Think again this line. How 5% percent increase to crit could give 7.5% increase to healing?

I do math without ancestral awakening like you did.
If you assume at 0% crit then: 0.05 * 0.5 = 0.025 or 2.5%
If you assume 25% crit then: (1 +0.3*0.5) / (1 +0.25*0.5) = 1.022. or 2.22% increase.


About mana effiency with LHW. Despite lower hpm than HW both use same amount mana per second. Becouse LWH is 66.7% faster than HW it's get this amount more improved water shield procs. With high crit rate(35-40%) LHW is even lower mana per second burn than chain heal.

Thank you for correcting me, I ran the figures when I was about half asleep, and even then they didnt look quite right.

Also, I've not been in a WotLK raid yet, but is 35-40% crit a feasible number?

Asujmong 0/11+x/51+x

+9% from resto talents
+5% from Thundering Strikes
+5% from Elemental Oath / Moonkin Aura
+1.1% (Adept's Elixir, assuming some equivalent at 80?)

So for a crit / LHW build you only need 15% from (Int + gear) to hit 35% crit, which I think would be hard to avoid at raid level.....

We need to stop beating this dead horse, of totemic focus vs improved healing wave. It's been discussed throughly and while some honest disagreement remains, with totemic focus offering about about 1 mp5 per talent point the general consensus is knocking 0.5 sec off the cast time of a rarely used spell is far better.

Totemic Focus is not a raiding talent.

In most raids now we'll be seeing an elemental and an enhancement, meaning that the only totem the restos drop is Mana Spring. I don't have the exact cost of this totem, but at 4% base mana it's hardly an amazing use of points to save 1% of base mana every 5 mins.

Not to mention that on a large proportion of fights you'll drop totems either before the pull or in the quiet spell at the start, allowing you to regen back to full before you need to start spamming heals.

I'm just wondering if stacking INT is that beneficial. Over the last week of raids ive noticed very very little in the way of replenishment regen. Going most raids without ever getting it. Im sitting @ 17.1k and mana isnt really an issue but i just want to make sure im getting the most out of my gear.

Quick math on Pitbuller's figures posted early in this thread got me to thinking int is still 1.2mp5 in a 5 minute fight so gemming INT is still better but please correct me if i'm wrong or put my mind at ease.

Yeah, AA is (among other talents in the resto tree) quite badly designed in that sense. I think it's working as intended, but it doesnt make much sense at all in a raiding enviroment - It's quite shitty

I've also tried to lay more weight into LHW spamming and tank healing with a overflow of priests in the raid, and it's "ok" at best. The efficiancy is just really bad when you compare to paladins for example.
Improved WS really needs to change as to something that doesnt require you to use the GCD that often (specially in fights where there is alot of AoE dmg, and it gets pulled off constantly - which is a good thing, but bad for healing beeing dependant on refreshing it).

In general I just feel we're behind all healing classes in whatever there is we want to do right now. t,,T

While this can be quite annoying, it's not necessarily a bad thing in terms of balance.

Patch 3.03 Changes:
Talent Calculator for 3.03

When you need to refresh your water shield every 10sec, it's quite a problem for the people we need to heal, having WS has a passive buff which can not proc more than once every xx sec will be much better for us in a raiding environment

(we'll be able to focus on our job without being obliged to stop it every 10sec to refresh our ws)
It's the same if we take improved water shield, the fact that we're obliged to use a gcd to refresh ws create a lot of danger for our healing targets.

How is this balanced?

Paladins get a passive mana return on each crit (60%). Druids get passive clearcast procs and mana regen while casting. Priests get passive mana return on overheals and a passive chance to clearcast on crits and mana regen while casting. Shaman have to spend one out of every 8-12 GCDs to refresh WS. If it is not refreshed, we lose both the chance for a proc and the passive regen it gives. When raiding new content, it will be very difficult to refresh WS every 15-20 seconds without putting your assignment at risk.

It really doesn't matter though. Once we get to about 1800 SP, Chain Heal becomes our most efficient spell again, even if it doesn't bounce. And CH doesn't eat WS charges.

I'm not really sure shamans blowing GCDs on water shield is that much different from a druid spending them to refresh lifebloom stacks - it's just something you have to do to ensure the baseline efficiency.

How is it balanced? Without going into the argument of how strong shaman is relative to other classes, the water shield design really does work pretty much as Blizzard's current philosophy on mana regeneration abilities dictates: additional mana comes at a cost. If water shield did not consume additional charges under AoE but -did- produce additional mana this would simply mean that shaman mana regeneration would largely depend on how much AoE is flying around without any balancing factors in the mix. Assuming shaman is generally balanced (which is really a different discussion from this particular mechanic) then you'd have one of three situations:

1) shaman is underperforming when there's no AoE around and performing "as normal" when there is AoE flying around
2) shaman is performing "as normal" when there's no AoE flying around and overperforming when there is AoE flying around
3) a combination of the above

I can't really say if shaman mana mechanics are good or bad, it's for each player to decide if they like them and for Blizzard to make sure that sufficient mana is produced. When it comes to balance, however, the water shield mechanic isn't necessarily wrong.

Riptide base heal change was good. Our spell scale pretty well(if talented) but base healing values lack and big time.
Some comparions beetween slow heal base values. Scaling and talented mana cost is pretty equal so I don't care about those.
Holy Light
Greater Heal
Healing Toucht
Healing Wave

All spell have 0.5s faster cast mechanic.

