To elaborate on that point, the only way Chain Heal mashing would be viable in Wrath is if the Dual Wield resto spec provided a tangible benefit at current gear levels - consensus is that this is not the case. Ignoring Healing Wave as a tool in the resto toolbox is foolhardy at best; additionally, the threat changes in Wrath make HG pointless unless you are building a PvP spec.
Improved Reincarnation may be a fun talent; however, the healing benefit it provides is negligible. If you are the only wipe recovery available in your raid, it may be arguable; however, since Pallies, Warlocks, and Druids all provide other options for wipe recovery in addition to Reincarnation, points in improved quickly looses value.
If, however, you used Reincarnation constantly because you die in combat, you probably have other issues in your raid group that would be better served by role analysis and combat log parsing (did you stand in fire? did the tank not pick up the add?) than spending talent points in a talent that increases healing output and speed by 0%.
The TTT needs a section on when to ditch your Tier 7.5 and put on your shiny new epics from Ulduar-25. Here's what I've cobbled together so far, based mainly on posts already made in the forum.
===
Continue using Tier 7.5 until you have four pieces of Tier 8.5. The Tier 8.5 four-piece bonus is equal to 8.7% haste + 0.088% per 1% haste on gear (at additional mana consumption). The Tier 7 bonus is a straight +5% more healing from Chain Heal at no additional mana cost. The Tier 8.5 bonus provides more HPS than Tier 7.5 even with about 3,000 spell power.
However, both set bonuses on Tier 8.5 can quickly drain mana. Tier 7.5 may prove more useful in mana-intensive fights.
Numbers in parenthesis are including gems and socket bonuses Valorous Earthshatter Regalia
Stam: 376
Int: 345 (379)
Mana Regen: 100 (105)
Crit Rating: 45
Haste Rating: 176
Spellpower: 474 (559)
Note: Gloves of Winter Spectacle used instead of set piece
Conquerer's Worldbreaker
Stam: 381
Int: 386 (402)
Mana Regen: 79 (84)
Crit Rating: 228
Haste Rating: 173
Spellpower: 525 (624)
Note: Two red gems in the chest and two red in the legs ignoring socket bonuses
We've established that dropping Healing Way is acceptable. The main reason is not that we don't cast Healing Wave but rather that when we do cast Healing Wave it's not likely to be on the same target repeatedly. However, Healing Wave remains an important spell and Ancestral Awakening is an important talent that complements it nicely. In addition, AA also procs off Riptide. Healing in Wrath is not about mashing the Chain Heal button and getting off as many casts as possible. It's about using a variety of healing techniques on the right player at the right time. You might want to consider putting your 3 points in Enhancing Totems into AA or taking your 2 points in Improved Reincarnation and 1 point in Healing Grace and putting them in AA.
I realize there are multiple tools within our arsenal and there are right times to use them. Just because I have that spell though doesn't mean I should be using it. A riptide + chain heal can do the same as a Healing Wave and it heals multiple people.
You can't actually move the Imp. Reincarn / Healing Grace pts into AA. Enhancing Totems I have because we don't have an Elemental Shaman or deep Demonology Warlock. If we get someone who can cover that buff though I will definitely consider moving those 3 pts to Ancestral Awakening.
To elaborate on that point, the only way Chain Heal mashing would be viable in Wrath is if the Dual Wield resto spec provided a tangible benefit at current gear levels - consensus is that this is not the case. Ignoring Healing Wave as a tool in the resto toolbox is foolhardy at best; additionally, the threat changes in Wrath make HG pointless unless you are building a PvP spec.
I don't completely ignore it, I just don't find it all that useful. Shamans shouldn't be MT / OT healing unless its a spot heal which Riptide covers nicely. If he needs further heal I can bounce a chain heal off his head.
