Anyone else think Healing Rain will be changed?

[Saverem]

Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Shamans are already one of the best AoE healers in the game. This spell gives them the ability to AoE heal while AoE healing. In order for this spell to work out they'll probably have to either:

-Increase its cooldown to 3+m and keep its healing per tick decent (I think I like this idea the most, gives us great AoE healing for moments we need it while keeping both HR and CH's healing done high)
-Reduce the healing of Chain Heal just a bit and keep HR's healing moderate (this would probably make the most sense if you want to keep HR as a 10s duration 10s cooldown AoE)
-Make this spell channeled high healing spell (this would make it another situational spell)
-Make its healing very low and keep it the way it is (this would be lame but not be as bad as making it channeled)


I'm not saying it should be nerfed, but assuming it'll do awesome healing with its 10s duration 10s cd while we already have CH just doesn't seem balanced. It'll make more sense as either a situational spell or if it's healing is low (like maybe like 1/3 as much as a renew tick). Yes, I am a Resto Shaman and would love to see this spell make it to live the way it is.

[Daljo]

Shamans might have the "best" aoe heal, druids have better raid healing.

Chain heal only shines on fights with burst and constant raid damage, like Twins and Blood Queen, where druids shine on every fight.

And no, I don't think it'll get changed for the pure reason you said Shamans have the best AoE heal. Give them a better one with a cooldown and you have diversity.

[Raegon7]

Same as above.
I'd think after posting her over 400 times you should have more sense than this.
Just saying, Druids with their arsenal of hots, they just hot everyone taking any type of consistent damage, and watch the Hps soar, unless of course their under geared, then people die.

[questions]

stfu. shaman healing is quite boring. they need to spice it up. this will do the trick

[cloud_strife]

Did mages lost flamestrike aoe because they had blizzard aoe spell? NO

[rahzgarrh]

stfu. shaman healing is quite boring. they need to spice it up. this will do the trick

Fun the first months.. but then!

[Sgnarl]

Also don't forget, mana will be an issue again, and the most costly of abilities are aoe abilities, sure you could just spam HR and CH, but it wouldn't be long until you're oom I'm sure.

[Hrothgrar]

Also don't forget, mana will be an issue again, and the most costly of abilities are aoe abilities, sure you could just spam HR and CH, but it wouldn't be long until you're oom I'm sure.

interesting, if HR had a huge mana cost similiar to say, consecrate, then you would not be able to keep it up indefinitely.

[Kissmyhammer]

The changes that you mention seems quite strange.

Making this channelled and with a high CD would make this shaman equalliant to Tranquility. I dont see any reason to do that.

As said above shaman's shines on fight's with constant AoE damage. This spell would make us have the spell that is needed when ppl are stacked up, but aint taking big damage that is needed chain heals for. If this ticks every second, then it would make us compete a bit more with the druids having several HoTs ticking constantly.

This still got a 2 sec cast time. Loosing that CH, and gaining a HR for 10 should still be an option. If they make HR for 10 sec less worth than a single CH then this spell would hit the ground as soon as beta was live.

Also i wouldnt say shaman healing is boring, i find it really fun, and a lot think that its just mindless CH spamming. It is not at all. IF you do mindless spamming then you are gonna lay at the bottom of heal meters CONSTANTLY. You need to know when you are doing a CH and when you don't.

I would say that Disc healing was boring if it was just shielding up targets, but it aint just that either.

Blizzard are giving HR to make shamans compete a bit more on healing constant damage on more than just 3 ( 4 ) CH targets at the time.

[sicness]

It's still way too early to tell much about this spell, they only really hinted about what it may end up doing and could very easily change if they don't like even the slightest thing about it. Shaman actually do need another aoe heal to be competitive with raid healers imo and this will do well depending how it's implemented. It could very well be extremely mana expensive but keep in mind, it will only heal people inside the raidus, and in a raid environment there are very few fights where players stay in the same area for a decent duration.

[guardian_titan]

Healing Rain will likely be intended to be used during high AoE damage situations and not during trivial encounters. The mana cost will also likely be high (close to or higher than than the current healing wave) considering what it does. Considering it heals whoever is in it but has diminishing returns as the number of people go up, I don't see it being a problematic spell. For a small group, it'll be good for high damage situations, but for 25-man raids, it'll only really be good for the melee and tanks. Ranged are usually too far spread out so using it on them won't be worth the mana. And if you have very few melee, it'd be a waste to just use on the tanks. In a PvP setting, mana cost may be what will kill it due to mana drains and then movement in PvP alone would move you out of the range of the spell. It'll be a spell that you'll have to think about using. It's likely chain heal will still be the main heal.

Questions to consider before using healing rains:
Are there many people taking damage?
Are people close enough to benefit from the spell?
How bad will the diminishing returns be if I use the spell?
Are people moving a lot?
Do I have the mana to use it?

[rabbimojo]

Feel I should point out: GC has said virtually all numbers will be tweaked. Maybe rsham are great AOE healers now, but won't be later, without new stuff?

I think current CH + HR could be OP, sure. However, which of these sounds more likely:

1) "We want to give shaman HR, but with CH and HST as they are, HR would make them OP. So we will just not add HR."

