I main a resto druid that’s 678 ilvl and working on getting all dungeons timed on 13…
I recently switched to resto shamans and am having difficulty with mana efficiency. I feel like I eat through it way faster than on my druid. The druid I just go cat form do a couple 5 combo point ferocious bites and I’m full again. I can also wrath spam…I know shamans have a talent for something similar but is seems way under powered.
I’ve struggled with the mana at times gearing up my resto shaman as well. Some of that was coming back to the class/spec and not being efficient.
As I moved up to farming 10s for vault/crests I’ve gotten more efficient with my rotation and my mana goes a lot further now but I still run out if we’re chain pulling or someone taking constant damage from dots or whatever.
Overall, I think with efficient play the mana issues are fine in a vacuum. The problem I have is we’re not in a vacuum and you see other healers never having mana issues. On disc priest I never look at my mana bar and rarely had to drink on my holy paladin. And I haven’t played resto Druid but it sounds like it’s much more mana efficient.
If one healer can run out of mana, then all healers should run out of mana, or they all can go relatively indefinitely without mana issues. Not following how/why certain healers pay a mana tax and others don’t. Should be the same for all healers.
And maybe you and I are just running into gear issues. The shaman version is based on crit, so being just so-so on crit rating isn’t going to return as much mana. I don’t mind if a class/spec is more gear dependent - makes the upgrades more meaningful and fun. But once my crit is through the roof if I’m still having mana issues compared to other healers I’ll be a little disappointed.
I don’t feel like this is really that big of an issue.
I run the same content you do. The only time mana is really an issue is when I heal, more specifically chain heal when any other lower costing heal would have been the better choice, or even a riptide.
I am not saying you are doing it wrong I am more saying I notice when I make mistakes in healing by choose to use a chain heal or the fast single target heal when I absolutely had time to use the longer single target heal.
But I can agree that the penalty for those choices is by far higher than any other healer
I’ve healed 14s and 13s, healed several mythic traffic bosses. In can’t remember the last time I drank because I needed to. You’re probably doing things wrong. Here’s some pointers.
gear for crit first. A high crit with you worse secondary is better than low crit with your best. Crit is mana return.
healing isn’t an rotation. It’s triage. Don’t constantly cast heals. Do some damage or utility. It’s ok for someone to not be topped off
chain heal only when necessary. It’s expensive.
use your totems for most of your healing. If totemic, casting healing steam is an free chain heal. Use it. Don’t drop it in advance, drop it when multiple people are injured.
healing wave is much cheaper than healing surge. Use wave whenever you have time.
always keep tidal waves up. Never hard cast without then unless it’s life or death
Recently switched to resto, and the biggest thing that helped me is with totemic, timing a healing totem well when needed, not just casting it to cast it.
Also, using totemic recall.
Also, not sitting on healing cds. Realize you have a bunch, and can rotate them pretty fluidly to conserve mana.
This has been getting me through 13s/14s so far.
Quality of groups matters a lot. The higher you go in keys the more you play with people that push their keys and will use defensives and utility to minimize damage, which drastically conserves mana.
While that is true, there’s also less total damage at the lower levels to balance it out. I find that the majority of people having problems are just not using their kit effectively.
You’re underestimating how much damage people can take that don’t use their kit to help the healers. I’m definitely not the first healer to say it’s harder to heal low keys than it is the high keys.
And to make sure we’re still on point with the topic in relation to the above, shaman is one of the few healers that has to rely on group using their kit to really help with the mana. When I’m on my disc, while I prefer relaxed runs where everyone is interrupting and self cleaning and using healing pots and using stops and using defensives to make my life easy, I can heal the unruly runs without even worrying about mana - just the extra stress of having to pump heals. On Shammy you have the extra stress of having to pump heals AND watching the mana bar.
And yes, if you read my previous posts I’ve already mentioned not playing correctly can cause mana issues, so that’s part of the equation. Though, again, on my disc priest you have to really mess up your rotation super duper bad to ever even come close to same mana problems. And please note, I’m not just picking on disc priest, other healers are more mana efficient too, I just have more experience with disc.
thanks all for the good advice…
since this post I upgraded a couple pieces and got a trinket from the cartel chips…I’ve also got my crit to about crit to over 21k or 35.78% (with crit flask and Mana Oil)
I’ve also changed a couple of talents and started using my totems more reactively instead of proactively and noticed a huge different.
it’s definitely not the same as resto druid and I’m learning to rely on more of my raw output than what druids are capable of which is more HoTs.
Yeah it’s a totally different animal than druid. Druid are proactive, you want to prepare for damage and ramp for spikes. Shaman are reactive, bar goes down you push it back up (a few spells like spirit link are an exception to this). Totally different styles of healing although both can be fun
It’ll continue helping you up into the high teens too, solid advice.
Casting wave feels awful as it doesn’t benefit from most talents compared to surge.
Casting wave feels fine, just remember to tidal wave first. It’s far more mana efficient. If you don’t use your mana efficient spells, you’re going to have mana issues. No shock there. Its purpose is an efficient spell when you need less healing than surge provides. It and riptide are your main maintenance heals. Surge is the high damage single target heal. If you don’t use wave when appropriate over surge, you’re playing the class wrong. It would be like an dps complaining that hitting his filler button feels bad because it’s not his highest damage ability. Or saying they should remove the cd on that ability so they can just spam 1 spell.
Go Farseer and get one of the Mana Tide talents. Riptide is the most efficient heal known to man. Every 30 seconds you get a free, super Chain Heal that summons an ancestor, then you drop Healing Tide, then you get 3 instant, 50% cheaper Healing Surges. It doesn’t get much more bursty than that imo, the ancestors is repeating all of it (you should have 2 because you should Unleash Life before the Nature Swiftness Chain Heal), it’s so mobile too, you can be moving the entire time during the combo. So it’s the most effective at saving you mana when you ACTUALLY need the burst healing which is when you tend to spend the most mana lol.
You also can throw on the healing and absorb gem. You lose the stats but they are mana savers since it’s literally free healing.