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Resto Shaman T16 Tier Bonuses Announced

The Resto Shaman T16 tier bonuses have been announced, and Shamans are getting their first healing absorb.

The two piece bonus will likely start Earth Shield Wars again (why can’t Blizzard allow double Earth Shield on a single tank, as it allows a resto Shaman to Earth Shield a Shaman who already has a personal Lightning or Water Shield.)   The absorb though will be pretty small (8-10k-ish depending on gear level) but it is a resto Shammy absorb.

The 4pc bonus does seem to have some buggy issues on the PTR or there are exceptions to the spells it will mimic, since it doesn’t seem to mimic Healing Rain.

Forum Discussion on Resto Shaman T16 Tier

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Excellent Resto Shaman interview with Cirrax, Hamerfal, Luumis & Sonie

Manaflask has outdone themselves this time with an excellent and in-depth interview about the resto shaman class, both past and present.  The interview features:

Cirrax from Blood Legion
Hamerfal from ScrubBusters
Luumis from (ex) Exodus
Sonie from Method

Some of the more interesting parts of the interview are their thoughts about the changes to resto shaman, especially the new totem cooldown format from the previous “drop them and forget them”.  Consensus seems to be that Firelands was the worst tier for resto shamans – while some fights were stacky stacky, others were just  a mad chaos of run around with your Spiritwalker’s Grace on CD otherwise riptide and hope for the best.

They also discuss Deep Healing (aka resto shaman mastery) and they definitely aren’t fans of it.  However, the implications a change could have on PVP is noted.

If you are a fan of weak auras, they talk about weak auras usage (and here is the link to Sonie’s resto shaman weak auras)

If you are a resto shaman, or just want to see where the class is these days, this is a must-read.  They really nailed a lot of the thoughts I have had on this class, and I loved the trip through memory lane from where resto shamans started.

Click here to read the interview

 

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Resto Shamans get more buffs in 5.3?

Resto Shamans have been struggling this tier to keep competitive with other healers, and they did get a nice 20% buff on Healing Rain, Chain Heal and Earthliving that was hotfixed on March 26th and a mana cost reduction for Healing Rain back in February.  The new 5.3 PTR patch notes bring more good news to Shamans, although some are merely tooltip updates but others are brand new healing buffs.

Chain Heal had a ~18% increase to healing and SP scaling.
Earthliving had a 20% increase to healing and SP scaling.
Healing Rain had a 20% increase to healing and SP scaling.
Healing Rain now costs 36.6% of Base Mana, down from 43.1%.

For those into theorycraft and want the exacts, here they are:

  • Chain Heal Heals the friendly target for [ 6,325 + 57.3% [ 7,590 + 68.76% of Spell Power ], then jumps to heal the most injured nearby targets. If cast on a party or raid member, the heal will only jump to other members. Each jump reduces the effectiveness of the heal by 30%. Heals 4 total targets. 22.5% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. 2.5 sec cast.
  • Earthliving Heals the target for [ 3,648 + 8.3% [ 4,376 + 9.96% of Spell Power ] over 12 sec. 40 yd range. Instant.
  • Healing Rain Healing rains blanket the area, restoring [ 2,170 + 19.7% [ 2,604 + 23.64% of Spell Power ] health to the Shaman’s allies. 100 yd range. Instant.
  • Healing Rain Calls forth healing rains to blanket the area targeted by the Shaman, restoring [ 2,170 + 19.7% [ 2,604 + 23.64% of Spell Power ] health to allies in the area every 2 sec for 10 sec. Healing effectiveness diminishes for each player beyond 6 within the area. 43.1% 36.635% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast. 10 sec cooldown.

How much of this is a tooltip update and how much is a new buff is unclear, however none of the patch notes for the previous hotfix included any mention of the increased spellpower scaling, so it is likely that portion of the buff is new.  From the March 27 hotfix patch notes:

Chain Heal now heals for 20% more.
Healing Rain now heals for 20% more.

Restoration

  • Earthliving Weapon now heals for 20% more.

Definitely no mention of the spellpower scaling, and Ghostcrawler hasn’t weighed in yet.  We will keep you updated!

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Rumored 5.3 changes to healer mana pools are not real

When the recent 5.3 PTR patch notes hit, there was definite panic amongst mana starved healers worried that they were just about to be hit with a reduced mana pool, nerfing mana pool size of some healers from 300k mana to 225k mana.

Druid:
Balance & Restoration

Paladin:
Holy

  • Holy Insight now increases your mana pool by 300%, down from 400%.

