Hello travelers, please be weary of these signs to let you know that you have a terrible resto shaman in your group!!!
- Healing surge top heal.
- Doesn’t utilize Tidal Waves or Conduit buffs properly.
- Low Riptide/Earth Shield uptime.
- Goes oom.
If your group is failing and it feels like a healing issue, check for these signs and if they are present you might just have a bad resto shaman.
Top Healing in literally almost every situation should be:
- Riptide
- Healing Wave
- Earthen Wall or Cloudburst (I prefer Healing Stream totem)
Thanks.
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Those indicators might apply if you have tanks that are kiting or using cooldowns properly, DPS that don’t stand in bad things and have high DPS, and the group is interrupting and dispelling properly. More often than not, a group wipe is because of the lack of many of above circumstances than because of a bad healer. And some people prefer to play different ways, which doesn’t make them a bad healer, but not what someone would sim as optimal.
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This is why I don’t heal, I think I’ll be horrible at it, and these threads literally just make me more never wanna try healing…theirs such a huge standard…
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Well, for resto Shamans, they do have an interrupt and don’t have less issues with mana than some other healing classes, plus you can stay at range without lost of effectiveness.
The main thing to remember as a healer in dungeons is to set your own pace. If there’s a tank that’s chain pulling too much too often without giving you time to mana back up, then just stay out of combat range and let them die while you mana back up. A decent tank will realize that they need to pay more attention to the healer’s mana, kite or interrupt more, pull less, or give you more time in between pulls to be able to start drinking, while a bad tank will complain that you suck as a healer, in which case, don’t take it personally.
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I get that in raids but in M+ it’s never like that. Healing Surge is usually among the top heals.
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Or simply say mana. No need to be toxic out the gate. You can even macro it to your beverage of choice.
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I agree with @Jinaria . Low riptide and Earth shield uptime may be from lack of experience but healing surge and conduits being used at times that seem strange could be from the tank having a pace that doesn’t match up with the group’s experience or item level or DPS running around. I don’t heal too frequently but even as DPS I see more tanks that must have been carried by great heals for their career or just really youtubed down some mythic + speed runs and are trying to follow that pace on normal group finder dungeons.
@Pepino don’t let it discourage you sir. Healing is fun and rewarding and also lets you see the game from a different perspective. Shaman resto can chuck fire balls and lighting for some damage while splashing water around. It’s pretty fun.
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UH OH looks like we found one boys!~
He is correct though, go look through m+ logs of the top Resto Shamans and you will see Healing Surge usually in or right near the top healing done.
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Don’t know what you are trying to prove with this.
Gaming tidal waves for a big Healing Surge crit is more likely to save someone in M+ then being mana efficient for a 1 minute pull.
I’ve literally lost people because the healing wave was the wrong choice.
If you are talking raids, it’s funny to say you prefer healing stream totem but make a thread like this. I also prefer HST, but I can just throw cloud burst on CD and it can more than Quadruple HST. I hate that it’s so good because it really is just that good why wouldn’t you take it.
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Doubt.
Healing Wave isn’t present in m+. It’s also not heavily present in raid.
Also from someone that doesn’t advocate cloudburst totem, this post is full of misinformation.
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The only times I use healing waves in M+ is when the damage is absurdly low or during pride or pulsing damage when the whole group is taking damage and all of us have riptide rolling and I can pop a CBT So I can kill 5 birds with 1 stone of you know what I mean. Kind of like a paladin’s Divine Toll
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Yesterday in spires, got a go go VDH for an M8.
Leapt to the next pack (prolly having a blast) right after bosses and big pulls. It wasn’t so much me OOM as…he was 2/3 dead by the time I got into range. I kept him up as best I could, but…he eventually died. I said, “you’re getting out of range of me…can’t heal”. He’s like, all good bro.
Happened again and again, wiping the team as we got further in. Turned the run into a crap fest. We ended the dungeon with my earth ele tanking Devos as tank was dead.
Looking at my 4.5 M total heals, riptide was highest, but healing surge was second. Cloudburst and wellspring are always 2 and 3…not this time. Too many people standing in bad, and going from 100 to 15% in one second. Not much I can do about that but sigh
Edit: in thinking about Hwave vs Hsurge, remember that surge has +40% crit rate under riptide. Still need more testing, but to me, surge should be favored over wave.
