Bleep Blaap.

Boredom + OCD + No life= Why I am writing another post.

I've been putsing around the last couple days, getting my ass kicked by work and various other odd named people, and I decided that I needed to do a write up on the state of shamans as a class, and more specifically, as a healer.

Now, a few notes to make before you read this and call your friends to talk about the crazy blogger that apparently notices everything that goes on on his screen without losing his mind. Well, if you make that call, you'd be a dirty little liar, because I was never right in the head in the first place. Moving on...

As a class, I think shamans are one of the most interesting, and fun to play. We have totems, a mechanic that no other class has anything even remotely close too, and we have, in my opinion, the most buffs to bring to a raid. Totems aren't buffs, I don't care, go shove it up your butthole.

As a healer however, shamans are in a seemingly awkward place. When assigned to tank healing, we will usually get beat by our paladin or disc priest counterparts, and the same is true for raid healing, though our competition is now druids and holy priests. What people don't notice, and what even many shaman healers don't realize, is the depth a shaman healer has.

Take one of our most useful, and one of my favorite spells: Earth Shield. Earth shield is like a priest bubble having babies with a druid HoT that was really, really ugly. It doesn't absorb damage, but rather heals on a melee or spell hit. But it also decreases spell pushback, something most healers don't consider when using Earth Shield. In fights like Faction Champs in ToC, I will usually put ES on the other healer to help him out. As I am often running 25's with more that 2 other resto shamans, my ES is better served on another healer.

Near or before the release of WotLK, shamans were given a new weapon enhancement called Earthliving. Earth Shield, Earthliving, Earth shock, apparently shamans are geologists or some crazy earth sexing up freak, IDK. Most shamans view Earthliving as just a spell power boost, which it is, but it is so much more than that. You have a near 100% chance to apply EL when a target is low on health, applying a decent HoT. Most shamans think, "Oh, my EL is always over heal, its so useless", well then your a dip, because it isn't. The way my healing done is displayed, all of my EL hits are grouped up. Is 5000 healing done for a HoT I don't actively apply useless? Sure El won't count for a huge portion of your healing, but it's a nice little buffer on people that were low, or on the tank you're focused on.

On to a shamans role in a raid. I've heard people say we are strictly tank healers, and strictly raid healers. People that say we are "strictly" anything don't honestly understand shamans at all. Glyphed correctly, a shaman can compete aggressively with paladins on tank healing, and druids on raid healing. But more importantly that talents or glyphs to be effective on those two fronts, shamans need to gear slightly differently for those two tasks. Many people will say haste is more important for raid healing, and even tank healing, well I whole-heartidly disagree with that. With 4pc t9 and raid buffs, my CH has nearly a 50% chance to crit. That counts to all of the jumps, not just the initial heal. With TW, my LHW has nearly a 70%, if not higher chance to crit. All of your crits heal an additional 30% of the effective/overheal. If I crit with CH for lets say 22k, my AA proc will hit for 6600. Sure I could make that up if I had a ridiculous amount of haste, but I don't target anyone for AA, and it's another on of those nifty smart heals that shamans are known for. And on the note of tank healing, shamans are extremely effective. Some people think, "no, we r teh needin pally for teh tankz!". Well, learn to speak english, and then look at a shaman without any bias. A HW, will usually hit for ~13k, and crit for nearly 20k. A crit will then proc AA which will hit for ~6k, and when the tank is taking most of the damage, it will go to him. Let's not forget AH procs on crit. 10% damage reduction on a tank, and a large portion of the raid is amazing.

Throughout writing this, I keep thinking that I haven't really talked about CH as much as people expect shamans too. CH is an amazing spell, but Shamans are flexible even with our limited spell pool. So what is the state of the shaman? In my opinion, the state of the shaman is right where it should be. Do we top healing charts? No, but if that really makes you sad you shouldn't be a healer. The state of the shaman is an amazing healer, with more depth than most people give us credit, and the ability to excel at any task given to us as a healer.

This wall o text brought to you by-Trade Chat Spammers: If you would only buy of wares we could feed our families and then piss the shit out of you in raids instead of trade chat.

The problem with shamans.

Shamans have a few problems, just like everybody else. Sure, ours don't include homicidal tendencies(deathknights) or an affinity for shooting things in the face for funnsies(hunters), but we do have our problems. Shamans are, by nature, a very versatile class. We can heal very effectively, and have two methods of dealing massive amounts of damage. However, our problem comes from the way we do all of these things. Shamans, unlike most hybrid classes that heal, dps, or even tank, have a small amount of spells to do each of these tasks. For example, hunters have multiple shots that they use depending on the fight, they have traps, their pets etc. A shamans dps rotation consists of four spells, almost always the same no matter the encounter. A priest has many,many spells to use in different healing encounters. They have instant AoE spells, party only healing spells, and damage mitigation spells. A shaman has four spells for healing, with one of them rarely used these days. As of right now, it sounds like all I am doing is complaining, "Oh boohoo, us poor shamans are so hated". But that isn't the case, I'm merely laying the foundation so that we can explore possible solutions.

