Zshikara's Resto Shaman Advice for Cata Healing

[zshikara]

Ok. This is a thread that will be referencing Jynus's resto guide a bit, so please if you haven't read it you should. Its stickied at the top of the US official shaman forum. Amazing guide, thank you for all the help you've given shaman throughout the game with it, and me included.

I admit first off that I don't have the time to crunch numbers, I am a casual player for the most part. But I did take the time to learn what I am doing and how to heal under the new model. There is one thing that really bugs me on these forums as of late: its resto shaman complaining constantly about how healing is broken and that they can't heal anything. Every single one of them is either geared wrong, stacking the wrong stats, or not taking advantage of enchanting, reforging, or even gemming their gear with anything (seriously, if you're poor in game grab a wrath epic gem. They cost like 20g).

I personally find myself to be a much greater healer since I stack mastery. Yes, this style of healing requires letting people's health drop somewhat below max before you start healing them, that's what Cata has allowed us to do. I almost never oom in a heroic these days, even if the dps stands in the fire or if aggro somehow gets messed up. I personally think every one of you shaman that are having issues should go for the following stat arrangement:

916 haste (I admit I go a little over, that's ok. about 1K haste max I'd say)
2K spirit (go over if you can, and don't reforge off spirit from your gear. It really does make a difference especially with mana tide totem.)
1K mastery (this is a minimum, go as high as you can get, once you change over how you heal you'll find this to be the single most effective stat you can use as a resto shammy)

Other stats that we should want as well are:
INT (obviously, the more we have the more spellpower and mana we have. I recommend no less than 80K mana for heroics and current raid content. Again, more is better as long as you don't slack in other areas)
CRIT (this will come passively, and I highly recommend speccing into the 3% crit from elemental tier 1. I actually reforge off a lot of crit. I think this is the most effective way to get your mastery up as I still crit more than enough to take advantage of the 10% damage reduction when I need it)


Now for rotation: I try to make sure a riptide is out and then pop 2 healing surges while I have tidal waves. I don't worry about topping anyone off except after a pull is over. Now if you have nothing else to do and want to top people off anyway, use healing wave. Its cheap (in fact my mana regen compensates for me to spam it), and will allow you to top people off if there is no incoming damage.

I also use my healing stream totem over mana spring now. It took me a while to realize this, but the healing stream's free heal to everyone really does outweigh the extra 300 something MP5 that you usually get from a pally or a second shaman anyway when you're in a raid. And since we no longer have a talent that improves mana spring totem there is no reason any resto shaman should be using it once they reach the stats I mentioned above. Healing rain, greater healing wave, and chain heal all have their situational uses, and you will use them quite frequently (especially healing rain).

I find healing rain to be the most effective group heal we have. If needed I throw down a healing rain and then will throw out a couple of chain heals to help with that. It works great in the right situation.

Next is greater healing wave. This spell I primarily use with Unleash Elements to make it even larger. I also try to save Nature's Swiftness for it if the tank is extremely low. Sometimes I'll use Nature's Swiftness for a healing rain if a lot of aoe damage is going out (spike aoe I think is the right term), but usually I save it for a Greater Healing Wave to go on the tank in an emergency. The only times I ever throw a GHW on any dps is when I know the tank is safe and the dps is hovering at less than 30% health without taking any or much incoming damage.

After you practice this for a while you'll start coming up with your own strategies and tips. Always think while you're healing about what you're doing, don't let yourself get distracted by the tv or whatever else might be around you. This will cause you to be inefficient and go oom too quickly.

One quick final tip: If you find yourself starting to go under 50% mana and there isn't much incoming damage: stand there and let people get to around 50% life before throwing heals out again. Especially while you stack mastery this will prevent you from ooming in most situations. Now dps still has to move out of the fire and tanks still need to use defensive CDs when the time is right, so if a group wipes its not always on the healer now. But seriously, I find myself being able to prevent groups from wiping to some mistakes. Now repeated mistakes in the same encounter will still spell a wipe, but 1 or 3 mistakes are ok with me now.

