The 5.4 Shaman Thread

[Endus]

Suggest spending 1 GCD per minute (or close to it in scenarios where you take bulwark), and people don't understand how it's a dps decrease. Bulwark will lose you a LOT more dps than Totemic Persistence would, assuming the fight is over a minute long (even in peak totemic persistence performance).

There is a reason many PvE players take Astral Shift. That GCD isn't irrelevant. I'm not disputing that, but Stone Bulwark has other uses in other content; you don't need all three talents in a tier to be equally valid at all times.

magma totem, probably. Some people suggested magma totem being a viable dps increase. Stormlash is was also mentioned due to people being spread out (but all in range of the boss)

Magma Totem carries some risk of going into melee, but taking TP for things like Stormlash Totem? It has a 40-yard radius. A lot of fights aren't spread equally around a boss, so there's no need to run into melee to drop it; the center of the raid group is often not where the boss is standing. And you should be placing yourself relatively near that position to begin with, precisely for reasons like Stormlash Totem.

[Tiberria]

I am concerned about what is going to happen with the Resto balancing. Right now, there is a massive amount of complaining from other classes that it is unreasonable and unfair that Healing Rain is healing for as much as it does and that Shaman are dominating when 10+ targets are stacked. It likely will result in the Healing Rain change not going live.

That said, I think the logs are heavily skewed in the initial flex/LFR testing. For one thing, 2 of the 3 bosses in LFR testing and 3 of the 4 bosses in flex testing so far have significant stacking. The fights past this first wing are significantly more spread out. For another, overheal even in LFR testing is 20-25% lower than it is on live, which means that Healing Rain is healing for up to twice as much as it likely will and our mastery is providing significantly more output than it will when it goes live.

We are 20% behind on stacked fights on live. While the HTT buff and addition of AG or Rushing Streams will probably bridge that gap, we are still 50%+ behind on spread fights on live, and the changes that were announced are not going to bridge that gap at all. In addition, Druids (with permanent Efflo, and Genesis) and Monks (with the reworked Rushing Jade Wind) have significantly more stacked throughput. If they revert this Healing Rain change, chances are we will be not even be the best (let alone dominant) at stacked healing, and our spread healing will still be the weakest. I suppose that is what most other classes are trying to accomplish though.

[Txiv]

I am concerned about what is going to happen with the Resto balancing. Right now, there is a massive amount of complaining from other classes that it is unreasonable and unfair that Healing Rain is healing for as much as it does and that Shaman are dominating when 10+ targets are stacked. It likely will result in the Healing Rain change not going live.

That said, I think the logs are heavily skewed in the initial flex/LFR testing. For one thing, 2 of the 3 bosses in LFR testing and 3 of the 4 bosses in flex testing so far have significant stacking. The fights past this first wing are significantly more spread out. For another, overheal even in LFR testing is 20-25% lower than it is on live, which means that Healing Rain is healing for up to twice as much as it likely will and our mastery is providing significantly more output than it will when it goes live.

We are 20% behind on stacked fights on live. While the HTT buff and addition of AG or Rushing Streams will probably bridge that gap, we are still 50%+ behind on spread fights on live, and the changes that were announced are not going to bridge that gap at all. In addition, Druids (with permanent Efflo, and Genesis) and Monks (with the reworked Rushing Jade Wind) have significantly more stacked throughput. If they revert this Healing Rain change, chances are we will be not even be the best (let alone dominant) at stacked healing, and our spread healing will still be the weakest. I suppose that is what most other classes are trying to accomplish though.

But what does 20% behind mean? That as a resto you are 20% less likely to get a boss kill ? Or are 20% less healing done? If you are succeeding in boss kills what is the difference? There is just as much difference in the Dps realm of numbers between top and bottom.

[Raiju]

Magma Totem carries some risk of going into melee, but taking TP for things like Stormlash Totem? It has a 40-yard radius. A lot of fights aren't spread equally around a boss, so there's no need to run into melee to drop it; the center of the raid group is often not where the boss is standing. And you should be placing yourself relatively near that position to begin with, precisely for reasons like Stormlash Totem.

10man logic. What about multiple shamans? What about when others need to be in the middle?

I'm still waiting for why speed increases aren't dps increases, why the 0.2% gain beats out making sure stormlash is correctly positioned (no, it isn't always viable no matter how much you want it to be, and that 0.2% is beat by 2 players gaining stormlash), why this 0.2% is guaranteed every fight despite mobility, trinket procs, other factors.

