Current resto situation

[KCee]

One thing alot of people here are missing, are that Ensidia is a top-tier progression guild. That means they do the content, as fast as possible, hardmodes included, if there are any. Not after they gear up in the new content. Which means they are beating the new raids with over 95% of the previous tiers equipment.

This means they are min/maxing. They are squeezing every last bit out of thier class. Assuming equal skill and gear, and actual healing cooperation (as in not snipe healing those barely injured players that already have hots on them), I'm more likely to believe what one of the top raiding shamans say, for that kind of playing field.

When are you raiding at Ensidia's level, you need people doing thier specific task, so if its raid healing, druids and holy priests do it better, if its tank healing, paladins are there. There is NO reason to take more then 1 resto shaman at THAT level of raiding for a specific task.

However (and this is where the raid leaders are failing if they are not giving you a raid spot cause you are a shaman), 90% of us are not playing at that level. We don't play anywhere near that level. We're not min/maxing because we don't need to. Chances are, by the time you clear/beat the content or hardmode, you have probably geared up quite a bit in the current content. Its easier to earn our raid spot in our raid guilds because the margin of error is a lot larger, and you do not need the best class to do X job, and your pool of raiders have a wide skill level range.

I top effective heal meters fine (which means nothing, healing a DPS for 1k health that they lost is meaningless, JoL/LotP/etc would bring them up easily, so technically, its not an useful heal), if I go sniping alot of heals w/ RT and LHW.

At my guilds level of playing, Shamans are perfectly fine, and capable of holding thier own weight in a guild.

Is that the same case for guilds going for world top10 progression? I have no clue, I'll let that decision be made by the shamans in those guilds.

Does their decisions effect me in anyway? No.

So until I feel it myself, I'll just keep healing away confident that I can do my job well.

[wraith242]

I like playing a shaman, someones crunching of numbers means little to me, i will still enjoy playing a shaman.

We may be in a bad place compared to what we were, but we still are ok, considering.

To those who say shaman are topping the meters. 1. Who cares? meters mean little, a dead boss with people alive, means dps tanking and healing was good enough. 2. you have bad druids and priests. 3. see point 1.

Im in a top raiding guild, and i know my class well, having played it since day 1, but the day I stop enjoying it is the day i reroll or quit.

People are missing the point of the GAME! it is just that.

[Jacqueimos]

However (and this is where the raid leaders are failing if they are not giving you a raid spot cause you are a shaman), 90% of us are not playing at that level. We don't play anywhere near that level.

I agree with your post, but I frankly think it's closer to 99% of us who aren't playing at the level of an Ensidia/world first type of guild.

I think that half or less of the servers even have a top progression guild that's playing anywehere near this level, and the very best servers have no more than 2 or 3.

Yes, maybe resto shamans are having problems at Ensidia's level -- where EVERYBODY in the guild is a very talented player and where they are already so good that only minor, nitpicky little changes will push their game ahead. For the rest of us, a talented resto shaman is just fine for all content and will moreover outshine a less talented druid.

The slow percolation of bad interpretation and application whenever an Ensidia or Premonition or whatever does something new reminds me of what happens when a pro athlete tweaks their game. If Tiger Woods makes a very high profile driver or putter change because he feels it will help x or y aspect of his game, within the next weeks and months I suspect you'll see a VERY large number of kids on high school golf teams also buying that club. And yet, those kids will see VERY LITTLE improvement to their games, if at all, from the new equipment. Why? Because at their stage of development, the kinds of tweaks that a top pro golfer has to make to advance his game are mostly irrelevant -- practice, skill, and fundamentals are the limiting factor.

That's the same thing that's happening when an average guild slavishly applies something that a top min/max, world first guild does.

[karrad]

I have 3k less mana without gemming for int period(no int trinkets either). Also I call shenanigans on your so called 9k ES crits. You must have what...5k SP?

with 3800-3900 sp in a raid with my totem procced the highest ES i've seen was 8350 on a prot pally without divinity. (their 20% crit healing talent effects ES)

[KCee]

I agree with your post, but I frankly think it's closer to 99% of us who aren't playing at the level of an Ensidia/world first type of guild.

That is probably true, but I decided to be generous, for 2 reasons.

One, there are plenty of extremely skilled players that are not in top-tier guilds, and are just held back by the rest of their guild. Can not really say they are not at X level just based on what they've done. As I have seen a few shamans in worse gear then me, totally destroy my healing on meters (I should mention, I don't believe meters are a good indicator of how good you are, since again, some heals are not useful (such as snipe healing), but contribute to your HPS/E.Healing on meters. Its just that there is no better alternatives (kinda like Gearscore for pugs)). Yet, the guilds they are in, are far from top tier progression guilds as can be.

