Resto Shaman. Worst Healing class atm?

[Frozenbeef]

I was thinking resto was one of the strongest :S

When watching priests heal they constantly go out of mana while struggling to keep everyone alive....resto shamans have alot of semi passive heals eg earth shield, healing stream, earthliving which make keeping your group up easy and you can spend your big heals on the tank/ the person taking lots of damage or if you know they won't be taking damage use healing wave/ spam lightning bolt for mana :S

[Iracor]

I'd like to see a link to your shaman. I find myself outhealing our paladin and priest on a regular basis in my 10 man group. Shaman aren't weak, we don't need a buff, we just heal differently than any other class out there, and if you don't know how to do it or what stats to stack then it'll seem that way to you.

That actually sounds like a problem with your pally and priest.

Shaman are easily the worst healer in 10-mans, but they fair decently in 25-mans just because of how much healing a healing rain can do. They don't have the throughput cooldown of a resto druid, they don't have the utility to adapt to spike damage like a pally, and they can't mitigate damage like a disc priest. The resto shaman "cooldown" is a gimmick totem that will typically not make a difference.

They're just a farm boss healer when damage is fairly consistent because your raid is executing the fights correctly. Any other healer will fair better on progression due to having various cooldowns for when shit hits the fan.

Just because people wanted a source: http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/play...agon_Soul/hps/

I count 4 shaman in the top 10 of every DS boss combined. That's 4/80 of the top rankings. Compared to 17/80 (druids), 11/80 (priests), and 48/80 (pallies).

[Alltat]

Regarding haste breakpoints: the OP doesn't have Riptide glyphed, so there is no 2005 haste breakpoint for him to reach. All that haste is wasted.

2. Specced into Telluric Currents but not specced into having spirit->hit conversion wtf?
3.Specced into Focused Insight- once again wtf?

Skipping spirit to hit conversion is pretty normal. If you're good with mana management, you can afford to reforge away all your spirit, not spend any points in elemental beyond Acuity, and still be fine for mana. Elemental talents beyond Acuity are entirely optional.

Regarding Focused Insight - agreed. It's not nearly as good as some people (like the OP) seem to think it is.

[Deleted]

([10man]) You cannot win against other healers (with same skill) as a shaman (at least in recount/skada overall). If you heal more than other healers as a shaman that means the other healers are worse than you, plain simple.

[Deleted]

That actually sounds like a problem with your pally and priest.

Shaman are easily the worst healer in 10-mans, but they fair decently in 25-mans just because of how much healing a healing rain can do. They don't have the throughput cooldown of a resto druid, they don't have the utility to adapt to spike damage like a pally, and they can't mitigate damage like a disc priest. The resto shaman "cooldown" is a gimmick totem that will typically not make a difference.

They're just a farm boss healer when damage is fairly consistent because your raid is executing the fights correctly. Any other healer will fair better on progression due to having various cooldowns for when shit hits the fan.

I call bullshit on this. Resto shamans were awesome for our own progression, and I dont regret anything. Youre claiming that somethings 'wrong' with their priest/paladin, but I'd like to throw that right back at you - if you cant /if your restoshaman cant keep up in heroic DS he/she/you are doing something very wrong.
Also, best healer for both Spine and Madness heroic by far.

[Banzhe]

That actually sounds like a problem with your pally and priest.

Shaman are easily the worst healer in 10-mans, but they fair decently in 25-mans just because of how much healing a healing rain can do. They don't have the throughput cooldown of a resto druid, they don't have the utility to adapt to spike damage like a pally, and they can't mitigate damage like a disc priest. The resto shaman "cooldown" is a gimmick totem that will typically not make a difference.

They're just a farm boss healer when damage is fairly consistent because your raid is executing the fights correctly. Any other healer will fair better on progression due to having various cooldowns for when shit hits the fan.

I would like to know where you get these ideas from Iracor, more over this is a thread with someone asking for help.., not only do early progression kills prove you wrong in both statements, but it puts you into a category where your not helping at all.

