For the entirety of SoD, it has been fairly obvious that nobody at Blizzard knows what to actually do with the spec. This might be because Blizzard designs the game around alliance, but it might also be that the SoD team just has a very poor grasp of the game in general (in p1 they were caught off guard by casters not scaling well with int, and needing spellpower to deal damage).
For context, I raid as a resto shaman, and the other two healers in my raid play mage and priest.
Here are some things that stand out:
Who are resto shamans supposed to heal?
Mages are absurdly strong at AoE healing 20 targets. Priests are good at increasing EHP by shielding, and group healing. Paladins are good at two target healing (presumably, I haven’t played with paladins). Druids technically exist, but I haven’t healed with one since ST, where their 5-10 target healing was extremely strong.
What are resto shamans good at? Technically, they have strong single target healing with tidal waves + healing wave, and strong melee range heal with riptide + chain heal. This is clearly visible in logs, where I consistently heal more than priest/mage on fights like Huhuran, and do more tank healing on fights like twin emps. I get rinsed on every other fight, especially by the mage.
Resto shaman is ABSURDLY bad at aoe healing. While chain heal was a good spell in ERA, it needed a lot of buffs to make it useful in SoD (overload, riptide, tidal waves, coherence, T2.5 2p, T2.5 4p). None of these address the absolutely massive issue of it having virtually no range. Chain heal is so bad at aoe healing that I refused to do thunderaan on my shaman once I got the mace. It is not possible to effectively heal range dps with chain heal. Healing rain has the same issue, with the added BM by blizzard of not giving it a visual indicator on the ground, like they did for efflo.
Resto Shaman should always have been a tank healer, especially since SoD has no faction balance, and horde therefore has no paladin to fill that role. The setbonuses should always have supported that, including the T2.5 bonuses. The T3 bonuses should support that too, and in part do.
Set bonuses
Resto shamans consistently got trash set bonuses. In T1, the 6p bonus looks good on paper, but literally has melee range. If you heal an active tank, it does nothing, because nobody is in range. The 2p bonus is nice (especially on ragnaros), and the 4p bonus does nothing at all.
The T2 bonuses were such garbage that core forged was the way to go.
The T2.5 bonuses supported a role that resto shaman should not be in, but supported that effectively.
The T3 2p bonus is a joke. It saves 2 to 3 GCDs per minute. The obvious 2p bonus would have been to be able to cast earth shield on two targets, and the stacks not depleting. That would have been good. To put this bonus into perspective, mage healers get 1.6k hps from their 2p, before spellpower scaling. The shaman bonus does more than nothing, but it might as well not exist, honestly.
The T3 4p bonus will never be noticeable, but the 4p bonuses of other healers don’t seem too flashy either. The buff that it gives to tanks seems to be useful, and I hope that it applies the correct buff to the correct specs/roles (inb4 rogue tanks get a dps buff and fury warriors get the tank buff).
The T3 6p is strong, but incredibly dumb. With this bonus, we finally reached the point where every shaman, regardless of spec, is forced to use alpha. First of all, that rune was named by Andy Tate. We, as a species, have known for decades that there is no such thing as an alpha wolf, so the name is cringe. But, more importantly, why do the other two runes even exist, when we can’t use them? Ancestral Awakening is very weak, but at least does something for healers. Alpha should be a skillbook, not a rune, just like shamanistic rage. Or, even better, tank threat should just be fixed.
The obvious fix to the T3 6p would be to put the effect on earth shield. This would work well with a 2p bonus that allows for two targets, as it would give horde a healer that is somewhat effective at two target healing.
Useless runes that are sometimes cool
Resto shaman has some runes that I really like, but are underwhelming. First and foremost, there is healing rain. I played with healing rain until Naxx, because it heals for a lot when used on melee, and because it consistently applied the armor buff to tanks. With ancestral healing uptime no longer being much of an issue, and throughput on tanks becoming more relevant, I don’t think I can justify using healing rain anymore, which I think is a shame. Overload is just something you set and forget.
Ancestral Guidance is my favorite shaman spell. It was really funny to overtake all the dps on ghamoo-ra when he exploded, just by healing. I played with it in every phase, until AQ, and liked it a lot. It was always pointless, though, and I think blizzard missed a chance to have it double as a throughput CD (by generating healing off of healing, in addition to damage).
The ring runes for healers are trash, and are a missed opportunity. The 5 mp5 are garbage for other healers, and shaman already has infinite mana, so that rune shouldn’t even exist at all. The 25 bonus healing are 25 more than we would have without it, but casters get 6% hit on their runes… There could have been some interesting runes here that change the behavior of healing spells, such as a damage reduction buff on single target healing spells, or a damage buff on aoe healing spells (which would make healing rain REALLY nice to use again).
Totems suck
Totems are something that you place and forget, or without terrestris, just forget. Mana Spring feels like a wasted cd, and Mana Tide feels like a wasted talent point. Both are hopelessly outclassed by shamanistic rage. It would have been a lot better if mana tide had been replaced by a single target external, since shaman is one of only two healers without an external. Mages also have no external, but they have two throughput CDs, which shaman doesn’t.
As things are right now, the only reason I place an earth and an air totem is the Totemic Protector setbonus. Fire and water totems serve no purpose. The retail approach of not always placing totems, but there being a visible effect when one is placed, makes totem use feel more impactful. It makes me want to use totems.
SoD should be renamed to Seasons of Damn, how do you waste this much potential?, and I am now done screaming into the void. Thanks for reading.
