I cant get to the official forums right now but I am told there is a huge todo on the Druid boards about Shamans getting some major healing love.

Any details on this??

-Drogo

I don't consider the post Eyonix made as a omg Shaman are getting major love!! alert.

This is part of the post on the shaman boards, the parts that are worriying some Druids.


Healing Wave

We've compared Healing Wave to Lesser Healing Wave and agree that as it stands, the difference between the two, even with five points in Improved Healing Wave, is very minor. We're going to be taking a very close look at Healing Wave and the talents which affect this spell for possible improvements.

Chain Healing

While it is doubtful that the bounce range of Chain Heal will be increased, the developers are going to look at the amount of health that this spell heals each target to insure that this is a viable form of healing, even if slightly situational.

Mana Spring Totem

We agree that this totem is not as effective as it should be, and improvements are underway. Unfortunately, I don't have specific details to provide at this time but players can expect changes at some point in an upcoming patch.


First off it's not a major concern for most Druids even on the main reactionary boards. I found a few posts with only one that even made it to two pages on the official forumns. What some Druids are jumping on is that since are being looked at and Shaman healing may get an increase then Shaman will be better healers than Druids. While Eyonix's post does show possible revamping of Shaman which will include increases to their healing power, it's not something that will put shaman over Druids in healing power.

The issues:
Currently Shaman's big heal heals for only @600 hps more than their small heal, takes almost twice as long to cast and costs 250ish more mana. Healing Wave just isn't that great of a heal. It's not big enough to compete with Druid HT or Priest MH, but then again it shouldn't Shaman are secondary healers not primary ones. I figure that they may get a bump up in HP by a small amount and possibly a decrease in mana cost, but it still won't compete with our heals.

Their chain heal is going to be increased in range and looked at in effectiveness; Chain heal is the shaman group heal it needs an increase in range if it gets too great an increase in effectiveness then that gives the Druids a standing spot to ask Blizzard to look at Tranquility's effectiveness.

Mana Spring is a valuable totem for everyone in the group and in no way compares to Druid Innervate I'm cheering that Spring might get a boost, the more mana available the better I don't care where it comes from.

Shamans don't need more love. They are already one of the strongest classes in Wow IMHO.

i really hate that blizzard looks to buffing aspects of classes before it gets bug fixes out of the way. it seems backward and frustrating.

I always felt the shaman was the horde toon for group builiding equal to a paladin. They each have unique abilities, but have a role to play in the team aspect of the game. I also feel they have enough already and as cenaurius has stated, how bout getting the books out of the air in darrowshire before making an already borderline to powerful class allow movement into yet another aspect of the game. Druids and Priest, both factions have them, shamans do not need any additional abilities IMO.

Blizzard really want's to do something contructive in terms of buff? make the hide of the wild have 120+ armor and worthy of the epic tag, there's something every caster class would be happy about.

I don't really consider it a buff, any more than I would say Druids getting FB, FR and Barkskin were Buffs they were items that were missing/not working well for our class that needed improvements. Blizzard is working their way through each class getting feedback on what that class considers to be their biggest concerns and from there they are working towards changing/fixing issues. Shaman are one of the last classes to get feedback which indicates that Blizzard recognizes that Shaman are fairly okay. The only 2 classes that haven't recieved any feedback from Blizzard are Paladins and Rogues and they should start getting feedback once priests and mages have gotten their final feedbacks. Balancing classes is a continual issue and is seperate from world or item changes.

I chuckled when I realised today a shaman's lesser healing wave heals for 20 less HP than a priest's flash heal, for exactly the same mana. Then I cried a little.

It does annoy me that one of the most completed classes in the game seem to be getting a disproportionate amount of attention, compared to the many hunter woes, the many druid woes, the many paladin woes, the many warlock woes etc etc.

Lesser healing wave isn't a problem and isn't being addressed. LHW is supposed to be a flash heal.

How is Shaman recieving attention to their issues (every class has issues) after most other classes have been addressed in Blizzards continuing effort to keep all classes balanced and fun to play a disportionate amount of attention.

I'm going to assume you play Alliance since you seem to believe that Paladins have issues that are more important than Shamans are. Most Horde would tell you that Paladins are easy mode and have nothing wrong with them - this wouldn't be correct any more than alliance believing that Shaman have no issues.

I've played a shaman up to level 40, and I know by no means do I assume this grounds to make a judgement with. But I do have several friends who do all the high end content/pvp as level 60 shamans who agree (for the most part) with what I'm saying. I'm not saying shamans don't have issues either, I'm just saying they are minor to what seem to be class breaking issues with druids, warlocks, hunters (who's problems have yet to be addressed properly - the most that has happened so far is a quick bandage to stem the forum whining) etc that are seemingly side stepped in favour of a few minor changes. That is the way it seems anyway, I may be wrong.

As far as paladin fixes go, I rate them as high as shaman fixes on the priority list but hey, I'm biased.

if you dont wanna deal with a paladin, you can easily get away, they have one stun with a significant cooldown. even if they are broken, you are not forced to fight them. however, shamans are an issue for every single alliance class because they can prevent every class, including us highly mobile druids, from running away to avoid a confrontation. We do not have the opportunity to avoid or escape from your faction's unique class, which is why we complain so much about things like the frost shock bug.

however, shamans are an issue for every single alliance class because they can prevent every class, including us highly mobile druids, from running away to avoid a confrontation. We do not have the opportunity to avoid or escape from your faction's unique class, which is why we complain so much about things like the frost shock bug.


Then its a good thing the Horde is outnumbered 3-1.

:P not on battlegrounds they're not..

It's not like these are changes that will be addressed in the up coming patch or even the one after that. Remember it took them more than 6 months to put warlock changes into play which were the first class to be addressed, their changes are in the upcoming patch.

yep, i'm patient. As it stands right now i spend all my time in caster form as a main healer, and I've been waiting for Battlegrounds for PvP. I can wait for our feral improvements :)