Anyone else having Resto Problems?

[Szyrex]

So I respecced Resto since Ele is a complete waste of time.

I am having problems with bosses such as the first one in Skyreach challenge mode, I cannot keep the party up, with an iLvl of 620. Also Grimrail depot 1st boss is impossible for me to keep everyone up. Anyone else having problems?

[Jigatwat]

I personally have yet to experience any of the issues you mention. Could you possibly elaborate on how you go about healing. Spamming chain heal for example will be both inefficient and mana taxing. There is also the possibility that the party you've been running with is unable to avoid damage that is well... easily avoidable.

[Stormspark]

I personally have yet to experience any of the issues you mention. Could you possibly elaborate on how you go about healing. Spamming chain heal for example will be both inefficient and mana taxing. There is also the possibility that the party you've been running with is unable to avoid damage that is well... easily avoidable.

This. You can't heal through stupid anymore, you're not supposed to be able to. If people take a lot of avoidable damage they are going to die. Especially in CM's where it is impossible to outgear them.

[Nythiz]

I have some issues as Resto. It's not gamebreaking but it can be extremely frustrating at times.

Usually what happens is some kind of big AoE happens and everyone is down to 20% HP, or there is a constant flow of AoE damage incoming.
I almost feel like we lack the tools to bring up the whole part whilst also keeping the tank alive. I can't be mindlessly spamming CH or HS, and when the tank AND all the dps get low I feel like most our heals are insignificant.
HST isn't enough to make a difference anymore (not to mention it's so RNG that it's borderline annoying);
Healing Wave doesn't do enough HPS to out heal most of the incoming damage on a lot of fights, meaning i have to swap to higher HPS abilities.
Riptide isn't enough of a safeguard when it's on people (unlike a lot of other healers who do have such a fire and forget tool)
I tried Cloud Burst Totem, but it heals for zilch, I guess this is more raid oriented or something where you have multiple healers feeding into the totem.
High Tide is pretty nice, but it requires a lot of setup to get that CH going to all sources. And with Riptide being so frontloaded, Glyph of Riptide feels meh as it kills our only real instant heal.
On top of all that, a lot of the WoD fights also require you to stay mobile. And a 2.2 second Healing Wave really makes that annoying.

Most of these times I resort to Ascendance or Healing Tide as I feel those are the only 2 abilities able to get a whole (spread) group up at once. But on fights with multiple of those events (Think last boss UBRS), it feels kinda ridiculous to resort to 3 minute cooldowns.

Dunno. I'm not feeling it yet as resto shaman. Gonna work on my gearing priorities though, that should help somewhat.

[Maerad]

I'm not full lvl 100 yet, but I do the following right now.

I keep earthshield and riptide on the tank, healing totem on cd and if there is forseen aoe dmg I use rain to keep the melee camp up.
Chainheal only on targets with riptide and if I have time for it. Otherwise Riptide + healing surge. Also I try to use the living weapon thing + hs if the tank gets some burst.
Healing wave is the only thing I almost don't use.
And for bad situations healing stream totem.

You have to chain your skills a bit to work more efficient. Still struggle a bit to get the right rhytm

[Deleted]

I'm not even full 630 yet and I've healed my first CM today (Skyreach, in 624 gear.). I can tell you from my experience, that healing isn't supposed to be as hard as it sometimes happens to be. I think most healers are not able to outheal 'stupid' anymore. We went in there with the intention to clear it, no time limit set, just to get the daily completed.
Trash packs for the first boss were all CC'd, no more than two mobs on the tank. The first boss was fine, no major issues there. Second boss felt impossible at first, but you really need to communicate with your group. Everything that can be avoided, needs to be avoided. Slam from the boss can be dodged by the tank, every beam needs to be soaked. I struggled towards the end with mana, and no one was ever at full health, but that's all okay. As long as no one dies, you're fine. It took us 1hr and 24 minutes to complete, and it was our first CM this expansion.

