Resto - 6.0 latest patch notes discussion

[Blithe]

I actually prefer Totemic Persistence over Call of the Elements for Resto if I am not taking Projection. On paper, Call of the Elements sounds better, but I always find that Persistence often performs and feels better, because of the improved MTT/HST uptime from being able to ignore the shared water totem channel.

Call of the Elements is something they could easily just cut. It eats up another ability/keybind and is really just unnecessary button bloat. I don't think it's needed as Resto; 95% of the time it's just a minor numbers buff by allowing 1 extra HST every 6 minutes, and that becomes even less significant in WoD with the de-emphasizing of HST.

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Persistence is something that feels like it should be baseline, because is there really any good reason why totems are still restricted to 1 per totem type? This is a restriction dating back to the Vanilla to Cata totem design where most totems were effectively raid buffs. With every totem (except Searing) already cooldown limited to begin with, is there really any reason why we should have a further spell school based restriction? That restriction probably should have been removed when they revamped totems in 5.0.

I think our Elementals shouldn't be restricted via totem, and classed as temporary pets (that aren't limited by a range). This would be one step closer to letting us use other totems while we have our Elementals out. That removes Totemic Persistence, and then Totemic Projection can become a trap launcher-like baseline ability (as it should be). That leaves Call of the Elements (which was my personal favourite totem utility ability) but again, people seem to dislike it so we can remove that tier entirely in favor of a movement tier.

Tier 45, slot 1: Temporal Rift - Create a rift between this world and the spirit world at the targeted location, allowing allies that run through it to increase their movement speed by 50% for 5 sec. Only 2 can be placed at one time. Accumulates an additional charge every 10 sec. Maximum 2 charges.

Tier 45, slot 2: Phase Spirit - Teleport 20 yards in front of you, phasing through the spirit world, and increasing your movement speed by 40% for the next 4 sec., reducing in effectiveness by 10% every second. 30 second cooldown.

Tier 45, slot 3: Shocking Swiftness - A successful Shock increases your movement speed by 45% for 3 sec.

[Alltat]

They said a while back that they were looking into Elemental Blast and how it's a "little awkward for Resto and Enhance to fit into their rotations".

It's not really all that awkward. Just make it work with Telluric Currents and it would (on paper) be a decent spell to cast before predictable burst or in place of a Lightning Bolt during slow periods to boost your cheap spells and thereby save yourself some mana. The spell is fine aside from one minor detail: the benefit you get even when you do it perfectly on an ideal fight is nothing compared to all the other options in that tier. Extend the duration of the buff and make the spell work with TC, and it could be a viable option.

[shammypie]

They said a while back that they were looking into Elemental Blast and how it's a "little awkward for Resto and Enhance to fit into their rotations". It might only be Elemental Blast that is problematic. Unleashed Fury might be fine with the new healing philosophy, increased focus on direct heals and removal of the ULE-HR interaction. The two real problems with it right now is that (1) you are pigeon holed into using ULE on cooldown to line it up with HR, and while you can consume the 30% buff on HR and use the 50% on a direct heal on another target, it usually doesn't line up with when you need a 300k+ heal (2) in the current healing environment, a ULE-HS or ULE-GHW combo is way too slow. In the ~3 second window it takes to pull that off, the target you intended to use it on is usually topped. Both of those things should be changing in WoD, and we should be using direct heals significantly more, so that talent might end up quite viable.

They honestly should take UE off the gcd and let us use it as a mini-cooldown

[Chubathingy]

They should make UE-earthliving put a "+30% healing taken from(the caster) for single target heals and +10% healing taken from AOE/totems/shield for 8sec" buff on the target.

Or make it a regen teir and have UE-E give some kind of buff that makes LB's on affected target grant X% extra mana or reduces your LB cast time to 1sec for X time after casting using... And then do something with EB with a similar but lesser mana gain.

[Deleted]

I was hopeing we Resto Shamans would get an overhaul, its just outdated. But im still looking forward towards the healing in WoD, but i hope they finally take a look at our specc it has been the same with added smartheal since vanilla. And since smart heal will be working like it did in vanilla. This change makes me happy, smart heal was good how it has been working, but it made gameplay kinda boring imo. Stackable Earth Sheilds (it took time but thank you! now we can finally stop that stupid Earth Sheild buff war, haha)

But yeah i can see we will have tough early tiers, but we still have a nice mastery to rely on early expansion. Im exited to find out, its resto for me no matter what anyway

[Alltat]

I was hopeing we Resto Shamans would get an overhaul, its just outdated.

