Chain Heal

Resto Shamans have been struggling this tier to keep competitive with other healers, and they did get a nice 20% buff on Healing Rain, Chain Heal and Earthliving that was hotfixed on March 26th and a mana cost reduction for Healing Rain back in February.  The new 5.3 PTR patch notes bring more good news to Shamans, although some are merely tooltip updates but others are brand new healing buffs.

Chain Heal had a ~18% increase to healing and SP scaling.
Earthliving had a 20% increase to healing and SP scaling.
Healing Rain had a 20% increase to healing and SP scaling.
Healing Rain now costs 36.6% of Base Mana, down from 43.1%.

For those into theorycraft and want the exacts, here they are:

• Chain Heal Heals the friendly target for [ 6,325 + 57.3% [ 7,590 + 68.76% of Spell Power ], then jumps to heal the most injured nearby targets. If cast on a party or raid member, the heal will only jump to other members. Each jump reduces the effectiveness of the heal by 30%. Heals 4 total targets. 22.5% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. 2.5 sec cast.
• Earthliving Heals the target for [ 3,648 + 8.3% [ 4,376 + 9.96% of Spell Power ] over 12 sec. 40 yd range. Instant.
• Healing Rain Healing rains blanket the area, restoring [ 2,170 + 19.7% [ 2,604 + 23.64% of Spell Power ] health to the Shaman’s allies. 100 yd range. Instant.
• Healing Rain Calls forth healing rains to blanket the area targeted by the Shaman, restoring [ 2,170 + 19.7% [ 2,604 + 23.64% of Spell Power ] health to allies in the area every 2 sec for 10 sec. Healing effectiveness diminishes for each player beyond 6 within the area. 43.1% 36.635% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast. 10 sec cooldown.

How much of this is a tooltip update and how much is a new buff is unclear, however none of the patch notes for the previous hotfix included any mention of the increased spellpower scaling, so it is likely that portion of the buff is new.  From the March 27 hotfix patch notes:

Chain Heal now heals for 20% more.
Healing Rain now heals for 20% more.

Restoration

• Earthliving Weapon now heals for 20% more.

Definitely no mention of the spellpower scaling, and Ghostcrawler hasn’t weighed in yet.  We will keep you updated!

There have been a lot of complaints about how resto shaman are incredibly weak this tier compared to other healing classes.  For a class whose healing excels in “stack up and don’t move” raid scenarios, Throne of Thunder is just about as opposite to any kind of stacking up and stand still scenarios as you can get.

However, thankfully Ghostcrawler was listening, and shamans got a buff to their healing rain, chain heal and earthliving by 20%.

We buffed Healing Rain, Chain Heal and Earthliving by 20%. Live in NA and China. Rest of the world in the next day or two.

— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) March 26, 2013

The only downside is that Blizzard has given a buff to the healing spells shamans use while the raid is stacked up, namely chain heal and healing rain.  However earthliving buffed by 20% is pretty significant.  It would have been nice to see something a bif more useful for single target or spread out healing, something like an increased jump for chain heal (without the glyph), the chance for a chain heal to bounce back to a previously healed target if they are still the lowest health in range, or even an increased healing rain radius.

It will take a couple of days for us to see if there are any marked inmprovement in the number of resto shamans brought into heroic progression raids (especially since we saw a quite steep jump off from the number of resto shamans in normal mode versus heroic mode).