There are little to no chance you overheal in situations you are the sole healer, it only comes to your understanding of the pace of battle and how you adapt your spells around it, thus I doubt there will be a downsight on shaman in groups, especially as their mana regen is strong and should allows them to manage chain pulls better than other healers.
Now on multiple healers groups/raids it will all come to different things, the first beeing : Will hots from the same class stack ? If not, stacking shamans might not be a good solution, except if they don't share roles (healing different tanks or roles).
Then, remember Shamans have very strong debuffs throught curses and that having them will also increase their healing output. In this regards, in multiple healers groups/raids you will INDEED be more inclined to maintain them as they are beneficial to damage taken by at least, tanks, and having them one will make your heals more potent. That also means, you might not have rooms on your LAS to inclusde buffs/short term boosts, heals, debuffs and primal curses. But that also means you might take shamans to diversify their roles. One would be primarily HoTing targets included main tank, one would have the debuff duty and only equip a limited amount of heals (and use the healing empowerment on some big game changing ones), etc...
But that also means if you dope is just to heal and heal the best in any situation, then maybe the class is too versatile and flexible to be fit for you, as it is designed to have numerous options and not bottleneck into only healing competition.
Just take pride in the fact that regen healers are more difficult to play ;-)
Here's a copy/paste from the druid healing abilities (I haven't looked through Shaman stuff yet), but this shows that they are thinking about this in develpment already, so things are looking up:
"Verdanfire Seed
You plant a mystical seed within your ally. This seed protects the target by absorbing up to X damage based on your level. When this amount is reached, the seed will bloom and heal your target for the amount of damage it absorbed. Y% of the effective healing your target receives will be refunded to you as Mana. You may apply a Verdanfire Seed to as many targets as you like but only one seed may be active on a target at a time. Once the seed blooms and the healing is applied, you may not cast this ability on the same target for Z duration."
I do take pride in playing high skillcap classes and preforming near perfect session after session. But it still does not change the fact that rgn is more likely to overheal and will be less optimal in raid senarios due to abilities beeing wasted.
From a point of view of a guy that has not had an opportunity to play the game and can only go by what information we do know from the offical site. I do not see a shaman ever being able to single heal a group. This does concern me because in the last decade MMO's have moved away from having secondary healers. Most people want as many DPS classes they can get in a group to speed up game play. They want one tank and one healer with four DPS. I don't see this trend ending with Pantheon and makes me rethink if I even want to play the class of shaman. I know shamans can play other rolls. But as it is now they are the jack of all trades and the master of none. So again I see people sticking with the trend of one tank and one healer and this is going to hurt the shaman IMHO.
HoT healers are harder to play and that is what draws me to them. I enjoy the challenge but I'm also a realist and I don't see the trend that has been in play for over a decade of maxing out as many dps classes you can get in a group going away with Pantheon. This is going to hurt the shaman class and make you look like you don't know how to play your class. When in fact your class is heavily flawed IMHO when it comes to single healing a group.
Its the resons i tried to figurer out a way to buff rgns so its playable in raid senarios. If an amount of the overhealing is turned into an absorb shield for a short duration, then Shamans have an awesome job keeping the raid topped off, in some senarios shielded before a boss area ability, spells would not go to waste and overhealing would be way less.
Another question - why, in your opinion, are rgn healers more likely to overheal? If you know your spell heals X health over Y seconds, wouldn't you cast it when you know the full Y seconds will be used? Just like an instant cast healer wouldn't use a +100heal if their target was only down 20 health? That's why I say it's a higher skill cap. You have to do more calculations in your head, on the spot, than an instant healer. You also have to know ahead of time how much damage your tank is going to be taking.
I also totally disagree with the tank/healer/4dps group composition for this game. I do think people might try it, but they'll learn quickly that there is more to this game than tanking, healing, and dps. I think is most situations you'll find that a shaman can be the main healer for a group. I also think Druids will be fine main healing for a group. When it comes to raids I believe people will want clerics AND a druid or shaman to make sure things go well.
BamBam said: @Ren Healing over time in raid senarios often get applies to a mamber but quickly after another healer heals the same target to full with lets say and instant medium single target heal. So the rgn still sits there and tricks away at 100% player hp beeing wasted. In grps my consern is that the tank will get killed before the Shaman can apply atk speed slow, rgns and there fore they are the less optimal grp and raid healers.
Hots have never been good to patch up players. If you just HoT a 50% life group member, you take the risk for him to die before the hot could patch him up.
Hots allow however to counter regular damage, especially on tanks, and allow for less direct healings because their life doesn't drop as fast as it would.
BamBam said: ... In grps my consern is that the tank will get killed before the Shaman can apply atk speed slow, rgns and there fore they are the less optimal grp and raid healers.
I think this is one of the problems. You're hoping to apply these buffs and debuffs AND be as good of a healer as a cleric. If that is the case no one will need to play clerics.
This exact issue has been at the top of my list ever since I learned that Clerics would have direct heals while Shaman would only have HoTs. A HoT will, by their very nature, a very low DPS cap. This is especially true if there is only one HoT line and we cannot stack multiple HoTs. That said, the Shaman has the ability called 'Hurry the Past' which will, when cast, instantly heal the target for the remaining HPs that HoT would have healed for its remaining duration then restart that HoT. From what I've seen on the streams, the Shaman HoTs are 8 ticks with 1 tick every 3 seconds. So you cast your biggest HoT, instantly(?) activate Hurry The Past and hope that you've only lost 1 tick so you have 7 ticks worth of healing that will show up in one big heal. My guess is that once HtP is used on a HoT, it cannot be reactivated on that same HoT so it will only be good, really, once every 48 seconds thereabouts.
