As healer, there are really only three really viable mitigation spells: one is active, short CD, small amount of mitigation (PW:S), the second has a long cooldown and is very strong (pain supression), the third finally helps the whole group (aura mastery or maybe PW:Barrier somewhere in the future).

A short cooldown spell like PW:S is rather weak in the hands of a holy priest, most holy priests have really better spells to fill their cooldowns with than PW:S, making it a not really a spell I would want. PW:S talented by a disc on the other hand is close to imbalanced. Flame Jets or XT Hard Mode very really trivialized by just watching the boss timer and pre shielding the raid. Now, would we give all healers (paladins, druids and shamans) a an useful, short cooldown damage prevention spell, situation like the one’s a mentioned would be either trivial or they would need a really strong buff of the damage they dish out. Would we get a damage mitigation ability with the strength of a PW:S for a holypriest, I would probably only cast it before a fight start or when there is a really big lull. Otherwise I had better stuff to do with my GCD or would most of the time much rather precast a chainheal.

The shorter the cooldown and the stronger a damage mitigation spell, the harder it is to balance. Short cooldown spells are also a lot more easily just plainly ignored, if the don’t pull their weight (PW:S as holy priest). The longer the cooldown is, the easier it is to balance and the more welcomed it would be for any healing class and the less prone to exploiting it for certain tactics it would all be (is the ability available for every heavy damage event or is it a once-a-fight ability?).

@Llyra for as long as I can remember Shaman have been a reaction healing class. It’s something we do amazingly well given the opportunity for. Even Earth Shield and HST are reactive in nature. Why rock the boat?

While I can see both sides of the coin I can honestly see no reason we would need to add anything to the list of tools we have. It’s part of what makes us unique and honestly a hell of a fun healing class to play. I find I have no problems “keeping up” with other classes that do have on demand damage mitigation.

Just my two cents

The reason passive mitigation presses the designers to make higher and higher damage is to give us healers something to do. If their passive mitigation rises to the point where we’re no longer needed, raids stop bringing healers. The same is not true of directed mitigation, wielded by the healers. Because we’re still engaged in the casting, spikiness is not a requirement.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently fun in seeing people’s health bars drop. The fun in healing is smartly managing the array of tools at your disposal to prevent the raid from failing. Right now those tools are:

Whack a mole, stay out of the fire, manage your mana, right spell for the job, be ready for the next world-destroying boss ability.

I see directed mitigation effects adding tools to that list. Take the one suggested by one of my commenters — a totem that channels a short-lived damage absorbing shield bubble in a little radius. With that effect in our bags we would add 2 new strategic imperatives to our bag of tricks: be where the damage is going, predict when is the best time to drop the shield.

It is a lot like predictive Chain Healing, but using spells that have more intent. A wasted mitigation spell is wasted. A Chain Heal spent on a target with full health has a high chance of splashing somewhere it is needed. And I’m sure everyone recognizes that fundamental Shaman tactic.
Llyra´s last blog ..Damage prevention and Ancestral Healing