It's such a nonsensical thing to pick and all it does is bring us back to a tier with 2 terrible talents and 1 very bad (for dps pve), I'm not asking for a direct dps increase, but I'm asking for general talent improvements on a tier that has generally been agreed upon as our worst tier. I'd love for them to make a useful totem tier. Why not put windwalk in its own tier, add a new slow type thing and put windwalk alongside a stampeding roar totem, throw repulsion totem in on one and fill with one more? I'd imagine stampeding roar would need to have a target limit and short duration to not be de facto best, but it's a start.

[Nebria]

Suggest spending 1 GCD per minute (or close to it in scenarios where you take bulwark), and people don't understand how it's a dps decrease. Bulwark will lose you a LOT more dps than Totemic Persistence would, assuming the fight is over a minute long (even in peak totemic persistence performance).

I understand that is is a dps decrease as one costs a gcd and the other not. but I find it ridiculous. I guess the same people would die by damage cause they had to finish an elemental blast cast to not lose dps. you know what you lose much more damage by rnd boss mechanic like move out of fire, do some self healing etc. it's a shame to even discuss this.

magma totem, probably. Some people suggested magma totem being a viable dps increase. Stormlash is was also mentioned due to people being spread out (but all in range of the boss)

@magma
I can understand it for quon, when all quillen are there however I have my fe ready for this situation
I don't understand why you would use it on a single target boss like jin'rohk or ji'kun. is there some mechanic I'm not aware of?

@stormlash
didn't take care till now that some people couldn't be in range. hm seems I have to switch to projection.

[Tiberria]

But what does 20% behind mean? That as a resto you are 20% less likely to get a boss kill ? Or are 20% less healing done? If you are succeeding in boss kills what is the difference? There is just as much difference in the Dps realm of numbers between top and bottom.

It means that top guilds are going to sit their Shaman if they have other classes that give them 20% more healing and they don't lose anything of major value by doing so. The spec has suffered through terrible mechanics design and terrible numbers tuning for long enough that they are better off airing on the side of overbuffing (knowing that Shaman mastery ALWAYS makes the spec look better than it really is in raid testing) than undershooting it for yet another tier.

You are also wrong about DPS balance. The maximum difference between the best and worst DPS specs that are reasonably played (things like Frost mages and Subtlety rogues should be thrown out since they are pure DPS classes that have superior DPS specs), is only about 10%. The variance between healers this tier is upwards of 30% overall (with Shaman at the bottom) and upwards of 100% on individual fights (again with Shaman on the bottom on every fight with that wide of a variance).

[Endus]

10man logic. What about multiple shamans? What about when others need to be in the middle?

Are you raiding with 20 Shaman or something? Otherwise, it's pretty simple to be near enough the middle of the raid that dropping Stormlash is easy and convenient without needing TP.

I'm still waiting for why speed increases aren't dps increases

Dealt with that here.

Long story short, movement speed increases are DPS increases primarily because they reduce travel time for reactionary movement, when the boss targets you and you need to run right now. If you just need to move over 20' in the next 15 seconds, most specs can manage that without any DPS loss or movement speed increases necessary.

It's such a nonsensical thing to pick and all it does is bring us back to a tier with 2 terrible talents and 1 very bad (for dps pve), I'm not asking for a direct dps increase, but I'm asking for general talent improvements on a tier that has generally been agreed upon as our worst tier. I'd love for them to make a useful totem tier. Why not put windwalk in its own tier, add a new slow type thing and put windwalk alongside a stampeding roar totem, throw repulsion totem in on one and fill with one more? I'd imagine stampeding roar would need to have a target limit and short duration to not be de facto best, but it's a start.

I'm not defending the tier; I've been critical of that talent tier since the beta. I'm merely pointing out that when one is a concrete DPS increase, that beats out other talents which are QOL improvements. And TP is a quality-of-life improvement. For the most part, you can get your totems where you need them without tossing them, if you're planning ahead. Does TP make it easier by removing that need to pre-plan moving into position without losing DPS? Sure. That's the quality of life improvement. It makes that easier. If the best player in the world could manage it without any DPS loss, though, then the talent is not a DPS increase. It's a convenience increase. That doesn't mean it has no value, but it's a different quality of value.

[Tiberria]

Are you raiding with 20 Shaman or something? Otherwise, it's pretty simple to be near enough the middle of the raid that dropping Stormlash is easy and convenient without needing TP.

Fights this tier alone where that is often an issue (depending on raid strats, etc of course).
-Horridon
-Ji Kun
-Durumu
-Dark Animus
-Lei Shen

[Raiju]

I'm not defending the tier; I've been critical of that talent tier since the beta. I'm merely pointing out that when one is a concrete DPS increase, that beats out other talents which are QOL improvements. And TP is a quality-of-life improvement. For the most part, you can get your totems where you need them without tossing them, if you're planning ahead. Does TP make it easier by removing that need to pre-plan moving into position without losing DPS? Sure. That's the quality of life improvement. It makes that easier. If the best player in the world could manage it without any DPS loss, though, then the talent is not a DPS increase. It's a convenience increase. That doesn't mean it has no value, but it's a different quality of value.

