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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    SPREAD HEALS (effective even if everyone is standing on opposite sides of the room, running around like idiots, etc)
    You may want to change the description of your "spread" healing. Opposite sides of the room sounds FAR more than the 30 yard range of many of those aoe heals and you wouldn't actually use them if people are truely THAT spread out. (Or at least I read it as far more spread than 6+ targets within a 30 yard radius)

    (I get that its for sarcasm/expressive value but it could send a confusing message).

    I also wouldn't really include tree of life as an aoe healing CD unless you also include Wings and Divine Favor from pallies, since it behaves much more as a throughput CD like those two do (they can be used to aoe heal, but could be used to tank heal...not that this tier presents much need for that)

    And yes Rem+uplift is just annoying, and come WoD looks even worse. Hopefully there will be some iteration on it. What if uplift cause each target with ReM to burst with X healing, splitting the healing between up to 3 targets within 8 yards. Or something like that...dunno
    Last edited by Keiyra; 2014-04-22 at 01:29 PM.

  2. #22
    Resto Druids only have 2 big changes so far: Wild Growth having a cast time and Innervate being the worse mana regen cooldown available to all healers. Course I may be downplaying the loss of passive Swift Rejuvenation. Either way the class isn't really going to change how it's played between MoP and Wod.

  3. #23
    Deleted
    Paladin have it pretty bad aoe healing wise. While EF is an ok hot its heavily limited by its 3 Holy Power cost. Spread aoe healing as a paladin also costs 3 Holy Power(LoD) and doesn't even heal that much sadly. Furthermore, if you spec EF you might as well forget about using LoD. A suggestion I gave to someone recently what to macro "I'm using a bad talent right now" into his LoD cast when he was EF speced.
    This issue is amplified because while Devotion Aura becomes Holy only in WoD, its a far far cry from the strength of Tranq/Dhymn/Tide/Revival. DA only reduces the problem, those other spells actually deal with it.

    In the current alpha version at least, the class would only really function if constant tank healing was a thing.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Geodew View Post
    Er, really?

    TFT change was a huge nerf. Two-stance gameplay is annoying, personally, and a nerf. Soothing Mist and Crackling Jade Lightning not generating Chi at all is a huge nerf. Roll is now faster, but Uplift now has a cast time, so probably a mobility nerf. Healing Sphere removal, while appreciated by most, was a huge nerf (many players were asking for its removal, with compensation). 1.5s GCD is a huge nerf.

    Basically we have a bunch of big nerfs and no word on what's getting buffed healing-wise to keep us up to par except a nebulous promise that Surging Mist will be improved in some way (not enough). Are they buffing Soothing Mist? Enveloping Mist? Renewing Mist? Uplift? All of those? None of those? We have no healing numbers to work off of, so there's some degree of panic.

    More importantly, people don't like the direction they're taking it. No one really wants to stance dance, it seems, and it looks like swapping to DPS stance will be a horrible idea anyway because you can't cast Renewing Mist in the DPS stance. Further, swapping stances costs a GCD and all your stored Chi. Naturally, people don't like the 1.5s GCD because it will make the spec feel sluggish. We expected that they would make Haste valuable to us, but not by forcing a long GCD on us. People don't like that the range of Eminence is still only 20 yards. People don't like that Uplift is still tied to Renewing Mist, thus still being the only healer whose AoE has a reasonably high chance to do 100% (or otherwise cripplingly high) overhealing with 6 injured raid members, whereas everyone else does 0%.

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    Anyway, I'd say the problem with a thread like this is that most good and knowledgeable healers will never see it.
    Plenty of other healers have similarly seen a lot of nerfs with the Alpha changes and nothing done to compensate. This is hardly a "Monk problem".