Base healing per second with cast time reduction:

Paladin: 2583hps
Priest: 1780hps
Druid: 1636hps
Shaman: 1300hps

Why healing wave lack so much? With all talents and 3*healing way scaling is par with others but becouse scaling is par and base value is so down it never(at woltk gear level) reach greater heal or healing touch. Holy light scale slightly better and got twice as good base value.

Our single target healing has potential and it's more dynamic that it used to be plus we got good arsenal(talents/skills)for it.

Edit:
Our scaling is pretty good actually. It's not the problem.
Healing wave: -0.5s cast time, +10%, +20%coef, +18% healing way and tidal wave cast time benefits.
Lesser healing wave:+10%, +10%coef, 20% from glyph if earh shield and tidal wave cast time benefits.
Chain heal: +10%, +20% + glyph.
Earth living scale like actual hot so this give little extra.
Earth shield: +10% and +25%.
Rip tide: +10%. This should get more talents.

We lack base values and maybe some mana effiency but scaling is least ok.

The base heals lack - and the scaling lack. I dont think we need proof of that anymore. LHW and HW is forgotten spells which they want us to use more (10%!!!) - and it makes aboslutly no sense ofc.

We have worst scaling and the most contradicting talents out of all the healing specs - I really hope they'll catch it at some point...

I really, really hope this is a bug. It's not totally ruining the talent if you're intelligently casting, but there are definite situations where it could really limit its effectiveness--if you're in a ten-man with one other healer on a heavy tank-damage fight and relying on AA to help with some raid healing, it's questionable at best. Niche case, I guess, but still it seems off.

Anybody with a beta account want to get some clarification from the devs on this one?

Beta is closed

Without being rude, I'm going to have to say that I don't think you really understand what it is you're arguing about.

1.) Spending a GCD on a Lifebloom means someone is still getting healed. If needed, you can also spend a single GCD on Innervating yourself and get back alot more mana than 2-3 GCDs of refreshing WS will give us.
2.) The example of Imp. WS and it's effectiveness during AoE fights was only relevant because someone mentioned trying LHW spam instead of CH due to the amount of holy priests in the raid. If we get to the point at level 80 where we're actually spamming LHW on AoE fights instead of a Glyphed CH that doesn't even proc Imp WS, then something has gone wrong with our raid healing spell. There will be times when there's a mage off in a corner that needs a quick Riptide and a couple LHW to get him back up, but it probably won't be the norm.
3.) Your statement that extra mana comes at a cost is true, but you're ignoring how our cost adds up to others. Priests can get Serendipity and Meditation for 6 talent points. We end up spending 6 talent points on our one mana regen mechanic (aside from the benefit to Earth Shield from Improved Shields). We also, more than likely, spend a major glyph slot to improve the passive mana regen, along with a minor glyph slot to add ONE charge to the spell to try to push the GCD just a little bit farther back.

Imp WS isn't a terrible idea for a mana regen mechanic, but regardless of all the new talents, CH is still going to be a major factor at level 80, and CH doesn't proc it. On top of that, WS still has a ridiculous amount of charges (even when glyphed) compared to the 8 for Earth Shield and the 9 for Lightning Shield that you can get with talents. I havn't seen how much the orbs will return at level 80, but at level 70 a single GCD only gives me about 816 mana back.

Earthshield is guaranteed heals on a target that you can cast pre-fight and have no global on (at least the first time around). Besides that, maybe instead of focusing so much on HPS you should focus on using some of the other tools you bring to the raid. Resto shamans have more offensive utility than other healing classes. You can purge or wind/earth shock spells. We have a new uber decurse ability that we could be using that can either increase overall DPS by not forcing mages/non-heal spec hybrids to do it or increase overall HPS by letting the higher HPS focus on healing their targets. I'm not saying that the only reason to bring a resto shaman will be because of their advanced utility... I'm simply saying that your job in a raid/dungeon is to be the most effective overall that you can possibly be. If that means healing less and focusing on the other aspects of your usefulness more you will make your raid better. Not to disrespect the craft of anyone on this board (because I think theorycrafting has its place), but I think focusing too much on the numbers blinds people from the bigger picture. A resto shaman isn't JUST a healer, they're a utility healer so if you're a little down in the numbers it doesn't necessarily mean you're not more useful to the raid than the guy putting out 5% more healing

Wait, shamans are worth bringing on raids because we can decurse, thus freeing up the superior healers to do more healing?

I also disagree with the notion we have more offensive utility than other healers. We have no hit rating, so anything offensive will be unreliable at best. Priests also have offensive dispels, and typically you won't want to rely on healers to interrupt vital spells, due to the hit rating issue among other things.

I can see these things being true, but more for PvP than PvE. Healing meters only count healing done, not utility utilized (of course, that may mean that healing meters are a bad measurement more than meaning anything else). Having a bit of extra offensive damage is more of a buff to arenas than it is to raiding, unless raids are dramatically different than in BC.

Most people see it sort of like this: Let's say a shaman's power lies 70% in healing done, and 30% in utility. In PVP, this balances to 100%. In PvE, the utility may not even count depending on the fight, and so you're left with less healing done than a priest, who may be 90% healing and 10% utility. Budgeting mostly for PvP doesn't ensure PvE balance. Keep in mind those are just some percentages I used for an example, and have no real bearing on anything

Slight change of topic but Riptide now procs Tidal Waves; does anyone know if Tidal Waves is still not reducing the GCD for LHW, or whether it now works properly with LHW? (Unable to log in this morning myself to test :-( )

It doesnt effect the GCD. Tested it this morning wen i got up. Doesnt look like riptide is healing more either but i dont think they changed the lvl 70 spell.