Shaman have two water totems that are a staple of the class. The first is Healing Stream. The second is Mana Spring. You can only use one at a time, so it's good to know which to use when.
Let's first figure out what they do:
Healing Stream (Party\Group-only): Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 5 min that heals group members within 30 yards for X every 2 seconds.
Mana Spring (Raid-wide): Summons a Mana Spring Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 5 min that restores X mana every 5 seconds to group members within 30 yards.
They key to which one you'll be using is the number of Paladins in your group\raid:
0 Paladins: You will have no pally buffs, so drop your Mana Spring totem for the Mp5
1 Paladin: You should take Blessing of Kings from the paladin (10% increased stats) for the larger mana pool. You can then drop Mana Spring for the Mp5.
2 (or more) Paladins: You should take both Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Wisdom. This will give you both the mana pool and Mp5. You can then drop the Healing Stream totem.
It should be noted that Mana Spring and Blessing of Wisdom do not stack. There is no benefit to dropping Mana Spring while BoW is active.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
New Ulduar-25 Gear
So I ended up joining a PUG (which actually happened to have some people I knew in it) for Ulduar-25 last weekend. XT was kind enough to drop the Quartz-studded Harness for me. As I was the only resto shaman, it was all mine. Again, not a huge upgrade from tier 7.5, but it was a slight upgrade. The set bonus had already been broken, so I gemmed it up and put it on.
I am still on the look-out for a new weapon. All that has been dropping is priest & druid weapons. I will gladly take the Torch of Holy Fire from Naxx-25 KT, while I wait on Uld-25 Razorscale to drop the Guiding Star. The thing is, I've been killing KT near every week since who knows when, and I think I've seen Razor down a dozen or so times. Not once have I ever seen either item drop. I still say they are myths.
I am still on the look-out for a new weapon. All that has been dropping is priest & druid weapons. I will gladly take the Torch of Holy Fire from Naxx-25 KT, while I wait on Uld-25 Razorscale to drop the Guiding Star. The thing is, I've been killing KT near every week since who knows when, and I think I've seen Razor down a dozen or so times. Not once have I ever seen either item drop. I still say they are myths.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Healing Meters, Decoded
A lot of people put far too much emphasis on healing meters. Typically, I'd say those people tend to be DPS meter-whores who are attempting to bring that inside competition over to healing. Before long, everyone else is jumping on board, and you've now got healers casting randomly, sniping, overhealing, and wasting mana.
So you're sitting there, asking yourself ... "Self, why do we have healing meters if they're so evil?"
Meters can be good for some things, when used correctly. Most often, I'll look at it when I'm standing there picking my nose with nothing to heal. When I start to wonder what's going on, look at the meter, and see the lowest amount of overheal by any healer is over 50%, it's an indicator that there are too many healers.
The question I hear the most is: "Why am I always lower than [insert class here] on the meter?"
The answer is not simple. It depends on a lot of different things. In a lot of cases, you're going to be compairing apples to oranges. The only way a close comparison can be made is if you were at the exact same gear level, you had the exact same assignments on the exact same encounter, with latency exactly the same, response time (how quickly can you click you mouse?) exactly the same... and that's not even taking into consideration things like luck, crit, trinket procs, etc.
In reality, there are just far too many things to consider to make a direct comparison.
But, in a hypothetical perfect world, where should shamans sit on the meter compared to other healers?
I'll go back to this shaman definition -- jack of all trades, master of none. We are support healers. And given that, all things being equal, in most cases shamans will not find themselves at the top of the meters. We are not as good at single-target healing as paladins. We are not as good at raid healing as priests. We are not as good at mobility healing as druids. Where we do shine is heal sniping. ;-)
So you're sitting there, asking yourself ... "Self, why do we have healing meters if they're so evil?"
Meters can be good for some things, when used correctly. Most often, I'll look at it when I'm standing there picking my nose with nothing to heal. When I start to wonder what's going on, look at the meter, and see the lowest amount of overheal by any healer is over 50%, it's an indicator that there are too many healers.
