Shaman Healing endgame

[mmc]

I don't understand why OP cares about being number 1 on chart instead doing a good job in raid as in keep the guys alive.

Don't play a healing class if you care too much about meters.

Healing meters are not DPS ones.

[Dalemite]

As an ulduar resto shaman, I have noticed that I personally excel at pure HPS during fights that have a LOT of raid damage going around, example: mimiron\XT. We ruled on Najentus, Felmyst, Eredar twins, Muru, etc. With minimal raid damage and the boss hitting like a train, pallies top our meters. With burst raid damage happening sporadically, it seems that druids\priests are on top. We all have our niche fights, and that's the way the game is supposed to be. I personally don't want every class to be the same.

As per 3.2 Tidal Wave change, I like it and I don't. A 0.8 sec LHW is really nice for an OSHT moment, but it messes with GCD, so you can have a miscast hiccup, causing someone to die.

[mekeritrig]

I don't understand why OP cares about being number 1 on chart instead doing a good job in raid as in keep the guys alive.

Don't play a healing class if you care too much about meters.

Healing meters are not DPS ones.

Healing meters are very good indicators of parity between healing classes in aoe situations. If you don't think high marks on meters for Druid and Priest healing has something to do with them being the favored healers for Hard Modes you're very wrong

[Nedrud]

I see you didn't read that the bounce range of chain heal was changed from 7 yards to 12.5 yards,

The CH jump range was increased from 10y to 12.5y: "Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards". Despite GC initially stating that the current live version of CH has a 8y jump range, it has been proved in several ways that CH already jumps 10y in live (and the jump range was exactly the same in the first builds of PTR), so it was finally increased to 12.5y (still the intended 25% jump range increase), with the new wording of the release notes implicitly confirming the current 10y jump range. Not that much of an increase tbh (2.5y): it obviously helps, but I really don't understand why CH can't have the same range of its concurrents (15y-range WG and CoH, not to mention the huge 30y range of PoH), that already hit a larger number of targets, and hit them way faster or for more when needed.

will make our raid healing on par if not better than holy priests (since their main raid heal was nerfed).

While PoH was indeed nerfed (lowering its healing amount from totally overpowered to just overpowered :P ), holy priests still have much greater flexibility than shamans when AoE healing, thanks to their wider toolbox that provides them different tools suited for different AoE damage situations, while shamans are stuck with just one spell that in WotLK really shines only on combats tailored for it, and there are not many... The fact that nowadays most shamans often use Riptide + LHW even for AoE/raid damage healing, instead of their supposed AoE spell, is significative, and I fear this will not change much even with 3.2.
The truth is, a skilled holy priest or druid who knows how to make best use of his wider/specialized toolbox will currently overshadow a skilled shaman any day of the week, when the combat allows his much greater potential to fully express (-> hard modes), and this is the only reason why shamans still look not bad in non hard modes. The truth is shamans are already near their cap in non hard modes, and can't do much more in hard modes, where holy priest and druids really shine.

3.2 brings some nice buffs for shamans, but I fear they won't be enough in their current state. Even with a 12.5y jump range and 40% jump healing reduction, CH will still land too late most of the times compared to instant WG/CoH and pre-hastened PoH, and the loss of 30% hastened LHW will remove the current niche of resto shamans (snipe/spot-healing).

[Gunja]

couldnt agree more with nedrud

[Dubroya]

As an ulduar resto shaman, I have noticed that I personally excel at pure HPS during fights that have a LOT of raid damage going around, example: mimiron\XT. We ruled on Najentus, Felmyst, Eredar twins, Muru, etc. With minimal raid damage and the boss hitting like a train, pallies top our meters. With burst raid damage happening sporadically, it seems that druids\priests are on top. We all have our niche fights, and that's the way the game is supposed to be. I personally don't want every class to be the same.

As per 3.2 Tidal Wave change, I like it and I don't. A 0.8 sec LHW is really nice for an OSHT moment, but it messes with GCD, so you can have a miscast hiccup, causing someone to die.

That's just... Wrong.

[Nejm]

To be honest our weakness is more in the lacking of mobility (heals-on-the-move), and no Riptide is just not enough.

