I wanted to write a full series about the topic of shaman talent tree changes. Handling the earlier articles as baseline, meaning that this restoration tree will adhere to the changed enhancement and elemental trees, not to the current ones.
Please note that this is only theorycrafting, nothing more. No actual suggestion.
Earlier articles:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13534
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=13541
Recreating these talent trees is a unique challenge. Enhancement forces people to create a tree which can turn you both into a valid melee DPS and a functional tank. Elemental is very interesting - you meddle with a class which is extremely strong at PVP (30/0/21) but is lacking at PVE. The challenge there is to buff the class at PVE without further pushing them at PVP.
However, restoration is the hardest of them all. The below topic will handle the shaman builds as they currently exist to explain the design problems we currently see. At raiding, shamans benefit from the fact that most of their utility is passive. You put down a totem and while the buff/cleansing/whatever is ongoing, you can do other things. The first question is what you do in the time when your passive utility (like WF+ strength) is already down. The second question is if all talent trees have the same amount of utility. After all, shamans are mostly defined by the utility they bring.
1. In the down time:
* The elemental shaman would do big single target damage but he overthreats so easily that he needs to hold back. Ends up with average DPS.
* The enhancement shaman either spams shock-auto-attack-stormstrike or does the same alongside with totem twisting. The latter type accepts the fact that whatever he does, his DPS will be bad so at least he tries to pump the others as much as possible.
* The restoration shaman spams the best healing spell in Vanilla and if mana is not a problem (consumables+gear) they are usually top healers.
So, the question is what you want to do as a shaman in a raid environment:
* Holding yourself back 60% of the time to stop pulling from tank while complaining if any mob has some nature resistance.
* Being a bad DPS with added melee utility + bloodlust.
* Being a dámn good healer.
Most players (and guilds) choose the 3rd option.
Now, to the 2nd question:
Do the different builds have the same utility? Shamans are mostly defined by their utility after all.
The answer is almost yes.
* Elemental realistically brings nothing unique utility-wise.
* Enhancement does. In the current talent tree he makes the strength and agility totems slightly better, windfury totem having a damage bonus for WF proc hits and it also has bloodlust. You can argue that stormstrike debuff is a nature utility, too but it's so insignificant that people don't really mention it.
* Restoration also has some. The tree provides a better wipe-protection and a way for the party to regenerate mana on a 5 min CD. However, it is a weak one. I've seen many raid parties put together with the agenda of mana regen and never seen a shaman being considered in those parties because of mana tide. 1) the effect is a bit weak 2) the CD is big.
In short: For optimizing the tools a shaman can provide during raiding, the shaman has to behave as a healer (to spam chain heals) while going deep into the enhancement tree for optimized utility (wipe protection talent is easily accessible even if you are 31 talents deep into enhancement).
This leads to the main dilemma for the restoration shamans: shaman base set, if used as a healer is so strong that even if you give up on half of the restoration talent tree, you'll barely feel the difference (main loss is the lack of nature's swiftness). Resto is already an A+ tier raiding pick, so the talent tree should be revamped with extreme care, while most of the build's strength is coming from the baseline talents. You have to tweak the talent tree in a way that you don't break PVE resto while making the tree good enough so that shamans who want to heal still go deep into the restoration talent tree.
One thing I have done to combat this when writing these articles is making bloodlust only castable on yourself. Currently half of the shamans give up most of the restoration tree mostly for that one ability. With this change there is way less reason to do so. In an optimal world I'd just lock chain heal behind the restoration talent tree but in these articles I am restricted - no fundamental changes regarding baseline abilities, only changing them via a talent. But further buffing chain heal is a foolish idea.
So the challenge here is to make the restoration talent tree interesting and meaningful without really pushing the build further.
Changes I've done in the previous threads affecting restoration shamans, too:
* Improved ghost wolf is now baseline and becomes a spell at level 60 for each shaman.
* Totem-twisting is disabled.
* Searing totem only shoots at targets which are being actively damaged by a party member.
Change I promised in the elemental article for PVP balance reasons:
* Moving nature's swiftness deeper into the talent tree, making the 30/0/21 PVP build impossible.
Change I make now:
* Capping the normal (spirit-based) mana and life regeneration rate while casting/during melee at 50%.
Restoration strengths in PVE:
* Has a spammable 'clever heal' which affects 3 targets with a reasonable casting time. Having T2 3 set bonus makes it OP and having T2,5 5 set bonus alongside it makes it very strong and very fast to cast at the same time.
