Shaman Unpruning

[adden]

Restoration "changes"... ugh.

- Mastery to incentivize healing critically injured targets
- Has the single (literally only one) weakest instant-cast heal in the game to do so
- Constantly sniped by Holy Shock/Swiftmend/Holy Word: Serenity
- Zero changes to make this better
- Mythic+ still going to consist of Healing Surge spam during Grievous week
- Literally only brought to raids for cheesing with Spirit Link Totem

Extremely disappointed. Restoration Shaman will continue to be slow, clunky, and under-perform every other healer in the game, as per usual.
Earth Shield coming back is fine, but the new spell to use it is a Talent. Obviously. Can't just give us something new and nice to make our gameplay more interesting.

Happy for you Elemental and Enhancement players, but I might have to stick to my Holy Priest this expansion, or perhaps go Mistweaver Monk.

Watch for balance in spells, it's looking better than you think

- Riptide's initial heal increased by 33.3% of spellpower
- Riptide's duration is increased by 3 sec.
- Healing Surge heals increased by 91% of spellpower
- Healing Wave heals increased by 159% of spellpower
- Downpour heals increased by 55% of spellpower
- Earthshield is baseline, so you pick one target for 10% healing boost (tank obviously)

check out mistweavers, they only had one legacy spell get a boost (Soothing Mist 80% of spellpower ) and Paladins only got 10% to Holy light, while also seeing a 14% nerf to flash of light.

Now, they did make Chain heal even more of a mana hog and high tide took a hit so we're losing some AOE potency to get the single target improvements so we'll see how that goes... but compared to other classes the increases above + baseline earth shield means our single target healing is increasing far more than any healing class in Shadowlands

[Melusine]

Restoration
Once Restoration Shaman step into the realm of the ancestral spirits, they will find new ways to tap into the elements’ powers. Earth Shield can now be used by all Restoration Shaman without needing to select it as a Talent. Surge of the Earth is a new Talent that expends a few charges of Earth Shield to significantly heal the current Earth Shield target and several nearby allies.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=311877/...nd-class-philo.

While I know what I am doing as DPS, this is currently the part that concerns me, and it kind of pisses me off. Sure, give me back Earth Shield, but what I would really like to see with Earth Shield when cast by a resto shaman, that it will grant damage reduction while the shield holds or an absorption shield every time a charge is used, in addition to the healing part. Throw them both in, for all I care, or make it so you can choose one or the other.

BUT.... what is it missing?

1. Mana Tide Totem!!! This should have never been taken away in the first damn place, now give it back!!
2. Earth-living weapon and unleash life. Same thing. It needs to find its way back to resto shamans as per the Mists of Pandaria iteration of the abilities. Unleash life's effect increase should apply to healing rain and chain heal.
3. Conductivity. This should be part of the tool kit. Not a talent. A baseline ability. It was the one thing I thought Mists got wrong about shamans.
4. Ascendance. Make this baseline, and for god's sake STAHP making us always have to choose between things we had both at the same time in earlier expansions. That's the most retarded thing this game does.
5. Greater Healing Wave - Ideally this should be baseline. I'm not sure exactly when Blizzard lost its way when dealing with healing spells, because every healer had what i like to call "the triad". This triad of spells consisted of a cheap heal, a fast heal, and a good heal. The idea behind this is, a cheap heal won't be a good heal, a fast heal won't be a cheap heal, and a good heal won't be fast. Perhaps not every healer needs this array of spells, but the resto shaman could use it.
6. Rushing Stream. This used to be a talent that would make healing stream totems heal 2 people per tick for 15% more than the totem would normally heal. It was a good empowerment to the healing stream totem.
7. This used to be a glyph, it's function was to take riptide off of cd. Mind you, it would not give the initial heal, which actually was a strong heal for what it was, but options are never a bad thing.
8. High Tide - needs reverted back to its original iteration that would make chain heal extend to one more target, and not drop off healing so much. It was a talent then, so, in all fairness, keep it that way.

I know that looks like a lot, but in terms of healing, resto shamans are a lower end healer atm, mostly due to their proclivity to being heal sniped by casters with faster healing spells. It's not that shaman spells suck, but overhealing is basically useless.

Make it happen, Blizzard. Redeem yourselves.

[Schizoide]

Happy to see Searing Totem removed. Imagine me spitting on its frickin' grave. Worst unprune ever.

