How to Heal like a Pro - Page 39

Mishael · 04/11/08, 4:51 PM

I typically try to keep my Mp5 a little higher because I rarely if ever have a Shadow Priest. I am typically one to volunteer to be in a Hunter or Tank group to buff them as we typically run with an Ele Shaman, Enhc Shaman, and Two Resto Shaman the other Resto and Ele tend to get the SPriests.

Daidalos · 04/11/08, 5:23 PM

Originally Posted by Mishael

I typically try to keep my Mp5 a little higher because I rarely if ever have a Shadow Priest. I am typically one to volunteer to be in a Hunter or Tank group to buff them as we typically run with an Ele Shaman, Enhc Shaman, and Two Resto Shaman the other Resto and Ele tend to get the SPriests.

Thats entirely up to you but in most cases potting with an alchemist stone and smart downranking and good use of tide mana spring and water shield even shaman without a spriest will not have mana issues. This will vary from fight to fight as well as raid makeup (higher dps means shorter fights). THe HEP values are guidlines for what most shaman can expect obviously if you are in a different situations adjust accordingly. We did note that the HEP values were for t6 shamans with a spirest however.

Mishael · 04/11/08, 5:41 PM

Of course, and at this time I am not going oom on Brut (the most mana intensive fight I have seen yet) with 309 Mp5 fully raid buffed. I am however potting on CD, using Mana Tide, and typically useing a Dark Rune towards the end of the fight. Obviously with all BIS items I will have ~30 more Mp5, but my concern is with 10% more haste (I run 200 haste right now) that the Mp5 gains will not keep up.

Daidalos · 04/11/08, 6:00 PM

One thing you have to keep in mind is that as your haste goes up so will all the stats of your other raiders not to mention your +heal will also go up with more sunwell gear. Currently I do have to pot on Brut towards the end but I would expect before too long beable to downrank a bit and just the entire encounter being shorter due to dps gains of the raid. I am not too concerned about having 300 haste or so since I'll have 2700 healing as well. This should mean I could fully downrank one rank from my current level even assuming no changes in the rest of the raid.

Mishael · 04/11/08, 6:19 PM

Originally Posted by Daidalos

One thing you have to keep in mind is that as your haste goes up so will all the stats of your other raiders not to mention your +heal will also go up with more sunwell gear. Currently I do have to pot on Brut towards the end but I would expect before too long beable to downrank a bit and just the entire encounter being shorter due to dps gains of the raid. I am not too concerned about having 300 haste or so since I'll have 2700 healing as well. This should mean I could fully downrank one rank from my current level even assuming no changes in the rest of the raid.

That is a good point, thank you. I also want to thank you guys for an excellent thread. While there are a few things that I disagree with, it is purely because of personal healing style (much more individual than DPS with set rotation), and alot of the information in here is invaluable.

I do have another itemization question. I see Tome is rated 3rd best trinket, how would you compare [Vial of the Sunwell]?

Pitbuller · 04/11/08, 8:52 PM

For Daidalos:
"(15 / (0.2 * 300)) * 3" manapool value.

At 5minute battle you need x mp5 to get y mana.

One intellect give 15mana. So y = 15
x / [ (5 * 60s) * (1/5) ] = 0.25mp5

One int mana pool value in 5minute battle is 0.75Hep if mp5 value is 3.

Edit: I'm not fan mp5 either. I just need solid Hep values that I can just loot rank best geat and get my off spec gear easily.

Daidalos · 04/11/08, 11:39 PM

Originally Posted by Pitbuller

For Daidalos:
"(15 / (0.2 * 300)) * 3" manapool value.

At 5minute battle you need x mp5 to get y mana.

One intellect give 15mana. So y = 15
x / [ (5 * 60s) * (1/5) ] = 0.25mp5

One int mana pool value in 5minute battle is 0.75Hep if mp5 value is 3.

Oh ok. I see what you are saying. Yeah we should update the HEP values to be consistent however I do not personally value mp5 that highly. Good point though.

Mekias · 04/12/08, 8:14 AM

I haven't had a shadow priest in my group for 6 months (MT group) so I still value MP5 quite highly. When working on the new HEP values, could you ignore the effect of a shadow priest on stat values? Or maybe make a separate "if you have always have a shadow priest" group of ratings. I'd love to be able to go all out for +healing and haste but I have to try and maintain balance.

On a side note, I'm incredibly jealous of people with the new Redeemer's Alchemist Stone. I'm Skinning/LW and am seriously considering dropping Skinning and picking up Alchemy just for that. It's so hawt.

