Shaman Healing - Phoenix Freeshard

Yes, I play an Aug/Mend Shaman, so I am biased, but here are some thoughts, please help me balance them. I am not really looking into the damage / utility lines of healing classes in this post, which could be a whole other discussion.

The mend line isn't powerful enough to fully or even main spec in, so any healing Sham is predominantly Aug, similar spec to a Cleric or Druid (42/33). But because you aren't a main healer, and don't have the same heals as a Cleric or Druid, as an Aug Shaman you are basically a Buff Bot with a little utility. I get that there is a Healer on Mid, and that the classes are split differently to maintain balance in different unique ways. Shaman is the secondary healer and then Mid doesn't really have a tertiary. Alb also has a secondary and two tertiary healers (Friar, Paladin, Minstrel). Hib has two secondary healers (Bard and Warden) and a tertiary (Mentalist). And if we're being pedantic, SM and Cab can Life Transfer as pseudo-fourth healers... (no one on Hib can?). So Mid has the least amount of healers.

1. Shaman, Friar, Bard and Warden are all the "secondary" healers from the realms. All of them have the ability to Rez (only main healers have access to PR). All but Warden (who gets a self regen buff) have a HoT like heal. All four get baseline and spec line single target heals that are basically the same (Friar is a little better). They all get an awful baseline group heal valued at 93. Friar gets a heal proc that can heal their group while they do damage and a very expensive spec heal that heals for almost twice as much as the top spec line heal for all of these classes. Bard gets a spec group heal that goes up to 289 value. Warden has a single target and group Bladeturn (pbt). Shaman gets... a single target HoT that doesn't stack with it's group HoT? This doesn't really seem balanced to me. Two thoughts that come to mind would be to let the HoTs stack or to give Shaman a spec line group heal.

2. I am not sure on Friar or Bard (or Ment), but Shaman HoTs do not count towards heals. It would be nice to get credit for the healing a Shaman is doing.

3. There is no broadcast of how much Friggs is healing for, so there's really no way to know how much it's healing for. Other HoTs for other realms do broadcast.

4. My understanding is that Mentalist HoTs are affected by Wild Healing, I would guess Bard and Friar are as well? The Shaman HoTs are not. I would propose that like other heals, these HoTs should be given a chance to crit with Wild Healing, and maybe even be increased by MoHealing.

5. Endo buff range should be the same distance as all other buff range (I personally would love for it to be timered like PoM from a Mentalist).

6. For all realms - why can't you buff the same distance as a buff is valid for? Or, at the very least, nuke range.

Mon 14 Oct 2019 4:36 AM by ExcretusMaximus

Your utility is in the Subterranean line.

Disease is a borderline broken effect in this game and the only people who seem to understand how important it is are healers.

Mon 14 Oct 2019 6:18 AM by Sepplord

Shaman healbuffs aren't HOTs...the are regen-buffs aka in combat they tick once every 14seconds (iirr?)

If they were HOTs (heal over time) then a heal shaman would be worth checking into, since they are Regenbuffs they suck hard and healspec over cure desease/poison is gimmicky and imo not worth looking into

Shaman is still a very strong class, that's why it probably never got adressed and thats also why i don't think phoenix will start making custom changes to the class

Mon 14 Oct 2019 8:21 AM by Freedomcall

You say that mid doesn't have a tertiary healer, and then call Pally and Mins as tertiary.
Why can't skald be tertiary then?
And warden has worse heal utility than shammy, cuz pbt is coming from nurture line.
If you wanted to compare spells from other spec lines, you should've also stated that shammy has its unique insta pbae disease.

Basically, I don't think balancing by comparing classes 1:1 is right.
Then why do midgard get celerity alone when other's don't?
This kind of argument will last until every realm becomes exactly same.

Mon 14 Oct 2019 10:53 AM by doppel

Freedomcall wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 8:21 AM
You say that mid doesn't have a tertiary healer, and then call Pally and Mins as tertiary.
Why can't skald be tertiary then?
And warden has worse heal utility than shammy, cuz pbt is coming from nurture line.
If you wanted to compare spells from other spec lines, you should've also stated that shammy has its unique insta pbae disease.

Basically, I don't think balancing by comparing classes 1:1 is right.
Then why do midgard get celerity alone when other's don't?
This kind of argument will last until every realm becomes exactly same.

I forgot Skald has heal song, I'll admit that, because no one uses it. Skald's twisting ability isn't great, and it doesn't stack with Frigg's, but fair point.

I don't think a Warden's healing is all that different, and when I played Hib it was common to have a Warden because of TWF, and Druids were more rare, so often times the Warden was main healing. Warden has the potential to spec in multiple lines to get pbt? Why shouldn't that count? As Shaman I'm speccing in two as well for Spec buffs.

