New Shammy Changes

[roadkillrobin]

@Illiyra
First running full "willpower" build means you get 2 shotted by WL, WH, SL, there is no way you gonna survive getting pushed by these classes. 2nd When they attack you the lifetaps are gonna be setbacked and take anywere from x2 -x3 times to cast. And they are also prone to being interupted completly even if you move or not. 0-1 sec cast is what effectivly works when taking lethal damage. Then theres also buildtime increasers wich increase your setback rates even more.
Archmage has ways around this with a much better AoE detaunt that helps with the setbacks.

Then we also need to discuss Destros incapabillity to kite effectivly compared to Order, Ranged knockdows from SW, BW, Leaps from SM WL, and Pulls from Engies, WL. This effects Shaman more then anything else coz once you are hit by any of these while kiting and your survival chance drops to maybe 5%. While Archmage is only really affected by Marauder pull wich gets dissrupted really easy and Magus.

[Sigimund]

Goblins can't kite? I bow to your experience but this is a surprise.

[roadkillrobin]

Have you tried kiting a WL, SM, SW, BW or even a Engie with the latest experimental changes as a Goblin? Runspeed doesn't do anything when you are perma CC'd or getting stacked up with DoTs that you can't cleanse.

[Azarael]

Azarael, is there any way to make traits like Desperation, Wild Healing, and Restorative Burst work for lifetaps without typing them as willpower based heals? That would make empowered lifetaps clearly worth it for willpower healers while opening new possibilities for lifetap specs.

So you're asking for something like this:

- Heals for x% of damage dealt
- May critically heal as well as critically hit
- Procs onHeal and onCriticalHeal effects
- Gains from positive heal modifiers
- Ignores negative heal modifiers?

Main issue for me here is this creates a massive typing inconsistency. Lifetaps at the moment are either raw heal (no mechanic points) or fully standard heal (mechanic points). This would create a separate typing, which is essentially raw heal+. The ideal would be that all lifetaps would work in a similar manner, but one must consider things like Rend Soul and Divine Assault within this framework.

Then you have to consider the ramifications of having a typing that ignores heal debuffs but gains from heal blesses.

Also, nothing we can do about WH at the moment. WH affects only 3 skills anyway - HE, BoH and BoI. Check tooltips.

2nd When they attack you the lifetaps are gonna be setbacked and take anywere from x2 -x3 times to cast. And they are also prone to being interupted completly even if you move or not. 0-1 sec cast is what effectivly works when taking lethal damage. Then theres also buildtime increasers wich increase your setback rates even more.
Archmage has ways around this with a much better AoE detaunt that helps with the setbacks.

Lifetaps are not fragile like the single heal is, work on the move, and with the tactic on, the cast time with mechanic drops to 0.8 seconds. Theorycraft more, please.

Points on RKD are accepted, because RKDs are cheese.

[roadkillrobin]

They are fragile and setback tho. I tried this against 5npcs wich have a really slow attack and got setback to between 0,5-1.5 sec increased cast times. Now add about 3 times the attack rates from a player wich is pretty normal in ORVR and spells should setback anywere from 1,5x and 3x the cast speed.
Your right about Gork Fix It tho, it setbacks alot more. Thats why we use AoE detaunt, Absorb, EQB and DSU when this happens. What they all have in common is that their instant cast. Its why a Runepriest or Zealot thats in trouble starts to spam flasheals. Option 2 is to pop focused mind and Groupheal trough it.

[Nekkma]

From a healing shaman/AM perspective. There are a few things to consider when balancing healing with lifetaps.

Lifetaps:
- more difficult to use as you need to monitor and handle two targets instead of one (in the case of ITT and BE with the new tactic you need to monitor the position of additional friendlies as well to gain maximum benefit of the heal)
- shorter range which puts you in a more vulnerable position (this is worse for shamans due to range kd and wl mobility)
- lifetaps require enemy targets. In defensive fights in orvr you often lack los to the enemy. The same is true when attacking a funneling enemy at a keep.
- lifetaps do negligible damage but even negligible damage breaks detaunt and some cc (may become worse depending on how the suggestions on root breaks play out)

Of the above mentioned drawbacks with lifetaps I think the increased difficulty and the "orvr argument" are the most troublesome. Assuming the current and future updates to lifetaps put shaman/AM at the same powelevel as the other healers it will still require more skill. This means that depending on which segment of players you balance from you will have imbalances on the other skill levels. If the "avarage player" is the point for balance the classes may become to powerfull in the hands of really skilled players. Even a bad dok/wp performs decent. The same is not true for a bad shaman/am.

