Sephrenia’s post is something everyone should understand by now.  Really.  Nothing irks me more than an “omg heal me!” being shouted over teamspeak or party-chat by dps and especially when they’re not only asking for their own healing, but for someone else.

Shouting “heal the tank!!!!” when the healers are, most probably, doing the damndest to keep said tank alive is not only annoying, it can be counter productive, too.  For example, if a number of healers is assigned to each tank and someone shouts to ‘heal x!’ some healers, we shall say the ones less ’sure’ of themselves, will switch their healing target - causing another tank to die.  This can also when a dps character calls out for healing and too many healers actually listen to them.

Now, I know a lot of people would say ‘but just ignore them, do what your assignment is’ and I’d agree to some extent but also point out the fact that quite often, in Burning Crusade, there are fights which require you to redirect your efforts mid-encounter.  People are used to being reactive to damage and, especially raid healers, are equipped to switch targets quickly or cover said targets with ’splash healing’.  When someone calls out for healing not only may the tanks lose healing but those reactive healers may change their primary focus and end up wasting healing time as four large heals land at the same time on one dps char who stood in the fire too long.

When is it ok?

Some would say that its never ok to call for additional healing but I think there are circumstances where it is valid.  Some of our tanks have macros which call out when they have used their defensive capabilities - saying them in teamspeak is a little quicker “coming off shield wall in 5…4…” etc.  Not directly calling for healing, perhaps, but close enough in directing it.

However, in general, asking directly for healing is not really going to get your healers to heal you more.  Like Sephrenia says - it’s very tempting for a healer to let said players die on trash or somesuch so they stop messing around.  Not the most mature way of handling things, perhaps, but effective in calming your temper.

I don’t need reminding that you need healing - it’s something that I am acutely aware of. It’s all I watch on my screen - those little grid boxes of dwindling health. I never see much else.

I reiterate her point here - your job is to dps or tank, keep an eye on your own rotations, your own dps and your own threat.  Stop telling the healers to heal, it’s what we do and it’s all we’re concentrating on besides not stepping in the fire.  If you’re telling us to do our job I doubt you’re doing your own effectively…

Totems

The same thing goes for telling shamans which totems to put down.  You can mention to us why an encounter might favour another totem in a way we might not have considered as the spec we are but unless you are the raid leader - and sometime even if you are! - you should think about the fact that totems are part of the shaman class and, as such, we also usually understand how and when certain ones should be used.

No Sunday Screenies today (I’m sure you’re all crying at the loss) - I’ve not gotten any particularly good new screenies except ones I’ve taken for tommorrow’s post!

Ok, this is a shaman post.  More precisely a resto shaman post and probably most non-resto-shamans will be totally disinterested. I will give cookies to those resto shamans who manage to wade through my somewhat lacking evaluation herein of the relative merits of Lesser Healing Wave versus Chain Heal.

Since the patch I’ve been doing a lot of reading (in threads like this one at EJ)- shaman healing, depending on who you speak to, has not changed at all or has changed dramatically.  A lot of people, wishing to hang on to what they know and love, have insisted that all of the new talents are worthless at best, a nuisance at worst as they do not affect chain heal.  Others, though, have suggested that we might or could change our healing style - relying more heavily on lesser healing wave and on single target healing or at least having this as a viable option.

Personally, I’m quite new to healing so I’m quite eager to learn new playstyles in the hope that it’ll improve how I heal overall.

Much of this really is pie-in-the-sky thinking as, in reality, how we are specced at the moment does not reflect entirely how we will be at 80 and the encounters at the moment are somewhat dominated by priests and druids spamming AoE heals whilst their mana pool barely suffers - that, we are told, will change.

However, the point remains that we have a lot of AoE healing and less of the old-fashioned heavy tank healing going on - in our guild at the moment we only have two regular paladin healers and a tonne of druids and priests with myself the sole representative of shaman healing most nights.

Here’s how I’m finding my role, at the moment:  I’m AoE healing with chain heal if people are taking large hits predictably (i.e. Naj’entus style) or are too spread out to be effectively healed by CoH / Wild Growth.  The rest of the time I’m using lesser healing wave.

When I seen the posts concerning LHW (especially glyphed)I decided I’d go try some quick and dirty tests.  Unfortunately the two raiders who usually do our WWS’s hadn’t been able to attend many raids recently so I was stuck for a while with what I can test on my own (yes, I fail, I always forget to start my combat log).  The one thing I could test at least, I figured, was just how fast I ran out of mana when chain-casting each spell.