As I also mentioned, I wasn't going to compare the "damage / utility" lines. Insta-Pbaoe disease requires you to spec into cave. It's also not something that really gets used that often if you have good positioning and a team that can peel. By that argument Bard gets mezz, stun, speed 6, etc... And that's to the point of your other argument. For the most part all realms have the ability to do everything, they're just split among different classes, and that was their way of addressing balance.

No opinion on the other 5 items?

Mon 14 Oct 2019 11:01 AM by doppel

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 6:18 AM
Shaman healbuffs aren't HOTs...the are regen-buffs aka in combat they tick once every 14seconds (iirr?)

If they were HOTs (heal over time) then a heal shaman would be worth checking into, since they are Regenbuffs they suck hard and healspec over cure desease/poison is gimmicky and imo not worth looking into

Shaman is still a very strong class, that's why it probably never got adressed and thats also why i don't think phoenix will start making custom changes to the class

Yeah, that's why I referred to them "like" HoTs, but you're right, Ment HoT is way better.

When you spec Aug going 33 into Cave is doable but requires a lot of MoFocus to try to be useful.

Mon 14 Oct 2019 12:19 PM by Lipsi

In Mid, besides a typical setup that has 2 healers + 1 shaman, you can indeed get tertiary heals from Skald song and Spiritmaster lifetransfer.
You then compare Mending spec at 33 with potential Regrowth spec at 47 for bards )) that is very biaised and nobody would ever gimp his bard with such high regrowth. Most would stand at 16-20 or in rare cases 33 (43N/37M/33R).

Looking at it from another angle (latest spells available in Regrowth/Mending) and spells that can actually be compared :
- Bard's HOT (song/pulse) - max Level 45 - value 38
- Skald's HOT (song/pulse) - max Level 50 - value 42
- Shaman's HOT - mx Level 46 - value 141 - duration 30s
- Bard's Group heal - max Level 47 - value 289.
- Warden doesn't have a spec group heal or hot.
As you can see, just 2 ticks of Shaman's HOT equals the value of 1 bard's group heal. It's much more power friendly and easy to keep running (cast one and do your things for 30s, dont worry about overhealing, no powersink, etc).

Secondary or tertiary healing classes are by design intended to have limited healing abilities, this is true for all realms, and the absence of high utility in healing is indeed a hint that their potential is in cave for shaman, music for bards, combat for wardens (hence self health and endo buff and no group heal), etc.
In current state i do not feel any particular unbalance regarding shaman.

Regarding other points,
- i never paid attention for pulse HOT figures being displayed in logs. As you can see from values writen above, that song is so crappy that who would play them when you already have to run endo, mana, speed ?

- i don't feel sorry for shaman's short range of endurance buff, at least you don't have to twist your endo like other realms do =)
Here with endo pots+tireless+LW, bard wouldn't either but the reality is not everyone in group has that, and you still have to twist songs. Doing so, you cannot do your main job ie crowd control (twisting is uninterruptable unless you unequip instrument or get damage). Mids really are the only realm that can have speed 6, and that is thanks to the best endurance buff in all 3 realms that has shaman. Short range is also a specificity of Mid, a melee realm, where healers aug also stay close to combatants for celerity (a feat unique to midgard) and Shamans the same for shorter ranged endu + pbae disease. This to me seems all done purposefully and quite well thought. This is the Migard's "touch".

- as for wild healing, i don't know if bards HOT can crit, and anyway, bards don't HOT =) but my personal feeling is that wild healing should allow HoTs to crit, whatever realm/class/equipment proc.

Mon 14 Oct 2019 1:24 PM by doppel

You do make some good points in your post, Lipsi. I admitted at the beginning that I'm biased, so I need people like you to help keep me honest. So first and foremost, thank you.

Lipsi wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 12:19 PM
As you can see, just 2 ticks of Shaman's HOT equals the value of 1 bard's group heal. It's much more power friendly and easy to keep running (cast one and do your things for 30s, dont worry about overhealing, no powersink, etc).

I want to clarify, as Sepplord pointed out, it's not a real hot it's a health regen buff, meaning it ticks when a health regen would. In combat this is every 14 seconds, so it ticks twice over it's duration and equals a Bard group heal every 28 seconds. If you're bleeding, forget about it. Also, to your point, no one specs that high.

