Healing as a shaman 101

Healing 101 as a shaman is something that I think is needed since a lot of people and certainly those who are new to healing think that there is a rotation of somesorte.
While yes there are some things you need to do but a rotation is not even close.

Breakdown of spells you need to cast as a healer:

Earth Shield:
If your tank healing this is a godgift. It's not going to keep the tank up but its wonderfull for suppliments and topping him off. mana cost vs healing this can be your best and worst spell.
If he takes little damage fast, it's going to overheal a lot, if he's getting hit big, its wonderfull. Just Keep it up all the time!

Riptide:
Instant Cast: 6 second cooldown. The spell it self is good: Heal + HOT but if you take the tidal waves talent (and its needed!) it becomes awesome! with the changes in 3.2 you get 30% cast time of your HW and 25% crit extra on your LHW for 2 charges. which means that one of those two your going to crit with LHW. (believe me at lvl80 you have 25% critchance)
IF your tank needs to get up fast, this is a nice way to do it without blowing all the CD's

LHW:
Basic spell, also the one your going to use the most, It shines because its fast and it heals decently. I would say use this as your prime healing source

HW:
It's long and cluncky but its such a big heal!
If you are tank healing and you know he will take a huge damage spike and then won't get damaged for 2seconds: hit this: it heals a good deal of his health.
Mostly I only use this in conjunction with natures swiftness: instant heal or tidal force: love to see that one critting.

CH:
Chain heal is a remarkable spell that I love to use when AOE hits the Raid/party.
Use it on the person with the most damage and see it jump.
If AOE really hits the fan this is a macro:
/cast nature's swiftness
/cast Tidal force
/cast Chain Heal (rank X)
Instant critable CH... there is nothing more

Nature's swiftness: 3min CD (2min in 3.2) next nature spell that has a cast time under 10sec is instant... enough said. (use it all the time if the tank or raid members are taking immense damage!)

Tidal Force: 3 charges: 60% - 40% -20% extra chance to crit... again enough said.

Earthliving weapon: Healing power + small hot, have it on all the time. It's great! Even the small hot will save you mana and make your life a lot easier.

Gift of the Naaru: Yes Gift of the naaru! Mana alsmot out? want to heal yourself very very fast after that aoe and want to pop everyone to full health again? Gift yourself (or another) it's fast and it's free.

Heroism: 40sec. of 30% faster casting/smashing... yes this is awesome for healing.. absolutly fantastic if you know damage is going to come in fast, and the raid really needs to get the boss down: use it and love it. Do note that it costs a lot of mana, so be sure you have enough mana to do it.

How to use them?

following examples are my personal preference, I am not responisble for any raid or party members that using these combinations of spells and/or talents. Use at your own responsabilty and risk.

Preparing:
1- Earthliving + Watershield, keep them up, always!
2- keep your earthshield up all the time!
3- know your buttons, if you are click healing or hotbar healing, know them by hart.
4- full mana before every boss.

In the fight
Single person taking damage
1- Start with Riptide - It will get you faster casting for your next two spells
2- lhw the guy (hopefully the tank) that is taking damage
3- lhw untill riptide is up
4- rinse repeat
This is the basic set up for one guy taking damage against a mob. This should heal them through the whole fight without problems.

single person takes damage + group AOE damage
1- start with riptide at the tank.
2- if group > 90% => lhw the tank
if group <90%> Chain heal on the tank so it jumps to the group.
I'm starting with CH on the tank since he needs to be topped off and is your most important target to keep alive, in a raid you should start with a healer or your highest dps or ofc, the guy with the most damage.
3- rinse repeat
Easy enough agian, do note that here, you already should start thinking, will the CH complete on time? will the guys have enough damage to make it worth it? can the tank keep up so long without putting myself in problems? etc.

group takes damage and is spread out
Spam LHW untill you are sick of it!
really nothing else spam it and try to keep everyone alive, if you see healers taking a spike, don't worry about giving them one too. most of them are so concentrated they probably don't even notice that he took damage. If its getting hard, dont be afraid to pop tidal force for some extra power.

