How to Heal like a Pro - Page 6

Skyhoof · 01/03/08, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Shinwei

I was able to finally get my Tier 6 helm last night, and wasted no time in slapping in a [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] to try it out. We went to Black Temple and cleared up to Shade of Akama.

Here is the log: Wow Web Stats

Most notable is the High Warlord Naj'entus fight, a fight where I am spamming Chain Heals pretty much nonstop. Both the MSD and the [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] procced 4 times each over the 4 minute duration of the fight, essentially giving me two super fast heals each minute. It's quite amazing.

I'm going to raid a little longer before giving an ultimate conclusion, but if this continues I really see no reason to ever go back to using an [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]. The only times my mana pool is ever in danger of draining faster than I can replenish it are times when I am spam casting Chain Heal, and during those times the [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] clearly has the upper hand.

Skyhoof, with your Scarab tests, were you just spamming chain heal on yourself? Because as with all procs, our chain heal triples the chance of proc when all 3 targets hit, making it slightly easier to get it to proc "just at the right time". During High Warlord Naj'entus and other such fights though, "just the right time" is essentially "all the time".

You forget to mention one very, very important factor. You had a shadow priest in your group. Therefore mana wasn't an issue. In those situations, MSD is a great meta gem. The faster spell casting definitely helps. However, there will be times when you don't have a shadow priest and you will still have to spam chain heal. That's why IED is the better overall choice.

The armory isn't working again so I can't see how many other pieces of T6 you have. Obviously, the set bonuses are amazing so you always want to keep them. But if you previously had the [Helm of Soothing Currents] consider putting the MSD in that helm to wear when you have a shadow priest. Excluding set bonuses, the T6 helm and Soothing Currents are very comparable. Then, you can wear the T6 helm on fights where you don't get a shadow priest. If you can manage set bonuses without the helm, you can have the best of both meta gems.

EDIT: I forgot to answer your question about the Scarab. Yes, I was spamming chain heal on myself so it didn't have a chance to bounce to other targets. However, it really doesn't matter because of the 45 second cooldown on the trinket. It did proc during every test. Sometimes the timing was better than others.

You can see the same thing yourself on the Naj'entus fight. You get some nice procs but then both the trinket and meta gem proc at the same time -- so you only get to cast one super fast heal.

03:59'06.046 Eniwei gains Focus
03:59'06.843 Eniwei gains Spell Haste

You cast a chain heal in 1.25 seconds
Your next chain heal takes 3.579 seconds to cast, probably because you had to wait for the GCD

Shinwei · 01/03/08, 5:16 PM

High Warlord Naj'entus is a fight where we give all of our healers shadow priests. It's a fight where the raid is taking heavy predictable damage, and therefore every healer we have is going to be spending mana at a rate much faster than he/she can regenerate on his/her own. If you ever go to Naj'entus without a shadow priest, you will go OOM, and your [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] is not going to prevent that. I suppose you could stack as much MP5 as you can possibly get on your gear with 4 Mp5, but it's not really worth it just for one fight.

In my experiences with the MSD and the Scarab, the MSD has a high proc rate but an internal cooldown, while the Scarab not only has a slightly lower proc rate but also an internal cooldown. That is to say, the MSD will proc pretty reliably whenever its' internal cooldown is up, but the Scarab will not.

I'm going to go back and discuss a little bit about the Improved Reincarnation VS. 2% Spell Crit argument. I'd like to say that healing isn't DPS, and long run averages are not a very good way of discussing healing strategies. Calculating how much I would have healed over a week of raiding with an extra 2% spell crit is something, but comparing it to how much healing I could output with 20% extra mana from improved reincarnation is meaningless. That 20% extra mana is used for clutch situations and could potentially save the entire raid from a wipe. Situations in which this happens are few and far between, but the value of such an ability is WAY higher than 2% spell crit over however many months of raiding anyone happens to do.

