#0 - Nov. 4, 2007, 4:45 a.m.
*** Sticky Please***
I have decided to list all of the general Shaman issues then and each spec (First Resto’s since I am ) most pressing issues into one sticky. I don't mean to leave out enhace and elemental, but I don't know enough about of your specs to speak to your specific and most pressing issues.
HOWEVER, If any enhancement shammys or Elemental want to add to this with their issues, please feel free to, but please format them in a logical way. If I get time and this gets a sticky I'll add them to the top :)
First I am going to discuss the general shaman issues, that effect ALL specs (some more than others and I’ll try to touch on that where applicable). If I leave anything out, please feel free to let me know and I’ll edit it with the update and credit of course. Feel free to nominate this for a sticky :)
Resto Shaman Issues:
1) Earth Shield: This is resto only but affect synergy with other shamans. This shield has some serious issues due to the way it was designed, I assume, to be used by the Devs. I’ll go more into detail what I mean about this when I post an idea for a way to fix this. Mostly it revolves around the synergy ES gives us with other clasess, more later...
2) Lack of Emergency Abilities:
Shams have the least emergency tricks. Druids have NS as well, on top of that they have cyclone/root, on top of that they can stack HoTs, reducing the risk of more sudden bursts. Pallys can bubble themselves, and BoP, and BoF. Priests can shield, cast hots before an emergency situation happens, fear, and can PoM.
3) Lack of mana efficiency:
Sham healing mana efficiency is terrible, they go OOM faster than any healing class, especially in pvp. Mana Spring totem does not add much to mana efficiency in pvp, due to the totem being destroyed and how mobile fights can become. Mana Tide now has a KILL ME animation (just like BoF does). Sham lacks the ability to pop hots/shield, then run and drink like druid/priests. Druids have this the nicest tho. Also due to the ES problem, water shield is not usually an ideal option. The fix I will talk about for ES later will help remedy this, or at least help it greatly.
4) Lack of CC/Anti-CC:
The only healing class without a real CC. No frost shock does not count as a CC! The only anti-CC we have is tremor totem and that is a total joke considering the current state of totems, more on that when I cover (pulsing, range, and the GCD issue on totems)
Additional Issues:
1) Totems: Are expensive, a waste of GCDs, and you constantly have to spam them due to the nature of pvp battles. Especially arena where you are on the move, and they’re "dumb" and immobile
Players are not dumn and immoblie. Totems stay at 1 spot, without constantly respamming them, and recalling them (if you need mana and can spare the time, haha) with triggers yet another GCD, you can't keep them up. There is never a use to drop, for instance, a Strength of Earth. Because you'll have to drop Tremor a few seconds later.
Other classes have all their buffs pre-casted before gates open. Shamans need to waste 4 x 1.5 sec GCDs to drop totems in the middle of a crutial fight, and at the rate they are taken out, more than than often than that. Searing totems are "dumb"! They target things randomly, breaking ccs and what not. Better AI to prevent them from breaking CC at least, and maybe targeting MY target or focus, would be VERY welcomed!
2) Shamans have no escape abilities:
Ghost wolf is a joke. Instant case ghostwolf would be so great. Just change the talent that makes it 1 sec cast to make it instant. It’s still dispellable and doesn’t break snares, unlike druid travel form. Not a big buff to ask for!
For a class that has no divine shield, or priest bubbles/fear, or no instant casts whatsoever (other than NS), shamans have it worst when being focused on. This is painfully obvious in arenas and most people know this, which is why shaman is the least preferred healer.
3) Shamans are immobile :
Even after all the aforementioned weaknesses, shamans share another disadvantage, this time with pallies/druids. They can't LoS heal very heal. You know how druids and priests can peek out of a corner, throw an instant cast heal then go back out of LOS? Therefore totally be able to avoid exposing themselves to a 1.5 sec cast fear/poly? Shams have to constantly expose themselves to heal. And SADLY, shams are the class that can't cope with these CCs very well. Druid/Priests will have hots up while their cc-ed. Shams don't, etc.