With the removal of Ancestral Vigor, you need to get away from the mindset of always casting. You don't need to chuck a heal onto someone at 95%. Your mastery will kick in a lot harder at lower health, so it's fine to let people drop some health. I personally think that with some effort, and the right itemisation you'll come a long way.
Personally, HTT doesn't feel as strong as it used to be, you definitely need to back it up with casts during it's uptime. I've also noticed Ascendance is pretty strong in comparison, so do remember to use your cooldowns.

[Deleted]

Resto is still playable, not great but not horrible either. Overall a lot of your problems come down to the group and their mistakes. This is something I personall disliked ever since they introduced the new healing style, they took away our ability to compensate for a groups mistakes and drag them through the dungeon despite their unwillingness to play properly.

DPS refuse to use their kicks, AoE CC or anything of the likes, tanks quite often do not use most of their mitigation. Overall it makes healing quite a bit less rewarding and fun. Not all classes suffer the same from it, but Mistweavers do extremly so, Resto shamans are quite a bit better but still can't compensate for their mistakes, not certain how Paladins and Priests fare right now but for Druids it's business as usual, they really need to be brought back in line with the other healers.

Personally, HTT doesn't feel as strong as it used to be, you definitely need to back it up with casts during it's uptime. I've also noticed Ascendance is pretty strong in comparison, so do remember to use your cooldowns.

HTT is definitely a lot weaker than it used to be at least when playing with a small group. It does overall far less healing albeit part of that might be because of the bigger health pools. It's absurd when dropping it in Ashran though. We had a giant group going for Tremblade and it healed pretty much every single last person around from what I could see, add multistrike and we could probably set a record when a hundred people are clumped inside the Alliance base.

Having said that, I've made some bad experiences with leaving DPS at anything but full health, trying to top them off with riptide if possible personally or let the healing stream totem do it but even despite their supposed "triage heal" style, some stuff can still nearly one shot people.

[Vekrah]

I'm not even full 630 yet and I've healed my first CM today (Skyreach, in 624 gear.). I can tell you from my experience, that healing isn't supposed to be as hard as it sometimes happens to be. I think most healers are not able to outheal 'stupid' anymore. We went in there with the intention to clear it, no time limit set, just to get the daily completed.
Trash packs for the first boss were all CC'd, no more than two mobs on the tank. The first boss was fine, no major issues there. Second boss felt impossible at first, but you really need to communicate with your group. Everything that can be avoided, needs to be avoided. Slam from the boss can be dodged by the tank, every beam needs to be soaked. I struggled towards the end with mana, and no one was ever at full health, but that's all okay. As long as no one dies, you're fine. It took us 1hr and 24 minutes to complete, and it was our first CM this expansion.

Any chances you can speak on how you guys took out the first boss in Skyreach CM? My group wiped for a long while on that boss; we were performing the mechanics exactly but there just seemed to be too much damage going out on everyone simultaneously. I consider myself a *decent* healer but, if you had no issues at all, I figure I could learn from someone obviously better. :P

[Deleted]

I tried Cloud Burst Totem, but it heals for zilch, I guess this is more raid oriented or something where you have multiple healers feeding into the totem.

Wait, what? Are you sure Cloudburst Totem absorbs heals from other healers? That would be very strong.

[gemana]

Not happy with what Blizz has done to resto shaman at all.

Everything that made resto unique and fun has been destroyed in some lame attempt to make shamans just another single target healer.

When I'm playing shaman I want to be doing rains, chains, and totems. But no no, some wise guy at Blizz decided it would be more "fun" to spam healing surge.

Newsflash Blizz, it's not...

