Hello all! This thread is created to discuss Restoration Shaman tree - talents, changes that could be made, improvements and even possible new talents to add to it.
To start, Restoration talent tree is decent. It has braches of AoE healing (left-middle part), single target healing / mana management (middle-right part) and totem healing / management (right part). However, some talents could use changes / additions to make them better. Here are the suggested changes* (you can see them visualized in the link below, remove space before com and to make things clear - red arrow is position change, yellow square means changes / tweaks to existing talent, green square means a new talent and green slash means addition of talent as a choice node to other talent).
imgur .com/a/YtSCMkN
*Do not search for Vesper Totem here - I already suggested to put it into general Shaman tree as a left side end choice talent with Ancestral Guidance in corresponding topic, so that people who enjoyed it can still pick it no matter what spec they are playing.
Here is also a short TLDR if needed:
- Primordial Wave is suggested to affect either following Healing Wave (for ST / AoE healing) or Lava Burst (for ST / AoE damage) to make it more versatile for Resto Shamans.
- Water Totem Mastery is suggested to be buffed to make it more competitive.
- Wavespeaker’s Blessing could use a buff to make it more competitive.
- Undercurrent could use a buff to make it more competitive.
- Water Ascendance is suggested to be made a choice node with Earth Ascendance. Earth Ascendance provides additional shield instead of additional healing, does not split its bonus between allies and can protect from oneshots, making it an interesting and competitive alternative to Water Ascendance in some situations. It would also finally be the fourth element Ascendance available to Shamans.
Full list of suggestions:
Row 4:
- Water Totem Mastery needs a buff. Consuming Tidal Waves takes a full GCD and 0.25s reduction per heal in negligible.
Solution: Buff it to 0.5-1 second CD reduction per Tidal Wave stack consumed.
Row 6:
- Wavespeaker’s Blessing is undertuned, 3 seconds duration increase of Riptide is negligible.
Solution: Buff its duration increase to 6 seconds.
Rows 8-9:
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Let Primordial Wave and Improved Primordial Wave affect both Healing Wave and Lava Burst (but be consumed on cast of either, so it is a choice, not a charge addition). This would allow to use it as either (AoE) healing or (AoE) damaging ability and would synergize decently well with both more offensive builds and more healing oriented builds.
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Undercurrent seems undertuned - for 2 point investment it provides only minor healing increase, especially if there are 3 or less targets to heal.
Solution: Buff it to 1/2% healing increase per active Riptide to make it more competitive.
Row 10:
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Add Earth Ascendance as a choice node to normal (Water) Ascendance.
“Transform into an Earth Ascendant for 15 seconds, instantly applying a shield to current allied target (or yourself if nobody / enemy is targeted) for N% Spell Power value and enhancing your healing spells. While affected, your healing spells additionally create an absorb shield equal to X% of their healing value on their target(s) that lasts Y seconds and stacks with itself.”
This talent is created both to finally provide fourth element Ascendance option and to address some issues of Water Ascendance - it can heal pets / unintended targets and have diminished value for main target because of that, it is punishable by Mindgames and it cannot save allies from incoming one shot damage. Earth Ascendance solves all these issues - it provides bonus shield only for targets of your healing spells, this bonus shield can prevent a one-shot and it ignores Mindgames (but can be punished by Shattering Throw instead). To compensate for all of that and the fact that it will not overheal, as its shield stacks with itself, if needed, it could have slightly reduced value (like 80-95% of healing value shield addition to normal healing) compared to 100% healing value duplication from Water Ascendance.
This talent would allow Resto Shamans to pick between AoE & healing duplication CD and ST (if needed) & shield generating CD depending on their needs in PVE / PVP and will provide a bit more variety for them. -
Deeply Rooted Elements choice should be adapted to the aforementioned talent if it is implemented. If Restoration Shaman has no or Water Ascendance picked, it should proc Water Ascendance. If Restoration Shaman has Earth Ascendance picked, it should proc it instead.
This sums up the list of my suggestions. Feel free to add your feedback and ideas about what changes and additions could be made to Restoration talent tree. Thank you for reading!