Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsTotem Talk: Resto shaman advice for healing groups, DK tanks, and heroic instances
by Joe Perez 
Nov 8th 2011 at 3:00PM
Man, the last few weeks sure have been fun and full of interesting information regarding our future. Speculation has already begun as to how we're going to be doing when the next expansion is poised for release, and we leave this world of Cataclysm behind us. Let's take the time to bring the focus back to current-day concerns and the most important thing of all, questions from you the readers. Restoration shaman have been a class in flux throughout Cataclysm, and as a result, there are numerous questions from those who are pushing raid content all the way to those who are returning to the game after a hiatus. So this week, let's get started with Ask a Restoration Shaman!
Welldead asked:
What is the best healing spell for Death knights?? I've been struggling just to keep a blood dk and its just getting on my nerves even though they are great tanks i just don't know if its me or is it the spell I'm casting wrong? I usually keep my riptide and earth shield up as long as doing chain heals and throwing healing rain when ever it gets messy.
Well, tank healing is a much different animal than group healing, but I'm sure you already knew that much. Each tank has a different style, and as a result, incoming damage can vary in levels from "Oh, this isn't so bad" to "OMG, why are you taking so much damage!?" In my experience, blood death knights tend to fall in the latter category. Blood DKs tend to dip pretty low and require big heals in steady increments. It seems to just be how they work.
You're doing the right thing as far as keeping Riptide and Earth Shield up on the tank, but I would highly recommend moving away from Chain Heal and Healing Rain when tank healing. Greater Healing Wave and Healing Surge are more appropriate for tank healing, unless under some very specific circumstances you have enough people standing close enough to the tank for CH to bounce.
Personally, I love healing blood DK tanks, mostly because while they certainly take their fair share of spiky damage, they are very capable of stabilizing themselves and giving you time to heal them back up. Also, unlike the other tanking classes, they can let you take full advantage of your Deep Healing with the understanding that they won't die (that is, unless you don't heal them at all). For added punch, add in a Glyph of Earth Shield and add points into Nature's Blessing if you haven't already.
Honestly, it's all about learning the rhythm of the damage on the tank for each boss fight and filling the gaps accordingly. I know personally for most fights, GHW is my best friend for blood DK healing.
Part of the group
Shinae asked:
Group healing is something that restoration shaman have always excelled at. I mean, it's been our specialty since The Burning Crusade. Healing Rain is more effective in a lot of circumstances, but that's mainly because it is an amazing delivery system for Earthliving Weapon's proc Earthliving.My question is about group heals. I understand that Healing Rain is a more effective group heal than Chain Heal. Does this mean that I should mainly be using CH for group healing when HR is on cooldown? (I'm thinking I've been using CH too much, anyway, as I haven't completely shaken off Wrath habits.)
Also, when are good times to use Unleash Life? (You probably have already talked about this before, but I forget.)
The key really is using both HR and CH together to get the most out of your group healing. I know that sounds hokey, but it really is true. They are the tools that are specifically designed for group healing in our tool kit, and when you find yourself in a group healing fight, that's exactly what you should go to. Drop HR, lay out a Riptide, and keep casting CH and Riptide until HR is off CD.
As with everything, making sure you're doing the right amount of healing and spellcasting is a matter of experience based on your healing team and the boss fight in question. So basically, if you're using CH while HR is on cooldown and the fight has the AOE damage to heal, then you're doing it right.
As far as Unleash Life, well honestly, the best answer is always. It's an instant heal on a decent cooldown timer, and it boosts your healing done. You should be using it every single chance you get!
