Resto Shaman Spec

[Schwarz]

Well I spent some time yesterday and redid my dps macros. I think now it is time to spend a little bit on the healer. I run 1 paladin 4 shaman (1 restro). Basically the healer either does a chain heal on the tank or a healing wave on the tank. I am really happy with earth shield and how long I can go with out having the throw a heal. If the healer isn't healing then she should be dpsing. What I really wanted was a healer/dps hyrbid.


What do you guys/gals think about this for a healer spec?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hEh0kZ0xxhZx0ehIeoxoMoR:Lb0





I also have a question about the standard elemental dps spec (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hEh0qcdItGfzAo0xxco). I looks to me that there are ~4 maybe 5 wasted talents.

2 or 3 points in Eye of the Storm Rank 3

Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst and Hex spells by 70%

2 points in

Booming Echoes Rank 2
Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 2 sec., and increases the direct damage done by your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 20%.


I guess I am wondering why people use these. It looks to me like those talents are kind of pvp not really pve. I would rather spend the extra talent points on

1 shaman picks up (3/3 Enhancing totems.....increase amount of strength totem gives)
1 shaman picks up (2/2 guardian totems...increase amount of armor totem gives)

[Svpernova09]

If you're going to run resto, you're better off going pure healer spec. I pulled my spec off EJ, and it's based on Riptide / LHW Spam. Essentially, Riptide is a Hot on a 6 second CD + boosts Chain Heal.

Here is my healer: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Madoran&n=Menage&group=1

Not taking Cleanse Spirit is a mistake IMO. Without it, you're just going to rely on your cleansing totem, or just heal through any curse? I'd rather be able to remove the curse.

My main healing is LHW. I only spam HW when I'm in real trouble. I normally Riptide, LHW, Chain heal (If the DK/group needs heals) otherwise LHW spam / reapply riptide.

[Schwarz]

I have been specced into ripetide for over a month now and haven't used it yet. I am doing fine with earth shield/chain heal/healing wave.

What would really be nice is my healer being able to dps without draining all of her mana.

[Coltimar]

Riptide is amazing. It should be up whenever it can be :/

[Otlecs]

If you're not using riptide then you're not using your healer to DPS enough of the time :)

For almost every heroic encounter, I use only earth shield and riptide, and have my healer spamming damage spells the rest of the time.

edit: too many "only"s!

[Svpernova09]

I agree, if you specced into Riptide, you should be using it, otherwise you're missing easy / nearly free heals.

[Schwarz]

So I guess I am a nub. I will have to try riptide when I get home. Is this just a hot that I should try to keep on the tank all the time? It kinda looks like I should be replacing the healing wave with this. When I need to get the tank back to full health I can do riptide followed by a chain heal.


If this makes healing that much easier then it is going to be nice.

[Svpernova09]

So I guess I am a nub. I will have to try riptide when I get home. Is this just a hot that I should try to keep on the tank all the time? It kinda looks like I should be replacing the healing wave with this. When I need to get the tank back to full health I can do riptide followed by a chain heal.


If this makes healing that much easier then it is going to be nice.

it won't replace a lesser healing wave, and chain heal consumes the hot, but it's just nice to have an instant hot.

[Otlecs]

You'll still need to use other heals when there's a damage spike.

If you're anything like me then you're going to screw up repositioning from time-to-time and get smacked in the back for some undodgeable damage.

The HoT component of riptide isn't all that, to be honest. It's the instant heal that I like, and the 25% healing buff from the next chain heal isn't too shabby either, especiall when things are going wrong.

My tank healing typically consists of just three keys:

- A castsequence of riptide, earth shield and lesser healing wave. I don't have the exact sequence to hand, but it includes only those three spells. I think I have two LHWs between each riptide.

- My "oh shit" key, for when I really get it wrong and the tank might actually die. This casts Tidal Force followed by a castsequence of Nature's Swiftness and Chain Heal followed by a repeating sequence of riptide and HW so *something* usually happens even when NS is on cooldown!

- My "heal the group" key, which sees all the shamans target each other and cast chain heal. I hit this even if just one guy needs healing because it's easier than having to actually think about which of five possible keys I need to press.