Improved Reincarnation may be a fun talent; however, the healing benefit it provides is negligible. If you are the only wipe recovery available in your raid, it may be arguable; however, since Pallies, Warlocks, and Druids all provide other options for wipe recovery in addition to Reincarnation, points in improved quickly looses value.
If, however, you used Reincarnation constantly because you die in combat, you probably have other issues in your raid group that would be better served by role analysis and combat log parsing (did you stand in fire? did the tank not pick up the add?) than spending talent points in a talent that increases healing output and speed by 0%.
Yea, I realize the point in Healing Grace is next to useless but I find it far more useful than proc'ing something that gives more armor to someone who doesn't need it. Ancestral Healing doesn't increase healing output or speed either so I'm not sure I understand your argument of dropping Imp. Reincarn / Healing Grace.
I'm not really sure when/if the hotfixes to european realms were applied, but yesterday evening (after Patch 3.1.1) Earth Shield and Glyph of Totem of Wrath remained on target/self despite specc-switching.
Since this is a "Best Practices" thread I figured I'd post a link to my wall of text describing ACTUAL fights and not all this theory-based non-sense. Some of my thoughts are pretty-scatterbrained and there's a decent discussion going on in our private forums about my WoT, but this is just for people who are curious about REAL Ulduar fights and how they REALLY pan out. Shaman healing is not as cut and dry as riptide 4 targets with a glyph and then pop them with chain heals in order. That is a perfect way to help your raid fail while bumping your personal eHPS.
I'm personally not compelled by someone's eHPS when its at the expense of another raid member's. I get the impression that many of you want to fill every single role in the raid and, to be frank, shaman are inferior AoE healers in Ulduar when compared to priests and druids. It is not the fact that our AoE heal is far worse because it is not. It is the type of damage that goes out on these fights that fits the style of other classes much better. Every guild is different and some guilds might not have the luxury of having multiple holy priests and druids so I understand that shaman fill in the gaps nicely so I don't mean to imply this discussion is useless. I just feel its time to depart from the numbers are start looking at yourselves as what you really are, the best contingency healers in the game.
Here is the wall of text I'm referring to and it directly relates to Mek's blog that I'm sure most of you are familiar with. I decided to try his strategy out and I'm liking the results currently. I don't even see myself changing when incredibly fast chain heals become possible. Numbers aren't everything to healers. Who and when is always more important than for how much as a healer and that's just common sense talking. Enjoy.
I'm here to say that at least 85% (made up statistic) of the information you get from [EJ forums] as a healer is completely worthless.
I stopped reading right about there.
Shamans aren't inferior AoE healers in Ulduar as you claim so matter-of-factly. PoH is too slow unless you have a priest to dedicate to each group. Unless you're running with a raid that's stacked on priests and druids over paladins and shamans, WG and CoH aren't going to cover Kologarn's left hand shockwave, they don't have the control we have to give focused AoE healing in a small physical area like for XT-002's Light Bombs, Chain Heal on a tank at Ironaya will bounce through the raid to whoever needs it and provides considerable amounts of healing to the tank. I could go on and on. Every class brings something. If you don't like what a Resto shaman brings to Ulduar, respec or roll priest/druid that you seem so fond of.
Yes, adapting the tools you have to the situation at hand is neccessary. Dismissing the math behind it all as worthless is just plain ignorant.
Perhaps I wasn't being fair to some of the different strategies of other guilds (or comps as I did state above). I'm sorry if you don't have good priests, but Kalogarn's left arm shockwave is a perfect example of the type of AoE a shaman is inferior at compared to the other classes. If you hadn't stopped reading after my very valid point that the math portion (the 85% guesstimate) of this healing stuff is basically worthless you would have seen that I enjoy the resto shaman very much and would not reroll. I also discuss the strengths of CH. Resto shamans in my opinion bring as much or more to the raid than any other class. My issue is that this reliance on chain heal is limiting the play of the people that focus so much on the HPS math.
