Hi all, sorry if this topic has been done to death. I've read a lot on these forums and other websites about Proving Grounds as a resto shammy, but I feel my situation is a little unique, hence the new thread. Also, I see a lot of different answers when it comes to some of the more important questions, so I'd like to see if I could get a more definitive agreement on how to do what.
I've played a dps (rogue) since early Wrath. When I roll a new toon, I always take a dps spec. I've toyed around with tanking a good bit, enough to get a general skill at it, but dps has always been my thing. Up until two weeks ago, the most healing I've ever done is using a bandage or hitting recuperate. I used my 90 boost on a shammy, because they've always given me a little trouble in pvp and I'd like to get to know them better, but then I decided I'd give myself a bit more of a challenge than just toying with the toon.
See, every "dead" time between each expansion, I like to give myself a plethora of goals to accomplish - obtain x more mounts, get y more achievement points, get past boss z in heroic progression, etc etc. I've already accomplished most of the goals I wanted this time around, and then I decided to give myself a real challenge - Proving Grounds Endless 30 Wave achievements for dps, tank, AND healer.
DPS will be easy. I got gold in one sitting, and I'm sure that I can finish endless 30 in a very reasonable amount of time.
Tanking will be tougher, but not too worried about it. Sitting at silver, which is still a long way away, but I'm confident I can brush up my skill enough and grind my way through.
Healing though? Ugh. Like I said, I've never healed. It took me a few hours to get silver, which I'm absolutely mortified to admit. I've decided if I really want to accomplish this, I need to adopt my shammy as a second main, which I've started to do. I've done a bit of solo content, and I've ran every MoP LFR, and my skills have definitely developed. My problem now is that, from what I understand, Proving Grounds healing is a "different" type of healing, if that makes sense? I believe people call it triage healing, but I don't want to go tossing the wrong terms around.
Anyway, tl;dr, here's what I wanted to ask you guys:
-INT or spirit? I see a lot of people say spirit is the way to go, but I've heard just as many say that INT is op at 463 ilvl.
-Any mana conservation tips? What spells should I use/avoid? My first noobish tries involved me using Healing Rain and Chain Heal primarily, which I realize now was a mistake. In raids I don't really have to worry about oom,
-Any breakpoints I should reach? I've read about some haste breakpoint, but people seem split on if it's worth aiming for or not in PG gear.
-Recommended addons? This is the first time I've ever had to use an addon like Healbot, and getting used to it has been... unique. Still not 100% happy with using it, but I definitely see the luxury. It's been really difficult figuring out a place where it's big enough to notice but also not in the way.
-Staff or one-hander/offhand? Does it matter?
-Recommended professions?
-Any ideas on bis gear?
Before anyone says it, I know, proving grounds are a skill test, not a gear test. I'm planning on gradually moving this toon from LFR raiding, to flex, to hopefully normals. In that time I hope to continue to raise my skill with the spec. But... if I'm spending all this time gearing up anyway, might as well try to get the best gear possible to make it that much easier on me.
Right now I'm focusing on gear with as many gem slots as possible, are their any secondary stats I need to avoid? Also, I'm coining every week on twins and Lei Shen in hopes of getting a tot weapon (from what I understand, they're better than soo weapons for PG because you can add the extra gem slot). I know tier sets, legendary meta, cloak proc, and sha-touched gems are turned off. Any trinket I should aim for? I read the DMF has the most stats for it's ilvl, but is the amp trinket the next best bet?
That's all I can think of for now, question-wise, but if anything pops into my head I'll ask here.
Sorry for the huge amount of questions, but this is a sort of long-term goal of mine that I'm eager to continue working on. Thanks for any advice.
Here is a nice resto shaman video guide I found. While there are different ways to achieve it, I think it generally contains solid advice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9qL_RSmgwc
And some additional nice blogs from Dayani and Vixsin:
It's true that healing in proving grounds is different than healing in raids. The stats priorities are different, mana is a bigger issue, and you need to play more offensively -- help dps, interrupts, etc -- than you typically have to do in raids. You also are the sole healer with no one else to rely on.
It's not easy to get to endless #30, and would typically take a lot of time even for an experienced healer, let alone someone who didn't heal before, so patience is the key, it'll take you time but you'll learn a lot about your class from completing it.
Current proving grounds are *extremely* gear dependent. You basically need a set of proving grounds-specific gear to have a chance at it. All of the stats have to be exactly right. On my shaman if I use my raid gear, I don't have *nearly* enough spirit when scaled down to 463. Even reforged to all spirit isn't enough. Also, shaman mastery is worthless in proving grounds, because if someone stays below 100% health for more than a GCD they are going to die and you won't be able to do anything about it due to the bleed debuff (at 463 shamans do not have enough burst to save someone low on health with the bleed - other classes not so much). Holy paladins in particular have it MUCH easier in there.
They have stated that they plan to redo proving grounds for 6.0 to make it more skill and less gear/class dependent, but we'll see.