And two, of course, by giving such a generous number, some of the people here, who have to boost their ego's by insisting they are awesome, cannot say I'm pointing at them, thinking I am saying they actually suck, when they believe they are good/thebest (even tho they are probably not).
Helps prevent flaming.

[jontaxe]

I am not Mek. Hell, I haven't even been resto since Naxx.

Mek might be right, Mek might be an awesome player. Or not, he might be wrong and he might suck. Why? Because that allmighty blog he posted has no useful information in it whatsoever.

No math. No numbers. No "dr00d HPS is X, we spend Y% moving, blah blah". The sort of stuff that makes EJ go.

No breakdown of fights. "We use X healers on this fight, these are the assignments, and this is why pallys/priests/droods completely outclass shaman at each one of these roles."

Not comparison of abilities. "You need every healer to bring pain suppression, so shaman are out."

Not even anecdotes. The sort of stuff that makes EJ rage. "Last 2 months, I have been crushed on healing meters by other Ensidia healers." This sort of thing is utterly useless, it gets you kick banned from EJ, but Mek doesn't even throw that in.

All I see in that article is Mek saying "resto sucks" without any elaboration at all, period. His blog post is the very definition of useless.

He might be a great shaman. He might be right. Who knows? All I know is that he has an <Ensidia> tag. That, by no means, ensures that he is some sort of great player.

[Kinettik]

I am not Mek. Hell, I haven't even been resto since Naxx.

Mek might be right, Mek might be an awesome player. Or not, he might be wrong and he might suck. Why? Because that allmighty blog he posted has no useful information in it whatsoever.

No math. No numbers. No "dr00d HPS is X, we spend Y% moving, blah blah". The sort of stuff that makes EJ go.

No breakdown of fights. "We use X healers on this fight, these are the assignments, and this is why pallys/priests/droods completely outclass shaman at each one of these roles."

Not comparison of abilities. "You need every healer to bring pain suppression, so shaman are out."

Not even anecdotes. The sort of stuff that makes EJ rage. "Last 2 months, I have been crushed on healing meters by other Ensidia healers." This sort of thing is utterly useless, it gets you kick banned from EJ, but Mek doesn't even throw that in.

All I see in that article is Mek saying "resto sucks" without any elaboration at all, period. His blog post is the very definition of useless.

He might be a great shaman. He might be right. Who knows? All I know is that he has an <Ensidia> tag. That, by no means, ensures that he is some sort of great player.

While i agree on many levels of your post, i do have to point out a few things. You use EJ in your post but believe me when i tell you that Ensidia, as a whole, hate everything about them and their site and thus the reason they dont post there. Also, the point about Mek not being good?? As much as i disagree with this latest blog of his, hes the RL of the consensus #1 ranked guild in the World, hes good, you can be assured of that.

[jontaxe]

While i agree on many levels of your post, i do have to point out a few things. You use EJ in your post but believe me when i tell you that Ensidia, as a whole, hate everything about them and their site and thus the reason they dont post there. Also, the point about Mek not being good?? As much as i disagree with this latest blog of his, hes the RL of the consensus #1 ranked guild in the World, hes good, you can be assured of that.

No, that's my entire point: I can't be assured of that. I know that he is in a good guild. That is all. I can assume that he is a good healer, probably, I can also assume that he has a pretty good grasp on other healers. But those are just assumptions. What I can't assume is that he knows anything about class balance.

Also, the fact that they take him as elemental DPS (assuming they have no other shaman or ToW/DP bitch) means that even the allegedly min-maxxing Ensidia will take a player in a not ideal class/spec if they like the player. If they are willing to take him as elemental, despite other classes do more DPS in the encounters he rattled off, why do they not take him as resto despite other classes allegedly being better healers?


I mean, I'm sure he has his reasons. But his blog post was just a more literate and slightly emo version of "lolz shamans suck". With nothing to back it up, I would no more listen to Mek than I would to some random idiot that posted the same thing here. An <Ensidia> tag does not automatically make you an expert.

[Kinettik]

No, that's my entire point: I can't be assured of that. I know that he is in a good guild. That is all. I can assume that he is a good healer, probably, I can also assume that he has a pretty good grasp on other healers. But those are just assumptions. What I can't assume is that he knows anything about class balance.

Also, the fact that they take him as elemental DPS (assuming they have no other shaman or ToW/DP bitch) means that even the allegedly min-maxxing Ensidia will take a player in a not ideal class/spec if they like the player. If they are willing to take him as elemental, despite other classes do more DPS in the encounters he rattled off, why do they not take him as resto despite other classes allegedly being better healers?


I mean, I'm sure he has his reasons. But his blog post was just a more literate and slightly emo version of "lolz shamans suck". With nothing to back it up, I would no more listen to Mek than I would to some random idiot that posted the same thing here. An <Ensidia> tag does not automatically make you an expert.

