Resto shaman healing is lacking

[Clefable 0]

Hello all. I play as a resto shaman; looking to improve my healing. Our healing team(10m): disc priest, resto shaman, holy paladin - sometimes a resto druid. We are a 10m guild, but sometimes do the easy bosses on 25m for loot(which I might not appreciate, but it's a strategy I guess). We're 1/13 heroic.

Anyway, my raid leader thinks I should be clearly outhealing the paladin and priest, especially since I'm 7 ilvls higher than the paladin. On the 25m kills I feel like I'm doing okay, but in the 10m I feel lackluster.

Armory: http://us.battle.net...efable/advanced

Stat preference: int > spirit > haste(3764) > crit > mastery > haste

Since I was so close to 3764, I went for that number, even though there has been some disagreement on this being an actual breakpoint. Should I reforge out of haste and ignore 3764? Should I go for mastery or crit? 50% mastery, then crit, then haste? Should I use potents or zens for orange sockets? I'm so confused.

I usually use primal elementalist, CH glyph and forego the Riptide glyph. I try not to overrite my riptides but on tanks it happens.

Yes, I always bounce my CH off a riptided target. Always use unleash elements before HR; keep HR down for 3-4+ targets. Usually always use an elemental empowerment before my HTT/Ascendence/SLT. Always use HTT with SLT. Keep riptide on tanks. Try to always keep HST down(sometimes strategically, sometimes whenever it's up). I tend to use GHW often on 10m. Keep ES on the weaker tank. I realize I should use SWG more.

Our WoL: http://www.worldoflo.../guilds/241394/

Meg(10m): http://www.worldoflo...one/?s=14&e=399

Jinrokh(10m h): http://www.worldoflo.../?s=2711&e=2990

I do the logs, so I'm present in all of them.

I have a 90 paladin that I was going to switch to before the other new paladin switched over to our guild. That's fine and all, but now I'm considering us raiding with 2 holy paladins and the priest in the 10m and retiring my shaman. I just want us to be able to progress easily. How can I improve my healing you think? Or should I switch to my paladin(or even my priest) for the raid? Thanks for any help! It's much appreciated. (Sorry for all this icky text too.)

Edited May 8, 2013 by Clefable

[Decawraith 0]

Answer is pretty obvious - but your RL has sent you on a wild goose chase...

Disc priest -> shadow = win

(You have too many healers in your 10 mans - that's why your heals appear low in 10 but more to your expectations in 25)

[Clefable 0]

Answer is pretty obvious - but your RL has sent you on a wild goose chase...

Disc priest -> shadow = win

(You have too many healers in your 10 mans - that's why your heals appear low in 10 but more to your expectations in 25)

Too many healers? We use 3 on each encounter in 10m. Should we be using 2, and on which fights? The few times we've tried in the past, it doesn't work too well, but it could just be our dps being derpy.

And isn't disc+holy pal = amazing? I feel like I would be the first to go dps, since those two synergize so well together.

[Stoove 347]

Firstly, I just want to say that I've never seen such a thorough topic. If you read no further, know this; you know what you're doing and I suspect you're doing it all almost perfectly.

Secondly, I'll give you what advice I can but my experience in MoP is limited due to time constraints. Hopefully you'll benefit.

Now to the meat;

1) No shame in being outhealed by a Paladin. It sucks, but it happens. 25s are certainly our strong area, and in 10s every resto shaman struggles a bit. Remember that in 10s and 25s you do need different stat priorities to make the best of it, and you do need to be switching talents and glyphs around to match the fight. If you aren't doing that, then you should consider it.

2) If you're not having mana problems with that much Haste then it's a good level to have. You do still get extra ticks from your totems, just not 100% of the time (which is annoying). However, the added HPS it brings will boost you no end. IF you're really not worrying about mana, consider just going for Haste for a while and sniping in 10man. (See how it feels, if it's obviously not working then don't try to MAKE it work for you).

3) Stats; It's important to ask yourself how much average hp your raid is on. Are they regularly below 60%? Do they get topped quickly? That will determine how much Mastery you want. If the answer to that question is that you're always beaten to topping and most of the time hp is high, bin Mastery until you find you need it. Once you've decided which secondary you want, gem for that in your yellow slots. Whether it's a green or an orange depends on whether you're crying for spirit or not. If not, go for the extra Intellect.

