Just a brief note here: we are moving to our very, very shiny new site at Wordpress! This site will now be inactive, but all my posts will remain if you want to see them in their native lands.
www.totemtech.co.cc is the new URL...see you there!
Friday, April 9, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Totems 101: Restoration (OOC)
Now continuing my little guides for low-level shaman, we come to Restoration, the healing tree. If you enjoy instancing a lot and prefer to either not quest or struggle through them (in a vain, pitiful fashion reminiscent of, perhaps, a concussed kitten chasing a dragonfly), Restoration is likely for you. If you're shopping between different healing classes and specs, here's a rundown of what Resto is usually good at from a healer's perspective:
The early levels (1-40s)
Early questing is exactly the same as any other shaman-you hit things, they die, heal yourself, etc. Once you start getting stats on your gear, you should aim for spellpower, intellect, crit, and MP5...avoid spirit and hit, as they're useless for you, and physical stats like agility and strength are completely worthless.
Until level twenty, you have exactly one healing spell in your arsenal: Healing Wave. It's slow, but it heals a big chuck of health. Talenting for reduced cast time will be /very/ useful. Once you do hit twenty, you get your Water totem, and the much faster-casting Lesser Healing Wave, as well as Water Shield. This suite of abilities will /greatly/ improve your ability to heal, as your mana will regenerate much faster, and you have cheap, passive heals to supplement your more mana-efficient LHW spell. At 30, you get a handy boost to your heals with the Earthliving Weapon imbue, which should be active at all times. You will receive no major changes to your healing spells until level 40.
Middle Levels
At the aforementioned level 40, you gain Chain Heal, which is one of the more unique spells in your arsenal-it jumps to other targets near your initial target. Glyphing for CH is highly advised if you're regularly healing large groups, as it'll let you heal an additional target. It's tempting to spam CH, and in some circumstances that is the ideal solution, but save it for when your group is A: Clustered and B: taking steady AOE damage. If the tank's the only one getting damaged to any serious extant, then LHW is still your best bet-Healing Stream totem is very handy for patching up group damage.
At level 50, you pick up Earth Shield, which should always be placed on the tank. The healing from Earth Shield gives no threat, and procs every few seconds in a serious fight. Keep it refreshed when it drops to one or two stacks, and it'll help a great deal. This is the last ability you learn until your level 60 talent, which gives you Riptide. Riptide is an instant-cast heal with a HoT component, and interacts with your other spells in beneficial ways. After casting Riptide, your next two Healing Wave/LHW spells are buffed: HW with a massive haste boost, and LHW with a 25% crit increase. Additionally, the healing from Chain Heal is increased dramatically on the Riptide target while the HoT is active. It's thus generally preferable to use Riptide frequently and on targets requiring a great deal of healing.
Discussing addons...I personally use Healbot to simply matters, but something like Grid or another unit-frame addon and mouseover macros will help a /lot/, and can help free your attention to focus on things like the void zones spawning under your feet or that painful spell the mob is about to cast. There are a lot of things to keep track of in groups and raids, and anything that frees your attention will be of great use.
Shaman healing is, in my experience, quite fun and rewarding. Best of luck in the randoms!
- Purging Status Effects
With Tremor Totem and Cleansing Totem, the talented spell Cleanse Spirit, and use of the ranged, threat-reducing interrupt Wind Shear, a Resto shaman is capable of nigh-effortlessly keeping his party clean of everything but Magic debuffs and can act to prevent spell damage from occurring. This is a /very/ large advantage for certain areas, such as Heroic Halls of Reflection, where the many crowd control/poison/curses and painful spells require much more attention or simply healing through on other healing classes.
- Balanced Healing
Back in the Burning Crusade, Chain Heal ruled the AOE healing charts. Now, we're not quite so masterful on AOE, with holy priests and resto druids able to beat shaman on the higher raid tiers, but shaman now posses a varied and useful set of healing effects; Riptide for a instant-cast heal with a HoT effect attached, Lesser Healing Wave for quick, mana-efficient heals, Chain Heal for AOE, and Healing Wave for big or (with cooldowns) emergency heals, and Earth Shield for passive, threatless healing.
- Group Support
With all the usual shaman buffs and the group-affecting Mana Tide totem, a restoration shaman brings many buffs to a raid or group, particularly for long, healing-intensive fights in which multiple healers may go OOM.
The early levels (1-40s)
Early questing is exactly the same as any other shaman-you hit things, they die, heal yourself, etc. Once you start getting stats on your gear, you should aim for spellpower, intellect, crit, and MP5...avoid spirit and hit, as they're useless for you, and physical stats like agility and strength are completely worthless.
Until level twenty, you have exactly one healing spell in your arsenal: Healing Wave. It's slow, but it heals a big chuck of health. Talenting for reduced cast time will be /very/ useful. Once you do hit twenty, you get your Water totem, and the much faster-casting Lesser Healing Wave, as well as Water Shield. This suite of abilities will /greatly/ improve your ability to heal, as your mana will regenerate much faster, and you have cheap, passive heals to supplement your more mana-efficient LHW spell. At 30, you get a handy boost to your heals with the Earthliving Weapon imbue, which should be active at all times. You will receive no major changes to your healing spells until level 40.
Middle Levels
At the aforementioned level 40, you gain Chain Heal, which is one of the more unique spells in your arsenal-it jumps to other targets near your initial target. Glyphing for CH is highly advised if you're regularly healing large groups, as it'll let you heal an additional target. It's tempting to spam CH, and in some circumstances that is the ideal solution, but save it for when your group is A: Clustered and B: taking steady AOE damage. If the tank's the only one getting damaged to any serious extant, then LHW is still your best bet-Healing Stream totem is very handy for patching up group damage.
At level 50, you pick up Earth Shield, which should always be placed on the tank. The healing from Earth Shield gives no threat, and procs every few seconds in a serious fight. Keep it refreshed when it drops to one or two stacks, and it'll help a great deal. This is the last ability you learn until your level 60 talent, which gives you Riptide. Riptide is an instant-cast heal with a HoT component, and interacts with your other spells in beneficial ways. After casting Riptide, your next two Healing Wave/LHW spells are buffed: HW with a massive haste boost, and LHW with a 25% crit increase. Additionally, the healing from Chain Heal is increased dramatically on the Riptide target while the HoT is active. It's thus generally preferable to use Riptide frequently and on targets requiring a great deal of healing.
Discussing addons...I personally use Healbot to simply matters, but something like Grid or another unit-frame addon and mouseover macros will help a /lot/, and can help free your attention to focus on things like the void zones spawning under your feet or that painful spell the mob is about to cast. There are a lot of things to keep track of in groups and raids, and anything that frees your attention will be of great use.
Shaman healing is, in my experience, quite fun and rewarding. Best of luck in the randoms!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