Healing Stream needs to be removed also for the exact same reason.

Great to see Rockbiter removed also, for the exact reason I posted a page or two back. It was a vestigial resource-generator when Enhance no longer has a resource.

Is Windfury Totem still party only, or is it raid-wide now? If it's raidwide it's OK. If it's party, I'm going back to LOLing. But hey, progress-- maybe they'll fix that too.

[kosajk]

Happy to see Searing Totem removed. Imagine me spitting on its frickin' grave. Worst unprune ever.

Healing Stream needs to be removed also for the exact same reason.

Great to see Rockbiter removed also, for the exact reason I posted a page or two back. It was a vestigial resource-generator when Enhance no longer has a resource.

Is Windfury Totem still party only, or is it raid-wide now? If it's raidwide it's OK. If it's party, I'm going back to LOLing. But hey, progress-- maybe they'll fix that too.

will not argue about rockbiter and ST that are welcome changes,
HST is occasional, it heal decently for 1 gcd but not that good to someone actually flame one you if you don`t use it so np for me here

about windfury totem from what i know its 30yrd range atm and it`s working raid wide opposing to tooltip information

[shammypie]

Happy to see Searing Totem removed. Imagine me spitting on its frickin' grave. Worst unprune ever.

Healing Stream needs to be removed also for the exact same reason.

Great to see Rockbiter removed also, for the exact reason I posted a page or two back. It was a vestigial resource-generator when Enhance no longer has a resource.

Is Windfury Totem still party only, or is it raid-wide now? If it's raidwide it's OK. If it's party, I'm going back to LOLing. But hey, progress-- maybe they'll fix that too.

TBH searing totem was the ability that made me fall in love with shamans. I remember starting off in the beginner valley and talking to these invisible elementals and when i left i got this little totem that helped me kill boars and i could frost shock them and run around in a circle while it killed them. it had a funny little animation and begun my plan of being a turret shaman like torben.

class turned into a shit show after that. found some love in healing and turned out to be pretty good at it. Led my raid in heals for a time before i figured out that all the healers we recruited through the years were trash and when i eventually moved to the big leagues i couldn't compete in fact i questioned why i was there when the bars never moved or refilled so fast as i could do was spam chain heal and hope to get lucky.

Anyway can we prune the shaman mastery? it stinks, it always has stunk and always will stink. Monks have it even worse but they make up for it with a decent toolkit, mobility, versatility. I mean come on their raid cd is HTT except instant (not as great for high pulsing damage but with health pools now who cares). I always thought the best balance would to be making the old earthliving effect out mastery. Basically build up a hot on people with all our heals that scales with mastery and amount healed. (very small for healing raid, decent for chain heal, great for GHW). It still would give us the weakness of mitigration (shields) and does nothing vs sniping but with decent duration you saturate the raid and provide healing in the places that really need it.

[Schizoide]

Yes, it's iconic. It's also terrible to actually use.

Elemental mastery is great. Enhancement is boring, would like to see a more interesting effect.

[Kralljin]

Elemental mastery is great.

Over the years, i feel like it has trivialised the feeling of Overloads.
While i don't want to necessarily go back to the old low % chance but it also feels so irrelevant right now, you just don't care whether you get an Overload on an ability or not.

Also, the Mastery stat in general have developed a tendency for weak scaling as they rarely / never work with damage procs trinkets or other external effects.
Coupled with that not every spell scales with Mastery at all, leaves it open for being weak.

[Schizoide]

Elemental mastery looks cool but yes it's passive and doesn't have much synergy with any other abilities. There are tons of worse masteries that are also passive but don't have a neat cosmetic effect like Shadow priests.

Ideally every mastery would not only look cool but have some impact on gameplay, but the devs just aren't interested in doing that.

[Kralljin]

Ideally every mastery would not only look cool but have some impact on gameplay, but the devs just aren't interested in doing that.

Secondary stats really affecting gameplay is something that Blizzard tried move away from, to avoid that "I need X% Haste / Crit for my class to feel good".

In general, secondary stats just seem like one of those things that are just there, no new stats for two expansions (three if you count SL), no real rework (besides the Mastery of some usual candidates).

[Gasparde]

Secondary stats really affecting gameplay is something that Blizzard tried move away from, to avoid that "I need X% Haste / Crit for my class to feel good".

