[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[Taalyn]

Because as dps, you get the double benefit of a damage spell AND the 8 sec bonus. Resto gets no such benefit.

This implies that Restoration needs the double benefit or that the double benefit is what makes the talent nice for Elemental/Enhancement. What if the stat boost is the reason why you take this talent and the damage it does is negligible?

Certainly all 3 specs can use the talent, but you're being dishonest in implying that an enhancement shaman can use the talent as well as a resto or even elemental could.

It doesn't have to be equally good for all three specs. It just needs to be as good as the other 2 talents.

AG and Conductivity both have damage components. As does the healing abilities in paladin tier 3.

AG and Conductivity heal through doing damage. You gain no extra damage from any of the talents, you only gain healing. It is a healing tier.

Enhance doesn't cast spells often enough to make this talent worthwhile. Elemental's mastery makes this talent pointless.

Enhance casts plenty of spells and it stacks with Elemental's mastery. By your logic Dragonwrath is pointless for Elemental Shamans.

[Endus]

Because as dps, you get the double benefit of a damage spell AND the 8 sec bonus. Resto gets no such benefit.

So?

Resto gets more benefit out of any talent in Tier 5, too. That doesn't mean there's an issue.

AG and Conductivity both have damage components. As does the healing abilities in paladin tier 3.

This is still fallacious, since we were discussing the effects of the talents.

Paladin Tier 3 and Shaman Tier 5 provide absolutely no benefit to DPS. They only provide healing. Stop moving goalposts. I'm inclined to think it's deliberate at this point.

Enhance doesn't cast spells often enough to make this talent worthwhile. Elemental's mastery makes this talent pointless.

Enhancement gets a much higher proc chance to make up for that, as you'd know if you'd A> tested it, or B> read anything by anyone who's tested it.

And it procs off Overloads, so I have no idea why you'd bring up Elemental's Mastery. You can get 4 spells out of one cast, as Elemental, with EotE; the original spell, the Echo, the Overload, and the Echo of the Overload.

[Deleted]

Because as dps, you get the double benefit of a damage spell AND the 8 sec bonus. Resto gets no such benefit.

They get the bonus of the healing from the talent. Its still useful. The damage is a bonus. Its just like Primal Elementalist, that talent gives you bonus Healing through the elementals, but ALSO damage, does that mean Primal Elementalist is bad for Resto because it can do damage? No it doesn't.

Certainly all 3 specs can use the talent, but you're being dishonest in implying that an enhancement shaman can use the talent as well as a resto or even elemental could.

And if you read my posts I agree it should have more abilities joined to it for Enhance, but your point that I was replying to was not that it was better for Elemental than enhance, but that Conductivity should be broken down by spec but it works well for all 3 specs so doesn't need to be broken

AG and Conductivity both have damage components. As does the healing abilities in paladin tier 3.

They work off your damaging abilities, it doesn't mean they have damage components. Healing Tide Totem instead works off the most iconic part of a shaman, their totems. Why is that a bad thing?

Enhance doesn't cast spells often enough to make this talent worthwhile. Elemental's mastery makes this talent pointless.

As Radux said, it has a ~30% proc chance for Enhance, thats a huge buff to their spells, and in what universe does Elemental's mastery make it pointless?

This coming from the same guy who thinks pw: shield and healing wave operate the same way?

Thats just a lie, I at no point said Healing Wave and PW:Shield operate in the same way, I just said shield abilities can be classes as healing abilities because they just 'heal you' above 100% health.

[Alhoon]

Tier 6 is just fine for Resto.

Haha, what? No it's not. I haven't heard many Resto Shaman say good things about this tier. It's not a numbers problem, it's a design problem.

Elemental Blast is annoying, it's like changing Conductivity to be "when you cast Healing Rain, increases your damage done by 20%". Would you like to use Healing Rain on cooldown? It's even more annoying for healing than for DPS, since we don't have set rotations/prioritites that we can simply weave an ability in.

Unleashed Fury is bland and boring. The concept of boosting Unleash Elements is fine even if the spell is currently lackluster for Resto, but it could be much more innovative. For Unleash Life, it could be something like "guarantees an application of Earthliving HoT on target", "if the target has Earthliving HoT, spreads it to X amount of players in Y yard range", or even both.

