And Shaman Makes Three

Actually Shaman makes five Level 80s, but only three active ones.

Balindah finally made it to her 80th season tonight after a rough time in Storm Peaks with her decrepit windrider, who does not appreciate the cold at all.

Now she just has to work out hit caps and expertise caps and so on. I'm loving http://bighitbox.com for all the nice information!

...I think I need a holiday.

Shaman Healing - an Update

My Shaman healing apprenticeship has been progressing slowly as I heal a few dungeons when I can.

I had a bit of a break from healing for a few days after a particularly nasty Nexus run where I failed several times on Keristrasza and ended up dropping group with my tail between my legs. I just kept running out of mana, the dps wouldn't move to drop the debuff, and it was generally not much fun.

I decided to wait until I picked up a few more quest pieces with either mp5 or an upgrade in Intellect for the juicy manas. Once I did that, I got through a couple of Old Kingdom and Azjol Nerub runs without too much trouble, so I've got my confidence back again.

At the moment my healing seems to go like this:

• Keep Poo Shield Earth Shield on the tank at all times.  I have Grid set up to show me how many charges remain with a dot that changes colour.  
• Chuck a bucket of water Riptide on anyone who takes moderate amounts of damage.
• Try not to spam heal with Lesser Healing Wave - I think this is what was running me out of mana before. Wait a bit longer until Healing Wave is worth it, if there's enough time to cast it.
• Use Jesus Beams Chain Heal sparingly - and not at all if less than three people are going to be healed by it. 

I'm still trying to work out the sequencing a bit - spells that are improved by others. This list is partly for my own reference!

• A Chain Heal cast on a target with Riptide on them will be increased in effectiveness by 25%.
• I have Tidal Force macro'd to Lesser Healing Wave along with my trinkets. Tidal Force increases the crit chance of Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal.
• Tidal Waves procs from Riptide or Chain Heal. It lowers the cast time of Healing Wave by 30% and increases the crit chance of Lesser Healing Wave, for the next two casts of either of those spells. It also increases the amount of healing done for both.

It's all still a bit of a juggling act, but I'm getting it under control gradually. I'm sure learning to Druid heal wasn't this complex!

As before, please feel free to comment with any advice you have, or let me know if I got something wrong or left anything out.

I healed on my Shaman... and I liked it

After a couple of days of nice relaxing holiday, yesterday it was time to make up for some Wow time. My Shaman, Balindah, is now level 72 and the queue times as dps seem to have skyrocketed, so I decided to buy her a second spec and try out healing.

I had been picking up a few bits and pieces of off-spec spellpower gear through the early Northrend quests and it turned out I almost have a complete set of spellpower kit, even if some of it is leather or cloth.  As you can see in the picture, she looks like a bit of a clown in it, but there's time.

I had a quick crash course in Shaman healing from my husband, who played a Resto Shaman in a previous incarnation, and dived into Utgarde Keep. No-one died which was nice, but my goodness, isn't mana a problem! I remember having mana problems early on with my druid, but I don't think it was this bad.  Thankfully the tank noticed when I needed mana so I was able to stop and drink, but the next dungeon I tried healing was Azjol Nerub and I ended up using Mana Tide totem every time it was available.

Perhaps I've become used to the one-second GCD and Nourish casts on my Druid but the Shaman just seemed a lot... slower. Chain Heal, which is the only AOE heal Shamans have, takes forever to cast at 2.5 seconds, especially when there's party damage.

I am enjoying trying out healing on a different class, but are there any Resto Shaman out there who might offer some advice on how to be more mana efficient?

The rest of the day was made less stressful by playing with some baby murlocs. Squee!