So, my shaman Larue dinged 70 recently and have been trying out the Resto way for a little while. I have been healing mostly on my priest and a little dabbling on the side in the druid way of healing while still specced feral. In short, I have healed very little on my shaman, and while there are many similarities to the priestly way of doing it, there are also differences and it takes some getting used to.
A brief spell comparison
(Casts times with talents, mana costs without talents, healing amount without heal bonuses, spells or effects from set bonuses, trinkets and similar not included)
Slow large heal
Priests have Greater Heal, 2,5 secs cast, 825 mana, heals for about 2550, while shamans have a similar ability, Healing Wave, 2.5 secs cast, 720 mana, heals for about 2300.
Faster smaller heal
Flash Heal for priests, 1.5 secs cast, 470 mana, heals for about 1200. Lesser Healing Wave for shamans, 1.5 secs cast, 440 mana, heals for about 1100, so not much difference here either.
HoTs
Priests have Renew, instant cast, 450 mana, ticks for 222 heals every 3 seconds (about 255 with Improved Renew)
A draenei shaman has the racial ability Gift of the Naaru, which has a 1.5 secs cast, costs no mana and heals for (your level * 15 + 35) damage in total over 15 secs, which for a level 70 character means 217 heal every 3 seconds. This spell has a 3 min cd, which makes it marginally useful unless you have some way of remembering that its cd is up and its available for use.
Shamans also have Healing Stream totems, which can be considered a form of HoT as long as the group members stay in range of it (within 30 yards if the shaman has the talent Totemic Mastery). The Healing Stream costs 90 mana to pop and heals 18 damage (23 with Restorative Totems) every 2 seconds for 2 minutes. (Its not as low as it seems, Larue's current heal bonus of 931 makes this totem heal 81 damage every 2 seconds.)However, this totem can't be used at the same time as Mana Spring totem though, they both use the water totem.
Group heals
Priests have Prayer of Healing and (if specced for it) Circle of Healing. PoH has a cast time of 2.5 secs, heals group members within 30 yards of the priest for about 1000 and costs 1070 mana. CoH is instant, heals the target and group members within 15 yards of her (not the casting priest) for about 430 and costs 450 mana.
Shamans have Chain Heal, their white lazer beam heal with a 2.5 secs cast that heals up to three targets for about 900, 450 and 225 respectively (1080, 540 and 275 with Improved Chain heal) for a cost of 540 mana.
On-damage heals
Priests have Prayer of Mending, an instant spell that for 390 mana throws a frisbee to her target. When the target takes damage the frisbee heals her for 800 damage and then jumps to another group member within 20 yards.
Shamans place an instant cast Earth Shield on their target. The shield is instant cast, costs 450 mana and stays on the target with 6 charges that heals for 270 every time the target gets hit.
Oh-shit heals
When that oh-shit moment turns up, a priest pops a Power Word: Shield on the target, quickly followed by a Flash Heal or if time permits, a Greater Heal.
When a shaman needs an emergency heal, she pops Nature's Blessing, followed by presumably a Healing Wave.
Aggro dumps
A priest has Fade, which drops her aggro level for 10 seconds, and by the time Fade fades, someone else usually has worked up enough aggro to keep the mob from going for the priest again.
A shaman has a Tranquil Air totem that she can pop. However, since this affects the entire group within range (30 yards if you have the talent Totemic Mastery) it's usefulness is very limited.
Luckily, since a shaman can wear mail she usually can take a little beating before she goes down, which hopefully gives the tank or other enough time to re-establish aggro. (As a comparison, my freshly dinged shaman in greens and blues has 7200 armor whilme my epicced-out priest has 1500).
Mana preservation and regeneration
Mana regeneration for both priests and shamans at lvl 70 are calculated in the same way. Priests have a talent, Meditation, that allows 30% of this mana regeneration to keep going while they cast. Shamans have a somewhat similar talent, Unrelenting Storm, but this is deep in the Elemental tree and out of reach for a Resto shaman.
