The state of Restoration Shaman

PVP Arenas
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Hello there, good morning, afternoon or night to everyone.
i’m a big shaman enjoyer, i havent been too high in arenas, i think i peaked 2100 last season

i only play shaman
and comparing them to other healers i feel like there could be some cool changes that could improve shaman gameplay, and make it more fun and rewarding to players that dedicate themselves to learn it.
shaman, with pres evoker is no doubt the highest skill ceiling out of all the healers, due to all the ammount of utility they have, and ways to use said utilities.

the first change i would like to see on shamans in the next xpac, for pvp or pve…
Astral Shift while stunned.
the ammount of times i wasted my trink and was killed in a global in the past 3 seasons is really unfun.

this just makes shaman play EXTRA safe, even safer than they should, considering they have Mail armor, and is one of the healers that most take dmg.
its much easier to shut down and kill a shaman than a priest, or a paladin in a cleave matchup against a dk and a warrior.

being able to use astral shift while stunned will make so we can outplay many 1 shots, or just being killed in a stun, which will make so shamans can play more freely and dont get punished hard for wasting a trinket.

second thing i’d like to see change on shaman is > damage
shaman, at the moment i’m typing this, is the lowest damage healer out of all healers. its simply not worth it casting a lava burst when i could use a riptide instead to heal my friend thats being bursted, comparing to other healers, like, paladin or priest, that can heal by doing damage (void weaver, lightsmith with judgements) or even evokers with fire breath.

they could make so lava burst had no global cooldown when lava surge procks, and heal for a % of the damage done, aswell as increase its damage and disable ascestors to cast it.

i feel like it would be a giant difference to shaman gameplay, and it could lead to shaman being more fun to play aswell, considering the gameplay right now is spamming riptide and healing stream

the third thing i’d like to see change on shamans> lack of defensive cooldowns
see, shaman only have one spell on its entire kit that absorves damage, that is earthen wall totem, the visuals on the totem are impossible to see with so much going on on each of our screens, and it doesnt absorve for much at all, it is enough to stop a minor burst if you totemic recall and double it.

my idea would be so, they dont remove earthen, and make it so, when you place it, in a 30 yard range, everyone would get shield no matter what, just like classic shaman totems.
just like healing stream works, it could help positioning, and make shaman a more satisfying healer to play overall.

the biggest problem with shaman right now is the dampening, shaman is the only class that doesnt have a % damage reduction to friends, and is based of most of utilities and mass healing, which is not really good in a meta where 1 shots reign.

and really, the last thing i’d like to ask. buff Spirit Link Totem
i’ve come to countless situations on where, everytime i press spirit link, without ascendance or healing tide, the enemy team would just start cleaving and beat us.
even with spouting spirits on. considering i leave LINK to be used as a oh damn buttom, its usually always the last defensive that i press, and by then dampening is too high, and we cant recover from it.

If you’ve read until here, thanks, i’d like to read you guys opinions, feedback, and i would really like to read things you guys could change to shaman aswell.
love to all shaman mains <3

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Rdruid here. WE are the lowest dps healer.

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Also i think rsham is the answer to the voidweaver tidal wave.

Shear, hex, grounding, static field, and moving them around the map reeeeally lets you break up his mind blast window without any help from dps.

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that is true, althought, druids still can cast wrath instantly, and go cat form due to the ammount of HoTs your allies have, they just heal passively, while shaman have to be spamming riptides and cooldowns to keep people alive

priests have a way to counter each one, shear being a 0.5 sec lock, grounding being 1/3 of the duration of void weaver mind blast thing, and they can just leave static with fade.
aswell as shadow word death your hex if you play it wrong. a good Priest will always outplay a good Rsham due to the cooldown comparison.

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Sure but. You can juke his death. 1/3 is a ton. And if hes fading out of static hes not spamming void blast.

Its still a ton of disruption even if he plays perfect and your teammates haven’t done anything yet.

Non giga tree wraths still hit like wet noodles. Cat form stuff isn’t worth pressing for damage. They are just building combo points for maim. We wouldn’t even take rip if we didn’t have to get to maim in the talent tree.