Fair enough, but its Mek. HE is the Raid leader so he would go to raid in no gear at all and still have a spot (Though i bet his OS gear is trumps to most main raiders in lesser guilds). Theres really no need to assume anything, while i dont share his views nor his opinion on this very matter he is at the front line of <Ensidia> therefore, all assumptions aside he MUST be good. His views just suck and ruin it for others that only see the tag and take his word as gold though most guilds that do that never have a realistic shot at seeing content the way that Ensidia does anyways so its quite unfair to judge "The flavor of chocolate cause someone didnt like the caviar" type thing. I know that analogy was out there but i hope you get my point.

[vixsin]

I couldn't agree with you more, Jontaxe. You absolutely nailed the gist my blog post on this same topic (linked elsewhere in this thread). I wholeheartedly respect Mek for his accomplishments and the effort it must take to operate on the cutting edge. But, I think it bears noting that the gap between Ensidia and a good raider who maybe isn't in a top guild, isn't that great. They're good players, but they aren't gods. They operate within the same limits as everyone else, with the same characters as everyone else.

So if Mek says that my class is sub-par, I'll take that as the opinion it is and nothing more. And I will exercise my right to prove him wrong every chance I get.

[KCee]

I couldn't agree with you more, Jontaxe. You absolutely nailed the gist my blog post on this same topic (linked elsewhere in this thread). I wholeheartedly respect Mek for his accomplishments and the effort it must take to operate on the cutting edge. But, I think it bears noting that the gap between Ensidia and a good raider who maybe isn't in a top guild, isn't that great. They're good players, but they aren't gods. They operate within the same limits as everyone else, with the same characters as everyone else.

So if Mek says that my class is sub-par, I'll take that as the opinion it is and nothing more. And I will exercise my right to prove him wrong every chance I get.

Yes, and No. See, the thing is, you are applying an opinion (a well informed opinion) to the other 99% of people playing WoW. 99% of the people playing WoW do not see how well <class here> does at <job required here>. Simply because most of the raiders do not need min/max.

There is a huge difference in difficulty between clearing content right out of the gate, compared to gearing up for it for a month or two before finally clearing the heroic/hardmode. Firefighter? Have decent guilds try finishing that in 213 gear, rather then waiting till the whole raid is in like 50% 226. The difficulty difference is huge.

When a top-tier guild attempts stuff, the difficulty is higher, simply because the tools (the gear) is not as good as the average guild is at when it is cleared. Its like trying to dig a 20ft hole w/ spoons in 10mins, compared to digging the same hole with shovels. There is little room for error, which means that they HAVE to be good players. Its not something you can be carried through.

With that difficulty in mind, can you not honestly say, that the players there, are at the top of their game? By that I don't mean they are the best, but that they do know their class, and what it is capable of, and can play well enough that they bring out as close as the best potential the class has. And I am sure that he can be objective enough to form a unbiased opinion based on what he has experienced from raiding w/ other skilled players for a comparison.

His opinion ONLY matters at that level of progression. It does not effect 99% of the guilds in the rest of the world. But that does not make it any less true.

In every non top-tier guild, there is always a wide range of skill. Its true, that there are very skilled shamans in top guilds on every servers just being held back by the rest of the guild, but there are also a lot of mediocore/crappy shamans that are being carried through content by their guilds.

I have raided with other resto shamans throughout 3.2, few of them even in a top US-25 guilds, others in good guilds, but not top-tier, but still in the top 5 of the server. The shamans in the top-tier progression guild out preform me easily, while the shamans in a good guild, I easily do better then.

In these good guilds, the opinion matters very little, because they have a shovel to work with, rather then a spoon.

Like I said in a previous post:

At my guilds level of playing, Shamans are perfectly fine, and capable of holding thier own weight in a guild.
Is that the same case for guilds going for world top10 progression? I have no clue, I'll let that decision be made by the shamans in those guilds.
Does their decisions effect me in anyway? No.
So until I feel it myself, I'll just keep healing away confident that I can do my job well.

[Azyoulike]

Mek might be right, Mek might be an awesome player. Or not, he might be wrong and he might suck. Why? Because that allmighty blog he posted has no useful information in it whatsoever.

No math. No numbers. No "dr00d HPS is X, we spend Y% moving, blah blah". The sort of stuff that makes EJ go.

You mistake the purpose of the blog, which is unsurprising really since you haven't played resto since Naxx.

There is no question regarding whether resto has the same potential HPS as other specs, it doesn't. Anybody who plays multiple healers knows this to be the case, anybody who can be bothered to put some numbers onto a spreadsheet knows this to be the case. Anybody who bothers to look at wowmeteronline knows this to be the case. It is fact.

It would be the same if somebody said that disco priests were superior to resto shaman when dealing with predictable raid wide damage spikes. It's self-evidently the case that they are due to the mechanics of the class.

