Hiya, folks! I know I don't have many(if any) followers, but I'm back from blog hiatus and I'll be updating (at least) once a week for you all!
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As you all know, 6.0.2, the Iron Horde, pre-expansion patch was released yesterday afternoon. My weekend raiding guild, adding Tuesday to the progression schedule in WoD, got a kick start into Mythic content last night. Here is a little report on Mythic content and how adjusted talents/spells have impacted the Restoration Shaman...
I know there's only about 2 months left in this expansion, but it's never too late to pick up better resto habits and venture into WoD all the wiser...
(Reminder, this is for 25 man content only, as I don't really ever do 10 man raids). For those of you that don't know me, I have a resto shaman problem. I have three 90 resto shamans, two of which are over 585 item level and one around 543. I find it a little disappointing that most pug groups won't take anyone under 550 or 555, maybe even 560 to a normal SoO. When SoO first launched, most guilds were rollin' with less than a 540 item level but whatevs! When I finally get into a pug on my lower geared shaman, I guess I can see why some raid leaders/organizers are so picky about item level. For one thing, soooo many resto shamans are gemming, reforging, glyphing and talenting incorrectly. I often see resto shamans(at decent item levels) gemming for int, spirit, etc...using talents/glyphs they aren't even getting use out of during certain encounters...now maybe you'll say "Oh who cares, it's just LFR, it's just flex, etc..." Well, I guess I have a different attitude towards playing my class correctly. Or maybe you're usually elemental with a resto off spec and just need a little bit more guidance when it comes to correctly talenting/glyphing, etc... These are some habits I have picked up over the years and it has dramatically boosted my skill and throughput. On my 542 resto shaman(no meta, no cloak), most groups even with 560+ healers(with metas/cloaks), I absolutely destroy the meter. Partly this is due to resto shamans being pretty overpowered right now, but I've out healed a lot of 560-570 item level shamans and that should just not be happening. Pro Tip #1: I cannot stress this enough. POP COOLDOWNS EARLY and OFTEN! We have SOOOO many cooldowns and from what I see on BETA, our cooldown count isn't going to diminish much at all. Ascendance, Ancestral Guidance, Healing Tide Totem, Spirit Link Totem, elementals...I would bet that many of you don't even use some of these abilities during most encounters(maybe there's not enough damage going out for it to be worth it) but I say pop 'em anyway! By the time you rotate through them all, the first one popped will be up again for the next burst of damage going out. Get into this habit and you'll see your HPS skyrocket. Obviously if you're in a very organized raid and the raid leader has your cooldowns assigned, save them for your assigned time to use them, but otherwise use at your discretion! Pro Tip #2: Chain heal! No really. It's amazing and should end up being around top 3 on your healing done. Make sure you're always bouncing chain heal off a riptide target(and earth shield target if you can help it). I wouldn't worry too much about getting use out of your Tidal Waves buff, as you'll likely get more throughput by chain healing instead. If I'm in a group with lesser geared/skilled tanks and/or healers, I may toss out some direct healing as needed, but in general, it's really not necessary. Pro Tip #3: This one isn't so much about throughput as it is about resto shaman etiquette. Download an add on called "ShieldsUp!" It's an amazing(yet simple) visual add on for tracking earth shield and water shield. Since resto shamans are incredibly OP this tier, I'm finding myself in groups with other resto shamans more and more. One thing I notice almost EVERY single time I enter a raid with one or more resto shamans, earth shield tank coverage is lackluster and inconsistent. If there's an earth shield on tank #1 but no earth shield on tank #2, don't override the earth shield on tank #1, put it on tank #2. Some of you may be thinking "well duhh" but seriously, this issue is like an epidemic and it's become a terrible pet peeve of mine. IF you're going to INSIST on overriding another shamans earth shield, at least do the courtesy of keeping it up on said tank. So many times this happens and they let the ES fall off the tank and do not refresh for some time. Then, when I put my ES up on the tank, it magically gets overridden almost immediately. Not sure if some resto's are trolling or if they're really just not tracking earth shield correctly, but this is a horrible habit and I aim to put a stop to it! ShieldsUp! I highly recommend it. I believe weak auras is able to track shields similarly as well. If both tanks have an earth shield on them already, toss it onto a melee...I guarantee you'll need to refresh it most encounters, and it's a great target to riptide+CH off of. It's also a good gesture to whisper to another resto shaman(or in raid chat if there's like 3 or 4) which tank you plan to put your ES on. Be sure to keep it up as close to 100% as possible. I usually refresh around 1-2 stacks, or just after ES falls completely off. Pro Tip #4: Empower your healing rains! (This will become moot in WoD, but it's amazing right now). Unleash elements just about every time you put a healing rain down. The only time I will not empower a HR is if I know there's burst aoe damage about to occur and I don't have time for 2 GCDs. It's better to get the non-empowered HR down just prior to that damage going out than to be late on the empowered HR and end up with all overhealing. Use your best judgement when it comes to this. Again, in WoD/6.0, unleash elements will not affect healing rain, but if you're not empowering your healing rains currently and you're wondering why your throughput isn't as high as it should be, this is likely a contributing factor. If you follow these 4 tips, you will be on your way to the top of the meter! Yes, you'll even beat those dirty, cheating disc priests! If anyone has any questions about specifics regarding glyphs/talents for specific encounters, please feel free to ask in the comment section! :) I was finally able to work out some kinks in my UI on the BETA and get into a 5 man dungeon to try out healing at level 100.
