[Resto] Some general questions

[PhillieB]

Ohoy dudu's!

Been finding myself playing my resto more and more (maining a disco priest) and I'm considering making it my main for WoD. I was on the verge for MoP but went with my priest and relucantly specced disc (raiding 10-man). Can't say I regret it given the state of disc priests in 10s but I do miss playing a throughput healer and frankly Holy has little to offer in comparisson to Resto in my view.

Anyhow, I've been gearing up pretty quickly and to say the least I won the world-boss lottery with 4 pieces off Ordos and currently sitting at 545 (no raid pieces apart from flex). Anyhow, unfortunatly my server is pretty dead so pugs are hard to find but I'm planning on maybe switching it in instead of my main for farm. So a couple of questions:

*Mana: This is always very individual, but where is your comfort zone? I'm quite "spammy" myself so I tend to go for relativly high spirit builds, currently sitting at 14500 with two regen trinkets which I feel is just way too much. Especially since go for incarnation whch I really dont want to drop since I really like the versatility of being able to use it either as mana regen CD or a throghput CD.

*AoE Burst Healing, spread targets: What is your go-to here? Pre-HoT with renew and then genesis? Any other tricks in your toolbox?

*Symbiosis: Usually I go for Shaman > Mage > Holy pally (if needed) > Tanks > Anything other. This is going to be encounter specific but still anything else i'm missing / not thinking of with another class?

Thx. for any input!

[Mummbles]

Mana is fine right now. Mana has nearly always been fine for trees. Try to reforge all that spirit into Mastery (or Haste if you're using SotF.)

Wild Growth coupled with Soul of the Forest is my go to spell. The trick is to hit it just before people get spiked. You may want to stack more haste if you are using Soul.

Symbiosis usually goes on DKs. If there are no DKs around, mages and hunters are fine to... I think.

[Wahaka]

Until I got to maybe Heroic Iron Juggernaut, I sat at about 12.5K Spirit with the legendary Meta gem. The proc from that, using Omen of Clarity when it procs and popping Innervate at around 80% should keep you in plenty mana. Popping your mushroom often is also a good way to be mana efficient. I'm sitting at 1 570 item level now but still only have around 14K, and that's just so I can overheal a lot on things like Heroic Malkorok. 14.5K at 545 just seems like a lot.

SotF with Wild Growth is definitely the goto AoE. If things start looking pinchy, (especially if people are stacked, but even if not) you can pop Nature's Vigil and Rejuv spam, hitting Genesis if damage is getting high. I love that trick on farm, because the damage output of single target healing spells through Nature's Vigil is pretty significant.

My default for Symbiosis is a Shaman for Spiritwalker's Grace. A Mage or a Hunter can give you Ice Block or Deterrence for cheesing bombs on Spoils, for example. Tanks are viable if they need an extra cooldown.

Sounds like you have a good grasp of the class. I too used to raid Disc, but due to token balance in my raid and the spammy nature of Disc I went Druid. Haven't looked back.

Good luck

[PhillieB]

Until I got to maybe Heroic Iron Juggernaut, I sat at about 12.5K Spirit with the legendary Meta gem. The proc from that, using Omen of Clarity when it procs and popping Innervate at around 80% should keep you in plenty mana. Popping your mushroom often is also a good way to be mana efficient. I'm sitting at 1 570 item level now but still only have around 14K, and that's just so I can overheal a lot on things like Heroic Malkorok. 14.5K at 545 just seems like a lot.

SotF with Wild Growth is definitely the goto AoE. If things start looking pinchy, (especially if people are stacked, but even if not) you can pop Nature's Vigil and Rejuv spam, hitting Genesis if damage is getting high. I love that trick on farm, because the damage output of single target healing spells through Nature's Vigil is pretty significant.

My default for Symbiosis is a Shaman for Spiritwalker's Grace. A Mage or a Hunter can give you Ice Block or Deterrence for cheesing bombs on Spoils, for example. Tanks are viable if they need an extra cooldown.

Sounds like you have a good grasp of the class. I too used to raid Disc, but due to token balance in my raid and the spammy nature of Disc I went Druid. Haven't looked back.

Good luck

I see I wrote renew aboive obviously I meant rejuv. Thanx for SotF + WG! Dont know why I havent tried that out, deffo gonna go for that.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Spirit/mana is totally subjective to play style, people you heal with, the skill of the people you are healing, and of course experience. Just got to find where you sit and adjust from there.

Burst AOE has options:
-If you are stacked it is freaking hard to beat a shroom being down and blooming it. For sure if it had some time with rejuvs ticking around the group and swelling up.

-If people are in decent proximity and/or stacked than a SotF Wild Growth is pretty boss. Just kind of sucks when people are so spread out and you have no idea where things are going.

-In super spread out situations a blanket rejuv with a gen is pretty amazing. Also really good in 'control' situations. When you know player x,y,z are going to take a big hit.

