GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
So how about that healing CD, does anyone have a cool idea? I came up with a reincarnation of Spirit Link: "All damage affecting any raid member is distributed evenly to all raid members within 40 yards". Then give it a glyph to reduce the damage by 10-20%, coupled with a duration decrease.
So unglyphed you'd have a way to smooth out healing when only few people are taking damage. It plays very nice with Healing Rain, Healing Stream Totem, Chain Heal. It's essentially a tank CD if Boss X has a big single target ability. It's also nice for stuff that randomly targets a raid member. And glyphed you'd have Divine Guardian (prot pala talent) which is still a unique ability, afaik.
Maybe add something to one of our talents that makes our stoneclaw totem absorb/shield 50% damage taken by the person affected by earth shield for the next 5/10 seconds or something.
I always thought either something like Spirit Link that would distribute damage done to the tank over a wider group of people, thus allowing you to switch to Chain Heal/Healing Rain to deal with the damage and smooth out large damage spikes. Something in that vein anyway. It would play well with our AoE heals.
The other idea would be a Water Elemental Totem spell that gives you a healing buddy who goes around topping low health people off or throws out some raid-wide heal AoEs while dropping some nice phat heals or something of the sort on the person with your Earth Shield.
I always thought either something like Spirit Link that would distribute damage done to the tank over a wider group of people, thus allowing you to switch to Chain Heal/Healing Rain to deal with the damage and smooth out large damage spikes. Something in that vein anyway. It would play well with our AoE heals.
The other idea would be a Water Elemental Totem spell that gives you a healing buddy who goes around topping low health people off or throws out some raid-wide heal AoEs while dropping some nice phat heals or something of the sort on the person with your Earth Shield.
I honestly can't see how such a spell would work, considering the trouble Blizz seem to be having with Searing Totem, in addition to the fact I doubt Blizz would want to add a "smart" totem / buddy that went around and did alot of work and took away alot of input from you, the player.
The cooldown that Blizz are thinking about adding, is going to be some tank saving thing.
Spirit Link, again I can't see being added, because of the nightmare with regards to balancing encounters.
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
Sure, not Spirit Link as it was, with 100% uptime. But as a 3min CD with a 10s or shorter duration, I can see it. Pain Suppression is a 40% damage decrease for 8s on a 3min CD.
Maybe my suggestion above was too strong for a tank CD (because it's essentially a 96% damage reduction in 25mans). But what if it was like this: "All damage affecting target raid member is distributed evenly to him and two other random raid members within 40 yards". So now you have a 66% reduction on one char. Still stronger than PS, but the 66% doesn't just vanish, it goes to someone else instead.
As for a new Elemental: I'd like that, because Elementals are cool. Water Elementals are covered by mages, though, so we'd have to get a Wind Ele. Water Totem is our most important slot right now anyway, so I'd rather not have another CD totem on Water.
Wind Ele could either be a targeted Guardian Spirit/Pain Suppression/Bubble or he could work as the raidwall (like Divine Guardian).
Or you could just get something like the "Water elementals Blessing" and for 10 or 15 seconds it allows you to insta cast chain heal and/or your Healing Wave is now an AoE heal healing everyone with 5/10 yards of the target for the amount of a single Healing wave. Those would probably be pretty simple adjustments to make.
You could also do something like Blessing of the Earth Elemental and for 10/15 seconds everytime you cast Earthshield everyone in a 10 yard radius gets 1-3 charges of earthshield on them as well. That might be much harder to code, but it would be a cool way to spam earthshield and throw up a bunch of charges on the entire raid.
Coalesce: Requires Earth Shield. Causes the earth shield affecting the target player to harden, reducing damage taken by 30% for 15 seconds. Earth shield will not expend charges while coalesced, and charges will heal for +200%.
Earth Martyr: Reduces all damage taken by your target by 30% for 8 seconds and heals all raid members within 15 yards for 100% of the damage prevented.
Sentry Totem: Places a Sentry totem in a designated area. All raid members can right click their Sentry Totem buff to see the area through the eyes of the totem, allowing them to see incoming fire and void zones 2 seconds early. Must right click the buff again to return to normal vision and move out of the fire.
