5.4 Shaman Changes in Future PTR Build

We do have more changes coming for Resto Shaman in 5.4, which you should be seeing on the PTR soon (though possibly not in the next build). However, we wanted to let you know about a couple changes we’re going to try out for Healing Tide Totem.

First, it’s no longer a talent. Healing Tide Totem is now baseline, available to all three Shaman specs. As you’re all aware, it’s an extremely useful ability, which makes it difficult for us to provide alternative options in that talent tier. Giving Healing Tide to everyone not only lets us work on making that tier more interesting, but it also makes sure no one is missing out on one of Resto’s more powerful tools by selecting the “wrong” talent.

Second, now that Healing Tide is a baseline ability, we feel it’s acceptable to give it a similar treatment to Tranquility or Divine Hymn in 25-man raids. It will now heal up to 12 targets when in a 25-player raid instance (and remains at 5 targets in other content).

There are several other changes still in discussion (such as what we’ll be replacing Healing Tide with in the talent tree, just as one example), but we wanted to at least share what we could before the weekend. We’re hoping to get at least some of them onto the PTR in one of the next builds. Please keep up the constructive feedback – it’s extremely useful!