Maxing out 2 man heals in SoO

[Taylian 0]

Dear Lads,

 

I've been on and off raiding since WotLK and most of the time on my shammy. I played as elemental but i came back as a resto shaman. Currently im raiding in a 10 man team who is, as of next reset, trying heriocs. The problem that we face sometimes is that our healing is sufficiënt but our dps isn't. So we decided to revert back to 2 man healing it.

 

My healing buddy is a good geared Holy Pala. 

The point im trying to figure out is what can i still do more to improve my healing.

 

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmane/Taylian/simple%C2'>

 

For reforging i use the following stats:

Int 1

SP 0.75

Haste (to 871) 0.7

Spi (to 13k) 0.65

Crit 0.45

Mastery 0.35

Haste (above cap) 0.00

 

When healing im always trying to get the most out of everything. 

I use my healing rain and my chain ALOT. This is why i have conductivity and echo of elements for nearly all the fights. The thing that i notice is that my mana fluxiates alot. Sometimes on bosses i dont run oom at all. But the next week @ the same boss i'm nearly oom @ the end. 

 

Im using every healing improvement cooldown that there is. My elementals, Unleash Elements, try to gain mana back with my healing wave in combination with tidal waves.

 

It just feels like im sometimes no doing enough. So my question is: Is there anything that i can do to improve my healing ?

 

Sorry for not having any WoL logs. the ones i have are outdated :S.

 

Thanks for ready and im looking forward to some help.

 

Taylian

[Stoove 347]

Hi Taylian,

 

Yes, it sounds like there are some things that you can do to improve. Before I get started though, just be aware that 2-healing Heroic progression can be very challenging and you shouldn't get disheartened if you feel underpowered to start off with. However, it's entirely possible on most fights.

 

Mana

 

There are a few little things that you can do if you find yourself strapped for mana on Heroic progress. One is to recall your Healing Stream Totem when it's got about 1s left on its duration. The second is to drop Magma Totem (when there is nothing else you need to cast) during the buff from your Legendary Meta Gem, and recall that when the buff finishes. That will return you some mana for a couple of GCDs. Both of these strategies work well with the Glyph of Totemic Recall (more mana gain).

 

Don't forget if you have a Priest in your raid to make them Hymn twice a fight for you. It really helps! We happen to have two, so I get four Hymns per fight, which makes things a lot easier.

 

Another thing you can do is gem for more Crit! Which leads me onto the next subject:

 

Stat Weights

 

The stat weights you gave were mostly OK, but I would recommend that you up the value of Crit to above 0.5. Say to 0.55. We found out on this forum recently that 2 Crit > 1 Int for gemming, so putting 0.55 for Crit will gem you into Hybrids. That will help a bit with the mana return!

 

I notice you're going for a low breakpoint in Haste, which isn't wrong really, but you should think carefully about it. The 30% breakpoint is really useful because it's a Healing Rain breakpoint (much more throughput!) and also a sort of soft-breakpoint for your LMG, so you can fit more hardcasts into the proc window. That would also help the mana (I really appreciate having this!).

 

Talents

 

So you mentioned that you use Conductivity and EotE. I personally feel that neither of these are really good choices this tier.

 

Most of the fights require a lot of movement, so you need to replace your Healing Rain a lot anyway. That removes a lot of the benefit of this talent. Instead, I take Rushing Streams on most fights for the extra spread healing and for the extra buff spreading from Glyph of Healing Stream Totem. It's a good choice. For fights with high burst (especially Galakras), I have favoured Ancestral Guidance.

 

As I mentioned before, I go for the 30% breakpoint, so I spec into Ancestral Swiftness for the 5% Haste passive. The emergency heal is also very nice, so I really like it. Alternatively, I would probably spec into Elemental Mastery to allow more burst healing - this will be really helpful on fights like Protectors, Sha, Galakras, which on Heroic have some rather beasty burst at times. EotE is also very RNG, hence unreliable, so I prefer not to take it really.

 

 

But all of that is just my opinion (albeit from experience), and there are other people on these forums who have slightly different views. In the end, I would say you have to find out what works well for you - so experiment a bit! :)

 

I hope that helps!

