Kegsta

We all know Elemental is in a pretty sad state at the moment damage wise (damage raid buffed being pretty much the same as in 5 mans, where everyone else gains 1000+ dps) until our buff in about a week,

What I have really enjoyed is our new healing/off healing ability. I'm not talking about putting on Resto gear and healing, but just using my standard dps gear.

I also think its a shame we cant spec a Ele/Resto build anymore and reach the 5% crit from lightning and heals while getting all the mandatory elemental talents, the water shield mana return on crit heals would be godly.

I feel with our massive mana regen the ability to heal without shifting forms like other hybrids can make us a very valuable raid slot, particularly in 10 mans, While my gear is still quite terrible (armoury if you care) I've found a few places so far where the ability to heal is invaluable.

4 horseman 10 man - Keep one of the front 2 tanks alive until one dies, this tank was woefully geared having dinged the day before and having no Sunwell gear.

Sapphiron 10 man - Pretty obvious here with the amount of damage going around.

Kel'thazad 10 man - Heal the ice blocks, when one of the 2 healers gets blocked, or the bug tank, its a little much for a single healer.

Lotheb 10 man - Start a chain heal 2 seconds before the debuff expires, pretty obvious.

Any time in a 10 man when a healer goes OOM. i can jump in while they regen.

Heroics - I've solo healed quite a few heroics in full dps gear, however my groups have always been with everyone doing 2k DPS or more dps and a at least 1/2 geared tank, so its hard to say if it could be done as Elemental with a standard under geared pug.

Heroic Achievements: Watch him die - Tanking all 3 adds and the boss at once, I started healing once we got to the boss.

 

Rurr

At the risk of stating the obvious, elemental geared shaman are much better at emergency healing than Enhancement Shaman due to the Spell Power changes. This is what makes it even more perplexing to me that they killed the synergy between the two specs. Perhaps they felt that with the spell power changes the synergy was no longer needed? Your post might actually support that position, but I have to second the sentiment here.

With Ancestral Knowledge sitting on the bottom tier and the current power of Intellect, is there any doubt which tree is going to get synergy points from restoration or elemental spec shaman?

 

Aanzeijar

I've been doing exactly that for the last two weeks. The analysis of the boss fights matches my experience also well, with some additions:

- Thunderstorm is one hell of a skill. Mana Tide returns 24% every 5 minutes, where Thunderstorm returns 8% every 45s. That's more than twice the personal mana regen from a class skill. As such, I don't even need the tier2 resto talent to keep my mana in check.
- I mostly communicate with other healers to get the chain healing job. While I miss a lot of HPS from imp chain heal, the rather high crit rate makes up for that. LHW must be specced into deeply, otherwise it just drains mana, and heals for nothing. On Sapphiron.10 for example, I can heal the melee dps plus myself forever, if they get decursed and don't sit in a blizzard.

There's a downside however. On Kel'Thuzad.25 I tried to look for ice blocks to heal, and heal for a few seconds when adds/MC/ice blocks happen at the same time, and together with watching out for other crap, and watching my own spells, it devastates my dps. I can hardly pull 2k that way, which is less than a paladin MT will dish out. Mind you, it's still more than a resto would manage to do, if he got nothing to do, but it's not a full dps slot.

 

Woolies

If it means the difference between the success of the raid or the failure, I think a sacrifice in your personal dps is justified, even though emergency off heals often go unnoticed.

 

Santillan

I don't think the off-healing capabilities of Elemental are that great.


As Enhancement, I could pop a Healing Wave in 1s or less when needed, and THAT was a clutch heal, friends.

As Elemental, I can no longer obtain the -0.5s off Healing Wave, which restricts my clutch healing to LHW... yet, except for Elemental Oath, I certainly don't provide anything than an Enhancement Shaman couldn't to offhealing.


I mean, compare us to Druids! They have 7 to our 2 healing improvement talents in their Moonkin spec... and while it is balanced by thinking they have to gimp raid DPS by shifting out, thing is they need to sacrifice less time because of their HoTs; and while in raids this difference seems to be on par, it isn't in PVP.

 

Ulthwithian

Santillian: While you do have a point regarding Balance vs. Elemental, realize that some of the Balance 'healing improvement' talents are never taken by any Balance Druid. Genesis is the clear culprit here. Nature's Splendor is a big plus, granted.