    Shaman are getting a 30% nerf to Healing Rain (through removal of ULE buffing it) and a 35% mana cost increase to it, a 15% jump reduction added on Chain Heal, a 50% nerf to Healing Stream Totem and a 67% nerf to Ancestral Guidance with zero compensation whatsoever. If you applied those nerfs to live, it would be a ~40% throughput nerf. On top of that, about 90% of Shaman healing currently is smart healing, meaning that we will take a bigger nerf from the dumbing down of smart heal target selection than anyone else.

    They have announced the toning down of absorbs, and Disc Priests will be nerfed over and above that by the fact that absorbs will become less powerful relative to how they are on live if people really sit below topped health constantly. Pallies have been significantly nerfed by the change to Selfless Healer (the highest throughput playstyle currently).

    On top of that, you have to remember that the change in smart heal functionality where it targets random injured targets and not the lowest health targets means that every smart heal in WoD is essentially going to have mechanics similar to Renewing Mists on live. I don't think you are factoring the impact of that change in properly top the power of other classes; it will destroy Shaman in particular relative to live.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trubo View Post
    Innervate being the worse mana regen cooldown available to all healers.
    Wrong. Innervate is arguably the best of all of the new mana regen cooldowns. Druids have multiple mechanics - Omen of Clarity procs, Nature's Swiftness, Dream of Cenarius, Clarity of Focus L100 talent that they can intelligently use to continue healing during the duration of Innervate. No, I'm not saying that you have to take both DoC and Clarity of Focus, but you have the option to choose one or both of them to mitigate the Innervate penalty, on top of OoC and NS as baseline mitigators.

    Shaman and Holy Priests do ZERO healing while casting DPS spells for mana, and gain the exact same amount of mana per second that Innervate generates. Disc Priests have to give up their highest HPM heal for mana; Pallies have to spend more mana generating 3 HP than they get back from Divine Plea, making it a net loss to even use.

    Druids have no business complaining about that Innervate design; it beats what everyone else got.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Trubo View Post
    Resto Druids only have 2 big changes so far: Wild Growth having a cast time and Innervate being the worse mana regen cooldown available to all healers. Course I may be downplaying the loss of passive Swift Rejuvenation. Either way the class isn't really going to change how it's played between MoP and Wod.
    Last I heard, Innervate, along with Divine Plea for Hpals was being removed for WoD. Confirm or deny?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    Plenty of other healers have similarly seen a lot of nerfs with the Alpha changes and nothing done to compensate. This is hardly a "Monk problem".

    Shaman are getting a 30% nerf to Healing Rain (through removal of ULE buffing it) and a 35% mana cost increase to it, a 15% jump reduction added on Chain Heal, a 50% nerf to Healing Stream Totem and a 67% nerf to Ancestral Guidance with zero compensation whatsoever. If you applied those nerfs to live, it would be a ~40% throughput nerf. On top of that, about 90% of Shaman healing currently is smart healing, meaning that we will take a bigger nerf from the dumbing down of smart heal target selection than anyone else.

    They have announced the toning down of absorbs, and Disc Priests will be nerfed over and above that by the fact that absorbs will become less powerful relative to how they are on live if people really sit below topped health constantly. Pallies have been significantly nerfed by the change to Selfless Healer (the highest throughput playstyle currently).

    On top of that, you have to remember that the change in smart heal functionality where it targets random injured targets and not the lowest health targets means that every smart heal in WoD is essentially going to have mechanics similar to Renewing Mists on live. I don't think you are factoring the impact of that change in properly top the power of other classes; it will destroy Shaman in particular relative to live.

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    Wrong. Innervate is arguably the best of all of the new mana regen cooldowns. Druids have multiple mechanics - Omen of Clarity procs, Nature's Swiftness, Dream of Cenarius, Clarity of Focus L100 talent that they can intelligently use to continue healing during the duration of Innervate. No, I'm not saying that you have to take both DoC and Clarity of Focus, but you have the option to choose one or both of them to mitigate the Innervate penalty, on top of OoC and NS as baseline mitigators.

