Mastering Shaman Healing
Shamans are in a strange place right now. We are both good tank healers and good group healers, but we shine at none of those two tasks. We have no good long cooldown panic button like guardian spirit or pain suppression and in many situations we lack just a tiny bit of throughput or speed. That’s why we have to put a bit of work into our healing style as well as actively search for a good place in a healing team, between strong single tank healers like paladins and incredibly strong Holy Priests healing groups.
There is a very common mis-perception: shamans are easy to play. Most of the time, those people point at the few healing tools shamans have and then at the great variety of spells of a holy priest or a tree. This is wrong. Many shamans new to shaman healing fail at choosing the appropriate spells for the right situations. Maybe priests and druids are in fact more likely to learn firing the right spell in the right situation, because they have so many tools for specific situations and have to learn to handle them. Many shaman healers look self content at their small set of healing spells and just can’t imagine they could do anything wrong, having such a small choice anyway. Add to this the fact, that many resto shaman still think Chain Heal is the right tool for every situation and you get all those shamans in full T9 gear, still failing at the very basics of shaman healing and healing in general.
The second factor, which doesn’t help not so experienced shaman healers to make big steps into the right direction, is the image many raid leaders have stuck in their head: Illidan, P2, lots of group damage and an armada of resto shamans in sparkling armor mopping it all up with chain heal. This leads to many shamans being assigned to group healing tasks. Which leads to nonsense like: “Ok, everyone spread out so evil spell XY doesn’t jump from player A to player B. You two shamans over there, heal the group! Holy priest, heal the tank!”. Many raids and sadly many shamans themselves still completely ignore shamans as tank healers.
I know this might sound harsh. But I still see many resto shamans out there under performing with poor judgment in the matter of spell choice assigned to the wrong tasks. This is a call against mediocrity and self-content. Easy content is no excuse to suck at healing.
So here’s what I offer, 17 steps to not only be a decent healer but truly master the art of shaman healing.
- Learn the basics. If you’re a fresh level 80, go look for some very basic shaman guides. Aurik hast written an excellent post, though part of it might be outdated. If you raid or plan to raid somewhere in the future, please read the Shaman: Restoration entry over on EJ. Then read it again. And don’t forget to bookmark it and return to this page from time to time. EDIT: I have seen mek’s guide is updated for 3.2, so there’s another, very well thought out guide.
- Gain control over Tidal Waves. As you know, by casting Riptide or CH you gain two charges of this lovely buff, which will add 30% haste to your HW or 25% crit to your LHW. If you want to have a maximum of control over this buff, please monitor it. NeedToKnow, Power Auras or Auracle are Addons which will help you with keeping track of the charges. I’m not at all advertising some sort of healing rotation, nothing is worse than that. But every shaman should try to maximize the amount of LHWs and HWs, buffed with Tidal Waves.
- Monitor your ES and supercharge it. Every shaman should provide a 100% uptime for our lovely brown and ugly Earth Shield. There is no excuse to ever let an ES fall of a target. Totem Timers or ShieldsUp both help with keeping track of the charges. But do you honestly think this is everything? If you want to maximize the healing of your ES, you have to monitor your Spellpower or trinket procs. Of course it’s a good idea to macro +heal on use trinkets to your earth shield. In addition to that, I monitor the buff from my Totem Relic as well as the proc from Pandora’s Plea. If both buffs are active and I have a spare GCD, I always refresh the ES, supercharging it with nearly 1000 (!) additional +heal.
- I’m sorry, Riptide is not just the spell with the funny animation. Learn to use it. The first part of mastering Riptide is pretty obvious. This is training your reflexes and get faster and faster with dishing out the often life saving instant heal. This is a great spell to heal something you’re not assigned to, like squeezing an emergency heal on a tank or a group while not being assigned to those tasks. But only do so, if you’re 110% sure you won’t compromise your main task. Also, if you want to do a great job, monitor the HoT part, especially if you glyph Riptide. Don’t overwrite your HoT by casting Riptide over and over on the same target. Don’t eat up the HoT with CH all the time, but preferably on targets where the HoT is just about to run out. A HoT tracker like ForteXorcist or Grid with GridStatusHots will do a great job at monitoring the Riptide HoT.