Based on your two examples I'm going to assume you haven't cleared the place out yet so it sounds like you're speaking from ignorance or some defense mechanism protecting your opinion of our class.
I can also tell you read these boards religiously, and I recommend the boards to all my co-raiders as they are a useful tool. If you were at all concerned about improving your effectiveness to the raid I'm guessing you would stick to your guns less and open up your mind more. Like I said before... healing is about who and when, not how much. The math enhances every play style I will admit that and my example you quote was obviously an exaggeration aimed at deterring my guildy from taking these silly theory-crafting equations as bible because I feel like it weakens our ability to clear content with such an emphasis on what should be instead of what really is.
I saw this thread titled "best practices" and my mouth started to water a bit because I thought maybe, just MAYBE, it would be a discussion of how to maximize ourselves in real raid situations. I was thoroughly disappointed to find that it was more of the same... a math book... a best case scenario, HPS pissing contest. Sorry if you disagree, but I implore you to read the rest and take from it what you can, if not only to completely write off a new and (in my opinion) more fun and effective play style.
Yea, I realize the point in Healing Grace is next to useless but I find it far more useful than proc'ing something that gives more armor to someone who doesn't need it. Ancestral Healing doesn't increase healing output or speed either so I'm not sure I understand your argument of dropping Imp. Reincarn / Healing Grace.
It provides a non-negligible boost to armor, reducing incoming damage. Reduced damage is, in some cases, better than increased healing.
In regards to the Barcode's argument that shamans are inferior raid healers to Holy priests in Ulduar (in a broad general raw healing sense) so far I would have to agree with that in most fights. I do not agree about the druid bit.
Alpha Jew's comment that PoH is inferior unless your groups are properly assigned is valid, however is there a raid out there that doesnt assign PoH groups? You'd have to be a bit dim imo.
We excel at HPS for sustained, consistent slow damage. Chain heal is a slow cast. In ulduar there is alot of periodic, large raid-wide damage that can get quickly CoH+PoH'ed up for massive numbers by priests. We can only get 1 chain heal off in the same approximate time then theres not much left to heal.
I do agree that we are filling gaps amazingly right now. I put out great tank heals with LHWglyph and Hway, I contend only a paladin can throughput more single target HPS(perhaps Dpriest if we factor aegis and PW:S)
I have been fitting odd jobs and pickup up dead healers assignments, tank healing and raid healing and swapping glyphs like crazy. Even doing this my overall heals on the meters is below the Hpriests, but not for below. I definitely do not agree that we are inferior healers as a whole, I think our ability to fit any role is higher than any other healing class at the moment actually.
Here is a bunch of auriya wipes and Hodir with me raid healing:
... I recommend the boards to all my co-raiders as they are a useful tool.
As one of the obviously clueless math nerds who never actually raids or kills bosses, I would like to point out that is exactly what Theory Craft is. It's a tool. You factor in hps, hpm, and cast time when you make decisions while (I mean if I raided) in a raid along with what other healers capabilities and roles are, and appraise who needs healed and which heal you use. Obviously if you just went by the math no one would ever cast LHW but I do it all the time (I mean theoretically if I raided), I guess I'm just a hypocrite.
Seriously though, if you actually read this thread as you claim, you see quite a few different healing styles from posters that varies according to people's guilds. The point of all the "pointless" math is to help you make the best decisions while trying not to stand in fires and let people die. All the math is to help improve those tools not dictate everyone should RT CH CH CH or whatever the chart says. I actually agree with priests being the best aoe healers at this point but I don't think that necessarily equates therefore we shouldn't aoe heal.
P.S. Also the veiled "my guild is farther than you so I obviously know more than you" is silly and won't help you in an argument. Save that for the wow forums. Not to mention many of the ppl here are or have been in top guilds.
It's most certainly about how much. It's also about how much mana you spend doing it and the best use for your cooldowns. Know who to heal and when is about knowing the fight. Knowing the rest is about knowing your class. Why not control all those variables instead of just two?
