Totem Talk: It's all about the Mana Tide
by Joe Perez 
Jan 18th 2011 at 2:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how.
So last week, we had ourselves a little bit of a Q&A for restoration shaman. The post went live on the same day that the patch 4.0.6 shaman changes were announced. A lot of what we talked about changed as a result of those notes, causing a lot more in the way of questions and concerns from just about everyone in the restoration shaman community. While some of the changes are being hailed as pretty bad or downright nerfs, there are quite a few tweaks and buffs. This includes the new restoration shaman casting animations that are being put into the game.
While we have done some analysis of the changes, I felt it would be good to really take a look at these changes a little more in depth. I've spent the last few days really poking around on the PTR trying to see exactly what effect these changes have on us, and I'd like to share that with you.
So last week, we had ourselves a little bit of a Q&A for restoration shaman. The post went live on the same day that the patch 4.0.6 shaman changes were announced. A lot of what we talked about changed as a result of those notes, causing a lot more in the way of questions and concerns from just about everyone in the restoration shaman community. While some of the changes are being hailed as pretty bad or downright nerfs, there are quite a few tweaks and buffs. This includes the new restoration shaman casting animations that are being put into the game.
While we have done some analysis of the changes, I felt it would be good to really take a look at these changes a little more in depth. I've spent the last few days really poking around on the PTR trying to see exactly what effect these changes have on us, and I'd like to share that with you.
Before we get started, I want to apologize to anyone who has tried to email me in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, due to an email mishap, they did not make it through. Since then, I now have a new email address. So, feel free to email me at the new address, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
Mana Tide or Mana Trickle?
This is probably the most talked-about change for any healing shaman. Our beloved Mana Tide Totem is getting quite an overhaul come the next patch. As it stands right now on the live server, restoration shaman can pretty much break the entire mana regeneration model for healers with use of this iconic spell and a lovely little trinket called the Core of Ripeness. Asking healers in group with the healing shaman to pop this trinket pretty much doubles any average healer's spirit and lets Mana Tide just fill his or her mana bars back up. That 350% spirit gain was just too good when combined with things like this. This was definitely a problem and goes against what the developers at Blizzard had built for mana regeneration in Cataclysm.
While a lot of people blame the trinket and are calling for the trinket to get nerfed instead of the spell, it honestly isn't the trinket's fault. Our spirit totals are going to just get bigger and bigger as time goes on, as will our gear and enchant effects. All the trinket really did was highlight the problem early on.
Let's review what the changes to Mana Tide are.
Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide.
At first glance, this seems pretty bad -- I'll admit that. No longer counting spirit procs like Heartsong, various trinkets, and set bonuses seems like a pretty big nerf. While that is somewhat true, those procs will still benefit our overall mana regeneration, as will Mana Tide Totem. So what do the changes mean?
Well first of all, our spirit total will be very important, as it is now the baseline for the regeneration it grants all the people affected by it. This is similar to Innervate, and it allows us to predict roughly how much mana it is going to restore to everyone. It has also increased to 400% up from 350%. This is better than it seems, honestly; it means that we get a little extra boost to make up for the lack of procs counting and that it will continue to scale as our gear and stats scale.
With 2,216 spirit on live, when you use MTT, your spirit without any procs goes to about 9,971. On the PTR, this would equal 11,080 spirit. Just keep in mind that this will continue to scale with you and your gear. In practical application, this means that you can expect to get roughly 25% of your mana bar back with use while in combat. You'll still want to use it pretty aggressively, but 25% of your mana bar is nothing to sneeze at.
The last thing to note is that the spell is now raid-wide. That's a pretty big change and means that you don't have to worry about where you put your restoration shaman in the raid. I can't help but feel the conversation that Matt Low and myself had on the topic helped to make this so.
Chain Heal gets some lovin'
Chain Heal has always been an iconic restoration shaman spell. It danced into our hearts as an all star in The Burning Crusade, as the Alliance finally got to see what the Horde has been enjoying since the days of vanilla. This smart heal has lost some steam in Wrath, though, and has transitioned from a spammable heal to a situational tool in Cataclysm. This time around, it is getting a little bit of a boost.