◊ Sarutobi · 01/03/08, 5:23 PM

Originally Posted by Habanero

You don't have to choose between them. Totem swapping can goof up the GCD if you spam instead of casting at the proper time, but it's not bad if you get used to using Quartz or similar for a cast bar. I like to use combination mouseover/assist-heal/totem-swap/trinket-pop macros like the following:

MACRO 6 "sCH" Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater
#showtooltip Chain Heal
/cast [modifier:shift] Berserking
/use [modifier:shift] 13
/use [modifier:shift] 14
/cast [target=target,help] [target=targettarget,help] [target=mouseover] [] Chain Heal
/equip Totem of Living Water
END
 
MACRO 8 "sHW" Spell_Nature_MagicImmunity
#showtooltip Healing Wave
/cast [modifier:shift] Berserking
/use [modifier:shift] 13
/use [modifier:shift] 14
/cast [target=target,help] [target=targettarget,help] [target=mouseover] [] Healing Wave
/equip Totem of Spontaneous Regrowth
END

A couple things to note on that. First, is that for a mouseover macro, in order for self-cast heals to work you would need to add an additional condition to that to the effect of [modifier:alt, target=player] otherwise attempting to self-cast using alt will not work properly. Second is a bit of personal preference, but typically I would move mouseover to be the first choice for healing targets. Makes things a bit simpler when you want to keep a closer eye on a tank (or anyone really, as your target), use mouseover to heal whoever needs it at the time, then mouseover blank space to heal the person you're focusing on.

Kasi · 01/03/08, 5:24 PM

Well actually you don't, not once you've done the fight a few times. As your dps goes up the fight becomes more managable. Our guild used SP for the first 1-2 times on the healer groups, but after that the SPs went back to the usual mage/hunter groups and it went on as usual. Once you break it down, the healing requirements aren't that high compared to later fights in BT like Gurtogg, RoS P3, Teron, Mother and Illidari Council. If you break it down that you bring 8 healers and each healer has like 2 targets to take care of plus himself, then it is very easy to deal with the once a minute 8500 damage to the three targets plus splash damage. Even if you bring 7 it is still pretty easily doable.

tai · 01/03/08, 5:37 PM

I had know idea where to post this.

3x Royal nightseye or some other yellow gem ?
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28751

Shinwei · 01/03/08, 5:39 PM

Originally Posted by Kasi

Well actually you don't, not once you've done the fight a few times. As your dps goes up the fight becomes more managable. Our guild used SP for the first 1-2 times on the healer groups, but after that the SPs went back to the usual mage/hunter groups and it went on as usual. Once you break it down, the healing requirements aren't that high compared to later fights in BT like Gurtogg, RoS P3, Teron, Mother and Illidari Council. If you break it down that you bring 8 healers and each healer has like 2 targets to take care of plus himself, then it is very easy to deal with the once a minute 8500 damage to the three targets plus splash damage. Even if you bring 7 it is still pretty easily doable.

We don't have any such breakdown and we've been doing Naj'entus for months. Perhaps we should, but we don't. I'm the only resto shaman in our raid most of the time, and I'm spamming chain heal nonstop on the melee. Naj'entus is also a fight where the more melee you bring, the more damage they all take. How many melee do you bring?

Of the fights you've listed, Gurtogg Bloodboil is the only one that's long enough for me to request a shadow priest. Illidari Council is really long as well, but the raid does not take predictable heavy damage in that fight so I don't really know why you listed it.

In any case, if I happen to not get a shadow priest during an encounter that is both long and heavy on mana usage, all I have to do is swap in an [Alchemist's Stone] and be more diligent in drinking my Mana Potions every 2 min. If you look at my log you will notice that I only drank one Super Mana Potion on Naj'entus, and I could have easily drank two.

Shinwei · 01/03/08, 5:42 PM

Originally Posted by tai

I had know idea where to post this.

