Resto Shaman PvP... I suck.

Kvasira hit 10,000 honor kills, has the full set of purchasable level 80 epic PvP gear, including trinket and cloak. The only thing I could work towards now is upgrading one of my rings and necklace to the epic form rather than the rare crafted ones. I'm also working towards getting one of the PvP mounts. 30 badges of each of the original three types. I'd have had it a long time ago, except I did a lot of concerted efforts instead to raise my honor faster to buy stuff.

So... I'm bored with that for the moment.

And I decide, given how much I bitch about resto/healers in PvP (opponents, love 'em when they're on our side), I'd take my shaman in and see how I can do with PvP there.

I have a LOT to learn. It doesn't help that I don't have ANY PvP gear with her (gonna craft myself the necklace/rings today). Once the Horde figure out that 1: I'm a healer and 2: I die like a baby mouse against a lion, I'm their preferred target to kill.

Granted, there were a few times where I sat there and said, 'Yeah, just keep hitting on me. While you're trying to kill me, my companions are killing you/capping the flag/assaulting the base.' If I don't get stunned, stunlocked or silenced, I can keep myself alive pretty easily.

I also have new respect for the healers I used to work with. Never again while I am running the flag will I leave them behind unwittingly. There's nothing nothing more annoying than having the flag runner get away from you because you're trying to stay alive, and then watch them die just out of your healing range.

Yeah.

So, resto pvp for me. Any suggestions?

Totems: Tremor (where appropriate) or Earthbind, Wrath, Cleansing and Magma?
Earthshield on myself (or flag runner with Watershield on myself).
And then just heal my tush off.

I'm having issues where I'll try to hit Nature's Swiftness and then a Healing Wave or Chain Heal and I can't get it off in time.

Part of my PvP problems arise from the fact that I don't use keybindings. I've tried in the past, and I just get confused. Now, some of that will go away if I just practice/practice/practice. And I may need to switch to that, and using the mouse to move instead of the awsd keys.

Yeah, I can hear you... yes, I use the awsd keys. And the qe keys. I'm a terribad player, I know.

Restoration Shaman: Talent Tree

Here is my current build.

I'm going to explain the things that need explaining, rather than the 'No, really?' ones. Or the ones I'm thinking of changing, or some such.

Enhancement:
5/5 Ancestral Knowledge: Because 10% extra intellect is sexy.

3/3 Improved Shields: Because Mana Shield and Earth Shield boosted by 15% is also sexy.

3/5 Thundering Strikes: Actually, I only need 2/5 so I'm going to put this down to lag and me clicking one time too many. However, increased crit strike chance on spells by 3 (or 2)% is pretty nice.

And I need it for:

3/3 Elemental Weapons: Increasing the bonus healing on my Earthliving Weapon by 30%? Now, some may say... big deal, so what? And I've never been very good at figuring out numbers. But it would seem to me that 30% bonus healing ... is good?

Restoration:
3/3 Ancestral Healing: Increases armor by 25%... it's nifty, definately nifty. But I'm thinking of putting these points elsewhere. Especially as thus far, in raid situations, I tend to be on raid healing, and most of the time, those people don't need increased armor.

0 Healing Grace: In raids, you usually aren't worried about threat, not since they boosted the heck out of the threat generation of tanks. And... we really don't have many cases where we're worried about people dispelling our spells. I can see where in PvP that would be quite useful to not have your Earth Shield dispelled from you.

0 Healing Way: This would seem like a big one, and it IS a very nice boost!... if you're using Healing Wave very often. Maybe it's just me, maybe it isn't... but for the vast majority of my healing, I'm not using Healing Wave. I tend to use a lot of Lesser Healing Wave, Riptide, and Chain Heal. I use Healing Way on the tank and usually just need to hit him (or her!) with it just once before I go back to using something else.

0 Nature's Guardian: If I fix Thundering Strikes and possibly move points out of Ancestral Healing, this is where I'd put it. Sure, the 10% healing is nice (but only 10%), but it's the threat reduction that makes me go 'mmmm'. Now, in raiding situations, this is unlikely to either help (one shot = dead = 0 threat anyway!), but in 5-mans (I'm looking at you, Skadi's gauntlet!), losing threat by being hit may help keep you alive. Otherwise, you're having to try to juggle healing the tank, healing yourself, healing the DPS and using Windshock on multiple targets... usually ends in SQUITZH)

2/2 Blessing of the Eternals: Crit by 4%, and increases chance to apply Earthliving by 40% to targets under 35% health? Why would you not take this?

2/2 Improved Chain Heal: Maybe it's the fact that Shaman have an 'AoE' heal that we can spam pretty quickly, which is a smart heal... but I tend to get put on raid healing a lot. So... 20% increase to it. Yesplz.

3/3 Ancestral Awakening: When I crit, someone else pops in and heals the most hurt person by 30% of my crit amount? Small beans, but it's one less thing I have to do immediately.

