Legion Restoration Shaman Alpha Discussion

[FrogBow]

Yeah I like UL on live a lot but TBH I mostly like it for the run speed.

If they wanted something to de-prune I wish they would have just given back Totemic Projection.

[Deleted]

"Mama always said resto shaman class design was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

[Skillz]

Gardiff, how is the mana flow now on alpha? Does resto shamans heal god in terms of mana used? Or do we need to use alot of mana to heal as good as rest of healing classes that dont need to use as much?

Im not on alpha, but i can imagine that you are right when it comes to an awkward flow to atm. Dont really understand that they dont notice them selfs. Its like they do changes without testing them.

[shammypie]

I really dont understand the resto design goal, it keeps getting worse. Taking away the sort of rotation we could have with riptide - 2x healing wave, repeat. Was so great early on to keep mana under control. Chain heal - 2x healing wave was also a good round.

They went with riptide and chain heal to only give 2 charges off tidal pols with the crashing waves talent. And now even that is gone... Really, what was so damn op about riptide giving 2 stacks?

If this is going forward, they better open up for tidal waves to stack up to atleast 4, so we can plan some ahead when some spot healing is needed. Or maybe they want us to cast lightning bolts instead of heals when spot healing is needed and riptide is on cd.

The resto design goal is still the same what we are seeing now is tweaking. Tweaking outside of a purely numerical perspective is always worse than the original. To be fair rushing streams was an over dominating talent that probably deserved a spot of the 75/90 row for the power it brings. With noob weapons it becomes godly in terms of power and utility.

As far as current version goes torrent is your best bet considering I believe they removed the interaction with healing rain. Healing rain plus an unleash boost would make the talent more attractive and to be honest it's not a bad raiding spell simply due to the instant cast time for movement heals. But it's bad in every way to the 2 passives you can because it's minor utility vs upgrades to.

Bottomline: nerfs suck and unleash life is designed to never be taken or competitive, it's a throwback for the removal of a tier 15 talent.

[Gardiff]

Gardiff, how is the mana flow now on alpha? Does resto shamans heal god in terms of mana used? Or do we need to use alot of mana to heal as good as rest of healing classes that dont need to use as much?

Im not on alpha, but i can imagine that you are right when it comes to an awkward flow to atm. Dont really understand that they dont notice them selfs. Its like they do changes without testing them.

I really don't have any mana problems in raids if I heal correctly and this is without bottomless depths.

I can link logs if you want but when there are encounters that have damage in mini bursts, we absolutely shine with going an efficient build with spells like wellspring / cloudburst totem / AG. But this is with me watching ~6 spells on a short timer and I had to plan ahead to figure out what I was using for the bursts.

For instance, Ursoc is a fight where there is massive burst every 35 seconds with low damage in between. I had to actually write down what I was going to use for each burst since things like weak auras don't exist and so I needed a reminder every pull until I got used to it. Below is kind of what I had.

1) HST + EST + CBT + WELLSPRING + GIFT
2) HST + CBT + WELLSPRING + SWG + GUIDANCE
3) HST + EST + CBT + WELLSPRING + HTT
4) HST + CBT + WELLSPRING + SWG + GIFT
5) HST + EST + CBT + WELLSPRING + NOTHING
6) HST + CBT + WELLSPRING + SWG + GUIDANCE + GIFT

I was comparing this type of playstyle to other shaman who were CH'ing a bit more and my mana was rarely going below 50% while they were managing to OoM themselves with doing the same amount of healing and same duration of an encounter.

HOWEVER, this type of burst healing does not work for every encounter.

The most recent raid encounter (the Botanist) was one that you simply could not make use of WS/HR/Gift (stack spells). So you had to rely on CH spam. And I was able to last ~6 minutes (with still 25% of my mana) if I CH spammed at the appropriate times. I did not spec Bottomless Depths. I saw that other shaman had higher HPS output when compared to me on this fight but they were also under healing the fight relative to what my group was doing and were also pressing CH way too much to cause themselves to OoM.

So I don't think in raiding we will have issues from a mana perspective IF you play smart. There are plenty of people on alpha who are having mana issues because all they do is CH spam on every encounter and they go OoM ~3-4 minutes in. This type of sentiment exists across ALL healers, but I have been able to find plenty of healers of other classes who don't manage to OoM themselves if they play smart (but the vast majority don't play smart and so they OoM as a result of spamming inefficient spells). If you play smart and perhaps do a slightly less amount of healing while making use of your talents, mana is less of a concern. But people don't want to do this on alpha since everyone is trying to maximize HPS as they don't have their add-ons, WA's, UI's, and the whole point is to last as long as you can in an encounter to see as many mechanics as you can.

In 5 mans / CMs, I really hate mana, however. It still is nothing but healing surge spam even with the TW nerfs. After almost every pull or two you have to drink. CMs in particular are really bad. I dunno, this is how I feel about mana anyway.

[Nyel]

Why oh why is Unleash Life back. That skill is awful and doesn't solve any of the ST issues Shamans have.