The question I hear the most is: "Why am I always lower than [insert class here] on the meter?"
The answer is not simple. It depends on a lot of different things. In a lot of cases, you're going to be compairing apples to oranges. The only way a close comparison can be made is if you were at the exact same gear level, you had the exact same assignments on the exact same encounter, with latency exactly the same, response time (how quickly can you click you mouse?) exactly the same... and that's not even taking into consideration things like luck, crit, trinket procs, etc.
In reality, there are just far too many things to consider to make a direct comparison.
But, in a hypothetical perfect world, where should shamans sit on the meter compared to other healers?
I'll go back to this shaman definition -- jack of all trades, master of none. We are support healers. And given that, all things being equal, in most cases shamans will not find themselves at the top of the meters. We are not as good at single-target healing as paladins. We are not as good at raid healing as priests. We are not as good at mobility healing as druids. Where we do shine is heal sniping. ;-)
Friday, July 24, 2009
I Has Sockets!
Yay for sockets! Now what to put in them...
There are three permissible stats to use when gemming: 1) Intellect, 2) Spell Power, 3) Mp5. That's it, in that order. There are no other acceptable answers. Wipe your tears and deal with it.
Gemming goes something like this --
Gem for Int until you have no mana issues. Ignore socket bonuses unless the bonus + gem would give you more intellect than the Intellect gem alone. In that case, go for either Int\SP (for red socket) or Int\Mp5 (for blue socket). If you need certain colors for a meta gem, use the Int\SP or Int\Mp5 gems as needed.
Once you no longer have mana issues, start replacing some of the Int gems with Spell Power.
Never gem for pure Mp5, crit, or haste.
Why so much Intellect?
Intellect gives you additional crit. With talents, 10% of your intellect is converted to spell power. And most importantly, intellect gives you a larger mana pool. Replenishment and Mana Tide Totem return mana to you based on a percentage of your mana pool. So, the larger the mana pool, the more mana you get back. When in doubt, go for intellect.
Meta gem -- Get the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. Again, it's the only option, learn to live with it.
There are three permissible stats to use when gemming: 1) Intellect, 2) Spell Power, 3) Mp5. That's it, in that order. There are no other acceptable answers. Wipe your tears and deal with it.
Gemming goes something like this --
Gem for Int until you have no mana issues. Ignore socket bonuses unless the bonus + gem would give you more intellect than the Intellect gem alone. In that case, go for either Int\SP (for red socket) or Int\Mp5 (for blue socket). If you need certain colors for a meta gem, use the Int\SP or Int\Mp5 gems as needed.
Once you no longer have mana issues, start replacing some of the Int gems with Spell Power.
Never gem for pure Mp5, crit, or haste.
Why so much Intellect?
Intellect gives you additional crit. With talents, 10% of your intellect is converted to spell power. And most importantly, intellect gives you a larger mana pool. Replenishment and Mana Tide Totem return mana to you based on a percentage of your mana pool. So, the larger the mana pool, the more mana you get back. When in doubt, go for intellect.
Meta gem -- Get the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. Again, it's the only option, learn to live with it.
Crit and Haste and Regen, OH MY!
The question comes up often -- What stats do I stack? I've been picking up all this crit gear, but now it seems everything is coming with haste! What do I do?!
Honestly, there is no "here's what to do" answer. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It all really depends on what you do. There are three schools of thought as far as stats go:
1) Haste\Regen -- Haste is a truly God-like stat for chain heal spam. Starting Naxx, haste was awesome. There was so much chain healing to do. With enough haste, you can pump out chain heals in under two seconds, without care to where they're actually going. However, like everything, there is a balance. The quicker your spell, the more spells you will cast in a given amount of time, the more mana you will burn. So typically, with massive haste, you'll need massive regen (Mp5 *while casting*) to back it up. So mostly CH spam raid-healing? Go haste\regen.