Group takes damage and is close together
No not Spam CH ...
Here you must look and see that CH is going to be worth the mana, time and heal.
fe: 3 guys have 5K, 2K and 900 damage on them. then I will not use CH but just one lhw on the 5K damage and wait with the other two. I'm not a guy who overheals a lot (about 8%) I try to conserve mana and be a precise healer when necisary, I don't care if that lowers my hps by a 100, cause that 100hps is wasted anyway.

OH SHIT OH SHIT OH MY M<3mins>GOD!
oh yeah baby, we all have those moments: one of the best things to do is:
/cast nature's swiftness
/cast Tidal force
/cast Chain Heal (rank X)
really you'll thank me.
This is also a good alternative if you don't have 2 the time to cast them both: the nature's swiftness followed by chain heal then a tidal force and lhw/RT (riptide) like a madman!
If your not a Raidhealer change the CH to HW and do the same.

OOM i'm OOM and 50% to go at boss!
that happens if a tank pulls and your not ready. Learn to live with it.
well first thing ofc is drink a potion. second thing to do is: nature swiftness and HW. its big and buys you time. then gift of the naaru the tank or who ever needs it, tidal force and use RT. by then your mana should be almost depleted or actually back on normal lvls.
You see at end game raiding, you should never go oom, but before end game you have quite a good chance too. Especially in a pug...
Also if your oom check your watershield, there is a good change its out.
If -BIG if only comes in if there is a bad tank in a pug - I go oom, i wait 3seconds, and I can start
LHWing agian every 2 seconds again.



READ ONLY IF YOU ARE DESPERATE AND ARE A RISK TAKER (or if you want to scare the living shit out of the tank)
There is one more thing you could do but I only tried it once in a pug group and think I saved our lifes with it but still....
stand in the fire.
You'll get damage and get mana... or even more risky...
you'll die, use reincarnate and have 35% of your mana back.

So thats it for now, hope you liked it!

Grtz
Ari

70: Healing Nexus without a real tank...

Oh boy... Oh boy... where did I get myself into?
Me, a guildie (Iç!), a rogue and 2 DK's where going to Nexus and pwn the living mashizzle out of the dragons that bade there.
Untill we noticed that no-one was an actual tank. lucky for uss Blizz made DK's so OP that even in DPS spec they can tank.
DK1: 9K hp other (DK2) 12K
So we took DK2 as our tank, sadly enough he had never run this instance before..
Even with his Plate and selfhealing (bloodspec) I needed to be on my toes, including all the bad pulls, aggro changing and everythign else that went wrong.
We only died once... (I got killed first.. thank you for holding the aggro...)
Well once that is untill the end boss.
4 tries to get her down.

You see the last fight requires moving or jumping... As a shaman... I do not have any possiblitie to heal while i'm looking like goat on steroids.

line up:
Riptide : I love you soooo much! 1 instant every 6 seconds
Earth shield: I also love you! 8x 600hp = Goood
Lhw: I hate you!
CH: I hate you more!
HW: I hate you most!

During this fight the problem is that I needed to stand still...now I took about 150 a second if i stood still. which means that if i cast lhw i get 300Damage. now the tank was not so great geared so he needed constant healing... Which meant that I had about 15sec to live, without any heals.

So what did I change on the 4th try? I said fck you to the tank and put earth shield on myself. which cleared about 2sec. every 10 to heal him. since I didn't need to heal myself.
and ofc: Heroism + fire elemental = pwnage.

70: It's time for heroes!

Dinged 70 yesterday! It happened by killing the last boss in UK! well actually everyone else was killing him, I was healing them.

Well Ding 70 and time for Heroism! Time to start lvling again though, no more hanging around and waiting for partys in UK.

I wanted to paste my achievement here, but armory isn't updated yet ;(

more updates soon

68-69: Northrend Baby!

Oooooh yeah, Ariäni dinged 68 and went to Northrend and I was happy ^^
I just arrived, setted my HS and got a /W of my RL best mate: "Hey m8, Do you think Ari could boost me in ZF?" To be frank I couldn't wait to test out my new flameboy baby ^^ So I said yes and Did, we completed the run with him dieing once, a lot of MB and the coolest stairfight ever.
I just popped my Fire Elemental totem downstairs and let him fire nova everyone down.. And I saw that it was GoooooD.