And on some fights that sort of movement just isn't viable. Sometimes thing physically won't line up and "planning ahead for when they do" may cause a dps loss due to trinkets, other cd's, etc.

When it comes to stormlash we're also not talking about the best single player, we're talking about hte best full raid of players.

And yeah in my 10man we sometimes raid with 4 shamans. 5-6 of a class is hardly extreme in a 25man, for example (ignoring class stacking).

[Endus]

And on some fights that sort of movement just isn't viable. Sometimes thing physically won't line up and "planning ahead for when they do" may cause a dps loss due to trinkets, other cd's, etc.

Yes. And that's not a criticism of my argument, since there's often cases where a situational talent will have more value than the universal boost talent, for fight-specific reasons. That's always been the case.

When it comes to stormlash we're also not talking about the best single player, we're talking about hte best full raid of players.

If we're discussing whether something is a flat DPS increase, or a quality-of-life improvement, then yes, we're talking about how each would affect the best single player. If other players aren't as good and can't get by without the convenience factor provided by the talent, that's not a statement in favor of the talent, it's a statement against those players' skill levels.

And yeah in my 10man we sometimes raid with 4 shamans. 5-6 of a class is hardly extreme in a 25man, for example (ignoring class stacking).

5-6 Shaman in the raid wouldn't in any way affect what I was talking about with regards to raid positioning. A 40-yard radius is huge. Unless you're all surrounding a boss in a circle, and everyone is at max range, that 40-yard radius can easily cover the whole raid with a wide variance of positioning. And raids avoid that circumstance at all costs, because healers have the same range issues; they end up having to split up and take over sections of the raid with only some overlap. There are a few fights like this, but they're few and far between.

[Txiv]

Why if we at talking about " top guilds benching" would we throw out frost mages and rogues? Obviously they put out the best Dps yet we don't see entire fields of just them in guilds. We also don't see 5 disc priest builds in " top 25 guilds". Maybe resto should accept a role as a niche cooldown utility role. As a complimentary healer. As the healing class that does boss mechanics like celestial summoning on twins so Dps can stay in for fight.


Edited because iPhone is dumb lol

[Tiberria]

Why if we at talking about " top guilds benching" would we throw out frost mages and rogues? Obviously they put out the best nm Rex yet we don't see entire fields of just them in guilds. We also don't see 5 disc priest builds in " top 25 guilds". Maybe resto should accept a role as a niche cooldown utility role. As a complimentary healer. As the healing class that does boss mechanics like celestial summoning on twins so Dps can stay in for fight.

You would throw out frost mages and subtlety rogues, because no competent mage or rogue will play those specs on high end progression when there are other mage/rogue specs that are doing 15% more DPS. Resto already has a niche role - it's called stacked healing. The problem is if the Healing Rain target cap change does not go through, we will not be better than other healers at stacked healing (like we are worse than every other healer at it on live). We are significantly worse than other healers at spread healing, so we have every right to expect to dominate stacked healing.

[Nebria]

I am concerned about what is going to happen with the Resto balancing. Right now, there is a massive amount of complaining from other classes that it is unreasonable and unfair that Healing Rain is healing for as much as it does and that Shaman are dominating when 10+ targets are stacked. It likely will result in the Healing Rain change not going live.

gc more or less confirmed that shaman is meant to be the best healer when it is about stack healing. so they can complain as much as they want as far at it is in blizzards parameters (and we are not yet on number tuning ) it is ok for them even if other class cry endless rivers.

[ganiccus]

You would throw out frost mages and subtlety rogues, because no competent mage or rogue will play those specs on high end progression when there are other mage/rogue specs that are doing 15% more DPS. Resto already has a niche role - it's called stacked healing. The problem is if the Healing Rain target cap change does not go through, we will not be better than other healers at stacked healing (like we are worse than every other healer at it on live). We are significantly worse than other healers at spread healing, so we have every right to expect to dominate stacked healing.

I have done some flex raiding and I'm not even sure we will be the most dominant stacked healer niche Blizzard is forcing us into. My fellow holy priest with his ridiculously insane T16 4pc bonus was pretty close to me in our Norushen logs and I had the legendary cloak while he didnt. Keep in mind that for the sake of learning the mechanics, we didn't zerg the boss and sent multiple people to do their challenges.

