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We like the fire totem changes. It's a new change and I'm sure it will require some iteration before it feels exactly right, but we like the mechanic overall. It's not critical that Searing Totem be an uber form of dps in the same way that Sentry Totem's very existence might offend you. We did a big update of totems for Lich King. They're not perfect yet, but when you remember what they used to be like, they're in a much better place now.

We see Elementals "turretiness" as a slightly different issue, and one we want to fix. No spec should be so terrified of moving, even one dependent on stationary points on the map where their totems are.

Also be very careful that you aren't just describing totems in general as a clunky mechanic. I see that kind of thing a lot, but totems are virtually synonymous with shaman in our minds. If you really, really hate totems, you might not be playing the class that best suits your play style.

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Yes, we want to fix the discrepancy. We'd like to get it done before Cataclysm. I'm not going to promise we're going to be able to for the reasons I can't and don't ever promise anything. You can see how many shaman have even hung on to my saying "we'd like to fix it by Cataclysm." I think in the future I'm going to have to be even more careful about saying stuff like that.

I'm pretty sure you all know the issue, but for the record (and being brief to the point of being flippant):

-- Some shaman are convinced they won't be brought if ToW doesn't compete with or trump DP.
-- Some Demo locks are convinced they won't be brought if DP doesn't complete with or trump DP. I'm slightly more sympathetic with the locks here, because shaman do have other desirable buffs. I realize this is somewhat subjective though.
-- Many shaman don't want to have to drop ToW at all. They tend to be happier when a Demo lock comes too. It all depends on how secure they feel with their slot in the raid. In my experience, most players obsess way too much over getting sat. If they are getting sat, it might be a personal performance problem. If their personal performance is good, it might be that their raid leader is misinformed and puts way too much emphasis on a spellpower and crit buff when it's possible to improve their dps by much more in other (more L2P) ways. At the very high end, eeking out a 2 or 3% dps buff can be huge. But even in those guilds, I still see plenty of Elemental and Demonology. My slightly unrelated advice is you'll be happier playing the game if you find a guild less focused on constantly replacing their players.
-- We are really trying to move away from the "I get a slot because of my awesome buff." Some days I think we'd be better off with none at all and players just got brought because they were good players. (We're not going to do this, but it would certainly chill out a lot of the raid utility anxiety.)

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If we can get it in. On a technical side, the implementation just ends up being a little different for every stat.

Keep in mind that pet scaling isn't essential to good damage. It's only essential for keeping your pet's damage growing at the same rate as your damage, and by extension keeping your total damage growing at the same rate as other classes. There aren't going to be 3 more tiers of content for Lich King, so it only gets to be an issue if other classes scale so much better that they leapfrog you in Icecrown / the final PvP season.

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It's a little of both. Technically we have trouble altering inventory space in existing characters, and that would especially be true for the shard bag. We can do it, but it's a pretty high risk change when you consider all of the things that can go wrong. For that reason, we'd prefer to do it during an expansion when we have plenty of time to solve any unforeseen problems that arise.

On the design side, we'd prefer to unveil new mechanics that all work well together rather than make changes now that we'd just turn around and undo. What I mean is that we don't want to sideline soul shards even more for the next few months to the point where locks, especially newer ones, sort of forget about them only to bring them back in a big way for Cataclysm.

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Q: Will the random heroic search have the option of excluding certain heroics (i.e. oculus?)
A: You do not have the option to exclude specific Heroic dungeons, however, if you've already run a specific Heroic dungeon that day, it is less likely to be randomly selected for you.


Q: Will players still need to purchase keys to queue for TBC heroics?
A: All standard requirements for entering a dungeon will remain. For instance, if you log into the game just after patch 3.3's release and queue for a Random Heroic dungeon, you will not be selected for the Icecrown Citadel Pit of Saron or Halls of Reflection wings unless you've cleared your way through each preceding wing in order to unlock the next wing (i.e. you must clear Forge of Souls for Pit of Saron, and Pit of Saron for Halls of Reflection).