The jumping range of CH is really lame , and on top of that the CH base cast time is another weakness which need to be addressed before we can tell its competitive with druids/priests AoE heals.

Final line, I really like the diversity of shaman healer. It might be weaker than others, but its definitely fun to play and has its uses. And I really hope Blizzard don't force us to spam only one spell like in SWP. I also agree with one of the posters above who said that every class has niche fight, that is exactly where the balance should be.

[LonezWulf]

Is anyone else concerned about the changes to Tidal Waves in 3.2?

• Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.

The removal of a cast speed increase from Lesser Healing Wave would be significant in reducing Shaman healing effectiveness. As it stands right now Riptide and LHW are the only competitive Shaman healing spells seeing as Chain Heal and Healing Wave are too slow. 25% crit isn't going to do much when every other class has a single target heal thats going to land before you finish casting.

Rant
In my opinion Shamans are currently and from what I've seen of the patch notes will continue to be an oddball healing class that underperforms in every category. Mana efficiency is a problem for Shamans more so than any of the other three healing classes, and Shamans just don't stand out very well. Druids & Holy Priests are far better AoE healers and Discipline Priests & Paladins are more effective single target healers. The only real advantage Shamans have is the wide array of buffs they bring, but it seems kind of sad Shamans are looked at for their ability to cast a specific spell once during a fight (Heroism and Bloodlust) rather than being positioned to competitively heal.
/Rant

I think its just going to be the Chain heal spam again now that it only gets reduced by 40% per jump, jumping distance was increased and Chain heal now procs watershield

[brokenmirror]

The CH jump range was increased from 10y to 12.5y: "Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards". Despite GC initially stating that the current live version of CH has a 8y jump range, it has been proved in several ways that CH already jumps 10y in live (and the jump range was exactly the same in the first builds of PTR), so it was finally increased to 12.5y (still the intended 25% jump range increase), with the new wording of the release notes implicitly confirming the current 10y jump range. Not that much of an increase tbh (2.5y): it obviously helps, but I really don't understand why CH can't have the same range of its concurrents (15y-range WG and CoH, not to mention the huge 30y range of PoH), that already hit a larger number of targets, and hit them way faster or for more when needed.

It's a 7 yard bounce, not 8 on live servers. It's 12.5 on the ptr.

You don't see why chainheal can't have the same range of other raid heals? Their raid heals have a cooldown or a longer cast time than chainheal. If you gave chainheal a 3 second cast time, i'm sure they would buff it's bounce range, but why would you want to sacrifice your speed?

You have to also keep in mind on live servers, that gearing/gemming for haste will just hurt you because of our mana problems and riptide/lhw spam, so when 3.2 comes around we will be able to gear more for chainheal spam again.

[Nedrud]

It's a 7 yard bounce, not 8 on live servers.

Not really... It was supposed to be 8y on live servers (even GC stated that, and it was also in the first version of the 3.2 patch release notes, which explicitly said CH jump range was increased from 8 to 10 y), but it was proven to be 10y instead by several players on the US official forums, so the range was finally set to 12.5y on PTR mantaining the original 25% increase (8 -> 10 = 25% increase), and thus confirming the current 10y jump range ("Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards" means that the current jump range is 10y, that's simple math ;-) ).
No one ever talked about a 7y jump range, where did you get that?

Anyway, if you don't trust me, you can read by yourself: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...31371215&sid=1
That thread contains lots of visual proof too, showing that current CH jump range on live server is 10y, and that it was exactly the same on first PTR builds (where it was supposed to have been "increased" to 10y).

You don't see why chainheal can't have the same range of other raid heals? Their raid heals have a cooldown or a longer cast time than chainheal. If you gave chainheal a 3 second cast time, i'm sure they would buff it's bounce range, but why would you want to sacrifice your speed?

Their raid heals have a cooldown because they are instant (WG and CoH), and the non instant one (PoH) can be hastened to lower casting times than CH (Serendipity) when an AoE damage burst is expected (see flexibility, as I said in my previous post), and heals for much more than CH anyway.
Beside that, the range problem come from the fact that so many WotLK combats require spread (>10y) formations, and that makes our only AoE heal almost useless.
Even when spread formations are not an issue, there's little point in being able to spam CH, when it turns out to be mostly overheal in light or bursty AoE damage situations (instant CoHs/WGs and pre-hastened PoHs have already healed much of what there was to heal when CH finally lands) or can't even come close to the HpS of other healers in heavy or sustained AoE damage situations (try healing Firefighter and see how CH HpS relates to druids and priests HpS...).

