I dont usually indulge myself in streamer videos, but this guy brought my attention:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmQsbsg2ysY
So apparently we are getting less CDs, which is really good IMO. But also less buttons to press. Not sure how to feel about this.
Lets discuss !
Let the pointless arguing begin… GO!
Might be a tad too early to discuss but as a prevoker main, while video is quite nice, once you read into all the changes in wow head, I am quite fine with the changes (again only speaking about prevoker). Spiritbloom is removed and instead replaces one of your skills when you get merithra’s blessings, etc. Also it’s healing is increased. From what I read, at least for prevoker, we will still have a burst heal window yet less often, with less button clutter…
Now it’s a gamble for both pve and pvp. For pvp we are getting less healing and less cc, so if dps isn’t kept in a check it can easily just turn into–BURST-FEST
for pve they are removing addons (while I haven’t been using any addons, due to sticking to heoric raiding max in the last xpack), I can see there being quite a jump in difficulty if they do not stop making bosses/pve difficulty in accordance with addons.
I just hope they don’t end up simplifying it so much it turns into a snoozefest to play healer. I will watch the video tomorrow, currently on a night shift.
Reposting the link for you.
I happily trade my defensive power as a dps for less spiky and one shotty dmg.
I just hope the combined changes (less defensive cds, less healing cds and less spike dmg) make the experience better for all roles.
Bad as resto shaman i play it because i have access to many buttons not less buttons, pruning abilities is a big no no.
You are just catering to the less skilled players which are like 0,1% anyway.
Sounds like it will be less about cooldown rotation management and more about triage and DPS’ing in down time. Which, imo, is a good thing.
With that said, i did not like that they removed cloudburst totem and left the boring healing stream one in. I don’t get that. Cloudburst is so much more fun to use and they just had to build up a filling up the button animation on the default UI for it or make visibly different animations on the totem the fuller it is.
But, given that they changed ancestors to healing stream, i suppose it does not work with the current design unless there is only 1 charge of said totems at a time.
Obviously I’ll speak as a casual Resto Shaman, since I only have experience with other healers in levelling content.
I wanted a different type of simplification, not the one they are doing 
The next part is not healer-specific, but it can apply to healers as well:
It would also be ideal if they countered the notion of cooldown-stacking. I understand why it exists, but I dislike the multiplicative effect it has. If CooldownA gives me 30% buff for 10seconds and CooldownB gives me 30% buff for another 10seconds, then using them one after the other gives me 30% buff for 20seconds, while using them together gives me 69% buff for 10 seconds, which is a 9% benefit over the former case. The amounts of cooldowns we have and their frequency creates balancing issues, but removing cooldowns is not the correct design decision.
I hate Cloudburst Totem and think it’s great that it’s being removed. Min-maxing it requires weird game-play like blasting heals into someone with Riptide and Earth Shield even when that target is full health just to load up the CBT for a big group heal in a few seconds. Having to create raid reminders for that, for every boss, is way too much work.
I’m happy with the direction that Blizz is going with the Midnight class changes. WoW is super bloated and convoluted, so it’s good that stuff is getting pruned and made more intuitive.
We currently don’t make that choice at all though, because in M+ we only use Healing Surge, because mana is no issue, and in raid with the Whispering Wave build, we only use Healing Wave because it has synergies with the build.
Blizz needs to look into mana and either remove it completely for all healers or make it relevant for all healers. And what’s the purpose of mana? Should all healers have an “economy mode” heal like Healing Wave or should they regenerate mana quickly enough while DPSing, so that they shouldn’t ever run OOM?
I dont agree. I like CB totem and I think is really useful. Given that we will STILL lack an external. And with out it, shaman is just a 3 spell healer, Vanilla style… which is not good IMO.
And another change I dislike is this thing blizzard has with Healing Rain. I would simply ditch it compelty for Farseer. The gameplay this season with out HR is simply great. They should capitalize on that.