Regarding large scale rvr I think this is important to consider as this is the area where the classes are the most lacking. I always feelt like the smaller numbers involved in a fight the better the shaman/am perform. The aoe lifetap should help in largescale fighting for sure. However, defensive positions always was and most likely will be important aspects of large scale rvr. Lifetaps do very little in these situations.

The main benefit, as I see it, with the current experimental mode has been the ability to "bypass" healdebuffs (the long range and no need for friendly los is also great). I am somewhat sad to see that go but overall I think making the lifetaps function as regular heals is better. The reason for this is that it will help shamans with ap and enable AMs to drop WH and pick up the aoe lifetap/gheal. It also makes the classes somewhat easier as all heals function the same way and the decision which healing type to use in a situation with healdebuff is removed.

In closing, the changes are an improvement for sure but the classes are still at the bottom of the healing barrel. I think that balancing trough lifetaps run the risk of either over buff (in the hands of skilled players) or leaving the class behind (in the hands of the avarage player). Because of this I would suggest that further balance efforts for healing shaman/AM is focused on the Mork and Isha trees. Exactly what should be done in the mork/isha lines are not suitable to discuss here and the updates to experimental mode need to be tested first.

[Qwack]

Jaycub: "I don't even bother using any of my buffs/debuffs and the resist buff doesn't do much."


Let me explain why a Shammy should be using all of their buffs and debuffs:

1) Foremost is the Group resist Buff that will get you 252 resist for all types. Even if a Chosen is running their resist Buff, it only has a 100' foot range and sometimes Tanks do push beyond 100 ft but stay within your 150 heal range. Sometimes tanks get punted over edges and out of range. This means your backfield still gets resists by using Mork's Buffer. Mork's Buffer is spammable, just reapply it occasionally if it gets stripped.

2) The debuff from Sticky Feetz and/or Excuse me is huge. Mine is 359 Elemental debuff and I will often times drop Sitcky Feetz just to get the debuff even if the snare is unnecessary, which gives a lil over 20% more damage. Excuse me is similar but lasts for even longer... 20 seconds.

3) The toughness debuff from Yoz Squishy is only 75 but its 100ft range with a 40' diameter and spammable. Yer Weakling somewhat debuffs damage stats at 100ft range with a 40' diameter, BUT because these are Ailments they soak up cleanses and would force single target cleansers to spam cleanse over and over just to clear it. Thus the real reason to use these is not so much because of their mediocre stats, rather they protect your following rotation of other Ailments like DoTs, AP Drain, Heal Debuff, Silence from getting stripped. I very often double cast these two instant AE Ailments so that my rotation hits full force OR to totally tie down opponent healers with endless cleansing which punks their heals. PLUS, these don't drain your Damage Waaagh which has now become all important.

4) Hurts Don't It is so important. It debuffs toughness around 230ish AND drops 150 moral off your target. When I am running this tactic I always hit it twice to drain 300 morale and that usually punks the crap out of defensive morals that your target thought they had as their "ace in the hole". Then when I finish the rotation with Bunch of Waaagh they are screwed because their "Save Me Morale" is gone.

The Shammy class is every bit about Buffs/Debuffs. Groups do not include Shammies because their DPS is "like so freaking awesome man". Groups do include Shammies because their buffs/debuffs really do have an extraordinary effect. Now these effects are not really numerically visible on the SCs charts, but good players see past that and realize the hidden benefits.

To ignore buffs/debuffs is an extraordinary misunderstanding of what this class brings to the table.

[Illiyara]

So you're asking for something like this:

- Heals for x% of damage dealt
- May critically heal as well as critically hit
- Procs onHeal and onCriticalHeal effects
- Gains from positive heal modifiers
- Ignores negative heal modifiers?