After that ZF was completed I HS'd and went to lvl a bit, not even 15mins back in Borean thundra and I got a /W from a stranger: Want to heal UK? My momma always told me not to listen to strangers whispering in my ear but... I couldn't help myself, ma! Really it was soooooo nice...

Well the dungeon was... pfffft ahum *grumble*. Nah It wasn't that bad... Line up:
First boss: (Ice Tombs + Adds)
First try: got ice tombed: everyone died cause nobody attacked the icetombs...
Second try: ice tombs getting shattered, the tank didn't pick up the adds, I went to him under aggro, and he didn't drop D&D... I died = everyone died.
Third try: got through it

Second boss: You know it those two that need to die at the same.
Went pretty good actually: I died by the random shadow balls, soulstoned and started shielding/riptide"ing"/earthliving the tank. Then died again by a charge and 3K blow O_O well one dk and a warlock survived, so walk back but all good.

Last boss: Tried him 4 times, First and second we just died, third time the tank pulled while I was still rezzing the dps. O_O (love that emoticon) Fourth went ok.


All by all, the Tank took some serious hits and dropped immensly fast while fighting 4-5 guys. The healing that I did was to be honest not aduaquate, on the last two bossfights I went OOM even after dropping the mana tide totem and chucking a potion, I was Watershieled, so luckily it doesnt take long before I can spam again and since I'm a dranei, i got my gift of the naaru thing. I was heal spamming to keep the tank up, and if dps took aoe, the chainheals really cut into my mana.

BTW: something a healer wants a warlock to know: Don't go Life tapping yourself in the middle of a fight with AOE without warning... ffs

Oh well all went well, dinged 69 while lvling in Borean Leather...euhm Borean Thundra.
And on something you all don't care about: got myQuest Gem perfection So i have a chance to create the perfect gem!

Grtz
Ari

Shaman Guides... non existent?

So this is quite weird...
I have my own rotation for healing/dps etc..
But to improve them I usually look for a basic guide/ rotation / talent spec etc...
I never use the standard spec, but it's always based upon one.
Now I was looking for lvling guides, rotation guides and good specs for shaman and wel...
There aren't many.
I have found no "lvling" guides with decent info on how to play a shaman.
I have found only one rotation/spec guide for shamans (elitist jerks)

Is the class so underpowered or unattractive that no-one plays them? That there is no need for a decent healing guide as for other classes? I've seen the Theorycrafting breakdown on Elitist Jerks ofc. since I theorycraft myself this wasn't a lot new stuff. Also I was dissapointed by their "best rotation" since 1: there is no real healing rotation 2: lhw RT lhw lhw rt isn't something I think should be used as standard?

So fellow shaman tell me this: Have you read any decent guides about the class we play?

PS: I was looking at them since I wanted to post a small guide here at the Blog but wanted to make sure I gave decent info.

DPS in group: take that DK!

I really should start writing these at my home computer, and start using fraps again...
Yesterday I had a great Mana tombs run. (as a DPS) in which i blasted everyone away... litteraly (Thunderstorm for the win, right?)

Recount DPS - overall:
1 Ariäni lvl66 (me) 950ish(!!!!!) Half blues and greens
2 DK DPS lvl67 (dinged 68 half way) 720ish Half blues and greens, great player
3 Pala DPS lvl64 650ish Mostly greens, some blues, average M&S
4 DK tank lvl66 625ish Mostly greens, +/- tanking "skills"

On some fights i hit the 1K and went over it (1070ish). Now I looked at everyones gear, and the DK DPS was actually pretty good geared, good rotation, frankly did everything okaj.

Now How come I do 230 DPS more then the rest?
-CL + Glyph of CL + Talent Lightning Overload
Brakedown: Drop totem of wrath then CL which hits for: 1.2K, 800, 600ish, 400ish then it has the ability to do half damage again: 600, 400, 300,200. (33% chance) and I have 17% chance to crit (with the totem up) Which means in the time (1.5sec) that the DK can club one guy I hit for about: 3.5K (with no crits and including a 33% chance on lightning overload) Now if you know that 17% chance of a crit that means I crit on one of the jumps... which increases the damage too.
by how much, I'm not going to calculate right now but lets say its about 500~ extra damage overall.

