As all shamans I was initially shell shocked by the Deep Dive as my initial reaction was "OMG we got walloped with the nerf stick" but opted to do some testing before giving in to my initial knee jerk reaction. As a level 47 Shaman I'm pretty familiar with the class and like to think I have learned to play the prior version of shaman as efficiently as possible which took a great deal of work between balancing buffs, heals, slows, debuffs all while canny dancing. Short of a bard I can think of no other class which required as much timing/skill to properly maximize the abilities of the toon. It was truly a work of art watching a great shammy at work (I wouldn't put myself in that category but I was pretty good).
I've now had some time to let my initial emotions abate, did some testing and summarized my findings below (rough figures based on limited testing):
Overall DOT DPS Impact=DPS loss of approximately 25-30%
Wisdom increase by 6 resulting in slightly higher damage as our DOTs scale based on wisdom. DPS gain approx. 5%.
Loss of Spirit pet---Significant decrease in damage output equivalent to a primary dot. DPS loss approx. 10-15%
Loss of ability to stack DOTs of same spell line results in significant DPS loss of approx. 25-30%.
New DOT lines result in higher damage per tick. DPS gain of 5-10%
Overall Mana availability impact=Mana availability reduced by 50-60%
-Increased consume cool down was devastating with a negative impact of 60-75% to overall mana ability
-As a result of increased cool down time we need to heal ourselves less so 10-15% decrease in mana usage.
Spell Additions=Nice addition of group buffs and group panic button
-Love the addition of group regen.
-Love the group/everyone take a deep breath and reset spell.
-Requirement for Talisman on Tribal Fury line is pretty lame and seems unnecessary which will lead to non-use.
All in all it looks like our initial "we got hit with the nerf stick hard" reaction was/is the appropriate response. The "art" piece of the class has been removed. A defining and arguably "the defining" characteristic of the Shaman class has been rendered nearly useless. No more canny dancing flirting on the edge of death to ensure your tank can get that last second HOT tick to prevent your group from dying. Soloing has been squashed. We are just a secondary healer with buff bot duties and the occasional slow on named mobs (slow isn't really used otherwise).
Recommended fixes:
-Canny should be brought up to a 24s regen which will at least make it relevant again while still achieving apparent desired results of reducing mana pool. This will allow the folks that truly want to utilize the toon to its maximum ability to do so while those that just want to sit and med like any other healer class to do so.
-Allow DOTs from the same line to stack again. This will allow the class to solo to a certain degree. Loss of spirit pet hurt enough but loss of same line stacking DOTs is just too much.
