Issues with resto shamans on the beta v.2

I've barely finished my next whine post, and BAM changes to shamans on the Beta.

Shaman (Forums)

• Chain Heal healing increased by 15%.
• Healing Rain healing increased by 40%.
• Healing Surge now costs 34.3% of Base Mana, up from 31.6%.

Restoration

• Greater Healing Wave now costs 26.9% of Base Mana, down from 31.6% of Base Mana.

However, I am going to post it anyway, and it is "only" the CH part which is somewhat outdated:

Jim'll fix it; or what is the current solution ? 

I think one of the main reasons for there being a major balancing issue is the introduction of the new fixed mana pools, and I do generally like the idea on paper, but I sincerely think that it will provide Blizzard with a balancing nightmare.

How come ? Well, with abilities like Divine Plea, Innervate, Telluric Currents, PW: Solace (I haven't really read up on priests so I might be wrong) restores a percentage of your mana, then they will unquestionable be really rather nice in the beginning of the expansion since mana always is an issue.

However, since they are fixed on mana pools they will not scale with an increase in our gear, and this does invariable also lead to them becoming less and less worthwhile (TC is my primary focus since I play a shaman, Plea and Innervate might not be affected in the same way). Since our regn. will be relatively low in the beginning the 2% (or 0,58% as it really is) gain is something that we cannot ignore and that we will be forced to try and get as much benefit from as possible. Though, when our spirit goes up so does our regn., and with e.g. higher levels of crit percentage (We won't reach Cata levels, but let us say 20ish%) a spell like HW will become close to mana neutral or even a mana gain with your passive regn.. Then TC will become less and less desirable since the only thing it does scale with is haste, and we won't reach levels of haste where "hard casting" TC will be manageable nor even worthwhile (Make the shaman spec elemental and gain 8-14 times the damage and still get HTT for the oh shit situation).

One of the reasons that TC became mandatory for Cataclysm around the time of Firelands was the scaling of it or so to speak how few of our stats that didn't affect it. As TC was based on our LB damage, spl. it affected the return (And with bosses / adds taking extra damage it could be a massive gain), crit is pretty self-explanatory, spirit if you were specced into Elemental Precision and haste which grants the possibility of more casts during the same timeframe.

So as our gear improved so did the talent, but it is completely  the other way around with Mist since TC only scales with haste it will become less and less desirable or useful.

I think that the "best" way to fix one of the current massive issues with shaman regn. without affecting PVP too much (I know absolutely NOTHING about PVP and I am not planning to either), but I do suspect that one of the reasons for not "just" buffing WS or reducing spell costs is directly linked with shamans then becoming too powerful in a PVP environment. Therefore the best approach is to revert the changes to TC so it grants x% of damage done, which also adds an extra  dimension to certain fights for a shaman:

- Can you sacrifice 2-5 casts on LBs in order to gain mana since the boss is taking extra damage or are you forced to go bonkers with your healing abilities?

- Grants a more interesting choice between Ancestral Swiftness and Elemental Mastery

- Adds a more personal choice for secondary stats - passive regn. vs. e.g. crit for Resurgence and a possible higher gain from TC.

This may also reflect the fact that I really did enjoy the more aggressive playstyle that TC gave you the capability to play. 

In addition to the mana issue, and while our hands are still warm from clapping our fat hands together in joy over recent buffs, then we are still miles behind every other class (Perhaps except a disc priest, but since they add a massive amount of damage to the raid I hardly see them as "worse" than shamans). Spreading fights - We are obliterated beside the 15 seconds we got Ascendance up, and when it is on CD we are either a) Throwing Riptides around like it was our only spell, b) Hoping that the miserable CH will manage to jump more than twice or c) Meh, monks got it anyway no worries.

Fights where we gather - We are doing somewhat fine, and can push somewhat decent numbers, but still we are surpassed by a large margin by monks (Okay, they are surpassing everyone by miles). However, it brings up an issue which have been discussed and talked about quite often and that is; If we aren't "good" at anything, why bring a shaman when a paladin / druid / monk will do the job better in a spread environment, and do it just as well in a stacked ? I can see the idea of no more niche healers from a designer point of view, but of you do not excel at anything then you must be average all-around, but that is not the case. The case currently is that you will gimp your raid by bringing a shaman to the vast majority of fights HR, CH buffs or no HR, CH buffs. 

Talking about Chain Heal.

It has been the signature spell for resto shamans for ages, but current it is the thing that causes us to struggle and be so far behind that it isn't even funny anymore. There is two major reasons for CHs inadequateness:

1st) Something that the majority of resto shamans have pointed out again, again and again. Jump range, Jump range and how often you end up with 2 perhaps 3 jumps not really feeling the time spend on the cast, and the mana you have invested in CH was worth it.

2nd) In a 10man grp. you would rarely find 4 people within the desired jump range, but then you can always glyph CH and bam no more worries. Or to be brutal honest, the only place used CH during 10man testing was primarily whenever there was massive inc. raid damage, and one cast with extra jump range and 4 sec CD is just not worth it. Your spell might be more efficient, but you can get close to two extra CH casts in during its downtime.
In 25man CH should hold its ground, but from my point of view it is still inadequate. Jump range is still an issue unless you only focus on melee, which in any case should have HR placed on them. The glyph is an even bigger no go in this environment, and I do honestly feel like CH is one of the worst "primary" heals in spite of it being "smart".  I do think compared to the other healers raid healing abilities our CH is the  (under the best conditions) least well-functioning. If we look at the percentages of the raid that it manages to heal for a cast compared to priest / druid abilities  

CH (2,5s) heals 4 = 16% (If it manages to jump)

PoH (2,5s ) / WG (8 sec CD) / CoH  (10 sec CD, glyph and Chakra not included)  5 = 20%

Now, I know we also have paladins and monks, but since monks are retarded and I do not have enough knowledge about paladins I will refrain from looking at them.

So CH takes just as long as a PoH to cast, but heals one person less. It is a smart heal, but it also heals less and less effective each jump. PoH is grp. based and if people place themselves left and right then it has just the same issue as CH, however, when stacked it has none of the drawbacks (Talking about the numbers it produces vs. CH is another talk).

So CH is clearly the weakest "primary" AoE heal considering the percentage of the raid it has the capability of healing, and it has a relative long cast time compared to the amount of healing you get from it.

My point is that under the current circumstances and compared to the other healers it screams to high heavens for a change. I see two possible "fixes":

1) Increase jump range plus removing the reduced effectiveness after each jump. That should make the spell more desirable to use, and by becoming more powerful it somewhat counters that it only hits 4 people.

2) Increase jump range plus adjusting the glyph to hitting one person more, with the a downside somewhat like our current Cata glyph.