Restoration
- Deep Healing now benefits all heals, not just direct heals.
- Spirit Link Totem (new talent) reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3-minute cooldown.
The long awaited defensive cooldown Shamans have been asking for has finally come. Spirit Link is a design that Blizzard has been working on since the pre-release of WoTLK. The idea was to split the damage among players so that they take an equal amount of damage. However, there was many bugs and issues with the spell that could not be fixed before it was published to the game. The major problem with the spell in the past was that it was a permanent CC breaker for the two players that were linked. If player A was taking damage, player B would take an equal amount, this caused Player B to be permanently immune to CC such as Polymorph, Repentence, and Blind.
The new Spirit Link has been redesigned again. They released it in a form of a totem, which I thought was the best choice. Shaman is a totem class, and totems have been becoming less and less important since after they've homogenized all the classes buffs, specifically the Shaman buffs. The air totem was the perfect choice as well. This gives us the ability to protect the totem by combining Spirit Link totem along with Stoneclaw, allowing the totem to take a few extra hits before it dies. Since the change to tremor and the removal of Cleansing totem, we can now use our third set of totems once again.
Typically, all Shamans should now be running with these three totem sets:
Stoneclaw, Empty, Healing Stream, Grounding Totem
Stoneclaw, Empty, Healing Stream, Spirit Link Totem
Strength of Earth, Flametongue, Healing Stream, Windfury Totem
The last set could be different depending on the comp you are running with.
Although, I am happy that Shamans has an ability to counter melee teams. I find that this ability has been released at the wrong time. Spirit Link would have been ideal in WoTLK because every class was capable of killing you within a blanket silence or a charge stun. In Cataclysm, the only class capable of spewing out WoTLK damage is Warriors. The other classes has an incredibly hard time dealing any burst to kill someone.
Essentially, what this totem does is redistribute the health of every player within the range of the totem and making one gigantic health pool. There are several ways you can view this spell, you can see this ability as a Drain Life that can be used on your partners, that can heal you for as much as 12k per 1 second without a cast or channel time. You can also view this spell as practically killing a Shaman's entire team, in order to kill one of them. As long as the totem is down, you technically have to do up to a total of the Shaman's entire team's remaining health, in order to kill your target. The ability can also be used as another form of Nature Swiftness with a consequence.
Here is how the totem will work from my understanding of the context:
Team Member 1 is at 100%
Team Member 2 is at 100%
Team Member 3 is at 5%
As each second goes by, team member 3 will be gaining around 10% of his health every second. Meanwhile, Team Member 1 and Team Member 2 will be distributing their health to Team Member 3. They will be losing around 5% of their health every second.
As the totem expires.
Team Member 1 will be at 68%
Team Member 2 will be at 68%
Team Member 3 will be at 68%
Given that no one in the team has taken any damage during the time the totem is up. In a realistic sense, all of the Shaman team will probably be sitting around 60% by the end of the totem. Since this is a transfer of health instead of splitting damage to your team (old design), the rest of the team should not be immune to CC for 6 seconds.
The strength of this cooldown will depend on the health of your team mates. Comps such as DK/Warlock/Druid or DK/Spriest/Druid will have a much easier time with this cooldown and can very well take advantage of this. If all three targets are fully dotted, and a Shaman used this totem to re balance the health of his team to save one player, you have just left your entire team equally susceptible for a swap and kill.
DK/Warlock/Druid could drain a team's health slowly down to 50% across the board, chain silences and fears on the Shaman with gargoyle, dk pet up to get someone down to 10%. The shaman will have to use Spirit Link to counter this pressure. At the end of the duration, the shaman's team will all be sitting at around 25% health. Endangering the survivability of every one on the team.
The cooldown is extremely situational. I think that is what will keep it from being a super overpowered spell like Colossus Smash. Colossus Smash, you can just pop as soon as its off CD and you're guaranteed to do over 70k damage. Spirit Link will still require you to be aware of your positioning, where your team mates are standing, and the health of your team. This isn't a cooldown that you can pop whenever you like and its not a cooldown that you can always pop when you're sitting at 5% health. The 10 yard range requires your team to be standing on top of you to get its benefit. It brings your range into a terrible position and it forces your melee to sit on a melee target. This also forces the Shaman himself to stand there and tank more damage instead of kiting. Resulting in a great loss of mana.
In conclusion, shamans have always been a good healer against casters due to Earth Shield, Grounding Totem, Shear. This cooldown was strictly a counter for a melee zerg team. Shamans will now have an easier time with every type of comp out there and probably be the best all around healer to have. Melee zerg comps was the last piece of weakness that Shamans had problems with in Arena. As frustrating as it is to play against melee teams as a Shaman. I think all classes need a weakness and a strength. This is something that Blizzard has been shifting away from when they started homogenizing classes. They've successfully covered up every classes weakness to allow every spec to be viable in Arena. And doing so, it leaves you with a question such as "What the hell can we do against this team?" If a team has no weakness, there is nothing you can exploit or use to your advantage to counter them in the future. You are left with a feeling of hopelessness as you continuously queue against a ladder full of similar teams.
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