[Shockeye]

Unleash Life bumped out Rushing Streams?
What the hell?
Sure Rushing Streams didn't address single target healing problems but it worked well with one of the best abilities we have. Unleash is currently, on live, only useful for the move boost, not for the healing component.

[Blistero]

Unleash Life bumped out Rushing Streams?
What the hell?
Sure Rushing Streams didn't address single target healing problems but it worked well with one of the best abilities we have. Unleash is currently, on live, only useful for the move boost, not for the healing component.

Wait Unleash Life was a heal and a healing bonus for next spell. WTF I thought it was a fun Sprint mechanic spell.

[Rezhka]

Unleash Life bumped out Rushing Streams?
What the hell?
Sure Rushing Streams didn't address single target healing problems but it worked well with one of the best abilities we have. Unleash is currently, on live, only useful for the move boost, not for the healing component.

Unleash Life on live is pretty useful on pvp if you spec into Unleash Fury and EoTE. The healing bump on riptide is great, and to Healing Surge when crit is enormous. But I don't see it'll be as good without UF and EoTE featuring it. The only best scenario that I can think of for UL is, to bump Wellspring heal. Since their cooldown is kinda close each other. I wonder if it also bump CBT heal. If so then, UL is not that meh imo.

[Shockeye]

It certainly better be buffed up to be useful. It still doesn't, as near as I can tell, make an attractive alternative to Torrent. But bringing it back as a talent is a pretty bad joke, I agree. Nobody uses UL for the heal component on live, many don't use it at all even for the speed boost. Were it a WoD talent, it'd be constantly ignored.

[Skillz]

It certainly better be buffed up to be useful. It still doesn't, as near as I can tell, make an attractive alternative to Torrent. But bringing it back as a talent is a pretty bad joke, I agree. Nobody uses UL for the heal component on live, many don't use it at all even for the speed boost. Were it a WoD talent, it'd be constantly ignored.

Would be a interesting talent if they buffed the intitial heal. Could be our one and only instant that heals decent.

[chandy]

I am convinced the only reason they left torrent that strong is because they wanted competition with RS and with rushing streams gone, they will probably nerf torrent and then undulation next to make them competitive with unleash life.

Looking at the most recent raid logs, it looks like we are back to chain heal spam. What I can't get over is how no one is talking about how the removal of rushing stream cripples our spread healing.

[Deleted]

The hit our spread healing took with this change is huge. It is also a nerf for EotE which in my opinion now falls below other two options. As it is now, resto is probably the second worst spread healer, however I think we're still strong ST and bunch healers. Hopefully we'll have lots of bunch fights

[Chucksauce]

The hit our spread healing took with this change is huge. It is also a nerf for EotE which in my opinion now falls below other two options. As it is now, resto is probably the second worst spread healer, however I think we're still strong ST and bunch healers. Hopefully we'll have lots of bunch fights

Actually, given the nerf to CW we are one of, if not the worst ST healer as well. We do well in stacked fights, but spread fights or challenge modes, our toolkit isn't made for them.

[Rarch]

Would be a interesting talent if they buffed the intitial heal. Could be our one and only instant that heals decent.

Hrm, I never really thought about that. I'll really miss Ancestral Swiftness for the instant heal, which I think is a huge utility benefit in raids. I've used it almost exclusively over EotE this expansion. If UL were buffed enough to essentially replace Swiftness, that might be nice. I use Swiftness with CH a lot, too, though, so I'd probably pick UL based more on what the fight wants, rather than by default.

Still, the closer we get to the launch of the expansion, and the more they iterate on Resto, the less excited I am about the spec, and the expansion in general. I'll likely end up playing Holy Priest, which looks like a really interesting and fun spec, but that means the expansion already failed in one aspect for me, because Resto Shaman is my favorite spec, and if it's so boring I don't want to play it, that's a really bad thing.

Hopefully there's still more to come that will ignite my interest in the spec for Legion.

[shammypie]

The hit our spread healing took with this change is huge. It is also a nerf for EotE which in my opinion now falls below other two options. As it is now, resto is probably the second worst spread healer, however I think we're still strong ST and bunch healers. Hopefully we'll have lots of bunch fights

believe it or not this is an improvement from 1 expansion ago back until BC. #1 worst spread healer curse is gone!

Also UL -> not a joke, but still funny

[Staryu]

Remain calm, they still havent tuned healers. Lets wait 2 months or so and then we can panic about w/e. As far as unhappiness with playstyles....well...maybe upcoming changes will bring some good news for you/us.

[Chucksauce]

Remain calm, they still havent tuned healers. Lets wait 2 months or so and then we can panic about w/e. As far as unhappiness with playstyles....well...maybe upcoming changes will bring some good news for you/us.

Talking about tuning seriously at this point is pointless, I agree. But the window to making mechanical changes is growing ever smaller, as the current dev team has shown almost virulent opposition to making those kind of changes close to live.

[Gardiff]

I really don't feel the spec is boring on alpha (from a raiding perspective) in the slightest. This is coming from someone who has raid tested every heroic and mythic encounter so far. We have never really had any variation apart from single targets or CH spam on live. It is always one or another.

