no more downranking?Follow

I guess some may say Im noobcakes for saying what I'm about to say, but here goes.

I don't downrank. Never have, and I doubt I ever will. As a priest I have spells that enable me to forgo downranking. If you just need a bit I'll hit you with a renew. PoM works for anything getting hit in the face. Then there is CoH and PoH for group wide healing/raid wide healing. Last but not least I have Greater heal and Flash heal. I treat my flash as a downranked Gheal, i guess, but i don't truely "downrank" any of my heals.

With +1800 healing and 250 buffed mana while casting this tactic has worked well for me throughout my adventures in WOW.

I do exactly the same thing. I check the recount graph and find a lot of times that 80% of the healing I do comes from renew and PoM.

I don't downrank on the tank all that often. I try to cancel-cast GH7 as much as possible. And TBH overhealing doesn't bother me all that much (and with this change becomes meaningless). But downranking is a nice quick way to heal up DPS who've taken enough hits that you don't want to just toss a Renew, and then get back to the tank. Especially clothies - GH7 is kind of wasted on them. Obviously Blizzard meant for me to be using Flash Heal for this purpose, so I guess I will now.

I don't love this change because change frightens me I don't love anything that gives me less tools in the toolbox. But I don't think it'll turn out to be game-changing, at least for me. The Shaman on the main forum are pretty upset, but they heal differently.

As I posted in the general wow forum, most priests dont have to downrank. It wont affect them in the slighest. Priests are well equipped with lesser heals that are mana efficient.

The only healing class that is truely affected by downranking is Shamans. I know one thing, I came to this board because after seeing how wronged shaman healers are getting from this, I am very likely switching my shadow priest to healing and switching my resto shaman to elemental. I have been healing on my shaman for what feels like an eternity and its going to be a difficult switch in my mind, but honestly there is no other way around it, I know for a fact, I can not heal with my shaman unless I use downranked spells. Its a broken mechanic according to blizzard, but it is the only way that a shaman can be a main healer in a raid/group. If they do go through with this, shamans are basically going to either be a raid healer or useless because their mana effiency is going to plummet.

I guess in the end, I look forward to contributing to your healing threads on the priest board. :)

Shamandin most excellently pointed out that I'm getting my classes confused and GH is not Healing Touch. So, like, forget all my st00pid comments about cast time, k? I've got a cold, I'm out of it, what can I say. Blame the DayQuil.

just gonna hafta wait n see i guess

but it scares me since i plan on being a pve disc priest, so i wont have coh or serendipity :(

wheres my rank 1 flash heal spam just to ensure i dont drop grace :(

but what about the new talent Improved water shield - a water shield orb is consumed when you get a crit from healing wave or lesser healing wave?

It will take me some getting used to as I often use downranked heals on my priest and druid. I'll probably switch to more renews as I don't like the mana inefficiency of flash heal (which is great if you need a quick heal, but otherwise is fairly sucky compared to GH1).

Hopefully they won't put any more bosses like the last one in OHB (never remember his name). Dispelling everyones buffs regularly is not friendly to HoTs and makes mana more of an issue as you miss other buffs on yourself (BoW, DS, etc).

Also will have an impact on helping lower levels in instances as now any heal will cost the full amount, but in the case of HoTs still be downranked.

Basically, consider water shield vs spell cost. There is a gap between mana-gain and mana-expenditure for shaman and the gap between the two widens with the expansion. It's causing raiding shamans at 80 to go oom in about 2-3 min (and that's with using a pot AND mana-tide). >.> Shamans have always been THE WORST single target healers in the game. Worst mana-efficiency and worst HPS on a single target. With the expansion it is becoming worse.



The problem is relying on RNG. Even with roughly 20-25% crit on Brutallus (I ended up with a moonkin in my group) I healed the main tank 10 times with no crit. I was trying to get the armor buff on him using rank 1 healing wave. If I was using max rank, I'd have been oom in 10 casts. Moreover, relying on crits from a max rank means you are going to overheal (except maybe on a crazy fight like Brutallus). So, really this is a talent a BIT like Serendipity but relying on RNG in addition to overhealing.

The other huge problem with this talent is that you are using up your passive MP5 buff. So after X number of crits from these spells you have to waste another GCD to buff yourself. Often, you can't afford to use a GCD to buff yourself meaning you lose BOTH the passive MP5 and the chance to pop an orb. Keeping a tank alive is priority. Keeping DPS alive is second priority. Buffing yourself for mana regen is LAST priority. All this adds up to shamans with no mana and tanks dying anyways (or relying on other healers to actually do the healing which is what is going to happen).

The worst part is that dev's are nerfing our talents and none of them have even worked properly yet. :( Ancestral Awakening heals the person with the lowest max health (ie a mage with 7k health [100% health] instead of a warrior with 10k health [70%]). Tidal Waves has a "cast delay" before you get the buff, so the increase in cast speed is basically negated by having to wait for the buff. Spirit Link is still bugged and links to low health pets and casters, nearly killing people along with breaking early as a waste of mana.

Basically, I'm leveling my priest to heal too. lol Well, unless they fix a LOT of stuff with Shaman. :(

...then taking 1.5 seconds out to make sure you have the mana to last the fight is priority?



Looks like the aim is to make shamans, druids and priests fairly balanced as hybrid healers all having a different smart group heal (while pallys get to heal 2 at once people instead of just 1!). I'm feeling quite happy with the priest changes (with holy PVE in mind), though other holy priests are moaning that resto druids will be so OP. Admittedly I don't know how I'd feel as a resto shaman which will have more reliance on crits and procs. Its going to take some time and big changes will continue to be made after the expansion pack is released, I'm sure resto shamans will be sorted out sooner or later.