Telluric Currents & the other healer(s) in the raid

[Mavalynn]

So, for discussion sake...I was curious.

The latest craze is for all the resto shamans to boast about using Telluric Currents - and lightning bolt spamming. We're reforging all the spirit off of our gear and working with the least amount of combat regen all because we have Telluric Currents. My question is this...there must be some line we cross in which the gcd's (and time) we use up casting lightning bolts actually hurt the other healers in our raid. When they have to spend the time topping off the raid, while we throw lightning bolts here and there.

What are your thoughts?

[Endus]

It's a tradeoff. Other healers need to heal more conservatively, to get their mana to stretch out the whole fight, while Resto can drain themselves dry and then charge back up. While we might do less healing on a constant basis, we can be at full mana for those rough patches and can push out a ton of healing without worrying about the mana cost.

Combine this with the cyclical nature of healing, where there are highs and lulls in healing required, and you've got a system that actually works pretty well.

If you're spamming LBs when you should be healing, then you're just a bad healer, it's nothing to do with Resto's design. We just have options like "drop Healing Rain and spam LBs because healing requirements are low" rather than a Holy Paladin's "Pop Divine Plea for 50% reduced healing because healing requirements are low".

[Deleted]

It does rub me the wrong way how some matter of factly advocate 'reforge out of spirit or you're bad'.

I employ a spirit build on heroic spine, for reasons I described in the most recent spine thread. In contrast to spine though, madness is a fight with obscene amount of healing downtime. So I naturally went with min spirit max throughput build for our first kill. End result was about 23k hps. Next week I was feeling lazy and couldn't be bothered to reforge out of my spine build. Healing meter then clocked me at about 27k hps. Now, I do not wish to claim that this anecdotal evidence is the ultimate proof that spirit stacking is optimal for every circumstance. (In fact, to be honest, all healers scored significantly higher on that second kill, so obviously something was completely different). It does suggest however, that spirit stacking cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Since then I just kept my spirit build for every fight. I do finish a lot of encounters with 80k+ mana, which is a waste, but since it's absolute farm content I don't really care. I had to make certain adjustments on some fights, however. For example, at Yor'sahj's black phase I resort to Healing Surge spam, just because it minimizes the chance of anyone dying, and because my mana pool can easily take it. Same for Hagara's Lightning phase.

[Mavalynn]

If you're spamming LBs when you should be healing, then you're just a bad healer, it's nothing to do with Resto's design. We just have options like "drop Healing Rain and spam LBs because healing requirements are low" rather than a Holy Paladin's "Pop Divine Plea for 50% reduced healing because healing requirements are low".

BUT the difference is.... a pally isn't dropping a ton of their spirit (a.k.a combat regen) to take advantage of a certain spec design. Also, less spirit means mana tide is less beneficial and provides less mana return to our fellow healers, who don't have the luxury of using LB. So, not only are we regen-ing less mana and forced to LB if we want mana, but dropping mana tide totem is less beneficial to our fellow healer(s).

However, I'd like to add that I have two resto specs. One that has points in Telluric Currents and one that doesn't. I swap between them depending on the fight. So, I'm not knocking TC - it comes in handy for certain fights when there's moments with absolutely NOTHING to do. I just think it's unfair to indicate that dropping all of our spirit is the way to go in all fights. It forces shamans to cast lightning bolts to regen mana if they don't want to go oom - even if it's not the most opportune time to do so.

[mjolnrik]

So, for discussion sake...I was curious.

The latest craze is for all the resto shamans to boast about using Telluric Currents - and lightning bolt spamming. We're reforging all the spirit off of our gear and working with the least amount of combat regen all because we have Telluric Currents. My question is this...there must be some line we cross in which the gcd's (and time) we use up casting lightning bolts actually hurt the other healers in our raid. When they have to spend the time topping off the raid, while we throw lightning bolts here and there.

What are your thoughts?