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hey nice write-up +1

I think rshaman really thrive in certain metas/enviroents. When it’s not a favorable meta for rshaman, it’s got a brick-wall feeling, which can produce the feeling: “this spec needs to change.” But then the meta shifts and you realize it didn’t need to.

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rdruid is higher skillcap than rsham

So you shouldn’t be able to be punished for wasting trinket? LOL

shaman is the best healer in dampening because of their mastery.

i agree. Link should be unkillable

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i forgot druids existed when i was typing this out, i’m sorry LOL
i remmember seeing the rank 1 druid for this season got it with last season tier, so i’ll agree, druid is the highest skill cap, followed by sham and pres evo

every other healer is less punished, with cooldowns being able to be used, like pain sup, bubble, ancient tree to avoid a go
aswell as emerald communion, meanwhile shaman doesnt really have a way to win a 1 shot comp, like dk, rogue and pres evo.

we usually lose to classes with better defensives, like disc priest and pain sup, dome.
paladins with bubble, and etc…
that is just, my point of view, like i said, i never got past 2100, and i’m very new to the scenario.
apologize if im speaking some miss information

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kitty convoke goes brrt tho XD

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Grounding is like your ancient tree.

I have an incredibly difficult time getting cyclones on rshams.

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11

Less brrr than it once was lol

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Also life cocoon is arguably one of the worst healer externals in the game. I put it on a tank as a mw monk and it didn’t even last 1 global.

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I play with an rsham a lot and started playing it and I feel like earthern wall needs reworked to be a shield on the target and anyone near them. Maybe with less duration and then can’t be reset

Everything else feels smooth

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another class i completely forgot that existed was mw monks
i rarely see them nowadays, i’m sorry to all the healers :sob:

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pruned going in to midnight along with a slew of other abilities because shaman community is filled with absolute dogwater players that impede the spec from ever being any amount of fun.

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I dunno, I haven’t done a great deal of rsham stuff lately but I disagree. Rsham has a lot of tools to create space to do what’s needed to enable their teammates. Priest is subject to very little mobility and fade on a 20s, they are otherwise just really good at getting punched in the face.

Shaman community has been asking for this on all 3 specs for multiple expansions, I don’t see it happening but don’t really disagree with the request either given how fast the meta has become.

Full stop, completely untrue.

Burst in arena hits for 1.5~, and ancestors duplicate that at 200k If you’re cycling your unleash/swiftness cooldowns you’ll have 3 ancestors up quite often, which will follow up your 1.5m lava burst for another 600k.

You can casually and regularly instant cast 2m+ damage and often do enough LB pressure to pressure people to kick you on fire, which is great when that happens.

Hard casting rsham can do great damage, and the spec has so much passive healing it’s a real possibility to do this in small bursts.

I don’t know what paladin damage potential or MW is now (post nerf), but I’d argue rsham is only 3rd in damage behind VW/Pres (which both have burst that people want nerfed).

Sort’ve already exists, the extra heal is just put into your next healing surge via a talent that isn’t often run.

100% people have rightfully complained about how difficult it is to get value out of this totem given the movement of the game in it’s present state.

Which is answered in it’s mastery.

I definitely think spirit link could afford some mechanical adjustment.

Actually wish we could see aggro cat rdru 2s play again, I miss it a lot.

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Oh joy, I myself am pessimistic about the tuning and would bet the game is gonna be a mash buttons race even moreso than it is now.

So what, remove healing CDs and the design is if resto sham can spam riptide players can’t die, if feared and can’t riptide players die?

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Legion 2.0 I expect, so yep. Rsham just presses RT + ES on main target, the list of prune for them is insane.

We lost:

  • Call of the elements (totem reset)
  • Frost Shock
  • Double cap talent
  • Lasso now a pvp talent
  • stone bulwark removed
  • thunderstorm ele only
  • Brez totem
  • cloudburst totem
  • EWT
  • Healing Surge
  • Mana Tide
  • Master of elements is pvp talent now
  • Tidal waves???
  • Undulation
  • Unleash Life

Gonna be an absolute BLAST BABAY

Oh and you have to choose between Ascend and HTT!!!

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Me too. Me too.

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lol even micro choices like can I min max a healing wave or is he dead to soon I have to use a surge is gone

We’re going to Xbox bros

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