The lack of Shaman updates is troubling.

[Teriz]

Well the new beta build is out, and I figured we'd be seeing some updates for Shaman (especially after that huge announcement for Druids). No such luck. This is kind of surprising considering that there's been quite a few posts in the beta forums, and a lot of players have expressed concern about talents and abilities.

So what's going on? Does Blizzard feel that Shaman are fine? Will there be some massive Shaman update before launch? Are Shaman beta testers just no asking the right questions? When are you predicting the next major Shaman update to come in?

[Anonymitylol]

Shaman are still suffering from major mechanical flaws from Cataclysm(Mainly Resto) that has yet to be addressed. Not to mention the problems with our talents. The first tier and the level 90 tier are underwhelming at best and need to be changed or at least 2/3rds of each do which are the two biggest letdowns of tiers. Our glyphs are also horrible, but it seems every class has horrible glyphs.

Primal Elementalist will only be good if the Elementals have 100% uptime.
Elemental blast won't be taken by resto/ele.
The unleashed talent will be taken by ele if Primal Elementalist don't have 100% uptime, not sure about enhance but never Resto.
Natures guardian will never be taken and in a raiding enviroment it will always be either Stone Bulwark or Astral Shift.

[americandavey]

Shaman are still suffering from major mechanical flaws from Cataclysm(Mainly Resto) that has yet to be addressed. Not to mention the problems with our talents. The first tier and the level 90 tier are underwhelming at best and need to be changed or at least 2/3rds of each do which are the two biggest letdowns of tiers. Our glyphs are also horrible, but it seems every class has horrible glyphs.

Primal Elementalist will only be good if the Elementals have 100% uptime.
Elemental blast won't be taken by resto/ele.
The unleashed talent will be taken by ele if Primal Elementalist don't have 100% uptime, not sure about enhance but never Resto.
Natures guardian will never be taken and in a raiding enviroment it will always be either Stone Bulwark or Astral Shift.

I totally agree with Glyphs. It is still beta hopefully it will be addressed.

[Deleted]

Shaman are still suffering from major mechanical flaws from Cataclysm(Mainly Resto) that has yet to be addressed. Not to mention the problems with our talents. The first tier and the level 90 tier are underwhelming at best and need to be changed or at least 2/3rds of each do which are the two biggest letdowns of tiers. Our glyphs are also horrible, but it seems every class has horrible glyphs.

Primal Elementalist will only be good if the Elementals have 100% uptime.
Elemental blast won't be taken by resto/ele.
The unleashed talent will be taken by ele if Primal Elementalist don't have 100% uptime, not sure about enhance but never Resto.
Natures guardian will never be taken and in a raiding enviroment it will always be either Stone Bulwark or Astral Shift.

What major mechanical flaws?

Primal Elementalist doesn't need 100% uptime to be good at all. Elementals are very strong and will be buffed by 50% with it compared to the Elementals non-talented shaman will get, plus you get a 5% damage boost for the duration

Elemental Blast I see no reason why it wouldn't be taken by Resto on burst heavy healing fights, and for Elemental if theres burst damage or if theres AoE I could definitely see Elemental Blast being used

Unleashed Fury will be taken by Resto Shaman when there is heavy spot healing required on a fight (Halfus HC pre-nerfs is a very good example, UL on tank, drop Healing Rain buffed by the unleash, pop a huge heal on the tank, combine that with Conductivity for extra profit).

Natures Guardian I would actually say you have it completely the wrong way around. A lot of DPS will simply pick Natures Guardian unless a mechanic calls for Astral Shift because it doesn't require activation, its just passive protection.

[Manu9]

I totally agree with Glyphs. It is still beta hopefully it will be addressed.

I'm afraid it might not be, other classes force their voices to be heard, true they fixed totem buffs, sure we have a def CD now, but everyone got shiny talents anyway so it's not like a bonus or anything, it just seems history is repeating itself, say we all get talents, then other classes complain wanting more, they get it, we don't voice what we want as others do.

[Endus]

Shaman are still suffering from major mechanical flaws from Cataclysm(Mainly Resto) that has yet to be addressed. Not to mention the problems with our talents. The first tier and the level 90 tier are underwhelming at best and need to be changed or at least 2/3rds of each do which are the two biggest letdowns of tiers. Our glyphs are also horrible, but it seems every class has horrible glyphs.