Priests have the talent Inner Focus that gives you a free spell cast every three minutes, and also a talent Holy Concentration that may give you another freebie.
A talent in the Discipline tree, Divine Spirit, also gives a buff that improves the priest's Spirit-based mana regeneration, and the Improved version also increases the healing bonus. (This talent requires at least 21 points (23 for the Improved version) so if you choose this one you can't have the Circle of Healing from the Holy tree)
Priests also have a Shadowfiend, a pet on a 5 minute cooldown that gives the priest mana back when the pet deals damage.
Shamans have no talents for mana-free spellcasts but they have a Mana Spring totem, that for a measly 120 mana pops a totem that with Restorative Totems will replenish 2800 mana for the 2 minutes its up.
Resto shamans also get the Mana Tide totem, which has a 5 minute cd like the Shadowfiend and gives mana back to all group members withing range.
Cleansing
Priests can Cure Disease and Abolish Disease (for those nasty mobs that keep contaminating people), they can Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel (extra powahful area dispell)
Shamans can Cure Disease and pop a Disease Cleansing Totem when hanging around unwashed mobs crawling with germs. They can also Purge mobs, but can't dispel magic effects from friends. They can however Cure Poison and use Poison Cleansing Totems.
Fun-ness
I have been healing on my priest for so long now I can probably do it in my sleep (but don't tell my fellow raiders I do this! ;P) and I still enjoy it. There are certainly still things to learn and ways to improve, but overall I am pretty happy with my priest at the moment. I will not bring her to Karazhan anymore because that probably would make me fall asleep, although she still could use some of the drops in there I have been there too many times to find it even remotely fun on my priest. I save the ZA and 25-man runs for Jools, that is where I enjoy playing her the most.
Shaman healins is not yet as instinctive but it's novel and fresh and although there are many similarities it is different enough to be interesting, and I am really looking forward to honing her skills and abilities in normal and heroic 5-mans and it would be great fun to take her to Karazhan.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Shaman vs priest healing
Thursday, September 18, 2008
How to kill a dragon
You need:
- One dragon, in this case Lethon who was walking around in Duskwood. Lethon used to be a 40-man raid world boss back in the old misty pre-TBC days, but nowadays it can be defeated by:
- One tank, lvl 70, decently geared.
- One healer, lvl 70, also decently geared.
- Lots and lots of time
How to do it:
Let the tank engage the dragon and establish aggro. Positioning is not that hard when there are only 2 people in the raid, so tank it wherever you like.
Healer, stand to the side of the dragon where you have the tank comfortably in range. Don’t go too far back because it might hit you with the tail, and don’t go too far to the front because it might spew Noxious Breath all over you.
Should the healer get caught in the green fumes, it’s not the end of the world, just remember that the debuff increases the cooldown on all your abilities so you will have to be alert and rotate your heal spells until the debuff wears off.
By virtue of standing right in front of the dragon, the tank will get caught in his breath and get the stackable debuff that also increases Nature damage taken. When the tank has the debuff he will need some extra healing. Nature resist gear helps.
Occasionally Lethon fires off a Shadowbolt Volley to one side of him. Easiest is to eat the bolts. Their damage is not worth the bother of turning the dragon around to get the bolts to the opposite side of the healer and is easily healed through with a single Renew.
The dragon also emits a green cloud of sleep gas that crawls slowly across the ground towards a raid member. This cloud sleeps anyone caught in it for 4 seconds. If the healer runs away from it, it will turn and go for the tank. The cloud’s edges are pretty well defined but you actually get the sleep debuff a bit before the cloud reaches you, which makes judging when to run away a little tricky. The tank takes the sleep without losing aggro, and the only time it’s worth running away from the cloud is when the tank has the Noxious Breath debuff, in which case a healer sleeping for 4 seconds may prove fatal.
If the healer’s mana permits (which it should), use any damage spells when possible or wand away as much as you can between heals to help dps the dragon down just a tad bit faster.
