Intro & Why im doing this (TLDR at the bottom):
I have been playing healers since Vanilla. I raided as a holy priest in MC, BWL, and AQ 20 with some of my most fond memories being (and i cant prove it BUT) introducing a downranking spam on chromaggus. With that, I have always been scared of Shaman. I hated totems and as I have gained experience over the years and years of playing and pruning (cutting edge Mythic Guldan) i've become more comfortable with those extra buttons and they have seem to find a warm place in my heart.
With that I want to truly understand everything that is lost and what we look like going into BFA. Please note that comparison is of the latest beta build and similar haste. Numbers mean nothing now so i wont compare them but they mean everything later so i may make another swing. I also decided not to include the percent increases we are losing as that is numbers tuning but i did keep in crit losses as those make sense regardless of final numbers.
What Shaman Truly Lost:
[1] Gust of Wind
This is big. While we will cover what we gained later in the post this is our quick movement for get out of the way quick and to help kite in PVP. There are also some edge cases where this was also more useful in PVP like getting up on certain ledges and surviving when that annoying priest ran you off the ledge in Arathai Basin.
I think we can kite fine in PVP between Ghost wolf, capacitor, and earthbind. This is more PVE concerned and just around movement (get out of a scary zone fast or back into one)
[2] Gift of the Queen double cast
Yes i'm aware we can get gift of the queen as a talent. What we actually lost effectively was the double cast 3 seconds later. The cooldown is also a
bit more odd. Increased to 35 seconds depending on effective healing. BUT THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS IT COSTS MANA!
Legion : 1.75 sec cast and 0 mana
BFA: 1.3 second cast and 3% base mana
[3] Echo of the elements no longer allows for 10% consuming tidal waves to give a charge of riptide
100% nerf
[4]Flash Flood now does not give two stacks of tidal waves and instead when consuming a stack your next heal is 20% faster cast.
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO REDUCE CAST TIMES FOR OTHER HEALS as it stands now and is somewhat cumbersome as you have to riptide twice or obtain two stacks youll see why in the math.
This is a double edged sword, its a 100% nerf to usage of healing wave efficiency but a semi buff to every other healing spell (due to missing minor talent in artifact weapon)
Legion HW w/ Tidal (-45%): 1.2 sec cast from 2.19 on my character
BFA HW with Tidal (-30%): 1.5 sec cast from 2.2 on my character
BFA HW with Stack Tidal + flash floow: 1.2 second cast from 2.2 on my character.
As a result i need to use have minimum 2 charges of tidal up to have my previous cast time for healing wave. BIG implications in PVP and PVE efficency for that matter
Healing Surge goes from 1.3 cast time to 1.1. Chain Heal 2.2 to 1.8. Healing Rain 1.8 to 1.4. From this info you can deduce the rest.
[5] Queens Ascendant - This is HUGE and a sore spot for what i started to enjoy at end of the expac. Who doesnt like to spam chain heals and increase efficiency.?
Legion CH: 2.2
Legion CH QA: 1.75 (and with enough crit it theoretically never went above this Cast time)
BFA: 2.2
BFA with Flash Flood : 1.8
Its important to note i cannot keep this by spamming. I have to cast minimum two spells for a 1.8 cast time chain heal and after using that another two globals in order to get that again.
[6] Flood Waters : -16% crit on Chain Heal
[7] Bottomless Depths (Mana on healing below 60%) is pruned. This will have implication all around given we will not have a mana management option.
[8] Refreshing Currents: lost 50% increase to mana gained from crit chain heals
[9] Droplets : -8% Crit on Healing Rain.
[10] Ancestral Guidance which is a large nerf to cloudburst feasibility
[11] Wave Crash - Healing stream totem healing tick going from 1.3 in Legion to 1.8 in BFA.
[12] Queens Decree - HOT on healing Steam Totem
[13] Caress of the Tide mother - 10% DR on healing stream totem
[14] Healing Tide Totem AND healing Stream Totem
[15] Servant of the Queen - When using Ahnk you take 80% reduced damage for 6 seconds
[17] Tide Walker - Spirit Walkers grace going from 23 seconds in Legion to 15 seconds in BFA
[18] Tidal Pools : Lost that little healing totem chance on Riptide
[19] Sense of Urgency: Healing 25% increased during Bloodlust
Included because BL is not a heal
[20] Cumulative Upkeep : each heal of healing tide increases healing by 10%
Personally i think healing tide is the shittiest CD in BFA with respect to effective healing. Please feel free to argue as i want to be proved wrong.
