[PVE Guide] Restoration Shaman 6.0.3

[Deleted]

Hey all, i had a question on behalf of my alt and also a friend resto shaman.
From the little info i could find people say the class trinket doesn´t seem worth it above other healing trinkets as much also when you already have 4 set. It is a good trinket but other trinkets are just better, is what i read. But what bosses would it be worth using it on in Mythic Hfc, does it depend on setup or certain tactic usage? This is comparing it to any other healing trinket avaible.

Thanks in advance.

[Canibehealz]

Given the choice of all healing trinkets, I wouldn't use the class trinket on any progression encounter in Mythic HFC. I've been playing Elemental on a couple of our last farm reclears, but as soon as I start healing them again (I was playing Elemental because I needed in for gear but they wanted to underheal a bit) I will be going through and doing all the Mythic Farm with the class trinket on for a quick analysis. Its an interesting design, and its funny you should mention it because I had a chat with a lovely person on my stream tonight during Xhul/Mannoroth about it, but I feel that because it doesn't strictly buff the healing we do (in the form of a duration extension or a flat % increase to RT or something) that its just far too niche to compare to the benefit of the other trinkets.

The raw mana savings from Phylactery directly translates to additional Chain Heals and those Chain Heal casts, assuming they get ~4.5 heals on average, will significantly outheal Riptides ticking on people. The other trinket that is best for the later half of the instance is the Intuitions Gift (and arguably the Emulsion, depending on raid comp and how good your raid is at not sucking) and I just cant see the increase of less than 1 average CH heal per cast and some Riptide healing (equating to approximately a 3.5-5% increase in total healing) to be worth the value of the on demand crit increase and raw stats on the Intuitions.

If you want to ask which bosses would it see the best use out of if you HAVE to use it - I would say Council, Gorefiend(though theres no benefit inside the stomach), and Tyrant Velhari (though a lot of this will be meter cheesing showing actual healing when it isn't, its still VERY nice to have 15 people with Riptide on them to ensure they stay above death range from Font splash).

Given spirit levels in HFC and access to a Phylactery (much like my setup before Intuitions and Emulsion found their way to me) I ran with Phylactery/Core and did quite well during early progression. I had coined a Heroic Socketed version and it certainly IS worth a significant amount of healing - just nothing comparable to the amount that can be put out by other trinkets available.

Disclaimer: Its 7:20am and I'm not posting any numbers as proof. I had gone through it a while ago and thats where the 3.5-5% increase to healing comes from. Once I do some Mythic reclear with it I'll have an even better idea. But frankly, even though its an interesting idea - it just doesn't stack up.

[Koor]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ling&target=46

I'd use instead a "riptide, healing surge X 2" rotation to keep up tidal waves for the 30% crit, and also gain the healing from riptide.
If healing stream totem is off cooldown, drop it inside the stomach, it heals the NPCs as well.

Do you think it is worth it to spec into Unleash Fury if: a) not running into mana problems b) 5 healing the fight makes Feast easy on cd stacking?

I don't think it's worth it. With about 23% haste:

Healing Surge: 6624 mana, 1.22 seconds cast, 46510 heal.
With 30% crit from tidal waves, the HPS would be 46510*1.3/1.22 = 49560.
HPM would be 46510*1.3/6624 = 9.13

With UF, the HPS calculation depends on whether we delay healing surge to cast unleash, or cast unleash "for free" while moving to the next add. If we delay healing surge, we get:

Unleash + Healing Surge: 2176+6624 = 8800 mana, 1.22+1.5/1.23 (GCD with haste) = 2.44 seconds.
HPS (11839 + 46510*1.3*1.3*1.5)/2.44 = 53172.
HPM (11839 + 46510*1.3*1.3*1.5)/8800 = 14.74.

So the HPS when using unleash isn't much higher than just using healing surges (just 53172/49560 = 7% higher) . The HPM is significantly better though, so UF results in big mana savings when used with healing surge.