DPS Solution #1- This solution is actually already in the making, with the introduction of the new Fire Nova spell coming in patch 3.3. The solution is this: Provide shamans more variety and freedom with the spells they are using by taking off the element specific nature of enhancement dps. Stormstrike is arguably the most important spell in a shamans rotation. If provides a significant buff to our nature spells, and hits relatively hard. Unfortunately, this nature specific buff pigeon holes enhancement shamans into use Earth Shock, and not being able to pursue other styles of dps. It would also be a welcome change in tactics if the Maelstrom Weapon effect actually affected Lava Burst. To make this solution viable, a good amount of re-working would have to go in to ensure that shamans dps did not dip, or skyrocket to the point of unfairness.

Healing Solution #1- A good way to remedy the problem at hand, would be to add new spells to a shamans healing repertoire. With the other healing classes with their own, very class defining spells, this solution runs the risk of further homogenization. However, I think that blizzard has put shamans the on right track to a specific, different style of healing. With the way shamans heal, targets have to be bunched up to receive a Chain Heal, and our other spells have a high enough mana cost that it sometimes isn't wise to use anything else other than Chain Heal. One remedy that I thought of was something on the lines of a hybrid of a priest lightwell and a druids tranquility. An on cooldown, placeable totem that would heal the targets party members for X% over lets say six seconds. So to clarify, if I was in group two, and my target was in group one, I would place a totem either on the ground, on the targets back or something along those lines and it would heal the target and this party members for a set amount of healing as a HoT.

Those are only two of the various possible solutions that blizzard could introduce to provide shamans with more variety in all aspects of the game. Of course, most other classes would need a rework of there spells, as pigeon-holing and lack of variety is a plague effecting almost every class.
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Ok so this has nothing to do with what I said above, but it needs to be said for all shamans out there. When in a raid, during a boss battle, in the heat of combat, WE DONT FUCKING LOOK AT OUR RAID CHAT TO SEE YOU CRYING FOR HEROISM!!!!!!!!! For fucks sakes, if I have to see, "lol we didn't even use hero... fail shaman nub" one more time I might just have a psychotic break and go on a killing spree. It isn't even the fact that you asked for heroism or that we might have killed the boss with it, it's the fact that you expect me, the person making sure you live through the encounter, TO BE LOOKING AT A LITTLE BOX OF TEXT WHILE PEOPLE ARE DYING. My solution to these problem is to design a program that comes with every chat addon, that will give someone a 50,000 volt shock through their keyboard every time, "AMAGAWD HERO" or something stupid like that is said in raid chat. Or you could just say that if hero isn't called for in vent you won't pop it, but I like my idea better.

Double post. Double stu.... Oh wait.

Double post time! Zomg lol roflmao nub.
Acronyms= Bad mkay?
I was talking to one of my friends on her vent channel, and as we were talking, we began using acronyms for our healing spells(she also plays a resto shaman). This is all well and good, allowing us to talk faster, and because it is just a habit we both have. The real problem came up when another good friend of ours joined the channel and popped in to chat with us. He play's a resto druid, and obviously doesn't share the same acronyms that we do. As the conversation goes on, he starts to get really quiet. We have to ask him a question directly to get an answer. I ask him whats wrong, and I get one of those responses that you get when the person isn't really listening to you. He was sort of distant, rude almost and then wouldn't talk again. So, being the jerk that I am, I completely ignore him, and keep on talking. What happened over the next two minutes follows.

"No no no. You focus the tank, ES him, RT him for TW and spam lesser or chain depending."-Me
"That's what I try to do, but I have to weave lesser's in between chains and I use TW way to fast to notice. I probably need to track those lol"-Her
"Are you doing most AoE healing or a lot of tank? Cause that's what I do for tank but I do weave lesser's in between chains on like twins and stuff.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO TALKING ABOUT!? Fuck this, im going to go talk to people that fucking speak with words."-Him

He blew up. And I mean he flipped a lid and ranted for a good minute until we could get a word in. And honestly, I completely understand why he did it. How annoying is it to be in a conversation and have no idea what is going on? So we started talking with actual words, and he joined back in to awe us with the massive numbers of HPS he can do on twins 25 man.

