Kortar

The major problem I see is with Spirit Link. Conceptually, this is a great idea. Functionally, it seems like it might work well. From a balance standpoint, it's a nightmare.

If Spirit Link can actually have near 100% uptime on a raid tank, it becomes a mandatory ability in a large raid. On the other hand, if Spirit Link has near 100% uptime on a 5-man instance tank, it means that Resto Shaman will need to have horribly underpowered single target healing to compensate - and this would cause Shaman to be crippled in PvP where you can simply dispel the Spirit Link. If you put a cooldown on it, it starts to look like just another "panic button".

 

Daidalos

I don't really see needing to reduce single target healing to balance for 5 mans. In pvp we have dispel resistance talents for buffs I don't see that being an issue either unless the mana cost is atrocious (doesn't seem to be atm). I really don't see any issue as it stands. If anyone in the beta has any experiences I think that would be far more useful than speculative balance issues. Its still early the beta I think making sure talents are useful and synergistic is more imporant than balance for now. Once things get in more of a refined state then we can start worring about balance but with everything in flux its pointless to worry about it now.

Restoration Shaman calculations:http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWv3sPmcYnEJUg

 

Sprout

I agree with Dal. From a 5 man & pvp stand point its ok. For G's its not a huge issue, for arena...well I dont arena so I have no idea.

For 25 mans though I could see it becoming an issue, mainly because no other class has a similar ability. It does seem to be something that you either plan raid encounters around or you dont. If you dont I could see it becoming a crutch on encounters with high burst, if it is then you are screwed on those same encounters if you dont have one. The only way to really remove SL as a crutch in my mind would be the raid spike to increase even further making it break all the time. Which would make it useless in raids.

If not, 1 resto shaman will be required for every 25 man. Not a horrible thing for me as I will always have a spot. but look at how hard it is for people now to get resto's.... then again it would only require a single resto which most guilds can put out even on alliance side so maybe it would not be so bad.

 

asan

The original concept of Spirit Link comes from WC3, as horde is balanced by having "AoE", Slow, Healing, while the other factions have "burst healing". Therefore, other factions could just focus fire horde units for an easy victory. With spirit link, the focus fire is distributed and horde's AoE healing is more effective.
The only way to balance this would be to sever the healing efficiency of the shaman. Surprisingly, what is happening is that we are becoming better spike-dmg healers, quite the opposite. Not that I would complain, for I think we need more tools for our trade.

On the question of requiring a resto shammie in 25-man raids... keep in mind that for SL to be up all the time, assuming a mechanics I posted before, the tank would be getting hit for around 60% (a bit less) of his total HP. The presence of a resto shammie would distribute this healing, making this spike dmg easier to heal. But...

1) If the encounter is designed such as to also provide lots of AoE dmg including to melee, SL might be a good idea sometimes OR not. So balance could be achieved by dungeon design.

2) Holy priests got also a 51pt talent that, coupled with their core talent taht gives them 30% of their total healing to the tank, so they would also be able to deal with the massive spike dmg necessary to make tank healing challenging with SL (60% hits). They also get mana back based on their total overhealing, so this is really shouting that priest will overheal much in WotLK.

To sum up: A resto shammie distributes the damage the tank gets, converting spike dmg into AoE dmg. But in AoE heavy encounters where the tank ALSO gets spike dmg, SL can be detrimental to the raid.
ALSO: While we distribute the dmg, the holy priest simply OVERHEALS it. Two ways of facing hard hitting bosses. And we can assume that a 25-man raid will demand either a holy priest or a resto shammie. that's pretty much ok to assume.

after all, balancing SL isn't too hard. But yes, we would be pretty good for small scale encounters, but keep in mind we had our share of difficulties compared to priests and druids (H Crypts, 1st boss).

 

Kortar

In this context, Spirit Link is balanced. And within the context of only Shaman healing, it's very easy to balance Spirit Link. But you're missing what happens when you introduce other healers into the mix.

