Hello all! This post contains feedback about Restoration Shamans including remaining issues and suggestions of possible improvements for both base and hero trees.
This feedback is split into initially hidden subsections to provide better readability.
Restoration Shaman feedback
Spec was significally improved in War Within, but has several unaddressed issues - lack of way to quickly and reliably apply Riptide to several allies, some outdated and lack of external defensives, Mastery that could be improved, several talents in the tree that are undertuned / overpriced / not competitive enough etc. These issues would be analyzed below.
1. Riptide AoE application
The only way to do that currently for Restoration Shaman is manually applying Riptide to individual allies and waiting for spread of Primal Tide Core. This can cause increased ramp-up and delay before using AoE healing talents like Tidewaters and Primordial Wave and could be addressed. At the same time Wellspring is not competitive enough with Deeply Rooted Elements even post-buff and even if buffed further would still have too much overlap with AoE healing talents. Both issues could be addressed simultaneously.
Suggestions:
- Make Wellspring also apply Riptide to X allied targets prioritizing allies that don’t have it yet and party members and if needed increase its base cooldown to 30 seconds to compensate. Such change would give it its own niche and make it more competitive and would still keep it aligned with Restoration’s Primordial Wave and in line with Liquid Magma Totem (which is its offensive analogue for Elemental Shamans).
- Make Wellspring a choice node with Primal Tide Core instead of with DRE. Such change would make it more competitive and allow to keep Riptide application in check since Shamans would not be able to have both passive and active spread of Riptide and would have to pick between them.
- Consider making Wellspring instant cast - that would make it better compatible with mobility encounters in PVE and more reliable to use in PVP.
2. Some outdated defensive cooldowns and lack of non-conditional external defensives
Restoration Shamans still have several defensive cooldowns that were designed around mechanics or features of previous expansions and are currently outdated. They also lack a quick and powerful defensive to save one ally without niche conditions (like not having allies nearby that would split healing of Ascendance or having allies nearby to trigger Spirit Link Totem’s health redistribution) and that could be looked at too.
2.1 Some oudated defensive cooldowns
Two main outdated defensive cooldowns of Restoration Shaman are Earth Wall Totem and Ancestral Protection Totem.
Earth Wall Totem - provides too low value in War Within, since health pools and incoming damage were increased much more than primary stat it is based upon. Needs a buff and could also use a more visible animation to become more noticeable both around swirling mechanics in PVE and with all graphical effects happening in PVP.
Ancestral Protection Totem - has 5 minute cooldown that makes it too rarely usable, provides too low direct survivability increase for such cooldown and even its reincarnation effect has issues - even if ally or tank would reincarnate, that would still count as a death and trigger death timer penalty in higher keys. This defensive could be improved with all that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it reduce damage taken for allies in area instead of increasing their maximum health (would provide better direct survivability increasing value) and make it reactively provide absorb shield for X% of Shaman’s maximum health to first ally that falls beneath Y% of maximum health in its area with totem consumed in the process instead of enabling reincarnation. Such changes would make both its direct and reactive values more reliable, useful and compatible with new mechanics. Depending on how much damage reduction and absorb shield it would provide it could also be considered for cooldown lowering.
2.2 Lack of non-conditional external defensives
Restoration Shamans lack a defensive that can reliably save a single ally without some niche conditions like having allies in area for Spirit Link Totem or not having allies nearby to avoid split for Ascendance. Addition of new ability might be too much since they already got many additions, but there is another solution - one of existing Restoration Shaman’s self-abilities could be tweaked to be also usable on allies and would even have a trade-off - if you use it to save an ally you cannot use it to help yourself and vice versa. Most suitable candidate seems Stone Bulwark Totem - it is a reliable and non-conditional saving defensive (which fits needs mentioned above), 3 minute cooldown (so cannot be spammed much) and is in line with other healing specs that also often can use their general tree capstone abilities to help other people too like Power Word: Life. Consider allowing using Stone Bulwark Totem on allies too for Restoration Shamans only.
3. Mastery improvements
Restoration Shaman’s Mastery is not very reliable (its highest values are enabled when allies can be already healed by other healer in raid or risk dying in Mythic+) and lost value with time compared to other secondary stats that unlike it also provide offensive boosts. It could be improved with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make Restoration Shaman’s Mastery provide maximum value is affected ally is below 50% of health (like Earthen Harmony) and if needed for balance tweak its values to compensate. Such change would make Mastery more reliable and competitive.
