Why is blizzard so stubborn about resto shaman spread heals?

[Tiberria]

Are resto shamans really looking that good on the PTR? I'm not going to be too excited till the new patch hits live to avoid disappointment.

As for the "stacked" healing niche. I love it. Healing rain placement is an interesting choice for me. Sometimes you even have to guess movement when it comes to its placement, which can be fun as well.

In the past, the thing that concerned me was how lackluster we were at stacked healing. At the cost of abysmal spread healing.

Moral of the story I find niches fun!

On 25 man PTR testing, yes, Shaman are looking like possibly the #1 healer. However, I think that the results are skewed by the 496 ilvl scaling, and by playing with other healers that mostly don't know what they are doing, resulting in overhealing being lower than it realistically will be, raid health levels being lower than they realistically will be, and our mastery contribution being higher than it realistically will be. We need to see 25 man N/Heroic testing to really get a better picture.

[Sparkidy]

I hope my previous mosts didn't come across as "niches suck", because that's not how I feel at all. It's totally necessary to differentiate the classes so there's a reason to play one and not the other. The problem we've had though, as has been pointed out before, is that our specific niche has become increasingly rarely seen, and even then, other healers have been outperforming us in it.

With the changes, I think we'll probably be ok next patch. What generally work out as my top 3 sources of healing are all getting buffed in their own way, so at least numbers wise we should be fine.

[Seriss]

On 25 man PTR testing, yes, Shaman are looking like possibly the #1 healer. However, I think that the results are skewed by the 496 ilvl scaling, and by playing with other healers that mostly don't know what they are doing, resulting in overhealing being lower than it realistically will be, raid health levels being lower than they realistically will be, and our mastery contribution being higher than it realistically will be. We need to see 25 man N/Heroic testing to really get a better picture.

Exactly that. That was also exactly what it looked like on MoP Beta LFR when I played it. If someone is judging shaman performance by looking at LFR logs, they're doing it wrong. Because that result is so awfully skewed, it isn't funny. And then you get the current state of shaman on live out of it. But hey, we were looking awesome in Mogu'shan Vaults Beta LFR at least :P

[Avada Kedavra]

cause spread healing is the MW niche -


you get to heal for a shit ton when ppl are stacked - we lowly mistweavers get to excel when people are spread out.


What do you want, your healing rain to have a 100 yard range???

[Tiberria]

cause spread healing is the MW niche -


you get to heal for a shit ton when ppl are stacked - we lowly mistweavers get to excel when people are spread out.


What do you want, your healing rain to have a 100 yard range???

Protectors is pretty much a stacked fight. Immerseus is a spread fight, but the mechanics of the fight pretty much demand that (1) only about 5 people are in range of each healer at a given time - meaning that Renewing Mists/Uplift, etc will only reach 1/3 of the targets it reaches normally (2) you need to single target heal friendly adds that spawn - which Mistweavers suck at. It's hardly shocking that they would be close to even with Shaman on Immerseus.

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly that. That was also exactly what it looked like on MoP Beta LFR when I played it. If someone is judging shaman performance by looking at LFR logs, they're doing it wrong. Because that result is so awfully skewed, it isn't funny. And then you get the current state of shaman on live out of it. But hey, we were looking awesome in Mogu'shan Vaults Beta LFR at least :P

Hopefully, Blizzard realizes this time how Shaman scaling and mastery carries over when it goes live rather than gives in to the complaining of other classes based on PTR LFR testing. On the Paladin forums, they are calling for Shaman stacked healing nerfs because a Shaman outhealed a Paladin by 20% on a stacked fight, which is ridiculous.

[Yalingo]

This has long plagued Resto Shaman... We either have really awesome tiers (T6.5, T10, T14) or completely horrific tiers (T8, T11, T15) and it's ALWAYS based on how the encounters are designed.

I had been hoping blizzard would find a way to fix this issue by now, but I gave up that endeavor years ago.