I don't feel the need to demonstrate every fact explicitly in every post I make, apparently neither does Mek.

Mek in his recent blog was just discussing what to do about that fact. For him the answer was to go Elly, for others in other guilds it may be to reroll another healer, or try a different approach to healer assignment or any number of other things. Since the difference in potential HPS may not actually make a big difference at the level of EHPS, there may be no need for some people to do anything about it at all.

If you wish to dispute the generally accepted idea of low potential resto throughput then the onus is on you to produce detailed numbers for why it's wrong. Good luck with that.

[Tenik]

STOP the I have better HPS then other healers crap !
- Beacon of Light + spam heal + glyph kicks ass on melee aoe damage
- Hots everywhere make the raid get so much heal with the immense SP there is that our first heal from CH which may or not benifit from riptide will be overhealing

yes the healing as a resto shammy might be the most ridiculously easy one, but for god sake stop saying things like "we top meters" we don't and i liked to read that coming from a supposedly"resto shammy" "go look for your spell rotations" lol... that shows how much you know about healing at all...

All resto shammies know what i am talking about. unless you outgear the other healers there is no way for you to claim we top charters unless u say it on some fights specifically.

As some1 stated the CH is a great spell compared to HOT in like.... if the situation is bursty and please notice this INDIVIDUALLY, not in same context. CH gets eaten alive by other heals and hots even with stupid numbers like 1k haste. 1k haste ? who else as a healer has to stack so much haste ? i mean before 500 haste you can't even think about competing a decent resto druid in HPS.

Just face it the HPS results are NOT the best nor even close to say a druid's frequency of topping a chart.
The solution ? In my opinion, for not mixing all healing classes into one and keep the CH as a core shammy ability i will have to go with what some1 before has said, reduce the stupid amount of heal on first CH target and don't reduce it by half for each jump... make it more of a really slow diminishing thing. 10% or something. And i mean it so that if all targets were at 1% HP both old-CH and (madeup)CH heal the same. the point is making the first target's heal instead of being overheal contribute to something!

What is your opinion ? what is your solution ?

[Hypernetic]

I won't argue that Resto Shamans have kind of fallen into a "jack of all trades" role lately, but at the same time I think most of you are just flat out wrong about Shamans needing a buff.

To be more competitive as a resto shaman you just need to play smart and collect lots of "side grade" pieces to use for different fights. For instance, when I'm in tank heal mode I can easily out heal our best Holy Pally with Glyphed LHW and an ass ton of crit (plus rolling riptides). I'm not just talking about meters, I'm talking about just flat out doing a better job of it. I'm pushing around 12k LHW crits, and that's with less than ideal gemming for it.

At the same time I float around 900 haste, which can be pushed up over 1200 if I really wanted to and can easily match or best druids on Twins 25 HM. (about 12-13k hps)

Sometimes it takes being a little creative too, like wearing an T9 Ele helm and shoulders instead of Resto.

I can't imagine anyone who truly loves being a healer being upset with the state of Resto Shamans. We're one of the only classes with so many options when it comes to gemming and gearing to personal play preference. We are highly effective in all healing roles, have the most efficient healing spell in the game (healing stream), oh and don't forget Earth Shield.

The only real "problem" I see with Resto ATM is that the performance gap between a very skilled player and a moderate player is much larger than any other healing class. i.e. If you aren't an exceptional healer you will probably fall way behind as a shaman, whereas you could probably skate by with another class.

[plee]

So if Mek says that my class is sub-par, I'll take that as the opinion it is and nothing more. And I will exercise my right to prove him wrong every chance I get.

Resto Shaman are fine, learn to play.

[Chestur]

It's kinda like discussing a strong man competition, where your competition can lift more weight, has better endurance, more muscle mass and you're in a wheelchair. That might piss you off to hear that, but it doesn't become any less true.

Sure you can do biceps curls pretty damn well, and lift ALOT of weight, but if you have to compete by stacking twice as much haste as any other "strong man" have "side grade gear" and stacks of glyphs in your bags for every encounter, come up with challenging strategies to circumvent our handicaps, expend more energy and take a more cerebral approach to healing, that still doesn't make our legs work.

You could make the argument that it makes it more challenging and "fun" (which, by the way, most shaman healers, me included, will tell you that it is fun to heal as a shaman), but you still can't do the same heavy lifting as other classes. When I die, the two druids and two paladins I heal with generally pick up the slack just fine. When one of them die, it gets a little hectic. The only fight I "win the meters" most of the time is Jarax, due to timing chain heals on melee for AEs and chaotic raid damage for chain lighting, but I have a guaranteed raid spot. So I can give the paladins mana tide. :P

Yeah, I didn't give you any math or evidence, just opinion, so I guess I can co-lead Ensidia!