Ascendance should have been a talent.

[shammypie]

No, Ascendance should remain baseline. Primal Elementalist would not make any sense whatsoever for restoration.

i think the whole last talent tier didn't make sense for resto (especially before the PE change when they first threw it out)

[whyabadi]

So lets remove the only self-DPS cooldown from elemental shamans.

...and give them Primal Elementalist instead, yes. Also, you get a choice between Elemental Blast which is a 1 min self-dps cd or Ascendance.

No, Ascendance should remain baseline. Primal Elementalist would not make any sense whatsoever for restoration.

PE could be made into an Elemental and Enhancement ability only. I don't think there is a meaningful talent choice for Restoration shamans and I suggested a way to fix that. Just think about it for a second, why is that all Restoration shamans play the same way? There is not a single talent choice that can set a healing shaman from another. My suggestion may not be the best, but the design concern is there.

[jimmyolsen]

Better solution: Buff Unleashed Fury and swap it with Elemental Mastery. Elemental Mastery is a highly underrated talent for Resto (pop it during Ascendance or Ancestral Guidance or even right before HTT) so it solves the resto problem in that tier. It also makes Enhancement have to choose between EM and Primal Elementalist (removing the need to change Fire Elemental Totem glyph). Buff Unleashed Fury so it matches DPS for Elemental as Echo and provides a far more substantial healing bonus for Restoration (increases healing by 50%, rather than healing on that target by 50%).

[Seriss]

Better solution: Buff Unleashed Fury

...

and provides a far more substantial healing bonus for Restoration (increases healing by 50%, rather than healing on that target by 50%).

It has already been changed to be a buff on the resto shaman on PTR as opposed to the target on live.

[Mortal Strike]

Ascendance greatly alters the play style and feel of the class. It's a well-designed ability in many ways but it defines the class just too much especially enhancement and elemental. The choice between burst and sustained dps is a relevant one for damage dealing classes but is one shamans don't get to make or if they do it's not as meaningful. Look at Divine Purpose for example for paladins.

I play both a mage and a holy paladin, so I can tell you from experience that a talent which alters the playstyle of the class or spec so much is not a good talent, because it often leads to either A) the other talents being so terrible in comparison that you never take them (see: Eternal Flame), or B) the playstyle is really good until you get that talent and then it changes so much it makes everything clunky and feel really terrible to play no matter which talent you choose (see: Mage level 90 talents).