Luotian asked:
Well, when you're first starting heroics, even in all the purchasable tier 11 resto gear, there are a few things that need to be done. First of all, you need to make sure you're triage healing. Let's assume that your entire group is at the same gear level; some mechanics will still punish you. The room swallowing darkness in the Erudax fight and the lightning storm during Asaad -- these mechanics will kill you, and often no amount of healing will compensate for it unless you really outgear the the instance. So if you see someone standing in the middle of something that will kill them, don't waste the mana.Hey there, Joe, its me again :D. So, I've finally gotten my first little resto shaman up to 85 and she's pretty well set in all the purchasable Tier 11 resto set gear. Here's my big problem, though. I've run a couple of heroics with guildies to have her healing (just the reg heroics, mind) and, while not terrible, I was far from good. We wiped multiple times and my poor tanks had huge repair bills because I'd simply oom halfway through fights.
I know without actually watching me play you probably can't do much, but is there some trick I'm missing that makes healing heroics so much harder? It just seems like everyone is taking much more damage and Healing Wave doesn't cut it like it used to anymore.
Make sure you're choosing the right heal for the right job, as well. Don't use CH or HR when you're healing only one target, things like that. Make sure Healing Stream Totem is down at all times, and try to ration your healing slightly. While at higher gear levels and later content you should always be casting, when you first start out in heroics, try to take things a little bit slower. You're not expected to power through the heroics, even in tier 11 gear. Also, one last suggestion: If you find yourself running out of mana, make sure you're using Mana Tide Totem aggressively to keep getting your mana back.
If you need some more information, or if you want to set up a time for me to hop on and maybe run a Real ID dungeon with you, email me.
That's it for this week's Ask a Restoration Shaman. As always, I'm available through Twitter and email to answer your questions. You can also find me in game as Lodur on the Ner'Zhul server. Feel free to drop by and ask any questions, and I'll be more than happy to answer them!
Totem Talk: Restoration lets you Ask a Shaman about the tricks of the trade. We'll introduce you to the very latest pre-raid gear and show you how to manage your cooldowns. Happy healing, and may your mana be plentiful!
Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
djsuursoo Nov 8th 2011 3:59PM
you can spot a DK tank who spent 85 levels as frost and is only tanking for short queue times and the bags by what they do.
do they blow their horn and charge in? yep, you've got an amateur.
the only cooldown they use is icebound fortitude? yep, amateur.
they use deathgrip to start a pull? amateur(save it to grab a caster/ranged mob or snag one that breaks aggro).
a good DK tank is amazingly enduring. some of them hardly seem to need healing, even in heroics.
/DK tank.
//pretty sure i'm good.
///practice by soloing stonecore to at least slabhide.
/cool story, bro.
Brett Porter Nov 8th 2011 5:36PM
@djsuursoo I'm kinda curious why using HoW then charging in is considered amateur? It's an important buff, plus if you use it right before combat then you have RP to use towards RS or DRW pretty quick.
djsuursoo Nov 8th 2011 7:08PM
brett: note: i said horn of winter, without anything else. what tank won't make sure his bone shield isn't at least 3/4 charges? charging in is generally not the best idea. you want to use position to your advantage. mobs can walk. make them walk to you and away from their friends.
smart tanks remember their self-buffs and rarely try to brute-force it.
priestessaur Nov 9th 2011 4:05PM
Healing a good dk tank and a bad dk tank is night and day. A good dk that cycles cd's and uses his self-healing abilities barely needs thought. In fact, they can make a healer lazy because they start to rely on the dk's self-heals rather than being proactive to heal them. Bad dk tanks are more prevalent tho, and even a good dk tank in starter gear will take a lot of dmg and really soak up heals. I have an addon that tells me when a tank pops one of his cds and it is truly sad how many za\zgs I have healed and the tank never used a single one.
As for healing them, just realize that dk hp tends to spike up and down more. So keeping up a steady stream of heals on them will help smooth it out better as opposed to trying play catch up with expensive GHW spam.