Question: How are resto shammies at healing in the end game? (10 man raiding being the most I'd ever do)
The reason I ask is I have been leveling a Shaman since I really only want to heal and I found Enh much more fun to have as a "fool around" offspec then Ret (was also leveling a pally). However, I was reading today and people are really down on the Shaman's healing. Am I to take that as a grain of salt, or is it an uphill battle (doable but with some serious skill, whereas a Holy Paladin is a bit more forgiving)?
I really only have the time for one character and really don't want to get my Shaman up to 85 to find that healing is an exercise in frustration.
Not willing to go that far, I'm not a huge fan of Priests at all (really want melee)
And I need to really add, I am hoping Shaman are "fine," as I really am having a blast with him. I just need the character to be a bit forgiving as my latency kind of sucks and also I really only have the time to play one guy so I kind of want to make my decision now instead of getting to 85 finally and going crap this won't work.
If you want to heal, roll a priest. Even if one of their specs is bad, the other is probably going to be pretty good.
Well priests have certainly been the best 5-man group healers throughout the history of WoW, but I wouldn't roll a Priest just to be the fotm healer. I originally abandoned my priest and switched to Shaman because in a raid environment my class was unable to be the best at anything. Druid or Shaman - and once BC hit, Paladin - would be better at any particular task. I did not like the "jack of all trades, master of none" role. Since then all of the healing classes have changed a lot, but I doubt Blizzard's vision has changed much. I don't think they intend to have one class be best at every healing role. Right now priests have the best healing spec in the game and arguably the best DPS spec in the game. This won't last.
Shaman is good enough for everything, and also a fun and versatile class to play (in PvE anyway). I hope we'll regain our throne as the best raid-healers in the game, because that's where we belong.
Ya I'm not looking to be FOTM either. I just was seeing alot of doom and gloom, and I usually take most of that with a grain of salt but I'm just about to get into the point of no return and I just wanted to double check. As long as I can keep a party alive without having to kill myself (as long as I have the proper gear of course) than I am happy.
With the recent boosts, shaman healing is not quite as kittenish anymore. Chain Heal is a viable tool again, Mastery is more attractive and everything has a nice 15% bump overall. We were fine in 5-mans but a little lackluster in raids before, and now we're fine for raids.
I'm personally thinking of getting enough haste for an extra Riptide tic and then just stacking mastery. It's an experiment, for sure, but I'm crazy enougg to try it.
Ya I'm not looking to be FOTM either. I just was seeing alot of doom and gloom, and I usually take most of that with a grain of salt but I'm just about to get into the point of no return and I just wanted to double check. As long as I can keep a party alive without having to kill myself (as long as I have the proper gear of course) than I am happy.
R. Shaman just got a a buff with regards to the Purification bonus (it was 10%, it's now gone to 25%), and there's talk about R. Shaman (and R. Druids) getting some kind of (tank saving?) cooldown in the next content patch to match those of priests and paladins.
5 man / 5 man heroics / normal modes you should be fine.
Especially with the incoming flat +15% healing buff (and the nerf to paladins), shaman healing is very respectable. We have strong healing tools and complement other healers in such a way that unless you're in a class stacking #1-25 world kill raid you'll be seeing nice numbers and being plenty useful. They're even better in 10m because they can fill a lot of buff gaps.
Also 5mans are not a proper gauge for healer viability. Sorry. A wet sock could heal a 5man.
Especially with the incoming flat +15% healing buff (and the nerf to paladins), shaman healing is very respectable. We have strong healing tools and complement other healers in such a way that unless you're in a class stacking #1-25 world kill raid you'll be seeing nice numbers and being plenty useful. They're even better in 10m because they can fill a lot of buff gaps.
Also 5mans are not a proper gauge for healer viability. Sorry. A wet sock could heal a 5man.
And honestly that is what I thought. I really have a feeling I'll never set foot in a 25 man raid, and frankly with how they are doing JP I may not do that much 10 man raiding either (we'll see). However, unfortunately when you start reading the hyperbole from the various forums you kind of need to get a shot of reality and that's what you all have done and I thank you, since I feel I'm fine and I can keep playing the class that I'm really enjoying.
I see two types of shaman detractors. Ones that read paragons "comment" and are crying because they weren't used in the world first kills (who really cares about that type of raid comp anyways) and the "we're not a unique snowflake anymore" in regards to buffs that shaman bring to the raid.
In my 10 mans, I don't care who tops the healing meters, I care that the boss is dead. While the DPS meter matters, I'm more concerned with longevity and mana than I am with who healed more than others.
