So, tonight in guild chat there was a debate about how people heal.
There's mouse-over, there's clique, there's grid, there's healbot, there's keybindings, there's a combination of any of the above!
The conversation delved into that a healer with grid/clique will out-heal a healer that uses the regular UI.
And I (and Boon who uses no healing addons) who use ONLY Grid more as an organizational tool than anything else, had to disagree.
Yes. I'm a "bad" healer. I click on my button on my standard UI bar, and then bring the mouse over to the grid box and click the box.
But I will maintain that I will heal just as fast as someone who is using grid/clique.
Because honestly - you can only heal as fast as your heals are off cooldown, and GCD is cooled down.
Can I see how a DRUID healer would be slowed down without using something to help, considering the nature of instant-cast hots? Yes. But when you play a class that doesn't have a lot of instant cast spells... by the time I CAN cast another spell, I have it ready to be cast.
So sure - you may use less motion than I do - but I'm still healing just as fast. ABC baby.
Does it honestly matter HOW I heal, provided I do the job, and do it well?
When people start to randomly die because I fail as a healer, I'll go ahead and change.
I use grid because it lets me see if people are in or out of range, who has aggro for pre-emptive healing and what class they are and how hurt they are at a glance.
So... how do you heal, and what pros and cons do you feel it offers you?
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, January 5, 2009
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!
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!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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
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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Reduces the cooldown of Astral Recall by 2.5 minutes. From 15 minutes to 12.5 minutes.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Healing Made Easy (in MrT)
I've been through MrT as a DPS (warlock, for whom that instance sucks. Never have I seen so many humanoid mobs immune to seduce! Let's just make warlocks next to useless in there as a CC class!) and as a tank (Rawr). Each time, the healers have been a paladin or a shaman (iirc). No HoT's. No group heals (besides chain heal).
Last night we went in with Posolutely, Byouki, Isabeaux, Neshura and Kiljara.
The pulls before the first boss... it's damn hard to keep the AoEing clothies alive, even with shield and flash heal. So, no matter what type of healer you are, be prepared to lose someone if they're AoEing.
If you're an AoE'er, try to give the tank time to build some threat before you open up, and be prepared to die.
Otherwise, prayer of healing makes healing in MrT... surprisingly simple.
The AoE damage from the first boss... cake. Just start casting your prayer before the first wave of damage comes in, and you're just peachy keen and fine.
The energy boss... same deal. Prayer of Healing = Easy Mode.
Priestess Delrissa was a bit tougher, but again, made relatively easy since I could heal the multiple people taking damage from their assigned mobs and the 'mini-bosses' random aggro tables.
As for Kael'thas... Boon always complains that he can't keep everyone alive. He can't cast because he has to move. People are constantly taking damage. And he loses people.
Well, he sucks and I rule because Renew = Love. Our tank was all 'Don't heal me, K!', and I was all 'Don't tell me what to do, gnome! RENEW!'. And no one died.
I attribute it entirely to my skills, and it has nothing to do with the overpowered DPS or tank (or the nerf), since the first time we went through it was with overpowered DPS and tank and healer.
So, it's all me, naturally. Priest = Best Healer Evar.
No, really. I think they are. Don't get me wrong, each healing class has their benefits. Paladins = Great Single Target healers. Druids = HoT masters. Shaman = Multi-task much?. Priest = Best overall all-around healer.
You can feel free to disagree with me, (but that would make you silly and wrong! ;) and if you do, please don't hesitate to share!
Last night we went in with Posolutely, Byouki, Isabeaux, Neshura and Kiljara.
The pulls before the first boss... it's damn hard to keep the AoEing clothies alive, even with shield and flash heal. So, no matter what type of healer you are, be prepared to lose someone if they're AoEing.
If you're an AoE'er, try to give the tank time to build some threat before you open up, and be prepared to die.
Otherwise, prayer of healing makes healing in MrT... surprisingly simple.
The AoE damage from the first boss... cake. Just start casting your prayer before the first wave of damage comes in, and you're just peachy keen and fine.
The energy boss... same deal. Prayer of Healing = Easy Mode.
Priestess Delrissa was a bit tougher, but again, made relatively easy since I could heal the multiple people taking damage from their assigned mobs and the 'mini-bosses' random aggro tables.