2) Crit\SP -- If you do a lot of tank healing, you can end up with some gigantic health bars to keep full. When your tank takes a huge hit, you need to get him from 10% to 100% now. You're going to need a lot of crit and spell power to get it done. Aside from that, your tank will pick up some extra armor (or damage reduction in 3.2) when you do pull off a crit. So the more crit, the less damage taken by your tank, the less healing you have to do. And, with talent points spent in the right places, your crits can become mana regen, which means those big heals you're firing off at the tank won't be quite so expensive.
But, the reality of it all is, unless you find yourself in a situation where you're all geared up, and can start collecting two sets of gear, you're going to be picking up whatever gear you can that is an upgrade. That leads us to #3:
3) Balance -- I'll let you in on a bit of a shaman secret -- the true role of the shaman class is healer support and heal sniping. Like it or not, that's it. By definition, we are the jack of all trades, master of none. Our job is not to be on top of the meters, to be the top healer, to be the best out there. Our job is to support the other healers in the raid. Our job is to fill the gaps, to pick up where others fall behind, to fill in wherever needed. Given that, it's very difficult (and often incorrect) to say "I will only raid heal" or "I will only tank heal", so why stack stats that will benefit only one and not the other? Mix up your stats a bit, so you can get big, fast heals out to everyone in the raid, and you'll be a much more well-rounded healer.
I hear you ... "Wait wait wait. What about regen?"
Regen -- Every time I see a shaman with any Spirit gear, I get the sudden urge to kick a kitten (calm down, I wouldn't actually kick a kitten). Spirit for shamans is worse than worthless. At any time, should a shaman see spirit gear, the correct action would be to turn away, and run screaming like a little school girl. Shaman want Mana Per 5 seconds while casting. And a good number to have? Take whatever happens to be on your gear, good enough. If you still have mana trouble, there's food, elixirs, and flasks to help out with regen.
Honestly, there is no "here's what to do" answer. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It all really depends on what you do. There are three schools of thought as far as stats go:
1) Haste\Regen -- Haste is a truly God-like stat for chain heal spam. Starting Naxx, haste was awesome. There was so much chain healing to do. With enough haste, you can pump out chain heals in under two seconds, without care to where they're actually going. However, like everything, there is a balance. The quicker your spell, the more spells you will cast in a given amount of time, the more mana you will burn. So typically, with massive haste, you'll need massive regen (Mp5 *while casting*) to back it up. So mostly CH spam raid-healing? Go haste\regen.
2) Crit\SP -- If you do a lot of tank healing, you can end up with some gigantic health bars to keep full. When your tank takes a huge hit, you need to get him from 10% to 100% now. You're going to need a lot of crit and spell power to get it done. Aside from that, your tank will pick up some extra armor (or damage reduction in 3.2) when you do pull off a crit. So the more crit, the less damage taken by your tank, the less healing you have to do. And, with talent points spent in the right places, your crits can become mana regen, which means those big heals you're firing off at the tank won't be quite so expensive.
But, the reality of it all is, unless you find yourself in a situation where you're all geared up, and can start collecting two sets of gear, you're going to be picking up whatever gear you can that is an upgrade. That leads us to #3:
3) Balance -- I'll let you in on a bit of a shaman secret -- the true role of the shaman class is healer support and heal sniping. Like it or not, that's it. By definition, we are the jack of all trades, master of none. Our job is not to be on top of the meters, to be the top healer, to be the best out there. Our job is to support the other healers in the raid. Our job is to fill the gaps, to pick up where others fall behind, to fill in wherever needed. Given that, it's very difficult (and often incorrect) to say "I will only raid heal" or "I will only tank heal", so why stack stats that will benefit only one and not the other? Mix up your stats a bit, so you can get big, fast heals out to everyone in the raid, and you'll be a much more well-rounded healer.
I hear you ... "Wait wait wait. What about regen?"
