Shaman healing role

H

Hasrett

Dalayan Beginner
Not sure whether this belongs here, or as a suggestion in the Balancing Discussion thread suggestions thread (say that ten times fast!).

Thinkmeats brought up an interesting idea on the Shaman class in this thread for differentiating shamans and druids in their healing roles. I'm pretty happy with the way shammies are set up right now, but I still thought it was an interesting idea, and it merits a bit more discussion.

In short, his idea was that druids excel in direct heals, while shamans focus more on HoTs, with, of course, clerics being the healing masters in both areas. That could be a pretty cool way of differentiating the classes.

Shamans have the torpor spells - torpor, ancient: slumber of the beast, and the almost completely useless Healing Sleep AA. On live, they also had quiescence, which was essentially a version of torpor without the movement and attack speed penalties.

Obviously any major change in this area would require a lot of rebalancing, but I'd still be very interested to hear what others think about the possibility.

Possible problems would be A) Shamans' inability to function has the primary healer in groups when things get sticky, if they don't have any sizeable direct heal; B) Shamans' loss of function if their HoTs don't stack with stuff like cleric AAs; C) loss of paladin functionality if their group HoTs are trivialized by a shaman heal, and, again, can't stack (as is currently the case with paladin, shaman, and cleric HoTs - they overwrite one another).
 
As much as I'd like to see shamen obtain some type of greater HoT power, I wouldn't want it at the expense of a weaker direct heal. I've found with the help of gear and smart healing, shamen can solo heal groups even in sticky situations. I've handled multi-pulls of Sivakians and the Tarhyl mobs in FR before that would involve keeping Sald (tank), Mikeathom (CC), and myself (healing aggro) up. You just have to know when to Woundbane the main tank and when to Chloroshock yourself and the CC. Now that's a shaman group heal. Woundbane can become an effective heal as well. With healing AA's, healing increment 7, and Relic: Hymn of the Savior playing, I've cracked a 3035 heal during the daytime. And, it seems that half the time, I'm getting exceptional heals, which would be 6070.

So, it's really all about timing your heals in group situations. Also, the gear doesn't always play a direct role because I've main healed places like Catacombs before when I only had 5k mana. However, the gear does help when you can solo heal a Plaguefang, HoS, and 2nd Watcher group.
 
Oh absolutely, a well geared and well played shaman can tear it up on heals. I've 3-manned the great nazdrich with Ponden on Hasrett, and Clerg and I have done FP named with dual shammies and a tank and DPS without dropping below 60m...

I guess I just really like the idea of having some effective HoTs. Right now, other than self only, they're limited to clerics, and I guess that's fine... but I just feel like HoTs are underutilized right now on the server. They're fun!
 
I just know that on Live, slow was so powerful I hated having other healers in my group as I could slow and main heal and just invited a ton of DPS. I think giving shamans quiescence on Live was borderline broken. It gave us a way to HoT during combat (could use on all members) and made cannibalization just that much better. I am not sure if giving shamans efficient non-snare/slow HoTs would be the best route as this can become unbalancing, but giving them a little less efficient HoT without the detrimental components may be fair. Having shamans "specialize" in HoTs while druids are better in direct heals might be neat, but it may also be limiting for both classes (HoTs and direct heals are heavily situational and limiting each class to one type may hinder them from main healing in a group with CC/slow).

I would really have to play a shaman on SoD to get a real feel for it and to make my opinion count.
 
Since there's a thread about it after all, I figured I might as well outline exactly what was on my mind.

First off, the shaman backbone heal would become a line of HoTs, simple enough. Like necromancers, shamans have oodles of mana, and also like necros, can pump out an impressive amount over long periods; however, also like necros, they lack (or ought to lack) burst power. For emergencies, they'd have their DD heals (more on that later), and also probably get a sort of chot--like other cheals, it would have a long recast, and it'd be a goodly heal per tick for only a few ticks. Say, 2.5k/3k a tick for 3 ticks or somesuch. The exact amount would probably need to be tweaked. Additionally, and for obvious reasons, these HoTs would need to stack with clr/pal HoTs.

The DD heals would be made significantly mana inefficient, such that the shaman can rely entirely on HoTs most of the time, but in emergencies be able to direct heal at the expense of that mana pool he's so fond of (that is, the DD heals would be inefficient enough that even the shaman would notice, though they'd heal a good amount of dps). However, at the end of the day, both the druid and the cleric should be better equipped to heal in emergencies--the shaman is of the slow-n-steady mentality, and that does have drawbacks.

And really, that's what this is about. Shamans already heal in that manner to an extent--woundbane being what it is--but it's in a ghetto sort of way. This change would bring that flavor more in line, making it its own thing instead of enforcing it by just giving shamans a lacklustre relic. With clever stacking, multiple shamans on a raid would still be fine.