4) If Resto Shaman are what you enjoy, then don't let any amount of crap make you play something else. Resto Shaman have always been a challenging choice for 10s, but a successful Shaman deserves 10 times the respect of any fotm healer. Don't go playing something you don't want to in the name of progress, because that way lies madness.

Good luck!

Stoove, Resto Shaman for life.

[Stoove 347]

Also: don't judge your healing on how you're doing on farm kills. That's naive. Judge your healing on how it goes on progress, because that's the only time it means anything.

[Decawraith 0]

Too many healers? We use 3 on each encounter in 10m. Should we be using 2, and on which fights? The few times we've tried in the past, it doesn't work too well, but it could just be our dps being derpy.

And isn't disc+holy pal = amazing? I feel like I would be the first to go dps, since those two synergize so well together.

Sorry, my answer was a little flippant and not worthy of the question.

Stoov has done a great job on the priorities & stats. I jumped to the meaty bit on the assumption you wanted to stay heals. The pally & priest are shielding the raid early on do you can't take advantage of your mastery.but it changes fight to fight & even within the fights. Most of the profiles have you catching up hard at the end.

The garden path that you have gone down is thinking that the only measure of good heals is HPS.

You are doing most of the dispels, Boss is dead, raid is alive. Good job.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Decawraith

[Stoove 347]

One good thing to read when you're worrying about your HPS is anything by Vixsin (off Life in Group Five), but especially this. Sure cheers me up!

[Clefable 0]

Thanks, Stoove. I appreciate the feedback!

Yes, I've followed Vixsin for a long time(years?). While she realizes the limitations of certain classes, she's always challenging herself to do better, to overcome our class's weakness. And that's my goal, to strengthen my healing even though it's not easiest for us.

(I did most of the dispels on Meg because I'm the designated "raid healer.")

1 - Could you give specific examples? I switch the CH glyph in and out depending on the encounter, but that's about it. And I usually stick with it anyway.

On progression, I feel like I'm at a decent amount of spirit. I usually am struggling for mana then, but it's probably because I'm used to blowing it all when we do farm content(which is all the time since it's a casual guild). It's difficult to stay positive during farm when you're geared for progression, but whatever. I don't enjoy the thought of bloating my haste just to snipe my other healers, that's no fun.

And sure, I enjoy playing a shaman, but I enjoy a more productive raid even more.

Back in Cata, I tried to switch mains to a shaman - I played a druid then. Druid was just so much better than a shaman, it was like night and day. My raid couldn't down Beth'tilac with me on my shaman, but it was a breeze with the druid. So when MoP came out, I was glad shaman could compete again. But it looks like they're still clearly inferior in 10m, sadly.

I guess I'll have to see how actual progression goes with the new paladin before deciding anything.

[Stoove 347]

Specific examples would be swapping in for something like Cleansing Waters when you're dispelling, and swapping from Primal Elementalist to Unleashed Fury for tank-heavy fights (I can't think of any specifics right now). Or just ask to be assigned to tank healing and go nuts with your big heals and Unleashed Fury. Also with Chaining, be very careful about when you use it; I find that on fights like Council you tend to be able to CH the melee often and so get lots more healing from not having the glyph. In contrast, common sense would say to use the glyph on a spread out fight.

One thing I might suggest is trying to get some healing assignments running. I don't know how you organize it, but I certainly find that on spread-out fights it's much more rewarding to ask to tank heal or take the melee group. Other healers can do the ranged (assuming spreading out) much more efficiently, and since you won't compete so much for heals you'll be doing better.

Another thing I'd say is to review your cooldown usage on farm fights. Since most of your cooldowns are free and mana isn't a problem anyway, if you focus on timing them very aggressively (you can get three HTT drops on most fights!) you could potentially gain some HPS and a lot of satisfaction from seeing your fellow healers stand around doing nothing for a few seconds.

I suppose the other alternative is seeing if any of the other healers want to try DPSing. Once you get into farm mode, I wouldn't be surprised to see you and one other healer able to 2-heal where you were 3-healing. My guild did this in 10H Dragon Soul (we used to 1-heal Ultraxion and it was a barrel of fun!). Of course you can revert to 3-healers when you get back to progression.