Does Mana Spring still stack with Improved Blessing of Wisdom?
No it does not. And not only that, pallies without the improved talent cannot even cast Blessing of Wisdom if a shaman with Restorative Totems has mana spring down.
Does Earth Shield still remain on your target if you switch to an elemental or enhancement spec?
It does not remain on yourself if you switch specs, but it remains on other people.
Inferior AoE healing? priest can heal 5 people within 15 yards with PoH or CoH. with a CoH, PoH, then CoH aoe heal rotation(for those oh crap moments only, i don't roll a priest so i dont know their rotations) thats over a 6 second period, healing 5 people for a fairly large amount, which is good on such fights as gluth, but its just not spread enough around imo. when you have 25 people getting tagged for constant low amounts of damage, large heals on few people just doesnt cut it, although it does indeed help.
when gluth decimates, malygos deep breathes, and other fights where you gotta drop some fast heals to make sure the next hit doesnt kill them, youre not trying to top them off, youre keeping them alive so that you CAN top them off.
on these memonts, with ES on tank, i pop a riptide, chain heal, HW HW(with 1.8ish casts) then repeat as many times to keep as many people from getting tagged as possible. riptide-1 target, ES-1 target(small heal though it is), chain heal-4 targets, 2 more for HW casts with riptide reduced speed, thats 8 targets in a 7 second spread, not counting AA procs if you crit(which as I usually get around 3 procs) spamming CH on different targets with a 2.3 second cast would hit more people, but lets face it, when does anyone ever stack up for a shaman heal? i target melee so all 4 bounces happen, tag that hunter off in the distance with RT, get that warlock who's chilling in the corner with HW, then tag that boomkin who wont move out of the aoe.
priests have a 15 yard range on most of their aoe heals, with a 5 target limit, their heals are great on those targets, but for mr. hunter, jimmy the lock, and señor boomkin, its a 7g repair if you dont have an AoE healer who doesnt have to be up your rear to heal you.
priest can heal 5 people within 15 yards with PoH or CoH.
Prayer of Healing:
Range 40 yards (Long)
Value: 2091 to 2209
Radius: 30 yards (36 with Holy Reach)
Circle of Healing:
Range 40 yards (Long)
Value: 958 to 1058
Radius: 15 yards (18 with Holy Reach)
Holy Reach Rank 2
Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Divine Hymn and Circle of Healing spells by 20%.
I am not sure where you are getting the 15 yard range thing from. PoH and CoH can both be cast on anyone within 40 yards and then have a radius of 18+ yards.
I am not sure exactly how many yards chain heal jumps, it seems inconsistent at times, but I think it is safe to say that both of the priest's AoE spells have a diameter that exceeds chain heal's jump distance.
Holy priests have great AoE healing and Shaman have great AoE healing, which is better depends on the situation.
I am not sure exactly how many yards chain heal jumps, it seems inconsistent at times.
Chain heal jumps 10 yards. Sometimes it seems longer; I assume this is from client-server lag and the targets aren't actually standing where they appear.
I don't see how this epeen flexing and posturing is appropriate for a best practices thread. If you're so gung-ho on topping the meters go play a DPS class. Healing is not about being #1, it's about keeping people alive and using the tools you have as a healer to do it efficiently. If you've got all 25 people alive at the end of the fight, then two things have happened: your raid successfully stayed out of the fire and your healers worked together to make sure the unavoidable damage was mitigated.
The EJ boards and specifically this thread help you refine those tools and understand tips and techniques to eek out that extra healing in the most efficient manner possible because very few raids are able to execute everything perfectly on every attempt.
