Shaman Healing v.6.0

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil: For Merinna art with me.

Merinna got to go on her first real raid in a long time. And you know what? She sucked.

The problem was that HPS was in the dumps. The raid itself, a normal jaunt into Highmaul, wasn't altogether unsuccessful, but I don't feel that I contributed a great deal towards it. Blizzard has acknowledged that "shaman" as a class is having trouble in their metrics, and that deserves some examination. The bigger problem is that I didn't know how to heal very well anymore.

In my defense, it's been four years since I did any raid healing. Long-time readers will know why that was. Raiding in Warcraft was one of the first things to go, and as the Cataclysm unwound and it became clear that LFRs and LFDs were awful places to try and make friends...or even just be civil... I gave up healing and have been casually blasting things with lightning ever since.

But here I am, four years later, hoping to restart my raid career and it's not starting well. One can moan and complain about the bad balance that Blizzard has created, or one can expect that to be addressed sooner or later and try to come to terms with the new mechanics.

Which do you think I should do?

Healing: Back Then
Shamans were designated raid healers as recently as Wrath of the Lich King. Chain Heal was the tool for topping up large batches of raid members. Shamans almost completely lacked any heal over time mechanic and had a big, slow heal and a small, fast heal to use on individuals. There were healing totems, but back then, you were more likely to place your mana stream totem instead and bolster the entire raid's mana regeneration. Earth Shield is the one shaman healing spell that hasn't changed significantly in all that time, and tanks would remark on how special they felt to get to wear it.

RIP Garrosh Hellscream, Warchief, War Criminal

This is a spoilery sort of article if you haven't worked that out yet.

It is with a relieved heart that we of the Alliance lay former warchief of the Horde, Garrosh Hellscream, to rest. Or, not really to rest, but more to slowly rot away, exposed on the plains of Nagrand after having been electrocuted and squished in a talon of earth by his former mentor and noted orc shaman, Baldy.

Hellscream, a noted war criminal and warchief of the Horde who was overthrown in a recent revolt, had most recently escaped justice in Pandaria using a botched time travel mechanism and is presumed to be at least partly responsible for the recent attacks of the so-called "Iron Horde" on the Blasted Lands of Azeroth. It was these actions that brought together a rare, mixed task force of Alliance and Horde heroes to storm the Dark Portal, protect our world from this new threat, and bring Hellscream to justice.

That Chest and Batgirl

Babs Tarr's new Batgirl costume design includes this key note

Earlier on, while I was going through the new character changes in game, I got stuck considering changes to Merinna's character model that I just hadn't expected. Particularly, the size and shape of her bust.

I went to some of the forums, both the WoW forums and places like WoW Insider and found a few others struggling to put into words, politely, what they felt about what they saw and whether it was something to like, or not.

Finally, I went back in game and using the magical "use new models" switch, I took pictures of the old model and new model Merinna so this can be described better.

Merinna's breasts are flat-out bigger than they were before-- and draenei never lacked for size there in the first place.  They have a big more of a sag and are slightly allowed to splay. I think it is arguable that they are more "natural seeming" like this but I stand by an earlier statement I made on a forum somewhere. It looks like somebody's taken her bra away.

Peaking Under the Hood of the MoP Resto Shaman

Come to think of it, I'm not quite sure where Merinna's hood is.

Hey, did you guys know that "merinna" seems to mean "sailing" in Finnish? Oh the things you'll discover via Google Image Search. I want desperately to put a picture of a newborn Merinna I found at the same time on here, but that's not a nice thing to do. Rest assured, if you Google-search "merinna" you'll get a lot of pictures of sailboats, this oddly big-headed baby, born last month, and your friendly neighborhood shaman.

I miss healing. Because of the strain of the past year and a half and a general dissatisfaction with the model of healing they cooked up for shamans this expansion, it's been a year since I last really healed anybody doing anything. I leveled resto back in the days when everybody had one specc that cost too much money to respec    all that frequently and I healed dungeons all the way up to the level cap.

So that said, I think I might need to get back to my first profession because ...

The Good Things - 

No major tools are being taken away - Of course, Blizzard doesn't really much take spells out of the game, but they do things like change the mana costs to make something ineffective in their "vision" for that class. My first take on the major spells a healing shaman needs suggests that everything is on the table. For now. 

Shaman 5.0 - Things to Change

Just imagine there was a Belf Paladin being engulfed by this Lava Burst.
What wondrous colors there would be!  The sound it makes when it smacks 
into something (like a Belf!) is fantastic too! This makes Lava Burst great.

One can imagine that some bells and whistles of WoW 5.0 are hitting the drawing board, if not already into full-scale development. Actually, that may not really be the case. Patch 4.3 is lurking out there somewhere just beyond the horizon and I'm betting the devs are picking at class balance like an itchy scab. Either way, it's again time to look at what needs to change.