Shaman:
Restoration

However, the other three healing classes did not have any such “nerf” on their PTR patch notes.  However, as you can imagine, Ghostcrawler was asked about it, and here is his response.

gcmanapools

So healers can (maybe) let out a sigh of relief.  So there could be something going on with overall mana pools that would relate to this change, but it remains to be seen.  But does anyone else miss the days when you could actually increase your mana pool size and not have it static as it is now?

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Healer legendary meta gem Courageous Primal Diamond proc rates

Now that Stage 5 of the Isle of Thunder is available and people have now been able to kill the new world boss Nalak, we are starting to see some data coming from the new healer legendary meta gem.

First, the new Courageous Primal Diamond, the healer meta gem from the legendary questline, is one of the RPPM (Real PPM) procs.  It has no ICD (internal proc rate) and has a 1.40 RealPPM on a beneficial spell.

The proc itself is called Clearcasting Trigger (spell ID # 137248 for those making a weak aura for it) – Chance on casting a helpful spell to make your spells cost no mana for 4 seconds.

The biggest problem with this meta gem is that the 4 second proc is very short in practice.  Chances are extremely high that you will be moving or mid-cast when it first procs, meaning you likely can only get off one or two mana-intensive heals off before it expires.  It does make a proc sound, and you can also use weak auras to track it – and you might want to start with an annoying sound for procs until you get used to reacting to the proc.

Passive heals do not seem to make the meta gem proc.  You do need to have a 502 ilevel or higher helm, although there are reports that those with helms from T14 that are upgraded above 502 cannot be used with the new meta, it is only for helms added in 5.2.

If you need to buy a new legendary meta gem, either for offspec or for a new healing helm, you can purchase one from the Blacktalon Quartermaster in the Tavern in the Mists (Veiled Stairs) for the cost of 5 Primal Diamonds – if you have been wondering why the cost of Primal Diamonds shot up on the auction house, this is why.

Oh, and this meta gem procs when you drop a guild bank and swap talents… and I am sure many other “helpful” spells 🙂

You can track the proc with this weak aura. And there is also an addon that tracks the amount of saved mana while in combat.

Here is information on the new meta gem for each healing class.

Priests:
For Priests, it is worth noting that the legendary meta gem does NOT proc from Smite or Holy Fire, however it does proc on Penance (with Atonement, Penance Atonement is procing while Smite and HF Atonement is not).  So those healing through Atonement will need to make sure they are including Penance in their rotation in order to benefit from the meta.  It is currently procing on spells such as Levitate and Power Word: Fortitude.

Due to Atonement, however, some disc are debating over the Courageous Primal Diamond versus the Sinister Primal Diamond (proc is called Tempus Repit).  Will update when more data is out from discs trialing both options.

Shamans:
It only procs from direct casts, so it will not proc off of healing stream totem ticks, riptide ticks, or healing rain ticks.  Earth Shield procs will not proc meta either.  However, because Shamans lack quick spammable 1GCD spells, there could be more benefits to prioritizing haste in order to be able to take better advantage of the 4 seconds of mana-free heals.  Puupi (raids in heroic 10M guild Gifu) on MMO-Champion has a great post about better utilizing haste with close to 1GCD spells with the meta.  (Shamans should real the entire thread, very interesting).

Uptime for Shamans is about 10%, with regen of about 3200 mp5, according to Tiberria from Incarnate in this thread, who states this is an extremely strong regen gem, equivelant to 2 resto shamans dropping mana tide on CD with 15,000 spirit.  It procs of Earthliving.

Druids:
Unfortunately for druids, it can be difficult to track the meta gem proc versus the Omen of Clarity proc which is also Clearcasting.  And worse, the procs will overwrite each other, meaning druids will currently get a lot less benefits from this meta gem unless the spell is renamed or Blizzard corrects the spell interaction.  Bug report here.  UPDATE: This has now been hotfixed.

On the PTR, the name has been changed to Lucidity (as someone noted in the bug report it was supposed to be named), however there could still be issues prior to the 5.3 patch being released unless they are able to hotfix it.

Monks:
Eminence will not proc the meta gem.  There was a bug using the meta with Surging Mists glyphed, which appears to be hotfixed.

Paladins:
Some discussion over whether this meta is worth using or not, due to the timing of the mana-intensive healing spells not lining up with the 4 second proc.  MMO-Champion thread here.  Not a lot of data from pallies yet, will update as more info is available.