Moral for today: No one knows the acronyms for other classes(or maybe I just don't pay attention enough, I don't care). So talk with words, you know, those things you've been using since the age of two.

I hate other people.
I do, I honestly really hate other people. I ran into something that bothered me so much, that I considered reporting at least twenty people for it. There was a conversation in trade chat on a realm I have a few alts on. I was chilling in Org, fiddling with a spec, and what do I see? A conversation on why black people, women, handicapped(physical I'm assuming) people and anyone else that was "different" should have to have a label on their character names so that guild/players could do whatever it is egotistical pricks do. I nearly flipped my lid. I was on vent with the afore mentioned people, and I say to them, "racist fucks like this are the reason I hate other people". How horrible of a person do you have to be to degrade and belittle people in a game? Do you get off on it or maybe you are just too stupid to realize what you're saying? I'm happy to say that I didn't get involved with it, calmly walked away and nearly broke vent because I was swearing so much.

Triple post...Suck it.
Yeah...suck it go-- Oh wait right, yeah sorry.
So I just quick wanted to trow in another UI post, just to go over something that I recently started to do, and have found in extremely useful.
If you can see, which you might not be able to as the alpha is set to about 10%, I have my condensed action bars devoid of any non-macro'd spells. I have everything set up to my mouse and modifier keys, and the buttons I do have on my bars are keys near enough to the WASD pad, that I can access them easily. I used to have all my cooldowns on my bars, and all my CC/damage spells on my vars too. Recently, I've mapped them all to my mouse. I've already gotten feedback that I do better when I play like these. Better use of cooldowns and trinkets, faster movement, and somehow, faster reaction times(I don't know about this last one, but I'll take whatever compliment I get). But, I did move my bar so that whatever spells are on there, are a quick twitch of the mouse away.

So that's it for today, I bet you are so glad that you spent a shit ton of time reading stuff that had nothing to do with anything! Leave now, I have stuffing to do, and some sucking.

Stats: A shamans best friend.

Many a shaman will argue that haste is the new it stat for restoration shamans. Sure we get to cast faster which adds up to more HPS, but what we sacrifice is much more important than haste.

As I am currently geared, I have the following stats.
Spell power-Healing:2509
Crit:32.35%
Haste:411-12.53%
Mana while casting:588

These stats are un-buffed, with the exception of totems which I consider a 100% up-time self buff. I've often gotten remarks from raid leaders that my crit is high, my haste low, and my mana regeneration at a good spot. I may never say anything, but I've never agreed with that statement. The reason my crit is so high is because the gear I wear is heavily stacked with crit, so nothing I can do about that. And honestly, crit is an amazing stat for shamans. We get mana back on critical heals, improving out longevity, and a crit heal can be the difference between a dead tank and a live one. My haste isn't low because shamans only need haste in one scenario: Heavy raid damage and Chain Heal spam. My guild runs with three healers, which means I am not overly taxed in AoE heavy fights. And as for my mp5, I would like to have it higher, but it isn't something that effects me unless I am spamming constantly.

I know several shaman healers that have an upwards of 800 haste, a number that to me is incredibly, and abnormally high. These shamans are great healers in their own right, easily out gearing me and out playing in my opinion. But I can't help but think that the 5% crit that they are missing compared to me would greatly help their healing. More often than not, my mp5 is also much higher,(The shamans in question have Solace of the Fallen/Defeated, so this really doesn't apply as it is a mp5 trinket).

For any starting restoration shaman, I would highly recommend gemming for spell power and Int as these are the most important stats for healing heroics/Naxx. Once on to harder content like Ulduar, I would suggest Int/mp5 gems,Int/SP or Int/haste. Once you know your class inside and out, and have a firm grasp on where most of your healing comes from, you can change your gems and enchants accordingly to fit the play style that you enjoy and are best at. Never let someone force you to play in a way that you feel is inferior or wrong. If someone tries, explain why you chose to gear as you did, and if they don't like it, so what, it isn't their character to screw around with. If this person happens to be a raid leader and doesn't want to listen to what you are telling him, I would suggest moving on as the atmosphere is obviously wrong for you.

This informative delve into the art of shamans is brought to you by: Shamans- WE GOT MUTHA FUCKIN HEALIN LAZAHZ.
Also, the Association of Moonkin Haters-Purple vertical lasers are offensive to shamans everywhere.

Shamans: A story of straightforward badassness.

