Cataclysm Shaman Changes - Page 2

Micah · 04/07/10, 3:18 PM

My thoughts from a resto perspective:

Healing Wave (plus Lesser/Greater): I have a sneaking suspicion that every healer will get the 1, 2, 3 punch that we see here as a baseline. A quick mana-hog heal, a medium standard heal, and a long cast time big heal. With the mana management changes I think this will offer some more decision making and dynamic gameplay. Should be a good change with the right adjustments.

Unleashed Weapon: I am having a hard time thinking up a situation where I would use this spell over a riptide. Seems redundant.

Healing Rain: Very interesting addition. I can think of quite a few WotLK fights where this would be amazing. Having an area targetted healing spell is a new situation and I can't wait to see how this develops.

Spiritwalker's Grace: Fills a nice void in our healing capabilities. Could be adjusted for a shorter cooldown with shorter duration as 10s of constant movement is a very unlikely scenario. Maybe as a glyph option?

Deep Healing (Mastery): This would make our emergency heals and chain heal jumps quite a bit more effective. Another new mechanic I am excited to see in action.

Spirit Link: I think implemented as a sort of tank dmg reduction cooldown for shamans would be the best scenario for this spell. Running 10-mans with a druid healer as my parter we are often looking for something to fill this void. I can't see this as an "always on" ability for us but either way, it is another spell that gets me interested in Cataclysm.

Jurik · 04/07/10, 3:27 PM

Healing Rain, at first glance, will be most similar to Wild Growth: a CD-limited fire-and-forget AoE HoT. The main differences is that Healing Rain will be centered at a location rather than a target, and that the healing will be split among all targets in the AoE instead of systematically assigned to 5 (or 6). These differences give it both pros and cons when compared to Wild Growth.

This actually a lot different from Tranquility, which is a channeled heal that is about equivalent to hitting everyone in your party with a LHW every 1.5 seconds for 7.5 seconds.

Micah · 04/07/10, 3:44 PM

More Clarifications

We know there are a lot of additional questions and we'll do our best to answer what we can. Keep in mind, this is merely a preview of things to come.

Q: Will Maelstrom Weapon include Lava Burst?
A: That’s the plan currently.

Q: How can Elemental Overload proc Lava Burst when Lava Burst already hits so hard in PvP?
A: We’re going to change almost every number in Cataclysm to adjust for everything from single ranks of spells to larger health pools to new combat ratings. With much higher health pools, hopefully burst damage will go back to being a tool and not the only way to win matches.

Q: What happens to the Lightning Overload talent?
A: It provides a bonus to Elemental Overload.

Q: Elemental doesn’t want to drop Searing Totem at range. We want to drop Magma Totem.
A: Searing Totem needs to do more single-target damage than Magma. That said, if we’re happy with the ability to occasionally place totems at range there is no reason it couldn’t apply to any totem. Imagine, “After using this spell, the next totem you drop will appear at the feet of your target.”

Q: Will Elemental have to spend talent points just to get the Spirit to hit conversion?
A: It will be bundled with another attractive talent, such as Elemental Precision.

Q: Will Unleash Weapon work with Frostbrand?
A: Yes. We just provided some examples.

Q: Is Healing Rain channeled?
A: No, it's not a channeled spell.

Q: Is Earthquake channeled?
A: Probably, but we’ll see.

Q: Will Unleashed Weapon consume your enchants?
A: No.

Q: Does the 10% spell power buff from Elemental scale with the shaman or the target’s spell power?
A: It will scale with the target the same as Demonic Pact and other buffs that bring the same benefit.

Q: Are you supporting two-handed weapons for Enhancement?
A: Once you start to get into the dual-wield talents, then Enhancement is a dual-wield tree.

Q: You didn’t address Enhancement survivability or mobility or X and Y!
A: This was just a preview and is not a comprehensive list of every change. Much more will be revealed in beta and much will change during beta.

Q: You didn’t answer the most important shaman question! What about Sentry Totem?
A: The Cataclysm is a time of great upheaval. Deathwing’s return to Azeroth tore a hole in the fabric of the universe that tragically resulted in the ultimate and irrevocable destruction of all Sentry Totems. Level designers are contemplating a shrine for the Sentry Totem near that of Uther the Lightbringer. We know shaman players will greet this news with grief, but as with all class changes we’ll have to get into beta before anything is final.

