First of all let me say I'm in no way an expert or veteran Shaman yet - I've rerolled Alliance Shaman in the Burning Crusade due to the need of Shamans on alliance side and ofcourse, I really liked the class mechanics.
After raiding with it for a while (SSC and the likes) I've encountered some difficulties and/or questions, which hopefully can be answered here.
My first concern would be how I function in raids - I'm usually the only Shaman in our raids due to not having much Shamans in the guild. This means our options of me boosting the raids viability is quite limited. I've found myself to be the biggest boost in the mage/healer group, but ofcourse I can stand my own in the melee group due to excessive melee buffage.
Me being the only Shaman ofcourse brings a lot of pain to our raids - what group benefits from me the most? And what buffs do I give them?
The choice if I'm in the caster/healer-kind of group is obvious. WoA + Mana Spring/Mana Tide Totem if necessary. Searing totem if I feel like it, for some extra DPS on the bossmob. That's not the issue.
The problems arise when I get put into a melee group. Usually we have no warrior to buff Battle Shout, so our melee group would concist of:
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue
Shaman
Hunter (TSA)
Half of the rogues prefer Windfury, whilst the other half go absolutely mental when I drop WF. The hunter also ofcourse doesn't benefit from WF. My question is, what totem-combo would be best?
I drop SoA for attackpower ofcourse, mana spring for myself in mana intensive fights, but healing stream on others to top up the group. The issue is the Air Totem - Which one is most definitely the biggest DPS boost to this kind of group? Does the added white damage from Windfury outDPS the added attack power and crit from GoA to all 4 of them? Or does giving Windfury to 3 rogues > giving GoA to 3 rogues and 1 hunter?
To start off, I thought WF would definitely win, but now I'm not quite sure. GoA allows the rogues to use poisons, which is additional DPS and should ofcourse be calculated into all of this. Unfortunatly I have no idea to start this kind of mathematic calculations and I would have no idea what kinds of this I actually have to calculate lol. What would the more veteran Shamans do in this kind of situation?
Although I prefer being in the caster/healer group, due to the Shadowpriest regen in those groups, what would the biggest utility for me be? Melee buffage or Caster/Healer buffage? I ofcourse want to boost our raid's potential to the maximum and my personal preferences shouldn't count. I can chug down mana potions and other kinds of consumables to keep up with the mana useage.
This brings me to the next issue - I have noticed my mana efficiency isn't really the best out there, although my gear is pretty good. This probably has to do with my way of healing, since most Shamans I have seen usually fair pretty well mana-wise.
It all depends on fight to fight, but I tend to have 4 main spells in raids - CH 3 & 7, LHW 7 and HW 12. On most fights however, I usually resort to using LHW 7 to top up people - I am quite aware this is a huge mana waste, but I rarely see any other use of my own spells. Chain Heal ofcourse is the primary spell for me on fights such as Doomwalker or Kazzak, where there is a huge damage income to the raid. But on fights such as Gruul and Magtheridon - even on Hydross - I tend to just spam my heart out with LHW 7. This reflects in my mana useage, but maybe it's because of our other healers' strategies, but I just simply cannot justify using HW 12 to patch the raid. The overheal would be immense and that's not really mana efficient either. Am I looking to this in the wrong perspective, or? Should I just completely change my healing strategy and/or healing ranks? Downranking seems pretty useless to me, due to the change that was pushed live to prevent downranking heals.
To summarize, I'd love to hear how other shamans heal during raids - what their main spells are and what duties they are put on most of the time. Basicly, what kind of healingstrategy fits the Shaman best? Before TBC I had played a Druid & Priest, which are two totally different healers and it's hard to bring that experience to use on my Shaman.
Last issue would be, gear choice. My initial intentions were to go for a mp5 setup, since spirit is basicly useless to a Shaman. However, I ended up with having more +heal than I thought I would have and less mp5 than I assumed I would have.
Currently I'm sitting at 1552 +healing and 130 mp5. I could change some of my items I suppose, but I quite like it atm. My question to you is, is this kind of gearbalance a good idea? Or should I definitely get more mp5? I'm a bit looking at the moment, testing and trying to optimize my raidperformance and I'm sure help from here would surely increase it by a lot. Also is my talent choice optimal? I went for all that could possible increase my healing power and efficiency in the resto tree and then had 5 points to spare, so I took Ancestral Knowledge for some additional mana - I realise it's barely anything and probably not worth it, but it seemed more useful than the tier 1 Elemental talents and I didn't really see the use in maxing out Totemic Focus and especially not in taking Nature's Guardian for raidhealing.