- Yes, LWH is good. It is fast, it will most probably crit, it is pretty mana efficient and it only gets better if you make smart use of Tidal Waves. It is a great tool for tank healing, especially combined with an ES and the proper glyph. It is a great fast heal to clean up damage NOW, whenever Riptide is on cooldown. But do you want to max. out your performance? Then it is all about healing situational. Keep an eye on your Tidal waves buff make absolutely sure, there isn’t another spell, doing a better job. Don’t forget: CH will jump to melees, HW is higher HPS and nearly as fast as LHW but mana hungry. RT is (*drumroll*) instant. The longer a player isn’t at full health the more likely it gets that another healer will heal him at full health or damage will kill him. Never underestimate the power if instant healing. Side note: If you stumble into an arena from time to time or have some honor left, buy the LHW relic! It will do wonders in tank healing situations.
- I know you forget to cast HW all the time. That sucks you know. It is a great spell, and deep in your heart you know it. But when the shit hits the fan, your brain shuts down and you press your buttons for LHW or CH over and over again and forget your HIGHEST HPS SPELL on a single target which is also INSANELY fast when you Tidal Waves is up. Anticipate damage spikes, charge yourself up with two charges of Tidal Waves and Precast HW at the right time. A quick RT HW HW combo is absolutely amazing. So, grab a note and a pen and write down the following: “Dear [Your name]. Don’t forget to cast HW in the appropriate situation or you will burn in hell” and stick it on your monitor.
- Chances are pretty good, that you kinda suck when it comes to you and Chain Heal. I’m sorry, but it just has to be said. If you ever mindlessly spam Chain Heal into a raid group you will burn in an even hotter hell than the one reserved for the guys not ever casting HW. If you’re one of the shamans producing tons of overheal but getting slightly aroused by their position in the healing meter, well then I it might be too late for help already. The animation of chainheal is pretty addictive, as are the big numbers popping up. Problem A) Holy Priests are better group healers than we are, with the rare exception of really steady damage and a clumped up raid. Problem B) I’m extremely sick of the argument, that it’s in most of the cases a good choice to cast CH to the end even if the main target is at full health, because the additional jump are going to find some good targets anyway. This is very often not the case. NEVER forget that it is possible to stop your cast and safe lives with a clever RT or LHW. Again and bold: STOPCASTING. Problem C) CH has heavy range limitations. Try to never cast a CH when it has no chance to jump. Be ashamed for every misguided CH just hitting one single target. Problem D) CH is very slow. So anticipating the damage and precasting CH is a must or else people will die. CH is too slow to just reactively heal the raid. There are a lot of situations where CH is too slow to do any good at all, e.g. topping up people at Faction Champions Heroic (whereas precasting CH on people where you anticipate damage with the raid at full health is clever).
- You absolutely have to know what’s going on around you. I know it is hard to get away from the tunnel vision we healers sometimes have and this isn’t something you can change in a few days. But it is absolutely crucial to watch boss timers, so you can precast your heals for certain events. It is absolutely crucial to see what’s going on around you. If you see an elemental porting itself right into a group next to you (Jaraxxus Heroic), start casting your CH before the elemental starts his AoE damage. This isn’t something shaman specific but counts for every healer out there. Don’t just react to everything happening around you, learn to see what’s happening, who’s standing where, who’s in desperate need of healing and which fellow healer is in distress and might need help with his task.
- You will need addons. Most importantly a decent healing frame and a good boss mod. I absolutely recommend a raid frame, which highlights raid debuffs. Grid and GridStatusRaiddebuffs are a good example, I’m sure other addons will do the job as well. You’re also going to need some brain muscle memory and key bindings and stop clicking on important stuff. Last but not least, you will wipe “turning right” and “turning left” from your keyboard and replace it with strafe. You will turn with your mouse from now on.
- Don’t forget your own health. Dead healers aren’t that great at healing. In fact, healers should never die. I mean, you can heal yourself, can’t you? And you have Health stones. Herbalists have a nice little self heal. Have your player frame very visible and don’t forget to keep yourself at full health as often as possible. Don’t give in to the seductive calling of the raid frames and forget your own health bar.