Elementals are, again, pure percentage boosts. Needless to say they are boring and feel out of place.

I'm sure though that Blizzard is not finished with our final tier and I expect to see more interesting choices as beta progresses.

[Endus]

Thats just a lie, I at no point said Healing Wave and PW:Shield operate in the same way, I just said shield abilities can be classes as healing abilities because they just 'heal you' above 100% health.

Shields ARE classed as "healing" abilities, that's why there was a big push among the log parsers and DPS meters to include absorbs alongside heals, to better reflect how healers are actually performing. Because Disc priests, despite focusing on shields, are healers. Holy Paladin's Mastery does contribute to their strength as healers. Etc.

Haha, what? No it's not. I haven't heard many Resto Shaman say good things about this tier. It's not a numbers problem, it's a design problem.

Elemental Blast is annoying, it's like changing Conductivity to be "when you cast Healing Rain, increases your damage done by 20%". Would you like to use Healing Rain on cooldown? It's even more annoying for healing than for DPS, since we don't have set rotations/prioritites that we can simply weave an ability in.

You're thinking inside the box. Outside the box is more useful. Fights are usually not constant streams of damage, there's spikes and bursts. Restoration is already designed to take advantage of "gaps" in healing, by weaving in Lightning Bolt casts to proc Telluric Currents. Elemental Blast works on the same principle, letting you pre-load your healing right before a big hit, so you get a big buff to healing done for the next 8 seconds. Nefarian's casting Electrocute? Hit Elemental Blast, enjoy +3500 Mastery as you top everyone off. Zon'ozz is entering his black phase? Pop EB, same reason.

And if you don't want that mechanic, there's two other choices. Elemental Blast is fine.

Unleashed Fury is bland and boring. The concept of boosting Unleash Elements is fine even if the spell is currently lackluster for Resto, but it could be much more innovative. For Unleash Life, it could be something like "guarantees an application of Earthliving HoT on target", "if the target has Earthliving HoT, spreads it to X amount of players in Y yard range", or even both.

If you don't like it, there are two other options. This is subjective. Subjective preferences are fine, but they only apply to you, they do not demonstrate that an ability is flawed.

I subjectively dislike DoT specs like Affliction locks and Shadow priests. That doesn't mean their mechanics are "bad", they're just not to my taste, and that's fine.

Elementals are, again, pure percentage boosts. Needless to say they are boring and feel out of place.

Again, entirely subjective, and I can't agree. The channel for FET is an interesting choice for Elemental and Enhancement, and Resto can pick between helping the Enrage timer or getting help with heals; good Resto Shaman were already dropping FET for the damage bump, unless Flametongue Totem was needed for some reason. And the Earth Elemental shield is an additional nice feature, on a separate (but exclusive) CD. Primal Elementalist is anything but a passive boost.

That doesn't mean you need to LIKE it, but again, subjective preference is not a mechanical issue.

[Deleted]

Haha, what? No it's not. I haven't heard many Resto Shaman say good things about this tier. It's not a numbers problem, it's a design problem.

Elemental Blast is annoying, it's like changing Conductivity to be "when you cast Healing Rain, increases your damage done by 20%". Would you like to use Healing Rain on cooldown? It's even more annoying for healing than for DPS, since we don't have set rotations/prioritites that we can simply weave an ability in.

Unleashed Fury is bland and boring. The concept of boosting Unleash Elements is fine even if the spell is currently lackluster for Resto, but it could be much more innovative. For Unleash Life, it could be something like "guarantees an application of Earthliving HoT on target", "if the target has Earthliving HoT, spreads it to X amount of players in Y yard range", or even both.

Elementals are, again, pure percentage boosts. Needless to say they are boring and feel out of place.

I'm sure though that Blizzard is not finished with our final tier and I expect to see more interesting choices as beta progresses.

Personally I'm not convinced EB would be used on cooldown if it was taken, it would be used pre-emptively before healing was coming or to fill in gaps in healing - like Telluric Currents is now. For a more consistant HPS increase I think Primal Elementalist would be taken, because thats 5% HPS for 2 minutes of every 5, whilst Elemental Blast is 3500 [stat] for 8 seconds out of every 14, which is ~2:51 out of every 5 minutes, but for every second over 5 minutes Primal Elementalist catches up and also likely that 5% Healing is more powerful than 3500 of a stat, especially if you take into account the 2 seconds out of those 14 that you spend not actually healing.

