Issues with resto shamans on the beta v.2

I've barely finished my next whine post, and BAM changes to shamans on the Beta.

Shaman (Forums)

• Chain Heal healing increased by 15%.
• Healing Rain healing increased by 40%.
• Healing Surge now costs 34.3% of Base Mana, up from 31.6%.

Restoration

• Greater Healing Wave now costs 26.9% of Base Mana, down from 31.6% of Base Mana.

However, I am going to post it anyway, and it is "only" the CH part which is somewhat outdated:

Jim'll fix it; or what is the current solution ? 

I think one of the main reasons for there being a major balancing issue is the introduction of the new fixed mana pools, and I do generally like the idea on paper, but I sincerely think that it will provide Blizzard with a balancing nightmare.

How come ? Well, with abilities like Divine Plea, Innervate, Telluric Currents, PW: Solace (I haven't really read up on priests so I might be wrong) restores a percentage of your mana, then they will unquestionable be really rather nice in the beginning of the expansion since mana always is an issue.

However, since they are fixed on mana pools they will not scale with an increase in our gear, and this does invariable also lead to them becoming less and less worthwhile (TC is my primary focus since I play a shaman, Plea and Innervate might not be affected in the same way). Since our regn. will be relatively low in the beginning the 2% (or 0,58% as it really is) gain is something that we cannot ignore and that we will be forced to try and get as much benefit from as possible. Though, when our spirit goes up so does our regn., and with e.g. higher levels of crit percentage (We won't reach Cata levels, but let us say 20ish%) a spell like HW will become close to mana neutral or even a mana gain with your passive regn.. Then TC will become less and less desirable since the only thing it does scale with is haste, and we won't reach levels of haste where "hard casting" TC will be manageable nor even worthwhile (Make the shaman spec elemental and gain 8-14 times the damage and still get HTT for the oh shit situation).

One of the reasons that TC became mandatory for Cataclysm around the time of Firelands was the scaling of it or so to speak how few of our stats that didn't affect it. As TC was based on our LB damage, spl. it affected the return (And with bosses / adds taking extra damage it could be a massive gain), crit is pretty self-explanatory, spirit if you were specced into Elemental Precision and haste which grants the possibility of more casts during the same timeframe.

So as our gear improved so did the talent, but it is completely  the other way around with Mist since TC only scales with haste it will become less and less desirable or useful.

I think that the "best" way to fix one of the current massive issues with shaman regn. without affecting PVP too much (I know absolutely NOTHING about PVP and I am not planning to either), but I do suspect that one of the reasons for not "just" buffing WS or reducing spell costs is directly linked with shamans then becoming too powerful in a PVP environment. Therefore the best approach is to revert the changes to TC so it grants x% of damage done, which also adds an extra  dimension to certain fights for a shaman:

- Can you sacrifice 2-5 casts on LBs in order to gain mana since the boss is taking extra damage or are you forced to go bonkers with your healing abilities?

- Grants a more interesting choice between Ancestral Swiftness and Elemental Mastery

- Adds a more personal choice for secondary stats - passive regn. vs. e.g. crit for Resurgence and a possible higher gain from TC.

This may also reflect the fact that I really did enjoy the more aggressive playstyle that TC gave you the capability to play. 

In addition to the mana issue, and while our hands are still warm from clapping our fat hands together in joy over recent buffs, then we are still miles behind every other class (Perhaps except a disc priest, but since they add a massive amount of damage to the raid I hardly see them as "worse" than shamans). Spreading fights - We are obliterated beside the 15 seconds we got Ascendance up, and when it is on CD we are either a) Throwing Riptides around like it was our only spell, b) Hoping that the miserable CH will manage to jump more than twice or c) Meh, monks got it anyway no worries.

Fights where we gather - We are doing somewhat fine, and can push somewhat decent numbers, but still we are surpassed by a large margin by monks (Okay, they are surpassing everyone by miles). However, it brings up an issue which have been discussed and talked about quite often and that is; If we aren't "good" at anything, why bring a shaman when a paladin / druid / monk will do the job better in a spread environment, and do it just as well in a stacked ? I can see the idea of no more niche healers from a designer point of view, but of you do not excel at anything then you must be average all-around, but that is not the case. The case currently is that you will gimp your raid by bringing a shaman to the vast majority of fights HR, CH buffs or no HR, CH buffs. 

Talking about Chain Heal.

It has been the signature spell for resto shamans for ages, but current it is the thing that causes us to struggle and be so far behind that it isn't even funny anymore. There is two major reasons for CHs inadequateness:

1st) Something that the majority of resto shamans have pointed out again, again and again. Jump range, Jump range and how often you end up with 2 perhaps 3 jumps not really feeling the time spend on the cast, and the mana you have invested in CH was worth it.

