Which buff is best for Shamans on Ultra?

[AquaductDown]

Hello everyone. Our guild recently downed reg DW for the first time (woot). We plan on starting Heroic bosses this coming week. I was just wondering what buff would be best for me as a shaman. I normally get green but played around with blue on a LFR and found that I could spam GHW and end up restoring more mana then using it up. So I was curious what other people out there thought the best buff to get is. Thanks in advance.

[krazyito65]

It really depends on your healing comp. 10/25? How many pallys and other heals?

Paladins should ALWAYS get blue. So if you have a paladin then they get blue. If you as a shaman get blue then chain heal might be better. But GHW woukd be good for spot healing, but by then you want to be healing as many people as possible. Otherwise green and red is.sutible for a.shaman. Druids should get red because of how it affects effloressence. And depending on the rest of.your comp will be up to.you.

[Dhozer]

Most people seem to agree that green is best for shaman as it doubles our healing, but spreads it out over the raid, so there's no chance of over healing .
We had our first go on H-Ultraxion on Thursday, we didn't down him but got him to about 19% (Think we'll get him for sure after the reset due to the 10% buff)
On normal I've always gone for red, but I tried green on heroic when we got there (wasn't very often as the dps kept having problems with soaking Hour of Twilight).
I didn't really get enough chance to make a proper verdict on it. I feel safer with red because that's what I'm used to, but will try green again this coming week and see how it fares

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/qu5mwbcdx5gl94x4/

[krazyito65]

Honeslty red and green both double healing, though in different ways. If you have a druid he shoukd get red. But you can talk between yourselves and decide what is better for the group.

[Meeka]

10man raiding here...

Red is best for a rshammy (in my experiences). I have done 50k hps with the red buff on normal Ultrax (1 healing it). On our heroic attempts I've been grabbing red and using TC to help
regen mana (use HR on CD, riptide 3 targets, spot CH, and TC spam). I also equip 2 spirit trinkets for that fight (HoU and Tsunami) and mana and healing hasn't been an issue so far (getting to sub 30%). Our biggest problem has been raiders failing to mechanics. Healing wise, I've ALWAYS had lower healing (lowest with blue) when getting green/blue than compared to red.

ETA: ^This is from me 1 healing it (not holding off on taking buffs but always having them). I've only tested taking red for the full duration vs taking red -> green -> blue; and red -> blue (which I found my HPS several k lower and healing more of a struggle-I believe is mostly due to losing the healing increase buff in order to take haste/blue instead). Lowest with blue = ending the fight with blue as opposed to ending it with red buff. Having red buff at the end, made the fight significantly easier to heal through. As it is now, with heroics, I'm keeping red and ourhpally is taking green-> blue.

In my other raid team, we've already downed heroic Ultrax. We gave our resto shaman red and our resto druid green purely b/c OVERALL hps went up. Yes, our resto druid's HPS was higher in red, than green, but the difference that our rshammy got with red, proved to be greater overall and allowed us to heal through the end of the fight (were struggling with heals before switching the two).

[Letharg]

Imho
Blue = Pally > diszi > holy > shaman/druid
Red = Druid > everyone else
Green = those who get nothing else/are waiting for blue

So it depends on who you heal with

[TenDance]

Redgives every healer higher hps because red is the first buff which is accessible. Therefore HPS alone isn't a clear sign which buff is best.

The only important thing on this fight is the last minute, so look at your logs which healer does perform best during the last minute with different buffs.

And yes, red will let you do ~100k HPS on 25 heroic if you push for it.

[Krysann]

As everyone else has said it depends on your healing comp and what you decide as a pair is a-Best combo for you and b-what will be best for your raid. I heal this with a pally and spend every minute up to the Green crystal spamming Lightning bolt and dropping healing rain. I drop Tide and use the 4p resto after the first HoT, then again when Tide comes off CD. Even spending the first couple of minutes dpsing and only healing with rain, I still manage a solid amount of healing while supporting our HR spamming Holy pally. We can use any of the colors effectively and benefit from them all, but if your raid will benefit from you dpsing the first bit or from you on a single color, take that.