Regen -- Every time I see a shaman with any Spirit gear, I get the sudden urge to kick a kitten (calm down, I wouldn't actually kick a kitten). Spirit for shamans is worse than worthless. At any time, should a shaman see spirit gear, the correct action would be to turn away, and run screaming like a little school girl. Shaman want Mana Per 5 seconds while casting. And a good number to have? Take whatever happens to be on your gear, good enough. If you still have mana trouble, there's food, elixirs, and flasks to help out with regen.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Specs
The nice thing about shamans is that we're capable of healing both raids and tanks effectively. The problem is, the talents in our tree are distributed in such a way that spending a few extra points to increase efficiency of one task, comes to the detriment of the other. Spending points to help with raid healing will hurt your tank healing, and spending points to help with tank healing will hurt your raid healing.
The solution? Dual Specialization. For those hard core shaman healers out there, you can choose to go resto\resto for your dual spec -- one for tank heals, one for raid heals.
Here are my two specs going into 3.2 . Make note that the talent changes are very minor, but can make a big difference to how well you are healing. Also note the change in one single glyph.
Raid Heals
Tank Heals
The solution? Dual Specialization. For those hard core shaman healers out there, you can choose to go resto\resto for your dual spec -- one for tank heals, one for raid heals.
Here are my two specs going into 3.2 . Make note that the talent changes are very minor, but can make a big difference to how well you are healing. Also note the change in one single glyph.
Raid Heals
Tank Heals
Shaman T9 Preview
I ripped off a picture from mmo-champion:
This is a preview (I.E. not necessarily final) of the Draenei Shaman Tier 9 set. Considering this shaman has yet to pick up any Tier 8, I think somehow it'll be a while before I get a full Tier 9 set. The Tier 7\7.5 set was the first I've ever had. Giving that up has been rough.
The resto bonuses look like this:
2-piece: Increases the healing done by your Riptide spell by 20%.
4-piece: Increases the critical strike chance of your Chain Heal spell by 5%.
2-piece is interesting -- A little curious if this applies to both the intial heal and the HoT. I would assume it does. This could make the riptide glyph more valuable, as the HoT would last longer.
4-piece is actually quite nice for mana regen. Since Improved Water Shield will trigger with CH crits, the more crits, the more mana returned.
This is a preview (I.E. not necessarily final) of the Draenei Shaman Tier 9 set. Considering this shaman has yet to pick up any Tier 8, I think somehow it'll be a while before I get a full Tier 9 set. The Tier 7\7.5 set was the first I've ever had. Giving that up has been rough.
The resto bonuses look like this:
2-piece: Increases the healing done by your Riptide spell by 20%.
4-piece: Increases the critical strike chance of your Chain Heal spell by 5%.
2-piece is interesting -- A little curious if this applies to both the intial heal and the HoT. I would assume it does. This could make the riptide glyph more valuable, as the HoT would last longer.
4-piece is actually quite nice for mana regen. Since Improved Water Shield will trigger with CH crits, the more crits, the more mana returned.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Totems, totems, totems
The topic for discussion today: Totems
There still seems to be some confusion as to how totems actually work, are they raid wide, or are they party\group wide? A while back totems were party-wide only. That is, they only had an effect on the five people in your group, whether in a raid or not. That has since been change, so that most totems would function raid-wide. I say most, because it only affects the buffing totems. It does not affect the "ticking" totems. Healing Stream, Tremor, and Cleansing totems are the only totems that are not raid wide. These totems "tick", they are not "buff" totems.
Hope that clears it up.
There still seems to be some confusion as to how totems actually work, are they raid wide, or are they party\group wide? A while back totems were party-wide only. That is, they only had an effect on the five people in your group, whether in a raid or not. That has since been change, so that most totems would function raid-wide. I say most, because it only affects the buffing totems. It does not affect the "ticking" totems. Healing Stream, Tremor, and Cleansing totems are the only totems that are not raid wide. These totems "tick", they are not "buff" totems.
Hope that clears it up.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
More Gear
I recieved two pieces of new gear yesterday. Greaves of the Earthbinder was a minor upgrade to Treads of Costal Wandering, but with the addition of a socket, it was a decent upgrade. I was also able to purchase the Frozen Tear of Elune. Again, not a huge upgrade, but good enough.
