Resto Shaman

[Deleted]

ive recently come back to wow after a 6 month break & have started getting myself a few bits of gear.
my current ilvl is 873 & ive noticed my healing stacks up pretty well against other healers 20+ ilvl higher.
im not saying on the whole im healing more, although on occasions i am, but im enjoying the competition of actually giving other classes a run for their money.
is this a fluke, or are resto's in a pretty good place atm?
im curious to know, as its been a good few xpacs since she has been my main.

[jayheals]

here's the thing - healing is like filling a pool with water; the more water your coworkers are adding to the pool, the less water you contribute to fill the pool. DPS is more like.....idk stacking bricks, even if everyone around you is stacking a ton of bricks you can always add another brick.

More dps is always possible and not limited by your teammates until the boss dies, whereas you can only heal as much damage as the encounter dishes out, and you're splitting that damage taken between your co-healers. As such, your healing "performance" is always limited by the incoming damage of the encounter and the performance of your co-healers. This makes evaluating healing performance a little trickier than evaluating DPS. Not every encounter has the same damage pattern and your fellow healers aren't robots doing the same thing every pull.

For shaman in particular, we're pretty solid right now. Resto druids are the outlier right now in terms of raw healing they're capable of doing at the highest level, but the truth is we're all overpowered for the content that's available right now due to new artifact traits, gear inflation, and boss nerfs. It's like using a sledgehammer to take down a sand castle. All healers are fine and capable of performing very well, because it doesn't matter if one sledgehammer is a couple ounces heavier than the other. Shaman should continue to be valuable because of our strong burst healing potential, great cooldown coverage, and unique utility of spirit link and ancestral protection totem.

[Eleyne]

here's the thing - healing is like filling a pool with water; the more water your coworkers are adding to the pool, the less water you contribute to fill the pool. DPS is more like.....idk stacking bricks, even if everyone around you is stacking a ton of bricks you can always add another brick.

More dps is always possible and not limited by your teammates until the boss dies, whereas you can only heal as much damage as the encounter dishes out, and you're splitting that damage taken between your co-healers. As such, your healing "performance" is always limited by the incoming damage of the encounter and the performance of your co-healers. This makes evaluating healing performance a little trickier than evaluating DPS. Not every encounter has the same damage pattern and your fellow healers aren't robots doing the same thing every pull.

For shaman in particular, we're pretty solid right now. Resto druids are the outlier right now in terms of raw healing they're capable of doing at the highest level, but the truth is we're all overpowered for the content that's available right now due to new artifact traits, gear inflation, and boss nerfs. It's like using a sledgehammer to take down a sand castle. All healers are fine and capable of performing very well, because it doesn't matter if one sledgehammer is a couple ounces heavier than the other. Shaman should continue to be valuable because of our strong burst healing potential, great cooldown coverage, and unique utility of spirit link and ancestral protection totem.

Precisely. Shamans are invaluable assets to a raid team, but number-wise we're not the greatest. It is legitimate that we dish out lower numbers than throughput healers, or there won't be a reason to bring a druid or a priest. Once you raid with a decent druid/priest on farm content you'll notice the power difference. It's small but it is there.

Seeing that OP is concerned about numbers, I would suggest you to immediately abandon shaman and roll a druid/priest, to start accumulating AP/leg as soon as possible. The design principle hasn't changed much since the start of Legion, that "utility healers" do slightly less HPS than throughput healers. Healers have received minimal balance adjustments throughout several major patches, (except the warranted buff to holy priests) implying that Blizzard is quite satisfied with the current situation.

It means that we will continue to be the "underdog" in the HPS chart, while being irreplaceable in the raid team. It is good for those who enjoy making valuable contribution in progression regardless of numbers, but for those who need to find meanings and motivations by topping the charts, shaman is a less optimal choice.

[Deleted]

Seeing that OP is concerned about numbers

the thing is, im not. i was just surprised at how well a resto shaman heals compared to other healers that ive been playing with & ive not mained with this char/spec for a few years.
how you came to think it was a numbers post, is quite beyond me.

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i play resto shaman since 10 years as a main i can tell you need to love the spec or you wont be happy as resto and what i love about this spec is my tremendious utility heal cds(tide, aszce, ag ,well feeded cloudburst totem) ankh, ankh totem, spiritlink, windshear, purge, stuntotem, our mastery, bloodlust(i know other have it to) Roartotem etc. we have so much and we can help out in so many ways we are a must have because we can do so much

i love my resto shaman, even had an ICC 25 alliance 1st way back.
ive pretty much only played two classes, disc priest & resto shaman since 2005 when i 1st started playing wow.
im playing a resto this xpac purely because i couldnt be bothered to learn how to play disc yet again & was interested to know how it shaped up with other classes.
i wont lie, playing resto was like putting on an old pair of shoes. it felt just like it did the last time i played her.

[Eleyne]

the thing is, im not. i was just surprised at how well a resto shaman heals compared to other healers that ive been playing with & ive not mained with this char/spec for a few years.
how you came to think it was a numbers post, is quite beyond me.

My apologize if the tone of my previous post sounded too harsh. It was not meant to be a personal affront.
I'd just like to alert everyone who plans to main a resto shaman to what they're getting into. Currently playing this spec is like, to some extent, sacrificing your own metrics for the greater good of the team.
There is nothing wrong about pursuing numbers. Nowadays since WoW has lost most of its roleplaying appeal, many ppl play the Skada game, deriving pleasure from competing with others.
In fact, I myself am one of them, and although I respect Shamans' role in progression, I'm planning to reroll a druid as the designers seem die-hard to keep shamans at the bottom of the chart

[Deleted]

sorry if i took your post the wrong way mate, maybe ive just been playing with some mediocre healers lol
all the best with your future druid, the thought of rerolling another class fills me with dread

[Deleted]

I just rerolled from Holy priest to shaman. Our paladin and Rdruid are dishing out so much heals my Hpriest can't keep up, so I'm gonna stay at the bottom of the charts with a shaman but provide lots of utility instead, really excited about this class.

[Eleyne]

I just rerolled from Holy priest to shaman. Our paladin and Rdruid are dishing out so much heals my Hpriest can't keep up, so I'm gonna stay at the bottom of the charts with a shaman but provide lots of utility instead, really excited about this class.

If you keep playing your priest, there is a very good chance you can beat that druid though Rdruids took some pretty big hits on PTR while holy priests get fairly good T20 bonuses and practically no nerf.
Rdruids bring more utility than priests through healing on the move and spread healing, so according to the current design principle they should do less throughput.
I'll wedge that priests will be the new record-keeping healers while druids win on the utility side.

[Deleted]

If you keep playing your priest, there is a very good chance you can beat that druid though Rdruids took some pretty big hits on PTR while holy priests get fairly good T20 bonuses and practically no nerf.
Rdruids bring more utility than priests through healing on the move and spread healing, so according to the current design principle they should do less throughput.
I'll wedge that priests will be the new record-keeping healers while druids win on the utility side.

Yeah I was surprised to see them heavy druid nerfs. But my priest is full BiS 915 equipped so I'm still gearing my shaman just to keep my options open, so far I'm enjoying the playstyle.

[Deleted]

Why would you ever be suprised to see druid nerfs? They have been the best output healers for Raids and Dungeon Content, have little mana costs and are very mobile. It's a joke it took them so long to tune them down. With Palas they just messed up the new traits so bad that they got balanced, quite ironic.

As of Shaman I highly doubt the situation that a Raid rather wants a SLT than a Resto Shaman will change. At least the playstyle is fun.