In Burning Crusade, my introduction came a few months before joining Surreality for the first time, and when they recruited me as Enhancement I was the happiest little cow alive, all decked out in my badge gear and Sunwell Pleateu trash offhand. Somewhat ironically, my first ten man raid with Surreality was a Karazhan that I healed rather than DPSed, with the guild leader’s then-alt-now-main Resto Shaman, who I stole this from. (She said she was impressed that night, and that I carried her heals. She probably forgot, but I didn’t!) In Wrath of the Lich King, this came the day I joined Surreality…again. (Long story, dunt ask. Maybe it’ll be a rainy day blog! xD) Before that, my little ten man group of friends who I unceremoinously dumped my progression content guild to farm 10s with needed me as resto most days, and since I had somehow been promoted to raid/guild leader, it was my job to sacrifice my desire to hit things with fiery weapons for the good of the guild until I managed to escape back to the 25mans that spawned me.

Possibly surprisingly, I actually DO know a thing or two about healing. I’m no where near as competent as our guild’s actual healers, and I’d worry about being asked to help heal on progression content since I’m super rusty, but I do know how to heal as a shaman. And, since I have no life, I have of course read every Resto Shaman theorycrafting article you could think of, so I do at least know the theory of shaman healing. (I also -only- heal on Notelam, my paladin, but I don’t think I have the /played as a healer on her to speak about it much. )

As an offspec healer, and a grumpy one at that, I decided to take up the call to fill out Ms. Medicina’s Healing Questionnaire, mainly for fun.

* What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
My raiding main is Elam, an Orc Enhancement Shaman, who likes to dabble in the art of the glowing-green lights.

* What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Mainly 10mans, as there are very few 25mans I pug on my main- and those that I do, I like to tear up the deeps meters a bit tooo much.

* What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Ancestral Awakening. It’s not -actually- a spell, in that I don’t click it. It procs off critical Lesser Healing Waves, Riptides, and Healing Waves, smart healing the person in the raid with the lowest HP for 30% of the amount healed.

If I had to choose an actual spell I click, I’d choose Lesser Healing Wave. After the sadness of not using the spell at all while healing through most of BC, it was great fun to see it make a come-back, and it’s ability to proc Imp. WS and Ancestral Wakening, as well as it’s own strength as a heal AND it’s synergy with Earth Shield through glyphing, LHW has become an excellent tool.

* What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Wave.  It’s a tool that has it’s place in a healing arsenal and should not be discounted, but beyond the normal Nature’s Swiftness +HW macro that every shaman has had since Ronal Reagan was president, it’s not a strong heal. Elam’s healing gear is considerably stronger than Notelam’s, but her Holy Light his for similar amounts and is spammable.

* What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Versatility, at least in a 10-man setting. While no Holy Paladin, Earth Shield+Lesser Healing Wave do provide strong single target healing, and Healing Wave IS good for needed burst healing. Chain Heal+Healing Stream Totem(raid wide 5-person smart heal, make it happen please Blizzard!) make Restoration a competitive raid healer, and it has the added benefit of looking kick-ass. And while I know that healers hate the assignment, I think through Riptide and Tidal Waves’d Lesser Healing Waves, Resto Shaman make excellent spot healers, for predictabe single target damage on someone not the tank. Incinerate Flesh on Lord J, Penetrating Cold on Anub, Light Bomb on XT are all examples of this.

* What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Mobility combined with a lack of defensive abilities other than Earth Shield. Like both other specs of Shaman, Resto can be described as a turret- great throughput potential, but requires standing in one place for 10mans to shine. For pugs on fights like Onyxia, I genuinely worry on Elam when running in (since I don’t trust other pug healers.) On notelam, I can blessing of sacrifice the tank and keep Beacon of Light on him, using Holy Shock crits+instant Flash of Lights to keep myself and him up while running to position. On Elam, I riptide+ES, and then run in and stop to cast every few seconds, leaving me in potential damage places if I’m not careful.

