Healing Advice?

[7F]LarryBoy

[7F]LarryBoy

New Member
So I spec'd Resto yesterday, was feeling pretty pumped, pretty confident that I was geared enough for Heroics, jumped into an H-AN group.....and got a nice taste of the ol' HumilityBat (tm). Needless to say, I couldn't keep up very well with the damage my party was taking.

Jason told me that H-AN is probably one of the harder Heroics to heal, which made me feel a little better, but I want to make sure that i'm not doing something wrong. My gear definitely needs work, but aside from that I want to be sure that i'm not missing something obvious - some spell that I should be using, or something that i should not be using.

For context, here is my gear and spec.

My healing spells are:
  • Healing Wave
  • Lesser Healing Wave
  • Chain Heal
  • Riptide
  • Earth Shield

I think right off two mistakes that I was making was a) using Riptide WAY too much, and b) not keeping Earth Shield up on the tank. Riptide is a nice instant heal + hot, but also costs a fair bit of mana. It's great for fights when you need to move a lot, or as a quick emergency heal, but I think i was using it at times when a simple LHW or Chain Heal would have done fine. This was causing me to run low on mana fairly quickly.

I believe I also was not keeping Earth Shield up as often as I should have. I noticed that it heals for a decent amount (2400 or so per charge) and it also boosts the size of LHWs on that person.

I try to use Chain Heal a lot, but the effectiveness of it can depend a lot on the makeup of the party...if there's no melee besides the tank, it's probably not very efficient. I probably need to be more aware of the positioning of the party when I use it.

Anyway, if anyone has ANY suggestions or tips on when and why to use different heals in various situations, I would love to hear them.
 
Just had another thought - I probably need to be more proactive on my heals. What I mean is start casting Healing Wave or Chain Heal even when the tank has lots of health, in anticipation of him taking a shot of damage. Last night I would start casting after the tank had taken damage, and so by the time the heal landed the tank had taken another big hit, dropping him pretty low. I can always cancel out the heal if needed.
 
Anyway, if anyone has ANY suggestions or tips
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Well some of it might be your group, not sure what kind of group you had. I've healed heroics as a prot pally with epic gear, but my group was geared as well. And I know Rob has healed the same heroic as feral spec with healing gear, but again the group was geared as well. So it does depend on who you run with. It also takes time to get a feel for dmg out-put in heroics. (Not all mobs/bosses have = dmg out-put) So if gear is an issue... some over-healing is more likely to be needed. (Anticipating dmg before it hits) or you will get behind on heals.

Old Kingdom is one of the tougher instances, even I get hit hard there because of all the spell dmg. I'd start out with ..HVH and hope for the easier bosses. Or even Culling of Strat..maybe even UK. Maybe try to do the easier ones first. In the process you gain badges, rep (More than normal mode) for epic gear, plus of course the epic drops you might get inside the instance.

That's just some general advice, as I've not healed much with a resto spec on my shammy. (Though I do have a lot of pally healing experience with a little ele shammy healing also)
 
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Well, due to a lack of mega-HoT's like druids and priests have, shamans have it a little tougher.

I like to keep a riptide up on my tank most of the time due to the constant HoT and the emergency chain heal that is 25% stronger and consumes the riptide HoT. The mana cost is less than chain heal and only slightly more than LHW. Granted, right now I am specced more for raid healing than 5-man but it still works fine even though I don't have Healing Way maxed.

The only reason I ever had pts in Healing Focus was for PvP. If you are getting hit by the mob then there are other issues that need to be addressed. You might want to respec those pts into Healing Grace for threat reduction or max out Tidal Mastery for crit chance.

The reason I only have 1 pt in Healing Way is that I don't use Healing Wave very often. It is usually my "uh oh" spell and is used in conjunction with Nature's Swiftness so it is instant.

My top 3 healing spells used are chain heal, LHW and riptide in that order. Often times, riptide has healed more than my LHW as well by the end of the fight. Don't forget, Tidal Waves kicks in off of riptide and chain heal which lowers your cast time of LHW and HW. I know when I run 5-mans I use chain heal mostly with riptide up.

Get the glyph of chain heal so it jumps to 4 targets which is nice in 5-mans, as is glyph of lesser healing wave. There is some pretty nice healing gear that can be crafted as well. I know Renee can make some really good ones on Yesmina and the mats aren't bad. I was using the legs and chest I believe for quite awhile in heroics and Naxx. Another thing to look at is your totem slot. A very good and easy to get totem is from the pvp quests in Grizzly Hills. You don't have to fight horde players, just he mobs and you earn the "coins" to buy things. Here is what I am using until I get either the badge totem of something else: thottbot.com/i38368

Really, healing is just something you have to work into and fight your style. Some like my talent pt layout and others feel I have some pts in the wrong spots. The main thing is for me and the way I heal, it fits. I may not be the best healer but I don't usually get too many complaints.

PS: Don't be afraid of cloth and leather as well. I see from your gear that you don't seem to be afraid of a bit of cloth.
 
Ran H-UP, H-UK, and H-VH last night with Danny, Renee, Sean, and Rob/Rhys. My healing was definitely better; I felt more in control of the situation, rather than having to play catch up all the time, and Renee only had to pitch in heals a few times!

Laess: I agree with you on Tidal Waves...I found I pretty easily fell into a CH, LWH, LWH, CH, etc sequence on most of the encounters. If no one but Danny was taking damage I would tend to use HW instead of CH...*shrug* maybe I should just keep using CH? I guess it probably depends on the amount of incoming damage. One GREAT thing about Tidal Waves is that when the group takes a bunch of damage, you pop a CH, and then your can use your increased speed LHWs to help top off a couple of people.

I managed to get several upgrades last night, from rep, crafting, and loot. I continue to farm like crazy for mats, as there are probably 3 or 4 other crafted epics that I can get made, like the Titansteel Guardian, which I should have this weekend if everything falls in place.

For Glyphs I have the CH one, the Water Mastery one (4 charges), and the LHW one.

Danny: Higher dps in the group definitely makes healing a lot easier. Thx for the runs, it was definitely valuable experience.
 
Just a followup from the weekend here:

Ran a number of heroics over the weekend, as well as Naxx10 and OS10, and did a good job healing if I may say so myself. I do need to figure out a better strat for healing when the whole party/raid is low on health - I had some trouble with that in H-AN and in the portal on OS10. My gear is pretty nice now so i don't think it's an issue with that, more with not having the right strategy for healing that many people quickly.

As I said, my gear is pretty nice now for pre-raid - thanks a ton to everyone who helped with cooldowns and crafting. If you go by wow-heroes.com, it says I'm ready for 25-mans, so i'll be signing up for the Wednesday run.

If anyone has suggestions for shaman healing when everyone's taken 50-70% damage and dropping, I would love to hear them!
 
Don't know if you've noticed (or it may have changed) but if you target someone in your GROUP with chain heal it will only bounce to others in your GROUP. If you target someone outside of your group it will bounce between groups targeting whomever needs it worst. Something to keep in mind when everyone is dropping.
 
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