I definitely will, I thought of doing that first, but didn't really want to derail the topic. Feel free to comment on it here though, I'd love to hear what other Shamans think of this issue.
I'm also new to shammy, i'm playing elemental, i've tried resto a few times so far and don't like it. Earth shield is great, Chain heal is godly but having played a holy disc priest for over 100 days played before TBC, healing as a shammy feals a bit gimp, my 600ms ping makes healing wave a good 3 second cast. I go OOM really fast compared to what my mass spirit priest used to do. I out dps 95% of the guild as elemental and love it.
As for Windfury vs GoA, ive never really had the choice as 1/2 the guild now plays feral druids so GoA is a no brainer there, the added Dodge crit and AP effecting everything is better than +20% white damage for rogues imo. if your group was 3 combat rogues and a warrior WF would probably be the go.
Buffing casters Vs buffing melle, probably depends on the fight and how much mana your healers need, In general I think as resto your probably best in the caster group, +101 Damage, Mana tide/spring, Heroism has the most effect on casters and mana back from a shadow priest is always awsome. Healer group doesn't really need heroism, but if they are desprate for mana, and you arn't using shadow priest + paly unlimited mana BS, this is where your mana tide will be needed.
As Gurg put it when Blizz wanted to nerf WF Totem, GoA+Poisons vs WF is kind of a wash for Rogues except at extremely high gear levels. But Battleshout does more for Rogues then either combination and WF is the absolute biggest boost a Warrior can get because of the increased rage equals more DPS, equals more rage, etc. As long as Rogues absolutely have to be in the group with a warrior because BS is such a huge buff, they'll be getting WF. Without a warrior in the group GoA+Poisons is probably slightly better for raid DPS.
Searing should always be down if it can hit the boss and won't interfere with a script/CC or anything by the way. Searing, since it got changed, is awesome damage/mana and it is the only DoT in the game that doesn't take up a debuff slot. Worth refreshing.
I can't get the Armory to load your profile, so I'm just going to post what I think is the best Resto talent spec.
Assuming you have Tide unless the raid leader swaps you around when the cooldown is up to caster groups, it'd be easier to just have you in a caster/healer group the whole time though it is fight dependant. Talented HW+Healing Way and I think it is +1,200 healing your HW actually has a greater hp/sec then Priests (at a similar level of +heal, the math is oddly enough in either the Druid or the Paladin thread...) so if your guild/raid isn't using you as a tank healer they probably should be. That and CH (ES if you specced it) are your biggest strengths as a healer. Putting you in a situation where you feel like using LHW is the best spell available is a waste. Not to menion with Tidal Mastery you have a higher crit rate so it is far easier for you to keep up Ancestral Healing then it is for a Priest to keep up Inspiration. +25% armor is a lot of mitigation.
Mentioned in the first sentence of the previous paragraph, but Shaman get swapped mid-fight a LOT depending on what the raid needs. Horde-side we've been doing this for years, your RL needs to be educated about your abilities so he can switch you on the fly when and as needed.
00/05/56. I know it's nice having the damage reduction to fire, frost & nature, but still it has little use. I rather have shortened cooldown on Reincarnation (especially so because I'm the only Shaman - has saved our ass for wipe-recovery many a time).
The problem with switching me around is the fact our Raidleader is in fact our MT, so he does have better things to do than stare at his raidwindow, communicate with me and then switch me around when I ask him to. It would be nice if I could do the switching myself, but that is hardly an option - I will suggest it though.
As for healing strategy I should use, I'll most likely be taking care of healing assignments the upcoming raids so I will make sure I'm actually healing the MT or OT on any given boss and see how that goes. I was thinking of using rank 1 HW to stack up Healing Way, followed by HW 12 healing - cancelling the heal midway if I deem the full heal will be a waste. Pity on most fights the Rogues are out of range of the chaining capacity of Chain Heal, or I would definitely keep that as an option.
