Monday, November 2, 2009

Because originality is what I do best.

Nearly every healing blogger has seen, done, or read the meme that isn't a meme, and as I love to be original and do new things, I thought I would join the wagon. And, as no one knows about this blog and I don't have the energy to try and get people to, I'll just pretend that I got tagged.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Martik, restoration shaman.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Almost strictly 10 mans with a smattering of 25 man pugs.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Riptide. Oh blah blah Chain Heal, yeah I know it's a good spell, but riptide is by far my favorite due to the HoT and the increase to Chain Heal.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Wave. Don't get me wrong, this is an intense spell, but I usually forget to use it. /oh noes!

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Oh good lord could I get controversial with this one.Raid healing. Tank healing. Shamans are sort of the gimpy cousin of priests. We can raid heal and tank heal, but with Chain Heal, I would say raid healing is our strength.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Ugh. I really don't know.If I had to, I would say the fact that we have one HoT that usually gets removed by Chain Heal.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Raid healing. With Chain Heal being a smart heal with a large range and AA procs from crits, shamans can do some intense raid healing(druids need to stop beating me so I can feel good about myself, gawd).

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Discipline priests. Even when on the tank/off-tank, they have more utility than paladins and the damage mitigation really takes the stress off of the other healers.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Well, I can't really answer this one. I love all healing classes, and it comes down to the person. If you play a class that could single heal a raid, but die in fires or stuff like that, I would hate you. If you played a class that needed two other healers to be effective but you were an amazing player I would love you.

What is your worst habit as a healer?
Not healing myself. I always seem to die because I am throwing heals on the raid like a madman but never on my self.

Using my cooldowns. In the heat of the moment, it's hard to remember that I have that spell that increases my crit chance by 60%.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
Other healers blaming a healer for a wipe or a death. If you saw that player going down and not getting healed, why didn't you try to help? Well Johny, I'm glad that you were first on the healing meters but if the raid wipes because you didn't want to help out a fellow healer that was stunned/oom/got disconnected, then I suggest you go die in a literal fire.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Well.... Honestly, I think that shamans are slightly over-powered. A shaman that is skilled at rolling riptide on the maximum number of people and planning on when to use Chain Heal for the increased effect can cast a Chain Heal that will hit, with one or more crits for 25k effective healing done(I've seen it happen on twins 25).

We have so many talents to return mana or improve crit that we have near limitless mana and in my opinion, the second most versatile set of spells next to a priest.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Recount. Specifically the healing done, over-healing done and mana return sections. I am usually near/at the top of the healing chart, bottom to middle of over healing, and somewhere in between on the mana gains.

I also look at what cooldowns I had to use or ask for. If I had to pop NS and Tidal Force than maybe I was lagging behind at one point. If I had to ask for Innervate than maybe I wasn't using the proper spells for the situation.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That all we do is spam Chain heal. I weave as many LHW's in between Chain Heal casts as possible and riptide is use on every cooldown. Is chain heal a good spell? Yes. Is it the only spell? No.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
When to use the right spell for the damage taken. Many new shaman healers spam Chain Heal and get away with it until they raid and suddenly are like a fish out of water.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
As I said above, high to mid healing output, low to mid over-healing and a decent amount of mana gained. To be honest, recount isn't a good way to evaluate a healer. We don't have rotations, we are almost purely reactive players, and what we do changes minute to minute. If someone said I fail because of HPS on recount, I would probably laugh in their face.

Haste or Crit and why?\
Crit. Crit Crit and MOAR CRIT. I don't care what any other shaman says, but crit capitalizes on more talents and abilities than haste. I've tried haste stacking, and while I was at around 830, it felt wrong. I barely got mana returns and I seemed to always need an innervate. Once I switched to crit, my mana was always solid, my effective heals when through the roof and it was just a better play style for me.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Priests. If I had almost ten spells to juggle my brain would explode. And even if they had fewer spells, I couldn't tell you what half of them do.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I have all my healing spells bound to my mouse, with some needing modifier keys. I use clique and grid for healing, and I have several macro's for ES, riptide and the like.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
As of right now, I stack primarily crit because it increases my throughput more than anything else. I try to balance it our with haste and spell power so that I don't fall too far behind in those, but it isn't a priority.

This wall o' text brought to you by: Egotistical Maniacs United- Because we're better than you and our moms can prove it.

1 comment:

  1. Mwahahah I found your response. You probably thought you could escape me knowing that you responded, by not coming and letting me know. Or possibly letting me know, and then me forgetting about it.

    But SOMEONE reads your blog, because they came from yours to mine and now I have found you, and added you to my google reader, because there are not nearly enough shammy blogs that discuss healing.

    ReplyDelete