[Deleted]

It is an interesting discussion. Shamans are not the best of healers but you can still do hard modes with them . We sometimes run with 3 resto shamans.
I agree with 3.2 it will be all out haste gemming trying to minimise tidal wave change. Haste will be the best stat because it will effect LHW not like before when its cast time cut into the GCD.
Mana problems will be a thing of the past imo. Alot of shamans in PTR are unable go to oom. The chain heal change aswell as the mana improvement could allow us to be consistent raid healer without fear of running out of mana. This ofc all depends on the fights in PTR (which I havent tested yet).
HW will became more used, shamans will definetly compete in MT healing with other classes. No need to re-apply WS (will save lives) and the bigger heals for hard hitting bosses.
I would love to hear from shamans on PTR trying out few bosses. On MT healing and raid healing.
Personally I dont see us being number 1 healers but these a decent changes and if you have stayed with shamans this long change will be appreaciated.

[Krazax]

To be honest our weakness is more in the lacking of mobility (heals-on-the-move), and no Riptide is just not enough.

^This.


This is why the tidal waves change is a bad. We already lack mobility, reducing us further by reducing our 2 quick LHW's just confounds the problem we already suffer from. Furthermore, this hurts the biggest use I use LHW for.. HEALING MYSELF especially on the move.

Think of situations like Hodir (and no fire), is getting a +20% crit chance really that great compared to 30% haste on the spells? Hell no.

In addition, this change doesn't make healing wave any more desirable. I don't know why people say this. It doesn't change! It's the same as before. So what? Cast LHW for a approx 50% chance to crit on it (cuz any respectable resto sham is over 30% crit chance pre-LHW/TW 3.2 change) for 644-ish mana or cast Healing wave for 1044-ish mana and a 30% (shaman specs + raid buffs) chance to crit at about the same cast time as a LHW?

Kind of a no brainer if you ask me. LHW, especially on tank healing with the Glyph = terrific tank healing. So with 3.2 It'll be +20% heal with +20% crit chance but no +30% haste.

WOo wee but Healing Wave does 30K on the PTR!!... Um... Who cares? If I need to drop a 30K heal on a tank with regularity.. there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG going on. HW already does 20-23k for me atm. And guess what? Most of that was gross over-healing. What good is a super duper mega heal when.. 70% of it is just over-healing?

NONE!



From my perspective as an end-game resto shaman healer, 3.2 will:
#1 Turn us back into chain heal spammers
#2 Do no significant change to us as Tank healers
#3 Further reduce our mobility and instead focus more stand-and-spam tactics
#4 Fix our horrid mana issues

All Hail the Mighty Chain Heal

/sigh


Just don't understand why they don't work in poison, disease, and curse removal into the non-chainheal glyphs in some way. Could you imagine if LHW could be made to remove poisons and diseases and cause an increased heal when it does so? or a hot?

I so don't want to turn back into a chain heal spammer. =(

[Kyrottas]

I don't understand why OP cares about being number 1 on chart instead doing a good job in raid as in keep the guys alive.

Don't play a healing class if you care too much about meters.

Healing meters are not DPS ones.

As it stands Shaman currently fall short in most all categories.

I find myself arguing with guildies how Shaman does and they're all "Oh just spam Chain Heal you'll do great"

On a normal fight I average less overhealing and a higher HPS than our Chain Heal spammer. I'm rolling Riptide/LHW on targets, since is snipes slight damage to avoid overhealing from LARGE cast Raid Healers.

But I've noticed on fights like Auriaya (Crazy Cat Lady), Hodir HM, XT HM, Thorim HM

I fall behind on heals to our Holy Priest in raid, so I usually just tough it out and switch to Enhance.

Just an FYI Healing Meters are fantastic if read properly, catch overhealing use it to fix that and prevent people from healing the wrong targets.
You can also use them to determine why someone's healing output is low based on spell cast Ratio.

