Okey first of all, let me say again that I LIKE the new talents. This has very little to do whining and I know that this isnt the place for wish-thinking and suggestions, but everything is still in a development stage, so I think it should be fine to give some sort of input on how it actually looks like atm, and what could perhaps be done about it.

Riptide;
It's a reverse Lifebloom, so let's compare it to LB abit. With similar spellpower values and Druid in Treeform we have:
LB has 0 CD, costs 264 mana with talents and heals for around 3.5k unbuffed with the final heal. (outside treeform 3.2k)
RT has 6s CD, costs 505 mana with talents, and heals for around 3k unbuffed with the HoT.
Now we could argue that the bonus effect that RT provides with bonus to chain heal is nice and dandy too which will increase it's costs ofc and side effects like that. I'm cool with that, but let's not forget that LB is not a 51p talent.

Now we need to look at what they gave druids, that we had: Wild Growth, it suffers abit when it comes to burst healing ofc, but effectivly it has a healing output of around 12.5k from one spell without overhealing and well CH doesnt need introduction, but the output without critage is around 7k without overhealing. Now CH is a great strong heal still in effect, but WG is aswell, and is totally competing with both CoH and CH making all of the three healing classes really good at raidhealing and two can do it effectivly while running at that (which is what they want blizz). I dont know but I dont see a 6 second CD on WG (jk).

All in all, for it's cost, the healoutput should be increased when you look and compare even if it's meant to be situational (yes we have to compare now, more than ever with the new changes to raiding).

AA/LHW/HW AA is a poor talent because effectivly during my last SWP raid it healed for .5% of my healing output. Why? Biggest reason is because there is little reason to use LHW/HW in the first place (which I tried to use/and used ALOT more just to try it out).
So let's compare abit again (priests and shammies); Flash Heal and Lesser Healing Wave. Fundamentally without talents they are fair enough, LHW heals for less, but costs less etc, but once you add talents ontop, balance change.

FH gains 20% straight up with talents, priests have a greater increase in healing power through talents with spirutal guidance, which first of all is a lower tier talent, but gives alot more power to healing and better scalability than nature's blessings do. We fall behindx2.
HW suffers even more. Once again, it's all pretty ok when we look aside from talents, GH heals for more, and costs more than HW does, but with talents you can improve your GH so much more than HW.
You gain 20% more healing than HW, and once again Spirutal Guidance provides more healing power and scalability than Nature's blessing do. Now one could argue that Healing Way reduces this gap, and sure it does, but Healing Way encourages you to stay on 1 target and there is very little with shaman healing that revolves around staying on one target, which is very contradicting in the first place.

And to top that off, priests regen mechanics are ace in comparacy to shaman regen (we basically have none, and the one that we got revolves around using LHW and HW) which makes them not just have a greater healing output, but also beeing more efficient. Our greatest efficiancy came from downranking, which now is gone as you know, so while it is encouraged that we use HW/LHW more (not saying we should use it instead of CH, but use it more) it's simply very hard because our regen doesnt really allow it, and the output from CH is still better most of the time.

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Basically I think the toptier talents are great and encouraging to mix up playstyle and increase the fun in Resto shamans (which is why I love them), but they don't really work right now, and I think above text tells you why I think so.
What can be done? Either increase the output of the spells, or reduce its costs - preferebly NOT doing it to the base of the spells, but through talents so it scales better.

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I see that people think that HW and LHW should be bad etc because of diffrent strengths and weaknesses, but you forget that this would apply to when roles were made to be alot more diffrent (as in pre patch), now all healing classes can AoE heal very well, and priests/pallies/druids are outperforming shamans by MILES on singletarget healing. You have to compare now, and while I am against homogizing it all, the diffrences needs to be toned down imo.

So <3 Riptide and TW - make them comparably worthwhile!

Exactly. I like being very well rounded, so I think I am going to stay that way. Healing Wave isn't totally useless given the right scenario. I am just glad they gave us more versatility

Well thought out analysis, thanks.