Yeah, in our 10m raid, when we switch to 2 healers it's our shaman that we switch to elemental, and our other two healers most definitely feel his absence.
Shaman healing is fine. It's not the best, but it's definitely fine.
Ya and heroics do not really interest me at all, especially raiding. As long as I can work towards sets to upgrade to, I really don't care if they are the absolute best in the current game.
Another question: I'm noticing a lot of talents higher up in the Enh tree, beefing up the Lightning spells a bit. Are those intended to be part of your base rotation? Currently I do Fire Shock, Lava Lash, Stormstrike, then the fire nuke (can't remember its name) that crits if you have Fire Shock's dot up. I'm lucky if the critter is alive by the time I reach the nuke though.... Do they intend for the Lightning based spells to be the base nuke vs the Fire?
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
You don't want to hardcast any spells with a cast time as Enhancement. You get Maelstrom Weapon late in the tree, that makes your Lightning bolts instant. Lava Burst shouldn't even be on your bars anywhere, it's a damage loss. You can't swing your weapons while casting and that also means no weapon imbue procs.
(The exception is filling the gaps in your rotation with MW3 or MW4 LBs, but that's really a very advanced thing and shouldn't be done if you're not minmaxing. Also you can Lava Burst while running with Spirit Walker's Grace, but that's also a very rare occurence.)
I noticed the same thing, and I think it's just a leveling thing. At least, I think that's what Namon is talking about.
Storm strike, fireshock, lava lash and there's nothing else to do that is instant cast. So either wait for a shock to come off cooldown or cast burst for the crit right now (58). Is there another gcd that comes later in the game?
Unleash Elements and Searing totem come into play later. You don't really need Searing, but it's a huge damage buff to have down for your Lashes.
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
Yes, it's only UW and the 1s CD reduction on shocks in the Elemental tree. Still lot's of gaps in the rotation, but it's not worth it to fill them with Lava Bursts either way. It might feel more active, but you trade the LvB damage for whatever damage your weapon swings would have done in the cast time.
Especially now that Windfury is 3 hits. You'll wanna keep swinging as often as you can.
I only have Lava Burst on my bars for the occasional ranged situation, like when Slabhide takes to the air. The only other time in which I'd actively cast something would be for a Healing Rain spot-heal, but even then I'll usually have a few stacks of MW to help out with that.
Ahh I always did it as it hits like a truck (for my current level of 60) Good to know and that's what I'll do then I'll put LB there for when it can be instant
Posts
So unglyphed you'd have a way to smooth out healing when only few people are taking damage. It plays very nice with Healing Rain, Healing Stream Totem, Chain Heal. It's essentially a tank CD if Boss X has a big single target ability. It's also nice for stuff that randomly targets a raid member. And glyphed you'd have Divine Guardian (prot pala talent) which is still a unique ability, afaik.
The other idea would be a Water Elemental Totem spell that gives you a healing buddy who goes around topping low health people off or throws out some raid-wide heal AoEs while dropping some nice phat heals or something of the sort on the person with your Earth Shield.
I honestly can't see how such a spell would work, considering the trouble Blizz seem to be having with Searing Totem, in addition to the fact I doubt Blizz would want to add a "smart" totem / buddy that went around and did alot of work and took away alot of input from you, the player.
The cooldown that Blizz are thinking about adding, is going to be some tank saving thing.
Spirit Link, again I can't see being added, because of the nightmare with regards to balancing encounters.
Maybe my suggestion above was too strong for a tank CD (because it's essentially a 96% damage reduction in 25mans). But what if it was like this: "All damage affecting target raid member is distributed evenly to him and two other random raid members within 40 yards". So now you have a 66% reduction on one char. Still stronger than PS, but the 66% doesn't just vanish, it goes to someone else instead.
As for a new Elemental: I'd like that, because Elementals are cool. Water Elementals are covered by mages, though, so we'd have to get a Wind Ele. Water Totem is our most important slot right now anyway, so I'd rather not have another CD totem on Water.
Wind Ele could either be a targeted Guardian Spirit/Pain Suppression/Bubble or he could work as the raidwall (like Divine Guardian).
You could also do something like Blessing of the Earth Elemental and for 10/15 seconds everytime you cast Earthshield everyone in a 10 yard radius gets 1-3 charges of earthshield on them as well. That might be much harder to code, but it would be a cool way to spam earthshield and throw up a bunch of charges on the entire raid.
