Totem Talk: Restoration PTR patch 4.2 changes
by Joe Perez 
May 17th 2011 at 8:00PM
Last week, we talked more about raiding as a restoration shaman through the next set of bosses, and this week, we had been planning to continue the series by talking about some bosses that are full of hot wind. However, recent changes on the latest PTR build are worthy of some review and analysis.
Today, we're going to talk about some changes to shaman healers in the upcoming patch (or at least where they stand right now). We're also going to discuss a little bit about the recently posted tier 12 set bonuses for restoration, as they too have changed a bit. Since this is still on the PTR, we have to operate with the understanding that this could change at any given moment as things are balanced out. Lets take a look!
The good, the bad and the so-so
First things first: Let's take a look at the proposed changes as of right now on the PTR.
Shaman
Restoration
Glyphs
- Lightning Shield and Water Shield can no longer be dispelled.
- Unleash Elements is now in the Nature school, and thus can no longer be used if a shaman's Nature school has been locked out.
- Water Shield has had its internal cooldown reduced to 3.5 seconds, once again matching other shields. The amount of mana restored when Water Shield procs has been reduced by 50%.
Restoration
- Improved Water Shield has been redesigned and renamed Resurgence. When Water Shield is active, Resurgence causes critical direct heals to restore mana (Resurgence rank 2 is roughly equal to 150% of the old Improved Water Shield value when a Healing Wave or Greater Healing Wave critically hits, and scaled down accordingly for faster or multi-target spells).
- Mana Tide now grants 200% of the caster's Spirit, down from 400%.
Glyphs
- Glyph of Unleashed Lightning (new Prime glyph) allows Lightning Bolt to be cast while moving.
Water Shield seems to be getting a little bit of a facelift as far as the spell itself goes and the talents that affect it. In patch 4.1, a hotfix went out that increased the internal cooldown of Water Shield procs from 3 seconds up to 6 seconds. Now, the cooldown is being lowered again down to 3.5 seconds, and it can no longer be dispelled. It does, however, come at the price of having the amount of mana restored from proccing through damage taken by 50%. The increasing of the internal cooldown was a way to attempt to soften the mana explosion. Problem is that internal cooldown hurts us -- nothing crippling, mind you, but something we certainly feel when raid healing or even just healing dungeons. The reduction of the internal cooldown isn't just to throw us a bone, though; it is because of another change.
Improved Water Shield will now be called Resurgence and is being completely redesigned. Each spell you cast will reward a different amount of mana back when it reaches a critical heal. Every critical direct heal will trigger the ability. To give you an idea, Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave criticals will restore (2,292 *100/100) mana; Healing Surge, Riptide, or Unleash Life critical will restore (2,292*0.6*100/100) mana; and Chain Heal will give (2,292*0.333*100/100) mana. I'm sure if you remember your order of operations, you can see how much mana it will restore. It's an overall improvement from what it was, and I think that is a very good thing. When I test it out more, I'll make sure to report back to you guys about it.
The next change is to our beloved Mana Tide Totem. This has been a major concern for a lot of folks. It will now only grant 200% of the caster's spirit, down from 400%. This reduces the effectiveness by about half, but I think I understand why. We tend to break the mana curve. Two resto shaman stacked in a raid with a reasonable amount of spirit can completely negate the mana curve for some fights. I should know -- I do this pretty regularly with another resto shaman in guild. The other reason is that with a new level of tier gear, there will be even higher spirit totals possible, which just further breaks the curve.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't like the change, but I think I understand where Blizzard is coming from. Now, if you look at the changes to WS and the new Resurgence, you can see Blizzard is making up for some mana loss there. New shaman healers will feel the hurt from this more than raiding veterans simply because of the difference in spirit. That said, with talents like Telluric Currents, it just gives you a reason to learn to use it sooner rather than later. Along those same lines, the new Glyph of Unleashed Lightning looks like it could potentially be fun when using Telluric Currents. Mana regen while moving and dealing damage could come in handy, and I really want to play around with it just a little bit.
A matching set
It is very likely that the set bonuses for the tier 12 gear will change or at the very least be altered slightly, but for the time being, here is what's listed for restoration shaman tier bonuses.
Zarhym
Tier 12 set bonuses
- Restoration 2-Piece Bonus: Your periodic healing from Riptide has a 40% chance to restore 1% of your base mana each time it heals a target.
- Restoration 4-Piece Bonus: Your Chain Heal spell no longer consumes your Riptide effect on the primary target.