If instead unleash is used "anyway" for free while moving to the next add, it'll be a significant HPS gain, but if we stand near the center we can usually reach the adds without moving so unleash would be a waste.

Then is worth spending 2 gcds to earth shield and unleash life to get 100% increased healing on 1 cast during 3.2 seconds or cast almost 3 healing surges in the meantime?

Earth shield isn't worth it if you have to delay healing surge -- it's only 20% boost, and even 50% boost of UF isn't much HPS gain.

What trinkets do you think is the best setup to heal the essences inside a)overall b)if you had choice between Felspark, Leech, Intuition's Gift?

Just for the adds, Felspark and Intuition's Gift, but the leech trinket is so powerful that I would use it on every fight. So maybe Leech + Intuition's Gift if you feel you really need the on-use crit cooldown inside the stomach.

what did you use on your mythic kill both outside and inside? ^^

I think I used the class trinket + Elementalist's Shielding Talisman the first time. Inside usually wasn't an issue since we had two holy paladins so usually I was inside with a paladin who did the bulk of the healing to the adds, therefore I used mostly healing waves on the NPCs to conserve mana.

I was using Primal Elementalist, the empower/reinforce +10% buff can be used on every feast for its entire duration. Also if you use an elemental on the pull, it'll be ready again for the 2nd feast. If you're picked to go inside early within the first minute, you can have the +10% buff inside the first stomach as well (going inside removes the channeling but the elemental is still up and we can click empower/reinforce again).

- - - Updated - - -

Unleashed fury requires you to actually use unleash on the target you are about to heal.

It used to be like that once, but it was changed, now the "Unleashed Fury" +50% buff is on us instead of the target so we get it even if we pre-cast unleash on ourselves or another target.

[Deleted]

It used to be like that once, but it was changed, now the "Unleashed Fury" +50% buff is on us instead of the target so we get it even if we pre-cast unleash on ourselves or another target.

Shows for how long I didn't try that talent.

[Rezort]

Thanks to all the contributes in this thread!

[Cheze]

I experimented with unleashed fury briefly, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it vs. eleblast. It isn't that big an HPS gain, and a lot of the time down there you can't drop it on a useful target anyway since you want to use it for faster movement.

I found it useful to use SWG in the stomach; that way you can be healing one spirit while getting into position to heal the next one that pops up.

as far as trinkets, phylactery/emulsion is really the only choice imo. Phylactery has ridiculous stat value and emulsion contributes a ton of healing on any fight where the raid is taking steady damage (which on mythic is most of them.) If I were missing one of those I'd probably just use the felspark.

[Alltat]

I experimented with unleashed fury briefly, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it vs. eleblast.

Unleashed Fury is basically worthless for resto PvE. The only time you should be using Unleash Life is when moving, which means that most of the time the next spell will be a Riptide. Even with Fury, UL+HS is still worse than HS x2, so it's a HPS loss if that's what you need. And UL+HW is less mana efficient than HW x2, so it's not worth doing to conserve mana either. Unless they change Unleashed Fury to make UL grant a bigger speed boost or something else that's actually relevant to how the spell is used, there's no point in even looking at the talent.

as far as trinkets, phylactery/emulsion is really the only choice imo. Phylactery has ridiculous stat value and emulsion contributes a ton of healing on any fight where the raid is taking steady damage (which on mythic is most of them.) If I were missing one of those I'd probably just use the felspark.

Intuition's Gift isn't bad either, though the short cooldown of the use effect is quite awkward.

[MegaVolti]

I'm wondering how important Riptide is with the 4pc bonus. Shamans get plenty of "free" Riptides rolling on the raid if they spam Chain Heal enough. This is one of the reasons why Echo of the Elements is not the default talent this tier any more, the double Riptide / Riptide charge is simply not really needed.
But does it also mean that we can basically ignore Riptide altogether? I mean sure, cast it occasionally when it's available, but does it become almost irrelevant whether it's used on CD or just occasionally (like every 15 seconds or so on average) as long as Chain Heal is used in the meantime (which provides plenty of Riptides through 4pc)?