You should definitly not be spam lightning bolts when theres a need for a lot of healing. What i usually do is keep a healing rain down 100% of the time, keep riptide on cooldown then i usually am able to get a couple lightning bolts off to make me almost back to the mana i started with. Ofc if someone or some people are taking damage, you should get them up before resuming with your lightning bolts
The thing about a TC build which i enjoy is you have just enough mana for the fight. If you time your lightning bolts well you can get maximum hps and cast enough lightning bolts to make you just almost out of mana when the boss dies. I always think any extra mana at the end of a fight is a waste, so I try and get rid of as much as possible leaving myself with alot more effective healing than the other healers, and leaving myself with just enough for when the boss starts hitting harder in the last few seconds of a fight.

mana tide is less beneficial and provides less mana return to our fellow healers

I would say that even with TC shamans are definitly the most mana inefficient healers. When im watching mana in a fight, our priests' mana is going slowly down the entire time, maybe like 5-10% every min. My mana however is going from 80-30% then maybe back up to 60 when i get some lightning bolts off, then maybe back down to 40 then up again. Dont take these numbers seriously, but its just the way it is. Its true we have less spirit and because of TC we may be spamming more and not managing our mana because we know we can get it back but my point is, other classes just dont seem to have the mana issues atall. If you need to cast a mana tide totem atall, which I sometimes leave out because I get more healing from my healing stream and the other healers dont need the extra mana, it will be for yourself.

But ofc every healer has there own preferences. I was saying spirit is for the weak and reforging out of it back in 4.0.1 before I got TC and could hold my own, but that has always been my play style.

[Mavalynn]

It does rub me the wrong way how some matter of factly advocate 'reforge out of spirit or you're bad'.

Exactly! And reading all the resto shamans, everyone would lead you to believe that this is the way to go.

Since then I just kept my spirit build for every fight. I do finish a lot of encounters with 80k+ mana, which is a waste, but since it's absolute farm content I don't really care. I had to make certain adjustments on some fights, however. For example, at Yor'sahj's black phase I resort to Healing Surge spam, just because it minimizes the chance of anyone dying, and because my mana pool can easily take it. Same for Hagara's Lightning phase.

The ability to determine the best spec, reforging, spell, etc. is what separates a good healer from an ignorant one. If you know your class and you make an educated decision based on how you play your class, your raid comp and where you're at in progression, then no one can tell you that you're absolutely wrong.

I'm just afraid that new resto shamans seeking information may think that the answer to their mana issues is to drop all their spirit and spam LB, with little regard, when that's not the clear cut answer.

[mjolnrik]

It sounds like you've got something that works for you.

I think it also may depend on whether or not you're healing 25 man or 10 man, and who you're healing with. I can easily see if you're healing 25 man, you'd have time to throw out LBs here and there since there's other healers keeping the raid up or doing the triage healing. However, I heal a 10 man raid with a druid...I can not guarantee that I'm going to have a couple seconds and extra gcd's to throw out LB for EVERY fight (i.e. H Warmaster, P1), which would be necessary if I reforge out of all my spirit. And if I'm forced to LB to regen mana...then my druid partner better be spreading his HoTs all over the place to keep people up (and in turn, burning HIS mana). And then, I'll drop my weak mana tide totem to help him out since he had to burn his mana so that I could LB. Just seems a lil' counterproductive.

Yea, I raid in a 10man guild too, however I am only 4/8hc so I guess it may be different later in on the hm, but Im almost certain that theres no fight with ongoing damage every second of the fight, you should take those gaps between damage spikes to just get a couple lightning bolts in, they help alot. Besides im not saying to leave your other completely without help. You should drop a healing rain and keep your riptides on cdown, they heal for a large chunk and gives you plenty of time to use some lightning bolts and thus keep your mana high whilst healing people. Also you shudnt let your mana get so low to force you to use a lightning bolt. During the entire fight you should be using lightning bolts at every opportunity and then when every1 is taking a fair bit of damage you will have enough mana to help your resto druid spam a bit. Also if you are worried about mana issues in the slightest, you should be dropping your mana tide totem as early as possible so you will be able to use it a second time. But anyway, unlike the beginning of the xpac where Ive heard some people were only brought to raids for there mana tide totem, mana tide totem has been majorly nerfed and raid leaders dont want us for it anymore but instead for our healing.
Also if you are concerned about spirit that much grab the heart of unliving trinket from spine in ds. Gives a very nice amount of spirit and allows you to reforge some elsewhere into more necessary stats.

I'm just afraid that new resto shamans seeking information may think that the answer to their mana issues is to drop all their spirit and spam LB, with little regard, when that's not the clear cut answer.

Ofcourse if you are a new shaman, the answer isnt to reforge your spirit. However when you are in ds gear, its certainly worth it, as you get stronger heals and gain alot of mana via lightning bolts.

But yea, as I said before, its just a preference, dont hold me to anything of what I said because it may not suit your playstyle

[Endus]

BUT the difference is.... a pally isn't dropping a ton of their spirit (a.k.a combat regen) to take advantage of a certain spec design. Also, less spirit means mana tide is less beneficial and provides less mana return to our fellow healers, who don't have the luxury of using LB. So, not only are we regen-ing less mana and forced to LB if we want mana, but dropping mana tide totem is less beneficial to our fellow healer(s).

