Shaman LF Advise

[Erogassa]

I have been healing for a quite awhile now, going on 2 years. But as of recently my HpS isn't where I want it to be. The gear up grades I have been getting have been replacing my old raiding gear from Maly and Uldaur, was a base of haste on them, with crit based gear.

I gemmed for mainly intel and spell power knowing about the greatness that intel is for a shaman, but now I am beginning to regret it. So now i'm thinking about the annoying a bit expensive processes or re-gemming my gear. I was just wondering if it would be enough jsut to re-gem my gear or will I just have to wait for more T9 gear?

Have a look and tell me what you think:
The World of Warcraft Armory

And if there are any spec changes you think might be important, I would like to hear about them too.

Thanks.

[Edjara]

I would say that HpS isn't the best measure for your healing quality. It's really a fight dependent measurement, as my HpS ranges from probably 2.5k-3k on some bosses, while it's over 7k on Twin Valkyr. Plus, it depends on that job you're doing if your on a tank, or primarily chain healing raid.

Biggest things I'd say are work on your efficiency, using riptide/LHW/HW/chain heal appropriately for the situation and not worry about your pure numbers if you're getting the job done.

That being said, my spec recommendation would be to move the 3 points you have in totemic focus over to improved healing wave, as that will increase your effectiveness and ability to tank heal. Totems are placed tops a couple of times a fight, so you're not saving yourself much in the mana department, especially with 23k mana.

As for gear, the rule of thumb is really go for spell power and intellect UNTIL mana is not an issue and your heals are sufficiently large, and with 2400 sp and 23k mana, you should be fine in that department for most fights at your gear level. Once you get there, no longer gear for sp/intellect but rather HASTE, as that will increase your ability to get heals out more quickly, which really is our main job, to be able to get a big heal there in time. I would bet that your +23 sp gems are giving you more overhealing than you would like, while haste would help out your numbers and performance.

Depending on the progression of your guild, if you're planning on getting more ToC 10/25 gear soon, I won't spend the money to re-gem everything from Uld, as your gear is enough to do reasonably well in ToC.

Somewhat unrelated to the rest of the discussion, I would consider changing the enchant on your chest to either greater mana restoration or +10 stats, as you really get almost no benefit from +250 mana with a mana pool that you never empty. If you are getting close or running out on some fights, watch when you use mana tide and see if you can squeeze in a second drop by using one fairly early.

Hope that helps!

[Ion]

Two words: Gem haste.

Every spec of shaman.

Do it.

Love it.

Probably half of your heals are going to be overheals anyway, you shouldn't need that much mana (back when I healed I had under 20k unbuffed and it was never a problem) and it's much more critical to get a heal out fast than it is to get it out enormous anyway.

So yeah...what he said. Except with MORE haste. I love me some haste.

[Fusik]

I take the flip side to things.

My resto shaman is what I gear for and I don't believe in haste. Though lately I have thought about it, it still isn't my style.

My rule of thumb on healing is this: There is no such thing as tank heals and raid heals. If someone is losing health then I better be right there to heal them. Whether they are tank, heals, or dps.

I gem for +10 Int and +5 MP5. That just seemed like the way to go and it works great for me. When raid buffed I sit around 26-27k mana pool, 2800-2900 SP, and around 900 MP5 not casting. My haste sits around 300, but with the other healers there, (for my guild, a pally, priest, and a druid), we all keep everyone up TOC25 not a problem.

The reason I am staying the way I am is because my HPS never drops below 3.5k and I am always top of the chart, while the lowest on the overhealing chart. That is what works for me.

Now I have I believe one +23 SP gem and one +20 Intellect gem (may switch this one out) so that I can wear my Meta gem in my helm.

Either way I would switch your chest enchant to +10 stats.

Hope this helps. If you need more assistance and it helps to actually talk about it then let me know and we can set up a vent conversation.

My Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

[Senor cuidado]

At a glance, I can notice a few things. You have a lot of int for your gear level, and too much mp5. I'm willing to bet you finish most fights with a whole lot of mana leftover. This is not ideal. Secondly, your gems. We don't gem for int anymore, all that changed in 3.2. I can't speak for every shaman in the world and I don't claim to be the best, but most of us are gemming haste. Your haste is very low and this might even result in your heals getting sniped a lot, although not necessarily. Most of your gear is crit/mp5, and blizzard loves to throw those stats at us, but try to pick up haste gear when you can, and drop mp5 at every oppotunity. Personally, I use hybrid gems and get the socket bonuses but that's just my choice.

What about your raid comp? What other healers are you running with?

As far as your spec, I would drop totemic focus and put those points into improved healing wave. You have 3/3 healing way so I assume you do use healing wave, and taking .3 seconds off is much more helpful than a reduced mana cost on totems you only drop once per fight (usually). I don't use healing wave very much, and when I do it's only when tidal waves is up.

