The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Silly Priest, Totems are for Shaman
by Vonya
So…
Nearly 70 levels in, I think I’ve decided I don’t really like healing as a shaman.
/blush
Don’t get me wrong. I love some of it. I love Chain Heal and Meatballs (more on that Thursday) and having such a lovely array of totems to bring to a fight.
But.
But I hate not having a HoT - this is one of the things that got me when I healed on my 60+ Paladin. The crit game was fun on her, but the lack of a HoT was like salt rubbed into a wound every time my priest-trained brain suggested that it was the perfect situation for a good HoT.
I hate hate hate not having a HoT.
And before you say that I DO have a HoT (and a very very nice AOE one), let me remind you that I can only have one water totem down at a time, and Mana Spring/Tide was FAR more useful, especially in the group that I was in. Just ask my pallytank (*points at Zasp*).
I could probably work past that.
But there’s also the issues I had with totems. Even with the expanded range, I had to wait until the fight began to throw down my totems because I never knew where the tank was going to end up. And of course, my most useful totems get thrown down BEHIND me, so they’re even farther away from the group. Oh, and while I’m at it, the tank’s not getting any heals.
There were too many fights where I didn’t have time to throw down totems. And I certainly didn’t have time to throw down reactive totems. So if things went south and the tank needed a quick cleanse or I needed to drop a tremor totem, I usually didn’t have time to find/drop the totem, then redrop the original totem back.
There are a LOT of totems. A lot. And yet I really only used three, for almost every battle. There was absolutely no way I could hotkey all those totems without going into crazy macros - I had to mouse/click the special occasion totems, which means I wasn’t watching the health bars, and had very poor reaction time during it.
Even then. Even with all that, I might have been okay, if it weren’t for one very key thing.
Casting time.
Let’s get serious here, folks. After being a priest, with SO MANY options for healing damage, both quick and long, being stuck only with long-cast time spells is like trying to transfer peanut butter into a beer bottle using a bent fork.
Okay, that’s an odd example, but it’s totally true. I felt like I never really had the tools for the job, and it was excruciatingly slow. Velen forbid more than one person need serious heals. Chain’s great so long as nobody’s taking incredible amounts of damage. If the tank and a dpser were both taking damage, Chain Heal inevitably lost the battle against how much damage they were taking. And I couldn’t turn around at HoT the DPS really quickly, if I wanted to anything other than CH, I had to stop and cast a long cast time heal, during which time my tank got no attention.
I know, I can gear past that. Enough +heal and +haste can make that barrier I keep hitting stretch until I barely notice it. But I don’t WANT to wait that long to get the good gear.
Kwane did a gear-list for me, showing me the “perfect” level 70 pre-Kara gear list for a healy shaman. The amount of PVP gear on that list stopped my heart and had me reaching for an antacid.
I do not pvp well. Something to do with my burning hatred for dying, I suppose. I felt like I was looking at an ever-retreating hurdle to get this character to a place where I could truly enjoy him.
At first it was just an irritation, but like a burr under a saddle, it itched and cut and burned until I felt just like that horse - I pinned my ears back, flared my nostrils, and bucked.
I enjoyed healing as my Shaman. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE healing on my priest.
So, I’m going to wrap up my shaman-related healing posts I had planned over the next couple of weeks, and then go back to other topics.
I achieved what I set out to achieve. I feel like I know the shaman healers far better than I did, and I feel like I’d be able to assign raid healing roles with relative confidence, but my heart’s already been given.
Poor Vongrual never had a chance, not while I’m so firmly wrapped around Vonya’s finger.
So I’m now officially retiring my Holy Bowler. Perhaps he’ll get dusted off and loved after the expansion (have you SEEN some of the tricks healy shaman get in WotLK? It’s enough to make even the most hardened heart turn and give the class another look). My long-suffering pally tank will just have to make do with an overgeared priest tossing him heals.
I doubt he’ll mind overmuch. =]
July 15th, 2008
ROFL
I think it’s safe to say that learning a completely new set of tools when your already familiar with the old ones is tough, very tough.
It’s highly likely that you will find that healing in Kara on your shaman is enjoyable, so long as your partner has small fast heals. I approach your “bent fork” more like pounding in a nail, shamans are big swinging hard hitting while most everyone else tap tap tap … Its especially nice when your group is melee heavy having to tap everyone in a big group is tough.