While there are other HoTs for the Shaman, they appear to be group HoTs and if you're not in a situation where you need group healing, that is wasted healing power and mana.
I am currently dubious that a Shaman will make an effective healer in a single priest group while I expect the Cleric to have no such concerns. That said, the Shaman can improve that by having a DireLord tank. One of it's blod states, if memory serves, increases the effectiveness of heals cast on the DL.
1. With a HoT healer there is no way IMHO to get away from over healing. Unlike the cleric that can wait until a person get to 50% to start applying heals a HoT healer has to keep HoT's stack on the tank and group all the time while in combat.
2. Clerics are the only healer that get a real rez. The shamans have to be dead for the one rez they get to be any good. Druids don't get a rez but more like a get out of jail free card with Hirode's Chrysalis. So that alone give clerics a major advantage. Plus clerics are the only class the can restore lost XP when they rez yet another great advantage for the cleric.
3. Cleric heals do exactly that. They heal with no secondary ability tied to them unlike the druids
You animate three tendrils of Verdanfire that lash around you wildly, damaging any enemy and healing any ally they touch. These tendrils grow longer and reach farther every second for the duration of the ability. You will be able to animate more than three tendrils based on your Wisdom, Intelligence and Constitution.
I see this heal hardly ever getting used because it also attacks the mobs around you and will break any mez the enchanter has on them.
4. Cleric are not primarily HoT heals like the shaman & get the best HoT in the game with
Swiftly heals your ally’s wounds for a high amount
They also get another HoT called
Shroud your ally in restorative light, healing them over time for X duration. Only useable on one target at a time.
5. With the shamans passive ability
Passive Ability. You receive an X% bonus to your Healing abilities for each Elemental school you have active on an Offensive target (Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Animus, Ancestral).
You have to constantly cast spells that are totally situational when the situation does not call for that spell to max out the benefits from "Keeper of Elemental Mysteries like
Wind Bane. Bombard your enemy with cross-cutting winds, distracting them and reducing their Aggro and Assist Radius by X meters for Y duration.
Because this is the only wind bane we get from our Offensive Abilities as a shaman.
I can keep going.but hopefully I think I made my point. Clerics are hands down the best healer in the game with the best rez and best HoT and ward. BamBam makes great points. Shamans yes with all our debuffs and buffs can not come close to the healing of a cleric. Druids of Pantheon are more like the shamans of EQ & EQ2. I think it is in reason to ask for a ward for the shaman or another direct heal.
I'm interested in your feedback. Tell me what you think.
Vander said:2. Clerics are the only healer that get a real rez. The shamans have to be dead for the one rez they get to be any good. Druids don't get a rez but more like a get out of jail free card with Hirode's Chrysalis. So that alone give clerics a major advantage. Plus clerics are the only class the can restore lost XP when they rez yet another great advantage for the cleric.
I brought this up several times with Joppa on a couple of different streams and he said that VR was not happy with the current situation with the Shaman rez and that it would be revisited. That means we have some chance that our in-combat rez will not first require us to be #%@#%^@% dead.
With respect to this issue of the Cleric being the best healer, I'm not sure that I agree with that statement quite yet.
The cleric must have the biggest direct heals because it lacks any other means by which to mitigate incoming damage other than its AC buff. Yes, it can buffer hitpoints through an HP buff, but beyond that it is dealing with the full damage output of an NPC.
The Shaman, by contrast, uses Slow and other debuffs to reduce incoming DPS while through buffs and haste increases outgoing DPS. Its heals, therefore, cannot be as powerful as the Cleric otherwise the Shaman becomes greatly overpowered.
I can't speak to the Druid because we've seen no real druid gameplay at all.
The fundamental, core mission of the Priest archetype is to heal a group given all aspects of the group and what they are facing being equal. Each should do it equally well but via different means. I strongly believe that each priest class must be able to operate as the sole priest in a group. If any priiest requires another healer to be present, then that priest need rebalanced otherwise it will be treated as a second class citizen, unwanted.
I haven't read all of the posts, but I would just like to point out "Hurry the Past" which appears to be the equivalent to the WoW Druid's Swift Mend that takes the current HoTs (even from other classes like Paladin and Druid) and forces all of the future potential heal into an immediate heal (but unlike Swift Mend, it refreshes all of the HoTs again) for your whole group; So depending on the cooldown of that, coupled with the Shaman's ability to further reduce incoming damage with slows I think a Shaman may be ok. If Hurry the Past doesn't have a significant cooldown, I would argue that would make the SHM an incredibly efficient healer for raids. (Potentially having "hurry the past rotations" to keep HoTs up and have bursts of group heals while clerics pump out big single target heals on the MT).
That's just me theorycrafting though.
Add: I'd also think that HoT would work better with a DL or Paladin tanking since they can heal themselves a bit - I would hate to heal a DL as a Cleric (constant overhealing or underhealing because you were anticipating them self healing but they got a miss/parried/blocked/stunned/riposted/dodged).
BamBam said: How does VR plan to balance healing and also healer classes out? In my mmo experiance rgn always lose the fight VS Instant heals. Making Cleric the go to healer in Pantheon, then druid and last Shaman. Rgn healers take longer time to do the same Rgn healers overheal (heal a taget at 100%) more often. Rgn healers have a hard time VS burst of damage I would love to play Shaman but will hate to feel that i only will be support healing and not main healing in grps and raid. I posted an idea that let overhealing build up as a ansorb shield on the player, so even when healed at 100% players could benefit from the rgn still. And the healer would not waste Spell after Spell feeling gimped when looking at druid or clerics tool Kit.
In what context? You are making a sweeping judgement. There are plenty of scenarios in many games where a lower HPM but higher efficiency(read heal over time) class will be far superior to a burst heal class. If they are all balanced the same, what's the point in having different classes?