4. Pathing issues and undertuned / overpriced / improvable talents
Restoration Shamans still have several issues in their talent tree like pathing issues, not competitive enough talents, overpriced talents that can negatively affect build diversity etc. These include:
Healing Rain pathing - currently it is mandatory to take Healing Rain (AoE healing talent) to access Deluge (generally useful talent). While that is not an issue for Totemic who needs Healing Rain anyway it can cause issues for Farseers, especially single-target / PVP focused as they still need Deluge and might not need Healing Rain. This pathing could be improved.
Suggestion: Swap positions of Deluge and Healing Rain and move Acid Rain beneath new position of Healing Rain (current position of Deluge). Such relocation would allow taking generally useful Deluge without necessity to take Healing Rain and keep its connection to Ancestral Vigor and would also keep both Healing Rain upgrade talents accessible exclusively from Healing Rain node.
Master of the Elements - its new mechanic is interesting, but very niche - it does not synergize much with AoE healing situations (where Healing Surge is not used much) and PVP healing situations (where hardcasted healing in general is used less) and could be improved with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make Master of the Elements also boost and trigger from Chain Heal (for AoE situations synergy) and Riptide (for PVP situations synergy).
Earthliving Weapon - provides too low value for its investment and also blocks weapon runes, so should provide according and higher value. Needs a boost.
Improved Earthliving Weapon - provides niche value that also does not synergize much with AoE situations. In addition, Deeply Rooted Elements capstone choice node is AoE focused, but all 3 nodes that lead to it are primarily single-target focused (Ancestral Awakening / Reactive Warding / Improved Earthliving Weapon) and that can cause issues. All of that could be addressed simultaneously.
Suggestion: Make current Improved Earthliving Weapon (which supports Mastery builds and single-target healing more) a choice node with old version of effect that provided increase to healing of Earthliving and made it guaranteed to trigger on allies lower than X% of health (supports other secondary stat builds and AoE focused healing too). Such choice node would provide options to support both single-target and AoE focused and both Mastery and non-Mastery builds and allow players to pick the preferred or suitable option.
Undercurrent and Wavespeaker’s Blessing - have undertuned or too niche effect for their cost (2 third gate talent points each) and because of high cost limit build diversity in third gate that has limited pool of talent points. Consider just reducing both to 1 point investment with full or according effect - that would make their cost better match their value and help with build diversity and still keep 16 options in third gate with 10 points to spend upon which is in line with Elemental and Enhancement trees.
Primordial Wave - lost a lot of value lately, especially since Healing Wave currently is not much better than Healing Surge. Consider buffing it a bit for competitiveness.
Suggestion: Increase its cleave value to 50% (which would also be in line with Elemental Shaman’s Primordial Wave).
Downpour - its maximum health increase effect is not extended for Totemic Restoration and that leads to much lower uptime of it than for Farseers. Consider fixing that and extending its duration for Totemic.
Restoration Totemic feedback
This spec was improved, but still has issues like necessity to use Totemic Projection to relocate the Surging Totem (which does not show new area for Surging Totem when relocating and also brings other totems to it and makes them susceptible to cleave or breaking) and several undertuned or too niche talents that can also be not competitive enough with their alternatives. Most general undertuned talents were covered in Ehnancement Totemic feedback part in post linked in this thread, so this part would focus on Restoration Totemic issues.
1. Relocation of Surging Totem
Surging Totem can require frequent relocation if allies and pack are actively moving in PVE (like mobs chasing the tank) and in PVP and Totemic Projection while an option can be not good enough for that - it has high cooldown, does not show new area of effect for Surging Totem when relocating it and also brings other totems to it and can make them cleaved or targeted and broken. As such, Surging Totem could use its own mechanism for relocation that would avoid these issues.
Suggestion: Borrow mechanic from Shadowlands Vesper Totem and make Surging Totem ability while it is active be replaced by a short cooldown ability to off-GCD relocate it within 40 yards with new area of effect for it also shown in the process. Such ability should have lower priority than Downpour to avoid their conflicts (appear only when Downpour is used) and would address all mentioned issues - it can have shorter cooldown to accommodate needed frequency of relocation, it can allow to see new area of Surging Totem without conflicts and overlaps with areas of other totems that would be relocated by Totemic Projection and it does not harm positioning of other totems. Consider such solution for Surging Totem for both Restoration and Enhancement Totemic.
