[Resto] Best Practices: PvE Healing Discussion - Page 8

Altsobadoli · 04/11/09, 7:43 PM

I do sarth 3d 10 man all the time, me and a pally healer only. I raid heal with CH and LHW about equally--the pally heals the MT and beacons the ads tank, I heal the drakes tank and the raid and ES the ads tank. I do not have the Third Wind totem, but LHW is still a main heal for me in Sarth 3d 10 because of mobility issues. Mana does not become a problem if you stack enough INT and use the right trinkets. Throughput is just fine if your tanks are competent and your dps don't stand in the fire.

joshwill80 · 04/12/09, 3:17 AM

just came back to WoW and i'm trying to get caught up on the resto shammy changes. i'm making healing macros for clique and i intend to use tidal force in my HW and LHW macros. i'm wondering if i should include it into my chain heal macro too. is tidal force worth using with chain heal, or should it be saved for HW and LHW to proc improved water shield and ancestral awakening? it seems to me that using it with chain heal first could lessen the chances of those talents proccing by at least 20%, but the additional chance for chain heal to crit also seems nice, especially considering how often chain heal is usually cast. is there any kind of consensus on this?

Sixthy · 04/12/09, 5:41 AM

Originally Posted by joshwill80

just came back to WoW and i'm trying to get caught up on the resto shammy changes. i'm making healing macros for clique and i intend to use tidal force in my HW and LHW macros. i'm wondering if i should include it into my chain heal macro too. is tidal force worth using with chain heal, or should it be saved for HW and LHW to proc improved water shield and ancestral awakening? it seems to me that using it with chain heal first could lessen the chances of those talents proccing by at least 20%, but the additional chance for chain heal to crit also seems nice, especially considering how often chain heal is usually cast. is there any kind of consensus on this?

I don't personally use TF outside my NS macro to be perfectly honest. I guess if you've gone an entire fight and you hit a soft enrage or whatever and it's still up then it wouldn't hurt to pop it and get off some crits at the end, but it's not exactly necessary.

orion121 · 04/12/09, 3:08 PM

I'm actually kind of wondering about the Sarth3D10 solo heal strat. My armory may still be the gear/spec I've been working with (for posterity, I swap out enough PVE gear to PVP gear to hit 5.51% crit resistance at the cost of 50 SP and .5% crit and spec into Healing Way and Imp Healing Wave for HW Glyph and run Glads totem). As it stands it feels like aggro is being our biggest issue after 3 days of attempts, which leaves me wondering if we just need to replace our tanks because I find myself having to keep the tank up while heal-tanking adds through the first and second fire wall as well as taking 1-2 hits from Tenebron. Any tips or tricks to the fight that I, or my tank(s) are missing?

Sixthy · 04/12/09, 4:53 PM

Basically it's all about positioning. You want to be right in between your Sarth Tank and your drake Tank (You basically want those tanks about 20 yards apart, yourself splitting the difference in the middle and them on the same side facing sarth and their drakes the same direction if that makes sense). You then want to position yourself so you're always standing in AE range of your DPS (WW, DS, Death and Decay, etc - you want to be standing right where that stuff is landing so it's constantly catching loose spawns).

Besides that there isn't much to it that's any different than 2 or 3 healing the encounter.

(Honestly there's no difference at all besides the fact that you're solo healing it.)

orion121 · 04/12/09, 8:57 PM

Should have mentioned we're running a caster group so there is no melee AE for me to fall back on.

Sixthy · 04/12/09, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by orion121

Should have mentioned we're running a caster group so there is no melee AE for me to fall back on.

Solo healing the encounter isn't exactly the norm or something you do for convenience. It's more of a challenge type deal, so you should probably setup your raid accordingly.

KnThrak · 04/13/09, 6:28 AM

Am I the only one who has serious issues deciding whether to kick out my LHW or my HW glyph for the ES-glyph?
The HW glyph usually ends up producing quite a lot of healing over an entire raid evening, but more importantly (abstracting from the numbers) in any fight where I am using HW to either heal spike damage on random targets or support my tankhealing with it I don't have to worry about damage on myself.

