To Healing Wave or not to HW

[Sagnuts 1]

I was reading a thread on the official forums about using HW, and surprisingly many ppl said they do not use it. Or rarely use it. Should it be used? Or is Greater Healing Wave what people use? 

 

Also, to Glyph of Riptide or no Glyph of Riptide?

[CptDan 25]

I was reading a thread on the official forums about using HW, and surprisingly many ppl said they do not use it. Or rarely use it. Should it be used? Or is Greater Healing Wave what people use? 

 

Also, to Glyph of Riptide or no Glyph of Riptide?

1. Once your gear has improved and mana regen is comfortable you will see less and less of healing wave. That said, it does still have it's place in our toolbox. It is able to be spammed and is great for periods of low damage while you are regening mana. The mana returns on resurgence make this a very cheap heal indeed. For times when damage is coming in larger amounts or Ina. Spiky nature you will greatly prefer GHW. In dire emergencies, healing surge is really powerful (especially with tidal waves up) I have windows where I'm more apt to use HS and this is based on meta gem procs, my current crit chance. (Over 50% when both trinkets are up.) and the amount of incoming damage.

2. Riptide is a glyph that. Feel is understood incorrectly most of the time. Do not glyph RT as a throughput source. Forget the math but it is something like 8 or nine RTs that have to be rolling to offset the upfront loss. Do use this glyph as a source to help with 100% uptime on tidal waves and positioning a buffed chain heal. Do use this glyph to help stabilize steady but not major damage.

I hope that helps some, and remember some fights will lend better to these spells better than others. You need to match your plays tho to the tools available

[kitsu 55]

I glyph riptide for thok for safe easy tides

[Raff 0]

As Cptdan said it massively depends on your gear. I may be incorrect, but I understand that if you can hit enough targets with your chain heal (at least 3) you'll get more healing for your mana. But at lower gear levels it's not possible to spam CH. It may also depend what your healing composition is. If you raid with a HoT class it's more likely that anyone at 90% health will be covered by the rest of your team and you may be better off conserving mana for periods of intense healing.

As far as glyphing riptide, I find it useful for fights with high movement or where people are spread out, also for thock as it can be cast safely without getting interrupted, however be careful again at lower gear levels as spamming the spell will burn through mana.

Does anyone have any experience about the efficacy (or not) of glyphing riptide when running with Holy Priests or Druids? I'm always slightly concerned that I'm stealing their thunder and we're all having higher overheating by multi HoTing.

[Hybrys 199]

I personally haven't used HW in a long time, even since ~510 ilvl.  I just don't think it's worthwhile, compared to a GHW, and that the mana/healing makes it inefficient in itself.

 

As for Glyph of Riptide, I use it on a select few fights, where I feel that my healing is ineffective for a while; when I can roll them during lulls in damage.  Examples of this are Protectors between Desperate Measures, IJ during his normal phase, Dark Shamans early in the fight, and Malkorok when everyone is at Green shields.  It's not about the effective healing to me, it's more that I know a player is covered for incidental damage while I try to catch up to it.

 

As for competing w/ HoT classes, we do that anyway just because of how many smart heals we have.  I don't see it taking away any more than HST or Ancestral Awakening already does.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Hybrys

[CptDan 25]

I personally haven't used HW in a long time, even since ~510 ilvl.  I just don't think it's worthwhile, compared to a GHW, and that the mana/healing makes it inefficient in itself.

 

As for Glyph of Riptide, I use it on a select few fights, where I feel that my healing is ineffective for a while; when I can roll them during lulls in damage.  Examples of this are Protectors between Desperate Measures, IJ during his normal phase, Dark Shamans early in the fight, and Malkorok when everyone is at Green shields.  It's not about the effective healing to me, it's more that I know a player is covered for incidental damage while I try to catch up to it.

 

As for competing w/ HoT classes, we do that anyway just because of how many smart heals we have.  I don't see it taking away any more than HST or Ancestral Awakening already does.

 

As far as competing with HoT classes, I don't really feel that gimped. I usually have no issues with any class except for a well geared monk healer. Sometimes excessive absorbs from say a disc priest can be a nuisance on the HPS meter but overall survivability is great having those absorbs. You'll find in time that HW just isn't worth the time when damage is coming in pretty fast.

 

Learning to anticipate damage incoming and being able to react as that damage is coming with a GHW will be much more beneficial in the long run. HW is just something you can spam when you are bored. I would rather toss out a bit of DPS myself.