2/2 Improved Earth Shield: Now, some restoration shamans don't have this, but I think it's pretty important. It goes along the line of 'healing I don't have to actively do', increases charges by 2 (so, instead of 6, they have 8) and increases the healing done by 10%. This gives the tank time to get aggro before I start healing threat, and gives me a chance to drop totems where I want them while the tank is being passively healed.

5/5 Tidal Waves: After Riptide or Chain Heal, my spell casting on my next two Lesser Healing and Healing Wave decreases by 30%. My roughly 2.5 second Healing Wave becomes a roughly 2 second Healing Wave. My Lesser Healing Wave takes a mere second to cast. It also boosts the effect of my Healing and Lesser Healing waves by 20/10%. I consider this such a big boost to how I actually heal that I try to use Riptide or Chain Heal even when I really don't NEED to, to clean up splash damage or some such.



One of the hardest parts of leveling up, for me, is putting in talent points. Because each individual point, by itself, really doesn't mean very much. And you have to plan out where you want things to go so you can get to what you're really after. So, looking at each individual talent and what it does in and of itself, while a nice exercise in 'Hey, that sounds nifty', what I'm really after is the overall effect of the talents put together into a solid whole healy shaman.

Each little part, especially with the addition of glyphs that suit your play style and heal style, make you into one heck of a healbot.

Now, every player will likely talent themselves slightly differently. So please, feel free to poke holes at what I have down here, give your insights to the benefits of ancestral healing, healing way, thundering strikes, elemental weapons... etc.

Karika goes to Naxxramas-25

Yesterday, Boon and Vialora celebrated Vialora's 21st birthday by getting drunk and shooting zombies. Owaru joined in.

So Neshura, Posolutely and myself were at loose ends. And lo and behold, an ex-guildie was trying to get together a 25-man Naxx.

So I ask what he needs. Healer, DPS.

I tell him I have a restoration shaman and Nesh was on and Pos was on in the form of Abs the warlock.

He wound up tanking, but ... I offered Abs! Don't look at me that way.

So, they somehow wound up with 6 healers... but I was the only shaman healer, and one of only two shaman at all. The other was elemental and geared very nicely.

So, we hit the spiders first. And what should drop but the Shield of Assimilation. A caster ring also dropped, but I figured I'd go for what I know I can get. :)

Then we hit up the Widow, and the Atonement Greaves dropped. I asked if, even though I already got a drop, if it was going to just get sharded, if anyone minded if I took them.

And lastly, Maexxna donated the Quivering Tunic to the righteous cause of gearing up Karika.

We didn't get any others down, but I figure.. that's good enough for one night, right?

Woot woot. Go shammy, go shammy, go!

Restoration Shaman: Mana Regen

Most of you may be wondering... why am I reading about a restoration shaman on a blog that's titled 'More Dots' and has a picture of a firey woman (presumably a warlock) as it's avatar?

Yeah, I don't know why either. But here you are!

So moment of 'Eeee!' here. I put up my email address and haven't had anyone email me... until now!

Eeeee!

Could it be a spoof? Possssibly. But I will put my faith in the anonymity of the internet!

The question ... is more of a rambling question! It's about mana regeneration for restoration shamans in a fight that involves a lot of movement.

Without our Mana Spring Totem, we're as dependent on spirit for our mana regeneration as any other class, right? Well... sort of.

(Yeah, go ahead. Go there. Look at it. LOOK AT IT! And then go crosseyed and stop looking... stop looking. Really, quit it. Come back here now. Numbers make you go insane, don't you know that?)

While spirit is still a mana regeneration stat for us, and indeed, a certain level of mp5 is very advisable for any raid or heroic... we do have other options.

First: Water Shield
Improved Water Shield - This ability is in our third tier on the restoration tree, requiring 10 points to get. Our Water Shield at max rank gives back 400 mana per 'globe' and a passive 100 mp5.

Water Shield costs NO MANA to cast. Water Shield should be up ALL THE TIME. As soon as it drops off, pop it back on.

If you're worried about GCD, get Glyph of Water Shield and Glyph of Water Mastery for an additional 'globe' and to boost the passive mana regen effect of the water shield.

Second: Totems
Mana Tide Totem has a 5 minute cooldown, which sucks, but returns 24% of your mana in 12 seconds. Additionally, Glyph of Mana Tide Totem will increase that return an additional 4% of mana.

Now, I hear you say, "But you already said this was for a moving fight!" ... yes. And so you may not get the full benefit of this totem if you have to move more than 30yards away from it.

Whatever fight you're fighting, try to pick a place to slap down ALL of your totems that will hopefully allow you to be within 30 yards of them no matter where you are.

Typically, when I'm in a fight where I'm going to have to be dodging around, I try to pick the 'center' of the fighting area and slap down all my totems, even if it means for a few seconds I'm standing on top of the tank and the boss.

My rule of thumb? Know your fight. If you know you'll have a chance to sit still for 12 seconds while the boss does something, and you're even close to 24% mana down? Pop your Mana Tide Totem. Pop it early so that if it's a long fight, you may be able to use it a second time. (This is also my rule of thumb for Shadowfiend for priests. Use it early so you can use it a second time if the fight is lingering.)

