Anyone else underwhelmed by Restoration changes?

[Mushin]

I'm in the strange position of being the only dedicated healing shaman
I know, so I have nobody in-guild or on-server to bounce thoughts off
- but I was wondering if anybody is feeling pretty discouraged by the
(lack of) Restoration changes announced/leaked?

During the transition to TBC I felt that many of the class' healing
issues had been resolved - we now had itemization for mp5 instead of
spirit, Chain Heal became a fun and 'strategic' way of healing rather
than a novelty, we had a small boost to single-target healing as well
as a versatile passive-heal in the form of Earth Shield.
At 70 though, considerable weaknesses popped up as the game's mode-of-
play evolved - PvP, specifically Arena, demonstrated the inability to
heal under fire, with no instants, no hots, no escapes, and mail
armour not really providing as much protection as people imagine it
does rendering me a considerably inferrior choice to a druid, priest,
or paladin. Raid-wise I was great until about T5-T6, where an
increasing amount of situational damage once again reduced my potent
Chain Heal to not much more than a novelty, or something to spam on
only melee due to ranged being required to spread out to avoid
splashes or damage jumps.

Now, moving into Wotlk, I don't see these things being addressed
within the Restoration tree - instead I see the same half-hearted
updating of existing play modes that Elemental suffered from in TBC.
Somehow it just seems to pale in comparison to the expanded Druid/
Priest repertoire, and for the first time I feel like maybe healing as
a shaman is in considerable danger of being relegated to a novelty
spec like Enhancement or Elemental were pre-bc.

[Farmacy]

Interesting thoughts.

Personally, in T6 content, I find Chain Heal to be insanely useful.
There isn't a fight where it doesn't get SOME use.

As for WoTLK healing... I'd have to see a few things:

1. How does Spirit Link work?
2. How much raid damage is taken?
3. Is healing stream/mana tide raid wide?

Honestly, if the answer to 3 is yes, there will ALWAYS be a spot for
one resto shaman in a raid. 500hp5 (approx) and a refresh of 25% mana
RAID WIDE would be insane (totem range issues non-withstanding... even
if this only went to casters... it would be a huge incentive)

I don't really care about PvP, I like Resto best for BGs, though.

I think Earthshield is a fairly unique and useful PvE mechanic. I do
agree that Shaman could use a new healing spell or two... something
with a HoT component, or an instant small heal... but I'm not sure it
will happen.

As far as I'm concerned, there should be a spot for 1 of each spec of
shaman on a raid... and I think all three bring something unique.

Shaman are fairly versatile, and I think they have a place in BC, and
I'm not worried about losing a raid spot in WoTLK. I guess we will
see, though.

[Solwolf]

I'm a partial resto mostly elemental shaman (e.g. usually elem, but
respec resto when needed) and I like the resto changes. It's a move
slightly away from CH spam all day, and a fairly nice buff to single-
target heals. I'm sure the +heal weapon imbue will have a bigger HoT
than we know of now (67 heal over time isn't even worthy of being
laughable), and I really dig the idea behind the ancestral spirit heal
mechanic.

[iapetes]

They're certainly a bit less amazing looking for pvp than the
elemental and enhancement stuff, instead seeming to focus on raw
healing and making sure ele and resto share gear. But on the other
hand Spirit Link will probably be a pretty nice way to mitigate a lot
of burst damage and Hex is still a great spell for resto shamans. And
it's a lot of raw healing.