Combine this with Jynus's guide and you shouldn't have any issues healing as a shaman at all. If you need some extra advice please feel free to post here or contact me in game. Thank you for your time. I hope you find my advice useful.

[rigor]

Um is some of this a joke? Why would you ever use two Healing Surges after Riptide, a complete waste of mana IMO. The only time I EVER use that spell is if the tank is 1 hit from death. Maybe that is why I get by with half the spirit you do.

Hey, if you got through the content this way more power to you but for heroics the only spells you need are Unleash Elements, Riptide, Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave if you fall behind and never use it by itself. Only use it after a shock and UE for 60%+ healing goodness. If I took Chain Heal, Healing Surge and Healing Rain off my bars I don't think I'd even notice. Spam cheap heals nonstop = cruise control. I have not seen the math on mastery yet but for my playstyle I don't think it is worth it, most of my party stays about 70% unless they're standing in the bad. The way I see it shaman are gonna gear just like we always have, for max throughput.

[zshikara]

Honestly half the time I find myself not doing much. I go about casting the least number of spells I possibly can with keeping people healed enough to survive comfortably. And, no, this is not a joke. I do heal this way. I might not be explaining it well, or maybe you misunderstand, I am not sure. But it is far more mana efficient than any other method I have seen or tried.

[Sparkalark]

Um is some of this a joke? Why would you ever use two Healing Surges after Riptide, a complete waste of mana IMO. The only time I EVER use that spell is if the tank is 1 hit from death. Maybe that is why I get by with half the spirit you do.

Not that I totally agree this combo works all the time but, Riptide into Unleash into double Healing Surge can take a 150k tank back to full from 30% in under 4 GCDs, Healing Surge chance for criting your watershield amplified by the Riptides' tidal wave effect negate a lot of the wasted mana for that combo. Now you have time to run around tornadoes or re-apply hex or whatever. Not something that you should do all the time, but it's no less effective than NS -insta cast GHW + GHW and breaks up the monotony a little better.

I don't think it is worth it, most of my party stays about 70% unless they're standing in the bad. The way I see it shaman are gonna gear just like we always have, for max throughput.

This is what OP is overcoming, the fact that pug DPS usually don't have the same reflexes our friends and guilds have, the fact pug DPS aren't accustomed to us as healers or vice versa sometimes, and some even still stand in the bad while wearing half pvp gear. For people who are still in heroics, and using LFD, 2k+ spirit is a "jack of all trades" blessing.

[Peopleinplanes]

I use riptide + HS + HS a lot in raiding, especially in hardmodes.

[SuperNick]

I personally don't think heroics should be an entire basis for people's "I do this better than you" posts. The original post and guide was more on ALL content, not just 5 mans. Sure, 1200 spirit will get you by in heroics, but good luck having any sort of chance being an effective 10 man healer and not pulling your other healers down.

Few tips as a raiding shaman:
1) Roll unleash life with Riptide, it definitely increases the HoT. Anything else is a bit of a waste in my opinion as it will cost you more mana in the long run. (Tank near death different situation of course)

2) Greater healing wave in its current form is a complete waste of mana. Healing surge is almost the same heal, and also has a massive +crit chance when Tidal waves is up. You should never be casting greater healing wave or healing surge without tidal waves active, unless it is emergency heal time.

3) Healing rain to my knowledge is not affected by mastery, which is one of the big gripes with it. Could be wrong on this, not checked myself.

4) There is a breaking point where intellect is worth just about the same in-combat regen as spirit, so it becomes pointless to stack spirit. I have a choice between using a +321 spirit trinket with a 1926 mastery proc or a +285 intellect trinket with a 1710 spirit proc. The latter is actually much higher regen and overall more throughput in healing (as per benefits from intellect and the more regen gained via crits/regular spirit procs)

5) Take telluric currents. Forget the "well it don't look useful" - cata raiding is BUILT around regenerative talents for healers. The fights where you can't use it much (Chimaeron, Atramedes) it's fine because you have a lot of breaks to regen passively and it's built accordingly. The fights where you do need it (Omnitron, Magmaw, Nefarian, Cho'gall, etc) you will struggle to all hell without it. Your options are limited anyway to not take it. Improved ghost wolf or the +heal shock talent is really about your alternatives? Possibly -10% damage while casting but that's a sucky raid talent.

6) As per above, don't get fooled into thinking the shock talent is good +healing. It's nice for the occassional big 40-50k monster but it's not an effective HPM talent. By the time you setup a shock, an unleash elements and then a heal, i've done 4-5 heals at basically the same cost and more throughput.

If you're that curious about specs, gearing and glyphs, check out some top raiding shamans. Just please be advised you will see quite various results based on 10 or 25 man raiders. (25 man raiders will build extra lightning bolt dmg into their build because there's a lot more breaks in healing, will not take watershield glyph and will take earthliving glyph, etc)

[Peopleinplanes]

I could see TC being more usable in 25 mans where you can tell your other healers to cover healing a for a bit, but in 10 mans it's just not needed in my opinion. Sure you can use TC on the worm and a few others, but why are you having mana problems on those fights to begin with? Basically, why use TC in 10 mans pre hardmodes, when you shouldn't even have mana problems once you get 2-3 epics if you're healing properly.

I'm on hardmodes, but my play style isn't someone elses obviously.

[SuperNick]

There's a difference between struggling for mana and being an even more effective healer. Most bosses have the opportunity to gain at least 50k mana, often a lot more. Especially during phase changes and what not. This is no small number in my eyes.

I regularly top our holy pala and holy priest who are equally geared and skilled and do consistently 12-13k healing. Sure, meters don't mean a lot and aren't some sort of gauge of "skill" but they are a gauge of how much healing is going out when averaged over several bosses and fights. I don't understand the people saying resto shamans are weak and all this, healing feels great to me.

While arguably TC isn't a super duper amazing talent that is a staple of the spec, what are your other options?

- Improved ghost wolf
- Totemic reach
- The shock +heal talent (forget the name)
- -10% dmg while casting

- Totemic reach - well, that's very marginal and can just be countered by clever placement. Maybe one or two fights where it'd be more useful, but it's fairly pointless to me.
- Improved ghost wolf - Atramedes is the only fight I can think of this being useful in air phase, and even then if you just cast ghost wolf as he's going up to prepare incase you get the beam, you don't really need it.
- Improved shock +heal - Read a few posts on the exact numbers of this, it wasn't impressive.
- -10% dmg while casting - If you take a 50k hit, you've taken 5k less damage. If you take a 100k hit, you've taken 10k less damage. If you're taking 100k hits in raids, you've done something wrong.

Of course to each his own, but as I said above, 50k+ mana regen per fight is far more attractive than any of the above choices I listed.

[Peopleinplanes]

People seem to cite a lot of the top resto shaman specs when they argue about TC, but they also forget that those shamans are doing 25 mans. Most of the 10 man hardmodes are next to impossible (which is why ensidia switched to 25 mans), and taking the time to cast a LB over 10% less damage hitting you just seems like a loss to me.

[SuperNick]

If you take 500 thousand damage over the course of an entire fight (quite a lot in all realities for a healer to take) - your 2 talent points has saved you.. 50k damage.

Just seems very lackluster to me. And the talent also says "while casting" i've noticed (never actually tried it) which also points out you're not gonna even get the benefit if you aren't casting (which is quite often when having to run etc)

[Peopleinplanes]

Casting a heal on a tank 100% of the time and stopping it when the tank is full is what I normally have done since vanilla. As said many times, it's all about your play style.