You're not really making sense. Resto Shaman aren't "forced" to reforge away from Spirit to focus only on Telluric Currents. You take an amount of Spirit you're comfortable with, where for the content you're dealing with, it will provide sufficient regen when combined with your active regen. There's a continuum of benefit, a distribution that looks much like a bell curve; the ideal performance isn't going to be at 0 Spirit, or at 0 Telluric Currents use, but at some sweet spot with the right amount of each, where you're using TC during light healing and your passive regen is sufficient to keep your mana up enough between.

The only thing "forcing" you to use TC is your mana levels. You should be using it proactively, not reactively; tossing an LB or two when there's no immediate healing required, earlier in the fight, means later in the fight, your mana levels will be that much higher, so you're not as pressured to sacrifice needed healing. You should also, again, have passive regen also helping maintain this.

You seem to be trying for an "Only ever TC for mana regen" or "no TC ever not even spending the talent options" dilemma, and that's a false dilemma. The best way to go is in between; TC talented, a reasonable amount of Spirit, use TC proactively, and on those fights where you can fit in more TC, this lets you hammer more GHWs in between.

[Deleted]

If I may interject: MTT is awesome, but it's not something that should make or break your raids. Plenty of people raid without a restoshaman and if your healers actually rely on your mana tide then they're using you as a crutch. Just means they should be more conservative with their healing.

Dont really have much more to add to this otherwise. Every fight has downtime where you can use LB, and you can almost always weave LB in without affecting your HPS. TC isnt about going from 100 to 0 to 100, but a bolt once in a while over a whole fight will add up, and it's up to you to decide whether or not this is beneficial to you. There's a reason alot of people go with TC, it gives you alot more control over your healing and mana.

[Mavalynn]

You're not really making sense. Resto Shaman aren't "forced" to reforge away from Spirit to focus only on Telluric Currents. You take an amount of Spirit you're comfortable with, where for the content you're dealing with, it will provide sufficient regen when combined with your active regen. There's a continuum of benefit, a distribution that looks much like a bell curve; the ideal performance isn't going to be at 0 Spirit, or at 0 Telluric Currents use, but at some sweet spot with the right amount of each, where you're using TC during light healing and your passive regen is sufficient to keep your mana up enough between.

The only thing "forcing" you to use TC is your mana levels. You should be using it proactively, not reactively; tossing an LB or two when there's no immediate healing required, earlier in the fight, means later in the fight, your mana levels will be that much higher, so you're not as pressured to sacrifice needed healing. You should also, again, have passive regen also helping maintain this.

You seem to be trying for an "Only ever TC for mana regen" or "no TC ever not even spending the talent options" dilemma, and that's a false dilemma. The best way to go is in between; TC talented, a reasonable amount of Spirit, use TC proactively, and on those fights where you can fit in more TC, this lets you hammer more GHWs in between.

Of course Resto shaman aren't FORCED to reforge away from spirit. I didn't say that. I didn't think I was unclear, or that I wasn't making sense. If you read through the resto shaman forum posts, everyone is suggesting that you reforge spirit since you can rely on LBs. I get that for most fights, but can you really guarantee that you can LB during ALL fights to compensate for the decreased combat regen from the loss of spirit? There are some fights, yes...I know I can make up twofold, threefold for my loss of spirit...but then there's some fights where I'd be lucky to squeeze in 5 or 6, if I squeeze in anymore...I'd be putting more of the healing load on my druid fellow healer.

It was just a topic for discussion...really not trying to be unclear...I just wanted to see what others thought.

[Endus]

I'll just mention as an aside that Mavalynn keeps deleting posts they've made. So if you're wondering why some people may be replying to posts that you can't see, that's why.

[Mavalynn]

No. I keep deleting my own posts (or so I thought). I'm doing something wrong apparently. I'm a forum noob (this is actually my first thread)...and can't figure out how to quote other people properly. I didn't know I had the ability to delete other people's posts...if I did so accidentally, I apologize. I was just trying to do my own.

/sadface

Edit: Endus, it looks like I've just been deleting my own posts. I had duplicate posts that cluttered thread. I don't even see that it's possible for ME to delete other people's posts. I'll be better the next time I start a thread I promise!