RIP Sentry Totem

Ikefury · 04/07/10, 4:10 PM

I saw this in the warlock preview:

* All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.

If this also applies to flame shock, this will be really, really nice. It would mean that we'd not only get the benefit of less time between ticks, but also that we wouldn't have to cast Flame Shock as much.

I really hope that this carries over to us too.

davek · 04/07/10, 4:35 PM

One other thing that just clicked for me is that this:

and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings.

off the UW WF proc combined with Haste being a mastery stat means that that wooshing sound Enhancement Shaman just heard was likely Flurry flying over their shoulder and slowly arcing towards the proverbial window. The ranged nature of UW also means that, instead of waiting for your first Crit, you're going to have the Haste boost immediately upon arriving at the target but that boost is going to fall off faster and stay off until you can hit UW again. Which likely will rein in melee damage a bit depending on how much of Flurry's haste goes mastery and how much goes into the WF proc.

KraxisSingular · 04/07/10, 6:16 PM

Originally Posted by Micah

Unleashed Weapon: I am having a hard time thinking up a situation where I would use this spell over a riptide. Seems redundant.

For current content I agree, it isn't too useful right now.

20% buff to next heal, not just Chain Heal. I would say that it can have it's uses. Boss does Nasty Strike in 4 seconds, you let your current cast finish, then pop UW and begin a Greater Healing Wave. Nastry Strike lands and take the tank really low, 0.3 seconds later your Greater Healing Wave lands and heals for a ton... then back to normal Healing Waves until next Nasty Strike.
No, you can't argue that the Paladins will have that covered, they too are going to change.

Obviously that situation won't happen specifically, but with the heftier healthpools, the lessening of average bossburst, the general reliance on 'average' heals, it isn't hard to imagine that bosses will then gain very hard hitting abilities that only hit now and then, but you want to heal up fast still. Remember the Spellflingers in Old Kingdom? Such an ability could be really dangerous with the new system where you can't just spam your way out of problems. UW-Earthliving would be a combobuildier for when you need burst healing at predictable times... And the PvP implications are not to be ignored either.

Noules · 04/07/10, 6:41 PM

Wouldn't UW for resto also be very effective with a strong heal that was bound by a cooldown? Like...Healing Rain? Beyond the burst coverage, which sounds rather niche rather than a core mechanic.

Assuming UW costs a cooldown, you could potentially use it immediately before the Healing Rain CD was up, without impacting the number of Healing Rain casts and effectively increasing its effectiveness by 20%. But in order for UW to be a viable tool, it seems like it would have to allow greater throughput or greater efficiency:

Greater throughput implies the spell after the UW would have to be CD limited and worth about 5x HpS of the next best option, otherwise you're better off (from a throughput perspective only) in casting the next best option or the best option if it's not CD limited. From what's known so far I believe only Healing Rain fits this description.

Greater efficiency implies the cost of the spell after the UW plus UW has to justify the 20% added healing, or UW has to cost less than 20% of the most efficient option (or second most efficient if again CD bound). This might be reasonable if Greater Healing Wave becomes relatively expensive, but still the most efficient, or if UW is just extremely cheap to start with.

In both cases the actual value of the UW heal and mana cost itself would impact its viability, of course, as well as its CD. Also, it could be helpful to help mitigate the healing lost during movement - you're essentially 'banking' a part of a GCD for healing later. It seems like UW could potentially be a multifaceted tool, essentially providing alternative options depending on what you pair it with (or the circumstances), much like the new warlock soul burn.

Montegomery · 04/07/10, 6:55 PM

Remember when appraising these changes that the current healing paradigm is meaningless, assuming Blizzard succeeds in their goals. Casting Healing Rain on CD is most likely going to run you OOM very quickly in Cataclysm.

A lot will depend on the finer details of UW, but it's utterly trivial to think of encounters or situations where having a way to shift the weight of one's healing from now to later is useful. Pretty much every telegraphed AoE, Tank smashing ability, or period of movement applies.

Also, UW will be useful if for no other reason than its potential to buff Earthshield. Doubly so if it affects Healing Stream totem (though that seems unlikely).

