Lore
So first off, yes, these changes are indeed being made as measures to help with the input lag problem. We obviously recognize that they're pretty big changes and we're going to have to do some additional tuning as a result (and that goes for everyone effected, not just Shaman).
Looking at some of the Shaman-specific concerns we've seen come up:
: We recognize that the changes mean less opportunity for
to proc, but we're not sure it's overall a big deal. Given
's duration and the fact that the new, "smart"
Healing Rain will still be hitting several targets (just not all at once), we still expect that most people standing in a
Healing Rain will still wind up with
active. If there is a negative impact, we don't expect it to be a big one. It is something we'll keep an eye on, though.
: This we consider to be a good deal more important, as keeping
active on as many targets as possible is one of Resto's strengths (and feels good as part of their overall kit). Due to the ramp-up time, we feel that having
fall off is a much bigger setback than Earthliving. We haven't made a final call on exactly what we'll do here yet; one idea we've discussed is extending
's duration, but that could easily change as we continue tuning.
Ancestral Guidance/
Ascendance: We're not sure there's actually a problem here. Currently, past 6 targets,
Healing Rain's actual healing output is reduced per player it affects. The end result is that roughly the same amount of raw healing is going out if it only hits 6 players as it would if it were hitting 25. In fact, in many cases, it could actually be more. If even one of those 25 players were already at full (say they've got a bunch of absorbs on them, or used something like Divine Shield or Dark Bargain), that amount that previously would have just been overhealing will instead be allocated to someone else that actually needs it.
Again, we recognize that these changes are going to require some extra tuning, so we'll be keeping a close eye on how things shake out in continued testing.