Downside of this all?
- Very mana consuming
-Only drop 1 totem (don't have the time to drop them all 4 or my dps would drop)
-Selfish, since i don't drop strength of the earth or windfury, I'm being selfish by only upping my DPS (Totem of wrath: 120SP)

Personal downside
Aggro Monkey: My rotation is quite simple in a Dungeon: CL, FrS, LB, CL , rinse and repeat , I also always target the one not being attacked by someone else (they die slower so less need to switch targets, means .3 secs more time to dps)
This means that if I get "lucky" the CL will crit on the first guy (2.4K burst anyone?) which gets my crit train rolling, which usually means that my FrS or CL also Crits... can you see it comming?
I may be able to blast everyone away but I need to watch out, If I get my crit train rolling I'm the red flag for the Bull.

So some Tips while lvling:

What do you need to do when you have aggro?
You have 2 choices before lvl80
1- Thunderstorm.. Yes It gives you even more aggro... But if you aren't glyphed for it it knockbacks everyone 20yards (in a 10y range around you, untalented) which gives the tank time to taunt the target(s) attacking you.
2- Windshock - reduces effective aggro, but this blows your 4sec CD (well for me its 4sec) and lowers your damage by about 1000 that fight (so on a 1min fight thats about 24dps)
What to choose is up to you.


Well This post has come out a lot more detailed and Theorycrafted then it was supposed too...
So I'll call it a day for now.

Grtz
Ari

lvl66: Healing UB and SP

After doing UB and SP yesterday, I turned in the quests and dinged 66.
Now the Group wasn't too bad... though it was far from perfect. We went to UB first and here is the write up of it:
2 DK's (one of which with tank spec) and 2 Paladins (also one with tank spec) The DK and pala tank kept switching aggro back and forth up untill the first boss. which was far from ideal to heal. After the first boss we decided that the Pally could heal, since the DK tank went down during the first boss, even my oh shit buttons couldn't help him stay up. I looked at his gear after that ...
O_O I was suprised he could even tank the trash... jeeez!
One tip to DK tanks: DO NOT WEAR LEATHER
Oh well on the first boss the DK went down and the pally took over, no further incidents.
To be honest since that the pally was tanking things went a lot better, and my "poo"shield could keep him up against most pack of mobs. We had one other "oh shit" situation which was fairly easily healed, though I got 3x "Nice Healing" on the shit hits the fan pull and I loved it!

Since I love those kind of responses here is a line up of what you and me need to know:

What healers want others to know:
1) If your not the tank, don't pull
2) If your an aggromonkey, I will let you die.
3) If I die, its the Tanks fault
4) If the Tank dies, it's my fault
5) If DPS dies, it's their own damn fault. (if there is no AOE from mobs)
and most important:
6) Do NOT stand in the fire/acid/ whatever... It's BAD for you, serious!
7) Do NOT spam Heal me, heal me, heal me

What DPS want healers to know:
1) On boss fights they can take AOE: HEAL them...
2) cleanse debuffs... if they have a 10% dps reduction it means longer fight, more healing, worse for the healer

What Tanks want healers to know:
1) Do NOT run a way when you have aggro!
2) Stay behind uss and don't pull... (duh)
3) Heal me... (obvious)

Thats about it for now,
Maybe next time a breakdown of efficient healing as a shaman.

Grtz

I healed again! *happy emote*

Yesterday on my 64-65 grind, A group invited me as a healer to BF.
I didn't think twice... I wen't.... I cried. This was the first time, I went with a tank I didn't know...
holy crap that made a diffrence.

Well the tank himself was good, not excellent but good.
the rogue was a pain in the butt, an aggromonkey if you saw one , constantly spamming: "Link dps meter". The paladin dps was ok. The hunter was... well huntard, constantly asking for gold (he knew i was the author of one-copper) and at the bottom of the dps meter (400DPS).