* Huge utility, mostly for a melee party.
* Good wipe-protection.
* Bulkier than an average healer. Can take some hits.
* Has an instant heal on CD allowing huge burst healing.
* Can help with interrupts (rarely relevant).
Restoration weaknesses in PVE:
* Bad mana management. Sub-par mana totems and a weak talent adding 5% more mana. However, this problem was mostly solved with the added 5% mana regeneration allowed while casting items and with the tea.
* Bad sustained single target healing. Mana effective single target heal is slow, fast heal is very mana intensive.
* Boring gameplay. You put down the totems and chain heal 90% of the time. Only question is the rank of the chain heal you decide to choose.
I am not willing to change the tree by making restoration shamans good at single target healing. Every build should have strengths and weaknesses to keep things unique and interesting. You don't assign holy paladins to raid-healing duty, you don't want your shaman as a tank healer in long fights. It is fine this way. I will reward restos when using single target heals under certain circumstances but I have no intention to make them jacks of all trades, master of all.
Change I made earlier affecting the restoration talent tree:
* Nature's guidance was removed from the tree. Let's be honest, it's an enhancementn talent with elemental characteristics.
How I'd change the tree:
1st row - It is good as it is. No meddling needed.
Current 2nd row:
* Improved reincarnartion (2): Reincarnation CD reduced by 20 minutes and +20% health and mana granted additionally upon rebirth.
* Nature's guidance (3): Melee and spell hit chance +3%.
* Totemic focus (5): Reduced totem cost by 25%.
There is one thing which needs to be mentioned here. Shaman's bad mana management partially comes from the lack of good mana-maintenance talents. Partially. The other part is the totems. You not only start every encounter by spamming them spending some mana, you also make the time duration of your full spirit mana regeneration shorter because you are forced to spend mana when pulling. Totem usage should feel less punishing. TWOW Team has added totemic recall which somewhat helps. Somewhat.
New 2nd row:
* Improved reincarnartion (2): Reincarnation CD reduced by 20 minutes and +20% health and mana granted additionally upon rebirth.
* Healing way (3): Healing wave AND lesser healing wave spells make the subsequent healing waves and subsequent healing waves 6% stronger on the same target for 15 sec. Stacking up to 3 times.
* Tidal mastery (5): +5% crit for healing spells.
Healing way can be a very good tool for leveling since dungeons only have one healer, so healers perform all roles. Also, added lesser healing wave to the spells affected by healing way so the talent can remain usable at raiding (if a tank's HP drops really fast, you can emergency lesser healing wave more effectively).
Tidal mastery is a big nerf for elemental shamans but I compensate them within their own tree. Now tidal mastery really feels like a resto talent. Since the talent got weaker, I felt comfortable to put it earlier in the talent tree.
Current 3rd row:
* Ancestral healing (3): Healing spell crits give +25% armor for the target for 15 sec.
* Healing focus (5): 70% chance to avoid damage interruption while casting a healing spell.
* Totemic mastery (1): Totem radius affecting friendly targets increased to 30 yards.
* Healing grace (3): Reduced threat generated by healing spells by 15%.
Healing focus is a travesty. Priests have the same talent. Same name, same effect. Requires 2 talent points. I'll free up 3 talent points here to keep things fair.
Buffing totemic mastery. If the area of effect of totems increase then you don't have to resummon them if the party only moves a bit.
New 3rd row:
* Ancestral healing (greatly changed) (2): When your mana pool goes below 50%, you receive a buff which decreases the mana cost of your single target healing spells by 30% for 5 sec. Can only happen once every minute.
* Healing focus (2): 70% chance to avoid damage interruption while casting a healing spell.
* Totemic mastery (1): Totem radius affecting friendly targets increased to 40 yards.
* Healing grace (3): Reduced threat generated by healing spells by 15%.
Further teasing the resto shamans to use some single target healing now and then. Now they can be a very mana effective choice after a healing crit.
Current 4th row:
* Restorative totems (5): +25% effectiveness for mana spring totem and healing stream totem.
* Tidal mastery (5): +5% for healing and lightning spells.
Restorative totems is a joke. Healing stream totem would need to be affected by your current +healing to be somewhat viable.
Tidal mastery is very good. Maybe too good. Helps ele way too much. I want to help ele in its respective tree.
New 4th row:
* Restorative totem (5): Gives the shaman the curing river totem (water type). Curing river totem allows 10% (2,4,6,8,10) of the party's mana and health to regenerate normally while casting/in combat.
* Totemic focus (5): Reduces totem cost by 30%.