Know your ground. Find a place you can set down your totems. It seems to me that most totems are not affected by AoE abilities and have to be deliberately targetted to be destroyed, despite their low hit points. So even if you have a boss that has an AoE ability, they should still survive and hopefully provide good benefits to everyone in the party.

Thirdly: Talents and Glyphs
Make sure you have all the healing boosting abilities you can get. Things that boost the amount you heal either directly (Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave, Tidal Waves and Purification) or indirectly (Glyph of Earthliving Weapon, Ancestral Awakening), things that increase your crit chance (Tidal Force and Blessing of the Eternals) so you get more bang for your buck (and possibly use up a water charge).

The less time you spend casting, the more passive mana regen you will gain from spirit and mp5. Earth Shield can be boosted with Improved Earth Shield and Riptide will decrease the amount of time you spend actively healing, as well as boost the effects of your lesser healing wave (if glyphed for it) and chain healing if required.

Don't be afraid to use things that have cooldowns. Early and often.

And last but not least... water shield, water shield, water shield.

I have a hard time sometimes remembernig to put it back on myself, especially when I'm casting a lot.

But your tank will die if you run out of mana, but will live long enough (hopefully!) for you to slap a water shield on yourself.

Like any healing class, it's about pacing yourself and your mana. Watch your overhealing. If you have multiple healers, make sure you communicate with them on who you're healing to avoid overhealing.

If you're running low on mana, but some other healer has a metric ton of it, ask them to take over to let some passive mp5 tick away.

If it's an issue where you're overhealing a lot because the other healer is getting to them faster... was it a required 'faster'? Or are they stepping on your healing toes/assignments?

There's more to evaluating who is the best healer than who heals for more.

I hope that helps my questioner!

Brand New Year, Same Old Tricks

If you've been wondering where I have been (and I know you've missed me... it's been over 10 days since I've been around! How did you ever survive?), I was in Florida!

Florida, by the way, is just south of Un'Goro. The raptors are just a bit smaller, but still everywhere. And don't get me started on the size of the pterrodax's!

Anyway... so it's a brand new year. Have you guys made your Resolutions?

I made mine in November, shortly after my birthday. How am I doing with that? Meh. The wagon has fallen off the beaten path, but it's still stubbornly chugging along. Had to fix an axle here, a wheel there, but it's still plugging along.

But enough about the boring real world... how about in WoW?

Just because it's a virtual world doesn't mean you can't make resolutions for it, too.

Want that Traveler's Tundra Mammoth? Is your resolution to farm an hour (or more!) a day for funding?

Drooling over some piece of gear but feel you'll never be able to get into the instance it drops in? Have you decided to work towards bettering your character and your gear in ways you can?

Are you a DPS class that's getting outDPS'd continuously by the tank? Have you looked into what's going wrong? Do you have recount? Do you have appropriate gear for your class? Etc.

Since I'm perfect, I have no Resolutions in WoW.

(I'm kidding.)

We've started to hit Heroics with our Paladins (by 'we', I mean Boon and Kvasira) and ran our first two last night - Heroic Violet Hold and Heroic Culling of Stratholme.

We're going to be venturing into 10-man Naxx this weekend, just for a looksee and to see how many times in one night we can die. Any wagers?

I'm guessing we wipe at least 5 times. On our way to the first boss.

My shaman dinged 78 yesterday and so naturally I made Seraphelia (Boon's Blood/Frost DK) tank CoS at 78 too.

We made it through with only one true wipe. We had people die here and there, and I had to pull out all my tricks to keep my mana up. And at one point, I was tanking when Seraphelia died on a pull. Why did Seraphelia die? Because I thought it would be funny! (No, I'm kidding.)

It was very fun, in my opinion and I think Seraphelia did just swimmingly. The only true wipe was on Mal'Ganis, because no one realized he had a frontal arc AoE and I just couldn't keep everyone alive. (Bad shammy, BAD!)

Seraphelia however, kept giving me the hairy eyeball because we had three 78's in the instance. ("What part of 80 instance do you not understand, K?!")

*giggle*

Oh, it's good to be back.

Restoration Shaman Glyphs

This post is going to focus mainly on the glyphs (mainly major) that are beneficial for restoration shaman and why they are all so delicious and it's not fair to only be able to get 3 of them.

Please keep in mind that all numbers given are numbers based off of Karika, who is only level 74 and has only a little over 1k bonus healing.

