time. 10 of those 20 seconds HR uptime will also do an additional 30% healing thanks to conductivity.

With conductivity you have 23 out of 23 seconds uptime and every HR tick will be buffed by the 30% from UE.

In numbers, thats going to come out as a 30% buff from HR ticks and around 3 additional HW casts with TW:
(10*1.3 + 10) / 23 = 1.0 vs. (23*1.3)/23 = 1.3

Now assuming HR will do 2m healing every 10s or a total of 24m raw healing over 120 seconds, then not having conductivity would come out to 24 / 1.3 = 18.46 healing. So conductivity is a gain of around 5.5m raw healing, whereas AG would provide the 2m*1.8 = 3.6m from HR while doing so with less overhealing. Conductivity also grants a total of around 20.8s of more time to spend casting during those 120s, which is very comparable to the 180% additional healing during 10s of AG.

Two more advantages of Conductivity are better mana efficiency (up to ~220k mana saved over 2 minutes) and a significant QoL gain, because you no longer need to watch HR/UE timers as much and you no longer need to cast a ground targeted spell as much. Another advantage is that we no longer need to reach an HR haste breakpoint for haste to boost Healing Rain, which could turn out very significant for BL and EM.

All in all, which one of the two is better will obviously come down to the fight mechanics, how important an additional cooldown is, how much HR is going to overheal and how strapped you are for mana, but I can see myself playing around with it extensively.

For that to be true the raid needs to stand still in ur Healing Rain over a longer period, I don't see that happen in SoO except maybe Malkorok, but cooldowns and burst healing is going to be the key to that fight.

Atleat for me in the 10man testing so far it felt like I had to move my Healing Rain every new cast.

Maybe if we had fights like in Dragon Soul it could be a viable talent choice.

[Deleted]

That is true. I was sure I had written something along those lines in my post somewhere. It's mainly going to be interesting if you can keep HR in 1 spot for at least a minute or two at a time. I could still imagine a scenario where Conductivity helps in situations where you move to a new spot every 15-20s, because people will not run out of HR while it's still up and you don't need to delay HR if you are about to move to a new spot. The numbers above do not apply to such a scenario, though. It doesn't have to be the best choice on every or even the majority of fights to be a good talent.

[oblivionx]

I took a look and started gearing up enhancement with the primary idea being "we can run 2 healers" until i saw the nerf.

Hate seeing any shammie nerfs, but I think they had to do with this one.

[Deleted]

What is with the 100% buff to healing rain through purification? Did i miss anything or are they buffing it that much?

[Tiberria]

What is with the 100% buff to healing rain through purification? Did i miss anything or are they buffing it that much?

They were originally going to buff the 25 man target cap from 6 to 14 on Healing Rain (effectively up to a 133% buff if 14+ people are stacked). They reverted that and instead did this. This way, 10 mans get the buff, and 25 mans get stronger HR ticks even for spread fights (although it's about 17% weaker on stacked fights than the original change).

The change is needed. Shaman are near the bottom for stacked healing on live, which is supposed to be our niche, so something drastic needed to be buffed to ensure that we are the top stacked healer.

[Deleted]

Yes, they're reverting the increased target cap for 25mans (was a 0-133% buff) and giving a 100% buff to both 10 and 25man Resto Shamans instead. Very strange that the newest patch notes still contain the increased target cap for HR.

[Deleted]

Imo it only makes the choices we have more ovbious. I cannot see why this is a good change, but I guess it's needed. But the class is less fun with this

[Tiberria]

Imo it only makes the choices we have more ovbious. I cannot see why this is a good change, but I guess it's needed. But the class is less fun with this

Well, it further cements the fact that Healing Rain needs to be used on cooldown all the time, even on 1 target. The only real difference to our play style is that before this change, HR was worth using on 2+ targets (and border line on 1). It probably still should be used on cooldown on every fight except maybe Dark Animus this tier. All the change really does is buffs the results of doing something we should already be doing.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, they're reverting the increased target cap for 25mans (was a 0-133% buff) and giving a 100% buff to both 10 and 25man Resto Shamans instead. Very strange that the newest patch notes still contain the increased target cap for HR.

They do not; it is crossed out on both the new patch notes, the datamining of the build, and removed from the tooltip on the PTR. MMOC just didn't put it in their patch note summary on the front page.

[Raiju]

Enhancement's primary concern should be damage, which it does not lack.

This is a 5.4 thread, we're taking one of the heaviest hits from RPPM change so we should be mindful of our damage sneaking back down again.