90% of my heroics are done with class other than a shaman, no enhancement no elemental no healing … I find that most shamans over time (I have one that raids kara with us regulary) develop a feel for where the fight is going to take place and totems for the most part are just an added bonus during a fight and very rarely are they doing the totem dance. There are exceptions to fights, like the stupid spore bats that fear you (a tremor totem would be nice here) but most people are so used to not having it that its a pleasure when you do
PVP for me is nothing more than an ends to a means (ie epic gear) and to be honest if your requirement for doing heroics involves already having epic gear then isnt that defeating the purpose? Maybe its worth developing a reward/dungeon list 1st and limping through SP and Ramps for the badges. If you really must get that PVP gear, I recommend going enhancement or elemental so atleast if your dieing your taking other people along for the ride
So keep bowling, you may find that you like going for strikes all the time instead of spares.
July 15th, 2008
Shaman aren’t for everyone, but I suppose you could say that about every class. That said, they’re still my favourite to have around when I’m healing.
I suppose it’s a matter of what you’re used to. I’m a L70 Holy Priest, my roommate is a L70 Resto Shaman. He doesn’t miss HoT’s because he’s never really had them, whereas of course I couldn’t live without them. He envies my Frisbee, I covet his Chain Heal, but in the end it makes for great conversation and note-sharing.
July 15th, 2008
Yeah the cast time is an issue. Paladins get around it to some extent with FoL, it’s so fast and cheap you can literally spam it non-stop. Still, no moving and if you get silenced, game over.
I’m really loving my druid. The healing is very powerful even in feral spec, often I can heal a nonheroic trash group with only a lifebloom stack, no CC, 800 +heal. Lifebloom is very flexible and NS/Swiftmend allow fast reactions to spikes. The playstyle really rewards you for being able to predict incoming damage, frequently you can prevent ’situations’ ever happening instead of madly spamming to deal with it after the fact.
My palatank prefers drood healing, “there’s something special about hots”. You can choose from twice as many armor pieces, do stealthruns, CC anything (a little). Even the DS3 bonus is good! Druids synergise well with palas, they res and cleanse, we rebirth and remove curse.
Remember those rare precious times when you’d get an innervate in raid? You can have one all to yourself, every six minutes!
Eldr, driving people to altoholism for 300*10^-4 centuries.
July 15th, 2008
As far as mapping the totems…
You really need to look at mods like Chamois or Totemus. They put all your totems in an easy to use place. All grouped by element even.
July 15th, 2008
I never did shaman healing, but I did pally healing, and believe me I know where you’re coming from. Around the time I started playing, there was a lot of talk about how holy pallies were “priests in plate”, so I felt a twinge of doubt about making a priest as my first character. Months later, when I eventually decided to level a paladin, I realized just how wrong that phrase was… Aside from the fact that there is NO HEALING PLATE before raids/badges, the paladin’s toolset is just so limited compared to the priest. A distinct turning point for me was failing to heal Rokmar in SP. After several tries it became pretty clear that it wasn’t a lack of technique, I just didn’t have the means available. Efficiency OR throughput, but not both.
Any encounter that can be solo-healed is perfectly manageable for an appropriately geared priest. I don’t think the same can be said of all healing classes.
July 15th, 2008
Well, I agree with Vonya, for flexability a shaman is not as versatile as a good holy priest. As far as AoE healing, if the priest decided to take the Circle of Healing talent then you are talking an instant group heal right there, yes you give up IDS to do so, but we are talking about raiding/heroics, by this point you should know what your talent tree should look like based on which role you will be filling.
With that said, when it comes to raid healing I love having a couple of shamans with that CH going on the raid group, with priests and paladins tank healing. As Weta above stated, the totems are just a bonus if the fight happens to stay around them on the trash pulls, but for certain fights against bosses, you pretty much know where the tank is going to to be moving the boss to, its planned and spoken of before the fight ever starts. Atleast it should be for maximun chance of success.
Single target healing or 5 toon runs, priest maybe a pally, non single target reaid heals, shaman or druid.
On a side note I dont know much about druids to be truthful, and I we have used a druid in conjuction with dual priests healing our MT during the Lurker fight.