Honestly, I really love the two-piece bonus. With a Glyph of Riptide and using it on every cooldown, you have a possibility of some serious mana return. You should be using it every time the cooldown is up already, so this is just an added bonus. I mean, 40% chance to restore mana on every tick of healing may not seem like much, but the potential is there. With tier 12 gear, it is very likely we will be able to hit the second haste plateau.
Now with healing over time, you don't get more healing out of the spell, but you can push more ticks of healing in the duration of the ability. At 261 haste (130 for a goblin), if you're using the Glyph of Riptide it gains an extra tick. It still lasts the same duration and heals the same amount, but it is essentially divided over more ticks that come faster. At 2,005 haste (1,857 for a goblin) with the glyph, Riptide gets a second addition tick during the spells duration. So you have some prime opportunity coming for some serious mana returns with a two-piece bonus.
The four-piece bonus, I'm on the fence about. I like it because if you're rolling Riptide throughout a raid, and your primary target for Chain Heal happens to have Riptide on them, you are in essence wasting HPS by letting the Chain Heal get consumed. So the set bonus eliminates that possibility, which is a good thing.
On the other hand, it seems a little off when compared to the free area healing that the other three healing classes are receiving. While I don't exactly want to copy them, and this does buff one of our AOE healing tools, I reserve judgment on it until I can get my hands on it and see it in action. That said, it is much better than the old one we caught wind of not too long ago that only added an additional jump to CH.
I'm looking forward to playing around with these changes on the PTR, particularly in a raiding environment. I think there is some good potential here, and I'd like to see what we look at after these changes. Please keep in mind that since this is still in the PTR phase, it can change at any given moment. If it does, you can bet that I'll let you know about it.
Next week, unless there are some major changes, we will be back to our raiding encounter quick tips. But I leave you with some questions. What do you think about the changes so far? Are you scared about them? Do they make you unhappy? What are your thoughts about the tier 12 set bonuses?
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 1)
murmaiderxx May 17th 2011 8:47PM
Their numbers must just get way out whack when they forget to include jumps in tier/new content. I can only imagine that the difference is to relay to the new content. The idea for the glyph for lightning bolt is a great idea, and I wish it had been imlemented sooner. (Weird.. I don't think anyone who plays this game's ever said that?) :P
"Unleash Elements is now in the Nature school, and thus can no longer be used if a shaman's Nature school has been locked out."
They should rephrase that, I assume it refers to interrupts or silences.
At this rate I bet you we're not done seeing changes to totems until the next expac...
B1ue May 17th 2011 10:25PM
It seemed perfectly clear to me. Judging by the way they phrase tool-tips, school lock-out is an independent mechanic from Silence, which prevents you from casting any spell whatsoever during the effect, and interrupt, which prevents you from completing your current cast. That school lock-out is tied to silence and interrupts is confusing, but they are all doing differnt things.
Zayd May 17th 2011 10:09PM
That new prime glyph for lightning bolt is great.
However I'm not sure which prime it would replace for my ele shammy :/
kalliasfake May 18th 2011 2:21AM
The best will probably end up being Flame Shock to go out. You will have to be more vigilant in shocking but once you have the 4pc bonus, if it hits live, your time will be easier.
Revynn May 17th 2011 10:50PM
Despite some idiots and their cries of "mana tide iz nerfd now ill nevar get a raid spot!!11!", I think the Mana Tide change is good overall. Some resto shamans were feeling pigeon-holed into stacking spirit above everything else in order to serve as the community mana-battery, and with reduced effectiveness on Mana Tide the focus can go back to throughput and pulling their weight rather than whoring out their item slots to the priests and paladins.
In order to keep the "mana matters" paradigm, Blizz needed to either ramp up tank and raid damage (eventually going back to the spam-spam-spam environment of ICC) or start taking shots at mana regen talents/CD's and spell costs. Besides, with new gear levels comes more Intellect and more Spirit, which in turn translates to more effective Replens, more effective Totems, etc. In order to keep the "mana matters" paradigm, Blizz needed to either ramp up tank and raid damage (eventually going back to the spam-spam-spam environment of ICC) or start taking shots at mana regen talents/CD's and spell costs. A 50% slash in effectiveness to our big regen CD looks brutal on paper, but with gear escalation I don't think it's going to be as painful as it looks.
Revynn May 17th 2011 10:52PM
Aaaaaaaaaaand once again I learn the value of proofreading before clicking "add comment".
