Becoming a mana efficient healer (resto)

[CptDan 25]

Mana efficiency I think is one of the hallmarks of being a restoration shaman. I love that we can do so much with so little spirit,etc. What I wanted to talk about in the post is squeezing a bit more out of what we all do and love. Since our mana pools do not go up, our efficiency has to go up (or our regen but we'd never keep up)

In my opinion the elements to efficient as a healer include:

1. Stat Selection

• Crit really helps a lot. Resurgence can add a lot to the efficiency of your heals in two ways: crit helps the heals heal for more, requiring fewer heals to get the job done and the resurgence mechanic returns a good bit of mana.
• Balancing haste around a breakpoint that you are comfortable with will aid in again fewer heals to get the job done because you're non cast time healing (totems, HR, etc) will accomplish more per cast.

2. Spell Choice

• The spells we choose to cast are very important. If we blindly spam Chain Heal as we saw many shaman in the past do, we'll run out of mana really fast as well as do nothing more than top the over heal meter. Spamming a spell to simply be casting something is worse than proper selection (from an efficiency perspective)
• Remembering to use the buffs built into the shaman mechanics will really aid in your efficiency as well as the power of your heals. (casting UE, keeping tidal waves up, etc)
• Using our totems and cool downs properly will also aid. When a spike of damage happens you have to evaluate if the damage can be healed using the normal heals of yourself and your fellow healers before the next dangerous damage arrives. If it can't, using a cool down will prevent you from draining your mana using expensive heals.

3. Spell Timing

• This is where learning the encounters really helps. I'll use an anectodal example: the iron star on Garrosh. If you can pre cast the chain heal so that it hits just after the explosion you'll do a ton of healing, especially with mastery and crit on your side. This could mean the difference between a death or two and being the knight in somewhat shiny mail armor.
• Understanding when to use a fast, expensive heal (Healing Surge) can make all the difference. Don't be afraid to spend mana in these cases. If you see a tank drop really low or another DPS, use it. Dead tanks lead to wipes and dead raiders do no DPS.

4. Progression (gear and encounter)

• At low item levels you will most likely need more spirit. Your spell power and crit levels won't afford you the power you'll need to go full crit. Mastery at these levels can also really help out.
• After you have the legendary meta gem, you can drop your spirit some, consider dropping say 500-750 at a time until you aren't running out of mana but you aren't ending the fights with +50% either. This balance is based on comfort and YOUR raid data.
• In higher gear levels, you'll have enough spirit and other stats that you can really shift to a low(ish) spirit build and run with high crit. I ran with 8.5K spirit in 25 man and didn't have any problems with mana. My healing team does not require that I have a great mana tide though.

5. Pushing from good to great mana management: (tips & tricks)

• Stoove and others have posted some excellent Weak Auras to use with Totemic Recall I will try to add them to this post or at least a link. Totemic Recall can be amazing if you are really pushing your efficiency to the max. Glyphing this will give the most optimal results.
• Try to "game" your LMG procs. This is done by watching for the proc (or using a WA) and then casting your expensive heals then and/or dropping magma totem and then recalling it after proc expires.

TO DO:

Add math data for resurgence, and average mana gains from Totemic Recall, etc.

Clean up and add mathematical data in a concise manner.

Add information from the discussion into this thread for those simply browsing to learn

Clean up my grammar, for shame Cptdan!

Edited March 13, 2014 by CptDan

[Grahmrook 6]

Today I won a heroic chest token from sha which drops my spirit well under 9k in. 25 man team. I will be putting a lot of the great info from stove and others on mana management and efficiency. And addng sme of my own insights. So keep an eye out for this and I'm sure I will need some editiors. I will finish it this week.

 

The text color would be my first edit. And grats on the chest!  Personally, I am /rage @ Sha, all I want is a dumb neck, but I have 1 chest token in my bank and I am wearing heroic chest on both Ele and Resto... I do wish we could have all three specs as I have 2 heroic Agi fists plus a ton of other Agi mail. 

Edited March 12, 2014 by Grahmrook

[Stoove 347]

... What spelling mistake? :P

 

How does the token drop your Spirit so low? Are you using the Ele one now? o.0

[Hybrys 199]

... What spelling mistake?

 

How does the token drop your Spirit so low? Are you using the Ele one now? o.0

I was thinking that myself.  An efficiency and spell selection guide would be super cool, though.