The Elementals are the "pure percentage bonus", the Elemental Blast is for increased healing in small bursts where you have time to prepare, and Unleash Fury is for tank healing. They have their niches for Healers, and aren't all just passives.

[mrinvisable2]

1 Unleashed Fury is plain and dumb talent to increase effectiveness of ability that increases effectiveness of some ability now that's sounds strange isint it? THIS is them trying to fix spell witch they have given us in cata that is 1 useless for ele 2 lackluster for resto 3 good for enha ( they seems try to make it better with resto as it now works with HR)
2 elementals we for long time wanted them controlable now in beta they hit like a balloon + 50 % more dmg that should be like they are doong now without prepot (ok scaling seems will be adjusted for lvl 90) but for dps chaneled ability for 5 % increased dmg seems usless as it does about when its up 11-15 or eaven more of your dmg) but for resto can have 40% uptime for 10 % increased heals is nice
3 blast we must all agree cast time is just bad for this spell with only 8 sec up time could be instant with 24 sec cd and 16 sec up time of buff and as seeing rest hybrid spells HEALING PART IS A MUST TO BE ADDED if not we will see that almost 8 resto shamans will take it (i am resto btw) as our free time is spent on casting LB's


and could be nice if Elemental Harmory would be back as 3-5 min cd to allow drop multiple totems of the same elements

they just should improve UE and rpelace that talent with something - for dps combines siering totem and magma totem to magma bolt totem (3 min cd)totem that shoots magma bolts for x dmg upon reaching target it explodes and does aoe dmg

for resto supercharges healing streem totem increases it efectivnes and it heals 2 lowerst party members and increases critical chance with heals by 10 % DURation for both 1 min

[Kildragon]

I know there's been an ongoing discussion about the T5 talents, and I do have to agree with the people that consider Conductivity to be bad for Enhance. Consider this; as long as all three talents are equally useful for each spec, meaning Enhance can use all three talents just like Ele and Resto, they are essentially doing their job.

For Resto, this tier offers 3 excellent choices: a powerful healing totem CD, a 2 min CD that provides 10 seconds of smart heals for an extra person, and lastly Conductivity which simply complements their healing style through spreading heals to people standing in HR, on top of being useful during a regen phase where you still passively heal people.

For Ele, this tier works equally well: HTT and AG make a lot of sense and can be used very effectively. Conductivity works slightly different because you need to stop damage throughput and use HR before you can do healing, but it still works well because LB is a large portion of your damage and Ele has always been good at off-healing for oh-shit phases.

For Enhance, HTT and AG work really well, you simply hit the button once and continue doing what you do for extra healing. Conductivity on the other hand really falls short for Enhance. You need to cast HR for it to work, which already does less healing than an Ele or Resto HR. The real problem lies with only LB and HS proccing the heal for Enhance. You really can't afford to cast a bunch of Healing Surges without Maelstrom procs or you will run yourself oom very fast on top of screwing any damage output you have. You also can't chain cast LB because the cast time is far too long for Enhance without Maelstrom procs. The combination of having to drop healing rain for it to be useful, on top of having to cast LB or HS to proc it without being able to chain cast either of them makes this talent not the greatest option for Enhance.

Now, of course you might argue that the talent could have its uses in certain fights and would be situationally useful, but at that point you have to compare it to the other two options you have. HTT is going to be an amazing talent for those heavy damage phases, and AG is going to be amazing if there are fights with predictable spike damage. The only saving grace of Conductivity would be that it doesn't have a CD, meaning you could make use of it far more often over the course of a fight, but then again Enhance Shamans aren't actually healers. If your healers really can't keep up with sustained damage over the course of a fight, either your healers simply can't handle the encounter, or they would be better served by you pushing out max damage in order to kill the fight faster. Not that the actual healing from this talent is significant for Enhance because you can probably get a maximum of 2 LBs out during the duration of 1 HR, and casting HR on CD would just kill your damage.

