I have a shaman in the beta and have come across somewhat of a folly in the new endgame healing, which is 3 piece ten storms combined with a full resto specced shaman in the new instances. First off the new instances support a chain heal way in the first place: many mobs, cleaves, and aoes, which obviously makes chain heal very powerful. Also as a resto/elemental shaman, mana is not as much as a problem I have noticed, at least with decent mana/5. Considering 2 pieces of ten storms are great with the bracers and gloves, only losing 1 more slot to other gear because you dont lose much in terms of +30% healed on the 2nd and 3rd target. Any thoughts?

They'll be replaced as soon as we hit the epics. It can be good 5 man but you need the right group, higher +healing equipment for earth shield will be better most of the time.

This reminds me of the 8 piece Earthshatterer vs. 5 piece Earthfury threads that popped up when Naxx came out.
(Ilvl 130 items will probably be beating 3 piece TS by large amounts)

Is the new Improved Chain Heal talent before or after +heal? If it's after, there would have to be a mathematical point at which the stats on the rest of your gear would make it so that the three piece ten storms bonus would be worth more than the extra stats from level 70 epics.

Of course, that probably just means we'll see a repeat of the Ten Storms three-piece bonus show up on a future set of gear.

I see the same problem occuring for Druids (and Priests). Blizzard seems to be pushing spirit for us in our talents (Living Spirit, Tree Of Life), and our 3 piece set bonus (+15% mana regen while casting) is amazing. I'm currently wearing 5 Dreamwalker/4 Stormrage just to keep 3 pieces, even if the individual pieces are all downgrades.

Unless Blizzard puts out some amazing leather healing pieces, I really don't see myself wanting to switch away from 3 piece Stormrage. Maybe Blizz will put a Mana Regen Rating or Chain Heal Bonus Rating or something in order to make the pieces less desirable.

I probably shouldn't give them ideas though.

I was actually just considering this myself. I guess, problems like this are always gonig to arise with bonuses based around percentages scaling into future content. A similar problem has already been adressed going into the xpac, with the conversion of hit/crit percentages into ratings to prevent old items being overpowered at higher levels. If this set bonus stays as is, then surely people will be in 3 piece trans for ever? Ive certainly heard reports of a lot of priests saying they are wearing 3 trans/6 faith to maintain the bonus.

I never played EQ myself, but a couple of people mentioned to me that some items ended up being irreplaceable do to bonuses they had on them, could this be occurring again?

Maybe, maybe not. Your spirit regen from the rest of the new tier of gear likewise increases, and it could easily be that 15% of regen remains better than the stat increases over the three lowest-allocation pieces of gear (probably bracers, belt and gloves/boots).

The obvious answer to that is to simply repeat (but hopefully not inflate) the strong scaling set bonuses on future gear sets so that keeping really old gear just for set bonuses is not necessary. Alternately, they can nerf old scaling 3-piece set bonuses which cause issues like this.

Hmm, but then where will you your fit 5 piece Earthfury?