 

Ghando

I'm not really sure where this discussion can go. Yes, there are situations (pretty much entirely restricted to 5-mans and 10-mans) where you want to help the real healers out to avoid a wipe. But there's no synergy whatsoever between Elemental and Restoration talents/playstyles, unless you're counting the mana regen of Unrelenting Storm and Thunderstorm. In this situation you have a grand total of three spells to choose from, and Healing Wave is a poor choice without Improved HW. So...yeah, what are we talking about here? Yes, spellpower makes off-healing better than it used to be. It's still incredibly sub-optimal.

I'm a Shaman.

 

Kegsta

I'm sure in cutting edge guilds where everyone min-maxs like EJ, you have nothing to worry about, healers always do the job and never go OOM and you probably breeze through 10 mans without any problems.

I'm more thinking about the possibilities of bringing 1.5 healers to 10 mans once we are a little more geared.

Being able to solo heal heroics while throwing out a few Chain Lightning and Lava Bursts never hurt anyone either.

We have quite a few small new synergy's since 3.0
Unrelenting Storms/Ancestral Knowledge: Int gives massive mana regen from Thunderstorm, Replenishment and US.
Clearcasting : FS, LvB LHW LHW is quite efficient damage and healing.
Spell Power: Obvious one here.
All the haste on gear: My LHW are 1.2 second casts in my quite terrible gear.
Elemental Weapons: Small benifit on Earthliving.
Elemental Oath: 5% crit, procs on heals also.

Enhancement is an interesting point, I'd like to hear more about how they go off healing, I had assumed they would just OOM very quickly, and that maelstrom wouldn't be up enough, but our guild of 60 or so level 80's doesn't have a single Enhancement Shaman, so i haven't gotten any first hand experience.

 

• Binkenstein

If you're going to bring a hybrid or elemental to heal, you're better off with a full spec healer that can dps when bored, chain pulling more, and doing more achivements.
The reason why it's a bad idea is that Elemental goes OOM while spamming heals. Sure, throw out the odd heal if one of your healers gets stunned/whatever, or someone is taking massive extra damage (usually an indication that someone screwed up elsewhere), but doing a hybrid dps/heal job is never going to work practically.

 

grayrest

Consider a 50/0/21 build. You're giving up 10% int, 60something SP from Ele Weapons, and some range/pushback. It's not min/max for ele, but it's respectable enough for a .5 healer. I can promise that a decently geared ele shaman won't go OOM if they have imp. WS. They won't even have to change out of the ele gear since I wear ele gear for healing and come nowhere close to potting in the fights I've done. I'd be more concerned about throughput than longevity but they can pick up the resto 2t7 if the mana is close.

 

Xiar

I don't think any elemental that is serious about their dps will ever spec the resto tree.

Even so, with decent spellpower (~2000) I've saved the heroic run and even a couple 10 man naxx fights by switching to lesser healing spam or chain healing melee. The mana consumption for us healing is bad, even with 20k mana; but finishing off a fight when your main healer or healers are down or picking up the slack at times where extra healing is needed is very useful. That and keeping yourself up if you see the healer struggling.

I find it odd that with the synergy elemental and resto have that it's enhancement that gets the insta cast heal or DD proc.

But what do I know, I log in here and just copy whatever spec Bink is using.

 

• Binkenstein

At most, that spec is only helping with the mana cost of heals. Elemental Focus does more to reduce mana costs than the 20 points in Elemental, and Thunderstorm is (imo) a better mana regen talent than IWS. There's no reason why a 56/14/0 build (with one point spare) would do any worse at healing than the build you've suggested, with the added bonus that it'll be better at DPS.

Often the best use of a "hybrid" that's spec'd dps is throwing the odd heal as and when required rather than healing entire fights.

If you are really worried about being an extra healer, you may as well just spec full elemental or restoration depending on the requirements of the raid.

 

grayrest

Your complaint was that ele is going to run out of mana while healing and when I present a build that won't run out of mana, you're now rejecting it because it's not min/max for dps or healing, which I clearly state in my post.

Given the request, I fail to see how a tiny dps tradeoff (63 sp and 5% crit on flame shock) is more valuable than being able to heal sustainably and having NS when you're acting as a .5 healer. The spec I linked has Elemental Focus, so that's a strawman. As for mana, IWS is far better than Thunderstorm for healing. If we take a 22k mana pool, Thunderstorm returns 1760 mana every 45 seconds. IWS will return that much mana in 4 crit heals with a baseline water shield, which should take a lot less than 45 seconds. Even so, it's pretty trivial to pick up Thunderstorm instead of NS. It just doesn't seem to be a good tradeoff.