My experience in Ulduar thus far is that my throughput compared to other healers changes dramatically on each fight. At times I'll have the highest throughput, sometimes the tree, sometimes the pally, and sometimes the priests. No single healer is best and you need a good mix of all healers to be able to do a lot of these bosses. Ulduar is not sunwell, stacking a single healing class and calling it good will not get it done. If you feel that the lot we've been tossed in 3.1 is so dire that priests are going to replace us all, then go reroll a priest. But, this thread is dedicated to making shaman better at playing the resto spec, so please leave.
I don't want to get into the arguments whether Shamans are inferior to other classes or not (personally I think that the resto shaman spot is the first to drop when going from 7 to 6 healers) - but i think right now we still suffer from the same problems that were evident in SWP. Namely the reliance on CH as bread and butter spell. Once you go to spamming other spells your HPS will drop. CH on the other hand still suffers from its limitations (jump range, that often equals to the splash/connecting range of boss abilities and speed) and we still don't have a deep resto talent that actually buffs the CH.
Regarding DW specs i just don't think there are conditions where you can rely solely on CH, even in encounters that actually are CH friendly. Especially Riptide is just to good as a lifesaver if one of your assigned targets is dropping low. Not to mention that Ulduar has enough encounters where you actually have to switch to MT healing for a moment when everybody is moving around.
Regarding the TT article: i'm pretty sure that almost everybody will drop either T8 chest or legs since Crit/Mp5 is in general a pretty inferior way to gear. And at least for the legs there are already better legs on the Mark of Conquest vendor. Furthermore I don't think that even in manaintensive fights you won't downgrade to T7 since regen should come from trinket slots, gemming and perhaps even consumables rather than dropping your set which also improves your survivability through having more stamina, at least from my point of view.
On a sidenote I'm a bit disappointed we don't have a successor for the Spark of Live in the Ulduar loottables especially with the way the T8 bonus is scaling.
Regarding the TT article: i'm pretty sure that almost everybody will drop either T8 chest or legs since Crit/Mp5 is in general a pretty inferior way to gear.
I was wondering why you'd think so, in regards to crit on gear. I find myself tank healing on a lot of fights, and have recently switched out haste gear for crit gear. With the new AA I think my healing actually went up a notch. If I'm on CH spam duty I do switch back to my haste gear though.
Regarding the TT article: i'm pretty sure that almost everybody will drop either T8 chest or legs since Crit/Mp5 is in general a pretty inferior way to gear.
I recommend the often quoted shaman_hep by stassart for gearing-questions. Actually, most of us Shamans get a rough 1:1 weight between Crit and Haste for pure throughput with a slight tip to the haste-side. In fights where mana does matter crit is definitely superior to haste for almost all shamans that analysed their combatlogs. Have a look at shaman_hep reports and take your time to sift through the immense density of data in the posted logs.
I was wondering why you'd think so, in regards to crit on gear. I find myself tank healing on a lot of fights, and have recently switched out haste gear for crit gear. With the new AA I think my healing actually went up a notch. If I'm on CH spam duty I do switch back to my haste gear though.
I don't tankheal in 25 mans. Most raids will either run with 2 holy paladins or with a holy paladin/disc priest, especially now that dual spec is live. Might differ with raidsetups. When we did Thorim hardmode yesterday with 6 healers we actually had 2 disc priests and a holy paladin which even more nudges me into the group healing niche.
In fights where mana matters chainheal covers about 60-80 % of my healing (its sometimes a bit difficult to sort out, e.g. Thorim hard shows only 65 % chainheal casts but since i'm part of the tunnel crew where i spam a lot of lhw this is where the high lhw numbers come from. Still, mana is not an issue, i go to p2 with about 85-90 % mana.
In fact even with a pure throughput set I find it very difficult to run oom in a single target healing scenario. The only reason that remains for stacking crit is therefore proccing the AC buff. Which again is not my mission in a heroic raid because in any fight where this is an issue there will be a disc priest on the MT anyways.