In the 4.0.6 PTR, it is getting an additional 10% boost to its healing. This seems like a pretty minor change right now, and it won't make CH anything more than still a situational tool, but it is still nice to see Blizzard is starting to pay attention to the spell. The 10% boost is nice, and with it, you can expect to get about 1,000 extra healing out of it at the current tier of gear. This does also help compensate for the Glyph of Chain Heal, and on the PTR, I find myself using it a little bit more than I do on live right now. The boost really does help to heal groups when forced to stand close enough to make use out of CH, especially when every point of healing counts.
Greater Healing Wave getting greater
Greater Healing Wave is getting tweaked in patch 4.0.6 as well. Its cost is getting increased by 10%, but its effectiveness is getting a 20% boost. GHW was supposed to be our big heal for when a target was very low and was in need of some major healing all at once. This was great in theory, but in practical application, it wound up healing for about the same amount as Healing Surge. As it stands, there's no real reason to use it, as it heals for the same amount (roughly) as HS, only with a longer cast time.
With 6,500 spellpower on live, GHW will heal for about 17,000 non-crit. In the PTR, it heals for about 23,000 non-crit. That's a fairly substantial increase and certainly helps separate it from HS while making it worth the extra cast time. On the PTR, I find myself using it quite a bit to bring tanks back from the brink of death and close the gap on very large health deficits. The spell is really starting to feel like Blizzard originally intended it to be, and that is a good thing. It is really beginning to feel like this is a smart choice in certain situations instead of being completely overshadowed by its faster partner. Hopefully everyone will see the same results with this spell after it is altered.
Patch 4.0.6 is all about balancing, and for the most part, the changes that restoration shaman have to look forward to are pretty good overall. Even the change to MTT isn't as bad as everyone seems to have thought when it was first announced. Many of the changes seem to be an attempt to address recent concerns about shaman healing being behind the other healers, and I think they do a decent job of doing so without making us completely overpowered. While I would have liked to see CH get a little bit more of a boost (maybe 15% instead of 10%), our tools are starting to feel right about where they should be. It's also very nice to see that the developers are looking at how we are balanced this early into the expansion.
Totem Talk: Restoration will show you the basics of endgame resto shaman play as well as how to find the expansion's best reputation gear for resto shaman and tips for easier leveling. Happy healing, and may your mana be plentiful!Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kunikenwad! Jan 18th 2011 2:09PM
Dear Blizzard:
Leave my totems alone.
Just in Cataclysm - First you took Sentry Totem. Then it was Poison Cleansing. Then it was the Searing Totem's ability to use Fire Nova. Now it's Tremor and Mana Tide. The overhaul of totem design is starting to get to me. Really. You're messing with the fundamental mechanic of the shaman. Consolidating totems: good! Removing or redesigning totems: bad!
This rant brought to you by a proud shaman player (85 goblin, 84 dwarf, 80 troll, 63 troll, 54 tauren, 24 troll)
devilsei Jan 18th 2011 2:19PM
I'm still a little annoyed over the loss of Sentry Totem.
Not my, or others, fault people were so unimaginative that they couldn't understand how to use it. It's a sentry, right there said in the name. Put it down, then use it to monitor an area. Hell, Call of Duty has the same exact spell in it.
The only thing that needed to be changed was an alteration to how it worked. Perhaps instead of making us change complete views, make it replace the mini-map with its view, or something similar.
Joe Perez Jan 18th 2011 2:27PM
I too, miss sentry totem. I agree it was a miss-understood, under-used spell.
Kurash Jan 18th 2011 2:58PM
Gotta disagree with you regarding redesigning totems. The willingness of Blizzard to redesign the content of the game is what has kept it interesting to me since vanilla. If they see a mechanic that isn't working the way the wanted it to then they have the ability to adjust it rather than keep it in its original form simply because that's how it was initially designed.
Plus, it seems to me that every one of the expansions was, in many ways, an opportunity for them to give the game an enormous overhaul. Which, in my opinion, has always improved the quality of the game.
Zaros Jan 18th 2011 6:51PM
Seems like blizz is ****ING with our class mechanics. Druid shifts can't break roots anymore either.
mibu.work1 Jan 18th 2011 8:01PM
@zaros
And why not? If you're a cat frozen in ice, and you turn into a tauren or an elf, those feet are still stuck in the ice. That makes sense. Making tremor totem a longer cooldown makes some sense as well, because now it can be placed while you're sleeped/feared/ whatever, times changed, and totems with them. Poison cleansing and the removal of fire nova from searing totem I don't get as easily, as those seem to be obvious rules patches and nothing more. I would have said 'put back poison-cleansing totem, let resto have it cure diseases again, and make it act like the new tremor totem in cooldown and ease-of-use.'