These two items were enough to keep me inside the top 10 resto shamans on the server. Ulduar has been good to me lately, so I'm hoping when I hit Uld-25 tomorow, I'll be able to pick up some more gear. We will see.
These two items were enough to keep me inside the top 10 resto shamans on the server. Ulduar has been good to me lately, so I'm hoping when I hit Uld-25 tomorow, I'll be able to pick up some more gear. We will see.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Next thought for the day: Rotation
I was trolling along today when I came across mention of elitistjerks.com . I realized I'd never been there, and being elitist myself, I stopped by to see what it's all about. Overall, it looks pretty good. It's hard to dispute which gear has better stats, etc. But there's quite a bit of number crunching and theories about how everything should work in a perfect world, when all luck is on your side, and all the stars align. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case for me.
Back on track -- the first thing that caught my eye when I visited the Restoration Shaman thread was in great big letters, "Healing Rotations". After wiping the spit-take from the screen, I questioned just how elitist they really were if they advocate a "rotation".
Here's the secret for healers (and it's not much of a secret) -- there is no rotation. The job of a healer is to use every tool available to them when the situation calls for it. This is even more so for someone who's raid healing, something a shaman does often. If you take the attitude of "this is my rotation, do not deviate," you're going to using heals and mana where it's not needed, and missing the heals that are.
I see a lot of people who think "I must chain heal, I must chain heal" and seem to forget they've got other heals to work with. I also see a lot of people who say "healing wave is not even on my action bar." This too is wrong, as there may be times you need that large, predictable heal.
That is all I have to say on the matter. elitistjerks.com's (unintentional, I hope) advocacy of "Healing Rotations" offends me, I am better than that.
Back on track -- the first thing that caught my eye when I visited the Restoration Shaman thread was in great big letters, "Healing Rotations". After wiping the spit-take from the screen, I questioned just how elitist they really were if they advocate a "rotation".
Here's the secret for healers (and it's not much of a secret) -- there is no rotation. The job of a healer is to use every tool available to them when the situation calls for it. This is even more so for someone who's raid healing, something a shaman does often. If you take the attitude of "this is my rotation, do not deviate," you're going to using heals and mana where it's not needed, and missing the heals that are.
I see a lot of people who think "I must chain heal, I must chain heal" and seem to forget they've got other heals to work with. I also see a lot of people who say "healing wave is not even on my action bar." This too is wrong, as there may be times you need that large, predictable heal.
That is all I have to say on the matter. elitistjerks.com's (unintentional, I hope) advocacy of "Healing Rotations" offends me, I am better than that.
Shaman Tanking
WTH. I've seen several people now discussing shaman tanking, and not to take away from their achievement, but why would you want to?
To show that it can be done? Big deal. With enough heals, I've seen warlocks with enormous health "tank" adds. Doesn't mean that I'd want them to, or call them a tank. Just because you can hold a mob for a while, doesn't mean you're a tank. If I wouldn't take a warrior with similar stats as a tank, why would I take a shaman?
I just don't get it. Some say it's for the challenge. Go grab a mage and tank. Or is that too much of a challenge? How much challenge is just right?
Maybe it's just that I'm not "thinking outside the box." But from experience, when one class starts doing something that it's not intended to do, Blizzard comes along and fixes it. So more than anything, I'm probably against such things just because I don't want anything "fixed".
Just my opinion.
To show that it can be done? Big deal. With enough heals, I've seen warlocks with enormous health "tank" adds. Doesn't mean that I'd want them to, or call them a tank. Just because you can hold a mob for a while, doesn't mean you're a tank. If I wouldn't take a warrior with similar stats as a tank, why would I take a shaman?
I just don't get it. Some say it's for the challenge. Go grab a mage and tank. Or is that too much of a challenge? How much challenge is just right?
Maybe it's just that I'm not "thinking outside the box." But from experience, when one class starts doing something that it's not intended to do, Blizzard comes along and fixes it. So more than anything, I'm probably against such things just because I don't want anything "fixed".