This is most noticeable on Sapphiron when going for 100club, or Sartharion+adds, where a few Lava Adds on me pose no trouble unenraged as the damage they cause is healed up by the glyph anyways.

On the other hand, my LHW glyph is what makes me able to viably drop heals onto the tank while raidhealing, which is especially important (again) during Sarth+adds when I can time hasted+glyphed LHWs right after the breaths without taking much focus off the raid. And ofc when movement is involved in a fight, LHW starts scoring big points compared to HW for single target healing.

Now with 3.1 on the horizon I see ES-glyph and Healing Way. Both would make me kick LHW -> ES glyph, but the trouble that LHW actually makes a noticable difference to my healing style remains.

Independant of the numbers behind everything, I can notice how LHW helps me keep tanks up.

Am I the only one with that dilemma? I want the ES-glyph (but not on cost of my HST glyph as we always have a BoW-source from elsewhere, so I am free to place HST), I want Healing Way (got the points now after all), but then I end up unable to decide whether to kick LHW off my mainstay healing toolbar or not. And without it's Glyph it'd be reduced to a heal I use solely for reflex healing and/or movement healing, it loses it's supportive-tank-healing nature.

Sixthy · 04/13/09, 8:34 AM

Originally Posted by KnThrak

Am I the only one who has serious issues deciding whether to kick out my LHW or my HW glyph for the ES-glyph?
The HW glyph usually ends up producing quite a lot of healing over an entire raid evening, but more importantly (abstracting from the numbers) in any fight where I am using HW to either heal spike damage on random targets or support my tankhealing with it I don't have to worry about damage on myself.

This is most noticeable on Sapphiron when going for 100club, or Sartharion+adds, where a few Lava Adds on me pose no trouble unenraged as the damage they cause is healed up by the glyph anyways.

On the other hand, my LHW glyph is what makes me able to viably drop heals onto the tank while raidhealing, which is especially important (again) during Sarth+adds when I can time hasted+glyphed LHWs right after the breaths without taking much focus off the raid. And ofc when movement is involved in a fight, LHW starts scoring big points compared to HW for single target healing.

Now with 3.1 on the horizon I see ES-glyph and Healing Way. Both would make me kick LHW -> ES glyph, but the trouble that LHW actually makes a noticable difference to my healing style remains.

Independant of the numbers behind everything, I can notice how LHW helps me keep tanks up.

Am I the only one with that dilemma? I want the ES-glyph (but not on cost of my HST glyph as we always have a BoW-source from elsewhere, so I am free to place HST), I want Healing Way (got the points now after all), but then I end up unable to decide whether to kick LHW off my mainstay healing toolbar or not. And without it's Glyph it'd be reduced to a heal I use solely for reflex healing and/or movement healing, it loses it's supportive-tank-healing nature.

I believe there was some pretty decent discussion about this on the last page. I think the overall consensus is basically CH + ES + ??

The ?? can be HW, LHW, EL, WM or MTT.

Actually the discussion was here: [Resto] 3.1 PTR changes and testing

Vuldunobetra · 04/13/09, 10:17 AM

With glyph costs around 5g, I plan to carry stacks of each, and swap them out as needed.

IMO, HST glyph is just healing meter padding. The glyph will heal each person in my group ~2,000 per minute. I don't see it saving me any mana nor saving a life.

stassart · 04/13/09, 2:31 PM

Originally Posted by Sixthy

I believe there was some pretty decent discussion about this on the last page. I think the overall consensus is basically CH + ES + ??

The ?? can be HW, LHW, EL, WM or MTT.

Actually the discussion was here: [Resto] 3.1 PTR changes and testing

Have they fixed EL on the PTR? If it is like on live, I have seen enough data to call the Glyph of Earthliving Weapon a 1% proc rate increase (20% * 5% = 1% is how I am guessing it is implemented on live). If it is not fixed to actually give a 5% proc rate, the glyph is not competitive with other glyphs imo.

