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Shaman healing?Follow

#1 Apr 11 2007 at 9:14 AM Rating: Decent
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171 posts
i am a level 68 elemental shaman and i enjoy the dps that i do, however, i sometimes feel that im not playing as useful a part in groups as i could do

i was wondering, is it worth respeccing to resto? does it make it easier to get a group, ive started doing a bit of healing in groups lately and havn't found it to bad, but will i be able to heal in caster gear or do i need to get healing-specific gear,

please tell me your own experiences of what its like to be a resto shaman!
#2 Apr 11 2007 at 10:22 AM Rating: Decent
OK, well I am significantly lower than you, but I have run as a healer on numerous occasions. I respeced to Enhanc due to the amount of soloing I do, but plan to respec around 50 to Resto. I had two sets of gear - one for battle and one for healing. With my healing gear I was running about 2400 mana. I loved it though because the people I would run with were very cool and give me lots of drops. I have since trained mail armor and need to rebuilt intellect gear.

I just had a really good friend respec to Resto at lvl 57. Now they don't deal as much dps but they were really hard kill. We ran Uldaman lvl 57 warrior, lvl 57 Shaman and me lvl 40. I kind of laughed because I only had to heal the 57 Shaman 2-3x during the whole run, and when I did I only used lesser healing 3 and that put at full health.

Must be something crazy because I have noticed a lot of Shaman wanting to respec to Resto. Might have something to do the number of Shadow Priests running around my server. I see a lot of Shadow Priests and hardly any Healing(correct term?) Priests.
#3 Apr 12 2007 at 6:14 AM Rating: Decent
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171 posts
ok, what about gear? can you heal lvl 68-70 dungeons in elemental gear (the kinda stuff with + spell dmg and healing)
#4 Apr 12 2007 at 7:09 AM Rating: Decent
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4,877 posts
Healing is in the mind and in the gear, sure spec helps, but thats not all there is. Firstly keep in mind some elemental tallents can help you heal. Eye of the storm for example, while other healers cannot soak up damage like you, you can also negate the effects of being clobberd if the tank looses aggro. Unrelenting Storm lets you regen mana even while casting. and totem of wrath affects healing spells(well not the "To Hit" part).

Back to the start,The biggest things about being a shaman healer. Gear, you just have to have good healer gear, NO Not spell dammage gear, healer gear. Healer gear gives twice the bonus of spelldammage gear and it has a twist(get to it later)so heal power Int and Spr and healing should be up your ally.

In the mind I say? Yes, this means you have to stop thinking like a DPS class, and start thinking like a healer. This means that even if you could kill a mob, you should'nt. You just do not have the Mana to do both(or do not want the aggro.) I am serious, very seirous;Sure if you need to frostschock a runner(rank 1 i hope) you have to do it. Remember, Every time you hit a target you are generating Aggro, and you will make enough with healing that you do not need to add to it with damage. One advantage to having healing gear is you are not tempted to do damage, you realy have to focus on being a healer. remember that being a healer means not keeping everybody Full on life, just Not Dead. you have to sit on some mana for when somebody messes up(floks always blame the healer, even if the rouge ran foward when everybody else was OOM)

Resto spec makes it eazyer, a lot eazyer, but My lock got his epic mount with the help of a ele/enh shaman as the healer, and if they can do it in DM West, it should be doable anyplace(take that with a grain of salt)
#5 Apr 12 2007 at 7:29 AM Rating: Decent
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My lvl 70 Shaman has been resto specced since lvl 60 when I converted her from Enhancement. Having been a raiding druid in EQ for several years before coming over to WoW, I can confirm that excellence in healing is a state of mind: you really have to focus on the details. I watch those health bars -- and the casting bar -- which means I have less attention to give to the overall tactical situation.

However, I only have 41 pts in resto. Recently I moved the other 20 pts from Enhance over to elemental. (Elemental works from the back row in instances, which is my normal position as a healer. Using melee requires running up front, which is inconvenient, not to mention hazardous.) I still have two gear sets: the +heal for instance, and the +int/+spell damage (sometimes including a bit of healing) for solo.

The big point is that +Heal gear improves your heal totems! (it affects "healing effects").

