#0 - June 6, 2007, 12:53 p.m.
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So you want to play a resto shaman, huh? Start by taking away the “cool” factor, because what you’ll do is very helpful to your raid, but it won’t be cool. A resto shaman is not an easy build to play, but it can be interesting, challenging and fun.
I wrote this guide, or better this list of hints on how to play a resto shaman, because I couldn't find one. I'm not a perfect healer (far from it) so the main thing that I'm trying to achieve is to initiate a discussion and listen to other, more experienced, shamans' point of views.
This guide mainly refers to healing in a raid.
Not just healing
Resto shamans must be grouped with other spell casters, and preferably healers. Your Mana Tide totem restores 24% of each party member’s mana (over 12 sec). That’s a lot! Druids' innervate only affects one person, so Mana Tide is a big deal and a big help to your party. If you stick a shadow priest in the same group, you are guaranteed to go through most of the fights without any mana issues.
Make sure your party has a few DPS spellcasters as well. Hit heroism once the tank has aggro and the boss will go down, fast. If your party has healers only, use heroism when a boss gets enraged or for some reason does more damage (ex. Curator at last 5-10%, Gruul at 13-14th Grow). Your heals will be faster and your chance to save the tank will be greater.
Most of the time you can use Wrath of Air to give a bonus to the group and Mana Spring totem when Mana Tide is not up. The only exception to this can be the beginning of a boss fight, when the MT does not have a good hold on the mob, but is still taking damage and needs healing. A Tranquil Air totem would be more appropriate, until the tank can build enough threat.
Depending on the fight you might have to put down resistance totems or tremor totem for fears. Also, Mana Spring is useful in long, mana-demanding fights. If the fight is not intensive, and particularly when you have your group taking AOE damage, you probably want to use a Healing Stream totem instead. The Healing Stream totem is affected by your +healing equipment so when you become better equipped the effect will be better.
One important point is that, given that healing requires a high amount of focus, it’s easy to forget about the totems. Don’t do that. You wouldn’t go to the fight without buffs, likewise you must renew your totems when they expire. Pick your moments (don’t let the tank die) but get into the habit to pop your totems out when they expire.
Put the extra points on the reincarnate talent (Improved Reincarnation) so that you can use it every 40 minutes and come back with more health and mana. A nearly dead and out of mana shaman is useless to the group. The talent will allow you to get back in the game. I’ve heard about people dying on purpose when they run out of mana. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you are with zero mana and getting hit by a mob, I wouldn’t fight it either.
Talent Build
Not much to say here. Hop on the resto tree, and only consider putting some points on Ancestral Knowledge from Enhancement for the extra mana.
Equipment
What you need is: Intellect, Stamina, +Heal, Mp5 – Not Spirit! Spirit is useless to shamans. We heal all the time and we never take advantage of the 5-second rule. We need a lot of Mp5, but no spirit. Make sure all your items have all these stats. It is possible to find them, but if you can’t, use gems to close the gap. Karazhan alone has excellent (after the patch) items for resto shamans. You should be able to find all the items you need.
Before the Fight - Updated!
I've seen a few discussions on whether you need to use Earthshield on yourself or the tank (or someone else entirely). I think that you need to make a decision depending in the situation you're in. In most of the non-heroic instances you need the earthshield yourself. It will save you from bad pulls and loose mobs (bad tanks).
In heroics, and raids, when the tank may take sudden big bursts of damage, I use earthshield on him. It has the very nice (and important) added benefit of helping the tank get more threat from the boss (given that the healing done is considered to be performed by the tank). Just make sure you renew it during the fight.
Keep in mind that, if you put Earthshield on the tank, you can put Water Shield on yourself.
Also, you might want to throw a few Healing Waves of rank 1 on the MT. That will give him the two buffs which will guarantee that he will start the fight with 25% more armor, and your first Healing Wave spells will be increased by 18%.
Healing single target
In other words, healing the main tank. You never stop healing, you use your nice Healing Wave (which you essentially spam on the MT) and you are more mana efficient. At the same time you give the tank the 25% armor increase buff from you crits (from the Ancestral Healing talent), and your own heals are also bigger due to the Healing Way talent which stacks up and increases your healing by up to 18%.
Keep in mind that although you can do a good job, paladins are better at this. You will run out of mana pretty fast while they can keep healing for a bit longer. And most importantly, if you take on this role, you will not be doing what you're actually much better at, chain healing people!
Healing multiple targets
Often you will be given the role to heal the raid. This is the time to get the chain heal out let it shine! In order for chain heal to work well you need to have a lot of people who are taking damage close together. The efficiency of CH is simply amazing, much-much better than anything else we have at our disposal.
In most raids you'll have the tanks and the rest of the melee close together. This is a good example where Chain Heal will do a great job. The tanks do not count on you to stay alive but what you can do is to spam it on the melee who has taken the most damage and then let it jump around and benefit the others (including the tanks).
It's not easy to use, and you will have to switch between CH and your other healing spells, depending on the situation. If a player is taking damage fast, you need a Lesser Healing Wave. You have a split second to evaluate the rate at which the character is taking damage (in other words how fast your spell must be) and make the rigth choice. Any delay on this decision and poof, you have a dead guy in your raid.
If you haven't been a big fan of CH, put it on your cast bar, try to use it as much as possible and you'll understand why it is the best weapon we have in our shaman's arsenal!
Overhealing
In some fights you can have good coordination with the other healers. In others, you won’t. You’re destined to overheal and you shouldn’t be afraid of it. If you have a mana issue you’re probably not the main healer anyway. In that case save your mana for the hard part of the fight (and go get yourself better gear). If you don’t, just do it. You can stop the heals if the fight is not too hard, but stopping and starting again takes time. During that time the tank might die. If you anticipate the tank to take some damage, just throw the heal anyway.
A good way to understand where you’re standing is by using Heal Meters (same mod as Damage Meters).
How can you be a great healer – Start and Stop your heals
This is fairly simple but few people practice it. You’ll find yourself in a situation where your tank is not adequately dressed, or he is simply taking too much damage. The only way to save him is by starting and stopping your heals. You start a healing wave, let it run its course for 2secs and – if the tank has taken damage you let it complete – if it hasn’t, you stop it by hitting escape. And then you start the next one.
This is going to drive you crazy (that’s why people don’t do it :p) as you need to be always on the edge. You can’t relax. Sometimes the tank will be lucky, he will dodge and parry and won’t take any damage. And you’ll start letting go. You’ll stop starting and stopping your heals. You’ll sit back in your chair. And then he’ll take two 8K hits and he’ll die. There are a lot of fights where this is the only way to save the tank. Get used to it.
Note: Don’t use jump, or move to stop your heals, only Escape. Jump takes too much time, and move can cause problems (Karazhan – Aran – Flame Wreath).
How can you be an amazing healer – Anticipate what comes next
This is very difficult to do and it means that you can watch several things in the fight, concurrently. You must keep your eye on the health bar of the tank, you can’t stop even for a second. You must make sure you have all your totems out – and renew them when it’s time. You need to make sure you avoid any AOE that is coming your way – and avoid dying. It’s hard enough to do all that. But if you want to be an amazing healer, you have to watch the others, too.
Good luck!