About AA, I really, really want to like this talent. Its a fresh concept, an interesting tool to break us out of the CH spam and into a more involved spell rotation. For our first post-patch Sunwell raid, still focusing on raid healing, I went with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft and put on a few ele pieces for an effective 33% crit. I tried to use Tidal Wave hasted LHW/HW as much as I could to see if AA could be an effective raid healing tool with enough crit. No luck. With 25% percent of my healing using AA proccing spells and 33% crit, AA healed for 1% total at 21% overheal, roughly 3 times less what glyphed Earthliving did and with 3 times more overheal. That just doesn't seem worth 3 talent points for raid healing.

But what about tank healing? Has anyone tried a Healing Way/AA build and healed a raid tank? I know Blizzard is trying to nudge us more in that direction (or at least make us more competent tank healers) but I've seen almost zero feedback so far on how the new talents synergize for the role. Apologies if I missed tank healing feedback in an earlier post, the search button turned up nothing.

Just to point this out, the build that went live with Echos of Doom was not the most recent PTR build. Patch 3.0.3 (which looks to be coming out in the next week or two, based on comments posted by Blizzard about the impact on Hallows End) will most likely contain the increase to Riptide's base heal, as well as adding Riptide to the Tidalwaves proc and increasing Tidal Waves to 2 charges instead of one.

While FH looks like it costs more mana, it actually costs less. While LHW costs only 15% mana, shamans have the highest base mana. Plus Priests can talent for 15% mana reduction. Druids can get 10% mana reduction on Nourish. Shaman only have a 5% mana reduction via talents. Here's what the numbers should look like at 80. LHW costs the most mana and heals for the least:

(*)Nourish heals for 20% extra if a HoT is on the target, not included above.

Healing Wave is underpowered and has big scaling problems. The base heal is about 1000 less than the other classes big heals. Greater Heal and Healing Touch both scale Spellpower at 1.4, while Shaman only get 1.2 from TW. Paladins have a built-in scaling, due to the fold-in of Blessing of Light, of 1.24.

Healing Way 3-stack does put Shaman just below a Healing Touch and Greater Heal. It's just hard to get and maintain the full buff with no downranking.

RipTide vs Wild Growth - If both are allowed to run for the full HoT (15 sec vs 7 secs), Riptide heals for a little more than WG. But WG also heals 5 targets instead of one.

Indeed - very much aware of that aswell, just decided that it actually includes into how their mechanics is just superior through talents. Thanks for pointing it out. (aswell as the other numbers)

And Sahael, totally - I'm awaiting it, but just pointing it out

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Been confused about this now for a while, why they've choosen not to buff HW/LHW atleast so it's up to par.

Also keep in mind, the flash heal glyph is -10% mana on all flash heals, and the lesser healing wave glyph is 20% extra healed ONLY on a target with earth shield on.

Which makes flash heal what, 530ish mana ? A full hundred less, and heals for more, and scales better ;/

I´m really happy about the recent Riptide changes, on my premade both the initial heal and the hot have more then doubled. The initial heal crits for ~4k now plus we also gain 2 TW charges. And I haven´t seen it mentioned yet Cleanse Spirit got a new Icon .

Yeah, they did nothing but increase the HoT abit for rank2 though, which makes it still quite weak atm.

I dont care, it's going in the right direction, and I too love the changes .

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Has someone with access to the beta forums posted/presented the HW/LHW issues (beeing underpowered basically), and getting any response on it?
I know they say that numbers arent final, but HW and LHW has always been the weaker Single target heals, and I dont see that changing without some more headsup.

For the LHW numbers, I think you are neglecting both Improved Water Shield procs and Earthliving Weapon procs. That should make the spell stack up quite well against the other classes.

Why? Illumination/SpiritRegen and things like Serendipity etc etc isnt accounted.. It's rather quite opposite actually. Once you add up all the talents, LHW/HW falls further and further behind.

EW is diffrent though. It's like our new spell. Would you somehow try to compare that to Divine Plea?

According to

Item values - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Spell power item value is 6/7 (.8571) and the old spell healing item value is 5/11 (.4545).

(6/7) / (5/11) = 66/35 (1.8857)

I believe the problem with your data is that you are using the mana cost of LHW at 80 but the healing value of the level 70 rank of LHW. At level 80 with 1500 spellpower (before Nature's Blessing and Earthliving bonuses) a LHW will heal for just about 3700 noncrit.

What formula you are using. I think numbers are incorrect but order is right. Did you forget 1.88 multiplier?