[Madcap]

Personally I'm not convinced EB would be used on cooldown if it was taken, it would be used pre-emptively before healing was coming or to fill in gaps in healing - like Telluric Currents is now. For a more consistant HPS increase I think Primal Elementalist would be taken, because thats 5% HPS for 2 minutes of every 5, whilst Elemental Blast is 3500 [stat] for 8 seconds out of every 14, which is ~2:51 out of every 5 minutes, but for every second over 5 minutes Primal Elementalist catches up and also likely that 5% Healing is more powerful than 3500 of a stat, especially if you take into account the 2 seconds out of those 14 that you spend not actually healing.

The Elementals are the "pure percentage bonus", the Elemental Blast is for increased healing in small bursts where you have time to prepare, and Unleash Fury is for tank healing. They have their niches for Healers, and aren't all just passives.

EB is not analogous to Telluric Currents. The proper comparison is Focused Insight, except EB will provide an even smaller benefit to effective healing* (probably more dps, though). In this very forum, Endus and others went to great lengths to debunk the myth that FI was for "burst" healing and an "HPS boost." Considering the HPM niche for Focused Insight was so underwhelming in PVE, the only scenario I can imagine in which a Resto Shaman would take EB is if the encounter calls for healers to be DPSing a large portion of the time. If past tiers are any indication, maybe there will be one fight like that in MoP?

Giving Unleashed Fury the benefit of the doubt, you can say that the talent provides marginal utility -- it's difficult to predict without knowledge of future encounters. With respect to Unleash Life I cast it more than probably 90% of Resto Shaman -- and I still only cast it 12-15 times in a fight. Most logs I look at -- the "top shaman" in "top guilds" -- it's a rarely used spell. Claiming UL is "for tank healing" is borderline disingenuous. That's not it's niche now, so why should it be in MoP? Does the increased power from the talent make UL a more attractive cast? I honestly don't know so I won't pass judgment, but suffice to say I have my doubts.

I have already posted my thoughts about Primal Elementalist multiple times in this thread. In my opinion it's by far the most attractive option for Resto (who wouldn't want 40% uptime on a 10% -- not 5% -- increased healing buff?), but the elemental abilities strike me as disappointing and uninteresting.

Defending a tier by claiming that talents have "niches" for healers is not persuasive when those "niches" are so, so small and the benefits of Primal Elementalist vastly outweigh them.

* I noticed for the first time that the EB buff has been changed from 5% to a flat 3500. That's a significant increase. Without doing the math, I'm going to assume it will be stronger than FI. Still, the point stands. As we have seen with UL, FI and other abilities/spells, using a GCD or god forbid a cast to boost subsequent throughput has always been of debatable value to healers. And I can't think of any example that was a significant HPS boost. When all i said and done, I feel comfortable predicting that this talent will not be considered a legitimate option for Resto Shaman.

[Tharkash]

If anything, it's a less desirable talent for Restoration since it could very well lead to a lot of overhealing (since the duplicate heal isn't a 'smart' heal like AA).

Actually that would be an amazing change if they made the EotE heal into a 'smart' heal like AA and not just on the same person. To the official beta forums Batman!

[Kildragon]

1 Unleashed Fury is plain and dumb talent to increase effectiveness of ability that increases effectiveness of some ability now that's sounds strange isint it? THIS is them trying to fix spell witch they have given us in cata that is 1 useless for ele 2 lackluster for resto 3 good for enha ( they seems try to make it better with resto as it now works with HR)
2 elementals we for long time wanted them controlable now in beta they hit like a balloon + 50 % more dmg that should be like they are doong now without prepot (ok scaling seems will be adjusted for lvl 90) but for dps chaneled ability for 5 % increased dmg seems usless as it does about when its up 11-15 or eaven more of your dmg) but for resto can have 40% uptime for 10 % increased heals is nice
3 blast we must all agree cast time is just bad for this spell with only 8 sec up time could be instant with 24 sec cd and 16 sec up time of buff and as seeing rest hybrid spells HEALING PART IS A MUST TO BE ADDED if not we will see that almost 8 resto shamans will take it (i am resto btw) as our free time is spent on casting LB's


and could be nice if Elemental Harmory would be back as 3-5 min cd to allow drop multiple totems of the same elements

they just should improve UE and rpelace that talent with something - for dps combines siering totem and magma totem to magma bolt totem (3 min cd)totem that shoots magma bolts for x dmg upon reaching target it explodes and does aoe dmg

for resto supercharges healing streem totem increases it efectivnes and it heals 2 lowerst party members and increases critical chance with heals by 10 % DURation for both 1 min

1.) Unleashed Fury can be extremely useful for all three specs. You can either make your Lava Burst crit for even more as Ele, get a 100% increase on your next heal for Resto or just make it even stronger for Enhance. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing.

