Shaman about to hit 80, first ever attempt at an endgame healer in any game

[mrdrsrow]

Im excited since I've never been a healer for any mmo before.. figured it was time to give a shot. I put together a list of gear I will be after as soon as I hit 80 with as much gear crafted as possible so I can heal for my guild in ICC asap. I made my list based on the faq on this forum and some of my own research, but I've never made a healer before and honestly I dont know much about shaman, so I just wanted to paste what I put together here and ask what you guys thought since its not quite the same as the list in the FAQ.

Secondly, I wanted to ask for general advice on healing, since I will have to learn everything about it. What addons should I get for my shaman to make healing as efficient as possible? Thanks so much for your help in advance.


Helm: Nobundo’s Headpeace of Conquest (50 triumph Badges)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=48280

Neck: Arcane Loops of Anger (Forge of Souls)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=50211

Cloak: Cloak of the Fallen Cardinal (Tyrannus in Pit of Saron)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=49823

Shoulders: Nobundo’s Shoulders of Conquest (30 Triumph Badges)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=48283

Gloves: Nobundo’s Handguards of Conquest (30 Triumph badges)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=48284

Bracer: Black Chitin Bracers (Crafted: Nerubian Chitin (40), Abyss Crystal (4), Arctic Fur (6), Crusader Orb (4)_
http://www.wowhead.com/item=47579

Chest: Ensorcelled Nerubian Breastplate (Nerubian Chitin (40), Eternail Air (8), Greater Cosmic Essence (8), Arctic Fur (8), Crusader Orb (8))
http://www.wowhead.com/item=47597 (or should I just save the gold and get Nobundo’s Tunic of Conquest?)

Waist: Blue Belt of Chaos (Nerubian Chitin (40), Arctic Fur (3), Runed Orb (6)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=45554

Legs: Lightning Infused Leggings (Icy Dragonscale (20), Arctic Fur (8), Eternal Air (16), Primordial Saronite (8))
http://www.wowhead.com/item=49900

Boots: Earthsoul Boots (Icy Dragonscale (12), Arctic fur (5), Eternal Air (10), Primordial Saronite (5)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=49896

Ring1: Heartmender Circle (35 Triumph Badges)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=47733

Ring2: Whatever I can get

Main hand: Surgeon’s Needle (drops off Garfrost in Pit of Saron)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=50227
Off hand: Protector of Frigid souls (shield), (drops off Scourgelord Tyrannus) in pit of saron)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=49821

Trinkets: Talisman of Resurgence (45 triumph badges)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=48724

Totem: Totem of Calming Tides (25 triumph badges)
http://www.wowhead.com/item=47665

[Therenis]

Congratulations on your soon to be first healer.

Addons you might need is Grid, GridRaidDebuffs and GridHoTs, which will help alot. ShieldsUp is one addon I liked alot on my shaman. At any rate, you'd probably be best off with more or less pushing away Chain Heals, followed by Riptide or refreshing Earth Shield on your desired target. Since Chain Heal is a smart heal, use it on the target with the lowest health, see it bounce around and do great healing with minimal effort. If only one target takes damage, conserve mana, use Lesser Healing Wave. Try not to go OOM too often, and go with your instincts. Good luck!

[Jenerena]

Well first off, congrats. Shaman healing is good fun and I hope you enjoy it.

As Beacon said, Grid is a good addon to begin with. You want to see all the party members' health clearly. Place grid somewhere where you can see it clearly, without having to turn your head. I find somewhere under your character to be most effective. GridStatusRaidDebuffs is also a good one, and shows you when you need to cleanse/decurse/cure anyone. I also recommend mouseover macros, I like to use the addon Clique, which allows you to use mouseover macros on grid and any mouse buttons. For example, if I left click somebody on grid I cast a lhw on that person, if I right click I cast riptide, shift right click chain heal, Button 4 Cleanse spirit. I also use some keys for ES and Healing Wave, you need to do what you feel is most comfortable, but I find this alot easier than clicking my target to heal them. That way you can keep the boss targeted or your tank while you heal others using Grid, which can be useful when you want to watch a tank or whatever for certain buffs, or for just a closer eye on health.

Use Shieldsup to track your earth shield and water shield. Most shamans can spam water shield all day when they are bored or between casts, so no excuse not to keep 4 stacks!

When healing heroics, take note of a bosses abilities or how many mobs are being tanked. Also make sure you are aware of how geared a tank is, so you can be ready if he/she is not so geared. Don't be afraid to ask for mana breaks, and enjoy yourself!