The rogue died 3 times... after he stole aggro, I warned him I would not heal him anymore. After his third death he got the idea. We also wiped once... I /rw OOM after chainpulling from the start untill the first boss. (trinkets and mana tide already popped) and the hunter decides to pull... very nice with a healer without mana and a dps afk....
I made everyone run to their corpse... I'm not waisting my mana on rez, when you can get back and up in 30secs.. which takes less time, then me rezzing all. (10secs x 4 guys = 40secs)
After that everything went alright, though the dps was quite low.
600, 580, 500, 400 and 1 respectivly for Pala, rogue, warrior (tank), hunter and me.
Now I ran that same dungeon with a diffrent group as DPS a day before and I topped the DPS with about 750.... closely followed by 2 DK's 710 and 680~ and a boomkin 600. I mean... That we even got the damn boss down is a suprise! Oh well finished and everything is alright I guess.
I'm just happy I didn't make any mistakes and kept everyone up and running... except for the aggro monkey

lvl65: Zangarmarsh... I'm so tired of you!

God, First when I wen't to Zangarmarsh I was happy, you get the sporregar and the cenarion rep up there, and I can farm reagents for my waterbreathing/walking spells.
Well I'm almost finished there and I'm happy! soo happy!, I started to hate the naga and boglords so bad, I KOS them, even without a quest, I just kill them, I'm so tired of seeing them, even when I killed all, they just pop back... heeey! There are not many mines around, and I already did the 2 instances... though not completed the quest, i can't find 2 out of the 4 guys in there :s

Oooh well, I dinged 65 so I'm happy ^^
To be honest i couldn't find my vid anywhere on the pc, though its still on youtube i thought. (search for sethonecopper)

15 more lvls guys ! just 15more and I'll be able to raid with my shaman! Make it the guildleader even, since i'm so tired of Elloën at the moment.
Well 3 more lvls for northrend, which means i'll spending some time in Shat I think, I really want the aldor a bit higher up in reputation for my JC skills. Oooh well we'll see won't we?
I'll blaze some content tonight and hope to ding 66 or 67... hopefully.... ^^

243+ totems to drop (part 2)

So as said my line up changed considerably since now.

Soloing and grouping as elemental:
Since i solo in Elemental, I try to reduce my downtime as much as possible and I try to keep my damage as high as possible. So the line up is the following:
- Totem of wrath (or magma totem)
- Water shield
- flamethongue weapon
Yes I only drop one totem.. sometimes 2 (mana spring) if i'm low on mana.

Why? => since i'm spamming LB and FrS all the time the earth/wind/water totems aren't needed. Or atleast not untill i get my wrath of air totem. It also costs mana, and its not effective.
why do i use FrS (frost shock) Well the mobs don't live long enough to benifit from FS.

Solo i hit 550 DPS (in group 750) and i drink about 2times a lvl. (granted i use my trinket, thunderstorm and if needed potions to get mana)

Note: with this setup in a group I drink quite a lot though, since i CL FrS LB all the time.

Healing in a group:
-Water shield
- earthliving weapon
- Flamethongue totem (spellpower ftw)
- Mana spring totem

Again minimizes the downtime and gives a nice SP boost.
Mostly i can just earth shield the tank, and LHW or Riptide him.

Lvling and healing at lvl63ish is easy and fun, so no need for large tactics or rotations. keep it simple and if needed use your "oh shit buttons"
i use grid+clicque so i have lhw at left click, chain heal at middle, riptide at rightclick
HW at shift left, ES at shift middle and the decurse/depoison/dedisease at shift right
hotbar: 1- instant o shit button 2 - 60/40/20% crit oh shit button
so a "1" shift click is instant save. (not like its ever needed before lvl70+ or with a bad pug

243+ Totems to drop (Part 1)

After some digging I found an old post of mine that i had a look at and it's so wrong actually, well not wrong as its a good hint and tip but still not really what I use now, so a post will follow this with which I actually use

SOLO:
Stoneskin Totem (i already have around 40% damage reduction while soloing but still is very nice to have) otherwhise I’ll drop strength of the earth, which is a huge, really huge boost to dps (even at lvl10 its still awesome!)
Magma Totem which damages every mob in the area every 2secs. (very handy)
mana spring totem (need to keep my mp5 flowing!) or healing stream if im getting to much damage, and want to reduce some.
Now as for wind totems its a bit trickier,since there are 2 good ones: Windfury totem (meelee haste, but i always have the enchant up so its no good) or wrath of air totem (faster casting) mostly i use this one, since i already have the other one.