So basically my question is whether the following priority for Shaman healing is accurate assuming 4pc:
1. Keep Healing Stream Totem, Healing Rain (if enough people will stand in it) and Elemental Blast on cooldown
2. Try to use Riptide when possible but don't lose any sleep over it sitting on cooldown for a bit
3. Spam your Chain Heal as much as your mana allows
4. If mana is an issue, switch to Riptide + Healing Wave x2 while regenerating
5. Spot heal with Healing Surge when needed (although Chain Heal is a surprisingly strong spot heal, too, in case the target is not in danger of dying right in the next second or two, prioritize Chain Heal for spot healing whenever possible without risking someone's death)
6. Use your raid CDs when the raid leader calls for them

Yes/no?

[Alltat]

But does it also mean that we can basically ignore Riptide altogether?

No. It becomes less important during intense phases as Chain Heal can supply its own High Tide synergies, but Chain Heal takes quite some time to get an acceptable number of Riptides up. You preferably want to have at least three up to maximize High Tide, and with a 65% proc chance from the 4p, that takes you on average ten seconds to get. That means that if you ignore Riptide, you're going to do significantly reduced healing for the first ten seconds of every period of high damage. Which obviously isn't acceptable on many (most?) fights.

So even if you deem that it's not worth using Riptide during high damage phases, it's definitely worth using before heavy damage to ensure that you gain full High Tide synergies right away. You could theoretically use Chain Heal in this role, but it would take more time, cost more mana, and be less reliable, with the only advantage being that you don't have to remember your Riptide hotkey, so it's certainly not recommended.

Riptide is also still well worth using during low damage phases, as it's very mana efficient while still doing good HPS, so it remains your top priority spell at those times. It's also the second best thing (after HST) you can cast while moving when Spiritwalker isn't available, so you still want to cast it all the time on fights with a lot of movement (which is most of them).

[Koor]

Additional points in favor of using riptides:

- The 2-set buffs it with 25% crit. It's still quite a nice spot heal since it's instant (especially if someone is low HP since it gets mastery bonus as well), and in WoD it was buffed such that a larger percentage of its healing was shifted from the hot to the initial heal.

- Using riptide helps maintaining tidal waves when chain heal isn't used, which boosts our spot healing.

- Next expansion we'll loose the 4-set bonus, so it's a good practice not to get used too much to a playstyle which depends on it.

[MegaVolti]

Thanks, got it Riptide is still awesome, it stays on top of our priority list but it can be skipped in favour of more CHs during phases of high raid damage as long as enough Riptides were set up beforehand so that there are plenty of targets for CH to jump to.
Is the rest of the list correct? Chain Heal during high damage, Riptide + Healing Waves during low damage.
What's the use case for Healing Surge, then?

It seems that for phases of high damage Chain Heal is actually the superior spot heal. Yes, it casts slower, but it still heals a _lot_ on the initial target plus the raid healing power is huge. So when there is high damage incoming I pretty much always want to be casting Chain Heal, not Healing Surge, as long as the raid member in need of spot healing will survive until my CH cast finishes.
When there is no high incoming damage I want to be casting Healing Wave (or damage spells) to save mana.
Is Healing Surge really only used when a) a spot heal is needed and Chain Heal would be too slow, the raid member would die in the additional second it takes to cast CH or b) there is heavy incoming damage, but only on a single target so CH would be mostly wasted?
The only encounter for b) that I recall is Gorefiend for healing inside the stomach and a) should rarely ever happen, right? So basically ... rarely ever cast Healing Surge?

[Koor]

Is Healing Surge really only used when a) a spot heal is needed and Chain Heal would be too slow, the raid member would die in the additional second it takes to cast CH or b) there is heavy incoming damage, but only on a single target so CH would be mostly wasted?