Micah · 04/07/10, 8:41 PM

Good points on UW-Earthliving. Those are definately scenarios I hadn't fully considered. Using the spell as a build-up to a large heal is one very specific scenario and really only a slight advantage. I neglected thoughts of UW in conjunction with the new spells and having the buff up for Healing Rains is actually a decent use of the spell but keep in mind it could only be used on every second HR if the intent is to cast HR constantly due to the UW cooldown.

I am, of course, relying on current and historical healing methods and encounters but what else would be used to draw speculations from? As far as I know the two main shifts they want to see for healers is a) the reliance on mana management and b) more consistant tank damage. Using that information, I don't think the way we heal will change so drastically that we must dismiss all our knowledge and just wait idlely by for actually new gameplay to emerge.

I think my initial opinion of the spell comes from it's benefits to the other specs. In both elemental and enhancement it is going to be a spell you cast on every cooldown where in resto it appears it will go unused on the majority of fights. Cooldowns are generally put on spells to limit their use as they would be too powerful without one. I think in this regard the spell in its current form fails to fulfil and could be re-designed with more creativity so that its use is something you WANT to use rather than just useful is a few specific cases.

Just as a note, this is all PvE related discussion as I am pretty ignorant on the PvP side of resto healing. I had intended to indicate that in my other post but forgot.

KraxisSingular · 04/07/10, 9:09 PM

Well, it's value as a specific ability at 15 seconds depends heavily on it's mana cost, as mentioned. If it is dirt cheap then I can see many people wanting to spend the GCD to boost even the normal Healing Wave for greater effciency. This of course assumes that tanks are basically never topped off fully, which looks to be one of Blizzard's goals (tank doesn't die in 2 hits and rougher manasituation for healers should lead to that). If it is expensive (or just manainefficient in buffing normal heals) then it is purely a bursthealing ability.

But I remember back in the days when Riptide was new and it got a lot of flak for being pretty poor healing and expensive at the same time. Now it is a different tune.

And mighty good idea on Healing Rain. That can be highly interesting.

Darian-Trublade might also have caught a good use, for Earth Shield. UW, then thow on Earth Shield. If that could mean all charges get 20% more, then it is one always used function at least.

Iku · 04/08/10, 4:22 AM

Well, if the mana cost won't be too prohibitive, UW-EL should at the very least be a button you routinely press while moving (and Riptide is on cooldown) or when everyone is at full health. Should help a bit when you move out of the fire and have to catch up with healing after that.

Vim · 04/08/10, 4:35 AM

Originally Posted by KraxisSingular

Primal Strike appears to become a leveling ability, not something that will be used at 85 much. At best adding one or two when there is a GCD free.

Enh POV:

Primal Strike and SS will share a CD like shocks do, so it wont be used except by Elemental or Resto at 85, which is an interesting idea (frostbrand on a backup 2h weapon against a melee, thunderstorm, nuke while snare wears off for example) . Mostly I am interested in increasing the Hybrid feel of the class. Instant heals or ranged attacks, as well as a Hot (switch to double Earthliving weapons while running away from damage/phase change, throw to a group member and CH) are steps in the right direction.

The idea of Flametonge imbue for enh and Unleash Weapon is weak seeing as the passive bonus ATM is increased Nature Damage (mayhap a rework of Rockbiter is in order?)

Eyana · 04/08/10, 4:49 AM

What you all seem to forget about UW/EL is that it also is an instant heal. I am curious about the amount it will heal, but I expect it to be rather little. Maybe to top some one off and than haveing a 20% bonus for the next person to heal.

Exclemation · 04/08/10, 5:15 AM

Totem of Wrath might still be a totem to place for ele shammies in certain situations, considering the crit debuff is currently provides for the raid.

Kilted Raven · 04/08/10, 5:32 AM

Interesting to see them moving towards a near-total gear synergy between Elemental and Restoration with the Spirit to Hit talent, that's going to leave the 'day job' healers with the option of a fairly strong offspec option in relevant fights.
Not having to collect a second set has to make Elemental offspec for Resto look pretty attractive, especially in the early raid tiers when badges and drops are still a limited resource.

It'll be great if they can get Spirit Bond working. We've seen a few bosses with similar abilities in the last round of content (Devourer of Souls and Tyrannus in ICC-5 spring to mind). It's possible that they might try and make Spirit Bond more workable by linking tank to target rather than tank to tank, so it acts as a damage funnel and damage reduction in one package. Might be easier to implement, after the trouble they had balancing the original version of the spell.