Restoration WotLK Talents and Discussion - Page 10

Æthien · 07/19/08, 3:07 PM

I think he mentioned that it did not proc water shield, so I'm 99% sure that it wont work for the others.
I guess that the idea behind link is to make Chainheal useful in 5 and 10-mans where less people are taking damage.

Just like most of the other changes it looks like it's all meant to make us awesome 5 and 10 man healers too instead of "just" insane raidhealers.

edit: If you look at it like this:
Chainheal wasnt that effective in smaller settings so Blizz 'fixed' it by giving us a 51 pt talent that does damage to more targets so we can use chainheal.

asan · 07/19/08, 3:14 PM

I am quite positive about the changes now. I am, ofc, assuming:

1) Spirit Link "splitting" of dmg, applies, like warlocks, after mitigation is computed
2) The 30% "blow" cap is calculated after the mitigation is SL shared damage
otherwise, its not worth getting the talent.
I would be way more positive with new ranks of CH, but redoing the HPS math from CoH and CH, as for now, even with a level penalty, we are pretty competitive.

the new redesigned totem functionalities are awesome, quite frankly. I don't feel that the resto druid revision was better anylonger.

The druid revision makes a lot of sense, the shaman revision is original and wild, but freaking awesome.

PS: Quite frankly, I see myself using a lot CH in my ZA times runs. perhaps not kara, but in ZA its pretty useful. Almost every fight, trash or boss fight.

PS2: If SL works like I mentioned, its useful even against Illidan, for example: he hits for 8k on a 20k tank. After Sharing, 4k. that's below the 30% threshold and so it will still be there after some blows and allowing CH to rule. Remmember that the other 2 tanks do "nothing" when they aren't in P2, tanking the Flames. Now they will be SL recipients

Kortar · 07/19/08, 4:20 PM

I would be way more positive with new ranks of CH, but redoing the HPS math from CoH and CH, as for now, even with a level penalty, we are pretty competitive.

Something to remember is that while 57% of Chain Heal's healing is tied up in a small, slow initial cast and only 43% of its healing occurs from auto-targetted healing, 80% of CoH's healing will be auto-targetted and the remaining 20% will be instacast. As a result, it's nearly certain that CoH will outperform its theoretical efficiency in comparison to Chain Heal.

We also don't know how Flourish is targetted. In a very real sense, the situation repeated Chain Heal casting sets up is equivalent to tossing HoT on everyone in the raid - you get a steady influx of non-burst healing. Of course, right now Lifebloom'ing an entire raid would be impractical. With Flourish, it may not be. Paladins also get Beacon of Light, which appears to be a slower version of Flourish that can heal more targets.

In other words, the niche currently occupied by Chain Heal may well be occupied by the incidental heals thrown by other healers while they're not covering their primary responsibility.

KnThrak · 07/20/08, 6:48 AM

Originally Posted by Kortar

Something to remember is that while 57% of Chain Heal's healing is tied up in a small, slow initial cast and only 43% of its healing occurs from auto-targetted healing, 80% of CoH's healing will be auto-targetted and the remaining 20% will be instacast. As a result, it's nearly certain that CoH will outperform its theoretical efficiency in comparison to Chain Heal.

Yes, but remember CoH cannot ever be fully "on-demand". It got a cooldown, so you might very well end up not having it ready when you need it most because you "thought" you'll need it most 2 seconds earlier. While we can always just have Chain Heals ready and abort, or just cast them out no matter what, and have the next half-cast already, and have the proc for faster single heals up too - should we need to quickly single-heal.

So far it seems quite competitive in that. Very versatily raid-healing, not bad on the single front, either.

Originally Posted by Sprout

Personally I dont understand why people complain about talent tree 'bloat'. That just means we have alot of good talents...Would you rather the talents seucked and were worthless?

The problem comes out of sheer comparison.

For most classes, a "good" spec so far meant to take all the good talents while leaving out the rubbish ones. So balance was calculated around that "optimum" spec.

In WotLK, for most specs and classes I have a strong feeling this won't be possible anymore. You'd have to sink 71 points into most trees to get "most" useful talents, and then you miss major utility gainable from the offspec.

In other words, balance is now calculated around having some of the good talents - not all. It also means "Raid Resto spec" and "Raid Resto spec" can be two very different things. :P

And yes as you say, this "bloat" is a very very very positive thing. It means they're finally getting talents balanced in raw power. It's just very new for most people - so far all talents have been clearcut takeit/leaveit.