Yes. If someone is dangerously low, we can riptide them to move them quickly out of danger (echo of the elements is useful, since it's more likely that riptide would be off cooldown). Then cast healing surge afterwards. Or healing surge right away if riptide won't be enough to keep them alive before the healing surge lands.

On a single target, healing surge is significantly faster, as well as higher HPS than chain heal's first hit. Chain heal on the initial target hits for 1.5*203.125% = 304% spellpower in 2.5 seconds, while healing surge is 412.5% in 1.5 seconds. Taking the cast time into account, healing surge HPS is 412.5/304*2.5/1.5 = 2.25 higher on a single target, and that's even before the 30% tidal waves crit bonus.

The only encounter for b) that I recall is Gorefiend for healing inside the stomach and a) should rarely ever happen, right? So basically ... rarely ever cast Healing Surge?

Several encounters have mechanics which target only few targets, potentially requiring spot healing (tanks in all of them, explosive runes on Kormrok, marks on council, heartseeker on kilrogg, gift of the man'ari on socrethar, befouled on zakuun, touch of harm on tyrant, shackles & doomfire soaking on archimonde, etc). Also when players fail mechanics they sometimes require spot healing.

[MegaVolti]

Several encounters have mechanics which target only few targets, potentially requiring spot healing (tanks in all of them, explosive runes on Kormrok, marks on council, heartseeker on kilrogg, gift of the man'ari on socrethar, befouled on zakuun, touch of harm on tyrant, shackles & doomfire soaking on archimonde, etc). Also when players fail mechanics they sometimes require spot healing.

How do I decide whether to do "good but cheap" spot healing on those (avoid Healing Surge and use Healing Wave instead, after all that's plenty strong to heal through pretty much all the things listed there) and use my mana on Chain Heal during heavy AoE phases or use "strong but expensive" spot healing (avoid Healing Wave and use Healing Surge to get them up ASAP) but have way less mana to spend on Chain Heal in AoE damage phases?
Given the choice (and assuming the encounter has 'enough' AoE damage incoming so that I can actually use all my mana), isn't maximising CH casts generally preferable, especially with out 4PC?
Plus most of the spot healing you listed occurs when there is still plenty of damage going on on the raid. So if I use Healing Surge in these cases I will do awesome spot healing but no raid healing at all, if I use CH to e.g. heal off Touch of Harm or keep marks on council alive then it will be mediocre spot healing (which usually is still plenty to not have someone die) but awesome raid healing in the process. Isn't that a trade-off we usually want?

[Koor]

How do I decide whether to do "good but cheap" spot healing on those (avoid Healing Surge and use Healing Wave instead, after all that's plenty strong to heal through pretty much all the things listed there) and use my mana on Chain Heal during heavy AoE phases or use "strong but expensive" spot healing (avoid Healing Wave and use Healing Surge to get them up ASAP) but have way less mana to spend on Chain Heal in AoE damage phases?
Given the choice (and assuming the encounter has 'enough' AoE damage incoming so that I can actually use all my mana), isn't maximising CH casts generally preferable, especially with out 4PC?
Plus most of the spot healing you listed occurs when there is still plenty of damage going on on the raid. So if I use Healing Surge in these cases I will do awesome spot healing but no raid healing at all, if I use CH to e.g. heal off Touch of Harm or keep marks on council alive then it will be mediocre spot healing (which usually is still plenty to not have someone die) but awesome raid healing in the process. Isn't that a trade-off we usually want?

Chain heal is strong this expansion compared to MoP. It's one of the few remaining smart heals in the game, still bouncing to the most injured player in range. With high tide and 6 jumps, it's our highest HPS spell, *and* our most mana efficient spell (highest HPM). It's rare that a single spell is both the strongest and the most mana efficient, so you're right that we certainly want to maximize its use.