2nd) In a 10man grp. you would rarely find 4 people within the desired jump range, but then you can always glyph CH and bam no more worries. Or to be brutal honest, the only place used CH during 10man testing was primarily whenever there was massive inc. raid damage, and one cast with extra jump range and 4 sec CD is just not worth it. Your spell might be more efficient, but you can get close to two extra CH casts in during its downtime.
In 25man CH should hold its ground, but from my point of view it is still inadequate. Jump range is still an issue unless you only focus on melee, which in any case should have HR placed on them. The glyph is an even bigger no go in this environment, and I do honestly feel like CH is one of the worst "primary" heals in spite of it being "smart".  I do think compared to the other healers raid healing abilities our CH is the  (under the best conditions) least well-functioning. If we look at the percentages of the raid that it manages to heal for a cast compared to priest / druid abilities  

CH (2,5s) heals 4 = 16% (If it manages to jump)

PoH (2,5s ) / WG (8 sec CD) / CoH  (10 sec CD, glyph and Chakra not included)  5 = 20%

Now, I know we also have paladins and monks, but since monks are retarded and I do not have enough knowledge about paladins I will refrain from looking at them.

So CH takes just as long as a PoH to cast, but heals one person less. It is a smart heal, but it also heals less and less effective each jump. PoH is grp. based and if people place themselves left and right then it has just the same issue as CH, however, when stacked it has none of the drawbacks (Talking about the numbers it produces vs. CH is another talk).

So CH is clearly the weakest "primary" AoE heal considering the percentage of the raid it has the capability of healing, and it has a relative long cast time compared to the amount of healing you get from it.

My point is that under the current circumstances and compared to the other healers it screams to high heavens for a change. I see two possible "fixes":

1) Increase jump range plus removing the reduced effectiveness after each jump. That should make the spell more desirable to use, and by becoming more powerful it somewhat counters that it only hits 4 people.

2) Increase jump range plus adjusting the glyph to hitting one person more, with the a downside somewhat like our current Cata glyph.

Issues with resto shamans on the beta

Restoration shamans on beta: Major issues.

After being on almost every boss on the beta normal and hardmode I am in distress over the resto shamans situation, and allow me to explain why: 

1) Mana , it is an issue (as it should be at the start of an expansion), however, compared to every other healer we are way behind on regn. / spell costs, and despite of a recent buff we are still too far behind.

This leads me on to point nr. 2 which is linked with 1.

2) HPS, it isn't everything (however, with the removal of things such as Ancestral Fortitude / Inspiration it has become the only thing we can measure ourselves with). Our healing arsenal is not fitted for the upcoming expansion e.g. GHW is worthless compared to HS whenever Tidal Waves is up, and since Glyph of Riptide is mandatory, then you should have Tidal Waves up almost constantly.

GHW - Heals for too little compared to a HS with Tidal Waves up (Not mentioning the higher crit chance with HS, which should grant a higher mana return from Resurgence). 

HS - Our new "big spell" due to the standard low crit, and the addition of Tidal Waves. 

HW - Standard "filler" spell, and it does hit for a decent amount, however, I do believe that the mana costs of it should be slightly reduced.

HR - With the current model there is severe issue with it, and that is efficiency (a place where shamans are already struggling) from my testing it ticks for 1700-3900 at the cost of 32.340 mana, and with the current design of encounters you rarely would be able to get full durations out of your HR before people will have to move from it thereby making it even less efficient.

CH - HPM / HPS wise it is decent, however, it has a major flaw and that is the jump range, and I know you can get a glyph to make it jump further, however, using that is not an option since there is two scenarios a) Constant damage, and with a 4 sec CD in order for perhaps 1 extra jump is not a viable option, and in that case you would be better off by throwing Riptides all around. Or b) Big raid damage once a while, but in that case you could just wait for the passive heals or use HW / Riptides to get people up which would be even better (this is assuming you cannot stack). So CH only really work if you are stacked or if you mainly go for melee, and I really cannot see why we should be "forced" into such a playstyle compared to other smart heals as WG or CoH. Not to mention they are instant so e.g. CoH is 21% of your base mana, is a smart heal which means OH is close to 5%, WG is 27% also smart heal, but will be higher on OH due to it being a hot. CH 20% of base mana and with a 2,5 sec cast and a limited jump range, not to mention that you should throw a CH on a player who already has a Riptide (People who I mainly keep a Riptide on is tanks due to the constant damage and the "amazing" (sarcasm) Ancestral Vigor) which forces you to pick a target which may not have been taking a lot of damage therefore in order to make it more efficient you have to push more overhealing, brilliant aye ? (I am aware that when you got a feel of the fight you will know when to prehot people and thereby be ready for the inc. damage, but again you have to push overhealing in order to stay competitive).

EFL - Does in my opinion proc too little and not heal for enough plus when it decides to proc it will usually result in a massive amount of overhealing. 

HST - I must admit that I was looking forward to the change to it, and I think that the idea is right, that you will have to play actively instead of just placing totems every 5th minute or replace it after a 

Mana Tide. I think it is working fairly decent, but it should perhaps get a minor buff pr. tick, make it tick every second instead of every second or rework the glyph to giving it 15 sec more uptime effectively making it a 30 sec. spell. 