All healers are getting an overhaul. Healing Wave gone, more of Chain Heal's healing moved to the first target (judging by the CH perk at least), Telluric Currents made baseline and buffed, Healing Stream Totem is weaker but cheaper (-50%), Unleash Life doesn't work with Healing Rain anymore (making gameplay less rotational), Glyph of Chaining no longer seems to have any downsides, Water Shield persists through death, et.c.. There are quite a lot of changes.

[Deleted]

All healers are getting an overhaul. Healing Wave gone, more of Chain Heal's healing moved to the first target (judging by the CH perk at least), Telluric Currents made baseline and buffed, Healing Stream Totem is weaker but cheaper (-50%), Unleash Life doesn't work with Healing Rain anymore (making gameplay less rotational), Glyph of Chaining no longer seems to have any downsides, Water Shield persists through death, et.c.. There are quite a lot of changes.

OH PLEASE. 5.3 Druids, that was an overhaul. What we got so far? Minor tuning, slight QoL changes here and there (that people begged for ages), plus NERFS. Lots and lots of them.

Lets go over your list.
Healing wave - ability that noone used past first 20 minutes in an expansion.
Chainheal's first target heal being higher was the case until 5.4, nothing new.
TC is a shadow of former self and will be a very clunky way to actively regain mana compared to other classes.
HST, straight up nerf. UE + HR interaction removed, straight up nerf.
Glyph of chaining is a "mandatory glyph with no trade-off", which they explicitly stated they dont want in the game, so "wtf?" is in order.
Water shield not persisting through death is MASSIVE indeed.

An overhaul implies careful examination and a follow-up fixing. Where are the fixes? Outside of questionable work on Chainheal, there are no real "fixes" to the basic shortcommings of the spec. There are nerfs, though. The main issue of the spec (yes, i will keep on insisting on that), its mastery, which is 100% disconnected from how the spec works and is impossible to balance properly, consistently providing fractions of the throughput other secondary stats do, has not been touched nor adressed. Among others: lack of mobility, has not been adressed. Reliance on positioning of the raid, has not been adressed. Underwhelming choices among HALF of the talent tiers, have actually been exacarbated.

That's not an overhaul. That's a half-assed attempt at fixing ALL the shaman issues through (still numerically insufficient) buffs to Chainheal. Because that worked well in the past...

[Alltat]

TC is a shadow of former self and will be a very clunky way to actively regain mana compared to other classes.

The numbers haven't been tweaked, so it's much too early to say how significant TC will be. It worked well in Cataclysm.

HST, straight up nerf.

It's a nerf to Healing Stream Totem, but since there's a new expansion all that healing is going to be shifted to other spells. More focus on targeted heals, less focus on smart healing totems. Most people should be able to agree that it's a good change.

UE + HR interaction removed, straight up nerf.

Not really, since Healing Rain is currently balanced around you doing that. By not having one big obvious thing to spend your UE on each time, you're free to use it on different things depending on the situation. UE+GHW for tank spikes, UE+CH for predictable AoE, or just something to cast while moving. Shaman AoE healing will still be as good as before (new expansion and all), but now it won't involve a static rotation of UE+HR.

The main issue of the spec (yes, i will keep on insisting on that), its mastery, which is 100% disconnected from how the spec works and is impossible to balance properly, consistently providing fractions of the throughput other secondary stats do, has not been touched nor adressed.

The increased health pools in WoD will be an indirect buff to resto shaman mastery. Its value should be closer to what it was in Cataclysm, where mastery >> all due to how raid fights (especially on heroic) had people at low health a lot.

Among others: lack of mobility, has not been adressed.

No, but everyone else's mobility has been nerfed and raid encounters will be designed around that new baseline. Shamans didn't get buffed, but now seem to be about average.

[shammypie]

The numbers haven't been tweaked, so it's much too early to say how significant TC will be. It worked well in Cataclysm.

It's a nerf to Healing Stream Totem, but since there's a new expansion all that healing is going to be shifted to other spells. More focus on targeted heals, less focus on smart healing totems. Most people should be able to agree that it's a good change.

Not really, since Healing Rain is currently balanced around you doing that. By not having one big obvious thing to spend your UE on each time, you're free to use it on different things depending on the situation. UE+GHW for tank spikes, UE+CH for predictable AoE, or just something to cast while moving. Shaman AoE healing will still be as good as before (new expansion and all), but now it won't involve a static rotation of UE+HR.

The increased health pools in WoD will be an indirect buff to resto shaman mastery. Its value should be closer to what it was in Cataclysm, where mastery >> all due to how raid fights (especially on heroic) had people at low health a lot.

No, but everyone else's mobility has been nerfed and raid encounters will be designed around that new baseline. Shamans didn't get buffed, but now seem to be about average.

Actually Ranjit is correct in most of his post.

The mobility other classes isn't being nerfed near as much as what they stated SO FAR. Furthermore all they really stated is that you won't have to be moving constantly, not that you won't have to move frequently.

