Being A Resto Shammy - Part 1- What We Do Well - The Basics

Being a healer, requires a few things.

The spells you use.


The gear you wear.



And the ability to think quickly and react accordingly.




The last point being one of the most important aspects to healing. Great gear and limited skill can get you to a point, but after that you'll need to be able to read a situation quickly. If things go bad, you need to do an on the spot mental triage and identify who needs to be healed most (including said healer), who needs to be healed in the middle, and who can take a beating for a few seconds while the others get their meds.

Ideally, you only want to have worry about the tank. In a best case scenario, the guy or gal with the plate on that wants the aggro is the one getting the aggro. Really though, whats the fun in talking about that?

What I'm talking about are the situations where things DO NOT go according to plan. Times when a runner goes for a stroll to visit his 6 elite pals. Or when the PuG mage forgets he wears cloth, doesn't mention what he's about to do to anyone, and sheep pulls a group of mobs while everyone else is sitting and drinking at half health and mana.
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I'm refering to the times when things start out looking bad, often look worse in the middle, but turn out good in the end.Those instances when after all is said and done, no one needs a rez, but more importantly no one can believe the group managed to pull it off.

These situations take a great group effort, an integral part of this is the healer. If the group doesn't stay alive, there is no chance the group can succeed.

As a restoration shaman, we have 5 types of healing spells at our disposal with varying ranks of each of those 5 types. In this post, I'll only be looking at the highest rank for each type. However using lower ranks of certain spells is very important, but I'll get to that at some point in the future. Also, for the purpose of this entry, when I say healing I'm referring to the restoring of hitpoints after some monster has beaten you down and taken them from you. Shaman also posses abilities that cure diseases and poisons, but I won't be touching on those here.

1.

Healing Wave (Rank 12)
720 Mana	40 yd range
3 sec cast
Heals a friendly target for 2134 .

This the main spell for when things are going right. I let the tank get beat on, he takes all the damage and I heal him back to full. With each point healed only giving me half a point of threat, there is very little chance of me drawing aggro in this situation.

2.

Lesser Healing Wave (Rank 7)
440 Mana	40 yd range
1.5 sec cast
Heals a friendly target for 1039 to 1185.

For when things get a little dicey. If I see a mob headed for a clothie I need to be ready with this spell, or if the tank isn't going to last the 3 seconds to cast Healing Wave, I may need to spam this a few times until things calm down a bit.

3.

Healing Stream Totem (Rank 6)

95 Mana

Instant cast

Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 2 min that heals group members within 20 yards for 18 every 2 seconds. lasts 2 minutes

At this point it is important to point out, that so far these spells don't look all that great at face value. Especially numero 3, however these spells are not factoring in the other piece of the puzzle I mentioned at the top of the post: gear. I'll be getting to the gear in part 2 of Being A Resto Shammy. So for now lets just pretend that good tanks have 2000 hitpoints total, and most casters have around 800 or so. Well damn if all these spells don't start looking better and better.

So, lets say for example that we're in an instance and a Mob does an AoE ability damaging the tank, myself and that PuG mage we'll call Spazzie. If in this example I have 1000 total hp, and Spazzie the PuG mage has 800 and we each take 200 from the AoE. It is in the groups best interest to heal that damage in case something should go wrong later on down the road. Rather than switching my focus from the tank and waste time healing myself and Spazzie, I can drop the above totem and let the health regen over time. If neither myself nor Spazzie is getting aggro then we can let time and the totem take care of us. Not to mention the fact that this totem is also healing the tank, and while it may not seem like much to someone with a lot of HP, over time it does make a difference.

In part 3 I plan on discussing totems and other Shaman abilites in group situations. I will explain why in most circumstances I use healing stream over the other water totems. (For those that might be thinking "Healing Stream suxxors use XX water totem instead.")

4.

Chain Heal (Rank 5)
540 Mana	40 yd range
2.5 sec cast
Heals the friendly target for 826 to 942, then jumps to heal additional nearby targets. If cast on a party member, the heal will only jump to other party members. Each jump reduces the effectiveness of the heal by 50%. Heals 3 total targets.

Ahh, now we're getting to the good stuff. So what happens when we don't have the time for Healing Stream Totem to do its job? Or if there is a 6 mob pull and the warrior is having trouble keeping the aggro from all the mobs on him/herself and other group members are getting beat on? Chain heal, thats what. Chain heal is my go to healing spell. It allocates who needs the HP perfectly almost every time. If I target the tank (the guy with the most HP) it hits him for the full effect of the heal, jumps to the rogue at 50% effectiveness, then halves again and hits that hunter pet. Often times I'll use this spell over Healing Wave so long as I'm not worried about picking up aggro on to myself. Its a good way to heal the tank, and top others off as well.

It is one of the defining factors of Shaman healing. It can heal many people at once for a low mana investment and is more predictable than something like Prayer of Mending.

Speaking of defining Resto Shaman Spells.....

5.

Earth Shield (Rank 3)
900 Mana	40 yd range
Instant cast
Protects the target with an earthen shield, giving a 30% chance of ignoring spell interruption when damaged and causing attacks to heal the shielded target for 270. This effect can only occur once every few seconds. 10 charges. Lasts 10 min. Earth Shield can only be placed on one target at a time and only one Elemental Shield can be active on a target at a time.

That brings us to Earth Shield. This spell is simply amazing. Cast it on the tank and it removes the worry of him or her dropping too fast and you not being able to heal in a tough spot and in many situations removes the need to heal the tank at all. Also, unlike the priest spell Power Word: Shield, Earth Shield does not prevent the tank from generating rage as the tank is still taking damage, the spell just heals the damage back every few seconds. And the HP healed generates threat to the tank, not to the Shaman. Huzzah!

Or if there is a group of non elites that need some AoE smack down, just cast Earth Shield on Spazzie the mage and you don't have to worry about losing him either. Not to mention the fact that it lasts 10 minutes, has 10 charges (usually lasts a couple of pulls) and tacks on a 30% chance to ignore spell interruption. In short, its a beast.

So there we have it, when it comes to healing, thats pretty much what we have to work with. At the same time that doesn't quite cover it. To really understand just how good these spells are, we need actual numbers. Numbers that factor in the stuff that lots of people like to play this game for, namely the gear.

In part 2 I'll delve in to what gear a resto shammy can use, what gear a resto shammy SHOULD use (if serious about being the best healer he or she can be IMO), and just how that gear actually effects our abilities.

Before I go, here is a quick rundown of my plan on this series.

Part 1 - The Basics
Part 2 - The Gear
Part 3 - Totems
Part 4 - Talents
Part 5 - Bringing it all together.

These may not go one after the other. Odds are there will be many a random post in between.

-Ashuna