* In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Bind half my keys to targeting melee, the other half to pressing chain heal, and then letting my puppy walk on the keyboard while I /afk sandwich! Really, though, whilst I was pugging my way through Naxx25 back when Naxx25 was content, I used to love fights like Instructor Raz and Sapphiron where I just chain healed the night away and hit 4-5k hps.

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Holy Paladins. They’re just such strong healers. Even mediocre H Paladins can make a fight substantially easier.

* What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Holy Priests. This has nothing to do with synergy, but I’ve just always found the spec to be incredibly boring. I don’t believe they work that well with restoration, though. I’d much prefer a stronger single target healer with me.  

* What is your worst habit as a healer?
Chain Healing the ranged and hitting one person. I might like that spell a LITTLE too much.

* What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

People dying. Honestly, be courteous and try to stay alive, please!

* Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
To quote my raid leader at Altadin.com, “Shamans are in a fantastic place right now.  We are exceptional raid healers and (properly glyphed and itemized) can be strong main tank healers as well.  We buff the raid via totems, which can be tailored to suit not only to the group make-up but also the nature of the encounter.  We have defensive and offensive dispels, a ranged interrupt that is off the global cooldown, limited but still situtationally viable CC, self-resurrection and — of course — Bloodlust.  If anything, shamans are overpowered at the moment compared to other healing classes.”

* What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Beyond the simple “Did we down the boss? Did my assignments die? Did I run out of mana?,” there’s recount- however, healing is not like dps, and maximum HPS is not always the best solution- especially if you’re running at a million percent overheal, or you’re assigned to do something not conducive to throughput.

* What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That we’re still in Burning Crusade, where my 1-4 buttons were multiple ranks of CH, and the question wasn’t “should I chain heal” but “which rank of chain heal will give the least overheal.” SRSLY. THERE ARE OTHER SPELLS. Inorite?

* What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

There are A LOT of keybinds and abilities, and just knowing how to put down your Call of Fire and use LHW/CH/HW/Riptide/ES does not a healer make. Resto shaman might need to purge if lacking an offensive dispeller. Some fights might call for grounding totem. And, don’t assume that because the last fight was a chain heal fest that that pattern will sustain itself through a raid.

* 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)?
I think they’d wonder why I was healing and not DPSing!

* Haste or Crit and why?

Haste. Crit has it’s place, especially in proccing Ancestral Awakening and Imp. WS, but crit is not something you want to rely on as a healer. Crit is burst, and while having on demand burst is great for healing, sustained HPS throughput is achieved through haste.

* What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Holy Priests. :S

* What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I’m an add-on whore.  I currently use Grid, GridStatusDebuffs, and more that I’m totally forgetting. :s Nature’s Swiftness+Healing Wave macro ftw!

* Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I’m currently gemming Spellpower, but only because there were no quick autumn’s glows on the AH, and I sooo wasn’t buying 12 Quick King’s Amber. xD. Given the choice and the money, I’d be on top of haste in a heartbeat.

Back in March, after I begged and whined and followed Ell around Orgrimmar like a sick dog, Surreality welcomed me back into their humble abode. (The story of my leaving the first time is one for another time- in a nut shell, peer pressure is bad. Unless I’m the one pressuring. In that case, listen to me.) They had pretty recently downed 25Sarth+3 for the first time, while my experiences had me at 10+1, a few sloppy Malygos 10 kills, and attempts at Undying that ended on Heigan. Thus, I was elated when they let me back in (and as enhance! ^_^. I was resto when I hit 80. Gross.) I was even more elated the week I planned to skip class to down Sarth+3 with them- I’d get my Twilight Vanquisher title pre 3.1, have some fun with my new guild, and feel like I actually got to experience some progression content. …that was the week 3.1 decided to land. I skipped class anyway in hopes of getting in on our first Ulduar pull, but my campus internet was at 2k, I was an initiate (and not trusted, at that), and the lag monster that is post-patch raiding reared it’s ugly head. I was pretty majorly bummed.