Lambi · 07/20/08, 8:35 AM

I must say out of all the classes, the shaman resto tree is top3 out of the easy point assignments.

Kortar · 07/21/08, 11:40 AM

Yes, but remember CoH cannot ever be fully "on-demand". It got a cooldown, so you might very well end up not having it ready when you need it most because you "thought" you'll need it most 2 seconds earlier. While we can always just have Chain Heals ready and abort, or just cast them out no matter what, and have the next half-cast already, and have the proc for faster single heals up too - should we need to quickly single-heal.

This doesn't really matter, since neither heal can address serious concentrated damage. Both have a single target healing performance in the Lifebloom/Flash of Light range, not the LHW/Flash Heal range. If someone actually needs an 'on demand' heal, neither heal is capable of keeping them alive.

PsyBomb · 07/21/08, 1:38 PM

Originally Posted by Lambi

I must say out of all the classes, the shaman resto tree is top3 out of the easy point assignments.

I must beg to differ. If everyone only had one tree, maybe. The problem comes when you're doing specs other than 0/0/71, when you suddenly find yourself critically short of points to get the little details that make life easier. After taking all of the talent that would be critical to straight healing, I had perhaps 6 talent points left. I ended up having to skip a lot of threat stuff and dumping my Elemental tree investment in order to make ends meet on the spec. If you want easy, go play around with Affliction or Frost.

Sprout · 07/21/08, 1:54 PM

Originally Posted by Kortar

This doesn't really matter, since neither heal can address serious concentrated damage. Both have a single target healing performance in the Lifebloom/Flash of Light range, not the LHW/Flash Heal range. If someone actually needs an 'on demand' heal, neither heal is capable of keeping them alive.

Have you ever played a shaman? I really am starting think you are just a troll/priest shill coming here to try to raise peoples fear level through poor talent/spell reviews.

CH is VERY capable of single target healing for non MT healing in 95% of cases (exceptions that I can think of off the top of my head- Dark barage and encapsulate). The one big advantage CH has of CoH currently is that the healign is front loaded on the 1st target which DOES allow this kind of 'raid cleanup plus' healing.

The OP was referring to the fact that CoH cannot be spammed so continuous medium level damage cannot be easily cleaned up by CoH vs CH.

That having been said, CoH DOES do very well with evenly spread raid damage with a spiky nature (Kalecgos Arcane debuff, Brut slash, etc).

But in almost all cases CH will be better than CoH with a cooldown. Especially if you combine it in a CH/HW/HW or CH/LHW/LHW rotation with tidal waves.

Kotar, no matter how much you want shaman to go away as group healers, its not going to happen.

PsyBomb · 07/21/08, 2:05 PM

So, I've been playing with the specs since Beta came, and I think I've settled on my raid spec. The thing is, it looks to act a lot more like a Paladin with some bonus splash healing than anything. Massively boosted crit rate and power on Healing Wave with a ton of benefits on crit (Water Shield proc, splash heal, Ancestral Fortitude), an insane Earthshield, and some boost to Chain Heal... that buffs Healing Wave as well.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This build assumes that Flametongue Totem afects +heal as well. If it doesn't, I'm going to move the points from Enhancing Totems over to either Totemic Focus or Healing Grace.

Kurlii · 07/21/08, 2:34 PM

From what i've heard elemental focus effects crit heals now, so something like 11/8/52 might work, getting the imp shields talent in enh and ele focus in ele assuming it works with healing spells. If it doesnt, i wouldnt be suprised to see most people going 8/8/55 or 0/8/63. Im not sure if it was a bug or removed though, so if anyone could confirm it whos in beta that would be great (it would really make us close to pallies with spamming quick heals and getting mana back though :P)

Sprout · 07/21/08, 2:41 PM

From looking at the revamp of Tidal Waves, I dont think Bliz wants us to be Pally's in chain, but to be group healers who have some decent (not great) MT healing potential.

With a CH/HW/HHW cycle you should be able to downrank the HW and sustain very good HPS throughput. If you have SL up the SL targets will get hit by both the CH and hopefully an AA proc. Those two things, SL and AA are what will seperate us from pallies for healing, assuming the group/raid damage is similar to BC.

Daidalos · 07/21/08, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by Kortar

This doesn't really matter, since neither heal can address serious concentrated damage. Both have a single target healing performance in the Lifebloom/Flash of Light range, not the LHW/Flash Heal range. If someone actually needs an 'on demand' heal, neither heal is capable of keeping them alive.