Spirit Link works pretty good with AA and Chain Heal. But it works even better with Druid HoT - a Druid with Spirit Link can do the same healing at a better efficiency vs. Chain Heal, but he can then also spend half his time doing something else.

And it's out-of-bounds game-breaking with Binding Heal. Consider that with WotLK and level 70 spells/stats, Binding Heal can maintain ~6000 hps @ ~18 hpm. Compare that to Chain Heal's ~2500 hps @ ~12 hpm using the same assumptions. Chain Heal is the most efficient/highest volume heal Shaman get. It just so happens that Binding Heal is an incredibly potent heal within a very narrow context - and Spirit Link can perfectly map that context.

Now, do you really think that in an environment where people are throwing around that kind of healing volume that anyone is going to care much about the actual healing a Shaman does? Or is the Resto Shaman just going to be a Spirit Link-bot?

 

Sprout

Im fine being a SL-bot., but I doubt that is the only role we can handle. Right now we dominate raid healing, even with CoH priests doing well CH is just too powerful. I have no problem becoming more like a priest witha wider array of tools to use to perform my healing. Even if priests do end up being better pure healers (I still think when all is said and doen the difference wont be much) , I bring alot more than a priest to the party in buffs so I wont cry a river. Pallies have had this problem for most of the last 1/2 of the BC content. Way worse than shammies, even if the worst of your predictions comes true kotar.

 

asan

I was afraid that this could happen but for the current incarnation we have to cast SL each 30sec, which could be increased to 1min, frankly, but its ok. During that 30sec, we should be casting something else, right?

That's one issue with SL, that it isnt actually a heal, its an effect that supports healing - which will be mostly done by classes that can only heal (druids). We had our time topping the healing chars, now we pass the prize to other classes. But I am sure we will have our Teron Gorefiend moments in WotLK.
That's prolly the reason why we are being given tank healing capabilities. For 25-man stuff, we will be tank healing a lot. We wil crit as much as paladins, but will give the tanks not only SL, but 25% more armor. At the same time, raid healing shamans will be casting CH and 2xLHW or HW. It isnt the end of the day.

Keep in mind that with the DKs Blizzard is really walking on the razor's edge with all healers, and can't mess with a single healer otherwise there won't be healers at end game. If the healer feels underwhelmed by the dungeon's challenge or has a boring gameplay (SL bot), they can allways start with a amazing Level 55 death-grip completely new class.

I am positive.

 

Shakes

I disagree that this is the case in WotLK. With the buffs to healing wave (25% extra +healing, 30% cast reduction after chain heal and 60% healing after crit) it's the volume Shaman heal.

Chain heal scaling factors:

5/7 base
* 1.75 for jumps
* 1.1 for ancestral healing
* 1.2 for improved chain heal

overall = 1.65 healing per +heal

Healing wave scaling factors:

6/7 base
* 1.1 for ancestral healing
* 1.25 for Tidal Waves
* 1.18 for Healing Way

overall = 1.39 healing per +heal

Each point of healing gets an extra 0.5 multiplier when it crits for chain heal, but a 1.4 multiplier with healing wave due to the 60% ancestral awakening proc. So at some point of crit, healing wave scales better than chain heal:

1.65 * (1 + .5x) = 1.39 * (1 + 1.4x)

x ~= .223

22.3% crit for healing wave to start scaling better than chain heal. I currently, with 0 crit from gear, get about 10% crit just from int, plus with 9% crit from talents, I think this point will be trivial to pass.

So healing wave will scale better than chain heal. It will also cast 30% faster for the next two heals after using chain heal. To me it seems clear that chain heal will simply be something you cast to make your next two healing waves fast, not for the throughput of the heal itself.

 

Grekk

Apparently you are no longer able to 'overcharge' spells, tested it for Healing Stream Totem and the ticks changed with my spellpower.

 

Skyhoof

Do you mean that you activated a trinket and then dropped healing stream? When the trinket's effect ended, there was a drop in the output of the totem?