Last edited by Stormspark; 2014-07-05 at 11:42 PM.
I 100% disagree that proving grounds are even remotely gear dependent, at least until you attempt endless perhaps (I haven't attempted endless yet). I jumped in in my normal resto (my off spec) set without a single reforge or gem change (currently stacking crit and reforging OUT of spirit wherever possible), and got gold first attempt.
I'm not saying that to pump my own ego, I'm saying that because in my opinion it's FAR more of a skill/experience thing than a gear thing. I've been healing since TBC on my shammy, and I'm used to doing dps where I can, using ALL my utility totems, interrupting etc. I was running pretty low on mana at times but with well timing Mana Tide usage, it wasn't really a problem. I wouldn't recommend doing it the way I did, but it's absolutely possible, and after spending about 2 or 3 frustrating hours trying to get DPS gold, I was surprised at how easy the healing one felt.
Quick tips:
- Don't forget utility totems. Grounding Totem can and should be used almost on cooldown. Same with your interrupt.
- Don't "save" Mana Tide for when you're low, you want as many uses as possible out of it, you can probably drop it first time when you're on about 70-80% mana - just make sure you don't over-write Healing Stream or Healing Tide
- Try to stand between the melee and ranged group so you create the link in your Chain Heal to hit ALL of your team.
- Don't heal like you'd heal in LFR - Chain Heal spam and Healing Rain on cooldown will OOM you pretty fast. Your team isn't taking constant small damage like larger raids, it's far more bursty, so you'll want to use your low cost single target heals more - Healing Wave on the tank when it's small, or Greater Healing Wave / Healing Surge when he's in trouble - you should ONLY use your AoE heals when everyone or at least 4/5 will benefit from it.
- Using Glyph of Totemic Recall on the last second of Healing Stream or your Elementals will refund a lot (~5% each recall) of mana, but it can be annoying to keep track of if you're not used to looking out for it, but it definitely adds up - 4 Elementals at 17k mana and Healing Stream every 45 seconds at 14k mana is nearly an entire mana bar extra over the course of the challenge.
TL : DR - don't worry about gear, keep practising.
Oh man, endless healer nearly sent me insane, and I've been healing on my shaman for a long time. Mana is your biggest enemy in proving grounds so you need to make sure you are utilising mana tide at every opportunity. Use ALL the tips outlined in the blogs linked above, they were extremely helpful in getting me across the line. Here are my own personal tips;
* Get a regen trinket. I used an lfr trink off Tsulong, but I hear Horridon's grasp is good as well
* Have a CD rotation planned out. I ended up using AG for that extra burst when its needed. I pretty much had a CD for every wave that its needed. DO NOT HORDE YOUR CD'S! Most of the damage from the waves is top heavy, so if a chomp goes out on two party members (especially if one is the tank), pop ascendance and heal them quickly
* Try and save spirit link totem for waves where tank damage is high. Shamans don't really have tank CDs so that is the closest we have
* Always make sure tidal waves is rolling. Your haste will be low and greater healing waves can feel like they are taking forever to cast if you're not buffed
* Telluric currents glyph and totemic recall were really helpful for me and I attempted to utilise them as much as possible
* USE YOUR TOTEMS AND INTERRUPTS, I can not stress this enough - capacitator totem and grounding should be used on CD. Interrupt hive singers at every opportunity as you cannot rely on the AI to do their jobs
* Unleashed elements is a useful talent as you will need strong single target heals and I don't think the buff from primal elementalist is strong enough in proving grounds
Honestly, what got me through in the end was having a CD rotation, keeping AG on the side for any OH SHIT moments and making sure that I was keeping the whole group topped off as best as possible. Good luck!
For gold I didn't do any reforges or gem changes, I just jumped in as I am (going for crit/spirit) and got it right away (I didn't find getting gold that difficult mana-wise).
Endless was a different story though. After a couple of different configurations, I got to wave 34 (got so excited at wave 30 that I forgot to drink) with this: went full spirit gems, trinkets that I used were Timeless Chi-Ji one and Samophlange (LFR). Glyphs I used were Telluric Currents (both mana and damage really helps), Healing Stream and Glyph of Eternal Earth (I know that one sounds ridiculous but together with Telluric Currents glyph it really helps with mana - keeps Earth Shield up which means you don't have to spend 11k mana to recast it every time). As for talents I went with Stone Bulwark Totem, Earthgrab, Totemic Persistence (though all 3 from that tier are useful), Ancestral Swiftness, can't remember if I used Rushing Streams or Conductivity here - I remember both of them being quite nice, and Primal Elementalist (I think, not 100% sure if I used that or Unleashed Fury but both are awesome).
Main part of healing Endless as resto shaman I think is proper rotation of CDs - with right use, you can have 1-2 cds for every wave. I used Capacitor Totem pretty much on CD, Wind Shear too. Earth Elemental is extremely useful (I found it best for tanking those 4 caster mobs in one of the waves while the NPC tank deals with the others), and Fire Elemental is nice damage. In the end though practice is the most important part (I managed to get it after 5-6 hours but a couple of times the situation got pretty hairy). Also, Ascendance as resto there is godly, heals through anything.