But all in all, is it a good idea to keep up Healing Way with rank 1 HW just to keep it up really? Would it be worth it in the long run?
00/05/56. I know it's nice having the damage reduction to fire, frost & nature, but still it has little use. I rather have shortened cooldown on Reincarnation (especially so because I'm the only Shaman - has saved our ass for wipe-recovery many a time).
The problem with switching me around is the fact our Raidleader is in fact our MT, so he does have better things to do than stare at his raidwindow, communicate with me and then switch me around when I ask him to. It would be nice if I could do the switching myself, but that is hardly an option - I will suggest it though.
As for healing strategy I should use, I'll most likely be taking care of healing assignments the upcoming raids so I will make sure I'm actually healing the MT or OT on any given boss and see how that goes. I was thinking of using rank 1 HW to stack up Healing Way, followed by HW 12 healing - cancelling the heal midway if I deem the full heal will be a waste. Pity on most fights the Rogues are out of range of the chaining capacity of Chain Heal, or I would definitely keep that as an option.
But all in all, is it a good idea to keep up Healing Way with rank 1 HW just to keep it up really? Would it be worth it in the long run?
Ashiya
I just posted this in another thread, so I'm going to quote myself.
Totemic Focus is roughly 3mp/5 per point if you're just refreshing Totems. When you have to change them a lot it becomes a bit better, but that doesn't happen much in PvE. By contrast each point of Tidal Focus is worth 14.4mp/5 for (talented) HW, 10.8 mp/5 for CH, and 14.7 mp/5 for LWH. Meaning that is how much mana you save over a five second period of casting those spells with 1 point in Tidal Focus
I was making a direct comparison there but Totemic Focus is probably the worst talent in the entire Resto tree. At max rank it is maybe, at most, 30 mp/5 for five talent points. Even Nature's Guidance is better, at least when you suddenly need to Eartch Shock the mob because the Rogue who was kicking it got cleaved your odds go up dramatically. I don't know anything about the usefulness of Focused Mind so I'll stay quiet. I like Nature's Guardian, mostly because 10% of all your threat can be quite a lot and in a lot of cases it frees you from ever having to heal yourself, which is good because healing yourself is distracting compared to healing the tank. Elemental Warding+Convection or Concussion is better then Ancestral Knowledge, 500 mana is hardly anything. Basically you can't spend all your points in Resto, there aren't enough good talents. The lower tiers of enhance are bad, the lowest tier of elemental has a couple good talents. That is how I see it anyway.
Ummm... ask the MT to make you raid leader while fighting so you can switch yourself? There really ought to be a rank the RL can promote people to so they can switch groups...
Yes it is worth it to stack Healing Way up with Rank1s and keep it refreshed (assuming it actually has a chance of dropping, 15sec without a heal landing on tank seems unlikely). Bonus: More uptime on Ancestral Healing.
Last edited by Grital : 04/07/07 at 8:08 PM.
Reason: Too many talents with "Nature's" and "Ancestral" in the name.
The main spells I use is Rank 8 HW 7 LHW and Rank 5 chain heal. Rank 10 and 12 HW is reachable via Shift keys, this seems to have been the best setup for me personally and I have Rank 9 HW stashed in case I have to swap spells (usually use 9 on heroics and scale up as needed). Rank 8 HW and 7 LHW are the same cost so it helps me pace my mana usage as I see fit, on Kazzak I mainly chain heal and use LHW but most of other fights im switching ranks and spells as needed.
I don't know anything about the usefulness of Focused Mind so I'll stay quiet. I like Nature's Guardian, mostly because 10% of all your threat can be quite a lot and in a lot of cases it frees you from ever having to heal yourself, which is good because healing yourself is distracting compared to healing the tank. Elemental Warding+Convection or Concussion is better then Ancestral Knowledge, 500 mana is hardly anything. Basically you can't spend all your points in Resto, there aren't enough good talents. The lower tiers of enhance are bad, the lowest tier of elemental has a couple good talents. That is how I see it anyway.
Well, I took Focused Mind initially for Heroic healing - getting kicked in a heroic is a guaranteed wipe and ofcourse to a lesser extent for Gruul, resisting the Reverberation back in the days or a hard Gruul could really make the difference. Maybe now the talent is a bit useless, since I hardly do any Heroics anymore and well, Gruul... No comment.