At every 25 % interval of his health, Lethon does a special ability – he summons shades, one for each raid member except the tank. These shades are immune to AoE and when they reach Lethon they will heal him a little. Kill these as soon as they spawn. In a 2-man raid you have 1 shade to take care of, which is not hard and even if you don’t kill it, the amount of health 1 shade gives to Lethon is practically negligible.
That’s it basically. Lather, rinse, repeat.
One comment though, unless you are really dead set on 2-manning the dragons, bringing an extra dps along will speed things up greatly. Won’t be as cool though, but if you are after the kill rather than the achievement, by all means do it. By the time Lethon was down to 56 %, I had used my Shadow Fiend 5 times, and since it has a cd of 5 mins, you can easily figure out how long we had been at it. Sadly, I messed up then and got caught in the sleep cloud while the tank was heavily stacked with the Noxious debuff. But we will get him next time!
Achievements
In the WotLK (or maybe in the next patch already?) I understand that so called achievements will be available. I have steered clear of reading much about the beta testing or the Wrath news that has been flooding many WoW-sites and blogs because I want it all to be fresh and new for me when I first enter Northrend, but some things I have not managed to avoid, and achievements was something that stuck.
If I understand it correctly an achievement will be some sort of in-game goal to aim for, but I don’t know if there will be any special rewards upon achieving the, er, well, achievement.
It would be nice if you could set up achievements of your own as well, like a to-do-list of things you want to achieve in-game (dammit, is there another word for this? I feel like a broken record, repeating the word all the time), and there are plenty things I have done or participated in already that feels like achievements.
Just a few basic ones here:
- Level a character to 70 – Check! Got a rogue, a druid, a warlock, a priest and a warrior to 70.
- Get Exalted with Darnassus by level 40 and get a tiger mount – Check! My shaman got Exalted at around level 35 and has never had to ride around on a huge ugly elekk mount.
- Get Exalted with Darnassus by level 30 and get a tiger mount – Don’t know yet. My draenei hunter is working on it but is still 6 k away at lvl 29,5.
- Tame a lvl 10 bat from Ghostlands with your lvl 10 hunter after having run all the way from Ironforge – Check! (With a little help from my darling husband through WPL and EPL)
- Dressing your bank alt in fancy clothes by doing the Valentine’s Day quest and running her at lvl 1 from Ironforge to Hillsbrad Foothills – Check! My bankalt gained 2 levels and a hot evening dress from that trek.
- Doing a full Karazhan clear in less than 3 hours – Check! (Well, except the animal boss in the servants’ quarters)
- Doing a heroic Steam Vaults run in less than 45 minutes – Check! As we zoned in we were told that “this instance will reset in 45 minutes”. When Kali'thresh lay dead on the floor we still had 10 minutes left on that timer.
- Doing a raid on a Horde capital and kill their leader – Half-check! (Raid part done, on Orgrimmar and Silvermoon City, but sadly the leaders escaped with their lives)
- Getting Exalted with Stormpike Guard without permanent mental damage from the small-minded viciousness floating around in bgchat – Check! (I think, not that I care what you say, l2play f***ing noob!)
- Getting Exalted with the Wintersabre trainers in Winterspring for a pretty lavender mount – Check! My pink-pig-tailed warrior now rides happily around on her precious tiger.
The list can go on and on, the entire WoW way of playing is so much based upon achieving things (rep, honor, items, skills, levels) so I guess that if you want to, you can find an achievement to fulfil and a reason to celebrate every day.
So, what are your achievements?
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Mana-macros
In light of all the announced coming changes to buffs and debuffs in a raid environment I feel it is a bit unsafe to write more about what to do to keep your mana up when raiding.
Except for one thing - how to save mana by actually using the abilities and trinkets that you have equipped.
My memory is excellent! - only very short! So I rely a lot on macros and addons to help me remember to squeeze those nice on-use abilities out of my gear.
I have the talent Inner Focus from the Discipline tree. This talent gives me a free spell every three minutes.