[Tiberria]

This has long plagued Resto Shaman... We either have really awesome tiers (T6.5, T10, T14) or completely horrific tiers (T8, T11, T15) and it's ALWAYS based on how the encounters are designed.

I had been hoping blizzard would find a way to fix this issue by now, but I gave up that endeavor years ago.

And neither T10 nor T14 were particularly spectacular either. In T10, sure Shaman and Chain Heal spam was super powerful, but really every healer was awesome that tier (except Holy Priests), and I think Shaman were probably behind Disc, Druids and Paladins. In T14, Shaman were actually the second lowest throughput healer.

[Rafal]

Hopefully, Blizzard realizes this time how Shaman scaling and mastery carries over when it goes live rather than gives in to the complaining of other classes based on PTR LFR testing. On the Paladin forums, they are calling for Shaman stacked healing nerfs because a Shaman outhealed a Paladin by 20% on a stacked fight, which is ridiculous.

I don't get it! why cant pally just leave us alone!? We have one really good niche can't they deal with it? >> wooo we excelled at what bliz wants us to excel at.

Anyways.... don't worry pally once everyone gets geared our leet stacked hps will be over shadowed by absorbs.

[Tiberria]

I don't get it! why cant pally just leave us alone!? We have one really good niche can't they deal with it? >> wooo we excelled at what bliz wants us to excel at.

Anyways.... don't worry pally once everyone gets geared our leet stacked hps will be over shadowed by absorbs.

I think they are well served to air on the side of overbuffing Resto Shaman, especially because they know that our performance always declines the further we get into a tier and the higher average ilvl rises by. Besides, the last time that Shaman were the dominant healer was T6 in Sunwell - a full 9 tiers ago. Since that, you can easily argue that they were the weakest healer in 6 of the 9 tiers the last 3 expansions.

5.2/5.3 didn't really have one totally dominant healer, but every patch before that certainly did.

4.0 - Paladins at the start of Cata were completely dominating every other healer to the point that LFD 5 man groups would actually vote kick healers until they got a Holy Paladin. This was a rare case where they actually did something about it - they removed Holy Light on Beacon giving HP
4.2 - Firelands - Resto Druids were easily 20%+ above every other healer for the duration of the tier with the buff to Tranq, the fight design, and some other changes. Nothing was done about it until 4.3 when they took major nerfs
4.3 - Dragon Soul - The redesigned Holy Radiance meant that Pallies were basically destroying every other healer. They tried to fix it by raising the mana cost and nerfing the 4 piece bonus, but it didn't really have an impact
5.0 - Mistweavers at launch were completely broken and destroying every other healer. It wasn't really fully balanced until 5.1
5.1 - Disc Priests were destroying every one else from late 5.0 until ToT went live. It was completely ignored.

In just the last 5 tiers, every healing class except Shaman have had an extended period where they have been what would be considered "broken OP". Is it really unreasonable to expect that this tier might finally be our turn?

[Melarose]

I think they are well served to air on the side of overbuffing Resto Shaman, especially because they know that our performance always declines the further we get into a tier and the higher average ilvl rises by. Besides, the last time that Shaman were the dominant healer was T6 in Sunwell - a full 9 tiers ago. Since that, you can easily argue that they were the weakest healer in 6 of the 9 tiers the last 3 expansions.

5.2/5.3 didn't really have one totally dominant healer, but every patch before that certainly did.

4.0 - Paladins at the start of Cata were completely dominating every other healer to the point that LFD 5 man groups would actually vote kick healers until they got a Holy Paladin. This was a rare case where they actually did something about it - they removed Holy Light on Beacon giving HP
4.2 - Firelands - Resto Druids were easily 20%+ above every other healer for the duration of the tier with the buff to Tranq, the fight design, and some other changes. Nothing was done about it until 4.3 when they took major nerfs
4.3 - Dragon Soul - The redesigned Holy Radiance meant that Pallies were basically destroying every other healer. They tried to fix it by raising the mana cost and nerfing the 4 piece bonus, but it didn't really have an impact
5.0 - Mistweavers at launch were completely broken and destroying every other healer. It wasn't really fully balanced until 5.1
5.1 - Disc Priests were destroying every one else from late 5.0 until ToT went live. It was completely ignored.