Results:

• 1 minute 18 seconds Chain Heal
• 1minute 28 seconds Lesser Healing Wave

This is with a mana spring, no mana tide, no potions, no replenishment and straight chain-casting - refreshing Water Shield when it was used up.  The reason for the longevity of the LHW spam is undoubtedly the procs on Improved Water Shield adding just enough to keep be going those few seconds longer - even though I need to refresh it more often and let my mp5 lurch for a second whilst it’s down.  Of course this is under a non ’stressful’ situation with no movement and no worrying about the tank dying if I stop healing to refresh water shield.  Of course, this was pre-T6 2pc so the numbers would likely now be more in the favour of chain heal (realms are down, so  I can’t test it) but even so, LHW is not entirely the useless mana drain it used to be.

When looking at the effectiveness of one heal over the other or how to use them in a given situations we have to look at both:

• mana pool / longevity
• effective healing

The new and exciting boost to  healing for LHW is very much affected by the super-glyph which caused all of this speculation in the first place - [Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave].  This very much ups the healing throughput of LHW and makes it more comparable to Flash of Light.  This makes it a rather nice tank-heal (as they are most often the person wearing my ES in ‘progress content’).

‘Testing’ Further

I know, calling it testing is a travesty.  I have no control numbers, have respecced, have played differently and was pretty damn ill tonight when I tried (running to the bathroom a few times between tries, erp Xx) but I did find some interesting changes nonetheless.

The first few bosses in Sunwell are a pretty good test of variability in healing, in  my mind, as they requires heavy AoE healing and also some strong tank healing.  Brutallus, in particular, was a fight we’d had trouble with last time we tried (successfully downing him but having a really hard time keeping the tanks alive).

This was where I particularly wanted to test how well my mana regen could cut it with the new ’style’. This week’s fight was a lot smoother, which I attribute to having an extra Paladin as well as people being a bit more ‘aware’ of the fight but I did feel that I ‘made a difference’.

Spec

I made a bit of a mistake when I respecced a little too quickly back from elemental after a weekend of pew-pew.  I forgot Riptide - realising where that extra talent point had come from when one of the other shamans mentioned it.  D’oh.  However, I had been feeling like I had been abusing it - using it as a crutch heal and not really thinking about when and where it would do best just “omg damage, instant heal!”. Whilst this is cool in a 5-man there’s really little need for it in a raid - especially when you can have a 1.4s (or lower) healing wave hit a target before they die at a much lower mana cost.

I also, perhaps controversially or perhaps just idiotically, didn’t spec for [Improved Healing Wave].  Why? Well, for one, I know I’ll be respeccing to elemental in a week for levelling so I can really play with my specs for now and secondly because… I never use Healing Wave.  Since I was going for what I’m calling my ‘tank haelz spec’ - that is focusing on improving LHW, mana regen and crit alongside a strong Earth Shield, I missed out Healing Way.  I’ve never liked that talent, if I’m honest, and the lack of downranking makes keeping it up tedious.  I do not like to be ‘locked in’ to maintaining a stack of healing like that, either, especially when I’ve got some newly discovered versatility in my healing!  I’m not saying I won’t go back to it when I have more points but, at the moment, talent points are thin on the ground and I wanted to play with something different.

So, I picked up [Totemic Focus] instead (which I’d previously not bothered with) because despite, yes, 5 minute totems, high mobility fights in large areas require you to reposition your totems and some fights require different totems to be placed at different times.  I was going for uber-mana-efficiency, remember.

I also picked up one point in [Imp. Reincarnation] which I was torn about.  On the one hand, if everything goes well, then it’s a total waste of points.  On the other I’ve helped finish two first kills by rezzing with nearly half mana and health. I really, truly, from the bottom of my heart wish they’d make this baseline.

2 points in [Imp. Water Shield].  I had read some ideas on putting only one or two points here to negate the problem of constantly having to refresh water shield constantly - it goes off, but  not often enough to make it a major nuisance.

[Cleanse Spirit].  We have the option to pick up another tool which means we become valuable secondary or even primary decursers.  This was a nice backup for Kalecgos, though I have a feeling that, dependent on how the raids are in Wrath, I might rather have that point elsewhere.

[Blessing of the Eternals] for the crit - the bonus to Earthliving is not something to sniff at but not really incredible.  Still, not bad for 2 points.