    Shaman and Holy Priests do ZERO healing while casting DPS spells for mana, and gain the exact same amount of mana per second that Innervate generates. Disc Priests have to give up their highest HPM heal for mana; Pallies have to spend more mana generating 3 HP than they get back from Divine Plea, making it a net loss to even use.

    Druids have no business complaining about that Innervate design; it beats what everyone else got.
    Shamans don't heal while casting dps spells to regain mana? Awkward. Could have sworn that lightning bolt cast with conductivity increased healing rain duration... Funny

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Greenfyre View Post


    Shamans don't heal while casting dps spells to regain mana? Awkward. Could have sworn that lightning bolt cast with conductivity increased healing rain duration... Funny
    (A) Conductivity is a terrible talent that is almost never used in PvE, because it's a 20% or more throughput loss to use it
    (B) If you actually read the patch notes, you would see that they are removing the ability for DPS spells to increase Conductivity as Resto (and healing spells to increase the duration as a DPS spec).

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Greenfyre View Post
    Shamans don't heal while casting dps spells to regain mana? Awkward. Could have sworn that lightning bolt cast with conductivity increased healing rain duration... Funny
    If you so much as suggest using Conductivity in any semi-decent setting, you will get laughed out of the raid/party for being so bad.

    Also, from patch notes:

    Conductivity is no longer triggered by damaging spells for Restoration Shaman, or by healing spells for non-Restoration Shaman.

    You should feel really bad and embarrassed for even suggesting Conductivity, and being so arrogant about it.
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  8. #28
    The Lightbringer Toxigen's Avatar
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    So, play the class that interests you most...you'll have at least one point in the upcoming expansion where you will shine above the rest.
    "There are two types of guys in this world. Guys who sniff their fingers after scratching their balls, and dirty fucking liars." -StylesClashv3
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalis View Post
    Not finding-a-cock-on-your-girlfriend-is-normal level of odd, but nevertheless, still odd.

  9. #29
    Deleted
    Can't know since alpha = alpha.

  10. #30
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    I found monk to be really frustrating to heal with in raids with more than 10 people. Sad that isn't getting changed, seeing as that kind of "random healing" doesn't fit with the new model at all.
    Resto druids seem fine. I'm honestly confused about why they are keeping genesis, considering that the new healing model shouldn't require burst healing in the same way as SoO. Genesis was a band-aid to a problem which should no longer exist in WoD. Also it wasn't getting much use either.
    Quote Originally Posted by Greenfyre View Post
    Last I heard, Innervate, along with Divine Plea for Hpals was being removed for WoD. Confirm or deny?
    It was added to the servers once again for reasons unknown to us.
    Last edited by mmocea9cec0ead; 2014-04-22 at 04:52 PM.

  11. #31
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    I would really wait until beta hits and a lot of the class changes yet to be implemented are in the game before theorycrafting. Blizzard could change their mind next week about everything.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Toxigen View Post
    So, play the class that interests you most...you'll have at least one point in the upcoming expansion where you will shine above the rest.
    This is actually a pretty good point. As much hate as Blizzard gets, they did a nice job (albeit possibly unintentionally) of letting every healer have their time to shine.

    In T14: MWs were dominating with jab-jab-uplift.

    In T15: Paladins were still using the 4p from last tier which reduced holy shock's CD by 2 seconds. Add in EF blanketing + absorbs everywhere + BoP solo tank cheesing. Yeah...

    In T16: Shamans got a huge buff to healing rain and got HTT (now affecting 12 people in 25m) baseline. Also stack fights. Hooray for stack fights.

    Disc priests were obviously good at every point except at the beginning of T14 until the DA changes. Holy priests suffered from being the same class as disc priests so they don't really count. Druids are the only ones that never really were top dog but they were always average, if not above average. I'd certainly be willing to listen to a case that they were quite exceptional this tier.