Resto Shaman mastery is almost as clunky as mistweaver's and provides 0 benefit on many "healer mechanic" fights. While theoretically the new healer design will be a buff to our mastery, Blizzard also announced in the same breath that they are going to nerf our mastery in order to compensate. So that kind of cancels out your argument. It also scales down instead of up as progression continues and is very unpredictable. In short its bad, Blizz loves it, most HC raiders hate it, PVPers love it, and for everyone else it doesn't matter. Also mastery lost value quickly in cata and was ~= crit even in heroic. Crit was far ahead of mastery if you had to use single target spells and provided more healing on low targets due to AA interaction. Now that AA is being removed they will ~= all the time with many favoring crit for the resurgence interaction and more predictable results.

The change to Healing Rain and HST are NERFS. This means we are LESS POWERFUL. It does not mean other spells will be buffed, they are staying the same. It also won't change your priority very much either. Healing rain will still be one of your biggest HPS contributors. YOU will be doing less healing. Changes to Healing stream totem make it a filler spell unless you have it talented. Nerfs are called nerfs for a reason. It doesn't really change what you are doing it just makes you weaker. While CH and GHW may now be % of your healing, your overall healing is being reduced. THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING.

[Deleted]

The numbers haven't been tweaked, so it's much too early to say how significant TC will be. It worked well in Cataclysm.

The numbers are VERY similar across all healing classes, so dont expect it to be drastically changed one way or the other. It worked well in Cataclysm because it SCALED. It will not now. It was really problematic to use it fully before the Unleashed Lightning, too. No Unleashed Lightning now.

It's a nerf to Healing Stream Totem, but since there's a new expansion all that healing is going to be shifted to other spells. More focus on targeted heals, less focus on smart healing totems. Most people should be able to agree that it's a good change.

It would be a good change, if it wasn't followed by neutering of tier 75 of talents. Yet ANOTHER talent tier thats totally "pick whatever, doesn't matter" now. Also, there's only so much you can buff single target heals (PvP) and only so much you can buff Chainheal ("Chainheal bots!"). This is the problem with nerfing our "smartheals". We do not have enough "dumb" heals to compensate. Hence the need of overhaul.

Not really, since Healing Rain is currently balanced around you doing that. By not having one big obvious thing to spend your UE on each time, you're free to use it on different things depending on the situation. UE+GHW for tank spikes, UE+CH for predictable AoE, or just something to cast while moving. Shaman AoE healing will still be as good as before (new expansion and all), but now it won't involve a static rotation of UE+HR.

Except they didnt say that. They explicitly said it is aimed as a nerf because HR is a "smartheal" so it's getting a nerf because of the new design. It is a nerf. Noone is going to compensate for the loss of the interaction, because they want HR to heal for less (in comparison).

The increased health pools in WoD will be an indirect buff to resto shaman mastery. Its value should be closer to what it was in Cataclysm, where mastery >> all due to how raid fights (especially on heroic) had people at low health a lot.

The "mastery > all" is the greatest misconception of Cataclysm. Very early t11, perhaps. Never afterwards. It's just as big misconception as "magical 50% mastery threshold" of MoP. Entry level Firelands, mastery was crap. The later it got into the expansion, the worse it got. And i agree, the WoD experiment of "noone is ever @ 100% HP" is going to go exactly the Cataclysm way. Remember triage? That's right.

No, but everyone else's mobility has been nerfed and raid encounters will be designed around that new baseline. Shamans didn't get buffed, but now seem to be about average.

No mobility was taken from anyone. We are still the only healer class with just shitty ghostwolf, no sprint/blink type of abilities whatsoever.

The only thing impacting other classes mobility was introduction of cast times to some of the excruciating number of instant casts other classes possesed. In the meantime, we didn't get a single one of those. This speaks of exactly how badly outdated our toolkit is on live. Our cast-on-the-run was so ridiculously BAD they didn't have to do ANYTHING when they decided to nerf it across the board.

[Tiberria]

All healers are getting an overhaul. Healing Wave gone, more of Chain Heal's healing moved to the first target (judging by the CH perk at least), Telluric Currents made baseline and buffed, Healing Stream Totem is weaker but cheaper (-50%), Unleash Life doesn't work with Healing Rain anymore (making gameplay less rotational), Glyph of Chaining no longer seems to have any downsides, Water Shield persists through death, et.c.. There are quite a lot of changes.

This is nothing approaching an overhaul. You must have low expectations if you can changing the mechanics of a glyph, removing the ULE-HR interaction and Water Shield persisting through death (an extremely minor QoL fix) an overhaul. An overhaul is the complete redesign of Holy Paladins from Wrath to Cata.

