Help with Resto Shaman

[Teeheestopit]

hey, sorry if this isn't a good place to ask this, but I've been trying to help my brother get back into raiding. he used to main a resto shaman, and I'm worried he's having trouble adjusting to recent changes. would anyone be willing to look at his logs and see if his rotation etc is ok? He's the resto shaman 'Numberwang' on this fight:

warcraftlogs.com/reports/6v3MmahVYA2cFNXf

[L3fty]

Hey

A few things stand out. Firstly non - class, he is over 10 ilvls behind the nearest healer and that needs to be taken into account. His low output especially on the Mar'gok kills where resto shamans do not have a standout ability is something to acknowledge.

Class wise he is making good use of chain heal but does not have the High Tide talent. This is a substantial loss to healing, especially since he seems to almost never use his Cloudburst and has many Riptides rolling. His healing tide is also healing for a very low amount so I would suggest its due to other healers out gearing the encounter OR poor timing on his part. One of the two.

So to summarise-

+ Take High Tide Talent over Cloudburst Totem
+ Use Healing Tide at a more effective moment (-50%hp)
+ Use Unleash Life more often to empower Chain Heals
+ His use of Healing Surge is very low (due to healers gimping the fight?)

Those are the main points that standout to me. Your bro is suffering from a few things he can't control in - fight, like his ilvl and the Mar'gok mechanics not being very shaman friendly. He can make some minor spell improvements which I hope I have listed clearly above.

I will have no doubt missed bits but good luck and happy healing.

edit:

His overhealing is also low, and that always screams out a good healer to me since he is being sensible with his heals. I would suggest your bro has a lot of potential to make a strong comeback to raiding.

[Alltat]

That log only shows him on one boss, but that's enough to notice a few things:

Uptimes
- Earth Shield uptime is really low, only about 35%. Should be 100%, not just for the healing but also for the bonus it gives to healing taken. Refresh it before it falls off.
- Healing Stream Totem uptime is very low. It should be used on cooldown unless everyone is at full health. His uptime is at 15%, meaning he could use it three times as often.
- Riptide uptime is very low, indicating that he's not using it nearly as much as he could. It should be used on cooldown for the healing and the Chain Heal synergies.
- Healing Rain use looks good.

Cooldowns
- Healing Tide Totem wasn't until seven minutes into the imperator kill, and overall wasn't used as often as it could be. He should be using it early and often.
- Ascendance wasn't used at all. It's a powerful cooldown that should have been used 3-4 times on that fight. Use it early and often, just not together with HTT.
- He doesn't seem to have used Spirit Link totem at all. It's really useful on the transition phases.
- He used Searing Totem but not Fire Elemental Totem. Using Searing is fine, but don't forget the elemental. Drop him at the start, then again if possible.

Spells & talents
- He should be using Unleash Life instead of Ghost Wolf when moving short distances. It provides the same speed bonus, does some healing and doesn't prevent spellcasting.
- He has a lot of healing done by Healing Wave. I think the main reason he needs that is because he doesn't use Riptide and Healing Stream Totem enough.
- Cloudburst Totem is a questionable choice on the fights in question. High Tide would be more helpful, as it's useful both when stacked and spread (as on imperator).
- I don't see any level 60 or 90 talents being put to use. Could be that he has Ancestral Swiftness and never needed it.

- - - Updated - - -

His overhealing is also low, and that always screams out a good healer to me since he is being sensible with his heals. I would suggest your bro has a lot of potential to make a strong comeback to raiding.

If someone is low on both healing done and overhealing, it could also show that they're holding back too much and not being aggressive enough in their use of cooldown and mana. Having an overly restrained healing style might mean putting people at risk needlessly by letting them drop lower than necessary, or putting extra burden on other healers' mana pools by not pulling your weight outside of the most intense burst phases. Considering his low cooldown use, I suspect he might not be aggressive enough.

[Deleted]

+ His use of Healing Surge is very low (due to healers gimping the fight?)

- He has a lot of healing done by Healing Wave. I think the main reason he needs that is because he doesn't use Riptide and Healing Stream Totem enough.

Why do you two think it is a good idea to use healing surge /not use a lot of healing wave in a 12 min fight? Healing surge should only be used if it is either absolutely necessary or the fight is short enough for you to have enough mana anyway. Healing wave should however be used often. Even if CH is better you won't have the mana to just spam it between hr hst +riptide.

For comparison:
the top normal log https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ling&source=20
1 hw cast every 5,5 s , a single surge in nearly 9 minutes

the top mythic log https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ling&source=11
1 hw cast every 5,6 s, 1 surge every 81 s


His usage of healing wave is absolutely fine. The other stuff is however as the previous posts mentioned. Especially the HST uptime costs him a lot of healing

[Alltat]

Why do you two think it is a good idea to use healing surge /not use a lot of healing wave in a 12 min fight? [...] His usage of healing wave is absolutely fine. The other stuff is however as the previous posts mentioned.

It would have been a non-issue if the other stuff was working fine, but right now it seems like he's casting Healing Wave when there's really something else he could be doing that's more useful. Unless he dedicates a lot of his time to staring intensely at the floor, he's going to have to down-prioritize something. In this case that should definitely be Healing Wave. People will be fine anyway, and half the reason he has to cast so many Healing Waves is because his uptimes for Healing Rain, Healing Stream, Riptide and Earth Shield are too low.

Overall, his healing needs to be more proactive and less reactive. Imperator is all about knowing when damage is incoming and knowing what you plan to do about it before people start taking damage. Healing Wave is fine, but it shouldn't be your first line of defense.

[Deleted]

Unless he dedicates a lot of his time to staring intensely at the floor, he's going to have to down-prioritize something.

Actually this seems to be what he is doing most of the time. He casted something 198 times. Let's say that the average casttime is about 2 seconds(which it isn't, it is way lower than that) that would mean he did nothing about 45% of the time. I know it isn't easy to alway be casting something as shaman if you have to move but 45% of the time just plainly doing nothing? I mean even if you have to save mana you can still keep up hst riptide and casting hw just fine the whole time, you barely lose any mana doing that.

[Alltat]

Actually this seems to be what he is doing most of the time. He casted something 198 times. Let's say that the average casttime is about 2 seconds(which it isn't, it is way lower than that) that would mean he did nothing about 45% of the time. I know it isn't easy to alway be casting something as shaman if you have to move but 45% of the time just plainly doing nothing? I mean even if you have to save mana you can still keep up hst riptide and casting hw just fine the whole time, you barely lose any mana doing that.

You're right. Looking at the log again, he averaged 18 casts per minute. Looking at my own logs for that fight this week, I averaged 28 casts per minute. Probably the single biggest reason he's so low on healing done is because he spends half the fight not actually doing anything. That would also explain the low uptimes and cooldown use. It's like he's AFK half the time.

But he also has a disproportionately high number of casts of Healing Wave, and looking closer at it also a disproportionately high number of Chain Heal casts. He really needs to prioritize Healing Stream Totem, Riptide and Earth Shield much higher. The logs look as if he waits until people have taken enough damage to use a direct healing spell, then uses HST too if that wasn't enough, rather than using Rain/Stream/Riptide the second people start taking any damage and then following up with Wave/Chain after that if necessary. As a shaman, direct heals should be your last line of defense, not the first.