- Forget Healing Meters. They are only valuable if two people of the same class are assigned to the exact same task. They also somewhat help raid leaders to check if healers work with the right healing spells for whatever task their given. Apart from that, the only feedback you need is the survival or death of the task your assigned to.
- Be flexible without neglecting your main task. I don’t think this needs any explanation, but both extremes, absolute tunnel vision on your heal assignment as well as cross healing all the time and endangering your heal assignment are absolutely horrible.
- Manage your totems. Pick what’s helping the raid. Refresh totems if you have spare time and mana, don’t wait up to the last second. On longer fights, drop Mana Tide TWICE. It’s easy to assign a low mana treshold to Grid to around 60-70%, so you’ll easily see when your Mana Tide will bring up a good part of your fellow healers to nearly 100%.
- Don’t forget to cleanse, purge, hex and wind shear. This can make the difference in ToC and its Heroic Mode.
- Have a NS macro for both, CH and HW. With a 2 min cooldown you should absolutely use your macro very often. It is great to counter unexpected group damage or bring a tank back to full health. Don’t save it up for that one special occasion, which might never come.
- Collect proper gear sets for different tasks. Swap out glyphs for different tasks. Swap out relics to match your task.
- Fight for proper healing assignments. Learn tank healing. Learn quick spot healing. Talk to your raid leader or to whomever assigns you to your task.
That’s it. I’m really looking forward to comments pointing out anything I might have forgotten and update this list.
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Heroic: The Halls of Reflection
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Wow great info! I am really new to shaman healing, and I have noticed veterans making the mistakes you mention. I guess since I am very experienced with druid healing I fell in love with healing wave and riptide and was not so excited about chain heal. I mean as a druid I feel much more prepared to raid heal, and I got so excited about those big shaman crits, I always tell my raids that I am ready to tank heal, and I love that assignment on my shaman!
Kayllnn´s last blog ..First Trip Into 25 Man ToC
I’m sure druid healing is a fantastic preparation for a resto shaman. You’re already very comfortable with assessing a situation after nearly every cooldown and Riptide as some sort of Swiftmend with a shorter cooldown you’ll surely put to good use in a heartbeat.
People who heal on a priest or on a druid are though quite often not that impressed with chainheal. It just is a tiny bit slow and clumsy. But every good shaman needs to learn when the moment comes for pure CH spammage or a single, well placed CH.
I kept thinking the whole post “what about nature’s swiftness?” I generally use healbot for healing but can’t seem to get it to work with macros, I think I might do like a target = focus macro for a Nature’s swiftness HW, I don’t have one yet. I took a look at your resto talent tree and I was debating the 3 points in HW.
This post was really helpful and well timed. I want to be a good shammy healer because while gear will always change, skill is consistent.
Fish´s last blog ..Ding 80 (again), more shammy thoughts. . .
I’m pretty sure there must be a way to macro NS to healbot. Most of the time, you just need a correct condition. In Grid that’s /cast [target=mouseover] Healing Wave. I think google should spit out a good answer.
Also, it might be necessary to press the button TWICE, whenever you’re moving and hitting the macro. The problem seems to be the server receiving the information “player wants to move”, “player wants to cast HW” and “player wants to fire NS” all at the same time. Because we can’t cast HW while moving, you’ll have to press the button for your macro twice.
As far as the talent tree goes: Elemental Weapons, Healing Way and Healing Focus are all talents, where you can distribute the points to your liking. If you never use HW, Healing Way is pointless (of course you should cast HW in the appropriate situation), The elemental weapons SP bonus is marginal, but it’s still 45 SP. Very often Paladins will cover your spell pushback with their aura, so many shamans argue no points are necessary. It really comes down to personal preference.
for healbot targetting in macros:
/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/use 13
/use 14
/cast [target=hbtarget] Healing Wave
> Monitor your ES and supercharge it
Is this still possible? I thought the developers got rid of it.
I’ve been wondering this too. It used to work at one time. Then during BC a nerf to a similar mechanic for another class it was ninja-nerfed. Has it been restored?
I just trusted EJ to be right and I honestly can’t remember super charging ES not working at some times.