You know, it's moments like this where I miss the old Telluric Currents. That was a viable alternative build that kicked ass in Firelands, and the HPS was insane on most fights. If there was anything I'd recommend, it would have been that. Sad times.

[Clefable 0]

Yes, hopefully we'll to the point where one of us can go dps. I wouldn't mind that at all. We sometimes do healing assignments, but with the paladin around(before a few weeks ago, we didn't have one) I think they've got a good handle on the tank healing. So usually I'm raid healing and the priest focusing on one tank/raid.

Just another question.

I've read that it's a good idea to get to the HST/HTT breakpoint when you have 2p tier. Since I have 2p, I thought that was a good idea. But I realize that I use totemic recall(for mana) so much that the extra tick won't matter anyway, would it? I'd love to reforge that haste off into crit or even mastery. Am I right in my thinking or does the "extra tick" not work like I think?

[Stoove 347]

Yeah I think you'd lose the majority of the ticks you'd gain like that. In the end it's not worth the mana to stop using totemic recall, so reforge the Haste to Crit where possible. If you're at ~50% Mastery already then leave what you can't reforge to Crit as Haste, since it will likely provide you with more HPS. The reason I say this is that Mastery over 50% is more or less a loss in healing when health levels are high! Though we can discuss that further if you like.

Does that make sense?

[Tarazet 144]

Specific examples would be swapping in for something like Cleansing Waters when you're dispelling, and swapping from Primal Elementalist to Unleashed Fury for tank-heavy fights (I can't think of any specifics right now). Or just ask to be assigned to tank healing and go nuts with your big heals and Unleashed Fury. Also with Chaining, be very careful about when you use it; I find that on fights like Council you tend to be able to CH the melee often and so get lots more healing from not having the glyph. In contrast, common sense would say to use the glyph on a spread out fight.

One thing I might suggest is trying to get some healing assignments running. I don't know how you organize it, but I certainly find that on spread-out fights it's much more rewarding to ask to tank heal or take the melee group. Other healers can do the ranged (assuming spreading out) much more efficiently, and since you won't compete so much for heals you'll be doing better.

Another thing I'd say is to review your cooldown usage on farm fights. Since most of your cooldowns are free and mana isn't a problem anyway, if you focus on timing them very aggressively (you can get three HTT drops on most fights!) you could potentially gain some HPS and a lot of satisfaction from seeing your fellow healers stand around doing nothing for a few seconds.

I suppose the other alternative is seeing if any of the other healers want to try DPSing. Once you get into farm mode, I wouldn't be surprised to see you and one other healer able to 2-heal where you were 3-healing. My guild did this in 10H Dragon Soul (we used to 1-heal Ultraxion and it was a barrel of fun!). Of course you can revert to 3-healers when you get back to progression.

You know, it's moments like this where I miss the old Telluric Currents. That was a viable alternative build that kicked ass in Firelands, and the HPS was insane on most fights. If there was anything I'd recommend, it would have been that. Sad times.

Even if a Shaman is tank healing, he's still kind of a raid healer. You're keeping Riptide up on multiple targets, using totems that affect the entire party like Healing Stream and Spirit Link, etc. This isn't something that diminishes a Shaman's usefulness; to the contrary, I think it makes them amazing tank healers. Also, keep in mind that the lower the target's health, the bigger the heals are. So it definitely is a huge benefit to a Shaman to not have a lot of cross-healing on his assignments, other than spells that can help with raid healing like a Druid's Lifebloom or a Dpriest's Power Word: Shield.

[Nemo 27]

Don't bother with hps when evaluating your healing performance.

I suspect the reason a lot of resto shamans doubt themselves is simply that their class aren't cut out for making huges numbers.

However resto shamans shine because they heal what is neccesary.

Your mastery combined with the plethora of smart heals (+ earth shield and spirit link totem) all contribute - not to reach a sky high hps - but to save people who are in danger of dying.

And that is a hundred times more important than being a recount no. 1!

There are no fights in this game where a resto shaman is not worth bringing.

[Clefable 0]

Does that make sense?

Thanks, that makes complete sense. For tonight I decided to reforge off all my haste and go for crit(47.5% mastery). I also switched my potents out for misty gems, since I figured I'd need spirit. We're working on Ji'kun(50 attempts altogether, still no kill..we're bad).

http://www.worldoflo...ard/?enc=bosses

Although my HPS was pretty low, I think I kept everyone alive okay, so that doesn't matter too much. I'm the one staying on the platform. Actually, I felt like my heals were adequate enough tonight, so I won't bother thinking about HPS. Tanks only died when they took slime/too many debuffs(failed at switching).