3x Royal nightseye or some other yellow gem ?
Heart-Flame Leggings - Items - World of Warcraft

If you have any interest in using an [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] and you need some yellow gems to take care of the requirements, feel free to put in [Luminous Noble Topaz] or a [Dazzling Talasite]. If not, you really can't go wrong with 3x Royal Nightseye.

◊ Sarutobi · 01/03/08, 5:49 PM

Originally Posted by Shinwei

If you have any interest in using an [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] and you need some yellow gems to take care of the requirements, feel free to put in [Luminous Noble Topaz] or a [Dazzling Talasite]. If not, you really can't go wrong with 3x Royal Nightseye.

With the 2.3.2 changes to Water Shield I would tend to lean more towards the [Luminous Noble Topaz] if you are in need of the 2 yellow gems for the meta, otherwise the Nightseye is the better choice.

Kasi · 01/03/08, 5:56 PM

Originally Posted by Shinwei

We don't have any such breakdown and we've been doing Naj'entus for months. Perhaps we should, but we don't. I'm the only resto shaman in our raid most of the time, and I'm spamming chain heal nonstop on the melee. Naj'entus is also a fight where the more melee you bring, the more damage they all take. How many melee do you bring?

Of the fights you've listed, Gurtogg Bloodboil is the only one that's long enough for me to request a shadow priest. Illidari Council is really long as well, but the raid does not take predictable heavy damage in that fight so I don't really know why you listed it.

In any case, if I happen to not get a shadow priest during an encounter that is both long and heavy on mana usage, all I have to do is swap in an [Alchemist's Stone] and be more diligent in drinking my Mana Potions every 2 min. If you look at my log you will notice that I only drank one Super Mana Potion on Naj'entus, and I could have easily drank two.

We often bring between 4-6 melee to Naj'entus. If there is 5 or less, we split them into 2 groups, if there is 6 we split them into three. One is behind the boss, one is behind right, one is behind left. Each of those groups get a healer assigned to them. We only run one resto shaman, the other melee healer is usually our CoH priest and if we have 3 groups then another priest or pally. Then 2 druids get placed on MT healing and the remaining healers (3-4 of them) get 2-3 people each to heal plus themselves. That pretty much takes care of the healing requirements for it.

Blazingwater · 01/03/08, 7:04 PM

A bit of a newb here....

You've posted a lot on what heals are the best on mana/heal ratio, what points to put in what spots, and on down ranking and all that stuff, but you haven't posted HOW to heal. This guide shows you what stats you should be looking for, the items you should get, but again, I've yet to learn HOW to heal from the guide.

Thing is, I just switched from a (nearly) epicced out enhance set to a resto set recently, with about +1000 healing. I would like to know things like how to heal 5 mans/heroics, and how to heal raiding wise. I know it all depends on the group make-up and boss fight, but I would appreciate some advice on what spells to use, and spell rotations. This guide teaches you how to heal like a pro, minus the "how to heal" part.

Please don't take my ranting badly, this really is a good guide =)

Thud00 · 01/03/08, 7:17 PM

My personal opinion on haste procs is negative. You simply cant control when they proc. Building on that basis is like building to rely on crits. Works well when it happens but when it doesnt you got problems. Healing is about dependability. If you cant manage, you bring in an extra healer. Anything where success depends on that proc is too close to call and you are much better off with an extra healer. The haste proc isnt free you are paying for it with other stats that you could use more reliably.

Najentus isnt that hard. When no SP I manage just fine to heal, may finish low but wont use a pot. We get him in 3 bubbles. With an SP tonight finished on full mana. As your SP get better they return more and more mana to you.

The most mana intensive fight is council since its so long. I usualy have an SP and maintain mana spamming rank 5 CH on the Gothios tank as fast as I can. I am getting that much mana back combined with WS/totems. If the SP stops feeding me I drop down to spamming rank 4 CH. You should be spamming because you want a heal half cast if he takes a burst. You should be on him because your jumps heals the consecration damage on the rogues. Put the paladins on the raid, they are only good for single targets.