But, I don't think I have ever been more engaged on alpha than when I go builds like EST, CBT, WS, AG. On today's fight I was doing pretty well and this is without my standard weak auras.

Having to manage basically 7 spells on CD to time for bursts appropriately is not something we really do on live. But when you have to manage EST (1 min cd), Gift (45 sec cd) CBT (30 sec cd), CBT recall, WS (20 sec CD), AG (2 min cd but has to be timed well with WS/CBT), HR (isn't going to be down 100% of the time), and HST (this one is more or less pressed on CD unless if you go EotE), that is pretty engaging to me and I like that Legion is offering this type of playstyle. The best part is you are rewarded for it if you do everything right.

Unfortunately, EST, WS, HR are not usable on every fight. And when this occurs, we are more or less locked into supporting a CH playstyle with a good mix of HW thrown in along with riptide. I still use CBT/AG in these cases and Gift can still be used. This is not really different than how we typically start off expansions and it absolutely beats what we do in end expansion raids. Rarely does CH exceed 25% of my output which is not an absurdly high number.

Our talents are designed really well for raiding. People can complain about RS but at the end of the day, it was just too powerful with too little thought. It was doing something like 12-14% of my output and it was all passive healing.

While CBT does do about 10-11%, EST (if appropriate) does do about 8-10%, and AG does do about 7-8%, ALL THESE examples are active spells which require me to use actual thought to get mileage out of. I don't just randomly drop CBTs for any reason - AND I do recall them frequently. EST I don't want to waste as its on a 1 minute CD and a 10 yard radius. Not only that, but you have to learn that EST won't be usable on every fight. AG we already know.

And then we still have our long CDS like HTT/SLT which more or less fulfill the same roles that they have always done.

Our talents are actually really well designed right now for raiding.

T15 - UL is pretty bad for raiding in its current state, but it was just added and I expect it to be adjusted or changed. Torrent and Undulation are pretty comparable from a raiding perspective.

T30 - Great options all around

T45 - Every class has one of these so not really too annoyed by having a tier like this

T60 - Our only bad tier since AG is the only real choice here as Deluge is mediocre and CW does not do much with the nerfs

T75 - Hard to evaluate APT in these short raid tests but EST has a very specific role and Vigor is strong

T90 - While is everyone is fawning over CBT, you have to remember these raid tests have us at an inflated ilvl with all our artifacts - Thus mana will probably be a concern on some fights and BD will have a role. EotE will have a role as well especially with tier bonuses and torrent

T100 - Literally every talent on this tier is speccable depending on the fight.

----

I do have some issues with the artifact tree with things like tidal totems being terrible and a lot of bugs are still present, but I am sure some of these artifacts will be adjusted.

The only true negative is that all of the above ONLY describes stuff from a raiding perspective.

5 mans and CModes are pretty bad right now for the class and I don't see that changing because it is a MECHANIC issue and not a simple numbers problem. They can adjust HW/HS/riptide and TW all they want, but most of our abilities do not work well in a small setting. Basically, we cannot use HR/CH/Gift/CDs (they are weaker in 5 mans) etc effectively in 5 mans and so the class has some definite struggles on certain aspects seen in Cmodes or 5 mans. We do have a 45 second capacitor speccable which is great. But without that, I would feel utterly useless on certain pulls because all I end up doing is spamming HS over and over for 70% of my healing on certain pulls. Not only is this a bad playstyle, it just is not engaging at all, unlike how we are in alpha raids. If I get a group that lets me make use of CH / CBT it is better but this is not possible in every dungeon.

There is a staggering amount of difference between shaman in raids and 5 mans on alpha currently and most of the discontent you see on the alpha forums stem from the class on 5 mans because that has consistently remained the same (bad) since the class has been enabled in late January. This is how I feel after having done every dungeon / heroic 5 or 6 times and some Cmodes. If I happen to get a 3 melee group, I love it because then I can make use of the rest of the toolkit with no issue, even if the melee happen to take more damage because they are melee. But this doesn't always happen.

[Shockeye]

That's a great run-down Gardiff, thanks for that; I've been hoping to see something like a "state of spec" overview so thank you.
How often do you find yourself casting Healing Rain now given our new spells and such? You mention that it's not on CD, but is it really only done in conjunction with using CDs for large damage moments, or more frequently whenever there are 5 or so players able to be covered by it?

Right now on live I tend to use it on CD in raids as more often than not there are enough people in an area to benefit, and it's a good "maintenance" spell for small healing while I tend to others taking more damage. Is that consistent with alpha or is HR just too costly mana-wise to use it that frequently?

Regarding the 5 man weaknesses, that's really unfortunate for everyone in the group, but particularly for the Resto Shaman player. Heroic dungeons have traditionally been a reasonable spot to start learning how some of our new abilities work, but if the bigger CDs are rendered badly then we've only got raids to figure stuff out. Hopefully 5 man issues will be fixed before launch.