In just the last 5 tiers, every healing class except Shaman have had an extended period where they have been what would be considered "broken OP". Is it really unreasonable to expect that this tier might finally be our turn?

But should it really be like this? The game is horribly frustrating when you know you're at the bottom for a tier. The problem most people are stating is that Blizz isn't even taking the steps to make us 'broken op' yet. They seem to be compensating by giving us HTT and some minor buffs and talent reworks but they're dancing around the real problem that could potentially make or break our lingering problems.

Personally, I think they need to start really racking their brains to see how they can give us a happy medium. I doubt many of us want to be broken... we just want the numbers we deserve in terms of skill output. And as an ex-druid main who was that 20%+ above the rest in FL, I'd rather actually have competition than just rock the meters. x)

[Thirteen]

In just the last 5 tiers, every healing class except Shaman have had an extended period where they have been what would be considered "broken OP". Is it really unreasonable to expect that this tier might finally be our turn?

As a holy priest (ie "I haven't been useful since 3.1) - you're not the only one being ignored. And, to be completely honest, I have to say, shamans were pretty decent in 4.3. Not as good as paladins, but still they had a slight edge over others.

[Tiberria]

As a holy priest (ie "I haven't been useful since 3.1) - you're not the only one being ignored. And, to be completely honest, I have to say, shamans were pretty decent in 4.3. Not as good as paladins, but still they had a slight edge over others.

I don't think Holy Priests are anything approaching the Resto Shaman problem. They have the option to just spec Disc, and Disc has ranged between average and viable to completely overpowered for the last 3 expansions. If Resto Shaman suck, we don't have another healing spec that we can just respec to and be 100% fine. Also, right now, Holy Priests actually have the highest throughput of any healer in 25H.

[Eltax]

I've seen all these posts about shamans "sucking" for tier after tier, and I guess it may be true that the numbers were not always the highest due to circumstance.

Yet, after playing a resto shaman for about 4 years now, I've almost never had a healing moment/composition (except with one priest that liked to bomb meters and oom) where I was "bottom of the barrel", or even "lagging behind". I've seen other resto shamans in high-end heroic raid progression too, because they knew how to use their toolkit.

Why is it so many people focus on the HPS when overhealing/mana consumption/healing mechanics aren't even taken into consideration? Keeping the raid alive is the most important aspect, and when it comes down to 10% health on the whole raid, a shaman can just clutch heal everyone back up to 70% in no time flat. I've seen it and done it.

Are we saying that at lower gear levels shamans "suck" based on personal experience? Are we saying they "lag behind" based on data in WoL that doesn't take into account every single healer in game? Are we saying that shamans are "bottom of the barrel" without looking at the healer composition and how much damage was actually going out to be healed in the first place? I get sick of seeing such negativity about the spec is all. -__-

Anyway, on a brighter note, I am glad that HTT is becoming baseline. I look forward to having AG, HTT, and Ascendance at the Shaman's disposal. ^__^

[Seriss]

Why is it so many people focus on the HPS when overhealing/mana consumption/healing mechanics aren't even taken into consideration? Keeping the raid alive is the most important aspect, and when it comes down to 10% health on the whole raid, a shaman can just clutch heal everyone back up to 70% in no time flat. I've seen it and done it.

The lack of HPS in some raid compositions is just the symptom of the underlying problems that the shaman toolkit has with current raid design. That's not to say that shaman can't heal things. Sure we can. Many of the people posting on mmo have good to very good progression, meaning that it IS possible to clear content with a resto shaman. The thing is just that we're having a harder time healing that sort of stuff on our shamys than we'd have it on other classes.