I'm not sure that all this can account for your poor HPS. Remember that healing meters are normally bs, and healing the right person at the right time is much more important. Resto Druids will beat you on twin valks, so don't worry about it. Without looking at a parse I can't give you much more advice. If people are actually dying due to your lack ouf output then you may be making bad spell choices in those circumstances. In some fights chain heal is great but in others you'll need to whack-a-mole with Riptide and LHW. I've seen many shamans make poor choices in the middle of a fight, even myself from time to time. If you can provide a parse, maybe we can provide a better diagnosis? In the meantime, drop some mp5 and stack haste.

Here's my armory if you're interested.
The World of Warcraft Armory

[WarTotem]

Because I can't be arsed to copy+paste; follow link in sig.

[Fusik]

At a glance, I can notice a few things. You have a lot of int for your gear level, and too much mp5. I'm willing to bet you finish most fights with a whole lot of mana leftover. This is not ideal. Secondly, your gems. We don't gem for int anymore, all that changed in 3.2. I can't speak for every shaman in the world and I don't claim to be the best, but most of us are gemming haste. Your haste is very low and this might even result in your heals getting sniped a lot, although not necessarily. Most of your gear is crit/mp5, and blizzard loves to throw those stats at us, but try to pick up haste gear when you can, and drop mp5 at every oppotunity. Personally, I use hybrid gems and get the socket bonuses but that's just my choice.

What about your raid comp? What other healers are you running with?

As far as your spec, I would drop totemic focus and put those points into improved healing wave. You have 3/3 healing way so I assume you do use healing wave, and taking .3 seconds off is much more helpful than a reduced mana cost on totems you only drop once per fight (usually). I don't use healing wave very much, and when I do it's only when tidal waves is up.

I'm not sure that all this can account for your poor HPS. Remember that healing meters are normally bs, and healing the right person at the right time is much more important. Resto Druids will beat you on twin valks, so don't worry about it. Without looking at a parse I can't give you much more advice. If people are actually dying due to your lack ouf output then you may be making bad spell choices in those circumstances. In some fights chain heal is great but in others you'll need to whack-a-mole with Riptide and LHW. I've seen many shamans make poor choices in the middle of a fight, even myself from time to time. If you can provide a parse, maybe we can provide a better diagnosis? In the meantime, drop some mp5 and stack haste.

Here's my armory if you're interested.
The World of Warcraft Armory

This was the other way I was gonna suggest. I may be opposite but with my raid comp I am the faster caster and stronger healer. Though with his setup, I am assuming that he is against some really good druids and pallies, so he needs the haste to snipe them :P

Either or works imo, though yes most Shamans gem for haste now.

[hvidgaard]

Move the points from Totemic Focus into Improved Healing Wave. The points in Totemic Focus is as good as wasted, and they're incredible useful in Improved Healing Wave.

As for gems, there's only 2 real choices. Longevity or Throughput - that means Int or Haste. Without some World of Logs reports it's a bit hard to give specific advise, but I'll try and tell what I would look after.

It's no good being a healer without mana, so take the toughest fight (mana wise) your currently doing and gem for that. Are you ending that encounter with mana to spare (perhaps even not used a pot/manatide), then you have too much Int. Beyond that point Haste will provide you with the most benefit. I've seen that SP will "put you higher on the meters" but that's not the point, the point is that you can burst heal more, and that's what matters once you move into more tough content, not to mention it's one hell of a difference if you can throw a CH in 1.8s or 2.2s with all the movement we have to do.

Personally I tried full SP gemming and all it did was to increase the overall overhealing. My effective healing went up, but the other healers went down, so that proved very counter productive. Haste on the other hand proved very useful and made it much more smooth. I'm currently fully Int gemmed as we're dropping from 3 healers to 2 and that puts some real strain on my mana.

If I have to put it all in a very short fashion it would be (ofc, move the points in Totemic Focus as well):

mana problems: Int ~ ½Mp5 > Crit > Haste > SP
no mana problems: Haste > Crit ~ SP > Int ~ ½Mp5


As an ending remark, others have already stated it, HpS does not matter! What matters is that people don't die. Period. The best I can give you is anecdotal evidence. The story is a 10man raid trying to beat XT-hardmode with 3 healers, 2 of them priests. They had some serious problems getting the heart down, so they decided to make one of the priests go Shadow. The RL did the "obvious" thing and asked the "worst" priest (i.e. lowest on the meters) to go shadow. The raid kept dying left and right and was on the edge of giving up. But the priests silently decided to switch roles, so the "bad" priest was healing and suddenly the raid didn't die anymore. The moral is that HpS does not matter, timing and skill does.