I would really love to keep Improved Reincarnation, just because of the sole fact I'm the only Shaman and having a shorter cooldown is really useful, not to mention I actually res with quite some health and mana, should I have to use it in combat.
I tried Chronometer, but didn't really like it. I've picked up NECB now, after a suggestion on the UI forums, but I've encountered an issue with it, but let's not derail, if you want to help me with fixing it however, go here: http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.p...031#post321031
Now, back on topic. I've been looking into specs a little and I've come up with this and I quite like it. I get to keep Improved Reincarnation, by sacrificing 2 points in Tidal Mastery. 2% crit is nice ofcourse, but I doubt I'll miss it too much.
Your raid leader can also swap you into the healer group to use Mana Tide when needed, you dont need to be wasted in that group the whole time when you could be boosting DPS.
I can not understand, why you are willing to spend to 8 talent points for -10% damage to fire/frost/nature. I'm missing -% damage to arcance and shadow. On how many encounter you can remember off it's really needed? I really prefer 'focused mind' over it, it can really helps you in 5 man heroic and more demanding instances.
Improved Ankh is quite nice, a free soulstone/combat res. on every 2nd to 3rd boss attempt.
Using focused mind, the [Talisman of the Breaker] and a paladin with improved concentration aura can be really annoying for every pvp opponent, if you like pvp.
The only real use for for Elemental Warding is on Hydross really, taking less damage from Water Tomb or Vile Sludge is okay. Less damage on Morogrim too, I suppose, but hardly game breaking. 61 points into Restoration isn't really something I had concidered, but as I don't do anything but healbotting, I suppose it is a viable option. Oh btw, you're the one that suggested NECB to me, help me out please - It stops tracking Healing Way duration after 3 stacks, any fix? :p
The only real use for for Elemental Warding is on Hydross really, taking less damage from Water Tomb or Vile Sludge is okay. Less damage on Morogrim too, I suppose, but hardly game breaking. 61 points into Restoration isn't really something I had concidered, but as I don't do anything but healbotting, I suppose it is a viable option. Oh btw, you're the one that suggested NECB to me, help me out please - It stops tracking Healing Way duration after 3 stacks, any fix? :p
Actually, 61pts in Resto if you didn't get any in Totemic Focus wouldn't be a bad build all around. I can't get over my dislike of Totemic Focus, 5pts for at best 30 mp/5 is just ridiculous. With four normal totems down only refreshing them when neccesary it is 1/3-1/2 of that.
6mp5 per talent point vs 1% maxmana. In my opinion it's the better filler AND it will reduce the amount of mana for your longer cooldown totems significantly.
Fire Elemental Totem -170 mana
Earth Elemental Totem -176 mana
You need some extra aoe burst for illhoff?
Fire Nova Totem -191 mana
Magma Totem -200 mana
comparing 0/5 vs 5/5 'totemic focus'.
You have to refresh your common totems?
For melee dps
205 searing totem
310 grace of air
300 strength of earth
120 manaspring
935 mana in total or saving 234. At any encounter over 4 minutes (even a lot of trashmobs may take this time), 'totemic focus' will beat 'ancestral knowledge'.
And you may have to move, drop different totems for different situations (antifear, poison dispell, heavy fire/ice aoe) and switch back for more benefit to your group during the time they are not needed.
Well, I'm effectively no longer raiding on my shaman, and the vast majority of my experince has been at 60, but I think I have a little bit of knowledge to impart.
First off, get to love downranked HW. 1 second for raid healing is 'rarely' going to make a difference, so it's just a matter of training yourself (and having faith in other healers enough) to wait that 1 second. I'm not familar with the fights you're doing, so maybe that LHW _IS_ vital, but I don't see that. In addition, if it's that vital to spot people up CHing your way to glory is better efficency and hp/sec (accross multiple targets, of course)- if the raid is grouped and there's even a 50/50 chance you'll get both bounces to needy targets I wouldn't even blink making that decision.
Using rank 1 HW to keep healing way up on the tank is good, but frankly I'd probably pull out a fairly downranked one (4? 5?) and use that instead- more time out of the 5sr, maybe it'll overheal but it's not like it's a huge hit to anything but GCD. Then again, a talented r1 HW is a trivial casttime so you suffer less. Suit to self,b ut -never- let that HW stack drop if you can help it while single target healing- very important.
