Primordial wave

Classes Shaman
1

On using primordial wave, is it best to have unleash life ready for the bonus heal on every occasion to get the best out of then healing wave boost?

Just about to start gearing my alt shammy and not totally sure about primordial wave use.

2

I personally play with Undulation and use it’s 50% healing bonus on the Healing Wave after Primordial Wave.

3

Does the healing wave automatically cast by primordial wave actually get boosted? Because it’s an additional heal that takes place after the buffed healing wave. Or is it the scenario where you have 1 heal done, next healing wave that triggers primordial wave is 2, then the automated heal that is supposed to be the 3rd buffs all duplicated healing waves?

I don’t think it does because the healing wave cast by primordial wave is after the manually cast healing wave afaik.

4

I think Unleash life isn’t played anymore. Only in arenas. In m+ Undulation, combined with swirling currents you can top a 5 man group from low health

5

Afaik it’s the recommended talent for pretty much every raid fight. I use it in raids and it has my preference, as it means I have to spam less mana inefficient spells.

6

If you check shaman logs the majority of players play with Torrent combined with Primal Tidal Core legendary

7

I doubt it makes much of a difference in terms of average performance. I think the ceiling for unleash life is higher though.

Edit: unleash life seems to be the more popular according to wowlogs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/26/#class=Shaman&spec=Restoration&combatantinfo=Talents&tier=1

8

At this point im not sure about any interactions anymore. I can‘t find a clear answer if Undulation synergizes (*) with Primordial Wave. Since everyone is using Unleash Life in combination with Primordial Wave (**) to generate big healing for Cloudburst Totem, there‘s probably no interaction with Undulation. Torrent is still very popular for Necrolord players, though.

(*) spread your Riptides, then cast Cloudburst Totem -> Primordial Wave -> Healing Wave (with Undulation)
(**) spread your Riptides, then cast Cloudburst Totem -> Primordial Wave -> Unleash Life -> Healing Wave

9

Every Healing Wave casted by Primordial Wave’s effect (the “splashes”) is treated as an independent normally casted Healing Wave. As such, you cant buff all splashes with 1 undulation or unleash life, but some of them will be buffed nevertheless.

In unleash life’s case, the first Healing Wave, the one you target at someone and hardcast to trigger the splashes, will be the one buffed, since you would have to go PW → UL → HW(->splashes triggered). This means it’s impossible for any of the splashes to benefit from Unleash Life, as the hardcasted HW required to trigger them will always consume the buff first. And since the hardcasted HW is just a normal HW that doesn’t affect the splashes’ value in any way, there’s 0 interaction between Unleash Life and Primordial Wave.

In undulation’s case, depending on how many riptides you have up and where in your Undulation cycle you are when you trigger the splashes, usually 2 splashes will be buffed. Can be 3 with extreme, non realistic setup where you have 6 riptides up(with Riptide legendary and Bloodlust) and Undulation ready, like this:

1st HW (the hardcasted one) consumes Undulation
1st splash puts undulation counter to 1
2nd splash puts undulation counter to 2
3rd splash consumes undulation
4th splash puts undulation counter to 1
5th splash puts undulation counter to 2
6th splash consumes undulation

Of course the splashes happen simultaneously and theres no way to know or control which one the game considers “1st” or “4th” or “6th”, but this is how it will work. Also, don’t forget the splashes are 60% the value of a hardcasted HW, so even if you could control it, you would actually NOT want to consume undulations on splashes. The ideal scenario for Undulation value would be to buff your hardcasted HW with undulation, then use the splashes to trigger another Undulation instantly and have it ready to be consumed by another hardcasted HW. Following the list above, as far as undulation value is considered, you would want to have 2 or 5 riptides out(or 8 or 11 and so on). But then this would go against our “have as many riptides as possible before PWing” policy for PW value. This whole business is a headache you should save yourself from.
Ultimately, what we should conclude from these facts is that, since it is impossible for Unleash Life to interact with PW, and Undulation interacts with it in a completely random way (and even with some counter-synergy as you can get either undulation value or PW value, hardly ever both), you shouldn’t bother your brain mid-fight to try and squeeze extra value out of any of those spells and their interactions. Focusing on your positioning, the fight’s mechanics, and your cooldown and mana management will benefit you and your party much more than trying to track where on your undulation cycle you are before using PW. This specific topic is fun to explore and theorycraft around, but in practice you should ignore its existence.

2 Likes
10

Thanks for all the information! Im just gonna take Torrent from now on.

11

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