It was pretty awesome, then, when one of the officers let us in on the game plan Thursday night- Besting the Black Dragonflight, Twilight Zone style. With a full raid of twenty-two whole members, we ran in and engaged the fatty dragon like pros. the other 21 members of the raid (who had at least experienced whiping on 3drakes) were pretty used to the layout. I was stuck in the pug mentality of BIG DRAGON GO IN CENTER, (I’d done 2drakes once before, but not enough to be familiar) and promptly died to a void zone while trying to run away from a lava wave at the last second. I ahnked to be a badass…and then got hit by a random fireball. Buff reincarnation hps imo. Two lives down, and starting to feel like I was in a SNES game, our Marksman-Hunter-Turned-Resto-Druid battle rezzed me, and I proceeded to hold tightly to my bottom of the meter status. (Hey, even with my time spent dead, and no buffs, I outdamaged the tanks and hit 4ishk. I’m not -that- bad! )

Yes, it's seven months too late. Yes, I love it anyway. And yes, I am wearing the title. It's cute on me.

Our Thursday night raiding didn’t stop there. While the brunt of our raiders left- some mages left to pee vee pee on their tree drood alts, some warlocks left to benchpress skyscrapers, and some tree druids I might name were busy getting an education rather than raiding, we managed to scramble together 12 raiders for a 25 man instance. A 25 man instance we had never seen before. A 25 man instance known as the Sunwell. (Sunwell Plateau if you want it to sound less epic.)

We didn’t technically wipe on the first boss. We happened to dps him rlyrlyrly hard, and he hit 0 before we realized the point of the encounter is killing the demon in the portal first. We then spent the next 10 minutes leveling weapon skills on a banished boss, hoping he would enrage and kill us all. He didn’t, our weapons dinged 400, and we proceeded to hearth out and reassemble. We pulled ourselves together, smacked a bitch dragon up, and proceeded to Brutallus…where our bear tank forgot he was in kitty gear and got murdered when it was his turn to taunt. We had no further issues, I topped dps on Brut and was happy, and I nabbed some sweet t6 token. We then wiped on Felmyst. It took us four tries to properly avoid the mind control fog. It was especially fun on the attempt we actually downed the dragon because dots made her hit 0 HP in midair- only one of us had to survive to win. All 12 made it through that time, though, and we moved on to Eredar Twins.

This is the point of the night where we stopped listening to our elemental shaman explain boss strategies, and we developed strategies of our own- pop bloodlust, hit buttons, and kill it before it kills you. Somehow, this strategy brought us through Eredar twins, Mu’ru, and Kil’Jaeden. I was rewarded for my efforts hitting my bloodlust key rly hard with some sweet lolArmor Pen gauntlets, and our main tank was rewarded…with a legendary.

The Sunwell- 1,000Xmore powerful than a lightwell?

Yes, that is our main tank being a meanie and taking the bow over a hunter. However, he was nice and gave it back later. And I know, lolLevel70 content and lol70 weapon…but honestly. It’s orange lettered. It’s golden gilded. And it fucking SHOOTS LIGHTNING arrows. It’s awesome. <3

That was not the end of my Thursday night, oddly enough. Somehow, I managed to scrounge up our New Zealandish Tree, fresh back from school, and 6 other friends from our ex-guild and put together a “The Dedicated Few” Naxx10 run. (Actually, that’s a small lie- the tree’s mage brother kept DCing and left, and I kicked a bad pug ret paladin. What started as a naxx10 turned into naxx8 by Gluth.) I think I might go more into detail about this in another post, but for now I’ll mention this: Paladin healing is fun. 1.75 second holy lights on KT frost blocks are fucking intense. However, I’m not about to rehash stuff that has already been said, and I want to sleep, so I’ll say this: I’m writing this rather than sleeping right now because tomorrow is maintenance day. So, in my mind, either A) You’re bored at home with no wow and only blogs to read, or B) You’re bored at work with no wow and only blogs to read. Either way, if you want the full story of Ent and Evangelist, head on over to Tank N’ Tree and check out this entry, which includes a treatise on why I’m the biggest douchebag in the world.