 

Sprout

Well that puts the on use +spell power trinkets back at the bottom of the list for me. I hate having to manually pop trinkets, and frankly linking them to the ES & totems was the only thing making them worth getting in my mind.

 

Sprout

One note on this is that the scaling you are talking about it primarily due to tidal waves. If you remove TW you end up with


1.65 * (1 + .5x) = 1.28 * (1 + 1.4x)

X=38.3%


I guess what this means is (assuming you are doing more than single target healing, Raid dmg or SL active) below 22.3% yuo want to spam CH, between 22.3 & 38.3 % you rotate CH with HW, and above 38.3% you spam HW

Thats assuming mana >0 of course.

 

Kortar

I wasn't really commenting about the WotLK comparison - I just poorly phrased the concept that Chain Heal doesn't suck, so when it gets dramatically outperformed you know something is askew.

However, your math does have one error: Tidal Waves is not a 25% increase in healing. It is a 25% empowerment to the coefficient. In current terms, the healing of a spell can be calculated:
(Base Heal + (Casting Time / 3.5 + Tidal Waves)) * Ancestral Healing * Healing Way

Spellpower will change this somewhat. The current best guess is that the "Casting Time / 3.5" factor will be more along the lines of "Casting Time / 2" for healing spells. This makes the Tidal Waves empowerment slightly less powerful than current Healing Touch/Greater Heal empowerment (Shaman and Paladins do not have any empowered heals currently).

Given the way the haste bonus works, probably the best way to calculate the value of the heals is as a cycle of heals - dividing them between the single target and the bounces. If we assume that coefficients are 180% of what they are now for healing spells (this is not based on any information, but mainly a guess based on current itemization budgets), then with 30% critical:

Chain Heal primary heal coefficient = 5/7 * 1.8 (scaling) * 1.1 (Purification) * 1.2 (ICH) * 1.15 (30% critical w/150% critical effect) = 195.17%.
Chain Heal secondary heal coefficient = 195.17 * 0.75 (1/2 bounce + 1/4 bounce) = 146.38%

Healing Wave primary heal coefficient = (6/7 * 1.8 (Scaling) + 0.25) * 1.1 (Purification) * 1.18 (Healing Way) * 1.15 (30% critical w/150% critical effect) = 267.62%
Healing Wave secondary heal coefficient = (6/7 * 1.8 (Scaling) + 0.25) * 1.1 (Purification) * 1.18 (Healing Way) * 0.45 (30% critical w/AA effect) = 104.72%

For a complete cycle of 6.35s casting, this would yield a coefficient of:
Primary = 195.17 + 267.62 * 2 = 730.41 / 6.35 = 115.03% coefficient/sec
Secondary = 146.38 + 104.72 * 2 = 355.82 / 6.35 = 56.03% coefficient/sec

Chain Heal spammed is 78.07%/58.55% primary/secondary, so you take a fairly minor cutdown in in secondary heal for a massive boost in primary heal. In terms of pure healing volume, the Tidal Waves (CH + 2*HW) cycle is obviously better. Note: LHW will outperform HW if you can't stack Healing Way.

To compare against other large heals at same rate of base critical. Paladins have 5% more critical from talents than Shaman, Priests have 4% less:
Holy Light primary heal = 5/7 * 1.8 (Scaling) * 1.12 (Healing Light) * 1.49 (35% critical w/240% Sheath of Light critical effect) = 214.56% or 118.00% coefficient/sec (Judgements of the Pure/Light's Grace). Excluding Infusion of Light.

Greater Heal primary heal = (6/7 * 1.8 (Scaling) + 40% (EH)) * 1.1 (Spiritual Healing) * 1.05 (Twin Disciplines) * 1.13 (26% critical w/150% critical effect) = 253.58% or 125.77% coefficient/sec (Divine Fury/Improved Holy Concentration). Excluding Test of Faith.