2.) Not sure what you're trying to say here, but this talent doesn't really have a drawback. The channel on you is simply nice for when you need that extra damage on quick target swaps and such.

3.) Making the spell an instant cast with a 16 second uptime would make this talent required for all Shamans. I do agree that a healing part should be added, but even if it remains as it is it will be a very powerful talent for Resto Shamans.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 01:23 PM ----------

EB is not analogous to Telluric Currents. The proper comparison is Focused Insight, except EB will provide an even smaller benefit to effective healing* (probably more dps, though). In this very forum, Endus and others went to great lengths to debunk the myth that FI was for "burst" healing and an "HPS boost." Considering the HPM niche for Focused Insight was so underwhelming in PVE, the only scenario I can imagine in which a Resto Shaman would take EB is if the encounter calls for healers to be DPSing a large portion of the time. If past tiers are any indication, maybe there will be one fight like that in MoP?

Giving Unleashed Fury the benefit of the doubt, you can say that the talent provides marginal utility -- it's difficult to predict without knowledge of future encounters. With respect to Unleash Life I cast it more than probably 90% of Resto Shaman -- and I still only cast it 12-15 times in a fight. Most logs I look at -- the "top shaman" in "top guilds" -- it's a rarely used spell. Claiming UL is "for tank healing" is borderline disingenuous. That's not it's niche now, so why should it be in MoP? Does the increased power from the talent make UL a more attractive cast? I honestly don't know so I won't pass judgment, but suffice to say I have my doubts.

I have already posted my thoughts about Primal Elementalist multiple times in this thread. In my opinion it's by far the most attractive option for Resto (who wouldn't want 40% uptime on a 10% -- not 5% -- increased healing buff?), but the elemental abilities strike me as disappointing and uninteresting.

Defending a tier by claiming that talents have "niches" for healers is not persuasive when those "niches" are so, so small and the benefits of Primal Elementalist vastly outweigh them.

* I noticed for the first time that the EB buff has been changed from 5% to a flat 3500. That's a significant increase. Without doing the math, I'm going to assume it will be stronger than FI. Still, the point stands. As we have seen with UL, FI and other abilities/spells, regularly using a GCD or god forbid a cast to boost subsequent throughput has always been of debatable value to healers. And I can't think of any example that was an actual HPS boost. When all i said and done, I feel comfortable predicting that this talent will not be considered a legitimate option for Resto Shaman.

Increasing the actual heal from UE would probably make it far more useful for Resto, just like increasing the actual damage from it would make it far more useful for Ele. I'm not sure why they haven't done those things, but all that needs to happen to make the actual skill more useful is an increase in throughput.

Also, simply adding a healing component to EB would instantly make the spell far more valuable, even though a slight cast time reduction might still be required.

[Endus]

EB is not analogous to Telluric Currents. The proper comparison is Focused Insight, except EB will provide an even smaller benefit to effective healing* (probably more dps, though). In this very forum, Endus and others went to great lengths to debunk the myth that FI was for "burst" healing and an "HPS boost." Considering the HPM niche for Focused Insight was so underwhelming in PVE, the only scenario I can imagine in which a Resto Shaman would take EB is if the encounter calls for healers to be DPSing a large portion of the time. If past tiers are any indication, maybe there will be one fight like that in MoP?

You're not paraphrasing the FI issue correctly.

Focused Insight has two effects; a boost to the next healing spell done, and a reduction of the mana cost. The argument for FI was always that it improved HPM at the cost of HPS; that the mana cost reduction was enough to make using it more mana-efficient. When you factor in the cost of the shock, though, this turned out to not really be true, and for pure HPS, it only applied to the next spell cast.

Add to this that Restoration's talent choices were ALREADY tight, and investing 3 points to get an effect that basically filled the same purpose as Unleash Life, which you got for "free", and it wasn't worth the investment. Not because you couldn't use it for burst healing, but because those three talent points would provide more HPS elsewhere.