[Deleted]

No. I keep deleting my own posts (or so I thought). I'm doing something wrong apparently. I'm a forum noob (this is actually my first thread)...and can't figure out how to quote other people properly. I didn't know I had the ability to delete other people's posts...if I did so accidentally, I apologize. I was just trying to do my own.

/sadface

Edit: Endus, it looks like I've just been deleting my own posts. I had duplicate posts that cluttered thread. I don't even see that it's possible for ME to delete other people's posts. I'll be better the next time I start a thread I promise!

You cant delete other peoples, your just deleting your own a lot, and posts that people are replying too. Endus was stating that you were deleting your own posts. You just misunderstood him.

On Topic: I personally - when I bother to heal which is rare these days since Morchok is easily 2 healed now and we 2 heal every other boss besides Madness and Spine (I occasionally heal spine) - have about 2.5k spirit ~ish with trinket stacks and everything. I rely fully on Telluric Currents. However I am in a fairly unique position that I have Dragonwrath, and the procs from it return mana back too through TC so I get a much larger mana return per LB than other players.

[Deleted]

If you're spamming LBs when you should be healing, then you're just a bad healer

But WHEN should you be healing? No one knows the correct answer to that!

op:
Spine is a good example. During the time inbetween rolls, if I am low on mana, I spam riptides and lightning bolts. I do sometimes assist with greaters(which btw are more efficient than healing waves due to the fact that you can heal more faster and then squeeze in a lighting bolt) if they fall behind, but generally if they can keep up with the debuffs efficiently, you should let them while you regain with riptides off CD. It's quite good to be on Skype to coordinate stuff like that. You can even have them pop a small CD to keep it up if you are very low(this is why you close recount when you heal btw) on mana.

Idk the math, but I could imagine them burning a bit more mana, and you gaining mana with LB's with riptides off CD, is better than all of you healing slighty, but efficient.

[Endus]

But WHEN should you be healing? No one knows the correct answer to that!

"No one"? No, good healers do. You need to know what damage is going out when, how long you have to the next big chunk, what your other healers are doing, and where everyone's health levels are at.

Is everyone at 90%+? TC. Is one person taking massive damage but has heals incoming to cover it? TC. If you've got the right addons for your healer crew, you can see the heals they'll be doing on the raid frames. If I see someone at 50% when I finish a cast, but another healer's already got a big heal queued that will bring them to 90% or so before factoring in crits, I don't toss another heal on that guy, unless it's a Riptide and he's going to be taking more damage to make that worthwhile.

If you don't know when you can squeeze in a TC cast without much affecting your effective healing (as distinct from HPS, which isn't a very useful stat for healer effectiveness), then you've got some training and practice to do, same as a DPS would if they were struggling with optimizing their rotation, or a tank if they were popping CDs reactively rather than proactively.

[takolin]

Of course Resto shaman aren't FORCED to reforge away from spirit. I didn't say that. I didn't think I was unclear, or that I wasn't making sense. If you read through the resto shaman forum posts, everyone is suggesting that you reforge spirit since you can rely on LBs. I get that for most fights, but can you really guarantee that you can LB during ALL fights to compensate for the decreased combat regen from the loss of spirit? There are some fights, yes...I know I can make up twofold, threefold for my loss of spirit...but then there's some fights where I'd be lucky to squeeze in 5 or 6, if I squeeze in anymore...I'd be putting more of the healing load on my druid fellow healer.

It was just a topic for discussion...really not trying to be unclear...I just wanted to see what others thought.

I can't think of any fight in DS where there's no time to use LB (5/7 hc 10 man).

Morchok during his phase and if you're healing the korchom side, you should have ample time after that phase ends because the 1st stomp doesn't come for a while.
Yor'sahj: pretty much every time he's summoning bloods and on purple phases without too much extra damage going out when you can't spam heals.
Warlord: after each black phase before the ball goes out, the damage is low.
Hagara: after lightning/frost phase.
Ultraxion: LB usage goes down the longer the fight lasts.
Warmaster: Plenty of time to LB here if people move out of charges.
Spine: Tendons on the 1st and 2nd plate and whenever you have 0-1 searing plasma's up on those plates. We're still struggeling for this fight so we haven't had proper attempts on the 3rd plate but don't think you can actually LB there.
Madness: On the 1st 2-3 platforms, it should be doable to regain your entire manabar during cataclysms.

[Deleted]

I can't think of any fight in DS where there's no time to use LB (5/7 hc 10 man).