This brings us back to another post about the 2% crit. You are not only losing the healing. You are losing the armor buff on the tank. This is very useful. You shouldnt be dieing often to need improved reincarnation. If you die once every couple of weeks you can drop an MT or pop a pot when you get up. The SP will have you to full in no time. Something is very wrong if you are dieing that often that you find it useful, maybe not enough hp.

We always run with 2 resto shamans and usualy 1 enhancement to do the WF. They 2 restos are put in 2 groups with the 2 SP and mages. We feed the SP mana too from our totems. The ones least likely to get an SP are the locks and hunters. They can manage well enough on their own. If an SP is away for a raid then mana is tighter so you still need enough MP5 on your gear to cope.

TheSilverHand · 01/03/08, 7:37 PM

Originally Posted by Blazingwater

A bit of a newb here....

You've posted a lot on what heals are the best on mana/heal ratio, what points to put in what spots, and on down ranking and all that stuff, but you haven't posted HOW to heal. This guide shows you what stats you should be looking for, the items you should get, but again, I've yet to learn HOW to heal from the guide.

Thing is, I just switched from a (nearly) epicced out enhance set to a resto set recently, with about +1000 healing. I would like to know things like how to heal 5 mans/heroics, and how to heal raiding wise. I know it all depends on the group make-up and boss fight, but I would appreciate some advice on what spells to use, and spell rotations. This guide teaches you how to heal like a pro, minus the "how to heal" part.

Please don't take my ranting badly, this really is a good guide =)

What you're looking for is more along the lines of Murderbot's guide, I think.

Blazingwater · 01/03/08, 7:58 PM

That's what I needed, thanks.

Shinwei · 01/03/08, 8:58 PM

Originally Posted by Thud00

My personal opinion on haste procs is negative. You simply cant control when they proc. Building on that basis is like building to rely on crits. Works well when it happens but when it doesnt you got problems. Healing is about dependability. If you cant manage, you bring in an extra healer. Anything where success depends on that proc is too close to call and you are much better off with an extra healer. The haste proc isnt free you are paying for it with other stats that you could use more reliably.

While it's true that you can't control when haste procs happen, wearing and MSD and a Scarab does not really detract from your "dependability" as a healer. I wouldn't call the [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] dependable or reliable either, the only thing that's truly reliable about that is the 12 intellect, which is really not all that. The mana regen the IED gives you is really not that strong, I was getting an average somewhere in the region of 20-22 Mp5 from it. When compared to the sheer power of the half cast MSD, it truly pales in comparison - especially because I'm not running out of mana without it.

Originally Posted by Thud00

Najentus isnt that hard. When no SP I manage just fine to heal, may finish low but wont use a pot. We get him in 3 bubbles. With an SP tonight finished on full mana. As your SP get better they return more and more mana to you.

Naj'entus is not hard. That's not the point of my posts. It just so happens it was a good example of a fight in which a Resto Shaman is spam casting chain heal, and as such it is a fight in which practically no haste procs are wasted.

Originally Posted by Thud00

The most mana intensive fight is council since its so long. I usualy have an SP and maintain mana spamming rank 5 CH on the Gothios tank as fast as I can. I am getting that much mana back combined with WS/totems. If the SP stops feeding me I drop down to spamming rank 4 CH. You should be spamming because you want a heal half cast if he takes a burst. You should be on him because your jumps heals the consecration damage on the rogues. Put the paladins on the raid, they are only good for single targets.

I tried to assign healing on Illidari Council once and the paladin who I took off the Gothios tank complained about it so I put him back on Gathios. I will try again next time.