  13. #33
    Sort of unrelated but the way ReM works is the reason I despise MW monk healing currently. If they're removing the smart jumps, it'll only be worse.

    I have every healing class at 90, btw.

  14. #34
    So in this discussion, I'm not seeing any claims that one class will obviously dominate in AoE situations, especially in the case of a spread out raid. So perhaps that design is working as intended, and AoE damage is supposed to be difficult without proactive designation of a healer to a small group within a small radius?

    And worries about throughput are obviously meaningless at this stage, as the only relevant metric is throughput compared to raid damage. Comparisons of throughput in relation to other spells within the same classes' toolkit, which would adjust priority, are of course a worthwhile discussion topic.

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Vedni View Post
    Sort of unrelated but the way ReM works is the reason I despise MW monk healing currently. If they're removing the smart jumps, it'll only be worse.

    I have every healing class at 90, btw.
    The jumps aren't "smart" by my definitions of smart-heals in 5.4. Of all the targets who are not at full health and within 20 yards (40 yards glyphed), it jumps to the closest (glyphed: farthest) one. NOT the most-injured one. Just for the record

  16. #36
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ranjit View Post
    First of all, Riptide. It has a cooldown, in contrast with Rejuv, which doesn't. You can remove the cooldown via a glyph, at the cost of 75% of the initial heal (used to be an hps loss in most scenarios). Either way, i certainly would NOT put it in one bag with the likes of PW:S, Rejuv, EF or RM. It is just much weaker.
    Thanks. How would you classify Riptide as a Shammy, then? I plead total ignorance here — is it a hot? A burst heal? Strictly a button that could be renamed "Tidal Waves"? I just don't know what to compare it to.

    Next, onto the main problem in your comparison: Chainheal. You put it both in "spread" and "stacked" toolkits. Which is it? Because if you're under impression it's a superuniversal tool for any occasion, you're very much mistaken:|
    There was a lot of confusion here so I appreciate the clarification. Again, I truly just don't 'get' how Shaman healing works at the high level. It seems like the only tool Shaman has for spread-out people so I put it in Spread, but it also seems strong if everyone's clumped up, so I left it in stack.

    Prior to 5.4, with the healing dropping off with each consecutive jump, the spell would usually yield barely more healing than a single target heal, unless the raid was 100% stacked, that's how crappy it was.
    I was commenting strictly on 5.4 based on an article at Heliocentric where @Dayani went into enormous detail about how the nature of SoO and 5.4's conversion of CHeal to never drop off lead to it being smarter to just spam CHeal on anyone rather than waste reaction time trying to hunt up an injured, Riptided target within jump range. If @Dayani's assessment is inaccurate I'm happy to correct it, but I figured she knew more about CHeal than I ever will.

    Then came the range problem. On vast majority of fights, the heal would not chain beyond the first target unless you glyphed it. Sure, the glyph doesnt put a cd on Chainheal anymore (and it used to ><), but we actually have to glyph for it to be even considered in a non-100%-stacked scenarios.
    OK but, then how does Shaman actually use their buttons? I'm happy to correct my misunderstandings but I still don't know what to correct them into.

    Just think about it: the major "high spread, high movement" raidtiers in the past are historically the ones where shamans perform the worst (Firelands, ToT). Sometimes as bad as below 50% of the average expected hps.
    Right, this is what I'm looking for. Kind of feeling out 'Are Mistweavers just gimped?' or is it more 'The entire WoW healing system is deranged'?

    Based on feedback from other classes I'm beginning to lean toward 'deranged'.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wombats23 View Post
    It'd be cool if someone could link some confirmation about the removal of party requirement but I've personally never seen one myself.
    This is driving me crazy!! I know @GC tweeted that the last raid tier of MoP was the 'wrong time' to remove the party requirement from PoH, but that the devs see it as an outdated mechanic and would be changing it in WoD. It was very shortly before the announcement he was leaving for Riot Games. Now I can't find it anywhere...