[Ancestral Awakening]… well, it’s based around all of those crit heals I’m going to be doing so why not? In  practice, though, less than 1% of my healing comes from AA if I’m only raid healing.  Still a bit undecided about it but I might switch these points to focused mind or something - again, though, FM is very situational.

[Tidal Waves] is nice and will be nicer with 3.0.3 (which goes live on EU realms today).  A chain heal when there’s heavy raid damage going on and then a nice, fast heal for a tank or a low dps.  This was really nice for Mount Hyjal and literally a lifesaver in SWP a few times (especially with no bloody Riptide!).

[Ancestral Knowledge] + two points in [Improved Shields] rounds out my current build.  Although that second point in shields should have been in Riptide I don’t begrudge it now.

Oh, and no [Healing Grace].

Tier 6

With the ‘easymode’ tier 6 instances now in effect I’ve come into some shiny T6 tokens pretty rapidly - shoulders and head are mine, gloves I already had (one for each spec because no-one else wanted them).  I have a very good healing helm but the tier 6 would be a bit of an upgrade and would work me towards that 4-set bonus.  However, with all of the above mentioned I began to wonder.  If I have elemental gloves and an elemental headpiece, whilst also giving some desirable stats (more crit etc.) would give me a two piece t6 elemental set bonus to play with.  You know, the insane one which gives:

Whenever you have an air totem, an earth totem, a fire totem, and a water totem active at the same time, you gain 15 mana per 5 sec, 35 spell critical strike rating, and 45 spell power.

That’s some nice set-bonus! I decided to buy the elemental headgear and use this setup (2pc T6 elemental) when I was primarily using LHW so as to gain the extra crit and mana regen.

Results

The figures for both Brut kills looked something like this:

The first is the fight on which I was using chain heal primarily and with gear with a little less crit rating.

The second fight I’m using t6 2pc elemental and crit gear and using lesser healing wave primarily.

Although my heals per second were reduced using mostly lesser healing wave (but as you can see, still using chain heal when appropriate) I did output more overall healing though the difference was negligible.   My overheal was up a little (as expected when tank healing) but I almost doubled my healing on our Paladin tank (from 185,820 to 272,003) whilst gaining a small increase on our warrior tank (178,518 to 195, 660).  Although these also reflect a slightly longer fight (the second kill was 18 seconds longer) I do think that the increase in healing is too big a difference to be brought by time alone.

The side effects of using lesser healing wave, too, were interesting.  As a lot of the new abilities happen on-crit for LHW, HW and now Riptide they played a much bigger part in the ‘lesser healing wave’ trial.

Ancestral Awakening with chain-heal spam made up less than 1% of my healing.  With LHW as my primary heal it made up 4% of my healing - not quite making up for the loss of ’splash healing’ from chain heal but certainly not something I consider a terrible side effect.

The death in the first try was deliberate, sort of.   I got the flame debuff and ran out of mana whilst healing from the flame spot.  I told the flame healers to let me die as I had reincarnation up and could get mana back by rezzing myself.

Despite the above, I ended the second try with more mana and it’s clear to see, looking at the WWS, why. From the first attempt, water shield was my fourth highest source of mana - providing 2,564 mana over the course of the fight.  On the second kill, with 2/3 Imp. Water Shield and 2/5 Imp. shields I regained 4,917 mana from water shield - over half of what replenishment also gave me.

I didn’t feel refreshing water shield was a big issue - using it every time I had a spare moment as I’ve always done out of habit (I reflexively tap that key when on all characters now…).

So…

Chain heal spam gives you a little more splash healing, it is the king of your raid healing arsenal and will be a very effective tool.  Even when full specced to take advantage of the new abilities via lesser healing wave I used chain heal 27% of the time and up to 60-80% on splash damage fights (like Felmyst).  Chain heal also spreads Earthliving Weapon more (and I only just now notice that I likely forgot to imbue it on the second Brut kill… something about it being an imbue means I forget it where I would never have forgotten mana oil, bah).

Lesser healing wave is now a viable and strong heal which can be utilised to effectively tank heal.  Whilst giving up on a little AoE healing and efficiency you gain more mana back and still have a little AoE healing going via Ancestral Awakening.

Why Bother?

Why even look into all of this now, it’s a bit useless, right?  In my mind, not really.  Yes, numbers and fights will change between now and 80 but by then all shamans will be able to pick up all of the new talents if they wish and will have to learn to use them.  I’d like to be ready to start the new ‘raiding season’ running.

