New Beta Build, New Shaman Changes

A new Beta build with many many talent changes has come out. Of course I skipped past everything to see the shaman's restoration tree: (please pardon my attempt to make "blue text" like what the developers always post with. I started trying to work it out with a stylesheet and then didn't really get close and just gave up. You can sill read it just fine).

Tidal Waves no longer affects Lesser Healing Wave. Now affects Healing Surge.

Improved Water Shield no longer affects Lesser Healing Wave. Now affects Healing Surge.

Okay, but what is Healing Surge? Meh, it's just LHW with a new name. I'm not sure why they bothered. All this means is that I have to change a few macros..

Telluric Currents is now a Tier 5 talent, down from Tier 6.
Improved Cleanse Spirit now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 5.
Nature's Blessing is now a Tier 3 talent, down from Tier 5.
Nature's Guardian is now a Tier 2 talent, down from Tier 4.

Moving all this stuff down the tree is making a leaner, meaner healing tree, I think. The reviled Telluric Currents is still nicely marginalized with other talents you can take in its new tier. So is Nature's Guardian. But a lot of the talent choices feel easier than they did before.

Improved Chain Heal is gone.

Ok, this is one of those talents that affected just one spell which is one of those things the developers set out to get rid of. It was always going bye-bye. But I'm missing the part where they improved the base healing of Chain Heal by 20%. Oh wait... it's not there. Ach. What a nerf. Ghostcrawler! You rotten nerfing creep!

Restorative Totems renamed to Soothing Rains - Increases the amount healed by your Healing Stream Totem by 25%, and your Healing Rain spell by 15/30%.

Hmm. I see the buff to Healing Rain as a pretty decent thing. But, they have cut the bonus to the Healing Stream Totem in half, and they have completely removed the bonus effects to Mana Stream Totem. Overall, this one is a loss.

Blessing of the Eternals is now a Tier 6 talent, up from Tier 4. No longer increases the critical chance of your spells.

Boo! Moving tiers is a non-issue, but healing crits are good! Why do we want less of those?

Ancestral Awakening is now a Tier 5 talent, up from Tier 3.

What they don't say here but what you will see on the talent calculators is that there is now an arrow from Ancestral Healing to Ancestral Awakening, meaning that you have to take Healing in order to get Awakening.

Overall, the tree seems a bit leaner and more hardercore than before. Something I generally welcome.

For AoE healing, they nerfed chain heal somewhat and put that buff on Healing Rain. It seems to me that the developers are probably trying to place each of these spells into specifically different situational niches. I think that might take a little getting used to. Chain Heal has been my BFF for a long, long time now.

They're not kidding about trying to make mana more of a scarce commodity! They increase spell costs, fiddle with some of our previously better MPH choices so they aren't what they used to be. And they nerf our regeneration abilities. In concept, it feels like a 1-2-3 punch to the stomach right now. It's getting increasingly hard for me to leave Merinna sitting in Stormwind and not leveling a bit to really try this stuff out in the dungeons.