GROUP:
in a group it’s a looknfeel. i mainly (as a healer) use: strength of earth, totem of wrath (spellpower) totem, healingstream, windfury/Wrath of air (depending if we have more casters or meelee’s)
though beware! if someone gets poisoned or diseased, you’ll need to swap healingstream for the cleansing totem, or drop tremor totem for magical debuffs.

and what with the rest of the totems?
Granted the rest of the totems you’ll not use often, but they are a life saver when you need them.
Resistance totems, pretty obvious, when you’re going against casters or guys who do fire damage, drop the fire resisting totem.
Stoneclaw and earthbind totem, these are so nice if you want to run through an area of mobs but don’t want to kill them (shortage of time or just don’t feel like it), granted this you’ll use a lot below lvl30 but even in caves at later lvls this is very nice. drop earthbind first, then if another mob comes, drop stoneclaw, rinse and repeat
element totems are very nice, for tougher fights.
Manatide when you need mana quickly.
and thats about it that i know of, at the top of my head.

God my actionbars are full with those things!
yes sir/ma’m, they are! i got 2 addon’s for you, and both i use:
Totemcaddy (only use this when you have all the four elements or it won’t work!) which displays a nice box, with 1 totem of each element, your shield, your weapon enchant and a WF timer.
totemtrapbar which adds 4 small bars, just above your action bars, with all your totems in it. (each element has a bar) which is just so handy to clean up your normal action bars!
though i would recommend, to put your most used totems in a quickbar, these addons make your life soooo much easier… but hey i’m an addon junkie so maybe that ain’t the complete truth…

if anything is unclear don’t be afraid to ask.

Grtz, Ari

So I'm healing or DPSing?

This is my first question in every pug... And sadly the awnser is 99% chance.... DPSing...
I mean Whuh?

There is a healer shortage everyone knows that, and still I may only heal if there is no other way!
I'm gonna make some screenies tonight of my pugs 'cause this needs to be known: a resto shaman can heal.... really...no I'm not kidding....Stop laughing....ok are you done?

My specs are: Resto (MS) Ele (OS) and I love them both, though Ele is just for soloing... and yet i keep getting asked to dps...
Okaj, not to brag, but since lvl50ish (BRD pug) untill now, i've never come second on the dps meters, always first head and tails over the rest... yes even the DK.
My dps: 730ish the rests: 500-650ish (every class even mage and dk) Now I still play with guys from a few lvls back, so they keep asking to dps, thats normal. But still... I've healed everything from DM till BRD, did Ramps and BF as a healer, and I only wiped once... (in ST)...
I mean 1 wipe, how many can say that? I have a billion "oh shit" buttons and still they won't take me. there's always a priest or druid that wants to heal, even an occasional paladin.
Healer shortage my ass....

So tell me... 300SP, 6.5K mana, 3 oh shit buttons... what do I need more to finally get to freaking heal, without begging my ass off!

For the record: yes I <3 healing .... no not kidding... yes, stop laughing... ahhh nvm *shuts door*

Here we go again...

Dust lays on my Battle outfit. And my face has grown soft again...

It has been too long since I have gone out to meet the cry of battle, the call of war...
Slowly I carress my tunic...
Straps and shield up, I'm ready for this once more! To WAR!!!

aaah finally I found time again to start blogging about my Shaman.
Right now she's lvl63 and pretty well geared.

So Ariäni is ready for war once again. So what will I write about in this blog? Well as you have read, i'm an RP fan, and have some published short stories, so i'll write some RP entries.
More though I'm going to talk about the shaman class, strengths, weaknessess and tips at a whole.
If you ever saw my first blog about Ariäna (my first shaman) you already know that i soloed the DM at lvl 23-24 (dinged in the process) and that i brought down the shredder there without taking a hit. (maybe I can upload that vid again if i find it in the trash of my pc)
Also once dinged I'll talk about raiding with my shaman. Since I already have some xp in tbc and vanilla with them, and raiding xp with a hunter in WotLK it shouldn't be too hard.
So quick recap:
-RP stories
-progression of Ari
-hints and tips
-strengths and weakness
- Raiding

Interested? Well keep on reading!