[chickenpops]

Some of the talents are personal preferences. It depends a lot on your lineup and the other healers you're raiding with. I have tried out TC few times and yes its fine on magmaw and might be "fine" on other bosses if you expect all other 24 players to not stand in crap etc. The lower your gear lvl the worse the talent is. I personally have found wolf being quite useful on more than 1 fight. So for me the spec varies depending on fight/lineup.

Also the stat pref, depending on what you are doing (5mans, 10mans, 25mans).

But i totally agree on the fact that shaman isnt as bad nor "broken" as people make it sound. Reading the threads on the forums and then inspecting the people with unenchanted/ungemmed gear, wrong spec/glyphs + no xp makes me just facepalm. Only argument i see there are the links to wol ranks or some other ranks and the QQ about why aint shamans topping it??. I rarely even check those pages and to me they are just a bunch of pointless/random names.

[SuperNick]

Looked at some WOL records, wasn't that impressed. Most of the stats seem fabricated.

I don't mean they've been changed on the site, I just mean there's easy enough ways to pad those numbers as a healer.

[chickenpops]

Yep, that goes for both dps/healing, but thats the main argument what most people on the forums use.

[shadowkras]

This is what OP is overcoming, the fact that pug DPS usually don't have the same reflexes our friends and guilds have, the fact pug DPS aren't accustomed to us as healers or vice versa sometimes, and some even still stand in the bad while wearing half pvp gear. For people who are still in heroics, and using LFD, 2k+ spirit is a "jack of all trades" blessing.

Stop calling people PUGs and start calling them "bad players", i pug heroics everyday and i see good players everyday, and also see bad players everyday.

[zshikara]

I see a lot of good ideas here. I actually used to have Telluric currents and I used it quite frequently at 80 once 4.0.1 hit. However back then I was stacking haste and I was over haste capped in my icc gear. That is not only no longer possible, but no longer desirable with current gear levels. So due to the general lack of haste my LB still takes over 2.1 seconds to cast and I usually can't afford to make more than 1 cast which regenerates like 400 mana. Not worth it for me, but I can definitely see why some (especially in 25 man guilds, mine is a 10 man guild) would want it. I opted for improved ghost wolf, and I do use it even in heroics. Sure its not 100% required, but I like it and its fun to run around as a wolf while you reposition yourself. ^_^

I really really like supernick's advice on speccing and I agree with your reasonings behind all of it except said telluric currents (for me anyway as I explained above).

Yeah, I try to stick with my guild whenever possible, however my guild has a total of 2 tanks and a 3rd one gearing up. So I almost never have a guild tank I can run with (and I am one of 2 healers we have. I think there might be a 3rd not level 85 yet, but I am not sure. pretty small guild even though we have a lot of lowbies in it)

[Rehea]

If you're taking 100k hits in raids, you've done something wrong.

nefarian says hi

[Deleted]

Especially while you stack mastery this will prevent you from ooming in most situations.
>>>stack mastery

I saw this and stopped reading. Not reforging it is something I can live with. Stacking? Is there some hidden ultra-high end mechanic I'm too low to even have heard of?

EDIT: Forgot progression : I Still kinda tied up in 5-mans, go ahead & ignore me :P

[Peopleinplanes]

Especially while you stack mastery this will prevent you from ooming in most situations.
>>>stack mastery

I saw this and stopped reading. Not reforging it is something I can live with. Stacking? Is there some hidden ultra-high end mechanic I'm too low to even have heard of?

EDIT: Forgot progression : I Still kinda tied up in 5-mans, go ahead & ignore me :P

There's no reason not to stack the shit out of mastery when this upcoming patch is released. A .5% buff to an already good stat is nice.

[Radux]

Actually there is some pretty ok math out there supporting high amounts of mastery. If targets are at 50% frequently, it's throughput can nearly outdo that of Intellect. I'll look for it, but a mastery heavy setup isn't necessarily bad thing so long as other stats aren't completely ignored.