My proposal was a bit poorly thought out. I forgot that many of those tactics are based on crits. I would rather preserve the current typing of lifetaps, and if they lack for power, simply buffing their power could be a simpler way of achieving the same.

Main issue for me here is this creates a massive typing inconsistency. Lifetaps at the moment are either raw heal (no mechanic points) or fully standard heal (mechanic points). This would create a separate typing, which is essentially raw heal+. The ideal would be that all lifetaps would work in a similar manner, but one must consider things like Rend Soul and Divine Assault within this framework.

Then you have to consider the ramifications of having a typing that ignores heal debuffs but gains from heal blesses.

Also, nothing we can do about WH at the moment. WH affects only 3 skills anyway - HE, BoH and BoI. Check tooltips.

Why do you say empowered lifetaps are fully standard heal? They currently are unaffected by heal buffs or debuffs, whether empowered or not.

If I recall correctly, Wild Healing used to halve the cost of hots on RoR but was changed to match live. Is it impossible to add or remove individual spells to it? I can imagine Desperation being harder to change in such a way, but I don't know the limitations of the code and I'm not sure if that's what you mean. I understand the need for consistent mechanics but think AMs and Shams would be unique in having a lifetap spell used by both dps/lifetap and heal builds.


It kind of sucks that empowered BE doesn't scale with gear at all. This also creates the minor (but maddening :p) inconsistency that the empowered spell does less damage than a normal cast. Is this just a rough pass for testing purposes? What if the damage portion scaled normally, while the 250% portion of base damage part was replaced with some factor of all stats except int and magiccrit? (Is that even possible?). Same applies to EoV.


I think Rain Lord and Law of Age also should build Force and consume Tranquility for increased effect.

[Qwack]

Illiyara: "Qwack, I was going to laugh at you for running a lifetap build with discipline over centuries of training...then realized...gobbo... lol"


Well you could actually read a thread title before mocking people. This one clearly says "New Shammy Changes". There is another thread running for AMs.

[Azarael]

Main issue for me here is this creates a massive typing inconsistency. Lifetaps at the moment are either raw heal (no mechanic points) or fully standard heal (mechanic points). This would create a separate typing, which is essentially raw heal+. The ideal would be that all lifetaps would work in a similar manner, but one must consider things like Rend Soul and Divine Assault within this framework.

Then you have to consider the ramifications of having a typing that ignores heal debuffs but gains from heal blesses.

Also, nothing we can do about WH at the moment. WH affects only 3 skills anyway - HE, BoH and BoI. Check tooltips.

Why do you say empowered lifetaps are fully standard heal? They currently are unaffected by heal buffs or debuffs, whether empowered or not.

Talking about next patch.

If I recall correctly, Wild Healing used to halve the cost of hots on RoR but was changed to match live. Is it impossible to add or remove individual spells to it? I can imagine Desperation being harder to change in such a way, but I don't know the limitations of the code and I'm not sure if that's what you mean. I understand the need for consistent mechanics but think AMs and Shams would be unique in having a lifetap spell used by both dps/lifetap and heal builds.

Wild Healing can't have spells added to it because the AP cost reduction on the client only affects 3 skills.

It kind of sucks that empowered BE doesn't scale with gear at all. This also creates the minor (but maddening :p) inconsistency that the empowered spell does less damage than a normal cast. Is this just a rough pass for testing purposes? What if the damage portion scaled normally, while the 250% portion of base damage part was replaced with some factor of all stats except int and magiccrit? (Is that even possible?). Same applies to EoV.

It's not a rough pass. The intent was always to use lifetaps in terms of heal mode for minor damage and strong healing. Any damage done by the lifetap is wasted from the perspective of a pure healing, meaning that if damage is too high, healing has to come down, the skills become hybrid and then they are useless to me for the purpose of balancing heal AM/Shaman.

I think Rain Lord and Law of Age also should build Force and consume Tranquility for increased effect.

At least one of them already lights up - I think it's Rain Lord / Yer a Weaklin'. I'll have to include them.