Originally Posted by Thud00

This brings us back to another post about the 2% crit. You are not only losing the healing. You are losing the armor buff on the tank. This is very useful. You shouldnt be dieing often to need improved reincarnation. If you die once every couple of weeks you can drop an MT or pop a pot when you get up. The SP will have you to full in no time. Something is very wrong if you are dieing that often that you find it useful, maybe not enough hp.

I agree that the armor buff on the tank is very useful. That is the only thing I regret losing when I choose to sacrifice 2% spell crit. However, it still does not make 2% worth more than Improved Reincarnation IMO. The only fight in which I should be healing a tank is, as you say the Illidari Council fight, and that's just one fight. Loss of 2% spell crit for Ancestral Fortitude on just one fight is just not a big deal. I am not saying I am dying often enough to "need" improved reincarnation. I'm saying the bonuses on improved reincarnation even if you use it just once a week far outweighs a measly 2% spell crit.

galzohar · 01/03/08, 9:58 PM

Random mana returns are rather reliable because it doesn't matter when they proc, as long as it's sometime during the fight. If it procs at a "bad time", you can use the mana later. You cannot do this with haste procs.

Note about gemming - if you're gemming for 9 heal 2 mp5 over 18 healing gems even in red slots, why would you ever use 9 healing 4 int in a yellow slot? Since you already decided that 9 heal 2 mp5 is better than 18 healing, you've decided 9 healing is better than 2 mp5. However if you socket 9 heal 4 int over 4 int 2 mp5 it shows you decided the complete opposite.... This is something I see a lot of people doing but why would you ever sacrifice 9 healing to gain 2 mp5 in one place where in another you sacrifice 2 mp5 to gain back 9 healing?

Excusing it as "well I prefer 18 healing 4 int 2 mp5 over 9 healing 4 int 4 mp5 becuase I don't need so much mp5 but need the healing" just doesn't make any sense. It's near impossible to be at the point where 9 healing and 2 mp5 are so close that they're worth mixing - as in the change of 2 mp5 will definitely not turn it into a 9 healing > 2 mp5 all of a sudden whe you pick the next gem. Heck even a change of 50 mp5 would be unlikely to change it.

So for people socketing 9 heal 2 mp5 in red sockets and 9 healing 4 int in yellow sockets, you should probably rethink what you're trying to achieve here...

Shinwei · 01/03/08, 10:20 PM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Random mana returns are rather reliable because it doesn't matter when they proc, as long as it's sometime during the fight. If it procs at a "bad time", you can use the mana later. You cannot do this with haste procs.

There is no guarantee that you are going to need nor use this mana you get from those procs at any time during the encounter. If you are finishing fights with a lot of mana left in your pool, multiple unused mana potion cooldowns, and/or a Mana Tide cooldown or two like I am, you have too much mana regen.

• Binkenstein · 01/03/08, 10:39 PM

I think the discussion was on "what to put in yellow sockets for the socket bonus and/or meta gem requirements".

Originally Posted by Shinwei

There is no guarantee that you are going to need nor use this mana you get from those procs at any time during the encounter. If you are finishing fights with a lot of mana left in your pool, multiple unused mana potion cooldowns, and/or a Mana Tide cooldown or two like I am, you have too much mana regen.

Question: is there an in-between point for having no mana, and having too much mana regen?
I'd prefer to have excess regen so I don't have to worry about mana conservation. If you can gear so that you just run out of mana at the end of the fight while using all available cooldowns, then I'd be mightily impressed.

Look at it from a flip side. The more mana you have available, the longer/harder you can heal (if you're downranking and saying that you don't need mana regen, I don't think it counts, nor if you have a shadow priest).

tai · 01/03/08, 10:46 PM

Originally Posted by Sarutobi

With the 2.3.2 changes to Water Shield I would tend to lean more towards the [Luminous Noble Topaz] if you are in need of the 2 yellow gems for the meta, otherwise the Nightseye is the better choice.