Shamans have always been a great class to play, whether it was in classic and you spammed Chain Heal in ZG or BC where you did the same thing in a different zone. Well the zones weren't all that different but that is a conversation for a another time. And in WotLK, Chain Heal spam is still prevalent, but it is mixed in with so many other powerful spells it isn't mindless. With riptide, Tidal waves, and even Lesser/Healing Wave shamans have a variety(though not as large as priests) of spells to use. However, unlike some classes, shamans spell are extremely straightforward.

Take paladins for example, I had no idea what Beacon actually did until a few days ago. Now maybe I'm just stupid but it honestly confused me. Even priests, with nearly ten spells to choose from at any given time would confuse and annoy me. The way shamans heal is by large direct heals that can be spread out over large distances. I could possibly have Riptide rolling on four people at a time, and with the improved distance Chain Heal jumps I can sometimes hit ranged when the melee was my target. It is, in my opinion, still the paladin that will come out on top in fights with minimal raid/large tank damage, and holy priests with the opposite. Shamans, however, can compete with the best of them.

Take ToC 25m. Many of the fights in it have AoE damage, well all of them do to varying degrees but it is in the high AoE fights that a shaman will excel. Take the Twins fight for example, a fight easily lost if people don't pay attention. I can hit over 5-5.5k hps on this fight. Granted so can druids and even priests if they are holy, but it used to be that shamans were brought for Heroism/Bloodlust and whatever else they brought was just extra. With high mana regeneration rates as well, a shaman is one of the longest lasting healers as well.

As I've been tooting my own horn this whole time, I'd like to point out something I dislike about shamans. It seems to me, that a shaman is much less dependent on gear that other classes. I'm not even close to being as geared as our main pally healer, yet I can easily beat him on many fights. Our heals scale with gear more than is fair to other classes.

-This wall o' text brought to you by: Earth Shield-Its a hunk of flying shit that doesn't smell or give you sars.

Class angst

Not sure if that's a proper way to use the word, but I don't care. I'm having it.


My problem comes from the fact that I feel like I'm being pigeonholed into using Chain Heal all the time, when most encounters don't warrant the use of Chain Heal. Sure fights like Auriya where there is a decent amount of raid damage or Mimiron where people get bent over on a regular basis I'll use it, and it shines, but most fights really don't need Chain Heal spamming. So on fights that I don't Chain Heal spam my healing done is basically non-existent and when I do Chain Heal spam my over-healing is through the roof. Some other shamans that I've talked to about this have the same problem. We've come to the conclusion that in 25m's Chain Heal is great, but not as much in 10's. The reason for this is because apparently Chain Heal isn't where blizzard wants it to be as an AoE healing spell. I guess it's just not my play style(Give me a holy pally and I'll probably be fine).

This post of whining and being a little baby brought to you by: Shamans for the fair treatment of totems.

-When you abuse a totem, troll babies get beat by their parents.

I may have made a mistake.

Disclaimer: This is by no means a rip on shamans, I still love them, but I've found a new love as well.
Most people know about the discipline priest and how great of a healer they are. I personally love having one in my group, and love playing with them. I'll admit I dont know all that much about them but what i do know really impresses me. I was recently in Naxx 25, assigned to tank healing by my guild master because he trusts me (I had the most SP!). I really didnt have much to do, the other main healer we had was a disc priest from the guild. I was stareing at my combat log after fights, just looking at all the number that got absorbed. I love my shaman, but I am now in love with the discipline priest.

3.2 = FUCKING AWESOME

So the official patch notes for 3.2 came out, and if you haven't seen them, they are awesome. I dont play as Enh, and Ele is my pvp spec so I'm going to skip those entirely. But oh boy, the changes for resto are much needed(wanted) and I cant wait.

Restoration

• Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target's armor.

WHAA ??? HOLY SHIT!!! 10% dmg recuc is amazing, and in progression raids? I am simply amazed.

• Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.

• Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.

• Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman's Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.

HOLY SHIT!!! Okay, lets say your HW hits for 8k untalented, add 2k to that and what do you get?
awesomeness.

• Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman's health.
• Nature's Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30 second internal cooldown, and increases the shaman's maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
• Nature's Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
• Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.

This was unexpected but nice non-the less. I wasnt one to use LHW all that much, but just think, a properly item
-ized shaman has about 25% crit, add another 25% and for every 2 LHW's you cast, 1 will crit. Awesome.

Combine the new healing way with this and i see more shamans useing HW than spamming LHW. A play stlye Imyself try and use.

• Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

This excites me. It has been long complained about that CH didnt proc IWS. With this update CH will be used
more often(is that possible?) because it wil be less of a mana drain.

Btw, not comsuming charges is awesome. plain and simple.

• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

This is just epic. All there is to it. 25% more mp5 makes me jump for joy. I will never again have to say "No mana,
sorry u died."(hopefully!)