TL;DR

Lesser Healing Wave spam seems like it could be viable and even preferable on some fights. Learning how and when to use it over chain-heal is a skill which any shamans not from pre-TBC should learn and they should understand how it will affect how they use the new talents and skills they’ve been given.

In 10-man healing this variability is going to be the bee’s knees - you got a druid or priest with you?  Let them handle any low level splash damage with their AoE’s and small top-off heals whilst you tank heal.  Have a paladin?  Throw out those beefy chain heals and Earthliving procs.

And, yes, I know I’m a terrible theorycrafter but I did enjoy being able to look at something other than chain heal and I’ll probably do some stricter and more controlled testing when I hit 80!

Really, if you’re not interested in ‘lookit mah shinies’ then move on.  I can’t help bursting with glee at two of my recent aquisions though so those as can bear it please stay and share my happy moment *ahem*.

Lightwalkers has been, in my mind anyway, terribly unlucky about its tier 6 shoulder tokens.  About 5 months ago I mentioned getting my [Dragon-Quake Shouldergards], or rather cried, as I think they’re some of the ugliest end-game healing shoulders out there.  I was never lucky with drops and, even when I changed main to my shaman and started doing Mount Hyjal / Black Temple shaman healing shoulders were few and far between.  The pvp season 2 ones would have been an upgrade but I was utterly burned out on pvp (something I’m only now getting over) and so I toddled along with my terrible pre-tier-4 shoulders in Black Temple.

Things picked up, though, and we got to Reliquary of Souls an then to Mother Sharaz, both of whom drop rather nice shaman healing shoulders - [The Wavemender's Mantle] and [Skyshatter Shoulderpads] respectively.  Each week would come and each week RoS would fail to drop anything and Mother would hand out multiple [Pauldrons of the Forgotten Conqueror] and [Pauldrons of the Forgotten Vanquisher].

We’ve kept running Black Temple post-nerf  to tie off some loose ends (Illidari Council and Illidan) and to squeeze a few more shinies out for some of our newer members (and some older ones like me who’ve been unlucky).   This week, as you might have guessed, Mother handed out one pair of [Pauldrons of the Forgotten Protector].  I shelled out about 2/3rds of my dkp but I would have paid it all - these shoulders were an amazing upgrade for me (and double as awesome dps shoulders) and look bloody amazing.  Best looking t6 shoulders in my totally and utterly unbiased opinion *cough*.

Wow, where shoulderpads are as wide as you are tall.  Hehe.

It’s jumpin’, there’s a buzz in the air, people are feelin’ stirrin’s deep doon and its like some sort o’ adrenaline rush goin’ aroon.  Old friends are poppin’ up, people are goin’ back to their roots… Everyone’s heard that there’s somethin’ brewin’ up north and they’re sortin’ their afairs.  It’s excitin’ but ah’m no half feelin’ that ah could be doin’ wi’ a quiet corner and a wee pint an’ a hauf.

Pets, mounts, achievements, inscriptions, new pets, new talent trees, new spells, new addons, new layouts, new everything!

On top of that, every five minutes someone asks “what’s a lexicon of power” followed shortly by “and where do  I find that?”.  Inscriptions are making stupid amounts of gold on my server (especially the few minors available) and people are asking a million questions about the who, where what and why of them. Oh and people complaining about the spam caused by people getting achievements.  Especially when you take 10 people to do the Leeeerroooyyy! one and everyone’s achievement hits the guild at once…

Things have been utterly crazy.  I know it’s all a little ‘old news’ now but, personally, I’m only just coming off of the new-content high!

And then they decided to hit us with Hallows End, too.  Evil buggers! More on that in another post.  On that note - expect a little pick-up in posting from now on.  Despite a rash of unfortunate circumstances and busyness combined with a little bit of writers ‘doubt’ I am slowly working myself back into the writing saddle (and dear god how many metaphors did I murder there?).

Coherency, right.  Well, this post is a quick roundup of the smaller things which won’t get a post of their own in the coming few days or so.

Patch went pretty nicely for us Europeans - most of our realms were only an hour late coming up and, although we’ve had a few outages, and a little experience of the mount and pet bug (where they ‘disappeared’) things have been otherwise relatively less failurefull than the usual major patch.

Oh, except the ding every two minutes as everyone completes an achievement.

