Topic
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Kalanii's Resto Shaman Suggestions
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Edited by Kalanii on 1/24/11 8:57 AM (PST)
We all are spending a lot of time QQing about the state of resto shamans, myself included. I have been seeing a lot of bench time in raids mostly due to the inferior nature of the class right now compared to paladins and priests, so it's given me a lot of time to whine and complain on the forums (also been getting a lot of extra sleep too compared to most raiders in high end guilds!)
The obvious problem with resto at the moment is that we're not competitive on the healing meters. Thoroughput is an issue, but I don't really believe it's our biggest issue. I've been sat recently for a ret paladin in off-spec/blue holy gear because he can do similar thoroughput to me (I do often beat him), but he also brings a lot of necessary cooldowns that shamans just don't have. Over the past 1-2 years Blizzard has decided to homogenize the healing classes, which is fine, but in doing so they have taken away nearly every unique buff shamans bring and given them away without really giving us anything useful in return. We still have tide, but because most healing classes have their own forms of regen it's more of a "nice to have" thing instead of being a "mandatory" thing, especially when gear levels go up. Right now, shamans are great if these 3 conditions are met: 1) raid is stacked, 2) raid does not have to move, and 3) raid is at a low HP/taking lots of AOE damage. If any one of those conditions are not there (aka every fight except Chimaeron), shamans become basically useless compared to other healing classes. We can do great HPS with these conditions met and while using HR+CH combo. Otherwise, we're mediocre. So, here are my suggestions on how to help fix the resto shaman class: 1) Bump up the range on Chain Heal, to something like 20 yards. On any fight where people have to spread, shamans become completely useless AOE healers because of the small jump range on CH. I think with the 10% buff, CH will do a reasonable amount of healing for a spammable AOE healing spell. 2) Shamans need some sort of cooldowns. I like the idea of making it an unleash effect tied to our water totems... something along these lines: a) HST Unleash effect - I see this working like a toned down tranquility on a long CD (while I would love to do 600k healing in 10sec, I think that's crazy OP). Keep HST the same (party wide healing) when it's dropped, but give us a spell that will unleash a massive burst of healing to the entire raid for 5-10 seconds, 5min CD b) Resist / Tranquil Mind Unleash effect - Aura Mastery for shamans, 2min CD c) Mana Spring Unleash effect - what is the current Mana Tide, 3min CD 3) Change the Healing Wave glyph to work on any single target heal (HW / GHW / HS / RT / ULW). Right now this glyph is mediocre and I use it for lack of better options, but it could be so much better without being OP. 4) Somehow give us more mobility. We are still turret healers and the inclusion of healing rains has made that even worse (because not only can we not move, but the raid can't move either). I don't quite know how without making us really OP. I don't want CH to be put on a CD and made instant. I think lower the CD on RT would be too OP. I don't think they have any intention of making Healing Rains more mobile (similar to holy radiance), though it would resolve some of the issues. Spiritwalker's Grace is a nice spell that I admit to not using enough, but the long CD makes it really not that useful in PVE. Maybe giving it a much shorter duration (4-6 sec, but a 20sec CD), so I could cast 2-3 spells while running across a room. Or drastically lower the CD on Nature's Swiftness to give me an instant every 20 sec instead of every 2 min. I really don't know, just brainstorming here.... either way, we're still at a disadvantage on any fight that requires movement, moreso than any other healing class. Heck, even on fights where all our necessary requirements are met to let us give max HPS we are STILL at a disadvantage because we lack cooldowns that other classes bring. 5) Make our mastery more useful by giving it the full effect at 20% HP instead of when the person is at 1HP. |
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<3 Kalanii~!! ,,v. ^_^
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#2
1/24/2011
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Edited by Lamp on 1/24/11 9:11 AM (PST)
An idea I had the other day for Healing Rain would be to cut the duration in half (or by a few seconds maybe) and adjust the mana cost accordingly. Sure, we'd have to cast it more often, maybe. But, I think it would be much more forgiving at times of heavy raid movement where you have a healing rain sitting in a void zone for 5+ seconds that no one is able to stand in and make use of.
edit: and yes, any type of raid/tank cooldown would be killer. |
#3
1/24/2011
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My solution was to finish leveling this guy, ill be switching him to holy when i get off work. My WoG with three HoPo hits harder than my ilevel 350 shamans bread and butter heal, LOL.