Went for that one. Just got the T4 head the same raid so obviously I'm in need of 2 yellows for the meta.

galzohar · 01/03/08, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Shinwei

There is no guarantee that you are going to need nor use this mana you get from those procs at any time during the encounter. If you are finishing fights with a lot of mana left in your pool, multiple unused mana potion cooldowns, and/or a Mana Tide cooldown or two like I am, you have too much mana regen.

You can say that about every healing stat. More +healing is wasted if nobody dies and your heals heal for enough for you to not need to cast into oomness. Haste is useless if your HPS is higher than the boss's DPS and you always get a heal in between attacks.

At the end, when shit hit the fans, haste, healing and more mana will always help (depending on what kind of shit, of course - if the fight just lasted longer haste wouldn't really help and if some people just took random burst but you still had lots of mana left mana didn't help, but you get the idea), while random haste procs will not always help, no matter what kind of "shit hits the fan" situation you run into. Sometimes they will, but not always.

Are random haste procs useless? No, but I find the above making their value greatly reduced compared to their maximum possible potential, while constant haste/healing/mana will not drop in value in the emergencies for which they're useful for (with healing being useful for all kinds of emergencies as it incerases both HPS and efficiency).

Habanero · 01/04/08, 2:44 AM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Random mana returns are rather reliable because it doesn't matter when they proc, as long as it's sometime during the fight. If it procs at a "bad time", you can use the mana later. You cannot do this with haste procs.

Note about gemming - if you're gemming for 9 heal 2 mp5 over 18 healing gems even in red slots, why would you ever use 9 healing 4 int in a yellow slot? Since you already decided that 9 heal 2 mp5 is better than 18 healing, you've decided 9 healing is better than 2 mp5. However if you socket 9 heal 4 int over 4 int 2 mp5 it shows you decided the complete opposite.... This is something I see a lot of people doing but why would you ever sacrifice 9 healing to gain 2 mp5 in one place where in another you sacrifice 2 mp5 to gain back 9 healing?

Excusing it as "well I prefer 18 healing 4 int 2 mp5 over 9 healing 4 int 4 mp5 becuase I don't need so much mp5 but need the healing" just doesn't make any sense. It's near impossible to be at the point where 9 healing and 2 mp5 are so close that they're worth mixing - as in the change of 2 mp5 will definitely not turn it into a 9 healing > 2 mp5 all of a sudden whe you pick the next gem. Heck even a change of 50 mp5 would be unlikely to change it.

So for people socketing 9 heal 2 mp5 in red sockets and 9 healing 4 int in yellow sockets, you should probably rethink what you're trying to achieve here...

I pretty much agree. If you're gemming for straight +heal then most slots should be Teardrop. If you're gemming with blue gems and want to focus on mp5 you get the most from using Royal and Dazzling where appropriate. The thing is, though, that last patch Shamans gained a boatload of extra mp5, and not everyone will want to regem all their gear, especially when the blue Royal/Dazzling have a "bonus" .5 mp5 per gem and allow you to hit all sorts of nice socket bonuses. New gems, however, should be Luminous since mp5 just isn't nearly as hard to come by.

To recap:
Old strategy = Royal or Dazzling in every slot to get all the set bonuses and bonus (non-budgeted) mp5. If you are in a lot of blues, even with the new water shield, you should probably still follow this.
New strategy = all Teardrop, or Royal in blues and Luminous in yellows when you want the socket bonus. Royal shouldn't go in red sockets anymore.

Skyhoof · 01/04/08, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by Habanero

Old strategy = [Royal Nightseye] or [Dazzling Talasite] in every slot to get all the set bonuses and bonus (non-budgeted) mp5. If you are in a lot of blues, even with the new water shield, you should probably still follow this.
New strategy = all [Teardrop Living Ruby], or [Royal Nightseye]in blues and [Luminous Noble Topaz] in yellows when you want the socket bonus. [Royal Nightseye] shouldn't go in red sockets anymore.

(gem links added by Skyhoof)

I couldn’t have said it better and may plagiarize you in the future.