A caveat to this shaman discussion:  I, still, have never played enhancement. I do have a goblin in her mid-40s I think out there somwehere who hits things with hammers and daggers and knows what to do with a "maelstrom weapon." But that surely does not count for a decent end-game discussion. So, I won't even try and pretend that I know what I'm talking about with that specc.

Fix Earthquake or get rid of it.
This is a broken concept for a spell-- broken by changing developer attitudes about what constitutes "fun."  Can you believe that this thing has only been around since the beginning of Cataclysm? And yet, as an effect, it makes so much sense for a shaman to be wielding it. How did it get broken so badly?

Initially, it was a simple, channeled AoE spell, not unlike a mage's Blizzard. You picked a spot on the floor, you cast the spell, you stood there waving your arms in the air for a bit while the ground pitched, heaved, sometimes threw mobs onto the ground and hurt them.  The original graphic for this was undeniably a bunch of shaking earth, but it did look a little hokey.

Random 4.2 Thoughts

Now, all can quiver with jealousy at my Cenarion Hatchling in the WoW Armory

Ugh!  Malfurion Stormrage and Thrall being BFFs on the slopes of Mt. Hyjal.

Mal:  Oh, young Thrall. I sense a great change in you! You have accomplished much since last we met!
Thrall:  Master Stormrage, it is good to have you in the waking world again.

Here's how that conversation should have really gone:

Mal:  Oh, young Thrall. WTF are all your #$%@ing orcs doing in Ashenvale. Why, I oughta ...
Thrall: Master Stormrage, I'm not sure what you mean, I've been kinda busy at the Maelstrom for a few months now, y'know, holding up the world and all.
Mal:  Real men don't make excuses, you green-skin punk. Have you been to Ashenvale at all recently?
Thrall: Well, no ...
Mal: Didn't you know your boy Garrosh was going ape$%#t all over the place there?
Thrall: Um...
Mal: [calls down some moonfire on Thrall's head] Did you even stop to think about what happened the last time you left a Hellscream in charge of something?  He killed Cenarius!  And by the way, i wouldn''t go down to the Shrine of Malorne, Cenarius is there now and really isn't into the whole "forgive and forget" thing. You may be the "World-Shaman" or whatever, but even that tosser Fandral is going to kick your ass here in another minute. Cenarius, he'll kill you, and then he'll go to work on you.
Thrall: Yeah, about that... you know, it wasn't really Grom who did that it was the vile demon Mano...
Mal: [drops more moonfire on Thralls' head] What did I just say about excuses?
Thrall: ...

Where's the Mana at?

Three Faces of Merinna: Hardcore, Hardcorer, Hardcorest

Well, gentle readers, we are but three weeks away from The Cataclysm. And I have been confused about mana. Like, "Why am I not running out of it?"

Individual heals still seem slower and somewhat weaker, but those "mana problems" I've been writing about did not materialize in 4.0.1. I played like I will on day one of Cataclysm and was healing more conservatively than was necessary and, ahem, not getting the job done.

But really, I've been reading Elitist Jerks and other blogs about these problems and I'm not the only one who has come to see our Healing Surge as too expensive to use on anything less than an emergency. Nevertheless, one can spam it for all it's worth in heroic ICC fights today and still come up smelling like roses. Telluric Currents is fooling people into thinking it's useful because it actually returns mana. Why? How is this happening?

Jesus Christ was a Shaman!

The biggest thing we have in common: We both have the power to blow yo' mind!

Please don't get offended at me for the comparison. There is no disrespect intended towards anyone or anyone's beliefs. I just get a smile on my face when I think about stuff like this. What would George Bush be if he were in WoW? A ret paladin if you ask me (and probably a Belf, too). Barack Obama? A warrior tank. How about Julia Roberts? I think she'd roll a Night Elf Hunter--a little exotic, but still just a hunter. 

But what about the big man, JC himself? 

A shaman. Totally. Just like me and William Shatner.

Let's do the list!

• Cure Disease?               Check
• Drive out evil spirits?   Check
• Walk on water?             Check*
• A spiritual leader of the people?         Check
• Cause people to rise from the dead?   Check
• Cause oneself to rise from the dead?  You know it, baby!

*Levitate is not the same thing, so priests can go levitate off a cliff if they want to raise that point. Death knights, don't even get started that Path of Frost makes you Christ-like.

Visiting the Throne of Tides

I broke down and took Merinna to her first dungeon finally. My curiosity about the challenge level of new healing mechanics got the better of me and i just had to go see for myself. It was certainly...an educational experience. I'll write healing specific observations in another post, since I have a lot to note about that

The biggest impression I got from The Throne of Tides was how utterly tiny it is. Minuscule. Itty-bitty. There's a hallway with an elevator at the end that leads to ... another hallway. You meet the first boss at the end of that second hallway and additional bosses appear as you make your way back to the entrance. The hallway peeks out into a larger watery world, but the place still feels a bit claustrophobic. Truthfully, it seemed a little like the elevator is only there to provide the impression that the environmental artists had something to do.

