Shaman heals were the one thing I felt comfortable with when heading into the new patch. The changes weren't dramatic; the dpsing healer mechanic was pretty neat. And most importantly it made sense. Unlike Resto druids, dpsing as a resto shaman gives returns worth the extra time. Unfortunately, we don't have much time.
My current problem with my shaman is severe mana issues during healing intensive fights. (more specifically, Torovan, Vault)
I could contribute the struggles to my half decent gear, which isn't even close to my druid's. And I have yet to test out the heals on my better geared ally shaman. So this could be ill-informed at the moment.
But at the same time, I have to consider that:
-I have great reflexes as a healer. It's the reason I am a healer in WotLK. I can far exceed the limitations of my gear. I'm not trying to sound elitist; it's just true.
-The WotLK style of raiding is far different from the proposed Cata raiding style. There isn't much time for dping in ICC. Except maybe Lootship, cuz that s a joke.There is constant damage auras to heal through and tanks, despite the (if u ask me, slight) health/stamina increase, can still easily be two-shotted.
But unfortunately, with this patch and my shaman:
-I am sometimes unable to overcome the limitations of my gear, namely due to mana pool/ mana regens.
-Blizzard has created an environment where they want us healing for the future, while still in the present.
And that is how I sum up the weaknesses of (my) shaman heals.
I will later point out in my Priest post, that there are ways to make the DPSing healer correct. Blizzard did a wonderful job when implementing this new healing style to the Discipline Smite/Archangel build.
They did not do this for the Resto Shaman.
For Telluric Currents, long lightning bolt cast times and no hit rating makes for poor dpsing and mana return.
-While dungeon fights may give us lots of free time, raids present us with fights where we are on the go and need to heal some sort of constant damage. I have not found time to cast a 2 second Lightning Bolt.
-I also seem to find myself missing quite a bit. Which makes casting the Lightning Bolt not only completely useless, but also a waste of my time.
Focused Insight is easy to pull off. My complaint is that it does miss sometimes, but for the most part it is decent and effective.
Finally, with everything switched to spirit, my mana regen took a weird hit. I did rely on Mana Tide Totem, which increases our spirit by 250%, to keep my mana up, but now, it is completely ineffective. I dropped it during a Torovan fight, stood there, didn't heal and barely saw my mana return. The change from return of mana pool, to increase spirit has completely made it a waste for me. Because a lot of shamans probably didn't focus on scrounging for MP5 the way druids and priests might have done for spirit, I find that my gear had very little spirit on it. And reforging crit or haste for spirit is out of the question, especially considering our crit took a hit (I lost 15% on both shamans), and our haste stayed the same.
In the end, I am very dissatisfied with Shaman heals, specifically longevity within raids. I can only hope that this is currently, my personal gearing issue, and will be fixed as I begin upgrading my gear on my troll Shaman. It will ultimately be something that will be fixed by Cataclysm, assuming Blizzard stays with their plan and produces more downtime for LB and Shock castings.
But only time will tell. For now, we fight in ICC.
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