But well it’s not really that hard do find out. Go naked. Dude, your toon, not you! Equip your healing weapon and your shield. Cast ES on yourself. Go to some random mob and make it attacking you, either through right-clicking on the mob or just offending it with your nudity. Note the number of your average ES proc. Then unequip both Weapon and shield. Like this, you make your spellpower drop. And if you now look at the new ES numbers, they are *drumroll* still exactly the same. So the strength of your earth shield is always determined at the point when you cast it, for all 8 charges.
Q.E.D.
Note to google: I said naked and nudity. Can I have more hits?
Note to interested readers: This works with ES only but not with Healing Stream Totem. Each healing stream tick reflects the SP at time the totem sends out a heal.
Very nice post, have to go over that again when I’m not this sleepy.
I’ve also only ever healed on a Druid before and Shaman healing feels much more natural to me and I’ve also let much fewer people die when I started. Not saying it’s really easy, but for me as a complete healing noob I actually enjoyed it.
Armagon´s last blog ..The big Addon roundup
Great post, some nice tips for my off spec healing nights
A great refresher post – thank you.
I’ve been dabbling heavily with DPS recently, so I’ve let the resto side of my game slip a bit. Your and other blogs are often giving me little tips to improve my healing, and hopefully keep people alive a bit longer.
I thought I’d add to your list one thing I like to track – the Ancestral Healing buff. If I’ve got a spare cooldown and Tidal Waves is up, I look for a tank that’s missing this and try to proc it for them.
orc shaman´s last blog ..One poor shaman
Actually this is a very good idea. But I’m not so sure how I’d achieve this in a 25 man raids.
First Problem: You’d have to watch the Buff on two tanks. Second Problem: You’ll also have to see if Inspiration is already active or not.
I guess the easiest way would be to assign both Ancestral Fortitude and Inspiration to a Grid Indicator. At this point, I don’t really see a free spot for an additional Indicator on my grid layout though. Also, I don’t like grids indicators lighting up and fading again all the time if I don’t need the Information. Which would be the case on every non-tanking raider on my grid.
Have to think about this some more. Suggestions please.
The Grid solution is highly possible – I have CH bounces, ES, RT and AH all tracked by grid.
Moreover, using tank frames that work with oRA2, I am using PowerAuras to show this little golden shield with timer near those unitframes so I can easily see which of the tanks has the buff and who doesn’t. PowerAuras seems to be ideal tool for my shammy – TW proc is made in big green arrow in circle in middle of my screen, whenever RT is off cd there is this blue drop ligtning up. Small totem icon to the side lights up on relic proc and two more icons to the other side for other trinket or SP procs – so I can spot on renew ES in best SP conditions. Currently planning to add flash-twice blue totem icon in middle of my screen when I reach 75% mana to remind me to find a GCD for Mana Tide Totem.
I know this may sound like clustered UI, but if you tune the opacity down, it is very neat and after some times you will learn to “push a button just because you miss this stuff there on screen”.
For ES tracking I am using 3 things – TotemTimers, as it comes in bundle. Shields up for tracking both shields and then Satrina’s Buff Frames with custom frame for ES on Focus.
The article is great and there is nothing much to add to it! Great work, thanks.
I’d love to see a Screenshot of your UI. Actually you should make a post about your UI some time.
Regarding tracking the CH bounces, I’m still very skeptical. I don’t really see why this information would help me in any significant way. If I want a feedback, if I hit1 or 3 targets, I have to scrolling combat text.
Do you track Ancestral Fortitude AND Inspiration with Grid? I always raid with a priest heavy lineup, So it would be a little bit pointless to leave Inspiration out of the equation and it would lead to some unnecessary heals towards tanks, while they have Inspiration active.
Most buffs you track through PowerAuras I see with Auracle. What I like about Auracle is the visual presentation. And that fact that it’s very easy, to track multiple debuffs with one icon. I made myself a little frame of important boss debuffs to amplify raid damage as well reduce damage on tanks. This helps to remind people to keep their debuffs up. The 75% mana treshold I moved to Grid to max out the profit for my fellow healers. Not convinced yet though, because often I’m the first one to reach 75% and the I don’t drop it the lesser the chances I can drop it second time.
Yes, both AH and Inspiration are on the same “bleep”. Regarding my UI – I am terrible at remembering tasks and as I am at work, the only thing I can do for you at the moment is post my video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZFWqD4m76k It is taken like week after I dinged 80 or so, so the UI is pretty rough and well, the healing style is not as good as it is now (:P).