I did not vendor my old melee set, and may eventually return those 20 pts to Enhance. It nearly broke my heart to have to part with my 2H axe and mace.
#6 Apr 12 2007 at 7:31 AM Rating: Decent
pieeatingtroll wrote:
i am a level 68 elemental shaman and i enjoy the dps that i do, however, i sometimes feel that im not playing as useful a part in groups as i could do


Elementals are great in groups: off-healing is awesome, and you can off-heal better than enhancement due to gear synergy. However, as you get to the heroics it becomes more difficult to find groups because of our lack of crowd control: you need to prove your worth.

pieeatingtroll wrote:
ok, what about gear? can you heal lvl 68-70 dungeons in elemental gear (the kinda stuff with + spell dmg and healing)


Yes and no, depends on the rest of the group. Some elemental gear is okay, because you'll need lots of INT and m/5. However, spell crit (which you should have a ton of as ele) is not as useful for healing, and +healing becomes more valuable than +dmg/healing. Start swapping those pieces out for +m/5, INT, and pure +healing. The current weakness of the PvE resto shaman is staying power in long fights, so work around it with gear.

But, consider yourself warned: solo grinding as resto is very slow and boring.

mbrandongonz wrote:
Must be something crazy because I have noticed a lot of Shaman wanting to respec to Resto.


It's currently the best PvP spec at 70. We need survivability to weather the crowd control/mez/fear/stun fest that are now battlegrounds, especially since we can no longer relaibly count on burst damage.
#7 Apr 18 2007 at 5:14 AM Rating: Decent
ya i respeced resto and i love it

natures swiftness is awesome and i almost never die now but i dont think you will need different equipment but be sure to look out for +healing gear



natureschild
#8 Apr 26 2007 at 12:43 AM Rating: Decent
Hiya - i actually finlly registered to reply to this thread. :)

I've a 64 Shammie that i've gone ele/restro with (many thanks to the ppl who suggested that on this site - i was looking just ele before that)

I agree that +healing gear is better than +heal & spell damage cos you generally seem to get more on the specific ones, but i'm having a little trouble coming across healing specific gear. Is this likely to be due to level and the healing stuff appears in the higher instances or am i missing something here? i'm questing outland areas in general atm and pretty much living in instances when i can get a pug (small guild rl only friends)

I prefere dps but am expected to heal a lot if we cant find that nice 5th healer - also my healing gear is about at +500 atm but i dont know what sort of numbers i should be looking at - guessing mine is bad cos i had a nasty time in instance last night healing the tank against a bosses crits :(

Oh and personal preference i wont be respeccing full restro anytime soon unless people start refusing groups with me (and even then i'd probably switch servers to my mains guild instead) I like what I see as my place in a group - nice dps - keep an eye on totems and back up heal when stuff goes nasty

oh and hi other shammie people its good to be one

Edited, Apr 26th 2007 8:46am by kayleighjai
#9 Apr 27 2007 at 2:33 AM Rating: Decent
I respec'd resto last night from a 31/28 (lvl68) hyrbid ele/resto combination. I did it cause I prefer instance grinding to questing, and when I do quest I have a RL warrior and hunter friend who are usually there to help. I was invited into a Sethekk run as the ONLY person who could heal and we did well except for a few links from AoE fears.

Anyway, for my 2 cents.

Yes i could heal as a hybrid but it was never that mana efficient, and sometimes the heals never came out quick enough. going 41 into resto gave me Earth shield which i think is now the best skill because it is targetable. Earth shield pops onto tank and basically gives you 10 free hits to not need to worry about, which means those 2.5-3 sec casts on Healing wave actually have time to cast when tank's health is low. Another thing mentioned from others is the healing totems. mine does 60+ a tic and i only have about 600+ healing cuase im using my hyrbrid gear. Oh, Earth Shield also benifits from +healing gear in the same way that healing totem would, so with enough gear you can have it cure for 2x the amount your getting hit for :p




#10 Apr 27 2007 at 6:51 AM Rating: Decent
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788 posts
As a resto Shaman in a high-end raiding guild, I cannot stress enough how important gear is to healing Shaman. Shaman have decent healing spells, but they are slow, slow, SLOW!! Chain heal and LHW are great and if you plan on healing Kara, Gruuls or Mag you need well over +1000 healing. I think that properly geared, a shaman makes a better healer than a melee or casting dps'er.