Functionally, we have nearly the identical mechanical design that we have since 4.0 and that mechanical design has been proven to be a failure over the course of 2 consecutive expansions. Out of the last 6 tiers, we have been god awful in 3 of them (T11, T12, T15), average at best in 2 more (T13, T14) and slightly above average in the current tier. The track record shows that the current Resto Shaman design is an abject design and balancing failure and they probably should sledgehammer the whole thing. We could use a Warlock level revamp.

[Protoman]

We could use a Warlock level revamp.

I could not agree more. They totally redesigned warlocks, and revamped Pallys with holy power in two different expansions. I really felt that this xpac should have been the one for a Shaman revamp. With seperate specs and individualized abilities/talents it should be much easier to design and customize each spec of Shaman. I am sad to see that they haven't really done that, or made many in depth mechanics changes at all..... a new resource would have been a fun addition to add a little depth to the class. Even Balance got something to make their rotation more engaging, but we are still basically the same we have always been. Totems also need a big look at, some streamlining and balancing (like another look at locking out totems based on element, should be able to use Grounding w/ CPT for example). They are outdated and don't feel as polished as they should.

It is really depressing that we didn't get a big revamp like I expected. Shaman deserve it.

[Rafal]

Can't say I'm jealous of pally holy power. >_> I'm more afraid of revamps then wanting one. Shaman are one of the most popular classes, I don't think they will do anything close to a warlock style revamp.

[Volitar]

^ Yeah I don't know about you but seeing the pally revamp and lock revamp I don't want one.

[Tiberria]

Can't say I'm jealous of pally holy power. >_> I'm more afraid of revamps then wanting one. Shaman are one of the most popular classes, I don't think they will do anything close to a warlock style revamp.

Shaman are the third least played class overall - only Rogues and Monks are less popular. Pallies were the most or second most played class both before the Cata revamp and after. The Warlock revamp worked out great. The Pally revamp did too; before that, they had no real AoE heal, just their 3 single target spells and Beacon. I don't recall a case where a revamp has made things any worse than they are now.

[Kiradyn]

I disagree that Shaman mastery is clunky. It's actually quite novel and intuitive, and quite strong when your raid is in a bad situation.

Monk mastery is very clunky though. However their new cooldown should make things somewhat better.

[Deleted]

I totally agree with those saying we are in need of serious work. For too long we have been balanced around chain heal and healing rain. For too long core issues with the way the spec is designed have been pushed under the rug simply by buffing CH and HR so much that people don't notice.

The fact is, there are worrying trends for the design of resto currently - in tiers with lots of spread out, mobile fights (such as firelands and ToT), we have been totally 100% awful. Then blizzard invariably release a tier where people can stack a fair bit and boom, "omg shaman so op wtf healing rain nerf".

Many of our issues at the moment are being papered over by how nuts healing stream totem is, but we won't be able to rely on that in WoD. Several of our talent tiers still utterly suck. We still have shit movement options compared to those of other classes.

What really sets my alarm bells ringing is that they gave us another set bonus this tier which adds a throughput boost to spirit walkers grace. That was godawful the last time they did it (DS) and it's pretty a godawful now as well. Why are they doing this? Just who is working on resto shaman at blizzard?

Not sure why I am bothering to type this though. Many highly eloquent shaman have written many highly eloquent posts on the official forums and in blogs etc stating the issues with resto shaman at the moment, none of them have been listened to.

"Shaman are complaining again guys, shall we look at them abit more closely? Maybe there's some truth in what these people are saying...."

"Meh, let's just buff chain heal and healing rain then go have some lunch."

"Okey dokey!"

[Deleted]

Resto shaman mastery interacts with the new smart-heal model in strange ways.

Before: Your HR/CH/HTT/HST heals the most injured party members and your mastery gives a good benefit to that. You know your mastery will be worth it when you need it.
Now: Your HR/CH/HTT/HST heals someone who is injured randomly, and MAYBE your mastery will be worth it. The only way to guarantee mastery will count is to manually heal people with single target heals.

Just HOW are they planning to balance our mastery?

[Deleted]

It's just looking like a total mess at the moment. Our mastery needs to be nuked from orbit.

[chandy]

Either way a full class revamp won't happen so I won't hold my breath. Traditionally we know from the get go when they plan such huge class designs like they have done with mages (ironically I always thought my mage talents were pretty interesting)

At this point I will settle for tier 45 and 90 talent revamps but with nothing being announced yet, I have a feeling beta is almost here and huge sweeping changes won't happen. May is already here by the time we blink twice September will be here and I for one think we need to start getting nervous at this rate. If they fail the triage model AGAIN, and shaman are a disaster for 3 expansions in a row, I think this will be it for me.

I always find the second raid tier the most well designed and unfortunately it seems to be the worst for shaman every expansion.