There are zero "major mechanical flaws" in the class, the few we had have already been corrected. There may be some tuning and tweaking to be done, but it's mostly minor stuff.

Primal Elementalist will only be good if the Elementals have 100% uptime.
Elemental blast won't be taken by resto/ele.
The unleashed talent will be taken by ele if Primal Elementalist don't have 100% uptime, not sure about enhance but never Resto.
Natures guardian will never be taken and in a raiding enviroment it will always be either Stone Bulwark or Astral Shift.

None of these are correct. PE would be way too good with 100% uptime. EB will be great for Ele, and has great potential for bursty healing with Resto. UF looks great for everyone. Nature's Guardian has better uptime than AS and doesn't require proactive use, both advantages. The threat dump can also be useful in cases with adds and such.


More on the thread topic; we've gotten plenty of feedback, and a LOT of attention. Our talents already got one major overhaul, moreso than the recent Druid talent tweaks on their 90 talents ended up being. There's been a ton of positive changes already; I even have a big sticky post at the top of the forum to collect all of it for quick reference. Has there been more feedback recently? Not really, but I'm sure they don't work on every class exactly simultaneously. Nor are we guaranteed feedback of any kind, really. Expecting it will inevitably lead to disappointment if you don't receive any, but they never promised any in the first place.

We already know they don't think Shaman are "fine". There were concerns about Enhancement damage, they responded and reminded us that tuning the numbers usually takes place nearer the end of the beta. We're not even hitting level 90 yet. This is still EARLY beta, and we haven't gotten to the level 90 stuff yet, which is what really matters. We've got months of more weekly updates to go.


I'm not saying don't provide constructive feedback; absolutely do that. But we won't necessarily get feedback, nor will demanding it or throwing a tantrum about it on the official forums get us anything but negative attention.

[Blitond]

This isn't a final beta patch.

Mages, DK's and Paladins didn't have much either. It was a minor patch the sky isn't falling, just yet. It would be cool for a "we hear ya shaman" blue post though. But I would rather them actually be working on shaman changes instead of posting about them

[Anonymitylol]

There are zero "major mechanical flaws" in the class, the few we had have already been corrected. There may be some tuning and tweaking to be done, but it's mostly minor stuff.

Restoration Shaman spread healing which is still only somewhat do-able in the forms of glyphs with major downsides, so tell me. What other healing class has to take glyphs to do major functions in a raid? Did Paladins have to take a glyph to make light of dawn a 30 yard radius? I don't think so. That is the major mechanical flaw.

[Deleted]

Restoration Shaman spread healing which is still only somewhat do-able in the forms of glyphs with major downsides, so tell me. What other healing class has to take glyphs to do major functions in a raid? Did Paladins have to take a glyph to make light of dawn a 30 yard radius? I don't think so. That is the major mechanical flaw.

No its not. Chain Heal is designed to be a stacked up small area of effect spell. All the Glyph does is increase the range of the heal at the cost of cooldown. We dont need Chain Heal to heal spread out targets. The design of Chain Heal is for it to only heal in a small area, the Glyph allows you to alter it if its normal niche is not needed in that fight. Thats a fine and interesting Glyph, not a broken mechanic.

[Anonymitylol]

No its not. Chain Heal is designed to be a stacked up small area of effect spell. All the Glyph does is increase the range of the heal at the cost of cooldown. We dont need Chain Heal to heal spread out targets. The design of Chain Heal is for it to only heal in a small area, the Glyph allows you to alter it if its normal niche is not needed in that fight. Thats a fine and interesting Glyph, not a broken mechanic.

We have Healing rain for stacked up heals, why do we need TWO spells for stacked up healing? Why can't chain heal work for spread and stack and healing rain only stack. Just like Holy Paladins who have Holy Radiance for stacked andthe new LoD for spread/stacked. Druids who have wild growth for spread/stacked and efflo for pure stacked. I just see no reason why we need our spread healing fixed in the form of a glyph when no other healer needs it to be done. The biggest fall of Shamans in T11/T12 was the inadequate toolkit to heal spread targets. Glyph of riptide is like saying Rejuv is a spread heal, but even druids have ANOTHER spread heal on top of that. There is no excuse our mechanics shouldn't be fixed when they were the downfall of Shamans for 66% of an expansion.