In terms of armor uptime, our Shaman cycle will have an uptime of 1 - (0.7 ^ (2 * 15 / 6.35)) = 81.46% while the Greater Heal cycle will have an uptime of 1 - (0.74 ^ (15 / 2.5 * 1.24)) = 89.36%. This is consistent with the well-known truth that spell haste (or at least faster cycling heals) is more important for uptime on these buffs than spell critical.

In more practical terms, the lack of a talent similar to Infusion of Light/Test of Faith/Swiftmend strongly recommends against using Resto Shaman to heal the tank. If our tank takes large bursts of damage, other healers can respond with massive influxes of health almost instantaneously while our Resto Shaman can either toss a fairly small 1.5s heal or a 2.0s+ heal.

Given all this, I find it unlikely Resto Shaman would be assigned to heal tanks in a 25-man raid. Once we move away from tank healing, Healing Way is no longer particularly practical. Healing Wave is also too large and slow for raid healing, so the cycle would probably be CH/LHW/LHW rather than CH/HW/HW.

The secondary healing comparison is nearly impossible to run with any sort of reasonable assumptions since we don't know the targetting guidelines on Flourish/Beacon of Light (much less the coefficients). However, it's important to note that the group heals given to non-Shaman are significantly stronger in a per-casting time sense - they're able to thrown in a healer's spare time, rather than being the primary focus of healing, but still muster the same sort of volume of healing.

 

Ana

I disagree that hw is too slow with tidal waves. My shaman only has about 100 haste from gear, but with all my totems down healing wave was a 1.5 second cast. Yes lhw was 0.9 seconds but heals for far less especially when you wouldn't likely have healing way on that person.

And spirit link is totally broken. It doesn't work right now, we don't know how they want it to work yet. Speculation at this point is somewhat w/out merit.

 

Skyhoof

Ana, since you have a beta key, could you test the mechanics of a trinketed healing stream and report back the results? Does the healing done by the totem decrease after you lose the buff from the trinket? I assume the healing stream and mana stream totems are raid wide now like the others. Perhaps this was an intended change given the new power of the totems. I would also be curious how trinkets affect Earth Shield? Can you still cast a super charged Earth Shield using trinkets? Also, I've always assumed that mana tide would remain a party-only buff your party. Is that correct?

 

Ana

Ok results of test:

1. Healing and mana stream are raid wide. Mana tide is not. They actually reworked healing/mana stream. They now pulse out the mana/healing amount. They also make a corresponding whoosh noise that Blizz promises they will remove.

2. Healing stream reduces back to it's unbuffed value once the trinket buff expires.

3. You can still trinket and cast an earthshield.

 

Skyhoof

Thanks! Follow-up question: Do healing stream totems from different shamans still stack? Somehow, I imagine they have changed that mechanic. Might want to check for stacking if you are in the same party as well as in the same raid.

I am disappointed that the range of totems wasn't increased to 30 yards, or 40 yards with talents. Any change in the duration of any totems?

 

Sprout

Armor uptime: Im assuming that you have more than one MT healer for most fights. In that case having a priest and one other healer puts the uptime @ close to 100%. If thats the case, you other healer could be another priest or a shammie. The shammie brings alot more to the table than just his hps, and still does close to the same heals. So at that point you would WANT a shammie over another priest in my mind

As for the lack of a quick heal reaction ability, this is partially true. NS+HW is always an option every two minutes, AND you have the synergy with gaurdian spirit (assuming 1 priest with the shammie) and HoT's from ELW, Druid HoT's and Earthshield. Thats gives alot of leeway during times when NS is down.

Assuming you downrank HW, a CH/HW/HW combo (2.4/1.68/1.68) is pretty sweet for raid healing especially with AA procing about once every cycle, with is in effect a free LHW on a single target for free. Fact is, going with that is much better for HPS/HPM balance than CH/LHW/LHW.

 

Skyhoof

Nature's Swiftness is currently on a 3-minute cooldown. Typo or is it 2-minutes in beta?