[SparkSovereign 61]

If you have mana issues, the solution is crit, basically.  I'd do as Stoove suggests (moving crit's weight up to >half int) and give it a shot; in heroic, you're going to be taxed to the limit, and the extra mana will keep you going better than the slightly bigger heals will.  I'm also in agreement re: talents, but partly that's because my group is... unreliable... at standing in healing rains.

 

I'd also like to mention that Immerseus and Protectors are going to be BRUTAL to 2-heal without any heroic gear, and you should be prepared to 3-heal them until you get them on farm.  Norushen is also a brutal 2-heal, but unfortunately his enrage is so tight for normal gear that by the time you can down him with 3 healers you'll have less trouble with 2.  Most of the others (except Thok) work fine with 2-heals from what I've read (I mean, they're still really hard, but the healing requirement is less insane).

 

Good luck!  You're going to need it.

[Taylian 0]

Thanks for the tips guys. Really helpfull i will change some talents and reforging around and see how that goes. 

[kitsu 55]

pretty sure i found your armory, and you may want to consider fully clearing more than once before you dedicate most of your week to heroics. the people who cleared normal once and then downed heroics at the start of the expansion were in full heroics from teh previous tier and were getting the absolute maximum out of their toons and comp especially where dps is concerned.

 

the jump between raid finder and flex gear to normal upgraded gear has a significant amount of int that will make a big impact on your output per cast. 2 healing with a holy pally is a very viable situation but on protectors especially there is a lot of unavoidable damage that builds up quickly if the dps isnt elite. nourushen will be more doable because you can pop a lot of cds while the palladin goes in the test realm and youre on your own.

[Stoove 347]

pretty sure i found your armory, and you may want to consider fully clearing more than once before you dedicate most of your week to heroics.

 

On the other hand, that's not really his decision to make unless he's the raid leader. :)

 

I'd also like to mention that Immerseus and Protectors are going to be BRUTAL to 2-heal without any heroic gear, and you should be prepared to 3-heal them until you get them on farm.

 

Immersius HC wasn't such a problem for our raid 2-healing, it's down to strategy and not getting hit by Swirl on that fight really. Totally agree on Protectors though, it was brutal and we ended up 3-healing it. In retrospect, we could have 2-healed it if the DPS were better at positioning themselves.

 

on protectors especially there is a lot of unavoidable damage that builds up quickly if the dps isnt elite.

 

"Who was that who said 'unavoidable' in Vent? I want to know so I can back up and list all of the many ways it was avoidable."

 

Point being, even on Protectors, most of the damage is avoidable. Good DPS should be avoiding the real bad abilities. It doesn't really have anything to do with "unavoidable", it's just "not being avoided". Admittedly, on Protectors it's easier to soak up the extra healing. Providing you can still beat the enrage...

 

Norushen is also a brutal 2-heal

 

Well yes and no. There is a lot of damage on that fight, but it's predictable and very easy to counter. Tip: Get a marker on your head and shout at anyone who isn't standing near you. Stand in the right place and place Healing Rain. Easy extra HPS :)

[CptDan 25]

Just to add my two coppers... Optimizing healing for prog raiding is more about a dynamic understanding of a few relationships: namely, your healing partner and your stat balance. This is a fluid relationship and could Chang base on the mechanism at play.

My advice is to do a few test runs with your healing partner, then look over the logs and identify which spells did the most effective healing. This will allow for a personal level of optimization not achieved by gems and reforging alone.

Pick a build, stoove and others are a vast resource here, then, try it out, and optimize as you go. Keep a journal of how healing felt with that build and tweak from there.

[kitsu 55]

on h protectors if the group dps is low He's gouge will just keep going out. Calamity hits at regular intervals no matter what else is happening. that stuff is def unavoidable. if youre 2 healing as a shaman with a 240gs and no cloak with a paladin at any gear level, it's really gonna push the limits of what your current gear can put out.

 

with another paladin in the raid and some serious dev aura coordination it might be doable, but it'd have to be pretty sharp and clean.