[Banshee]

IMHO,

Resto shamans are by far the most fun healing class atm.

Things of note:
At lower gearlvls (leveling/gearing up in heroics) youll end up going oom quiet often.
Stack haste, mp5 is good but i prefer going with crit for mana returns.
And dont let ppl tell you that spamming Chainheals are bad its 80% of the fun/uniqeness of playing a resto shaman

Keep them chainheals rolling brother !

[Epiclurker]

Also try out Healbot. Some people like Healbot, some people like Grid, it is a person preference really. I would also take a look at Decursive. Don't do the last quest in Pit of Saron right away. That way you remove Halls of Reflection from your random list until you are ready to tackle it.

[vesseblah]

Secondly, I wanted to ask for general advice on healing, since I will have to learn everything about it. What addons should I get for my shaman to make healing as efficient as possible? Thanks so much for your help in advance.

While grinding badges for the gear, keep healing all possible five-mans. Most will be trivial since players overgear the hell out of the instances but use the time to get used to the job at hand. The thing which will be really hard in heroics is that shamans suck badly in healing if they have to be on the move constantly, and that's going to happen a lot when people chain pull the instances. Keep Earth Shield up on tank and spam Riptide on every cooldown, that should keep adequately geared tank up through most instances. Practice totem switching on the fly (tremor & cleansing totems come handy from time to time).

When you're bit more confident, get into ToC10 pug/Ony10 pugs. Those are pretty common and relatively easy to heal but gives you taste of real raids. Spamming LHW or CH is what you'll be doing most of the time depending on your assignment when Riptide is on cooldown. Shamans can do tank healing, but you'll do best in generic raid healing if holy paladin or disc priest is present, since both of those are much better at tank healing.

Grid mentioned above is great, but it's really hard to set up first time. If you have no experience of it, you'll be better off using Healbot or VuhDo. VuhDo is good replacement for grid and what I'd recommend picking up instead. You'll get all features in one addon instead of fighting with the jungle of grid + 20 different small addons that add features you will required. TotemTimers is pretty much the standard totem addon now, and it can handle Earth Shield as well.

[mrdrsrow]

Also try out Healbot. Some people like Healbot, some people like Grid, it is a person preference really. I would also take a look at Decursive. Don't do the last quest in Pit of Saron right away. That way you remove Halls of Reflection from your random list until you are ready to tackle it.

hmm this is interesting, however pit of saron has like 3 of the drop pieces i need!

[Mammoth]

Addons you might need is Grid, GridRaidDebuffs and GridHoTs, which will help alot. ShieldsUp is one addon I liked alot on my shaman.

People will argue about Grid and Healbot all day long, but if you want something that works quickly try out Healbot first. Just get the healbot frame in a nice place, assign some key clicks and go. It should also be able to monitor earthshield if the tank is marked as "Main Tank" in a raid, through its buff monitoring function.

[Jenerena]

At lower gearlvls (leveling/gearing up in heroics) youll end up going oom quiet often.
Stack haste, mp5 is good but i prefer going with crit for mana returns.

Haste is certainly a good stat to have but for a starter shaman I personally recommend a little more focus on sustainability rather than burst, as mana sustainability tends to change as you gear up. I felt when I hit 80 that my mana pool just couldn't keep up whatever I did. I do agree with the crit side of things, and the list that the OP has posted has alot of mp5/crit items, something I would recommend until 232/245 level. Until you get toc level gear I highly recommend gemming a little intellect, until you are at around 19-20k mana unbuffed. You tend to get a feel for what you need as you gear up. Eventually you'll feel like you have enough mana but you need more spell power and haste, so you shift your gems to sp/haste. Also you generally will have very low spell power and you will find yourself having to spam much more to keep tanks up, this is using more mana. So until you get better gear, go for sp/intellect gems in yellow sockets, haste/mp5 in blue sockets and spell power in red sockets.

Definitely get the talisman trinket, and work towards getting the EoF trinket if you can, though I appreciate this won't be first on your EoF list. The snowflake from HoR heroic once you get there is definitely worth using until you get raiding.

[Primaryjane]

People will argue about Grid and Healbot all day long, but if you want something that works quickly try out Healbot first. Just get the healbot frame in a nice place, assign some key clicks and go. It should also be able to monitor earthshield if the tank is marked as "Main Tank" in a raid, through its buff monitoring function.

I agree. Healbot comes set up now pretty nicely for us. The only thing you will have to do is set up your spells to specific mouse buttons, which can be done under the spells tab in the options. Buffs should already be set up to show what each person has on them, such as earth/water shield orbs and riptide duration. Grid is nice but takes a bit more to set up, and as such, is more for advanced players.