Horpti · 04/12/08, 10:09 AM

I am a big fan of going for +Heal, while ignoring most of the bonuses for socketing the right colors unless they increase the total amount of +Heal. I wondered whether i wouldnt get a net benefit of hps by using the recently included haste gems. I found no information about that in this topic (or at least it hasnt been updated on the front page) so here is my calculation, if it has already been said, ignore this post.
The spell i use the most is of course chain heal, so i wanted to optimise its hps, which is, assuming 3 jumps and ignoring crits, which are basicly additional factors without any impact on the final result unless you seriously consider socketing for spellcrit, which is a bad idea, given by:
$Hps=(Base + \frac{5}{7} \cdot DrF \cdot [Heal]) \cdot 1.1 \cdot 1.2 \cdot 1.75 \cdot\frac{(1+\frac{[Haste]}{1576})}{2.5}$
DrF is the downranking penalty. I substitute all constant factors with A.
$Hps= A \cdot (Base + \frac{5}{7} \cdot DrF \cdot [Heal]) \cdot (1+\frac{[Haste]}{1576})$
$\frac{dHps}{d[Heal]}=A \cdot (1+\frac{[Haste]}{1576}) \cdot \frac{5}{7} \cdot DrF$
$\frac{dHps}{d[Haste]}=A \cdot (Base + \frac{5}{7} \cdot DrF \cdot [Heal]) \cdot \frac{1}{1576}$
So here we have the benefit of +heal and spellhaste depending on spellhaste and +heal. Now we can gem 22 +heal or 10 spellhaste, so it is better to gem for +heal as long as:
$22 \cdot A \cdot (1+\frac{[Haste]}{1576}) \cdot \frac{5}{7} \cdot DrF > 10 \cdot A \cdot (Base + \frac{5}{7} \cdot DrF \cdot [Heal]) \cdot \frac{1}{1576}$
Solving for +heal:
$(3467,2- \frac{7 Base}{5 DrF})+2,2 \cdot [Haste]>[Heal]$

So to maximise your Hps with maxrank CH, you should gem for +22 Heal as long as this is true:
$2229,2 +2,2\cdot[Haste]>[Heal]$

Generalized for all spells and gems, the +heal gem is hpswise superior to the hastegem as long as:
$(1576\frac{\mbox{+heal of healgem}}{\mbox{hasteof hastegem}}- \frac{\mbox{base healing of spell}}{DrF\cdot\frac{\mbox{base cast time of spell}}{3,5s}})+\frac{\mbox{+heal of healgem}}{\mbox{haste of hastegem}}\cdot[Haste]>[Heal]$

Optimising for maxrank chainheal this leads to the interesting conclusion that for typical BT high end gear it is advisable to use a few hastegems (5 for my current equipment), however with sunwell endgame gear healgems gain strength again (13 healgems compared to 1 hastegem in my personal "final" gear).

Daidalos · 04/12/08, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Horpti

Optimising for maxrank chainheal this leads to the interesting conclusion that for typical BT high end gear it is advisable to use a few hastegems (5 for my current equipment), however with sunwell endgame gear healgems gain strangth again (13 healgems compared to 1 hastegem in my personal "final" gear).

I didn't check all the math but look good first glance I'll take a better look later. I did a similar write up in the ele sham thread just in my spread sheet not in latex :-p. I guess what I"d recommend is taking at look at your best in slot item stats and doing the evaluation there since if you check whats optimal at every step as you upgrade gear you might end up with a slightly less than optimal gemming.

Also just gathered some data on HST totem.
with 3082+healing it was ticking for 221 and 222
so solving for C with purification and restorative totems.
(18+3082C)*1.25*1.1 = 221
c= 0.04630995

(18+3082C)*1.25*1.1 = 222
c = 0.04654592

Mestok · 04/12/08, 5:46 PM

@HST:

from my gathered data (which isn't really large), Healing Stream Totem ticks for 24.75+0.0605*Heal (with 5/5 Restorative Totems and 5/5 Purification).

Daidalos, are you sure your sample with 3082 healing is correct? - Because if i put down hst with 3188 healing its only ticks for 217-218

Daidalos · 04/12/08, 5:59 PM

Yup just double checked. Same amount of plus heal same ticks. You sure you have both restorative and purification?

Mestok · 04/12/08, 6:53 PM

mh, have you tested this in Shattrath? - I looked up your Armory and found "A'dal's Song of Battle". With it, it would fit into my formula, with 3082 heal you end by 211.21, wich is 221.77 with the 5% factor.