Major

Glyph of Chain Heal

• There are plenty of times when you're Riptiding/Chain Healing like a mad-goat! Those snarky AoE attacks, times when everyone seems to be taking tons of damage all at once. (Or DPS going craaaaazy and everyone pulling a different mob while the tank rips out his or her hair or fur...) With Chain Healing being our only 'group heal', besides our Healing Stream Totem, this is an interesting one to consider. However, the things to consider about Chain Heal... that it decreases by 50% per person as it bounces.
• Let's consider those numbers? I'm level 74, so I don't know what a level 80 would do, but right now I'm doing about 3k primary heal (a little over 1k bonus healing)... second person gets healed for 1500, third person for 750... a fourth person would be healed for only 375.
• With Riptide, which gives your chain heals a boost of 25%, that's 3.6 to 1.8 to 0.9 to a whopping 450 health by the fourth person.
• Any health is better than no health, and with chain healing now being intelligent, it should heal the person who needs the health most with the larger jumps and so on down the line.

Glyph of Earthliving Weapon

• Earthliving Weapon increases your healing by 110. It carries a natural 20% chance to proc on any healing spell and causes 456 health over 12 seconds.
• The glyph will cause this to proc 5% more often. So a 25% chance to proc.
• Instead of proccing once every 5 casts (or so), it will happen once every 4 casts (or so).
• If I'm doing the math right (and this may not be the case!), every 20 casts unglyphed you'll have Earthliving Weapon doing 2000 healing. Glyphed and that number jumps up to 2500 healing. Woopee, right? 500 more healing. Extend that out please. Try 200 casts of a healing spell. Those numbers become 20,000 and 25,000. Now you're talking about a 5,000 hit point difference.

Glyph of Healing Stream Totem

• Base Healing Stream Totem heals for 20 health per five seconds.
• The glyph makes it heal for 24 health per five seconds.
• Over 1 minute, base heals for 240 hit points, glyphed for 288.
• Over 5 minutes, base heals for 1200 hit points, glyphed for 1440.
• Over 10 minutes, base heals for 2400, glyphed for 2880.
• imnsho, this has limited use for things other than possibly PvP and long boss fights where people take small amounts of splash damage. (Please comment if you disagree or see a utility for this glyph/totem that I am not seeing.)

Glyph of Healing Wave

• Healing Wave heals for 2162-2465 (tooltip). When I cast it on myself, my numbers range from 4k to start, then as Healing Way takes over, an additional 6%, 12% and 18% up to 8k criticals.
• The glyph will heal me for 20% of my heal when I heal someone else.
• An 8k crit will heal me for 1600. A 4k heal will heal me for 800. 5k for 1000, 6k for 1200 and 7k for 1400. I'm sure you can figure out the trend.
• This glyph, imnsho, appears highly situational. Where most of the time you aren't going to need the effect and very few times when you will. Again, PvP, high splash damaging fights, etc.

Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave

• Lesser Healing Wave does 1392-1588 (tooltip), in my hands, that comes out to about 2.5k
• The glyph causes this to do 20% more healing if the target has Earth Shield on them. (And how often do you not have Earth Shield on your tank, who is getting a vast majority of your heals anyway, I ask you!)
• A 2500 heal becomes a 3000 heal, a 2700 heal becomes 3240, a 3000 becomes a 3600. I'm sure you can also see the trend in this.
• In my opinion, given the loss of downranking, I tend to use LHW more than HW, since I don't want to overheal with a big HW, but I don't want to stand there not casting for an hour. Thus I wind up doing a fair amount of LHW between sometimes needing to boost them with a HW.
• Useful for PvP as well, given that most shaman that I've seen there go for the fast heals of LHW rather than the more hefty but longer casting time HW.

Glyph of Mana Tide Totem

• Mana Tide Totem gives 6% max.mana every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. This equates to 24% mana return.
• Glyphed Mana Tide Totem gives 7% max/mana every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. This equates to 28% mana return.
• At 10,000 mana, this equates to 600mp3 to a total of 2400 mana gained and 700mp3 to a total of 2800 mana gained.
• At 15,000 mana, that's 900/3600 and 1050/4200.
• Given that your Mana Tide Totem is often an 'oh sh....t' button for when the healing has to go out fast and heavy and your mana is getting way too low, this is a nice little boost. The 5 minute cooldown makes us cry.

Glyph of Water Mastery

• Water Shield gives a base 65 mp5 at my level. Each charge gives 246-247 (tooltip) mana returned. Most restoration shamans that are not soloing run Water Shield on themselves and Earth Shield on their tank.
• This returns 780 mana per minute when active. With 3 charges used, that's an additional 738 mana returned.
• The glyph causes 30% passive mana regen to our water shield. Our 65 mp5 becomes 84.5 mp5. This causes our 780 mana per minute to become 1014 mana per minute.
  

Minor

In my opinion, the minor glyphs for shaman are neat little perks, but only one really gives me tingles. So I'm not going to spend nearly as much time on them.

Glyph of Astral Recall

• Reduces the cooldown of Astral Recall by 2.5 minutes. From 15 minutes to 12.5 minutes.

Glyph of Ghost Wolf

• While in Ghost Wolf form, health regen increased by 1% hp5. This is nice because most of us use Ghost Wolf when we're running away from a fight because we're low on mana (and thus likely low on health). However, not all that useful since you can't use Ghost Wolf in an indoor instance.