2) "We want to give shaman HR, but with CH and HST as they are, HR would make them OP. So, we are going to adjust CH and HST to give HR a spot too."

The previews are basically Blizz saying "We want to give you this ability, and we're going to try to find a way to introduce it without breaking other things or making you hate your character."

[hvidgaard]

We have no idea how this spell works out, other than it's a stationary 10sec rain that will heal. The fact that it's stationary is a a big downside to it, and given a 10sec duration I dare say it's safe to assume that it's not going to put out massive numbers.

That said, shamans are far from a good balanced state atm, they're rather weak on AoE healing with the raid spread out (in ICC that's nearly all of them), and they're no match to paladins or disc priests for tank healing.

My interpretation of this spell is that it's for a group of targets that just need light healing over some time, i.e. AoE that will not kill them, but they need to be topped off rather soon.

[Hendrixstorm]

Feel I should point out: GC has said virtually all numbers will be tweaked. Maybe rsham are great AOE healers now, but won't be later, without new stuff?

I think current CH + HR could be OP, sure. However, which of these sounds more likely:

1) "We want to give shaman HR, but with CH and HST as they are, HR would make them OP. So we will just not add HR."

2) "We want to give shaman HR, but with CH and HST as they are, HR would make them OP. So, we are going to adjust CH and HST to give HR a spot too."

The previews are basically Blizz saying "We want to give you this ability, and we're going to try to find a way to introduce it without breaking other things or making you hate your character."

Umm,
3) HR suffers the same cap that AoE damage does, and if you target all 25 players in your raid with it, not only will you oom, you'll hardly be doing any healing at all, so if used correctly it's a powerful extra heal but it will by no means make them overpowered healers (Remeber also the whole +health -healing change upcoming)

[Simbert]

I think that people are overemphasing the point with the drs on multiple people. If it works similar to the DR on AE-Damage, which, from what they said in the preview, it does, than this is not something that people should really care about. This would mean that if you hit more then 10 people, it would do as much healing as it would do on 10 people, but split over the larger amount. The main point of this is probably that not all strategys devolve into "Ok, we all stack at the boss, and our 5 shamans cast healing rain and Chainheal to heal away any possible incoming damage instantly"

Have you ever heard a mage say "Nah, there are more then 10 mobs, not gonna use AE because of AE-cap" Probably not. from how i understand it, this rain will work similar, which would more or less put it into the same niche like tbc CoH, which is something you put onto your meleecamp to keep it up against AE-mechanics. In a high movement fight, it will probably not be used. But if there is any camp of people standing at the same place for some amount of time, this will be a good spot to place your rain.

[M1kra]

Umm,
3) HR suffers the same cap that AoE damage does, and if you target all 25 players in your raid with it, not only will you oom, you'll hardly be doing any healing at all, so if used correctly it's a powerful extra heal but it will by no means make them overpowered healers (Remeber also the whole +health -healing change upcoming)

You won't go oom, since it won't cost more mana the more targets that are within its range, none of the spells work like that. The more targets the less healing it will do, but it will still be a good way to keep up raid on those fights where there are constant aoe damage.

[Hendrixstorm]

You won't go oom, since it won't cost more mana the more targets that are within its range, none of the spells work like that. The more targets the less healing it will do, but it will still be a good way to keep up raid on those fights where there are constant aoe damage.

I wasn't implying the cap would increase mana cost, but I'm sure a spell like that will have an innately high mana cost. Nor was I arguging it was a bad spell, and it couldn't be used to keep up a raid in that situation. I was informing the quoted poster who put two options "They are going to balance us becuase this will make us crazy OP" that he was horridly mistaken

[barrsftw]

Remember, this isnt only usable by resto shamans. As ele i see myself using this quite a bit while leveling/doing instances (that are hard)

[Eliot123]

I just hope they'll make a really cool animation to go with this awesome spell

[Faible]

I really hope it's on a low cooldown. As stated above, shaman aoe healing really needs to be spiced up, and if this spells get's an 3m cooldown, then this is going to be just like the druid spell. I dont like that.

And OP, shamans isnt the best aoe healers. I am one. On BQL heroic, I'm 2nd-3rd if you think healing done wise. And I simply spam chainheal on everyone. And I do got the 4pcs.
However, I do know the reason behind this. This thing is, before I joined my current guild, 11/12 25mhc, I was in a guild who had 7/12 normal, and there ( again, if I may use healing done from recount as examples), I was topping the charts in pure aoe healing. However, in my current guild we have 3-4 valanyrs, hence loads of shields going around. There the druids gets to perform better due to the hot machanics. I sit around 8-9k, while druids is at 11-12k. Usually 60-70% of the initial chainheal is overheal, and 50% of the first jump, the 3rd and 4th is more or less full heals.

So imo, in lower end guilds shaman is the best aoe healer, in high end, they aint. At least in my case, whatever ive said here might not fit you or anyone else.

However, I do think that shamans might be the best aoe healers if all the chainheal would be effective. I mean, its like 25k each 1.6 sec or something.