There's a difference between *affecting your gameplay* and *if you don't have 33% of stat X your class won't function properly*.
Mastery in many cases just being Versatility... but without the damage reduction... is just boring as fuck. Like, the best thing you can come up for with Mastery on a BM Hunter is... more pet damage? Really?

Like, they could easily turn every mastery into something you at least notice. Like, turn Enhancer mastery into summoning a Feral Spirit that deals damage instead of just you dealing more damage. It's the same thing but at least it looks cool. At certain mastery thresholds, add another Spirit, whatever. There's so much more class fantasy that could be had with a stat called Mastery... yet it's always just *your attacks deal more damage*.

[Kralljin]

It's the same thing but at least it looks cool.

Looks also lose their value over time, i personally don't see it as a real improvement of a gameplay element (which secondary stats are) if you just give it some new graphical effect.
It's just some random proc then.

I mean, is Elemental overload that great because you can *see* the proc?

There's so much more class fantasy that could be had with a stat called Mastery... yet it's always just *your attacks deal more damage*.

The reality for most specs is that the other secondary stats aren't so different in that regard.

People love to shit on Versatility for being boring - despite being the one unique secondary stat because it has a defensive benefit.

Be honest with yourself: Do you notice significant differences in your playstyle whether you stack Crit or Versatility?
Unless a spec has mechanics that interact with crit (which have become rare), you probably don't.
With the rather weak Haste scaling, that impact is also lessened.

The issue is that Mastery in a lot of cases lacks a real niche as a stat in terms of gameplay / throughput.
If you stack Crit as Elemental, you at least notice some gains in an AoE situation over someone that stacked Haste / Vers.

Mastery not affecting every spell just hurts the stat in terms of scaling (and thus performance) here, especially in patch where effects (Corruption) that scale with every secondary stat but Mastery have gained greater importance.

I think it in general secondary stats require another look, they're just far too sameish.

[Oturanboa]

Real reason why people don't notice secondary stats anymore (or even primary):

1) Game is too fast now. You don't look at how much you hit. You look at your next button or some warning weak aura gives or whatever keeps track of enemy cooldowns.

2) More important one is; number damage sources are increased by a lot. Most of them are passive too. I just looked at my details and i have 24 different damage sources. You don't notice or care how much stormstrike hits when it's a drop in the ocean.

There are also many passives / actives that change damage of a skill (ie:stormstrike/stormbringer). So it's not even same all the time. It's hard to notice how much more damage flametongue weapon does with 50 more mastery. (with or without wolves? how many flame wolves?)

Takes away this important tactile feeling imo. They should walk away from it.

---------------------

Frostshock deals shitton of damage in SL alpha atm. If damage source number stays as it is; you will notice it go from 2500 to 3000 by chaning a couple items heavy on mastery. Than it will feel "fun".

[Schizoide]

I mean, is Elemental overload that great because you can *see* the proc?

It's better than most masteries in the game for exactly that reason, yes. All of them are completely passive and most don't impact gameplay, but at least elemental's looks cool.

There really are very few exceptions. Holy Paladins are incentivized to be close to the players they're healing, Arcane gets mana regen and max mana which directly ties into their mechanics, Frost mages have Icicles, and WW monks don't repeat abilities. Everything else has no impact on gameplay and doesn't look cool either.

Crit is a poor example because tons of stuff triggers off crits. Fire mages and Fury warriors in particular are built around critting. There are no similar interactions with "You do X% more shadow damage".

Haste is of course passive but it has a direct impact on how fast you can use abilities, which feels great. Versatility is just a flat % damage and defense increase, that's why people call it boring. 'Cause it is.

Really both Mastery and Versatility should be removed from the game, they serve no particular purpose for most specs. Mastery was originally envisioned as a balancing knob but they don't actually use it that way, instead they use hidden auras that buff all spec abilities at once.

[Kralljin]

gameplay, but at least elemental's looks cool.

Lost its appeal for me personally, it's okay, but as said, Overloads simply don't carry the same weight in terms of damage that they used to.

Crit is a poor example because tons of stuff triggers off crits. Fire mages and Fury warriors in particular are built around critting.

Only applies to Fury Warrior.
Fire mages used to be one of those notorious specs that are terrible at start of an expansion but then go nuts later on due to crit.
But Blizzard has built in a lot of auto crit mechanics into fire (Fireblast always crits, handful of talents that ensure auto crits; Ignite procs off every spell rather than just crits, stacking crit buff whenever you don't crit).