July 15th, 2008
Hmm, that pretty much echoes my experience of shammy healing. I have seen shammies heal heroics really well, but they were either very over-geared or else just great at reactive healing. For my own part, I found I could heal everything when it was going well, but couldn’t recover easily from a mistake. Healing through aoe damage was only possible if I shouted at the dps to stand on top of each other. Mobility fights were simply unhealable. Nethermancer Sepethrea? Impossible without backup healing.
Of course, all of this highlight’s a shaman’s weaknesses, which may perhaps be addressed in Wrath. But it doesn’t show up their strengths, which I’ve seen in raids. Shammies are beautiful raid healers, given the chance. Maybe it’s worth pushing through that 5-man pain barrier to reach Kara and see if things change for you?
July 15th, 2008
Its funny, all the reasons you listed about not playing your shaman is why my poor draenei priestess is sitting 4 bubbles from 66 and my resto druid is fully Kara geared (Minus her horns damn prince!). After all my proactive healing, reactive healing just wasn’t the same, and renew is no substitute for Lifebloom.
Its funny, I pulled her out for a friend’s Ramparts run the other night, stared at my healing bar and went “Wait, which spell is which again?” *grin* I’d only remembered the renew graphic (figures, a HoT right?)
Although, I too, can’t wait for the Wrath goodies…*dances* I get an out of combat rez!
July 15th, 2008
I think if you’d starting healing as a Shaman and then went to priestly healing you might feel the same. Each of the healing classes have a different flavor to them. Personally I like the Resto Druid healing especially the lifebloom spell.
July 15th, 2008
“Kwane did a gear-list for me” - Can I get a copy please?
July 15th, 2008
My main is a resto shaman who also has an elemental set for a change of pace every once in a while. I have never leveled another healer to 70, and I have only very limited healing experience on my lvl 51 smite priest.
What this means is that I grew up learning to heal with no spammable hots, and I became skilled at prioritizing heals vs. totems gradually. As I’m writing this, it’s actually rather hard to put into words how to heal and manage totems successfully. When I’m healing, I usually just get “in the zone” and don’t think about each action before taking it.
At any rate, in addition to keeping an eye on the health bars of their assigned targets, resto-shamans must also be aware of
* time remaining on key totems,
* whether party members are still in range of key totems,
* the number of charges left on earth and water shields, and
* the mana bars of their party members (for the best times to drop mana tide totem).
All of this comes on top of managing mana potion and trinket cooldowns and watching out for dispellable debuffs.
MODS
I use Totem Timers for totem and shield management. I use Grid raid frames and Grid Mana Bars in conjunction with mouseover heal macros to target raid members while keeping a close eye on their health, mana and dispellable debuffs. I also use X-perl for party portraits, because it clearly shows my totem buffs on party members just below their portraits. If I see my totem buffs disappear, I know it’s time to move the totems.
TOTEM MANAGEMENT
At first, it might seem difficult to decide whether to throw a heal or refresh totems. For instance, if I’m healing the main tank, and it’s time to refresh totems, I’ll re-cast earth shield and toss Gift of the Naaru, which together generally provide enough healing over time for me to drop totems. Even in that case, it’s up to me to decide whether there is enough time to re-cast all totems (which requires 4 full seconds), or just one or two at a time, between heals.
On most trash pulls, I’ll use trinket-charged healing stream instead of mana stream, especially when CC is in short supply. Healing stream is like having a mini-shadow priest with healing embrace, and casters rarely run out of mana and therefore don’t need mana stream on most trash pulls. On boss fights, mana stream/mana tide always take priority, except when my party takes a couple ticks of splash damage (e.g. nightbane’s charred earth), in which case I’ll reactively cast healing stream totem for a few seconds, then drop mana spring again.
Other than that, reactively casting totems is fairly rare. One example is when a trash mob breaks CC and heads for me or a clothy, in which case I’ll reactively cast Earth Elemental (i.e. my tank-in-a-box) to taunt off the mob until the tank can pick it up. The other time is when multiple party members become diseased or poisoned (e.g. Quagmirran’s poison splash in Slave Pens) in which case I’ll reactively cast the appropriate cleansing totem. Other than that, totems are pre-determined based on fight content and group makeup, and should only require refreshing, not reactive casting.