A few tips that I have learned:

--Chain Heal is very close to being your best friend.

--Keep Earth Shield up on MT, but DON'T RELY ON IT TO DO YOUR JOB! If the MT is getting hits for over 1000, ES doesn't do much.

--Don't drop Mana Tide just for yourself. Wait until it will do the most good for the most people.

I'm sure theres more.

Griz
:-)
#11 Apr 27 2007 at 10:11 AM Rating: Decent
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509 posts
My advice: Don't respec if you like the DPS of elemental. It's easy to MH as an elemental if you know what sort of gear to have and if you use ItemRack. As an elemental MH you need:

1. m/5
2. +heal
3. +int
4. slow weapon with frost or fire proc

Being elemental you *should* have Unrelenting Storm at 5/5, which means a bunch more extra m/5 on top of your gear. Do not ever wear anything other than mail, because the best place for you, as an MH elemental shaman, is next to the tank. There's a galaxy of great mail with the stats you need. If you have a hunter, drop the Grace of Air between him and the tank, then rush to the battle and drop your healing stream, whatever fire totem you like (especially if you have CoF at 3/3), and either Stoneskin or SoE (your choice). If you don't have a hunter with you, drop that GoA on top of your tank, he will thank you for extra crits (and so will your rogue). Start helping your MT bash up the bad guys, heal with few large heals if the MT's armor is soaking well and his bar goes down slowly; if his bar starts plummeting (even if he's fairly healthy) back up a little and spam lesser heals as much as possible until things are under control again. Then start bashing again and checking your totems while your mana regens. The extra melee dps really does take a load off your healing mana as you're shortening the time that your enemy has to cause damage, and since you're wearing mail you can soak a couple hits yourself in case the tank accidentally loses aggro.

With my gear and this strategy (which I've learned from other elementals, observation, and trial&error), I rarely run out of mana for heals during a fight, even a big one. I may have to pop a mana potion *occasionally* in case Stuff Happens, but as long as people keep their heads on straight and stay cool, elemental shamans can MH quite well and don't have to sacrifice their DPS when a more dedicated type of healer can be found in another situation.
#12REDACTED, Posted: Apr 27 2007 at 1:49 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) BOOO ******* BOOOOO at mp5 crit is far more important as an elemental shaman with + hit coming in behind all that
#13 Apr 27 2007 at 3:09 PM Rating: Good
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2,824 posts
I'm 0/5/56 currently and I wouldn't spec any other way. The resto tree is so deep and top heavy you're really pushed into a complete Resto build. I feel very comfortable in PvP and PvE. Granted this isn't a build to melt faces but there are advantages.


Here is another plug for my Resto Shaman Gear guide that noone seems to be using Smiley: wink

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/class.html?wclass=8&mid=1176846548112858357

#14 Apr 28 2007 at 6:15 AM Rating: Decent
im spec 0/6/56 as well...that spec just DESTROYS in pvp and pve (topping the healing charts while your warrior tops the damage and kill >_<) however...in all truth shamans need a buff in 5 man healing. 7k mana and +750 healing doesnt cut it (thats w/o wrath of air)
#15 Apr 30 2007 at 12:10 PM Rating: Decent
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2,634 posts
Quote:
Resto spec makes it eazyer, a lot eazyer, but My lock got his epic mount with the help of a ele/enh shaman as the healer, and if they can do it in DM West, it should be doable anyplace(take that with a grain of salt)


Yes resto spec is viable all over, it does gimp your dps, and you will be dreaming of your lighting crits of the past. But if you spec just right it wont be terrible. Im personally contemplating putting 11 pts into enhancement to get dual wield and the rest into restoration.

Im currently at 0/5/48 - I just wish I had more DPS for soloing, my 1 hander/shield doesnt cut it like it should, i was hoping maybe a little 2 handed windfury would cure that ill.

Well i hope that helps you in your choice. Your gear shouldnt be terrible currently to heal - but its best you starting picking up healing gear as you go if you plan on re-speccing as you might be in a tight spot healing in those level 70 instances.
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