The "bottom of the barrel" thing comes from averaging out the shaman performances across all healer compositions and skill levels. (I'm looking rather nice on the meters in my raid actually, but hps isn't the problem, I feel. The problem is the application of the hps that I can produce. That's like - I often use this comparison - using a screwdriver to hammer a nail into a wall.) Of course you'll have a superb player in there, of course you'll have a baddie in there. You'll have the poor guy whose healing gets almost completely sniped by a disc priest partner outside of cooldowns, and you'll have the guy who is healing with a resto druid and has a bit more of a chance to produce actually effective healing (though to be honest, when HoTs are ticking, I don't feel the need to snipe my healer-buddy's healing unless the raid needs to be topped off NOW!)

The thing is that many top raid leaders need to cut down on the healers in a raid, and when you need to go with as few healers as possible, you drop the one whose performance lags behind somewhat. One shaman will probably always have a spot in a 25-man raid for as long as mana tide remains a powerful tool that allows other healers to drop regen and gain more output stats instead (fail design if I ever saw one, tbh. Every healer should be responsible for their own regen. Basing your regen on MY stats is just bad style. It's like telling a dps that they get spellpower according to the hit levels of the warlock in the raid or something ridiculous like that.)

[Protoman]

Healers need different strengths when it comes to primary role performance. DPS and tanks have similar variations. Some DPS are better than others in mobile fights. Others are better in AoE situations, still others when you can multidot, and so on. Some tanks are avoidance tanks, or soak tanks, each having strengths in certain boss fights. They have admittedly mitigated a lot of the differences in tanks, but that's because you only have one tank, typically, in 10-mans, and two in 25-mans; those differences are exacerbated.

Healers need their differences. That's why we have a class system. Each healer should have some tools for everything, just like every DPS has some capacity to AoE, but that doesn't mean they should all be equally good at it with identical abilities.

The goal is not equality, nor balance on any given fight. It is overall balance. So long as Resto has strengths to offset the weakness of their spread-healing, they're balanced and fine.

Some strengths and weaknesses are fine between classes of a subset like healers.....but I feel that all healers should have proper tools for both spread and stacked healing, and Resto is still subpar in spread heals IMO. Look at my example of holy pallys, they had a niche before of "tank heals" which was strong, single target heals but poor aoe healing....slowly over time they got stronger aoe heals, first limited like beacon and cone aoe heals but eventually with the standard 0-30/40yd raid heals and multiple aoe heal spells....they can do both stacked or spread healing.

Resto is still concentrated on stacked healing at the cost of spread heals, and this makes our job very difficult, especially in hard mode and 10 mans where spreading occurs more often. Instead of trying to improve our "niche" of stacked heals which is already pretty good they should improve our weaknesses to be more in-line with other healers such as add a brand new Resto only 0-30/40yd aoe heal, or improve current spells like buff the base jump range on CHL. Does not make sense to me that they intentionally make us weak at spread heals to be stronger at stacked healing.

I feel like any healer who is good at spread heals will still be pretty good at stacked heals, a heal that goes from 0-30yds will still be just as good if everyone is stacked at 0-10yds, but a heal that is limited to 0-10yds won't be any good with a raid that is spread out from 0-30yds. Resto shaman could use some real creative design improvements as I feel our toolkit is lacking compared to other healers, its crazy how many more heals other healers have, like holy pallys again which were once just as limited with a niche and much more simple heals..... I still think a simple, new aoe spread heal spell would be best like Priest's Halo ring but a unique resto version on a 10-15sec CD to use when we need it, doesn't have to be very strong but satisfy that missing part of our healer toolkit.

[Tiberria]

Some strengths and weaknesses are fine between classes of a subset like healers.....but I feel that all healers should have proper tools for both spread and stacked healing, and Resto is still subpar in spread heals IMO. Look at my example of holy pallys, they had a niche before of "tank heals" which was strong, single target heals but poor aoe healing....slowly over time they got stronger aoe heals, first limited like beacon and cone aoe heals but eventually with the standard 0-30/40yd raid heals and multiple aoe heal spells....they can do both stacked or spread healing.