REACTIVE HEALING
I touched on reactive totem casting above. As for heal spells, I generally don’t have to cast heals reactively. I’ll cancel-cast Healing Wave or Chain heal, with earth shield and gift of the naaru smoothing out the damage. The main time I throw a reactive heal is in response to large spike damage, using the macro Nature’s Swiftness + HW Rank 12. This is followed by enough lesser healing waves to stabilize the tank, followed by enough chain heals or Healing Waves s to fill the tank back to full.
On other occasions, I’ll simply spam-cast chain heal on the tank. The true beauty of Chain Heal is that it is a self-contained reactive heal. When chain heal jumps, it goes to the next two persons in range who need healing. If no one needs healing other than your primary target, it doesn’t jump. And, even when it doesn’t jump, it is still a very mana-efficient heal.
LACK OF HOT SPELLS (I <3 CHAIN HEAL)
In most cases, the ability to spam a multi-target heal spell is a sufficient substitute for a spammable HOT. Chain heal is a “heal over space,” if you will. Every two seconds (faster with spell haste), three targets receive a simultaneous chunk of healing, at the cost of only one spellcast. In a sense, it accomplishes the same goal as having a hot that ticks at 2-second intervals running on those three players. As I mentioned before, you decide who gets the first jump, and the spell intelligently jumps to the other two targets who need healing the most.
99% of the time, poperly educated melee dps will be in range of the tank (and clothies can put themselves in range of each other) for chain heal to jump, which takes care of substantially all splash damage.
MOBILE FIGHTS
Mastering totems, heals and dispells becomes more difficult in mobile fights, as you must learn to move out of damage on top of managing everything else. Obviously, running away from damage eats up precious casting time, therefore every heal counts, and no opportunity to throw a heal can be wasted. With no spammable HOT, you definitely must rely on the various non-tanks to avoid taking damage whenever possible. Party members unfamiliar with shaman healers need to learn the art of avoiding damage while sticking close enough to each other to receive jumps of chain heal.
My favorite 5-man is heroic magister’s, for the very fact that many of the boss fights are mobile and/or feature unavoidable aoe damage. Take, for example, the final boss– especially during the anti-grav phases. ZOMG the AIR is dot-killing everyone! My answer in that situation is to trinket-charge my healing stream totem and have all party members group up for heroism-enhanced chain heals. The healing stream largely counteracts the group-wide AIR-DOT-of-death, and there is usually enough time to top everyone off with chain heal before the floaty orbs of doom arrive to kill everyone).
MASSIVE AOE DAMAGE
As for multiple people taking unmanageable amounts of damage… well, I have rarely encountered a situation that is too hard for chain heal (and the rest of my shammy bag of tricks) to handle. My (stubbornly idealistic) belief is that Blizzard has not designed a boss fight that is impossible for any of the healing classes- ASSUMING people are skilled enough for the content. If a situation seems hard at first, I simply L2P and overcome it, the same as any other healer would. In cases where multiple people are taking un-healable amounts of damage simultaneously, it’s generally a sign that some or all of the party members are not familiar with the fight, are underskilled at avoiding damage (or tanking, maintaining CC, watching their threat, etc.) and/or they are just flat-out undergeared. No healer (with or without hots) can compensate for overly-difficult content that exceeds the skill, experience, and/or gear of his/her party members.
Believe me, I would kill for a proper HOT… but so far I have managed fine just juggling earth-shield, Gift of the Naaru, Healing Stream, and the party-wide insta-cleanse and cleanse over time of poison/disease cleansing totems.
July 16th, 2008
Hrm.
I was thinking earlier about my next class to tackle. I’ve done priest, mage, and rogue, and a baby paladin…honestly, I disliked the paladin for the same reasons you stated. I love my priest so much, never gotten enough of her, just because the class feels like it breathes. I could redo every fight in the game healing a different way many times over, and you can always improve just by using another spell. Very very intuitive.
But I digress. I was considering shaman, but honestly, I think I would be a lot like you. I just…I dunno. I’ve seen some shamans do some pretty amazing things, but I just don’t think I will ever enjoy anything as much as I do my priest. It kind of makes the game feel complete when you rolled the class you loved from day 1.