Originally Posted by Shinwei

I agree that the armor buff on the tank is very useful. That is the only thing I regret losing when I choose to sacrifice 2% spell crit. However, it still does not make 2% worth more than Improved Reincarnation IMO. The only fight in which I should be healing a tank is, as you say the Illidari Council fight, and that's just one fight. Loss of 2% spell crit for Ancestral Fortitude on just one fight is just not a big deal. I am not saying I am dying often enough to "need" improved reincarnation. I'm saying the bonuses on improved reincarnation even if you use it just once a week far outweighs a measly 2% spell crit.

Listen to Thud00. There is nothing measly about 2% spell crit, especially with the Ancestral Fortitude talent. He also sums up my feelings on haste procs very well.

Originally Posted by Thud00

My personal opinion on haste procs is negative. You simply cant control when they proc. Building on that basis is like building to rely on crits. Works well when it happens but when it doesnt you got problems. Healing is about dependability. If you cant manage, you bring in an extra healer. Anything where success depends on that proc is too close to call and you are much better off with an extra healer. The haste proc isnt free you are paying for it with other stats that you could use more reliably.

This brings us back to another post about the 2% crit. You are not only losing the healing. You are losing the armor buff on the tank. This is very useful. You shouldnt be dieing often to need improved reincarnation. If you die once every couple of weeks you can drop an MT or pop a pot when you get up. The SP will have you to full in no time. Something is very wrong if you are dieing that often that you find it useful, maybe not enough hp.

I do feel there is a time and place for gems and trinkets with haste procs. I think they are an excellent addition to your spell haste set. I have begun wearing haste gear whenever I am with a shadow priest and I know the fight will not last long enough to burn through all my mana. I really like using the [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] for those fights because the passive +70 heal on the trinket makes up for some of the lost +healing on the haste gear. I normally use a mana regen trinket that doesn’t have +heal.

Let me add another criteria for using a spell haste set: There is little chance of your shadow priest dieing. By wearing this gear, you are dependent upon another player (not my favorite situation). For example, I will not wear spell haste for Teron Gorefiend. My shadow priest could easily be chosen for Shadow of Death. And while I would hope that we have a combat rez or soul stone available, I don’t want to take a chance on something going wrong in such a healing intensive fight.

Now, my guild hasn’t cleared Hyjal or Black Temple so a fight like Gorefiend is still quite challenging for us. I would take a chance on wearing spell haste gear in TK or SSC. I feel comfortable enough in most of those fights that even if I lost my shadow priest, I would still be ok on mana and healing (partly because of all the gear from BT and Hyjal).

I haven’t encountered a fight yet where I needed the spell haste in order to keep people alive. Perhaps there is one later on in BT or in the Sunwell. So far, spell haste has been icing on the cake. I only use it once I have everything else I need to successfully heal a fight.

Thud00 · 01/04/08, 12:26 PM

The only fight in which I should be healing a tank is, as you say the Illidari Council fight, and that's just one fight.

And Illidan. There is no need for CH apart from P2. You should be spamming the tank with what you can maintain. Traps are not always close or accessable. When he enrages he can be hitting the tank for 13k. Having 25% more armor from you is a big deal in turning that into more manageable damage. Put a pala onto parasite damage all they can do is single target spam but they dont give armor.

Say we have 2 shamans landing every 2.5s, so a heal lands every 1.25s. We each have 15% crit and AF lasts 15s. So we can calculate the uptime of AF as 1 - (1-0.15)^(15/1.25) = 85%. If we dropped to 13% crit it becomes 81%. If we switched to 1.5s casts we get 96%. The difference between 85% and 81% may seem small, but if you reverse it you see the tank spends 26% more time without AF which is significant.

The pala can heal more hps but the idea is to stop burst that kills the tank before heals can land. Most of the palas superior hps is wasted on a full hp tank until wham the tank is on 25%, then all hell breaks loose.