[Holofernes]

no class with 620 gear heals cm. its very hard to do so, and u really need the 630 on like every single slot. it is doable, but it is hard. 620 might by to low gearwise, especially in the case that "im 620" means im 620 with the most stupid statcomposition possible, and some pvp gear ,and i checked my itemlvl in ashran, + i have inflated ilvl from an 680 ring. Check your ilvl in char tab in the cm dungeon itself, if it says less than 625, get the fuck out. Optimize your gear, get 630 with good stats in every slot, exept 1-2 minor slots (i still have green boots ilvl 592 or so on, but every other slot is 630+ with good / okish stats, and no pvp gear (it scales down to 620). The difference between those 10 ilvl and appropiate secondary stats is way more than you might think. This is especially valid for tanks too, and do your self a favor, and farm the heroics first until u get nearly everything right, skill your cooking so you have bufffood (100 mastery is a LOT worth in cm), get some mana pots, at least one spirit trinket, before you waist 2 hours wiping to a boss that is actually pretty simple with the appropiate gear.

[Deleted]

Thats not entirely true... When we entered our first CM on the 3rd day after release, I had around 623 ilvl. And we completed the instance in 50 Minutes or so with only 1 wipe at the second Boss.
I only had the new "insanity flask" from the tavern quest + 75 crit Food.

Our comp was warri tank, glad warri, enh sham, frost mage and me as resto shaman. I feel with a bit more knowledge of the instance we could have easily done bronze. And not one member of us was over 625.

Even tho Im not a very experienced resto shaman, getting the grp up isnt really THAT hard, except ppl stand in fire or fuck up otherwise. I go with the High Tide Talent.
To Keep mana up I fish for crits with riptide + healing surge. With this Combo + unleash weapon (or unleash life, dunno how its called now) my highest healing surge crit so far was around 180. That and a lucky multistrike proc can top a tank who was previously at 20% life. I mostly only use unleash life with healing surge or chain heal, depending on how low my grp is or if I know grp dmg could occur soon. Otherwise I just use healing wave for mana Efficiency. Its all about coordination. Your Group Plays a huge part in surviving Encounters, not just your healing alone.

[Deleted]

Is there any guide for stat priority / talent builds? I am still lvl 94 due to lack of time and I find myself struggling a bit while healing normals... I miss our smart heals, I miss ancestral vigor, I miss GWH, especially when combined with ancestral swiftness to bring allies back to 100% from a certain death...

[Nythiz]

Wait, what? Are you sure Cloudburst Totem absorbs heals from other healers? That would be very strong.

Actually I'm not sure. It just says that it collects "all healing and their multistrikes", so i figured the totem would absorb other heals as well. If not this totem is going to be utterly useless especially in raids. I already find it very underwhelming, because to have it make a significant AoE heal you need to either spam healing surge or chain heal (in which case you're better off with High Tides).

------------

Dunno I feel like I'm still searching for my flow. I consider myself a pretty good healer (compared to many others over the course of 9 years I'm playing resto now). Proven healer to roughly wave 45, CMs in MoP cleared, Healed every raid since TBC, except a few in Cata when our guild kinda split up.

In essence I like this new healing model. Its much more akin to the old. It gives you time to think, but still keep you busy. I can handle most situations as well; burst healing on the tank isn't an issue with ES + RT + UL + HS combos. AoE healing a constant stream of damage usually isn't an issue either.
What does get problematic is when they both coincide. When the tank is taking a constant beating that requires constant Healing Waves and the whole group is taking big AoE hits at the same time. And we all know those bosses are around. They feel like MoP situations stuck in with the WoD healing model, making it impossible to heal.

I just need to learn to coop with those situtions. But hey, thats part of the fun as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Is there any guide for stat priority / talent builds? I am still lvl 94 due to lack of time and I find myself struggling a bit while healing normals... I miss our smart heals, I miss ancestral vigor, I miss GWH, especially when combined with ancestral swiftness to bring allies back to 100% from a certain death...

I think people are still not out on the stat weights yet. What I get from most sources is the following:

Intellect > Spirit > Mastery > Haste/Multistrike > Crit > Versatility

This is for pure throughput and sustainability. Versatility is really hard to place, because it also reduces damage taken. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be beneficial to eventually pick up 5-10% versatility.