Haircut Stuff

Matt challenged people to post their changed ‘do’s’ so here are the three I changed (I can’t bear to change Aurik - there’s no hairstyle which I think looks better on him).

Avarix

Went for a very similar look here but I wanted a floofier ponytail as I was sick of the current one I had ’sticking’ to my back.

Jhai

Jhai’s let her hair out and grown it out a bit.  Was getting a bit tired of her ’schoolgirl’ look - something I hadn’t anticipated when I made her (the look, not the geting tired of, ahem)

Dryn

At first I was going to leave Dryn as-is but I decided, screw it, he needed a change and, to be honest, I’m glad I did. Of course, 7gold+ seems a bit steep for getting someone to tie your hair back!

Achievements Stuff

Whilst I will write an extended post on my thoughts on later, I was quite pleased to have achieved one particular goal not long after the patch:

• Ambassador of the Alliance

Of course, I’m equally saddened that I didn’t quite get:

• Shop Smart, Shop Pet Smart

48 pets… and probably hours of grinding red whelps in the vain hope one would drop for me.  Of course, I was delighted to have grabbed a Firefly (something I’ve wanted for ages).  I’m hoping to grab myself a [Sinister Squashling] and a [Magical Crawdad Box] (another pet I utterly adore) to make up the last two.  Of course the latter requires several other achievements to come first, such as Master Fishing!

Hunter Stuff

Talking of pets, Dryn spent a whole lot of time hanging around the Barrens after the patch. I had been checking over my usual pet-lover-haunt to pick which of the nice, shiny new pets I wanted.  I picked out a nice Netherskate and went off to tame it.  When I was browsing, though, a familiar face cropped up.  Takk.

Now, Takk and my hunters (yes, multiple, I keep starting them and abandoning them around level 20-30…) have a long history.  My first ever WoW char, even before Aurik, was a Moo Hunter called Ouranosin.  He made it to his 21st level before I rerolled to play with my other half on the alliance side.  I had seen the raptors the game had and thought ‘hey those are funky, I wants one!’ and saw that Takk, a lovely, black skinned raptor, would make a perfect companion to my pure white bull Tauren.   It took me a looong time - Takk was a rare, hit hard and fast and I was, to put it bluntly, a noob.  The kind of noob hunter who is up there alongside their pet hitting with their weapons! /sigh

The next few hunters also aimed for Takk but all ended up getting something else (Ghost Cat, Tallstrider, Wolf) as they bypassed the level to get Takk.  Dryn has had a Tallstrider (Aoi) and then a Carrion Bird (Horizon) as his main pets as well as, briefly, his ZG tiger (Monsoon).  Sadly I had to let Monsoon go but I just wasn’t feeling close to him as a pet - cats aren’t really my thing.   I took him to STV and let him go before continuing on to Ratchet.

Cue spawn point camping, ala BRK. 3 days later and Dryn got himself a new companion and I’m glad I did.

The auto-level was the factor that spurred me to go after him now - I couldn’t have levelled him enough before with how little I play my hunter- but level 65 is a fine level of pet for a marks hunter who pretty much only grinds and I now have a companion who I’m truly happy with - and in a small homage to the kitty I’d had to let go I’ve named my new raptor Typhoon.

I also have to say that since the patch I’ve been enjoying my hunter immensely… He’d always been my ‘gather bot’ character whom I didn’t bother to gear beyond lucky drops (*coughspear*cough)  and I hadn’t really ‘enjoyed’ the hunter class so much but now I’m really feeling the love - I have a tonne of new toys and, I must say, misdirect, readiness, misdirect, is just insanely nice when you have a slightly lesser equipped tank and some t6 dps!

Look ma, I’ma big hunter now! *ahem* ( big thanks to those in BA chat who helped me spec him on patch day!).

Epic Stuff

No, not the wearing kind, the skill kind!  I’d been dithering for a while about getting Avarix an epic mount.  My shammy is my main now but he’s still fluttering about on a slow flyer.  He has no gathering skills, though, and rarely ‘goes anywhere’ as he’s done questing etc.  However, the last few days have shown how annoying it is to be stuck back on a slow flyer for questing and so, when I went to pick up the trick-or-treat candy in Shadowmoon Valley I couldn’t resist and spent the windfall I’d made from inscription to pick Avarix up a shiny new mount.

All I can say is wheee~~

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something I meant to add here but I’m too eager to begin a few other posts I have in mind to work on this one too long *ahem*.