Now, there are two ways to use this one - either save it for those oh-shit-situations when you need a heal NOW and you have absolutely no mana left, or you use it every time it's up.
I go for the latter alternative, and it helps me stay out of the 5-second rule and thus regenerate more mana, hopefully avoiding those oh-shit situations altogehter.
I have macroed Inner Foocus to my heal spells, like for example Greater Heal.
/cast Inner Focus
/cast [target=mouseover, help] [ ] Greater Heal
Every time I click the macro, it tries to cast Inner Focus. If it's available, good, the blue spiral spell effect flashes and I begin to cast a mana-free Greater Heal. If Inner Focus is on cooldown, I get an error message but I cast a Greater Heal anyways, using mana for it.
The first conditionals, [target=mouseover, help], makes me cast the macroed spell on my mouseover target if it's friendly.
The second conditionals, [ ], is for when I don't have a mouse-over target or I do have one but it's hostile, in which case the macro behaves like a plain /cast Greater Heal, casting it on my current target or myself if I have no selected target and auto-self-cast enabled.
For added clarity, I put #showtooltip Greater Heal at the top of the macro. This shows me the usual spell tooltip when I mouseover the icon.
I also use the stopcasting technique for my Greater Heals, so I have put a /stopcasting before the actual /cast Greater Heal. This means that every time I click the macro I restart the cast.
(Why do I do this? you may ask.
I do this because of the 2,5 seconds cast time for Greater Heal. When you are on tank healing duty and don't want to waste mana and drop a full Gheal on an almost topped-off tank, you interrupt the spell and start casting it again right away.
You also don't want to wait around until the tank gets noticeable damage, because if you don't have a Gheal in the pipe already by then, those 2,5 seconds will feel like an eternity and you might end up with a dead tank.
So, start casting Gheal by clicking the Gheal macro. If the cast is almost at the end and the tank is still at almost full heal, click the macro once again to abort the cast and start it again. If the tank is taking damage, finish the cast and heal him up. Rinse and repeat.)
The macro now looks like this:
#showtooltip Greater Heal
/cast Inner Focus
/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover, help] [ ] Greater Heal
But wait! Being a lazy twit efficient healer I have put even more in my macros XD. You are allowed to use 255 characters in every macro so why not make the most of it?
I have three trinkets that I use when healing: Essence of the Martyr, Vial of the Sunwell and Figurine - Seaspray Albatross. All of them have very nice on-use effects - if you remember to use them.
Same here as for the Inner Focus spell, hold on to the trinkets or use them? It's like a bottle of wine, either you save it for that extra special occasion that might never happen and it may even turn rancid and yukky, or you drink it and turn that mundane tuesday evening into a sweet mellow night.
So I put my trinkets in my macro like this:
#showtooltip Greater Heal
/cast Inner Focus
/stopcasting
/use Vial of the Sunwell
/use Essence of the Martyr
/use Figurine - Seaspray Albatross
/cast [target=mouseover, help] [ ] Greater Heal
I get an error message saying Item is not ready yet or You must equip that item to use it, but the spellcast is not hindered.
I have macroed all my heal spells like this now, on the philosophy that it's better with a mellow tuesday afternoon that happens over and over than an extra special saturday night party that might never come ;P
(The /stopcasting is only used in the Gheal macro though, since it's useless in instant spell macros like for Renew, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing and I don't want to accidentally interrupt any casts of Flash Heal, Prayer of Healing or Binding Heal.)
Edit: *slaps head* Forgot one vital part of this macro! There's really no use in burning all your spell and trinket cooldowns unless you are in combat, so I have added the conditional [combat] before every spell cast or trinket use.
The macro now looks like this:
#showtooltip Greater Heal
/cast [combat] Inner Focus
/stopcasting
/use [combat] Vial of the Sunwell
/use [combat] Essence of the Martyr
/use [combat] Figurine - Seaspray Albatross
/cast [target=mouseover, help] [ ] Greater Heal
This way I won't pop the cd's just by shooting a frisbee to the tank before he engages a mob, when I am still full of mana.