 

i'd say go lean on mastery and haste and get what else that you can, but tay's already doing that. without going below 13k spirit, he doesnt have much in the way of secondaries. could get a little extra if he swapped to potents instead of strait int gems, but the crit it gets you is probably what will help most if youre looking for more mana. maybe even go crit/spirit instead of int/spirit, but that might be a little extravagant considering how quickly those pieces will get upgraded.

[Stoove 347]

on h protectors if the group dps is low He's gouge will just keep going out. Calamity hits at regular intervals no matter what else is happening. that stuff is def unavoidable.

 

With the sheer number of cooldowns that are available to a Resto Shaman, plus Devo Aura, you can quite happily cope with Calamity throughout the fight. Gouge's frequency resets when you force He's DM phase, so you find it ramps up for a while and then gets easier again.

 

It's certainly manageable if your DPS are avoiding the avoidable damage.

[SparkSovereign 61]

I think what we're all getting at is that many of the things you just "deal with" on normal will overtax your healers on heroic.  Until your dps adjusts, it's gonna be rough.  Go through the damage taken logs after fights and shame people, if you have to.  Tell em to spec into self-dispels whenever they're useful, too.

 

A bit offtopic, but re: swirl.  It kept spawning on us, or close enough that outranging it felt the only way to keep the group together.  Anything that goes wrong on that fight seems to just cascade into an avalanche of other problems.  While the same is true on most fights on heroic, one of the things that can go wrong being (essentially) pure RNG caused our entire raid to agree to working on "anything else, at all" first.  Norushen isn't so much easier at is more under your control.

[CptDan 25]

I was thinking about your mana usage. You mention that sometimes it's great and you have mana to spare and at other times it's totally gone. Were there "oh S@#!" moments in those encounters? Healers (myself included) tend to go spamtastic at these moments and burn mana needlessly. The trick in heroics is learning to remain calm as stoove always says and following your triage healing. You don't need to get everyone back to full before the next GCD. 

 

Between the cool downs available to paladin and shaman healers you guys should be fine for the pre-planned moments of higher damage. The rest will be offset by working with your Raid Leader and members on using personal survival cooldowns to mitigate those sorts of things.

 

Most of all, have fun. This is a game. Keep calm and keep healing :)

[Stoove 347]

Most of all, have fun. This is a game. Keep calm and keep healing

 

Totally this.

 

Success in Heroics is all about pre-planning, avoiding damage, and executing the fight mechanics well. Only after that does throughput really come in. Your DPS need to get into the idea that they are responsible for their own hp! ^__^

 

A bit offtopic, but re: swirl.  It kept spawning on us, or close enough that outranging it felt the only way to keep the group together.  Anything that goes wrong on that fight seems to just cascade into an avalanche of other problems.  While the same is true on most fights on heroic, one of the things that can go wrong being (essentially) pure RNG caused our entire raid to agree to working on "anything else, at all" first.

 

Yeah we have the same issue with the RNG. There are ways of avoiding it when it spawns on top of you, but it requires your whole raid to spot it really. That turned out to be a bit of a tall order for us on the first few farms.

[Grahmrook 6]

A comment on H Protectors, rather then 2 heal it, we solo tank it.  Takes a bit of work, but totally doable.  H Imm.... the swirl, oh the  swirl...  One thing we have happen fairly often on Imm is one of the adds will bug and you have to wait for the pool to expand and eat it, so be aware of that.  Protectors the first pull is usually a wipe because Gloom will bug and drop later then the other 2 and health pools won't move. 

[Stoove 347]

A comment on H Protectors, rather then 2 heal it, we solo tank it.  Takes a bit of work, but totally doable.  H Imm.... the swirl, oh the  swirl...  One thing we have happen fairly often on Imm is one of the adds will bug and you have to wait for the pool to expand and eat it, so be aware of that.  Protectors the first pull is usually a wipe because Gloom will bug and drop later then the other 2 and health pools won't move. 

 

Never seen these bugs myself. Sound odd! =\

 

Pretty sure our tanks would baulk at the idea of 1-tanking it   o.0