Shaman Totems vs Paladin Blessings

[Kevin]

Well, again, all this is hypothetical, and any change even close to this would be a huge step forward. However, if we do not make Mana Tide raid-wide (because that sounds overpowered, right?), here is how the typical raids will compare:

- Alliance will still have more manafe/spirit
- Alliance will have higher armor (thanks to Devotion Aura)
- Alliance will have higher heal efficiency (Paladins)
- Alliance will have better aggro control
- Mana regeneration will be roughly equal - Shamans have mana tide, Paladins provide JoW and BoW (that is slightly superior to Mana Spring)
- DPS will be roughly equal - Horde melee DPS will be slightly superior, while Alliance caster DPS will be superior to that of Horde (currently, Fire Mages and Shadow Priests are not viable at all for Horde on fights of any significant length, consumables or not)

So when all is said and done, we get a Horde raid that, while equal to Alliance raid in some areas, is still inferior in others. Why can't Horde raids be superior in one area? Blizzard could half the effectiveness of Mana Tide, make it trainable, give it a raid-wide totem (is 600 mana to everyone in the raid overpowered?), and give Shamans some decent 31 talent instead. Raid-wide Mana Tide would be pretty great, it is one option that I can think of that will give Horde a boost in raiding while not affecting 5 mans, PvP, Soloing, Duels or anything else of consequence.

I agree that raiding should be equal be it because horde have some advantage in the key areas are because they are all essentially equal. Or because design of the encounters means that over the whole dungeon the differences balance out.

I actually think horde with mana tide left just as a party totem will still have pretty much the same mana regen but you make mana tide trainable and replace it with something else. Talented (and with raid wide you would have shaman with the talent) mana stream is 31.25 mana/5. Why they don't just bump that up so that it is 40 mana / 5 like talented BoW is I don't know. So the big factor assuming raid totems, would be Judgement of Wisdom. Drop the proc to 25%, cut what it does in half and then really what mana tide, in just a party should overwhelm it, and it gives you an advantage in burst mana. Alliance would be better at total mana over the long haul, but horde would be better at more mana right now which can be just as, if not more critical in some encounters, like the "we have to burn this thing down now that it is at 30% or it regens to full". Mana Tide even in just 4 or 5 groups > BoW + JoW.

Aggro control may also be equal. Don't forget that tanks get aggro from damage as well as much as 50% of their total aggro and I don't think it is every less than 20% of the total aggro. Since the tanks will be doing more damage than alliance tanks that means better aggro. I'm not sure if the 10% difference in the totems will be enough. I think we still need an adjustment here.

A raid wide healing healing stream as healing or damage mitigation, however you want to figure it in, can't be ignored. I've been hit for 35 healing a tick from one of them. I'm pretty sure they get 10% of your +heal spread out over the duration but I haven't looked closely. Stoneskin raid wide would be the same as sanctuary raid wide more or less, if not they should be equaled out. Is the extra little healing going to be the same as the extra armor for tank longevity? Well in a mostly magic damage fight it will actually be better than devo. In a mostly physical damage fight it will be worse. The problem might be the aggro that a totem like that will generate for a shaman, if the whole raid is hurt that would be 700 healing a second (if it healed the whole raid, which as we know it wouldn't from positioning). That is the same as what 350 DPS? But you could do a holy nova thing for aggro with it if you need to, it would need to be tweaked you would not want a mob running off to kill some totem.

The bigger life pools matter. 2 shot kills aren't going to be stopped by some dinky stoneskin and healing stream. That extra 500 health can really make a huge difference to burst damage. What I talked about earlier is for sustained damage. And you would need to increase the advantage against sustained damage more to balance it against weaker burst survival. That can be done via encounter design or something else.

I'd say a 31 point resto totem that gives your party 10% more life but now you have the "Raid shaman have to life totem spec". I think the card that gets played against this is Tauren warriors. When does 5% more life (not just stam, kings is just stam) over take 10% stam? Does it ever? If the fear ward card can be played against alliance I can at least look at this as stupid of a balance mechanic as it is. Tauren get 105 life from a 100 life enchant they get extra life from everything, not just stam. It's still a broken mechanic, just like fear ward, forcing horde to carry some Tauren warriors would be just as dumb as forcing alliance to carry dwarf priests. I haven't looked at it, but since the bigger life pools seem to matter the most to burst damage if we give horde enough of an advantage in effective life is this stupid mechanic that both sides have to deal with good enough? Are we still to weakened by the fact that mages and warlocks and rogues are taking enough burst damage that the the idea of better mitigation doesn't matter at all? I think shaman having NS is supposed to make up for this as well. Horde have more ways to quickly recover from damage spikes. And actually Tauren warriors are probably the reason you don't see some horde buff that gives everyone 10% more stam because you buff them up even more. I still don't have a good answer for this one. I think I see how it was supposed to have some balance but it still needs help.

Healing efficiency. This is a problem as well. But I'm a little stumped on it as well. Make shaman even more efficient by talents and there are problems. The extra nature's swiftness for one. The other is that in other things shaman already can burst damage better and can do more DPS if they aren't needed to heal in most situations as well. This isn't that big a deal in raids, but it can be a PvP issue. I don't want to break PvP balance, and despite some of the claims I think there is more balance there (faction imbalance aside) than some claim. But while paladins can heal longer their heals are still not generally as effective as shaman. I still think healing is a wash between the two factions in raids. Healing seems better for alliance because debuff curing is currently better for alliance since they have 2 ways to get rid of magic, poison, disease, and curses. Horde has 1 way to get rid of magic, 3 ways to get rid of poison and diseases, and 2 ways to get rid of curses. The totems for getting rid of poison and disease generally don't matter, they do help in some of those encounters but they still generally don't matter. And magic debuffs are just more harmful than poison or disease debuffs in the current design. I've never quite understood why shaman couldn't clear magic debuffs.


So if we give raid wide totems and all shaman mana tide that only hits the party, the real problem seems to be Judgement of Wisdom and the extra life from kings in raids. Mana tide for all probably didn't happen because an elemental shaman who can drop one in PvP gets too much of a burst DPS boost. But I'm not sure I care that much about that. But mana tide for the party with raid wide mana spring, should still be enough to keep sustained healing the same (remember a priest doesn't get a lot of wand shots to benefit from JoW). I'm not sure if makes up for sustained caster DPS. It will help with burst caster DPS. I can live with horde hunters doing less sustained physical damage becuase horde melee will do more sustained physical DPS and total melee DPS will go up.


Yes I do want to fix the problems and just raid wide totems alone can't do it. Other tweaks have to happen.