Heal value = [Base + (cast time / 3.5 + coef talents) * 1.88 * spell power] * Talent multpliers

Good point, but I can not help but feel there must be a better place to put those talent points. Perhaps for the first time i will pick up instant gost wolf, just for the(very limited) extra mobility it offers.

I am still hoping something will be done with TW and AA to allow them to gell more with our true healing arsenal, i WANT to like the talents.

Personally I think this comparison is a bit forced. I'd rather see an analysis with riptide matched against regrowth and lifebloom matched against earth shield (though 1:1 comparison of spells is quite dangerous). Personally I'd pick regrowth over riptide for PvE while earth shield seems more desirable than lifebloom.

That said much depends on how the encounters turn out - if there's brutal & spiky raid damage then Wild Growth just can't do much while if there are slow but constant damage auras (Sapphiron) then Wild Growth should excel.

Jessamy please do not try to answer if you don't understand the question.
As I already stated in my question, I do realize that stats conversion indeed followed coefficient of 1.88
However by using exactly same coefficient we find new coefficients for our spells. Let's see for example Lesser Healing Wave old coefficient was 42.86% and by multiplying with 1.88 we would get our new bonus from spellpower coefficient of 80.58%
However what I am wondering is, what if blizzard made any adjustments to it, by not following exactly 1.88 conversion? I don't want you to point me to WowWiki and similar sites, I know to "google" by myself.

Lifebloom pre-patch might have been 30-70% of druid's healing output. I find it difficult to believe that it would provide significant healing numbers post-patch in more than a handful of fights. You can still roll it on the tank if you wish but 20-30*% less healing and 50% more mana cost means it's not quite what it used to be.

I'm not really sure what you mean by Lifebloom doing same job as riptide (except in the broad context where all heals provide healing). Lifebloom provides a steady healing stream for the tank while riptide provides some direct healing and a hot. Regrowth also provides direct healing and a hot which is why it lines much better against riptide if you insist on 1:1 comparison of spells between classes.

* Depends on if you count new talents in.

Which still doesn't put it into the range of Riptide. Previously I'd say LB was more likely to cover 90%+ of a druids healing. I checked the WWS of Kil'jaeden yesterday, and our druid healed 55% Wild Growth, 30% LB, 15% Rejuvenation. I healed 80% CH, 10% LHW, 5% Riptide, 3% ELW. I checked a few WWS of high end guilds, and there druids heal between 30%-80% with LB, and shamans heal the majority with CH or LHW, and surprisingly Healing Stream. Around 5% Riptide in most cases.

Riptide is not comparable to Lifebloom. In no way at all.

Lifebloom can be rolled, tripleing its output, thus increasing it's hpm on cost of its final tick. Riptide is a frontload instant heal plus hot and a very costly gimmick. No similarity in scale, use, or mechanics.

That being said, I like the spell a lot. I find myself back in the old days of scholomance when I tried to minimise my overhealing. Nowadays I can keep up a feral in a heroic with earthshield (which heals for crazy amounts now), RT, Leader of the Pack and ELW procs, and it is fun to see all those little green numbers pop up, half of which I don't even know where they come from. With the change to Tidal Waves giving me the opportunity to keep Earth Shield and RT on the tank, and getting glyphed LHW over HW in terms of mana efficiency _and_ getting fast heals on the tank when I want, I'm going to heal heroics a lot more often than before.

If anything, they could lower the CD of Riptide. Given the mana cost and efficiency, it's not spammable anyway. The CD is good to keep shamans from running around and showering everything, but it feels too high for a situational spell.

Hey,

yesterday I had my first SW-Raid with the new talents and we cleared everything without any problems. Today in a boring lecture, I had some ideas of a special rotation to take more advantage of the riptide hot(s). Wouldn't it be the best choice to let the riptide-hot heal as long as possible, before consuming it with a Chainheal to provide max-utility, espessially in fights where you have to heal certain groups in priority? Remember .. only your own First-Target-Chainheals will consume your Riptide-Hots. So you would be able to keep up three Riptide-Hots simultaniously on three different targets. Therefor a small hot-tool would be nice, to not lose overview on your outrunning hots. Has anybody got such a tool or would be able to integrate it into a classic shaman tool?

