Post Patch 4.0 Musings - Resto Shaman

I am bored.


I really am.  Of all the changes made to every class (some catastrophic, others not so much) i find that the shaman falls into the category of not so much. 

What i did before the patch:
On me - water shield and earthliving weapon.
On tank - earth shield.
I am missing a few totmes.  but that's ok.  my elementals are there.  my bloodlust is there.  i'm missing the tidal something waves spell that gives my spells crit in emergencies. but that's fine.  now its a little more built into a talent so that if my guy's low on health, i do some auto-crits anyway.   that takes the thinking out of that. They played around with my healing waves a bit.  now i dont even use lesser healing wave.  or that instant spell they gave me that ate up my mana (kinda like what every healer gets now, right?).  No, now all i use is riptide and healing wave.  greater healing wave is new to me and is added for those ohsht moments where i forget that we're in a dungeon. 

i am glad they took away a few buttons and gave me a few more that i'll never use.  but whatever. now i am back to healing almost exactly as i did in the previous patch.  the names of some spells might have changed, but the whole shaman healing mechanic remained relatively unchanged.

Before Patch:
Earth shield the Tank (or whoever).
Riptide for insta-heals (trigger tidal waves).
Cast tidal wave hasted Healing Wave x2
Riptide for insta-heals
Cast tidal wave hasted Healing Wave x2
repeat repeat repeat.

Sometimes i add in a chain heal if i feel like changing things up a bit.
Earth shield the Tank (or whoever).
Chain heal on lowest dps with most strategic position (trigger tidal waves).
Cast tidal wave hasted Healing Wave x2
repeat x2139482303.

After the Patch:
Please see above.



So what did change?

What i noticed first and foremost was that i never run out of mana.  actually, i am healing on my shaman at level 70 last week (currently 74) and i almost never go below 90% mana even at the most demanding of times.  my mana regen is almost off the charts.  its completely crazy. 

Second thing i notice is there's a lot less DKs tanking now.  THANK ELUNE!!!!  and when i do get a DK, they're actually tanks and not DPS wannabee making our lives harder bs crap shit bitch yadayada people who cant be assed to wait in queue. 
Oh wait, this post is about my shaman.  sorry.

Honestly, besides the addition of Greater Healing Wave and the removal of that one CD i almost never used and cant be assed to look it up, NOTHING has changed in regards to Shaman Healing.

Oh and my talents got wiped and several new talents were added, things were removed, etc etc etc.  if you want more resto shaman healing detialed stuff, find a resto shaman blog.  as far as i can tell, the talent trees were blah and the new healing mechanics are even blaher.  See why im bored now?

Post Patch 4.0 Musings - Intro

It has been about two weeks since we all received our can of whoopass haha learn2play patch and i feel a little overwhelmed still with all the new changes to every single friggin class there is.  so i guess this calls for a little series i would call Post Patch 4.0 Musings.  And it will be regarding pretty much every class i play. 

So i am thinking of first, since this is supposed to be a healing-centric blog, i would write a little about healing.  That's coming shortly.  also, since this supposed to be a blog about druid tree form whatever it is called now, i may as well do the dreaded deed and log on to my druid healer to relearn druid healing.

my schedule is pretty rough these past couple of weeks.  I work at a different office now, so my commute is completely different.  same company, same position, just different office.  i have a few more responsibilities and find that my downtime is very little apart from the long lunches with the coworkers or with clients.

i might have to stop playing for this weekend tho.  aparently it seems that all the quality players are stuck in the OC attending this thing called Blizzcon while im here at home stuck with stupid, idiotic and jerky players.  really, the quaility actually went down several notches AND the wait times have increased slightly for randoms.

yes this is a rant hidden within the guise of an "update".  anyway, lets hope my future posts arent full of rants, but actually full of useful info about Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights, Warriors, Mages, Warlocks, Priests and even rogues.  yes, rogues get a little love here and there too.  just dont expect me to write about huntards.  ugh.  /wrists.

okay enjoy your day and thanks for dropping by!

Treeform on cooldown...

I really do not like this idea. Actually, I hate it. Just saying. Controversial? Sure. Hated? Yes.


I'd rather have an on-cool-down, Super-Living-Forest Form where 20-40 little trees sprout up out of the ground to give me extra healing powers. That would rock. Or... give me Super-Arcane-Infused-Nature-Tree Form. Let it turn me into a mini version of those beautiful crystalline trees you find in Crystalsong Forest. Give it a 20 second duration with a 3 minute cooldown. Superfy my healing powers with some arcane energies while activated. When its over, bring me back to my normal tree form. These two ideas are insanely better than the planned tree form on cooldown.

Edit:
I wrote the above early this morning before settling into my coffee-induced state of auto-pilotness. Let me explain a little about why i really do not like the change, instead of just looking like a QQ with some suggestions to "improve" TOL form. I totally enjoy TOL form even with its many limitations (bad graphics, bad look overall, inability to cast spells from other schools in TOL and, i think, movement limitations). Hell, even my sit/eat animation sucks. But what's the deal with TOL that i do like? It's DIFFERENT. yes folks, different.

One of the major gripes about TOL is that we cannot cast certain spells in that form. One spell i do like to see in TOL is cyclone. Especially in pvp, switching to caster form just to cast a cyclone can result in one of two outcomes: pulling off a CC, or dying from a one-hit, non-crit auto attack. Entangling roots? as a tree? should be the most natural thing for a tree since they have, you know, roots. but for now, the only way i can pull that spell off is when they hit me (melee, i think) first.

I personally do not care if i cant see my tier gear. I really only see shoulderpads anyway. who cares? (please be reminded that you're reading my opinion) That point is moot.

My next concern is survivability in general. So no tree of life form = less armor. what does that really mean? Almost nothing really. Does it matter if we're wearing leather armor and a priest can have their robes plus PW:S? or a shaman with mail armor? or a pally with his plate gear? If a boss decides to pound on us, we're dead anyway. but what about 5-mans? Get aggro? toss in PW:S and run to tank asap. add a psychic scream there for good measure (if safe). shaman? drop grounding totems, run to tank. pala? lol tank the adds?

as a druid with no TOL:
cyclone takes a sec = dead.
entangling roots take a sec = dead.
nature's grasp requiers 1 hit, so get hit, enemy gets entangle, pray to god you can take another 2 hits before you move completely out of their range = dead.
teleport to moonglade = dead. (joke, really).
some will say, bearform man! i say, well how the hell do i heal in bearform, man?
this goes for the next idea also: NS+HT... on myself, then Swiftmend. well, i'd rather be able to take a hit while healing someone else. NS+HT will heal me, but will keep me occupied enough to forget about the others who should have hots on them anyway. But i'd have used two somewhat emergency spells just on myself.

As you can see, my mind is a bit jumbled with thoughts of what this change can mean to my gameplay as well as in comparison to other healers. but other than that, i find that i lose out on the most important thing about being a druid healer. they trees. yes. they are.

I dont want to be a priest with more armor and no shield. if i wanted to heal in people form, i'd roll a priest, shaman, or pala. if i wanted to dps while bored, i'd drop TOL and do so. or i'd roll a priest, shaman, or pala. i WANT to be different. i want a 100% uptime TOL, i want incredible HOTs instead of an energy shield, i want my armor, in TOL to be 400% of normal, or whatever the multiplier is, and have to decide if its safe to switch out to do something else, and i'd like to be able to do the twist. I do not want to be a resto druid if all it will mean in the future is that we'll be like everyone else. what's the point of that?

Anyway, nothing is really final and they may actually make non-tol form actually cool. we'll see.