My buddy is an 85 resto shaman and is STRUGGLING with CATA heroics. Any advice?
Excuse my lack of proper terminology as I am not a WoW player.
He over heals in normal and blows it in heroics. End-game LK heroic is a breeze but 85 CATA stuff is killing him (and his raid team). It's like there's no transition. From over healing while watching TV drunk to white-knuckle sweats and wiping all night. Any resto shamans deal with the same thing?
EDIT: Great stuff so far. Thanks guys. I'll come back in a week or so to tell you how the advise worked.
Posted Jan 27, 2011, 9:18 PM UTC · edited
529
I've posted this info before but I'll do it again just to give your friend some pointers.
*Healing Wave: Should be your most used heal either for when tank is >75% health, incoming damage is low or you are topping up dps when tank is full
*Healing Surge: Never use this unless tank will die in the next 3-5 seconds without it, massive waste
*Chain heal: useless now Riptide: Use it whenever it's up, can be on 3 people at once GHW: Use whenever tank is <75%
*UE: Use situationally, can be run using it to top up dps just for the proc to use on tank
*Healing Stream Totem: Should ALWAYS be up, ticks are huge now Heroic stats: int>spirit>crit>mastery>haste Raiding stats: int>spirit>mastery>crit>haste Cataclysm healing is not WOTLK! You are doing a lot less casts and haste is pretty much useless now.
I've written this out a few times for new Resto Shammies but I'll do it again because I can't help loving my class :)
--Spells
Earthshield: Always on the tank. Use Quartz casting bar if you can to keep track of it easily and always be ready to re-apply when it's on 2-1 charges left.
Riptide: You said you were only using it when someone takes damage. Because of the huge haste buff it gives you got GHW/HW you want to keep this on cooldown all the time. This means you can have it ticking on 3 people regardless of damage. A good rule of thumb if you're not sure is to prioritize tank>melee dps>healer> ranged dps.
Healing wave: Anyone over about 70% just spam this, I believe with ~3200 combat mana regen I can spam this indefinitely even with riptide haste. Definitely your go-to spell.
Nature's swiftness: Save for emergency healing burst damage on the tank, be warned that if you're lagging it can sometimes not go off (especially if your casts are lagging argh!)
GHW: Use this on anyone under 70% who is still taking direct damage that riptide + healing stream totem won't be able to heal. Healing Stream Totem: Use this all the time, glyph it so it gives the same bonus as resistance totems and remember to chuck it back up after/if you use mana tide totem. The regen ticks are >1100 every 2 seconds which for many fights is enough to keep your dps topped off (especially ranged dps/healer).
Healing Surge: Mostly useless for anything but absolute "oh shit" situations when the tank is going to die RIGHT NOW and you don't have riptide haste to cast GHW. Once you get enough regen you should be able to HS spam your way out of some situations, I call it ghetto healing (which used to be Chain heal spamming).
Chain Heal: I used it a few times in my very first Cata instance and we wiped on the first pull. The healing is terrible now and it's unreliable for everything except a cheap top-off during mild AOE damage. I've heard tell that it's predominant use is situational in some raids now.
Healing Rain: I LOVE THIS SPELL. This is our best Heals-per-mana spell and on any fight where it will hit 3+ people it's amazing. Also I've yet to find a non-dispellable DoT which outdamages riptide+HR+HST (such as when the guys throw axes at your heads in deadmines lol).
Spiritwalker's Grace: VERY situational and honestly not as useful as you'd think. Takes a lot of getting used to if you want to use it properly. Just play around with it, it's kinda neat.
--Stats Heroic PUGs: Int>Spirit>Crit>Mastery>Haste (Haste used to be the go-to stat but now we are casting a whole lot less spells and relying more on spells which receive casting bonuses from riptide etc). IMO do what I did and stack as much crit as you can. Reforge for Crit as well. Mastery is largely useless in heroics but amazing in raids so you will want to reforge it back later.
--Resto Addons Get the following! Grid, TotemTimers, Elkano's BuffBars =D GL!
I've been told this is a great culmination of all the things he's read around the web. Thank's for the help, dude.
Unleashed elements should be used on cooldown every single time it's by far the most efficient heal a shaman has when you count the buff it gives to your next heal.
"*Healing Surge: Never use this unless tank will die in the next 3-5 seconds without it, massive waste"
Incorrect, if used after a riptide and with tank at low health, add in UE and this becomes your best HPS/mana spell. Mastery plus speed plus crit equals awesome.
Chain heal gets forgotten but it actually is still a great aoe heal spell. Best used in place of HW spams when melee takes a cleave of some sort or your ranged is close enough (ie any SFK or DM boss)
Your stats are a bit off. Haste needs to be at 916 (and at higher gear levels 2000+) so you get extra tick (or 2) of all HOTs, your spi needs to be 1800-2000 range then choose EITHER crit OR mastery and reforge to all of it. I suggest mastery first, then crit as your gear gets better. Reasoning is when your gear sucks and your groups gear is bad you find their health lower, your heals get a big buff from this. As said gear gets better and your knowledge of each fight gets better crit becomes more effective.
THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT: Know the bosses, know the trash, know your group.
Each boss has a spell set and will only do whats on that set, usually in a certain order. If you know what to expect you can know if HS needs to be drop due to big spikes followed by continuous damage, or if a big spike then downtime comes. You also should know when you can cast lightning bolts to get mana back (if you choose that spec). Instruct your group before hand if they need to group up for AOE at some point. If your group does not respond to your instructions they need more specific coaching. If this is a pug drop group and get another queue times are pretty quick for heals.
Finally I suggest 2 heal specs. 1 that is tank healing, 1 that is group heals. My aoe spec has the cure additions and lightning bolt regen. granted I mostly raid at this point I still suggest having two healing specs. If you aren't willing to do that then your really not dedicated to healing.
as for addons... your missing a HUGE one, Healbot cont. Best healing addon in the game.
In your opinion perhaps. Unless you're using GHW with UE, under tidal waves you should almost always use HS. I do, and I never have mana issues in heroics. Yes, I'm now sitting at 2.4k spirit sans elixirs, but I never had any issues even at 2k.
Once patch hits then maybe GHW will get a higher billing but right now the main reasons I would use GHW over HS is when I am going for UE+GHW+RT combo, or when popping NS for the true "oh shit" moment.
But regardless, provided your group is CCing properly and your tank doesn't suck, riptide + HW spam should be sufficient to keep them up.
I am also an unhappy resto shaman.
Several sources that have been updated for Cata still say haste is one of our most important stats. Specifically, Elitist Jerks is still advocating haste after Intellect, something that googling seems to agree with. Is this information just outdated and incorrect?
I already heal pretty much as you describe (lots of HW, less GHW, Riptide often, etc), except that try as I might, I can't make Healing Rain useful - my targets often run off before I'm even done casting it and it seems that fights encourage people to spread our and make AOE useless. Chain Heal has all the same issues in addition to being almost worthless even with it's Glyph.
I OOM pretty much every fight, even with Mana Tide Totem. In addition, DPS often die because I just can't keep up.
Edit:
Regarding Mastery, is it any good for anything? While it will increase throughput and efficiency when the target is low, crit will do the same thing regardless of the HP of the target. Additionally, Mastery won't proc anything. I'm honestly not sure it's even better than Haste. Did I miss something that makes Mastery desirable?