This was it for my Thursday night of raiding. It was a very fun, laid back, low stress night- the exact opposite of the raid we did on Saturday night(also an amazing one), which I’ll blog about tomorrow. It was also a great call by our leadership to have us raid old-but-fun content, at least imho. We’re considering farming Sarth+3 for drakes and trinkets weekly, now. So, I’m interested to know- feel free to comment, to e-mail Elamtheshaman@live.com, or to link to a blog about it- what awesome raid nights have you haad in the past? Any in particular that stand out for a reason other than “Omw we killed progression boss X” or “I got BiS item Y?”

——————-

On an entirely different note, I’ve become addicted to alts and alt specs over the weekend. First off, after a disasterous attempt at tanking ToC10, and due to my utter hatred for tanking, Grazeless went back to being blood dps. However, I hate blood dps (even though 13k death strike crits are pretty), and due to a generous rogue friend, a boe holiday drop, and my realizing I was a champion of Thunder Bluff on my zombiefemcow, I was able to spec DW Threat of Tharassian, the dps talent spec my DK had been wishing for in her cold little heart the entire expansion. I happen to have an insane love of DW which predates WoW, and might even predate Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (best console game in history). And no, it doesn’t stem from a love for Drizzt Do’Urden- for all I care, while this may offend some, R.A. Salvatore can be crushed by a gigantic flaming pile of Star Wars novels for what he did to Chewbacca. And Drizzt/Co. lack any form of character development or personality. I’m happy now, with my pretty little zombie cow, and glad she finally can drink her problems away while beating them senseless with the mug.

I like her 2pc t7, 2pc t8, 1pct9. Gogo mismatched tier gear!

Notelam hit 80 with the intention of one thing- going Retribution. Like Grazeless, she started as a He. unlike Grazeless, she started as a filthy human on Uldum. I could not stand for this, and 45 minutes after faction changes were announced, Idrawaggro the male human paladin from Uldum was Notelam, the female belf from Black Dragonflight. Much like her gender/spec/race, I was a bit confused with my plans for Notelam- I leveled her while I was on a melee kick (which I’m still on), where I wanted one of every melee class at level 80. However, paladins are super freaking boring with their SHINYLIGHTATTACKONE and SHINYLIGHTATTACK2 and YOUGETTHEIDEA attacks. Couple my boredom with religious light effects (my parents are both Presbyterian pastors- I don’t need more shiny lightside stuff in my life), and the fact that I leveled a lot in Alterac Valley where low level heals are infinitely more useful than low level dps, and we have a recipe for healing success. That said, she only has like five heroics under her belt, and it was a big stretch for Naithin and Co. to allow her 1600spellpower self into Naxx10. (He insisted I did well, I call bollocks.) Nevertheless, I found healing to be pretty fun, and I’m pretty comfortable keeping her that way, especially now that she sits just shy of 2k spellpower.

SHINYLIGHTATTACK42

Elam is not an Alt. Elam is a main. He is enhance mainspec/resto offspec a good deal of the time, but has spent some time as enhance offspec. What Elam had never done, however, was spec Elemental- at least not this expansion. The last time I dpsed anything as elemental was early last October, where I rocked 1k dps on Caverns of Time: Durnholde trash through Chain Lightning/Lightning Overload awesomeness. I had not tried Elemental since Lava Burst/Wrath of the Lich King hit…and I’ve been missing out. Lava Burst crits for 10k on target dummies is awesome. Lava burst/Chain Lightning burst in battlegrounds is intense (though I admit to dying a lot- part of that is the staff, anyway.) Thunderstorming people off the Arathi Basin Lumber Mill cliff is hilarious. In all, Elemental is just a really, really -fun- spec, and I’d like to keep it my offspec. (This isn’t possible, as I’ve had my already-precarious spot in guild ten mans taken away if I keep it as my offspec- it seems being able to go ranged on ranged-friendly fights is not as useful as being a bad healer on healing intense fights. xD.) I’m not really upset about this decision, though- it makes sense from a guild point of view, even though I don’t like it. However, until I’m called upon to change it, I’m rocking my Elemental offspec and tearing up battlegrounds/alt and heroic runs.