The tank dies, he’s the only one dead and there are two other tanks alive and so the call is made “Keep Nuking!” each other tank tries in vain to keep the attention of the mob but eventually, in their weaker dps gear, they fall.  The Reliquary moves through the raid, third phase dot ticking over and slowly wipes people out one by one.

5%, 4%, 3%, 2%, 1% almost the whole raid is dead, the boss heading towards me, - lightning bolt, lightning bolt… shitshitshit he’sgonnahitme EARTH SHOCK.  The boss drops at my feet, dead.  The only ones still standing?  Myself and the other resto shaman, Plix, who was also nuking with all he had.  Plix, I salute thee!

Normally we’d have wiped it faster but… the first two phases were textbook and we’d had such a stunning night with the other bosses (first time we’ve done 6/9 in one night).  Both of us resto shamans had decided to use our ankhs around the middle of phase 3 because of how well the try was going - we had the dot reset on us and is probably the only reason we survived until the end.  Still…

We are imba.

Mwuhaha.

Kodokodokodkodkodokodokodkodkodokodokodkodkodokodokodkodkodokodokodkodkodokodokodo!

Oh and… Kodo!

Ain’t he purdy?

A huuuuuggeee thank you needs to be said to several people who, without which, I would likely not have gotten my much sought-after new mount.  Indigo and Pen for logging, between them, around 14 characters, Mineria and Indi for running with me almost very single day of Brewfest (even though Min pretty much got what he wanted on day two!), Bob, our pally tank, for staying up past his bedtime and the others who I’ve run with all this week for being encouraging in the face of somewhat despairing odds (I lost 6 mounts to the RNG!).

I’ve done well over 100 attempts at the boss in an effort to get my  Draenei a mount  for a couple of reasons:

• It’s very, very cool
• Avarix is one of the few chars I have who still used his racial mount
• I got a ram last year on my hordie and wanted to go full circle with a kodo on my alliance toon
• It’s a little ‘tie back’ to my horde days
• Kodos are cute

Now to help Indigo get hers! *cackle*

Also, because I am possibly the luckiest shaman in the best guild ever (I love you guys!) I also appear to have gotten some other shinies this week!

The healer version of the “I has been to Black Temple” cloak, [Shroud of the Final Stand] and the [Illidari Runeshield].

5 comments

I know, late to the finish line for the BA topic as usual but better late than never, eh?

I’ve played a variety of classes - some to 70 and some not - and have experienced a wide range of play-styles amongst them.   There are two classes, though, which draw me in completely: Druid and Shaman.  I’ve always been a bit of a nature-lovin’ hippy at heart - I don’t kill critters and I’ve hugged lots of trees.  I like the ‘nature’ of the classes (harhar) and how they play but for very different reasons.

Druids

Versatile, Graceful, Strong, Fast

Druids are the jack-of-all-trades - even unspecced they can fulfil any role in a pinch and fully specialised are a force to  be reckoned with.

Doing anything as a druid has always felt slightly graceful to me, in that I feel there is a nice flow to my actions - one leads to the next which brings you to the next.  There are so many buttons and so many ways to do things that one has a plethora of choice and can turn any situation around like some sort of choreographed dance.

Druids are also strong -  when the goin’ gets tough they hunker down and can outlast a flurry of blows under a thick fur hide or protected by barkskin.  In leather gear they’re no pushovers and even our caster form has a big, feathery shell to protect them!

The nature of hots and other instant abilities makes this class feel very ‘fast’ paced for me - though I guess that might just be lack of practice!

Shamans

Solid, Strong, Powerful, Flexible

Whilst I think of druids as versatile - able to take on another role in a pinch - I think of shamans as flexible.  Why? Well, I’ve spent a lot of my time as a resto shaman in any other group except the healer group - I buff the melee or casters most often and, although I may not have the buffed totems that enhance or elemental do, I am still able to provide some measure of benefit to almost any group I join.  I can tweak my totem set-up and tailor it to the needs of my party - flexibility within my chosen role.

Shamans are healers in mail.  Not as tough as paladins maybe but they have a shield and can take a few bumps and bruises in a dire situation - they also tend to have reasonably high health pools and generally survive better than their squishier leather and cloth counterparts.  I’m a big fan of survivability so this aspect of shamans is greatly appealing to me.  The fact I can add an Earth Shield to that and make a warrior get so bored of lesser healing wave spam that he walks away has always tickled me.