Lugklash · 04/13/08, 3:55 AM

Sorry to derail.

Skyhoof, I noticed awhile ago that in your section for haste gear, you list neck options twice. Once near the top, with [Brooch of Nature's Mercy], and then again at the bottom, where you list [Amulet of Flowing Life] and [Brooch of the Highborne]. I've been meaning to point it out, but I always get sidetracked.

Naginda · 04/13/08, 4:37 AM

About all this being in a shadowpriest group. I am usually grouped with the other healers to buff them. Shadow priest are with caster dps to give them continually mana. I have also been told that paladins has a greater use of shadowpriest than shamans has. If I am in group with a shadowpriest I am nearly always number one in healing meters. I am not sure that my guilds group setup is optimal.

Simoon · 04/13/08, 6:52 PM

Hi, I'd like to offer some suggestions for the talents section on the upcoming think tank article.

I suggest that rather than setting out that the main specs are 0/12/49, 8/0/53, 0/5/56 and so on, you start from the "bottom up" and look at the individual talents. With respect to the 8/0/53 spec, there is actually a lot of room for variation as to which talents you take (Healing Grace / Healing Way / Imp Reincarnation / Totemic Focus / Focused Mind are all candidates) so I think the article should go into this in more depth. Even if the "right answer" will in most cases end up being the same, it's better to explain why.

I think the best approach to deciding on a talent spec is to work out what the essential points are and build up from there, rather than working backwards from 8/0/53 say.

I suggest that the core talents for pve resto shaman are:
Tidal Focus, Ancestral Healing, Healing Focus, Totemic Mastery, Restorative Totems, Tidal Mastery, Nature's Swiftness, Purification, Mana Tide Totem, Nature's Blessing, Improved Chain Heal and Earth Shield.

There is probably even some room for whether or not some of these talents are "essential".

With respect to the op, I don't agree that Healing Grace, Improved Healing Way and Healing Way are generally considered "must-have" talents for raiding. This is based on i) the rationale I set out below for evaluating each talent and ii) looking at specs of various shamans in other endgame guilds.

Beyond the core talents, the remaining choices are generally quite situational and their value varies depending on:
- group makeup (how often you have a shadow priest dramatically affects the value of mana-related talents, how often you are buffing hunters/feral druids),
- gear (how much mp5 you have, mana pool etc.),
- mechanics in the specific fights your guild does (eg silences or nature/fire/frost damage),
- what healing role/s you play (particularly how often you use healing wave), and
- personal playstyle (including how much you value survivability)

For any particular shaman, talent choices should be made by weighing up the value of the non-core talents depending on these factors. Many of the remaining talents are unimpressive so it's more a case of choosing the best out a bad bunch rather than deciding between multiple talents that you really want.

Factors such as group makeup and healing roles vary greatly from guild to guild so the talent values do too.

With respect to particular talents beyond the core:

Improved Healing Wave and Healing Way

Improved Healing Wave increases the HPS of Healing Wave.
Healing Way can be used to increase HPS and HPM of Healing Wave. It increases the healing of Healing Wave spells cast by other shamans.

The value of these talents varied depending on:
- how often you cast Healing Wave,
- how often you cast Healing Wave multiple times on the same target,
- whether or not there are other shamans in the raid casting Healing Way on your target, and
- your need to increase HPS or HPM in doing so,

In my view, Improved Healing Way and Healing Way should not be considered "must have" talents for raiding resto, because Healing Wave use can be very limited in raids. Also, the effect of Healing Way - increasing HPS and HPM of Healing Wave - can to an extent be achieved by other means (downranking etc.)
Healing Wave use is much more common in 5 and 10 man content and it's a matter or personal preference whether you take this into account when choosing a spec.
Note: Guilds with multiple resto shamans may want to require some but not all to spec Healing Way.

Improved Reincarnation

The key thing this talent does is the increased mana and health when you reincarnate, and the decreased cooldown is just a bonus. This means you are more likely to survive the next few seconds before you get healed up to full (and have a bit more mana too.) Generally, you should not be dying regularly and accordingly this talent is not strong. However, its value increases for a particular boss fight if:
- there is a "guaranteed death" mechanic eg Azgalor or Teron Gorefiend, or
- you are somewhere between "first kill" and "on farm" on a fight where there is a chance you will die eg Illidari Council (which features a lot of random raid damage effects.)

Healing Grace

This talents is only useful in fights where threat is relevant. It is a matter of personal preference whether or not to take into account trash fights when evaulating this talent. Boss fights where threat is relevant include Lady Vashj and Felmyst.