I know some guilds use CH on bloodboil tanks since you have 3 tanks each taking dot damage it lends itself well enough to 3 jumps the same could be used on Shahraz where you have 3 tanks in the front. A CoH priest would be important in what strat you use since they can take over your raid healing role. Depends on what strategies you guild uses.

Daidalos · 01/04/08, 4:44 PM

Originally Posted by Thud00

And Illidan. There is no need for CH apart from P2. You should be spamming the tank with what you can maintain. Traps are not always close or accessable. When he enrages he can be hitting the tank for 13k. Having 25% more armor from you is a big deal in turning that into more manageable damage. Put a pala onto parasite damage all they can do is single target spam but they dont give armor.

Say we have 2 shamans landing every 2.5s, so a heal lands every 1.25s. We each have 15% crit and AF lasts 15s. So we can calculate the uptime of AF as 1 - (1-0.15)^(15/1.25) = 85%. If we dropped to 13% crit it becomes 81%. If we switched to 1.5s casts we get 96%. The difference between 85% and 81% may seem small, but if you reverse it you see the tank spends 26% more time without AF which is significant.

The pala can heal more hps but the idea is to stop burst that kills the tank before heals can land. Most of the palas superior hps is wasted on a full hp tank until wham the tank is on 25%, then all hell breaks loose.

I know some guilds use CH on bloodboil tanks since you have 3 tanks each taking dot damage it lends itself well enough to 3 jumps the same could be used on Shahraz where you have 3 tanks in the front. A CoH priest would be important in what strat you use since they can take over your raid healing role. Depends on what strategies you guild uses.

For council it depends. If the tank is not in any danger I tend to chain heal since melee is frequently tanking aoe dmg and can use the heals. So teh tank get the biggest but melee get the next 2 smaller jumps. I will also throw up a rank 7 healing wave to keep healing way up. When the tank spikes I switch back to HW12 till I feel he is safe then go back to chain heals. I find its a good way to spam the tank but also get the melee some healing.

Illidan is def one where I spam Healing Wave and really there isn't that much to do other outside of phase 2. What else would you do with all your mana? We also don't use traps half the time due their poor placement so I completely agree with the importance of AF and spamming the tank.

For sharaz its usually a mix of heals. Pallys doing single tank healing and I do chain heals on the tanks.

galzohar · 01/04/08, 8:41 PM

Let me add another criteria for using a spell haste set: There is little chance of your shadow priest dieing. By wearing this gear, you are dependent upon another player (not my favorite situation). For example, I will not wear spell haste for Teron Gorefiend. My shadow priest could easily be chosen for Shadow of Death. And while I would hope that we have a combat rez or soul stone available, I don’t want to take a chance on something going wrong in such a healing intensive fight.

Isn't teron gorefiend one of the shorter fights out there though? Hadn't done the fight but wouldn't haste be nice on a short fight since even if your SP dies you're not going to burn through mana in such a short fight anyway? Or is it longer/more intensive than I think?

Also wanted to add that while gearing for no shadow priest because your shadow priest might die is a wonderful thing if he dies, but if he doesn't die you end up with a sub-optimal gearset which makes you not as useful as you could be.

Kastr · 01/04/08, 8:50 PM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Isn't teron gorefiend one of the shorter fights out there though? Hadn't done the fight but wouldn't haste be nice on a short fight since even if your SP dies you're not going to burn through mana in such a short fight anyway? Or is it longer/more intensive than I think?

You're correct. Teron not only is one of the shorter fights but only becomes healing intensive in the last 45-60 seconds. It is the quintessential fight for haste to be of some use for a shaman (or at least haste procs). The raid is taking constant damage, the fight is relatively short, you are spamming chain heal the entire time... very haste friendly. If you happen to not have a shadow priest or your shadow priest dies then using Totem of Living Water should be enough to carry you (40mp5 while spamming).