Besides, f***ing with the class mechanics is what, from a metagame point of view, cataclysm was all about. It was blizzard looking at WoW, both the world and the gameplay, and saying 'yea, that didn't work so well when it first went in, and we never really got rid of it, so let's do that now and say Puff the Magic Dragon did it with his world-breaking wake-up-stretch.' It's like what dungeons and dragons did with fourth edition, sweeping all the old, easily-exploited rules and questionable story logic and starting over with nothing but the guidelines.
Shamans are the same, they still heal with water (and now look like it) smite with lightning and fire, and pummel their enemies with the strength of the earth and the fury of the storm, only now they rely on spirit more. Frankly, the game is more fun that way, worrying because you know that while other classes can heal with higher numbers, you will outlast them, and even make THEM look better by how well you do. That's the new MTT change, shamans saying "Yea, strength of earth behind the hands of a healer, keep your light and your moss, this is a microcosm of the world saying 'leave it to me, I can handle it'. Because I can handle it, I'm a SHAMAN."
devilsei Jan 18th 2011 9:44PM
Mibu, easy as hell.
Tiny cat feet are hella small.
Tauren hooves hella large.
Ice doesn't grow to fit, it shatters.
Tauren hella large feet, turn to tiny cat feet, it slips out.
kebosangar Jan 18th 2011 10:58PM
I just want a cool looking totem for my tauren.
Please let us switch totems between races. Or do some pimping. We've been using the same totem since the game launched. :(
wow Jan 18th 2011 2:49PM
My only concern with the mana tide change is that it will simply induce the following gearing... weirdness.
Every resto shaman will be required to enchant/gem/gear for as much spirit as possible.
Every other healer will gem/enchant for as much int as possible, and gear for haste/crit/mastery and avoid spirit.
Joe Perez Jan 18th 2011 2:54PM
I can understand that concern, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the devs will be looking out for this. The only place I could really see this happening though would be in a 25 man raid with a single restoration shaman. In 10 man where you only have 3 healers, or some fights where you may only have 2, it won't be an option. No doubt someone will try to tweak the system like that, but I don't think it's going to happen. Right now even if you replace every gem, enchant and reforge entirely to spirit, you only gain an additional couple of percent mana, but at the loss of a ton of healing throughput. I don't think the exchange will be worth it in the end.
MikeLive Jan 18th 2011 3:00PM
Yeah, I can see that pushing some guilds into having a single, Spirit-stacked Shaman who's sole intent is to make the other healers more effective. Bit of a step back to the vanilla-style buffing, where a Shaman's sole purpose is to make the rest of the raid effective.
Saeadame Jan 18th 2011 3:28PM
Like Joe said, it'll really only be possible in 25 mans, and even then the benefit is a little dubious. If a Shaman is not putting out as much healing as they could be because they're stacking spirit, that means other healers will have to pick up the slack, thereby spending more mana. Will that mana spent be less than what the spirit-stacking Shaman will return with his MTT? Who knows, but I'm not sure the benefit of the Shaman spirit stacking is as "obvious" as it might first seem.
wow Jan 18th 2011 3:48PM
My rough maths tells me that the break even point will be at 3 healers for this strategy. so at 3 healers 20 spirit on the resto shaman is worth 20 spirit to the raid, or better put 6.66~ to each healer (including themselves). Assuming that mana tide is used on CD.
Seeing that I can almost say with some certainty that its 50/50 for 10mans with 3 healers, and doesn't really matter either way. How ever for a 25man raid this will likely be a requirement of any serious raiding guild.
Either way, spirit on a shaman is instantly worth more, to the raid, on that resto shaman, than to any other healer.
@Saeadame the point is, that by being able to avoid spirit, the other healers will be able to stack more HPM stats, like mastery and crit. So while they will have to heal more, they will be able to gear as such that they get more healing out of the healing they already do, with out expending more mana.