They're all bound to unique keys, so I just heal when needed rather than spamming it, which means my healer is free to DPS most of the time.

"7" is my spammable DPS key. My healer is excluded from that just by having a different key binding. 7 = everyone except the healer DPS and the healer stands with his hands in his pockets. CTRL+7 includes the healer.

I do have other keys to get one or more DPS healing if I let my healer die, but that's not important here.

Sorry, that was all a bit rambling, and every man and his dog has their own way to heal.

The point is, though, that if you use riptide more then you'll be able to squeeze more DPS out of your team, and you can still decide for yourself when you want to preserve your healer's mana.

[Schwarz]

Yea each person has their own way to heal. I have a mouse with 2 thumb buttons on it. One of them is mapped to cast a healing wave on the tank and the other is to cast a chain heal on the tank.

DPS/TANK buttons are mapped to 1/2. On the healer I only have the dps macro on 2. So if I want to be able to heal I spam 1's. If I want the healer to dps then I spam 2's.

Generally to heal the group I try to spam chain lightning while the tank is in near the group. If everyone is pretty low then I do the "star heal" where every shaman targets another and shoots off a chain heal.

Using this type of setup I have been able to clear Gun'Drak and Heroic ToC. That is kind of the reason for the crazy spec I posted earlier. I would like earth shield to heal for even more. And I would like my healer to do more dps/use less mana. The thing that really makes me angry is that the healer doesn't have the same range on some damage spells as the other toons.

[Ualaa]

One of the easier ways to deal with a shammy who is both a DPS and a Healer is dual-spec.
One day of dailies will easily pay for it, with a team of five.

In Elemental spec, the resto has the exact same hotkeys as the rest of the team.
I have this shammy drop the mana totem as their water totem.
In Resto spec, the water totem is either mana spring or mana tide.

In Elemental, like the other shammies I have a key for each elemental to LHW, assisting the tank's target.
In this way, I can have the Elementals either spot heal here or there, or assist the Resto with some heals.

When the Resto shammy is in Resto spec, I have assist heals and targeted heals.
I have five macro's, keybound to Shift F8 through Shift F12.
The macro's are written with the condition [nomod:alt] Riptide; Healing Wave.
Basically G1-G5 are just Shift F8 through Shift F12, which is Riptide on a specific target.
And G7-G11 are Alt + Shift F8 through Alt + Shift F12, which is Healing Wave instead.

The Resto has Chain Heal on the same key as the Elementals.

So I have the option of Lesser Healing Wave (all shammies, any spec).
Chain Heal, all shammies (either spec).
Riptide/Healing Wave (with Resto in resto spec).




If you wanted the healer to DPS, you could write macro's using the modifier:ctrl or mod:alt arguement.
That way, they'd help with dps, if the dps key was spammed with the correct mod.
But otherwise not help, which leaves them free to heal unhindered.

[Hurricane]

I like the idea of having the healer casting riptide on every cooldown and cast dps at all other times. Is there a nice macro for that?

I want the macro to cast riptide on tank whenever its of cooldown, and then assist the tank with regular dps spam, is that possible?

[Otlecs]

I like the idea of having the healer casting riptide on every cooldown and cast dps at all other times. Is there a nice macro for that?
As discussed here, the best bet is to have two separate macros on two separate keybindings - one for when the healer actually needs to heal, and one for when he's DPSing.

There's no way to reliably interweave the roles with a single macro because the macro can't make decisions about when to heal.

[Los]

Well you could put it in a click macro, but why heal if there is nothing TO heal , just diepiees

[Khatovar]

I like the idea of having the healer casting riptide on every cooldown and cast dps at all other times. Is there a nice macro for that?

I want the macro to cast riptide on tank whenever its of cooldown, and then assist the tank with regular dps spam, is that possible?

Here's my /click for Riptide on 2 targets +purge. You can probably try to throw LB in for purge and adjust the commas accordingly, but I can't confirm that will work.


/click sdf_click1
/click sdf_click2
/click sdf_click3

CLICK1

/castsequence [target=Kina] reset=3 Riptide,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,

CLICK2

/castsequence [target=Messkit] reset=3 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Riptide

CLICK3

/cast [target=focustarget] Purge