As for Kael'thas... Boon always complains that he can't keep everyone alive. He can't cast because he has to move. People are constantly taking damage. And he loses people.
Well, he sucks and I rule because Renew = Love. Our tank was all 'Don't heal me, K!', and I was all 'Don't tell me what to do, gnome! RENEW!'. And no one died.
I attribute it entirely to my skills, and it has nothing to do with the overpowered DPS or tank (or the nerf), since the first time we went through it was with overpowered DPS and tank and healer.
So, it's all me, naturally. Priest = Best Healer Evar.
No, really. I think they are. Don't get me wrong, each healing class has their benefits. Paladins = Great Single Target healers. Druids = HoT masters. Shaman = Multi-task much?. Priest = Best overall all-around healer.
You can feel free to disagree with me, (but that would make you silly and wrong! ;) and if you do, please don't hesitate to share!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Change is scary...
But sometimes necessary. I'm going to be hounding Absitively to help me make my blog look pretty.
*stupid computer people. hate. loathe. abhor.*
In other news... played my restoration shaman a little bit last night. It's nice to be able to DPS and heal.
See, my altisms is bad enough that if you look at the sidebar, you can see how many alts I have. If you can count (and given the age of the internet, that is not an assumption one can make anymore, unfortunately) you can see that I have 9 alts. There are 10 character spots available. With my level of altisms, I hear you wonder... where is that 10th alt?
It's being saved, damnit. I have enough self-control to leave that spot as a name-holder for my death knight when the expansion comes out.
What I don't have is the self-control to NOT level my existing characters. However, I made a promise to my husband. I'm running out of things to play with him! By a lot. So... I can't level any of my characters without his, since all three of my lowbies are paired with one of his characters.
*whine*
So instead.. what I will be doing is trying to PvP my way to a set of shoulders with Kathe. I have been informed reliably that the best way for someone who sucks at PvP combat to go... is to go in as a healer. And unless I get the T4 shoulders, that would be my best upgrade possible. Right now, I'm using these and I don't like the fact that I can't find better purples in a heroic or badge vendor.
(And for those interested, I went ahead and bought the badge belt. It's better than the heroic and feh, I was tired of Hellfire Ramparts anyway.)
So yesterday I slapped on my set of patch-work healer gear, did NOT respec since I have to research some of that before I go spend lots of gold, and went into an AB. We lost (We're Alliance... we always lose), but I was 5th on healing (4th Alliance), got 11 honor kills (though I killed no one directly) and didn't have too bad of a time. Healing is so much less stressful than trying to kill people who are better at PvP than I am.
*stupid computer people. hate. loathe. abhor.*
In other news... played my restoration shaman a little bit last night. It's nice to be able to DPS and heal.
See, my altisms is bad enough that if you look at the sidebar, you can see how many alts I have. If you can count (and given the age of the internet, that is not an assumption one can make anymore, unfortunately) you can see that I have 9 alts. There are 10 character spots available. With my level of altisms, I hear you wonder... where is that 10th alt?
It's being saved, damnit. I have enough self-control to leave that spot as a name-holder for my death knight when the expansion comes out.
What I don't have is the self-control to NOT level my existing characters. However, I made a promise to my husband. I'm running out of things to play with him! By a lot. So... I can't level any of my characters without his, since all three of my lowbies are paired with one of his characters.
*whine*
So instead.. what I will be doing is trying to PvP my way to a set of shoulders with Kathe. I have been informed reliably that the best way for someone who sucks at PvP combat to go... is to go in as a healer. And unless I get the T4 shoulders, that would be my best upgrade possible. Right now, I'm using these and I don't like the fact that I can't find better purples in a heroic or badge vendor.
(And for those interested, I went ahead and bought the badge belt. It's better than the heroic and feh, I was tired of Hellfire Ramparts anyway.)
So yesterday I slapped on my set of patch-work healer gear, did NOT respec since I have to research some of that before I go spend lots of gold, and went into an AB. We lost (We're Alliance... we always lose), but I was 5th on healing (4th Alliance), got 11 honor kills (though I killed no one directly) and didn't have too bad of a time. Healing is so much less stressful than trying to kill people who are better at PvP than I am.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Kiljara goes to Karazhan
Yesterday, my priest ventured into Karazhan after having not been played at all for ... oh gosh, a long long time.