Joe Perez Jan 18th 2011 4:28PM
@wow The problem with that though is that those healers will be going OOM a whole hell of a lot sooner than 3 minutes, which is our cooldown on the totem. Dunno how long you've been reading, but back in MC days, we had a paladin that would lay on hands, burn all of his mana and then be useless for the entire fight.
Lets say healers drop all spirit relying solely on the shaman for their regen. 1 minute into fight, 2 healers go OOM. Shaman pops MTT. less than a minute into fight, healers go OOM again. 3 minutes until MTT cooldown is up, raid wipes.
I just don't see it happening. Any raid leader or heal lead asking their shaman to stack spirit, while telling every other healer to ignore it is doing nothing but shooting themselves in the foot.
What about if the shaman dies? Hey we're not perfect, but we can only theoretically pop once from death. And if we die again, all of that regen potential is wasted, making that shaman who stacked nothing but spirit to be a mana battery pretty useless to the raid, and neutered the other healers in the process.
Gotta keep that 3 minute cooldown in mind.
wow Jan 18th 2011 9:52PM
Losing a key member (or any member in some cases) of your raid group mid combat has almost always been cause for a wipe in challenging content.
Lose a holy paladin in ICC? Might as well wipe it now. Lose any healer going into a healer intensive phase in ICC (sindy/PP P3) then your probably going to wipe. Lose a strong AE dps going into magmaw/maloriak/cho'gall, your screwed.
Having a raids reliance on one person (specific, or anyone) not die is nothing new.
Towards the people who suggested that if the shaman didn't show, your screwed. In theory the same already applies to raiders. You only want enough mana/regen to be able to survive between mana tide totems, with mana tide + OP valor trinket bringing you back up/close to full mana, as such you stack less regen.
Perhaps I'll write up a longer post, backed up with more maths beyond just the basic concept at some stage.
Columhcille Jan 20th 2011 1:56PM
I'm not so sure about one person stacking spirit for the rest of the raid... my ten man right now is working with a Resto Shammy, Disc/Holy preist and Pally.. the pally and priest even in the same level gear have at least 500-700 more spirit than the Resto Shammy and have at least 10k mana pool more.. the pally brinking 110k mana pool in raid buffs, which is almost 20k mana more than the shaman [but both the pally and priest get a 15% int buff for being healers in from their talents right?]. Neither of them ever go oom.. the shaman tho, is forced to sit and regen twice as often with less mana pool from the same level gear and less regen. ... the shaman is the only one with mana problems atm. And I'm not saying just the shaman in our raid, but shaman in general in comparison to other classes. I'd say screw stacking spirit for someone wtih more stats in the same gear.... that's completely unnecissary.
Scoffer Jan 18th 2011 3:01PM
I'm afraid that my raid leader is going to ask me to start stacking spirit ad nauseum. Effectivly killing my throughput for the sake of being everyone's mana battery. Do you think that this will inevitably happen? And if it does, doesn't that mean that blizzard will be forced to change mana tide's effect again?
Also, i read somewhere that shaman will start weapon swapping right before using mana tide. Essentially carrying around a giant staff with loads of spirit and a +spirit enchant and macroing it in, which sounds like a chore.
Needless to say i hate these current changes. I agree it wasnt right before, but i can almost garuantee that mana tide will be changing next patch and law abiding resto shamans everywhere will suffer in the meantime.
Saeadame Jan 18th 2011 3:33PM
Like I commented above, if your throughput is less because you're stacking spirit, the other healers have to pick up the stack and therefore spend more mana. The mana you return with your more powerful MTT might be enough to make up for it, but it might not. Either way, if your Raid Leader asks you whether YOU THINK it would be better to do that, I would say that maybe you would value a pure blue spirit gem over a compound gem, but otherwise Int is probably more beneficial.
Saeadame Jan 18th 2011 3:34PM
Spelling errors mrrr...
*slack
Firestyle Jan 18th 2011 4:01PM
That's actually not a hard thing for the other healers to do. The better a shaman is at stacking regen, the more the other healers can focus on output stats, (int primarily). Also, you as a shaman aren't really gimped either - there's a baseline level of int you can't avoid on your gear that will make you modestly effective.
Totems were redesigned to remove the buff-bot role from the raid. Let's not deviate from the design content and base the regen off the receiver's intellect/spirit and not the caster's.
It's a crappy role to be in, so I hope they work something out.