[Deleted]

The change is needed. Shaman are near the bottom for stacked healing on live, which is supposed to be our niche, so something drastic needed to be buffed to ensure that we are the top stacked healer.

The buff was needed, but we're not really that much behind in stacked healing. We're generally even or above other classes on Ra-den P2, but on fights like Megaera, other classes will have proactive spells and the damage just doesn't last long enough for us to make up for that. If Megaera's AoE lasted 30 seconds or the time between Iron Qons stomps was shorter, we'd be looking much better. But seeing how limited our toolkit is and how it doesn't work with most encounters at all, they're either way overbuffing our stacked healing or we'll always be better off playing a more versatile healer.

They do not; it is crossed out on both the new patch notes, the datamining of the build, and removed from the tooltip on the PTR. MMOC just didn't put it in their patch note summary on the front page.

It isn't crossed out on the EU patch notes. It's probably an oversight.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/101...08_2013#shaman

[Tiberria]

The buff was needed, but we're not really that much behind in stacked healing. We're generally even or above other classes on Ra-den P2, but on fights like Megaera, other classes will have proactive spells and the damage just doesn't last long enough for us to make up for that. If Megaera's AoE lasted 30 seconds or the time between Iron Qons stomps was shorter, we'd be looking much better. But seeing how limited our toolkit is and how it doesn't work with most encounters at all, they're either way overbuffing our stacked healing or we'll always be better off playing a more versatile healer.

25H Ra-Den http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Ra-den/25...00000000111111

We are actually currently the 2nd weakest healer and ~15% behind on Ra-Den on an aggregate level, and there is no fight this expansion that better exemplifies a fight that should fit in well with our stacked healing niche. The fact that we are not dominating, let alone are near the bottom on this fight shows what a complete design failure the spec is on live. Also, their intent isn't that we do the same healing on stacked fights as other healer, their intent is that we do significantly more healing on stacked fights. We should be on top by 20%+ on that fight type to compensate for having spread healing tools that are at least 10-20% weaker than other classes.

I don't think there's a single Resto Shaman that would rather have a more balanced stack/spread toolkit over dominating one fight type and sucking at another. However, they do not seem to want to move off the design concept of the stacked healing niche, so the least that they can do is to make sure that we aren't worse than other healers even on stacked fights. Plus, this buff will help quite a bit on spread fights, because you already are using Healing Rain most of the time anyway; there is rarely a fight in 25H where HR drops below 20% of my output. The buff will be very helpful in remaining competitive on spread fights - much more helpful than the target cap solution would have been.

[wordup]

25H Ra-Den http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Ra-den/25...00000000111111

We are actually currently the 2nd weakest healer and ~15% behind on Ra-Den on an aggregate level, and there is no fight this expansion that better exemplifies a fight that should fit in well with our stacked healing niche. The fact that we are not dominating, let alone are near the bottom on this fight shows what a complete design failure the spec is on live. Also, their intent isn't that we do the same healing on stacked fights as other healer, their intent is that we do significantly more healing on stacked fights. We should be on top by 20%+ on that fight type to compensate for having spread healing tools that are at least 10-20% weaker than other classes.

I don't think there's a single Resto Shaman that would rather have a more balanced stack/spread toolkit over dominating one fight type and sucking at another. However, they do not seem to want to move off the design concept of the stacked healing niche, so the least that they can do is to make sure that we aren't worse than other healers even on stacked fights. Plus, this buff will help quite a bit on spread fights, because you already are using Healing Rain most of the time anyway; there is rarely a fight in 25H where HR drops below 20% of my output. The buff will be very helpful in remaining competitive on spread fights - much more helpful than the target cap solution would have been.

He did however point out, Ra-Den P2, in which raidbots doesn't calculate the effects of P1 on healing meters.

[Tiberria]

He did however point out, Ra-Den P2, in which raidbots doesn't calculate the effects of P1 on healing meters.

P1 is also stacked healing with a relatively high amount of damage going out. With 5 healers, each healer averages 80,000 to 100,000 HPS in P1 of that fight. If Shaman are not doing beating other healers in that phase (which we obviously are not), our stacked healing niche is not working.

[wordup]

P1 is also stacked healing with a relatively high amount of damage going out. With 5 healers, each healer averages 80,000 to 100,000 HPS in P1 of that fight. If Shaman are not doing beating other healers in that phase (which we obviously are not), our stacked healing niche is not working.

P1 is a lot lower consistent damage, is far more spikey in which by design it is not going to be outdone by priests who can pre-shield and monks who can on demand burst multiple targets. In P2, in all top 10 logs comparisons, HPS is relatively similar, if not slightly ahead.