Resto is my chosen spec and, despite being a little focussed on one particular spell, I do feel it is a powerful one - not only in terms of ‘efficiency, hps, etc.’ but when my chain heal connects it hits reaonably big.  As much as I do like being a resto druid from time to time I admit that it can be a little disconcerting having to wait for all the little numbers to add up…

But what about rogues, etc.?

As much as I do love my rogue and enjoy playing him, and although his ‘personality’ is more in line with my own, I don’t feel I am, deep inside, a roguey type.  Maybe the hugging sorta gives that away?  I like happy, cheerful and strong - which is why of all races I chose a dwarf for my rogue.  I can be happier playing a dwarf rogue than any other race but as much as I loved my big swords I’d hang them up in a moment for a good sturdy staff or hefty, healy mace.

Overall

I think that both druids and shamans are the best fit classes for me - playing both gives me the ability to help others and be a strong solo player - druid gives me the ability to play a complex, graceful class with many twists and turns to it and shaman gives me a nice, earthy, solid and dependable healer to help my teammates with.

This post brought to you by Anna Corp™.  The idea of the Friday Five RP questions intrigued me when Anna first posted them - I’m a fan of RP within and outwith World of Warcraft - but I wasn’t up to getting my thoughts together last week in a coherent enough form.

This week, though, I am in a writingful mood and the questions tickled my imagination enough that I decided, what the hey, lets have a go!  I’m going to go with Avarix for this first one as, despite being on a normal realm, I still assign character to my… characters.  It’s a good way of keeping myself amused whilst grinding but I don’t go nearly as in depth as  I would when making an RP character.  Doing these questions allows me to flesh out the little ponderings I’ve had about my various characters.

When is your character’s birthday?  Does he/she know?

Avarix is a springtime child - he was born sometime around the Azerothian equivalent of April 3rd.
What is your character’s favorite place in the world?  Why?

Avarix has lost all sense of Draenor as his home.  Destruction, pain and fear are all that are in the mind of the young Draenei when he thinks back to his time there.  Thus, it is in Azeroth that he finds himself seeking new and peaceful places.  His ‘apprenticeship’ under Nobundo, as with many others, has brought a new appreciation for the land and all it contains.

He has travelled to places that some humans, gnomes or dwarves would not dare tread, seeking guidance from the elements and it was this search which led him to his favourite place - Mulgore.   The soft, rolling, grassy plains, the high ridges and spires of earth on which the Tauren make their villages, and the sheer presence of the elements around the spiritual Tauren brought about his love for this place.

A close second would be the high spires of Thousand Needles - where the earth rises to meet the winds.

What kind of sense of humor does your character have (if any)?

Avarix has a rather wry, sardonic sense of humour - usually aimed at himself or the seriousness of those around him.  He knows he has a habit of being very ‘grandiose’ when he speaks about the elements and is still new enough to the teachings to feel that, perhaps, he sometimes is overeager to explain, talk, and expound about them.

Is your character introverted or extroverted?

Avarix is a little introverted - he does enjoy spending time with others but he’d rather sit at the back and listen than be at the forefront of the conversation.  He is a little shy around his new allies - hoping he will do nothing to disgrace himself, his people or his calling - and so is a little more relaxed when in the company of other shamans and Draenei.

What just irritates the hell out of your character?

Despite being very calm about most things, it pains Avarix to see the lands desecrated or destroyed - not just because of his newly found shamanism - but also because of the destruction caused wholesale by the Burning Legion and the effects thereof.  He has seen the destruction of his homelands and sees that the same is going on in Azeroth at the hands of those who should know better.  Willful destruction for profit is one of the few things which can cause the otherwise usually placid Shaman to see red.

Anna also linked wordle.net and I just had to have a go!

The winds bring voices of change, a new ally in the fight against the demons…  I did not know of what they spoke until tonight, when I beheld the glory they had sent me.

Much like when I finally got rid of a monstrosity of a helm on Aurik, it is with great joy (but a little sadness) that I announce saying my final goodbye to my [Crystal Pulse Shield]. Snagged when my shaman was in his sixties and worn with a great pride as soon as I hit level 69, it has served me well through countless Karazhan’s, the odd Magtheridon and even Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.  It did not quibble as I hoped, weekly, for the [Triptych Shield of the Ancients] but simply did as best a it could to help me heal my allies in battle.

Crystal Pulse Shield, I salute thee.

The time for us to part ways has come, though, before the battles I face become too hard for you to bear. You will always have a place in my heart and a bank-slot set aside.