/Snap

Mer is riding the shark, not jumping it! Riding it!

So, You Think You Can Dance? (part 2)

Back in this post over here, I tried to suggest that raiding is a lot like dancing. Please feel free to go check it out if you didn't have the opportunity before!  I'm very proud of that one.

But in order to get this piece rolling, I need sum that one up a little: You have got to mind the choreography of the raid to be able to accomplish anything, and thinking about it as a dance helps me a lot.

I want to take that analogy a little deeper though.  In addition to keeping up with the choreography, you need to be on top of you own rhythm.

Seahorse!

Actually, I'll write more posts as soon as
I stop having fun riding my new sea horsey
all over Vashj'ir.

I couldn't take it anymore and sent Merinna into new territory and have brought her to level 82. There has been so much forum discussion about how much the healing mechanics are changing that I had to go see for myself. So, expect some up-coming posts about the new content after all.

My first impressions of the undersea realm of Vashj'ir: The zone is pretty honking huge. And it is layered and very vertical. This makes it a little tricky to find things since what you are looking for might be on the sea bottom, or it might be sitting on one of the four ledges that jut out over your head. So a little patience is required.  You do get some help in navigating, however: Merinna's sea horse there is a full blown new mount (that only works in Vashj'ir) but you can jump on him and move about at epic-flying like speeds. And you get that sea horse in the first 10 quests or so.

You also have the fairly well documented "Sea Legs" spell which allows you to skip across the sea floor at a semi-normal speed.

The first few areas that you go through don't look terribly exciting really. There is sea bottom, and a fair number of shipwrecks. But as you go deeper into the realm, much more incredible things rise up out of the murk to surprise you. So, the whole place is well worth exploring!

Is Flintlocke in the Game?!?

Merinna was at Stormwind Harbor, looking for a way to return to Vashj-ir and not finding much of anything, when something caught my eye:

A plane. It is one of these typical "plane" models that we have seen flying all over Northrend for a while now: Mostly yellow with orange highlights. But these things have only been on rails to date. You get in one at Valguard and it takes you to an Explorer's league outpost. Or, you fly around in one for various reasons in Icecrown.  But here was one flying into Stormwind. And, um, flying badly.

I tried to click on it to see what it was, but it would fall and then climb again. Really, it was behaving like somebody experiencing lag on a mount. But I finally got my cursor on it and targetted and then I checked my raid panels to see what it was:

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.

New Glyphs

The gylph artwork might benefit from a lil more variety too.

In the most recent beta build, the new glyph system came online.

Most of the details about this are pretty well documented and haven't varied much from what was advertised.

• There are three levels of glyphs: major, minor, and prime
• If you go down to the AH and buy a glyph, you read it once and then you know it for all time. You will never need to buy another.
• The Glyph UI system lists every glyph you could possibly use, but lights up the glyphs you have learned. So, it is possible to be very specific about what you can use and what you need to complete your glyph collection.
• You can change any of your glyphs at any time, in any place, so long as you are not in combat.

Some of the details are becoming more apparent, however, as we look at the system:

• Minor glyphs are just what they always were, fun, cosmetic, mosly inconsequential.
• Major glyphs seem to be existing for talent abilities (not trained abilities) and a variety of utility abilities. All of these are along the lines of reducing cooldowns, making a range a bit further, things like that.
• The Prime glyphs are where the dps is at (or bigger heals, or whatever). All of these glyphs are crit increases, an extra percent of damage, or a longer DoT effect.

Gimme some Mana Back!

I shall make no doubt about this: Merinna is a restoration shaman. I levelled this char from the very beginning as resto (long before I realized how difficult that could be). Whenever new patch notes come out, or the big changes are announced, I always skip past everything else to read the shaman-- the resto shaman-- section first.

Once it became an option, I dual-specced elemental, which has been fun too. But at the bottom of it all, Merinna's mission in life is to spread life, to a tank or whoever else may need it inside a raid group.

So, bearing in mind that I barely know what I'm talking about outside of healing and chucking lightning at things from time to time, when it comes time to really examining class dynamics, I probably will not stray too far from where I feel at home :D

I think it is a little hard to talk about this stuff without it sounding a lot like QQ. I think most players want everything about their class to stay exactly the same as it was, with a few buffs of course to make what they are already doing more mighty. Especially this time around as the Cataclysm is coming, the developers have definitely come up with new ideas about all this. So it's up to us to adapt as best we can.

So let's talk about ways to get mana return!

Flying in the Cities

Mer can do this because she is just That Good.

Flying has come to Azeroth. Long live the flying mount! Presently, there is nowhere that you cannot fly in Azeroth. You can fly over your cities. You can fly over the Horde cities. You can fly into the Auction House or the bank... or any other building there is.

Above, you can see Merinna in the Undercity where she flew down the back entrance completely unopposed. (she got out with no difficulty either). This raises issues: