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[Shaman-PvE] Is Blizzard still not convinced?

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Orcheon
#0 - June 4, 2009, 11:22 p.m.
Blizzard Post
It was said a couple of weeks ago that the developers don't think there is a Shaman or Chain Heal problem in PvE. As we haven't gotten any updates to the contrary, i'm going to assume the answer is yes.

You say you designed our class, yet you state that we use Chain Heal as our dominant spell in Ulduar, when that simply is not the case. No good shaman in a quality guild is using Chain Heal the majority of the time. Most fights have a mechanic requiring people to spread out, making Chain Heal all but useless.

Without Chain Heal, Shamans are both inefficient and ineffective because we only have one other remotely viable healing ability--Lesser Healing Wave.

Even when we can use Chain Heal, it is still inferior to the healing abilities Priests and Druids have(not any single one, but all of them working together because priests and druids(to a lesser extent have synergy).

Chain Heal has no synergy. None of our abilities directly benefit our "iconic" spell. In fact, we only have two talents that benefit it at all--and one of them just causes an immense amount of overhealing. Our other abilities get benefits from Chain Heal, but none of them benefit Chain Heal in a significant way.

But that's irrelevant. We can't even use Chain Heal. We're forced into using Lesser Healing Wave and Riptide--which is an awful ability with a low healing amount and a high mana cost by comparison. It costs more mana than Circle of Healing and Wild Growth, yet it's a worse version of Rejuvenation. We wouldn't even cast it if it didn't give us Tidal Waves.

I don't know how to fix Shamans, but that's not my job. I don't know how else we can prove it to the developers that a problem exists. We've provided evidence. We've had the top players in the world say the same thing. We've made comparisons to other healers. I don't care if there is no solution planned soon. I want to know that the developers acknowledge a problem exists, and that we have a solution coming "in the future".

Right now, all we've heard is that there is apparently no problem, and that either we're all vastly undergeared compared to our other raid members(other way around, at least for me), we're all terrible, we're all spamming 1 button(which is true, but it's not the 1 button they think we are spamming), or we don't have a valid complaint.

All I want is some acknowledgment. I love playing this class. But if you honestly don't see that there is a problem, then I don't know what else to do.

How can we prove to you that there is a problem beyond what we have already done?


Edit:

I want to clarify two things.

The first is that WWS does not parse Healing Stream Totem correctly. It does not account for overhealing and displays it as if it did 100% effective healing.


The second is that shaman problems do not become clear until you start doing:

Heroic Hard Modes
Harder Normal Hard Modes such as Firefighter

where healing actually needs to be done. When you reach these fights, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a huge discrepancy in the output between druids, priests and shamans, with shamans falling far behind both druids and priests in this respect.
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Ghostcrawler
#11 - June 5, 2009, 1:14 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
But that's irrelevant. We can't even use Chain Heal. We're forced into using Lesser Healing Wave and Riptide--which is an awful ability with a low healing amount and a high mana cost by comparison. It costs more mana than Circle of Healing and Wild Growth, yet it's a worse version of Rejuvenation. We wouldn't even cast it if it didn't give us Tidal Waves.


Looking at a 10 minute Ulduar fight with a very competent Resto shaman, I see 100 Chain Heals, 80 Lesser Healing Waves, 36 Riptides, and a couple of NS'd Healing Waves. (Like many heals, HW isn't going to be attractive until hp / mana matters.) I'm not going to out this player for you to Armory him, so you can say he needs to L2P if you want. :)

Different shamans heal differently, but we find the assertion that CH is dead to be a little overblown. There are some improvements we can make to Resto, especially for PvP, and they still seem to need mana (or at least MP5) more than some of the other healers, but we really don't think Chain Heal is in a terrible place. If you're on tank healing duty, you're going to CH less. If the raid damage comes at predictable intervals, then priest and druid AEs may stomp on yours. But when your groups are tight and the damage is coming in constantly (Thorim for instance, though that is not the fight I referenced above) then CH is a great spell. We'd rather see shamans mixing up their heals as above than doing 90% of healing from the one spell.
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Ghostcrawler
#21 - June 5, 2009, 1:34 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
You say you dont want anecdotal evidence, yet thats what you give us?


I realize that's unfair, but it's also unfair for us to draw a spotlight on specific players or guilds who may have no interest in having their gear, play style or raid comp scrutinized. It's just not appropriate given our position. You'll just have to trust me that it's a very good guild.

You may not trust me, and that's your prerogative, but ultimately we're the folks responsible for class design, so whether or not you think we're making up numbers doesn't change the outcome. I'm just explaining our logic, not trying to lobby for a change to the class. This is one of the reasons we are generally don't provide our numbers -- because players just get in the mode of trying to discredit the data instead of focusing on the class design or mechanics.
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Ghostcrawler
#30 - June 5, 2009, 1:43 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
That right there, tells me all I need to know.

You don't have a damn clue about the very fights you designed.

If you have "tight groups" on Thorim, you're going to gib people with the multiplicative Lightning Bolt.


I meant in the arena before the boss jumps down when the non-gauntlet part of the raid is traditionally grouped on the circular area.

I'll add a friendly reminder that you do need to lose the attitude if you want to continue to post here.
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Ghostcrawler
#32 - June 5, 2009, 1:46 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I believe 100 CH means 100 casted, not 50 CH bouncing on 2 people. He also never mentioned WWS, he just said "looking at numbers".


The spell was cast 100 times.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to offer more specifics because it's not appropriate for Blizzard to draw so much attention to individual players. If your experience healing is very different, that's a good thing to discuss.
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Ghostcrawler
#39 - June 5, 2009, 1:50 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Umm, thats not the boss fight. Thats the trash during which you have the chance to start the hard mode.


We consider it part of the boss encounter. It's not traditional trash that allows for a break between pulls to heal and drink. If you die, you can't run back. This does not feel like trash of the "trash doesn't matter" variety. But really is this what you want to quibble about? :)
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Ghostcrawler
#73 - June 5, 2009, 2:44 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Ever since I rolled a Shaman back in BC, I lost all faith in the class and how developers handle genuine customer complaints.

Funny thing is the developers never admitted any wrong or miscalculation. It's always answers that jump around issues to protect themselves from any accusations.

Case and point. The only way to make changes it to quit the game. Form a WoW union or something. You will never have a say, unless you stop giving them money.


Okay, this thread has become 50% dev bashing and 50% attempts to show that my example was meaningless. Since I can't offer more detail, I see now that it was a mistake to post it. My intent was to try and illustrate the type of thing we are seeing.

My apologies to shamans who want to discuss the issues. If you continue to post intelligent points, we will continue to read and consider them, but I fear my presence in this thread is just a distraction from the actual conversation.

[Not tracked]
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Ghostcrawler
#85 - June 5, 2009, 3:12 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Are you guys ok with it being used heavily (but still worse than the new PoH) on a few fights, but relatively little used on most others?


We're okay with CH being used more on some fights than others. That means it's up to the shaman to know the best times to use it versus switch to another spell, which we think is more interesting than always having a go-to spell for every occasion.
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Ghostcrawler
#217 - June 5, 2009, 6:02 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I'd just like to know if it is intended for Tidal Waves to get relatively worse as we pick up more haste due to the GCD, until we get enough mana regeneration to sustain healing wave spam (unlikely right now or in the near future) instead.


This is something we plan on addressing.
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Ghostcrawler
#356 - June 5, 2009, 5:49 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
GC, Can you please tell us if you think PVE Shamans are fine? Or do you think we need some work? We saw that you think PVP Shamans need work, which is great! (A time line on this would give us a much needed morale boost). The last 2 weeks the forums have been downright flooded with posts about low Shaman hps, and various other alarming issues with the class. Are we all out to lunch?


No, we don't think you're out to lunch. We do have some changes in store for Resto. Some of them will be revealed in the upcoming class Q&A and more as we get closer to the next patch. It's possible we'll even touch Chain Heal. My point was more that we like shamans casting spells other than Chain Heal, and that one difference between a good and bad shaman can be that the former knows when to use CH and when to use LHW.
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Ghostcrawler
#391 - June 5, 2009, 6:24 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
It's very hard for people not to become frustrated when a GM refuses to acknowledge what the community at large already knows to be true. It's even more frustrating that there are many clear, coherent, detailed topics and posts outlining the problem, yet the GM references a single anonymous fight as proof to the contrary. I can understand the reasons why GC can't list the source, but it's pretty clear that it's not indicative of a typical fight or the overall performance of shamans in ulduar.


You don’t know what the community at large thinks. You might know what a few friends or people who post on forums think. You can’t speak for the community (and neither can I).

Clear, coherent detailed topics are a great thing. They are your best bet at getting something changed. But they don’t guarantee a change. The responsibility to balance the game lies with the game makers. If you’re going to get frustrated every time we don’t make a change that you want, then you are going to be in for much disappointment. We make the changes we think are good for the game, not the ones that are popular on the forums.

Q u o t e:
Sometimes you've got to GET MAD and yell YOU'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE


No. Not on our forums. That is never, ever going to convince us. Intelligent arguments will. If you have made all of those that you can possibly make, then you have done your job. You need to get out of the mode of “There must be something we can do to get this change that we want.” Imagine you’re in a courtroom. You make your case. If the judge says he’s unconvinced and your response is that the judge is ignoring the obvious or is a poopyhead, then you’ll probably be going to jail.

Q u o t e:
GC is getting bashed because he trivialized a key issue with "L2P" and "this guy one time, in band camp". He brought that on himself. I feel sorry for the guy/gal, but it was a seriously poor choice of words and timing.


We have access to far more data than you do. Trying to spin that as “this guy one time, in band time” while successful at getting a chuckle out of me, isn’t a reasonable portrayal of the situation.

Q u o t e:
4. This is not a simple issue. CH has always been a squirrel spell that has been cursed by shaman for years.


I’m not really sure what this means. CH dominated much of Sunwell up to KJ. Shamans implored us “Can we please cast something else?” Now they are saying “Can we please cast it more?” or for some, “Can it be more effective when I do cast it?” In that I will agree it’s not a simple issue.

Q u o t e:
Also I find it incredibly insulting to quote a WWS that for all we know, does not exist and GC refuses to share what the fight was and if it was Hardmode or not.


You have no choice but to trust us really, because we’re the guys empowered with making class changes. Whether or not you believe the examples we toss out doesn’t change that. I would not be so quick to dismiss them as spurious or even dishonest data. I’m not trying to convince you of anything so I have no motivation to insult you (unless you just think we hate your class). The onus is on you to convince us.

Q u o t e:
To my knowledge our Class Q&A thread is the largest of any of the classes even though we're one of the smaller populations


Mistaking quantity for quality is a common error I see on these boards.

Q u o t e:
________________________________________
Q u o t e:
That's why it is up to the author to write as absolutely best as they can.

So no, I don't buy for one second that the responsibility is on the reader.

The responsibility is on the author.
________________________________________
There are thread authors who do, the problem is that the thread author has no ability to control replies, nor has he any ability to control who makes a copycat thread which doesn't hold up. It is your responsiblity to be able to read out bad replies and terrible threads, otherwise there is no hope of you ever getting anything helpful out of such troll-heavy forums as this one.


Listen to Snowfox. I tend to ignore the players who are far off the mark or just being insulting or trolling. However I sometimes respond as to why I am ignoring them in hopes of encouraging them and others to make better posts in the future.

[Not tracked]
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Ghostcrawler
#393 - June 5, 2009, 6:25 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
You don't have a class defining spell, while we do. You aren't intentionally designed to use one spell as an absolutely primary spell, while we are. You should be comparing our usage of CH to Paladins usage of HL.


Neither shamans nor druids are intentionally designed to use one spell as an absolutely primary spell. My beta-era comment about CH was that we didn’t want to give it a cooldown or the like as Circle of Healing had. Don’t over-interpret “core” or “iconic” as “absolutely primary spell.” That’s overstating it. Having a spell you use 90% or more of the time is really lame, unless it is propped up a great deal by other talents the way the mage nukes are.
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Ghostcrawler
#482 - June 5, 2009, 11:33 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I read all the blue posts about chain heal and what they are trying to counter argue about chain heal and how it's situational, Well a month or two back there were blue posts where they said that they wanted shamans wanted to be AE healers. So are we supposed to imply that shamans are "situational" AE healers.


If an AE isn't situational then we are just back to shamans casting CH even when only one target has taken damage. What a lot of players are arguing is that it works fine situationally, it's just that those situations don't happen often enough and even when they do, the other healers can still show them up.
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Ghostcrawler
#492 - June 5, 2009, 11:50 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Ok so your previous statement is retracted and chain heal is not "iconic" to our class. Question I would ask is, Is chain heal usuable in most encounters?


It is iconic in our minds, but I'm not sure delving into the nuance of the words is that useful. It's fine for it not to be useful on every encounter, though it's possible it isn't used on enough encounters right now. I would hesitate to say things like "most" because that is entirely dependent on the encounters. If Ulduar didn't have Mimiron and Vezax and instead had Patchwerk, the damage and healing meters coming out would look very different.
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Ghostcrawler
#501 - June 6, 2009, 1:38 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Are you insinuating that shamans use chain heal on patchwerk?


Only the good ones. ;p

No, my point was that class balance is judged by the Ulduar encounters. If there were 10 encounters with no raid damage, then there wouldn't be as much discussion about AE healing. If there were more fights like XT and Ignis, then Feral druids would have even bigger dps numbers. If there was less AE, then Unholy DKs wouldn't look so good. If we had a fight where the boss used Mortal Strike then Disc priests might feel overpowered. If we had 10 fights like that, you'd likely see forum QQ.

I am saying there is no such thing as "I do this much dps" or "I do this much healing." It just depends on what you do on the specific encounters, and that in turn has a great deal to do with the mechanics of the encounter. Nobody cares what your damage was on Flame Leviathan. The original question was on whether shamans should use CH on "most" encounters. My answer was that it depends on what most encounters are like.
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Ghostcrawler
#569 - June 6, 2009, 8:06 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Heres some nice little tidbits for you GC, heres a nice 10 minute hard mode (XT).


We were talking about healing this very fight just yesterday. One of the designers had an interesting experience. Their first Holy priest had much larger healing (total and effective) on the fight than their second Holy priest, so they asked the second priest to go Shadow. They kept wiping. They then swapped them, and made the star Holy priest go Shadow. The second Holy priest's healing was much lower, but they won on the first try. The second priest just had better timing and cast the right spell at the right moment, even though his total and effective healing was lower overall. The moral of the story is meters are very useful, but like any tool, their ability to measure what happens in reality has limitations. In my experience, players put too much emphasis on them, especially for healing.

Q u o t e:
Concerning Shaman: Sixthy and Philondra are working on making an updated post to the Resto Shaman Best practices thread. THERE they convinced me along with other shaman in the community that Riptide-LHW-LHW is the spell usage to go with. That we should gem for Int instead of other primary stats. And lastly Abandon Chain Heal until 1) Chain heal is as effective as other classes AoE heals. 2) Our stat distribution (haste and crit) on gear is improved.


I know some amazingly good shamans too from guilds you've heard of and they still use Chain Heal. That isn't to say it couldn't be better, but we are not at all convinced that the right thing to do is abandon the spell.

Q u o t e:
But with this many players saying something is wrong with the class they're *experiencing* not just designing, or observing, but experiencing...then maybe you should heed their words to some degree. I'm sure your vision of Resto Shaman did not include a majority of them complaining about the spec.


You have to be very, very careful with this line of thinking. DKs in beta were experiencing (to use your term) crazy spike damage while tanking and crazy kiting in PvP. We kept buffing them to fix those problems, using several suggestions that came from the community, and shipped LK with DKs crazy overpowered.

Q u o t e:
Shaman are in need of a major overhaul, not a min/maxing buff.


If you are looking for a major overhaul for any class in the game, you're going to be disappointed. Whenever we see that term, it's a near certainty that the players making it have an entirely different vision for the class than the developers do. The changes to the paladin class seals and judgements are about the largest "overhaul" you're ever going to see, and that one was an extreme. We like the way the classes work. Nearly all can be improved, some more than others. None of them need an overhaul.

Q u o t e:
ITT: dev says a bunch of dumb stuff, dev gets called out for saying a bunch of dumb stuff, dev ignores thread


Poster gets banned. Act like an adult if you post on our forums.

Q u o t e:
This shaman he got his parse from sounds like the same horrible shaman that was in Gentlemen's Club on Korgath.

The player I mentioned is one of the best Resto shamans in the world. But attacking the player when you don't like the outcome is pretty typical around these parts. I understand the confusion it can cause when I can't provide all the details though, so I am unlikely to do it again.

Q u o t e:
Sure the first GC response was a little perplexing...but there was sooooooo much more in the thread from GC than that.


I'm not that hard to figure out. My first post in a thread is nearly always going to be a little controversial. I am never trying to be outright dishonest, but I do like to spur conversation. Except for some ill-conceived blue bashing early on, it has been a good thread. If I just answered every concern with "Cool. We'll buff it," then you wouldn't get half of the excellent discussion that you get here. There is a risk the real issue would get totally skipped over.
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Ghostcrawler
#604 - June 7, 2009, 12:40 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
1) Buff the range and/or effectiveness of CH to make it more on par with PoH, CoH, and WG. A buff to CH would have to be done very carefully. I wouldn't want to see a 6s cool down put on CH because it was buffed too much and then needed a nerf.


We wouldn't want to see a cooldown on it either. Honestly, the throughput it gives is good on the first couple of targets. But perhaps it does fall off too fast. We're happy with the cast time -- the game has too many fast spells already to the extent that players are asking for faster spells as much as they're asking for things to be off the GCD. The range of the jump could be an issue, particularly in the 10-player instances. Some of the mods that tell you how far away you are from other players seem to use 10 yards as the magic number (even though many of the attacks they are trying to avoid only go to 8 yards).

Q u o t e:
But in all seriousness Chain heal doesn't need as much help as healing wave. It's never repeat never casted. It's NS'd but never casted.


I totally misread this and thought you meant CH was only used with NS and I was like huh? We're less concerned about HW than we are CH. As you point out, it does have a role with NS and ultimately trying to carve off niches between smaller and bigger heals that are otherwise similar is tough unless you make mana so expensive that you are loathe to overheal. That's not the way Ulduar is though.

Q u o t e:
As so many others have said, its not exclusively about CH being bad. Though that is a huge factor in why so many are currently disenchanted with the class. The problem is that GC spouted "Bring the player, not the class." Well you see, shamans can't AoE heal anything near as effectively as priests or druids. So GC's flawed philosophy should not be applied. Shamans also can't tank heal anything like paladins or disc priests. So once again, GC's flawed philosophy should not be applied. What role do shamans fill then? The bench warmer? The healer that gets to raid when an A Team healer can't make it that night? AWESOME YO.