ES - Either needs a complete rework or to be scrapped. In the current form (and with shamans current mana situation) it feels worthless to put it on a tank in an raid environment since the ticks are so low, but then you put it on a tank for the 20% increase which is nice, however, since none of the fights are balanced around heavy tank damage it does become a little obsolete. Sure, your HW, HS and the Ancestral Swiftness + GHW will hit for a little more, but since most damage is raid wide it is not a big single target heal you will be throwing since a druid will have hots running, a paladin will have beacon and even if you had to spam the tank you would be oom faster than I can type "pleasebuffshamanskkthxbai". 

 I am also aware that other classes also get rape when they have to spam a tank, but none gets raped as much as shamans.  If it was reworked to something like beacon "When a target got Earth Shield 5-10% of your healing done will be transferred to the tank"  that would make it useful (and should help with the HPs problem). 

UL - Working as it should, and is finally buffing HR (Not that it really matter anyway). 

HTT - Our new throughout CD, and it is working nicely although it should perhaps get a minor buff to push it more in line with e.g. priests Hymn (Hymn: 45k - 80k avg. 50k, HTT: 18k - 36k avg. 20k from my data)

There should be made some tweaks / reworks of our current spells in order to make restoration shamans competitive or at least viable to bring into your raid. 

The major issue: mana. I've said it before, and  I will repeat it mana, mana, mana is something that is closely linked with our sub blood DK healing (Yes, DKs pushing 35-40k hps is nice) is that we are not able to sustain a decent steady amount of HPs, and when the shits hits the fan we shine for as long as we got Ascendance and HTT, but after that we can only throw some "perhaps it will bounce" CHs,  throwing Riptides on people taking constant damage, and if we do that we are going oom very, very fast. Now, is it because our spell costs are too high or because our regn. is too low ? That is a good question. Our spell costs is too high on some spells, and beside the reduction to GHW cost it is still not enough to make it worthwhile, and I am mainly looking at HR and to some extend CH in its current form.

But what about our regn. ? We rely on WS which has been buffed and given a glyph, which makes it slightly better but it is not enough. Resurgence then ? Not really with the current crit levels / the amount it gives back. I see two options for this 

1) Buff the amount of mana you gain from a crit.

2) Rework it into something like Revitalize (x% chance to proc y% mana with 10-15 sec. cd).  

And then there is the "old" model which to some extend relies on Telluric Currents (an idea / spell I truly enjoyed), and there is some pitiful remains of it in the Mist beta, but they are inadequate and I am rather frustrated with it. I like the idea that damage dealers can heal (Tranquillity - Hymn - Healing Tide Totem) and that healers can do some damage, and I do see some of the arguments for adjusting TC since the old 40% of your damage was shabby at first, but then became a godlike must have for fights where bosses too extra damage (with Madness as a prime example). It fits perfectly with the static idea of mana to make it a x%, however, the issue is that the x% is not enough when you realize that the spell still costs a fair amount of mana, and has a relative long cast time.  As of current you gain 6000 mana, but wait the spell costs 4260 and has a 2,5 sec cast time so it grants 1740 mana for a 2.5 sec cast, and with your passive regn. what do you moan about ? I whine about the ridicules low percentage it is of our current 300.000 mana pool (0,58% if I am not mistaken) that is just way too low. I know that it has been stated that they wanted it to be a mana neutral damage spell for healers, and hooray your succeeded but it is hardly (Okay, I lie I am spamming it like a madman due to my poor mana, which may or may not be attributed to my healingstyle). I don't mind pulling less HPs IF I on the other hand can contribute a decent amount of damage, and have mana for whenever I need to press my buttons hard, but currently ? Bring a monk and get the capability of twice the HPs for the same damage. If we provided a buff such as Ancestral Fortitude (Ancestral Vigor is hardly a reason to bring a shaman) our lower HPs would be "acceptable", but at the current state - bringing a shaman grants you a Mana Tide and puts your fellow healers in a position where they have to push more.
Furthermore, this approach of TC is completely opposite of Cata where it wasn't worth using for quite a while, and then became mandatory where in Mist it will be "required" due to your mana being that bad, and when you reach a certain amount of spirit you will throw it away because the damage in an raid environment will increase, and that usually means - larger use of big expensive spells and with TC being fixed it will become less and less valued. Or that is at least my take on it, unless it will be adjusted in every major patch. 

Mana Tide Totem - We started Cata as mana batteries, then it got nerfed and shamans got benched. I really dislike MTT in its current design since it does not provide any additional increase to the caster (200% hooray). You are popping MTT just as much for the sake of your fellow healers than for your personal benefit, which is a shitty way of doing it. Paladins - Plea, Priests - Shadow Fiend, Druids - Innervate, this is personal mana cooldowns and depending on the fight you would want to use them as many times as possible. So let us say that on an average fight you use your ability when you are at 85-90% mana and bam - 98-100%, and now you got 2-3 min. CD on it, but you have gained 10-15% of your mana whereas the shaman is now on 75% and if he pops his MTT you would lose out on the benefit of it so he has to way till he is at 65% in order not to waste the mana. I got an issue with this model of balancing it around it. Either shamans get an additional 200%, so they get 400% or MTT grants a reduced mana costs buff in order to balancing it somewhat out, or a +x% healing while it is up (My least favourite idea since we are already swimming in CDs).