I know healing wave is supposed to be the “mana cost efficient” option for a direct heal. Healing surge mana cost can add up…but can’t they just build in more passives around healing surge and roll some healing wave benefits into healing surge(reduced mana cost, cast time, critical heal chance, etc)?
Instead of making healing wave a more cost efficient casted heal, what if it was made into a channeled spell where waves came out of the Shaman and healed all allies in the waves path. Essentially like a cross between a monk’s jadefire stomp and a disc. priests pentanence. The shaman channels for 2-3 secs as waves flow out directly in front of them up to 20 yards ahead. All allies caught in the path of the waves are healed for X amount. Put it on a 30 second cooldown or whatever. It has the channeled and castable while moving part of pentanence and the aoe “directional” component of jadefire stomp. I know there’s wellspring already in the Resto shaman tree, but its pretty lackluster and it’s casted. This is also different then wellspring.
I feel like this could round out the shamans healing toolkit, without adding new buttons, and kind of updates a still very fun, but dated spec that’s really starting to feel its age. Instead of having 2 direct casted heals that do the exact same thing, build in more passives/procs that improve the functionality of healing surge. It’s in the title of the abilities as well: Healing surge implies a quick burst of direct healing and healing wave…has wave in its name. You could add an (s) so it becomes healing waves.
There’s a fear of posting new ideas because people will call you a doofus/moron or say that’s a terrible idea, but then I see preservation evokers. Dragons flying around, spraying out green fire in a cone, planting emerald seeds that bloom and erupt , etc. Games boring if there’s no input or creative suggestions.
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Shamans need SOMETHING that is mana efficient because CH and HS allow shaman to burn through their mana faster than any almost any other healing class.
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So why does chain heal and surge have to be so much? Hardly anybody plays chain heal in pvp because you’ll burn through your mana pool. Why make it that inefficient?
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Because its a super strong heal.
Chain heal can have a fraction of the casts of other heals yet still be the largest chunk of your healing.
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I support the originality and concept of your idea, and support changing the way Healing Wave works. The current combination of HW and HS play very similar to the days when we used different ranked heals to balance throughput with mana efficiency.
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This is like Heal, Flash Heal for Priests. Flash of Light, Holy Light for Paladins.
If anything the lack of unique identifiers of shaman heals seems to be a problem here— but then we have chain heal which is one of the most exceptionally powerful heals in the game and it’s 100% unique.
The thing is, the ripple effect.
We have talents that effect how healing wave works. PWave, ancestral vigor, undulation, ancestral awakening.
Those spells cant interact with Healing Wave if its drastically changed, esp into an AE type spell.
A channeling pulsing wave sounds more like something that would be done to Wellspring.
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Okay. I understand this argument about the ripple effect as well as the other arguments being made.
What if we moved the discussion to the current lackluster state of the ‘Wellspring’ talent deep down in the Restoration tree?
How about what I described in the original post, about a channeled pulsing aoe wave type spell, to replace the current iteration of wellspring?
I haven’t seen anybody in PvP and very few in PvE, take Wellspring. The concept of Wellspring is cool, but I think it needs a rework. In its current state, I don’t see how I could justify taking it over Primordial Wave or Ascendance proccing off Riptide. That’s the thing though, I would love to have a viable alternative to P-Wave. P-wave is kind of clunky to use in a bind and very uninspiring.
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Wellspring definitely sucks and needs to be altered, fixed, etc.
I could see it happening in a variety of ways. Either pulsing, similar to healing stream totem. Each pulse doing more healing than the one before. To give a stronger incentive to plan when you can stand still to channel the spell.
Or something similar to the empowered evoker spells. The longer you “channel” before the cast, the stronger the spell will be.
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Wellspring turned into a powered up spell would be super fun. Like a big tidal wave or something that does a large cone heal.
Maybe in PvP it could be a knockback.
In PVE right now it’s kind of used like a more mana efficient chain heal. Used in raids mostly.
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I love the idea of waves flowing out of the shaman in a big cone in front. When you go to cast, you see the trajectory of the waves like the evoker empowered spells. You soup it up from mild flowing waves to a tidal wave.
My healing wave idea is that when we cast it we raise both hands up in the air and the guy receiving it also raises his arms when healed so that we do the wave.
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…At least it would be some sort of attention I guess.