Like I've written in the past, I know some of you are waiting for some serious and well thought out comments on Death Knights. We all know Death Knights multiple issues across the board but I wanted to do a blog on Shamans because I think they are much worse off than other classes. Death Knights in the grand scheme aren't really that bad off because their problems are mostly because of the conversion from Catacylsm talents to MoP talents and overall they still match how the class is designed. The Shaman MoP talent design doesn't even match the class design.
When I study the Shaman talents, I look at them specifically from a Restoration point of view. I've been raiding on a Restoration Shaman since mid June of last year. I've done most of the heroic modes during Catacylsm and I have experienced why Ragnaros or Baleroc are considered the bane of Restoration Shamans while a fight like Chimeron is the shining moment.
This expansion was rather weird for Restoration. During Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, Shamans shined as Chain Heal provided many advantages on several encounters.
With the addition of Healing Rain, Shamans became even more dependent on positional healing. Shamans are great healing targets that are relatively close together. But most boss mechanics discourage players from clumping up. This can force Shamans into what I have called "Paladin-mode." We try to heal like Paladins without any of the bonuses and benefits of being a Paladin, such as Beacon of Light.
I have also spent time playing as Elemental on many heroic modes. I'm not the best Elemental Shaman but I think I can speak from that point of view as well.
With this in mind, lets take a look at Shaman talents and we can start by discussing the "must have" talents.
On Tier 45, 75, and 90, there are easy to pick must have talents. Here is a break down of each tier and why.
On Tier 45, Shamans will by default take Call of the Elements:
Totemic Restoration/Totemic Projection - These would be useful for only for group of players: bad, if they could be considered useful at all. Given the long cooldowns on totems, its much harder to waste a totem. You would have to be pretty bad if you were to drop a Mana Tide Totem then to suddenly drop Healing Stream
Now that totems are more strategic, the talents that supplement them, need to also play into that strategic design. These two talents play on the convenience design where they were fire and forget. These talents are a relic of the Catacylsm Shaman.
On Tier 75, Shamans will take Healing Tide Totem.
Ancestral Guidance is an ineffective cooldown. It turns your abilities into smart heals for ten seconds every two minutes. It only works on direct heals (or damage) so you would only be able to get three to six heals out during the duration of the cooldown. In a six minute encounter, with three uses and optimal rotation, you'll get ~18 smart heals. During that encounter, those 18 smart heals will not really make the difference between success and failure. They'll also be hard to notice with all heals from being cast during the encounter. They will really be no different than Ancestral Awakening is today.
Conductivity is also flawed but for two reasons. First, Elemental and Enhancement aren't going to stop DPS just to cast Healing Rain. Its to much of a DPS loss. For Restoration, it continues to build on the proximity healing that Shamans have in Catacylsm, which has proven to be mostly ineffective with boss and encounter design.
On Tier 90, Restoration Shamans will take Unleashing Fury but this tier is really garbage.
Unleashing Fury is the only talent that affects healing and the other talents aren't really that appealing for DPS. Narrow talents that add to the Elemental Totems or a damage abiltiy that gives a minimal secondary stats should not be level 90 talents.
Now lets get to the tiers with more difficult choices.
Tier 15: Nature's Guardian is a PvP Talent; Its value in PvE will be what it is today: none. Stone Bulwark and Astral Shift will be based on situation and math of individual encounters. The later part is problematic because that shouldn't be a factor in picking talents.
Tier 30: All PvP. Nothing of value for PvE. If they go live as is, I'll just randomly pick one because odds are it wouldn't make a difference.
Tier: 60: This is a math problem tier. People are already parsing out Echo of Elements to a 7% proc rate, while the other two tiers provide 5% haste.That will be put in context of all three specs and one will be picked as optimal.
Now what does this all mean? In my view it adds up to Shamans having pretty bad talents. Unlike other classes, (like Death Knights) these talents don't even have potential to be good. I would just start over with them because they are really bad, don't match the MoP design changes or are math problems.
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