Questions for New and Experienced Resto Shamans, and Everyone In Between

[redikolous]

This is a post about knowing the ins and outs of the resto shaman toolbox, but it really applies to other healers and their toolboxes too, in a way. I liked the article a lot, and I know wow-ladies has a pretty big resto shaman community. I also stan for Vixsin, so...Back when LiG5 was in its infancy, and this lone blogger was searching for

Comments

[cloverwhite]

Is it bad that I answered quite a few with "fuck if I give a shit?"

Then again I'm not main spec resto anymore but for anything below cutting edge progression, this degree of thought put into it seems excessive.

[redikolous]

Well, Vixsin is on worldwide par cutting edge progression, so she is focused on wringing out every bit of efficiency out. A lot of it would seem overkill if the stuff you're doing stuff where you don't have to be so efficient (and that's not a criticism, because of course one isn't going to make more work than they need), but I don't think that most of these are useless.

Like the trackers. With 4pc 12, the more Riptides you have out, the more mana you get back. Before I would often clip my Riptides. Sure, if you don't 4pc T12, this will be less important, but if you spread out your Riptides, you get more healing overall.

I think the first three are pretty important. Even if you don't use those strategies, it's nice to know why another shaman would.

[cloverwhite]

Well the article also says the questions are meant to appeal to a wide audience from newbies to hardcore and that the questions are ones that "each Resto Shaman out there should be able to answer." A lot of this seems to be way over-complicating play time.

What’s my one point of improvement for this week? (eg: better shield uptime, shorter time in between RT casts, better HST healing).

This line makes me crack up though. It sounds more like it would apply to someone's work out schedule.

Even if you don't use those strategies, it's nice to know why another shaman would. Eh, only if you need to find the most efficient strategy for high progression.

[gelifish]

Aww, the point of improvement line is my favorite! I think if more of the "so-so" healers made a conscious effort to improve in just one thing every time they played, not only would they do better and improve, they'd feel more accomplished and have more fun.

It does sound like it applies to working out though, lol! But that's just because it's another activity where you get a sense of accomplishment from improvement :)

[gelifish]

I haven't even gotten to healing normal heroics on my shaman yet, but I'm pretty pleased with how many questions I was still able to answer (or at least able to answer after a quick refresher on the talent tree).

I agree with the above that for the casual or normal mode only healer that some of this is overkill (yeah triggering the ICD for an int proc before a fight sucks but that's a bit nitpicky for me), but it is certainly interesting to think about!

[redikolous]

I'm glad you liked it!

[wildeabandon]

Lovely post - it's already clued me in to a few things I'm missing, but I'd really like to see a similar set of questions from a more skilled hpala and tree than me.

[redikolous]

There was a post around with a ton of tree info, I should find it for you because I want it for my tree too. I know Tree Bark Jacket is one!

[wildeabandon]

Tree Bark Jacket and Falling Leaves and Wings are my goto places for tree info :)

My druid is languishing a bit, as our 3rd healer was a tree so I've been on my pala for most of our FL raids, but he's just started uni and decided to leave the team, so it depends a bit on what class we recruit first who I'll end up playing going forwards.

[regen]

A very interesting read. I'm working on FL hardmodes so optimizing has always been a goal for me, but I could understand why someone who doesn't raid wouldn't scrutinize the finer details of the spell/class mechanics as much. I would imagine even raiders would have different approaches to some these answers, based on their raid size and typical healing assignment. Something like this would be a good way to keep up-to-date with significant class changes like the ones in 4.2.

[redikolous]

I like this because unlike Wrath, there really is a lot of approaches to healing depending on raid size, difficulty, and such. I like this a lot more than the arguing over which spell increases your HPM, because it won't be true all the time.

[quixotic_coffee]

I wish the resto shaman I raid with would read this but I don't know how to post it on our forums without looking like a jerk, haha. Good post though. And I can answer almost all the questions despite not even playing a shaman (but I do play healers).

[redikolous]

Nice!

Well, if there's a class forum, I'd just post it and say it was an interesting read. If not, I'd put up a healing blog post and have links to this and other articles from healing blogs, lol.

[frieliegh]

or post it and ask if anyone knows where to find similar posts for the other classes so you can collect them for everyone's reference? =)