Restoration Shaman 9.2 Tier Set Bonus Revisited - Guide Writer Thoughts on What's Changed

PTR Posted 2021/12/27 at 2:18 AM by Niseko

a reworkRestoration Shaman Tier Set Rework for Build 41359

2-Piece: Chain Heal's critical hit chance is increased by 30% on all targets it hits when cast on a target affected by your Riptide.Your critical healing increases the critical chance of your next Chain Heal by 2%, stacking up to 50 times.
4-Piece: Your Chain Heal critical hits reduce the remaining cooldown of Spirit Link Totemone of your totems by 2 sec. Your Healing Stream Totem, Healing Tide Totem, Mana Tide Totem, and Spirit Link Totem now also cast Chain Heal when you drop them.

NisekoHeal the Soul (2-Set) is supposed to make you Chain Heal more, which it does indeed. Stacking it to 50 guarantees you a full crit Chain Heal, but accounting for the critical strike chance you already have, realistically 30 to 35 stacks will already guarantee that.

According to the blue post, critical healing from totems is supposed to work as well for Heal the Soul, but this isn't the case on PTR at the moment. I'd like to see this working, as it would put a lot of power into the Healing Tide Totem cooldown window (could even combine it with Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem). This is a great improvement over the old set; which forced you to target players with Riptide in particular.

Now the 4-Set (Heal the Soul) has 2 parts to it, one is free Chain Heal casts whenever you drop Healing Stream Totem, Cloudburst Totem, Healing Tide Totem, Mana Tide Totem or Spirit Link Totem. This part is undeniably great; extra free Chain Heals are always a good thing, especially as they benefit from the buff of the 2-Set, but there's a lot of odd interactions with those Chain Heal and it is unclear whether the current interactions are intended, or if the set is only half implemented for now. Some buffs get properly consumed to buff the totem Chain Heal (Unleash Life), but others don't get consumed even though they do buff the Chain Heal (High Tide, Jonat's Natural Focus). Judging from how the set is working on PTR, I'm assuming that its supposed to use and consume all Chain Heal buffs as a normal Chain Heal would.

The other part is the cooldown reduction on totems whenever you crit with a Chain Heal hit. This one I'm not sure about. It does work with every Chain Heal hit, so one cast can reduce multiple totems, or one totem multiple times, but what totem it reduces appears to be random. The issue is that some totems benefit a lot more from the reduction than others, Cloudburst Totem and Vesper Totem in particular scale greatly with cooldown reduction. This means the more totems you have to drop, so the further you get into a fight, the weaker this part of the set gets (as Cloudburst Totem is usually the first one to get used), especially once you have to drop utility totems which will steal some of the cooldown reduction. I would like a little more restriction on what totems that this can effect (maybe just one totem like Healing Stream Totem/Cloudburst Totem or Healing Tide Totem), as you never really want to be in a situation where you don't want to use your spells. Maybe addressing that some totems gain a lot more from a flat 2 second reduction than others would also work, as constantly reducing 2 seconds on a 30 second cooldown is more impactful than on a 180 second cooldown. At the same time this is clearly the smaller part of the set in the current implementation, so personally I'm not too bothered, I'd just like it to be more than that.

Issues aside, this set already plays and feels a lot better than the old iteration. You get incentivized to press Chain Heal but aren't forced to, as you can use the 2-Set buff with the 4-Set by dropping totems as well. It's less optimal but you still gain a decent bit of healing. The current implementation on PTR strongly suggests that its not finished yet however, and we'll have to see how the set changes in further builds.

Comment by VadoreusI think this "you never really want to be in a situation where you don't want to use your spells" thing could be a big deal. Feeling punished whenever you drop any totem other than cloudburst or vesper would be really bad.Comment by thebdcI take it the crit bonus of the 2-piece is not used up by the automatic Chain Heal cast of the 4-piece?Comment by WorasYou get incentivized to press Chain Heal but aren't forced to, as you can use the 2-Set buff with the 4-Set by dropping totems as wellComment by ValknutAlso, venthyr for 9.2 resto shaman feels so good. You stack crit so so fast. I couldn't test venthyr legendary+primal tide core legendary since we can't equip 2x legendaries on PTR but i think they'll have good synergy.Comment by YsquanirOnly Hypothesis:

When Vesper Totem is considered as our totem, there is HUUUUUGE advantage to Kyrian Covenant.

I can only assume, that this particular spell can not be considered as totem and be used in set.
If yes, then there MUST be reduction to other covenant abilities.
This part of set pieces must be still worked on.Comment by MurzacOnly Hypothesis:

When Vesper Totem is considered as our totem, there is HUUUUUGE advantage to Kyrian Covenant.