She doesn't have any of her stuff enchanted, except for a glyph and runic spellthread on her kickass pants. I have all the Hallowed gear (except the pants, but that's okay.). But not my primal mooncloth set (working on it!)
Still, with a potion of healing power and golden fishsticks, she's at 1350 bonus healing, 400 something mp5 resting and something in the 100's while casting.
The only time I ran out of mana was during the Maiden fight, and that's because I died and soulstone doesn't restore a heck of a lot of mana.
I love my priest. :)
Anyway, the point of this post is that different healer types do different things well. You have your paladin healer, your priest healer, your druid healer and your shaman healer. Each of them play particular party roles.
The paladin is, from everything I've seen and read, King (or Queen) of single target healing. Low mana, high value heals. What they lack is any form of a HoT or any multiple-member-heals. But they are like the energizer bunny. They just keep going and going and going and going...
The priest is undoubtedly the Empress of healing. We have a HoT. We have low mana-moderate value heals, we have moderate mana-high value heals. We have party-heals. We have binding-heal. We have prayer of mending. Depending on particulars, we also have have circle of healing and lightwell. What we lack are FAST heals. Flash heal, IMHO, isn't as mana-efficient as me just anticipating and pre-casting a larger heal or greater heal. The only time I flash heal is when I NEED to give someone just that little bit of health ASAP. AOE'ers being hit whilst AOEing, for example. But I notice my mana drops a lot faster if I'm spamming flash heal than if I'm anticipating a greater heal or regular heal.
The druid is .. okay, I've run out of terms that are applicable. The druid is AWESOME at instant cast HoT's. They have the most HoT's, that they can turn into a big ass heal by using Swiftmend. And while they can main heal something like Karazhan on the main tank, I think utility wise, they make far better party-toppers than they do main-tank healers. Need a little rejuv here a little there, how about a lifebloom? Not that they can't do it, it just is a better utility of resources, IMNSHO*.
Shaman healers are good at .. not healing. Earth Shield, Health totems, chain healing, that silly little - spam little heals to get a big heal - whatever it is they do. Honestly, shaman healing is the one I'm most clueless about. They seem to fall in the middle of the road though. Big heals, little heals, fast heals. Owaru, I'm looking at you buddy. Fill me in.
Anyhow...
So, my priest is healing the offtank in Karazhan. This is fine. Except I didn't do much healing! Not merely because the tank had decent gear so wasn't taking much damage when he actually WAS tanking trash, but also because the same was true for the healer who was on the MT and the healer who was doing party heals. All of us were so READY TO HEAL!!!! that we were healing each others people. I know I saw a few HoT's that I didn't toss on my target on him. (I'm looking at you, druid! MY TARGET, MINE! HEALS OFF! ... (get it, hands off, heals off? Oh, nevermind!)).
I spent a vast majority of my time on trash mobs ... DPSing. I felt kind of guilty. For a while, I was pacing the OT on my DPS meter. Then I decided I should get down and serious and only healed... except for the occasional smite, mind blast and shadow word.
I don't know how other healers do it, but I tend to toss a renew and PoM on my target at the start of the fight and keep one up. Then I usually cast Rank 3 or Rank 4 Heal. Not Greater Heal. Heal. If I'm falling behind (not usually, but depends on the tank), I switch to mid-level Greater Heals. If a DPS class is getting whacked occasionally, I toss a renew on them and if the tank is doing their job, that's all I usually need to do. This obviously doesn't hold true if it's an AoE pull or something similar.
Like I mentioned earlier, the lowest on mana I ever got was 6500 mana on any trash pull, with me healing AND DPSing. (I have only 9something total mana)
For my shadowfiend... him I toss out when I get about 1/4-1/3 down on mana. This way if it's a long fight, he MAY be ready by the time I need him again. (Tip for Curator fight for priests, wait for his second evocate, if you can, before you sic your fiend on him. Double-damage means your mana bar jumps up! and double-damage to him, as well.)
To the warlock, I apologize for your death in the Maiden fight. I was hitting the wrong button and going 'Why the hell is her Holy Fire not going away?!'. I was hitting the RIGHT button for the entire rest of the evening, but for some reason, I didn't do it that time. In my defense, the paladin healer also didn't cleanse you in time, so it isn't entirely my fault! Sowwy.