Totemic Focus

The mana saved by this talent is not significant, but the value of this talent does increase if:
- you are having to recast totems more often than every 2 minutes (eg a fight where you have to move around), or
- you are casting totems of 3-4 schools (which may mean you are in a melee/hunter group and don't have a shadow priest.)

Focused Mind

As with Healing Grace and threat, this talent is only useful in fights with a silence mechanic. Again, it is a matter or personal preference whether you take into account silence mechanics on trash when evaluating the value of this talent to you.

Nature's Guardian

This talent provides excellent survivability and also deceases your threat. Note that less than 5 points still provides quite a significant chance to heal.
In my view this talent is practically a must-have aside from specific cases where you need to invest a significant amount of points elsewhere.

Elemental Warding

This may as well be an 8 point talent, because the tier 1 talents in elemental affect damage spells only and therefore are of little relevance to resto. However, despite costing 8 points Elemental Warding is a very strong talent for pve because fire, frost and nature effects are very common.
With respect to the choice between Convection and Concussion, this comes down to personal choice.

Ancestral Knowledge

The mana given by this talent is rather unimpressive numerically. The more mana you have, the more you get for each point in Ancestral Knowledge. To get a significant return from this talent you would need a lot of mana - in which case the marginal utility from the additional mana is low.

Shield Specialisation and Improved Lightning Shield

Of very little use, and worse than Ancestral Knowledge as far as the tier 1 talents go. Only taken by shamans wanting Enhancing Totems.

Guardian Totems

Relevant for fights where you drop grounding totem (Vashj?). This talent is generally only taken to get enough points for Enhancing Totems.

Improved Ghost Wolf

Instant Cast Ghost Wolf. Relevant for fights where you need to move around a lot outside. For example Supremus, Archimonde and Felmyst.

Enhancing Totems
This is sometimes taken by shamans who are regularly used in a group with hunters/feral druids. This can be achieved without sacrificing any of the core healing talents, and you do get to pick up Improved Ghost Wolf along the way.
Taking Improved Weapon Totems to buff Windfury Totem would require too much of a sacrifice in the resto tree - you couldn't take Earth Shield or 2/2 Improved Chain Heal.

Common specs

8/0/53 is popular among endgame resto shamans, though with a degree of variation in where to put the non-core points in resto. This is a common version.

0/5/56 and 0/0/61 - these specs are more common among the general population, and allow almost all the talents in resto.

Other variations

After 2.4, resto shamans have been experimenting with various builds which include Improved Ghost Wolf. This can be done in several ways:
0/7/54, for example, just takes Imp Ghost Wolf and puts the remaining points in Resto
0/12/49, for example, which goes further into Enhancement for Enhancing Totems
8/7/46, for example, which takes both elemental warding and improved ghost wolf. This requires more of a sacrifice in the resto trees, which in this example is achieved by skipping the Healing Wave talents.

Whether these specs are good for a particular shaman/guild will depend on the factors set out above. Because talents beyond the core ones are so situational, there is no clear best spec.

I realise that this post is a bit of a re-hash of some of my earlier posts re: Healing Way, with more discussion of some of the other talents. I am currently specced 8/0/53 with Healing Grace and Healing Way mainly because of Felmyst, where in phase 1 I am generally healing a tank with Healing Wave because Chain Heal won't bounce.

However, I remain of the view that Healing Way isn't a must-have talent for every raiding shaman. The buff to Improved Ghost Wolf in particular gives us a reason to consider more points in enhancement, and Healing Way/Imp Healing Wave should be on the list of potential talents to sacrifice.

Daidalos · 04/13/08, 7:01 PM

Originally Posted by Mestok

mh, have you tested this in Shattrath? - I looked up your Armory and found "A'dal's Song of Battle". With it, it would fit into my formula, with 3082 heal you end by 211.21, wich is 221.77 with the 5% factor.

I always forget about that buff

. In Org its ticking for 211,212.

Binkenstein · 04/13/08, 7:53 PM

Originally Posted by Simoon

Hi, I'd like to offer some suggestions for the talents section on the upcoming think tank article.

I suggest that rather than setting out that the main specs are 0/12/49, 8/0/53, 0/5/56 and so on, you start from the "bottom up" and look at the individual talents. With respect to the 8/0/53 spec, there is actually a lot of room for variation as to which talents you take (Healing Grace / Healing Way / Imp Reincarnation / Totemic Focus / Focused Mind are all candidates) so I think the article should go into this in more depth. Even if the "right answer" will in most cases end up being the same, it's better to explain why.

