Resto Riptide question

[Gosleepbaby]

Hey there, jsut came back to the game after a decent break. I am maining my resto shaman in SoO now, and just started progressing last night! (exciting, I know). My question for you guys is, is that I was browsing earlier and I saw a thread that mentioned that you need to keep your riptide up without recasting it, and when I asked how to do it, the only answer I got was 'cast it on other targets'. Now, I took that and tried through man lfr's, to watch closely, and see if there was a mechanic I could find that would make it refresh itself, I also looked through all my passives and didn't see anything.

Does anyone know how to do this, and can explain it to me like im 5? thanks :]

[Barrun]

Casting Riptide on a target that already has Riptide on it is wasted healing because it overwrites the HoT portion of it when you could have the HoT on an additional target by casting it on someone who doesn't already have Riptide on them. If you cast it on cooldown you can maintain it on 3 targets, if you have it on two players and cast it on a player that it's already on instead of someone who doesn't already have the HoT on them then it's only 2 targets which equates to less total healing. Basically, having a HoT on 3 targets provides more healing then having a HoT on 2 targets.

[Gosleepbaby]

Oh, well..i mean im using the riptide glyph..i havent healed since the start of ToT, where the riptide glyph was still pretty good. has it fallen out of popularity? or is it just a preference thing?

[Tiberria]

It is wasted healing/mana to overwrite Riptide, but it isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world to do so if you have a target like a tank that you want to keep it up on to chain off (or just keep AV rolling although at a 30 second duration that is less necessary). It's sometimes better to overwrite a RT with a few seconds left than it is to either leave RT on cooldown or let it go off a tank for 4 seconds.

In general, Riptide management isn't as critical as it used to be, because so much of our output has moved to HST and CH. As long as you have a viable target to Chain Heal off of, it isn't necessarily that important to cast Riptide on every cooldown; it's probably a throughput gain to cast it less and CH more.

[Deleted]

I'm usually just keeping Riptide on a single target, refresh it every 18 seconds and just CH off that target. If that's not viable, you should probably use Glyph of Chaining for that fight and do it anyway.

[Licarius]

I'm usually just keeping Riptide on a single target, refresh it every 18 seconds and just CH off that target.

You're doing it wrong i'm afraid....

[Inacup]

I spend the first minute of this video explaining why I think you should use the Riptide glyph and why it's good to keep it up on alot of targets
http://youtu.be/IPbGSDG-nPE

Basically, Riptide's main use this tier is to amplify your Chain Heals. Because of this, it's very good to have it up on multiple targets, giving you more options to chain heal. I suggest you spend your downtime putting Riptide on as many targets as possible if you have the mana to sustain it.

[Deleted]

You're doing it wrong i'm afraid....

Nope, a full non-riptide buffed CH is only barely better than the smart heal portion alone with the riptide-buff. But the targeted heal will more often than not get snipe-healed on 25 man and just overheal anyway. The only choice you have is a) keep 3 riptide's up so you can choose between 3 targets to cast CH on or b) keep 1 riptide up and cast CH on the same target. Option b) is obviously easier and lets you cast more CHs at an increased mana cost. You can't really math out if option a) is worth it, because you'd have to somehow find out if having 3 targets to choose from is a significant decrease in CH overhealing.

It may not be optimal if you are 2 healing 10man, but then playing a shaman is arguably the wrong choice for 10man.

[Tiberria]

The exception of course is that you generally want to keep AV refreshed on at least one tank, so you generally want at least 2 Riptides out (unless chaining off the tank is the ideal target). It's debatable if it's worth casting Riptide on cooldown and bothering to keep it on 3 targets at a time. If the raid is stacked, it probably isn't worth the GCDs/mana; you can just spam CH off the one target. If the raid is spread, it might make sense to have a RT on a tank, melee and ranged CH target.

I don't see why you need the Riptide glyph to make sure you have targets to chain off; the ability to have it on 3 targets at a time should be more than enough if your target selection and management of the cooldown of it isn't terrible. It is an HPS and HPM loss to glyph off 75% of the direct heal unless you are in a 0% overheal situation (Malkorok) or a situation where you can't hard cast (Thok) and would have value in having more than 3 Riptides out at a time. You don't need it glyphed for better CH targets if you manage the use of the spell properly to begin with.

[Shockeye]

I like the glyph, it just makes my spellcasting feel smoother. I don't know if it's because of where my Haste is at or something else, but without the glyph it always feels like I'm going to cast Riptide a second before the CD is done which bugs me. It is perhaps not optimal, but I'm fine with that.

In a 10 man or small flex, the primary use of RT is to maintain Tidal Waves as Chain Heal really isn't used too much so again the fluidity that the glyph provides just makes things, for me, calmer.

[Deleted]

I find a rotation of keeping 1 Riptide up and casting CH>2xHS/GHW/HW quite fluid and it's going to be better than glyphing riptide and not using CH. You can even replace most of the single target heals with RT, RST, HR and UE. But then, I don't raid 10man, so don't take it as advice.

[Pum]

I like the glyph, it just makes my spellcasting feel smoother. I don't know if it's because of where my Haste is at or something else, but without the glyph it always feels like I'm going to cast Riptide a second before the CD is done which bugs me. It is perhaps not optimal, but I'm fine with that.

In a 10 man or small flex, the primary use of RT is to maintain Tidal Waves as Chain Heal really isn't used too much so again the fluidity that the glyph provides just makes things, for me, calmer.

Yeah totally agree with this. Some fights my RT is my #2 spell, maybe due to overuse, but the HoT component is really powerful and I find that the heal from an unglyphed RT isn't that great in the first place when put into comparison. Another reason is because having a perpetual 30% reduction to cast time of HW and GHW is pretty invaluable.

The only time I ever glyph out of RT is if the fight warrants the 10% damage reduction from HST.

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Nope,

I think he meant you're doing it wrong in terms of having RT on one target, in which he'd be right. The HoT is the best part of RT and it's really wasted if it's only being used on 1 target.