[21] Voodoo Totem - Just being wholistic PVP implications as instant cast hex can be useful and carrys the totem motif.
[22] Windfury Totem - PVP
[23] Defender of the Weak talent line - HUGE loss to low HP % haste buff.
What We Gained (some repetition sorry!):
[1] Potential for two cloudburst totems
Here i will introduce the KBearRJTheory. Talents that give you two of a cooldown that you will use each time it is up or pretty close to that is effectively just one cast over the entire duration of a fight/engagement and as such should be valued as trashtier.
EarthShield in PVE
Mixed feelings on this. I actually think this will be the go to for Mythic plus and deluge will be needed for Raiding.
Resto is the only shaman to keep EarthGrab
Unfortunately this competes with Ghost wolf and that will be taken 100% of the unless theres a mythic plus with no 1 shot mechanics and just large packs where alot of stuns are needed or kiting for healing reduction week.
[2] Flash Flood : We talked about buffing other healing spell cast times.
[3] Azerite Traits and from what i have seen on the Gladiator realm i am NOT looking forward to these. They are boring. Bland. Not engaging in any way shape or form.
Most are base # increases.
Only cool ones are if we can stack them. One is Healing Stream / Healing Tide throw out a small chain heal and the other could make healing chain potentially stack to 7 bounces but that doesnt really increase engagement just increases efficency.
[4] Termor Totem baseline - Mixed feelings. Overall good.
[5] Healing while in ghost wolf talent - Good for PVP with EarthShield, that healing talents and the speeds increase/DR for kiting in BGs/Arena
[6] Earth Elemental - Good for Trash in Mythic plus+. Useless elsewhere.
What we do well
I feel that we will be good healers when we have a chance to utilize our mastery and when the raid is mostly stacked (or what portion of the raid is stacked is taking damage). We have good raid utility cooldowns and potential for cloudburst to be strong (doesnt benefit from Healing Tide) but personally i think our thruput is undertuned (healing tide is the worst raid healing cooldown by a mile).
What we lack
Speed. I feel that we will need to be a pre-heal and cancel class or we will suffer from being sniped by every other healing class. What does that mean? Keep healing rain down and cast chain heals when single target healing isnt needed.. If the chain wont land with majority effective healing cancel it and start casting again.
How to improve it?
Earth shield baseline. Gust of wind back baseline (maybe too OP). Increase healing on Healing Tide Totem. Increase Haste Value - if crit/haste was the go to i think it would fit nicely (and mastery where Ilvl makes sense). Keep CloudBurst and Healing Tide Separate. Wellspring OR Downpour Baseline. Remove Ancestral Protection Totem and Spirit Link Totem. Replace Spirit Link with some unique non as required raid cooldown. Something really cool like a wall of water that if everyone stands behind they get 50% DR or something. Ide imagine raising a water wall (like Yasuo Windwall) and that would dampen (haha literally) incoming damage or reduce it by X or once it hits it also heals for XYZ.
Final Thoughts
I think Resto shaman will have a high skill cap and suffer from slow cast times and being sniped. If in the most experienced raiding hands I think this spec can shine but that is sort of against the generic movement where everything is being simplified. Needs some tuning and I think that talents should make play more engaging or change in some way where as now it stands like you need XYZ talents to complete your spec. If its necessary for the class to be competitive make it baseline because taking high tide so chain heal heals for enough as it should is really lame. We will again have a raid spot due to incredibly strong raid cooldowns but that is a really bad design and on the edge of not being needed. I am going to play Resto in BFA because i have enjoyed it but the numbers need to come up and if they are low enough i will play Priest (2 strongest raid CDs on a single class? Hello?)/Monk.
TLDR; Can be good with correct tuning. Brought to Raids for CDs and thats a bad design. Lost a lot and could suffer from heal sniping/mana issues.