The change I like the most in shaman is getting rid of Heling Surge/Healing Wave. It is annoying that we have 2 spells that practically do the same thing.
But I agree. Get rid of mana. Or atleast, 10x the out of combat regen so it’s not such a pain to sit and drink in M+.
Or… maybe they should end the debate with healer DPS once and for all: All healers get a way to regen mana with DPS. DONE.
That’s a spec design issue. Having the ability to focus on a few abilities with talent choices should not just make the rest of the abilities useless, just more situational to use.
YES!
NO!
I find too many healers whining over an alpha snipet, which surely will change 589 times before the final outcome.
I hope they change it drastically from the current healing gameplay and make it more like it was in MoP/BFA; where you DID move health bars but not in an instant and you had more than 0.2 seconds to react (pref 2 seconds) before someone dies.
More heals should also incorporate passive mitigation to keep up with their stupid M+ scaling- and hopefully that landscape changes too now with the death of addons.
All in all I REALLY hope they give back the healer playstyle and move away from whack-a-mole. No wonder leas and less people are picking up healers the farther in we go. 
If that was the goal, all they need to do is nerf the power of healer CDs and player defensive CDs. It has nothing to do with pruning abilities though.
I am mostly concerned about the infinite scaling of M+. They can nerf us all they want. They can make the damage less and less bursty and remove button bloat…
But in M+ the problem will remain: AoE + “fire bolt” == dead. If you cant see who is being targeted by that “fire bolt” you cant do anything about it. Unlike today, where you can atleast top that person up with a big heal in 0.2s and prevent the death.
This just forces Blizzard to make damage bigger and burstier. To give us a challenge. Otherwise healers will simply shield up everyone in low keys and make people immortal.
But with abilities like Shaman’s Healing Wave or Priest’s Heal, it’s an extra key-bind for a spell that basically does the same thing as another. It feels bad. I think it’s better when healers have other ways of getting back mana.
Nobody’s arguing about something being 10% too strong or too weak. The big changes from the alpha development notes, such as the removal of numerous abilities to reduce complexity, are very likely to stay.
Say what you want about Shadowlands in general but it probably had the best M+ healer gameplay in its history, imo.
I don’t see the issue of burstier M+ busters if a healer has a few seconds to responds, instead of instant death left, right and center if you’re not the speed of light, as of now.
I also genuinely don’t think we’ll have the same M+ landscape with this major ability pruning coming, but who knows with Blizzard anymore.
I do however hope they’ll shift into a slower pace altogether; I’m a healer at heart that went tank since DF because I no longer can cope with the constant booty clenching and heart attacks in high keys. DF S1 as MW was the end as a healer for me.
I remain doubtful but open minded.
It’s too early to tell but we all know Blizzard’s history. 
Really? Strong disagree. If I wanted to play a DPS, I would play a DPS.
Look. Right now you have a Paladin in Priory casting “Divine Toll”. What you ask is to give that mob maybe… 20 seconds between AoE ability. I can accept that. Trading healer power for it.
However. What about all the “smites” and “shoots” being thrown around? THAT is what makes M+ bursty at the moment. Not the “divine toll” ability.
So what do you do? More CC to control that mob? Less casters and mechanics, making M+ some sort of Vanilla dungeon with white hits… BORING…
I mean… I get the issue with bursty damage in a raid. Where there is no infinite scaling. But M+? I am a bit worried about it.
Slower healing == more DPS in healers. Make sure you know what you are asking for.
This is what I am worried about. I am worried they will dumb down everything and combat will feel boring. To compensate for the lack of addons and pruning of healing cooldowns and defensives of players.
I think you are right… I mean… look at this…
We will have 3 buttons and spend our days spamming that. RShamans will now be a Vanilla-style healer…
Soon you’ll be able to “experience wow” from a mobile phone in your one square foot pod, fed scraps of entertainment.
Another dopamine drip for domesticated consumers