Elemental Blast applies to every spell for the next 8 seconds, bringing it much closer in strength to the only other two options there are for that talent point. So it's completely unlike Focused Insight in this regard, since all the other options in that case provided significantly better returns.

If EB's returns aren't sufficient, it'll get tweaked. They're only starting tuning now, and it's going to go on for a while. And the Tier 6 talents are still out of testing range; they can't get feedback on if it's "enough" compared to the others until we hit level 90 on the beta and can test them out.

[Madcap]

You're not paraphrasing the FI issue correctly.

Focused Insight has two effects; a boost to the next healing spell done, and a reduction of the mana cost. The argument for FI was always that it improved HPM at the cost of HPS; that the mana cost reduction was enough to make using it more mana-efficient. When you factor in the cost of the shock, though, this turned out to not really be true, and for pure HPS, it only applied to the next spell cast.

Add to this that Restoration's talent choices were ALREADY tight, and investing 3 points to get an effect that basically filled the same purpose as Unleash Life, which you got for "free", and it wasn't worth the investment. Not because you couldn't use it for burst healing, but because those three talent points would provide more HPS elsewhere.

Elemental Blast applies to every spell for the next 8 seconds, bringing it much closer in strength to the only other two options there are for that talent point. So it's completely unlike Focused Insight in this regard, since all the other options in that case provided significantly better returns.

If EB's returns aren't sufficient, it'll get tweaked. They're only starting tuning now, and it's going to go on for a while. And the Tier 6 talents are still out of testing range; they can't get feedback on if it's "enough" compared to the others until we hit level 90 on the beta and can test them out.

Fair points.

As it stands, it seems to me that Primal Elementalist is going to be a no-brainer for the vast majority of fights.

Perhaps there will be fights that have regular demands for ~8 second intervals of high throughput. Especially early in the expansion, maybe EB will have that "niche."

Still, historically, my impression is that a non-healing resource expenditure needs to have a very powerful secondary effect to be attractive to healers. Otherwise, it's a luxury that typically can't be afforded during heroic progression. It's hard for me to imagine Blizzard being able to balance it correctly for Resto without making it OP for Elemental or Enhancement.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 05:51 PM ----------

1.) Unleashed Fury can be extremely useful for all three specs. You can either make your Lava Burst crit for even more as Ele, get a 100% increase on your next heal for Resto or just make it even stronger for Enhance. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing.

2.) Not sure what you're trying to say here, but this talent doesn't really have a drawback. The channel on you is simply nice for when you need that extra damage on quick target swaps and such.

3.) Making the spell an instant cast with a 16 second uptime would make this talent required for all Shamans. I do agree that a healing part should be added, but even if it remains as it is it will be a very powerful talent for Resto Shamans.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 01:23 PM ----------



Increasing the actual heal from UE would probably make it far more useful for Resto, just like increasing the actual damage from it would make it far more useful for Ele. I'm not sure why they haven't done those things, but all that needs to happen to make the actual skill more useful is an increase in throughput.

Also, simply adding a healing component to EB would instantly make the spell far more valuable, even though a slight cast time reduction might still be required.

Yes, the way it's currently designed, I doubt EB could ever be "very powerful" for Restoration without being overpowered for Elemental and Enhancement. Adding a healing component would seem like a better way to balance it. I for one have been an advocate for giving Resto another "tool" for healing in a spread fights. A sort of Light of Dawn-type version of EB is a possibility. Admittedly, it might create balancing issues in other areas for Blizzard.

In a world where overhealing matters, the current incarnation of a talented UL seems very overrated to me. However, making it affect Healing Rain, as has been implied, would go a long way to making the spell more attractive.

[Deleted]

Giving Unleashed Fury the benefit of the doubt, you can say that the talent provides marginal utility -- it's difficult to predict without knowledge of future encounters. With respect to Unleash Life I cast it more than probably 90% of Resto Shaman -- and I still only cast it 12-15 times in a fight. Most logs I look at -- the "top shaman" in "top guilds" -- it's a rarely used spell. Claiming UL is "for tank healing" is borderline disingenuous. That's not it's niche now, so why should it be in MoP? Does the increased power from the talent make UL a more attractive cast? I honestly don't know so I won't pass judgment, but suffice to say I have my doubts.