    Well, anyway. If Priest is still stuck with the party requirement in WoD (?) then you have my sympathies. That's almost as annoying as ReM/Uplift, and for similar reasons.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Keiyra View Post
    You may want to change the description of your "spread" healing. Opposite sides of the room sounds FAR more than the 30 yard range of many of those aoe heals and you wouldn't actually use them if people are truely THAT spread out. (Or at least I read it as far more spread than 6+ targets within a 30 yard radius)
    Fair enough, I tend to talk in (obvious) exaggerations for emphasis but I forget how confusing it can be in a serious discussion. Will scale back the language.

    I also wouldn't really include tree of life as an aoe healing CD unless you also include Wings and Divine Favor from pallies, since it behaves much more as a throughput CD like those two do (they can be used to aoe heal, but could be used to tank heal...not that this tier presents much need for that)
    My reasoning on Tree is that it grants new spread healing tools to Druid, because you can now put LB on everyone and use the OOC procs to spike Regrowths all over the place (which are now instant). It also buffs your WG heavily.

    Pally throughput CDs leave you with the same crippled toolbox, it just hits harder. But it's just hitting not enough people... harder.

    Again, open to correction. Just explaining my category choice based on limited experience with other specs the last ~6 months.

    And yes Rem+uplift is just annoying, and come WoD looks even worse. Hopefully there will be some iteration on it.
    It is, but people keep misinterpreting the point of the thread (maybe I shouldn't have been so honest about what I play...). I'm not looking ReM/Uplift sympathy, but more counterpoints from other healers showing if our assumptions are right or wrong that other healers have an easier time due to the inability to control ReM correctly.

    ie, yes ReM+Uplift has issues, but does everyone else also have their own equivalent issues? I'm curious.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aladya View Post
    A suggestion I gave to someone recently what to macro "I'm using a bad talent right now" into his LoD cast when he was EF speced.
    That's cute. And yes, I completely sympathize with Holy Pallies, since it was my healer alt before I swapped to MW.

    Honestly, I might go so far as to say I'd rather keep ReM+Uplift than inherit the Paladin AoE/Spread system.

    ... Actually, I can say that with complete certainty. You guys deserve a lot of tweaks IMO.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    and a 67% nerf to Ancestral Guidance with zero compensation whatsoever.
    Ooh, thanks. Will add a note for this.

    On top of that, about 90% of Shaman healing currently is smart healing, meaning that we will take a bigger nerf from the dumbing down of smart heal target selection than anyone else.
    A serious issue I've seen multiple Shamans discussing. Am I correct in saying that the meteoric rise to prominence of Shammies in MoP was largely due to how many powerful smartheals were thrown into their toolbox in 5.0 (plus exploding regen levels T15+)?

    So Shammy is in a potentially dire place if their smarthealing reliance is turned into arbitrary RNG again, right?

    They have announced the toning down of absorbs, and Disc Priests will be nerfed over and above that by the fact that absorbs will become less powerful relative to how they are on live if people really sit below topped health constantly.
    To make sure I'm interpreting correctly — basically, in a world where people are expected to sit lower than 100%, you can also assume incoming damage is slower. If that happens, it means the ability to bubble/absorb people is much less relevant because you're not preventing any damage anyway, instead you need the ability to gradually undo that Health loss before the next damage wave?

    So bubbles become more like Spirit Shell tools — anticipate and blunt damage spikes — and not an effective way to just slather the raid in effective invincibility? (exaggeration but the general idea)

    Sorry if that ↑ sounds really dumb, I don't like Disc at all (sorry Disc! I still like the people playing it!) so I have very little awareness of its mechanics and benefits any more.
    Last edited by Lovestar; 2014-04-23 at 02:47 AM.