How about everyone else? Do you have a new alt you’ve fallen in love with? Or tried a new spec you hadn’t used before and found yourself enjoying it way more than you might want to? I’d love to hear!

I think, to any raiding/pvping/anything Enhancement Shaman, the awesomeness that is Shamanistic Rage is readily apparent. Between our regular mana heavy rotation, dropping magma totem every twenty seconds, and situational mana uses (Purge and Wind shear are both 329 mana each- I spend a good 4-5k mana minute on just those on Jaraxxus), we’re mana hogs. Being able to replenish our mana from nearly 0 to full every minute is awesome.

You know what else is awesome? Not dying. Shamanistic rage helps us with that. While we’re pewpewing our lives away, we might notice the scary boss man is unleashing his lightning nova of doom. We somehow missed the gigantic pedowolf voice telling us to run away. What do we do? (Well, I don’t know about you, but I have enough HP now- a tier later- to survive Emalons lightning nova with 1.5k hp to spare. That’s besides the point, though.) We shamanwall!

Heroic Training Dummy begins casting Lightning Nova?

And herein lies the problem- what happens when both happen at different times? What happens if we know the boss is a heal check, like XT-Deconstructor pre-nerf, and we know that Shamwalling the tantrums will lead to an easier time for the healers, which in turn leads to more mana for healers, which might mean  downing the boss. Do we take a dps hit of possibly going oom because we used shamanistic rage at a suboptimal time?

Or, on another note, what happens when an unforeseeable large hit of doom comes up, and you just popped shamanistic rage 20 seconds ago to regain mana. What can we blow when the Vezax trash warrior comes spinning towards us with his 15k bladestorms? Our fingers might twitch to our Shamanistic Rage button, but since we needed that cooldown to continue dpsing we lost out on our one possible “get out of death free card.”

And, all of this is only pve. There is a myriad of situations in pvp where using Shamanistic Rage is a huge choice- “Do I think my healer can keep me up while I try to live through this rogues vanish-opener? I’m pretty low on mana.” “Do I think now is a safe time to use SR, or is his burst cooldown going to come back up within the next 60 seconds?” Etc.

So, we have in Shamanistic Rage a kind of spec-defining attribute/flaw/cool thing- combining dps and survivability cooldowns into the same thing. (Much like the RP generation aspect of Anti-magic shell!) We see this in Feral Spirits: Dash, Spirit Walk, and their healing ability all make wolves a survivability cooldown, but their beast damage makes them our ONLY burst cooldown as well. Maelstrom Weapon gives us the potential for high damage attacks, but also allows us to heal at the cost of damage. Shamanistic Rage allows us to continue bringing the pain, or helps us avoid having the pain brought to us. (If you’re like me and like to stand in Lightning Nova when at low mana and hit SR to maximize time on target, it helps you do both! But shh, don’t tell my healers. They might get mad.)

I love the design philosophy behind Shamanistic Rage. I love the hybridized feel it lends to the Shaman Class. Part of me even loves the fact that it requires thought and choice to use.

I’m just not sure it works.

(Totally unrelated note, I went into ToC10 tonight and got myself a…caster staff! Because, that makes sense. It’s now a part of my badass walking around/log off set. It’s also better than my spectral kris+shield of assimilation combo, but seeing as I don’t have a resto spec currently we’re going to ignore that. But srsly, look at me, being badass:)

Using a Staff on a Shaman is like eating the second slice of chocolate cake: Possibly socially unacceptable, definitely fattening, but it just feels so right!