Oh, and I don’t have the money to buy a monkey to press my Chain Heal key for me
July 16th, 2008
I love my priest, but have found that I can love another healing class equally….druid! I adore my druid. I leveled her as Balance and it was the most fun I ever had leveling a character. That being said my priest is still my main if only because she was first and is better geared. I truly love them both the same.
I made a druid because of my love of renew. I wanted to try out a healer with even more Hots! Because of this though I know I’d hate being a pally. The thought of only have two healing spells makes my heart stop! I think I might like a shammy as I love raid healing and they are certainly good at that, but I’m sick of leveling so I’ll not be finding out any timne soon.
There is one problem with playing two healers though….I sometimes cross up their spells in my head and click the wrong mouse button. I ended up casting tranquility the other day instead of a rank 1 G. Heal. Oops!
July 16th, 2008
Shaman healing is very different from Priest or Druid healing because you aren’t laden with healing tools. Shaman can’t go to their tool shed and find exactly the right wrench for the job. Rather, Shaman have to bend the few tools they have to fit the situations they encounter.
To do so Shaman require foresight, cancel-casting, and downranking. If you can sense the flow of a fight and predict when damage is likely to happen you can greatly reduce your overhealing, increase your efficiency, and better decide how to manage your totems. Combined with proper cast-canceling and downranking, Shaman healing can be plenty of fun. Earth Shield is there to pad your misses and Nature’s Swiftness your outright mistakes, so paranoia isn’t necessary.
It is a very different style of healing, but it can be quite fun when mastered.
July 16th, 2008
Well said, MeanderingMind! My version was much more… meandering
In all of my talk, I failed to mention just how fun it is to play a resto shaman. Finding creative ways to keep targets alive during silences (Maiden of Virtue, Nalorakk) without HOTs can be a nailbiting endeavor. But that adds to the fun, imo.
Also, Ego, thanks for sharing the spotlight with shamans for a while! There aren’t too many resto shaman bloggers out there. It was good to see your entertaining, common sense take on things.
July 16th, 2008
I would also like very much the list of healer items for a pre-kara resto shaman.
“never give up never surrender”
July 16th, 2008
I’m similarly enamored of my Resto Druid, but I’m not as in love with my priest as some of you guys have said you are. My druid has yet to encounter a situation where he’s not useful (to be fair, the Priest is always useful too, but he has to work harder). TK has come the closest, where I’d really like to have Circle of Healing on some of those beginning trash pulls, but our Shammies take care of that with their magical Chain Heal.
Still, my Resto Shaman friend and I talk all the time about difficulties she has healing 5-mans, and the 2nd boss in Heroic Mech is pretty much an impossibility. But my Druid has no problem with it, even though he heals as a tree and moves 20% slower.
I would like to agree with Shattered Moon about there not being any encounter that any healing class can’t handle with a skilled group, but I just can’t. Anyone who’s ever seen a Paladin try to heal Heroic MgT knows this. The truth is, Priests are the most versatile healers, but they have to sacrifice everything else to do it well. That kind of trade-off is why I quit playing my Priest and rolled a Druid (with whom farming and questing isn’t such a headache).
July 17th, 2008
I have to agree with Kelie on that. Druids can get some nice soloing talents without sacrificing healing ability. I currently have my druid specced 20/0/41 and with that I can farm with ease and Heal wonderfully. Also lets not forget how amazing farming herbs in flight form is! Still I do love my priest!
July 17th, 2008
Here’s my pre-Kara, no-PvP, no-Drops gear list. The gear is mostly from quests, with a few inexpensive AH and crafted gear to fill out some spots. Enchanted and gemed with Rares, the stats come to:
5909 Health
7058 Mana
1214 +Healing
156 mp5
This should be fine for the first half of Kara and the easier Heroics. From here, I can upgrade to PVP/rep items and drops as needed.
White Remedy Cape
Swiftsteel Gloves
Crystal Pulse Shield
Pauldrons of Surging Mana
The Essence Focuser
Holy Healing Band
Haramad’s Linked Chain Pantaloons
Oshu’gun Relic
Clefthoof Wristguards
Metallic Headband of Simm’onz
Natasha’s Guardian Cord
Totem of the Plains
Tarren Mill Defender’s Cinch
Celestial Jewel Ring
Heavenly Inspiration
Void Slayer’s Tunic
Auchenai Boots
July 18th, 2008
I think it has a lot to do with how you were “raised” in the game. My main is a resto druid. I have tried healing as a priest, and I have tried healing as a shaman, though never as a paladin.