The thing is that cutting-edge and casual guilds alike are bringing Resto shamans to Ulduar. The impression I have (though maybe I'm wrong) is that you are judging everything based on healing meters instead of whether your shamans are contributing something to the raid. Priests were saying many of the same things a couple of patches ago. They wanted to be THE BEST at something. That's not the way we design the game. You should want a player because they are a good healer, not because their class has the special ability or functionality that enables you to unlock the encounter.
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Ghostcrawler
#783 - June 8, 2009, 8:36 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I'm withholding all of my Shaman complaints, issues, and ideas, until the Q&A is posted and we can get an idea of what these changes will be.


The class Q&As are not lists of patch notes. Many of the questions are more philosophical in nature. The Resto shaman list of patch notes is shaping up to be among the longer ones this time around, but we aren't quite ready to share the specific changes yet.

I mention this so you can help remind players (of any class) when they respond to the Q&A with "But they didn't buff my spell."
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Ghostcrawler
#789 - June 8, 2009, 8:57 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Q u o t e:
Honestly, the throughput it gives is good on the first couple of targets. But perhaps it does fall off too fast. We're happy with the cast time -- the game has too many fast spells already to the extent that players are asking for faster spells as much as they're asking for things to be off the GCD. The range of the jump could be an issue, particularly in the 10-player instances. Some of the mods that tell you how far away you are from other players seem to use 10 yards as the magic number (even though many of the attacks they are trying to avoid only go to 8 yards).

TBH continuing to feed us anecdotes when
1) anecdotes the community shares with devs get disregarded because they are anecdotes and
2) we are not given "the full story" nor allowed to suggest what may have happened in your anecdote (because that is veering off topic)

is a really terrible, rude, mean way to interact with us. I am pretty insulted.


I am having a hard time figuring out how this "anecdote" offends you. Is it possible you quoted the wrong paragraph?

If you're talking about the numbers I originally cited, then that's cool. It's our policy not to share our full numbers publicly so I was trying to find a way to pull out a representative hardmode encounter with a competent shaman as illustrative of the typical results.

However, rather than having the players posting here accept that case as "Oh, that must be what they are seeing," it was attacked as if I was sloppily misrepresenting the state of things in order to somehow keep the shaman community repressed. It was a failed experiment, and we'll have to come up with other ways to communicate with the player base.
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Ghostcrawler
#955 - June 10, 2009, 5:35 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Did you *really* read the whole thread?

Q u o t e:
The class Q&As are not lists of patch notes. Many of the questions are more philosophical in nature. The Resto shaman list of patch notes is shaping up to be among the longer ones this time around, but we aren't quite ready to share the specific changes yet.

I mention this so you can help remind players (of any class) when they respond to the Q&A with "But they didn't buff my spell."
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Ghostcrawler
#984 - June 10, 2009, 6:07 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Unless there are pending changes in 3.2 for CH as a spell or through talents I think something may have been lost on GC. CH isn't a bad spell because LHW is a great spell, as the answer seems to suggest; the problem with CH is that it's not as effective a heal as Druid or Priest AoEs.


There are two general issues players are bringing up about Chain Heal.

One is that shamans aren't using Chain Heal as much as Lesser Healing Wave. This situation doesn't bother us at all. We don't want a return to Sunwell and we think it's fine that CH might be more favored in some situations (or even entire tiers) and LHW favored in others.

The second is that when you are in a perfect situation to use Chain Heal, it's not be cutting it as an AE heal. This is a more legit concern in our opinion and something we are likely to address.

The first issue is philosophical. The second is just number tweaking. Make sense?

I'll also add that we are seeing entirely too much of the "all shamans feel this way" sentiment. Unless you have been elected by the Resto community to speak on their behalf, try not to overstate things. It's entirely legit to argue how *you* feel and what *you* experience without trying to invoke a majority (that you are not actually in close communication with). This applies to ALL classes by the way. :)