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    Thanks. How would you classify Riptide as a Shammy, then? I plead total ignorance here — is it a hot? A burst heal? Strictly a button that could be renamed "Tidal Waves"? I just don't know what to compare it to.
    There was a lot of confusion here so I appreciate the clarification. Again, I truly just don't 'get' how Shaman healing works at the high level. It seems like the only tool Shaman has for spread-out people so I put it in Spread, but it also seems strong if everyone's clumped up, so I left it in stack.

    I was commenting strictly on 5.4 based on an article at Heliocentric where @Dayani went into enormous detail about how the nature of SoO and 5.4's conversion of CHeal to never drop off lead to it being smarter to just spam CHeal on anyone rather than waste reaction time trying to hunt up an injured, Riptided target within jump range. If @Dayani's assessment is inaccurate I'm happy to correct it, but I figured she knew more about CHeal than I ever will.

    OK but, then how does Shaman actually use their buttons? I'm happy to correct my misunderstandings but I still don't know what to correct them into.

    Right, this is what I'm looking for. Kind of feeling out 'Are Mistweavers just gimped?' or is it more 'The entire WoW healing system is deranged'?

    Based on feedback from other classes I'm beginning to lean toward 'deranged'.

    - - - Updated - - -

    This is driving me crazy!! I know @GC tweeted that the last raid tier of MoP was the 'wrong time' to remove the party requirement from PoH, but that the devs see it as an outdated mechanic and would be changing it in WoD. It was very shortly before the announcement he was leaving for Riot Games. Now I can't find it anywhere...

    Well, anyway. If Priest is still stuck with the party requirement in WoD (?) then you have my sympathies. That's almost as annoying as ReM/Uplift, and for similar reasons.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Fair enough, I tend to talk in (obvious) exaggerations for emphasis but I forget how confusing it can be in a serious discussion. Will scale back the language.

    My reasoning on Tree is that it grants new spread healing tools to Druid, because you can now put LB on everyone and use the OOC procs to spike Regrowths all over the place (which are now instant). It also buffs your WG heavily.

    Pally throughput CDs leave you with the same crippled toolbox, it just hits harder. But it's just hitting not enough people... harder.

    Again, open to correction. Just explaining my category choice based on limited experience with other specs the last ~6 months.

    It is, but people keep misinterpreting the point of the thread (maybe I shouldn't have been so honest about what I play...). I'm not looking ReM/Uplift sympathy, but more counterpoints from other healers showing if our assumptions are right or wrong that other healers have an easier time due to the inability to control ReM correctly.

    ie, yes ReM+Uplift has issues, but does everyone else also have their own equivalent issues? I'm curious.

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    That's cute. And yes, I completely sympathize with Holy Pallies, since it was my healer alt before I swapped to MW.

    Honestly, I might go so far as to say I'd rather keep ReM+Uplift than inherit the Paladin AoE/Spread system.

    ... Actually, I can say that with complete certainty. You guys deserve a lot of tweaks IMO.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Ooh, thanks. Will add a note for this.

    A serious issue I've seen multiple Shamans discussing. Am I correct in saying that the meteoric rise to prominence of Shammies in MoP was largely due to how many powerful smartheals were thrown into their toolbox in 5.0 (plus exploding regen levels T15+)?

    So Shammy is in a potentially dire place if their smarthealing reliance is turned into arbitrary RNG again, right?

    To make sure I'm interpreting correctly — basically, in a world where people are expected to sit lower than 100%, you can also assume incoming damage is slower. If that happens, it means the ability to bubble/absorb people is much less relevant because you're not preventing any damage anyway, instead you need the ability to gradually undo that Health loss before the next damage wave?

    So bubbles become more like Spirit Shell tools — anticipate and blunt damage spikes — and not an effective way to just slather the raid in effective invincibility? (exaggeration but the general idea)

    Sorry if that ↑ sounds really dumb, I don't like Disc at all (sorry Disc! I still like the people playing it!) so I have very little awareness of its mechanics and benefits any more.
    The easiest way to think of Riptide is kind of as a "builder" spell. It isn't (and never really has been) competitive with other HoTs like Rejuv and Renew, but the value it brings is the buffs to other spells - generating 2 Tidal Waves stacks and buffing Chain Heals that are cast on a target with Riptide on it. As a standalone spell, it's kind of weak.