I can only assume, that this particular spell can not be considered as totem and be used in set.
If yes, then there MUST be reduction to other covenant abilities.
This part of set pieces must be still worked on.Comment by EirealAs someone who loves running dungeons, it sounds like a very good thing to me that Vesper's CD is eligible to be reduced by the 4-piece.

It adds a potential damage component to our tier-set bonus, something we'll need to be competitive against Paladins and their reduced CD on Wings going into 9.2.

Holy Priests also have a touch of damage-versus-healing versatility baked into their set bonuses, if I understand how they work correctly.

Giving all healers the choice to use the bonus for healing or damage is a great idea in my opinion, so that the set bonus doesn't feel lacklustre in dungeons.

Granted, it's a bit different with Vesper, since it combines both damage and healing, but then again so do Wings...

As long as it's balanced and tuned properly, giving us more potentially creative uses for our free GCDs to do damage will always sound good to me.

(My argument does not take into account the part of the conversation dealing with min-maxing totem use for HPS in raids... nor the fact that Vesper is tuned fairly high right now.)Comment by ProfienOn drop chain heal is meh, make is more like the Torg power where its a Chain Heal per pulseComment by NerfthisI do believe one way to balance which totems are getting reduction and which not is to make em setupable - let player choose 2 totems whenever they want and these 2 totems will get cd reduce. You need more stuns ? Go for it. More healing - go for it.. etcComment by JDub1989Resto shaman: 25 different iterations on set bonuses so far.
Holy and disc priest: 0.

Wonder what spec the lead game designer plays...Comment by EmmetcullenResto shaman: 25 different iterations on set bonuses so far.
Holy and disc priest: 0.

Wonder what spec the lead game plays...Comment by EmmetcullenOnly Hypothesis:

When Vesper Totem is considered as our totem, there is HUUUUUGE advantage to Kyrian Covenant.

I can only assume, that this particular spell can not be considered as totem and be used in set.
If yes, then there MUST be reduction to other covenant abilities.
This part of set pieces must be still worked on.Comment by SarcumaResto shaman: 25 different iterations on set bonuses so far.
Holy and disc priest: 0.

Wonder what spec the lead game designer plays...Comment by DiscomancoResto shaman: 25 different iterations on set bonuses so far.
Holy and disc priest: 0.

Wonder what spec the lead game plays...Comment by Cozzene"one of your totems" still feels lousy. I don't want Capacitor or roots or slow to get the advantage, I want cloudburst/HTT/SL/maybe even MTT. I can see why having it cover all totems may be advantageous, but... eh. Still kinda sucky.Comment by 2136358pogComment by DraekenO god.. it works on Vesper Totem. That makes kyrian even more op and every other covenant becomes worthless. Not to mention encourages degenerate play to do more damage by not using other totems. If that goes live, along with dual leggo kyrian + earth ele leggo, shamans are going to be so absurdly op in m+ that I fear kneejerk nerfs into the ground.Comment by 80sRockWhile the auto Chain Heal part of the 4-piece iteration is sound, trash the rest; too much RNG and not enough payout. Change it to something along the lines of, "Every 10 stacks of Heal the Soul reduces the cast time of Chain Heal by 0.5 seconds. Your Healing Stream Totem, Healing Tide Totem, Mana Tide Totem, and Spirit Link Totem now also cast Chain Heal when you drop them." The synergy of the Chain Heal cast redux would perhaps feel better than the actual benefit, but that is a huge part of the enjoyment of playing your class. For example, 30 stacks of Heal the Soul would almost guarantee a critical hit, and the cast time would be lowered from 2.5 secs to 1 sec. An instant cast at 50 stacks would feel great, but would also indicate you could be using Chain Heal more frequently.Comment by Vhalkyria.Comment by VhalkyriaAs someone who loves running dungeons, it sounds like a very good thing to me that Vesper's CD is eligible to be reduced by the 4-piece.

It adds a potential damage component to our tier-set bonus, something we'll need to be competitive against Paladins and their reduced CD on Wings going into 9.2.

Holy Priests also have a touch of damage-versus-healing versatility baked into their set bonuses, if I understand how they work correctly.

Giving all healers the choice to use the bonus for healing or damage is a great idea in my opinion, so that the set bonus doesn't feel lacklustre in dungeons.

Granted, it's a bit different with Vesper, since it combines both damage and healing, but then again so do Wings...

As long as it's balanced and tuned properly, giving us more potentially creative uses for our free GCDs to do damage will always sound good to me.

(My argument does not take into account the part of the conversation dealing with min-maxing totem use for HPS in raids... nor the fact that Vesper is tuned fairly high right now.)