Lipsi wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 12:19 PM
- i don't feel sorry for shaman's short range of endurance buff, at least you don't have to twist your endo like other realms do =)
Here with endo pots+tireless+LW, bard wouldn't either but the reality is not everyone in group has that, and you still have to twist songs. Doing so, you cannot do your main job ie crowd control (twisting is uninterruptable unless you unequip instrument or get damage). Mids really are the only realm that can have speed 6, and that is thanks to the best endurance buff in all 3 realms that has shaman. Short range is also a specificity of Mid, a melee realm, where healers aug also stay close to combatants for celerity (a feat unique to midgard) and Shamans the same for shorter ranged endu + pbae disease. This to me seems all done purposefully and quite well thought. This is the Migard's "touch".

Endo isn't the worst thing ever, it's more pointing it out. It costs conc so it's hardly free, there are times where I can't afford to give it to everyone. Because of this, and the range, everyone runs pots anyway (plus tireless and LW). Don't most Bards run endo while in combat and just kite around the fight? Paladin twists are annoying but you don't really have to do it while running, so I think Alb probably has the most convenient? Other than people don't run Paladins.

PBAOE disease, as I mentioned earlier, is a spec line ability, the first at 27 points and requiring MoFocus to consistently land. It's really the Shaman's only self peel ability. A good Shaman will just AOE disease, anyway. I'm not arguing the effectiveness of disease, I played Cab a ton on Live.

I very rarely run melee groups in Mid. No charge, lack of range, plus baseline stun on Hib, makes it really not overly viable. Even in PvE we run bomb groups just like everyone else. So although I know Mid is known as the melee realm, we really aren't.

Mon 14 Oct 2019 2:00 PM by Lipsi

doppel wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 1:24 PM
You do make some good points in your post, Lipsi.

I want to clarify, as Sepplord pointed out, it's not a real hot it's a health regen buff, meaning it ticks when a health regen would. In combat this is every 14 seconds, so it ticks twice over it's duration and equals a Bard group heal every 28 seconds. If you're bleeding, forget about it. Also, to your point, no one specs that high.

Thanks.

That is clear, and hence the values are totally coherent. Just not sure weither it will tick 2 times or 3 times, but i admit it. Also, as you level down the spec line, the values keep the same consistency in level unlocked, total HOT value vs group heal value and power cost, which make them totally suitable for comparison. For those 28 seconds, bard cannot sustain the power cost of spamming group heal, and that is another hint that these secondary healers are designed to do other things in between the heals.

You also wouldn't want to compare your HOT with Mentalist's because they are mages and may be that is where you got misdirected. As i wouldn't compare a bard's DD with the one of a runemaster =) They wear cloth and staves. Better keep the comparison limited to seers and ovates.

doppel wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 1:24 PM
Endo isn't the worst thing ever, it's more pointing it out. It costs conc so it's hardly free, there are times where I can't afford to give it to everyone. Because of this, and the range, everyone runs pots anyway (plus tireless and LW). Don't most Bards run endo while in combat and just kite around the fight? Paladin twists are annoying but you don't really have to do it while running, so I think Alb probably has the most convenient? Other than people don't run Paladins.

I understand this, conc isn't free, however midgards endo buff for me is by far the best. If you want to permasprint on Hib, you'd actually need 2 bards in a group in order for them to be able to keep doing their primary job (mezz on inc). One could argue that with 2 shamans, concentration won't be a problem either on Mid =) Actually 1 shaman is well enough to give endo to his group, and has always been, but i agree that in certain conditions (full mage group) it's not enough... having both endo and acuity on shamans hints again towards the melee touch of Midgard. Running more melee groups will ease your concentration limit.

doppel wrote: ↑
Mon 14 Oct 2019 1:24 PM
I very rarely run melee groups in Mid. No charge, lack of range, plus baseline stun on Hib, makes it really not overly viable. Even in PvE we run bomb groups just like everyone else. So although I know Mid is known as the melee realm, we really aren't.

I feel very sorry for that, because Midgard really is the melee realm by game design.
As a sidenote, i very rarely fall under a midgard mages assist, no, the bard life - or how its life ends - is to die under the assist of zerkers and savages. That's really how i fall on the battlefield as a bard

Mon 14 Oct 2019 8:25 PM by Sepplord

How usefull are heals that have a 14 and 28second delay?
having the heal upfront and the spell on a 28second cooldown would be infinitely more useful

also keep in mind that desease reduces healing to 50%, but reduces regen to 0%

besides that, i can't speak for 8man, but our smallman seems fine in melee (although it has been gotten a lot better when we fit a bonedancer in. But that'S for the insane ruppt, the main dmg is still a savage. (and a bard should really not die to a caster per se...between all the interruppts and amnesia the bard can also simply melee-intreuppt one. Locking down two casters as bard is much easier than locking down two melees by anyone)