(* In My Not So Humble Opinion)
She doesn't have any of her stuff enchanted, except for a glyph and runic spellthread on her kickass pants. I have all the Hallowed gear (except the pants, but that's okay.). But not my primal mooncloth set (working on it!)
Still, with a potion of healing power and golden fishsticks, she's at 1350 bonus healing, 400 something mp5 resting and something in the 100's while casting.
The only time I ran out of mana was during the Maiden fight, and that's because I died and soulstone doesn't restore a heck of a lot of mana.
I love my priest. :)
Anyway, the point of this post is that different healer types do different things well. You have your paladin healer, your priest healer, your druid healer and your shaman healer. Each of them play particular party roles.
The paladin is, from everything I've seen and read, King (or Queen) of single target healing. Low mana, high value heals. What they lack is any form of a HoT or any multiple-member-heals. But they are like the energizer bunny. They just keep going and going and going and going...
The priest is undoubtedly the Empress of healing. We have a HoT. We have low mana-moderate value heals, we have moderate mana-high value heals. We have party-heals. We have binding-heal. We have prayer of mending. Depending on particulars, we also have have circle of healing and lightwell. What we lack are FAST heals. Flash heal, IMHO, isn't as mana-efficient as me just anticipating and pre-casting a larger heal or greater heal. The only time I flash heal is when I NEED to give someone just that little bit of health ASAP. AOE'ers being hit whilst AOEing, for example. But I notice my mana drops a lot faster if I'm spamming flash heal than if I'm anticipating a greater heal or regular heal.
The druid is .. okay, I've run out of terms that are applicable. The druid is AWESOME at instant cast HoT's. They have the most HoT's, that they can turn into a big ass heal by using Swiftmend. And while they can main heal something like Karazhan on the main tank, I think utility wise, they make far better party-toppers than they do main-tank healers. Need a little rejuv here a little there, how about a lifebloom? Not that they can't do it, it just is a better utility of resources, IMNSHO*.
Shaman healers are good at .. not healing. Earth Shield, Health totems, chain healing, that silly little - spam little heals to get a big heal - whatever it is they do. Honestly, shaman healing is the one I'm most clueless about. They seem to fall in the middle of the road though. Big heals, little heals, fast heals. Owaru, I'm looking at you buddy. Fill me in.
Anyhow...
So, my priest is healing the offtank in Karazhan. This is fine. Except I didn't do much healing! Not merely because the tank had decent gear so wasn't taking much damage when he actually WAS tanking trash, but also because the same was true for the healer who was on the MT and the healer who was doing party heals. All of us were so READY TO HEAL!!!! that we were healing each others people. I know I saw a few HoT's that I didn't toss on my target on him. (I'm looking at you, druid! MY TARGET, MINE! HEALS OFF! ... (get it, hands off, heals off? Oh, nevermind!)).
I spent a vast majority of my time on trash mobs ... DPSing. I felt kind of guilty. For a while, I was pacing the OT on my DPS meter. Then I decided I should get down and serious and only healed... except for the occasional smite, mind blast and shadow word.
I don't know how other healers do it, but I tend to toss a renew and PoM on my target at the start of the fight and keep one up. Then I usually cast Rank 3 or Rank 4 Heal. Not Greater Heal. Heal. If I'm falling behind (not usually, but depends on the tank), I switch to mid-level Greater Heals. If a DPS class is getting whacked occasionally, I toss a renew on them and if the tank is doing their job, that's all I usually need to do. This obviously doesn't hold true if it's an AoE pull or something similar.
Like I mentioned earlier, the lowest on mana I ever got was 6500 mana on any trash pull, with me healing AND DPSing. (I have only 9something total mana)
For my shadowfiend... him I toss out when I get about 1/4-1/3 down on mana. This way if it's a long fight, he MAY be ready by the time I need him again. (Tip for Curator fight for priests, wait for his second evocate, if you can, before you sic your fiend on him. Double-damage means your mana bar jumps up! and double-damage to him, as well.)
To the warlock, I apologize for your death in the Maiden fight. I was hitting the wrong button and going 'Why the hell is her Holy Fire not going away?!'. I was hitting the RIGHT button for the entire rest of the evening, but for some reason, I didn't do it that time. In my defense, the paladin healer also didn't cleanse you in time, so it isn't entirely my fault! Sowwy.
(* In My Not So Humble Opinion)
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