Glyph of Renewed Life

• After reincarnating (who does this anyway!), all stats increased by 5% for one minute. This is a nice glyph, especially when you're reincarnating less as a raid/party save and more as a 'oh crap, need a healer NOW to try to kill this boss so we don't have to have a raid/party save!'. And how many times do we do that and wind up dying again right away?
• So we go from 20% health and mana (for arguments sake, we'll use my stats, 9500 and 12000), which is 1900 and 2400. By increasing our stats by 5%, our top ends go to 9975 and 12600... which gives us 1995 health and 2520 mana. Frankly, that doesn't impress me. That's still low enough a sneeze by an elite will take me out.
• Okay, so maybe a level 74 shaman isn't the best to take numbers from! Okay then, let's just boost those numbers up a bit? 15000 and 15000! A little more accurate probably? Possibly? That's 3000 at 20% and 3150 at 25%. Still not good odds imnsho.
• Boon just pointed out that this, combined with Mana Tide Totem, will actually increase your rate of mana regen if you have to reincarnate and pop Mana Tide Totem. Which I had not considered. So, our 15000 max mana becomes 15750 max mana... so Mana Tide Totem would return (unglyphed) 945 mp3, total of 3780 and (glyphed) 1102.5 mp3, total of 4410.
• For comparison, without this glyph, with 15000 mana, Mana Tide would return 900/3600 and 1050/4200.
• Still not good odds, imnsho. :)
• And ANOTHER thing, apparently resto shaman can get improved reincarnation (really! Who needs this!) that at ranks 1/2 gives an additional 10/20%. I'm too tired to do the math. You do it.
• (I do not have improved reincarnation on my resto shaman. It is something I will consider. But really, how often do you need to reincarnate? I rarely have to!)

Glyph of Water Breathing/Glyph of Water Walking

• No reagents! @whee!

Glyph of Water Shield

• One additional charge on your water shield. Instead of 3 charges, that brings it up to 4 charges.
• 3 charges gives you 738 mana. 4 charges raises that to 984 mana before the shield dissipates and you need to burn your GCD activating another one.
• GCD on shocks, healing spells, purge, totems and cleanse spirit.
• imnsho, this is the best of the minor glyphs, besides the no reagents to the water breathing and water walking!

I am certain that there will be people out there, shaman among them!, who will disagree with some (or all! Who knows?) of what I say. Which is great! Post why you disagree! Let's chat. :)

(And yes, I do realize some of the linked abilities/spells are at rank 1. I'm too lazy to go and figure out if I should get the rank I currently have, or at rank 80 or... bleh. I can't do ALL the work people! Geeze.)

80 and 74

Kvasira hit 80 last night. I flew her out to Sholazar Basin, since I 1: had never been and 2: I figured a new quest hub would have more condensed quests than an older hub that has you going every which way.

I was right! And I hit 80 in a brief period of time. During that time I had a troll rogue named Rogueray ninja a saronite node from me. (Hi Rogueray!)

I was there. I was tapping. He rides up. He dismounts. He taps. Unfortunately, I have auto-loot on, so I wasn't able to 'hold' the node. :(

Now, could it be an issue where one of us is lagging slightly and thinks they really were there first? Sure! But I doubt it. Rogues are sneaky bastids. They steal things. It's in the class definition!

(So, for your roleplayers out there, how do you handle someone doing something 'in character' for them, even if it's a rude thing to do, like node-ninjaing?)

I power leveled my JCing (yes, my paladin is a miner/jewelcrafter. Hush.) so I can start to do the JC dailies. And since I have 4 BOP world blue JC drops from Northrend, I figured it was worth it.

Then last night I went into Old Kingdom with my shaman. She was a pitiful level 73. Rawr. The only time we wiped was because someone *coughwarlockcough* who shall not be named *coughAbsitivelycough* aggro'd 9 people.

And then I used the soulstone that was on me and started to rez. And a patrol tagged me.

And then I used my reincarnate (ignore previous post) and continued to rez.

And then I saved the day (rawr) when some minion or another *coughFelguardcough* was set on aggressive and went and aggro'd another group of six after a boss fight. We lost no one, even though mobs were everywhere at first! I am teh awesome. And I was using my staff instead of a shield. And I didn't die. So NYAH.

Of course, I suppose the druid tank and the deathknight deathgripping things to be whacketted on and off of the squishy/crunchies helped a teeeeensy bit. But it was so all me. *flex*

(I will completely gloss over the fact that I forgot to put on Earthliving Weapon. Nope. Didn't happen.)

And now my shaman is 74. *woot*

Yay for progression! I have so much fun healing as a shaman. I was contemplating glyphs the other day for her. Something I will post more in-depth on later.

My healing experience, let me just say, has been a priest as holy from the getgo, a shaman that went resto at 58, a druid that started balance/resto, went resto briefly at 58-60, then went rawr-tank and a paladin that says, "Holy Light? Oh, you mean the really SLOW healing spell as opposed to the instant Art of War Flash of Light?"

Who needs reincarnation...

... when you never die?