I think I did it with a staff, it doesn't really matter much because mobs won't be hitting you anyway (other than ranged but those hit you with spells (use Grounding Totem and Wind Shear whenever you can)). Do not trust the NPC rogue to interrupt if guano is about to hit the windmill. I've wiped a few times because he couldn't be arsed to interrupt spells for whatever reason.
Bronze-to-gold you can do in quest gear if you're not new to healing, so the guy above who said it wasn't bragging. But you're already above that, so you should have a good foundation to build on.
30 waves you can do in Timeless gear no problem. If you want to do it competitively, you'll need sockets. I'm basing this on the stat ratings people had when doing 50+ waves and they were far above what I could squeeze out of my gear (basically, they had double or almost double the Spirit).
My opinion is that Crit and Spirit are good to stack on PG gear (Spirit is just common-sense in Endless, while Crit gives you both throughput and mana back). First Haste threshold is easy; second you might get with racials, but I wouldn't chase it if it meant gimping your Spirit or Crit (you want Haste for extra ticks, not super spam). Mastery is kind of unavoidable, but I don't think you should stack it on purpose, given that the NPCs die pretty fast if left at low HP.
Spirit clickies are good (I prefer them to random procs).
My tips would be as follows:
- use good food and a flask because those don't get scaled down (Spirit/Spirit works; I went with Int food/Spirit flask)
- use Ambers from Klaxxi to regen fast between waves (with cancel macro so you don't click off your buffs)
- doesn't matter if you use basic frames or an add-on, mouseovers or a Clique set up, as long as you see frames and can interact with them in one action; Healbot's good for this, as long as you're comfortable with your bindings. Vuhdo isn't mandatory for PGs, but it's highly recommended for raiding.
- make sure you bind your dispel (can't stress this enough)
- T1 - Stone Bulwark (to soak debuffs on yourself);
T2 - doesn't matter;
T3 - Call of the Elements for Bulwark, Healing Stream, Capacitor, and Grounding;
T4 - Ancestral Swiftness;
T5 - Rushing Streams (you'll abuse HST, while Healing Rain is too mana-intensive; also has nice synergy with Call of the Elements, since you can have HST down more often);
T6 - Unleashed Fury or Primal Elementalist (I prefer UF because it helps buff weak heals when you're running on fumes, while also allowing you to milk your big heals for more)
- glyphs: my top 3 would be HW (it's like being beaconed, and you will spam HW a lot), Telluric Currents (good mana regen, and your piddly DPS will help), and Totemic Recall (takes precision, but a macro and timer take out the guesswork)
Another possibility would be Fire Elemental (you can pop it more often, while on some waves its full duration may be wasted between waves). I wouldn't waste a slot on Cleanse glyph (tiny heal) or Chaining (won't use it often enough to take full advantage of it).
Glyphs I would NOT recommend include Riptide (you want the burst from the initial heal and you cannot afford to blanket) and Grounding (reflect isn't worth the CD increase).
- offensive spells you must abuse: Windshear, Grounding, Capacitor. Elementals are helpful and can speed up a wave/lessen the pressure.
- best random tip I can give you is to soak that bloody rabbit debuff (Chomp?), which you can do by making sure that you stand behind the ranged. Unless they fixed it since I did it last, they put it on the nearest target. That's why Bulwark and HW glyph are so good - you don't have to spam yourself the way you'd spam another target.
- I don't think you can force the Aqua debuff on yourself. I'm hesitant here, because I could swear that the second debuff came before the first one expired, so you could actually choose which to dispel (but you have to be fast). You'll never be able to dispel both.
If the first is on the rogue (or the stupid mage sitting in melee), dispel. You'll have to deal with the second one, and if it's also on anyone in melee, gird up your loins and be ready with a CD (this can easily wipe you past 50 or waves or so, from what I've read). If it's on you or the hunter, meh, just make sure you're not stacked together.
If the first is on you or the hunter, wait for the second one in case it's in melee. If it's in melee, dispel that. If it comes between you and the hunter, unless you're super-low at that point, dispel the hunter and soak yours. Like before, avoid stacking.
- set up a CD rotation which you can follow for every set of waves. Write it down if you have to. It's been months, so I can't remember the exact order, but the idea was to use them early so they'd be back another 2-3 times by the end of the cycle. That includes Mana Tide. The less you stress yourself on the early waves, the more mana you'll have for later waves, which is why you shouldn't brute-force anything and rely on CDs to help you.
- I don't know if the NPCs benefit from Stormlash, but I gave it to them anyway. Also used BL, but you have to make sure you don't spam yourself oom (but hey, you can spam HL REALLY FAST ).
Other than just doing this to memorize the CD rotation and target priorities, the best way to learn is to heal bad pugs through hard dungeons. Based on beta impressions I've read, you might get that chance in a few months
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