Shamans are equally strong in 10man as they are in 25man, it all comes down to adjusting your play style, and the spr-link totem just happens to be the strongest cd around in Ds due to the clustering on fights with the exception of maybe Yor'sahj with the green alive (if anyone actually ever leaves that up lol)

[Deleted]

([10man]) You cannot win against other healers (with same skill) as a shaman (at least in recount/skada overall). If you heal more than other healers as a shaman that means the other healers are worse than you, plain simple.

What a load of BS... I've been healing DS10hc Spine and Madness and since i started doing that i out healed Both the Holy/Disc priest and our Paladin. And they are both just better geared then me. If you cant top meter on DS fights as a shaman, then Your doing it wrong.

[drubibu]

My 384 item level priest tends to do more healing (based on recount, not a big fan of using that as evidence)
then my 398 item level Shaman.
...
I make sure i heal with chain heal using riptide. I also will almost always put down healing rain, mana isnt an issue. I mainly only need to use healing wave as the nerfs and such, but i will use healing surge aswell. Greater healing wave isnt use much only on players around ~50%. And im always use spirit link for aoe encounters when its off CD.
....
;p

Regarding the first remark, you will never be able to 'outheal' a disc priest in low to medium damage encounters due to the fact of the way disc 'heals'. I use quotes to emphasize healing because disc issent healing it is preventing damage to be done and by doing that disc is basically sniping all the heals of other healers even before they get a chance of landing one. In heavy damage scenario's (the ones that really count!) it is a different story all together, and disc's lack of throughput will give other healers a good chance of 'winning the meeters' or get on even ground.

If you are seriously lacking in fights like spine and madness, you are doing something wrong. These fights are perfect for shammies and you should be at least on par with other healers.

[Iracor]

I would like to know where you get these ideas from Iracor, more over this is a thread with someone asking for help.., not only do early progression kills prove you wrong in both statements, but it puts you into a category where your not helping at all.

Shamans are equally strong in 10man as they are in 25man, it all comes down to adjusting your play style, and the spr-link totem just happens to be the strongest cd around in Ds due to the clustering on fights with the exception of maybe Yor'sahj with the green alive (if anyone actually ever leaves that up lol)

Except for the fact that the original post was asking for other people's views on resto shaman as a whole and I was simply providing the view of a healer in a progression focused raiding guild.

I assume you're speaking of the world first spine kill when you claim "early progression kills prove you wrong". Assuming you are, the reason for that kill was more in the fact that KIN gave their legendary staffs to their mages. Every guild was struggling to get the plates off in 2 burn phases and it just came down to which guild could get the most arcane mages with legendaries and rogues to tricks those mages. The fact that they used shaman wasn't the reason for the kill. And that fight is also the epitome of a consistent damage fight. There's very little actual damage going out. It's all about keeping up with the debuff that's constant. That fight is also why I referred to SLT as a "gimmick" cooldown. That fight was a very unique case where SLT could put out a lot of throughput if your raid was topped and the people with the debuff were at half to low health.

[Seriss]

Regarding the first remark, you will never be able to 'outheal' a disc priest in low to medium damage encounters due to the fact of the way disc 'heals'.

I don't think that a 'low to medium damage encounter' is something where you actually need to worry about outhealing an absorption-healer. I mean.. hello? low to medium! That's when shaman places healing rain, throws out riptides out of sheer boredom and begins to LB so as to not be entirely afk :P

[Deleted]

Resto Shaman are very powerful at present. If there is significant damage, no other class can touch us in terms of throughput. During moments of light damage we can still be competitive without our mastery being diminished, or abuse TC ready for the next burn phase. All this is assuming that the OP values his HPS e-peen values (?) and not on killing bosses. I haven't felt this powerful since Sunwell.

[Endus]

That actually sounds like a problem with your pally and priest.