Endus answered most of this post so I'll just answer this part. By tank healing I should have rephrased that to single target healing, but what I mean was that it increases the effect of your next single target heal by 50%, thats why that would be its niche. You can use the 30% buff from UL on a HR, then you still have your target of the UL with a buff that means they will recieve 50% bonus healing from your next heal (at least thats how I understand it from the tooltips description). You get the benefit of UE for your HR, which all Resto Shaman will use in Mists I am sure, as endus explained in regards to FI its a buff, but you ALSO get a much improved heal on your tank too, vastly increasing its usefulness if its the tank taking the majority of the damage (for example Phase 2 of Madness HC, Unleash Life your tank on the Terrors, Healing Rain the raid to survive the AOE from the bloods spawning, then do a very big heal on your tank, seems much more useful than a 10% healing increase - and yes I dunno why I was saying 5%... brain fail)

[Teriz]

Teriz, I have a completely serious question. Do you not like being a hybrid? Cause from your arguments I have been reading it sounds like you don't feel Dps Shaman should have to heal. The Healing Tier in our talents helps Ele/Enh heal a little more. I "Off-Heal" as Enh during progression runs or during Oh Shit moments and I am perfectly fine with it. If I didn't want to off heal I would reroll to a Pure(Mage/Hunter/Rogue/Lock) class. Having a Talent to help me with that really helps not only me but my raid.

I have no problem with off-healing or being a hybrid. All of my high level characters are hybrids. My issue with the talents is that they work against some specs to the point where they are simply undesirable, or don't fit the tier they are in.

For example, a healing Monk can pick up chi torpedo, and not go out of their way to fully utilize it. Why? Because CT has a damage AND healing, and CT also absorbs all of roll's benefits. Chi torpedo fully benefits every monk spec equally. We can't say the same thing abut talents like conductivity and elemental blast.

On the other side of the coin the same principle applies. What if we had a tier in our talents that did nothing but increase dps? Would you be complaining that Resto is getting the short end of the stick because healer's shouldn't have to dps. When I do the Resto Shuffle I dps all the time, it maybe only 2-4k but that is still more dps going

Compare a holy paladin's lvl 90 options to a resto shaman's lvl 90 options.

[Recom]

Because as dps, you get the double benefit of a damage spell AND the 8 sec bonus. Resto gets no such benefit.

Certainly all 3 specs can use the talent, but you're being dishonest in implying that an enhancement shaman can use the talent as well as a resto or even elemental could.

AG and Conductivity both have damage components. As does the healing abilities in paladin tier 3.

Enhance doesn't cast spells often enough to make this talent worthwhile. Elemental's mastery makes this talent pointless.

This coming from the same guy who thinks pw: shield and healing wave operate the same way?

Let me ask you a question : How do YOU know restoration shamans are gonna need an additional boost of their output (via a talent) ? We already got plenty of them as talents and as core abilities, have you tried them ? I got the feeling that resto is really strong on the beta thanks to the many tools we got, we just might not need another one. Also some of us actually enjoy bringing some DPS while healing, TC already helped but the T6 talents are going to be a big improvement there. Think outside the damn box.

The only point you get right is about conductivity, make it proc on SS and/or LL and the spell is fine.

People really need to stop thinking with live numbers, we have NO idea how things are going to turn out @90 and therefore you CAN'T complain about it. So please stop wasting our time by throwing some random "it sucks" or "I don't like this because it sucks", this doesn't help and it's getting REALLY annoying to read. Thanks you !

[Endus]

I have no problem with off-healing or being a hybrid. All of my high level characters are hybrids. My issue with the talents is that they work against some specs to the point where they are simply undesirable, or don't fit the tier they are in.

For example, a healing Monk can pick up chi torpedo, and not go out of their way to fully utilize it. Why? Because CT has a damage AND healing, and CT also absorbs all of roll's benefits. Chi torpedo fully benefits every monk spec equally. We can't say the same thing abut talents like conductivity and elemental blast.

What about Rushing Jade Wind or Invoke Xuen the White Tiger? Those are the other two level 90 Monk options, and neither provides HPS. Invoke Xuen at the very east absolutely still "works against" healing monks, since it's pure DPS, according to your own argument.