* Benign waves (2): A healing spell crit puts a buff on you. Your next single-target healing spell consumes the buff and is being casted 50% faster.
This change would be interesting. It gives the shaman a mana regeneration tool while making it also a party utility. Shamans could have the best of both worlds by merging these totems since having wf duty in a tank group requires the health regen to be used while the mana regen is needed for the shaman to manage mana. I'm okay with putting this onto the 4th row because at leveling, without the required items and stats, this totem will not feel too strong. It wouldn't mean a sudden power spike for resto shamans. Important to note: I capped health and mana regen while casting/in combat at 50% to avoid exploiting the stat.[/b]
Made totemic focus a bit better.
Benign waves further teases resto shamans to include single target healing in their raid rotation. Now those heals are not only mana efficient but they can be really fast, too.
Current 5th row:
* Healing way (3): Healing waves make the subsequent healing waves 6% stronger on the same target for 15 sec. Stacking up to 3 times.
* Nature's swiftness (1): Your next nature spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes instant. 3 min CD.
I've already used up healing way and I promised to put nature's swiftness deeper. This row will be different.
New 5th row:
* Purification (5): +10 effectiveness to healing spells.
* Improved totemic recall (1): Increases the mana you get back via totemic recall by 15%.
Instead of the current 5th row, moved purification up by 1 row.
Improved totemic recall is an added tool for restoration shamans to manage their mana.
Current 6th row:
* Purification (5): +10 effectiveness to healing spells.
New 6th row:
* Hasty winds (5): Your healing crits have a 100% chance to give the (primary) target 10% haste for 10 sec. Not stackable.
Introduced hasty winds to give a unique utility for resto shamans: giving haste with spell crits.
Current 7th row:
* Mana tide totem: A 5 min CD totem giving the party (a few amount of) mana.
Very underwhelming. Also, the restorative totems talent made it even less relevant. Shamans always love some mana but this is not the way.
New 7th row:
* Nature's swiftness (1): Your next nature spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes instant. 2 min CD.
Moving nature's swiftness this down prevents elementals from abusing it. The other option was to make nature's swiftness only work on healing spells but I want to keep it this way for the occassions when resto shamans need some damage output (outside world or times of big pumping for example).
In exchange, reduced its CD by 1 minute.
I have removed both ancestral knowledge and mana tide totem. In exchange the restoration shamans' totems got somewhat cheaper and they also received a new water totem allowing passive mana and health regeneration. Shamans can learn/master this totem from level 30-35. I think it is fair to let them rely on tidal focus for in-talent mana management until then.
How does this kind of resto compare to the original one?
* Better sustained mana regeneration totem but no big mana regeneration totem spike.
* Slightly smaller mana pool.
* No totem twisting.
* Using single target healing more frequently, being rewarded for a wider usage of spells.
* Mana management linked to cheaper totems, x% normal mana regen while casting mechanics and rewards from single-target heals.
* Losing the ability to give armor to the healing targets.
* Gaining the ability to give haste to the healing targets.
* Smaller offensive output because of -5% lightning spell crit chance.
* Totems need to be summoned more rarely, they have a wider range now.
About restorative totem
I'm somewhat inclined to make the mana regen and the health regen totem two separate entities for balance reasons. However, resto shamans rely on the mana regen totem to sustain mana and they find themselves frequently in a tank/melee group at raids which would force them to give up their mana regen to give the party health regen (if we follow these changes). That would lead to annoying situations, this is why I merged the two totems.
Would it break PVE?
I don't think so. The shaman's bad mana management is currently mostly solved via outside sources (tea, specific custom items, a nearby arcane mage etc). My changes would help here while also removing some currently existing tools (ancestral knowledge, mana tide totem). The main difference would be that shamans would be considered a mana regeneration utility in groups which need that. This was supposed to be the case with mana tide totem but it didn't happen. This change just gives the shamans a role they are supposed to have even now (but mana tide totem is too underwhelming).
In PVE raiding, shamans heal with chain heal at least 90% of the time. Buffing single target heals opens up the door for a rotation but it is not strictly superior to spamming chain heals. Main difference is giving haste instead of armor after healing crits.
Resto shamans can instant cast a bit more frequently but I don't think that nature's swiftness with a 2 min CD is broken.
Would guilds want a resto shaman?
Yes. Guilds love chain heal. Guilds love windfury totem. Also, haste and passive mana/health regen during a fight are very nice utilities. Restoration shamans will always be wanted in a Vanilla+ interface.
