How do you know what you can or can't do?

[Rayner]

So I'm New to Healing, and to healing as a Shaman.

I've healed H Nex, H VH, H UK so far, with no big drama's.
I'm enjoying it, But I don't know If I'm doing it right. I tried to do H CoS and we wiped on a wave after the 1st boss, It was part my bad, and part tanks bad (He had WAY to many guys on him at the one time).

The Failed CoS got me thinking, What other Instances can/can't I do?

1st Question; what is the Min Stats for each of the Heroic Instances? And Norm and H TotC (ToC... different realms seem to use different things... I am talking about the 5 man Argent Tournament Instance.)

2nd Question; I've watched a few videos on YouTube about Shaman Healing, but They only deal with raids... and Since I need to get geared up more, I would rather Info on 5-man Instances healing...
So the 2nd question is, how SHOULD I heal.
At the moment, I Earth Shield the Tank, Rip Tide him when he needs it, then Spam Chain Heal... Even if the tank is the only one that is hurt.
One of the Vids did inform me to keep Tidal Wave up, and to Lesser HW instead of Chain Heal.

I will link my character after, but I logged out of WoW in my Enh Gear (Which is WAY too low to do anything but Quest.) But I can give you a quick run down on my stats;
Bonus Healing : 1680
MP5 : 262 (Without Water Shield)
Haste : 320
Mana : 17301
I think that is the most important stats.

Please Forgive the noob-ness, I'm still learning.

(BTW; If this is the wrong section, or Not allowed to post these sort of questions on this forums, Sorry...)

[Mataus]

1. ES tank
2. Water shield on you
3. Riptide is good to keep on the tank
4. LHW the tank if no one is taking damage
5. Chain Heal when someone else takes damage

Now, the chain heal can start either on the other person or the tank. The great part is it'll most likely chain to the other one either way. So if the non-tank REALLY needs healing, you'll heal him and the splash will help keep the tank up. If they only took a little damage, you can CH the tank and let the splash fix them up.

LHW crits will proc Ancestral Healing and heal someone else in the party. In 5 mans, LHW is somewhat better than CH simply because sometimes people spread out too much for the jumps to do much, plus there just is a lot less damage to the group normally.

[Karbec]

Awesome glyphs are win
For instances if win LHW glyph ( if earth shielded )
Then ES Glyph
And Chain heal
If you failing at OOM get more regen or mana.. there are awesome trinkets like ToC normal one;p
Get meta gem for returning mana ( 600mana )
And you should be fine everywhere..

[Deleted]

Please make sure you read the FAQ at the top of the forum should answer some of your questions.

Right now your stats looks fine to do heroics, most you would strugle with would be heroic ToC.
Your spell power, is that with earth living and spell power totem? If it is not you breeze it.

For heroics keep earth shield up on the tank, use riptide to power up lesser healing wave and spam lesser healing wave on the main tank and to heal the group.
If too many take damage at once use chain heal.

[Rayner]

Thanks for the Help everyone, I can't wait to try out what I learned.

the Info I gathered was from WoW-Heroes and wasn't up-to-date, But Here are some stats from ingame:
MP5 : 466 With Water Shield and Mana Spring totem.
Bonus Heal : 1727 with Living Earth.

Here is the armoury link to my character: Clicky to my Character.

A Few things, I know a few bits of my gear have Spirit, which I shouldn't have, but they were an Upgrade from what I did have, I do Intend to Replace them soon.

Again, Thanks for the great info.

[Baabinator]

Thanks for the Help everyone, I can't wait to try out what I learned.

the Info I gathered was from WoW-Heroes and wasn't up-to-date, But Here are some stats from ingame:
MP5 : 466 With Water Shield and Mana Spring totem.
Bonus Heal : 1727 with Living Earth.

Here is the armoury link to my character: Clicky to my Character.

A Few things, I know a few bits of my gear have Spirit, which I shouldn't have, but they were an Upgrade from what I did have, I do Intend to Replace them soon.

Again, Thanks for the great info.

Spirit isn't even THAT bad in heroics, because you won't be healing all the time you usually just heal in short bursts.

This doesn't mean that it's something to keep stacking or looking for though.

[Deleted]

Spirit isn't even THAT bad in heroics, because you won't be healing all the time you usually just heal in short bursts.

This doesn't mean that it's something to keep stacking or looking for though.

blasphemy!!

[Rayner]

Well It turns out that I can heal better then I though.

I was able to heal H ToC (the 5 man one), with the only deaths at the last fight last phase, which I have been told other people have trouble with that part of the fight.

We almost wiped but Thanks to Blood Lust, we downed him with only 2 people left alive (Both pallies)

I found that I'm healing better now That I am using Clique and Grid.

[Zalduun]

I shouldn't worry mate. Healing a group is very much dependant on how good the tank is, how intelligent the dps are, what everyone's health is, how fast you can kill things (for loosing your mana) and so on. As a fully ToC 10/25 holydin, I've breezed through the 5 man ToC in next to no time with one group, only to take hours with the next one cause the dps can't interrupt, people are being one shot by abilities and tanks not holding aggro.