While I'll agree that a .5 healer never works as well in practice as it does in your head, having tried it with both a ret pally and a 30/0/31 shaman and winding up mostly healing on both, listing the tradeoffs seems like a reasonable question for a bunch of theorycrafters.

 

Skiace

I'd argue that Enhance is a better spec for this offheal/emergency healing role than Elemental even. As enhance, I can throw an instant heal out with every Maelstrom Weapon stack if I want to. It doesn't hurt my mana usage much, and only sacrifices 10-15% of potential dps. Being instant cast, these are excellent emergency heals. I found this role quite usefull on raid-wide survival fights like 10man Saphiron.

 

• Binkenstein

You're also forgettting how Ancestral Knowledge will increase Unrelenting Storm regen, as well as increasing the mana pool + crit.

However, this is probably a completely irrelevant topic, as specing specifically to be a "pocket healer" (ie: someone that has a mix of healing and dps talents) will never be useful in anything that resembles a min/max enviroment. If you're just raiding with your mates and don't care about that, a 0/0/0 spec, DW Elemental (or resto) or whatever build you want to use will be fine.

Just as an FYI: I almost always use heals on fights like Four Horsemen, KT & Sapphiron where there is a fair bit of raid damage (in fact, on Sapph all I do when hiding behind iceblocks is spam CH).

 

Endus

I've used it a fair bit in Heroics as well, I've had several bosses where the healer died, and I kept up the healing enough to pull off a win. One boss it was myself and the tank for the final 40% or so, and we still pulled it off.

Not saying this is how it SHOULD be, but Maelstrom weapon + Healing Wave actually makes for okay healing in a pinch. I know I toss it off to tanks and such in 5-mans all the time if it looks like the healer needs a second or two to get a heal off.

 

Kamileon

What hurts Enh for offhealing is not spellpower, it's mana efficiency. Enhance probably has the best odds of throwing additional heals while actively dpsing, at the cost of using MW for dps. An actively dpsing Enh shaman in a raid w/ buffs will have competitive spellpower to wearing caster gear; we just can't stand and chain cast the way elemental specs could.

If you need someone to throw on healing gear and full time/predominantly heal, Ele will have way better longevity.
If you need additional heals on some fights without fully sacrificing a dps, Enh can throw out a lot of extra healing with Maelstrom Weapon used for heals instead of dps, and maintain mana well enough using Shamanistic Rage.

 

Agash

Enhance can throw off that big instant heal which can save the day - but you do need the MW stacked to be able to do it and you get that maybe once every 10 secs (ofc even a part stack will speed up the heal and can be useful). Most enh shamman won't however sit on their MW stack waiting for the emergency situation to arise, they will use it for DPS. So the chances of having a full stack just at the time the emergency heal is needed are slim.

So Enhancement is probabaly better at throwing that odd big heal in when it might be needed. But if your healer goes down and you need someone to take over healing for a more sustained period, I would go with Elemental due to the larger mana pool.

 

SpottedCowz

While the purpose of the forums here at EJ is primarily to maximize efficiency and come up with the balls-to-the-wall-absolute-cutting-edge for raiding, two thoughts are occuring to me. First, if someone who's not a hardcore progression raider wants to come here and talk about midrange raiding concerns, it ought to be allowed, as long as they're maintaining the level of intelligence that this site is so prized for. Second, with the current raiding environment, min/maxing is pointless. I guess if you want to be the fastest in the world at downing bosses, there's call for min/maxing but let's be honest, this content is so easy you can have half your raid AFK and still down bosses.

I can see the appeal of having a half healer, especially in 10 mans. Patchwerk is really a 2.5 healer fight, and so is Sapphiron. You can do it with two, but it puts a pretty heavy strain on your healers, in content that is otherwise a walk in the park. I haven't tried 3 drake Sarth in 10 man yet, but I imagine that'd probably also be a 2.5 healer fight, you've got 1 tank that will be tanking at least 2 drakes plus a few elementals, your main tank, and raid damage from portals and meteors.

