Shaman designed around chain heal? Then...

#0 - Nov. 3, 2008, 12:58 a.m.

GC, you posted this in the Pally thread:

Q u o t e:
The paladin has been designed around Flash of Light, just like the shaman was designed around Chain Heal. We didn't want to completely change what these classes were all about, in part because a lot of players like them as they are.

I'm not trying to be 'gotcha' or snide here, because I LIKE being based around chain heal. Chain heal is a good spell, it's unique and has a lot of flavor, and can really shine when a smart player is behind it.

But if I'm based around chain heal, why do so many of my new talents forsake chain heal completely? Why can't Imp. Watershield and Ancestral Awakening proc off chain heal? Ancestral Awakening in particular seems to have fallen into 'useless' territory, when it was initially one of my most anticipated talents with a really fun and unique effect.

Hundreds of other shaman are just as curious as I am about this, please, we just want to be able to utilize our talents with the spells we cast most.

(also Healing Way is bad, because no one target needs 4 max rank healing waves within 15 seconds of each other in either PVP or PVE in any realistic sceneario.)

Ghostcrawler

#10 - Nov. 3, 2008, 7:39 a.m.

Q u o t e:
But if I'm based around chain heal, why do so many of my new talents forsake chain heal completely? Why can't Imp. Watershield and Ancestral Awakening proc off chain heal? Ancestral Awakening in particular seems to have fallen into 'useless' territory, when it was initially one of my most anticipated talents with a really fun and unique effect.

When we sat down to design Resto for LK, tops on everyone's list was to get them to CAST ANOTHER SPELL SOMETHING ANYTHING!

A lot of the talents were designed to do just that. We even considered some draconian measures to discourage CH spamming, like cooldowns and the like.

Then a smart designer in the room (it wasn't me) asked why was there so much CH hate. Yes, shamans used it a lot, but you know, it is a pretty distinctive, inconic spell. We decided rather than try to make CH a bad spell, we'd just leave in those new talents to get you to cast other spells once in awhile. The difference is we think you'll still cast CH 90% of the time or whatever, but maybe that remaining 10% will require you to think a little differently about what to cast (and at least it's not 100%).

Ghostcrawler

#107 - Nov. 4, 2008, 6:06 a.m.

Several people have mentioned that priest Circle spamming seems to eclipse a lot of what a shaman can do. That is something we're concerned about and I referenced it in another post. I don't want to derail this thread into the topic of CoH, but it might be worth considering how you'd feel about Resto healing if you didn't have Circle of Healing or Wild Growth constantly smart healing the raid.