Pallys share the same weakness, but they still work a LOT better. With a Conc Aura and their passive 70% pushback talent against damage when healing, plus 30% (35?) to ALL spells for themselves and their group, which is undispellable, a pally has a nice advantage here and brings more to a group (especially if they have casters). 100% resist on healing pushback is of GREAT value. Not to mention cleanse!
This is unlike ES which Shaman require to get this 100% pushback, on just themselves. If we use it on another player, so they can get the pushback AND the healing of ES. Which means the shaman is wide open to attack and pushback. If you keep it on yourself it’ll be dispelled faster than you can blink IRL and you are now able to shut down quite easily.
4) Weak 31pt and 41pt talent
ES issues that have been mentioned and will be in further detail later. Mana Tide Totem has a huge kill me animation. In any match against non-idiots, the totem dies before the 2nd tick. I understand why blizz gave animations to BoF and BoP.. but why mana tide? this is a 31 pt talent..
Even if you are going to keep the animation, can’t you change the mechanic to give more mana up front? No change in overall mana returned, just in a different way. Instead of 4 ticks of 6%, you could do 10/8/4/2 or some such. Would be a decent pvp “fix”, wouldn’t go so far as to call that a buff tho. If you hadn’t added the animation we wouldn’t need this.
So what do we do?
Below are some ideas for Resto changes (ES specially and arena in general) that I think are best suited to fix the problem, but others are welcome to add their own and I’ll add those as well when I can to this list.
RESTO CHANGES:
1) EarthShield: This is sort-of long and I apologize, I want to avoid flames by not leaving much to the imagination :)
First lets cover some talents shaman get…
Healing Focus:
Resto talent that gives us a 70% chance to avoid spell interrupton by damage when casting our healing spells. Many classes get this type of talent for their spells (all?).
Earth Shield:
30% Chance to avoid interruption by damage when casting ANY spell. Obviously with healing benefit on melee attacks.
Now that’s out of the way…
If Blizzard really means it that shamans are an aggressive class (hence no tanking tree), why not change our focused healing talent to give a full 100% (zero) pushback on HEALING ONLY spells with focused healing (just like with ES on us now) when we’re fully talented for it. Move it down a lil in resto if you have to, or add the extra 30% to another talent deeper in Resto tree. Purification sounds perfect to me. This may sound OP at first, but please, hear me out! :)
With this change we could actually play an offensive healer the way we should and not have to try our best to hide (tauren shaman hiding? hah). Frankly, hiding is a druid thing (hence stealth), avoidance is a priest thing, if you have cloth you should have to avoid melee at all costs. I'm a resto shaman with a shield and mail armor, I should be able to take hits better and cast through it (at least my primary spells, the heals).
We'd still be taking the same damage as we did before and we're also still shut down by all silences and interrupts as usual, and CC abilities. The only thing that would change is that damage wouldn't delay our heals, which is exactly the same as now when we have ES on us! That’s IT! Nothing changes except that we don't need ES on to do our job anymore. This also means we will keep a dispellable version of ES, lose the healing from it if dispelled (as normal), lose the 30% pushback to ALL spells, but DO keep our healing pushback (because it's now passive).
They can also keep earthshield EXACTLY like it is now (maybe a slightly lower mana cost, I wouldn't complain about that) so that we can do what I believe the devs had in mind in the first place, synergy with other classes by casting it on them. Well now I can do that because it doesn't “gimp” my chance to get a heal off!!!
You'll notice many classes get 70% interruption talents for various spells. This 30% pushback from a targetable ES allows us to "synergize" with other classes and buff ALL their spell pushback by 30%, which equals 100% for their talented schools (say, drains for warlocks, or heals for other healers, etc). So as you can see, this is actually (in the long run) one of the most balanced ways to fix us (or at least the problem with ES) atm, IMHO anyway.
I would also point out Pallys get the same thing, only better!!! With Conc aura's 30%(35?) and their 70% talent on heal pushback, they get 100% but with an aura that gives the 30% to everyone, is undispellable, and follows the pally around