Shaman are easily the worst healer in 10-mans, but they fair decently in 25-mans just because of how much healing a healing rain can do. They don't have the throughput cooldown of a resto druid, they don't have the utility to adapt to spike damage like a pally, and they can't mitigate damage like a disc priest. The resto shaman "cooldown" is a gimmick totem that will typically not make a difference.

They're just a farm boss healer when damage is fairly consistent because your raid is executing the fights correctly. Any other healer will fair better on progression due to having various cooldowns for when shit hits the fan.

Just because people wanted a source: http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/play...agon_Soul/hps/

I count 4 shaman in the top 10 of every DS boss combined. That's 4/80 of the top rankings. Compared to 17/80 (druids), 11/80 (priests), and 48/80 (pallies).

You're using HPS to determine healer value.

HPS is a terrible measure of healer value, since it is biased by several uncontrollable factors and ignores several important mechanics, especially with regard to Resto Shaman. It's absolutely possible to top HPS in a raid by spamming HoTs all over, and be an absolutely horrible healer. It's like using numbers on Spine of DW (N) to look at DPS performance and determining that all the shadow priests who DoT every Corruption and Amalg up constantly are the "best DPS" for that fight, despite them screwing up the mechanics to accomplish it.

Resto Shaman aren't designed to be HPS machines. We're designed to scale with the damage being done, and be triage healers. This isn't "bad", unless you're solely looking at HPS done, which you shouldn't be.

[Alltat]

([10man]) You cannot win against other healers (with same skill) as a shaman (at least in recount/skada overall). If you heal more than other healers as a shaman that means the other healers are worse than you, plain simple.

I'll lazily counter this by saying:

([10man]) You cannot win lose against other healers (with same skill) as a shaman (at least in recount/skada overall). If you heal more less than other healers as a shaman that means the other healers are worse better than you, plain simple.

If you're not going to put more effort into arguing your case than just stating something as if it were a fact, I'm not going to bother arguing against it beyond stating that you're wrong.

[Flustered]

Resto Shaman are very powerful at present. If there is significant damage, no other class can touch us in terms of throughput.

Have you actually tested this? Try comparing resto shaman burst healing with pally/priest burst healing. There is absolutely no contest. You will lose the fight in terms of pure throughput. Zon'ozz black phase is a good place to test this, or yor'sahj yellow/red/black. Turn the buff off if you want any sort of good results. Watch a live HPS graph, or look at your WoL HPS graph afterwards.

Anyone honestly arguing that shaman can even hope to have the same throughput as the other healing classes (on fights other than madness, TC isn't even fair on that fight) is (pick one or many):
A) playing with bad players of the other classes.
B) gearing straight haste and just sniping heals in an encounter with no real danger of failure.
C) talking about normal modes.

Our cooldown is the worst of all of them (only uses are spine rolls and tetanus stacks) and our burst hps is terrible in comparison even with SWG. What we do excel at is keeping people alive, which there is no metric for. We can throw LoH-strength heals at people who are low health, and do it with regularity. When the raid is really low health, our heals get ridiculously strong. As far as strengths of a healer goes, it probably is one of the more important things - but raw hps is equally important. Anyone who argues otherwise simply does not understand the nature of healing. If you can maintain high hps on the raid, you reduce incoming spiky damage and reduce the chance of emergencies.

[Endus]

What we do excel at is keeping people alive, which there is no metric for. We can throw LoH-strength heals at people who are low health, and do it with regularity. When the raid is really low health, our heals get ridiculously strong. As far as strengths of a healer goes, it probably is one of the more important things - but raw hps is equally important. Anyone who argues otherwise simply does not understand the nature of healing. If you can maintain high hps on the raid, you reduce incoming spiky damage and reduce the chance of emergencies.

This is simply not true.

Picture two healers.

One pulses an AoE every 5 seconds that heals everyone to full.

Another does no healing whatsoever, but provides an aura that prevents anyone dropping below 1 health.

