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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-05-2009 @ 1:14PM
sturob said...
And the great thing about WoW and theorycraft is that . . . just like in real life . . . understanding it won't necessarily help you play the game.
I got a shaman to 80 about 3 weeks ago, maybe a little more. I read through Elitist Jerks (love the site), specced resto, and started on my merry way healing. I took some of their advice, and decided their theorycraft didn't make sense on some of it. Any time there's dependence on the RNG, theorycraft'll only go so far.
Last weekend, I got to do heroic Naxx with a raiding guild on my home server. There were a bunch of healers, all of whom were in at least Naxx gear, most of whom had either full T7 or t7.5 sets. One of them decided to PST me their recount data on healing. Guess what? I was #3 (out of 7 for a couple of encounters) on HPS and had the least amount of overhealing. More importantly, I didn't lose any of my assigned healing targets. In my blues. Cool thing about the raid . . . I got 4 drops, serious upgrades, all in an evening.
I find theorycraft discussions interesting, but they're not the end-all be-all. Some players will benefit from understanding the theorycraft. Some mediocre players will think they have to understand it to function, and their play will probably either improve or deteriorate based on their adherence to theorycraft . . .
My experience has given me a new appreciation of WoW. Just like life, there's some art to it.
Stuart
Reply
5-05-2009 @ 1:15PM
Eliah Hecht said...
True enough. There's an old WoW saying: "Skill > Gear > Spec." Knowing how to heal is much more important than having gear with the best stat allocation. But everything (skill, gear, spec) is a piece in the puzzle.
5-05-2009 @ 4:09PM
zarmy said...
Not to diminish your achievement of doing a good job at healing for the first time taking your shaman through naxx (the world needs more shaman), but your lack of overhealing can be attributed to your gear. Its not the best gear you could get I would imagine, as such your spell power is lower than the other people.
If a tank is missing 1000 health, and you heal it for 900, yes the tank will live and you won't have any overhealing, if the same tank gets healed by someone with much better gear and gets healed for 1200, then ya, they will get a big overheal. Overhealing is only an issue if people start running out of mana. The new changes to wrath where all us healers only use our top rank spells and never downrank make overhealing a non issue when it comes to looking at meters.
5-05-2009 @ 4:44PM
darian said...
Resto Shamans lend themselves to low overhealing in the hands of a good player. Thanks to Tidal Waves you can throw out single target heals extremely quickly without much worry that another healer will get there first.
In addition, Earth Shield, Chain Heal and Ancestral Awakening are "smart heals". The former will only heal when the target takes damage, and the latter two will specifically target the people who need it most. The only real potential for overhealing is the primary target for Chain Heal, or a poorly targeted/timed Healing Wave.
Meanwhile, Priests and Paladins will generally have a lot of overheal. Many of their healing spells will hit additional targets whether they need the healing or not, and Holy Priests specifically have a talent which refunds mana on overheals. I can't think of a reason for well played Resto Druid to have a lot of overheal.
So essentially, if you play your Shaman well it's not particularly surprising to find you have low overheal. It essentially boils down to avoiding heal sniping and carefully choosing Chain Heal targets. It sounds like you're well on your way there.