Mana/5- Yes. you ned more. It sucks hard. Sorry. Shaman rock at hp/sec, crits, small scale aoe healing, and passive healing (ES and HS), but they fall down like rocks when it comes to efficency. Consider grabbing the totem of -15 mana from LB and chain casting rank 1 while sitting around doing nothing (assuming JoW on the mob)- free cast, can proc JoW, doesn't break 5sr. Your +healing is great, but mana/5 is what I've always found saves us in the end.
For the above group, I personally would never ask. They get GoA and if they want to bitch, thats' fine, but 4 people being helped is just going to be more dps than 3 people getting helped (except at extreme cases) when the 3 will also benifit from GoA- if not as much. Everyone knows what totem is best for them personally and will ask for it- religiously- at every opportunity, and in this case (as in most actually) people tend to err on thier own desires. Best rule of thumb is helping more is always better, unless you have a warrior, in which case WF> all (leaving aside special cases for Warrio, hunterx3 and the like).
Lasty, on group selection. For a resto shaman, you really are best placed with the Sprirest.....unless the spriest is with the hunters. The synergy of VT + WoA is extremely nice, plus a nice bonus to your healing, and the casters in group get VT, VE and WoA- very happy casters. If the hunters bitch, you could be swapped to thier group for your Tide cooldown (probably not the most efficent use of resources, but an idea anyway). A melee dps group would be 2nd, or possibly the MT group if the MT is having ANY aggro/rage issues.
First off, get to love downranked HW. 1 second for raid healing is 'rarely' going to make a difference, so it's just a matter of training yourself (and having faith in other healers enough) to wait that 1 second. I'm not familar with the fights you're doing, so maybe that LHW _IS_ vital, but I don't see that. In addition, if it's that vital to spot people up CHing your way to glory is better efficency and hp/sec (accross multiple targets, of course)- if the raid is grouped and there's even a 50/50 chance you'll get both bounces to needy targets I wouldn't even blink making that decision.
Using rank 1 HW to keep healing way up on the tank is good, but frankly I'd probably pull out a fairly downranked one (4? 5?) and use that instead- more time out of the 5sr, maybe it'll overheal but it's not like it's a huge hit to anything but GCD. Then again, a talented r1 HW is a trivial casttime so you suffer less. Suit to self,b ut -never- let that HW stack drop if you can help it while single target healing- very important.
Well, I'm not too sure if you were around when downranking was nerfed, so whereas it used to be a very viable strategy (heck I used to heal on my priest with Heal Rank 2) it's not as viable anymore. I'll put some more Healing Wave ranks on my bar next raid and use it, to see the difference. Thanks for the suggestions anyway.
Also as for getting more mp5 - It's a bitch, since I just can't find any items which have more mp5 on them. Gloves of Centering from Maiden have dropped once ever since I've hit 70 and that was when I was sitting out. I suppose I could change my bracer enchant to mp5, but I don't think anyone I know can do that one :|.
Downranking is still efficient. Not as much as before (which I found quite normal with the +healing values we have post-BC) but it is. I'm currently using rank 12, 9 and 8 (on Malchezaar until 60%, or raid healing sometimes), 9 is my main rank and I heal for approximatively 3.3k on a target buffed with Healing Way 3 and my gear is a bit below yours.
Last edited by Nitz : 04/09/07 at 3:55 PM.
Reason: Fault's fest.
Does anyone else think one shaman in a twenty five man raid would be best placed in the main tank group? For added threat generation for warriors through windfury and added dodge and crit for druids through grace of air.
We generally have a druid as the main tank and put a warlock and warrior in his group for imp/shout, then a tree druid for the healing buff and a shaman for grace of air.
I've got no idea how useful bloodlust would be for threat generation as well on any flavour of tank.