We can be optimistic all we want, but to even deny that there isn't a flaw in that logic, and only shamans suffer from it is just silly. It needs to be corrected.

Ps. I'm talking purely about Restoration and only that.

[Deleted]

Major mechanical flaws?

As it stands none of the three specs are recieving a significant overhaul, so if you think they're going to be broken in Mists then it would follow that you think they're broken now. Leaving aside the thorny issue of searing flames stacks for enhance (which seems to produce endless amounts of molten hatred whenever brought up) I can't think of any current mechanic that is disliked by the majority of players.

I'm afraid it might not be, other classes force their voices to be heard, true they fixed totem buffs, sure we have a def CD now, but everyone got shiny talents anyway so it's not like a bonus or anything, it just seems history is repeating itself, say we all get talents, then other classes complain wanting more, they get it, we don't voice what we want as others do.

We did complain, loudly, about our old level 90 talents, that got us a full tier of new talents and a couple of new additions. We've also been given a couple new toys spec wide, stormlash and capacitor totems for example. Clamouring for new toys simply because the Warlocks and Monks are being given some isn't really the wisest thing: either we're ignored and have wasted our time, or Devs yield to forum pressure and add abilities that change specs drastically. If you play shaman on live currently you must like the current mechanics. I.e. you don't want drastic changes.

I can sympathise to some degree with the chicken little attitude given what happened to restoration shaman during 4.0, but the two scenarios are wildly different. in 4.0 we were given a very-difficult-to-math-out mastery, a unique new mana regen system that no-one had figured out properly, we'd lost a cooldown...add to this the entire massive paradigm shift of healing in general moving into cata and it was a recipe for distaster.

Moving into 5.0 what is changing? Specs are now easier to balance as they know that all shaman are going to have X, Y and Z abilities with a choice of talents to complement, there is two years of numbers allowing them to properly account for the effect of our mastery, cooldowns have been returned to the spec and the general healing changes are negligible in comparison to the WotLK--Cata shift.

[Endus]

We have Healing rain for stacked up heals, why do we need TWO spells for stacked up healing? Why can't chain heal work for spread and stack and healing rain only stack.

We have other tools for spread-out healing. GHW + AA, for instance. Plus, Chain Heal works across normal spread distances; you usually have to spread out 10 yards, the default CH jump range is 12.

If your raid is spreading out when they don't need to, you need to teach them to play properly, not complain about Shaman mechanics.

[Anonymitylol]

We have other tools for spread-out healing. GHW + AA, for instance. Plus, Chain Heal works across normal spread distances; you usually have to spread out 10 yards, the default CH jump range is 12.

If your raid is spreading out when they don't need to, you need to teach them to play properly, not complain about Shaman mechanics.

If chain heal jumped to targets with full health that wouldn't be a problem, but the fact that a full healthed target can cut off the whole chain is also completely wrong. GHW+AA is highly expensive and that's a very sole reason why Rshamans weren't anywhere near competitive in T11/T12. Maybe in you're average normal guild, but I'm talking about Heroic content pre-nerf, when progression isn't done in BiS gear. Why is it so wrong to give shamans a tool to heal spread targets when every other healer has one? GHW+AA is the most expensive way to raid heal and still gets outperformed by efficient raid heals.

[Endus]

If chain heal jumped to targets with full health that wouldn't be a problem, but the fact that a full healthed target can cut off the whole chain is also completely wrong. GHW+AA is highly expensive and that's a very sole reason why Rshamans weren't anywhere near competitive in T11/T12. Maybe in you're average normal guild, but I'm talking about Heroic content pre-nerf, when progression isn't done in BiS gear. Why is it so wrong to give shamans a tool to heal spread targets when every other healer has one?

Because differences between healers is a good thing. We've already got plenty of tools that can handle spread-out healing. If you feel it's not enough, take Healing Tide Totem in 5.0. Chain Heal works on spread-out healing, if your raiders aren't spreading out too far. Which they shouldn't be, for a bunch of reasons, especailly on 25-man. If a lot of the people spread out are at 100% health, you don't really need AoE healing. Single-target the ones taking the damage.


What you're talking about isn't a mechanical flaw, it's "I want the same tools as everyone else plus all the special stuff Shaman gets".