Morchok during his phase and if you're healing the korchom side, you should have ample time after that phase ends because the 1st stomp doesn't come for a while.
Yor'sahj: pretty much every time he's summoning bloods and on purple phases without too much extra damage going out when you can't spam heals.
Warlord: after each black phase before the ball goes out, the damage is low.
Hagara: after lightning/frost phase.
Ultraxion: LB usage goes down the longer the fight lasts.
Warmaster: Plenty of time to LB here if people move out of charges.
Spine: Tendons on the 1st and 2nd plate and whenever you have 0-1 searing plasma's up on those plates. We're still struggeling for this fight so we haven't had proper attempts on the 3rd plate but don't think you can actually LB there.
Madness: On the 1st 2-3 platforms, it should be doable to regain your entire manabar during cataclysms.

On Spine you can LB on all Tendons, because doing so allows you to use much more healing outside of them, and on the tendons at the end the only person taking any extreme damage is the Blood Tank, who you can have Riptide and ES rolling on.

On Madness every Cataclysm phase between Blistering Tenticle spawns is a good time to LB spam. Also you can LB the Corrupting Parasites if your guild aren't killing them because doing so not only gives you mana back but at the same time reduces the damage your raid takes.

[Keiyra]

Yea, I raid in a 10man guild too, however I am only 4/8hc so I guess it may be different later in on the hm, but Im almost certain that theres no fight with ongoing damage every second of the fight, you should take those gaps between damage spikes to just get a couple lightning bolts in, they help alot.

Try heroic spine and see how much downtime there is to fit in LBs (very little) since even when there isn't much "damage" you still have the healing absorb debuff to go through. Tendons is bout the only time, if you don't have a lot of searings out. - though with the nerfs now its somewhat easier.

[Mavalynn]

This thread wasn't meant to turn into a "for" or "against" whether or not to use TC. I was just curious if anyone had ever thought that there are times that throwing out LBs may harm the other healer in the group.

Prime example that made me think about this is....phase 1 of H Warmaster. I heal with a druid. Last night, I tried to fit in lightning bolts...and just as I thought people were topped off at a comfortable moment to try and fit in a LB, there were no adds, or the add was close to dead...and by the time I cast the LB, I had no target. Or...it was right before an onslaught. I'm pretty sure I would have been good on mana because I manage my mana all the time, even with my TC build. But still. It may be the nature of healing with a druid (and his hot ticks), but there just doesn't seem to be a perfect opportunity, like most of the other fights in DS, to cast a LB. That's just where we are in progression and the nature of our healing comp. I'm sure as we improve our gear overall as a raid group and Warmaster is on farm, then I'll find more moments to LB, but for now...my main priority is to make sure people don't die and that my druid healing partner isn't burning through his mana to compensate for me LB-ing.

[Eliot123]

My question is this...there must be some line we cross in which the gcd's (and time) we use up casting lightning bolts actually hurt the other healers in our raid.

Well if people are dying or dipping dangerously low on health while the shaman is zapping the boss with lightning bolts, there is obviously something wrong with the shaman.

Also, less spirit means mana tide is less beneficial and provides less mana return to our fellow healers, who don't have the luxury of using LB. So, not only are we regen-ing less mana and forced to LB if we want mana, but dropping mana tide totem is less beneficial to our fellow healer(s).

Yeah but realistically shamans have probably had the worst mana regen of all healers during Cataclysm (except maybe holy priests during Firelands), saying that you should stack spirit past your ''comfortable'' zone just for other healers doesn't make much sense. Plus ever since the nerf Mana Tide has been a ''meh'' cooldown at best.

But WHEN should you be healing? No one knows the correct answer to that!

<_<
Saying something like this is just pants-on-head silly, any decent healer knows when to heal. When you heal for a while such things become second nature, like positioning, spell use, when to pop a certain cd, throwing lightning bolts and whatnot. People don't even have to be 100% topped off for a shaman to throw a lightning bolt or two, there is always some kind of damage going around, if were to wait for everyone to be at 100% no one would ever get to use TC. I usually do it when most raid is above 80-90%ish and I know no one will suddenly get a ton of damage (and even if it happens, there are ways to quickly fix it).

Try heroic spine and see how much downtime there is to fit in LBs (very little) since even when there isn't much "damage" you still have the healing absorb debuff to go through. Tendons is bout the only time, if you don't have a lot of searings out. - though with the nerfs now its somewhat easier.

Mm I actually find there is plenty of time during first 2 plates of hc (10man) Spine to throw lightning bolts.

Can't really say much about Warmaster hc, I usually go dps for that fight because I have the best geared dps spec of our 3 healers but even then I'm sure it's possible to throw a lightning bolt or two.