The 25-man data I have seen Glyph of Healing Wave and Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave both contribute about 0.2% - 0.3% to overall effective healing. I do not have enough Glyph of HW 10-man data to look at, but Glyph of LHW adds 0.6 - 1% effective for me in 10-man.

• Jessamy · 04/14/09, 2:54 AM

Originally Posted by stassart

I do not have enough Glyph of HW 10-man data to look at.

Healed a semi-pug 10-man 6 minute Malygos achievement run tonight. I forgot to start logging at the beginning of the raid and missed some attempts, which might partially affect the difference between recount and shaman_hep values. Even though I'm an advocate for HW as a superior choice to LHW and never cast LHW this whole raid (partially aided by raid stacking nicely in sparks for CH), GoHW ended up being pretty terrible after discounting overheals.

From recount (includes overheals)

54.6 Chain Heal
19.2 Healing Wave
 9.5 Riptide
 8.9 Earth Shield
 2.9 Earthliving
 2.3 Glyph of Healing Wave
 2.1 Ancestral Awakening
 0.4 Forethought Talisman

In-combat effective healing from shaman_hep

60.7 Chain Heal  (2.6 from glyph)
12.5 Earth Shield
11.5 Healing Wave
 4.5 Riptide
 4.5 Earthliving
 3.1 Riptide_hot
 2.5 Ancestral Awakening
 0.6 Forethought Talisman
 0.1 Glyph of Healing Wave

Edit: Looks like Ulduar is being released tomorrow. I'll work on collecting data from there; EoE is only one fight mechanic and provides a limited picture.

Omidin · 04/15/09, 8:15 AM

So with 3.1 here and all, what are the current "Best Practices" for a resto shaman? I've normally valued Mp5 and Haste over everything else. I've also very rarely used HW if at all. Does that change now? should I switch out stuff for cirt gear (which I collected anyways for occasions such as this)? Do I start using HW in place of my LHW for my normal "Go to" spell if I dont *really* need the speedy casting of LHW?

KnThrak · 04/15/09, 9:11 AM

This was from yesterday's Naxx-clearout + Malygos, both 25man:

Stat relationships:

For healing output:
1 SP = 1 SP (0.4521 hps)
1 Crit rating = 0.5778 SP (0.2612 hps)
1 Haste rating = 0.8519 SP (0.3851 hps)
1 INT = 0.3410 SP (0.1542 hps)

For mana regen:
1 MP5 = 1 mp5
1 Crit rating = 0.0634 mp5
1 Haste rating = -0.4628 mp5
1 INT = 0.2789 mp5
1 Mana = 0.0075 mp5
Total mana regen points needed from gear: 692.17

Shaman Healing Equivalency Points:
1 SP = 1
1 mp5 = 1.0094 (calculated)
1 mana = 0.0075
1 Haste rating = 0.6853
1 Crit rating = 0.6418
1 INT = 0.6225 (actual)
1 INT = 0.9648 (max theoretical)

Looking at that, I am not so sure I should be going mostly for Haste. Granted, I need to upgrade spellpower badly since I still have my old ilvl200 Mace (never had a better one drop

), but b eyond that I'll still to my 2-set approach.

For raidhealing Haste and mp5, for tankhealing crit and some haste.

• Jessamy · 04/17/09, 10:07 AM

edit (Jun 15, 10): Patch 3.3.3 (back in March) finally the fixed Glyph of Earthliving Weapon bug.

edit (Feb 12, 10): Recent testing by Stassart (link) shows that despite what the tooltip says, Glyph of Earthliving Weapon behavior is unchanged. Reverting my comment on this glyph, with apologies for my untested assertion that it changed.

edit (Nov 4, 09): Added note to indicate strength of Chain Heal glyph for 25 man content.

edit (Sept 9, 09): Dual spec Glyph of Totem of Wrath exploit has been fixed, and no longer provides benefit to healers. (credit: Micah)

edit (Sept 4, 09): The game has changed since I originally posted this summary. Chain Heal is no longer the majority of our healing like it was for many healers in T7 content, and its glyph is no longer considered required by the community. The brief in-game bug with stacking BoW & Mana Spring was hotfixed just days after this post; mention of that is removed.