2. Undertuned / too niche / improvable talents
Restoration Totemic has several talents that are too niche or too undertuned and could use boosts for competitiveness. Aside from general talents mentioned in Enhancement Totemic feedback part in post linked here, these include:
Totemic Rebound - since Chain Heal bounces are not controlled by Shaman after it was used it can bounce quite far from active totem and have its totem cast wasted. That could be addressed.
Suggestion: Increase range of Chain Heal bouncing to totem nearby from 20 yards to 40 yards.
Oversurge - it increasing only damage is odd, since its alternative increases both damage and healing. Should affect healing output of Surging Totem too.
Reactivity - its Healing Stream Totem bonus does not provide any single-target healing value (unlike alternative boost to Cloudburst Totem that boosts both single-target and AoE healing). That can make it less competitive and could be addressed.
Suggestion: Make Reactivity also increase healing of Healing Stream Totem by X% (to provide some value even for 1 target situations).
Whirling Elements - just like Enhancement Shamans, Restoration Shamans are still masters of all 4 elements (represented by abilities like Lava Burst, Healing Surge, Lightning Bolt and Earth Shield) and this node should emphasize that and have 4 different elemental motes accordingly. Currently missing Whirling Fire for Restoration Shamans could for example provide a Lava Surge proc and increase damage of affected Lava Burst by X% - such bonus is thematic and can help to make them more competitive offensively against 1 target with Restoration Farseers.
Whirling Air - provides niche bonus, as combined with other cast time reduction effects in Restoration tree and tier set it can drop cast time of affected spell below GCD and have big part of its value wasted. Could be improved with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it also permit casting affected spell while moving (to also provide some mobility value that would not be diminished much even when combined with other cast time reduction effects).
Whirling Water - provides no value in single-target healing situations and can be wasted because of that. Could use a tweak with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it also increase healing of affected spell by X% (to also provide some value even when healing 1 target).
Restoration Farseer feedback
This spec was significally improved, but has several unaddressed issues - behaviour and target caps of Ancestors, several undertuned or not competitive enough talents etc. These could be addressed.
1. Behaviour and target caps of Ancestors
Ancestors still have behaviour issues that can make them inferior to other summons - they can attack / heal entirely different target from Shaman’s and provide lower priority damage / healing value and they don’t do anything aside from final spell if Shaman does not or cannot do anything. That makes them too chaotic and indifferent even for old ghosts and could be addressed alongside target caps for their AoE abilities (which can be lower than Shaman’s and lead to output loss).
Suggestion: Make Ancestors AoE abilities target caps match the Shaman’s (including upgraded by talents like Flow of the Tides), make them prioritize targeted enemies / allies of Shaman if any for their regular and final spells and let them have a default spell that they would use if being idle for X seconds even if Shaman does not or cannot do anything. For Restoration’s Ancestors that could be using Healing Surge on current targeted wounded ally of Shaman or nearby wounded ally / Shaman if there is no such target. Such mechanic would not affect them much if they are actively duplicating Shaman’s spells (as requires X seconds of being idle) and would just make them provide some value even if Shaman is inactive or crowd controlled.
2. Undertuned / improvable talents
Restoration Farseers have several talents in the tree that are not competitive / balanced enough and could use boosts. These include:
Heed My Call - its fixed duration increase benefits Undulation Ancestors more, since there are more of them summoned. Could be tweaked with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it provide bigger duration increase for Ancestors summoned by Unleash Life.
Latent Wisdom - unlike Ancient Fellowship does not provide additional cooldown reduction of Riptide and does not provide additional full value Hydrobubbles. Accordingly it should have a bit higher value than Ancient Fellowship and could be buffed.
If you have additional suggestions you can post them in the comments. Thank you for reading!
Links to other Shaman specializations posts:
Elemental Shaman - 11.0.5 Elemental Shaman Feedback And Suggestions
Enhancement Shaman - 11.0.5 Enhancement Shaman Feedback and Suggestions