Kortar I don't mind you comparing preist skills to shaman ones, but really please refrain from making inaccurate staments about shaman healing amounts.

With 2500 healing and 0 haste and no 4pc t6 bonus

Chain heal 5(max rank)
single target heal amt: 3534
Healing per sec: 1413.57

Lesser Healing wave 7(max rank)
single target heal amt: 2439
healing per sec: 1626.01

I don't think you can consider this "not in the LHW/FLash Heal range". Every shaman I know frequently uses chain heal for single target healing assuming its not a tank. This is due to the fact that CH has higher efficiency (even single target) and that it does heal for "enough" combined with the fact that quite frequently you get additional jumps to other raid/party members (which is why it is preferred vs downranked HW).

Kortar · 07/21/08, 4:56 PM

Kotar, no matter how much you want shaman to go away as group healers, its not going to happen.

This is not a matter of having a personal stake in the outcome - I can play either my Shaman or my Priest equally well. It's matter of trying to understand the game mechanics and how they will impact WotLK, rather than simply presume the game will be the same as it always was or that the dev team will come up with a game that perfectly matches any given player's desires.

With the most recent changes, it seems very likely that you'll take one Resto Shaman for Spirit Link (and Earth Shield, I guess). But the actual heals thrown by our Resto Shaman don't look very inspiring.

Kortar I don't mind you comparing preist skills to shaman ones, but really please refrain from making inaccurate staments about shaman healing amounts.

With +2500 healing, Flash Heal (Rank 9) heals for (1190 + 1321) * 1.1 = 2763 / 1.5 = 1841 hps.

What I was pointing out is that in situations such as the aforementioned Dark Barrage, the casting of Chain Heal has virtually nothing to do with whether or not the target lives. At 3000 dps, there's a very good chance that your squishier raid members will be dead before your Chain Heal even lands due to a combination of reaction speed and lag. The reason that the Barrage'd guy managed to live was that someone was quick enough on their feet to sneak in a quick-casting heal.

If you want to divide up functionality, Circle of Healing is always a "HoT on the raid" and never a burst heal, while you can potentially decide to use Chain Heal as a burst heal. But Chain Heal is never a good burst heal. It's merely good compared to the alternatives for a Resto Shaman. In terms of healing/cast time, Circle of Healing not only significantly outperforms Chain Heal with WotLK talents (and level 70 spells/spellpower rules given no alternative) for heal/cast but it almost certainly will yield a much lower overheal percentage due to the natures of the spells.

Yes, a Resto Shaman casting 100% of the time with Chain Heal can generate more throughput than a Holy Priest who spend 75% of their time doing absolutely nothing. But this isn't a very sensible comparison.

Mielinh · 07/21/08, 5:02 PM

Looking through the talents, I have a feeling shaman are still going to have mana regeneration issues. No new Mana Spring is announced yet, we have no spirit talent (I was kinda of anticipating one due to some of the class spirit changes they are doing), and the water shield seems dependent on a proc, which you then will have to be refreshing constantly. While they've added some nice talents to druid and hunter party mana regeneration, the other healing classes seem to have much better control, while we simply became faster and harder. 100% chance to increase HW and LHW cast speed after a CH? This makes me wonder what they have planned for raids, and any changes with mana potions that were being discussed.

Does anyone else get this feeling?

Maybe itemization for resto shaman will move away from haste and deeper into mp5 and crit because we already have the ability to speed up our heals with a totem. And with Wrath of Air giving the entire raid 10% spell haste; what kind of burn boss fights do they have planned? And with raid wide totems, are there going to being fights that require being spread out 10 yards, much like KJ? I know, too many questions that can't be answered yet.

In terms of the cleanse talent, at level 70, with shaman having a base mana of 2958, the spell will cost 207 mana. In comparison to a Druid/Paladin:
Druid: 2370 base mana, 8% cost: 190
Paladin: 2953 base mana, 6% cost: 177, -10% = 159
(Hopefully that math is correct, I'll be able to check and edit later)
Which makes us have the most expensive dispell.

Just my thoughts at a first real glance into the new shaman stuffs.

Daidalos · 07/21/08, 6:31 PM

Originally Posted by Kortar

This is not a matter of having a personal stake in the outcome - I can play either my Shaman or my Priest equally well. It's matter of trying to understand the game mechanics and how they will impact WotLK, rather than simply presume the game will be the same as it always was or that the dev team will come up with a game that perfectly matches any given player's desires.