Glyph of Earth Shield
This glyph adds an impressive 2-3% to effective healing, and its value isn't encounter dependent. Even if there is more than one resto shaman in your raid and you can't shield the main tank, this is still your best glyph choice. Use it.

The best choices for your other two major glyphs depend on personal healing style, raid composition, and boss fight mechanics. Reglyphing is much easier now too, now that a Lexicon is no longer required. Since there is no universal best option, here they are in alphabetical order:

Glyph of Chain Heal
The strength of this glyph depends on what boss you are fighting and on what difficulty mode. On an encounter where the bulk of healing is from Chain Heal, this glyph adds a significant 2-3% to effective healing. On a fight where your dps spreads out to avoid killing each other and Chain Heal doesn't bounce, this glyph provides less benefit. This will likely be one of your best options for 25 man content, but be less valuable in 10 man content.

Glyph of Earthliving Weapon
As of patch 3.3.3, this glyph appropriately increases proc chance from 20% to 25%. (Testing demonstrated that it used to increase the base 20% chance by 5%, to 21%.) Even with the significant overhealing loss from the HoT, this is now a viable option.

Glyph of Healing Stream Totem
If you use Healing Stream instead of Mana Spring, this glyph can add almost 200 hps in ideal circumstances, and around 150 hps with typical overhealing.

Glyph of Healing Wave
Some shaman healers prefer LHW, some prefer HW. If you use Riptide and Chain Heal to ensure every HW you cast is under the Tidal Waves haste effect, and don't want to worry as much about healing yourself, this glyph can be useful. Based on my own testing, this glyph can provide anywhere from 0.1 to 3.5% of my effective healing; it is very dependent on fight mechanics and healing assignments.

Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave
Some shaman healers prefer LHW, some prefer HW. If you depend on the faster reaction that LHW can provide, but still want to be able to heal your tank when you need to, this might be a glyph for you. Stassart's testing has shown this glyph to add 0.2 to 1.0% to his effective healing.

Glyph of Mana Tide Totem
If you are in a group with no other mana users, and your fight lasts an exact multiple of 5 minutes in length, this glyph is less mana regen than Water Mastery at current gear levels.

Originally Posted by Handyhoof

Water Mastery = 30mp5, over 5 minutes = 1800 mana.
Mana Tide = 4% mana every 5 minutes.
Mana Tide can return more when 1800 < 4%, or your mana pool is over 45000.

If you can share your Mana Tide with at least one other mana user, or if you can use Mana Tide more than once in a fight, this glyph is stronger than Water Mastery.

Glyph of Riptide
Fully utilizing this glyph would require a conscious adjustment to healing style. The best practice would be to keep the Riptide hot ticking on as many different targets as possible, clipping only the last tick to proc the 25% bonus to Chain Heal on every Riptide cast. In that ideal situation, this glyph allows you to keep one extra Riptide hot ticking, even without the T8 set bonus.

Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem
Similar to the HW glyph, this is a way to keep your own health up. The shield it puts on you is at best less than 150 effective hps, even if used every cooldown and the shield is fully used up every time. Maximizing this benefit uses a gcd every 30 seconds, or 2 every 30 seconds to maintain coverage on Stoneshield or Strength of Earth. You could use those same cooldowns to simply cast a heal on yourself when needed. This can be valuable for pvp because it's an extra instant cast ability, but shouldn't be used for pve.

Glyph of Water Mastery
This is a strong glyph choice for a shaman leveling as resto, but at level 80 there are better options. At level 80 it provides 30 mp5.