Skills for resto in WotlkFollow

Since I didn't see threat for this (beside the glypth one) I think we can add this info here. Some information about skills in Wotlk.
Link
One that was suprising me is the water shield. You get water shield at level 20 instead of 62. I think it's huge help for leveling since you will have less down time and more bashing.

How about some agro dumb you get at lvl 16:
"Instantly blasts the target with a gust of wind, causing no damage but lowering your threat, making the enemy less likely to attack you, and interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec sec.
8% of base mana, 20 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown"

Things are about to change a lot again and I think I will take a break from wow for few weeks to play Diablo 3 and come back when servers are not crashing due to too many people doing same things ;)


Edited, Sep 4th 2008 1:52pm by Causa

I also happen to like (well who doesn't) that water shield crit procc. When they seem to push us in crit healing anyway. That's quite nice mp/5 added.

Also if these talents are going to stay, that Tidal Wave + Spirit link is bringing us perhaps some "[spirit link]+[chain heal] + 3x [healing wave]" -roration or some possibility to use it in that way.

There will be terrible amount of things to learn again and then there are going to be terrible amount of people who dont learn these at all. Try not to freak out when it happens. They are there to amuse them selfs.

Actually, I think Blizzard is trying to get away from "stacking" altogether for the most part. The introduction of haste was just one step in that direction. By diversifying talents, mechanics, and gear options for every class, not just for Shaman, Blizzard seems to be trying to get away from the BC gear grind of focusing on just one or two stats to the exclusion of all else. DoT's are starting to crit, encouraging Warlocks of all specs to start looking for crit in addition to spell damage and stamina. (I realize that is also the case now, but only for end-game raiding Destruction Warlocks. Demo and Affliction ***** spell damage and stamina to the exclusion of all else.) Tanks are going to really be loading up on strength and actually caring about damage in addition to defense, shield block, and parry. You can paraphrase a lot of the blue posts to infer that they want to keep any one stat from reaching an absurdly high value, a point they repeatedly hammer home when talking about the vision for tanks.

Unless Imp. Water Shield really provides an astounding amount of MP5, in which case I would be willing to bet that Blizzard will change it, I think Resto Shaman are going to be shooting for roughly equal parts crit and MP5 after healing. We look to really need all three to make the most out of our spec in WotLK.

I keep getting my math screwed up, so I'm afraid I can't really show it in hard numbers, but as you said, it's going to take a ridiculous amount of crit in order to make that talent compete with straigth MP/5. You also have to spend an inordinant amount of mana casting HW's in order to get that MP/5 back as such that you're not gaining anything back, you're just losing less than you would have if you chain-cast HW or LHW without the talent. As it is, you really shouldn't think of Improved Water Shield as an alternate source of MP/5, but rather as a cost reduction talent for HW and LHW.


There will be a new rank of Chain Heal. They've said as much themselves, it just hasn't shown up yet. Beyond that, does Chain Heal even need any more new tricks?


I think the entire point is to allow us (or force us, depending on your PoV) to cast a broader range of spells. Blizzard has hammered home time and time again that they want to move away from the specialization-fest that was TBC. It's practically their mantra for WotLK. We should be going into encounters casting what heals when and where they need to be, not just downloading a mod and spamming auto-adjusted Chain Heals or single-target heals. Everything shouldn't be based on raw statastics.

And by the way, you and I and every other Resto Shaman had better hope that they figure it out and make it work, because Priests are looking to destroy us in AoE/raid healing in WotLK. Instead of the best raid healing class (Priests) or the best single-target healing class (Paladins), we are going to have to carve a niche for ourself in between the two lest we fade into obscurity.

Edited, Sep 6th 2008 10:02pm by Gaudion

I think I failed at iterating it in my last post, but I think Blizzard wants to pull us and every other spec/class out of niches. Instead of, "Can you raid heal?" or, "Can you single target heal?" Blizzard wants the question to be simply, "Can you heal?" Likewise, they don't want specific abilities coming into question. Instead of, "Let's take the Shaman, he's got Spirit Link and Earth Shield and Chain Heal," it should be just, "We need another healer and there's a Resto Shaman looking. Grab him."

That's why they homogenized buffs and gave so many classes new buffs and abilities that overlapped with other class' old buffs and abilities. They want parties and raids to be based on who your friends are, who your guildmates are, who's online right now. They want to get away from "We have to have a Prot Pally to tank this fight," or "We have to have at least three Resto Shaman to raid heal this fight." At the end of it all, the decision should be made entirely on the quality of the player's skill, gear, and relationship to the rest of the party or raid.

That's the ideal, anyways. Again, whether or not they can actually pull it off remains to be seen. I doubt I have much more faith in it than you do, though I have little choice but to hope for that utopian expansion.


You're still thinking in terms of time. What I was trying to get at here was quantity. If you have 200 MP/5 on your gear, you regen 200 MP/5. If you go five seconds without casting, that mana is yours to keep. If you have the Imp. Water Shield talent though, and you spend 800 MP on a HW that nets you 250 MP from the crit, you've just regened -550 MP. Do you see what I'm getting at? It's not really MP/5 at all. It's more like cost reduction. If I don't cast a spell--if I don't spend mana to begin with--I don't regen anything. It's still very useful for longevity in much the same way that crit is useful for Elemental Shaman, and there is still an early window there where reduction > regen (as there always has been), but in general it's better thought of as a compliment to MP/5, not a substitute. If you're spending less mana per minute then your MP/5 is giving you just that much more mana back and your mana pool as a whole will stretch just that much further.

Edited, Sep 8th 2008 8:23am by Gaudion