At the same time, healing surge is very strong for spot healing since the low HP targets get huge bonus from our mastery. A timely power word: shield is probably more effective in saving someone since it's instant and strong, but maybe it can't be used due to the player already having weakened soul debuff. A paladin flash heal may be stronger with the class trinket buff, but it's temporary only to this tier, and the ~100% buff is also not active the entire time, while our healing surge is always strong on low HP targets, and always available.

Therefore I think it's a difficult question to answer. It depends on which healing classes we heal with in the raid, and whether we overheal the encounter. If there is enough overall healing such that we can use chain heal and no one dies, then it's better to stick to aoe healing, as that will maximize our healing and chain heal is smart so it'll jump to those who need it most. However if spot healing is required to save someone from dying (this is the difficult part to judge), it's better that we provide this since we're one of the best classes equipped to do it, and let the druids/monks continue their aoe healing which they are most effective at.

[Alltat]

What's the use case for Healing Surge, then?

Saving people who are about to die. It's much faster than Chain Heal, and compared to Healing Wave it's slightly faster and heals for more on average (assuming Tidal Waves). It also benefits disproportionately much from mastery, as it's all a single hit, and frequently heals for >250k in good gear. There are plenty of fights where only one or a few people take damage from an ability (you can probably come up with examples of it on every fight in HFC), even not counting spiky tank damage and situations where one person accidentally takes avoidable damage.

Given the choice (and assuming the encounter has 'enough' AoE damage incoming so that I can actually use all my mana), isn't maximising CH casts generally preferable, especially with out 4PC?

Spamming Chain Heal certainly produces more HPS, but if someone needs a Healing Surge to survive then they need a Healing Surge to survive. Casting anything else will result in them dying, regardless of what's theoretically better in the long run. Chain Heal is an excellent spell in general, but it's simply too slow to be of any use as an emergency spot heal. Quite often, even Healing Surge is too slow, and the safest thing to do is to use Riptide and then a Healing Surge to stabilize them. Due to mastery, RT+HS heals for slightly less than HS+RT, but you get some healing on the target faster and prevent them from dying to the small unavoidable damage that Blizzard love to add to every fight.

[McClane]

Hey,

I have the following heal trinkets. Which two are the best?

Intuition's Gift Hero / 710
Demonic Phylactery Normal / 695
Flickering Felspark Hero with Socket / 705
Core of the Primal Elements Normal with Socket / 705

Thank you!

[Deleted]

Go by these rules and see what fits you best: http://chainheal.com/trinkets-in-hellfire-citadel/
Always Demonic phylactery regardless of ilvl tho in one slot

[Alltat]

I have the following heal trinkets. Which two are the best?

Phylactery is always best-in-slot, regardless of everything. If you have any version of it, use it on every fight.

The other two heroic trinkets are both good. Exactly how good Intuition's Gift is depends on the fight. The 90 second cooldown can line up perfectly with both Healing Tide and Ascendance depending on when you use them, but it can also be kind of useless. Its value is greatly reduced if you just macro it to something and use it every three minutes.

Felspark is reliably okay. Nothing special, but also never bad. A pretty good choice on any fight that doesn't require burst healing. It has marginally less spirit than Gift, but the difference isn't big enough to matter.

Core of the Primal Elements is meh. Don't bother, especially not if it's only the normal version.

[Hivey]

Anyone not using Echo? I'm strongly considering dumping it for Ancestral Swiftness and use RT glyph. Should allow me to HoT as much as I want while dishing out faster CHs.

[Alltat]

Anyone not using Echo? I'm strongly considering dumping it for Ancestral Swiftness and use RT glyph. Should allow me to HoT as much as I want while dishing out faster CHs.

With 4T18 being a thing, do you really need more HoTs up? You should get more than enough High Tide targets just from that and keeping Riptide on cooldown. I guess it might depend a bit on what fights you're currently working on.