Just my opinion.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Name: Stolen
I was looking at the armory the other day, and noticed my unique name has been stolen by a Blood Elf Death Knight on the Sargeras server. I want it back.
3.2 Patch Notes
The 3.2 PTR patch notes contain some interesting items. I'd like to point out a few of particular interest to us shaman healers.
This is a nice buff for shamans. I think I can safely say at this point that shaman healers rely on (while casting) Mp5 more than any other class. This should help out with some mana issues, but I doubt 25% is going to be enough to resolve them. Many shamans have become quite good at their own mana efficiency tricks. I'd bet those who have will simply start replacing Mp5 stats for something else (haste or crit).
So we're not a replenishment class, so why do we care? One of the things we rely on for mana regen is the replenishment other classes provide. Currently, replenishment will return 1.25% of our maximum mana per 5 seconds. This change will reduce that to 1% per 5 seconds. This is a bit of a nerf, but .25% per 5 seconds probably isn't going to be that noticeable. If anything, we might see less importance being placed on intellect, but I don't see this being a big game-changer.
There's been some grumbling about this in the community, that this doesn't go far enough to fix the issues with totems. I'm not one of those that is going to grumble. Dropping 4 totems in a single cooldown will be huge. No more standing idle in an encounter for 5 seconds every time totems need to go down.
Another big one. In the original change, Chain Heal was increased from 8 yards to 10 yards. Some people wiser than I am did some testing and found Chain Heal was already 10 yards, which meant that there was no real change. Conspiracy theorists (including myself) think this was already known by Blizzard, and it was simply added to the patch notes so it would be an "official" change rather than a bug. I think there's been enough outcry that they went ahead and gave it the range boost it should have received in the first place. The healing reduction by 40% each jump is another improvement to Chain Heal. Chain Heal is going to be looking pretty attractive once again.
Not sure what to make of this. It's a change, but to what effect, exactly? It's likely not going to be a huge benefit to plate tanks, I'm thinking more along the lines of cloth-wearing classes. A "mage tank", for example, is going to get more benefit from the straight damage reduction than they would from an armor increase.
Two problems with healing wave: It's expensive (mana), it's slow. While it's good for healing big hits on a tank, it's a situational heal that's not used all that often. Currently the healing way talent provides no benefit to the first healing wave cast, only to subsequent casts. This means that this talent had no effect on healing wave cast as an emergency, one-time heal. At best, you'd see a 16% increase to healing wave. In most cases, you would see no increase at all. This change will give you a 25% increase to healing wave every time it's cast. So healing wave will be more attractive, but certainly not enough to make it preferred for every case. It will still be a situational heal, albeit more reliable.
After hitting Nature's Swiftness, your next heal becomes instant-cast. It is one of those talents used in emergency situations where you might need a big heal now. With a reduced cooldown, you'll be able to respond more often to those emergencies.
There is another use, though. I use a macro that casts Nature's Swiftness with every heal, on every cooldown. What this means is, I get out more heals over a period of time, because several of them are going to be instant cast. With cooldown of two minutes, even more heals will be instant cast. It's a great boost to raid healing and healing throughput.
On paper, tidal waves looks great the way it is. The issue is that lesser healing wave, along with haste you just pick up on gear, is a fast heal by itself. Adding a 30% cast time benefit is almost useless, since you'll be hitting a wall on the global cooldown. The change here will add crit to lesser healing wave, making those fast heals bigger, and triggering the crit talents more often.
Another item on the shaman wishlist. Currently, improved watershield does not trigger with chain heal, and orbs are consumed when triggered. Again, with this change, they are making chain heal more attractive. Not having to refresh water shield so often will allow for more time to heal.
Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
This is a nice buff for shamans. I think I can safely say at this point that shaman healers rely on (while casting) Mp5 more than any other class. This should help out with some mana issues, but I doubt 25% is going to be enough to resolve them. Many shamans have become quite good at their own mana efficiency tricks. I'd bet those who have will simply start replacing Mp5 stats for something else (haste or crit).
Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
So we're not a replenishment class, so why do we care? One of the things we rely on for mana regen is the replenishment other classes provide. Currently, replenishment will return 1.25% of our maximum mana per 5 seconds. This change will reduce that to 1% per 5 seconds. This is a bit of a nerf, but .25% per 5 seconds probably isn't going to be that noticeable. If anything, we might see less importance being placed on intellect, but I don't see this being a big game-changer.
A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.
There's been some grumbling about this in the community, that this doesn't go far enough to fix the issues with totems. I'm not one of those that is going to grumble. Dropping 4 totems in a single cooldown will be huge. No more standing idle in an encounter for 5 seconds every time totems need to go down.
Chain Heal: Jump distance increased by 25% to 12.5 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.
Another big one. In the original change, Chain Heal was increased from 8 yards to 10 yards. Some people wiser than I am did some testing and found Chain Heal was already 10 yards, which meant that there was no real change. Conspiracy theorists (including myself) think this was already known by Blizzard, and it was simply added to the patch notes so it would be an "official" change rather than a bug. I think there's been enough outcry that they went ahead and gave it the range boost it should have received in the first place. The healing reduction by 40% each jump is another improvement to Chain Heal. Chain Heal is going to be looking pretty attractive once again.
Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.
Not sure what to make of this. It's a change, but to what effect, exactly? It's likely not going to be a huge benefit to plate tanks, I'm thinking more along the lines of cloth-wearing classes. A "mage tank", for example, is going to get more benefit from the straight damage reduction than they would from an armor increase.
Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
Two problems with healing wave: It's expensive (mana), it's slow. While it's good for healing big hits on a tank, it's a situational heal that's not used all that often. Currently the healing way talent provides no benefit to the first healing wave cast, only to subsequent casts. This means that this talent had no effect on healing wave cast as an emergency, one-time heal. At best, you'd see a 16% increase to healing wave. In most cases, you would see no increase at all. This change will give you a 25% increase to healing wave every time it's cast. So healing wave will be more attractive, but certainly not enough to make it preferred for every case. It will still be a situational heal, albeit more reliable.
Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
After hitting Nature's Swiftness, your next heal becomes instant-cast. It is one of those talents used in emergency situations where you might need a big heal now. With a reduced cooldown, you'll be able to respond more often to those emergencies.
There is another use, though. I use a macro that casts Nature's Swiftness with every heal, on every cooldown. What this means is, I get out more heals over a period of time, because several of them are going to be instant cast. With cooldown of two minutes, even more heals will be instant cast. It's a great boost to raid healing and healing throughput.
Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
On paper, tidal waves looks great the way it is. The issue is that lesser healing wave, along with haste you just pick up on gear, is a fast heal by itself. Adding a 30% cast time benefit is almost useless, since you'll be hitting a wall on the global cooldown. The change here will add crit to lesser healing wave, making those fast heals bigger, and triggering the crit talents more often.
Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.
Another item on the shaman wishlist. Currently, improved watershield does not trigger with chain heal, and orbs are consumed when triggered. Again, with this change, they are making chain heal more attractive. Not having to refresh water shield so often will allow for more time to heal.
Friday, July 10, 2009
@!#$-blocked by Blizzard
We got a real nice run at Kologarn this evening. We would have had him down tonight... if we hadn't lost 1/4 of our raid with connection issues. Nonetheless, we got a good start.
Pirimus at Kologarn
Pirimus at Kologarn
First Post
So, here I am. I've started this blog so I could share some of the things that go on in the life of your everyday Draenei. I'll spend some time in this blog writing about shaman matters, specifically.
Now, it's off to Ulduar. We've been having luck in progressing through 10-man Ulduar mid-week. Tonight is 25-man Ulduar. I am hoping we're able to bring some of our 10-man experience along, and make some progress through the 25-man. Wish me luck.
Now, it's off to Ulduar. We've been having luck in progressing through 10-man Ulduar mid-week. Tonight is 25-man Ulduar. I am hoping we're able to bring some of our 10-man experience along, and make some progress through the 25-man. Wish me luck.
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