I prepared a little sheet to visualize my idea ;D:

My mistake. Those numbers are all with 1000 spellpower. If I get a chance tonight, I'll publish my Google spreadsheet.

(BaseHeal + SP * Hcoef * SPmod * BaseCastTime / 3.5 ) * Hmult

Lesser Healing Wave
BaseHeal = 1720 [1606 to 1834]
Hcoef = 1.88
SPmod = 1.1 [Tidal Waves x5]
BaseCastTime = 1.5
Hmult = 1.1 [Purification x5]

hi, everyone. After Sw, BT, MH, ZA Raids in our new patch week I want to share my experience with you, maybe you had the same.

at my first day i was totally flashed after noticing via 3 min I was OOM. insane, didnt thought the non-downranking will affect us in this enormous way. i can only say i resocked everything with 10 int gems since im doing fine with my spellpower and int is giving us a great buyout of stats (thx for the math, really nice work). im playing with 15k mana raidbuffed now. theres not a single situation atm i cant handle. with our new totems + the raidsupport of rets im doing 2.0 sec CH, exactly the same i was doing before with 400 haste. fast and high in the output. atm im going with 3 - 3,7k hps at BT or Sw. 3k was also possible before the patch but riptide is giving me the extra + at my hps. the best skill out for now in my opinion beside our passive earthliving skill.

Well i was testing AA as well.......didnt know after reading our wws if i shall cry......what a useless skill.
i cant take action myself into this skill. its passiv. after 2,3 h of raiding it heals for 9k with a tick of 200-300.
and it cost me 3 skill-points. well what can i say, its just not worth it.

after all my healing-stats are going this way in a 25-raid

~ 80% Chainheal
~ 10% Riptide
~ 5% Earthshield
~ 5% Earthliving Weapon

if riptide is going to be buffed now and procs TW it will be a nice boost and we will be able to giv big heals in a short amount of time. well, its situational, but i like the way we will be at 80.
i dont think we cant say anything about our place @ raids in wotlk.
until now pala/priest and druids will outperform us.
sometimes i ask myself "wtf shall i heal" everything is topped.

but again its situational. we hav good abilities now. Instant heals, Hots, single target heal in a short amount of time + chainheal.
We are the class who has all abilities of the others ….imagine you would giv a shaman the same output in flash-heals or hots……we would be in the same situation “LFM shaman”
We were nearly broken in our raids because of the lack of good shamans @ sunwell. It wasn’t the right way to go and we know it, although we are the shamans.

Well I would like to hear some experience about the glyphs @ 80. Especially the chainheal glyph with an extra target. Whats your experience about the heal-output @ the 4th target ?
Is it worth it?

This is something ive noticed in the last days:

Yes its true water-totems stack in a group. You can push the reg. to 125mana/tick.
Even more you can stack the life/tick with 5 shamans easily to xxxx life/tick.
Insane passive raid-heal, isn’t it ?

You can stack Blessing of Wisdom for your mana-reg.
Greater Blessing of Wisdom + single target Blessing of Wisdom at the same time on the same target. (please your Paladins :p )

Because of the new spellpower it is worth to wear 2 pieces of T6 elemental + 4 pieces of T6 Heal. Of course you need to benefit of the bonus, but well

15/mp5
35 spell crit
45 spellpower

is kinda hard to beat (don’t know if this was mentioned before as option).

My talents are 0/8/53 until now. No Healing Way, No AA… but Imp Shields + Imp Water Shield……. some said its hard to handle with the recast of WS. Well WS procs off a Riptide-crit and this is the skill beside CH im using all the time. So with a semi crit-rating raidbuffed u will have an avg. of 1/3 crit, maybe ¼. You hav 3 charges of WS. This means an avg. of 9 or 12 riptides = 54 sec or 72 sec CD. With the GCD+Serverlags you will hit a avg. time about 1-1,5 minute before its needed to recast. What do you want to tell? You wont be able to trigger one time WS in a minute?
In my opinion in raids it’s a big boost for our Mana-regeneration, it procs and we get mana, what shall I add? This is a simple mp5-mechanic based on our crit-rating. And until now our infight mana-reg-mechanic is the worst of all. Raid-wise its really worth it to keep in my opinion.