[Stoove 347]

It would certainly be interesting. I do feel that it's situational choice that makes for an efficient healer, so I might suggest that best practices for decision making might be a strong way to start the guide.

 

On a side note, I've got some halfway-done calculations somewhere on mana efficiency of spells and their scaling with Crit. If they would be useful I'll make time to finish them off.

[CptDan 25]

First, I am sorry about the spelling. I typed it on my iPad and the iPad hates letting me spell "stoove"

I did exchange the token for the ele piece and sitting with low spirit makes everything matter. On heroic galakras I was on top of the meter, good on overheal and didn't need mana tide.

My mana gains were just above our normal 14.5k spirit resto shaman. I was like highlander absorbing the spirits of those around me.

[kitsu 55]

you should get a sound file of mega man absorbing powers after he kills a boss and make a weak aura that plays it when mana tide comes off cd.

[Stoove 347]

I do think that it's important to distinguish progress and farming, and also to ensure that you're making a fair comparison - how does your performance that week compare to the week before, for example?

 

In addition, if this is to be a guide then it would be good to document your methods in particular. Just saying that you can do it is interesting, worthy of discussion, but not a guide in itself :)

 

First, I am sorry about the spelling. I typed it on my iPad and the iPad hates letting me spell "stoove"

 

Ruined my fun!  >=[

[Hybrys 199]

Ruined my fun!  >=[

I think you need a title change to Stoove Top Cookin'.

[CptDan 25]

Very true I wanted to get the discussion rolling and then post some basics that work at any gear level and then some more advanced strategem for higher gear levels. I got wrapped up In work and guild stuff but ill work on it.

We are gonna have more joining our ranks and lets show them how we rock it. Minus stoove, he's in a different realm of stoove-ness and we have to seek to emulate him.

[Stoove 347]

I like how the OP is developing :)

[Hybrys 199]

Mana efficiency I think is one of the hallmarks of being a restoration shaman

 

*snip*

In stat choice, I think it's a good idea to mention Mastery's value (or lack there of).

 

In spell choice, I'd also add a small section about wasted time.  Even if you're not doing effective healing at that moment, there's almost always a spell that you can cast that will be efficient as well as beneficial.  If you're ending a fight with 200k mana, just because you didn't need to spam, it can also be a negative thing.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Hybrys

[Stoove 347]

In stat choice, I think it's a good idea to mention Mastery's value (or lack there of).

 

Interesting comment.

 

I think that in the expansion, we'll see Mastery be much better than it is now due to the more middling health pools people will be sitting on. Should make Mastery much more interesting as a stat :)

[CptDan 25]

In stat choice, I think it's a good idea to mention Mastery's value (or lack there of).

 

In spell choice, I'd also add a small section about wasted time.  Even if you're not doing effective healing at that moment, there's almost always a spell that you can cast that will be efficient as well as beneficial.  If you're ending a fight with 200k mana, just because you didn't need to spam, it can also be a negative thing.

The mastery point is solid, and I just can't see the point of spamming for the sake of casting ever being a good thing. Spamming just to end the fight with lower mana implies that we can predict a future of no mistakes and no need for burst mana usage. I prefer the safety. I'm not saying you should horde your mana but not to just use it for the sake of ABC or meter impact.

[Stoove 347]

I think in most cases though ABC really does hold, even if you're not casting heals. That's why the Glyph of Telluric Currents is useful for us :)

[Hybrys 199]

The mastery point is solid, and I just can't see the point of spamming for the sake of casting ever being a good thing. Spamming just to end the fight with lower mana implies that we can predict a future of no mistakes and no need for burst mana usage. I prefer the safety. I'm not saying you should horde your mana but not to just use it for the sake of ABC or meter impact.

I'd rather hold the idea of trying to pre-empt damage or toss some damage of my own, but to each their own.

[CptDan 25]

I think in most cases though ABC really does hold, even if you're not casting heals. That's why the Glyph of Telluric Currents is useful for us :)

If you are using the mana and time to add dps, I am all for that especially in current encounter design. I just don't agree with meter padding or purposefully over healing with no real reason.

I've just seen so many times where I wished I would have had saved some mana. I'm sure balancing this is ideal or keeping a reserve and adding dps or control is an indirect way of healing so I'm all for it.