[Alltat]

Green is the best one as a shaman, as it's +100% healing while minimizing overhealing. Red is +100%, but some of that will be lost to overhealing, so realistically you'll see gains around +80% (unless you're a druid, in which case you get a bazillion extra healing). Blue is okay, especially for 25 man, but it's not that great for us. It's much better for paladins and priests who have very expensive spamable AoE-heals.

Tell us your composition, and we'll tell you an appropriate buff setup. But as a general rule, red goes to druids or discipline priests, blue goes to paladins or priests, and green goes to whoever is left.

[Draagn]

I've ALWAYS had lower healing (lowest with blue) when getting green/blue than compared to red..

That's because it takes all fight for the blue buff to spawn...

[AquaductDown]

Yeah I guess I should have mentioned the comp! It's a holy priest, resto shaman and holy paladin. Our priest normally gets red, me green and the paladin blue. We figured he could use blue the most because he's the least geared out of all of us. I'm usually on top of HPS with green at the end but sometimes the red buff wins out.

[Dalts]

We use Resto Druid (Takes Red) and Resto Shaman (Me) i was taking green and then blue when it spawned, last nights kill i just took green as I was full mana going into last phase so i thought id just stick with the green. overall it done 33.92% of my healing. I'm still trying to convince our pally to heal with the druid so I can dps, but then why change something that works i guess.

[Meeka]

Sure, except, I have tried straight healing it with red for the full amount vs going from red->green->blue. I did more healing keeping red only for the full duration and never switching off of it vs the time when I did switch off from green-> then ultimately blue. The red healing buff works wonderfully with our mastery as the raid takes on more damage towards the end of the fight (and I found it much easier to keep people up). I experienced more of a struggle keeping the raid up when I had blue (even spamming CH with HR on CD). However, this is also in 10man and as everyone else has said, it depends on who you are healing with (and what will bring about an overall increase in HPS). ie) not opposed to having the rshammy take green when another class can do even better with red (or would do so much poorly taking
green).

[Alltat]

Yeah I guess I should have mentioned the comp! It's a holy priest, resto shaman and holy paladin. Our priest normally gets red, me green and the paladin blue. We figured he could use blue the most because he's the least geared out of all of us. I'm usually on top of HPS with green at the end but sometimes the red buff wins out.

I assume we're talking 10H here? If so, ditch a healer. Two healers are enough to last all the way to the hard enrage (6:00) if you're both good, so bringing a third healer is just a waste of DPS (it's actually solo-healable by any spec). Considering that the fight is mainly a DPS race, using too many healers just makes the fight way harder than it's supposed to be.

Depending on who you go with, I'd use something like:

• Paladin red, priest green, paladin blue
• Paladin red, shaman green, paladin blue
• Priest red, shaman green, priest blue

[CricketEmerissEU]

I have converted and now love the green buff.

I choose you Ysera!

[kiango]

I 4heal 25m H: ultraxion with a holy priest and 2 paladins, and myself (resto shaman). We have the paladins go red>blue, and the holy priest and I take green. I hit around 55k HPS, while the paladins are upwards of 60k-70k.
We down him.

[Seriss]

I 4 heal 25-man Ultraxion as well.

Disc priest and paladin take red.
Other paladin and I (shaman) take green. I do 50-60k hps usually, a bit depending on when I decide to pump more healing into the raid than Healing Rain on CD (from unnerfed progress on this boss, I'm still used to dpsing as much as possible and for as long as possible and only really start healing gradually when I get my buff).
Both paladins switch to blue when it spawns.

Profit

[Olianda]

I have converted and now love the green buff.

I choose you Ysera!

I like what the green one does for my healing, but I hate the number spam, it makes me lag. >.>

[Alltat]

I have converted and now love the green buff.

I choose you Ysera!

Good news, then: we get it as a baseline ability in Pandaria. On a cooldown, but still.

[hempaa]

Good news, then: we get it as a baseline ability in Pandaria. On a cooldown, but still.

gona be awsome.