Originally Posted by
Tiberria
The problem with Resto is even with their new healing model and strategy of "healing whoever needs healing", it isn't going to work within the context of the Resto toolkit.
- About 90% of current Resto output comes from smart healing - HR, HST, CH, HTT. Realistically, the only things that we have that aren't smart heals right now are the 3 (which will be 2 in WoD) single target heals and Riptide (which is more of a spell cast for Tidal Waves and to buff another smart heal - CH than a real output source).
-Our single target heals actually heal for LESS than those of any other healer (and the Alpha co-efficients show the same pattern). It appears that they tax the 20% Earth Shield bonus to all of our direct heals (despite the fact that you don't generally move Earth Shield around constantly) and it also appears that they tax the output of our direct heals assuming a certain level of mastery gain. Never mind the fact that every other mastery from Harmony to Echo of Light to Illuminated Healing also buffs direct heals. Our single target healing is weak, basically for PvP balance reasons and has been the last 2 expansions.
-Riptide is not anywhere near competitive with Rejuv or even Renew, and they aren't going to buff it to that level, because Shaman are not intended to be primary HoT healers.
-With middling single target heals, and an unwillingness from Blizzard to add anything new to the toolkit, those smart heals are going to continue to be the bread and butter of Shaman output it seems. The problem is, with them being changed to heal any injured target instead of being smart, we are going to end up having no control whatsoever of 90% of our throughput.
-Even if they are able to get the numbers right (which they have failed at until the last tier of the last 2 expansions), the spec is still going to feel awful to play. Yes, having 90% of your healing being mindless smart heals is pretty bad, but at least you know that they will heal people that actually need the healing and at least you know that your mastery will provide strong gains when they dip to low health. Now, you're going to have 90% of your healing locked into dumb heals that give you 0 control whatsoever over who they heal. They can and will heal someone at 99% HP over someone at 10% HP, making our mastery even more unreliable.
Basically, we're still going to heal exactly the way we do now - keep HR dropped on CD, use HST on CD, use Riptide on CD. It will all just be less reliable and less effective. Sure, we will have to spot heal with single target heals, which every healer will have to. However, our single target heals will be weaker than those of other healers.
On top of that, Resto Shaman still have all of the same limitations they do now.
-Weak mobility. We are basically turret healers as we always have been. Holy Paladins are probably less mobile now, but compare playing a Shaman on a high movement fight to a Druid or either Priest spec.
-No movement speed capability. I still don't see why every other healer except Shaman has a movement speed talent tier. Celestalon is absolutely refusing to address this calling it "loudness"
-Crappy personal survivability. Our L15 talents are basically garbage compared to the survival cooldowns that Paladins, Druids, and Monks have access to. Druids lose Symbiosis but are given baseline Survival Instincts as "compensation" despite already having Barkskin and Might of Ursoc. Why is Shamanistic Rage not baseline at the very least?
-Extreme positional limitations. Yes, the Chaining glyph is losing the 2 second cooldown, but the healing done by HST is being gutted, so our spread healing capabilities are about the same. We're still far inferior to Druids/Priests/Monks in any type of spread AoE healing environment. On top of that, the 10% Improved Healing Rain perk will essentially result in all of our spells being taxed and weaker on any targets not in a HR, making us even more positionally limited.