    It's not really true that the removal of the Chain Heal jump degradation made it so that (at least if you want to play optimally) you can just faceroll across your keyboard and ignore where you are casting your Chain Heal. That is ridiculous hyperbole, and if you're going to make that argument, you can make the same argument for things like Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing and Wild Growth. There are no other spells in the game that have jump degradation. You ideally want to cast off a target with Riptide on it, but if the target with Riptide will get full overheal on the first jump and a target without Riptide will get full effective healing, you're better off casting on the lower health target (because you get 25% more healing on top of more mastery gain).

    As far as Shaman's "meteoric rise" in MoP, that has really only been in 5.4. In 5.0/5.1 we were middle to the bottom of the pack - clearly outshined by Disc Priests, Monks and Pallies. In 5.2/5.3, we were at the bottom by a very significant margin. The reason we are a lot stronger in SoO (and that strength is relative - we are still behind Disc by a mile and an average of about 5% ahead of the other healing specs) is they just gave us a lot of massive numbers buffs.
    -Healing Rain was buffed ~30% and changed to a pure smart heal instead of just healing unlimited targets split.
    -Healing Tide Totem was made baseline and given the 12 target 25 man treatment that all other throughput cooldowns had previously been given.
    -Rushing Streams, the HTT replacement talent effectively buffed HST by 130%, and that talent became the default selection
    -The Chain Heal jump reductions were removed and Chain Heal was numerically buffed

    They are scaling back all of those buffs in their entirety - except for the HTT raid size scaling treatment, but still leaving our clunky spread healing mechanics intact with next to no changes. That has the potential to spell disaster.

  18. #38
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberria View Post
    The easiest way to think of Riptide is kind of as a "builder" spell. It isn't (and never really has been) competitive with other HoTs like Rejuv and Renew, but the value it brings is the buffs to other spells - generating 2 Tidal Waves stacks and buffing Chain Heals that are cast on a target with Riptide on it. As a standalone spell, it's kind of weak.
    Thanks. I will just remove Riptide from the pre-healing section then, since it sounds like it's not appropriate for that purpose.

    Is Glyphed (no-CD) Riptide also unsuitable for hot spreading? I think I read it's too expensive for that?

    It's not really true that the removal of the Chain Heal jump degradation made it so that (at least if you want to play optimally) you can just faceroll across your keyboard and ignore where you are casting your Chain Heal.
    This is the article I was referencing (I stumbled across it accidentally while looking for something else when I was drafting this thread): Healiocentric: Chain Heal changes.

    I was left with the impression that 5.4 created a situation where thinking about where CHeal goes is less important than keeping CHeal casting right after the previous one. I do understand (and @Dayani makes it clear there) that this is not going to be true in WoD, even with High Tide.

    As far as Shaman's "meteoric rise" in MoP, that has really only been in 5.4.
    haha, I knew that wording would come back to haunt me. I guess I meant it felt like Shammies became an actual force on their own, compared to WOTLK/Cata where they were always struggling to pick up after everyone else without their own real identity.

    They are scaling back all of those buffs in their entirety - except for the HTT raid size scaling treatment, but still leaving our clunky spread healing mechanics intact with next to no changes. That has the potential to spell disaster.
    Understood. So basically, would you say that currently Shaman only 'handles' AoE / Spread conditions through absolute brute force — not because you have a toolbox, mechanically, that gives you what's necessary?

    From vague Monk discussions it sounded like Glyphed CHeal solved everything in spread conditions and Healing Rain fixed everything in stack conditions, with a Swiss Knife of CDs to fill in any gaps. So, it's enlightening to learn that Shaman Land isn't actually paradise.
    Last edited by Lovestar; 2014-04-23 at 04:53 AM.