I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread about things you may/may not know, rather than a beginners guide to how to heal with a shaman (wuts chain heal?)

Mishael · 04/13/08, 8:35 PM

@ Simoon

While I agree that Healing Way is not a must have talent, I think to not have Imp Healing Wave is reckless. There are to many times where we need to throw a off heal on a tank while another healer is moving (see Brut when a MT healer has to move to burn pile) and the .5 seconds there is invaluable.

Daidalos · 04/13/08, 10:09 PM

Regarding imp healing wave and healing way: For me its silly to pigeonhole myself into only being a chain heal bot. Things go wrong you can end up healing things you don't "normally" have assigned. While I am usually on chain heal duty sometimes a MT healer can die or half way though an instance d/c and not come back and suddenly you are asked to be a MT healer. Thats been my experience if in your guild this never happens then spec accordingly but I don't really think we give up any useful pve talents to get them.

Simoon · 04/13/08, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread about things you may/may not know, rather than a beginners guide to how to heal with a shaman (wuts chain heal?)

I'm not really sure what this means.

The original post says "This is the spot to discuss everything about healing as a shaman."

The reason I posted was to offer some suggestions for the upcoming theorycrafting think tank item on Resto shaman, because I think there are some problems with the talent information in the original post (which I am imagining the think tank item will be based on?) If this is not the right place to make such a post, I apologise and am happy to be redirected.

I don't agree that Healing Grace, Healing Way and Improved Healing Wave are must-have raiding talents. I have set out the reason I don't think they are. Of the three, Imp Healing Wave is closest to essential, and could only really be skipped with a very consistent raid group with 1 shaman that knew they would always be on chain heal/lhw.

As well as this being my view, if you look at resto shaman builds in various endgame raiding guilds, there is variation on whether or not people actually take these talents. This indicates that there isn't a general consensus on those particular talents being necessary.

Note that just because I think these talents are not essential does not mean I think they will be the optimal talents to pick in many cases. However I think it's important to acknolwedge that there are other choices (particularly wihen you might want to get Enhancing Totems or Imp Ghost Wolf and Elemental Warding.)

I'm happy to agree to disagree on this issue.

Binkenstein · 04/14/08, 12:16 AM

In my elemental thread, I haven't covered every single talent available. What I did cover were things that people do take and shouldn't, don't take but should, and things that have a bit of math behind them (EF for instance).

I don't think we need to cover every single talent in detail, nor give umpteen dozen possible builds. A few typical example builds should be enough, rather than giving every possible build around. The key thing to realise is that we're not going to cover everything, because most of the stuff we won't be covering is just a copy/paste from somewhere like WoWHead and just be the ability description.

Simoon · 04/14/08, 12:41 AM

I see what you mean now Binkenstein. The reason I set things out in detail in my post was for completeness in what I was trying to say, but I wasn't suggesting a full breakdown like that for the actual think tank post.

Just that I think there is more room for variation than currently acknowledged, particular with Healing Grace and Healing Way. "Freeing up" those points opens up a lot more legitimate choices to spec as a raiding resto shaman.

Bokomatic · 04/14/08, 2:55 AM

Thanks Daidalos and Mestok for new data concerning HST. I've included it to my minimax table.

Atm the HST coeffs bracket is [ 4,395%; 4,405% ] or talented [ 6,043% ; 6,057% ].
So 6.05% talented seems right, though its better to do few experiments to be sure.

To Mestok: Could you kindly test ingame and post here ticks of Earth Shields Rank1 and Rank3 with +3188 healing.
It would be nice if you test shielded yourself and your friend.

Btw, does any1 know if talented warlocks get bonus +% healed for Earth Shield too?

Mestok · 04/14/08, 5:15 AM

@HST: untalented formula i think is 18+0.044*heal (which converts to 24,75+0,0605 if multiplied by 1.25*1.1)

@ES: tested only on me, but verified for 2617 that MyHeal/1.1=OtherHeal (Purification doesn't works with Earth Shield on other people :/) - doesn't had a warlock to test, so couldn't try this out, but looking at WWS reports it works.
This table shows OtherHeal for some healing values (hope the missing of 3188 isn't too bad

)

HEAL          1950           2617           3168           3412

ES1        667-668        844-845        991-992      1055-1056
ES2        762-763        953-954      1111-1112      1180-1181
ES3        827-828      1018-1019      1176-1177      1245-1246

This fits nicely with the known coefficients for ES (Rank1:0.2655; Rank2/3:0.286).