Edit2: having come from restodruid, I’m yet to run out of mana, on any content, using Rshaman…our mana systems are amazing
Healing Wave is often in my top 3 because of Primordial Wave duplication and the fact it heals the entire party for tons and is really good. I’m surprised its low on healing for anyone when they are running PW.
As far as Wave vs Surge they should both be used. Surge is more in a panic but Wave heals for more over all for the time spent if you don’t count the crits (you should be running crit anyways so Wave should crit a lot too, and since it heals more it will crit for more)
PS: I also play Holy Paladin and I just want to say that Divine Bell is basically Primordial Wave that does not need any prep or to be set off by a large cast. It has all the upsides of PW with none of the downsides (like having to hard cast Wave and keep RT one everyone). I can’t believe people thought RSham was OP initially.
PPS: This is the character I actually play:
??
Shaman shouldn’t be running crit in m+.
Even if running crit in raid, surge is better if mana is not a concern. You can see this on fights like Kael.
Healing Wave is just to slow to use efficiently in dungeons. M+ is all about speed and healing spikey damage. Wasting extra time casting a longer single target heal just takes your time away from being able to get in extra damage as a healer and be more efficient with interrupts and totem drops.
Outside of using Healing Wave with Primordial Wave buff up, Healing Surge tends to be the better option in most M+ situations. In the same time it takes to get 2 Healing Waves out, most resto shamans can get 3 Healing Surges out. Healing Surge is just not nearly as mana efficient as Wave, but mana isn’t a problem in M+ as we can drink between pulls the odd time it’s needed and we are restored to full mana after each prideful.
It all depends on the player. If you are looking to maximize your casts on each pull then you can heal faster with Surge and get more damage in. If you play a bit more passively and there is no big spikey damage on the party, then you can heal with Wave.
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The spell co-efficents are 300% for Wave vs 248% for Surge, so as we gear the gap grows bigger and bigger, but the gap in cast time is always 0.5 seconds. I defiantly use Surge more than Wave outside of PW charges since it’s usually about a panic’d heal on someone that didn’t avoid a mechanic, but Wave is still a really strong spell and should always be considered.
If you’re not using it on PW then I don’t know what the heck you’re doing, but no one seems to be arguing that it shouldn’t be used for that.
Same here, I end up using both since I am Necrolord and Primordial Wave is fantastic with Healing Wave. It’s amazing on Prideful, with Healing Rain down, Earthen Wall and Cloudburst, I find that I don’t have to use any other CD. Outside of blanketing the group with Riptide, casting the Primordial Wave + Healing Wave combo just tops everyone up. Cloudburst popping too is pretty much almost a big CD on its own during Prideful.
I do end up using Healing Wave on tanks here and there, all other party members in the dungeon I normally heal through Healing Surge if direct healing them, outside of Riptide.
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Wrong.
Healing surge is a weaker and more expensive heal, people are just fooled because they see it crit more because of tidal waves and think its way better to use than healing wave when in reality…
If you properly utilize tidal waves, healing wave is going to heal more, cast just as fast and cost less mana… while at the same time still critting more often than naught because hey guess what? Resto shamans stack crit…
TLDR: Healing Wave is better and should be your top heal under RT. Use Riptide on CD, utilize Tidal waves, don’t panic, and heal better.
Maybe its just me playing the game for 15 years but healing isn’t hard and I don’t panic when the tank gets low. You need to understand that the tank is doing everything they can to mitigate damage and stay alive, assuming they are decent because lol that’s their jobs. You don’t always need to panic heal the tank they aren’t going to drop dead in a normal situation.
24% of mana for 252% of spell power. Gets more crit from tidal waves.
15% of mana for 300% of spell power. Casts faster from tidal waves to match surge but will also benefit more from mastery (stronger, longer cast = lower HP = stronger mastery) and passive crit chance that resto stacks.
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Between Earth Shield, Riptide, & Healing Stream Totem, I rarely have to sink big heals into tanks.
And people assume cloudburst is always better in every situation when in reality, healing stream totem is much more efficient!! By nature, it is a smart heal that targets the lowest HP.
I am a hater of cloudburst but I won’t dismiss its strengths, when you can actually predict damage and prepare for it… Yes, cloudburst is stronger for snap burst healings… But for me, I’d rather have healing stream automatically covering the loose ends because I am comfortable healing without it. I think cloudburst is a crutch for most resto shamans who just wanna rely on an extra CD for burst healing.