Look what stat mages are stacking: Mastery, not Crit, because it allows them get insane Ignites.

Fire Mage is a picture perfect example of what i'm talking about, the overreliance on a certain stat was replaced with mechanics, now Crit isn't exactly that interesting to fire anymore because your baseline toolkit takes care of your crit chance.

Haste is of course passive but it has a direct impact on how fast you can use abilities, which feels great.

Due to the fact that you can no longer reach insane levels without stacking Haste corruption to the brim, that really doesn't work that well anymore.

Versatility is just a flat % damage and defense increase, that's why people call it boring. 'Cause it is.

Still remember having 30% Versatility on M:Azshara progress, those 15% saved my ass a couple of times.
Can't say the same thing about Crit / Haste.

Mastery was originally envisioned as a balancing knob but they don't actually use it that way, instead they use hidden auras that buff all spec abilities at once.

It wasn't, it was supposed to a stat that does something spec specific rather than provide a general benefit as Haste / Crit does.
Issue is, Mastery doesn't do something interesting for a lot of specs, similiar to crit nowadays.

[Schizoide]

Incorrect. Mastery was originally supposed to be a spec-specific balancing knob, as I said. GC specifically posted that.

Yes, it is spec-specific, and yes, it's boring on most specs.

[Foszil]

I think the changes are good, I never liked the maelstrom bar, it sort of just felt like how they made balance with their astral power. I want ele to feel like a hybrid again and not just a simple 3 button class.

[Kralljin]

I want ele to feel like a hybrid again and not just a simple 3 button class.

Ele doesn't feel like a hybrid because it has neither unique tools to support your group, nor decent offhealing.
Unique support is dead since TBC.
Decent offhealing has been dead since Wotlk (Or WoD if you want to talk about AG / HTT).

And as a matter of fact, in Cata / MoP, Ele was probably one of the simplest specs to play (GC straight up said it was okay for them that a simple spec as Ele exists).
Ele only has become a bit more complex with Legion and the Icefury talent.

And how Icefury looks on Beta, a lot of its complexity is now gone due to Maelstrom removal, you no longer need to worry about overcapping Maelstrom as Frost shock doesn't generate anything, just deals additional damage.

Honestly, why do some people believe "Maelstrom gone = more complex Class"?
The core of your rotation has been the same since fucking Cata.

Keep Flame shock up.
Press Lava burst on CD.
Press Earth shock when a WA tells you to.
Press Lightning Lightning when nothing else available.

[Kalisandra]

And as a matter of fact, in Cata / MoP, Ele was probably one of the simplest specs to play (GC straight up said it was okay for them that a simple spec as Ele exists).
Ele only has become a bit more complex with Legion and the Icefury talent.

It could get a little interesting with Elemental Blast, but it was still pretty simple. I found MoP Elemental a nice relexing spec to play when I didn't feel like managing my Ret's 6+ basic damage buttons plus CDs, etc. all lighting up at once.

Honestly, why do some people believe "Maelstrom gone = more complex Class"?

Dunno. That's never been why I wanted it gone. I just don't want the emphasis to be on 'build and spend', which it has been recently.

Then again, I'm told I'm mad because I was never that upset about having to maintain Searing Totem, and for some reason missing Healing Stream is also bad and wrong apparently.

[Kralljin]

Then again, I'm told I'm mad because I was never that upset about having to maintain Searing Totem

Goes both ways, i don't think Searing Totem in particular was that interesting and was just a nuisance because it's one of those abilities that you just press for the sake of it.
Due to having 100% uptime, it never had any tactical use, it was just there, a button you had to press every minute.

If there would have been a talent, set bonus or whatever that has done something interesting with Searing totem, i'd let it slide - but there just wasn't, Blizzard never expanded on this spell in any shape or form.

and for some reason missing Healing Stream is also bad and wrong apparently.

Again, each to their own but one shouldn't believe however that Healing stream will somehow buff Dps Shaman sustain or make its offhealing noticeable.

[Schizoide]

Then again, I'm told I'm mad because I was never that upset about having to maintain Searing Totem, and for some reason missing Healing Stream is also bad and wrong apparently.

You aren't wrong, that's your preference. I happen to strongly disagree, is all.