Logs of our Norushen kill in flex raid (22 people)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/n...?s=5224&e=5546

[Tiberria]

I have done some flex raiding and I'm not even sure we will be the most dominant stacked healer niche Blizzard is forcing us into. My fellow holy priest with his ridiculously insane T16 4pc bonus was pretty close to me in our Norushen logs and I had the legendary cloak while he didnt. Keep in mind that for the sake of learning the mechanics, we didn't zerg the boss and sent multiple people to do their challenges.

Logs of our Norushen kill in flex raid (22 people)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/n...?s=5224&e=5546

Holy Word: Sanctuary is apparently bugged on the PTR and doing way more healing/having way higher uptime than is intended, so the Holy Priest numbers are probably off. However, Mistweavers are completely messed up in the current PTR build. They gutted their Chi generation and regen, which they are reverting back in the build being loaded today, but any of their numbers so far can be taken with a grain of salt.

That said, look at your overheal - 37%. That is in no way indicative of what will happen in a 25H raid on live with 550ish ilvl healers - that will go up to 70%+, which means your mastery contribution is greatly inflated.

[Angrysteel]

A 40-yard radius is huge. Unless you're all surrounding a boss in a circle, and everyone is at max range, that 40-yard radius can easily cover the whole raid with a wide variance of positioning. And raids avoid that circumstance at all costs, because healers have the same range issues; they end up having to split up and take over sections of the raid with only some overlap. There are a few fights like this, but they're few and far between.

Those types of fights are few and far between? Just off the top of my head, i going to say half the fights this tier fall into this category? Lets see, fights where everyone is not always within 40 yards:

Jin'rokh during transitions, depending on strat. We have everyone run on all sides of the boss.
Horridon for sure, atleast in 25 man. So many times i have to run around looking for melee to dispel because they are too far away.
Ji-kun's platform is bigger than 40 yards, and people are spread around it.
Durumu for sure.
Dark Animus... duh.
Iron Qon players are clearly spread farther than the 40 yard radius.
Twins players are clearly spread farther than 40 yards.

Thats over half the fights, a far cry from "few and far between". If we just listed fights that specifically effect Stormlash positioning, its definltey a smaller list. Something like Horridon, Council, Ji'Kun, Primo (maybe), Dark Animus, Iron Qon, and Twins. The other bosses you are generally stacked pretty close when using Stormlash.

This is definitely a bigger issue with 25 man raiding, probably not so much in 10 man raiding since you have a whole lot more room to work with in 10s.



Even if we just look at the new tier, the very first boss will favor Projection tremendously.

[Recom]

Fights this tier alone where that is often an issue (depending on raid strats, etc of course).
-Horridon
-Ji Kun
-Durumu
-Dark Animus
-Lei Shen

I'm sorry to say that but you're doing it wrong if you have problems on Horridon, Ji-kun, Durumu and Lei Shen. Placement on DA is a bitch but that's it, on all the other bosses you can plan ahead and affect your entire raid. If 1 or 2 people are outside the range of your totem then they need to move in, not the other way around.

[ganiccus]

Holy Word: Sanctuary is apparently bugged on the PTR and doing way more healing/having way higher uptime than is intended, so the Holy Priest numbers are probably off. However, Mistweavers are completely messed up in the current PTR build. They gutted their Chi generation and regen, which they are reverting back in the build being loaded today, but any of their numbers so far can be taken with a grain of salt.

That said, look at your overheal - 37%. That is in no way indicative of what will happen in a 25H raid on live with 550ish ilvl healers - that will go up to 70%+, which means your mastery contribution is greatly inflated.

Our mistweaver monk told me his mana regen felt like he was playing on his holy paladin alt, which is around the same ilvl than flex raids on the PTR lol. I wasn't aware however that sanctuary was bugged and did more healing than intended, I found it odd that it was so competitive with healing rain while it has diminishing returns after 6 targets standing in it.

[shammypie]

Originally Posted by Tiberria
Fights this tier alone where that is often an issue (depending on raid strats, etc of course).
-Horridon
-Ji Kun
-Durumu
-Dark Animus
-Lei Shen

I'm sorry to say that but you're doing it wrong if you have problems on Horridon, Ji-kun, Durumu and Lei Shen. Placement on DA is a bitch but that's it, on all the other bosses you can plan ahead and affect your entire raid. If 1 or 2 people are outside the range of your totem then they need to move in, not the other way around.

this, either you, your raid, or your stat is calling for your totems at the wrong time and not getting the full effect. 40 yards is rather large and if you are a healer you have no excuse for not being within 40 yards of everyone to begin with.

[Deleted]

Should probably make a seperate thread for Resto Shaman and DPS Shamans, its getting quite messy.