With a line of fast-cast HoTs and slower-cast HoTs in the same manner as current fast heals and slow heals, there'd still be an element of strategy (even moreso, considering you'd have to predict the course of events for the duration of the HoT)--but given that they're hots, the sham would be getting more bang for the cast but more delayed. Shm groups would, in theory, benefit even more than most from good aggro control--any leaky aggro would require the shm to use his DD heals or blow a HoT on a non-tank, and either comes with mana penalties; however, if the mob stays on the tank, the shm would have far more cast time available to throw dots, debuffs, and all that other shammy goodness. Which, again, makes sense--druids are expressly supposed to be good at group heals and DD heals in general, which makes them better suited to slop groups where aggro's going every which way.

Anyway, that's how I see the idea panning out. What I'd really like to see is feedback from mained shammies now that I've elaborated on what I had in mind.

Spiritplx said:
Having shamans "specialize" in HoTs while druids are better in direct heals might be neat, but it may also be limiting for both classes
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Druids don't have a hot.
 
1st...Need a lower version of torpor at levels 20/39 or 24/44.

2nd...I would take some fast cast time red HoTs at the expense of the direct heals, if they stacked with other HoTs from other classes. Without stacking, it is useless.

3rd... Would a group HoT be stepping on paladin toes too harshly?



Some fast cast HoTs would allow us to be pretty decent secondary healers.
 
Nice idea, but unless those heals are going to count as bard songs, I don't think anyone would be too happy about having to leave 2 buffs slots open so that they can be hit by both shaman and cleric hots. Buff slots are tight enough as is.
 
I think the last thing a tank on a raid wants to do is micromanage his buff bar any further just so shamans can play Mr. Efficient.

taishar said:
Nice idea, but unless those heals are going to count as bard songs, I don't think anyone would be too happy about having to leave 2 buffs slots open so that they can be hit by both shaman and cleric hots. Buff slots are tight enough as is.
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my thoughts exactly
 
taishar said:
Nice idea, but unless those heals are going to count as bard songs, I don't think anyone would be too happy about having to leave 2 buffs slots open so that they can be hit by both shaman and cleric hots. Buff slots are tight enough as is.
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They would be if it keeps them alive? Speaking from a tank position, I don't mind at all dropping a second buff if it means more success. In all seriousness, since Call of the Blessed got nerfed or call it what you will, I don't foresee SHM getting a target HoT that's stackable. However I would like to see them get a HoT. No one can disagree that clerics are in a league of their own healer wise and while I like to keep it that way, there is room for improvement on shm to close the gap. Just because a shm or druid can heal FR or cata or hhk doesn't mean they are any closer to a cleric in healing power. And the ones that do is the minority on the server, plain and simple. So a HoT isn't going to make or break them. But it can for those lesser groups out there. Or I suppose they can just do what they need to do to begin with and wait for a clr to pop up.
 
Hasrett said:
In short, his idea was that druids excel in direct heals, while shamans focus more on HoTs, with, of course, clerics being the healing masters in both areas. That could be a pretty cool way of differentiating the classes.
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.... you know, besides the fact that Shamans get better buffs, canni, the best skow in the game, haste (albeit, its not the greatest) and awesome dots? Seems pretty differentiated to me. It's one thing to try and get Healing Sleep changed (unless it's to a FD, that's the worst idea I've ever heard, sorry) but seriously I think shamans are one of the best classes already, and buffing them through buffing their heals is pretty uncalled for.
 
Finny said:
.... you know, besides the fact that Shamans get better buffs, canni, the best skow in the game, haste (albeit, its not the greatest) and awesome dots? Seems pretty differentiated to me. It's one thing to try and get Healing Sleep changed (unless it's to a FD, that's the worst idea I've ever heard, sorry) but seriously I think shamans are one of the best classes already, and buffing them through buffing their heals is pretty uncalled for.
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Good thing nobody suggested buffing shaman heals, then.

You should really have read the thread more closely before you posted.
 
Thinkmeats said:
Good thing nobody suggested buffing shaman heals, then.
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moghedancarns said:
Some fast cast HoTs would allow us to be pretty decent secondary healers.
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If that's not buffing shaman's healing abilities I don't know what is?
 
Finny said:
If that's not buffing shaman's healing abilities I don't know what is?
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It's the latter. The thread really is pretty specific--it's changing the way shamans heal, not how good they are at it.
 
Thinkmeats said:
The DD heals would be made significantly mana inefficient, such that the shaman can rely entirely on HoTs most of the time, but in emergencies be able to direct heal at the expense of that mana pool he's so fond of
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So they'd keep Woundbane and Chloroshock line, but the mana amount would be increased.
 
Allielyn said:
So they'd keep Woundbane and Chloroshock line, but the mana amount would be increased.
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Yeah missed that little gem in there. I still am not sure why it matters how their heals are delivered if the amount of healing power they can do is the same, but w/e.
 
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