rolled a shaman for healing but why do we suck at it.

[mdnsiper7]

So I got my shaman up to 85 and hes geared a little but in raids i always have the lowest hps. Where as my priest Im always on top, I am really sad about this u get a toon all the way up the grind only to find out we have the weakest heals in the game. Yet I always see people looking for a shaman heals yet are numbers are always at the bottom. Whats the issue. Even when I raid with other shamans there always at the bottom whats going on here.

[Deleted]

if you're healing just to get big numbers on a meter then just stop healing all together.

[microtonal]

Different classes are different.

Besides, if the only metric you use to evaluate healing is HPS, then you don't know enough about healing to evaluate it effectively.

[mdnsiper7]

im not but other people in the raid always say something about the low numbers then kick u or something saying your hps is to low

[Chaosbubba]

IT'S YOU!! HAHAHAHAA YOU SUCK!! HAHA...

^That was a joke BTW, i have just never gotten to say it :P

Shamans are a decent healing class but we are almost like a hybrid healing class. Paladins and disc priests heal tanks better, and Resto druids and holy priests heals raid better. We aren't bad at anything we do, we just wont top charts while doing it. Shaman raid healing is top tier if everyone is stacked in one tight group though

[Deleted]

instead of looking at the hps, check out the healing done.

[Jigga93]

We Rely on the raid Being Clumped up. our Single Target heals are pretty pathetic on non ES's Targets.

[Teamfdub]

I personally do not raid with a shammy, but our guild did have our enhance go resto for a few weeks. He was never top, but he did his job and we downed progression. Also don't resto shammies have a "smart heal"? Healing rain doesn't over heal which I think is very cool.

[Chaosbubba]

I personally do not raid with a shammy, but our guild did have our enhance go resto for a few weeks. He was never top, but he did his job and we downed progression. Also don't resto shammies have a "smart heal"? Healing rain doesn't over heal which I think is very cool.

Its personal preference as whether or not people spec into the smart heal, it's ancestral awakening and i personally LOVE it

[Poysonivy]

You have to think a bit more when healing as a shaman. I like it. It's so much more active then my druid is.
And granted we could use a few buffs or alterations in the aoe healing department.

You also bring a lot of buffs, self rez, hero/bloodlust if no mage/bm hunter is present, finally a char to give all that spellpower mail gear that always drops to.

[yuca247]

The thing you should be worrying about is the boss dying, is your guild progressing? HPS meter doesn't determine those things.

[Christan]

instead of looking at the hps, check out the healing done.

this, and...

the better other healers are doing, the lower your numbers will be, as people constantly topped off makes your mastery useless.
but you will SHINE in heavy group damage phases, if raid healing set ES on someone, HR and bounce chain heals off of them.(could be tank for all i care but heh)

one thing is, are you going oom, if you are staying high the entire fight push more heals out, second is, are your heals being sniped(usually caused by slow reaction times \ latency) and third if you are feeling lazy, tank heal, i keep tanks up with es riptide and healing wave lol, just spam it half afk watching for avoidable damage at my feet.(yeah yeah its bad but insomnia, sometimes i am playing REAL tired, and tank healing is so easy.)

[mdnsiper7]

i dont go oom its just i feel like its a fun healing class yet i hate how druids are so much better at raid healing then us Cause I thought that was are shit u know. Also im stacking mastery but maybe i should try crit

[Valius]

if you're healing just to get big numbers on a meter then just stop healing all together.

this sums it up.

[Deleted]

I have personally tried all three of out stats out (crit, mastery, haste) and i' ve come to a conclusion that haste is by far the most effective in any situation, But it drains Your mana like hell. Master work very well to a degree where crit takes over. So combinding a base mastery level with a higher crit-level, and staying as close to the haste-cap as possible (916 rating(780 if goblin)) is the most effective Way for Us to heal at the moment again though, this is my personal opinion and you should try it out yourself before making any decision :-)

[BicycleMafioso]

/shrug.
I didn't raid often. I didn't have raidgear, or even pve-gear.
I didn't feel as though I was in any way lacking in my ways to contribute for the raids the few times it did happen, though.
I ran a few 25 Baradin Holds, and I think I got beat once on amount of healing done, and that was the first time I went there, being überconservative on mana, ending up narrowly second with 70% mana left.

But I have no idea how the relative strength plays along; nor do I care. I was able to do my job, do it well. I didn't feel as though I was lacking or inherently worse by being a shaman. I wasn't a liability. Just because some other healing class does X better, does not make class Y bad at it.
One class generally has to be the least good. As long as it isn't horrible, but merely least good, I see no reason to panic.
Once Shaman starts feeling they're lacking without looking at the metres first, then it might be an issue.

[snuzzle]

im not but other people in the raid always say something about the low numbers then kick u or something saying your hps is to low

You're better off not being in a raid with such idiots anyway. These same people were kicking/harassing disc priests in Wrath.

In short: it's not you, it's them. If the raid isn't dying, and you're not making the other healers pick up your slack, then you're fine.

People still have this stupid stigma against resto shamans being "fail healers" when they're not.

[obao98]

Depends on the fight really. Shaman healers have their strong and weak points, and its strongest point is healing a raid that is stacked, or, for example, in a 25 man raid where there are 5+ melees and they're always taking some kind of dmg.

We use a Shaman healer in our 10 man group, and in Majordomo heroic por example, the shaman healer does around 25-30k HPS!! I've never seen any other healer come even close to that number.

You just have to understand the class (any class for that matter) and have the shaman healer do his job in the best situation possible.

And another thing, the Mana Tide totem is a beast. Our other healers usually have problems if they're not careful (holy pala, resto druid) when the shaman is not in the group, because they are so dependent on that totem.

[Froggi]

Our main healer has a pally, sham and druid healing toons with similar gear. His pally is slightly behind on ilvl but fairly close. His druid always puts out better hps numbers in raids, but his shammy is the best at healing a 5 man by a long shot from my perspective as tank. To each his own, each class has it's strengths and weaknesses.

If you don't like shaman healing then you don't like it and nothing anyone here or in your guild or anywhere says will change that. It's a personal preference, the same way I hate to heal (or even dps) but love to tank, it's just my thing. Maybe try out the other two shammy specs and see if you like your new 85 as dps more than healer?

[StaeleAilar]

blizzard basically lubed up the broom handle and shoved it right up the resto shamans ....
we're basically the jacks of all trades and masters of none at the moment. We can do our job to the level that is required in a raid but we will not excell at either tank or raid healing (on the metres).

The best way to measure your current ability as a resto shaman is wether or not your assignments are dying in the encounters. If they're dying then you need to be doing something better, if they're living and the bosses are dying then you are doing fine.