I've been too stressed about this and its just not worth it. I give Blizz, I'll play the class you want me to play. |
#4
1/24/2011
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There just should be no CD on healing rain, but only allow one healing rain up per shaman. Obviously constant movement of healing rain will kill your mana, but in certain situations you will take the mana hit and move it. |
#5
1/24/2011
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That'd b e a nice solution as well. |
#6
1/24/2011
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Can i also add that i think Tidal Waves should effect Lightning bolt. It should lower the cast time by .5 for the next 2 casts. TC has a serious lack of synergy and often seems very risky to cast if it indeed our solution for regening mana.
The other option should be that TC also causes LB damage to splash heals around the target or something |
#7
1/24/2011
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Edited by Mistiya on 1/24/11 10:06 AM (PST)
I like most of this but I don't see a point in making MTT an unleash off Mana Spring. Making it an unleash off any water totem would be fine but your idea wastes more GCDs and is clunkier than just dropping Tide.
Live: MTT requires 1 GCD to drop and 1 GCD to replace HST. Your idea: MTT would require 1 GCD to drop MS, 1 GCD to unleash mana tide, and 1 GCD to reapply HST. That said, I really agree with 3 and 5. I posted dozens of times asking for 5 when the beta was going. :( e: Another thing that could really help is giving TW 3 charges. Right now I use 2 charges and have one unbuffed heal between riptides, and the unbuffed heal will clip the riptide, so I usually just cast 2 heals then wait for riptide. Being able to actually cast 3 heals per riptide and not having any horrible unbuffed heals would greatly help the single target situation. |
#8
1/24/2011
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They could probably just make an ability "Unleash Water Totem: Your active water totem becomes a Mana Tide for 12 seconds." Having to redrop the totem (and lose the corresponding buff) after using Mana Tide has always been a little silly. |
#9
1/24/2011
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Doesn't even have to be an "Unleash." Just make Mana Tide similar to Fire Nova, ie an instant cast that just uses your water totem, and add the cd.
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#10
1/24/2011
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Edited by Greentouch on 1/24/11 11:47 AM (PST)
I haven't played a resto shaman since wotlk when I had an alt, but most of the ideas look great.
The problem is you are assuming blizzard is free to fix your class. They aren't. This needs to be addressed first. If shamans were as useful, or had the same potential throughput as other healers, you could stack them and have MTT X6. As long as this is true, shamans cannot be balanced. It would be a simple fix however, the same fix they did with bloodlust/heroism. Everytime one Resto shaman casts MTT, all other resto shamans are effected by an exhaustion type debuff and can't drop another MTT for 2 minutes. This way 2 shamans bring more mana then 1, but not twice as much, and stacking more then 3 shamans is doable, but doesn't bring OP mana returns. Now the CORE problem is fixed and blizzard can be free to buff your utility/throughput. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All anyone ever needs to know about being a Resto Druid in PVE, complete and up-to-date guide at: http://www.intent-kt.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2286 |
#12
1/24/2011
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For the love of GOD we need a damage reduction cooldown the most. Shaman is helpless during massive tank damage--we have to depend on an observant pally or priest to help us get through that. Druid is in a similar situation.
Secondly, we need to be redesigned so we aren't held back from needed changes because of certain spells. I did not mind that they took Lust/Hero and other abilities from us that used to be exclusive to shaman, but we did not get any real compensation in return. I'll even throw in that Blizzard should take out Mana Tide in exchange for stronger personal mana regen (or even a regen cooldown that solely effects us) Thirdly, Shaman needs an expanded toolbox. Our spells we have are not cutting it for the current raid situations that call for instant casts and strong, fast spells on the fly. For example, HR has a base speed of 2 seconds and requires a larger number of people to stand in it for it to be worth the cast. That's detrimental to the caster's mana, and HR's worth is measured solely on the variable of whether or not people stand in it. Not the kind of spell I want to be using on movement fights. I'm not calling for nerfs to others; i'm simply asking for more spells to work with on the move. Spiritwalker's Grace just isn't enough. |
#13
1/24/2011
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BRING THE CLASS AND NOT THE PLAYER!
L2P A BETTER CLASS. |
#14
1/24/2011
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I agree with just about everything in the OP, but I do wanna point something out.