Talents:

Tier 15: Either Ancestral Guardian or Astral Shift. Pick if you prefer the passive or the active. The totem is currently not scaling all that well, so most seem to advice against

Tier 30: Again up for choice, depends on the situation. I like earthgrab totem because it's not an extra button on my bar. But Windwalk Totem is probably the best.

Tier 45: I usually go with Call of the Elements, double healing stream / double grounding / double cloudburst is solid. You could pick the other 2 as well as per your discretion. Totemic Persistence allows you to keep both Healing Stream and other water totems up (Cloudburst / Healing Tide). Totemic Projection is nice if you want to control your Spirit Link totem and such.
My vote goes for CotE though

Tier 60: This is a tough one. All 3 are currently viable.
- Elemental Mastery gives you a personal bloodlust good for burst healing. (Great when combined with Healing Tide Totem or Ascandance)
- Ancestral Swiftness is probably my personal favorite. It gives 5% haste passive (which you really feel at this gear level) and an instant heal.
- Echo of the Elements is usually either love or hate. It's quite good for rolling around riptides (provided you don't use the glyph) or for getting out multiple UL for some extra punch healing.
Neither here is bad, just pick the one you like. I'm currently using Echo since i feel it's the only one that has significant dept and learning how to coop with it requires a bit of experience I feel.

Tier 75:
- Rushing Streams is IMO the winner here. HST isn't really as good as it was, but it's still likely one of the (if not THE) best HPS / HPM spells we have.
- Ancestral Guidance: I don't see how this is better than the others.
- Conductivity: There are very few situations where this is useful; since Healing Rain is now an efficient heal instead of a burst AoE heal, the whole point of this talent is pretty moot IMO. The mana cost of HR is very low, so this wont save much mana. All this does is keep HR up nearly 100% of the time (which is questionable with all the moment in this game) and saves you the 1.5-2 second cast.

So Rushing Streams 99.9% of the time

Tier 90:
- Unleashed Fury is really good for that extra burst healing. It increases your UF heal from about 130% healing done to nearly 200% healing done. Really good in specific situations where your tank takes a beating. (This is my favorite talent of the 3, but EB is much better atm)
- Primal Elementalist. I dont think this is worth taking over the other 2 at this point in time. 10% extra healing (+20% dmg reduction) can be extremely strong. But I don't think it holds up against what the others offer.
- Elemental Blast: Take this 99% of the time. It gives 500 of a secondary stat + 1000 spirit. IMO it's a horribly designed talent, I dont want to dps when my group needs healing. But hey, bad talents is what shamans are all about

This tier: 99% Elemental Blast, in certain situations you can pick up UF.

Tier 100:
- Cloudburst Totem. I'm not yet convinced of this. It seems to do insignificant healing without forcing you to drain a ton of mana with high HPS heals or popping cooldowns. I'm using this atm so i get to know it better.
- Storm Elemental Totem: No, just.... no.
- High Tide: Probably the strongest in this tier for raids. It makes your Chain heal really potent, works really well in combination with Glyph of Riptide or Echo of the Elements to have more riptides rolling (although generally works fine without either for 5 mans).

High Tide is probably the best. But Cloudburst might have its uses.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the answer Nythiz.

For the stats, is there any comparision for Mastery vs Versatility? Versatility seems to look better (effective even when the target is fairly healthy and damage reduction = less heals for me = more heals for someone else). I would like to see some numbers...

Ancestral Swiftness - I like that one as well, but since the removal of GHW I am not sure that I have a long cast spell that I would like to cast instantly... How I miss my 2 min CD Lay on Hands ...

Unleashed Fury - I used to use Unleash Elements quite a lot, Elemental Blast seems better, but... 2s cast time to deal damage and get a stat boost? So far I did not really have the time for dps while healing...

High Tide - I am not a fan of Riptide glyph, that 75% heal decrease...

[Rusken]

I'm currently 622 and only having issues with Heroics when people are failing to move out of stuff, there are a couple fights that are just shit to heal (Warlord Zaela immediately comes to mind) but for the most part I'm doing well and I'm really enjoying it.