TheBlob May 17th 2011 11:24PM
I agree with what you said, but when I got to the second parenthetical about ICC spam healing, I had to take a double take to make sure I wasn't losing my mind, lol.
Other than that I pretty much agree. People see nerfs and instinctively feel attacked and think they need to be mad about it, but don't realize that without nerfs either things would not be balanced, or things wouldn't be fun and/or challenging anymore. I used to get mad whenever I saw a nerf but these days if I don't understand the reasoning behind it immediately, which I usually do, the devs explain the reason for it and I'm okay with that.
Worldworstretadin May 18th 2011 6:13PM
@TheBlob
So, so very true. Certainly, having your class "nerfed to the ground" (as many QQ-ers will say) can be frustrating - but Blizzard almost always gives something back in return. That's why they call it an adjustment.
Every class has had its share of buffs and nerfs and in every single case, it's been because of a ligitimate concern over their power in a PvP/raid environment. I for one look forward to these changes: after playing the same spec for almost 5 years, the occasional rethink on strategy is like learning the class all over again.
Firestyle May 18th 2011 12:42AM
The mana tide adjustment is negligible. I'm certain they will balance our mana, my concern is that we become some sort of "not casting caster". Meaning, our spells our so powerful, and so expensive, that we just cast LBs between real life savers. I'm not sure that's where we want to be.
Also, this 4 piece isn't going live. It's not balanced in any way between 10 and 25s. They need to close the gap between 10 and 25 on chain heal now, in t12 before it becomes a bigger problem.
Matthew May 18th 2011 1:02AM
As a PvP shaman who doesn't spec into improved water shield, I will feel more nerfs and not get the buffs that were yoked to it.
darkLogik May 18th 2011 2:59PM
...... (whispers from the other side of the room)... spec into to it or deal with it.
sodin May 18th 2011 6:37AM
Do haste values differ for Goblins? I thought the racial bonus was 1% faster casting, not 1% extra haste......
jarch3r May 18th 2011 10:30AM
No such thing as faster casting, its 1% haste
Docseuzz May 18th 2011 8:55AM
I kinda hoped that the 4pc t12 would have all but eliminated the CH reduction per-hop, giving us the same net effect as others (bonus nearby heals), but with a definate shammy feel to it...
My dream one would be that each original CH target has a good chance (read: should get at least one proc per cast) to fork another chain heal (maybe at 75% or something)... Just thinking of all those healing beams flying in a 25 man... ;)
Kryptich May 18th 2011 10:02AM
1.) "Now with healing over time, you don't get more healing out of the spell, but you can push more ticks of healing in the duration of the ability"
I'm pretty sure you DO get more healing out of the spell. As in the ticks, are the same value as they would have been with no modifiers, but now you get an additional tick.
2.) "With tier 12 gear, it is very likely we will be able to hit the second haste plateau."
Why would you even be trying to hit any haste plateau if you believed haste affected HOT's they way you described in quote #1?
Cad May 18th 2011 3:14PM
You should probably read the article and not skim it because you've failed to comprehend any of the key points in it you're asking about.
Greenimeani May 18th 2011 10:48AM
"...allows Lightning bolt to be cast while moving."
*epic jawdrop*
Shinae May 18th 2011 11:06AM
This feels like a stupid question, but will mana shield still have charges on it in 4.2? I'm kinda tired of having to reapply MS so often, especially during raid damage fights when I need lots of mana for group heals yet my shield gets burned off by the raid damage.
I'm really looking forward to the double bonus of crit to us in 4.2.
icepyro May 19th 2011 12:28AM
if by mana shield you mean water shield, then yes, getting knocked off is how it works. I just can't purge/spellsteal/cleans/etc. it anymore.
Also, since you get mana when it 'burns off', the only real down side (aside from the gcd to reapply) is if you dont have some kind of notification to reapply it and stand there without it.
Boomshaka May 30th 2011 10:24AM
I feel that the t12 4pcs is a really bad choice, since it really mostly adds to 25 man and doesn't really have much justification on 10 man.
Yes, not consuming riptide is nice, but when most heals in 10 man isn't CH, according to parses posted in http://lifeingroup5.com/?p=2302 (thank you for a great site btw) it's as low as 9% of casts, i feel that it's a bit onesided.
Especially considering Blizzards clear goal to make shammies utilize more of the tools at hand and not just CH spam as back in WotLK.
I may add that i also fear that the Tide nerf is gonna effect the 10man more than intended, due to the fact that we can't stack Tide like in 25 man (rarely more than 1 resto shammy in any 10 man run)