Should I Make One of My Shammies a Healer?

[Oswyn]

Hi all,

I just finished up the Zangar quests and am at level 63 on my pally + 4 shammy team (yeah 150 naga scales sucked ass even at 100% drop rate).

I'm following Suvega's brain dump and will instance to 70 from here. My questions are:

Should I respec one of my shammies to heal now? Or will the dps get me through for a while?

If I can go all dps for now, when should I think of having a dedicated healer? Heroics?

Thanks!

[Oswyn]

I appreciate the input Fur. Will make one a dedicated healer and get my practice on.

[Kyudo]

Respec costs are relatively low, if you are planning on making that rush through to 70 in instances only, there is no reason not to respec imo, it'll make that journey faster and more efficient.

I like to vary what I do with my team, some heroics, some pvp, so at present my "healer toon" is elemental, and I can still do heroics this way, but i couldn't when I was just into 70, he went oom and got aggro too easy. It'd still be easier for me to heroic if he were resto, but it works for me now, as I often pvp too.

[Crucial]

Roll another shaman and go all dps :)

[Sanctume]

My pally tank has both Rank 1 and Max Rank Holy Shield, I often user Max Rank Holy shield as opener to fights and rank 1 for the rest of tanking.
Pressing my holy shield is the same key to Water shield on the shamans.

[Sanctume]

This is my Earrthshield macro:

/casts [target=party1target,help] Earth Shield;
/casts [target=party1,nodead] Earth Shield;
/casts Earth Shield


I'm the tank and Party1.
It puts earth shield on my target if it's friendly.
If I'm targeting an enemy, th earth shield is put on me (the tank)
if I'm dead, the earth shield is put on self of the resto shaman, of his current friendly target.

Many a time that my paladin is dead in BG like AB, yet my corpse can still target via clicks. I've often protected flags that way with 2 elementals nuking via my target, and healing/earth shield assist.

[Chibi]

im only new to boxing but someone i know does it on my realm, plays 5 dranei shamans and he does have 1 restoration incase the healings are needed (which isn't allot on normals and most heroic trash he tells me, but then again he is in S3 gear :p)

[Biomehanikka]

ive been thinking abotu respeccing one of my 3 shamans to heal. i run with my friends pally and his lock, for the most part we atre fine with them being close to me and me using chain heal but i really wanna do heroics for sure. so im wondering if it would be worth it for one of my guys to go resto and spec backf or when i pvp or just keep him resto.

if i do make one resto should i control him or just use some macro with him healing w/ev the macro designates? i saw a macro for /cast [targettarget] or sumtin liek that, that would allow me to keep the mob targeted but it would heal the mob's target, anyone got a link to it or can post it herE? i mi9ght just give it a whirl

edi6t: found the macro, was in the no focus macro compendium. and i refuse to edit this for grammar and typos :P

edit of edit: ima see if i cant get into kz tonight to try out the macro, ima just have them attack the mob and when emergency heals are needed ill test the macro, this will help me decide whether or not to make one a resto

[ohlins]

I was thinking about the same while brainstorming about my hardwaresetup/spec/classchoice/etc.
Since i have a 2/8 T6 resto shaman already it would be very usefull as an addition to my 5xshaman team i have planned.
Im curious wat the experienced boxers think of it. Il be useing voice input software tho.
My idea behind it was to voicecontrol the clones and heal manually with my resto.

[Sajuuk]

I have one of my shaman set as a healer already at 14. It sure makes things a lot less....painful.

[-silencer-]

I have one of my shaman set as a healer already at 14. It sure makes things a lot less....painful. Honestly, you'll be cruising so easily through quests and instances, I'd hold off on spec'ing a Shaman as resto until they have some good talents available. At level 20, there's not a lot of benefit to having a resto shaman over the extra dps of fire totems through the improved fire totem damage talent at level 15-17. If you want to respec resto early on, I wouldn't do it any earlier than lvl 30. That's when you'll get Nature's Swiftness.. and can throw down the emergency heals.

You'll realize when your paladin hits 20 that you won't need a dedicated healer when all 4 of your shaman can throw down heals. And when your paladin hits 30, you'll get Seal of Light, which makes it even easier for the pally to keep up the hp. I wouldn't respec resto until you feel you need it. My paladin/4xshaman team is still in prot/4xdps spec at level 56, and through all the instance runs, I've never felt like I needed a dedicated healer yet. That may change when I start running Ramparts, but I'm waiting until I need one. (spec'd improved Magma Totem / Elemental Fury / Elemental Mastery / Lightning Overload / Totem of Wrath x4 *is* that good.)

[Sajuuk]

All my shaman are Elemental. I just have one not throwing lightning bolts all the time. And yes, I'm sure I will realize that. :)

[Oswyn]

I'll have to agree with Silencer. I've completed ramps and bf since my original post. So far, I haven't had the need to respec a shammy to heal.

My problem was in how I healed my pally. I had been using a macro where all of the shammies cast lesser healing on me at the same time. I found it better to have just one shammy throw a bigger heal on me, while the other shammies continue throwing lightning bolts. Every time I press the key, a different shammy would heal so the mana usage would be balanaced out. I would use the all shaman heal in emergencies.