Hey hey, free +15% healing. I'll take it.
But then we'd have nothing to complain about when the changes aren't what we wished for.
They would just nerf it with David Lee Roth eventually...
It allows you to damage and possibly even kill members of your own faction without their consent or control.
The griefing in BGs would be insane.
Plus, it would act as a way to render any CC that's broken by damage useless for the duration, giving shaman an AoE CC dispel.
Easy as pie to fix.
The damage distribution won't jump to people who are CCed and it drops off the non-primary targets after they reach a certain health percentage.
The reason I ask is I have been leveling a Shaman since I really only want to heal and I found Enh much more fun to have as a "fool around" offspec then Ret (was also leveling a pally). However, I was reading today and people are really down on the Shaman's healing. Am I to take that as a grain of salt, or is it an uphill battle (doable but with some serious skill, whereas a Holy Paladin is a bit more forgiving)?
I really only have the time for one character and really don't want to get my Shaman up to 85 to find that healing is an exercise in frustration.
And I need to really add, I am hoping Shaman are "fine," as I really am having a blast with him. I just need the character to be a bit forgiving as my latency kind of sucks and also I really only have the time to play one guy so I kind of want to make my decision now instead of getting to 85 finally and going crap this won't work.
Well priests have certainly been the best 5-man group healers throughout the history of WoW, but I wouldn't roll a Priest just to be the fotm healer. I originally abandoned my priest and switched to Shaman because in a raid environment my class was unable to be the best at anything. Druid or Shaman - and once BC hit, Paladin - would be better at any particular task. I did not like the "jack of all trades, master of none" role. Since then all of the healing classes have changed a lot, but I doubt Blizzard's vision has changed much. I don't think they intend to have one class be best at every healing role. Right now priests have the best healing spec in the game and arguably the best DPS spec in the game. This won't last.
Shaman is good enough for everything, and also a fun and versatile class to play (in PvE anyway). I hope we'll regain our throne as the best raid-healers in the game, because that's where we belong.
I'm personally thinking of getting enough haste for an extra Riptide tic and then just stacking mastery. It's an experiment, for sure, but I'm crazy enougg to try it.
R. Shaman just got a a buff with regards to the Purification bonus (it was 10%, it's now gone to 25%), and there's talk about R. Shaman (and R. Druids) getting some kind of (tank saving?) cooldown in the next content patch to match those of priests and paladins.
5 man / 5 man heroics / normal modes you should be fine.
Also 5mans are not a proper gauge for healer viability. Sorry. A wet sock could heal a 5man.
And honestly that is what I thought. I really have a feeling I'll never set foot in a 25 man raid, and frankly with how they are doing JP I may not do that much 10 man raiding either (we'll see). However, unfortunately when you start reading the hyperbole from the various forums you kind of need to get a shot of reality and that's what you all have done and I thank you, since I feel I'm fine and I can keep playing the class that I'm really enjoying.
In my 10 mans, I don't care who tops the healing meters, I care that the boss is dead. While the DPS meter matters, I'm more concerned with longevity and mana than I am with who healed more than others.
Shaman healing is fine. It's not the best, but it's definitely fine.
Another question: I'm noticing a lot of talents higher up in the Enh tree, beefing up the Lightning spells a bit. Are those intended to be part of your base rotation? Currently I do Fire Shock, Lava Lash, Stormstrike, then the fire nuke (can't remember its name) that crits if you have Fire Shock's dot up. I'm lucky if the critter is alive by the time I reach the nuke though.... Do they intend for the Lightning based spells to be the base nuke vs the Fire?
(The exception is filling the gaps in your rotation with MW3 or MW4 LBs, but that's really a very advanced thing and shouldn't be done if you're not minmaxing. Also you can Lava Burst while running with Spirit Walker's Grace, but that's also a very rare occurence.)
Storm strike, fireshock, lava lash and there's nothing else to do that is instant cast. So either wait for a shock to come off cooldown or cast burst for the crit right now (58). Is there another gcd that comes later in the game?
I only have Lava Burst on my bars for the occasional ranged situation, like when Slabhide takes to the air. The only other time in which I'd actively cast something would be for a Healing Rain spot-heal, but even then I'll usually have a few stacks of MW to help out with that.