Healing surge would make them op?
Let's face the facts. Healers in this bracket are overpower.
Priest are, because they have a nice quick heal and an insanely good bubble, they have a low mana cost heal and several other abilities. Let's not forget about penance!
Paladin are, because they have an instant cast healing and a short CD, a great quick heal and a slow-low mana cost heal. They also get another instant heal (WoG) which, holy specc'd, can be casted almost every 4sec in combat. They also get a stunt and lots of other useful abilities.
Druids are a bit gimped compared to the other two above, but they have HoT, a quick heal and a slow-low mana cost heal. They also get Shapeshift, roots and lots of other abilities.
On the other hand, when we get to shammy, there's a problem right there. No quick heal. All the above have 2-3 Base casted healing spells. Shammy? One. The slow, low mana cost one, which is just not efficient simply because you can't burst-heal yourself up, or keep a low hp partner alive. Yes they're slow heal isn't 3Sec like some others, but how am I supposed to keep someone alive with a 2,5Sec cast heal only? With the amount of burst in this bracket, how am I supposed to do? How are we, shammy, supposed to be still viable?
Yes there is earth shield, but that's not the whole point. A HoT-In-Combat only, is pretty useless when you try to get someone back on top hp. Obviously it's a good ability on a FC or on yourself while running in the middle. It's a good ability when you heal-bot someone, but it's not, not even close, to be as great as a WoG+HS or a Bubble+Penance.
Would it make them OP? Nope. That would put them appart with everyone else. Druid would be at the bottom and priest/Pally still on top, but with an extremely viable option just a little, maybe not even a little disadvantage. Shammy could be, let's face it, exactly appart with priest and pally. A great counter to hunters and a great healer overall on the battle field. It's always sad to think people are taking a resto shammy on O just for purge, because without it, there would be no shammy in premade at all. Purge is the spell that kept shammy on the list, but a class need more then one, must-have, spell. Totem? Yeah, that's true, we get totems too. But these are all abilities that other class have counter. A earthbind is sure fully useful, but a useless healer isn't. Enh or Ele shammy will be better then a resto for that on a premade, for sure. Wind Shear, same thing, Enh and Ele gets it too!
Would that make Enh shammy OP? Well, it would raise them in term of opness, obviously. But let's also face it, Enh are OP, the burst is constant, wind shear is pro, purge is pro, totems are great, but they're lacking something. The little thing that would make them great, isn't there at the moment. Surge would make them a lot more viable in term of survivability. Because a good burster is good addition in a premade, but a dead burster isn't. Surge would probably and obviously, be kinda mana-eater spells, much like FoL is. A retribution paladin spamming FoL doesn't last long in term of mana, same thing would go for Enh. I could see a theorycrafted build, enh, with 22int enchant weapon for more survivability. Hell, this would make it interesting.
Elemental shammy? Same thing, that be great for them, with a combination of their already high mana and SP, that be amazing.
I'm totally pro Healing Surge at 16.
i found it while looking for the sad panda picture