I use Cloudburst for the most part, it's a useful extra burst when group damage is high without having to spam the horribly expensive Chain Heal and oom in 30 seconds. There have been lots of occasions Cloudburst will heal the whole group for 15% and save me a lot of headache and mana. I tried High Tides but I feel it's too much setup to get much use out of, by the time you've cast Riptide on 5 people the first one is half gone, you can maybe get 2 chains off before having to reapply riptide to everyone and that's not a fun way to heal imo. Perhaps it'll be so much better in Raids but I still think Cloudburst will be more useful, it doesn't specify your own heals so I would assume it absorbs heals from everyone. I guess we'll have to wait and see with that.

I hate having to switch targets to cast Elemental Blast, I really wish we could cast it on friendly targets as a weak heal or something and really benefit from the stat boost. I use Unleashed Fury mostly to make Riptide's hot twice as powerful, I dunno if it really makes much of a difference. Might have to try Ele Blast again and work it out.

I'm also curious to see if Totemic Persistence would work with Cloudburst and Healing Tide to form a very powerful combo, has anyone tried that yet?

[Deleted]

Cloudburst totem doesn't 'suck in' heals from totems unfortunately.

Elemental Blast would be much better if it could be cast on a friendly target, maybe a small heal indeed, or duplicate the stat proc onto the friendly target?

[Flashyy]

Ran my first CM (skyreach) as resto at 618 item level - got my butt handed to me on the first boss.

Spammed more heroics, and 4 ilevels later I feel completely different.

Gear makes a huge difference at this item level. Mastery is also no joke right now, so get as much as you can. My stat weights at the moment are Spirit>Mastery>Crit>Haste with multistrike and versatility sprinkled in. Running Rushing Streams, Ele Blast, and High tide with riptide glyph, which I am really enjoying.

[fokka]

I havent done CM yet, im w8ing for some guildies to get some iLVL, but i do alot of HC as resto.. And its REALLY not as it was b4.. Like some ppl have mentioned b4 if ppl are taking retard dmg they will die.. U as a healer cant waste ur mana and cast time on stupid stuff becouse u will have to focus the tank.
Its really important that u put riptide on the range so ur improbed chainheal heals them aswell.. It will help ALOT trust me. And if u know the fight and u see that some others dont.. Take 2mins to explain it to them, it will be so much easier. And for the love of god Use Elemental Blast on CD.. Its so fucking good!
For the stats i have <Crit > Mastery > Int > Vers > Spi > REST
Crit is really good now, and our mastery is godlike now. I will go Mastery b4 Crit when i have the gear. I dont feel that spirit will be better then either crit or mastery anytime soon.
This is working for me now and i have ilvl 620 and i hardly go oom in any hc.. Not even when ppl fuck up, 1 might die but thats their own fault
Dont give up on Resto Shammys..they will be so good when good geared

[Chazzwozzer]

I can't relate to a lot of the complaints in this thread. I feel like resto is in an appropriate spot right now (unlike ele and enhance).

As people have mentioned, you can't just heal through mistakes indefinitely. If you were failing on the first boss in Skyreach CM, your party members were likely not dodging wind walls, or they were not using personals during movement phases when you're healing may be reduced. Also, they need to be doing enough dps that you will not oom before the end of the fight. Also, I would recommend the average ilvl in your group to be around 625 for challenge modes. It's not impossible to do with less gear, but the more gear you have, the easier it will be.

Contrary to what others have mentioned, you can still compensate for party member mistakes to a certain degree. Ascendance is extremely potent in 5 man dungeons, and ancestral swiftness will always be a viable option to pick up someone who makes a non-lethal mistake. HTT isn't as potent as it used to be, but is certainly still useful.

Resto shamans still lack the same thing that we've always lacked - a tank mitigation cd. If you are running with a squishy tank (eg monks) or a tank that doesn't know how to use his personal cd's effectively, then you might have a tough time.

The only complaint I have is the removal of HST smart healing. It's just not reliable as a heal for low party members like it was in the past. Frustrating to say the least.