 

Sprout

Brain fart, typing fast when posting at work

 

Kamileon

Spirit Link was working for me last night when I ran instances. I did notice that once you have one up, you will get a "More powerful spell" notice if you try to Spirit Link one of those targets again.

But SL was definitely redistributing damage, I was noticing in my log that I was taking Spirit Link damage when it was on me.

I didn't look at numbers enough to confirm if it's before/after mitigation, but with a Rogue and a DK being the usual linked targets to my T6 Prot Pally tank w/ ES up, plus the shadow priest using VE, the end result was that if I used SL on the pally, he wasn't really taking any damage, and I ended up healing the splash on the DPS mainly. I was using it just as often on the DK who was taking a lot of damage, and having a lot of aggro issues. Spirit Link would bounce between pets, like MCed mobs, and DK Ghouls.

Ancestral Awakening's bonus heal was only ever proccing on myself last night, regardless of whoever else was nearby and their health levels. /bugged. It also only procs the bonus heal based on the effective healing.

At roughly 1200 spell power, my earthliving procs were on average ticking for 241. Saw some that were ticking for 213, but I didn't dig into logs to see why some were lower.


My shaman is technically an alt, as she's less preogressed than my Tree Druid "main" so I have less experience raid healing with her, and though I've done a fair bit of it, her primary spec is Enh.

I can dig up more info and do more tests if anyone wants.

 

Ana

SL technically does some splitting of damage, but Koraa (the blizz class designer that has been chatting with us) posted that it was not working correctly and hadn't been finalized.

I'll try to have a guildmate shammy log on later tonight after raid and test to see if healing/mana stream stack in a raid and report back.

 

Shakes

Exactly: I'm comparing how each scales with +healing. The base amount is largely pointless to discuss at this point, as I don't think the new top rank of chain heal has been released, mana costs are subject to change, and we don't know anything about how downranking works yet.

As for the rest of your comparison, the 6.35 figure assumes the 30% works like haste. The wording of the talent suggests to me it's a flat 30 percent reduction (ie multiply through by 0.7 rather than divide by 1.3), which would be a fairly big difference. The post about healing wave being a 1.5 second cast with 100 haste from gear and the WoA totem also suggests it works like this.

The other complication with treating shaman healing as a cycle is there's down time in refreshing Earth Shield (hard to model how often given it's 8 globes with a 3 second cooldown, probably 45 seconds seems a reasonable estimate), Spirit Link (is there a duration on this? How often will it break from the damage threshold being exceeded?) and totems.

In any case I assume shaman will be tank healing just like you have your "spirit bitch" 23 point disc priest tank heal now. Even if they're not the best for it, they're otherwise useless for anything else. Holy priests, paladins and resto druids look like a better raid healers than shaman as it stands. Shaman may not be the best tank healers, but your comparison shows they're at least in the same ballpark as the other classes.

 

Ana

Ok I was able to test some of the totems tonight w/ a fellow shaman.

-Healing Stream and Mana Spring both stack if the shaman are in the same party, and neither stack if they are in different parties in the same raid (i.e. in raid you only get one healing and one mana regardless of how many are dropped)
-Mana Tide is limited to the group only.
-Strength of Earth is also limited to group only (not sure if this is a bug or not, although I submitted it as a bug just in case).
-GoA and WF are both raid wide and both buffs can appear on one person. So I guess if an enhancement shaman needed to heal they'd have some spell haste.
-Flametongue is raid wide, but doesn't stack with more then one Flametongue.

EL weapon ticks for about 267 per second when it procs , but no passive +heal amount is currently shown on the character panel. The hot does scale w/ gear. 267 was the amount w/ about 1200 spellpower.

 

Æthien

Does this mean that if I, as a third person, am in a different group from the 2 shamans will get both effects or does the stacking only work for that single group?

edit: better phrased: If you stack 5 shamans in 1 group, will the entire raid get 5 stacked mana stream totems or will only that 1 group get them stacked?