My shaman is my secondary project to Kvasira and at a mighty mighty level 73, I spend a good portion of my time soloing, trying to catch up to Boon's DK, who keeps outleveling me because he's mean.

Now, I am FIRMLY in the camp that ANY class/spec combination is soloable. You just have to know how to do it. (This explains how my holy/disc priest leveled as holy/disc.)

When I hit outlands, I shifted from enhancement to restoration on my shaman. This involved me dying a lot as I tried to figure out how to solo things as a healy shaman.

I got some very good advice from Shougeki over at You Wake It... namely, "Earth Shield, Searing Totem, Flametongue Weapon, Auto-Attack and read a book."

I spice this up with the occasional lightning bolt, or if there are more than one mob, chain lightning.

Sometimes I go on full lazy mode and literally do just that. Earth shield, totems, weapon, auto-attack, and read a page or two in a book.

Sometimes I pay attention, especially if they are casters. Or if I get more than just one mob attacking me.

There are variations in the game of soloing as a restoration shaman. Sometimes it's more fun (and geez, who wants to have fun?) but it does take more effort and management than auto-attacking.

Restoration shaman have so many tricks up their sleeves for surviving ... something I knew from my attempts to kill the (insert horrible curse word here) in battlegrounds ...

I regularly go riding boldly through mobs and mobs of enemies because I know if I get knocked off my mount and have to kill six or seven of them, I can do it.

(Of course, that rational doesn't hold true necessarily if I'm on someone else, and I still ride boldly through mobs and mobs of enemies... because I'm insane.)

My amazing survivability soloing as my shaman has led me to be rather confident in my ability to solo elites. Now, I'm not STUPID (contrary to public opinion) and I know that I can't solo everything, because there are things that hit me for more than I have health. Earth Shield can't heal that much!

But I'd like to see a holy priest survive through that! Hah! Not when you have to use massive amounts of mana to DPS... that or you take forever with PW:Shield, SW:Pain, Wand-Wand-Wand-Wand... (not that restoration shaman are much faster on 'auto-play', but at least we have the option of playing faster!)

I find myself alternating between water shield and earth shield, lightning bolting and earth/fire shocking, riptide and mana tide totem/mana stream totem... oh the endless possibilities! (Okay, not really, but it's still fun.)

The only times I die is when I have to idle and I park myself somewhere for a minute and come back to death. Or in instances when the tank can't keep mobs off of me! You'd think wearing mail armor I'd be a little more crunchy than squishy, but apparently not.

And for people out there, I have a question for you. Or rather, a scenario.

You're a healing shaman. Most healing (and elemental) shaman wear a shield and a one hander. You're healing an instance and a staff drops with a crapton (that's a real measurement, at least in Urban Dictionary it is) of spell power on it.

No one else wants it. You look at it and you say to yourself, "That would give me almost 300 more mana and close to 200 more healing power (or so ratingsbuster says. Does anyone know if RatingsBuster looks at offhand items/shields as well as the main hand that it being replaced, if you're replacing a one hander/offhander with a two-hander?).

I ask if I can take it. Everyone except the mage says sure and grats. The mage tells me I'm a moron because shaman use shields.

My immediate thought is 'what level is your shaman, punk?!' but I didn't say it because you never know... My next thought was, 'I'm not going to use the big staff for soloing, because then I lose a crapton of armor from the shield. But if I'm in an instance and I'm healing and I'm not (theorhetically) being hit, why do I need a shield, exactly?'.

I however, didn't say anything.

What is your take on it? On that scenario? Do you pass on something that is an upgrade in what you're DOING, even if it isn't classically what someone of your class should be using?

This is very evident in terms of downgrading armor. Warlocks, Mages and Priests have no choice, they can only wear cloth.

But everyone else has the option of downgrading armor, even if the stats are otherwise better. I say, unless you're the TANK where high armor is very very important, it makes complete sense to downrank your armor if you're upgrading other things.

Granted, you may not want to solo in it, but for instances or when you aren't being hit, why not?

Sure, a shaman can USE shields, but if it doesn't give me the bonus that some other combination (or singular item) does it make sense to use it if I don't need the armor as much as I need the +healing/+intellect?

People who are rigid like that really frustrate me sometimes, because I said to myself, I could wipe the floor with you, little gnome, if only you knew who you were dealing with! Rawr.

I can use whatever the heck I want to use as long as it doesn't negatively effect my gameplay/ability to keep you alive, so BITE ME.

Shamanistic Healing

As a birthday present to me, my wonderful husband put aside his dislike of the leveling grind and he leveled two levels with me to get my shaman to 70.

I have been a restoration shaman since Hellfire. During that time, I discovered that ... I could hardly be killed. Earth Shield + Totems = Longest Fight Ever but at the end.. I'm alive, have mana and life, and you don't. I win. And by that I mean I'd regularly pull four or five things and just plug away at it.

Was it the fastest ever? No. Was it as slow as leveling my holy/disc priest? No.