The latter healer is obviously the best healer of the two. Nobody can die. With the first, damage in that 5 second window can easily kill a player, especially a tank. The latter healer, despite doing 0 HPS, can solo-heal all content forever.

Because HPS is a terrible, awful measure of healer capability. If you can heal perfectly with 0 HPS, then HPS doesn't measure healer value very well. What matters in healing is ENTIRELY keeping people from dying. HPS is one means to that end, but it's not a perfect one, and Resto Shaman have a lot of smart-heal tools that react to health levels reactively and automatically, as well as some things like the HP buff they bring, all of which contribute to player survival in ways other healers simply do not, and which aren't adequately shown in HPS charts.

[Andyclan]

You're wrong, we may be the best 3v3 healer due to compositions, but Holy Paladins are the best bg/rbg healer. So saying best PvP healers in the game is only acting under the assumption arena is the only form of PvP, which it's not.

Actually, you're wrong. priests are the most desirable healer for RBGs right now, mostly due to the fact that they can dispel 2 magic effects at once, but also for their great CC abilities and mass dispel.

[karrad]

HPS is largely irrelevant when encounters are designed to be done in gear a full tier behind. That is not to say that we are not competitive (and we very well are), but at this stage in the xpac there is no challenge left and we healers are reduced to playing drinking games and sniping our way to victory.

Whoever said our SLT is the weakest cooldown is quite mistaken. SLT has the ability to INSTANTLY bring everyone in range up to a decent level of health. There is a reason why druids are considered the least useful healers this tier, and that is because raw throughput does not mean much.

[Alltat]

To be fair, a raid does need a certain amount of HPS. The total healing done (including mitigation) needs to match the total incoming damage. This means that over the course of a fight, a certain amount of HPS is necessary (unless you invent a purely hypothetical "immortality aura"). That said, overall HPS isn't more important than other aspects of healing. It is important - even necessary - but your ability to deliver lots of healing to the right target is also important. No amount of that is going to help you if your raid healing team can't produce enough raw DPS to actually heal all the damage being thrown at you, but the healer doing the most HPS is not necessarily the best one.

I think the best illustration would be to have a healing team where every healer is a totem: specifically, there are Healing Stream Totem healers and there are Spirit Link Totem healers. The former do massive (relatively) raw HPS spread over the raid, while the latter prevent deaths by evening out damage spikes while contributing no actual healing.

Together, this healing team is absolutely brilliant - they'll beat every encounter. Alone, they're useless. A team of only HST healers would have people dying every time damage was at all spiky, and tanks would die 30 seconds into every fight. A team of only SLT healers would be able to keep people alive for a little while, until eventually everyone in the raid was sitting at low health, and the incoming damage would simply grind the whole raid down to nothing until eventually everyone dropped dead. The raid needs both, and neither is more important than the other.

[karrad]

I wasn't implying that there was no need for sustained HPS, but rather that it is generally low enough to not ever be an issue. I cannot remember the last time the raid died because of normal, passive damage, unless like 3 healers fucked up and died or half the raid is doing something they shouldn't.

Like you said what matters most from a HPS standpoint is both delivering healing to the correct target, as well as your maximum burst potential to counter spike raid damage. Both of which shamans are doing very well at with our 4pc.

[Eijnar]

SLT weakest CD ? Sorry, what - It is one of the best CDs, and despite appearing as the "weakest" you are wrong. The reason for this is whenever you use SLT on fights as e.g. Yor'sahj, Warlord or Spine you make sure that no one will get instant gibbed from debuff + bounce, someone getting zerged during purple or a person with Searing Plasma on Spine having a mob on him while Amal is at 9 stacks. Furthermore, what I sense quite a few people seem to forget is that SLT reduces OH quite significantly so in terms of raidhps is it a quite powerful tool.

As for the discussion with HPs - You can't use hps for anything than breaking down your spellusage and efficiency of your heals.