You're picking the ONE tier 6 Monk talent that fits your prerequisites, and ignoring the others that don't. And then ignoring the Shaman talents that fit your prerequisites, to attack the ones that don't.

Your own argument is not internally consistent. You change the rules to fit your preconceived conclusion.

[Keiyra]

Compare a holy paladin's lvl 90 options to a resto shaman's lvl 90 options.

Could be worse...you could have a Resto Druid's lvl 90 options :P

Besides I'm sure you have to look at the whole package and kit of a class, not just looking at one class's tier 90 versus another.

[Teriz]

What about Rushing Jade Wind or Invoke Xuen the White Tiger? Those are the other two level 90 Monk options, and neither provides HPS. Invoke Xuen at the very east absolutely still "works against" healing monks, since it's pure DPS, according to your own argument.

Actually that's false. Mistwalker monks have a passive ability called Eminence which changes 50% of damage done into healing. So yes, both of those talents you mentioned do provide HPS.

You're picking the ONE tier 6 Monk talent that fits your prerequisites, and ignoring the others that don't. And then ignoring the Shaman talents that fit your prerequisites, to attack the ones that don't.

I picked that one talent as an example of the problem with Shaman talents. No one else finds it strange that Priests, Paladins, and Monks get Damage/Healing talents and Shaman don't?

Your own argument is not internally consistent. You change the rules to fit your preconceived conclusion.

Probably because I'm arguing with 5 different people? For example, this argument is about my supposed dislike of hybrid classes.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 10:05 PM ----------

Could be worse...you could have a Resto Druid's lvl 90 options :P

Besides I'm sure you have to look at the whole package and kit of a class, not just looking at one class's tier 90 versus another.

You should look back over the thread. We've gone over numerous talents throughout the tiers.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 10:25 PM ----------

They get the bonus of the healing from the talent. Its still useful. The damage is a bonus. Its just like Primal Elementalist, that talent gives you bonus Healing through the elementals, but ALSO damage, does that mean Primal Elementalist is bad for Resto because it can do damage? No it doesn't.

So basically Restoration Shaman's level 90 talent if they choose Elemental Blast is an 8 second healing boost? Okay.

I wouldn't say that Primal Elementalist is bad. However, I would hardly consider it good either. It gives them some utility, but it really doesn't enhance your role as a healer, which sucks. You could always argue that tier 5 makes up for this, but honestly the Shaman talent tree shouldn't be structured in that way in the first place. No other hybrid talent trees are structured that way, so why Shaman?

And if you read my posts I agree it should have more abilities joined to it for Enhance, but your point that I was replying to was not that it was better for Elemental than enhance, but that Conductivity should be broken down by spec but it works well for all 3 specs so doesn't need to be broken

I'd be fine with that. I seriously doubt Blizzard would do it. We'll see.

They work off your damaging abilities, it doesn't mean they have damage components. Healing Tide Totem instead works off the most iconic part of a shaman, their totems. Why is that a bad thing?

If it works off a damaging ability, there's a damage component to the talent. HTT could have an added ability of ticking for more based on damage done or healing done during its duration. That would give a DPS Shaman more reason to pick it up.

As Radux said, it has a ~30% proc chance for Enhance, thats a huge buff to their spells, and in what universe does Elemental's mastery make it pointless?

Even at 30% chance, that is a pretty lackluster talent for Enhance.

Thats just a lie, I at no point said Healing Wave and PW:Shield operate in the same way, I just said shield abilities can be classes as healing abilities because they just 'heal you' above 100% health.

Except Shields don't heal you. That's the point.

[Deleted]

Probably because I'm arguing with 5 different people? For example, this argument is about my supposed dislike of hybrid classes.

Far be it from me to suggest that the majority is always right but if 5+ people, some of whom are moderators and writers of shaman guides, are consistently picking holes in your argument then perhaps you should check your argument for flaws instead of ploughing on?

Why not sit back, take a long time and write out your exact reasons for disliking the shaman talents as a whole. Work it through in your mind and refer back to the past few pages of discussion then come back to us. As far as I can see you believe that no-one is fully understanding your point while those arguing against you are of the belief that you're cherrypicking supporting points and making unfair comparisons.

This debate has gone on for the past several pages and shows no sign of abating, please take the time to set things out clearly and concisely if you still feel there are major issues after taking a long hard look at things.