On the other hand in p2 my CH will go up to about 80 %. Crit won't help me with longevity except that i do less casts per minute. If I run into longevity issues i will swap trinkets or relic or switch to 2 T6 (which nets me 200 MP5 in a zero lag environment). Furthermore fast heals have an advantage that cannot be expressed in numbers.
For these reason: if i get otherwise identical pieces with crit and haste respectively I will definitely always chose the latter. Crit might be more valuable in a 10 man environment, but that's not what I primarily gear for
Namely the reliance on CH as bread and butter spell. Once you go to spamming other spells your HPS will drop.
Shaman should never spam any single spell. That said, Healing Wave with Tidal Waves up is our best HPS spell. I'm not advocating using a spell rotation, but our best HPS rotation is RT-HW-HW-CH-HW-HW. More importantly, shaman need great situational awareness. While CH is our bread and butter, realizing when to throw out a RT or HW is very important. Like on Deconstructor, when the Bomb target runs out, he needs a heal, but will not be within range of a CH jump. Perfect time for a fast HW. Then switch back to CH for the raid.
The question is though: what do you want to do with throwing HWs around? I've done that in Naxx and Sarth3D content but in general once you have do it its because either your setup is not optimal or because your healing assignments aren't perfect. hep calculations are fine for getting an idea what a spell does and how to maximise in certain situations but they don't replace actual experience while raiding. Especially if your healing team is splitting tasks. Of course there are fights which are pretty freewheeling in terms of healing targets and selection of spells. But often these ones are more a kind of race who can throw his spell first on the wounded target rather than a challenge for your healing team.
In your Deconstructor example: throwing a riptide is enough, you don't need to heal him to full hp until he returns when he comes back into the camp use him as your next CH target. Works pretty good. If the situation is critical in terms of overall incoming raid damage however its quite probable that some other healer will pick up the heal of single runners, leaving you as the resident resto shaman to heal the melee zerg or a larger camp.
Healing a raid is not going gung ho for HPS nor is it about what you like to do. Its about getting the job done without having someone dying. And while the single target heals of our class will never totally be neglected in a fight, CH is the cast to build around your healing strat right now, mana and thoughput wise. At least that's my experience after not even 2 weeks Ulduar live.
hep calculations are fine for getting an idea what a spell does and how to maximise in certain situations but they don't replace actual experience while raiding.
/snip
Healing a raid is not going gung ho for HPS nor is it about what you like to do. Its about getting the job done without having someone dying.
Yes, and yes. These statements crop up frequently, most of us agree and nobody is argumenting against them. As stated several times, HEP calculations and theorycrafting in general are tools that complement practical experience, and don't replace them.
A lot of us agree that Chainheal is still (as intended by Blizzard) our characterizing heal. But, and most of us agree to that as well, there are a lot of situations where utilizing our full healing toolbox like Riptide and (Lesser) Healing Wave makes the difference between average and good healers. These situations are hard or even impossible to model, won't show up on healing meters and are based on the situational judgement, experience and intuition. Mostly they aren't even realized by anyone but the shaman, because the shaman was on the ball and nothing happened.
Additionally, I think nobody tries to argue a Resto-Shaman into an MT-Healing-position prior to Disc-Priests and Holy-Paladins. Yes, we can. But others can better.
The question is though: what do you want to do with throwing HWs around? I've done that in Naxx and Sarth3D content but in general once you have do it its because either your setup is not optimal or because your healing assignments aren't perfect.
We do healing assignments based on skill level, not class abilities. Some raiders are better than others at a specific task. While a shaman might not be as good as other classes at a specific role, the differences are small (0-10%??). More important is that the person assigned to the task can get the job done, which more than makes up for the small differences between the classes.
As you said, "Its about getting the job done without having someone dying." If I can heal up the bomb targets(*) more consistently compared to a player of another class, then why does my class matter? Theorycrafting is good, but it doesn't replace actual experience while raiding.
(*)bomb targets or Stone Grip or some other situationally aware healing assignment.
04/24/09, 4:38 PM
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