It was fairly glitchy in there and I'm definitely not used to healing with minimal party frame visuals, but I was able to get about 20-30 minutes of dungeon healing in there before the instance crashed and everyone disconnected and was booted from the instance. The healing was more difficult than it needed to be due to my party frames not displaying the correct player. If I targeted/hovered over the tank, I would actually be healing the mage...so I was having to target the mage to heal when the tank needed healing. This was especially challenging when shit hit the fan, damage wise. Reloading the UI worked for a little while but then would glitch back to the incorrect player frame. Very disorienting... Seems like cooldowns will still be a large contributor to resto shaman healing, as we still have all our cooldowns(though I did not see Mana Tide in my spellbook) with the addition of Condensation Totem(100 talent). It was/will be somewhat difficult to break the habit of empowering my healing rains! Kind of similar to the habit adjustment of not refreshing water shield every 10-15 seconds like we used to prior to MoP(which I still do sometimes! /bad!) Mana was definitely an issue if I wasn't paying close attention to it. Not having my usual visuals to track that sort of thing, I found myself almost oom towards the end of some trash packs/boss encounters. With proper visuals and a better understanding/feel for the stat squish, I don't see it being much of an issue in the end/when WoD goes live. Overall, it was very similar healing as it is currently, with some minor adjustments and additions. Most of my keybinds stayed the same, as well as my general "rotation". Pretty much toss a healing rain down, healing stream totem on CD, keep riptide up on the tank/sprinkle on yourself/dps, rotate through your cooldowns and healing wave the tank/party members if they're taking high damage. Chain heal for group healing with HR and HST down. Pretty simple. Here are some WoD general/interface and Shaman changes I was able to get my hands on...thanks reddit!
Shaman
WoD Interface changes
Old content
World
I spent a good portion of the morning attempting to set up my UI to be functional for healing dungeons, but it seems like the client enjoys crashing and losing all the progress I made with my UI....A month or so ago, I was experiencing similar situations with the BETA and just gave up after awhile. After starting up this blog I figured it would be a pretty good idea to mess around with it again and report my thoughts on resto shamans first hand.
Unfortunately, I just don't have the patience for doing and re-doing the grunt work because the client obviously has issues...WoD is just 2 months away, I think I will just plan on updating resto shaman stuffs as I level to 100 and begin dungeons/early raids with my raid team. In the meantime, I will gather what information I can from the BETA as well as current resto shaman tips/thoughts/discussion, etc and continue to post. :) Welcome to the first post of my blog! This is really my first time officially blogging, so don't mind me as I sort out layouts and information.
A little about me and my WoW history.... I began playing World of Warcraft in 2006 after a friend introduced me to the game. I had been playing Ultima Online for a few years and he thought WoW would be right up my alley...and boy was he right! I came into the game a few months before Burning Crusade was released. I originally rolled a hunter(as this was the class I played in UO), hit 70 in BC and was raiding with a small group of real life friends who had helped me level and understand the game more. By the end of Karazhan/beginning of SSC/TK/Hyjal, I had become a pretty decent raider. After joining a more "progressive" guild around the end of T5/beginning of T6, we were very short on healers(shamans specifically) so I rolled one and never looked back and I've been healing all end-game content ever since! I currently raid alongside the guild <Hallowed> on Sargeras, which is also where I plan to raid exclusively when 6.0/Mythic and Warlords of Draenor release. I am very excited, as it is the first "hardcore" group I am running with at the beginning of an expansion. We are currently 14/14H on 25 man and selling heroic runs. You can find how to participate here: http://www.hallowed-guild.com/forum/viewforum/4627161/m/16970855 Here is what you can expect to read about/see in the near future: 1. Resto Shaman BETA info! I will be exploring the BETA a bit more, now that it's somewhat more stable and I will hopefully be able to use addons there soon! I will be updating/commenting on the resto shaman changes I find. I will plan to stream some of my BETA experiences here on my Twitch page: http://www.twitch.tv/shammyspice I used to stream 25 man raids, but sadly my computer's FPS suffers a tad too much. I don't see this being a problem for anything I will be doing on the BETA. 2. Current resto shaman information/assistance/tips, etc..! Since we are SO close to WoD, I won't be going too far in depth with this, but enough so that newer resto shamans are able to catch up before WoD releases. 3. Some things I cover may not be directly related to Resto Shamans but WoW in general. Any patch notes, changes, etc...I'll do my best to cover them as it seems necessary. Please feel free to comment, make suggestions/recommendations, and tips of your own! I must remind everyone to keep it friendly and constructive! Thanks for reading my first post! More to come soon! -Shammyspice |
AuthorI'm a middle-aged gamer living with her husband, dog and cat in Western Wisconsin. I'm an aspiring photographer/journalist who happens to play a resto shaman in her spare time! Archives
June 2015
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