Symb is broken down into a few things in my book:
-Do I need a way to avoid damage? Mage, Hunter, Tanks usually give you a great way to do that. (also gives tanks an extra CD)

-Do I need to be on the move with my Tranq during this encounter? Shaman hands down, for spirit walkers + Tranq.

-Do I need another dispel on this encounter? Than paladin is the choice. Although I think the only one I ever did this for was Horridon in ToT.

A lot of these though are rarely the case. But something to think about. I usually take an immunity like ice block just so I can cheese out of certain boss mechanics.

[Alltat]

*Mana: This is always very individual, but where is your comfort zone? I'm quite "spammy" myself so I tend to go for relativly high spirit builds, currently sitting at 14500 with two regen trinkets which I feel is just way too much. Especially since go for incarnation whch I really dont want to drop since I really like the versatility of being able to use it either as mana regen CD or a throghput CD.

Somewhere around 12-15k spirit seems pretty normal. Less if you have regen trinkets. Unless you're using some weird tactic, you should never need more than that. If you end fights with more than 25% mana, you probably have too much spirit. Plan around using a potion on every fight/attempt that matters. If you don't need an intellect potion for some phase, you should be drinking mana potions. They're dirt cheap anyway if you have a herbalist alt.

*AoE Burst Healing, spread targets: What is your go-to here? Pre-HoT with renew and then genesis? Any other tricks in your toolbox?

Pre-HoT, SotF+WG, shroom bloom. Spam Rejuvenation. I can't think of any fight where Genesis is useful for AoE healing, as there's always someone more to put Rejuvenation on.

*Symbiosis: Usually I go for Shaman > Mage > Holy pally (if needed) > Tanks > Anything other. This is going to be encounter specific but still anything else i'm missing / not thinking of with another class?

Depends on the fight. Shaman if I expect to have to cast Tranquility while moving (heroic Jin'rokh being perhaps the best example ever). Mage for clearing debuffs (Galakras). Priest for lifegrip on Immerseus. Paladin for Cleanse if there's disease (especially on heroic Horridon). Otherwise just put it on a tank.

[Deleted]

I run with 8000 spirit, HC horridon trinket + throughput trinket and I very rarely have mana-issues. Have 2-healed HC Juggernaut and HC Malkorok without any huge mana-issues.

[Deleted]

- I sit somewhere between 15 and 16k spirit, with one regen trinket. I consider my playstyle to be fairly spammy (someone took 1 damage? rejuv!) and occassionally still go oom.

- I rarely use Genesis outside of Dark Shamans HC. On most fights the damage isn't so bursty that it's necessary to spend that GCD which ultimately does no healing itself. It's usually just SotF + Wild Growth, or mushroom if the damage is very predictable. Blanket Rejuv beforehand also works.

- Depends a bit on the fight. If I want a moving Tranq, on a Shaman. But our Shaman is afk lately so I just put it on our Monk tank. It's the best defensive you can get as a healer in my opinion, unless you need Iceblock for a very specific situation. I don't like Iceblock because I feel so helpless when unable to heal people. Another exception is Malkorok HC where I use it on our Hunter so she can clear faster with Dash/Deterrence, and I get an "oh shit" button in case I clip an orb before having to soak a pool.

[Alltat]

- I sit somewhere between 15 and 16k spirit, with one regen trinket. I consider my playstyle to be fairly spammy (someone took 1 damage? rejuv!) and occassionally still go oom.

You should probably try to reduce the spamming, as the excessive mana regeneration/consumption will hurt your throughput. Every point of spirit above the bare minimum comes at the cost of a point of something that would have increased your HPS and HPM.

I don't like Iceblock because I feel so helpless when unable to heal people.

You should never stay in the block for more than a second in PvE anyway. Either use it right before some big predictable AoE and immediately leave it afterwards, or just use it and immediately remove it to get rid of some debuff.

[Deleted]

You should probably try to reduce the spamming, as the excessive mana regeneration/consumption will hurt your throughput. Every point of spirit above the bare minimum comes at the cost of a point of something that would have increased your HPS and HPM.

I understand what you're saying, but this "bare minimum" is difficult to determine for healers. No raidteam plays each encounter exactly the same, or makes the same amount of mistakes every pull. If you gear for "bare minimum" assuming your team plays perfectly, you can easily get away with 8k or less. But then you run out of mana if your team starts making mistakes. My raidteam differs from yours obviously, but my experience is that I cannot get away with 10k spirit and not run out of mana when one or more people start messing up and shit hits the fan.

The exception is Thok HC, where the damage intake is steady regardless of mistakes, and I drop 1-2k spirit for that fight usually.

You should never stay in the block for more than a second in PvE anyway. Either use it right before some big predictable AoE and immediately leave it afterwards, or just use it and immediately remove it to get rid of some debuff.

But big predictable AoE's are generally just healed through anyway? Can you point me to one AoE ability in this tier where Fortifying Brew has trouble keeping me alive and where Iceblock would be preferred? The only one I can think of that comes close is Warsong + Sniper on you, but that has never happened to me.