For some background – I raid 10M content exclusively, which gives me more freedom for UI and buff display choices – must admit that ligthing up Grid every few seconds with CH and AH procs would be very annoying in 25M setting.
On to the video – the center of my screen is used by large Focus frame and 10M Grid under it – there is the “golden shield” proc visible on top of focus frame (right) and the green circle for TW. Atop that circle the blue drop for RT readiness is placed. Currently I am not using any party UI, so there are MT frames with added AH on them the same way it is on focus. The UI went a long way since and I am thinking about blogging it some time later, but not at the moment, as it still needs some tweaking for me to be totaly happy with it.
BlueberryTotem´s last blog ..The Future of BlueberryTotem
That’s a very nice and functional UI, I’m really looking forward to an in-depth post, explaining those little tweaks, helping you with shaman healing.
Things like a clean UI, proper buff tracking, proper SP tracking and a clever setup of Grid can really make a huge difference.
In my opinion, many healers just aren’t really maximizing their performance, which is a little bit sad. Part of it, I blame on heal meters. They just give nearly no representation of a players skill. They are somewhat useful to compare the output of players of same class/same assignment as well as checking if healers heal the right target and choose the right set of spells for their task. Apart from that, healing meters are useless and often even reward brainless spamming of highest HPS spell with ridiculous numbers.
So in a 25 man raid, it’s rather easy to go unnoticed as a bad/mediocre healer. Healing meters doesn’t mean anything and most probably other healers will partly clean up your errors. Damage dealers, constantly at the very bottom of dps though will always somewhat draw the attention of other players/guild officers. And that’s what this post is about, perfecting your healing style. Even if you think you’re doing ok, there is always a next and harder boss.
Everyone looking for a good healer setup UI wise, I’m still running with Quse UI:
http://www.shieldsup.ch/2009/09/12/3-uis-tested-and-approved-by-drug/, I moved grid to the right of my toon though.
If I want a change of scenery, I raid with http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info14156-ouf_tewl.html
One of my alts (I only have 2 really) is a Restoration Shaman. I’m still stuck at #2.
Now I’m sad
The main thing I notice between healing from Priest to Shaman is that the Priest instant spells are quite powerful (except for our HoT) and I always compare Riptide and Earth Shield to Prayer of Mending and Power Word: Shield respectively (even though Riptide and PoM have completely different aftereffects – the short term payoff is an instant heal on the target) and feeling pretty dissapointed by the strength of the Shaman spells.
I won’t deny it. I can absolutely see how horrible unspectacular a resto shaman must seem to anyone used to druid or priest healing.
In addition, resto shamans are a little bit in a similar place where priests were partly during BC: Great at various tasks, but master of none.
The key to having fun with a resto shaman is understanding the talents and abilities, learning all the little tricks to maximize the output (thus adding a nice challenge, that a shaman won’t find in the number of their healing spells) and then starting to be a really attentive, fast (because then riptide and NS will save lives) and proactive (because only then CH will be fun, save lives and not be a huge pile of overheal) healer.
Also, you won’t really have fun comparing priest spells with shaman spells. Unless you compare Riptide with empowered renew, then it suddenly becomes an insanely good spell, who provides pretty big instant heal. Shamans struggle when competing with tools like PW:S of a disc priest, PoM and of course a PoH+CoH combo. If you focus on the very decent tools a shaman has, then I guess you might enjoy it: Tank healing and healing up all melees. LHW and HW as incredibly good single target spells (while GS is nearly dead for many priests). Totem management and absurdly high HPS in fights, which are ideal for Chain Heal.
My main is my shaman and will always be that way. However I did manage to get a Druid to 80 and I told myself i would never heal on a Druid. Well i went tree the other day and was baffled by how many extra buttons and spells they have. Its a good thing because it forces me to not be such a robot. This was a good read and a great reminder. Your right nothing is worse than seeing your lazer heal going out and hitting one lonely caster. Its like your telling on yourself.
Cheers
Alt
I am one that spams ch all the time because when i first started my shaman that was what i had been told was the best to do so thanks for the correction here. There were several spells i had even been told by several shams to ignore so i will try them now .