I discovered I could keep someone alive and we could duo at level 59-60 the Drillmaster.

I discovered that I could keep someone alive and we could duo the Colossals.

As I started to instance, I discovered that shaman healing is ... kind of boring. *yawn* Until the fit hits the shan, then it's crazy healing time.

When the patch hit, I discovered that shaman healing is ... even more boring. Riptide, the healing weapon enchant whose name I cannot remember at this time, improved Earth Shield.

However, I am enjoying myself. You may be saying... 'but you just said it was boring!'.

Well. Yeah. But so is healing in general as anything but a paladin or druid. Paladins are almost always casting, due to the nature of their method of healing. Druids are also almost always casting, due to the nature of their method of healing.

Disc/Holy priests aren't always casting. At least not anymore thanks to the nerf of downranking. And neither are Resto Shaman. So I have two healers that spend a lot of time wondering if maybe they shouldn't do some DPSing instead.

This suits my personality just fine. :) I likey the DPSy.

And for the people out there who tell me to respec my ret paladin as something 'useful'. Shut your faces.

I have two tanks. Two healers. Multiple DPS.

So shut it. And let me play.

Er, but that was a bit of a sidetrack!

My leveling fight! It was epic. It was grand! I was trying to find Ashgar, in SMV. I knew where he was and I was hoping I could just zerg through the undead and find him, have most of them reset and be able to just kill him, maybe one or two more.

I wound up fighting EIGHT at once. I started with four, because you hit a mountain wall and can't reset them, stupid mountain. And then I got feared into another group. After that, I put down a tremor totem.

And Ashgar healed himself three times because my cooldown was always up because I was usually just done healing myself.

But I downed him. And then I downed another. And another. Searing Totem = Love. Mana Totem = Love. Earth Shield = UberLove.

I was running low on mana, needing to keep Earth Shield up rather than Water Shield. But I persevered. And you'd think that sometime between kill #1 and kill #8 I'd have leveled, since I was really THAT CLOSE. But no...

#8 dies, with me at no mana, and half life and what do I see? DING. Full mana and life bars. Because it couldn't have come EARLIER.

And then I went and healed Steamvaults. The only problem I had was with the first naga boss. I lost two of our three DPS to the elementals and the lightning storm that none of them moved out of. But I kept the tank up (barely in some cases) and we survived.

The other shaman I was with who shall remain nameless... didn't have any ankhs, so couldn't reincarnate. He was teased mercilessly for that.

After that, it was a cakewalk. The only time it got close to losing someone else was when I the mage pyroblasted herself (or something else that took half her life) on Kalithresh.

My current conundrum is, with as rarely as I cast Healing Wave, is it better to just use Lesser Healing Wave as needed? The buff Healing Wave gives to future healing waves doesn't last long enough for me to wait to get another heal in. It hardly seems worth it. What with Riptide and Earthshield...

I use Riptide on the tank because this way, splash damage to the other melee can be quickly healed with a boosted chain heal.

But, my shaman looks COOL too. I mean, seriously cool. As in droolworthy cool.

As does Kikidas, who is wearing the Robes of the Sin'Dorei and has a new 'do, though she kept her red tresses. But she looks less like she has helmet hair and more like she's a runway model. Heehee.

Dungeon Extravaganza!

Who says my husband doesn't listen to me?

My concern that I won't get to see the inside of some of the dungeons in outlands with my shaman and mage was indeed heard!

Yesterday, a group consisting of Vialora the 69 retribution paladin, Diathim (Boon) the 67 enhancement shaman, Merlaina the 67 fire mage, Balendin the 67 protection warrior and Karika (me!) the 67 restoration shaman went on a dungeon slaughter-spree.

We zerged Underbog and Slave Pens. Then we hit Auchenai Crypts... then Mana Tombs... then Sethekk Halls.

All with no CC. Due in large part to the nerf of the game and the boost to tank threat. We waltzed through the instances. Part of it was awesome DPS. Part of it was awesome tankage. I'd say part of it was awesome healing, but really? Restoration shaman, unless the fit hits the shan, is *yawn*. Earth Shield.. refresh Earth Shield. Riptide maybe. Maybe a lesser healing wave or chain heal. Refresh Earth Shield.

The only time I was having problems was at the very end, when everyone was dead tired and people weren't waiting for the tank to have aggro or for me to even mark the kill order! Thank goodness for Reincarnation. :P

Arcane Mage, Retribution Paladin and Restoration Shaman

What can I say? I like going for the outlying spec.

After a bit of thought, I decided I was going to go Arcane Mage. Specifically, Arcane-Fire. Now, my mage is only 36 (or was when I respecced), so I'm not as nifty as a level 70 arcane-fire mage. And I do plan on going arcane down to slow, and fire down to improved scorch. From my research, that spec is suitable for solo play, PvE 5 and 10 man raiding. Which is what I do. (It's also good for PvP, but we all know where I stand on that!)

(preferably far away)

I thought to myself as I respecced that maybe I should have leveled frost and respecced when I hit higher levels, simply for survivability. Yet I discovered that I'm just as survivable as this as I was as frost.