On fights that are really healing intensive?
HPS does wonders.
WWS go there check a Disc Priest to Holy Pally, both are damn good and very close but it will show Disc as lower on meters. Why? Absorbed damage, but if read properly you'd see that and understand

[Lysah]

Personally healing meters are useless, if you kill the boss and your target doesnt die, who cares who healed the most or who healed the least, just because someone is at the bottom of the charts doesnt mean that they didnt heal much, for all you know that person could be the person who saved the tank from dying when he was at 5% life after getting hit.

This.
The shaman who raid heals with chain and keeps alive 10 DPS during falcon punches is just, if not more important, as the holy pally who spams holy light on the main tank and tops the meters. Face smashing one button on one target doesn't make the holy paladin a better healer, it just means he's shit spamming the target taking the most damage. Each healer has their own job, and the healing meters can't reflect that job. As long as it's done and the fight is a success, every healer is fine.

[brokenmirror]

You can't agree that the meters are useless, and then say "as long as it's done and the fight is a success".

You're right that you can't compare a single target healer to someone who is raid healing on the meters, but you can compare 2 healers of the same class to see if you will continue to bring the other healer who isn't performing as well. This makes the meter useful.

[shinthar]

if every1 is alive -> job done

[Azyoulike]

I have 3 L80 healers who are all pretty decently geared - disc/holy priest, resto shaman & holy pally. The shaman is by far and a way weaker than the other 2 in ulduar. This isn't to say he's useless, I've even done an easy hard mode on him (XT-10man) on an alt run, but it's just noticable how much weaker his tools are than my priests or even my pallies.

Right now good resto shaman are doing great jobs with a crappy toolbox. Hopefully 3.2 will rebalance things again, but I do think that priests will still be OP even after the PoH nerf.

[Embermoon]

Help me out here:

Did Blizz say, somewhere, that in 3.2, we'll see every jump of CH have a chance to proc, and not just the first jump? Isn't it, currently, that only the first jump crits, and not the others? If I'm understanding that correctly, I see that as a huge benefit, for our overall healing/sec. And yes, I'm going to argue that H/sec and the meters are important. Quick reflexes and keeping the lowest health targets alive is the most important, but you can't dismiss healing throughput, over the course of a fight.

Also, it seems like a lot of people are leaving ancestral awakening procs out of the discussion. If we're going to have more crits, between LHW, riptide (mentioned because it's an instant), and CH jumps, aren't we going to see quite a bit more ancestral awakening procs? If so, there has to be some consideration given, for AA.

If I'm missing something, someone help me out, please.

[Nedrud]

Did Blizz say, somewhere, that in 3.2, we'll see every jump of CH have a chance to proc, and not just the first jump?  Isn't it, currently, that only the first jump crits, and not the others?

Each CH jump can crit independently (e.g., if you have a 40% crit chance, each single jump has a 40% chance to crit), and it has always been that way, no changes here in 3.2. The difference is that in 3.2 CH crits will be able to proc IWS (30% chance for each single crit, so RNG squared, or a 0.4 * 0.3 = 12% chance per CH jump to proc IWS assuming the 40% crit chance above).

Also, it seems like a lot of people are leaving ancestral awakening procs out of the discussion.  If we're going to have more crits, between LHW, riptide (mentioned because it's an instant), and CH jumps, aren't we going to see quite a bit more ancestral awakening procs?

Unfortunately CH crits don't proc AA. That said, in 3.2 there will be more LHW crits due to the changed Tidal Waves effect, but we will probably see a general decrease of resto shamans crit ratings, in favor of higher haste ratings.

[TheMediator]

if every1 is alive -> job done

Hard modes say No 2 u.

Healing meters are misleading at times because sometimes another guy will snipe trivial heals to boost himself, but there are times when you need to be able to heal X amount of damage or someone will die. If you struggle on a normal mode and say "Job done", then when it comes to the hard mode you won't be able to dominate.

Anyways, shamans should be rocking next patch and they already are pretty solid of a class (although they aren't the best in the faceroll AE heal environment of 25 man raids), so there's no worries about my raid spot should I decide to raid again.