Resto using HealbotFollow

I have my mouse set up with the following buttons for healing:

Left: Lesser Healing Wave
Right: Healing Wave
Thumb 1: Riptide
Thumb 2: Chain heal

Ctrl + Right: Cleanse Spirit
Ctrl + Thumb 2: Earth Shield

For a 3 button mouse you can do something like :

Left: Lesser Healing Wave
Middle: Riptide
Right: Healing Wave

Ctrl + Left: Chain heal
Ctrl + Middle: Earth Shield
Ctrl + Right: Cleanse Spirit

Shift + Left: Target

And then work out how to rearrange everything when we get the new Greater Healing Wave in Cata.

Note that I use Ctrl rather than Shift for most click modifiers so as not to keep turning CAPS on :)

Edited, Jul 7th 2010 5:07am by Karheim

I find it strange (my shammy is new-ish and only 70 btw, I have healed with a druid since TBC) that a Shammy healer would never use Riptide more than once. It was my understanding that the 'cast time reduction on HW/Crit bonus on LHW (mana gain from crits)' would make it worth the GCD to use Riptide. Nevermind the HoT.

More a question to other Shamans than to answer your question, sorry to try and hi-jack your thread. :)

Riptide is integral to Shaman healing, yes?

Re: Riptide - Not integral per se, but it is useful. Especially in situations where you have to constantly be moving.

As for the Healbot set up, mine is as such:

(On a three mouse)
Left - Lesser Healing Wave
Middle - Chain Heal
Right - Healing Wave
Shift Left - Cleanse
Shift Middle - Riptide
Shift Right - Earth Shield

(On my gaming mouse)
Left - Lesser Healing Wave
Middle - Chain Heal
Right - Healing Wave
Shift Left - Cleanse
Shift Middle - Riptide
Button 4 - Earth Shield
(Button 5 is hard for my to reach with my small hands and fingers, so I don't bother using it)

I'm new to Resto, and I've been using Riptide a lot just because I thought I was supposed to. One Riptide, two LHWs, another Riptide on someone else if they need it and repeat, then CH if needed with a fresh Riptide ready to reapply. It's been working for me so far anyway.

Riptide is very good for general use especially since it increases the healing done by CH to the same person by 25%, procs Tidal Waves, as well as procing Ancestral Awakening and Ancestral Healing when it crits. It's also a great oh s**t heal with a short CD.

With all those benefits there's no reason not to use Riptide whenever it is off CD. Although if you have the time to cast an LHW or HW instead, then you won't find yourself having Riptide on CD unnecessarily when the tank takes sudden unexpected damage.

But you should have Nature's Swiftness, Tidal Force and HW macroed (with whatever target modifiers you use e.g. [@focus]) for that big emergency heal:

/stopcasting
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Tidal Force
/cast Healing Wave

~ Yes, you'll be using Earthliving for your weapon
~ Yes on the ES. You'd want to try to keep it up at all times, so once it drops (or even slightly before, refresh it).
~ Yes on your healing needs

As for totems, just use mana spring for trash and save mana tide if you find yourself constantly low on mana. Remember to keep watershield on yourself and if your gear is decent enough, you shouldn't be having too much mana problems.

With my shaman, I almost never need to stop and drink, so when I see dps low on mana, I'll usually drop mana tide for them so we can keep moving.

And you're right, druid healing is completely different from shaman healing (or any others for the most part) as we don't just throw hots on people and let them roll, we need to be more anticipating.

I have a few guild-only instance runs under my belt now, and wow is shammy healing different than druid healing! I miss all of my lovely instant casts hehe.

Mana is an issue for me, at least for now. Granted, we have been doing runs with only 3 people (once with 4), and one of those was in heroic Utgarde Keep (just to see if we could do it...it wasn't pretty but we did it thanks to a really good pally tank). I find I try to avoid Chain Heal due to its long cast time. It feels like an eternity just standing there waiting for it to go off. And since my gear is a mix of greens, blues, and a couple of crafted epics my Chain Heals aren't all that great anyway. I've found I prefer to use LHW or Riptide on individuals.

I also discovered that where I stand is rather important. Go figure! Chain Heal isn't all that helpful it seems if half the group is behind you, hehe.

I'm still working through my hotkey setup to suit my style, but things are starting to get a little easier. Not sure I'll ever get used to that long CH cast time, though.

Chain Heal is more a situational heal than most (if not all) of the druid healing ********

It is very good for groups which are melee heavy or even ranged heavy; there are a lot of people in the same place so chain heal gets maximum benefit. If the group is melee heavy your CH on the tank will also hit the melee.

But you do have to have situational awareness for the group's positions. If someone is off by themselves then maybe you should be using Riptide, Lesser Healing Wave or Healing Wave rather than CH.





Haste is your friend, collect as much of it as you can; when mana stops being an issue switch to carrying Potions of Speed rather than just Mana Potions. I sometimes raid heal with another shaman and I constantly outheal her because I can cast faster.

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As an aside, the most important thing about CH is that it is the most visible of all the healing spells, and you should use it as much as possible; especially if you've got a lot of shaman healers in a 25 man raid. Who needs healing meters when you've got yellow healing bolts flashing everywhere?

(Note: Several shaman casting chain heal and / or chain lightning can lead to low fps and multiple DCs with the added effect of really upsetting raid leaders)

Did a 4-man run in heroic Nexus last night (had to 3-man the final boss as our druid had to leave) and got really lucky with drops (4 upgrades!). Saweet!

But I tried restricting my totem usage and boy did that ever help my mana consumption. Far fewer mana potions consumed this run than in previous runs and I only had to sit and drink once. I think I'm on my way!

The only time recently that I've had mana problems in a heroic was when I had a tank who refused to boss pull until I was back at full mana. He was from an Italian server, and his english wasn't good enough for me to tell him that I had just finished as the solo raid healer for Valithria Dreamwalker, and that the only reason I wasn't at full mana was that I was doing 1.5k DPS while healing.

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Because my equipment now lets me basically ignore the mana use of dropping all 4 totems I tend to do so most of the time, however if you do have mana issues then limiting the number of totems that you drop is sensible.

I would suggest that you prioritise your totem use, and, although I would use different totems for different encounters, the priority that I would use is:

Water
Mana Spring Totem, restores mana so should usually regenerate its own mana cost and as such is worth using unless you have Blessing of Wisdom available, also use Mana Tide Totem when off cooldown

Fire
Flametongue Totem, more healing - if you can heal enough without it omit the fire totem totally

Air
Wrath of Air Totem, quicker healing - if you can heal enough without it omit the air totem totally

Earth
Tremor Totem, reduces the effects of fears, etc. - if fears are not likely to be a problem omit the earth totem totally

Apart from Healing Stream, which could be used if you didn't want the mana from Mana Spring, the other totems that benefit you as a healer are more situational; Cleansing, Grounding, Stoneskin and Resistances - all reduce the amount of damage that party members take and as such make a healers life easier.

All the other totems (except possibly Sentry) are for buffing or DPS, and, as xNocturnalSux says, things are being killed so fast nowadays that the benefits are less than the mana you spend.

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TL;DR;

Use Mana Spring Totem to restore mana and other totems as the need arises.

Edited, Aug 18th 2010 8:44am by Karheim