[Noviskers]

I gotta agree with Anomitylol to some degree. Having both chain heal and healing rain be stacked heals does make it very annoying for a lot of the fights, and I really doubt they will do a raid like DS where everyone stacks for every fight for a while. CH should have its range increased baseline with no CD, for the glyph maybe reduce the jump penalty but add in the cooldown.

The level 90 talents are all very underwhelming, Elemental Blast should be an instant cast spell, the controllable pets should become baseline (especially since they removed Spirit Wolves controllable bar) and UF FT should also increase the damage of static shock or stormstrike. Nature's Guardian should increase the amount of healing received by x% instead of reducing threat, that would make the talent a bit more desirable in pvp.

[Endus]

I gotta agree with Anomitylol to some degree. Having both chain heal and healing rain be stacked heals does make it very annoying for a lot of the fights, and I really doubt they will do a raid like DS where everyone stacks for every fight for a while. CH should have its range increased baseline with no CD, for the glyph maybe reduce the jump penalty but add in the cooldown.

Again, chain heal is a 'stacked' heal in the same sense that everyone stacks up in one spot for the Lightning phase on Hagara. It isn't a stacked heal. It can be USED that way, but it's a chaining heal, which isn't the same thing.

[Ciah]

Paladins have a tool for group healing spread out targets?

[Deleted]

It seems a lot of the discussion around AoE healing has Resto shaman being 1-1 compared with Resto druids, this is foolish.

At least since I started playing in mid BC resto druids have always but always been known as the very best AoE healer, with paladins being the best pure tank healer and shaman having the ability to switch between the two roles. While the healer class 'specialisations' have been heavily toned down in cataclysm and mists, they still exist.

By comparing shaman with druids in one area only you're doing a disservice to the class. No, shaman probalbly don't have quite the breadth of AoE abilities that druids do (though it's closer than is being made out), but then druids don't have the potential burst healing that shaman possess, nor can they come close to the spot healing power of shaman.

This is something that has been stressed in other threads, and in fact by GC in his post about the new druid talents this very day: When considering balance you need to look at the entire class.

[Teriz]

We did complain, loudly, about our old level 90 talents, that got us a full tier of new talents and a couple of new additions. We've also been given a couple new toys spec wide, stormlash and capacitor totems for example. Clamouring for new toys simply because the Warlocks and Monks are being given some isn't really the wisest thing: either we're ignored and have wasted our time, or Devs yield to forum pressure and add abilities that change specs drastically. If you play shaman on live currently you must like the current mechanics. I.e. you don't want drastic changes.

We complained loudly about our level 90 talents because we didn't have any until after the big reveal in March. After that, the last talent change was getting rid of the awful Fortifying Waters and replacing it with Conductivity.

Capacitor Totem is a very flawed stun ability. Stormlash is cool though, no real complaints there.

I think its pretty obvious that Locks and Monks aren't the only classes getting new toys. Death Knights have been getting some pretty sweet things recently, Priests changes are really coming together, and Druids just got a nice big Christmas gift from Blizzard Santa.

Last new ability we got was Stormlash back in March. We have gotten some balance fixes since then, but nothing that really addresses what a lot of Shaman have been concerned about.

We still have more time in beta. We'll see how everything shakes out I guess.

[Noviskers]

It seems a lot of the discussion around AoE healing has Resto shaman being 1-1 compared with Resto druids, this is foolish.

At least since I started playing in mid BC resto druids have always but always been known as the very best AoE healer, with paladins being the best pure tank healer and shaman having the ability to switch between the two roles. While the healer class 'specialisations' have been heavily toned down in cataclysm and mists, they still exist.

By comparing shaman with druids in one area only you're doing a disservice to the class. No, shaman probalbly don't have quite the breadth of AoE abilities that druids do (though it's closer than is being made out), but then druids don't have the potential burst healing that shaman possess, nor can they come close to the spot healing power of shaman.

This is something that has been stressed in other threads, and in fact by GC in his post about the new druid talents this very day: When considering balance you need to look at the entire class.

The reason that shamans and druids are compared so often when it comes to AoE healing is because those two were the top two aoe healing classes for much of BC and part of LK. Whenever my old guild would run MH, BT or SW in BC it would always be me and my resto druid friend constantly fighting for the top spot. Also if iirc resto shamans were the best aoe healers because of the fact that chain heal was a more effecient single target heal than LHW and GHW in BC.