With the most recent changes, it seems very likely that you'll take one Resto Shaman for Spirit Link (and Earth Shield, I guess). But the actual heals thrown by our Resto Shaman don't look very inspiring.

With +2500 healing, Flash Heal (Rank 9) heals for (1190 + 1321) * 1.1 = 2763 / 1.5 = 1841 hps.

What I was pointing out is that in situations such as the aforementioned Dark Barrage, the casting of Chain Heal has virtually nothing to do with whether or not the target lives. At 3000 dps, there's a very good chance that your squishier raid members will be dead before your Chain Heal even lands due to a combination of reaction speed and lag. The reason that the Barrage'd guy managed to live was that someone was quick enough on their feet to sneak in a quick-casting heal.

If you want to divide up functionality, Circle of Healing is always a "HoT on the raid" and never a burst heal, while you can potentially decide to use Chain Heal as a burst heal. But Chain Heal is never a good burst heal. It's merely good compared to the alternatives for a Resto Shaman. In terms of healing/cast time, Circle of Healing not only significantly outperforms Chain Heal with WotLK talents (and level 70 spells/spellpower rules given no alternative) for heal/cast but it almost certainly will yield a much lower overheal percentage due to the natures of the spells.

Yes, a Resto Shaman casting 100% of the time with Chain Heal can generate more throughput than a Holy Priest who spend 75% of their time doing absolutely nothing. But this isn't a very sensible comparison.

I"m not going to argue that CoH isn't looking very strong, however since it has a 6s cooldown I am still not expecting the vast majority of raid healing to be done by CoH. Looking at our mechanics it seems that Bliz wants us to be alternating chain and HW. Alternating the hasted HW and CH would imply that HW would actually have higher hps (it would depend on the amount of overheal though)

As to which healer will end up with more healing I'd imagine it would be similar to now. In different situations different healers can dominate. Also there are things to keep in mind like haste which allows CH to scale but really won't affect CoH hps. I don't think anyone is suggesting a comparison of a preist only healing 25% of the is a vlid comparison to a resto shaman healing 100% of the time. Really your points are mostly speculation on raid mechanics of encounters we haven't seen. I think its a bit premature for all the certain prediction of shaman healing effectiveness as a raid healer. I really think of which healer is going to be better in a raid is rather silly at the moment Lets try to focus on calculations with the new talents (I have been meaning to do them but I am quite busy with work for the next several weeks).

Bullhorn · 07/21/08, 6:47 PM

If spellpower is the new caster stat, why do we need a separate weapon buff like Earthliving and Flametongue. Shouldn't it be a single weapon buff and then +heal and +spell dmg coefficient will make use of the buff in different ways?

Æthien · 07/21/08, 6:49 PM

Originally Posted by Bullhorn

If spellpower is the new caster stat, why do we need a separate weapon buff like Earthliving and Flametongue. Shouldn't it be a single weapon buff and then +heal and +spell dmg coefficient will make use of the buff in different ways?

If I'm not mistaken, only the flametongue totem will give +spellpower now, flametongue weapon will be as it was before/is now.

Shakes · 07/21/08, 11:38 PM

With the crit to water shield talent, I hope they're planning on either adding more water shield orbs or taking water shield off the GCD. It's annoying enough to recast at the moment, especially since when you most need to recast it (everyone taking hits) is also when you can least afford to take them time to do so (spamming heals to heal up those hits).

I'm having a hard time seeing how regen is going to work with the spell costs we're seeing. Water shield being the sole inside 5SR regen mechanic is problematic, because unlike spirit it doesn't scale with gear. I worry it will either be too strong at the beginning of the expansion or too weak by the end (or possibly the later as a result of the former causing nerfs, see paladins in BC). Maybe if they make water shield scale with spell power?

Stylistically, I certainly see shaman as tank rather than raid healers in the expansion. Earth shield buffs plus spirit link to a chain heal, healing wave x2 rotation to me seems pretty clear the direction things are going. The other classes all have some amazing looking group heals, I'm not really sure chain heal will be put to best use in that area. Helping to heal up what spirit link spreads out seems like a better application of something with such a heavy upfront component. The other group heals all heal evenly, which seems better suited to AoE type damage situations.