Cambro Nov 8th 2011 3:47PM
Spec into Telluric Currents, then lightning bolt to get mana back. Even when I was wearing bad blues at the beginning of Cataclysm, this helped a lot to keep my mana up. I also use Healbot (used to use Grid) for raid frames, and I set it up so that right clicking a person casts Greater Healing Wave. This allows me to be on the tank's target and help dps, or quickly target something that needs to be hexed or bound, and dps while regaining mana. In heroics most of my healing is through earth shield/riptide on the tank and healing rain on the group, then just GHW someone when they get low.
I focus the tank by the way, and have Show Target of Target selected, so I always know what he's attacking and can quickly pick it up.
cziamba Nov 8th 2011 3:56PM
Lesser Healing Wave no longer exists for shaman
Joe Perez Nov 8th 2011 4:01PM
Thanks for the catch, Old habbits die hard and I still call it LHW IRL. >.>
Borgthor Nov 8th 2011 4:11PM
Fantastic Q&A. Clearly the question askers are thrilled at getting great answers. After reading this I'm now itching to start leveling my little shaman again.
Kyrna Nov 8th 2011 4:25PM
My shaman is around lvl 68, and I want to start healing. What kind of heirloom gear should I be looking at to create a healing set? I only have agi stuff at the moment.
Joe Perez Nov 8th 2011 5:04PM
If you're looking to gather healing gear for heirlooms, pick up the "of the elements" set like this guy here http://www.wowhead.com/item=62025
gymboy91 Nov 8th 2011 5:09PM
do you have any other heirlooms for casters already? you don't need the mail caster ones imo
I have a pally healer who is almost 75 who uses the mail caster JP heirlooms and the cloth head (bought from the guild vendor) and he does just fine without the +5% int bonus (you really won't notice it that much until 80+)
I also leveled 2 druid healers (1 b4 cata and one during) with the cloth heirlooms and the caster mace.
my advice: if you already have caster heirlooms (chest, shoulder, back, head, weapon (either staff or mace)) that a shaman can use, go with those
if you don't have any caster heirlooms ask yourself:
-do I want to use these heirlooms later to level another caster (cloth or leather)?
if so, I would buy the cloth gear and the staff (so that future alts can use them)
-you can get the chest and shoulder pieces with JP along with the weapon
-you can buy the back and head pieces with gold (if your guild is at the needed level and your rep is high enough)
hope that helps :)
Denaar Nov 8th 2011 4:38PM
I've been healing for a while now, and I seem to do fairly well in the Zandalari Heroics. I don't, however, use Spirit Link totem. Ever. I've only seen it used by other shaman once, when I was tanking for a change of pace. Is it really not that useful, or did that shaman know something I didn't? I haven't really seen any situations where it might be helpful.
Luotian Nov 8th 2011 4:59PM
Oh, that's a good question. I dropped SLT once, and had a panic moment when health bars went all over the place. If you get a good answer for this one, let me know!
djsuursoo Nov 8th 2011 5:00PM
tis godly if you have a bunch of healers all clustered up in a big fight with tons of people(think TB or AV when one side turtles). then you just drop it and start AoE healing. the health redistribution every tick can basically give those taking the most hurt nigh-infinite healthpoints especially with bit HoTs flowing on everyone.
it's primarily a raid tool given how it works but it can be handy in a 5-man if only one person is taking damage, but taking TONS of damage(say you snagged 3 rdps). it spreads the damage load out among a significantly larger health pool, giving someone the ability to absorb far more punishment for a short time, or alternately, if you wanted to get the tank to max health from near death inside of a global cooldown it's the toy to drop. as it ticks almost instantly.
granted it's a little scary to use if everyone's around half health and you try to use it as a OMG save the person(s) near death ability as health pools diminish rapidly.
csb time: i popped it, dropped heroism and began throwing chain heals while the druids hot'd up everyone they could as we were hitting the general in isle of conquest.
