Resto Shaman in PvP, not chill

Disapointment
The Upcoming Class Tuning on November 26 is frustrating to see. Resto doesn’t feel great right now, representation is extremely low (I haven’t queued into an opposing Resto Shaman in over 500 solo shuffle rounds), and you’re often verbally assaulted just for queueing up with the spec. Flame shock damage won’t move the needle here.

Flame Shock
If Flame Shock was actually the weakest dot in the game, I wouldn’t be surprised. It definitely feels like it does 0 damage so I don’t see 30% having any impact. I think you could safely increase it by 400% and still see Resto shamans at the bottom of the DPS charts compared to other healing specs.

Lava Burst
30% on Lava Burst will still have it doing around the same or less than a non crit lightning bolt but without the opportunity to crit like a lightning bolt has. When is it ever even worth it to hard cast a Lava Burst? I’m already struggling to find extra globals BARELY keeping my team alive. With most shamans playing 0 haste, the opportunity cost of casting one of these is too high. Especially compared to other healer’s damage abilities that are often paired with dispels, healing, dmg mitigation, etc.

Farseer
Farseer damage? The previous changes NERFED farseer damage AND acid rain in pvp. Totemic has so much quality of life in solo queue modes with larger earthen radius and such that pushing farseer again just feels bad. Unless earthen gets reworked or its power moved elsewhere, please focus on improving shaman across the board, not just one hero spec.

Solo Shuffle
Shaman feels helpless in solo shuffle with abilities that are completely dependent on your team standing inside of almost invisible totems. This, along with zero representation, leads to 0 dps even understanding what earthen totem is or how important it is to a resto shamans success. (can’t even blame them, they have 0 exposure) It also feels like one of the weakest healers in higher dampening with low thruput, no mitigation, and no immunity CDs. It also seems like it ooms faster than all other healers. Whats goin on here?

Blitz
Literally verbally assaulted on a personal level just for being there. I’m just a chill guy trying to have fun in Warsong Gulch.

3v3
I wouldn’t know, no one will play with me.

My 2cents
Resto Shaman appears to be really strong in PvE right now. Often times when players feel powerful in PvE they think they might have a shot in PvP to own n00bs or whatever. This is a great opportunity to expose some players to different game modes who might not have PvPed before to try it out and maybe even have fun with it. This cant happen when resto is not only more difficult but also incredibly weak especially compared to other healers. PvE players won’t stick around for long once they realize they aren’t actually as good as they thought they were. Players who are new to PvP are also probably going to be pressing flame shock and lava burst, on average, zero times.

What I might consider changing or something probly

  • Give Restoration Shamans access to the Shamanism PvP talent. This will help with their lack of damage compared to other healers in a more interesting way than just increasing their damage. This will also create more parity or w/e with the other two specs.
  • Make Countstrike Totem have value against skilled players. More health? Increased range? Shorter Cd based on how long it was alive? Feels like a completely dead talent past a certain rating.
  • Make lightning bolt purge or something. It already costs a lot to cast one of these and puts you at risk opening up your school. Increase the value of getting a cast off in an interesting way.
  • Make NS Lava Burst do 200% damage, hit 5 targets, purge off all buffs, and shoot out 3 healing surges at nearby targets. Wait nvm dont want to steal Evoker’s class fantasy, disregard.
  • Put surging totem or earthen totem, or both, in a backpack so that their value can be more consistent, and the shaman can have more agency over the outcome, especially in solo queue modes.
  • Update burrow visuals to be similar to the burrow visuals of the nerubians or like in overwatch or something so that its not super lame af
  • Update the Earthen Totem visuals so that its visible and friendly players are able to notice it and desire to stand inside of it.
  • buff mana regen so that casting heals is a viable option to increase healing thruput in a fair way that is healthy for the game and makes dps happy cause they can kick. this will also allow more opportunity to gear for haste without ooming instantly

What do yall think of rsham rn? sry for the long post, I’m just feeling pretty emotional about it rn seeing these upcoming changes. Makes me start to lose hope. Also feeling really lonely not seeing any other rshamans in the game. miss u all, pls come home soon

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