I can see why blizzard wants to even everything out so everyone can do a bit of everything, and I know we haven't seen the final balance of everything yet. I'm hoping the current new abilities aren't all there is to come, and we'll see at least something that works towards shaman's current raid healing game play. After all, I think most people who wanted to be main tank healers already rolled paladins or divine spirit priests.

madrix · 07/22/08, 2:16 AM

Is anyone else wondering if they will continue to allow totems to stack in raids? Like they do now in parties with more then one shaman, namely healing stream, grounding, tremor (I figure this will still stack due to pulsing). I am thinking if mana spring is raid wide at 30 yards, and there are more then one resto shaman in a raid (as i suspect it will be similar to it is now being 2-4 plus an elemental shaman) dropping healing stream in range of a raid, would be quite a significant healing overall to the raid would it not?

Given mine does about 154 now, * 3 shaman = 462 per tick * 25 raid members = 11550 a tick for the raid or * 60 ticks = 693,000 healing overall.
For the cost of about 100 mana per shaman.

I understand that this is not going to heal someone to full or save the tank or anything, but as background healing for such little mana, it is rather significant.

Sprout · 07/22/08, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

With the crit to water shield talent, I hope they're planning on either adding more water shield orbs or taking water shield off the GCD. It's annoying enough to recast at the moment, especially since when you most need to recast it (everyone taking hits) is also when you can least afford to take them time to do so (spamming heals to heal up those hits).

snip

I agree. it would be nice if the improved shields talent gave extra orbs, or even better if the imp WS was changed to give extra orbs to WS. 1 orb per point (like Imp ES) would be nice.

FYI
Elemental Focus on the bliz site indicates that only damage spells will allow for a clearcast. Any beta testers able to verify this?

If this stays I agree that we will be having mana issues. This is especially the case when we will have to itemize spell power, crit, AND mp5. At least in T5 level gear we could get by focusing on 2 stats. On the up side we will have more points for those 'extra' talents.

asan · 07/22/08, 10:16 AM

I wouldn't do numeric comparisons now, I would frankly wait at least the 2nd content Beta push. Earthliving weapon, for example, has several ranks but all are exactly the same. Therefore, the latter ranks are all placeholders. When those spells are updated, I guess we can talk about numeric comparisons. The healing spells are expensive because of the amazing Elemental Focus mechanic, that was changed and now doesn't include resto spells.

Good point regarding Water Shield Orbs/GCD. Hope it is posted in the beta forums.

The grand design of the resto talents seem solid now. But quantitatively, the HoT component of the EL wep is a must before we even consider computing talents. The first rank of EL wep happens at level 30:
Level 30 - Rank 1 - "Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by 26 and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additional 360 over 12 sec. Lasts 30 minutes."

It has 5 more ranks till 80. Just for comparison, druids:
Level 30 - Regrowth: the HoT component ticks for 343

At level 77, Regrowth ticks for 1792. IF EL WEAPONS keeps scaling just like regrowth, it represents a 360 healing per tick at level 80, without including bonus healing. That's a lot.

That's why we need to wait all spells update, and even have a glimpse of level 80 gear. We can only compare if we know:
* Bonus Healing in terms of SpellPower
* Haste
* Amount of Crit in our gear
* Effect of Totems (10% haste, +73 spell power, etc)
* Latter ranks of EL weapon
* Effect "on-thefly" of Tidal Waves (****)
* and the spell we want to actually compare like LHW and HW be updated to the new talent tree

(****) What I mean Tidal Waves? After we use CH, we will likely have 30% (talent)+10%(WoA)+10%(Gear) haste. That means 2x1.25sec Healing Waves. Each of them having the chance of proccing EL weapon on the target, that MAY stack (we don't know by now).

It is IMPOSSIBLE to compare numbers now. Yes, druids and priests are most likely in their final forms the tooltips, but being shamans the buffing class, we must include our new and updated buffs.

Ana · 07/22/08, 10:22 AM

Elemental focus is now only proc'd by damage spells. Flametongue totem does increase all spellpower. Earthliving weapon is +heal and it has a chance to proc a hot. All ranks currently have the same value so I can't tell you how much +heal and what the proc will be for lvl 80. I can tell you that the proc sound for earthliving is one of the most annoying sounds I've ever heard in my life (like an alien bird screech) which I've submitted as a bug! It does, however, cause a little field of pretty flowers to spring up at the feet of whomever it procs on.

Oh one other little note. The dev's during alpha said they view shaman/pally stats as a similar model. Which is why they are trying to give some regen based on crit function. They don't see spirit as a viable shaman regen stat. Which kind of makes sense because I know as a priest to get the most out of your spirit regen you have to cheat the FSR as much as possible. As a shaman any spare non healing time I have is often utilized in refreshing totems. I'm inside the FSR pretty much all the time. That would make it pretty complicated to really maximize spirit regen.