Healer skill is a good and vital talent, and the useful advice will let you flourish in raids But don't forget, the responsibility is not always 100% on the healers head to keep everyone alive, contrary to what the noobs may shout when they don't move from the fire.

[Grunthunter]

jesus 1680 SP no wonder ur wiping

[Xhale]

Well It turns out that I can heal better then I though.

I was able to heal H ToC (the 5 man one), with the only deaths at the last fight last phase, which I have been told other people have trouble with that part of the fight.

We almost wiped but Thanks to Blood Lust, we downed him with only 2 people left alive (Both pallies)

I found that I'm healing better now That I am using Clique and Grid.

Since your more aware of how to heal as a Shaman I'll keep this post to a "How to heal TOC better"

Mount phase not included:

1st phase use disease totem if rogue is there. If your melee heavy the right balance of LHW and chain heal will make it easy for you.

Death Knight boss:
Since 3rd phase your having trouble with what u want to have happen is every1 stack near melee range. The right proportion of chain heals and propper LW is pro and works all the time. If Ranged DPS doesn't want gather up close to make your CH effective then guess what- they die.

But ya, shaman healer is pro 5man heroic healer imo.

[Deleted]

I got a fresh 80 shaman myself and healed some heroics and didnt encounter much problems.
keep earth shield and riptide up on the tank, spam lesser healing wave when needed, sometimes a healing wave on the tank.
I don't use chainheal much due to the fact that it is a long cast and I don't have enough haste & spellpower to make CH work.
in toc5 i use bloodlust and lesser healing wave in P3 of Black Knight and it works like charm !

[gringo]

jesus 1680 SP no wonder ur wiping

so you started with 2k sp as soon as you hit 80? nice!

idiot...

[Fuyoshii]

Looking at your talents, I'd take 3 points out of Healing Focus (Restoration) and put them in Elemental Weapons (Enhancement). If that talent isn't that appealing to you, I'm sure you could put them somewhere else in the Resto tree that would be more effective. Healing Focus doesn't do you much good at all in heroics.

Usually when I'm on my Shaman I can heal just fine. But every once in a while I'll run into a group that I just cannot keep alive. Sometimes I worry that it's my fault, but usually if the tank is replaced (or occasionally a dps) the problem is solved.

As for H CoS...I do know what you mean. Not long ago when I was healing that (2200 sp, 24% crit, 450 haste, for the record), our tank died on a trash wave. I was literally spamming Healing Wave, with hardly enough time to use a GCD on Riptide, for almost ten seconds, and he still died. When the tank sucks, there's just not much you can do.

[evan_s]

Looking at your talents, I'd take 3 points out of Healing Focus (Restoration) and put them in Elemental Weapons (Enhancement). If that talent isn't that appealing to you, I'm sure you could put them somewhere else in the Resto tree that would be more effective. Healing Focus doesn't do you much good at all in heroics.

While Healing focus shouldn't be required in 5 man situations I can't ever recommend not having it. You shouldn't be getting hit in 5 mans but the same is true for raids especially since bosses are likely to 1 hit ya. CoS is a great example of why you still want Healing Focus. All the little undead trash could still cause major issues while trying to heal if you don't have healing focus while not doing enough damage to cause problems otherwise.

Elemental weapons is a little bit of extra healing that can help out when your gear isn't the greatest but I wouldn't ditch healing focus to get it.

Usually when I'm on my Shaman I can heal just fine. But every once in a while I'll run into a group that I just cannot keep alive. Sometimes I worry that it's my fault, but usually if the tank is replaced (or occasionally a dps) the problem is solved.

As for H CoS...I do know what you mean. Not long ago when I was healing that (2200 sp, 24% crit, 450 haste, for the record), our tank died on a trash wave. I was literally spamming Healing Wave, with hardly enough time to use a GCD on Riptide, for almost ten seconds, and he still died. When the tank sucks, there's just not much you can do.

H CoS is a tough one on the tank. The waves of trash with up to 4 elites and meathook both end up being hard on a tank. There is only so much a healer can do to keep a tank up.

H ToC is another tough one to heal. Shaman definitely have some advantages on it with cleansing totem for the poisons if you happen to get the rogue and BL for phase 3 of the black knight but it can still be tough. Group make up, luck on which 3 faction champs you get can make a big difference.

As far as how to heal. I personally don't like the Lesser healing wave option with the glyph for it. I prefer to use Healing wave and with the change to healing way it works out pretty well. With riptide buff up to haste healing wave it casts quickly anyway. Lesser healing way with glyph ends up being pretty good when it crits but it doesn't always crit and that is as big as it gets. The other problem I had with it was those situations where something goes bad you can end up with out earth shield up on the tank and the glyph looses it's bonus and the exact time when you need the most healing your LHW gets weaker. You don't have this issue with Healing wave.

Ultimately tho there is no simple answer to what you can and can't do or a gear target for x. When you are talking about 5mans especially it ends up heavily depending on the rest of the group. Gear, skill and classes all make a big difference. With raids you are at least likely to have all the major buffs while in a 5 man you may have no sta buffs available at all.