What I’ve learned-
I can adapt new things to my playstyle. I can incorporate new spells and abilities, even new strategies.
I can’t feel comfortable with learning a whole new set of tools for the same task, when none of those tools bear any similarity to what I used before. I’ll do okay, but not exceptionally well, and not as well as the toon that I first learned on.
I know the healing tools as a Resto Druid. I miss them when I’m not on it. Any other healer feels incomplete by comparison. After being a proactive healer for so long, building myself around the idea of casting heals before they are needed, I can’t fathom healing reactively.
Also, as an aside, someone commented on Druids as better raid healers. I have found the opposite to be true. Paladins, Priests, and Shamans are all stronger raid healers, in my opinion. The true power of a Resto Druid is seen when their abilities are applied to 1 or 2 tanks, but raid healing reveals the glaring weakness of reliance on HoT based healing.
August 12th, 2008
Yes - great posts from all these points of view! I’m a long-time EQ healer (in the past) - in there, the ‘Cleric’ (AKA Priest) was a healing monster, but as for dealing with incoming damage, dealing damage and such - they lacked badly. It improved a bit over the course of the game, but fast forward to the WoW Priest..
In my OBSESSIVE quest for the ‘right class’: I had played a Cleric in EQ to advanced raiding level, was an outstanding healer with a good reputation - heck, I was training other raid priests… But alas, while I did well in all that, when I walked away from the raid - I was still left with a class that could heal wonderfully, but otherwise - forget it…
So, I switched mains and then switched again, and then switched again.. Necro, Wizard, Warrior… ended up leaving my Cleric far behind, and had a buncha’ mediocre ‘mains’.
When I got to WoW, I vowed - that would not happen again. I’d play every class, every race, every combo until I was 100% sure on which character I wanted to devote to end-game. The Priest won out - not a Disc Priest or Shadow, etc - just the Priest. I HAD to like the character regardless of the spec - because, well that can and will change. Not just by my doing, but by Blizzards.
And my advice to anyone ever playing a MMO - when you pick a character, NEVER change your choice because of a nerf, patch, or the like - because it will eventually come full circle. Stick with the core descriptions and idea of the class - and whine at the developers to stick to their ‘description’ if you must, but one of my MAJOR fatal errors in EQ was changing classes based on changes in the game. It was *futile* - what class was ‘cool’ one day, became the red-headed step child the next (no offense to red heads of course, hehe).
I tried a Druid and a Shaman - gave them a fair chance, in my opinion. My best RL friend plays a Shaman and is more than happy with the class. Luckily for all of us - we don’t all like the same class. The Druid is great too - I envy them both, but at the core; I’m a Priest. Right now Discipline suits me, but who knows. One thing I do know - I could live with any of the trees as a Priest - don’t matter one bit. Can’t say that for the others classes. Of course, that’s a purely subjective matter!
December 16th, 2008
I am a 80 resto shaman, and I too have had some problems healing, but there are several times i have been told I am one of the best healers they have ever ran with. I have only played a druid till about 40 ( resto), but then I switched to the shaman, and I love her. I do have problems, for examples Heroic strat is hard for me because the dps takes to much damage, and so does the tank, without a druid tank to have frenzy regeneration and the glyph that increases his heals, I SUCK, and the dps has to be perfect. But I have no problem in Nexus and have never died on last boss in H- Gundrak, I mean in partys everyone has to work together, DPS has to know how to tone up and down their dps, if not they can kill you, tanks have to no when to get aggro off healers, knowing the fight of shamans is all the better, so i know when to throw down the totems. And for not knowing where to throw totems, just ask tank where he is gonna pull, he should understand that you use totems and that they help the party as whole so everyone is in range of them. I rarely use healing totem, i have glyph that heals me, when I use my big heal, and usually i chain heal then big heal, bc chain healing increases your haste by 30% for you next direct heal. It has worked for me really well. Like I said some grps just don’t work out. And like it was said before if you have never really had HOT, then you wouldn’t miss them