Tonight, I gained a new ally in the fight, a stronger model which can withstand the might of the legion as I strive, still, to bring the power of the earth and life to bear within my allies. The [Bastion of Light].

Being the newbie shaman-around-town I’ve also gotten my paws on some [Sun-touched Chain Leggings], [Stillwater Boots], [Helm of Soothing Currents] and [Skyshatter Gloves].  To say my stats have been given a bit of a bit of a boost is quite an understatement!  I’m looking forward to raids, now, trying to learn new skills and finding new ways to utilise old ones.

I’ve also been playing with resto spec on the beta (I had been full elemental to try playing with Thunderstorm) and I am heartily enjoying it.  Things are a-chaging but instead of being scared, I’m looking forward to playing with all of my new shinies!

I promise I have some non-looty posts in the works - this week I’ve not had much time to sit down and write and, when I have, I’ve been a bit too tired to do so properly.  /hugs to you all.

Seems ah’m hangin’ up mah boots fer a while and going back tae Ironforge tae dae some er ’secretarial’ work.  You know, stuff tae dae wi’ documents and ‘filin’ them right’ and stuff. *Ahem*

I blame The Bloggers.  I really do.  It’s all their fault.  All those resto druids and shamans, holy paladins and priests. They’ve changed me.

Chain-Healing
What am I talking about?  About a week or so ago, now, I changed my main to my shaman.  I had been getting tired and bored of stabbing things from behind - I don’t know why as I’ve always loved melee.  A couple of times, however, we were short on healers for Mount Hyjal and I offered my shaman - he’s decently geared with quite a few of the T6 quality badge loot and the pick of Kara epics (still no bloody shield though /bitter) - and was taken along.

Wow.  Just… WOW.  There was a thrill and of  a new sort. A few subs like this and it had gotten to the point where I was actively hoping a healer would drop out just so I could go heal.  When I realised I was doing that I figured it was time to ask for a main change.  It might seem weird so close to Wrath but the guild is currently a little short of healers and heavy on melee dps and here I was with a reasonably geared resto shammy and wanting to chain-heal!

I have to say - it really has put the thrill back in raiding for me.  If you’d told me a year ago I’d actively seek out a healer role I’d have laughed.  If you’d said I’d give up a melee dps spot to do it I’d have laughed doubly hard.  Yet here I am. What has changed? No clue.  I have just found that I really, really enjoy healing and that, in a raid, it engages me far more than roguery does.

Even if most of what I seen in an evening looks something like this:

Hyjal has come alive again for me - every boss fight is not the same old dps cycle, the same old trinket clicking, the same old… old.. *snooze*.  Now I have to pay attention to totems, mana, incoming damage.  Each time I heal the same boss different people take different damage and everything is so new and exciting.  I guess the other thing is that I actually feel like I make a difference.

Doing a fight like Kaz’rogal where you’re staving off mana-reducing deuffs and still having to heal your little heart out is amazingly fun.  Every boss fight feels like a small triumph - more so than whittling away at a ginormous health pool over the course of five to ten minutes.

So, what now?

Of course, that doesn’t change stuff around here.  Aurik is and will remain ‘me’.  He is the personification of my real life self - short, dumpy, scottish, hyperactive and, of course, huggable! *ahem* This has never been a rogue blog nor one which shies from posting about alts so all you might find is that any ‘I went to BT and saw this boss, wow’, posts will be shamany rather than roguey.

Durid is for haelz!

But, that’s not the only healing I’ve been up to…

Yes, the tree is yours truly.  Embracing my new-found enthusiasm for the healy side I grabbed a respec to go heal for the budding young paladin tonk you see here.  I could have healed normal ramparts as feral but I really wanted to try things tree-style with all of the available bells and whistles.  It was a blast but perhaps a bit too easy an instance to judge if I’ve been tempted away from my feral side…  I had to respec the next day to tank some instances but my respec cost at the moment is very low so I might jump the fence a few more times!

I’ve managed to pic up some pretty nice epics just from doing some heroics where noone else wanted them so I’m sitting at around 1k healing already on my druid.  My spirit is a little low, though, as is my mp5 so I’m working on that.  I’ve also not enchanted anything yet - though as I don’t expect to be healing anything difficult I think I’ll see if I can grab some more healy gear whilst tanking before I start grinding out those primal lives.

Oh and I started playing my paladin again a little bit…

a third healer in the making?

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