[Kinettik]

I agree. Healbot comes set up now pretty nicely for us. The only thing you will have to do is set up your spells to specific mouse buttons, which can be done under the spells tab in the options. Buffs should already be set up to show what each person has on them, such as earth/water shield orbs and riptide duration. Grid is nice but takes a bit more to set up, and as such, is more for advanced players.

Healbot sucks, IMO. Grid and mouseovers are really superior. And it doesnt take longer to set up, just download Shamtasticals Grid from WoWInterface and its all set up and ready to go with every add on in it you need.

As far as trinkets go, Talisman isnt as good as Tears of the Vanquished (Normal ToC). A Je'Tzes Bell from the AH is also a very strong starting trinket. Other than that, your list is very strong for gear before Frost emblems.

[Mudkiper]

Healbot sucks, IMO. Grid and mouseovers are really superior.

If you can't post anything constructive don't post at all. Healbot is good, does the same job as grid and is easier to setup and track debuff's / hot's.

[Kinettik]

If you can't post anything constructive don't post at all. Healbot is good, does the same job as grid and is easier to setup and track debuff's / hot's.

Thanks moderator Paul. Im pretty sure i posted alot of useful, constuctive information (you chose not to quote that) but heaven forbid i have a negative opinion on your precious mod. I did, however, use IMO (In my opinion) which turns it from a flame to an opinion with my choice listed after. And you really dont read do you? Shamtasticals Grid download is already set up and ready to go with absolutely zero tweaking needed outside of positioning where you want it, how exactly is that harder?

[Insomnium]

I read most of the posts but my bad if someone said it already as I wanted to get this bit of info out asap.

Chain Heal Glyph + Chain Heal spam = Beautifull Patterns!
Healing with a Shaman is like working with an Artist \o/.

I also heard something about some Elemental T9 pieces that are better for Resto then the T9 Resto Equivalent, I think it was gloves and/or Shoulders.

PS: You Only have 1 Trinket Listed. And TBH, do not bother with the 264 Totem, being forced to use Riptide is bad especialy when its only a minor SP buff compared to the Chain Heal one, it's not worth it imo.

[ParanoiD84]

Thanks moderator Paul. Im pretty sure i posted alot of useful, constuctive information (you chose not to quote that) but heaven forbid i have a negative opinion on your precious mod. I did, however, use IMO (In my opinion) which turns it from a flame to an opinion with my choice listed after. And you really dont read do you? Shamtasticals Grid download is already set up and ready to go with absolutely zero tweaking needed outside of positioning where you want it, how exactly is that harder?

could u link to Shamtasticals Grid? could not find it. I heal with Healbot continued and it works great,no problems this far, tho i would love to try grid to without the need to tweak yet another addon.

[dmiasek]

hmm this is interesting, however pit of saron has like 3 of the drop pieces i need!

Somebody please correct me if I am wrong, on thisbut I believe you can do Pit of Saron, but just don't turn in the final quest of Pit of Saron. I don't think Halls of Reflection opens up unless you finish the quest.

[Ambreene]

Tip for keeping up mana while starting out - Have stacks of honeymist tea on you, drink every time combat drops. You're just trying to get a few ticks here, before running off after the tank.

[Cjeska]

Grats on your 80 shaman, but I think the people who say resto shaman is the most fun healing class to play (talking about pve here) have never played a holy priest or any other healer for that matter (maybe pally, thats even more boring). If you want some challenge, go pvp :-)

[Kinettik]

could u link to Shamtasticals Grid? could not find it. I heal with Healbot continued and it works great,no problems this far, tho i would love to try grid to without the need to tweak yet another addon.

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ridLayout.html

---------- Post added 2010-07-19 at 10:16 PM ----------

Grats on your 80 shaman, but I think the people who say resto shaman is the most fun healing class to play (talking about pve here) have never played a holy priest or any other healer for that matter (maybe pally, thats even more boring). If you want some challenge, go pvp :-)

Shaman is a much more fun class to heal on then a Priest (Yes i have one). Ive never played a Tree but id imagine it may be funner due to the lack of movement restrictions. Shamans have a versitility that others dont, and played right is very enoyable. The ones that sit and CH spam are the ones that have no clue and make the spec boring.

[FlagShipFail]

hmm this is interesting, however pit of saron has like 3 of the drop pieces i need!

What he meant was dont finish the chain quest u can still do the dungeon. Good luck in healing. Shamans are awesome