Frost mages are well known for the mobs to not reach them, due to slowing effect and freeze effects, that by the time the mob reached them, it was so dead a fire blast or a cone or something would kill it. With my frost mage, this usually included a blink a time or two, frost nova, multiple frost-bolts and lots of running around to stay away from the slow moving mob.

My arcane mage has roughly the same effect. In the fact that by the time it reaches me, a fire blast is usually enough to kill it, only without the moving about bit.

I was about to type a very boring account of how I kill things. But you don't care about that! Suffice to say, I'm content. The only time I've died thus far is when I'm playing at work and I get distracted by something at work. Which since work > game, is appropriate.

As for my retribution paladin, I've quasi-figured out what keeps pulling mobs to me. Apparently when I judge something, since I have improved judgement, I get back mana. Just like anything else, this gets me aggro. Otherwise, I'm still kicking ass and taking names! Boon's admitted he's been kind of heavy on me with the ret paladin, since he didn't think it was a viable spec, but I'm changing his mind with my awesome abilities! And he admits that as a pure DPS spec, he still doesn't think it's a good idea, but he does say (and to this I agree, read previous post!) that the way I play, more as a party support role while doing decent DPS, makes me viable. The worst is when you have a retribution paladin that doesn't toss any heals, or protect the healer, or do anything and the group dies with the ret pally having an almost full mana bar! That ain't me.

My restoration shaman is boring as hell to solo, but I don't seem to be able to be killed. :P I'm going to wait for Diathim (Boon's enhancement shaman) to hit outlands to quest. Because ... it's boring as hell. I've begun doing crazy things trying to see if I could be killed... like solo Bogslayer and the Drillmaster at 61, fight four or five mobs at once (the ravager mobs can kill me, fast attack + stun = dead shaman), fight multiple healing casters at once, etc. Does anyone have a suggestion of a situation to stick her in to see if I can survive it? (nothing silly, like solo-instancing (though I may see if I can kill an instance elite by myself) or going and attacking a level 66 or something.)

And... 38, 62, 61 respectively.

On an aside, I had this wierd dream the other night. My druid Kathe was imprisoned in a new Alliance jail in Tanaris for the unlikely crime of murder (she killed a Scarlet Crusade fanatic that was killing the tame moonsaber's in Darnassus, and it was self-defense, since he started to call her a demon and tried to kill her when she stopped him!). The method of them keeping a druid in prison is to keep her too mana drained to shapeshift. Boon the paladin was a common visitor and he would regularly bring her gifts from her sisters. Kiya, the alchemist/cook, made her some pastries which had the side effect of mana regeneration. This gave her enough mana to innervate herself, so she shapeshifted and escaped! And to keep Boon from being implicated, she did this by first shapeshifting into a bear and bashing him to stun him, then shifting to a bird, flying away (which you can't do that in Azeroth, but meh.) and escaping into the water's around Tanaris. A hunter brought in at the scene (Teppou), made joyful fun of the jail by asking them how they expected him to track a druid through the air or the water!

The Alliance Police then go to her family members to question them about her escape and what role they may have played in it!

Kiya the hunter, with Bumper the cat, live in Darnassus and denied any knowledge about the escape. The police had a nasty moment when in defense of her sister, Kiya defended the act of Kathe stopping the cat-killer, and the police said 'it was a cat versus a person', and Bumper got very upset.

Kava the rogue and Kiljara the priest live in Stormwind, and they both denied any knowledge, though Kava out and out admitted that she's glad her sister escaped and even if she knew where she was, she'd hardly tell the police! Kiljara simply admitted she knew nothing about it and was very calm and soothing to Kava's somewhat hyper rhetoric.

Keyami the warrior lives in Ironforge and my dream hasn't progressed that much.

But Kikidas made an appearance (not that she's a night elf), by appearing talking to Kava and Kiljara about clothing (all three are tailors), then later on helping the two sisters summon Kathe to Stormwind (after the police left!). Ruptik was also there, being his usual charming self. And no, I have no idea why Kathe would want to go to Stormwind!

Dhark made an appearance last night (yes, same dream story two nights in a row) by stealthing into the office of the head of the Alliance Police who is trying to catch Kathe and nearly killing him. (He didn't kill him all the way because that would be bad. He merely beat him up severely as a lesson that you don't mess with Night Elves.)

In the office of the Police, the police head was talking to his aide who said that on the negative side, all the druids, some of the shaman and a high percentage of night elf citizens of the alliance didn't like the fact that Kathe was being made an example of by the newly founded Alliance Police, on the positive side, Fanghelm (the druid head in Darnassus, this was his dream name, not sure if it's his real name!) was also on Kathe's side and if anyone could turn a positive into a negative, it was him! Also brought up was how hard it would be to track a druid that didn't want to be found and that the likelyhood of them catching Kathe now that she was escaped was slim to none. That's when Dhark made his appearance.

Maybe I play too much WoW?