As for "cross-healing", I think it's pretty difficult for other healers not to heal your assignments, especially with all the smart heals going around. I'm quite glad when I have the cushion of other healers' healing. Not to mention the healers in my guild aren't at all fond of communication, but I guess I'll have to live with that.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Clefable

[Tarazet 144]

Thanks, that makes complete sense. For tonight I decided to reforge off all my haste and go for crit(47.5% mastery). I also switched my potents out for misty gems, since I figured I'd need spirit. We're working on Ji'kun(50 attempts altogether, still no kill..we're bad).

http://www.worldoflo...ard/?enc=bosses

Although my HPS was pretty low, I think I kept everyone alive okay, so that doesn't matter too much. I'm staying the one staying on the platform. Actually, I felt like my heals were adequate enough tonight, so I won't bother thinking about HPS. Tanks only died when they took slime/too many debuffs(failed at switching).

As for "cross-healing", I think it's pretty difficult for other healers not to heal your assignments, especially with all the smart heals going around. I'm quite glad when I have the cushion of other healers' healing. Not to mention the healers in my guild aren't at all fond of communication, but I guess I'll have to live with that.

Of course there will always be some amount of cross-healing, and of course you don't want to intentionally run your target low on health so you can put out bigger numbers unless you want to give them heart attacks.

Looking at your current log, it's clear the new build is working well for you. The extra Ancestral Awakenings gave you a nice boost; it's not common for tank healers to put out the highest HPS. I have to comment, though, that I thought it wasn't worth using Unleash Life, unless you know you will have to cast a massive heal pretty soon and don't want to blow a cooldown. Otherwise it's not a great use of a GCD; I don't even put it on my bar. I think it might have been forcing you to cast more GHW's than you would have.

[Clefable 0]

Wow. I just looked over some logs of other shamans and realized that they hardly ever use UL. Maybe that's part of my problem? I usually tried to cast it during idle time(since the buff lasts a few seconds), except for in combination with HR for quills. But I definitely felt forced to cast it often, so next time I will definitely not prioritize that spell. It's still useful to buff HR though, right? At least in the more aoe-type fights.

[Stoove 347]

Yes to buffing HR, and also when you would otherwise be doing absolutely nothing. Remember, though, that any time you could be precasting a heal doesn't count as idle time :)

Glad the new build is working out ok! ^_^

Cross-healing is absolutely fine (even disregarding smart heals) - healing assignments are best usually as a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule, so any time your fellow healers' assignments are full they can do whatever they want, but when you all have assignments that need looking after you get the chance to do the healing that you can do.

It's not a perfect system, but it can help. It's certainly helping me manage my mana better in low-end ToT progression (I'm severely undergeared in comparison to the other healers in my raid). It's also boosted my HPS by about 25%. However, some people don't like healing assignments on the pretence that "It's better if I just heal everyone", which in my opinion is meter massaging and unhelpful.

[Krakir 28]

Your raiding with a disc and hpala. There are shields on everything so nobody is dropping really low, meaning your mastery isn't kicking a whole lot in. So you're basically missing a niche.

We pretty much 2 man heal everything with disc+hpala and then I step in as resto shaman to help on some of the harder progress. I've gone for the glyphed RT with 24,97% haste, keeping mastery around 50% and then everything/resto into crit. That way I can blanket the raid with RT and spot heal nicely when somebody goes low and then weaving cooldowns into that.

I know on fights like Mageara and Iron Qon stacks that Riptide blanket along with UE+HR and HST is keeping the raid from dying. That combined with cooldowns like SLT and HTT. I can see on the logs when I'm keeping the raid alive although overall HPS isn't high.

I've also stacked spirit to boost MTT to help the other two healers. Our disc priest is ridiculously good so I don't see the need to try to snipe heals from him and oom us both, when I could in fact support and help him. Owning the meters against disc+hpala in 10 man is gonna be challenging.

What I've done is pretty much accepted my role as the supporting healer. Taking care of things when needed but not really owning the HPS competition.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Krakir