Another player came up with the concept, and I flashed it a little, but seeing what players think about restorations current master vs what it could be; fitting the theme better.
The new concept:
Mastery Transference: your single target heals have a (x) % chance to transfer 12 % healing to up to two other party members. Players with the lowest health are selected first.
This meets the theme of Shaman’s “cup overfloweth” approach to healing, complimenting the multi-target role it is built for.
It would be great, our current mastery isn’t fun and isn’t efficient enough.
There is a lot of space for devs to change it and make it work without getting unbalanced, like it would always splash but only with single target heal and with a percentage not too absurd or with a small radius of effect… I think it’s a great idea with a lot of room to make it work.
The one problem I have with this is where does this leave Chain Heal? It’s pretty much the same thing and I feel like it’ll either end up kicking it out of our rotation or it not making enough of a difference to matter anyway.
I feel like we need something like Windwalker’s mastery. Something that increases the effect of our spells when they’re not used twice in a row. Maybe ranged/radius and healing power? I want us to be rewarded more for weaving our spells since we have so many.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with our mastery outside of devs not knowing how to balance it because in the past with enough mast it felt like you could keep someone alive through insane dmg, now it feels a lot less impactful and like we are missing something. If its too strong we end up stacking mastery till stuff is on farm., too weak it feels useless and like it doesnt save lives.
I think they should find a way to make it more impactful/meaningful for single target healing, maybe if a large portion/X% healing is deep heal/mastery it procs a very short dmg reduction that gets stronger depending what %of a heal is made up of deep healing (50%=5%dr,60%=10%dr,70%=15%dr,80%=20%dr…etc. ) these are random numbers for now lol
Maybe make it only proc off the ST spells and chain heals primary target. So say 50% of that healing have heal you just used was from mastery (meaning they were deep in the red or near death ) maybe the target can get a 5 sec DReduction on top of the current mastery effect. Make that dr unattached to mastery scaling though, so only the deep heal portion will be stronger while that dr effect maybe caps out at 15-20%. This is only for single target casted heals though ( includes CHs main heal ) , might inly last 2-5 sec or even just the next hit taken from that mob.
Think our mastery is fine for aoe healing, esp on progression fights. If anything ascendance should work how ancestral guidance used to and have a much larger range for spread, normal play have us weave it with cooleowns or not. Can keep as talent but id make It baseline and add another talent to buff it as the burst heal talent.
I honestly didnt mind multistrike/cleave healing but as a mastery i dont think itll help with single target healing and our aoe is pretty strong outside of tide totem needing s buff in m+.
I don’t feel like it would be a outshine chain heal because chain heal is a powerful aoe heal with a long cast, while this mastery should be a minor heal like rain, but it also wouldn’t outshine rain because of the mana management, since rain would probably be more Mana efficient… so in the end this mastery would only help us keep focusing on the tank a little bit more until some aoe spike of damage comes up
I feel like our single target heal is not bad, but what keep us feeling this way is because our aoe heals have long casts that opens a window to our tank receive a lot of damage, even to cast rain that is a low heal aoe, so this mastery would fill that gap
ST is “okay” but is missing something and like you said by the time you get a chain heal off sometimes the tank can be back in the red. The aoe healing is already amazing imo and extra cleave on mastery might just serve to pad meters more than be useful.
I think chain heal needs to be slightly faster cast, totems off the gcd and riptides hot stronger. ( echoes needs to be baseline too ) Healing Tide totem needs to be buffed in dungeons. Enlarge the circles of healing rain and spirit link ( why is nobundos in the class hall bigger 
) , maybe reduce the cast time of healing rain.
I still like my idea of the 2-5s damage reduction being proced with ST heals when peeps are either low or x portion is mastery/deep heals (with how mastery works now) to give us that buffer so we can weave in those aoe spells without risking an individual dying. The aoe healing having long cast times is kinda not as much of an issue in raids where you can precast the ch before the mechanic and know timers. In dungeons and m+ it can be more random and hurt to not have the CH lined up Or if peeps are too far. Ch being faster cast would be better or them working a weaker version of that new talent into the class or mastery could help, the one where you spend x mana you get faster/stronger ch casts.
Flat out cleave healing doesnt solve any issues imo, if it’s too strong it makes riptide/stream/rain useless, if its too weak it basically just looks good on meters and maybe causing more issues if devs go to balance elsewhere - and they would.
I like you ideia about damage reduction, it would be nice and fill this cast gap on 5-man content even better than the splash heal, but I don’t know to connect it with the water healing fantasy, it may be silly, but I feel like it make things more fun and enjoyable
I also have always loved the water healing fantasy but we also deal with earth so I can see the mastery being water/earth at the same time work. ( like mudkip in pokemon 
) Theyd need to make some neat effect when it procs though lol. Heck it could be the same visual effect as earth shield even.
I mean with earth shield baseline we miiiiight be okay, esp if that talent will be some kind of st nuke ( it will also cleaves I think so that couuuld help with tank/st healing/cleave like were both mentioned )
The problem for me is whatever new talent replacing earth shield will still be in the same row as echoes and echoes just makes the spec flow better. ( always has )
From what i am reading too the one covenant ability will also be cleave , “next 3 healing spells will heal up to 6…” The other one sends a wave of healing/dmg blahblahblah
Honestly though they need to bring back ancestral guidance spell as baseline lol.
So I’m hearing that overhealing and number padding is a concern, as is a sense of redundancy in other spells. I can see how this might be true to some respect.
By nature of multi-target healing, overhealing is going to be an issue until it is removed (in numbers) by the smart heal mechanic. This is for all AoE healing with all classes. Paladin aura, mana tide, circle of healing, efflorescence, etc. are examples where this can have an effect.
Redundancy applies when one ability overshadows, or is equivalent to another making it pointless to cast both. This water mastery approach can be tuned to smart heal from all spells, not just single target, effectively providing a “tide” totem effect at a much smaller scale. I kept it to single target to as I felt it would be too powerful if applied to all spells, and single target is a weakness of shamans in competitive content.
That said, the mastery idea isnt static - its about keeping with class fantasy and practicality to bring shaman in line with other healers (except holy priest…poor, unwanted holy priests) for all content. So why not incorporate the other elements into the concept?
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Mastery elemental Transference: your single target heals hardens the target, providing (x)% damage reduction for 1.5 seconds, splashing (x) % healing with the speed of wind to up to two other party members and granting them 1% increase to haste. Players with the lowest health are healed first.
I think it may be too much for a mastery.
What about an reactive heal, the water keep the healed target’s providing:
A) small % of the amount healed as heal over time over 3 seconds
B) small % of the amount healed as heal when receive damage on next 3 seconds (like seeds of Eonar)
C) small % of the amount healed as shield for 3 seconds
I completely agree to the last iteration being too strong, but was bouncing thoughts.
A - holy priest has this one covered, currently.
B - interesting, and would have similar effect to damage reduction with a water twist.
C - nice idea, but I cant read it without connecting disc priest.
Keep going with B. I’m curious how you would apply this thematically and practically!
Agree, B sounds better 
Thematically it could have an effect of sparkling drops of water floating around the character or a shield of water surrounding the character, when taking damage the water rush to the center of the character, when expering the water drops down to the ground