Resto is still concentrated on stacked healing at the cost of spread heals, and this makes our job very difficult, especially in hard mode and 10 mans where spreading occurs more often. Instead of trying to improve our "niche" of stacked heals which is already pretty good they should improve our weaknesses to be more in-line with other healers such as add a brand new Resto only 0-30/40yd aoe heal, or improve current spells like buff the base jump range on CHL. Does not make sense to me that they intentionally make us weak at spread heals to be stronger at stacked healing.

I feel like any healer who is good at spread heals will still be pretty good at stacked heals, a heal that goes from 0-30yds will still be just as good if everyone is stacked at 0-10yds, but a heal that is limited to 0-10yds won't be any good with a raid that is spread out from 0-30yds. Resto shaman could use some real creative design improvements as I feel our toolkit is lacking compared to other healers, its crazy how many more heals other healers have, like holy pallys again which were once just as limited with a niche and much more simple heals..... I still think a simple, new aoe spread heal spell would be best like Priest's Halo ring but a unique resto version on a 10-15sec CD to use when we need it, doesn't have to be very strong but satisfy that missing part of our healer toolkit.

On the PTR, we are extremely good at 25 manstacked healing and blow any other healer away as long as 10+ people can be in HR. Of course, that is now leading to whining from other classes that it isn't fair that Shaman dominate stacked healing.

[Endus]

Some strengths and weaknesses are fine between classes of a subset like healers.....but I feel that all healers should have proper tools for both spread and stacked healing, and Resto is still subpar in spread heals IMO.

We'll run into issues in this discussion unless we define what we mean by "proper".

Resto can heal people that are spread apart. Not as well as other specs, but they can.

If you're arguing that we should have spread-healing tools that are just as good as anyone else's, we're back to you arguing that class systems are inherently bad, and I'm just going to disagree with that on its face. In any decent class system, with 6 classes filling a certain role (yes, I'm counting Priests twice because they have two healer specs), you should have one class that is worse than the rest at any given mode of performance. It should just be different modes, for each class, and each mode should have value in the raid dynamic.

I feel like any healer who is good at spread heals will still be pretty good at stacked heals, a heal that goes from 0-30yds will still be just as good if everyone is stacked at 0-10yds, but a heal that is limited to 0-10yds won't be any good with a raid that is spread out from 0-30yds. Resto shaman could use some real creative design improvements as I feel our toolkit is lacking compared to other healers, its crazy how many more heals other healers have, like holy pallys again which were once just as limited with a niche and much more simple heals..... I still think a simple, new aoe spread heal spell would be best like Priest's Halo ring but a unique resto version on a 10-15sec CD to use when we need it, doesn't have to be very strong but satisfy that missing part of our healer toolkit.

The problem with this is that "still pretty good" translates to most of the community as "totally useless garbage FIX NOW". For the same reasons that you're making your arguments, here, about Resto Shaman's spread healing. Which is objectively worse, but still pretty good. The issue is that raiders are going to min/max that 20%* difference, every time.

And if you think that should be more like a 2% difference, we're back to you arguing against the existence of a class system again.

*"20%" is a made-up value for the purpose of making a point, since actually determining that value objectively is near-impossible anyway

[Grubjuice]

i feel like shamans should have ended up with the Priest Talent [Cascade]

the WORD 'cascade' refers to the movement of water and electricity. how is that not an ideal name for a Shaman spell?

[Deleted]

I'm sorry, I haven't played resto for a while now, but with everyone saying our speed heals can't compete, has anyone tried out the new glyphed CH? Because while it may not be an answer to everything, it seems a decent way to deal with those situations where range may be a it of a problem, considering the loss of jumping depowering and the fact it now jumps even at full health.
I understand there's the issue of glyphing, which means there's a choice to be made concerning which version of CH we want, but it looks like a decent option, doesn't it?

[Dra]

its an option, but in fights that you need to stack and spread it can really hurt our stacked healing,
i guess we cant enjoy all the worlds