Try getting Dr.Damage and compare your HPM to your priests HPM. Now throw in healing way. You may be pleasantly surprised. At same level of gear, with a healing way full stack, my hpm is actually higher then a 23/38 specced holy priest (or so they tell me, I'm sitting at about 6.8-6.9 hpm atm with about 1300 healing). Now it is true that my mana regen cannot compare (meditation, shadowfiend, inherently more from spirit), but shamans really aren't much behind priests. If I throw in the healing done by my ES, I rarely get beaten in effective healing by priests without innervate (or anyone else really). The key is that you have to be used effectively, the things shamans do well as far as I can see are MT healing where you can stack healing way/ancestral fortitude and use only HW, or aoe-type healing where you can use CH. Raid spot healing of random damage is best left to other classes.
As far as downranking, try Dr. Damage (or theorycraft), you'll see that the hpm of most spells with 1200-1300 +healing is pretty similiar ranks 5-12, the main reason to downrank is so you don't overheal and/or proc ancestral fortitude.
Just popping in to say that unless all our spreadsheets and my anecdotal evidence are pretty wrong, Windfury vs GoA for a rogue isn't a wash. Windfury is a good 60 dps higher according to our latest one with my gear payout. Results can vary but even for a dagger rogue it is showing as 40 dps higher on mine. Not the end of the world but still substantial.
I suppose I could change my bracer enchant to mp5, but I don't think anyone I know can do that one :|.
Ask me to do it for you before raid tonight mate :P
As a fellow healer i think that your choice to go for as much mp5 as possible is a good decision, especially considering the upcoming nerfs to the resto flasks/elixirs. I personally will also be leaning towards more mp5 as we progress through SSC and The Eye, rather than my +healing which i find the most favourable stat for a raiding resto druid at the moment.
I've been watching healing meters in raids and watched how you heal on the various videos you made, and to be honest i think you're doing a great job. The quick heals you give from LHW 7 to top up the raid are very much appreciated, and of course who can fault chain heal
Regarding using HW 12 - i think Oggie makes a valuable point: get to love those lower ranks. I still use HT 4 (oh the shock!) in raids when i'm not in ToL form simply because by the time i've put in a larger HT the target is already healed to full. On trash mobs those lower rank heals are very useful even on tank healing - by constantly spamming rank 4 HT on an offtank during, say, a murloc pack in SSC, proves to be
a) extremely mana efficient
b) has much lower chance of being overheals
c) leaves me with enough mana to respond to problems that may arise long after the inital engage i.e some other healers get themselves owned (it happens more than it should -_-) and the raid is in need of more healing.
I'm not sure about the Shaman ranks and the amount of healing your HW 4/5 actually does, but it's worth testing on our next raid i think.
Ofc it does depend who you are healing and in what situation - wouldn't advise this strategy when healing is spread out quite thinly/the mobs hit very hard (oh lord gief SSC trash nerfs soon!). Try it out on Gruul's Lair trash or even on Karazhan trash to get a feel for it perhaps.
As for the totems/grp buffs etc - imo the healers shouldn't rely on your totems except in very special circumstances (i.e treating Hydross like Patchwerk xD). Shadow Priests and Shamans are all very well and good but i believe that healers should rely (and work) on their own mp5 gear/buffs rather than depending on mana totems etc.
I wouldn't want to comment on your place in the raid group however - I dont know enough about melee dps buffs and all that malarky :S
End of the day mate go with what feels comfortable and what seems to be most mana efficient for you - personally how you heal at the moment seems to work very well, although perhaps a bit of tuning is needed for those longer fights? Saving money on mana pots ftw ^^
Is downranking that much mana efficient after the patch nerfing it?
I'm trying to get used to it, and i've added a lower HW rank (6 i think..). It cost me roughly 1/3 of the max rank, but also heal roughly 1/3 of the max rank (~1200 vs ~3600 before healing way).
I find it usefull to have a cheap spell to top people when the situation is under control, but except to avoid overheal in these situations, i'm not convinced it is really mana efficient to spam it?
Is there a better rank to use (i mean am i at a point where the nerf is too big?)?
That's my thoughts too, although I do use HW 5 to top up people rather than LHW spam now (woo, for mana efficiency) I cannot keep up on single target healing with a heal lower than rank 9. Rank 9 heals for roughly 4k with Healing Way applied and it is enough to keep up with other healers on say Magtheridon. I don't notice too much more mana efficiency doing that so I wonder what is the point.
All of our melee have learned how to stay together now though if they want those pretty pretty chains flying towards them - and man they love it, and ofcourse so do I!
04/07/07, 6:43 PM
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