  19. #39
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    Thanks. I will just remove Riptide from the pre-healing section then, since it sounds like it's not appropriate for that purpose.

    Is Glyphed (no-CD) Riptide also unsuitable for hot spreading? I think I read it's too expensive for that?
    In 5.4, it was costly to blanket Riptide the raid, but doable at 14-15k spirit mark. It was still inferior to other hots of similar nature (Rejuv mostly), but there were still fights where this was the best course of action (Thok). Personally, i always run the glyph anyway, but you have to understand, the numbers were really underwhelming. Plus, we don't know if the new mana regen design will allow us to keep doing the blanketing.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    Understood. So basically, would you say that currently Shaman only 'handles' AoE / Spread conditions through absolute brute force — not because you have a toolbox, mechanically, that gives you what's necessary?

    From vague Monk discussions it sounded like Glyphed CHeal solved everything in spread conditions and Healing Rain fixed everything in stack conditions, with a Swiss Knife of CDs to fill in any gaps. So, it's enlightening to learn that Shaman Land isn't actually paradise.
    Glyphed CHeal was giving it a CD. So what you had to do, is glyphing Riptide as well, to weave in those while CH was on cd, or spam single target heals.

    Just like i said in previous post, there was a time where our "raidhealing" was delievered through single target heals because NOTHING else was working. That time was ToT. From design point of view, very little changed since then. As soon as we encounter more spread-out fights again (which SoO lacked), we're going to be back in that very spot. Bruteforcing is exactly what was hapenning, but because our single-target numbers were neutered due to PvP, i'd call it "wetnoodling".

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    Thanks. I will just remove Riptide from the pre-healing section then, since it sounds like it's not appropriate for that purpose.

    Is Glyphed (no-CD) Riptide also unsuitable for hot spreading? I think I read it's too expensive for that?

    This is the article I was referencing (I stumbled across it accidentally while looking for something else when I was drafting this thread): Healiocentric: Chain Heal changes.

    I was left with the impression that 5.4 created a situation where thinking about where CHeal goes is less important than keeping CHeal casting right after the previous one. I do understand (and @Dayani makes it clear there) that this is not going to be true in WoD, even with High Tide.

    haha, I knew that wording would come back to haunt me. I guess I meant it felt like Shammies became an actual force on their own, compared to WOTLK/Cata where they were always struggling to pick up after everyone else without their own real identity.

    Understood. So basically, would you say that currently Shaman only 'handles' AoE / Spread conditions through absolute brute force — not because you have a toolbox, mechanically, that gives you what's necessary?

    From vague Monk discussions it sounded like Glyphed CHeal solved everything in spread conditions and Healing Rain fixed everything in stack conditions, with a Swiss Knife of CDs to fill in any gaps. So, it's enlightening to learn that Shaman Land isn't actually paradise.
    Glyphing Riptide is an HPS/HPM loss and trying to glyph Riptide and "spam it like a Druid" is a highly ineffective playstyle, just because the spell doesn't heal for enough relative to heal HoT healers. It's worth it in some situations (i.e. Thok and not having to deal with casting between screeches and Malkorok because of the way the mechanics treat overheal), but I wouldn't call it a spread healing tool. You're likely more effective dealing with the cooldown and finding other ways to make your mechanics work than pretending that you are a Druid (with ~35% of the actual HPS potential of one) and spamming RT.

    As far as Chain Heal target selection, I really don't get the argument. CH takes 1.8-2.2 (depending on haste level) seconds to cast. That's more than enough time to decide where to cast your next one. How does that "require reaction time"? The real thing that takes away some of the decision making on casting CH is that it's rarely worth casting it on a target that doesn't have Riptide on it (and you are limited to 3 of those without RT glyphed), but that is frankly more of a problem with the Riptide-CH interaction than it's a problem with CH not having jumps degradation.

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