I think that Elemental is better suited to being a half healer than Enhancement is. As an Enh shaman, I can say that using MW5 to pop chain heals significantly affects my DPS. I guess I'd have to look at logs, but I think that 10-15% is lowballing it a little, LB is a pretty massive part of my damage. It's enough that I notice the difference when I'm unlucky with MW procs. I think that as DPS shaman we're capable of off-healing without altering our specs, so long as we're not expected to be providing the same kind of a heals that a real healer can provide.

 

Ghando

It's allowed, it's just kind of a pointless discussion. Yes, you can do it. If you want to have a DPS Shaman heal on a particular fight but don't them to bother with respeccing, by all means have them heal. There are plenty of instances where you might want this to happen; I heal myself and one other person on the backside of 10-man 4H every week. I just don't think there's anywhere to go with this. You're not going to pillage your DPS capabilities with some kind of 30/0/41 mongrel spec, you're just going to put on healing gear and fill that role in a sub-optimal way because it makes the most sense for your group. So what are we talking about? Techniques for off-healing? Gearing for both roles?

I'm a Shaman.

 

Bolbot

I am interested in looking at 1.5~2.5 healer 10-man fights (or any x.5 healer 25-man).

Encounters that consist mostly of constant/expected damage that can be healed by X healers, and staggered periods of "extra damage" that X healers can't quite cover. The extra damage occurs no more often than 30~45 seconds. The person responsible to heal this "extra damage" is busy for 5~10 seconds, and rest of the time they're either overhealing, twiddling their thumbs or DPS-ing. Patchwerk is an exact opposite example of what I am talking about.

This "extra damage" often comes in the form or raidwide damage. If the "extra healing" comes in the form of an elemental shaman, chain heal is quite a tool for this job. DPS-ing moonkin/shadow-priests don't have access to CoH or WG, and also drop their forms if single heals/hots will cover it. Enh-shaman run out of mana? I know they can heal quickly with MW, but can how many heals over what time period before they're oom. I assume Ret palys also suffer mana issues? Ferals have mana + shifting issues?

The healing might be reliable incoming damage (i.e. helping heal ice-blocks on Kel'thuzad) or "bad play" incoming damage (i.e. people eating flame wave on Sartharion. You don't expect people to eat them, but if they do when you happen to have a lot of adds up, do they get healed or die?)
Other potential places:
- healing Anub Add tank (I don't know what percentage of the fight would be healing vs DPSing)
- healing the Gluth zombie kiter (requires healing sporadically - easily identifiable by distance from zombies. Decimate healing)
- CH during Loatheb

Maybe when dual-specs comes out, quite a few fights in 10-man Naxx will become 1.5/2.5 healer fights.

Does anyone consciously take this into account when building their raid group? I think there is some merit to a discussion on this aspect.

 

Mengus

While it may be a moot point when dual spec is released, I healed my first herouc today as enh in resto gear, and have oftentimes brought along my heal gear for heroics, 10 mans, and 25 mans and done fine. This is with a traditional enh raid spec mind you.

As Enh, the nice benefit is dual earthliving weapon. Find an OH with haste and AP or Crit, slap on ELW, and you have a phenomenal offhand. Raid buffed, you're probably also pushing 3k healing or so. In 10 mans, I see this as the most useful... No need to run back to town to respec or anything, when you have 2 healers and for whatever reason they just can't keep up with the damage, the Enh Shaman in Resto Gear makes a great raid healer, and can do OK on single targets as well.

I think Chain Heal is the best best for such a situation though.

 

Eleven

Healing as Elemental, I've found that if I have to do any prolonged healing, the guaranteed crit from any lava bursts I can squeeze in is absolutely amazing for getting elemental focus charges to use for healing. It adds a surprising amount of longevity when you're not wearing mp5 gear.

 

Aanzeijar

Now that you bring this to the table I have to ask, do you really have time to look around while doing full fledged elemental dps? Maybe it's just that I'm used to resto more, but with my current high haste rating (~490 - 14%) I'm completely busy with keeping my spells lined up. I just don't have time to look around without risking to botch up a cooldown.

 

Agash

I think if you have played a fair amount as resto, these things come more naturally. I find I throw in the odd LHW or CH when I can tell healers are struggling but to do it effectively you need to have an appropriate UI and a familiarity/understanding with the healers in the raid and what constitutes 'struggling' for them. Otherwise you just end up nerfing your DPS while causing them to overheal.

It is also a question of priorities - what is more important, letting that kiter die or ensuring you don't botch a CD or 2?