i dunno what exactly happened but a nice hefty cleave/AoE from the general/horde player walloped a bunch of people in the effect radius and we went from having really good full bars all over to what looked like half the raid at 50% and falling fast from one SLT tick to the next. while we survived, this anecdote highlights a weakness in the totem:
big damage can drain a phenomenal amount of health from EVERYONE with this toem. the tank is generally going to have 150% of the DPS health, give or take. if you use it to save him from death, that first tick, you're going to see everyone at around 80% health in a five man, and if that tank is taking more huge hits for one reason or another, that overall total is going to be falling FAST.
it works on redistributing percentages, see. the more people you have, the smoother the redistribution as the one guy near death makes up a much smaller part of the average health available.
it can be really impressive when combined with something like healing rain and chain heal, tho. like i said before, infinite HP for almost 9 seconds so long as you have enough people within the effect zone to prevent a few bad hits from taking out a bunch of people at once.
Joe Perez Nov 8th 2011 5:01PM
SLT is an amazing cooldown, that sees more light of day in raids than the current dungeons. There are a few places that it could be useful in the Zandalari heroics but you can definitely do them without it. The new dungeons however have some very choice opportunity to use it.
Think of it as a big cooldown for small content. For the heroics we have now, it's just not always a useful tool. Raids and the new heroics are where it shines.
absynthe7 Nov 8th 2011 5:16PM
Oh lordy. Trust me, Spirit Link Totem is your friend - though it is hard to use. Any time there is a wipe is a time you should have used SLT.
It's tough to use, though, as you need to be right on top of anyone you want to be affected by it. Keep in mind that it not only redistributes HPs, it also reduces incoming damage for its duration. I like to use it when there's big damage on one target or when there's a lot of sustained damage on multiple targets. Think of the add phases for Firehawk boss and Panther boss in Troll heroics, or Daakara's Lynx form pounce-attack-flurry-thing. Or if there's one chain left on Jindo, I might drop SLT on top of it to protect the melee. It's also good to use when everything hits the fan on a bad trash pull ;)
For extra special bonus points, drop SLT and place a Healing Rain directly on the affected area. People know enough to stand in the blue circle now, and you'll get maximum effect as anyone already full will have their HPs moved to someone else, ensuring that the HR heal on them isn't wasted.
Edge00 Nov 8th 2011 5:24PM
SLT is awesome, It might be one of the most powerful healing cooldowns in the game. One of the great things about it is that it turns GHW into a smart heal. You can dump that spell into pretty much any person within range of the totem and the whole group will gain the healing.
tiperkins Nov 8th 2011 5:50PM
I find I use SLT on fights like Majordomo, Occu'thar, etc where everyone is grouping up to spread out damage taken. I also find it's really helpful if dropped in melee range for fights where grouping is not necessarily required, but there's still a lot of damage going out. It is a tool I use in ZA quite a bit (i.e. eagle boss, firehawk boss, casters/ranged on lynx boss, and the final boss.) So SLT does have it's uses outside of raids, you just have to look for an opportune time to use it.
Jyotai Nov 8th 2011 6:37PM
SLT was useful in on the fight in the troll heroics where they release all those dragonhawks - back when people were just gearing through that content.
Very easy for a lot of wrong people to start taking hits from those adds, and it would balance out the chaos a bit.
At present though, most people can survive that long enough for the tank to get aggro on most/all of them, and you'll only get 2 or 3 people and not 4 to 5 now that insist on agging them and then fleeing from the tank like she's got cooties...
(Honestly, 7 years into WoW, why do people still flee away from tanks when they get aggro? Its been true since classic that if you have aggro, stand on the tank's head... and in 7 years, still half of WoW can't handle this most basic mechanic.)
Luotian Nov 8th 2011 4:59PM
Joe for President, seriously. If I could get answers that helpful out of people in every other area of my life it would be amazing :).
I have tomorrow off, so I'll probably spend the day leveling my little dwarf shaman (as I love her to bits), but if I get brave I'll hop on my orc and give heroics another shot. Maybe a macro that says I'm still learning? I had one when I did first start healing, and still have it up for the disc priest I'm trying out, that I could dig out and modify slightly.