5) Make our mastery more useful by giving it the full effect at 20% HP instead of when the person is at 1HP. Our mastery is either good or just downright terrible. There's no middle ground on this stat. It's dependent on all 3 of those requirements you outlined about Shaman healing, and then it has one more. Currently we're able to ride a huge chunk of our healing out on Healing Rain and Chain Heal when we're in a 25-man setting. More so when we're stacked up. Healing Stream and Earth Shield is also a much less % of our overall healing in 25s with the sheer raid size inflating the gains from AoE heals. The environment is entirely different in a 10-man. Boss rooms are comperatively huge for the small number of people present. Separation is greater in many cases. HST amounts to a higher % of healing because you're just dealing with less healers that will push that stuff into overhealing. So suddenly the fraction of your total healing that benefits from Mastery goes down drastically. Riptide ticks, Earth Shield, Earthliving and HST combine to something close to 50% of your healing in a lot of encounters, and none of the benefits from the mastery. That's one of the big reasons why we see such huge gearing differences even between Shamans at the top end of progression. Some ride out Mastery, some push for the 9th Riptide tick haste bracket. In either case though, this inherently unreliable design of Mastery is causing a problem in the grander scheme of things for everyone. I just think that our Mastery requires a more thorough look than just realligning its scaling to health. We're not able to reap the reliable, flat % returns that every single other healer class gets from their Mastery. |
#15
1/24/2011
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Edited by Deenore on 1/24/11 1:38 PM (PST)
Oh, please, please this. WG: 15 yards CoH: 15 yards ProH: 30 yards (per-party) LoD: 30 yard (frontal cone) CH: 12.5 ...seems like a bit of a glaring unevenness in a world where they want to homogenize, right? Saying that CH has no cooldown is pointless; it could be instant cast with no cooldown and I'd still not cast it if it wont jump. 2) Shamans need some sort of cooldowns. I like the idea of making it an unleash effect tied to our water totems... something along these lines: I've seen ideas similar to these ('cept the AM one) before. Liked 'em then, like 'em now. Just, as said earlier in the thread, be sure that the Mana Tide 'unleash' works on all water totems. 3) Change the Healing Wave glyph to work on any single target heal (HW / GHW / HS / RT / ULW). Right now this glyph is mediocre and I use it for lack of better options, but it could be so much better without being OP. I've dropped the current HW glyph for Stoneclaw's glyph. Pitterpatter healing when use the right spell just doesn't seem worth it over 16k absorb I can use on demand, even if it is a 20 second cd. 4) Somehow give us more mobility. We are still turret healers and the inclusion of healing rains has made that even worse (because not only can we not move, but the raid can't move either). I don't quite know how without making us really OP. I don't want CH to be put on a CD and made instant. I think lower the CD on RT would be too OP. I don't think they have any intention of making Healing Rains more mobile (similar to holy radiance), though it would resolve some of the issues. Spiritwalker's Grace is a nice spell that I admit to not using enough, but the long CD makes it really not that useful in PVE. Maybe giving it a much shorter duration (4-6 sec, but a 20sec CD), so I could cast 2-3 spells while running across a room. Or drastically lower the CD on Nature's Swiftness to give me an instant every 20 sec instead of every 2 min. I really don't know, just brainstorming here.... either way, we're still at a disadvantage on any fight that requires movement, moreso than any other healing class. Heck, even on fights where all our necessary requirements are met to let us give max HPS we are STILL at a disadvantage because we lack cooldowns that other classes bring. Spirit Walker's Grace is great as is when I only have to move every two minutes – which is hardly how things work out – so oops, nevermind, it's meh. I fully support Spirit Walker's Grace having a 20-45 second CD with a 4-6 second duration. Possibly even change it to "your next [2-3] spells with a cast time can be cast while moving" with SWG not beginning to cooldown until all charges are used (lookin' at you, Inner Focus). And would it be bad for PvP shaman to be able to use Spirit Walker's Grace to cast a few spells while stunned? Can't do that whi– oh, carry on! I mean, SWG is dispellable, isn't it? (Plus wouldn't THAT be cool for Halfus). A little thing that would be really cool is if Unleash Elements (Earthliving) were off the GCD. Using it as an emergency "oh the tank could really use a big heal right now" is pretty limited by having to wait that GCD before you can even start the powerhouse heal. I also agree that we could use a tank (or raid, like the AM totem thing) cooldown. I do not think it should have to be at the expense of losing Ancestral Fortitude as was suggested earlier in the thread. |
#16
1/24/2011
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IMO shaman mastery is fine, it encourages a shamans primary role, spot healing. That's what chain heal was designed for. Of course, yes it should give the effect at 20%, and it may or may not be a good stat to stack situationally, but that's many specs mastery. Don't forget the shaman class can't be balanced until MTT has an exhaustion type effect, so I'd push for that first. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All anyone ever needs to know about being a Resto Druid in PVE, complete and up-to-date guide at: http://www.intent-kt.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2286 |
#17
1/24/2011
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A big reason why I'm not touching Mastery right now on my gear is because Chain Heal is really really pathetic in healing. 20% of almost nothing is still almost nothing. >.> |
#18
1/24/2011
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LOVE your HST idea. Needs to be implimented imediately.
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#19
1/24/2011
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