Q: I've heard players will no longer be saved to heroics. Does this mean we can farm Champion's Seals?
A: Heroic lockouts still exist. The only difference is that the Random Heroic option will ignore lockouts. So if you've run every single Wrath of the Lich King Heroic dungeon in a day, you can still choose the Random Heroic option to continue running them. You can do this as often as time allows since this option will ignore lockout timers. As I said above though, the Heroic dungeons you've run the most that day will be less likely to be randomly chosen by the system.

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I see this sort of question a lot, and it's usually phrased in terms of how we love dps casters and make things easy for them and hate healers and want to make them suffer.

When you think about the actual experience though the difference comes down to more damage nearly always being better while healing has a target, beyond which more healing isn't necessary because everyone is at 100% of their health. Overhealing exists as a concept, whereas overdamage does not (except in a few isolated fights or when threat is an issue). In a very coarse sense, damage is about as going as fast as you can while healing is about hitting your target -- damage is a 50 yard dash, while healing is playing darts.

Furthermore, most healing rotations aren't terrible complicated because they can't afford to be. If you had to get up e.g. 3 periodic spells and self buffs before you could even do your job, then a lot of time players would be dead before you could ever get around to actually saving their lives. Having a long ramp up time would just kill healing.

So the healing game ultimately becomes more about using the right tool for the job. If someone takes a little damage but isn't likely to die, a hot is a great idea. If someone is about to die, you might need a very fast spell or even a cooldown. If a lot of players take damage at once, an AE looks attractive. If you know you won't be able to cast for awhile (maybe you're moving) then again something with a duration like a hot or shield is the ticket. And so on....

Mana efficiency is ideally part of this calculus. If mana doesn't matter, then either your highest healing-per-second spell or your fastest spell (depending on the situation) is always the best choice. Increasingly in LK, it's just the fastest spell that wins because of the nature of incoming damage. If mana doesn't matter, then you aren't trying to hit the bullseye I described above because missing the bullseye (overhealing) has no consequence. If you use the proverbial bazooka to kill cockroaches, then who cares?

Many long-term healers (and I'll include myself in that) enjoy healing because you feel smart when you do it right. Part of that "smartiness" is using the right tool for the job. It's a different approach to the game than say a mage or warlock uses however. To some degree it's hard for me to understand how you like healing if you don't like mana management.

Now, in much of the above, I'm describing an ideal situation. Mana generally matters a lot less in Lich King for healers than we'd like, so instead of challenging healers to hit the target we just challenge healers to keep as many darts in the air as possible. If you miss even a single GCD, then it's possible someone is going to die. That doesn't feel like smart playing to many players. That feels like whack-a-mole.

Now don't jump to the opposite extreme and assume what we intend for Cataclysm is for healers to stand around a lot and regen. What we'd rather see is that say a Holy priest uses Renew in some situations, Flash Heal in others, Greater Heal in others, CoH in others, and so on. Furthermore, we'd like to see more coordination among the healers (again because the risk of going OOM exists). That doesn't have to mean talking on Vent, though it could be that too. It could be as simple as assigning more targets or roles for your healers instead of just "You heal the tank, everyone else heal the raid."

In addition, once the group learns that healing mana matters, then individual survivability matters more too. Health stones, pots and even bandages do something. An avoid-damage ability like Barkskin or Dispersion is an interesting part of the dps toolbox instead of a PvP-only spell. Standing in fires is dangerous rather than just sloppy playing. Avoidance on tanks is more attractive because being the guy who requires tons of healing can be as much of a liability as the guy who dies from big boss hits.

Yes, the risk is that the game becomes so stressful for healers that it's not fun for them. But I think healing can definitely be stressful now, and in a physically exhausting way instead of a I-need-to-make-smart-decisions-quickly way.